Fade to Black (9 page)

In a sense, she had become a caricature of herself. Her body had been blown up, filled out, reshaped, and pared down-all with precise surgical attention to every detail-until she resembled less the woman she had once been than a man's lustful fantasy. A holographic dream, a vision of fleshy carnal cravings. There were reasons why that had been done, good reasons, and reasons she more than accepted, but she could never quite get past the idea that all these cosmetic improvements demeaned her. It told others that she probably lacked the native intelligence to get what she wanted without resorting to the lure of her body, that she had probably gone to bed for everything she had ever achieved. Whether that was true or not hardly mattered. The message was clear. She saw it in people's eyes every day. Envy, resentment, contempt...

A significant sum of nuyen had been spent on her flesh. Practically every part of her body had been modified in some way. Her hair had become a veritable forest, lush and prodigious, tumbling over her shoulders and halfway down her back. Her eyes been given such a lavish growth of lashes they seemed unreal. Her lips, made voluptuous, permanently puckered. Her breasts easily large enough to equip a cow, perhaps two. Round and prominent. And the list went on and on. Even her skin had been changed, given a light golden tan that would never fade.

She could hardly move without being reminded of the changes, without some portion of her body making the differences plain. She supposed that, at heart, she would never be completely satisfied with it all. There was indeed such a thing as
too
voluptuous. Her shape, her figure, her entire
look
was rather outrageous.

The telecom bleeped.

Rather than fumble in the dark and risk bending one of her luxury-length fingernails, permanently implanted, she drew a breath, and said, "Telecom answer.... Yes."

The device bleeped again. A moment of quiet passed, then the voice of Ansell Surikov came from the speakers. "Darling?" he said. "Are you all right? The visual's off. You sound-"

"I'm fine," Farrah said lightly, interrupting. She smiled and made her voice soft and expressive. "I've just come out of the bath. I haven't any clothes on."

"Oh, I see," Ansell said, sounding amused.

"Will you be late tonight?" Farrah asked.

"A little while longer. I'm hoping you'll still be up when I get there."

"Aren't I always waiting when you come home?"

"Of course you are." Ansell chuckled. "You must think me a mad fool, darling."

"No more than I, darling."

Ansell said he would be home soon, then wished her good-bye and broke the connection. The telecom bleeped and switched itself off. Farrah lay there in the dark a few moments, gathering her will, her ambition, and energy, then she sat up slowly and shook back her hair.

"Lights."

The lights came on, the onyx lamps scattered around the room creating pinpoints of light that gradually swelled into a fuller illumination. Farrah rose and walked through the connecting door to her wardrobe. The mad fool who had called her on the telecom would be expecting a lush, sensual woman to meet him at the door. If instead he met a naked nymph, one with her proportions, he might have a coronary and drop dead at her feet. And that would be too infuriating to bear.

It still surprised her to consider how easily she had made the transition from mere wage slave to full-fledged corporate prostitute. That was such a dirty word and yet it fit so well. She found that she didn't care, didn't even mind the connotations. She'd grown up in the corporate environment. For the sake of economic reward, she'd traded practically everything she possessed to one corporate unit or other all her life. Now she had included her body as part of the arrangement. Simple as that. The recompense had been more than adequate, enough to turn any ordinary prostitute green and blue with envy. And if her current project worked out, she would have nothing to worry about for a long time to come.

The advance security team arrived to check the apartment for bugs and unauthorized personnel. That was standard procedure. Farrah merely verified that the three-member team had the right corporate affiliation before letting them through the door.

Ansell arrived ten minutes later. His personal escort remained behind in the hall.

Farrah smiled, now wrapped in a neo-monochrome gown of scarlet red glinting with a thousand points of light The gown emphasized every lavish curve of her figure, baring her arms and shoulders and a striking depth of cleavage. Ansell gazed at her for several long moments, then dispensed with his trench coat, tossing it onto a nearby settee with a grand sweep of his arm.

