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Description
Falling Asleep

    The stairwell smelled like marijuana, stale urine, and
very old blood. I had taught students from this kind of neighborhood back in
Houston, and Albuquerque before that, and San Diego before that. Hard-eyed
children who wore loose pants to hide the knives they brought to school and
long sleeves to hide the bruises they got at home. There are poor
neighborhoods, and then there are bad ones. This was a bad one. You could smell
it rising up out of the stained concrete floors. The air there had gone dark
and sour long before a murderer like Sebastian moved in.

    There were ghosts in the walls, and some of them were
his. A few of them reached out, but I couldn’t stop for them. I kept following
the enormous back drifting down the hallway in front of me, even though I
wasn’t sure why. His steps were silent. Mine shuffled. He told me once to be
quiet, and I couldn’t, but it didn’t matter, because there was no one near to
hear us. The doors were closed and bolted.

    Then we were inside, and that door was closed and bolted,
too. He locked it. Three deadbolts. Two chains. My brain wandered. I wondered
whether this could possibly be where he saw his clients. It didn’t look like a
professional’s office. It barely looked like an apartment. There was a couch
and a chair and a table with a few tattered paperbacks – all Westerns, oddly
enough – some eight-tracks, and a half-full coffee mug, white cream coagulated
on the surface. That was the extent of the furniture. The kitchen off the main
room looked as though it had been converted into storage. I felt as though something
was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.

    Somewhere on the next floor up, or maybe the next
floor down, a boom box was spewing profanity.

    A huge hand closed over my shoulder and steered me
toward the chair. The wood creaked when the backs of my thighs hit it, and
something popped inside my head. I could remember the stairs and the hall, but
nothing before that. There was a gaping hole between the hotel bar and this
tenement complex. I couldn’t even recall what the outside of the building
looked like. We had been sitting at the table, finishing a last drink, and
then... Then nothing. Nothing until this place.

    The overheads flickered on, highlighting horrible
green wallpaper, peeling around the baseboards. Sebastian crossed in front of
me and sat on the end of the couch, leaning back with a half-smile on his face.
I had sort of begun to expect that if he smiled again, it would be an
unspeakably creepy expression, but it wasn’t. He had a nice smile. It was even
a little bit apologetic.

    “So,” he whispered eagerly. I almost couldn’t hear him
under the boom box. “So, what’s it like?”

    The complete about-face threw me off. I probably
wouldn’t have made it far, but it did look like I had an opportunity to get the
hell out of there. There was one window, taped over with aluminum foil to keep
out the Texas heat. I had never been good at moving quickly, but I could
probably have gone out that way. It would hurt, but it was a way out, and I
would heal, and even crazy murderers don’t necessarily want to go flying into
the street in the middle of the night. I’m not fast, but I could probably drag
myself to a convenience store or something by the time he made it down the
stairs.

    But I didn’t throw myself out the window. I don’t know
whether that was my decision or his.

    “What?”

    “What?”

    “What’s what like?”

    He sat forward with his elbows on his knees,
dislodging a paperback from the table. “Being both. I’ve never even heard of
that. Didn’t know it was possible.”

    “It’s p-possible. It’s just not a very g-g-good idea.”

    His laugh filled the apartment. He had a good laugh,
just like he had a good smile. It was hard not to laugh with him, but I still
remembered those words – No one to miss
you. The window beckoned, but I didn’t try to leave. It was hard to be
sure, with everything happening so fast, and that laugh ringing in my head, and
those eyes drilling into me, but I was beginning to suspect that I had been
kidnapped.

    “So,” he repeated. “What’s it like? Not a good idea,
sure, but you seem to be doing okay for yourself.”

    “Easier to b-blend in, I g-guess.” Maybe he was just
curious. One thing about immortality is that it often leads to mind-crushing
boredom. Hobbies are a good way to fight that, but hobbies can easily turn into
obsessions. Maybe his was learning. No matter how old you get, there’s always
something new to learn. If I told him what he wanted to know, maybe he would
leave me alone.

    He tilted his head, politely expectant.

    I went on.

    “Can’t k-kill. But I’ve never felt the need to, so
it’s all g-good. I think it messed up some stuff when I changed. My hearing’s
okay, but it’s not real g-good. I’ve got b-b-bad balance. Some other stuff,
too. I g-guess it was like drugs interacting. Neither thing really works the
way it’s supposed t-to, any more.”

    “Is it true that mediums can control dead things?
Including the undead?”

