Between Jobs (The City Between Book 1)

by W. R. Gingell

  JinYeong’s brows went up. “Bisthae, bisthae,” he said.

  “Gunna assume that means got it in one,” I muttered. “Why can’t he speak English?”

  “JinYeong says you’re very close,” Athelas told me, cupping his teacup in both hands. “Between is indeed the means by which those things in Behind can access the human world.”

  “Does that mean humans can affect Behind, as well?”

  “Would you attempt to push sponge cake into the jelly through the cream and custard?”

  He was taking the analogy a bit far, wasn’t he?

  “Dunno,” I said. “Don’t usually make trifle; I just eat it.”

  Athelas looked thoughtful. “It’s not that we have laws against it, you understand. It’s simply not the natural order of things—I can only imagine the mess it would make. Fortunately, it’s said to be impossible for a human to access Between by itself.”

  I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. “What a surprise.”

  “It’s a matter of seeing things in the right way,” Athelas said, shrugging. “And the human who can see things in the right way to access Between would be a very rare human. I can only imagine the mess it might cause, and as a whole, the Fae are only inclined to approve of mess when it’s their own doing.”

  “What do you mean, seeing things in the right way?”

  “Don’t teach the pet bad habits,” said Zero briefly, making me jump. For a bloke as big as he is, he could move as silently as JinYeong; he was already in the kitchen. “I haven’t decided that we’re keeping it, and it’ll be a nuisance to wipe its memories.”

  I looked at him gloomily, but asked, “Want a coffee?” anyway. It wasn’t like Athelas wasn’t condescending and dismissive, too, after all. Zero was bigger, so there was more ice to melt.

  The offer made him stiffen, but there was no change of expression on his face. After a moment, he said, “Bring a tray into the living room,” and went back. JinYeong, who had been propped against the partial wall between kitchen and living room, took his coffee and followed Zero, and Athelas rose to his feet languidly.

  “Bring biscuits, Pet,” he said. “It will be a long night.”

  It was more like an early morning. At some stage after I took in Zero’s coffee and the biscuits, I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke in a brief spurt of panic that I was going to be late for work, they were discussing something that must have had to do with me.

  “Relax, Pet,” said Athelas, his smile faintly mocking. “It’s only five in the morning.”

  Zero, who had abruptly stopped speaking when I woke with a gasp, asked, “Where are you going?”

  “Work,” I said. “You know. Human stuff.”

  He didn’t reply, but he doesn’t, much. I figured if he had something to say, he’d come out with it when he was ready, so I went to get a change of clothes and have my first real, luxurious shower since I’d been living alone in the house.

  I shouldn’t have done that; it made me late for work. I was only late by five minutes, but the boss was already frothing at the mouth about a drink he’d spilled all over the floor and bain marie because one of the girls had left it on the counter as usual and his elbow knocked it off in passing.

  It couldn’t be his fault, so it had to be hers, and she looked relieved when my lateness called him away from hanging over her to make sure she cleaned it up properly.

  “Don’t expect to get paid for the first half hour,” he said to me. “I don’t pay in fifteen minute lots.”

  “Yeah,” I said, because it was too much to expect him to acknowledge the couple of extra hours I’d done when I cleared out the toilet.

  He was on my case all day. I’m used to it, but I don’t like it. It was a pity that a few of those scarecrow things couldn’t seep through the walls again and make a bit of havoc in the café. That’d be nice.

  He might have settled down a bit if everything had gone perfectly through the day. Unfortunately, someone lost the scrubber part way through the day—the boss, though no one was going to tell him that—and when I asked for it, the boss spent fifteen minutes howling in my face behind the cook station. Most of it was the usual threats about taking the price of it out of my pay, but some of it was gibbering, too.

  I said “Yeah”, “Yep”, and “Got it”, and then went back to washing up. I was probably a bit short, because a few minutes after I did, something grazed my cheek, splattering small wet gobbets of something cold on my neck, and smacked into the splashback. I looked wearily at it—it was the scrubber the boss had just sworn I’d lost—and as wearily wiped the muck from that side of my face with the tea towel.

