Round Trip Fare

by Barb Taub

  “Nah. One of my ARC searches did a runner into a casino up north. He had a lot of ammunition and threatened to take hostages. I…um…happened to be dressed as a pole dancer and was able to distract him long enough to knock him out. He was wearing the robe, and the casino didn’t want it back.” She looked at his face. “My roommate did wash it.”

  She put her shoulder under his arm and guided him down the hallway, past her bathroom and into Marley’s. “Take your time. My roommate likes it if you use her shower gel. And especially if you use that special shampoo she gets off the Internet. The shower has a handheld, and I’ve put a waterproof cover over the bandages, so hopefully you can keep the stitches dry and not get blood on anything. My roommate can be amazingly unreasonable about the blood.”

  When she heard the shower turn off, she knocked and held out a T-shirt and pair of sweatpants, plus a disposable overnight kit with comb, toothbrush, and razor. “We keep a few things for overnight guests. I’m not sure if they’ll fit.” She didn’t mention the towel around his waist or the drops of water clinging to the tattoos.

  He looked at the price tags still attached to the clothing. She shrugged. “Apparently we don’t get that many overnight guests.”

  She was sitting on the floor of the hallway, Bain’s head in her lap, when he opened the door a few minutes later. Without comment, she put her shoulder under his, and they headed back to the kitchen.

  After propping him up in the corner bench, Carey pulled out a frying pan. “Now I’ll torture you with some bacon and eggs. No, don’t look so happy. Most people will tell you my cooking is torture.”

  The eggs were a bit runny, the bacon too crisp, and the toast slightly burned. He ate every crumb and looked up hopefully. She laughed, slid more toast and bacon onto his plate, and poured another cup of coffee for each of them.

  When his plate was again empty, he leaned back, cradling the coffee. “How did you know not to come into the restaurant?”

  “Not my first rodeo.”

  “Well.” The silence drew out. Finally he seemed to get that she was waiting for him to say something else. “Thanks.”

  “No, really, you shouldn’t go so over the top with your gratitude. All I did was save your ass, and then patch it up.”

  His lips pressed into a line, but he nodded. “Thank you for your help. I owe you.”

  “All part of my evil plan. Mwa-hahaha. So any time you’re ready to start talking…”

  He sipped the coffee again, winced at the movement to his wounded shoulder, and nodded. “I’ll tell you what I can. But I think it would be better if I lie down.” Wordlessly, she offered her shoulder and got him settled back on the air bed.

  “I’m not going to tell you everything.”

  “Oh, you are. Eventually. Or burn in hell for sending innocent espressos to their watery grave, while children in third world countries go to bed every night without a single drop of overpriced caffeinated beverages.”

  “You really are very strange.” At her enthusiastic nod of agreement, he gave that rusty laugh-snort again, flexed his injured shoulder, and grimaced. “I was a Warden in the Texas office during some of the first ARC retrievals. You know the usual: young Gifts who don’t want to hide their abilities, older Havens who had always used the war to shield their crimes, angry ones from both sides looking for revenge. I came across some who didn’t fit those categories, only they seemed to sift through my hands every time I got close. When I realized I could be more effective if I wasn’t…um…restricted by the Accords’ Warden regulations, I decided to go off on my own.”

  She held up hands in a classic time-out T. “Brrrng. I’m sorry, Contestant Rambo, our judges are not going to allow that answer because in terms of providing information, well…basically it sucks. For all the points and a chance at what’s behind Door Number Two, we’re going choose a member of the audience to play.”

  Carey jumped up and down, waving her arms frantically. “Oooh, pick me, pick me!” She made big eyes and an exaggerated Who? Me? gesture. “Okay, my guess is that during early-stage ARCS you came across evidence that a shadow group was responsible for certain strategic hits during the war. Maybe your superiors said they only wanted to put the war behind them, or maybe they really thought there was no point to pursuing your leads. But I’m betting that too many times for coincidence your targets seemed to have advance knowledge of your movements. The kind of info that could only have come from inside good old Accords-R-Us.” She grinned at him. He looked annoyed, but waved for her to continue.

