Murder By Space Part 2 J2 NC17

[candygramme]

I’ve got to say Danneel had really pulled out the stops. She’d worn the full, formal skin paint in blues and greens, and her breasts gleamed with a cunningly designed peacock feather design. She wore a gold belt slung low around her hips, with fine gold tissue that floated around her to form a full skirt. Her red hair was piled up on top of her head in artfully tousled curls, and her face was dusted with gold. I think Chad’s eyeballs counter rotated as he took her in.

He’s definitely a ladies man, and as she sauntered into the office in her 4 inch spiked sandals, I could see him straighten up. She smirked at me and then gave him her best fisheye stare. “Forget it, Chad. Not gonna happen,” she murmured.

Watching Chad slowly deflate is always fun. I could see that Jared was amused, too, because that beaming grin spread across his features like butter, and I could tell Danneel was affected. She actually wriggled.

He held out his hand in a courtly, olde worlde gesture and drew it to his lips with a slight bow, and I swear I heard her ovaries explode. I suspect that mine did too, which tells you a lot about how the dude affected me.

Introductions over, we all headed rimwards towards that buzzing den of iniquity that was the Holodeck. Jared and Danneel went in front of me, with Chad bringing up the rear. I could hear his thoughts plainly, despite the dose of Antipathy - or maybe I just knew what he would be thinking. I gave him a rueful grin. “She’s way out of your league, Murray, and she packs a vicious punch. Maybe you should reconsider hitting on her.”

“You spoil all my fun,” he grumbled. “A man has his needs.”

“If you hit on Danni, you won’t have any need for any needs if you know what I’m saying.” I wasn’t lying. Danni could get fierce very easily. “She’s been known to emasculate a guy that got too hot and heavy with her using just her eyebrow tweezers. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

Chad shuddered, and I elbowed him. “Cheer up, little soldier. There’s a girl out there for you somewhere.”

“That’s just it. I don’t want to confine myself to just one. That wouldn’t be fair to womankind, would it?” He spread his hands in a dismissive gesture and smiled a particularly sleazy smile. I shrugged. I could see why he’d learned martial arts. He needed defense against outraged womanhood.

The bouncer at the Holodeck was a man mountain I’d met once or twice before. He eyed me up as if I were something he’d stepped in, and I had to sigh. “Check the guest list,” I growled. “Chris Kane invited me.”

It took him several minutes to find my name on the single page on his iWire, and in fact it was only when the text was projected, and I could point it out to him that he finally moved his lard encrusted carcase to one side and allowed me to enter the sacred portals of the club.

Kane weren’t onstage yet, but they’d set everything up already, and as we strolled into the club I could see Christian sitting at the bar up on the VIP balcony with his musical guru, Steve. The two of them hollered at us to come over, so we picked our way through the crowd and ascended the stairs to join them.

Danneel instantly settled herself next to Steve, and left me to introduce Jared to them both. I looked around for Chad, but he was already gone, chatting up a cute little woman dressed in fishnets, a g-string, high heels and pasties and nothing else except a charming smile. She seemed to be coping, so, shrugging, I turned back to Chris and Jared.

Chris was just telling me that he had brought the printouts that I’d requested, when Jared suddenly stiffened and hissed out a breath. “That’s her,” he growled.

“Her?” Jared’s brain was agitated, and I wasn’t really getting anything coherent from it, but as I looked around the VIP lounge, I could see a little, dark haired woman talking animatedly to a couple of guys, both of whom looked old enough to be her grandfather at the very least.

She was striking rather than beautiful, but she had an air of confidence about her that told me she didn’t ever take no for an answer, and a set to her mouth that made me shiver. She’d kill; I knew the type.

Up here on the VIP balcony there was an auto-server, to preserve privacy for the VIPs. It was molded like a man - or at least its top half was, and spoke with a lack of intonation that betrayed its mechanistic origin. Nevertheless, Jared had been to the bar, and now he passed me a glass of something that glowed an acid green and had assorted vegetation floating in it. It was topped with a sparkly little umbrella thing, and when I sipped it dubiously it was a definite improvement on old Beaver’s rotgut. I smacked my lips and smiled at him.

“You like that, eh?” he asked, smirking.

