Charles Stross - The Family Trade

“Mrs. Dorchester? Yes, ma’am, I have your card-key here, [f you’d like to sign…”

Miriam did a little double-take, then scrawled something that she hoped she’d be able to replicate on demand. Then she took the keys and headed for the elevator bank.

She was inside the glass-walled express elevator, and it was surging up from the third floor in a long glide toward the top, when a horrible thought occurred to her. What if they’ve got to Roland? she wondered. After he booked the hotel. They could be waiting for me.

It was a frightening thought, and Miriam instinctively reached toward her pocket. How the hell do you do this? Suddenly it occurred to her that the little revolver was as much of a threat as an asset in this kind of situation. If she went through the door and some bad guy was just inside, he could grab her before she had a chance to use it. Or grab the gun. And she was more than twenty stories up, high enough that-she looked out and down through the glass wall of the lift and took a deep breath of relief. “Oh, that’s okay,” she muttered, as the obvious explanation occurred to her just before the lift bell dinged for attention: Skyscrapers didn’t need doppelgangering against attack from another world where concrete and structural steel were barely known.

Miriam stepped out into the thickly carpeted hallway and stopped. Pulling out her mobile phone, she dialled Roland’s number. It rang three times.

“Hello?”

“Roland, what happens if you’re on the twenty-fourth floor of a tall building, say a hotel, and-” quick glance in either direction-“you try to world-walk?”

“You don’t do that.” He chucked dryly. “That’s why I chose it. I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Come right on up?”

“Sure,” she said and rang off, abruptly dizzy with relief and anticipation.

I hope this works out, she thought, dry-swallowing as she walked down the corridor, hunting for room 2412. Hell, we hardly know each other-

She reached the door. All her other options had run out. She put the card in the slot and turned the handle.

Three hours later they came up for air. The bedding was a tangled mess, half the fluffy white towels were on the bathroom floor and the carpet was a wasteland of discarded clothing-but it had worked out.

“I have missed you so much,” she murmured in his ear, then leaned close to nibble at his lobe.

“That makes two of us.” He heaved up a little, bracing against the bed head, turning to look at her. “You’re beautiful.”

“I bet you say that to every naked woman you wake up in bed with,” she replied, laughing.

“No,” he said, in all seriousness, before he realized what he’d done. Then he turned bright red. “I mean-”

He was too late. Miriam pounced. “Got you,” she giggled, holding him down. Then she subsided on top of him. “Like that?” she asked. “Or this?”

“Oh.” He rolled his eyes. “Please. A few minutes?”

“Frail male reed!”

“Guilty, I’m afraid.” He wrapped an arm around her. “What’s with the early appearance? I thought there was supposed to be a reception this evening?”

“There was, past tense.” Miriam explained about the cancellation.

“So you came over early, just in case I was here?”

“No.” She felt very sober, all of a sudden, even though they hadn’t been drinking-and felt the need to remedy the condition, too.

“Why, then? I thought you were sticking with the program?”

“Not when people try to kill me twice in one day.”

“What?” His arms tensed and he began to sit up.

“No, no-lie down. Relax. They can’t come through here and I took steps to throw off the trail.” She kissed him, again, tasted the sweat of their lovemaking. “Wow. What did I do to deserve someone like you?”

“You were really, really wicked in a previous life?”

“Nonsense!”

“The killers.” She’d broken the magic, she realized with a sense of desolation.

“They won’t follow us here, but there’s a lot to tell,” she said. “How about we dig a bottle out of the minibar and have a bath or something while I tell you?”

“I think we can do better than that,” he said with a glint in his eye. He reached for the bedside phone. “Room service, please. Yes? It’s room 2412. Can you send up the item I ordered earlier? Leave it outside.”

“Huh?” She raised her eyebrows.

“My surprise.” He looked smug.

“I thought I was your surprise.” He’d been surprised enough when she came through the door-but he’d kissed her, and one thing led to another, and they hadn’t even made it as far as the bed the first time. Now she sat up on the rumpled sheets, brushing one hand up and down his thigh and watching his face. “About your uncle’s plans. What do you think Olga makes of them?”

Roland looked pained. “She doesn’t get a say in it. She’s a naive little dutiful contessa who’ll do as Angbard tells her parents to tell her.”

“If that’s what you and Angbard think, you may be in for a nasty surprise.” Miriam watched him carefully. “You don’t know her very well, do you?”

“I’ve met her a time or two,” he said, slightly puzzled.

“Well, I have just spent several days in her company and that little minx may be young and naive, but she isn’t dumb. In fact, it’s lucky for me she’s smart and doesn’t want to marry you any more than you want her-otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.”

“What-”

“She nearly shot me.”

“Holy Crone Wife! What happened!!”

“Let go! You’re hurting-”

“Sorry.” He sat up and gently put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. You caught me by surprise. Tell me all about it. Everything. Don’t leave anything out. My gods-I am so glad you’re here and safe now.” He hugged her. “Tell me everything. In your own time.”

‘Time is the one thing I don’t think we’ve got.” She leaned against him. “Someone sent Olga an unwelcome gift-a rape-o-gram. Luckily for me, but unluckily for the thug concerned, Olga’s childlike enthusiasms include embroidery, violins, haute couture, and semiautomatic weapons. She found a commission in his back pocket, with my seal on it and a purse of coin sufficient to pay the kind of maidenprice Oliver might ask for someone he really didn’t like much. Roland, I didn’t even know I had a seal.”

“ ‘A seal.’” He looked away just as someone knocked on the door. Miriam jumped. “I’ll get it-”

“No! Wait!” Miriam scrabbled for her jacket, fumbled in its pockets. “Okay, now you can open the door. When I’m out of sight.”

Roland glanced at her as he tied his bathrobe. “It’s only room service, isn’t it?”

“I’m not taking any chances.” She crouched against the wall around the corner from the door, pistol cradled in both hands.

“Will you give that up? If it’s the DEA, we have very expensive lawyers who’ll have us both out on bail in about thirty microseconds.”

“It’s not the DEA I’m worried about,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s my long-lost family.”

“Well, if you put it that way…” Roland opened the door. Miriam tensed. “Thank you,” she heard him tell someone. “That’s great, if you could leave it just here.” A moment later, she heard the door close, then a squeaking of wheels. Roland appeared, pushing a trolley upon which sat an ice bucket with a bottle of something poking out of it.

“This is your surprise?” she asked, lowering the gun.

He nodded. “You are on edge,” he observed. “Listen, do you want me to chain the door and hang out a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign?”

“I think that would be a good start.” She was shivering. Worse, she had no idea where it had come from. “I’m not used to people trying to shoot me, love. It’s not the kind of thing that normally happens to a journalist, unless you’re a war correspondent.”