by Sara Beaman
“What did you end up doing for them, anyway?”
“I... well...” I shift in my seat. “I read blogs, forums, newsgroups—that kind of thing—looking for discussions about... specific topics. And then I was supposed to report on my findings.”
“What were you supposed to be looking for? What topics?”
“It was a broad category at first.” I scratch the back of my head. “So, like... the paranormal, generally speaking. Ghosts. Psychics and mediums. Ectoplasm. Telekinesis. Telepathy. Weirder things too, like vampires.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Vampires?”
“I’m serious. Anyway, at first, I mean, I was surprised, but... well, it was easy work. There are a million New Age websites about this kind of stuff out there. Shit about Atlantis and astral projecting with dolphins. All I had to do was find some, report on it, fill a daily quota. I could get a day’s worth of work done in about an hour and a half.”
Conspiracy keeps typing and offers no response.
“So I guess I must have been doing a really fantastic job, because then I got promoted. After that it was vampires only, no more of the New Age stuff. Just finding websites about vampires. Not, like, fan pages for novels or role playing games or anything—people discussing them as if they were real. Vampire sightings, mostly.”
“I see.”
“Then they asked me to create usernames on a bunch of vampire groups and forums. They wanted me to collect personal information about the other users.” I slump back into my chair. “That’s when I started to feel like there was a real problem.”
“What did you do about it?”
“I tried telling my manager I wasn’t comfortable with the assignment. I basically asked them to demote me so I wouldn’t have to do it. He told me that wasn’t necessary, that I could keep my current position and they wouldn’t ask me to do anything I found ethically questionable ever again.”
“Can’t imagine that lasted long.”
“Only about a month. Then they moved me to another department full of other transfers. We all had to go through a training session about the assignment I’d refused to do. It was basically Fraud 101. I pretended to be sick halfway through the session and went home.
“So then I tried telling them I didn’t know what to do because I hadn’t been to the entire session. Not that I couldn’t have figured it out on my own, but whatever. That didn’t fly. That’s when they sent me to remedial training.” I down the rest of my cappuccino.
“What’s ‘remedial training’?”
“It’s punitive. You have to stay after work. Late. Like really late. I was there a few times until two A.M.” I place the empty cup down on the table. “I had to go to eight sessions in total. If I tried to skip a session, they’d send someone to my apartment. They were not kidding around.
“Anyway, at the first seven sessions, they had me watching a video of the Overlord going on and on about all this irrelevant nonsense. Just random stream-of-consciousness bullshit. The same video, over and over again. It was only about forty-five minutes long. At some point every night I’d fall asleep watching it.”
Conspiracy bites her lower lip.
“At the last session, I had to meet with the Overlord herself. We had a short conversation. She didn’t bring up anything about the identity fraud stuff. I think we talked about the weather or something.”
“I see. Do you remember what else you talked about?”
“You’d think I would, given she’s a multimillionaire and super important. And this was only the second time we met. But I can’t.”
Conspiracy stops typing for a moment. “Go on.”
“Well, after that, the fraud assignment never came up again. But then I started losing track of time.” I scratch my head. “Some days, I’ll go in to work, and then I’ll come home, and while I’m microwaving my dinner or whatever I’ll realize I can’t remember anything I’ve done all day.
“At first it didn’t happen all that often. Maybe once a month or so. But then it started happening more, until it was happening, like, twice a week. Sometimes even more than that. I saw a psychiatrist about it for a while. They put me on medication, but it didn’t help.”
“So this is still happening?”
“Yeah...”
“Are you still on the medication, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, I took myself off of it.”
“Why don’t you just quit?”
“What? You mean my job?”
“Yes, your job!”
“I can’t,” I argue. “I’m not done.”
“What do you mean, ‘you’re not done’?”
“I’m in this for the long haul. I’m going to take them down from the inside.”
Her mouth hangs open.
“You don’t understand,” I tell her. “I’m not finished with my story, either.”
“All right. Please continue.”
“So the next thing I realized is that my entire apartment is bugged. Audio and video both.”
“Jesus, Pageslave! You know—“
“I’m going somewhere with this, all right? So at first I was really creeped out—“
“’At first’?”
“Okay, well, I’m still creeped out,” I admit. “But it gave me an idea.
“I went to the store and picked out the smallest video camera I could afford. Bought it with cash. I put it in the front pocket of my backpack, and I put a pinback button over a hole I cut out for the lens.”
She stops typing.
“Every day, I sit with my back to the surveillance camera in my office while I take my laptop out of the bag. I take the pin off and put the bag on my desk so that my camera can tape me while I’m working. I started off doing it every week or so. Now I do it every day.” I shrug. “As far as I know, they have no idea what I’m doing.”
Her eyes go wide. “You can’t be serious.” She cackles.
I smile smugly and show her the apparatus, removing a button on the front of my bag to reveal the camera lens.
“Oh my God! You’re a genius. Do you still have video of it all?”
