Phantom Pains

by Mishell Baker

  Six of one . . .

  “Vivian worked here part-time at best,” he went on, “because of her other job, but it’s her innovations that got us to where we are. I’m pretty sure she was killed for them, and that our employees are being targeted by some kind of environmentalist wackos for them, so you’ll excuse me if I’m not thrilled at the idea of the people rifling through everything in her office.”

  “We’re not here for your research,” I said. “All we care about is finding evidence of any crimes that have been committed. If you’re right about what’s happening, we won’t find anything. If Vivian has stepped outside the law, then your cooperation with us might be all that keeps your company together.”

  “You’re right,” said Garcia. “I’m sorry.” He led us out of his office and to another door in the same suite. “Please understand, this is not how I wanted to take over the company. I’ve been keeping her things locked up, haven’t stepped into her role in four months, thinking she’d turn back up eventually, like the others.”

  Good luck with that.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do without her,” he said as he unlocked the door. “Go ahead; I can open up her desk for you; the keys to the rest of it should be in there.”

  “Also,” I said, “if you could get an IT guy to log us into her computer, that would be helpful too.”

  “One of them’s on this floor right now, actually,” he said. “She’s on the stubborn side, but I’ll see if someone can track her down.”

  There were no photos in Vivian’s office, no greenery. It had the look of a place where she did not expect to spend much time. It was, however, jammed full of filing cabinets. This was going to be a long, boring errand.

  As we worked, I spent a lot of time musing about what would happen if Garcia found out we weren’t with the LAPD before we finished.

  “Morozov,” I said, breaking a long silence as my painfully dry fingertips sorted through an incomprehensible stack of papers. “When we’re done, can you make Garcia forget we were here?”

  “I dislike doing that,” he said. There was a tension in his voice; I got the feeling I’d brushed against an iceberg under the water. “It is not ‘erasing’ a memory, it is planting something in the mind, a barricade of sorts. If not placed to absolute perfection, it can have disastrous results.”

  “Since when do Unseelie care about that? You’re not exactly known for your warm fuzzies.”

  “Not all Unseelie are like Vivian. While we embrace fear and sorrow and other energies that your kind consider ‘negative,’ not all of us force them upon those who fail to appreciate them.”

  “Appreciate them?” I said, hearing a snappish edge to my voice. “I used to ‘appreciate’ negative emotions. I used to chase them down with hounds. All it got me was a seven-story trip to the pavement.”

  “This is what I alluded to in the elevator,” said Winterglass. “Human physiology is not built to sustain the sorts of energies that I work with.” As he had on the soundstage, he suddenly looked so deeply, powerfully sad that I felt a pulse of concern for him. Before I could ask him what was on his mind, Tjuan made an odd sound across the room.

  “Oh, this is something,” he said in an ominous tone, staring at a little spiral-bound notebook he’d pulled out of Vivian’s desk drawer. “This is definitely something.”

  18

  As I approached Tjuan, he turned the notebook so that I could see. It appeared to be a handwritten list of locations, taking up many pages. Some were street addresses; some looked like geographic coordinates. Some of them had people’s names written beside or underneath them, along with contact information.

  “What do you think that’s about?” I asked.

  “Look where some of these are,” he said, flipping through the pages to point out the relevant ones. “Los Angeles. New York. New Orleans. London. Nairobi. Singapore. Hong Kong. Helsinki. Lagos. A lot of these locations seem to be clustered around Gate cities. Just the way noble estates tend to be.”

  “Can I see that?” Tjuan handed it to me, and I looked through it. “Some of these are residential addresses, some commercial. This set of coordinates here with all the question marks says it’s a lake. What’s with the random?”

  Tjuan shrugged. “The worlds aren’t a perfect parallel,” he said. “The Seelie and Unseelie royal palaces are in the same spots as palaces here, but it doesn’t always work like that.”

  “So these are Vivian’s targets. Where she was planning to drop the fey blood.”

