Living with the Dead

ROBYN

Robyn had been standing at the hotel bedroom door for ten minutes, her fingers on the handle as she listened for sounds from the other side.

Last night, she'd been too tired to ask questions and had used that as an excuse to herself for not asking. But, her first thought on waking had been I have to know.

She'd showered, dressed, made the bed and was now stalled at the door to the main room, where Hope and Karl were sleeping.

She counted to three. Then to five. Then told herself, on the count of ten, she absolutely would -

Goddamn it, just open it!

She knocked. It took a moment before she heard Hope's sleepy "come in." She cracked open the door. Hope was alone on the sofa bed, sitting up, blinking at the empty space beside her.

Robyn pointed at the closed bathroom door, light shining under it. "

I think he's in there."

Hope nodded. She looked at Robyn, then her gaze dipped away. Karl came out of the bathroom. Hope murmured something, then slipped in behind him. The door closed.

Robyn looked at that door, wondering what was up with Hope this morning. A rough night, she supposed. After their ordeal, she couldn't blame her.

"Good morning, Robyn," Karl said.

She managed a response. He crossed to the desk and picked up the room service menu. Robyn stayed where she'd stopped, watching him leaf through it.

She thought of what the other man had said Karl was, and even if she couldn't bring herself to form the word, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Couldn't stop hearing his snarl from last night. Couldn't stop seeing the pulsing rage in his face. Couldn't forget the other man's face, pulsing with something else, contorting, changing…

"That fair last night, it didn't have a freak show, did it?" Karl asked, still reading the menu.

"What?"

"Freaks. The Bearded Lady. The Three-legged Man. The Lobster Boy. Pay a dollar to see the freak?"

"Um, no, I didn't see…"

"But you've seen exhibits like that before. Hope says you like fairs, particularly small, out-of-the-way ones where the questionable qualities of a freak show might be more acceptable."

"Sure…"

He glanced up. "Have you ever paid your dollar?"

"No, never. I – "

"When you see the signs, though, do you ever consider what it would be like to be the person inside that tent? On display? With everyone staring, satisfying their morbid curiosity, wondering how you live, how awful it would be to be you…"

"I…" She stopped, realizing what he was getting at. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… gawk."

"Personally? I don't care." He set the menu back on the desk. "But Hope does. She's already uncomfortable. Having her friend gaping at her like she's on display…"

Was that why Hope ducked into the bathroom? Robyn didn't think she'd been gaping, but she must have been looking at her differently, thinking, wondering…

"I want to know," Robyn said.

"Hmm." He plucked his jacket from a chair back. "Room service is apparently not one of this hotel's strengths. Tell Hope I went out to find a more suitable breakfast."

She stepped in his path. "I mean it, Karl. I want to know what's going on. Everything."

"We'll discuss it over breakfast. Don't jump on Hope about it the moment she gets out of the bathroom."

"I wouldn't."

His lips parted, but he settled for a nod, a curt good-bye, and was gone.

Hope came out shortly after Karl left. Robyn tried to avoid awkwardness by making small talk, asking about Hope's mother's plans for her big May Day charity ball, which only made it obvious there were a million things she was avoiding talking about.

Hope squirmed under those questions as much as if Robyn had gaped at her. She'd promised Karl she wouldn't ask more, but not asking felt even stranger. It was like sitting with one of those freaks, discussing the most mundane subjects imaginable, pretending you didn't notice you were talking to a woman with a beard.

"We need to talk about what happened last night," Hope said finally.

"Oh, I – No, that's okay. I – "

"I mean about the guy who grabbed you, what he said about Adele and Karl."

"Oh, right." Robyn kicked herself for not thinking of this safe-but-pertinent topic. She seized on the diversion and was still explaining when Karl arrived.

He set up breakfast, waving them aside when they stood to help, asking questions when Robyn finished her explanation. Then Hope and Karl exchanged a look, one that Robyn had come to know well and now understood: "We'll discuss it later, when she's not around."

"Did Robyn tell you what she wants?" Karl asked as they dished up breakfast plates.

"I was warned not to bring it up," Robyn said.

Hope followed her look. "Karl…"

He only shrugged, unapologetic, and bit into his croissant.

"I told Karl I want to know," Robyn said.

"Know…?"

Robyn gave her a look – it was like leaning around the proverbial pachyderm in the room to ask, "what elephant?"

"Everything," she said.

Hope and Karl exchanged another look.

"Let's start with what's important right now," Hope said. "This Adele Morrissey…"

"She's psychic."

Hope paused, as if fighting the temptation to leave it at that, then said, "We call them clairvoyants."

