Vigil

by V. J. Chambers

  “My identity.”

  I looked down at my plate. “Safe. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Good.” He took another bite of pancake. “So, how are we going to find these legs?”

  * * *

  “Where have you been all weekend?” said Airenne when I came in the door of my apartment.

  “Um…” I hadn’t thought about the idea that I might need to prepare a story for my roommate. But I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her that I’d been banging Vigil like a nympho.

  “I saw you get out of the car you know,” she said. “I have a pretty good view of the door from the window.”

  Callum had insisted that I let his driver take me home, even though I’d wanted to call a cab. He said that there was a reason he had a driver, and it was to drive people places. He wouldn’t listen to my argument about it, and it didn’t seem that important at the time. But now, I wished that I’d been more firm. That I hadn’t let him change my mind.

  “So,” she continued, “don’t tell me that wasn’t Callum Rutherford’s car.”

  I sighed. “Look, it’s all complicated, Airenne.” I headed back the hall to my bedroom.

  She came after me. “I didn’t think you liked him. You said all that nasty stuff about him. You were rude to his face. And then you disappear at the party, and Callum disappears too. And he comes back, but he’s all preoccupied, and then he leaves again. And no one sees him for the rest of the weekend. I checked the twitter feed for CallumWatch.”

  I turned to face her at the door of my bedroom. “CallumWatch? What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a website that tracks his every move,” she said.

  “Oh, well, that’s not disturbing,” I said.

  “He’s a celebrity,” she said. “If he didn’t want people to look at him, then he shouldn’t have—”

  “Have what? Been born to a Rutherford and a Broadway star?”

  She bit her lip. “He probably hates stuff like that, doesn’t he?”

  “Probably.” I started to close the door.

  “Wait.” She caught the door with one hand. “Did you spend the weekend with him or not?”

  “Not,” I said. “I mean… not exactly. Not like you’re thinking.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So, it wasn’t romantic?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I twisted my hands together.

  “Where’d you get those clothes? Did he give you those clothes?”

  “Maybe.” I cringed.

  “He gave you clothes, and it’s not romantic?”

  I sighed.

  She folded her arms over her chest. She looked hurt. “You knew that I had a crush on him. You knew that, and you went after him anyway.”

  Now I felt like an ass. I had completely forgotten about Airenne’s obsession with Callum, and how this was going to affect her. I ran a hand through my hair.

  “You’re wearing your hair down, too,” she said. “You never do that.”

  “That’s only because you hog the bathroom every morning, and I don’t have time for a shower,” I muttered.

  She drew back, looking even more hurt. “Well, you never said anything about that.”

  Damn it. Everything was just getting fucked up. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “No,” she said. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Because if we were friends, you’d tell me that you were annoyed about how much time I spent in the bathroom, and you wouldn’t go after the guy that I like. You would have recognized he was off limits.”

  I looked down at the carpet. “I’m sorry.”

  “So, you’re admitting it then,” she said. “You were with him.”

  “I…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s complicated.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  I felt horrible. “Airenne, I’m so sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean for this to happen. He wouldn’t let me leave.”

  She went back into the hallway. “Wouldn’t he? Well, wasn’t I an idiot to bring you along with me to that party? If I hadn’t, he’d never have met you.”

  As far as that went, she was slightly right. I might not have ever figured out Vigil’s secret identity if it hadn’t been for that party. But now I had, and I was having some kind of complicated, super screwed-up affair with him. I didn’t know that meant about me and Callum Rutherford. Truthfully, I still didn’t feel like I knew him very well. But I’d been fucking his body, even if I’d been calling him another name while he was inside me, and that meant I had some kind of dibs on him, didn’t it? “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that.” She stalked away from me.

  “Airenne…”

  She turned at the end of the hallway, eyebrows raised. “What?”

  “It just… happened,” I said. “I didn’t plan it. It was so fast, and I didn’t have time to even… think about what it might mean.”

  She looked away. “Well, who would think? I mean, it’s Callum Rutherford. Just looking at him makes my insides get all disconnected and woozy.”

  “He can be very… persuasive,” I said.

  She glared at me. “You lucky little slut.”

  It was my turn to look away.

  “Seriously, you get laid all the time. First there was that guy in our apartment the other night. Now Callum Rutherford. I hate you, I really do.” But she sounded like she was less upset, like she was getting a little more okay with the idea.

  I wished I could explain to her that actually, I’d only been having sex with one guy. But there was no way to make that make sense. So I just shrugged.

  “You owe me, bitch,” she decided, thrusting her hands onto her hips.

  “I do?”

  “Yeah, you do,” she said. “You let me write an article on your weekend with Callum, and we’ll call it even.”

  “An article? About me?”

  “Uh huh,” she said. “And Callum. Readers would eat up an inside view of being in that house. With him.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You owe me.”

  * * *

  “Explain to me why you owe her again?” Vigil said, pulling me onto his motorcycle. We were in front of my apartment, and he was picking me up so that we could do a little detective work on Barclay.

