Poisoned Pearls (11 page)

“I don’t know what you mean,” Josh said slowly, his eyes
wide with fear of being found out.

“The drugs have worn off. So has the gift from the non-man.
I need more. For me. And my blood brother.”

“Oh, okay,” Josh said, giving a weak laugh. “Yes, the
drugs
. We all know about that.” He
turned and ordered two drinks, using fancy terms Hunter had never bothered to
learn.

“Can you cover me?” Josh asked one of the other employees
before he took the drinks and walked out from behind the bar, leading Hunter to
a back table.

“You’re not supposed to contact me here,” Josh said,
whispering urgently over the table at Hunter.

Hunter took a sip of his drink at the too-small table. The
chairs were solid, but uncomfortable. They’d be good in a fight, though. The
drink was good. Sweet. Full of energy. Hunter would have to burn it all off
before he slept through the rest of the afternoon.

No one watched them, but Hunter knew that the corporations
had eyes everywhere.

“I need more of the
Ghost
Tripper
,” Hunter explained. “
Csaba
is dead. Like
the hookers.” He didn’t bother to explain the non-man. None of the doctors had
ever been able to figure out exactly what it was that Hunter saw, the worlds
and all the fates.

“I can’t get you drugs,” Josh insisted.

Hunter just stared at him. “I know you’re not working for
the government,” he replied. “But you aren’t who you say you are.”

“Now you’re talking crazy talk,” Josh said, trying to defuse
the situation.

“You’re a company scout,” Hunter said. “You’re trying to
find wilds. Or wilds who could be nudged with just the right amount of
chemicals. To prove that your drugs work.”

Josh just shook his head. “Not me.”

“Cassie is the best chance you have of proving that your
drugs work,” Hunter insisted. “She’s been tested. Came up negative. But the
test was wrong. She’s got abilities. And the only way to unlock them is through
your drugs.”

“You have me confused with someone else,” Josh said, still
shaking his head.

“There will never be another,” Hunter promised Josh, well
aware that he could be lying. “She’s the one true blood brother I have. She’ll
see not just this world, but all the others. And because she’ll have me, she’ll
be able to handle it.”

Josh gave Hunter a piercing look. “Because you’ll be able to
explain it,” he said slowly.

“Yes. She won’t be alone.” Of course, once she started
seeing, she’d never be alone because of the ghosts, but Josh didn’t need to
know that. “So I need more
Ghost Tripper
.
In aerosol form, if you can get it.”

“What do you mean, aerosol form?” Josh asked, looking
confused.

He was good at that, that practiced look, hiding his
too-sharp eyes.

“It will be easier for Cassie’s first time if she can just
inhale the
Ghost Tripper
,” Hunter
explained. He kept his hands wrapped around the warm drink, willing the blood
to move through them, to warm the rest of him as well.

“Won’t that be Cassie’s choice?” Josh asked. “She needs to
make a choice, here.”

Hunter wasn’t certain which laws Josh was willing to bend.
He supposed that testing and training—which while
strongly
encouraged by the government had never been required in
the US—was one of them.

“It will be her choice,” Hunter lied easily.

Josh hesitated, then finally nodded. “I’ll see what I can
do.”

Hunter kept the smile from his face. He’d been right. Josh
was a corporate spy, sent out to recruit wilds to take the company-supplied
drugs without their explicit approval. It was illegal to experiment on humans
anymore.

And besides. It didn’t matter, really, if Cassie chose to
take the drugs or not.

Fate had been set.

Soon she would see.

***

Odin strode through his dark hall. He would not light the
fire in the center tonight. The torches along the edges sufficed, casting long
shadows to match the grimness in the Val-Father’s heart.

The snakes carved into the wide pillars wound around each
other, swallowing tail and head, restlessly shifting. The scent of the cooking
fires carried in on the wind curled around Odin’s head, tugging at him,
inviting him to join the feasting in the other hall.

For him, there would be no feasting tonight.

Odin strode to
Hlidskjalf
,
his
chair of judgment, carved out of a mighty piece of black walnut, then sank down
into it carefully, gently, as if he didn’t want to wake the ravens sleeping on
either edge.

Except there were no ravens.

