His smile falters at that, but he quickly recovers. “I’m actually looking for Rehhd…” he replies, casting his gaze around the izakaya.
“She never showed,” Anaiya says. “Eamon said something about her working solo tonight.”
A tight grimace pulls at the strong features of his face, hinting at a sharper emotion beneath the barely restrained facade. “Eamon said that?”
Anaiya nods, intrigued by this emotional shift in the otherwise steady and controlled Kaide. She watches him carefully.
Kaide stands up slowly, the stool barely moving as his solid frame extends to full height. Wordlessly he turns his back to Anaiya and stalks over to the bar, where Eamon is placing his order with one of the Earth Elemental servers.
The conflict is not the kind of physical fight Anaiya would expect at a Fire izakaya. The angst here is all quiet and coiled.
The two of them huddle close together, not opposites, but noticeably different.
Following what Anaiya can only conclude are terse words, they both leave the bar, tequila glasses left glittering in the soft light. Kaide strides purposefully towards the exit, unmoved by the distractions surrounding him, focussed only on his destination. Eamon follows, his self-assured saunter more guarded, less casual.
Something is happening and it is happening because Anaiya mentioned Rehhd. She moves to stand up, ready to follow them, when Cress appears at her side.
“Be careful of that one, Nisha,” she says, sliding onto the spot Eamon has only recently vacated. “He burns hearts like they’re corpses.”
She laughs, a tinkling that mingles with the melody streaming through the izakaya. Its contagious pull passes Anaiya by; her eyes are still firmly trained on the exit that has swallowed Kaide and Eamon.
“And you don’t want to be burned…” Her voice fades, blending with the music until the words become part of the lyrics.
Anaiya nods absently, the words barely registering. “Got it. Thanks, Cress,” she says, standing up.
Cress’s laugh follows her as she makes her way to the izakaya exit. “Don’t let the fire burn you, Nisha.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT MORNING, Anaiya tingles with restrained excitement as she leaves her apartment. Her earlier debrief with Niamh had elevated Kaide to a primary target and she is keen to commence surveillance. Anticipation is a hand around her throat, making her flush with excitement and nervousness and desire. The thought of reaching her goal, of finally uncovering the Resistance leader and ending this deception, feels almost tangible – a synthfly buzzing in her brain, sending off waves of energy.
As she makes her way through the connecting streets and laneways to the riverside area of Precinct 19, something deep in her subconscious spurs her to break into a free-run. The pull is strong, but she resists, taming the wild energy inside and forcing her feet to beat out a slow but consistent rhythm on the esplanade stones.
Her body relaxes and her mind quietens, allowing thoughts of the morning’s debrief to drift and weave along her neural pathways. Niamh’s voice echoes in her memory. In spite of the noisy morning sounds, she can still hear the excitement in it. The thirst. The hunger. She instinctively knows he has always been like this and wonders why she never saw it. Having spent so many years with him, running the same streets, working the same shifts – had she really failed to see this part of him?
The sounds and smells of the river market shake her out of her introspection and she slows to a steady stride. Water analysis of Kaide’s communications and wristplate transactions suggest she will find him here, somewhere in the microcosm of Elemental activity. Air Elementals dominate the riverside bustle, but a few Peacekeepers linger nearby and Earth Elemental sellers call their wares and tend to their stalls. A familiar smell lingers in the air.
Cola-roasted pigeon.
Her mouth starts salivating before she can finish the thought. Memories, good memories, happy memories, flood her cerebral cortex. Her feet propel her along the scent pathway before her neocortex can catch up.
She sees the crowd before she sees the vendor. It is early enough in the morning to catch the workers, late enough to catch the recently roused and hungover nightlovers.
The crowd around the pigeon vendor is dense. She manoeuvres carefully, but a careless jostle at her side sends her stumbling into the dark-shirted Elemental in front of her.
“Hey, ease on,” he grumbles, and turns to continue his rant, but stops abruptly when he sees her. It’s Kaide. “Anaiya?”
