Crossed

by J. F. Lewis

  “You’re not his thrall?”

  “I’m not his anything, unless you mean friend, and even that is complicated.”

  “Complicated how?”

  “I’m not human, for starters.”

  “Neither is he.” Apples rubbed at her eyes.

  “I’d debate that, but not with you.”

  “Why not with me?”

  “You don’t interest me.” I enumerated my first point by extending a silver talon; it caught the light from my eyes and rendered Apples in shades of green—a Granny Smith. “And”—a second claw appeared to tick off my second reason—”you won’t be around long.”

  “Longer than you might think.” She rubbed her eyes again, and I knew she wouldn’t make the cut. Oranges probably knew it too.

  “Only if you kill Oranges in her sleep.”

  “I love Oranges.” Her breath caught partway through the sentence. Watching her through the akashic field, I saw she told the truth. I saw other things too, which made the fact that Apples loved Oranges tragic and a bit too much information.

  “I know. I can sense that.”

  “So, are you a were-something?”

  “No.” I made my way to the stairs and stopped at the bottom, backlit by the excess illumination from the light upstairs. “And don’t ask questions about a being’s supernatural heritage. Figure it out or wait until they tell you.” I took a step up. “If you and your girlfriend are smart, you’ll rest up and then leave before Greta gets up this evening. You won’t, because you aren’t. That’s a pity.”

  “But she’s going to make us thralls tonight! And later, she might make us vampires.”

  “It’s possible.” I let the eye glow fade. “Remotely. Anything she’s seen Eric do . . . Greta might decide to do, but she’s unpredictable, and unlike her father, Greta truly is a monster. Last night she started killing people in front of the Pollux for no reason other than she wanted to eat them. She’s always hungry. Eric is good to the women and the men who serve him; he cares about them. But to Greta, humans are either food or toys.”

  “Immortality is worth it.” Her voice faltered. “It’s worth anything.”

  “You trying to convince me or convince yourself?”

  She didn’t answer. Her inner struggle played out visibly in the akasha as I watched. Reason lost out to envy, greed, desire. It wasn’t a pretty sight to see. Oranges’ aura shone bright and steady. She knew what she had to do, and she’d demanded the tools to accomplish it. Her lack of concern and desire to surrender her will to others combined with her genetic tendency toward thinness and her need, visible even in her sleep, to work out, to stay in shape. Oranges showed a streak of bleak resolve that might get her through this, but Apples seemed like dead meat.

  “I’ll send one of the girls down with a few pillows and some blankets.”

  Erin took them down for me, and I joined Magbidion in the parking deck. Mags had temporarily ensorcelled the side of his RV to be clear as glass and stood over the stove, cooking pancakes while keeping an eye on Fang.

  “Want some pancakes?”

  “No, thanks.” I circled Fang, and the engine roared to life. “Calm down,” I told the car. “I’m not going to try to open the trunk.”

  Greta’s skeleton, rising through a mass of rats and bats, filled my mind’s eye. The sight of her, standing triumphant over the body of an Emperor, memento mori defeated, the vampiric gender-swapped equivalent of David versus Goliath, was burned into my brain.

  “Anything, yet?”

  “Not yet.” Mags flipped his pancakes out onto a plate, buttered them, and then poured a thick stream of syrup over the top of the stack.

  “You sure you don’t want pancakes? I already fed the girls and I still have batter left over.”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  “Fang?”

  Eric’s Mustang revved its engine once before idling down and turning off. Magbidion won’t walk in front of the car when it’s on, not since it advanced on him when he unwittingly helped Eric enliven it. The mage set his plate on his tiny kitchen table, stepped down from the RV, plastic mixing bowl in hand, and poured the batter directly onto the deck in front of Fang.

  “Can it eat pancake batter?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Mags scrambled back up into the RV and Fang started his engine, rolling over the batter, and then easing back into the parking space. “The contents of people’s stomachs is never left behind. Neither are their clothes. So why not pancake batter?”

  “Any word from Tabitha or Eric?” I paced the deck as I spoke, regretting my decision to turn down Magbidion’s pancakes. He ate them with relish, pausing only to speak.

