Dear Grandmother,

 

There are things I never got the chance to tell you. I never really reported back on that mission in Houston. Well, I don’t know if you heard me. Did you even know I was with you at the end? I combed your hair with your favorite ivory handled brush. With each stroke I wondered how it was possible that a tiny rupture of a tiny blood vessel could turn the dragon lady into a glassy-eyed lump of flesh.

 

Don’t you dare think I’m going to shed any more tears for you. You made me cry enough when you were alive.

 

I heard once that if you have a secret you can’t tell anyone – like, oh, why I destroyed a lost family heirloom -  what you should do is dig a hole in the ground. You whisper your secret into the hole, then fill the hole back up, burying the secret. So I’m writing this all down, and I’ll bury it in the backyard. Mom is going to dig up your stupid koi pond and grow vegetables.

 

Mom is blossoming now that you’re gone. No surprise there. But guess what? Dad is happier too. And even Uncle Johnny, the only one who could manage you, walks with a spring in his step lately.

 

We miss you like a toothache.

 

I am not going to start crying. Why is family business always such a melodrama?

 

OK, family business. I gotta admit, I felt ungraciously grateful for Uncle Johnny’s sprained ankle. It meant my first real chance to make my mark in the business. Of course, it later occurred to me that maybe you were sending a message to your friend by sending the noob to repay the debt.

 

You promised you’d explain all about the debt when I got back, and how you got be “old friends” with that frosty bit of Eurotrash. So much for that. Some promises are ill omens, right? You dropped that bit of kitchen wisdom so many times, I think you even wrote it on a birthday card one year.

 

All right, fast forward. I’m in Houston to find and extract some dude being held captive in a warehouse. Do you have any idea how many warehouses there are in the greater Houston area? Here’s a hint: after three nights of searching, I didn’t have any clue how many warehouses there are in the greater Houston area. Let’s just say, lot. A lot of a lot.

 

Three tedious nights of searching for the captive, and the most notable thing was that some old guy at the motel was totally perving on me. He always just happened to be coming out of his room when I went out. Uh huh.

 

But the fourth night, things get interesting.

 

So it’s around 11 pm and I’m approaching my sixth or seventh target of the night, over in Greenspoint. I was walking down this service alley behind a warehouse block – not the best approach, but beware patterns, right? – when I spot this guy clinging to the shadows in the corner of the loading dock. At first I think he’s homeless or a drunk or something, because he’s leaning on the door frame with half closed eyes, kinda spaced out.

 

Then it occurs to me that maybe he’s listening to something inside the building, and I size him up seriously. He’s mostly wrapped up in a trenchcoat, but beneath the coat’s hem I see some new looking shitkickers. And for pants he’s got some kind of body armor, and it’s the expensive stuff. Much nicer than what I’m wearing under my black silks.

 

At this point, please pretend I said something pithy by Sun Tzu. Sorry, I don’t remember all those quotes. But I remember the sentiment. With perfect silence and adequate skill, I take out a small knife and whizz it into the door about five inches from his head.

 

He turns, freaked, but I gotta give him credit: he manages to only look a little surprised. I probably looked more surprised, so I’m glad I got my face covered. It’s the perv from the motel. Seriously!

 

“And who might you be?” he asks, dead casual. Like he’s totally unimpressed. I was wearing the voice distorter that Uncle Johnny rigged up, so I sounded all deep and electronic when I replied.

 

“I am Chui Ma Lau!” I say. I thought I sounded all Darth Awesome, but he just smiles a little and says, “You’re a girl.”

 

Huh? I don’t know what the hell to say to that.

 

“You’re the girl from the motel,” he says. That makes me kind of mad, and I start to talk but I don’t know what to say. There are just these weird hissing noises coming out of the distorter. So I turn it off, make a show of holding up another throwing knife, and ask, “Why are you following me?”

 

“I’m not,” he says, and he packs a lot into those two words. Like he’s embarrassed for me, that I would think he has any interest in whether I live or die. Yeah, you would have probably gotten along great with this guy, Grandma.

 

“You don’t look like a watchman,” I say. “I take it you work for…?”

 

It’s a lame gambit and he doesn’t even answer me. Just stares at me and I don’t know what to do. To cover I say, “How did you recognize me?

“Body language,” he says. And back to the staring. I know what he’s doing, trying to get a psychological advantage by keeping me off balance. I flex my grip on the knife, just to remind him who’s got the drop on who.

 

“What are you doing here?” I ask, in my best don’t fuck with me tone.

