The Debt Collector (Season 1)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  “Tonight, I killed two of Kolek’s men.” I force the words out. “I need to find my mother before Kolek does. That’s the business that won’t wait.”

  Elena shifts as she leans against the desk. I think maybe my plight has softened her. Or perhaps it’s just the low-light, combined with the pounding in my head, and the wishful thinking taking hold. Either way, it’s the truth. Or at least part of it.

  Madam A nods. “I see what you mean about complications. With Elena’s permission, you can pay out to Tilly before you leave. But once you go, Lirium, you’re not welcome back. At least not directly. I can offer you sanctuary here, but I can’t have you leading Kolek, and whatever feud you have with him, back to my doorstep.”

  “Of course.”

  “When you’re done with your business, you can use the safe house again. From there, we’ll decide if we can bring you back in.”

  “Thank you.” Relief makes my knees weak. “That’s very generous of you.”

  “I expect consideration in the form of future transfers.”

  “I’ll be happy to do them.” And I mean it. I have all the life energy I collected in the mob still inside me, and I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my miserable existence hiding within Madam A’s cloistered walls and performing charity hits as penance for everything that’s gone before. I know Valac would approve. Even if it used me up in the end, he would think it was a worthwhile way to spend that life.

  Elena unlocks her arms and strides across the room. As she brushes past me, she says, “Come with me.” She is still angry. But then she has every right to be. I follow after her, my steps light. She has agreed to let me pay out.

  It’s a start.

  Tilly looks the same as I remember, curled up on her side, brown hair spilling across the pillow. She’s a miniature Elena, her face smooth and untroubled in sleep—the way Elena would look if she weren’t scowling at me from the bed next to us.

  There are fewer small bodies in the beds of Madam A’s charity ward than when I was here two weeks ago. I swallow and try not to think about what that means.

  Grace sits in a chair, within reach for the transfer. I ease onto the bed, close to Tilly. She snuggles the pillow a little, but doesn’t open her eyes.

  “Do you need me to wake her?” Elena asks.

  “I don’t think so. But the transfer will probably wake her up, anyway. You might as well do it first, just so she’s not surprised.”

  Elena gets up and leans over Tilly, quietly calling her name and petting her hair. I turn my head, feeling like I’m intruding. The nerves creep back, and my hand trembles slightly where it rests on my leg. I lick my lips and peek back at Elena, to see if she notices.

  Grace stares hard at me. “You all right?”

  I give her a quick nod as Elena moves back to her spot on the empty bed. Tilly’s eyes are open. They’re deep brown and sweet.

  She smiles wide when she sees me. “Hi, Joe!” Her voice is wheezy.

  A fresh pain stabs my chest in the same spot where the poison darts are lodged. “Hi.” I swallow to clear the lump in my throat, then reach my hand out and rest it on her arm. It’s thin, like a twig, under my palm. “I’m going to give you another transfer, if that’s okay?”

  Her eyes grow a little larger, the deep brown almost luminous in the dim light. “Okay.”

  Her arm feels so delicate under my hand. Maybe I should transfer to her forehead, like normal. I’m not sure that her tiny arm can carry the life energy without hurting her.

  I scoot a little closer. “Okay. I’m going to put my hand on your forehead, just like before, all right?”

  She nods.

  I glance at Grace. “How much do you have for her?” Whatever Grace has stored up—my hit from before, plus whatever else she has designated for Tilly since—I plan to double it with my own reserves. Maybe more. I have plenty to give; I just need to make sure I don’t overwhelm Tilly with the transfer. Take it slow, for both our sakes.

  “Two weeks.” Grace leans forward to offer her forehead. I take her hand instead, grasping onto her wrist and pressing my palm flat into hers for good contact. The burn on my hand still stings, but flowing life energy through it should fix that soon enough. She follows suit, holding tight so our hands are locked together. But my stomach is tying in knots. This isn’t just a payout; it’s a mercy hit. I think I have the control now to keep it manageable, but… I’m not sure. My hand quivers against Tilly’s delicate arm, reminding me that I am, in fact, kind of messed up right now. If I lose control—if the burning goodness of the mercy hit is too much—I might pay everything out before I can bring myself to stop. It could drain me completely the way Valac did with his lover. It wouldn’t be a bad way to go, but I’m concerned about Tilly. If I pay out too fast, it might hurt her—and she’s far too frail to take any chances.

