Between Jobs

by W. R. Gingell

  Opposite me, a crack of light broke across the detective’s face, rising in a zigzag above his head on the wall behind him. It split further, bathing his entire face in golden light; and that face was frozen, its eyes wide and white, terror clear in the light of Between.

  I couldn’t help it. I smiled, wide and glad, and scooted around on the interview table.

  There was a huge gap in the wall, soft around the edges, but with a razor sharp Zero at the centre. And as the edges softened still more, I saw the gleam of Athelas’ eyes and the sharp point of JinYeong’s teeth.

  “Well, strike me pink!” I said in wonder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “What d’you know!” I said, turning from the waist to grin at the detective. I was probably just as astonished as he was, but I was lucky; the three of them together isn’t something that scares me anymore. I wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it was true. “They did come! Bet you’re glad.”

  “Not exactly,” he said, through clenched teeth. He was doing pretty well; he was stiff, but he could still talk, even with the side of his interview room open to Between.

  “Pet,” said Zero, twitching one finger at me. “Come.”

  I touched a finger to my eyebrow in the detective’s direction and boosted myself off the table. “See ya.”

  I saw Detective Tuatu’s mouth trying to form the word stop, but maybe he thought better of it. At any rate, when I turned again, laughing, toward Zero, he didn’t try to stop me.

  Zero left without another word, but when I would have slipped my hand in his pocket he reached back and grabbed my hand instead.

  I walked through the wall into Between, where it was cool and fresh and unconfined, and felt the lightness of laughter bubbling up in my stomach.

  Zero came back for me. He actually came to find me.

  I didn’t think it would be wise to say that out loud. Instead, my hand warm and my heart light, I asked, “House over the road still gone?”

  “Indeed,” Athelas agreed from my left side. “Did you suppose it might have grown back?”

  “Dunno,” I told him. “Wouldn’t surprise me, around here.”

  “Things the Family do tend to stay done,” Zero said, without looking over his shoulder at me. “Remember that. And next time, scream when someone tries to steal you.”

  “Tries to—yeah, I’ll do that.”

  “And if ever you see the devourers again—”

  “Those locust things?”

  “Yes. If you see them again, run.”

  “Yeah, I will,” I replied, in heartfelt sincerity. “How the heck am I gunna fight giant locusts?”

  “You’ll have to have some lessons, but you won’t be ready to fight them for at least a few years.”

  “Lessons? A few years? You’re stay— I’m having— What lessons? I’m gunna fight? Do I get a sword?”

  Zero ignored that barrage of questions, and shouldered his way through a wall I vaguely recognised.

  I stepped down suddenly, jarring my teeth, and found myself in the kitchen, Between a vague muddying of the wall behind me. I beamed around at the kitchen in general, and the cracked tile over the sink in particular, and let the questions go for later.

  To Zero, I said, “Thanks for coming for me. Thought I’d never get out.”

  “You’ll have to learn to take care of yourself,” said Zero briefly. “We won’t always be here.”

  “’Zat right?”

  I flicked a look up at him, and maybe it annoyed him. At any rate, he stalked on through the kitchen and down into the living room, ignoring me. JinYeong shot me an amused, somewhat malicious look, and sauntered after Zero.

  “How come you lot came for me?” I asked Athelas, since he was the only one left. “Thought you’d all left.”

  “No one makes me tea when you’re not here,” he said, settling himself at the table. He crossed one leg over the other in his usual manner and gazed pleasantly at me. “I appreciate my tea. JinYeong is a savage who cares only for coffee, and Zero doesn’t care enough about either to make a tolerable effort. You make an effort.”

  “’S’pose that’s a hint,” I said cheerfully, and put the kettle on. “Want a biscuit?”

  “Oh, I think so,” he said. “It’s been a busy day, after all.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I thought you lot were finished and gone—you were packing and everything. What’s the go?”

  “We’ve got some changelings to round up,” said Athelas. “Now that we know what they’re going to look like.”

  “Oh,” I said, and there was a deeper relief running beneath the sparkling feeling of happiness that had come when I saw all three of them. “You mean you weren’t going for good?”

  “Certainly not,” Athelas said. “We’ve still got four more murders to come. We’re best waiting for them here; they’ll happen close to home.”

  I stopped with my hand on the kettle handle. “What, the other murders will happen here, around this house, I mean?”

  “Every one of them,” Zero said, from the living room. “We can guess where, but we can’t be sure. Bring the coffee in here, Pet.”

  “But you’re still going off to catch the changelings?” I asked, loading the teapot and coffee mugs on a tray with the biscuits.

