by Ann Aguirre
“Why?”
He pulled on my hand, yanking me toward the dark mouth of the cave. “Once the question is asked and answered, the terms of the truce are concluded, and the Oracle’s free to fight for her freedom. Run, Edie!”
THE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES
Pillar of salt. That was the only thing I knew about looking back, so I didn’t. Something sliced the air behind me, snagged my hair but Kian pulled me forward. There was a painful tug when the lock ripped free and I dove forward into the darkness. I landed on the floor outside the vault with Kian beside me. He kicked the heavy door shut and then rolled over on his back, breathing hard. Blood trickled from my scalp.
“This might seem like an odd question, but … can she do anything with my hair?”
“Like what, make a creepy doll?”
“Like … sympathetic magic.”
“No, voodoo’s not among the Oracle’s abilities.”
That made me feel marginally better as I pushed to my feet. “Why the crap didn’t you tell me it would turn into a hunt at the end?”
“I suspected it might freak you out, so you wouldn’t be thinking clearly when it came time to ask your question. That was amazing, by the way.” He paused, then added, “Don’t worry, I would never have let her hurt you.”
I accepted that with a nod, but I had so many questions. “Why do some things dissipate and others become permanent?”
He shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d say it depends on the amount of energy they’re fed before the belief fades.”
“That makes sense.” It bothered me that I had no way to test and verify these hypotheses, and I hated operating under such much uncertainty. But I knew more now than I had before, and I suspected Wedderburn hadn’t anticipated that I’d ask the Oracle about the supernatural world. If I had to speculate, I’d bet he suspected I’d want to know about my brilliant, valuable future. Unpredictability was a pitiful advantage, the only one I had.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kian said.
In the elevator, I asked, “Do you have any idea why the boss man offered me a visit to the Oracle?”
He shook his head. “Wedderburn doesn’t explain his motives.”
Wedderburn was an inhuman creature, dreamed up long ago, and it might be a waste of my time to try and understand his mind. “I know who he is. At least … I’m pretty sure.”
“Wait until we’re out of here.”
I nodded. Kian took my hand as he led me out of the building and I kept quiet until we got in the car. “Safe now?”
“Give me a sec.” With my help, he sealed it, using the last of his supply. “Go ahead.”
“Father Frost, Ded Moroz, Woden. There’s substantial cultural crossover in the stories. And when the beliefs of a large populace overlap, something permanent is created.”
I remembered the Oracle’s tone when she said, I had agency. While humans might’ve created these things, we no longer controlled their actions. From the look of things, we hadn’t for a long time. Set free in our world, they were embroiled in some kind of game, with dire consequences for the mortals who got mixed up in the match.
Like Kian and me.
Wedderburn seemed to view people as chess pieces, which might reflect how the rest of the immortals saw us. I didn’t know what else to call them, really. Regardless of definitions, I had to work out the rules of engagement pretty damn quick and identify the key players. Otherwise, creatures like the thin man would catch me off guard. In this scenario, lack of preparation could be dangerous.
It’s a good thing I always liked doing my homework.
I thought aloud. “You texted me, warning me about the thin man. Said he had to do with the opposition. Does that mean he works for Dwyer?”
Kian started the car. “He’s one of his enforcers, impossible to shake.”
“Does Wedderburn have monsters like that working for him, too? Why aren’t they playing the game on their own terms?”
He nodded as he pulled out of the garage. “For most, it’s a question of power and resources. Lesser beings don’t have the juice to compete.” Before I could ask anything else, he added, “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why isn’t the Oracle free to play the game?” I asked, changing tacks.
“She’s a forfeit,” Kian said. “Caught in amber.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Basically, belief in her didn’t last long enough to make her permanent. She was real to the ancient Greeks, but to the modern world? Not so much. Wedderburn sent one of his agents back and captured her because she’s useful in the game.”
“So if she left her cave, she’d … dissolve?”
“More or less.”
“Then why does she want out so bad?”
“If your choices were oblivion or an infinity alone in prison, which would you pick?”
He made a good point. “Now I kind of feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t. She would’ve killed us both, if we hadn’t run.”
That was probably true of most immortals. I took comfort in his promise to protect me. “What do you call them?”
“Who?”
“Your employers, the two sides in this infernal chess match.”
“I haven’t had anyone to talk about them with before now.”
Taken aback, I fell silent for a moment, trying to imagine that. He had no friends, no close acquaintances, even. “What happened to your liaison? Raoul? Did you get to hang out with him, at least, after your circumstances changed?” I was trying to avoid referring to him as a company drone. More important, I hoped Kian had one person inside WM&G that he could count on.
“Missing,” he said tersely, navigating through traffic.
I didn’t immediately recognize this part of the city, but I hadn’t been paying that much attention as he drove away. “Is that even possible? Don’t they monitor all of you?” I pointed at his watch.
“A year ago, he stole an artifact and disappeared.” His tone told me how betrayed he felt, like he’d lost his only friend.
From that, I guessed, “Are you discouraged from bonding with other … liaisons?”
