Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

I’m not one of them. Let me bring you in, Quentin.”
    “No.”
    I heard sounds of rustling. I figured he was getting out of bed and pulling on clothes.
    “Where do I find you?” he asked.
    “I’m hoping you won’t. Listen, do you want to stop these murders? These attacks by the Gray Men and others?”
    “Yeah,” he said warily, “but it depends on what you want to do.”
    “Keep the cops off me for a few days. I’m going back to those cubes. I’m going to do some convincing of my own.”
    “We’ve got a truce with them—”
    “No we don’t,” I snapped. “You keep saying that, and I keep telling you we don’t have anything. You told me yourself they grow bolder every day. They’ve been using me to find others. Meng seemed to be in on that, maybe picking up an object now and then and keeping them busy killing rogues. But I’m stronger now. I’m strong enough to make my move.”
    “You’re crazy, Draith. You’re just one rogue with a couple of tricks in his pocket.”
    “Gilling has a new term for powerful rogues: technomancers.”
    McKesson snorted at that. “Gilling belongs in one of Meng’s cells. You know you can’t possibly take out more than a few Gray Men alone. Not on their home turf.”
    “Who said I was going alone?” I asked him.

After I hung up on McKesson, I asked Jenna to drive to Henderson. Even though I had a plan I was still feeling woozy and didn’t want to risk blacking out with my foot on the pedal. She agreed. I could tell something was on her mind, but I didn’t feel like prying it out of her. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. When she was ready to talk, I would listen.
    “Meng told me about Robert while you were blank,” she finally said in a small voice. “You sat there like a zombie. It was very strange.”
    “You did the same thing while I talked to her.”
    “Such an
evil
woman,” she said. “Seeing you like that—understanding her power over people’s lives—it made it much easier to shoot her. She was a monster. All those people…she locked them up and made them sit there for so long…”
    “What did she do to your husband?”
    “Apparently, he was a rogue, like you. He had the ring, a minor power. He went to see her, to try to sell her his services, I guess. She took his mind for her own instead. She told him to find others. She used him, just the way she used you.”
    “I don’t see how that adds up with the rip appearing in your room and with his disappearance.”
    “She said he knew about the cultists and Rostok too. I think Gilling opened that rip in our room. He went to the cultists and then vanished. Meng said she didn’t know where he went. But she could have been lying.”
    “A distinct possibility,” I said. “But yeah, the cultists. Their involvement makes sense. They tried to enter that same room again later, while McKesson and I were there. Gilling summoned a rip into that room and then Robert stepped out. Maybe that’s how his shoe ended up in their cellar. Gilling indicated he knew who Robert was.”
    We merged onto Interstate 515. It was rush hour and traffic was heavy.
    “Did Meng say anything that explains the way Robert treated you? Why he might have run out on you?”
    “Yes. She said she told him to leave me, because I would get in the way. She said something about difficult commands causing bizarre behavior. If she commanded a person to cut off their own toes, for example, they might laugh hysterically while they did it.”
    “Nice lady,” I said.
    “It wasn’t as hard to pull the trigger as I thought it would be.”
    “Why would she provoke you when you had a gun on her?”
    “I think she believed she had the upper hand. Do you remember biting my leg?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well, you did. When she blanked your mind, you fell to the ground. I had the talisman, which kept me safe, but it left your mind open to her. While I was talking to her, you grabbed me hard and bit my calf. I knew I was going to lose, so I shot her.”
    “Sorry,” I said, remembering none of it.
    “Don’t be. It gave me the strength to fire.”
    I thought of the bite Jenna had given me. I rubbed a bloody spot in the meat of my palm. “That woman was a real live witch,” I said.
    “Can she come after us?” Jenna asked. “If she’s still alive, that is?”
    “I don’t think so. Her power is strong, but localized. She must stay in the sanatorium to use it.”
    “I see. She’s a prisoner there just like her