Borderline

by Mishell Baker

  “There’s some kind of doorway for that, right?”

  “There is an Arcadian Gate at each Residence.”

  I stared at her. I had spent two nights in a house with some kind of magical portal and had completely failed to notice? “It has a glamour on it,” I guessed.

  “Glamour is a sloppy term, but yes, it does have a psychic ward protecting it, as does the locked door that leads to it. Even I would not be able to locate it if I did not have the key and know exactly where it was.”

  “Is the Gate an actual door?”

  “It is a semicircular archway constructed of graphite and diamond. Well, technically, it is two identical archways that exist at the same coordinates in either realm. They must be built in those rare spots where a corresponding structure can be built in Arcadia, and where means can be used to protect the Gates on both sides. The space described by the semicircle exists in both realms at once, so when you pass under the arch you start in one world and end up in the other.”

  “Weird. Does it hurt or anything?”

  “Only if you touch the archway itself. Even then it is not so much pain as intense discomfort.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  Caryl seemed to give it some thought. Elliott stirred restlessly in my lap. “Some describe it as similar to the feeling you get when you first begin a free fall.”

  “That awful thing in your stomach, like on a roller coaster?”

  Caryl gave me a very long look, then shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Have you not used one?”

  “A Gate, yes. A roller coaster, no.”

  “Of course you haven’t.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Millie?”

  “What.”

  “I find it strange that a roller coaster was the first free fall that came to your mind.”

  My mouth fell open, then shut again. I stared at her. “I don’t remember the fall you’re referring to,” I said as evenly as I could manage. “I don’t even remember being on the roof. They had to tell me about it later.” I turned away from her, stared into the empty lobby, and didn’t say, asshole.

  It was quite a while before anyone at all made an appearance. They mostly seemed to be guests checking out of their rooms, and none of them were people Caryl seemed to know. I thought I recognized at least one woman myself; someone from TV, maybe, but I couldn’t place the name.

  “Do celebrities come here?” I asked Caryl. “I’m not familiar with Santa Barbara.”

  “Most of our human clientele prefer more expensive resorts,” she said. “But fey enjoy this retreat because of the orange grove on the grounds. Fey are obsessed with fruit. Citrus fruits in general are probably the most common smuggling problem we have.”

  “Candy, too, to judge by Rivenholt. Fey are weird.”

  “The word ‘weird’ descends from the Old English wyrd, by way of the Old Norse urðr, meaning fate. So, yes.”

  “Have you noticed that you’re impossible to have a normal conversation with?”

  “I am not inclined to elect you arbiter of normal.”

  Since talking was futile, we sat around some more. Eventually the woman at the front desk was relieved by a man. Elliott got restless and started doing aerial acrobatics. When his attempt to dive-bomb a departing family made me laugh out loud, Caryl recalled him to her side.

  “I think I will take a brief stroll about the grounds,” she said. “Stay here, and if Rivenholt appears, find some way to detain him.”

  With those vague instructions, Caryl left. Now that Elliott wasn’t around to amuse me, I pushed my fey lenses up onto my head and settled in to people-watch. Having sunglasses that weren’t dirt cheap made me a little nervous; I had already gone longer without losing these than any other pair I’d owned.

  I spotted only one other familiar face, a curly-haired Latina from a canceled police procedural. Time began to drag, and my AK prosthetic began to dig uncomfortably into my butt cheek. Trying not to attract too much attention, I rose and stretched, keeping myself out of the eye line of the man at the front desk. I practiced walking, letting my cane dangle in my left hand and seeing if I could smooth out my stride without its help. It was beginning to seem as though Rivenholt would not be spooked enough to check out, so this could be a long siege, and I had nothing better to do.

  As I moved, I saw another vaguely familiar man seated at the bar. Messy hair the color of coffee grounds, rough features, a pretentious goatee. I amused myself for a moment by trying to remember what show he was on, and then he turned his head to look directly at me.

