Daniel Abraham - Unclean Spirits

“Medevac,” Kim said.

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a helicopter up there.”

The elevator lurched, dropped a few inches, and then started to rise. I willed it to go faster, but the numbers continued their stately progress.

“He’s your lover, isn’t he?” Kim asked.

“What?”

“Aubrey? He’s your lover.”

“We went out once,” I said.

“I still care for him,” Kim said. Her chin jutted out, but her eyes were all apology. I stared at her, and a floor later she looked down. “I haven’t told him that since…since we split. He doesn’t know.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I thought I should tell someone. In case we’re about to die.”

I didn’t mean to take her hand. It just seemed the right thing in the moment.

“I can see that,” I said, and then, “I was really hoping to have a little more time before we got into the heavy emotional intimacy thing.”

“Me too,” Kim said, and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“It’s a fallen world. You do what you can.”

The elevator lurched again, stopped. We turned toward the doors together, our hands still clasped. When they opened, the helipad was before us, the beacons burning red in the darkness. The transport helicopter was still there, two men in uniform standing before it in obvious conversation. No wizards descended upon us. No sense of riders pressing in from Next Door assailed us.

I didn’t know what I was going to say, but as we walked forward, Kim dropped my hand, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward.

“You,” she barked as we came near. “You’re the pilot?”

The nearer man’s head snapped straight. His companion edged away as if hoping to avoid the conversation.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Kim dug in her purse for a moment, then handed the man an identification card. I saw her picture on it and the words Grace Memorial Hospital. The place she worked in Chicago, I thought.

“I’m here consulting on a very delicate transplantation,” she said. “I need you to take us to the airport.”

The pilot glanced down at the identification card, back over Kim’s shoulder at me, and then down at the card again. He was shaking his head even before he spoke.

“I can’t do that, ma’am. We’re a medevac unit, not a transport. I’m not allowed.”

“It’s important. A child could die,” Kim said, and I felt something when she did. A prickling on my skin like someone had brushed me with a feather. Even with the August heat still radiating from the tarmac, I had goose bumps. The pilot shuddered, nodded, and turned to his helicopter, then paused.

“There isn’t room for you in the cockpit, ma’am,” he said. “We’re gonna have to strap you two down.”

Kim paled, but nodded. I saw her swallow. The pilot waved to his companion, and the two trotted to the helicopter’s sides to prepare little fiberglass pods, just big enough for a dreadfully injured person.

“Magic?” I asked. “That was a cantrip?”

“It isn’t hard,” Kim said. “People want to do what they’re told. Men especially want to help women, and God knows you’re pretty enough that he wanted to show off. I just…nudged him a bit. It’s not like telling him we aren’t the droids he’s looking for.”

I laughed, relief giving the sound a warmth I was surprised to feel. Her smile was less wintry.

“I don’t think I’ve said thank you,” I said. “For coming. For helping me with this. For helping Aubrey.”

Her expression went thin and brittle. It would have been as if the moment’s vulnerability in the elevator had never happened, except that I saw something softer in her eyes.

“If we survive all this, I’m going to kill Aubrey myself,” she said. “Or at least wound him seriously.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Of course, we’re not out of here yet. The helicopter could still get shot down by the Invisible College.”

“Cheerful thought,” Kim said, and the pilot waved us over.

They strapped me in first, wide canvas bands with industrial steel buckles cinching me in against the aluminum frame. A fiberglass pod closed over me like a coffin; a small clear space let me look out and up at the swimming stars overhead. The pilot climbed into the cockpit and started up the engines. I could feel it through the frame of the helicopter when his companion closed the pod on Kim’s side. The engine whined, and the rotors began to turn. The noise was so overwhelming it was like silence.

Like a balloon with its string cut, we rose into the sky.

Where’s the minivan?” Midian said.

“We lost it,” I said.

“You lost it?”

The taxi was pulling away from the curb. I closed the door and put my backpack on the coat hanger. The house smelled like old laundry and popcorn. Kim stared at Midian and then, shaking her head, excused herself and headed down the hall toward the bathroom.

“How do you lose a minivan?” Midian said as I walked into the living room.

“There we were running down the highway, and I said ‘Holy shit, Kim, I think I know why we’re getting so tired.’ Look, if it’s important, I’ll buy us another one.”

Chogyi Jake emerged from the back. It might only have been that I’d been out in the world or that I was still coming off the adrenaline overload of my time in the hospital, but I thought he looked worse than when I’d left. The strain of holding up Eric’s protections was showing in his face. I remembered a news program I’d seen when I was a kid with men in yellow rain slickers piling sandbags against a flood. They’d had the same exhausted eyes.

“I was starting to get worried,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “So was I. It’s okay, though. We’re here.”

“What happened?”

It was easier for me to retell the story to Chogyi Jake than to Midian. He listened intently and without comment. I left out how Kim had insisted on going and that I’d caved, making it sound instead like it had been a mutual lousy decision. I also skipped the part where she told me she was still in love with Aubrey. Kim came back into the room about the time I got to the part where the helicopter landed at the airport and the two of us went to look for a taxi. I saw her glance at Midian, her face perfect for the poker table.

“You don’t get to go out without a chaperone anymore,” Midian said.

“Bite me,” I said, and he grinned as if it was a joke. I only figured out what was funny about it after the fact.

“Kim,” Chogyi Jake said. “I’m glad to meet you. I think we all owe you a debt.”

“Kind of you to say so,” Kim said.

“You know about riders?” Midian asked.

“I’m not an expert, but yes,” she said. “I worked with Eric and Aubrey when I was still living in Denver.”

For a minute or two, they compared their relative expertise on things occult. I couldn’t follow much of it, but I had the impression they were each favorably impressed by the other.

“Any ideas how to beat the Invisible College?” Midian asked. Kim hesitated.

“No,” she said.

“Well, welcome to the club,” he said. “You want anything to eat? We’re pretty much down to leftovers, but I think I can make a decent omelet with what I’ve got.”

Kim considered the vampire without speaking.

“He’s really good,” I said. “Seriously.”

“Then yes,” Kim said. “That’s kind of you.”

Midian shrugged and limped back to the kitchen. I retrieved the report from my lawyer and gave it to Kim. She looked over it with a calm, practiced eye while the sound of chopping and the scent of butter wafted into the room. I turned to the subject of Coin and the still-unformed plan to separate the parasite from its host.