Zero Sum (5 page)

“In a sense,” Rei replied.

“Good to know.”
 

Rei cocked her head.

I picked at a thumbnail. Scratched my head. Sighed. “What I meant is that my father’s an alcoholic. He works late and drinks later. He’s got a bad temper too. Always getting into fights. You see my mother left us when I was young, and I don’t think my father ever got over it. For a while the two of us got on okay, but then the economy collapsed. First came the pay cuts, then he got caught drinking on the job, and then he lost his position as pit boss. He got demoted to dealer. Now he works for guys that he used to manage. All-and-all, it’s pretty humiliating.”

“And your mother?”

“She left us when I was a baby. I have no idea why, and if my father does, he sure as hell won’t say. If you bring my mom up, he’ll say she was a ‘lying whore’ and punch something—usually me.”

“Did you not wish to find her?” Rei asked. “Did you not wonder about her? Wish to sneak a glance?”

It was my turn to look confused.

Rei frowned. “Why did you not just track her scent and… Oh, pardon me, Dieter. I had forgotten. Your nose is too dull…”

I waved the apology away. “Even if I could, I don’t know if I would. Besides, Rei, I don’t even know if she’s alive.” I frowned. The words sounded funny. It occurred to me that I had never once spoken that thought out loud. I’d opened my mouth to ask Rei why she was so interested when the kettle whistled and boiling water splashed all over the stove. Rei had overfilled it. The sizzling flames nearly drowned under the deluge.
 

“The tea water is ready,” Rei said, definitively. She fished out two packets of Celestial Seasoning’s chamomile blend.
 

“Some things remain the same,” I mused.

“Sorry?” she asked, bringing over the two warm mugs.

“Chamomile is Jules’ favorite too.”

Rei stiffened at my tutor’s name. “Then that Druid has good taste.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like Jules?”

“I see nothing
wrong
with her. Magus Nelson is a competent witch. And she has trained you well. You could only kill one person at a time prior to her tutelage. Now you are up to four.”

I put down my mug.

“Four?”

Rei shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Three is more precise. The DEA agents finished off the last one after interrogation proved unprofitable. Now, that is not counting the man in the stairwell. I consider that a separate incident. It should not be included in an assessment of your mass effect spells.” Satisfied she’d remedied her error, Rei took another sip of tea.
 

I felt for the gap in my teeth. The sharp pain helped dull the panic, but it was time for a change in subject.

“Rei, you said that at home you have people to light fires for you. Is your family really wealthy?”

“My family business is not to be discussed with the Magi,” she said curtly.

I frowned. So we were still playing this game? “Fine, no questions about your family, but I assume you can talk about yourself, right?”
 

Rei opened her mouth to speak, but turned to glare at the cracking fire instead.
 

“Listen, I only know what I’ve picked up over the past few months: The student body is scared of you, the faculty doesn’t trust you, yet here you are, the only vampire I’ve ever met, living out here in some sort of pseudo-exile, taking abuse, attending classes, and following all the crazy orders from the folks at DOMA.”
 

Rei glared at me. “Is there a question in this speech?”

“Yea, a simple one. Why? Why are you here? Why do you put up with all this crap? Unlike me, you don’t have to be here. You’re rich. You could probably buy your own university.” I bit my lip. The last of that had come out much harsher than I’d expected.
 

“What makes it your business why I choose to study here? Perhaps you peons amuse me. Perhaps I like the scenery. Why must I justify myself to you?”

I stood up in frustration. Pacing to the other side of the room, I counted to ten. There were two sides to Rei Bathory—the friendly girl who wasn’t above buying a guy a Danish and the ice princess who wasn’t below punching you in the gut—you never knew which one was coming out to play.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” she asked, her voice rising.

“You don’t understand why I would want to know.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. Her face twisted up in frustration. “Why do you wish to know these things? I do not understand this. They do not affect your interests in the slightest.”
 

“My interests?” I walked back to my chair and sat down. “Rei, who do you trust?”

