Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis by Matthew S. Cox Page A

of wildlife flanked the primary holovid player, a life-sized wooden jaguar on the left, a majestic elephant on the right.
    “Yeah, I’m not dwelling on that bitch anymore.” She moved into the dining room, whistling at an onyx table big enough for twelve. “I think I’m going to find Rene.”
    “You don’t want to get mixed up with him,” he said, shaking his head.
    A jade lion flew from a shelf, missing her by an inch. She whirled, just in time to see a spectral smear vanish into an enormous animated electronic painting of a nebula.
    “Yeah.” She ran after it, down a corridor among bedrooms. “I do. He hurt you.”
    Dorian went wide, going through the wall. She skidded to a halt by the door to Alexis’s room, judging by the holo-posters. Inside, Dorian rolled on the ground atop a suspension of white vapor. The apparition had a defined head as well as two hands, with little more than smears of fog between them. Human at a basic level only, the shape of the head hinted at male. It punched at Dorian’s chest; his smirk called it a minor nuisance.
    “He’ll have lackeys again. You will hesitate before killing them, since they’re just dominated.” He grabbed it about the neck, trying to hold its bobbing head up, a lead weight atop a noodle. “Lash it.”
    The spirit went wide-eyed, and a teen’s entire collection of concert holodisks rippled from wall-mounted shelves at her. Kirsten held up a hand to guard her face, but yelped and dove to the side when several hit her hard enough to break skin.
    “Ow, son of a bitch.” She touched a cat scratch on her cheek. “I can suggest them to go away.”
    “What do you plan to do with him once you catch him?” The sound of punching emanated from the room. “Command is quite wary of suggestives.”
    The flurry of objects subsided, and she whirled into the doorway. Threads of poltergeist wrapped around Dorian, making a clean strike impossible. “They’re not fond of mind blast either. Yay for me I can do both. We take him in alive, he can’t suggest anything with an inhibitor on.”
    Dorian flew into the ceiling, causing a lamp made of three rose-shaped LED bulbs to flicker. An assault of school-issue datapads fouled Kirsten’s aim. The spirit wisped through Dorian’s fingers and darted into the next room. He reformed on his feet, chasing after it.
    “I don’t want to take him alive,” he yelled, from the other side of the wall.
    Kirsten circled through the corridor into the next room, apparently decorated for a small boy. Dorian, again, had tackled the spirit, but it slipped through his arms and dove at Kirsten. She performed a perfect jiu-jitsu grapple on cold air, reacting with instinct before thinking. The stunrod on her belt turned itself on, and tapped her in the knee.
    The rug tasted like foot.
    When the flashing blue left her vision, she spat carpet fibers out of her teeth and growled. Pain cascaded in ripples from her right thigh; the stunning effect of the neural shock set her muscles twitching. She snarled, grabbed the bed, and pulled herself up on numb legs. Sounds of glass breaking drew her at a limp into the corridor, back through the dining room, and into the kitchen. She collapsed only once when her leg gave out; by the time she got to the kitchen, the after-nausea of a stunrod shock was in full swing. Dorian tried to wrestle with the spirit, gathering it as if it were a rope of bed sheets sent down the wall of a prison. The head and both hands floated away as he pulled at its wispy midsection, stretching to the other side of the room, hurling glassware and bottles at him.
    “Dorian, you don’t want to kill Rene. Not unless he’s an immediate threat to your life.”
    “I think I’m a little past that point.” He yanked on the ectoplasm, dragging the disembodied head into a punch that sent it back across the kitchen.
    Kirsten lashed, missing by inches. The phantom emanated a keening wail of terror and streaked into the cabinets. “Son of