There it was, Melissa’s face in her mind, she could see it clear as day. Melissa, who used to be a cop, but wasn’t anymore because of Adalia. Melissa would find out about the lie, and she’d be so disappointed. Not as disappointed as if she’d gone into the Other Place and made Mr. Lawrence change his mind. Not that Adalia ever would, not ever again. She’d said to herself that she wouldn’t use the Other Place, because she still remembered Just James, and what his kiss had tasted like.
Adalia sighed. “No, Mr. Lawrence. It’s not … it’s not like that.” I think I helped save my uncle’s life last night, and I’m just so tired, do you see, Mr. Lawrence? “Thank you for thinking of me, but … well. You’ve given me so many chances. I understand.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, see how the stone in her stomach made her feel. She didn’t want him to feel bad for trying to look after his business.
She had a hand on the door, ready to leave — to run, really — when his voice stopped her. “Adalia?”
She didn’t turn. “Yes, Mr. Lawrence?”
“Adalia, I’ve arranged your final pay. It’s … it’s for the next two weeks. I’ve put my friend’s card in your envelope. Just in case.”
Two weeks. Two weeks of money she hadn’t earned. And a card, in case she needed help. Oh man, did she need help, the whole Pack did, but not this kind of help. She leaned her forehead against the veneer of Mr. Lawrence’s office door, and thought about what to say. I know why you had to do this, she could start with that. It’s people like you, who are basically nice people in a bad job, and you try and be nice even when it’s hard, that’s why we’re doing this. That could be the next bit. Please take your family and leave the city because everyone will die. A punchy final line, if a bit over dramatic. She sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. Thank you.”
The door slipped closed behind her, and she pulled off her green apron as she passed the bags of beans, the boxes of breakfast supplies. She passed Penny, touching her friend on the arm but saying nothing. Penny had left a coffee beside the machine, a coffee for Adalia, “Ady,” written in big black pen on the side with an unhappy face next to it. There was another cup, “Maks,” written on this one, and Adalia was sure that it held a pumpkin spice latte. Adalia almost broke down then, but picked up the cups, felt their heat through her hand, and breathed. Just breathed in, and out. Once, twice, and then the tears were gone, the need to cry gone, like they’d never been there. The only thing that remained was the stone in her stomach.
She grabbed her envelope on the way out, and as Mr. Lawrence promised there was two weeks’ pay — a little more really — and the business card of a detective in the NYPD. Adalia might see if Melissa knew her, but then she’d have to explain what happened today. She looked at the card again, the embossed logo of the police department in the corner, and traced it with her thumb. She sighed, flicked the card into one of the big trash cans next to sweeteners and stirring sticks, and stepped back out into the world. The world, outside of Starbucks, where werewolves and vampires were real.
Maks was still there. Maks, the man standing in the flow of New York’s morning sidewalk traffic like the Rock of Gibraltar, not moving an inch as people rushed around him. Maks, who’d been there for her this morning. Maks, who hadn’t asked for anything except a pumpkin spice latte. She handed him a cup, and he took it in silence, his face contemplative.
“I got fired,” she said at last. “I can’t believe I got fired.”
He nodded. “This spiced pumpkin latte, is not as good as before. Did you make it with sadness?” His accent was thick, and she loved it, the sound it made, so different from how everyone else talked. Like he was proud of it, like he didn’t need to hide it. She wanted to be that person, with nothing to hide.
“Pumpkin spice latte,” she said, smiling a little. “I didn’t make it. Penny made it.”
“Ah,” he said. “Penny? She is not as good as you.”
The Starbucks stood at their backs, eyes within staring at them. Or at least, that’s what Adalia thought, all those people staring at her shame. Of course it wasn’t true — Mr. Lawrence hadn’t put up a sign that said I’m firing Adalia today. But she’d walked out sadder than she’d walked in, and people noticed that kind of thing.
Didn’t they?
