The Company of Darkness (32 page)

“No?  What if I could give you your father back?”

“What?”  That brought her up short.

“Not back to life, of course, but what if you could contact him on the other side of the veil?  Not some shady parlor trick, but actually speak to him, spend real time with him again outside of wishful dreams?”

“You can do that?”  It had to be some kind of a trick.  Ash had assured her that her father’s spirit wasn’t lingering, he’d moved on. 

“We can,” Alma said with absolute confidence.  “Think of what we can accomplish together, Cady.  You can develop not only your dreaming ability but your mind, the way it was intended to be.  You weren’t made for scraping by in that toilet back in San Francisco, you’re so much more.  Think of what it would mean for the three of you to spend time together again – you, Ian, and your Pa.  I’m not trying to screw you out of your future like fate or what your Mama did to you, I’m offering you the chance to grab life by the balls and make it your own.  You have the power to make that happen, Cady, the decision is in your own hands for once.  Make the right one.”

Still stunned by the implications, Cady sat in silence, trying to take it all in.  One thing was clear, Alma desperately wanted her on the team and she was willing to stop at nothing to recruit her.  That definitely put some of the power back into her hands.  “That was quite a speech.”

“I meant every word of it.  This ain’t about exploitation.  The best arrangements are the ones that are mutually beneficial.”

“Then why bring my brother into it?”

“Strangely enough because I like you.”  Her hands came up when Cady opened her mouth to call bullshit on that one.  “No, hear me out.  For one, I do think you’re both better than the hand life dealt you and I think we’d be good for him too.  That’s why I gave the order to bring him on in the first place.  And yes, I am using him to put you on the path I believe you’re meant for, but it’s just to give you a kick in the pants where it’s needed.  I truly believe you’ll come to appreciate what we have to offer, and then those threats won’t be needed any more.”

“Alright, in the spirit of all this open communication, answer something for me.”

“If I can.”

“How long has Ethan been working for you?  How many times have you reset him before?”

“He was recruited some time ago,” Alma answered vaguely but Cady didn’t let her off the hook so easily.

“When?”

“He ran into some difficulty during the Vietnam War.  We offered him a way out of it and he was more than willing to sign on for an indefinite tour in exchange for his life.”

The Vietnam War?  “In the seventies?”

“That’s right.  It was before my time, but I’m very familiar with his file.”

“And you’ve been fudging over his memories every few years ever since to keep him in line?  Why?”

“The life of a reaper is difficult, to say the least.  They see and do things we weren’t designed to process as human beings.  Re-indoctrination is designed to protect them when it gets to be too much.  The essential facts haven’t changed – he signed up for this life and we’re making him more comfortable with that decision when he gets weary of it.”

“Just because you healed him, that doesn’t give you ownership of his body for the rest of his life.  He might’ve signed up originally, but he didn’t sign up for this.”

“Healed him?  Oh sweetie, that’s not what happened,” Alma said with a condescending chuckle.  “That’s just the cover we gave him to ease his transition into this life.”

“What does that mean?  What really happened then?”

“Trust me, all you need to know is the man you know and love didn’t start out that way.  We made him a better man, and now we’re keeping him that way.”

Trust me, she said, in the same breath as she destroyed everything Cady thought she knew about Ethan.  Was that even his real name?  How many of his other memories were fabricated? 

“And this is the standard protocol for everyone in the Company?  You reboot their memories when they start to get unruly?”

“No, not everyone.  Most don’t have a problem with what we ask them to do, and frankly, not all of them are good enough at what they do to have a very long lifespan.  Dreamers have a longer career than most, given the less precarious nature of their jobs.  But reapers, in particular, they seem to want a little nudging every few years.”

“A little nudging,” Cady laughed, an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. 

“The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because I know you’re strong enough to handle the truth.”

“And you’ll rearrange my brain if I’m not,” Cady snorted.

“I’m confident you’ll be able to come to terms with it all.  Like I know you’ll understand why you can never discuss any of this with Ethan.”

“Why not?  He has a right to know his entire past is a lie.”

