Hal banked sharply, wind ruffling through feathered wings and crested head. This shape was not his favorite, built more for gliding than for actual flight, but until he had studied the local fauna he was forced to be expedient rather than camouflaged. His feet, now equipped with sharp talons, opened and closed as if they felt prey. Why had he turned?
My bearer.
The woman. He was unused to venturing this far from the ring’s holder. He was bound to guard the bearer, but her command… What had he expected? They were fragile, irrational creatures. He had not been prepared for skepticism. Weren’t females supposed to be more superstitious, less armored against spirits and strong winds? He should have had no trouble dealing with a single unaccompanied girl.
And yet. Had he been a mortal man, he would have been left outside her door, scratching his head and wondering what had just happened. A feat perilously close to magic.
He could go wandering, cramming as many new experiences and concepts into himself as possible, until she met with an accident. The ring would not relinquish her until he had performed at least one work at her direct bidding, and if she took it off after only one, he would be returned to the castle to wait for another of her ilk or Cavanaugh’s to free him.
What was this time she lived in, if she could disbelieve so thoroughly? Last time he had been so careful not to give himself away, both under Cavanaugh’s orders and because many mortals of that time were capable of great violence against those they suspected of trafficking with something outside the Church. His bearers could be injured or even killed by those who knew what they were about and had some patience.
Or an invisible ally of their own.
His feathers melted and he dove, a vivid boiling streak plummeting from a gray sky. He landed on a strip of pavement next to a bridge full of those whizzing cars, his feet now solid and booted, the rest of him a man dressed just as these others did—harsh blue breeches, cotton shirt, woolen sweater, and an overcoat that lacked the flair of a gentleman’s cloth. Still, they were warm and comfortable, but something troubled him.
None of the cars veered when he made his appearance. None of them turned to stare. He had dropped out of the sky, and they did not look.
They did not notice.
He headed for the south end of the bridge, changed his mind, turned back to pace north. Stopped between steps, shook his dark head, and whisked invisibility over himself with an unnecessary gesture. In all the endless time of his service, he had never felt this…disconcerted.
This anonymous.
It was much better than the boredom, but far less comfortable.
“Well,” he said aloud, relishing the weight of his voice even as it was lost under the noise of the rushing chariots. She had not barred him specifically from watching, she just said to stay away. There was no specified distance he had to observe. As long as she was not alerted to his presence, he was obeying the command. It wasn’t a wonder performed for her, but he could wait. Sooner or later she would speak the fateful words again, and he would be ready.
Hal grinned, his invisible body whirling catlike, and he leapt to the bridge’s railing. Looking down upon a dizzying river of metal and concrete, he exhaled sharply and stepped out into empty air. A flash, a burst of black feathers, and he was airborne again, winging toward the unphysical throbbing that was his fetter, clasped on the hand of a mortal girl.
A Little Tense
It wasn’t working.
There were dishes of “leftover” Halloween candy on every desk—Patty Larogue had brought in bags and bags of it, just like she did every year. Em couldn’t even bring herself to peel a mini Snickers bar, let alone open up a butterscotch. Her stomach kept rolling over every time she reached for the sugar, and that was only the beginning of the problems. Coffee gurgled behind her breastbone, even dipping French fries in a chocolate milkshake hadn’t been as appetizing as she thought it would, and apparently her favorite bra was developing a rubbing underwire to add to the fun. Her stockings kept slipping, the side zipper on her slacks had frozen four-fifths of the way to the top, and the goddamn spreadsheets were acting like a divine hand had suddenly fucked with both the laws of mathematics and the core programming functions.
To top it all off, the ring was still on her finger, its band refusing to let go of her skin. It was comfortable enough, except every time she looked at it, her stomach did another flip.
She pushed back from the desk, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache already poking at her temples, and her cellphone buzzed. It was a number she didn’t recognize, so she just let it run to voicemail and continued massaging where her nose met her eyebrows. At least there wasn’t a meeting this afternoon, and Funke wouldn’t be asking her for the reports just yet.
