It was snowing.
Not much, but enough to attract Davy over to the window. It never snowed in the Beyond. Sometimes there was snow on the ground, but it was neversnowing.Maybe it did up in the Company’s towers, high above the streets, but Davy had never made it up so high. The Company had hired him a few times—good people were hard to find, good people who’d do dirty jobs even harder—but he’d never gotten beyond human resources. Third floor. The coffee was shit and always tasted of corporate depression.
Davy leaned his shoulder against the glass and watched the skiffs of white powder get tossed around outside as he let the phone ring. His tentacles tested the window until they found a spot where the Beyond didn’t overlap with the living world. It was only big enough to let one squeeze through to try and grab the flakes out of the air as they fell.
The chill surprised Davy. Not that it was cold, but the way it mapped the bite of winter air against his tentacle down the backsof his legs, a stripe of iciness that clenched his thighs and made his balls tighten.
“Exactly what’s the plan?” Hill asked. “You just going to tell people what Fraser did?”
The ringtone cut out as the call dropped. Davy let it. He held the phone loosely in one hand as he shifted around to watch Hill pace. His cock ached with the dull reminder that thebestuse of nervous energy was fucking.
Davy adjusted the waistband of his sweats and reminded himself of the minor obstacle that he couldn’ttouchHill. His cock didn’t care. It thought he just hadn’t tried hard enough.
“Trust me, they’d not give a shit,” Davy said, trying to sound like he wasn’t thinking anything filthy. “Neither would Fraser. My death wouldn’t be a problem for any of them.”
The phone buzzed back to life in his hand. A different number than the one he’d dialed was on the screen. Davy smirked to himself as he held his thumb over the screen.
“Me being back, on the other hand?” he said. “That would be a problem for a lot of people.”
He hit answer and lifted the phone to his ear. There was no way he was going to be able to make Hill’s voice pass as his. He’d given it a go while he waited for the phone to charge, but Hill was not a natural mimic. To be honest, Davy wasn’t actually too sure what his living voice had sounded like anyhow.
So instead he went with cool and precise.
“I have a job for you,” he said. On the other end of the line, Gallagher snorted and started to say something. Davy didn’t give her a chance. “It’s from Davy. He said you’d know better than to ask too many questions.”
There was a brief sound of choking and then silence, except for the faint sound of glass on glass. Davy could almost see Gallagher’s nicotine-stained fingers grinding out a cigarette inone of the big ’70s orange ashtrays she’d kept around the place. Every one a keepsake from some Belfast bar she used to drink at.
“Davy’s dead,” she said. Her voice soundedold.Somehow, that was more of a shock than it had been to see Fraser in all his middle-aged spread in the office. “And that ain’t a question, if you were wondering.”
“He told me you’d say that.”
“Fucker, it’s been thirty years. Only thing anyone says about Davy Jones is ‘he’s dead’ or ‘who the fuck is that.’”
“Pensacola. Twenty-two.”
There was a pause. It wasn’t much, but Davy couldfeelthe hook catch in that slight hitch of her breath.
“Asshole, how old do you think I am?” she said.
“Pensacola. Twenty-two. Wawa.”
She hung up. Actually, from the brief “whoosh” and crack, she’d thrown the phone across the room.
The tentacle finally snagged a snowflake out of the air. It actually hung there for a second, a pinprick of chill against the pale end of the limb, and then started to slowly slide through as it melted. A flick sprayed the melted droplet into the air as it finally seeped all the way through.
“What was that?” Hill asked, sounding baffled. “A party game?”
The phone rang for a second time.
“Yeah, but not the fun kind,” Davy said and took the call. He didn’t bother to pretend he needed to go through the dance again. They both knew Gallagher would do what he wanted. “Davy needs three things from you. A full set of fake papers, two phone calls, and a location.”
He listened to Gallagher’s attempts to hedge until a yawn hijacked his stolen body. Once he’d given in to it, the exhaustion of the last few days sank deep into Davy’s borrowed bones. It hadbeen, he realized, as he ground the heel of his hand into gritty eyes, a while since Hill had gotten any sleep.
“I sympathize,” he said. “Davy doesn’t. He says just make it happen by Christmas Eve.”
He hung up, tossed the phone aside, and stretched.
Davy also needed a nap. Now that he thought about it, it had been even longer sincehe’dgotten any sleep. Thirty years. The phrase wasn’t “the restless dead” for nothing.