  “So you contacted a certain Director whose first name does not rhyme with hurt. But he was busy starting his Academy and fighting for every penny of funding he could get, so he didn’t have the political clout or the moolah to visibly back you. You really wanted the shadow group—something personal I’m guessing—so you and Director Jeffers hatched a scheme where you would go off on your own. He would feed you information, resources—hell, maybe even cover for you now and then. And you’d go after the shadows.”

  She took a sip of coffee, looking at him over the rim of her mug. “How am I doing?”

  “Jeffers said you were the best student he’d ever had. I was pretty sure that statement had my name attached before yours. Now I think he was probably right.” She took an elaborate bow. He shook his head. “But he never said that you are also crazy. Spelled with a capital batcrap.”

  “Hey, I resemble that remark. But it’s neither news nor an answer.”

  “I’d give a lot not to have to tell you more.” He closed his eyes briefly then looked directly at her. “Kurt Jeffers calls them Outsiders. I think they’ve been pushing our buttons for the past hundred years. There are stories on both sides about captured assassins who commit suicide before they can be questioned. I think they are the ones who tried to get Haven and Gifts to destroy each other and through that, leave the Metro and Null City unprotected. I also think they killed your parents and orchestrated the massacre at the St. Helens Ranch. And more…” He paused.

  She waited. This was not going to be good.

  He sucked in a breath, grimaced, and absently patted the line of sutures across his chest. “I think your brother is not only part of the Outsiders, but he’s now one of their leaders. The photo I showed you was cropped from a larger one. The full photo shows him killing an Accords Warden. As far as I could tell, your brother just told him to stop breathing.”

  She froze, cup held to her mouth. For a full minute, she didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure if she breathed. She blinked her eyes, and Connor’s face was all she could see. Blink. She and Gaby were teasing him as the three siblings on the run ate a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner in a tiny motel in the Sierras. Blink. He was laughing in the sunlight as he waved their new driver’s licenses above her reaching hand. The images flickered faster—blink, Connor ashen with pain as he healed Marley’s head injuries during the attack on the St. Helens, blink, suffused with grief and love as they hid from their pursuers in the cave, blink, calling her Midget.

  With desperate haste, she built the game board and tried to pull his connection. Nothing. Every thought was a scream. Not Connor! But she remembered the puppy who almost died in the barn, and Connor telling her, “I can’t even control my concord gift. If I don’t learn, I’ll be a danger to everyone around me, including you…”

  She didn’t know she was shaking until the coffee sloshed over the edges of the mug. How did it get so cold in here? Somebody was cursing in a low steady growl. She felt arms come around her, felt him lift her from the stool and ease her down to the air mattress. Quilts were pulled over her, and his arms pulled her back against him. The earthquaking shudders calmed eventually, and she looked up at him. His face was gray with pain. “You better not have pulled out those stitches,” she told him vaguely.

  “Shhh…” The arms around her tightened. Eventually, she slept.

  »»•««

  When she opened her eyes, the sun was high enough that Bain’s pool of sunlight
had disappeared. But since he was curled up on her feet, that didn’t seem to be a problem. No, the problem was the arms still loosely wrapped around her, and the heartbeat she felt through the chest pressed to her back.

  She started to ease toward the edge of the airbed and felt those arms tighten fractionally before dropping away. Without meeting his eyes, she stood and left the kitchen. When she returned half an hour and one shower later, she found him sipping cold coffee and glaring at her locked iPad screen where the cast of an old TV series smirked back at him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I forget to give you the password to my personal device? Try I’m-an-asshole. All one word.” She pushed past him to start another espresso.

  “You know this show has been cancelled for eight years, right? Maybe it’s time to move on?”

  “I’ll never move past the fact that Firefly got one lousy season while Jersey Shore just announced season six. Six!”

  He sighed. “So what’s your password? I really need to get online.”

  With her back to him, she stared at the orange light as the machine heated, her hands gripping the edge of the counter in front of her. “Why did you bring me the photo? What do you want from me?”

