by Danny Bell
There were two elevators, one to the garage, and the other which went to the garden, and both were guarded. Our invites were expressly all-access, and it was clear to me that this was not the event we were meant to be at. This was the outer circle.
“Drink to calm our nerves?” Ann suggested. “Or just my nerves? You look like the edible just kicked in.”
“How would we pay for it?” I asked absently.
A frown crossed Ann’s face briefly as she acknowledged that inconvenient detail. “Dude, I don’t know. Either it’s an open bar, or we become petty thieves. And would you stop smiling like that? You’re going to weird somebody out. Me. I’m somebody.”
The distance from the entrance to the bar wasn’t far, but the journey felt much longer than it should. That probably had something to do with the fact that I seemed to be instinctively tuning out the ambient music, and I became painfully tuned in to every glance, stare, and whisper about us as we crossed the floor.
“Do you recognize them?”
“—important. They have those invitations.”
“—flexing on us, coming through the front door like—”
“Emika actually offered to get me upstairs, but it all felt so pretentious, I’d rather—”
“No, she’s related to the director of that movie I worked on last—”
So, there was another way inside, and our driver let us walk in the front door. Was this intentional or an oversight? Either way, the paper in our hands was causing quite a lot of chatter, which meant that people knew what we had. Which meant that it wasn’t as secretive as I might have thought. But it was also a big enough deal that these people were now wildly speculating about our identities and were starting to stir like ants that found a piece of candy.
I spotted one particularly eager member of the pack, a thin, fashionable man of indeterminate age wearing skinny plaid slacks and a comfortable looking form-fitting sweater that didn’t quite match his oversized sunglasses and a haircut that looked to be directly copied from a young Justin Bieber. He moved to meet us at the bar, timing his steps so he would arrive just as we did.
“So, you decided to walk amongst the mortals?” He said smoothly to Ann, leaning an elbow across the bar and intercepting himself between her and the bartender.
“Not now, bro!” Ann said impatiently. “I am a happily married heiress!”
The bartender, a dignified looking middle-aged Japanese man, gave the barest of nods just past us, and an instant later, our would-be third wheel was spirited away by a suit-clad bouncer who seemed to materialize from nowhere. He was dragged away so quickly and quietly that could’ve missed it if you blinked.
“Apologies,” The words came from behind us, and I turned to see another fancy bouncer type addressing us. “Perhaps the ladies would be more comfortable taking their drinks upstairs?”
“In a moment, thank you,” Ann replied, not missing a beat. The bouncer nodded in acknowledgement and turned away, and Ann looked to the waiting bartender. “Two alcohols, please. Surprise us.”
“Very good,” he nodded as well and left to make our drinks.
“—have known better than to—”
“—was scary, I wonder who—”
“—better than us. Just because—”
“Holy shit, did you see that?” Ann asked me in a hush. “Are we celebrities?”
“Something’s happened to me,” I replied softly. “I wonder if I’m having an allergic reaction to your potion or maybe I was drugged? This isn’t how this normally works.”
The bartender’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly in our direction at my words, but he was hiding it like an expert. The others at the bar weren’t actively trying to listen; our most recent would-be conversationalist likely serving as an example of what not to do. Ann was unable to hide her concern, her eyes widening.
Her voice rose half a decibel, she was on the verge of failing to keep her voice down. “Do we need to get you out of here? What’s wrong?”
“It’s hard to say that anything is wrong,” I replied evenly. “My focus, my clarity, all of my senses are turned up to a hundred. I’m hearing and seeing in ways that aren’t human. But more than that, I’ve never had this sense of tranquility before, that’s also new. I can’t bring myself to be excited or angry with anything.”
Ann pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine my potions would, or could, do this. And we both drank in the car from the same bottle. I don’t know. You say you can’t get excited, but you have to be aware of how much you’re smiling. Is that part of it?”
Our bartender returned with two drinks, amber-colored and smelling faintly of vanilla, mint, and molasses, with an orange peel and sphere of ice in each. He nodded and turned away, and I took a sip of mine, finding the uncanny ability to separate each individual flavor on my tongue from the remnants of the sugar cube to the bitters. Still, I could just as easily taste them all at once again.
“An Old Fashioned,” Ann remarked, looking at her glass. “I wonder if he’s trying to be funny.”
“He was,” I confirmed, which got a “Whaddya know?” look from my friend as she took a sip as well. “And I am not telling you this to worry you, but just to make you aware. We’re here for a reason.”
“And we have to get at it,” The response was punctuated with a long, draining swig of the cocktail that I’ll bet Ann thought was going to look like a badass, but bordered on hilarious and concerning as she struggled to not choke as the liquor burned her throat.
“We’re allowed to take these upstairs,” I replied with a delicate sip.
“Good to know,” Ann impatiently croaked.
I moved my free hand to her face, adding, “You just have a little orange peel on your…”
Ann closed her eyes and took in a deep breath through her nose as I wiped the orange flakes that stayed behind after the peel raced the liquor to her mouth. “Thank you. I’m good.”
“So, then we should head upstairs,” I observed, and Ann tried to nod her way past her embarrassment.
