Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  It was really, really illegal to have an un-collared seer out on the street.

  That wasn’t just United States law––that was World Court law.

  If you broke that particular rule and someone caught you, you’d have the international branch of Seer Containment, or SCARB, breathing down your neck. You’d not only get any future license to own or operate seers permanently yanked, you’d also do jail time, most likely, and pay a fine that would leave your grandkids in debt, and maybe their kids, too.

  Of course, in reality, I knew this wasn’t a problem I’d ever have.

  Like most people, the closest I’d ever get to a real-live seer was a glimpse on the street. All of my knowledge of the seer race would come via online feeds, movies, gossip and stories from my friends. The seer sex-fetish bars that offered services of various kinds throughout the city were way out of my price range, too, even if I was into that kind of thing. No amount of tattoos, digital renderings, or coffee-shop gallery paintings would ever buy me access to that world.

  So yeah, unless I had a rich relative somewhere I didn’t know about, waiting to donate a few million my way after they died, I would have to appreciate the beauty of seers from afar.

  I was curious, though.

  Most people were curious, I suppose.

  Cass poked my arm, pulling me out of my reverie. When I looked up, she raised her eyebrows a few times at me suggestively.

  “What’ll you give me if I go over there right now?” she grinned. “…and offer to blow him if he’ll give up his name?”

  The man at the counter next to her coughed, spitting out some of his coffee.

  Glancing at him, I grunted an involuntary half-laugh at Cass.

  Realizing I’d forgotten the cappuccino I’d been making, I turned my back on her briefly, hooking the metal filter into the corresponding threads on the machine. After a bit of a struggle, I got it locked in place and stuck a wide-mouthed coffee cup under it, hitting the red button to turn it on. I waited for the tell-tale hiss, then turned towards her once more, quirking an eyebrow.

  “What’ll I give you to blow my stalker? Hmmm.” I pretended to think. “How about a grilled cheese sandwich?” I said. “You like those, right?”

  She exhaled in mock drama. “Cheapskate.”

  “What were you hoping for?” I snorted. “I’m a starving artist, remember? I’m basically offering you my dinner.”

  “Right.” She gave me a mock-serious look. “I guess I’d better let you blow him instead. If you do a good enough job, maybe he’ll give you a tip.” When I let out an outraged sound, smacking her arm with the counter rag, she laughed, tugging on my wrist. “Hey, starving artist. We’re going out tonight, right? You’re still in your ‘I’m getting even with my lousy, cheating, fuckwad, loser ex-boyfriend Jaden by going out to clubs, getting rip-roaring drunk, and picking up cute strangers with my best pal Cass’ phase, right?”

  I snorted. “I think that phase has run its course.”

  “Aww.” She pouted. “No. One more night. It’s Saturday.”

  Again, I could only shake my head. “I’m supposed to work at Spider’s new tattoo shop tomorrow. He and Angie wanted to see a few more designs… so that’s what I’ll be doing tonight. I can’t draw drunk, so partying’s out, sorry.”

  She frowned. “Boring. At least call that Nick guy, the bartender. Get him to come over and screw your brains out when he gets off work.”

  I grimaced, shaking my head. “Ugh. No. I had to end that.”

  “What?” Her mouth puckered disapprovingly. “Why? He was cute!”

  “He started getting weird.”

  She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Define ‘weird,’ Allie.”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Just weird. Clingy, I guess.”

  Staring at me in disbelief, Cass snorted. “Jesus. The magic pussy strikes again.” Pouting her lips, she added, “You have to tell me how you do it, Al. I think I have the opposite… the anti-magic, dick-repellent pussy. They all want to bang me, then… poof! They’re gone. You get marriage proposals, I get vomit-stained notes on my bed stand.”

  I let out an involuntary laugh. “You have bad taste in guys, Cassandra. That’s not the same thing as being dick-repellent or whatever. If I slept with those guys, they’d leave me crappy notes, too.”

  “Sure, they would.”

