Fate: No Strings Attached

by Erik Schubach

  I looked over a shoulder demurely as I stepped into the first bedroom as I let the towel drop to my ankles, closing the door before she could see anything.

  I bit my lower lip and smiled at my cruelty, but it was her stupid rule, she could deal with all the frayed threads it spread around. I covered my mouth with a hand when I hear Mother's deep voice chastising, “Close your mouth and stop drooling, Detective. That's my daughter.”

  “Yes sir, I mean ma'am, I mean...”

  A minute later I was stepping back out in Drey's clothes and trying to look as innocent as possible. I know I was failing. By the time Atta was cleaned up, announcing there was no more hot water for a while, shooting me an accusing look, dinner was ready.

  I moved outside with Drey when she said, “I have watch.”

  We sat on the porch swing and rocked gently, the old springs creaking barely audible over the storm that raged all around us. I knew this rest was just a momentary thing, the calm before the storm. We would clash with the Adumbrates, and it wasn't going to be something that could be hidden from the mortal world. The world was about to change.

  But for now. I smiled at Drey and took a bite of the spaghetti and meatballs Eeen had heated up from some cans. It was a little burned, but not as bad as some of the meals Enid and I had prepared in the past.

  She sighed and started eating as she shared, “Cap says the feds are looking for you. The other incidents are being played off as stunts by college kids since there are no bodies or other evidence around. They are playing it off like they did in Seattle and San Francisco. Just hoaxes.”

  That was actually good news.

  She continued without looking at me, chewing as she said, “Cap hasn't decided what to tell the feds. He has half a mind to tell them where they can stick it since there is no proof of any crimes. But he's coming out to talk with us when the storm lets up. I'll probably have parking meter duty for a few weeks after this.”

  I stopped eating and looked up at her. “Sorry about that.”

  She chuckled as I looked down at my fork, then shared with me in her whiskey tone, “No helping it. I'd do the same thing again in a moment. Like pop always said, when faced with a choice of doing nothing or doing the right thing, always choose the right thing. It is the choice you can live with without regrets.”

  I smiled at that and nodded slowly. I would have liked to meet her father. He instilled a good moral code in her which is an integral part of her character.

  Then she said, “And that was downright mean in there just now. You know my rule...”

  I started to nod then froze as stars burst in my eyes and electric tingles shot through my body. Nap and stitch, her lips were on mine, and I was... was that sigh mine? In all my lives I don't think I have shared a kiss with such restrained heat and want in it. Was it the dire circumstances we found ourselves in? Or was my detective just able to press every single one of my buttons at the same time?

  Oh, who cares, Sloan. I kissed back with a burning passion that was fueled by the raging fire she lit inside of me. She was my entire universe at that moment, then she pulled back and looked out into the darkness like nothing had happened. She asked offhandedly as I panted, trying to quell my arousal. “Are they getting close?”

  I stammered, “I... you.. but...” Then I saw the twinkling in her eyes and the restrained smirk on her face as she scanned the open waters and the lights on the opposite shore of the bay, barely visible in the downpour. I sat up straighter and accused in an incredulous tone, “You gods be damned tease!”

  She moved her tongue in her cheek, overly amused and finally looked at me and countered, “Takes one to know one.”

  She had just been getting back at me for the towel? Graaah! I muttered, “Brat.”

  She chuckled softly then asked, “But really, do we still have a safe distance between us and the reavers?”

  I squinted one eye accusingly at her as I raised my arm to check, my traitorous body still high of the endorphin rush of my earlier arousal. I grumbled under my breath and coaxed threads from the tapestries of life which were swimming just under my skin. Like gossamer wisps of silver light, they reached for me, as desperate for my touch as I had been for Drey's.

  Like a joyful dance, I wove the world around us into a shimmering construct, my mortal eyes only seeing three of the infinite dimensions of it, my inner sight providing the rest. Huh, how about that? I have inner sight.

