Promises to Keep

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Aboveground, night had already descended. She walked toward the gate, trying to remember everything Genevieve had ever told her about no-see-mees, the cantrip she used to keep people from seeing her. Her mentor was a natural Retriever; the cantrip merely enhanced her skills. Ellen would be starting from the opposite end.

  “On the plus side, I already have an advantage she doesn’t,” Ellen said, amused despite herself. Genevieve was smart and skilled, and white. Being black couldn’t be called an advantage most days, but paler skin would be more visible, if a guard were patrolling.

  In the end, though, it was anticlimactic: there were no guards, and the wrought-iron gates closing the arch were designed to keep cars out, not people. Ellen slipped between the gates without too much trouble, then pulled her bags through after her.

  It took her seeming forever to find the path Danny had led them along, but there were signs at the intersections of the roads, just like real streets, and the hill they’d climbed was marked by a squat marble tomb with a marble cat perched on the roof. She paused at the ridge, squatting down so that she didn’t stand out if anyone where looking that way, and considered her options.

  There was no way that she could patrol the entire cemetery - it was huge. But she didn’t need to: Danny had said that the direful, direlings, whatever, mostly stayed in one place, where the city’s fatae were taken to be disposed of. So the guys in her vision would have to be there, if she’d heard that much of their noise. But what-

  “Hey, Ellen.”

  Ellen turned, still squatting, and almost busted up her knee, crying out on shock and pain.

  “Whoa, hey, sorry,” and hands caught her, helping her up. The other person squatted next to her. Male, slender build, pale skin smudged with dirt, a black watch cap pulled down low over his forehead, and eyes….

  Calm gray eyes that she knew. “Damn it, Pietr.” She sat down hard on the grass and stared up at one of the senior PUps. “What the hell are you doing here?” She kept her voice low, so it wouldn’t carry, but shoved as much annoyance into the words as she could manage, to irritated and embarrassed to be afraid.

  “Your boss asked us to keep an eye on the place tonight. He didn’t send you?”

  “No.” She glared at him, then relented. He hadn’t meant to spook her like that, probably. And Danny… the boss could be a bastard sometimes, but it was so like him to do this. Like the two-sided coin he thought she hadn’t figure out yet. “It’s not his case,” she said. “It’s mine.”

  Pietr had been there when she’d first learned what she was. He’d understand what she meant.

  “Oh. Huh. Okay, you’re the boss, then. What’re we looking for?”

  “Two men. One’s black, I’m pretty sure the other one’s white, but he might be Asian. Same height, broad-shouldered. I didn’t see their faces.”

  “And they’re coming here, why? I mean, generally the only folk who come here are dead folk, people burying dead folk, and people planning to unbury dead folk. Different bait needed for all three.”

  “Your world is a terrifying place,” she told him.

  “Yeah.” Pietr didn’t smile, but she heard the humor in his voice. “Yeah, it is.”

  oOo

  Pietr approved of her chair, his muttered “Wish I’d thought of that” giving her a brief glow of satisfaction. He had scouted the area before she arrived, and determined that the rocky ledge on the left hand path actually had a nice overlook of the slope, and the area where the direlings gathered. “If that’s where you think the guy will come, then that’s where we should scope out.”

  And by “we” he meant her. Pietr disappeared into the shadows, almost as easily as Genevieve did. His plan was to go closer, make sure that they didn’t miss anything. “If anything happens - anything at all, you hear me? Ping. I’ll be there in a blink.”

  From anyone else she might have thought that meant he’d come running, but Piet was a Pup and that meant he’d probably learned to Translocate pretty well, especially after he’d taken a good look around her location, practically memorizing the space.

  Ellen might have felt slighted, put in an observer’s position, but she was just as thankful to not get any closer to the carrion-eaters than she had to. It wasn’t only the way their leader had looked at her, there was something about their smell that made her uneasy, as though her visions had somehow tainted her, made her smell like death, too.

  She settled into her chair, pulled out the thermos of coffee, and lifted Pietr’s binocs to her eyes, scanning the slight valley below.

