by Alana Melos
“No shot, now,” she said. “What now?”
What now, indeed? I could get a replacement, but not until the morning when I could get my service hooked up to a new phone. For all of our truce, the cops could still be following us. I had to make sure we got away clean so we could stop and think things through. Without the Underground… there was only one place I knew of for sure where that could happen.
“Let’s go visit a friend,” I said. “He’s probably not awake and he won’t be happy to see me, but maybe we’ll luck out. He might even be able to do something about your bracelet, if we’re very lucky.” We certainly could use a little good fortune right now.
I was thinking of Alistair. I munched on one of the energy bars I’d stolen from Gerard’s apartment as I lifted us both into the air. His place wasn’t too far from here as he lived near the outskirts of Imperial City, the Wastelands, where gangs ruled and no one bothered him. I flew us the mile or so and landed us on the sidewalk outside of his brownstone. No lights were on, but considering it was about two or three in the morning and he operated on daylight hours, that wasn’t surprising.
The last time we had talked, we hadn’t parted on good terms. It was his fault. All he had to do was just tell me how to find Regulus and I would have left. Instead, he muttered something about my energies being off and refused to help. I might have threatened him… a couple times. I hadn’t been back since.
“He doesn’t like your father at all,” I said. “I don’t know why, but we’ll keep that on the down low. The first order of business is to make sure we’re not being followed, and then your bracelet.” I blew out my cheeks, “If he’s in a good mood, then we’ll maybe ask him about finding Gerard.”
“Maybe we should just lay low,” Rebekah said. “We haven’t been doing good bouncing from place to place.”
“But they keep finding us,” I said. “We need to make sure there’s nothing on us, that we’re clean of any psychic traces, any time viewers, any other electronic tracking devices… and Alistair can do that. I think I can convince him to do that much, at least.” If I apologize, I added silently. I wrinkled my nose up at that. I couldn’t even remember the last time I apologized for anything. Hell, when I broke my dad’s favorite mug, he asked me ‘What do you say?’. I had looked straight up at him and said, ‘It was fun and I’d do it again.’ He’d just laughed and kissed the top of my head saying that was his girl.
We didn’t apologize in my family. It wasn’t in us.
It didn’t help matters either that I was still irritated at him for not helping me. Regardless of how much I disliked it, it was time to swallow my pride even if I choked on it. This night had gone on way too long and got crappier with every second which passed.
While I pondered that, Rebekah studied me. “What if you can’t?” she asked.
“Then we’ll make another plan of attack,” I said. “There’s other mages out there who can do the same thing. I just like working with Alistair. He’s reliable.”
“If you say so,” she replied, but her tone was dubious at best. She adjusted her hat and looked at the brownstone. “If you’re ready?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied. “Yeah, I am.” It wasn’t going to get any easier the longer we stayed outside just looking. I strode up to the door as if I belonged there and knocked a few times. I hadn’t ever called on him this late before, so he might not hear it… but knowing him, he probably was awake the second we set foot on his property. Something to do with the wards he set around the place, warning him of danger and preventing other mages from spying. At worst, we could probably camp out on his front step, but I was too damn cold and tired of trudging around in the snow which fell in an ever thickening blanket around us.
I waited, then knocked again and was rewarded with a tired sounding voice, “I’ll be right there. Just hold on.” A few moments later, Alistair opened the door and poked his head out. His short black hair was mussed from sleep and it appeared he was wearing a black thick robe and not much else. “Caprice, it’s late,” he said. “This had better be life or death.”
“It is,” I said. “Or at least just as important. We keep getting tracked by the cops and other… things, and we can’t seem to shake them. Can you do a… cleansing spell or something?”
The handsome man rolled his dark eyes. “Come in,” he said and opened the door wider. As I and the Siren crossed the threshold, a chill ran through me. He closed the door behind us, and turned to look at us fully, “Who’s your friend?”
“She’s--” I began to say, but she cut me off.