“Yeah. My doctor told me to eat more vegetables,” I told him, and he threw back his head and laughed. As he did so, I caught sight of la Cortese over his shoulder, and it made me shiver. She had large, expressive eyes, and as she gazed over at where we were standing, the look in them was filled with such a venomous hostility that I felt my stomach roil uneasily. For a moment, I met that gaze, and then it was veiled, eyelids erasing it as though it had never been as one of her companions bent to say something to her.

I shook my head as if to clear it. I hadn’t needed to hear her thoughts to tune into the sheer malevolence that had been directed to us.

“She doesn’t like one of us very much, and since she doesn’t know me, my money’s on you,” I murmured. Jared frowned.

“Tell me something I didn’t already know,” he muttered. “I’m not biddable enough. She likes her pets to be obedient.”

At that moment, I saw her snap her fingers, and a slender redhead with a formal body paint almost as complex as Danneel’s came rushing over to her. After a muttered conversation, I watched the newcomer nod, touch her forehead and turn, making straight for where we were sitting.

“Don’t look now,” I murmured, but it was obvious that Jared had anticipated something, because he made a face and turned slowly to look over towards his wife.

“It’s Julie,” he murmured. “Gen’s enforcer. Don’t shake hands with her.”

There wasn’t time to ask him what he meant, because by that time, Julie the enforcer had reached us, and was drawing very favorable attention from Christian, who appeared to think that Christmas had arrived early, She pinned him in place with a look that reminded me of snakes and then turned to where Jared and I were awaiting what might transpire.

“Jared,” she said, inclining her head briefly. He gave her an equally frosty nod, and was about to say something, when she turned away from him, one smooth, painted shoulder shutting him out as if he didn’t matter. I have to admit she was a pretty thing, all slender lines and wild hair. Her body was painted as if she were a fire, reds and yellows blurring in a flicker of flame that licked up from her crimson mini-skirt to curl over white shoulders and lick up along her elegantly turned neck. It was all false advertising. She was cold. The thoughts that radiated from her when I tuned into her wavelength were as icy as any snake, and the eyes she fixed upon mine above the pleasant, polite smile she wore were dead, dead, dead.

I tried to read her, but all there was, was duty. She didn’t hate, but she would kill, and then she would walk away without any qualms at all. I gave her patronizing smile number two - the one with the faint astonishment conveyed by brows just faintly raised, and felt the surge of cold fury in response. She smiled even wider. “Miss Curtis extends her compliments,” she said in a husky contralto. “She wonders if she might beg a moment of your time.”

“I’d be honored,” I replied, rising to my feet and bowing to la Cortese. “If you’ll present my compliments, I will be over in just a moment.”

She nodded again and turned on one elegantly spiked heel to return to her mistress. Jared was half out of his seat, and I pressed him back down. “Relax, dude. She’s not going to try anything in this crowd. It would all be way too public for her. Let me go talk to her and see if I can get anything from her thoughts. That antipathy is awesome stuff. It lets through anything I aim for without the general racket that usually makes it impossible to hear the important items.”

I could hear Jared’s mind loud and clear, and it was sweet. The man was worried about me, and I wanted to kiss him for it. Hell, there were a whole bunch of reasons why I wanted to kiss him, and most of them were nothing to do with him being worried about my upcoming conversation with his (almost) ex. He nodded. “Yeah, okay. Just be careful, and don’t let Julie touch you. She’s poisonous.”

He wasn’t joking. Every thought in his head radiated sincerity. I nodded. “I get it. She’s dangerous.” I fished out an olive from the green thing he’d given me and ate it with relish. God, I love olives, especially soaked in high grade veridium and gin. “I’ll be just a minute, but I’ll probably need more of this awesome fruit salad to recover. Is that on the cards?”

The grin he gave me was a little shaky, but it told me that he understood what I was telling him. He got up and made for the bar, and I swallowed, took a deep breath and went to confront suspect number one.

Genevieve Padalecki-Cortese was laughing with her two male companions when I arrived at the booth that she had decided would be her HQ. As I stepped up to it, I felt the unmistakable tingle of a scanner ray, and I smirked. I didn’t need a gun in a place like this. I had Chad. Where was Chad, anyway?

Her body paint was stark black and white, zebra stripes across her torso and over her breasts to end on milk-white shoulders. She fixed me with brilliant eyes, and as I sifted through her thoughts I almost thought she could read me in return, so focused was her stare.

“I suppose you’re one of his fuck toys,” she said. She was about to say more, but I pre-empted that.

“No, ma’am,” I replied. “I’m the hired help.” I like to tell the truth and shame the devil. Sue me. I wanted to be a fuck-toy, but so far I remained spotlessly unfucked.