  The espresso machine beeped the end of its cycle, and the kitchen was absolutely still. His voice was flat. “I want you to help me kill him.”

  She whirled, the impact of her hand against his face like a shot in the silent kitchen. A moment later, her other hand flew up, hesitated as he didn’t flinch, and dropped down. She turned back to the counter and carefully filled her cup. Still with her back to him, she took a long sip.

  Another sip, and she set the cup down, spreading both hands flat on the counter. “Okay.” She spoke each word to the gleaming surface of the espresso machine like reciting a binding contract for her soul. “If you show Director Jeffers everything you’ve got, if you convince him that it’s true, and if I don’t kill you first, I will help you track my twin brother, the last member of my family. But if I ever get even a suspicion that you’re lying to me about so much as the weather report, I will—” She stopped and shook her head. “Before I could put on lipstick, I was an expert with weapons most people have never even heard of. You won’t see it coming, and you won’t be able to stop me. You’ll just die.”

  BETWEEN

  She tilts the laptop monitor down, squinting at the screen in the light-filled room. Scrolling through email, she frowns and shakes her head, not looking up at the elders’ entrance.

  The Eldest folds his hands into the sleeves of his robe, waiting with immortal patience.

  When she looks up, her face shows emotions that have long vanished from the elders. “Why? After all we’ve done to protect her, why would you destroy her?”

  The Eldest, his face serene and voice gentle, takes the seat beside her. “We have no choice. She stands between us and humans using the Book to end Creation.”

  She turns her head to face him, her face again calm but her knuckles white as her hands grip the edge of the table. “I’ve performed every task you’ve set for me. But what you’re asking now means she will die along with untold thousands of others.”

  “You yourself have calculated the odds of our success. The longer we go without making sure she doesn’t win her Test, the closer we come to the destruction of Creation.”

  He reaches a sympathetic hand to her shoulder. “I don’t want to see any of them ended. But their lives are tiny sparks, soon out. Would you set that against all of Creation?”

  She bows her head. “What do you want me to do?”

  Chapter Twelve

  March 2011: Seattle

  “I know he’s there, Claire. I just talked to Marley, and she said he went to Accords. So put him on the phone. No, don’t hang up. I’ll wait.” She turned on the phone’s speaker and set it onto the counter between them. The trees at the edge of the yard were sending long shadows through the windows as the short Seattle early spring day came to an end. She methodically began oiling the first of the swords and knives lined up on the table in front of her. Next to her, Iax raised an eyebrow. “Camellia oil? I use clove myself.”

  “Clove is good in the field, and you can use it for a topical anesthetic too. But there’s nothing like camellia for keeping your hands and nails in shape. And if you have a proper wood sheath for a katana, it’s great for that too.”

  “Personally,” said the voice from the phone, “I just like the smell of the clove oil. Especially if you’ve had to do an uchiko polish on your blade.”

  Carey took a final wipe with the camellia oil. “Director, I have Iax here. Before we continue…is Claire listening to this conversation?”

  There was a pause. “No. Should she be?”

  “It doesn’t matter. She knows about my gift so I will just say there is a connection problem. I need to speak with you alone. Could you come back to my house?”

  “Marley went back to your office. I’ll let her know I’m heading over to your house.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d bring us pizza?”

  “I don’t suppose I would.”

  The line went to dial tone, and Carey gave Iax a speculative look. “Can you cook?”

  “I once lived for two months in the Mojave desert during the war. I killed and ate seven different kinds of lizard. I counted.”

  “Sorry, our butcher was fresh out of reptile. Iax…” She paused, and frowned. “What kind of name only has one consonant but two syllables? Eee-yosh?”

  “It’s a family name.”

  “Well, it’s not working for me. You don’t mind if I call you Yosh?”

  “Actually, I do mind.”

  “Yosh it is.” She nodded. “So, let’s microwave something from the freezer.”

  Iax—now Yosh—was looking dubiously through the freezer selection when the alarm buzzed. Carey checked the video feeds and nodded. “He’s here. With pizza. Sorry, but I don’t think he brought any with lizard-bit toppings.”

