by Ann Aguirre
He was good with my parents, offering a firm handshake to my dad and a smile for my mom. I could tell she was surprised and dazzled—to the point that she almost forgot to ask about his work status and his collegiate enrollment. But he covered smoothly, telling her he worked part-time at a company downtown and he also attended university. The exchange went quicker than I’d have guessed, given it was the first time all around. Soon I dodged out the door with Kian close behind.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said as we stepped out of the brownstone.
“You thought my dad would tell you he has a shovel and a handgun?”
“Something like that.” He shifted, seeming unaccountably nervous. “I’ve just … I never picked a girl up like that before.”
With a face like this, how was that possible? “You don’t date?”
Kian sighed. “Work makes it … difficult.”
“Oh, right. There’s no good way to tell your girlfriend that you’re up to your neck in a dangerous game. What does the winner get, anyway? Lifetime supply of car wax? Rule the world for all eternity?”
“More of the latter,” he said somberly. “But to be honest, I don’t think that’s entirely it.”
“Wow, so there’s more? High stakes. But how do they know if they win?” I followed him to the car and got in when he opened the door.
“I don’t have all the answers, Edie. At this point, you’re more important than I am.”
“Then I need to find a way to parlay that value into information. Where’re we going?”
“There’s something you need to see, and this is the best time.”
“So this isn’t a date.” Part of me was glad I’d dressed for trouble, but a tiny corner felt … disappointed.
“Did you want it to be?” Kian started the car and drove toward downtown.
I don’t know why I said it; possibly my mouth detached from my brain. “Yes.”
His hands actually jerked on the wheel, running us toward the curb, and he corrected course quickly, before daring to sneak a look at me. I wondered what he saw in the streaky darkness, illuminated only by passing streetlamps and the occasional flicker of fluorescent from an open store. For my part, I was watching him in turn, trying to figure out what he looked like before. Was he thin or heavy; what flaws had been smoothed away?
“Are you screwing with me?” he asked finally.
“What? No!” I was honestly offended. God, this is so backward. Isn’t he supposed to be able to tell when a girl’s into him? “You remember I asked you to kiss me, right? Maybe it wasn’t anything to you, but that was kind of a big deal for me.”
After I said it, I wondered what Wedderburn would make of this. Kian was supposed to be making me fall for him, and this was the kind of thing I’d say if his efforts were paying off. So maybe it didn’t matter that his boss might be listening to how we really felt. Well, how I did, anyway. The constant tension and uncertainty was excruciating.
He didn’t say anything straight off but at the first opportunity, he pulled into a convenience store parking lot. After he stopped the car, his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but not before I saw that he was shaking. Okay, what the hell. Kian didn’t look at me, his gaze fixed straight ahead. A liquor store next door had a broken neon sign, so it flashed red across his skin in stutters and skips.
“After my life imploded,” he said softly, “I tried not to feel anything because it only seemed to get worse, until … well, you know where I hit bottom. And when. Working for Wedderburn is like … limbo. I have a life, but it doesn’t belong to me. And … I don’t have a great track record.”
First crush equals dead girl, check. That should’ve given me pause, but I didn’t think he had anything to do with that. Maybe there was a hidden monkey’s paw after all, or like he’d said, she was a victim of the opposition. Her death got him demoted from catalyst to indentured drone, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to get her killed on purpose.
Unless he didn’t know his fate was tied to hers until it was too late …
“I don’t have any track record,” I answered. “Unless you count that kiss.”
He shifted so I couldn’t see his eyes. “There was that summer guy, Ryu. Do you still talk to him?”
Are you jealous? But it seemed cruel to ask. “Yeah, now and then.”
Should I reassure him? Hard to know when I had no idea what was happening between us or if I should even want the things I did from him.
Roughly, he whispered, “Our kiss meant something to me, too. But I thought once you knew I could’ve helped you before you hit extremis, it would change things.”
