by Elle Cross
“It’s Sunday night, almost Monday morning.”
I blinked. What the— “Wait, what?”
“Where the fuck are you right now? Are you with the Sylphs? Deimos?”
“Technically, I’m not with either, I’m alone.” I was looking around and throwing everything in my bag, ready to move.
“Have you been kidnapped, kept against your will?”
“No. I…I went exploring, found myself downtown, and somehow got inside of a private club.”
That was true enough. She didn’t need to know the details.
I could hear her breathing, and it was like she was trying to maintain her calm. Had I been with her, I would have easily taken some of that anxiety away.
Being missing for a day wasn’t what was bothering her. It couldn’t have been. It wasn’t like we spoke to each other every day, especially when she was in the middle of an intense case. It was like the outside world stopped to exist for her. "I’m sorry that I somehow lost track of time. We’ll talk about that later. But something else is going on here. What's wrong?"
She was still seething, loud, deliberate inhales and exhales like she needed to remember how to breathe. "The boy. He's missing."
My heart seized. “What?”
“The boy. Some random man called that he was supposed to check on the boy for you, the Sanderson boy, but he couldn’t found him. We went to the Sanderson house, and the boy, Brian, is missing.”
I nearly stumbled into Corso as I tore out of the private room. Had he just known when to come, or would he have been content to stand here and wait all day for me to decide when to leave, if I ever did?
“Lady Seren, I’m here to escort you.” His voice was low and intoxicating like sweet brandy. I suppressed a shiver. I nodded as I closed the door shut behind me, adjusting my bag on my shoulder. As ordered, Corso stayed with me, a huge shadow that lingered just a little behind my left shoulder. His presence had the bonus benefit of people keeping a wide berth around me. I was unsure if it was because they could see him or because they were unconsciously responding to his power? Either way, I was happy to move as quickly as I could.
It was a good thing I thought to bring a change of clothes. Hightailing it out on my spike heels would have looked ridiculous.
My phone was a buzz with notifications once I stepped out street side. I didn't need to check them out to know where to meet Corbin. She'd be waiting for me at the corner.
I felt the moment that Corso fell away from me as my shadow. It was the moment when I was aware of several of Deimos's men before I had a lock on them. I didn’t need to meet them all to know that they had the same weight and feel as his other men that roamed Janus Holdings like Balin and Corso.
Their very presence held that same type of gravity that drew my eye. It wasn’t as heavy as Deimos’s was to me, didn’t call to me as strongly, but it was still there like an echo of it.
I ignored the figures that peeled from the shadows of the subway walls. Their scents of spices and woods stood out in this place, their power warped the air around them.
Whether Deimos sent them specifically or they just knew to be on watch for me, I couldn’t quite decide. But the result was still the same: I would have company whether or not I saw them.
I found Corbin exactly where I expected her to be, grabbing some food off a favorite Halal truck. "Just in time, V." She passed one wrapped up container to me, while she grabbed the other that was just being topped and wrapped.
I took the food gratefully, and followed her to her car. Instead of her car, though, we were headed toward a familiar limo.
"Did you get a promotion? The department get some upgrades?" But, I knew exactly who this came from.
"Long story, but it's empty," she said.
An odd disappointment filled me.
"At any rate, this is apparently your mode of transportation now, just an FYI." She flicked her eyebrow up at me as she got in the car.
I rolled my eyes as I followed her in and got settled beside her. I slipped into the car, remembered the luxe leather and premium accessories. My mode of transportation, indeed. Makes me want to take the subway all the more.
Instead of saying anything, I shoveled the tasty Halal combo into my mouth, stirring up the white and red sauces with each bite. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. My cheeks flamed thinking about the physical activity that may have contributed to my hunger. Thankfully, Corbin’s hawk eyes were trained on her own plate of food.
I let Corbin brief me on what happened to the kid, what to expect. The mother was upset, even less coherent than before. Everything Corbin said, I let it wash over me and through me. I followed the words and let them create an impression on my mind. Between the succinct, rote description of events that Corbin portrayed, I felt the frustration, the rage, that simmered in the face of the grief. The motivation that Corbin had for finishing her cases and what drove her to keep going despite her exhaustion.
There was a fascinating glimpse through it all, though. A thread of ozone and dark spices. The mingling of storm clouds. It warmed me from the inside out, like captured sunshine in the height of summer.
Deimos had been helping Corbin all along, as much as she let him help. Corbin said that Mrs. Sanderson didn't want any of the Remnant God tribes to help her. I thought that was kind of ironic, considering her husband had been one. Her son was half.
I bit my lip. I didn't know whether or not I should tell Corbin, though. She wouldn't let Deimos help, knowing who he was, what would she say if I told her what I’d suspected for so long about myself was true?
"Corbin..."
The moment slipped by. We were at Linda Sanderson's town house.
Before we were even through the door, I smelled the noxious odors of fear. It rolled out in waves. It was like the fetid odor of milk left to sour in a closed car on a hot summer day.
I paused to acclimate myself. Corbin raised her eyebrow. "That bad, huh?"
