Except that his aetheric image was … unsettling. Most normal humans don't display well on the aetheric — they're shapes, ill-defined, insubstantial.
Not
enough presence and power to manifest clearly. But this guy was different. In the aetheric, he was bigger, more muscular, and instead of being dressed in black he was dressed in white. Or, it would have been white, if it hadn't been drenched in blood.
Blood running in thick streams from his hands as he lifted the cigarette to his lips. Pattering from his earlobes to his shoulders. Dripping from his elbows and the hem of his coat. He was standing in a pool of it, shining red, and he just kept dripping. I couldn't tell if the blood was someone else's, or his own — whether he thought he was a murderer or a victim.
Either way, it was disturbing. I'd never seen anything like it. People saw themselves as supermodels, yeah. Gender-switchers. Knights in armor. Kick-ass bitches in leather jumpsuits. Maybe the occasional pirate. People tended to dress themselves up in their soul-selves, and it was one big, long costume party up on the aetheric.
But he was just … odd. So full of oddness that it made me shiver.
I dropped back into my body with a snap, took one last deep breath of cool air, and walked away, toward the office.
"Hey," the guy said. I glanced back. He hadn't moved, but he flicked his cigarette down to the ground and crushed it out with his boot. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
I kept walking.
The creaking glass door brought with it a rush of too-hot air and a smell of slightly stale cheap cologne, tobacco, body odor gone just slightly rancid.
For a second I wondered if I'd be better off outside with the creepy guy, but the man behind the counter was grizzled, sixtyish, had little half glasses and crazed Albert Einstein hair, and who could be scared of Einstein? He was reading a magazine he hastily stashed under the counter when he saw me coming. I didn't imagine he was reading it for the articles, if you know what I mean.
"Hi," I said. He grunted, pale eyes studying me. "Listen, you're probably an expert on roads around here. I'm looking for some way to get to Las Vegas that's not as direct as the freeways. Maybe a scenic route? Back roads?"
He frowned at me, thick eyebrows rustling together, and I resisted the urge to tell him that if he wasn't careful they might stick together like Velcro; he reached under the counter, rummaged around, and came out with a big road map that he unfolded out onto the cracked vinyl-topped counter between us. He didn't bother to turn it toward me.
"Scenic," he said. "Ain't a lot of scenic around here unless you fancy desert."
"I like desert."
"All looks the same," he shrugged. "Seen one part of it, seen it all. Better off sticking to the highway, get there quicker. You break down out here, you ain't got a lot of help coming. Cell phones don't work a lot of places. Sun gets brutal."
"I know," I said. I knew all about the sun in the desert. That was a memory I didn't call up often, and flinched away from it. "Just show me."
He traced a couple of skinny little road map lines with a blunt, stained finger — evidently, he worked on the Ford himself to keep it running, and he'd never heard of those industrial-strength grease-cutting soaps — and I made some notes on a fly-specked piece of paper with a stubby pencil.
The proprietor looked over my shoulder as I wrote, staring out through the glass door. He grunted again. I looked up, then back; Caddy Guy was out there, smoking another cigarette, strolling the parking lot and blowing clouds at the sky.
"Friend of yours?" he asked.
"Don't know him," I said.
"Huh." He looked at me, pale eyes bright behind the Einstein glasses. "Saw you with a young fella earlier. Not him?"
"No, not him."
"Where's your young fella,then?"
"Asleep," I said shortly. "Thanks for the info."
"Checkout's at eleven a.m. sharp," he said, and folded up the map with a snap of his wrists and thick rustle of paper. I was right, those eyebrows were just never separating again. He'd have to get out the scissors to cut them apart.
"You oversleep, you got to pay another day."
I wasn't about to oversleep. I could feel my body craving rest, but it'd have to get by; no way was I going to shut my eyes at this point. Not with blood-dripping-guy stalking the parking lot, and Slightly Creepy Einstein in here watching my every move.
I missed David.
I left the office and avoided my fellow motel visitor on my way back to my room.
I unlocked the door quickly with the chunky old-fashioned key, locked it behind me with the push-in lock and the deadbolt and the slide chain, checked the drapes to make sure they were fully closed, and sat on the cold, empty bed with my legs crossed.
I drifted up on the aetheric and sent out a wordless call along the shining silver strand that bound me to David, or David to me, or both of us to the other. I felt it zip away, stretching off into the distance … far, far away.
Wherever he'd gone, it wasn't just distant in terms of geography. I felt a pulse of reassurance along the link, something along the lines of I hear you, back as soon as I can. Nothing clearer than that.
I meditated until my back got sore, and then braced myself against the headboard and picked up the book David had left behind. I'd always liked Spenser, and the clean, crisp rhythm of Parker's words.
Even so, I was only three pages into it when I fell asleep.
###
I woke up to screaming. Genuine, honest-to-God screaming. I flailed, dropping the forgotten book to the floor, vaulted out of bed and landed barefoot on the thin carpet with my heart pounding an erratic salsa rhythm. I jerked aside the curtains and winced at the sudden blinding blaze of light … the motel faced east, and the sun was well over the horizon. Out here, you were strongly reminded that a star was a big ol' fusion reactor, because it looked dangerous and bubbling and radioactive, closer than it did in safer climates.
The screaming was coming from the Dairy Queen next door.
I stuck my feet into my shoes, grabbed up the key and unlocked the door with shaking hands, then pelted across the parking lot. On the way, I was joined by a dark figure heading out of the last room of the motel — Number 10 — who paused to pop the trunk on his Cadillac and retrieve something.
The screaming had the high, panicked pitch of a kid in real trouble. I skidded to a halt at the double doors of the DQ dining area and grabbed the handle, but it was locked. I rattled it and made a cave of my hands to try to see into the shadows inside.
I saw the girl who'd served up my shake pressed against the wall, fists crammed against her mouth. Still screaming. Staring at something hidden behind the counter. I banged on the door hard. Glass and metal rattled. She dashed over and did unlocking things, and as soon as the door was open threw herself on me like a shaking, girl-sized limpet. I couldn't make anything out of what she was gasping at me, so I peeled her off and edged over to peer over the counter.
I'd seen dead guys before, but this guy was really, really dead. In pieces.
There was something particularly revolting about a dead guy in pieces on the floor of the DQ, under the brightly-colored posters advertising tasty frozen treats and brazier-cooked meat products.
I swallowed hard, several times, and tried not to breathe through my nose.
"I'm no doctor," the guy in the black leather jacket said casually, leaning over the counter, "but that guy may need medical attention."
Laconic, and not funny. I whirled toward him. He had a shotgun propped casually up against his shoulder, and sunglasses pushed up on top of his head, and he looked bland and utterly disinterested as he stared down at the pieces of what had formerly been known as Bob or Fred or Joe.