by Anton Strout
“All we have to do is detain him until the authorities arrive,” I said.
“But you said it yourself, kid…we can’t stick around for that. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Faisal smiled as he hung midair between the two horsemen. Once we left, he surely would break free. There had to be a better way to keep the smug bastard in line.
“Jane?” I said as I turned. I presented the hilt of the sword to her. “Would you care to do the honors?”
She smiled nervously, reluctant.
“I don’t want you to kill him!” I said. “We just need to…detain him. I thought you might want a little payback. Don’t forget, he is trying to have you killed.”
“Might I remind you,” she said, “that he tried to kill you as well? That’s what he sent me after you for.”
“Then I suggest we do it together. Drastic times call for, you know—”
“Do something!” Connor shouted.
Faisal looked pained from the tugging and pulling, and I took a dark pleasure in that. Jane and I hefted the sword together and thrust it forward through his shoulder, driving him against the wall. We forced the sword as deep as we could into the wall, nearly to the hilt, and Faisal was effectively pinned. He hissed in pain, but he definitely looked incapable of moving.
“Let’s see our little butterfly wriggle free from this specimen board before the authorities get here now,” I said.
“Guess you don’t believe in handcuffs, huh?” Jane said.
“Don’t really carry them,” I said. “Most of the things I deal with can’t be held by them anyway.”
Connor clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge, kid,” he said. “I’ll go back and grab the Inspectre. You two kids make a break for it.”
I surveyed the destruction as Jane and I started off, and the art enthusiast in me winced at the thought of all the property damage. The Museum would certainly have its work cut out for it, including the task of figuring out just what the hell the now toppled Ghostsniffing machine was. We passed it on our way out, and I was happy to see all the clay pots were empty or broken.
The wooden fish stuck out of the debris, the glow of its power fading from it, and I stretched down painfully to grab it. I tucked it under my shirt, careful not to put it against the open hole along my ribs. It was a bit of thievery, but it didn’t belong to the museum’s collection anyway, and they would have enough to deal with tomorrow.
I gave one final look back as Jane and I raced out of the hall, but there was no trace of Irene anywhere now. Jane squeezed my hand sympathetically. The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps from the other direction snapped me out of it, and we headed off to find quiet and escape, arm in arm, thanks to the support of our army of the dead.
37
Most of Other Division was crowded around the television at the front of the Lovecraft Café. Jane was at my side, her hand openly around my shoulder, but I didn’t mind it in public anymore. People could think what they wanted to think. Bruises, slings, and more than one set of crutches were signs that last night had not been a dream—that and the wooden fish now hanging on the wall of my apartment.
David Davidson was on the screen live from Town Hall, where he was looking nervous for the first time since I had known him. In the past he had been able to disavow much of the paranormal and occult activities in the city. But there was no way he could cover up the events of last night. You simply couldn’t get away with destroying the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You especially didn’t get away with it considering we had left an occultist ringleader pinned to the wall. Davidson floundered for words when the questions started coming. Claiming an emergency had come up he ran away from the podium, and I knew we had rattled him.
Godfrey Candella from the Gauntlet patted me on the shoulder before asking me to stop by later so he could transcribe my oral account of what happened at the Met for their archives. On the television screen, the news cut away from the empty podium.
“Satisfied?” Jane said in my ear. I leaned into her.
“I guess so,” I said. “Was kinda hoping the Mayor might fire him, though.”
“Good heavens, no!” the Inspectre chimed in next to us. “And make us break in a new liaison? Why would you want that? You know how devilishly long it would take to get someone new jumping through the right hoops? We’ve got Davidson right where we want him now.”
“I’d hardly call what Davidson does for us jumping through the hoops, sir.”
He patted me on the shoulder and leaned closer. “He’s no saint, m’boy, that is for sure. But he’s certainly better than many men we could be dealing with.”
Connor walked over to us. He was carrying iced coffees, one for himself and one as a peace offering for Jane, who seemed to have taken up his addiction.
“The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don’t, kid,” he said, “and Davidson’s no devil. Not by a long shot. Imp, maybe, but he ain’t no devil.”
“Well,” I said, “he sure as hell went out of his way to help Faisal and Cyrus and everyone in their big, bad clubhouse of evil there.”
The Inspectre chuckled. The assembled crowd slowly split up and returned to the offices. There was a jovial camaraderie among the departments today, and even the White Stripes were high-fiving people who weren’t part of their hair club for men.
“Enough, Simon, enough!” the Inspectre said. “You’re not due to study Cynicism and the Road to Ruin until the Other Division conference in mid-December. I’m sure they’ll expect one corker of a speech about last night out of you. I believe they’ve also nominated you for Most Battered in the Line of Duty, my boy.”
I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not, but I laughed anyway. I instantly regretted it as I felt the tape binding my ribs pull tight. Jane’s arm tightened around my shoulder in response.
“I’m okay,” I said with all the believability of a politician. “I’m sure the internal bleeding will be just fine.”
“No time for jokes,” Jane said. “With your sense of humor, you’re bound to puncture a lung before you realize it. Let’s get you back to work. Up and at ’em. I can help you through the theater at the very least.”
