“I think I understand.” She gave a crooked grin, then frowned at her feet as she thought it through.
“Are you sure?” He lifted her chin. “Shall I go on?”
“Let me try again.” She winked at him. “You can tell me more if I need more help. Maybe even if I don’t. But later.”
Eric rang the bell again, and this time Caro’s eyes closed immediately. Eric was pleased to see a small smile playing on her lips. He took advantage of the moment to look at her. She was dressed simply in a full black skirt and black tank from Lucie’s collection. He remembered she hadn’t bothered with panties and shut his eyes for a moment. With her hands clasped primly in front of her, her arms pushed her full breasts up against the neckline of her shirt. She’d gathered her wavy hair in a messy knot on top of her head, highlighting her slender throat and pretty ears. He’d never noticed a woman’s ears before.
He ripped his gaze away. One minute. He rang the bell a second time and held his breath.
Caro shimmered, her face masquing into that of an older Latina with short dark hair and heavy features with a cheerful expression. Eric’s heart rose. She was doing it. Then her own delicate features reappeared.
“Goddammit,” Caro whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek and Eric stepped forward to comfort her. She said something he couldn’t understand, creasing her face with concentration. When Eric blinked, a short, heavy-set woman with laughing eyes stood in front of him.
“Hola, Eric.” The voice was deep and raspy, with a pleasant singsong. She frowned and looked herself over. “Where did that come from? Do I look like me? I feel different. Where’s a mirror?”
Silently, Eric pointed to one on the wall. It was disconcerting to see Caro walk over with a clumping gait instead of her usual graceful stride. Why did this bother him? He was a masquerada. She was a masquerada. This is what they did. Yet it did bother him. He loved watching Caro as she was, as Caro.
It hadn’t concerned him with others. Interesting.
The two men stood behind Caro as she examined herself in the mirror. “I look like I could be her sister.” She twisted around to check out the back view. “I need some new clothes. Maria likes to wear bright colors.” The clothes were indeed stretched painfully tight on the larger, fuller body.
“You look close to the photo.” Eric pushed aside his own anxiety about masquing to feel pleased with how well she had done. “How do you feel?”
“Good.” Caro sounded surprised. “Strange. It’s not what I expected. I feel—natural. A little more cheerful than usual. Kind of want a cigarette. Maria smokes.”
“That’s the masque coming through,” Stephan told her. “You’re taking on traits you associate with Maria.”
“You look incredible.” Eric walked around Caro. “I thought that there would be more of you here, but I can’t see anything. Stephan?”
Stephan looked at her with admiration. “This is extraordinary for a first, guided shift.”
It was, too. He’d suspected she was strong after she’d yanked apart his detention cell, but being able to shift into multiple masques confirmed it. Only about ten per cent of his people could do that.
“So I can go?”
The two men exchanged looks, then nodded. “On three conditions,” Eric said.
Caro glared at him. “That wasn’t the deal.”
“It’s the deal now. You do exactly what Tom says. You speak to no one. You come straight back here.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Seems fair. We’re going now?”
“As soon as we get you some better clothes. You said colors?”
“Reds and pinks, mostly. Loose shirts and capris. Flip-flops.”
“I’ll get Lucie on it.” Stephan disappeared.
Eric came over to kiss Caro, then leaned back with a little laugh. “I feel I should ask permission,” he admitted.
“Why? Because I’m not me?”
He started. “Yes, I guess.” This feeling was new for him and he wondered what it meant. The whole point of being a masquerada was that one’s core self never changed. He’d never felt this distance when Stephan changed, or even Frieda. Why Caro?
She laughed, a real laugh that lifted his spirits. “I feel the same way.”
“You did good,” he said simply, his heart filling with pride.
“Thanks. I thought it would be slower, though. That I’d be able to feel the change.”
“What was it like for you?” Eric kept his voice deliberately casual. Even speaking of it caused tremors under his skin.
Caro ran her hands over her arms, then walked around the room as though testing the new body. “Fast,” she said finally. “For a moment, it felt like I thought it would— As though I was flowing like water into a new form. Then it stopped.”
“And?”
She stretched her foot out, gazing at the dark, freckled leg, corded with veins. “This looks like Maria’s leg, though I’m sure I never looked closely at her shins in my life.”
“It’s your mind filling in the aspects of Maria you associate with her. That is how you think of her leg, even if it looks different than Maria’s actual leg. It’s all your mind.”
Caro didn’t answer. She was flexing her fingers and watching them curiously. “I don’t know how I feel. Do I feel like me? Like Maria? How do I even know what Maria feels?”
“You don’t. You know what you think she feels, which is not the same thing at all.”
“I still feel mostly like me.”
“The core self never changes but you are now more open to the masque’s traits. Caro doesn’t smoke, but Maria does. By taking on her masque, you begin to incorporate how you unconsciously expect a real human who looks like that, with the background you imagine or know, to act.”
Caro poked at the freckles on her arms. “So all of my perceptions color how I think I should act in this masque? Not how she actually would?”
