Between Family: The City Between: Book Nine

by Gingell, W. R.

  “Make sure you call me if you need me,” he said. “I’ll have the chip on me all the time.”

  “You won’t be able to take other calls,” I warned him.

  “I was due for holidays anyway,” he said, and hung up.

  It was a cheerful feeling, knowing that we had people on the outside. The reflection that soon we’d have contact with JinYeong properly again was also a nice, cheerful one; it would help to balance out the stark necessity of leaving the house again in search of poor little human Sarah, who had already escaped Behind once.

  There was no use waiting to tell everyone; it was growing dark outside in the human world now, and there were sure to be things wanting to come into the house if they could. It wasn’t like we were going to sleep. Not all of us, anyway.

  So I went downstairs to find the lycanthropes having an arm-wrestling competition that was apparently supposed to work right up until the winner faced off with Zero. They were about halfway through the ranks when I got back downstairs, and more than one set of eyes fastened on me as I stepped down onto the carpet.

  I dunno; maybe I have a portentous walk. At any rate, there was no use wasting the entrance I’d managed to effect. “Got bad news and good news,” I said to the lot of them. “Which one do you want first?”

  Morgana shot me a look and said, “Bad news. We’ve got zombies, lycanthropes, fae, and a smelly old man. What’s badder than us? We’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t play games,” said Zero, unimpressed. Maybe he’d heard me on the phone with Tuatu.

  “Right; so the bad news is that we need to go outside the house again. Sarah’s out there—probably her parents, too—and North wants us to go get her and keep her with us.”

  Zero didn’t even blink. Maybe he’d given up—maybe he’d just decided that if everyone around him was going to die or betray him he might as well join hands with humans again. “So we need to find the girl and bring her safely home. What’s the good news?”

  “Good news is that I was able to call Detective Tuatu, which is how I know—and he’s on the outside.”

  Lycanthrope ears pricked up; Zero’s face went stiff with shock. Okay, so he hadn’t heard me on the phone. Only Morgana was unreservedly joyful.

  “That’s fantastic! We’ve got a line to the outside world! We’ve hacked the trials!”

  Zero asked, “How—?”

  I grinned at him. “Remember those little chips that we got from ’Zul so that Abigail and her lot could help us with the sirens? He was nearby his chip when I called, so I managed to get through; I got lucky and he was home for the day.”

  “I’m not getting what the good news is,” Daniel said.

  “We can get into contact with JinYeong,” I said happily. “We’ll be able to talk to him as soon as Tuatu can get another badge to him!”

  “I’m still not getting what the good news is,” said Daniel, then grunted a bit when Morgana elbowed him in the gut.

  Bouncing just a little, she said, “It’s a cheat code, right? It’s a cheat code to give us extras that no one else has. JinYeong is our outside man.”

  “Exactly!” I said triumphantly. “And with everyone we’ve got on the outside—JinYeong, North, Marazul, Five, Tuatu—we’ll have a flamin’ good edge. I reckon we’ve got a good chance of getting out.”

  “But first we have to rescue your friend Sarah,” Zero said.

  I had the feeling he was humouring me with my idea of getting out, but so long as he was on board to help rescue Sarah, I didn’t mind.

  “We already went and got Morgana,” I pointed out. “It can’t be much harder than that, can it?”

  “We faced rock dusters and a group of barely adult fae,” he said bluntly. “Nothing compared with what will be further in—and nothing compared with who will remain after a day or two has passed. Only the strong survive, and the longer the survival, the stronger will be the remaining heirlings. We’ve only faced brute strength so far, and not much of that—later, we’ll find heirlings who know how to manipulate Between as well as the king himself does.”

  “Maybe we better try and find Ralph, too, then,” I said. “He’s probably in here.”

  “Ralph will look after himself,” Zero said, exasperated. “That wasn’t what I was suggesting! He’s already dead, and I very much doubt he’d be able to convince the sword that he was a good choice. Nobody will care about him.”