“I’m Rebekah,” she said, smiling brightly and offering a hand out to him. “It’s good to meet you! I’ve heard a lot about you!”
Alistair wasn’t a fool and her German accented English coupled with the uniform she always wore tipped him off. His brow came down and darkness gathered around him. Usually I would say ‘seemed to gather’, but no… darkness actually gathered around him, dimming the lights in the room. His eyes glowed slightly, a faint green pulse licking around his irises.
“You’re from Axis,” he said, snarling the words. “Get out.”
“No, wait, Alistair,” I said, my voice a hurried rush. “She’s a defector. She’s not with them. She helped me there, helped me to get out!”
I couldn’t sense his thoughts or emotions since he kept his mind warded, but his face was easy to read. He couldn’t hide a secret or lie to save his life, and he was angry, hurt… furious. Even when he’d rebuked me before, it had been more regretful than angry, save when I’d mentioned Regulus. Whatever bad blood was between them stretched beyond just a personal thing. It appeared my mage had a beef with Axis in general and Gerard in specific. Or maybe that was just because he was from Axis and here, thus an easy target to channel his anger. Whatever it was, this wasn’t good.
“I won’t tell you again, Caprice,” he said, his voice dark. “I won’t have any of them in my house.”
“It’s not me,” Rebekah said, her words tumbling over each other. “They hurt us too, there. You don’t know what it’s like. You fall in line, or you die. I didn’t want to do the things I did, but I had to, to survive.” Her blue-green eyes were wide and earnest and the expression on her face was one of pleading. Hell, I almost felt bad for her.
Alistair hesitated, then I saw his lips move as he mumbled some words. His eyes moved back and forth as if watching something, but whatever it was we couldn’t see it. It was a show just for him. Time stretched on, then he heaved a great sigh as the anger drained out of him.
“You’re quite right,” he said, looking troubled. “I… I apologize for acting rashly, Rebekah.” He gave that thin-lipped smile I knew so well and glanced between the two of us. “Looks like you’re freezing, Caprice. Go into the study and warm yourself. I’ll be there shortly after dressing in something more appropriate.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and nodded towards the room for Rebekah’s benefit. We went in there to find a fire blazing cheerily in the fireplace. The room itself spoke of old money. The furniture looked to be antiques, all overstuffed chairs and couches, the kind a person could really sink into. He had a few books scattered here and there on the end tables, but since this was where he received all of his clients, he tended to keep this place neat. His library, on the other hand, was a mess the few times I saw it, yet he seemed to know where everything was.
I sat down heavily in the chair closest to the fire and groaned, letting the heat run through me. I’d been shutting out how cold I was but now that I was warming, my fingers and toes tingled as feeling came back to them. I was not dressed well for a blizzard, but then I hadn’t expected to run throughout the entire city tonight either.
Rebekah looked comfortable enough in her uniform and she took a seat close to me, setting her cap, goggles, and mask aside. “He seems nice,” she said. “Generous, letting us come in.”
“He either needs money or wants sex,” I said bluntly. “We’re bringing him business.” I gla
nced around, “I know he tries to keep it to daytime hours, but business like his can show up on his doorstep at any hour. I’m sure he’s ready for it.”
“Still, it was nice,” she said with a bright smile. “But, er, what did you mean about…” She trailed off as Alistair came back in, probably having mojoed his clothes. Now, he was dressed in a pair of black slacks and a soft looking white shirt. I almost always saw him in black and white, with little variation. His ebony hair had been combed and wrestled into something which looked presentable, but he still had slippers on his feet.
He sat down opposite of us. “Let me study you for a moment,” he said, “and then we’ll ascertain what’s needed, and how much.”
I smiled at him. I didn’t have much cash on me at the moment, and my bank accounts weren’t exactly overflowing with bounty. More than likely, I’d work it off with sex. I was good with that. After such a strange, long night, something comfortable and familiar and… dare I say… safe sounded good to me. It would help to restore my equilibrium after Adira and Rory and….
