by Jes Battis
My eyes widened. “You cheated?”
“Of course. Everyone cheats a little in medical school.”
I frowned. “Wait. Is this some kind of analytical trap?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. The espresso—which is fucking divine, by the way—the prescription, the sudden sharing of information. Are you just trying to soften me up so you can dig even deeper into my messed-up psyche?”
“I wasn’t aware that your psyche was messed up.” Hinzelmann sipped his own coffee, then leaned back in the chair. “I’m not going to say that you’re ‘normal,’ because that’s not a word that has much use in my profession. Frankly, neither of us is normal. I’m a kobold, and you’re a mage. But we still have many of the same basic psychological investments and concerns.”
“Is that like a caste thing, being a kobold?”
He looked at me strangely. “Didn’t you take classes in demihuman biology?”
Hmm. Was that the course that I slept through, or the one that I failed?
Maybe it was the one with the professor who always wore high heels and smelled like a Givenchy counter. That was when Derrick was going through his nuclear breakup, so all I remembered was buying fun-size Twix in bulk and watching The Hours until I prayed for self-immolation.
“My course work was a long time ago,” I said.
Hinzelmann sighed. “Kobolds are the oldest phylogenetic class of the goblin species. We lived in underground cities powered by geothermal energy while most of Europe was killing itself during the Dark Ages.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know more about hostile demon species, since those are the ones I usually deal with.”
That was a lie. I barely knew anything about Vailoid demons, and I’d practically been dismembered by one. But there’s only so much you can retain from lectures. It’s not like Derrick remembered anything from his History of Psychic Phenomena class, except for how great the professor’s ass looked in a pair of chinos.
“It’s fine.” He still looked a bit stung. “I applied to teach a seminar on goblin history, but my unit coordinator told me that there wasn’t enough interest in the course. It’s just a bit depressing. Ever since Harry Potter, people think that all we do is work in a stupid wizard’s bank. Most of my kobold friends are grad students.”
“Oh—I remember something.” I smiled. “You’re allergic to eggs, right?”
“Most goblins have a dairy intolerance, yes. But I’ve been taking Lactaid for a few years now, and it works pretty well.”
We fell into an awkward silence. There didn’t seem to be much else to say.
I had no idea how we’d gone from talking about my stress at home to discussing paranormal dietary restrictions. But I wasn’t complaining. I was actually starting to enjoy these sessions with Hinzelmann. It gave me a break from worrying about what might try to kill me tomorrow. Here, I could just let my mind wander. And if Selena thought I was actually making progress as a human being, so much the better.
“What do you think I’m digging for, Tess?”
I looked up. “Excuse me?”
“Earlier, you were afraid that I was ‘softening’ you up so that I could dig into your psyche.” His yellow eyes regarded me impassively. “What is it you think I’m digging for? Neurotic treasure?”
“Why not? There’s a whole El Dorado of crazy in my brain.”
“But you seem to be doing just fine. After a series of incredibly traumatic incidents over the past two years, you’ve shown remarkable resilience. A lot of people in your situation would be asking for more than just a light prescription to help them sleep.”
I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going. “I manage. I guess.”
He opened up the green folder, reading with a veiled expression. I found myself holding my breath. I wasn’t sure why.
“It says here,” Hinzelmann began, “that you only achieved legal guardianship of Mia Polanski last year. And only after a lengthy court process.”
“Yes. I remember the early-morning hearings. They were fun.”
“And Patrick Donovan is still completing the legal emancipation process. Which means that his current living situation with you is tenuous at best.”
Right. Never trust an analyst. He’d been working me over like a meat tenderizer, and now he was leaning in for the grisly finishing move. I took a deep breath and tried to keep my expression neutral.
“From what I understand,” I replied, “Patrick is nearly emancipated. He has no living relatives, and Derrick and I have both petitioned the court for guardianship. My superior has already written a letter of recommendation.”
“But Patrick also has strong ties to the vampire community. There’s a distinct possibility that they’ll issue a counterclaim based on shared cultural values, which could degenerate into a tangled legal battle.” He looked at the file, not at me, as he spoke. “The CORE’s negotiations with the vampire community have been especially fraught since the murder of Sebastian Escavalon, two years ago. That was the case that prompted you to petition for guardianship of Mia, was it not?”
“It sounds like you already know everything. What’s the point in asking me questions if it’s all in your file folder?”
He finally looked up. “I have data, but there’s also a lot missing. Your memories. Your emotions. I can’t tell anything by looking at these reports, except for the fact that you seem to have been very busy for the past two years.”
I finished the coffee. Suddenly, it tasted like betrayal. I set down the cup and shifted position in my chair. “Yeah. I’m kind of a magnet for human devastation.”
“I’m not bringing up these uncertainties to make you uncomfortable, Tess. I just want you to address the reality of the situation. There is a chance that, despite your best efforts, Patrick may not be living with you forever. And Mia’s seropositive status is still in question. Her VR plasmid count is low at the moment, but if it increases, she could be remanded to a CORE clinic.”
