on you, Calling Malkuth would diminish them. And then I don’t know that afterward they would come back.”
“What if she wasn’t there?” Candace asked. “If Jayne didn’t come, then she wouldn’t need to be there when you did the-” She waved her hands like a stage magician.
“I’ll be there,” I said. “If it’s a risk, that’s fine. I’ll take it.”
“No. Don’t just make a snap decision like that. Think about this,” Kim said. “We don’t know all of what Eric’s done. We don’t know what other work we might be interfering with. I don’t want…I don’t want to be responsible for breaking something I can’t fix.”
She shrugged, and I understood what she wasn’t saying. I was her husband’s lover. There was a whole side of her that wanted nothing more than to see me hurt. She didn’t trust herself.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it. But right now, it’s the option that sounds the best to me.”
The food came. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until my first mouthful. Then I couldn’t stop. The sun pressed down on the world. A constant trickle of sweat ran down between my shoulder blades. It was Sunday. The last day in the worst week of a life that had a couple other real contenders.
Maybe Tuesday wasn’t the right time. Two days didn’t seem long enough to really plan out what I was going to do, all the possibilities and contingencies. All the things that could go wrong. I paid the bill with cash when it came. There was still a part of me that shuddered a little bit at a single meal that cost over fifty dollars. A month ago, it wouldn’t have been something I could afford. Now it was subliminal. Next month, it could be up to whoever was catering my funeral.
The street mall was permanently blocked to cars. We’d parked in the structure underneath the restaurant, so when we left, the direction was down. The garage was pretty full, but also offered the kind of cool that comes with being underground in the unkind heat of August. We angled for Candace’s sedan, and I fell into step beside Kim. She looked over at me, then away. A motorcycle whined.
I didn’t know what was happening until Aaron had already pushed me down between two cars. Candace and Kim were crouched low and following. A pistol had appeared in his hand as if from nowhere. The motorcycle’s engine dropped to a lower hum.
“What?” I whispered.
“The bike,” Aaron said. “It’s been following us. I wasn’t sure before. The thing is the guy on the bike keeps changing.”
“More than one person?”
“He changed in the middle of traffic,” Aaron said. “He was a big black guy, and then about half a block later, he was an Asian chick. I thought maybe it was just similar bikes, but…”
I moved forward. The motorcycle was at the end of the row, pointing vaguely toward the exit. The man sitting on it was craning his neck, looking for something. Looking for us. He pulled something small and plastic out of his pocket, looked at it, frowned, and put it back. He was maybe in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper stubble and a long, greasy ponytail. I gathered my qi, drawing it slowly up to my eyes. The image shifted. The glamour washed away, ponytail and stubble and decades flowing away from the man. I said something vulgar.
“Stay here,” I told Aaron, then stepped out into the aisle, walking down the oil-stained concrete like I owned it. On the motorcycle, our shadow saw me. His expression went from surprise to chagrin to anger in less than a breath. By the time I reached him, he had braced the cycle with his legs and his arms were crossed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted over the low roar of the engine.
“I was going to ask the same of you,” Ex said.
Twenty-one
He looked near exhaustion. His hair, tied back in a ponytail and held with a thick rubber band, was limp and greasy. His face was grayish around the eyes, like someone who’s been working around smoke and soot so long it’s been ground into the pores. Without the glamour, he was wearing a white shirt that looked as worn as he did, with old jeans and black boots.
I crossed my arms.
“I’m doing what we should have done from the start,” I shouted. “You want to kill the engine on that thing, or should we talk about this really loud and in public?”
His expression soured further and he nodded to the back of the cycle, ordering me on. I raised an eyebrow and didn’t move.
“I’m not having this conversation here,” he said.
I turned and spat on the ground, then walked back to Aaron, Candace, and Kim. They were still hunkered down behind parked cars, but the fact that I had talked to the mysterious stranger without the pair of us devolving into a street fight seemed to reassure them all.
“It’s Ex,” I said. “You three get back to the house. I need to talk to him. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
“You’re sure?” Aaron said. The gun was still in his hand, though pointed professionally away from anyone. His glance over my shoulder offered to beat the living shit out of Ex. Part of me appreciated the thought.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I want you guys to talk to Midian and Chogyi Jake. Tell them about the Calling Malkuth plan, and see what you can brainstorm as far as strategies.”
“We’re doing it?” Candace asked. “Tuesday night is the time?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “See what you can work out. I’ll see what I can do about getting Ex over whatever his problem is.”
The others looked at one another for a moment, then Aaron slid the gun back into an ankle holster I hadn’t noticed before. I walked back to Ex. He reached into a small side bag and pulled out a black helmet, holding it out to me as I came near.
“Where’s yours?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Put it on and we’ll go.”
I got on the back of the bike, the helmet weighing down on my neck, and tucked my leather backpack into the side bag. Ex leaned forward, gunning the engine. Resenting the physical contact, I leaned forward, put my hands on his sides, and got ready for launch.
I hadn’t been on the back of a motorcycle since I was sixteen, and even then it hadn’t been more than a few slow blocks with a guy from church. Ex’s launch felt like an amusement park ride without the amusement. Before we’d gotten out of the parking structure, I’d forgotten all about Coin and the Invisible College, Kim and Aubrey, and riders in general. All my attention was on shifting my weight the right way so that the pavement wouldn’t rise up and rip my skin off. My arms slid forward, and within a couple blocks, I was holding Ex closer than I’d ever held anyone I wasn’t looking to sleep with.
The streets slid by, the wind of our passage drying the sweat off my arms almost before it was there. Despite the heat of the day and the punishing weight of sunlight, I felt cool. I only wished that I had refused the helmet. The air would have felt good against my face.
Ex turned us onto Colfax, and then, to my unease, onto I-25 heading north. The Sunday traffic was light, and speed turned the asphalt to a gray blur beside me. I found I could tell from the subtle movement of Ex’s body when we were going to change lanes or shift direction. Before long, I was matching him without thinking.
Back on the surface streets, the houses were low and comfortable looking, the shops mostly strip malls. I felt sure enough of myself at the slower-than-highway speeds to lean back and allow a little air space between me and Ex’s back. The front of my T-shirt where I’d pressed close to him was sweat-soaked and I suspected less opaque than I would have liked. I didn’t want to have the coming showdown looking like I was trying to win a contest at a sports bar.
I didn’t need to worry about it. By the time Ex slowed the cycle down to a putter and angled us down a long dirt driveway, I was back to myself and sure of my dignity. The house on our right was a one-story ranch, white paint flaking at the eaves. It was the sort of place where I expected to see a family living. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a swing set out back and children in the yard. Ex coasted past it.
The garage in back was huge. Three cars would have fit in it easily. But instead, it was fitted out as a little apartment. Ex’s shining black sports car sat close to the eastern wall. A canvas cot that looked like it came from World War II rested against the back wall beside the open door of a bathroom almost too small to turn around in.
