Between Jobs

by W. R. Gingell

  “Want a cuppa?” I asked Athelas. If he didn’t, I did.

  And after that, I wanted a shower.

  Chapter Eight

  I didn’t see Zero again that day—not that there was much of it left by the time I came to. I would have taken him a cup of coffee when I made some for myself and JinYeong, but he’d already left the house by then, and he didn’t come back until late the next day.

  JinYeong had used nearly all the hot water, so I had to have a lukewarm shower that quickly became icy cold; but even a cold shower was better than sitting around in all that blood. I came out feeling damp and more than slightly wrung out, but it was surprising how warm it made me feel when Athelas trailed a touch of magic along my cut arm as I passed him his dinner, and followed it up by saying carelessly, “You’re a good little pet.”

  JinYeong only scowled at me, scowled at his stew, and ate it anyway.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I demanded of Athelas. I was pretty sure there was still blood in my hair and I was annoyed enough to talk about JinYeong as if he wasn’t there. “He’s been stroppy since yesterday. You can’t tell me it’s because I’m the pet, either, because he’s happy enough to eat what I make for dinner even if he does look at me like I might have poisoned it.”

  “Dinner is perhaps the issue.”

  JinYeong made a disgusted noise, picked up his plate and utensils, and left the room. I heard him stomping up the stairs, too, and since he usually walks as silently as Zero, he must have meant for me to hear it.

  Were Athelas’ eyes dancing? Yeah, I was pretty sure he was laughing.

  “I’m not certain JinYeong knows what to do with a human who doesn’t smell like dinner,” he said. “Or, to put it in another way, like necessary sustenance.”

  “He looked pretty flamin’ hungry when he finished killing those four-armed blokes in the grocery store,” I said. “Zero had to tell him to leave me alone.”

  Athelas’ head tilted; a slight sign of disagreement. “You could be confusing hunger with blood lust. JinYeong finds it hard to stop killing when once he’s begun. It’s one of the things that makes him so dangerous.”

  “Well, yeah, that makes it much better.”

  There was a decent amount of sarcasm in my voice, but Athelas replied in all seriousness, “Yes, I believe so. It will certainly cut down on the chances of an accident around the house.”

  I giggled at that a bit, because it was pretty normal for a pet to be having accidents around the house, even if those accidents were caused by the pet themselves and not a blood-crazed vampire. Athelas gazed at me curiously but didn’t ask what I was laughing about.

  “Wait!” I said suddenly. “I thought it was the house that stopped JinYeong being able to smell me. We weren’t in the house, so he should have been able to smell me, right? I mean, it’s gotta be the house, because I’m just a human.”

  “Perhaps it is,” said Athelas, “but I find myself doubting it. It is certainly why Zero took you with him when he went Between the first time yesterday. He wanted to test if JinYeong would be able to use his nose properly once they were out of the house, or if you were the problem.”

  “Ohhhh!” I said slowly. Then JinYeong’s behaviour yesterday made a heck of a lot more sense. He had been sniffing me not to weird me out, but to try and differentiate between the lack of smell that was me, and the other smells. So that was what Zero had been talking about. “Did JinYeong say something to you?”

  Athelas went back to his tea. “No. It’s more what he isn’t saying. I’m not sure JinYeong knows quite what to make of you.”

  “Hopefully not dinner, anyway,” I said, and that made me giggle again. Obviously I’d been living with psychos for too long. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that the curve of Athelas’ teacup was hiding a smile. “Is Zero coming home soon?”

  “Zero comes home when he’s ready.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but you always seem to know when he’s nearly here. Is that because you’re his steward? How does that work?”

  “It works in a way that a human couldn’t possibly understand,” Athelas said. “Go to bed, Pet. I’ve a feeling that Zero will have some questions for you tomorrow.”

  I swallowed a bit. “Yeah?”

  “And it is perhaps best to warn you against being as…er, delightfully honest as you usually are.”

  “Stroppy, is he?”

  “Perhaps if I understood what you meant by the vernacular, Pet…?”

