“If not that, then…”
Eerie leaned forward and lowered her voice.
“Alex makes very bad decisions sometimes,” Eerie said. “Sometimes he hurts people’s feelings, without even realizing it.”
Emily stared at Eerie wordlessly.
“I don’t mean to make him sound like a terrible person,” Eerie confided. “Alex is just bad at noticing things, even the most obvious things. You need to take care of yourself around him, Emily.”
Eerie put her back to the swinging door, pushing her way carefully into the dining room.
“You have to take care of yourself,” Eerie repeated, looking at Emily solemnly. “Because Alex won’t.”
“That’s actually really good advice,” Emily said. “Hurry back, dear, and I’ll show you how to work with spun sugar.”
Eerie hurried to check on Alex, and then returned almost as fast as she had come.
Emily laughed, and then they got to work. When Alex returned to the kitchen, Emily was flicking melted sugar over an inverted glass bowl as Eerie watched with an expression of near rapture.
Alex wandered the kitchen for a short time, poking at the finished dishes and generally making a nuisance of himself, hoping to attract either young woman’s attention, and failing entirely. Eventually, he gave up, and cleared his throat loudly.
“Uh, so, when is dinner?”
“Another ten minutes to finish up Eerie’s dishes,” Emily said, too absorbed in the spun sugar to even look at him. “Vivik just got here. Why don’t you go meet him outside? There’s beer in the fridge.”
“Yeah, Alex,” Eerie said, staring reverently at Emily’s handiwork. “Go make up with Vivik, won’t you?”
Alex muttered something to himself and trudged to the refrigerator, grabbing a couple of cans at random. He stomped out of the kitchen and down the hallway with the cans in hand, sullen over being ignored. He pushed open the front door with his forearm, and then nearly collided with Vivik when he stepped outside.
“Hey,” Vivik said, an uncertain smile flickering across his face, to be replaced quickly by an expression of concern. “Can we talk?”
“I think we have to,” Alex said gruffly, handing Vivik one of the two cans, and taking a seat on the stoop of the townhouse. “The girls basically threw me out of the kitchen and told me to find you.”
“How did they…?” Vivik sighed and took the beer. “Never mind. Emily knew I was here.”
Alex nodded and cracked open his beer. Vivik did the same, and then extended the can hesitantly to Alex. After thinking it over for a second, Alex clinked his can against Vivik’s, and then hurried to drink.
The beer was a porter, with the approximate thickness and mouthfeel of a milkshake.
Alex was not wild about it.
“She’s a lot more empathic than she used to be,” Vivik said, taking a seat on the opposite end of the stoop. “You notice that?”
Alex nodded, taking a second sip of the porter and finding the experience somewhat improved.
“Not to make it weird or anything, but do you ever think you might be responsible for that?”
“Yeah,” Alex said.
“And?”
“I might be part of it,” Alex admitted. “A lot has happened, you know? You can’t discount that. Emily has been through some shit.”
“Yeah,” Vivik said, wincing at the taste of his beer. “We all have.”
“That changes you.” Alex sighed and set his beer aside. “You wanna talk about it?”
“Sure,” Vivik said. “You go first.”
“Not much to say,” Alex said, shrugging. “Alistair cut me to pieces and dragged me off to the Outer Dark for…reasons, I guess. Questioning, maybe?”
“Anathemic conversion, more likely,” Vivik said grimly. “Like what happened to Emily.”
“That’s a disturbing thought that never occurred to me,” Alex admitted. “Eerie’s big sister got the first crack at me.”
“Samnang Banh?”
“That’s the one. You know her?”
“Not personally. Just from case files and my windows. Samnang Banh is an eastern demon, right? I’ve read about them somewhere. A Yaojing.”
“I guess. Whatever that means.”
“It’s another kind of Fey. She’s really Eerie’s sister?”
“Same father, I think? It’s pretty hard to follow.”