    “Media. It’s media, not mediums. And ‘c-control’ is
too strong. More like influence, and only in ways that help.”

    I don’t know why I said that. Most people don’t like
hearing that someone has any kind of influence over them, even if that someone
wouldn’t use it and couldn’t do any damage even if he did. I didn’t want to
come across as any kind of threat, partly because I’m not a threat, and partly
because I didn’t feel like being pummeled for being perceived as one. But on
the other hand, Sebastian had his own brand of influence going on, the kind
that could pull information out of me like scarves out of a magician’s sleeve.
I swallowed hard.

    “Heh. I’d like to see you try. I heard you can’t
change a medium. Obviously wrong, but...”

    “Not against their will.”

    He grinned, and this time, the expression was ugly. “I
guess it follows that you wanted it, then.”

    I nodded. I wasn’t about to talk about Kate to him. I
wasn’t about to explain. He wouldn’t like my reasons, and he wouldn’t like her
reasons, and I didn’t like the line of thought that always brought me back to
wondering whether Kate or I ever had any choice, back then.

    Something moved behind him, the shape of a man almost
too faint even for me to see. He wasn’t a proper spirit, just an echo, and the
echo had been fading for a long time. It was one of Sebastian’s ghosts, someone
whose memory had been imprinted into the building by a violent death at the
same time the rest of him went Wherever he was ultimately going to end up. I
managed to tear my eyes away from Sebastian for a fraction of a second, trying
to get a better look at the memory standing behind him. It was harder than it
should have been. I half expected some kind of dramatic warning, even though it
doesn’t work that way, but the memory just stood there, his legs disappearing
into the middle of the couch. He watched me over the top of Sebastian’s head.

    When I looked back down again, Sebastian’s mahogany
eyes were narrowed with speculation, the same sort of look someone might give a
dime in a mud puddle, not quite sure whether it’s worth the effort of picking
it up, even if he needs an extra ten cents. He was wondering whether he could
use me.

    It was wrong. Everything was wrong, and there were
more ghosts filling my peripheral vision, other memories and a few real
spirits. One of them whispered I’m sorry
like a mantra, over and over just beneath the buzz of the electric lights. They
knew something I didn’t.

    “Listen, I’m g-g-gonna have t-to g-g-go p-pack. I have
a b-bus to c-c-c-...”

    “Have a drink, before you go.”

    “What?”

    “Just one. Look, I...” The apologetic smile returned.
It was tragic. “If I gave you my phone number, would you... sometime... Do you
think you might...?”

    “Oh. Uh, sure.” I nodded, trying very hard not to look
relieved. It was hard not to feel bad for him, whatever his problems might have
been. “Look, I’m d-down this way, sometimes. Not much, but sometimes. I
c-c-could come see you. Some weekend, maybe?”

    I probably would, too, even though I didn’t want to.
He needed help, and that’s what media are for.

    He smiled again, hopefully, that moment of ugliness
gone, and got up to go to the kitchen. I didn’t watch him; I was too busy
feeling like I had seriously dodged a bullet. There was the pop and hiss of two
bottles of beer opening, a pause, and one of them found its way into my hand.
Sweat beaded on the glass and dripped down onto my khakis.

    “You’re scared,” he said as he sat back down. “I’m
sorry about that. I just...”

    He didn’t have any words to explain, just shrugged. I
got the picture. He had no social skills, and his method for making friends was
mildly terrifying. At least his taste in beer was good. I sipped reluctantly. I
had already had enough, but turning down a peace offering might be dangerous.

    “It’s okay. No hard feelings. I’m mostly just
c-confused.”

    His expression didn’t change, but the smile became fixed,
expectant. The ghosts in the corners of the room began to disperse, as though
the show was already over.

    “I just can’t figure out your angle,” he continued. “You’re
on my turf, in my bar, playing like you want to be my friend. Pretty subtle, I’ll
grant you. You actually had me going, for a while. Come back on weekends, my
ass. And here you are, sticking around like you hadn’t even thought about
running. I honestly can’t tell whether you’re for real or not.”

    I wanted to point out that he was the one who
threatened me, brought me here by force and was poking around in my head where
he absolutely did not belong. I wanted to point out that, even though he scared
the crap out of me, I could make myself overlook all that, because that’s what
I do. I didn’t get the chance.

    I didn’t even see him move. He must have had centuries
on me, to go so fast. One second, I was trying to excuse myself, watching the
ghosts to see whether they could give me a hint; the next, he was standing in
front of me with his hand closed over my jaw, not so tight it hurt, but
definitely too tight for me to move without breaking myself.

