by VK Fox
Reasoning with Blue had gotten him nowhere, but she did promise to make him a better mirror for subsequent traveling, so he only had to use the Mustang side view for today. They couldn’t step through, but opening the gate and testing exposure was the first order of business anyway. Dahl tried to accept that his lovely car might get a few scratches in the process.
Everest’s playing was jerky with cold, and it took a minute for the notes to spin into something meaningful. Fiddle singing, he coaxed phantom immolations across the glass that coalesced to crackly bits of power while his white eye stayed dark. A cold lump formed in Dahl’s chest when the song alone worked. Could anyone play those notes and open a gate? Fuck all, that had better not be the case. Dahl filed the worry firmly under deal with it later and reached out with an adrenaline-primed hand.
The surface of the side view mirror was cool and flexible, like gelatin. Dahl’s fingers pierced the barrier, and he pushed his hand through to hot, dry air on the other side. The pressure was less, and his skin became light, tugged by the wind sweeping through his fingers and leaving gritty residue behind.
Someone was singing; notes vibrating in his bone marrow and throbbing at the base of his skull. He couldn’t reach it. An undignified, primal noise of frustration slipped through his trembling lips. How could he make this right? Growling, he slammed his palm against the plastic rim with a satisfying crack.
Dahl’s golem arm jerked back in an ineffective check. Everest struggled, but hands made for music, gentle elegance, and careful aim couldn’t match raw power. In the distance, melody drew him in like gravity—irresistible, irrefutable, constant. Dahl shoved, and somewhere behind him a shocked expletive cut the frosty air.
If he could break the frame the gateway would expand, filling the available space like a spreading puddle, then he could step through. The angle was awkward and working in such a tiny tear left no room for momentum. Dahl pivoted for a better wind up and Mother FUCK—white hot, irresistible agony shot through his clavicle and shoulder as Everest’s fingers mercilessly worked the pressure point and Dahl stumbled back, vision hazy and his hand smothered in piercing cold.
“Let go.” Everest’s tightly controlled voice cut through the haze. Where was he? Bodies pressed together against the side of the Mustang, Everest hot and pliant under him. Dahl’s head spun, confusion and hormone-addled instincts settling like flakes in a snow globe. He’d lost time. Everest’s body flexed before going limp with submission, and Dahl tasted blood as his neck flushed hot.
“Can you hear me?” Was Everest’s undertone terror or fury? Did it matter? Dahl closed his eyes and pictured ripping off his clothes and bending him over the hood—a variation of a hundred other brutal, indulgent images flashing through his mind.
“Tu as peur de moi, maintenant que tu n’as nulle part où aller?” (Are you scared of me now that you have nowhere to go?) The taunt fell from his lips like a gut punch. Flinching, Dahl concentrated on his toes, relaxing each muscle group in turn until he was able to pry his fingers off Everest’s inflamed wrist. Reality solidified in the pit of his stomach, and there was no Mordred to blame.
Dahl took a shaky step back, smearing a nosebleed across his lips and cheek with a swipe of his hand, collapsing to sit on the dirt and squeezing his eyes closed. He had to make this unhappen. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t real.
“Love, I don’t speak French.” Everest’s voice was stronger, and a gentle hand rested on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
Dahl couldn’t look at him, eyes shut against any additional proof of abuse.
“Yes.” His voice was timid and pathetic—a child who’d broken something precious and didn’t want to fess up.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like a complete bastard.”
Everest breathed a shaky, forced laugh. “You caught me flat footed is all. I wasn’t ready for the intensity of your reaction. I should have controlled the situation better.” Dahl opened his eyes. Everest was sitting on the ground in front of him, bleeding from the nose and a bruising cut where his thick lashes brushed his smooth cheek. “I wasn’t ready for you to throw punches and get me in a submission hold, but I guess that’s an effect of extranatural exposure for you. I’m glad you kept your right hook out of the fight.” Everest brushed his fingers along Dahl’s golem arm. “Was it a conscious decision, or did the arm protect us again?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“Stop.” Everest cut the words short. “We are not going to turn this into something it isn’t. I’m fine.”
