M. Hanover - Unclean Spirits

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I want you guys to talk to Midian and Chogyi Jake. Tell them about the Calling Malkuth plan, and see what you can brainstorm as far as strategies.”

“We’re doing it?” Candace asked. “Tuesday night is the time?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “See what you can work out. I’ll see what I can do about getting Ex over whatever his problem is.”

The others looked at one another for a moment, then Aaron slid the gun back into an ankle holster I hadn’t noticed before. I walked back to Ex. He reached into a small side bag and pulled out a black helmet, holding it out to me as I came near.

“Where’s yours?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Put it on and we’ll go.”

I got on the back of the bike, the helmet weighing down on my neck, and tucked my leather backpack into the side bag. Ex leaned forward, gunning the engine. Resenting the physical contact, I leaned forward, put my hands on his sides, and got ready for launch.

I hadn’t been on the back of a motorcycle since I was sixteen, and even then it hadn’t been more than a few slow blocks with a guy from church. Ex’s launch felt like an amusement park ride without the amusement. Before we’d gotten out of the parking structure, I’d forgotten all about Coin and the Invisible College, Kim and Aubrey, and riders in general. All my attention was on shifting my weight the right way so that the pavement wouldn’t rise up and rip my skin off. My arms slid forward, and within a couple blocks, I was holding Ex closer than I’d ever held anyone I wasn’t looking to sleep with.

The streets slid by, the wind of our passage drying the sweat off my arms almost before it was there. Despite the heat of the day and the punishing weight of sunlight, I felt cool. I only wished that I had refused the helmet. The air would have felt good against my face.

Ex turned us onto Colfax, and then, to my unease, onto I-25 heading north. The Sunday traffic was light, and speed turned the asphalt to a gray blur beside me. I found I could tell from the subtle movement of Ex’s body when we were going to change lanes or shift direction. Before long, I was matching him without thinking.

Back on the surface streets, the houses were low and comfortable looking, the shops mostly strip malls. I felt sure enough of myself at the slower-than-highway speeds to lean back and allow a little air space between me and Ex’s back. The front of my T-shirt where I’d pressed close to him was sweat-soaked and I suspected less opaque than I would have liked. I didn’t want to have the coming showdown looking like I was trying to win a contest at a sports bar.

I didn’t need to worry about it. By the time Ex slowed the cycle down to a putter and angled us down a long dirt driveway, I was back to myself and sure of my dignity. The house on our right was a one-story ranch, white paint flaking at the eaves. It was the sort of place where I expected to see a family living. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a swing set out back and children in the yard. Ex coasted past it.

The garage in back was huge. Three cars would have fit in it easily. But instead, it was fitted out as a little apartment. Ex’s shining black sports car sat close to the eastern wall. A canvas cot that looked like it came from World War II rested against the back wall beside the open door of a bathroom almost too small to turn around in. Ex killed the engine, dropped the kickstand, and got off the bike. I got off too, pulling the helmet off as I did. My legs were trembling.

The smaller details of the space began to register with me. The books in Latin and French stacked under the cot. The crucifix reverently hung by a small, dirty window. The mixed smells of dust, motor oil, and old laundry. Ex leaned against his car, his arms folded, his expression stern. In context, it was all I could do not to laugh.

“Okay, I need to know two things,” I said. “First, tell me that’s not your parents’ house up front. Second, tell me you didn’t spend all your money on the cool car just to impress girls.”

Ex looked puzzled for a second, then glanced around at the ad hoc apartment as if seeing it for the first time. He seemed chagrined, but he covered it quickly.

“The house belongs to a friend. He lets me rent this when I need a place to stay.”

“When you need a place to stay?”

“It’s not like I’m carrying a mortgage,” Ex said.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Big, strong, authoritarian Ex, with his black clothes and shining sports car, lived in a garage. Ex’s expression darkened.

“Let it go, Jayné,” he said. “You are risking your own life and the lives of everyone who was at that restaurant with you today. The first thing you need to do is tell me what you’re planning, and the next thing you need to do is call it off.”

“How is it,” I said, ignoring him, “that Eric has enough money to buy a small island, and the rest of you are living like college students?”

“That’s what I’m telling you! Will you listen to me? Eric was the real deal. He’d been doing this for years. He was connected. Chogyi Jake, Aubrey, me. We were his gophers. We were the day labor he took on when he needed an extra pair of hands.”

There was real pain in his voice. It sobered me. I looked at the cot, the books, the crucifix. I tried to see beauty in it.

“Why are you following me?” I asked.

“Because someone has to keep you safe.”

“They know you’ve left me,” I said. “The Invisible College? They know you left.”

“They caught sight of me a couple times,” he said. “And now that I’m out of the house, I’m not under Eric’s wards and protections. Even if they don’t know exactly where I am, they can tell that much.”

“And yet you’re still alive,” I said.

“I am.”

“Luck?”

“Partly,” he said. “I’ve got a talent for not being found.”

“You’re going to stop following me,” I said. “You’re in or you’re out, but not this halfway crap. It’s creepy. You scared me today. I thought you were them.”

“I could have been. Coin has his people all over the city looking for you. He knows you’re up to something.”

“He doesn’t know what,” I said.

I walked to the window. A simple weeping Christ on a rough wooden cross. The floor before it was cleaner than the rest of the place. Like someone had knelt there often.

“We were idiots to think we could win where Eric failed,” Ex said. “We were blind and proud, and we’ve paid the price for it. You have to stop this before it gets worse.”

“Pride?” I said. “You think that’s what went wrong? We were too full of ourselves, and so God saw to it that we didn’t win?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s what you meant.”

I gave him a few seconds to object. He didn’t. Instead, he walked toward me, his hands out to his side, unconsciously echoing the figure on the cross. I’d spent a fair part of my childhood watching my father work himself into rages, and the feel of this was different. This was desperation.

“Eric overestimated, and he got killed for it,” Ex said. “We overestimated, and Aubrey paid the price. I’m not going to see you be the third.”

“I might win,” I said.

“You won’t. You’ll plan the best that you can, and be as clever as you can be, and call on all the help you can find, and Coin will still beat you. You know it, and you’re ignoring it because you’re in love with the man in that hospital bed, and you think that maybe, maybe, you can pull off a miracle and get him back.”

He paused. I waited.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said. “Not to anyone.”

Ex was close to me now. The smell of his body wasn’t unpleasant. He seemed to shake with the force of his emotion, a controlled violence that was pounding through him like a deep internal storm. I didn’t feel threatened by him at all. I was oddly touched.