Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

something like this and it
works
—I mean it really has a measurable effect on our physical world—can they really be dismissed as crazy? Like a thief or a robber, they are doing something with a purpose. A bad purpose, but a purpose nonetheless. They aren’t simply deluded.”
    I stared at him for a second. I wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for these freaks or having some kind of philosophical episode. Either way, I didn’t have any answers for him, so I just shook my head.
    “Is that it?” I asked.
    “No, there’s more downstairs.”
    McKesson led the way past the kitchen to a dark stairwell leading down. I glanced to my right, where stacks of meats were spread all over the granite counters. I squinted in the gloom. Were those catch basins lining the counters? Had they defrosted the meats and caught the juices? Why?
    Shaking my head, I followed him down a narrow stairway. As wide and grand as the stairs were leading up from the marble entry, this stairway was ignoble, dingy, and dimly lit. The steps were made of wood planks rather than ringing tiles. Our shoes scraped and the planks creaked as we descended.
    The cellar had a single purpose: to store wine bottles. Unlike the kitchen above, the cellar wasn’t trashed. I fully expected a cluster of candles and a pentagram painted with old, brown bloodstains. I found neither, however. The center of the cellar was clear, with the wine-laden shelves shoved back against the walls. On the cement tiles there were only two things: a scorch mark and a single, severed finger. It was grayish in color.
    I stopped following McKesson when I reached the bottom of the creaking steps and spotted the finger. That was close enough for me. I recalled distinctly Jenna’s tale of a warping of space in her suite’s bathroom. Could this have been a similar phenomenon?
    McKesson turned back, saw me lingering at the stairs, and chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This finger’s pointing days are over.”
    “Do you know how it got there?”
    “Not a clue.” He stepped in front of it and squatted, staring down. He obscured the finger from my view, which was just fine with me.
    “Why did you guys leave it there?” I asked, taking a step or two forward despite my misgivings. My eyes were roaming the cellar for other oddities. “Couldn’t you just take pictures and put it in a baggie or something?”
    “Normally, that would be the procedure,” he admitted. “But this isn’t a normal finger.”
    I frowned at his back. “Because it’s gray? Isn’t that normal for an old, dead digit?”
    He shook his head and looked back over his shoulder. “It’s pretty fresh, they tell me. Maybe less than a day old.”
    “A day?” I asked. “You mean it just appeared recently? After you came to check this place out?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Was the scorch mark there before?”
    “All week.”
    “But not the finger.”
    “You’re catching on.”
    I hesitated. “Does it have a spur-like growth on the back of it?” I asked.
    That comment brought him to his feet. He turned toward me with a hand on his gun. It was the same weapon I’d taken off him the night we’d met.
    “How did you know about that?” he asked.
    I told him about the man who’d chased me out of the convenience store. He’d had strange gray hands like that.
    McKesson took his hand off his gun. “So—a stranger came through and somehow lost his finger doing it. And he immediately tried to assassinate you. At least, that’s what you’re claiming.”
    “I guess so. Unless there is more than one of them around. I didn’t see a missing finger on the man I encountered.”
    The detective was frowning and thinking hard. “It’s not supposed to work this way,” he said.
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “When these disturbances, confluences, intersections—whatever you want to call them—when they open up, they’re like small natural storms. Things might wander in and out, but beings aren’t supposed to purposefully come through into our existence.”
    Into our existence?
I thought. But I didn’t ask him what he was talking about. The meaning was plain enough, ifdisturbing. I didn’t want him to think too much about what he was divulging. I desperately needed information.
    “That’s what happened to Robert Townsend, isn’t it?” I asked. “He went through one of these openings.”
    McKesson looked at me. “The newlywed guy? Yeah, I think so. Now, let’s get some air. This place is