“So—what—” I glared at him. “I’m supposed to have a eureka moment, where I realize that my life is fragile? I know that already. My life is like one of those towers of crystal wineglasses that you see at a wedding.” I chuckled. “Not my wedding, of course. A real Wedding Story wedding, without casualties. But the concept’s the same. One demon blows on it, and the whole thing shatters. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“But acknowledging it and facing it aren’t the same thing.”
“What do you want me to do? Practice a mantra? Mia’s sick. I know that. And Patrick belongs to a world that I’m not a part of. He gets closer to it every day, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him, because that’s where he comes from. He belongs to a culture that’s existed since the dawn of time. Who am I to deprive him of that?”
“You don’t know that he wants to be a part of that culture. Maybe he’s scared and just wants you to protect him.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s seventeen. All he wants to do is watch porn and sneak a few cigarettes when he thinks I’m not looking. But he also has a legacy to think about. Caitlin Siobahn made him the magnate, and he has a responsibility to the city itself.”
“You’re arguing as an employee of the CORE.” He looked at me squarely, and there was something less clinical in his eyes this time. “But what about as a parent? You saved Patrick Donovan from certain death at the hands of an Iblis. You brought him into your family. Now he has an entirely different family, pulling him in another direction. That can’t sit easily with you.”
I shrugged. “He’s almost eighteen. He can do what he wants.”
But I could feel my eyes welling up slightly.
I wanted to blame it on the lack of sleep, but I knew that Hinzelmann was more than right. Patrick had lived with me for a year. I’d washed his underwear, vacuumed under his bed, and convinced him to try watercress in a stir-fry (as long as it was smothered in baby corn). As far as I was concerned, he was part of my family. And n
o Anglo-Saxon-speaking vampire was going to give him a better home than I could.
“I’m not his mother,” I said finally. “I understand that. I’m not stupid. He has a million questions about his heritage, and I can’t answer them. I can’t even help him with his geometry homework, since I was such a spaz at math in high school.”
I shook my head. “But I also know that he cares about us. He wants to live with us, but the monitors are pressuring him, trying to make him more vampire than human. Eventually, they’re going to win. He has to become fully vampire, or else he’ll never be able to rule the city. And who’s to say that he won’t make an incredible magnate? I don’t want to stand in the way of his destiny.”
“What if someone had stood in the way of your destiny, years ago?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Hinzelmann rested his chin on his folded hands. It was a strangely intimate posture, as if he was about to tell me a secret. “The CORE found you when you were just twelve years old. They trained you, indoctrinated you, convinced you that the only way to control your powers was to join them. But what if someone had told you the opposite? What if someone had urged you to stay away instead? There are wild talents, after all. Latents. People who can still channel materia, but who do it without sanctioned training or guidance by CORE practitioners.”
“What are you getting at?” My face was starting to ache again. The coffee had given me an unpleasantly esoteric feeling, as if I was floating outside of my body, a wired and dry-mouthed psychic projection. “Do you want me to admit that the CORE was wrong in training me? I’m sure my supervisor would love to hear that.”
“Everything you say in these sessions is confidential.”
“Bullshit.”
“You don’t have to believe me. But I swear to you, anything you say in this room will remain in confidence. We aren’t taping. My notes are sealed.”
He had a point. I still hadn’t been able to discover a hidden camera anywhere. And Selena didn’t seem to have any knowledge of our conversations so far. Not that they were especially probative to begin with.
“So I can say whatever I want.”
“Absolutely.”
We stared at each other silently for a few seconds. I swallowed. Thoughts warred inside my brain.
I’m terrified.
I’m angry all the time.
I’m surprisingly horny.
I miss my parents.
I have no idea if I’m doing anything right.
I don’t know how to raise two kids.
I still feel like a kid. I’m only twenty-six.
I can’t figure out how to record anything with my DVD player. It has something to do with the fucking tuner, but every time I hit TV/VIDEO on the remote control, like Derrick told me to, I just get the same black screen.
I never feel smart.
I suck at badminton.
Sometimes I’m so tired of my job, all I can think about is quitting, moving to Mexico, and making beaded jewelry.
Even though I’m not fat anymore, I still feel like I am, especially when I’m standing in an elevator for some reason.
I may be in love with a necromancer.
The alarm on Hinzelmann’s desk went off. He pressed the button to make it stop, then closed the green folder.
“Looks like our time’s up for this morning.”
I rose, straightening my pants even though they weren’t wrinkled. “Right. Thanks for the chat.”
“It was my pleasure.”
I’ll bet it was. Asshole.
I smiled and walked out of his office. I couldn’t figure out what pissed me off more. Was it the fact that he’d so obviously manipulated me?
Or was it that he’d been right about nearly everything?
10
I met Becka in the AV lab, and was a bit surprised to find her staring at Las Meninas, the painting from Ordeño’s living room. It was laid across a glass table, and the frame had been carefully removed to expose the borders. A specialized ELMO document camera had been set up around the painting, and it projected a magnified image onto an adjacent monitor. Velázquez looked larger than life on the LCD screen, the Cross of Santiago burning like a brand against his surcoat.
