Free Sacrifice by John Everson Page A

see them, then?” he asked.
    “Sometimes,” she said. “But I’ve learned to block them out. Lately there’s only been one that I’ve talked to, and most of the time, until recently, I could only hear him.”
    “You can’t see him?” Joe asked. “Isn’t that a little strange?”
    “I couldn’t see him before, because he was far away,” she said.
    “But you can see him now?” Joe asked, propping himself up on an elbow.
    Alex nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s standing right behind you. His name’s Malachai.”
    Gotcha, a voice laughed in Joe’s head.

Chapter Ten
    Jeremy Bruford raised his third Scotch and soda to his lips and inhaled. There was nothing on this earth as goddamn good as the smell of a Dewar’s. There were finer Scotch’s, to be sure, but for a daily drink—or daily double—his bet was on a Dewar’s over ice, touch of tonic, and pow, instant hit to the brain.
    And he needed the hit. Jeremy sold spark plugs for a living. Not door-to-door, obviously, but to garages and lube shops and auto parts stores. And Jeremy didn’t work for Champion, so it wasn’t an easy sell. Nobody wanted to stock another generic spark plug. But every new client whose arm he twisted into giving Neutron Sparks a shot earned him another dollar that Sheila could use at the mall.
    And Sheila liked to shop.
    They all liked to shop, he knew. But Sheila…geez. He’d come home and find a whole new set of dishes on the table, just because she thought they looked “neat.”
    “I was buying Janie some shoes,” she’d say, “and I found this really neat—” fill in the blank and empty the bank. She didn’t stop. His house was bulging at the seams from Sheila’s purchases.
    And lately, when he’d come back from the road, he’d found a new twist to the scheme. Sheila had been getting some new jewelry. Some gauzy black and red outfits. Some expensive bottles of wine that he found empty in the trash on Wednesday nights when he was home to take out the bags.
    Interestingly enough, Jeremy’s credit cards showed no record of Sheila’s more personal shopping sprees of late.
    He wanted to ask her if the guy was giving her the gifts on his own, or was she just sleeping with him on commission, and taking the cash straight to the store herself.
    Instead, he was here at the bar, downing his third Scotch and betting with himself whether she’d be at home when he got there. Last night she’d still been wearing a black dress when he’d gotten in, a little early, from a road trip to Cincinnati. She’d been surprised to see him, and definitely a little nervous.
    He’d been too tired to care, but in retrospect, he should have done a panty check, he realized. That would have shaken her up.
    But that would also have brought it all out into the open, and Jeremy was nothing if not good at ignoring things. Like the girl wearing black latex next to him. She’d been nursing a gin and tonic for the past half hour, shiny elbow lying just centimeters from his own, and he’d not even bothered a half-hearted hello.
    Maybe Sheila had let all the air out of his tires. If she was going to spread it around behind his back, he was certainly entitled to do the same. But he couldn’t even bring himself to stand up at the starting gate to try.
    Not that the filly sitting next to him wasn’t worth the effort. She was sleek, trim, and obviously, from the toe-to-wrist covering of her shiny black skintight suit, which perfectly molded around the flattened globes of her breasts, a little wild. Her face was pale and smooth, her makeup just heavy enough to accent her features, but not enough to overpower them. Her nose was almost hawk-thin, but small, and her lashes looked long and full. Mascara works wonders, he thought, but even so…
    She caught him staring sideways at her and the slightest of smiles took hold of her lips. Her left hand moved to touch the button on the wrist of his shirtsleeve.
    “Buy a lady a drink?” she