New York_A Bridge & Sword Prequel

by JC Andrijeski

  I frowned a little when he said my name.

  He’d been saying it all night, but for the first time, it really hit me how familiar it was, how he said it. He said it like he knew me, like we were friends, not like I was someone he’d just met.

  Then again, after tonight, maybe we were friends.

  Or something, anyway.

  At any rate, I had a few questions for him, too.

  “All right,” I said.

  I saw his shoulders relax.

  He shifted his body sideways to open my view to the glass hotel doors. Following a polite-seeming motion of his hand, I began to walk under my own power, glancing back when he followed. I still moved slower than usual, gritting my teeth a little at the pain in my hips and arms as I walked.

  It also struck me that I was barefoot, and wearing clothes that might have been club-appropriate when they were spotless at seven o’clock that evening, but gave off more of a “beat-up hooker” vibe in a setting like this, especially at this time of night.

  Plus, I was filthy, and probably had smoke smudges all over my face.

  I didn’t even want to know what my hair or make-up looked like.

  More than any of that, I hurt.

  My arms hurt especially, and still felt a few inches longer than they should be.

  He took my hand again, right as we reached the glass doors. I saw one of the doormen look me over, quirking an eyebrow at the seer, right before his expression went blank.

  He smiled a blank-eyed smile at the seer instead.

  “Good evening, sir!” the man said cheerfully.

  “‘Evening,” the seer said, nodding.

  I glanced at the other doorman, and saw an equally blank look on his face. He wasn’t focusing on either of us, but looking towards the park.

  I was still staring up at both of them when the black-haired seer gripped my hand tighter, guiding me through the glass doors. Once we were in the lobby, instead of releasing me, he pulled me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist once I was by his side.

  That time, I couldn’t fail to feel the protectiveness in the gesture.

  He walked me through the four-story lobby and directly to the nearest bank of elevators. As we passed under crystal chandeliers, near a wall mosaic depicting a beautiful white house on a hill covered in white trees, I saw no one looking at us at all.

  25

  A NORMAL LIFE

  HE WAS STAYING on the sixty-third floor.

  It was the second highest floor in the hotel.

  On the ride up in the elevator, the seer muttered that no one would bother us.

  He said the upper floors had their own concierge, that they were designed more as serviced residencies than hotel rooms, although they could be used as either. When I asked about the missing floors among the numbered buttons, he told me those floors were corporate headquarters for some high-end technology firm, and required a different elevator and passkey.

  He stopped talking after that.

  It seemed to take a long time to reach the higher floors.

  I’d been in taller buildings, of course, everything from the rooftop bar of the Black Arrow Building in Seattle to the Empire State Building as a tourist just the day before––but I don’t think I’d ever been in a hotel room that high up before.

  He still seemed uneasy around me.

  I watched him lean against the elevator car’s brass railing, a vaguely uncomfortable look on his face as he avoided my eyes.

  It was utterly silent as we exited the elevator.

  He led me down the left-hand corridor, taking my hand without comment.

  As we walked the length of it, I noticed two things. One, there were very few doors set in the wall. Two, every door I saw lived only on the left side, which made me wonder if the wall between the two corridors was more for privacy reasons than anything structural.

  He took me to the very last door.

  Releasing my hand, he used both a keycard he extracted from his wallet and a thumbprint scanner to open the door. The lock clicked as he removed his thumb and the door popped ajar. He caught hold of the handle and jerked it the rest of the way open before motioning me politely inside.

  After the barest hesitation, I followed the graceful wave of his fingers.

  I only made it a few steps before I stopped, staring around at the wide-open space.

  It was bigger than my shared flat in San Francisco.

  That’s pretty much where the ability to compare the two spaces ended.

  Staring at the view overlooking Central Park through the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows, I felt a stab of vertigo. I noticed a faint shimmer beyond the french-style doors to my left and realized a balcony likely stood outside. Made of one of those transparent super-materials, it had clearly been designed to not obscure the view for anyone standing inside.

  All in all, probably not the best room if you were afraid of heights.

  Luckily, I wasn’t.

  I ventured closer to the window.

  The darkness of the park filled most of my view. Even this late, the shadowed expanse of trees and lawn remained sprinkled all over with fairy-like streetlights, broken by the glimmer of lakes and ponds reflecting light from the sky and the buildings. Holograms snaked over the air on the edges of the park, everything from a sea horse I saw swimming across the sky to an Asian woman wearing a bikini, smiling and winking from one hundred feet in the air. I watched a flock of holographic birds wheel and bank over the vicinity of the Met, then scatter into a few thousand butterflies.

  Only one hologram stood over Central Park itself, near one of its roads.

  It formed a beautiful, delicate design like a tiered building made of glass. I watched it change colors and morph, holographic snow falling inside the glass structure.

  I wondered what it was.

  “A restaurant,” the seer said, apparently hearing me. “Well… more a private club. But it has a restaurant and bar attached. It’s nice.”

  I nodded, not bothering to comment.

