Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  “You two are safe for now,” she said. “...But they found no bodies. In future, if you wish to fake your deaths, I suggest you consult Revi’ first.” Her smile crept out wider, and didn’t seem to have any relation to her actual words.

  “...The Rooks know you are here...at least that you were seen together in Seattle. They know about the stolen headset too...it is good you left it in the taxi.” She added cheerfully, “It is better that we wait until they are not watching every route in and out of the city. We are sending seers starting today, to begin to create false trails.”

  Watching my eyes, she grinned again.

  “Do you have a passport, Bridge Alyson?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “That is easily fixed. Vash also suggested you might use this time to learn more about why you are here...”

  I glanced at Revik, feeling his light looking for mine again. I pushed it aside gently, focusing back on the woman.

  “Where will I go that I need a passport?” I said.

  “There are many places, Bridge Alyson.” The woman’s smile was a grin again. “...Revi’s home is not in this country.”

  I flushed, hearing the teasing behind this. The woman must have felt his pull.

  “Where does he live? Germany, or—”

  “No,” Ullysa said, surprised. “Not Germany...not for many years. He lived in Russia also, I believe...but has maintained a residence in London for over twelve years.” She paused, smiling at me warmly again. “...And it is no trouble at all to keep my light from his, Bridge Alyson. I completely understand.”

  My face grew hotter.

  Succumbing to the impulse again, I stepped a little more firmly into the woman’s line of sight to Revik.

  Rather than causing offense, something in the gesture seemed to touch the other woman immensely. She startled me by touching my face, then kissing my cheek.

  She turned as if to leave...then abruptly stopped.

  I tensed before my mind supplied me with a reason.

  Still polite, Ullysa glanced over my shoulder, a glimmer of asking permission inherent in the brevity of the peek.

  “Revi’, darling...did we wake you?”

  His answer was low, but made me jump, almost cringe.

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  I took a breath, turned...and found his eyes locked on me. The look in them was narrow, cold, with a veiled hostility that took me aback.

  It was unmistakably aimed at me.

  Ullysa didn’t seem to notice. “Of course you are,” she smiled. “And congratulations, Revi’...I am touched. Very touched. Good hunting, friend.”

  Seeing that Ullysa was close to tears above her smile, I glanced again at Revik, feeling my nerves turn into actual fear when I saw his face. His skin had darkened; it was clear he knew exactly what the woman was talking about and didn’t appreciate the comment at all.

  He averted his gaze when it caught mine, folding his arms across his chest.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.

  Was he blushing?

  He bowed slightly to Ullysa. “Thank you.”

  Wiping her cheek, the woman smiled, then turned to go.

  I found I couldn’t follow her out fast enough. Before I made it through the door, however, Ullysa turned.

  “Alyson...where are you going?”

  I froze. “Passport. Eggs. Shower...”

  “Why don’t you stay here?” she suggested. “We will bring food for you both. It is too early for passports...and the shower can wait.”

  I felt like a cornered animal. I glanced at Revik. His eyes were trained out the window, as gray as the sky. I looked back to Ullysa.

  “No, actually...it can’t wait. The shower, I mean. Besides, I have to go to the bathroom. And I thought I might talk to you...and some of the others. Maybe learn more about how I’m supposed to kill everyone on the planet...”

  “I can talk to you about that,” Revik spoke up.

  Startled, I glanced back at him.

  He continued to train his eyes out the window, and mine fell involuntarily to his bare upper body, taking in the leanness of his long frame and the banded muscle of his arms, a pale lattice of scars that crept up over one shoulder. He had an armband tattoo just above one bicep, I noticed, something I’d glimpsed in the park without really seeing it. It looked like some kind of writing in blue and black lettering.

  I saw the edge of what might have been another tattoo on the shoulder of the same side. He also had the standard barcode tat on his right arm, along with the “H” mark he’d shown me in the park, designating his race-cat.