“That’s crazy,” Vivik said. “I thought it was insane enough that you were dating a Fey, but even weirder that her sister is a Chinese demon.”
“Family stuff is complicated,” Alex said, frowning. “I guess.”
“Not just family stuff,” Vivik corrected. “What did she do to you?”
“Torture,” Alex said, trying a noncommittal shrug on for size, and not, in his opinion, really pulling it off. “Psychic stuff.”
“Oh, shit,” Vivik said, with a look of horror. “Was it bad?”
“I got tortured,” Alex snapped. “It was fucking awful, Vivik. What the fuck?”
“Worse than last time? With the Weir?”
Alex closed his eyes.
“She made it last. A psychic thing, like in the Program. What’s the term…?”
“Time dilation?”
“That’s it. Samnang stretched it all out. Like being awake for surgery for years and years.” Alex shuddered and reached for his beer, taking the longest sip that he could stomach. “She said she was looking for something that Eerie hid inside of me. A part of Eerie, I think, whatever that means.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s terrible. I can’t believe…”
“Yeah.”
“How did you get out?”
“Emily pulled it off somehow,” Alex said sourly. “I thought you knew that. Doesn’t she tell you everything?”
“She skips the details, here and there,” Vivik pointed out. “We all risked our lives to try and save you, you know. Eerie, Katya, Emily, poor Derrida…even Leigh Feld! Even me, man.”
“I know that,” Alex said. “I appreciate it. I really do.”
“Then why are you so mad at me?”
“I’m not really,” Alex admitted, deflating. “It’s stupid, right? I know I shouldn’t be. If I should be upset with anyone, it’s Emily, and…”
“…and you can’t be angry with her.”
“Yeah.”
“Because she’s an empath?”
“That’s definitely a factor.”
“Because she’s your ex?”
“That, too.”
“Because you still like her?”
Alex met Vivik’s eyes.
“No, man. I already told you,” Alex said. “That’s done. I’ve moved on, and so has Emily.”
“It’s good to hear you say it,” Vivik said. “I know it’s none of my business, but it would be really mean to Eerie, if you…”
“I won’t,” Alex declared flatly. “Not interested.”
“You have all the luck,” Vivik said, grinning. “First Emily and now Eerie, and you didn’t even have to try!”
“This eye,” Alex said, pointing at his left eye. “It feels like a marble. It’s cold, all the time. Alistair sliced it in half, and then Anathema let it fester. I get these unreal headaches. The only reason I even have an eye at all is because of a transfusion of vampire blood – that’s what Emily and Leigh told me, anyway. That could all just be an elaborate joke on their part. Either way, I have an eye and a pair of fingers that seem like they belong to someone else. You remember what Margot was afraid of? Turning into a statue, basically? That’s what my eye is like, and the tips of my fingers.”
“Okay,” Vivik said. “Not my best turn of phrase, but...”
“You still think I’m lucky?”
“I already admitted to poor phrasing,” Vivik said. “I didn’t mean nothing bad ever happened to you. I meant that you haven’t done anything to deserve the good stuff.”
Alex rubbed his eye moodily.<
br />
“Enough of that,” Alex grumbled. “Tell me the whole story. How long have you been working for Emily?”
“With. I work with Emily,” Vivik corrected. “Not for.”
“Whatever, man. Just tell me.”
“She approached me before you went on vacation with Anastasia,” Vivik said. “I don’t know if she had already defected to the Anathema by that point, or if that happened after we came to an understanding. Emily always listened to me, you know? I told her about my ideas for subverting the cartel structure, for reforming Central, one day in class, before you showed up. She seemed interested, even then.”
Alex grunted and waited.
“She had some ideas of her own to contribute. We’ve cooperated since,” Vivik said, shrugging. “She has a list of people and places to keep tabs on. I do that and keep her updated.”
“What do you get in return?”
“Don’t be like that,” Vivik said. “Emily and I have similar goals. We both want to see an end to the old ways in Central, to the cartels and the conflict. It’s a collaboration.”