Her brows drew together in a frown, and I caught a thought that made me ponder. This woman loved her husband, if the thoughts I’d just captured were accurate. She was insecure, and thought that Jared was doing her wrong. That was something I hadn’t bargained for.

“I don’t understand,” she said, waving me to take a seat beside her.

“It’s quite simple, Ms, Cor...”

“For fuck’s sake, call me Genevieve,” she snapped.

I blinked. “Okay, Genevieve,” I said, waiting to see if I would be withered on the spot by some lightning bolt that was designed to destroy the improperly reverent. It didn’t come, I drew in a deep breath, uttered a prayer to holy Jim Rockford, the god of Private Eyes everywhere. “I’m a detective, and Jared just hired me today to try and find out who’s trying to kill him.”

The shock she radiated could have been nothing but genuine. She bit her lip for a moment and then beckoned her two earlier companions to come and join us.

“This is Christopher,” she said as she indicated the lantern jawed individual who had just taken his seat beside me. “I’d count it a blessing if you’d let him read you.”

I nodded. I had nothing to hide.... yet, murmured the evil part of me that was hoping to sample Jared’s more esoteric skills. Christopher leaned in and pressed clammy fingers to my forehead.

I swear, I could’ve told Christopher anything I wanted. All I had to do was lay my thoughts out in a straight line for him to pick through, and I could’ve been plotting to rule the world, but he’d never have caught it. As telepaths go he was a piss-poor specimen. The second guy, Matthew, was different. For a start, he was exactly my type. He was tall, dark and handsome, with the 1950’s movie starlet looks made popular by such clean cut characters as Paul Newman, Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. If I hadn’t already fallen for Jared, I’d be trying to mean more to Matt, believe me. I wasn’t sure what Matt’s particular talent might be. I felt nothing as he stared at me. Still, I felt relief when he turned and nodded to Genevieve.

“He’s clean, boss,” he murmured. I smiled at him, wondering what he’d done to determine that.

“Maybe I could get your number,” I husked. Well, it couldn’t hurt, could it? The least benefit would be an eye on the other camp, although I was beginning to suspect that in this case the other camp was going to turn out to be a false lead.

I didn’t miss the nod that Genevieve gave Matt before he reached to program his call signal onto my Com-Ident. I gave him seductive, come-hither glance number 12, and was pleased to note that it hadn’t failed. The man was radiating rather kinky love signals. Christopher was moving away, and I almost sent him a message to soothe him - almost but not quite. I was really more interested in Jared’s problems right now, and Christopher’s lack of any real telepathic skills meant that sifting through his thoughts probably wouldn’t reveal any clues I couldn’t scoop firsthand.

Genevieve cleared her throat, and Matt backed away, taking his exceptionally vivid imagination with him. I turned to her, and clearly caught worry for her husband uppermost in her mind. “You said that someone is trying to kill Jared?” she said.

I nodded. “To tell the truth, I thought it might be you.”

Her eyes widened, and then she shrugged. “But now...?”

“But now, I don’t actually know. I’m going to have to do a little more sleuthing.”

She gave me a faint smile. “If you need any help, my people are at your service,” she said. “Just tell Matthew what you need.” With a nod, I was dismissed, and she turned away to murmur something to Julie.

Returning to Jared, I saw that he’d lined up another of the green frothy things for me. I could get used to living la vida loca. Steve had gone off somewhere, and Chris was getting ready to leave too, which meant that they would be on the stage pretty soon.

I grabbed Danni’s hand as she made to follow Chris and wagged a finger at her. “Now now, sweetie pie. Let the nice man go play his concert. There’ll be plenty left for you after the gig.” She gave me the kind of look that would have withered a lesser being, and reached for my drink, snagging a piece of cucumber out of it. “Hey! Get your own salad,” I snapped, and she laughed as she reached for something else.

Jared saved the day, bringing us both another round, and I smiled my thanks. “I think I’m going to have to keep you,” I murmured. He grinned at me, and was about to respond when everything seemed to happen at once.

There was a shout from the corner where Genevieve had taken up residence, and as we turned to see what might be happening, I saw her slump forward and then topple to the side to rag doll it down to the tiles. The emcee chose exactly the same time to come out and announce Kane, and there was enthusiastic applause that masked the sounds that were happening up here in the VIP lounge.

