Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2)

by Becca Mills

  I didn’t like spending time with him any more than he did with me, but he was in charge of things during Cordus’s absence. And according to him, Cordus had selected him as my new trainer, so he’d have been in charge of me, anyway.

  Sometimes he sent me out with Andy or one of the other Nolanders, so long as what they were doing wasn’t dangerous. But that sort of thing was an exception. Most days I followed a steady routine of fitness and combat training, and lessons in Baasha and the human cultures and powers of the S-Em. I handled my own fitness program, with a little help from Gwen, and a Nolander named Tezzy oversaw my martial arts training, but I had to rely on Yellin for the language and culture stuff.

  What I wasn’t getting was magic lessons. Well, not magic, exactly. Everyone insisted that essence-manipulation wasn’t magic, but it still seemed like it to me. Maybe once I could actually do it, it wouldn’t seem so mystical.

  Yellin rose and buttoned his suit jacket.

  “Alas, there is too little time to amend your appearance. Today we will be visiting resident Seconds, and we are already running late. The test on noun declensions will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. Tagging along on Yellin’s social calls was way better than taking one of his tests, which were brutal.

  In truth, “social calls” was a bit of a misnomer. These were essentially diplomatic visits. Many Seconds were known to live in Cordus’s First Emanation territory, which stretched from eastern Canada down to the Florida panhandle and west over the Sierras and the Cascades. All those Seconds needed to be checked up on. The goal was to make sure they weren’t doing anything that might reveal their inhumanity or the existence of the other world. Keeping that sort of thing from happening was the whole point of Cordus’s operation. Yellin’s visits were intended to let Seconds in the New York area know the boss was keeping tabs on them.

  We headed down the hallway toward the elevator.

  “Please, Miss Ryder,” Yellin said over his shoulder, “let us make up for lost time.”

  As though I were more than a handful of steps behind him. Disciplining my expression, I followed him to the elevator. We rode it down to the first basement level, which was connected by tunnel to the garage.

  Once in the tunnel, I quickened my pace to walk beside Yellin. He sped up, trying to stay in front of me. I sped up a little more. Pretty soon, he was scuttling along like a beetle.

  I enjoyed playing this game. I always won because I didn’t care about looking dignified, and he did. You can’t be dignified when you look like you’re running away. He must’ve known it was a losing battle, but he didn’t seem able to stop himself from trying.

  “So who’re we visiting today?” I asked, sure he’d find my tone too familiar.

  He frowned — or, I should say, his existing frown deepened.

  “Among others, we will call on a Second who goes by the name of Helen Sturluson.”

  “Has she lived around here a long time?”

  Yellin shot me a look a pure annoyance.

  Not too long ago, I wouldn’t have asked the question — or tried to walk abreast of him, for that matter. For the first few weeks after he took over my training, I’d just followed him around in silence, too afraid of him to do anything else. But pretty soon I’d discovered something: the guy wasn’t scary.

  Based on my initial experiences with Seconds, I’d assumed they were all basically death on wheels, especially the humanoid ones. But Yellin wasn’t. I simply never got the sense that he was considering harming me, whereas many of the other Seconds I’d met gave me that feeling all the time.

  So far as I could tell, he just wasn’t a violent person. Irritable and snappish, but not violent.

  Once I understood that he wasn’t going to hurt me, I felt freer to interact with him as though we were normal co-workers.

  “So,” I said again, “Miss Sturluson. Has she been here long?”

  “I am not at liberty to disclose information about Miss Sturluson.”

  The expression on his face was pained, as though I’d made a horrific gaffe.

  “Oh. Sorry, Mr. Yellin. I didn’t realize.”

  I paused, but in the end I couldn’t resist. The urge to needle him was irresistible.

  “How come that sort of thing is kept secret?”

  “Seconds do not appreciate having their private affairs shared with Nolanders, Miss Ryder.”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  I let the silence stretch as we passed through the door to the garage. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his hunched shoulders begin to relax. I waited until they seemed to have reached a low point.

