Dead to Me

37

Most of Other Division was crowded around the television at the front of the Lovecraft Café. Jane was at my side, her hand openly around my shoulder, but I didn’t mind it in public anymore. People could think what they wanted to think. Bruises, slings, and more than one set of crutches were signs that last night had not been a dream—that and the wooden fish now hanging on the wall of my apartment.

David Davidson was on the screen live from Town Hall, where he was looking nervous for the first time since I had known him. In the past he had been able to disavow much of the paranormal and occult activities in the city. But there was no way he could cover up the events of last night. You simply couldn’t get away with destroying the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You especially didn’t get away with it considering we had left an occultist ringleader pinned to the wall. Davidson floundered for words when the questions started coming. Claiming an emergency had come up he ran away from the podium, and I knew we had rattled him.

Godfrey Candella from the Gauntlet patted me on the shoulder before asking me to stop by later so he could transcribe my oral account of what happened at the Met for their archives. On the television screen, the news cut away from the empty podium.

“Satisfied?” Jane said in my ear. I leaned into her.

“I guess so,” I said. “Was kinda hoping the Mayor might fire him, though.”

“Good heavens, no!” the Inspectre chimed in next to us. “And make us break in a new liaison? Why would you want that? You know how devilishly long it would take to get someone new jumping through the right hoops? We’ve got Davidson right where we want him now.”

“I’d hardly call what Davidson does for us jumping through the hoops, sir.”

He patted me on the shoulder and leaned closer. “He’s no saint, m’boy, that is for sure. But he’s certainly better than many men we could be dealing with.”

Connor walked over to us. He was carrying iced coffees, one for himself and one as a peace offering for Jane, who seemed to have taken up his addiction.

“The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don’t, kid,” he said, “and Davidson’s no devil. Not by a long shot. Imp, maybe, but he ain’t no devil.”

“Well,” I said, “he sure as hell went out of his way to help Faisal and Cyrus and everyone in their big, bad clubhouse of evil there.”

The Inspectre chuckled. The assembled crowd slowly split up and returned to the offices. There was a jovial camaraderie among the departments today, and even the White Stripes were high-fiving people who weren’t part of their hair club for men.

“Enough, Simon, enough!” the Inspectre said. “You’re not due to study Cynicism and the Road to Ruin until the Other Division conference in mid-December. I’m sure they’ll expect one corker of a speech about last night out of you. I believe they’ve also nominated you for Most Battered in the Line of Duty, my boy.”

I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not, but I laughed anyway. I instantly regretted it as I felt the tape binding my ribs pull tight. Jane’s arm tightened around my shoulder in response.

“I’m okay,” I said with all the believability of a politician. “I’m sure the internal bleeding will be just fine.”

“No time for jokes,” Jane said. “With your sense of humor, you’re bound to puncture a lung before you realize it. Let’s get you back to work. Up and at ’em. I can help you through the theater at the very least.”

Though Jane still wasn’t allowed back in the Department proper, there was serious talk about pushing through the paperwork because of the way she had proven herself in the line of duty. But the wheels of red tape were ever slow. I wasn’t holding my breath that it would be anytime soon.

“I can take him from there,” Connor said in the spirit of cooperation as he gathered our drinks.

When we neared Mrs. Teasley at the back of the café, her cat almost fell off the table as it leaned over to rub its head against my hand.

“I don’t mean to alarm you two,” the old seer said with her hands knuckle deep in coffee grounds, “but you should expect a visitation in the near future.”

I scritched the cat under his chin and he purred happily. “Another one of your psychic readings, eh, Mrs. T?”

“No,” she said. “Silly boy. It’s just that Director Wesker seems to be waiting behind you.”

Jane slowly turned us around, and sure enough, Wesker was standing there, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses as usual. I tensed immediately, never quite sure what his whole role in the Sectarian fiasco had been.

“Are either of you two familiar with a Mr. Jason Charles?” Wesker said smugly.

Just the mention of the corporate headhunter was enough to put me on guard and Jane followed my lead. She took her arm from around me in search of something to defend herself with. I wobbled tentatively as she abandoned me, but managed to stagger toward the counter for support. I braced one hand against it. Sadly, my bat was sitting on my desk out back so I scooped up the nearest object I could to defend myself—a pair of muffin tongs. Not terribly intimidating, mind you, but I had worked with worse during Unorthodox Fighting Techniques.

“Easy now, easy!” Wesker said, raising both hands high in the air. “So you are familiar with the name. Good. I thought you might be.”

“Is he here?” I said, snapping the tongs as viciously as I could. The Inspectre and Connor stopped by the curtained doorway of the theater.

“No. And in case you forgot, Simon, I work here,” Wesker said, then sneered at Jane. “Unlike some people. Now put down those tongs before you damage someone’s muffin.”

