The Uncrossing

by Melissa Eastlake

  “Can I?” Jeremy asked, and even though Luke didn’t know what that meant, he nodded.

  Jeremy dipped his head forward and whispered in Russian. His eyes were on the amulet, ducked below Luke’s face, and a red flush crept over his neck and ears. He said Amen and pressed his eyes shut, and then he leaned even closer and kissed the iron between his fingers.

  It was over before Luke understood it—Jeremy’s temple in front of his lips, Jeremy’s lips close to his chest. Jeremy sat up again, hand light in Luke’s. “Do you need to lie down? Or I can call Katya to take you home.”

  “No!” Alexei called, coming down the stairs. His gaze hit the couch, and Jeremy pulled his hand away. “Come to dinner, please, Luke. Sergei and I have some questions for you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  They went to a sports bar near Coney Island, a poster for generic Americana called Glory’s. It was a single dark room with a square bar in the center and green-shaded lamps glowing wanly. The dozen TVs weren’t playing anything interesting on a weekday in the summer—pre-shows for the evening’s baseball games, talking heads on the sports nets and the news—and the only other patrons were a small group at the bar. The owner, Yaniv, came out to greet them, pumping Alexei’s hand and speaking an enthusiastic mishmash of languages that Luke couldn’t follow.

  Yaniv led them to a raised corner booth. Alexei sprawled in the center like a king on his throne. Luke slid in and was intrigued, but not quite surprised, to find Jeremy following him, close on one side.

  Alexei said, “Hmm,” and fixed his gaze gorgeously into the middle distance, as if there were photographers in the room.

  He kept asking questions—the store, Luke’s uncrossings, and his vision during the cleansing. Luke left out everything he’d seen about Jeremy—a kiss, the only part of it that got more vivid, rather than fading, as time passed—but answered the rest. Jeremy, silent, fidgeted and flipped his cap back and forth on his head.

  Yaniv brought pitchers of beer and water and poured glasses. Sergei and Natalya entered, in the middle of a conversation they stopped before they got to the table.

  Instead of hello, Sergei said, “No hats at meals. Carry yourself like a Kovrov.”

  Jeremy huffed, but he took the cap off and ruffled his hair until it lay flat, a flurry in Luke’s peripheral vision.

  “Luke!” Natalya said, as if she’d been desperate to see him again. “How are you?” She caught the light, shining.

  Luke deferred to Alexei, and he said, “We have had adventures today. Apparently I am so evil that performing a routine cleansing on my place caused our witch doctor to swoon.” He sounded terribly pleased with himself, not as serious as he’d been when they were alone, and Natalya laughed.

  “Swoon!” She flipped the gleaming waves of her hair over one shoulder. “Are you okay? What does that mean?”

  Luke nodded. “I’m fine. I’m not sure what happened.”

  Sergei was quiet, peering from the shadows underneath the shelf of his brow. His glance flicked among Jeremy, Luke, and Alexei as if they were keeping secrets.

  “All’s well that ends well,” Alexei said. “The young prince nursed him back to health. It’s been a long time since my place has seen such a darling display of hand-holding.”

  Natalya smiled slyly, and Sergei’s brow went up and then down. Jeremy flinched, making a pained sound so small only Luke would hear it, and iron-hard scorn filled Luke’s chest. If they wanted to act like any assholes from school, Luke could treat them that way: stay absolutely calm, maybe faintly amused or bored, and never act like the secret they thought they’d discovered was truly important. “Sounds like you’re missing out, then.”

  Luke kept his eyes on Alexei’s twinkling ones as, next to him, Jeremy exhaled the tiniest laugh and squirmed in his seat.

  Alexei smiled broadly, all delight. “Almost certainly.”

  Natalya leaned forward, chin on her hand and voice chipper. “How is your texting friend?”

  Luke didn’t place what she meant until Sergei scoffed. “Why is this all we talk about?”

  “You mean Max,” Luke said. “That’s over.”

  Natalya arched an eyebrow. “That was quick.”

  “You caught me as it was swirling the drain. It was barely a thing.” Luke sounded confident, even to himself, but the words were hollow. That had only been a few days ago. I think it’s cool, how you save people.

