The Tree

by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun

  “She most likely is trying to protect you. I don’t know much about your power but it sounds like you did something really extraordinarily special and amazing.”

  Melinda looked up with a soft smile. “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “She didn’t act like it was a good thing,” Melinda practically growled.

  “I know she didn’t,” Erik sighed. “Sometimes when people are surprised they don’t see the joy in something. They just see the dangers, and what could go wrong.”

  Melinda nodded. “So what should I do?”

  “Listen to what Patrah says but also listen to your instincts. While I’m gone if you need to talk with anyone you can talk to my Grandma. She’s been doing this a long time and she’ll take care of you.”

  Melinda smiled at that. “Really?”

  “I promise.”

  Melinda smiled wider. All hints of her previous worry and sadness melted away like the ice cream was starting to.

  One of the two phones on his desk began to ring. He picked up the old-fashioned black rotary phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Erik, it’s Patrah. Are you done spending time with Melinda yet? If not, I can always come back later.”

  “Hold on.” Erik held his hand over the mouthpiece and moved the headset away from his face. “Melinda, are you ready to go home or do you want to hang out a little more?”

  Her face screwed up, then she sighed. “I want to hang out more, but my mothers are expecting me home to help pack up.”

  Erik nodded at that. He knew that Melinda and her family would be staying here at the Agency building with Patrah while they were gone. He’d been against the idea initially, but with all the new things going on, the attacks in New York and on his mother and grandma, Erik had changed his mind. This would likely be the safest place for her. He went back to the phone.

  “She’ll be down in a minute, Patrah.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He hung up and looked back to where Melinda was scraping the carton clean with her spoon.

  “Okay, well I don’t think your moms or Patrah are gonna be real happy with the sugar rush they’re gonna have to deal with, but it should be fun for you.”

  They shared a conspiratorial smile as she rose and they headed for the elevator. Daniel floated through the floor directly in front of them and Erik jerked to a stop gripping Melinda’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” Melinda asked her voice wavering a little.

  Erik shook himself and loosened his grip on her shoulder. Daniel was staring at him, arms crossed, just waiting.

  “Sweetie, why don’t you take this elevator down by yourself? I need to stay here and talk to someone.”

  Melinda looked around in confusion for a second before shrugging her shoulders and getting in the elevator. He kept waving at Melinda as the golden drop squeezed through the floor until he couldn’t see her anymore.

  Then he whirled on Daniel.

  “What is it?”

  “What do you mean?” Daniel smirked.

  “Don’t give me that. You know something. It’s something you want to share, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t have that smug look on your face.” Erik knew this man; had loved him, no matter how long they had been separated before his death.

  “You know this is even more of a mistake than what’s happening in New York,” Daniel said.

  “And what exactly do you know about New York?” Erik wasn’t up for another fight about traveling to Zebub.

  “I was there. Trying to get some information.”

  “In the space between the meeting and now?”

  “No, it’s where I was earlier.”

  “Why?” Erik asked

  “I had questions of my own I needed answered. But that’s not the point. The point is what I found out.”

  “What did you learn?” Erik asked.

  “You’re in trouble.” Daniel drew out the last word in a sing-song taunt.

  “Really, Daniel? That’s not attractive,” he snapped.

  Daniel smirked and gestured to his ruined chest. “But this is just sexy as hell.”

  “What did you learn?” Erik asked again, refusing to rise to the bait.

  “The Angelics are up to some dark stuff. Like really dark. I didn’t get to see too much because I think one of them spotted me.”

  Erik jolted at that. “Saw you?”

  “It reacted to me, at least. I figured it wasn’t best to stick around and see if they could somehow do something to me in this form. They had humans on meat hooks in a warehouse. Some were clearly Suits and others were Blooded. But there were plenty of non-blooded.”

  “Do you know the location of the warehouse?”

  Daniel smirked. “Of course.”

  Erik turned to the second phone on his desk—a contraption of white crystal that sat among the computers, room controls, and other more advanced technology. The description he’d gotten was similar to the b’casters Matthias spoke of, in that they ran on their own locked-down network. They just didn’t have the weird tentacle on the interface, which made them one hundred percent better than the b’casters, as far as Erik was concerned. They also didn’t have a name, as far as he could figure out; they were just “Agency phones.” It was a coin toss as to whether that was a stupider name than “b’caster.”

  Erik’s bracelets slipped down his wrists and clacked against the crystal when he placed both hands on top of it. It recognized him almost immediately and began to glow. After the glow became steady and solid Erik removed his hands. The desk and phone in front of his eyes were replaced by a blank white screen. The most disconcerting thing was that it only changed what he saw directly in front of him; out of the corners of his eyes he could still see the room he was in. It made his eyes water if he concentrated on those borders.

  “New York Offices,” he said.

  Immediately an Asian woman in a dark gray business suit appeared in front of him. Her hair was cut short and swept to the right.

  “Agent-in-Charge Yoon here.”

  “Agent-in-Charge Allan speaking.”

  One side of her mouth turned down but she managed to cover it quickly. It was no news to Erik that the other Agents-in-Charge must have mixed feelings about him, to say the least.

