by Dima Zales
“Do you have a phone I can use?” I asked the car at large. “I should call my brother. I was going to meet him at the mall.”
“Yeah, sure,” Kara said. She handed me a little flip phone. I had to call 411 to get Ben’s number, which was sort of embarrassing. I rang his house, but no one picked up. He must still be trying to get the thing with Tiff sorted out. I left a message for him, telling him that my car had broken down on the way and apologizing.
Poor Ben. He was really having a rough time. Speaking of which … Williams was driving, so I seized my courage in both hands and addressed his right shoulder.
“I want to know if you took Justine.”
“Who’s she?”
“My sister-in-law. She disappeared about the time you were getting out of police custody.”
“Wasn’t me.”
He sounded thoughtful, though. Beside me, Kara perked up immediately.
“Is she a Second?”
“Of course not! She grew up right near me in Dorf.”
Neither one of them replied, but Kara was clearly thinking.
Annoyed, I said, “Why would you even ask that? She’s a normal woman. A great big bitch, yeah, but normal.”
Kara answered. “Well, one thing we’ve wondered is whether the green man you photographed might be what came through the strait. Green men are often bounty hunters — fucking good ones, too. If your sister-in-law took off right about then …”
“No, the picture I took —”
“Did you show her your pictures?” Williams asked.
That stopped me, and not just because it was a complete sentence.
“Yeah. I did.”
It was hard to say the next words because I knew they’d latch onto them.
“She freaked out.”
“What do you mean?” Kara said. “Don’t leave anything out.”
Exactly what I was afraid of — she sounded as keen as a hound on a three-legged squirrel.
I described my visit to Justine’s house, how frightened she’d seemed, and how I’d gotten scared myself and had driven off.
“Damn,” Williams said.
“Yeah, totally,” Kara said.
“What?”
“That’s textbook pre-sighted stuff — you couldn’t see what she was, but you sensed her otherness, and it scared you. Used to happen to me all the time until I started seeing through.”
That was the kind of thing Graham had been talking about on the way home from Denny’s.
But seriously? Justine?
“Look, I know this stuff seems to fit together, but it’s just not possible. I mean, I’ve known her as long as I can remember. She lived around the block from us. She babysat me when she was a teenager.”
“A lot of Seconds can create very convincing disguises. Pretending to be a child wouldn’t be hard.”
I shook my head. “But I’ve never had that kind of reaction around her before, even though I have panic attacks constantly.”
Kara shrugged. “That is strange, but I still think there’s a good chance she’s a Second.”
“Callie,” I said, “I’m sure you’ve met Justine. You’d have noticed if she was different, right?”
Everyone in the car looked expectantly at Callie.
She shifted uncomfortably. “Beth is right — I’ve met Justine, and I never saw anything strange. If she’s a demon, her true form is beyond my perception.”
“So she’s not a Second.” I paused to make sure I had Graham’s explanations straight in my mind. “If she were using a half-working, Callie would’ve seen through it, and if she were using a full working, it would’ve looked like some kind of disturbance in reality. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s how it works.” Kara frowned. “Callie’s one of the strongest Nolanders out there. If she didn’t see anything, I guess there was nothing to see.”
She didn’t sound convinced, though.
“Well, I’m sure there’s nothing weird about her. She’s the most conventional person you could imagine. She’s a housewife. She never misses church. She goes to the gym four times a week and gets her hair highlighted once a month. She makes the nastiest-ass tuna casserole —”
Suddenly the van lurched and started shuddering.
Williams said, “Blow-out,” and pulled over onto the shoulder. For a few seconds, everyone sat stiffly in their seats, as though afraid. I didn’t get it. These country highways did cause flat tires occasionally — sharp stuff sometimes fell off farmers’ trucks.
We all got out and stood around while Williams changed the tire. Then we got back in. There was still a tension in the air that I didn’t quite understand.
We started up again but hadn’t gone more than twenty feet when another tire blew with a bang. This time Williams didn’t pull over. Instead, he put the van in reverse and hit the gas, even though we were obviously riding on the rim. He only paused once, putting on the hazards to let another vehicle go around us. The other three were clearly worried, so I kept my mouth shut. After about a quarter mile, Williams did a U-turn and continued back the way we’d come. We went another mile before he finally pulled over.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“That was Graham,” Kara said. “He must’ve gone to the mill.”
“Graham can blow out tires?” I said, incredulous. I figured he had one of those so-called quirks, but the ability to cause flat tires was even quirkier than I’d imagined.
“Not exactly. Graham’s gift is luck. He’s the luckiest sonovabitch who ever lived. We just drove into his range, which is about a mile. He doesn’t want you at the mill, and his luck is going to keep you from getting there. Goddamn it.”
“You must be joking. Come on — that was a coincidence. Or not even: a box of nails probably fell out of someone’s truck back there and scattered all over the road.”
“Yeah, that’s probably exactly what happened. But it happened because of Graham.”
I shook my head. “Callie, are you on board with this?”