“Small mercies,” she muttered, and just as her phone stopped buzzing, someone’s hands descended on her shoulders.
Emily yelped, leaping to her feet, and the chair rammed back into Brett’s legs. He let out an oof and the entire fishbowl went silent. Even the people on calls paused, and Em could almost feel the entire office’s collective ears perking.
“What are you doing?” It burst out before she could stop herself, the words not quite reaching break-a-window shrill only because most of her breath was gone already. “What the hell?”
Brett’s face fell, but there was a ratty little gleam of enjoyment in his chilly blue eyes. “Didn’t mean to scare ya, honey.” Today, the pastel tie was sherbet-orange, but his shirt was the same as ever—blue, white collar and cuffs. No suspenders, but the pleats on his pants were knife-sharp. Maybe he even used spray starch.
Do not call me “honey”, you waste. “What do you want, Brett?” Again, she was too loud, and visions of grabbing her stapler and smacking him in his perfect teeth were dancing really close to the edge of her impulse control.
He was getting all sorts of reaction from her; his delight was almost palpable. “You just looked a little tense, that’s all.”
“If I’m tense it’s because you’re always sneaking in here and touching me without my permission.” Em realized her hands were shaking, but it wasn’t likely to be noticeable because she’d clenched them into fists. “Do you have some work-related reason for coming into my cubicle?”
“Whoa!” He held his hands palm-out, a mocking little grin exposing those magnificent, expensive teeth. He’d gotten some notice, and some interaction. A big dose of each. He was probably in hog heaven. “Just contributing to a friendly workplace culture, that’s all. I was heading to the break room, you want some coffee?”
I’ll just bet you were. “No, thanks.” She tried not to sound sarcastic, and suspected she failed. Her heart pounded so fast she felt lightheaded, and her knees were suspiciously shaky. “Stop coming in here and trying to scare me, Brett.”
Paper rustled, and curly-headed, lanky Becky Cornight in the cubicle next to Em’s stood up, stretching, wide-eyed and innocent. “Hey Em,” she said, salting the first half with an only partly theatrical yawn. “You got a minute?”
“Sure I do.” Em stared at Brett, hoping her resting bitchface was enough to deter him.
Becky cleared her throat, and she glared meaningfully at Brett, too. He just stood there, obviously enjoying the attention.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Em’s jaw ached, her teeth ground together so hard she could almost hear the stress-groaning. Imagining hair-fine cracks opening up in her molars was not helping either.
Her imagination just worked too goddamn well.
Becky cleared her throat a second time. “Go on your break, Brett. We wouldn’t want to keep you.”
“Sure you don’t want anything?” His blue gaze dropped to Emily’s chest. She didn’t have a clue why, for God’s sake, the silk button-down and lovely navy sweater she’d put on this morning were not even close to revealing attire. But apparently that didn’t matter to this asshole. He stared for a full five seconds more before grinning again.
“Absolutely sure,” Em mana
ged through her tight-clenched teeth, and watched him retreat for the breakroom with his long, prissy strides. A cloud of his drugstore body spray lingered, and Em sagged against her desk, her hip almost dislodging the printer. “Jesus Christ,” she breathed as soon as he’d turned the corner.
“I know, right?” Becky’s unplucked eyebrows huddled closer together, a furry Gordian knot. “He ‘accidentally’ bumped up against me in the copy room the other day. It was either a pencil or his boner, I couldn’t tell which.”
A laugh caught itself in Em’s throat, turned into an almost-rancid burp. “A harassment suit waiting to happen.”
“I’d file, if I didn’t need my paycheck.” Becky pushed her hair back, the rhinestone barrette at her right temple winking cheerfully. She’d gotten perfect corkscrews instead of Emily’s weird lopsided curls; in the great genetic lottery, Em often felt made out of leftovers. It was too bad her mother couldn’t have other kids, but if she had, would that have made things better?