  I should have been more careful. If I’d looked for it myself, he might not have been so angry, but it looked like he was going right off the deep end now. Things were always about to blow when he started chucking stuff.

  I didn’t have the energy to waste on trying to make him happy again by then, so I went into my second defence—sullen silence. He doesn’t like it, but at least that way I don’t run the risk of saying anything cheeky to him.

  Of course, that only meant that he started muttering to himself, and throwing stuff at the sink.

  “Wash this too!”

  Bang!

  A plastic spatula hit the wall, handle first, and fell into the washing up water. Gravy slid down the wall and probably my hair as well.

  “You forgot the milkshake maker!”

  Clang! Bang!

  Two stainless steel milkshake cups ricocheted between splashback and sink top before disappearing beneath the soap bubbles. They’d already been washed, but a customer had come in for a milkshake two minutes ago.

  I washed them doggedly, then wiped the splashback and went onto the mopping. That was my last job for the day, thank goodness. There were too few customers to stop the boss really going off, and I didn’t think I had the energy to deal with his explosions today.

  I was halfway down the salad bar when a shout from the boss made me jump.

  “You haven’t emptied the bain marie!” he yelled.

  “It’s not four o’clock yet!” I called back, wrestling with the mop. “There’s still some special of the day left and we usually get the after college rush. You want me to do it now?”

  “I want you to do your job!”

  I huffed a hair out of my face and mopped out the thin bit behind the counter. If I emptied it and customers came, he would blame me for that, too. Should I do it or not?

  Before I could make up my mind, he came barrelling up the narrow channel.

  “Out of the way!”

  “Just a minute!” I yelped, but the boss snarled and booted the mop bucket into my leg, slopping water over my shoes and the floor. I hissed in pain and cupped one hand over my battered shin, trying not to let the prickle of my eyes overflow.

  “Go home if you’re just going to get in the way!” he yelled, over his shoulder, and started taking trays out of the warmer, hurling them at the sink and splashing food over the walls I’d just wiped down.

  There was a whisper of something behind me, at the counter. I blinked my eyes shut for a second to make the water in my eyes go away, but before I could open them again to deal with the customer, someone grabbed me by the nape of the neck and lifted me bodily over the counter.

  I was too surprised to yell, which was just as well, because it was JinYeong. He dropped me on the floor again as if I really had been a pet, and twitched me back and forth to inspect my front and then my back.

  Oh. That tracer thing they said Zero had put on me.

  “Sorry,” I said, waving my battered shin at him. “It was only this. There was a—” I couldn’t bring myself to say accident, so I finished lamely, “—thing. It’s all right.”

  One of JinYeong’s brows went up. He pointed at me and said to the boss, who was glaring at us over the top of the warmer, “Nae kkoya. Manjiji ma!”

  The boss glared at him and then at me. “If this is your boyfriend, you’d better get
rid of him. I’ll fire you if he makes trouble in the shop.”

  “As if!” I said indignantly.

  The boss muttered and went back to lifting out the dishes. Maybe he dropped one, but it looked more like it exploded. There was a dull pop, and a very large splash of devilled sausages, the dish of the day, covered the boss from head to toe.

  I blinked a bit, but JinYeong only sauntered away through the door, his mouth a self-satisfied moue. The boss yelled bloody murder behind the counter, but he’d told me to go home, so I followed the smug vampire out the door without a second thought, leaving the stench of devilled sausages behind.

  “You do that?” I asked JinYeong, when we were out in the street.

  He made a contemptuous sort of hiss between his teeth and kept walking. I couldn’t tell if the contempt was for thinking he would do such a thing, or because my weakly humanness made me unsure of whether or not he’d done it.

  I rolled my eyes at him and trailed behind him all the way home. It would be a bad day tomorrow, but for this afternoon it was nice to know that the boss was covered in devilled sausages and would need to clean the whole kitchen again.

