They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded

by James Alan Gardner

  Elaine says, “No comment.”

  She goes to the door and opens it. Aria stands outside, surrounded by a fiercely burning force bubble. I’m sure she’s been lurking in the hall for several minutes, just waiting in case I needed backup.

  Elaine shows no surprise at seeing her. She nods and says, “Aria.”

  Aria nods back. “Elaine.” She pauses for a long deliberate moment, then steps back out of the doorway.

  Elaine and Wraith leave quietly. I yell after them, “The shindig tomorrow has a free bar, right?”

  They don’t answer. Now that they’re out in the hall I can’t see them, but I’ll bet Wraith summons a ghostly fog so they can vanish into the mist.

  4

  Fixed Action Patterns *

  ARIA STAYS IN THE corridor as she watches the Vandermeers depart. I shut down the equipment and start erasing all signs of our presence.

  I can’t fix the broken security pad, but we caught a break on that—Wraith stood in the same place long enough that the floor tile started yellowing with age. Add to that the cobwebs and ants that have appeared out of nowhere, and our campus cops will leap to an obvious conclusion: some Darkling broke in for reasons unknown. They’ll probably decide that it’s not worth investigating. Bothering Darklings just earns you a call from some VIP saying, “Stop it right now!” … whereas letting Darklings get away with indiscretions often leads to generous cash donations.

  Just to be safe, I fire up my flawless memory so I can clean up every spot where I left a fingerprint. They won’t be Jools’s fingerprints—when I become Ninety-Nine, my fingerprints change (and yes, they really do). It’s part of the whole Spark anonymization thing, making it impossible to connect your Spark identity with your civilian one. Still, I don’t want Ninety-Nine’s fingerprints being found in the lab, either. Don’t want either of my identities branded as a thief.

  So note to self: always carry surgical gloves. Also a good multi-tool, so the next time I need to disable a security system, I can do it with finesse.

  Maybe I’ll make a fanny pack with useful odds and ends. Or a utility belt! I could build a utility belt! Cuz nothing says “super” like someone whose belt weighs ninety-five pounds and sags down to show her butt crack.

  Aria enters and closes the door behind her. “That worked out well,” she says. “I don’t like them having the gun, but I’m glad it’s gone.”

  “You aren’t mad I gave it away?”

  Aria shakes her head. “Better for you to avoid Mad Genius things. You remember how you worried about—”

  “Yeah,” I interrupt. “But that was then, this is now. I’ve had time to get my act together.”

  Aria stares at me for a couple of heartbeats, eye contact and everything. Finally she says, “What’s this about a memorial service?”

  “Tomorrow night. For those who died in the market.”

  “I got that. How did you find out about it?”

  “I know things,” I say. And I do—WikiJools is feeding me details even as we speak. “The party is at the Transylvania Club,” I tell her. “Starts at eight. They’re expecting most of Canada’s Darkling community, plus bigwigs from around the world. Plenty of people had friends and family die.”

  Aria looks sour. “I respect the idea of grieving for the dead. It’s actually more human than I expected from the Dark. But the event will be a target for Diamond and every other nutjob with a mad-on for Darklings.”

  “The event has been kept pretty secret,” I say. “If they can hush it up for another day, it might not turn into a circus. At least no protesters or reporters.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with protesters,” Aria snaps. “Although in this case…” She grimaces. “If the shit hits the fan, protesters will become collateral damage. I’ll check the online places where protests usually get organized. If I see something starting, I’ll try to head it off. Shouldn’t be hard—I’ll point out that protesting at a funeral looks bad. Even if you have no sympathy for Darklings, plenty of humans died in the market, too. They deserve to be mourned, and a protest will hurt the movement’s reputation.”

  I nod. Aria (or rather Miranda) has clout in anti-Darkling circles. She may well be able to prevent sit-ins and speeches on blowhorns. But our best bet is still for the event to stay secret from the public. The fewer complications, the better.

  Speaking of complications … “What was that with Zircon?” I ask. “Did ze say what was up?”

  Aria shakes her head. “I decided we didn’t have time to talk. I just flew zir to the far side of the city, then hightailed it back in case you needed help. But when we get home, we need to have a conversation.”

