“There’s also this whole thing where I kind of have a boyfriend now.”
Caryl’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling.
“Well, a guy I’ve been sleeping with for a few months, anyway. We just exchanged contact info, so now it feels like I’d have to officially dump him to get involved with someone else. And then there’s Claybriar.”
“You and Claybriar cannot consummate a physical relationship,” she said. “And you will remain devoted to each other regardless. There is nothing you and I could do that would change Claybriar’s status. He will always be your Echo.”
I shook my head, frustrated. “When it comes down to it, Caryl, it isn’t about anyone else, or even about you being my boss. Or about you being nineteen. Seven years is a big age gap but it’s not—I mean, you’re legal, and—that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s the fact that I know myself. And don’t give me that starry-eyed look of denial, because I mean it. You know what borderline personality disorder is. I punish myself by destroying anything good in my life. The closer you are to me the worse your life is going to get. Zach isn’t close enough to me to get hurt, and Claybriar can take it. You I’d rip to shreds, and if I cared about you even a tiny bit less, I’d be fine with that. But we’ve been through too much for me to treat you the way I do everyone else.”
Caryl’s eyes welled up. Damn it. I waited for her to object, but she didn’t, just looked up at me, tears slipping free down her cheeks.
“I can’t force you to give up on me,” I said. “I’ve been where you are, so I know better. I can only tell you that eventually you’ll get over it. You’ll probably go through a phase where I completely disgust you, and then hopefully you’ll come out the other side and we’ll be friends. But don’t make me tell you no again. I can’t guarantee I’ll never slip, especially if you deliberately mess with me. It still wouldn’t change anything. We’re not going to be together, Caryl. Not now, not ever.”
Watching her face was like watching her fingers slip from the edge of a cliff. Quickly, hoarsely, she muttered the words of Elliott’s spell, the ripcord to her parachute. And then she was as calm as the Dead Sea.
“Tell me your news.”
It was for the best, really. I’m not sure how a heartbroken Caryl would have reacted to the whole drunk, man-eating Irish-setter thing, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t have fallen under the heading of Professional, and I had to wrap this up in time for therapy. Under the circumstances, Caryl agreed that our next step was definitely to bring Throebrand into Naderi’s proximity and see if the sight of her rang any bells. But Inaya and Foxfeather’s accidental introduction last summer notwithstanding, this was usually something that was supposed to be supervised closely by high-ranking Arcadia Project officials, and there was no way in hell Alvin was going to be on board with this.
So now, on top of the egregious breach of protocol we’d probably committed by bringing a manticore over here in the first place, we were going to have to let the jailbird drive.
• • •
“I would like to file an official complaint about the role I’ve been assigned,” said Tjuan, sitting in the backseat of Caryl’s SUV with the dog on Wednesday afternoon.
“Noted,” said Caryl. “If I am ever officially in charge of the Los Angeles Arcadia Project again, I shall make certain to put it in your file.”
This was as close as the two of them came to banter, and it made me feel, irrationally, that everything was going to be all right.
“It’s the smell, isn’t it?” said the dog, whom we’d decided to call Brand for short. “I’ve stopped noticing it, but when Shock first put me in this body I almost threw up.”
“As dogs go,” I said, “you smell pretty nice.”
“It’s the talking,” said Tjuan. “That is just not right.”
“Eh, what’s the point of going to all this trouble to get information if he’s mute?” I said. “I’m going to side with Shock on this one. So long as Brand’s just here in the car with us he can talk all he likes. Once he gets out, though, he has to play the part, or he gets shipped right back home.”
“Fine,” said the dog.
When we drove through security, I leaned over so the gal in the booth could see me. I looked oh so sharp; I was even wearing a skirt.
“They’re friends of Inaya’s,” I said, and she waved me through. Inaya had made it pretty clear to everyone on the lot that I was Not To Be Questioned About Anything, Ever, and it was one of the few things I was really going to miss about the job if she ever let me leave it.
