by Beth Dranoff
I’ve learned that people see what they expect to see. Their minds fill in the cracks for what’s left. The rest of us? We get graduate degrees in the Preternatural Sciences and end up working for the Agency.
I called Lynna back and left a message, pushing our lunch by half an hour so I could make a stop on the way.
There was something I had to do first.
Chapter Ten
Half an hour later, I was showered and caffeinated and ready to go. Too tired to think about matching clothes, I opted for the whole black on black on black theme again. Different black items, same dark effect.
Jewelry. That’s what it needed. I fumbled around in my underwear drawer until I found what I was looking for: a Celtic shield knot woven into a circle and overlaid with silver gilt leaves, hanging on a black leather cord that turned invisible in the dark. I figured the Wiccan talisman of protection might help with unwanted supernatural advances as well. Plus, it looked good. So on it went along with a collection of silver bangles, a thick silver band for my index finger and another one for the opposite thumb.
I surveyed myself in the mirror. I looked like a hipster mortician.
Oh well.
* * *
Professor Ezra Gerbrecht’s office looked just the way I remembered it. Overflowing wastebasket nudged up against an extra-large, weathered cherrywood desk littered with old cardboard coffee cups, file folders and stacks of papers. IN basket piled high; OUT basket nearly empty. The message light flashing insistently on the call-display speaker phone to the right of his antiquated PC desktop computer. Did Ezra ever pick up his messages? I wondered if there was a statute of limitations on voice mail storage, or whether the system automatically deleted them after a certain point.
Ezra’s official title was Professor and Faculty Chair of the Department of Preternatural Studies. An obscure, government-funded department assumed to be part of Classics or Philosophy and housed in one of the older wings of a complex most people avoided. Might have been the “sick building” label slapped on it by the Steelworkers’ union, or maybe it was the whispers of haunted pain howling their way along the corridors after dark when things moved that shouldn’t. Sense memories of things best forgotten.
Ezra’s other, lesser-known job title? Senior Director of Special Projects, Covert Division with the Agency.
Even with the professor’s back to me, I could tell it was him by the tufts of wild, white hair that spiked and corkscrewed up over the top edge of his high-backed, battered red leather chair. If I squinted just right, I could almost see my father in that chair instead of Ezra. From before he died. Back when he and Ezra were coworkers. Friends.
I swallowed the lump that clogged my throat, blinking back tears that should have dried up long ago. Forcing myself to focus on the now.
The door was open, but I knocked anyway.
The chair spun around. Ezra leapt out of his chair to pull me into a bear hug, and I was stunned by how much he hadn’t aged. Sure, the pigment-deprived hair made it difficult to judge his years. But his face was less lined, smoother, fuller. Either he had gone on the Hollywood wrinkle reduction plan, or the man was getting younger.
I hugged Ezra back, keeping my observations to myself. Well, mostly.
“Hey Professor Ezra, you’re looking good! You been dipping into the Botox lately?”
Oh yeah, that’s me—the queen of diplomacy.
Fortunately, Ezra laughed.
“That’s the girl I remember,” he replied, eyes crinkling up into a warm smile. “Calls-’em-like-she-sees-’em. How have you been?”
“Fine,” I said. “You?”
“Fine fine,” he replied absently. “Some things change, some don’t. Did you just get back into town?”
I looked away for a moment, shrugged off the words I was about to say. “I’ve been back for about three years now.”
There’s no way Ezra could have known about my bad days. The ones where I remembered what it was like to work on those quasi-preternatural experiments. The staring, pleading eyes of those still alive; alive enough to scream through snouts, trunks, tusks—whatever. The yellows of their eyes clouding over from one too many injections, prods from a pain stick, or having just been disemboweled.
There had to be a better way to study the parallels and splits between shifter and human DNA.
I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans to hide the shaking and forced myself to remember how to breathe.
“I thought I’d heard you were working down east, somewhere in Newfoundland—making waves,” he said, grinning at his own joke. Oblivious.
I rolled my eyes and groaned on cue.
“All these jokes,” he continued, “you’d think I was fishing for a compliment, eh?”
Professor Gerbrecht chortled and looked at me expectantly.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em.
“If you’re fin-ished,” I said, “not to make you feel gill-ty or anything, but on a scale of one to ten...not to speak out of school...could we possibly change the subject?”
Ezra whooped in appreciation. I’d thought I’d be rusty from lack of practice, but apparently I still had it.
Not that telling jokes was the reason I’d come by.
“Listen, Ezra,” I said. “I was wondering about those vaccines we got during the program.”
Professor Gerbrecht raised his tufted, white eyebrows at me.
“What about them?”
“I was wondering how long they last,” I said. “Do we need to get boosters? Are they good for lifetime use?”
“Depends on how long your lifetime is,” he replied dryly. “No, seriously, they’re good for about ten years. How long ago did you have your last one?”
“Eight years ago.”
“So you should be fine. Why do you ask?”
“The formulas themselves,” I continued, ignoring his last question. “Do they protect against all strains of vampirism and therianthropy, or are there some kinds of vampires or shifters where the vaccines might not work?”