  Nothing happened. Ellen let her senses open as wide as she could, the way Genevieve taught her, but there didn’t seem to be any current moving at all; she couldn’t even sense Pietr. Her legs went to sleep, and she got up to pace, waking them from pins and needles. She got bored, and reached for the nearest ley line, finding it a few miles to the north. She wondered what would happen if they built a cemetery over a ley line and decided that’s when you got zombies. She did a few yoga moves, then went back to her chair, suddenly worried that she’d missed something.

  “Midnight.”

  Ellen jumped out of her chair, turning in the direction of the voice.

  A huge black bird was perched on the stone bench, staring at her. Ellen blinked, slightly nervous. The thing was huge, with a wicked beak, and it was staring at her, way too intently. Like she was dinner.

  “Did you say that?” she asked.

  The bird - a raven, she thought, or the biggest damned crow she’d ever seen - shifted on its legs, back and forth, and kept staring at her, not saying anything.

  “It’s not midnight, bird,” she said finally. “It’s got to be closer to 3am.” She hoped, anyway. The thought of having to sit here another five hours made her want to cry.

  The bird made a noise that wasn’t words, but Ellen thought uncomfortably might have been a laugh, like it knew what she was thinking. “Look underneath,” it said, and then spread those huge wings and flapped off, disappearing into the darkness.

  “What?” She didn’t know if she was asking the now-departed bird, or the dead around her, or a God she wasn’t sure was paying attention any more. Either way, she didn’t get an answer.

  The coffee had gotten cold and bitter, but Ellen drank it anyway. She thought about pinging Pietr, but decided that she’d sound like a spooked kid if she did so.

  “So, a talking raven. Happens all the time in New York,” she said, trying to mimic Pietr and failing miserably. She thought she sounded more like Sergei with a head cold. “So yeah, a talking raven. Who said midnight, maybe, and look underneath, probably.”

  No, definitely. She hadn’t been paying attention when the first noise came, but she’d been listening, the second time.

  Ravens talked, she knew that much. Or, they could mimic words. Did the words actually mean anything? Once, she would have assumed it was a hallucination, just another bit of proof that she was crazy, her brain constantly playing tricks on her.

  The fatae existed. Talking, advice-giving ravens? Not so much a stretch, after that. But did it mean anything?

  “Coincidences happen.” That had been one of the first lessons Danny had given her. He meant that sometimes you could look so hard to find a connection, trying to solve a case, that you forgot that the universe was random, and sometimes shit just happened. No deeper meaning or pattern, or at least, none that was relevant to the question at hand. On the other hand, it wasn’t as though she had anything else to do, just then.

  “Look underneath what? Under the ground?” They were in a cemetery, so that would make sense, she supposed. “Under the skin? Ugh. Under the hat? Undertow?” She picked up the binocs and went back to searching the landscape. “Stupid bird. What was wrong with “nevermore,”anyway?”

  *almost dawn. looks like tonight was a bust*

  Pietr’s ping was as stealthy as he was: she barely realized it was someone else’s impression in her head, not just her thinking the same thing.

  *
the light was iffy in my vision* she sent back, not so much the words as the memory of the vision. *not giving up until the sun’s up*

  *fair enough* a sense of understanding, and a hint of a salute. Ellen shook her head: Pups took orders from no-one except their boss, Benjamin Venec, and not always even then, from the stories she’d heard. Genevieve admitted that she wasn’t sure what to make of the Pups - they were the only ones who’d ever been able to track her down, even if they hadn’t been able to stop her, and that colored her opinion - but Ellen liked them. Bonnie had been the one to step in, when Ellen fell in with the wrong crowd, and who had matched her with Genevieve, and if it was Bonnie and the other pups who’d also shown her what she was, what her visions meant… well, it was better than being scared she was losing her mind, wasn’t it?