  “No.”

  “Once we’ve resolved the Lisette issue, you know someone is going to have to fly out there and find out what the hell is going on.”

  “And leave Fang unprotected?”

  Therein lay the rub. If we took Fang with us, Eric would be in danger. If we left Fang here, Eric would be in danger.

  “Then I’ll go to Paris.” I adjusted my tie. “You can stay here with Greta and protect Fang.”

  He winced. “I’m going to have bacon and eggs next. Want any?”

  “Sure.”

  “You like ’em scrambled, right?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Do you want ham or bologna in them?”

  I don’t remember what I told him, I think I said ham, but I wasn’t concentrating on the eggs. Out of nowhere, I was thinking about Dezba, wondering where she was, what she was doing. I’d stayed nearby to help out, but Lisette was captured . . .

  Through the akasha, I observed her. Lisette’s spirit raged, as did her memento mori. Lines of violet and dark red burned through her spirit, etched with sharp yellow barbs of fear. Greta seemed confident she could kill Lisette when she woke up tomorrow, that she’d hit upon the method first thing, and I wondered if there was more to it than Greta was telling me.

  “All those times Eric sent Greta away,” I spoke the thought as I had it, “did you ever wonder what she was doing while she was running around without a chaperone?”

  “She had a chaperone,” Magbidion said softly, moving the eggs around in his frying pan. “Marilyn used to visit her every Tuesday. They’d talk on the phone most days, too, when Marilyn got home from work.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We were both smokers.” Magbidion handed me my eggs. “You’d be surprised how personal chats get when you’re standing outside, smoking in an alley.”

  I know he said “chats” but for a split second, I’d heard it as “cats.” You’d be surprised how personal cats can get when they’re standing outside.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You didn’t know Marilyn was Roger’s thrall either.” Magbidion started frying bacon in the pan. “You’ve got good hearing, Talbot, and you see a lot, but how did you miss that one?”

  “I didn’t miss it,” I said slowly.

  “You knew and you didn’t tell him.” Magbidion dropped the skillet.

  “I wanted to see how long it took Eric to figure it out.” I looked down at the eggs and pushed them away. “And I know Eric better than you. He didn’t really want to know. He rarely does. Besides, I do try to keep our laws.”

  “Laws?”

  “Knowledge gleaned from the akasha is not for those who are blind to its light.”

  “You’re a cold man, Talbot.”

  “I’m male, but I’m not a man, Mags.”

  After setting the hot bacon on a plate upon which he’d placed two paper towels to help soak up the grease, Magbidion cracked eggs in the pan with dexterity born of mystic gestures and precision that comes from working with forces that might blow you apart.

  “So you’re a cool cat then?” Magbidion asked with a grin.

  “Maybe that.” I picked up a piece of the bacon gingerly, taking careful bites followed by rapid chewing to keep from burning my tongue.

  Once his eggs were ready,
Magbidion spread mayonnaise onto two slices of bread and placed an egg on each one. He crumbled bacon atop each egg and looked up at me.

  “Does it bother you that Lord Phillip hasn’t sent a load of goons down here to take Lisette’s body?” he asked.

  “You have no idea.” I stood. “If Eric calls, tell him I went to visit Dezba.”

  “Wait.” Magbidion stopped, frozen in the act of cutting through his fried egg with a fork, the golden yolk spilling out onto the bread. “When are you coming back?”

  “When you see me again, you’ll know.”

  “But we’re watching Lisette and—”

  “And I’m bored, so I’m going out. Look it up under cat.” Extricating myself from behind the little table took more maneuvering than getting behind it had. I caught a flash of red from behind Mags’s back as I passed, energy from the blood tattoo that marked him as Eric’s thrall.

  Eric had once told me he could see the faces of other vampires when he looked at their thralls and concentrated. For me, the akasha makes thralls obvious even though it doesn’t usually give me any idea to which vampire they belong. I rely on their convenient little markings to tell me the rest. Eric’s thralls all have a butterfly tattoo. Lady Gabriella uses a rose. The glowing red tattoo I’d seen on Oranges’ back was a stylized P.

