War Surf by M. M. Buckner Read Free Book Online

it.
    “Nasty Nass, name your poison. How would ya like to feel tonight?” Intoxication slurred his consonants and elongated his vowels.
    I lifted my hands like a stagy tragedian. “I want to feel heroic.”
    Winston grinned. “Uh-huh, yeah. Slip that under your tongue.” He handed me a glossy black capsule. “You’ll think you’re the risen Krishna.”
    Time swirled in euphoric friezes after that, and I seem to recall riding up and down the elevator for hours. At some point, I discovered Kat binge-eating in my private pantry. She wore black fur, red skin dye and diamonds, and among her glittery choker necklaces dangled a silver key on a chain. The sight of that key half-eradicated my drug high. It was Kat’s heart key. Should she experience cardiac arrest, we were supposed to insert mat key in her chest port, turn it three-quarters clockwise and stand back. Preter-creepy.
    But Kat didn’t seem in danger of heart attack at the moment Her tall lacquered hairdo had slipped to one side, and her face was smeared with chocolate sauce. “Darling.” She flung a frozen éclair at my head.
    “Dearest, for me?” I snatched the pastry from the air and took a bite.
    Kat hated to be caught in one of her secret feasting sessions. “These things are stale, Nass. You’re such a tightwad. When things get old, you should throw them out.”
    “Katherine, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
    She saw I didn’t intend to leave, so she tore open another box of frozen pastries and crammed her cheeks full. The sight reminded me of something dark and frightening, something from the distant past. Lychee nuts. Long ago in my youth, I remembered cramming my cheeks with handful after handful, until I nearly choked. For two months, I survived on nothing but lychee nuts canned in sweet juice. Quickly, I swallowed another mouthful of éclair to block the memory.
    “We’re going to Heaven” Kat said through the half-masticated food.
    “No we’re not.” I finished off the gooey éclair and took another.
    “Don’t be a stupido. Of course we’re going. You’re a lot of things, Nass, but you’re no lily-liver.”
    “Kat, don’t push it. There’s more to Heaven than you’ll find on the Net.”
    She swallowed a gulp so large that it made her eyes water. ‘Tell me. Don’t be so freaking mysterious.”
    I winked and drew a line across my lips, to rile her. Then I grabbed a couple more pastries and left her alone with her banquet.
    “Where’s Sheeba?” I asked Chad.
    He’d been keeping tabs on her with the house security cameras. “She’s in the thirty-third-floor library, boss. She’s talking with some of your younger guests.”
    I decided to drop in. She and her friends had pushed my furniture aside to lounge on the floor, and for a while, I stood in the doorway, listening to their nonsense. Sheeba was giving them some kind of lesson about healing.
    “The dark is barbarous. It’s the source of birth, pain, passion. It’s destructive and creative at the same time.” She sat cross-legged on a cushion, jouncing and frisking like a hyperactive pup, shedding far too many pink bubbles.
    “Yeah, cosmic,” said one of her sophomoric disciples. “The primal wildness,” said another fool. They’d formed a circle with Shee at their center. Were they ogling her charms, or were these young turks actually paying attention to what she said?
    She rocked with excitement. “We’ve been estranged from the dark, and we miss it. We need its healing violence to rip us apart and remake us.”
    “So valid.” “I hear that.” They responded like a chorus.
    “We have to find it again.” Her voice rose with mystical ardor. “The dark canal is the path.”
    Juvenile fizz. One of her faith-healer gurus had probably cooked it up—that smarmy Father Daniel, for instance.
    With a dramatic flair, Sheeba pulled an e-book from my library shelf and held it up: Advanced Physiology . Then she thumped it savagely against the floor. What the