The Inspectre moved defensively toward Jane. He looked Wesker up and down. “What the devil is he talking about, dear?”

“Jason Charles was the man the Sectarians assigned to kill me, sir,” Jane said, speaking up, “but he was about as effective at that as he was being a boyfriend. His solution to most of life’s problems was to shoot them, especially for money. Hell, I bet when he found out I was the target, he offered to cap me for free.”

Wesker stepped forward like he was going to push his way past all of us, but I clicked my tongs, SNIKT SNIKT SNIKT, and his eyes darted to me nervously.

“Jane,” I said calmly. “This might not be the best time to squabble over who was shooting who and for how much…”

“Nobody is shooting anybody anymore!” Wesker said, exasperated. “Thanks to the deal I cut, naturally.”

Jane and I shared a WTF glance.

“What deal?” I asked.

“The point I was trying to make if you would have shut up for a minute,” Wesker said, “is that Mr. Charles will no longer be bothering you. Either of you.”

“Oh,” I said, hopping toward Wesker. “Just like that?”

“The Sectarians were footing the bill on you two, and since they seem to be under some hard times financially, they really couldn’t afford his services any longer.”

“So do I get a rebate for what he did to Tamara?” I spat out. “Is Jane supposed to just sit around waiting for the Sectarians to scrape up enough cash so they can pay Jason Charles to kill her at a later date!?”

Wesker shook his head and then I saw something I had never witnessed before—his face softened. “The contract’s off, Jane. It’s been bought out. You’re free and clear. You don’t have to worry about him coming after you anymore. No more looking over your shoulder, at least for him anyway.”

Jane and I stood there, not truly believing what we had just heard.

“It’s that simple?” I said. “Someone pays the corporate headhunter off and that’s it? Who’d be that generous? Inspectre?”

The Inspectre shook his head. “I’m sorry, Simon, but I’m afraid our budget simply wouldn’t allow for that.”

“Well,” interrupted Wesker with a smug smile, “that’s only partly true. If you shared the expense with, say, another director, you could help ensure this young woman’s safety. A small price to pay, wouldn’t you say?”

“You bought out the contract on Jane?” I asked. This seemed all too kindly a gesture for Thaddeus Wesker. Sure, he had helped us escape the Sectarians when we were at risk, but that had been to selfishly maintain his own cover. I couldn’t see his angle on helping us. “What’s the catch?”

Wesker sighed and adjusted his mirrored frames. “My God, don’t you ever tire with the questions?”

“The boy is merely cautious,” the Inspectre said. “How does the saying go? ‘He is most free from danger, who, even when safe, is on his guard.’”

“Nice one,” Connor chimed in.

“‘Curiosity killed the cat,’” Wesker offered flatly. “I can offer up pithy sayings, too. The point, Simon, is this. For all that your Other Division has to offer you, just remember that there are shades of gray out there as well as your black-and-white world of good and evil. I embrace the Darkness to better serve the light. You’d do best to remember that. What you see as my coldness and ambition, I see as a practicality in an unending war with the forces of Darkness. But I do know a good soul when I see one, Simon, and I could hardly let Jane be lost to that fool now, could I? Besides, from what I heard said about her at the Sectarian Defense League, she could prove a useful asset to Greater and Lesser Arcana.”

“You want to offer me a job?” Jane said. She seemed excited at the prospect, but it was still a position answering to Wesker. She looked to me warily.

For once, I was dumbstruck. As much as I found his motives suspect, at least Jane might be able to keep an eye on him if she was in his Greater & Lesser Arcana Division. I nodded subtly.

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

The Inspectre haroomed loudly. “You say thank you.”

“Yes,” Wesker said. “You say thank you. To me. Even if it kills you…and I know it will.”

Wesker had taken Jane into his division because he’d heard what a professional she was, but I knew it couldn’t hurt that he knew I would hate the idea. And now he was forcing me to thank him. Whatever his motives, though, I did have him to thank for Jane’s safety from Jason Charles. It stung that Wesker was the one who had remedied the situation and not me, but that was probably his point in doing it in the first place.

I looked Wesker in the eye. “Thank you,” I said.

Wesker looked like the cat that had eaten the canary.

Jane put her arm around me, spun me around, and started hobbling me back toward the office.

“One last thing,” Wesker called out. All tolerance was gone from his voice this time. “If I hear about a lick of this getting out to the other staffers, I may have to put a contract out on you myself. Ido have a reputation for evil to uphold around here, and frankly, I find fear a much better motivator for my division than your Inspectre’s precious nurturing technique.”

Inspectre Quimbley snorted in response.

I stared blankly back at Wesker. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said with the Grinchiest of grins and stormed off toward the offices before I could get another word in.