  “So where does she live, exactly?”

  The shoulders shot back up, creating two large wrinkles in the back of his gray suit jacket.

  “In Brooklyn.”

  “Cool. I really like Brooklyn.”

  I got no response.

  “The brownstones are nice. I think so, anyway. Do you like them?”

  Yellin made a little strangled noise.

  Yeah, I was tormenting him, but really, he deserved it. All the Seconds did. People shouldn’t be treated like property and looked down on just because they belong to a different species, or whatever Nolanders are, exactly.

  When we reached the car, Yellin handed me a list of addresses. I got in the driver’s seat and programmed them into the sedan’s GPS.

  I had to drive. I always had to. I suspected that Yellin didn’t know how. If he didn’t take me with him as a driver, he took someone else.

  Well, at least all the chauffeuring had made me more confident behind the wheel. My first few times driving in the city, I’d been terrified almost to the point of tears. New Yorkers don’t drive like small-town Wisconsinites. In Dorf, the driving challenges are different. Like, sometimes you get to a four-way stop, and another driver has gotten there before you, but they just won’t go. No matter how much you smile and wave them on, they just smile back and wave you on instead. Then you both give in at the same moment, go, and have to slam on your brakes to avoid hitting each other. Then another round of smiling and waving commences.

  Infuriating, but not exactly terrifying.

  After some practice, though, I’d gotten used to city driving. Actually, I’d reached the point where I sort of enjoyed the challenge. Or, to put it the way Andy did, I’d found my driving balls.

  The best part was giving the finger to taxis that cut me off. When I did that, Yellin basically melted into a puddle of horrified goo. It was awesome.

  “Oh, look,” I said, “Miss Sturluson lives in a little brick house. It’s so cute.”

  Yellin stared stoically at the dashboard.

  “Is it okay that we’re showing up without a present?”

  A slow flush crept up his neck, making the skin above his stiff, white color go all blotchy.

  “Miss Sturluson is not an individual of high status. For Lord Cordus’s representatives to bestow a gift upon her would be grossly inappropriate.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  There was a space almost in front of the house. I backed in.

  “Not even a small gift? Like maybe a pen?”

  Yellin’s cheek started twitching.

  Honest to god, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  I got out and stood on the sidewalk, checking out Helen Sturluson’s prim home, which came complete with white metal awnings and a cheery welcome mat.

  As usual, it took Yellin a little while to get out of the car. I had the annoyed suspicion that he was waiting for me to open his door for him, so I was careful not to look in that direction. Eventually I heard the car door shut, and he walked past me. I followed along behind.

  Given her adorable house, I wasn’t surprised to find that Helen Sturluson looked like someone’s sugar-cookie-baking grandma. Crinkly, laughing eyes; the scent of lavender; thick, suntan-colored stockings; thinning silver hair pulled up in a loose bun — she was the complete package.

  Must be a
stone-cold killer, I thought.

  I assumed she was disguised, but for all I could tell, she might really be an old lady.

  There are a couple ways strong essence-manipulators can make a disguise. Workings change one thing into something else — very effective, but energy-intensive to maintain. Half-workings let something oscillate back and forth between itself and another form, which saves energy.

  The night before, Andy had disguised the rat kings as suitcases so we could carry them around Grand Central without attracting attention. He’d used a half-working for that.

  Those I could recognize: to me, a half-worked thing looked like itself and something else at the same time.

  Full workings were a different story. I couldn’t sense them at all, which wasn’t how it was supposed to be. People like me were supposed to become sensitive to all worked essence at the same time. A full working should stand out to me as a disturbed area in the fabric of reality. I wouldn’t be able to see through it, like with a halfing, but I should know it was there.

  At any rate, either Sturluson really looked like an elderly human woman, or more likely, she’d used a full working to make her disguise. I couldn’t sense anything strange about her at all.