  “Yeah, but he’s flamin’ good at using Between,” I pointed out. “All right, all right; don’t get your knickers in a knot! We’ll just go out after Sarah—see if we can find her.”

  I was also pretty sure that Ralph could defend himself against anything that could possibly get into his house here Behind—if anything managed to get in there at all. He would be a useful ally. Not that we were planning on fighting to the death, but if and when we needed to defend the house, it was sure to be safer with more friends rather than less, especially when those friends knew how to use Between like Ralph did.

  “Who’ll go?” asked Daniel.

  Zero’s gaze flicked across to him and they seemed to share a look. “We’ll discuss that later,” he said.

  “So long as you don’t mean just you two when you say “we”,” I said suspiciously, turning over the badge between my fingers.

  “Let me see that,” Zero said, pinching it away from me.

  I said, “Oi!” more from conviction than the idea that it was useful. It wasn’t like anyone on the private network would be trying to call Zero—there weren’t enough of them left alive who weren’t already in the room—and even if there had been, he would have been able to answer the call without taking the badge from me. That meant he had taken it from me deliberately for another reason.

  Whatever that reason was, I didn’t get a chance to ask about it; as Zero took the badge from me, bringing it into closer proximity to the lycanthropes hanging over the back of his couch, something chirped from behind his couch.

  “Heck!” I said, jumping. “What’s that?”

  “Sorry,” one of the lycanthropes said guiltily. “Brought me speaker along.”

  Daniel glared at her. “When we were pressed for space, you brought a speaker with us?”

  “We weren’t using the space for brai—supplies! And it’s small.”

  “It might be small, but it’s flamin’ loud,” I said. “What is it, Bluetooth?”

  “Yeah,” said the lycanthrope, disappearing behind the couch to grab the speaker out of the nearest bag and flourishing it triumphantly. “Dunno what it’s connecting to, though.”

  “Our private network, probably,” I said, grinning. “Chuck it on the coffee table, see what it’s hearing.”

  It probably hadn’t connected with anything other than Tuatu’s phone, but that could be fun, too.

  Only instead of Tuatu, it was Abigail’s voice that I heard saying sharply, “Who’s that?”

  “It’s the old man,” said Ezri’s ghostly voice, her voice surprised but welcoming. “How’s the stomach?”

  “Nothing that a few days of healing won’t fix,” Abigail’s voice said impatiently. “You know what they’re like! Worry about your own injury.”

  “Not much use worrying about it,” Ezri said bluntly. “It’s not like it’s gunna grow back if I do.”

  I met Zero’s eyes over the coffee table: he looked sick, and I’m pretty sure I looked much the same. Voices from the dead—or in this case, ghosts in the system. I looked away pretty quickly and fixed my eyes on the speaker instead.

  As if in the distance, voices called urgently; shouting, warning, brawling.

  “What’s that?” demanded Abigail’s voice. “What’s the fuss? Speak one at a time!”

  “Trouble, I am very much afraid,” said a cool grey voice that I knew far too well.

  Chapter Five

  I looked up numbly and into Zero’s eyes once again, and found them shocked, dazed, and dark with pain.

  Through the speaker, Abigail’s voice yelled, “No! Get it
away! Ezri!”

  The female lycanthrope stuffed the speaker into her pocket, eyes wide, but I could still hear the yelling and scuffling. Soon, I knew, there would be fighting and screaming, because I’d already seen the aftermath of that particular moment in time.

  Zero almost whispered, “What is that?”

  “Ghosts, I reckon,” I said thickly. I snatched the badge away from him—away from the speaker—and the voices died away. “Echoes in the private network. I should have known that there might be other stuff caught in there. Sorry ’bout that. Oi, Chantelle—”

  “Chelsea.”

  “Sorry, Chelsea; reckon you can keep that thing upstairs where we won’t accidentally hear people in their death throes?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said, slipping off the couch. “I’ll be right back.”

