by Louisa Lo
In a minute a lanky, almost sickly looking kid in thick-rimmed glasses came down the stairs clutching a book in his hand. He had eyes only for the cook and the casserole dish on top of the oven. “Sorry, Minnie, I got caught up in something. It’s not burnt, is it?”
“No, but your friends are here.”
Pedro looked at us for the first time, and shyly looked away. Great. We thought not going for the society girl appearance was enough to look less suspicious, but it would seem that the guy wasn’t used to talking to any girl at all.
Minnie shooed him away. “Go on to the living room and wait with your new friends, I’ll finish the rest.”
She winked at Serafina and me, pushing us out of the kitchen as well. I could feel her inner pleasure, an almost physical thing. She was so glad Pedro was interacting with girls.
Great, first we got the jock, and now, a bookish Harry Potter.
We all got into the living room. It was as big as the entire apartment I shared with Rosemary, my human roommate, but nowhere near as grand as Serafina’s family estate house. I wondered about Pedro’s host father. Not exactly roughing it here, but I did admire the guy for standing up to his family. I knew firsthand how it felt to be a black sheep.
“I already called them and said I don’t need a ride.” Pedro frowned. “I was just going to wrap up the dish and pack it into my bike’s basket and go.”
I looked at Serafina, who nodded slightly, confirming that Pedro was indeed a changeling.
“Actually, we’re not from the soup kitchen. We’re here.” I began, “because there’s something we have to talk to you about.”
Pedro swallowed. “Are you here about the raccoon-bat at Uncle Macallister’s? I swear he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. He just didn’t like being hit by golf balls, that’s all.”
“Huh?” The confused look on Serafina’s face and mine said it all. Raccoon-bats were feral giant bats with a penchant for dropping balls on golfers. Why did Pedro think it had anything to do with our visit?
He blushed. “My uncle was teaching me golf at his place. Trying to get me interested in more respectable stuff, you know? I…er, I released the raccoon-bat that he trapped. I thought maybe you girls work for him.”
Aha! Sneaking around letting raccoon-bats off the hook. So the shy boy wasn’t so meek, after all.
“No. We work for no stuck-up Council members.” I laughed. Then I sobered up when I realized that I was about to break some pretty bad news to a person who appeared to have a kind heart and didn’t have the slightest inkling to his true origin. Damn. Why did I always end up with the hard stuff to do? Where the heck were Fir and Gregory when the real going got rough? It didn’t matter that Pedro would’ve known in a few months anyway, if things had been allowed to run their course. Instead of the changelings, I was the asshole who was going to put an end to his innocence. I hated myself for that.
“Hey, why don’t you sit down?” I gestured to the sofa nearest Pedro.
“What is this about?” Pedro stayed exactly where he was, suspicion shone in his eyes. Ah, he wasn’t dumb, either.
I sighed. “There’s no easy way to do this, so here goes.”
Pedro listened intently as I talked about the Dualsing tradition of baby switching. Most of the basic stuff he would’ve already heard, but not in detail and not in the presence of someone who had lived through it. I explained how Eldon got kicked out by the changelings and became the most wanted on almost all the supernaturals’ lists. Every now and then Serafina interjected with details, some I never even knew about.
We went through the whole backstory and the big picture stuff, covering everything except how all of that would affect Pedro on a personal level. I really, really hated getting to that part.
So I did the extra cruel thing, however unintentional, which was to keep beating around the bush. I ignored the many pointed looks Serafina sent my way.
“Look, I don’t think I need another detailed rundown on the cross-dimensional limitations that the changelings face.” Pedro’s hands were now clutching and unclutching the fabric of his pants. “Can you please just tell me why you’re here, and what any of this has to do with me?”
“It’s alright, Megan.” Serafina’s hand found mine. “I think deep down he already figured it out.”
“Figured out what?” Pedro whispered.
