If it came to that, she might have to find a way to tell him what she knew.
She could only hope whoever was doing the initial investigation would be able to figure out the magic component for themselves before it came to that. Or maybe she wouldn’t have to tell. Maybe, and she wasn’t sure at the moment, but maybe she didn’t actually give a damn. She wanted the culprits caught and identified mostly because it would keep the story alive and playing in the news, and every story about today’s show was, on some level, a story about her company and her artists. Free publicity was her favorite kind.
But on the other hand, the list of people who likely wanted Prather dead was as long as her arm. And the attack had almost certainly been aimed at him. The explosions started at the moment he took the stage; that couldn’t have been a coincidence. What difference did it make which one of his enemies had been behind this afternoon’s attacks? Someone had tried to end a terrible human being, and Ruby didn’t really give a damn who that was.
Ruby cared a hell of a lot more about how much work this whole mess was about to cause her than she did about bringing the bombers to justice. She was still trying to decide how much she was going to let herself engage with the FBI and the Secret Service and whoever else was going to be all up in her face with their investigation when the helicopter began to descend.
Ruby was at the edge of her seat when Marine One came in for a landing just a few dozen yards from where her Gulfstream was already warming up on the tarmac. She was more anxious than she might have been willing to admit to get the hell off of Prather’s aircraft and back aboard her own. Not for nothing, she’d have access to the internet and a bottle of cognac aboard the Gulfstream.
But more than that, she didn’t like the energy of this flight, and she didn’t like being in such close quarters with Lyle Prather. A miasma of decay followed the man around, and it was wholly unpleasant to be so near to him. She wondered if it had always been that way, or if it was an artifact of whatever had caused the spiral of madness she’d seen him descending into ever since he’d been elected to the highest office in the land. And she wondered, too, if it was something that had always been there, if perhaps her new connection to ancient, foreign magic that had let her in on it.
Whatever it was that put her in touch with the rotten-feeling energy that seemed to be following Prather around, Ruby was in a hurry to be rid of it. As soon as the helicopter had touched down, she was out of her seat. She waited by the door for the Marine in charge to open it and fold out the stairs, but she didn’t stand on protocol once they were deployed. She dashed down the stairs, sending a look over her shoulder to both Jaccob and Mike that said clearly they would do well to join her post-haste. She wouldn’t actually leave her lover and one of her artists behind at the airport, but it wouldn’t do to let them think it was okay to dawdle, either. The sooner they were the hell out of D.C. airspace, the better.
Ruby didn’t look back again as she dashed across the tarmac toward her waiting aircraft’s extended boarding stairs. She was already approaching the cabinet where her liquor was secured when Mike came clambering up the stairs with Jaccob close behind.
"The office is in the back," she told Mike, gesturing with the ice tongs toward the rear of the aircraft. "You’ll have cell service while we’re on the ground, so call your mother now. And explain to her immediately that you’re okay and on a plane leaving Washington. Then make sure she knows you’re about to lose signal. Wait until the Wi-Fi comes up at ten thousand feet and then call her back from the VOIP phone on my desk."
Mike nodded as he darted through the cabin in the direction she’d indicated. Ruby could only hope he’d understood all of that. The last thing she figured she wanted right now was a freaked out and motherly Elizabeth Stevens showing up at Starcom Tower looking for her son. It was better for all involved if Mike could talk her down from any designs she might have on coming in to the city now. If he could placate her concerns while they were still en route, then Ruby could be reasonably sure she wouldn’t have to deal with Mrs. Stevens coming into her sphere.
Ruby had a glass of cognac in her hand as she moved to greet Jaccob at the door. She handed the glass to him and took hold of the door mechanism; no need to wait for the copilot to come back and do something she could do herself. If her getting the door shut on her own meant they’d be getting off the ground even a moment earlier, then she’d be damned if she didn’t do it.
To her surprise, she just about shut the thing in the President’s face.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" she demanded.
"I’m going with you!" Prather replied.
"The hell you’re not!"
"But ... but I got you out of there," he said. "I showed you the way, let you use my helicopter!"
"Yes," Ruby allowed, "and we’re very grateful. Now you’re going to get back on that helicopter and go back where we just came from."
"But it’s dangerous!"
"You don’t say!" Ruby mocked.
"Someone tried to blow up the White House!" Prather reminded them, as though somehow they might have forgotten.
"That they did," Ruby agreed. "And it’s your White House. You’re the president. So get back aboard that fancy helicopter, you pusillanimous cretin, and go run the country!"
The steward had come aft from the jumpseat at the sound of his boss’s yelling, and Ruby gestured for him to pull the stairs in. She threw her hands up in exasperation as she charged away from the door and into the plane’s main cabin. She wondered for a passing moment what her mild-mannered steward might think about slamming a door in the face of the President of the United States, but her wonder didn’t last. It didn’t matter; she’d learned over the course of this era without her powers that those in her employ who had signed magically binding contracts were still bound by them. That steward had no more choice in whether to close the door when she told him to than her driver had in keeping secret whatever went on in her car. Having magically bound employees had proven useful time and again, so although she’d had to be a little extra gentle with them in the months since she’d lost her powers (for fear of losing one and having no power with which to bind his replacement), it had been worth it to assure complete devotion in her personal staff. And it paid off when she needed the door shut in the face of the blubbering leader of the free world.
