Phantom Prey

mean, if you read the papers, I guess her house was full of blood, and they know it was hers, so . . . I assume she’s dead.”
    “How well did you know her?”
    “I’d see her around. She was like us, you know, gothic. I’d say hello. We went over to her apartment one time, a bunch of us, got some pizza and played some games.”
    “God. So you really knew her.”
    “Yeah, I guess.” He shrugged.
    She made her move, moving another inch closer to him. “How do you think she died? The girl? Any idea?”
    “What?”
    “Frances Austin. Have you heard anything? Rumors, or . . . Somebody’s got to know. These people are still out there. With two Goths dead . . . I mean, you probably know the killers yourself.”
    The ambient light came from the condos, a bar, a couple of streetlights, the cars on the bridge; not much, but enough to see his eyes widen. He stepped back from her. “You know, they say Dick . . .”
    “Dick . . . ?”
    “Dick was talking to a fairy Goth before he was killed.”
    “A fairy Goth?”
    “You know . . .” He smiled, defensive, glanced back toward the bar. “Like you.”
    “Me.”
    “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “But you know . . . was it you?”
    She let her shoulders slump and she looked up at him, her smile gone and she said, “You’re asking me . . .”
    “You know, just because you seem interested in the murders . . .”
    “Is she dead? Or alive?”
    “For God’s sakes, how would I know?” There was a note of irritation in his voice now, and maybe fear. He was thinking about her, about how close she was, about how the darkness was almost palpable. Running, screaming, wouldn’t be manly, would it? And if she was innocent, he was blowing a shot at the highest-quality pussy ever to step out with him. . . . He looked down at her, saw something in her eyes; and she saw him seeing it.
    She sighed and said, “Uh-oh,” and slipped her hand into her coat and felt the dry wooden handle on the knife.
    “What?” he asked. He was looking around again, but they were alone. “Maybe we should go . . .”
    The knife slipped in so easily. Soft and easy, like it’d slip into the breast meat of a roasted chicken, just out of the oven. She looked up at his eyes, now wider, feeling it, not sure what it was.
    She had the handle in one hand, the other hand supporting the first, and she ripped him and he went “Ah!” and tried to run, his legs going all wobbly. He banged into a bench and went over it, and down. She stepped up next to him, knelt, and wiped the knife on his shirt. Sat and watched. He never looked at her, his eyelids simply batted for a while and then stopped.
    He was gone.
    She stood up, put the knife back into the jacket. Looked around at the lights; and Loren whispered from somewhere nearby, Time to go; but don’t run.
    Back in the car, Loren’s eyes were in the rearview mirror. He asked, “Did you enjoy it?”
    “A little,” she said. Then, “No, not really.” And, a moment later, “I wish he’d told us where she is. How she is.”
    “Hovering,” Loren said. “We can bring her back, if we can find her. I can sense her, but we need more information. It would help if we knew where she was on the material plane, so we could lay our hands on her.”
    “Oh, God.”
    “We still have another possibility, another suspect,” Loren said.
    “One more,” she said. “But maybe we could wait a day or two or three. This one hurt me. The first one, Ford, didn’t hurt me. This one did.”
    “Okay.”
    Down through the city in the Batmobile. After a while, she said, “I lied. It did feel good. I can’t deny it. But it felt good and hurt me at the same time. I had more control, this time, though. I can wait until I get home to fuck you. Last time, I couldn’t.”
    His eyes in the mirror: “I know. You’re growing.”
    “But I need to find out about Frances,” Fairy said. “I need to find everybody involved—I need to end this.”

7
    Inside november, Lucas talked with the two Goth couples about Roy and the woman. Both of the male Goths were tall and thin, dressed in black from head to toe: Greg and Dave. Dave seemed to be wearing a skirt, but it may have been a jacket tied around his waist. Both of the women were short and chunky: Sharon and Wanda, who was called Wolfie; both with black fingernail polish and scarlet lipstick.
    “They were being flirty,” Sharon said. “Cute with each other. She was holding his hand. There was something