Present For Today

by W. J. May

  “I’ve seen you,” she said suddenly, eyes brimming with some undefined emotion. “We never formally met, but I’ve seen you before. I watched you on the battlefield.”

  Gabriel looked over slowly, uncertain what to say.

  “You looked like something out of mythology.” She shook her head, staring off into the steam. “Golden hair whipping around you. A metal spear in your hand. It didn’t matter what they threw at you, how many people tried to take you down—it was like you were charmed. Nothing could touch you. You moved faster than anyone I’d ever seen.”

  Metal spear?

  A faint memory rose to the surface, and Gabriel remembered tearing the serrated siding off one of the broken windows, spinning it around like a deadly javelin. Funny, he’d completely forgotten. He made it a point not to think about that day.

  “You collapsed a stairwell,” Magda continued. “Do you remember that? I was hiding behind that stairwell, pinned down by a pair of Cromfield’s guards. The stairs fell on top of them. Crushed them in an instant. Saved my life.” She took one look at Gabriel’s blank face, then shook her head with an incredulous smile. “You didn’t even know, did you?”

  His lips parted, then he glanced down at the blood swirling around his feet. “We all got saved by somebody, right?”

  The water flipped off, and his head snapped up to see her staring at him with a tender smile. One that only deepened when he swayed uneasily on his feet. “No, honey. Some people get saved. Some people do the saving. You, Gabriel Alden, are the latter.”

  Without another word, she handed him a towel and helped guide him back to bed. A cup of water with some pain pills had been placed on a chair by the aquarium and, after teasingly requesting that he please refrain from building any altars to the fish, she bid him a goodnight.

  Sleep should have come easily. His body was exhausted, the room was dark, and he’d lost at least a pint of blood just trying to take a shower. Yet, somehow, it evaded him.

  He lay in the dark for what felt like hours, staring up at the ceiling as Magda’s words echoed over and over in his head.

  Some people get saved. Some people do the saving. You, Gabriel Alden, are the latter.

  He wanted to believe that. He really did. Except it wasn’t entirely true, was it? Because, as always, there was a part of the story he had left out. One he wouldn’t have been able to share even if he wanted to. Mostly because he couldn’t remember what had happened himself.

  It came back to him in fractured images. Like snapshots from a movie, strung together too fast to make any sense, punctuated with slow-motion screams from the people he loved.

  The complete lack of hesitation as Cromfield had lifted the gun. The way Gabriel had frozen dead-still, waiting for the impact. A single glance was all he needed to be sure. He was going to die. The bullet was aimed straight at his heart.

  All that made sense. What happened next...didn’t.

  The gun fired, but the bullet never reached him. A man had jumped in front. A man who Gabriel could swear appeared out of thin air. That part, he remembered perfectly. The dull impact as the bullet lodged deep in his bones. The sharp exhale of breath as he died instantly. The quiet thud as his body landed in the dirt at their feet—a forgotten footnote in the battle of the century.

  Gabriel never had a chance to thank him. He couldn’t even remember the man’s face. He went back later, but it was like the body had vanished into thin air. No one was missing him. No one seemed to know who he was. An anonymous tribute had been put up for him in a little-used hallway down in the Privy Council. Gabriel used to walk past it every day. Making up excuses for why he had to be down there, just so he could glance up at it from the corner of his eye.

  “Gabriel?”

  He looked up as the door pushed open and Canary slipped inside. She took one look at the pain medication—which he’d completely forgotten about—and put the pills in his hands without a word. The glass of water was soon to follow. He swallowed obediently then propped himself up on his elbows, gazing up at her in the blue light.

  “So how about it, Eliza? Am I a lost cause? Beyond saving?” He was only half joking. In reality, he found himself oddly concerned with what she might say. Their eyes met for a split second before her face softened into a wrinkled smile.

  “Quite the opposite.” In a gesture that was entirely too bold, she reached down and stroked back his damp hair. “There might be hope for you yet.”

  The two shared a fleeting smile, then lapsed into an oddly comfortable silence. Gazing absentmindedly at the aquarium. Lost in thought. After a few minutes, she glanced down at the fresh bandage taped across his chest, eyes tightening with a sympathetic frown.

  “I’ll ask Peter to give that another try in the morning. If he isn’t able to close it with his ink, then we should take you to a hospital. Get someone there to stitch it up.”

  “Can’t go to a hospital,” Gabriel said automatically, stretching his arms in front of him with an absentminded wince. “Not like this.”

  Canary put her hands on her hips, prepared to go twelve rounds. “You stubborn, defiant child. Now is not the time for that damn ego of yours to—”

  “You go to a hospital with a bullet wound, they’re required to report it to the police.” He looked up with a crooked smile, like he thought it was adorable she wouldn’t know that. “At any rate, would you like to try explaining to a doctor how a shot like this didn’t kill me?”

  She floundered a moment, fussing agitatedly with her shawls, before abruptly pretending like the entire conversation had never happened. “You having trouble falling asleep?” She glanced up at the clock. “I was sure you’d be out by now.”

  He followed her gaze, then shrugged it off as best he could. “Yeah, I don’t see that happening any time soon. What between the bullet wound and the messianic fish...”

