Imaginary Numbers

by McGuire, Seanan

  “Good. Let me know if we need to pull the stitches out.”

  I touched the side of my face, self-consciously. I knew Sarah didn’t register faces the way a human girl would, but it still felt weird to be seeing her with a big gash in my cheek. “I think they’re okay. They’re already starting to break down.”

  “Good.” She hit the gas harder, accelerating along our sleepy suburban road like she believed speed limits were things that happened to other people. The night blurred around us, and we were on our way, racing against a catastrophe that might not even have happened.

  Please, let it not have happened, I thought, and listened to the music, and tried not to be afraid.

  * * *

  My name is Arthur Harrington-Price. My friends call me “Artie,” which really means my cousins call me Artie, since I haven’t had any flesh-and-blood friends since I hit puberty and got hit with the wrong end of the incubus stick. I’m not devastatingly handsome or suave or capable of talking people into anything I want—which Antimony says is a good thing, since people who can get anything they want just by asking for it tend to turn into supervillains, and she’d hate to have to put me down. She means it, too. My cousin loves me, but she’s ruthless. That’s part of why I trust her. She’d never let me go evil.

  Elsie and I come from a mixed marriage, human mother—well, mostly human; everyone seems to think Great-Grandma Fran brought a little something extra to the table, even if whatever it was is so diluted now that we can’t identify it with anything short of full genetic sequencing, and we don’t have the resources for that—and incubus father. Elsie got more of the control and less of the chemistry. I got the reverse. She can usually talk people into things, and she has some skill at dream-walking, wandering through sleeping minds and seeing what they have to offer her. Me, I got biological love potion number nine. When people who might be into me get a whiff, it’s love at first whatever. And that’s not cool. The only people who are immune are the ones who are actually related to me, which I guess proves that nature abhors inbreeding.

  So I spend most of my time indoors, in my bedroom, or doused in cheap cologne when I absolutely have to go out somewhere. I read comics and I code and I work at making things easier for my family. I’ve been producing most of our false IDs since I was still in high school, that sort of stuff. It’s something I can do when field work isn’t on the table. And field work is almost never on the table. Lilu have what Uncle Kevin calls a flexible genetic structure, meaning we can reproduce with virtually anything and get children that are more Lilu than whatever their other parent was. It’s a way of guaranteeing the species continues even when we have a tendency to piss off our neighbors and get ourselves burned at the stake. Which is honestly not as much of an overreaction as it seems. We’re sort of bad for people.

  Elsie didn’t drive like she cared about other people. Elsie didn’t drive like she cared about us. She hadn’t strayed too far from the speed limit until we were outside city limits, but as soon as she’d been sure we were in the clear, she’d slammed her foot down on the gas and she hadn’t let up once. The K-pop was gone, replaced by a playlist of Broadway songs, none of which had a BPM of less than oh-god-we’re-gonna-die, and she seemed to be trying to match her driving to the music. I held tight to the grip above my door and wondered whether this was some sort of cosmic karma coming to get me for all the times I’d pictured Sarah—not biologically related to me, still technically my cousin—in that bikini she’d worn when we went to the lake house the year before she’d been hurt.

  “Can you slow down?” I asked.

  “Are you picking up any static?” she shot back, swerving around a corner like she thought she was auditioning for a Fast & Furious reboot.

  That stopped me.

  Telepaths are normally undetectable, which makes sense, since a telepath you can detect isn’t going to sneak up on you very well, and every kind of telepath we know about is an ambush predator. They hunt by making sure their prey doesn’t know they’re coming until it’s too late. Only it turns out that once a telepath has spent too much time around specific non-telepaths, they start creating a sort of psychic white noise that even non-psychics can pick up when they’re around. They become detectible.

  Maybe that’s why cuckoos are usually such jerks: they don’t want anyone to be able to track them. I could follow Sarah across the world, as long as I never let her get quite out of range. Even when I don’t know exactly where she is, if she’s in range, I know she’s there. I know she’s all right. That matters. It matters a lot.

  We were too far away for the static to have kicked in, but when it did, I’d be able to relax. Except if she was up in her room, there wouldn’t be any static; the charms that keep the rest of us from projecting inward also keep her from projecting out. I’d need to wake her up if I wanted to be completely sure.

  Dammit.

  The drive from our house to the compound normally took about an hour. Elsie managed to get it down to forty minutes, mostly by ignoring any traffic law that inconvenienced her. She screeched up to the front gates shortly before three o’clock in the morning.

  “Get out,” she instructed. “Punch the code and let’s go.”

  “I’ll follow you up,” I said. Something was wrong. I could feel it. “I want to count lights. See how many people are still up in the house.”

  She nodded, lips pressed into a thin line as I got out of the car and moved to the keypad.

  The fact that entering the compound meant someone getting out of their vehicle or coming out of the house has always been a problem. It’s more secure than putting the security system on wireless controls, which could be compromised, but it means someone’s exposed every time the door opens. We were never allowed to order pizza when we were kids. Someone always had to be willing to go into town.

