Zero Sum

by B. Justin Shier

  Jules looked into the bucket and shivered. She looked like she’d rather eat gravel. As Dante and I devoured the chicken tenders, she snuck around to the back of the car and opened up the trunk. After a few moments of digging, she came back with the box of Lucky Charms.

  Mouths full of chicken, Dante and I stared at her in disbelief.

  “Not a word about this ta the fanger,” she ordered.

  We broke out laughing.

  After the refill at the Slurp-n-Go, Dante guided Big White deeper into the countryside. Mile markers ticked by like clockwork. Dried husks of the past harvest were the only scenery. Satisfied with Dante’s driving, I decided to take a nap. I must have slept for hours, because it was dark out when Rei roused me.

  “Ouch!” I yelped. “Why did you poke me in the eye?” I rubbed it out. It really smarted.

  “Because it was closed when it should have been open.” Rei’s face was mere inches from my own. She tucked a wayward strand of her long black hair behind her ear and gave me a pouty face. “Dieter, we are in the heart of Nostophoros territory. What if a ravenous vampire had snuck into this vehicle?”

  I yawned. “Then I would have died well rested.”

  Rei smirked. “My most stubborn associate, do you ever yield an inch?”

  I blinked. The way her lips worked. The way her neck tilted. The way the midnight hair cascaded across the firm line of her shoulders…it was too much to take in at once, yet all I wanted was more. I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t pull away. And so I shifted closer. Her tiny smile vanished. I could feel the tremble of her breath on my lips.

  Springsteen was on the radio. The Boss was groaning on and on about some mad desire. His voice rolled out flat and hollow. The wagon’s speakers couldn’t quite manage him…but the good ones don’t even need a beat. They hit you somewhere that’s beyond the sound. A century seemed to pass, us dangling from little strings. The Boss growled through the low notes until I found the will to breath.

  “Why would I retreat?” I whispered. To be this close to Rei, to hold every iota of her attention, it was enough for me. But for Rei, it must have been different. I watched as her cool blue eyes shifted to that empty grey. I watched as the girl I trusted drifted away in the waves. What was left took in a slippery breath, rolling my scent around as it did.

  Mutual appreciation time was over. This was officially becoming dangerous. There was a tightness in my lungs, and chill tendrils traipsed their way down my back. I went to pull away, but her hands had already found my shoulders. It surprised me. How could such a lithe female press down on me like a ton of bricks? I redoubled my efforts, and Rei’s face lit up with a different kind of smile. When she spoke again, her voice sounded like slithering death.

  “You would sweeten the pot with fear?” Rei rested her cool forehead on my own, and her hair descended around us like a veil. “You are such a little tease…I would have you know something. It is a most delicate secret. Would you hear it?”

  Yea…that didn’t sound like such a good idea. I bit my tongue.

  “Again you lash at me.” Rei nuzzled against my cheek. “Pleeease?”

  I gasped. It felt like I was being smothered.

  “Oh, I can bear it no more.” She drew her cool lips to my ear and spoke in a delicate whisper. “Any but I, Dieter Resnick. Any but I would have feasted on you by now.”

  “Not. Funny,” I managed.

  Rei let out a clicking purr.

  “Not meant to be.”

  Freaked, I tried to push her off me.

  Rei kept me pinned for a mere second.

  Just long enough to remind the both of us who was really in control.

  Just long enough to piss me off.

  “You don’t have to be a prick, Rei.”

  Rei looked up at me from behind her pitch-dark veil.

  “No, my most delectable blood bag, that is where you continue to error.”

  “Then sue me for putting my faith in you,” I hissed. I turned to look out the window, hoping to hide how shaken up I was. I didn’t understand why she was toying with me. I didn’t understand what she got from it.

  With a huff, she hopped off me, and planted her keister on the opposite side of the Ford.

  “You are not amusing this evening,” she grumbled.

  Once my heart finally settled, I dared a glance her way. One of those lifeless plastic smiles was planted on her face. The girl was as unreadable as the snow swirling outside the window.

