Redlisted

by Sara Beaman

  Is Aya short for Mariah?

  Just as the waitress brings me my coffee, Adam returns and switches places with Aya. He’s carrying the box with the head.

  Are you honestly afraid she’ll take it?

  He doesn’t reply. “What do you want to eat?”

  Waffles.

  “You should have some protein too.”

  Waffles and bacon, then.

  “One order of waffles and a side of bacon,” he says to the waitress. “Come on. Let’s move to a table. I’ll tell you what I can while she’s distracted. She’s got to be busy; she hasn’t eaten anything in days.”

  I nod and follow him to a booth. We sit down across from each other.

  “I’ll try to tell you what you need to know as quickly as I can,” he says. “How much did you see? Of my memories, that is?”

  Just until you gave Julian amnesia and told him you were his son.

  “Ah. Okay.” He nods. “I’ll start there.

  “Honestly, if it wasn’t for Aya, I don’t know if I’d have survived the night. Julian was on the edge of violence. He didn’t remember meeting me. He didn’t remember initiating me. He’d lost another year. But Aya explained what had happened, and he backed off.

  “After that he got very distant. Over the next few days I barely saw him at all, and when I did he didn’t acknowledge me.

  “I couldn’t stay at the estate. I didn’t feel safe. So when Mirabel sent the cab for me, like she promised, I took it into Atlanta. But I didn’t go to SpiraCom. I opened the door at a red light downtown, and I ran.

  “Then I called Haruko. I figured if she used me for the card, I’d use her for shelter. I didn’t explain what had happened. I just told her I couldn’t stay in Savannah any more. She let me stay with her for a few months. I think she thought I was in love with her.

  “Then, a few months later, Desmond came into town. She asked me to stay in a hotel for a few days, said she’d pay for the room. She wanted to get me out of the way while he was there. I wasn’t stupid enough not to know what that meant. They were an item. Though not any more, not the last I checked.

  “I figured I couldn’t go back to Haruko’s place after that, but I didn’t have any money. She’d made me up some fake documentation, at least, but that was all I had—a new name, a new social security number, and a new drivers’ license. I wasn’t sure how long she’d be willing to pay to put me up, either.

  “But then a revenant showed up at the hotel. Another Mnemonic, like me. One of Mnemosyne’s old lieutenants; I recognized him from Julian’s memory. He told me to take him up to my room. You know the way they ask for things. So I did, although I didn’t want to.

  “When we got to the room, he gave me a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills. One like you’d see in the movies. Of course, it came with terms attached.

  “The first was that I submit myself to a teacher to be trained in Mnemonic manifestations, which... well, it’s not important right now.

  “The second was that I watch Julian.”

  Watch him for what?

  “Signs of... personality distortion.”

  Why couldn’t one of them do it?

  “None of them can use their manifestations to see him, except when he has his wards down, which is never. And he would never offer to entertain them at his estate or anything. I’m the only one he trusts at all.”

  I nod.

  “I visited Julian’s estate maybe once a month for years. Eventually he started talking to me again, and, slowly, we became friends.” He sighs. “And that’s what makes this all so difficult. I respect him. I know that none of this is his fault. It’s Mnemosyne’s fault. None of this would have happened if not for her.

  “In any case, I couldn’t avoid the topic of what happened in 1992 forever. When he asked, I told him the truth. I thought it would be easier than lying. I told him everything, down to why I had taken away the memories. I thought he’d understand. I thought he’d be able to handle it.

  “I was naïve.

  “He fought with himself for a long time over it. Fifteen years. He knew all he had to do to see those memories for himself was to force me to give him my blood. I knew it, too, but I thought it would be all right. That was the training was for, you see—to resist compulsion.

  “But he’s so fucking subtle. He doesn’t demand things. He makes you think they’re reasonable. He makes the most innocuous, polite requests, and before you know it...

  “Well. The training failed. He got his memories back.

  “At first it didn’t seem to matter. He seemed like himself. Sane enough. But I’d seen him at his worst; I knew what could happen. I couldn’t leave Mnemosyne with him.