A bunch of things happened at once. Jared and I both jumped to our feet and made for his fallen wife. Matt, the enigmatic psychic who had cleared me from any ill intent earlier got Jared in a choke hold, and Christopher pointed a very sleek stunner at him. Of Julie I could see no sign, and it was as if she’d melted into the shadow like smoke.

I knelt beside Genevieve and felt for her pulse. It was there, faint and thready, and as I touched her I could hear her thoughts, full of regret, full of wishful dreams about what she could have had, full of love for Jared. As I knelt beside her, I felt her die. It was not fun.

Danneel, who had watched the events unfold with apparent fascination, rose to her feet and sauntered toward Christopher. “I can’t help noticing that you’re holding a gun on my friend,” she murmured. “Is that really necessary?”

“It’s okay; he’s clean.” Matt stepped away from Jared, and dusted his hands together. Christopher, who had not even glanced in Danneel’s direction, lowered his weapon and smiled at her apologetically.

“Just doing my job, protecting Miss Genevieve from getting hurt,” he said, darting a worried look over at Genevieve. I thought it was time to let them all know exactly what had transpired. I hate being the center of attention; I don’t do it well, but this was a line I could deliver perfectly. I’d seen Star Trek, after all.”

“It’s worse than that, she’s dead, Jim,” I said, brightly, and rose to my feet.

They stood around, gaping at me, all four of them, as though they hadn’t quite processed my words. Jared looked stunned, and I felt a little sorry for him. The two of them had been estranged, but it was obvious that they’d actually cared for each other in a strange way. “Her last thoughts were of you,” I told him, and he blinked away a tear. I could hear his thoughts, and he was trying to make sense out of what had just happened.

“She wasn’t the one who was trying to kill me?” he asked, his brow furrowed and his nose pink with emotion.

“Doesn’t look that way,” I agreed. It had been an awesome theory, but it seemed to be shot now. Ah, well, story of my life. “So we have to assume that whoever is after you might have had it in for your wife too.”

Christopher had been calling someone while we were talking, and the paramedics had appeared, taking over from Matt’s ministrations. Genevieve was officially pronounced dead and removed discreetly from the club as Christian and his bandmates continued to play on, all unsuspecting. Matt and Christopher had left alongside their fallen employer, and as I watched them go, my mind was racing. If not Genevieve, then who was behind the attempts on Jared’s life? I turned to him.

“Okay, so who else might want you dead? It’s got to be someone who wants you both out of the way.” I was stumped. This whole thing was bizarre, and it seemed that Jared was now in as much, if not more danger than before.

“I think there’s a question you need to ask yourself sooner.” Danni was inviting herself into the tete a tete, apparently, and as we both looked at her, our mouths open in equally baffled expressions, she smirked. “How did la Cortese die? We were all watching her. I didn’t see anything. Did you?”

That was true. Damn! I hate when a woman is right, She gets all uppity and thinks she deserves praise. Fortunately, Jared was feeling up to providing it. “You’re right. And where’s Julie?”

That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. I’d probed her, and it had been like attempting to read an automaton. It was as if she’d been programmed to carry out instructions, and that was all there was. I turned back to Jared.

“When you told me not to shake hands with her, what exactly did you mean?” I asked him.

Jared grinned. “Julie’s a Xenobian. She’s indentured herself for the duration of her contract, and her mind is locked down so that she can give total allegiance to her employer. She’s been trained as an assassin, and her fingernails are poisoned. If you gave her an opportunity to touch you, and you were on her hit list, there wouldn’t have been anything that could save you.”

I made a mental note to look up Xenobians when I got back to the office. I hate to admit it, but I’d never heard of them. I looked blankly at Jared, but he’d already sensed my confusion. “I’ll tell you about them when we’re out of here. Danni’s right, though.”

Rub it in, I thought as Danni preened beside me. I would have said something, but just at that moment, Chris called me onstage. I looked around for Chad, and found him making nice to the bartender, who was, if I may say so, exceptionally well built in the bosom department. “Chad, you’re on bodyguard duty,” I called to him, and at his nod I went to face my adoring public.

***

Down on the stage Kane was sweating, his shock of hair flying as he stomped his way through a rendition of “Spirit Boy.” His other half, Steve, was lost in the music, eyes shut, rocking out as usual, and the audience was watching them instead of talking, always a good sign. I could sense the positive thoughts as I made my way through to the stage, the Antipathy giving me the barriers I needed to hear without being deafened. It was almost entirely positive, except for something so faint that I couldn’t quite get a fix on it.

