• • •
Connie stood on the deck of the ship, leaning on the railing, staring into the ocean depths. The waves lapped against the ship with rhythmic beats, and she imagined all the wonders lurking beneath the surface. Wonders and horrors she’d seen up close and personal plenty of times. Possibly too many times. There had to be a limit of how much adventure could be crammed into one life. She might’ve hit hers.
She’d been at peace with the caretaker mantle for most of her life. As a kid, she’d loved it. Back then, foiling international spy rings and thwarting alien invasions had seemed like endless fun. In her twenties, it’d become second nature, just the way life was. Now, in her thirties, she’d had her ups and downs, but she’d managed to find a balance.
Maybe that’d all been a lie she told herself. She might have only been delaying the inevitable. Assuming she could stop, hand off the job to someone else, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d been so eager to get rid of the responsibility not that long before, and now she dreaded the idea. She’d been saving the day so long, what would she do if she didn’t have to?
Who the hell was she if not Constance Danger Verity?
The beautiful, awful song of the deep dwellers echoed in her head. She was immune to mind control, but it didn’t prevent the tune from lingering, whispering in the back of her head. It was too bad she couldn’t be hypnotized. Jumping into the ocean was a way of solving all her problems. Beneath the depths, there’d be nothing to worry about.
“Connie, what are you doing?” asked Tia.
Connie noticed she’d climbed halfway over the railing. It was difficult to hear anything as the song whistled sweetly in her ears.
Tia and Hiro were running over. They shouted something.
“It’s all right,” said Connie with a smile. “I’ve got it figured out.”
She wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t hold her breath forever, but she could hold it long enough to figure something else out. A little thing like air wasn’t something to fret over.
Hiro shouted something about mind control, but that was silly. Connie was immune to mind control.
She jumped, but hands caught her, pulling her back onto the ship. They said something, but the song of the deep dwellers swallowed their useless chatter. She slipped free. Tia and Hiro stood between her and salvation.
Hiro moved forward, hands held out to her. She couldn’t hear him, but she could read his lips. “You’re not in control of yourself. You need to come inside.”
She laughed. The sound echoed faintly in her ears. Mad and desperate. “Get out of my way, Hiro.”
He tried to tackle her. She sidestepped and, on autopilot, broke his arm. She felt his radius snap, heard his soft scream from some distant place. To ensure he was out of commission, she broke his tibia in two places. He fell to the side, clutching his shattered leg, no longer a concern.
“Jesus, Connie.”
Tia’s voice was louder. The song was fading. Once it was gone, only uncertainty would remain. Connie pushed her way past Tia, but Tia grabbed Connie by the shirt.
Connie whirled, ready to unleash the dreaded seven-headed dragon strike. Tia flinched but didn’t let go.
Connie pulled the blow at the last moment. What should’ve exploded Tia’s heart and lungs only knocked her off her feet. She rolled around on the deck, gasping for air.
“Oh god.” The song of the deep dwellers disappeared. Connie checked on Tia. “Oh god. I’m sorry. It must’ve been a side effect of the psycho-amplifier,” said Connie. “Must’ve weakened my psychic defenses enough for the flute to affect me.”
“Ya think?” asked Tia breathlessly.
“Are you okay? Do any of your internal organs feel . . . squished?”
“I’m okay. I think.” Tia sat up, groaning. “Damn. It was one punch. Why do my toes hurt?”
“You’re lucky. Another pound or two of pressure and . . .” Connie didn’t want to finish that sentence. “You should be fine in an hour or two.”
“Yeah, terrific,” grunted Hiro, cradling his twisted arm. His leg bent at an ugly angle. “Oh, and you broke my fucking limbs over here. Just in case you should care.”
“Sorry, Hiro. I just acted by reflex.”
“Reflex.” He shrugged and yelped. “Cool. Not like I needed my arm or leg as an international ninja-slash-thief.”