  Winterglass looked up from the pile of paper he was sifting through, his expression profoundly skeptical. “One of her wraiths could easily find a noble estate—arcane energy can travel Arcadia at the speed of thought. But given the difficulty in arranging an event that could draw energy across, it would likely have to wait for a convergence in order to slip across the barrier. And once it arrived, it would be a stranded fish, yes? And wraiths cannot seem to communicate with any greater range than any of us. So how would they reach Vivian to tell her of their findings?”

  “Remember the one in the soun— No, of course you don’t. Anyway, I think it said it was in Arcadia waiting for orders from Vivian. That a bunch of them were crowded on the other side of the Earth/Arcadia border from where she was. That suggests that they were somehow able to communicate with her across the border, but they had to be close. So picture this: they find a good bombing spot during the convergence, and then once they’re back in Arcadia they just swim to Vivian’s location and report from across the border.”

  Winterglass seemed to find this idea profoundly unsettling.

  Tjuan made a thoughtful sound. “If she can get reports from anywhere in Arcadia anytime,” he said, “it might even explain how she could match up Echoes so easily for her clients. We were never sure how she was doing that.”

  I held up the notebook. “If this is her to-do list, you should check this against a list of known noble holdings and see if you can figure out which—”

  I cut myself off as the office door handle gave a loud thunk, and the door opened to admit a stocky middle-aged woman with a paisley button-down shirt and streaks of teal green in her salt-and-pepper hair. Tjuan and Winterglass immediately flattened themselves against the nearest walls to assist in their invisibility.

  “I’m Chin Ju,” the woman said, arms folded across her chest. “IT girl. Garcia said you needed my help with something; can we make this quick?”

  “I’m Officer Clay.” Claybriar put out his hand, and she unfolded her arms to give it the briefest possible shake before closing herself off again.

  “Officer Mills,” I improvised.

  She asked to see both our badges, which made me sweat bullets, especially when she narrowed her eyes in scrutiny of my empty hand. I knew Claybriar was doing the magic on her brain and not on me, but I was still half-afraid my iron would mess it up somehow. Finally, Chin Ju let out a pacified grunt and settled herself at Vivian’s workstation.

  Still clutching the notebook, I came around the desk to observe her at work. As my eyes fell on the keyboard, I noticed faint but unmistakable impressions there, little scars where Vivian’s nails had eroded the plastic.

  Those perfect, tapered, burgundy nails. Memories stabbed me like shards of crystal. Vivian sipping champagne in a hotel room or relishing a slice of chocolate cake at Gotham Hall. Hints of raspberry red in her dark hair, black stockings with a seam up the back. That light, lilting voice.

  Darling, I’m the hero of this story. I know I don’t look the part.

  Her perfect nails had clawed at the floor of the chapel as I crawled toward her and—

  “Millie?”

  Claybriar’s voice. I looked at him and saw the concern in his eyes. Of course he was watching me like a hawk; of course he could tell that my throat had closed up, that my heart was hammering.

  How could I explain? Four months’ dust had settled into the impressions she had left. She hadn’t been a monster to the people here; they were s
till half hoping she’d turn up with bruises and a wild story.

  But she wouldn’t. Because I’d crushed her throat, watched her turn into a bat-winged mantis-creature and then crumble into grit and ash. In one moment of wrath, three centuries of life had disintegrated like a kicked sand castle.

  “What is it exactly I’m looking for?” said Chin Ju. She hadn’t so much as glanced at me.

  I did a frantic mental inventory of my DBT skills, but all I could find was a phrase that was useless out of context: Be effective. Be effective. Be effective.

  What did that even mean?

  It meant: Do what you’re supposed to do, regardless of what you’re feeling. Regardless of whether it feels right or wrong in the moment. Ignore your thoughts. Just Do the Thing.

  “Scheduling,” I said. “I need to check for appointments at specific locations.”

  “During what time frame?”

  “Future appointments,” I said, “or things still in progress.”

  “What could future appointments possibly have to do with her disappearance?” Chin Ju asked.

