by J. M. Frey
Pip nods tightly, jaw clenched, watching Alis.
“Pip,” I begin, but she says:
“No. Fuck. No, you’re right. I get it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. But I get it.”
“I hate to leave you both,” I say. “I’m not even certain if I should. Pip, if I leave you two behind, and someone comes—”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“I would feel better if you had a gun of your own.”
Pip looks startled. “Really?”
“I would feel much better if you were able to cast defensive spells, or use Words, or were proficient in any sort of weaponry. But, failing that, a gun is simple—you point, and shoot.”
“I think there’s a bit more to it than that.”
I knuckle my forehead. “Why, why have I been neglectful in teaching you to defend yourself with a sword? Foolish man.”
“Hey,” Pip says. “No more of that. And I’m not exactly defenseless. It’s not like my extra hours at the gym have been spent at ballet booty camp.” She makes a fist and bats my shoulder hard enough to get her point across.
“Splendid, splendid woman,” I say, and this time, I am the one initiating the kiss.
“And don’t forget, we may not be able to ward the house, but I don’t think there’s ever been a home security system as thorough as ours in the history of home security systems.”
“And while I have been warding the house, you’ve been preparing for when my work fails,” I point out.
“If, not when,” Pip says against my mouth, smirking. “I’ve been kidnapped twice now. That was enough. I’m determined that, next time, I’ll hold my own. I refuse to be a damsel in distress.”
“There will be no next time,” I proclaim grimly.
Pip’s smirk grows tremulous. “Trilogies,” she reminds me.
“I will book my ticket directly,” I say. “I just . . . excuse me for a moment?”
Pip nods, wearing a look on her face like she already knows what I’m about to do, as I head for the front door. Shoes on, I step out into the chill morning, and because I am a paranoid bastard, I take a long, lingering walk around my house, searching for . . . I don’t know what. Something. Anything. Clues. Proof that I would not be mad to leave my daughter and wife alone, undefended save for what Pip can do with her own fists and feet, while I scurry off to the side of a man who, a year ago, I didn’t even particularly like.
I peer at every passerby, glance into every shrub, check every locked gate. Nothing.
Nothing.
It should be a relief.
Instead, I wish I had found something. Some clue. Something to keep me here, by their side. Some reason to . . . but no. This is cowardice. Elgar needs help. Needs me.
I must go. And Pip cannot come.
Elgar
When Elgar next opens his eyes, it’s in a pastel-colored room with a white, halo-like curtain around his bed. His bed? Yes, he’s in a bed. But a bed that is hard, and narrow, and not his bed. The air smells of disinfectant, and the sheets are slightly scratchy. The bit of wall he can see over the steel rail is pale peach, and the overhead light is a harsh fluorescent.
His neck and head ache, and his right forearm burns. His mouth tastes like stale cotton, and he wants to scrub the grit out of his eyes, but as soon as he tries to move, every muscle in his body screams. He groans out loud. The curtain hisses open, and a woman in green scrubs—a nurse, his brain tells him, but not without another sharp ache—appears in the gap.
“Hello, Mr. Reed. Good morning.” Elgar tries to answer, and she shushes him and holds a cup of water with a bendy straw to his lips. She tuts at him after a few sips and takes it away, the tease. “Now, try again.”
“Morning?” he rasps. “How?”
“You were unconscious when they brought you in, Mr. Reed, and with the mild edema, they decided it would be best if you stayed asleep while you were treated. They took you off the anti-inflammatory meds yesterday evening.”
“Edema? Unconscious?”
The nurse frowns, looks down at his chart, and then comes back up to the head of the bed. “Mr. Reed, do you know where you are?”
“Hospital?” he guesses.
“Do you know how you got here?”
“Um,” Elgar says, casting his mind back to recent events. “Airport, then the car, then . . . Juan!”
He struggles to sit up, ignoring the nausea the motion causes, the way his neck and head throb and seize. But the nurse pushes him back down, makes soothing noises. “Don’t move yet, Mr. Reed. We haven’t been able to prescribe you any muscle relaxants, not with the other meds in your system. Just relax, don’t make it worse.”
