Dead to Me

32

I went to change back into my street clothes, and after I finished shaking hands and pushing my way through the crowd to the office, Faisal had been unceremoniously dislodged from his carpety burrito. Seeing his face as they secured him to a sturdy metal chair further diminished my good vibe.

The feeling had faded pretty darn fast ever since Connor had turned Jane away at the door. Oddly, all the well-wishing didn’t seem nearly as important without her present. A gold star on my permanent record here at the Department was still a gold star, so I tried to keep my spirits up.

Seeing Faisal sitting stoically in the chair made it hard, though. The urge to smack him around like a piñata on Cinco de Mayo was overwhelming, and I stayed to the back of the room to keep myself in check. Besides, I was pretty sure that if I took a swipe at Faisal with my bat, he wouldn’t be filled with candies or little plastic toys. What would be the fun in that?

We had taken over one of the lesser used conference rooms even though it was already doing double duty as a storage area. Space was at a premium at the D.E.A. and the mounting clutter of paranormal research—spell components, cursed items, and boxes containing the unknown—piled up faster than the crates of antiques in my living room.

Luckily, this meant that due to our space confines, most of the departmental looky-loos had to be shooed out. Only a handful of divisional leaders (excluding Wesker, of course) were present along with Connor and me.

“Hroom!” the Inspectre sounded. Everyone settled quietly into their seats. “What’s say we get this unpleasantness out of the way, shall we? Why don’t you start, Mr. Bane, by telling us why you stole that wooden fish from Irene Blatt and what is it used for?”

I was surprised by the impressive figure Inspectre Quimbley cut. I admired the old man, but there had been many times when he appeared almost comically grandfatherly. Seeing this side of him when it came down to hardcore occultism reminded me that the Inspectre could really pull out all the badass stops.

This, however, did not mean that Bane would actually give up any information under Argyle Quimbley’s interrogation. In fact, Bane looked more composed than ever. He was devilishly handsome, and not a single strand of hair looked out of place, even though he had been wrapped in a carpet for the past half hour. Most people would have looked a little rough around the edges, but Faisal looked ready to pose for the cover of Occultist’s Quarterly. The only thing that looked out of place was the thick coil of rope lashing him to the chair. It held him tightly in place, not that he was making any effort to strain against it. This surprised me.

I’d expected him, as the villainous head of fanatical cultists, to be full of wrath and rage in the face of his capture. Instead, he sat calmly, passively, and worst of all, unansweringly.

The Inspectre looked exasperated by Faisal’s silence as well. He paced back and forth, stroking his mustache. Every so often he would drop down in front of Faisal as if he had heard the cultist say something, but if he had, I couldn’t hear it. This slow process dragged on for another twenty minutes, each moment of silence seeming longer that the last.

Again the Inspectre got in Faisal’s face.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Eh?”

Silence.

“I’ve got all night,” the Inspectre said. “Or would you rather I start asking you more about this?”

Like an old vaudevillian stage magician, the Inspectre rolled up his tweed sleeve and waved his hand through the air with a flourish. The manifest that Jane and I had taken from Faisal earlier appeared at the Inspectre’s fingertips. Faisal’s eyes moved to it and flickered with interest for the first time since we had brought him in.

“Ah yes,” Faisal said with a grin. His eyes left the manifest and turned toward me at the far side of the room. “The item retrieved from Ms. Blatt…I do wonder, though, is she still around?”

I didn’t like hearing her name on his lips, but I honestly didn’t have a clue as to where Irene had disappeared to since last night. I kept quiet.

With faux innocence in his tone, Faisal asked, “I wonder, Simon, does our precious little Janey know about her?”

His eyes actually twinkled and a wicked grin sprang upon his face, a grin that ran clear down to his dark soul. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle, but I held my ground. I could give silence as good as we had been getting it from him.

“Now, now,” the Inspectre said as he stepped directly between us. “You leave the boy alone. I’m asking the questions here.”

