“I said I would probably help,” Alex said. “I just wanna know what it is before I do it.”
“First things first,” Emily said, putting her hand on Katya’s shoulder, and getting a puzzled look in response. “Katya, I need you to trust me. I think something important is going to happen shortly, and I need you to stay here and take care of it while Alex and I nip off for just a few minutes. Will you do that for me?”
“I’ve got psychic defenses installed by Audits telepaths, and another, deeper layer that the Black Sun implanted,” Katya said coolly. “You can’t manipulate me.”
“I’m not. I didn’t even try,” Emily protested. “I’m just asking, as a friend and a fellow member of the Rescue Alex from the Outer Dark Club.”
“That’s just so embarrassing,” Alex muttered. “Can we please change that name? I’m not even in the Outer Dark anymore.”
“You want me to stay here?” Katya gave Emily a look that he found impossible to categorize. “I’m supposed to let you take Alex off to wherever, to do whatever, with no explanation?”
“That’s about right,” Emily agreed. “Will you please?”
“Fuck no,” Katya said. “But I’ll meet you halfway.”
“That’s very kind,” Emily said. “What is exactly is halfway?”
“You can take Alex to do whatever,” Katya said. “But I’m coming with you.”
“Oh, if you insist,” Emily said. “It really would be better if you stayed, though. I’m sure everything would work out much better. My precognitive sources just insist that…”
“Where are you getting precog information from?” Katya asked. “You’ve got Vivik, but I don’t see any precogs wandering around here.”
“I have my sources,” Emily said coyly. “Some of them might also be other people’s sources.”
“You’ve got this game all figured out, don’t you?” Katya shook her head. “Turning a cartel pool. You’re gonna get yourself killed, you know.”
“I already died,” Emily said. “I’m still doing pretty well, I think.”
“Damn Anathema,” Katya said, without malice. “You sure you want to do this?” Katya said, turning her attention to Alex. “Whatever idea she has, it isn’t good.”
“I’m going to hear her out,” Alex said. “I owe her that much.”
“You owe me a great deal more than that, and much more than I plan to ask for,” Emily said. “This is just a teeny-tiny favor. Think of it as a down payment.”
“Oh. That’s good to know,” Alex said sourly. “Really good.”
***
Eerie wandered through the Ether like she was wandering aimlessly through the woods, and the Ether hurried to accommodate her, solidifying beneath her sneakers. She willed herself to be where Alex was.
The actualization of this desire was complicated by not knowing where Alex was.
She blushed at the memory of what would happen when she finally saw him again, and also because she knew that he was probably somewhere with Emily. Eerie still felt jealous when she thought about them together, though she did not mean to be.
Her Kismet Protocol had a talent for fulfilling impossible requests.
Making the impossible happen was the express purpose of the protocol.
Lacking a destination, her protocol made an educated guess.
Eerie put her left foot down on the coalesced Ether, and then her right on the grass of the commons at the Academy.
The grass was damp. The great oak trees bent and creaked in the wind.
It was too quiet.
The Academy had a hum that she had grown intimately familiar with, growing up here, a background pastiche of human activity and conversation, ventilation systems and utilities. All of that had gone silent.
“Alex?” she called, even though she already knew that this was the wrong place, because she would find that out as soon as she finished asking. “Katya?”
There was no reply. She considered searching, but something inside her was insistent that she was alone here.
Eerie stepped back into the Ether and tried again.
There was no traffic, so emerging in the middle of one of Central’s main intersections was not as dangerous as it first seemed, but it startled her to find herself in the middle of the road, surrounded by abandoned cars, and she hurried to the sidewalk.
She walked the half-block to the main entrance to the Administrative building, a massive stone rectangle that looked more like a bunker than an office, and knew that this time she was not alone.
Not the right people, but people.
“Halt! Hands in the air,” a voice barked from the pedestrian overpass above. “Who the fuck are you?”
She could hardly see the person behind the gun, but the voice sounded like it belonged to a woman. A man with a tablet and puzzled expression stood next to the woman above her, squinting at Eerie as if she were very distant.
“My name is Eerie,” she said, feeling that honesty was the best policy, despite how it all would work out. “The Auditors have an office here, right? I need to go check and see if my…if Alex is there.”
“Eerie what?” The man frowned at his tablet. “Is that a nickname?”
“No! Well, yes, but…”
“Holy shit. It’s actually on the list! No last name,” the man said, sounding mildly amazed. “You’re not a cartel member?”
“I’m a student at the Academy,” Eerie said, shaking her head. “I live there.”
“You should have stayed,” the man said, turning to his companion. “If she even moves, shoot her. This is the Changeling.”
The woman said nothing, but the way she held the ugly black gun changed.
“I just need to check for Alex,” Eerie said. “It’ll only take a minute.”
“Who the hell is Alex?” The man looked exasperated. “What are you talking about?”
“Alex, he’s…well, he’s…” Eerie blushed. “My friend. My boyfriend.”
