Between Homes (The City Between Book 5)

by W. R. Gingell

  A few seconds later, the extra phone I’d borrowed from Daniel rang. I picked it up, and Athelas’ voice asked tranquilly, “Are you well, Pet?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Piece of cake. You blokes?”

  “The contract is completely dissolved. Perhaps one day you’ll tell me how you did it?”

  “Yeah, perhaps.” I looked across at JinYeong and jerked my head toward the door. He opened it, and I said to the harpy, “Sorry Richard. We gotta go.”

  “Are you coming here?”

  “Not just yet,” I told him. “Maybe in a bit.”

  “Do you need assistance?”

  “Dunno just yet. Are you allowed to offer help?”

  “I have not been told that I may not,” said Athelas.

  “Stay there,” I said. “Things are about to get fun.”

  He hung up, but I kept the phone to my ear: I could still see Richard in the reflective surface of the white walls, a feathery menace who could call for help any second if he thought he could kill us before we told what we knew. We were in the hallway now, JinYeong and I, but there was still a good hundred metres of cold hallway to walk before we got to the exit, dotted with humans and Behindkind alike. I felt as though it stretched itself out as I watched, longer and longer, and the Behindkind were definitely starting to look at us. Had some sort of silent alarm gone out? I would have bet pretty good money on it.

  Involuntarily, my steps grew longer and faster.

  “Slowly,” murmured JinYeong. “Smile at them. Make them afraid.”

  He did as he’d told me to do, directing a sharp-edged smile around at the hall as we sauntered back out. I grinned, too, fierce and dangerous, and when we finally emerged at the top of the stairwell into the shoe store, it felt like it wasn’t possible to stop grinning.

  “Hajima, museowo!” JinYeong complained.

  “Don’t think I can stop,” I said, massaging my cheeks. “And you told me to be frightening!”

  “Wae? You are frightened?”

  “Flamin’ terrified,” I told him, a shudder running over me as we finally stepped into glorious, human sunshine. I dug out my phone with cold fingers, and had to stab at the red button three times before I managed to stop it recording.

  “You looked as though you were having fun.”

  “Figured we were gunna die,” I explained, pushing the phone back into its usual pocket. “Reckoned I might as well worry him while we were about it.”

  JinYeong said offendedly, “I would not have allowed you to die.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” I said. “Reckon he’s got someone following us?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right. We better not go back to the house or the Palmers, then.”

  “You said we would have coffee.”

  “All right, let’s go to Isle Coffee. They’ve got a couch up on the top floor.”

  The walk back up out of the centre of Hobart did something to shake the weirdness out of my legs and set my heart beating normally again. I followed JinYeong as he made some darting little detours that passed through normal streets and sudden bursts of Between that brought us out in odd places, willing to let him do the hard work of trying to lose the followers that were almost definitely behind us somewhere.

  When we got to Isle Coffee, and JinYeong had ruthlessly ordered a couple off the sofa so that we could sit on it instead, I tossed my own phone at him and said, “Oi. Can you fix it?”

  His brows went up, but he looked over the phone. A very small smile came and went on his lips, and he said, “Hyeong has been busy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. So it really hadn’t been JinYeong. That was…nice, I supposed? “Can you fix it?”

  “It doesn’t need fixing, just removing,” he said. “It is a spell.”

  I don’t know what he did, but by the time the waitress came with our coffee, a small patch of the couch’s stitching was trying to wriggle free from the leather, and there was the distinct feeling of thinness to reality.

  “I do not use magic often,” explained JinYeong, when we were alone again, though I didn’t ask. “So I am slow. Here. It is done.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and gave him the free little bikkie that had come with my coffee to add to his. That made him smug and pleased for some reason, and while he was contemplating the perfectly matching biscuits, I sent the video file I’d recorded to Detective Tuatu.

  It’s for North, I texted. Don’t show it to Zero or the others.

