Choices

by Liz Schulte

  She laughed. “I don’t dislike you, Holden. I thought you were wrong for Livi. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “So we can work together?”

  “You bet.”

  “Great. I need you to let all the employees know that we’re no longer in need of their services.”

  She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “You're firing everyone?”

  “After tonight, yes.”

  “What will be our front?”

  “Something that makes money. I'm having the building renovated and we're expanding. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Won’t we need employees?”

  “Surely we can do better than them,” I said, picturing the filthy, toothless abominations we had working here. “We have the strength of hell backing us and yet we can’t find one seductive woman? I find that highly doubtful.”

  “Will I still have a job?”

  “You'll have some function here. How much or what type depends on you and how useful you can be.”

  “Oh, I can be very useful,” she purred, leaning forward.

  “Not what I meant.” Juliet sat back in her chair and waited for me to continue. “Danica and I will have very different approaches as to how all of this should work. I was brought in to take over because she wasn’t getting the results management expects. There'll be changes across the board. The jinn will be better streamlined with better reporting and checks will be initiated. And there’s no reason the club should be losing money hand over fist. Both industries can be turned around.”

  “You want to organize agents of chaos? Lofty.” She seemed a bit more normal, less irrational and embittered. Olivia was a button for her. Vetis must have really pushed their relationship through the grinder.

  “I don’t intend to saddle them with a lot of rules or paperwork, but the current system’s ineffective. No one’s checking on anyone else unless they have some sort of personal gain. You have no idea what jinn can and probably are getting away with right now.” Just look at what I got away with.

  She nodded. “Well, if that's your plan then you definitely need me.”

  “Why's that?”

  “Public relations was my specialty. To get the jinn on board, and you’ll need to, I’m your girl.”

  “I'm in the market for a good personal assistant.”

  “Oh, I can be very personable.”

  “I'm sure you can.” I returned her smile, but ignored her overt flirting. It was annoying habit of ours. Jinn can’t help but try to sexualize everything. It was settled, Juliet could be my personal assistant, and I could keep tabs on her.

  “Don’t tell the employees until after their shift. I want at least one productive night out of them. Call the ones who aren’t here and let them know. I'll have the locks on the building changed in the morning and post a sign on the door in case someone doesn’t get the message. I'll be meeting with contractors this week and will email a copy of my schedule to you. Be here for each of the appointments.”

  “Why?”

  “I'm assuming the contractors will mostly be men. A pretty female jinni will have an easier time getting them to lower their bid then I would.”

  “You're much better at this than Danica.”

  “That’s all.” I waved her towards the door. “Wait, one more thing. Find me some boxes. We'll need to pack up this office. And leave me your cell number.”

  She wrote out a phone number on the back of an envelope on my desk. “What time do you want me here tomorrow?” My cell phone began ringing. I looked to see who it was before pressing ignore.

  “Nine.”

  “Great. See you then, Holden.”

  When she was gone, I collected a few things I wanted to work on further and locked the office behind me. When I arrived home, I dumped the files on the counter and pulled my cell phone from my pocket to return the call. The phone rang three times before there was a tired voice on the other end.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Martin.”

  “Oh, Holden! How many times do I have to tell you to call me Marge?” Her voice sounded a little livelier. “I'm so glad you called me back. I couldn’t sleep again. I just think about Olivia all the time.”

  “So do I…” I trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

  “I’m so glad she found you before—she had so few people she cared about…” Her voice faded, and I could hear the tears and the pain through the phone. Three years had not begun to fill the void Olivia left in this world.

  “How was the rest of your day, Marge? Did you get out the house?” I settled down on the couch, ready for a long conversation geared at distracting her from her grief.

  Eight

  After giving Olivia space for another hour, I knocked on the door. No reply came from the other side, so I pushed open the door slowly. She was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed with her eyes closed. A hazy light shimmered around the top half of her body, twinkling like stars dancing around her. She lifted the collar of her shirt to her nose and inhaled deeply; pleasure and yearning showed on face. I cleared my throat to let her know I was here. Her eyes flew open, and she stared at me with a guilty expression.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Just a minute.”

  “I figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  Olivia pulled a foot from underneath her and wiggled around her socked appendage with a smile.

  “Ah—so what were you doing wrong?”

  “I had to clear my mind. I had too many thoughts before.”

  “What were you attempting when I came in? The shirt looks the same.”

  She smiled tightly. “Oh? I must not have succeeded.”

  Olivia’s face didn’t wear lies well. “Did it still not smell right?”

  Caught, she pressed her hands together and glared. “It didn’t smell right. It does now.”

  “What did it smell like?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What was it supposed to smell like?”

  She sighed and fidgeted. “Quintus, remember the last time I wore this shirt?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you remember where I was?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t understand what any of this had to do with odor.