  I turn to Elena, whose brow is wrinkled. She can tell something’s wrong.

  “I could use some help,” I say.

  She frowns deeper, and leans forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “How can I help?”

  “I, um…” I’m glad for the low light and hope that the heat rising in my cheeks isn’t obvious to her. “I may not be able to stop.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’ll transfer too much life energy,” Grace says. “Maybe you should wait, Lirium.”

  “No!” I hold onto her wrist tighter, as if she might pull away. “I can do this.” I look in Elena’s deep brown eyes, like Tilly’s, only holding no trust for me. “If it goes on too long, you can pull my hand away. Just break the contact, that’s all I need. We can always do more, I just don’t want to…”

  “…do too much,” she finishes for me. The corners of her mouth have drawn down. I’m giving her a terrible choice—life energy from an asshole debt collector who can’t, apparently, control himself, or no life energy at all for her dying sister.

  I put apology on my face. It might look like pleading, but I really don’t want her to say no. I can’t decide if that’s me being selfish or not. “Please, Elena—”

  “Fine.” She gets up abruptly and goes around to the opposite side of the bed, near Tilly’s head, where my hand will soon rest.

  I give her a sheepish smile. “You may want some gloves,” I say, hoping that doesn’t put her off completely.

  Her grim smile tightens, and she shuffles away on quiet feet to the nursing station.

  Tilly stirs under my hand, sitting up a little, but quickly giving up on that effort and lying back down. She reaches over to pat my hand, which still rests on her arm.

  “You’ll do okay, Joe,” she says.

  Something breaks inside me, but I smile for her. “I’ll do my best, Tilly. Promise.”

  She nods.

  Elena returns, hands encased in silver surgical gloves, the kind with antivirus protection. I tell myself those were the only kind of gloves she could find, not that she thinks I have some disease that could threaten her sister. She takes up her spot by Tilly and kneels down.

  I rest my palm on Tilly’s forehead. “This might take a little while,” I say to both her and Elena. “Not too long, but I want to take it slow. Okay?”

  Tilly’s nods, her soft hair brushing my fingertips as she moves under my palm. Grace gives me a nod as well. I sense Grace’s well of life energy through our clasped palms. As I draw some from her, she seizes up, grasping harder onto mine. The relief on my burned palm is immediate, the life energy flowing through it and easing the pain. I trickle some into Tilly, and Grace’s hand relaxes, a small smile spreading across her face. Her eyes close. She’s feeling it: the warm glow of the mercy hit must somehow bleed through to her. I remember her saying something about that before—how giving feels good.

  I guess she meant that literally.

  The light is too low to see any color in Tilly’s cheeks, but her eyes are closed, and she has a whisper of a smile, too. I close my eyes to focus as well, feeling my connection between the t
wo of them like a live wire that runs right through my core, electrifying me with the heat of it. I open the spigot a little more, feeding energy faster to Tilly, but still keeping it under control.

  The burn of the mercy hit starts low and dials up, like an ember in my chest slowly fanned by fresh air. The pure goodness of it, hot and clean, burns away… everything. All the horrors of the night. All the death and blood and tears are cinders under this sun inside me. My craving for it—for more—is an ache that gnaws as it grows within me.

  I shake my hand loose from Grace’s; I’ve already pulled more from her than I should. As soon as I lose contact with Grace, life energy gushes out of me and into Tilly. I fight the pull, but the flame inside me roars, demanding more. I try to visualize the spigot, but that image falls to ash under the torrent of heat. It feels so good. Every part of me relaxes. A long sigh escapes my lips. Every sensation—the antiseptic smell of the nursing station, the feel of Tilly’s head under my palm, the soft rustling from Elena at the edge of the bed—dims to unimportance as the pleasure washes over me. Only it’s more than pleasure: it’s happiness in a fire that consumes me painlessly. I can’t remember ever feeling this good, even in the previous mercy hits. I wonder if this is how Valac felt at the end. I feel my lips curve up with that thought.

