Between Frames (The City Between Book 4)

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Between Frames (The City Between Book 4) Page 22

by W. R. Gingell


  Zero had done nothing. He’d told me I didn’t have to worry, and then he’d done nothing.

  But the worst of it, the most awful part of it, wasn’t that Zero had done nothing. It was the fact that I’d done nothing. I’d been in a position to help—had the knowledge to help—and I had tucked my head in and listened to Zero when he said to leave it alone. As much as my psychos, I’d let a bloke die because I hadn’t cared enough to say no to Zero when I should have. I was the human; I was the one with human feelings. I should have been strong enough to do that, at least. No one expected psychos to have feelings or act on feelings.

  And for the first time since I’d met them, thinking of them as my psychos wasn’t comforting.

  I didn’t cry as I walked downtown, but I had to keep clearing the catch from my throat, and I might have blinked a bit more often than usual. I was gunna buy myself some coffee. Birthday coffee. I caught sight of the open sign on Kalbi’s door as I passed the magenta pub walls over the road, and changed my mind. Nope, I was gunna buy myself some birthday kimchi jiggae. Use up the last of the shopping money I still had on me in one hot, sniffle-inducing meal.

  I sniffed again, reflexively, as somebody drew shoulder to shoulder with me and stayed there. I didn’t have to look sideways, because I could already smell his cologne, but somehow I looked, anyway.

  JinYeong sauntered by my side, lips pressed together in a smug moue.

  I threw him an annoyed look. “Go away.”

  “Shilloh.”

  “I don’t want you! Go away!”

  “Shileundae, nega wae? Olma chul kondae?” JinYeong sang, mockingly.

  There was a feathering of Between around the words, and I got the impression of Won’t. Can’t make me. How much you gunna pay me?

  I stopped short, hands on hips. “How about I don’t kick you in the shins?”

  He took a swift step backward, but his mouth didn’t look any less smug. Maybe I should just kick him in the shins anyway. It wasn’t like he could bite me while we were out in public, anyway. Zero would have something to say about that.

  Zero would—

  Yeah. It wasn’t as if Zero cared about that anymore. Probably hadn’t cared from the start, just like Athelas had told me. It wasn’t as if Zero hadn’t told me himself, either—he’d told me he was only protecting me because we had a deal.

  And now I’d gone and broken it.

  “Wae?” said JinYeong.

  “I couldn’t do anything else, anyway,” I said to him, without meaning to say it aloud. “I can’t stay if you lot are going to let people die when you could save them.”

  “Tangyeonhaji,” JinYeong said, with agreement in his voice, and I knew that word.

  It meant, Of course!

  The smug little bloodsucker was mocking me.

  I looked at him for a ragey moment, then kicked him hard in the shins and crossed the road while he was swearing in Korean behind me. I shoved through the restaurant door in a whirlwind that probably worried the other diners, but JinYeong followed me in before I could shut the door in his face.

  I sat down heavily, tiredly, and he dropped into the seat opposite me. I stared at him in bafflement. Why the heck was he following me? Just to annoy me?

  Oh wait.

  Nope. He was definitely following me to annoy Zero.

  “You’re getting in the way of my view,” I said sourly.

  His Korean edged with Between, JinYeong said, very clearly, “I am the view.”

  I made a very realistic chuck-up noise that caused the man who came to take our order look alarmed. “Sorry,” I told him. “Felt sick suddenly. I’ll be right.”

  That didn’t make him look too relieved, and JinYeong took the opportunity of reeling off an order to him, which he wrote down automatically.

  I glared at JinYeong. “I’m not buying your lunch!”

  He shrugged one shoulder and said, “I am able to pay.”

  “You better,” I told him, and put in my own order. I mean, technically speaking, it was Zero’s money, anyway, but I’d cooked their meals for long enough that it was probably more like a pay packet, anyway.

  That’s one thing I’d renegotiate if it ever came back to another contract.

