by SM Reine
My clothes were men’s, oversized and shapeless, and I wore tennis shoes, making me look like a punk American tourist. On the other hand, considering the multiple versions of my face now in papers and feeds, I figured it was as good a disguise as any. I glanced at another gabled house with high windows when Maygar thrust a carton of juice into my hand.
“Stop looking up,” he said. “And drink. We’re not far.”
“Have you been here before?”
He grunted. “No, Bridge. Your husband and I were never on ‘dinner guest’ terms. Sadly.”
I focused down another row of attached houses adorned with white pillars. Each one had a main story above the road that stretched up double the usual height, with heavily curtained windows. I found myself thinking about seeing Peter Pan as a kid, in the theater.
“Maybe you got the area wrong,” I said.
“And maybe I didn’t,” Maygar said. “You know who he worked for, don’t you?”
I focused on a bronze lion’s head with a ring in its mouth. It stood on a pole in front of steps leading to an entrance framed by more white pillars and perfect, corkscrew shrubs before a heavy oak door. I saw cameras on both sides of the door, but otherwise, I half-expected Mary Poppins to walk out, singing a song.
“No idea,” I said.
Maygar clicked at me softly. “Bastard didn’t tell you anything.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you want me to tell you, Bridge?”
I had to think for a minute. “No.”
He shrugged. I could tell he still wanted to tell me.
“Vash had to approve it,” he said, trying to tantalize me instead. “Dehgoies was still officially in penance, so the work he did remained under scrutiny.” Stopping then, he pointed up the street. “There. That’s the one.”
I swallowed when I saw where his finger pointed.
The corner building dominated half of one street block, also white, but taller than any of those we’d passed. Given the height of the windows, at least one of the eight floors came equipped with 20 foot ceilings. Ionic columns of a similar height supported that floor, with smaller versions of the same on two of the other floors, each with ornate capitals in the shape of four-cornered scrolls. Flags rippled above the main entrance, displaying a distinctly British-looking coat of arms. Small trees decorated the upper balconies, cut in precise shapes.
“He lived there? Seriously?”
“Yes.” Maygar let out a quiet snort. “His employers let him have it for security reasons...and because their main buildings are nearby. The penthouse flat was his. It takes up the entire top floor. The rest is leased out to rich humans and foreign dignitaries.”
I focused on the doorman out front, who stood with clasped gloved hands over a fitted jacket. He bent to open the rear door to a stretch limo that pulled up to the curb, taking a woman’s hand to help her out a few seconds later. Watching as more doormen bustled around to remove packages from the inside and trunk, I swallowed.
“Okay,” I said. “You’d better tell me who he worked for.”
Maygar smiled, his light exuding a warm flicker of triumph. “This building, my dear Bridge, is owned by the British government. Around the corner, on that square we just walked through...which is the famous Belgrave Square, by the way...is the Royal College of Defense Studies. Your husband worked there as an instructor.” He gave an odd kind of laugh, shaking his head. “Dehgoies taught worms how to fight seers.”
I turned slowly, staring at him. “You’re not serious.”
“I am,” Maygar assured me. “From what I understand, his addition to the faculty upped the international student count considerably.” Again he grinned. “His name wasn’t given out, of course. Hell...for all I know, he only taught from VR, using an avatar. He contracted for them on the side, as well...but a good seven months of the year he taught tactical inter-species warfare to rich military brats from all over the world.”
By then we were approaching the high-rise building. I stared up at it, gave a half-laugh.
“Then the big secret is...he was legit? He had a real job?”
“A real job?” Maygar’s mouth hardened from its previous glee. “Bridge, do you have any idea how many seers would have actively tried to kill him if they knew he did this ‘real job?’ If there ever was a blood-traitor job, that was it.”
Grabbing the juice from me, he took a long drink. Once he’d lowered the carton, he gave me another look, humor once more teasing his full lips.