"Kinda nauseating, but nothing I haven't handled before. Just need a second." Dear Lady Below, it brought tears to my eyes.
I recalled the loamy scents of earth to give myself some balance. It wasn't quite like putting the mute button on for the world, but the scent was duller. Less piquant.
Linda Sanderson hugged a pillow to her. Her grief etched clearly on her face. Tears ran unchecked. She was already grieving the dead.
Her society friends were there, one tut-tutting and picking at the tea service and the other making other cooing noises at her. Between the both of them, they were like a pair of random birds with brains to match.
Another temp housekeeper had answered the door, and now announced our arrival to her. Linda threw her pillow down. "I don't know why you're here. Why aren't you out there looking for him?"
"It's a big city and one boy. We need to be smart about it if he's to be found quickly."
"Yes, dear, they probably just need something like clothes for their dogs to sniff out and find him." The other nodded. Then, to Corbin, she said, "They show those sort of things on TV shows all the time." She said it like she had an inside scoop to criminology based on a one-hour television show.
Corbin filtered out whatever words she wouldn't say to a witness or victim. Her raised eyebrow the only indication of what she thought of these women.
Linda twisted her pillow in her bony fingers. "It's clear where he is, who took him. They took him."
I let the anger and resentment roll off me. It held no power over me. I brushed it off like I would a piece of lint. I balanced at the edge of her couch, not quite comfortable.
"Why would you think that?" I asked her.
"Why else? They don't like the fact that I hid him, that he was mine that I gave birth to him. He's mine. And they took him away." The more she spoke the more the green, vile smoke wrapped around her, growing dense and thick.
This was her truth, and it warped the air around her, kept her blind and ignorant. Her truth and her world was ugly. The waves of it ripple
d toward me, touched me, made me nearly retch. Long years of training my face in the presence of distasteful emotions kept me from reacting.
"Linda. I know that's how you feel. But right now we need facts. Specifics. It is, after all, more efficient, yes?"
"Well. Yes." The knot of green unwound from her. She was still hazy behind the putrid fog around her. But at least she was clearer, more lucid.
"I wasn't here when you first discovered Brian missing, so if you could please tell me what happened. Maybe you will remember something else that you didn't remember in your initial report to Detective Troy?"
She spun the tale. I didn't hear the words. I let them flow over me and through me. More often than not the words were lies, they didn't quite capture what happened. Instead, I saw what she saw, heard what she heard.
Her words were illusions, chosen to make her seem better. They made her seem more attentive as a mother and made her not acknowledge that though she knew she ought to love her son unconditionally, that at some level, she was relieved that he was gone. She didn't have to worry about what she couldn't understand. Yes, there was love there, but there was also confusion and fear. A fear that held her back from truly loving her son as she ought to, and so she had compensated with her hovering.
The days blurred together in her mind, so she didn't know precisely when Brian had disappeared. She had been drinking, something she didn't want to acknowledge. But she felt like she was entitled to drinking. After all, didn't her husband just die? Didn't he somehow tie up the finances? Didn't he make it so that Brian was the primary beneficiary of the estate, that she would just be the custodian until he came of age?
She was going to put him in a school. Some place where he would be safe and grow up, but away from her. With the monies released for his care and the money she received from her family estate, it was enough to live on. Not the way she felt like she deserved, but enough. She would be able to get on her feet again. She was still young after all. Still able to attract someone who could take care of her.
It was only sometime this morning that she had realized he was gone. She kept her head, though, kept cool. She had been almost positive that she tucked him into bed. She didn't want to alarm anyone as she called all the people she knew. Maybe she had forgotten that he had been dropped off at someone's house. Or gone to some of his activities. He had those right?
She even called the nanny service to yell at them about her child, but was politely informed that they hadn't sent her a nanny for over a week because no one would work for her. She tore his room apart, and found nothing. Saw nothing.
And here we all were.
"So you see. No one else could have taken him. I would have known. The only logical explanation is that he was taken. By them."
The society friends made more noises at her. "Now, now, you can't know that for sure." They were stupid, but not stupid enough to openly mock the Remnant God tribes never knowing what the wind would carry away, which word would slip into shadows and resonate into the wrong ears. Of course, they weren't drunk and grieving like Linda was.
I needed to be away from them all. "May I take a tour of the house? Perhaps check his room?"
She nodded.
I smiled, placing a hand on top of hers. "Thank you. Perhaps you should help these ladies pack a bag for you, since you wanted to stay with them for a time, and not stay here all by yourself."
"Yes, that would be a great idea." The other two nodded.
I got up and followed the scents and memories to Brian's room. Corbin wasn't far behind. "I know that wasn't Voice, but that wasn't normal therapy, either," she said low. "You believe anything she said?"
I just smiled at her. "I can't say since I didn't listen to any word she said. She believes what she says, though. Which is sad and scary at the same time." I looked around the room. Before Linda tore it apart looking for Brian, I could tell that he had kept it clean. He was young, yes, but also precocious. He knew more than he let on.
