Time Will Tell

by Chloe Garner

  Tina glanced up from his notes where she was still trying to find family history.

  “You’re being dramatic,” she said. He shook his head, swallowing.

  “No. I’m remembering. The Order are an adoptive order of magicians who are obsessed with necromancy.”

  “Raising the dead,” Tina said, feeling a touch of apprehension.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Ones that maybe they had to kill in order to make sure they were dead recently enough,” Tina said, and he nodded.

  “Gold star.”

  Tina sat with her hands on the files - words that Tell had written when she was still a young child - still exactly who he was now, same age, same profession, same office, and she felt the weight of her own death for a long moment.

  Where would she be in twenty-odd years?

  She glanced at him.

  “So, necromancy. That’s like a big deal, still, with paranormals, right? Same as with humans?”

  Tell nodded.

  “Raising the dead is a form of alchemy on both sides going back as far as I have history to draw from,” he said. “No one wants death to be final.”

  “And the police told her that it wasn’t a murder because… they cleaned it up too well or because there wasn’t anyone dead?”

  Tell nodded again.

  “Yeah. They shook hands with the guy Colette saw them murder.”

  “Seems like an open and shut case,” Tina breathed.

  “So she came to me,” Tell said, looking over his shoulder at the doorway, where the ghost of a woman who had written the letter in his hands briefly stood. Tina shivered at the idea.

  “Why was it such a big deal?” Tina asked. “The police didn’t care.”

  “Because she saw how they did it,” Tell said. “Maybe not enough of it for anyone to replicate it, but they were jealous with that, and they hunted her hard.”

  Tina shook her head, looking at the volume of pages left. She had found the page she needed, but she still had questions.

  “You’re not a bodyguard,” she said. “You’re a detective. You solved the mystery. Why were you still involved?”

  Tell laughed quietly.

  “You’re tough,” he said. “Woman sits here in this chair crying, you’ve just told her that the guy she saw get stabbed to death really did die, and then he was resurrected by dark magicians, yes, the world is full of magic, and by the way I’m a vampire, and you just send her out the door after she signs the check?”

  Tina shrugged.

  “It’s not what you do.”

  “I don’t hunt Kaija, either,” he said. “And yet I’m still spending four nights a week doing it.”

  And Tina was still feeding him places to look for them. There was just a chance that they had the outbreak under control.

  “Fair enough,” she said. “But you don’t… I mean, what did you do? It’s not what you do.”

  “I hid her,” Tell said. “I’m good at finding stuff, which means I’m good at hiding stuff. And then… Well, you can see all of it in there. I was trying to find out everything there was to know on the Order, in hopes that I could negotiate with someone up at the top to let her go free.”

  “All of this is about the necromancers?” Tina asked, flipping pages.

  “There’s a lot in there about Colette and about necromancy, but yes, most of it is about the Order itself.”

  “Are they human?” Tina asked, paging through. He shrugged, reading the letter again.

  “Some yes, some no. Not many immortals among them, though they were the ones with most of the money.”

  Tina nodded.

  “Brother’s name is Kyle,” she said. “No last name, no contact information.”

  Tell drew a slow breath and nodded.

  “That file was dangerous, twenty years ago. I kept the office locked up a lot tighter, and Gliff was kicking people out every few weeks for a while, when they thought… Well, it’s all just history now. Ultimately, I couldn’t help her. The Order was too preoccupied with keeping their secrets to be willing to let some ignorant woman live out her life in peace, so I hid her away permanently.”

  “Witness protection,” Tina said, and he nodded.

  “She shouldn’t have had contact with her brother to know that he was in trouble,” he said. “That much concerns me immediately.”

  “What is that?” Tina asked, indicating the wire. He smiled, rolling it between his fingers so that it flipped around his hand.

  “She used to do these,” he said. “Had me get her a roll of jewelry wire and beads, and she’d make these… I don’t know what it is. I never did. But they’re pretty, and they’re even prettier when she puts the beads on. Wouldn’t fit in the mail, I think. She had a lot of hours to herself, and these thing were everywhere, all the time. She had such a positive spirit.”

  Tina put her hand out and he gave it back to her. She rolled the wire between her fingers again, looking at it, then she set it down on the file and crossed her arms.

  “So are we doing this one?” she asked.

  “I’ll at least check in on Kyle,” Tell said. “Make sure what’s going on and if I even can help. I’d rather let him be, if I can. I don’t want to get tangled up with the Order again, and I especially don’t want to get tangled up with them on his behalf. If they know that I’m involved with Colette again, they’re… We’ll just start over again. Put the photo back where it was. I can remember that.”

  Tina stuck the photo back into the back of the file again, then she went and put the entire thing away.

  “I’ll read it later,” she said. “Let’s go check in on her brother and just see what’s going on.”

  Tell nodded, standing. He indicated the wire figure.

  “Put that away,” he said. “Not with the file. I don’t want anyone making that connection.”

  Tina nodded, a bit bewildered. This was the first time he’d actually been defensive with his stuff, that she’d seen. It was overwhelming. He didn’t normally feel vulnerable like this.