Crew carried Hiro away, and Connie took a few minutes to clear her head on deck. Tia, despite the wobble in her legs from Connie’s strike, stayed beside her. There wasn’t much Tia could do if Connie surrendered to the impulse to take another swim, but Connie was fine now. The urge had passed.
She still stayed away from the railings as a precaution.
“Maybe I do need to slow down,” said Connie.
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” replied Tia.
Connie hated the idea. She was barely getting a handle on her life. She’d found the right balance. But here she was again, trying to figure it all out. That was how it worked. Life wasn’t something you pinned down. It was always shifting. The thing you wanted wasn’t the thing you thought you wanted. Except when it was, and then you couldn’t have it.
Connie took a step toward the ocean. Tia put a hand on her shoulder.
“Maybe we should go inside and have a cup of coffee or something,” she said.
Connie nodded. “Sounds good.”
They turned away from the gentle lapping of the welcoming depths.
17
Although she would never have admitted it to anyone, Connie didn’t feel safe until she reached dry land. It was only when she was a few hours from the ocean that her head finally cleared.
Larry suggested she take a break after the ordeal of her last mission, and she almost refused. That instinct to hurl herself into the fray was so strong, even knowing he was right. But some rest wouldn’t hurt, and Siege Perilous would be fine for a couple of days. If things got really bad, they had her number.
Neither Byron or Connie felt like cooking. They went to an Italian place with soft lighting and a fair amount of authenticity, which was to say that the piped music was operatic and there was a mural of a gondolier on one wall. There was also another of a bullfighter from when the place was an authentic Mexican restaurant, which did challenge the tenuous illusion. But Byron had heard good things, so Connie gave it the benefit of the doubt.
So far, Connie and Byron had talked about nothing important—the weather, her flight, his job. They smiled and laughed and pretended they weren’t avoiding the subject of her latest adventure. It might have worked, but Connie’s life was mostly adventure. She didn’t have a lot to talk about beyond that.
She scanned the menu, listening as Byron went into the latest bit of office politics. “. . . so, Barbara says to Gene that she doesn’t appreciate him getting extra breaks just because he smokes. And Gene shoots back that he gets his job done and what does it matter how many breaks he takes? You can imagine how she took that.”
Connie nodded. “Sure, sure.”
Although she couldn’t. She had a hell of an imagination, but she’d never had an office job. Byron’s stories made her increasingly glad she hadn’t. Navigating a nine-to-five job seemed every bit as perilous as jumping into mysterious transdimensional vortices but with none of the satisfaction of saving the day.
“Sorry, I know it’s boring,” said Byron.
“It’s your life. I’m not bored by it.”
He closed his menu, folded his hands under his chin, and smiled skeptically.
“Okay, so it’s a little boring,” she admitted, “but I like boring.”
He stared into her eyes with that slight smile.
“Not that I’m calling you boring,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Just your job. Not that it’s bad that your job is boring. Not that you think it’s boring.”
“It’s a little boring,” he said.
She exhaled with relief. “Oh, thank God. I love you, Byron, but I don’t know if I could do it.”
“I’m pretty sure you can do anything.”
“Everybody has their limits.”
She took his hand. She needed these moments, few and far between recently, where the world wasn’t on the verge of exploding. The siren song of the ocean depths couldn’t compete with this.
She needed Byron. Not because he was ordinary, though that was a nice perk. She needed his stability, his steady intelligence, his reassuring hand on hers.
The server appeared with drinks.
“One iced tea, one diet cola,” he said curtly.
He set them on the table with hard thuds, spilling a bit over the top.
“We didn’t order these,” said Byron.
“Are you sure?” The server sounded disgusted by the very idea.
“We haven’t ordered anything yet.”
“My mistake.”
The server took the drinks back. Connie noticed the scars on his knuckles, his ever-present snarl that was unusual for someone who made a living based on tips. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked to another table, and the shaking heads of the customers there indicated he had the wrong one again.