Dahl steadied his shaking hands, letting a few moments tick by until the heat in his veins cooled and his temples quit throbbing. When he spoke he managed an even voice. “If you can continue, we should go again. I’ve got to figure out my mental control, or this is non-viable.”
Everest nodded. “Alright. I’m good as long as your right arm cooperates. If it so much as taps me too hard, I will leverage your tender shoulder, so don’t be salty about it.”
“You’re taking the whole...” Dahl gestured vaguely towards the dented door of the Mustang, the dregs of animalistic energy still rattling through his bones, “thing very well.”
Everest shrugged and brushed the snow from his jeans. Dahl flexed his fingers, aching to wrap them back around something solid and trembling. He jammed his hand in his pocket and let the muscles warm and relax. “We can talk about it later. Are you ready for round two?”
Round two bled into round twenty. Were they making progress? Dahl ached: wounded and longing. At some point, when he was face down in the dirt after being hauled back to reality, Everest rolled him over with exertion-trembling arms and kissed him hard enough to split his lip. They stripped off coats, shirts, and belts—filthy, sweat-caked and bleeding. Dahl couldn’t think and he couldn’t stop. There was nothing in the world but filling his raging emptiness with Everest’s body.
Afterward Everest lay in his arms, crammed into the back seat of the Mustang with the heat cranked on high, both of their coats stacked as blankets. His head rested against Dahl’s chest, oddly tender, like an extension of his heart.
“Did we accomplish anything?” It hurt to speak. Had he been yelling? The words scratched on the way out.
“I don’t know. We should come back tomorrow with fresh eyes.”
“This wasn’t what I expected,” Dahl whispered into Everest’s shaggy hair, breathing him in.
“What did you expect?”
“Less blacking out. Less unbridled lust. I hoped we’d get farther today.” Awkward, cramped fingers played along Dahl’s spine. “We need this. We have to be able to cross the barrier if we are going to rescue Card.”
“It’s the first day. Give it time.” Everest’s voice was drowsy.
“We don’t have any.”
“It’s the most we can do.”
Dahl closed his eyes. Lavender and blood fetor filled his lungs. “Say something reassuring.”
Everest was quiet for almost a full minute before speaking. “Yessir.”
Chapter Fourteen
Fitz fell asleep fast. The endless interruptions of the previous night, coupled with a busy day full of jets landing, Sister Mary arriving, babies to peer at, and playing with Blue, exhausted Fitz to the point where he nodded off over his sketchbook early in the evening. Everest eased his charcoal-smeared face from the page and tucked him into bed before tidying, letting his mind wander as his hands worked. When he shook himself out of his mental haze, he was studying a black and white drawing. It did not cheer him.
Everest couldn’t face sleep. Life and dreams were so similar that sorting one from the other was repetitious and harrowing, and the whole time a voice inside whispered, “but what if the nightmare is real and you are having a good dream instead?” Everest fingered the ring around his neck, warm and solid. Touching it eased the constant stress in his gut. Think about it. Good things were real.
His love had succumbed to complete exhaustion earlier in the evening,
so Everest flipped on the baby monitor and braved the freezing walk to the Grit Room. Inside, the kitchen buzzed with activity, as usual. Lizzie Davis bustled around the chaotic space with her two younger daughters, and Everest forced one foot in front of the other. When he stood on the threshold of the linoleum-tiled floor, all three women were abruptly quiet. Everest rubbed his purple and black wrist. His cheek was bruising too, but it didn’t even need a butterfly strip, and his tan skin masked some of it. At least they couldn’t see his ribs. Those were a real mess.
“Are you looking for the tea?” Kristen, the middle child, spoke first with a tentative smile. He should say yes and leave. It would be more comfortable for everyone.
“No, thank you. I was wondering if you would like a hand? I’m not a seasoned cook, but I can do the basics.”
Stirring and chopping ceased. The room went hazy around the edges, and Everest’s neck hurt from keeping his shoulders straight.
