13: Red-handed

"So," Jack finished, looking pleased by the crowd of upturned faces before him, "any questions? I s'pose it'd be good of me to let you ask a few, right? I'm feeling generous, so go right ahead."

I leaned against the counter at such an angle that I could see through the kitchen's archway, into the hall, and through the glass panel in the front door. I was watching for Sidney.

Magdalena sat at the kitchen table. The dinner that she'd made sat untouched on the stove beside me. Steak—she'd made him steak, and he hadn't even looked at it. She looked as if she was thinking the same thing, herself. Her head was down. She stared at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

"No questions?" he asked. No one moved. I looked over at Thistle. She was staring hard at the ground around Jack's feet. Sitting close beside her was Ambrose, whose eyes were unfocused—like he was imagining all those who would die, soon. I took grim pleasure in this. He didn't believe in our cause, did he? So let him suffer. Let him suffer like those ridiculous, practically inorganic beings who believed they could mentally feel-up every living being, and who—for all the idiocy in this—still ruled every aspect of an Animal's life. Let him, if that's how he felt. He would pay for it later. Everyone who scorned nature in such a manner would.

"No questions?" Jack repeated.

"Well… Yes," someone said.

I looked over. Thistle. Thistle had said it. Who else had I expected? I tried to catch her eye, let her know that it was a mistake to question him, but she was very carefully looking everywhere but at me.

"Yes?" Jack asked sweetly. "What is it?"

"Well," Thistle repeated slowly. "You've told us the what, and the why, but… I'm still not really clear on the how. On just how you expect to be able to do this. It's so huge-scale, I mean."

He regarded her with something like scornful curiosity for a moment.

"I don't have to tell you, you know," he finally said.

She looked up at him, shocked. Their eyes met, and a slow smile spread across his face. But she did not look away.

I would have.

"But I will," he finally finished, the smile still in place. "Because I want us to be a tight-knit group. I don't wanna rule you by fear."

Magdalena shifted in her seat slightly.

"What I was thinking," he continued, not noticing this, "was that, if Arthur gets the job—and he will—he'll have access to all sorts of codes and things. To get in places, you know? So what I was thinking is, he can start planting stuff right away, in the mechanics, and in places nobody looks in much. We'll play it by ear from there, and see how much gets done like that."

"That's stupid."

I made some small, barely audible noise. Like a gasp that stuck in my throat. Jack noticed, and looked over at me, and then back to Thistle.

"So it's stupid, is it?" he asked. "Wanna tell me why?"

"A couple reasons," she replied, voice getting stronger. It was clear to me that this was her element—arguing. I wondered if she had been on the debate team at her school. "First of all, what if he doesn't get the job? What then? And even if he does, there are bound to be so many other janitors there—how do you know that he'll even have access to most of the building? He might just clean the staff lounge. If the staff room blows up, then, they'll know who did it. Even if he cleans more, who knows if someone will find the explosives? What would happen, then? We'd all be dead, that's what. I think we need to come up with a better plan."

Jack looked over at me again, and then back at Thistle.

"Do you," he said. "Well, then. What would you suggest?"

"I suggest we find all the access codes and things another way—I mean they have to be stored somewhere in the building, right? Because everyone else has to get them somehow. Then we can sneak in at night, pick off the night nurses individually, plant explosives, get out, and blow it up. Who knows? Maybe we could just break in a window or something."

"And you think that's less risky?"

"Yes. We could do it over the holidays. Long breaks."

"But that wouldn't kill any of the doctors, which is in fact a major objective, Thistle."

"We could always take them out at home, couldn't we?"

"…Possibly."

"And all the equipment and fetuses would still be destroyed."

"True."

"And here's the best part—Arthur wouldn't get any blame. He'd be unemployed and with work experience as a Reproduction Clinic janitor. He could get employed at another clinic."

After a moment, Jack nodded.

"I'll consider it. You are all dismissed," he said, and then turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen, toward the stairs.

A clamor started as the Newly Dead all moved as one to get their dinner. Magdalena didn't move at all—she looked as insensate as Ambrose.