“I’m not pissed, if that’s what you mean. I was shocked. It’s horrible, knowing you saw everything firsthand. But … if it doesn’t make you think less of me—”
“Why would it? It’s all on them, not you.” But I could hear the doubt in his voice.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I am afraid.” Those three measured words sounded dredged from the bottom of his soul, limned in shadow and salt.
“Of what?”
“Having you. Losing you.”
“I don’t understand.”
I wanted to touch him, and for the first time, I felt bold enough. Reaching over, I brushed the hair out of his face, and he turned instinctively, nestling his cheek into my palm. The heat of his skin felt incredible, as if a small star burned at his heart. I traced downward, conscious that it wasn’t his true face I was touching. On the surface, he was heartbreakingly beautiful, but that wasn’t the core of him. Instead, he was a bundle of fears and scars, and I was so afraid I could love those imperfections.
“It’s two sides of the same coin. Right now, there’s nothing they can take from me.” He lifted his shoulders in a graceful shrug. “Even the cabin was just a place where I lived, so it didn’t matter when it burned. WM&G wrote me a check today. I’ll buy a condo this time.”
This time implied that Dwyer & Fell had gone after him before, probably trying to mess up somebody else’s timeline. That raised the question of who, why, and when. Kian had never told me about the other catalysts he worked with, before being assigned solely to me. Maybe one of them got too attached to him, so Dwyer & Fell tried to take Wedderburn’s pawn. From that angle, it wasn’t hard to understand his reservations.
But I tested my theory to be sure I was right. “If you let yourself care about me, you’ll have something to lose.”
“It might even be part of Wedderburn’s plan. To get me so wrapped up in you that I’ll do anything he asks, anything to keep you safe.”
Anything was a big, deep hole of a word, an abyss Kian could fall into without ever hitting bottom, and I saw cognition of that in the sorrowful gaze he turned on me. His voice dropped, so low I could barely hear it over the air pushing through the vents. “I’m not far from that point now. God only knows how I’d be if you were mine.”
Before I could think better of it, I opened the glove box and pulled out the tin he’d used to seal the car before. I started on my side and he quickly did the same, catching on to my desire for privacy.
I shifted in my seat, bracing for his response. “Maybe we should find out. I don’t want to pretend to date you to fool the people at my school. I don’t want to fake it for Wedderburn’s sake, either.” Freezing, I wondered if I was horrible for checking. “Wait, will this count as a favor?”
“Wedderburn might be pissed if he found out I didn’t frame it that way, but he told me to get close to you. I can finesse this. So come on, Edie, tell me what you want already.”
“You. I don’t care if it’s a bad idea, which … it probably is for lots of reasons. Things are already so screwed up and I just want to be happy for a while.”
“You think you could be with me?”
“It’s always good when we’re together. Even when it’s scary.”
“Oh God. I’ll probably regret this, but…” He trailed off and cupped his hand around the back my neck, pullin
g me toward him in a kiss that put the first one to shame.
He was all tender care mingled with urgent demand. Before I knew it, I was practically in his lap. He ran his hands over my back and shoulders, like he didn’t believe he had the right to touch me, but I never felt as if he were admiring his own creation, more like he couldn’t get close enough, or couldn’t believe I was real.
I knew the feeling.
“You’re a coma dream, aren’t you?” I whispered, leaning my forehead against his.
“Hope not. This is the happiest I’ve been in years. But I suppose that’s not a strong counter to your claim.”
I could’ve kissed him all night, but he’d picked me up because he had something important to show me. “I hate myself for saying this, but don’t we need to be somewhere?”
He wore a smile I could only describe as loopy. “Right.”
Kian started the car and merged with the evening traffic. The silence between us was odd, but not awful. He kept glancing over at me and smiling, as if I were a wish he’d made that unexpectedly came true. We were almost there when I realized he was heading for Wedderburn, Mawer & Graf. At this hour on a Saturday, if it was a company like any other, there would be few people in the office building. Somehow I didn’t think the devil—or whatever Wedderburn was—kept normal office hours.
