“I’d be more worried about where it’s parked,” said Jeremy. “This town’s brutal for towage.”
They stood side by side outside the rapidly emptying no man’s land in front of Madison Square Garden and watched War and Famine clean up the last vampire witnesses. “That wasn’t so hard,” said John. “We should just send them in with the bombs.”
“They can’t go inside,” said Jeremy. “It’s Kaylan’s land. Kaylan’s forbidden them to enter.”
John nodded, remembering how Liselle had returned the favor to Kaylan at her apartment, right before Melissa had turned Kaylan into a pillar of lightning leading up into the sky. “Damn.”
“It’s okay,” said Jeremy, clapping John on the shoulder. “We’ve got John Fucking Miles.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
“What that whole fuck-up taught us,” said Uncle John, “was that we’re woefully under prepared to invade the nest of a vampire swarm.”
“We prefer terms like ‘extended family’ or ‘blood relatives,’” said Jeremy the Vampire. “Also, you’re still high.”
Uncle John looked like he wanted to argue, on principle as he’d often say, not that it had ever made a lot of sense to Adalia. After the cab ride back to the warehouse, which Uncle John called their lair or secret hideout and Melissa called home base and Jessica called ops, and which Adalia just called home, she’d sat hugging herself, waiting. Her mom had paced like a caged creature, always about to say something. Not just looking like it, but actually about to, and never doing it. Now that Adalia had stepped back into the Other Place, properly into the Other Place rather than just looking through the door like she had for the past forever, she could tell things. Things like whether Uncle John was going to live after being shot (he was), or whether Liselle Vitols was really a Horseperson (she was).
She could also tell when people were about to speak, and sometimes what they were going to say. It didn’t matter that her mom hadn’t said anything. Adalia could see the words hanging around her like a cloud, things like how could you not know or did you really have sex with that thing. Adalia wanted to ask those questions too, really wanted them to be said out loud but she was afraid of the answers, even though she already knew what those answers were.
At least she thought she did.
Then Uncle John had arrived back, which always made her feel better, because even without the help of the Other Place she knew that Uncle John didn’t expect a single thing of her. Not really. He expected her to help do the dishes after Val cooked, because if Uncle John was going to do dishes then even the Universe was too, and she knew he expected her to do the right thing, although with Uncle John’s moral compass that gave a little bit of wiggle room. This time though it didn’t make her feel better, because she’d done a terrible thing, a thing so terrible that she couldn’t look her mom in the eye, or Val, or … or any of them. She felt sick, sick to her stomach, like she’d been used, like she should have known better.
She’d tried, of course, walking away from the anger of her mom’s silent pacing, making straight for the showers. The shower area at home was big, with a bunch of shower roses, and plenty of hot water, all lined up. There were his and hers sections, which made Uncle John disappointed, and Melissa happy because Uncle John was disappointed. When Rex had been putting the showers together he’d said something like no one likes a cold shower or bad water pressure, right after he’d turned them on for the first time. Like he knew the kinds of things that would turn the warehouse into home, make it feel like a place Adalia could belong.
Or a place where she could hide, like she’d been doing.
Hiding had let her down. This wasn’t some big epiphany on the heels of being lied to by a guy she really liked only to find out he was a mass murderer. She’d known this for a while, known it for sure after she’d been fired from Starbucks; she just hadn’t said it out loud, or at least as out loud as the inside space of her head was. But now it was out, and that feeling of tremendous happiness she’d had, lying in sheets smelling of Maks, his arms around her after they’d made love, all of that was gone. It was worse than if she hadn’t felt it in the first place, because the feeling felt like betrayal, and it tasted like deceit, and that heavy weight was back in her stomach and it made her angry and sad.
What made it worse, the worst thing in the world, was that after she’d looked inside Maks, stripped away the lies with the burning sight of the Other Place, she’d seen that he was alone, and that he was in love, and he was in love with her, which wasn’t right, and couldn’t ever be right. Because she didn’t want a mass murderer to love her, and she didn’t want to love a mass murderer.
The Universe’s power was supposed to be able to fix the world, but all she was able to do with it was break things worse than they’d ever been.
But she’d tried having a shower. The water had been hot and strong and clean, and she’d scrubbed at herself with soap and a coarse brush until her skin had gone from pink to red and then from red to sore. All that had done was to make her feel sore and guilty because being with Maks had felt so good.
So she’d come back out and sat on the couch and ignored her mom, who was still pacing, and accepted a sandwich that Val made for her, although she wasn’t hungry. And he’d cleaned it away, after she’d taken only one bite after about thirty hours of it sitting beside her, and put a hand on her shoulder and said I’m sorry this happened to you, which made her feel dirtier and worse, and want to cry again.
It was a good sandwich, too. Val always made good food, like he had two superpowers: making good food and doing the right thing. She wished she’d been able to do the right thing when it mattered. The right thing would have been opening her eyes, looking with the Other Place’s burning sight, and then screaming when she’d first seen Maks come into Starbucks with his boyish grin and his dark curls and his stubble, his eyes only for her.
