Body Surfing

abandoned his hometown and melted into the larger world. Every seventy-five to a hundred years the trail would get hot again. There was persuasive evidence he’d spent time in France during the Revolution, in America during the Civil War, in Germany during the Holocaust. He liked judges, generals, camp directors—people who held the power of life and death over masses of individuals, rather than just one or two. For that reason it was impossible to pin down his body count, but even by the standards of the Mogran he was a vile specimen.
    By comparison, his recent behavior was low-key, almost lethargic. After leaving Singapore, he’d reemerged in Sydney, then Cape Town,Lagos, Fez. Fez is where he’d taken Soma. The fact that he was still in Soma’s body in Darfur was a good sign. Suggested the frenzy was winding down. Ileana had moved in quickly. For two weeks Malachi stayed one step ahead of her, but for whatever reason he hadn’t jumped, and now, finally, she had her chance.
    She opened her eyes, slipped a finger under Alec’s watch. Her pulse was a steady thirty-five beats per minute, her senses as sharp as if she’d awakened from a full night’s sleep. In a moment she’d changed from fatigues and tank top to wraparound skirt and spaghetti-strap top. The skirt reached past her knees, but it had a long seam that would allow for easy kicking should it come to that; the top was yellow, and had a tiny silk flower sewn between her breasts. Something to draw the demon’s eyes, keep them from hers. She put the boots back on though. They were a bit clunky perhaps, but the right had a sheath stitched inside it that held a five-inch stone blade. The knife was Aztecan, had once been used to cut beating hearts out of living victims. If all went well, she’d put it to its ancient use in a matter of minutes.
    She slipped her finger beneath Alec’s watch one last time. Not to check her pulse but to stroke the scar that transversed her wrist beneath its wide band. It was Alec who dragged her back to life after her own demon had shed her flesh like a butterfly abandoning its cocoon, and Alec’s memory that kept her going still. A wave of longing washed over her, of loss and love followed by hatred. She would make the Mogran pay. Malachi and every other one she could sink her blade into, until they were gone.
    All of them. Gone.
    Only then would she lose the taint her own demon had left beneath her skin fifteen years ago. Only then would she know peace.

6
    T he rain let up as the sun rose. Bands of steam hung in the hot, windless air. In short order Jasper shed both sweatshirt and T-shirt, but perspiration still rolled down his skin. But, though the teenager would’ve never admitted it (at least not to his dad), there was something pleasurable in his task, despite the repetitiveness and muscle ache. For Jasper, moving—action—playing— work —was a joy, whether it was climbing trees or playing baseball or that modern dance class he’d taken on a dare from Q. Even turning over a quarter acre of wet soil with a pitchfork. His body never failed to surprise him with the things it could do. Had never let him down either, as both the shelf full of trophies in the living room and the smoothly turned furrows of earth attested.
    Jasper worked patiently on the garden, distributed each heavy load evenly between shoulders and biceps, hamstrings and thighs. By lunchtime he’d fallen into a stabbing, hip-thrusting rhythm that had more than a touch of the sexual to it. God, he was horny. He was seventeen years old for fuck’s sake. Was it any wonder he’d ended up in that closet last night? And why wouldn’t Michaela put out? It’s not like he just wanted to use her or something. He loved her. Had already made a pact to go to the same college with her, share an apartment, desired nothing more than to make her breakfast and serve it to her in bed every day for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, Q. and Sila had beendoing it just about everywhere for the past year. On her bed. On his bed. On her parents’ bed. On his parents’ bed. Hell, they’d even done it on Jasper’s dad’s bed, while he and Michaela sat downstairs and tried to watch a DVD. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right . Of course, even less right was the idea that he might’ve finally had sex with her and been too drunk to remember. Or—the ultimate disaster—the idea that he’d had sex with someone else, and forgotten about it too.
    The garden was only