“And you claim to love him.”  Alma shook her head sadly.  “Don’t you understand what that would do to him, to have to reconcile the person he was with what he’s become?  You could cause irreparable damage to even hint that he’s not the man he thought he is.”

“I still think he has a right to know what you did to him.  What you’re still doing to him.”

“If you pop a memory cap, there’s no telling what it could do to his psyche.  All those dark secrets tucked away in the shadows of his memory, they’re not gone, just obscured.  Poke at one and you might set them all free.  I’m telling you, there’s a reason why we do the things we do.  Not just to save our own asses, but to protect him from himself.  It changes a man to spend all that time in the company of darkness.   You shine a light on it, you might not like what you see.”

“And you expect me to jump on board with all of this, knowing how you operate?”

“I thought you would appreciate the fact that I’m giving you the right to make an informed decision.  None of this changes the fact that we both have something to offer each other.”

And the fact that they could make her do whatever they wanted if she said no.  “Can I think it over?  I need some time to process.”

“Think quickly.”

Something was wrong. 

Ethan wasn’t sure what, but he could feel Cady’s distress like a palpable thing.  Ever since Alma’s goons had come for her, he’d taken to pacing in the small cabin.  Dressed for battle, he was prepared to storm the house if he didn’t hear from her by dawn, with Ash cheering for that eventuality inside.  When she showed up at the cabin, he thought his heart might stop, his relief was so sharp.  At least until she spoke.

“We need to talk,” Cady said, her eyes grave. 

Tired of the convention, he pulled the bugs from their hiding places and ground them under his boot, not caring about maintaining the subterfuge anymore.  He wanted to talk to her without having to trek into the woods.  Ash clamored inside his head for him to touch her, but Ethan resolutely ignored him, wanting to hear what she had to say before he clouded his mind with anything else.  “Okay, let’s talk.”

“Please tell me you can get us out of here.  Now, tonight, before anything else happens.”

Technically he could probably pull it off with her help.  She’d taken to the casting remarkably well, showing an affinity for recalling the sigils as well as the words themselves, though they hadn’t tried them in sequence yet.  More than anything he wanted to give that to her, but he couldn’t walk away from the Company, not yet.  “You know I can’t, not until I get Ash out of me.”  Cady nodded, her shoulders slumping in defeat.  “What happened?  First you bust in here and then they take you away.  We…
I’ve
been going out of my mind with worry.”

“I sorta snuck into Alma’s dreamspace and she caught me somehow.”

Now Alma’s middle of the night visit made sense.  “Oh, Cady… that was the wrong thing to do.”

“I didn’t think she could catch me.”

“All candidates are watched pretty carefully after they have a demon bound to them.  I’m sure she had you under surveillance.”

Cady smacked him on the shoulder, her brows drawing tightly together.  “And you didn’t think this was information I should have?  What kind of surveillance?”

“Virginie was probably tasked with monitoring your dreams and turned you in when she figured out what you were up to.”

“But she’s my friend.”

Ethan tried really hard to keep any sign of condescension out of his tone, knowing how sensitive she was to it.  “Cady… you can’t trust any of them.  Not even me, really.”  Not as long as he had Ash inside of him. 

“I’d never hurt her,”
Ash spoke softly in the back of his mind.

But you do,
Ethan thought back to him before forcing his full attention back to Cady.  “What did Alma do to you for breaching her dreams?”  Whatever it was, it had to be bad from the way she’d looked when she first walked in.

“She offered me a job.”

“What?”

“Alma thinks the procedure was a big success and she wants to step up my training elsewhere and put me out into the field.”

“Out in the field already?” Ethan blinked.  She couldn’t be serious.  Cady was a relative novice at dreaming or any of the other disciplines, despite her aptitude for it.  Alma couldn’t seriously be suggesting she was close to being ready for activation.

“Yep, that’s the general idea.”

“Elsewhere though, huh?  Where are we going?”

Cady let out a long breath.  “Not we, just me.”

“Just you…” he stared, the full implication of those words sinking in with Ash in the same instant. 

“We’ll follow, won’t we?  I can track her anywhere now.  We can’t let her go.  Don’t tell me you’re fool enough to agree with this.”

