by Ann Aguirre
Maybe who wasn’t the right question. “Exactly what did you use for collateral?”
In the old stories, humans made all kinds of dire bargains with elder beings. Swaps included the soul, a first-born child, all the love in your heart, or a particular memory. The taut silence ended when I smacked him. Inexplicably, he smiled.
“It’s not a big deal, Edie. I was already serving a life sentence. So it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” I fixed him with a look that promised I wouldn’t budge until he confessed, but Kian shook his head.
“Knowing certain things would make your life worse. This is one of them.”
“Before, you said ‘I want you to have a life.’ And you looked so sad. Is it because you signed away what little freedom you had left? For me?”
“Stop talking,” he said firmly.
I wasn’t in the mood, at first, when he started kissing me, but Kian’s mouth changed that. Even though his physical closeness felt good, it didn’t change my sadness. When Kian left an hour later, my sorrow still went bone deep, because our kisses tasted of loss and endings. The Pandora’s box in my head exploded, peppering me with emotional shrapnel: Brittany, Russ, now Cameron. The guilt spread through my system like a poison, and I couldn’t even rely on Kian to be straight with me. Our relationship could survive all kinds of stress, but not his silence or his secrets, and I didn’t want to watch us die like I had Cameron. That night, I cried until my head ached.
Things didn’t look better in the morning, possibly because my eyes were almost swollen shut. An hour of cold compresses reduced the damage enough for me to leave my room. Sunday my parents slept in; I couldn’t talk to them and a day in isolation wouldn’t help, so I shoved some things in a backpack and headed out. One of my favorite places in the city was the Victory Garden on Boylston. During the day, it was a great place to walk when you had nowhere else to be and, more important, it was free. During the worst time of my life, I’d spent hours hiding there and pretending I had a social life. Today, the character of each plot didn’t charm or relax me. I wandered aimlessly, shoulders bowed beneath the awareness that Cameron was gone, and it was my fault.
I wish I knew what I accomplish that’s so important. The immortals were batshit crazy if they thought I could see things like this and then stay on course toward a shining future. Of course, maybe that’s the point. You don’t know who killed Cam. If Dwyer is watching you, he might’ve decided that guilt would drive you nuts. If that was true, maybe I didn’t manifest the death dog after all. It wouldn’t save Cameron, but then I wouldn’t have to live with knowing I was a heinous person. But I’d ping-ponged over who to blame before.
Despite the brisk breeze and the sunlight, I spun in place, suddenly wary. The people wandering the garden this late in the year were mostly old. A few gardeners had planted pumpkins and had Halloween displays not yet taken down. Bales of hay and gourds, mostly, though there were ghosts made of white sheets and fat-bellied witches from plastic trash bags. I didn’t see anyone rang my alarm bells.
Until something rasped, “Hello, pretty-girl skin.”
The thin man had spoken to me once before and I would never forget that sound, or the waft of the grave that poured from his mouth. I whirled, making sure he was out of reach. Kian said not to let him touch you. But he wasn’t close enough. Yet. People passed all around us, probably guessing I was admiring the autumnal colors in the chrysanthemums before me.
“What do you want?” I growled the words, low, hoping nobody would notice the crazy girl talking to the flowers.
“I bring a message from my master.”
“And who’s that?”
“The Lightbringer, of course.”
A scared click of my brain, and I suspected he meant Dwyer, who Kian had guessed must’ve been known as the sun god. “Make it fast.”
Pure bravado, because what would I do if he attacked? Before, when I tried to escape, he appeared in front of me in the blink of an eye. My heart pounded out a terrified rhythm. If I can’t run, maybe I can fight. Too bad I had no idea how.
“He is waiting. Waiting for you to breathe your last,” he rasped. “Your death is already written. But you cheated, pretty-girl skin. Now you’re a hole in the world, and you let other people fall in your stead. How long before you become one of us?”
With awful, empty eyes, he reached for me. This time, I understood the futility of running, so I did the only thing I could. I touched him first.