  “I’ll get straight to the point. One of my sources has informed me that a warehouse in your jurisdiction is under the control of Angelics and full of perhaps still-living citizens.”

  By the way her stance got stiffer and her spine straighter he guessed she had known something about it. Or it could have been a response to his use of the term Angelic. The Agents didn’t like it. That was why he used it often.

  “Do you have a location?” She asked

  Erik looked over to his left. Of course, the vision moved with him but he knew he was facing Daniel from the way his face felt chilled, as if a shadow had fallen over it.

  Daniel whispered the location.

  Erik repeated it and heard the sound of someone writing it down, right before she cut the communication dead. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room.

  “You’re welcome,” he sighed and tried to let go of the annoyance. He wasn’t telling her for praise. He was telling her because some of those people could still be saved. He leaned back and turned on the computer that lived in a small cubby under the desk. Three of the screens on the desk came to life.

  He sat back, ignoring the ghostly presence floating next to him, and watched the world flow by.

  MARIAN

  She sat up and turned to the woman by her bed.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Marian, you should stay in bed,” the woman replied.

  The woman called her Marian. Was that her name? Did the woman know her? Did she know the woman? Her mind was full of holes but she knew there was something she had to do.

  The woman stood up. She was . . . tall. At least seven feet. The crown of her head was covered in a short gray bob that bru
shed the ceiling. Her face was unlined despite the gray hair but it had the same gray tint to it. She had no heels on. Just sensible boots that her dark green pants were tucked into. Her shirt was the same green, with darker green trim around the neck and arms. Marian struggled to remember what this meant.

  Finally it came to her—healer.

  “No, I can’t rest. I have to warn someone. I have to tell them about the warehouse.”

  The woman put her hand—the fingers just a bit too long and the palm a bit too narrow—on her chest and pushed her back with ease.

  “You passed the message on already. You arrived and immediately let the Agent-in-Charge know what you saw.”

  Marion tried to lift her arm but it felt so heavy. She had to turn her head to look at it. She had lost one of her eyes. The memories came—transforming her true eye at puberty, crafting her Odin-eye from metal and knowledge and her own flesh, blessing it with ritual and hammer. She believed she could craft a new one but it would take time and she had to go somewhere else; somewhere special. A nest? She couldn’t remember.

  “What’s wrong with me?” She finally asked.

  The woman looked away from her, out the window on the right.

  “You took your flock form. Do you remember?”

  Her thoughts were hard to put in order but as she concentrated, she remembered the pain of splitting herself among many smaller forms, the fear that pounded through each of them as they fled. The harrowed night flight. The pain of death, as pieces of her fell prey to owls and other predators, or simply to the darkness that fooled their senses and confused their flight.

  She had lost too many pieces of herself.

  “We’re pumping your body with what it needs to build itself back up physically. Your mind . . .” She shrugged. “We don’t know.”

  She nodded. Marian remembered that she was rare. Her people didn’t usually leave their home nests. She did, though. Why? She went back to the memory of her people and their nests. She held onto that thought and slowly clawed her way to a related memory, and so on. She gathered more knowledge of her line and her people, until she reached the knowledge she wanted.

  Most of her memories would return, slowly. Details may not return but the general shape would fill in. It would simply take longer for her brain to recover than her body.

  “Attack?”

  The healer looked at her again. “They believe that something has happened to Anoan, by the way that the portals closed. Perhaps the darkness itself. For now, they are classifying it as a city gone rogue. None of the other Ante cities will even speak of Anoan. They say they are shunning it. The other Headquarters are placing themselves in defensive modes as much as they can without raising too much suspicion. They’re pulling back from meeting with Antes; fewer missions, while fortifying and arming themselves.”

  She nodded. Only bits and pieces of what the woman said made sense to her, but she tried to remember every word so she could decipher them later, as she healed.

  The healer was leaning over her, ready to say more, when she heard the door open. Five people strode in. Four of them obviously surrounding the woman in the center. The four outside were dressed in black suits while the woman in the center wore a dark gray one. The two in the rear stopped at the door, stationing themselves on either side of it. The tall one with the same gray, stretched-out features as the healer stayed on the outside of the open door. The second, no less tall but less angular, with a copper tint to her dark skin and a shaved head, stopped right inside the door.

  The other two guards gave her pause. She wondered if she would be used to them when her mind recovered but something in her said no. These two would always startle her. Their eyes, noses, and mouths were identical and everything, from eyelashes to irises to teeth, was colored the same: a red-brown like rich clay. She thought they were wearing masks but then the eyes blinked in unison. Other than the small ovals of their faces, the rest of their visible skin was covered or made up of patchwork fabric. Their fingers ended in tiny knots, loose fabric hanging from the tips.

  She tore her gaze away from them as the woman in gray stepped directly in front of her and spoke.

  “I would like to thank you for bringing us such important information at dear cost to yourself.”

  Marian studied the woman. Average height with dark hair that had some white strands that she made no effort to hide. Her eyes were drawn to the tension at the corner of the woman’s lush lips. She wanted to reach up and smooth it away. She remembered being allowed to do so but something niggling in the blank holes of her mind told her that was no longer the case.

