by Dima Zales
When we reach my door, I give Eric a puppy-eyed look and sweetly say, “Listen. I just want to meet Nero in Gomorrah. You can personally take me to him, and if we see any danger, you can teleport me away from it. Once I’m with Nero, I would be safer than—”
“The scenario you describe is something Nero forbade explicitly,” Eric says, not unkindly. “It’s too dangerous where he’s headed.”
“Oh, come on. I saved his life not once but twice now,” I say indignantly. What Eric is saying supports my earlier “save Claudia” theory, and I don’t like that one bit.
The guard gives me a look that seems to say, “I didn’t make up the rules, I just follow them.”
I decide to try another tack. “What about my work? Nero would want me to—”
“Your offices are being repaired, so you’re going to work from home,” Eric says. “Then again, I doubt a lot will be required of you in that department any time soon.”
No work? Nero must really be preoccupied with his quest.
Gritting my teeth, I enter the apartment and slam the door in Eric’s face.
As I do so, I realize that it didn’t even occur to me to tell my parents about my newly discovered biological origins. Then again, I don’t think I’ll ever do that. Not only would it upset Mom, but it’s all tied up with Cognizant stuff, and talking about it would mean bleeding from everywhere as the best-case scenario.
Blowing out a breath to calm myself, I take out the wallet I pickpocketed from Eric when I bumped into him on the stairs.
Hopefully, there’s blackmail material inside.
Sadly, all I find are a dozen movie-ticket stubs to a bunch of recent superhero flicks, a picture of a good-looking elderly woman who is probably his mom, cash, and a slew of credit cards and IDs.
There goes that idea. Unless Eric is very embarrassed of his Costco membership, I have nothing to blackmail him with.
Could I use my skills as an illusionist instead?
Going to my stash of magic paraphernalia, I take stock of the myriad options in front of me.
Fake levitation and coin manipulation would be pretty useless, as would anything involving cards.
The only illusion that might be remotely helpful is the one where I make it look as though I’ve lost my hand to a knife accident. Once the EMTs come and take me away, I should have ample opportunity to escape—assuming medical professionals would be fooled by this illusion.
The effect is pretty realistic, though. When I showed this to Felix on Halloween a couple of years back, he actually fainted—or maybe pretended to faint to make me feel guilty for the prank.
Sniffing the fake blood and examining the rest of the props, I decide this might actually work—and set myself up for the effect by putting on the scratchy blazer I dedicated to the secret hookup of this illusion.
Even if this doesn’t work, it might be fun to see the expression on Eric’s face. Nero told him to keep me safe and he let me lose an appendage.
Yeah, he’ll be freaked out for sure.
I’m already hiding the special prop knife in my secret pocket when I realize a big problem with my plan.
Eric’s teleportation.
Even if he buys the “terrible accident” he is to witness, he might teleport me to some hospital’s operating room instead of getting the EMTs involved.
Not good.
Performance magic isn’t going to cut it this time.
What I need is some real magic—like a cloak of invisibility or something. Why couldn’t my Orientation teacher have been more like Dumbledore?
Wait a sec.
Thinking of invisibility reminds me of yesterday—specifically, how Chester was able to hide his lion, Bert, from humans at the airport by making it unlikely anyone would look at the beast. Though no light bending was involved, the lion was as good as invisible.
The question is, can Chester do that trick remotely?
Probably, I decide after a moment. After all, he was able to mess with Darian’s powers remotely, so why not this too?
Yes, that’s it. I have to talk to Chester. And while we’re at it, maybe he can tell me how to determine if I, too, have probability manipulation powers.
Eagerly, I pull out my phone and dial his number.
The phone rings a while before someone picks up.
“You.” Chester sounds nothing like his usual cheerful self. “You’ve got balls calling me.”
“Hello to you, too,” I say, confused. “What’s gotten into you today?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Chester says with an icy undertone to his voice. “I asked my daughter how she ended up submitting to you and she told me everything.”
Uh-oh. I think I know where—
“You held her at gun point?” Chester grits out. “Shot at her?”
Strictly speaking, I played Russian Roulette with her, and she started the hostilities, but I don’t think saying so would make it sound better.
“I didn’t put bullets into that gun, I swear,” I say instead. “I was just—”
“You kicked her when she was on the ground! Then had your bodyguard hold her at gunpoint yet again.”
When he puts it like that, I kind of feel bad—especially in light of what I later learned about their tragic family situation. In my defense, the teenager said something nasty about Rose right after my friend was murdered, so I wasn’t myself when I reacted so violently.
Still, I’m not sure such an excuse would stand up in court, let alone appease an upset parent.
“You’re very lucky to have Nero’s protection,” Chester says in a tone that sends a chill down my spine. “But even with that, if you hurt my baby ever again, you’re dead.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to—”
Chester hangs up on me before I can finish.
I resist the urge to call back and remind him that he still owes me some probability manipulation lessons. Something tells me that might not be wise—not unless I want an unlucky brick falling on my head.