  Andreya slid closer, her thigh pressed against mine as she watched the threads respond to my touch like so many longing lovers. She started to raise a hand and then paused. She looked at me, eyes questing as she asked, “Can I... can I touch it?”

  I contemplated the question and realized that I had absolutely no clue if a mortal could physically touch the tapestries of the Fates. But my eyes drifted to the pocket of the sweatpants I wore, thinking about the scraps of fabric there. Humans could touch that, and it was the same material, so the threads of life must have some sort of physical manifestation in the mortal realm.

  I nodded with a smile on my face, and she reached out and timidly touched the working I had at the ready. I smiled at the wonder in her eyes as she delicately touched the strands, they shimmered and lit, leaving a glowing trail in the wake of her touch. Life reaching out to life, longing for connection, for communion.

  She looked over at me, not stopping the almost loving caress of the construct. “This is all of the people around us? All the... life forces?”

  I nodded and thought of how to best describe it. “It is everything that makes up the people around us. Their experiences, their hope, and dreams, their potential for good or evil, their sorrows, their future. Their essence.”

  She had her attention split between the impossibility of what she was touching and me as she nodded slowly. I loved the awe that shone on her face, it was so pure, so innocent. It inspired me, and I whispered as I cocked a finger in a coaxing motion and a bright silver strand wafted out from under my collar, from somewhere over my heart, and it drifted like smoke in a breeze between us.

  I kept absently feeding energy to the construct, but my attention was fully on Detective Andreya Anastasia Lisbon, and the thread of her life, which was as strong and bright as she was. I smiled that I knew her middle name just from the feel of the filament as it reached out to her, longing to be one.

  I whispered reverently as I reached up and gently stroked the thread, leaving a sparkling and pulsating bright trail along it, “This is you.” I smiled when she gasped and shivered when my fingers came into contact with her essence, I could see gooseflesh-raising along her skin as her eyes darkened and dilated.

  She exhaled deliberately, centering herself. I was pleased that my touch, on all that made her who she was, had aroused her physical form. I reached over and took her hand in mine, I pulled it to my lips first to kiss the back of her fingers gently before guiding her hand to her own thread.

  She hesitantly touched it, and it flared at her touch. I could see the memories in her eyes as she slowly slid her finger slowly along its length. She laughed lightly and innocently before reluctantly pulling her hand away, and I pulled her thread back inside of me for safe keeping.

  She looked over at me. “I could see my life through so many memories. Some things I had forgotten so long ago. It was...” Then she exhaled again and just said simply, “Thank you.”

  I just nodded at her, entranced by the wonder I saw within her. Then she just kept looking at me, raising an eyebrow, then nudging her chin at the construct I had woven earlier. That snapped me out of my reverie. “Oh.”

  My fingers slid across the complex weave of life in the area, more agile than any normal mortal's could. I sought out the shadow, not the life. My inner senses checked beneath the strands in front of me, quested for the telltale movement of the shadows that signifies the hunters, felt for the wrongness that motion caused in the tapestries inside of me as the shadow filaments tugged on threads they shouldn't be connected to.

 
; My brow furrowed as I pushed beyond the Seattle area, my arms windmilling as millions then billions of threads writhed out from under my skin, forming a web that was too immense to actually exist in the air around us on that porch, yet somehow did. We were within a familiar sphere of all the life on earth, and it shimmered like all the stars in the sky.

  It felt like I was dancing as I stood, my arms flying around, touching the world, feeling it all as I slowly spun and reveled in the fact I could now remember this, the bliss of being connected to everything at once. I was Sloan, but I was Clotho. I slowly spun, and my eyes narrowed more. The world was alight with the brightness of the threads, but the light didn't illuminate anything beyond us.

  I dropped my arms and sat heavily on the porch swing again as I pulled that world back under my skin. I shook my head as I looked at the blonde woman who was looking at me in wonder. She cocked her head and asked, “What's wrong?”

  I shrugged as I thought about what I saw, what I felt. “There's nothing. No movement in the shadows. It's as if every unnatural or preternatural being on the planet has stopped, gone into hiding. Even those we have tracked for eons. It felt like the world was holding its breath.”