  The pleasure suddenly cuts off, like a blade chopped my hand clean from my body. A blinding pain shoots up my arm, and my eyes fly open. I gasp and stare at my hand, stunned that it’s still attached. Elena’s silver glove clutches my wrist, and she looks at me with wide eyes.

  “Why?” My voice is a cry of pain and anguish. I yank my hand away. “Why did you stop it? I had it under control!” My anger surges at her for stealing the feeling from me, but my words ring false in my ears. I had no control whatsoever. I had completely lost sight of the spigot. My heart stutters, fear crashing in. What have I done? I tear my gaze from Elena. Tilly smiles at me. My shoulders cave with relief. However much I transferred, it hasn’t hurt her.

  “Joe,” Elena whispers, drawing me back. “You’re crying. Are you okay?”

  I reach up to my face. She’s right. It’s wet. Before I can explain, before I even have an explanation in my own head, the room spins. I blink, and my face suddenly plows into the rough, wool blanket over Tilly’s legs. I try to lift myself, but the room spins again, and I’m not sure which direction is up.

  The nausea crashes into me, wave after wave, curling me into a ball. I try to move away, afraid I will throw up on Tilly. I only manage to slide off the bed. My hands are too cramped to stop my fall, and my head hits the polished wooden floor. Blackness rushes in like a tsunami. It drags me under, and the amber light of Madam A’s church is extinguished in one long rush of silence.

  I see ghosts.

  I’m sure they’re ghosts, because Valac and Ophelia are dead. But it doesn’t seem strange, in this dream I’m having, to stand in front of them as if the three of us belong together. Their lips move, and they tell me something, but I don’t know what it is. Because ghosts can’t speak. They don’t have any life energy left, so of course they can’t talk.

  My mind swims up from the hazy dream state. A wool blanket scratches my face and itches along the length of my curled-up body. The smell of antiseptic pricks my nose. I open my eyes. A warm glow of sunshine permeates the paper covering the windows of Madam A’s hospital ward. I draw in a fully-awake breath and realize I’m in the bed next to Tilly’s.

  I crane my neck to look for her. She’s asleep. The light falls softly on her, and she looks like a perfect doll: rosy lips and cheeks, hair fanned in long waves around her. I’m relieved that she looks so well—the life energy I gave her the night before is fighting back the sickness.

  It takes me a moment to realize Elena is in the chair next to Tilly’s bed.

  This jolts me awake, and I struggle to command my creaky body to turn so I can face her. I scramble for something to say, but then I see that she’s sleeping. Her head tips back against the wall, and her hands rest in her lap. The peaceful look on her face is marred by circles under her eyes, but the morning sun makes her face radiant with a hidden light. Like an angel who’s fought some kind of heavenly battle and stopped for a rest, only to fall into the deep, righteous sleep of a warrior.

  Somehow, even from the very beginning, she’s always seen right through to the core of me. I wonder if she sees that I’m trying now. That I want Ophelia’s and Valac’s deaths—and my life—to count for something. If she did, if she peered into whatever soul I might have inside, and she believed it, then maybe… just maybe… it might actually be true.

  She frowns and suddenly leans forward. I duck my head to study the blanket and hope she didn’t catch me staring. I notice that the burn on my hand is nearly healed from last night’s transfer, leaving just a wide red stripe crossing the other two slender ones: a brand from my time in the mob.

  After a moment, Elena says, “You’re awake.”

  I twist to face her. “Yeah.”

  “The nurses thought you might have a concussion, the way your head hit the floor.”

  “Not my smoothest move.” I chance a smile, but she’s not impressed, so I kill it.

  “Grace said you were just exhausted. Or in shock. Something about escaping the mob and a lot of blood.”