“They keep us on edge, so we never know who to trust. Early on, you learn that people in the organization may not be who they seem or their allegiances may not be what you thought.”
“You’ve been burned?”
“Just once,” he said softly. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Are you sure about me?”
“I know you don’t work for Wedderburn.”
I smiled. “There’s that, at least.”
“You’re putting things together fast, probably faster than they expect. But catalysts are generally smart as hell or they wouldn’t be on track for achieving something important.”
Drawing in a sharp breath, I whispered, “You talk like you’re not even human.”
“I am. The tone is a side effect of learning too much about the game. But I haven’t felt like I was for a long time. Even before extremis.”
“Help me understand something,” I began.
“If I can.”
“Why do immortals want power in our world? What’s the draw?”
Kian shook his head. “It’s bigger than me, Edie. I can’t guess what the endgame is, but it’s not as simple as winner gets to destroy the world. After talking to you, I don’t think it’s about ruling, either, though that might be part of it.”
“Maybe it’s entertainment,” I speculated.
He shot me a look that said he didn’t understand.
“Say you live forever, right? You’re real … but not truly part of the natural order, forever apart, forever … other. You probably feel a certain ambivalence and maybe downright enmity toward your paltry creators. You can do anything, more or less, but over the eons, you get bored. What’s the ultimate challenge?”
“Pitting yourself against other immortals and using humans as chess pieces?”
“Maybe the
outcome isn’t the point. Maybe it’s the game. It might seem reasonable by their standards, like we owe them compensation, entertainment at our expense?”
“Sounds reasonable, if by that, you mean completely insane.”
I doubted it was so simple, but it was also beyond me not to try and put a puzzle together. “Did they tell you what you would’ve achieved if Tanya hadn’t died and you’d remained on track as a catalyst?”
Kian nodded, taking the ramp onto the freeway. “I went to law school and into politics, became a senator and eventually served on the Supreme Court. Since that’s not what I’d choose on my own, I guess she would’ve nudged me in that direction. I can picture it. She was … ambitious.”
Before Dwyer & Fell drove her nuts, if that is, in fact, what happened. “It’s so weird to hear you talk about a future that will never happen … in past tense.”
“You get used to it.” His smile was fleeting.
It occurred to me that I didn’t know much about him, certainly nothing of his lost and quiet dreams. Time to change that. “What did you want to do, before?”
He cast me a sidelong glance. “If I tell you, promise not to laugh.”
“I won’t.” The disclaimer made me think it was something juvenile like rock star or astronaut, fantasies that most people had little shot of realizing.
“I wanted to teach college literature and write during the summer.”
Hey, a realistic dream. “You can still do that, can’t you?”
“I haven’t felt like writing for a long time now.”
Yeah, I could take a hint from his tone. “So where are we headed?”
“Since the near-death portion of the evening is over, I thought I’d take you out.” He risked a quick glance at me. “That’s okay, right?”
I realized that he wasn’t pretending to be awkward. Though he was a bit older than me, it didn’t mean anything in terms of sophistication.
“I’d love that.” For tonight, I didn’t want to think about the horrors lurking around the next corner. “You said you’re taking a few college classes?”
“Yeah.” Kian was apparently fine talking about his current course schedule.
“I assume not pre-law.”
His smile nearly broke my heart. “Nah, that ship has sailed. I have Death and Immortality, Magic, Science, and Religion, and Symbol, Myth, and Rite.”
“I sense a theme.”
“It’s stupid but I can’t help hoping I can learn something that might help.”
“Help how?”
“To win my freedom,” he said quietly.
Crap, that’s right. While I was still a catalyst, Kian had already lost the fight and he would never be free of Wedderburn or his supernatural masters. Little wonder he couldn’t bring himself to try for a normal life, especially if the immortals were prone to threatening people’s loved ones. If he dated a girl outside the game, fell in love, and got married, he’d live a lie the whole time while worrying that they might be targeted in a power play. He must feel so alone. A chill washed over me as I remembered Vi’s creepy recurring dreams. At this point, I was one panic attack away from a total breakdown.
And I can’t help her from the mental ward.
This might not be date conversation, but I had to find out everything I could for Vi’s sake. “Given what you’ve told me, it seems improbable that there’s a single game going on. Dwyer & Fell—”
“It’s more like … each immortal has a counter. And if you’re right about Wedderburn’s identity, his opposite would be Apollo, Baldr, Ao, Dažbog … There are a lot of different names for the sun god, and most cultures had some equivalent.” His sheepish tone told me he’d learned this in the mythology and religion classes he was taking.
“If Wedderburn stole the Oracle from D&F, that makes sense. So there are actually a lot of games going on at once.” I wasn’t sure how knowing that helped me, but I had to assemble all the pieces until I had the big picture. “So is Dwyer the sun god, or fell?”
“No idea, but it’s as good a guess as any. But I didn’t work it out until you figured out who Wedderburn was.”
I frowned, thoughtful. “They’re not gods. That’s just how they were created, not their role now.” At this point, I was out of inspiration, and none of this helped me protect Vi. “What he showed me in his office … he was threatening her. Can he actually—”
“He can.”