Well, that was easier than I expected.
Now, two faces have turned to regard her.
Kaide and Seth.
Or not.
Kaide frowns at her. Anaiya meets his gaze evenly, keeping her stance casual. She glances to Seth, finding it harder to meet his eyes. Her feet shift uneasily and she jams her hands into her kevlar pockets to keep them from fidgeting.
“Hey,” she says. Lightly. Casually. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Which is true. For Seth. “You both left the Rabid Dog in a bit of a rush last night,” she continues. “Everything all right?”
A flash of surprise crosses Seth’s face and he turns to Kaide. “You went to the Rabid Dog last night?”
Kaide nods, but keeps his gaze on Anaiya. “So, what brings you here, Anaiya?” he asks.
Seth looks to her expectantly, head tilted and right hand pulling at the back of his neck. The chance encounter is obviously causing him some level of stress, but Anaiya is unsure why.
Interesting and more interesting.
“Same thing as you, Kaide,” she replies, the smell of roasting pigeon growing stronger as the line grows shorter.
She is not ready for the curse as it explodes from Kaide’s lips. He glares at Anaiya before flicking his head to Seth.
“Eamon,” he spits.
Seth nods, frowning. When he looks at Anaiya, he draws himself up. He is calm and composed.
“You were talking to Eamon last night?” he asks softly.
Anaiya’s mind is racing. This reaction is obviously not over her penchant for cola-roasted pigeon. She runs through the events of the last few minutes. Their surprise at seeing her, Kaide’s antagonism, Seth’s ignorance of Kaide’s visit to the izakaya last night, Seth’s heightened unease. What are you doing here? Same thing as you.
Same thing as you…
What are they doing here?
“I talked to a lot of Elementals last night,” she answers slowly. “Except, of course, to you…”
He dismisses the bait with a shake of his head.
“What did Eamon talk to you about?” Kaide asks, stepping in.
“Nothing.”
“You two were looking pretty cozy to be talking about nothing.”
“No cozier than you at the bar or as you both stormed out of the izakaya,” she retorts. “If you were so desperate to know what we were talking about, maybe you should have asked him after you dragged him out to the street.”
“How did you know about this, if Eamon didn’t tell you?” asks Seth, his voice quiet and hard.
“Because you told me,” she says darkly, enjoying the shift in the pair’s body language.
Kaide’s eyes fly to Seth, who, Anaiya notes with satisfaction, stares dumbfounded at her.
“I did not,” he eventually manages. “I didn’t,” he repeats to Kaide, shaking his head furiously.
“You did,” Anaiya insists, pulling her hands from her pockets and crossing them across her chest. She may not know what the two of them are here for, but it’s clearly significant; she is happy to feign ignorance if it causes them to panic and reveal some of their secrets.
“You said not to tell Kaide, because he would never talk to you again.”
The line behind the two of them has dwindled and a large space has opened up before the street vendor. She moves to pass by them but Seth grabs her arm.
She looks down at it and then slowly raises her eyes back to him. A look of indecision flits
across his features and he softens the grip, but doesn’t release it completely.
“Butterfly, this is not funny.”
His voice is low and dangerous. She runs her free hand down his forearm, over the ribbons of skin ink, and circles her fingers around his wrist. She keeps her eyes locked on his.
“I agree,” she says slowly and tightens her grip, finding target pressure points, fingers pressing into his heart point and pericardium six.
His eyes widen in pain, and his grip slackens slightly, but he grimaces and maintains his hold. “Anaiya…”
“Seth.”
Finally he releases her arm.
“There are easier…and more enjoyable…ways to touch me,” she says quietly, refusing to rub circulation back into her arm where he had gripped it, impressed to see that he too is refusing to show the same weakness. “If I had known keeping your cola pigeon secret was so…imperative…I would have just waited for next week’s Samedi Markets.”
She brushes past him and strides up to the vendor. “Two pieces,” she says, plugging her lifeline into the antiquated pay terminal.