  That thought tickled another one, some connection or correlation. Ellen looked again through the binocs, then rested her eyes for a moment, and looked again. The thought slid closer, almost within reach, and the vision unfolded in her memory, as delicate as dandelion fluff and just as likely to blow away if she disturbed it.

  Two men, black and white. Same build, same height, same…

  Same.

  Losing her mind. Twins? Look underneath.

  She tucked the binocs into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, but left the chair behind as she moved down the stairs, down the left-hand path, following some instinct: no, not even an instinct, a whisper of a thought. She knew she should ping Pietr, tell him where she was going, but she didn’t know, and even the second it took to form the ping and send it might lose that whisper.

  She followed the path mainly by the sense of rightness drawing her, since this area of the cemetery was dimly-lit, at best. Bushes rustled and things crackled, but Ellen summoned a thread of current and let it glimmer under her skin, and whatever it was decided to leave her alone.

  She heard the chittering off to the left. Whatever was drawing her was drawing them, too. Ellen looked up. The light was shifting, just like in her vision. The clouds had cleared and the moon was bright on the horizon, even as the faintest pink was starting to creep into the eastern sky. Up ahead there was the glint of water, and her breath caught.

  “Here and now,” she whispered, and finally paused long enough to ping Pietr

  *here and now* and a sense of the water in front of her, a single huge tree just ahead, the path curving to the right, even as she was walking faster, and then running.

  Not two men. One. He was cast in shadows, standing by the water. Too-close, Ellen could see-sense - the presence of direlings. Not approaching; waiting. Ghouls at the feast-to-be. The chittering was faint but she could hear it, raising the hair on her arms.

  “They don’t eat the living,” she reminded herself. Where the hell was Pietr?

  “Hey.” She spoke softly, the way she used to when she lived back home and was never sure what kind of reception she’d get, what she’d done to piss people off this time. One guy, wrapped in shadows, his posture broad-shouldered yeah but somehow slumped in on himself. She exhaled, and counted back from three into magesight, trying to find out what about this guy drew her.

  Human - a Null, without magic - but there was something funky about him. His silhouette wouldn’t stay tight, shifting from a normal misty-black to this intensely annoying glimmer, too harsh to look at directly, like staring at the sun. He moved, and the double-image moved too, like…

  Like two men, not black and white but sharp and muted. She didn’t know why or how, but there were two of him in the one. Her mind flitted through a race of ideas, discarding them almost as quickly. Possession was a myth, ghosts were rare, and chimeras manifested outwardly, not like this.

  “Go away.”

  His voice was low, too, but not soft. The shifting sharpness she saw was in his voice, scraping at the air.

  “Can’t do that. What’s wrong?”

  “Everything. Nothing.” His edges almost connected, then shifted apart again. Ellen was having trouble keeping track of the magesight and the conversation, but was afraid to let go of either. “I’m just too tired to keep it together, that’s all. Why do you care?”

  She swallowed. Where the hell was Pietr? “Because I do. This… this isn’t the answer.” She didn’t know how he was thinking he’d kill himself; the pond couldn’t be all that deep. But it was clear that was what he was planning. “It’s really not.”

  There was a tingle of current, like a flash through the air, and she heard obvious footsteps behind her. Pietr, finally. *this is him* she pinged. *i don’t know what to do*

  *he’s alive* Reassurance and reminder: whatever was going to happen hadn’t, yet. She was in time. But could she do anything? “Please.”

  “I’m tired,” he said. “Tired and crazy and why the hell were you even here? Nobody here except us dead men.”

  The chittering in the distance go louder, as though his words made them anticipate. Fuck you she thought, fiercely desperate. You don’t get him yet.

  “It’s my choice.”

  She looked at Pietr, but he’d taken a step back, and she knew he wouldn’t interfere. It was up to her.

  “I saw you. That means you’re supposed to live.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” His outline shimmered and almost clicked, then fractured into painful sunspots again.

  *wildly bi-polar* Pietr pinged, the actual thought like a lightning flash in her brain. *or split personalities? Something that’s causing him enough pain he can’t handle it*

  “You can get help. There’re doctors, medications…”

  The stranger’s voice held an undercurrent of savage laughter that unnerved her almost as much as the direlings gossiping to themselves behind them. “You don’t know that. You think I haven’t tried?”