  “He’s gunna be angry at me? Why? What did I do?”

  “Humans aren’t supposed to be able to move through Between by themselves. Nor are they meant to be able to pull things that are Behind out into Between. They are not, Pet, supposed to be able to see them at all.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not my fault!” I protested. “I don’t make the rules! And if you didn’t want me seeing stuff I shouldn’t see, you shouldn’t’ve taken me there in the first place!”

  “Exactly so!” agreed Athelas.

  Oh yeah. He hadn’t wanted Zero to take me Between the day before, either.

  I looked at him suspiciously. “You know this was gunna happen?”

  “As I may have already mentioned, Pet, it is supposed to be impossible. Who would expect the impossible?”

  “Reckon if anyone did, it’d be you,” I said.

  “Pet,” Athelas said, shifting his weight very slightly, “do go to bed.”

  I went to bed.

  Zero came back late the next day, and I could see right away that he’d been back to some Between place—probably the house over the road. He didn’t look like he was right here and now like he should have. Maybe it was because he had a slightly exultant look to him, like he’d blown off steam by killing some Behindkind.

  “Want a coffee?” I asked him. Was there a sort of band across his forehead, like a crown-type thing? Or was that just my imagination?

  “Yes,” he said. “But I want food more. Athelas!”

  Athelas came from the living room, and surprised me by making the slightest sign of a bow. Maybe he got the same sense of a crown as I did. Maybe he was being polite because he’d been gone all day, too, and was expecting Zero to be angry about leaving me to the less-than-tender care of JinYeong, who was looking really hungry today.

  “Tea for me, Pet,” he said. His eyes said, Don’t mention my absence, or you won’t live to regret it.

  I blinked at him, and reached over to set the kettle boiling.

  “Coppi,” said JinYeong, through his teeth. You’d think he’d’ve had enough blood in the ambush last night, but he had that red look to his eyes that made me certain he was hungry for blood, not food or coffee.

  “Dinner’s already on,” I told Zero. “You can have coffee while you wait for it.”

  He nodded briefly. Again to Athelas, he said, “The waystation is running again today. No sign that they’ve lost the sword, and no sign of the ambush. I suspect they’ve been cleaning up.”

  JinYeong spoke, his deep voice impatient.

  “Yes, the glamour is back,” agreed Zero. “I saw it on my way here.”

  “They certainly didn’t waste any time!” Athelas said. I wondered if that was dark amusement or respect in his voice. “They must be working on something very lucrative, if they’re willing to start up their operation again the day after the Behindkind Order Force visits!”

  “The Order Force only did a routine inspection,” said Zero. “Or they would have found the clear indications of human incarceration.”

  “Hang on!” I said sharply. “Incarceration? You mean they were keeping humans prisoner there?”

  “It happens,” Athelas said, nodding.

  “What for?”

  Zero looked surprised at my indignation—well, he had a human pet, so I suppose it must have been a bit weird for him to think that human people might not want to be pets, or prisoners, or whatever.

  He said, “If a human has seen too much, Behindkind have three options: Kill, imprison, or remove m
emories.”

  “What’s wrong with removing memories, then?” I demanded. “Who said it was okay for you lot to start kidnapping people?”

  “No one said it was all right,” Zero said. His voice wasn’t icy, but that was probably only because it lacked any emotion whatsoever. “But it happens. Behindkind laws forbid the imprisonment or exploitation of humans except under agreed-upon situations.”

  “Who do they ask for agreement, though?” I asked grumpily. “Bet it’s not the humans! And if there are still Behindkind doing it, they mustn’t be policing it too well!”

  “Not for some time,” agreed Athelas. “There was once an irregular unit of Behindkind Fae who policed such matters—”

  “Han myong; han myongiya,” JinYeong interrupted.

  “Very well, it was an irregular unit of one—and for a time, two—who policed such matters. His end wasn’t a particularly happy one, and it left a sour taste in the mouths of more than a few Behindkind and humans.”

