by Beth Dranoff
Anshell cleared his throat, reminding us that we weren’t alone in the room. Also that there were other matters to discuss than the past/present/future of my relationship with Sam.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Sorry,” echoed Sam.
Anshell took a sip of his coffee in the temporary absence of conversation that followed. Thinking. Because my father as the bad guy with Ezra as—well, not good exactly but not as bad as I’d thought either—required an unexpected alteration in my worldview.
“If Ezra isn’t actively trying to harm me, then what the hell is going on?”
“Perhaps,” said Anshell, “the time has come for you to ask him yourself.”
* * *
I expected blaring sirens as I got off the elevator at his floor; certainly by the time I crossed the threshold of his department. My one-inch-thick Doc Marten rubber soles squelched against the polished stone floor as I walked. After everything, could it really be this simple? I could walk back in and nothing would happen to me?”
Sam hadn’t been happy about my going alone. I didn’t blame him. We were gambling on a theory that seemed implausible now under the fluorescent track lighting of my past. Our compromise was that he wouldn’t go far, grabbing a drink in the Arbor Room of Hart House. If I didn’t check in within thirty minutes, even by text, Sam would be coming to get me with claws blazing.
Bleach, floor wax, sweat and sawdust. Maybe they were renovating. So many memories reaching out their hands to play with my hair, pulling me backwards even as I propelled myself in the opposite direction. Away from this life and everything it had held. Even as I found myself here, with clearance and a signed contract, sucked back in again.
“Ezra,” I said, standing in the doorway to his office. His assistant wasn’t anywhere I could see, which was a good thing. Better chance of me staying conscious.
He looked up from his desk, eyes blank for milliseconds before narrowing their focus in on me. Delayed recognition. Maybe he’d been spending too much time inter-dimension-side too.
“Dana,” he said, glancing around to check whether we were alone. “What can I do for you?”
Not quite the reception I was anticipating.
“The snatch-and-grab gig,” I said. Business first. “That came from you, right?”
Ezra narrowed his eyes, evaluating, before giving me the nod.
“Why? Why me?”
“What,” Ezra said, leaning back as he watched my face. Reading me without the words; a touch-free Braille for motivations. “You can’t use the work?”
“Of course I can,” I said. “So not the point. And why did you bring Owain in to deliver the offer?”
“You didn’t want to see him again?” Amazing how Ezra could pull off innocent when I knew he was anything but.
“It wasn’t keeping me up nights.” Not anymore, anyway. “What’s your end game?”
“Stop looking for what’s not there,” Ezra said. “Did you come here to play pin the question on the doddering professor’s posterior, or are you prepared to talk about the job yet? Hmm?”
“Fine,” I said. “First tell me what you want this guy for.”
“No,” said Ezra. “If you do the work then I owe you the fee. All the details you need to fulfill it successfully were in the file, which I assume you’ve read by now.”
I nodded.
“So what more do you need? You do your job and I’ll do mine.”
I let that sit a moment. Then:
“What if I get you bio materials from the target instead of bringing in the target himself?” C’mon Dana, you can do this. Blank face. Bunnies and kittens and ice cream. “He’s a big guy, and he’s already tried to kill me at least once. Do you actually need him whole, and alive?”
“You mean could you bring me an ear and still get paid?” Ezra’s lips were twisted; I think he was trying not to laugh. “Bring me what you can.”
“I’ll still get paid?”
“Depends on what I get,” said Ezra, the Man in Charge persona shutting down the humor in an eye blink.
I watched his face. For any sign of Crazy Ezra, Absent-Minded Ezra, or Ezra the Guy Working with Alina.
“Dana?” Ezra raised his hand, palm up, in the sign of nu? “Is there anything else?”
I stared. The inside of his wrist was smooth, unmarked. No thumbprint-shaped tattoo.
“What?” Ezra looked from me to his wrist and back again. “Is there something else you want to renegotiate? Or are we done here?”
“Your wrist,” I managed.
“What about it?”
“Didn’t you have a tattoo before?”
“A what?” Ezra’s laugh was short, and I saw the focused man I recognized from before the casual cruelty of the last few months. “I’m too old to put decorative art on my wrinkled carcass.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen me with a tattoo? Where?”
“There,” I said, pointing. “Your inner wrist.”
“Really,” he said. “And you’re sure it was me.”
“Stop fucking with me.” I lost my patience with the circling-around-each-other game. “You had a tattoo on your inner wrist and you’ve been sharing space in there with my father and a demon named Alina.”
Ezra stared at me. I stared back. He was really going to try and sell this whole I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about routine?
Then he threw his head back, the sound of his guffaws filling the space.
“Oh Dana,” he said, tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. “You should see your face right now.”
“The fuck, Ezra?” If I’d come here for answers, this was not helping. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Oh!” Sniffling, and not from sorrow. “And no need for all that profanity. You have to admit this is pretty amusing.”