  “You’re not crazy.” He was, he absolutely was, but she’d thought she was crazy too, probably was crazy, after everything, after getting dying people shoved into her head, and she wasn’t sure what the hell crazy meant any more. “No more than anyone else. Don’t do this. You’re supposed to live.”

  “You’re as crazy as I am. You don’t know that.”

  No, she didn’t. Too many she Saw were dead already. But not this one. Not yet.

  “It’s your choice,” Pietr said quietly, “but you don’t know she’s not right.”

  “Not today,” Ellen said. “Not this way. Not face down in a pond, stripped to your bones by carrion-eaters. Do you hear them? They’re waiting for you. They won’t even give you the decency of a proper burial. Screw them. Walk away.” She shoved every certainty she had into her voice, and prayed it would be enough. “I wouldn’t have stayed out here all night, freezing my ass off, if you weren’t supposed to walk away, after. Alive.”

  “All night? Why the hell were you sitting here all night?” He turned, and she could see, in the growing graying light, that he was older than she’d thought, maybe even in his fifties, and the expression on his face was one of disbelief, and - worry?

  “So I could be here when you needed me,” she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. And right then, to her, it was.

  “Fuck.” He turned back to look at the water, and she let go of the mage-sight, knowing somehow that she’d won, that he wouldn’t do anything now.

  “Go the fuck away,” he said. She nodded, then turned and walked away. He’d done as she’d asked, she could do as he’d asked.

  Pietr and Ellen walked back up the path to where she’d left her chair, then turned to look again, the light enough to see clearly, now. He was still standing there by the edge of the water, a rough shadow, but as they watched, he turned and walked away.

  “He’s someone’s dad,” Pietr said. “Probably a daughter. He wouldn’t - couldn’t - do anything while you were there.”

  “He could still do it again tomorrow,” she said.

  “He could. It’s his choice. But you gave him something to think about today. You gave him someone who cared.”
>
  She wouldn’t see the sharp-and-muted man again; the visions didn’t work like that. At least, she didn’t think so. She’d never know what happened to him, because she didn’t think he’d be dumb enough to come here again, to try.

  She’d won. For this one moment, she won.

  “C’mon, kid,” Pietr said, even though he couldn’t be all that much older than her. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Coffee. She didn’t drink the stuff, but she needed to pick up a new coffee maker for the office. And take a shower. And get to the office. And…

  Yeah,” she said, folding up the chair and shoving it into the carry-bag. “Getting out of here sounds good.”

  7

  “Jesus. Look what the cat wouldn’t bother dragging in.” I’d seen Ellen tired before - we’d worked some insane hours - but this took the proverbial cake, and a cupcake beside. “I hope you left the other person or persons in similar shape?”

  She put a brown shopping bag on the desk, and tried to glare at me, but a yawn caught her off-guard. She’d tied a bright blue scarf around her hair. I liked it. It made her seem funkier, younger.

  “And you’re late,” I went on, knowing better than to comment on her attire, at least. I made a show of looking at my watch, a clunky wind-up that had survived more than a decade of working around Talent.

  “Yeah well, I got us a new coffee machine,” she said, indicating the bag. “And I solved the vision.”

  “Oh, good,” I said, although I’d actually made a pot at home, before heading in, and filled a thermos. “And wait, you did what?” I squinted at her. “Shadow, tell me you didn’t go back to the cemetery last night.”

  “Okay.” She started to unpack the bag, taking out what looked like a basic but shiny espresso machine. Well, that would be classier than our old Mister Coffee, for sure.

  “Okay you didn’t, or okay you won’t tell me?” Jesus, I was starting to sound like my mother. Although there were worse people to sound like, given the situation. “You went back to the cemetery.” I wanted to yell at her but despite all sound-alikes, I wasn’t her mother, and the visions were hers, not mine.