He laced his fingers together. For a moment, I saw him thinking again, as if considering possible responses. Finally, he shrugged.
“I am young for a seer,” he said.
After a lengthier pause, he leaned his head against the wall.
It wasn’t until another minute or so had passed that I realized that was all the answer I was going to get.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
15
MURDER
The date was May 12th.
I recycled that piece of information from a dropped comment by Revik about our flights, when we would arrive in Tai Pei versus when we left the airport in Vancouver, BC. I didn’t really hear him when he said it; the fact hit me such that I stopped my hand in mid-motion before the white, triangle-shaped skirt of the woman symbol on the bathroom door of the diner where we’d stopped to eat breakfast.
I stood there, frozen, for more than one heartbeat.
I thought of my mom. My eyes lit on a pay phone bolted inside a shadowed alcove to my right. I blinked at it, nearly hallucinating with fatigue, then glanced behind me, watching Revik’s back as he slumped into a red vinyl booth.
Completing the motion of my hand, I entered the restroom.
On my way out, minutes later, I spotted a black plastic tray covered in Canadian coins on an empty table. Scooping it up, I dumped the change into my palm and left the tray on the bar without breaking stride. My fellow-waitress code brought me a twinge of guilt, but I shook it off.
I slid into the creaking booth across from Revik.
“You got me coffee?” I said.
He nodded. I saw him tracking faces and sighed, relieved when I realized he’d barely noticed my absence.
I drank coffee and he used his to warm his hands. Our waitress came back, topped off both of our cups, then lingered, smiling at Revik.
“Know what you want to eat yet, honey?”
He frowned, picking up the menu. “No. Go away.”
The woman froze, her mouth open. I stared at him too, equally surprised, but more amused than our waitress. Snapping her mouth shut, she turned and walked away, taking her coffee pot with her.
I watched her go, then noted Revik’s eyes on mine. I followed his gaze to my hands, which were methodically shredding a paper napkin. I pushed the napkin away.
“They can’t help it,” he said. He seemed to mean his words to be reassuring. “We’ll both distract people for awhile. Humans, too.”
“Distract people?” I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, lifting his coffee mug to his lips. He took a sip of the dark brown fluid, then grimaced, lowering the mug back to the table.
I smiled. “What? Did you forget you didn’t like it?”
He fingered the mug’s ceramic handle, frowning at me slightly.
Glancing at the bar counter, I said, “Well, you’d better not order anything now. They spit in the food sometimes, you know.” When he didn’t look over, I tried again.
“How will we know Ullysa’s people?”
“They’ll know me. I’ll likely know some of them.”
I nodded, reacting slightly to his words. I didn’t know what triggered my reaction at first. Then my eyes followed a man outside, watching him stare at a woman in a skin-tight miniskirt standing across the street. She smiled at him, her mouth a dark red slash, and I found my thoughts drifting to Seattle.
“So we just get on the plane?” I said evenly.
“Yes.” Watching my face, he added, softer, “There is nothing to worry about, Allie.”
Hearing the second meaning under his words, I pretended I hadn’t...which wasn’t hard, since I had only the vaguest idea what it was about.
I tried to think instead about where we’d be in the next two days. In the course of our awkward “talk” the night before, Revik said the part of Russia where we’d be going remained nearly wild, almost untouched. Bears roamed the tundra and woods, along with wolves, eagles, foxes. I thought about my mom’s fascination with wolves and smiled...then frowned, glancing over my shoulder at the bathroom door.
“Okay.” I looked at him. “I have to go again. I think it’s the coffee.”
I watched his eyes focus out the window, coming to rest on the same woman I’d been looking at seconds before.
His gaze sharpened and flickered down, appraising.
“Okay,” I repeated. I planted my hands on the table and stood. “I’ll be back.”
He didn’t look up as I left.
When I glanced back, he was still looking out the window. He took another sip of lukewarm coffee as I watched, and grimaced.
I slid onto the wooden bench under the pay phone and lifted the receiver, throwing all the coins I had into the slot. I found myself relieved they even had coin phones in Canada; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one in SF. I punched in the familiar number, shifting so that my back faced the corridor.