“...The joke among those of us who knew was that Dags was a worm fucker.” He grinned wider before clarifying, “...that he preferred worms to seers. Given that he married one, and the Kraut daughter of a Nazi General, at that, I don’t think it’s such a stretch, do you?” Tilting his head back to drink more of the juice, he swallowed as he lowered the carton, his eyes still on me. “Come to think of it...he picked a human over you, didn’t he, Bridge?”
“And a seer,” I said.
He grinned. “Yeah. That’s right. But he fucked the human, yes?”
I felt this as a sucker punch to somewhere in the navel region. The irony should have struck me, but it didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, he did.”
Maygar grinned again, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Don’t be so sensitive, Bridge. He’s dead.”
By then we’d reached the front door. The doorman opened for us once Maygar showed his ID, but not before giving me a down-the-nose disapproving look for my attire. A security guard walked us to an art deco elevator and stepped inside after motioning us ahead. Stepping just inside the door, he inserted a key, twisted it sideways, then punched in an access code before pressing the top button labeled ‘Penthouse.’ Watching all this, I felt a little sick.
“Maybe you were right,” I muttered to Maygar.
“About what this time?”
“I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea.”
The security guard gave me a questioning look, but I barely registered it. Did I really want to see where he’d lived? I was pretty sure I’d find out yet more things I didn’t want to know. My stomach continued to hurt the higher we traveled, until I started to wonder what the hell was wrong with me. Maygar apparently wondered the same thing. He nudged me with an elbow.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “What is wrong?”
I shook my head, giving him an irritated look.
The elevator let out a soft ping, and the doors slid open. The security guard used gloved fingers to point us down the hall. He smiled at me as we exited, giving me a wink as he hit the button to go back down.
He needn’t have bothered with directions. There was only one door. It had no markings, no identifiers of any kind. A small eye of God stuck out of the ceiling, one of those cameras with a darkened bubble guarding the lens.
“Do we knock?” I whispered it for some reason.
Maygar held up a set of keys, jangling them. “Why?” he said. He bent to the lock, but the door suddenly opened, revealing a small, wiry man in his thirties with a wide face and thinning brown hair. Maygar and I both lurched back in alarm.
The man appeared startled too.
Looking at him, I wondered if they’d rented out the apartment. The man stared between Maygar and me, then focused on me, almost like he knew me.
Hesitantly, I stepped forward.
“We’re friends of Dehgoies Revik,” I said. “He used to live here. We’ve only just now come around to pick up his things. If we’re too late, maybe you could tell us where they’ve been moved...?”
“I know who you are,” the man blurted.
I felt Maygar tense behind me.
Taking a breath, I said, “I don’t think so, Mister...?”
“Eddard,” he said. He stepped out of the doorway, moving almost gracefully. “Please follow me.” When I hesitated, Eddard said, more insistently, “Please...ma’am. Come with me.”
I glanced back at Maygar,
who was shaking his head minutely, eyes adamant. When I indicated with my head that we should follow, he shook his head again. When I stepped forward, however, he did the same, only pausing to hold up his hands as if to say, Fine, but this is a terrible idea.
I knew I was being reckless. Neither of us could risk using our sight; the apartment was likely to be under surveillance no matter who this guy was. But, I figured, we could either risk going in now or bolt out and hope they let us leave. With the former I at least had a chance of getting what we’d come for.
So I followed Eddard inside.
When the human got a few paces ahead, Maygar stepped closer, lowering his mouth to my ear.
“We’re in a building owned by the British military,” he murmured. “Following a man who says he knows who you are.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I told him.
“Really? How reassuring.”
“Just trust me. Please, Maygar.”
He looked at me like I had brain damage, but shrugged when I didn’t flinch, falling in step behind me.
I focused so intently on the man in front of us that I barely took in the house itself. Once we’d reached the first staircase, however, I found my eyes pulled off his back, and suddenly I was seeing the high, wood-paneled walls and ceilings, bronze sculptures, paintings and stone floors. Hanging tapestries the size of my apartment floor covered one of the high walls of the main hallway. Faded with age, they looked like they belonged in a museum.