Hugin
and
Munin
were still on the battlefield. They had their feast before them, the flesh of
the fallen. Odin wouldn’t deny it to them, despite the fact that many of those
fallen—most, really—were his own troop.

Where had he gone so desperately wrong?

Odin shifted in his great seat, uncomfortable even in his
own skin. He tugged at his gray tunic, tightened the belt around his wool
trousers.

Nothing fit right. Nothing
was
right.

The fates were shifting. Every time Odin cast the runes,
they came up with a different story, held a different song.

It was Loki’s fault. It had to be. But Odin couldn’t figure
out what Loki had done. It was surprising, and Odin had long since gotten out
of the habit of being surprised.

Why had Loki sacrificed his own eye? Of course he’d lied and
told the frost giants Odin had done it. But why? It couldn’t have just been to get
the giants enraged, to get them calling for Odin’s head and starting a war.

What had Loki seen? He was the trickster, the con artist. He
had to have a plan. He wouldn’t bring about the end of the gods unless he had
some way of surviving it.

Odin sighed. Besides Frigg, the only other one who knew all
the fates was the witch
Mim
. The gods had killed her
three times, but still she came back. Maybe he should go talk with her head,
draw her up by her sticky locks out of an apple barrel and compel her to speak.

He didn’t really want to hear what she had to say.

However, he didn’t have a choice. His fate, whatever it was,
however it had changed, was still locked in.

***

Of course, the first apple barrel Odin came upon in the root
cellar was full of apples. It was only the start of winter and food was still
plentiful. He tore the cover off the next, but all he found were apples. He
looked around the dank underground room in despair.

There was food here. Cheese and cakes. Fine dried meat and
aged mead. His larder was full. It should fill him with joy, not terror.

Odin needed to know. He needed to see what was coming, one
eye and all.

He didn’t have time to travel to
Niflheim
to find the witch. He needed to see her. Now.

Odin strode out of the kitchen halls, ignoring the calls for
him to come join in the good cheer and good food, instead stalking across the
frozen ground, going to the northern corner of his own hall.

There, under the eaves, stood an apple barrel that had been
converted into a rain barrel. Of course, it was now covered with snow. It took
the simplest of spells for Odin to wrap his hands around the rough wood of the
barrel and melt the ice that was trapped inside.

It didn’t want to dissolve. Again, Odin fought to impose his
will on something that should have automatically followed his wishes.

Not all was well, not anywhere in the land of the gods.

The ice gave way and the snow melted, the water overflowing
and sloshing, cold and freezing his hands. He shook them off, but didn’t bother
drying them: better they should burn in the night air than something
else
defy him this evening.

From inside one of the countless bags on his belt, Odin
pulled out a small, plain, silver bowl. From the pouches on his belt, he drew
out long stems of dried seaweed, bark from a slippery elm tree, juniper berries
gathered only on moonless summer nights, and salt that had been burned in oak,
then ash.

All these ingredients Odin crushed together, using his thumb
to break them apart in the bowl, humming a wordless tune under his breath,
letting his thoughts take what paths they might but always coming back to the
seeing and the knowing he needed.

Finally, when everything had been mixed together, Odin
dumped the bowl over the still warm and churning waters of the apple barrel.

Green light wreathed the waters, stirring it like the
northern lights. The scent of honeyed apple mead rose up, making Odin smile.
Then the smell grew sharp and sweeter, like rotten apples.

Then
Mim’s
head rose up. Her long
blonde hair floated like a crown around her. The whiteness of winter filled her
eyes, but she still looked directly at Odin, and her voice was hale and strong.

“Odin Val-Father, slayer of my kin.

You have given me salt and sorrow,

voice and limb,

calling me to speak of changed fate

and twisted endings.

Would you know more?”

“Aye,” Odin said. He
knew
it. That fate was somehow different.

“The World Tree passes through

not just this sphere, but others.

The fate of one world has been traded

an eye for an eye

a life bound and extended

in the belly of the wolf.

Would you know more?”

Fates had been traded
?
What the hell had Loki done? Somehow found a fate where he didn’t die, and
exchange that one for the one of this world?

“I would,” Odin said after another moment.