Also, I didn't know which Remnant God tribe he descended from, most likely Dagan considering the unlikelihood of fertility otherwise, but something told me that most of the tribes had a prescient feeling of some sort. A kind of intuition that manifested differently but there just the same. An intuition that was stronger with them than a normal Human. It was the nature of things.
I wouldn't be surprised if Brian felt that shift of change in the air. That bit of intuition. That look. That feeling. That sense that he was thought of as other. As something different to be feared, and therefore was subtly being unmade to be remade into what his mother considered ‘a better image’.
I looked to Corbin, who sifted through things with her pen or gloved hands, careful and respectful with other people's property. Corbin whose natural grace and oceanic eyes signaled her as something else, as other, so long ago and thus made an easy target. A victim. A survivor.
Weren't we both?
Something niggled at the back of my mind then. Years ago, when I followed Corbin here to America from the old country, I wasn't conscious of it. I just felt something. A connection. A thrum over a taut wire. And I answered it. It was a very specific need, and I just needed to answer it.
An instinct. Like the flight of birds during the season. Like leaves changing.
Astara had mentioned that I was able to locate anything. That it was in my nature.
Corbin looked at me then. "V, what is it? You got something?"
"I don't know." The pressure in my chest built, like I was on the cusp of something. Like trying to remember a dream the morning after. I relaxed, and breathed and took in the scents of the room. Beneath the ripe scents of Linda's fear. Toward the love. The scent of apples dripping with caramel. The saltwater tides.
I had moved toward the middle of his room, a framed picture at my feet. I bent down, and picked it up. I remembered that Brian once said this was the happiest he had been. His father had taken him there. His father had told him that they would always be able to find each other here. This was their space. Where they would go and be themselves.
Among the litter of his room, this could have been tossed here by his mother in her lunacy. But I knew differently. It smelled of him, and the desperate longing of being with someone who loved him unconditionally.
"Holy hells, I know where he is."
I found Brian shivering under a pier. He ran to me when he heard me, when he saw me. He hugged me around my waist. He was cold and hungry.
"Miss Vesper, I was so scared."
"I know, kid."
"I was so happy at first, I knew I'd find him, I knew if I just got here. But then he never showed."
I stroked his head, let him talk. "I know."
"My dad. He's really gone."
I nodded, my eyes filled with tears.
The breaking tide of his blooming power swelled around him then crashed. He cried and I let him. In the distance, the mournful cry of a whale song responded back, echoed over the horizon.
I couldn't carry his grief or take away his pain, but I could carry him. I gathered him in my arms. I thought of his home and walked us there.
Linda nearly fainted when she saw me walk through the bathroom mirror. Corso shifted in the shadows, and I wasn’t surprised to see him. He thrummed with unspent anger, but I was sure Deimos would hear the brunt of it. For now, I handed off the now-sleeping Brian to Corso's more sure arms.
I moved toward Linda and placed my palm on her forehead, convinced her she was imagining things and should go to sleep.
Since she had made up her mind about sending Brian away, I pressed a suggestion about where he should go for now, and that she had come up with that idea herself. Until then, she needed to go to that friend's house so nothing like this would happen again.
Corso, who had evidently appeared when I walked off, said he could take the child to Deimos now and transfer him to a temple at least to be with his people, but I hadn't wanted to do that. "The mother should be with her child. Besides, Jules would b
e the perfect person to sit with Brian for now. He’s familiar to him, and Linda would be able to visit in the morning."
Corso deferred to me with a nod. “I will make sure it is done.” And he disappeared in shadows.
Corbin gave instructions to Linda, and her officers who were to escort her and her friends to their place. As we finally walked out of the townhouse, Corbin looked at me funny, in that weird way that she did to suspects that she didn't know how to talk to.
We slipped into the limo in silence.
I had wanted to take her home, but she insisted that she needed to track down leads again, now that we’d found Brian. I held back my lecture on her sleeping and eating habits, and directed the driver to Midtown.
We were both wrapped in the hush of our own thoughts.
"So, V,” she rolled out, “Walking through shadows and mirrors. That's what you do now?"
Shadows, huh? I didn't realize that's what it looked like. "I don't know about what I do. But it's something I figured out how to do."
"How does it work?"
"I guess it's something like thinking about where I want to go then going? But I need a clear destination in mind. Like a person and place, or having a strong connection. But, I'm still not all that sure really. I ask, and I keep being told that it's just ‘the nature of things’." I gestured in air quotes.
“Is that how you got to that place you can’t tell me about?”
I flushed. In the dark night of the car, she couldn’t see my face. “Kind of. Yeah. I walked there, and stayed there a while I guess.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her where I was, who I was with and what I was doing. The worst part was that she knew I was hiding something from her, the same way that she knew that I knew she was hiding something from me.
We both had secrets from each other and it was creating an odd vibe between us. Not bad. Not a pulling away. Just a…shifting. And I had yet to decide whether or not the shifting was a good thing and just different or a bad one.
She went quiet again.
"Is there something you want to say, Detective?"