I took a deep breath. “You’re a changeling. You’re currently the only one assigned to this plane.” Unless more were sent here after Serafina left Dualsing.
Pedro sat down heavily on the sofa that I had previously offered.
“Look, I really hate to lay all this on you.” Now that he knew the truth, I couldn’t keep the rest of it in. “We need your help to prevent the Council from going to war with the changelings. There are other forces at work here. I can go into the details later, but basically a group of people are trying really hard to destroy the world, and we’re asking you to help us save it. I know it sounds so corny, but it’s the truth. And I’m so, so sorry about all this.”
We sat together in silence for a long time.
I knew what I said was a lot for the kid to process. I was essentially telling him that his entire life was a lie. And we were asking him for help before he even had time to process it all.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” he demanded after a long while.
Ah, after the shock, here came the denial.
As I opened my mouth to answer him, there was a loud screeching noise in my ear, as though concert-grade speakers were sending out feedback directly into my brain.
“May I have your attention please,” a female voice spoke inside my head with the tone of a seasoned television announcer. “This is an emergency cross-dimensional broadcast on the vengeance public psychic channel.”
I exchanged a look with Serafina, confirming that she, too, was listening. I’d heard of the existence of such a channel, but it was never used before in my lifetime. I supposed it was a little like the police scanner Gregory had been listening to, but rather than actively seeking to tap into it, the broadcast forced its way into our heads, whether we liked it or not.
Pedro frowned, puzzled by how both Serafina and I had suddenly gone utterly silent.
The psych link worked entirely by the virtue of vengeance blood—even diluted, in my case—and Pedro’s inability to hear the broadcast was proof beyond doubt that he was no vengeance demon.
Serafina offered him a hand and he took it. His eyes widened as he, too, was able to hear the broadcast through his physical connection with her. His eyes filled with tears as he came to the same conclusion as I did with regard to his heritage.
I would have taken the time to comfort him if I wasn’t so focused on what the announcer was saying, a sense of unease settling deep into my bones.
“…be able to reach most regions on the vengeance plane and beyond. If you’re listening to this, it means you are a vengeance demon by birth. If you’re not a vengeance demon and are listening in by other means, we ask that you tune out this broadcast immediately. Failure to do so will result in vengeance unprecedented.”
I rolled my eyes. Anyone who took the time and effort to listen in to what they shouldn’t be listening to wouldn’t be dissuaded by a simple, hard-to-enforce warning. It was typical Council-talk. It was worse than the anti-privacy warning before human movies that never deters anyone from pirating.
“An hour ago the Council reached an agreement with the Greys and have gained their full co-operation in opening the passage to the changeling plane. As of this moment, we are at war with the changelings. With the support of other supernaturals including the reapers, the banshees, the tax fairies, and all of the four major witches’ unions, the attack will be a long-anticipated action that will benefit all of us in the Cosmic Balance…”
My stomached rolled and threatened to eject the jumbo hotdog I’d grabbed on the street while still in downtown Chicago. The announcer droned on, but my mind already zoomed in on the
most important facts.
They were going to war.
They’d agreed to jump into bed with the Greys.
And contrary to what they claimed, not everybody in the Cosmic Balance was going to benefit. The reapers, the tax fairies, and the unionized witches…all of them were the type the Council favored due to their “respectability.” Not a single one of Gregory’s clients were even mentioned. Didn’t the Council realize what a mess this could become? A lot of supernaturals already didn’t like them, and being denied vengeance would focus that resentment and unite them all.
Serafina and I looked at each other with our mouths open. I was sure the horror in her eyes reflected the same in my own.
“Crap!” The single curse word exploded from Serafina, which was so unladylike and so out of character for her that I didn’t know whether to laugh or to be horrified.
Well, war was pretty horrifying, so there was a lot of that going around.