“Trust?” She rolled the question over in her head. “I trust my senses. They help me separate fact from fiction. I trust Cumo. He is faithful, obedient, and constantly vigilant.”

“What about people, Rei? Which people do you trust?”

“Why none, of course. Nostophoros or beater, they all lie, cheat, and steal.” A bitter grin formed on Rei’s face. “They even abandon their own offspring.” I hadn’t expected the jab…but I deserved it. I was going about this like Rei was a child. Rei was many things, but she was certainly not a child.
 

“You’re right, people can betray you. It’s their prerogative. But…but that’s why you’re so fascinated with them, isn’t it? The way they can choose their own path. Just like you have chosen.”

Rei stiffened. “Mi a kurvak faszat…”

“What the heck language was that?”

“It is none of your concern. Now be still.”

“Why?” I asked.

Rei closed her eyes, and I could feel as the air around us compressed. In throbbing bursts, Rei sent out waves of mana that probed the space around her. It was a technique I was totally unfamiliar with, but I could sense the waves brushing against me as they passed.
 

 
“I do not understand this. The link was dead. How did you rekindle it?”

“You mean the weft-link?”

“Yes, Dieter. The link you established in the warehouse. I felt it extinguish this afternoon. It should be dead. You should be free of my influence. Yet you still—”

“What do you mean by dead?”

“Really, Dieter, you should study your conduit science more carefully. A link established between two individuals is unstable at first. It is like a new web of neurons. Without additional stimulation, it will atrophy and die. This was our goal, was it not?”

“Whoa, Rei, you said the link would
fade
. You didn’t say anything about atrophy and death. Are you talking permanently?”

“Of course.” She looked at me as if I were an idiot who didn’t recognize gold when I saw it. “Then we will no longer experience these…instabilities.”

My mind raced. Instabilities? What kind of…oh. “You’re talking about the indifference I felt when I killed those men.”

Rei rolled her eyes. “Indifference, he says? Bator’s bones, Dieter. It was hardly indifference we were experiencing. Indifference does not feel
good
.”

“So the flood of emotions I felt tonight were—”
 

“Those were your true feelings about the killings. Your sense of guilt. I told you on the train, did I not? It was during our conversation about your unfortunate incident with that boy named Tyrone. I explained that it was not
you
who was enjoying the description of his death.”
 

I frowned. But that wasn’t true, was it? Part of me
had
enjoyed it. That’s what disgusted me the most. And if the weft-link failed this afternoon, who or what was I talking to in the forest? My head was spinning. Whose emotions were who’s exactly? This was a bloody nightmare.
 

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Rei continued talking, “Yes, I was affected as well. The waxing and waning of emotions. The giddiness after I purged that scum from the faculty lodge. I even felt a bit of your guilt after making that last kill.” She chuckled at the thought of it. “Imagine a Nostophoros having to live with guilt over those she’d slain. How could she function?”

I frowned. No, that wasn’t right, either. I thought back to that vision of the dollhouse. Rei had been feeling guilt long before I showed up on the scene. I tried to think it through. Was Rei confused? Could she not recognize her own feelings? I bit my lip. No, there was a far better explanation—one Rei herself had pointed to only a short moment ago—she could be lying to me. She could be trying to push me away. Rei didn’t know that I had witnessed the death of her caretaker. She didn’t know that I’d watched her cry herself mad.
 

I was beginning to understand this game. Rei had played it before. It was like some sort of defense mechanism. She wanted me to be disgusted. She wanted me to storm out. She wanted me to tell her I never wanted to see her again. I was to find her repulsive and steer clear of her. Rei was scared of something. Was she worried about her influence on me? Killing
had
been fun. Passing that monster off onto me must have been unconscionable. But what Rei didn’t consider was that maybe it didn’t even matter. Maybe I already had that monster inside me. That part of me that enjoyed killing just as much as she did.

