“Don't get soft, Maddie—he's fine, or he wouldn't be able to jump, right?”
Merrick nodded, his face tightening at Jacky's rebuttal. Their postures were tense.
“My timepiece has gone sideways. It's no longer accurate.”
Beth clasped her hands behind her back.
“Slowed?”
That was the most common issue. A Reflective with a slowed timepiece would be hampered during the search for his or her soul mate because the timepiece kept ticking after the term of service.
“Sped.” His answer was clipped and final, brooking no further discussion.
Beth tread where the angels of legend did not dare, “Nightmares, decreased appetite?” Libido on fire?
He simply nodded.
Beth's eyes narrowed. “They cleared you for the jump?”
It was perilous times if medical had cleared Merrick despite a hosed timepiece.
She waited.
Merrick put his strong hands on his hips. The silence stretched.
“You understand the delicacy of this mission?”
Beth nodded, not allowing her eyes to move one iota toward Madeline.
Her stepfather would be dead in the next four hours if she and Merrick had anything to do with it.
Some might see their follow-through mission as murder.
They would deliver Jacky, who would be safe in his own sector. They would then witness the demise of Joe Zondorae, closing the original mission loop forever.
Then they would sanction Chuck, beater of females. That last part pleased Beth.
“I do.”
“Then you know why I must go.”
“Hey, guys, cut the Latin. It's rude as hell to talk in front of somebody in another language. Just sayin'.”
“It's a hush-hush mission, sass-pot,” Madeline replied, her mouth held oddly.
Beth realized that was her version of holding in laughter.
“God, Maddie! Not interested in being clueless.”
She released a smile. “You promised you'd check on my mom.” It was subtle, but Beth saw the quiver of her lip.
Madeline missed her mother.
Beth missed her own mother, though she’d never known her. Her birth parents were a dark secret to which only a very few were privy.
It pissed Beth off. What? Would she shrivel up and die if she were, say, part Section Seven? Maybe she had vamp blood, was shifter, or came from the fabled Singer ancestry? That would be interesting, though unlikely.
It didn't matter; they couldn't keep her records sealed forever. At twenty-one cycles she would know all that The Cause knew.
Beth dreamed of finding her birth parents—and of having a reunion.
“You did?” Merrick asked.
“Yes.” Beth gave him a full look, coming back to the present. “I promised to make sure she was well.”
Jacky snorted, and Merrick glared at him for silence, as if that would ever be effective. Beth's only sadness about depositing Jacky back on Three was that she wouldn't see the man he would become. Jacky would have made an excellent Reflective.
She smiled at him a little sadly then shook off her thoughts. “Let's jump.”
They pushed through the doors and entered the vestibule, a glass viewing box sandwiched between the jumping room and the entrance.
Beth turned to Madeline.
“You can watch from here.”
Madeline nodded, a small smile touching her lips. She appeared sad but determined to stay where her life was better. And she trusted that Beth would look after her mother.
“Don't open the door,” Beth cautioned.
Her face scrunched.
Beth laughed. “You'll get sucked into the vortex of the jump.”
“Oh.”
“Like a flushed toilet.” Jacky hooted.
“Great analogy,” Merrick scoffed.
“Works for me.” Jacky shrugged.
Madeline grinned. It faded when she looked at Jacky. “Come ’ere, goofball.”
His face turned red, but he did.
“Take care of yourself Jack-man.”
He allowed the awkward hug, just barely.
Jacky pulled away, swinging his hair out of his green eyes, all the more emerald for the bright-red shirt he wore.
“Chance'd be glad you were here, safe.”
Swollen silence reigned.
She nodded, swallowing. “I know.”
“See ya, Maddie.”
She put her hand in the air, and he tipped his finger at her.
The Reflectives walked into the jumping room.
Madeline didn't touch the glass when Beth put the shiny silver sphere in its nest on the marble pedestal.
Merrick took Jacky's hand, sandwiched between them.
Beth turned at the last second, making eye contact with Madeline. She knew from experience that Madeline would only see a vague iridescent outline of her body.
Ryan stood behind Madeline.
He waved at Beth.
*
Beth tumbled through the pathway, for once immune to the creeping sensation of burning ice.
Her mind was on the mental image of Ryan standing behind Madeline.
He would not hurt her, Beth knew.
She intimately understood how much it pleased Ryan to make her nervous.
He'd been successful.
Why he was sniffing around Madeline when there were a couple dozen female Reflectives more than willing to lay with him was confounding to Beth—and disturbing.
There had been nothing she could say to Rachett against his inclusion back into the ranks of Reflectives.
The memories of her conversation with Rachett flowed through her mind. She was helpless to shut them down.
*
“Reflective Jasper.”
“Yes,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“He has paid for his crime against you. Sector One is the vilest punishment we can offer.”
“What?” she asked. “He didn’t get to stick his wick in anything with a hole for a month? He didn’t get to parlay with all his wealthy Barringer buddies?”
Rachett’s face was like thunder. She’d overstepped her bounds by a kilometer.