    I scrambled. My hand shot up reflexively to grasp his
wrist, and he squeezed. Something in my face cracked loudly, making me gag. He
hissed like an animal and spit something at me in Spanish too fast and too old
for me to understand. His eyes were wide and eager.

    He pulled me up close to his face, still talking. Most
of me was just interested in getting the hell away, but part of me realized
that he wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to himself, low and fast. I could
hear the power in his voice, even if I couldn’t understand the words. He was
convincing himself of something, weaving back the same spell he had used on me.
I could see in his eyes when he made up his mind.

    He dropped me. I stepped back, tripped over the chair,
and fell hard. My face throbbed, and I could taste stale, dead blood. My blood.
I got one arm underneath myself and began to push myself up when something like
a fighter jet whistled overhead and came down on the back of my neck. Something
pounded steadily inside my head, vaguely reminiscent of a heartbeat. It took me
a moment to realize that someone was at the door.

    Sebastian dragged me upright and bent to whisper in my
ear.

    “Relax,” he said, and I did.

    He threw me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll,
carried me through the apartment and dumped me on the floor in the bedroom. I
couldn’t see anything but the awful, green wallpaper. I heard a door open, felt
a vicious impact against my ribs, and was enfolded in darkness.

    The closet smelled better than the rest of the
building. It smelled like cedar chips, like Sebastian. I heard his footsteps,
the front door, a woman’s voice. He sounded happy to see her, which most likely
meant that, even if I called for help, she wouldn’t be one to give it. I tried
anyway. I tried to scream, to reach the doorknob. But my voice didn’t work, and
neither did my arms. Every muscle stayed slack.

    I concentrated on the pounding in my jaw and in my
side, because there was nothing else I could do. But after a minute, that began
to fade, too. It diminished to an ache, then to a twinge, then to a tingle. I
couldn’t feel my hands, and my head felt like a balloon, and there was a bitter
taste on the back of my tongue, underneath the tang of blood and beer. I tried
to be angry, and I tried to be afraid, but it was too much effort. The voices
in the other room lengthened like rubber bands, and the floor was soft, and I
sank down into it.

Description
Falling Asleep

    The stairwell smelled like marijuana, stale urine, and
very old blood. I had taught students from this kind of neighborhood back in
Houston, and Albuquerque before that, and San Diego before that. Hard-eyed
children who wore loose pants to hide the knives they brought to school and
long sleeves to hide the bruises they got at home. There are poor
neighborhoods, and then there are bad ones. This was a bad one. You could smell
it rising up out of the stained concrete floors. The air there had gone dark
and sour long before a murderer like Sebastian moved in.

    There were ghosts in the walls, and some of them were
his. A few of them reached out, but I couldn’t stop for them. I kept following
the enormous back drifting down the hallway in front of me, even though I
wasn’t sure why. His steps were silent. Mine shuffled. He told me once to be
quiet, and I couldn’t, but it didn’t matter, because there was no one near to
hear us. The doors were closed and bolted.

    Then we were inside, and that door was closed and bolted,
too. He locked it. Three deadbolts. Two chains. My brain wandered. I wondered
whether this could possibly be where he saw his clients. It didn’t look like a
professional’s office. It barely looked like an apartment. There was a couch
and a chair and a table with a few tattered paperbacks – all Westerns, oddly
enough – some eight-tracks, and a half-full coffee mug, white cream coagulated
on the surface. That was the extent of the furniture. The kitchen off the main
room looked as though it had been converted into storage. I felt as though something
was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.

    Somewhere on the next floor up, or maybe the next
floor down, a boom box was spewing profanity.

    A huge hand closed over my shoulder and steered me
toward the chair. The wood creaked when the backs of my thighs hit it, and
something popped inside my head. I could remember the stairs and the hall, but
nothing before that. There was a gaping hole between the hotel bar and this
tenement complex. I couldn’t even recall what the outside of the building
looked like. We had been sitting at the table, finishing a last drink, and
then... Then nothing. Nothing until this place.

    The overheads flickered on, highlighting horrible
green wallpaper, peeling around the baseboards. Sebastian crossed in front of
me and sat on the end of the couch, leaning back with a half-smile on his face.
I had sort of begun to expect that if he smiled again, it would be an
unspeakably creepy expression, but it wasn’t. He had a nice smile. It was even
a little bit apologetic.

