Gangbusters (MF)

Excerpt

STORY EXCERPT

“Instead of killing you,” the disembodied voice of her seemingly formless captor, now beside her, said, “I’m going to relocate you.”

The drawers of her dresser slid out and clothes flew from them onto the floor.

“Mmm,” she heard as she watched her lingerie held up for inspection. His choice sailed onto the bed. A favorite blue blouse hung in midair for a second, and he said, “Hmm, yeah.”

Then the blouse landed in her lap. A pair of black jeans soon followed.

“I’m not leaving, and you and your people can’t scare me away.”

“It doesn’t frighten you that I’ve entered your home and taken possession of you?”

“N–No…”

“It should.” His voice, closer to her again but from a different direction, echoed through the old steel-frame house, further disheveling her. “I could easily overcome you, Faith.”

“N–No, I’m not a child quickly frightened away. I have a decade of martial arts, and I could kick your ass!” Unable to see his expression, she couldn’t gauge if the ridiculous promise of a hard defense affected him. Maybe he was a small man, and she had a chance against him.

“What kind of martial arts?” his deep, velvet voice asked.

“Onterie. The most deadly of the martial arts. And I have a black belt. How about that!”

“Onterie doesn’t give out belts. I doubt you’ve spent an hour in an Onterie class. People who master Onterie don’t talk about it.”

The breath fled her lungs. “I’m still not scared!”

“Then you’re stupider than you look or write. I’ve read some of your stories, and you’d sounded much smarter than this. You’re also a rotten liar, Faith. Remember that so you don’t get into more trouble. Stick to the truth. Get dressed.”

A pair of boots came flying toward her from her closet, missing her by centimeters.

She grew angrier by the minute that she’d be forced to leave. “Don’t call me Faith! You don’t know me!”

A splash of papers came from nowhere and landed on the bed beside her. She picked them up and thumbed through report after report of her, information from family connections to her library loans.

“Your full name is Victoria Faith Vedder. You’d switched from Vicky to Faith at age seven when there were too many Vickys in school. Your favorite food is kung pao chicken, extra spicy. Your favorite drink is gold-label vodka with a splash of orange juice. Your favorite color is black, like your coffee and your comedy. Extremist, Faith?”

She shot him a sour scrunch of her lips in the general direction of his voice.

“As a child, you’d had a lot of ear infections. When you’d been ten years old, your family had lost your older sister Emily in the smallpox release of ’41. Your parents had divorced after that, and your mother and you had moved around a lot before you’d settled in Capital City on Draco Reigna, where your mother had worked as an electrical engineer on the many downtown projects. You rarely saw your father after that, though you wrote often. You’d been a high school cheerleader until the ear infections had returned, and you’d been forced to drop from the squad. It had been a great disappointment for you. A solid B student, you’d served on your college yearbook staff, and you’d added your name to the rosters of nearly every team that played for the school. As a joke. Funny.”

She couldn’t see a smile, but she heard it in his voice. She hadn’t known that last one had been caught and documented for the society-shaking felony it was. It was probably a good idea not to go back for a reunion.

Miffed he knew so much of her, she gathered the spilled papers, her best tough-girl scowl on her face. The letterhead on every page had been ripped off, robbing her of his sources.

“Your first kiss had come from your junior high school boyfriend, Harvey Lui, and you’d stalked him for breaking up with you. You had not given up your virginity until your first year of college when you’d met a bad boy named Mako. He’d not been worth it.”

Her intruder smiled again. She could sense it like a wave washing over her. How could anyone learn so much about her? Did he know the name of every man she’d slept with? Not that she was promiscuous. Was that on record somewhere? She should probably get a copy of that.

“And you’re behind on your credit payment.”

“Not much!” she boomed. It was the designer dress. She could’ve saved for her retirement, but…it was the most beautiful dress in the worlds. They would love her wearing it in the homeless shelter, if this story didn’t work out.

“If you cooperate,” the deep, resonant voice offered, “I’ll see to it the credit balance is paid.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’re leaving, whether you’re cooperative or not. I guarantee you I’m big enough to take you without your approval.”

He probably was pretty big with a voice that deep. That eliminated any foolhardy hope of overcoming him physically. He was too quick—and invisible—for a surprise attack. She sat there for a moment, unsure what happened here. “Am I being bribed to vacate my sources? It must mean I’m close to my goal.”

“No.” The jeans flew from the floor into her lap, reminding her to dress. “It means you are far from your goal and wandering aimlessly through dangerous territory. You’ve arrived here on this planet a week ago, and already someone wants to kill you. There’s no story here, Faith, but your quiet death. Evil eyes watch you.”

He didn’t sound intent on hurting her. She’d take that as a good sign. She loved the smell of brandy and man he’d launched through the room. It seemed to flow between them like an energy exchange, warming her.

“That makes you my savior for relocating me. Why would you save me?”

A snicker rippled through the air from a different place than where she thought he stood. “I love beautiful women. And don’t like seeing them dead.”

“What are you, a cop?”

“I’m the Invisible Man.”