Though Jane still wasn’t allowed back in the Department proper, there was serious talk about pushing through the paperwork because of the way she had proven herself in the line of duty. But the wheels of red tape were ever slow. I wasn’t holding my breath that it would be anytime soon.
“I can take him from there,” Connor said in the spirit of cooperation as he gathered our drinks.
When we neared Mrs. Teasley at the back of the café, her cat almost fell off the table as it leaned over to rub its head against my hand.
“I don’t mean to alarm you two,” the old seer said with her hands knuckle deep in coffee grounds, “but you should expect a visitation in the near future.”
I scritched the cat under his chin and he purred happily. “Another one of your psychic readings, eh, Mrs. T?”
“No,” she said. “Silly boy. It’s just that Director Wesker seems to be waiting behind you.”
Jane slowly turned us around, and sure enough, Wesker was standing there, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses as usual. I tensed immediately, never quite sure what his whole role in the Sectarian fiasco had been.
“Are either of you two familiar with a Mr. Jason Charles?” Wesker said smugly.
Just the mention of the corporate headhunter was enough to put me on guard and Jane followed my lead. She took her arm from around me in search of something to defend herself with. I wobbled tentatively as she abandoned me, but managed to stagger toward the counter for support. I braced one hand against it. Sadly, my bat was sitting on my desk out back so I scooped up the nearest object I could to defend myself—a pair of muffin tongs. Not terribly intimidating, mind you, but I had worked with worse during Unorthodox Fighting Techniques.
“Easy now, easy!” Wesker said, raising both hands high in the air. “S
o you are familiar with the name. Good. I thought you might be.”
“Is he here?” I said, snapping the tongs as viciously as I could. The Inspectre and Connor stopped by the curtained doorway of the theater.
“No. And in case you forgot, Simon, I work here,” Wesker said, then sneered at Jane. “Unlike some people. Now put down those tongs before you damage someone’s muffin.”
The Inspectre moved defensively toward Jane. He looked Wesker up and down. “What the devil is he talking about, dear?”
“Jason Charles was the man the Sectarians assigned to kill me, sir,” Jane said, speaking up, “but he was about as effective at that as he was being a boyfriend. His solution to most of life’s problems was to shoot them, especially for money. Hell, I bet when he found out I was the target, he offered to cap me for free.”
Wesker stepped forward like he was going to push his way past all of us, but I clicked my tongs, SNIKT SNIKT SNIKT, and his eyes darted to me nervously.
“Jane,” I said calmly. “This might not be the best time to squabble over who was shooting who and for how much…”
“Nobody is shooting anybody anymore!” Wesker said, exasperated. “Thanks to the deal I cut, naturally.”
Jane and I shared a WTF glance.
“What deal?” I asked.
“The point I was trying to make if you would have shut up for a minute,” Wesker said, “is that Mr. Charles will no longer be bothering you. Either of you.”
“Oh,” I said, hopping toward Wesker. “Just like that?”
“The Sectarians were footing the bill on you two, and since they seem to be under some hard times financially, they really couldn’t afford his services any longer.”
“So do I get a rebate for what he did to Tamara?” I spat out. “Is Jane supposed to just sit around waiting for the Sectarians to scrape up enough cash so they can pay Jason Charles to kill her at a later date!?”
Wesker shook his head and then I saw something I had never witnessed before—his face softened. “The contract’s off, Jane. It’s been bought out. You’re free and clear. You don’t have to worry about him coming after you anymore. No more looking over your shoulder, at least for him anyway.”
Jane and I stood there, not truly believing what we had just heard.
“It’s that simple?” I said. “Someone pays the corporate headhunter off and that’s it? Who’d be that generous? Inspectre?”
The Inspectre shook his head. “I’m sorry, Simon, but I’m afraid our budget simply wouldn’t allow for that.”
“Well,” interrupted Wesker with a smug smile, “that’s only partly true. If you shared the expense with, say, another director, you could help ensure this young woman’s safety. A small price to pay, wouldn’t you say?”
“You bought out the contract on Jane?” I asked. This seemed all too kindly a gesture for Thaddeus Wesker. Sure, he had helped us escape the Sectarians when we were at risk, but that had been to selfishly maintain his own cover. I couldn’t see his angle on helping us. “What’s the catch?”
Wesker sighed and adjusted his mirrored frames. “My God, don’t you ever tire with the questions?”
“The boy is merely cautious,” the Inspectre said. “How does the saying go? ‘He is most free from danger, who, even when safe, is on his guard.’”
“Nice one,” Connor chimed in.
“‘Curiosity killed the cat,’” Wesker offered flatly. “I can offer up pithy sayings, too. The point, Simon, is this. For all that your Other Division has to offer you, just remember that there are shades of gray out there as well as your black-and-white world of good and evil. I embrace the Darkness to better serve the light. You’d do best to remember that. What you see as my coldness and ambition, I see as a practicality in an unending war with the forces of Darkness. But I do know a good soul when I see one, Simon, and I could hardly let Jane be lost to that fool now, could I? Besides, from what I heard said about her at the Sectarian Defense League, she could prove a useful asset to Greater and Lesser Arcana.”
