Between Kings, page 11
part #10 of The City Between Series Series
And as we approached the block that had the right number on its dilapidated letterbox, another thing caught my attention.
“There are neighbours,” I said in surprise.
“That is surprising?”
“Since when do people who want to hide what they’re doing make sure they have witnesses?” I pointed out, walking across the nature strip to the letter box as if I belonged there.
“There is respectability in everyday life,” JinYeong said, and followed me in the front yard.
“You telling me that it’s less suspicious to keep coming and going from a burned out house where there are other people coming and going, or what?”
“Maja. It is sensible.”
“Yeah, but there’s a thin line between being less suspicious and opening yourself up to dangerous scrutiny,” I complained. I looked the place over in one glance and sent another down the street to see how far away our followers were. The whole space was just a burned-out wreck of block and rubble, though it looked like there was more if I took a moment to check out the shape of it Between. “It’s weird, that’s all.”
“This is a dirty place,” JinYeong said with disfavour. “We will look and then go.”
“Don’t reckon it’s as burned down and dirty as it looks,” I said. Looking at it Between, there was almost an entire house there; probably a copy of what it had been when it was still standing.
Or maybe the whole place was still there and it just looked burned from the street?
“Wonder what it looks like from next door?” I muttered, putting my hand out to touch the latch on top of the gate. “Heck, here come the brownies. What now?”
“We check the mail,” JinYeong said, as if pointing out the obvious.
“Can’t,” I said, pointing at the lock that kept the top of the letterbox flush with the bottom half. “Reckon whoever it is who comes here doesn’t want people getting their mail.”
“Maybe,” said JinYeong, narrowing his eyes at the lock, “you can use Between.”
“Can’t do that, either,” I said after a brief, abortive attempt to fiddle with the threads that ran through the lock itself and, failing that, an attempt to push my hand right through the substance of the letterbox while pretending it was a kind of Between. “Whoever did it has used magic, not Between. We could try to find some bolt cutters, but—”
JinYeong raised a brow at me. “What? You are angry. Why are you suddenly angry?”
“Flamin’ heck,” I growled, digging the key I’d taken from Athelas’ room out of my pocket. “If this works, I’m gunna—actually, I don’t know what I’m gunna do, but I’ll probably kick someone in the shins.”
He instinctively stepped back, which made me grin.
“Not you,” I told him. “Can’t ruin your trousers. I’ll kick Athelas when we get home.”
I put the key in the lock, and in it slid, quiet and soft and just right. It turned without a hitch when I twisted it, too. JinYeong gave a gleeful chuckle and snatched the lid up as I took the lock away, revealing three or four envelopes.
“Flamin’ heck,” I said sourly once again, looking from the key to the letters and back again.
It wasn’t like Athelas couldn’t have gotten the key somehow, through his own little machinations, but I had a bad feeling that it went deeper than that.
“Right,” I said, grabbing the envelopes. “Off we go.”
One of his brows went up, and a gleam of amusement lit his dark eyes. “We are going? Already?”
“Nope,” I said, those letters firmly in hand. “It looks like my idea was right, and I don’t flamin’ like it! It doesn’t make sense. We’re going to see the neighbours.”
JinYeong’s hand on my upper arm dragged me back softly but inexorably.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Brownies. Reckon we can do a sneaky and skip over the back fence?”
He nodded sedately. “Kurae. That will be better.”
“You up for vamping someone?”
He blinked a little. “We need to vamp them?”
“If you reckon that someone isn’t gunna be pretty flamin’ uptight about strangers skipping over their fence and coming into their kitchen, you’ve got a big surprise coming. We wanna talk to them, not have ’em call the cops on us.”
“There is no house,” JinYeong pointed out, but he followed me when I grabbed the latch of the gate once again and let us both in. Then he said, “Ah. This tricky old man.”
The house was there, as if it had never been gone. Now it wasn’t a ghost structure just barely sketched amidst the ruins, it was a solid presence of brick and façade.
“Thought so,” I said in satisfaction. “Let’s go.”
“Perhaps the brownies will follow us anyway,” he warned. “The door is old and not very strong.”
“Since when do behindkind use doors, anyway?” I asked. “We’ll have to risk it. It’s better than siccing them on the neighbours instead.”
The front door was locked when I tried it, which wasn’t surprising; I could have just looked around a bit and then tried to walk through it as usual if no one was looking, but it occurred to me just in time to try the key on that lock, too.
The key turned without a hitch once again, so I let it go and said to JinYeong, “After you.”
He grinned and turned the key himself, then stepped through the door. Apparently the invitation thing isn’t entirely a myth, and things are easier if there’s an invitation; turning the key in the lock seemed like it would be a good compromise.
I followed him through the door, half expecting to have brownies on my back at any second, but I managed to shut the door behind me before anything happened. I did hear the creak of the wooden stairs as several sets of feet climbed onto the patio, but the weight attached to those feet settled in a few different places around the patio without trying to get through the door.
That was nice. Couldn’t have JinYeong ruining his tie today.