  I wrestled my brain into the present; I could hardly remember our cover story. “We’re checking up on the possibility of sabotage,” I said. “A competitor might have sneaked some dangerous substances into your warehouses with plans to see them used.”

  “Why is the LAPD investigating international crime anyway?” asked Chin Ju.

  Ugh, smart people. I didn’t have the time or mental focus to deal with this.

  “We work the case until we’re told otherwise,” I said, trying to sound impatient and on the verge of arresting someone.

  Chin Ju did not seem particularly intimidated. She was looking at me now; not at my wig. At me.

  “Can you please help me check the appointments?” I prompted.

  “Sure,” said Chin Ju. But I didn’t like the slight hesitation before she turned back to her work.

  She was suspicious, and her job was about sniffing out inconsistencies, solving problems, identifying threats. Right now I felt like a bug she was minutes from squashing.

  “Give me a location,” she said.

  “Uh, Singapore,” I said. I paged through the notebook, found an address there, read it off to her.

  She opened an application, tapped some keys, sifted through what looked like a color-coded database. But then something in her posture changed subtly. If I hadn’t been scrutinizing her, I’d have missed it.

  “Find something?” I asked her.

  She turned slowly to look over her shoulder at me. Her expression suggested she’d just received a shock that had taken her higher thought processes momentarily offline. “Can I talk to you for a second alone?” she murmured, glancing behind me at Claybriar.

  “He’s safe,” I assured her. “You can trust him.”

  She shook her head firmly. “I can’t. I can’t talk about this with him here. Just us girls, for a second?”

  I looked at Clay, and he shrugged. Since he couldn’t touch the door handle without going faun-tastic, I moved to it and held it open for him.

  “Just for a minute,” I murmured to him. “Just wait there in the hall, and I’ll let you back in once she’s ready.”

  “Please don’t be too long.”

  I nodded, closed the door behind him. Chin Ju beckoned me back over to the desk. She’d risen from her chair, looking tense, and she pointed to the screen. I came around the desk to look; the font on the spreadsheet was so tiny I had to lean in close to look, putting Chin Ju behind me.

  Which was dumb, of course.

  My cheekbone slammed into the wood of the desk hard enough to make me see stars. The burning in my scalp suggested that Chin Ju had used my wig as a handle to put me there, and the pins had ripped at my hair. My back surged with a fresh crescendo of pain from Saturday’s injury.

  “What has that fey done to it?” her voice hissed close to my ear. “Why won’t it answer me?”

  I didn’t even have time to figure out what the hell she was talking about before the two people she’d had no idea were still in the room pounced on her and dragged her off me. Her blind punch caught Tjuan right in the mouth, but to my surprise His Majesty avenged Tjuan with a vicious uppercut that left Chin Ju reeling.

  I heard Claybriar pounding on the door outside. Rubbing the bruised side of my face—ugh, she’d ruined my good side—and futilely trying to straighten my wig, I made my way unsteadily to open the door while Tjuan and Winterglass secured Chin Ju against the far wall.

  In her struggles the front of her button-down gaped open, and I saw a mess of crisscrossing superficial scars. Self-harm? Or torture?

  “She’s possessed,” I said.

  “Obey me, Unseelie creature,” Winterglass said to her, shedding his invisibility spell with a graceful shrug as though throwing off a cloak. “Cast no spell until I give you leave to do so, and neither cause harm to nor alter the memory of anyone in this room without my permission.”

  Chin Ju stilled, but the look she turned on Winterglass was twisted with hate. “Enjoy your power while you can, Your Majesty,” she said. “Your time is ending.”

  “Your leader is dead,” said Winterglass. “Every power in two worlds is aligned against you. But if you provide the Arcadia Project with information, they will be merciful.”

  Chin Ju just snarled.

  “What are we supposed to do with another wraith?” I said. “We’ve got nobody left to transport this one back to Arcadia. Unless—” I glanced at Tjuan.