Maks was looking at her, like she was the only part of this street that mattered. She liked that. Many good things had come out of Starbucks, but better than her final pay had been meeting him. She felt around inside her head for something to say that wouldn’t sound like she was whining about being fired, which was all she really wanted to do. “I was four hours late.”
He barked a laugh. “Four hours? Is extreme, even for Millennial generation.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “I think maybe more than four hours? I don’t know. I mean, I was mugged, and then…” Her voice trailed off. “Last night was weird.”
Maks frowned at her, looking like he wanted to say something. She wanted him to say something. She wanted him to … she wasn’t sure. Something, though, not nothing, like he was doing now. She almost said something to get him to say something, and then he swallowed. “There is story here, no?” He nodded, more to himself than to her. “In Mother Russia, we believe good stories go best with vodka.”
Adalia looked at him from under her hair. “Are you … are you asking me out for a drink?” The stone in her stomach was warring with something else, something light and soft and happy.
He considered that for a few seconds. “My English,” he said, “is not always good. Is vodka “drink” in this country?”
“‘Da,’” she said. “We have vodka.”
He beamed. “Da. Then I am asking you out for a drink.”
She laughed, and it felt good to laugh, like she hadn’t in about a thousand years. It occurred to her that maybe she hadn’t, hadn’t really laughed at all, and that she’d needed that more than a drink. But a drink would do. She shook her head, hair waving about her face, and then smiled at him. “Yes. Let’s go for a drink.”
• • •
She felt like she’d chosen the bar, but after they’d got there she wasn’t so sure anymore. Maks had held the door open for her and she’d stepped into the warm dim interior like she was coming home. The wood panels probably smelled of cedar once, or maybe they hadn’t, but either way it was okay. It was a proper Irish bar, a place she’d been to before with Uncle John. Uncle John had explained it was real because there weren’t any fake fucking shamrocks, right, nothing green, and no leprechauns. There were taps in the bar, different beer brands, and she’d remembered Uncle John ordering one with Guinness written on it, and looking like he hated it for the entire time it had taken him to drink it.
Adalia had chosen this place because she’d felt it was somewhere you could be alone with your thoughts, or take them out and show them to a friend. She looked at Maks from under her hair. Friend wasn’t right, was it? Not really. She didn’t know him that well, but she was honest in her own head and … felt like she needed to know him much better. They found a booth, which wasn’t hard because there wasn’t a huge number of people wanting whiskey at eleven in the morning. Maks ordered a bottle of vodka. A bottle. The bartender — a young guy with an open face and an accent that might have actually been Irish — had looked between them, thought about arguing, probably something like why not something a little more cheerful, looked at Maks and the size of his shoulders, and had brought them back a bottle and two small glasses.
The glass of vodka sat on the table in front of her. She felt herself relaxing, that happy soft thing in her stomach still there, and settled back into the leather embrace of the booth’s seat. The Other Place tugged at her again, but she was sure it just wanted to show her the stories in the wood of the tables and the clear alcohol in the glass in front of her. Adalia reached out a hand for her glass, then paused. “Do you … do you just drink it?”
Maks frowned at her. “Is vodka. What else?”
; “You don’t … water it down?” She sniffed at it. Hard was how she would have described it, perhaps that one word under a photo of herself making a face on Instagram. “It seems rough.”
Maks picked up his glass, gestured towards her oh so briefly, then tipped the contents into his mouth in one smooth motion. He made a face, not of disgust but of disappointment. “Is Amerikanskaya vodka,” he said by way of explanation, as if he had to apologize to her for the quality of a Russian drink in an Irish bar in America. “I do not understand. This country is great, da? Good at many things. Especially good at making foods to fatten a person beyond normal size.”
“Very much beyond normal size,” she agreed. She still had not touched her drink.
“Da. Is strange, no, that this skill at making amazing foods does not stretch to alcohol. Alcohol is easy thing to make. Like walking and laughing. Simple.” He poured himself another glass, swallowed it back, and made the same face as before. Yes, definitely disappointment. “Is not best grade, no?”