  I nod. With Zircon in the hot seat, it would only muddy the waters if I mentioned my chat with Calon Arang. Besides, I refused Calon’s proposition. No harm, no foul. And now we have legit invitations to attend the memorial, so the point is moot.

  Moot. I like that word. Moot. I’m tempted to say it out loud, but Aria would look at me funny.

  * * *

  WHEN WE’RE DONE CLEANING the lab, Aria and I leave the same way we arrived: me jogging and her flying. She goes to pick up Zircon, while I race through the cool night air.

  Running is good. And when I go back to brooding that I’m too stupid to understand Diamond’s bazooka, I can run even faster. So fast I get home too soon, so I circle the block, sprinting flat out until I’m wheezing. Then I jog home cross-country, scurrying through backyards and parkouring over fences until I reach our patio door.

  No one’s watching … I think. Fuck, but we should come to a better arrangement than looking over our shoulders and hoping.

  The patio door is unlocked. I don’t think that’s my fault. No, I can hear Miranda and K upstairs in their rooms. They must have left the door open for me. I lock it and head upstairs myself, feeling sad that the vodka is gone. Guess that just leaves tequila. Olé!

  Minutes later, I’m in yoga pants and a T-shirt that doesn’t smell too bad. I should have done laundry before I left for Christmas, but if I had, Miranda would have thrown me against the wall and demanded to know what I’d done with the real Jools.

  I’ll put “laundry” on my to-do list. Right underneath “buy toothpaste.” No need to remind myself about picking up other essentials. Besides, I don’t want to put “purchase lethal amounts of alcohol” down in cold hard ink. I’d rather be in denial.

  It occurs to me that I must be an Olympic-class denier. The denying-est denier of the Homo sapiens species. I’m number one on the planet … unless there’s a Spark with superhuman levels of denial, and I don’t even know what that means.

  Probably they babble nonsense about denial to distract themselves from facing it.

  * * *

  WHEN I GET DOWNSTAIRS, K and Miranda are busy not communing with each other. K is in the kitchen making unhealthy quantities of popcorn, while Miranda sits in the living room, reading tweets on her damned Linux phone. (“It’s more secure, Jools! It’s end-to-end encrypted.” Add to my to-do list: Hack Ubuntu.)

  I consider pulling out my own phone and firing up Facebook, but why bother? As soon as I form the thought, my brain magically fills up with my Facebook feed, downloaded straight from the mother ship.

  It’s garbage. Consider it ignored. And it’s easy for me to do that—I’m not addicted to social media, cuz alcohol beats the competition.

  I’m only enslaved by one vice at a time.

  “So what’s up?” I say as I arrive in the living room, thereby proving I’m an Olympic-level conversationalist. I can sense my roommates gritting their teeth; one reason we manage to live together without bloodshed is that we have similar boundaries and senses of privacy. We agree on where to draw the line between sharing and oversharing.

  But the time has come for K to share, even if it makes us squirm.

  With a sigh, K emerges from the kitchen carrying three jeroboam bowls of popcorn. Ze can barely get zir arms around the load. The bowls are duly passed out, and we space o
urselves around the living room, automatically maximizing the distance between us: K with zir legs tucked up in the rocker, Miranda with perfect posture in the armchair, and me on the couch. The atmosphere is strained enough that I don’t even sprawl.

  No lights on in the room—just spillover from the kitchen, and that’s only from the overhead light of the stove.

  K says, “You want to know why I freaked.”

  “Only if you want to tell us,” Miranda says.

  “I don’t,” K replies, “but I have to.” Sigh. “So Elaine Vandermeer—she’s a vampire, right? And back in high school…” K blushes; not something I’ve seen very often. “For a while,” K says, “I had a thing with Elaine’s brother. Nicholas. That’s Wraith, by the way: when Nicholas took the Dark Conversion, he turned into a ghost. Anyway, I hung with the Vandermeers quite a bit, and one time … the details aren’t important, but I let Elaine drink my blood.”

  “Willingly?” Miranda asks sharply. “Full consent?”

