interference generators I’d installed.”
“It’s still not nice,” DJ said in a mumble.
“Knowing is harder to block than that, but it was actually the Caretaker who told me. He heard it announced on the neurala-pod broadcasts. Ha ha.” The laugh lacked any inflection at all and came out creepy instead of taunting. “Ask your questions.”
Okay, for the first time in a while a true, actual, non-pretended smile spread over my face. Okay, technically it was a smirk, still in the smile family though. “Well mister smartie no-pants, I’ve got some deep conscious knowing for you. I don’t have even the slightest clue as to who, whom, or what the power behind the ID war is. So ha scrudding ha to you, dumb ass.”
“Jazz,” DJ spat through her teeth.
There came another long silence from the speaker.
DJ stole the moment to begin with the multitude of questions that must have been threatening to burst the dam of her patience. “Why keep him like this? I don’t understand. Why can’t you let him die?”
The camera remained still, the speaker quiet.
“He,” I said pointing at the chair, “isn’t even a he, or a she, or at least I have no idea at all which, if either, of the two he might be.” Realizing my voice had gotten louder and in a higher register than I liked and that DJ deserved, I took in a deep breath and, as I slowly blew it out, I focused on calming myself down. “Because he’s a death thief.”
“So he’s—” DJ stated to say something, but rethought it. “What’s a death thief?”
“He can, although I don’t know that he does it willingly, or consciously, at the moment of his death, move into the next nearest body just as its being vacated by its soul. If he ever dies his being will occupy a stolen body and live on and we won’t know where he is or what he looks like. And if you think we’ve faced some big bad evil before, DJ, you have no idea just how bad bad can be. Whatever happens to me, you must keep him alive. You have to promise me, more than anything I’ve asked of you in the past, or may ask of you in the future, promise me this.”
DJ just stared at me. I don’t know if she was too busy thinking, or to stunned, or too disgusted to answer. But I was overcome by an intense need to have her answer. I took her shoulders and gave them an even stronger squeeze. “Please, DJ, please say that you’ll do this, that you’ll keep him alive, no matter what.”
All the anger and disappointment and doubt seemed to spill out of her. DJ looked up and showed me a crooked smile and I again saw the trusting, devoted, naive little girl who became my sidekick. “Sure, Jazz, no problem.”
“Good,” I said and felt a wave of relief crash over me. Then I turned back to my tenant. “And you, mister know-it-all, are going to answer my questions succinctly and sincerely and respectfully or I’ll send a charge though that withered old heart of yours that will wake up parts of you, you thought dead; got it?”
There was no reaction at all from any of the machines attached to him until the voice generator said, “Ask your blasted questions.”
“There’s something else you don’t know, and that’s that I’ve probably got one more big attack left available to me before the enforcer corps bust me or somebody finally kills me. So where do I go? Where do I make the loudest bang? Where is the foundation weakest? How to I shake the ‘invisible force’ out of their hiding space?” I saw DJ smile at my use of her cornialy coined, comic book worthy colloquialism, invisible force.
“Don’t. Do nothing. Your rash impatience always created more trouble,” he said.
“All right, that did it,” I said and set my fingers to a large, ivory colored knob.
DJ grabbed my arm and shot me the stink-eye.
Oww. I didn’t know she could stink-eye so hard.
“I thought I told you succinctly?” I said.
“You are trying so hard to fight, that you’ve failed to realize that the beings behind the inter-dimensional occupation want you as badly as you want them. You’re untamed brashness has given them the cover they needed to bring you in. No one will question you disappearing now. In fact most will welcome it. So stop fighting.”
Okay, as insanely, stupidly, inanely moronic as his plan was, it actually made a kind of sense. One that would probably get me killed, but his plans usually left me injured, in agony, and hanging on the brink of death.
“Just do what you do best,” he said.
“Kill monsters,” I said automatically.
“No,” he said, “push people’s buttons.”
I growled and balled up my fists.
“What is he suggesting exactly?” DJ asked.
“Hold on,” I said as I needed to keep him answering while he was still able and willing. “These beings attacking the monsters, in the silver armor, that seem to come from nowhere and vanish right after, what are they?”