  “Well, she sort of saw you first, and then I sort of, you know, broke the girl code by being with you, so, she’s pissed,” I said.

  He handed me a helmet. “What do you mean, she saw me first? No one saw me until you wrote those articles about me. Or at least, very few people did.”

  “Not you, as in Vigil,” I said. “You, as in Callum.”

  He stiffened behind me. “Not so loud, Cecily.”

  I realized that I was coming a little too close to announcing his secret identity. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” His hands grasped my hips, sending a little thrill through me. “But I still don’t think I understand.”

  “Well, she feels like I moved in on you when I knew that she had a thing for you. And that wasn’t cool of me.”

  “But you didn’t,” he said. “She’s completely misunderstanding the situation.”

  “Right, but I can’t tell her that, can I? I’d have to tell her about you.” I lowered my voice. “You, as in Vigil, I mean. And I can’t do that.”

  He looked around at the street. There weren’t very many people out, but there were a few, and some of them had stopped to watch us. A few were even taking pictures.

  He cranked the engine of the motorcycle. “We can’t talk here.”

  The bike roared to life and careened down the street.

  The wind tore at me. The lights sped by. The only thing solid and safe was Vigil. His muscular body behind me, his thighs pinioning me to him.

  We drove in a whirlwind of air screaming past us, the motorcycle alive and rumbling between our legs.

  And then
, abruptly, we screeched to a halt.

  We were alone on an empty street.

  I gasped for breath. I unfastened my helmet and turned to face him. “Do you always have to go so fast?”

  He grinned at me. “Just trying to get your heart pumping.”

  “Mission accomplished,” I said. “Anyway, you don’t have to bother with the bike. The sight of you gets me all flustered.”

  His grin widened. “Really?”

  “You know it does.”

  He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Well, I apologize, Ms. Kane.”

  I closed my eyes, smiling. “I don’t mind.”

  “No?” His lips brushed mine.

  “No,” I whispered.

  And then he was kissing me hard and fierce, his tongue taking my mouth, his hands holding me tight against his body.

  “You might make me a little flustered too, you know.”

  “Not you,” I said in mock astonishment. “Not the crime-fighting dynamo, Vigil.”

  He chuckled. “Yes. You’re very beautiful, Cecily.”

  I kissed him again.

  “But, being flustered aside,” he said, “I still don’t understand why you feel like we have to go public with some kind of relationship between you and Callum.”

  I made a face. “I don’t like it when you talk about yourself like you’re a separate person.”

  “As far as the world is concerned, Callum is a separate person.”

  “And I’m not good enough to date him?”

  “I never said that,” he said.

  “But you don’t want Airenne to do an article about us. I can tell you don’t.”

  “Do you want her to?”

  I chewed on my lip. “Not really. But I have to. I don’t have a choice.”

  “Sure you do,” he said. “Tell her no.”

  “Well, then she’ll really hate me, and she’ll go digging,” I said. “Who knows what she’ll dig up. And she’ll probably write a piece anyway. Except neither you nor I will have any input into it.”

  He sighed. “Can’t you talk her out of it?”

  “I don’t think so.” I surveyed him. “Why is it such a big deal, anyway?”

  “The public already associates you and Vigil,” he said. “If they associate you and Callum as well, how long will it be before they put it together?”

  Oh, I saw what he meant. I thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe never. I don’t think I would have recognized you if that waiter hadn’t walked in front of me and cut off everything except my view of your lips. But I’ve been pretty up, close, and personal with those lips.”

  “You think I could pay her off?” he said.

  “Not without making her really suspicious,” I said.

  He sighed. “So, you’re saying that she’s going to write this no matter what we do.”

  I nodded. “And if we don’t cooperate, what she writes will probably be worse.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But start thinking about some way to try to make it seem as if Callum and Vigil are very separate people.”

  I made a face. “Everyone’s going to think that anyway. Callum Rutherford is the last person people are going to expect as Vigil. Trust me.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, set up an interview with her,” he said. “We’ll let her take pictures of us in the mansion or something. I guess you’re my girlfriend.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Don’t sound so excited about it.”

  He buried his face in my hair. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, of course you and I are connected. We’re together. Very together. It’s only that a public romance like that adds all this pressure to everything. I hate it.” He moved my hair away from my neck and kissed me there. He planted a row of kisses down the nape of my neck. His voice was husky behind me. “We better get going, before we get too distracted. We have things to accomplish tonight.”

  He was right. We did. But I closed my eyes and savored the feeling of his lips on my skin.

  And I had to admit there was a part of me that very much liked it when he called me his girlfriend.

  * * *

  Chilton Center was surrounded by a tall, wrought-iron fence. The bars reached for the night sky, and each fence post was topped with an iron spear shape. The building itself was a sprawling, formidable relic from the turn of the century. It boasted several spires and towers.

  Though Chilton looked like the old insane asylum it had once been on the outside, inside it was all modern technology, muted colors, and clean lines. Outside, Chilton was, well, chilling. Inside, it was benign. A hospital.

