Elliot giggled and held his hand up to his mouth in apology. “With Love, that super popular Disney show a couple of years back. Two Black single parents with kids get married. His father was a diner chef and married a woman who was a state senator. Wacky hijinks ensue!”
Patrah scratched at her scalp. She didn’t own a television and only occasionally watched shows online, but her last aspirant had been obsessed with celebrity gossip. Her eyes widened as the details came back, slowly swimming into focus.
“Wasn’t there a scandal and a trial? Something about Erik and the boy who played his stepbrother?”
Elliot nodded.
“Yeah, Erik’s father brought charges against his boyfriend for child abuse right after the kid turned eighteen. Erik stood up at the trial and said they’d been dating for a year, since he was sixteen and the older boy was seventeen and his father knew and everything was cool.
“Until he started encouraging Erik to break away from his dad as manager. There was a lot of back and forth. I think the older kid got a couple years in a minimum security facility and had to register as a sex offender. The Mouse canceled the show and Erik announced that he was quitting acting. Even deleted all his social media. Hasn’t spoken in public since. Occasionally he’ll show up in a paparazzi shot or an article but he’s mostly settled into some sort of performing arts school in San Francisco.” He panted as he finished the long spiel.
“And you know all this how?”
He stood straighter and tried for a dignified air. “With Love was a great show and dealt with race and class issues really well for the Mouse.”
“Mm-hmm.” She smirked. “I’ll have to check it out on Netflix sometime.”
“You can’t. The two seasons aren’t available online or on DVD or anything. It’s basically like they tried to purge it from the collective memory of the world, which is pretty fucked up. Sometimes episodes appear on YouTube before they get yanked down, and there are some bootleg DVDs floating around but they’re all missing a few episodes.”
Patrah shook her head. It all seemed pretty messed up. No wonder Matthias and Erik had bonded so quickly, even if they didn’t know it yet. They’d both lost people they cared about because of others sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. They were nursing the same hurts. The same rough edges.
“What are we gonna do about the Maestres?” Elliot didn’t look like he was paying attention as he juggled three balls of nothing he’d wrapped in his power. It was hard enough for Patrah to force her eyes to believe there was anything there at all, let alone try to figure out what they were.
“First of all, stop that! It’s giving me a migraine.”
Elliot smirked at her and suddenly held two plums and a tangerine in his splayed hands.
“Thank you.”
Elliot’s smile dimmed a bit. “But seriously. You know Hu and Luka are more likely to trigger an episode in the berserker than help counteract one.”
“Yeah.” Patrah had done her best to convince the Maestres that she could handle this on her own, but they had insisted. Since she was five years from the rank of Maestra herself, she didn’t have much recourse. Berserkers generally reacted really badly to condescension and Maestres were made of 45 percent condescension, 25 percent patronization, 20 percent smugness, and a dash of humanity thrown in for fun.
Patrah might be being too hard on them. They weren’t all terrible. Maestres had to look at the Organization as a whole and the war effort as a whole. It was a hard job. Even though they had no control over independents such as Matthias, they had to devote resources to tracking and understanding their motives and seeing where they fit into the pattern. They sacrificed a lot of their people skills to focus on other things. “We’re just gonna have to run interference. You, me, and Daya. Where is she, by the way?”
“Ghost girl came for a visit.”
Patrah sighed and gave Elliot the side-eye.
“You shouldn’t call her that, you know?”
Elliot sighed himself and some of the unrepentant joy of highness seeped from his body. “I know. I’m glad Elana’s back, really I am. I missed her.” He smiled, genuine enough but laced with hurt.
Patrah leaned forward and put her hand on Elliot’s. “I know.” And she did. She had known Elliot and his twin for over five years now. Daya she’d heard about from the beginning but hadn’t met until two years ago at Elana’s funeral. It had been clear as soon as Daya’s name left their lips that both twins were in love with her, but Elana had won her heart.