“Shut up, I can’t think!” Ethan snapped, turning away from Cady as she flinched.  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the demon’s voice long enough to marshal his thoughts together.

“Are you alright?”

“No, it’s… we weren’t expecting you to say that.”  Despite her early panic about leaving, she seemed almost resigned to the idea.  “And this is something you want?”

“I don’t know what I want.”  Cady flopped down on the sofa, slumping low as she told him about promises made on Alma’s behalf to keep Ian safe and some nonsense about talking to her dead father.  “Can they really do that?  Reach my dad?” she asked suddenly.  “Ash once told me he wasn’t hanging around.”

“It’s true, I don’t sense her father’s spirit on this plane.”

Ethan spoke as gently as he could, trying not to burst her bubble, but she needed to hear the truth.  “They can pierce the veil to the other side, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to reach him.  If he’s moved on, he might not be in a place where he can easily come back.”

“So it was all bullshit?”

The agony etched across her face made him itch to pull Cady into his arms, and without questioning it for once, he sat beside her and took her into his comforting embrace.  “It depends on how much they want to keep you and how long you want to keep trying.  It is possible, but it’s not likely.”  Her skin was so delicate… how easily he could bruise it.  Ethan shoved that disturbing thought away, afraid to examine too closely where it’d come from.

“I’d keep trying forever if I thought it would work,” she murmured, her head fitting against his shoulder as though it belonged there.  

“There are other ways to try, if it’s that important to you.  Ways that have nothing to do with Alma’s ambition.”

She looked up, her brown eyes filled with something akin to hope.  “Do you really think we could make it work?  You said the odds weren’t good.”

Ethan reached up to brush his thumb across her petal soft skin.  “I said we’d have to keep at it.  For you I’d find a way, if that’s what your heart desires.”  Closing the distance between them, he finally gave in to what he wanted, his lips brushing against hers in a tender kiss.  She opened to him almost instantly, lips parting, tongue sweeping out to tangle with his, and Ethan drank in everything, from her soft sigh of delight to the way his body reacted to her presence.  Happy pleasure sang along his veins as he pulled her closer, throbbing with the pulse of her heart, it soared to giddy heights as her heart beat faster, making him dizzy. 

Yes, this is what we wanted.
  Unaware where the thought originated, it sank in all at once that he wasn’t the only one enjoying Cady’s touch.  Her eyes flared wide with panic in that same instant and she sprang away from his grasp, her hand going to her lips as though they burned. 

“I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have done that.”  Ethan scrubbed at his face, trying to clear his thoughts.  How could he have been so weak?  “This is the last thing you need right now.” 

“I should probably go.”  She wouldn’t even look at him.  What had she felt in that kiss?

“Me, she felt me.”

Ethan couldn’t tell what Ash felt at that, but it was less delighted than he’d thought it would be.  “You should get some sleep.  Things will look clearer in the morning.”

“No, I meant take Alma’s deal and go for the training.”

Ethan gaped at her, feeling like she’d shot him in the chest.  It hurt too much to move, to breathe, and he just stared at her, willing her to meet his gaze but her eyes remained rooted to the floor.

“Maybe this is for the better?  Maybe we can use some space apart right now?” Cady continued when he didn’t speak.  “It’s not like we can really be together as long as he’s inside you.”

There was a crashing sound in his head, a pulsing wave of noise.  Was he having a stroke? 

“Ethan?  Are you listening to me?”  She finally looked up when he stayed quiet. 

“If you think that’s for the best,” he managed to get out. 

“It’s not like I want it this way, but I can’t stand seeing what he’s doing to you.  How he’s tearing you down right before my eyes.  It’s like you’re not even the same man anymore.  We can’t enjoy the simplest kiss without him coming between us.  And every time you say
we
when you’re talking about him, I die a little inside.”

“I understand,” he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.  “Then that’s what you’re going to do?  You’re leaving.” 
Me, she’s leaving me
, Ethan couldn’t help but think.

“No, us.  She’s leaving us both.”

