by Ann Aguirre
“I haven’t touched anything but water since I’ve been here,” he informed me. “They got to me somehow before the kidnapping. Made me see things, Edith. You can’t imagine the horror. I think it may have been a hallucinogen in my clothes or lab equipment.”
It was probably better if he was looking for a rational explanation for seeing Cthulhu monsters. I didn’t want him living in my world; we’d have to visit where the roads intersected. So I offered an encouraging “yeah?”
“If they used the ventilation system, the evidence would have long since dispersed. I suppose there’s no way to check?”
“I’m not sure. The place was pretty wrecked when they took you.” Thanks to me.
“So I didn’t imagine the explosion. You were there too. Weren’t you?” His uncertainty made him seem … vulnerable, a word I’d never applied to my dad before.
“Yeah. I couldn’t stop them, though.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Not really.” Okay, that was a huge lie.
When I was a little kid, I thought my dad knew everything. He could always tell when I fibbed to him. It usually ended in a lecture about the importance of honesty and then I’d get a peppermint. To this day, I associated the rustle of the cellophane with telling the truth.
This time, however, he only gave a weary nod. “That’s good.”
While I was grateful to avoid questions I couldn’t answer, grief weighed me down. This really was the end of an era. Now I could deceive my father with impunity and I missed the days when he seemed omniscient, omnipotent, even. Even if I understood that was childish perception, there was solace in it. Because now that I knew the truth, I had to take up the slack.
Taking a deep breath, I supported my dad up all of the stairs and outside. The thin man was nowhere to be found, but he wouldn’t waste time in telling the supernatural world what I’d done to Dwyer. More scary things would probably come to get revenge and test my blade. I didn’t kid myself that possessing Aegis made my life less dangerous, though it did prepare me better to defend myself and the people I cared about.
The drive was a beautifully manicured semicircle before the mansion with a fountain in the center. At the moment, the water was turned off. Shadows stirred in the depths, as it had at the mall before Christmas. I wasn’t alone in noticing.
Buzzkill swore. “Wedderburn’s watching us. Damn. I thought he trusted me more.”
“Are you upset by that?”
“Wary. Disappointing Boss tends to be the last move you make.”
With admirable aplomb, the clown stole a luxury car parked outside. He met my gaze with a silent half shrug as I helped my dad into the passenger seat. Then I got in back, unable to believe I was trusting him with our getaway. Dad buckled in with trembling hands and tilted his head back against the seat in exhaustion.
“I don’t know what agency you work for, sir, but you have my eternal gratitude.”
“That’s a first,” Buzzkill mumbled.
“What?” Dad asked.
“Uh, it’s just unusual to be appreciated. In my line of work.” That was beyond awkward, but fortunately my dad was too tired to pick up on the nuances.
“Yes, people do tend to blame the government,” he said. “Even for things you couldn’t reasonably be expected to prevent.”
The clown cast a look over his shoulder, as if to say, Making small talk with your dad was not part of the deal, kid.
Before he could dump a bunch of crazy reality on my poor father’s head, I cut in, “Could you stop at the store? I have to charge my phone.”
“Seriously? I’m not your driver.”
“Please?”
Buzzkill grumbled but he actually did it. I was gone two minutes and came out with a basic convertible charger kit. I passed it forward to be plugged into the car lighter and my dad took care of it. Seeing how shaky his hands were put a knot in my throat.
To the clown, I added, “Why don’t you drop us off at the hospital? He needs to be checked out.”
“I’m fine,” my dad protested weakly.
I ignored him. “Thanks. We’ll handle your follow-up questions later.”
“Whatever,” Buzzkill muttered, pulling up outside the ER.
“I thought you couldn’t drive,” I whispered.
“I never said that. You assumed.”
God, how embarrassing. I hopped out with a faint sigh. Buzzkill grabbed my arm. “You know this is it, right, kid? We’re done now.”
I pitched my voice low so my dad couldn’t overhear. “And you’re back to being Wedderburn’s number one, no ally of mine. Got it.”
“Which means I have to tell him about that thing now.” He cut a look at the bracelet wrapped around my forearm.
“Won’t he be pissed you didn’t tell him before, about when I took Dwyer’s heart?”
Buzzkill summoned an impressively impassive look. “I don’t know anything about that. You went off my radar for a while and came back with that weapon.”
“He’ll still kick your ass.”
“Worth it to be there when you ended Dwyer. But I suspect he’ll be preoccupied. You didn’t just whack the sun god, you also ended his game with Wedderburn. I’m not sure how he’ll react to that. You handed him a win, sure, but now what’s his goal? Plus, it has to make him wary. If you could do that to the opposition, what’s to stop you from coming at him?”
“I have reason,” I muttered. “But I don’t have a weapon made out of Wedderburn and his fortress is more impregnable than Dwyer’s. Touching the thin man and stealing that heart gave me an opportunity. Headquarters strikes me as a lot more difficult to storm.”
“It is,” Buzzkill warned softly. “If you carry that god-killer onto the premises, I’ll put you down, no hesitation.”
“Noted. Thanks for your help.”
