Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

should take it. I don’t want it now.”
    I had to admit, I was sorely tempted. I reached out my hand, my eyes widening, delighted with the power they saw in her fine palm. But I controlled myself. I reflected that these unique objects
did
fill a person with greed, just as Gilling had said.
    Instead of taking her ring, I closed her fingers over it. My hand gently encompassed her smaller fist. “If he did leave it by accident,” I said, “then he’s out there somewhere, kicking himself. What better way to get back at him? You have the one thing he truly loves.”
    Jenna brightened a fraction. Her tears had stopped now, and she looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll keep it.”
    I leaned back and smiled. Inwardly, some darker part of my mind complained I was an idiot. Why didn’t I just hand her my sunglasses as well, along with every dime in my pocket as a tip? I told myself to shut up. Sure, I could use some luck. But the ring hadn’t brought Jenna luck in love, and that was what she really cared about. Winning at cards wasn’t all there was to life.
    At some point while we were talking, I put my hands into my pockets. I frowned, finding something hard in there. Something unexpected. I jerked my hand out in alarm when I realized what it was.
    “What’s wrong?” Jenna asked.
    I clenched my teeth and looked pained. How did you tell a woman you had a dead man’s finger in your pocket? And indeed, that’s just what I’d found. I had kept the Gray Man’s finger in there since I’d walked out on the cultists and had my little talk with Gilling. It felt odd to the touch—like a pen in my pocket. Only this pen flexed when I walked around, now that I was thinking about it, I could feel the joints move. I felt a little sick, and couldn’t hide the fact from Jenna.
    “I’ve had a hard night,” I said, standing up. “Can I use your bathroom?”
    “Of course,” she said. “The eggs Benedict probably didn’t help.”
    I nodded, wishing she was right. I went into the bathroom, which was more or less equivalent to a million other hotel bathrooms. I pushed the door shut with my foot and looked at myself in the mirror. I could see the outline of the finger in my pocket.
    “Do you have any tissues out there in the room? I don’t see—” I began, but then I found the box. It was hidden under the bathroom counter. I pulled out a tissue—then ripped out a half dozen more. I wadded them up and reached into my pocket, using them like a glove. I could barely feel the shape of it, and that was just fine with me.
    I had worked it halfway out of my pocket when a pretty nose poked into the restroom with me. She had a tissue in her hand. I realized I hadn’t locked the door.
    “Are you OK?” Jenna asked.
    I jumped. It was a natural reaction. I must have felt guilty at some level. The finger, which I was wrapping in a fresh layer of paper, sprang seemingly of its own accord onto the bathroom counter. The counter was polished to look like a granite slab. The finger stood out as a pale curled object, unmistakably alien on the slate-gray surface.
    The finger thumped down, and Jenna craned her neck to look at it. I thought about pushing her out, but it was already too late.
    “What is that—” she began, then she cut off in a strangled scream. She disappeared and I walked after her.
    “Sorry you had to see that,” I told her.
    “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. She sat on the bed now, beside the phone. She had put one hand on the receiver, but she hadn’t picked it up and dialed the police yet. Instead, she’d grabbed a pillow with her other hand and hugged it to her chest.
    “I never told you about what McKesson and I found,” I said, “about the Gray Men.”
    “What Gray Men? Are you some kind of weirdo? I really can pick them. Mom always said that, you know. She said if there were six football players and a freak in a line, I would choose the lucky number seven every time.”
    I ran my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t quite sure how to talk her through this one. In the end, I decided just to dive into it. I told her about McKesson, about the Gray Men in their city of cubes, and about shooting them as they came through into our world. I urged her to remember she’d seen her husband step away into an impossible rip in space. Before I was finished, she was staring at me in disbelief.
    “That’s how my story must have sounded to the cops,” she said. “No