“I only heard of these now.” He was quiet a moment, thinking, or plotting, or both. “Some of the resistance soldiers did use silver armor,” he said in the monotone voice.
I felt my head shaking. “The resistance ended eighty years ago, besides, they fought against the occupation.”
“The resistance never ended; hate is hard to kill,” he said and I noted that the heart rate on the screen had slowed, “but is easy to redirect.”
I had the sinking feeling that he was telling me more than one thing. But words were his great power. He’d lead me down a rabbit hole if I let him. “Someone, I guess the guys in the armor, are using technology to control monsters, to make them hit their own. Why?”
“You tell me,” he said and I nearly punched him. His crusty skin would probably split like a ripe tomato if I did.
“Why, sir?” DJ asked, more to give me time to calm down I suspected. “Why hit deferred species with deferred species?”
There was no response. The crack-hole was still waiting for me to answer. I was loath to give him an once of satisfaction, but I’d already put DJ through too much.
Just then the door creaked open and the Caretaker crept in. “The Proprietor is tired now and requires rest. You will have to go. You may set a return appointment for when he’s rested, perhaps sometime next year,” he said in the dry, weak voice.
I huffed out through my nose. “To lure me into attacking the deferred species in such a grand manor that it would be well documented and would make me the enemy of humans and monsters alike.”
“Why?” he asked and I would have sworn I heard his heart monitor skip a beat.
“Visiting hours are over,” the Caretaker said then drew in the long, arduous breath. “If you do not leave I will be forced to call security.”
“Jazz?” DJ asked and I heard the concern in her voice.
This time I forced some growl into my voice. “Because the whoever in charge wants me and wanted to make sure that there would be no one left to come looking for me.” I looked at DJ and said, “Wants me alone, without friends or allies.”
“Correct. Your time with me has benefited you,” he said and I definitely heard the monitor display a short succession of skipped beats. “Too little too late, I suspect.”
“You leave me no—” the Caretaker said, then drew in a short, rattling breath, “No choice,” the words came out hurried and raw. He turned and walked out.
“Jazz,” DJ said with a concerned gilt decorating her tone.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Security works for me, the Caretaker has a limited intelligence. He pretty much operates within a small structure of procedures.
“So,” DJ said, looking with concern wrinkles forming on her brow at the thing in the chair. “Are we done here then?”
“Hold on,” I said and massaged my head with my fingers, trying to persuade loose the myriad of questions I’d had just moments ago, but now seemed to have disappeared.
The heart monitor skipped two beats and his shriveled body jerked back.
The brain massaging worked. “Are sasquatchs real? I mean, were they actually an earth species?”
For a l
ong moment I didn’t think he would answer then he said, “The Men of the Forest are native to Earth.”
That hurt. I knew already really, but now, hearing him confirm it, only made the guilt about how badly I’d treated Mickey the big foot sting even worse.
“Oh yeah,” DJ said. She set down her lamp, removed her rucksack, and pulled out a big pickle jar; the jar was filled with a cloudy liquid called, Soulution. It’s the goop I use to clean my magical healing stone. She held it up to the camera. “Jazz wants to know what this is?”
The camera lens spun in and out, and the black and white image on the screen went from fuzzy to even more fuzzy then back again. “I do not know. But I feel the agony of a thousand souls inside.” There was another period of focusing the camera, then, with another skip of heartbeat, it went still. DJ looked at me and lowered the jar. Then he asked, “What is the purpose of this?”
“It doesn’t matter,’ I said, took the jar and returned it to the rucksack. I’d heard enough.
“Now are we done here?” DJ asked as I held the rucksack up so she could get her arms though the straps.
“Just one more,” I told her and turned back to the body in the chair. “A few months ago I dispatched a red dragon, a really big one. How did it get across the ID bridge without alerting the enforcer corps?”
“The red—” he stopped speaking as the monitor displayed two skipped heartbeats and his body jerked. Then he continued, “Wasn’t arriving, she was leaving.”
“Leaving,” I said sliding my head back in disbelief. “There are