Dead To Me

by Anton Strout

  “What will you do to me?” I continued. “Last I checked, I answered directly to the Inspectre here, not to you. And since when does the Director of Greater and Lesser Arcana concern himself personally with the doings of a lesser spectral apparition like Ms. Blatt anyway?”

  The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to think of how Irene would take being called “a lesser spectral apparition.” I felt like a heel for letting the words slip out. I turned to apologize, hoping she hadn’t taken offense. But whether she had taken offense or not wasn’t an issue.

  Irene Blatt had disappeared.

  * * * *

  Wesker finally backed off when he noticed Irene had vanished. The three of us took a quick look around my apartment (I handled the investigation of the White Room) but there was no sign of Irene. Quimbley suggested that he and Wesker leave, but not before giving me orders to report to his office first thing in the morning.

  I was sick to my stomach over Irene’s disappearance. I had taken her in when the rest of the Department couldn’t be bothered, made her my charge, and now I had lost her. But I couldn’t obsess over it now. There was someone else I had to check on. I headed down to the rear exit of my building and let myself out into the dark and trash bag–filled alley. The stink was powerful, but I fought back the urge to vomit and started picking my way through it.

  It didn’t take long to find Jane. All I had to do was follow the soft moans and grunts of pain from a pile of trash bags that had exploded when she had landed on them. She was completely out of it when I picked her up. Next to her on the ground was a small black notebook. I scooped it up and slid it into my jacket pocket with one of my gloved hands. The last thing I wanted was to be psychometrically sucked into her life. Right now, I needed to get Jane up to my apartment.

  As I carried her on to the elevator, I thought about my options. First I’d assess how badly hurt she was. Finding Irene would have to wait.

  As the elevator stopped on my floor, I slid the cast iron door aside. I hurried down the hall, hoping none of my neighbors would stick their noses out, and I was thrilled when we made it to my apartment safely. I laid Jane down on my couch. She was motionless except for the telltale signs of gentle respiration. The left arm of her spy gear top was peeled away, along with several layers of skin. A slow but steady trickle of blood dripped down the side of my couch and gathered in a small pool on the floor. Her face was bruised down the left side, but otherwise she looked peaceful.

  Blood was a funny thing in real life. I had seen much more gruesome sights thanks to television and the movies, never once feeling woozy. But the smell of real blood mixed with garbage in my own apartment was something else. I was barely able to hold my stomach down.

  “Jane?”

  I tentatively touched her good arm, and she stirred, groaning in pain. Her eyes fluttered open, and after a moment, they focused and smiled.

  “Hello, Simon,” she said weakly. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping in.”

  I brushed golden strands of hair away from her face as I inspected her for damage. Her left arm hung uselessly at her side. She looked like shit, but even so, she was still cute. I felt slimy for thinking it, but as I checked her over, I couldn’t help noticing her body once again. It curved in all the right places, even battered like this.

  “Jesus, Jane,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded slowly, wincing and looking a little loopy. “Ow. As all right as someone who just plummeted off a roof can be, I guess. I had some painkillers with me, but I don’t know where they are anymore.”

  She raised her good arm and opened her hand. It was empty.

  I looked at her glazed, unfocused eyes. “Um, I think you already took them. You think you can move?” I asked. Jane couldn’t stay here. She was in danger for several reasons. I took a look around the apartment, and though I was worried sick about Irene, I was glad I saw no sign of her. It was odd, but I felt like I was somehow betraying Irene just by having Jane here. It was all in my head, I told myself. I didn’t owe either of these women anything, and here I was feeling guilty. The dead girl and the enemy. Great taste, Simon.

  My work was mixing terribly with the rest of my life, and I felt helplessly out of control. I had to take charge as best I could of this situation, though, not only for my sake but for Jane’s.

  “Is anything broken?” I asked.

  Jane slowly assessed herself, flexing muscles wherever she could.

  “My arm’s pretty beat-up,” she moaned, “and I don’t think I can make my Pilates class tomorrow with my ankle like this, but I think I can move.”

  She smiled through all of it. It was probably the painkillers mixed with loss of blood making her delirious. I gently took hold of her right arm, the good one, and slowly helped her into a sitting position.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” she said. Then she looked down and saw her blood pooling on my floor. A slow whine began in her throat and her breath hitched as she started crying in long deep sobs. “Oh, look at that. Simon, I’m so sorry.”

  I ran to the bathroom, and held a towel under the faucet. When I returned, I applied it to her arm and then wiped her tears away as best I could.

  “There’s no need to apologize, Jane. Listen, we need to get you out of here. If the Department finds out you’re in my apartment, I’ll be fired for sure.” I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but it sure sounded true. “I have no idea what your own people will do to you. So don’t worry about the blood. There’s much less than if you had got a chance to shoot me, believe me.”

  She looked at me blankly, then squirmed her good arm behind her and produced the gun by its muzzle. She dropped it to the floor and sniffled through her tears. “I don’t think I would have gone through with it, Simon. Honest.”

  She looked sincere, but just in case, I kicked the gun under the couch. “That’s very reassuring, coming from a cultist.”

