He swerved the motorcycle slightly, and she gasped, grabbing hold with both hands again. “That is not true, but I can be ruthless.”
“Okay, I am sick of making stupid mistakes…”
“Good. I’m sick of watching you make them.”
“Don’t interrupt. You’re having a lot of fun at my expense today.”
“Well, you seem to you have the ‘money’ to throw around, so I’m spending it.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s a Kin expression. Where do you think ‘fun at my expense’ comes from?”
“I never thought about it. Anyway, I don’t want to be messing up like that all the time so I’m asking you to start teaching me, kiryoku.”
“That’s what I was trying to do before.”
“I know, okay? I know. Just...I’m asking you now, so don’t make it harder for me.” She was losing her temper again. She was such a firecracker.
“All right, han-na. Let’s start with how you talk to people. That way, you won’t end up offering yourself in marriage to any doctor that puts a band-aid on you.”
He was beginning to enjoy that particular scream.
“You heard about that?”
“Not until this morning. You need to keep in mind that Kin hearing is very sharp, and while most people would ignore a private conversation, there are many who won’t shut out an intimate dinner between Kin and a Human.”
“It wasn’t intimate. It was in front of everyone. Besides, there is nothing wrong with eating and talking.”
Scythe couldn’t believe how sheltered she was; sometimes when she talked, it was like listening to metal grinding in an engine. “Not in your family, but for most Humans and almost all the Kin, it is not something people are comfortable with. So here is your first lesson: almost nobody thinks the way you do, Mercy Young. What shocked me from the first minute that I met your Aunt Lena and your father...it amazes me even now when I think about it...was the way they treated me, and even thought about me; and I was not just a Kin, but a halfblood.
“Your family is extremely unusual in the way it accepts other people without reservation. Maybe it is because your grandparents disappeared, and Lena and your dad had to make up their own set of rules; if their parents had been around, they would have taught their children the correct way to think, and everything would have been different.”
That gave him an idea of how to use her Human need to discover answers on her own. “So, your first assignment is to find out what people do think, since you accept that they are different from you. Find out what Humans think of Kin, and what the Kin think of Humans. You could also try to find out what Humans think about each other, if you are feeling ambitious.”
Before she could start arguing that she already knew it all, he continued, “For lesson two, we are going to tackle what you should and should not say in casual conversation. That way…”
“Don’t say it,” she warned.
He chuckled, “Okay, I’ll go easy. I know you like to be friendly, but your ‘friendly’ is way overboard for most people and often inappropriate. So, until you figure out how to be yourself, but in moderation, just go for ‘polite’ with people you don’t know.”
“Okay. Polite. I got it.”
“‘Polite’ is not smiling, or joking around, or talking about personal lives. ‘Polite’ is not going out of your way to help people who aren’t asking for it, or laughing loudly, or touching them at all: no high fives, no patting on the shoulder or arm, and definitely no hugging. ‘Polite’ is nodding your head, not getting too familiar, and, for you, excusing yourself before the inevitable happens.”
“Grrr. You said you’d go easy.”
“I am, trust me.”
“Yeah, right. Scythe, I don’t like ‘polite’ too much.”
“I know. You’re going to be really bad at it. Just make an effort.”
“Okay.”
“It will be easier when you get a little of your first assignment done, because you won’t want to be so friendly with people once you know what they believe.” Scythe knew without a doubt that she wasn’t going to like it at all, which made him realize something else. “Oh, and, as your teacher, I forbid you to try to change people’s minds. That is not the assignment, and it will cause unnecessary problems.” He knew she would anyway, because she was just like her Aunt that way: bossy. After all, she had taken it upon herself to personally change his entire life; living thousands of miles away had been no more a deterrent than the fact that her interference was completely unwelcome.
She had gone quiet, probably trying to digest the mountain of information he had piled in front of her, so he let his mind wander to other fields that he was tilling.
Chapter 15
“This looks like it,” Deep said, checking the data one more time.
“What a pit,” commented his partner, looking around.
He had to agree; the place was a dive. It should have only been let out at night, because the bright sun ruthlessly highlighted every tattered inch. The 'apartment' was just a little room hastily tacked onto the back of a machine shop. It looked like it might have once been a shed that had been leaned up against the wall. The door wobbled significantly when he knocked on it.
“Anyone there?” the Human asked, cupping his hands and peering through the window, a rectangular hole that was cut by hand in the wood and then covered with a piece of clear plastic. Deep was almost positive that it had never been cleaned. “Nope.”
“Let’s ask in the shop,” he suggested, carefully not reacting when the man grimaced at his hands and then wiped the gook that had stuck to them onto his pants.
Humans, bleh. He’d rather work with a dog, but a dog couldn’t do interviews; since Deep only spoke basic Human, he was stuck with the border patrol soldier until he found this Jon Wash character. Fortunately his partner, Edwin Corinth who wanted to be called ‘Ed,’ spoke some Kin, so they had been able to communicate fairly well so far.