“Juan?” he asks again, voice trembling, dreading the answer.
Before the nurse can say anything, a soft voice says from the other side of the curtain: “Here, boss.”
Relief is like a gut-punch, and Elgar can’t help the groan that escapes him.
The nurse pushes the curtain around his bed all the way open, and Elgar is able to see that he’s in a small hospital room with a bright window, a private washroom, and two single beds. Sitting up with a rueful smile on a face that is half bruise is Juan. He tries to grin at Elgar, but ends up grimacing instead, touching the bandage over his nose gingerly with his free hand. His other arm is one long, shoulder-to-knuckles cast.
“Jesus, Juan,” Elgar breathes, trying to look without moving his head. He ends up straining his eyes until his vision sparks.
“Don’t move,” the nurse says. “Just lie still. I’m going to go get you a refill on your IV and some nice, shiny new painkillers, Mr. Reed.” She bustles out, and Elgar doesn’t even have the heart to check out her ass as she goes.
“Looks worse than it is,” Juan lies cheerily. “Gonna get the doc to set my nose nice, get rid of that stupid bump I hate. Gil will have to kiss me if I have a George Clooney nose, right?”
“Right,” Elgar says, eyes burning with relief and sorrow. “Juan, I’m so sorry. If you weren’t my PA—”
“No, boss,” Juan says. “This isn’t on you, and you’re not allowed to make it on you. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. It’s all him.”
“Maybe,” Elgar allows. But if I hadn’t created him . . .
“So goddamn cliché,” Juan snorts, and then winces again, free hand back on his nose. “Cutting my brake line. What a cunt. I think he got that from one of the movies we watched.”
“What happened?”
“Couldn’t stop,” Juan says, looking guilty and exhausted suddenly. He keeps his eyes on his lap, twisting the sheets in his good hand.
“Not your fault either, if it’s not mine,” Elgar admonishes quietly.
Juan’s eyes flick back up to Elgar’s, and his smile, a softer, more tentative one, shines through. “Okay, boss. Well. Uh. We got t-boned when we rolled out into the road. The other guy smashed into the driver’s side door, did me up good, and you hit your door pretty hard. Hard enough to . . .” He stops and swallows. “At first, they couldn’t tell me if you were gonna wake up or not, what with the swelling.”
“Jesus,” Elgar says again, the reality of it starting to settle in his guts. “He’s really trying to kill us.”
“Yeah, I think he is.”
They’re silent then, as the nurse comes back with a new drip-bag and a tiny plastic cup with two yellow, house-shaped pills, as well as something Elgar knows for a fact is an antacid. “Swallow these, Mr. Reed, and they’ll put you out in a few minutes.” Elgar obeys. “Do you need the bedpan while I’m here?”
“No!” he yelps, mortified.
The nurse smirks. “Okay. When you wake up next time, we’ll see about getting you sat up and some food into you.” She turns to the door, then stops and comes back. “Is there anyone you want us to contact, Mr. Reed?”
Elgar blinks, brain already starting to soften at the edges. “Uh . . .”
“I’m listed as your emergency contact,” Juan says. “And as I was conscious e
nough to make decisions about your health care, they didn’t contact your next of kin. We sort of wanted to . . .”
“Make sure I woke up at all?” Elgar hears himself slur, but his eyelids feel so heavy, and the room is starting to float away from him.
“Yeah. I called Gil and Kim, though, to let them know that you . . . hey, boss? Boss? Right. Sleep tight.”
Forsyth
I have a key to Elgar Reed’s house. Until now, I have never had occasion to need it. But I am grateful to be able to store my luggage and take a quick shower in his guest bathroom before I head to the hospital. I am also grateful that my connections with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have set me in good stead, and that not only are Seattle’s finest not going to arrest me the moment I trip their motion sensors in Elgar’s house, but they have also agreed to go so far as to escort me to Elgar’s hospital room themselves.