Thistle too had gotten to her feet, and was moving toward the stove. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the kitchen and into the living room's far corner.

"That was dangerous, Thistle," I told her. "Very dangerous."

"But—oh, Lory—it worked! He's thinking about it, and my way makes so much more sense!"

"Don't make trouble, Thistle. Even if your way is better, and we do it, he'll remember you as an upstart. It's dangerous."

"He'll remember me as the one who came up with a good idea!" She was delighted—insensibly so.

I tightened my grip on her arm.

"He'll remember you as the one who… who…" I suddenly couldn't think of suitable words. "Who defied him!" I was finally able to finish.

"Lory," came Jack's voice from the top of the stairs. I jerked around.

He was standing on the upstairs landing—for how long he'd been there I couldn't say.

"Leave the girl alone," he said kindly—a benevolent ruler once again. "Both of you, go get dinner. Relax, Lory. Have a little fun." Then he was gone. I heard his bedroom door click shut.

When I turned back to her, Thistle was smiling serenely up at where Jack had been standing.

I squeezed her arm again, and her eyes drifted back to me like she'd forgotten that I still had a hold of her.

"He won't forget this," I warned.

She smiled.

"No," she agreed, "He won't."

At 1:16 the next morning, a clattering downstairs startled me. I wasn't asleep. I often have trouble sleeping. A second, smaller crash following the first drove me out of bed. I crept to the top of the stairs, listening. Laughter in the hallway. Muffled. Sidney.

I hurried down the stairs, and found that he'd somehow managed to knock over both the coat and shoe racks that sat in the entry way. He sat among the scattered shoes, his balled up hand over his mouth in an attempt to smother his laughter. His eyes fairly shone with amusement.

"Sidney," I said a bit reproachfully. "Come on. Get up."

"Go to hell, Lory," he tried to say in the growl that he usually reserved for hung-over mornings, but ended up laughing around it. He doubled over in a particularly fierce spasm of mirth.

"The shoes," he said, "just went flying."

"I'm sure," I said. I went over and pulled him up by one arm. Immediately, I was hit by the sweet smell on him—Amaladine. It was an herbal smell, but in a thoroughly synthetic way. Like pine-scented air fresheners—if you didn't know the intent, you wouldn't connect the two smells at all.

"My God, Lory," he said. "Angelina… She looked so good. Did you see her? You saw her, right? She looked so good."

"I'm sure."

"Did you see her?"

"Sidney, I've been here the whole time."

I looked up the stairs. This could be interesting.

"Yeah," Sidney said vaguely. "She looked good, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did. Stairs, Sidney."

We started taking them slowly.

"Oh, God," he started again. "Did I tell you about the deal she's hooking me up with?"

"Deal? On… what?"

"You know what. Have you tried it? I forget. She always gets the best, though. She looked so good tonight, Lory. I'll let you try some."

"Sidney, shh… You'll wake everyone, if you haven't already."

"You've gotta try it. It's insane."

I jerked open his bedroom door. It was strangely tidy, inside. Almost Spartan, in fact—a few books lined up on a desk, mechanical parts in a clear plastic set of drawers on the far wall, and a line of shoes beside the closet. His bed was unmade, and I dropped him onto it and worked on getting his shoes off—a surprisingly difficult task.

"It's so quiet in here," he said after a while, and then laughed—at what I didn't know. But it was a strange laugh, slow and despairing.

"What is it?" I asked, finally getting his second shoe off.

"I was just thinking," he said lowly, sounding surprisingly sober, "That my prospects might not be so good."

I looked up at his face.

"What?"

He ignored my question, and stared up at the ceiling. I pushed his feet back up on the bed.

"She's a real tigress, you know," he said, conversationally, apropos of nothing. "For someone named Angelina, I mean," he added.

I moved the pillow from where it was resting near the top of the bed, to just above the place where Sidney's head actually was. Grabbing a handful of hair, I pulled his head up, shoved the pillow underneath, and then let go again.

He reached up and touched my face in an almost sensual manner.

"You're such a good friend," he said. His hands were ice cold.