The Council was playing directly into the Greys’ hands by allowing itself to get dragged into such a polarizing war. At best, the Greys would no longer be hunted. At worst, the ensuing conflict after the war would weaken the Council, making it ripe for picking for the Greys. After the Greys finished with the Council, they could then do away with the Cosmic Balance and bring back the Absolute Good without contest. It wasn’t the first time, in vengeance history or otherwise, that a superpower was brought down by the very ally they chose.
“You’ve been telling the truth. About me. About the changelings,” Pedro whispered, pulling his hand from Serafina’s and hugging himself. The scared and anguished look on his face was a stark reminder for me to put the big picture stuff aside for now and concentrate on the misery of the young person in front of me. “I’m one of those changelings they’re going to war with.”
“Their quarrel is not with you.” Serafina shook her head. “It’s with them. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Haven’t done anything wrong?” Pedro gave a mirthless laugh. “I got switched. My sole purpose here is to steal what knowledge I can from the people I care about. I was sent here to rob them blind!”
“Pedro, I might’ve had the exact opposite experience from yours, but I know this”—she leaned closer to him—“I’ve never met a Dualsingian who felt half as bad about the switch as you do now. It shows that where it matters, you are your vengeance parents’ kid. They raised you well and you know what’s right and wrong. Hold on to that.”
“I don’t want to hurt them,” Pedro stated. “And I don’t want to go to that changeling plane and live among those people and have them learn all about my dad’s research because of me.”
He looked at Serafina, and then at me. His face fierce. Now that was a kid I could see freeing raccoon-bats at the risk of his stern uncle’s wrath. “If I help you, will you promise to help me stay on this plane? Maybe arrange for me to take a short trip to some nearby planes and max out my lifetime tolerance? Please, I’ll do anything to avoid returning to those thieves. I couldn’t stand the idea of it.”
After the shock and denial, here came the bargaining. And who could blame him? I would do the exact same thing if I was in his shoes. I had to admire the kid for thinking on his feet, even coming up with that idea of purposefully blowing his own travel limits using knowledge we’d just given him.
“Sounds like a good plan,” I acknowledged. Then something occurred to me. “But what about your counterpart?”
“My counterpart?” Pedro echoed.
“You know, the vengeance demon who had been kidnapped by the changelings so you could take his place? He’s trapped on Dualsing as we speak.” I turned to Serafina. “Can he come home if Pedro stays?”
“I don’t think so.” Serafina shook her head.
Pedro paled. “You’re saying that if I don’t go back, I’ll be condemning someone to a life of second-class citizenship, never getting to know his real parents? And my parents, they’ll never know their real child?”
“Wait.” Serafina chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe there is a way for both the switcher and the switchee to stay on this plane.”
Hope flared in Pedro’s eyes.
“When my switch happened,” Serafina explained, “there was about a ten-second overlap when I got onto the vengeance plane already, but Eldon’s sister hadn’t gone back to Dualsing yet.” She shuddered. “It was a long ten seconds. She was trying very hard to kill me.”
“What?” Pedro and I both barked.
“Long story. I’ll go into it later. The point is, they had me put on a necklace called the Eye of Sebille at the time, and once I got on the vengeance plane, it detached itself from my body and went onto my counterpart’s. The Eye helped guide me here, and then it took Eldon’s sister home. I assume there’s a similar procedure in place for your return, Pedro.”
“If we can make sure the jewel couldn’t attach itself to you, or go back to your counterpart”—my mind was going a million miles an hour, thinking of all the spells I knew to contain magical artifacts—“we can come through the switch with both of you remaining on this plane.”
For the first time since he found out about his heritage, a genuine smile touched Pedro’s lips. But of course, there was a price to our help—he had to play the role we needed him to play in the grand scheme of things. “So do we have a deal, you help us prevent a war and we help you avoid returning to the changelings?”
“Deal,” Pedro said without hesitation.
I turned to Serafina. “Do you think just one kid is going to be enough for the ritual?”
