by Deanna Chase
“Why don’t you just come in?” I said, exasperated. “Meet the guy you’re going to have a hissy fit about, at least.”
He shook his head, once. “No. We’ll hang later. How about tomorrow?”
I nodded, biting back my frustration. Shaking my head, I voiced it anyway, maybe because Jon had still made no move to leave.
“Why is everyone so weirded out by this?” I said. “So I like a guy. So what?”
“Who’s weirded, Al?” Jon said.
I gave him a flat look. “Really? You’re going to play that, now?”
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice neutral. “I was just surprised when Cass mentioned you’d actually seen the guy again. Forget I said anything, okay?”
I frowned, not answering at first. Cass hadn’t just “mentioned” Jaden to Jon; he and Cass had talked about it, whatever Jon was pretending. And Jon was right about something else, I realized, as I turned over his words. Cass might think the whole thing was funny, but she was weirded out by it, too. Neither of them would talk smack just to be assholes, so if Cass said something to Jon, she must genuinely be worried.
Given that, it was hard not to feel touched, too...although the fact that they’d been talking behind my back annoyed me. They didn’t usually do that.
Well. Not that I knew of, anyway.
“Just ask me next time,” I said. “As in me. Directly. Not Cass. Cass doesn’t know anything about it, okay? Hell, I barely know anything about it.” When Jon grunted, folding his tanned arms, I sighed, folding mine, too, only around the blanket. “Jesus. What’s the big deal?”
“Who is this guy?” Jon said, his voice sharper. “What the hell is he doing, trying to fuck you after knowing you for thirty minutes?”
“What makes you think it was all him?” I shot back.
“Was it?” he said.
“That’s none of your damned business!”
“Really?” he said, his voice edging on angry now. “That’s how you want to play this? Like I’m Dad or something? Like we don’t talk about stuff like this?”
“We don’t,” I said.
Jon’s eyes narrowed, his stance stiffening, growing closer to how he looked when he sparred in the ring. “Really? We don’t? Since when, Al?” His voice turned into a near-growl. “Did I get my name crossed off a list? Because I don’t think I got that particular memo, little sis.”
“This isn’t the same, and you know it!” I sharpened my voice but kept it low, glancing back at the front door. “Jeez, Jon. Creepy much? Is your own sex life so boring that you have to ask about mine?”
“Fine.” Jon’s expression hardened, right before he nodded, as if still thinking. “Fine,” he said again.
Turning, he began to clomp purposefully down the wooden stairs in his boots, heading for the street.
“Jon!”
He stopped, looking up at me.
That time, I could see his expression clearly since he was out of the shadows and back under the orange street lights. He looked pissed off. More than that, he looked hurt, and embarrassed, and...worried. He looked worried.
Jesus. More than anything, he looked really worried.
I exhaled, still watching his face. “Jon...I’m all right, okay? I swear.” Hesitating, I walked to the edge of the porch, at the very top of the stairs. “I know it’s weird for me, to be with someone out of the blue like this...but it’s not the first time, okay?” Seeing Jon’s eyebrow go up, I exhaled again, in exasperation that time. “It’s fine, okay? Really. He’s a good guy.”
Jon looked like he wanted to say something else, but didn’t, shaking his head. His long, dirty-blond hair was tied at the base of his neck in a rubber band over a dark t-shirt and torn blue jeans. From the looks of him, he’d probably just gotten off work. He didn’t look like he’d even been home to shower yet, and he didn’t wear socks with his sneakers.
I flashed back to that Halloween party, remembering Jon’s questioning look when I came out of the bathroom with Jaden. Thinking about that now, and remembering how guilty the two of us must have looked with my smeared make up and torn stockings and Jaden’s rumpled shirt and whatever else, I flushed again.
“Stop being such a big brother,” I told him.
I’d been trying to lighten things, but Jon only glared up at me.
“Then stop being an asshole,” he said.
I frowned. “Jesus. Thanks a lot.”
“You know the kind of people you attract, Al.”
I couldn’t really argue, but it pissed me off anyway. Maybe it pissed me off even more because I couldn’t argue.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well. That’s not exactly my fault. Or are you saying it is?”
“I didn’t say it was your fault!” Jon snapped. He unfolded his arms, hands curling into fists. “Damn it, Al! You’re not stupid...far from it. Why can’t you just be smart about this? You don’t know anything about this asshole...and he’s not exactly off to an auspicious start! From what Cass said, he practically dragged you into that bathroom, after barely asking your name. Now he knows where you live? Where you work? Did you tell him that stuff, Al? In the twenty or so minutes you were screwing in that bathroom? Or did he stalk you to find it out later on his own...after he decided he might like a repeat performance?”
Remembering what Jaden had told me about how he’d been asking about me, I shrugged, keeping my voice neutral. “What do you want me to say, Jon?” I said. “No matter how I answer that, you’re going to tell me I’m an idiot.”
“Well, maybe you are an idiot!” he said angrily. Stopping, as if biting back more he would have liked to say, he motioned towards me again with one hand, indicating the blanket. “Jesus, Al. You let this guy into your house...into your house! Why?”
