by Richard Hein
“An extermination problem we got recently,” said Stefan, growing more excited by the moment.
“Freeing us up to tackle this. Everyone wins.”
I sighed rather loudly and exaggeratedly, rubbing at my face. “Pest control? What exactly are we talking about here?”
“The customer said it was a minor Entity in their apartment. Tiny infestation of something or other.”
My head collapsed into my hands as I groaned. “That’s intern work, man. You mean imps or something?”
“Oh, most likely,” Stefan said with way too much cheer. I was going to strangle them. They weren’t technically invulnerable, given that their bodies were real people and not constructs. They’d been lashed together, body and Entity, for so long they were heavily merged. It would take a lot to get through, but, by god, I was willing to try.
I glanced at Kate. It was the only way to get a good lead going on this.
“Fine,” I said, retrieving the magic doodad from Kate and lobbed it to Dieter. “You guys bump this to the top of your mystic weird list, and I’ll go muck stalls and slay the lion for you. Give me the address and a car. We had to take the bus over here and doing that again isn’t on the list.”
“A ride,” Stefan said. “My insurance doesn’t cover people from your universe joy riding around in my baby.”
I grunted. Good enough. I turned to Kate. “I suppose you’re going to want to go with and watch me stomp alien rats? Can I persuade you to sit this one out?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Why would I ever agree to that?”
“It’s demeaning as all hell, that’s why. I just agreed to the extra-universe equivalent of cleaning toilets.”
“Now that’s how you show a girl a good time,” she said.
“I hope you’ve at least shown her how to defend herself,” Dieter said. “Even against a little infestation, she should be aware.”
Kate and I shared a long, sullen glance. “It’s… been discussed,” I said. “Some steps have been taken.”
“Tiny steps,” Kate said. Ice crusted her voice, thin and brittle. “He’s explained the basics of how to exorcise something. Some things need to be put into practice, though.”
“There’s no time like the present,” Dieter said. “The struggle of wills is invigorating. Why, half the reason we’re in this is for the thrill of it. You should give it a try sometime. Target, conduit, and a teensy little push.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Oh, it is,” said Stefan. “Just applications of willpower. Most anyone could do it. You don’t run into situations in your day-to-day life where it would be applicable. Practice makes perfect.”
“Huh,” she said, nodding slowly. “All right. I wonder if—”
She reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, fingers digging in rather firm. She pressed up onto the tips of her toes, brow furrowing like she was concentrating. Tilting her head to one side, her blue eyes drifted closed. A hint of a smile played across her face as we stood locked together.
“Uh, Kate? This is getting a little awkward, and—”
The universe turned sideways and punched me in the gut.
Nothing had changed. I stood there, facing Kate while trying to suck frantic amounts of air into my lungs. She stepped away from me with a pout, while I did the only thing that felt appropriate and just trembled there.
“Damn,” she muttered. “I was sure I had that right.”
Dieter and Stefan took a methodical step away from her, faces more gray than pale. Shaking hands found my knees, but they were twitchy as well. I hunched over and tried to breathe, focusing on not emptying the bit of coffee and donuts I’d wolfed down before hopping on the bus this morning. What in the hell had happened? The twins remained silent, looking like I’d marched an army over their graves. Everything in me froze mid breathe, and I straightened as realization crystallized icy within me. They were afraid of what she’d just done.
“Did you try to exorcise me?” I asked in a whisper.
“Tried and failed,” she said. Her face grew thoughtful as she turned away, pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor. “It felt like grabbing at a wet bar of soap. I had a grip, and then it all just sorta popped away.”
My finger came up and pointed right between her eyes. It shook, robbing me of any gravitas I might have had, but I couldn’t stop the sensation of an entire universe trying to eject me like a bad taste in its mouth. “What the hell were you thinking? Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“Putting theory to practice. You’re not from here, so I should have been able to send you home. Pending you haven’t just been lying to me all this time. If I’m going to be helping you, I need—”
I took a step forward, feeling my anger kindle. I loomed over her, inches away, gathering my rage and lashing it to words. “You need? Did you even stop to think where I might have wound up? We live in a really big damn universe, Kate. You had no idea where I would have wound up. Fuck, I could have wound up orbiting Pluto. It was reckless.”
