by Brhi Stokes
Natsuko was shaking her head. “I need to do a job,” she told me. I knew I was going to need a cigarette or two after this.
A job… “Why don’t you do two?” I asked, fishing the medallion from my pocket where it - thankfully - still rested. “I got this from Evisalon. It was hanging in their Grand Cathedral,” it had looked grand enough anyway, “and the Masters said it was vitally important that they have it.” I was embellishing the truth a bit dramatically, but I had learned negotiations went best with a little spit and shine. “I’ll give you this, Natsuko. And Avilaigne will give you her word that she’ll stop causing dissent in her world. So long as you don’t kill her.”
From the way the small woman toyed with the gun, I thought she was just going to ignore me and shoot us both. However, she had both eyes locked on the amulet as it dangled from my hand, swaying on its chain. Quiet fell between the three of us and Avilaigne and I shared an uneasy glance. At least, I assumed she was looking at me; or perhaps the facets of her eyes let her look at everything at once.
“Give the necklace to me.”
I hesitated at Natsuko’s words, hoping she would not just shoot us both and leave. However, a more logical part of my brain reminded me that she could have already done that. That in mind, I reached out my hand and lowered the necklace into her warm palm, pressing it there before sliding my hand from hers. Gun still trained on us, she held the necklace up and inspected it. She drew it to her lips and touched her tongue to it, then nodded slowly.
“This is from Evisalon,” she confirmed as she slid it into a pocket I did not realise her short skirt held. “Now you have not done two jobs.”
I grimaced at her. “Yes… well, I’ll figure out an explanation later, I suppose.” I had to hope the Masters did not operate on some sort of three-strikes system. “And you’ve just completed two jobs. So well done.”
“No more making Masters upset. Mine or yours,” came the warning to Avilaigne, before Natsuko turned and walked past me towards the stairs.
The tension began to dissipate as she reached the top of them. I was just beginning to relax when Natsuko’s shoulders tensed and she quickly stowed the gun in her bag.
“Your boyfriend?” she asked me.
Baffled, I stomped my way over to the stairs and stared in surprise at the man climbing them. He was middle-aged and tall with broad shoulders and a face that…
“No,” Natsuko had come to the same conclusion, “his face.”
Beneath the surface of pale-skinned human facade, I caught a dark complexion with a pair of high cheekbones and something which shifted either side of the jaw as if he had… mandibles, perhaps?
“Yeah,” the man agreed, shucking his jacket and stepping all the way up until we faced one another.
“What-?” I started.
“Yeah, I could be your boyfriend.” He grinned at me, and in a haze of shifting mirage, I saw his mandibles flare out. They were less bug-like and appeared more as hardened panels that ran down his jaw, from what I could see. I then remembered that I was supposed to be unimpressed, not studying his anatomy.
It was hard to tell if my flush was out of anger or embarrassment. “How many people are going to burst into my bloody flat today?” I demanded.
“This is not my problem,” said Natsuko as she stepped around the two of us and headed down the stairs. There was a beat of silence in which my front door slammed shut before I exchanged glances with the newcomer; his amused, mine concerned. I had to hope he was not also here to kill Avilaigne. Having just gotten rid of my last bargaining chip, I was no longer sure what options were left.
“That’s okay with me,” the newcomer told me, leaning against the wall. His position on the second step of the stairwell brought the tall man’s face level with mine. “This is good for me.”
“Matthen?” Avilaigne had moved to peek around me, and now she all but shoved me out of the way to stare at the man. “What are you doing here?”
“Well you’re causing all sortsa problems, so they sent me here to track you down and get rid of you.”
Avilaigne baulked, taking a step back. “You’re here to kill me?” she whispered.
“Nah,” the man said with a shrug, and I could have sworn a faint buzzing sounded from him, “don’t have the tools. Just wanted to track you down before this got out of hand.”
“Good!” I grunted, brushing past Avilaigne on my way to the kitchen. “Now that no one’s going to die, I really need a beer. Anyone want one?”
“I don’t know what that is but I’ll go where you’re going,” the man - Matthen, I supposed - told me as he and Avilaigne followed me into the kitchen. The latter slumped down on one of the bar stools while I collected three beers from the cupboard and popped the tops off.
“Oh!” Matthen said, grinning at me once he had sniffed at the lip of the bottle, “you mean ale. You drink it at room temperature?”
Not wanting to deal with explaining the differences between ale and beer to my new guests, I just nodded and stared at Avilaigne. The pale woman had her head in her hands and I could see the one feathery ear that now showed under her human skin, quivering.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered to herself. “I can’t help anyone. They’ll just kill me if I do- they’ll kill whoever tries to change it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Matthen, “I don’t know why you ever thought you could compete with the things that are basically in charge of our entire existence. Aim high, right?” He chuckled to himself as he drained a good third of his beer. Avilaigne made a despairing sound and placed her head back into her hands.
“But the slums,” she said, looking at Matthen through her fingers, “and the walled cities! They can’t just have everything… can they? Don’t you care that people have been disappearing more frequently? I was going to try and stop it, Matthen. I even had the leverage,” she turned her bulbous black eyes on me, “until you gave it away.”