  Vigil and I entered through the main entrance and made our way to the front desk.

  The woman there was surprised to see him. “Oh. You’re that… costumed man. From the paper.”

  “Vigil,” he said.

  “Right,” she said.

  “I’m Cecily Kane,” I said to her. “I work for The Sun-Times. Vigil and I hoped to speak to Burl Herbert.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off of Vigil. “Burl Herbert?”

  “He’s a patient here,” I said. “It’s for a story. We promise only to take a bit of his time.”

  The woman’s mouth worked. “Well, I don’t… I can’t be sure if…” She wrenched her gaze away from Vigil and turned to me. “Why did you bring him?”

  “More the other way around,” I said. “I report on Vigil, so I go where he goes. And he wants to talk to Burl Herbert.”

  Her eyes were wide. “Does it have to do with the girls that are being killed? That man they’re calling The Phantom?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She turned back to Vigil. “You are going to catch him, aren’t you? You’re going to stop him?”

  Vigil looked at me, as if he expected me to field that question.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He looked back at her. “Yes, I am,” he said in a low voice. A confident voice. A voice that sent shivers through me.

  “Good,” said the woman. “This city has belonged to the scum of the earth for far too long. It’s about time we had someone like you. A real hero.”

  Vigil looked uncomfortable. “I’m not—”

  “He’s so modest,” I interrupted. “Really, you’ll make him blush.”

  The woman tittered. “Oh. Him blushing? Well, I couldn’t even imagine that.”

  I smiled back. “As soon as he does it, I promised to report it. Even snap a picture if I’ve got the chance.”

  “Well,” she said. “I suppose that I’d never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t let you see Burl Herbert. I’d be obstructing justice. I can’t have that.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said.

  * * *

  Burl Herbert was sitting in the corner of the common room. He had a deck of cards, and he was shuffling them and muttering to himself. He was a relatively young man, but he’d gone prematurely bald, and he made a pretty pathetic picture there in his robe and slippers.

  Vigil and I approached him.

  Burl looked up to see us. He gave Vigil a look, pursed his lips, and then went back to his cards.

  “Burl?” I said. “My name is Cecily. This is Vigil. We wondered if we could talk to you for a few moments?”

  Burl shuffled his cards. “Talk about what?” He had a nasally voice, timid, but cunning.

  “A roommate of yours,” said Vigil. “He stayed with you here in the hospital for about a month last December.”

  Burl’s lips curled into a small smile. “You’re talking about Hayden Barclay.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Burl set his cards down. “I’d have to be a really big idiot to just start singing about one of the Barclays, wouldn’t I? Even in here, the Barclays have ways of getting to you. I faked being crazy just to keep out of jail, you know? If I’d been in prison, the Barclays would have killed me already.”

  Faked crazy, huh? So, Burl was actually sane, and he’d ju
st wormed his way into Chilton?

  Vigil took several steps closer to Burl. “I know all about that, Burl. But you’re here because you wanted to stick it to the Barclay family, aren’t you? They gave you up because you screwed them over.”

  Burl laughed—high pitched, hysterical. “No honor amongst thieves, sir. No honor amongst thieves. They should have known better. I’m a con man, I am. A good con man.”

  “I know you are,” said Vigil. “So, if you needed to con the Barclays, you could do it again if you needed to, couldn’t you?”

  “I could,” said Burl, grinning. “Oh, I could.”

  “So, then help me. I want some information about Hayden. Will you tell me if I ask?”

  Burl picked up his cards. He shuffled them. “Will I tell you? Well, that depends, it does. It depends on what you ask. Some things might be too dangerous to reveal. Hayden may have made threats. Oh, he’s a one for threats. He could be violent too. He never forgets. Never forgets.”

  “Stay with me,” said Vigil.

  Burl’s eyes darted around, wild, worried. “He has spies. Hayden has spies. In the walls.”

  Vigil’s jaw twitched in irritation. “Help me take him down. Help me take down his spies.”

  I was beginning to think that Burl wasn’t faking being crazy after all.

  Burl shuffled faster. “You can ask your questions, you can. But I can’t say whether I’ll answer until I hear them. Oh no. Can’t say.”

  “He told you things, didn’t he?” said Vigil. “He told you about things he did to girls.”

  Burl’s hands moved lightning quick, and the cards danced from hand to the other. “He hurt them.”

  “Yes,” said Vigil. “How did he hurt them? What did he take from them?”

  “Legs,” whispered Burl, shuffling away. “He took their legs.”

  Vigil knelt down in front of him. “Burl, did he tell you what he did with those legs? Did he tell you where he kept them?”

  Burl shook his head furiously. “Oh no. I can’t answer that question. Too much. Can’t say. The spies would hear.”

  Vigil rolled his eyes. “Burl, there are no spies.”

  “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there,” said Burl, his eyes flashing.

  Vigil snatched the deck of cards away from him.