 

He looks away for a second, then back at me and nods slightly, like he’s decided something. And then he stares for a few more seconds, just to mess with me. Creepy jerk. Finally he opens his mouth.

 

“OK, cards on the table,” he says. “I was hired to find a missing person. I was told to start looking in Houston. And I wasn’t told to expect any back-up.”

 

“Neither was I,” I say. “Let’s get his over with. Either we’re working for the same person, or things are about to get ugly.”

 

“The Broker,” he says. I think: knife in the face. Get out the taser while he’s distracted.

 

“Czolgosz!” he says quickly. “Maybe you were hired by his agent, Miss Cgolgosz.”

 

“I know that name,” I say reluctantly. Now I start thinking about how to shake him. I don’t want some wild card at my back. “But I wasn’t exactly hired,” I stall. “I’m paying off an old obligation.”

 

“That sounds about right,” he says, and he seems to relax a bit.

 

Then there’s a faint noise from behind the door. I mean from inside the building, not right on the other side of the door. We both go alert.

 

“I’ve been all around the building,” he whispers. “Every entrance I can find is locked tight.”

 

Just what I wanted to hear. This guy may be legit, but why take a chance when I can easily dump him? It takes no time at all to let the holy word fill me and bear me up. Suddenly I’m climbing up the side of the building, skillful as a spider and swift as the breeze.

 

I vault onto the roof and land with more than adequate skill, soft as a cloud. I go totally still for a moment, letting my senses absorb the gestalt of the roof. I hear water drip, a faint hum from a vent. There’s a bat flying overhead and a faint smell of urine in the far corner. And the roof is creaking slightly ahead and to the left.

 

“That wasn’t very nice,” a teasing voice whispers. The perv.

 

“How did you do that?” I blurt.

 

“Maybe there’s two of me,” he says.

 

“God couldn’t be that cruel,” I mutter. He smiles at that.

 

As soon as I’d heard his voice I’d had the throwing knife back in hand, but he’s just been standing there this whole time. Looking not like a threat. And he totally could have attacked me before I sensed his presence.

 

I’ve got a better look at him now, in the moonlight. He’s on the tall side, around six feet, with blondish hair and blue eyes. He’s lantern jawed and somebody’s idea of good looking. Actually he could be a model, but not the kind who sells designer jeans. He’s the kind you see in department store circulars. 

 

“OK,” I say, and he seems to know what I mean. He takes a few cautious steps towards me. By which I mean he’s trying to be quiet, but doesn’t have any real training in the ancient art of being sneaky.

 

“Don’t move,” I whisper. “Creaky roof, not good. Let me scout around.”

 

“Too late,” he whispers back. For the first time so far, he sounds worried. “Alarm went off. I felt it.”

 

“You felt it,” I say flatly. “And how’d you do that?”

 

“How’d you Crouching Tiger up that wall?” he zips back.

 

Fair enough. Anyway, I can hear footsteps now from below, moving fast. There’s a sort of structure in the middle of the roof, just big enough to cover a stairwell. The footsteps are closer now, loud enough for the perv to hear them and loud enough for me to tell there are at least five people coming up.

 

We both orient on the door to the stairs. The perv shifts into something that vaguely resembles a fighting stance. I can tell he’s going to be useless if there’s a fight. What is his deal? He acts like a pro, but…but this is a question for another time.

 

The door bursts open and half a dozen guys emerge. They’re all dressed alike, in cargo shorts and t shirts, all barefoot and all really big in the shoulders. But they don’t just have the same clothes, they have the same faces. And their faces are messed up, animal-like, too small and pointy. They even smell like animals, though no critter I’ve encountered before.

 

You tried to prepare me for the banished ones, Grandma. “Be ready for anything,” you said warningly. But how could I be ready for a pack of monsters?

 

“They’re not so bad,” the perv whispers. “Fast. Nasty claws. We can take them.”

 

I take little comfort in his foolhardiness. I’d be better off if he wasn’t here at all. I’m probably going to have to save his sorry ass. I’d much rather let half the creatures be distracted by taking him down, while I deal with the other half. Sorry pervo, but I was raised to be very practical.

 

I guess he was too, because he takes a couple steps back, putting me between, which causes the banished things to advance. They’re growling now. It’s…unsettling.

 

I let the word flow into me, making my limbs fast and light, and launch myself at the things. Sun Tzu wasn’t the one who said the best defense is a good offense, but I’m sure he would have approved. The critters really are kind of fast. The two in front manage to twist away as I zoom at them. I don’t even hit them, much less knock them down.

