&nb
sp; “Well, well,” she murmured sarcastically, “is it visitors’ day already?”
“Hello, Aornis,” I said with a smile. “Remember me?”
“Very funny. What do you want, Next?”
I offered her a small vanity case with some cosmetics in it that I had picked off a shelf earlier. She didn’t take it.
“Information,” I said.
“Is there a deal in the offing?”
“I can give you another ten minutes. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
She looked at me, then all around her. She knew that people were outside the sphere looking in, but not how many and who. She had the power to wipe memories but not read minds. If she could, she’d know how much I hated her. Mind you, she probably knew that already.
“Next, please!” said the checkout girl, and Aornis put two dresses and a pair of shoes on the counter.
“How’s the family, Thursday—Landen and Friday and the girls?”
“Information, Aornis.”
She took a deep breath as the loop jumped back to the beginning of her eight minutes and she was once more at the rear of the line. She clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles went white. She’d been doing this for ten years without respite. The only thing worse than a loop was a loop in which one suffered a painful trauma, such as a broken leg. But even the most sadistic judges could never find it in themselves to order that.
Aornis calmed herself, looked up at me and said, “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“I want to know about Felix8.”
“That’s not a name I’ve heard for a while,” replied Aornis evenly. “What’s your interest in that empty husk?”
“He was hanging around my house with a loaded gun yesterday,” I told her, “and I can only assume he was wanting to do me harm.”
Aornis looked mildly perturbed. “You saw him?”
“With my own eyes.”
“Then I don’t understand. After Acheron’s untimely end, Felix8 seemed rather at a loss. He came around to the house and was making a nuisance of himself, very like an abandoned dog.”
“So what happened?”
“Cocytus put him down.”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean in the sense of ‘to humiliate.’”
“You think correct.”
“And when was this?”
“In 1986.”
“Did you witness the murder? Or see the body?” I stared at her carefully, trying to determine if she was telling the truth.
“No. He just said he had. You could have asked him yourself, but you killed him, didn’t you?”
“He was evil. He brought it upon himself.”
“I wasn’t being serious,” replied Aornis. “It’s what passes for humor in the Hades family.”