Agony (Debt Collector 2) Read online

  I nod. It almost felt like no transfer at all, just an emptying. Not unlike the mercy hit I did. “But what about the bean counters? This,” I gesture between us again, “has got to completely mess them up.” I’m also wondering about the mercy hit, and how that will show up on the tracker. Candy doesn’t want me to check in with Flitstrom until tomorrow, but I’d like to know what to expect before I get there.

  “The tracker counts every second of life energy that you transfer, yes?” she asks.

  “Right.” That was Lesson One in training.

  “Wrong.” She has that twinkle again. “I know you’re a guppy, Lirium, but really? Haven’t you wondered if anyone has ever tampered with their trackers?”

  I scowl at her. This ‘guppy’ thing needs to stop. “Some collectors might not mind someone digging into their arm to mess with their tracker, or care if they risk an early retirement if they get caught. I’m not interested in either of those.”

  She chuckles lightly. “You are so straight.”

  My scowl is threatening to turn into a snarl. She gives my arm an apologetic pat, and her warm fingertips cause drops of sensation to pulse through me. I’m so reactive to her, I have to wonder if it’s a side effect of the boost. It’s making me feel more alive than I have in… well, since that mercy hit.

  I need to know more about all of this. “So the boost doesn’t get tracked?”

  “Nope, it’s completely off the tracker, because it’s between two collectors.” She taps a light rhythm on my arm that is completely distracting, but I manage not to glance at it. “Did you know that collectors can transfer with more than just, shall we say, the conventional position of palm-to-forehead?” Her fingers continue to dance on my arm, and her gaze lingers there. “In fact, an accomplished collector can collect anywhere with anything. All you need is a little body-to-body contact.”

  Her hand stills on my arm, and she looks into my eyes. My heart lurches as I realize what she’s saying, and I jerk my arm away from her touch.

  She smiles. “I could have drained you completely with that yummy kiss, lover. If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it already.”

  The small hairs on my arm are already standing up, as if they’ve figured out—way ahead of me—how much of a shark she really is.

  “What do you want from me?” I can’t help leaning slightly away from her.

  She gives an elaborate sigh. “I’m here to help you, but I can see it’s not going to be easy to convince you of that. It might help you to know I’ve kept Candy happy for years by helping her train up her guppies, keeping them from going belly up before their time.”

  “Candy’s your psych officer?” This makes more sense to me now.

  “And Candy gets what Candy wants.” Ophelia gives me a grim smile. “Don’t be what Candy wants, Lirium. That’s my first piece of advice for you.”

  “There’s more?”

  She glances around the apartment, raises an eyebrow at my bandaged knuckles, and finally looks me in the eyes. “Lay off the booze. If you want to get high, find a collector and ride the merry-go-round. Clean life hits will serve you better any day of the week. Just make sure it’s a collector you trust.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  She smiles wide. “Yes you do, baby. Or you wouldn’t have been stealing kisses from me.”

  “That was before I understood what you are.”

  She presses a fine-fingered hand to her chest. “Oh, baby, you wound me! After all I’ve done for you.” She’s got a Cheshire grin now, but then the wattage fades. “I mean it, Lirium. Be careful who you boost with. And make sure you don’t sleep with any collectors. Boosting’s tricky enough with the conventional position and someone you trust. It gets a lot more difficult to, ah, control when you’re between the sheets and otherwise occupied. I don’t need to draw you a map about that, do I?”

  My eyes must have gone wide, because she nods sharply. “That’s a dangerous business, baby. Don’t do it. It’s a lot safer to use sex workers to scratch that itch.”

  I swallow. Definitely out of my depth with Ophelia, but I’m starting to believe that she’s not actually going to eat me, even if she’s a bigger shark than I thought.

  “I’m not sure sex workers are all that safe, either,” I say.

  “How so?” Her face scrunches, but she must have thought of the danger already.

  I’m not ready to tell her the truth, so I go vague. “What if they’re not screened? What if they sell your address to the highest bidder?”