I frowned as I reached the stairs and climbed up onto the stage, pausing to high-five Jason as I passed him to head towards Kane. I don’t like performing in public, but a deal is a deal, and I really, really wanted the information that Christian had for me - now even more than before, since Genevieve was out of the picture,

Chris had just finished his war dance. He greeted me with a smirk and stepped up to the mike again. “Tonight, Kane is proud to present a rare treat for you all.” I frowned at him. He was going to introduce me instead of letting me just take my place at the mike. That was so not what I’d signed up for. He knew it too, the rat bastard. He gave me a bland smirk that told me he knew exactly what effect he was having. “This here’s Jensen, and he’s going to sing for you now.”

“You’re up for “Sweet Home Alabama”, murmured Steve as he brought a guitar over to me. At least it was a song I knew, so I nodded and stepped up to the mike. I didn’t try to talk to them. I don’t do that shit; I’m just not that guy, and Chris knows it. As Steve hit a chord I began to sing the old song and tried to swallow down the stage-fright that always gets to me. Usually, once I get into it, the nerves leave me, and I can get down with the music and boogie, but somehow, this time, there was that tiny undercurrent of malice that unsettled me. I struggled through the song, searching the audience for the ones that might be responsible, and at first I could find nobody. Each fresh mind I scrutinized seemed to radiate the kind of euphoria a really good gig induces, and I was almost at the end of the song before I finally saw her - or should I say them.

I’ve seen them around - who on Bel Air hasn’t? - but I’ve never really paid much attention to them. They always struck me as being the kind of bland clothes horses that the popular press reveres. Skinny and blonde, make-up expertly applied, the Olson twins gazed up at the balcony to where Jared was hanging over it watching the show. Their eyes were remote and hostile, and despite the sugar pink taffeta and tulle they wore they looked feral. Once I’d spotted them, it was hard to look away. I could hear enough of what they were thinking to know that they, too, could converse telepathically, and that piqued my interest. I made a note to do some research on them and also to find out just what there was about Jared that was holding their interest to such an extent.

The set came to an end, and there was applause. I even found that there were girls trying to attract my attention, and I sent out a mental plea for help to Danni to come defend me from them. She had been standing behind Jared on the balcony, and as I called, the two of them descended the stairs to come and rescue me.

As we made our way through the crowd and back towards the dressing rooms, I caught a single thought from one of the sisters, and it made me sweat. It was, “I’ve got a list of things we can do to her, once she’s served her purpose.” I wasn’t at all sure who the unfortunate subject of that thought might be, but I was sure that it would be worth finding out.

Back in the dressing room, Chris fumbled in his guitar case and handed me the spool of wire that contained the info he’d promised. Steve passed out beers to us all and sat down to continue playing.

“You really need to join us up there regularly.” Jason was packing his equipment away, tucking his prized antique electric guitar into its cocoon of synthosilk wadding. “It adds a whole dimension to the sound.”

“S’what I’m always telling him.” Chris had taken off his shirt and was tying his hair back out of his eyes. “Was a good night tonight.”

“Where’s Chad?” I asked Jared. I was going to kick Chad’s ass, He was supposed to be protecting Jared, and it looked as if he’d pissed off with the first showgirl that he’d come across. I sighed. You just can’t get the help these days.

“”He was up on the balcony with us, but he didn’t follow us down the stairs.” Danni was frowning, her thoughts disorganized as she tried to work through events and recall what had happened. There was something... I could tell she’d seen something, but she wasn’t really convinced that it would be important, and as I started to dig for it I could feel it fade. She put her hand on my arm, obviously thinking hard as she tried to recall events. “We didn’t see where Julie went, did we?”

Jared gave a curse at that, and made for the stairs, and I followed him, worried about security and calling Chad names under my breath.

Jared has incredibly long legs, and he took the stairs three at a time, going up the damned things like a monkey up a stick. I hissed, “Fuck!” and galloped after him. I hadn’t quite succeeded in reaching the top when he staggered back and nearly sat on my face. For a cold and dreadful moment, I thought that something had killed him, but then he grabbed for the edge of the balcony, leaving me flailing as I attempted to regain my balance.

