“Like my fucking father?” She spat the last word as if it was bile.
“Like the people around you,” said Ajay. “Power attracts power. The names we carry give us strength of purpose, let us share that purpose with others. The Night is a friend to you, Detective. You offered yourself as its Shield, and it has responded in kind.” Ajay sighed. “It is hard to explain.”
The old memory of her father sat heavy on her shoulders, and she tried to shrug it off. “Why is it so important to you?”
“The woman I … work for has enemies,” he said. “We share a common purpose.”
“That’s something we’ll need to test a bit more,” she said. “You could help by giving me names. You know how you say in your world names have power?” She looked out the window at one of the cameras attached to a pole. “Same in my world.”
“Raeni Williams,” said Ajay.
“What?”
“Raeni Williams is her name,” said Ajay, “but it doesn’t tell her purpose. You would call her a witch. I call her my mother.”
“Your … mother,” said Carlisle, trailing off. “You mentioned her. Before.” Back at the bar. “Most people have mothers. They don’t call people mother. Well, not unless they tag the end of it with something else, like fucker.”
“Is that the detective asking?”
“I’m not asking,” said Carlisle. “I’m saying how the world works.”
“Who are you,” said Ajay, “to tell me how the world works? We spin on around the sun regardless of your thoughts on it.” He seemed almost dismissive.
Carlisle wanted his approval, recognized it for what it was and crushed it down like a bent cigarette under her boot. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m telling you how it is.”
“Tell me who you call mother,” said Ajay, “when your own mother is torn away in a fire-filled night, bullets snapping around you like rabid dogs.”
“I don’t know much about that,” said Carlisle.
“Just so,” said Ajay.
She felt the stir of anger in her chest. “What I can tell you is what happens when your alcoholic father beats your mother to an early grave. She dies, and she leaves you alone with him, forever.” She rubbed at her face. “Forever, or until there’s an end to it. Father still wants a woman around, more or less.”
“Is this why you don’t want me to speak with him?”
“No,” said Carlisle. Then, “Yes. Well, it’s more like this: when I … made sure he was gone, I did it because I didn’t want to speak to him ever again.”
“You didn’t want him to use his voice.” She watched the back of his head nod. “You didn’t want him to speak to you.”
“I didn’t want,” she said, “for him to speak to anyone. He stole away my voice. Least I could do was to return the favor.” She looked at her hand clenched on the leather seat in front of her, made herself relax it.
Ajay let the car roll forward once more as the line moved. “I understand,” he said.
“You can’t,” she said.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m not trying to fight with you. Fighting’s what you know. It’s what you are.”
“I thought you said I was a detective.”
“You who claim to know how the world works don’t yet know that we can be more than just one thing?”
Carlisle thought about that. “I didn’t choose to be a fighter,” she said. Her voice grew quiet. “I just wanted to be able to use my own voice again.”
“And you may get your chance,” said Ajay, his voice brightening in counterpart to hers, “because this fine border control officer wants to speak with us.”
“What?” But it was true, a man in uniform was making his way towards their car. “Okay,” she said. “One question.”
“Just one?” She heard the smile in his voice, for all the gravitas in the cabin.
“How is it you know so much about the world?”
“I find things,” said Ajay. “It’s what I am.”
“Just one thing?” said Carlisle. “You’re not more than one thing?”
“I am many things,” said Ajay. “Perhaps I can even be a friend.”
“Don’t push your luck,” said Carlisle, but she wanted it too. That feeling in her gut made her feel like she was sixteen again. “And slide down your window.”
Ajay turned his head to the window and the border control officer standing outside it. The man was leaned forward a little, head ducked against the half rain, half ice falling from the sky. Carlisle watched as Ajay cracked the window. “Hello, my friend,” he said. “It is unpleasant, yes?”
Carlisle let Ajay talk with the officer, turning to find Danny’s eyes on her. They were warm and dark, not the yellow that made Carlisle … concerned.
“I…” said Danny.
“You heard,” said Carlisle, her voice low.
“Don’t get the chance to miss much,” said Danny, turning away. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Hey,” said Carlisle. Last thing I need is a pity parade. “Save it.”
“Okay,” said Danny, stroking Adalia’s hair. Carlisle felt like the motion was from a time when Adalia was younger, the world simpler. “It’s just—”
“I know,” said Carlisle.
“Okay,” said Danny, turning to look out the window. Carlisle watched the muscles in her jaw bunch as she clenched her teeth. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said after a while. Her eyes moved to the officer, still talking with Ajay.
“What’s what like?”
“When someone hurts someone in your Pack—”
“Family,” said Carlisle, looking at Adalia. “Humans call them family.”
“When someone hurts someone in your family, it wants … you want to hurt them back,” said Danny, her voice low.
Carlisle made her voice light, felt how brittle it was around the words. “He didn’t hurt me,” she said. “He made me.”
The car rolled through the border gates, the window sliding back up. Ajay turned to say something, looked at the two of them, and closed his mouth.
The man has wisdom. Carlisle turned back to Danny. “It’s old history.”
