“We think it comes from the Triumphal Entry,” she said. “The background looks to be the Beautiful Gate. It’s hard to tell.”
“My God,” Ivy whispered, stepping up beside me.
Those eyes … I stared at the photo. Those eyes.
“Hey, I thought we weren’t supposed to swear around you,” J.C. called to Ivy.
“It wasn’t a curse,” she said, resting her fingers reverently on the photo. “It was an identification.”
“It’s meaningless, unfortunately,” Monica said. “There’s no way to prove who that is. Even if we could, it wouldn’t do anything toward proving or disproving Christianity. This was before the man was killed. Of all the shots for Razon to get…” She shook her head.
“It doesn’t change my mind,” I said, slipping the photo back into the envelope.
“I didn’t think it would,” Monica said. “Consider it as payment.”
“I didn’t end up accomplishing much for you.”
“Nor we for you,” she said, walking from the room. “Good evening, Mr. Leeds.”
I rubbed my finger on the envelope, listening as Wilson showed Monica to the door, then shut it. I left Ivy and J.C. having a conversation about his cursing, then walked into the entryway and up the stairs. I wound around them, hand on the banister, before reaching the upper hallway.
My study was at the end. The room was lit by a single lamp on the desk, the shades drawn against the night. I walked to my desk and sat down. Tobias sat in one of the two other chairs beside it.
I picked up a book—the last in what had been a huge stack—and began leafing through. The picture of Sandra, the one recovered from the train station, hung tacked to the wall beside me.
“Have they figured it out?” Tobias asked.
“No,” I said. “Have you?”
“It was never the camera, was it?”
I smiled, turning a page. “I searched his pockets right after he died. Something cut my fingers. Broken glass.”
Tobias frowned. Then, after a moment’s thought, he smiled. “Shattered lightbulbs?”
I nodded. “It wasn’t the camera, it was the flash. When Razon took pictures at the church, he used the flash even outside in the sunlight. Even when his subject was well lit, even when he was trying to capture something that happened during the day, such as Jesus’ appearance outside the tomb following his resurrection. That’s a mistake a good photographer wouldn’t make. And he was a good photographer, judging by the pictures hung in his apartment. He had a good eye for lighting.”
I turned a page, then reached into my pocket and took something out, setting it on the table. A detachable flash, the one I’d taken off the camera just before the explosion. “I’m not sure if it’s something about the flash mechanism or the bulbs, but I do know he was swapping out the bulbs in order to stop the thing from working when he didn’t want it to.”
“Beautiful,” Tobias said.
“We’ll see,” I replied. “This flash doesn’t work; I’ve tried. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. You know how the cameras would work for Monica’s people for a while? Well, many camera flashes have multiple bulbs like this one. I suspect that only one of these had anything to do with the temporal effects. The special bulbs burned out quickly, after maybe ten shots.”
I turned a few pages.
“You’re changing, Stephen,” Tobias finally said. “You noticed this without Ivy. Without any of us. How long before you don’t need us any longer?”
“I hope that never happens,” I said. “I don’t want to be that man.”
“And yet you chase her.”
“And yet I do,” I whispered.
One step closer. I knew what train Sandra had taken. A ticket peeked out of her coat pocket. I could make out the numbers, just barely.
She’d gone to New York. For ten years, I’d been hunting this answer—which was only a tiny fraction of a much larger hunt. The trail was a decade old, but it was something.
For the first time in years, I was making progress. I closed the book and sat back, looking up at Sandra’s picture. She was beautiful. So very beautiful.
Something rustled in the dark room. Neither Tobias nor I stirred as a short, balding man sat down at the desk’s empty chair. “My name is Arnaud,” he said. “I’m a physicist specializing in temporal mechanics, causality, and quantum theories. I believe you have a job for me?”
I set the final book on the stack of those I’d read during the last month. “Yes, Arnaud,” I said. “I do.”