Even the walls had been polished recently. A blanket-sized thankah of that Buddha with the many heads drew my eyes as we passed to the left of the giant marble staircase. Staring at the thankah, then up to the landing below the second floor where I saw another Asian vase, I found myself thinking that maybe these were Revik’s things after all, waiting for auction. I let my eyes travel further up, taking in the domed cupola above the stairs, an oval window with smaller but equally ornate ionic columns ringing it like the bell tower of a cathedral.
Eddard led us into a room with built-in, floor to ceiling walnut bookshelves and worn but expensive-looking leather furniture planted before a marble fireplace. The walls were paneled like the others, but I saw another Asian-looking stand in one corner, a heavy, hand-painted Chinese cabinet and a number of Japanese vases. Olive green drapes as old and expensive-looking as the rest of the furnishings hung beside tall sash windows.
No pictures decorated the room, I noticed...then paused. Well, only one. A small, normal-sized photograph sat on the mantle in a wooden frame.
As I walked towards it, I felt something constrict in my chest.
“Wait here, please,” Eddard said.
“Hey,” Maygar began. “Wait a...”
But Eddard was already closing the double doors, blocking us off from the main hall. Folding his arms, Maygar turned on me.
“Great. This is brilliant, Bridge. He’s probably calling his pals in the Sweeps.”
My eyes remained on the photograph, tracing the lines of an image I knew so well I found it difficult to look at. In it, my father held me in his arms, smiling. He’d already lost weight from the MS, but he looked happy, and strong.
My mother’s face shone from the other side of the frame, so young it shocked me, and between them, I leaned against my dad’s chest, grinning, one arm clamped around his neck as I played with my mom’s hair. The picture hit me like a punch in the face.
Maygar finally seemed to have noticed. “What?” he said. “What is the matter?” He looked at the mantle over the fireplace, where the picture stood. “What, Bridge?”
“I want to go,” I said.
“Did you feel something?” Wariness sharpened his voice.
“No.” I shook my head, looking away from the photograph.
The doors slammed open. I turned, but couldn’t see past the clouds in my eyes, couldn’t take in the form running at me across the Persian rug. When she finally reached me, she threw herself into my arms, nearly knocking me over, then squeezed me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
But gods, she was so thin...like a ghost. Even in my shock, I was afraid I might break her.
“Allie!” she shrieked. “Allie! Allie! Allie! Allie! Allie!”
I stood there, feeling like I’d been repeatedly hit in the face. Cass snatched the sunglasses off my eyes, yanked the sweatshirt hood and the wig off my head. When I saw her without obstruction, my heart seized.
I saw Maygar jerk in our direction, unholstering his gun.
“Stop!” he said.
His tone of voice shocked me, jerked my eyes off of her.
“Take your hands off her!” he said. “Now!”
“No!” I held up a hand to him. “No! It’s okay!”
Then I saw my brother in the doorway, and lost my voice.
I barely recognized him. His black and red and blond-dyed hair had grown out in a streaked tangle past his shoulders. His face was paler than I’d ever seen it, his eyes too large, his cheekbones too prominent. One of his hands wore a flesh-colored bandage, but he didn’t look like Cass, who...I turned, staring at the scar that split her face, feeling sick for staring but unable to stop. I wanted to touch it, to see if it was real, when she grinned, shaking my shoulders to get my eyes back to hers.
“Hideous, aren’t I?” She grinned, but I saw a denser pool of sadness there. No, not sadness, a kind of brokenness that disappeared even as I glimpsed it. “Forget that! You’re here! You’re here!” She squeezed me again, jumping up and down.
I hadn’t managed to make my mind emit so much as a single coherent thought, but when she grinned at me, something in me seemed to break. I gripped her, pulling her against me. I held her as tight as I dared, still afraid I would hurt her.
