by Deanna Chase
“You’re an aspiring porn writer?” I said.
He laughed aloud that time. “No…it just sucks…I think,” he said, his frustration audible in his voice again. “I’m a song writer. I should probably stick to that. But my friend is starting an art and literary mag on a new alt-feed, and he asked me for a short story.”
I walked over, sliding into the booth across from him. “Let me see,” I said, holding out my hand rather than grabbing his laptop.
He gave me a horrified look. “No way.”
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t be such a baby. I’ll be gentle…but honest.”
He burst out in another laugh. “Okay, then no fucking way.”
“Come on,” I cajoled. “One little peek.”
“Who are you?” he said, laughing again. “The fiction police?”
I felt my face warm a little. It occurred to me only then that I just sat down at some total stranger’s booth, wearing my waitressing uniform no less, and demanded that he show me a personal piece of his writing.
I didn’t even know this guy. What the hell was I doing?
Still smiling, I started to get back to my feet, and he grabbed my wrist, stopping me.
“Wait,” he said. “I was kidding, okay?”
I stopped, halfway out of the red vinyl booth seat.
When he didn’t go on right away, I just waited, watching his face curiously as he seemed to struggle with why he’d stopped me.
“Do I know you?” he said finally.
We just looked at each other.
Then both of us burst out in a laugh.
“I know that sounds like a line…” he said, flushing behind that quirked mouth. The blush made his ears pink, I noticed. Something about that touched me.
“Just a little,” I said, grinning.
“Really,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Allie,” I said, tipping an imaginary cap, using the hand still clutching the black plastic handle of the glass coffee pot. “…At your service.” Then, making my face deadpan, I lifted the pot higher. “Coffee?” I queried lightly.
He laughed. “Always,” he said, smiling for real. “The way to a man’s heart is caffeine, don’t you know?”
“Well, then I’m a goddess in these here parts,” I grinned. I waved around the restaurant with the coffee pot. “Every guy in here is my bitch. I own all of you. Even the songwriters aspiring to write porn…”
“Only as a hobby,” he clarified.
“The porn? Or the songwriting?”
He sighed, exhaling through pursed lips. “Both. At the moment, anyway.”
“Doing the day job slog?” I said, my voice dripping with mock sympathy. Nodding in an exaggeration of the same, I motioned towards his pale green wrist band, which I’d only just noticed when he grabbed my arm. Unlike the laptop, the thing was name brand and probably cost more than I made in a few months. “Looks like it’s the salt mines for you, baby. Did you break free for lunch? Because it’s back on the chain gang again, once the bossman shoots his rifle in the air, don’t you know…”
He flushed a little, shrugging. “Yeah. I do all right. So?”
“Hey, not criticizing,” I said, meaning it that time. “Where do you work?”
“Gaming,” he said, motioning vaguely. He seemed about to say more, then thought better of it, resting his arm back on the table. “What about you?”
Smiling that falsetto smile, I lifted the coffee pot, doing the game show host thing and motioning elegantly towards it with my other hand.
“We covered that,” I said. “…Glamorous, no?”
Frowning, he shook his head. “No. I meant, what do you really do?” he said.
Meeting his gaze, I considered another sarcastic remark. Then I shrugged, wondering why I was so defensive about waiting tables all of a sudden.
“Another starving artist,” I said, more or less in my regular voice. “I do some commercial art, too, as a side gig. And tats. And shows. Most of it’s pretty low-pay.”
He nodded, smiling a little. “Tats, huh?”
“Hey,” I said, pretending to be indignant. I motioned towards the short-skirted waitressing uniform. “Are you dissing my lifestyle, man? I’ll have you know, it takes a lot of work to live this crappy. Don’t knock it…”
He held up his hands, as if in surrender. “That’s not what I meant. The tat thing is kind of hot, that’s all. And I might hit you up for some work.”
“You have any now?” I said, skeptical. “Besides the government tats, I mean?”
“Of course.” He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt as he said it, showing me a jaguar on his forearm. It covered most of the top so it wouldn’t interfere with his barcode, but the tail coiled around his elbow, a bright orange and black.
I whistled, admiring the cat. “Nice work.”
“Thanks.” He smiled, but his blue eyes had gone thoughtful once more, watching my face, as if trying to see past my expression. “I swear I do know you,” he said, his voice borderline insistent. He was still watching my face. “Don’t suppose you’ve gone to see a band called Eye of Morris play before, have you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t think so. Is that yours?”
He nodded. Shrugging off my puzzled look, he smiled as if to diffuse whatever expression he saw on my face. That more intense scrutiny remained visible behind the smile, though.
“What are you doing after work?” he said.
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“I don’t even know your name!”
He held out a hand, that smile stretching back to a grin. “Hello, Allie-who-I-swear-I-know-from-somewhere. I’m Jaden.”
“Jaden. Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Maybe you’re blocking it out of your mind.”
I shook my head, smiling again. “I don’t think so.”
“You never know.” His eyes grew thoughtful again, and somehow bluer with every passing second he stared into mine.