“I,” I reminded her, “made sure she didn’t kill you permanently. And made a cock-up of my job in the process.”
“I was just trying to help people…” she muttered, deflated.
Matthen shook his head, he had finished his beer and was swilling the frothy remnants at the bottom of the bottle. I handed him another. “You can’t,” he said, “because they won’t let you. They like our world as it is. And if they can get it to drop more in the hierarchy, the better for ‘em.”
I quelled the question rising in my throat as both Avilaigne and I fixed Matthen with curious eyes. His smile said it all, he knew something we did not and he was going to relish in sharing it with us.
“The worlds,” he continued, “have an order. This is news to you? Anyway, lotsa Masters want to be higher up on it, want their world to be better and brighter. The smart ones know that dropping their own world lower is gonna be an easier task. Myrkdraw’s already a mess, so why not just exacerbate it.”
“So they want our world to be worse? What does that even achieve?”
“Couldn’t tell ya. But there’s no point in fighting them, they’ll just send others from our world, or ask the Masters of whatever world you’re currently in, to hunt you down.”
Avilaigne groaned. “But that’s what the medallion was for! To bargain with the Masters of another world and get them to help…”
“Why would they? Most of them want their world to go up. Why would they care if Myrkdraw goes down?” Matthen told her. Then, he looked at me. “You seem pretty calm about all this.”
“Oh, me? I’m like you two. A fixer,” I told him, as he peered at my face. “But since you’re in my plane, that’s probably harder to tell.”
“So who was the girl that left?” he asked. “You friends?”
“Her? I… highly doubt that. If we’re being honest, I hardly knew that I wasn’t the only one before now.”
He laughed, and I could see his mandibles widening in the haze around his face. “Cute.”
Hardly a word I normally associated with myself,
but I did not bother correcting him as I tried to bite down my embarrassment. “I’m… erm, I’m new at this.”
He laughed again, reaching across the counter to pat my hand. I shifted uncomfortably at the touch but kept my mouth shut as he continued. “Well, there’s plenty of us around, I think the number depends on the size of the world and the number of Masters. Saw a map on the way here, by the way, this place is gigantic.”
Avilaigne looked up from her misery. “Is it?”
“You could fit about fifteen of our worlds in here.”
“That’s huge.”
I did not have the heart to tell them about space travel and other planets. Instead, I nodded. “Yes, Earth’s quite large. But back to your initial point: your Masters want to make Myrkdraw go down the hierarchy by… making your world worse?”
“Yeah, I’m not entirely sure how it works but that’s what they’re getting at. I think all the horrible stuff that happens back home helps,” said Matthen.
Avilaigne muttered something into her hands.
“So I’m guessing from some of the jobs I’ve had to do that a lot of the Masters who want their plane to go up achieve that by tearing others down?” It was also human nature and, while the denizens of other worlds did not often look human, they could be just as morally rubbish.
Matthen nodded, studying me. I could see from the glimpses of his real face that, unlike Avilaigne, his eyes were humanoid and a deep grey.
“So,” I continued, “why don’t your Masters dive lower by lifting other planes up? I’m sure it’d make them look like they were helping the others, which has to amount to favours, at least.” Provided the Masters could communicate with one another but, given the strange enmity they seemed to share, I guessed that they could.
Avilaigne’s chin lifted at that and she stared first at me, then at Matthen. “Do you think that would work? I mean, it would stop them needing to make our home worse.”
Matthen shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure they’d buy it, but you’re right about them not needing to make Myrkdraw as miserable as it is now. Anyway, I think you should come and talk to them - or a messenger - at least. They can explain this stuff better than I can, and it’ll let them see that you’ve stopped what you’re doing. Hopefully, they’ll not want you dead anymore.”
“Okay… fine. We’ll go.” Avilaigne stood, still a little damp from the shower.
“You can’t go out like that,” I gave her a once-over, “in more ways than one. Wait here a minute.”
As I stepped towards the hall to the bedroom I heard Avilaigne apologise to Matthen for the trouble she had caused.
The man let out a low chuckle. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I think I actually enjoyed coming here.” I glanced over my shoulder to see his eyes fixed firmly on me before I disappeared into the bedroom and out from under his gaze.
I returned with an oversized hoodie and some jeans that were unlikely to be Avilaigne’s size. She tugged them on around her towel before dropping it to the ground and looking at Matthen. “Let’s go.” I was at least glad that they had decided against doing themselves in under my roof.
“Thanks for… you know,” muttered the woman as she moved past me.
I had turned to watch her approach the stairs when Matthen slid past, his shoulder and arm brushing against me as he did so. I looked back to see his smile as he moved by me and towards Avilaigne. “This was fun,” was all he said.
Then, they were off down the stairs.
As I followed the movement of Matthen’s human body down to the lower level, I noticed the shifting of muscle beneath his shirt as he snagged his jacket from the railing. I frowned; I had never really found myself attracted to men before, so I had no explanation for the flush I felt creeping across my neck and cheeks as I watched the other fixer move down my stairwell like a predatory cat.
I barely managed the sense to shout, “And close the bloody door!” after them before they left altogether.