“It’s why we train the young intensively. Why I wanted you to wait a bit. Taking on a masque can be a responsibility.”
She nodded. “We need to talk more about this, once I get used to it.”
Eric wanted to hear more about the change. “Caro, what happened after you stopped flowing?”
She stopped flexing and gazed at the ceiling as though trying to find the words. “It’s hard to describe. I just…decided it would happen.”
He grabbed her in a bear hug. “Congratulations.”
Caro was still looking in the mirror. “What is it?” he asked.
“Maria’s Guatemalan. From Mixco.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not. My dad was from Oregon. Mom was German.”
He understood immediately. “I’ve been a woman. I’ve been black. Korean. Persian.”
“You never had a problem with it?” Her reflected eyes sought his. “How can you become those people? Tell those stories and live those lives?”
Eric leaned his cheek against her hair. This was a topic he’d often discussed with Stephan and Michaela. He searched for the right words. “At first, because I was young and selfish, I was more concerned with how I felt about the whole thing. I spent most my life in North America and I was taking on masques where I wasn’t treated the way I was used to. The way I deserved to be. That pissed me off.”
Caro turned around and gave him a tight grin. “Did you yell, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’”
He winced. “I did, actually. Once. I was stupid. It didn’t turn out well.” That was with Selene, who had promptly put him in his place.
“Then what?”
Eric released her and paced the room. This wasn’t a topic masquerada usually spoke about. “Some masquerada have an experience like that and decide never to do it again. The external aspect of the change, how others perceive them, is too different from what they’re used to.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did for a bit. Had to grow up more. See more. Then I learned that the world doesn’t revolve around me. Masques weren’t a costume I pulled on. When I was in a masque that didn’t look like this”—he gestured to himself—”humans treated me different. I didn’t like it. But I could change back. A real human couldn’t.”
“Did masquerada change toward you?””No.” He laughed. “Incredibly, we only discriminate based on power and ability, which has its own issues. It was the humans, but as we live in the human world, it was painful enough.”
“So what did you do?”
“Talked to people. I did what I could to make changes in the human world. What I can.”
“Other masquerada don’t?”
“Not all think humans are worth the bother,” he said bluntly. “And since a masquerada in any form is superior to a human, what does it matter? It would be like caring how a tool thinks about you. Irrelevant, as long as it does what you need.”
She looked uncomfortable. “It’s a lot for me to think about.”
“Yes.”
“I still don’t like it. It’s only to get me into my apartment.”
“Still, you did good.”
Caro was stretching and kicking her legs when Stephan came in with an armful of clothes. “Lucie thinks these will do,” he said.
“They look perfect.” Caro selected a lime-green shirt with a gigantic hot-pink hibiscus printed on the front, and worn black leggings. “These.”
She shooed them out into the hall while she got dressed.
“Is Tom ready to visit the apartment?” Eric asked Stephan when they were alone.
“Yes, it’ll be the two of them. He says any more would be suspicious.”
“As himself?”
“Masqued.”
Eric raised an eyebrow. Tom must want to keep an eye on Caro because he rarely took on masques, claiming he had enough to do without having to remember all the little things necessary to fully inhabit a masque. Eric had seen him shift once in battle, when Tom had become a huge, hulking warrior of a man. The moment the fight was done, the old Tom returned, cursing the rags the larger masque had made of his clothes and trying unsuccessfully to tie the shredded leftovers of his shirt around his groin.
“He still has doubts about Caro,” Stephan confirmed. “It’s killing him to have her near you.”
“What, does he think she’s an assassin?”
“If he thought that, she’d be in custody already. No. Informant.”
“It’s his job to suspect everyone. She’s fine. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“You already have.” Stephan shrugged. “We want you to be on your guard.”
Eric didn’t want to talk about it. “What about backup?”
“Two teams waiting. It will be fine.”
The door opened and Caro appeared, smiling broadly as her flip-flops snapped against her heels. “Time to go?” she asked in that deep voice.
Eric nodded and reached out to hold her tightly, the heavy breasts strange against his chest. The oddest sensation, as though he was being unfaithful, overcame him. Caro stroked his face. “Let’s celebrate later,” she said. “When I’m me again.”
He gave the thin, chapped lips a kiss and stroked her hair. “You are you now. Remember that, Caro.”
She smiled at him, a bit doubtfully, and left.
Chapter 28
Caro didn’t even recognize the short, gray-haired, barrel-chested Latino man as Tom, which was probably the point. He looked her up and down with rheumy eyes but didn’t comment. Instead, he dove straight into orders. His voice was lower, more gravelly.
“We’re going to park in the south lot and go through the side door,” he said. “Do you have a hat?”
“I never wear hats. I mean, Maria doesn’t. Or sunglasses.”
He grunted. “Figures. All right. I want you to keep your gaze straight. Don’t make eye contact with anyone and definitely do not engage in any conversation. Eyes on the objective.” He glanced at her doubtfully, then clearly decided she would benefit from a clarification on this last point. “Which is to get what you need out of your apartment in less than five minutes.”