I was a bit smitten at that point, I admit it. Funny, artistic, and self-depreciating to boot. Plus, yeah, he was pretty hot. And he had a brain.
“I swear,” he said, laughing a little. “I feel like I should apologize to you.”
“Apologize?” My puzzlement was genuine that time. “What the heck for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But you want to offer me a random apology anyway?” I laughed, shaking my head. “That’s pretty metaphysical, man. Did you kill me in a past life or something?”
“No idea,” he said, laughing again. He looked faintly embarrassed now, but his eyes continued to watch mine, almost searching, a thread of seriousness behind the surface humor. “But I really do. Feel like that, I mean. So whatever it is, whatever I did, I apologize. Sincerely. Abjectly. Hoping desperately for forgiveness.”
“Just a blanket, nonspecific apology?” I said, smiling again. “Wow. That’s…just weird, man. Like, kind of batshit weird, if you want the truth.”
“That’s me,” he said. “…Batshit, I mean. But sincere. And really, truly, all apologies.” He paused, still watching my face. “So are you going to go out with me, Allie-Who-I-Killed-In-A-Past-Life? I could write the apology down, if that helps…? Get it notarized…?”
I burst out in another laugh.
This was definitely the weirdest pick up I’d ever been a part of. I still couldn’t even figure out which of us had picked the other up, or if we’d sort of done it mutually. I supposed it didn’t matter.
“Sure,” I said, making up my mind. “And I get off in an hour.”
I never dated, really.
But yeah, sometimes, you had to make exceptions to arbitrary rules.
Sometimes, life just shoved you that way, it seemed.
Revik stands in a field, under a depiction of the Himalayas.
He looks up at those snowy peaks, fighting to blank out his mind.
Still, the presence her
e, the life behind every fragment of light manages to catch his breath, just like it always does. He finds himself remembering a charcoal drawing depicting those same mountains, the same gnarled tree in a valley carpeted by wildflowers.
She is with him again, a gentle voice asks. It isn’t a question, not really. They met again, did they not…her and the human who abused her?
Revik doesn’t turn. The words hit at his chest, though, burning there, but strangely cold.
Yes, he says only.
Vash sighs, clicking softly from where he now sits under a gnarled tree, the same gnarled tree Revik had just been remembering from Allie’s drawing. The ancient seer’s skin is finely detailed in the Barrier space, down to his recently trimmed fingernails and a splash of what looks like mustard on his sand-colored robe. Before him, on the grass, is a bone china tea set, painted in flowers as delicate as those that dot the grass by his bare feet.
Karma can be mysterious, brother, Vash sends, his voice annoyingly cheerful. …and timelines sometimes annoyingly persistent.
Revik doesn’t comment on that, either.
He remembers the things Adhipan Balidor said, when he first found out. About contracts, life debts of various kinds…the complexities of various responsibilities of all spiritual beings, much less one at a level such as the Bridge.
None of it means shit to Revik, though.
You are not responsible, brother, Vash tells him, softer.
Revik lets out a humorless snort, turning towards him. The fuck I’m not.
You are not, Vash says, his voice firm. This thing, it would happen between them in some way, brother Dehgoies. Perhaps it will happen in a more gentle way now. Perhaps this will be redemption for the human…of some kind, at least. It seems his regret for what he had done to her was genuine, yes? Enough that he remembers it in some way?
Revik gives the old seer an incredulous look, letting the emotions stand out briefly in his light. Getting no reaction from the other, at least none that satisfy the heat in Revik’s chest, he pulls his light inexorably back behind his shield.
Still, he knows Vash feels him.
He is remorseful, is he not? Vash asks again, quieter. Some part of him remembers this thing, and that he lost her because of it…? That he caused her harm?
Revik doesn’t want to talk about this, though.
Not here. Not anywhere.
Not after he spent part of the previous night watching the two of them fuck.
It made him sick. Watching them fuck made him physically sick, and not in the sex-pain way. He just wanted to get the hell out of there.
Anything to get the flavor of her light out of his.
Barely three days passed. Three days. It took them almost that long to complete the wipes on all of them. Not just Allie, but Jaden, too. His band mates. The bartender at the bar. Mickey. Cass. Jon. Allie’s mother. The other waitstaff where Allie worked, and all of her friends she mentioned dating Jaden to. Other assorted witnesses who knew either or both of them, or saw them together on a date, or both.
Three fucking days.
Then that asshole goes looking for her.
He goes to where she works, like a dog following a scent. All Revik could do was stand there, watching it happen from the Barrier. Watching her flirt with him, drawn to him as much as he was her.
He almost hated her for that.
Are you going back to London then, brother? Vash says next.
Revik doesn’t look away from the clouds massing on that crystalline blue sky.
Tonight, he says.
It won’t be soon enough.
He wouldn’t be back again. Not in person, anyway.
Not for a fuck of a long time, he hopes.
14
BRUNCH
Revik walked out of Heathrow Airport, pulling his coat around his throat to cover his neck and part of his face when he saw the rain coming down beyond the overhang. He’d exited the terminal just outside of baggage claim, his one carry-on bag in hand.