“Yes.” Serafina looked at Pedro with pride. “His heart is true. That’s potent magic. Even at his most miserable, he cared about his counterpart, someone he never met and is going to be competition for his parents’ affection. It makes the connection between them steady and strong. It’ll help open the passage to Dualsing.”
***
At Pedro’s insistence, Serafina and I distracted Minnie while he packed up the dish of scalloped potatoes and covertly sent it to the soup kitchen using an express delivery fairy. No point having it go to waste, he said. Besides, the cook might get worried if he took off with the dish still in the house.
“I’ll get going now, Minnie.” Pedro hugged the woman whom he obviously cared about as more than a mere servant, his thin frame dwarfed by her girth. “Please tell my parents I’ll be late tonight.”
I sincerely hoped that the matter would be resolved by then.
Fir and Gregory waited for us at the far end of the two-acre lot, but I didn’t mind the walk. It gave me some time to think without the social obligation to make small talk.
Now that we had secured Pedro’s help, I found my mind turning back to that vengeance public broadcast.
I wished I could speak to Grandma. The very public announcement of the Council to join forces with the Greys, despite her opposition, was driving home how strong their will to go to war was. That in turn suggested that they would not look kindly upon anyone who stood in their way.
If I continued forward with my plan to stop this war, I would not only be standing against the Council, the governing body I was honor-bound to serve, but also the Greys, whose extensive network—legitimate and otherwise—I’d only scratched the surface of. Both fights, win or lose, would ensure I would not have a place left in the vengeance world.
Talk about a point of no return.
I’d worked hard to win a place in the vengeance society, and I was so close. I got into the right university. I got into the right co-op program. I got into my second year with a good academic standing. But I couldn’t back down now, not when the fate of the world hung in the balance.
The edge of the property came too soon. Stone half walls accompanied an open wrought iron gate that was as strong as it was beautiful. Gargoyles stood on the top of the stone walls, and a gilded coat of arms adorned the gates, displaying the heraldry of the household. The back entrance was built to convey a sense of awe and majesty, while the fact that it wa
s wide open and there was an amateur-crafted wooden wind chime tied to the gate spike said something quite to the contrary.
I liked Pedro’s parents, and I’d never even met them. I hoped he got to stay with them, and I hoped they wouldn’t give a damn about his origin.
I looked absently past the coat of arms, which was built into the intricate pattern of the gate. I was too busy searching for Fir and Gregory to pay it much attention. Then my mind processed what I was looking at and I stopped short.
I looked closer at the heraldry on display. In the center of the golden coat of arms was a silver shield, bejeweled by two sparkling red diamonds. A sword, with a guard that curved toward the blade, sat upright on top of the shield.
Gregory.
Gregory was an illegitimate member of the House of Sumpsi. Since I seriously couldn’t see Pedro’s father being the love ’em and leave ’em type, judging from the noble son he managed to raise, that left his uncle, Macallister Sebastian Sumpsi.
Member of the Council, Minister of the Vengeance Ethics Commission.
Suddenly, what Fake Sui-Ling, who possessed the same knowledge as her real counterpart, had said to Gregory made perfect sense.
“Oh, Gregory, what will your dear old dad say about all this?”
Gregory’s lips thinned. “He has no say in this.”
“You’re going to embarrass him in front of his peers.”
“This is business, and I won fair and square.”
So Pedro had, in fact, been switched with Gregory’s younger cousin. Was that the real reason why Gregory chose to stay outside the house? Why Gregory had initially suggested visiting Alpha first? To delay coming here?
Speaking of the devil, Gregory headed for us with Fir. Gregory caught me staring at the coat of arms, and his lips thinned.
“Hey, Mr. Mercenary, I assume you heard the broadcast and filled in Fir. Being a man of the shady trade didn’t like, cut you off from that psych link or anything like that, right?” I said brightly, even injected a touch of sarcasm, purposefully steering clear of any reference to my newly acquired knowledge.