  She chuckled quietly and pushed to her feet with a twinkling smile. “Well, that, at least, I can help you with. Sleep happens to be my specialty.”

  This time, Gabriel didn’t try to fight it. He succumbed to the sedation willingly, closing his eyes and reaching for the pillow as a pair of wrinkled hands helped guide his way.

  He was out before his head hit the mattress.

  Chapter 3

  “Just a little more to the left...”

  Gabriel opened his eyes the next morning to see two people hovering over him. One was chanting under his breath in total concentration. The other was peering down with a pair of ridiculously magnified eyes. Both were staring at him like a science experiment gone wrong.

  “I’m telling you, Peter,” Canary poked at a bit of bare flesh, “to the left.”

  ...what the bloody kind of nightmare is this?

  Gabriel looked down in disorientation, then let out a sharp cry of pain. Peter’s hands paused their circular motion above him, but the ‘healing’ didn’t stop. The torn skin on Gabriel’s chest kept weaving itself back together. As did the muscle and bone beneath. At least—that was the intent.

  Needless to say, Peter’s style left quite a bit to be desired.

  “Stop!” Gabriel gasped, scrambling weakly against the pillows. “That’s enough!”

  There was a pause in Peter’s rhythm but Canary urged him forward, watching with wide eyes as the wound pulled itself shut. Completely immune to the cost.

  “Quiet, Gabriel,” she scolded, as if he was being quite rude. “There are customers eating just down the hall—” She broke off when he cried out once more, fists closing upon the sheets as his back arched off the mattress. “On second thought, Pete, why don’t we call it a day?”

  All at once, the pain vanished. The excruciating burn searing up the center of Gabriel’s chest faded to a dull ache as the echoes of his final scream rang out between them. For a second, all was quiet.

  Then Canary cleared her throat with a nervous cough. “I’ll be the first to admit, that could have gone a little better...”

  “You think?!” Gabriel wiped fresh b
lood off his palms, trying his best to rein in his temper. “Peter, there won’t—”

  But Peter had vanished as well. Somewhere between seeing Gabriel’s murderous face and remembering his wife’s story of the golden-haired warrior, Peter had decided his time would be better spent focusing on the lunch special. That, at least, wouldn’t fight back.

  “...ungrateful...”

  Gabriel’s head whipped back around to see Canary staring innocently at the aquarium, swishing this way and that as she trailed her many shawls along the floor.

  “What was that?” He pushed from the bed with fresh strength, steady on his feet for the first time in what felt like ages. “Was there something else you wanted to share, or shall I get started dismembering you right now?”

  He stood a good foot and a half taller than her, but that didn’t seem to matter. She jutted up her chin, hobbling forward until they were standing toe to toe.

  “That’s the third time I’ve saved your life, Alden,” she said smugly, hands on her wobbly hips. “The least you could do is say thank you.”

  Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up, and for a moment it looked like he was ready to strangle her right then and there. Just to be safe he moved a few steps away, grabbing onto whatever was left of his quickly dwindling patience before whirling back around like the god of fury himself.

  “Thank you?! You really expect me to say—”

  “I got Peter to heal you!” she fired back, just as passionate as him. “And I even gave you the courtesy of sedating you! Until I got distracted by the blood and the thing wore off...” Her eyes flashed guiltily to the side before she circled back to her original point. “Peter was healing you!”

  “The man was melting my bones!”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” Another guilty look to the side. “I’ll admit he could use a little work in the whole ‘medical’ department—”

  “And as for saving my life—I count one time! A time I probably wouldn’t have needed if it wasn’t for your incessant meddling! A time I’ve already paid back in full!”

  She folded her arms across her chest with a dry cackle. “Oh, you’ve paid it back in full, have you? What a hero. You’ve saved my life?”

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed as he swept her up and down with a cold glare. “When I think of all the times I should have killed you, but didn’t? Yeah. I count that as me saving your life.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but thought better of it. Obviously wondering if this was one of those times. In the end, she extended a minor olive branch. “I was only trying to help—”

  “Stop! Stop trying to help!” Just to be clear, he knelt to eye level, speaking slowly as if there was a chance she didn’t understand. “It’s. Not. Helping.”

  The two of them locked eyes. Each sure of their position. Each unwilling to back down.

  “All right, I’m sensing you’re a little upset.” Canary held up her hands peaceably. “Why don’t we shelve this for later—”

  “Freakin’ A!” Gabriel threw up his hands in exasperation, smiling in spite of himself as he sank back onto the bed. It was easier to smile now that his every breath didn’t cause him excruciating pain. It was easier to see the humor in things. The whimsical impossibility of certain deranged characters who’d somehow wandered into his life. “What did I do to deserve you?”

  “To deserve me?” She plopped down on the bed beside him, staring pensively at the fish tank while she honestly considered the question. “I can only assume you were a better person before we met. Karma has a long memory.”

  The two of them locked eyes again before she patted his knee with a sudden smile. “Come on. Get up! We’ve got places to go, people to see!”