  I’m not normally one of those people who thinks very often or very hard about how rich people live. I’d known a fair-few rich people over the years, living in San Francisco––especially in art school, and even Jaden’s parents, who owned like five properties in different parts of the world. I had tech friends who made good money, and one friend whose father was some kind of Vice President for Firestorm, one of the biggest defense contractors on the West Coast. I knew his parents lived in a virtual palace in China Beach.

  I’d never made money a huge priority in my life, though, so obsessing on how people with money lived seemed kind of counter-productive. I would have had to rethink a lot of things, if I wanted to make being rich a serious priority.

  I found myself thinking now, though, how strange it would be, to be able to afford to stay in a place like this.

  To my right, I noted a full kitchen with a stove, a full-sized refrigerator and a marble island. On the counter I saw a massive fruit basket with pieces missing, several bottles of red wine, some of them half-full, and a few bottles of substances that looked a lot harder than wine.

  Simon the seer liked to drink.

  Good to know.

  Real-wood dividers broke up the space to my left, separating out a work/office area with an enormous wall screen likely fitted with full-effects holograms, two recliners with built-in headsets, and what looked like a sensory-deprivation chamber, complete with the high-end liquid plasma that allowed for the full range of movement in virtual spaces.

  I noted several doors, including one set in the wall beyond the office area, which likely led to the master bedroom.

  I wondered how many bedrooms the space had.

  The main room even had a fireplace, along with a full set of living room furniture and a dining table. Someone must have known we were coming up, because the fireplace was already lit. I wondered if the upper floor concierge had gotten a call from the lobby that we were coming up, or if they just lit all of them a
t the same time every night.

  After looking at a real-wood desk, made of a type of tree that was probably extinct outside of labs, I glanced over what was probably real-leather furniture and a rug that looked like it came from some kind of animal.

  I didn’t stop walking as I looked around.

  I ended up back in front of the long window next to the balcony. I tried to relax, to just flow with all of this as I looked down at the city lights, focusing on another hologram of a half-naked woman right before it morphed into a puff of smoke.

  Gazing out at that view and the fountain I could now see on the balcony, I realized I was exhausted, practically swaying on my feet. I knew it was late, but I also knew that wasn’t all of it. The come-down from adrenaline and whatever else was hitting me hard now.

  Either way, I could tell my brain wasn’t working all that well.

  “There’s a switch,” he said.

  I started, turning.

  Seeing my expression, he frowned slightly.

  “On the wall,” he clarified. “It makes the balcony opaque. If you wanted to go out there. It’s easier, if the transparency makes you nervous.”

  I just stared at him for a moment, struggling to make sense of his words. Then, I found I understood. Looking back at the balcony, I thought for a minute, then shook my head.

  “It’s okay,” I said, still looking at the view. “Inside is good.”

  More than anything, I just wanted to curl up on that probably-real leather sofa and sleep. Weirdly, I wanted to do it with him––as in, I wanted him to join me, and sleep there with me.

  Maybe it wasn’t all that weird. He’d just saved my life.

  Maybe I was having a delayed reaction to that, too.

  I was still standing there when he walked up to my side, handing me a glass. I don't know what I expected, but found myself grateful it was water when I brought it to my lips.

  Downing the whole thing in one go, I handed it back to him, silently asking for another. He must have heard me. I watched him walk back to the kitchen to refill the glass, extracting a full-sized bottle of mineral water out of a steel-colored refrigerator that was better-stocked than mine at home. I was tempted to ask him what he had to eat.

  He poured another glass for each of us while I watched.

  After walking back and handing the first glass to me, he downed his own, then scrubbed his fingers through his hair. I found myself still watching him for some reason, unable to tear my eyes away. If he really was a seer, he was the first one I'd ever spent much time with, or talked to at all really, other than the two female seers today.

  Looking at him now, I found myself really believing he was a seer, too.

  After making a meandering circuit of the room, he stopped by one of the dining room chairs. I watched him take off the black jacket he wore, folding it over the same chair. I found myself staring at the gun harness wrapped around his shoulders, visible now that the jacket was gone. He tugged at the straps of that next, shrugging it off and setting it on the dining room table in front of the chair with his jacket.

  Without looking at me, he wandered back towards the fireplace, lowering his weight heavily to one end of the couch I’d just been fantasizing about sleeping on. I watched him face the glassed-in fire, his expression unmoving.

  He looked as tired as I felt.

  I glanced at the gun harness he’d taken off, which was now closer to me than it was to him.

  Clearly, he wasn’t overly worried about me taking his gun and shooting him.

  “DNA trigger,” he said, exhaling in a sigh as he leaned deeper into the couch. “But you’re right. It hadn’t occurred to me that you might shoot me. Well… until now.” He glanced back at me. “Do you want to shoot me, Alyson?”

  “No,” I said, feeling my face warm. “Sorry. I’m trying to feel safe here. But this is… strange. I don’t know you. And as far as I can tell, you seem to be doing about ten illegal things, just in this room alone.”

