Redlisted (18 page)

And then I was
Julian.

Aya and I walked
through the garden and the hills and the forest, through the shifting
paths between the trees all the way to the entrance of the sepulcher,
where the foliage thickened into a living wall. I hadn’t asked
for her company, and I wouldn’t invite her inside, but she
would wait for me there, lingering at the gates.

This was only the
second time Aya had ever seen this place, I realized. The first was
when I’d interred the remains of a relative there, a grandchild
of one of my lesser-known siblings. She’d helped me carry the
ashes to this point, but no further.

Since our last
visit, vines had grown over the stone archway. I pulled them aside,
exposing the stark granite of the doors. Aya handed me a vial and a
syringe. I folded them into the palm of my left hand and extended my
right to grasp the handle on the right-side door.

I expected this to
hurt, and it did. The spikes along the interior edge of the handle
penetrated each of my fingers as I pulled the door towards me. The
weight of it was considerable; it sent the needles deeper into my
fingers as I struggled to open it just a sliver. Drops of blood
trickled down my arm, staining the sleeve of my shirt. I cupped my
palm as I released the handle and slipped through the doors; my hand
slowly filled with my blood.

I climbed down the
gradually sloping staircase that ran along the circumference of the
chamber, taking the steps one at a time, careful not to spill any of
the blood. The staircase terminated directly below the entrance to
the crypt, several yards down into the ground.

Before me were two
twin pools of water separated by a narrow bridge of earth. Beyond the
pools lay an array of marble tombs arranged in an arc, the largest
and most ornate sitting at the center. I crossed over the earth
bridge and approached the central tomb. I extended my right hand over
a circular depression in the stone lid of the tomb, then rotated my
hand inward, pouring my blood into the vessel. Once it was full, I
closed the wounds on my fingers, shoved the vial and syringe into my
back pocket, and rubbed my hands together, drywashing the rest of the
blood off.

The blood seeped
into the stone basin, absorbed somehow by the nonporous material.
Once it was completely gone, I crouched down and shoved against the
lid. It slid off frictionlessly, landing on the ground with a dull
thud.

Inside was the
headless body of Mnemosyne, clothed only in a muslin shroud. Were her
head not missing, she might appear to be asleep; her heartsblood kept
her flesh from decomposing. I wondered if what he was planning to do
might put an end to that, start the withering of her corpse or even
kill her outright. The prospect was amusing. Delightful, even.
Certainly the Watchers would be less than pleased if they ever found
out, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I bent over the
side of the tomb and reached inside, pulling the shroud away from my
mother’s neck, exposing the left side of her chest just above
her breast. I reached into my back pocket for the syringe. With a
quick, decisive thrust, I stabbed the needle directly through her
pectoral muscle and into her heart.

I pulled up on the
plunger. The body of the syringe filled with a blue-black liquid. I
took more than I needed; it would be better to have a surplus than to
have to come back for more. Once the syringe was full, I extracted
the needle and filled the vial with exquisite care. I shoved the
stopper down, then placed the vial inside a hidden pocket in his
jacket, right above my heart. I picked up the marble slab—still
impossibly light—and returned it to its place.

Aya was waiting at
the entrance when I emerged from the sepulcher. I shoved the stone
door shut with my shoulder, and we walked back to the estate,
chatting aimlessly.

She did not ask
why I had made this visit to my mother’s grave, nor why I’d
required the tools she’d procured for me. I imagined she
understood nevertheless.

{Kate}

I wake up as the
car stops. We’re in a pay-to-park lot somewhere downtown. Adam
pulls on the parking brake and hands the keys to Haruko, and the
three of us climb out of the car. The sidewalks are crowded with
people, mostly young, many of whom look like frat boys or sorority
sisters.

“I’ll
be along as soon as I can,” Adam says. “Wait for me
inside.”

“Right,”
says Haruko.

I turn away. I
don’t want to see Adam disappear into the crowd. I don’t
want to think about what he’s doing or why. It’s not like
I have a choice in the matter in any case. Best not to think about
it.

I follow Haruko to
a sports bar, through the throngs of people smoking outside and into
the equally crowded restaurant. Inside there’s some kind of
processed pop music blaring, patrons shouting to be heard over it.
The walls are plastered with flat-screen televisions displaying every
single sports channel imaginable, plus some 24-hour news channels
here and there.

I make a beeline
for the restroom. When I return, Haruko has found us a table near the
front window. Her eyes are fixed on a TV, her pupils flickering back
and forth as she reads the captions.

And now I sit
silently, I suppose. She doesn’t even seem to notice I’m
here.

She looks up.
“Sorry. Here.” She digs around in a messenger bag slung
over her shoulder and produces a memo pad and a pen, then hands them
to me. “I’ll keep my phone, if it’s all the same to
you.”

I nod.

“Look, Adam
told me you overheard something about me wanting to, uh, leave you at
the cabin,” she says. “So I get why you tried to run
before, and I... well, I get it. I’m sorry. I was worried they
had put a tracker
in
you, but since we haven’t had any trouble with them since North
Carolina, I guess I was wrong.”

I nod again,
biting my lower lip.

“The thing
we’re trying to do is really important,” she continues,
“and that’s the only reason I would have even
considered... well, you know.”