“You are out of your mind,” the man said. “You don’t have to worry about him. You’ve got much bigger things to worry about, trust me.”
He glanced at his tablet, and then nodded.
“Okay,” he said to the woman at his right. “They’re sending somebody.”
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Eerie said. “Could I please just come inside for a second?”
“Someone will take you inside,” the man said, smirking. “They’re already on their way.”
“Oh. Good!”
She knew it wouldn’t be, but it felt important to stay hopeful. Even though ‘hope’ wasn’t a real thing, she liked the idea.
She waited, her arms starting to ache.
Two men hurried out of the glass doors at the front of the building, wearing masks and carrying guns and handcuffs and other things that made Eerie nervous.
“I don’t need the police or anything,” she said. “I just want to check one thing.”
“Alexander Warner, right? The Auditor? He’s listed as MIA, you know,” the man said, chuckling. “Captured in the field.”
“I know that,” Eerie said. “I made a whole club out of it.”
“I have no idea what you are saying, but you seem nice enough. I almost feel sorry for you,” the man said, not looking very sorry to Eerie. “Let me give you a piece of advice, girl. Stay talkative when they take you inside. I’m not sure that it could go well for you – this is a war, after all – but it can always go worse.”
“Nothing that bad is going to happen,” Eerie said. “To me, I mean.”
The two men moved closer. One of them had a baton, while the other was holding a bundle of white zip-ties.
She knew she would be okay, but she also knew how it could have gone, what could have happened to her inside that building. Knowing certain things is a great deal like experiencing certain things, the good and the bad alike, and that made her nervous, though she did not want to be. Eerie started to sweat, and to shift anxiously.
“Hold still
,” the woman commanded. “Don’t move.”
“I should go,” Eerie blurted. “I don’t need to be here, do I? Alex isn’t here.”
“I told you, he’s MIA,” the man said. “This place is currently occupied by the Thule Cartel, anyway, so why would he be here?”
The two men were getting close, and Eerie felt tingly and a little faint, and very frightened, though she wasn’t sure for whom.
“I wish you had told me that first,” Eerie said. “You could have made this easier.”
“Be careful,” the man called to the two men below. “She’s an odd one, but according to the files…”
“Cooperate and everything will be fine,” one of the masked men said, grabbing her wrist and forcing it behind her back.
“I hate that!” Eerie shouted, struggling. “You’re hurting me, and you don’t need to!”
The man laughed and wrenched her shoulder, and it still hurt where Alistair had done the same thing, back in the Outer Dark, and she started to cry, kicking and fighting as best as she could.
The other man grabbed her around the neck, while her wrists were pushed together behind her back, and she could not breathe, and it was all too much.
Eerie panicked.
The struggle continued for a few more seconds, and in that time, she was truly frightened.
Even though she always knew how it ended.
The man behind her nearly had her hands in a zip-tie when he started to cough. He was choking and on his knees a moment later. The man who had grabbed her around the neck took a second longer, but he tumbled to the ground when it finally started, his lips already turning blue around the edges.
“You should have just told me he wasn’t here,” Eerie said, rubbing her neck and giving the man on the walkway a resentful look. “I don’t like this sort of thing.”
The man up on the footbridge stared at Eerie for a moment, and then nodded to the woman beside him in a distracted manner, as if it were an afterthought.
The woman took aim and pulled the trigger.
Eerie did not understand guns, or like them at all, but the Kismet Protocol understood everything she did not, and knew just what to do.
The gun shuddered and made a great deal of noise, and then white smoke started to seep out of the top. The woman swore and pulled at a lever on the side of the gun.
“What did you do?” The man’s voice was quiet, and the expression on his face had changed to something Eerie had seen before, realization turning slowly to fear. “How did you do that?”
Eerie did not bother to answer, because that would not have helped anyone. She only ever needed a few seconds of calm, anyway.
She stepped back into the Ether so that she did not have to watch the two men she had poisoned die.
Not that she meant to hurt them. It was just one of the things about being a Changeling that she could not control. Eerie always had to be careful about who she touched, and who touched her.
Which brought her thoughts back to Alex, and where he might be.
She wandered the Ether, rubbing her sore shoulder and trying to decide.
Then she got an idea, and with that, she had a destination.
Four
Day One
You’ll need to help her until you get to the Far Shores, at least, Sofia Morales-North thought, concentrating on the photo of Madison on her desk. Ms. Levy can’t do it all by herself. You’ll probably have to help her at the camp tonight, because you won’t make it all the way to the Far Shores today.
Okay, mom, Madison thought, shifting in her seat, grimacing at the effort telepathy took through the troubled Ether. It’s weird that she knows about me, though. I don’t know what she’ll do, now that it isn’t a secret.
That’s the important thing about secrets. You need to know when to keep them, and just the right moment to tell. Some secrets are better left unsaid, darling, but some are keys, waiting for the right lock.
I guess.
She was going to find out eventually. This was a perfect opportunity to reveal your true talent, Maddy, Sofia thought. Don’t let it worry you. Ms. Levy might not like it, but what can she do? She needs your help.