  He gave me a brief stare, as if thinking.

  Then, he seemed to shake off whatever it was.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, looking back at the fire. “Will you come here?”

  For a few beats of my heart, I only looked at him.

  I wasn’t afraid of him hurting me.

  I wasn’t afraid of him at all in the usual sense, but something about being alone with him brought up a near-panic reaction in me anyway. That kiss still swam around somewhere in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t all that, either. Whatever I was feeling right then, it couldn’t be reduced to a simple attraction.

  The thing between us felt… I don’t know.

  Older. Deeper than any of those things.

  It definitely felt more meaningful than a revenge kiss with a stranger, no matter how good that kiss was.

  I couldn’t make up my mind what that feeling meant, or why he felt so damned familiar to me, but my heart was beating hard enough to make me feel light-headed.

  Despite all of those things, I didn’t let myself hesitate for long.

  Walking around the back of the couch, I sat on the other end.

  Once I had, I felt a tangible relief, but not for the reason I’d expected.

  I’d forgotten my physical condition in all of the stress of being there alone with him.

  Now I was suddenly aware that my back had been killing me, and his couch was more comfortable than anything I’d had in any one of my many apartments. Wincing as I shifted to get even more comfortable, I folded one leg so I could face him easier, and sank back into the thick cushion with a sigh of my own, still clutching my water glass in one hand, and now the back of the couch with the other.

  For a brief moment, I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, I found him watching me, a slightly less hard look on his face.

  I waited.

  I watched him look away, back towards the fireplace.

  For a moment we only sat there, watching that fire together.

  I wondered if his silence was some kind of power play at first, but when he frowned, his eyes focused inward still, I wondered if maybe he was reading my mind.

  “A little,” he said, turning.

  His deep voice made me flinch.

  An instant later, I heard his words.

  “A little?” I said. “As in, you’re reading my mind a little?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to smile, but it was more nerves than a real reaction. He didn’t smile back, so maybe he could sense that. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how to respond to what he’d said. Again, it didn’t threaten me, although maybe it should have.

  When I looked at his face next, his eyes remained serious, studying the flames behind the glass wall.

  “Look,” I said. “Don’t think I’m not grateful about tonight, because I am. I’m really grateful, so I’m sorry I didn’t say that before.”

  I paused, waiting for him to look over.

  He didn’t.

  Taking another breath, I plunged on.

  “I’ve never really talked to a seer before,” I said. “Are they all like you?”

  “Like me?” He turned, frowning slightly. “Like me, how?”

  I bit my lip, then shrugged. “I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just… you don’t seem to be all that great with people, even with the mind-reading thing. And that woman today… Jewel? She was super polite, but not very direct. So I hope I won’t offend you if I just come out and say some things. Is that not done, where you’re from?”

  His frown deepened. Then he shook his head, once.

  “Blunt is fine,” he said.

  I nodded, sighing. “Okay, good. Then I’ll just say it. If you really want to talk to me, I need words. You don’t have to read me, or mesmerize me or whatever. Whatever you want to know, I’m going to tell you. I don’t have any reason not to. Everything I might get busted for tonight, you’d be in a lot worse shape than me––”

  He let out a humorless snort.

&nb
sp; When I paused, he waved me on.

  “Continue.”

  I sighed, combing my fingers through my hair.

  “That was pretty much it. I was just going to add, I owe you. So I’d tell you whatever you wanted to know anyway, regardless of the race-crime side of things. And I’m not going to tell anyone anything about you. Ever. Even if it means me going to jail.”

  I paused, then remembered something else.

  “…A name would help, though.”

  “I gave you a name,” he said.

  “A real one, then. There’s no possible way your name is Simon. That seer at the fetish bar couldn’t even say it with a straight face.”

  His frown deepened.

  I thought he was going to lapse back into silence, but after giving me a faintly puzzled look, he shrugged, making another of those vague gestures with his hand. He was wearing a ring, I noticed, on his smallest finger. It glinted silver, but didn’t seem to have any markings on it.

  “Revik,” he said, exhaling. “Dehgoies Revik.”

  “Revik? That’s your name?”

  “Yes.”

  I folded my arms, wincing a bit when the motion pulled at my sore back. “Is there anything else I need to know about you? You’re not really SCARB, are you?”

  He grunted, swiveling his gaze towards me.

  “No,” he said.

  I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

  Leaning deeper into the couch cushions, I winced again until I got comfortable.

  “Okay. Well, I guess I should tell you next that I’m really exhausted… Revik. What is it you want to talk about that can’t wait for a shower, some aspirin, a few hours of sleep and about a gallon of coffee? Or were you afraid I’d go to the cops? Or get picked up once surveillance caught up with me? Are you worried I’d tie us both to that scene in the park?”

  His expression grew serious. I saw the tautness there again, just before he gestured vaguely with the same hand.

  “All right,” he said. “I have a problem.”

  “A bigger one than you and I being picked up by SCARB for suspicion of race crimes and/or terrorism?” I said. “…Or by the NYPD for murder?”