  K hesitates, then nods. “Nothing you could call coercion. I was an emotional wreck at the time, but Elaine didn’t use magic to make me agree. And I wasn’t drunk or anything. I was dumb and desperate, but said yes of my own free will.”

  “How old were you?” I ask.

  “Eighteen. By-the-book legal.”

  “Forget about the law,” I say. “At least, not human laws. What matters are the laws of magic, and they aren’t always—”

  “Jools, stop,” K interrupts. “Arguing won’t fix this. I willingly let Elaine drink my blood. Now I’m hooked with a blood bond.”

  K’s face has gone pale in the darkness. Maybe ze turned into Zircon to feel less fragile. Stone, not flesh.

  Softly, Miranda says, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” K snaps. “How do you think I knew Elaine was getting near the lab? I felt her. It was all I could do not to fall on my knees. How may I serve you, mistress? The only reason I can resist at all is because I’m a Spark. Normal people bound to a vampire wouldn’t dream of fighting the compulsion. I had just enough willpower to ask you to take me away. If I’d stuck around, Elaine would have played me like a fiddle.”

  “But you did have some resistance,” says Miranda. “Maybe you can build it up. Maybe eventually, you can fend her off completely.”

  K says, “Or maybe she’ll break down my weak little blocks and I’ll be totally under her power.”

  Miranda turns to me. “You’re the one who knows things. Is that how it works?”

  I wait, but WikiJools gives me nada. I say, “I only know things you can Google: reasonably public knowledge.” I shrug. “If anyone knows how blood bonds work on Sparks, they’re keeping it very secret. Neither Sparks nor vampires want the truth splashed around.”

  Miranda scowls, then turns back to K. “This is so stupid! If Elaine tries to influence you, why can’t you just say no?”

  “Because it doesn’t work!” K sounds close to tears. “A blood bond isn’t persuasion, Miranda, it’s a disease. When you’ve got cancer, you’ve got cancer. Stubborn thoughts don’t help.”

  “That’s the blood bond talking,” Miranda mutters.

  K glares at her. Me, I wrack my brain to see if there’s a Cape Tech way around this. I may not be smart enough to understand Diamond’s gun, but surely I can invent some gizmo to save K from Elaine. A super tinfoil hat? Or maybe just a total blood transfusion to purge the contamination.

  But I doubt such tricks will work. Using tech against magic is like using calculus against cannibalism. Totally different wavelengths.

  “We need our own private sorcerer,” I say. “Someone who can break a blood bond.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” K says. “Elaine is one of the strongest wizards in the country. Average Darklings don’t have the power to break her hold. We’d need an exceptional Darkling even to give it a try, and anyone like that would be reluctant to mess with another Darkling’s property.”

  “We’re Sparks,” Miranda says. “We can do impossible things. We can try to find a wizard who’ll trade a favor for a favor.”

  K gives an eye roll. “Trading with Darklings? Every legend since forever says that’ll blow up in our faces.”

  “What about the Goblin?” I suggest. “He’s a whiz when it comes to sorcery. And he seemed to like you.”

  “Maybe,” K says, “but I don’t want to trust him. He’s so innocent and innocuous, it’s like he’s using magic to make himself likable. And in stories, dealing with goblins never ends well.”

  K has a point. The Goblin helped us once—he enchanted our costumes so they clean and repair themselves, no matter how much they get wrecked during battles. But he did us that favor because we helped save his market. Asking for something else may be going too far.

  Miranda says, “We’re bound to see the Goblin tomorrow night, right? The memorial is for the people who died in his market; he’ll have to be there. We’ll talk to him. Find out the possibilities. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  Instead of answering, K crams popcorn into zir mouth. We all do, out of sheer discomfort. Miranda, who hates Darklings, has just proposed we get into bed with one. If not the Goblin, then someone else. There must be plenty of Darklings who’d love Sparks owing them a favor. But it won’t end well. We all know it.

  After several loud seconds of popcorn crunching, K mutters, “One other thing.”

  I wouldn’t have thought I could get any more tense, but voilà. And by the sound of it, Miranda is in the same boat. She says, “What?”

  “Nicholas and Elaine,” K says. “I think they’re with the Dark Guard.”