There were bad servers in this world. It didn’t have to mean anything. Not everything was suspicious.
“How was your adventure?” asked Byron.
She’d been dreading the question, considering what she’d say. He had a right to know things, but she didn’t want him worrying.
“Oh, fine. The usual.”
It was a clumsy dodge. One he wouldn’t fall for.
“That’s good,” he said, squeezing her hand.
It wasn’t that easy.
It couldn’t be that easy.
“There was this sea monster god, but I put it to sleep with a magic flute,” she said.
“Uh-hmm.” He opened his menu again. “I’m thinking about the spaghetti, but it feels like such a wasted opportunity. You can get spaghetti anywhere, but I really love spaghetti.” He glanced around. “Is it just me or is this place really slow?”
“It’s not you.”
A server in a red vest walked briskly by. Byron tried to get her attention.
“Sorry. Not my table, sir,” she said.
Her accent smacked of the Mishar Tatar dialect, possibly from Nizhegorod Oblast. There was no law saying everyone in the restaurant had to be Italian. It wasn’t suspicious.
And the scar on the woman’s neck, it was just a scar.
Russian people with bullet scars were allowed jobs as servers. It didn’t mean anything.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” said Byron.
Connie wanted to, but all the not-suspicious things happening there had her curious. She was probably only imagining things. It was a hazard of her life. But she might not be imagining things. That was also a hazard of her life.
“Let’s give it a minute,” she said.
He shrugged. “Maybe if I set down the menu, they’ll get the idea.”
“You know, you can ask about my adventures,” she said. “More details, if you like. I don’t want you to be afraid to do that.”
“I know.”
There was an edge in his voice. She almost missed it because she was busy watching the serving staff moving among the tables without doing anything, just going through the motions.
“I’m just not sure what the rules are, Connie,” said Byron. “One day, you don’t want to talk about it. The next, you do.”
“I want you to be comfortable with what I do.”
“I am. Mostly. And maybe that’s the best we can expect.”
A smartly dressed dark woman flanked by several bodyguards entered the restaurant.
“Ah, damn it,” said Connie.
“Know her?” asked Byron.
“The Rajmata of Chirayam. I didn’t know she was in town.”
The Rajmata was led to her table.
Connie signaled a server. “Not my table,” he said, adjusting the cloth napkin hanging over his arm. She glimpsed the barest hint of a knife in his hand under the napkin as he wandered away. It might have been the traditional sacrificial dagger of the Cult of Mot. It might have been a butter knife.
“I just want some goddamn water,” she mumbled.
“I think we should go,” said Byron, dropping his napkin on his plate. “I’ll settle for a cheeseburger right now.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, “but I might need a minute here to take care of this.”
He glanced at the Rajmata. “Is something happening?” He hunched over the table and whispered, “Is this a thing? Are you about to do a thing?”
“Yeah, probably. Just act natural.”
“Yeah, okay. Natural.” He straightened, folded his hands on the table, and looked directly at her. It was like his neck was stuck facing forward, and he didn’t blink. “Is this why the service is so lousy?” he asked, barely moving his lips from the fake smile plastered across his face.
She nodded as she caught the attention of a lanky, swarthy server of indeterminate ethnicity with an immaculately trimmed a la souvarov mustache.
“Not my—”
“Can we just get some breadsticks?” she interrupted.
He tried to stare her down, but when that didn’t work, he grunted. “Yes, ma’am. One moment.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at the Rajmata and rushed to the kitchen.
“We should do something this weekend. Maybe get out of town,” she said.
Byron nodded stiffly as if afraid his head might fall off. “Will that interfere with your work at Siege Dangerous?”
“Perilous. And they can get on without me for a few days. And if they can’t, not really my problem. Benefit of being my own boss.”