  She asked, “Can't you just follow the Adumbrates, umm... threads?”

  I shook my head. “They walk in shadows, that is their dominion. Unless they are moving, we can't find them without checking every shadow of life and following every rogue filament that is unnaturally tied to them. Many of the immortals, gods, and special mortals are that way.”

  She narrowed her eyes and said, “No, not hiding. They are patient, waiting to pounce on their prey at the right moment. They are hunting like apex predators. They don't want to give away their location. So what are they waiting for?”

  She was very analytical about something that should have been overwhelming to her and her understanding of the world as she knew it. Then she stopped, and I could almost see her mind rewinding as she asked with one raised eyebrow, “Special mortals?”

  I had to grin, the Sloan part of me imagined a needle being dragged across a record she had reversed course so quickly. I hesitated at that thought, Hannah had quite a vinyl collection, I didn't know if they still had records in these modern times. Enid streamed all of our music off the web. I guess thirty years of progress could do that while I took my little dirt nap.

  I started to explain. “There are others out there, we believe are the next evolution of mankind, as they slowly overtake the immortals... to take their place one day.”

  Her eyes were wide. What, could she accept the fact that a Demi-Goddess had an immortal sized crush on her and that we were being hunted by the shadows, but not accept that mankind was evolving? That was sort of amusing, where she drew the line.

  She asked as she wiggled her fingers on her lap, “Next evolution? Like what?”

  I opened my mouth and stopped, realizing that I had no clue, though I knew I should know. I growled internally as the headache I got from trying to remember things that just weren't there yet started pounding. I hissed out in frustration, “I don't know. I can't remember... but I know they are there.”

  Then I perked up and offered, “Maybe those reports of flying women, or that woman at the marina in Ilwaco? Preternatural abilities manifesting?”

  She started to smile, then it bloomed into a full blown grin as she teased, “You don't know... welcome to being human.”

  Knotted threads! She was frustrating at times, but I truly enjoyed it. I muttered, “And this is why you are a brat.”

  She made it up to me by turning away to keep her ever watchful gaze on the darkness in the rain as she reached a hand over and laced her fingers in mine. After a long four heartbeats, she said softly out into the void as her face was lit by lightning, “It will all come back to you, just give it time.”

  I smiled as the ground shook when the thunder rolled ashore while I wistfully admitted to myself that I was sort of attached to being Sloan, and hoped that remembering didn't take that way from me.

  Chapter 13 – Ambush

  Four hours later, she shook me gently, and my eyes fluttered open as she said, “Sloan, wakey wakey. You're the worst sentry ever.”

  I yawned, that World Weave I had performed had taken more out of my mortal form than I had imagined. I had started to doze off as we talked about our pasts to each other. She was fascinated with my time as various different mortals over the ages.

  I don't know exactly when I had dozed off, but as I woke, I snuggled deeper into the warmth under me. My head was in her lap, and she was playing with my hair. If she kept that up, I'd start purring. I was very warm and comfy. More than I should be sitting in the dark, in the rain. I noted the storm had calmed to simply a downpour from the torrential deluge it had been.

  I smiled when I realized there was a blanket draped over me. When had that happened? As if she could read my mind, Drey said as she ran her fingers across my scalp one last time, “Brett... your Mother, brought it out just after you dozed off when I was telling you my most intriguing secret.”

  What!? I missed her secret? Wait, she looked overly amused again, she was teasing. I slapped her thigh then sighed and sat up. Then the blushing commenced when I realized we weren't alone. Atta and Mother were there on the porch with us, both of them with their arms crossed, expectant looks on their faces.

  I muttered as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, “Shut up.”

  They smiled, and Mother teased in her masculine voice, “We're here to relieve you.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “I'm so relieved.”

  Atta tutted, “You sort of missed the point of keeping watch, child.”