  “So I went to Haruko. I figured she and Desmond were planning on abducting Mnemosyne, and I was right.”

  Wait, but—why do you care what happens to her?

  “Mnemosyne is the only one of us who has a chance in hell of defeating Mirabel.”

  I frown. Well, all right... So you were the ones who stole Mnemosyne from Julian?

  “And brought her to the Warden holding facility in Red Hook. But how her head got stolen, and how Mirabel got ahold of it, I have no idea.”

  I nod slowly, trying to re-establish my ideas about this mission, about everything.

  There’s still one thing I don’t understand. Why did you bring Aya with you to SpiraCom to get the head back?

  “Honestly, we needed her. We needed someone who could make themselves look like one of Mirabel’s workers so we could pass through the retinal scans.” He shrugs. “Maybe it was foolish.”

  Well, yeah. It seems like it backfired.

  “I’m not a secret agent, Kate. I’m not some trained operative. I frequently don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  I’m sorry. You’re right.

  “It’s okay. Who knows?” he says with a weak smile. “Everything could still turn out all right.”

  When I’m finished eating, we go back out to the car. Aya is waiting for us in the back seat, staring dead ahead. Adam pops the trunk and puts the head inside, then gets in the driver’s seat.

  The next few hours are excruciating. Aya says nothing, and neither does Adam. It’s impossible to tell whether or not she heard us; her blank look seems fairly typical for her, and she’s never been very talkative around me, but I can’t help but worry.

  I try my best to stay calm and think about what will happen after we bring Desmond the head. And there will be an after. Everyone will survive and it will be fine and Adam has no reason to worry about anything.

  I guess I’ll need to stay with him after this is all over. I’m beginning to think that won’t be so bad. What will it be like? I mean, I kissed him. Are we a couple now? I don’t know how these things are supposed to work. Why don’t I know how these things work? It’s not like I’m stupid or socially inept. I remember stuff, just not about myself.

  Shit. Have I ever had a boyfriend before? I can’t remember. Oh God. Am I a virgin?

  No. I would know if I was.

  Would I?

  A hoarse gasping sound comes from the back seat.

  I crane my neck and look back. Haruko’s eyes are open. She’s sitting up, clutching her forehead.

  “Where are we?” she demands. “What the hell happened?”

  “We’re three hours from Red Hook,” Adam says. “You were attacked. Gabriel beat you unconscious.”

  “He what?!”

  “He beat you unconscious,” Adam says in the exact same tone of voice.

  “Fuck. I must have been drunk.”

  “Yeah,” Adam says. “Thanks for that.”

  I snort. Hypocrite.

  “But we’re close now. So things are fine. Right?”

  “Sure,” Adam says.

  “My head hurts like a bitch.”

  “There’s ibuprofen in the trunk. Should we pull over?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Let’s keep going.”

  We arrive in the town of Red H
ook around six in the morning, eight hours after leaving Erie. Adam pulls into the parking lot of a public library, puts the car in neutral and pulls on the parking brake.

  “So,” he says. “Here we are. Now where is this enclave?”

  “It’s east-northeast of here,” Haruko says. “It’s on the edge of a wildlife preserve called the Drowned Lands.”

  “Sounds cheerful.”

  “I can drive,” she offers, unsnapping her seat belt.

  “Are you up to it?”

  “It’s not far. Come on.”

  The two of them switch places, and Haruko pulls back on to the road. We drive east, passing through a tiny, deserted town, then head north down a series of two-lane country roads with four-digit names. In any other situation, the landscape might be really beautiful. The autumn leaves might be stunning in the sunlight, and the rolling hills could be idyllic, but it’s dark, and I’m anxious, and I keep thinking I see malicious forms lurking behind the trees.

  Soon Haruko turns on the car’s high beams and slows to a crawl. We pass through a clearing in the trees, beyond which the forest seems denser and darker. The weight of night here is substantial, almost palpable. It’s difficult to make out anything more than a few yards away.

