by VK Fox
“She had to have surgery. What they removed wasn’t cancer, but if she’d let it go it would have been. Surgery’s kind of an exaggeration—a few stitches and she came home the same day, but it saved her life.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know, right? Thank God she got it taken care of.”
“Yeah, no kidding. So what’s up with you?”
Anna picked up another phone, and the three of them chatted for forty minutes about driving, horses, school, boys, movies, hunting, and the spring garden. When her watch alarm deafened them with its percussive reminder, Jane said goodbye and diligently swallowed her strawberry protein shake. Ian had brought several bottles of multivitamins and supplements as well, which she took with water, deeply suspecting they were pricey snake oil. But it made him happy, even if they tasted like alfalfa and chalk.
The click of the door opening made Jane’s heart turn a summersault. She screwed the lid back on the bottle, swallowed, and hurried to the other room—because this hotel had sub rooms and side rooms and possibly little hidden rooms she hadn’t discovered.
Ian beamed when he saw her and swept her into a hug. “How are you doing, sweet girl?”
“Good. I called my family and talked to my sisters.” Her voice choked with the emotion she’d been handling so well right until this moment. She swallowed it and continued, “They were really happy to hear from me. I was worried they’d be pissed, but they were just… not. It was so good to catch up.”
“Good.” He kissed the top of her head, “Listen, we need to talk.” Crap. Jane squeezed him and sat on the incredibly fluffy sofa. Ian sat across from her in an enormous chair he made look normal. Was all the furniture in this hotel oversized, or did they have special rooms for people like Ian?
Ian leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and held Jane’s gaze with serious eyes, “There was a break-in at the Sana Baba vault and…” He trailed off and squinted, “Jane?” Shitmuffins. Did her face do that thing again? She tried to smooth it out. She’d been ready for this! She’d practiced in the mirror! Of course, she was going to tell him, but not right now.
“Mmmmm?” She nodded in a ‘go on’ sort of way.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me about the vault?”
Jane cleared her throat. “I was going to let you do your thing first.”
“That’s kind of you, but why don’t you go ahead.”
Jane exhaled, her mouth cottony, “Sister Mary’s in town.”
“An interesting piece of the puzzle.”
“She asked me not to divulge stuff right now.”
“Is that what you feel is best?” Ian was reading her face like a book.
Jane nodded, “You’re going to know soon, but the timing is dangerous. She’s right about minimizing risk. I want to tell you, but I trust her judgment.”
Ian steepled his fingers, pressing the tips to his lips. He sat silently for a few minutes. Jane could feel the gears turning in his mind. She went red and twisted her flannel buttons, but she didn’t look away.
“I trust you.” He said finally, reaching out to squeeze her knee affectionately. “May I continue to speak about my meeting, or will knowing more make things more difficult?”
“I think it should be okay.”
“Thank you. My story was broken.” Ian’s face fell, creases marking his forehead. Was he sad for the loss? Why?
“I know.”
“The end of my line.” His voice was soft.
“Well, there’s Dahl.”
“I know. I didn’t mean like that, exactly. A chain I was part of stretched into the past for thousands of years, but also into the future. Now it’s been broken. I’m the last one.”
“There’s still Dahl.”
Ian chuckled, “Jane, can you picture Dahl adopting children?”
Jane’s mind skipped to a five-year-old spilling chocolate milk on Dahl’s meticulously maintained possessions, asking “Why?” forty consecutive times while Dahl went slowly insane, and Dahl in massive nicotine withdrawal due to concerns of secondhand smoke. But she could also see him carefully showing a little someone how to skip stones on the river, ruffling their hair, and telling dad jokes. Jane’s heart twinged. He had better be alright.
“Maybe. I could maybe see it. I think he’d be a good dad someday. Besides, there’s us.” Ian looked like she’d put an ice cube down the pack of his shirt.
She pointed at him, laughing, “Don’t give me that, I am fucking maternal.”
Ian’s smile was fragile, “We should talk about this when you’re ready.”
“Yeah, we should. Hey, listen…” Jane plucked at her bracelets, “I broke the tablet.”