“So, you also wanted me to destroy the Source Well?”
“The Anathema World Tree and the Source Well,” Vivik confirmed. “It doesn’t stop there, man. We’re going to turn this whole world upside down, for the better. For everyone.”
“You trust her that much?”
“Emily has never given me a reason not to trust her,” Vivik said. “I trust my friends. That goes for both of you.”
Alex gave Vivik a wary smile.
“Man, how do you just say stuff like that?” Alex punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re full of shit.”
“I am not,” Vivik objected heatedly. “How so?”
“If you trust me, then why didn’t you come to me right at the start and tell me what was going on? Why didn’t you tell me that you and Emily had an understanding? Why keep all of this a secret?”
“If I let you in on any of it, you would have told someone five minutes later,” Vivik pointed out. “You suck at keeping secrets.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, pinching his lip. “That makes sense.”
“You would have at least told Eerie, but it was really Ms. Levy that we were worried about.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“So…are we cool, then?”
Alex finished his beer, and then crushed the can beneath his sneaker.
“I probably only blamed you for everything because I couldn’t blame Emily,” Alex said. “Still can’t,” he said, with a rueful grin, “but it’s fucking childish and unfair to put it on you.”
Vivik extended his fist.
“Cool?”
Alex gave him a clumsy bump.
“Cool.”
Right on cue, Emily opened the townhouse door behind them.
“Are you two done making up?” she asked, her eyes twinkling. “I’ve been delaying dinner as long as possible so you two could have your man-to-man, but the food is going to get cold.”
Ten
Day Two
“Alex! Come quickly!” Eerie said, patting the chair beside her. “This basket is full of candy!”
“The basket is candy,” Emily reminded her, taking a seat across the table. “It’s all sugar.”
“I hope we don’t all have to eat candy,” Vivik joked, sitting beside Emily.
“Why not?” Eerie glanced at him, her hand hovering over the sugar-work basket, which contained an assortment of caramels, jellies, and marshmallows. “It’s candy! Everyone likes candy.”
“Tastes vary,” Alex said, taking the seat next to Eerie. “Not all of us are immune to diabetes.” His expression turned unsettled. “You – you are immune to diabetes, right, Eerie?”
“I don’t know about immune,” Vivik said, “but I doubt any of us are particularly susceptible to diabetes. The nanites balance blood sugar and insulin as needed.”
“Shall we start with salad?” Emily suggested, passing the wooden bowl to Alex. “There are breadsticks, as well.”
“Now that I think about it, Emily told me something interesting about that,” Alex said, piling salad on his plate. “She said the nanites aren’t machines at all. They are…”
“No cartel business during dinner, please,” Emily said, with a pained expression. “That was my family rule.”
“It’s nothing cartel!” Alex objected, pushing the salad bowl back across the table. “This is something completely different.”
“Business is business,” Vivik said, helping himself to salad. “I think Emily is right.”
“Yeah,” Eerie agreed. “Let’s talk about something fun.”
“Something fun? Hmm.” Emily snapped a breadstick in half, and then took a bite off the shorter end. “It’s a nice idea, but we are experiencing difficult times, as of late. I’m not sure I can think of many fun topics.”
“I can think of a couple,” Renton said, pale and leaning heavily against the door frame. “I’m fucking great dinner company, I promise, even in this sorry state. Do you have an extra plate handy?”
***
The flames had a digital quality up close, their pink and orange hues so vibrant that Maxim’s eyes hunted automatically for pixels. The heat was like a wall at ten meters, but at five, it was a barrier that he had to push through, like walking through mud. His skin poured sweat beneath his gear and ballistic armor, sweat collecting at his elbows, his belt line, and dripping down his legs. The air was filled with the crackle-snap of burning brush and the agitated chatter of the birds fleeing ahead of the grassfire. Breathing the heated air was painful, worse than the coughing fit Maxim had experienced the time he tried smoking pot at university, and the smoke wormed behind his goggles to torment his mucous membranes.
