by Jamie Quaid
I didn’t have curtains on the windows, so after taking a shower, I pulled on one of Max’s old T-shirts that I’d found when packing and used it as a nightdress to make my way back to the bedroom.
And that’s when I saw that the bedroom window was open—and I was damned sure I hadn’t opened it.
19
Had the invisible thief decided to visit my apartment? That was one way of making me want to kill him, for sure. I didn’t have much worth stealing, so did that make him a pervert or a spy? I really hadn’t focused too hard on a problem I couldn’t see, but given the mood I was in, I was prepared to change my mind.
Scouring the room for some way of blocking the jamb, I spotted a fluttering paper that looked out of place. I’m not a neatnik by any means, but I owned so little that I was cautious with my possessions. I liked everything properly stowed so I couldn’t lose it. Paper did not go on my dresser.
Was Max passing me messages from beyond the veil now? Creeped out, I didn’t want to investigate . . . which meant that was precisely what I did. Always face a challenge or you lose, that’s my motto. So I was probably born crazy.
The paper was no more than a clipping showing Senator Dane Vanderventer and his hoity-toity society grandmother at some society event. WTF? Was Max or the Zone trying to tell me something? I studied the paper closer and finally caught the date—the day Max had died and the kids had been run over.
My hand shook a little—the society tea had been at the Vanderventer estate, which was apparently on the rich side of Baltimore. Senator Vanderventer had been in town that day!
If this was the work of the invisible thief, I wanted him on my side.
I didn’t, however, want him in my bedroom.
Hoping the open window meant he’d escaped and not just entered, I closed my window and broke a broomstick to fit between the upper and lower casements. I didn’t want anyone letting Milo out in the middle of the night, and I was too damned tired to even think about this latest development.
I missed having Max in bed beside me, but it felt too weird to open my compact. Besides, we had way too many issues, especially if his family was spying on me. Just before I closed my eyes, I had to accept that a cool guy like Max had picked up a cripple like me not because he saw my shining personality, but because he knew I worked in the Zone. Or maybe because I wore biker boots. Who knew? I dropped off to sleep without wasting more time.
• • •
I woke to daylight and Milo walking on my face, demanding food. When had the damned cat grown large enough to leap to the bed?
I realized an unopened packing box sat close enough for him to jump onto, and I shoved it toward the closet as I sat up. “You may be male, but you’re not human, Catboy. I don’t mind sharing my bed, but I don’t even allow real men to boss me around.”
I filled Milo’s bowls, fixed cereal, dug out my reading glasses, and sat down at my shabby table to study. I was older and more experienced now. I didn’t have a need to party every night to hide my panic over finals. My grades were solid as a consequence. If I hadn’t gotten into the fight with the provost and had to lose credits with the transfer, I would have graduated two years ago. I was determined not to blow my chances again, not for invisible thieves or corporate spies.
I was pretty sure the spies wouldn’t have me arrested for car theft. Even if they could have identified me, crooks usually didn’t squeal on crooks—not good business to have the cops asking questions. But I thought I’d let them cool off before I showed my face in public again. The guy I’d Maced might be feeling vindictive. I probably ought to burn the hijab and tunic.
Declaring war on the Establishment was never smart, I knew, but I was down to my last damned week of school and couldn’t contain my natural tendencies much longer. I could just hope that whatever the spies were up to meant they didn’t actually want me out of the picture, or I’d be in big trouble. I’d learned the hard way—by spending long months in a hospital while exhausting every recourse to unsuccessfully sue the college and the cop who’d shoved me—that authority held all the power. I intended to be that authority one day so I could make things better for people like me, but for now, I shivered and focused on case law.
Andre called first, followed by Cora, then Schwartz. I wasn’t interested in talking. I turned off the cell. If they just wanted to nag, then to hell with them. I’d been taking care of myself for a very long time, and I liked it that way.