  It took a while to go through, so I sat back with my coffee and my feet up on the coffee table, wondering if things were really going as smoothly as it seemed they were. I mean, it’d be nice for a change. Just kinda…unusual.

  I’d just started to relax when my phone rang.

  “Heck,” I said, jumping, and looked down at the display. It was Tuatu. He must have got the message that it was safe to call and text now. I picked up the call and said, “What’s up? Other than my flamin’ heart rate?”

  “Sarah ran away,” said Tuatu breathlessly in my ear.

  Chapter Twelve

  “She went to the toilet twenty minutes ago, just before the contract went up. She didn’t come back, but we thought she’d just gone to her room. I think she’s trying to keep her parents safe. North and I are out looking, but if they find her first…!”

  “I’ll get JinYeong on it,” I said. “See what he can sniff out. Where are Zero and Athelas?”

  “Out looking, too. If you see her, North says to say macaron and she’ll know you’re safe.”

  “We’re on it. Call if you find her; we’ll do the same.” I hung up, and said to JinYeong, who was looking at me enquiringly, “The kid’s run off. We’ve gotta try to find her before Upper Management does, or they won’t need a contract to keep a hold of her.”

  We left our half-finished coffee and took to the streets again, and this time JinYeong grabbed me by the arm to pull me Between at the first sign of a fluttering moreness at the edges of reality. I caught a brief glimpse of the old factory as we passed it: here Between I could see the smoke still puffing from the old, brickwork industrial chimney like the human world hadn’t seen from them in probably a hundred years, and I wondered fleetingly exactly what Behindkind were making in there.

  There was no time to try and fathom what was going on, no time to do anything but dodge the lumbering beasts that were part of the work as they spilled out onto the main road to the honking of cars. I didn’t have time to try and see what the people in the cars saw them as, either.

  I just ran with JinYeong.

  We stopped when we got to the Mexican place on the corner of Lefroy and Elizabeth, and JinYeong scented the air in satisfaction.

  “Ah! I have it!”

  As he said it, I saw a small figure far ahead of us on the street, dodging between pedestrians and leashed dogs. Blonde hair, school hoodie, black shoes. Could be a schoolkid wagging it from school, but I didn’t think so.

  “Hang on!” I yelped. “I think—I think I saw her!”

  “The smell is this way,” JinYeong said.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “This way.”

  “Fine—you go that way; I’ll go this way.”

  “It is dangerous,” objected JinYeong.

  “Yeah, but it’s dangerous for her, too,” I said. “We might find her quicker if we split up, anyway. Just…try to stay within yelling distance, all right?”

  “I will,” he said. “If you need me, call.”

  He darted down Lefroy, leaving me to follow Elizabeth Street upward again at a quick trot. I saw a flicker of loose blonde hair as I jogged past the opshop, and turned on my heel, gasping a bit. The door jingled as I went in, which was a shame, because Sarah was jumpy and saw me straight away.

  Her face went pale at the sight of me, but she said, “Just try and take me. I can fight, too, you know.”

  “Heck,” I said, impressed. “Relax, will you, kid? North said to tell you macaron so you’d know I’m with her.”

 
She relaxed, but only a little bit. “I’m not going back with you, either. They’ll kill my parents this time.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” I said. “They’ll only kill your parents if you’re not there. You were the only thing keeping them a little bit safe.”

  “What?”

  “The stuff you can do—you know you’re not normal, right?”

  “Look who’s talking!” she shot back.

  Heck. What did she know? I couldn’t help grinning, though. “Yeah, I know. But that kind of not normal is useful to the people who want you, and they just broke their contract with you. So if they get you now, they can force your parents to do whatever they want, because you’re their bargaining chip.”

  “Man, I hate these guys,” Sarah said. “Everything’s about leverage.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  The doorbell jingled, and I looked instinctively over my shoulder. Three men? Nope, three men and a woman, dressed like pretend security. They looked familiar, but it was their guns that really told me they were probably with Upper Management. Had they been following me, or Sarah?