“Yes,” hissed Faisal. “And I see how well that’s working out for you…”

“Well, at least we’ve got you talking now, haven’t we?” the Inspectre fired back caustically.

Faisal fell silent again, then cast his eyes toward the door. “Not for long apparently.”

I turned to see mayoral liaison David Davidson standing in the doorway. As usual, he was impeccably dressed. Even the knot of his tie was perfect, and he looked every bit as composed and unruffled as Faisal had when we captured him. Davidson’s eyes scanned the room briefly before coming to rest on Faisal and the Inspectre.

“Sorry to do this, gentlemen,” he said with that friendly I’m-about-to-screw-you-so-bend-over tone of his. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to continue with this line of questioning.”

“Coming to the rescue of cultists again?” I snorted.

“Sectarians,” Davidson reminded me with a waggle of his finger. “They’re officially referred to as ‘Sectarians.’”

“Your timing is impeccable as usual,” I said. “Do the Sectarians have you on their payroll as well?”

Davidson shook his head and resumed his politician’s smile. “The Mayor is trying to look after all his constituents and their needs, Simon. He doesn’t play sides.”

Perhaps the Department had a mole or a leak that had alerted Davidson. Perhaps it was Wesker who was really playing both sides and he had called Davidson in. That mystery would have to wait, though. Right now I was too busy having trouble just moving.

Davidson’s words had an immobilizing and calming effect, the same one that I had experienced during our initial encounter at the Sectarian Defense League. Davidson made his way to Faisal and started undoing the rope, and although I wanted to stop him, I could barely move. The best I could muster was a leisurely stroll down the aisle toward them.

The Inspectre seemed to be the only one unaffected. “Seems to me that no matter how you dress it up, Mr. Davidson, evil is still evil.”

I think his understanding of the politics of it all was the only thing that kept the Inspectre from laying a hand on Davidson as he released our prisoner.

“Everything okay, Mr. Bane?” Davidson asked as the last coil of the rope fell to the floor. “Are you hurt?”

Faisal stood, brushing the creases out of his suit. “Only my pride, Mr. Davidson. Only my pride. Somehow this young man here got the drop on me in my offices and gave me a bit of a wallop. Not sure how he pulled it off really, but perhaps I’ll press charges.”

Although I didn’t like the idea of having charges pressed against me, I was somewhat relieved that we hadn’t blown Wesker’s cover.

“You’ll have to take that up with the police,” Davidson said. This seemed to disappoint Faisal, and he frowned.

“Took your time getting here, didn’t you?” Faisal said with a sneer.

Davidson’s smile faltered for a second. “The wheels of justice are ever turning, Mr. Bane, if not always briskly.”

By the time the effects of whatever Davidson had done wore off, I found myself standing next to Inspectre Quimbley. His eyes were fixed on Connor. Something unspoken was happening, but I didn’t know what. The Inspectre put his hand lightly on my shoulder.

“Simon,” he said, “be a dear boy and hand me that clipboard over there, would you?”

I slipped on one of my gloves. I had no idea if I would get a reading from the clipboard but I grabbed it and handed it over. The Inspectre casually slipped the manifest page onto it and slowly began to creep the whole thing behind his back.

Faisal paused from sneering at David Davidson and cocked his head in our direction. He tsked-tsked us. “I’ll be taking that back, thank you.”

“What?” the Inspectre said with feigned ignorance. “Oh…this? Yes, of course you will…”

He pulled the manifest free of the clipboard and held it out to the head Sectarian. Faisal raised one of his thick, black eyebrows. “It’s good to see such obedience.” He turned to me. “You could learn a thing or two from him, lapdog.”

“I’ve learned plenty,” I said, feeling totally ineffectual. “And I’ll learn what you did to Irene, too.”

“Perhaps,” he said with a smile, “but if you could only prove it…or anything for that matter.”

Davidson stepped in at this moment. “You don’t have to say anything more, Mr. Bane. We’re leaving.”

