Zero Sum

by B. Justin Shier

  “Explain yourself,” Madam Fremont demanded.

  I tensed. That extraction had taken only a second, but it felt like I’d run a marathon. If Madam Fremont struck at me with that spell, I doubted I would have time enough to counter. And while Rei was now free of the spell, there was nothing keeping Fremont from re-casting it.

  “Easy now,” Jules whispered. “Ya should be using yer brain more than yer muscle. Think about her offer of xenia, Dieter.”

  I brightened. I’d forgotten about the offer Fremont made in the lobby. Everyone in this screwy little word took oaths seriously. I assumed Fremont was no different. “She can’t harm Rei.”

  Jules nodded.

  I turned to Fremont. “Rei attends Elliot. She’s also a member of our party. You extended her an offer of xenia.”

  “Irrelevant,” Madam Fremont replied. “She is not a mage.”

  Jules crossed her arms and frowned. “No. Me pupil be right. Downstairs ya promised ta make sure that ‘the party’ from Elliot got all the xenia they deserved. Rei be a member of our party.” Jules went to nudge her glasses. They weren’t there, but her enthusiasm remained undiminished. “Ya wouldn’t be backin’ down now, would ya?”

  Ayaan placed her hand on Fremont’s shoulder. She shook her head slightly.

  Madam Fremont’s jaw tightened. “Very well, I shall recognize your claim…but if a guest deceives her host, an oath of xenia can be withdrawn. Ayaan, check the television.”

  Aw, crap.

  Plucking the remote from the couch, Ayaan flipped on the TV.

  The room filled with song.

  Chunks of dead skin were sloughing off Rei like monster dandruff. It made the glare she gave me all the more terrifying. I tried very hard not to laugh.

  “Creature, what manner of insanity inspired you to slip into a retired councilor’s suite to watch My Fair Lady?”

  Rei leaned back against the couch. She gave an easy shrug. “I most enjoy the part when she learns to speak properly.” A few skin chips crumbled off her chin.

  Madam Fremont let out a sigh. “Perhaps you should have heeded the lessons on manners.”

  “Perhaps ya both should have,” Jules said with a scowl.

  “Young lady, I do believe that you were the most vocal advocate of her departure.”

  Jules looked like she was about to swallow a toad.

  “Children…” Madam Fremont rubbed her temples. “So I am honor bound to shelter a Nostophoros this evening? Very well. If she keeps her fangs zipped, I shall offer her no further quarrel.” She forced herself to her feet. “You have my oath of xenia, creature. Order whatever you want to drink from room service—but leave the attendant be.” She motioned at me with her cane. “Young man, help me to my room. It appears like I have lost my second.”

  I turned to find Ayaan perched on the couch clutching a pillow. She was staring wide-eyed at the screen, her head bopping to the melody. Ignoring the enormous folds of her gown, Jules plopped down on the couch next to her. Rei rolled her eyes. She was busy picking patches of burnt skin off her arms.

  Content that WWIII had been averted, I helped Madam Fremont to her room. She settled down at the makeup table, and I shut the door behind us. My ears gave a slight pop as I did. The old mage must have warded the room against sound. I watched from my seat on her bed as she removed her many jewels and placed them into velvet pouches. Tiara. Earrings. Necklace. Bracelet. All diamonds. All enormous. She saved her wedding band for last, kissing it once before placing it in a tiny blue one.

  “Can you work the Midden yet, boy?” Whispering a quiet word, she swept the air with her finger. My eyes widened as the space peeled open like a torn piece of wallpaper. One by one, she whispered to the pouches and tossed them inside.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Few from your generation do.” She gestured to the blank space she’d produced out of thin air. “The Midden is limbo—the space between walls. The name I whispered acts as tether. It helps my mind find the spot again.”

  My brain nearly exploded with questions. “Can people travel in the Midden?”

  Fremont stroked her chin. “That question presumes that there are distances to travel in the Midden.”

  “You’re saying that the distances are zero? But all locations are defined by an X, Y, and Z coordinate.”