  Jeremy went still, hand close between them on the vinyl seat of the booth. Food began to come out even though no one had ordered, wings and fries and other bar food on big family-style platters. Alexei thanked the servers magnanimously, and Jeremy leaned up to Luke’s ear to whisper, “No talking business while we eat. Not until Alexei brings it up again.”

  Luke didn’t mind that—he wouldn’t have minded dropping the subject completely—but Sergei tucked into his plate with a gloom that crept around him like smoke.

  Jeremy kept reaching across Luke to get dishes, and it was hard to tell if it was bad table manners or an excuse to get his body close. The fries had marched across the table, so Jeremy helped himself to a few from Luke’s plate. “Kid,” Sergei said. “When are you going to grow out of that?”

  Holding Sergei’s gaze, Jeremy reached deliberately over and took another fry.

  Sergei snorted. “This kid,” he said to Natalya. “Every time I tried to teach him about sharing, he’d say, ‘Yeah! Sergei share!’ and took whatever he wanted.”

  Natalya giggled. “You mean when he was a toddler?”

  Sergei gestured in Jeremy’s direction like you deal with this. “And right now.”

  Luke turned his plate around, fries on Jeremy’s side, and nudged Jeremy’s arm with his elbow. “No problem.” Luke tilted his head closer and lowered his voice. “You can have whatever you want.”

  Luke started and checked Jeremy—aloud, that had sounded like a line. Jeremy was hiding a smile behind his napkin, neck glowing pink at the collar of his shirt. Maybe Luke had meant it as a line.

  “You should definitely tell us more cute baby Jeremy stories.” Natalya looked significantly at Sergei and swung her gaze to Luke.

  Her glamour shimmered in the air around her, and Luke had a petulant urge to reach over and rip it off of her like a scarf. She glanced at him again, a different heat around her eyes, but Alexei was already talking. “Did we ever tell you how we found out about his gift?”

  Jeremy laughed to himself and nodded, and Alexei leaned over the table. “I bought him one of those funny surprise eggs, with the toy inside. A little train. He was playing with that while I was eating his chocolate, and suddenly there is a full volume train whistle, I mean screaming. I thought I was being shot at, the prince made himself cry, and meanwhile this two-inch toy train is driving itself in circles on the coffee table.”

  As he finished, Jeremy blew a plum-size bird he’d folded out of straw wrappers off his palm, and it fluttered across the table to Alexei, the paper turning to crystal or glass. The delicate mechanics were so exquisite Luke’s jaw dropped, but Alexei merely plucked it out of the air like a mosquito.

  Natalya laughed. “What was his first word?”

  Alexei blinked through a pause. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Story,” Sergei said gruffly. He didn’t elaborate, and an uncomfortable vacuum opened up in the middle of the table.

  Jeremy filled it. “Sergei read to me before bed. Every night, since before I can remember. We had Baba Yaga, and the brothers Grimm, and this huge Mother Goose book. It was like—” He drew a rectangle in the air, reaching around his head and chest. “This big.”

  Sergei snorted. “No, it wasn’t, kid. You were just little.”

  “Aww.” Natalya put a hand over her heart, and Sergei nudged her off. The conversation faded as if it had been pleasant. Luke couldn’t figure these people out—were they so accustomed to all evil, or only the evil they’d done to Jeremy? Luke could imagine Sergei—fifteen or sixteen years old, with that dump-truc
k face but no tattoos or muscle—reading fairy tales to Jeremy with the same grim, relentless attention he turned to his food.

  When Luke and Camille were little, Helene had made games of teaching them to control crossings and uncrossings: hide-and-seek with mojo bags, real herbs in their play kitchen. They would sit on a bench in a park, and Camille would capture a pigeon in an invisible cage and then Luke would set it free. They’d get ice cream if they managed so many in a row—three, five, twenty. He hadn’t understood at the time, but Camille had progressed from trapping animals to hurting them with the same quick words. Helene stopped the game when they were eight, the first time Camille killed a bird. Luke had tried to bring it back to life and cried when he failed.

  It’s not your fault, honey, Helene had said. Some things can’t be undone. Camille still used that jinx if she saw vermin at home.

  Reading fairy tales to a baby like Jeremy would have been a little bit like that game.

  Jeremy took the last fry off Luke’s plate, and Alexei slid the platter back their way. “Eat up. You’ll have to keep your strength in case the witch doctor has another vision.” He paused. “Is that likely? Does that happen to you often?”