My escort consists of two police officers in full uniform, respectively named Riletti and Jackson, who are already familiar with the case. Believing in the badge I flash at them, and their orders from on high, they fill me in on what’s been happening here while Pip and I have been run ragged surviving her magical attacks. The hospital smells the way they always do in this realm—no calming lemon, and lavender, and menthol from Mother Mouth’s poultices and potions, but strong astringents and bleaches. It makes my nose twitch as Riletti and Jackson lead me to the secure ward where Juan and Elgar are convalescing.
Police officers stand outside their door, and I pause there to take a deep breath and prepare myself for what I am about to see. I read the report. Severe cranial edema—swelling of the brain—for which they kept Elgar immobile and unconscious until they were certain the swelling would cease. The updated report I read upon landing in Seattle had mentioned that he had awakened, and was currently undergoing a course of muscle relaxants and painkillers to deal with the traumatic whiplash his injury had caused. In addition to that, the glass of the car window had broken and been driven into his right arm, so his flesh will be a mass of tiny stitches covered over by light gauze.
I bet it itches horribly, and Elgar will be giving the prettiest nurses he can find as much trouble about it as possible in an attempt to be charming. Juan will have more luck with that—his left arm was broken in four places, his nose as well, and one of his ribs. But even though I have never met the man, I know from Elgar’s reports that Juan has all the charm and grace my creator aspires to claim for his own.
I flex my own right hand, contemplating what the nerve damage will do to Elgar’s ability to write once the injuries have healed. He will be able to type, I am sure, and to dictate to the computer, but will he be able to hold a pen without it shaking? Will he be forever deprived of the ability to sign his own books for his fans?
“Mr. Piper?” Jackson asks me, as I hesitate by the door to Elgar’s room.
“Do we know if he is awake?” I ask, stalling. “I wo-would n-n-not l-uh-like to wake either of th-the-them when they are s-so in need of sle-ep.”
Jackson gives me a funny look, and I realize I’ve slipped, in my distress, into my old, formal mode of speaking. Blast and drat.
“I’ll check with the nurse,” Riletti says, and turns down the hall to double back to a station we passed, set in the junction of several wings.
“Co-could we n-n-not ask the—?” I say, gesturing to a nurse who is standing at the other end of the hall from us. She is speaking to a man in dark jeans, a wash-grayed hoodie pulled up to cover his face. His hands are in his pockets, his posture slumped and miserable, and I wonder what trauma or tragedy he is having to endure. He is nodding slowly, talking elaborately with one long-fingered hand.
The gestures are familiar to me, and I turn for a better look. But as soon as I have made a move in their direction, the man freezes and jams his hands back into his kangaroo pocket, embarrassed. The nurse starts and jerks to face me, a grimace crossing her features.
“Apologies,” I say, just loud enough for them to hear. “I thought I—”
A frisson of fear races over me then. Something in the air is . . . something crackles against my lips like summer lightning, brief and fresh, and the air, for just a moment, tastes of wonder and home.
Something of my joy and horror must have shown on my face, for Riletti puts a hand on my arm and says, “Mr. Piper?”
“Pip,” is my only response, as I fumble my phone out of my pocket. The nurse immediately bears down on me with a “sir, you can’t use your phone in the hospital; it interferes with—” and I shout my apologies and excuses as I run for the door at the far end of the hall, brushing past the nurse as my fingers shiver and slip on the phone’s slick surface.
The man in the hoodie levels a look of loathing at me that I barely register, his light eyes flashing as I rush past, and then I am banging back the heavy fire door and striking the call button probably harder than necessary. The phone rings only once before the call connects.
“I feel it,” Pip says, breathless, as if she’s been panting. She makes a strangled sound. In the background, I hear peppy, upbeat music. The sounds of many people doing something with metal things in a small space grow muffled and give way to the sterile echo of an empty, tiled room.
Ah, my wife was at the gym, and is now in the dressing room.
“Alis?” I ask, and I needn’t say anything further, for Pip already knows what I mean.
“At my parents’,” Pip says.
“Pip,” I reproach her.
“No, I’m fine. I was crawling out of my skin waiting. I just wanted to . . . nunnngh,” she groans, and there is the heavy thump of her hitting the lockers and sliding down to the ground.