“I cannot afford to show favoritism, Beth.”
“This?” she stabbed her own chest with her thumb. “This is favoritism? Ryan almost killed me.”
Rachett nodded. “I am aware. And no, there was no sex, no parties.”
“There was something, though.”
“What?” Her eyes searched Rachett’s face. She’d never forget the look in his eyes—as deep as the grave.
“Torture.”
Beth couldn’t contain her surprise, and he acknowledged it with a nod, pouring an amber liquid over the top of cubed ice in a crystal tumbler.
He tipped his head and threw it back.
It would have caught Beth’s throat on fire, but Rachett’s expression never changed.
“We have selected a group of Section One bloodlings….
“Bloodlings…” Beth whispered in muted horror.
The creatures of legend, half-vampire, half-One, were rumored to have the ability to walk in the day, unlike their cousins who hunted the night in Sector Seven.
“Lance Ryan healed,” Rachett commented dismissively.
“You let those… things… suck him dry?”
She felt her eyes bulge.
“I did,” he said, as serious as a priest.
Beth came to an understanding that day.
There were worse things than true death.
*
They were spit out of the pathway like newlings from a reluctant womb.
Beth landed hard.
Too much daydreaming and not enough preparation.
She did a somersault and landed on her ass with her legs out in front of her, breathing hard.
Merrick’s large hand stretched out and she took it.
He lifted her to standing.
Pitch-black night greete
d them. It covered every surface, and Beth found herself momentarily disoriented.
But Jacky was not.
“Ah, hell. We have to walk it.”
“Where are we?” she asked, brushing off her clothes.
“About a mile from my house.”
Beth translated to metric.
One point six kilometers.
She barely caught her groan. It just wouldn't do. Really?
Merrick was already moving in the direction of Jacky's domicile.
Beth jogged to catch up, initializing her pulse.
A map grid lit up her screen. Jacky's house became larger until it filled the thin handheld viewer.
Got it.
She dove in alongside Jacky and Merrick, keeping pace easily, despite the filthy air, and the apparent night-vision issues seeming to plague Jacky.
“Damn!” he yelled, blowing whatever cover they'd hoped to maintain. “You guys have cat's eyes or somethinʼ?”
He klutzed along, banging into whatever was upright, all the way to his domicile. Streetlamps were not prevalent near Jacky's domicile.
They hung back on the sidewalk after arrival.
Low lights from the windows lit the front yard.
“That's weird…” Jacky said absently, studying the dwelling without approaching.
Beth frowned at his reaction.
“What?” Merrick asked, scanning the structure.
Beth didn't see anything amiss, either.
“Mom's not home.”
“Is that odd?”
Jacky's chin jerked back. “Hell, yeah, it's odd.” He snorted.
“I've been gone, she's probably had the entire universe looking for me. She'd be glued to the phone for sure…” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Wait a sec—what day is it?”
“We try to jump on Thursdays. It's a better time. We're not sure why.”
“No, duh! The date?”
Beth looked at her pulse.
October 31.
About two weeks had passed since Jacky’s departure. Why was that day significant? Beth worked it mentally but couldn't remember.
Disgruntled, she turned to Merrick, but his attention was on a group of younglings making their way toward them.
They were dressed in a variety of costumes.
Suddenly, Beth knew.
Halloween: the creepy Three custom of begging for candy from others.
“Great,” Merrick commented.
“Hard to be inconspicuous.”
“This is the day my bro died,” Jacky said into the laughter-filled darkness.
Beth was startled.
She wasn't a fan of coincidence and was beginning to get an uneasy feeling.
From the tightness in Merrick's jaw, she saw she wasn't alone.
“Are you safe to be left here?” Merrick asked logically.
“Oh, yeah!”
But something in his expression held them back.
Trick-or-treaters weaved around them, utterly ignoring the presence of the two Reflectives in plain sight. The pulselights inside their small hands bobbed on the cement sidewalk ahead, lighting their paths.
She swung back to Jacky.
“My folks meet at his grave each year on the anniversary of Chase's death.”
“And that's where you believe them to be?”
Jacky frowned at Merrick. “Loosen up, would ya. Yeah, I think they're there.”
“We can take him to the yard of grave-stones.”
Merrick seemed to deliberate.
He nodded. “Yes, that would be fine.”
“You guys don't have to. I mean, I know you've got more important things to do.”
Merrick folded his arms as his eyebrows rose. Beth was a mirror of him.
“We do, do we?” Merrick asked.
“Yeah—like killing good old Chuck.”
That got their full attention.
“Why would you say that?” Merrick's face was carefully blank.
Beth's wasn't.
Jacky tapped his temple with two fingers. “’Cause I'm a thinker.”
He turned, walking away from his dwelling.
Jacky became very small as he left them on the sidewalk, swallowed by the dark.
Beth followed.
She heard Merrick’s soft tread behind her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jeb and Jasper followed Jacky to a different cemetery from the one where they'd made the pulse fingerprint strip sale.