  That was the cue to take the conversation back to work. If Luke hadn’t caught it, he would have felt it in the changing postures all around the table. Sergei perked up, Jeremy sat back, and Natalya flipped her hair again, finding a spear of light to glow in.

  “No, sir,” Luke said. “That’s never happened before.”

  “My fault, then?” Alexei’s voice was calm, giving no clues whether that question was genuine, or a trick.

  Luke aimed for equal cool. “No idea. Anything I said would only be a guess.”

  Sergei glared. “I don’t truck with visions.”

  “You don’t think they’re real?”

  “I think they’re real trouble, and only troublemakers have them.”

  Luke hesitated. He would have agreed—it hadn’t made his day any better, and he never wanted anything like that to happen again—but the Kovrovs were coasting a current he didn’t understand.

  Jeremy sighed, and Alexei drummed his fingers on the table. “Seryozhka,” Alexei said. “You’re being unusually tedious.”

  Luke focused on the problem he could solve. “It could have been anything. Me, you, the tail end of an old spell. I wouldn’t read anything into it unless something else happens, not unless you guys have something you want me to do.”

  “Brilliant,” Alexei said. “That sounds very wise.”

  They fell back into silence over their food. The restaurant was picking up business, though a cushion of empty tables surrounded the booth. The door opened, letting in a wedge of yellow light, and along the light came a vibe Luke recognized. The chatter of the restaurant got distant and muffled, like someone had clapped a pillow over Luke’s ears.

  There was a lot of static—the scents of food, all kinds of vibes rolling off his companions—and it took him too long to place the harsh edge of the bad feeling on the air.

  Cayenne.

  The man who had entered the restaurant looked around, eyes catching places he shouldn’t have bothered to notice—the corners, the rafters, the floor.

  Luke flailed for Alexei’s arm. “He’s crossed. That man—something’s wrong.”

  Jeremy said, “Huh?” Natalya gaped at Luke. But Sergei and Alexei both followed Luke’s gaze to the door as the man drew his gun.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Whatever was festering between the Kovrov brothers evaporated in the heat of a threat. They were a finely calibrated machine, a bomb that had been waiting for its chance to detonate.

  Alexei, trapped in the middle of the booth, leaped up and across the table, pulling a shining revolver from inside his jacket. His foot slipped on a plate, scattering the leftovers of their meal all over Luke’s lap and the wall, but he didn’t stumble. He vaulted over Sergei, who skidded underneath him, throwing his body between Jeremy and the gunman.

  Sergei sprung open a knife, crouching so close that Jeremy had to jerk his chin away from the flicking blade, and dug it into the meat of his own palm.

  His welling blood, the red shine of it and the sudden meaty smell, ripped Luke out of his shock, but he got no farther than, “Wha—” before Sergei slammed his bleeding hand on the table and everything went silent.

  “Sergei!” Jeremy threw himself on an invisible barrier, beating his fists against thin air. His voice was too loud, echoing in the dome that had closed around them.

  Alexei trained his gun on the man, who waved his aimlessly. Natalya was speaking, hands wide, but he wasn’t looking at her. He kept scanning the rafters, the floor. This was a bad crossing, both malignant and poorly made.

  Sergei stayed near the table, in front of Jeremy. It was impossible in an unbalancing way, making Luke’s brain whirl, how Sergei stood close enough to touch and yet Jeremy couldn’t, smacking his palm against a wall two inches from Sergei’s back.

  Luke tried to speak a few times before it worked. “What is this?”

  Jeremy slumped back in the booth. “A binding. Just a physical one. That’s all Sergei can do.”

  It seemed like plenty to Luke. He reached past Jeremy, jammed his fingers against cool marble in empty air, and snatched his hand back.

  Jeremy twisted, trying to see around Sergei, but he was stuck between the binding, the table, and Luke. “I don’t understand why they aren’t all in here. We could all be safe.”

  That was backward—he should be out there. That man was crossed, and Luke should help. The man jolted into awareness, and his body twisted toward Luke. He lifted the gun deliberately, going still and sure as his eyes rolled wildly away from Luke and back again.