“That would be best, yes.”
Ann gathered the invitations and rose to her feet, as I wrapped my arm around the crook of her elbow, pressing my body comfortably into hers, and she tensed in a way that I didn’t need my focus to recognize.
“What are you doing?” She whispered, her cheeks flushing.
“We’re supposed to be married,” I whispered back. “Should I stop?”
Ann hesitated a moment, fidgeting with the invitations before rubbing her free arm awkwardly against mine. “No,” she said finally. “No, it’s nice, it just…you took me off guard. And I didn’t think you…you know.”
I held her like that as we moved to the elevators, leaving that unfinished statement to die in the air behind us, wondering if this is what MDMA felt like. Ann did say our stay up potions were something like a fae party drug, so it made sense. Wrapping my arm in hers was for show, I was trying to play a part, trying to get in character. Though now that I was here, feeling the subtle rise in her body temperature, nuzzling my head into hers, the immediate comfort and closeness; I swear I’m not usually this affectionate, but if you offered me a blanket right then and there, I would’ve been good with just cuddling the rest of the night.
The two men in front of the elevator parted for us, one looking mildly uncomfortable, the other trying to hide his approval of us behind a mask of professionalism. Copying Ann’s earlier move, I polished off the rest of my drink and absently handed the glass to the uncomfortable one. Unlike Ann, I didn’t choke, but to be fair, she wasn’t a bourbon drinker.
The approving member of the duo scanned a badge inside the elevator and pressed a button, returning to his station and smiling at us as the doors closed. Ann’s grip on my arm tightened reassuringly.
“This is it,” she said resolutely. “We’re here. We just have to be ready for anything, right?”
“Ann, we have walked through impossible wastelands, made peace with impossible being
s, fought ancient evils, and we just got free drinks for looking pretty,” I opined hazily. “Nothing is ever going to surprise us again.”
The elevator opened after a beat, revealing the quiet murmur of the main event. A piano playing in the distance. Wine glasses clinking. Polite conversations that would go nowhere. But at the center of my attention, where my full focus was held fast, was the shocked, disgusted, and enraged face of one Kaito Kobayashi on the other end of the room. VIP donor of this event and the father of my good friend Logan. The friend who went missing months ago after being sent to a Norse realm as he lay dying. Not that Kaito knew any of that.
Kaito’s face twisted as if it might break under the strain of trying to find appropriate words. “You!” he finally spat, bits of saliva flying from his lips with the force of a sneeze. He looked ready to strangle me, and he was marching toward us with determination, pushing other guests aside.
Well. Surprise.
Chapter Nineteen
Kaito’s march threatened to turn into a sprint as I stood there dumbly, unable to form anything approaching an appropriate response. His pace was causing a stir, and the murmurings seemed to increase with each step. He knew. I didn’t know how, but he knew. He shouldn’t have been ready to kill me, but he was, and he was carrying a rage that can only come when you find the person responsible for the loss of your child.
And I was smiling at him.
I was keenly aware of Ann’s shock registering half a second behind mine and just as aware of the momentary panic of the two people Kaito nearly knocked to the ground. I was just as aware of the one man in the room who wasn’t shocked or confused, but alert.
Kaito made it to within ten feet from me before that man stepped in his way, firmly and calmly placing a hand into Kaito’s chest and matching his gaze. Kaito was fuming, but something about the man held his attention and may have been the only thing on Earth that could’ve stopped him. Just about everyone had taken notice by now, but the man gently walked Kaito away and the two spoke in hushed tones.
“He thinks Logan is dead,” Ann said incredulously.
I motioned for her to stop talking as I tuned out everything around me, focusing in on their conversation, hearing their words with incredible clarity.
“You told me!” Kaito pleaded. “And now she’s here! How could you allow this?”
“Calm yourself, Kobayashi-san,” the man said evenly. “I allowed nothing. A debt was owed, and this is how it is being repaid.”
“What debt could be worth this?” Kaito spat. “I won’t stand for it!”
“You will if you desire our help,” the man said firmly. His voice softened by degrees as he continued. “This is to our benefit. There’s no hiding, nothing for her to gain here. And now we know where she is. Have faith, Kobayashi-san, and have a care to conduct yourself as is appropriate of your place this evening.”
Kaito looked up in our direction then, and the world rushed back to me. His stride toward us was slower but with no less conviction. With a hard, pained look, Kaito said, “I know what you are, I know what you did, and I’ll never, ever forgive you!”
Heartbreak rose and was immediately, unnaturally muted in my chest. I wanted to tell him everything would be okay or that it was at least better than what he was assuming, but I had no way to know if that was true. I didn’t know what he’d been told, but I did know that we’d been lying to him and, if my heart would allow it, I might’ve been crying just then. Instead, I said nothing, only stared at him, stirring up impotent rage in him that he could do nothing with until he stormed away. He wanted my head and he wasn’t getting it.
“That was intense,” Ann said with quickened breath next to me.