"Go to sleep, Sidney," I said. And then I left. I had to work in the morning, after all.

Morning came too soon. Far too soon. Magdalena said that I was to be at Hoffman's house at 8:00 sharp. I was dressed at seven, before anyone else was even awake. Although, in all honesty, I was not awake either.

I went through our broom closet, assembling every cleaning supply and implement that we had. I put them all in several large buckets and took them to the car.

Before leaving, I went upstairs one last time to check on Sidney.

I eased his door open and called his name.

"Sidney?"

He groaned.

"Go to hell, Lory," he growled.

"Just checking."

I closed the door, and was on my way.

If I thought Beatriz and Edward's house was huge, then suitable words had not been invented to describe Hoffman's. Estate, maybe. Mansion. I was in some kind of awe, until I realized two things. Firstly, he was a Deva. Secondly, I was shortly going to be cleaning this.

All of it.

A boy in servant's attire answered the door. He was a pretty one, that was for damn sure—golden hair that seemed to have its own luminosity, and big green eyes whose thoroughly trusting and stupid nature I associated with well-trained dogs.

He looked up at me with something that well may have been shock. I looked back at him with something that was, in fact, boredom.

"You're supposed to let me in, now," I told him when, after a moment, it appeared that he had no intentions of doing so.

"Oh, but, uh—right. I apologize. I'm new at this."

"I would never have guessed."

"Really? I thought I was doing horribly."

I decided to allow the sarcasm to fly over his head.

"Could I get your name?" he asked. "To tell Mr. Hoffman who's here, I mean?"

"I'm here for the cleaning. Mr. Hoffman sent for me."

"Sachever," came a voice from the inside of the house. "Whoever it is, let them in." The voice had a slow, amused tone—almost a drawl.

The boy—Sachever—stepped aside and pulled the door open. I stepped into a massive entry hall—all gray-green marble and dark wood, with a huge, ornately done spiral staircase leading up to the second-floor balcony.

And, I realized, I would have to dust, mop, and/or polish every nook.

"And you might be…?" the man asked. He was dressed in a bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers—expensive, all. Mr. Hoffman, I assumed.

"Richard Black," I lied easily. "I'm here to clean."

"Oh?" he asked. "I had expected someone a little more…" he looked me over," …female. But you'll do."

"Good," I replied, smiling without humor, "because that would be gender discrimination, and I would have to report you."

He laughed.

"Already I like you. Now listen, I'm not asking much of you, really. This's only employment for about a month. Usually, my wife likes to do the cleaning—God knows why. But she's away visiting her parents. So I need someone else to do it. So the house doesn't look terrible when she gets back. Obviously that's where you come in. I don't even want anything too intensive—just a little light work. Sachever, what the hell are you still doing standing there? Why don't you—"

"Daddy?"

It came from the top of the stairs. All three of us looked up, and …there she was. The girl from the bus stop. Alabaster and walnut. Cream, and crimson, and a thousand other poetic images handed down from the dawn of time, all here in this one girl, this one—

…Deva.

"Yes, Airial?" the man asked, a bit impatiently. And inside of me, a war raged. I'd never seen anyone so perfect, but yes, it would be the final irony that she was the single thing I despised most in the world. How Romeo and Juliet. How sickeningly dramatic, and utterly stupid. And most importantly, how could he talk to her like that?—his own beautiful, Deva, child.

And then, something surprising happened. Airial looked down at me, and laughed.

"I remember you!" she said, and I'd never been so glad of anything before. "You're the litterbug from the other day! How funny it is, that you're cleaning our house!" She laughed again. Laughter like that is what inspired man to invent music.

"You've met?" Hoffman asked.

"Not properly," she said.

"This's Richard Black," he said. I almost wished that I'd given him my real name, just so she'd know it.

"I'm Airial Achard," she replied, smiling, and her smile was like the arc of a rainbow across—I forced myself to stop that line of thought before it got anywhere.

"Not Hoffman?" I said without really meaning to. It was the first rational thought that popped into my head after I forced the poetry away.

"N-no," she mumbled. She looked hurt, and I was sorry that I had asked. "I took my mother's name."

