Body Surfing

when Jasper looked at him blankly.
    “I didn’t come? I didn’t come ? Forgive me for being a bit overwhelmed by the experience, but I’d died about two hours before. Orgasm wasn’t exactly my highest priority. Jesus Christ. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this?”
    “Well, good golly. I knew you were a virgin but I figured you at least understood the basic principle of the sex act. But for the record, orgasm is key. I’ll be sure to spell everything out for you this time.”
    “This time?”
    “Yeah, Jasper. You want out, don’t you? Out of Jarhead? Out of here?” He waved a hand at the cars and houses passing by the ambulance’s windows. “Like I said, Leo’s here to help.”

22
    W e need to go now ,” the woman said impatiently.
    “Huntress,” the doctor called from the kitchen.
    “There is nowhere to go. We don’t even know where Leo is.”
    “We know he’s not in this living room.”
    From its perch over the fireplace, the sad-faced Harlequin in the Toulouse-Lautrec painting looked down at the gray-eyed woman pacing back and forth. She had a miraculous body. It wasn’t so much sexy as strong. Sinewy, but not stringy like a professional athlete’s. Kinetic. Efficient. Dangerous . Well, Q. admitted to himself, maybe it was sexy. Just a little bit.
    “I’m afraid that doesn’t narrow it down much. I don’t know how you take your tea,” the doctor added, emerging from the kitchen with a silver tray on which sat an ornate silver pot and three delicate white cups, “so I’ve brought milk and lemon. And sugar. Lapsang souchong. I’ve heard Winston Churchill took his with Scotch, which I can get if you’d like.”
    The shotgun sat on the coffee table, and the doctor nudged it out of the way so he could set the tray down.
    The woman rolled her eyes and turned to Q.
    “You are the boy?”
    Q. blinked. “What?”
    “The boy. The one the doctor thinks can be the new hunter.”
    Q. flashed a look at Dr. Thomas.
    “It just needs to steep a moment more.” He sat down next to the woman. “This is Mohammed Qusay, huntress. His friends call him Q.”
    “I don’t want to be his friend. I want to know if he can help me, either as an assistant or as bait.”
    “Bait?”
    “Pardon me, huntress.” The doctor cut himself off. “It feels odd to keep referring to you that way. Might I ask your name?”
    The woman glared at him, and the doctor shrank into his jacket. “You can call me Lana.”
    “Thank you, Lana. As I was saying, I haven’t had the chance to tell Q. quite what it is we do.”
    “What we do? You presume much, Thomas.”
    Q. looked back and forth between the two members of the Legion.
    “You told me you track down demons.”
    “Is that what he told you?” Lana’s eyebrows shot up. “We do more than track them down. You didn’t think the good doctor was just trying to frighten Leo with a pair of shotgun blasts, did you?”
    Q. turned to the doctor. “You want me to help you kill them? But they’re in people . Wouldn’t you have to—” Q. recoiled. “Jesus Christ!”
    Lana peered at Q. After a moment, she stood up. “I have to leave. The boy is obviously useless.”
    “Now look—” Q. sputtered.
    “No, you look. The Mogran care about neither your indecision nor your confusion. They do not pause to ascertain whether someone is friend or foe or innocent bystander. They act without hesitation and without mercy, and if you hope to survive the hunt, let alone be successful in it, you must do the same.”
    Q. turned to the doctor. “What the hell is she—”
    Without warning, Lana leapt across the table. A stone knife had materialized in her hand and pressed into his chest.
    “Do not look to him for help. He is not one of us.”
    Lana’s breath was wet on Q.’s face, seemed to have the smell of meat on it. He could feel the tip of her blade as well. She gave the knife a little push, and Q. felt it pierce his skin. Felt the blood begin to well up around the blade, then soak into the fabric of his shirt.
    “Huntress,” J.D. Thomas said hoarsely. “Please.”
    The woman had aligned the knife perfectly between two ribs, just over Q.’s heart. It seemed that with each expansion his right ventricle pushed against the knife’s tip. And then something funny happened: Q. saw his heart. He didn’t feel it: he saw it, floating in the ribcage, held in place by connective tissue, a complex of veins and arteries leading into and out of it. A moment later he’d