Zero Sum Advanced Review Copy

by Shier, B. Justin

  “The tea water is ready,” Rei said, definitively. She fished out two packets of Celestial Seasoning’s chamomile blend.

  “Some things remain the same,” I mused.

  “Sorry?” she asked, bringing over the two warm mugs.

  “Chamomile is Jules’ favorite too.”

  Rei stiffened at my tutor’s name. “Then that Druid has good taste.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like Jules?”

  “I see nothing wrong with her. Magus Nelson is a competent witch. And she has trained you well. You could only kill one person at a time prior to her tutelage. Now you are up to four.”

  I put down my mug.

  “Four?”

  Rei shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Three is more precise. The DEA agents finished off the last one after interrogation proved unprofitable. Now, that is not counting the man in the stairwell. I consider that a separate incident. It should not be included in an assessment of your mass effect spells.” Satisfied she’d remedied her error, Rei took another sip of tea.

  I felt for the gap in my teeth. The sharp pain helped dull the panic, but it was time for a change in subject.

  “Rei, you said that at home you have people to light fires for you. Is your family really wealthy?”

  “My family business is not to be discussed with the Magi,” she said curtly.

  I frowned. So we were still playing this game? “Fine, no questions about your family, but I assume you can talk about yourself, right?”

  Rei opened her mouth to speak, but turned to glare at the cracking fire instead.

  “Listen, I only know what I’ve picked up over the past few months: The student body is scared of you, the faculty doesn’t trust you, yet here you are, the only vampire I’ve ever met, living out here in some sort of pseudo-exile, taking abuse, attending classes, and following all the crazy orders from the folks at DOMA.”

  Rei glared at me. “Is there a question in this speech?”

  “Yea, a simple one. Why? Why are you here? Why do you put up with all this crap? Unlike me, you don’t have to be here. You’re rich. You could probably buy your own university.” I bit my lip. The last of that had come out much harsher than I’d expected.

  “What makes it your business why I choose to study here? Perhaps you peons amuse me. Perhaps I like the scenery. Why must I justify myself to you?”

  I stood up in frustration. Pacing to the other side of the room, I counted to ten. There were two sides to Rei Bathory—the friendly girl who wasn’t above buying a guy a Danish and the ice princess who wasn’t below punching you in the gut—you never knew which one was coming out to play.

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?” she asked, her voice rising.

  “You don’t understand why I would want to know.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. Her face twisted up in frustration. “Why do you wish to know these things? I do not understand this. They do not affect your interests in the slightest.”

  “My interests?” I walked back to my chair and sat down. “Rei, who do you trust?”

  “Trust?” She rolled the question over in her head. “I trust my senses. They help me separate fact from fiction. I trust Cumo. He is faithful, obedient, and constantly vigilant.”

  “What about people, Rei? Which people do you trust?”

  “Why none, of course. Nostophoros or beater, they all lie, cheat, and steal.” A bitter grin formed on Rei’s face. “They even abandon their own offspring.” I hadn’t expected the jab…but I deserved it. I was going about this like Rei was a child. Rei was many things, but she was certainly not a child.

  “You’re right, people can betray you. It’s their prerogative. But…but that’s why you’re so fascinated with them, isn’t it? The way they can choose their own path. Just like you have chosen.”

  Rei stiffened. “Mi a kurvak faszat…”

  “What the heck language was that?”

  “It is none of your concern. Now be still.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Rei closed her eyes, and I could feel as the air around us compressed. In throbbing bursts, Rei sent out waves of mana that probed the space around her. It was a technique I was totally unfamiliar with, but I could sense the waves brushing against me as they passed.

  “I do not understand this. The link was dead. How did you rekindle it?”

  “You mean the weft-link?”

  “Yes, Dieter. The link you established in the warehouse. I felt it extinguish this afternoon. It should be dead. You should be free of my influence. Yet you still—”

  “What do you mean by dead?”

  “Really, Dieter, you should study your conduit science more carefully. A link established between two individuals is unstable at first. It is like a new web of neurons. Without additional stimulation, it will atrophy and die. This was our goal, was it not?”

