He looked only at Calliope, his mouth spread into a toothless smile as he spoke: “The ardent warrior bade his coursers wheel,” he continued in his crackling voice, and he turned his wet gaze on Vikous with something like pity. “Trampling in dust the feeble and the brave.” His gaze lowered and he made a simple gesture. Calliope felt the air tense like a stretched muscle.
Vikous flew to the side as though he were made of straw. The impact of his body against the painted cinder-block wall of the diner sounded like a baseball bat against a kneecap. He hung there for several moments; then, just as suddenly, he fell to the floor, utterly still.
“The feeble and the brave,” said the shrunken man in his onionskin voice. “Truly, Vikous was both.” He smiled, the skin around his mouth crinkling like old paper. “I suppose that would make me the ardent warrior.” The old man turned his bulbous eyes back to Calliope, pivoting neatly on his heel and toe. “Hello, dear. I am called Faegos.” He executed a tight but shallow bow. “I’m afraid I need a bit of your time.”
The storm outside had subsided as quickly as it had come, once the fight was over. The tall, muffled man, still silent, had rummaged through the destruction and salvaged two reasonably intact chairs for Calliope and the one who called himself Faegos to use. These he positioned in the center of the cleared section where Vikous had been standing, setting them facing each other and adjusting both very precisely, even minutely, until he was satisfied, at which point he again withdrew out of immediate notice. Faegos pulled himself nimbly and easily into his chair, moving like a gymnast despite his age-ravaged appearance, and gestured for Calliope to take the opposite seat. His wizened face with its protuberant brown eyes was calm, confident—polite, in a slightly amused way.
Calliope was slowly starting to hate him more than she was worried about what was going to happen to her.
“Have a seat, my dear.”
“I’d rather . . .”—gougeoutyoureyeballsandbreakyourlegsandkillyouandcryandcryand—she blinked—“ . . . stand, thanks.”
His head tilted, his face a mix of stern mocking and pity one might use on a disobedient but somewhat mentally handicapped child. “Calliope,” he drawled, “please. Sit.”
An iron band ratcheted tight on her mind at the words, dragging her to the chair. Pulling against the compulsion as much as possible, Calliope grabbed the chair and dragged it back to her, turning it backward and straddling it, her back straight. From its original position, she would have been forced to see Vikous’s body just to the left of the old gnome sitting across from her; from the new angle, he was merely a disturbing shadow on her peripheral vision. She tried to push any thoughts about that out of her mind and kept her focus narrowed down to her growing anger.
Faegos’s swathed assistant had started toward her as soon as she moved his precisely placed chair, but subsided at a negligent motion from the man’s knobby hand. Faegos’s eye ridge, as hairless as the rest of him, raised in mild amusement as she sat. “You are, I trust, comfortable?”
Don’t look at the pool of blood spreading out like little fingers along the floor underneath his—
Calliope kept her expression cool. “I’m not really interested in chatting with you, so why don’t we cut to the chase?” She glanced at the tall shrouded man who stood to the side. “You’re going to torture me, find out what I know, and then kill me? Let me save you the trouble.”
“Torture? Oh, goodness me, no.” Faegos’s wizened features twisted into a moue of distaste and gestured toward his companion. “Poor Kopro has no stomach for such things. Far too messy. For myself”—he laid a hand on his narrow chest—“I already know that you are sadly unaware of the realities that suddenly surround you.” His face showed pity. “That much, I’m afraid, is painfully obvious.”
“Then why are we wasting each other’s time?”
He leaned back in the chair, at ease despite the fact that his legs, neatly crossed, only reached the floor with the toe of one shoe. “I would bargain with you.”
Calliope didn’t even bother to frown. “I don’t have anything you want.”
He smiled and raised an age-thickened finger, waggling it in the air before him. “Ahh, very good. That is essentially correct, but allow me to amend your statement; you do not have anything I want at the moment.” He widened his already staring eyes. “I believe that might change.”