  “They would,” I insisted. “And you know it.”

  Sighing, she propped her jaw on her hand, looking down the bar. “Maybe. I do manage to find the major bag of dicks in every crowd, don’t I?” she said, glum. Perking up slightly, she glanced at me. “Hey, is Jon coming in today? After his morning kung fu class?”

  I nodded. “Far as I know.” Glancing up at the cat clock with the eyes that flicked back and forth for each second, its tail twitching in time, I sighed. “He should be here any minute, actually.”

  “Now, he’s someone I’d blow for free,” she said wistfully.

  I grimaced for real that time. “Seriously? Can you just… not? Talk about him like that, I mean? He’s my brother.”

  “Your brother is seriously fine. And he’s an adoptive brother, right? So no reason to get all skeeved over hearing me lust over your non-blood relative.”

  I winced, shaking my head as I hung the rag on the counter behind the bar. “You know he’s gay, right? I mean, it’s not like we haven’t known that since, what, kindergarten?”

  She sighed wistfully. “A girl can dream.”

  Internally, I sighed. Not only was Jon probably the person I was closest to in the entire world, but my mental image of him was still closer to how he’d looked when he was fifteen than it was to how he looked now.

  Of course, objectively, I knew he barely resembled that person anymore.

  Back then, everyone called him “Bug” and he got stuffed into garbage cans and gym lockers on a semi-regular basis. Predictably, he got picked on mainly for being a “little faggot,” since kids were oddly perceptive about that kind of thing. Sometimes, though, they went after him for being a bookworm, being a know-it-all, being skinny, or for wearing corrective glasses so thick they distorted the size of his eyes––thus earning him his nickname––or just because he wouldn’t back down or cower like they felt he should.

  Eventually, though, as people do, Jon got older.

  He picked up martial arts at the end of high school, not long before Dad died. He also switched from glasses to contact lenses, filled out, and started getting tattoos.

  Now Jon had like five black belts, part ownership of a software company, and taught Choy Li Fut, a type of kung fu, as his day job.

  No one had stuffed Jon into a gym locker in a very long time.

  “You’re sure he’s not bi?” Cass said. “Not even a little? Like a secret bi?”

  I let out an involuntary laugh. “You’re welcome to ask him.”

  Her lips pursed. “Maybe I’ll just show up at his place in a trench coat and a teddy one of these days. See how he responds to actual real-girl stimulus.”

  The men sitting there all looked away as her eyes turned in their direction, trying to hide the fact that they were staring at her.

  “Yeah,” I grunted. “Good luck with that.” Walking the cappuccino over to the guy at the counter who’d ordered it, I walked back to her, shrugging. “Personally, though, if you’re going to start going after guys who aren’t card-carrying members of the bag-of-dicks crowd, I’d suggest trying with males of the species who actually like sleeping with, you know, women.”

  She grinned, shrugging eloquently. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Thinking, I added, “Speaking of dating non-jerks, Jon has good taste in guys usually.” I quirked my mouth in a half-smile. “Instead of playing ‘scare the hot gay guy,’ maybe just ask him for tips on how to pick up, you know, men. With an emphasis on guys who aren’t anything like your father or your bag-of-dicks brothers.”

  She laughed, but I saw my words reach her, even as she shook her head rue
fully.

  “Yeah,” she conceded, dumping part of a salt-shaker on a napkin and spreading the granules around with her index finger.

  We’d been friends since we were kids, like I said. There were advantages to that.

  “How’s your mom doing?” she said, even as I thought it.

  I shrugged. “She’s okay.”

  “Really?”

  I looked up from where I’d been rearranging the stack of paper napkins behind the counter. Seeing the probing look in her eyes, I inclined my head. “More or less. Her last bender was two weeks ago, so she’s probably due for another one pretty soon. Last time I went over there, she was watching old tapes of us when me and Jon were kids.” I grimaced, remembering. “She yelled at me when I tried to turn it off, then started crying.”

  “Jesus,” Cass said, wincing.