Mom hadn’t called yet this week. That was a plus.
“I just wish he’d go away.” Emily let out a shaky breath—which turned into a gasp halfway through.
The ring on her left middle finger…twitched. A definite tug, and it warmed up as well, as if the metal had been sitting in a sunny windowsill and just now touched skin.
Wait, what? What did I just—
“Hello, mistress.” A soft cardamom breeze brushed the stale recycled air pumped through the entire warren. And, leaning nonchalantly right at the edge of her cubicle, his elbow resting on the three-quarter wall and his dark hair pulled severely back, the guy from her Halloween hallucination regarded her steadily.
Em’s jaw dropped. She glanced at Becky, but Becky wasn’t looking at her. Instead, eyes glazed, Becky stared into space, her mouth slightly open, her hand caught in the act of brushing her hair back. She wasn’t moving.
She was…frozen. Trapped. Paused like a DVD.
Em’s hands flew to her mouth, clapping over a rising scream.
“There is no need to cry out,” the hallucination repeated. “You have summoned me, and I am here.”
“I did not—” she began hotly, even though she was only addressing a fever dream or some neurons misfiring or—
His smile wasn’t as expensive as Brett’s, but it was sort of…terrifying. Because it seemed so genuine. “You did. But I wish to please you, so I shall ask, do you wish that man erased as if he had never lived? Or do you wish him banished to some remote place where he will slowly starve to death? A desert island, perhaps? Or should I simply unmake him where he stands? If you prefer the last, I suggest you direct me to leave his clothes behind. That will provide all manner of amusement.”
Em whirled, shoving her chair into the doorway to block it. She clambered up onto her desk, grabbed the top of the filing cabinet in one corner, and stared out over the office.
There was Delbert Clive, throwing his stupid Koosh ball in the air while on a client call, leaning back in his office chair. The ball hung in midair, and Del had been caught in mid-blink, his mouth open and his tongue on his lower teeth. Peggy Brampton was in the main corridor behind the empty cubicle set against the rear of Em’s, caught while scratching at the side of her nose while her ankle buckled slightly, a prelude to a stumble. And there was Patty, at her admin’s desk in the very center, her nose less than an inch from her screen, probably typing up a gossipy email about how Em had yelled at Brett.
“I’m insane,” Em breathed. “I’m dreaming. I’m hallucinating.”
“No,” he said, softly, persistently. “You are the ringbearer, and I am your servant. Now, tell me, where precisely do you wish to send that man?”
Miracle Fulcrum
She climbed down from the flimsy desk with admirable grace. Hal’s eyelids dropped halfway as she approached him, and he was almost charmed when her right hand, kept low at her hip, struck up and out, the small iron thing whacking him solidly in the stomach. Had he been mortal, it might have discommoded him, but instead she dropped the thing—stapler, he found the word for it floating on the air—with a clatter and snatched her hand back with a soft, completely unconscious sound of surprise. It would have been like striking a concrete wall, for her.
It was pleasant to set aside the invisibility, for once. Watching her had taught him much of this strange new modern world, and he found there was much to like about this new mistress. She seemed unruffled by the high speed of their chariots, and occasionally, when she answered the—tele-phone, he reminded himself—sitting on her desk next to the glowing screen her greetings were always soft and pleasant. Her apartment was neat, her furniture well cared for, and the more he watched the more odd he found it that she was not married. Surely she should have suitors?
“I am real enough.” He watched expressions flit across her face—large dark eyes outlined with kohl, that lucid mortal skin, the glossy hair half-held back. Had he at first thought her only winsome? In Cavanaugh’s day, she would have been the belle of any gathering, and yet here she wore a man’s breeches and sat for hours staring at a glowing screen, murmuring to herself and making numbers dance. Hal offered his hand. “Here. Touch me, if it will help you believe.”
She shook her head. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I thought I told you to go away.” Her voice gathered strength; she was gaining courage.
“You summoned me.”