  “Heck,” I said again, turning to face the threat. “You said you can fight? How are you with guns?”

  “Know what I hate more than Behindkind?”

  “Humans working with Behindkind,” I agreed, nodding. Under my breath, I added, “Make a break for the staff exit as soon as we get a distraction.”

  “Stay right there,” said one of the men, across the shop. He moved warily, and so did the others, which made me wonder exactly which one of us they were afraid of.

  “Their guns won’t work,” said Sarah, edging toward a wall that displayed alternate flowers and handbags. “They’re just water-pistols.”

  “What?”

  “They look like water-pistols, right?” she said, and her eyes were pleading.

  I looked over at the closest bloke and saw his gun flicker between green plastic and black metal, and said, “Heck yes. You gunna shoot us with water-pistols?”

  A single drip of water dropped to the ground, and one of the men said, “Call the boss, now. She’s doing it again.”

  None of them picked up a phone, but I heard a rustle of movement, and maybe the slight click of a button releasing.

  “Be careful,” Sarah said softly. “They’ll have spells, as well. Little magic stuff that they can point at people.”

  I didn’t notice when the flower display began to move slightly, but the sandman must have been pretty close already, because the flowers split apart a moment later to allow it to step through into the shop.

  Sarah screamed, short and sharp, but it already had her with its nebulous, sticky hands.

  “Heck,” I said, feeling ill, and the sandman looked at me consideringly.

  I’d swear I saw the thought process pass across its face. Richard had definitely been talking to it. It needed Sarah to take back to Upper Management, but it couldn’t let me go free to run off to the Family and tell what I knew, either.

  So I ran for it.

  I snatched up one of the walking sticks from the bin by the staff exit as I sprinted through the curtain, and felt the weight of it falter as it went from wood to steel and back again as I crashed through the back door and into the alley.

  The poor kid probably thought I was abandoning her, but it was the only way I could think of to get them all out of range of unwary humans, and toward my hidden vampire. I mean, he wasn’t exactly hidden, but he wasn’t close enough to be useful, either.

  I flew down the alley and turned left onto Lefroy where I’d last seen JinYeong, skidding across gravel that spilled out from the unsealed carpark beside the footpath. I scented cologne, and saw JinYeong across the park, crouched by the side of a graffitied wall. Gravel scattered beneath my feet as I ran for him, too noisy to be able to hear how close behind me the pursuit was.

  JinYeong stood at once, catching me by the elbows with a snarl at the dust on his pointy shoes, and narrowly avoiding a good bruise or two across the shins from the walking stick I’d pinched.

  “Quick!” I said. “Givus a kiss!”

  JinYeong looked up from his shoes, completely still but without any of the usual catlike, tail-twitching elegance that came with such stillness. He said blankly, “Mwoh?”

  “I need some more vampire spit! Bite me or something!”

  “I am not,” he said, very precisely, releasing my elbows, “a vending machine.”

  “You flamin’ better be, or we’re gunna be over-run by the sandman and some of its friends. Anyway, you’re the one who’s always biting me or kissing me, so I should be able to—”

  “Do it,” said JinYeong, teeth showing dangerously in a smile. “It does not bother me.”

  “Come down here, then!” I said testily, yanking him down by his tie.

  He made a startled, choked sort of a noise, but I kissed him anyway—just long enough to make sure I tasted the bitterness, or life, or pure electricity that was vampire spit. Then I let go of the tie and stepped back, the walking stick sweeping out in my left hand. Back in the shop it had been a walking stick, but here behind the carpark, amidst wild-growing graffiti, it gleamed with another form beneath the easily seen wooden exterior.

  I rolled my wrist to flick it into its other form, a slender, flexible blade, automatically swiping the back of my other hand over my mouth to get rid of the feeling of JinYeong’s lips touching mine.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, one hand automatically rearranging his untidy tie.

  “Wiping off your kiss,” I said.

  His translating bit of Between dropped in outrage. “Ya! Na aniya, noh—!”