I leaned back in my chair. Rei was trying to help me. She was trying to keep me out of trouble, but I found myself growing angry. Rei had never bothered to ask my opinion. She was up to the same go-it-alone crap she always was. That grated. Did my wants hold no value to her? She
had
trusted me to keep quiet, and I had never betrayed that trust. She’d earned my loyalty. She’d saved my life twice now. I was in her debt. She knew that to be true. But when I asked her whom she trusted, she responded by lashing out. She trampled on our bond like it was nothing. That disrespect was why I wanted to storm out. But I held back. I held back because I believed I knew why.
 

 
“Did you expect that to work?” I asked. I stood, grabbed another log, and threw it into the fire. “Was the boy supposed to get all mad, huff, puff, and storm out into the night?”

Rei shifted away from the rising flames.

“A nice clean break? Was that what you were aiming for? He could tell himself that she didn’t have a heart to begin with, that she was just a bloodthirsty freak?”

“How dare you speak to me like that,” she hissed. “Do not forget what I am, Dieter Resnick.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Rei—
despite
tonight’s performance.”

She flinched. “What are you talking about?”

“You said that the weft-link wasn’t working. That it failed this afternoon.”

“Yes. Do I need to draw a diagram for you? Perhaps I could get a chalkboard and—”

“Then what the hell were you doing in the woods tonight?”

She paused—and blanched. “I…”

“Was experiencing waxing and waning emotions?”

“No,” she answered firmly. “I had an obligation. I merely wished to apologize for my unprofessional behavior. Toying with those soldiers was unacceptable behavior. I made an absolute fool of myself.”

Lies. More lies. I could sense them easily now. I rested my hand on the mantle. I needed to be right. More than anything, at this moment, I needed to be right. I closed my eyes. The new wood popped in protest. An ember bounced off my pant leg. I drew in one slow, steady breath. I was. I believed it to the core of my being. For once, I had no doubts. In one a rapid motion, I knocked the resting pair of sunglasses across the room. My heart skipped a beat from the thrill of it, and then the huge knot of tension melted away.
 

“Rei, I agree with one thing you said tonight—our eyes don’t lie.”

“Oh, fuck you, Dieter,” she said from her new position in the corner. She sat in a heap, cradling the pathetic pair of sunglasses in her hands. Ruffled hair hid her face. Her slender arms were full of shivers. “Why can’t you just give up?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” I dragged my sore body over and slumped down beside her. “Link or not, I’m in your debt. I’m not abandoning you.”
 

“I don’t…I don’t like this.” She whimpered quietly. “Associating with me will get you killed.”

I scratched my stubble. “Um, actually, associating with you kinda kept me alive twice now.”

“Do not jest. You
will
die. Everyone around me always dies.”

“Um, technically, I already met that requirement. Remember the warehouse? My heart stopped beating. I died looking at you.” I wiped the wet clumps of hair from her face, and the scent of lavender rose into the air. “It wasn’t so bad. I just remember wishing that you didn’t have to die too—and that you packed a bigger blade.”
 

Rei’s sniffles turned into sobs. Shaking, she buried her head under my chin.

I didn’t flinch. It felt right. I wrapped my arm around her. “So, partner,” I asked. “Why isn’t the weft-link failing like you thought it would?”

“I don’t know. The conduit should only have taken a month to fail. It is well documented, Dieter. An unstimulated link should not continue to operate like this—and, Dieter, for the love of heparin, stop calling me your partner.”

“Sure thing, compadre. Should we go get some advice? If you want to get rid of the link so badly, maybe someone can help us.”

“You still don’t know?” Rei peered up at me and laughed. “That is why I told you to remain silent in the first place. If the Magi or the Clans became aware of such an egregious breach of protocol, we would both be killed.”

“Oh. Peachy.” I got a real nice sinking feeling in my stomach. “Who are the Clans?”

“My kin, Dieter. Have you not read a paper, examined a history textbook, or looked at a map since you got here?”

“If I had a nickel…Sorry, no. Just training. Jules is a cruel master.”

“Six clans govern the Fiefs. In addition to my studies, I am here as an emissary of the Bathory Clan.”

I scratched my head. “So neither your ‘clan’ nor the Department of Mana Affairs would approve of us swapping mana?”

“Correct. My clan would just kill you—but the Department would attempt to kill us both.”