Mr. Hoffman laughed. "Airial's really only half mine," he said.

"Isn't that typically the case?" I wondered.

"Well… yes… What I mean is, she's a bastard. Her mother was an Animal."

On the balcony, Airial looked ashamed.

"Do you have to tell everyone?" she mumbled.

"If you insist on keeping her name, then yes," her father replied caustically, "I have to explain to everyone why."

"She's a half-Deva?" I asked.

"Yes. Got her off of a pretty little girl workin' for me at The Clinic. Hell, I didn't even know I was fertile like that—what a surprise, huh? Working at the Reproduction Clinic all these years, only to find out that I can have kids in the dirty way."

"The natural way," I muttered.

"That too," he laughed. "The wife just about killed me, but I think I've got here just about the only half-Deva in the world. She can't feel the Shekinah, but she—"

"Stop it!" Sachever suddenly shouted, much to the surprise of all. We all turned, almost as one, to look at him. He was clearly very upset.

"Stop what?" Hoffman asked.

"Stop talking about her like… like she's some kind of race-horse that you got a good deal on! She's a person! She's your daughter."

Sachever looked angrily at both of us.

"You know, don't you, Mr. Black? You're an Animal, too, right?" he asked. "Tell him! Tell him to stop treating her like she's a mindless show-horse!"

I was torn momentarily. Defend the beautiful girl and possibly lose the job, or vice versa? It was a quick decision. Airial was awe-inspiring, indeed, but impressing her wasn't going to keep me fed.

I turned back to Mr. Hoffman.

"Where would you like me to start?" I asked.

Hoffman laughed.

"Black," he said, "I like you. And you look hungry. Have breakfast with us. Sachever always makes too much food for just the three of us. C'mon, we'll eat together."

Having skipped breakfast, I readily accepted. I wouldn't make a habit of accepting Deva assistance like this, but as long as I was already in his employ, there was no point in turning it down.

As it turned out, the stupid boy was an excellent cook, and he made too much food for four people. He made enough for a week at home. No one spoke as we ate, except occasional quips from Hoffman. Sachever cast occasional hurt, questioning glances over at me—I guessed that I'd broken some sort of trust by not defending Airial at his behest. I really didn't care.

"You have a good appetite, boy," Hoffman told me at one point. "I like that." I could tell that he did—by his jowls, and his potbelly. He was eating the same way that I was. The difference was, I didn't know when I'd get a meal like this again. He could have it all everyday—eggs, and toast, and oatmeal, and sausage, and all kinds of fruit. On a good day at home, I got eggs. On a bad day, nothing at all.

For this reason, I made the most of it, and after the meal felt almost sick—as if I'd distended my stomach. Hoffman sat looking at us, the three people in his presence, appraisingly.

"Sachever," he said. "Clear the dishes."

He ignored Airial again, and gave me a long, hard look. I was beginning to dislike him. Almost fear him. He exuded his own wealth and power like cologne. And he was looking at me with an expression that suggested that he knew something was up.

"You still look hungry," he said, with a shrewd, knowing smile. "Perhaps I misjudged you, after all."

He stood up, and so did I.

"Start by vacuuming the stairs," he said. "You'll find the vacuum in the closet in the kitchen. Work your way upstairs. Make sure to hit the bathrooms. If you have questions, Airial and I will be in the family room down here." He started to walk away from the table, but then turned back and, with a look born out of longtime exasperation, said, "And whatever Sachever's doing, ignore him. He'll be around somewhere."

The vacuum turned out to be some dinosaur that was probably built 30 years ago. I practically had to kick it to make it work, and it did so grudgingly even then.

After doing the rug that covered the stairs and most of the upstairs landing, I moved on to the upstairs bathroom, which was bigger than our whole kitchen.

After that, I moved across the hall into what appeared to be a guest bedroom. That got only cursory cleaning, because by then I was getting anxious about finding something that would actually prove useful to Jack.

The office at the end of the hall seemed a likely place to look. I dragged the vacuum in after me, and noticed that there was a lock installed on the door. Interesting. There was a huge file cabinet against the wall, and an almost absurd number of drawers in the desk.