  She walked out of the building with him and he opened the passenger side door to his car for her, then walked around to the driver’s side.

  “What happened tonight with the fountain?” he asked before he got in.

  Tina had managed to forget for like two minutes.

  She got into the car and slammed the door, not quite angry, but also not entirely stable.

  He got in next to her, and she put her head back against the headrest.

  “It just would have been really easy,” she said after a minute. “To be like you and Hunter.”

  “To have sex with someone because it would feel good,” he said, and she nodded.

  “I’ve never felt like that before. Not with anyone. None of the other fountains, even. Just something about him. I don’t like that it happened.”

  “Did you want Hunter to be jealous?” Tell asked.

  “Would have been better than encouraging it,” Tina answered. Looked out the window. He still hadn’t started the engine.

  There was a long silence and she finally looked back at Tell, finding him looking at her intently, just waiting for her eye contact.

  “You are very attractive,” he said. “You always have been, but as a vampire, you own it. It’s not as dramatic as it was when you were an original, and I think that some of the novelty of it isn’t there because you did this before, but the confidence in the way you move? Human men especially are going to be attracted to it.”

  Once more, Tina tried to rub away a phantom blush.

  “I don’t want to patronize you and tell you that Hunter is coming from a place of generosity, because I think he was having a good time with how uncomfortable you were, but monogamy is very, very rare with us because of how you felt tonight. It’s part of our survival skillset, and you don’t get willing fountains without it. It isn’t just them. It’s us, too.”

  “It’s insane,” Tina said. “Wanting to throw myself at a guy because h
e’s there?”

  “Sweetheart, that’s prey talk,” Tell answered. “You’re the predator, now. You wanted to take him, because he offered himself. I saw it just as clearly as you did.”

  “And that makes it better somehow?” Tina asked, and he smiled, starting the car.

  “You need to get used to seeing yourself as the predator that you are,” he said. “You can do whatever you want with it, but it’s going to make your instincts make a lot more sense, when you do.”

  She put her head back against the headrest, considering this.

  “I did exactly what he always does,” she said after a moment.

  “No comment,” Tell said.

  “And he’s just stuck up there, all night, by himself,” she said. Tell snorted.

  “Don’t cry too many tears for him,” he told her. “He’s not the angel who deserves that kind of treatment. Just… Ignoring everything else, you have on balance been fair in how you’ve treated everyone, the whole time I’ve known you. Short-tempered sometimes, destructive sometimes, but always fair. Don’t let that go, just because it’s easier to be angry and powerful.”

  Tina nodded.

  “Good tip.”

  “Glad I’m good for something, once in a while,” Tell answered with a smile.

  Kyle lived in an apartment building on the nicer side of town. Tell pointed out his car in the parking lot, an expensive model.

  “He’s got money,” Tina said.

  “Some,” Tell answered. “Never really had a sense of what he wanted to do with himself, when I knew him. People can change a lot, in twenty years, though.”

  Tina nodded as Tell parked not far off.

  “Go see if the hood is warm,” Tell said as he shut off the engine. “I want to know if he went out today.”

  Tina nodded, getting out and walking down the parking lot to put her hand on the car.

  It wasn’t enough that she might have noticed it as a human, but her vampire hands were able to tell the difference between a stone-cold car and one that still had some heat in it. The windows were frosted, much like the cars around it, but there was a spot in the center of the hood where the condensation was still beaded.

  She went back and got in with Tell.

  “He got home a couple hours ago,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Did you clock the sentries at Viella?” he asked.

  “No,” Tina answered. “I was kind of angry.”

  “Understatement,” he said. “Well, you’re going to need to work on that, because we aren’t alone here, either.”

  “What?” Tina asked. He laughed quietly.

  “Don’t look,” he said. “I wanted to know if they were here for him or someone else, and they got excited when you went to touch his car. So distractible. Didn’t notice me the whole time, they were so concerned with what you were up to.”

  “But they watched me all the way back here,” Tina said, and Tell nodded, his eyes trained on the apartment building.

  “Which is why I don’t want them to know for certain that I saw them,” he said. “So keep your eyes up. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah. You think it’s the Order?”

  “I think that coincidences are a lot less likely than direct causation,” he answered. “It’s possible that Colette found out that he was involved in something paranormal - however she did that - that had nothing to do with the Order, but when you’re talking about a quasi-dogmatic, highly-fanatical group of men, it just seems more realistic to expect that they aren’t going to let something drop, just because it’s been two decades.”

  “Right,” Tina said. “So the question is, what changed to get their attention after all this time?”

  “I’d like to start with how they found Kyle,” Tell said. “I intentionally avoided him most of the time I was helping Colette, and she wasn’t supposed to be in contact with him at all.”

  “How did you find him?” Tina asked.

  “I know his last name,” Tell said with a hint of smug. “I pulled him up on my phone off of his car registration.”

  “Okay,” Tina said. “So why wouldn’t they know his last name? Didn’t they know Colette’s?”

