James Baldwin - Stained Glass

“Now you wait just a goddamn moment.” Mason said. He and Jenner pulled up on either side of me, Talya hovering anxiously to one side between the standoff. “What the fuck is going on, Ayashe?”

“This guy is in the Russian Mob.” Ayashe wasn’t visibly angry now – she had taken on the cold brushed steel look of an experienced killer. “That’s reason enough.”

“Your accusation is flimsy compared to the evidence of your own people being in the ‘Russian mob’ as you put it. The drugs weren’t addressed to me.” I hadn’t come armed. More’s the pity.

Spotted Elk regarded us gravely. “In all honesty, I must agree with Ayashe. He admitted to us that it was his apartment.”

My eyes narrowed. Michael’s face flickered with an expression that was difficult to read, but he glanced at me and I knew that he hadn’t intended to tell Ayashe anything.

“Of course it was.,” Ayashe snapped. “You think it’s coincidence that he just shows up in our life and gets involved in this? That he starts off with our youngest member and manipulates her—”

“Don’t talk about me like I can’t think for myself!” Talya bristled, swelling on her feet. “It was a chance meeting!”

“What the fuck do you think he’s really doing here, Jenner?” Ayashe gestured at me with the muzzle of her pistol. Maybe it was my imagination, but I was sure I saw the black hole at the end of the barrel shudder and shiver like a liquid.

“Seems like he was helping us,” Jenner replied. “Or trying to.”

“I’m leaving. That is what I am doing.” I pulled my gloves up along my wrists as a deep tension wracked my stomach and tugged my stitches. “Go shove your badge up your ass.”

You have three seconds to get down on the floor before I decide you’re too hostile to live.” The barrel was aimed right between my eyes.

Mason put himself between me and the gun. “You and what friggin’ army, Ayashe? I can vouch that we found the damn film, that we got the motherfuckers who hurt Josie, that Rex honored his half of the deal. Or doesn’t the word of an Elder mean anything to you now you got a shiny badge and a pat on the head?”

“Mason, silence. She has a point,” Spotted Elk said. “We were wrong to trust a criminal presence. No matter what I said about him or what you’ve seen—”

“You came here alone, Ayashe, and I don’t think we give a fuck about what you say.” Jenner caught my arm and started me walking. “C’mon, Rex. Mason. Let’s go.”

“You ain’t going nowhere!” Ayashe snapped around Spotted Elk, shoving him aside with furious speed and strength. He hit the edge of his desk with a cry of pain, eyes wide with hurt and confusion in the moment before Jenner interposed herself Mason and Ayashe and punched the taller woman straight in the mouth. Ayashe stumbled back and snarled, and Mason left me to go to his woman’s side as they faced off.

“Stop this!” Michael raised his voice over the din. “This is crazy!”

Talya ran to me and caught my sleeve, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. I nodded, and without a word, she ran with me and Binah out into the hallway, took another door, and steered us down the fire escape. We clattered down to the ground floor and exited out a different entry to the outside.

“I can’t believe this,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “Ayashe’s so stubborn, and I just know she’s going to register you as a fugitive, and… all you did was try to help us. Rex, I’m so sorry.”

“Forget it.” I said. “If they cherish their pride more than the truth, they have no need for a mage. They need twenty-one caskets and a saddle for their high horse.”

Talya dug her nails into the doorframe. “I know, but we can talk with the Tigers and work something out. Jenner holds her own against the other factions here. Please don’t go.”

“If Ayashe’s serious, she will turn up at the clubhouse with a SWAT team. Jenner cannot prevent that.” I pressed my lips together. “I have spent my life outside of a cell. I want my freedom.”

Talya’s nostrils flared, an odd moment of body language for a woman as small and prim as she was. “You know, John and Michael have been trying to recruit me ever since I started working here. This is my first time inside of the Cycle, my first lifetime as a shapeshifter. Someone like John or Ayashe, they might have had twenty, thirty lifetimes that they can remember, and they still act like children. If that’s all they have to offer, that’s not the person I want to be.”

I regarded her in silence, unblinking.

“My point is… I believe you. Whatever it is you and the Tigers found, I believe it. We won’t let them arrest you. You’re the only one besides us that cares about something other than themselves.” Talya smiled a grim, bitter little smile, withdrew back into the stairwell, and closed the door.

Altruistic? Me? Perhaps I had stepped into a paradoxical other world, a world where I was something more than a bullet in Sergei’s gun. Perhaps she was full of shit, and I needed to leave before I was locked up for trying to impose truth on their unreality.

I stared at the side of the building for a moment, ruminating on my decision, and then turned and walked away.

I found the Tigers clustered around their motorcycles. Jenner was clearly furious, but physically no worse for wear. Mason was clearly as angry as his wife, though he was nominally less explosive. He was also far larger, and I didn’t know just how much control he held over his temper.

When we arrived back at the clubhouse, a few of the other Tigers were playing pool and shooting the shit in the garage common room. They looked up as Jenner slammed the door behind us and stormed off across the floor, clinking on every step. Duke was at the bar, talking with a tall, ascetic-looking man who seemed to be equal parts bartender and mechanic.

“Come on, Duke,” Jenner snapped. “We need to sort out a plan.”

“Roger that, boss.” Duke pushed back, and fell into line as we passed through the red door and into the house. “What happened back there?”

“The usual fucking bullshit. Due process, rule of the law, blah blah blah. Ayashe threatened to raid us. Good fucking luck.” Jenner went to the same sitting room where I’d first met the Weeders. “I’ve been heading up warriors since the Fall of Rome. And besides that, Strange Kitty is a hundred and ten percent legal.”

“Talya says she will be here in the evening,” I said, taking the armchair that Spotted Elk had used. “She is not impressed by the actions of her Elders, and implied that she intends to seek admission to your club.”

“About time. She’s made for this place. I’ll train her right up into a demon-fighting death machine.” Jenner flopped down onto the sofa, joined by Mason. She kicked a booted leg up into his lap as the rest of us found our places.

Mason made a thick sound of agreement. “There’s a lot more to that girl than meets the eye, I can tell you that. I’m glad she finally realized that John is a limp-dick do-nothing. And then there’s Michael. Fat lot of use he is.”

“You’d think someone as smart as John would be more useful,” Zane said.

“If by ‘smart’ you mean ‘weak’. He should be the one sticking his neck out, not us.” Jenner made a face, leaning forward to shuck her heavy jacket. She lay it back over the arm of the sofa. “Wolf Grove is his fucking responsibility.”

Zane quirked his mouth to one side. “Ayashe, Michael and John have a different way of seeing things.”

Duke looked at me. “By that he means they’re prey animals that run the fuck away from everything.”

“I see.” Ayashe did not strike me as being a prey animal, though Michael and John could pass. I eased back, aching with fatigue. “What are you intending to do now? If I understand correctly, Spotted Elk and Ayashe have withdrawn from the convention arrangement.”