Delphi, as always, was a godsend, highlighting a safe path forward in cool blue footprints superimposed on the ground, while helpful outlines highlighted the positions of the forces arrayed in the area, color-coded to indicate loyalties and estimated threat level. If Maxim allowed his eye to linger on one of the outlines, a telepathic briefing would unreel in his mind, supplemented by ghostly graphs and text boxes.
He had been warned by veterans during his training that intelligence was not everything – not when it came to the field and its intrigues and base treacheries. They were thinking of the sort of intel one receives in a debrief or a manila folder, to be read only in the room where it was issued, but to Maxim, that was as antiquated as the Sunday paper.
There was a wealth of data collected by the human nervous system, most of it discarded as unnecessary by the conscious mind. Delphi drank deep from this flow of data, discarding nothing, and cross-referencing all of it instantly. Maxim could not even register the sound of the engines over the sound of the fire on the ridge to their right and the exertions of Operators moving rapidly on the rough trail, but Delphi dissected his audio input and picked out the purr of internal combustion easily, providing an ID for the make and model. She identified rifles and probable sidearms by the silhouettes.
Accessing a wealth of tactical information from Maxim’s memory, Delphi analyzed everything that she took in, and offered a constantly evolving set of hypotheses, equations for mission success and survival upon which Maxim depended. Delphi’s concern bordered on smothering, continually finding ways to remind him that the second SUV had crept into a flanking position, based on the probable spot that Daniel and Simeon were likely to emerge, a heavily accessorized M4 rifle carefully situated atop the vehicle, wielded via a top hatch.
Gabby caught up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged it off.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Gabby said, a bandana across her face to shield her from the smoke. “Let me help you.”
She touched him. Delphi issued a query.
Maxim acceded with a sour expression.
His perceptions swirled and defocused, and Maxim felt as if he might faint.
Delphi chimed happily, and his senses resumed their normal function
. A telepathic prompt informed him of a new filter.
Maxim activated it gingerly, wincing as if he expected it to hurt.
It did hurt, but no worse than a flu shot.
Delphi’s overlay was absurdly enriched, dripping with bright gobs of new information, emotional data gleaned from Gabby’s protocol cross-referenced with positional data from remote viewing, telepathic chatter informing Delphi’s mathematical models and projections.
“Okay,” Maxim said, taking it all in in a single pass. “This will work.”
Both sides were shielded, limiting the amount of information that a passive inquiry could net, but there was only so much that could be done to suppress Etheric Signatures, readied protocols, and the heightened tension that accompanies such prebattle exercises.
Maxim sensed nothing but steely determination radiating from Daniel, as he would have expected, but Simeon’s contained despair was noticeable. Chandi Tuesday was in a fog of pain, exhaustion, and predestination, moving along toward her death with quiet resignation.
That was in line with what he might have expected.
Maxim shook his head.
This sort of access was dizzying, Maxim thought giddily. He looked at Gabby with new respect, and she smiled, understanding him perfectly.
I should have shot you when I first saw you, when you were still no one to me, Maxim thought. Now what am I going to do?
Don’t think things like that, Gabby scolded. Keep your mind on the Operation.
He grunted and moved down the trail, counting on the pervasive smoke to hide their movements as they closed in on the SUVs. Delphi poked at him, having just digested another full stomach worth of data.
The Thule troops’ emotional state was unusual, by Maxim’s or Gabby’s standards.
They were trained soldiers, as he had suspected, mostly Operators or recently retired, and they were well-equipped and prepared. They held a decisive advantage in intelligence and position, not to mention firepower. The Thule forces waited safely within armored vehicles, automatic weapons and direct energy protocols aimed and waiting for their nearly helpless quarry to emerge from the burning brush and greasy smoke. There was nothing for them to be anxious over. They should have been as bored and content as hunters waiting in a deer blind.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 27