On a study break, I idly checked to see if there were any more notes from the Universe on my front door. More dirty trash had been stuck to the gum. Unfolding the paper, I recognized the same pencil scrawl as earlier. My skin ought to have crawled at the idea that an unknown entity had been outside my door, but after the invisible-thief invasion, this was nothing.
Themis or the Universe had responded to the notebook message I’d stuck on the door about fulfillment being finding Max’s killer.
Justice will be served with time and thought. Use your head, not your anger.
I noticed they didn’t provide the requested phone number. Very useful, Grandma or whomever. I was thinking I wouldn’t give them mine. Instead, maybe I’d give myself a graduation present and track down Themis and fly to never-never land for a visit. First, I had to graduate.
While I studied, Milo explored. When I did nothing interesting, he got bored and took up a lookout position in the bay window. I gave him a pillow and checked the street—no surveillance vehicles in sight. After a while, my little kitty gave up his vigilance and took a nap.
At noon, someone rapped at the door. I was ready to eat, so I checked the peephole. Sarah. Shit, Andre was sending minions to let the whole world know where I was. So much for my anonymity. But I couldn’t take my rage out on Sarah, so I tucked away my glasses and opened the door.
She still wore low-cut tanks that emphasized her outlandish breasts, but she wasn’t looking as bruised and gaunt as she had the first time we’d met. Maybe chimp life agreed with her.
“If Andre sent you to check on me, make him pay you for the favor,” I said, gesturing for her to come in.
“Why do you talk about him like that?” she asked in curiosity, gazing with awe at my gorgeous front room. “He’s been nothing but nice to me, and he found you this great place. What do I have to do to get him to look at me like he looks at you?”
“You’re not paying attention. Andre looks at all women like that, and he has nothing to do with this apartment. It’s all mine—I found it.” Realizing I’d sounded a bit harsh, I backed off a little and noted, “I was just about to have lunch. Want anything?”
Following me back to the kitchen, she saw the fruit bowl I’d created after yesterday’s shopping spree, and she perked up noticeably. “Banana?” she suggested.
I shot her a look but she didn’t seem to be joking. “Help yourself,” I told her, rummaging in the fridge for sandwich makings.
“Your long legs are prettier than the breasts I got,” she said, peeling her banana. “Was that for killing the rapist?”
I nearly conked my head on the refrigerator doorframe as I swung around to stare at my unexpected visitor. I was still holding the bread bag in my hand. Trying to be cool, I tossed it to the counter, but Sarah wasn’t even looking at me. She was watching Milo prowl at her feet.
“Why do you ask that?” I asked cautiously. I’d learned a thing or two in trial law class, after all.
“You’re a daughter of Saturn, too, aren’t you?” She left Milo alone when he growled and stalked off, stub tail raised in indignation.
“Supposedly, but I don’t even know what that means.”
She looked at me strangely. “Your mother didn’t tell you we were born under a rare stellium of planets and asteroids that only occurs once every twenty-eight years?”
“Um, my grandmother said something about a Saturn transit, but she’s pretty ditzy,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant while a chimpanzee told me more about me than I knew myself.
“Yea
h, sometimes getting the story straight ain’t happening,” she agreed. “I didn’t believe my mother when she said I’d find out what it was like to send people to hell, but she was right.”
“You send people to hell?” I asked a little too casually as I dug out peanut butter and wished I’d had the banana she’d just consumed.
“I figure I sent Danny there, and that’s why I got breasts. I looked it up, and Saturn has almost reached its apex again, so my time’s, like, almost here. I’m carrying a knife now so I can off any creep who comes at me, just like you. Maybe my breasts will turn out prettier if I kill someone I’m not married to.”
This conversation was getting pretty scary. “Did your mother say you’re supposed to kill people? Isn’t that a little drastic?” I smeared peanut butter on bread as if we were discussing the weather.
She shrugged and poked through the fruit bowl for an apple. “She said we only get gifts if we send people to hell. We don’t get anything for making them behave. I’d love to have hair like yours.”
