Splintered Path (Shattered World Book 4), page 5
“I’m going to use the most expensive one,” BoRa threatened, and hung up.
Viv was used to that by now. BoRa never did say goodbye over the phone; if she considered the conversation to be over, she simply hung up. It was probably the thing about her that matched so well with Luca.
Chapter 3
No Guts, No Glory
Viv didn’t expect BoRa to bring around the overnight bag herself, so when Gorman knocked sedately at the door of the room she had been shown to just a few minutes later and BoRa sauntered in with the bag over her shoulder, it was a pleasant surprise.
“Thanks, Gorman!” she said, before Gorman and his eyebrows had quite melted away into the depths of the rounded hallway. She shut the door behind him and took the bag from BoRa, and then found herself also taking something that had been put in a damp plastic bag for her.
It smelt faintly salty.
“It was sitting outside your door,” BoRa said. She added, “It was still dripping with sea-water.”
Viv stared at her. “Seffy left it there?”
“Only technically,” said BoRa, smirking. “It’s from Luca. What is it?”
“I have no idea!” Viv said, rather helplessly. “It could be anything from a very small bomb to an unpleasant spell, I suppose!”
It was neither. When Viv had unwrapped it, separating outer layers of wet, salty paper from inner layers of soft, silkybark-like paper, she found herself holding a small, heavy pot of very expensive face cream.
Another just like it, except empty, had gone into the bin the week before and Viv had been mentally preparing herself to spend the exorbitant amount of money required to obtain more. It was her favourite face cream; it was ridiculously expensive; it was not something she had thought she would be able to purchase again just a couple of months ago. Now that she had steady work, she could afford it, but she hadn’t yet been able to bring herself to actually spend the money.
How had Luca known that it was the brand she liked most?
“It’s like he has ears in the walls,” BoRa said darkly, and Viv realised she’d asked the question aloud.
“Where did he get it from?” she said plaintively. “And how did Seffy get it into the Tea House? I thought Jasper had stopped that from being able to happen!”
BoRa shrugged, and threw herself onto Viv’s bed, kicking off her shoes. “He did. Seffy found another way. That’s how it works. Are you worried that he paid too much for it? It looks expensive.”
“I’m more worried that he didn’t pay for it at all!” retorted Viv. She could, unfortunately, imagine Luca wafting into and then out of a department store with more than he had entered. She could also imagine him simply talking an assistant into giving it to him.
Why was Luca suddenly leaving presents at her door? And why at her door and not in her room? If he was going to escape Jasper and the Tea House, shouldn’t he have cut ties with everyone connected with the two?
“Face cream is new,” BoRa said, her dark eyes resting expressionlessly on Viv’s face. “Or is it? How many men are bringing you beauty products these days?”
“Only two, and that’s two too many,” Viv said, with feeling.
“Not Jasper as well, then.” It wasn’t a question; it felt more like a grim, self-mocking joke. BoRa had sat up on the bed, which meant that she was actually interested in the answer.
Viv, with perhaps more force than it really warranted, said, “That really would make me leave the Tea House.”
There wasn’t anything else she could say—she didn’t think anything else she could say would soothe the small, raw, angry part of BoRa that had spoken, like the plain answer to her unasked question.
Viv stuffed the face cream in her overnight bag and by way of changing the subject, asked BoRa, “Why did you come here yourself?”
“I’m keeping an eye on Jasper,” said the other girl, shrugging very slightly. That did surprise Viv, more by the directness of the answer than by the content of it. “He’s been having late night meetings again, and that’s always a bad sign. I wanted to make sure we weren’t going back to the bad old days.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Viv said, sitting down at the other end of the bed. She had to sit straighter than BoRa, with her legs crossed, because the sciatica wouldn’t care for the casually, elegantly slumped pose that the other girl had taken up on Viv’s two freshly-changed pillows.
“You don’t have to know,” BoRa said lazily. “The short bit of it is that the Tea House was started to make sure that humans who had problems that were a bit Other had somewhere to come. It stayed that way for a pretty long time, too. And then money was short and times were hard, and it got really difficult to keep on going. Jasper nearly lost the Tea House. Anyway, it was before you got here. We fixed it and made some rules for the Tea House.”
“For the Tea House, or Jasper?”
Viv wasn’t sure that BoRa was going to answer, but at length the other girl said, “Just for the Tea House. Maybe it was more of a thesis statement; it was meant to remind us all what we’re trying to do, and where we should stop.”
“What sort of thesis statement?”
“Humans first. Human solutions first. Know the potential ends before the beginning.”
“That’s very pithy,” Viv said, rather dryly. “Human first? How does that feel knowing that you’re part behindkind?”
BoRa grinned at her. “Why? Is it starting to feel a bit different to you now that you know you’re not just human?”
“No,” said Viv. It felt as though the words were sinking down inside her like stones, settling next to the heavy feeling that came with the power inherent in her Voice. If anything, knowing the power that she was capable of wielding, either on purpose or by accident—perhaps terrible accident—the principle of humans first seemed even more important.
“There you go,” said BoRa, tilting her head back to gaze at the ceiling. “It’s not meant to be just a way of doing business; it’s a reminder that we’re stronger, and faster, and can hurt people more easily. It’s supposed to be a reminder of responsibility.”