Rounding the car, I opened the door for my dad, who was still sitting there in a daze. He stumbled, climbing out. His brain definitely wasn’t firing with all synapses or he’d have a ton more questions. His ribs felt way too prominent when I wrapped my arms around him, helping him into the ER. Then there was a scramble of questions and I fudged the answers, more interested in getting him some care than anything else.
“They were agents of a foreign government,” he was telling the ER nurse.
Over his head, she gave me a look that asked, Is he crazy? With a pang of remorse, I offered a helpless shrug in response that also contained a kernel of maybe.
Aloud I said, “He hasn’t been eating or sleeping. Since my mom was murdered a few months ago, he’s just … well, I’m really worried about him.”
All of that was true. Hopefully they could treat him physically and mentally.
The nurse’s expression cleared. “Sleep deprivation coupled with emotional trauma can cause delusions and hallucinations. Try not to worry, I’m sure we can help your dad.”
God, I hope so.
We had good insurance through the university, so I spent the first half hour filling out forms. In two weeks I’d be old enough to take legal responsibility. Scary thought.
Once they had my dad checked in, protesting the whole time that he was fine, I plugged my phone in and called Kian to let him know where I was. To my astonishment, he yelled at me for five minutes, hardly taking a breath. I’d rarely witnessed him pissed off, and never at me, at least not where he’d shown me how he felt, and the outpouring was awesome, in a loud I-love-you-I-was-worried kind of way.
“Come to the hospital,” I said when he paused for breath.
“On my way.” He actually hung up on me.
My dad’s room was dark and quiet, now that they had him in bed and medicated. They’d taken blood samples and were running tests to figure out what his medical problems were. Though I didn’t want to, I found the cop’s number who had investigated the destruction of the lab. If I didn’t contact them, it would look worse later on, a complication I didn’t need.
The call rang twice before Detective Lutz picke
d up. “Yeah?”
“This is Edie Kramer, I’m at the hospital with my dad.”
He didn’t ask anything else. “Mass Gen? I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
It was more like half an hour, and he was arriving at the same time as Kian and Raoul, which saved me a little. Tension drained visibly out of Kian’s shoulders as he processed the fact that I was alive and whole. But he couldn’t scream at me about supernatural dangers with a policeman in the room. He tried to question my dad, but they’d given him something to help him sleep, so he was out like a log.
Detective Lutz turned his laser-beam eyes on me, then. “Talk to me about finding your dad. Did he come home on his own? Was there a ransom demand call?”
“She’s only seventeen,” Raoul said softly. “Don’t you need her father’s permission to talk to her?”
Thank you, late February birthday.
“And who’re you?” Lutz demanded.
“I’m a friend of the family, looking out for Edie while her father’s under the weather.” While his tone was polite, Raoul’s firmness made it clear he wouldn’t let anyone mess with me.
“I’ll be back when Dr. Kramer’s awake,” the detective said finally.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Kian raced across the room and wrapped his arms around me. “Tell me you didn’t plan that. When you disappeared on us, I died a thousand times.”
“No, I had no idea it would go down like that. I honestly didn’t mean to leave you both behind.” It wasn’t a plan, but I was relieved.
“What happened?” Raoul asked.
There were a couple of chairs, one for the other side of the room, which Raoul quietly pulled over. Right now there was nobody sharing with my dad, better for us. I curled up with Kian while Raoul sat down in the other one. In a whisper, I explained everything they’d missed, and when I finished, the older man was staring at me with an expression of wonder tempered with awe. It made me wildly uncomfortable.
“It has begun,” he finally breathed.
“What has?” Like me, Kian radiated wariness.
“My master in the Black Watch will want to meet you. You are the weapon we were promised in the battle against the dark.”
“She’s a person,” Kian snapped.
Peacemaker wasn’t a role I expected to play between Kian and Raoul. “We don’t have to settle it tonight.”
I curled deeper into Kian’s arms, like he could protect me from the immortals who wanted me dead and the humans who wanted to use me to kill their enemies. My future was shaping up like rock and hard place. Though I’d won the game for Wedderburn, that was never his intention for me. Now I’d shown I wouldn’t be manipulated, that I wasn’t a game piece. I had no idea how he’d respond. But it probably wouldn’t be good.
Eventually Raoul left, probably to report in to his superiors. Alone in the hospital room with my sleeping father, Kian pulled me fully onto his lap and wrapped his arms tightly around me. Listening to his heart was the most peaceful I’d felt in weeks. Please, let me have this now. Don’t let anything else go wrong for a little while.
“What have the doctors said?” he asked softly.
“He’s malnourished and dehydrated. More complex test results won’t be available until morning, probably. I hope there’s nothing serious.”
“Me too. He’s already been through a lot.”
“Because of me.”
“Hey.” He tilted my face up so I had to meet his gaze. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. If I hadn’t let the Teflon assholes push me to extremis, none of this would’ve happened. If I hadn’t taken the deal, he and Mom would be together and grieving, but … together. That probably—”
“If I hadn’t taken the deal, Tanya would be alive and I wouldn’t. You never would’ve met me. And even if you went to extremis, maybe the person Wedderburn sent wouldn’t have talked you into it.”
I frowned at him. “Don’t do that. It’s not your fault.”