LEGION: SKIN DEEP
PART ONE
ONE
“What’s her angle?” Ivy asked, walking around the table with her arms folded. Today, she wore her blonde hair in a severe bun, which was stuck through with several dangerous-looking pins.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore her.
“Gold digger, perhaps?” Tobias asked. Dark-skinned and stately, he had pulled a chair over to the table so he could sit beside me. He wore his usual relaxed suit with no tie, and fit in well with this room of crystalline lighting and piano music. “Many a woman has seen only Stephen’s wealth, and not his acumen.”
“She’s the daughter of a real estate magnate,” Ivy said with a dismissive wave. “She has wealth coming out of her nose.” Ivy leaned down beside the table, inspecting my dinner companion. “A nose, by the way, which seems to have had as much work done on it as her chest.”
I forced out a smile, trying to keep my attention on my dinner companion. I was used to Ivy and Tobias by now. I relied upon them.
But it can be damn hard to enjoy a date when your hallucinations are along.
“So…” said Sylvia, my date. “Malcom tells me you’re some kind of detective?” She gave me a timid smile. Resplendent in diamonds and a tight black dress, Sylvia was an acquaintance of a mutual friend who worried about me far too much. I wondered how much research Sylvia had done on me before agreeing to the blind date.
“A detective?” I said. “Yes, I suppose you could say that.”
“I just did!” Sylvia replied with a chittering laugh.
Ivy rolled her eyes, refusing the seat Tobias pulled over for her.
“Though honestly,” I said to Sylvia, “the word ‘detective’ probably gives you the wrong idea. I just help people with very specialized problems.”
“Like Batman!” Sylvia said.
Tobias spat out his lemonade in a spray before him. It spotted the tablecloth, though Sylvia—of course—couldn’t see it.
“Not … really like that,” I said.
“I was just being silly,” Sylvia said, taking another drink of her wine. She’d had a lot of that for a meal that she’d only just begun. “What kind of problems do you solve? Like, computer problems? Security problems? Logic problems?”
“Yes. All three of those, and then some.”
“That … doesn’t sound very specialized to me,” Sylvia said.
She had a point. “It’s difficult to explain. I’m a specialist, just in lots of areas.”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Depends on the problem.”
“She’s hiding things,” Ivy said, arms still folded. “I’m telling you, Steve. She’s got an angle.”
“Everyone does,” I replied.
“What?” Sylvia asked, frowning as a server with a cloth over her arm made our salad plates vanish.
“Nothing,” I said.
Sylvia shifted in her chair, then took another drink. “You were talking to them, weren’t you?”
“So you have read up on me.”
“A girl has to be careful, you know. There are some real psychos in the world.”
“I assure you,” I said, “it’s all under control. I see things, but I’m completely aware of what is real and what is not.”
“Be careful, Stephen,” Tobias said from my side. “This is dangerous territory for a first date. Perhaps a discussion of the architecture instead?”
I realized I’d been tapping
my fork against my bread plate, and stopped.
“This building is a Renton McKay design,” Tobias continued in his calm, reassuring way. “Note the open nature of the room, with the movable fixtures, and geometric designs in ascending patterns. They can rebuild the interior every year or so, creating a restaurant that is half eatery, half art installation.”
“My psychology really isn’t that interesting,” I said. “Not like this building. Did you know that it was built by Renton McKay? He—”
“So you see things,” Sylvia interrupted. “Like visions?”
I sighed. “Nothing so grand. I see people who aren’t there.”
“Like that guy,” she said. “In that movie.”
“Sure. Like that. Only he was crazy, and I’m not.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ivy said. “What a great way to put her at ease. Explain in depth how not crazy you are.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a therapist?” I snapped back at her. “Less sarcasm would be delightful.”
That was a tall order for Ivy. Sarcasm was kind of her native tongue, though she was fluent in “stern disappointment” and “light condescension” as well. She was also a good friend. Well, imaginary friend.