Ian cocked his head to the side like he was waiting for some additional information. Jane gripped her wrists, her knuckles turning white. “I thought if you were the last one it would offer some protection against… the consequences of treason.”
Ian blinked. What else should she say?
“You were in the vault?” His voice was flat.
“Yeah.”
“Did you use magic?”
“No.”
Ian closed his eyes. His lips moved silently. After fifteen agonizing, unbearable seconds he met her eyes again, “Thank you for not using magic. Please do not break into any more vaults. Agreed?”
Jane nodded. Her mouth tasted like salt.
Ian’s voice was kind but quiet, “I think I’ll go on a walk to clear my head. I’ll be back in an hour?”
“Yeah, okay.” Jane’s voice was tiny. Almost lost in the shuffle of Ian standing. He gently squeezed her shoulder as he stepped by and closed the door quietly behind him. Jane’s eyes stung, but she shoved her feet in her boots, scribbled Be Back Soon! On a memo pad and called a cab.
“Tuna noodle casserole!” Blue answered the door panting and rosy-cheeked, “Tuna noodle casserole brought your devil book back!” She grabbed Jane’s arm and pulled her through the house, huffing with the physical exertion of traversing the full length at one go while nurturing new life. On the black granite kitchen counter, the Tupperware golem looked like they should turn it in for its lifetime guarantee: the plastic was cracked, warped, peeling, and chipped. The back four insectoid legs stuck out at useless angles, warped and twitching while it valiantly army-crawled along the shiny black surface. Blue carefully smoothed the peeling masking tape with the words of life back onto its grimy exterior, but the tape was soaked and the adhesive wouldn’t hold for long. In its rectangular two-quart belly lay the much battered Once and Future King under a meaty helping of tuna and noodles.
“He walked all the way back here from the library?” Jane’s directional sense of Vegas wasn’t all there yet, but from Blue’s house to Sana Baba’s office was more than five miles as the sparrow flies.
“He’s such a trooper.” Blue gazed tenderly at the XS golem nudging against the side of the fridge. “Sister Mary’s on her way. Can I offer you a drink?”
Ten minutes later, Sister Mary and Father Gentle stepped into the kitchen. When Jane had originally pictured the Exorcist Father Gentle she’d imagined a wizened, leathery, battle-scarred Viking of a man who could wrestle a demon to the ground as fast as he could send one back to hell. In truth, he was almost the opposite: small stature, ultra-dark skin, and a sweet smile. He was also young. Like someone’s-kid-brother young. He probably got carded buying the communion wine. “Nice to see you again, Jane. Where’s your heroic sidekick?” His voice was precise and pleasing, keen eyes were already on the kitchen counter, “Ah! Tuna noodle. My favorite.”
Two strides closed the gap as he lifted the golem in the air and sniffed the contents absently. He peered through his wire-rimmed glasses at the bottom. The golem’s legs cartwheeled and twitched. Without incense or holy water or chanting, he slid his kid-gloved hand into the mess and extracted the book.
“Do you have any paper towels, Miss Cohen?” Blue handed him a roll, and he toweled the mess into the sink. He used a damp paper towel to
clean off the cheese sauce and laid the soggy book out on the table, patting it dry while Blue gave the Tupperware golem a quick rinse.
Father Gentle placed a hand on either side of the book and studied it intently for a few seconds before lifting his eyes to sister Mary, “This book,” His tone was definitive, “is not linked, let alone conscious.”
Sister Mary shook her head, “It came from the vault. How could it not be linked? Jane,” She turned slightly, “You didn’t get the fake and the real one confused, did you?”
“What? No! No way.” Jane scrambled inside her mind. She hadn’t, had she? She’d dumped the fake book before she’d grabbed the linked copy. Everything had gone to hell when the dead had started rising, could the fake book have been kicked under the chair in the fight? Could she have retrieved the same book she’d planted only a few minutes earlier? Sister Mary was rubbing her temples. Blue dried her hands and patted Jane on the back a few times. No way. She could not have fucked up that badly. Jane’s eyes stung as Father Gentle lifted the damp volume and thumbed through it.