  The air was cold—not strange for three in the morning—and weirdly silent. Even the owls and tailypo in the woods weren’t making any noise. I moved toward the keypad, punching in the security code, and moved toward the door next to the gate as Elsie prepared to drive through.

  It was already unlocked.

  I twisted the knob back and forth several times, checking that it was actually unlocked, and not unlatched or something else mechanical. Even being unlatched would have been a little alarming—one of the only times I’ve ever seen Uncle Kevin really lose his temper, it was because Verity had run out too quickly and forgotten to make sure everything was secure, and she’d been thirteen at the time—but unlocked? Unlocked was barely this side of impossible.

  None of that changed the door’s condition. I stepped through, locking it properly behind myself, only glancing over my shoulder twice as I followed Elsie up the driveway. If someone was locked out now, they could call the house, assuming they had their phone. Or they could use the intercom. The door needed to be locked. The door shouldn’t have been unlocked in the first place.

  Something was really wrong. The feeling of wrongness only intensified as I moved toward the house without the white noise that would signify Sarah’s presence kicking in. She was probably upstairs in her room. She was probably fine. That didn’t make this comfortable.

  Elsie was waiting for me on the porch. “See anything unusual?”

  “The gate was unlocked.”

  Her face smoothed into quick, unreadable neutrality. “You’re sure?”

  “I checked it three times. It was unlocked.”

  “The lights in the barn are still on. Our folks were there when we left.”

  I caught her meaning quickly. “You want to go tell them something’s up while I check inside for Sarah?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind?” She grimaced. “This whole situation has me twitchy. I just don’t know what’s going on, and I want some backup.”

  Annie was my preferred backup for situations like this one. Anything my cousin couldn’t beat to death wit
h a hammer wasn’t worth being scared of. But she’d been sharing her room with Sam since her return from the road, and Sam didn’t wake up friendly, or without throwing things. I didn’t want to prod the giant monkey in the middle of the night if I didn’t have to.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “Scream if you need help,” she said, and hopped down from the porch, heading around the side of the house.

  I opened the front door.

  It was unlocked, like the gate. Unlike the gate, that was normal. The front door was only locked when no one was inside; otherwise, anyone who’d made it past the fence could just stroll on in. Aunt Evie liked to explain it as a way to disorient people who expected military-grade security at all times, but honestly, I thought she just liked being able to run around without carrying her keys. Aunt Evie could be that sort of mixture of canny and careless, probably because she’d grown up in a household where her human privilege had been so completely world-changing.

  It also helps that the house has a really weird layout. The front door—so called because it’s big and has a porch and a doorbell and some decorative trellises with honeysuckle growing on them—leads, not to the foyer or the living room, but to a mudroom. The kitchen is on the other side, and the so-called “front room” is on the other side of that. It’s a mirror of what people generally expect to find in a house like ours.

  (Coming in through the back door gives a more normal experience, except for the part where getting there requires climbing the carefully rickety deck stairs and crossing an expanse of weather-treated wood decorated with a portable barbeque and a bunch of lawn chairs. It all works. It’s all livable. But big chunks of it are intended to throw people who don’t understand us off-balance, because someone who doesn’t know whether they’re coming or going is way less likely to unload a pistol into your head.)

  The mudroom was empty. The kitchen was empty except for a small cluster of Aeslin mice bravely delving for crumbs in the toaster, which was still plugged in. Aeslin teens, then. The younger members of the colony were big on pushing boundaries and testing their faith, at least until they settled down and became respectable members of the clergy. A few of them tossed a muted cheer in my direction, but mostly they ignored me. It was late. Even the mice were tired.

  I crossed the kitchen, intending to head for the stairs, and stopped dead at the threshold to the front room. There was Sarah, curled up on the big couch with one of the decorative throw pillows clutched against her chest, her knees drawn almost to her chest, so that her entire body formed a perfect letter “C.”

  She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on for the flight from Ohio, black leggings and a heavy sweater and sensible shoes. Her hair was an inky sweep across the pillows, her bangs almost hiding the cut on her forehead, and she had never looked so beautiful, or so breakable. What the hell was I thinking, getting involved with her? She was family. I mean, sure, we weren’t related, and we’d only semi-grown up together—no one would be able to call this full creepy—but she was supposed to be off-limits. I was supposed to take care of her and protect her and make sure she was happy and not afraid. I wasn’t supposed to make things worse.

  But the way she’d kissed me, the way she’d talked about the idea of kissing me . . . maybe it was holding back that had been making things worse? Or maybe I was just trying to convince myself that something I really, really wanted to be true was true, and this was all a bad idea.

  I drifted toward her, frowning a little. Something was still wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it yet; whatever it was, it was subtle. She was breathing slow and steady, clearly asleep.

  I’d been on the verge of a coma earlier, according to her. I sped up, pausing when I reached the couch. Sarah didn’t move, didn’t react to my presence.