“Hullo! Anyone here?” The man said, walking past the workbench and sticking his head through the door to the front office. He craned his head to see down the hall and then turned back, “I think there’s someone over here.” He disappeared down the hall. “Hullo?”
Deep’s eyes roamed over the various tools and what looked like engine parts that were spread across the workbench. His eyes touched on something interesting and his mind went to take a look, bringing his body with it. In the middle of a pile of random parts was a special calibration tool which he knew for a fact had some very interesting uses, some of which pertained to his training in explosives. He looked again at the table. None of the items there would require the use of the tool. Hm... He didn’t see any relationship between the parts…
He heard a distant thump and turned to the door, his weapon out. He walked to the entranceway, calling, “Ed?” He peeked around the corner in the direction he knew his partner had taken in time to see a Human man stride through the door at the end of the hall with his hands up. He was of medium build, with brown hair and a confident swagger that put Deep on edge despite his apparent harmlessness.
“Hey, now!” The man said, surprisingly jovial, particularly since Deep had a gun trained on him. “What’s with the heavy machinery?”
Deep narrowed his eyes, “Who are…?”
Deep swayed, and then caught himself, laying his hand on the door, which bowed a little under his weight.
“You okay?” Ed asked, frowning.
“I am fine.”
“It looks like no one is here, and this is the last place. Guess we’ll just have to report him as missing.”
“Yes.” That was right, Jon Wash was definitely gone from Juniper. He was sure of it. After all, they had spent all afternoon trying to track him down. No one they had asked had seen or heard of him in...well...a long time. “Let’s head back.”
Ed looked up at the moon, just making its appearance in the early evening sky. “Yeah, it’s late. I’m look
ing forward to a big dinner and a hot shower.”
Deep followed him past the machine shop, nodding at the wave from the mechanic who had been polite but unable to help them in their search. The man returned to his task at the workbench, pulling a small package wrapped in brown paper from a box at his feet.
-----------
“No, Melen, it will be a while yet. I’m sorry, my Heart.” He smiled through the screen at his baby daughter, whose hands flailed aimlessly until she grabbed onto her mother’s offered finger. She brought it immediately to her mouth and began sucking on it. “I’d rather be there with you and my daughter.”
“Of course you would, especially since you haven’t seen her since just after she was born. I only regret that you are missing so much, my husband. She is growing fast.”
“I can see that. She is getting strong, too.”
“She is! She got a hold of my hair when I was feeding her and pulled it so hard! My father says we should change her name to Lotune,” she laughed.
“Well, thank your father, but decline,” Reave said. “His wife was a force and a beautiful woman, but our Opal already has a perfect name.” He frowned, disappointed, when he heard the voices calling to her through the display. He had hoped for at least another ten minutes.
“Oh, it’s time for me to go, darling. I’ll leave the link open tomorrow in case you have time for another quick visit. Till then, my husband.” She held up the child, whose eyes popped when the finger was removed. “Opal will be waiting, too, won’t you sweetie?”
“I will try to find a few minutes tomorrow, my Melen. Take care with my heart.”
“I guard it, my love.”
The screen went dark, but he sat there for a moment longer, reviewing the short visit again in his mind. It was hard for him to be away from his family during this time. Kin parents were usually given several weeks, at the least, to be together after a baby arrived, but he had been pressured into accepting leadership of what was supposed to be a quick assignment. Then, as often happened in his line of work, one and then another mission came up while they were in the field. They also had been small, easily accomplished tasks so, while not an ideal situation, it was something he had been able to cope with. However, their current operation had them tied down until who knew when.
He sighed and pulled up the most recent report summaries. The halfblood’s list had turned up no good leads, and it seemed that the whole day had been a waste. However, Scythe had not been disappointed with the results. When he had given his report, he reaffirmed his own suppositions that the people involved wouldn’t know anything about either the group’s future movements or their leadership.
“They are just pawns waiting on the first line to be moved.”
“Then, at the least, we should keep them from acting…”
Scythe shook his head, “No, I am recommending that they be left alone. Put someone on them if you want, just in case they are contacted again, but I think we’ve neutralized them just by bringing them in. Our cautious targets are not going to use someone who might be watched or who is already compromised. They are going to have to find five more pawns, in this town, anyway,” Scythe said, obviously satisfied.
“So, we’re just shaking the tree a bit. I hope something comes of it, because we don’t have much else.”
“At the least, we’re making things harder for them, and the best case scenario is that we put them on the defensive. They’ve been in control all this time; let’s see how they react to a little pressure. I’m hoping they’ll show their hand a little.”
Continuing along that line, Scythe’s team was moving out that night, and as promised Reave hadn’t mentioned their destination to anyone or put it in any reports. He suspected that even the members of the team wouldn’t know where they were headed until they were on their way. Yawning Valley was an odd place to be headed to, fully three hundred miles away from the nearest terrorist incident but Scythe wouldn’t head there without good reason. Having worked with him on several occasions, Reave had learned that the man did very thorough research and rarely wasted time or energy on moves that didn’t yield fruit.
