She smiles. “Well, you took a blow to the head.”
“Please,” I ask. “Please, if I haven’t screwed up too much, can I move in with you?”
And she smiles. But, “We’ll talk,” is all she says.
AFTER THE REMOVAL OF SEVERAL RATHER INTIMATE TUBES
Just before the nurses leave, they prop me up, and pull the curtains back from around my bed so I can get a proper look at the room. It has four beds in total. Two are empty. One is not.
Clyde lies in the bed opposite mine. He has an oxygen mask pulled down around his neck. He waves.
“Hello, Arthur, terribly good to see you.” His voice sounds husky. “They tell me I’m not supposed to speak for another few days but that’s rather an exercise in futility, I’m afraid. Just keep jibber-jabbing on to people about how I’m not meant to talk to them, and then I keep on going until all of a sudden I’m coughing up blood again, and then the nurses come in and tell me how I’m not meant to talk to anyone. So then I start trying to explain it to them. And that just makes everything worse, but it turns out I have an almost pathological tendency to tell people not to make a fuss. So, to make a long story short, they tend to tranquilize me quite a lot. Not entirely unpleasant, though one does worry about developing a dependency. The last thing I—”
“You. Shut it.” A strident voice from the door. And Tabitha, it seems, has a different tactic from the nurses.
“Oh, sorry,” Clyde says. “I was just—”
“Shut it.” Tabitha crosses to his bed, eyes aflame.
Clyde hesitates, mouth still open.
“It. Shut. Now.”
Clyde shuts it.
Tabitha sits on the edge of the bed, reaches out, messes his hair. “Fucking idiot,” she says. Clyde grins hugely.
I narrow my eyes. “Wait…” I say. “Are you two…?”
Clyde opens his mouth.
“You say a word,” Tabitha tells him, “and I will throttle you with your own tongue. See if they can fix that.”
Clyde satisfies himself with grinning hugely.
“Yes,” Tabitha says. “Easier to have a discussion with him when he can’t talk. Freaked out a bit. I did. First pregnancy. Then the whole near death thing. His. Mine. All that. Latter put the former in perspective.”
“Oh,” I say. “So…” And how to broach this exactly. “The…” I look at her stomach.
Tabitha grimaces. “Gone,” is all she says. Then, as if sensing that maybe even from her this isn’t enough. “In the fight. Nothing permanent done.”
“Another time,” Clyde says in his scratched voice. “I mean not to suggest necessarily that it would be me, or you, well obviously it would be you, I suppose, but—”
“Shut the goddamn fuck up.” And then to make sure he does, Tabitha kisses him.
I turn away. That moment is not mine to watch. Instead I try to process the news. I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. But the kiss is still going on, so maybe that is all the answer I really need.
Another face appears at the door. Not Felicity’s. That’s all I care about at first. Just some young girl. And then I realize that I know who it is.
“Ephie?” I say.
Clyde and Tabitha break their clinch. Clyde has the decency to look embarrassed. Tabitha doesn’t.
Ephie looks at Clyde as she steps into the room and rolls her eyes. “Like that’s the worst a pan-dimensional demigod has seen you two do,” she says.
“Ach, I’m right here. There’s stuff you have no need to feckin’ share.” Kayla follows her step-daughter into the room.
Ephie it seems has decided to modify her wardrobe slightly. Her hair is not scraped back in a ponytail, but instead hangs loose. She’s dyed the tips light pink. They match her sun dress, unseasonable in the November chill, but good for showing off the tattoos that cover her shoulders and upper arms. Dense floral patterns in green and red and yellow.
Kayla catches my look. “We’re negotiating,” she says, looking grim.
From Ephie’s smile, it looks like she’s winning the negotiations.
I try to work out why the Dreamer is here. There’s only one reason I can think of.
“You’re why I’m alive,” I say, “aren’t you?”
Ephie’s smile dissolves like so much mist. She nods, serious now.
“You said you wouldn’t,” I say. “That it would violate too many other realities.”
“Yes,” she says. “I said that.”
It takes me a moment to realize it, but she looks embarrassed.
“So it didn’t.”
She shrugs, awkward, looking for a moment like the thirteen-year-old she is. “Think I’m probably going to get in some trouble,” she says. “But, well, you twisted a lot of things to help me out. Collapsing the device, getting injured. There was a lot less I needed to do to make sure the future echoes were only promising you injury, not death. Not to say there wasn’t collateral damage…” She trails off, but it seems like she’s leaving out the most important part.
