by Dima Zales
“We’ll take you there,” I say. “We can—”
“No. You should head home.” Ariel glances at the bloody bandage on Nero’s shoulder. “Just come visit when things slow down.”
“I will,” I say solemnly.
“We’ll both come,” Felix says.
“All right.” She leans in to give each of us a hug. “See you later.”
We watch her walk through the colorfully dressed Cognizant until she disappears around the corner.
Nero takes that as his cue to keep going, so we cross the street after him and walk up to the building covered by a collection of bulky neon signs in every language imaginable. The Russian and English versions of the sign declare, “Earth Club,” strongly hinting that the rest do as well. In a smaller font, both also boast, “The best vodka in all of Otherlands.”
Nero walks past the ever-present line at the entrance, and the bouncers look ready to bow or take a knee before him.
Waving at us, Nero mutters something like, “VIPs,” and strides in. Ignoring impressed glances from everyone in the line, we follow.
Inside, the club is the same as I remember—with shiny floors made of glass and a vibe reminiscent of the Star Wars cantina.
As we walk through the gyrating Cognizant dancers, I see the wisdom of Ariel’s decision not to join. The place is teeming with vampires, and each of them has an escort dressed in the kind of outfit Ariel once wore.
Ignoring the unpleasant reminder of my friend’s addiction, I focus on elves, dwarves, pixies, and the rest as Nero leads us to the elevator.
When we get inside, Nero presses the button for the tenth level.
As we ride up, I can’t help but think about the level just below our destination—the one that looks like a BDSM dungeon. I nearly got killed there by a succubus.
When the elevator arrives, we exit and walk down a corridor until we reach an office that looks suspiciously like the one Nero occupies in his fund building.
“Where did you find such antique technology?” Itzel asks when she spots his top-of-the-line monitor and keyboard.
Ignoring her jibe, Nero walks up to the “antique” and starts typing away.
“Here.” He waves for Itzel to walk over to his desk.
The gnome approaches, and when she looks at his screen, she audibly exhales and her eyes widen.
“I decided you deserve this many zeros added to Felix’s original offer,” Nero says with a faint smile. “Is this good?”
“Yes.” Itzel bobs her head so vigorously, I fear she might damage her neck in the process. “Oh, yes. That will clear my debt and—”
“Great.” Nero walks away from his desk. “Now Rasputin and I need to go to another level to arrange his accommodations.”
“Can I get his suit before he leaves?” Itzel asks. “For that matter”—she looks at Felix and me—“can I get both of your suits?”
“That’s smart,” Nero says. “You’re not going to be allowed to wear those on Earth.”
“Exactly,” Itzel says. “And if you do wear them and get caught with gnome technology, I could get in trouble, so please, take them off.”
We take off the suits. Itzel goes to pick them all up at once and ends up sending two helmets rolling in different directions.
“Let me help,” Nero says and picks up my suit. “How about I also arrange for these to be taken to your place?”
Without waiting for a reply, he heads for the door.
Rasputin bends to pick up more suit pieces and follows Nero.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Itzel says, looking from me to Felix.
“You help out at the rehab facility, right?” I say, shuffling from foot to foot. “Maybe we can say hello when we go there to visit Ariel?”
“I’d like that.” She grins and gives me a hug. Much more coolly, she shakes Felix’s hand and adds, “Just please, never, ever ask me to go somewhere with you again.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Felix grumbles.
Itzel grins again and follows Nero and Rasputin.
When they completely disappear, I look at Felix and with a straight face say, “You know, if things don’t work out between you and Maya, Itzel might be—”
“Don’t.” He narrows his eyes. “How would you like it if I joked about you hooking up with Nero or someone equally inappropriate?”
Boy, am I lucky Ariel has already left. She’d never be able to hide her expression. In her defense, I can barely do so myself.
“You know,” I say when I recover. “This is a really good opportunity to snoop on a certain someone’s secrets again.” I pointedly glance at Nero’s computer.
Felix pales and vigorously shakes his head.
“Spoilsport,” I say with an eyeroll. “I doubt he has surveillance in his own office, and it’s not like—”
“Please, no.” Felix moves as far away from Nero’s computer as the space permits.
“Fine,” I say before he bolts out of the room. “But if you want plausible deniability, you might want to look away.”
Felix looks away, sticks his fingers into his ears, and starts loudly singing, “Old McDonald had a farm…”
I fish my phone from my pocket and record his antics for a few seconds as blackmail material to use at a later time.
Then I walk up to the mouse and tentatively wake the computer up.
Score. Nero didn’t lock his work station before he left, and it didn’t auto-lock yet.
Some part of me feels guilty. I’m about to spy on a person who may or may not be my lover—an idea that requires digesting in and of itself. I decide to squelch the guilt. If I need a rationalization, I can remind myself how much Nero has spied on me throughout my life.
Deciding and actually getting rid of guilt are two different things, but as a magician, I’m pretty good at it. I had to learn to be. If you feel bad about an object secretly hidden in your hand, or about the bold-faced lies you have to regularly tell the audience, you won’t cut it as a professional illusionist.