  Her eyes go round and large. “You have sex workers come to your apartment?”

  I’m feeling more like a guppy by the minute. She runs a delicate hand over her face, then glances at the door. “Have you had one here?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “That’s why I moved. I haven’t had anyone here, in the new place… except you.”

  I can see the tension fleeing her body. “Let’s keep it that way, shall we? I’ll hook you up with a madam who doesn’t do house calls.”

  “You’re hooking me up with sex workers?” I give her a bemused look. “Was that part of Candy’s plan to rehabilitate me?”

  “Candy doesn’t know jack about collectors.” She pats my arm again, and surprisingly, I don’t flinch. “If it was left up to her and her lascivious incompetence, they’d all wash out. And I’d hate to see a cute thing like you go into early retirement.”

  That makes two of us.

  She gives a large sigh. “I think that’s enough training for one night, sweet thing.” She climbs off the couch and sways toward the kitchen. “I’m starved. Missed dinner tonight because I had to do a collection. What have you got for eats around here?”

  I cringe as she disappears into the kitchen. After a moment I hear the refrigerator open. The tap-tap sound of her boots impatiently beating my tiled floor drifts in.

  “Lirium, Lirium, Lirium,” she calls from the kitchen. She comes to the door and peeks around it, holding onto the wall. “You’re out of ice cream.”

  “Really?” I ask with a smirk. “I just got some last week.”

  “Looks like you need to make a grocery run, lover.”

  I grin and climb to my feet. In the span of less than fifteen minutes, Ophelia has boosted me high on life force, kissed me but refused to bed me, then lectured me on the finer points of transfers and trackers. She’s taking over my place like she’s lived here for years, and the strangest part is that I’m starting to enjoy it.

  I’m going to have to figure out where the grocery store is after all.

  I couldn’t decide between Rocky Road and Vanilla, so I pulled both from the frosted freezer case at the convenience store. Now I’m staring at them and debating which one to put back. Ophelia told me to get Rocky Road, but I’m not sure my stomach can handle more than Vanilla right now, not with Mrs. Riley’s life energy, the boost from Ophelia, and my own residual lack of eating mixed into the turbulence. I should just get both.

  I haven’t had ice cream since I was a kid. We didn’t have much, my mom and me, growing up on the east side, with her working two jobs just to keep us afloat and ahead of the debt collectors. I only clearly remember one ice cream event in my life, and it’s from when I was very young. Maybe my dad was still around, or maybe the world just seemed brighter because I was such a little kid and didn’t know anything about it, but I clearly remember a mountain of ice cream, a forest of spoons, and a dozen of my friends. We attacked that thing like consuming it was a moral imperative straight from God.

  “Hey pal!” a voice sounds behind me. “You okay?”

  I blink. I’ve been staring at the refrigerator case, clutching two pints of ice cream in my hands, for… I’m not sure how long. The crusty ice on the outside of the containers is sliding off and dripping on my boots. I haven’t thought about my childhood, at least not the good parts, for so long that for a moment I think maybe I am starting to lose my mind. Or maybe it’s an after-effect of the boost.

  Ophelia. There�
�s something about her that’s triggering this happy desire to run out and buy ice cream for a girl I just met. Only she’s not just a girl, she’s a collector who’s more shark than girl. And more woman than either. She’s something good. I can feel it.

  She might save me after all.

  I swap my melting ice cream pints for fresh ones from the case, then turn to wave one at the convenience store clerk, so he doesn’t call the police to come get the demented guy by the freezer. I work my way forward through the store, my gaze roaming the dusty shelves of snack foods for anything else Ophelia might want. I grab a bag of cookies that look like they might go with the ice cream, and if they don’t, they’ll make good snacks for later. I’ll have to get some real food soon if I’m going to be feeding two.