  “Whoa, Rei, you said the link would fade. You didn’t say anything about atrophy and death. Are you talking permanently?”

  “Of course.” She looked at me as if I were an idiot who didn’t recognize gold when I saw it. “Then we will no longer experience these…instabilities.”

  My mind raced. Instabilities? What kind of…oh. “You’re talking about the indifference I felt when I killed those men.”

  Rei rolled her eyes. “Indifference, he says? Bator’s bones, Dieter. It was hardly indifference we were experiencing. Indifference does not feel good.”

  “So the flood of emotions I felt tonight were—”

  “Those were your true feelings about the killings. Your sense of guilt. I told you on the train, did I not? It was during our conversation about your unfortunate incident with that boy named Tyrone. I explained that it was not you who was enjoying the description of his death.”

  I frowned. But that wasn’t true, was it? Part of me had enjoyed it. That’s what disgusted me the most. And if the weft-link failed this afternoon, who or what was I talking to in the forest? My head was spinning. Whose emotions were who’s exactly? This was a bloody nightmare.

  Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Rei continued talking, “Yes, I was affected as well. The waxing and waning of emotions. The giddiness after I purged that scum from the faculty lodge. I even felt a bit of your guilt after making that last kill.” She chuckled at the thought of it. “Imagine a Nostophoros having to live with guilt over those she’d slain. How could she function?”

  I frowned. No, that wasn’t right, either. I thought back to that vision of the dollhouse. Rei had been feeling guilt long before I showed up on the scene. I tried to think it through. Was Rei confused? Could she not recognize her own feelings? I bit my lip. No, there was a far better explanation—one Rei herself had pointed to only a short moment ago—she could be lying to me. She could be trying to push me away. Rei didn’t know that I had witnessed the death of her caretaker. She didn’t know that I’d watched her cry herself mad.

  I was beginning to understand this game. Rei had played it before. It was like some sort of defense mechanism. She wanted me to be disgusted. She wanted me to storm out. She wanted me to tell her I never wanted to see her again. I was to find her repulsive and steer clear of her. Rei was scared of something. Was she worried about her influence on me? Killing had been fun. Passing that monster off onto me must have been unconscionable. But what Rei didn’t consider was that maybe it didn’t even matter. Maybe I already had that monster inside me. That part of me that enjoyed killing just as much as she did.

  I leaned back in my chair. Rei was trying to help me. She was trying to keep me out of trouble, but I found myself growing angry. Rei had never bothered to ask my opinion. She was up to the same go-it-alone crap she always was. That grated. Did my wants hold no value to her? She had trusted me to keep quiet, and I had never betrayed that trust. She’d earned my loyalty. She’d saved my life twice now. I was in her debt. She knew that to be true. But when I asked her whom she trusted, she responded by lash
ing out. She trampled on our bond like it was nothing. That disrespect was why I wanted to storm out. But I held back. I held back because I believed I knew why.

  “Did you expect that to work?” I asked. I stood, grabbed another log, and threw it into the fire. “Was the boy supposed to get all mad, huff, puff, and storm out into the night?”

  Rei shifted away from the rising flames.

  “A nice clean break? Was that what you were aiming for? He could tell himself that she didn’t have a heart to begin with, that she was just a bloodthirsty freak?”

  “How dare you speak to me like that,” she hissed. “Do not forget what I am, Dieter Resnick.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Rei—despite tonight’s performance.”

  She flinched. “What are you talking about?”

  “You said that the weft-link wasn’t working. That it failed this afternoon.”

  “Yes. Do I need to draw a diagram for you? Perhaps I could get a chalkboard and—”

  “Then what the hell were you doing in the woods tonight?”

  She paused—and blanched. “I…”

  “Was experiencing waxing and waning emotions?”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “I had an obligation. I merely wished to apologize for my unprofessional behavior. Toying with those soldiers was unacceptable behavior. I made an absolute fool of myself.”