Now Uncle John was back, with the vampire Jeremy. And War and Famine, who seemed okay for things that weren’t really people. Adalia felt something green and worm-like in her gut when she looked at Liselle, with her beautiful skin, and her perfect features, and her amazing clothes, all like she’d just stepped out of a fashion shoot for Vogue Paris, and added jealousy to the feelings curling around that stone in her gut. She knew it wasn’t fair, because Liselle was perfect, like an angel, except she was also terrible, like the doom of the world, but that didn’t make it better. It made it worse, and made her feel more jealous, and sick, and angry, because Adalia couldn’t even be the doom of the world right, she was pretty much just going to screw it up for herself, and for her mom, and Val, and Melissa, and probably Uncle John too, despite him saying that the universe owes me one.
She wished Melissa was here.
Adalia snapped back to the present as a chair scraped across the floor, loud. Right in front of her. She looked up, and there was Uncle John, wincing, but still pulling the heaviest chair they owned across the floor, and sitting down in front of her, like she needed someone to talk to, only she didn’t, she just wanted to be left alone.
“I want to be left alone,” she said, before he said anything, which was difficult in and of itself because he was usually the first to say anything, which was annoying, and made her feel angry again.
“Cool,” he said. “There’s only one problem.”
She squinted at him. “Just one?”
“I’ve made a list,” he said, nodding, “so we can compare. Later. Right now, there’s a number one, or at least top five, issue.”
“Is it the vampire?”
“No.”
“The fact that there are other vampires?”
“No.”
“That we’re up against Death and Pestilence, and that the other two on our team, who are War, and I don’t know, I guess she’s Famine,” and here Adalia wanted to say except she’s beautiful and perfect and I hate that, “are here but are outgunned?”
John thought about that for a second. “Outgunned?”<
br />
“Yeah.”
“Hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said, “because I’m here. But no. That’s not it.”
“What is it then?”
“The problem is that you’ve been served an ice cold glass of pickled assholes, and you don’t have a beer. Get your coat.” He stood up. “I’m starting to come down from the benzos so really, you’re doing me a favor.”
• • •
Of course Val had wanted to come, and so had her mom, and Famine and War. The only one who hadn’t wanted to come was Jeremy the Vampire, who had said bars make me thirsty and they’d looked at him and Uncle John had said cool and changed the subject.
But when Val had tried to get his coat, and her mom looked like she was ready to go because what with all her pacing she hadn’t even taken her jacket off, Uncle John had given them a look. Adalia didn’t really understand the look, but Uncle John had also said you are doing this all wrong, and her mom looked like she wanted to punch him, but Val had just laughed and told him to turn your fucking phone on this time.
They’d caught a cab, because Uncle John hated Uber. Adalia suspected this was because of Skyler Evans, who Adalia had thought was pretty excellent, but she didn’t want to look into the Other Place to check on what Uncle John was thinking. Because this was Uncle John, and you didn’t look at Uncle John with the Other Place. There were rules.
She wasn’t sure if she could look at Uncle John with the Other Place, for one. But the real reason was that she knew she only had to ask him something, and he’d tell her the answer. He was … Uncle John.
They’d arrived at the bar, the kind of place that didn’t need a doorman because there wasn’t any point, what with the run down nature of it, and the tired waitresses, and the grimy bar top, and the patched leather stools, and old booths at the back with faded beer ads hanging above them. The kind of place that was desperate to get customers of any kind. Uncle John had ordered two beers and two other drinks in shot glasses, brought them to their booth, and put a beer and a shot glass in front of her.
The beer was a Coors, which she hadn’t had before, and the shot glass was full of something green called Chartreuse, which she also hadn’t had before, and after she drank it all, never wanted to have again. Uncle John looked at her, and the look on her face, and said, “Right. That’s as bad as it gets. It’s all downhill from here.”
“Why did you buy that?” she said.
“You know, I really have no idea,” said Uncle John. “Except that it’s so bad it usually takes my mind off anything else.”
“The Coors is nice,” she said.
“There’s also that,” he said, taking a sip from his own bottle. “Chartreuse is so bad it makes anything after taste like the tears of Jesus.”
“Why are we here, Uncle John?” she said.
“Because,” he said, “you feel terrible.”
“Don’t you mean I look terrible?”
“No,” he said. “I mean that a guy lied to you and your mom is pissed and you feel like you did something wrong.”
“But I did—”
“No,” he said, again. “I mean a guy lied to you.” He took another sip from his beer.
“You don’t know what happened,” she said, looking down at her hands, green hair slipping over her face.
“Don’t need to,” he said.
“Because I can’t do anything wrong?” she said. Her voice took on a nasty, mocking tone, but she couldn’t help it. “Because you’ve done wrong things before?”
He looked at her, saying nothing. He took a sip from his beer, then shrugged.
“What?” she said. “That’s all I get, all the wisdom? Bad beer and a shrug? I just … I don’t know what happened. I want to know what happened.”
“I’m not here for wisdom,” he said. “Wrong guy. Not my wheelhouse.”
