Redlisted

by Sara Beaman

  “They have a truck. They can leave if they want to. My guess is they won’t.”

  So what now?

  “We wait.”

  I nod and try to stifle a yawn.

  “Go get some rest,” Adam says.

  I’d rather not...

  “You don’t have to be alone. You can sleep on one of the cots. Or you can sleep in here, on the couch.”

  What about you?

  “Either way I won’t sleep. I don’t sleep.”

  I look into the room with the two cots.

  “Go ahead. You can leave the door open if you want.”

  I nod, stand, and retreat into the guest room. I collapse onto the rickety cot, pull my knees to my chest, and fall asleep on top of the blankets with my t-shirt and jeans on.

  20

  A Dream of Paperwork

  {Adam}

  I excused myself from the party before the next course came out. I had to get away from Mirabel; listening to her thoughts was starting to fray the thin threads that tethered me to sanity. I hid in my room, sitting alone on the lounge, too nervous to sleep.

  It was easy for me to believe that Julian was a murderer. It’s what I had wanted to believe in the first place, before I allowed him to convince me otherwise, before I got complacent about staying at the estate and started not to care.

  But Mirabel frightened me much more than Julian. Why did she have to be the only one who was offering me a chance to escape?

  ///

  Less than an hour after fleeing the party, I heard a knock on the door to my suite. I went to the door and opened it. It was Haruko.

  “Can I come in?” she asked. “I’ve got some paperwork you need to fill out.” She was carrying a portfolio under her armpit, a pen in one of her hands.

  “Sure,” I said, stepping aside. “Paperwork?”

  “We need to fill out your registry,” she said. “It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  I shut the door behind her, led her into the office and offered her the desk chair. She sat down and opened the portfolio, revealing pages worth of official-looking documents. She skipped through several, flipping them right side down onto the left side of the folder.

  I glanced over her shoulder. “What’s all this?”

  “All revenants in the United States are listed in a registry kept by the Watchers of the Americas,” she said. “This is going to be your entry. Julian and I already filled out most of it.” She clicked the end of her pen. “I just need to ask you a few questions, and then you’ll sign a few things, and that’s that.”

  I nodded.

  “Date of birth?”

  “April thirteenth, nineteen fifty-four.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Rochester, New York.”

  “Date of death?”

  “Uh...” I furrowed my eyebrows. “Didn’t Julian tell you?”

  “I want to confirm what he has written down.”

  “It was during the first week of June, this year. I don’t know what day exactly.”

  “I’m sure what we have is close enough,” she said. “Cause of death?”

  I scratched the back of my head. “Yeah, I, uh... I don’t remember.”

  She frowned.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  “No, I can look up the coroner’s report later.” She traced a line down the sheet with her fingers. “Marital status?”

  I sighed through my nose. “Single.”

  “Never divorced or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Any kids?”

  “No, none.”

  “Do you have any surviving family members?”

  “Just my brother...”

  “What’s his name?”

  I frowned. Why did she need to know that? “Jason Fletcher.”

  “Was he the executor of your estate?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Haruko turned, a crease forming between her eyebrows. She cocked her head to the side. “Didn’t you have a will or anything?”

  “Well, I did...” I looked up at the ceiling, then down at my feet. “My fiancée was supposed to be the executor.”

  “God. I’m sorry. I should have gathered that from what Julian said.” She puffed air through her lips. “Well... let’s see. Can you think of anyone else who might try to get in touch with you?”

  “Everyone thinks I’m dead,” I said.

  “Have you tried to get in touch with anyone?”

  My mouth twitched. I suspected that Aya knew about the phone call I’d made to Elena. She could have told Julian about it, which meant Haruko could know as well...

  “Adam, look, I’m not going to get you in trouble.”

  “Yeah, I did. Once.”

  “Were you successful?”

  “Yes.”

  She grimaced. “All right.”

  “That’s a problem, isn’t it?” I asked. “For the Consensus or whatever?”

  “Technically...” She trailed off. “I mean, did you even know it was a violation when you did it?”

  “No. I had no idea.”

  “All right. I’m not going to write anything down. Whoever it is, though, it would be best if you don’t try to call them again. For their sake more than yours.”

  I frowned. What did she mean by that? I felt for stray thoughts, but her mind was like a blank slate.

  She turned the page. “All right. We’ve already filled out your lineage, so all that’s left is your signature,” she said, handing me the pen and pushing away from the table. “Print your name by the X, last first middle, then sign and date below.”

  I hunched over the document and printed my name, Fletcher Adam Frederick, on the top line.

  “Hold on,” she said. “You’re not changing your name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Weren’t you planning to change your last name?”

  I almost laughed. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Almost everyone does. We each take our benefactor’s surname to signify our inclusion in their branch of the family.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Are you sure? It’s not just symbolic, you know. It serves a practical purpose,” she said. “It’ll make it a lot easier for us to set up a new identity for you, in case you ever want to have a credit card again, or an apartment, or a job...”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She closed the portfolio. Leaving it on the desk, she walked into the sitting room and perched on the arm of the lounge. I watched her from the doorway, my arms folded across my chest.

