Geo was in that nothing place. The moments between sleep and wake. The bad one. The one where the darkness was heavy, dragging, keeping him from the surface. All he wanted to do was wake up but it wouldn’t be easy. It was painful. Throbbing. Aching. So close, so close! Too far. He couldn’t do it. He would exist in this terrible middle place for the rest of eternity, slowly crushed, unable to move, barely able to think, hearing things. Awful things. Laughter. Droning. Applause. Speaking. People speaking. Not to him, never to him again. Around him. Above him. Speaking about…about…
“So, Kelly replaced Kathie.”
“Yeah, like, I don’t know, two decades ago now. Kathie did more daytime TV and then some terrible Halmark movies.”
“And this Mark replaced Regis?”
“Pfft, hardly. Mark replaced Ryan Seacrest, who replaced Michael Strahan, and he replaced Regis.”
“And where’s Regis?”
“Oh…oh, sweetie, he’s dead.”
Their inane talking turned to groaning. They were both groaning. Everyone on the planet was groaning.
Except…
Wait…
No…
He was groaning. They stopped talking because he started to make noise.
He could make noise!
He could…could…
With a final, wretched jolt, Geo escaped the darkness.
Too quick, he sat up. The throbbing in his head became worse, almost bad enough to make him puke. Whatever light was in the room was making his temples feel like they’d fall in and destroy his eyes. He was spinning in place, like a potato in a microwave. Yeah, microwave, that’s what was happening. He was boiling from the inside and about to pop.
We were on the street. Following a pack of dogs. They were strutting like they owned the place but we were going to show them who really signed the lease. Music. Shouting. An ice cream shop? Too much. Focus on them. They walked away from the crowds. And then…and then…
Nothing after that. Vague feelings. Adrenaline. Pain. Fear?
No, not fear. Never fear. Hunters aren’t afraid.
One of the dogs.
My name’s Honey.
And then…
Shit, this is a concussion.
A memory, from farther back, back when he had joined up. Following after his older brother.
“Protect your head,” Erik had said, tapping on Geo’s like he might have forgotten where it was. “You only get so many concussions before your brain turns to mush.”
The one piece of advice his brother had given him and he gets a concussion in the first week. He was going to be so mad.
Wait, where is he? No, no…where am I?
Through the pain, he forced himself to open his eyes. After a few seconds, he was actually able to keep them open.
This was not headquarters.
This was also not some dogs’ lair.
This was…this was…
It looked like his Great Aunt Susan’s living room. Pale pink carpet. Glass and rattan coffee table. Detail wallpaper. The oldest television he’d ever seen in his life. Even Aunt Susan had a flatscreen. The couch he was on, patterned with pale roses, was covered with plastic, crinkling as he shifted. On the left side of the couch was a recliner. On the right, a loveseat. Each had a person sitting on top.
Sitting on top of the recliner was a man. Early twenties. White. Brown hair, brown eyes. Round face, a little tubby around the middle. A clear sign of a man’s weakness, Erik said in his mind, and never mind that had been directed at Geo.
The loveseat held a woman. Also twenties, maybe a little older. Asian. Black hair in a short, boyish cut. Dark brown eyes. She was wearing black pants, a tank top, an open buttoned down shirt on top, but if he thought about, couldn’t he picture her in a cocktail dress? Heels? Make-up?
My name’s Honey.
Looking down at me. On the ground. She’s above me…she…she…
“Dog,” he muttered, and lunged at her.
Geo was supposed to lunge at her. He tried to lunge at her. What he actually managed to do was stand up, completely lose his balance, and fall forward, barely missing the edge of the coffee table.
At least the plush carpet was soft against his aching face.
Hands.
“Get away from me!” he yelled.
Except he didn’t. He barely got the words out. Maybe they didn’t even hear him, because they didn’t get away. And despite his valiant (weak) struggling, they still managed to get him up and back on the couch.
“You need to sit,” one of them said. “You got shitrocked last night. And your leg is all fucked up.”
His leg. With the pain in his head he hadn’t even noticed the pain in his leg. His ankle was throbbing. Spikey pain radiated from a couple of other spots, his calf, his thigh, and his pants were soaked through with blood.
Blood. So much blood. How did she keep from killing me? I should be dead.
Some sort of cloth…ripped bedsheets?…were wrapped around those bloody spots. Not only was he not dead, they had tried some half-assed first aid.
A glass was shoved in his hand, and he’d finished most of the water inside before he realized that’s what had been in it.
Why would they give me water?
Poison!
He spat out was in his mouth and tried to puke up the rest.
“Uh, that doesn’t look good.”
“Oh, man. If he can’t keep down water, I think that’s, like, really bad. We might have to take to him a hospital after all.”
“Poison,” Geo said, dropping the glass.
“Poison? You’re not one of those people afraid of fluoride in the water, are you?”
“You poisoned it!”
He shot a finger into the air, hoping he was pointing at one of them.
A pause. Were they recoiling in fear? In disappointment? He had figured it out too quick, they didn’t know what to make of his mental acumen.
“Maybe he got more scrambled than we thought.”
“What’s that brain bruise thing?”
“Brain bru…oh, a concussion. Yeah, that makes sense.”
“I’m going to search ‘concussion’ on the internet. Maybe we don’t have to take him anywhere.”
The sound of one of them leaving. He wanted to know which, but that would mean looking up, and the light was still too bright and the world still too swimmy and everything was too much, too much.
“Let me go.”
The couch depressed as one of them sat next to him. Her. Honey. The dog.
This was it. It was over. Before it barely began. Erik, I’m sorry, I’m such a fuck up, I-
Honey put a hand on his back and rubbed in a circular motion.
“The door isn’t locked, but you should stay. I think you’d just walk into traffic or something.”
He needed to get out of here. Any second she was going to turn on him and drain him dry.
But it hadn’t happened yet. And sitting on the couch, with her rubbing his back, felt awful nice.
Too nice. It’s a trap!
Once more he tried to get up. This time when he fell back he didn’t try to get up again.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 