  Hang on. Why was I thinking about next time? There was no next time, just me on my own again—this time without my house.

  Maybe I was thinking for too long. Across the table, JinYeong narrowed his eyes at me, and said so that I could understand, “Do not bite, Petteu.”

  “Wasn’t gunna,” I said wearily. “I’m not gunna bite anyone. I’m just a Pet without a pet house.”

  His look turned speculative. “Not angry?”

  Was I angry? Mostly, I was pretty sure I was too exhausted to be angry—exhausted and confused and disbelieving. Everything I’d had, I’d lost; and it was my own fault. My own fault that I didn’t have a house anymore. My own fault that I didn’t even have a pretend family.

  “Just eat, and we’ll get out of here,” I said as the food arrived, exhausted all over again. “I gotta find somewhere to kip for the night.”

  I don’t think I had the purposeful idea of going to Morgana’s place. I was just walking, trying to ignore JinYeong, and then somehow I was facing the Brooker and its skyline of old houses, strolling down Morgana’s street.

  I mean, it wasn’t stupid—there was a whole lower level of the house where I could camp out in a room—but it wasn’t something I’d done deliberately. JinYeong seemed faintly approving, though what it had to do with him, I didn’t know. It wasn’t like he was going to go back and report to Zero, though, so at least there was that.

  And I knew that, because I asked him when we got to the front door.

  “Oi.” There was no way of telling him what to do and making sure he did it, but I said, “You won’t go telling Zero where I am?”

  He shrugged. “There is no fun in that.”

  I mean, it wasn’t like Zero would ask unless he was trying to make sure I didn’t tell anyone about him and Between and was going to send Athelas to take care of me or something. It struck me suddenly to wonder if he and Athelas and JinYeong would have a discussion about me, like they would have had about the old mad bloke—whether or not to kill me. Whether or not to take away my memories.

  Was that something they could do?

  “All right,” I said, but there was a chill of fear behind the words. “Make sure you don’t.”

  “Yaksok,” said JinYeong, shrugging.

  Well, a promise from a vampire was about all that was standing between me and potential brain-wiping or death. That was nice.

  “You better go before Zero gets really cranky about you leaving,” I said to him, instinctively still concerned with keeping the peace between them. Stupid, that. It didn’t matter to me whether or not they tore each other to pieces, now.

  JinYeong cocked an eyebrow at me, and I had the feeling he’d expected me to say something else. Maybe he wanted me to invite him in. I wasn’t stupid enough to do that; not with Morgana and Daniel in the house as well.

  Still, he dropped down one step, then another, and sauntered off toward the front gate with his hands in his pockets. Nice of him to do what he was told for once.

  I let out a faint breath of relief, or something else that hurt a bit, and put my hand on the door knob to swing the door shut.

  “Ah, cham!” said JinYeong, turning on his heel.

  “What?” I said, as he came back up the front stairs, lightly and swiftly. “You forget something?”

  “Ne,” he said, pausing just the step before the threshold. Pushing through Between, the meaning of his words said, “Invite me in, Pet.”

  “Heck no,” I said. “I don’t want you here; why should I?”

  If I could remember the little ditty he’d sung at me earlier in the day, I would have sung it back in his face. Maybe I could look it up on my phone later on. And that thought was another one that hurt unexpectedly.

  One hand on either side of
the doorframe, JinYeong tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Musen il, Petteu?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I muttered. “Just gotta get a new sim card when Zero stops paying the phone bill.”

  I should probably give it back to him—should have already done it. Thrown it at his head or something. But the truth was, I needed it. It connected me to Detective Tuatu and Morgana—even to Daniel, now. I needed that connection, just for a little while. Not as much as I needed my boots, that other gift from Zero, but still enough to make me unwilling to send it back with JinYeong.

  I couldn’t help looking down at the toes of those boots, already scuffed and comfortable, and JinYeong muttered something beneath his breath. Probably still complaining about me not letting him into the house.