  Lies. More lies. I could sense them easily now. I rested my hand on the mantle. I needed to be right. More than anything, at this moment, I needed to be right. I closed my eyes. The new wood popped in protest. An ember bounced off my pant leg. I drew in one slow, steady breath. I was. I believed it to the core of my being. For once, I had no doubts. In one a rapid motion, I knocked the resting pair of sunglasses across the room. My heart skipped a beat from the thrill of it, and then the huge knot of tension melted away.

  “Rei, I agree with one thing you said tonight—our eyes don’t lie.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Dieter,” she said from her new position in the corner. She sat in a heap, cradling the pathetic pair of sunglasses in her hands. Ruffled hair hid her face. Her slender arms were full of shivers. “Why can’t you just give up?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.” I dragged my sore body over and slumped down beside her. “Link or not, I’m in your debt. I’m not abandoning you.”

  “I don’t…I don’t like this.” She whimpered quietly. “Associating with me will get you killed.”

  I scratched my stubble. “Um, actually, associating with you kinda kept me alive twice now.”

  “Do not jest. You will die. Everyone around me always dies.”

  “Um, technically, I already met that requirement. Remember the warehouse? My heart stopped beating. I died looking at you.” I wiped the wet clumps of hair from her face, and the scent of lavender rose into the air. “It wasn’t so bad. I just remember wishing that you didn’t have to die too—and that you packed a bigger blade.”

  Rei’s sniffles turned into sobs. Shaking, she buried her head under my chin.

  I didn’t flinch. It felt right. I wrapped my arm around her. “So, partner,” I asked. “Why isn’t the weft-link failing like you thought it would?”

  “I don’t know. The conduit should only have taken a month to fail. It is well documented, Dieter. An unstimulated link should not continue to operate like this—and, Dieter, for the love of heparin, stop calling me your partner.”

  “Sure thing, compadre. Should we go get some advice? If you want to get rid of the link so badly, maybe someone can help us.”

  “You still don’t know?” Rei peered up at me and laughed. “That is why I told you to remain silent in the first place. If the Magi or the Clans became aware of such an egregious breach of protocol, we would both be killed.”

  “Oh. Peachy.” I got a real nice sinking feeling in my stomach. “Who are the Clans?”

  “My kin, Dieter. Have you not read a paper, examined a history textbook, or looked at a map since you got here?”

  “If I had a nickel…Sorry, no. Just training. Jules is a cruel master.”

  “Six clans govern the Fiefs. In addition to my studies, I am here as an emissary of the Bathory Clan.”

  I scratched my head. “So neither your ‘clan’ nor the Department of Mana Affairs would approve of us swapping mana?”

  “Correct. My clan would just kill you—but the Department would attempt to kill us both.”

  “Yikes…Um, Rei?”

  “Yes, Dieter?”

  “Thanks for trying to kill the link.”

  “My pleasure…kumpadre.”

  “It’s pronounced com-pa-dre.”

  “Kum-pah-dre.”

  “Com-pa-dre.”

  “Kum-pah-dre.”

  “You got it perfect that time,” I said with a shudder.

  “Of course I did, Dieter. I am most skilled at language acquisition.”

  Rei was back to her usual humble self; she must have been feeling better.

  “Indeed,” I replied. I was too tired to engage in phonetic combat. I turned my attention to the crackling fireplace instead. We must have sat there for a long time before my eyes started to sag. There was so much to deal with, so much I wanted to discuss, but the body has its limits. I faded off into sleep, and for the first night in long, long time, I wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 3

  TEAMWORK, PEOPLE

  I jolted awake. My watch still worked. Despite the best efforts of the blackout curtains, its irritating beeps had shaken me awake. I straightened my kinked-up neck. My trusty timepiece was making the outrageous claim that it was 11AM. Training began at 12PM. If I wanted any breakfast, I needed to get moving. But there was a slight wrinkle: I was still sitting on the floor, Rei was still asleep in my arms, and she was…stiff. I’m not talking well snuggled here. I’m talking rigor freakin’ mortis. I calmly reached down and checked her pulse.