I went through the drawers first, but they were filled almost exclusively with all manner of office supplies. The drawers in the file cabinet were locked. Without much conscious thought, I took a letter opener off of the desk and prised each one open. I rifled through most of the top three drawers without finding anything noteworthy—company information, spreadsheets, records, bills, and receipts. It was in the fourth drawer that the important stuff was hidden, although I didn't even realize it, at first. It looked like random directions and numbers—"North A2, 00013ZU4TE1L." I was still holding the file in my hand, puzzling over it, when the door opened.

Hoffman's bulk appeared in the doorway, and the look on his face went very quickly from a sort of wonderment to anger.

"What are you doing?" he snapped. He slammed the door behind himself very quickly, and very loudly. Suddenly his face and neck were blotchy red. His fists clenched and unclenched.

I expected to feel anger rising in my throat—because this was usually the response to such clear aggression—but was surprised to find myself… afraid. Cornered, like a rabbit caught rooting in the garden.

"I should've known better," he was saying. "I knew you. I see your kind, boy. Desperate people. Spiteful. What'd you come snooping in here for, anyway? Not money, surely. Your kind aren't stupid—you wouldn't look for money in a file cabinet. Credit records, maybe? …No. No, you've got the security—" He stopped, and I finally realized that what I had was what I'd been looking for the whole time. He took a menacing step toward me. Something inside of me instinctually made me recoil, smashing myself against the file cabinet and dropping the file back onto the open drawer.

"Who the hell are you?" he growled.

"Daddy?" Airial yelled from far away.

"Stay there, Airial!" he barked at her. "And don't think I didn't see the way you looked at her! Don't think I didn't feel it in the Shekinah!" he roared back at me. He took another step forward. Too close—he was too close. I was paralyzed. I had never been caught before—didn't know why I'd been so careless, prying drawers open with a letter opener, which was still in my hand. Red-handed, me. And he could feel it. He knew I was afraid, because of the Shekinah, and it spurred him on.

"What is it that you came here for? Was it that?" he asked, indicating the folder that I'd dropped. "What could you possibly want in the Reproduction Clinic? Did you think you'd get away with this? You won't." He was so close now, his protruding belly was against me. I found my breath was coming in short, ragged gasps. I was terrified, for some inexplicable reason. I'd known people more threatening than this man. I'd been threatened by people more threatening. Why was I so afraid of him?

"I'm going to call the Seraphim to haul your ass to jail."

The fear in my chest coalesced at the mention of the Seraphim. I had to get control again. Get out.

"But first," he continued, smiling in piggish delight, "I'm going to teach you some manners."

I realized at the second that he began to say it that I still had the letter opener in my hand—and damned if it wasn't long, and sharp, and pointed quite nastily. For less than a second, I wondered where to put it—surely he was too fat for it to do much damage to his front side? Go for the throat was my first thought, followed quickly by the realization that I was at the wrong angle for that—it would be too difficult. And then, I realized that he was close enough that I was able to reach behind his back. And, before he'd quite realized what I was doing—in fact, before I quite realized it; all this deliberation had taken place in the time it took him to speak his previous sentence—I had jammed the thing through his jacket and between his ribs. I felt the metal scrape bone as I pressed it in. Felt warm blood bubbling out of the wound, and over my hand, and his back, and the cool metal of the letter opener.

He looked only strangely startled.

"Who… Who are you?" he asked, seemingly bemused.

"Alister Siderius," I replied, relieved enough that I was able to find my voice again. "Of the Hungry Ghosts. You may have heard of us?"

I gave the letter opener another push, driving it as far into his body as it would go. His mouth worked for a second, into words, or a silent yell of agony. I would never find out which, because he dropped to his knees, and then fell over sideways, hitting the floor with a meaty thud.

"Daddy?" I heard Airial yell from somewhere.

I looked at my hand. It was bloody. And shaking. Why was I shaking so badly? I'd never killed anyone before, face to face. My killings had all been anonymous. Faceless. Nameless. But this… this made me feel…

Powerful.