“Or yours. There’s no point in looking backward, Edie. We can’t change anything. So regret is pointless. All we can do is move forward.”
“I guess. I just … I hate what my life’s become.” Saying it made me feel so shitty, but it was liberating too.
“You have a chance to be more,” Kian whispered. “Before, I only hoped you’d survive to repay your favors. But now, with Aegis, you’re powerful enough to carve your own path. Kill Wedderburn like you did Dwyer, and that’s the end of it.”
“What about Fell and Graf?”
He hesitated, stroking long fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. Alliances are odd things. They’ve agreed to provide support for someone else’s game but I don’t know how they’d feel about a partner’s death. It could be a purely business agreement or there might be emotional bonds after centuries of association.”
“Yeah, it’s not something I can imagine either. It’s hard to picture Wedderburn inspiring warm feelings in anyone, especially the god of war.”
“If they’re smart, Fell and Graf will cut their losses and let you go.”
“They might also think I’m a threat and that I can’t be allowed to keep Aegis.”
Kian nodded. “In that scenario, they come at you and take it by force.”
“Then it’s not about timelines or games anymore. It’s just life or death.”
“You’re better prepared to fight, but you’re also a danger to them, one they haven’t experienced in a long time. I suspect apex predators won’t rest easy knowing you’re out there.”
“That’s what I think too.”
In that case, killing Wedderburn wouldn’t end the danger. I’d wind up on the path the Black Watch wanted me to travel, devoting my life to hunting and killing dangerous immortals. If I stayed on course to repay the favors, I’d be helping Wedderburn, the asshole that had my mother murdered as part of a game. And none of that remotely took into account anything I might want for myself.
As if I know.
“Can we turn it off for a while?” I buried my head in his chest, listening to his heart’s steady rhythm along with the beeping from the equipment that guaranteed my dad was alive and well, currently in no danger.
“Okay. What do you want to do instead?”
“Let’s pretend we’re normal. What would we do for Valentine’s Day?”
“Oh, good question.” Kian set his chin atop my head, still playing with my hair. He hadn’t mentioned my not-awesome haircut; to be honest, I wasn’t sure he’d noticed. He really didn’t seem to register if I was pretty, which made me believe he’d wanted me when nobody else did. The pleasure of that was … indescribable.
“Dinner and movie’s not enough,” I said. “It’s our first commercial romance holiday.”
“I’m sensing scorn. Don’t mock true love.”
“Boston makes it challenging. Most outdoor activities won’t work unless we bundle up.”
“Hard to look sexy in a parka,” he agreed.
Though the conversation was making me smile, it was also bittersweet. I tried not to let on. “Could we do the planetarium show you promised me?”
“Absolutely.” He seemed delighted that I remembered. “How do you feel about roses?”
“My mom always said they were a waste, but … I love them. I mean, they’re already cut, so it’s not like people are murdering flowers just for me.”
“So you’re good with some traditional romance trappings.” His green eyes sparkled, making me glad I’d started this stupid conversation.
“Definitely. But not chocolate. I’d rather have gummies. Or jelly beans. The good gourmet kind, not the gross sugary ones.”
“Are you serious? Okay. Making a mental note.”
We were still whispering silliness when the nurse came in to shoo us out. She was polite but firm. “Visiting hours are over. You can see your dad in the morning.”
In your world I can. She obviously didn’t know what I did—that nothing was certain—an
d tomorrow never came.
SOMETHING SO AMAZING
Kian drew me out of the room, somewhat against my will. But since I had two choices: leave or be evicted, I decided against throwing down with the nurse. My dad was zonked out anyway. I resolved to be here first thing in the morning.
I still hadn’t processed everything; the reality was just too big. The credit belonged to Govannon, but still—I’d killed a god. Well, destroyed might be a better word. So was immortal. But still. While I was reeling, Kian took my hand and steered me out to the Mustang. The ride home was quiet. Without asking, he took me to his place. Somehow he knew I’d rather stay there than go back to my place, where Raoul might be waiting to pitch his order.
It was strange heading into the apartment without Aaron. Though I hadn’t realized it, I’d gotten used to having the kid as Kian’s shadow. Grief trickled in. He’d deserved better than to be left behind, even in death. Sometimes I didn’t like how logical I could be, how capable of making awful choices for the sake of my own survival.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Kian whispered, opening my door.
I didn’t even realize he’d gotten out of the car. That showed how out of it I was. Hardly surprising, the last few days had been … eventful, to say the least. Somehow I managed a smile as I hopped out and followed him into the apartment. Arm around my shoulder, he nudged me down the hall toward the bathroom.
“I’ll get you a shirt to sleep in.”
That sounded awesome. It felt like forever since I’d slept well. And maybe I shouldn’t tonight, either. But from what I knew about the immortals, their perception of time was much different. So I doubted Fell would come at me immediately for retribution. Death would probably ponder the implications before taking action, and by human terms, I could be fifty before it decided what to do. On the other hand, it could also decide I was too great a threat to their way of life, so maybe I’d have executioners at the door in the morning.
Mortal danger, deadly enemies, and complete uncertainty. Business as usual.