Chapter Eighteen

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 

Okay, I see why you hate these things.

I snorted and pulled Raincloud more fully onto my lap. She wasn’t exactly allowed to be there—pets were supposed to be in carriers unless they were service animals—but the bus driver had not been able to resist a puppy who knew very well how to exploit her intrinsic cuteness to get what she wanted. Part of it, at least. There’s a lot to hate.

On some level, I supposed I was being unfair. Public transportation was a vital resource, and from what I’d heard Pittsburgh’s bus system was actually pretty good by American standards. The fact that using it was miserable for me really wasn’t their fault. I got sensory overload easily, didn’t handle crowds well, and was prone to collapse in a convulsing heap if I wasn’t careful with those things. I also had serious emotional issues around the topic. When I was a kid, I really hadn’t been equipped to understand the details and context of my mother’s death. I just knew that she’d gotten sick because of poison on the subway and it was probably part of why she died. Hadn’t left me with great feelings on the topic.

It really wasn’t the local transit authority’s fault. I couldn’t reasonably expect anyone to make a public transportation system I didn’t hate, with all those factors to consider. I’d used it in Japan, if only because avoiding public transportation in the Tokyo metropolitan area is hard even for people who can drive. But since moving here and discovering that I was the heiress to a substantial estate? I might not have been on a bus in the past ten years.

Which was why I was now. Well, that and it was just the most convenient way to leave what was clearly a dangerous area. We’d been right by the busway, and while we weren’t actually using it, busway stations tended to have stops nearby for smaller lines. I’d picked one more or less at random, and had no idea where we were going.

I figured that if the attacker knew anything about my habits at all—and they clearly did—they wouldn’t have bothered planning for this. For me to use a bus as an escape route was just…so out of character for me that it wouldn’t be worth planning around that contingency. And if I had no clue where we were going, it was pretty damn unlikely that someone else would guess our route after four or five random bus transfers.

Raincloud curled into my lap more tightly, and I got the impression of agreement. She was not loving this. The bus was, at least, not crowded. Middle of the day, Monday right after a holiday, on a minor line? Yeah, it was pretty much just us and the driver. She was quiet for a few moments, then asked, Do you think Saito betrayed you?

I sighed, and scritched her ears while I thought about it. I doubt it, I responded eventually. It’s possible, but it seems pretty unlikely. It’s not his style.

Do you think you’re biased?

To a degree, I admitted. But also, that’s not quite what I mean. If Saito wanted me dead, he could have done a lot more damage than this. It would have been trivial for him to send me to an actual deathtrap. He’s too competent to rely on something this uncertain.

I got a feeling of contemplation, followed by agreement. But you were suspicious about the man there.

And still am, I confirmed, with a slight shiver. But thinking on it, I’m not sure. For one thing, he was in a great position to shoot me while I ran, and he didn’t. For another… I frowned, trying to phrase something. It took me a while, but Raincloud was patient.

Saito is clearly tied to the supernatural world, I said eventually, still thinking through the logic as I went. He’s been involved in too many supernatural events for coincidence to explain. I don’t know what the link is or what his role is in it, but there’s some connection. I’m willing to bet Johnny is in a somewhat similar position. He’s human, sure of that, but he didn’t react to my apparent age, he deals in weapons that aren’t useful to most humans. I’m almost sure he’s had business dealings with nonhumans before, and that’s why things felt weird to me.

Raincloud was quiet for a moment, just curled up comfortably on my lap. They got plastic explosives somewhere, she said after a moment, feeling thoughtful. (I’d given up on technical accuracy at this point. She was using words; it was easier just to think of this as something she said. Much like how I used the verb to describe communicating over the internet with text, really.)

Yes. And whoever did that, they probably weren’t human. I doubt anyone is manufacturing C-4 in meaningful volume in the Otherside, too. I shrugged and stroked the fur on her neck, for my comfort as much as hers. These people have to buy gear somewhere. If Johnny works with this clientele he might actually have access to equipment like that, even though vanilla humans are unlikely to want it. That’s why I actually asked for something; I figure if he was dealing on the level, I’ll probably want it, and if not, it won’t matter.

That makes sense. But if it wasn’t him, how did they know where to find us? Raincloud still felt thoughtful, and I got the impression that those thoughts ran deeper than just the immediate past.