However, his recent actions were disturbing enough to make Reave doubt his reliability as an agent. Making a Human family his one true family, his very life, was something Reave could barely wrap his mind around. If it had been adoption, or alliance, it might have been more acceptable, since it was clear that he wanted to protect the man and his daughter; both of those actions would have provided limited rights, without the personal ties and risk. However, when he pledged himself to them as okin, he had bound them together until their deaths. Their struggles would be his, along with their humiliations, their obligations, and their punishments. Since living in a Kin world where resentment of Humans was getting worse every year, they were guaranteed a fair share of those hardships even as city people.
Thinking of his daughter and all that she meant to him, Reave shook his head. With his pledge, Scythe had exposed himself to a destiny more gruesome than just the difficulties he could expect in his life. Scythe had also cut himself from the Eternal Path. As Humans couldn’t pass over the bridge to the afterworld, Scythe would be separated from all his family that had passed away before him: his grandparents, his whole Kin ancestry. His own parents, of course were unable to cross, since his mother was Human, but Scythe’s way would not have been barred; he could have still taken the glorious path. It must have cost him dearly to know the pain it would bring his ancestors to have a second son ripped from their arms, lost forever. They might have still been waiting at the bridge for him, as Kin souls sometimes did, so they could travel together on the path. With his oath to the Humans, his family would have had no reason to wait. Did he feel it, the moment when they realized he had turned from them and they crossed the bridge without him? Reave couldn’t think of anything worse than eternity without his wife, daughter and the rest of his family.
But then, the man was a halfblood, not Kin; he probably didn’t have the capacity for intimacy or the inherent need for companionship that his father’s people had. His behavior merely verified what his unsettling appearance meant to those around him: he was not one of them. In the time Reave had worked with the young man, he had not witnessed the normal inclinations that guided the Kin; the ties of the family and community did not tether him to the normal world. He had always worked, studied and, when not sparring, trained alone, all of which made everyone around him uneasy. In addition, he had the unnatural Human ability, something he used without hesitation to violate his targets. It was one of the most disgusting and terrifying things Reave had ever had to watch. To be able to do that without any remorse was proof that he was more Human than Kin. Humans were so primitive and disconnected that they could do the most terrible things to each other, things the Kin would have difficulty even contemplating doing to one another.
Despite the many things that weighed against him, up to that week Scythe had always been extremely dependable; he was someone who worked efficiently and without tiring until the job was done. Reave believed that Scythe’s contributions resulted in shorter operations. He had requested Scythe for the previous retrieval because he knew that it was one of the man’s specialties, and he had wanted to get back to his home sooner.
Now it looked like the development with the Humans was going to affect his work. This morning it had been obvious that he had slept very little and was already having trouble thinking clearly. To complicate things further, the Scere had put a Watcher on the girl. A Watcher always meant trouble if it was centered on a specific target, because they weren’t sent out unless the Scere was already fairly certain of its suspicions. Whatever they suspected about the girl...probably some kind of power, although Reave had never seen a Watcher deployed just to pick up a powered Human before...must have been something important, something they wouldn’t permit one of their agents to interfere with. If the young man got himself on the wrong side of the Scere, there would be no future for him regardless o
f his unique abilities and mysterious connections.
Reave thought about the way Scythe had stayed protectively by Mercy from the moment she had been discovered, the way he had manipulated Reave’s orders through his contacts so that she would be present when the Human unit arrived, and the way that Human’s neck..someone who, according to Temper, hadn’t even touched the girl...was wrapped with blotches of blue and purple and marked with a thin, straight line of clotted blood. Then, he reflected on the sight of Mercy, teasing him and smiling up at him and going so far as to hug his arm in the entrance hall of Juniper’s Border Patrol Station. After their meeting was finished, Reave had followed the same path that Scythe had on the way to check on his team’s readiness to move out. Outside of the commanding officer’s door he had stopped, amazed at what he saw. Standing in the center of the room was the man who spent time casually with no one, who rarely smiled, who made you feel uncomfortable if you came within striking distance: the closer you got to him, the more vulnerable you felt, as if he were calculating the ways to incapacitate you and the number grew exponentially as the distance between you shrank. A man who used the same blank face for eating and talking that he did for killing.
The same man who Reave watched sigh, and say, "han-na" patiently, as if the young Human had always been his dearest sister. Scythe was as close to relaxed as he had ever seen him. He wasn’t unguarded, of course, but he wasn’t as tightly closed as he usually was, either. When Mercy grabbed onto his arm, Reave reflexively held his breath, although she obviously felt both safe and comfortable with him. Within a moment, Scythe carefully removed her from his body, and as they were leaving he continued to talk to her more warmly than Reave would have thought possible.
Halfblood Journey Page 25