  From the expression on his face, it seemed he recognized me, too.

  15

  Shit. My mind raced. Someone from UCLA? Someone who’d worked on one of my films? I looked away, feigning disinterest even as my stomach began to churn. My memory was a little unreliable thanks to my brain injury, but there weren’t many people from my old life who would remember me fondly. I hadn’t just burned my bridges; I’d nuked them from orbit.

  After a moment I dared another look at him. He was still staring at me. He stroked his goatee for a moment, then slid off his bar stool and started toward me. He was tall, and I had a sudden feeling he was going to come over and give me a big Hollywood hug. At the thought of being crushed against his rumpled button-down shirt, my palms went damp.

  Without thinking, I turned and headed for one of the archways, fleeing the lobby without even trying to be subtle about it. I heard the man working at the front desk say, “Miss?” politely, but I pretended not to hear him.

  When my eyes slammed up against morning sunlight and glittering sidewalk, I slid the shades down again, but I didn’t slow until I’d rounded the corner of the nearest villa. I took a few deep breaths and then peeked around the corner back toward the lobby.

  He hadn’t followed me.

  I wasn’t sure what to do now, though. I didn’t know where Caryl was, but I didn’t want to go back to the lobby again either. So I ducked back around the corner and stood there admiring the landscaping and taking deep breaths of the sea air.

  Before much longer I caught movement out of the corner of my eye: a figure wreathed in shadow was headed toward me. Recognizing Caryl’s magical haze, I pushed my glasses back up onto my head so I could see her.

  Only it wasn’t Caryl.

  The woman looked around forty or so, but a Beverly Hills forty. Her lustrous chocolate-syrup dye job had little gleams of raspberry where the sun caught it. I’d have called her handsome rather than beautiful; even her plump garnet-glossed lips did nothing to soften the severity of her features. Frankly, she looked like the kind of person who might cheerfully break my neck and toss me in a closet.

  She didn’t notice me until she was about to stride directly by me, and then she only gave me a vague smile before continuing past me toward the lobby. I shuddered involuntarily as she passed.

  I’m not sure how long I stood there trying to make sense of this before I felt a familiar tingling on my shoulder and lowered my glasses to find Elliott sitting there.

  “Where’s Caryl?” I asked him. He responded by launching himself into the air and doing a little twirl to see if I was following.

  Elliott headed straight over the lobby, but I decided to walk around it rather than risk running into Goatee Guy or Ms. Scary again. Once I made it to the other side of the building, I spotted Elliott bobbing impatiently. I followed him until I found Caryl. Her haze wasn’t as thick as the other woman’s; I could easily recognize her through it.

  “I just returned to the lobby looking for you,” she said. “Why did you leave?”

  I evaded the question by describing the woman I’d seen. Elliott collapsed on my shoulder, hiding his eyes in my neck.

  “I know who that was,” Caryl said. “If she is here, something is deeply wrong. She was not in the lobby just now, but if she is still on the
grounds, I can track her.”

  She hesitated.

  “What?” I said.

  “It requires me to support another construct, and as badly as I drained myself hiding the car, I cannot do it unless I reappropriate the energy I used to make Elliott.”

  “You mean unmake him?”

  “Temporarily.”

  “It’s nice of you to warn me, but I think I can stomach it. He’s just a spell, right?”

  Another hesitation. “I apologize in advance.”

  From her warnings I expected Elliott to be torn limb from limb, but he just winked out like the beam of a flashlight. The incoming rush of magical energy seemed to disorient Caryl, though; she wobbled like a newborn foal. I reached to steady her, then remembered and retracted my hand. Caryl flushed, clearing her throat.

  “I use Unseelie magic,” she said, her voice unsteady. “So does she. I can cast a construct that will be drawn toward the nearest source of the same. The disadvantage is that our target will feel the spell too and will know we are coming. It can’t be helped, though; I refuse to believe this woman’s presence is coincidence. It’s likely she is the source of the trouble Rivenholt is in, and if so—” She broke off ominously.