He was tired enough to not be focusing very well, beyond scanning signs for the taxi queue and wondering if he should try to grab a drink––or even just some breakfast––before he headed back to the penthouse in Belgrade.
He hadn’t bothered to call Eddard. He hadn’t really been ready for a formal entrance back into his life here; nor had he really wanted to give the British Government a head’s up on his arrival, although he knew they likely would have tracked it through his passport.
He had an infiltrator pass, though, from his work with Mi5.
It meant he could pass as a human and they wouldn’t give him shit about it, even here.
The thing was gold, really, and unusual enough that Revik knew himself to be lucky. More than lucky. He’d never had this much (legal) freedom of travel and association in his life, and he knew it was primarily due to the Adhipan and their contacts in SCARB.
Most seers couldn’t even get their hands on restricted-travel passports, much less travel between countries at will…much less as a human. Most seers could only travel as the property of their human owners. Period.
Although Revik supposed that, technically anyway, that was true of him, too.
He just had a lot more owners. A fuck of a lot more, really.
Grunting, he decided he’d get a drink before going home.
Even if it was ten in the morning.
He was about to step into the crosswalk to head for the taxi queue, when someone stepped directly into his path, facing him.
Revik stiffened at once, taking a snapshot of the person with his light, even before he’d focused directly on his face.
Dark, violet eyes greeted him. The seer wasn’t as tall as Revik, but he was tall enough. Anyway, even apart from the eyes, his high cheekbones and distinctly seer-looking bone structure would have given him away.
“Hello, brother,” the seer said, smiling.
Revik looked him up and down, running another swift scan over the other’s light.
His first thought went to the British government. Then it went to fighting. He remembered the seers in that alley the other night, and wondered if they’d found some way to track him here, to get a ping when he re-entered the country. Them, or someone like them, maybe.
Either way, he assumed this couldn’t be good. He was about to do a real scan of the mystery seer, but the other held up a calming hand, exuding warmth from his light.
“No, brother. I mean you no harm. I vow it.”
“Who are you?” Revik said, his voice rough.
“I work for Torek.” Smiling at what must have been a surprised look on Revik’s face, the seer lowered his hand, once more folding both of them at the base of his back. “He was quite anxious to speak with you, brother, now that you have returned to London. He asked me to see if you would be amenable to brunch at his residence this morning.”
Revik stared at him in disbelief.
Then he grunted a laugh, unable to help himself.
“I'thir li’dare…is he really so worried I’ll renege on the debt I owe him?”
The seer smiled, in such a way that Revik strongly got the feeling that the other knew exactly what that debt entailed. The current payment owed, at least. The seer bowed to him even as he thought it, that small smile still playing around his sculpted lips.
“He is…anticipatory, perhaps, brother,” he said, smiling wider. “I think that would be the more accurate way to see it. He has made all of the necessary preparations with your employers already…and hopes to speak with you of the specifics over brunch.”
Revik stiffened. He felt his jaw tighten, but again, before he could speak, the other held up a calming hand.
“I have said too much,” he said, careful that time, and polite. “I will allow Torek himself to explain his actions…if you would be so kind as to come with me, brother, I am sure he would be more than happy to do that now, before you sit down to eat.” The seer continued to watch him cautiously. “If nothing else, I imagine you are hun
gry from your long flight. Torek is quite the connoisseur of brunch and breakfast, so I can assure you the meal itself will be worth it, however my remarks or Torek’s actions might have offended you…”
Revik forced a smile. Even so, he felt a darker irritation continue to whisper around his light. Torek had been talking to his “employers”? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Did he mean the Academy? Mi5? Someone in the Seven?
Whoever he’d been speaking to, Revik was not happy.
“Please, brother,” the seer coaxed. “I have misspoken, and I apologize. Please come with me…allow brother Torek to reassure you that his intentions are wholly benign.”
Revik grunted again, clicking under his breath.
Still, he’d already decided to go.
What the fuck. He was hungry…he also wanted a cup of tea. And he wasn’t yet ready to sleep. Moreover, he did owe Torek the debt. Maybe it was better to just pay the fucking thing, so Torek and his Rynak pals would leave him alone, too. The last thing he needed was to end up on the wrong end of a seer mafia list, and Torek said this would be the end of it.
Right then, more than anything, Revik just wanted to be left in peace.
The seer with the violet eyes led him out to a balcony, after walking Revik through a sprawling, four-story penthouse apartment in Kensington that made Revik’s in Belgrave look like a shithole.
Well, not really.
But it was significantly larger than Revik’s, and had probably three times the four bedrooms in the one Revik was borrowing from the British government.
Torek also clearly liked to spend, both on art and expensive gadgets, including one of the better security systems Revik had ever seen on a private residence, at least from what he could tell in his brief look at the interior and exterior of the property.
He got a look into the security station, too, using his sight and eyes as they passed the open door near the elevators.
The elevator alone would be a fucking nightmare to crack, if Revik ever had to get in here without permission. He’d be better off coming in through the roof, and that had some kind of force field over part of it, from what he got off the machines in the security room…in addition to at least four different pressure trip alarms, and of course, live security guards.