“That’s not a lot of time.”
“Right. So pack fast. I’ve got a couple bags for you, but take only the things you need. We can’t haul out your entire wardrobe without raising suspicion. Get your personal things and that’s it. Don’t bother with anything we can buy.”
Caro nodded, stiffness settling in her shoulders. Obviously everyone was overreacting, but it was hard not to be affected.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Let’s go.”
Tom drove them in an old blue Chevy and, luckily, wasn’t big on small talk. He murmured into his headset, his eyes constantly tracking their surroundings. Caro leaned back in the seat and considered what had happened. She had shifted. On purpose. And it felt…good. Caro traced her finger along her leg. The action of masquing had been as familiar as breathing, as though her body and mind were suddenly working together in a way she’d never imagined.
Would her mother have been proud? She’d never know.
They turned the corner and Caro’s thoughts turned to what she would take. There wouldn’t be time to dither. A sense of dismay overtook her when she realized that there wasn’t much in the apartment that had emotional meaning. Almost everything could be replaced with a quick trip to the mall. What kind of life had she lived since she moved here? One where she could pack up her life in less than five minutes without a problem wasn’t much to brag about.
Construction made traffic heavier than usual on College. She glanced over to see Tom’s face. He looked as calm as always but she could almost see the dislike radiating off him.
“What’s your problem?” Maria was a straight-talker and it looked like some of the masque’s trait had rubbed off on Caro. She wanted not to care, and to pass off Tom’s attitude as something out of her control and totally inexplicable. It was hard. If she could change it, she would. It was annoying to have his suspicious eyes on her at all times.
“No problem.”
“Get off it, Tom. What’s the deal? I know you don’t like me and that’s fine but at least tell me what I’ve done. I’ll apologize if I was out of line.” If being the key word. Otherwise he could go screw.
“Where were you before you came to Toronto, Caro Yeats? That’s not your real name, by the way, I at least know that much.”
The light turned red and Tom stopped the car. He looked at her with contempt in those tired eyes. “You might be able to pull that T&A shit on Eric but I’m watching you.”
Caro leaned against the car door, stunned at his snarl. “Number one, fuck you. Number two, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Were you Iverson’s bitch? That why he gave you this job?”
Caro’s mouth dropped open as Tom gunned the car through the intersection, bumping over the streetcar tracks, and it took her a moment to gather her composure. “You think I’m working with Iverson?” She nearly choked on the words as her vision narrowed.
“I know you are.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then tell me who you are, Caro. Who you truly are.”
Her back was up now. He wasn’t going to bully her with out-of-line accusations because his Google-fu failed. “I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”
His lip curled. “I thought so. One move against the Hierarch and you’ll regret it.”
Caro’s anger rose. “Don’t give me any of your pathetic threats.” Something occurred to her. “Eric doesn’t believe you, does he? That’s why you’re pissed off. There I am, right beside him. It must be killing you, Mr. Security.”
“Fuck you.”
She laughed. “Likewise.”
The rest of t
he drive was extremely uncomfortable. She’d put on the best face she could in front of Tom, but his disgust and dislike were painful to experience. She was out of practice, she thought wryly. Was this any worse than the countless doors that had been slammed in her face when she’d been a reporter? The time she’d had to wash the spit out of her hair?
At least Eric trusted her. It gave her the strangest feeling, almost a lightness to know that he had her back. No one had been on her side for the longest time. Would Tom be able to convince him? What proof did he have to think she was in league with Iverson? He hadn’t given her any evidence—he must be going with his extremely misinformed gut. She’d told Eric right away when Iverson had accosted her. Tom probably thought she was lying about that somehow. Anything to fit his pet theory.
She saw a sign in Spanish and felt a vague pull. She could read it—no, wait. She couldn’t. It had only felt as though the words made sense. The masque. Ignoring Tom, she gazed around, seeing things through what she began to think of as the Maria filter. Anything in Spanish caught her attention. A police car pulling alongside them forced her heart rate up. Seeing an older woman walking with heavy shopping bags made her back ache in sympathy. This wasn’t Maria, Caro reminded herself. This is you thinking as Maria. Not Maria. You are not Maria. Remember that.
When they arrived, Tom pulled into the lot and killed the engine. He refused to look at her, but his voice was all business. “You lead the way and I’m going to follow. Keep casual. Remember, no conversations, no eye contact.” His tone said, And I’ll be watching you.
Caro’s skin prickled as she got out of the car and cast her eyes around the parking lot. It was a weekday morning, so most of the cars were gone, including Maria’s, she was pleased to note. Her neighbor worked as a temp, so sometimes her hours were unpredictable.
She hadn’t realized how the masque would affect her physically. Climbing stairs was real exercise and she was breathing hard by the time she reached her floor. “Need a break,” she gasped. Tom nodded silently and gave her a minute before pointing at the door to the hall.
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