by Dima Zales
“Do we have time to explore Gomorrah?” I ask as soon as we depart. “This place is amazing.”
Felix clears his throat. “Did you forget about that computer project I promised to do for you at home? I thought you needed it done posthaste.”
He’s right.
Nero might discover the device in his pocket, and not only will we not get a chance to hack him, there might be consequences for Felix.
“Never mind,” I say quickly. “Were you able to talk to your friend?”
“Yes,” Felix says, looking relieved. “She’s promised to look after Ariel. She’s a dream walker, so it should really help.”
Vlad appears impressed at this, so I ask, “What’s a dream walker, and how does she retain her power if she works in this place?”
“Dream walkers can enter other people’s dreams and even control what happens—a bit like in Inception, only cooler,” Felix says. “It’s a rare, very practical power, and I think she maintains it with frequent trips off world.”
I nod thoughtfully. “You know, that might well help Ariel with those nightmares she never admits to having.”
Both Felix and I have heard Ariel scream in her sleep, but she always claims not to remember anything come the next day—and maybe she doesn’t, but I doubt it.
“Not just nightmares,” Felix says. “My friend has a bunch of therapies she’s developed. She’s highly sought after. It’s lucky we go way back.”
“Sounds great,” I say. “There’s only one thing I’m worried about now—vampires at rehab.”
“I took care of that,” Vlad says, and both Felix and I look at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
He doesn’t.
“Let’s just hope Ariel stays away from Kit,” I say after an awkward silence.
No one replies to that, so I resume my gawking all the way to the gate building.
On the ride back from JFK, Vlad and Felix talk in Russian again, and I nap.
When we get back home, Rose grabs Vlad, and they run back to her apartment with all the enthusiasm of young lovers after a year apart.
“You left without talking to me. Rose told me some of what’s happened,” Fluffster says grumpily when we enter the now-spotless living room—likely courtesy of Rose. “You should’ve woken me up.”
“Get on your computer and hack Nero,” I tell Felix. To Fluffster I say, “I’ll fill you in on everything right now.”
The chinchilla looks pacified, so I launch into my tale as Felix leaves and returns with his laptop, then plops on the couch and starts banging away at the keys.
“So the password is your name,” he exclaims just as I finish my story.
Fluffster and I look at him. As he stares at something on his screen, his eyes grow wider, and the unibrow seesaws back and forth, like a drunk caterpillar.
“What is it?” I ask, sitting down next to him. “What did you learn?”
“It’s one of those things you have to see to believe,” he says and reverently hands me the laptop.
I stare at the screen.
There are a bunch of documents that look to have been scanned from a paper version. Must be Nero’s obsession with the paperless office striking again.
When I actually zoom in on the very first of these documents, however, I gape in disbelief.
What is this?
The meat computer that is my brain feels like it’s about to crash.
Chapter Forty-Two
This is my transcript from first grade.
My scores were perfect except for one lonely S in “participation and conduct.” S stands for “Satisfactory,” or for “my first-grade teacher is ‘Such’ a bitch for lowering that grade over a few harmless practical jokes.”
How does Nero have this and why?
Even my mom, a hoarder of sentimental junk, does not own my transcripts from before middle school.
Puzzled, I close the transcript and pick another file at random.
This is something my mom does have. It’s a picture from my middle-school graduation, where I pretended to be an innocent angel that I wasn’t.
Again—why does Nero have this? This picture might be available to the general public from the school archives or something like that, so it’s not as weird for Nero to have as the transcript, but it’s plenty weird nevertheless.
Next is an essay I wrote for my tenth-grade English class. I had to pick someone I admired, and it was a difficult choice between Houdini and Criss Angel. I settled on Houdini since he was the more famous of the two and because I didn’t want to say things like “I drool when I see him on TV” in my essay.
Where did Nero get a copy of this and for what purpose? I know hedge funds do background checks on potential employees, but this is a level of thoroughness that crosses the line into creepy and leaves it far behind.
Then I look at the next thing on the screen and realize the creepy town is just beginning.
This is a letter from Columbia University addressed to Nero’s Upper East penthouse.
The letter thanks Nero Gorin for his generous donation, double-checks that he doesn’t want the building named after him, and informs him that Sasha Urban has been accepted as per his request.
What the…?
I lift my eyes and catch Felix’s gaze.
He looks as disturbed as I feel.
Nero got me into Columbia?
Why?
How did he even know about me back then?
And… I didn’t get in on my own merit? My grades were awesome. I was so proud when they accepted me. Have I been deluded about my abilities all along?
I blink a few times, trying to fathom why Nero would do something like this, but all I come up with is that this is obviously much more than a background check.
It looks more like grooming someone for a specific role ahead of time.
But that’s crazy.
Yes, Nero is a control freak, but to personally oversee a future minion’s education is not something I’ve ever heard of—especially without any strings attached.