My face spasmed for a moment before I schooled it back to pleasant neutralness. It hurt. I hurt over losing him. This wasn’t right, or normal. I didn’t think it was Adira’s blood… too much, at least. It affected how I felt for her, yes, but it shouldn’t have given me her emotions or feelings or anything like that. It didn’t work that way. And while I did hurt for Adira for her loss, and the pack’s loss, this hurt was more than that, and it sprang from within.
I’d had feelings for the big wolf, friendly feelings. That… that wasn’t normal. Not for me. Not for any sociopath. People were things. They were there to be used. Oh, us antisocial personality disorder people could fake feelings pretty well--and I could--and we got angry when someone messed with our stuff, which included people, but actual feelings? Actual empathy? Impossible. What was happening to me was impossible, straight out. You couldn’t cure a sociopath. You couldn’t make them feel--mind control aside--true emotions for other people other than lust, desire, hate, envy… and even those, at times, were pale shades of what a normal person would feel. Other times, especially with anger, it was a maelstrom of emotion, intense and raw, with no restraint whatsoever. It often depended on the type of psychopath and what other disorders they had. The one thing uniting us all? No empathy. No compassion.
While I contemplated that, Alistair studied the both of us, steepling his fingers and staring over them. Rebekah shifted a few times, perhaps uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but she stayed silent. The only noise in the large room was the crackling fire. When he stirred, he shook his head, his dark locks bouncing slightly with the motion.
“I don’t see anything which would lead people to you,” he said. “So you must have shaken it, if anything was there.”
“There was a tracker from the ICPD,” I said, “and yeah, we found it and smashed it.”
“That answers that,” he said. “But your energies… your aura… so unbalanced. More than last time. And you….” He swiveled to include Rebekah in his look as he lowered his hands, “Your energies are blocked.”
“That would be the second thing we need help with,” I said, nodding to her.
“Uhm, yes, right,” she said as she stood up and crossed over to Alistair. Since there wasn’t a chair next to him, she knelt and showed him the bracelet Gerard had given her. “This is a blocker. From Axis Earth. It, uhm, blocks access to super powers… or meta powers… or extra energy… I don’t know how it works, just that it is!”
Alistair took her wrist in his hands as she stared up at him, searching his face. He traced his fingers over the bracelet, and turned it this way and that, studying it intently. He didn’t seem to see her looking at him while he was going over the problem.
“Interesting,” he said. “I haven’t seen this before. It’s not magical, so in theory it should be easy to take off, but….” He mumbled a few words, then shook his head. “It redirects energy. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It’s not so much an inhibitor as it is… as it is a disperser. It scatters the energies, not letting them come into focus.”
“So you can’t get it off?” Rebekah asked, that hopeful tone of her voice fading.
“I don’t think so, no,” he said. “You could try… see, that wouldn’t work either. It disperses the energies up to about six inches or so away. I could see that much… so even getting someone to reshape your hand to slip it off that way wouldn’t work.”
“Damn,” I swore. “We have to have the key then. He’s got to have it on him.”
“Him? Him who?” Alistair asked, glancing up from Rebekah to me.
I watched his fingers continue to trace the bracelet and the skin around it. Rebekah continued to look up at him. “Gerard,” I said. “Regulus. He put it on her.”
Alistair’s handsome face turned hard in a heartbeat and he sneered, “Neither of you should run with him. He’s dangerous.”
“What did he ever do to you?” I asked, curiosity eating at me.
“He’s from Axis, isn’t that enough?” he said, hmphing at the question.
“So am I,” Rebekah said softly. “And you seem OK with me.”
His fingers stopped moving over the bracelet and he withdrew his hand. “So you are,” he said, the sneer fading into a troubled expression. “He’s a liar and a manipulator, only out for himself. He’s proven that time and time again. He does nothing without furthering a goal for himself… and he’s betrayed people he worked with before, turned them over to Axis infiltrators.”