  Neither Athelas nor Zero asked about my well-being when I shuffled into the kitchen behind JinYeong. I didn’t mind; it was enough that they’d sent him for me. I mean, it was silly to feel warm and happy about anything my three psychos did—they were psychos, and they wouldn’t be around long. It was stupid to get attached to them.

  But I still felt warm.

  I chucked the shoulder strap of my backpack over one of the hooks in the hallway as I passed, and put the kettle on by way of thanks that was as silent as their care. Maybe that’s what they were all waiting for, because Zero and Athelas were already sitting at the kitchen table, Athelas with one leg elegantly crossed as usual, and Zero hulking over something on the table.

  Maybe…maybe it was me they’d been waiting for. But that wasn’t a safe way to think, either. I only had to be indispensable until I could get my house back to myself. That was the sensible way to act.

  I looked over at Zero as I brought out the coffee cups; he had a knife belt tonight, which was about standard for him. He wasn’t polishing these knives, though. Perhaps he was putting a spell on them, or something.

  “What do you lot want for dinner tonight?” I asked, preparing a teapot for Athelas and the big plunger pot for the rest of us. I would have given them leftovers from last night, but there weren’t any. It wasn’t like I’d skimped, either; I’d made a double batch.

  JinYeong looked up straight away, his eyes bright.

  Hah. I knew my cooking was that good. I hopped up on the bench, swinging my legs while I waited for the kettle to boil, and said, “I can cook more stuff like that pasta. You just gotta ask.”

  Maybe they’d already been talking about it. Athelas said, “She does make a good cup of tea, after all. Let’s have her as a pet.”

  Zero said coolly, “Don’t go giving it a name and patting it on the head. Don’t get fond of it. It’ll die soon enough.”

  “No, I won’t,” I said. “I’ll stay behind you.”

  One of JinYeong’s brows went up and then down. Athelas only smiled faintly, but that was enough to make me look at Zero. There was nothing to see; his face was expressionless.

  “Don’t make a mess around the house,” he said abruptly. “Stay in your room unless you’re making coffee or meals, and come when you’re called.”

  “I can stay?”

  “For now,” he said, and went back to his knives. “Only for now. And if you disobey me even once, I’ll kick you out.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Chapter Six

  “What do you lot want for dinner, anyway?”

  I’d already asked them, but we’d been distracted by tea and coffee, and some little biscuits that I was pretty sure didn’t come from any part of the human world. I’ll have to learn how to make them: no way they’ll kick me out of my house if I can make stuff like that.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Zero, forestalling both the bright-eyed JinYeong and the suddenly interested Athelas. “But make it quickly—we’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “What, you and me?” Oh yeah; he’d said earlier that he was taking me somewhere. I felt a bit doubtful about that. “Is it like where we went when we were in the supermarket?”

  Athelas stopped smiling abruptly. “You’re actually, deliberately taking her—”

  “It.”

  “You’re really taking it Between? Zero—”

  JinYeong spoke, an insistent couple of words.

  “You’re still coming, too,” said Zero to JinYeong, ignoring Athelas. “I need you for this.”

  I curled my lip in JinYeong’s direction as I pulled out the frying pan; he was looking far too smug about something so small. Had he been annoyed to think that Zero might be going somewhere without him, and taking me instead?

  He saw me; curled his lip right back at me.

  I turned my back on him and got out the steak I’d put in the trolley when we went to the grocery store. “Steak and veg,” I said. “That’s the quickest I can do. ’Bout twenty minutes.”

  I didn’t want to go out again; I had to go to work tomorrow. On the other hand, Zero had the contract on my house, and I was meant to be making myself indispensable until I could get it myself.

  Stable income to be able to eventually purchase my parents’ house, or keeping sweet with the current owner, who might never move out? At any rate, I could make dinner; and at least for tonight, I could stay out late. The boss was going to be angry tomorrow anyway, so I might as well be sleep-deprived as well.

