Dead Matter

6

My workday turned into a work night, leaving me with a fine array of paper cuts to show for hours of filing, but I was thankful to have my head down in the paperwork all day. At least then I couldn’t risk embarrassing myself in front of any of the Enchancellors. By the time I finally gave up on processing reports and headed home, it was nearly ten. I was thrilled to see Jane was still up, waiting for me in a JOSS WHEDON IS MY MASTER NOW tank top. She sat cross-legged on the old-school leather couch in the center of my faux gentleman’s club common room. Her laptop was balanced across her legs and miniature firework displays were shooting off of the screen and bursting a foot above my couch.

“Nice trick,” I said. “Hope your technomancy’s not scorching my furniture.”

“It’s harmless,” she said, closing her laptop. The fire-works vanished as the screen clicked shut. “More of a light show than actual pyrotechnics.” Jane patted her hand on the empty spot next to her. “I take it your Olympic-level caseload went well today?”

“Kinda,” I said. I pulled off my jacket, a fresh array of pains shooting throughout my body from yesterday’s gargoyle attack mixed with being hunched over my desk all day. “Had a lovely chat with one of the Enchancellors today about the grocery store incident. Allorah Daniels. She’s about a billion years younger than the rest of them.”

Jane’s face fell serious. “Why do the Enchancellors care about our case?” she asked. Jane sounded nervous. Apparently, she was just as wary as I was when the eyes of the über-bosses were upon us.

“They probably wouldn’t be taking notice,” I said, “but Allorah’s a vampire hunter on top of her Enchancellorship. I wonder if that doubles her pay scale.”

“Really?” Jane said, giving a surprised smile. “I thought they bred Enchancellors to be a bunch of stuffed-shirt bureaucrats?”

“Not this one,” I said. I threw my coat onto one of the hooks by the front door and joined Jane on the couch. “But I did get schooled on vampires. Allorah thinks that the creature from the store has a thing or two in common with them. If you ask me, that monstrosity didn’t look a thing like Frank Langella or Gary Oldman. Oh, remind me in the morning that I have to bring those clothes from last night in tomorrow.”

“Will do,” Jane said, giving me a salute.

When I was finally seated, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss, then looked past me toward the entrance to my apartment.

“Wow,” she said. “One whole month without having your door smashed in, huh? Is that some kind of record?”

“Well, you’ve got a key now,” I said, “and Mina’s disappeared off the face of the planet, so that insures my safety a little bit. That, and I had the Inspectre take my name out of the ‘Hottest Places for Cultists to Visit’ directory…”

Jane raised an eyebrow. “Hon, I know I’m going to regret asking this, but in our line of work I just have to… Please tell me you just made that up.”

“I think I did,” I said. My back ached and I settled back into the couch a little. “I’m so exhausted right now, I’m not sure. Check the box of departmental pamphlets on the bookshelf over there.”

Jane’s eyes settled on my wall-to-wall shelves of psychometrically assessed antiques, collectibles, and books, half of which I meant to turn a profit on if I could find the right dealers. The stuff was piling up, threatening to take over, and Jane scrunched up her face up at it. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“If you get the sudden urge to tidy up,” I said, knowing the type of response my faux chauvinism would provoke, “be my guest. Really, the place still needs a woman’s touch.”

Jane gave me a dark but playful look, her eyes burning into mine.

“Oh, I’ll touch you, all right,” she said. Jane leapt at me, knocking me back and onto the couch.

I hissed out a breath as my muscles screamed out in every direction at once. Jane immediately pulled herself up into a sitting position on top of me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, hoping I sounded a little manlier than I felt. “My arms and shoulders are sore. Guess I was just swinging my bat a little more enthusiastically at those gargoyles last night than I thought. At least, I hope it’s from all that. I refuse to blame any of my aches and pains on today’s paper shuffling.”

Jane’s hands ran up my chest and onto my shoulders. She started rubbing them and I let my head fall back, my eyes sliding shut.

“Mmm,” I said. “You’re so much better than Connor at this.”

“I should hope so,” she said, giving me a hard squeeze. “And ew.”

“Sorry.” I moved to sit up. “We really should get some sleep. I’ve got to meet with Enchancellor Daniels to go through the remains of my clothes from the other night, and then there’s more follow-up paperwork on the whole churchyard incident. On top of all that, I think I should put aside a little time to figure out just what the hell is going on with Connor.”

“We can go to bed,” Jane said, standing up and taking me by the hand, “but I don’t know about sleeping.”

Jane pulled me to my feet and led me off in the direction of my bedroom, running her hand along the walls in a seductive manner. Even the way she flicked the lights off was a turn-on. When we reached my bedroom, she flicked on the lights and turned to make sure I was watching. She reached behind her back, unzipped her skirt, and let it slide to the floor. She leaned over, showing off her curves, then picked the skirt up and laid it over the back of one of the chairs.

Next, she undid her ponytail, letting her hair fall over her shoulders.

Without looking away, I started undressing, undoing my belt and unbuttoning my pants… only to realize my bat was still holstered to the belt I was wearing. The weight of it pulled my pants to the floor, accompanied by a dull metallic clang, the bat rolling back and forth on the hardwood floor.

“Sorry…” I started to say, but Jane simply raised a finger to her lips to shush me. The woman was determined. Who was I to stop her?

I pulled my shirt off as she did hers, leaving her standing there in formfitting red lingerie that definitely had my attention. Jane walked toward me and kissed me deep, pushing me gently toward the edge of the bed. I fell back onto it and her body pressed down on top of mine.

Jane reached out toward one of the bedside lamps, her eyes sliding shut as she concentrated. A tiny string of electronic-sounding gibberish whispered out of her lips and every light in the room turned off.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling even though she couldn’t see me. “Just what I wanted. My own personal Clapper.”

When my eyes finally adjusted to the dark several seconds later, I could see Jane and she wasn’t smiling.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “I’m sorry. Is it because I called you something from the ‘As Seen on TV’ commercials…?”

Jane put her hands on my chest as if to calm me. A lingering hint of electricity jumped between us, sending a different sort of tingle through my body from the one she was already giving me.

“It’s not that,” she said.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m sorry to ruin the moment, but I just had a thought about what you said right before I dragged you off to bed,” she said, “about Connor.”

Normally the last thing I wanted to hear about in my bed was another man, but the look of concern on Jane’s face pushed aside all that.

“What about him?”

Jane rolled off of me, slipped out of bed, and headed back over toward her clothes hanging from the chair.

“You’re right,” she said. “We need to be thinking about what we can do to help him.”

“I’m sure it can wait till morning,” I said. “Not to be insensitive, but he’s probably sleeping right now anyway.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “He hasn’t been sleeping, remember?”

“He’s been having those dreams he told us about…”

“But what if Connor’s not dreaming?” she said, pulling on her shirt. “What if what he told us he dreamt about is actually happening to him?”

The implication hit me and I was out of the bed like a shot, all thoughts of the pleasure I had just been about to experience pushed aside. I headed over to the bottom drawer of my dresser, rooting through it before opting for black jeans and a black T-shirt. This felt like a covert-ops kind of scenario, anyway.

After I put them on, I turned to Jane. She was sliding on her skirt, but ditched it when she saw what I was wearing. We were already at the her-own-drawer stage of our relationship so she walked over, pulled hers open, and fished out a pair of dark capris. When she was done pulling them on, we looked like a pair of German nihilists.

“Now is time on Sprockets when we dance?” she said.

I shook my head.

“Not quite,” I said, picking up my bat and looping it back onto my belt. “Now is time when we spy.”