  She looked hurt, and I felt like an asshole. Clearly this was no time for me to get petty. Jane favored one leg as I got her into a standing position, and I grabbed a nearby jacket and threw it around her. It would cover up the majority of her injuries to the casual observer. I kissed her forehead the way my mom used to when I came in, all too often, with a scraped knee.

  “You’re doing great, Jane.”

  This brought a slight smile to her lips. She looked up at me gratefully. I resisted the inappropriate urge to kiss her on the mouth. I was pretty sure that snogging the enemy was frowned upon. The Department had given me a pamphlet entitled Blind Date with Disaster and an orientation lecture concerning intimate relations with the forces of Darkness. Strictly taboo, and spelled out in an ancient tale about a D.E.A. member named Edgar and his obsession with his lost love, Lenore.

  The smile faded from Jane’s face as her eyes rolled back into her head, leaving me only the whites to stare into. Her legs gave out and I balanced her on the armrest of the couch to keep her from falling. “Stay with me, Jane.”

  The blood loss had made her light-headed. I eased her back on to the couch and ran to the fridge to grab a carton of orange juice. My medical expertise might be lacking, but with my psychometry-induced hyperglycemia, I knew O.J. might be enough to bring Jane around.

  I tipped her head back and placed the carton at her lips. Her eyes fluttered as the juice hit her tongue and she began drinking greedily.

  “Easy,” I told her. “What happened? What do you recall?”

  She gasped for breath as I pulled the near empty carton away.

  “Thank you soooo much,” she said, the life returning to her.

  Her face looked a thousand times better and her eyes were alive again, though still a little glassy from the painkillers. They bore into mine, and without warning, she kissed me. My first thought was of juice. Her tongue tasted like juice. After that, all other thoughts left me. The idea of this being taboo lurked somewhere at the back of my mind, but clearly my own eager urges had taboo pinned safely out of my brain�
��s way.

  My hand traced the back of her neck, my fingers running through her hair. Our bodies moved closer, toppling back onto the couch, and I felt the warmth of her body underneath mine. She jerked with a sudden convulsion.

  “Owwww!” she hissed as she bit my tongue mid-probe. “My hip. I think it might be broken.”

  In that instant I recovered my senses and slid off her. She was half doped up, for God’s sake. “Sorry, I shouldn’t French with the forces of evil.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, not taking offense. I helped her sit back up. I glanced at her briefly, and this time, she was careful not to look too deep into my eyes. “Don’t you want to know why I was here?”

  “Later,” I said. “I think we both have some ’splainin’ to do, but first we need to get you to a hospital.”

  Immediately there was terror in her eyes. “You can’t!”

  “Jane, you’ve got to get medical attention…all I’ve got is juice.”

  “It’s just…” she started, but couldn’t speak. “I can’t let Faisal or the Sectarians know I got hurt this bad. I’ll never live it down. They’ll fire me…or worse.”

  In all the madness, I hadn’t considered what the Sectarians might do to someone who had failed. Especially someone as fresh-faced as her.

  “Take me home,” she said. Under other circumstances, I might have been thrilled to hear those words from her lips. Now was not one of those times.

  “Right,” I said, nodding. “Sure.”

  Now that I was coming to my senses, I wanted to get her out of here should Irene suddenly reappear. She had seemed…strange, and I didn’t know how she would react to finding Jane in the apartment.

  “My apartment is at—”

  “I know where you live, Jane,” I interrupted. She looked at me quizzically. “Like I said, I think we both have some ’splainin’ to do.”

  I scooped one arm around her and started for the door. As an afterthought, I grabbed the Other Division emergency kit the Inspectre had given me months ago. I was pretty sure that escorting the enemy from your home before she died certainly counted as an emergency.

  If I was lucky, I’d get her out of here without further incident. If I was unlucky, Faisal and his people would be waiting for us.

  19

  Although it was late, it was still New York and I found a cab fairly quickly. The cab driver didn’t even blink while I arranged the battered and bloody Jane in the back of his cab. I got in beside her as she rattled off her Chelsea address and then she closed her eyes. I let her rest, riding in sleepy silence until we reached her apartment building. Because Jane had left a small pool of blood on the seat, I tipped the cabbie generously. I made sure the coast was clear of anyone looking particularly evil outside her building, then carried Jane across her lobby, into her elevator, and up to her apartment. I pushed aside the pile of clothes on her bed to lay her down properly. Finally she looked moderately comfortable, despite how banged up she was.

  As I arranged her pillows behind her, her eyes fluttered open and she smiled.

  “How you holding up?” I asked.

  She reached out to me and squeezed my hand in reassurance. Her speech was slurred, but she said, “Right now, I’m just concentrating on the intense amount of pain I’m in. More importantly, I was wondering if you thought I was a decent kisser.”

  I pulled my hand away from hers. I should never have kissed her. She was the enemy.

  “I don’t get it on with evil,” I said. “Remember?”

  I decided to change the subject from snogging to something more constructive.

  “Look,” I said, softening. “I know I’m on the wrong side of your evil fence, Jane, but do you want to tell me how you got all battered like this?”