Calliope narrowed her eyes, pondering. “You’re the most powerful . . . thing that I’ve seen since I’ve gotten involved in this mess.”
“Oh, how you talk,” Faegos said and smiled, tipping his head bashfully as though receiving a compliment. He blinked his eyes. “Really, I am surprised. I was led to believe you were quite coarse.”
Calliope thought of Gluen’s angry pig-eyes and easily imagined the fat man selling information on her after they’d left his offices. “Some people just bring that out.”
Faegos spread his hands, palms up. “Hopefully we will have a more equitable agreement.”
“I’m just trying to sort everything out,” Calliope said, barely listening. “See, if I’ll eventually, maybe, have something you want, and if you want to bargain for it now, it’s probably dangerous to you.”
The diminutive old man’s smile vanished. “Go on.”
Calliope kept her eyes on his, tilting her head slightly. “What’s to keep me from telling you to go fuck Kopro over there, then going and getting whatever it is you think I’m going to go get, and hunting you down like any other rat bastard?”
Faegos’s face was grim. “I see I was not entirely misinformed as to your personality.”
Calliope stared, her eyes wide and hard, holding on to her anger. “Some people just bring that out.”
Faegos tsked. “I would certainly never let you leave this place, were that your choice. Nothing is so valuable to me that I cannot stand to see it destroyed, but I will most certainly not see it lost, or in the hands of such as you, which amounts to the same thing.”
“So your bargain is whatever I might eventually get hold of that you find useful, in exchange for my life.”
Faegos leaned a few inches forward, searching her face, then shook his head. “I regretfully must acknowledge that that would be a poor offer for one such as you.” He eyed her shrewdly. “I suspect you might choose death simply to spite me.”
Calliope didn’t reply and kept her eyes locked on the old man’s face, her jaw tight.
Faegos nodded as though receiving confirmation. “Obviously I would have to offer more tempting fare.” He met her eyes, his gaze steady. “Perhaps the life of your young Joshua White would be sufficient.”
The room seemed to tilt along its axis. Calliope’s eyes felt painfully dry, but she could not bring herself to break eye contact with Faegos long enough to blink. “Say it again,” she whispered.
“I have the means at my disposal to bring your lost young man back to you.” Faegos’s shoulders shifted as he gestured. “I am offering that to you as a trade for . . . certain hidden things . . . as yet undisclosed or discovered. It is quite a generous offer.”
Calliope’s eyes narrowed. “Alive? Actually breathing, not some shambling dead thing, or a ghost, or any other little trick?”
Faegos smiled. “I consider your caution commendable.” He again spread his leathery hands, palms out. “I can bring Mr. Joshua White back to rosy-hued health, and not via some banal resurrection; I can make it as though what has happened never did. That service, executed on his behalf, is precisely and specifically what I am offering, to you.” He leaned forward, his own glistening eyes bright. “As the late, lamented Vikous might have explained, there are ways to slip aside, away from, through, or behind this mortal coil.” He smirked. “Or at the very least slip from one portion of the coil to another. Vikous himself dabbled at such things; it was, in fact, how we found you.” Faegos shifted in his seat, his feet dangling. “But I . . . I can fold time, Calliope; I know where your young man died, and I know when. I will take him around that point in time,
once we conclude our bargain.”
A thin sliver of hope made Calliope’s heart beat faster, despite her surroundings. She wrapped her arms around the back of her chair and leaned toward Faegos in turn. “What do I have to do?”
Faegos made an expansive gesture. “Nothing at all.” He stopped, then raised a finger. “Ahh, that is not exactly true. You must continue on as you have. Pursue your quest to its fruition. I believe that will bring the thing I desire into your grasp.”
Calliope managed a smirk. “Well, that’s going to be difficult to do with a dead guide, genius.”