  His body without clothes looked somehow older than the rest of him.

  I saw his fingers tighten on his upper arm, and looked away.

  “Stay, if you want.” His voice remained flat, formally polite. “Shower, then come back.”

  “No,” I said. “You should rest. I can bug someone else.” Seeing him about to answer, I said, “It’s fine, Revik. And I know your friends will want to see you.” I glanced down again. “...Especially when you’re not wearing a shirt.”

  His eyes seemed to flinch.

  Staring at his long countenance, I found myself briefly lost there.

  His eyes were still angry on the surface, but I could see the openness beneath, a vulnerability so much the opposite of his usual expression that I couldn’t help but stare. Remembering him pulling on me moments before, the softness of his face as he held me in sleep, I blinked at the two images superimposed over one another, tried to reconcile them, couldn’t.

  My eyes shifted first, meeting Ullysa’s in my attempt to escape his.

  Her returning smile held amusement. She folded her thin arms, quirking a pencil-darkened eyebrow at Revik.

  Turning, I walked wordlessly out the door. I saw Ullysa’s eyes widen in surprise, just before she moved out of my way.

  I didn’t stop walking, didn’t slow down enough to realize I didn’t know where I was going until I’d passed another three doors. I stopped dead then, standing in the darkened corridor.

  I was having trouble breathing.

  Anxiety clenched my chest.

  I held the wall, tried to turn it into anger, like he had.

  The pull to go back to him was nearly physical in its intensity. My mind tried to sift through details of the night before. We definitely hadn’t had sex. Anyway, most of these people were prostitutes; sex wouldn’t faze them. I remembered what Kat said about Revik in that regard, and a hot flood of...God, something...tried to blow out my doors, irrational enough to scare me.

  It reminded me of seeing Jaden in that bar, of finding myself suddenly holding a bottle decorated with a strange woman’s blood...

  Christ. Was it jealousy?

  I remembered the seers the night before, what they’d said about Revik...and the stories came back, about seers seducing humans, hooking into human fantasies and delusions until the victims lost themselves entirely inside the seer’s mind. Those stories always made it sound deliberate though, and whatever this was, it didn’t feel like Revik had done it intentionally.

  In fact, he seemed to blame me for whatever had occurred.

  It didn’t feel like we’d had sex, either...and no matter how battered my body was, or the amount of pyrotechnics in the Barrier, I was still like 98% sure I would have noticed. Besides, it felt like the lack of sex—maybe even the lack of sex with him—was at least part of the problem.

  The admission made me feel a little queasy.

  Images rose from the night before, confusing me more.

  Whatever that had been, it hadn’t felt like a dream, either, and my attempts to convince myself it had been a dream rang hollow. He’d been a Nazi...a married Nazi with a death sentence for murdering another Nazi for screwing his wife.

  That guy Terian had been there. I was pretty sure I’d seen them meet for the first time.

  The pain in my st
omach worsened briefly...the other thing, along with the stress of not knowing how to process any of it.

  My eyes drifted up, looking for someplace else to focus my attention.

  I stared at a nearby ajar door breaking the dark walls of the corridor, unable to make sense of it for the first few seconds.

  Then my eyes refocused on the pink tile floor and walls of a bathroom.

  Pushing off the wall, I made my way to that same door, limping as my body’s battered state grew more noticeable. I closed the door behind me, only to stand there indecisively, my back pressed to the heavy wooden door.

  Finally, I turned around and sat on the toilet. It wasn’t until I’d relieved myself that it occurred to me that through that whole exchange with Ullysa and Revik, I hadn’t been wearing pants.

  Clasping my hands between my bare knees, I let out a strangled laugh.

  I sat there for what felt like a long time. My body was unbelievably sore. Not sex sore—just run of the mill falling down a hill after being handcuffed to a car then driving off a bridge and smacking my skull sore.