"You look
ravishing,
my dear," he said, smiling, stepping toward her.

Farrah waited till he laid a hand on her shoulder and leaned close for a kiss, then, from behind her back, she drew out a pair of crystal goblets and a bottle of Bordeaux Superieur, Chateau Haul Brion ...

Ansell hesitated, then lifted the bottle and looked at the label. "My dear," he said with a smile, "this is the twenty-nineteen. It's barely coming into its prime." Farrah inclined one finely drawn brow. "Live a little."

"Dare we?"

Faintly, Farrah nodded, and smiled.

It was the sort of extravagant gesture the man could not resist, Farrah knew. With a wild grin, he took the bottle of vintage wine in hand and declared passionately that,
yes!
they would break the seal this very evening.
At once!

His darling wife must not be denied. The impulse of the moment would be fulfilled. And one impulse led to others.

The living room glimmered with soft light. Ansell set about opening and decanting the wine. Farrah drew a voluptuous 20-centimeter Montecruz Individual cigar from the humidor behind the bar, clipped the end, then passed it unlit to Ansell.

"The best of the best," he softly declared.

"Only the beginning," Farrah replied.

"Yes," Ansell replied, smiling archly. "The beginning."

At the touch of one key, the entertainment console initialized a preprogrammed routine. The lighting dimmed. Laser light slowly waxed and waned, filling the room with brooding colors. Music arose, Arabic in flavor. Farrah stepped to the center of the room and began a dance, sinuous as a serpent, supple as warm, flowing honey.

As Ansell laughed and applauded, Farrah reached behind her neck and opened a clasp. His laughter soon changed to cries of delight, for he obviously knew what was to come. Farrah's gown gradually descended into wisps of fabric adorning the lush carpeting around her feet. She continued on, now clad only in the skimpy costume she had worn beneath the gown. In time, she discarded that, too.

The dance led inevitably to the bedroom.

Ansell moaned with pleasure.

9

The lock wasn't complicated. Raccoon's magic fingers reached inside with ease and found the critical element, a simple spring-loaded bolt. One flick and the bolt was open, the door unlocked. But there was more, an alarm, and something ... a sort of trap. Magic pervaded the frame around the door, not the door itself. Clever. It might have worked, too, if Raccoon weren't just as clever. Disabling the alarm took only moments. Neutralizing the clever spell that would ... what? Cause sleep. Cause anyone opening the door to fall asleep. Neutralizing that took a few minutes. A very clever spell, indeed. Yes, a spell worthy of Raccoon.

When finally the door swung open, Bandit paused, watching, listening, breathing deeply of the incense-laden air that came drifting into the alley. Nothing seemed amiss. It looked as though he'd defeated this clever combination of security. Very pleasing, very rewarding ... But, if his information was correct, the greater reward awaited him inside.

He stepped through the doorway, nearly silent on plastifoam-soled shoes, and into a room that looked much like any other room. The light-intensifying lenses of his mask showed him a small, crowded space divided into three aisles by tall shelf units, a large workbench, some cabinets, hundreds of various small containers, cartons, and boxes. A storeroom. To his astral perceptions, the place was dark, all but emotionless, dead. It was made of things that were lifeless: plastic, metal, and concrete. Substances torn from the earth and so deprived of life. If not for the radiant life energy flowing weakly through the doorway and the faint glimmer from a potted plant on the workbench, the place would have been pitch-black.

The light-gathering lenses of his mask let him scan the labels on the containers. He saw names like U.C.A.S. Fetish, New Magic, Arcane Instruments, Genuine Focii. Bandit recognized the names and knew that the corporations they named produced nothing of any value. He moved to the door on the other side of the room, slipping through it to enter the talismonger's storefront.