  She let us right in and, after seating us in her over-furnished parlor, bustled off to the kitchen, leaving us surrounded by teetering knick-knacks, scruffy-looking potted plants, and at least a dozen small heart-shaped pillows.

  I picked one up and gave it an experimental squeeze. Instead of being soft, it was firm and sort of crunchy — filled with dried flowers, I realized.

  I couldn’t see a cat anywhere, but I could tell she had one, one that didn’t always hit the box. The faded-roses scent emanating from the pillow couldn’t compete.

  She returned, and we all sat around sipping tea and eating stale gingersnaps. No one said much. Sturluson kept catching my eye and giving me warm, crinkly smiles. That put me on edge. There was no good reason for her to be smiling at me. So far as she was concerned, I should’ve been a nobody.

  Finally, Yellin set his cup down on the coffee table and cleared his throat.

  “My lord sends his regards, Miss Sturluson.”

  “Well isn’t that lovely? He’s such a fine young man. Please give him my best.”

  Her diction surprised me. Most Seconds were relentlessly formal. I’d never heard one use a contraction.

  Then again, Sturluson lived out in the world among humans. Stilted speech would make her stand out.

  “Have you encountered any difficulties since I saw you last, Miss Sturluson?”

  “Why no, dear. Everything’s been fine.”

  Yellin nodded and raised his teacup, looking bored.

  Sturluson shifted in her seat, then delicately cleared her throat, as though she were about to bring up something slightly embarrassing.

  “This doesn’t have to do with me, per se, but there was that story in the New York Post on Tuesday of last week. I assume you saw it?”

  “No, Miss Sturluson, I did not. I leave it to my Nolander staff to peruse the tabloids.”

  “Good heavens, my dear, really? This won’t do. Well, let me see. I think I still have it somewhere.” She bustled over to a small desk crammed with papers. “No … not here … let me see …”

  Yellin watched her shuffling through the stacks. He looked perplexed. Apparently this departed from the usual script.

  “Oh, yes, silly me. Here it is.” Sturluson trundled back over to us and handed Yellin a newspaper folded open to an inside page.

  He watched her return to her seat, holding the clipping as though he weren’t quite sure what to do with it.

  She smiled at him cheerily. “I think you should read it now, my dear.”

  Yellin’s look of perplexity deepened into a frown, and he lowered his gaze to the page. His eyes moved quickly over the words, then slowed. I saw him stiffen. Whatever he was reading, he didn’t like it. When he looked back up at Sturluson, his face was pale. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Do you suppose someone’s trying to …” Sturluson turned to me, smiling. “What do you call it when a criminal attempts to blame another for his crime, Miss Ryder?”

  “‘Frame’?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, my dear. Do you suppose someone’s trying to frame me, Mr. Yellin?”

  He stared at her.

  “Mr. Yellin?”

  He startled. “I do not know, Miss … Miss …” He drifted to a stop, as though he’d forgotten her name.

  “The resemblance is striking,” she prattled on, ignoring his reaction. “Then again, my methods are typical of my kind. Perhaps one of my kin is visiting.”

  Yellin made a visible effort to gather himself.

  “That would be …” He paused, clearly uncertain. “Does that actually happen? Visits? I thought … that is to say … um.”

  This was bad. I’d never heard a Second say “um.”

  Sturluson smiled over her teacup and said nothing.

  Yellin gave himself a little shake. “This is quite disturbing, Miss Sturluson.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, my dear. That’s why I wanted to be sure you were in the know.”

  She gave me a wink, as though proud of her idiomatic usage. Then she set down her cup and sat back, lacing her fingers over her round belly and smiling warmly.

  I looked from one to the other, confused and worried. Something was playing out in front of me — something serious — but I didn’t understand it.

  After several seconds, Yellin set his cup and saucer down with an awkward clatter and rose.

  “Miss Sturluson, I will discuss this matter with Lord Cordus as soon as possible. Goodbye.”

  He barely waited for a reply before hurrying out of the house, beating me to the car by a good ten seconds.

  When I reached the car, I glanced back. Sturluson was standing in the door of her cute little house, smiling and waving.

