I was in sunlight, flying, and splashing into the pool. And I laughed because I was free.”
For a moment there was no sound, nothing but the soft rustling of the night wind. Then the hum of a distant train.
The woman turned the shovel upside down in her hands. She put the butt of the haft against the soil at her feet and pushed, rocking it back and forth, digging it in. Rime cleared his throat.
“Subject Eight? What are you doing?”
“Negotiating,” she said. She was intent on her work, focused now as she wriggled the haft deeper.
“We are not negotiating. I’ve given you your only two options.”
“You aren’t the one I’m negotiating with.”
The inverted shovel was a good foot into the earth now. She kicked dirt around the haft, building a little mound of black soil and loose rocks.
“You’re trapped,” she said. “Same as me. Down in the cold wet dark.”
She gripped the shovel, right under the dirt-clotted blade, and looked up. Not to Rime. She looked straight into the camera. It felt like she was locking eyes with Seelie, watching her through the screen.
“You’re going to die here,” she said.
Then her lips curled in a horrible desperate smile, she reared back, and she drove her face down onto the shovel’s steel edge.
Seelie squeezed her eyes shut just before the impact. She heard the crunch of breaking teeth and a wet, bloody gurgle. There were two more hits, each weaker than the last, then silence.
The shovel had turned the color of blackberries in the dark, syrup drooling down the haft. The woman’s corpse leaned into it, arms dangling limp, blade buried halfway into her shattered skull. Rime made a disappointed clucking sound with his tongue.
Rustling footsteps heralded a new arrival. The woman stood at the edge of the frame, cloaked in shadow. Not Leda Swan or one of her people; Seelie didn’t recognize this one from any of the company photographs she’d studied. Her fashion sense was savage but chic, with a ragged blond mane and dark smudges on her cheeks like graveyard rouge. She wore a tailored cream pantsuit with stitches popped at one shoulder, the hems of her bell-bottom slacks frayed and torn.
“Lost another one, huh?” she asked. “How many is that?”
Rime didn’t answer. The woman walked in a slow circle around the corpse, appraising it like a piece of art.
“Did the last one ever get out of the rubber room? At least this one had the gumption to finish the job good and proper.”
“I’m so glad you find this amusing,” Rime said.
A dark figure dashed in front of the camera. It was lean and loping, feral, silent. Gone in the blink of an eye.
“I’m supposed to get a courtesy call when you come onto my turf,” the woman said. “I’m starting to feel disrespected. You don’t want me to feel disrespected, poppet.”
There were more people in the cemetery. Distant forms lurking under the oaks, crouching behind tilted gravestones. Watching.
“My employer holds you in the highest esteem,” Rime said.
“And yet. She doesn’t come down here, doesn’t bargain with me face-to-face, doesn’t bring me tribute…” The woman jerked her thumb at the dead body. “We’re keeping this.”
“With my compliments. Enjoy.”
Rime stepped in front of the camera. It clicked as he slid it from the tripod mount, tilting it upward to capture his long, dour face.
“Subject Eight,” he said, “is a failure. Video log ends here.”
The screen went black.
29.
A flicker of lightning strobed across the darkened newsroom. The storm was dying now, a low and steady thrum against the frosted glass. Tyler was the first to disturb the silence.
“What the fuck did we just watch?”
Nell shook her head at the screen, slow.
“No idea,” she said. “But we’re going to find out.”
“We have to take this to the police.”
She swiveled in her chair and locked eyes with him.
“We have to break this story,” she said.
“Nell, this—” Tyler waved his hand at the laptop. “This is evidence of a crime.”
“He didn’t kill her.”
“These assholes drugged some poor woman on God knows what, probably weapons-grade hallucinogens, and held her at gunpoint until she went nuts and offed herself. That’s inducement to commit suicide. That’s a crime.”
“Did you see him give her anything? It’s not on the video.”
“You’re not going to tell me that woman wasn’t high,” Tyler said.
“I’m talking about evidence, Tyler. We know Dieter Rime is a multiple murderer, and we know he’s marching on Leda Swan’s orders, but we can’t prove it yet. Bring this video to the cops and even if