  I go back to picking at the blanket. “She’s probably right.” Truth is I passed out from my uncontrolled mercy hit. And not being able to control myself puts me squarely back in the category of asshole debt collector who can’t do mercy hits without passing out. Or dying. Not something I really want to share. I vow to do better next time, especially if Tilly’s involved. And Elena’s watching. Which presumes she’ll let me have a next time. And that I manage to return after finding my mom, like I promised.

  I push myself up to sitting. The wooziness threatens to come back, but I hold it at bay while I swing my feet off the side of the bed.

  “Well,” I say. “I should get going.”

  “To find your mom.” It’s not a question.

  I answer anyway. “Yeah.”

  “I thought maybe you could use some help with that.”

  I look up. She has that serious look, the one I remember from the first time we met, when she was just angry at me, throwing shoes and weak curses. Before she decided I was something to loathe. Her deep chocolate brown eyes stare into mine and remind me of when I got lost in them the first time I saw her.

  I have to look away. “That’s really nice of you, but—”

  “I work in the Department of Health and Life.”

  I swing back to stare hard at her. “What?” I heard her, but my brain hasn’t quite processed it yet. “You’re a bean counter?” My mind trips back over that first day. Once I figured out she wasn't really a sex worker, I thought she was bait for the mob… but when I asked, she dodged telling me who she worked for. Which makes complete sense now. Bean counters stay off the grid just like debt collectors. Otherwise people tend to hunt them down, though for different reasons. And some of the same ones—a lot of people lose their loved ones to the fantastically well-named Department of Health and Life.

  “I don’t work in Actuarials or Assessments.” She looks at her hands, maybe trying to decide how much to tell me. “I’m in Data Quality, not that it matters. The point is I have access to government records.”

  “Holy shit.” For a moment, I’m too stunned to speak, flummoxed by the possibilities. “You work in government records,” I repeat, like somehow saying it will make it more real.

  “It’s not a crime,” she says.

  I’m desperate to ask her details, but something doesn’t quite fit. “How old are you?”

  Her hands stop working each other. “Twenty-one.”

  I snort-laugh.

  “What?”

  She’s not happy with me, so I rein it in and give her a small smile to soften my words. “You’re just really bad at lying.” She keeps glaring. “I mean, I don’t care how old you are, I just… you seem really y
oung to be working in government records.”

  “I’ve been there for three years.” She stands up and steps closer, so I get off the bed to meet her. The apple scent from her hair wafts over the chilled clinical smell of the ward, but her eyes aren’t warm. “In that time, I’ve been promoted twice. I’m the best code jockey in the Data Quality department. And my government record says that I’m twenty-one.”

  I’m no good at judging ages, but either she’s the youngest-looking twenty-one-year-old I’ve met or… my eyes go wide. “You falsified your own record?”

  She bites her lip, something that does a dance on my emotions, veering them between awe and the desire to untuck her lip from between her teeth. She debates something in her head as she scans my face, and I work hard to meet her gaze and not stare at her lips.

  “I’m actually eighteen,” she says. “Or I will be. In a few weeks.”

  I gape. Not because she’s young, but because slashing into government records is a major felony, one I don’t have the first clue how to commit. Especially not at barely eighteen. Back when I was waiting for my eighteenth birthday, I was living on the streets, trying to get into the Agency. “How did you manage to—”

  “I was fifteen when my parents died,” she cuts me off. “Tilly was seven. She was just a little kid. Child Protective Services would have split us up. I had already been slashing into government servers for fun for a couple of years. My mother was—” She stops, looking hesitant, like she’s still uncertain about telling me this.

  “Your mom was what?” I ask quietly.

  She sighs and seems resigned to going all in. “She was a talented programmer. She taught me how to code, but she didn’t know about my back door work. I kept it down low. If anyone knew, she would have been fired. But when my mom and dad both died, I needed a job. And a way to keep Tilly. And no one would hire a fifteen-year-old, no matter how well I could slash their failsafes.”

  “So you changed your birthdate.” I’m in complete awe.

  “And coded up a resume that got me a job in Data Quality.”