  I smile, hands full, all the way to the front. The clerk is a wiry guy with more hair on his face than his head and a dour look that makes me think he has a gun under the register. I should have checked out the neighborhood more before I moved here. While he packs my stuff in a double layer of plastic bagging, I dig out my debit card. It’s the one we’re issued in training, so we can stay off the grid. All our collector salary goes on the card, and purchases with these aren’t supposed to register on the central databases, just on a special, secure server accessible only to the Agency higher ups. Even our psych officers have to request information, and then only if they have to track down one of their errant collectors.

  The clerk swipes my debit card past the check-out scanner and hands it back to me.

  “Thanks, man,” I say.

  He nods a gruff acknowledgment. I swing my groceries in one hand and stuff my debit card in the pocket of my trenchcoat with the other. The cool air outside is a welcome change from the musty smell of the store, and I stride across the darkened street. The sun is setting, turning the urban canyons of my neighborhood into a patchwork of shadows and dying sunlight that’s shifted blood-red through the smog.

  I don’t notice the shadows are moving until three of them melt from the alleyway and surround me—two in front, and when I glance back, another behind. The first time I take a walk in this neighborhood, and I’m about to get mugged for ice cream. Fantastic.

  Maybe I should start carrying a gun. The Agency issued me a license in training for self-defense, but I never thought it wise to actually have one around my apartment. There were too many weekends where I spent my time fighting off personal demons for ready access to a weapon to be a good thing.

  The men are muscular and dressed in rugged workpants and lumpy hoodies that make them look misshapen. Their boots crunch the dirt and broken gravel of the alley. I’m only thirty feet from my apartment door, which is just around the corner at the end of the alley. I might be able to outrun them, but the two bigger ones are between me and my apartment complex. I edge backward, knowing the other one is still behind me. Maybe I can just give them my ice cream and debit card. They won’t recognize the card for what it is; it looks like any other. Maybe they’ll beat me up a bit, but then they’ll move on…

  “There’s nowhere to go, collector,” one in front of me says. “You might as well come with us, peaceful like.”

  Shit. They know who I am. How can that be? My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. I grip the plastic bag tighter in my hand. I have to fight them. A quick death in the shadows would be better than an extended torture session while they try to get me to collect for them. And if I fight, I might get lucky and break free long enough to make it back to my apartment. Barricade myself inside. Call the police.

  Shoes scuff behind me. The guy is close. I turn and swing the ice cream as hard as I can. They’re twin rocks at the end of my plastic rope, and they cold-cock the guy. He goes down hard. I’m on him, palm pressed to his forehead, just in case that cracking sound wasn’t his skull actually breaking. A surge of energy pulses into me, a blinding flash that whites out the world for a split-second then brings it roaring back. The man is young, years of potential life ahead of him, and it burns my hand like a branding iron. I hold on as long as I can, a scream wanting to tear out from my throat, then I yank my hand free. My body floods with the energy of a hundred men.

  The other two are on me, but I’m wild with energy. I whirl the ice cream like a club, crashing down on one of them. The other takes a swing at me, but I lean back. He over rotates on the miss, and I take him in the gut like I’m a line-backer and he’s a tackle dummy. I slam him into the graffiti-covered concrete wall. The air whooshes out of his lungs, but he recovers and shoves me away. I stumble backward and fall.

  He pulls a gun from under his black hoodie and points it at me.

  I scramble backward, manage to get my feet under me, and run like hell for the end of the alleyway. I expect a bullet in the back the entire way, but it doesn’t come. I don’t look back until I reach the end and skitter around the corner. The thug with the gun is bent over one of his buddies, helping him up. I don’t hang around wondering why they haven’t shot me yet.

  My hands shake as I fish in my pocket for the swipe key to the complex. My heart is pounding a staccato note that I swear is going to kill me before the thugs can come around the corner and do it. I finally get the key out, only to notice that the door is open, standing ajar an inch.

  Ophelia.

  I yank the door open and sprint up the stairs. Three flights to my level, and I can’t take them fast enough. My legs are full of life energy and panic.