She just had a thing about me and women. Ever since Sandra abandoned us, at least.
Sylvia regarded me with a stiff posture, and only then did I realize I’d spoken out loud to Ivy. As Sylvia noticed me looking at her, she plastered on a smile as fake as Red Dye No. 6. Inside, I winced. She was quite attractive, despite what Ivy claimed—and no matter how crowded my life had become, it also got terribly lonely.
“So…” Sylvia said, then trailed off. Entrées arrived. She had chic lettuce wraps. I’d chosen a safe-sounding chicken dish. “So, uh … You were speaking to one of them, just now? An imaginary person?” She obviously considered it polite to ask. Perhaps the proper lady’s book of etiquette had a chapter on how to make small talk about a man’s psychological disabilities.
“Yes,” I said. “That was one of them. Ivy.”
“A … lady?”
“A woman,” I said. “She’s only occasionally a lady.”
Ivy snorted. “Your maturity is stunning, Steve.”
“How many of your personalities are female?” Sylvia asked. She hadn’t touched her food yet.
“They aren’t personalities,” I said. “They’re separate from me. I don’t have dissociative identity disorder. If anything, I’m schizophrenic.”
That is a subject of some debate among psychologists. Despite my hallucinations, I don’t fit the profile for schizophrenia. I don’t fit any of the profiles. But why should that matter? I get along just fine. Mostly.
I smiled at Sylvia, who still hadn’t started her food. “It’s not a big deal. My aspects are probably just an effect of a lonely childhood, spent mostly by myself.”
“Good,” Tobias said. “Now transition the conversation away from your eccentricities and start talking about her.”
“Yes,” Ivy said. “Find out what she’s hiding.”
“Do you have siblings?” I asked.
Sylvia hesitated, then finally picked up her silverware. Never had I been so happy to see a fork move. “Two sisters,” she said, “both older. Maria is a consultant for a marketing firm. Georgia lives in the Cayman Islands. She’s an attorney.…”
I relaxed as she continued. Tobias raised his glass of lemonade to me in congratulations. Disaster avoided.
“You’re going to have to talk about it with her eventually,” Ivy said. “We aren’t exactly something she can ignore.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “But for now, I’ll settle for surviving the first date.”
“What was that?” Sylvia looked at us, hesitating in her narrative.
“Nothing,” I said.
“She was speaking about her father,” Tobias said. “A banker. Retired.”
“How long was he in banking?” I asked, glad that one of us had been paying attention.
“Forty-eight years! We kept saying he didn’t need to continue on.…”
I smiled and began cutting my chicken as she talked.
“Perimeter clear,” a voice said from behind me.
I started, looking over my shoulder. J.C. stood there, wearing a busboy’s uniform and carrying a tray of dirty dishes. Lean, tough, and square-jawed, J.C. is a cold-blooded killer. Or so he claims. I think it means he likes to murder amphibians.
He was a hallucination, of course. J.C., the plates he was carrying, the handgun he had holstered inconspicuously under his white server’s jacket … all hallucinations. Despite that, he’d saved my life several times.
That didn’t mean I was pleased to see him.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
“Watching out for assassins,” J.C. said.
“I’m on a date!”
“Which means you’ll be distracted,” J.C. said. “Perfect time for an assassination.”
“I told you to stay home!”
“Yeah, I know. The assassins would have heard that too. That’s why I had to come.” He nudged me with an elbow. I felt it. He might be imaginary, but he felt perfectly real to me. “She’s a looker, Skinny. Nice work!”
“Half of her is plastic,” Ivy said dryly.
“Same goes for my car,” J.C. said. “It still looks nice.” He grinned at Ivy, then leaned down to me. “I don’t suppose you could…” He nodded toward Ivy, then raised his hands to his chest, making a cupping motion.
“J.C.,” Ivy said flatly. “Did you just try to get Steve to imagine me with a larger chest?”
J.C. shrugged.