  The nausea worsened as soon as my bladder wasn’t full enough to distract me. I gripped the edge of the pedestal sink, afraid I’d throw up if I tried to stand, trying to come to grips with whatever was wrong with me. It felt like some part of me had been broken and smashed...then reassembled with pieces missing.

  Or maybe with new ones woven in with the old...I honestly couldn’t tell.

  I still sat there, paralyzed, when Ullysa knocked.

  After the second knock, she tried the handle. Opening the door cautiously, she handed through clean clothes and a basket with soap and shampoo. I felt her concern, and once she’d placed everything on the tile, I felt her hesitate, about to speak. Preempting whatever attempt she might make, I reached over with one foot to push the door shut.

  Even through the door and intervening corridor, I could feel him.

  His anger was still there, pulsing at me, but so was the other, unmistakable now, until the two wove together, impossible to separate as distinct feelings.

  He wanted me to come back, I realized with a dim sort of confusion. He was having the same reaction I was, and on more than one level.

  For a moment I doubted what I felt, then a sliver of his pain hit me again, weaving into some part of me I couldn’t see, affecting me physically, too. My stomach hurt, but it wasn’t just that. I felt my face flush, my chest and thighs warm...I felt myself start to respond, to reach back in his direction, and I panicked, cutting it off.

  His pain worsened, turning almost liquid.

  It was unmistakably sexual.

  I was still sitting there when he dropped the pretense, asking me openly to return to the room. When I didn’t respond, he pulled on me harder, letting me feel the want behind it, until I clutched the edge of the sink.

  Stop it, I thought at him, gasping.

  After the barest pause, he receded.

  Somehow I remained lost in his light; my skin flushed as I realized the flavor of his thoughts.

  He asked me again, politely that time.

  When I gave a short laugh, his mind retreated. But not entirely.

  I felt him thinking again...just before he started to open his light. I felt emotion expand off him, that near-vulnerability I’d glimpsed in the room. It grew stronger as it mixed with the pain, until it slid into my light...

  I panicked, pushing him back.

  That time, he withdrew until I barely felt him.

  Still flushed, I staggered to my feet, buying myself time by examining the bruises that ran all along my legs and arms. Limping to the tub, I felt about eighty years old as I bent to twist the porcelain shower knobs all the way to hot. As water heated in the ancient pipes, I stood in the basin, shivering. I tried to ignore the waiting I felt behind his silence.

  Allie, he sent softly. ...please.

  The pull behind it cut my breath.

  Pain flickered around the spaces between us, and for an instant, I hesitated, staring at that void, feeling it with him. The lost feeling worsened...

  Then I stepped under the hot water.

  I let my mind go blank as the smell of steaming hot lake water rose off my hair, sliding off my body like a second skin. I lowered my head as the water beat at it, sending brown, brackish water down the sides of the tub and into the drain.

  I felt him watch me as I continued to stand there. His light flickered around mine, silent, waiting.

  For a long time, it didn’t move away.

  13

  REJECTION

  I stood before a silhouette target, trying not to feel foolish as I fumbled with the safety of the gun I gripped in both hands. Ullysa told me twice what kind of gun it was, but all I remembered was what Ivy called it—her Baby Eagle.

  Dad had been more of a rifle and shotgun kind of guy.

  “Stop stalling,” Ullysa said. “You have only perhaps a few more days before you and Revi’ must leave here, Esteemed Bridge...”

  I nodded, only half-listening.

  Being here, surrounded by seers, I forgot we were in Seattle most of the time, even as I watched the skyline change from day to night and back again through the windows of the upper floors. It was as though the building and all its contents remained disconnected from their physical location in the middle of the human city. The one thread between it and us was the steady stream of clients for the prostitutes.

  I still couldn’t grasp the extent or prevalence of this kind of thing, meaning, seers living under the radar, smack dab in the middle of human civilization without any controls. I was curious about it, sure, but a little hesitant to ask a lot of questions at this point. I’d already made the mistake of mentioning SCARB once, and managed to silence an entire room.