  “She was a widow, at the time,” Tell said. “Sad story, actually. Her husband died really young, and she still had his last name. I went through and purged everything I could think of to destroy the paths to her biological family, and her husband’s family wasn’t local, so I don’t know that they even knew to look for them.”

  “Do you want me to go up and talk to him?” Tina asked. He shook his head.

  “No, I’d much rather know where they’re coming from and where they’re going,” he said. “And if they’re more interested in us or him.”

  Tina nodded.

  “Too bad you drive the most recognizable car in the entire city,” she said, and he smiled.

  “There are costs, but it’s worth it,” he answered. He pulled out of the parking spot and drove out of the lot, parking again halfway down the block in front of a dark strip mall. After two minutes, there was no sign of the other car, whatever it might have been, and Tell got out of the car. Tina got out and locked her door, following him down the sidewalk back toward the apartment complex.

  “Dealing with the Order is always tricky,” Tell said after a minute. “They’re well-funded, and they’re willing to do whatever the guy above them told them to do, right up until they think that guy is getting soft or might be compromised, then they sort of re-order themselves to find a new chain of command that they trust again. The zealots tend to be the ones with the most consistent following. They’re smart, don’t let me confuse you, but they’re so single-minded that they tend to not have an awful lot of common sense, some of them. I’ve watched, literally, more than one of them set themselves on fire, trying to replicate the process that resurrected their first success.”

  “The guy they killed,” Tina said. He nodded. “Why didn’t he tell the police that they attacked him? I mean, obviously they didn’t kill him, but why not file a complaint of some kind that corroborated Colette’s story?”

  “Because he was a volunteer,” Tell said. “He was a god to them, after he resurrected. No way he was going to give that up. Best thing that ever happened to him.”

  “He… You’re serious. He volunteered to let them kill him?”

  “Zealots,” Tell said. “You really can’t ever predict what they’re going to be willing to do.”

  “And they were hunting Colette,” Tina said. “How did you manage to keep her alive?”

  “Very carefully,” Tell said. “Moved her around a lot, had a lot of decoy safe-houses active, a few direct confrontations. They know what I am - or they did - and there was a sense… I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words. They thought that I was betraying a kindred spiritedness, because I was undead, and they wanted to make more people not-dead. You know? Some of them thought I extra deserved to die, for it, and some of the others thought that I was untouchable because I represented a midpoint between life and death.”

  “Why did they leave you alone after you sent her out west?” Tina asked.

  “They didn’t,” Tell said. “They chased me around another four months, trying to catch me, and a few of them were actually trying to kill me, but in the end I killed enough of them who thought it was worth it, and the remaining portions of the Order thought that I was either untouchable or mortally gifted - those were their words, I’m not kidding - and they moved on. No. No. They didn’t move on. That implies an ability to make a rational decision that they very much do not have. They evolved onto other priorities. The only way to change what they’re trying to do is to route their decision-making apparatus through other leaders who are more aligned with your interests.”

  “That’s why your file is so big,” Tina said. “You had to map all of that out.”

  He nodded.

  “It took me a long time to be free of them.”

  Tina frowned, kneeling ne
xt to him on the cold ground behind a row of hedges where she could just see the car that he indicated.

  “That’s them,” he murmured. “You do see the parallel between this and what’s going on with Hunter, yes?”

  “Hmm?” Tina asked, watching the two men in animated conversation there in the car.

  “We’re trying to keep someone alive, with a complex political environment creating the risk to their existence, and navigating that is going to take a huge amount of time and energy, and in the end it may not be enough.”

  Tina paused.

  “Are you warning me that in the end we may have to mail Hunter to Phoenix?” she asked. He snorted quietly and nodded.

  “That’s exactly what I’m warning you,” he said. “Hunter has started over more times than I can count, but he’s going to be hard to convince, this time. Sophie isn’t a cult of single-minded necromancers. She’s savvy enough to follow the money - and so are the bounty hunters - if he tries to make a break for it and take any of his assets with him. Not to mention the intangible assets based on his identity in the first place. He likes being rich, and it takes time to get there. This is the wealthiest any of us have ever been.”

  Tina looked over at him.

  “Then we’d better find a different way to get him out of this, if his other options are die or abdicate.”

  Tell nodded.

  “He might choose die.”

  “Not on your life,” Tina muttered, and Tell laughed.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Hunter is a survivor, above all else.”

  Tina watched the car in silence for several minutes.

  “So what do you want to do?” she asked. “Break in and abscond with them, beat them until they tell us everything?”

  “Oh, I do like how you think,” Tell answered. “But, no, if they’ve managed to forget about me, I’d rather hold on to that for the time being. You think you can get back to Viella and get a tracker out of my room for me to tag the car with?”

  Tina narrowed her eyes.

  “Two problems with that,” she said. “One, you’d be a solid block of ice by the time I got back here, and two, there’s no incentive for you to stay here. If they drive away, they drive away. It’s not like you’re going to secretly run along behind them for me to come find you when they stop.”