“I see,” Viv said quietly. “And the bit about know the potential ends? It does sound a lot like Jasper, but I assume it’s also there for a reason?”
“It’s meant to make us stop and think about whether we’re really doing the best thing for humans by getting involved—and how behindkind skills or magic touching humans will affect them.”
That was surprisingly better than Viv had expected. It made sense of the way that Jasper kept all of them cooped up in the Tea House where they couldn’t run too much riot in the neighbourhood.
Perhaps it was relief at hearing that explanation that made Viv say, slowly, “Jasper was on the phone today while we were supposed to be talking to someone. I think it was Forex.”
She didn’t think she would have mentioned it otherwise. It would simply have been one more thing that made her uncomfortable and needed to be thought about.
BoRa’s lips thinned. “Did you listen to what he was saying?”
Viv considered pretending to virtuous innocence, but she didn’t think BoRa would believe her—no, BoRa would consider the idea of failing to listen where she could a mark of bad character. “Not everything,” she said. “But as much as I could. They were trying to get him to do something, and he was telling them there was no need for it. They also talked about me; I think he was trying to convince them not to come here, but he was also trying to convince them not to do something about me.”
“You’re on their bad side,” said BoRa, nodding. She looked, Viv thought, faintly impressed. “Maybe I should have tried to annoy them years ago; you’ve got Jasper jumping through hoops to defend your existence in the Tea House.”
“That sounds like a bad thing,” Viv said, amused in spite of herself. “I mean, apart from hoping it might make Jasper reconsider the way he runs the Tea House.”
“Jasper does things for reasons.”
That was something Viv already knew. It was somehow more worrying to hear BoRa say it, however—especially in light of all that she’d already said.
“I’m not saying they’re always good reasons,” the other girl added. “That’s why there are rules in the first place; but he does try to do things for the right reasons. He’s just…spent a bit too much time Behind, I think. And sometimes he’s just an idiot.”
Viv grinned. “Maybe you really should try to make a nuisance of yourself outside of the Tea House and Jasper’s desk. You might do him some good—and distract him from looking over my shoulder at the same time.”
“Jasper needs to be kept busy,” said BoRa. She had said something of the sort to Viv before, but this time her eyes were thoughtful, and it occurred to Viv rather ruefully that she had been a Bad Influence for perhaps the first time in her life. “Mind you, if Forex men are going to be tagging along with us every time we go out—wait. Viv, do you know exactly who he was talking to?”
“Someone named Chris,” Viv told her. “That’s the only name I heard him use.”
BoRa swore in Korean, and for once, whatever part of Between it was that she used to translate didn’t translate it. That was probably just as well.
“Now I’m worried,” she remarked. “Who is Chris?”
“He’s the one that started Forex—and the one who still owns it, more importantly.”
“Human?”
“Surprisingly, yes,” said BoRa. “I don’t like this. Jasper isn’t reasonable when it comes to Chris.”
That thought was strangely terrifying. “Jasper is always reasonable,” Viv said slowly.
“Yes, it’s the worst thing about him,” agreed BoRa. “You can’t always trust reason to do the right thing, especially if it’s the only metric you judge with. But he’s not reasonable when it comes to Chris, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s more that Chris is one of the few people who can get under his skin.”
“Are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t have cut out Forex and involved the selkies with Kyma’s difficulties?”
BoRa sucked in a breath, as though considering it. “No,” she said, more quickly than Viv had expected. “But they’re going to be keeping an eye on you even more, now. Especially if they realise that you probably have a Voice—going from Annoyance to Threat with them isn’t the safest idea. And if Chris has started to take a personal interest…”
“…I won’t necessarily be able to count on Jasper protecting me.”
BoRa shot her a sharp look. “So far, it looks like he’s going to, though.”
“Yes, and it makes me wonder why,” Viv retorted.
“Why would a serial murderer leave you face cream?” BoRa said, shrugging. The words were very slightly steel-edged. “Why would you keep it? People do strange things for their own reasons.”
Viv might not think that BoRa’s mostly-hidden, velvet-lined-but-steel-boned liking for Jasper was healthy, but it was quite evident that BoRa returned the favour when it came to Viv’s…attitude toward Luca.
“Okay, that’s fair,” she said. “Neither of them is odder than the other—but Jasper isn’t doing it for the same reasons as Luca, either.”
BoRa’s eyes narrowed very slightly on her, and she surprised Viv by saying, “I’m really curious to know why you think he’s doing it, if it’s not just to protect you because you’re you.”
“That’s the thing that worries me,” Viv said. “I don’t know why. It’s not—I don’t think he has a personal interest in me, if that’s what you mean. I think I know Jasper well enough to be sure of that.”
A very faint wince pulled up the side of BoRa’s cheek, beside her nose, but was gone before Viv could be sure it had been there.
“I was here before you,” she said. “And that doesn’t necessarily mean much when it’s Jasper we’re talking about, but—”
“I think it does when it’s you,” Viv told her. “He doesn’t let anyone else talk to him like you do.”