  In front of me, Jules let out a snort and muttered something in Gaelic. She’d balled up her puppy scarf like a pillow. I didn’t recognize the words she was speaking, but I was pretty certain they had nothing to do with making a meal out of me. Dante shifted next to her. He’d been oblivious to all the action in the backseat for a reason, because he was busy driving us straight into a blizzard. I caught site of some red flares in the distance. We swept past a group of semi trucks parked on the side of the highway. One had flipped over into a ditch.

  “Dante, where are we?” I asked.

  “Almost to the St. Louis.” He didn’t dare take his eyes off the road as he spoke. His knuckles were as white as his shirt.

  “If you do not crash,” Rei commented. “You should permit me to drive.”

  “I can see fine, Rei. And we’re almost there.”

  “This is why I woke you,” Rei explained. “Convince him for me.”

  Dante shook his head. “Monique said no stopping till St. Louis. We’re almost there.”

  Both Rei and Dante looked at me for support.

  It was an easy choice.

  “If Dante says he can do it, he can do it.”

  Rei glared at me. “Are you boys always so thickheaded?” Rei leaned over Dante’s seat. “Tell me what that sign says.”

  “Hey!” Dante looked like a pit viper had just dropped into his lap. “Dang it, Bathory. Get back in your seat!”

  “I will not. That exit says St. Louis…and now you have passed it! You could not see it, and now you have passed it. Lieutenant, this is evidence you cannot deny. Pull over and let me drive this instant.”

  Dante turned to yell at her, the car lurched, Jules mumbled something about carrots attacking broccoli, I ducked one of Rei’s boots.

  Dante cursed. “Rei, there are lots of St. Louis exits. That one wasn’t the right one. Now get back in your darn seat. I know what the freak I’m doin’.”

  Ignoring him, Rei pulled out a small black volume and thumbed through its pages. She was still stretched out like superwoman, and she didn’t look ready to give in. I shook my head. My dad would have beaten the crap out of me if I pulled that sort of stunt. She must have had super lenient parents.

  “Rei, you should be wearing a seatbelt.”

  “Silence, Dieter. I am investigating his claim.” Her frown grew. “Oh. Oh, I see. So we take the third of these exits named ‘St. Louis’?”

  “No. We take the fourth. Are you girls always so bad at directions?”

  “Nice, Dante,” I said, clapping my hands.

  “Thank you, Dieter,” Dante replied with a nod.

  “Nonsense. This guidebook must be defective. I can see far better than—cat!” Rei made an awkward grab for the wheel. “Cat! Look out for the cat, lieutenant!”

  What appeared to be an overweight tabby was engaged in a leisurely stroll across the highway. As Rei grabbed the wheel, Dante hollered, the car lurched right, and I had enough time to shout three choice expletives before the back end of the car lost traction. The beat up old wagon spun once, twice, three times in a circle. Papers went flying. Luggage slammed around in the back. Still out of her seatbelt, Rei came flying in my direction. I caught her with my face. I got two boobs in the eyes and two canines in the skull. Apparently, her fangs were as sharp as razors. I felt them sink right through the bone.

  The station wagon ended its spin in the rightmost lane of the freeway. We were facing the right way and everything. It was though Dante had meant to park it. Not wasting an instant, R
ei grabbed me by the hair and extracted her teeth from my scalp. She had to push so hard that she banged her head on the roof.

  “You just fanged my brains,” I stammered.

  “I did no such thing,” she said rubbing out her noggin.

  I felt my scalp. “There are holes!” I shouted. “What are you, a zombie-vampire?”

  Rei’s shock transitioned to outrage. “You’d dare to call me a—“

  “What in the fockin’ hell just happened?” Jules asked. (She’d finally woken up.)

  “A cat,” Dante managed. “Ms. Eagle Eyes back there decided to prioritize a cat.”

  “Fair enough, but are the broccoli okay?”

  I guess Jules preferred to believe she was still sleeping.

  “This is not fair,” Rei protested. “If only the lieutenant permitted me to—oh dear.“ Rei was referring to the blaring horn of the semi truck bearing down on us at 70 miles an hour.

