Body Surfing

accident itself, was the Mogran’s work. But what he didn’t know was that it could also, with the proper training, be turned against the demon. But such things were beyond the psychiatrist’s purview. For this, he would have to call for assistance.
    He opened an inlaid cigar box, revealing a phone nestled inside its tobacco-scented interior. The phone was as high tech as the computer, had space in its memory for a thousand contacts. But this number existed only in the doctor’s mind. There was a series of electronic beeps and clicks as the call was rerouted a half dozen times, until finally a line rang in who knew what city on who knew what continent. Thomas wasn’t sure what he expected a hunter to sound like, but he was surprised by the groggy, somewhat grumpy female voice that muttered an indistinct harrumph . Apparently he had woken her up.
    “H-huntress?” The word sounded anachronistic and slightly silly, even to a man as besotted with apocrypha as J.D. Thomas. “This is…this is Legion.”
    Dr. Thomas could hear the woman snap into focus.
    “Do you have a target?”
    The woman spoke English in a curiously flat manner—not like a native but like someone who understood what she was saying, though she had never actually learned it. Q. had spoken a few Russian words in exactly the same manner, and the doctor knew that this, too, was the Mogran’s doing. The Mogran’s legacy.
    “Are you there?”
    The woman’s voice was sharp, and Thomas nodded contritely, even though she couldn’t see him.
    “No target yet. But the Mogran. It—it’s Leo.”
    A sharp intake of air greeted these words. Not a gasp but a sniff, like a wolf scenting for prey.
    “Where?”
    “Upstate New York. But you might want to meet me in the city. There’s a boy. I think—he might be a new hunter.”
    For the first time uncertainty came over the line, silent but palpable. Then: “I’ll be there in twenty-four hours. Try not to get him killed before then.”
    “But how will you—”
    The doctor stopped when he realized the connection had been severed. He set the phone back on the cradle, closed the cigar box. This was a huntress, after all. She would know how to find him. The only uncertainty, as she’d indicated, was whether Q. would still be alive when she showed up. The doctor stared at the boy in the garden. For the next twenty-four hours, Q.’s fate lay in his trembling hands.

12
    M ason West lived in a long squared-off cylinder with a rotted wooden porch and a yard that grew more trash than grass. It took Jasper five minutes of sifting through beer cans, bottles, Solo cups and takeout containers in Edwin’s rattletrap Miata to find Jarhead’s cell—only to discover the battery was dead. Reluctantly, he headed inside for the charger.
    The first thing he heard when he opened the front door was a teeth-grinding moan coming from the bedroom.
    “What’s your rush, baby?” a woman’s voice said. “Slow down, we got all night.”
    “I’ll fuck you through the goddamn wall, yeah, I’ll fuck—” The words devolved into a trailer-rattling grunt.
    How ’bout that? Edwin’s roommate had been missing for two days, but did he worry about where his friend might be? Nope. He took advantage of Jarhead’s absence to fuck on something more comfortable than the couch.
    Jasper was mesmerized by the sounds coming from his host’s bedroom. The smells. The unmistakable aroma of sex, a little tangy, a little rancid. An overwhelming need for release coupled with his host’s physical urges, and by the time Edwin’s companion emerged from the bedroom in a T-shirt and panties, Jasper was swaying back and forth like a cobra transfixed by a lute.
    “Sandra.”
    The word surprised Jasper—not the name, which he’d known instantly, but the fact that he’d said it aloud. Apparently his control wasn’t quite as total as he’d thought.
    Edwin’s on-again, off-again girlfriend started, then shrugged. It wasn’t the first time her deadbeat boyfriend’s roommate had seen her in her underwear. She walked to her purse, fished out a pack of cigarettes. She jerked her thumb toward the bedroom.
    “Sorry ’bout that. Eddie said you weren’t around. We’ll change the sheets.”
    Jasper stood there swaying, stunned by the primacy of his feelings. His need. The way it linked up with Jarhead’s feelings about Sandra, running around his trailer with her ass hanging out. She was practically asking for it. Really, he’d just be