  “Certainly. There won’t be another murder for a little while yet,” Athelas said, and took the tray from me. “It could be one year, or five; we won’t know until it happens. We might as well clean up what we can.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  Zero’s brows went up.

  “For Investigators, you lot are pretty rubbish!” I said. I took my cup of coffee and plopped down on my end of the couch. I was heady and bright, and probably not too wise, but I couldn’t help it. “You solved the wrong case, and you didn’t even find the murderer!”

  JinYeong scowled at me, but Athelas’ eyes crinkled at the edges.

  “Are you unhappy with the uncovering of an otherworldly kidnapping plot, Pet?”

  Zero, expressionlessly, said, “We’ve been chasing this murderer all the way from Behind, and for the last fifteen years. It’s not to be expected that we’ll find him at once. And now that the house is gone we’ve only blood and ash with which to investigate the first murder further.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Quiet, Pet,” said Zero, and lofted a white box at me from his desk. “You’ll need this, in future.”

  I caught it by reflex, but I didn’t realise what it was until I felt the smooth weight of it in my hand.

  “You’re giving me a phone?”

  “It’s tiresome to communicate with humans who don’t have the means to speak in other ways,” said Athelas.

  “You can take pictures with it next time,” said Zero, and left the room.

  “Cool!” I said, hugging the phone box to my chest happily. I hadn’t ever had my own phone.

  JinYeong looked at me sourly, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “What?” I demanded. “Zero probably hasn’t given you one ’cos he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Choshimhae, Petteu,” said JinYeong through his teeth, and rose liquidly to his feet to stalk away to the kitchen.

  Probably needed to suck on a blood bag.

  I chuckled happily to myself and turned the box over to open it. “Hang on, is it okay for him to give me free things? Like phones and stuff?”

  Stuff, most importantly, being the house when it was no longer needed.

  That reminded me. What was the piece of paper Zero had put on the kitchen island, if it wasn’t something to do with signing over the house to me?

  “Those aren’t free things,” Athelas said, sipping his tea. “You’re our pet. We feed you and keep you clothed, and sometimes we give you a treat. The balance of power is different. Now, if you give one of us something, it’s incumbent upon us to give you something back for it.”

  “I see,” I said; and I really did. I’d guessed it, if it came to that.
r />   “Now, Pet,” said Athelas, lifting his teacup, “in light of that fact, you have until the moment I finish my tea to ask questions. I should point out that it is a fair exchange, and it is unlikely that I will ever be so open again; so use your exchange wisely.”

  I wanted badly to ask exactly what I’d done to put him into my debt, and as I hesitated on the question, between the blink of my eyes and their opening, his tea was half gone. Across from me, Athelas smiled, his teacup still poised.

  I asked, in a rush, “Who is the Family?”

  “Interesting,” Athelas said. “The Family is Zero’s birth family, if somewhat illegitimately.”

  “But they’re trying to kill him.”

  “Another interesting thing.”

  A second blink, and his tea was almost gone: he obviously didn’t want to answer those particular questions. What a cheater.

  Since I wouldn’t get any proper answers for those questions, I asked another instead. “I thought—well, JinYeong is always so angry at Zero, and it always looks like he’s on the verge of killing him. But they still fight together against everyone else, and last night I saw him tear out the throats of a couple of devourers who got too close to killing Zero.”

  Athelas’ eyes gleamed at me above the rim of his teacup. He was laughing at me. Why?

  “They fought together in the war,” he said.

  “Which war?”

  “Not one that humankind ever heard about.”

  “Does JinYeong hate or love Zero?”

  There was a thoughtful pause before Athelas answered. “I don’t think even JinYeong could tell you that. They fought together through several wars, and were as close as brothers. Then JinYeong’s sister was bitten and he went home to make sure she turned safely. Unfortunately, there were…complications. She went rabid and JinYeong couldn’t bring himself to kill her. So Zero did it.”

  “Oh,” I said. That explained the feeling I’d gotten from the two of them. “So JinYeong wants to make sure that if anyone kills Zero, it’s him.”

  “Something like that,” said Athelas, and put down his teacup. There was the slightest gleam of liquid there, taunting me.

  Could I ask another question, or would he drain it before I got the question out?

  That was the game, I realised, as the amusement in Athelas’ eyes grew. If he didn’t want to answer the next question I asked, he would simply drink the rest of the tea. If he felt like answering it, he would.

  The question was, what should I ask? What before about my question had amused him?

  I thought about that, and said experimentally, “Athelas.”

  “Mm?”

  “Why are you always telling me what JinYeong says? You don’t have to do that.”

