Part 12 (1/2)

Rhodajane swiveled around to see who he was talking to before she realized that she was Xyrena.

'Me? Tonight? You're kidding. I have my grandma's funeral this afternoon, and then a reception afterward.'

'Xyrena, it's critical. You have to join us.'

Rhodajane pulled a face. 'Well... they're holding the reception right here, in the Griffin Room. I guess I could find an excuse to sneak off a little early. To tell you the truth, it would be a relief. My family make the Munsters look normal.'

Springer said, 'I need you asleep by one a.m. at the latest. And - please - try to keep your drinking within reasonable limits. Too much alcohol can affect your dream body as well as your waking perceptions, and the chances are that you're going to have to make plenty of split-second judgments.'

'Talking of my dream body, Mister Old-Army-Buddy-Who-Ain't-Really, I still have no idea what my dream body is going to look like. If I can turn on ”man or woman, demon or beast”, I must look pretty d.a.m.ned hot.'

Springer raised his eyebrows. 'You do. You will. I promise you.'

'Then show me. You showed me what he's going to look like - Dom Magator. Let me see me.'

Springer hesitated, and looked across at John, but John pulled a face that meant, why not? She's going to find out anyhow, and sooner rather than later.

'Very well, then,' said Springer. 'Step over here and face the mirror. Try to empty your mind as much as you can. Think of nothing at all, but the surface of a lake.'

Rhodajane stood in front of the mirror, still with her arms folded. Springer said, 'Relax, now. Arms by your sides. Breathe very gently, as if you're floating on the water.'

'Old army buddy or not,' Rhodajane said to John, out of the side of her mouth. 'Your friend here is some character, isn't he?'

'Please, Xyrena, relax.'

Rhodajane stared at her reflection, and to begin with it was obvious that she was trying very hard not to laugh. After a few seconds, however, the air around her head began to glitter and sparkle, as if it were filled with scores of tiny fireflies, and a high curved crown began to appear on top of her head, made up of the finest filaments of light. Two curving epaulets appeared on her shoulders, as high as the epaulets of a j.a.panese gala costume, and then, with a soft rumble, a huge cloak of rich golden fabric billowed out from her shoulders, rising and falling and curling in a dream wind that none of them could feel.

Around Rhodajane's neck seven gleaming gold neck-rings materialized, so that it looked as if her neck were elongated. At the same time the diamond-shaped heads of two golden snakes peeped out from between the toes of each foot. They slid out and formed themselves into an elaborate pair of very high heels - first of all coiling themselves into the shape of shoes and then pouring relentlessly up her calves and around her knees, around and around her thighs, until they finished up as a pair of high golden boots.

But it was the gradual appearance of her breastplate that made Rhodajane's mouth slowly drop open. It was a perfect replica of her naked torso, in highly-polished gold. Her big, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, complete with dimpled nipples. Her slightly rounded stomach; and her navel, like a tiny s.h.i.+ning mollusk. Below that shone a golden facsimile of her plump, bare v.u.l.v.a, complete with a peeping c.l.i.toris.

'Oh my Gawwd,' she said. 'I cannot walk around like this, flaunting my p.u.s.s.y! Not even in somebody's dream!'

'I did tell you,' said Springer. 'Xyrena arouses man or woman, demon or beast.'

'But I'm showing everything I've got. Well, I'm not really, but as good as.'

'Xyrena is the ultimate paradox,' Springer told her. 'She attracts, she arouses, she fascinates. Did you know that the word ”fascinates” comes from fascinum, which was a p.e.n.i.s-shaped object worn around the neck in Ancient Rome, and often used in medieval witchcraft? If a woman fascinates a man, she gives him an erection, and that's just what Xyrena does. But even though it looks so revealing, nothing can penetrate Xyrena's armor, and believe me, Xyrena herself is deadly.'

Rhodajane pouted at herself in the mirror. She struck an exaggerated pose to the left and then to the right, and then she slowly tottered around in a circle. Underneath her voluminous gilded cloak, her back was armored in the same polished gold, with her shoulder blades and her dimpled b.u.t.tocks as perfectly replicated as her breastplate.

