Selling Out (31 page)

“We played cards. Talked. He seemed to think you could handle anything.”

“But you didn’t.”

He took a deep breath and his chin dropped as he fixed her with a blinkless gaze. He was deadly serious. “Li, you’re not long out of rehabilitation. The last month has been full of major shit and for some reason you and Delaware are about the only people who don’t seem to notice that you’re generating one mother of a psychic wake. Probably ’cause you and she are fighting for the lead role in
Cleopatra, Queen of Denial
. The only reason the turbulence isn’t killing you is that you run so damned fast. But you can’t keep the speed up, baby. You just can’t. All of us adepts can feel your pain.” He glanced at the red jewel in her ear. “Even Zal can’t do it. You’re going to crash and I don’t want you to burn.”

“I . . .”

Malachi cut her off without hesitation. “Nah, you’re just doing what most people would do. The interesting question here is why Delaware is doing it too. I never had much feel for her. She’s got the aetheric sensibility of haddock. It’s in her interests to make sure you succeed. But instead she overrules Williams and Silly the elf, and everyone else in sight. You have to wonder about that. Except, you’re kept too busy with all this distraction and that suits her fine. Nothing was nicer for her than the moment you hooked up with Zally and gave her a primary link into one of the biggest and oddest mystery people in the seven worlds. Without that she’d have had to hire an entire division just to follow him around.” He nodded and soberly held out the brown paper bag to her.

She grasped it as she stared at him. Her mind was turning over what he’d said, slowly, like looking at a fragile jewel and suddenly noticing it was much more complicated than you thought. So many faces. “Six,” she said automatically. “Worlds.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was thinking of Samurai.”

She looked at him a moment longer and saw that his frank, flat gaze meant that he knew perfectly well what he’d said, and meant it, then noticed the bag was cold. She opened it and saw a pint of mint choc-chip ice cream and a wooden gnome spoon (see it here, see it there, things taste better off faery-ware!).

“Worry about it later,” he suggested, starting the engine and backing them out expertly. Without asking the directions he drove the way to her sister’s apartment—the long way, through the country park drive. Lila ate the ice cream, careful not to drip any onto her new suit. When she was done she threw the spoon into the grass at the roadside, ready for the gnomes to collect, and crumpled the empty carton and bag in her hand. The car drew to a stop. They were there.

She fumbled her shades and put them back on her face, pushing them right up close to her eyes. Her hands didn’t shake but she felt like they were. In a flash she remembered the first time she’d seen them. They were so convincing she hadn’t known they weren’t hers until she reached out to pick up a glass of water and shattered it. Her hand closed into a fist and it didn’t open until a doctor with a portable keyboard came and plugged something in behind her back. She’d thought he plugged it into a wall socket. Later she discovered he’d plugged it into her spine. It took a few months to get the calibrations right.

“I can’t do this,” she said, mostly to herself. As far as her sister knew Lila had gone to Alfheim on a work trip over a year ago and never returned. Nobody who knew her had seen or heard from her since. The reasons for that had always seemed so good—make sure you’re better, make sure you work, make sure of this and that . . . don’t want to get their hopes up and then . . . Lila, you can be our best agent . . . you have no choice but you can be it. And then don’t call because what to say? She felt like they belonged in a different universe to the one she moved in now. She wasn’t allowed to talk about any of it. What could possibly explain it, then? And the guilt was overpowering, crushing, because of course she should have called them to say she was alive the moment she was able to speak. How could she have said that she didn’t want them to see her like this? They’d treat her the way they always had, and she’d want to kill them, because she was nothing like the same and their presence would be an eternal reproach—you left us and now you refuse to turn back. She’d be there, but she wouldn’t. The Lila they knew didn’t exist any more. It was easier now to live without them. She’d often thought about them dying—that it would be better. No more worry about them and knowing they couldn’t think about her any more. They were dead and that era was over, dead with them. And she was free.

Where was Zal?

“Want me to come up with you?”