  Thanks to Wesker and the Inspectre, I knew what had happened, but I wanted to see what she could recall or, more to the point, what she would truthfully tell me and how much I could trust her.

  Jane smiled back at me and said, “When I was a kid, I used to love that stomach-dropping sensation you get from rides at an amusement park, you know? After that fall? Not so much. I should be dead.”

  Her damaged upper arm was matted with blood and bits of garbage from the alley. I tore the remaining bits of sleeve free from it. “What do you remember about the fall?”

  She winced as I lifted her arm to clear away the cloth. “I remember skidding down the brick face and getting that scrape you’re working on. I lost all sense of direction, but I made out the fire escape whirling by and reached for it. It caught me in the stomach and drove the wind right out of me. Then I was falling again and landed in your trash. Comfy trash, by the way. Smell pretty, don’t I?”

  I brushed her hair out of her face.

  “I’ve smelled worse,” I said.

  “I knew whoever cut the line would come looking for me,” she said, “but I couldn’t even move. Then my instincts kicked in.”

  I opened the Other Division emergency kit. There were dozens of items in it, none of them familiar, but thankfully each of them was labeled meticulously and included full instructions. There were several rolls of what I thought were gauze, but looking closer, they appeared more like human fingers wrapped in funereal bandages.

  Mummy Fingers, the label read. In case of emergency, place against damaged surface and let them go to work. Warning: Do not use over nose and mouth. Consult an Arcana Specialist if misapplied.

  I placed one against Jane’s arm and it started to writhe like a snake as the bandage uncoiled and rolled securely around her arm. Jane kept talking, seemingly unaware of what was happening to her arm, but I was seriously creeped out.

  “Lights came on all along the alley,” she said, “and I could make out the sounds of commotion up above. I couldn’t call Mr. Bane for help. My cell phone had been crushed completely.”

  I pulled off one of her boots, but when I tried the other, it was swollen tight around her sprained ankle. I moved as gently as I could, but she yelped in pain when I finally forced it free. She started to cry.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I tried to be as gentle as I could.”

  She shook her head and laughed through her tears. “It’s not that. I was thinking about that rumor about my predecessor at the League, the one they fed to a man-eating filing cabinet for screwing up? The thought that I might be next in line doesn’t really improve my morale. Look at me. I’m battered, bruised, I smell, and my mission is totally a failure in almost every possible respect.”

  I placed another of the Mummy Fingers against her, this time alongside her sprained foot. I cringed as it pushed her ankle back into proper position. There was no escaping the audible pop and this time Jane screamed.

  A fresh wave of chilled sweat formed on her forehead and I stroked her hair back from it.

  “If it will help set things straight at work,” I said, “I can let you kill me.”

  She laughed through what remained of her pain. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “You really think you’re in that much trouble?” I asked.

  “Well,” she said, “there’s only one way to find out.”

  She reached for her bedside phone, but I handed her mine instead.

  “It’s untraceable. Is anyone going to be there this time of night, though?”

  She nodded, dialed, and held it close between the two of us to listen. I tried to ignore the fact that I was literally lying in bed with the enemy.

  “Sectarian Defense League,” said the woman on the phone. The look on Jane’s face told me she didn’t recognize the voice. “How may I direct your call?”

  I felt her hand twitch to hang up, but I steadied her and she stopped.

  “Yes,” Jane said, attempting to change her voice as best she could, “I’d like to speak to Mr. Bane’s personal assistant, please.”

  There was a pause.

  “Hello?” Jane said. There was the sound of muffled conversation from the other end of the line. The woman on the other end had put her hand
over the mouthpiece.

  “One moment, please,” the voice said when it returned, and the phone clicked over to an orchestral version of some pop tune I vaguely recognized.

  “What the hell is going on?” I whispered. Jane shrugged, but before I could ask anything further, the music went away and a male voice came on the line. “This is Mr. Bane’s assistant.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Actually, I was looking for Jane.”

  Sounds familiar, she mouthed.

  Silence. “She’s out of the office indefinitely right now. Can I possibly help you?”

  “Do you know where she is, please? It’s urgent.”

  Another pause.

  Faisal? I mouthed. Jane shook her head.

  “If you can just hold on the line,” the man said, “I’m sure I can put you through to someone who can be of assistance.”

  I covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “He’s stalling,” I said.

  Jane looked panicked. “I can try again later. Thanks!”

  “Wait! Don’t hang up.” The man on the other end of the line chuckled. “Jane? Is that you? Where are you hiding, girl?”

  What color that was left in Jane’s face drained away and she hit END.

  “Well?” I asked. “Jane?”

  She turned to me, her face a mask of fright.

  “I didn’t know who the first person was,” she said, “but the man…it took me a second to place him, but I know who he is. I even set him up with a freelancer position with the S.D.L. Did his preinterview and everything.”

  She was shaking so hard I took her hands in my gloved ones.

  “Jane,” I said, “calm down. Don’t worry. I can take care of you. Just tell me who he is.”

  “The name he gave me back then,” she said, failing to remain calm, “was Jason Charles, but everyone knew right off it was an alias. It’s the specialty we hired him for that has me totally freaked out, Simon.”