Mike had already headed into the back office when Ruby made it into the cabin and settled herself on the sofa beside Jaccob. She had to stop herself from laughing when she saw he’d already fastened the seatbelt on the overstuffed leather sofa snugly around his hips. With everything they had just been through--with everything they had just witnessed--with the full and clear understanding they had only just gotten out with their lives, still Jaccob was going to follow the rules. Seatbelts fastened for takeoff.
Ruby didn’t bother with hers. She placed her hand on his knee as the aircraft started to roll. She’d told the pilot she wanted to be off the ground as soon as possible; she was glad he’d taken her request to heart. Depending on what the Secret Service learned in the next several minutes about the origin and nature of the attack on the White House, there was a chance they would shut down all nearby airspace. That order almost certainly wouldn’t come while the President was still airborne aboard Marine One, so as far as Ruby was concerned, they had about as many minutes as it would take him to return to the South Lawn to get the hell off the ground and as close to out of D.C. airspace as possible.
Jaccob looked up at her and shook his head, placing his hand over hers where it rested on his knee. "How are you?" he asked quietly.
Ruby shook her head. "I suppose I’ve been better," she said. "I can’t remember the last time I ran like that; I’m woefully out of shape. Honestly, I’m not sure I ever have run like that. And I certainly haven’t ever run like that in heels."
"Yeah," Jaccob allowed, "I guess I didn’t think about that."
Ruby smiled at him. The plane had begun to accelerate; they’
d be off the ground soon. This was the best news she could think of under the circumstances.
"Still, ruined pumps or twisted ankles notwithstanding, it beats the alternative." She leaned in and caught his eyes as the plane’s front wheels lifted off the ground. "Thank you for saving my life," she whispered.
Jaccob smiled, lifting her hand to kiss it before leaning back against the soft leather of the airplane’s sofa.
"You’re welcome," he replied.
It was always strange for Ruby when he said that. "You’re welcome" coming from Jaccob wasn’t the rote response it was when most people used it. When Jaccob told someone they were welcome, he sounded like he really meant it--like the recipient of the sentiment was truly welcome to whatever it was they were discussing. That level of sincerity could be unnerving. In most people, it was a real put-off. But in Jaccob, it was somehow endearing.
It was one of the many mysteries Ruby was wrestling with about this whole undertaking. She found most people with this much goodness in them to be unpleasant company, but here she was quite fond of the quintessential good guy.
Life could be ironic like that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They spent the first half-hour or so of the flight back to Cobalt City in silence. Mike hadn’t ever come forward to join the others in the main cabin, electing instead to remain in Ruby’s back office for the duration. She wasn’t sure whether he was still talking to his mother and sister or whether he’d just thought to give her and Jaccob some privacy. Not that she cared. She was actually a little bit grateful for the chance not to be "on" for one of her employees at the moment. She was feeling felt more than a little bit shaken and needed to pull herself together before being the boss again.
She could only guess Jaccob felt similarly. The longer the silence stood, the more she wondered when he’d be getting up to head aft and check on Mike. But he never stirred. She presumed he needed a moment, too. Maybe he needed to gather his thoughts before having to be the wise father or the upbeat superhero. Either way, Ruby was glad to be solely in his company. It was an odd and foreign feeling, being so comfortable in the presence of another person. Before today, she’d have guessed she’d be happier alone at a time like this. But somehow Jaccob’s presence, even his silent, apprehensive presence, was strangely soothing.
But as the time went on, and his demeanor didn’t appear to signal improvement, she began to get concerned. Reticence wasn’t usually his style; this afternoon had clearly affected him more than she’d figured at first. He’d had it in him to save her life and Mike’s, but since then, it had seemed like he was positively shrinking.
Jaccob had finished his first glass of cognac and had silently accepted a second, but hadn’t had more than a sip before he’d set the snifter down and laid his head against Ruby’s shoulder. She’d let that be for a while, for once not minding being a source of another’s comfort. Normally she didn’t cotton to being clung to like this, but seeing as they’d all nearly been blown to a million pieces, she was willing to offer him some temporary measure of grace. She was content to let him lay his head on her shoulder, to put her arm around him, and to marvel at the fact this whole thing was happening.
"How are you doing?" she asked him after a time, punctuating her question with a chaste kiss to his temple and a squeeze of his shoulder. The silence had begun to drive her crazy, and she was reaching the point where she was genuinely concerned for his mental state.
Another oddity of her relationship with Jaccob was this bizarre level of caring about how another person felt. Sometime between her having sent Discontent to get Elizabeth Stevens out of the picture and this afternoon’s frightening developments, she’d apparently started to give a damn. It left a bad taste in her mouth, but facts were facts and there was no use in denying them. At the very least, she could be reasonably certain Jaccob wouldn’t use her sudden-onset concern against her.