I looked from my hand to the floor. To the blood pooling around his body. Around my feet, and staining the floor, and the papers I'd thrown aside, and his expensive bathrobe, and…

This made me feel sick.

I tried not to be. I tried to control my stomach. I didn't want to lose such a big meal. I closed my eyes, and blocked out the sight, and swallowed, and then picked up the file from where it sat. I stepped over Hoffman's body, and then out of the room, and walked in a strangely composed manner down the hallway and to the balcony. The house was too quiet, now. It was waiting. I'd have to get rid of the other two, as well, I realized with an eerie prescience.

They were standing in the large entry area, looking up at the balcony. It looked as if Sachever was trying to restrain Airial from running up the stairs to her Daddy.

"What's going on?" she yelled up at me.

I could do nothing but smile. And then, suddenly, I was laughing—laughing so hard that I sank to my knees, clutching at my sides. Damn it all, this was funny—because she was without a doubt the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen; because she was a half-Deva; because I had her father's blood on my hands and the soles of my shoes; because he was the first person I'd ever killed, but wasn't the first person at all; because I'd really only come to clean the house, but had ended up getting an enormous breakfast and a file folder with information that I really didn't understand; because I'd killed him with a letter opener; and because now I'd have to kill two more, and it probably wouldn't stop there. It would probably never stop at all.

"What did you do?" Sachever yelled. "Where's Mr. Hoffman?"

Still helpless with laughter, I held up my index finger, indicating that they needed to give me a moment.

"Mr. Hoffman," I said once the fit of laughter subsided, "Is taking a nap." I realized that I now had no weapon. I would have to kill them with my bare hands. …Maybe I wouldn't kill Airial at all. She could come back with me—be like a pet. Sachever, however, bothered me. He would die.

"For the sake of convenience," I continued, not quite thinking what I was saying, "you're going to have to join him." I walked to the head of the stairs and started to descend, while Sachever and Airial looked on in semi-horror—as if perhaps some part of them wanted to believe that he was taking a nap.

"Run, Miss Airial!" Sachever suddenly yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her to the door.

"Not so fast!" I said, taking the stairs more quickly. "I can't have you going to the Seraphim!"

They were out the door running before I got to the bottom. I cursed and ran after them.

"Get back here!" I shouted completely ineffectually—did I expect them to come back and let me strangle them?

They were running through the snow, toward the forest beyond the yard. Sachever was practically dragging Airial. She turned to look back at me, eyes wide with fear. I stumbled, caught myself with one hand, cold, sharp ice-crystals digging into my palm. A painful stitch had suddenly developed in my side—that would teach me to overeat. I growled in wordless anger. Falling had cost me too much time, when I was already behind. I just stayed down, and watched as Airial's hair ribbon worked its way loose, slipped out and flew behind her, landing in the snow. They disappeared into the woods. No matter. They would probably freeze to death that very night.

After a time I stood up, pinching at the sore spot on my side. I picked up the lost ribbon and brought it to my nose. Pity that she had to die. She smelled good.

I turned and went back to the house. It wouldn't be a total bust, anyway. His wife probably had some nice jewelry.

I found several garbage sacks in the kitchen and went back upstairs to the master bedroom. I shoveled all of the jewelry I could find into the sack, along with Hoffman's wallet, several watches, and a few other oddities. I pawed through the closet, but couldn't think of anyone the clothes would fit—his wife also appeared to be quite large.

After that I went back downstairs and took a few things from the living room—a clock, a few little statuettes, and a nice looking chess set. Then I filled the rest of the first sack up with their silverware. A second sack I filled entirely with all the food I could find in the kitchen.

And also in the kitchen, I found a box of matches and several bottles of cooking oil. How convenient.

After putting the garbage sacks into my car, I returned once more to the house. It was silent. Strangely so. No clocks ticking. No settling noises, or water pipes creaking. I got the matches and oil, and went upstairs.

I was surprised to see the office door still open. Hadn't I closed it? I approached nervously, half expecting to see Hoffman move. He didn't. I doused him and the filing cabinet with oil, and then threw matches onto them until a cheery little fire had started. Once his fat and the paper in the cabinet were on fire, I thought, everything should burn nicely.