I started to direct Caryl toward Naderi’s bungalow, but as we turned the corner of soundstage 6, I spotted the showrunner herself.
“Stop!” I cried, and Caryl did, on a dime. If not for Tjuan’s intervention, Brand would have abruptly joined us in the front seat. “There she is,” I said. “This is perfect. We don’t even have to get out.”
“Where?” said Brand excitedly.
Naderi was standing on the sidewalk by soundstage 8, in animated conversation with someone who looked awfully like the guy who’d played Dwight on The Office, though it was hard to tell as he mostly had his back to us. Naderi had on a light leather jacket with a bloodred shirt underneath it; her face was lit with excitement and framed by wild corkscrews of escaped hair. I couldn’t really blame Brand if he found her beautiful.
She was best seen out of the driver’s-side windows, and Brand was on the passenger’s side, so he had to clamber into Tjuan’s lap.
“Great,” said Tjuan, lifting his hands as though the animal’s glossy, perfect coat were covered in mud.
Brand made a smeary nose print on the window. “It’s her, isn’t it! It’s her! In the red shirt! She’s even wearing my color!”
“She does wear a lot of red,” I mused. “And her office is full of lions. Hey, Caryl, maybe open the window before Brand wears a hole in it with his snout?”
“Only if Brand promises not to leap out the window the moment I get it down.”
“I promise not to jump out the window,” said Brand.
“This would be a good time to practice wagging your tail,” I said to him as Caryl pressed a button and the window began its long descent with a zzzzzzzzhhhh. “That’s what dogs do when they’re happy, and people are going to expect it of you when you’re happy in public.”
“Wag my tail?” said Brand, looking over his shoulder at me where I sat riding shotgun. “Like this?” He gave his long, beautifully-fringed tail a slow wave back and forth, like a cat. It was surreal as hell.
“Faster, like this.” I demonstrated by flapping my hand.
Brand tried it out. “Oh, interesting. I don’t think I could do that with my real tail. How’s that?”
“You got it.”
He turned back to look out the window, keeping his tail going. “Wow,” he said. The window was all the way down, and he stuck his head out. After a moment he drew back inside the car and turned to me again. “You know her? You can introduce us?”
“I’m welcome in her office basically any time, as long as I have good news. If not, she’ll throw things at me until I leave.”
“She’s here,” Brand said, his voice soft. “I didn’t believe you. Vivian told me that humans lie all the time. But you didn’t. It’s her; I can feel it. I don’t believe it.” He turned back to the window and gazed at her with actual puppy-dog eyes. “What’s her name?”
“Parisa Naderi,” I said. “You’d call her Parisa, I guess. I call her Naderi because I’m kind of afraid of what she’d do to me if I dared to be on a first-name basis.”
“Parisa,” said Brand softly.
At just that moment, Naderi finished up her conversation with the guy she was talking to and gestured toward stage 8. The two of them turned and began to head toward it.
“No!” said Brand. “She’s leaving!”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Once you’ve told us what we need to know, I’ll introduce the two of you. I gave you
my word, and I intend to keep it.”
“No!” said Brand, barely listening. He shifted back and forth in a sort of panic, his paws digging into Tjuan’s thighs.
“Settle down, you,” said Tjuan. “Caryl, you’d better put the window back up.”
At that, Brand shoved his head all the way out. “PARISA!” he yelled.
Tjuan had tackled the dog almost before he got to the third syllable. He wrestled all ninety pounds of him into submission on the passenger’s side of the car while Caryl rolled up the window.
Naderi had heard the voice, though, and turned.
“Noooo!” howled Brand in the backseat, as though Tjuan were drawing and quartering him. The sound was half-human, half-canine.
Naderi had no way of recognizing the SUV, but she still kept staring right at us. She said something to possibly-Dwight, putting a hand on his shoulder, and started to walk toward us. There was something intent in her expression, as though she knew who had been calling her.
“Oh no,” I said. “Don’t let her see us right now, not like this, not with the dog. Drive, Caryl. Drive!”