Terrified at what I might find next, I minimize the donation letter and bring up another picture.
This one doesn’t seem to fit with the others.
It’s a picture of a man kissing a girl. A very young girl, one in her early teens.
Does Nero think that girl is me?
Because it isn’t.
Criss Angel aside, I’d never even thought about kissing an older man at that age, let alone acted on the fantasy.
Then I recognize the man.
It’s the cop who busted me at a party I attended my freshman year at Columbia.
He caught me holding the only joint I’d ever smoked during my college career and took me to the station, terrifying me with promises of an arrest on my previously spotless record.
Wait a minute.
That episode never fully made sense to me because after the cop went to the trouble of bringing me to the station and leaving me there for hours, he mysteriously let me go with a warning.
He did not try to flirt with me or anything else, just mumbled something about not wasting government money on nonissues like me—which made me wonder why he’d bothered dragging me there in the first place.
Had my lucky break been due to this picture?
Had Nero intervened via some kind of blackmail?
He paid good money to get me into Columbia—a fact I’m still wrapping my mind around—so I could see him looking after that initial investment afterward.
But how?
He would’ve had to have the photo prior to my troubles—that, or acquire it extremely quickly.
He also would’ve had to know I got into trouble in the first place, which means he’d been watching me at the time—an idea that jibes with all these new revelations but is extremely disturbing.
It is possible that Nero keeps blackmail material on all the cops in the city? Or does he simply know some shadowy person who does?
Come to think of it, does he al
so keep blackmail material on HR departments all over the US? Is that how he kept me from getting a new job?
But why not glamour the cop? Did Nero not have a vampire handy that night or something? Glamour would’ve worked just as well, unless the cop is one of the Cognizant.
Well, whatever the case, I do hope that along with blackmailing him to let me go, Nero told the guy to keep his grabby hands away from anyone younger than eighteen in the future.
I minimize the cop picture and scan a few more documents.
That’s my lease—fine. He does own the building we live in.
There’s a scan of my DMV records—creepier.
Then I see another file full of text, so I start skimming it.
This is my private conversation with Ariel that someone transcribed into text.
Oh yeah. I’d almost forgotten. Nero was spying on me using the company phone—and this must be one of the million resulting files.
Since I now have fewer documents on the screen, I can spot the underlying folder.
It’s called “Sasha,” only written in Cyrillic like the password.
I click on a file in this folder at random.
It’s a copy of my mom’s therapist’s notes. On this particular day, Mom had discussed her feelings about dating again, soon after her recent divorce.
My chest tightens. He’d been spying on my parents?
Though I’m tempted to read the notes, I close the file. Mom deserves her privacy—a concept that’s clearly foreign to Nero.
Why would he want to have this?
What is wrong with him?
Frantically, I scan the folder for something even worse than this.
There’s a video file.
I play it.
It’s me levitating a dollar in front of Darian’s nose on the night we met at the restaurant I’d worked at.
Looks like Nero had been spying on my magic gig, too.
The next video is all foggy at first; then the camera zooms in, and I watch myself kissing Nero in the middle of a deep mist.
My face burns.
This is the recording of me kissing Kit that night at the Jubilee—which means Nero knows I kissed him.
Well, not him, but a sex addict who happened to look like him at the time.
Given everything else, I shouldn’t feel outraged by this, of all things. We were at his fund when this was recorded. But I still feel more violated by this video than by most of the other evidence of his spying.
How could he know about that kiss but act like he doesn’t?
Then again, maybe he has been acting like he knows. Maybe he always hires orcs to assault women who he thinks want to kiss him.
Fuming, I look at Felix again.
Did he see this?
He stares back at me, his face annoyingly blank.
“Say something,” I demand. “Tell me this makes any sense to you.”
“It looks like he’s watched over you since you were little,” Felix says, glancing at Fluffster as though for help. Getting none, he continues. “Also… he speaks Russian.”
“He does.” I put down the laptop and massage my temples.
“And he’s been helping you,” Felix says, as though this is supposed to click something for me. It doesn’t. “He’s been watching over you,” he continues. “Protecting you.”
“Your grasp of the obvious is superb,” I snap. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“We know at least one of your parents is Russian.” His tone is extremely patient, even as the right side of his unibrow lifts higher than I’ve ever seen it.
“No.” I stop massaging my temples and stare at Felix with my mouth so wide it actually hurts my jaws. “You can’t mean what I think you’re saying.”
“It’s possible,” Felix says and looks at Fluffster for support—again without any luck.
“No,” I say. “It’s not possible.”
“What are you two talking about?” Fluffster mentally demands. “I’m not following this at all.”
“Could Nero be Sasha’s father?” Felix enunciates.
“My father?” I leap to my feet without knowing why. “Nero?”
My legs take me to the door as my heart pounds erratically in my chest.
A set of human and chinchilla feet follow me at a run, but I ignore them.