“Collateral damage?” I prompt. Possibly with slightly too much alarm in my voice. A machine pings.
“Like,” she shrugs, “who do you think killed JFK?”
I stare at her for a moment. “Lee Harvey Oswald,” I say. “With the grassy knoll, second-gunman theory knocking about.”
“Yeah,” Ephie says, “so that’s changed.”
Wait… “I used to think it was someone different?”
Ephie shrugs. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Just give yourself a headache.”
Kayla grimaces. “I did.”
I can’t help but notice that Kayla hasn’t threatened her daughter with a sword any time in the past few minutes.
“You two seem on better terms,” seems like the more tactful way to say it.
“Well,” Kayla shrugs. “She did good. Even with tattoos.” She reaches out and ruffles her daughter’s hair.
“Mum!” Ephie pulls away, tugs at her hair, then shrugs. Reality ripples and suddenly her hair is piled upon her head in a giddy heap of tangles. The pink hints have become blue.
Kayla rolls her eyes. “Feckin’ kids.”
Ephie smirks. “Had enough of them, have you?”
“I’ve feckin’ apologized!” Kayla throws up her hands. “God, more of you feckers. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
Which makes it sound like the artificial insemination plan is off the table. Or off whatever it was on. I don’t want to think about that too closely. Still, this seems like a more unmitigated positive for me to get behind.
“There you bloody are,” a voice says from the door. It’s Hannah. She’s looking at Kayla. “I thought you said we were going to go down the pub now we know he’s awake.”
“Ephie wanted to see him,” Kayla says without any hint of apology in her tone.
“She finished?”
“Good to see you too,” I say.
Hannah looks at me. “You know you’ve ruined my perfect record of kill shots, don’t you?” She grins.
I point weakly at Ephie. “Technically that was her not me.” I swear I can still remember the bullet striking my skull. I can remember dying. A shiver runs through me.
“Come on then,” says Ephie, “we shouldn’t tire him out.”
“I’m fine,” I protest, but truth be told I am tired now. Kayla and Ephie cross the room. Tabitha though seems to show no sign of leaving, settling her head on Clyde’s shoulder.
“Maybe you’ll end up permanently mute,” she says to him, a smile on her lips. He kisses the top of her head. I don’t think I’ll ever understand them.
Halfway across the room, Kayla pauses. “Hey,” she says to Hannah, still waiting in the doorway, “did you tell him yet?”
“How the hell would I have bloody told him? He’s been conscious for about twenty minutes and you’ve been here the whole time I have.”
Kayla shrugs. “Telepathy?” Off Hannah’s expression, “This job has shown me weirder shite than that.”
Hannah grimaces slightly. “MI6 turned down my transfer request,” she says. “Looks like I’m stuck with you bunch of dysfunctional bastards.”
And then she’s turning away, and she’s gone, Kayla and Ephie eclipsing her exit, and before I can even process that news they’re all gone.
“How are you feeling?”
I start at the sudden interruption into my thoughts. And it’s Felicity. The one person I was waiting for and I almost didn’t notice here because—
“MI6 turned down Hannah’s transfer request,” I say.
Felicity nods.
“So she’s not going to MI6,” I say.
Another nod.
“She’s staying with MI37.”
Felicity nods a third time, but I know her patience isn’t legendary.
Hannah’s staying. Which means…
“MI6 isn’t taking over MI37,” I say. “They turned Hannah away.”
And Felicity smiles. “Yes,” she says. “I knew that.”
“So I didn’t…” I try to come to terms with this new reality. “I didn’t screw it all up. I didn’t steal your legacy.”
Felicity nods. “Not for lack of trying maybe.”
Oh fuck. Oh Jesus. And how to put it into words. “I am so… I can’t even express…” I look at her, helpless before the limits of my vocabulary. “I fucked up,” I tell her. “So much. And I couldn’t see it. Not until it was too late.” I bite my lip. Realization hits me. “It’s too late, isn’t it?”
Felicity sits down heavily on the bed next to me. “Well,” her smile is a little tight, “you were under a fair amount of pressure at the time.”
“Not enough to excuse what I did,” I say. “I was an ass.”
Felicity’s smile is broader this time. “Not much of a defense attorney, are you?”
“I will make it up to you,” I say. “Even if you don’t take me back. Even if it takes the rest of—”
“Well,” Felicity cuts me off, “you did save the world.” Another smile. “Again.”