  Sarah? I thought, as loudly as I could. She still didn’t move.

  I took a deep breath before leaning over to brush the hair away from her face. My fingertips barely brushed the curve of her cheek. She made a small, sleepy noise, lifting one hand and wiping the memory of my touch away, all without opening her eyes. I pulled my hand away and stepped carefully backward, first one step, then another, and another, until I was in the kitchen doorway.

  The mice clustered around the toaster raised their heads and paid me exactly the amount of attention required to avoid being rude to one of their personal gods. It was a calculated snub, impressive for how well-practiced it was. I held a finger to my lips, gesturing for silence as I approached them, and crouched down by the counter so that my eyes were on a level with theirs. They looked at me with interest. A few of them vibrated with barely suppressed excitement, waiting to hear what I was going to say next. Hyper-religious mice can only pretend to be too cool for the clergy for so long.

  “Hi,” I whispered, voice pitched so low that it was barely a breath. Human ears would have strained to hear me. I hoped the mice would be a different story. “I need you to be quiet and do something for me. Touch your ears if you agree.”

  One by one, the mice touched their ears. I relaxed a little. Aeslin mice mean well, and they’re utterly devoted to the family, but the further something is from human, shape-wise, the less human its reactions are likely to be. Sometimes Aeslin will do things because they’re incapable of understanding that those things are a terrible idea. Sometimes that includes cheering when asked to be quiet, because the joy of receiving a direct request from one of their gods is so great that they simply can’t contain it. It’s not their fault. It’s frequently our problem.

  (When I was little, I used to have nightmares about the family colony falling in love with me because of my pheromones. Dad told me, over and over again, that it was never going to happen, that Lilu are only irresistibly attractive to species we’re biologically compatible with whose sexual orientations are compatible with being attracted to us—and that’s a fun conversation for a seven-year-old to have with their father—but nightmares aren’t logical, and sometimes their blind, burning devotion could look an awful lot like love to a kid who was afraid of changing the world without intending to.)

  “Were any of you down here when she went to sleep on the couch?” I pointed behind myself toward the couch.

  The mice shook their heads.

  Damn. I guess that would have been too easy, since it would have let me ask way more specific questions about what she’d been doing before that and how she’d looked before she curled up and put her head down. Oh, well.

  “Watch her,” I instructed, still in that nearly silent whisper. “If she moves, one of you follows her, and the rest go looking for someone who can help you. Do you understand?”

  Again, the mice touched their ears.

  “I’ll bring you a pizza tomorrow,” I promised. The mice, mindful of their promise to be quiet, mimed cheering. I gave them a thumbs-up, and rose.

  Buying pizza for the mice is always a fun way to horrify the local Italian restaurants. They don’t like any of the cheap take-out options—mice can have good taste, too—and they want everything on their pies. Everything. Pineapple and anchovies and when the seasonal specials line up, pears and walnuts and gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar. For them, it’s like having an entire buffet delivered straight to their door. For the pizzamakers who have to put their horrifying concoctions together, it’s like being punked by some asshole reality show.

  As quietly as I could, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. All the doors there were closed, which is something we’re supposed to respect. An open bedroom door means company is welcome, a closed one means go the hell away. I ignored them and kept walking, until I reached the door at the end of the hall.

  KEEP OUT said the sign on the front, and YES, VERITY, THIS MEANS YOU said the amendment underneath it, and I CAN SET FIRES WITH MY MIND NOW, LET ME SLEEP IN said the third piece of paper, all of them written in Antimony’s careful, tightly controlled
hand. She had always been a big fan of block letters, which were unambiguous and easily read from a distance. Which was also a pretty good description of Annie herself, really.

  I opened the door.

  Everyone’s bedroom is unique. Even hotel rooms, which start out sterile and identical, will take on the character of their occupants after a day or two. Annie had been sleeping in the same bedroom since she was two years old. She’d had a lot of time to settle in.

  The walls were dominated by books and weapon racks. The closet—which had no doors, since closets with doors are practically an invitation for things to sneak in and jump out at innocent cryptozoologists who just want to sleep—contained her dresser, as well as all her clothes, and several polearms. The swaths of wall that weren’t blocked off by other furnishings were covered in a patchwork quilt of posters and photographs. Some of them were new, and I assumed they’d come with the man who was curled up next to her on the bed, his tail wrapped loosely around her ankle.

  Thankfully they were both clothed enough to qualify as “decent,” and hence unlikely to throw things at me for the crime of seeing them in the altogether. I looked around the floor, settled on a pair of jeans that seemed unlikely to be booby-trapped, and flung it at the bed.

  Sam reached up and snatched them out of the air before they could land. Then he tossed them aside and pressed his face into the pillow, all without apparently waking up.

  “I think you two are a whole new category of ‘light sleeper,’” I said, trying to pitch my voice into the room and keep it from being heard by anyone downstairs. My shoulders were starting to lock up from the tension. “I can keep throwing things, but we’d all be happier if I didn’t have to.”