That got his attention. Ezra’s blue eyes cleared and fixed sharply on mine. “Such as?”
Whatever else Ezra might have said was interrupted as a woman poked her head around the corner, smiling full lips over slightly pointed incisors. Her curly black hair fell to her muscular shoulders, and her fitted burgundy T-shirt poured into a pair of skinny black jeans. There were black combat-style boots completing the look. Her pout coaxed the professor’s attention away from me. She reminded me of someone, but who?
I narrowed my eyes at the interruption, flipping through images in my head to try to match one up with her face. But all I could draw was a complete blank. Damn.
“Cybele, this is one of my former star pupils, Dana,” Ezra was saying to the woman. She smiled up at me with a look that said we shared some kind of wonderful secret.
I give good blank stare. Especially when it’s for real.
She held out her hand to shake mine, holding it for a few heartbeats longer than was comfortable. Was that a fingernail trailing along the inside of my wrist? A green fingernail? I had a sudden urge to grab her, push her shoulders against the wall, and shove my tongue into her mouth. Hold her by the back of her neck. Touch her as she touches...
Abruptly, the thoughts cut off. I looked down and realized my hand was back in my possession again.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, green eyes winking at me. “Although I have a feeling we’ve met before.”
I nodded absently. The eyes. That hair. Those thoughts...
It hit me, bricks to the head.
Demon Chick from the bar.
Working for Ezra in the Preternatural Studies Department of the University of Toronto?
Odd.
Coincidence?
Maybe not.
And how did she manage to do that to me? I’d never thought of myself as bi before. I gave a mental shrug and filed that question away for later contemplation.
Whatever her dealings with Ezra were, they were wrapping up. He was ushering her to the door, his hand on the small of her back, gently propelling her out of his office with one hand as he grabbed a clipboard and stack of files with the other. Wait. He was leaving?
“Ezra?”
He seemed surprised to see me still leaning against the wall, arms crossed with a question mark in my eyes. Demon Chick certainly was good at distraction.
“Dana? I’m sorry, I forgot you were here,” he said. “Listen, it sounds like you’ve got some questions and I’m happy to talk about them further with you, but I have to go teach a class now. As Cybele so considerately reminded me. Leave your number with my secretary, and we’ll get together, okay?”
I nodded as I watched his sporty, khaki-clad butt wiggle out the door after his demonic sexpot assistant. Succubus maybe? The Ezra I used to know would have been able to spot her a mile off. And now?
Hmm.
Maybe he’s ensorcelled. Maybe she’s his midlife crisis. Maybe...
Maybe it was time to stop worrying about how other people lived their lives if it didn’t directly affect me.
My stomach was growling again, noisily demanding my as-immediate-as-possible attention. Considering the time, I decided to follow its cue and make my lunch date.
* * *
On my way around King’s College Circle to the underpass out of the university grounds, I ran into the wild street woman who’d called me Kitty. It was a day of weirdness I guess.
Except that the woman’s marbles seemed to have shaken themselves a little looser since last we ran into each other. Today she saw me coming, widened her bleary eyes, pulled her lips back over her teeth and hissed before swatting at me. Looking for all the world like a cat with retractable claws outstretched.
I squinted, trying to focus on her hands. Hands that swished again past my nose. Yes, they were hands. Not paws with claws. But I could have sworn I was almost scratched on the nose by a bag lady with cat claws and furry orange paws.
Only one thing to do. Back away. Slowly.
I was across the street at Queen’s Park Crescent before I finally looked over my shoulder at the old woman. Orange glowing eyes watched me from the gloom under the bridge. I closed my eyes, opened them, then looked a second time. This time, darkness wrapped its shawl around the woman and I saw only the wildness of her hair, a white flame in the dark, her face turned away from me.
Sigh.
The cosmos was getting a bit obvious for my tastes. Apparently someone wanted me to think I was, or was about to become, a cat. Except that it wasn’t possible because my shots were up to date.
Right?
If I wish for something really really hard, can I make it so?
Like the little engine that could, I think I can keep from turning into a cat... I think I can keep from turning into a cat... I think I can I think I can...
Chapter Eleven
A woman looking rather messianic walks into a bar, slaps down three nails, and says: “Can you put me up for the night?”
Okay, so not really. What I actually asked for was a shot of Patrón tequila with a Corona beer chaser. Amazingly enough, I was early so I had time to slug both back before Lynna arrived and had the opportunity to comment on my uncharacteristic pre-noon alcohol consumption.
A bartender who doesn’t (usually) drink. Go figure. Just call me one of life’s little ironies.
The bar-slash-restaurant was pretty busy for a midweek, lunchtime crowd. The counter in front of the bar was filled with guys in casual office wear and a smattering of baseball caps. I was guessing tourists or guys playing hooky for the afternoon from one of the many Bay Street offices guarding the city’s financial empires. Off in another corner was a group of women opening presents and downing margaritas. The rest of the place was a mix of university students, couples and casual friends kicking back over beer and nachos.
“Been waiting long?”
Lynna cheerfully plopped down onto the unoccupied bench in the booth, tossing a sunshine-orange synthetic nylon bag into the corner beside her. I smiled back with lips now salty and slightly numb.