Caryl stepped on the gas and got us out of there, with Brand sobbing and howling in the backseat all the way.
30
It was starting to get dark, cloudy too. I had Caryl drive us through Wendy’s, and we even got a burger for the dog. He ate it bag and all, much to Tjuan’s very vocal horror, but it seemed to make him feel better. When we pulled into the driveway of Residence Four, I noticed Alvin’s rental car.
“Shit,” I said, and looked at Caryl.
As if the clouds agreed with us, it started to rain. Real rain, not a halfhearted Los Angeles spritzing. It pattered on the roof of the SUV.
“I’ll cast a spell to make myself unseen,” said Caryl.
“Can you hide the dog, too?”
“I would not care to risk the divided focus. The dog can be explained so long as it does not speak; my escape cannot. If we run into Alvin, distract him while I return to the basement. If he has already checked and found me absent, I’ll claim that I used spellwork to hide.”
Not only was Alvin right there in the living room when I came in and shook raindrops out of my hair, but Dame Belinda was sitting next to him. Despite the teacup in Belinda’s gnarled hand, it didn’t look as though they’d been having a casual chat.
“Sorry about the dog!” I said brightly, as Tjuan tightened his fingers on Brand’s collar. “Friend of Tjuan’s roped him into watching this guy for a few days.”
Neither Alvin or Belinda knew Tjuan well enough to know that he didn’t have much in the way of friends, but they still looked a little too suspicious.
“Have you seen Caryl?” said Alvin.
I paused in what I hoped looked like confusion. “No,” I said, finally letting the tension show on my face. “Are you saying she’s not in the basement?”
“She appears to have escaped,” said Belinda, “and there are only so many people who know the combination to the lock.”
Without further ado I made a beeline for the basement, hoping I looked panicked enough. I unlocked it and opened the door, and I can only assume Caryl walked in ahead of me, because she suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs. I mimed sleeping and pointed to her cot, then left and locked up behind me.
“Uh, Alvin?” I said. “She’s down there. I think she’s asleep.”
“What?” said Alvin, rising from the couch. “Not possible. I’ve been down there three times in the last hour.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “Anyway, Tjuan and I are going to strategize upstairs for a bit about how to replace me at Valiant, feel free to join us if you want.”
As I headed for the stairs, I really hoped Alvin wouldn’t call my bluff. Tjuan held Brand firmly by the collar, nearly choking the poor animal. Brand moved with all the grace of the recently anesthetized, and to make matters worse, he started to grumble an objection. Tjuan swiftly closed a hand around his muzzle, then scooped the dog up into his arms. I looked back at Alvin and Belinda; they were staring at us as though we’d brought in a live nuke.
“It’ll be fine!” I called over my shoulder. “It’s just for a few days, and he’s housebroken and everything.”
Alvin and Belinda just stared at me for a moment longer. Then Alvin moved toward the basement—thank God—and Belinda followed him.
In the upstairs hallway we ran into Claybriar, who’d heard voices and come out of Teo’s old room, and also poor Monty, who hissed and puffed up like he’d jammed his paw into a light socket.
“Aw, what a cute little guy,” said Brand.
“Brand, you have got to shut up!” I whispered. “Seriously, do not talk unless we give you direct permission, or so help me we will toss you right back through that Gate.”
“Don’t test her,” said Claybriar, following us. “Or me, for that matter.”
Brand let out a menacing growl, though a pretty weak one if measured on the manticore scale. After that he did us all the favor of keeping his trap shut until we got inside my room and closed the door.
Glancing at a south-facing window, I spotted my ghostly reflection. I moved toward one of the bamboo shades and pulled it down over the rain-spattered glass. If it was dark enough for me to see myself in the window, that meant anyone across the street could conceivably peek over and watch our little meeting.
“All right,” I said, moving to do the same to the other south-facing window. “Brand, tell us everything you know about Vivian’s plan. For starters, who is in charge now?”
