The side dimension aspect makes this even more complicated, because it involves a trick she—we’ll call her Eve for now—can do that I can’t. That trick enables her to step off of this plane of reality and into a place where she can cover distances much faster. It comes with a time-jump, so it’s not a great thing to do if you’re late for work or something, because you might trade a week to go a thousand miles, and still end up late and possibly fired.
All of that means Eve can drop in and out of reality as we know it wherever she wants, which is important as regards the mystery Mirella and I are currently attempting to solve.
About six weeks ago, Eve stepped out of the veil and into a hotel room on a secret island in the South Pacific, said my name, and then passed out. We waited a month for her to wake up and explain herself, but once it was clear that simply waiting by the bedside wasn’t getting us anywhere, I suggested we try to figure out where Eve was before she popped in. For an ordinary person, that’s mostly just a matter of checking passport stamps, or ticket stubs, maybe leveraging a contact in an airport or getting close with someone in Interpol, or seeing what currencies are in her wallet.
For Eve, there was very nearly nothing to go on: no wallet to rummage through, no airline tickets, security checkpoints, nothing. She dropped in wearing a stolen set of clothes, and that was all.
The reason it was so important that we figure out where she’d been was the aforementioned disease, because there was a decent chance it was killing her.
We immortal folks don’t get sick. We’re not invincible, so you can certainly run one of us through with a sword if you get an opening, but we don’t acquire illness in any form.
I say it like that’s just a default state, like I pass through a world of disease just automatically immune, as if getting sick is just completely inconceivable…and, well, that’s pretty much how I’ve always thought of it. One could sooner give a plague to a rock, was my thinking.
It isn’t really that simple, but the germ theory of disease is only a couple hundred years old and I’m a ton older than that, so give me a little slack. How it really works is that I—and Eve, presumably—have absolute, state-of-the-art immune systems.
It may seem like there’s no difference between “immune system that won’t allow me to get sick” and “it would be easier to give a plague to a rock” because the outcome is identical. However, it looked like something in this world got through Eve’s immune system, which means there is a difference.
That was bad, because whatever was making her sick was killing her and we couldn’t do anything but hope she beat it. Far worse, if it could kill her, imagine what it would do to the rest of the population?
In short, there was something in the world that could possibly end all life on the planet, patient zero was comatose, and she had traveled in steps that were nearly impossible to retrace. We were nevertheless attempting to do exactly that.
Paris is romantic and quests are cool. But the threat of a global pandemic kind of sours the whole thing. The good news was, if all life on Earth were felled by a plague, it looked like this one could take me out too. It’d be pretty lonely otherwise.
That is, unless I was overreacting about the global pandemic thing.
It would definitely be an overreaction if Eve were the only one we found with it; she was actually the only human we found, but we’d seen it elsewhere. Technically, the real patient zero was either a now-deceased incubus, or a possibly-deceased mermaid. (Please don’t make me explain that because it’s a lot.) If all three of them could be traced back to the same source, I would tap the brakes on the pandemic notion. But they were probably the least likely threesome to ever turn up in the same place: an immortal woman who spent half her time in another plane of existence; a creature who lived at the bottom of the ocean; and an incubus from Eastern Europe. Throw in that we knew the disease could be acquired—we saw a demon perish from it almost as soon as he was exposed—and it seems like a fair word to use.
So, that was why we embarked on this quest. We were disease-hunters, off to save the world before it was too late.
Or something, A lot closer to the truth would probably be to say that I just couldn’t sit around that hotel room any longer. Fortunately, Mirella is almost always in favor of a plan that involves travel, and the potential for violence.
After checking in at the hotel and deciding not to spend the afternoon indoors until it was time to meet with Jacques and his ID man—I actually wanted to stay in, but Mirella has this thing about not sitting around in the dark and drinking when there are other options—we went out and did something moderately romantic.
Or so I’m told. I am a profoundly unromantic person, but Paris is immune to my non-romantic wiles, and the Eiffel Tower is neat, so that was where we went.
“I remember when this was built,” I said, as we took the elevator to the observation deck.
“Of course you do,” she said, smiling.
“It was for the world’s fair. It was the tallest free-standing structure on Earth for a while.”
I didn’t know Gustave Eiffel, but I think he probably built it on a dare. At least half of the ‘world’s tallest’ whatevers were either the result of a dare, or a pissing contest between cities.
“Did you attend the fair?” she asked.
“No, I wasn’t in France then, but I was just thinking how much I miss them. I did attend one in Chicago.”
“What an interesting coincidence.”
I’m not sure I believe in coincidences. This isn’t to say I was or wasn’t fated to go to Chicago. More like, I saw the address on the scrap of paper Jacques provided, thought back to my own time in Chicago, remembered the fair that I visited the city to see, recalled that the Eiffel Tower was built for a fair, and suggested we go see it. Which, since Mirella was looking for something romantic, made me come across as suggesting something inherently romantic.