“How are you here?” I managed. “How did you get here? Cass! How are you here?” I clutched her tighter. “Cass...”
“How did we get here?” Cass demanded, shoving me playfully. “We heard you were dead! That you blew up in a bomb! In Pakistan, no less!”
By then, Jon reached me, too, and he pulled me away from Cass, crushing me in his thinner but still strong arms.
“Damn it, Al.” He kissed my face. “I can’t believe it. I’m so glad to see you.” He choked, and when I saw him fighting not to cry, I felt myself do the same, although my mind still hadn’t caught up. I could barely look at him.
“Jon...” I managed. I clutched his shirt. “Where did you come from?”
“Where?” He gave a strange kind of laugh, wiping his eyes. “We finally caught a plane from Istanbul. Revik’s going to freak, you know...like, lose it.”
I froze in his arms, but Jon went on talking, not noticing.
“We had to dig ourselves out of some hole in Georgia...as in Stalin, not banjos.” He let out another strangled laugh. “Since then, he’s been moving us in circles for weeks, worried we would lead them to you, and now you come to us, like some kind of...” Seeing my face, he trailed, as if confused by what he saw. “Your picture was all over the news. We thought you were dead...they said you were dead! Revik’s been talking to Vash since we got here, but no one’s heard from you since they dropped you off in Kolkata...” He wiped his eyes again. “They couldn’t say where you were going...some security thing.”
“Revik?” I managed. “Did you say—”
“Shit.” Jon stared at my face. “I can’t believe you’re here. I’d given up. I really had.”
“Revik?” I repeated.
“Yeah.” Jon did a double-take on my face. “You don’t know! He’s with us, Al. Terian got me and Cass in San Francisco. They brought Revik in a few weeks later. He looked like hell...” Jon gave a humorless laugh. “...Still does, if you want the truth. But he saved our lives...more than once. Of course, he nearly shot us dead, thinking we were more Terian bodies. Terian had him drugged, and we were all a little crazy by then...”
He paused, thinking. His eyes grew puzzled as he looked at me.
“Al,” he said. “You’re not here for us at all, are you?”
Cass laughed. “Who cares? She’s here!” She yanked on my arm. I stared at her again, unable to take my eyes off the scar. I looked at Jon’s bandaged hand. It looked too small.
I reached for it, and he pulled it away, smiling at me wanly.
“Don’t trip, sis. We’re okay.” His eyes remained on me, carrying an odd intensity I didn’t recognize. “And what the heck happened to you?” He held out my arms, looking at me. “Even in that get-up, you look like you should be carrying an uzi. You actually look...taller. What have those crazy seers done to you?”
I couldn’t force out words. I stared between them, feeling like I might pass out. Just then, Maygar seemed to have come to the end of his rope.
“Bridge,” he hissed through his teeth. “Who are these fucking humans? What is going on? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to start shooting people...starting with myself!”
Cass and Jon’s eyes swiveled, taking in the muscular seer who, I realized suddenly, still hovered over me, trying to decide if he should intervene.
Cass spoke first, looking Maygar up and down. She nudged my elbow, giving me a wan smile.
“Who’s the cutie?” she said. “You two-timing, girl?” Lowering her voice, she murmured by my ear, “...I hope he has insurance.”
I glanced at Maygar, baffled, not sure at first what she even meant...when the look on his face brought me up short. Maygar’s eyes were trained out through the study doors. As I watched, a deep scowl lined his features.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “That son of a bitch has nine lives.”
Without thinking, I followed his gaze, and my eyes connected solidly and without warning with Revik.
He stood several yards back from the doorway, wearing a dress shirt and black pants, arms folded tightly across his chest, talking to Eddard. From his face and profile he looked about forty pounds lighter than the last time I’d seen him. I felt him notice my stare, even as I realized he wasn’t going to return it. I watched his hand comb long fingers through his black hair, noticed the absence of his ring, and suddenly the chain I wore felt heavy around my neck.
