Vicious Grace

“What kinds of questions do we want him to ask?”



For the next two hours, we built up a rough questionnaire and speculated on different kinds of riders, different flavors of magic. Kim and Aubrey relaxed slowly into the conversation, and my own unease faded even if it didn’t go completely away. Ex and Aubrey went on a long side track about the causes of shared dreams, including one particularly unpleasant one we’d all had once when something very powerful was looking for us. Kim suggested taking Oonishi’s dream data to someone who could do image enhancement, maybe put together the six versions of the dream to find more detail than we had in the raw feed. I had my laptop out and was typing up the instructions to my lawyer almost before Kim was done pitching the idea. It was nearly ten o’clock when, between one breath and the next, my BLT wore off. We hadn’t done anything sensible like grocery shop, but I found a late-night sushi bar that delivered.



By the time the five boxes of nigiri sushi and assorted hand rolls appeared, Kim and Ex were sitting on the floor together, going over the wording on our final list of questions, while Chogyi Jake and Aubrey and I watched the data files from Oonishi for what must have been the hundredth time.



It was like the air we were breathing had changed. Working together, all of us prodding at the same problem, exploring the same terra incognita, took all the history and baggage and awkwardness away, and left me with this small family I’d made for myself. We fought some; we pushed each other’s buttons sometimes. That was what family meant.



There was a moment just before Kim left at midnight when I stood back and let myself watch us all like we were on television. The way Ex sat, leaning forward, pushing back the lock of hair that had escaped his ponytail. Kim’s pinched, serious expression, and the dark circles under her eyes. The windows behind us all, night making them into mirrors so that the boat lights seemed to blink and shift through Chogyi Jake’s shoulder and past Aubrey’s head. It was a moment of real peace.



My high-water mark.



SEVEN



Morning shouldered its way past the thick curtains, pressing in around the edges. Aubrey, on the other side of my bed, muttered and pulled the pillow over his eyes. I tried to convince myself that the muzzy feeling in my head meant I could still fall back asleep. Ex coughed once in the kitchen. His feet shifted softly on the tile. Sunlight streaked the ceiling above me. I was awake.



My brothers aside, I’d seen only four men naked, and one of those had been a wholly awkward fifteen seconds with my dorm mate and her boyfriend. Aubrey, half under our shared sheet, was the oldest man I’d ever slept with. I’d always thought he was beautiful. Sure, he had a little belly, and his hair stood up like a metalhead’s from the eighties until he washed it down. I pulled on my robe quietly, watching him sleep. There were scars on his body, some of them the result of skirmishes against the possessed. There was damage I couldn’t see too. Spells that Uncle Eric had taught him that had taken a toll. And maybe other things.



I pulled my hair back with one hand so it wouldn’t brush against him, kissed the small of his back, and slipped out the door. The flood of sunlight didn’t wake him. I walked into the kitchen and the smell of fresh coffee.



“You’re looking thoughtful,” Ex said. “Anything wrong?”



“No,” I said with a yawn. “Just booting up. Where’s Chogyi Jake?”



“Meditating. As always.”



“I probably should do that too. I’m feeling . . . I don’t know. Restless,” I said, sitting at the small kitchen table. The view of Lake Michigan in daylight was astounding. It was the kind of thing you paid an extra million for. I wondered idly how much the condo had actually cost. The clock said it was almost nine o’clock, and I wasn’t sure if that felt too late or too early.



“You probably should,” Ex said. “Good news is he went shopping first. Bacon and eggs?”



“Oh, Jesus, please,” I said. “And tell me that’s not just coffee incense or something sadistic like that.”



Ex grinned and found a cup, rinsing the dust out of it before he poured. My laptop was still in the living room. I’d left it turned on, and the battery was empty. I strung the power cord to an outlet in the kitchen and waited for the operating system to finish bitching at me while I drank my coffee. After a year together, we all knew one another’s taste, and Ex made my coffee with just enough sugar and no milk.



“No word from Kim yet,” he said. I felt a wash of confused emotion: pleasure that Kim wasn’t there, shame at being pleased, and resentment for being made to feel shame. I knew I was being petty and stupid, but that didn’t stop it from happening. I covered by taking another drink of coffee before I answered.



“Were we expecting her?” I asked.



“Not particularly. I’m a little concerned about her going back into the hospital alone, though. After what happened.”



“Whatever it was, I don’t think it was after her,” I said.



“Yesterday, it wasn’t. Today’s a whole new ball game.”