  I put the steak on to cook and a few bits of veg into the microwave ready to hit the button when the steak was almost done. JinYeong sat at the kitchen island as I set the table and watched me unblinkingly with dark, glittering eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was hungry enough to consider eating me, or if it was the bloody steak attracting him, but it was off-putting enough to make me sit down at the table after I’d covered the steaks to leave them to rest in their juices.

  Since I was supposed to be making myself useful, I sat down and passed Zero a knife when he finished doing whatever he was doing to the one he was working on.

  Zero saw the knife hilt; looked up, ice blue eyes pinioning me.

  “Steak’ll be done in ten minutes,” I said, wiggling the knife at him. “They gotta rest.”

  “The blades are sharp,” he said, reaching over to take the point instead of the haft that I offered him.

  I couldn’t help grinning; I mean, I knew they thought of me like a talking dog or something, but I’d have to be pretty dumb to cut myself on one of these blades. Still, it was kinda nice to have someone around the house who didn’t want me to hurt myself. Nice to have anyone around the house, actually.

  I didn’t say anything—just passed him another knife when he was done with that one. Funny. It felt sort of…familiar. Not the knives or anything, just—this. This sitting down and passing things, watching someone work at what they knew well.

  Oh boy. I was getting way too familiar with my three psychos.

  I passed him another knife anyway, and Zero said, narrowly eyeing the edge of it, “You said this was your house first. How long have you lived here?”

  “A fair while,” I said. “Dunno, since I was ten?”

  “The estate agent said the people who lived here last were murdered.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I was in my room.”

  Zero’s eye suddenly focused on me instead of the blade. “That’s not the question I asked,” he said. “How did you escape?”

  “I was hidden,” I said, more slowly. Maybe he hadn’t understood again. “In my room. They didn’t find me.”

  Those cold blue eyes went back to the knife. “They were your parents?”

  “Yeah.” Wait. I knew this line of questioning. He was leading up to find out how long I’d been livi
ng by myself, and—

  “Did you know the dead man?”

  Oh yeah. Zero was Behindkind and I was a human pet. There was no reason for him to care about my mental well-being. And I was a good source of information.

  That would teach me to think he was concerned about me as anything other than an information source.

  “Not much,” I said gloomily. My coffee didn’t taste so good anymore. “He was pretty weird, though.”

  “How was he weird?”

  “Dunno. Never saw him during the day, only at night. And there were always odd smells and lights around the house at night. Actually, maybe it was the house that was weird. Don’t reckon I’d wanna stay in it with those lights and smells, either, ’f’I was him.”

  “What sort of lights and smells?”

  I puffed a breath of air out and got up to check on the steaks. “Weird ones, I said.”

  “Think carefully, Pet,” said Athelas, looking up from his paper as if he hadn’t been sneaking looks at the steak for the last few minutes. “Were they actual lights, or were they pretending to be lights? Were they real smells, or—”

  Zero snicked a blade away. “It won’t know what that means.”

  “Hang on,” I said, startled to find that Athelas’ nonsensical question had struck a chord. “They weren’t real lights. The smells—yeah, don’t reckon they were real, either. You know those phone covers that are clear plastic with little things painted on ’em? It was mostly kinda like that; there was no proper depth to them, so they couldn’t have been real.”

  “What do you mean, there was no depth to them?” Zero’s voice might have been a bit sharper, but his face was as emotionless as usual when I glanced up from the veggies I was distributing between four plates. Beside him, Athelas had the faintest of smiles on his lips.

  “You couldn’t see most of the lights from the side,” I said. Now that I was thinking about it, it was ridiculous that I hadn’t realised it before. “Even if there was a light bobbing around in one of the rooms when you looked at it from the front, it’d be dead dark when you looked at the window from the side. Same room, but no light. Same with the smells. If you weren’t front on to the house, there wasn’t any smell.”