  “No,” he said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  “I don’t just mean ‘hell no,’ which by the way, hell no, but also they took my visa away when I started hearing voices. The only guy who could give it back is across the pond by now, so I won’t be going to Arcadia any time soon.”

  “So leave the wraith here,” said Claybriar to Winterglass. “You haven’t made it any promises. Kick it out of this woman, disable it, lock it in the office.”

  “No!” blurted the wraith. Its rebellious snarl turned to a look of abject terror so swiftly it was almost comical. “Don’t leave me here. Please.”

  “They’ll be doing a drawing ritual in a couple of weeks,” I said. “You’ll get to go home, not that you deserve it. Why so panicked?”

  The wraith didn’t answer.

  “The one on the soundstage was like this about being locked in there, too,” I informed Winterglass, since he’d been divested of that memory.

  He looked thoughtful. “It must be a kind of torment,” he mused. “A creature without form or boundary, accustomed to riding the endless currents of emotion in Arcadia, now stranded, paralyzed and suffocating in the emptiness.”

  “My heart’s breaking,” I said, rubbing at the bruise on my cheek.

  “Tell us how to stop the destruction of the sidhe estates,” said Winterglass, “and I will allow you to stay passively inside this woman’s body until you are called home.”

  “Are you serious?” I said. “You’re going to willingly let an innocent woman walk around with a wraith inside her?”

  “First,” said Winterglass, “the wraith will not harm her if I so command it. Second, what it gives us in return for this small favor would save the Arcadia Project and both of our races. Third, you seem to forget that you have no authority to command me. You may waste your breath debating with me if you choose, but it will avail you nothing.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the wraith. “Nothing you could offer will make me betray the cause.”

  “What cause? Watching the world burn? Because I’m not understanding how random destruction is a ‘cause.’ ”

  Apparently, launching a glob of spit toward my feet didn’t count as causing me harm. Great.

  “There is no point in trying to make the likes of you understand,” the wraith snarled.

  “Then you have made your choice,” said Winterglass. “Leave this woman’s body. Do not possess, enchant, nor cause harm to anyone who is now in this
room, nor to anyone who should later enter it.” He said it again in Unseelie for good measure, or at least I assumed that’s what he was saying. I wasn’t ready to discount that he could have been betraying me somehow.

  Even as he finished his last sentence, Chin Ju shuddered and staggered backward. She looked at Winterglass, then at myself and Claybriar, her eyes full of confusion and her jaw swelling up from the blow Winterglass had dealt her.

  “You . . . hit me,” she said to Winterglass with a kind of astonishment that was rapidly building to outrage. Oh right. Winterglass had ordered it not to alter her memory. She looked at Claybriar, at me. Tjuan was still invisible. “You let him.”

  I moved to Winterglass, leaning as close as I could without touching him. “I know you’re not keen on the idea,” I whispered, “but maybe you should—”

  Chin Ju bolted. None of us had time to consider how and whether to stop her; we just stood there with dumb looks on our faces as she disappeared out the door.

  “She’s probably headed straight to Garcia,” I said, starting in the direction she’d gone. “We need to catch her, wipe her memory. Do the same to Garcia if she gets there first.”

  “No,” said Winterglass. “They are blameless.”

  “You were willing to leave her possessed, but you won’t spare her a horrible memory?”

  “Argue when we are safe,” Winterglass said between clenched teeth. “We need to flee this building before we are cornered.”

  “But we’re not done here,” I said. “We’ve barely—”

  “Bridge burned,” said Tjuan. “Let’s move.”

  Tjuan was in charge, and he was also my ride, so I did as he said, even though everything in me was screaming to catch her, fix this. She had to know I was wearing a wig now. Had she noticed my scars? She’d seen Winterglass, too; surely someone here would be making a call to the LAPD with all of our descriptions.

  Winterglass drew another don’t-look spell over everyone but me; I felt insanely conspicuous as I made my way as swiftly as possible to the elevators and jammed my finger repeatedly on the button with the down arrow. It felt like three days before one of the sets of doors finally opened and we were able to slip inside.