  “It wasn’t my shirt.” She looked at me with such directness and intensity I could practically feel her willing me to understand. I thought about what she was saying. It was Holden’s shirt. How could I have forgotten Olivia standing in his apartment freshly showered, bare feet, and overly comfortable? I remembered Holden possessively touching her as if he had every right, like she belonged to him. I had put her in his shirt and it didn’t smell—like him. I had inadvertently hurled her towards the one person we both needed her to forget.

  “Oh,” I finally managed to say.

  “It’s fine,” her words blended together in a hurried lump, “really it is. It just threw me off a little to begin with, but I’ve rebounded. It might even be for the best.”

  I nodded slowly, grasping for any way this could be for the best. “Do we need to talk about him? I need to understand where you are mentally before we get involved in the training.”

  “No.”

  “Olivia—” I broke off as she shook her head insistently.

  “There's nothing to talk about. He was part of my old life and isn’t part of my current. I just want to forget, and talking about him won’t help me do that. My actions may not necessarily support my philosophy," her brow and jaw settled into a determined line, "but we all have moments of weakness. In the grand scheme of things smelling his shirt is a rather minor infraction. I'm done though. No more.”

  “Can you even say Holden’s name?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. I shook my head more at myself than her. I wasn't being fair. She was trying, and I needed to remember that for her it was like no time had passed. Whether or not I liked it, she legitimately loved the jinni—anyone could see that
—and eventually she would have to deal with that. I needed to be supportive. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry. You're doing wonderfully, but I need to be sure that you and Holden are done. You can't be together. Neither side will accept it. You understand, right?”

  “It's done.”

  “Because the consequences could be grave—“

  “I said it’s done.”

  “I'll take you at your word,” I said, but knew Ezra was right. I needed to keep an eye on her. When it came to Holden she was beyond reason. "Let’s get out of here. You could probably use a break.”

  “Where?” She was immediately on edge and suspicious. She was a lot more relaxed as a human.

  “Out. We’ll have fun.”

  “Like a date?” She was already shaking her head no.

  “No.” This time I replied too quickly. This wasn’t a date. It couldn’t be a date. I was training Olivia; our relationship was one of student/teacher. That was it. “Just two friends.”

  She smiled a little. “Okay.”

  I took her to my favorite restaurant, tucked away from the city. It was the sort of place people spent hours for meals, not like Americans who rushed through everything, never taking the time to enjoy what is in front of them. I wondered if Olivia would be like that. Would she rush through the meal, or would she enjoy it and simply live in the moment? I made our order and smiled at her from across the table. “You must feel overwhelmed by all the change.”

  “Honestly, it's harder to remember that something has changed, you know? Granted everything looks different, and that helps, but everything feels like it happened yesterday—like I’ve been asleep.”

  “It’s been over three years.”

  “Here. It’s been over three years here, but it didn’t feel like that there. They explained the time difference while I was making my decision, so I’d understand that my delay was passing a significant amount of time. I just didn’t feel it.”

  “What was it like there?”

  “You’ve been, right?”

  “No, I made my decision before I died. I came back immediately.”

  “Oh, it was nice, bright, very peaceful and comforting, like being wrapped in your favorite blanket caught between waking and a dream.”

  “Were you tempted to stay?”

  Olivia fingered the single flower in the vase on the table. “It wasn’t really so much the temptation as it was not wanting to come back.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” I still felt guilty for the part I played in her situation.

  “Thank you.” She picked up her wineglass and studied its deep crimson offerings, before sipping. I had a feeling she was only partially with me.

  “Are you?”

  “We’ll see.” She set her glass down a little too firmly and forced a bright smile. “Okay, enough of this. Distract me.”

  “Uh, do you have any questions about being a guardian?”

  She scrunched her nose in distaste. “I have a feeling we’ll be discussing that plenty. Tell me more about the Abyss.”

  “What about it?”

  “What else exists besides the nymphs?”

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table so we could talk quietly. “Well, let’s see. … There are jinn—as you know. And sprites, witches, warlocks, banshees, elves, gnomes, imps, succubus, goblins, harpies, pixies, sirens, trolls, muses—” I started ticking them off on my fingers as I went, then realized I’d never remember all of them. “There are really too many to name.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t know what most of those are anyway.”

  “Many are part of the faery family tree. With any of the big species, there are several different levels within. For example, you were a born Guardian and I was made a Guardian. I will never rise as high in our ranking as you could. It's the same for them. A nymph can never be a sprite, and a sprite will never be an elf.”

  The waiter brought by our antipasti with fresh olives, cheeses and meats. Olivia smiled at him kindly and waited until he left to continue. “An elf is considered a faery?”

  “Yes, technically at least. They’re the leaders of the fae. Elves govern all the different fae tribes throughout the Abyss. The forest elves were selected long ago as the governors of the race, but I don't really know the particulars—it's a very loose form of government.”

  “You know elves?”

  “Of course,” I told her, selecting a variety of food for my plate.

  “What’s a siren?”