  A shiver went up my back.

  I got in the car and maneuvered out of the parking space. Yellin sat staring silently out the window as I drove. He must’ve been deep in thought — I had to ask several times if we should continue our scheduled visits.

  “No, no, of course not. We must speak to Lord Cordus immediately.”

  “But …” I paused, at a loss. “Has Lord Cordus come back?”

  Yellin turned to look at me, blinking and glassy-eyed. With an effort, he seemed to come back to himself, and I saw something like fear wash over his face. Then it was gone, replaced by his customary look of annoyance.

  “Never mind. I was speaking metaphorically.” He turned back to the dashboard.

  Okaaay.

  “We could go back to the estate and meet with the others.”

  “Absurd. This is not a matter to discuss with Nolanders. We will continue the day’s visits. I will deal with Miss Sturluson at a later time.”

  I nodded and focused on getting us into Manhattan in one piece. It was hard to concentrate, though. I was getting that “we’re screwed” feeling in a big way.

  Though Yellin seemed deeply shaken, he insisted on making the two visits he’d scheduled.

  The first was a corner grocery — one of those essential NYC establishments where a tiny box of cereal can be had for $8.99. There he spoke briefly to the people who ran the place. To humans, they would’ve looked like a middle-aged Southeast Asian couple, immigrants from India or Pakistan, maybe. But they were using half-workings, so I could see their real appearance, as well. They were human, but were much stockier than their disguises — barrel-chested and muscular — with paler skin and heavy features.

  I wondered if they were Neanderthals. Cordus had told me once that many hominid species persisted in the other world, so it seemed like a real possibility. I was fascinated and had to force myself not to stare.

  Then we went to Central Park. That was nice. The early October weather was lovely: still sunny but with a hint of chill in the air. Yellin settled us on the b
leachers on the third-base side of an unused softball field. He started scanning the nearby trees.

  I got out my phone and went to the New York Post site. After a minute of searching, I was pretty sure I’d found the article Sturluson had shown Yellin. It was short and horrifying.

  BROOKLYN BOY’S DEATH REMAINS MYSTERY

  By Claudia Kazzan

  The Police Department is releasing no information on the cause of death of a five-year-old boy, Thomas Kaits, whose remains were discovered last Wednesday in an abandoned building on the 500 block of New Lots Avenue.

  A source familiar with the coroner’s report stated the remains were highly unusual and cause of death had not been determined.

  The boy’s mother, Catherine Kaits, 27, of Brooklyn, has been pressing the department to release the coroner’s findings.

  “Why won’t they tell me how he died? I just want to know what happened to my baby,” Kaits said when reached for comment late yesterday.

  The source familiar with the coroner’s report described the remains as “an organic slurry” from which DNA could not be recovered. According to the source, Thomas Kaits was identified by personal belongings found with his remains.

  Two similar sets of remains were reported in Hell’s Kitchen last week. Both were identified by the coroner as animal in origin. The police asked local residents to be on the watch for possible illegal chemical dumping in connection with those findings.

  When asked about a potential connection, a police department spokesperson declined to comment.

  Yellin rose suddenly and headed across the diamond toward some trees on the left. I sat there watching him go, feeling a little ill.

  What was Helen Sturluson, exactly? A walking vat of lye, sneaking around the city dissolving people and animals? Or maybe just people — if they hadn’t been able to recover any DNA, who’s to say the earlier remains weren’t human too?

  Yellin paused to look back impatiently.

  “Do come along, Miss Ryder.”

  “Sorry.”

  I put away my phone and tried to shove Sturluson and little Thomas Kaits out of my mind. I couldn’t do anything about it. Yellin was a Second, and he was clearly taking the situation very seriously. He might be an ass to me and the other Nolanders, but he’d be all over something like this. For the Seconds, keeping humans in the dark about the existence of the other world was paramount. Weird stuff — especially weird stuff that resulted in human deaths — was always taken care of immediately.