“You’re here for the pigeon?” Kaide asks quietly, stepping up to counter beside her.
She glances over her shoulder to where Seth still stands. He regards her silently, a slight frown creasing his forehead, his hand back to worrying at the nape of his neck.
“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” she asks innocently, taking the pieces of pigeon the vendor offers. She watches him, shifting the hot meat between her hands till it cools.
“What game are you playing, Anaiya?”
“No game,” she says as Seth steps up beside Kaide.
They pause, time stretching into a moment where something seems to hang in the balance.
“Can I have a minute to talk to you?” Seth asks.
“Seth –” Kaide warns.
“No,” he replies steadily. “I need to talk to her.”
Kaide shakes his head and turns away from them.
“So, can I?”
* * *
“WANT ONE?” Anaiya asks, offering him a piece of her pigeon, as Seth leads her towards an unoccupied bench.
“Thanks,” he says, his fingers brushing hers as he reaches for the dark brown flesh. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the other night,” he continues as they reach the bench.
Anaiya nods absently. Though she has been trying to forget the more intimate details of that night, flashes of it have still plagued her dreams.
She expects him to say more, but he falls silent. There is a moment when they just look at each other and Anaiya wonders, not for the first time, what thoughts are raging in the mind of this rare Elemental before her.
He breaks their eye contact first and sighs as he falls onto the cold stone of the bench. She follows his lead, sitting close enough to feel the brush of his thigh against hers and the radiant heat of his body combatting the chill of the river breeze. She looks out over the crowd, catching a glimpse of Kaide still staring daggers at her. The two of them distract themselves with the pleasure of sucking pigeon flesh off brittle bones.
“What’s Kaide’s problem?” she asks mouth full with the final bite.
“He has some trust issues…”
“With Eamon or me?”
“With everyone.”
Anaiya steals a glance at Seth in her peripheral vision. He has pushed his sleeve up his forearms and his right thumb dances over the dark patterns twisting around his forearm.
“I’m sorry about the other night,” he says.
She was expecting a confession of sorts, or at least more intel, but not an apology.
“Which night?” she asks, genuinely confused.
He barks a short, rueful laugh. “They’ve all been a bit of a disaster, haven’t they?”
She twists to look at him properly. He has stopped his absent fidgeting and stares down at his still arms.
“Not completely…” she replies, hesitant to get drawn into a conversation about their earlier encounters, their abandon and intimacy still unsettling.
He gives her a grateful smile. “I didn’t mean to ignore you last night,” he says.
She resists the temptation to interrupt him and ask one of the hundred questions that have flitted across her mind since she saw him stride out of the izakaya.
“I didn’t expect to see you there…Not with Eamon.”
“My unexpected appearances and Eamon seem to be a bit of a problem. Why is that?” she asks, debating whether or not to continue her light interrogation. “Does it have something to do with the Resistance?”
He pauses and Anaiya thinks that he will actually start giving her the answers she needs. Instead, he replies with a question of his own. “What did you two talk about last night?”
Anaiya resists the impulse to sigh. Perhaps if she gives him some intel, he will return the favour…
“Not much,” she replies, glancing over to Kaide. Another Elemental has joined him at the pigeon stall. With their backs turned and a moving crowd of Elementals between her and them, she has no way of knowing who the mysterious arrival is.
“I arrived not long before the spoken word started and he left not long after they finished, so there really wasn’t a lot of time to talk. We laughed about both of us going down to the Peacekeeper restraint the other night, he showed me his works in progress…”
She pauses looking down at the replica of Eamon’s work covering Seth’s lower arm. Seth catches her glance and looks down at it as well.
“Seems like a lifetime ago that I got this,” he murmurs.
“I like it,” Anaiya says and is surprised to realise that she means it.
“Me too,” he says, smiling.
A crowd is beginning to gather along the riverbank and the brown haze of the sky shifts in the dominant Easterly, sending shards of bright light down to illuminate their faces. It is a pleasant day, one she would have loved as a Peacekeeper – with nothing else to do but free-run in the breeze and untainted sunlight, with the taste of cola-roasted pigeon on her lips and the promise of a long night at the Wild Rover in her future.