“Yeah, I’ve kept a lot of it, but...” My smile fades. “I mean, I know this is going to sound crazy, but the tapes prove that they’re using brainwashing techniques on us. On the days I lose track of, I’m always off on some website getting some poor Goth kid’s home address. I don’t want to think about what they’re doing with all the data I’m collecting.”
We sit silently for a few moments.
“You’re not crazy, Pageslave,” Conspiracy says in a tone halfway between anger and sympathy. “I don’t know. You could be right. Maybe you will bring them down, somehow.”
I smile with all the enthusiasm I can muster.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
I think about this for a moment. “Well, there is, but it’s just a theory...”
“That’s okay, I’d like to hear it anyway.”
“All right, well...” I look at the door to the coffee shop, suddenly self-aware and nervous. “The night I met with the Overlord to finish my remedial training, I saw something really strange.”
Conspiracy nods and begins typing again. The repetitive sound takes the edge off my anxiety. I take a breath and continue.
“So I was meeting with her in her office—which, I don’t know if you know, but it’s on the top floor of the building. When I got out of the meeting, I took the elevators down to the ground floor,” I tell her. “Have you ever been to the building?”
She shakes her head no.
“Well, there are two sets of general use elevators. The upper set is in the center of the building, and it runs from floors four to fifty. The lower sets are on the sides of the building, and they go from the first floor to the fourth. They have glass walls. The first three floors of the building are basically a big atrium.
“I’m only telling you all that to explain that I was in the lower elevators that night, looking out at the atriu
m through the glass, when I saw the Overlord walk in through the front doors of the building with her coat on, like she’d just gotten out of her town car.”
Conspiracy frowns. “What did you take that to mean?”
I start stacking my empty cups. “I don’t know for sure. My theory is that she has a body double. I mean, don’t rich people sometimes hire people like that?”
“Hmm.” She nods. “Very interesting. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“No problem.”
She closes her laptop. “I should probably go soon if you’re finished, but before I do, do you have any questions for me?”
I think for a few seconds.
“So... you just said that I’ve been able to find out more than any of ‘you’ have been able to. Who are ‘you’? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She nibbles at a cuticle. “Well, what I can tell you is that we investigate the paranormal—and the Overlord, by the way, is very paranormal.”
I nod slowly. It makes sense, what with the mind control.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“It depends,” she says. “I mean, you can ask, but I might not answer.”
I quirk my mouth to the side. It feels weird to even think about asking this, but I probably won’t get another chance any time soon. “So... vampires.”
“Yes?”
“Do they really exist?”
///
Adam pulls his wrist away from my mouth. “The bleeding’s stopped,” he says.
Okay.
“I know you’d probably rather be alone right now—“
No. I wouldn’t.
He smiles slightly.
What now?
“We wait. Tara... well, I assume she’ll drain Gabriel. Hopefully that will give her enough strength to heal you.”
I nod.
“What is this thing doing on your head?”
The shower cap. The hair bleach. Fuck.
I need to rinse out my hair.
“You need to lie still and rest.” He removes the cap from my head and tosses it to the side.
Will they be able to do anything for Haruko?
“Blood magic doesn't work on her. She’s a Warden.”
Can’t you do anything? Aren’t you a doctor or something?
“The best I could do would be to wake her up with an epinephrine shot, and I think that’d be pretty cruel, given her current state.”
Will she be okay?
“She’ll be fine, eventually. Her innate healing faculties will repair the wound.” He gets a clean towel from the cabinet and starts drying out my hair.
So that’s the only thing she can do? Nullify magic powers? That sucks.
“It’s not as simple as that. She can also seal revenants from using a power indefinitely. And she can track revenants, ghouls, and dhampyrs...”
That still sounds like it sucks.
He shrugs.
Are all Wardens the same?
“Not exactly the same, but similar in their capacities. Our abilities are determined by our blood,” he says. “Every revenant has three strains in their blood, and three corresponding abilities.”
What are yours?
“Telepathy. That’s one strain. And I can read the memories of objects, and memories written in blood—that’s the second,” he says. “My third strain is a bit more difficult to explain. We refer to it as Dream. I can alter states of consciousness. Create visions. The combination of the latter two strains allows you to drink my blood and relive visions of your memories.”
What about Aya?
“Aya is an interesting case. She comes from a Line—a mixed lineage of houses.”
How is that possible?
“Up to three revenants can provide their blood to a single initiate. In her case, one of Mnemosyne’s children mixed their blood with a revenant from another House, the House of Himeros. The result was Thalia, the first revenant in her line. And from there the Line of Thalia. All members of her line have the same three powers.”
What can they do?
“Create illusions. See and hear things far away. And alter their appearance— but in a different way than Coventina’s children do. They change the way others perceive them on a mental level, rather than changing their bodies.”
What about Tara?
“Children of Coventina can do all kinds of things, all revolving around biology. She’s a healer, of course. I don’t know what else. Maybe she can mutate her body as well.”