Patrah knew that in the darkest pit of his soul, even as he’d mourned Elana terribly, Elliot had hoped he had a chance with Daya. Then a couple weeks later Elana’s ghost showed up for semi-happy reunions and that idea was shot to shit.
He smiled at her and they stood in a comfortable silence for a few minutes until Elliot shifted, pulling away from her.
“I’m gonna go to the training room. Try to burn off some of this excess energy.”
Patrah kissed his cheek as they parted at the door and she went to look in on her charge.
The girl, Melinda, had been an assignment she was not expecting. They hadn’t even met yet. She cautiously knocked on the door and a small voice invited her in. The room was set up in the same way that all the others were except with more color in deference to her age. The cinder-block walls were painted a bright, cheerful sea green and the bed covered in a blue and silver bedspread that the girl held up to her chin, watching Patrah warily.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Patrah.” She was careful not to get much closer; the girl had every right to be wary and she wanted the girl to learn to follow her instincts. Now she simply had to get those instincts to tell the girl she was trustworthy. Melinda looked much closer to six or seven then the eleven Patrah knew her to be, curled up into a small huddle under the covers.
“I’m Melinda.”
“I know.”
Slowly Melinda lowered her hands and the blanket gripped in them.
“Where’s the boy who saved me?”
Patrah could have slapped herself. Of course, the girl would view Erik as safe. She should have brought him with her, no matter how raw he was.
“He’s busy right now but you can see him a little later if you want.” Melinda tilted her head to the side just a bit as if deciding whether she wanted to or not or perhaps whether she believed Patrah at all. Finally she nodded and relaxed.
“Did your parents explain why you had to come here for a little while?”
The little girl nodded again, “Because of the dreams I have.”
“That’s right.” Patrah took another step into the room, approaching without coming too close. “I have dreams too, that’s why they sent me to help you. Sometimes I dream things that haven’t happened yet or things that happened a long time ago or things that are happening right now but somewhere else. Is it the same for you?”
Melinda nodded hesitantly. Then she stopped and looked at Patrah, really looked, the way children look at adults when judging their worth. Patrah stayed still and silent. She had no kids of her own, but both of her aspirants had come into her care young. She knew she was balanced on a precipice and one wrong move would plunge them into a morass of mistrust that might take years to overcome.
Then it was over and Melinda smiled.
“And sometimes the things I see follow me out of the dreams.”
Patrah masked her shock. That was a skill she did not possess nor did any of the dreamers alive now. To bring dream reality over the barrier into the waking world took extraordinary strength or an unusual skill.
“Are they things you want to bring with you or do they just show up?”
“Mostly they just show up, then fade away.”
Patrah hid her relief. If it had nothing to do with want, it was more likely an unusual quirk of her power and bloodline rather than an excessive amount of strength. Still worrisome, but not nearly as dangerous.
“Okay, well, I’m gonna help
you control your dreams.”
“You can get rid of them?” The girl’s voice held a wild combination of fear and hope.
“No, no one can do that. But I can help you make sure that nothing follows you from your dreams, if you don’t want it to. And you can block the dreams when you want to rest or call them when you want to know something specific.”
Melinda’s eyes got wider and wider with every point and Patrah came close to the bed, knowing that she had earned the child’s trust for now. A child’s trust was ephemeral; you had to keep proving that you were worth it or the child would withdraw it and never offer it again. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached out a hand for Melinda to grasp.
“I promise I will protect you and train you and everything will be all right.”
Patrah felt a shiver go down her spine, as if her own subconscious were trying to warn her of the false words she’d just uttered. But seeing the way the young girl’s eyes lit up ensured she couldn’t regret them for a second.
ERIK
Eventually Erik fell into a light doze, but was too revved up to truly sleep. So he rose and left Matthias to return to the room he’d woken up in. It had felt nice to share a bed again. He hadn’t since those first nights after Daniel, when he’d crawled into his mom’s bed.