  She gestured to the air in front of her. “Who said I moved those objects anywhere?”

  “Like a dipole,” I muttered.

  “Elaborate.”

  “If you could create conditions that are the polar opposite of the item you want to store, they would vanish from sight. But the dipole would have to be a perfect reflection of every property, though. Noise-canceling headphones try to do that, but they cheat. They listen to the incoming frequencies and produce inverted frequencies. To do what you just did, you couldn’t just react to the incoming frequencies; you’d have to anticipate them, mimic them perfectly, and then invert all the frequencies.”

  “A well thought out conclusion, and also the key to your question. Inert stones are quite predictable. Inverting their resonance is quite simple. But living creatures? They are in a constant state of flux. Storing life in the Midden would be near impossible, a challenge worthy of quite the mage.” Madam Fremont gave me a vague smile and then attended to her makeup.

  I’d never seen a woman go through the process. It looked almost as complicated as quantum physics. She had plied the rouge off her cheeks before she spoke again.

  “The name Resnick is unknown to me. Whom are your parents?”

  I shrugged. “My father doesn’t do magic and stuff.”

  “You mean he is of the Imperiti…interesting. What is his first name?”

  “Kurtz. Kurtz Resnick.”

  “Kurtz?” Fremont paused to examine her nails. “A harsh name. German. And your mother?”

  I looked down at the shoes she’d leant me. They’d gotten all scuffed up during the dancing. “Do you have any polish? I should fix these up for you.”

  “You do not know her name?”

  I crossed my arms. “Nope. Can we get back to the quantum magic stuff?”

  “Can you recall her face?”

  “Not a freckle to cling to.”

  “How about the color of her hair?”

  “Not a single strand in the memory banks.”

  “What about her eyes?”

  “All signs point to the same color as her hair.”

  “No need for snark, boy. What can you recall? A scent? A laugh? A wink?”

  “She used to sing,” I answered. I frowned. I’d never recalled that before.

  “And do you remember what she sang?”

  “A lullaby. I remember a lullaby.”

  “The words?”

  I shook my head. “Not English…European maybe.”

  “Was it happy?”

  “No.” I roughed up my hair. My head hurt thinking about it. Like I was pulling up a heavy anchor with nothing but my pinkies. “I think it was sad.”

  “Enough,” Fremont said, raising her hand. “Your father…he speaks of her not?”

  I nodded.

  “Is he prone to violence?”

  Some questions, your body wants to answer for you. The wrist he’d shattered in that one summer. The belted forearms I’d hidden in the middle of the summer. The ear he’d cupped again and again. They all throbbed with answers, but my lips never spread apart.

  “The spell of mine you pulled apart, what can you tell me about it?”

  I sighed. “Nothing. It was hard to get a hold of, but easy to pull apart.”

  “You leave me puzzled.” She began working a thick lotion into the dark pools beneath her eyes. “I can guess at what Albright has tasked you with, but your little band’s roster puzzles me. A princess, a priestess, a thief, and a merchant…” She shook her head. “John’s pupil was always too clever for his own good. It’s always been plans within plans with him. So many that he risks tripping on his own feet. But w
hat business is this of mine?”

  “Aren’t we all in this together?” Fremont had said it herself: Carrera and his Talmax buddies were bearing down on us like a hurricane. “Why aren’t you worried?”

  “Simple. Because I’m dying.”

  Bloodshot eyes, wrinkles as deep as drainage ditches, grey hair in lonely clumps…

  “But you look great.”

  I cringed right after saying it.

  Madam Fremont managed a grand smile.

  “And you look like a liar.”

  Madam Fremont waved a hand, and for the briefest of moments, I saw another woman. One with lush cascading curls and broad olive cheeks. Her smile weakened my knees. Her rack nearly bowled me over. She was the kind of woman that men would have gone to war over. Yea, that’s right, we’re talking a Helen-class babe. And then all that beauty was gone, replaced by the pathetic withered shell that I was familiar with. The effort must have taken a lot out of her. She sagged back into her chair and sighed. “I’m afraid that the last of the Old Guard fades. I go across the ocean to mix my ashes with the rest.”