  “No time to argue,” I said urgently. A shock of sticky fear prickled over my ribs as the Sandman squished its way into sight around the edge of the building, far too close for comfort. “You better find something to fight with. Try not to die this time.”

  “My body is a weapon,” JinYeong said, with cold certainty, easily understandable again.

  “Yeah, and so is your flamin’ perfume,” I said. “But I’ve seen what the Sandman does to people who bite it, and it’s not pretty.”

  “Watch me, then,” he said, eyes narrow and liquid.

  He went straight for the Sandman, who threw Sarah toward one of the humans and grew vast and sticky and fluttery. I didn’t see him fight but I heard it: my eyes were on Sarah, who kicked and punched and fought the human who tried to hold her. I came for them with my walking stick sword, my eyes only on Sarah, and maybe my training had done some good, because my guard came up in just the right way.

  If I’d thought about it, I probably would have hesitated and been shot. I didn’t: I just swung, and slashed, and I must have thrust at some point, too, because I remember warmth and resistance, and blood on my hands and hoodie.

  And I was quick. With the edge of vampire spit, I was too fast to shoot, too quick to avoid. Sarah broke away when her captor came to help, running and then skidding through the gravel to slip through the gap between me and the wall. She stayed behind me, out of reach of my sword, and as safe as she could be from bullets, and I had a moment to be utterly thankful for that before there was a flutter of dark blue suit and a flying tie, and JinYeong was between us and danger.

  Over near the wall, wild graffiti crawled over a white and red mess that had once been the Sandman, but JinYeong still snarled. Three humans were left, and unlike the ones we’d come across in Upper Management’s first quarters, these ones didn’t run away.

  “These ones are human,” JinYeong said, without taking his eyes off them.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I have to be at least this much of a monster,” he said. “Or shall I stop?”

  “No,” I said huskily. I had blood all over me: he wasn’t the only monster here. “They have guns and they’re helping. I understand. Kill ’em if you have to. I’d help, but—”

  “The child is looking.”

  “I know. I’ll cover her eyes. D
o what you have to do.”

  “I don’t need my eyes covered,” Sarah said, but her voice shook, and she didn’t try to pull my hand away from her eyes.

  She covered her ears, too, when the screaming and gunshots started. I didn’t have that luxury—didn’t think I was allowed it, if it came to that. Not when I was a part of the cause of their death. I watched the humans fall, every one, and tried to remember that it wasn’t just Behindkind who could be evil.

  I tried to remember that these humans were part of an underworld, otherworldly company that traded in slavery, death, and human lives. I tried to remember that they did it for money and special privileges.

  And maybe I cried a bit.

  One of them was still moving feebly when JinYeong said crisply, “Caja,” and swept away toward the street.

  “The blood—!” I protested, but he didn’t stop.

  “He’s doing something to hide it,” Sarah said, in a snubby little voice.

  I’d already seen the film of Between on everything, but I still felt horribly noticeable with the cooling blood on my hoodie and the stickiness of it on my hands. It wasn’t like we could stay back there Between, after all. Sooner or later, Upper Management would come looking for its henchmen.

  Across the road and down the street a bit, JinYeong did something weird that sealed off the walkway between the patisserie and the burger house, and we sat down on the benches there while he straightened himself out and I called the detective to let everyone know where to find us. Then Sarah and I just sort of stared at the painted flowers and painted dog, and tried to ignore JinYeong muttering about the bloodstains on his tie.

  I wanted to ask Sarah a few questions, and I think she wanted to ask me some, but there wouldn’t be much time before everyone got there, so I just cleared my throat and said, “Don’t run away again. You’re the only one who can keep your parents safe. No one’s gunna hurt your parents if you’re with them: you’re too valuable to…well, everyone, apparently.”

  “I don’t want to be important to Them,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “But it won’t be forever. Just until they find out who the real harbinger is. Then you won’t be important, but you’ll still be protected—North will take care of it.”