Adalia pushed her hair back, leaned forward to snare her own glass, and slammed it back. She felt the fire of the liquor as it went down her throat, something hot in her nose, and felt her eyes screw themselves shut as if that would in some way help. The cough came unbidden, her lungs turning traitor. “How do you even..?”
“Is good, da?” He poured more into her glass. “Is good for taking away the feelings of the body, so you can think about the feelings of the soul.”
“Maks,” she said. “Maks, I feel like I know you.” The Other Place tugged at her again, and she pushed at it, suddenly angry. Leave me alone! This man is not for you. He’s for me. She looked into his dark eyes.
Maks didn’t seem to notice anything strange about her, or see that flash of anger. He brushed his hair away from his face, still considering what she’d said. Probably trying to work out if it was a corny pick-up line, which it wasn’t, but made her feel like she should just vanish into the floor and never be seen again. “I have, how do you say, familiar face.” He drank again. “Perhaps is vodka. Makes friends of enemies.”
She thought about it, swirling the liquor in her glass. Thought about Mr. Lawrence, who was trying to be good in a job he wasn’t very good at. She thought about Just James, who had sacrificed himself so she could sit here in this bar. “I am not a good person, Maks.” She thought about the Other Place, and the men who’d mugged her this morning. Or tried to mug her. Was it still a mugging if they didn’t get what they wanted? “I think … I think those men, they were … they were the Universe. Do you believe in karma?”
Maks’ face darkened and he looked into his glass, as if it held a better answer than what was going on behind his eyes. “Da.” His eyes met hers, and she saw something there, something familiar, and warm, and it made her want to touch him.
“I … did a terrible thing, once,” she said, instead of touching him. Then her hands reached across the table, found his anyway. It felt natural and strange at once, and she felt forward, but also so alone, and she just wanted to touch him to not feel alone. To not be alone. She wanted to touch Just James again, but Maks was here, and his hands were warm. “I … let a good man die.”
“This good man,” said Maks, face serious. His fingers held hers for a moment, then pulled back — not breaking away, but leaving space between them for something else. “Tell me his story.”
She pulled her hands back, held them in her lap. “Well, see, we were in this crazy fight, and—”
“No,” he said. “His story. Not yours. Vodka likes honesty.” He offered her a small smile.
“Oh,” she said. “You know, I’ve never told anyone about him. Not really. Not even Melissa.” She chose her next words carefully, not wanting to have more corny lines from a bad romcom come out of her mouth. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” No, that was terrible. Terrible. She held up a hand. “Hold up. This is his story. Because I think he loved me from the moment we met.”
“Ah,” said Maks, and then sat waiting. Like he understood. Like he wanted to touch her too. It helped.
“He was brave, Maks. He knew that I was … different. That I could do things. That I could see the future, or shape the hearts of men, or break the way that gravity works. I could do any of those things, and all of them, and he wasn’t frightened by it. He saw it, and followed me, and burned himself up so that the rest of us could be free. Do you see?” Her eyes were wet, but there were no tears. She wasn’t quite sure how this was supposed to work, and figured she hadn’t had enough vodka. “After that day, after that brave man gave up his everything to save me … you know, it was me, me, not the world, but me he was saving. And I let him. I knew what was happening. I could have stopped it. Everyone else would have died, but I could have saved him. I didn’t.”
A waiter was making his way towards their booth, but Maks warned him away with a look, like it was second nature.
She took another sip of her vodka, no grimace this time as she got used to the cool dry burn of the spirit. Vodka likes honesty. She couldn’t be honest with Mr. Lawrence this morning. Maybe she could be honest with Maks. Maybe something more. “I have a … gift, Maks.”
“A gift,” he said. “From the way you are speaking, is sounding like you would like to return it.” The joke fell flat and hard, neither of them smiling.