I just looked at him, emotions warring in my chest.
Anger mostly, by then...partly for the idiot comment, but more because he clearly thought me incapable of making my own decisions in regard to my personal life. Frustration because I could tell he was genuinely worried about me. Guilt because since Dad died and Mom went into her alcoholic funk, Jon and I pretty much only had each other.
And yeah, more anger because he was acting like he had some say in who I dated.
Or who I fucked, for that matter.
“Go home, Jon,” I said, the anger winning out. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
My voice sounded cold, even to me.
“Yeah, whatever, Al...say hi to your new stalker for me.”
I didn’t answer that time.
I just walked back towards the house.
I didn’t realize until then that Jaden stood in the doorway, listening.
As soon as I saw his face, I realized he’d heard every word we’d said.
4
NOT PASSING
Revik adjusted the collar of his shirt, trying to loosen it from the other’s ministrations, only to have Eddard push his hand away. It wasn’t quite a slap, but it felt like one.
“Kindly stand still, sir,” the human said crisply.
Revik resigned himself, letting his hands fall to his sides.
“It still seems like overkill,” he muttered, glancing at himself in the mirror.
“It is the Royal Academy, sir,” Eddard said, his tone unchanging. “To dress in formal black and whites for such an occasion is tradition.”
Revik didn’t answer, but sighed internally. He fought to just stand there, submitting to being dressed like a monkey, knowing it wouldn’t be the only time he felt that way tonight.
Normally, he could pass around humans.
He’d worn an “H” tattoo for years, ever since they first required race-cat tattoos in select Western countries. Now all of them required it with the exception of the People’s Republic of China, which had their own way of managing the local seer population.
Oh, and Argentina, for some reason.
Revik’s unique blood type helped, in terms of the passing thing.
Unlike the vast majority of se
ers, Revik had a blood type that came up human in routine blood scans, which meant all but those conducted by SCARB in screening for seer terrorists, or for some of the more tech-savvy of the human militaries where they looked for high grade blood patches and genetic variants and whatever else. Even those, Revik normally passed, although he’d been held a few times since he fit most of the secondary characteristics for seers––including height, unusual eye-color, bone structure, and organ placement.
Some anomaly with his genetics, Vash told him. Apparently, only something like one in a million seers shared that anomaly with him, if not fewer.
Luckily, Allie...meaning the Bridge...had the same blood condition Revik did. That, or she had something similar, related to her being the Bridge. Either way, if her blood didn’t come up as human in scans, the decision to hide her among humans while she matured would never have happened. Nor would it if she aged the way a normal seer did.
Revik had always known himself to be lucky in regards to his own blood type.
It was the primary reason he’d been trained for infiltration in the first place.
He also had a fairly nondescript eye color, which could pass as light blue or gray, although they really were neither. Instead, his irises were nearly colorless and clear as glass. He’d been told they carried just the faintest tinge of blue-green, at least in the right light, but most humans didn’t get close enough to notice that, either.
He had features that could be European, or even Eurasian, depending on who looked...unlike the vast majority of seers, who resembled Chinese humans and the various ethnic minorities that encompassed. Other configurations were more rare than others among seers, of course.
In human terms, seers carried roughly the following known human secondary characteristics, or ethnicities, in descending order: Chinese, Southeast Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European and/or Eurasian mix, Japanese, some variations of Native American...then finally light-haired Europeans.
Traits considered African and native Australian were the most rare of all, with the latter being almost unheard of.
Being roughly in the mid-range of the rarer of the appearance brackets, people didn’t often immediately ID Revik as seer.
The only thing really calling out his race to a normal civilian was his height, and many humans were as tall as he was, especially nowadays, with the drastic improvements in nutrition and health care over the past one hundred or so years.
As a result of all of these things, Revik had grown accustomed to walking invisibly among humans. Hell, he had been extensively trained to do just that.
So he wasn’t exactly thrilled when the current head of the British defence program called out his name across the crowded room filled with uniformed humans.
Up until that precise moment, Revik had been happily lurking in the corner by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main reception hall, which also doubled as lecture space when courses were actually in session. He’d fully expected to remain in more or less that same corner, with a few trips to the bar to break up the tedium, for the remainder of the night. No one knew who he was and he had every intention of keeping it that way.
Also due to his training, he had grown adept at not being seen, particularly by humans, particularly when he had no special purpose in being wherever he was.
As far as Revik was concerned, he was there as window-dressing only.
Therefore, when Durenkirk spoke his name into the microphone, Revik flinched. In the process, he spilled the drink he’d managed to get off the bar...also without actually talking to anyone. Now he just stood there, feeling like a spotlight had just been shone on him.
“Dehgoies Revik?” the British ex-Lord of the Admiralty said, speaking even more loudly into the microphone. “He is here, is he not? I could have sworn I saw him walk in, earlier...” He motioned to one of his aides. “Go have a look for him, will you?”
Revik felt his neck warm.