I shrugged, physically because why not. Hard to say, there are too many possibilities. Intercepted Saito’s communication because he had to reach out to people he doesn’t know well, bugged my phone and listened in on the call, tracked me from the Blackbird, there are tons of ways it could be done.

There was an impression of quiet agreement. Raincloud asked no further questions, and I settled in to endure the bus ride, lost in thoughts of my own.

---

“Sorry I haven’t been around in a while. Things have been kind of insane lately.”

The plants felt like they understood. That made sense, I supposed. They weren’t actually hearing me; I talked out loud mostly out of habit. Meaning was being conveyed directly in much the same manner as with Raincloud, though they were far simpler than she was, lacking both words and nuance. I didn’t have to describe in words what I meant about things being insane.

I’d really hoped, at first, that this wasn’t real, that the impressions I got were just the invention of my own mind. That hope had faded completely, by this point. This experience was real. It seemed to mostly happen with my own houseplants; I wasn’t sure whether that was because of my familiarity with them, or my ongoing presence was why they had even this much mind. Plants weren’t supposed to have emotions, not even simple ones.

I kinda wished I knew why this happened, why plants thrived around me, why I had this emotional link with them. I also strongly suspected that ignorance was bliss, as it often was.

“We’re moving on from this place, I think,” I continued. I was going around watering them as I spoke, confirming that they were still inexplicably healthy. I was in the room set aside for the poisonous ones at the moment. Saori, unsurprisingly, was collecting the psychoactives from the loft, and most of the rest had already been carried out. “Not sure where to yet. Probably won’t know for a while. You’ll be staying with a friend until I get that sorted out.” This set, specifically, would be at Derek’s place. Given that werewolves were as resistant to toxins as I was, it just seemed…tidier that way.

The werewolf himself was downstairs carrying things out to his car. Kadir had used the spare key as a less literal key so we could get through the wards easily; it was terrible practice, as he had told me and I had already known, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t expecting them to do anything anyway.

I wasn’t taking everything. It would have been impractical, and it would have looked suspicious. It also just wasn’t necessary. There were plenty of things here that I didn’t actually need, from furniture I didn’t use to art supplies that hadn’t been touched in years to sentimental keepsakes from which the actual sentiment had long since faded. This was as good a time as any to offload that stuff.

But the things that mattered, I was moving out now. Saori was holding onto most of it, because she had way more house than she used, and Derek was taking the rest. Electronics, weapons, tools that I actually used, useful supplies, and the plants were all getting moved out of this building today.

“I don’t really know what’s going to happen here,” I continued as I went around the room tending to the latter before I carried them downstairs. “There are too many unknowns for that. But I’m pretty sure it will get messy, and probably bloody, and I doubt I’ll be coming back to this place afterwards.”

The autumn crocus was excited, and had a feeling of frenzied laughter in it. That plant seemed to just kinda be that way, bloodthirsty and exuberant about it. It was much the same as how the sundew upstairs consistently felt like it was smirking after I got laid, and how the mint by the kitchen always felt somehow eager and enthusiastic when I was cooking.

That difference between them, and the way it seemed to be consistent, was part of why I couldn’t dismiss this as the product of my own mind. It was hard to think of it as me projecting when the plants didn’t even respond to things in the same ways.

It was also why I was making sure to move them out first. Strictly speaking, it would have been smarter to leave most of them in the house for now. I had no doubt this building was being surveiled by one means or another, and that made things delicate right now. If it were too obvious that I was expecting trouble, then it might look suspicious to the person or persons watching me. Leaving at least the plants I could easily replace where they were would probably be smart. But if they had even this rudimentary of mental functions, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. It would feel…fundamentally wrong.

“I don’t know when things are going to get rolling, either,” I continued as I finished watering them. “I’m expecting Silas’s person to show up tonight. Reasonably confident she’s a vampire, so I’m probably not going to hear from her until after sundown, but beyond that I have no idea. So I figure I’ll get everything arranged early just to be safe.”

The wolfsbane felt hungry, like it was encouraging me in this plan. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“I think I’m actually looking forward to it, weirdly enough.” I finished with the watering, and started actually getting ready to carry them downstairs. “It’s kinda stupid of me given that I’m intentionally putting myself into a dangerous position. But at least it will be doing something. I’m kinda tired of waiting for other people to act on my life. Being proactive like this feels like a nice change. I’ll let you know how it goes, I guess, assuming I don’t die.”

