Revisionary

by Jim C. Hines

  “This way.” Lena had begun to shed her armor. Chunks of wood and bark fell away, while the rest reabsorbed into her skin. Behind her, she left a path of woodchips leading to the double doors at the end of the hall.

  We emerged into a small staff parking lot. I waited until we reached the sidewalk and got a few blocks away before activating the book’s magic.

  The electromagnetic pulse was invisible to the eye, but it should have fried every piece of advanced electronics within five hundred yards, including those tracking chips. Hopefully I hadn’t blacked out the school or cooked the circuitry in the cars in the process, but I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about that.

  “Where are we?” asked Lena.

  “Washington D.C. More or less. We should probably call a cab.” I counted our new companions. “Several cabs.”

  “No cab’s going to let us in,” said a slender man whose rough, bumpy skin gave the impression of scales. “Not looking and smelling like this. They’ll either shoot us on the spot or call the cops.”

  Deb pointed to a convenience store on the corner. “Let me make a call.”

  “Vanguard?” I guessed.

  She didn’t answer.

  I tested the communicator in my jaw as we walked, hoping the magic had survived the EMP. I was able to dial Nidhi, but she didn’t answer. Neither did Nicola.

  Lena and two of the older prisoners herded the group to the parking lot behind the store, where we wouldn’t be quite so conspicuous. A stack of plastic milk crates stood next to the door. Two of the younger escapees had stripped off their jumpsuits and tossed them into a dumpster. Clad in nothing but plain white underwear and undershirts, they looked utterly miserable.

  “What did they do to you?” I asked.

  A mixed-blood vampire pushed up his sleeve to show me a grid of tiny pinprick scars. “Day one was the allergy test from hell.”

  “They studied our abilities before they doped us with whatever that black shit was,” added the older werebear, a heavyset teenager with black bangs masking his eyes and nose. “How strong we were, what kind of stimulus triggered our change, whether or not wounds suffered in one form carried over to the other. They do, by the way.”

  “They were looking for potential soldiers.” That was the fellow with the scales. “They kept talking about different functions we could perform. Infiltration. Reconnaissance. Infantry. Assassination.”

  “If the fuckers had offered a decent paycheck, I’d have enlisted,” muttered the werebear.

  “That would require them to treat us like people.” Deb emerged from the store carrying several gallon jugs of milk. “We’re weapons. Tools. They want to use what we can do, but only if they can control us.”

  She handed out all the jugs save one. That one, she twisted off the top and poured the milk directly over her eyes and face. “It helps neutralize the tear gas.” She blinked and looked around. “Who’s next?”

  I waited for the others, then used what was left in one of the jugs to bathe my eyes. The milk helped more than I thought, and the burning eased. I dribbled a bit over Smudge as well. He jumped back and scowled at me, then went back to grooming himself with his forelegs. From the smoke rising off his body, he’d burnt off the worst of the tear gas residue once we escaped the prison.

  Deb wiped her face and turned to me. “So you can carve curses into people’s heads now? Giving Franklin a hungry leech-dick is hard core. Where’d you learn that bit of nastiness?”

  “I didn’t. But Franklin didn’t know that.”

  Her face hardened. “You mean you just let him go?”

  “What did you want me to do?” I snapped. “Castrate him on the spot? Execute him?”

  “Both. Both is good.”

  “You saw how his partner reacted. If Franklin doesn’t turn himself in, Johnson will do it for him. He’s finished.”

  “You should have done more.”

  “I know that.” I was so burned out I could hardly see straight.

  “He said something to you before we left,” Deb pressed. “Is that why you brought us to D.C.?”

  “That’s right.” I took out a book at random and fanned the pages. It stunk of tear gas.

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “Right again.”

  A short time later, a gold full-sized van pulled into the parking lot.

  “That’s our ride.” Deb waved to the driver and opened the sliding door.