  I wince. “Why do you say that?”

  “When Nicholas was doing all that stuff on solstice night, he claimed he was just doing business work for his father. But you saw him—he was snooping around like a cop investigating Diamond’s background. And Elaine … supposedly she was having a fling with Diamond, but she flat out told me she was faking. She only got close to him to gather info. That’s Dark Guard stuff. Sleeping with the enemy in order to take him down.”

  “Elaine slept with Diamond?” Miranda says. “Ew. When Shar gets back, I need her to erase that image from my mind.”

  K shrugs. “I thought you should know. If Elaine were on her own, she’d use our blood bond for fun. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Humiliation. But if Elaine is with the Dark Guard, she might use me strategically. That’s bad for you, me, and everyone.”

  “Enough!” Miranda says. “We can’t fix this tonight. Maybe by tomorrow, we’ll have a brainstorm. Or maybe Dakini can do some mental repair … no, don’t glare at me, K, I know how you feel about brain stuff, but if we can deal with this in-house, you’ll be free. So don’t moan.”

  With a determined look, Miranda uses the remote to turn on the TV.

  Frozen. Which I have to admit is good, even though it’s Darkling propaganda. Poor Elsa, treated so bad by mean old humans simply because she can do magic.

  But the whole idea of magic makes me think of Calon Arang. Possibly an Elder of the Dark. I’ll bet she can slice through a blood bond like snipping off thread.

  I find Calon’s business card in my hand. I don’t even know how it got there—I put it in my pocket when she gave it to me, but I’m not wearing the clothes I had on at the airport.

  Yet here it is.

  I palm the card like a magician. I’m such an Olympic-level prestidigitator, I doubt even K’s Spark-o-Vision noticed my move. Then I roll off the couch and head for the stairs.

  “Oh no,” says Miranda, “you are not running out on the movie.”

  “Gotta pee,” I say. “But I’ll be back before fractals start spiraling.”

  Miranda looks grumpy but holds her tongue. K’s too distracted to care—likely brooding about Elaine, mental dominance, and other awfulness.

  Don’t worry, dude, I’m gonna fix that.

  * * *

  IN OUR UPSTAIRS BATHROOM, I lean against the sink, Calon’s busines
s card in one hand, my phone in the other.

  K might be watching me; I’m pretty sure Spark-o-Vision can see through closed doors. And if I call the number on Calon’s card, Miranda may hear every word—her super-sensitive ears pick up firefly farts at twenty paces. If I try a stupid trick like turning on the tap to cover my voice, it’ll just draw attention. I’m tempted to start tickling the tulip, cuz that’ll get both of ’em to block their eyes and ears …

  But in the end, I just decide to have faith. Miranda and K are my BFFs. Superpowers or not, they won’t pry. Not even when I’m about to do something with “bad idea” written all over it.

  I punch in the number from Calon Arang’s card. She answers immediately … which is totally not how cell phones work, considering all the connection protocols that have to take place before a call goes through. WikiJools starts to download a bunch of IEEE standards pertaining to wireless telephony, but I ignore the infodump and say, “Hello?”

  “Jools,” says Calon Arang. “Lovely to hear from you.”

  “You knew it was me?”

  “Of course. Just a moment.”

  I figure she’s just adjusting her grip on her phone. But two seconds later, there’s a flash of Day-Glo pink light and I’m back in the airport lounge. Calon sits in front of me on one of the big leather armchairs. She’s like a queen on a throne, except she’s wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe. An upscale one—black with gold embroidery. The robe is long enough to cover her legs and feet completely. Once again, I have the feeling she might not have legs at all—possibly a fish tail, or maybe something more awful. After umpteen zoology courses, I’ve seen tons of icky body designs, but Calon might be worse than anything occurring in nature.

  As for me, I’m just in my T-shirt and yoga pants, feeling like a slob in such a swishy environment. Then again, I doubt that I’m really here. The place seems too precisely like before, even the exact same arrangement of logs in the fireplace. (Yes, my memory is that perfect.)

  “Illusion?” I say to Calon.

  “Of course,” she replies. “This is just inside our heads. It’s convenient to use a setting we both know.”