“No,” Faisal said almost cheerfully as he narrowed in on me. “I don’t mind. Tell me, Mr. Canderous, you seem quite taken by Ms. Blatt, don’t you? Every time I run into you, I seem to be subjected to one of your little fits of misguided bravado over her.”

I felt embarrassed and angry at the same time, my face turning bright red. I did care for Irene, but I didn’t want all of it coming out right here in front of my own Department—especially in front of Connor. I didn’t even want to think of what the Inspectre would make of my involvement in all this.

“Your obsession with Irene,” Faisal continued, “seems to be clouding your judgment, I suspect, and corollary to that, it causes you to meddle in my affairs far too often. Maybe what I have to say now will make you back off my people once and for all.”

“Are you going to threaten to kill me?” I said.

“Yes, you’d like me to say something like that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “Here in a room full of witnesses. No such luck, I’m afraid, but I want to give you something to think about.” His eyes fell to the manifest and he tapped his finger at the page. “You’re terribly concerned about this wooden fish. So intent on getting it back. Did you ever give a thought for a single second that maybe the fish wasn’t Irene Blatt’s in the first place?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I made a sudden lunge for the manifest but he easily avoided me and held it out of reach.

“The day you accosted one of my fellow Sectarians in Ms. Blatt’s apartment…did you take a good look at her place? Anything strike you odd? Single woman…living all alone in a veritable paradise of antiquities…?”

I recalled her apartment, trashed as it was. Her tastes and collecting habits were so similar to things I had or would love to own. It was one of the first things that had intrigued me about her. I lived in the same type of antique-freaque way, and maybe I needed to start looking at our similarities for clues instead. Maybe she was more like me than I thought.

“She’s a psychic?”

Faisal scrunched his face at me, looking like one of those Chinese dogs with all the wrinkles. “What?! No, you nitwit!”

“Then I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know why she owned all that stuff. Maybe she had a rich family or something.”

Part of hunting down who Irene Blatt truly was had fallen to me, and the truth was I hadn’t been able to come up with much on her in the real world. Over the past week, it had fallen farther down the list of priorities, especially with Tamara’s death and Jane’s appearance in my life.

“Irene had a bit of a habit,” he said. “A real pro with the sticky fingers. A little something that you can see she turned into quite a profitable career.”

“She’s no thief,” I said defensively. There was only one ex-thief around here, and that was me. I moved for Faisal, but the Inspectre held me back.

“Wasn’t she?” Faisal said. He folded the manifest and slipped it in his pocket. “Then answer me this: What was she doing freelancing for a filthy cultist like me then? I suppose the fact that she whored out her skills in high-class, high-stakes thievery to us was just a coincidence. And when she got a little greedy over one of my commissions and decided to hold out for more money…”

“Hold on,” Davidson interjected. “Hold on for a second. Are you implying you had someone murdered? The Mayor’s Office does not condone that sort of conflict resolution…”

“Just giving Mr. Canderous here some hypothetical food for thought,” Faisal said. “Of course we would have never harmed her.”

As he turned away from Davidson, Faisal winked at me and I snapped. I couldn’t help myself. I dove forward, intent on killing him if I could just, God willing, wrap my hands around his neck. He was begging for the eternal dirt nap, and I was more than happy to be the one to give it to him.

The Inspectre had me by the arm and was trying to pull me back, but I didn’t take notice until I felt a second set of arms wrap around my waist. Connor had joined our little circle of friends.

“Don’t,” he whispered in my ear as I struggled to break free. “That’s what he wants, kid. Davidson will be witness to it, report it back to Town Hall, and they’ll shut us down faster than you’d believe.”

“We’re just going to let him walk out of here?” I asked.

Inspectre Quimbley nodded.

Davidson cleared his throat and I turned my attention to find him looking sternly at me. “Mr. Canderous, I really think us leaving here is the least of your concerns right now. I’ve got several bones I could start picking with your Department if you’d like. I understand that Mr. Bane here was kidnapped from his place of work, rolled into a carpet no less, and I highly suspect that you had something to do with that. Frankly, I hate to think what charges he might bring against the D.E.A. should you not let us walk out that door right now.”