He was hoping his cell phone would be somewhere in the room. Despite Matthias’s assurances, he wanted to talk to his mom himself. He was distracted by a new door in his room. When he’d left the door to the hall was the only one but now another one rested on the opposite wall. It was the same white as the other but with silver embossed letters in a subtle arc near the top that read WATER ROOM.
He assumed it was a fancy way of saying bathroom, and his bladder plus the ripe scent wafting from his body were making themselves known. He’d tried to block out the idea of using the wash basin to clean himself, so he now felt more hope for the weekend. He opened the door and stepped through.
And was falling immediately and before he could scream was submerged in steaming hot liquid. He tried to yell and it rushed into his nose and throat, choking him. He flailed and kicked his legs, flying to the surface like a cork. Once he broke the surface, he reached out until his hand hit something rough he could cling to, coughing and retching until his lungs and nose were clear, though they still burned something terrible.
“Probably the best entrance I’ve ever seen, wouldn’t you say, Daya?”
Erik whirled at the voice and then almost went down again as he let go of what was a rough stone wall.
He was in a large underground pool of water, bubbling and warm on his aching muscles. The edges of it were rock and went all the way up; there didn’t seem to be a way out of it, though he was a little distracted by the three naked women sitting against the opposite edge.
“Yes, definitely 8.5 for the entry and the splash. The coughing hurt your overall score, though,” Daya responded.
Elana sat between them, giggling with a hand over her mouth. “You guys are horrible; be nice.” Her voice was sympathetic but a small laugh ran through it. “Are you okay?”
He laughed a little. “Yeah, I’m fine; just a little surprised. I was expecting a bathroom and got a lake. What is this place?”
Daya answered. “It’s a hot spring located under Marin, inaccessible from anywhere except one of our safe houses.”
“We’re in Marin?” Erik was somewhat horrified. He’d been there a few times, very fancy and aware of it. One of the places the rich white folks ran to in the Bay Area to escape the idea of a brown person living nearby.
“No, we’re in Brisbane.”
“Ugh, that’s worse.” Brisbane was an industrial wart on the ass of San Francisco. “So how did we get here?”
“Portals. One of the previous Blooded found this in his explorations and built a bunch of portals from our safe houses. They appear when needed. I wanna say he was Spider’s line.”
“Okay.” Erik got the gist but the details of portals and who exactly Spider was were lost on him. “And how does one get out?”
Daya gestured to a side wall. It just looked like more rock, but as he swam closer he could discern steep stairs cut into wall. The cutting and camouflage were done well. Even knowing they were there, when he looked away briefly it took him a long minute to locate them again.
Before he started to climb the steps, Patrah’s voice called out, “I have a favor to ask of you, Erik.”
Erik looked back and nodded at Patrah to continue.
“I want you to meet with Melinda, the girl you rescued last night. She’s scared to be in a new place and your face is one she connects with safety.”
“Okay.” Erik was slow to agree, not because he didn’t want to see the girl again but because something in the request sat wrong with him. He had been around enough sets and child actors to see the thin thread of manipulation that ran through favors about children. The easiest way to control a child was to use someone they loved and trusted as the carrot. Maybe that wasn’t what Patrah wanted, maybe she genuinely cared for Melinda’s well-being and happiness, but Erik hadn’t trusted adults to speak truthfully to children since he was nine years old. “I’ll do that.”
He moved toward the stairs; he’d had enough awkwardness for one morning, plus he still needed to pee. When he reached the ledge he grabbed up one of the towels whose color blended into the sepia of the stone and dried his head and hands off as quickly as possible. The rest of him was a lost cause, still covered in damp clothes. He followed the narrow path in the rock, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached a small recess in the stone . . .
. . . and found himself standing in his room, the only door the one that led to the hallway outside, and Matthias sitting on his bed waiting for him.