He glanced around at the humans standing not far from him and realized that while some remained oblivious to his presence, a few were looking at him curiously, probably because of the spilled drink. One woman, a human perhaps in her fifties, smiled at him. She was tall for a human, wearing a floor-length white dress that highlighted her graying hair.
Revik paused to stare at her, feeling her pale, human light exude a pulse of real sympathy towards him. He felt in that same whisper that she hated crowds, too, and was only here because her husband...no, her son...had dragged her out to attend.
Revik also felt a sharper dagger of irritation from her aimed at Durenkirk for outing Revik’s race in front of all of these people.
In that split second of information transfer, Revik could have kissed her.
The brief warmth he felt towards her brought a surprisingly dense flush of emotion to his light. Maybe too much, given where he was. Acting too seer around all of these humans wouldn’t do him any favors, Revik knew.
So he didn’t return her smile before averting his gaze.
Instead, he downed the rest of his drink and set it down on the edge of the nearest windowsill before he straightened the tuxedo jacket he wore. Summoning back his infiltrator’s blank expression, he began walking towards the front of the room.
He had to, he knew. And better to go up there on his own than let himself be found by one of Durenkirk’s aides.
He didn’t look at anyone as he walked. Even so, he felt every eye in the room on him now.
“Ah,” Durenkirk said, smiling at him in an almost comical relief. “There he is. Come on up here, lad. Let the new members get a look at you!”
Revik stiffened, but didn’t break or even change stride, and his expression didn’t move.
More training, he supposed.
Even so, the “lad” comment rose his hackles a bit, even knowing how little it meant. He also knew it would hardly do to remind the ex-Lord of the Admiralty that he probably had a good thirty years on the human...if not more.
Revik also knew he was being overly sensitive.
He looked young to human eyes. Certainly he looked young compared to Durenkirk, who had to be in his seventies, which came close to the equivalent of seven hundred years in seer age. Anyway, and more to the point, from a seer perspective, the label still applied, which is probably the real reason it irritated Revik.
For a seer, he was young...only just over one hundred years.
He walked directly up to the podium.
Not seeing the stairs immediately, he made a split second decision and leapt up to the stage instead, realizing his mistake only after the move elicited a few audible gasps from those standing close to the front of the room. Flushing more when he realized that the jump might have looked strange from a human perspective, Revik kept his expression still as he approached Durenkirk at the podium.
“That was...athletic,” the tall Brit smiled, glancing around at the audience with a wink.
When scattered members of the audience tittered in response, Revik decided to play oblivious, versus attempting to pretend he got the joke.
And yes, he stayed in good shape.
He had to, given his job. A lot of that meant work in the ring, including some acrobatics, but he wasn’t about to explain that to a room full of humans in formal wear, most of whom looked like they hadn’t been physically active in at least a decade, if not more.
When Revik attempted to hang back from the podium itself, if only to disguise his height somewhat by avoiding standing directly next to the tall but still significantly shorter-than-him human, the other male motioned him forward a second time. Clearly, Durenkirk refused to let him lurk, even up here. When Revik got close enough, the human leaned back over the microphone, smiling down at the crowd as he patted Revik’s shoulder affectionately.
“We are quite lucky to have Mr. Dehgoies here with us at the College,” Durenkirk said, patting him again, almost like he wasn’t sure what else to do with Revik, now that he stood so close. “I am assured that Mr. Dehgoies...despite
his youthful appearance...has extensive experience in human forms of conflict and warfare. Some of that experience dates all the way back to the very beginnings of World War II, if you can believe it, where he was employed by the Germans, if I am not mistaken...?”
He gave Revik a questioning look at the end of that.
Revik nodded, once.
He nearly made a hand-gesture in seer to connote the same, but stopped himself, realizing he might be drunker than he realized, if he was about to use seer sign language up here.
He saw a few frowns at his nod, anyway.
It took him a few seconds more to realize that the frowns weren’t about his age, or even about him being seer...but pertained to the fact that he’d worked for the Germans. Once he realized that much, Revik had to fight a dark-humored smile. He was just drunk enough to have a sudden, perverse desire to shout out “Heil Hitler!” just to see what they would do.
He, of course, did not do that.
Just having the thought, even in passing, made him wonder just how many times he’d been to the bar already that night, however. He tried to remember if he’d eaten anything, which was usually the thing that got him in trouble when it came to alcohol. Trying to count drinks backwards didn’t help. Nor did it help him to have the reminder of why he’d started drinking so early in the day in the first place.
In any case, Revik had no love of the Nazis, either.
He knew his humor would make no sense to the humans in this crowd, however, most of whom had some connection to the British military, or at least connection to those harmed in the bombings of London in the thirties and forties. Revik had no intention of explaining the fact that he’d probably overseen more gassings of his own race than he had of human ethnic and religious minorities...or that the Germans felt the need to remind him of his place in the overall scheme of things, too. Repeatedly.
Revik nearly had his head severed from his neck as a function of one of those “lessons.”
But even letting his mind drift that far into the past brought up a sudden flood of emotion and memory. He couldn’t process any of that standing on a wooden stage, either.