Without further complaints from my conscience, I start swiping the cursor across Nero’s screen.
Except I’m not a hacker like Felix, and have no clue where to go from here.
I’m about to go ask him when an icon labeled “surveillance” stands out to me on the desktop.
I click it.
The screen fills with small windows—each with a camera feed of somewhere in this very establishment.
Color me not surprised. Nero is spying on everyone in his club.
Scanning the options, I see Itzel leaving through the front doors on one screen, and on many, many other screens, there are people performing all sorts of extremely private acts with each other.
Ignoring the temptation to click on one particularly enthusiastic orgy involving what looks like baseball bats and pineapples, I spot a window with Rasputin and Nero in it—and eagerly double-click that.
The window maximizes, revealing them standing in a plush-looking kitchen—hopefully, the apartment where my father will stay.
I can also hear them now, and I catch Rasputin saying, “—is really nice.”
Then I notice something else. There’s a timestamp in the corner of the feed, with the seconds ticking away. Something about it looks off, and I understand what it is when I look at the corner of the display where the current time is. The spy camera time is behind current time—meaning I’m looking at events that have already transpired, not something live.
Crap.
That means Nero might no longer be in that room—and could walk in on me at any moment.
I almost close everything, but then I hear Nero’s voice say, “The reason I left the others behind is that I wanted to talk to you privately.”
Well, I can’t stop watching now. I’ll just risk it and hope that if he catches me, he won’t eat me… in a bad, dragony way, at least.
On screen, Nero gestures for Rasputin to sit on one of the barstools.
“Interesting.” My father
sits down. “It just so happens that I have something I wanted to talk to you about privately. Of course, you, as the host, should go first.”
I lean in closer—but not so close as to leave the telltale oil print of my nose on the screen.
“Right.” Nero folds his arms across his chest. “Our old contract is now over, so in exchange for the lodgings and protection, I want you to provide me with a vision.”
Rasputin reaches up, as if to stroke a long beard. When he grasps empty air where the beard used to be, he rubs his stubbly chin instead. “I’m not sure I have it in me to repeat the feat I did for you the last time, and, even if I were willing, my price would be much greater.”
“I’m talking about a few short visions.” Nero walks up to the fridge, opens the freezer, and pulls out a frosty bottle of vodka. “This would be a mere peek at the immediate future, that’s all.”
Rasputin leaves his chin alone to stare at Nero. “Of course. You’re going to save Claudia. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“Sounds like we have an understanding.” Nero takes an enormous gulp of the vodka, then extends the bottle to Rasputin.
My father takes the bottle and gulps down a much daintier sip. “This is very fortuitous,” he says when he’s done cringing.
Taking back the bottle, Nero lifts an eyebrow.
“I was actually going to advise you to leave Earth as soon as you’ve healed, but it sounds like you’re going to anyway,” Rasputin says.
My seer intuition kicks in—no doubt telling me what I could tell by just looking at the timestamp. I’m about to get busted in my snooping.
But I want to know where this goes.
Then I remember that Itzel is now gone, and I can see my immediate future again.
Grinning, I easily convince myself that I’ll keep watching the screen even if it means getting caught; then I focus and reach Headspace in record time.
The shapes surrounding me look promising, so I touch the one that feels right.
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I keep watching the screen.
“Explain.” Nero takes another massive gulp, then removes the towel bandage on his shoulder and pours vodka over the wound.
“You bled all over Lilith’s world,” Rasputin says, nodding at the injury. “If she’s alive, she’ll be able to find you anywhere.”
Nero’s jaw tenses. “That just gives me more reasons to expedite my plans. Lilith mentioned some sort of an understanding with the soon-to-be corpse, so she won’t follow me to his kingdom.”
The sound of a door opening rips my attention away from the screen.
Nero barges in and gives me a baleful stare.
My father has disappointment in his eyes, and Felix—
I’m back in the room—and extremely happy that I’ve had the vision.
I was going to get caught—but now I don’t have to be.
“Explain,” Nero says on the screen, and I know what follows and how little time I have.
Exiting the surveillance app, I lock the computer and make sure the mouse stays in the position I found it in.
As an overkill, I use the bottom of my shirt to wipe away any possible prints.
Happy with my work, I rush toward Felix, remove his hands from his ears, and say, “Tell me the end of some dumb joke, right now.”
Got to hand it to Felix. Without skipping a beat, he stops singing and looks at me with a sincere-seeming smile. “And the panda says,” he says as the door opens and Nero and Rasputin walk in, “I have the right to bear arms.”
I pretend to laugh, then pretend to be surprised they came back when they did.
“Felix,” Nero says, smelling like an alcohol distillery. “Let’s give them a second to say goodbye.”
He herds Felix out of the office, and I stand there, staring at Rasputin with my emotions all over the place.
My birth father.
I’ve just found him, and I have to leave him.