“Nobody,” said Brand. “It was always just Vivian and the—what did she call them?”
“Wraiths.” I turned back to the others; Tjuan had let go of Brand’s collar, and they both stood there looking at me while Claybriar paced near the north-facing windows.
“Wraiths, then,” said Brand. “Used to be, Vivian would direct them. Tell them where to go and so on. First scouting. Then they looked for people vulnerable to possession, anywhere, anyone. Then they’d take over those bodies and use them to find Cera employees. Abduct them, torture them until they broke enough to get possessed. Then she’d send them back to work, so she had easy access to them at any time. Took years, but she got wraiths in just about every office of Cera.”
“God,” I said. “How many?”
“I don’t know. Hundreds.”
“We already have a way to stop them,” I said, “but kind of a horrible way. Do you know about the Bone Harp?”
“The what?”
“I figured you’d know more about it than I did, since you’re so old. It’s a relic of sorts, dates back to when the Accord was made.”
“I’ve got a pretty good memory,” said Brand, “but it doesn’t go that far back. Maybe if you introduced me to Parisa . . .”
“Are you fucking with me?” I said. “If you remember something important, you’d better tell us now and not dangle it.”
Brand let out a little doggy snort. “I honestly don’t remember. Could I lie? Believe me, I wish I knew all about the Accord. I wish I knew how to undo it and everything it stands for. That’s why I joined Vivian in the first place. She said she was going to tear it all down, bring down the sidhe.”
“If that’s your goal,” I said uneasily, “we have a problem. The sidhe pretty much are the Arcadia Project.”
“Look,” Brand said, “I’ve got no love for the nobles, but I’m not that passionate about ousting them either. They can’t control me, because I didn’t buy into their Accord, so they’re more of an annoyance than a threat. I’d have gotten bored with Vivian’s crusade years ago if she hadn’t told me she knew my Echo.”
“What was your part in this exactly? What did you do for her?”
“Well, sometimes wraiths would get stuck Earthside, right? My job was to call them back to Arcadia.”
“How?”
“Vivian would send a wraith to tell me the name of whoever was stuck, and I’d say the name out loud, which would pu
ll it right to me. Then I’d let it go free about its business.”
“Wait, when you say she told you their names . . .”
“It’s like when the queen summoned me,” said Claybriar. “Vivian must have known the true Unseelie name of every wraith she was working with. It would give her absolute control over them.”
“But the one thing she couldn’t do,” Tjuan piped up, “is get them back to Arcadia, because she was stuck on our side.”
“You said she sent a wraith to tell you the name,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“If the wraith knew the name, why couldn’t it do the summoning?”
“Summon it to where? A summons has to come from a location. In Arcadia, a wraith doesn’t really have a where the way it does here. It’s like asking where the air is in a room. That’s why she needed a physical person on the Arcadia side to help her.”
“It could have been anyone, then?”
“I was local, I wasn’t bound to the king and queen, and she knew my Echo, so I was kind of the obvious choice.”
“You must know pretty much all the wraiths’ names by now!”
“Well, no,” said Brand. “I’m a fey, remember? Crap like that tends to float right out of my head. It was a lot of names.”
“But once we introduce you to Parisa—”
“From what Vivian said, yeah, it’s pretty likely I’ll remember their names. Remember every damn moment of my life, in fact.”
“It gets weird,” Claybriar said, sounding almost sympathetic. “Fair warning.”
“This is perfect!” I said, feeling vindicated in all my rule breaking. “You could isolate the guilty wraiths by name, trap them here. We wouldn’t have to use the harp!”
“Explain this harp thing?”
“The Bone Harp. The Seelie Court has had it since the Accord. If you play it, it pulls all arcane energy to its location. And they’re bringing it here.”
“What? Why?” Brand looked baffled.
“Because it’s the only way they can think of to stop the wraiths,” I said. “If they’re on this side, they’re beached fish. They can’t even flop their way to their old hosts to repossess them.”
Phantom Pains Page 25