  A young man with a glow on his scalp, beneath his curly black hair, sat at a bus stop reading a newspaper. I’d seen him before, enough times to make out that the tattoo he had was in the shape of an ankh. He wore a pair of Oakland sunglasses with a yellow tint to the lenses and a subtle blue glow—a sure sign of magic. Possibly the same shade of blue Oranges’ collar emitted, but it could have been different.

  As I walked down the street, I noticed a group of people, all with various blood tattoos, sitting inside Carl’s Diner, waiting for their breakfasts. Getting ready for another day of spying on Eric’s business and reporting back to their various masters and mistresses.

  I kept walking, leaving my car parked in the Pollux’s deck and then, two streets over, I left my human form behind, too, padding down the sidewalk as a cat with star emerald eyes. Eyes that would have drawn attention in other places, but never in Void City. The Veil of Scrythax saw to that. Three blocks later, I broke into a run, the city blurring past me as I fled. It was different when Eric was home: interesting, fun, purposeful. But a cat is not a sheepdog. Riding herd on Greta . . . I couldn’t do it anymore. When Eric came back, so would I . . . or maybe I’d even join him in Paris.

  Or maybe, though I found it unlikely, maybe I knew what was going to happen to Greta and I couldn’t bear to break the rules for her, but I was afraid I would if I stayed. What if, after I shared knowledge from the akasha once again, the other Mousers did find a way to exile me completely? Exile that I could end at any time, I could face for another century or two, but exile without end? Unthinkable, unless it was for Eric himself. And even then . . .

  I closed my eyes, running sight-blind, relying only on the wind in my whiskers, the smells, the sounds . . . and then a hand closed around the scruff of my neck and I was jerked up into the air.

  “Well, hello there. Running away from home?”

  A man held me by my scruff in full sunlight, a man with Winter’s features and Winter’s voice, but . . . In. Full. Sunlight. And alive. He sat at a sidewalk table at a coffee shop and opposite him, applying cream cheese to a French toast–flavored bagel, was Father Ike.

  “Winter?”

  “Leave him be, John,” Father Ike said with a disapproving tut. “He’s one of God’s creatures.”

  Winter dropped me on the plastic surface of the tabletop.

  “There we are. No harm done. Can I pour you some cream?” He gestured to a cow-shaped cream pitcher sitting between Father Ike and himself.

  “How?” I meowed.

  “It’s rather easy.” Winter picked up his coffee cup and set it to the side, then poured cream into the saucer. “The milk comes out of the cow’s mouth.”

  “But you’re in full sun and you aren’t burning.”

  “That’s rich.” Winter winked at me. “I’m sitting here not bursting into flame. Most people don’t, you know. Billions of people sit around every day not bursting into flames.” He reached out and skritched the fur under my chin. When he did, his spirit touched mine and I didn’t breathe for three seconds. His spirit felt like . . . Eric’s does each time he plays and sings “Stardust.” “But it’s the talking cat who asks, ‘How do you do that?’” he continued. “That’s rich. It really is.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t pet him, John.” As much as Eric dislikes Winter, he likes Father Ike. Me, I find conversing with a soulless priest to be disconcerting. The edges of where his soul was torn free gaped like wounds in the center of his aura. The bright white edges brought the missing center into sharp and unignorable contrast. At some point, he’d sold his soul . . . for a noble cause, I’m sure, but still . . .

  “Why? Because he could eat me? C’mon, Ike. That’s exactly why I should pet him.” His hands moved over my ears and he scratched behind the left one. I leaned into it. “Besides, I think he likes me.”

  “You’re wearing blue jeans.” He was! He was wearing blue jeans—normal ones—and a decades-old Void City Music Festival T-shirt, white, with the whole phrase “Welcome to the Void City Music Festival” on the front. I peered over the edge to check his shoes. Crocs with socks!

  “So you’re not . . . Winter?”