  “It’s gone,” I said to Zero, even though he must have seen that it was. He was still a bit too stunned-looking for my liking.

  One of the lycanthropes said, “What do you mean, echoes in the private network?”

  “The voices you’re hearing are dead people,” I told her. “They must have got trapped in there somehow.”

  “Shades in the sound vibrations?” asked Morgana, brightening.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  To Zero, she said excitedly, “Okay, but this just means that what we said before about vibrations in a contained space—”

  “We’ll talk about it another time,” Zero said. He didn’t wait for her to reply; he rose abruptly and disappeared down the hall.

  I heard the back door open and close, and wondered if he’d remembered exactly where that door led to right now. It wasn’t like he could practise out in the backyard for a while—he was likely to have company before too long if he did that.

  Morgana stared at me. “What did I say? He’s—did you break him or something? He’s been fragile all day and now he looks like he’s going to snap if anyone says a word!”

  Daniel asked, “Was it the shade-sound in the speaker that threw him off?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Some friends of ours died in a bad way while they still had those badges on ’em.”

  “Oh!” Morgana said. “It was those friends? Oh no! I was just excited—he’s the only one I’ve been able to discuss this with, and it’s been killing me, not being able to discuss it with someone who understands! I’ll go check on him.”

  I nearly stopped her and went myself, but it wouldn’t do Zero any harm to have to interact with other people on an emotional level, and while Morgana was still fairly powered up by her brain consumption, she wasn’t likely to be in any danger that the two of them couldn’t sort out.

  I said to Daniel, “I didn’t expect the sound to still be in there, though. I didn’t know that could happen.”

  “I didn’t know you could fuse magic and technology before I met you,” he said, shrugging. “And I’d bet that there’s a lot those thre—Zero has been learning since he met you, too.”

  I couldn’t help grinning, even if it was a bit of a sick grin. “Yeah, that’s what they—he keeps telling me.”

  “I’ve never seen one of them upset by human deaths before,” he said. “One of the fae, I mean. Every now and then they’ll get fond of one human, but it’s only ever one. Even other behindkind can get friendly with humans, but the fae…”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Noticed that.”

  It shouldn’t have comforted me. It shouldn’t have warmed me to have confirmation that Zero was as cut up by the deaths of our friends as I was—Abigail and the others were still dead, and Zero still had to go through the aftermath of that. But it was comforting. It was good to know that the changes I’d seen in Zero weren’t just my imagination. It was good to know that his human side wasn’t being squashed into oblivion anymore.

  Whatever Morgana said to Zero, it must have worked—either that, or they’d run into a bit of trouble in the backyard, which was more likely—because Zero was definitely looking brighter and less stricken about the eyes when he came back in. I was pretty sure that the blood splatter on his arm had once been confined to his shoulder, too.

  “We’re going Sarah-hunting!” Morgana said happily as they entered the room.

  I exchanged a glance with Daniel then looked across at Zero, who didn’t sit down in his usual spot—which usually meant he was getting ready to go out again straight away.

  “What, we’re going now?” I asked, jumping to my feet. “All right, but—”

  “Only three of us need to go,” Zero said, without looking at me. “The less of us wandering around together, the better. We want to be able to move quickly.”

  “I can move quickly.”

  “I’ll go,” said Daniel. “You’ll probably need a better nose, and I know what she smells like. Chels is a pretty good tracker, too.”

  “Both of you with me, then,” Zero said.

  “Having good noses is important, but so is having fighters,” I protested. I didn’t like being left out of the action now that I’d just started getting used to being treated almost as an equal.

  “We need fighters at home, too; I want you here,” said Zero, more pointedly. He seemed to stifle a sigh, and added, “I’m not ordering you to stay here.”

  “It flamin’ sounded like it,” I remarked. “All right. We need fighters at home as well as out there. Fine. But can you find Sarah without me?”