Do you always get the same powers as your benefactor?
“Not always. But usually.”
I nod.
“Do you feel ready to stand?”
I think so, I tell him. Help me up.
He stands and reaches an arm down to me. I grab it and pull myself up. I see stars, then blackness. He grabs me by my shoulders.
“Sit down for a second first,” he says, helping me onto the edge of the bed.
I run my hands through my hair and take deep breaths.
“I can carry you downstairs,” he says.
No. I can walk.
Adam helps me up a second time. Once I’m on my feet I don’t feel quite so terrible, but I keep my hold on his arm as we walk through the sitting room and the square antechamber to the stairwell. I shuffle slowly down the stairs, keeping one hand on the railing.
Down in the basement, Vincent, Tara, and Aya are standing near the base of the stairwell. Behind their feet is a desiccated husk, a skin-and-bones shadow wearing Gabriel’s clothing. A sense of ritualistic fatalism hangs over the scene, the sense that this was the way things were to be, that this is the only way things could have been.
“Bring her to me,” Tara says, extending a hand. “Let me see her wounds.” She looks like a completely different person. Her skin has healed, her cheeks have filled, and she stands upright on two feet.
I step forward on my own and turn my head to let her see the bite.
“Can you help her?” Adam asks.
She doesn’t respond. She draws a gash along the palm of her hand with her pinky fingernail. Blood springs to the surface; she uses it to draw a wide swath across my throat.
A deep, warm sensation penetrates all the way down to my esophagus, as if I’d just swallowed tea, or soup, or blood. As quickly as Tara can erase the cut in her palm, I can feel my own wound close. My pain fades instantly along with the bite.
My heart flutters with excitement. Did she heal my vocal cords as well?
“Is that better?” she asks me.
I try to say “yes”. A shapeless vowel sound emerges from my throat, but my tongue can’t form it into a word. I nod, force myself to smile, try to conceal my disappointment.
“Good,” she says with a motherly smile.
Adam and I walk back upstairs and into the sitting room. Now that I’m feeling better, I realize that I’ve been walking around in only my sports bra. I flush and cross my arms over my chest. I should get a clean t-shirt, but I don’t want to go back into the back room again, not after what happened.
“I’ll get one,” Adam says, and slips through the door.
Moments later he returns, carrying a grey shirt and the knife he pulled from Gabriel’s back. He tosses the shirt to me. I pull it over my head.
What are you doing with that? I ask.
“We believe Gabriel left to make a phone call,” he says, “and seeing as we can no longer interrogate him...” He draws his finger across the blade, wiping off some congealed blood.
I wrinkle my nose. You’re going to read the memories in his blood?
He nods. “Do you want to see them? I can understand if you’d rather not.”
Yes. I do. I want to see.
“Sit down, then.”
I take a seat on the couch. Adam places the tip of the bloody finger in his mouth and sucks it clean. He places his other hand against my forehead.
“You’ll start to see it in just a—“
“—Adam Radcliffe, Haruko Schuster,
and some Thalian girl whose name I don’t remember,” I tell Claire. “And a human.”
“Adam Radcliffe and Haruko Schuster?” Her voice is high and strained. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. They gave me their names.”
“Describe the human,” she says. I imagine her taking the memo pad from her breast pocket and removing the cap of a cheap pen with her teeth.
“Thin. White. Red hair. Not carrot-red, beet-red. Like the boss’.”
“Her height? Build?”
“Hard to say. I didn’t see her standing up. Didn’t get a good look at her face, either.”
“Go back, verify her—“ She says something that gets eaten by static.
“Don’t copy, Claire.”
“Go back, verify her identity and kill her. She’s subject thirteen. She must be.”
I inhale through my nose.
“Do you read me?” she asks.
“Claire, if I kill her, they’ll kill me. Didn’t you hear me when I said they had a Warden with them?”
“Schuster’s young. Not much of a threat. And the boss thinks Radcliffe is a joke.”
“What about the Thalian?”
She laughs. “You can’t seriously be concerned about some no-name poseur.”
“Still, it’s three against one. Four if Vincent counts for anything.”
“He’s a pacifist! Stop arguing with me. You have your orders!”
I choke down a profanity-laced retort. “Why can’t you send someone from the DC office or something? A team?”
“Not an option. They’re otherwise indisposed.”
“With what?”
Claire takes a moment to reply.
“I don’t know.”
The vision fades, leaving me staring at the back of my eyelids. I open my eyes, blinking several times and touching my own arms in an attempt to shake off the horribly disconcerting sensation of being Gabriel. It was just a few moments, and a few relatively innocuous moments at that, but I feel like they’re left on my skin, left in my pores.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like they’re sending backup,” Adam says, massaging his forehead with both hands.
That’s good, right?
He nods. “We’ll still want to leave first thing after night falls, just to be sure.”
What about Tara and Vincent?