“Yes!” Anna, the youngest and curliest, sprang out of the socially awkward trance, wiping flour from her hands on a towel and grinning. “Mom, you were just saying we could use more help. Pays to complain, right? Come here and wash. I’ll show you how to knead bread, because I hate doing it.”
Everest scrubbed charcoal smudges from his fingers, and a few minutes later he had flour halfway up his arms and dough folding under his palms. Anna and Kristen had resumed a stream of teenager chatter floating cheerfully around him in the background. Kneading was a good workout. Everest thanked every god he could think of that his fingers were already used to hours on the fiddle. Discovering he was too tired to take over a task from a teenaged girl would have been humiliating.
The dough was a wonderfully satisfying texture: firm and cool. Fold, press, press, fold. There was a rhythm he liked. Slowly, it became elastic and springy. Tension drained from his mind, the kneading almost meditative. Everest jumped when Anna reappeared and took the large dough ball, flipping it into an oiled glass bowl and covering it with a damp kitchen towel.
“Thanks, it’s got to rise now. Wash up and I’ll give you the next thing. Oh, I like your bunny!” She was brushing flour from the ink on his arm: a photorealistic rabbit cradled in a tentacle. “And your shoggoth! Great name, by the way.” Everest turned, regarding her beaming face. “Seriously, I got detention for reading The Mountains of Madness in math class. I couldn’t put it down. H.P. Lovecraft, man.” She put a hand over her heart and grabbed the bowl, trundling it across the kitchen to slide it onto a long sideboard. Everest scrubbed the gooey flour from his hands in the huge stainless-steel sink, enjoying the warm water.
“So what is it you do, Mr. Lovecraft?” Lizzie’s voice was carefully conversational. “When you’re not saving the world and all.”
How had things gone wrong in his last casual conversation? Had he been too honest? Not likable enough? Maybe he’d let the pauses drag out and he’d sounded hesitant or disingenuous. Everest scrubbed his bruised knuckles. “Most recently I apprenticed to Blue and was learning some of the basics of golemancy, but I also worked at a used bookstore and played the fiddle on Fremont street in Vegas. Right now things are in the air, though.”
Kristen snorted. “True, that. Here, stir this tallow occasionally while it melts.” Everest was steered by the elbow to a large electric range and parked in front of a metal pan full of fat resting on top of another metal pan full of gently simmering water. “Do you have plans when the whole apocalypse thing shakes out?”
Everest paused in stirring. He should just lie, say he was going back to work somewhere wholesome and boring so they wouldn’t ask any more questions. “We’ve been discussing different possibilities but haven’t made a decision yet. I might stay home full time with Fitz. Part of me would really like to. I don’t know.”
“Awww!” Anna again. “I loved it when mom was home with us. Seriously, she waited until I was like twelve to take a job, and I was still so sad she wasn’t there when I got home from school. I helped Blue watch Fitz today while you were out. Sweet kid. Did you ever find his flute?”
“Ah, no. It’s probably in the snow somewhere, unfortunately. Was he asking for it?”
“Yeah, off and on. Dad tried to carve him a replacement out of a sweet potato, but it was met with heavy skepticism. Here, chop this while that melts. You don’t need to stir so much.”
Everest was relieved to step away from the stove. The tallow smelled assertive and greasy, coating the inside of his nose. He pivoted to a large hunk of dried beef Anna had thrust before him and selected a knife. Lizzie was peeling potatoes and Kristen was inspecting eggs, wiping away dirty spots and loading them into cartons.
“Dump the meat into the fat when it’s chopped, ‘kay? Then add those dried blueberries.”
“What am I making?” Viscous fat coated the dry meat and berries like some kind of evil slime.
“Pemmican.” Lizzie answered. “Once it’s cooler you can shape them into balls like cookie dough. The fat keeps the meat and fruit shelf stable pretty much indefinitely. It’s a Native American food, are you familiar?”
Everest shook his head. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never eaten it.”
“Was your family interested in cultural foods? Oh.” Lizzie made the last syllable a soft stutter. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a minute.”
“No matter.” Everest smiled at her. “It’s not a sensitive topic for me. I’m actually trying to find my birth mother right now. I’d like to connect with her.”
