Lightspeed Magazine - September 2016 by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams [Ed.] [Adams, John Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction Magazine
Goodreads: 31823465
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Published: 2016-08-31T12:00:00+00:00

Two

I got coffee while Heath did the disposal, punching the buttons for black with two sugars into the vending machine in the foyer. My hands shook when I lifted the paper cup, the room eerie and silent once the coffee was brewed. Part of me was back in my shitty apartment, still woozy from an evening with too much gin and too little sleep. The rest of me was pretending I hadn’t just told Heath to commit another felony. Somewhere in the bowels of the building, he was feeding the corpse of Sally Crown into the morgue incinerator and hundreds of newborn fairies were dying. By the time he rejoined me, I’d emptied my first coffee into the wastepaper basket, undrunk, and started feeding change into the slot so I could order a second.

“I’ve got a percolator in the office,” he said, hovering by the door.

I shook my head. “I’ve drunk your coffee. It tastes like tar.”

“The machine stuff’s not much better.”

It wasn’t, but I wasn’t really after coffee. The solid clink of coins nesting inside the machine soothed the jagged edge of my nerves. I could imagine the parts inside, working to a coordinated rhythm to deliver my coffee and add the sweetener. Given enough time and access to a computer, I could find out how it worked on the internet, understand all the science and engineering behind it. The machine was rational, understandable, and real.

“I’ve got donuts, if you’re hungry,” Heath said.

I ignored him, busied myself with the fresh paper cup. “A unicorn.” The scar running down my chest ached, the pain dull and insistent. “Fuck, another one.”

“I called Kesey and passed along the good news. He threatened to fire me for destroying evidence in an ongoing investigation.”

“Had to be done,” I said, and Heath shrugged. There was a smudge of ash on the edge of his cheeks, a thin crease of black in the crevice of his nails. Stuff like this was done off the books, and Heath knew better than to leave the ashes where they could be found. “I was going to call Anya,” he said. “Keep her informed, since it’s her purview and all. Unless you want to do it?”

I shook my head. “I’m done with the fey. I’m working for you and Kesey,” I said. “I’m an advisor, nothing more. I came, I saw, I advised.”

Heath nodded. He was fresh to the job last time there was a unicorn loose in the city, a gangly kid straight out of medical school and obsessed with the dead. Good at what he did, sure, but kept in the dark more often than not. He never would have heard of Anya Titan if he hadn’t been on duty the night I turned up dead. She called him while he was doing the autopsy and suggested putting me back together and stitching me up before I came to. Anya frightened him, back then. I had a sneaking suspicion that these days he had her on speed dial.

“I gotta tell you, Heath, it worries me that you keep in touch with her.

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