  After some effort she remembered the woman’s name:

  Agent-in-Charge Hilarie Yoon.

  Hilarie cleared her throat and said, “If you could remember the actual address, that would be even more helpful.”

  Marian searched her memory and struggled to recall the moments right before she had broken apart. She remembered flashes; people hanging on hooks, the Ante crushing her Odin-eye, the Antes coming, the boy not listening to her. No matter how she strained, though, the address was part of the knowledge that she had lost. She knew what but not where. It could come back in time, but they could also be moving their operations right now.

  She focused on the boy next. She remembered what he looked like, olive skin and long dark fringe that fell into his face. But she couldn’t remember his name. Suddenly her weak body began to shake and sweat burst onto her skin.

  What was his name?

  He had been important and she had promised she would remember and already she had broken it.

  What was his name?

  She needed to remember!

  She felt a large hand on her forehead, too large to be Hilarie’s.

  “Agent-in-Charge? I’m sorry but I told you she wouldn’t be ready for this so soon.”

  “You did.” There was a pause. “I apologize.”

  She heard the sound of retreating footsteps and she let the mental exhaustion of struggling to remember drag her down into fractured landscapes halfway between dreams and memory.

  Marian was released from bed rest a couple of days later, though she was still confined to a wheelchair and to the building. More of her memory had returned, and that morning she had remembered something about the warehouse’s location. She made her way to the Agent-in-Charge’s office, refusing a number of offers from people wanting to push her chair and one rude man who just did so without asking. She had made him stumble by braking the chair completely and then glared silently until he left.

  The gray and bald bodyguards were outside the AIC’s office and waved her through. The office was dim. The only light came from the setting sun outside the windows. The two ragdoll bodyguards were in the corners. Their cloth looked darker somehow. Their clay mask-faces were now a dark twilight-gray, the lips frozen into comically-extreme sad faces.

  Hilarie looked up from her desk and spotted her.

  “Did you remember something?” She asked immediately.

  She nodded and wheeled closer. “Not an address, but I believe it was in the Meatpacking District.”

  The Agent-in-Charge was already reaching for the more mundane-looking phone on her desk. She lifted up the handset and began speaking as soon as the mouthpiece was against her face.

  “Concentrate searches in the Meatpacking District. Check former, unconverted slaughterhouses and packing plants especially. Double up the teams, but reiterate it is only find and report. No heroics until we have a definite location.”

  Hilarie hung up and looked at her closely.

  “How are you recovering?” She asked.

  Marian cleared the lump in her throat. She could still not clearly remember what had broken them apart but she was feeling more and more like it had been her fault. “My memories are returning. Slowly, but they are returning.”

  Hilarie nodded. “Good, if any other—”

  The crystal on her desk exploded into a rainbow that bathed the whole room until Hilarie put
both her hands on it and it settled into a more subdued white glow. When she removed her hands two beams of white light shot from the crystal and focused on her eyes.

  “Agent-in-Charge Yoon here,” she said.

  She cursed the loss of her Odin-eye. If she’d had it she could have used it to see through Hilarie’s eye. She still would not have been able to hear the voice of whoever was calling Hilarie but she was a fair lip-reader. All of it was moot, though. Her Odin-eye had been crushed and all she could do was listen to Hilarie’s side of it, which only consisted of one other sentence.

  “Do you have a location?”

  Hilarie scribbled something down and then broke the line of light with her hands, shutting off the call. She picked up her other phone again.

  “I have a lead, but it’s not in the Meatpacking District. I suspect a second location. Split off half the teams and have them check out Inwood. Remind them to be careful.”

  Hilarie hung up and let her head hang down. A memory surfaced—of her standing behind Hilarie, rubbing her shoulders and leaning over to—Marian quickly turned her mind to something else. She looked up and saw the ragdoll bodyguards looking at her, their frozen faces studying her.

  She turned to leave.

  “Stay,” Hilarie said quietly.

  Marian maneuvered the chair around again and looked up at Hilarie, who looked just as calm and collected as ever, but she saw the way Hilarie concentrated her eyes on Marian’s forehead instead of meeting her gaze.

  “Sure.”

  Hilarie went back to work, acting as if Marian was not there at all. looking through reports and making the occasional short phone call. Marian dozed in her chair until a book appeared in front of her, held by the patchwork fabric hand of one of the ragdoll guards. She took the book and tried not to look too hard at the hand. It was brown and red, and up close it looked as if it was covered in fresh blood.

  They seemed more Ante than Agent, but she did not question her superior, let alone her ex. She turned to the book. It was a compendium of lesser-known bloodlines of the British Isles. She began to flip through and came to a portrait that looked like one of the two ragdolls. It was posed in front of a mantel. Its clothing looked like Elizabethan-era garb, with bright-yellow pants and suit jacket in yellow and brown motley. Its mask/face was porcelain and heavily painted in blues and pinks; a caricature of an angelic baby face. It stood with sword raised, staring straight off the page.