“You want to offer me a job?” Jane said. She seemed excited at the prospect, but it was still a position answering to Wesker. She looked to me warily.
For once, I was dumbstruck. As much as I found his motives suspect, at least Jane might be able to keep an eye on him if she was in his Greater & Lesser Arcana Division. I nodded subtly.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
The Inspectre haroomed loudly. “You say thank you.”
“Yes,” Wesker said. “You say thank you. To me. Even if it kills you…and I know it will.”
Wesker had taken Jane into his division because he’d heard what a professional she was, but I knew it couldn’t hurt that he knew I would hate the idea. And now he was forcing me to thank him. Whatever his motives, though, I did have him to thank for Jane’s safety from Jason Charles. It stung that Wesker was the one who had remedied the situation and not me, but that was probably his point in doing it in the first place.
I looked Wesker in the eye. “Thank you,” I said.
Wesker looked like the cat that had eaten the canary.
Jane put her arm around me, spun me around, and started hobbling me back toward the office.
“One last thing,” Wesker called out. All tolerance was gone from his voice this time. “If I hear about a lick of this getting out to the other staffers, I may have to put a contract out on you myself. Ido have a reputation for evil to uphold around here, and frankly, I find fear a much better motivator for my division than your Inspectre’s precious nurturing technique.”
Inspectre Quimbley snorted in response.
I stared blankly back at Wesker. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said with the Grinchiest of grins and stormed off toward the offices before I could get another word in.
38
Jane went off after Wesker to Greater & Lesser Arcana to fill out a mountain of paperwork. The day wore on, and I filled out my own mountain until it was time to head home. It was marvelous to experience my first night of downtime in what felt like forever. As I settled into the chaotic comfort of my apartment all alone, I took stock of the past few days. I had grown to care for and respect almost all the people I worked with more than I thought possible, and I had even fallen for a cultist. In light of recent events, the apartment seemed eerily quiet. I was surprised to find that now that I did have some time alone, I wasn’t really comfortable with it.
The answering machine I had been ignoring since Tamara’s death stared at me, its little red light flickering like a spastic heart monitor. I was almost positive that most of the messages had been Tamara’s usual tirades. I reached for the play button then thought better of it and simply unplugged the phone. What good would listening to them do now? Torturing myself for the inaction that had gotten her killed?
Enough was enough. I had a pretty good idea where I fell short now, how my powers had driven a wedge between myself and true happiness, but something had changed in me. I needed a fresh start for a fresh life. God, I felt like a Dr. Phil show just for thinking like that and I threw up in my mouth a little.
In celebration of my shift in attitude, I unpacked the remaining contents of my broken and overturned crates from the head-hunter’s break-in while wondering what role Jane might play in my life. Jane gave me hope that people could change for the better, and that reassured me about the change I had made. She had been at my side in the museum that fateful night. I had been in the mind of Henry the Second of France.
Looking back now, being in the mind of Henry the Second of France had probably helped effect a shift in my psychometric power. Recalling the mental weight of his responsibility for his country seemed to let me tap into reserves of calm and self-control, and made the problems I usually had seem bearable. Ever since that night, I had found it easier to control my psychometry. It was amazing what a brief stint as a historical legend did to give you a new sense of perspective.
Still,
even with someone as wonderful as Jane in my life, Irene’s passing and Tamara’s destruction had left me with several mental truckloads of thoughts. Faith, for instance, had become the foremost nag of them all. Dealing with the extraordinary was hard enough without bringing up the question of a God or, possibly, gods. So much of what I had seen in my formative time with the Department just didn’t jibe with any one particular branch of theology.
One particular thought weighed heavily on my mind: Every case I worked was its own brand of jigsaw puzzle. Some of those puzzles had only a hundred pieces and were recommended for ages seven to ten, while others were designed for a full-time staff of Mensa brainiacs. I suspected that I fell to the lower end of that scale, but one of the biggest pieces of Irene’s puzzle was why she was lingering around after death in the first place. Why hadn’t she passed on?
Last night at the museum, Irene had spoke of how right everything felt in doing one final self-sacrificing deed that ultimately saved Jane and me. She was content that once the battle was over, she would be free. She seemed sure of it. If that was true, then she had remained earthbound for just such a specific reason—to be there for me. And if I was going to believe that she had been put there for a reason, then that spoke of predestination, didn’t it? If I was a cog in someone’s great machine, it put a considerable deal of pressure on me. Was I doing the right things—the Good things—in the face of some scheme far grander? It was both terrifying and glorious a thought at the same time. Of course, Irene may simply have been earthbound by some scientific coincidence involving energy, math, and Schrödinger’s Cat.
That was the tricky part. Which was it? I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing: Some force was at work. Be it of logical explanation or a more spiritual one, I could feel its presence in my life nonetheless.
Thinking about all of it made my brain hurt. The greater mystery of what lies beyond life eluded me. Hopefully they would cover that in one of the pamphlets or a seminar.