  I heard something that might have been a mutter of “Then if I cannot come in, you must come out,” and JinYeong’s slender fingers curled unexpectedly around the nape of my neck and drew me to the threshold.

  I took a breath to say, “What the heck?” but never got the chance to say it.

  JinYeong, just a step below me in a dreadful convenience that meant his nose was exactly level with mine, leaned forward with hypnotizing slowness and nudged his lips against mine, warm and soft.

  Surprise fizzed at the back of my mind, momentarily paralysing me.

  Why was a cold-blooded vampire so warm?

  Why were my eyes closed?

  Oh, hang on.

  Hang on.

  Why was I being given vampire spit this time?

  JinYeong didn’t seem to be in any hurry to stop, either. I felt his thumb slide up behind my ear as he shifted a little, his lips more than a soft nudge now, and it tickled. I reflexively turned my head against the tickle, feeling the brief warmth of his cheek pass mine, and found that my palm was against his chest.

  I used that hand to push him away, and he stepped back at once, eyes half-lidded and catlike, as though he’d just been drinking blood.

  I blinked a bit, then protested, “What the heck! What was that for?”

  “Saengil sonmul,” JinYeong said, looking far too pleased with himself.

  “How’d you know it’s my birthday?” I demanded. “And how is that a birthday present? I didn’t want it! If you’re gunna give me presents I don’t want, you should give me a receipt with them!”

  “Wae?” murmured JinYeong, one brow cocked; and then, startlingly understandable, “You want to give it back? I’ll accept it.”

  “Stop saying stuff in weird ways!”

  “You prefer I should bite you?”

  “No, I don’t prefer you bite me!”

  “’Sup, Pet?” said Daniel’s voice behind me. “You need a hand?”

  JinYeong, eyes glittering, made his usual, sultry moue and took one step up and across the threshold and into the house. “Why is the dog still here?”

  “’Cos he needed somewhere to stay,” I said. Thoughts were moving very swiftly through my mind now. I said explosively, “Birthday present, my eye! If I’ve got some of your spit, you can get in without an invitation, right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Yokshi, Petteu!” purred JinYeong. He twitched one long, slender finger at Daniel, and said, “Noh—choshimhae.”

  “Is he threatening me?”

  “Oi,” I said to JinYeong. “You forgot to switch on your translator.”

  “Naeil bwa,” he said. One incisor showed in a mocking smile, and I swear one eyelid dropped in a wink as he turned to go.

  “I better not see you tomorrow!” I yelled after him, but he had already been swallowed by Between, and I doubted my voice could reach him. More annoyingly, he was gone before I remembered he hadn’t really answered any of my questions.

  “What’s with him?” asked Daniel.

  “Beggared ’f’I know. He followed me here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “What?” The sudden energy that had come with the vampire spit sank a little. “Oh, there’s some trouble at the house.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “I’m not your pack, you know,” I said defensively.

  “Yes, you are,” he said. “Pack is always pack. Did they kick you out?”

  I cleared my throat instead of sniffling. “Yeah.”

  “Got any clothes?”

  “Nah.”

  “Money?”

  “A bit.”

  “Did you come to ask Morgana to let you stay for a while?”

  I had to think about that. I hadn’t started out for the place with that idea directly in my mind, but there was a big raw patch of me missing, like I was a snail with no shell, and I had wandered to the one place where I felt there was still a little bit of home.

  “I could do that,” I said. “Maybe for a day or two. If she says yes.”

  “She’ll say yes,” he said. “I don’t know about her parents, though. They don’t seem to care one way or another, but they might change their minds one day. How will you keep your cover?”

  “That? I’m not going to keep it exactly.”

  “You can’t tell her, Pet.”

  “Don’t try to tell me what to do,” I snapped. I’d had enough of that for the time being. The sound of my own voice fell harshly in the room around us, and I said, more quietly, “Sorry.”

  “She’s human.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “And things get dangerous once humans know about us.”