I was thankful that she’d been an extra step removed from this and wasn’t hurting as I was now. She hadn’t watched him leave his love in tears, sprinting to his doom, the way I had. She didn’t see the pleading in Olivia’s eyes as she begged for help, uselessly holding her dying partner in her arms. She got the abridged version and the brave face of Olivia saying he’d be back, and she believed her.
The man casually walked over to us once Kaito was away, greeting us as an apologetic party host, all smiles and the energy of someone laughing off the embarrassment of forgetting where they know you from. “Jesika Libby, Kymberleigh Sinclair, on behalf of the Japanese American History Museum, I would like to offer my sincere and humble gratitude for your generosity. I would also like to apologize for the confused outburst of Mr. Kobayashi.” He bowed slightly, and a grin touched the edges of his lips as he stood. “Mistaken identity, I’m sure.”
His polite tone matched everything else about him. He wore a crisp, fashionable stale gray suit that somehow didn’t come off as showy, and the way the gray hair just touched his temples was probably what every fifty something year old man considered hitting the jackpot. He looked like the kind of guy who owned a boat but never left the docks.
“Yeah, definitely,” Ann replied unconvincingly. “We’re Kim and Jessie; it says so on our invitations.”
“Of course. And remind me, which one are you?”
Ann paused an uncomfortable moment before answering, “The heiress.”
“Wonderful.” The man smiled. “Great job.”
I continued to stare at him. It was clear to me he was expecting me to speak up. When I did, I doubted it was what he was planning to hear. “You know who we are,” I began coolly. “So why are you pretending that you don’t?”
His features changed almost imperceptibly at my words, and he straightened his posture. “Kymberleigh and Jesika are honored guests, welcomed as friends of the museum. Ann and Elana would, of course, be foolish to walk in here, regardless of what they were promised, and you two are not fools, are you?” Ann shifted uncomfortably, and the man leaned playfully toward her and whispered comically, “Oh, and Kymberleigh is the heiress.”
“So, then, what is this?” I asked.
His smile widened slightly. “Look around and tell me what you think this is.”
I took a step away from him, moving away from the elevator that we hadn’t managed to quit blocking, and took it all in. The first thing I noticed, what would’ve been impossible not to notice, was that, in spite of the storm and the fact that we were outside, it was not cold and no rain touched us. The water came down in sheets, thunder boomed, and lightning cracked, but not a drop of rain touched any at the party. It all just sort of curved away from us, making this the only rooftop event in town. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say this all but confirmed we were in the right place. Magic could’ve done this, I’m sure, even if I couldn’t work out how exactly. It’s magic, that’s kind of the whole point of it. It makes everything possible if you work at it hard enough. But the storm was unnatural and something told me that, if Susano-o knew which party to not rain out, it wouldn’t be beyond him to do something about it. That told me more than anything else that we were on the right track.
Then there were the guests, of which I was certain none were here by mistake. Everyone—from the men and women in the tailored suits and designer gowns to the people serving them drinks—had to have been vetted and not one of them seemed even a bit curious by the blatant display of powerful magic. Maybe they were told it was some kind of new anti-rain tech, like a giant version of those V-shaped air dryers that you find in movie theater bathrooms or something else equally as implausible. Either way, no one had a phone out to take pictures, they weren’t even looking at it. No one found the lack of rain suspicious, something I found to be extremely suspicious.
There was the garden itself, of course, but I’d been here before, so it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already seen. Just maybe not this dressed up. There were lush trees, trimmed with precision, around a tranquil, miniature waterfall. The walkway surrounding it all was dotted with people and, to my left, near the edge of it all, was a piano player playing a peaceful melody that contrasted heavily with the elements. From the look on his face, you would’ve thought he was the only
person here, playing for himself. No tip cup on the piano, I noted, though I wasn’t sure why that particular detail would be noteworthy.
There was a sizable pond, to my right, that went right to the edge of some sort of meeting room that was being used as a buffet. Chefs lined the back wall and guests who preferred to be indoors milled about, making small talk and picking at small plates of food. A bar was set up on the far end of the room with an impressive quantity of alcohol, though I was too far away to judge its quality. Given everything else going on, I was willing to bet those bottles didn’t come from Costco.
Further down the hall were two men in front of a closed room, both of them dangerous looking—I could determine that even at a distance. I wasn’t eager to meet them up close.
It was all beautiful, and sinister, and layered, and overwhelming. That’s when a plan had begun to take shape in the overactive recesses of my mind.
“Another dreadful party,” I intoned, trying and failing to put on a character for Jesika. “Attended by people with too much money and not enough common sense. Might as well cut a check and get invited out for a drink, am I right? It’s all a bit pathetic of them, isn’t it?”
If the man had been chewing gum, he would’ve swallowed it. “I’m, uh, sure that may be said for a minority of any function such as this.” The man stumbled briefly on his words but recovered quickly enough. “But I assure you, the museum has more than enough genuine support.”
“It really is,” Ann chimed in, following my lead. “Quite boring, hardly worth the effort of getting dressed up for, isn’t it?”
The man set his jaw to stop himself from what I guessed was speaking in anger. I could see his pulse rise through a raised vein on his temple. “A man is whatever room he is in. When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him.” He said it in a reciting tone, some bit of wisdom from his past.