“There is not one trade

but two—

one fate for another

two lives exchanged.

The end of all things is just a rebirth

for the one who survives.

Would you know more?”

“Yes,” Odin said. What else was the trickster up to? Could
Odin beat it out of Loki before it was too late?

“As was said

at the beginning of all things:

The only way to avoid the twilight

is to keep both eyes on the prize.

I will tell you no more.”

With that,
Mim’s
head sank back
below the surface of the waters in the apple barrel, a small black cloud
puffing up from the surface and smelling of the limestone of graves.

Odin knew better than to put his hand in the water and drag
her back up. She’d had her say.

Loki had removed one of his eyes to exchange these fates,
Odin knew it. Odin had removed one of his own in order to avoid the same thing.

They were both half blind, now.

And no matter what Loki might believe, he didn’t understand
what he’d set in motion.

Neither of them had both eyes with which to see.

I went through the rest of my day on autopilot. I’d thought
that working in a sex & toy shop had made me immune to shock.

I was so wrong.

Three dead bodies had left me shaken and unsure. But damned
if I was going to be stopped from doing anything that I normally did, so I went
to work, took garbage and boxes out to the back alley, let people into the peep
show, and had smoke breaks outside, daring Hunter to come by.

But the night ended quietly. More friends contacted me via
email about holding a memorial service for Kyle on Saturday. Told them I’d
speak, though I didn’t have a fucking clue what I’d say.

Sam didn’t call. Neither did Natasha.

I scoured the news, looking for reports on deaths of hookers
or even
Csaba
, but the police seemed to have everything
nailed down tightly. Nobody reported anything much.

Record holiday sales drove out any other types of news.

No shadows followed me home from the store; at least, none
that I could see. I defiantly took my garbage to the back alley, but no bodies
were there, not even any drunks or bums diving through the dumpsters.

With a bone-deep sigh of relief I went to bed. I thought I’d
dream of more bodies, but even my dreams were sweet.

None of that helped the dread of waking up Friday, trying to
determine if I was going to live up to my promise.

If I was going to go get my PADT done.

I’d heard the stories, like everyone had, how kids with true
abilities always denied them. The ones who bragged or talked about how cool it
was were the ones who generally turned out to be powerless.

I would have thought kids would be more canny, since the
information was out there. But maybe kids had more difficulty living a lie than
adults did.

I hadn’t always denied having abilities, had I? Wouldn’t
that have been a sign?

I had one last smoke—my breakfast
cigarette—before bundling myself up in my leather jacket, black leggings
that were lined, two pairs of socks, and my warmest boots, then trudging out
the door.

The cold hadn’t let up. It dove straight into my lungs,
replacing the warm air I kept inside with a freezing burn. The sky was still
that pale blue that sucked out any warmth that might have built up with the sun
shining down, the wind playing tricks and making the freeze personal, seeking
out any cracks in my armor, like a world-ending plague.

Not many people walked along the sidewalk bleached white by
the salt. I was glad I had my shades—it was too fucking bright. I figured
as I got closer to Nicolette Mall that more people would fill the sidewalks,
those busy, last-minute shoppers trying to find that perfect, last-minute gift.

Chinaman Joe’s would probably be slammed tonight, as it was
the Friday before Christmas. Maybe I should have scheduled four people instead
of three.

Too late now.

At least I wasn’t late for my damned bus.

The testing center was on the University of Minnesota
campus, on the west side, near the health and sciences center. It was a new
building, with that made-for-TV
SciFi
retro-future
look, all white brick that was even colder than usual. The long, low stairs
were free of snow and ice. I didn’t see many people—holidays and everyone
was at home.

The lobby was empty and echoing. To the right stood a huge
gas fireplace, open on both sides, with a blue fire that didn’t cast any heat,
I’d bet. Large modern chairs with no arms but cushions of orange and red vinyl
filled the middle of the room, looking like Danish sculpture. To the left, just
below the wide staircase leading up to the second floor, stood a white
reception desk. A perky young Asian man sat behind the desk. “Can I help you?”
he asked. He wore a standard blue blazer and light blue button-down, with a
silver tie.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m
here—I’m here to get tested.”