There’s a good chance he told Nero about the blood thing as a ploy to keep us apart—and it would’ve worked if I hadn’t spied on them. Now I’ll be able to counter the damage by having a serious talk with Nero, during which I also hope to learn who Claudia is.
Either because of that, or because the man in front of me is my father, I’m not nearly as mad at him as I should be. All I really want to do is hug him—so that’s what I do.
“Thank you so much,” he murmurs, squeezing me tight. “I can’t believe you came for me after everything. I don’t know where you got this compassion from, but I’m glad for it.”
“Good. Because you owe me answers,” I say, my voice thick as I step back. “And I mean a lot of them.”
“Come visit me tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll do my best to answer anything you ask.”
Nero and Felix return, and I take another step back.
“Go take care of that.” Rasputin nods at Nero’s shoulder.
“Right,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“Just one second,” Nero says and looks at the handle of the gate sword. “You can’t use that on Earth either, so how about you leave it here?” He walks over to the wall and opens a safe that I hadn’t noticed was there.
“But I can hide it and never show it to humans,” I protest, clutching the handle like a kid with a new toy.
“You should listen to Nero,” Rasputin says regretfully. “The Councils take their weapon bans seriously, and the Mandate would punish you if a human were to see you wield that.”
I look to Felix.
“Better leave it if you ask me,” he says.
I fight the urge to remind Felix about the fancy gun he brought from Gomorrah to Earth, but since Nero is on the Council, I don’t want to say anything in front of him.
Besides, where Felix’s gun could’ve passed for some gizmo or a toy, I know of no technology on Earth that could explain this kind of sword, so maybe they’re right.
With great reluctance, I trudge to the safe and place the sword inside it.
“Now we go.” Nero closes the safe, and the wall goes back to looking empty.
We leave, and Rasputin walks with us to the elevator, but he doesn’t get into the car when it arrives.
“I’ll take the next one,” he says gruffly, and I see a suspicious shimmer in his eyes.
My chest squeezes. “That’s fine. I will see you soon,” I tell him as the doors begin to close. And right before they shut completely, I add softly, “Papa.”
Rasputin beams like the sun, and I feel good that I said it, even if I didn’t fully mean it yet.
Felix blinks rapidly and rubs his eyes, while Nero pretends not to notice another dude displaying emotions so openly.
I inhale a deep breath and wonder if I should confront Nero here and now about Claudia and the rest of it—right in front of Felix.
But no. Felix would hate to be in the middle of such a talk, and I’m not sure I want him to know about me and Nero yet—not until I myself have a good label for it.
The three of us walk through the noisy club without speaking, and we keep the silence as we cross the street to the super-skyscraper. Once there, we take the elevator to the roof with the hub.
I rush for the gate leading to Earth and step in first.
Nero and Felix join me on the other side, and I take the lead on the way out of the JFK hub.
They catch up with me as I turn the corner.
This corridor is wider than most, and the three of us have no trouble walking shoulder to shoulder.
We’re halfway to the next turn when a massive seer warning slams into me like an iceberg.
It’s the worst one ever, which can only mean one thing.
Someone’s very imminent demise.
Chapter Sixty-One
I focus on Headspace and reach it instantly.
The shapes surrounding me confirm my suspicion. The music emanating from them would be at home at a funeral—not-so-subtly hinting that they’ll show me something heinously bad.
My first impulse is to grab a shape at random, but given what I saw in my father’s memories the other day, I let my intuition lead me to one that I think will be extra useful—even if I don’t actually know what useful means in this case.
My ethereal wisp trembles metaphysically as I touch my chosen shape, and fall into the rabbit hole of the vision.
A man wearing a killer clown mask rushes into the corridor in front of us, followed by a couple more.
They’re all wearing those masks, and all but the first guy are basketball-player-turned-bodybuilder-big, and in general look extremely familiar.
Of course. They’re the would-be assassins from my earlier visions, the ones who shot at us with machine guns and the bazooka. I’m sure they sent that bomb to our office too.
I’d tentatively decided they’re not dragons, but seeing them live like this, all but one don’t seem human either.
The smaller man—the one I’ve never seen in a vision before—raises a strange-looking weapon and shoots.
A dart hits my right shoulder. At first, there’s a sharp prick of pain; then warmth spreads from the wound, making my legs buckle.
I start falling—but pass out before my body hits the ground.
I’m bodiless, but I’m also watching my body fall to the ground from the side.
Am I—or my body—about to crack my skull on the floor?
No. Nero lunges for the unconscious me with super speed and catches her/me mid-air, then lays her/me by the wall like a sleeping princess.
At the same time, more of the huge masked attackers show up from the other side of the corridor—meaning we’re flanked on both sides.
“What’s happening?” Felix mutters at the same time as the smaller masked guy aims the dart gun at him and squeezes the trigger.
Felix looks down at the dart in his chest and faints, hitting the floor hard. Nero didn’t bother softening his fall—probably because he’s too busy looking at the new group. His gaze jumps between them and the dart gun guy with his crew; he’s clearly unsure which of them to start with first.