The cover fell open, “Oh! Interesting!” Father Gentle turned the book outward for all to see, like he was showing the pictures at story time. A pouch and library record card had been pasted on the inside cover. The only entry written in lovely, loopy script:
Title: The Once and Future Douchebag
Author: Mordred
Borrowed By: The Suicide King
Return Date: Never
Chapter Seventeen
Last February - Three Months Ago
Crushing civvies completely was one of Dahl’s occasional guilty pleasures. When he came alone, regulars pegged him for a crack shot with a laser pistol as soon as he stepped into the building. Some combination of athletic build, snake bite lip rings, and air of confidence tipped them off every time, and once they united to shut him out the game proved more challenging than dignified. When he walked in with Everest, who compulsively fiddled with his long hair and smelled like pot and lavender oil, Dahl could see people nudging each other in the ribs and joking behind their hands—an entirely different set of expectations being applied. Everest and Dahl destroyed them.
“We’re going to have to get some other agents out here next time.” Dahl was on a knee behind ultraviolet illuminated cover. “I need Ian to continue to count this towards training time. He won’t if we just mow down tourists.”
Everest went still for a heartbeat. He was thinking, “It seems reasonable you’ll have to work your way through a roomful of civvies at some point. You could pitch it as conditioning instead of target practice.”
Chuckling threw off Dahl’s shot.
“You also need conditioning to deal with distractions, it seems.” Everest leaned out the side and scored a few points on an enemy base.
“Please, Everest. As if you could be distracting.” Dahl’s voice faded out into heavy, weird silence that made his lungs hurt. He missed his next shot as well. Dahl cleared his throat, “Is this your first time playing?”
“No, Adam took me here a couple times, although he preferred paintball.” Everest’s careful tone hid fondness. Dahl shifted and bit his lip ring. “He liked nerf wars too: where you mod the gun with all kinds of ill-advised additions, meet a bunch of strangers in a field, and we all hope some evil genius hasn’t figured out how to defy physics and shoot solid slugs.”
“Sounds delightful.”
“It was.” Grief edged into his tone. At least he’d been happy while he related his memory about the bastard.
“Will you show me sometime?”
“I will. You’ll like it.” Everest disabled an incoming combatant with surgical precision.
“You sound confident.”
“I am.”
“Did you peek?”
“At the future? I don’t have to.”
“Go on then. What makes you sure?” Dahl was pinning down a runner and stealing glances at Everest’s shadowed face.
His eyes were locked on the same runner. “Let him go, I can get him at the blue pillar.”
“Unlikely.” Dahl eyed the distance. Maybe if the runner was young or out of shape, but his camo shirt stood out under the UV light, and Dahl had recognized him as trouble in the waiting room.
“Let him go, watch the alley.”
Dahl swung his gun to the left access tunnel. He tagged a girl trying to sneak in the side. Camo dashed out, and his vest lit up just before he made it to cover.
“Gorgeous, Deadeye.” Dahl grinned. Everest groaned like he was experiencing mild abdominal trauma. Funny how so many people caught that exact feeling from puns.
Everest’s mismatched eyes narrowed, “What did you call me?”
“You heard me.” As Everest was now comfortable leaving his house, they needed to visit the field near Ian’s and play H.O.R.S.E. with reactive targets. Shooting two-liter sodas and watermelons was an extraordinary amount of fun. “But you’ve been interrupted. Tell me what reasoning has rendered future sight redundant?”
Everest peeked at him sideways, filtering eye contact through heavy lashes. It had a terrible impact on Dahl’s concentration, “It’s familiar enough for you to grasp quickly, different enough to be exciting, and the inventive and strategic elements outweigh luck and brute force. You’ll love it.” Dahl almost missed his tiny, shy smile. Everest refocused on the game. Dahl wrote the expression into his mind for a sketch later before forcing his eyes back to the arena. More of the opposing team was coordinating. Time to move. They split up and regrouped at a strobe-lit choke point, but Dahl didn’t make it clean.