“What good are you then?” she said. She didn’t mean to say it, it just came out, and she saw the flash of hurt in his face, but he swallowed that along with another mouthful of beer.
“Not much good at all,” he said, starting to peel the label off his Coors. “I’m just a guy who’s got a few good friends. I sit around playing video games and,” he said, flashing that megawatt smile she’d seen so many times before, “looking damn pretty.”
She laughed, and realized she was crying, and laughing through the tears. “Someone needs to,” she said, thinking of Liselle. “I can’t do this, Uncle John. I can’t … I can’t even save myself. He’s in love with me, and I chose not to see what he really is because I needed someone. How can I save the world?”
“World might not need saving,” he said. “Not by you.”
“But why do I have this power if—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, signaling for another round. She saw her bottle was empty and didn’t know how that had happened. Maybe it had evaporated. “Only matters what you want.”
She looked at him from under her hair, waiting for their beers. They arrived with a clunk as the waitress put them down harder than was necessary, her makeup not able to hide the years under it. The Other Place whispered at her, just a little, and she could see the waitress had three kids, and she was working this job and another one at a Subway, trying to put food on the table. She saw the line stretching back from the waitress, and her job at the bar, and the Subway, to dark meeting rooms where people talked about profits and maximizing revenue with available resources, and saw the unpaid overtime, and how desperate life was at the very brink of survival. She watched the thread stretch back to a vampire named Constanta, and from her to one named Anatolie. She skipped back more, all the way to the top of the thread, and saw Death, the Death that waited for them all, wearing a woman’s face and speaking with a woman’s voice. Kaylan.
All of that, in a heartbeat, and then the moment was gone as the waitress turned away, too tired to wait for a smile of thanks. What was in the Chartreuse? Adalia watched her go, then looked at Uncle John. “I want the world to stop hurting,” she said.
He looked thoughtful. “That seems like a big problem to solve,” he said.
“It’s just that, I don’t know, if you can do something and you don’t, aren’t you to blame?”
“No,” he said. “Not a big Spider Man fan, either.”
“What if you try, and screw everything up?” she said.
“Would people die?” he said.
“All the time,” she said.
“Bit more iffy, probably still not your fault,” he said. “Look, you remember how Val hauled his ass through Chicago looking for bad guys to fight?”
“I remember,” she said.
“You remember how he didn’t always get it right?”
“I remember,” she said.
“But he got it more right than wrong,” said Uncle John.
“But that’s Val,” said Adalia. “I’m not like him.” She licked her lips, tasting Coors. “He does everything right.”
Uncle John looked at her, then burst out laughing. “He definitely does not do everything right.”
“It looks like it,” she said. “He’s saved the world a couple of times.”
“Nah,” said Uncle John. “Right place, right time. For instance, the first world-saving event I can remember, it was actually his girlfriend who ran a bloodthirsty Russian werewolf off. Second time? You saved us all.”
“But—”
“Facts,” said Uncle John, “are not always my strong suit. But I was there, Adalia. I was there.”
She looked down at her beer. Empty again. How did that keep happening? She was silent for a while, a piece of time that felt like forever even to her, and then said, “I want another beer.”
“Okay,” he said.
“And then,” she said, “probably another one.”
“I can see where this is going,” he said, “and I’m on board.”
She flicked back her green hair, daring a smile for a moment. “And then,” she said, “I am going to save the world.”
“Rock on,” he said. “How are you going to do that?”
“One person at a time,” she said. The waitress arrived again with their drinks, and Adalia reached out, touching the woman’s wrist. She felt the age of the woman, not just the years on Earth, but the extra time she carried because of all her worries. She stepped sideways into the Other Place, just a little, just enough to see properly. “Mira Rusk, I offer something. No trades, because you give all to your children, whose names are Terrence, after his father, and Samantha, and Ollie, who is only small but sees you age day by day. Mira Rusk, I see how you work here tirelessly. There are six numbers you must remember. They are twelve, twenty seven, forty, nine, three, and thirty.” Adalia slid two one-dollar notes onto the table. “Mira Rusk, do you remember?”
“I … I remember,” she said, stumbling back, before hurrying away.
“That was,” said Uncle John, “pretty fucking cool.”
“Yeah,” said Adalia, and she was crying again, but it felt better this time.
“She’s going to win with those numbers?”
“Yeah,” said Adalia. “Yeah, she is.”
“What were those number again?” said Uncle John, and Adalia laughed, and it felt good, good and clean, and right.
She was going to save the world. She was going to save the world. She was going to save the world.
But first, another beer.
• • •
Oh God. Her head.
That was the first thing that came through the fugue of sleep, except it wasn’t sleep, it was more like a high functioning coma, medically induced, if doctors were allowed to use alcohol to induce comas. There was probably something in the Hippocratic Oath that would stop them, because while it was fun at the time — it was fun, wasn’t it? A memory of her drinking something clear from a shot glass, someone saying “Salt before the tequila! Before!” as the music pounded around her — there was this awful recovery window where everything was bad.
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