"So she sees the future?"

"No, just the present. It's remote-viewing. Have you ever heard of that?"

Robyn shook her head.

"They used to do it at spiritualist shows, back in Victorian times. The spiritualist would sit behind a screen or in a back room and would describe things in the audience."

"I didn't know that," Karl murmured.

Hope flashed him a smile, as if grateful for the diversion. "That's because you're not True News's weird-tales girl. This stuff is my life, remember?"

Robyn hadn't even thought of that, Hope's unusual specialty. There was more to it than a job, obviously.

"Most of that remote-viewing was fake, of course," Hope said, relaxing now, in her element. "Real clairvoyants are extremely rare. It's passed down through generations in varying degrees, so even if you have the blood, you may not be able to remotely view. But those who have the power can see farther than past a screen or into an adjoining room. They focus on a person, using a picture or personal effect."

"Like a psychic."

Hope nodded. "All that stuff has to originally come from somewhere, right? By using that object and focusing, Adele can see you. I have no idea how big a window she gets – like I said, true clairvoyants are rare, so we don't know a lot about them. She'd use that view, though, to pick up clues about your surroundings – a street sign, a landmark…"

"A napkin with a café name on it," Robyn said, remembering the day before.

"Exactly. You said she's a photographer, that she took pictures of Portia for the tabloids. I guess that's how she used her talents."

Clairvoyant paparazzi, able to find their targets anywhere, watch and wait for that moment when they were most likely to do something tabloid-worthy, slip in, snag the shot and leave, while their colleagues chased and hounded and prayed they'd get lucky.

Robyn considered herself a rational person. Too rational, some said. The summer she'd been fourteen, she'd followed a friend to a camp for the arts. At the end of the two weeks, her creative writing instructor told her, as gently as possible, that not all people were cut out to be novelists and if she enjoyed writing, she might want to consider nonfiction instead. In other words, Robyn didn't have an imaginative cell in her body. She'd come to accept that.

But now, faced with the existence of people with real psychic abilities, even her too-rational brain was satisfied that this did make sense, given the evidence. Was it that preposterous, when there were branches of science devoted to studying such phenomena? As Hope said, the stories about ESP and remote-viewing had to come from somewhere. As long as they were talking about people seeing the present, not the future, then yes, Robyn could accept it.

"So Adele is part of this… group," Robyn said. "This community, of people with… extraordinary powers."

"We have some idea who Adele may have aligned herself with and, yes, it's an organization, but for now, the important part is that we know what she is. We'll be able to deal with her."

"But the larger group, community, whatever, the one made up of everyone with paranormal powers…"

"I wouldn't exactly call it a community."

"You know what I mean."

Hope sipped her coffee.

Robyn waited a moment for Hope to answer. When she didn't, she said, "So we have clairvoyants and…"

Hope added another cream. Stirred. Sipped.

"Clairvoyants and…" Robyn prompted.

Hope set her cup down and leaned back. "What else do you need to know?"

"I said I want to know – "

"Need," Karl said.

She looked from one to the other. Both met her gaze, expressions blank.

"So you won't tell me," she said finally.

"Won't, shouldn't, can't…" Hope said. "Anything you need to know, though, I'll – "

"Oh, this is silly." Robyn slumped into the chair, arms crossed. She felt childish doing it, but at least she managed to avoid pouting. "I'm not exactly asking for national security secrets."

"Aren't you?" Karl said. "Perhaps not national security, but certainly very valid security concerns for a group of people."

"Why? So what if the world suddenly discovered people who could remote-view?"

"Have you ever heard of the Inquisition?" Karl asked.

"Now that is silly. Yes, people were afraid of witchcraft in the Middle Ages. They also thought dragons inhabited the edge of the world. Are you honestly going to tell me that if people today knew about clairvoyants, they'd hunt them down and burn them at the stake?"

"Perhaps not."

"There's no perhaps about it, Karl. This isn't the Middle Ages – "

"What if you read a headline announcing the discovery of a mutant gene found in a very small group. This gene forces them to murder one person each year to stay alive, and to feed off people the rest of the year, like parasites. Would you say vive la différence? Live and let live?"

"Well, no, but whatever those people are – "

"Vampires?"

Robyn blanched. She didn't mean to, but she couldn't help it.

"But if there are… vampires, they aren't people," she said.

"I wouldn't try telling them that," Hope murmured.

Robyn looked at her. Were they serious? Or were they only giving the most outrageous example they could? She straightened and met Karl's gaze.