“I don’t use it anymore. Not really.” Her hair had fallen over her face. “Oh, from time to time I get to wheel it out, like a performing seal. I get to do something that the Universe needs. But the rest of the time, I don’t … I can’t touch it. It makes me sick.” I said I never would, not ever again. And I can’t even do that right.
“Do something?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I can,” and here, she waved a hand at the bar around them, “see what people are made of. Or, I don’t know, change the way someone works. I met a man once, who had the best name. Marcellus Samuel Kentucky. Another man had taken away Marcellus Samuel Kentucky’s free will, and a man with a name like that deserves all his free will, like he’s earned it forever. So … so I gave it back to him.”
“That does not sound bad,” said Maks. He turned his glass this way and that. “That sounds like—”
“He wanted to die for me as well,” Adalia said. “I made him leave. But he wasn’t the one I wanted to save.”
“This gift,” said Maks. “Could it … what can it do?”
“Everything,” said Adalia. “Do you know, Jessie—” of course, Maks didn’t know who Jessie was, but the vodka was talking now, the words just tumbling out “—was trying to fix this old car a year or two back, it had been taking her weeks, and the thing just wouldn’t start. It was always a ‘busted alternator’ or ‘cracked distributor cap’ or other things I don’t even know about. And so I looked at the car, and I sort of … fixed it. I just made it work.”
“How?” said Maks. “Car, is broken?”
“I made it what it should have been,” she said. “I don’t really understand cars, which is the funny thing.”
They sat in silence for a while. Maks leaned forward. “Could you turn water into wine?”
She jerked back like he’d slapped her, the soft warm thing in her stomach vanishing. Or hiding. “Don’t ever say that.”
“I—”
“I’m not a, a, what do you want me to be? Why does everyone want me to be something else?” She stood up. “I’m not that. I’m not that. Don’t make me be that!”
Maks held up a hand, relaxed, like she hadn’t just shouted at him loud enough for people out on the street to hear. His eyes were warm, found hers across the table. “Is saying, have no horse in this race. You know it?”
She nodded.
He nodded back. “Is not my story.” He poured more vodka for her, refilled his own glass, and suddenly she was sitting again, like all the air had left her. “You are still excited from this morning, da? Not enough vodka, is problem.”
She watched him for a moment longer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Y
ou probably don’t believe me.” Her hands found his again, and it wasn’t as weird as it was last time, like the Other Place wanted her to do it. Or Maks wanted her to do it, because it might have been that his hands had found hers. Her head was feeling light from the vodka, or something else, but probably the vodka.
“Oh,” said Maks, “I believe you. Many things in this world. Many strange things. Many wonders. Many terrors.”
“‘Many terrors’ is right,” she said. “What should I do?”
She wasn’t really asking him, but there was no one else to ask. She watched his face as he answered, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking into the distance, like he remembered he’d left something on the oven. “Whatever you want.” He shrugged. “Is all we have, in this world, do what we want.”
“What if what you want is bad? What if someone dies?”
“Someone always dies,” said Maks. “Here, in Amerika, is much concern about what is right about the wrong things. Is talk shows on television about what is right. Is fears about what is right thing to wear. Is fear about who is right person to talk to. In Mother Russia, is simpler. Is not whether someone dies. Is more important that right someone dies.”
She was quiet for a time, sitting across the table from him, the vodka between them. “I just want to work at Starbucks,” she said, almost like a wish.
He blinked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My English. You said—”
“At Starbucks, I made minimum wage, but I didn’t need to make decisions. My Mom, well, she said that it would be good for me, to learn to be like everybody else. Val, too. Even Melissa. She said something about ‘building character.’ Only Uncle John wasn’t on board. He said it … well, he said something that wasn’t like Uncle John at all. He said that I should do what was in my heart.” She looked down. “So I did all of that, because what was in my heart was to be normal. I don’t want to choose, Maks. I don’t want to choose who lives and who dies. I just want to make a good latte.”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 91