Faegos ignored the slight, frowning. “Oh, do not be ridiculous; Vikous is a sorry guide in any case.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Or was, rather.” He shook his head and drew himself upright. “He has, I fear, been too long among your kind to be of much use; adopted so many of your ways—your false logic of violence, for instance.”
“Sure. That’s why you’re the one that slammed him against the wall.”
He scowled. “You manage to make your worth to me questionable through the simple act of speaking.”
“It’s a talent.” She stood and crossed her arms. “Prove you can do the stuff you’re talking about.”
Faegos glanced at his companion. “You certainly don’t expect me to follow through on my side of the arrangement when you cannot do likewise; goods neither seen nor inspected make a poor payment.”
Calliope shook her head, her movements slow and deliberate. “No. Prove you can even do it at all. Doesn’t have to be Joshua, just do it.” She pointed, without looking, at Vikous’s still form. “Fix that.”
Like Calliope, Faegos did not so much as glance in the direction she was pointing. “You must be joking.”
Calliope merely raised an eyebrow.
Faegos shook his head. “What you ask is essentially the benefit of my largesse twice for a single cost to yourself.” He shook his finger again. “I think you are trying to trick me.”
“You’re getting your money’s worth out of this.”
He leaned back and folded his hands on his lap. “Explain to me how this is.”
“This is how you convince me not to spite you,” Calliope said. Her eyes and voice were clear. “You said you wouldn’t let me out of here if I didn’t agree to the deal.” She leaned forward slightly, as if she were talking to a child. “I don’t need Josh alive if I’m dead, do I?”
Faegos watched her for some time without moving; except for the wetness of his eyes, he might have been a dead thing left sitting in the blasted café for an age, long since dried to a husk. Finally he shifted, destroying the illusion with the ease of his movements as he dropped to the floor and wandered into the corner where Vikous lay.
“Such a petulant request, my dear,” Faegos said, affecting the air of a disappointed teacher. He seemed distracted for a moment, as though listening to a fainter sound in the distance, then turned back to her. “We would have an agreement then? Provided, of course, I can prove myself to your satisfaction?”
Calliope shoved her doubts to the back of her mind. “Sure, yeah. I can’t miss what I’ve never had, right?”
Faegos’s toothless mouth curved into a smile that could never have been comforting or friendly. “As you say,” he murmured, then: “Never mention this to your truculent companion.”
“Why not?” Calliope asked.
“Why not what?” Vikous said from his side of their booth.
Calliope could only stare. Finally, her eyes still wide, she managed to force out a reply. “Umm. Nothing. Daydreaming.”
Vikous watched her for a moment, his eyes narrowed, then turned to look over the sparsely populated diner. “I’m starving. Where’s the food?”
Calliope tensed, but nothing happened.
Eventually, the waitress brought their orders. Calliope ate in silence.
Joshua White pulls on his jacket as he exits a downtown skyscraper. The sun is bright, and he fumbles for his sunglasses with one hand, his cell phone with the other.
He will be dead in six days.
“Calli? This is Josh. You don’t need to call me when you get this, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going out of town for a few days on a case, so if you need to get hold of me, call. My signal might be crap most of the time, though, so leave a message if you don’t get me and we’ll play phone tag.” He glances over his shoulder and up at the building looming behind, wondering if the man he has just spoken to is watching the street. “I’ll call and let Lauren know what’s going on so we don’t have a repeat of the Seattle thing. See you soon. Be safe.”
He looks back up at the glass and steel of the skyscraper. There is no question in his mind that he is being watched, or by whom.
There is also no doubt as to why, but Joshua tries very, very hard not to think about that.
“Red rover, red rover,” he murmurs, “send Joshua on over . . .”
11
“I’M GOING TO make you a deal,” Vikous said.