  “Mind if I ask you a personal question?” she asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why won’t you eat?”

  “You mean food? Or...”

  “Let’s start with blood. You wouldn’t go into the seraglio.”

  I looked away, uncomfortable. “I... I’m afraid I won’t be able to control myself, and I’ll hurt someone.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  She shrugged.

  I found myself continuing, not knowing the words until they escaped my lips. “It’s just that... I hate the idea of it. It seems so... brutal, so...”

  She nodded thoughtfully and didn’t comment.

  “I guess I want to pretend I’m still human,” I said. It was close to the truth without being true. It was too clean, too pat, too trite.

  “Do you?” she asked. “I mean, it seems that if you did, you’d want to eat food and drink wine and pretend everything was normal.”

  “Well...” I chewed on my lower lip. “I don’t know.”

  An awkward silence fell over the room.

  “So what do you do here?” she asked, maybe just to fill the space. “How do you spend your nights?”

  Why was she asking so many questions? I wouldn’t have answered if not for the genuine concern in her voice—well, that and the fact that I liked looking at he
r and I wanted her to stay.

  “I don’t do much of anything,” I said, trying not to sound melodramatic.

  “Do you have any interests?”

  Drinking? Girls? Recreational drugs? “I didn’t have time for hobbies before. Not with my job and everything.”

  “Yeah, but... isn’t there anything you enjoy doing?”

  “What do you mean?” The question seemed almost laughable. “What about being dead would I enjoy?”

  “You’re in a beautiful mansion full of art and books. The grounds are incredible,” she said, standing. “If you asked for anything, I’m positive Julian and Aya would get it for you. And I mean anything.”

  This gave me pause. What would I ask for?

  “Isn’t there anything that you want?” she asked, approaching me.

  I couldn’t think of anything except Elena, but that was a dangerous idea, and one I certainly couldn’t tell Haruko about, so I merely shrugged.

  “Everyone wants something,” she insisted, her voice soft.

  I looked up into her dark eyes. She had an expression on her face that I couldn’t decipher. Perhaps it was pity, or perhaps it was concern, or perhaps it was simple curiosity.

  “I’m sick of what I want hurting other people,” I blurted out. It was the truth, and I immediately wanted to apologize for it. I looked away again, but Haruko put a hand on my cheek and guided my eyes back to hers.

  “You’re way too hard on yourself,” she said. “It’s like you’re atoning for something.”

  “I probably killed my fiancée,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from wavering. “You know that?”

  Her hand moved to my chest. “Yeah, well, I’ve killed more people than I can count on my fingers. And my toes. On purpose.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  She smiled crookedly. “I refuse to believe you’re all that bad.”

  I smiled weakly.

  “We all have to have something that keeps us going, Adam,” she continued in a low mumble. “A reason to live. Everyone deserves that.”

  Looking down at her hand on my chest, the shallow space between her breasts, I decided to believe she was right.

  She hooked a finger into my tie and began to pull it loose. My mind raced—how was this going to work, physically?—but it wasn’t a question I wanted to ask. She pressed her chest against my solar plexus, pressed her stomach to my hips, looked down with a grin as my question answered itself.

  I grabbed her hips and pulled her to the couch, pulled her down on top of me, put my hands in her hair and pulled her face to mine, kissing her on the mouth. Her tongue was wet but cold. Her hands went to the hem of her tank top, arms crossed, and then it was over her head and gone, a utilitarian black sports bra underneath but it was perfect, it fit her perfectly. My hands went to the front closure and then it was gone too. She shrugged it off her shoulders.

  “You’re getting ahead of me,” she said, laughing, but I barely heard her. My mind was full of her perfect skin, dark almond, soft and cold. She fumbled with the buttons of my suit shirt as my hands traveled across her skin, fingertips over her collarbones, her shoulders, her little breasts, her stomach. Her thighs gripped my waist and she rocked her hips against mine just once. I couldn’t stand to wait any longer. I wanted to tear her jeans off.

  My shirt came off first, then my belt, then my pants and boxers. In the end, she took the jeans off herself, standing as I sat watching. I leaned forward, kissed her stomach, pulled her underwear down to her knees. It fell to the floor. She stood over me then, just for a moment, naked, another inscrutable expression on her face—contentment, or nostalgia, or perhaps even affection—framed by the soft cascade of her black hair.

  21

  Eternity Under the Stars

  {Kate}

  I wake up with a start, aroused to the point of discomfort. I should not—should not—have seen what I just saw. But I did see it, and feel it, and... and now I feel jealous of Haruko, jealous it was her and not me.

  I want to slap myself. That was what? Twenty years ago?

  God! Why do I care how long ago it was? I don’t want to have sex with him. I don’t!

  I sit up and look around. Aya is sleeping on the other cot, and Adam must be sitting up in the other room; light comes in through the open door. I need to calm down before I go out and see him. And I need to pray that he can’t already hear what I’m thinking through these thin walls.