She really does. Madison felt distant, a paradox in telepathic rapport, where distance was not meant to be an issue. It’s hard to talk, mom. Is there anything else?
Eerie suddenly walked into the middle of the room, stepping out of nowhere, and Sofia nearly dropped the framed photo of her daughter.
Nothing, dear, Sofia thought, setting the picture down carefully on her desk. Just be careful.
I will.
I must go, Sofia thought, pulling herself together as the Changeling fixed her unnatural eyes on her. We will talk soon.
What happened, mom? I can feel something…
An unexpected opportunity, Sofia thought, rising in greeting. I’ll tell you more when I know it.
Madison disappeared reluctantly from her mind, though Sofia knew she was disappointed, and would have preferred to listen in. Sofia was proud of her daughter and her composure.
“Eerie, welcome,” Sofia said, walking around her desk. “I did not expect you.”
Sofia felt giddy, as she always did, when something she had not seen in her dreams happened.
It was a little worrisome when her prescience failed her, but it also quickened her pulse. It meant something big was about to happen. Sofia had not seen it coming when Henry proposed to her, for example – not by precognition, in any case, though she suspected in the usual way for women – or when she had been invited to join the Sewing Circle.
“Hi Sofia,” Eerie said, the melodic tone Sofia associated with the Changeling substituted for something somber and perhaps more poised. “I like your office. Your desk and stuff make you look important.”
Sofia took Eerie’s hands and guided her to a chair.
Her hands tingled when she touched the Changeling.
“Thank you, Eerie,” Sofia said, settling into the chair beside Eerie, rather than returning to her desk. “I’m sorry I’ve never invited you to come visit.”
“That’s okay,” Eerie said. “We aren’t friends.”
“We aren’t?” Sofia smiled. “That’s too bad.”
“That makes this easier,” Eerie said. “I hate asking friends for favors. Friends are more important than what they can do for you. Don’t you think?”
“I agree,” Sofia said, keeping her puzzlement off her face. “Has something happened, Eerie? You seem to have changed since we last spoke.”
“I hope so,” Eerie said. “Who wants to stay the same forever?”
“No one, I suppose. Do you want to tell me what is going on?”
“Not really. I don’t want to help you any more than I must.”
“How forthright!” Sofia laughed. “Why wouldn’t you want to help me? We were together in the Sewing Circle for years.”
“I like you okay,” Eerie said. “Your husband is a bad guy, though. Not to you, I mean, but to a friend of mine, and some other people I don’t care about. You know what I mean.”
“I have no idea,” Sofia said coldly. “Are you accusing him of something?”
“Not really. Just saying. I didn’t come here about him, or about you. I need a favor.”
“You said that already, although you’ve done very little to convince me to help you.”
“I don’t need to convince you,” Eerie said. “You know I can make it up to you.”
“I don’t even know what you want! How can you possibly know what it might be worth to me?”
“You must know about your son. Kevin. The one with the cool hair,” Eerie said, gesturing at her own disheveled locks. “You dream about this sort of thing, right? That’s what Anastasia said, once.”
Putting aside her reservations about Anastasia knowing such a thing, and her even greater reservations about Anastasia just so happening to casually mention it to the Changeling, Sofia was troubled.
The dreams had troubled her, of course.
Like most precognitives, she was nearly blind where her immediate family was concerned.
She could see the ripples they created, though, if an event in their lives was important enough to have an impact on others. Sofia was fortunate, in a way, that her family was so crucial to Central and the Hegemony. Any sort of real harm coming to her husband or children would have vast ramifications, and that was the kind of thing she did dream about.
She knew the chances were not good for her eldest child, Kevin. She did not how or why, she merely saw the possible consequences for the likely heir to the North Cartel, political and otherwise, and felt the worst kind of powerlessness. It was like watching one of her children be hit by a car from an upstairs window, or on a video feed, unable to help or intervene, but so aware of the likely and awful outcome.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sofia said, the lie coming to her lips while her brain was still stunned. “What about Kevin? Is something going to…?”
“I only have a week, so let’s not pretend,” Eerie said. “You know what I mean. He will probably die, if nothing changes.”
“Die?” Sofia felt a chill come over her, as if she had left a window open just behind her. “You must be joking.”
“That would be a mean thing to do. I don’t like jokes very much, especially mean jokes.”
“What do you mean? How…what happens?”
“I’m not sure, because I’m not there when it happens. I find out later, because it’s important.”
Sofia stood abruptly, and started to pace the room, aware that she was giving her guest a psychological advantage, but unable to contain herself or her anxiety further.
“I’m sorry, Eerie, but this is all very hard for me to accept.”
“It will probably happen. Almost for sure,” Eerie said solemnly. “You know that.”
“I might,” Sofia said, turning her back so the Changeling could not see her face. “Imagine how that would make me feel, as his mother.”
“I can’t,” Eerie said. “I don’t get it at all. But I don’t like to lose things, so maybe it’s like that?”
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 10