The autumn crocus was still laughing. The wolfsbane felt hungry. The skimmia seemed sad to me, and the foxglove was laughing too, though it felt less violent, more just amused.

Yup. Still insane, which I supposed was at least useful confirmation. I sighed, and started carrying my poisons downstairs.

---

It ended up being closer to midnight than sundown when I got a text from an unfamiliar number. It was very straightforward, to a degree that I had to admire. Arrived from S. Albany re: K.S. Rendezvous?

I wasn’t entirely sure whether she was being careful because she knew this number might be being surveiled, or she was paranoid as a general policy. Or, hell, maybe she really was this terse and it was just how she communicated. Regardless, the end result was anonymous in the extreme. Even if someone did intercept this text, it was virtually meaningless without context. The S, alone, registered more like “south” than “Silas”, and my initials weren’t all that rare.

Which, honestly, did a lot to convince me of its authenticity. It fit both with the reputation of paranoia that vampires had, and the impression I had of Silas himself. He was crisp, brisk, professional to the extent that he had a profession. It made sense that someone he sent would exhibit the same traits.

I was similarly terse in my response. I didn’t even acknowledge the message, just sent the address of Softened Dreams without explanation. It was the best option I could think of. I’d just had an object lesson in why public parks weren’t always the best plan, and I’d be an idiot to try that again so soon. My house wasn’t an option, and I was hardly going to invite a vampire into a friend’s home.

So, Softened Dreams. I was guessing someone would be spying on it somehow, but I was certain that they wouldn’t actually be able to bug the coffeehouse itself. If nothing else, Lacuna literally never left the building, and they were very attentive to it. I had a hard time picturing someone managing to plant a listening device or camera inside the building. So, the hypothetical attacker might know I was here, and might even know I was meeting with someone, but they wouldn’t know what was said.

Not ideal. But it would have to do.

Saori came with me, citing a need to keep me from somehow managing to exsanguinate myself while unsupervised. I felt that I had been doing a decent job of that so far, but she was insistent, and I did need a ride.

And besides, I had to admit that having there was comforting, and not just because I liked her company. I wasn’t too worried about the person I was here to meet being hostile, and I wasn’t expecting another attack so soon after the last. But I’d be an idiot to rely fully on either of those expectations. It was good to have someone I trusted along to watch my back.

Granted, a lot of people would say I was also an idiot to trust Saori. I wasn’t too concerned, though. The kitsune was a violent lunatic, but she was my violent lunatic. She might well get me killed, but it wouldn’t be by betrayal

It was, once again, easy to spot my contact. This time, though, that was because the coffeehouse was almost literally empty. Lacuna was there, of course, and tonight Hope was as well, and the two were sitting at the bar together. Hope was doing something on a laptop, while Lacuna was cuddled up next to her resting their head on her shoulder.

I honestly had no idea how people were scared of Lacuna as a person. When I looked at this, the notion of feeling nervous about them making skin contact with me was absurd. Lacuna was adorable, and around Hope, in particular, it was easy to see that sweetness. The fact that they were also one of the more dangerous people I’d ever met really didn’t change that.

The only other person in the room was a young woman in the back corner, sitting with her back to the wall watching the door. Or, at least, a young-looking woman. She looked about the same age I did, around that of a freshman in college. Hell, Saori looked about the same age too, and it was utterly unreliable for all three of us. Kitsune lived for centuries, I was pretty sure I’d inherited enough raiju to do the same, and while this vampire might have been in college when she died, that meant very little. My understanding was that vampires sort of…froze in the moment of death, and didn’t show much change afterwards.

And she was a vampire. Any doubt I’d had of that vanished when we hit the door. With the room so empty, I could feel her aura right away, and that signature was distinctive, a low red-pulsing hunger and a smell not so far from Maddie’s, blood that wasn’t quite what blood should be. The scent was distorted in a different way, though, like it had notes of anise mixed into it, or maybe licorice.

“Well,” I said. “Here goes nothing, I guess.”

“Good luck, let me know if you need anyone set on fire and/or stabbed repeatedly in the liver.” Saori was grinning.

