M. Hanover - Unclean Spirits

“I’m already there,” he said, and we ended the call. I programmed Aaron’s emergency number into the phone and put it back in my backpack. When I got back to the couch and my cooled and thus somewhat rubbery omelet, Kim had regained her composure.

“That the other resource?” Midian asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “We did a favor for a cop. It might be useful.”

Kim nodded. Small white dots had appeared at the corners of her mouth where her lips pressed tight. I glanced at Chogyi Jake, and he gave me the smallest possible shake of the head. Don’t push her. Not now.

“Okay,” I said. “So anyway, we’ve got a couple things going for us. Aaron’s one. We have Kim now. We know where Coin’s going to be more or less, and we can get more digging done on him if we want it.”

“It’s not enough,” Midian said with a sigh. “We had Aubrey and Ex before, and me, and tofu boy here. And you. And all the juju Eric put on you. And we got dicked over.”

“Yes, but that was the point I was making before,” Kim said. “The one thing you thought you had and didn’t was surprise. They were working under the assumption that you would all be coming at him under something similar to the original plan. You did. They won. This time will be different.”

“You think so?”

“This time you actually can surprise them,” Kim said.

I CRAWLEDinto bed just before two in the morning, my body humming between the two poles of fatigue and residual adrenaline. The pillows were cool. The soft babble of a news channel in the front room meant Midian was taking the first watch. The ceiling above me seemed to glow a little, like an old television turned on but without a signal.

I willed myself to sleep, but with no effect. I was bone-tired and twitchy. I was scared and bored and uncertain. I was ready to pop. I had Kim now, and after our time at the hospital, I was even pretty sure I could count on her. Not bad, considering I’d slept with her husband. Her husband who she still loved.

I wondered where Ex was, if he was safe. If he was alive. I wanted him back with us, his angry blue eyes and his assured, in-control way of holding himself. Even when he was wrong, he was never uncertain. Having Aaron, Candace, and Kim helped. Understanding better how my inheritance from Eric gave me options helped. But I was getting tired of the people I needed going away. Ex. Aubrey. Cary. My father. My family.

Eric.

Somewhere in the city, the thing that looked out Randolph Coin’s eyes was waiting for me. Watching. I wondered if the rider ever got bored, got distracted, looked away. I tried to put myself in Coin’s place. Eric Heller had been gunning for me and died for the offense. Eric’s team had taken up his cause and failed. The enemy wasn’t gone-one of the fallen was in the hospital as cheese in the mousetrap, and another had already run. Would Coin know how many had been in the conspiracy by the warehouse? Would he know what resources I had?

I shifted, pulling the pillow over my head. The murmur of the television grew quieter so that I wasn’t sure anymore whether I was hearing or imagining it.

If I were in his position, what would I expect of my enemy? Well, I’d expect us to run like hell. Just the way Ex had. Maybe we’d try to save our fallen, but the trap around Aubrey had failed once. In Coin’s place, I’d think that gambit had failed. Would I still keep watch on Aubrey?

A scene from an old movie came to me. One of the Vietnam films my older brother had liked to watch when our parents left him in control of the house. Someone in the band of brothers had been shot by the enemy and left in the open, his screams the bait to lure the others out where they could be killed. Yes, I’d leave a guard on Aubrey. And I’d cover the roof next time.

The problem was…well, there were a lot of problems. I wanted to know exactly what Coin and his people were capable of, but my brief lessons in riders and qi and magic pretty much confirmed that was going to take a lot more time than I had. I could rely on Kim and Chogyi Jake to give me their best guess. I didn’t know how good that would be, but I didn’t have anything better. I wanted to know what Coin’s plans and intentions were so that I could navigate my way around them, but it wasn’t like I could ask him.

I wanted to misdirect him, to point over the Invisible College’s collective shoulder and sucker-punch them when they turned to look. But I couldn’t even do that.

My eyes flew open as the thought came to me.

Or maybe I could.

I got up, dug my laptop out from under a pile of old clothes, and stared at it without opening the case. My fingers twitched toward it. They hadn’t tracked me the last time I’d talked to the fake Ex. I hadn’t admitted that I knew he was a fake. Maybe there was a way. Maybe I did have a way to lie to Coin and the Invisible College. I opened the screen, my finger hovering over the power button. Was this stupid? Was this something I needed to talk to the others about?

I put on my robe, tied it in a square knot at my waist, and stalked out to the main room. Midian was on the couch with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

“I thought I said not to smoke in the house,” I said.

“You did,” the vampire said. “I’ve only been doing it when I was pretty sure you wouldn’t see me.”

“I let you guys make the calls last time, and we failed.”

“Old news, kid.”

“I’m not doing that anymore. Eric left everything to me. Not you, not Aubrey or Chogyi Jake or Ex. Me. This is my show now.”

Midian took a long, slow drink from the can, then held the cigarette to his mouth. The ember went bright as he inhaled, then back to its dull orange glow. The yellowed ivory eyes narrowed.

“What’s bugging you?”

“I’m making a decision,” I said. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

“But?”

“But if I’m wrong, I might tip our location to Coin and get us all killed.”

“You want to talk about it? Roust tofu boy and what’s-her-name out of bed, chew it over.”

“No,” I said. “I’d only convince myself not to do it.”

“So was there something you wanted from me?”

“No, nothing,” I said. “I just thought I should tell someone that I’m making the decisions now.”

“Even the risky ones,” he said.

“Especially the risky ones.”

Midian looked up at me from the couch. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

“You sound like the old man when you say that,” he said. “Welcome to command, General.”

I nodded curtly, drew myself up an inch or so.

“Put out the cigarette,” I said, and went back to my room.

There were two hundred spam messages, but Thunderbird killed ninety percent of them, and I deleted the rest by hand. There was a note from my little brother, Curt, asking how and where I was, but the tone of it seemed more like his usual whine than something urgent. I pulled up my chat program.

There were half a dozen people online just then that I knew, mostly from ASU. Including my old boyfriend. His screen name showed he wasn’t idle, so he was talking to someone. Just not me. Extojayne, on the other hand, had been listed as idle for days.

JAYNEHELLER: Ex! Where the fuck have you been? Why the fuck haven’t you been calling? We’ve been out of our minds here!

I sat back on the bed. This was stupid. This was a mistake. I should never have done it.

Someone on the other side started typing.

EXTOJAYNE: Complications. Nothing serious. I’m fine. Sorry I’ve been out of touch. What’s the status there?

I flexed my fingers like claws. I shifted the mouse over and turned on the logging feature. Better to have a transcript of this so I could keep my lies straight. And I might as well start with something they already knew.