Lizzie picked up the conversation again. “Are you close with your adopted parents?”
“I don’t have any. I’m not like Dahl—my program disqualified me from adoption. There are always more children at Sana Baba then there are staff who want to adopt anyway. Most of us are raised in group homes.”
“Oh.” Lizzie said again, pointedly not looking at him. The air was still and pregnant. Everest fidgeted with the stirring spoon and studied the shredded meat and berries bathed in fat.
Anna broke the silence. “That sucks.”
Everest startled himself with a laugh. “It did. I’m very thankful that I have a family now.” He turned off the burner and pulled out a clean cookie sheet. “I’m looking forward to trying this. This is a lot of labor, feeding all of us. Thank you.”
Lizzie nodded and went back to peeling. The room lapsed into acceptable silence.
On the way back to bed, music arrested him. A beautiful melody, simple and easy to hum. Everest tried to find his ring out of habit, but it must have been tucked under insulating layers because a quick swipe yielded nothing. Or had he left it in the Grit Room? Everest was still searching when a strong hand grasped his arm.
“Hey, Everest.” Sister Mary gave him a crow-footed grin. He enjoyed that she used his first name. It reminded him of rebuilding—of all the help he’d had climbing the mountain back to okay. “Where are you headed?”
“Can you hear the music?” He sounded moderately crazy, but Sister Mary stilled, concentrating.
She nodded and the movement blurred—like film frames spliced wrong. Everest pressed his eyes closed, fighting vertigo. Words layered on top of each other.
“What music? Are you feeling alright?” Sister Mary’s tone was heavy with concern.
“Yeah. I do. Let’s check it out, are you armed?” This version of Sister Mary was resolute, ready for action.
Everest tried to sort the information. He was standing in the snow on the edge of camp. Sister Mary was holding his arm. Her eyes rested on his gun, so it was likely she’d just inquired about it. Sister Mary’s index finger tapped rhythmically, and Everest relaxed. She could hear the music.
“Of course.” Everest touched his pistol. “Or do we need to load for bear?”
Sister Mary grinned. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
Three minutes later they strolled out of Camp Nowhere, toting walkies and AR-15s. Everest was glad he’d added an extra thermal layer—the night was breathtaking, well below zero and getting colder. The snow made groaning, creakin
g noises under their boots as they followed the song. It must be on a flute or another wind instrument, the tune sweet and soft; they’d discussed taking the remaining snowmobile, but the engine noise would drown out the music, and the tune was close enough to hear clearly. Everest let the melody roll through his mind like he was another instrument played in reverse—a fiddle whose strings vibrated in response to the notes in the air. Warmth spread through his chest as the hot wind blew against his face, painting his cheeks bright and ruffling his hair where it edged his cap.
“Were you disappointed?” Everest kept his voice soft to not drown out the sound. “When you didn’t get the chance to link?”
Sister Mary grinned. “Crushed. I kept in touch with my friends at Sana Baba afterwards and obsessively followed the careers of the Van Helsing agents. Well, until all my friends aged out too and I didn’t have contacts there anymore. In my mind it was a sure thing—if I’d had a chance, it would have happened. In reality, who knows, maybe I would have walked out of the black tent with no magic and broken dreams, but that isn’t the story I told myself. I saw the link as a done deal, and I would have been an incredible agent.”
Everest imagined it—the line of young hopefuls waiting to enter the black tent at the last linking ceremony he’d been to: their whole lives leading to that moment, and only one of them would connect with the magic and walk away an agent. The disappointment for the others must have been brutal. “How long did that go on for? Keeping tabs on Van Helsing, I mean.”
“Almost five years. I was spiraling. I had a half dozen terrible, codependent relationships. I was angry all the time. I resented having to find a job and make my way in the civilian world. More and more of my friends at Sana Baba drifted off or I drove them away, and I didn’t manage to form any new meaningful connections. You know the suicide rate for washouts is among the highest of any demographic? It wasn’t something I actively considered, but I get it. When your whole life dissolves in an instant, it’s hard to start over. You know something about that, don’t you?”