I grabbed the back of his suit jacket as he passed through the dining area on his way to the back door, and when he looked enquiringly at me, said softly, “Hang on. I wanna have a look at these letters before we go jumping any fences. I know what they’re gunna be, but I want to double check.”
I opened two of the letters in quick succession while JinYeong opened the third, and we laid each of the thin sheafs on the dining table to stare down at them. Three bills looked back up at us: two power bills and a rates notice—each of them with a familiar address attached.
“What is it?” JinYeong asked. “These are the same as the ones the policeman found.”
“Yep,” I said, short and quiet. “I’m pretty sure Athelas has been paying the bills on my house—Morgana’s and Ralph’s, too. That’s why we’re going over to see the neighbour; I reckon they’ll confirm it for us if we ask.”
JinYeong’s eyes danced unexpectedly. “It is just like the old man. What do you think he meant by it?”
“That’s the question,” I said, gathering up the papers along with a truly impressive amount of dust. “And no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t find a good answer. Not one I like, anyway.”
“There is a good answer,” he said. “But I think there is no happy answer.”
“Yeah.” I leafed through the notices once more, double-checking to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. There was nothing else. Nothing surprising, either.
“You already knew what we would find here,” JinYeong said accusingly.
“Not knew,” I said. “I definitely suspected. You can’t go deep-diving through Athelas’ memories and not start to realise that he’s so twisty he’s turned back on himself. He wasn’t on our side, but I don’t know that he was on the king’s side, either—I don’t even know if he was fully on Lord Sero’s side.”
“He was on Hyeong’s side,” JinYeong said unexpectedly. “But not in a way that makes Hyeong happy now, kuchi?”
“Yeah,” I said again. “I reckon that’s about as close as Athelas gets to picking sides—doing everything for Zero and…I don’t know what else, yet. But I reckon he expected to make Zero king, whether or not Zero wanted it. That’s why it’s hard to tell if he was on Lord Sero’s side or not—they both wanted the same thing.”
“The old man understands power,” said JinYeong, with one shoulder shrugging up. “And when he loves, he tries to give power. Why do you think he wanted the detective to gather all of those things?”
“It was either really dumb or really smart of him,” I said. I’d been thinking about that, too. “And Athelas—”
“The old man is twisty, but not stupid,” agreed JinYeong. “He wanted you to find out?”
“I reckon,” I said. “If not me, Zero.”
“You think he wanted you to know he was the murderer?”
“No,” I said slowly. I had the feeling that all of this had been part of a carefully orchestrated series of falling dominoes—a piece in Athelas’ plan that was perhaps marked merely as closure. “I think he was maybe trying to be kind to Zero. I think he wanted Zero to understand everything after he was dead, and Zero was king.”
JinYeong sniffed a small laugh. “The old man did not expect to live after he returned to Lord Sero. I think he was too twisty.”
“That’s what I reckon,” I said. “He’s been dancing around Lord Sero’s orders for years, I reckon; probably figured it’d catch up with him when he went back. He must have known that Tuatu would do everything he could to make sure he let us know what was happening if Athelas forced him to do something—and he must have expected me to tell Zero.”
“Probably he thought Hyeong would find out for himself,” JinYeong said.
It was my turn to sniff, but it was a bit more on the sharp side than JinYeong’s had been. “Well, he wasn’t wrong about Zero doing what he wanted, anyway,” I said sourly. I was still a bit sore about Zero pinching back the information I had pinched from North.
“I just wish I could figure out exactly what he meant by all of it,” I said. I had a suspicion or two, but I didn’t particularly want to acknowledge them. There would be too much else I had to acknowledge first. “He had a lot of opportunities to kill me before he signed the pet contract—and if all he was doing was trying to put Zero on the throne, it would have been a lot safer to kill me. He killed most of the other heirlings.”
“Ask him,” said JinYeong. “See if he will tell you.”
“Reckon that’s about as dangerous as digging through his memories,” I said gloomily. I’d already asked, anyway. “All right, we might as well get a wriggle on. You think the brownies will stay on the patio?”
He nodded. “If we do not go Between, they will stay where they are.”
“Right, out the back door like normal people it is, then,” I said, suiting the action to the words. “Here, givus a boost. I don’t have your flying abilities.”
JinYeong primly gave me a boost that put me right on top of the shoulder-height red brick wall, and elegantly threw himself over it while I was dropping down to the grass on the other side. The owner of the backyard met us at the sliding glass door to his backyard, a scowl on his face and his mouth opened—probably to demand to know what the heck we thought we were doing in his backyard—but before he could say anything JinYeong looked brightly at him.
“Annyeong, friend. You would like to invite us in, I think.”
“Come on in!” the bloke said, the scowl vanishing straight away. He gave us a good grin, too, as if he really was glad to see us.
Nice bloke, I thought, feeling a bit guilty. Probably had a nice little barbeque out the back somewhere, too, and a lot of steak in the freezer.
“Lot of people out there on the street today,” I said, as we slipped through the sliding back door.
“Yeah, it’s a bit weird,” he said. “I should probably check it out; we don’t usually get many people coming along the street. Last time we had a bunch of yobbos along out here, they burnt a house down.”