“Will this get you in trouble?” The last time we entered the building, he used a code to activate the elevator. With that, plus the tracker in his watch and regular surveillance, I didn’t see how he could avoid getting caught.
His smile faded. “I’m not showing you anything against the rules, Edie. This is … I’ve been instructed to offer you this. As a gift.”
But he seemed none too sure of my reaction, and I gnawed my lip as he led me through the creepy beige lobby to the elevator bank. Inside, a completely nondescript melody tinkled from poor speakers. Kian pulled out his phone and keyed in a different code by pressing different buttons on the elevator keypad, so many of them that I lost track. Eventually, the doors swished open and we got off. The silence was almost more ominous than the muffled screaming had been. Monochrome seemed to be the unifying theme in WM&G décor; this corridor was gray, unnervingly so, and there was only one door, as far as I could tell. A short corridor led up to it, making me think it must be a huge room, easily the width of the building.
“Before we go in, understand this. The way I changed your appearance wasn’t magic, but you shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that it exists.”
I raised my brows at him. So many questions, so little time. I picked one. “But … you don’t have access?”
“Favors that most catalysts request can generally be fulfilled through future-tech or mundane resources. If they ask for something astronomical, then I get clearance from Wedderburn and he dispenses whatever artifact I need to get the job done.”
“What are we talking about here? Holy Grail?”
Kian smiled but he didn’t answer. There was an impressive-looking security device attached to the heavy metal door, like the whole setup was worthy of a vault. This time, he didn’t touch the pad. A beam jetted out from the doorframe and scanned his face; a holographic image appeared and then it shimmered as his eyes popped open. The floating head rotated as a computerized voice said, “Identify confirmed. Access granted.”
The door clanked open.
I wouldn’t have been surprised, had smoke rolled out of the room, because whatever was inside had to be major. I just couldn’t decide if it was kept under lock and key because it was so valuable … or so dangerous. Given what I knew of WM&G, it might be both. There seemed to be a shimmer of something … as I stepped through; my ears rang with that peculiar tinnitus I’d noticed when Russ’s face didn’t look like it should. I glanced over my shoulder … and the hallway was gone.
“You all right?” Kian asked.
“What was that?” It was an effort to get the words out. “Where are we?”
What I saw didn’t bear any resemblance whatsoever to a modern building. The walls were dark stone, worn smooth with endless runnels of water. In fact, the air itself was damp and warm. A fire crackled at the center of the cave. There was no other word that fit. Smoke rose up in a lazy spiral, hinting at the presence of a hidden chimney.
“The better question is when,” a drowsy voice answered.
Soon after, a woman drifted into view, clad in a white linen shift. Hair fell in a long black snarl to her knees, yet the sticks and feathers twined in those curls seemed less detritus and more regal adornment. Her skin was pale, marked in intricate whorls that might’ve been ink or soot. The light was too uncertain for me to tell. One thing I was sure of, however; like Wedderburn himself, she had inhuman eyes—no iris, no pupil, just endless gray rings, as if the smoke she breathed had turned into a creature as ephemeral.
Freaking out was beyond me. After a certain point, the shocks left me numb, and right now, an eerie calm had a hold of me. Just as well, panic would leave me unable to think.
“I am the Oracle. Let’s see how well you know your history.”
This wasn’t my specialty, but I had the feeling this was a test. Quickly I sorted through what I knew of ancient mythology. “Ancient Greece. Delphi. Apollo? Not to be confused with the Sibyl or the Pythia.”
“Apollo, yes. Some have called him that. Sun god, my ass.”
“So I’m right?” I tried a tentative smile, hoping she didn’t ask for dates since I had none. On the balance, I’d do better if she asked me to recite the periodic table. That, I could do. There was even a song; I’d performed it for the mandatory junior high jamboree. For some reason, it didn’t make me wildly popular.