I didn’t fall to my death, fortunately, and, when I finally reached the top of the stairs, I saw what had startled Jared enough to cause his stumble. No Chad was visible, but on the ground beside the bar lay Julie, the Xenobian. Her red hair was spread around her like a cloak, and her hands were folded together across her breast around the feathered dart that had pierced it. Jared was gazing at her in horror, and I dropped to my knees beside her to feel for a pulse.

“Is she...?” He’d turned pale, and looked terribly shaken. I nodded. He didn’t need to add the rest of the words. There was no need to complete the sentence. Julie’s true personality was lost forever, along with Julie herself. She would never return home to enjoy the earnings she’d accrued. In a way it was just, since she’d failed to protect her employer, but it was still sad.

I reached for my Com-ident and called for the local cops, letting them know that they had another stiff on their hands and then made for the bar. The auto-server smiled brightly and asked me what I’d have, and I bit my lip. There would be no help from it unless - a thought occurred to me, and I reached over the bar to fumble at the robot’s shoulder, feeling for the release catch to open the thing’s front. It paused in mid speech as the chest cavity popped open and revealed the spool on which the visuals of the evening were recorded. I popped it out and closed its chest.

“What’ll you have?” it asked, chirpily, as I walked away. I didn’t think a club this up-market stocked Old Beaver.

“Come on.” I beckoned to Jared and Danni, who were still hovering beside Julie’s body. “I want to play this through. It might tell me what’s happened to Chad.”

He was nowhere on the balcony. A quick scout around failed to reveal any more corpses, and, since we knew that he hadn’t come down the stairs, we knew that he must have gone out of the service door at the back of the bar. There was no reason to stay, especially since the law would soon be on site making things complicated, so without further ado we pushed open that door and headed down the stairs.

It wasn’t much longer before we found out what had happened to Chad. As we descended the stairs we heard his voice, yelling for help, and as I rushed to the janitor’s cupboard at the foot of the stairs to let him out, I could hear his thoughts cussing up a blue streak.

“What kept you?” he demanded, once I’d picked the lock and gotten the door open. Jared and Danni were both laughing so hard at his predicament that it was hard to hear myself think, let alone that idiot, Chad. He was red faced and sweaty, and somewhat outraged. It seemed that the cocktail waitress he’d been macking on had gotten fed up with his persistence and bundled him in there, locking him in and leaving him to cool his ardor rather than having him thrown out. I shook my head and snickered at him while he spluttered. He would never change.

“Dude, you’re supposed to be protecting Jared. Do you even know what’s happened since we got here?” I spoke sharply, and he shrugged. “You sang; so what?” He sounded unconcerned, but I could see his thoughts and knew just exactly how ashamed he was. Concerned for Jared, I didn’t press the point any further, just led the way out of the club and back to the office to regroup and look at the records Chris had given me. One thing was for sure, Genevieve was out of the picture now, and what the auto server had seen would very likely be far more useful information,

Back at the office, I ordered in take-out from Luigi Chang across the hall, and watched Jared go from suspicion to ecstasy at the mix of flavors Luigi builds into his menu. Danni had excused herself and gone back to Minor, after receiving a call on her com-ident, and that left the three of us to do some plotting. Frankly, I had no idea who was threatening Jared, and I felt a little vulnerable, because I was getting to kinda like him.

I fed the wire from the auto-server into the processor on the wall and the two of us settled on the couch to watch. Chad was patrolling the corridor to guard against potential assassins, and I trusted him to do his job efficiently. The guilt was still sitting on him like a thundercloud.

The screen flickered to life. This one was a fairly advanced auto-server, and there was sound as well as vision. It was fascinating to watch through its eyes as we ascended the stairs and came into its purview. I saw Jared step up to the bar and order the drinks. I watched as the robot added cucumber and grapes, strawberry and lime to the goblets it had poured and saw Genevieve and her party in the background as Julie came over to summon me for my audience.

I saw myself wander over to be given the third degree by Ms. Cortese and her associates and return to Jared again, then watched as Chad wandered away with the diminutive brunette he’d been hitting on. The good stuff was coming. I prayed that the heroic robo-bartender wouldn’t look away at the important part, and, bless his cogs and wires, he didn’t.

Julie had faded into the background and stood over towards the corner of the room. It was Matt who stepped forward to bend low and whisper something in Genevieve’s ear. I saw her frown and look up at him, and he suddenly turned his head as if listening. Watching avidly, I saw Danneel cross to him, and handed something, and then Matt nodded, bent and put his hand on Genevieve’s shoulder. That was when she convulsed and died.

On to Part 3