I also went into all the bedrooms and flicked matches onto the bedspreads. I didn't expect that to work as well as the oil would, but the important things were being disposed of, anyway.

Next stop was the living room. I set the curtains on fire, and then—with the aid of the oil—did the same to the couch. On the way out, I grabbed a heavy looking plant stand and carried it into the hallway. One swing with it broke the banister, exposing raw, dry wood, which I also set on fire.

Then I returned to the door. I had to smile at my handiwork. Everything was glowing orange, now. What a nice surprise Mrs. Hoffman would came home to! …Of course, she would probably be called home early when her husband didn't go to work on Monday, and someone came out to find out why the phone wasn't being answered. And, as far out in the country as this monstrous house was, the fire might not be seen for some time, even still. Who besides Sachever and Airial, who would freeze—unless of course they wanted to warm themselves on the pyre of their house—would know that a housecleaner had been hired? It was perfect.

Extraordinarily pleased with myself, I drove home. After all, the only thing I had left to do was wash my hands.

"Lory!" Jack cried. He was practically beaming. "Lory! Have I told you lately that I love you?"

The contents of the garbage sack were spread out on the kitchen table. The whole mess glittered—pirate's treasure.

"That's not necessary," I said. My hands were sore from scrubbing. I stood uncomfortably between Jack and Magdalena's chairs, watching them go through all of the loot. My adrenaline rush had worn down, leaving only a kind of numbing fatigue and wonder if they would really freeze to death—it wasn't that cold outside.

"It is necessary," he said. "Innit, Maggie?"

"Oh, yeah!" she said. She looked up at me and smiled prettily. "Thanks, Lory. These are all really nice." She picked up one of Mrs. Hoffman's rings.

"Ah, ah," Jack said, slapping her hand away. "We're not keeping them."

"Oh, Jack!"

He grinned.

"Ah, well, I don't care if Lory doesn't care."

"I don't," I assured him.

"Okay. Pick one, Maggie."

"Oh, thank you!" she said brightly. She should have been some rich man's doll—not Jack's. She loves things like that too much for it.

She looked through them all again before selecting a gaudy bracelet set with big blue stones.

"Where's Sidney?" I wondered.

"Good question," Jack said, apparently unconcerned.

"He left," Magdalena said.

"To where?" I asked.

She shrugged, admiring her newly acquired bracelet.

"Funny," I muttered. "He doesn't usually go out like this two days in a row. …He usually paces himself more."

"His business," Jack said, going through Hoffman's wallet.

"And where are the Newly Dead? It seems quiet."

"You mean, 'Where's Thistle,'" Jack said nonchalantly.

"No," I replied a little bit too defensively.

"Arthur took them into town in the van. All of them."

"What for?"

"A field trip, if you will. They all need to get out occasionally. I gave 'em some money and a grocery list, too. But all the food you dragged back was a pleasant surprise, as well. Let's not share the cookies with anyone, eh?"

"All right," I said, biting my lip. "But Jack, it wasn't all good."

"Oh? How not? You killed the old bastard, got the file…"

"But his daughter. And his other servant, too. They got away."

He dropped the wallet, and turned around in his chair and looked up at me. No anger. Just disappointment and calculation.

"You didn't mention that," he said.

"I know. I thought… they ran into the woods, right? Maybe they'd freeze to death."

"Lory, you're not usually this careless." He looked thoughtful. "You've been slipping up a lot lately."

I got a little bit angry.

"I have not," I said bitingly. "Just because my error margin is usually less high than, say, Sidney's, does not mean that I've been careless."

"Hey, don't get mad—because it kind of does mean that, Lory. I wish I knew why." He laughed. "There's not something you want to talk about, now is there?"

I shook my head stiffly.

"Didn't think so." But he had a shrewd look that suggested that he had suspicions. "We'll catch up with them later. And if you see them, kill them. By any means possible. That is an order."

I nodded. "It goes without saying," I added.