  I spot a tiny black placard, nearly obscured by brush, emblazoned with three red circles, perimeters intersecting to form a triangle with curved edges. Next to the placard is a gravel driveway leading into a swamp. We turn, our tires grinding against the rocks and pebbles.

  We arrive at a well-kept cabin. At least, my first impression is that it’s a cabin, but as we draw closer I change my mind. It’s a little too large, the architecture a little too elaborate. The tiled roof is cross-gabled several times, giving the building a silhouette similar to that of a pagoda.

  “That’s odd,” Haruko says. “Lots of people here, but no lights on.”

  “Lots of people?” Adam asks.

  “Yeah, like... wow, maybe forty or so.”

  She cuts off the headlights.

  “Aya,” she says, “could you look inside the house?”

  Aya nods. She closes her eyes, concentrates.

  “Haruko...” Adam says.

  Aya’s eyes open.

  “Turn the car around,” she says. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The cabin is full of ghouls.”

  “The bodies from DC...” Adam mumbles.

  Haruko turns the headlights back on and scrambles to put the car in reverse. She pulls backward at an angle, then turns and puts on the gas. The wheels spin on the concrete; the car lurches forward.

  A bright light flares ahead of us, then separates into two smaller lights: headlights. The headlights of a massive tractor-trailer hurtling down the driveway right in our direction.

  Haruko swerves, sending us off the side of the driveway and into a ditch. She keeps her foot on the gas pedal; the back tires spin, the engine revs. The car doesn’t move.

  The tractor trailer stops.

  Haruko presses the gas pedal against the floor. The engine screeches. “Fuck. Fuck. What do we do?” she says.

  Adam opens his door and climbs out. “Oh God. Haruko, the trunk!” He takes out his pistol from under his jacket and fires at something I can’t see. “Haruko, open the trunk!”

  Aya closes her eyes and then suddenly is no longer. Her car door opens on its own. Two more gunshots. Haruko grabs the keys and jumps out of the car.

  What do I do? What can I do?

  “Stay in the car!” Adam yells. More gunshots. The trunk pops open. I lock the doors and climb into the back seat, looking out the back window. Ten or so shadowy figures are stumbling toward the car. More still are piling out of the back of the tractor trailer.

  Adam rips into his hand with his teeth, then flings blood at the oncoming crowd. They all fall to the ground.

  Are they dead?

  “All right,” Adam says. “That’ll buy us a minute...”

  “Can we get the car out?” Aya says from nowhere.

  “It’ll take too long,” Adam says. “We need to hide...”

  “There’s a storage shed around the side of the cabin,” Haruko says. “Grab some ammunition and let’s go.”

  I unlock a back door and climb out. My shoes sink into the mud.

  Adam hands the black box to me. “Haruko, take her. I’ll be there in a second.”

  Haruko nods and starts off into the trees.

  I hesitate. Adam—

  “Go. There’s no time.”

  I turn and follow Haruko, adrenaline burning in my chest. She’s running too fast; I can barely keep up. I struggle to keep her in my sight as we get further and further away from the tractor trailer and its headlights. I turn back, looking for Adam, but I can’t see a thing.

  We reach the shed. I stumble inside, panting and wheezing. Haruko takes out her phone and turns it on; the screen provides enough light for me to see her face.

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” she mumbles.

  “I can’t believe you,” Aya’s voice says from behind us. I turn around just in time to see her become visible once more. “You betrayed me. You betrayed Julian. After all he’s done for you...”

  Shit. She must have heard Adam’s story in the diner after all.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You were the one who stole Mnemosyne from Julian! You stole that card from Adam to get to the sepulcher, and then—“

  “Whatever. Aya, we don’t have time for this.”

  “And still he turned against us. He betrayed Julian. For you. I can’t believe it.”

  “It didn’t have anything to do with me,” Haruko mutters. “We didn’t have a choice. Julian can’t be trusted with it any longer—“

  “Obviously neither can Desmond! He didn’t lose the head. How could he lose it? No one can get into the compound without his permission. He gave it to Mirabel.”