It’d do her good to not worry about that stuff. If she was slowing down, it wouldn’t be so bad with Byron around. Her dilemma with normality wasn’t rooted in fear of boredom. It was the great unknown of not being an adventurer. A quiet weekend with Byron would be just the thing to remind her there was more to living than derring-do.
“There’s this cottage in the mountains I sometimes rent. It’s beautiful. Nothing around for miles.”
“Miles away from civilization? I have bad luck with the great outdoors. The last time I went camping, I had to keep the peace between a tribe of bigfoots and leprechauns.”
“Leprechauns are real? I’m only sort of surprised that bigfoots exist, but leprechauns, that’s weird.”
“It’s even weirder when you consider I was in North Dakota at the time. Tons of leprechauns in North Dakota. Don’t know why.”
The steward presented the Rajmata a selection of wines, all probably poisoned. The maître d’ watched with burning intensity. He clutched a pistol under his pile of menus.
“How about a trip to the beach?” said Byron.
“I hate the beach,” she replied. “Shark attacks.”
“I thought those were exceedingly rare.”
“Oh, they are,” she said. “Sometimes, it’s giant squids. The warriors of Atlantis. A phantom U-boat where the ghostly crew are just smugglers in cosplay. And another where the ghosts are actually ghosts.”
“I don’t know. A bed and breakfast, then?”
She smiled. “That sounds good. That might work.”
“No bad experiences with those?” he asked.
“Some, but how many B&Bs can there be that are run by vampires? Not more than two, I have to assume. Now that I think about it, Tia and Hiro went to this place a couple of months ago. She called it charming.”
The Rajmata sniffed her glass and nodded approvingly.
The server returned with a basket of breadsticks and tossed it unceremoniously on the table.
“Thanks,” said Connie. “Oh, one more thing.”
Connie grabbed his wrist and twisted it around his back. With her free hand, she threw her plate across the table to knock the glass of wine from the Rajmata’s hand.
Her server broke out of her wrist lock. He ignored Connie, charging the Rajma
ta with a horrible scream. Connie stuck out her foot and tripped him. She snatched his dagger as he fell and hurled it into the hand of the maître d’, who dropped his gun with a yelp.
The neck-scarred assassin leapt at Connie, who sidestepped and whipped the tablecloth around her opponent, spilling breadsticks in the air. She used the assassin’s momentum against her and slammed her head into a table, breaking it in two and knocking her senseless.
The Rajmata’s bodyguards sprang into action. The fight was mostly over, but they managed the cleanup, dragging the assassins away.
Connie found the real staff tied up in the back of the kitchen.
“It seems, Ms. Verity, that once again I owe you my life,” said the Rajmata.
“Don’t mention it.”
Byron offered Connie a breadstick. “I managed to save this one for you.”
“My hero.” She took a bite of the cold, stale breadstick, chewed twice, and swallowed. “So, that burger place down the street, huh?”
“I’ve heard adequate things,” he said.
She threw the breadstick away. “Sounds like heaven.”
18
The next day, Tia came over to help Connie pack. Although her help consisted of watching while sitting on the bed. “I think this is a great idea,” she said.
“Of course it’s a good idea,” said Connie.
“I said great. Not good.” Tia pointed to Connie’s half-filled suitcase. “Is that all you’re taking with you?”
“It’s only the weekend,” said Connie.
“I thought you might pack some surprises. You know? Sexy surprises.”
“Oh, please. Like a lacy nighty? A French maid’s outfit? Does that sound like me? And Byron’s not really into that kind of thing.”
“That’s what they all say,” replied Tia. “But you should see Hiro’s face light up when I become the Black Tigress, naughty assassin queen.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” said Connie. “And Black Tigress sounds vaguely racist. And doesn’t that border on cultural appropriation?”
“I’m black and my boyfriend’s a ninja. I’m allowed. You really never did anything like that with Hiro?”
“What I did and didn’t do with Hiro isn’t a conversation I’m interested in having right now. Or ever.”
Constance Verity Saves the World Page 15