“You,” she said, “are the most loathsome non-being on the planet. Really. You should feel proud. Nobody has imagined anything more slimy, ever.”
The two of them had an off-again, on-again relationship. Apparently, “off-again” had started when I wasn’t looking. I really had no idea what to make of it—this was the first time two of my aspects had become romantically entangled.
Curiously, J.C. had been completely unable to say the words about me imagining Ivy with a different body shape. He didn’t like to confront the fact that he was a hallucination. It made him uncomfortable.
J.C. continued looking the room over. Despite his obvious hang-ups, he was keen-eyed and very good with security. He’d notice things I would not, so perhaps it was good he’d decided to join us.
“What?” I asked him. “Is there something wrong?”
“He’s just paranoid,” Ivy said. “Remember when he thought the postman was a terrorist?”
J.C. stopped scanning, his attention focusing sharply on a woman sitting three tables over. Dark-skinned and wearing a nice pantsuit, she turned toward her window as soon as I noticed her. That window reflected back our way, and it was dark outside. She could still be watching.
“I’ll check it out,” J.C. said, moving away from our table.
“Stephen…” Tobias said.
I glanced back at our table and found Sylvia staring at me again, her fork held loosely as if forgotten, her eyes wide.
I forced myself to chuckle. “Sorry! Got distracted by something.”
“By what?”
“Nothing. You were saying something about your mother—”
“What distracted you?”
“An aspect,” I said, reluctant.
“A hallucination, you mean.”
“Yes. I left him home. He came on his own.”
Sylvia stared intently at her food. “That’s interesting. Tell me more.”
Being polite again. I leaned forward. “It’s not what you think, Sylvia. My aspects are just pieces of me, receptacles for my knowledge. Like … memories that get up and walk around.”
“She’s not buying it,” Ivy noted. “Breathing quickly. Fingers tense … Steve, she knows more about you than you think. She’s not acting shocked, but instead like she’s been set up on a date with Jack the Ripper and is trying to keep her cool.”
I nodded at the
information. “It’s nothing to worry about.” Had I said that already? “Each of my aspects help me in some way. Ivy is a psychologist. Tobias is a historian. They—”
“What about the one that just arrived?” Sylvia asked, looking up and meeting my eyes. “The one who came when you weren’t expecting?”
“Lie,” Tobias said.
“Lie,” Ivy said. “Tell her he’s a ballet dancer or something.”
“J.C.,” I said instead, “is ex–Navy SEAL. He helps me with that sort of thing.”
“That sort of thing?”
“Security situations. Covert operations. Any time I might be in danger.”
“Does he tell you to kill people?”
“It’s not like that. Okay, well, it is kind of like that. But he’s usually joking.”
Ivy groaned.
Sylvia stood up. “Excuse me. I need the restroom.”
“Of course.”
Sylvia took her purse and shawl and left.
“Not coming back?” I asked Ivy.
“Are you kidding? You just told her that an invisible man who tells you to kill people just showed up when you didn’t want him to.”
“Not one of our smoothest interactions,” Tobias agreed.
Ivy sighed and sat down in Sylvia’s seat. “Better than last time at least. She lasted … what? Half an hour?”
“Twenty minutes,” Tobias said, glancing at the restaurant’s grandfather clock.
“We’re going to need to get over this,” I whispered. “We can’t keep going to pieces every time romance is potentially involved.”
“You didn’t need to say what you did about J.C.,” Ivy said. “You could have made something up. Instead, you told her the truth. The frightening, embarrassing, J.C.-filled truth.”
I picked up my drink. Lemonade in a fancy wineglass. I turned it about. “My life is fake, Ivy. Fake friends. Fake conversations. Often, on Wilson’s day off, I don’t speak to a single real person. I guess I don’t want to start a relationship with lies.”
The three of us sat in silence until J.C. came jogging back, dancing to the side of a real server as they passed one another.
Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds Page 7