“I just said I wi—” She actually clapped her right hand over her mouth again, which robbed him of the pleasure of looking at its shape, but it made her eyes much larger. “Oh,” she said, muffled into her palm. “Oh.”
She was intelligent. Almost harmfully so. “Very good. The wish summons your servant. I repeat, which way do you wish him to vanish? You can leave the choice to me, if you like. He seems a foul-mannered man, indeed.” Though what a woman could expect parading around in breeches and unescorted, Hal could not tell.
“Uh.” Her hand dropped back to her side. She visibly struggled with the implications of the question. “Um. Okay. Look, have you stopped time, or…”
“We have only moved very slightly sideways for a moment. Still, I advise you not to delay your decision overmuch.” The complexity of the operation he had performed would be, he suspected, largely lost on her. Most of his bearers had not wanted to know the how, only the possible fulfillment.
“Okay.” His bearer nodded. She was altogether too pale. “Okay. I’m asleep at my desk, and this is a really vivid dream. So, let me ask, how many wishes do I get? Three?”
None of the others had thought him a dream. “As many as you like, while wearing the ring.”
“How long do I get to wear the ring?”
Another good question. Very practical, this woman. Almost too practical. “As long as you like.”
“And if I take it off?” A faint note of challenge, eyes narrowing slightly and head tilting, her arms coming up to cross defensively over her chest. Her shirt and sweater blurred her outline, but only pleasantly so.
“You’ve already tried.” It wasn’t quite an answer, but Hal suspected the finer points would be lost on her in the current situation. And, strangely, he did not wish for this particular bearer to slip the ring free just yet. “While you are the bearer I may not harm you, allow you to come to harm, or cause you harm by inaction.”
That got a response—a small, coughing, disbelieving laugh. “Man, I definitely read too much Asimov in college.”
“Azee—” He was about to ask, but she shook her head again, her curls swaying heavily.
“Not important. Okay, so this is a dream. Right. Fantastic. Good. Can you send Brett somewhere else? Some other job with comparable pay and benefits, where…where he isn’t able to harass women ever again? Can you do that?”
“If you wish it so.” Harass? What an odd term. And a tenderhearted request, too. “Do you?”
“Yeah. Sure. And then you can, I don’t know, go help a little old lady across a street or something like a good little magical Boy
Scout.”
“Is that a command?”
Her eyes could not become any wider. “Um, no. I’m not big on the commanding thing.”
“That is a great pity.” He waited, but she just stood there, staring at him. Was he exotic to her, as well? He had never considered a bearer’s…feelings?—before. Then again, they had known what they were summoning. “May I, my mistress?”
“Gonna go home and watch some Dream of Jeannie reruns,” she muttered. “Yes, sure. Knock yourself out.”
So. His first true act for this new bearer, then. He concentrated upon the parameters set by her stipulations, and it could have been that easy. However, he had learned long ago that they needed a few…theatrics.
Hal lifted his left hand and snapped, twice. The sounds crackled, there was an echoing crack of the sideways-turning thread drawn back into the regular stream of time, a brief sliding sensation as the stream absorbed and righted the molecule-thin rivulet. There was a brief hissing, and Hal stepped aside through folded space, resolving into visible corporality to watch as the man Brett, who had stealthily crept upon Hal’s bearer with lust written across his features, tumbled naked down a sandy, thorn-clad slope. At the bottom was a tangle of giant metal tubes and spurting fire, black smoke rising from one tall tower, and the place was a filthy blot upon the landscape. In the distance, mountains rose their great unconcerned heads topped with white, and Hal longed to visit them.
The urge to return to his bearer was almost as strong, for once.
The vast complex was an oil refinery, and the man Brett now was employed there with a comparable rate of pay and benefits. There were very few women within fifty miles, the ones working at this place would be almost invisible to Brett, and as an additional fillip, the next time a woman was uncomfortable in Brett’s presence for any reason, the uncouth beast would begin to vomit uncontrollably.