“Oh yes, Beth. What they’re saying about Graham is absolutely true. I used to think it was a sign of his godliness, but I have my doubts, now. Perhaps he bargained with the enemy.”
She shuddered.
“I’m sorry, but this sounds really paranoid.”
“Didn’t you have any weird experiences when you were with him? Like pocket-dialing your boss just when you’re going behind his back?” Kara asked. “Cock-cankers, that sucked.”
“Kara, don’t be disgusting,” Callie said.
I thought about it. I had tended to get interrupted by one thing or another when I tried to ask Graham questions. By his phone, for instance, or a cracked kettle. Or a car accident.
Sticky accelerator, the other driver had said. I felt cold.
“A couple years ago,” Kara said, “I was on a job with this other Nolander named Kyle. Nice guy, but sort of dumb. Turned out he’d been doing half-workings to make fake lottery tickets. At first he was careful and just gave himself little wins. Then he got greedy, made himself a Powerball ticket. It was a big jackpot, and he got on the news. The boss got wind of it, put the hit out on him. Graham took it on. Anything to make himself look good, the bastard.”
Kara made a disgusted sound, then continued.
“So, I didn’t know about any of this, right? I’m with Kyle on this job, and Graham catches up with us in Des Moines. Now, Kyle might not have been the smartest guy, but he was strong. Double gifts: flight and fire. So the two of them square off, right? And Kyle comes rocketing at Graham with a fireball in each hand. Looks like he’s moving way too fast for bad luck to catch him. Graham’s just standing there like a dope. You know what happened?”
Kara paused for effect.
“A fucking 1959 Cadillac Eldorado fell out of the sky, landed right on top of Kyle.” She shook her head. “Right out of a blue sky. Damnedest thing I ever saw. When the police found him, they called a weather guy. Weather guy said the car must’ve been picked up in a to
rnado they’d had earlier that day a hundred miles away. Sure enough, it was registered to some old guy in Omaha. That’s the kind of thing that happens when Graham’s around.”
“But you said his range was a mile, not a hundred miles.”
“Kyle wasn’t a hundred miles away, right? That’s what counts.”
“But Graham had to influence an event a hundred miles away to get the car up in the air.”
Kara shrugged. “Yeah, I know. That’s how it works, though. It’s like he controls everything without even meaning to. There’s probably something happening in Timbuktu right now that will end up helping him next week.”
It was hard to believe. Really hard. But all these people believed it, and there was that car accident. I shuddered. Jesus.
“Well, this boss guy you mentioned will just have to come out here and take care of things himself,” I said.
Kara snorted. “Come on, seriously? The Seconds never ‘take care of things themselves.’ If they went around doing workings all the time, they might get discovered, and you know what would have to happen then. That’s why they have us. We’re expendable.”
“So what you’re saying is that Graham’s won? He’s unbeatable?”
“Maybe not,” Kara said. “We’ve thought before that someone with significantly more power might be able to evade the bad luck he sent their way, but we’ve never tested it out.”
“Maybe now’s the time for me to see if it’s true,” Callie said, sounding nervous.
“No,” said Williams.
There was a finality to his voice that I sure didn’t want to contest. Kara didn’t say anything either.
We all thought about Graham for a while.
“So he’s at the mill, and we can’t get any closer to him — not in a car, not on foot, nothing?”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Kara said. “He left Dorf for a while this afternoon, and Callie saw it was going to happen. Otherwise we never would’ve made it out of town ourselves to come get you. We were hoping he’d stay away, but I guess his luck brought him to the mill. Or maybe he figured out what we were doing and knew we’d try to bring you there. Unfortunately, he’s not dumb.”
We all sat there thinking again. Finally, I had an idea. The kind of idea you have when you’re a new set of eyes looking at an old problem, maybe.
“What we need to do is change something so that it becomes lucky for him if we make it to the mill and unlucky if we don’t,” I said.
“I guess that would work,” Kara said dubiously. “But how on earth could we do that? What he wants is the opposite of what we want.”
“Well, you mentioned your boss — the guy who wanted Kyle killed? He sounds plenty dangerous. What if we called your boss up and told him that Graham might be trying to keep us from closing the strait? Then, if we close the strait after all and tell him Graham helped, maybe he’ll be reassured. We’d be doing Graham a good turn by getting him out of trouble. His luck should be on our side. Maybe.”
“So,” Callie said, “we would get him into trouble, then try to get him out of that same trouble?”
“Yeah. And during the getting-him-out-of-trouble part, we’ll actually be on his side. Even if he doesn’t know it.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
Kara said, “Lord knows I hate Graham, but ratting him out … I don’t know. He’s still one of us, not one of them.”
Callie nodded. “He’s a human being, with a chance at redemption.” She paused. “However slight.”
Williams said, “We have to close the strait,” and everyone looked down.
I could see the writing on the wall, then — their own skins were on the line, and no one was going to make that kind of sacrifice. And why should they? I reminded myself. Graham was putting them in danger by making their task impossible. If he didn’t care about their safety, why should they care about his?