  Ten seconds later, I sighed with relief. 24 beats-a-minute normally constituted a medical emergency, but for Rei, half-speed sounded about right. A few pushes and pulls later and I’d pried myself free. Lifting her wasn’t nearly as hard. Her light frame made it a breeze.

  As I carried her rigid torso over to her bed, Rei kept mumbling about “Mr. Snuggles and the dog food,” but she was way too zonked out to make any sort of sense. I was puzzling out the riddle when I heard the sounds of paws pounding on the front door. I opened it to find Cumo’s expectant eyes (I think). Cumo’s shaggy head swiveled towards the kitchen. I put two and two together.

  Cumo’s bowl and an enormous bag of “Mr. Snuggles Organic Puppy Chow for Extra-Large Breeds” were waiting for me under the sink. After giving Cumo his morning shovelful, I shuffled into Rei’s bathroom and turned on the light. I nearly screamed at the monster staring back at me. One side of my face was swollen to double its normal size. A black and blue rainbow spread from my temple down to below my oversized jaw. My eyes were bloodshot, and my hair, a veritable hay-splosion. Add the scratches from my frolic through the woods and my swollen right shoulder and it looked like I’d just escaped from a Parisian bell tower. I checked my wounded shoulder’s motion. It was painful from the swelling, but I figured I could make do with some ibuprofen. Not so bad for being recently dislocated. Better still, I was finally wearing clothes that hadn’t been soaked in rain or hosed in blood.

  I snuck back out into the living room and slid on my fire-warmed boots. Cumo lay in a satisfied heap next to his empty bowl. Confident he had the situation under control, I decided to follow the dog’s good example and get some food in my belly. I scribbled Rei a note about where Lambda was meeting, put on my crimson-tinged robe, and headed out into the cold morning air in search of pancakes.

  +

  I hustled down the road beating my arms against the cold. The fog had a way of cutting right through my clothes. I took a shortcut to the cafeteria across the frosty grass fields. I hoped they had restocked on flour. I intended to do some damage.

  As I blew through the cafe
teria’s double doors, my amazing physique demanded the attention of the entire late-morning breakfast crowd. Perhaps it was my massive, toned biceps, or my dashing good looks, or simply my debonair flair, but the slack-jawed locals couldn’t help but stare. Having to contend with auraception this early in the morning was really annoying, but I was on a mission. I flipped up the hood of my robe and beehived to the counter. Queuing past the wary eyes of the lunch lady, I built myself a leaning tower of blueberry pancakes and drenched them mercilessly with syrup. I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at a table by myself. Carving out a delicious biteful, I opened my mouth and—ouch. All I could see was red. I whined quietly. Last night’s dental work was to blame. My jaw wasn’t cooperating.

  Fortunately, I’m an innovator first, second, and third. I poured coffee all over them and kept right on chugging’. I was halfway through my pan-mush when a tray slammed down in front of me. I winced at the noise and looked up. A blond, green-eyed fury was glaring down at me.

  “Dieter Resnick. What in the name of Awen happened ta yer face?”

  “Oh. Hey, Jules,” I replied. My mouth sounded like it was full of marbles. I tried to smile but it hurt too much. “Nice jeans. They designer label?”

  “Who knows, they’re Sadie’s—and they don’t fit. They’re too damn tight.”

  I looked Jules up and down.

  I repeated the process.

  Her jeans weren’t too damn tight. They were just tight enough.

  I blinked.

  It appeared Jules had…curves.

  “Jules, I’m no expert, but I think that during the past few decades, the youth of this fair nation have been testing the Authorities’ patience with these scandalously tight denim numbers. Apparently, it’s done on purpose. They call it cool. They beg their parents for the money to buy them. Trade them with their friends. Now, Jules, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, and I don’t want to make you freak out, but you may have accidently stumbled into something stylish.” It occurred to me that stylish wasn’t quite the right word. The jeans were fine and all, but it was the rather attractive figure that had donned them that was doing it for me at the moment.