  “Let’s not discuss ancient history,” Zero said abruptly. “Whatever the waystation is doing, it’s none of our business. I couldn’t find any sign of humans there, damaged or otherwise, and they let me look properly this time. I have my sword now, so there’s no need for us to visit them again. We have a murderer to catch.”

  I made spaghetti that night. All three of my psychos were still in the kitchen with me, hanging out at the kitchen table. I think they were all pretty hungry, though at least Zero and Athelas were making a pretence of doing something else.

  Zero didn’t show any signs of hunger; he was studying something out of an ancient book instead of his usual sharpening. Athelas was a little more alert than usual, and glanced over at me once or twice more than usual, but at least he tried to be cool and look like he was busy reading, too.

  JinYeong didn’t even pretend to be doing anything else; he watched me like a particularly suspicious hawk, his mouth pursed, following every move I made.

  It made me nervous, so I said to him, “It’s no use glaring at me because your sniffer doesn’t work properly around me.”

  JinYeong’s head jerked back. “Wae?” he demanded, sounding surprised.

  “Don’t talk to me in Korean,” I said. “It’s rude. I don’t understand it.”

  JinYeong made an annoyed noise that sounded like “Aight!”, spinning away on his chair, and stalked elegantly out of the room.

  I hissed a dismissive puff of air after him, and my eyes chanced on Zero just in time to see the grin that he hid behind his book. For some reason, that cheered me up. Zero didn’t smile much, and I didn’t like that. If it was clever to have a favourite psycho, he would have been my favourite, and I would have liked to see him smile more.

  I mean, he didn’t display much of any emotion. With JinYeong, you could count on being able to see at least arrogance, self-satisfaction, and a few instances of pouting; and even Athelas displayed some evidences of emotions other than his usual, faint amusement. Zero, on the other hand, so rarely showed emotions that it would have been easy to think of him as being as cold and white as his skin and hair.

  S’pose you get that way if people react to you in fear and loathing like they seem to with Zero, but it still bothered me like it didn’t with JinYeong and Athelas. I didn’t know why that was, either, unless it was because of that faint, intangible feeling that Zero, in spite of his lacking emotions, was somehow more human than JinYeong or Athelas.

  The idea worked away quietly in my mind as I cooked, and after the three psychos were served, I looked at the spaghetti coiled around my own fork and asked idly, “Zero, are you part human?”

  Athelas choked on his spaghetti, an indication of surprise that startled me a heck of a lot more than the question should have startled him, and JinYeong’s eyes narrowed on me.

  Zero stared at me for a few moments, silent and unreadable, before he asked, “Who told you that?”

  “You, just now,” I said. “You actually are human?”

  “Half,” he said. “What made you think so?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. Want me to pat Athelas on the back?”

  “He’s fine. There must have been something that made you think of it.”

  “Maybe it’s the vibe you give off.”

  “The—what do you mean, vibe?”

  “I believe,” said Athelas, dabbing with his napkin at his mouth and then, lightly, at his eyes, “that Pet is referring to your aura.”

  “’Zat what it’s called? The feeling that you should run as quick as you can in another direction?”

  “Yes,” said Zero. “I’m surprised you noticed it.”

  “Couldn’t help noticing it,” I said. “It’s a flaming strong feeling!”

  “I believe Zero is more concerned with the fact that you analysed and catalogued the feeling. Most humans simply run.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” said Zero. His eyes were particularly steely, which was a bit worrying. “Amongst other things. You were evasive when we met, but you didn’t run. Why?”

  “’S’not like you wouldn’t have caught me anyway,” I said matter-of-factly. “And Athelas gives off the same feeling; that’s not the vibe I mean.”

  JinYeong’s brows rose. He said something to Zero that sounded sarcastic, and this time Zero put down his fork.

  Uh oh.

  “Pet,” he said. “Listen very carefully. I am going to ask you two questions, and I’d like a very carefully considered answer to both. And don’t—” he added, as I opened my mouth to ask another question, “try to distract me by asking another question. I think you’ll regret it if you do.”