I just hope Chester really is afraid of Nero and thus won’t cause me trouble—or increase the chance I get into trouble.
Unless he already did, and that’s why I have to deal with Eric and company.
Well, no matter the cause of my current predicament, I need to find another way to be invisible.
Something I can do myself.
And that’s when it hits me.
I do know another way.
A seer way.
I can do what the bannik had done when he helped me escape the banya where Baba Yaga wanted to breed us like cattle. He’d used his powers to learn where everyone will be at given points in time, then told me how to leave without being seen.
It’s not quite as effective as what Chester does, but it might still work.
And if the bannik can do it, I should be able to do so as well.
Taking a calming breath, I go into Headspace.
Ignoring the shapes that surround me by default, I focus on the essence of Eric—or at least as close to it as I can get based on his appearance, the contents of his wallet, and what I’ve learned from our brief interactions. When that doesn’t work, I throw in my feelings about the guy—mainly annoyance.
The latter seems to do the trick, and a large cloud of safe-seeming shapes shows up around me, with one of the shapes subtly different from the others. My guess is that they would show Eric standing in the hallway, but this standout shape might be of him doing something different. Something I can use.
Thus determined, I reach for the shape.
Bodiless, I watch Eric pace the hallway.
My viewpoint follows him for a few minutes, and I detect a slight irregularity in his step.
He stops by the garbage chute and sneaks a glance at the door of my apartment.
The door is closed.
Eric looks momentarily torn; then he does his teleporting trick.
Interestingly, my disembodied viewpoint joins him in this new location—which I guess m
akes sense since it was him my vision was targeting, not the hallway.
Given the rows of fancy urinals and gold plating on the sinks, this must be a men’s bathroom in either an expensive hotel or a posh restaurant.
Score.
On some level, I was hoping for this when I offered him coffee—a known diuretic.
Confirming my guess, Eric walks up to the nearest urinal and starts to unzip.
Which is when the vision terminates.
Back from Headspace, I digest what I just learned.
In some hopefully near future, Eric will hear the call of his bladder and will temporarily abandon his post to drain his gecko.
That gives me a window to slip by him—likely the hardest-to-dodge sentry on my way to freedom.
Except I lack a key piece of information.
When exactly is Eric going to succumb to the needs of the mighty tinkle?
There was no clue in the vision itself, but there is a way I can find this out.
Walking up to the door, I take out my phone and convince myself to do the following: wait until the time feels “right,” then exit and look at my phone to check the time.
When I’m on the verge of opening the door, I leap into Headspace instead.
It’s a case of déjà vu. A large cloud of nearly identical shapes surrounds me, with one that slightly stands out.
I bet most of these are visions of me exiting and looking at the time right in front of Eric, but this unusual one is where I exit and he isn’t there.
If I’m right, it will be proof I’m getting better at this Headspace stuff.
Pulsing with eagerness, I touch the shape in question.
I open the door and walk out.
Yes.
Eric isn’t here.
I look at the time.
The screen reads 10:31:11.
I rush to the staircase—
Back in the apartment, I look at the current time.
It’s a bunch of minutes until “go time.”
Oh well, I can use the time to check on some people I care about via visions.
Walking over to the couch, I set my phone alarm to 10:29 and turn on the TV as loudly as I can—which should be handy later.
The Bachelor comes on as I prepare for a jump into Headspace. And though reality TV makes focusing almost as hard as when I fight for my life, I succeed right away.
Once there, I try calling my father again.
It doesn’t work.
I decide to check on Ariel next.
The Ariel-related shapes don’t seem to bode anything bad, but I touch one just in case.
Ariel is sitting on a plush couch in a soothingly illuminated room. Puffing on a vaping device, she exhales a white cloud, then swaps the gizmo for knitting needles.
A minute into her knitting, someone knocks on the door.
“Come in,” Ariel says, her fingers continuing to dance around the thick threads.
To my surprise, my biological father walks in wearing a Gomorrah-chic silvery outfit that makes him look like an extra in a sci-fi movie.
Ariel stops knitting. “Grisha? What are you doing here?”
Shrugging, Rasputin points at his mouth, then his ears.
“Oh right,” Ariel says. “You don’t understand me.”
Rasputin extends his finger in a “hold on” gesture, then takes out a small device from his pocket. In Russian, he says, “Amazing what the technology on this world can do.”
The device comes to life and translates his statement into English—albeit in a robotic male voice.
“Neat,” Ariel says—and the device translates that into Russian. “I think we’re very close to this kind of technology on Earth as well.”
“It’s a marvel.” Rasputin walks up to the nearby chair and carefully sits down. “We didn’t get a chance to talk the other day.” He smiles sheepishly. “Since we’re currently stuck on the same world, I figured I’d visit.”
“That’s sweet of you,” she says. “Unless you have a Sasha-related agenda.”