  Sergei pressed his hand on the table again, and everything went black. Luke gasped. His pupils dilated as they searched for light, his eyes straining out of his head, but there was nothing but velvety black.

  He reached for Jeremy on instinct, and Jeremy’s hands scrambled back to him. He got a hand around Jeremy’s wrist and déjà vu rushed him—laughing in the car. He wrapped his other arm around Jeremy’s shoulders, pulling him away from that ominously solid wall. Jeremy felt familiar there, too, though that couldn’t be right. He’d definitely never held Jeremy like that before.

  He probably shouldn’t be holding him now. Either Jeremy was feverishly hot, or Luke had gone cold. As he pulled his arm away, the vision came back, clear in the dark—Jeremy’s warm body in Luke’s arms. Maybe that was the déjà vu—he had seen this fight. Maybe he’d been given a warning, enough notice to keep Jeremy safe.

  “Are you okay?” Jeremy’s voice gave away a small crack, and that was all Luke needed to be brave.

  “Yeah. Sorry. It’s so dark.”

  Jeremy shifted and there was light, a thin glow from his phone in his hand. His lock screen was a little blue house from one of those nerd shows Short Wesley liked. Luke’s brain scrambled to make the connection, grasping at every meaningless detail.

  Jeremy lifted the phone closer to look into Luke’s face. He caught his own, making his angles strange with the light shining up. His frown was a deep shadow between his eyebrows. “Sergei won’t let anyone hurt us.”

  But what about all the people out there? The small light made the darkness heavier around their two faces. Because it was easier than arguing, Luke nodded.

  The light went out. Jeremy shifted again, putting his phone away. They sat in the dark and the sound of their breath. Luke put his hand down on something slick and moving and lifted it in revulsion before he remembered the glass bird. He touched it again, more carefully, and closed it between his fingers. Its wings brushed his knuckles. Its smooth surface grounded him.

  The darkness wavered. Sergei’s voice: “Stay cool. Everyone’s fine.”

  The binding shimmered gray and faded. Alexei still stood in the middle of the room. Natalya had the front door, Sergei the table, and though the restaurant was completely empty, they stayed in position
.

  Everyone’s fine hadn’t meant the crossed man. He lay on the floor, blood all over his face and a pulpy wound in his chest.

  “Jesus!” Luke pushed out of the booth, past Jeremy. “Was he crossed? Did you find anything?”

  Alexei’s revolver shone in his hand. “Haven’t checked.”

  The room tilted under Luke’s feet. It smelled like cayenne and his own sweat and Jeremy’s, acrid with fear, and the choking, metallic scent of blood. Everyone was looking at Luke, so he went to the man himself. The body.

  The bag was easy to find, right in the man’s front pocket. It wasn’t made of the usual burlap or cotton, but blue plaid. The man’s hand lay open next to his hip, and a wedding ring glinted through the blood on his palm.

  “Look,” Luke shouted, brandishing the bag. “He was crossed, and you killed him!”

  “He drew a gun first,” Alexei said mildly. “Can you dissect that and find out what he was doing?”

  “We could ask if you hadn’t shot him!” Luke put a hand on his chest, trying to keep his heart from clambering out of its cage, and smeared blood onto his shirt. The floor swerved again.

  “Focus,” Alexei said. “Can you dissect it? Or is that something your mother needs to do?”

  Luke leaned over the bar and pressed his face into his arm to block out the smell of blood. Something caught his peripheral vision—Yaniv tucked under the bar, crouching.

  Luke shut his eyes. “I can dissect it. But can we go somewhere else?”

  Sergei’s Escalade was parked out front. He had a first aid kit and a spare pack of gray muscle tanks, and Luke cleaned up and caught his breath.

  In front of the restaurant, Natalya briefed Katya. Luke couldn’t hear, but he watched their close heads. They looked more alike when Natalya wasn’t focused on her glamour, two women of medium height and build with light-brown hair and kind of remarkable biceps. The glamour sanded all the uniqueness off Natalya—you might remember she was beautiful, but not how, specifically.

  She gripped the back of Katya’s head and kissed her forehead before she let her into the restaurant. Katya made an annoyed huff but didn’t shove her off. When Natalya turned, she caught Luke looking. “Big sister privilege,” she said as she approached. “I keep her away from the dangerous part, and she handles the mess.”