  I gave him an uneasy grin. “What are the questions?”

  “When we first met, why didn’t you run?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “It’s that vibe you give off. Sorta sad, or lost. I could feel the run-like-mad—what is it? Aura?—shoving at me, but the other vibe was there, too.”

  Athelas and Zero exchanged a look, but JinYeong gave a short hiss of laughter.

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “That aura thing, though; Athelas gives off the same feeling,” I said. “Is it a fae thing, or a Behindkind thing?”

  “Fae,” said Zero shortly. “What did I say about questions?”

  I blinked at him and did the zip-the-lip thing that every kid learns at some stage.

  Zero must not have learned it, because he stared at me and then asked, “How long exactly has it been since you stopped feeling the urge to run at the sight of us?”

  “Dunno,” I said again. “I was pretty safe in my room, so it wasn’t too hard for me. It’s not like the feeling can get through walls, is it?”

  “It gets through anything,” Athelas said. “It’s meant to encourage people under cover to give up their cover and make a break for safety.”

  “Ah,” I said. I had definitely felt that impulse; good thing I was used to resisting it.

  We ate in silence until Zero had emptied his plate twice, and I’d refilled it twice.

  Then he asked, “Pet, do you remember what I asked you to do when we went to the courtyard yesterday?”

  Uh oh. Was this the time when I was supposed to be not-so-honest, or what?

  “Um,” I said. “Something about finding the sword.”

  “That’s right. Why did you pick it up?”

  “Well, I couldn’t see you two, and Athelas said something about ambush and disappeared, so I thought you might need it.”

  “How did you pick it up?”

  “What?” Was that a trick question? How do you usually pick up an umbrella? “I grabbed the handle.”

  “The hilt.”

  “Yeah, that. Just picked it up.”

  Zero looked at me for a very long time, swirling spaghetti around his fork and inhaling it again and again.

  I sank my chin in my hand and stared back at him. If he was trying to intimidate me into giving something else away, the joke was on him. That was all I’d done; I’d picked
up the sword. There was nothing more to tell.

  “Who taught you how to see Behind?” asked Athelas.

  I tried not to shiver, and glanced over at him. His eyes said lightly amused, and so did his tone, so why did I feel so flamin’ cold? And why was he asking me questions when he’d warned me against being too honest with Zero?

  “Didn’t know what Behind was until I met you blokes,” I said. I was still a bit hazy myself on what Behind was exactly, and that was after seeing it for myself. “Who’s had time to teach me? And who’s gunna teach a human anything, anyway?”

  “That’s a reasonably good point,” said Athelas; and now he sounded like his usual aloof, slightly patronising, self. “I should certainly not try to teach a human anything; there’s so little point. They can’t understand.”

  I made a face at my empty plate.

  Zero slurped up one last forkful of spaghetti, and pointed at the corner of the dining room.

  “Pick it up again,” he said.

  “Oi!” I said, in surprise. The yellow umbrella was there again; how hadn’t I seen it? “When did that get there?”

  Athelas’ eyes flickered over to meet Zero’s. “It’s been there since Zero got home,” he said.

  “How come I didn’t see it?” I demanded.

  “Who knows, Pet?” sighed Athelas. “Thus the point of contention: You’re an anomaly.”

  “Oh,” I said. I hoped my voice didn’t sound as unimpressed as I felt. I caught the look in Zero’s light blue eyes and hastily got up.

  Better if I don’t get kicked out right now.

  Now that I could see it again, it was easy to see it. A yellow umbrella, propped up in the corner next to the china cabinet. It didn’t look as shabby as it had looked yesterday, but it didn’t look like it was a sword pretending to be an umbrella, either.

  That made me feel uneasy, because if it wasn’t inclined to be a sword, who was I to tell it any different?

  I wrapped my fingers around the plastic handle, hoping for the feel of folded leather, but all I felt was plastic; smooth and a bit grubby. I picked it up anyway, and it made that little flutter of cloth that umbrellas always make.