Dahl crouched behind a wall dotted with murder holes, and Everest covered him. Annoying. Maybe his vest was on the blink. While his gun went through the cool-down timer, Dahl let his gaze sweep over Everest’s poised form. He had his back pressed against the wall, minimizing the target he presented. He looked good; he’d gained some weight and his posture was more sanguine, less weary. A few strands of loose hair clung to his sweaty neck. Dahl’s heart tripped. Fuck, when had this gotten out of control? He pressed his eyes closed, but imagining became more tantalizing than reality: leaning into him, palm against his stomach pressing him into the wall, lips almost touching. Dahl forced his eyes open again. Everest was staring back. An audio countdown signaled the end of the round. Dahl rubbed his face. He had Everest’s attention. Time to make it count.
“I wanted to ask you...”
Ohhh… here we go.
Dahl stood, shaking his head at Mordred’s voice. Everest turned fully toward him as the lights came on. “I wanted to ask you if you would help me. Do you have a SubCert?”
Everest blinked a few times. “I do.”
“I, ah, I really hate my meds. I’ve been on them forever, and of course I shouldn’t be medicated. I was hoping you could sign my dosage sheet so I could get off.”
Phrasing.
“Shut up.”
Don’t blame the messenger.
Everest closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow, “You want me to sign off each day saying you’ve taken them so you can stop the medication?”
Dahl forced a relaxed posture. He couldn’t afford to make this into a situation—better to keep it as a casual back and forth. He started unclipping his vest. “I’m over there all the time anyway, and it would be great to have feelings again. I seem to remember liking those.”
“What do you mean?”
Dahl shrugged, “I’m on a high dose of lithium and a cocktail of others. I don’t feel things the way I know I should.” They were meandering to the exit across the now brightly lit arena. Everest absently trailed his hand over the laser gun, his white eye flickering like a neon bulb. Did he need a little push? Dahl’s stomach knotted. What should he say?
“You’ve been medicated for how long? Since you were linked?”
“Yes. Briefly when I was a kid as a stop gap, but consistently since fourteen.”
“Do you have a diagnosis?”
“I have a bouquet of them.”
“What’s the lithium for?” They’d reached the waiting area and were stripping off their vests and guns. Everest’s v neck shirt clung to his sinuous torso like a second skin.
You’re staring. He’s only stripping down to his shirt. You’ve seen more.
Dahl shook his head, “It’s a mood regulator. For a while they thought I was bipolar, but they’ve tossed that out. The lithium stayed, though. I don’t even think it’s attached to a particular diagnosis at this point. You understand it’s really because of—”
Everest paused, his voice almost inaudible under the shuffling and chatting in the waiting area, “Yes, I understand.” The room was beginning to empty. “Let’s get something to eat and we can talk about it.”
Dahl nodded.
They grabbed subs, parked in the far corner of the lot, and sat on the warm hood of the Mustang under the clear, cold stars. Everest hugged his pea coat around him and trailed his fingers along a seam. He’d shaken out and knotted his hair, long flyaways escaping. Dahl suppressed an urge to tuck them in. Mordred pointed out how good it would feel to brush them away: smooth and warm and tidy, aching fingers weaving through soft hair. Agreeing with Mordred about anything was frightening and infuriating. Dahl didn’t glance at him again as Everest ate like it was a job and finished in half the time it took Dahl. He lit a joint and stared at the sky while Dahl chewed his steak-and-cheese footlong.
Everest broke the silence, “You mentioned you were medicated as a child, before being linked. Can you tell me about the details?”
Dahl was silent.
“You don’t have to.” Everest’s voice was matter-of-fact, “I’m not your CO anymore. But you’re asking me to lie so you can discontinue meds your therapist and psychologist want you to be on, I need to assess as much as I can what’s Mordred and what’s you.”
A reasonable question, but he didn’t know what he was asking. Using a business tone and clinical words might help create mental distance. Dahl sped through the explanation before he could get tripped up, “My birth mother was an alcoholic. I was on my own in the house while she slept all the time from my earliest memories. I don’t recall how young I was when I started cutting myself, but I nearly died from it when I was six. I was hospitalized, and the doctors involved called it a suicide attempt. It wasn’t, it was just an accident, but no one listened to me. I was given medication while foster care placement was made. Six months of antidepressants, and then I came off of them under close therapeutic supervision. The meds were trauma treatment, not a lifelong maintenance scenario.”
