Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

up against the wall.
    “Where’s Holly?” I asked.
    “Who are you?”
    “A friend of Holly’s.”
    “I’m the manager. She’s had a lot of men over here, but none of them ever kicked in one of my doors until now.” She stared at me suspiciously, and I realized she thought I had broken down the door.
    She wasn’t someone who dressed up for work. She wore crimson sweatpants and a sweater shirt, but they weren’t quite the same shade of crimson. The shirt was covered in sequins in the shape of a rainbow. I walked past her and peered inside again, looking for signs of struggle. There weren’t any, other than the kicked-in door.
    “When did this happen?” I asked. “Did you hear anything?”
    “Yeah, I heard my door split open.”
    “Did you see anything—anyone?”
    The landlady had her fists on her hips. She eyed me critically, but must have seen my concern. She relaxed and frowned.
    “I guess you didn’t do it, then,” she said.
    “No, ma’am, but I think Holly is in trouble. Tell me what you can.”
    “There was a bright light,” the landlady said. “Down in the space between the buildings. I saw that, then heard some hammering on her door. When I came outside, the door was kicked in and she was gone.”
    I pushed past her again and skipped down the steps two at a time. The breezeway between the buildings had scorch marks, not only on the concrete walkway, but on both the bordering stucco walls as well. I imagined the scene then. The air had warped here, letting someone come through. Probably, it was one of the Gray Men. Maybe they’d been looking for me, and my trail had led them here. They’d gone up the steps to her apartment, kicked in the door and…
    And what? I didn’t know what had happened next. She had called me in a panic. Maybe she’d been followed home. Maybe she’d heard or seen the warping of the air.
    “Damn it,” I said. My words rang from the walls of the breezeway. The landlady peeped around the corner behind me, but she kept quiet.
    I looked everywhere in the complex over the next few minutes, but found nothing. I’d made a new friend, and I’d lost her. Maybe that’s why no one had come forward since I’d escaped the sanatorium, claiming to be my close friend or relative. Maybe they were all gone.
    “Draith?” called a man’s voice from behind me.
    I turned around slowly. It was McKesson.

I told McKesson the few details I knew about Holly’s disappearance. When I was finished, he yawned. I glared at him. He’d made clucking sounds of concern and asked a lot of questions, but none of them were about Holly. He wanted to know how many witnesses there were, what they had seen and heard. I knew he was forming up a mental list, compiling a report on this incident. How big was the exposure? Could it be contained?
    From his point of view, there was no problem. No real witnesses, no residual effects or evidence. Just a few strange words from a landlady who was more worried about who was going to fix her door than about her tenant. I came to understand that no one was going to be overly concerned about the disappearance of an unemployed stripper.
    “Look,” I said to McKesson, stepping close to have few intense, private words. “Forget about the event. That’sminor, and you are in the clear there. Now, I’m asking you to do the rest of your job—find Holly.”
    McKesson sighed. “Oh, it’s like that, is it? Doing more than sleeping on her couch?”
    I didn’t bother to deny his suggestion. It didn’t matter if Holly and I had slept together—even though we hadn’t, I still wanted her back.
    “She’s missing,” I said, “and you know better than anyone what might have happened to her.”
    “Look, Draith, we aren’t about to call out the bloodhounds and helicopters on this case. This isn’t a junior high kid with perfect grades. She had a history with drugs. People like Holly vanish every day on these streets just because they want to. She might be skipping out on her rent. She could be anywhere.”
    I glared at him until I could speak without shouting. “You can’t keep the Gray Men out of here, you know. You can’t keep them a secret forever either. They are getting more and more bold. They are stepping into and out of our world as they please. Doesn’t that worry you?”
    I had his attention now. “Yeah,” he admitted. “It does.”
    “We had a gun battle in that mini-mansion in Henderson. What about the next time? What if they had been