Becka looked up. “Hey. As you can see, we finally managed to acquire most of Ordeño’s art collection. The necromancers are being kind of twitchy about it, so we can’t keep them for too long.”
“They’re twitchy about everything.” I held out a large coffee. “Are you allowed to drink this near the painting?”
She took the steaming cup from me. “Probably not. But this is a copy, so if I spill on it… meh. The original’s still safe in the Prado.”
“You’re sure it’s a copy? Ordeño was pretty long-lived after all.”
“Cindée used a Fourier-Transform Microscope to analyze the paint, and it’s definitely not four hundred years old.” She sighed. “We haven’t finished looking at everything, though. He may have some originals mixed in with the copies.”
I stared at the painting, my gaze divided between the object itself and the projection on the wall. It was a strange tableau. Velázquez the painter was standing next to a canvas, which seemed to be blocking the actual subject of the painting. What the observer ended up looking at was a little girl, blond, wearing a beautiful dress and surrounded by two young female attendants. All three girls had pale, almost blanched skin, and their eyes held the suggestion of melancholy.
Next to them stood two small figures, one of whom was definitely a dwarf, and the other who may have been either a dwarf or a young boy. A sleeping dog lay under the small person’s foot, and I couldn’t tell if he was stroking it or shaking it awake.
A man and a woman stood behind the girls, seeming to be in the midst of a conversation. The woman looked vaguely like a nun or a lady-in-waiting, and reminded me—although I didn’t want to admit it—of one of the female Grail-keepers from the Monty Python film. Zoot, I think her name was. The man was shadowed, resembling an indistinct pillar of darkness and ochre.
The door to the chamber where everyone had been positioned was open, and a male figure stood poised in the doorway. It was impossible to tell whether he was coming or going, but something about him seemed to be in motion. To the right of the glowing doorway was a mirror, hanging from the wall like a silver frame suspended in space. In the mirror, one could barely make out two reflected figures, which may or may not have been the figures that Velázquez himself was painting on the canvas.
“It seems sad,” I said. “And pretty. And dark.”
Becka nodded. “I think it’s all of those things. And what makes it so interesting is that you can’t really determine who the ‘real’ subject of the painting is. Because the observer’s perspective and the subject’s perspective are the same.”
“Right. Like standing in a blind spot.” I peered closer.
“Are there two dwarves, or is that a child with his foot on the dog?”
She squinted. “Another dwarf, I think. But he does look like a little boy.”
“He has such pretty shoes.”
I heard footsteps in the hallway. A set of high heels click-clicking against the polished concrete floor. They sounded vaguely familiar. Then I felt the presence attached to the heels, a genetic signature that I would have recognized anywhere. Powerful and stylish at the same time.
Duessa stepped through the doorway. She wore periwinkle Jimmy Choo heels and a black pencil skirt with a fierce blue top. Her hair was pinned up, and I doubted that anything short of a hailstorm would be able to move it.
She was on her cell. “Right. If he wants it, he’ll have to sign it out. No, just—” She smiled indulgently, holding the phone away from her mouth, and whispered: “I’m so sorry. This’ll just take a moment.”
I nodded. “Of course. Take your time.”
You just didn’t rush someone like Duessa. She lived in several different worlds, and communicating with mortals seemed difficult for her sometime
s. Getting a solid answer from her—about anything—was like winning the metaphysical lottery.
“No.” Duessa sighed. “No, it’s in the other cupboard. The one with the label that says CONDOMS AND LUBE. Remember, we bought the label maker, and you—right, right. From Staples. Right.”
Becka just stared at me. I shrugged.
“Yes, that’s the one. In there. It’s way in the back. Behind the dental dams. How many of those do we have, by the way? Do we need more?” She blinked. “We have that many? Jesus, did we get them in bulk?”
“I thought she was an antiquities expert,” Becka whispered.
“She is. She also runs a shelter for mage runaways and sex workers.”
“Ah.”
Duessa was shaking her head. “If it’s not there, it must be in one of the plastic totes. Look in the TV room, behind the box of toys. I don’t—Well, ask Dukwan; he’s the one who had them last. If he’s—” She sighed. “Pobrecito. Let him sleep, then. Call me when he wakes up. Sí. Vale. Un besito. Ciao.”
She closed the phone. “Sorry. Business call.”
“No problem at all,” I replied. “We appreciate you coming down to the lab again. You must be busy.”
“I was born busy. Did you speak with the Seneschal?”
“Yeah. We chatted in his Hobbit-hole. It was very revealing.”
Duessa rolled her eyes. “Didn’t tell you shit, did he? ¡Hijo de pavo! That old bird pisses me off. Likes to hoard his secrets like candy.”
I wasn’t sure if I should mention what he’d said about Lucian or not. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Becka. I just didn’t want to put him under the microscope. At least not yet.
“Actually, he did give me a name. El alquimista. Does that ring a bell?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what he said? El alquimista?”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
For the first time since we’d met, Duessa actually looked surprised. “No—I mean, it’s possible, but—”
“But what?”
She shrugged. “El alquimista is un riçon. A fairy tale. He’s like that character—how do you call him—the doctor who drinks the potion?”
