I checked the closet, the bathroom, then the upstairs corridor, the linen cupboard, and eventually I found myself in the guest bedroom, tucked up snug and warm with a sandwich and a glass of water in case I was hungry or thirsty when my tenure in this body was up. I’d seen myself like this before, up at Booktastic, but this time there was more opportunity to stare. I looked different from how I’d imagined, not simply because I usually saw myself reversed in a mirror but because there was something ineffably alien about seeing oneself directly.
“I look kind of peaceful, don’t I?”
“Very,” said Landen, who had been assisting in the search, “but then I’m used to seeing you like this.”
“Asleep?”
“No—out of your head.” He laughed.
“Very funny.”
“In all seriousness,” he said, “you’re not going to kill me or anything, are you?”
“If I’d wanted to, I’d have done it already,” I replied, “as you slept. No, Krantz is delivering these Day Players to help us defeat Jack.”
“Glad to hear it. Defeat him doing what, exactly?”
“Okay, to find out what he’s doing and then defeat him.”
We stared for a few moments more at the real me. “I’m going to make some breakfast,” said Landen. “I know you don’t eat, but do you drink?”
“Aside from respiration,” I said, not knowing how I knew, “I’m totally self-contained.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said, and went downstairs to make some coffee.
I told him I needed to check something out and walked outside, then down the gravel path in the early-morning light. There wasn’t a breath of wind in the air. Everything seemed somehow peaceful, even though the day did not portend well for a number of reasons, an inevitable murder being one of them and a cleansing pillar of fire the other.
I made my way through the grounds to the yew walk, the tropical hothouse and then the walled garden, thence to the cascade and lake. I wasn’t expecting to see Millon, as he rarely appeared before eleven, but I was curious to know how my Day Player had gotten past our security system, and I had found a small piece of what looked like the bark of the European beech, or Fagus sylvatica, under my fingernail. I followed the tall closemesh security fence toward the bottom field, took a right into the beech wood, and there, parked about fifty yards outside our high-perimeter fence was a large box van. I chose the most likely-looking tree, quickly climbed to the uppermost boughs, swung twice on a handy b
ranch and leaped clean across the fence, doing a closed triple-forward somersault simply because I could. I caught the bough I was aiming for and dropped noiselessly to the soft forest floor.
I found Krantz still sitting in the cab of the rented box van. He was purple and puffy, and both his eyes were open, although one was looking upward, and a small amount of blood had leaked from his ear and nose. On his lap was a pad of paper on which he had been writing when he died. I twisted the pad from his stiff fingers and read:
Use yourself well, my friend. Protect the dark world we love from all who would do her harm. I have been twice dead, so once more makes little difference. Here’s what’s been happening: I was asked to
I stared at his words for a moment until the meaning suddenly became clear. A “past best” Day Player was probably not a terrific thing to be once the organs started to shut down one by one, and he’d wanted out. Goliath’s Whistleblower had done for him. Jack had been right. Day Players of Goliath staff also had them fitted.
I opened the back of the van to find the same sort of medical paraphernalia we had found at the Finis Hotel. But aside from the discarded Tupperware coffin lying outside the van, there was only a single sarcophagus remaining, the seals unbroken and marked “T.Next Mark VII—Activate within one hour if seal broken.” I peered through the semitranslucent polyethylene and could see a figure inside. I quickly added up the Day Players on the manifest and how many we’d seen. One more go at this and I’d be back to single me again.
I gently heaved Krantz into the passenger seat and drove the van around to the front of the house, keyed in the security numbers and went to the coach house to deposit the sealed sarcophagus into a disused stable. Next I carried Krantz to the rose garden to bury him in one of the beds, despite the “Recycle Responsibly” mark I found on his forearm. It wasn’t a human body, so I wasn’t breaking any laws and could have put him out with the trash quite legally, but it was the last vestige of Krantz, even if whatever made Krantz Krantz had left the real Krantz a week ago. It seemed the least I could do.
“Morning, Mum,” said Friday as I walked into the kitchen. “You look . . . different.”
“And you seem very perky for a potential murderer. What gives?”
He shrugged. “I’ve kind of resigned myself to it. The Manchild told me that the future me was pretty smart and I should have more confidence in my own abilities. The truth of the matter is that this afternoon, at 14 02 and two seconds, Gavin will be dead by my hand, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
I gave him a hug, but he sensed that something wasn’t right and pulled away.
“Mum . . . ?”
“It’s me and it’s not,” I said, and explained what I was. Once Friday had told me it was “pretty weird, even for Mum” and Landen had agreed but added loyally, “it’s still your mother— kind of,” Friday accepted it, but I saw him looking at me strangely for the rest of breakfast.
Gavin appeared soon afterward, yawning and scratching.
“Hey, Friday,” he said, “still going to kill me this afternoon?”
“I guess.”