Or, I’m just overthinking it.
“I think I’ve just been around long enough that every story I have sounds like that,” I said. “Especially since history has a habit of repeating itself.”
“You say so, until the oldest woman in the world ends up in a coma.”
“Yes. That’s new.”
“But you remember when this was built.”
“First time I’ve visited it in person, but it was a big deal at the time, so yeah.”
I should mention that we weren’t alone on the elevator, and we were speaking the same language—English—as everyone else, despite which the other occupants were doing a bang-up job of ignoring the guy who claimed he was alive in 1889. This sort of out-in-the-open conversation wasn’t the kind of thing I used to do, sober, and I couldn’t tell you for sure why I was okay with doing it now.
It might have been because I went through some trouble to kill myself a few years earlier, before disappearing to the aforementioned secret island. Once I did that, I started to look at the world-at-large the way I used to view new tribes in which I was inserting myself. Clean-slate thinking, in other words. It was probably foolish—a lot of the things I do end up being foolish in hindsight—but I was enjoying the freedom of being a nobody-in-particular again.
It could also have been a consequence of the lingering sense of my own mortality, (Eve was sick therefore I could get sick too, et cetera) which I frankly never bothered to confront because it hadn’t come up all that often. Maybe as a mortal guy I’m loudly nostalgic.
Once at the top, I spent a good hour pointing out landmarks and providing Mirella with color commentary on whatever weird historical nugget I happened to recall. This is easy to do in Paris, because they haven’t put up a ton of skyscrapers like so many other cities. (I’m told this is because of the catacombs—the ground can’t support structures that heavy. This may not be true but it sounds good.) Thus, while it had been about three hundred years since my last visit, I still recognized a bunch of things. Entertainingly, two or three of the people who rode up with us lingered a
t the edge of our conversation, turning me into an unofficial tour guide. They probably thought that was exactly what I was: some kind of off-duty historical re-enactor.
This would be an excellent profession for me, by the way.
“You know what I’d like?” she said, as we held one another, while the sun began to set. “I would like to be able to do things like this with you without the world first sitting on the precipice of destruction.”
“I only get out of bed for emergencies,” I said. This was a joke, but only sort of.
“Yes, I know. And I know asking a man who has seen all there is to see, to approach the world as if he had not, is nigh impossible. But there are days when I’d like for you to try.”
“Days like this?”
“Everything after the café. Yes.”
“I can try. Hey, didn’t we talk about going to outer space once? We could try that. I haven’t been there.”
“Let’s work our way up to outer space. Paris is a good beginning.”
“All right.”
We kissed, and it was all kinds of romantic. A-plus stuff. If I could describe it better, I would, but as I’ve said, I’m really terrible at this.
I will add one thing: as much as we promised to do romantic, stop-and-smell-the-roses things wherever the days to come took us, this was pretty much the last time we got that opportunity.
2
My expectation of general seediness and bad-neighborhood vibes for the 8:00 P.M. meeting was not at all met by the trappings of the actual location.
The address Jacques provided belonged to a nice building with a doorman. My former papers man worked out of the basement of a pawn shop in New York City, in a section of town that looked like it needed to be hosed down with antibiotics, so I arrived carrying a certain expectation. I figured at minimum, Paris would provide us with a storeroom in a warehouse on a riverbank someplace where the odor of the river was particularly strong. But this wasn’t even in a part of the city that hotels instructed tourists to avoid, which was downright disappointing.
The doorman directed us to the concierge, who held up a finger to cut off the greeting that was about to come out of my mouth. (I was going to go with, hi, we’re expected.) He looked us over for a three-count before making a call on the house phone.
We must have matched a description. I’m thinking Mirella was described in great detail, while I was probably “…a guy.” That’s how I would do it.
“Penthouse,” the concierge said, in English. “Take the middle one.” This appeared to be in reference to the elevators, of which there were three.
He slid a key across.
“We’re expected,” I said, finally, even though we were past that part already.
“Yes, sir.”
We had to insert the key in a slot next to the button for the penthouse, which was the only way to get the lift to go up there.
“Classy,” Mirella said, once the doors closed and we were on our way up.
“Weird, isn’t it?” I said. “I guess there’s money to be made in counterfeit passports around here.”
“It’s… disconcerting. I’m not sure why.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. “Like we’re in the wrong place, and someone screwed up the instructions.”
“Yes.”
What with the private key to activate the button, it was unsurprising that the elevator doors opened on the penthouse directly.
There was a man waiting for us. He was about what I was expecting, in thug terms: stocky, nice suit, shoulder holster for a sidearm, all that. No sunglasses, but it was nighttime. Basically, he should have been at the riverfront warehouse I’d been expecting, instead of inside a pricy penthouse.
He looked us over for a few seconds, and then gestured that we could continue into the loft.
“Not going to frisk us?” I asked.
“Well, don’t know,” he said, in an American brand of English. “You here to kill somebody?”