"If there's anything I can do for you, Lory," Jack continued, "Anything at all… let me know, all right? You are my friend, after all." He turned, looked up at me, and smiled almost shyly. "I was just thinking the other day—it's a pity that I didn't know that back in the home. It seems funny, doesn't it, that we were both there the whole time. And now we're here."

"And wondering what happened to everyone else."

"You mean, wondering why they aren't here, too."

I shrugged in response. He was right. He has a nasty habit of telling me what I really meant to say, and he's usually right.

He looked over at Magdalena, who was still admiring her bracelet, and laughed.

"You like that, don't you?" he asked.

She smiled, and nodded.

He smiled fondly back at her.

"It looks good on you. Better than it looked on her, I bet."

"Jack, you don't even know what she looked like!" she laughed.

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. They laced their fingers.

"I don't have to have, Maggie. She'd never be half as pretty as you."

I excused myself and went to the living room. I watched television, and not long later the two of them disappeared upstairs. I was, for all intents and purposes, alone. It happened so rarely, but it didn't really matter. It wasn't important to me. The truth is, the year that I lived by myself was rather lonely. The last nine years of my life before then had been spent with almost no privacy at all, and I had gotten used to it. I could hardly remember the relative isolation of having my own bedroom before, when we'd been with our parents.

It's strange, but Beatriz is right. I don't remember much of our parents. Certainly, I don't remember our father… hitting anyone, like she suggested. But it's more than that. I don't remember what we did on a daily basis. I don't remember the dresses our mother wore, or what she made for dinner, or what was in the bathroom cabinets. Things come to me, sometimes, when I'm not looking for them—snatches of that life. But when I do look for them, they're gone. Like ghosts. Like something in a locked cabinet—I know it's there, I just can't see it.

The Newly Dead got back around 10:30. As always, they made a lot of noise coming in the house, but I found it comforting, tonight, after being alone. After being in Hoffman's house. They all went upstairs immediately, however.

All but one.

She sat down beside me. She smelled like hand lotion.

"Whatcha watching?" she asked.

"Nothing in particular," I said.

She sat there next to me, and we watched nothing in particular together for a moment before I spoke next.

"Did you have fun?" I asked.

She turned and smiled at me, and for a reason I couldn't quite explain my heart jumped.

"Fun?" she asked.

"In town."

"Oh. I just went to the grocery store, but guess what?" Her eyes danced.

"What?"

"They're hiring!"

I smiled, and then laughed.

"How lucky for you!" I said. I couldn't say why, but I was extraordinarily glad of her company at that moment. She was so human—so tangible, so in that moment. And in that way, so thoroughly unlike Airial.

"I set up an appointment for an interview, but…" She looked sad, suddenly, and looked at the space on the couch between us. She was sitting so strangely far away, considering how forward she usually was—considering how she'd practically attacked me after my evening with Mabel.

"But what?" I asked.

"But I don't know if I'll be able to get back in. Do you think that Jack will let Arthur use the van again, to take me? I can't drive."

"I'll take you," I said. I wanted to see her eyes dance again, like before.

"Really?" she asked.

"Well… yeah. I mean, I have to go in at nine, but you can find something to do in town until your interview, right?"

"Oh, definitely!" she beamed.

"And after?"

"Sure thing! Thank you so much, Lory."

"It's not a problem," I said.

There followed a slightly uncomfortable—for me, anyway—moment where we just kind of looked at each other. But she must have taken it to be something significant, because, quite suddenly, she kissed me. Forcefully. I ended up staring at her closed eyelids, and wondering what this would be like for Devas—who could of course feel each other in more ways than just this. It would surely be a curious thing, but at the same time… not. There would be no guesswork. You would know without having to ask how the other person felt.

This, though, was slightly more complicated.

After a moment, she pulled back, although she was slightly less far away from me on the couch than she had been. She looked slightly dismayed.

"What," she started, "do you not—"

"You're so forward," I found myself saying. It had not yet ceased to amaze me. And then I smiled at her, and told her the truth. "I like it." And then I kissed her back.

Sidney didn't come home that night. Or at least not until we'd both gone to bed.

But then, that was probably a good thing.