“Indeed. If you’re unfamiliar with the ritual, you present the tribute and then ask me a single question.”
Was the Oracle part of the gift Kian wasn’t sure I would want? Why? Unless her prophecies drove you crazy or she carried the curse of not being believed—no, that’s Cassandra. A glance at him told me nothing; he was pulling vials and phylacteries out of his jacket pockets. The Oracle settled on the floor nearby, staring into the smoke; her expression was vacant and rapt at the same time.
“I’ll handle the offering,” he said softly.
He mixed the liquids and powders into a paste that shimmered with radiance like sunlight shining through harlequin quartz. His hands were graceful as he painted symbols around the fire. I didn’t recognize them, but the atmosphere changed. The Oracle straightened, her posture shifting from silent ennui to quivering excitement, and then she crawled around the circle, her tongue snaking out to freakish length. She lapped until all of the runes he’d drawn vanished beneath each slithering, serpentine swipe. Before my eyes, she … changed, her skin glowing like mother of pearl, and the smudgy lines drawn on her body sharpened as her lips warmed to a ruby hue. The tangles in her hair became like an intricate tapestry, and what I had taken for twigs and leaves now seemed to be gemstones and gold leaf. The crazy thing was, I wasn’t sure when my eyes deceived me—then or now.
“It has been so long.” It was both a groan of protest and an exultant cry.
I swallowed hard. Never had I been more conscious of how deep I’d fallen into a situation I didn’t understand. So many questions, unsatisfactory answers, and that was when I knew exactly what to ask. If this was a gift, then I’d take full advantage.
“You understand the terms, Oracle. You’ve feasted. Now answer.” Kian stepped back then, leaving the exchange wholly up to me.
The woman-thing turned to me in a sinuous movement. For a few seconds, it was as if she had no spine, as if she were a female torso mounted atop the swaying body of a snake. I blinked through that hallucination, and she had legs again, but the smoke stung my eyes. I was feeling a little light-headed, too. Kian set a hand in the small of my back and I exhaled.
Most people would probably ask about their own future, but I needed to know more about the game and its players. Wedderburn wanted me to meet with the Oracle for some reason; t
herefore, with care, I should be able to turn the situation to my advantage, and nothing was more pertinent than figuring out how to navigate these fiend-infested shadows.
God, I hoped I wasn’t blowing my one chance, but this query seemed like my best bet for an answer of true substance. “Since you’re not human, what is your nature?”
The Oracle laughed. “Clever, clever girl. So many pilgrims, and year upon year, they ask, Will I bear a son? Will he be king? Will my true love come? These are questions written in water, too many futures dancing in the smoke, for I can say yes and yes and yes, then you cross a bridge or do not cross, and the picture changes.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased.”
“Let me tell you the truth, human girl.” The Oracle moved around the fire, arms twining over her head, in a complicated yet artful dance. “Before things are tangible, they are ideas. I … am an idea someone had, long ago, bound to flesh. Their belief made me real and once real, I had agency.”
“I read a theory once—that human belief is a kind of … energy, and if that enough people sign on, like with an urban legend, it can actually happen.” I didn’t say that I had been on a conspiracy site at the time, one with forums for alleged alien abductees, Bigfoot spotters, and other crackpots.
“Humans have long breathed life into nightmares and creatures of legend,” the Oracle said. “Some fade. They break apart as a new god rises. Others are eternal and immutable, once unleashed.” She bared her teeth in a chilling smile, sharp as shards of bone in a suddenly grotesque face. “How does it feel, knowing that, human girl? That so many of the monsters that stalk your streets are man-made?”
“Good,” I bluffed. Because anything that came from mankind can be undone by us. At least, I hoped that was true. I had so few certainties left. “Thanks, this was enlightening.”
Kian drew me away from the circle in a movement too quick to be coincidental. “We need to go. Now.”