  I’d heard of Old Orders before. They were groups like the Hospitallers, Teutonics, and Templars. Comprised of cataphract knights, they held huge influence in Europe before the Church turned their membership to ash. But the Old Guard…that was a name I’d never heard.

  “How old you are?”

  “Old enough to forget my tenth name, young enough to remember my first dance, and wise enough to cherish it all.”

  I swallowed. That was some rather heavy shit…but if she was that old, perhaps Fremont could shed some light on the one question that had been nagging me most. “Do you know why Diego Carrera is fighting this war?”

  The old woman chuckled. “To the heart of it you wish to go?” The old woman considered me for three long breaths. “Justice. He fights for justice.”

  “But that would imply…”

  “That you and your comrades are villains? No, dear, you too are fighting for justice.”

  “Then why are we fighting each other?”

  “Because scarcity breeds injustice.”

  “Can you Cliff Notes this shit?”

  “No. Unfortunately for us both, I am bound by many oaths…but I fear all will become clear for you in time.”

  I looked up at her in shock. “Was that supposed to ease my mind?”

  “No, dear. It was supposed to placate you.”

  With great effort, Madam Fremont lifted herself out of her chair and hobbled over to one of her many suitcases. She dug through a vast supply of sweaters and pulled out a small black egg.

  “I need you to take this with you in your travels. I offer it to you as a gift. When the path grows dim, call out to the one who protects travelers, miscreants, and old crones alike.”

  “You mean Herm—“

  “Tish tosh. I said speak the name when you need it. Now fetch me Ayaan. She’ll have eons to enjoy Ms. Hepburn’s charms. I want my worth in the meantime.”

  Pocketing the strange egg, I went back into the living room, where Ms. Hepburn was making her grand entrance into the ball. Ayaan looked at me with death eyes when I told her Fremont needed her, but she left soon enough. Rei was still sitting on the floor in a pile of skin flakes. She looked more concerned with her heroine’s fate.

  “You look cute in pink,” I said.

  “Like a baby’s bottom,” Jules chimed in.

  Rei tucked her legs up in front of her. “Get bitten.”

  So it was like that…I plopped down on the couch next to Jules.

  “Where’s Dante?” I asked.

  “Ayaan says he went up with Ms. Fink.” Jules faked a gag.

  My eyes bulged. “Wait…Ayaan talks?” I blinked. “And Dante’s bangin’ Ms. Fink?”

  Jules patted the camera around her neck. “And I plan ta be documentin’ the walk of shame for posterity.”

  “Who cares?” Rei growled. “The proper speaking moment is beginning, and I have lost far to much skin to have you ruin it. Please do not add your own track of sound.”

  Jules and I shut up. Ms. Hepburn was speaking now.

  Chapter 12

  PRETTY LITTLE SNOWFLAKES

  “Yea, that’s right, crank those abs!”

  I cracked open my lids. The TV was still humming. Platinum blonds and muscle heads bent and gyrated on the screen. A throw pillow had crawled under my spine to die. I yanked it out and tossed it on the floor. Last night, a movie called Roman Holiday had followed My Fair Lady. Madam Fremont and her aid had retired, so we’d been left with nothing to do but wait for Dante to return. I’d fallen asleep watching the scooter tour through Rome. Jules was still snoring next to me. She looked like a big fluffy turtle with her chin sunk down into her polka-dot PJ’s. Her hands were still clutching the Polaroid. She was hoping to catch Dante mid walk-of-shame. The motion of a single naked toe caught my eye. Rei had been balancing so still I’d hardly noticed. She was only wearing a pair of black tights and a sports bra, and her bare toes were pointing straight at the ceiling.

  A one-armed handstand. I tried very hard not to breathe. She held the pose like a statue. Not a single muscle struggled. Not a motion issued from her limbs. She balanced there like she was meant to, her long hair draped into a pile around her left hand. Then in one smooth stroke, she lowered her left leg until it was parallel to the ground. She held the impossible angle for another minute, five fingers holding all her weight. Then Rei sank down to touch her forehead to the ground. She held the bend for three seconds before tensing her bone-white arm. Her entire body vaulted upwards, and she traded the weight to her right.

