I force myself to come up with an apology. **Being scared makes me more of an asshole than usual.** It sounds weak in the silence afterwards, but I don't know what else to say.
**You bet,** she says tightly. **Go back to bed, Bob. I won't bother you again tonight. Sweet dreams.** I wake up with the early morning light from the window as it streams in across my face. One of my arms is lying over the edge of the bed, and the other is twisted around someone's shoulders — What the fuck? I think fuzzily.
It's Ramona. She's curled up against me on top of the sheets, sleeping like a baby. She's still wearing her glad rags, her hair a wild tangle. My breath catches with fear or lust or guilt, or maybe all three at the same time: guilty, fearful lust.
I can't make up my mind whether I want to gnaw my arm off at the shoulder or ask her to elope with me.
Eventually I work out a compromise. I sit up, slowly pulling my arm out from under her: "How do you take your coffee"
"Uh?" She opens her eyes. "Oh ...hi." She looks puzzled.
"Where am I... oh." Mild annoyance: "I take it black. And strong." She yawns, then rolls over and begins to sit up.
Yawns again. "I need to use your bathroom." She looks displeased, and it's not just her eyeliner running: somehow she looks older, less inhumanly perfect. The glamour's still there, masking her physical shape, but what I'm seeing now is unfogged by implanted emotional bias.
"Be my guest." I walk over to the filter machine and start prodding at it, trying to figure out where the sachet of coffee goes. My head's spinning — "How did you get in here"
"Don't you remember"
"No."
"Well that makes two of us," she says as she closes the door. A moment later I hear the sound of running water and realize too late that I need to use the bathroom, too.
Oh, great. There was the, whatever the fuck you call it, with the predator, Marc — and she needed me to — I try not to think too closely about it. I remember that much. How the hell did she get in here? I ask myself.
I get the coffee maker loaded and go prod my tablet PC.
It's sitting where I left it last night, with a clear line of sight on the door and window, and it's still up and running. I look too closely and the ward tries to bite me between the eyes but misses. Good. So then I go and inspect the other wards I put on the door by opening it and gingerly pulling in the DO NOT DISTURB sign. The silver diagram, sketched on the sign using a conductive pencil and a drop of blood, shimmers at me. It's still live: anyone other than me who tries to get past it is going to get a very unpleasant surprise. Finally, as the coffee maker begins to spit and burble, I check the seal on the window. My mobile phone (the real one, the Treo with the Java countermeasure suite and the keyboard and all the trimmings, not the bullet-firing fake) is still propped up against it.
I glance up and down, then shake my head. There are no holes in the walls and ceiling, which means Ramona can't be here — the place is about as secure as a hotel room can be, stitched up tighter than Angleton's ass.
"I don't want to hurry you or anything, but I need the toilet, too," I call through the door.
"Okay, okay! I'm nearly ready." She sounds annoyed.
"Are you sure you don't remember how you got in here"
I add.
The door opens. She's repaired her glamour and is every bit the air-brushed, drop-dead gorgeous model she was when I first saw her in the Laguna Bar: only the eyes are different.
Old and tired.
"How much of what happened last night do you remember"
she asks.
"I — " I stop. "What, do you mean after we met Billington? Or after I left the casino"
"Did we leave together?" She frowns.
"You don't — " I bite my tongue and stare at her. How did you get into my room? Maybe it's a side effect of destiny entanglement — my wards can't tell us apart. "I had some really weird dreams," I say then hold out a coffee cup for her.
"Well, that's a surprise." She snorts then takes the cup.
"But it doesn't have to mean anything."
"It doesn't — " I stop dead. "I dreamed about you," I say reluctantly. I find it really hard to pick the right words. "You were with some guy you'd picked up who worked at the casino."
She looks me in the eye calmly. "You dreamed about me, Bob. Things happen in dreams that don't always happen in real life."
"But he died while you were in bed with — "
"Bob?" Her eyes are greenish blue, flecks of gold floating in them, rimmed in expensive eyeliner that makes them look wide and innocent — but somehow they're deeper than an arctic lake, and much colder. "For once in your life, shut up and listen to me. Okay"
She's got the Voice of Command. I find myself leaning against the wall with no definite memory of how I got here.
"What"
"Primus, we're destiny-entangled. I can't do anything about that. You stub your toe, I hurt'; I call you names, you get pissy. But you're making a big mistake. Because, secundus, you had a weird dream. And you're jumping to the conclusion that the two are related, that whatever you dreamed about is whatever happened to me. And you know what?
That ain't necessarily so. Correlation does not imply causation.
Now — " she reaches over and pokes me in the chest with a fingertip " — you seem a little upset over whatever it was you dreamed about. And I think you ought to think very hard before you ask the next question, because you can choose to ask whether there was any connection between your weird dream and my night out — or you can just tell yourself you ate too many cheese canapes before bed and it was all in your head, and you can walk away from it. Is that clear? We may be entangled, but it doesn't have to go any further."
She stands there expectantly, obviously anticipating a reply. I'm rooted to the spot by the force of her gaze. My pulse roars in my ears. I don't — truly I don't — know what to do! My mind spins. Did I simply have a wet dream last night? Or did Ramona suck a serial rapist's soul right out of his body then use me for sex magick to keep her daemon in check ...? And do I really want to know the truth? Really?
I feel my lips moving without any conscious decision.
"Thank you. And if you don't mind, I'm going to un-ask that question for the time being."
"Oh, I mind all right." A flash of unidentifiable emotion flickers in her eyes like distant lightning. "But don't worry about me, I'm used to it. I'll be all right after breakfast." She glances down, breaking eye contact. "Jesus, stripy pajamas.
It's too early in the morning for that."
"Hey, it's all I've got, anyway, it's better than sleeping in a tux." I raise an eyebrow at her dress. "You're going to have to get that professionally cleaned."
"No, really?" She takes a mouthful of coffee. "Thanks for the tip, monkey-boy, I'd never have guessed. I'll be going back to my room when I finish this." Another mouthful.
"Got any plans for today"
I pause for thought. "I need to touch base with my backup team and file a report with head office. Then I'm supposed to visit a tailor's shop. After which — " a ghost of a dream memory gibbers and capers for attention " — I heard there's a nice beach up at Anse Marcel. I figure I might hang out there for a while. How about you"
I eat breakfast on a balcony overlooking an expanse of white beach, trying not to flinch as the occasional airbus rumbles past on final approach into Princess Juliana Airport. Midway through a butter croissant that melts on the tongue, my Treo rings: "Howard!"
"Speaking." I get a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach: it's Griffin.
"Get yourself over here, chop-chop. We've got a situation."
Shit. "What kind of situation? And where's here"
"Face time only." He rattles off an address somewhere near Mullet Beach and I jot it down...