Connor and the Inspectre let go of me. I turned silently, feeling utterly helpless. Any heroism I had felt earlier was squashed now, and my ego had practically shriveled up, crawled under a rock, and died. I stood mute.

“Fine,” I said, making an unexpected dive for Faisal now that no one was holding on to me. “Go, but not before I give our friend here a hug good-bye!”

Faisal didn’t have a chance to react. I pulled my gloves off as I went and then did something I had never done before—I grabbed Faisal’s face in both hands and tapped directly into him. I concentrated on my raw emotions the way Connor had taught me to, and flipped into a psychometric vision with one thought on my mind. Irene.

The room around me fell away. An image resolved in my mind’s eye—Faisal in his office talking to Irene, only in this vision she was alive. In life, she was more radiant than I had ever seen her. She was quoting him a price, a price Faisal would have to pay if she was going to steal the wooden fish for him. Faisal knew it was in a private collection on the Upper West Side, its owner unaware of its value to the Sectarians, but he desperately needed it. I tried to guide Faisal’s thoughts in the vision, but they wouldn’t tell me why he wanted it so badly.

Time slipped forward in the vision and this time Faisal was on the phone with Irene and they were yelling at each other. Irene had stolen the artifact as asked, but kept repeating over and over into the phone that she’d never sell it to Faisal, now that she knew what he was planning on doing with it. All I had to do was wait long enough and I was sure I’d hear the specifics of what Faisal had been planning…

Except I was suddenly torn out of the vision and back into the real world with the sickening sensation of having the wind knocked out of me. I was doubled over kneeling on the floor, clutching my stomach. Faisal stood over me, his fist still clenched from the blow.

“Stay,” he panted, “out.”

His face looked as drained as I felt, except he was able to stand, while all I could do was flounder on the floor, flopping like a fish. Forcing myself into another person’s mind was a violation like no other and it tore at my nerves as if I had run into an electric fence. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to repeat. It had weakened me more than psychometry usually did. Maybe tapping into another living creature used up more energy, on top of the pronounced unpleasantness of it all? I didn’t know. I started fishing in my pocket for my Life Savers. Faisal and Davidson turned away.

“We’ll be in touch,” Davidson said as they started for the door.

“I say, so shall we,” the Inspectre said, stopping them in their tracks by the door. “It’s awfully brave of you to intimidate my young initiate here, old boy, but you’ll find me a different story. Rest assured, I will get to the bottom of all this.”

Faisal glanced back as he reached for the handle. “The only thing you’re bound to reach the bottom of is a bag of chips, old man…or the East River.”

As soon as he and Davidson walked out, the divisional managers scrambled out of their chairs and followed, leaving just Connor, the Inspectre, and me. Connor helped me up in the immediate and heavy silence that hung in the air as the door closed. None of us dared looked at the other.

“Well, that was certainly different,” I said.

“You look like hell, kid,” Connor said.

“Good. I feel like hell.”

“Hope it was worth it. Did you get anything?”

“Most of what he said about Irene was true,” I said. “She was a thief, like a freelancer to them, but she wasn’t holding out for more money. She refused to help him when she found out what the Sectarians were going to use the wooden fish for.”

“And what were they planning?” the Inspectre asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. That’s when Faisal went all Cassius Clay on me.”

“Well, that’s a start,” the Inspectre said encouragingly. “That’s more than we knew before. And we do have an avenue or two more to explore…”

Connor and the Inspectre exchanged that look again. I was too wiped to say anything more. Connor took the empty clipboard and slid it in his satchel.

“I could use a stiff drink after that,” Connor continued as he ran his hand through the white streak in his hair. “Shall we?”

“Hrooom!” the Inspectre blasted as he headed for the door. “That may indeed be the best idea I’ve heard all night, boys. Tonight the drinks are on Other Division.”