  “They’re the same family as banshees and ghosts. They’re souls that have been consumed by their own despair. They are low functioning, low reasoning creatures, and most of them have been confined in the last two hundred years due to the amount of attention they brought to our world. Every now and then one escapes though and wreaks havoc.” I noticed Olivia wasn’t eating so I nudged the plate in her direction, but she shook her head.

  “How are they confined?”

  “There are confinement centers within the Abyss—rather like human mental institutions. The centers are blocked completely from earthly contact, so they don’t cause problems or draw attention to our existence.”

  She finally reached for a piece of cheese and nibbled on it in deep in thought. “Witches? Is that like Wiccans?”

  “No, witches are most similar to jinn. Unlike jinn they are essentially humans who haven’t died, but like the jinn they have one foot in and one foot out. They can see some of the Abyss, but not all of it. They have enough power to make minor manipulations on both worlds.”

  “Magic?” The word from her lips was heavy with doubt.

  “After all you have learned and seen, you still have doubts?”

  She shrugged as I refilled the wine glasses. “What about vampires?”

  “They exist.”

  “What are they like?”

  “Evil.”

  “Okay, but what are they like? Are they allergic to sunlight? Do they hate garlic and crosses? Do they drink blood? How accurate was Bram Stoker?”

  I swirled the wine in my glass before taking a sip, trying to remember which ridiculous legend Bram Stoker tied to vampires. “No. The legends you know will often be wrong. They are allergic to sunlight, but it is not a specific trait to them, all evil creatures are. Their souls have a reddish tinge, so they’re easy to distinguish. I doubt they care one way or another about garlic or crosses, and they don’t drink blood—they suck the life force from any creature they choose.”

  “Werewolves?”

  “Once bitten by a werewolf, always a werewolf—you never go back to your human form. You’ll forever be a wolf, one with animal instincts, human reasoning capabilities, and a highly contagious bite.”

  “So what keeps any one of these species from becoming over populated and taking over?”

  “The created ones— werewolves, vampires, jinn, guardians—are normally kept in check by their own governing devices.” The waiter brought our meals and told Olivia he had the chef make it very special for her. I smiled to myself. Her effect on people was already amazing. I couldn’t wait to see what she could do when she tried. When he left again and she started eating, I continued to explain. “For example guardians are easy to make, but by our own rules only a certain number can be created every hundred years. But vampires are notoriously difficult to create so there is no reason to limit their numbers. Few vampires choose to create another. Werewolves are kept in check by bounty hunters.”

  “Bounty hunters?”

  “Individuals of any species who are employed to capture or kill anyone who fails to live by the Abyss’s one concrete rule: Do not draw attention to our existence. Werewolves have been on the open game list for over a thousand years. There was an outbreak in about 700 A.D. and ever since then their population has been forcibly kept in check. “

  “So I could kill a faery and not be in trouble for it.”

  “Well, I am sure the other faeries wouldn’t appreciate it and they could put a bounty on you, but yes, there i
s no universal law. No one wants to start a war with another species, so in general we all leave each other alone.”

  “Huh.” She thoughtfully twirled her fork in her pasta. I could see her trying to work this entire world out in her head. “Oh. What about zombies?”

  I laughed. “No.”

  She frowned at me. “I was technically dead and now I am alive again. Zombie.” She pointed at her chest.

  I laughed again. “If you insist, Firefly.”

  “I do.” Her eyes gained an infinitesimal piece of their spark back. “So how do I recognize these creatures from people?”

  I glanced around the restaurant; it was mostly humans. “It really won’t be much trouble. First, many of the creatures will not look human. Second, those that do look human will be easy enough to pick out. After dinner we can go for a walk around the city and you can practice.”

  “Cool.” She nodded. “Sometimes this all feels like a dream. Something I should wake up from.”

  “That feeling will go away.”

  She was quiet for a moment then raised her wine glass to me. “Here’s to waking up.”

  The rest of the meal was uneventful. Olivia seemed happy to sit and talk, never making a sign that she was bored or wanted to go. She had a fast mind that jumped from subject to subject, occasionally blurting out a random sentence that would make me laugh. She seemed completely unconscious of how endearing she could be when she wasn’t hiding behind her protective walls. It was like the real Olivia would peek out occasionally, just enough to dazzle me, before she darted back into hiding. Such an odd creature.

  Nine

  Quintus and I walked the streets of Rome. This wasn't the first time I’d been here, but it was the first time I saw it like this. Creatures of all kinds milled about the cobbled streets and sat in the outdoor cafés. Bicycles and scooters leaned against the faded buildings while music, laughter, and the smell of good food wafted through the air. The older the buildings and structures were, the more they sparkled making the city’s lights dim by comparison. Quintus didn't say anything, letting me get used to the glittering spectacle before me. Rome was a hub of activity and cultural blending. We came to a stop in the heavily populated tourist area near the Spanish Steps.