Here was life, glowing, radiating, from various points around the shop. Many of the display cases and shelves were filled with tourist trinkets from the boxes in the back room: drums and rattles, knives, wands, crystals, phony bones, plaster shells. Pretty ornaments to amuse the ignorant Baubles and toys for children or relatives somewhere in Duluth. Some of the talismans and potions and painted charms were very real, imbued with true power, shining with magical life, but none were of a quality or power that would interest one who followed Raccoon.

Bandit turned to the stairs, the old wooden stairs leading up from the side of the shop to the room on the second floor.

Here was the true hoard: old wooden tables and shelves and antique, glass-fronted cabinets all shining brightly with power. What they said-the derelicts and street urchins and burnt-out magicians he had overheard on street corners-all of it was true. Raccoon could spend many hours here examining the many glowing items, but that would be unwise. Bandit knew what he wanted, and it lay in plain sight, right on the table in front of him.

The Mask of Sassacus, said to confer great powers of influence and persuasion, perhaps bound up with special spells. Bandit hesitated even to touch it, but instinct and desire and the danger of discovery wouldn't let him hesitate for long. Cautiously, he lifted the mask in his fingertips, then held it up to his face to see what change that might make in his vision. He learned nothing for his trouble, but assensed great power. He could almost taste the power. He would carry this mask away and learn its secrets. That would tell him its value.

With great care, he slipped the ornate mask into a pouch slung from his belt. In its place, the spot left empty on the table, he put a small crystal dragon with glinting red eyes. Inside this decorative container was the powdered essence of the reproductive organs of a wyrd mantis, a giant Awakened insect of Europe.

The powder glowed with power, but it had no value to Bandit. His magic would be tainted by anything with the least connection to insects or insect totems. That did not mean that the powder had no value to anyone else. Some might find it a very valuable commodity indeed. Maybe not as valuable as the blood of a dragon, the feather of a phoenix, or the horn of a unicorn, but far more valuable than anything else in this shop. That made it a fair exchange, more than fair, for Raccoon had no need to leave anything. Thievery, as some called it, was part of Raccoon's nature.

The room suddenly filled with light, brilliant light, as from a spotlight. This came from the semi-transparent tubes crossing the ceiling. Bandit felt the light like fire. In one fluid movement, he crouched low to the floor and ducked under the nearest table.

Raccoon guided him well tonight.

Better to hide than to fight.

An old man entered the room. Bandit guessed it was an old man by the pair of spindly legs he espied through the legs of tables between him and the back of the room. He also saw a gun, an old-style revolver, gripped low in a gnarled hand.

"Who's there?" a weak voice rattled. "I know you're here ... Got past my ward ... Sneaky bastard ..."

Bandit pointed a finger and breathed a single word. From the direction in which he pointed came a muted bang and crash, followed by the quick-razor snarl of an alley cat.

"What's this?" the old man murmured. "That old trick. I ain't falling for it."

Bandit grinned. The old man must be a magician, and clever. Clever enough to have set the trap on the alley door. Indeed, as he had said, the cat in the alley illusion was an old, old trick. Raccoon used it often.

Most people fell for it.

"Somebody's monkeying around," the old man growled.

Nodding, smiling broadly, Bandit reached into his coat pockets, drew out his hands, then softly blew a long, deep breath at the old man, simultaneously extending and opening his hands.

"Huh?" the old man said, "Now what... another..." He stood unmoving for several moments, then yawned loudly. The spindly legs stumbled backward a few steps, slowly settled onto their knees. Finally, the old man came fully into view as he bent to the floor, lay down, and fell asleep.

In a few moments, he was snoring softly and steadily, his own kind of spell used against him.

Bandit returned to the narrow alley behind the shop. The night was dark and quiet, marked only by the voices of the night: the distant rumble of the subway, the passing of cars on nearby streets, the occasional calls of street vendors and the talk of passersby. Nothing seemed out of place.

A brief walk took him across High Street, through Nishuane Park, jammed with the stalls and booths of talismongers and occultists, to Harrison Avenue. He felt like getting some food.