She shook her head mutely and put the balled up paper back in the door side pocket before pulling the ancient handle and getting out. As she straightened a sleek black car drew up in a spatter of gravel and hissed to a halt beside them in the lot. The door opened and Cara Delaware got out: perfect black suit, black shirt, black glasses, sleeked hair drawn clear of her face, perfect lipstick, killer heels. She looked about five degrees cooler than the surrounding air. Her door closed with a soft whisper behind her. Cara walked forward with a professional smile, her hand held out to shake.

“Welcome back,” she said, warm and friendly with that hint of viper overtone that Lila had always admired. You knew where you stood with Cara. Nowhere.

Lila pushed the Eldorado’s door closed and enjoyed its heavy slam. “What’re you doing here?” She didn’t take the hand which was withdrawn calmly.

“At such a difficult time I felt it was only proper the agency offered you full support. It can’t be easy.” She glanced at Lila’s clothing with what may have been a hint of envy and more than a hint of mild disapproval.

“Nothing’s been easy,” Lila said. “But I’m fine. I’ve got Malachi.”

“Ah yes, Malachi,” she stepped around Lila and leaned her hands on the Eldorado’s hood. “Now that I’m here to take care of things you can return to your investigations at the office.” Her polite textbook words did nothing to hide her order.

Lila bristled with loathing. “I want him around.”

They were interrupted by the door opening. Two dark shapes rushed out of the gap, across the porch, and down the steps, barking. They barrelled straight for Lila for a moment and then both stopped and hesitated, sniffing and looking, their heads to one side, then the other, tails wagging uncertainly, lips twitching.

“Rusty! Buster!” Lila crouched down instantly and put her arms down, hands to the floor in let’s-play position. She was so grateful and happy to see them for that minute she didn’t care about Delaware or whatever reason she’d chosen to show up.

At the sound of her voice they dashed forward, confident they’d been right the first time.

“Hey dogs! Hey boys!” Lila stroked heads and ruffled ears as the two ancient retrievers bashfully licked her face and wagged themselves off balance in apology for their moment of nonrecognition. She felt the softest glimmer of a strange kind of feeling from Tath inside her chest, something so unusual from him she didn’t know it at first, until she realised it was the same fleeting sensation she had right then, amid the hearty bustle of thrilled-to-bits dog buddies: happiness. From behind them inside the house a figure appeared, running a few steps and then pausing . . .

“Lila?” Maxine’s amazement was held back a fraction, waiting to break out. Her voice was tight and creaky, the sound of someone who’s been crying too much.

Lila looked up, a smile on her face from the enthusiasm of the dogs, and Buster buffeted her with his nose and knocked off her glasses.

Maxine gasped and her hands flew to her mouth as she took in the sheer silver surfaces of Lila’s eyes. “Oh my god! What happened?”

Lila didn’t really blame her. Dogs were creatures of the nose. People liked to look you in the eye and that wasn’t really possible with her anymore. “Hey Max,” she said, straightening up with a big sister swagger she thought she’d forgotten. She was aware of Malachi getting out of the car behind her, and Delaware, closing in a step and then thinking twice about it. Rusty and Buster made happy noises, snuffling around her feet and examining her skirt hem for news of where she’d been.

Staring for another minute, Maxine came down the steps and glanced left and right at the other two, and the cars. Then with a moment of courage she decided to ignore both strangers and enveloped Lila in a tight hug. “Where did you go? What happened to you? Why didn’t you call us? Where have you been?”

Don’t notice, don’t notice, don’t notice
, Lila thought as she hugged back and felt the fragile form of her always-too-thin sister. If possible she was even taller and thinner than Lila remembered. Her body felt soft and friable. Her face was grey and there were dark-brown half-circles under her eyes—still their usual hazel brown. She smelled of cigarettes and her breath was full of last night’s wine.

“I was in an accident,” Lila said with the airiness of an almost utter lie and glanced sideways at Delaware. “I’ve been in hospital.”

“Buh . . .” Maxine let go and looked at the others with more unease, referring back to Lila for information with a face full of uncertainty.

“Oh, this is my partner, my colleague, from work, a friend, Malachi,” Lila said clumsily and quickly in an attempt to dismiss their presence, which she didn’t want. “And this is my boss. She’s come to pay her respects.”