“Did he talk about Rehhd?”
His question sharpens her mind back to the present moment.
“I asked him where Rehhd was – I was surprised that she wasn’t there. He said she was working solo that night.”
Seth frowns and Anaiya’s heart rate quickens. First Kaide stalking off with Eamon at the izakaya and now Seth fretting, all because of Rehhd working solo on a project. Or because Eamon told her about it.
What is Rehhd up to?
“Is Rehhd…in trouble?” she asks hesitantly.
“Not yet,” he says darkly and then catches himself.
His frown fades and he shoots her a grin, but it is forced and fake and does nothing to ease the jittery fire rumbling in her core.
“What is Rehhd working on?” she asks, less hesitantly.
“Nothing,” Seth replies, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”
A buzzing at her wrist distracts Anaiya from pushing further.
Impeccable timing, Niamh.
She stands up from the bench. Seth stands quickly in response.
“I have to go,” she announces, too loudly. Her first thought is to suppress the spiky feelings Seth provokes, but she lets them linger, her mind exploring ways she can use them.
“I’m sorry, Anaiya –” he starts, but she cuts him off before he can continue.
“I don’t care,” she says heatedly. “I don’t know what’s going on or what it has to do with me, or what you think it has to do with me –” Seth opens his mouth to interrupt, but she throws up her hand, palm flat. “No. I don’t care. Whatever is going on, it is clear you don’t trust me. It’s obvious you find it easier to blame me, ignore me or accuse me than actually talk to me, so I’m done.”
Her performance is flawless and she can see in his defeated stance and downcast eyes that he is on the pivot point, that he is considering ignoring
the good advice of Kaide and his own neocortex and actually confiding in her.
She waits, letting her body lean subtly towards him and softening her eyes.
Come on, Seth. Open up to me.
He looks at her and takes a step forwards.
This is it, this is where Anaiya will get the intel she needs to confirm Rehhd as the Resistance leader, to prove herself as a Peacekeeper, to end this mission and return to her life.
A shout rings out and echoes off the river ramparts. Anaiya spins around, her eyes scanning the crowd. She spies Kaide, still in his original position near the vendor stall, but the mysterious Elemental beside him has disappeared. He is no longer staring towards her and Seth; his gaze is now fixed on the spectacle unfolding in the centre of the crowd.
* * *
ANAIYA MOVES CLOSER to the crowd that has gathered to watch, weaving in between and around the Elementals until she finds a clearing near the front.
At first, all she sees is a troupe of Dancers: Air Elementals twisting and turning and curving in on themselves and around each other, flashing black and grey and red with their long, hooded cloaks and rapid movements. It is strange to see them dancing in the flesh, instead of via a wallscreen. The organic appeal of it reminds her of the Lavoir and the throwback to activities that require no technology.
The association tickles faintly along secondary neural pathways, but she pays it no heed – consumed by the performance. Her gaze follows every movement, spellbound as the kaleidoscope fractures and coalesces before her. Still her nape pricks with warning and she raises her left arm to record the performance on her wristplate.
The crowd grows as the performance continues, swelling to make movement along the riverbank almost impossible.
Without warning, the dance changes. With a swift and seamless flick of their hands, all five Dancers rip back their hoods to reveal their faces. Except there are no faces. Only masks. Harsh and angular surfaces, each tattooed with a single flame on the cheek.
Whispers in her mind turn to shouts.
The Dancers let out a piercing wail, dropping their cloaks in unison and falling dramatically upon them. Their forms continue to writhe, the deep red lining of the cloaks twisting and splaying on the ground like pools of blood. Anaiya steps closer, pushing urgently into the small gaps left by Elementals in front of her, and stares at the central figures, free of their cloaks and revealed in dark kevlar jeans, tight cottonex shirts and heavy boots.
Resistance: Divided Elements (Book 1) Page 20
