Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [58]
He wasn’t risk-adverse. Far from it: he’d built the company his grandfather had started into a multinational empire. All by taking risks. Calculated, considered risks. Having a madman running about with his protections—bought and paid for, thrice over! It was not acceptable. He would not rest until it was returned.
Because now, when he closed his eyes, nightmares crept in. No, he thought, banishing the idea of exhaustion. Better to stay awake. Stay on top. Stay in control.
“Stop making excuses. There’s no way they can make any profit with a bid that low. What are they really getting out of this? Well, find out! What the hell do I pay you for, if you don’t know shit?”
He flipped the cell shut, then reconsidered, opening it again and jabbing a button. “Wilkinson. Keep an eye on him. If he screws up, by so much as an inch, remove him. Rawkey. Yeah, Rawkey’s due a promotion. See to it.”
Satisfied, he placed the phone down on a hand-in-laid mosaic table, and strode over to the glassed-in walls. The city was spread out below him, like candies on a plate. If he wanted it, it was his. But he didn’t want it. Let lesser men claim land, buildings, things. He wanted…more.
Behind him there was a noise, a faint, almost kittenlike sound. Frants turned to consider the body sprawled in the off-white sheets. An observer might think she slept peacefully, but Frants noted the sweat on her skin, the faint twitch of her limbs, and smiled in satisfaction.
He wasn’t a cruel man. He didn’t mistreat his toys. He simply preferred them…compliant.
And he had plans for Denise, as soon as the time was right. When he had everything in place. Plans far beyond the minor amusement she gave him in bed. A good corporate soldier, Denise would fulfill the vow she took when she accepted the terms of employment, and truly give her all for the company. For him.
Smiling at the thought, he turned back to watch the city slowly come back to life.
It was a dream, only a dream. More, a memory she was dreaming. Old, dead, harmless. Knowing that didn’t make it any easier….
The lab room was empty, the only light the afternoon sun slanting in through the second-floor windows. Behind her, down the hallway, Wren could hear the sound of the girls’ soccer team running wind sprints in the nearest stairwell, the heavy fire door propped open. The noise of their sneakers, the heavy breathing and occasional yell or catcall or burst of laughter could have come from another planet.
She took another step forward, could feel the change in air pressure, still standing in the hallway. Like walking into a sauna, the heaviness of it repelled her, made her want to back away and never come back. Like a horror movie, only it was all around her, not flat, on a screen. Nervously she chewed on the nail of her middle finger, tugging at the cuticle. Danger, it whispered. Every prickle on her skin urged her to back away. Leave the building; hide, stay low, stay unseen. She had survived for so long, being unseen. Fading into the woodwork. Letting predators—of which there were too many, in high school—look for more obvious prey.
“Mr. Ebenezer?” The voice that came out of her throat was faint, hesitant, squeaky.
She knew he was there. She could feel him, even through that heavy air, the gentle hum in the currents that identified John Ebenezer to her as vividly as sight or sound. Magic, like everything else, left its mark in the environment.
Sometimes, she thought, the mark went too deep. It caught you unawares, tugged you from the shadows, made you think there was something better…and then slapped you for assuming too much.
Closing her eyes, Wren braced herself, counting backward from ten to settle her emotions. Never go into anything half-cocked, she could hear her mentor say. Think before you charge.
When her pulse beat with the same tempo as the currents in the air around her, she opened her eyes. Her slender, pale face was set in determined lines new to her, a decade too early.
Resolved, she walked steadily into the heaviness, into the classroom