Calliope flinched at the words. The morning light shone through the frost-crusted glass of the front windshield, burning at her gritty eyes as she sat in the driver’s seat and waited for the gas to finish pumping. They had spent what was left of the night in a (different) cheap motel in (different) double-bed rooms. Calliope’s night hadn’t been either long or restful, and she still felt edgy and tense. She glared at Vikous’s puzzled look. “What?”
He continued staring at her, then shook his head and let his gaze drop. “Nothing . . . you just . . . nothing.” He cleared his throat. “So . . . I have a deal to make with you.”
“I don’t like deals much right now.”
“You’ll probably like this one.”
“What is it?”
Vikous pulled back his hood, revealing the pasty skin of his face in the morning light in order to make eye-to-shiny-black-eye contact. “Give us about five hours of driving and we can crash in a decent place for the rest of the day and night.”
Calliope automatically opened her mouth to protest, then paused and conceded, “That . . . actually sounds pretty good.”
Vikous nodded. “I know someone who can help us out a little.”
“We won’t be making ourselves late or something?”
Vikous laid a hand on his chest. “Trust the guide.”
Calliope jerked her head in agreement. “Okay, we can—” She cut herself off and peered at Vikous. “Wait, what’s the other part?”
Vikous blinked, his eyes wide, which in no way lent him an air of innocence. “Whaddaya mean?”
“ ‘Deal’ means I have to do something in return.”
“You won’t mind. It’s easy.”
Calliope’s bloodshot eyes did not suggest trust.
“It’s something we need to do anyway; I just want you to get some rest, all right?” Vikous started to pull his hood back up, but paused halfway. “All right? Trust the guide?”
The pump handle release thumped from outside the cab and the electronic display began to beep faintly. Calliope looked over her shoulder at the pump, then back to Vikous.
“Fine.” She pushed open the door and swung out of the seat. “As long as I can sleep for a while.”
“You and Mr. White both work in the same detective agency, Ms. Jenkins?”
Calliope is sitting in a chair in Lauren’s office again, the glare through the office window turning both men into silhouettes. Only Special Agent Walker’s eyes stand out—shining like lozenges of silver.
“Yes.”
“I see. Do you know the nature of this case?”
“Josh handled this one from the beginning. I only knew he was flying out of town, not where, and I knew when he thought he’d get back. I can check the office for records but I think he had all of them with him when he left.”
“You’re familiar with the area Mr. White was found in.”
“Yes.”
“Was Mr. White?”
“ . . . not really.”
“Had he been in
the region before?”
“When he was a kid, with his younger brother, yeah. Then once, later.”
Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask don’t—
“What was the nature of that later visit?”
. . .
“Miss Jenkins?”
“He . . . I took him there.”
“For a case?”
“No. It was personal.”
“You took him to meet your family.”
“Yes.”
“Did they like him?”
“No.”
“Did they like you?”
Walker is smiling now, and his teeth glitter out of the darkness of the office.
“What?”
“Does your family like you? They don’t, do they, Miss Jenkins?”
“No. Yes.”
“Which is it?”
“They don’t like . . . some things. Didn’t. Don’t. I don’t know.”
“Are they going to like your new boyfriend? The clown?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s—”
“Will they like him?”
“They don’t know him.”
“But you do. You’ve known the clown a long time, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Haven’t you?”
She is standing at the very top of the blocky jungle gym. It’s her favorite place to stand because she can see so much of the playground and everyone can see her. She’s standing at the very top, on the little block of bars that sits on top of a larger block.
Joshua is at the other end of the playground, playing Red Rover with the other ki—
That’s not right; Josh can’t be here. We didn’t know each other.
—she’s singing. It’s her favorite thing to do and she likes it very much. It makes her feel good and strong and warm. She can see Joshua is climbing up the jungle gym to her. He’s shouting something at her, but Calliope just sings louder so that she doesn’t have to hear it. Josh keeps climbing, keeps getting closer, and finally Calliope can hear him shouting to stop, to stop singing, to let someone else on top of the jungle gym.
Hidden Things Page 13