“What?” I put my hands on my hips—all the better to grab a weapon with, if needed. “I get that I’m missing the joke but...what? Tell me one true thing. Please.”
“Your father is alive,” said Ezra. “But you already knew that, yes?”
“Doesn’t count. You knew I knew. Please tell me one true thing I don’t know. Like how you’re alive, even though I saw your head separated from your body a few months ago.”
“Why should I?” Ezra peered up at me through brown and beige plastic weave, square-cut glasses with a mid-century modern aesthetic. “You’ve got to learn how to find answers yourself. I’m doing you no favors by handing over a shortcut.”
Hang on. This entire experience was meant to be one long teachable moment?
“It’s good that you’re finally asking questions but they’re not the right ones.” Damn, Ezra could be obstructionist when he wanted. Or when he was trying to make a point.
So I did what he wanted, and thought about what I was asking, and why. Where it all started, when, and with who.
The accident. The one that had supposedly killed my father.
“That lab thing. Where my father died. Only not,” I amended. “You were there.”
“Yes,” said Ezra. “Go on.”
“We all believed my father was dead because...you must have told us that’s what happened.” I was thinking out loud now. “Except it didn’t. And you knew it. So what really took place that night in the lab?”
“You’ve come this far,” Ezra said. “You tell me.”
“I think that whatever happened to my father that night was because of you.” Hopefully saying the words out loud wouldn’t banish me to the same place. “I don’t know how though.” A quick glance at Ezra was no help; he’d be able to beat me and anyone else he went up against in poker no problem. “And you’re not going to tell me.”
Ezra shook his head.
“Can you at least let me know if I guess right
or something?”
“I can do that,” Ezra said. Who knows if he was telling the truth. “What do I get out of it?”
“A feeling of satisfaction at doing the right thing?” Yeah, I didn’t buy it either. “What do you want?”
“You,” he said. His goal all along. “Work for me again.”
“Not going to happen,” I said. Didn’t even need a beat to consider. “But you knew that when you asked. Never lead with what you actually want—rule number one of negotiation. You taught me that.”
“Good,” he said, pride in his eyes. “You remember.”
“I remember plenty,” I said.
“What if you got a transfer?” Ezra leaned back in his chair, easing his left and then his right foot up on to the edge of his desk. Apparently we were being casual here. “Away from Covert Science. Research?”
I gave an involuntary shudder. I’d rather spend the day giving myself paper cuts.
“No matter. Assume we found a department able to meet your standards of intellectual stimulation and moral platitudes. Would you return to the fold then?”
Ezra wanted me back badly enough to let me choose my path? The role I’d play? I’d never heard of anyone getting an offer like this. Maybe he wanted me dead, or under Covert Science’s observation. But if that was the case, there were easier ways to bring me in. A cloth hood and a paralytic, for instance.
Still, I wasn’t looking to get married again so soon. Ezra wanted me back? We’d have to take things slow. Like glacier-at-the-end-of-an-ice-age slow.
Oh.
“The contract,” I said. “That’s what it was all about. You wanted me back—I still have no idea why—and you knew I’d be skittish.” Ezra’s smile managed smug and proud in equal parts. No idea how he did that. “So you make me an offer, not a permanent position but a little something something to tempt me. You throw in Owain, the guy you took from me, to sweeten it. How am I doing?”
“You’re proving to me that my investment has not been a waste,” Ezra replied. I’d swear he was the cat with a few canary feathers stuck out the side of his mouth if I didn’t know better. Even without any supe blood in him.
“So what’s your real bottom-line offer here?” The Ezra I remembered would have identified that minimum goal before he’d started any of the balls rolling in this game. And to him, the lucid Ezra, everything was one more angle to be played, one more set of odds to stare down and weigh out.
Lucid Ezra. Ezra the absent-minded professor. My tormentor. My mentor. Which one was real? Who was I negotiating this deal with, and was there any way to truly know?
“You fulfill this contract,” said Ezra. “And just this once I will accept bio materials in lieu of making you haul in his big, blue demon carcass. No pro-rated fee for reduction. Take it as a sign of my committed reinvestment in this relationship. This should not be viewed as a precedent of any kind, and any future contracts are to be completed to spec. Understood?”
I nodded. Comprehension did not require acceptance. “That’s it?” A girl can hope.
Ezra shook his head. Indulgence for the willful child.
“No,” he replied. “You will also complete a minimum of four additional jobs for us over the next twelve months. You will be compensated,” he added, as I opened my mouth to protest, “on an appropriate pay scale. The Agency may be many things, but we make sure our people are taken care of. As I’m sure you remember. If you don’t, ask Owain how his bank accounts are doing these days.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Ezra confirmed. “For now.”
“My turn then,” I said. “Answers for questions—that’s the deal, right?”