He looks down at the fractal design of the rug at his feet. “Well, I was hoping you could tell me something about my daughter.”
Ariel frowns.
“Nothing she would mind you sharing, of course. Just some trivia—like how she did in school, your favorite magic tricks of hers, what she likes to eat… anything that wouldn’t be a betrayal of trust on your part.”
“Hmm.” Ariel puts down one of her needles and puffs on the vape again. “I’m only comfortable telling the type of stuff you’d learn from social media.”
“Anything,” he says.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you talked to Sasha yourself?” She offers him the vape device, and he shakes his head. “I’m sure she’s eager to speak with you,” Ariel continues.
“I’d love that,” my father says. “Unfortunately, I can’t go to Earth to talk to her in person, and I’ve used up all my powers doing a favor for Nero.”
So this is why he’s not replying to my Headspace summons. Good to know he’s not snubbing me—and more of a reason to escape my makeshift prison.
“A favor for Nero?” Ariel picks up the needles again. “I’m curious. How about a little quid pro quo?”
The translating machine butchers the meaning of her words, and she has to restate that she wants to exchange info about Nero for trivia about me.
“All I’m allowed to say is that Nero is about to embark on a suicide mission,” Rasputin says with a sigh. “It took all my power to figure out a course of action that would give him a small chance of survival.” He rubs his temples. “Even if the allies I recommended join him, the odds of success are minuscule.”
Ariel’s frown deepens. “I don’t understand. I thought a seer could find out exactly what to do.”
“What he intends is so dangerous, with so many possible ways to die, I had to look into too many futures—and thus ran out of my seer power without finding him a sure-fire path to victory,” Rasputin says. “I’m still not as strong as I can be, but at least I was able to warn him of obvious dead ends.”
“Literal ones,” Ariel says. “Wait a sec. Is Sasha going with him on this suicide mission?” She looks ready to leap to her feet and bolt out of the door.
“No,” Rasputin says forcefully. “She isn’t joining. We agreed on that score.”
If I had a mouth, I’d yell for Ariel to ask him more questions, but I can’t, and in a moment, it doesn’t matter anyway.
My vision terminates.
Chapter Five
I find myself on a couch, all calm out the window.
There’s almost no doubt about it now. Nero is going after Claudia. I can’t think of anything else as dangerous as a trip to the dragon world.
As if I needed more reason to go to Gomorrah, now I have to stop Nero from doing something that’s highly likely to get him killed.
If anyone is going to kill Nero, it will be me for not taking me with him and overall acting like a jerk.
Getting up, I pace the apartment, willing the clock to move faster.
When I nearly step on the cat’s tail—an offense punishable by death, based on the look Lucifur gives me—I go back to the couch.
Instead of driving myself crazy, I can at least look at Nero’s future.
Closing my eyes, I summon the prerequisite focus and reach for Headspace.
I combine Nero’s essence with my urge to strangle him and get results right away.
To my huge relief, the cuboid shapes around me play a safe tune.
Good.
He’s safe in this future.
Might as well find out what’s he’s up to, I decide, reaching for the nearest shape.
Nero and Isis walk into a room that looks eerily like the one Ariel was sitting in, and face me.
Except that can’t be me. I’m bodiless, which means I’m not there. And the only times I’ve seen myself like this in a vision have been when I was unconscious.
Oh, and I’d never volunt
arily wear that skimpy outfit, not unless I decided on a career in a brothel.
“The real Sasha looks better than that,” Nero growls, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your left cheekbone is off and—”
“Impossible,” the fake Sasha says in Kit’s voice, then turns into herself. “You just know I’m not her, so your rose-colored glasses are off.”
Nero blows out an impatient breath. “I have an important business proposition I came to discuss, but if—”
My vision cuts out. What a nuisance.
I want to know what business he came to discuss with the shapeshifting Councilor.
Then again, I can guess.
Rasputin mentioned that Nero’s success depends on gathering allies. If so, I can’t think of a better candidate than Kit.
Eager to find out if he’ll tell Kit who Claudia is, I jump back into Headspace and try to bring about the continuation of the same vision.
Nero, Kit, and Isis walk into a dimly lit room with futuristic-looking technology all around them.
This is either a Gomorrah version of a man cave or a spaceship.
Distant sounds of pulsing music make me think this is someplace in Nero’s club, which tells me this vision is not just the wrong time but also the wrong place. This is happening outside the rehab facility and after Kit let herself be recruited.
“Why couldn’t we just talk to her in person?” Kit asks Nero as he fiddles with the flashing lights of some device that looks like it might beam him up to the Starship Enterprise.
“If she sees you or me in person and hears the word ‘favor,’ she’ll either run or shoot us with her powers,” Nero says. “This is better for her skittish psyche. Trust me, I’m much better with people than—”
Itzel shows up in the middle of the room.
Well, not really.
It’s a hologram of Itzel.
She’s wearing something that looks like a lab coat, and her breathing apparatus is much sleeker than what I remember.