Despite the fact that I was totally freaking out, I did my best to stay cool. “I’m not sure doing the devil’s work for him sounds like a good idea. I really don’t think that’s what justice is about.”
She crunched the apple. “Well, you have to be smart about it. My mother was stupid and just shot the evil drug dealers she owed money to. She looks good, but who’s to notice if you’re in jail?”
This was not a healthy conversation. I kind of wished Andre were here to listen to this. He would never believe me. Shy, sweet Sarah had a murderous felon for a mother and was contemplating sending people to perdition as if hell were a cruise ship and her reward plastic surgery.
I wondered if I should open my compact and let Max have a gander. Digging in my bag might make her suspicious, though, and I sure didn’t want her calling me evil and turning her murderous inclinations my way.
I didn’t think telling her she needed counseling was going to work.
“If you believe bad guys only deserve capital punishment, then shouldn’t your mother be dead, too? Wouldn’t it be better to reform her?” I asked conversationally, as if we were merely discussing the disposal of banana peels.
I always argued in favor of reform in class, but mostly, I just wanted the bullies off the street and out of my face. But listening to Insane Sarah, I had to wonder what I expected to happen should I find the limo driver who’d run over the kids. He deserved to fry in hell, and I could use better eyes, but was sending a jerkwad to hell in exchange for benefits really justice?
She seemed to perk up at my question. “I’d not thought about that. Mom killed a bunch of people, but the cops couldn’t pin anything on her. She declared self-defense on the one that got her locked up. But she probably belongs in hell. You’re right!” She slid off my kitchen stool anxiously. “So I can tell Andre you’re fine and just studying?”
She seemed eager to leave. I was eager for her to go and more than a little disturbed by her visit and the new look in her eyes. I’d kind of thought family loyalty would lead her toward that whole “as a daughter of Saturn, my mother was administering justice,” argument. The cop who had shoved me had used that “injured while upholding the law” crap. Apparently, the appeal of fixing her breasts was more pressing, and I wasn’t holding out good odds on her mother living the month out.
“You can tell Andre anything you like,” I said curtly.
Sarah’s smile was more sly than pretty. “So, you don’t have a thing for him or anything? He’s up for grabs?”
I was thinking I’d better warn Andre that a ghoul was after his soul, but I shrugged in answer to her question. “I’ve known Andre for years. There’s nothing happening between us.”
And with that reassurance, she made a beeline for the door, saying, “I think I’m liking the Zone now! See you later,” and sailed off on her own little ship to hell, closing the door after her.
Milo sniffed the crack to make certain she was gone, then leaped to the bay window to verify her departure.
I wasn’t so hungry anymore. Daughter of Saturn? Such things existed? Themis wasn’t a crackpot?
After fighting a need to spew my lunch, I knew I’d have to track down that website I’d read earlier and find out more. I needed way more information if I was going to die young. If my mother knew about this shit, why hadn’t she told me?
Probably because in her vague world, ignorance was bliss.
The prison system ought to be warned not to let little Sarah visit her mother, but I had no idea where her mother was incarcerated, or if interfering with the hands of the devil would get me slapped. I’d never given the devil and hell a moment’s thought until these last weeks, but they were pressing ugly on me now. If they existed, I didn’t want any part of them.
Andre would say I was nuts if I told him about Sarah. I needed someone who understood. I took my sandwich into the bedroom and leaned my hands on the dresser.
Max appeared instantly in the broken shards. “You don’t look happy, babe.”
“Did you hear any of what I just heard?” I was probably talking to a figment of my imagination, so it wasn’t an unreasonable question.
“Didn’t hear anything. I think you maybe have to be near it for me to see and hear you directly,” Max said with what might have been a shrug. “I’m making connections, learning how things work. There are different dimensions. Maybe Dante was right about levels of hell. All I know is there’s a veil between here and there. I haven’t worked out how to get past it.”