At least she had the decency to look a little abashed. Her cheeks colored, but the fire inside me had been stoked and demanded fuel. My fists clenched as the need to scream at her howled within me. She’d been reckless. Testing it on me of all things. Especially when I’d just agreed to take her on a job best suited for interns. She had no sense of caution, running into any situation with a childlike glee that would probably get her killed. If she didn’t reign it in, we’d both wind up dead.
“Wait outside,” I said through grinding teeth.
Kate’s blue eyes met mine for a brief moment before she nodded. A quick shrug to the twins, and she was gone. My muscles unclenched, and I drove a shaking hand into my jacket. My flask, my salvation. I sucked down a little bit of the Scotch from the bottle I’d put away the night before and slumped back into the chair with a groan. It felt like a band of roving giants had just tried to kick me from the universe, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I turned purple from the bruises.
“Was that necessary?” Stefan asked. “She’s only trying to learn to defend herself. You said this was a matter of urgency regarding her life.”
The flask felt cool against my forehead as I mashed it there. I shook my head with a sigh. “Yes,” I said. “No. Hell, I don’t know. I’m not even sure how she managed that much. She almost pushed me home, Stefan. That’s her first time and she almost got it right. Do you know how long I spent with imps giving that a try?”
“Samuel, dear, I fully expect you’re on the slower end of the learning curve.”
“Bah!” I said, waving a hand, then sighed. “Every time she does something without checking with me first, it gets me fired up. I have no idea why.”
Dieter detached from the wall and squatted down beside me. His eyes were far lighter in shade than Kate’s, but no less piercing. He watched me for a moment, eyes hard sapphire. “Lauren.”
White pain exploded across my fist. My muscles burned from the delicious hum of adrenaline as I found myself standing. I hadn’t even felt myself move, hadn’t even realized I’d thrown a punch until it was already over. Dieter’s face twitched to the side at my blow, but he seemed to take it as accepted, and when his gaze met mine again it was full of understanding. I stared at cracked knuckles and rubbed away a sliver of blood with my thumb.
“Oh, come on,” I snarled, shaking out my twitching fingers. “Yes, obviously, I don’t want this to wind up like… like that. This is different.”
“Is it?” Stefan asked. “You’re afraid that if Kate starts learning all of this, she’ll run over that line, scissors in hand.”
“No,” I said.
“Kate needs guidance, not bullying, Samuel. If you don’t work with her, that’s when the problems will happen.”
“Shut up,” I said, pushing up out of the chair. Dieter rose with me.
“She needs someone to be there for her and help her understand the boundaries. Otherwise she’ll step over the line accident
ally and—”
“If you don’t shut the ever-loving fuck up, I will rip whatever you call a soul out of those bodies right now and send you screaming back to your tropical shithole. Don’t you ever talk about Lauren again.”
Dieter bowed, a look of sadness creasing his face.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I had to wonder if he wasn’t right. Somewhere in the front of my mind, I was considering a lobotomy to shut up that part of my mind. I stared past him at the door. Had I been subconsciously blocking Kate from the full weight of everything because of my past? Now that the volcanic anger churning in me had dimmed to a simmer, I had to admit that maybe he might have the right of it. Some, anyway. I wasn’t about to admit that the damnable Entity might be right. Not out loud, at least.
I gathered up my flask, conscious of the two sets of eyes watching me. Screw them.
“Get me something I can use on your job,” I said, entirely neutral. “I’m not going to go into this without a toy I can use to blast things.”
“Done,” Stefan said with a nod.
