Vicious Grace

was part of a conversation they’d had countless times before I knew either one of them, complete with the private shorthand that comes from knowing someone well for a long time. They didn’t mean to exclude me. It just worked out that way.

“So the weird dreams,” I said. “Are they the only thing we’re seeing? Or is there something else we can go on, maybe get a toehold on the problem?”

Kim turned to me.

“It’s the only hard data,” she said. “But I’ve been asking around a little bit since I called you, and . . . well, there are stories. Anecdotal evidence.”

“What kind?” Ex asked.

Kim settled back into the couch, her brow breaking into half a dozen tiny lines. She waved vaguely with one hand, holding her fingers as if she had a cigarette between them. I wondered if she’d ever been a smoker.

“Little things,” she said. “One of the recovery room techs was talking about people coming out of anesthetic saying words and phrases in languages they don’t speak. And apparently there’s been a huge upswing in walk- aways in the last year.”

“Walk-aways?” Chogyi Jake said.

“Patients on the care floors go missing,” Kim said. “Walk out on their own, AMA.”

“Against medical advice,” Aubrey said, anticipating my next question.

“Any signs of riders?” Ex asked.

Kim’s sigh was sharp.

“I can’t find anything,” she said carefully. “I used some of the things Eric taught me. The Mark of Kadashman-Enlil and de Lancre’s candle meditation.”

“De Lancre?” Chogyi Jake said, a little taken aback.

“What’s de Lancre?” I asked.

“Seventeenth-century demonologist,” Ex said. “Witchfinder. Burned a lot of women and Jews. He’s not generally very well regarded.”

“Be that as it may,” Kim said, “I can’t find anyone who seems like a good suspect. I won’t say there aren’t any riders in the hospital, but if there are I haven’t found them. And I can’t explain what I have seen.”

“Meaning Oonishi’s data,” Aubrey said.

“Yes,” said Chogyi Jake. “Could we actually see that recording?”

While Kim fished around in her purse, I went back to my bedroom to get my laptop. I had the master suite with my own bathroom and a king-sized bed and a window that would probably look better in the morning. Aubrey’s bags were in there too, open and empty. I stopped for a few seconds to open the dresser and see his socks there beside my own. The little bits of cloth tangled together calmed me, and I went back into the living room feeling a little more grounded. Kim handed me a thumb drive, and I popped it in one of the laptop’s USB ports. It took a minute to get the right application up, but then a huge window opened. We all crowded close to watch. The resolution sucked, but if I squinted, it was like seeing some old silent horror film. Count Orlok rising from his grave. The dream images went white, then flickered with strange things. An eye. A mouth. An oddly shaped hand. I felt a deep stillness in me, like they were things I recognized except for the bit where I didn’t know what they were.

“Well,” Aubrey said from just behind me, “the box looks like maybe an interment binding?”

“Symbolic burial,” Chogyi Jake said with what sounded like agreement. “But if it’s leaking like this, not a totally successful one. It could also be some kind of historical echo.”

“What about that hand?” Ex said. “Did that seem familiar to anyone?”

“Couldn’t tell much about it,” Aubrey said. “It was pretty blurred.”

“Could it have been a Masonic reference?” Kim asked.

“Maybe Daughters of the Nile,” Ex said, but his voice carried a weight of skepticism.

The conversation dove into references and occult theory deeper than my personal bookshelf went. I detached myself from the group and headed for the kitchen. When they’d hashed it out, I’d get the FAQ version. That was how it usually went, and the scheme worked for me well.

There wasn’t much. Eric hadn’t stocked the place with anything that wouldn’t last more or less indefinitely. Some canned beans. A few boxes of antiquated tea. The only thing in the cupboard was a box of Twinkies. None of it looked appealing. My cell phone said it was already after midnight. I’d woken up in Montana, and now, looking out over Lake Michigan as lightning arced over the water, I let myself feel a little tired. A hard gust of wind bowed the dark glass of the window, and in its dim reflection, the door opened behind me. Kim stepped in.

“Hey,” I said, turning to her.

“Is there any tea water left?” she asked.

“Can be,” I said, scooping the kettle off the stovetop. As I filled it, the tame water from the tap like a parody of the falling rain outside, Kim stood behind me, her arms crossed.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“Busy as hell. You?”

Kim pushed a lock of hair back from her eyes and I lit the fire under the tea kettle.

“The same,” she said. “Half the time I’m writing grants. I got on a good study with some guys I know over at UIC’s public health department tracking Toxoplasma gondii strains. The data’s not all in, but I think we’re going to have some pretty good papers coming out of it. I’m linking the extent of behavior modification in the host with the virulence of the strain. The correlations are pretty nice.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“It’s kicking my ass,” Kim said. “And the politics get old fast. Everyone’s jockeying for money and attention. And there’s a more or less constant war between patient care and research at the hospital. I get tired.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And . . . and it’s good to see you again. All of you,” she said. “There’s really no one in Chicago I can talk to. I slipped a few times when I first came here. Said things about riders. I’m still paying for it. Getting to let my guard down is . . . it’s nice.”

It struck me harder than I’d expected. Standing there, her arms across her chest, her lips just slightly pinched, her shoulders tight and unmoving—this was Kim at rest. Unguarded. Relaxed. I wanted to ask if she was seeing anyone, but that was answer enough. I wondered how I would have met someone new, knowing all that I’d learned about the secrets of the world. Would I have brought them into the fight too or kept it secret or given up the attempt and accepted my own isolation? I could see it going any of those ways.

“How about you?” she asked. “What have you been doing?”

I ran down the past few months. Kim listened. The flow of words relaxed me, slowly. By the time I caught up to the present, I felt almost like we were just two old friends, catching up. And maybe gossiping a little.

“Does Ex have a little thing for you?” Kim asked.

“Um,” I said, glancing at the door. Then, quietly, “A little one. I think it’s little anyway. We don’t make a big issue out of it. Is it obvious?”

“A little,” Kim said. “Aubrey looks really good, though. It’s nice to see him happy.”

It was the olive branch I’d been unconsciously asking for. My chest felt warm and softer, and laughter I didn’t expect bubbled up out of me.

“Christ, I’m glad you think so,” I said. “I can never tell with him. It’s like if I was driving him crazy, I think he’d act just the same. How would I know, you know?”

Her smile was pure sympathy, and she reached out to press her fingertips briefly against my arm.

“Makes you crazy, doesn’t it?” she said. “About two years ago, I made the mistake of sleeping with a psychiatrist a few times. Whenever we had a disagreement, he’d start his active listening routine. Half the time I didn’t know whether we were fighting.”

The kettle made a soft plopping noise and steam began to wisp up from the spout. I turned off the fire.

“It’s good seeing you too,” I said.

“Good,” she said, and grinned. When she did that, the extra weight looked a lot better on her.

We went back into the living room together. Ex, Chogyi Jake, and Aubrey were all busily talking over one another, each of them apparently keeping track of what the others had said and responding even as new points were being made. Their excitement spilled over into me as I sat down.

“Hey. Hey!” I shouted. Anything more gentle would have been whispering in a windstorm. “Have we figured