“We could call Graham and threaten to rat him out,” Kara suggested.
I thought about it.
“I don’t think that’d work,” I said. “If we’re a threat to him, his luck will try to eliminate us, once we get in range. It doesn’t really matter if he agrees to cooperate with us — he’ll still be safer if we’re not alive to tell tales, and his luck will act accordingly. The only way it works is to go ahead and change the game on him while we’re out of his range.”
Another silence followed, but I could tell it didn’t have to do with thinking of other approaches.
Finally Kara said, “We’ll have to call Lord Cordus,” and shuddered.
“I will not speak to that creature,” Callie said flatly. “Not for any reason.”
“Well I sure as fuck am not calling him,” Kara said.
Williams pulled out his phone.
“No way,” Kara said. “We’ll all end up dead if you talk to him.”
“Whatever. I’ll do it,” I said.
In for a dime, in for a dollar, right? I was going to be on the boss’s radar soon enough, if I wasn’t already. Why not get off on the right foot with him by warning him of a possible traitor?
“Beth,” Kara said, sounding uncomfortable. “He’s not like a human being. Talking to him — it’s not easy.”
“What do you mean?”
She squirmed in her seat. “He can play with your mind, make you feel what he wants. He goes in for sex games. It’s pretty sick. God, even thinking about it is awful.”
“That sounds like rape.”
“Oh yeah. It is, totally. Except you want it while it’s happening.”
Jesus H. Christ.
“So how do you resist him?”
She looked like the thought had never even occurred to her.
“You can’t. You’d have to be stronger than he is, and he’s one of the great powers.” She paused. “Sometimes you catch him on a good day. Then he’s okay.”
“He’s never okay,” Callie said flatly. “He’s a demon among demons. I’ve never understood why he’s involved with us.”
I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I wasn’t sure where this Cordus guy was, but he wasn’t close enough to rape me, even if he made me want him to.
“Look, let’s just get it over with. If he makes me do something, you guys can handle it, right?”
I tried to leave the “something” as vague as possible in my mind.
There was a resounding silence.
Finally Kara said, “Yeah, sure we can. No problem.”
She handed me her phone again, then undercut her own words by getting out of the van as fast as humanly possible.
An entry in her contact list was highlighted. It read “Boss Man.” I made the call.
“Kara Dolores Sanchez.”
My god, his voice. I was instantly aroused. My hand slid toward my crotch. The urge to touch myself was overwhelming.
“It’s Beth,” I forced out.
There was a pause, during which I managed to drag my hand back. I might be able to imagine more embarrassing things than getting myself off in a car full of people, but not many.
“Elizabeth Joy Ryder,” he said in a different tone. He still had a super-sexy voice, but not in a paranormal way.
“Yeah,” I said, relaxing a bit. I heard Callie let out a breath, and even Williams’s shoulder shifted, as though some tension was leaving him.
“I have been looking forward to speaking with you but did not expect the conversation to occur so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
I took a deep, steadying breath.
“Well, we think we’re running into a little problem with the open strait near my town. We’re not certain what’s going on, so we thought we’d better seek your advice,” I said as deferentially as I could.
“I see. What seems to be the problem?”
“A couple days ago, Callie had a premonition that I needed to go to the strait to help. She believes it’s essential.”
I had to stop myself from getting into how unlikely that seemed to me.
I tried to suppress the feeling that I was betraying a friend.
Why did I kiss him? So stupid.
I could feel the surprise on the other end.
After a moment, Cordus said, “What evidence can you offer to support your accusation?”
I got the sense that I’d better have some, and it’d better be good.
I reported the conversation I’d overheard between Callie and Graham, and my own conversation with Graham the next morning. I also said Graham had moved me back into my house in part to keep Callie from pressing me. Lastly I described Graham’s intervention when Kara and Williams had tried to take me the night before and the two blow-outs we’d just had. I left out the fact that Graham hadn’t been out to the mill himself since arriving. That seemed too damning. I didn’t know if Graham’s luck would help us if he was beyond saving.
“And how long has this strait been open?”
I thought about when the fire had started. “Since last Friday, so nine days.”
The silence on the other end was ominous.
Finally Cordus said, “Please wait a moment,” and I heard him set the phone down.
A minute later, he came back on the line.
“I have tried to contact Mr. Ryzik. Apparently, he does not see fit to answer.”
His voice was still sexy, but now it also made all the hair on my arms stand up. I realized I had hunched down in my seat, as if someone were shooting at me.
“We may have misunderstood his actions,” I said hurriedly.
“I hope that you have, Miss Ryder. I will look into this matter. In the meantime, please do not endanger yourself by trying to approach Mr. Ryzik.”
“We’ll stay safe,” I assured him.
“Good-bye, Miss Ryder. Thank you for calling.”
He hung up. I closed Kara’s phone and sat there a moment. I never wanted to meet that man. I’d rarely felt so certain about anything. Too bad I probably wasn’t going to get my wish.
Williams rolled down his window and motioned to Kara, who got back in.
“How’d it go?” she asked nervously.