Madness. He doesn’t take your life. He steals your mind instead.
My brain spilled over with cascading flashes of pain and violence, red splatter, black dog, crawling maggots, a bird eating a fish head. The images twisted and bled, burrowed deep until I couldn’t think, and still it wasn’t finished. Despair, decay, dread poured into me, endless rivers of poison, until my vision grayed, replaced by shadows, echoes of footsteps running away, away. I tried to call out, but a bony fist about my throat choked my voice.
For a few seconds, I saw how this ended—me gibbering in a padded room while nurses shot me full of tranquilizers, and then I glimpsed the other end of the tunnel, where this vacant thing hunched, avid for my pain. Channeling everything toward me left a vacuum on the other side. Simple physics. Trembling, I fought the only way I could—with my own dreams and memories, hopes and longings. I shoved back hard, until slivers of me plinked into the empty well. Spelling bee, DNA model, trip to the Grand Canyon, first kiss, A+ in calculus—I swam against the toxic stream, carrying my life, my identity with me.
You didn’t touch me, I told him silently. I touched you. That makes you mine.
When I couldn’t bear more without screaming myself hoarse, the thin man vanished. My eyes snapped open; I was on the ground, surrounded by worried onlookers. A middle-aged woman I had noticed tending a garden nearby crouched beside me.
“Are you diabetic? Epileptic? Do you have medicine?” She spoke slowly, like I might not be able to understand her.
I shook my head, coming up onto my knees. “I’m all right, right and tight.”
Dizzy, I scrambled to my feet and rushed away, staggering with each step. I heard an older man say, “Probably a tweaker. Cops don’t patrol this place like they should. You know I’ve found needles down by the water?”
Sadly, being mistaken for a junkie was better than them thinking I was nuts. Near the exit, my legs went watery, I grabbed on to the fence and forced myself to stay awake through sheer force of will. With agonizing languor, the tendrils receded; my brain felt as if it had pinpricks all over it. But it was mine, wholly mine, and if I’d had the strength, I would’ve shouted in triumph.
Like a drunkard, I stumbled home, and it took me the better part of an hour, though I wasn’t far in terms of physical distance, but I kept having to rest before my legs gave out: curbs, benches, other people’s front steps. I didn’t realize I was sitting near Kian’s building until he strode down the street toward me. Rarely did I get the chance to observe him when he didn’t know I was looking; in this unguarded moment, his mouth was compressed into a grim, pale line, and his green eyes held the weight of a promise he refused to share. Women checked him out as he went by, but he never turned. Not once.
In fact, not expecting me, he hurried past and then whipped around, like he might’ve imagined me. I managed a weak smile. “Hey, way.”
“Are you waiting for me?” he asked, butterfly-tentative.
“Nope.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Sitting.” I sounded giddy, goofy, even, I couldn’t stop giggling. “Hitting.”
“Edie?” He crossed to me in a few steps, leaned in with a look of dismay gradually dawning. “Jesus Christ. I smell him on you.”
“True blue. I’ve been dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, didn’t go down without a fight.”
His voice trembled. “Did it touch you?”
“Don’t fear the worst, I got him first. I can’t fight monsters with guns or knives,
but it seems I can with my mind.” With trembling hands, I made dual finger-guns and fired. “I fought the law and I won. See, this is my wheelhouse, son.”
Why the hell am I rhyming all the things? That’s probably not a good sign.
“You can’t survive touching the thin man.” Kian seemed frozen with horror. “At least, not with your mind intact.”
I smiled up at him, though my face felt stiff and strange. After a few seconds, I shook off the Cockney rhyming daze, keeping my reply simple as weary pride bloomed.
“But I did.”
THE PAWN IN PLAY
It was nearly a week before my brain recovered fully from my encounter with the thin man. In the meantime, I flunked my first test ever. Ironically, it was in Intro to Japanese. Ryu laughed when I told him, while Vi was quietly concerned. I pretended to be nonchalant while panicking in secret. The truth was, I’d tried studying, but my mind was like a saturated sponge, incapable of absorbing any new information.
Slowly, however, the side effects wore off and my head returned to normal. Rather than have my parents find out, I begged my teacher to let me take a makeup test or do extra credit. She wasn’t on board with grading extra projects, but given the problems at Blackbriar recently, she cut me some slack because she’d seen me with Brittany and Russ. Now with Jen gone and Cameron MIA, she saw the writing on the wall. The second time I took the exam, I got a B. Not my usual A+, but I kept that score. Under the circumstances, I had to perform some triage, cut myself some slack for not pulling A + s when my life was imploding.
When word circulated that Cameron had taken off, I wanted to tell someone what I knew, but I had no idea what to say. The truth would get me locked up, and admitting I was with him when it happened might turn me into a murder suspect, though they couldn’t convict me without a body. The dog-girl video gave me clear motive, and gossip could be vicious. So I choked down my desire to confess and kept quiet.
Two weeks into November, things went from bad to worse at school. It started in first period; Nicole was sitting at her desk as usual. No matter how early I arrived, she was always there, and I was starting to wonder if she slept in Mr. Love’s room. He was talking to a couple of other students, but I sensed that he was aware of her … and darkly amused. Allison strolled in—why, I had no idea since she didn’t even have Lit—and propped a hip against his desk. In comparison, she was a tropical flower whereas Nicole had become a sepia photo.
Allison said something to Mr. Love, pitched too low for the rest of us to catch, but he laughed quietly. Nic’s head came up, and her eyes narrowed. She stormed from her desk to his, scowling at Allison, who threw her a mocking look. Then, deliberately, Allison touched Mr. Love on the arm to catch his attention.
Nicole snapped. With a snarl, she whipped a switchblade out of her pocket and slashed. Allison skittered back but not in time; red bloomed through the sleeve of her blazer. Another girl screamed while someone else ran for the headmaster. Allison wrapped a hand around the wound and I shrugged off my jacket, offering to her as Mr. Love grabbed Nicole’s arms. Too slow, asshole. You wanted this.
Nic screamed the minute he touched her, the raw, wordless cry of an animal in pain. At first she struggled and fought like a crazy thing, but by the time the headmaster arrived, she was sobbing with snot streaming down her chin. In the chaos of so many people talking at once, trying to explain what happened, I escorted Allison to the nurse. But we were only halfway there when she unwrapped my blazer from her wounded arm and gave it back.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a scratch.”
The blood that gushed from that slice said otherwise. “I’m pretty sure you need to go to the hospital for some stitches.”
Her green eyes held a mocking light. “Do I?”
Then she showed me the blood-smeared skin. Sure, it was stained red, but there was no wound. “That’s impossible.”
“Not so much, human girl. They seem completely human, but tragedy, discord, and despair follow in their wake. You will know these demons because they are not born of woman and have no navel.” With a faintly feline smile, she tugged up her school shirt to show me smooth skin.
Jen saw you looking up psychic vampires. And it was Jen who brought you into the group. Is she … did she…? I had no proof that she was actually in Thailand, and I hated the fear and doubt that swamped me.
“It’s tough not knowing who your true friends are,” Allison said sweetly.
“You? I was so sure it was him,” I blurted.
Her lazy smile didn’t shift. “He’s a monster but not one of ours.”
I glanced at her wrists, but they were unmarked.
“What faction are you?” I demanded.
She smirked. “Don’t you get it? Every game needs spectators.”
“But … my ears don’t ring around you.” To my surprise, she didn’t seem confused.
“Some of us are … natural to the world, not dreamed up by humans. And we don’t set off alarm bells in those predisposed to sensitivity.”
“Ah.” That made sense. “But … Russ, before he died—”
“Humans who are feeding a nightmare become attuned to the predator.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know how a chameleon changes colors?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like that, only in a parasitic exchange the human gives off a … false positive. To someone like you.”
Allison fixed her blouse and sauntered toward the main office. “I’m done tutoring you now. Thanks for the help.” Such pleasure in the last two words.
How does—whatever she is—reproduce? No belly button. Quickly I ran through what I knew, biologically speaking. Parthenogenesis, asexual, gemmules, sporulation—that one gave me a shivery twinge—budding, regeneration. Dammit. It’s not like I can figure this out now. I had so many questions, though she’d answered a few.
Obviously I had miscalculated, so I raced back to Lit class, where things had calmed down a little, but no learning took place that morning. Since one student had attacked another, the police questioned everyone and they took a dim view of why there were no security screenings like in public schools; they didn’t seem persuaded that affluent students were less prone to hurting each other, given today’s events. The headmaster wore a hunted look as he foresaw his prestigious school reputation swirling down the drain. In the end, he dismissed us early, probably so he could consult his attorneys, find out about liability, and decide the best spin on this mess when he talked to the board.
Instead of rushing out along with everyone else, I headed for Lit. Part of me suspected the instigator would’ve already run off, but I found him packing his briefcase like nothing had happened. When he saw me in the doorway, he smiled.
“What can I do for you, Edie?”
“I may not be able to prove you did this, but there will be questions. They’ll dig into your relationship with Nicole and see how much time she spent with you.”
He didn’t profess innocence or confusion, as I half expected, but when he spoke, he lost the British accent. Instead, he sounded guttural, like an enormous thing, speaking from man-skin. “Darling girl, you claim to know what I am, but you have no idea. Run along now, before I teach you.”
I made the thin man back off. It’ll take more than you to frighten me. That was bravado, but it kept my feet planted.
“I don’t think so. You’re done here. If you come back tomorrow, I’ll find a way to make you pay.” That was a bluff; since I had no idea what the hell he was, I didn’t know how to punish him.
He rushed me. It never occurred to me to fear a physical attack, but he swung at my head and in reflex, I threw up my left arm to block. Red light sparked from the kanji brand on my wrist, flinging him halfway across the room. Mr. Love landed hard and whacked his head against the desk. In a normal human, that might’ve been enough to kill him, but he staggered to his fee
t, cracked his neck in a grotesque fashion, popping the broken column back into place and rolling his shoulders. But he didn’t come at me again.
Instead he studied me with an expression of growing delight. “Ah. So you’re what drew me here, little queen.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t feign ignorance, it doesn’t suit you.” His gaze lingered on my mark, the one that meant Property of the Game. “Do you suspect what lies ahead? I wonder.”
“Are you part of the opposition?”
He laughed, a rumbling sound like thunder. “Not all of us choose to play. Some of us prefer to watch … and make wagers. I think I’ll bet on how long you’ll live.”
“Are you related to Allison somehow?”
He shook his head. “But you know that already. Testing me?”
“What are you?”
“Your kind dreamed of me, so I came. I’ll let you work it out.” He strolled past, whistling, so cheerful I resisted the urge to throw something at his back. At the doorway he paused to add, “When I don’t return, don’t imagine it has anything to do with you. Instead, rest assured that I got what I came for.”
Since I’d be crazy to take him at his word, I followed Mr. Love out of the building. The halls were deserted, just the click of our shoes. He looked so normal in his overcoat, briefcase in one hand; I might never believe what my eyes told me again. The immortal—whatever he was—headed for the front gate without looking back. His shoes tapped briskly against the walkway and I rushed after him.
Overhead, the sky was gray with threatening rain. Fat droplets spattered my face, and though I looked away only for a second, when I checked the front gate again, he was gone. There was only a huge black bird wheeling lazily above the trees. With bright, beady eyes, it dove toward me, claws outstretched, and I swung at it with my bag. Its raucous cry sounded almost like laughter.
“Well, that was donked up,” Davina called, running up to me. “Was that crow rabid? I swear, this school gets weirder by the day, and my mom will have a shit fit when she finds out about Nicole. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t homeschool me.”