I blinked. “Okay, so first off, why the hell would I want to set anyone on fire here? And second, only the liver?”

“It does seem unlikely,” she admitted. “But I find it’s best to keep options open, and livers are very nutritious. Anyway, don’t have a lot to contribute to the actual planning, so. C’mon, ’Cloud, let’s see if we can get Lacuna to play dice.”

The two of them wandered off, presumably to cheat at dice against the exceptionally dangerous cinnamon roll. Honestly, the question really wasn’t “will Saori’s shenanigans get me killed” so much as “how have they not already gotten her killed years ago?”

Meanwhile, I walked over and sat down across the table from the vampire, who had watched this whole byplay without any reaction whatsoever. I was almost sure she’d heard it, given that the room was otherwise silent and what I knew about vampires suggested her hearing was as good as mine. Similarly, I was sure that Hope and Lacuna would hear most of this conversation. I wasn’t too worried about that, though.

“Kyoko, I presume?” she said as I sat down. Her smile showed teeth. They looked perfectly normal, not like fangs at all. She had no discernible accent, but I noted that she got my name right, which most Americans didn’t.

“Yup. Glad you could make it.” I didn’t actually thank her. To the best of my knowledge that didn’t actually matter; with fae the implicit acknowledgment of debt could get you in trouble, but vampires didn’t have the same fixation on debts and bargains. Still, it seemed polite to extend that wariness. Much like how Ekaterina had apologized for her minion deciding to jump me alone, in some ways. In my circles acknowledging someone as dangerous and acknowledging them as competent were…virtually synonymous.

“Lily, a pleasure. Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier. Travel arrangements can be…difficult.”

Somehow, I had no difficulty believing that one. I could imagine the hassle involved in traveling between cities while being absolutely certain that the sun wouldn’t reach you.

“How much did Silas tell you about the situation?”

Lily shrugged. “Virtually nothing.”

I nodded. “Alright. Well, the short version is that there are several people trying to kill me. I need some external support in trying to find and deal with them. I’m not sure how long it will take; Silas and I agreed on a week at most, but it might be shorter than that. And…yeah, I think that’s about the gist of it.”

She nodded, once. “Understood. Do you have immediate plans?”

I grinned. “Yes, actually, and you’re rather central to them. Let me explain.”

By the time I finished the second sentence, Lily was staring at me. By the time I finished going through the plan in full detail, she was still staring at me, and she had also gone dead still.

That wasn’t a metaphor. When humans go still, they’re still moving quite a bit. They blink. They breathe. They fidget occasionally, or a muscle twitches. Lily…didn’t. When she went still, she was still like a statue, or like the corpse she in some ways was.

“Silas told me that you were an interesting person,” she said, once I was done. “I see that he remains as fond of understatement as usual.”

I snickered. “But can you do it?”

Lily shrugged. “I mean, I can do the things you’re asking. I can’t promise that it will work, not without knowing a lot more about the attacker. Are you planning to do this tomorrow night?”

“Yup!” I was still grinning, and it felt sincere. “I don’t think tonight is feasible, but I’d rather not wait around, either.”

Lily nodded again, quick and sharp. She’d started breathing again now, which didn’t surprise me. Vampires were fundamentally carnivorous, and passing as human well enough to get close to them was essential to that. I imagined that things like breathing, though unnecessary, were habitual as a hunting adaptation. She wouldn’t stop for long without a good reason.

“Understood. I should scout the area before dawn. Anything else?”

“Nope,” I said cheerfully. “You’ve got my contact information if you need anything.”

Lily left, and the room was most of the way to empty again. Looking over at the few people who were still present, I saw that Saori had in fact managed to convince Lacuna to play dice. They were sitting on the floor, because it would be awkward for Raincloud to sit at the bar. It was awkward for her to play in the first place, but she found workarounds for things, and she was already learning to cheat despite not even being the one who rolled the dice. Saori truly had a gift for it, and she was an excellent teacher. Lacuna, meanwhile, was sitting on the floor with their head resting against Hope’s leg. She was still on her laptop, though she was clearly amused at the game.

Seriously, just…how people worried about Lacuna harming them was beyond me. Outside of a single, easily-avoidable circumstance, they were one of the sweetest people I knew.

