Small Things (Out of the Box Book 14) Page 4

  “Whoa, Greg! How did you do that?” Jon asked, completely taken aback by his sudden disappearance and reappearance.

  Greg just ignored us, kneeling down to talk to one of the Panamia-uh—those guys. He grabbed the dude by the head and looked him in the eyes, totally pissed off. “I hate a coward,” he said, really steaming. “Any last words?” The guy blathered something I didn’t understand—

  Clearly it wasn’t about huge penises, then.

  —and Greg just looked at him for a second, all pissed and stuff, and he just stood and the guy’s head just ripped right off! I was like, WHOOOOOOA! And Jon was like, WHOOAAAA! And together we were like, “Whoa, Greg, that was totes awesome!” I said. “I mean, I’m strong, and can do that, of course, but you’re a tiny little man with probably a very small penis, and you just tore that guy’s head off! Awesome!”

  Greg just gave me that lizard look and said, “On the plane,” as he tossed that guy’s head and kicked it like a soccer ball. It flew across the tarmac and into the night.

  “Dude, that’s a field goal for sure,” Jon whispered as we trudged toward the Concorde. “Also, I swear this Concorde wasn’t here when we flew in.”

  “Whatever, dude, Greg is a magician,” I said, shrinking down my leet muscles a little bit so I could climb up into the plane. Greg was already up there, and in the cockpit as I slipped in. The passenger section was all nice and clean, and I threw down my gats—

  “What the hell are you doing?” Greg screamed at me from the cockpit. He was there in a second, like he teleported and appeared, his face all burning and furious, twisted like he was gonna pop a vein.

  “Yo, you need to calm down, check yourself before you wreck yourself,” I said, and Jon snickered as he stowed his bulletproof surfboard.

  “Get those smoking, burning Gatling guns off my carpet!” Greg shouted, and I looked down. My gats were kinda making a mess of his carpet. Also, the place kinda smelled like the inside of a dispensary.

  He seemed like he was about ready to pop a blood vessel, so I said, “You need to take a chill pill, Greg.”

  Greg swooped down and grabbed my gats. They freaking disappeared right in his hand! He just stood there and shook in pure anger, while I looked to see if he’d stuck them up his sleeve like a magician or something. I mean, they weigh a few hundred pounds, and he’d just disappeared them like Copperfield with the Statue of Liberty.

  “Dude!” I said. “My guns!”

  “Don’t make a mess in my plane or your guns won’t be the only thing to disappear,” he said, grinding his teeth.

  “Well, what else is there?” I asked. “You already took my guns. I mean, what else could disappear—” I gasped, and covered my crotch. “No! You wouldn’t!”

  He just narrowed his eyes at me. “Sit down and shut up.” And he poofed back to the cockpit.

  “Dude,” Jon leaned over to me across the aisle between our seats. “Greg is crazy, man.”

  “I think he just threatened to disappear my penis!” I said. “Good thing it’s so huge he could disappear it by half and it’d still be bigger than—”

  Pavement. Kiss.

  “What do you think that guy’s power is?” Jon asked, stealing a look at Greg, who was now hunched over the controls in the cockpit. We were whispering really low, so Greg couldn’t hear us.

  “He like, disappears and reappears, he tears peoples’ heads off with his bare hands … I don’t know,” I said. “But they’re pretty metal. Like KISS opening for Rammstein with a whole orchestra of electric guitars.” The plane started to move, jerking a little.

  “Yeah, that’s crazy,” Jon said, leaning back in his seat as the Concorde jerked down the runway. It didn’t even taxi first, just started right into takeoff. “I don’t know, man. Good thing he’s on our side.”

  “But what if he’s really not, Jon?” I asked, stroking my chin like a super smart private detective guy. “What if one day he finally snaps because he’s jealous of our junk? He might just come after us, ready to—”

  7.

  Sienna

  “—kill us all,” Friday said, actually stroking his chin like it made him look smarter. Honestly, a well-worn copy of Newton’s Principia, a beret, and a degree from Cambridge tucked ostentatiously under his arm couldn’t make him look smarter.

  I was trying very hard during his entire story to contain the sort of eyerolls that would break every muscle in my skull, but now I released and it felt so, so good as I threw my head back for an epic one. “You did not say that at the time.”

  “I did!”

  “And your theory for why? Because he’s suffering from penis envy? Seriously?”

  “It’s as good an explanation as any.” Friday looked a little crestfallen, and his hand fell away from his chin.

  “Admit it,” I said, “you have no idea why he wants to kill you.”

  “Maybe not,” he conceded. “But it was probably something to do with that Panama mission. He only showed up at the end, after all, and he could, like, teleport, so maybe he could have crisscrossed the whole base in the time we were there, tracking down secret intelligence and executing other mission targets we didn’t know about. There was probably a hidden objective, like he had to secretly assassinate Manuel Noriega.”

  “Noriega went to jail after Panama,” I said. “Hell, he’s still in jail, but back home now, I think. He wasn’t assassinated.”

  “Well, I don’t know what Greg was doing, then.” Friday shrugged. “Maybe Jon knows. It had to be something secret. Something cool. Something which threatens the lives of everyone who knew about it.” He was talking in a low, serious voice, like he was narrating some sort of docudrama about his own life.

  I scratched my hair, the sweat from my earlier exercise having dried on my scalp and left me with that kind of sticky, itchy sensation you get after a workout. “Huh. So you have no idea what this guy’s powers are, you don’t have a clue why he wants to kill you … Basically, you know nothing.”

  “But it’s probably related to Panama,” Friday said. “Or his jealousy over—”

  “Panama, huh?” I leapt at the thin gruel with which I’d been presented just to avoid any further discussion of Friday’s privates. He’d already proven himself about as reliable a narrator as a drunk surgeon with greased up hands about to perform micro brain surgery. Now, if the target of said brain surgery was Friday, he’d have a wide margin for error …

  “Definitely,” Friday said, and he suddenly got a little more earnest. “Please … will you help me?”

  I wanted to eyeroll, but I couldn’t. Friday had come across the country seeking me, a person he’d never gotten along with, and fear, genuine fear, was showing plainly on his face now. And based on everything he told me …

  He had good reason to be afraid.

  “Yes, I’ll help you,” I said. A chorus of voices exulted in my head.

  Yay! A case! Harmon said with less sarcasm and more sincerity than I would have thought him capable of.

  Time to put those tight shoulders to good use, Eve said.

  “It’s going to be great working together again,” Friday said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone close to my level to partner up with. Tough to find good help, you know, compared to this.” He flexed, ripping off his soaked, half-shredded shirt.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, partially ignoring him. “I will say, though … in spite of your disastrous storytelling—”

  “My storytelling was awesome.”

  “Ignoring you because you’re breaking my flow,” I said. “In spite of that … I did get one thing out of it.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “This Greg Vansen guy?” I shook my head, thinking about what Friday had said. A seeming ability to teleport? Enough strength to rip off heads? This guy was a top-of-the-power-scale meta. “He sounds like a real, implacable badass.”

  8.

  Greg

  “Would you like some
more eggs, dear?” Greg Vansen asked, holding the ivory-colored porcelain dish out and letting the spoon hover, little bits of yolk clinging to its silvery surface.

  “No, thank you.” Morgan Vansen favored her husband with a smile, her youthful features aglow in the morning light. Sun streamed in through the windows of their breakfast nook, no clouds on the horizon. Greg could see the shingles of the house next door from here, but it was a good ways off. They lived in a pricey Chicago suburb, in an older home where there was actually still space between the houses, that rarest of luxuries in a metropolis as massive as this one.

  Greg swung the egg dish back down to the immaculate white tablecloth. He always cooked breakfast when he got back from fulfilling a contract, up early the next morning with the rush of exuberance that accompanied a success. It might have taken longer than he’d intended, and not come off as cleanly as he might have hoped, but Percy Sledger was dead, and that was all that mattered. “Eddie,” Greg asked as an afterthought, looking at his son, his only child, who sat to his right, “would you like some more eg—”

  “I want to be a zookeeper when I grow up,” Eddie declared. His voice was high, the pitch appropriate to a baying dog or an overexcited five-year-old, which Eddie was.

  Morgan beamed at her son across the table. “What kind of animals do you most want to take care of, sweetie?” She asked in a sugary tone.

  Greg shifted the eggs on his plate, trying to keep a mild twitch in his right eye at bay.

  “I like the lions,” Eddie said. “I want to get five lions as my pets when I grow up.” He shifted his gaze to Greg, a kind of worshipfulness in his eyes. “Daddy, can we get lions?”

  “I thought you said you wanted them when you were an adult?” Greg speared a small cluster of egg and placed it daintily in his mouth. Greg didn’t particularly enjoy being pedantic, but it came naturally to him, with his focus on details.

  “I want them now,” Eddie moped, “but you said we can’t have any pets.”

  “We can’t have any pets,” Greg spoke around the egg in his mouth.

  “Why not?” Eddie asked.

  “Because I said so,” Greg said firmly, ignoring that sudden blush of heat in his cheeks. He didn’t like to be questioned.

  “But why not?” Eddie asked.

  Now Greg’s face felt like it was steaming. Getting asked the same question more than once was a particular peeve of his, sure to push his dial. “Because I said so, young man. Now finish your breakfast.”

  “But why n—”

  “Eddie, you heard your father,” Morgan said firmly. It was good that she did. Being asked the same question a third time would not have done anything good for Greg’s patience.

  Greg’s cell phone trilled in the distance, and Morgan sat up straight. “Do you want me to get that?”

  Greg hesitated, another forkful of eggs paused halfway to his mouth. “No. I’ll get it.” He set down his fork carefully, pushed back from the table, taking a look around the sunlit breakfast alcove, and paced toward the kitchen, light sparkling off the white granite counters.

  “Why do you want lions for pets?” Morgan asked as Greg passed through the arch toward his office in the front of the house.

  “Because they’re so cool, Mom,” Eddie replied.

  Greg scooped up his phone from the charging station where he’d left it as he stepped into his beautifully appointed, oak-covered office. He stared at the number flashing on the screen for only a second before answering. It wasn’t in the phone’s memory, but he knew it nonetheless, as he knew every number that normally might have been stored in his contact list—if he didn’t change phones frequently.

  “Mr. McGarry,” Greg said as he answered, keeping his reply pleasant and professional. Mark McGarry was his most regular employer, the one who’d hired him to kill Percy Sledger. “You received my confirmation?”

  “That the contract was fulfilled?” McGarry’s voice was rough, American accent shot through with a faint hint of something from Europe, though faded and only audible every few words. “Yes, I got the message. Unfortunately, I got another one shortly after from one of my sources … Sledger’s still breathing.”

  “That is physically impossible,” Greg said, keeping his tone in realm of polite disbelief. “He fell into the Columbia Gorge. No human could have survived—”

  “Sledger is a meta,” McGarry said, causing Greg to freeze in place.

  Greg’s face burned, internal temperature rising fast. This was a humiliating miscalculation. He kept his voice low, but avoided any ice in his reply. “That would have been useful information to have before I undertook the contract.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t need it, so I didn’t tell you,” McGarry said. “I assumed you’d be able to work your usual magic.”

  “Magic requires a certain element of preparation,” Greg said. “Preparation requires knowledge of what you’re facing. Had I been fully informed, I would have been able to calculate the probabilities of Mr. Sledger’s escape differently.” More accurately, he meant, but that was irrelevant at this point. Greg was steaming again, set to a simmer by Eddie’s inane questions, and now brought to a boil by McGarry’s failure to inform of him of vital information. To think, in addition to running him around for more than a week, Sledger had survived his impossible fall because he’d possessed powers, a durability that Greg hadn’t known about.

  Greg’s cheeks burned, the hot embarrassment and sensation of being utterly fooled causing his fingers to tighten around the phone. This was deeply upsetting, being caught out unaware. It shouldn’t have been like this. His stomach felt like it was in free fall, as though he’d made a complete idiot of himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. “I’ll leave immediately and try to reacquire the target—”

  “I can help you with this,” McGarry said. “He’s in an apartment in Portland. I’ll send you the address when we get off the phone. He’s with someone else.”

  “Do you know who?” Greg asked. Better to be sure; metas tended to group together, after all. “I don’t want to be caught unawares.” Again, he did not say, from humiliation. This whole conversation was pure, fury-inducing embarrassment at having been so very, very wrong, and in front of a man who was his boss.

  “No idea. A lover, perhaps.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Greg said, already running through the list of things he needed to do to prepare. It was, fortunately, short, because he’d done most of it before retiring to bed last night.

  “Both of them,” McGarry said. “I don’t want any witnesses.”

  “Are you paying me for the girlfriend?” Greg asked.

  “Call her a bonus. To make amends for your screwup.” And McGarry hung up without another word.

  Greg hung up as well, face now aflame with anger, heart thudding in his chest. To make amends for his screwup? How about McGarry’s failure to inform him that Sledger was a metahuman? That would have affected his preparations. If he’d known, he would have been more ready to execute—

  Setting his phone back on the charging station, Greg drew a deep breath. None of this mattered for the moment. There would be time for recrimination later. For now, Percy Sledger was still alive, and needed to die, desperately, so that Greg could save face and renew his professional reputation, for it had just taken a hit, and in front of Mr. McGarry, no less. He had never yet failed the man, and now, to deliver this stinging result, after a week of chasing Sledger around the country?

  Greg grabbed the two cases he carried in his coat pockets, then took up his phone, putting it in his front pocket. He was already wearing a suit, fortunately, so he was most of the way ready to go.

  He started toward the garage but stopped himself. He couldn’t just leave without informing Morgan, after all. He altered his course, angling back down the hallway and through the kitchen where he found Eddie and Morgan still at the table, sunlight streaming in around them.

  “… and then the lions will—” Eddie was saying as Greg entered th
e room. Morgan was watching, enthralled by their son’s story, leaning on a hand.

  “You can’t have pet lions,” Greg said sharply as he approached. Eddie turned to look back at him, peering between the slats of the back of the chair. “They’re dangerous, and will eat you.”

  “But when I get older—” Eddie started.

  “No,” Greg said sharply. “Not now. Not when you get older. Never. Also, being a zookeeper is a ridiculous occupation. Do you want to be poor?”

  “Greg …” Morgan said softly, with a hint of warning that he ignored.

  Eddie stared at him through the chair back, wide-eyed, eyes glistening. “No,” he said in a small voice.

  “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day,” Greg said, making his way over to Morgan and kissing her brusquely on the cheek. “Work called. I have to go.”

  “All right,” Morgan said quietly, disappointment evident.

  “Eddie,” Greg said, making his way over to his son and ruffling his hair with a stray hand. It was done out of affection, but Eddie did not look up at him and kept his head bowed. Eddie didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to, really; he’d taking his chastening properly, Greg reflected as he headed for the door. It was good to get him accustomed to reality, to the way things were. He belonged in the real world, not in some imaginary zoo where he lived among a menagerie in some fantasy that would never be.

  Greg heard the slow wail start as he walked out of the kitchen, the mewling sound of Eddie breaking down and Morgan rising to tend to him. That was her task, to pick him back up and gently instruct as to why he needed to learn these lessons now. Greg’s was to do the hard work he’d chosen, to pay for this roof over their heads, the food in their bellies, and the stellar school district that Eddie would begin attending in the fall. That, and to occasionally bring Eddie back to reality at moments like this.