 

I bounce off and up from the doorframe, spin, and on my way down I smack two of them on the tops of their heads. Can’t dodge what you don’t see coming. I hit with enough force to knock out a person, but these things just clutch their heads and stagger around. They’re out of the fight, but maybe not for long.

 

 Now two are facing me. Behind them the first two are advancing on the perv. He puts his hands up placatingly, and then something big and dark seems to rush from him, like a shadow falling out of him. It barrels into one of the banished, pushing it into the darkness clear on the other side of the roof.

 

I’m glad the perv has something up his sleeve, because it’s time for me to dance with the two in front of me. They’re pacing around me in opposite directions. Pack hunters. This could get nasty.

 

Best defense, etc. I pull out two knives and throw one at the critter on the left. It’s poorly aimed, but it does what it has to: distract the thingie from the knife in my good hand. With all my strength and more than adequate skill, I hurl the second knife into its throat.

 

The thing shrieks in rage, and its partner echoes the cry and springs for me. I dodge it fairly easily – they’re fast, but not as fast as me – but it lands gracefully and spins to strike again, claws lashing out. I skip back a few steps.

 

And then I fucking trip.

 

I’d forgotten about the two woozy ones. One seems to have sunk to its knees, because I hit something soft and waist high, and lose my balance. I manage to turn my downward motion into a somersault not entirely lacking in grace, but for the moment I’ve lost the edge.

 

The other critter is already coming at me, and the dance shifts into his aggression and my reactions. His claws come at me, again and again. I dodge and dance and keep moving backwards, away from the other thingies. One of them is still staggering around, but the one I backed into is pulling itself up. It cocks its head at me, and prowls towards us.

 

All things considered, I decide, I don’t want to be fighting two of them at once. P0wnage time! I feint towards the beastie in front of me. It takes the bait, leaping forward. I easily step aside and bring my elbows down on its back. It hits the ground hard and whines. Meanwhile I’ve pulled out the taser. 50,000 volts later, the fight seems to go out of my beastie.

 

I stand there a minute, like I’m catching my breath, pretending I don’t hear the next one rushing to attack my back. Then I spin around just in time to smash the taser into its face. It howls as its nose is crushed. Then I turn the taser on, and the critter jerks and whimpers and slowly crumples.

 

Now I have a second to take in the big picture. There are two incapacitated critters at my feet. There are two more towards the middle of the roof. One is sprawled out and bleeding heavily. Apparently it ripped the knife out of its throat. The other is shaking itself like a wet dog, still groggy from my head strike.

 

And at the other end of the building, one is on top of the perv, choking him. Since the fight is pretty much over, I indulge myself by moving to the perv in a series of cartwheels. The final one flows into a kick that sends the critter clear off the building. Yeah, I own.

 

I kneel beside the gasping man but I don’t look at him. I’m keeping my eye on the rest of the roof, thank you very much. There’s one banished left I can see, one unaccounted for, and who knows what else downstairs.

 

“You OK?” I ask.

 

“Present,” he says groggily. He sits up and leans against the low wall that marks the edge of the roof. He just breathes heavy for a bit, while I watch the last critter crouch down and shake its head some more.

 

“Bad doggie,” I say to myself. The perv whistles.

 

“Five of them,” he says. “You took out five of them and there’s not a mark on you.”

 

I shrug. “You wanna do the last one?” I say.

 

Then that last one just keels over. It’s not funny, but we both chuckle. Nerves, I guess. That was the last laugh of the night.

 

I look at him and I get that stupid we were in the shit together feeling, even though he hasn’t really earned it.

 

“You can call me Angie,” I say.

 

He ruins the moment by giving me an obviously made-up name. (“Edison Palmer” if you must know. Sounds like a soap opera character.) So it’s back to business. After a quick consultation, we decide that since the alarm has been raised there’s no point to being subtle.

 

The perv manifests the shadow thing again. I get a better look at it this time and it’s kinda spooky. It’s like a rough sketch of a man, but it has no face or…other details. Like a mannequin? It hovers in the air for a few seconds, then flies down the stairs. The perv looks pretty absorbed in remote controlling the thing. I make a mental note that if I have to kill him, I should do it while the shadow is out.

 

Meanwhile I get out my wire and tie up the three critters that still seem viable (turns out the perv pushed one off the roof too. So, not totally useless. Yay?) There isn’t really time to do it right, but at least I bind all their hands behind their backs.

 

About three minutes later I’m padding back to the perv. He’s frowning.