Lynna has a very bright, somewhat exotic—at least by polite Canadian standards—fashion sense. Vivid colors are a staple, and the bolder the statement the happier she tends to be with her outfit. Today was no exception. She’d paired purple velvet stretch pants with a wide black belt and a flowing rust-colored crushed velvet top, which technically laced up the front but was really just an excuse to flash a little of her ample cleavage. I paused for a moment to admire her fire-engine-red patent leather platform shoes.
Basically, Lynna’s taste in bodily attire was the antithesis of mine.
The waiter brought me another tequila shot and put the full glass down next to the two empties. So much for worrying about what Lynna might think.
“Can I take those for you?”
I nodded as I plastered a bright smile on my face and thanked him politely for doing what, really, he was being paid minimum wage plus tips to do anyway. But there’s a kind of solidarity among those of us who work in the food and beverage service industry, so no being rude to a compadre.
The tequila was definitely warming my mood.
Lynna had her brown eyes fixed on me during the exchange, red painted fingernails tapping unconsciously on the scratched, varnished wood tabletop.
“Stop thinking so loud,” I said.
“So stop being so cheerful,” she replied. “It’s creepy.”
“Creepy? I was being nice—at least, I thought I was,” I said. “Wasn’t I? It’s been a while I guess. Maybe I’ve forgotten how.”
“No, you seem to have managed it just fine,” she said. “What’s going on? You’re wired, drinking tequila shots, and the most unnerving thing of all—you’re being polite to Rick the Dick. You can’t stand him. You barely speak to him. So, spill.”
I can’t stand him? Glancing over at the plexiglass window between the dining area and the back kitchen, I realized that Lynna was right. Rick was the waiter with capital A attitude, the starving artist/actor/cooler-than-thou guy who always gave me service with a sneer. Might have been because I slept with him that once and snuck out without leaving him my number. Did I mention he was a lousy lay? All slobber and quick thrusts. Spent most of the time watching himself in the mirror rather than reciprocating my efforts with anything fun. And here I was, being polite to the selfish snoot. Well. Enough of that.
So I spilled, as requested. The scene, the scratch, the was-it-or-wasn’t-it hospital visit, the post-bar incident. Lynna listened to it all, her mouth hanging open. Metaphorically speaking. If she’d really had her mouth open all that time, I’m sure actual drool would have pooled on her crushed velvet top and spoiled the fabric.
At some point, Lynna caught Rick the Dick’s attention and ordered us some killer nachos and a couple of frozen margaritas. Extra sour cream, extra guacamole. Can’t have too much dip. Especially in the middle of a crisis. As for the margaritas, well, I might have been in a tequila shooter kind of mood but margaritas just plain taste better. So yay Lynna.
The drinks arrived at the table and were met by silence. We both clinked, gulped fast, then smacked our glasses back onto the tabletop. Finally:
“So,” I said, “what do you think?”
“Was he cute?”
“Who, Ezra?”
“No,” Lynna replied, laughing a bit. “Sam, did you say his name was?”
“Yeah, Sam.” I conjured his face in my mind, shadowed by the previous night’s events. Grasping at hollows and angles and darkness for a clear image. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sor
t of. He was a good fighter, that’s for sure.”
“Not a total loss then.”
“I guess,” I said, with a fleeting attempt at a smile. Then, I blurted out before my self-controlled bravado could filter the rawness of my question: “Lynna, do you think I’m going to turn into a cat?”
She signaled Rick the Dick.
“We’re going to need another round of drinks.”
Chapter Twelve
It was 2:30 in the afternoon when I dragged myself away from Hermano’s Hideaway. Any sun from earlier had fled behind grey, low-hanging clouds. I started walking towards my truck only to remember, belatedly, that I’d had a few too many to drink and shouldn’t be getting behind the wheel. Remembered even more belatedly that I hadn’t actually driven.
I wasn’t due at work for another three hours. Not quite enough time for the alcohol to wear off and too much time to head directly there by cab or public transit. Sparks of energy danced along my skin; too restless to check myself into a café with a book.
I walked.
The lake appeared faster than expected and I shifted my awareness east in the direction of the Swan. At the split in the road around Cherry Beach, I veered off the grime-encrusted sludge of Lakeshore Boulevard, south past the small bridge that spans the Don River, and headed into the warehouse district.
By this time I was re-thinking my decision not to drive. My head had cleared and I realized that I’d be finishing work at 2:30 a.m.—not the best time to grab a cab in the middle of nowhere. I fished around for my cell phone, hoping to catch Lynna before she turned her mobile to silent for the shoot.
The call went straight to voice mail; I left a message asking her to come by and pick me up after she got off work if she could. If Lynna didn’t check in time, I might be bunking down in the storage room for the night. Awesome. Remind me again not to drink in the middle of the afternoon on a workday.
I stared blankly at my phone, willing it to ring while I pictured what bedding—if any—was currently tucked into those shelves in the back of the Swan, when I noticed that I had no signal. Odd considering I was about two blocks from a cache of satellite dishes, the space rented out by one or more of the major telecommunications companies with offices in the city.