  When I reach the door, it’s already slid open. My apartment is empty. I dash three times into the bedroom and the kitchen, calling Ophelia’s name, before I come to my senses.

  She’s not here.

  I clutch my hair with both hands. Think. The door was open. Did she leave? Did someone take her? Was this all an elaborate setup? Send Lirium out for ice cream and attack him in the alley? That didn’t make any sense, but… I lurch over to the closet, my legs protesting the panic that’s stopped up and held prisoner as I sort out what’s happened. I rip open the closet door. Her trenchcoat is still there.

  If she had set me up, she would have taken her coat with her.

  I wander to the front door in a daze. Belatedly, I remember to close and lock it, just in case the alley thugs are on their way up. I turn and brace my back against it, and that’s when I see the signs.

  The coffee table is slightly askew.

  The thin carpet underneath it has a bunched-up bump that wasn’t there before.

  And finally… a dark smear on the polished wood floor a few feet from the door.

  I slowly step toward it and bend down. On closer inspection, it’s reddish black. Ophelia’s blood is staining my floor.

  Oh no.

  They knew I was a collector. They came looking for me, but they found Ophelia instead. They hurt her, took her, and came for me next… my head is woozy. I brace my right hand against the floor to steady myself, then heave up and flip on the screen in my left palm.

  I punch in the number. A woman’s face appears in my hand.

  “Nine-one-one, please state the nature of your emergency.”

  “A woman has been kidnapped.” My voice shakes. The operator says something in response, but all I can think is that one of the Madam Anastazja’s girls found me. They tipped off one of the east side mobs, and somehow they tracked me down to my new place. Only instead of me paying the price for my guppy stupidity, they took Ophelia. I try to console myself that there’s only a smear of blood. Maybe they didn’t hurt her too badly. But worse is coming, wherever they’ve taken her. Much worse. Only then does it occur to me that I should have called my psych officer before the police.

  Candy is going to kill me.

  “What do you mean?” Anger is turning my words into snarls. “Why aren’t they looking for her?”

  Candy flashes me a dangerous look, and I check myself. She returns to digging through her lacquered black-and-gold handbag. Not long after the police arrived, Candy dragged me away from the crime scene, previously known as my new apartment. A
t the time, she was all coolness and professionalism, flashing her psych officer badge at the local law enforcement and sweeping me away to her office. I barely had time to snag my box of stuff from the closet. Now it sits at my feet.

  “Of course they’ll try to find her,” Candy says. “I talked to Officer Lamb and gave him temporary access to Ophelia’s file. He has your statement, and he’s going to look for camera footage of the alley, but we can’t even be sure those men were the same ones who took Ophelia.”

  “But they knew I was a collector.” That can’t be a coincidence. It has to be tied to me and my guppy idiocy with Madam A’s sex workers. Not that Candy knows about that.

  “Officer Lamb said that part of town is rife with the Kolek mob,” she says. “They must have seen Ophelia and recognized her as a collector. The building super says he doesn’t know how they got in, but he’s probably on the Kolek payroll. You should count yourself lucky you were in the alley. Officer Lamb will put out a bulletin about Ophelia, and the police will keep an eye out for her. But she’s with the mob now, Lirium. She’s probably already dead.”

  “You don’t know that!” My voice is cracking, and I feel the thin, icy line I’m skating with Candy. I force myself to lean back in the chair and run my bandaged hand over my face. It’s still healing from when I punched the elevator, but my right hand is worse. The life-force I pulled out of the thug in the alley left an angry red burn mark on my palm, a straight-line welt that looks like I got whacked with a ruler made of hot coals. I keep my hand curled and tuck it under my arm, so Candy doesn’t see. When I told the police I got mugged, I didn’t mention that I drained one of the alley attackers. I’m still stunned myself that it happened at all. I’ve never collected under pressure; it’s not supposed to be possible.

  I have so much to teach you. Ophelia’s words haunt me, along with the smear of her blood on my floor. I’m starting to wonder if anything I know about collecting is actually true.