 

“What?” I say

 

“There’s no one down there,” he says. “I mean, OK, they could be hiding. But the building’s pretty empty. Not many places to hide.”

 

I mentally run through the possibilities. None of them are good. Being an optimist, I go for the worst one.

 

“If this is a set-up…”

 

“Then someone gave Czolgosz bad information,” the perv finishes.  “You know,” he continues thoughtfully, “she never told me the details of the kidnapping. If there’s a mole in their organization-“

 

“-that would explain a lot. Or, here’s a fun one: Czolgosz is behind all this.”

 

He shakes his head. “Why send us looking for him, then?”

 

“To put on a good show?” I say. OK, that did sound weak.

 

“That seems like a stretch,” the perv says. At least he’s dropped the too cool for school routine.

 

”Maybe,” I say, “but there’s definitely more going on than meets the eye. Like, these critters? The banished? They have to have some kind of handler nearby. They’re dumb. They forget their orders, go wild.”

 

“More wild,” he corrects me. But he looks a little impressed at my knowledge. So anyway, off we go to look for the boss. I’ll cut this bit short and just get to the bad part.

 

So the top two floors are totally empty, and we start searching for reals on the third floor down, where some of the rooms have furniture, piles of trash, all kind of miscellaneous crap. The perv is a little distracted because he’s got his shadow searching the neighboring buildings.

 

We get to this room filled with lumber scraps. In one corner there’s a bunch of bigger pieces and planks and stuff, and what I take to be an antique coat track. Some piece of oddly nice wood among the junk. So I’m sweeping my flashlight back to the whatever, just out of idle curiosity –

 

- and it moves. I see this dark wooden mask coming at me in the dark.  Ambush. There’s something set it into its left eye and and and I can’t stop looking looking looking looking.

 

I’m getting married to Dave. My flight is touching down in Rio. I’m running through the Mission at night. It’s my daughter’s first day of school. A stranger just stabbed me. I’m putting the poison in the tea. Newspaper headline says martial law. I’m getting married to Ah-Fei. I wish I’d had children. I have to destroy the jade figurine. The water shortage continues. I’m the last human on the station. I’m so proud my son will continue the family business.

 

On and on it goes, all these images of myself running through my mind. Only they’re not just images, they’re like moments. Each one has its own internal logic, even though a lot of them contradict each other and some just plain don’t make sense.

 

And they’re all happening at the same time.

 

I feel like my head is going to explode. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. And finally crash.

 
 

When I wake up I immediately wince. Not from pain, I’m just trying to brace myself somehow for the next flash. But it doesn’t come. I exhale slowly. I feel oddly out of place, like maybe I slipped into one of those moments. But for the moment I am not unstuck in time, so I’m relieved.

 

As relieved as you can be when you wake up in an improvised torture chamber. My feet are chained together and my hands are tied to a chain looped around a pipe overhead. I’m in my underwear and it’s kind of cold in here. I’m assuming we’re still in the warehouse, because it smells right, but who knows?

 

A weak bulb overhead shines on a bare room with a few doors. A heap of cloth in one corner might be my clothes. Our clothes. The perv, I realize, is tied up like me, about two feet to my left. I wonder if I have the same funny-groggy look on my face as he does. Damn, I really am out of it. Assess the situation, Angie!

 

The perv coughs, jerks up, and looks around. He sees me and looks away, like he’s ashamed of something. “The future sucks,” he says bitterly. His eyelids flicker like he’s fighting to stay awake.

 

“Stay with me,” I whisper. “Palmer! Snap out of it!” Tied up and with my tools on the other side of the room, the perv is our best bet at getting out of this mess.

 

But as soon as I speak, something stirs behind us. I try to twist around, and spot the wooden head coming around us. It plants itself about a foot in front of us and I get a good look at the woodscrap creature.

 

The head still looks like some kind of wacky antique, a well-cared for piece of dark wood carved to look some kind of old-fashioned puppet. Like Punch and Judy, you know? Big beaky nose, bigger chin, blank smile? One of its eyes is carved into wide surprise. The other eye has been gouged out. A cheap faux crystal sits in its place.

 

It looks like a bust set on top of a junkheap marionette. Below the neck is a rough body composed of hundreds of bits of wood of varying sizes and conditions. I spot dowels and chunks of two by four and driftwood. Nails stick out here and there, and the whole thing seems to be lashed together with twine and chicken wire.

 

This thing shouldn’t even be able to balance upright, let alone move, but there it is. For a second I think of the Oz books. I bet if you could really go to Oz, you’d find out that Tik Tok and the Scarecrow were pretty fucking scary.