  I wasn’t convinced everyone would fit, but we managed. Former prisoners balanced two or three to a seat, with others hunched and packed together on the floors. I sat with Lena in the back, wedged between a werebear and the zombie. Thankfully, the zombie was in good shape, with only the faintest smell of rot.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Somewhere safe.” The driver was a Latina woman with large sunglasses and small features. She rolled down the windows and turned up the air conditioning, trying to cycle as much fresh air through the vehicle as possible.

  “One of your Vanguard safe houses?” I asked Deb.

  “Something like that.” She had ended up on the lap of a good-looking vampire who appeared to be in his twenties. Like several of the others, he’d ditched his prison jumpsuit in the parking lot. Knowing Deb, I doubted her choice of seatmate was an accident. “The day you announced our existence to the world, you painted a bull’s-eye on everyone who isn’t human. The way things are going, we may have to build a full-fledged underground railroad.”

  “It’s not going to come to that,” I said.

  “Nobody ever believes it will,” said the driver. “That’s why it does.”

  After an hour or so, we arrived at a Jewish synagogue called Am HaTorah, a modest-looking brick structure with large wooden doors. A circular window with a Star of David was set into the front wall overhead. A narrow strip of grass ran between the sidewalk and the road. Well-trimmed bushes bordered the stairs. The sign out front announced that Am HaTorah was closed for roof repairs, though I saw no sign of workers.

  Our driver led us up the steps and unlocked the front doors. “Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

  Once everyone was inside the lobby area, she locked the doors behind us and disappeared into the temple proper. She returned a short time later and grabbed a handful of black yarmulkes from a bin against the wall, beneath a row of fringed prayer shawls. She handed the yarmulkes to the men and boys.

  “Come with me,” she said. To me and Lena, she added, “Not you. Not yet.”

  “You’re not exactly welcome here,” Deb explained. “Lena would be, if they didn’t know she was bound to a Porter.”

  I took a seat on a low wooden bench. Lena joined me a moment later. “What did Franklin tell you?” she murmured.

  “Alexander Keeler was taking a guided tour of the prison a few days back.”

  Lena whistled softly. “Have you told Nicola?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach her yet.” I tried Nicola’s number again. This time, a male voice answered.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “My name is Brandon. I’m Ms. Pallas’ secretary.”

  “Nicola doesn’t have a secretary.”

  “She didn’t, no. But with everything she’s been dealing with lately, she finally agreed to take one on. What’s this about, please?”

  I hung up.

  “What is it?” asked Lena.

  “Nicola only gives her cell number out to a handful of people. The other council members, a couple of the New Millennium directors, Derek Vaughn. What are the chances that she’d route calls from her secret boyfriend through a secretary?”

  Lena nibbled at her fingernail. Rather, at a bit of wood that had either grown or gotten embedded beneath the nail. “What about Nidhi?”

  “I tried earlier. No luck.”

  “Isaac . . .”

  “I know. I’ll send someone to check on her.” I clenched my teeth and subvocally dialed my former employer.

  A m
ale voice answered. “Copper River Library.”

  “I need to check out a book,” I said. “I can’t remember the author or the title, but it was blue, and I think there was a woman’s face on the cover.”

  “Do you want me to hurt you? What’s going on, Isaac? Is everything all right?”

  “Not even close. I need a favor, Jennifer.” I winced. “Sorry. Jason.”

  “Don’t sweat it. How can I help?”

  Jennifer Latona had been my boss at the Copper River Library for several years. I’d been working as a cataloger for the Porters, and my job at the library was the ideal cover, letting me requisition and review new titles for potential magic.

  Back then, Jennifer hadn’t been my favorite person in the world. To be fair, the feeling was quite mutual, and I’d probably earned her disdain. Being able to draw seventy different versions of Excalibur from various books gave one a jaded view of mundane authority.