    “So,” he whispered eagerly. I almost couldn’t hear him
under the boom box. “So, what’s it like?”

    The complete about-face threw me off. I probably
wouldn’t have made it far, but it did look like I had an opportunity to get the
hell out of there. There was one window, taped over with aluminum foil to keep
out the Texas heat. I had never been good at moving quickly, but I could
probably have gone out that way. It would hurt, but it was a way out, and I
would heal, and even crazy murderers don’t necessarily want to go flying into
the street in the middle of the night. I’m not fast, but I could probably drag
myself to a convenience store or something by the time he made it down the
stairs.

    But I didn’t throw myself out the window. I don’t know
whether that was my decision or his.

    “What?”

    “What?”

    “What’s what like?”

    He sat forward with his elbows on his knees,
dislodging a paperback from the table. “Being both. I’ve never even heard of
that. Didn’t know it was possible.”

    “It’s p-possible. It’s just not a very g-g-good idea.”

    His laugh filled the apartment. He had a good laugh,
just like he had a good smile. It was hard not to laugh with him, but I still
remembered those words – No one to miss
you. The window beckoned, but I didn’t try to leave. It was hard to be
sure, with everything happening so fast, and that laugh ringing in my head, and
those eyes drilling into me, but I was beginning to suspect that I had been
kidnapped.

    “So,” he repeated. “What’s it like? Not a good idea,
sure, but you seem to be doing okay for yourself.”

    “Easier to b-blend in, I g-guess.” Maybe he was just
curious. One thing about immortality is that it often leads to mind-crushing
boredom. Hobbies are a good way to fight that, but hobbies can easily turn into
obsessions. Maybe his was learning. No matter how old you get, there’s always
something new to learn. If I told him what he wanted to know, maybe he would
leave me alone.

    He tilted his head, politely expectant.

    I went on.

    “Can’t k-kill. But I’ve never felt the need to, so
it’s all g-good. I think it messed up some stuff when I changed. My hearing’s
okay, but it’s not real g-good. I’ve got b-b-bad balance. Some other stuff,
too. I g-guess it was like drugs interacting. Neither thing really works the
way it’s supposed t-to, any more.”

    “Is it true that mediums can control dead things?
Including the undead?”

    “Media. It’s media, not mediums. And ‘c-control’ is
too strong. More like influence, and only in ways that help.”

    I don’t know why I said that. Most people don’t like
hearing that someone has any kind of influence over them, even if that someone
wouldn’t use it and couldn’t do any damage even if he did. I didn’t want to
come across as any kind of threat, partly because I’m not a threat, and partly
because I didn’t feel like being pummeled for being perceived as one. But on
the other hand, Sebastian had his own brand of influence going on, the kind
that could pull information out of me like scarves out of a magician’s sleeve.
I swallowed hard.

    “Heh. I’d like to see you try. I heard you can’t
change a medium. Obviously wrong, but...”

    “Not against their will.”

    He grinned, and this time, the expression was ugly. “I
guess it follows that you wanted it, then.”

    I nodded. I wasn’t about to talk about Kate to him. I
wasn’t about to explain. He wouldn’t like my reasons, and he wouldn’t like her
reasons, and I didn’t like the line of thought that always brought me back to
wondering whether Kate or I ever had any choice, back then.

    Something moved behind him, the shape of a man almost
too faint even for me to see. He wasn’t a proper spirit, just an echo, and the
echo had been fading for a long time. It was one of Sebastian’s ghosts, someone
whose memory had been imprinted into the building by a violent death at the
same time the rest of him went Wherever he was ultimately going to end up. I
managed to tear my eyes away from Sebastian for a fraction of a second, trying
to get a better look at the memory standing behind him. It was harder than it
should have been. I half expected some kind of dramatic warning, even though it
doesn’t work that way, but the memory just stood there, his legs disappearing
into the middle of the couch. He watched me over the top of Sebastian’s head.

    When I looked back down again, Sebastian’s mahogany
eyes were narrowed with speculation, the same sort of look someone might give a
dime in a mud puddle, not quite sure whether it’s worth the effort of picking
it up, even if he needs an extra ten cents. He was wondering whether he could
use me.

    It was wrong. Everything was wrong, and there were
more ghosts filling my peripheral vision, other memories and a few real
spirits. One of them whispered I’m sorry
like a mantra, over and over just beneath the buzz of the electric lights. They
knew something I didn’t.