  “Pet, I’ve been wandering through Behind and Between since I was ten! I’m more likely to be able to find her than you are!”

  “First of all, it’s rude to be so flamin’ honest,” I told him. “Second, fine; I’ll do as I’m told.”

  Zero, who had opened his mouth to retort, looked bewildered for a few moments before he said, “I thought you’d argue more.”

  “There you go being rude again,” I said, grinning. “Try not to die, all right? And if you see the old mad bloke out there, tell him to stop wandering off.”

  Mind you, for all I knew he was off with the banshees; I hadn’t seen him since he ate with the others, and I had a feeling—that was more of a knowledge—that he was no longer in the house. If he kept on going like this, I was going to have to stop worrying about him. It was either that or get a stomach ulcer.

  Zero said briefly, “Get a drink if you need it, and make sure you have all the weapons you’ll—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll make sure we go to the loo before we leave,” Daniel interrupted.

  “You’re going right now?” I asked, but I wasn’t really surprised.

  “Best to get in and out while we can,” said Zero.

  “We do better in the dark, anyway,” said Daniel, grinning. It was a grin for Morgana, but I appreciated it despite that.

  To show my appreciation, I said, “It’s all twilight out there, you galah. It won’t change even if you wait for the morning.”

  Only the human world-facing windows would.

  “Shut up, Pet,” he said cheerfully. “You ready, Chels?”

  “Good to go, boss,” Chelsea said.

  Morgana and I went with them to the back door like two ladies seeing off their knights—if you didn’t count the fact that one of us had on black lipstick and a bloodstain or two around the neck, and the other was in dusty jeans and black boots that had a bit too much of what counted for blood with rock dusters on them.

  “I’ll make pancakes for you when you get back,” I said to Zero, standing on tiptoes to peer around the three of them and make sure the coast was clear. Once they left the back patio they’d be in for whatever was waiting out there in the labyrinth—and maybe even before, if the chunk that was newly missing from the overhang was any indicator.

  I would have said something else, too, but before I could even finish scanning the yard-turning-to-Behind-labyrinth behind them, I was whisked forward and up and squashed into close proximity with the crossed knife-belts that circled Zero’s chest.

  Good grief. Zero was actually hugging me without me having to hug him first.


  “Heck,” I said into that broad chest, because I didn’t think I could deal with too many more surprises today.

  “Please don’t die,” he said quietly. “Keep the others safe, and don’t do anything hasty.”

  “When did I ever do anything hasty?” I asked him, as he put me back down on the patio.

  “I don’t have long enough to stop and enumerate the times, Pet. Not to mention that—”

  “All right, all right!” I said hastily, pulling away from him. “Make sure you don’t die, yourself. And you better bring back the other two as well.”

  “Yeah, we want pancakes, too,” said Daniel, lingering behind as Zero turned to step down from the patio. He surprised me—but not, by the looks, Morgana—by stepping forward to kiss her on the cheek. “Don’t let Pet boss you around,” he added.

  “Oi!” I said indignantly, but he only grinned at me and followed Zero and Chelsea across the lawn.

  I shut the back door just as they disappeared into the hedges, and found Morgana watching me with her black lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

  “First time he’s done that?” she asked, arching her brows at me.

  “Don’t do that at me,” I said. “And yeah. Reckon he’s worried he won’t be able to worry about me much longer.”

  She looked sceptical. “You think that’s the reason?

  I shrugged one shoulder. “So long as I’m still here to worry about, it gives him a reason to keep processing stuff instead of blocking it out. Last time, I don’t think he had anyone to keep trying for; reckon he’s just trying to keep connected.”

  “Last time— What last time?”

  “Last time someone…went away,” I said. “Well, last time someone died, too. I don’t reckon JinYeong counts—or he didn’t, back then. Not enough. That might have changed now.”

  “I think you’re going to be taken by surprise one of these days,” Morgana said, unconvinced. “Love is pretty hard to hide, and I’m telling you—”