“Call me when you know anything useful about that thing. Minutes might count here.” I threw open the door and stormed out. Kate leaned against the wall just beside me. I froze. Had she heard the words within? I felt a shudder within me, like my body had just realized it was about to plunge into an open septic tank. I pressed my eyes closed and took a steadying breath. Fine. Leadership, was it? I couldn’t just hand her the keys to the all the cosmic power, but a little guidance was in order. I could play the mentor. Having someone to watch my back gave it less chance of spontaneously having fangs latch onto it.
“Good effort,” I said in a weak, neutral tone. “You did everything technically right, I just have more skin in the game than you at this point. Stubbornness, maybe. If you’d had a more intimate connection or stronger will, I’d have been kicked out.”
She bounced from the wall, eyes brightening. “Really? That’s excellent.” Her steps matched my own as we retreated toward a door that stood erect against the nothingness. “Look, I’m sorry I tried it on you. I thought you’d just pop back to the store.”
I sighed. “I would have. You go back to your point of entry. I was… I was just angry. It happens a lot. I guess I’m sorry.”
“Ah,” was all she said. No argument, no accusations. My stomach churned. She’d heard everything. Well, there was no turning back the clock on that now. We had a job to do, and I had no time to worry about the dead and the past.
Chapter 12
Twilight had embraced the city by the time we stepped from Stefan’s car. I watched his taillights until they turned a corner and rubbed a thumb against the side of my nose, wondering why I’d agreed to this. We weren’t even in Seattle any more, but a tiny bit north in Shoreline and staring up at an apartment building that made mine look like a five-star luxury palace. The rest of the neighborhood looked like your usual fare, but this was like someone had gone to the Home Depot and bought industrial sized barrels of a paint called ‘slop’ and hosed the building down liberally.
Twice.
“This has to be a joke,” I muttered, fishing out a folded piece of paper from my jacket. “You know they had better options for me, but they deliberately chose the most menial one. It’s like shuffling Leonardo da Vinci out of the Sistine Chapel and putting him to work painting a McDonald’s.”
“I’m working with one of the masters?” Kate said, breathless. She batted her eyes at me and clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Especially considering Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. So tell me, oh expert one, how you managed to get your ass handed to you yesterday?”
I grunted and unfolded the paper, skimming the neat cursive writing within. It was sparse. It looked like I’d be doing the legwork on this one too. A little investigation, kick some loitering creatures from reality, and then hope that the creepy twins had figured out what the deal was with Brian’s knife. Yeah. This could work. I noted the room number and pocketed the paper just as my cell gave a rambunctious jingle.
“The A-Team?” Kate said, a wry smile creeping across her face.
“No judgments,” I said and flipped it open. It was either Daniel or the police, but my old clamshell didn’t have much of a readout and I didn’t recognize the number. I was starting to get worried at how a whole day and a half had gone by without the boys in blue coming by to discuss why my mangled heap of a former vehicle had been found outside Brian’s house, where the door had been blown off. Something wasn’t adding up, and while I’d been particularly bad at adding up sums in spreadsheets under Grant, I knew when that meant trouble.
“This is Samuel.”
“It’s Daniel. You’re not at home. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, mother,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Kate and I went out for dinner. What’s happening?”
“Samuel,” Daniel chided, sounding very much like my late mother, “Kate promised. Promised.”
“Were you expecting us to eat packaged noodles until you decided to grace us with information? Just spill the beans, man. Kate’s life is on the line here.”
She fixed me with a disapproving frown. I shrugged. I still wasn’t over the crap back at my apartment. I liked the kid, but I didn’t need his pity. If he didn’t want to grow some thicker skin, he was never going to make Seneschal.
“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “The Boss is worked up over this.”
“Oh, now she is,” I said, unable to contain the bitter words. “When I come in there it gets relegated to an intern — seriously, no offense — but throw in a magic-wielding Entity and a freaking Archangel and suddenly everyone’s—”
Kate snatched the phone out of my hand. “Hi Daniel,” she said, turning away so I couldn’t quite grab the phone back. “Samuel’s in time out. I’m sorry he’s an ass. Can you tell me what’s going on? Pretty please?” She scrutinized the archaic device for a second, thumbed it over to speaker, and fixed me with a withering glare.