“So there are no rules protecting mortals who aren’t in the game?” Wedderburn had hinted as much, but I’d wanted to believe there must be some safeguards in place. The world was apparently much more brutal and lawless that I’d ever previously imagined.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why things seem more screwed up by the week? So much inexplicable violence.”
“My parents blame TV and video games.” It was a weak joke.
“Mine did, too.”
“So he could kill her outright. Or he might make a mini-game of it. God, Kian, if he forces Vi to extremis, there will be no deal,” I guessed in despair.
“She’s a smart girl,” he said. “But she’s not a catalyst.”
It made sense. People with important destinies, who changed the world in some way, couldn’t be common. I still had a hard time believing I ranked among that number. My head swam in a bad way, as fear stole over me.
Kian caught my reaction and added, “He won’t do it lightly. If he does, he loses leverage with you. Remember, he’s a patient creature. Right now he still hopes that you’ll burn your favors like I did, and position yourself to be of maximum use to his faction when the time comes.”
“That’s some comfort.” I rubbed my temples, painfully aware of how powerless I was compared to the monsters arrayed against me. “It’s selfish, but … I just can’t handle anymore of this tonight. Can we take a break?”
“Sure. What would you like to do?”
“I thought you had a plan when you said you were taking me out.”
“There’s no planetarium show tonight.” He paused, as if unsure whether he should admit this. “I checked.”
My heart melted a little. Maybe he was doing exactly as Wedderburn had instructed, making me fall for him, but his awkwardness seemed so genuine. Smooth talk would never work this well with me. I loved feeling like I was the first girl he cared about impressing, so much that he was bad at it. The first apart from Tanya. Who died over him. With a frown, I shut that voice up; it would drive me crazy whispering doubts and fears.
“We could see a movie.” That was what I’d told my parents. It might not be a bad idea to watch one.
“There’s a theater in Cambridge that shows classic films, if you want to check it out.”
“That sounds awesome.”
That settled, he turned the car toward Harvard Square. It took about fifteen minutes to get there, longer to find parking. The night was clear, though light pollution prevented me from stargazing. All of the weirdness and paranoia seemed so far away as I followed Kian toward the theater. It was a tiny place, compared with the multiplexes, inside what looked like a brown brick house, but the college students wandering around told me we were in the right place. Most of them had backpacks, and there were a lot of bikes chained up outside.
There was no choice as to what to watch; we ended up with tickets for Enter the Dragon. I loved old flicks more than modern ones, though I had a soft spot for all sci-fi, especially cult classics like Highlander and Blade Runner. Kian got in line for popcorn while I realized I had no idea what kind of movies he liked, if he was a reader … I knew so little about his personality, other than our shared connection with Wedderburn and the immortal game.
This is so weird. And backward. Life and death aren’t usually part of a first date.
“What’s your favorite film?” I asked, as he turned to hand me a drink.
“Casablanca, followed closely by Notorious.”
“You’re a classic movie nerd.” I grinned at him.
“Guilty. I had such a thing
for Ingrid Bergman.”
Inside, the theater was small and intimate, decidedly old-fashioned. I loved everything about it. During the movie, Kian wiped his hand on his thigh repeatedly until I solved his apparent inner conflict by threading my fingers through his. He pushed out a soft breath and smiled at me, like I’d solved some weighty calculus problem. This quiet moment made him feel real in a way that making out couldn’t. It was adorable that while he might kiss me a dark car, he was nervous about how I’d react to a public display of affection, even one so mild.
A hundred and ten minutes later, we filed out of the movie while this ineffable realization sang through my veins: I just had an actual date with a guy who agreed it was a date. I could’ve skipped up the steps into the lobby, no lie; it was childish, I realized, but I didn’t care. Silently beaming, I held Kian’s hand as he wove through the crowd.
According to my phone, it was nearly half past eleven. That left him enough time to get me home on time, early even. While I’d like to stay out later, maybe go back to the diner where it all began, I had to keep my parents happy. With so much real danger for them to worry about, though they didn’t know they should be, I couldn’t afford to let them fret over me missing curfew.
“How are things at school?” he asked, as he opened my car door.
His unfailing attention to good manners instituted a whisper of doubt. You still don’t know for sure that he’s Kian Riley. He loves old movies. He behaves like a courtly gentleman. Everything about him could be a lie. Distrust hurt, forcibly piercing my happy glow like spikes of ice. Maybe … he’s one of them.
Still, I tried not to show my sudden apprehension. “It doesn’t feel like I expected. I hate being a bitch. And … one of the girls is really sick.”
“Brittany?”
My blood chilled, frosty fingers tapping at the base of my skull. “How do you know?”
“You mentioned visiting her at the hospital.”
Did I? I remembered talking to my dad about it, but I couldn’t recall having that conversation with Kian. No, I sent a text, but—Is he still watching me? Or is the explanation even worse? This constant suspicion meant that I couldn’t even be certain the thoughts belonged to me. What if the opposition was blighting me through some kind of gizmo like the Oracle interface Wedderburn had shown me?