Danny nodded like she was agreeing. Carlisle couldn’t stand to look at the sympathy in her friend’s eyes, found herself looking at the floor of the Yukon, food wrappers — here’s a trick question: is a Moon Pie food? — and Coke cans on the ground. How do teenagers eat that kind of shit?
“Well,” said Danny, “there’s probably something else we should talk about.”
Thank God. Carlisle turned back to the front. “What is it?”
Danny jerked a thumb outside the truck at the trees on the edge of the road. “We’re in Minnesota,” she said.
“The capital of inbreeding,” said Carlisle. “What of it?”
“Minnesota,” said Danny, slower this time.
“I don’t follow,” said Carlisle, “unless you don’t think I’m being fair with the inbreeding comment.”
Danny ran a hand through her curls — God damn but how does she look like a supermodel after sleeping in the back of a truck for six hours — before she spoke again. “Alaska,” she said, “is over two thousand miles from Minnesota.”
Carlisle blinked. “That can’t be right,” she said.
“Which part?” said Danny. “The part where the planet is always the same size, or the part where we did it in a night?”
“The part where we’re in Minnesota,” said Carlisle.
“We are,” said Ajay, “in Minnesota.”
“We didn’t pass through border control at the Alaska border,” said Danny. “Did we?”
“No,” said Carlisle and Ajay together.
Ajay cleared his throat. Carlisle could see his face was still ashen. More than just tired. More than just not sleeping for a night. “We didn’t have the time,” he said, “to do this the usual way.”
“What,” said Carlisle, “is the usual way?”
“Driving all night.”
“What,” said Carlisle, “did you do?”
“I made a deal,” he said. “I made a trade.”
Danny leaned forward, her hand resting soft and steady on the seat in front of her. Her voice was so quiet Carlisle almost couldn’t hear her. “Who did you make a deal with?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ajay. “It will either all be okay, or we will all be dead. We have to get to Chicago.”
“To Valentine,” said Danny.
“No,” said Ajay.
Carlisle sighed. “Ajay?”
“Yes.”
“You know what she is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding slowly.
“Do us all a favor,” said Carlisle. “Don’t make her play guessing games. She’s not rich on patience.”
“Hey,” said Danny.
“Tell me it’s not true,” said Carlisle.
Danny said nothing. Ajay swallowed, then said, “The monster is in Chicago.”
“Val’s not a monster,” said Danny. “Say that again and I’ll—”
“I said the monster,” said Ajay. “Valentine is no monster.”
• • •
The Yukon turned into the lot of a convenience store. A paper cup, caught up in a cradle of snow, disappeared under a wheel. The machine grumbled as the engine walked them forward. Ajay slid the machine into park, dropped a hand to the brake and pulled it on. “We’re here.”
“Where’s here?” Adalia had woken up a few miles back, but her voice was still blurry with sleep.
“Paradise,” said Ajay. “I believe we can secure our entry to the promised lands.”
Carlisle peered through the windscreen. They’d left Pigeon River Bridge behind them, the cold of the North giving way to the cold of the South. It hurt less, but she felt it more. It was closer to home. “This looks like a shitty convenience store.”
“Exactly so,” said Ajay. “I believe they sell corn dogs here.” He pushed his door open, the air of Minnesota pushing into the cabin, a new breath of life Carlisle didn’t know she needed.
Danny put a hand on her arm. “Careful,” she said.
“Careful of what?” Carlisle’s hand was on the Yukon’s door, ready to follow Ajay out and into the convenience store.
“You know,” she said. Her eyes found Ajay’s receding form.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” said Carlisle. She got out of the Yukon anyway, her feet taking her into the store. It’s destiny, Carlisle. Get a corn dog, save the world.
She heard the clunk of the door as Danny followed her, caught two sets of footsteps as Adalia spilled out into the wide open world. Carlisle walked into the store behind Ajay, not looking behind her. Those two needed some privacy, some time to work a few things out. Come to think of it, so did she.
The inside of the store was all waxed linoleum, the faint scent of disinfectant not really overcoming the smell of old mold and bad coffee. The old cop habit wouldn’t die, her eyes finding the middle aged guy with the neck beard behind the counter, an old black and white set turned on behind him, a TV show playing with the sound down low. Her eyes found the counter top crowded with opportunistic sales promises, jerky nestled alongside a couple boxes of Snickers. The counter would hide a weapon, some kind of shotgun unless she missed her guess. Her eyes continued their walk of the inside, finding a dark doorway out the back, plastic strips hanging down as a guard against entry. No one else inside.
Other than him. Without really wanting to, she found herself beside Ajay in an aisle that sold boxes of breakfast cereal. She cleared her throat. “I thought you wanted corn dogs.”
“I do not believe corn dogs are a part of a nutritious breakfast,” he said. “The little one. She needs—”
“I know,” said Carlisle. Then, “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “Is Cap’n Crunch a good choice?”
“No,” said Carlisle. “She’ll eat it though.” She knew what Adalia liked, what she would gravitate to with the endless enthusiasm of youth. “Here,” she said. “This is better.” She pointed at a box of Frosted Flakes.
“’High in Vitamin A,’” said Ajay, reading the front of the box. “Is this really better?”