"Fine, I wouldn't approve of vampires. But that's not – "

"Let's take another example then. A slightly larger group. People with no biological imperative to kill, but with a strong – sometimes overwhelming – instinct to do it. An instinct to see man not as a conscious being, but as just another threat and food source. Many resist the urge, some successfully. Some don't bother to try. Should we exterminate them all? Just to be safe?"

Werewolves. He had to be talking about werewolves. And if what she suspected was true, it wasn't an imaginary example.

"No," she said. "You don't execute people because they might kill."

"Noble, but would everyone agree with you? After all, we're talking about a very small group. Perhaps thirty in North America. Wouldn't it just be easier to round them up and kill them, eliminate the contamination, just to be safe?"

She opened her mouth, but Karl continued. "Of course, not every supernatural is a predator. The majority are not, and wouldn't pose an obvious threat."

"Exactly my point, so – "

"Someone like a clairvoyant or medium or witch would be perfectly acceptable, as long as you don't pull religion into it?"

"Religion?"

Hope answered. "They're all considered, at least by Christianity, to be in league with the devil."

"Oh, that's – "

"Silly? Tell that to every other group that's been persecuted because there's something in the Bible that could be interpreted to mean God disapproves of them. If you had, say, demon blood, how quick would you be to announce it?"

Robyn considered that… and didn't care for the answer.

"And let's return to the original example," Hope went on. "Clairvoyants. Would you want people to know you could see what they were doing, anytime, anywhere? What would your friends think of that? Your husband or lover? Knowing you could spy on them?"

Robyn couldn't hold Hope's gaze. Yes, she had a point. But Robyn wasn't asking her to tell the world. Just her.

Damn it, Hope, she thought, I'm your friend.

"Yes," Hope said softly. "You are my friend."

Robyn looked up sharply. Had she spoken aloud? She looked into Hope's eyes, and knew she hadn't. And she shivered. God, she didn't want to, but she couldn't help it.

"Is that something you'd want to announce to your friends?" Hope said. "Is that something you really wanted to know about me?"

Robyn opened her mouth, but couldn't form words.

"I didn't think so."

Robyn quickly realized how foolish she'd sounded saying "tell me everything." Hope gave her only what she needed to know, with no mention of werewolves or demons or witches, keeping it all in the simplest terms possible. But even so, before long Robyn was totally lost.

Apparently the guy in the photo was an executive with a corporation… a corporation that employed people like Adele and Karl and Hope, and was known in their circles as the supernatural corporate Mafia. As for what that meant, how such a company operated, why no one ever noticed? Robyn didn't ask. The concept of a "supernatural corporate Mafia" masquerading as a regular business was enough for her to assimilate.

Hope was certain that what this Irving guy wanted was Adele. Apparently, being a rare race, clairvoyants were very valuable. As employees, Robyn presumed, though by this point, if Hope said he'd wanted Adele for a ritual sacrifice, she wouldn't have blinked.

"What all this has to do with the photo, and why Adele wants it back, I don't know. It would make sense if Irving was behind Portia's death. If he was trying to hire Adele, he wouldn't want the photo splashed over the tabloids, where a rival could track her down and make a better offer."

"He'd kill for that?"

"Sure." Hope said it with absolute conviction, as if it was no more in question than whether a rival would make Adele a better offer.

That would mean this guy knew Portia told Robyn to send the picture to the tabs. Maybe he'd been tapping Portia's phone. Or maybe Adele had used her powers and seen Portia type the message. It didn't matter. Adele had killed Portia and was after Robyn, and that was what counted.

Hope and Karl also suspected that this supernatural corporation was involved in the murder investigation, through Detective Findlay.

"He's a supernatural," Hope explained. "One of my powers is that I can detect other supernaturals. I picked it up with Findlay. I confirmed that the Nasts do have employees on the police force. Homicide would be one of the key positions. It's another way to survive unnoticed, heading off exposure threats and squelching the stories."

"Like you do with True News," Robyn said. "So how did I get mixed up in all this? I seem to be the only person involved who's norm – not supernatural."

"It happens. Most of the population has no supernatural powers and we don't live in communes and caves. Imagine what would have happened if Karl hadn't been here to find you Friday. What would you have done?"

Robyn thought about it. "Eventually turned myself in. Then, I guess Detective Findlay would have taken over and I'd have found myself framed for murder. That is, if Adele didn't get to me outside the station."

"And if either of those things happened, would you have had any suspicions that Adele wasn't just a crazy woman? Or Detective Findlay wasn't just another cop doing his job?"

"No." She paused. "So I guess I should thank you guys for being here."

"You might not want to be too quick with that. Wait until after you hear our plan for getting you out of this."