“If you know that, they must have escaped,” I pointed out. “Couldn’t have been that big of a threat.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Alistair replied. “But why take the chance?”
The Siren sighed heavily and stood up. “He’s my father,” she said, being blunt and honest about it. Her delicate features turned sour for a moment, then she shook her head, the blond spikes of her hair bobbing as she spoke quickly, emphasizing her words with gestures. “But I believe in him. He’s not all bad. I’ve seen it. He had to have a reason for this. I’ve thought it over.”
He wanted to take you, I thought to myself, but didn’t dare say aloud. Alistair’s motions and words felt cagey to me. He would take anything Gerard had done as a personal slight against himself. I had no way to back up that knowledge, but it felt right. He was simply too adamant about the man, no matter how long ago his betrayals, or how long ago his association with the Reich had been severed.
“He wanted to use you,” Alistair said, cutting close to the truth. “He wanted to use you for his own purposes, and nothing else. He…” The mage stopped. Agitation rolled over his face and he raked a hand through his short hair. When he spoke next, the frustration thickened his voice, “I saw in your aura your good heart, even though you’ve done terrible things. You, I can forgive. I see that you want to be better, to make a new… if criminal… life for yourself. The last time I read him….” He shuddered as he shook his head vehemently.
“He’s not a nice guy, Rebekah,” I added in. “I said that before, and I’ll say it again.”
“You work with him,” she shot back.
“I’m not a nice girl,” I said with a shrug. “Bad people hang with other bad people.”
“He’s not all that way,” she argued. “I refuse to believe it. I’ve seen it. He can be gentle and caring. He’s not… he’s not that way.”
“Lady doth protest too much,” I muttered under my breath. Even I wouldn’t defend him. He was as sick as I was, maybe more, but I liked that. I liked the no-holds-barred fight we had going on between ourselves. It made me sharper, better. But for what she wanted, there was no way, none.
“He’s evil,” Alistair said. “And I don’t say that about many people, not even you, Caprice.” He flicked a glance to me and frowned. It was there and gone so fast I wasn’t sure I saw it. “There’s… reasons why I work with you, and most of what you ask isn’t onerous. And you help me.” I shrugged. All I did was pay for
what he did for me. It didn’t matter if I paid for it by satisfying him sexually. Right now, that was definitely the cheaper option. “He’s lecherous and greedy, arrogant, sadistic, and a manipulator.”
I narrowed my eyes at Alistair. “You’ve worked with him in the past, haven’t you? He betrayed you.”
Alistair nodded, though I could see from the tenseness in his posture he didn’t want to. “He did, I and others,” he spat out. “He’s got no loyalties to anyone.” The mage hesitated as if he was going to say more, but Rebekah filled in the silence before he could.
“That was in the past,” she said. “People change.”
I opened my mouth to rebuke the fact that psychopaths don’t change… then stopped. I was changing, and I shouldn’t be. Once again, I fell into silence, frowning at the heavy thoughts which plagued me.
“He won’t,” Alistair said, keeping his voice soft.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. She held out her wrist, “We still need him to get this off… or at least to find out where the key is. Surely, you’ll help me if you won’t him?”
“Of course I will,” he said, looking and sounding properly offended like any British lord might. “It’s just a matter of… wait, he needs my help?”
“He’s gone,” I said, trying to rouse myself out of my broodiness. “Kidnapped, I think. Maybe pinched by the cops or the feds, but I don’t think so. I think it might be an old enemy.”
“He’s got a lot of them,” Alistair agreed.
“We still need to find him, to get the key,” Rebekah said. “It’s not for him, it’s for me. Would you help?” She looked at him with those earnest blue-green eyes, wide and hopeful. Alistair stared back at her. While he controlled himself very well, I saw a couple of different emotions warring over his handsome face, though they came and went so quickly I didn’t have a chance to identify them. I wished I could read his mind, but he kept it protected with his magic.