“With a caveat,” said Ezra. “Knowledge comes with a price, and yours is on the installment plan. Each job gets you paid, plus I’ll answer five questions for you.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Ezra would want insurance against my bailing before the terms of our verbal agreement were up. The only digital paper trail would be of me taking or declining an assigned job and then the payment. Knowledge for sweat was done off-book.
It was possible I’d figure things out for myself. Eventually. But a shortcut would certainly make things easier.
Then again, what was it they say about curiosity and cats?
Which reminded me—
“What about your good friend Alina and her death-inducing plans for me?”
Ezra shrugged on the absent-minded professor role he could play so well.
“Oh my,” he said, a wheedling vacancy in his tone. “I don’t know where that Dana girl could have gotten to. Last I heard she took one of those big metal flying machines—yes, that’s right, a plane—very far away. Iqaluit. Or maybe it was Tel Aviv.”
“You’re saying you’d lie to protect me,” I said.
“Assuming you make it worth my while,” he replied, mind like the bear trap with flesh-piercing steel claws it was.
“And when I’m no longer useful to you?”
“Stay useful,” he said. Not comforting. Then again, it wasn’t meant to be. “I assume you plan to continue associating closely with members of the Moon with Seven Faces pack?”
“I do,” I said. “That’s not going to change under our arrangement. I’m not going to quit my job at the Swan Song either. So if you were thinking that was happening, you can forget about it.”
“You won’t need the money,” Ezra pointed out.
“You don’t get to own me,” I said by way of reply. “I live where I want, associate with whoever I want and take whatever jobs I choose—even if you don’t like it. Agreed?”
“No conflict of interest gigs,” Ezra warned. “And you already know about the non-disclosure guidelines.”
“Fine,” I said. Because Ezra wouldn’t give anything away for free. Or even at a discount. “Case by case basis is probably best for both of us,” I said, hedging. Once a commitment-phobe, apparently still a commitment-phobe.
“Agreed,” Ezra said. “For now.”
“And you’ll keep Alina off my back?” I skipped the part where that could be literal.
“I will endeavor to keep our mutual friend away from both you and your back,” he replied. “Although you realize that if she goes rogue, there’s little I can do to stop her.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said.
“Do we have a deal?”
Eyes on the bouncing information ball. I could do this. Right?
“Yes,” I said. “We have a deal.”
“Then ask.”
“Are you responsible for my father being in another dimension?” I surprised myself with that one.
“Yes,” Ezra replied. He didn’t elaborate.
“Are you, my father and Alina all using some kind of flesh suit to jump between dimensions, and does it have anything to do with me?”
“That’s two questions,” Ezra said. When I nodded: “As long as you’re aware.”
“I am.”
“Then yes,” he said, “and sort of yes.”
“Does Alina need me dead?” At some point it had to be asked.
“No,” said Ezra. “She’s just being spiteful.”
I opened my mouth to claim my last Ezra prize, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“Save it,” he said, handing me his card. “By the time we see each other again, you’ll need it.”
Chapter Thirty
I was twenty minutes past the time I was supposed to have shown up at the Swan. There had been two texts from Sandor (so far) checking on whether or not I was actually going to show. I responded to the last one, finally: Sorry—running late. See u in 15. Hoping it would be enough.
Well, that and the part where I was apartmenting his brother.
* * *
The Swan was a sweaty tangle of arms and claws and fingers and feathers when I got there. Church Street had its Pride celebrations, and the fringe supe community grabbed its piece of the inclusivity coat of many colors to wrap itself in the flag as well. Table after table of slow smiles and lingering touches. The alcohol was flowing, but I had a feeling there was something extra-euphoric being passed around too.
Sandor was a big believer in safety first, so we’d spent the entire month making sure the wicker baskets filled with pretzels were paired with matching baskets of condoms. Public Health always had an abundant supply and they were willing to share, so Sandor made some kind of arrangement with them every year.
We also put out extra garbage bins. Because even though they couldn’t be recycled, the last thing we needed in a packed bar was an exploded pipe from too many flushed condoms. Also—yuck.
Of course, I’d forgotten about all of this—albeit temporarily—wrapped as I was in my own drama. Just the kind of thing to endear a person to their co-workers.
Derek had that frantic twitch in his eye going when I showed up. Poor guy. He was good with pouring drinks, but I sensed that the seasonal energy was a bit much for his more reserved, fifth-generation Anglo-Canadian sensibilities. The big tough magic-wielder’s shoulders were bunched to his ears, and the rapid rise/fall of his chest made me wonder if he was hyperventilating—or fighting it.
Janey threw me a glare before turning around to paste a smile back on her customer-facing self, confirming my whoops in the Team Player rulebook.
I stashed my stuff in back, slamming my locker shut hard to give the closest writhing bodies advance warning that someone was approaching. Not everyone cared, but at least the bashful ones got a heads up.