“Always is, feels like. She’ll do the right thing. She’s a big girl.”



There was e-mail waiting from my lawyer. She had called an acquaintance who ran an image and video enhancement service for the State Department and who would be happy to spend a couple hours on my project. She gave me his e-mail address and a link he’d provided for uploading the data files to him. As I started the transfer—about twenty minutes remaining, even with the high-speed connection—the pop and sizzle of frying bacon brought me back to the room. I sighed and stretched. Ex was reading through a thick file of papers even as he cooked. I recognized the study logs Oonishi had brought us.



“Anything interesting?” I asked.



“Some background on the subjects. We should think about contacting them directly.”



“If we need to,” I said.



He looked over at me. Half silhouetted by a wide stretch of water and sky, he looked softer than usual.



“It might upset the client,” he said.



“That would suck,” I said casually.



“Might upset Kim. This is her colleague we’re working for, after all.”



“Then we won’t do it unless we need to,” I said. “But if it’s piss someone off or don’t figure this out, there’s some feelings going to get bruised.”



Ex grinned and turned back to the bacon. I spooled through my other e-mail. Spam. A note from Trevor in Montana about processing a refund for the extra, unused training time. A note from my little brother, Curtis. I opened my brother’s e-mail. He was back for his senior year in high school, which made me feel old all by itself. He had a girlfriend that Mom and Dad were doing their best to ignore. Jay, my older brother, was living in Orlando, and had just gotten engaged. Curtis speculated irreverently about whether Jay had gotten her knocked up. I wouldn’t have said it to anyone, but that was my guess too. I started to reply to him, then dropped the message into the drafts folder. I needed to think a little before I wrote back. Maybe after I’d gotten a little more blood sugar.



I had never told the rest of the family what happened after I’d left ASU. As far as they knew, I was still the standard college dropout, wandering the face of the earth in search of permanent employment. Or possibly whoring myself out for drug money. My parents didn’t have a good opinion of anyone’s moral character unless they went to our church. I’d always thought of them as prudish, self-righteous, and narrow. Only the stories Eric had told Aubrey about my mother’s affair gave evidence of clay feet, and I wasn’t about to tell Curtis any of that. Maybe once he was safely out of the house too. Until then, I was playing everything close to the vest with the family, even the ones I liked. I didn’t know what any of them would have made of my traveling companions, my chosen work, or my million-dollar view of the lake. If it really was a million-dollar view.



I connected to our private wiki and looked for the list of properties. I found the condo easily. It was actually a seven-million-dollar view with an entry that read like a real estate ad: North Lake Drive, 5bdrm, 3bth, and the obscure notations Eric had made, YNTH and DC1. I lingered over the notations as Ex put a plate in front of me. The Los Angeles DC1 house had held some of the most useful, interesting documents we’d found so far. But this place was so free from occult anything, it was like a rental. There wasn’t even a copy of Fortean Times in the bathroom. I scooped up my fork and took a bite of the eggs.



“Mmm,” I said. “Nice.”



“Thanks,” Ex said.



“You know,” I said around a mouthful of breakfast. “I understand in my head how much money Eric left me, but it makes me a little dizzy sometimes.”



Ex sat down across from me with his own plate and cup of coffee. He ate with a seriousness that made it seem like a chore.



“It surprises me too,” he said. “The things we don’t know about Eric would . . . Jayné? What’s the matter?”



A small tapping sound caught my attention. It was me, my left hand fidgeting at the keyboard. Something shifted in the back of my head, an idea I hadn’t quite had yet. Aubrey yawned in the bedroom, and Chogyi Jake walked into the kitchen behind me with catlike near silence. The penny dropped.



I said something obscene.



“Did something happen?” Chogyi Jake said. Ex stared at me. The bedroom door opened, but I didn’t look back. I was pointing at the wiki page.



“You were right,” I said. “You kept saying it, but I didn’t snap until just now. The place is too small.”



“What’s going on?” Aubrey said behind me.



“Eric’s condo has five bedrooms,” I said. “We’re in the wrong place.”



IT TOOK me five minutes to find the manila envelope Harlan Jeffers had given me the day before; it was under the couch, and his card was still in it. An hour later, we all headed down to the building management offices. Chogyi Jake had his point-man suit on, and the rest of us were also dressed to intimidate. Walking across the lobby, I felt like the opening sequence of Reservoir Dogs, only with wider ties. Harlan stood in the office doorway, face pale and eyes a little too round. I could see white all the way around his irises.