I pushed my head up, making myself stand straight. I was
doing the right thing, being here. I didn’t have to take the training. The
government would strongly encourage that I did, but I didn’t have to.

I would just know, for certain, that I was
one-hundred-percent mundane.

The young man took my ID, entered me into the system while I
filled out a paper questionnaire, mostly about my health and making sure that I
understood this was completely voluntary, that I wasn’t required to act on this
information, that no one could access this information,
yada
yada
.

I got back my ID and sat on one of the excessively
uncomfortable chairs. They were too long for me to sit back on without my feet
coming off the floor, and I’m not a small woman. The vinyl gave off an
unpleasant chemical odor, burning the back of my throat.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. Another young perky
assistant—this time a young African-American woman, also in a blue suit
and silver tie—came out to fetch me.

The testing room was exactly like the ones I’d seen on TV: a
small cubicle-like room, with a chair and a desk, the lights low and brown. A
large glass window was set in the wall. The lights on that side were bright and
white, showing what looked like a computer lab. On the other side sat a large
pale-skinned man in a white lab coat. At least he wasn’t perky. Behind him were
half a dozen computer monitors on the wall, plus two on the desk in front of
him.

“I’m George,” the man said through the microphone. “I’ll be
administering your psychic ability tests today. Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head. I just wanted this over with.

“All right, then. I will ask you a series of questions.
Sometimes I will have you answer out loud. Other times, I’ll ask you to just
think of the answer.”

“Okay,” I said. I hadn’t really known what to expect, though
I’d known that the TV show with the cartoon dolls that the tester asked the
testees
to use for illustrating their answers wasn’t real.

George turned down the lights on his side so the glass was dark.
If I strained, I could see him. The chair was actually comfortable, I noticed.
And the dim lights were making me sleepy.

Was that part of the plan? To get me relaxed?

The questions ranged from the mundane (“How old are you?”)
to the bizarre (“Should Franklin the lion have a lollipop or ice cream for
dessert?”)

I knew that everyone received a different set of questions,
dictated by the computer. It was calibrating my answers, determining what was
most likely to show my abilities.

None of it made sense. But I’d bet the comfy chair I was
slumped in probably had sensors in it. The table might, too.

Now I was being as paranoid as Hunter was.

The testing didn’t take too long. George turned up the
lights on his side and said, “Thank you for your time. We’ll have the results
shortly. If you’ll just go and sit back in the waiting room.”

No one was there when I walked into that cold lobby. God, I
was dying for a cigarette.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

What the hell was the hold-up? I checked my phone, checked
my email, but there was nothing, no magazines for me to look at or anything.

When I heard steps coming down the stairs, I stood up,
figuring that was my cue.

I didn’t expect the pudgy man in the suit.

“Hello, Cassandra,” he said as he walked across the room.

“Hello, Josh.”

***

The office Josh took me to had that feeling of a hotel room,
with generic modern art—squares and circles in red and green and
yellow—as well as a fake plant on the veranda and no papers, no notes,
nothing on the poster board behind Josh’s head.

The window faced the freeway, where it curved around and
went under the campus, across the Mississippi. The traffic made faint sounds
through the weatherproofed glass. The office smelled of chamomile tea and
honey, though I refused the beverages Josh offered me.

Josh had cleaned up well. His three-day shadow was gone,
along with his fatigues and maniacal grin. Instead, he wore a standard blue
business suit, with a white shirt and red-and-gold power tie.

“I must admit, I hadn’t expected your name to pop up on the
registration,” Josh said. He kept his hands folded on the desk but kept licking
his pudgy lips.

“Someone’s killing my friends,” I told him bluntly.

“The whores? And that drug dealer. Yes. I read about it,” he
said.

“Really? Because it isn’t in any of the regular news
reports,” I replied. When Josh had no answer for that beyond a shrug, I asked,
“Does Hunter know you work for the government? In their PADT center?”

Josh laughed and shook his head. “Oh, no, you misunderstand
me. I’m not with the government.”

“But the PADT centers have never been privatized,” I said.
“So if you’re not working for the government, how did you get in here? Who do
you work for?”

Hunter had struck me as paranoid. Now I wondered if he
hadn’t been paranoid enough.