  “I find it interesting. It’s a new development in JinYeong’s psychopathy.”

  “His what?”

  “His manner of thinking and his habits,” Athelas said, and sipped delicately. When he put down his cup, it was completely empty, but he still added, “There seems to be a slight shift, which interests me immensely.”

  “Oh,” I said gloomily. Well, that was a wasted question: I didn’t understand a single thing Athelas had just said.

  “Now,” he said silkily, “I have a few questions of my own.”

  “Thought you were paying me back,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  “Humour me, Pet,” said Athelas, though he smiled. “Has it never occurred to you to wonder about your affinity with this house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Has it never occurred to you to leave? There are other—”

  “No.”

  “Other easier places—”

  “No.”

  “More comfortable places.”

  “This is my house,” I said, stubbornly.

  “I see,” said Athelas, and his eyes creased very slightly. “Then if it hasn’t occurred to you to live elsewhere, perhaps it has occurred to you to wonder exactly why the power and water were left on when it wasn’t being occupied?”

  “That’s—” I stopped. Now that I thought about the reason, it seemed a bit ridiculous. I said it anyway. “They had to leave it on to show the house to buyers and renters.”

  “And exactly how many people have been brought through the house?”

  His voice was light and unconcerned, but I had the feeling he was listening very closely to my answer.

  “None,” I said.

  I was still frowning about that when Athelas asked, “What is it about this house that keeps you here, Pet?”

  “I lived here with my parents,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about it—about that burning necessity that was always somewhere in the back of my mind, reminding me at every moment that I had to keep striving to keep this place for myself.

  “Mm,” murmured Athelas. “However, your parents were murdered here.”

  “I’ve gotta stay,” I said sharply, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d meant to say. If it came to that, I didn’t know what I did mean to say.

  Athelas gazed at me for some time. “From what I understand of humans, when their parents are murdered, it’s an important thing.”

  “Isn’t it an important thing with Fae?”

  “I killed my parents,” Athelas said casually, pouring himself another cup of tea from the pot. “My mother sold me off to the Family to pay the debts she and my father owed. It doesn’t pay to be very attached to parents Behind.”

  “You killed—”

  “It doesn’t pay to be too attached to Fae, either,” said Athelas, and his eyes looked at me through the multi-coloured tea steam, as impossible to fathom as the steam itself. “Do you understand me, Pet?”

  I did understand him. But if I didn’t fully grasp the ways of the Fae, I was pretty sure that none of my three psychos understood humans fully, either. I said, “I don’t work like that. And Zero is—Zero is different.”

  His head bent forward in acknowledgement. “Zero is different. He’s got that human strain in him. But it would be a mistake to think that his Fae side won’t overcome that during his lifetime. It’s unwise to trust the Fae.”

  “I only have to stay behind him,” I said. There was a stubborn bit of me that knew exactly what Athelas was getting at, but refused to believe it. “And trust that he won’t let me be killed. That’s all I need.”

  “Is it? Well, that’s safe enough, I suppose. And what if JinYeong decides one day that you do smell like dinner?”

  “I’ll stand behind Zero,” I said.

  “And me?”

  “You can stand behind Zero, too.”

  Athelas’ face lit with the smile that went all the way to his eyes. “You don’t fancy yourself in any danger from me, Pet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You should,” he said.

  I waited until Athelas fell into a reflective mood, sipping his third cup of tea, and went back into the kitchen. Zero was there, reading one of his mouldy old books that was probably a spell book, and the piece of paper I’d seen earlier was still there on the kitchen island, too.

  I crossed the kitchen to put my coffee mug in the sink, and drifted a little closer to the island. It was definitely expensive paper, but there was nothing printed on there—just handwriting.

  I leaned over to get a better look, and saw the word ‘Pet’ written there.

  It said, ‘Pet. We’ll be back. Make dinner tomorrow—’

  A large hand swiped the paper from beneath my nose before I could read it all. “That’s not necessary anymore,” said Zero, crumpling the paper carelessly in one hand. When he unclenched his hand, there was no paper there anymore.

  “Thought it was my house deed,” I said.

  “No,” said Zero. “You get that when we’re finished with the house.”

  I looked up at him, shoving my hands in my pockets. “How long’s that gunna be, then?” I asked, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe, waiting for the answer.

  “As long as it takes,”
he said.

  “All right,” I said. “But if you go back on it, there’ll be trouble. Got friends in the police now, you know.”

  Zero’s eyes narrowed very slightly in amusement. “I’ll remember that,” he said.

  “All right,” I said, and grinned. “Just so long as you know.”

  The End

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