“It’s all a point of view, isn’t it?” Carlisle shrugged. “She likes the tiger.”
“I like him too,” said Ajay. “He is very fierce.”
“He’s a clown,” said Carlisle, but the smile pulled at her mouth despite herself. She was standing close to Ajay without wanting to. She licked her lips and made herself take a step back. Something snagged at the back of her mind, like she’d just forgotten why she’d walked into a room. “Is there … is there something missing?”
“Missing?” said Ajay, looking at her. He put the Frosted Flakes in the crook of his elbow, then started to walk away. “We all want what we can’t have, Detective.”
That brought her up sharp and hard, like a leash around her neck. “What?”
“A promise got us here,” said Ajay, “and that means that for us to get what we wanted, other people had to miss out. Our world stands on an edge, a balance point. Take from here, and you must give there. A fair trade.” His tone was even but his face was sad.
“What,” said Carlisle, “have you done?”
Danny walked into the store, the door swinging open, the bottom edge scraping against the linoleum. Carlisle looked at her friend, watching as she moved into the store. Danny looked distracted, Adalia following a few steps behind her, the teenager playing with her phone.
“’Sup,” said Carlisle.
Danny ignored her, doing a slow walk around the inside of the store. Carlisle watched her for a moment, then looked back at Ajay. “Do I need to ask again?”
“It’s not so much what I did,” said Ajay, “as what was done.”
“You’re a really frustrating guy to have a conversation with,” said Carlisle. “Anyone ever told you that?”
“Yes,” said Ajay.
After a moment, Carlisle said, “See? It’s that shit. This is where you step in and say something else that makes sense.”
“Everything I say makes sense,” said Ajay. “You just don’t know the dance yet, Detective. Do you want to?”
“Dance?” said Carlisle, distracted. She found herself looking at Danny again, the other woman still walking around the store. The clerk had noticed too, was standing up a little taller, his posture speaking volumes. “Danny?”
“There’s something … gone,” Danny said, and Carlisle felt something colder than ice in her veins.
She turned to Ajay. “What,” she said, “is going on?”
Ajay looked sad again. “What must happen, has happened.”
Danny’s face turned towards them, and Carlisle stopped cold. Danny’s eyes had turned yellow, feral and bright. Her voice was cut with something hoarse. “Where is he?”
“Who?” said Carlisle, looking at Ajay. “Danny? Calm down.”
Danny took long strides across the store to stand in front of Ajay. “Where. Is. He.” Carlisle could see the strength in the set of her shoulders.
“Danny,” said Carlisle. “Easy. We’re just talking. You have to use your words. Remember your words?”
She could see Danny’s head cock to the side a little, caught movement as Adalia stepped backward towards the front of the store where the clerk was. One less thing to worry about.
“One has been taken,” said Danny. “It won’t be long before he tries to take one of us.”
“You can only take,” said Ajay, “what is freely given.”
“Who’s been taken?” said Carlisle. But she felt it, that something missing, gone from the edge of her mind. She could feel where it used to be, but not what it was.
“I—” said Ajay, and was cut off as Danny grabbed at him. Ajay tried to move away, his movements fast — watch that, something inside Carlisle said, you might need that later — but not fast enough. Danny lifted him off the ground by the front of his jacket, one fist bunched in the mate
rial. Her other hand was cocked back in a fist, her teeth showing.
“Where,” said Danny, “is he?”
“He’s gone,” said Ajay. “He is … finally safe. I know where the dead go when they die.”
“Everyone,” said the clerk, “needs to calm the fuck down.” He had the weapon out — yeah, pistol grip shotgun, right again Carlisle — leveled across the store.
Carlisle had her sidearm out, the weapon pointed across the store in return. “Easy chief,” she said. “Put the gun down.”
The clerk blinked, then turned his gun across the space towards Carlisle. Such a narrow pivot range. A few degrees, a hint of movement. Enough for everything to change. Carlisle watched as the gun moved away from Danny, the end of the barrel moving a foot, no more, the mouth of it full of desperate promise. She saw the moment everything changed as the weapon shifted across a space filled with another person.
Adalia.
The girl was frozen in place, her phone still in one hand. It felt like everything was moving slower now, so slowly that it hurt to watch. Carlisle could see the change in Danny, the set of her shoulders as fear met fight. She watched her friend heft Ajay like he was a sack of meal, then tip her shoulder into the throw as she tossed him across the room towards the clerk. Seeing Ajay hit the wall felt like being punched in the gut, made Carlisle want to double over, but her training took over and she was already moving, she’d felt herself begin to run before she’d seen Danny even start to move. She sprinted across the tired linoleum, head low as the voice of an almost forgotten instructor — head down, cadet, it’ll get shot off — spoke at the back of her mind. The shotgun fired, boxes of breakfast cereal showering the air around her with colored flakes and shredded cardboard. Something tugged at her arm, but she was there, already at the front of the store, grabbing Adalia into a protective hug, her body closing around the girl. She heard the teenager start to scream, the noise cut off as they fell hard against the counter at the front of the store. Carlisle’s gun was gone, a spin of bright metal along the floor.
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