  “Yeah? Why are you staying here, then?”

  Daniel looked uncomfortable. “I’m being careful.”

  “And you’re like me; you’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  “I’ve got somewhere else to go,” argued Daniel. He added, more honestly, “Just not yet. There was a Sandman out to get me, Pet. I know what that means.”

  “Yeah? What does it mean, then? ’Cos it looks like it’s after me, too, and I’d like to know what to watch out for.”

  “It means that Upper Management is trying to make things quiet. They’re cleaning up the mess they started at the Police Station, and I’m part of the mess they need to clear up.”

  “How am I part of that mess?” I demanded. “It’s not like I was colluding with them or anything.”

  “I wasn’t, either!” shot back Daniel. “It was Erica!”

  “Yeah, nah, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean you were involved, I just meant why me? I can understand ’em going after you, because you took over after Erica, and I s’pose they think you know too much.”

  “If I know too much, you definitely know too much. Well, you know the wrong kind of people.”

  “Zero.”

  “Lord Sero,” Daniel agreed. “But no one apart from the Family likes Athelas, either, and even the Family hates JinYeong.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression,” I said. “So why not come after them?”

  “Killing you would be going after the Troika,” said Daniel. “Well, that’s what I think, anyway. I think they know they can’t touch those three, so they’re trying to give them a warning by bumping you off.”

  “Great,” I said. Perfect timing. Just as I left their protection, I was about to need it the most. “Reckon I’m dead, then.”

  “Nah, I’ve got some ideas about that,” he said. “Don’t worry, Pet. I’ll look after you.”

  “You should look after yourself first,” I pointed out. “They want you dead, too.”

  “I’ve got some ideas about that, too. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. It’s Lord Sero who should be worried.”

  Sharply, I asked, “Why should Zero be worried? What’s it got to do with him?”

  “Because Upper Management have been murdering Family affiliates around Australia. If they’re doing that, it’s for a reason. Usually, that means someone’s trying to challenge the succession.”

  “You mean the heirling stuff?”

  “Yeah. Heard they’d found out there’s a harbinger around, too. So things will be pretty interesting from now on—and if the harbinger doesn’t take a sh
ine to Zero, there’s no way he’s going to end up running Behind.”

  “What, the harbinger picks the next leader?” I hadn’t gotten that impression from Athelas at all.

  “Nah. It just…happens a lot. Unless someone finds out who the favourite is and kills them, anyway. So if there is really a harbinger out there, and the Family or Upper Management knows who they are and who they’ve been hanging around, a few more bodies might show up soon.”

  “You just said it was too dangerous for them to try and kill Zero.”

  “I said that they wouldn’t try to kill the Troika. If they want to go after Zero as an heirling, that’s a different thing. They’d have to think the risk was worth it, though.”

  I had my phone out before I realised it, with the instinctive thought that I should warn Zero.

  “He already knows,” Daniel said. “He knows the signs. He probably knows ’em better than most people: he was around last time this happened.”

  “What happened last time?”

  “Last time everyone died, even the harbinger, and the king just kept reigning. There was a lot of talk that he’d done the killing himself.”

  “What a surprise,” I said. Everything I’d heard about Behind was that it was savage and cruel. Even the brief experiences I’d had there had been horrible. The superiority I’d felt from most Behindkind toward humans was irritating like that—what was the point in being supposedly more intelligent or stronger than humans when there was no kindness or compassion with it? What was better about being more intelligent if you were also more cruel? What was the point in being more logical and unemotional if that just made you a psychopath?

  Daniel, frowning, asked, “You okay, Pet?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just…flaming tired. I’d better go up and see Morgana.”

  “All right,” he said. “But be careful what you say.”

  “I’ll tell her what I need to tell her,” I told him, and went up the stairs ahead of him. They still echoed as though the house was empty, a booming of loneliness I’d never liked, and even Daniel’s footsteps seemed to blend with mine.

 

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