  Before he would allow them to open the pizza and salad he’d brought, Director Jeffers demanded an explanation of the previous night. He leveled those eyebrows at Carey. “He got two, and you only got one?”

  “Yes, but Yosh got shot, and I didn’t have a scratch. Plus I stitched him. So I still win.”

  “Yosh?” Both eyebrows raised as the younger man shrugged. Jeffers grunted. “Were they Outsiders, boy?”

  Yosh shook his head. “We killed them all before they had a chance to say.”

  “Well?” Jeffers’ hair might have more silver, but his bark had only gotten stronger. Carey and Yosh jumped and involuntarily squared their shoulders. The Director turned icy eyes on them, and instantly Carey was a quaking seventeen-year-old. Her glance at Yosh’s suddenly straight back told her he was probably feeling the same.

  “Sir?” Both voices sounded together.

  “Marley is going to be here any minute. What did you need to ask me?”

  Carey was shocked. “Why is Marley coming here?”

  “Said something about it being her house. And about making sure you weren’t using her bathroom. Again.”

  Carey grinned. “I didn’t.”

  Yosh groaned and changed the subject. “Actually, I need you to tell Carey that she can trust me. I need her help on something.”

  The older man gave them both an assessing look. He waited so long to speak that Carey looked longingly at the line of blades on the counter behind her. Finally he seemed to make up his mind on something. “I would trust either of you with my life.”

  Carey let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “It would have been easier if I could have killed him. But that answers my question. Thank you, sir.”

  A buzzer sounded and Carey glanced at the alarm panel at the back of the kitchen counter. She frowned and activated the video monitor. “Marley’s car is parked on the street instead of pulling into the garage. Something’s wrong.” With a finger over another scanner, she opened a shallow cabinet over the corner ben
ch to reveal a small, neatly-shelved weapons stash. Quickly pulling on two wrist holders loaded with shuriken, she slung a small bow with attached quiver over one shoulder and tossed a gun and box of ammunition to Yosh. Sprinting to the counter with her knives laid out, she hesitated over the swords before sliding the bowie knife into a sheath at her back waistband. With an approving look for the Glock that appeared in Jeffers’ hands, she whistled softly to the dog. “Bain. Home guard!” Carey made a slight chopping motion with her right hand, and Bain trotted over to an opening cut into the bottom of the coat closet in the front hall.

  She grabbed keys from a drawer next to the fridge and faced the men. “Bain will guard the front door. I’ll go out the side door from the garage. You two take the back door and come around the other way. Yosh, you’ve got my back. Director, you hold back in the trees and cover both of us. Start the count. Exit on one, and I’ll move on the car on two. Ready? And…counting.”

  Without questioning her assumption of command on her home turf, the two men nodded and moved to the back door. She left through the garage, and sixty seconds later they slipped out the back. Rounding the corner of the house, they saw her shadow ease low behind the bushes before the curb. As their count reached the second minute, she activated the remote and unlocked the car door. Nothing. Frowning, she locked and unlocked the car again.

  “Run!” Yosh screamed. “Carey!” She was in motion even as he yelled again. The three of them had just rounded the rear corner of the house when Marley’s car exploded.

  The shockwave blew out windows up and down the street, setting off car alarms and screams. It was only minutes before the first emergency vehicles arrived. Police evacuating the block were relieved that the house in front of the burning car was empty, although from the pizza on the table it looked as though the occupants had left in a hurry.

  »»•««

  Carey pulled the jeep away from her house and headed for the I-5 entrance to downtown Seattle. Three times she pulled to the shoulder, apparently to make cellphone calls. On her fourth stop, she said, “Okay, all three tails have passed me. I’ll meet you at street level. Abandoning her jeep, she jogged back to the exit ramp a hundred yards behind her. At the bottom of the ramp, a black Porsche 911 rolled up. From the floorboards, Bain wriggled in ecstasy against her legs. She’d barely climbed onto Yosh’s lap on the passenger seat when they roared off.