  Our relationship had changed eight months ago. By then, all of Copper River knew the truth about me. Some immediately stopped by asking for magical favors. Others treated me like a minor celebrity. A handful avoided me altogether, as if my mere existence would damn them to hell and transform their children into radical satanic lesbian role-playing gamers. But most folks treated me no differently than they had before, something I both needed and appreciated.

  For that acceptance, among other reasons, I’d bent the rules from time to time in the beginning, before the police and the FBI started cracking down on illegal magic use.

  I hadn’t expected Jennifer Latona to show up at my door. I certainly hadn’t expected her specific request. After talking with her for three and a half hours and seeing how much it meant to her, I couldn’t turn her away. We ordered an old Dungeons and Dragons manual via Interlibrary Loan, which I used to create a magical item known as a “Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity.”

  Traditionally, this was a cursed item used by immature dungeon masters to torment their equally immature players. When Toby and I were kids, he’d tricked my ninth-level wizard into donning one, permanently transforming Salador the Blue into Saladina.

  In this case, however, it had been a gift, one that Jennifer—now Jason—had dreamed about for much of his life. From what I’d seen, Jason seemed far more relaxed and content than Jennifer ever had.

  I’m told that when a woman from the FBI Magical Crimes division stopped by a week later, Jason raised enough hell to bury half the U.P. in sulfur and brimstone. He shouted that what was under his clothes was none of the government’s damn business, loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the library and probably anyone in the neighboring buildings as well. He threatened to sue for everything from harassment to unreasonable search and seizure. He called up the ACLU and the National Center for Transgender Equality right then, using two different phones and putting both organizations on speaker so they could listen in.

  He received an official apology from the FBI three days later.

  “Lena and I have gotten ourselves into a bit of a mess,” I said.

  “Is this the part where I should pretend to be shocked?”

  “We’re trying to get in touch with Nidhi, but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “I’ll head over to her place and check on her.”

  “Thanks, Jason.” I gave him my number. “I owe you big-time.”

  “No, you don’t.” He said it so firmly I didn’t know how to respond. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  Lena touched my arm and pointed to an older man in a pastel blue shirt and dark tie standing in the inner doorway. He was five-foot-six, tops, and appeared human. Deb was with him.

  “Isaac, Lena, this is Rabbi Miller,” said Deb. “He’s taking care of our friends.”

  “Thank you for that.” I stood up and extended my hand. His palm was damp, the only sign of nervousness.

  “Isaac Vainio.” He looked me up and down. “You look younger in person than you do on the television.” He wrinkled his nose. “We’ve got showers and clean clothes downstairs. Nothing new or stylish, but they won’t make your eyes bleed.”

  He turned to Lena and shook her hand. His intonation softened. “You’re safe here, my dear.”

  “Thank you.” She stretched and rubbed her shoulders. “A shower and clean clothes sound divine.”

  “Through that door to your left and down the steps. Lupe will show you where the clean towels are stored.”

  I studied him for any sign of magical manipulation, but found none. Deb hadn’t influenced his mind, and neither had anyone else. “You’ll help these people find their way home?”

  “We will, though it may not change much in the long run.” He beckoned Deb and me into the inner temple. I donned a yarmulke from the bin and followed. Rows of pews led to a raised platform on the eastern end of the building. Heavy curtains hung on the wall behind the platform.

  There was no sign of the prisoners we’d rescued, though I spotted several doors leading to other parts of the building. Rabbi Miller sat down on one of the pews and motioned for us to join him.

  “You don’t sound very optimistic,” I said.

  “Home should be a place of comfort and safety. For your friends downstairs, and for people like Deborah here, I’m not sure any such place exists.”

  Deb grimaced, but didn’t correct him, which surprised me. I’d never seen her let anyone get away with calling her Deborah.

  “If it’s futile, why bother?” I asked.

  “You’ll never hear me say it’s futile. Whether we succeed or fail, we’ve given these people one night of comfort and security. We’ve shown that not all humans fear them. And really, Isaac. You don’t do what’s right because you know it will work out. You do it because you know it’s right.”