  “Yeah,” I said flatly. “It was awesome.” Frowning, I shrugged. “Jon tried to talk her into going to rehab again… or at least some kind of grief therapy, but no go. She still won’t even talk about Dad. She watches those videos of him with us, you know, before he got sick… I swear she wants to pretend it never happened. Like he’s on a business trip or something.”

  Cass frowned, watching my eyes. “I really like your mom.”

  I nodded, my throat tightening. “Me, too.”

  I didn’t add that I missed her, but I thought it. In a lot of ways, it felt like my mom died when my dad did.

  Shoving the thought aside, I bit the inside of my cheek, annoyed with myself for even going there.

  I was still lost in my own head when a throat cleared not far from where we were talking.

  I turned, a little startled that it came from so close. I usually had better peripheral radar than that, but this guy walked right up on us like a ninja.

  When I glanced up, I felt my jaw loosen.

  Light, strangely glass-like eyes met mine. A narrow mouth pursed under absurdly high cheekbones and a narrow, angular face. His almond-shaped eyes hinted at what might have been Eurasian ancestry, but his ethnicity was impossible to pin down, and could have been anything from Native American to Mongolian. Whatever it was, it had to be mixed with Scandinavian or German or something, given how tall he was. His coal black hair was straight but curled just the smallest bit where hung down by his ears.

  It was Mr. Monochrome.

  2

  MR. MONOCHROME

  HE CLEARED HIS throat again. I heard impatience that time. Annoyance.

  “May I speak with you?” he said. “It’s important.”

  I blinked.

  Nope. He was still there.

  He was also definitely talking to me.

  I glanced at Cass, who was staring up at him, too, her red-lipsticked mouth ajar where she still leaned over the lunch counter, her short-skirted butt in the air. When I glanced back at Mr. Monochrome, though, he hadn’t followed the direction of my gaze.

  Those clear eyes remained locked on me.

  His narrow lips curled in a frown. The impression of impatience strengthened.

  “Now, Alyson,” he said. “It can’t wait.”

  He spoke like someone used to having his words obeyed.

  I wasn’t really someone used to having to listen to people who spoke to me like that, though, maybe because I’d never had jobs high-paying enough that I had to care. Even our boss at the diner, Tom, didn’t go there with me.

  With this guy, I hesitated.

  Maybe part of it was the sheer fact of his physical presence.

  I’d never stood this close to him before, not while he was standing, too, so I’d never really realized how tall he was, or how broad-shouldered. I definitely hadn’t realized that my head only came up to about the middle of his chest. He had one of those frames that made him look more lean than big, more of a runner type than a weight lifter, but now that he stood directly in front of me, I realized that impression might be deceptive, too.

  Up close, he looked more like one of Jon’s martial arts buddies, or even Jon himself. The muscles this guy wore definitely looked functional, not purely decorative.

  Until now, he’d never looked me in the face before, either.

  When he ordered from me, he never looked up from the table, or away from the window. He didn’t so much as glance in my direction when he walked into the diner, or when he left.

  He was looking at me now, though.

  His light-colored eyes stunned me in some way I couldn’t quite articulate to myself, maybe in part because they weren’t what I expected. I’d known his eyes were on the light side, but I hadn’t realized how light. Looking at them now, they appeared to have almost no color at all, apart from a vague tint. I supposed technically they must be blue or gray, but they reminded me more of crystals I’d seen in New Age rock shops. Their lightness was made stranger by his eyes’ almond slant and the pitch black hair, but I didn’t see how they could be contact lenses.

  Maybe he’d gotten some kind of cosmetic surgery?

  Either way, it wasn’t my finest moment, me gaping up at him like a drunk teenager.

  Mr. Monochrome stared back at me, exuding impatience.

  Then, without warning, he moved.

  Before I could jerk back, or get out a single word, he caught hold of my upper arm. His fingers felt like flesh-wrapped steel, not bone; they closed around my bicep like a vice. He gripped me tightly enough that I let out a surprised sound, but I didn’t fight him.