BoRa shrugged one shoulder against the pillows as if shrugging the words away too. “I know him. And I’ve never seen him fight for anyone—especially not against Forex. He didn’t even fight for Cora.”
“BoRa—”
“Don’t worry,” said the other girl, her teeth showing very slightly through the deadly curve of her lips in something that was very near to a grin. “I’m not giving up. I’m just waiting until he gets over it and comes to his senses. It’s not your fault that he’s an idiot.”
Viv hadn’t realised how tight and uncomfortable the knot in her chest had gotten until those words untied it. She had known—or, more correctly, strongly suspected—that BoRa liked Jasper more than was wise, but it hadn’t occurred to her until now that Jasper might have been treating Viv herself in a way that could be seen as anything other than grudging respect and perhaps fellow-feeling.
Viv wasn’t used to having a family—a real, give and take, prickly-but-honest family—and the thought that BoRa could see her as a rival or an enemy had been extremely unpleasant, if short-lived.
“What are we going to do about it?” she said, so that she didn’t have to think about it for a little while. “Forex being interested in me, I mean, and Jasper getting too friendly with Chris?”
BoRa’s brows rose, but her face went blank. It took a little while for her to say, “I have to think about that,” and Viv wondered if it was occurring to her for the first time that not everything at the Tea House had to be As Jasper Decreed.
BoRa had done a lot of general stirring and trouble-making in the Tea House since Viv had been there—and, evidently, since well before then—but most of that had been in the manner of attention-seeking. She had still fallen somewhere within the expectations of Jasper and the Tea House. It might take her some time to consider what she could do, now that it had occurred to her that she could try to do something. But Viv thought that she would try to do something, at least.
Viv spent some of the late afternoon and early evening with Gilbert before, and then after, the Victoria State Police came to take his statement. Thankfully, Gilbert was as bright and easy-speaking during the meeting, and considerably less vacillating, than he had been earlier when Viv had first met him.
The officers took his statement, asked a few questions with furrowed brows, exchanged a look, and turned to leave. When Viv asked them if it would be long before Jonno was back home, they exchanged another glance that seemed quite grim, and one said, reluctantly, she thought, “He’ll be back as soon as everything is sorted out properly.”
Ah, thought Viv. So Jasper has been pulling strings and the local officers don’t like it.
It would be interesting to see if that made the process quicker or slower. It would be very Australian of the officers to maliciously comply in the ways most likely to slow down rather than speed up the release, if they felt that someone was getting an advantage that normal people wouldn’t have access to.
Jonno didn’t appear any time before dinner, at any rate. Unfortunately, the men from Forex did. Worse, they ate. Gorman seemed completely unfazed, but Viv couldn’t help feeling sick at the soft, sticky sort of noises they made with their mouths—or perhaps it was with the skin nearby, not adhering properly to their bodies and slicking up wetly against the muscle and flesh beneath the skin. The agents’ faces had never moved exactly as human faces ought to move since she had met them, but in eating, there was even less of the human and more of the monster to them in small, insensible degrees that Viv couldn’t even begin to quantify.
Their noises were wrong. Their expressions were wrong.
They kept looking at her.
Viv managed to keep her composure, but only by pushing one sneakered foot up against the base of the table so tightly that her toes went numb as she ate. A thread of the same dangerous almost-numbness filtered up her leg and into her hip, the coldness of it promising later pain.
Jasper’s cool eyes met hers across the table; there was a warning in them that very faintly irritated Viv. Oh, be careful of the men wearing human skin suits? Really? What a surprise.
If the Forex men were going to be around for breakfast tomorrow, she thought she might dodge out on it.
Viv took the chance to slip away from the group and back to her room when dessert came out. She didn’t like caramel mud cake—and more importantly, even if she had liked it, seeing and listening to the Forex men eating it would have made her hate it for life. Besides, Gorman had already offered her a tray with some lamingtons and tea “for afters, Miss Viv”, and she was pretty sure that Jasper and the Forex agents had Important Business to discuss.
She was nearly at her room when she heard the faintest shuffle of a foot put wrong, and someone said behind her, as though realising that they could no longer hide, “Miss Viv, a moment, please.”
Viv turned, but she already knew who it was.
It was one of the Forex men.
She didn’t know whether it was Agent One or Agent Two—or Agent any number, if it came to that. Perhaps this wasn’t one of the agents she had already met. Perhaps they shared a common mind and shared skin suits, one wearing it one day, another the next.
Viv, rather desperately trying to rein in her far too mobile imagination, said, “Yes?”
“You left the table suddenly,” said the agent. He was standing slightly pulled to the left, as though someone had tweaked his left shoulder up on a line, setting the rest of his body out of order.
“Not suddenly,” Viv said, trying not to notice that the agent’s right shoulder didn’t seem to be quite…on properly. It looked disturbingly like a flesh shoulder pad. Perhaps this agent had had to leave too quickly this evening. “Early. I didn’t want dessert.”
“It struck us that you might have had somewhere else to be.”
Slowly, she repeated, “Us? Do you lot share a mind?”
The agent paused, seemed to recalibrate or recalculate, and said, “Do you have somewhere else to be, Miss Viv?”