He sat up and picked up his mostly full glass of cognac. "I ... I don’t know," he answered. "I’ve never regretted rescuing anybody before."
"You think you regret it?"
"Yes." He looked at her then, his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists in his lap. "What does that make me?" he asked.
"Human," Ruby answered gently. "You saved a man because that’s what you do. The fact that you saved a despicable man is secondary--it’s hardly even relevant. In the moment, you reacted like you would any other time, the same as if any other random citizen had been in harm’s way. Only this time, the person you saved wasn’t a random citizen at all; he was a very prominent, hateful buffoon."
"I didn’t even do it on purpose!" Jaccob exclaimed, knocking back a pronounced sip of his drink.
"I know."
"Why did it have to happen like that?" he groaned. "Why did he have to be standing there?"
"Dumb luck," Ruby said. It was her best guess.
"Does it make me less of a hero that I wish he hadn’t been?" Jaccob asked then. "That I wish I hadn’t saved him?"
Ruby shrugged. "You’ll want to think that one through to its logical conclusion," she said after a pause. "If he hadn’t been right there, the Secret Service would have saved his life instead of you. Meanwhile, the three of us might never have found our way through to the South Lawn, or we might not have been allowed out. You, Mike, and me might still be stuck there, in a crashed White House, with Prather’s thugs and what’s left of the Young Dudes. No, I think it’s for the best that things happened like they did. You saved the President while saving your son and--"
She paused for a moment, wondering just how she ought to refer to herself in this situation. "Girlfriend" seemed a bit stilted--she was over forty, and Jaccob was older still; something about referring to them in terms of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" just sounded silly. But "friend" didn’t come close to accurate, and she wasn’t sure how Jaccob would cotton to it if she decided to use the word "lover." Fortunately, she found she didn’t have to solve that problem, as Jaccob chimed in before the pause could grow awkward.
"But I saved this president," he sighed. "This despicable, loathsome, hate-mongering danger to our country. He’s irredeemable, Ruby. I hate him. I hate him so much that I almost missed my son’s big moment because he was going to be there."
"I think we’d all agree we’re glad you changed your mind on that one," she said.
Jaccob shrugged. "He’s really good," he said quietly. "Mike--he’s really got a lot of talent."
"Yes, he does," Ruby agreed. "And he’s smart, and he takes direction, and he works hard. He’s got a very bright future in this business."
Jaccob reached out and took Ruby’s hand again. "Then it was worth it, I guess," he said.
"Dealing with Prather?" she surmised, "saving his life?"
"Dealing with him, being photographed with him, saving him, even."
Ruby nodded. "I think everybody’s aware of your opinion of the man," she encouraged.
"But now I’ve saved his life," Jaccob countered. "Everyone’s going to know I saved his life. They’re going to think I wanted to--that I did it on purpose, that I planned--"
"No one is ever going to accuse you of planning to save Prather," she assured him. "Because that would imply you were aware there was the possibility of an attack. Which you weren’t. Which you couldn’t have been. You wouldn’t have let your son within a hundred miles the White House if you’d known an attack was imminent. So don’t think anyone will be under the impression you were standing by just to save Prather’s life. You were there to see your son on stage. Period."
She shook her head. Keeping hold of Jaccob’s hand on her right, with her left she reached out and pulled open the top drawer of a nearby end table. She fumbled around in the drawer for a moment before pulling forth a small black remote control from inside it.
"What’s that?" Jaccob asked.
Ruby grinned, clicking the button that brought a screen at the front of the cabin to life. "Let’s see how the story’s developing," she suggested.
"If anyone is trying to take the ‘Stardust loves Prather’ angle--which I cannot believe anyone would, because it just doesn’t sound credible, and they’d come off looking like a jackass--but if you think there’s a chance one of these yellow journalists or another is trying to sell that bill of goods, then we should know as soon as possible. We should be prepared. If we know before we land that someone is making claims as to your motivations during the attack, then we should be ready to speak to that. You can have a statement ready. Something like: ‘I’m thankful I was there to keep my son safe; knowing that other lives were saved as a result of my actions is an added blessing.’ Something like that."
"Wow," Jaccob said, "you’re good at that. I’m afraid I’m rather lacking in public relations savvy."
"You don’t say?" Ruby chuckled. She had figured as much from the near debacle that had come out of Stardust’s choosing to avoid politics when Prather had first come to power, no matter how many of his super-allies were engaged in active resistance. She was sure it was that refusal to engage that had him worried for his image now. If he’d been as vocally opposed to the Prather regime as most of his fellows, then there’d be little to no doubt his having saved Prather today had happened purely by accident.
Jaccob chuckled at her commentary. "Yeah," he allowed, "I guess that one’s a little obvious."
"A little," Ruby agreed with a smirk. "But don’t you worry, darling. You’re in good hands. PR happens to be my strong suit."
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