  “Are you part of Vanguard?”

  He smiled. “Lupe and I are part of an informal network founded by a Quaker in Pennsylvania. ‘The Society of Friends.’ I’ve always admired the elegance of that phrase. We extend friendship to those who need it. Some of our more politically active members have taken to calling themselves Vanguard, yes.”

  “Does that friendship come with a price tag?”

  His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know?” I turned to Deb. “You haven’t told him someone was using Vanguard to recruit soldiers and assassins, or how you brainwashed those werewolves into attacking the capitol?”

  Rabbi Miller had gone very still. Deb’s eyes were tight, and her lips peeled back from her teeth. Smudge shifted to watch her. The smell of smoke rose from his body.

  “Is this true, Deborah?” Miller asked at last.

  Deb was still glaring at me. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Just because we worked together over the past twenty-four hours doesn’t erase what you did.”

  “Judge not, lest ye be punched in the face for being a self-righteous prick,” Deb snapped. “I didn’t have a choice. We don’t all get to be the new Johannes Gutenberg, living in magical luxury, away from the blood and death and hate.”

  “You planted that hate in their minds! You sent them out to kill and to die!”

  “Isaac, could you please head downstairs and leave the two of us alone?” asked Rabbi Miller. “You were right to tell me.” Deb started to protest, but he silenced her with a look. “He was right, and you know it. Secrecy and lies only feed the darkness. I believe you and I need to have a private conversation.”

  I stood to go, then hesitated. “Will you be all right, Rabbi?”

  Deb looked up at me. “Seriously? You think I’m gonna put the whammy on a rabbi in his own fucking temple?”

  I said nothing.

  “Oh, just go.” Deb sagged back in the pew. “The good rabbi is trying to demonstrate that he still trusts me. He figures guilt and self-loathing will keep me in line.”

  The corners of Rabbi Miller’s mouth tugged upward. “Am I wrong?”

  Deb waved me away. “For the record, I hate you both.”

&
nbsp; We stayed at Am HaTorah until nightfall. I managed a brief nap, full of dreams about running through a maze of twisty passages, all alike. I was either chasing Gutenberg or running away from him. The dream wasn’t clear on that point.

  Dinner was canned tuna fish and crackers. Nothing fancy, but there was more than enough for everyone. Once we’d eaten, we thanked Rabbi Miller once more and set out to find a place to stay for the night. Neither he nor Deb said a word about their conversation. He’d arranged for Lupe, the woman with the van—and his wife, as it turned out—to drop the three of us off.

  At my request, Lupe let us out in front of a small library, a two-story building with old wood siding that looked close to a century old. Once inside, Deb used her hypnostare to erase our arrival from the memory of the staff. After that, it was just a matter of letting her divert their attention while we settled down to wait for the place to close. I snagged a book from the shelves to pass the time.

  “Calvin and Hobbes?” asked Deb. “Really?”

  “You know, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with you,” I said. “Bashing Calvin and Hobbes isn’t helping your case.”

  I finished three of Watterson’s collections before the lights finally went out. As soon as the doors were locked and the last car left the parking lot, I settled down at one of the computers to pull up the news.

  Footage from our attack on the Kagan had already made it onto the Internet, though none of us had been identified. There was blurry video of vampires swooping down to attack the three ships, which had supposedly been on maneuvers as part of a training mission. Another shot showed the ice trapping the ships in place.

  The next article included a close-up photo of the Kagan’s bow, highlighting where my magic had amputated the tip. That damage, combined with the ice, suggested the vampires hadn’t been alone. The Joint Committee on Magical Security was demanding a full investigation into the Porters.

  I pulled up another story and groaned. “The president is calling for all people to work toward the peaceful integration of nonhumans into our society, but it sounds like he’s also putting the National Guard on standby, and he’s indicated his willingness to sign the newly expanded RAMPART Act.”