  “Caryl. Do you need to rest from the . . . Elliott thing? Your hands are shaking.”

  She looked up at me, and her eyes were so nakedly terrified I actually took a half step back. “I’m fine,” she said.

  She moved to brace her back against a wall and murmured more of those disturbing Unseelie words. Even prepared for it, I couldn’t stop the primal wave of unease that made my skin go clammy. When she finished, a vaguely spherical blob hovered in the air, visible only through my glasses. It was paradoxically dark and glowing, like the afterimage from a camera flash. After a moment it began to drift away.

  “Now we follow it,” Caryl said.

  At first the shadowy sphere floated across the lawn with all the urgency of a bit of dandelion fluff, but then it slowly began to gather speed and direction. Caryl had no trouble keeping up, but by the time it had reached the villas on the other side of the pool, I was starting to feel twinges of pain in my lower back and my gait was faltering.

  As the spell disappeared around the back of a four-story villa, Caryl glanced back at me, looking torn.

  “You don’t have to wait for me,” I said.

  “It will be fine,” she said. “We’ll find it.”

  It took a bit of searching, but we finally looked up and spotted the construct on the third floor, bumping gently against an exterior door. You’d think that people trying to relax would want elevators, but apparently not. I leaned on the stair railing with the hand not already gripping my cane, and Caryl hovered next to me looking fretful during the entire climb.

  When we arrived at the door, Caryl knocked gently. She was pale, and the palm of her glove was dark with sweat. No one answered.

  “Fantastic,” I said. “That was worth the effort.”

  “She’s in there,” said Caryl. She dispelled the construct and laid her gloved hand on the crack of the door, right where the latch would be.

  “You know a spell to unlock it?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. She left her hand there and muttered something under her breath. A stink like a septic tank wafted toward me, and through the fey lenses I could see a web of brownish cracks appearing around her hand. Curious, I pushed my glasses to the top of my head; the wood of the doorframe looked normal for a moment but then slowly darkened, warped, and split as though it had undergone decades of decay. The latch slipped free of its slimy purchase as she pushed, ­taking splinters of rotten wood with it.

  “Charming,” I said.

  She turned to me, and without the faint haze from the lenses veiling her face, her fear was even more apparent. “I have known this woman for years. I have exacted certain promises from her that should keep me safe. But you must do exactly as I tell you at all times, and if I ask you to leave, do so without questioning me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I’m not sure what I was expecting to see inside the room, but it certainly wasn’t our quarry relaxing in a lounge chair with a plate of strawberries in her hand and her stiletto-clad feet up on the edge of the bed. There was an open bottle of champagne and an empty glass on a table nearby.

  “Caryl, you brought company!” she said in a breezy Holly­wood voice that didn’t match her severe looks in the slightest. “Champagne?”

  “Don’t tell her your name,” Caryl said to me quietly. “Don’t touch her, don’t look directly into her eyes, and don’t take anything she offers you.”

  “Is that what passes for a greeting these days?” the woman said lightly.

  Caryl reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, dialing without taking her eyes off the woman. “Forrest Cloven’s room, please,” she said into it.

  “I’m Vivian Chandler,” the woman said, smiling at me. “And you are?”

  My polite Southern upbringing chose that moment to kick in, and I almost answered her. The only reason I hesitated was that her name sounded vaguely familiar, and I was trying to place it before I decided how to introduce myself.

  Luckily, the ringing of the phone on the bedside table ­startled me out of my train of thought. I was confused until Caryl ended her call and the ringing on the table stopped.

  “Why are you in Rivenholt’s room?” Caryl said. “And where is Rivenholt?”

  16

  “Oh, Caryl,” said Vivian, plucking a strawberry from the plate, “I do hate to disappoint you, because I know how desperately you want to catch me being naughty, but I haven’t harmed the boy. I haven’t even seen him in weeks.” She sank her teeth into the strawberry and gave me a little wink.