  I’m kind of surprised that they can have sex like normal people. I’d assumed that feeding was all they got in that regard, judging from how Adam seemed so miserable all the time. Could he make a human girl pregnant? Oh, weird. Can female revenants get pregnant?

  I shove my hands into my eyes. No. No no no. These are not things I need to consider.

  Deep breaths.

  I put my feet on the floor and sit alone on the cot for minutes before I walk into the sitting room, thinking of England, of giant squids, of anything other than cold smooth naked skin and...

  “Kate? It’s the middle of the day. What are you doing awake?”

  Can’t sleep.

  “Weren’t you just sleeping?”

  Yes, well. I woke up.

  I recall something else from the dream. He was born in 1954? Oh, God. He’s old enough to be my father.

  “This matters why?”

  No. No reason. Nothing.

  I’ll be damned if I don’t see the tiniest smile hit his lips, one of deep amusement and satisfaction. He knows. I know he knows.

  He forces a straight face and shrugs. “I’ve been dead since nineteen ninety two,” he offers.

  What was happening to me in 1992, I wonder? The passport said I was born in 1980, so I was in elementary school, I guess. Shit. I’m thirty years old?

  “Kate, are you feeling all right?”

  I slump down on the couch and cross my arms over my chest. I’m fine.

  And there’s the little smile again. I look away and try not to blush.

  Adam, I think, knowing it’s not a great idea, so, you and Haruko...

  “Yes?”

  I make a face. You’re not still together, are you?

  “No. Of course not.”

  But you were together at some point.

  “’Together’ is perhaps too strong a word.”

  I feel my cheeks flush. God damn it! I’m so transparent.

  “Would you prefer we talk about something else?” he asks.

  Yes. I shove the heels of my hands against the tops of my thighs. I’m sorry I asked. I’m being rude.

  “Don’t be sorry. Ask me whatever you want.” That smile again. “You’re not going to embarrass me, Kate.”

  Never mind. Let’s just... I don’t know, let’s recover one of my memories or something.

  “I can’t,” he says, the smile fading. “I gave Tara a lot of my blood. When I get much lower than this, I get... detached, and I start making poor decisions. Then I start to lose track of things as they happen, and... anyway, it’s a bad idea.”

  Oh.

  “I’m sorry,” he says with genuine regret. “As soon as we get on the road again—“

  No, it’s fine. I feel fine.

  He says nothing.

  Let’s talk about something else, I suggest.

  “Such as?”

  I don’t know. Tell me a story or something.

  He laughs. “All right. Do you care about what?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Let’s see...” He looks into the darkness of the guest room and nods slightly to himself. “Let me tell you a story about something important, in that case. Something you might want to know in the future.”

  I nod.

  “The story of Julian and Mirabel Radcliffe,” he says, and he takes a deep breath.

  “It was the year seventeen sixty-nine.

  “Mnemosyne was holding Julian prisoner in her enclave, deep in some Old World forest. This wasn’t really abnormal—the two were constantly at
odds. But one night, after a particularly heated argument, she threatened to remove his heart, eat it, and leave his entrails for the buzzards. He knew she was not joking or exaggerating. She’s not known for her sense of humor.

  “But a telepath named Lucien, Julian’s mentor, overheard Mnemosyne’s threats, and he decided to go against her. Lucien was Julian’s brother, so to speak, and they’d known each other for decades. Mnemosyne had put him in charge of Julian’s education—back then she never bothered to do anything like that for herself.

  “Lucien pulled Julian aside and told him a way to escape from the enclave and from there to a particular port in London. He drew him a rough map and quickly dictated traveling instructions. We only need to hear things once, you see. Children of Mnemosyne never forget anything.

  “Julian escaped with nothing. Just like we’re doing now, he had to move from shelter to shelter, hiding during daylight hours and traveling only at night. He eventually managed to make it to London, where he found the port Lucien spoke of.

  “He hid on a cargo ship headed for New York City. He couldn’t risk feeding en route without revealing himself to the crew, so by the time he arrived in the New World, he had a short-term memory span of about two to three minutes. That’s what happens to our family when we don’t eat.”

  Acute anterograde amnesia, I think, remembering Julian’s words.

  Adam nods. “Exactly.

  “At that time New York had already been claimed by the Wardens. They controlled most of the port cities in the New World, and they combed them regularly for revenants from other houses. They didn’t want anyone else setting up settlements.”

  Weren’t there any revenants in the Americas before the Europeans invaded?

  “No, none. From what I understand, and I don’t know much about the topic, revenants first occurred in ancient Mesopotamia.”

  Sorry. Go on.

  “Where was I? –That’s right. The Wardens in New York found Julian wandering the streets, totally disoriented. They captured him, figured out who he was, and decided to use him as a hostage, or as leverage against Mnemosyne however they could.

  “The revenant that captured him was named Desmond Schuster. The leader of the Wardens in New York.”