  “What? No. That’s absurd. It was stolen.”

  I hear leaves rustling outside. I look out the door. Adam is walking toward us, carrying the limp body of a ghoul over his shoulder. Haruko steps inside to allow him to drag the body into our cramped hiding space.

  From the way the ghoul is dressed, he looks like he might have been a store clerk or maybe a waiter at a cheap restaurant. He’s young, with short red hair and freckled skin that’s taken on a greenish tinge. He doesn’t smell like a dead body, but his muscles look stiff.

  “What are you doing with that?” Haruko asks.

  “When I used the blood to knock one of them out, I knocked all of them out. That’s not normal,” he says. “I think they’re all... networked, sort of, through some psychic link to Mirabel.”

  “Great,” Haruko says. “Problem solved, then. While they’re out, we’ll just need to get inside the house, take the elevator to the basement complex, get Desmond, take a car from one of the garages and get out of here. The real enclave is underground. The ghouls couldn’t have gotten in.”

  Adam shakes his head. “We won’t have enough time for all that. This one woke up on the way over. Mirabel must have someone with her to wake her up.”

  Haruko looks down at the ghoul. “Then why did you bring it back with you?”

  “I want you to remove Aya’s seal so she can fry their circuits. Not just a whiteout—the real thing, complete sensory overload,” Adam says. “Mirabel won’t recover so quickly from that. It could buy us a good fifteen minutes.“

  “I won’t do it,” Aya says. “Not after what you did...”

  Haruko laughs and shakes her head.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, I just... I finally get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “You’re in love with him.”

  “With Adam? Don’t be ridiculous—“

  “No, of course not with Adam,” Haruko says. “With Julian.”

  Aya sputters, shakes her head, then turns away, speechless.

  �
�Great. Thanks for the help,” Adam says to Haruko.

  “We don’t need her,” Haruko says. “You can just keep putting them to sleep until we can get to the compound entrance.”

  The ghoul stirs, its limbs twitching. Adam places his hand against its forehead; it falls still again.

  “Which is where?” he asks.

  “Inside the house.”

  “There’s only one?”

  “Yeah. There are a bunch of exits, but only one entrance.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think it’ll work. This seems to be getting less and less effective, and I’m running out of bullets.”

  “I don’t care,” Aya cuts in.

  “Aya, listen to me,” Adam says, lowering his voice. “Do you want Mirabel to take the head back?”

  “It’s not my problem anymore.”

  “Don’t be foolish. What do you think will happen to Julian if she does?”

  Aya opens her mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.

  Adam rolls the ghoul onto its back and aims the gun at its heart.

  “Wait,” Aya says. “If Haruko will unseal me, I’ll help you. I’ll do what you want.”

  Adam and Haruko exchange looks.

  “All right,” Haruko says. “Give me your hands.”

  Aya places both of her tiny hands inside both of Haruko’s, looking up at the taller woman with disgust. The Warden closes her eyes; soon Aya does the same, her expression slowly shifting from anger to agony. Rivulets of blood stream from the corners of her eyes, ears, and mouth. She cries out, tries to retract her hands, but Haruko’s grip on her tightens.

  I can feel a pulse of electricity surge through the air as Haruko finally releases her. Aya stands silently for a few moments, trembling, then looks around the shed as if seeing it for the first time. She brings a hand to the space between her collarbones.

  “Aya?” Adam says. “Why...” The sound catches in his throat. He doesn’t finish.

  Aya crouches next to the ghoul and places her hands over his ears for a few moments. She draws her fingertips over both of his eyelids, then down across his nostrils to rest on his lower lip and chin.

  The ghoul’s lips part; his eyes open. He stares at the ceiling with a rapturous expression, as if seeing something too beautiful to comprehend. He begins to laugh in a series of horrible choking sounds, his dead voice box hardly better suited to the task than mine. He gasps as she removes her fingers from his mouth; his eyes roll back in their sockets.