Oh shit and crap. As long as I continued to think I was losing my marbles from stress, I could hope I was clinging to sanity. But I was in over my head and going down fast when I started believing Max was facing hell because of me. Did I have to believe Sarah? Could both of us be batshit nutzoid?
“Max, I’m thinking you were sent there wrongly, and that’s why you’re not frying in eternal flames,” I said bluntly, not knowing any other way of handling this if Max truly was on the other side. “Things are happening too weird for me to grasp. So far, the only clue I’m getting is from a chimpanzee.”
I told him about the conversation with Sarah, and he frowned. I wanted his burly arms around me when he did that. It was disconcerting to have nothing but hard, cracked glass for comfort. I was perfectly aware that a shrink would say my imaginary Max was my way of coping with his traumatic death, but I was learning that the real world didn’t know a lot about this alternate universe I seemed to be occupying. Which ought to have worried me but didn’t.
“Daughters of Saturn are real, babe,” Max warned. “Maybe it’s why I dug your vibes from the first. Your mother copped out by not telling you what you are.”
“And because of that, I sent you to hell!” I wailed, facing up to my guilt.
“Or maybe you gave me an opportunity to get even,” he corrected. “If it hadn’t been for you, maybe I’d just be dust in a coffin right now.”
That perspective left me cogitating instead of shouting, and Max took advantage of my silence by lecturing.
“Like I said, I’ve been asking questions. Word is, with Saturn coming back around in a couple of years, all the Daughters born twenty-six years ago are gaining their powers. You have a little time to learn to deal with them as they grow. Your kind got a bad rep because no one has believed in Saturn in centuries, so his daughters are mostly loose cannons. Maybe you better listen to Themis. Killing people isn’t helping your karma.”
“Planets can’t have kids, and neither can dead gods! I’m already damned, aren’t I?” I asked with a sigh. “What difference does it make if I off a few more no-goods? Maybe I’ll join you.”
He shook his head vigorously. “Don’t go there, babe! I don’t know the alternative, but you deserve better. Maybe you have the power to dispense justice through law.”
I snorted. “Yeah, that’s happening with your rich family breathing fire down my neck and an arrest record blotting my escutcheon. Even if I pass the bar exam, the
ethics and character committee has to examine my application for a law license. Explaining away riots ought to be a joy after they learn about the rest of my questionable behavior. Make room for me down there, Maxie, I’ll be joining you eventually.”
He swore and tried to pound the glass but vanished. I was thinking maybe he should clean up his act if he ever wanted to get out of wherever he was. Temper probably wasn’t a virtue. Maybe I should ask what other questionable tactics he might have been indulging in besides using me for a spy.
I had way too many questions and never enough time to ask them.
The Zone warping me made more sense than believing any rot about planets or dead gods. Andre had said people changed, sometimes for the better, when they lived down here. Chemical imbalances could be cured maybe. Science had logical foundations. Woo-woo, not so much. If I wanted to deal in the superstitious, I could say that I got Milo as a prize after I generously went hunting for Andre’s deposit bag and that I found my apartment after saving Diane. Not buying it.
I called Cora.
“Hey, hon, what did you do to Andre? He’s fuming at the ears, and it’s not pretty,” she sang into the phone. “Amusing, but not pretty.”
“He tried to save me from the bad guys last night, but I took them for a ride instead. But because he cares, I’ve got one for him: Sarah is a full-fledged maniac and will probably try to off her mother soon. Oh, also, she’s got the hots for our fearless leader. He might want to try not taking this one to bed.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” she asked in amusement.
“And be accused of jealousy? Not happening. The man’s ego is too large for his pretty shirts. But Sarah is a bunch of bananas shy of a boatload. You should take a look into her background, starting with the mother she claims killed drug dealers and was thrown behind bars.”
“Will do, because you’re making me curious. Frank is hacking into the corporate spy company at Andre’s request. It’s looking like they’re on the payroll of Acme Chemical, among others,” she warned. “Any luck so far with our diplomatic hit-and-run driver?”