Jeb was disgusted that he had only a thousand in Three currency left because of the mess at the eatery.
But there was nothing he could do; it was, as they said on Three, spilt milk.
In this case, spilt cash.
The sign above the entrance identified the cemetery as Scenic Hill. Jeb knew without looking that they were still vaguely on the east hill of the Kent Quadrant but lower than its very highest point.
Jeb could make out the Kent Valley below, overtaken with industry. Very little of the food-producing crops of the twentieth century remained. He shook his head. All that fertile soil wasted beneath concrete and recycled quartz.
Only some were smart, but as a whole, humanity was stupid, each thinking of themselves and not the collective good.
Soon enough, intellectuals of the current generation would make innovations that would sway the sheep.
The cemetery was well lit—though the gate was secure.
“I bet they keep this locked ’cause there'd be an assload of vandalism tonight.”
Jasper frowned, no doubt at Jacky’s colorful vocabulary.
Jeb answered, “I suppose that'd be the ʽtrickʼ part of this ghoulish little fest.”
“Ya suppose right,” Jacky said noncommittally.
“Then how can your parents be in here...” Beth rattled the iron gates. They were secure.
“My dad's kinda sneaky.”
His eyes met theirs in the gloom. “It's an important reason anyways.”
He swung his face from theirs.
“Allow me,” Jeb said and lifted the flap of his denims, revealing a slim tool. It was contained on a fob, which held several slim utensils.
He touched the ends to his initialized pulse, and each one glowed.
“Estimates?” Jeb asked Jasper, knowing she had a better handle on history than he did.
Jasper stooped to examine the lock and sighed. “Mid-twentieth century?”
Jeb extracted a tool about the size of a pair of tweezers and muttered, “Pre-1960…”
He inserted the tool into the keyhole, and reluctant tumblers ground out their acceptance of his burglarized pulse-hybrid lockpicks.
Jeb smiled when the lock moved inside and popped open the gate.
“That is effing slick as hell,” Jacky said, impressed.
“It's definitely a benny of being a Reflective,” Jasper said.
Jeb's lips tilted. She really was quite good at the Three lingo.
They entered.
He turned and adjusted the lock to make sure it appeared secure upon casual observation.
Jacky was already far ahead of them, and Jeb lifted his chin at Jasper. She nodded and tucked in closer to him, though she left the minimum hand-to-hand combat distance.
Reflectives moved in loose groups. No one could engage properly if their close proximity constrained movement.
Jeb doubted seeing Jacky’s parents would warrant a defense. However, a Reflective was cautious first and presumptuous as a last resort.
They tracked Jacky as he moved between grave markers, climbing a small knoll. At the zenith stood three figures, one larger than the other two.
He frowned at what seemed a strange number but held their position.
Jasper distracted him by pointing to a sculpture just ahead of them. It towered at least four kilometers above them, a silvered glacial blue in the moonlight, which was waxing to full.
Jeb heard low voices and paused, moving to the marble angel, its trumpet between its pursed lips in mid-bellow.
Jeb gave a very small shake of his head.
“I don't know.”
He caught her eyes in the gloom, dark pools of onyx in her pale face. Jeb hesitated. “But I know I do not like it.”
He turned back, watching.
Jasper saw it first. “I know that male.” She straightened.
Jeb's vision narrowed, automatically going to the largest of the Threes. He held a fistful of Jacky’s shirt in his hand.
They had hung back to keep their presence concealed. They'd gone over the story Jacky would shout far and wide upon his return.
It had been quite good.
“Chuck,” Jasper identified, and he and Jasper stepped out from beneath the shadow of the statue.
The angel seemed to give her assent as they raced to the Three they had come to kill.
He had the young Three they intended to return to his parents unharmed.
What madness of coincidence was this?
Like Jasper, Jeb was not a believer in chance.
*
Jeb took the hill like everything else in his life—completely.
One moment, he was an observer of a sad family reunion. The next, he was cresting the knoll overlooking twinkling city lights like slow moving fireflies.
Jeb’s assessment was instantaneous. Chuck stood over Jacky’s parents, whose slit throats soaked blood into dirt that already held the dead.
Unfortunately, Chuck was smarter than he'd first appeared and had used his every scrap of intellectual prowess for evil.
He proved it instantly by laying a blade against Jacky's throat. His frenzied eyes landed like a painful boxing glove on Jasper's face, and Jeb felt his heart stutter between emotion, duty, and compromise.
“Let the boy go,” Jeb said as though he didn't care one way or the other, as though the boy's parents’ blood had not begun to leech into the canvas lace-up shoes he secretly loved.
Now they were just shoes seeped in the death of innocents.
“Where is my Maddie? You give me answers, and maybe this shitbag smartass lives.”
He seemed to think through the murk of his dirtied motivations. “Unlike that brother of yours. Now that—that was a work of art.”
Jacky's green eyes widened. The car accident hadn’t caused Chase’s death—Chuck’s deft manipulation had made it to look as though it was.
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