“Maybe there’s a reason that picture looks like dicks to you,” Connor tells me through a chuckle. He had remained incredibly quiet throughout the rest of the story, and my lips quirk into a lopsided smile as I straighten up. My back aches from the time spent leaning against the kitchen counter so I stretch my arms above my head, leaning back as far as I can to work out the kinks.
“You don’t know the half of it yet,” I tell him.
“What I don’t understand, is if your body stays in your own world, how are you underneath when you fall apart?”
So many questions have crossed my mind since I started this endeavour, that I have simply stopped asking them. Needless to say, Connor’s queries are reminding me how little I know.
“Unfortunately, no one’s sat me down to explain it all in detail. I suppose some part us needs to travel, too, for it to work. I’ve no idea whether it’s just some sort of body-double or a copy or maybe our world just stops a minute while we’re away and resumes once we start to come back. You’d have to ask a messenger... Anyway, we had best get you home before sundown, you might freeze to death if you sleep on my doorstep again tonight.”
“No thanks.” An edge has seeped into his tone as if he is trying to tell me there is no room for argument.
“Well...” I try to keep my voice mild. “You can let me drive you home, or you can let me drive you to the police as a runaway.”
He baulks. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would dare. You can’t just stay out on the street, you know. Let me take you home and see you inside, what you do after that is your own decision.”
He mulls the threat over for a bit, and I hope he fails to realise that the police would do very little to him if I drove him there. Finally, resignation settles on his face.
“All right,” he says reluctantly as he moves towards the stairs. “But I wanna hear the rest of the story later.”
“It’s Wednesday. Don’t you have some sort of school to be at instead of a stranger’s house?”
“Just graduated,” he explains as I follow him onto the first floor, “and since I don’t have anything to do for the moment, I’m taking a break.”
I frown at him. “How old are you, Connor?”
“Old enough!”
“…to drink?”
“Well, no…”
No more unwanted guests, I remind myself.
“I’m driving you home.”
He seems taken aback by that, no doubt having thought he could convince me to send him off into the night and he could wander where he pleased. He bites back a reply, only pursing his lips as we walk through the light snow to the parking lot behind the shops. He says little as we drive, save for a few directions, and the tension rises slowly in him as we approach our destination. To say he does not want to go back is a clear understatement. I consider asking him if he has friends or more distant family he would rather go to, but I hold my tongue. Treating your family like rubbish is just part and parcel of misguided love, after all. I have seen it plenty of times before and I know the boy’s parents must be worried, in spite of whatever they have said to him.
The neighbourhood in which we end up is quaint but nice. Brick buildings sit shoulder to shoulder along a small street, two-storey houses with white awnings and window seats. With the light snow falling gently down over the scene, I feel like we have stepped onto the set of a family holiday film. Needless to say, it is vastly different from where I grew up.
Connor directs me to where several bicycles rest against a small brick fence and I pull over, before asking, “What’s your surname?”
“Shen,” he tells me reluctantly as he gets out of the car. “Why?”
“Well, I could address your mother by her first name if you’d tell me that, instead. I think it might be a tad familiar, though.”
He pulls a face at me in response and hangs back a little as we approach the front door together. I press the bell, noting Connor’s rigid posture as we stand and wait. The woman who opens
the door is middle-aged and a full head shorter than either of us. She surveys me carefully before her gaze moves to Connor.
“Who is this?” she demands.
“Page gave me a lift home…” he begins to explain.
“From where? Were you with a boy?”
“What? Mum, no-”
“We were worried sick! Come inside.”
With a regretful look at me, Connor steps towards the door. I try not to look like I knew this was going to happen. Of course his family were worried about him. People were pretty awful, but I knew they generally cared about their children. I take a step back, rather glad the woman had simply ignored me, and turn towards the car.
Over my shoulder, the conversation goes on. “And tomorrow,” Connor’s mother continues, “you can come to the church to find out more about the camp.”
I cannot see the lad’s face from here as I glance back inside, but I can see the way he freezes abruptly, his shoulders tense. Very quietly, he says, “I told you I’m not going to that camp.”
I grimace and stop walking, turning to face the house once more. I know a burning building when I see one, and I have a good sense for when they are about to collapse. I can see from here the way his mother’s face crinkles is displeasure, her hands moving to her hips.
“You live under your family’s roof,” the woman’s voice is somehow five times louder, suddenly, “you have no job, we pay for your education, we pay for your life and you still want to embarrass us like this?”
“Mrs Shen,” I try, stupidly approaching the door once more, “maybe if you tell Connor why you’re feeling embarrassed and then hear him out, you could lay everyone’s thoughts on the table and start to see-”
I am cut off by a hand thrust in front of my face and a surge of rapid-fire Cantonese. I know a few words in it, but none of these are “hello”, “excuse me”, or “we’re just waiting for the translator”. Having no idea what they are saying means I cannot get a word in, but I get the idea it would be an impossible task even if my language skills were fluent. This is why I had spent very little time in family mediation. Sure, people yelled during corporate discussions, but the bigger the companies involved, the cooler people tried to play it. At least during corporate mediations, I could hear myself think. Most of the time.