“Christina’s calling everyone back,” Daniel said. I cracked a smile. His already youthful voice sounded like a prepubescent boy’s through my cheap speaker. “We’ve been discussing approaches and digging through records all day. If this has attracted the attention of an Archangel, Christina would like to err on the side of caution here. Pretty much everyone has been recalled and is at Sanctuary now. They’re readying teams. Thankfully it’s been a quiet month and few of us were out on assignment.”
I met Kate’s eyes and whistled. “Wow,” I said. “This is getting the red carpet treatment? Do you know who she’s sending out?”
“Myself for certain, as I’m already versed in the specifics.” He sounded proud. Well, all other issues aside, he’d earned that I supposed. “Seneschals Dmitri and Francis, probably Yvonne as well. Probably a few more, given how Christina sounded. Once they’re reviewed archives and determined more about the Entity we’re dealing with, they’ll know who is best for the team. An hour or two and we’ll meet at your place.”
I nodded in approval. Well now. We were getting some forward momentum here. “Tell Christina to check with Alissa,” I said. “We ran into Square-head before back in Italy. Probably six, seven years ago. She’ll remember.”
“Alissa’s not back yet, but she’s expected soon. I’ll ask when she gets here. Anything useful you remember?”
“Same as every other piece of crap that comes knocking on our universe,” I said, taking the phone back from Kate. “They’re nine kinds of nasty. Kate and I are going to finish up with dinner and meet back there soon. Amuse yourself counting spots of mold in the hallway until then.”
“Uh, right. Christina is adamant I pass along a message that you stay out of this, Samuel. She’s… She’s not very happy with you at the moment.”
“I’m pretty sure those are the most commonly said words about me by a lot of people, Daniel. We’re okay here, but I got noodles to slurp noisily.”
The phone snapped shut and vanished into my pocket.
; My eyes fell on the apartment building, all sickly and decrepit. I was sure that whatever was in there wasn’t going to be a big chore to tackle, but this was starting to feel familiar. Like being back on the job. Investigating Kate’s brother’s house had been one thing, but this time I was leading and expected to get the task done, and I had someone with me for backup. It felt good. Comfortable.
“This is almost feeling like being back on the clock with the OFC,” I said with a faint smile. “Cleaning out infestations. Maybe more like my days as an intern, but still.” My eyes watched her out of the corner of my gaze. “I bet it’s a far cry from whatever you do for a living.”
“You’re taking now to prod at my life?” she said, slipping her hair behind an ear with a practiced flick of a finger.
“I figure it’s appropriate, given we’ve spent every waking moment together for the last few days and you probably cost me my job.”
She snorted. “Shifting blame. Last I heard, you cost yourself your job. I seem to recall you claiming you needed to play Solitaire. You sound the model employee.”
“Don’t try to turn this back on me,” I said. I could feel my lips trying to break into a grin and I sent orders to the brain to knock that crap off. “We were talking about you. Trying to, at least.”
“There’s not much to tell,” she said, shoulders tightening further. Interesting. She’d spent enough time trying to needle her way into my life, but wouldn’t give up any details about hers.
“Let me take a stab at it.” I scrunched up my face in exaggerated thought and held up a hand full of fingers, ticking them down one by one. “You know classic cars. Your brother has a house the size of a minor country. You never once mentioned your parents, or getting support from them after Brian’s death, so you’ve been on your own for awhile. I’m going to guess you got an inheritance, and banked it on a fancy yet worthless degree. French Film Major? Underwater Basket Weaving? Am I getting warm?”
Her hand reached out and curled around the door handle. “It’s like you’re reading a book, Samuel Walker,” she said in an entirely too-neutral tone, not opening the door. She pressed her other palm against one temple and let her eyes drift close. I saw the muscles in one cheek twitch. “You should add clairvoyance to your resume.”