  Dante screamed and jammed his foot through the floor. His old gal whinnied, and she managed to find enough traction in her worn footpads to skip off the road before we got kicked like a can. After that, the humans went real quiet. Rei appeared to have other concerns.

  “It didn’t count,” she whispered.

  I looked at her blankly. “Did you just use the ‘I did not inhale’ defense?”

  “Do not jest.” She reached into her backpack and retrieved a small black vial. Cracking it in two, she took a huff and poured the sooty goop onto a piece of gauze. Her eyes puffing red from the odor, but she was dead set on applying pressure to the tiny wounds.

  I yelped. The strange concoction reeked of medicines and burned like hell.

  “Are ya two alright?” Jules asked.

  “Just bumped my head,” I replied. I snatched the gauze packing from Rei’s hand. “Can we go to the embassy now? I need to change my shorts.”

  Dante got our battered white station wagon back on the asphalt and down the nearest exit ramp. The snow let up as we rolled into the center of the city, and it earned us a better view of St. Louis’ downtown. Enormous skyscrapers stretched above us. It couldn’t have been past eight o'clock, but few had lit windows. Cars were sparse. Only the occasional white and black cruised on by. That didn’t mean there weren’t any people, though. There were crowds of homeless everywhere, and the scent of burning rubber hung in the air. Small towns within the city had sprung up. The women huddled together for warmth, while the children played around the ragged lean-tos. Most of the street signs had been stripped for scrap, and Dante was forced to stop and ask the way. After two offers of rather fantastical sexual services, a man in a costume of rags came over to offer to help us. He was overcome by a bout of coughing in the middle of giving directions.

  “Get the window up, Dante,” Jules urged.

  Dante gave the man a curt thanks and hit the gas.

  “DIT. Shoulda known.”

  “DIT?” Rei asked. “Was that man a member of an opposing faction?”

  “Seriously?” Jules asked.

  “My most vapid vampiress, DIT kills more people than heart disease, surely you’ve heard of it.”

  Rei wavered between remaining dignified and socking me in the jaw.

  “You speak of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.” Rei leaned towards me and smiled. “That I might drink, Dieter, and leave the world unseen, and with thee fade away into the forest dim. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget; what thou among the leaves hast never known; the weariness, the fever, and the fret.” Leaning backwards, Rei fawned as though she might faint. “Here! Here where men sit and hear each other groan; where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs; where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; where but to think is to be full of sorrow; and leaden-eyed despairs; where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow!”

  Jules started clapping.

  “What just happened?” That had all been rather weird.

  “Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale,” Jules explained. “He composed it while dyin’ a tuberculosis.”

  “And?”

  “Rei just went Romantic,” Dante explained. “You can’t win anymore.”

  “Is this some sort of liberal arts bullshit?”

  The three of them nodded.

  “And of course I know the cause of scrofula. It’s just you people and your diseases…first you labeled them in Latin, then you named them after doctors, and now you have replaced even those most dubious placards of narcissism with even stranger acronyms…do you hope to eliminate these pathogens through obfuscation?” She shook her head at it. “I pity your students of medicine.”

  Drug-Immune Tuberculosis…after the Great Slump wasted our economy, folks skimped on the little stuff. A cough. A cold. Why not try and wait them out? It gave the bugs a little room to move. Some old illnesses went on comeback tours. Drug-Immune Tuberculosis was the worst of them. Sleeping in the cold made it worse. So did poor nutrition. And there wasn’t a thing the docs could do to cure it. No medicines seemed to work. The old version of tuberculosis whittled its victims down nice and slow, but this new version was a merciless killer. For some reason, DIT escaped the lung rather quickly. You could spot the sufferers by the bumps on their necks. That was the ‘scrofula’ that Rei had mentioned.

  “Hey, can mages get DIT?” I asked.

  “Of course we can,” Jules replied. “We’re human, remember? And we can’t cure it either. The little buggers live inside yer cells. There’s no way of takin’ them out without wreckin’ the patient.”