'Well, I don't know...' she said, thoughtfully. 'Maybe I could get used to this I do have a pretty good figure, though I say it myself.'

'But what's the point?' John asked Springer. 'OK, fine, she turns people on. As a matter of fact, she's making me feel distinctly twitchy in the BVD department right now. But why does she do it?'

'Hold out your hands, Xyrena,' Springer instructed her. 'That's right. Spread out your hand so that your fingers are totally rigid.'

Rhodajane did as she was told, and almost immediately eight long fine needles slid out, one from the tip of each finger. The needles were at least three inches long, and slightly curved inward.

'Xyrena arouses her intended prey until they're blinded with l.u.s.t,' Springer explained. 'Then she takes them into her arms and embraces them - whether it's a he or a her or an it. All she has to do then is run these needles into their back. They're forged out of an alloy of t.i.tanium and ultrasound, way beyond the range of human hearing, and they can pierce through anything. Skin, leather, chitin, armor. Absolutely nothing can bend them or deflect them.'

'So she gives her prey a few little p.r.i.c.ks,' said John. 'Then what?'

Rhodajane turned around to face him and struck another pose, her hands on her hips, her crowned head slightly tilted to one side. 'I'm really turning you on, aren't I, John?'

'Let's just get this over with, shall we?' John protested. 'I have to go eat before I can think about sleeping.'

Springer said, 'The needles enter the victim's veins and his blood literally boils. It usually takes less than twenty seconds for his entire blood supply to evaporate, and that's between five and six liters. Then, of course, he's dead. It's a very effective way of killing somebody at very close quarters.'

'Do you have anybody in particular in mind?' John asked him. 'This clown guy, for instance?'

Springer didn't answer, but closed the closet door so that Rhodajane's Night Warrior costume instantly vanished.

Rhodajane said, 'Oh, no. Not the clown guy. I feel like every guy I ever went to bed with in the whole of my life was some kind of clown.'

TEN.

A Night to Dismember Walter wedged himself into his usual corner booth in Rally's, smacking his hands together in antic.i.p.ation of his triple cheeseburger. Outside the sky had grown even darker, and raindrops began to patter against the windows as if somebody were throwing handfuls of raisins at them.

Netta their waitress came over to take their order. She was four feet ten and as squat as a Munchkin, with fraying gingery hair and a swiveling cast in her right eye which always made Walter feel seasick. 'Hi, big feller,' she greeted him, taking her notepad out of her red checkered ap.r.o.n. 'Guess you want your usual?'

'You got it, sweet cheeks. But maybe today I'll go for the loaded fries.'

'The loaded fries? With the Cheddar cheese sauce and the ranch dressin' and the bacon bits?'

'Those are the very babies I had in mind.'

'You do know that a single regular-sized serving of loaded fries contains nine hundred eight calories, which is almost half your recommended daily intake?'

Netta's right eye was fixed on the clock on the wall, as if she were timing how much longer he had to live.

'Is that all? Shees.h.!.+ In that case, you'd better fetch me the jumbo-sized serving.'

Charlie ordered a plain hot dog, no bun, mustard only, no ketchup, and a Diet c.o.ke.

'I don't know how the f.u.c.k you can live on that, Charlie,' said Walter. 'You need calories. Calories are very much maligned. They make your brain work, among other parts of your body. And do you know what they put in hot dogs? Chicken's feet.'

Charlie looked across at him with total seriousness. 'Believe me, Walter, if I thought that eating a triple cheeseburger would help me to understand how Maria Fortales got out of her bedroom, I'd order one, same as you. And the loaded fries.'

'We need to ask Mossad,' said Walter.

'Mossad?'

'You know, the Israeli secret service people. They whacked that Hamas dude in his hotel bedroom in Dubai, didn't they, but they left his door locked from the inside, with the chain fastened, even. Now, how did they do that? I don't have a clue. But it must be possible because they did it.'

Netta brought their drinks over. As she set down Walter's Gatorade, she accidentally knocked his gla.s.s and spilled it. Walter grabbed two handfuls of napkins from the dispenser and frantically dabbed at the spreading soda to stop it from pouring across the table top and on to his pants. He didn't want to spend the rest of the day looking like he'd peed himself.