 

“What are you,” the perv says deliberately. "The Frankenstein of pine?”

 

You know what? I do like his foolhardiness. Just a bit. But Frankenpine doesn’t. It gives Palmer a good whack on the side of the head. Not too hard, maybe, but we’re talking a fist made of a chunk of door. Complete with doorknob.

 

So, not to get all whiny or anything, because dutiful granddaughters don't complain about such trifles, but Frankenpine proceeds to torture us for fifteen or twenty minutes. He walks around us slowly, hitting us at random intervals with varying amounts of force. I comfort myself by cataloging all the faults in his interrogation techniques.

 

For the full psychological effect, we ought to be naked. And we should either be isolated in different rooms, or have a better view of each other so we can see each other’s suffering. The randomness of the blows seems like a good technique, until I start to suspect there’s a pattern. Puzzling it out makes a good distraction.

 

Of course, it may just be warming us up for the main event. It’s not like Frankenpine can actually interrogate us with that wooden mouth. Can it? A couple of times it gets right in my face and stares at me. Not that it can actually stare, but you know what I mean.

 

And I get this weird feeling like someone’s whispering in the next room, and I can almost hear what he’s saying. But no matter how hard I strain, I can’t make anything out. When it does the same thing to Palmer, the perv starts muttering. A couple times I hear him say stuff like “You think so?” and “Oh really?”

 

This goes on for more than a quarter hour but less than half an hour. Which, believe me, is plenty of time for me to consider whether the perv has already broken under torture. The wimp.

 

Until Palmer whispers, quite calmly, “Got your number now.” He takes a deep breath and starts chanting. It’s gibberish to me. Some kind of magic I guess. Yeah I know you don’t like that word grandma, and of course the holy word isn’t magic, and better living through science, but let’s be real. You sent me into some kind of magical encounter zone.

 

Which, by the way? Thanks. Thanks a lot.

 

Anyway. Frankenpine starts to act a little antsy. It looks at Palmer, and at me, and at Palmer. Its fingers twitch, jagged pencil ends and old emory boards scratching at the air. It starts to pace back and forth. Palmer’s chanting gets louder, and the wooden monstrosity gets more agitated.

 

Palmer’s voice catches, and he stops chanting. Frankenpine just stand there for a minute, like it’s mulling the situation over. Then its glass eyes flashes and we’re plunged into another series of impossible, headache inducing moments.

 
 

This time I wake up in darkness. I take a moment to grok the situation. I’m sore all over, and it doesn’t help that there’s a weight on me, pressing into some of my bruises. I’m lying on a wooden floor – still the same warehouse? – and there’s a faint bar of light in front of my face. Light creeping under a door. I spread my legs a little and hit wall on both sides. There’s soft cloth under my left knee.

 

Frankenpine has thrown me into a closet with my gear. Thrown us into a closet, I mean, because the weight on top of me is Palmer. As soon as I make that connection, my head starts collecting some annoying details. Like boxer briefs and right amount of chest hair and smells good. What do you want, I’m a teenager. I’m a hormone factory.

 

I roll out from under him, and he groans. I reach for our clothes and start separating mine from his. “What…what was that?” I say. It comes out kinda croaky.

 

Palmer coughs. “What part?” he says, and coughs again.

 

“Uh,” I say brightly. “The last part?” I toss him his stuff.

 

“Unf,” he says. My eyes are getting used to the darkness, and I dimly see him sit up and try to make sense of his bodysuit by touch. I’m checking all my pockets. Most of my stuff is still there. The taser is gone, but not sure what it would do to a creature made of wood anyway.

 

“I thought I could…sort of interrupt its programming,” Palmer says. He sighs. “Didn’t work, but I think I confused it. It’s probably asking for new orders now.”

 

“Personally, I don’t want to find out what they are.”

 

“No problem,” Palmer says. “Soon as we’re ready, my shadow can get us out of here.”

 

“Uh huh,” I say. I count to twenty, very slowly, and say, “Any particular reason you didn’t do that before?”

 

Palmer stops wriggling into his padded suit and just sits there, apparently dumbstruck. Finally he says, “Can you tell if you have a concussion?”

 

“You mean it didn’t occur to you?” I practically screech.

 

“I was dazed!” he protests.

 

I think of ten different ways to kill him. And then ten things that are worse than being killed.

 

“Worst partner ever,” I grumble.

 

He lays down and makes these hideous wheezing noises. It takes a bit for me to realize he’s laughing.

 

“What’s so funny?” I demand.

"You just called me partner."