“I don’t see what choice we have right now.  Not if you can’t get us out of here with Ian.” 

“We’re not ready, not while Ash is still in me.  Or what would be the point?”

“Then this is what I’ll have to do for now.  But the moment you get Ash out of there...”

He read the love in her eyes and it gave him hope.  “I’ll find you, wherever you are,” he promised. 

Cady offered him a broken smile, her eyes shiny with unshed tears as she nodded.  “It’s not like they’re going to send me to Siberia, right?”

“It’ll feel like it.”  Even now he could feel her withdrawal in the way her body pulled away from his. 

“I just wish… I want to…” 

He knew exactly what she wanted to say.  They’d been dealt a shitty hand, and nothing they did would make it right until they found some new cards.  More than anything he wanted to take her into his arms and give her one last kiss goodbye, but they didn’t even have that.  “Just go, there’s nothing left to be said other than stay safe.  I’ll come for you whenever I can.”

Cady nodded moving to the door as the dawn broke through the treetops, casting her auburn hair with a brilliant glow to rival the sun.  If he lived to be a hundred, Ethan would always remember that moment, her beauty, her goodness, and the dual edge of regret mingled with love that he saw in her eyes.  He opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her, but didn’t.  She knew.  There wouldn’t be so much pain and regret between them if they didn’t both already know this.

She stepped out of the light and Ethan fell back against the couch as the door swung shut, tears pricking behind his eyes. 

“How can you let her go?”

“Because I love her.”

Two hours later Ethan hadn’t budged.  At first he’d assumed Alma would send someone to collect him.  Someone to fill him in on his new orders, to politely explain that his presence was no longer needed there, but no one came.  Inside, the ache in his heart became a steady presence with every breath he took.  At least Ash had largely left him in peace, though he could feel his presence, like he always did now. 

“What is this feeling?”
Ash asked at long length when Ethan made no move to stir.

“What do you mean?”  He’d been there through the goodbyes, he knew what was up.  Ethan didn’t feel like getting into it all over again.   

“The pain is unbearable.  It feels like we’re dying.”

“Oh that.”  It struck Ethan that Ash had probably never experienced that kind of pain before.  “This is what it feels like to lose someone you love.”

“Have we lost her?”
  A ribbon of panic went through them, but Ethan didn’t so much as flinch. 

“I don’t know.  I don’t know what things will be like when I can finally be with her, if she’ll still want me.  Things change, people change.  A lot can happen between now and then.”

“This is because of me, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”  There was no point in sugar coating it and part of him felt a stab of retribution at causing the demon pain. 

“I’ve hurt her.”

“Yes.  And I have too by being selfish.”

“How can you bear it?”

“I don’t have much of a choice.  It’s not like I can turn my feelings off.”  Ethan wasn’t even sure he wanted to, he didn’t deserve to feel any better.

“How long will we feel this way?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know if it’ll ever go away.”

“I only wanted to love her.  This is love?”

“Yes.”

“It sucks.”

* * *

When they came for him, Ethan didn’t resist.  It wasn’t a surprise when they led him to Alma’s office, but she did manage to shock him when she spoke. 

“I’d like to put Subject Q into Foster to see if Cady can still communicate with him in another reaper.  I’d also like to see if he’ll
stay
bound without someone being crazy enough to invite him in to start with.”

The dig wasn’t lost on him, but Ethan was too giddy with joy to rise to it.  “Gladly.  When do you want to do this?”  Maybe he could catch up to Cady that night!  She was still around, he could feel it.

“That’s me.  I’m the one who can feel it.  Are you really so ready to cast me away?”

“How can you ask me that?  You know what you’ve cost me,” Ethan replied silently.

“They’ll send me away and I’ll never see her again.”

“It’s what she wants.”

“I can’t bear it.”

“We’ll do it tonight.  You’ll be reassigned, of course,” Alma drawled.

“What?”  Ethan blinked, trying to concentrate on Alma instead of the whining in his head. 

“You can’t stay in San Francisco, you’ve left too many loose ends there.  We’ll send Rikard to clear some of them up, but it’s for the best if you move on.”

“What about Cady?”