Max shook hands with them both as if it didn’t matter too much to her. Her eyes slid off their faces and into a distant nowhere with a greasy flatness that scared Lila more than anything that had happened to herself. “Fey,” Max said with a smile at Malachi that didn’t quite make it beyond the corners of her mouth. “A lot of you were with the police. I never saw so many before. I didn’t know . . . Liles worked with outworlders.” She finished her sentence as though she’d already forgotten the start by the time she got to the end.

“Max, you look awful,” Lila said rapidly, cutting off that line before it could go anywhere. “Can I come in? They’ll stay outside. We need to talk.”

“Oh, sure.” Maxine shivered suddenly and clamped her arms around herself, hugging her ribs through her thin T-shirt, then, part way through going back to the house turned and said, “Can we go down to the beach instead? I hate being here. We can take the dogs. They need a walk.” Rusty and Buster rushed up to her at the sound of the word “walk” and bounced around for a few moments until their elderly legs had enough. They turned towards the narrow path that ran between the houses here to the road that led to the shore.

Max walked after them, stiff-legged herself, and Lila followed, glancing once over her shoulder at Malachi, who gave her a nod and indicated he’d wait in the car for however long it took. Delaware stood uncertainly, unable to enter the house or to follow. Lila was pleased but it didn’t linger as she set off after Max and the dogs. Even without her assisted senses she was aware of the pale blue clapboard house behind them with its white-edged windows watching them go. They were always running out of it, along this sandy, grassy pathway, past where the expensive houses sat on bigger lots with beachfront views and crisp green gardens like giant bowls of salad, constantly cleared of sand by the eternal rain of sprinklers waving celebration fountains. Oh, she’d wanted one of those.

Ahead of her Max’s shoulder blades stuck out at awkward angles. The T-shirt looked like she slept in it. A familiar, but forgotten, grinding pain started up in Lila’s belly. She wanted to run and catch up, but at the same time she didn’t. She didn’t know what had happened, and she was afraid to find out. She walked faster and put a hand on Max’s shoulder, pretending not to notice the flinch that happened under her hand. She put it down.

“You first,” they both said at the same moment and for a second their gazes met and they were grinning, like the old days, when that kind of thing happened a lot and they were hoping the other would come up with a better story, a better plan.

“You look like a Regency action figure,” Max said. “So, get well a long time ago?”

Lila absorbed the accusation and the observation and set her teeth. She wanted to get on with Max, not aggravate her, though it was hard. “About six months ago.”

“We didn’t go anywhere. Still got the phone connected. Surprising really. How lucky that the government paid out so well on your insurance . . .” Max physically bit her lips together until they went white. Then she sighed. “That was the wrong thing to say. I was gonna save it until later but your sudden return from nowhere got me on the wrong foot.”

“You never needed time.”

“Hah, no,” Max said, “but the thing is, this time it’s gonna be harder. I took your room and most of your stuff. You know. Missing means dead. And Mum and Dad, they were always such airhead optimists . . .” She stopped and put her hand over her mouth tentatively though there didn’t seem to be more words to stop. They had reached the shoreline. The dogs bowled steadily over the sand, determined to enjoy themselves.

“Max, how long have you been like this?” Lila asked, trying to cut past the indirection and not notice how much she sounded like Dad. He’d never had the patience for a roundabout way of anything. He was slow, but direct. She wasn’t slow.

“This?” Max plucked at her shirt and ran a hand through her hair. She coughed theatrically and smiled at herself, cynically. “This is pretty new actually. Just since the day before yesterday.”

Lila was prepared to take it at face value. Max had never had much time for eating and the necessities of life. “Did you find them?” She almost winced herself at that one.

“Yeah. And I saw a thing too.” As if Max hadn’t been a bad colour before she paled further and shivered under the hot sky. “It was right there in the room. Hm! D’you remember before the bomb? None of these things were real.” She sounded spacey and reached out for Lila’s hand, finding it, then rejecting it out of spite, the way she had to when she didn’t want to look weak.

Lila’s heart ached but she knew any show of kindness would be wasted, until later. She stuck to the brute facts. Toughness was Max’s preferred mode. “What did you see?”