“We don’t plan to, no.”
“Cool, then I won’t frisk you.”
“Really?”
He shrugged.
“If you want me to frisk, I’ll frisk, but most people don’t get this far without being well-spoken-for. You guys look okay. But if you want, I can linger at the edge of the living room and stare at you menacingly. If it helps the mood.”
“No, that’s all right.”
We left the entryway and stepped into the living room, which had a simply epic view of the city. The room itself was appointed with leather furniture, a grand piano, tables that were useless for anything other than a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and so on. Very clean, very antiseptic. There wasn’t any art on the walls, books on the shelves, or family photos. It was homey, and welcoming, but it didn’t feel as if anyone actually lived there. It felt like a movie set. But the view of the Paris skyline was great.
“Down the hall,” the man said, pointing to the hallway at the other end of the room. “She’s waiting for you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Is Jacques here?”
“I don’t know who that is, friend.”
“Right.” That was either a no, or a don’t mention anybody’s name around here. Probably the latter, since he hadn’t introduced himself or asked our names.
There was an open door at the end of the hallway, out of which streamed the familiar glow of multiple computer screens. I was about to call back to the fellow at the elevator to make doubly sure it was okay to go down the hall, when someone poked a head out of the room.
“Ah, you are here, good. No, stay there, I will come to you.”
The woman who emerged from the room was short and skinny, with army-cut brown hair, in sweatpants and a hoodie. She was holding a camera that looked heavier than she was, and moved with the kind of manic energy one usually only saw in coke addicts and tornadoes. Her accent—like the man at the door, she spoke English—was vaguely Germanic.
“Welcome, welcome to my home,” she said, a burst of activity as soon as she made it to the living room. “Call me Ina! You, there, you sit, go, on the couch, it’s very comfortable I’m proud of it. You, stand against the wall. No, not there, here, against the white background.”
The first ‘you’ was to me and the second to Mirella. She likewise had no interest in getting our names, which was now sort of making sense, given we were getting new ones anyway.
“No, no don’t smile” Ina said, attempting to direct my girlfriend. “Look displeased.”
“I am actually displeased,” Mirella said. “Can’t you tell?”
“Then you are too pretty. Try anger. You have waited in line for days before this photo, you hate bureaucracy, give me that! Yes! More of that!”
I’m not an expert in fake passports or photography, but from where I was sitting every expression Mirella tried from the moment she was asked to pose looked like she was unhappy, so I didn’t know what Ina was hoping for, but whatever. Goblins don’t often smile for pictures anyway, because if their teeth show, it can be a problem: most of them have pointed teeth. I understand there’s an entire clandestine dental industry catering to goblins and elves, which in addition to the usual teeth-cleaning and what-not, will cap teeth so they aren’t pointy any more. It wasn’t a procedure Mirella had gotten, though.
Ina took about twenty photos too many, then sent Mirella to the couch.
“You, man. Come here.”
I stood up against the wall.
“You don’t actually live here,” I said.
“Hold still and look aggrieved. What do you mean?”
“You said welcome to your home, but this place doesn’t look lived in.”
She took three photos, and then lowered the camera.
“I didn’t say I lived here,” she said. “You are done. Go sit.”
“You used up a whole roll of film on her,” I said.
“I needed a bad photo, and she doesn’t take bad photos so easily. You, very easy. Also, it is digital, there is no roll. I have
better cameras that use film, but there is no darkroom in this penthouse, and you asked for a rush. Developing film takes too long.”
“I’m not used to letting people I’ve just met take pictures of me,” I said, because for some reason I felt like explaining why I was a good model for a bad photo.
Cameras, radios, and telephones are all ‘new’ technology from my perspective. (So are eyeglasses, indoor plumbing, the printing press, and so on. You get the point.) I’m not always good about embracing new technology, especially when it complicates my passage through a world in which I often prefer anonymity.
I will say that I’m glad we got past the part where we had to stand motionless for an hour to get a photo taken. I’d just rather not have the photo taken.
“Yes, fine. Now. Tell me where you are going?”
“Is that important?”
“Everything is important. Some borders are inhospitable to people from certain places. Are you visiting a sanctioned country? How many languages do you speak? Why are the passports you used to get into France no longer adequate? I am very expensive and I do very good work, but I traffic in a level of realism which requires a thorough perspective on my clients. If you are concerned, much of what you are paying for is my silence. So. Tell me what it is I don’t know, so that we can get you to where you would like to be.”
I looked at Mirella, who shrugged.
“We’re going to the United States,” I said. “I’ve been there before, and she was raised there, but we don’t want there to be any connection between the last time we were in the States, and this time.”
“This is not your ultimate destination.”
“I don’t know if it is or not.”
“Multiple identities, then. I’ll arrange three. Are you criminals?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Are you on any watch lists? Is Downing Street looking for you, or the CIA, or Mossad? Who are you hiding from?”
Immortal From Hell Page 2