“Pip!”
“I’m okay. I just need . . . just need a second to . . . god, I can’t breathe—” she pants, and, futile and impotent on the other side of the connection, I simply inhale and exhale as loudly as I can, keeping my own head, trying to calm my own heart, trying to trick my wife’s body into following along. “The—the rage,” she stutters around her ragged breaths.
“Rage?”
“He’s so angry.”
“Pip, do you tell me you can feel what he—?”
Pip’s voice is growing shallower, fading away, and I do not know if it is because she is suffocating, or if the phone has dropped away from her face. “How . . . how dare the-the-the S-Shadow Hand inter . . . interfere . . .”
“Interfere? How . . . what are you—?”
“Not supposed . . . how—hcccck—can they travel so . . . ung! . . . fast in the Overrealm . . . had time—” She chokes and splutters her way through the words, like a prophet drowning, but determined to spit one last verse of dire warning.
“Pip, please, breathe,” I plead, my free hand balled into a fist.
“Ma’am?” someone says on the other end of the line. “Hey, lady, are you okay?”
“Help her!” I shout, hoping that my voice will be heard. “Please, it’s . . . a fit of some sort. She can’t breathe!” My heart twists and burns in my chest, my throat closing up in fear.
Writer, please, please, do not let my wife die when I am too far away to hold her as she does so.
“Lady, jesus, hold on. Let me . . . I’m just going to tip your chin up, okay? Open up your airways,” the woman says, and she sounds confident and collected. Perhaps she has first aid training. Whoever she is, I owe her a thousand thanks.
Pip gasps, and then sucks in a hard, shaking breath. I can hear the phone clatter onto the floor. And then Pip screams: “A knife! Forsyth, there’s a . . . oh fuck, stop him!”
“A knife?” I take a moment to echo, and then I understand.
The man in the hoodie, I realize suddenly, and the revelation is like a punch to the gut. The hand gestures. Spell-weaving. His eyes weren’t merely light—they were amber.
“I love you,” I shout down the line. “Breathe.”
“She’s fine. It’s over,” says the woman.
I take just enough time to shout
my thanks, and then hang up, shove the phone back into my pocket, and run. The fire door slams back and cracks against the wall opposite as I burst through it. My dress shoes are slippery against the polished floors, but I run full-out all the same. The same nurse I saw on my way out still stands in the hallway. She looks dazed, green fading from her eyes. She moves to stop me, but her gestures are slow, jerky, puppeteered by a master whose mind is elsewhere.
Outside of Elgar’s room, Riletti and the two officers protecting it are staring aimlessly, heads turned only vaguely in my direction, hands on the butts of their guns, eyes turned emerald.
“Mr. Piper,” Riletti says, “You can’t—”
She and the officers both make a grab for me, but, borrowing a move from my nephew, I roll low under their arms and through the open door into the pitch-back hospital room. No, not pitch-black. There is light—dim and twilit—leaking in around the edges of the curtains.
And against this, a shadow suddenly moves on the other side of the room. It peels away from the rest of the darkness, as if it has been pared off with a knife: a slow, keen slide that curls into a tall, slender silhouette. It cuts between the window and the far bed, where Elgar’s unmistakable bulk lays in oblivious repose. In the moonlight, the blurred edges of the figure resolve into a head, and limbs, and a thin torso.
“Found you,” a voice made of honey and poison hisses into the quiet. “I wondered what it would take to lure you out, Shadow Hand.”
Choking on the swell of terror that rises up in my throat, I rise to my feet, ready to strike however I may. I am not proficient in unarmed grappling, but the adrenaline coursing through me will, I hope, help. But Elgar is between us, and I am unsure if I can reach the Viceroy before he can swing his upraised knife down.
A brief glance about the room provides me with no weapon of my own, but at the foot of Elgar’s bed, a table on wheels arcs over his calves. And on that lays a half-finished meal on a metal tray.
“Do not do this thing,” I say, and my voice sounds harsh in the muffled silence of what feels like a secrecy spell. “Harm him, and who knows what will become of the world we left behind.”