    “Listen, I’m g-g-gonna have t-to g-g-go p-pack. I have
a b-bus to c-c-c-...”

    “Have a drink, before you go.”

    “What?”

    “Just one. Look, I...” The apologetic smile returned.
It was tragic. “If I gave you my phone number, would you... sometime... Do you
think you might...?”

    “Oh. Uh, sure.” I nodded, trying very hard not to look
relieved. It was hard not to feel bad for him, whatever his problems might have
been. “Look, I’m d-down this way, sometimes. Not much, but sometimes. I
c-c-could come see you. Some weekend, maybe?”

    I probably would, too, even though I didn’t want to.
He needed help, and that’s what media are for.

    He smiled again, hopefully, that moment of ugliness
gone, and got up to go to the kitchen. I didn’t watch him; I was too busy
feeling like I had seriously dodged a bullet. There was the pop and hiss of two
bottles of beer opening, a pause, and one of them found its way into my hand.
Sweat beaded on the glass and dripped down onto my khakis.

    “You’re scared,” he said as he sat back down. “I’m
sorry about that. I just...”

    He didn’t have any words to explain, just shrugged. I
got the picture. He had no social skills, and his method for making friends was
mildly terrifying. At least his taste in beer was good. I sipped reluctantly. I
had already had enough, but turning down a peace offering might be dangerous.

    “It’s okay. No hard feelings. I’m mostly just
c-confused.”

    His expression didn’t change, but the smile became fixed,
expectant. The ghosts in the corners of the room began to disperse, as though
the show was already over.

    “I just can’t figure out your angle,” he continued. “You’re
on my turf, in my bar, playing like you want to be my friend. Pretty subtle, I’ll
grant you. You actually had me going, for a while. Come back on weekends, my
ass. And here you are, sticking around like you hadn’t even thought about
running. I honestly can’t tell whether you’re for real or not.”

    I wanted to point out that he was the one who
threatened me, brought me here by force and was poking around in my head where
he absolutely did not belong. I wanted to point out that, even though he scared
the crap out of me, I could make myself overlook all that, because that’s what
I do. I didn’t get the chance.

    I didn’t even see him move. He must have had centuries
on me, to go so fast. One second, I was trying to excuse myself, watching the
ghosts to see whether they could give me a hint; the next, he was standing in
front of me with his hand closed over my jaw, not so tight it hurt, but
definitely too tight for me to move without breaking myself.

    I scrambled. My hand shot up reflexively to grasp his
wrist, and he squeezed. Something in my face cracked loudly, making me gag. He
hissed like an animal and spit something at me in Spanish too fast and too old
for me to understand. His eyes were wide and eager.

    He pulled me up close to his face, still talking. Most
of me was just interested in getting the hell away, but part of me realized
that he wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to himself, low and fast. I could
hear the power in his voice, even if I couldn’t understand the words. He was
convincing himself of something, weaving back the same spell he had used on me.
I could see in his eyes when he made up his mind.

    He dropped me. I stepped back, tripped over the chair,
and fell hard. My face throbbed, and I could taste stale, dead blood. My blood.
I got one arm underneath myself and began to push myself up when something like
a fighter jet whistled overhead and came down on the back of my neck. Something
pounded steadily inside my head, vaguely reminiscent of a heartbeat. It took me
a moment to realize that someone was at the door.

    Sebastian dragged me upright and bent to whisper in my
ear.

    “Relax,” he said, and I did.

    He threw me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll,
carried me through the apartment and dumped me on the floor in the bedroom. I
couldn’t see anything but the awful, green wallpaper. I heard a door open, felt
a vicious impact against my ribs, and was enfolded in darkness.

    The closet smelled better than the rest of the
building. It smelled like cedar chips, like Sebastian. I heard his footsteps,
the front door, a woman’s voice. He sounded happy to see her, which most likely
meant that, even if I called for help, she wouldn’t be one to give it. I tried
anyway. I tried to scream, to reach the doorknob. But my voice didn’t work, and
neither did my arms. Every muscle stayed slack.

    I concentrated on the pounding in my jaw and in my
side, because there was nothing else I could do. But after a minute, that began
to fade, too. It diminished to an ache, then to a twinge, then to a tingle. I
couldn’t feel my hands, and my head felt like a balloon, and there was a bitter
taste on the back of my tongue, underneath the tang of blood and beer. I tried
to be angry, and I tried to be afraid, but it was too much effort. The voices
in the other room lengthened like rubber bands, and the floor was soft, and I
sank down into it.