“Hunter actually put it together, though it took him long
enough,” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “I work for a company you’ve probably
never heard of. The Jacobson Consortium. We’re a pharmaceutical company.”

“Wait—didn’t your company create the drugs that
supposedly boosted psychics? Back in the ’70s and ’80s? Weren’t you sued out of
existence when they failed spectacularly?” I asked, vaguely remembering my
history lessons, though it had all happened before I’d been born.

Josh pressed his lips together in distaste. “We were allowed
to make restitution,” he said primly. “We’ve been working with the government
ever since. They still believe in our mission, that through various chemical
boosters we will be able to improve psychic ability.”

“You deliberately made your drugs addictive, adding a heroin
compound, right?” I asked. “Does Hunter know that you’re the people responsible
for making him a junkie?” I wouldn’t have wanted to bet on Josh’s longevity
once Hunter found out the truth.

“Hunter
likes
the
drugs. They help him. They greatly improve his area of knowing. I think he’d be
honored to know me, if he knew where I truly worked,” Josh said.

“Yeah, right,” I said. “So what do you want with Hunter? Or
with me, for that matter?”

“As I said, we’ve been allowed to make restitution for some
individuals, like Hunter, in exchange for continued access,” Josh said.

I tried to sift through the double-speak. “So you’re
continuing your experiments, aren’t you? Watching Hunter after he takes the
street equivalent. Or do you provide the drugs yourself?”

“
Ghost Tripper
really is a street drug,” Josh said with disgust. “It’s impure, not safe. I’ve
been trying to get Hunter to come in and get the clinical equivalent.”

“How’s that been going for you? He’s been coming in
regular-like, right? Because he
trusts
you people so much,” I said. Josh and his company didn’t get it. They’d screwed
over Hunter and his kind. Addicted them to something they didn’t really need.

“What we’d like to do is to get you in on the program from
the ground floor,” Josh said, ignoring my previous comment.

“Ground floor,” I said dryly. I’m not sure Josh would
understand sarcasm if it bit him.

“Hunter swears that you have talent. Sight. That you’re his
true blood brother,” Josh said.

“Wait, you
believe
him?” I asked. “My test results aren’t back yet. Are they?”

“I knew you were lying when you said you’d been tested,”
Josh said, looking smug. “Hunter didn’t know that, however. He thought the test
was wrong.”

Josh paused, then leaned forward across the table, sounding
sincere. “I bet your cognition scores are off the charts. But you’ve never had
the training, so you’ve never been able to access your abilities.”

“Or I really am one-hundred-percent mundane,” I pointed out.

It could happen.

“By agreeing to work with the Jacobson Consortium, you’ll
have access to cutting-edge training technology, as well as the best drug
therapy. The drugs we produce today are one-hundred-percent non-addictive,” he
swore. “And you’ll have greater access to your abilities, more than in your
wildest dreams.”

“And the catch?” I asked. “What is this marvelous
opportunity of yours going to cost me? My firstborn?”

“While we encourage parents to enroll their children in our
continuing education program, and we help to get them tested early, we don’t
require it,” Josh said.

“Then what?” I asked. “What do I give you?”

“Four years of service,” Josh admitted. “We provide housing
and you provide service.”

“Even if you flunk out,” I said, suddenly understanding.
“You failed, didn’t you?” Which was why he worked at a coffee shop, in addition
to this supposedly cushy job.

He was a recruiter.

Josh gave a too-casual shrug. “It doesn’t matter what I am.
What matters is you signing this agreement to go into testing with us.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked, not convinced at all.

Testing, training, everything was voluntary. The US
government had tried—and failed spectacularly—to make it mandatory.
Other countries’ governments were more demanding and overbearing about it.

They also had a significantly higher flunk-out rate, while
the US continued to turn out the strongest, most talented PAs.

“I believe the police might be interested in your lack of
cooperation,” Josh said.

“They can’t get my information without a subpoena,” I told
Josh, stung.

He shrugged. “In most cases, yes. But we can also volunteer
to work with the police when we believe it’s in the best interest of the
public.”

“So if I don’t sign on with your company, you’ll basically
make my life hell,” I said.

Maybe I should just go to Florida with my mom. At least it
might be warm there.