“Where are you going?” Felix asks worriedly.
“To his office.” I jam my feet into my boots.
“Nero’s leaving his office,” Felix says. “I checked the cameras before destroying the FELLATIO in his pocket.”
“Then I’m going to his penthouse,” I grit out, and before anyone can reply, I’m out the door.
I rush down the stairs as though another zombie is chasing me, run through the lobby debris, and jump into the first cab I find.
As we drive to the Upper East Side, it takes all my meditative breathing experience to calm down enough to think semi-coherent thoughts.
Could Felix possibly be right?
Could Nero somehow be my father?
A huge part of me is screaming in denial.
Wouldn’t I know it? Wouldn’t I feel it if he were?
Wouldn’t I have sensed something when we first met?
Well, if I’m honest, I did feel something when I first met Nero—but lust is the opposite of what a daughter should feel for her father.
Isn’t it?
My head feels like it might explode, so I cradle it between my palms.
If this turns out to be true, does it mean I’ll have to blind myself like Oedipus in the Greek myth? Or—
The cab driver clears his throat, and I realize we’re already next to Nero’s swanky building.
“I’m expected,” I lie to the security guard as I rush in. “My name is Sasha, and I’m here to speak with Nero Gorin.”
The overweight man looks through some paper journal on his desk and says, “Sasha Urban?”
I blink in disbelief. “Yes.”
“You’re on the VIP list,” he says. “May I see your ID?”
In a haze, I show the guy my driver’s license, and he tells me which elevator bank will take me to the penthouse.
My heartbeat is through the roof and my mind is blank the whole way to Nero’s front door.
Channeling my tumultuous emotions, I bang on the door so hard that my palm stings.
No reply.
I punch the doorbell with my finger.
Nada.
Is he not home yet?
Or is he watching me through some hidden camera and refusing to face me?
“I’m not leaving without an explanation,” I shout for the sake of the hypothetical camera and pull the lock picks from my tongue.
Nero’s fancy lock takes a few seconds longer than usual to defeat, but defeat it I do.
“Looks like breaking and entering can go into your nifty dossier on me,” I say to Nero’s hypothetical hearing devices. “Ready or not, I’m coming in.”
Chapter Forty-Three
No one greets me inside, so I ogle my surroundings.
There’s a sort of Spartan opulence to Nero’s grand foyer. Despite the modern art on the walls, eighteen-foot ceilings give the place a cathedral vibe.
I start walking aimlessly.
Each of the pieces of furniture I pass looks like it costs more than a decade of my salary, and was handpicked by the best interior designers.
Following some intuition, I take a left hallway and find myself in an art studio.
“So you do paint,” I whisper to the hidden mics as I stare at the various breathtaking oil-on-canvas landscapes.
Then I see it.
Me.
Or rather, a drawing of me—only I don’t look this radiant in real life.
I’m standing on a white-sand beach wearing a skimpy bathing suit that I retired soon after college.
“This is from my trip to Grand Cayman,” I say. “A trip I took before we ever met.”
No reply from the secret speakers or
microphones.
I examine the painting.
The detail the artist paid to my physique would not be appropriate if said artist was my father. I’m at least a cup size bigger in the picture and my waist-to-hip ratio is much closer to the ideal than my actual proportions.
This is me through the eyes of a flesh-and-blood man with lust goggles on, not a father.
Shaking my head in the hopes of clearing it, I let my intuition lead me farther into the depths of the penthouse, until I reach a smallish office with a heavy-duty safe inside.
Even without my seer powers, it’s clear that something important is in this safe, so I examine it closely.
There’s no lock that I can pick, and unfortunately, I’ve never looked into safe-cracking as part of some illusion.
Nor have I read anything about high-tech safes like this.
I touch the LCD screen on the safe door.
It lights up, and a weird alphabet appears.
When I spot a reversed “R” and “N,” I realize I’m looking at Cyrillic again.
Interesting.
Nero’s digital master password was my name in Russian. Would he use the same here?
Racking my brain for what the spelling actually was, I locate a letter that looks like a ‘c,’ then ‘a,’ then a weird letter that reminds me of a flattened ‘w,’ and finally another ‘a.’
The safe doesn’t open, but there is a space button on the screen, so the password could still be my full name.
I type the space and focus on the second word. A ‘Y’-looking letter, followed by ‘p,’ then one that looks like a ‘6,’ then the ‘a,’ and finally the one that looks like an uppercase ‘H’ written in a small font.
The safe chimes.
I hold my breath and pull on the handle.
The door opens.
There are a bunch of folders inside, but my hands leap for the one that has “Cаша Урбан” written on it, as that’s my name in Russian.
My hands a little shaky, I open the folder.
There’s an intricate yellowing piece of paper inside, all in Russian.
I look at the next paper.
Another old document in Russian.
I flip the page and find yet another ancient Russian document.
What the hell?
What do these have to do with me?