  I was still staring at his face, when something slammed into my chest, a flood of warmth.

  I didn’t see anything, but it felt nearly physical in intensity. It confused me, calmed me, wiped out my ability to think. It was thorough, too, whatever it was. I relaxed totally under his fingers. It didn’t even cross my mind to fight the sensation.

  When my vision cleared, he was watching me, his eyes sharp, filled with scrutiny, as if he was trying to read something in the details of my face.

  “All right?” he said.

  Thinking about his question, I nodded.

  “Okay.” I nodded a second time. The motion felt odd, almost mechanical. “Yes.”

  I saw his shoulders relax, but something about the way he moved, even the nod he gave me in return, struck me as strange. Not in an alarming way; rather, it fascinated me. He moved oddly. It reminded me of something, that small gesture, those little adjustments of his body and face. The way he stood there. His angular face.

  I tried to remember what it reminded me of.

  He didn’t wait for me to finish that line of thought.

  “Come on,” he said, gruff.

  Before I’d made sense of the words, he’d already dragged me through the opening in the linoleum-topped lunch counter.

  I followed him, without a care in my mind.

  CASS FOLLOWED BEHIND us. I was aware of her, despite that calm over my mind.

  Her voice confused me as it grew increasingly frantic.

  “Wait!” She reached for me, catching hold of my arm when we’d crossed half the space between the diner counter and the front door. The man holding me didn’t pause his steps. Scarcely glancing back at her, he pulled me easily out of her grasp. “Hey! Wait! Where are you going with her? STOP! STOP!”

  I heard the fear in her voice.

  Somehow, it didn’t alarm me, though.

  Rather, it made me concerned.

  Cass was my friend. Why was she upset? What was upsetting her? I half-turned back, about to ask her, when a voice overshadowed the thought.

  It’s all right, Allie. You’re fine. Cass is fine. She just doesn’t understand.

  I nodded to myself, acknowledging the words. Then my brow scrunched.

  “Understand what?” I said aloud. “What doesn’t she understand?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  Despite his silence, my mind still felt calm. I mused over my own calmness, the fact that I was totally unfazed by this strange man leaving my place of employment with me. I didn’t try to fight him at all, which somehow didn’
t strike me as strange, either. I followed him obediently towards the restaurant’s lobby, even as my mind turned over what was happening in the distance, watching me and the man with the black hair and Cass as if hovering over the three of us.

  Then a different voice brought my focus back down.

  It was sharp, loud, and it came from right in front of us.

  It was also extremely familiar.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man?”

  My mind wavered…

  Then it clicked back, sharpening to a denser focus.

  My brother, Jon, stood in front of us, his long, dirty-blond hair up in a half-ponytail, probably because he’d just walked here from where he worked at a nearby martial arts studio. He stared from my face to the man standing slightly in front of me. His hazel eyes focused on the hand that gripped my bicep, right before they slid upwards, measuring the man whose hand it was. He looked at me, as if gauging my expression.

  Then his focus zeroed in on the man holding me.

  “Let go of her,” Jon said. “Now. Or I’m calling the cops.”

  There was zero bluster in Jon’s voice, no hint of empty threat. He spoke without emotion, his voice an unequivocal command. It was his martial arts voice, the one he used with his students. I knew that voice––I’d seen it in action when I’d gone to watch his fights and other events––but I’d never seen it used like this.

  Something about it brought my mind back, marginally, at least.

  I tugged on my arm in the tall man’s grip, trying to retrieve it from his fingers.

  The man glanced at me, his grip tightening.

  Calm down, I heard distinctly in my mind. Now, Alyson.

  That time, it didn’t calm me though. Not as much, at least.

  Even so, I couldn’t quite force myself to speak. I frowned at him instead, gritting my teeth as I fought to clear my mind, to understand what was happening, what I was doing.

  The man in front of me faced Jon. “I won’t hurt her.”