  I stretched, more to give Andreya a show than to actually loosen up my muscles, letting my chest stretch out her tee. She slapped my shoulder lightly, knowing what I was doing, and I chuckled. We stood, and I replied, “I pulled forth the World Weave... there is no movement in the shadows... anywhere. It is still across the globe.”

  This shut them up as they narrowed their eyes and their brows furrowed. I had to smile. They didn't realize just how similar their mannerisms and expressions were. I hesitated as I realized mine were probably the same. Not for the first time I found it easy to believe that us Fates were really just three aspects of the same person.

  Atta asked, “Nowhere?”

  I gave her an apologetic look, and she nodded and echoed Drey's thoughts. “They are planning something, getting ready to pounce.”

  The mood darkened like the night around us, and Andreya and I went into the cabin after I wrapped the blanket around Atta's shoulders before she sat. She patted my hand in appreciation. Mother looked plenty comfortable in the heavy flannel shirt she was wearing across her broad chest. She inclined her head at us and said, “Get some rest. Something is coming, I can feel it in my bones.”

  We both nodded and slipped into the dark cabin. I had to smile when I heard the familiar little snores of Enid in the far room. I started that way but was pulled to a stop by Andreya's hand in mine. She walked us over to the other bedroom and whispered, “You'll wake her.”

  I swallowed and nodded in understanding. Then she pulled me into the room and to the bed. She kicked off her shoes, and I did the same, then I swallowed again as she slid into bed and held the covers open for me. I slid in beside her then she said, “Goodnight Sloan.”

  I responded in kind, “Goodnight Drey.” Then a bucket of cold water was splashed in my face when she turned away from me and snuggled into a pillow to catch some sleep. Knotted threads! I needed a cold shower.

  I just sat there blinking in disappointment as I turned away from her too and grabbed my pillow for comfort. Then I froze when the bed shifted and a strong arm wrapped around my waist as she possessively pulled me into the little spoon position, her face buried in my hair.

  I smiled in contentment as I just listened to her breathing slow and even out as she let herself drift off to sleep, sharing the heat of her body with me. Was it wrong that during
such a perilous time, that I felt happy just then as I drifted back off to sleep.

  My eyes fluttered open what felt like moments later when the bed shifted again. I squinted and just made out Andreya's outline in the darkness. It must have been close to morning because it wasn't quite the all-encompassing darkness of a stormy night in the Sound, away from the big city lights. So we got at least three or four hours of... I froze when I noted she had her weapon clasped in her hands, pointing at the floor as she cocked her head... listening.

  I did the same, but all I could hear was the now light rain on the metal roof.

  My blonde companion glanced at me then the door as she stood, I slipped out of bed behind her as she moved out into the main room. Mother was poking her head in through the outer door and said, “Boat approaching.”

  I blinked. I still couldn't hear anything over the... wait, there it was, the low growl over the rain, it sounded about the size of the Water Pixie.

  Then I jumped when the burner phone started ringing in the bedroom. I hustled back in and brought it out to Andreya. She looked at the screen then answered quickly, “Cap? Yes... no... ok, see you in ten.”

  She hung up and pocketed the phone as she cleared her gun, pocketing the ejected round and slipping the gun into her waistband as she said, “Captain Cheong is pulling up to the dock now.”

  Enid came shuffling out of the other room, stretching and yawning. “What's going on?”

  Mother smiled at her and said in a southern accent, “Put a kettle on Ellie-Mae, the Johnson's have come for tea.”

  Eeen just blinked at her, then turned to me. I shrugged, I didn't have a clue what Lach was saying either. But then again, the last time she was mortal was about a hundred years ago or so, maybe it was a cultural reference? So our resident reaver-basher ignored her and asked again, “What's going on?”

  I chuckled and shook my head at Mother before saying to Enid as I ducked back into the bedroom, “Drey's captain is pulling up to the dock now.”

  I came back out a moment later with Andreya's shoes and shoulder holster in one hand and my shoes in the other. She gave me a smile in thanks and holstered up and put her shoes on as I slipped on my shoes.