  “I think that’s a question better fit for a team of doctors, all with the word psycho in their title.” He held out a hand. “John Hawkes. Nice to meet you.”

  “But . . .” He wore glasses instead of contacts and behind them, his eyes were a startling shade of blue that Winter’s colored contacts only approximated. His blond hair seemed more golden brown in full sun, and his skin showed a light but noticeable tan. “But . . .” I held a paw in the air and he shook it lightly.

  “Surprised?” John released my hand. “Winter is pretty upfront about Ebon Winter being a stage name.”

  “But you’re human. Truly human. How?”

  “Again.” He chuckled, and the laugh was the same as Winter’s but warmer, a living thing that could snare a person. People tell me I have a great laugh, but I don’t. Winter has a great laugh. “Billions of people walk around being human . . . every day.”

  “What time did you say the movie started, John?” Father Ike checked his watch.

  “Eleven.”

  “Then we’d best be going if we’re going to finish our run and get cleaned up before we have to leave.”

  “Okay.” John stood up and tucked a five-dollar bill under the edge of his coffee cup. “You want to come?”

  “What’s the movie?” I asked dumbly.

  “It’s a funny western with James Garner. Which one is it again, Ike?”

  “Support Your Local Sheriff,” he answered. “One of my favorites.”

  “Wait. Wait.” I trod in the saucer of cream by accident. “You two have coffee here every morning?”

  “No.” John shook his head. “We usually have coffee at the rectory, but Winter insisted we come here today.”

  “Why?”

  “He said to stop the Mouser and shake its paw.” John held out his hand to help Father Ike out of the white plastic chair in which he sat, but Ike waved him away.

  “And then?”

  “That’s it. I’ve given up arguing with him if his requests don’t seem too unreasonable.”

  Father Ike cleared his throat. “You coming?”

  “What?”

  “To the movie, Talbot,” Father Ike intoned. “Are you coming?”

  “Sure.”

  John reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small walkie-talkie. “Melvin?”

  “Area secured,” a voice called back after a hiss of static. “The path is cleared, Rockstar, you may proceed.”

  And so, we jogged.

  30

  GRETA:

  AND THEN BAD
THINGS HAPPENED

  I woke, frantic to find Telly’s skull. I’d gone to sleep holding it, but when I opened my eyes, it had vanished. After jumping out of the bed and stumbling as I caught my foot in the blankets, I looked around the floor of Dad’s Pollux bedroom. Sheets and bedding hit the walls as I shook and discarded each article without finding the skull. I crawled around the floor on my hands and knees once before checking the obvious place. There he was, hiding under the bed.

  “It’s day three,” I told him. “Now I can kill Grandma.” I planted a quick kiss on his bullet hole and stowed him safely at the center of Dad’s bed. Quickly pulling on one of Dad’s “Welcome to the Void” T-shirts (one that smelled of him and of New Mom) I slipped into the same jeans I’d worn the night before and dashed barefoot down the hall to the stairs.

  The two girls I’d met last night looked up at me from the lobby, struggling with a green futon frame between them. Oranges lost her grip. I rocketed down the stairs and caught the whole thing up over my head by one side, tearing it out of Apples’ grasp.

  “Don’t you dare scuff up Daddy’s floor with that crap!” Apples fell to the floor and Oranges took two steps toward the foyer. “Who said you could bring this in here?”

  “Calm down,” Apples spat from her spot on the floor. “Damn, we were just—”

  I locked eyes with her and shoved a command into her head. “Exhale for two minutes!” Vampires can still command humans if we want, but we don’t automatically win unless they’re our thralls. It’s a will versus will thing, and mine was stronger than Apples’ hands down.

  Unless a human knows circular breathing or is a freaking astronaut or something, even trying to exhale for two minutes will make her pass out. It took Apples way less than two minutes. Her face went red with strain, then her eyes rolled up and she went down. Oranges stayed put.

  “I asked a question,” I snapped.

  “Talbot”—Oranges’ voice was calm and steady, impossible to be angry with—”said if we put floor protectors on the bottom, we could bring the futon in and set it up in the sitting area for a couple of days, Mistress.”