  “Vampire yoga,” I whispered. That shit looked hard.

  Rei let out a sigh. Still upside down, she used her free left to switch channels to the 5AM news. The weatherman explained that the Gulf Stream was shifting. Heavy snow was expected all across the Rockies tomorrow. Some of the freeways might close.

  Not good. It was going to be a struggle to clear those mountains in twenty-four hours.

  “Dante’s not back yet?” I asked. An image of my roommate intertwined in Ms. Fink’s wrinkled arms crept into my head…I pushed it back out with brute force.

  Rei lowered her feet to the ground and went into full lotus. She managed to do the whole motion without losing sight of the picture tube. A slight shrug of her ballet-ready shoulders was the only response I got.

  I let out a sigh. What I really wanted to do was find the nearest King-sized bed and commence an extensive coma. Instead, I was being forced to watch a peppy weatherman point at perky clouds shitting out snowflakes while Vladimira the Grouch gave me the silent treatment. Oh yea, and I sorta-kinda had to come up with a way to shake off our new hall monitors, creep across the DEA-Talmax battle lines, and ask nice old Mr. Carrera for a few scoops of his secret weapon…gosh, my guidance counselor wasn’t joking. They sure did try and cram a lot of material into a single semester.

  The Great Bathory-Resnick stand-off continued through last night’s baseball bat double-murder, a meth explosion that burned down a block of abandoned houses in Kansas City, and a real heart-warmer about puppies that could smell out eye cancer. I kept my eyes firmly planted on the screen. I wondered if I too had a brewing case of the eye cancer, and I wondered if there was a way to order up one of those sniffings, and I wondered how much it would cost to get my eyes sniffed, and I wondered if, in that case, there were perhaps eye cancer sniffing coupons, or better yet, mutt puppies that could offer equivalent cancer detection services for much less than the inflated costs of purebreds…and then I wondered if the vampiress was reading my mind, thinking it was kinda weird that Dieter was trying to cut a deal on his eye cancer evaluation (because eye cancer was something to be taken seriously, not skimped on like a cheap pair of undies), and then I realized that I had just gotten crazier. This made me sad. Snapping, I grabbed the phone and dialed the operator.

  “Dolores Fink’s room, please.”

  I waited for the third ring befo
re hanging up the phone.

  I gritted my teeth. I was still worried about that bloody eye cancer.

  Jules let out a snort.

  Was that a sign of eye cancer? Did Jules have…

  “Oh.” I flicked away the curl that was irritating her nose.

  She shifted her head onto my shoulder.

  I smiled. Girls smelled nice.

  “You disappoint me,” Rei said out of the blue. Her voice was cold. Her stare was colder.

  I flushed. This was getting ridiculous. “Will you please get out of my head?”

  “Why would I venture into such a prosaic place?” Rei gestured to the camera wrapped around Jules neck. “I speak of this scheme of yours. It is vile, is it not?”

  I rolled my eyes. “So we’re being considerate now?”

  Rei let lose a snarl and turned her back to me. She undid her bun and worked her hair into a ponytail, her fingers moved so fast I could hardly track them.

  “You have a problem with us capturing Dante’s walk-of-shame?”

  “What the lieutenant does during his evenings is none of your concern. This tradition of shaming one another with candid imagery…” Rei examined one of her nails. “The lieutenant is far too weak to weather such a trial…it will hamper his concentration.”

  “His concentration?”

  “Yes.” She shot me a look that could have melted iron. “Greatly.”

  I let out a sigh. Now I felt like the jerk…and maybe I deserved it. I’d waited way too long to deal with this whole mess. I’d sat on the photos for most of November, because I figured saying, “Hey baby, I collected all those nude photos of you,” to the girl that had singlehandedly dismantled two of Talmax’s assault teams seemed like a fast train to a bloody end.