  I nodded. Healing magic worked by creating the conditions for vitality and growth. A wound could be healed. A fever, tempered. But if your own cells were the problem? Jules’ mentors had no cure for cancer. “So the good ole’ three foot rule it is.”

  “And ya best be washin’ yer hands too, Dieter. I’m not havin’ me first pupil die of consumption.”

  Rei shifted in her seat. She had been eyeing the people on the sidewalks for some time now.

  “Do you refuse them shelter to hasten their demise?”

  “Excuse me?” Jules looked at Rei like she was crazy.

  “Do not froth so, Druid. It was merely an observation. Warmth slows the disease, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “And most of these buildings are unoccupied. These pitiful creatures could live inside. But you choose to let them freeze. The intent is clear, is it not?”

  “Banks own the buildings,” Dante explained.

  Rei paused to think. “But are not these banks run by your fellows? Why would they not grant these people temporary license to dwell in them?”

  “Banks aren’t charities,” Dante said. “They answer to their shareholders.”

  Rei started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “We take what we need, and you call us monsters. You starve your own kind, and you call yourselves shareholders.”

  +

  The Department’s embassy was located inside a hotel called the Buckingham. The ancient limestone building sat at the end of an enormous park, and lorded over the Ohio Buckeyes across the street. The park served as the site of the 1904 World’s Fair, and the Buckingham had been built to house the many visitors. Its sturdy walls managed to reach up a good ten stories, and Christmas lights lit all the bulging balconies. An enormous tree sat at the center of its garden. We admired it as we drove up the U-shaped entrance.

  “Wow,” Dante said. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

  Dozens of cars were cued up ahead of us, and a bustling wall of people greeted us at the door. The valets looked overwhelmed, rushing to collect keys and write up tickets. I’d have guessed there was a conference in town, but none of the other details fit. Parents struggled to pacify cranky children. Cars were packed to the rafters. I peeked inside a SUV and noted the stacks of photo albums mixed in with clothes still on their hangers. The whole operation screamed haste.

  I turned to Dante and whispered, “I’m guessing these
folks aren’t on their way to Disneyworld.”

  “Refugees,” Dante replied. “Looks like a bunch of sparks.”

  I nodded. I knew that slang. Sparks were mages ranked Tier 2 or lower. I’d heard a few of the Elliot staffers were only ranked Tier 3, but I’d never met a spark before. (Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Rei had said that the tall man we faced in New York was a Tier 2, but he’d been powered-up with an ACT device.) I was going to ask Dante what the difference was when I caught a whiff of something foul.

  “Why does this place smell like a six month-old grease trap?”

  Jules and Dante started laughing.

  “It be one of the wards, Dieter. Keeps the Imperiti from knocking.” She scrunched her face up. “Oh! Can’t ya just picture the bedbugs?”

  I shivered…I could.

  Jules patted me on the back. “Just ignore the doom and gloom until we can get some matches.”

  “Matches?” I asked.

  Dante and the doorman’s argument distracted us. The guy was refusing to park it.

  Rei planted a hundred dollars in his palm.

  That shut him up.

  “No one respects the classics,” Dante grumbled.

  “Eccentricities require capital, captain. One must validate one’s tastes.”

  “And if ya can’t bribe yer way, ya can always glam ‘em to oblivion,” Jules added.

  “Nonsense. One does not glamour the help. It is considered most distasteful…like dancing nude in front of foliage.”

  Dante choked off a laugh.

  I looked at Jules. The Christmas tree. Back at Jules. “Wait, you mean witches’ Sabbaths are real too?”

  Jules’ cheeks flushed. “They’re not watcha think!” Jules jabbed an accusatory finger at Rei. “Stop fillin’ his head with such nonsense.”

  “Druid, did you not intend to invite him to the spring festival?”

  “I…I…” Jules stammered. “Ya saucy twat!”

  “One must use it or lose it, Druid.”

  Ears going ruby, Jules stormed over to the front desk.

  Rei covered her mouth to smile. “I am becoming most excellent with beater humor, am I not?”