I wandered over and sat down at the bar next to them. The bar itself was gorgeous, made entirely of glass with swirls of vivid color shot through it, and to my eyes it shimmered with the magic woven into it to reinforce the glass. Hope’s art collection as a whole was gorgeous, but this piece in particular was one I admired every time I saw it.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she said as I sat down. Her voice was soft, quiet and with an almost lilting tone. Though she really didn’t need to speak loudly. There were only five people in the room, and given that count included Lacuna and Raincloud, it was very quiet in there.

“I know,” I sighed. “But it’s the only game in town. And even a bad hand in a rigged game is better than sitting here holding aces and eights.”

“Wait,” Saori interjected. “Why the hell do you know that line? I would have guessed that if anyone here was going to reference a dead man’s hand, it would be me.”

I paused, then shrugged. “Now that you mention it, I’m actually not sure. Might have been Derek, or someone back in Tokyo or something. I know the reference, but I don’t remember where I picked it up.”

“I probably should have known better than to use that idiom,” Hope said wryly. “But the fact remains that you’re putting yourself into a dangerous position, using yourself as bait like this.”

I laughed. “I’m already in a dangerous position, Hope. Honestly, I got stupid lucky to get out of the last round alive. Dodging four bullets in a row is…not something I want to rely on pulling off again.”

“Hm. I suppose that’s fair.” Hope was quiet for a moment, and the only sounds were the rattling of dice and the rhythmic tapping of her keyboard. “I’ve a question, if I may. I’ve been meaning to ask for a while, but this seems like the right occasion.”

I could never quite get a clear sense of Hope. I wasn’t sure whether she was human; her signature was hard to parse, in part because Lacuna was always right there when I saw her, draining energy flows away. Sometimes she seemed modern, like she actually was the thirty-five she looked. Other times, much less so. This was one of the other times.

But I did like her, so I just shrugged. “I don’t know that I have an answer, but you can ask.”

She smiled, though it didn’t reach her lips; I could only really see it around her eyes. “We’ve spoken in the past about your ability to sense the magic around you. Have you put any thought into whether you might also be able to manipulate that energy?”

I laughed. “Can you imagine a world where I hadn’t? I’ve tried quite a few times, and gotten nowhere with it. As far as I can tell, my power is purely passive. I can do some things most people can’t, stronger and faster and so on, but that’s not really something I do consciously.”

Hope nodded, clearly having expected this answer. She was quiet for a few moments. Saori cackled as she was, improbably, vindicated in her accusation that Lacuna was a liar to claim two fours. Then, casually, Hope asked, “When was the last time you tried?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then paused as I realized I didn’t know. It had been a while, I knew that, but I actually wasn’t sure when I’d last tried. There had been a bunch of attempts in the first few years after I found out about all this, but they’d failed so completely that I’d given up on the prospect.

How long ago was the last time I really tried to intentionally, consciously do anything outside of perception and a certain amount of the raiju stuff? Five years? More?

Hope had clearly expected this, too, and was looking at me with a faint half-smile, though I couldn’t quite tell what emotion it expressed. Saori was also looking at me, and I couldn’t read her expression at all.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “I…huh. It’s been a while, I think.”

“We, all of us I think, are often blind to changes in those close to us,” Hope said softly. “And in ourselves. Growth, I find, happens incrementally, like other changes. We don’t notice changing, we just find that we are different than we once were. Or in this case, we look around and realize that the things we are capable of are not the same as they once were. We can do things that would be impossible or even unimaginable for the person we once were.”

“Huh. I…yeah, that’s a good point.” I frowned. It was probably an important insight, and as she had said, its applicability to my current situation was obvious. But at the same time, that comment felt…off, somehow. It felt unsettling. It wasn’t just the ominous implication of how the same principle applied to other changes, ones less benign than simple growth. It felt like there was something else, like I was overlooking something.

“Food for thought, perhaps,” Hope said, while Saori and Raincloud stood up. I wasn’t sure whether they could feel my sudden unease, or it just felt like a reasonable time to leave.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It might be.”

I had an uncomfortable feeling of being watched as we left the coffeehouse. Optimistically, I wrote it off as my own neuroticism.

Food for thought. Of a few kinds, and I somehow doubted I was going to like the taste.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter