6.

I dreamed about a worm the size of an elephant that pierced through time and space, wriggling in every dimension at once, and then woke up with a gasp as my cellphone began to serenade me at 3 AM.

“Hello?” I asked stupidly.

“It’s me,” Vic said. “Are you busy?”

“I was just sleeping,” I said. I looked into the mirror near my bedstand and made a face at my messy hair.

“Do you mind if I come over?”

“It’s three in the morning, Vic.”

“I know that. But we need to talk.”

“I don’t think we do,” I said. “Look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize who you were. I’m sorry I didn’t think.”

“Stacey, that’s not what I’m calling about. And I’m sorry for blowing up like I did.”

There was a silence between the two of us.

“You’re not mad about William Corcoran?” I asked.

“You’re not a stupid woman. He fooled you and fooled everyone else. He looked just like me because he had control of my body. No, I’m not mad. I just miss you.”

“Vic,” I said.

“When are you going to make time for me?” he asked. “Is it because you saw me in his body? That rotten pile of flesh? Is it because the sight of me scares you now? Is that why you won’t even answer me when I call?”

“I answered this time,” I said.

“Yeah. Once.”

“Vic, this isn’t fun for me. I like you. I would even say I love you. But I need some space.”

“I just don’t understand what I did,” he said.

“Vic, it’s not about you.”

“It’s never about me, Stacey,” he said. “That’s my problem. It’s like we’re always doing this dance. It’s the Stacey show. All Stacey, all the time.”

“That’s not fair,” I said.

“It’s how I feel,” he said.

I paused.

“Look, Vic, I have to go,” I said.

“Stace—”

Click. I laid back and stared at the ceiling. My phone buzzed. I stared down at it: a text message. It was from Nagi.

“There’s been a few more visceral explosions this evening in Chinatown,” the text said.

I sat my phone back down and tried to let myself drift off back to sleep, but the ceiling kept looking bright, and I wasn’t exactly happy being alone with my thoughts. After a few minutes, I sighed and got up, rinsing my face off with water and getting dressed.

“You again,” Brynholf said. “What an unpleasant surprise.”

“Likewise,” I said. “Eddie and Nagi here?”

“In the back,” he said. “You should know. It’s even worse tonight.”

I nodded, slipping on some protective gear provided by O’Rourke, again, and stepped through the iron door into the club.

A disco ball splattered with blood glittered like a tarnished diamond overhead. I stared at the carnage. Three skeletons in puddles of putrescence coated a dance floor.

“Jesus,” I said.

Eddie caught me by the door.

“Hey,” he said. “Glad to see you up.”

“Do you ever sleep?” I asked.

“No,” he said, laughing.

“See?” O’Rourke was saying to Nagi. “Looks like one of them began to melt, and the others stepped on him. He got tracked from here to the front door. Probably ate clean through their shoes, but I suppose they’re lucky this is an industrial club. Steel-toed punker kicks sure help.”

There was another pile of bones in soup in a cordoned-off booth.

“The last one melted into a puddle on the toilet in the lady’s room,” Eddie said.

“Any witnesses?” I asked Eddie.

“The owner’s in the back,” Eddie said. “Was waiting on someone with a feminine touch to come help me convince him to roll back the security cameras for the evening.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

The owner was bald, with a bad comb-over. Chest hair stuck up out of his button-up.

“You what?” he asked.

“Need to look through the security footage,” I said.

“Ah, look, there’s a lot of sensitive stuff here,” the owner said. “Not the best idea. Especially if you’re cops.”

“We’re not cops,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, but you’re with the cops,” the owner said. “You get my drift?”

“Look, buddy,” I said, and my voice broke. “There’s at least three people that melted in your establishment and there’s nothing to prove it wasn’t something you served that did it. So if you’re in the clear, and you want it on the record you were polite and did everything you could to support the investigation?—”

“Alright, alright, I get what you’re saying. I got a lot of clients, and none of them like the cops. You find anything related to those molten people, fine, I got your back. You find anything—and I do mean anything—related to anything else—I don’t want anyone to hear about it. Capische? We good?”

“Got it,” Eddie said.

The owner sat and reversed through the roll of footage. It was digital—he just punched some numbers in, and then it reset to ten PM the night previous.

“You know who it was that melted?” I asked.

“Ah, a couple of regulars and someone I didn’t know,” the owner said. “Look.”

He sped the footage up to a few different periods.

“Stop and reverse that one,” Eddie said.

“Magnify,” I said.

“It’s just gonna get more fuzzy if we zoom in,” the owner said.

“I know, but I’ve watched a lot of CSI and I couldn’t help myself,” I said.

He shook his head and spun the dial forward.

“Look. That little crystal vial there,” Eddie said.

“Weird how we didn’t find one like that at the original crime scene,” I said.

“That is weird,” Eddie said. “Either we overlooked it, or whatever’s in there is capable of being a solid and a liquid at different points in its life-cycle.”

“Or,” I said. “Someone was at the original crime scene to see what happened.”

“Here’s the splash point,” the owner said. “Trashcan’s over there in the corner.”

He pressed play and looked away. We watched as he sniffed, snorted whatever it was, and then began to bleed from his nose. Well. It was pinkish and grayish liquid water-fountaining from his nose. He grabbed onto the people around him, who screamed and then fell into a steaming pile as his body degraded.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” Eddie said.

The crowd splashed in him, screaming. Someone slipped, scorching himself, and he too began to melt.

“Enough,” I said.

“So we know what he looks like,” Eddie said. “When did he enter the club? And who all did he meet with?”

“I only got six cameras for the whole setup, bud,” the owner said. “But we can try. I think… he came in around nine PM? I don’t know. There was a lot of people tonight.”

“Let’s just watch it for a while,” I said.

A half-hour passed as we sped up and sped down the night—watching and rewatching the man’s tracks as he walked. And then, right as I was about to give up, my eyes on the fritz, Nagi came in and knocked. The owner paused the tape.

“Look at that,” Nagi said. “That little—looks like a blip of static.”

A little tingle came over my mind, then, and I thought of Clemenza from earlier.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Can you inch forward? Like, frame by frame?”

“Yeah,” the owner said.

I watched, slowly and carefully, as the frames moved one by one. She was only there for a single frame—but it was her, right enough, smiling directly at the camera and waving.

“That fucking bitch,” Eddie said.

“How could she?” I asked.

It was Clemenza.