“I see you found the hot springs, or they found you?” The humor in his voice was made clearer by the lack of exhaustion straining it. Erik watched as Matthias rose to his feet easily, without the stiffness he’d had only hours ago. The roll of his shoulders and hips was fluid, absent of pain.
“I need a bathroom and some dry clothes.” He’d skip the shower since he’d basically been parboiled.
Matthias nodded toward the dresser. “There should be some clothes in there your size,” before saying, “Get dressed and meet me in the hall.”
Erik wasted no time in stripping and drying with the towel still in his hands. He threw on jeans and a T-shirt—not his, but close enough in size and styles. Had they been in his house? Or been watching him for some time?
He moved out into the hall and faced Matthias. He plucked at the shirt, a deep blue-green shade—a color he had several pieces of clothing in at home.
“How’d you guys know what I like?”
Matthias glanced at his clothes and waved the importance of the question away. “Your mother.”
“Oh.” Erik found he missed his mom; even in her emotional absence she had been the only person he could ever rely on to listen to him. He hadn’t actually taken advantage of it in the last year, but knowing it was there if he needed it was comfort enough. The clothes reminded him that she was still out there, thinking of him.
He still needed to call.
Matthias led him down the hall, back to the atrium, and pointed to the door on the right.
“Thank you!” Erik rushed inside and did his business. When he came out, Matthias was moving around the room in a set of complicated maneuvers that looked familiar, like the meditation exercises his mom had taught him. However, these movements were obviously attacks.
“Well, looks like you inherited some of your mother’s line after all. The healing bit at least.” Matthias rolled his shoulders and bounced up and down a bit.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. I shouldn’t be all healed today. Most Blooded heal fast but not this fast. It should have been at least a week until I could move normally and then another week before I was completely pain-free. Yet here I am the next day and everything feels in top shape. I didn’t wake up b
etter, so I gotta assume it’s the two-hour nap with you close that did it.”
“So what’s this mean?”
“Nothing’s really changed; it’s possible you’re an anomaly of Mami Wata’s line or you inherited a little of it and most from your father . . . or your mother has another bloodline her mother never mentioned. Which, considering your grandmother, isn’t that far-fetched.”
“Yeah, Grandma Hettie is awesome. I should give her a call soon too.” Erik smiled at the thought of his grandmother. It had been a couple of years since she’d been in the States, but her postcards from around the world still came like clockwork.
Matthias sighed. “We could do a lot of research or we could just ask the Maestres. They probably already have a couple of theories.”
Erik was shocked and didn’t bother hiding it. His mouth fell open and he simply stared at Matthias before pulling himself together. “I’m sorry, but didn’t you say you didn’t want to owe them anything?”
“I don’t want to.” The tone was light and jovial but had sharpness underneath. “But we could waste this weekend doing all this research and still be no closer to being able to train you. Or we could rely on their records. They’re like the Mormons, creepy but with great records.”
“Could something be wrong with me? Like seriously wrong?”
“Why, because of a possible mixed bloodline? Naw, Blooded cross lines all the time. This ain’t like Ghostbusters. It’ll just save us a lot of time to know what we’re dealing with from the jump.”
“What would the cost be?” Erik wasn’t stupid enough to think the Organization would do this for free.
“Depends. Most likely a mission.”
“Hmm.” Erik didn’t like the idea of owing a shadowy group anything, but he liked the idea of trying to have a long discussion about family with Robert less. Besides, Robert wasn’t that close with his family; the idea that he had anything useful to tell Erik was laughable. “Can we negotiate so that the favor has something to do with the stealing of people?”
It was one of the things that had been running around in his head. He’d gone from fear of it happening to him to anger that it had almost happened to that young girl to wanting to have it stopped. The idea of people being sold nauseated him and reminded him of the stories Grandma Hettie used to tell him about her grandmother, who’d been born a slave. He thought he wouldn’t mind working for the Organization as much if he was doing something like ripping a slaver to death.
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