I shrug. “I suppose so, yeah.”
“That’s why they denied her transfer request, you know? Because of you.”
I need a moment with that.
Because of me.
“You saved MI37, Arthur,” Felicity says quietly. “You’re the one who put it in danger, but you saved it in pretty spectacular style, I do have to say.” Her fingers curl around mine. She leans in close. “You almost died,” she says. Her voice is a fist of emotion.
“I thought I had to,” I say. “I couldn’t see another way out.”
There are tears in the corners of Felicity’s eyes. They are in mine. “I don’t want to live without you,” she says.
“I didn’t even want to die without you,” I tell her.
She holds me then, pulls my weak body up out of the bed and clutches it to her. We kiss. Long enough that I think it may make Tabitha regret hanging out with Clyde.
When we break, her hair is messed. I push it out of her eyes.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Can I please move in with you?”
“Yes.”
It is like light inside of me. A bubble of joy filling me as we kiss again. Longer. Deeper.
Eventually she pulls away. We’re still smiling.
“To new beginnings,” she says.
I smile and nod. “To new beginnings.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Wood is an Englishman in New York. There’s a story in there involving falling in love and flunking out of med school, but in the end it all worked out all right, and, quite frankly, the medical community is far better off without him, so we won’t go into it here. His debut novel, No Hero was described by Publishers Weekly as “a funny, dark, rip-roaring adventure with a lot of heart, highly recommended for urban fantasy and light science fiction readers alike.” Barnesandnoble.com listed it has one of the twenty best paranormal fantasies of the past decade, and Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels described it as “so funny I laughed out loud.” He has continued the Arthur Wallace novels with Yesterday’s Hero, Anti-Hero and Broken Hero, all available from Titan Books. He can be found online at
www.jonathanwoodauthor.com.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
NO HERO
BY JONATHAN WOOD
What would Kurt Russell do?
British police detective Arthur Wallace asks himself that question a lot. Because Arthur is no hero. He’s a good cop, but prefers his action on the big screen. But when he sees tentacles sprouting from the neck of a fresh corpse, the secretive government agency MI37 come to recruit Arthur in its struggle against horrors from another dimension known as the Progeny. But Arthur is NO HERO! Can an everyman stand against sanity-ripping cosmic horrors?
“So funny I laughed out loud.” CHARLAINE HARRIS
“a funny, dark, rip-roaring adventure with a lot of heart, highly recommended for urban fantasy and light science fiction readers alike.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Impeccably written – literally unputdownable… Unarguably one of the best novels I’ve read so far this year.” BARNESANDNOBLE.COM
“The book Lovecraft might have written if he had a sense of humor and watched too many Kurt Russell movies… Recommended.” THE MAD HATTER BOOKSHELF AND REVIEW
“[An] overload of awesome. The story reads like a fever dream of action, in a good way.” BOOKGASM
TITANBOOKS.COM
YESTERDAY’S HERO
BY JONATHAN WOOD
Another day. Another zombie T-Rex to put down. All part of the routine for Arthur Wallace and MI37—the government department devoted to battling threats magical, supernatural, extra-terrestrial, and generally odd. Except a zombie T-Rex is only the first of his problems… Before he can say, “But didn’t I save the world yesterday?” a new co-director at MI37 is threatening his job, middle-aged Russian cyborg wizards are threatening his life, and his co-workers are threatening his sanity.
“Give Yesterday’s Hero a well-deserved read, and think about what you would do when faced with a slavering dinosaur that figures your skull would make a tasty treat.” THE EXAMINER.COM
TITANBOOKS.COM
ANTI-HERO
BY JONATHAN WOOD
When it rains it pours… monster machines. That attack during a funeral and ruin everyone’s day. MI317—the government department devoted to defending Britain from cosmic horrors—is under siege, so Arthur Wallace and his team must travel to Area 51, ably—and oddly—assisted by Agent Gran. But their travels don’t end there, not when there’s an Arctic town populated entirely by spore zombies and the 2.0 version of Clyde has some funny ideas about how to save the world.
“A gripping tale of dark comedic horror that’s hard to put down, an entertainingly dark and amusing read that will certainly be tough to follow.” STARBURST
“A wonderfully bizarre take on a cross-genre action series.” RAVENOUS MONSTER
TITANBOOKS.COM
Broken Hero Page 41