  She rushed to the door, a blur of energy as he stared after her in defeat. A part of him thought how easy it would be to drown her in the fish tank. Another part simply wanted to sleep.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” he muttered, flipping over on the mattress to face the wall. He tried to stuff the pillow under his head, but before he could a wiry hand ripped it away. The blankets were soon to follow. Gabriel was soon to follow after that.

  “Not yet!” She stood him up with a satisfied smile. “We got you healed up. Well, we did the best we could, so now it’s time for a little physical therapy. Here, I got you some clothes.”

  He was about to argue, swaying slightly as he suddenly realized he was not nearly as ‘healed up’ as either of them could have guessed, then glanced down at the chair in surprise. A pile of clothes was sitting on top. Neatly folded. A bag sat in the corner behind them.

  “You actually did.” He bent stiffly to pick them up, touched in spite of himself. “You actually got me...these are my clothes.” The smile melted clean off his face as he glanced again at the bag. “And that’s my suitcase. From my hotel room. How the he-heck did you—”

  “I went to collect them this morning,” she said brightly. “Found a room key in the pocket of your jacket. When I closed out the room, they gave me your things.”

  Gabriel’s fingers tightened around the clothes and he turned around to face her. Moving dangerously slow as his eyes lit with rage. “Come again?”

  “Oh, Gabriel!” She clapped her hands delightedly. “That’s exactly what they said—”

  “Eliza!”

  She rolled her eyes, looking as though he was a great strain on her patience. “I closed out the room because you won’t be needing it anymore. You’re going to be here with the Fischers, a place where I can watch out for you and stay over when you need.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Not in a million years.”

  “Now, Gabriel, try to see reason—”

  He snatched up the bag, ignoring the cautionary stab of pain that followed. “Not if we were the only two people left, would I ever stay somewhere that you had the key.”

  “Oh, would you just listen to me?” She slammed her purse down on the suitcase, putting a temporary halt to his plans. “Those people you attacked, the ones who shot you, they’re still out there, right? They figured out the alarm was a hoax, went back inside, and saw that your body was gone. They’ll be looking for you now, and if this guy is half as dangerous as you say, there’s a chance he’ll actually find you. What then, Gabriel? Think you could put up much of a fight?”

  To emphasize her point she gave him a strategic shove, swaying him where he stood. A stab of pain radiated out from his chest but he ignored it, fixing her with an icy glare.

  “Could you?”

  WHEN GABRIEL WOKE FROM his sedation, sixty seconds later, he was forced to admit defeat. Yes, he would be staying put until he was strong enough to leave. And he’d be doing that as quickly as possible. And no, he still hadn’t forgiven Canary for anything else she’d done.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and vanished into the bathroom, emerging five minutes later feeling more like himself. His teeth were brushed, his hair combed, he was wearing clothes that actually fit, and for the first time in days he wasn’t covered in blood.

  He scoffed. Let’s see how long that lasts.

  He shuffled gingerly down the hall, breathing in the faint aroma of salty noodles and ginger tea as he headed to the dining room. There weren’t many customers so early, let alone any who seemed to have heard his traumatized screams, and he nodded politely to his unlikely benefactors as he walked past. Peter guiltily avoided his eyes whilst handing him a steaming cup of coffee, while Magda gave him a bright smile and pressed a homemade cookie into his hand.

  “Canary’s outside waiting for you.” She pointed, then gave him a gentle squeeze. “Try not to get shot again, and we’ll see you for dinner tonight.”

  Gabriel backed away, feeling a little overwhelmed. “Okay.” He’d already opened the door before he quickly turned around to add, “Thanks.”

  She and Peter merely smiled and waved as he made his way out into the sun.

  Realistically, he’d only been off the streets and indoors for less tha
n twenty-four hours, but looking around it felt like an eternity had passed. He winced painfully against the bright sun like one emerging from a cave—he nearly scoffed again at the thought of cave exiting and the irony surrounding that—then took a second to get his bearings before joining Canary.

  “Oh, thank you!” She took the cookie right out of his hand and popped it into her mouth, eying the coffee as well until he twisted it out of reach. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you. That is, to say,” she swallowed loudly, “you’re no longer face-down on the floor.”

  He stared down at her, looking neither amused nor upset. “You make me really glad I never had a grandmother.”

  With that, the two of them started walking down the sunny sidewalk, taking in the New York City morning as a hundred cab drivers honked and swore and threatened each other’s lives.

  It was a relentless city. One that never slowed down long enough to take a breath. One that reminded Gabriel in a strange way of his beloved London. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d recently been shot by a man who vowed to kill him, he might actually start to enjoy himself.

  “So where are we going, anyway?” he asked, lifting a bracing hand to his chest as the two ignored a red light and hurried across another street. “Back to your merry asylum?”

  “And he’s got a sense of humor.” She took one look at his hand before automatically slowing down the pace. “If only a sense.”

  The conversation dropped, and together, the two of them proceeded to trek up the next nineteen city blocks. On a slope. It didn’t take long for that New York City sparkle to vanish into the dust. Hot dog vendors were no longer quaint, they were just another source of unnecessary heat. The teeming pedestrians were no longer interesting to observe, they were clumsy and awkward, knocking into Gabriel’s chest with every other step.