  It had been Kat, of course, who broke the silence.

  “Why doesn’t SCARB mind our lack of sponsorship?” the Russian seer said. “Well...perhaps, cub, we do them the courtesy of not killing them out of deference for the preciousness of living light. You see, what you call ‘sponsorship,’ we call slavery...unless you know a way to own a seer’s aleimi without owning the seer? If so, please share it with the rest of us. You truly will be our savior then, oh holiest of Bridges!”

  Some in the room hid smiles, but I also saw anger aimed in my direction.

  “Would you like sponsorship, cub?” Kat asked then, her lips lifted in a cold smile. “Shall we call SCARB for you? Perhaps they mind your lack of sponsorship now, eh?”

  Only later did I muster the nerve to ask Ullysa what aleimi meant.

  Turned out, aleimi was the seer word for the light bodies I’d seen behind the Barrier, those structures and geometries I’d seen on Revik and other seers when he’d brought me into that other place. They also called it ‘light’ more generally, or ‘living light.’

  Ullysa further defined aleimi as, “the ability to carry light.” When I asked if this was like ‘soul,’ she shook her head. She said that humans and seers were equal in soul, but they differed in this ability to carry and manipulate light. No direct translation of the word existed in English, she said. It was strictly a seer word.

  I was learning that even their language had a Barrier component, meaning words that contained meanings that required an ability to see with the added structures in their light. Generally speaking, their words carried more compound meanings and nuances in general, with one of their words needing two or three to translate into English. Ullysa said more about this, about words being symbols and all symbols having unspoken layers that exist inside a shared cultural understanding. Since more than half of all shared seer understanding came from Barrier-consciousness—a split consciousness unshared by humans—translation of many of their core symbols to human language remained literally impossible.

  I even understood this, in part.

  I’m not sure how understanding it helped me, though.

  Ullysa and I now stood in a cement, sound-proof bunker that had been built into the hill itself, comp
lete with a firing range and rows of storage lockers that held everything from ammunition to plant seeds to casks of water and enough food for everyone in the building to eat for at least a few years. Ullysa jokingly referred to it as their “ark.”

  She stood behind me, looking like a movie star even in protective glasses and with soundproofing mufflers over her ears.

  “You should let Revi’ help you with this,” she said loudly over the sound-deadeners, repeating herself for the fifth time.

  I nodded, staring at the target.

  When Ullysa clicked at me, I glanced over at her face.

  “Why will you not speak to him?”

  “I really don’t want to bother him right now, Ullysa,” I said.

  “Why?” the woman said, exasperated. “Because of Kat? You threw her at him, and now you complain when he uses her to cope with—”

  “Hey!” I held up a hand. “Come on! I really don’t need to know about his ‘coping’ methods, if that’s all right with you...”

  With Ullysa, I’d given up pretending I didn’t care where he slept.

  That very first morning I’d woken up in Seattle, I’d entered the kitchen after my shower, wearing borrowed clothes and following the smell of coffee and faintly burned toast. There, Kat and two others, Ivy and the African-looking seer from the night before, looked up from where they lounged on barstools, leaning on a high, marble counter next to platters of eggs and toast. Ullysa followed me inside the kitchen, too, almost as though she’d been waiting for me to vacate the bathroom.

  I avoided Kat’s stare, focusing on the eggs and trying not to notice that I could still feel Revik, like a faint scent in my light.

  Briefly, hunger had overshadowed the other thing I felt.

  All three seers looked up when Ullysa entered the kitchen behind me, but it was the African-looking one who focused right off on the empty space above my head, presumably noticing the same thing that had captivated Ullysa earlier. After scanning me thoroughly with a sharp gaze, she glanced at Ullysa with raised eyebrows, then at Ivy.

  Ivy only smiled, making a shrug-like gesture with her hand before lifting a mug of coffee to her lips.

  Kat gaped above my head in open disbelief.