“I don’t reckon you wanna check this bunch out,” I told him, catching JinYeong’s eye. I shook my head when the man wiggled his kettle questioningly at me and added, “Nah, no need for a cuppa; we’ll be heading off pretty quickly.”
“I would not go outside this afternoon, if I were you,” JinYeong said to the man, his eyes warning.
“Fair enough,” he said, putting the kettle back down. “They gave me a bad feeling, anyway. Either of you want a beer? I don’t have much to eat at the moment, but I can do you some salt and vinegar chips.”
“We’re all good,” I said, grinning at JinYeong’s baffled expression. Apparently he hadn’t tried salt and vinegar chips yet. “Oi, someone comes past to collect the mail every month, don’t they?”
“Oh, that. Yeah. I don’t know why they don’t just redirect it like normal people. There isn’t even a house there anymore. Maybe they like giving the old bloke a job.”
“Old bloke in tweedy sorta suits with elbow patches and grey eyes?” I asked, my heart beating just a bit too fast.
“That’s the fella. He seems to like taking a walk up the street to get the mail, and he’s always friendly enough if I’m out in the front garden.”
I exchanged a look with JinYeong. It wasn’t like Athelas to be seen or remembered unless he wanted to be remembered. “Waves to you, does he?”
“Stops for a chat every now and then,” the man explained. “Last time he told me about some computer trouble he was having, and the time before that it was a pet that was making life hard for him.”
“The flamin’ cheek of it!” I muttered, caught between an aching, bitter kind of amusement and pure outrage. Not only was Athelas stopping to talk with random neighbours while he was doing secret business, he had the absolute gall to complain about me while he was doing it!
“Yes, that pet was very troublesome,” said JinYeong solemnly, but there was a wicked glint to his eye that the bloke didn’t see. “Did anyone else come to the house?”
“No one ever came except the kid that delivers the mail, and him with the tweed suit—not until the two of you. And now there’s a group of bogans camped out on the patio.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of ’em when we go,” I promised him. “You just keep inside for a couple hours after we go, all right?”
“I won’t go out this afternoon,” he said, echoing JinYeong earlier. “Oh, are you not staying?”
“We better keep moving,” I said. “Just wanted to ask you about our other mate.”
It felt odd and uncomfortable to call Athelas that; after everything that had happened in the last week or two, it probably wouldn’t ever feel normal again. I caught myself up and thought fiercely, It doesn’t have to feel normal. It’s not normal. He’s not one of us and he never will be again, but that only left me feeling hollow and sick again.
“We will go now,” said JinYeong, tugging lightly at my sleeve. “We have some trouble to take away with us before it becomes bored.”
“Right,” I agreed hastily, and followed him out the sliding door and into the back yard once more.
There was a scattering of brownies that I fairly felt as we passed back through the abandoned house before JinYeong flung open the door and sauntered out onto the patio and down the stairs. He didn’t pause, despite the fact that he must have seen the last brownie playing at high-jump with the fence at the front, and when I caught up with him at the front gate he was grinning in a dark, bloody sort of way.
“Are you spoiling for a fight, or are you just enjoying the fact that Athelas’ devious hands are behind pretty much everything we dig up?” I asked him.
“He is such a sneaky old thing,” JinYeong said, his voice deep with satisfaction. “My Ruth, do you wonder—do you wonder why those dead heirlings are still so troublesome? They are dead, yes, but they are still here.”
“Yeah,” I said, slipping my hand into his almost by instinct and trying not to notice how bright it made his eyes. “I wonder about that a lot.”
Daniel and the other lycanthropes were back by the time we got home—for lunch, apparently. Someone had brought home four roast chooks and a huge tub of mashed potato that was revolving in the microwave to reheat, while North perched on the arm of the couch Tuatu was sitting on and sniffed curiously from time to time.
“I thought you didn’t eat,” I heard him say, as we came into the living room.
“I don’t have to,” she said. “But that smells good.”
“I don’t know about you,” he said. “But I’m not going to get between that lot and their food.”
“There’s enough for everyone,” Daniel said shortly. “No one will get bitten.”
He slung plates out on the table with a couple of deep lines between his brows. I stepped up into the dining room to join him while JinYeong skirted around the lycanthropes to get a blood bag out of the fridge.
“Had a dream last night,” I told him, since I knew exactly why he was distracted.
“Yeah?” He looked at me briefly. “Wait, what sort of a dream?”
“One where I saw everyone in the arena. Morgana, Zero, Sarah—the whole lot of them.”
His hand paused, still holding the last plate. “What were they doing?”
“Running, mostly,” I admitted. “Just thought you’d like to know: they’re dreams, but they’re really not. And everyone’s definitely still alive.”
Daniel, the tension leaving his shoulders, blew out his cheeks and put down the last plate. “I kept hoping for that, but it’s still a relief to hear it. Do you think Zero can actually kill the king?”
“Save us pulling out the king ourselves and going through all the trouble, you mean?”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought it—wasn’t like I hadn’t wished I could just let things run their course like that.
Daniel nodded. “If they’re still alive and doing well…”