I force myself to
smile. I’m still angry, but it’s not like I can argue
with her.

“So how are
you holding up?”

I give her a
thumbs-up.

“This time
of night I think we have to order at the bar, so look at the menu and
tell me what you want.”

I quickly peruse
the laminated menu in front of me and point to an eight-inch cheese
pizza, then to the word ‘coffee’.

“Be right
back.”

She stands and
walks to the bar. While she’s ordering I watch the television
in front of me. Absurd commercials pass by in fifteen-second blips.

Haruko returns
with a beer and a coffee. She sits down and pushes the coffee across
the table. She doesn’t give me the beer.

Puzzled, I open
the memo pad and write:
You’re
going to drink that?

“Why? Do you
want one?”

Are you going
to eat, too?

“Well, yes,
that was the plan.”

Adam doesn’t
eat.

“Adam’s
a freak.” She sips her beer. “He doesn’t watch
television or movies or listen to recorded music, either. Afraid of
subliminal messages or something. I figure I’m immune to
anything Mirabel does, so what do I care?”

It sounds like
he’s an ascetic or something.

She snorts. “Yeah,
I definitely wouldn’t go that far. Speaking of which, if he
comes on to you, tell me, okay? He has a thing for redlisted girls.”

My cheeks flush. I
take a sip of coffee to cover my expression. Haruko, seemingly
oblivious, returns her attention to the television. Has Adam been
hitting on me? No. He hasn’t. Has he?

I scribble out a
question:
What
does it mean to be ‘redlisted’?
and push the pad across the table.

Haruko's eyebrows
rise. “There’s a list. A ‘red list’. Of
people who are authorized to interface with us. We’ll need to
get you on it if you’re going to testify.”

I nod slowly, then
take the pad back.
How
many rev’s are there?

“We don’t
have a hard number. Tens of thousands, probably, worldwide. There are
five registered in this city.”

Can you see
where they are?

“Not unless
I’m concentrating, no. Or asleep.”

Asleep?

She nods. “When
I’m asleep it’s easier for me to keep track of them.”

Her eyes return to
the television and she takes a sip of her beer. She seems more
concerned about watching TV than answering any more of my questions,
so I close the book.

Her eyes narrow,
and narrow, and then widen suddenly.

“Stay here,
okay? I need to make a phone call.”

With that, she
gets up and strides quickly toward the bathrooms, leaving me sitting
alone in the crowd. I crane my head to look at the TV she was
watching. Two newscasters are conversing, one in the studio, one in
the field, focus-grouped levels of appropriate concern on their
faces.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO
GET A BODY COUNT AT THIS TIME, the man in the field says. WE KNOW
FROM SECURITY FOOTAGE AND EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS THAT AS MANY AS THIRTY
PEOPLE HAVE BEEN GUNNED DOWN. BUT EMERGENCY SERVICES HAVE ONLY BEEN
ABLE TO RECOVER TWO OF THE VICTIMS.

SO THE REST OF THE
CORPSES ARE JUST GOING MISSING? asks the woman in the studio.

An acne-scarred
server takes this moment to bring me my pizza, along with a hamburger
I presume is for Haruko. I smile at him thinly.

“Can I get
you anything else?”

I shake my head
no. I cut a slice of pizza away from the rest and take a bite,
looking out the front window. The hot cheese sticks to the roof of my
mouth. I watch the college kids smoking and drinking beer outside,
and once again I find myself confronted with the fact that Adam is
out there, somewhere, feeding. Such a strange little food chain we’ve
set up, with my useless self somehow being the last link. So much
blood passing through so many mouths. It feels wrong.

I look back to the
television.

DO WE HAVE ANY
SUSPECTS AT THIS TIME? asks the woman in the studio.

LOCAL LAW
ENFORCEMENT IS NOT READY TO DISCUSS THOSE DETAILS, says the man. BUT
ACCORDING TO EYEWITNESSES, THE SHOOTER MAY BE DRESSED IN A POLICE
UNIFORM.

I shudder and look
away.

Soon Haruko
returns. Without comment, she sits down across from me and starts
eating her hamburger. I pick at my pizza. Before long I’ve
finished my coffee, and she’s finished her beer.

She stands up.
“Want anything else?”

I mouth the word
water.

She nods and goes
back to the bar.

A minute later she
returns with my water and another beer, and we wait. She watches the
news channel, eating her burger methodically, with slow small bites.
I manage to eat half of my pizza before feeling uncomfortably full,
unable to finish the rest. I sigh and look at the table.

“Something
wrong?” Haruko asks.

I shrug.

“We should
probably do something about your hair,” she comments offhand.
“That fake red color is too easy to identify...”

I nod
thoughtfully. In my passport picture I was blonde, with brown eyes. I
might never get that face back, but the hair would be a start.

“We’ll
stop at the drug store on the way back.”

Over the next hour
and a half, while we wait for Adam to return, I down three cups of
coffee and two cups of water. Haruko has a third beer, then a fourth,
but even at the end of it she doesn’t seem remotely inebriated.

Eventually Adam
shows up. He comes to the front window and waves to Haruko without
coming inside the restaurant, then turns his back to us. While Haruko
is settling up with the bar I visit the bathroom again, and then we
meet Adam outside.