  “Then why are you in this room under his name?” said Caryl.

  “You would have to ask him for the full story. He sent me an e-mail offering me a spa package he couldn’t use, so I decided to take a few days off. Work has been so stressful lately. Far be it from me to say no to a deep-tissue massage and a facial.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Caryl said to me. “Vivian is exiled Unseelie nobility; there is absolutely no reason why a Seelie viscount would—”

  “I’m sitting right here, darling,” said Vivian, a hard edge creeping into her voice. “And you know I can’t lie.”

  “No,” said Caryl, “but you have a history of presenting the facts in a way that suits your purposes.”

  “Oh, and what are my purposes, aside from a bit of relaxa­tion, which you have rudely interrupted with your breaking and entering? I would absolutely love to hear your theory.” She carefully selected another strawberry.

  My brain finally clicked the name Vivian Chandler into place. She was an actors’ agent. A good one, with a sharkish reputation and an A-list roster. I tried to remember whether she represented Inaya West, hoping for at least two pieces in this puzzle to fit together. But last I’d heard, Inaya was with ICM.

  “I am currently without a theory,” Caryl admitted. “But if you haven’t done something to Rivenholt, then I am sure you would not object to helping us locate him before the Los Angeles Police Department does.”

  At this, Vivian straightened, a strawberry poised in her finger­tips. Slowly it browned and shriveled in her grasp. “I don’t understand,” she said, her tone as brittle as glass. “What’s he done? Am I an accessory to something?”

  Caryl looked childishly pleased by Vivian’s discomfort. “We don’t know,” she said. “But local law enforcement was looking for him in West Hollywood near the Seelie bar, and he has broken contact with his Echo.”

  Vivian set aside the spoiled strawberry and rubbed at her chin, her expression guarded. “Interesting,” she said. I tried to see behind her mask, but whatever she had once been, she was now Hollywood to the core, glossy and impenetrable.

  �
�Do you think Rivenholt is trying to set you up for something?” I asked her.

  “It talks!” she squealed, making Caryl wince. “And what an interesting look you have, sweetheart. I don’t suppose you’re looking for representation?”

  “Leave her alone,” said Caryl.

  Vivian looked delighted. “Awwwww, little Caryl has found a new mommy. I do hope this one’s better to you.”

  To my utter shock, tears filled Caryl’s eyes. Before I could say anything, Vivian turned her savage smile on me. “It’s so nice meeting you,” she said. “Let’s play a game, shall we? You be the fox, and resort security will be the hounds.” With that, she plucked a mobile phone from the table and tapped it to her lips, eyeing me up and down. “You don’t look very agile, sweetheart, so I’ll be sporting and give you a head start.”

  • • •

  Security did catch up to us—it wasn’t hard—but since we looked harmless and were on our way out anyhow, they sent us off with a warning.

  Removing the charm from Caryl’s car was a complicated ­matter, though, now that there was traffic. First we had to get inside the vehicle, which is harder than it sounds when your every ­neuron is thoroughly convinced that there is nothing there at all. Then we had to wait for what felt like hours for a lull in traffic so that no one would see an SUV materialize out of thin air. Even as rapidly as Caryl worked, we still got honked at furiously when we were caught driving over the curb back onto the road.

  As soon as we found a legal place to pull over, Caryl put on the parking brake without turning off the engine and started into a long incantation that made me taste bile at the back of my throat. When she was finished, she released the brake and pulled back into traffic. Before I could ask what that was all about, I felt Elliott land on my shoulder.

  “What happened back there?” I said.

  “A great many things,” she replied. “Which of them do you mean?”

  “That woman made you a complete wreck.”

  “It wasn’t entirely her fault.”

  I thought about the way Caryl had flushed when Elliott’s construct dissolved. “Did you take on some of Elliott’s emotions when you reabsorbed his spell?”