Indexing (32 page)

I should probably have felt guilty about that. Maybe I would have, except that I knew I would activate her again if I had to. I would do it again in a heartbeat. “Okay, Demi. Thanks for that. I’ll let you know how this turns out when we get back to the Bureau.” I gestured for Sloane to hang up before Demi could say anything else. She’d already contributed as much as she could, and I didn’t want to upset her when there was nothing she could do to help. “Sloane, thoughts?”

“You mean do I think Birdie set our Mermaid up as a narrative hand grenade? Yeah, I do.” Sloane tucked her phone back into her pocket. “Let’s hope the Prince is dead,” she added, echoing my earlier sentiment. “I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen if he’s still breathing.”

“Me neither,” I said, and hit the gas.

“Kyle Johnston, this is the police.” Andy hammered on the door, shouting in his most booming voice at the same time. It would definitely have been intimidating if I hadn’t known him. The fact that Kyle wasn’t answering spoke poorly for his continued survival. “Please open your door, or we’re coming in.”

“He’s here,” said Sloane, pacing back and forth behind Andy like a chained dog. She had the half-starved look she sometimes got when we were close to an active story, nostrils flaring and eyes taking on a feral gleam. “He’s inside that door.”

“Is he alive?” I asked.

She shot me a glare. “Story wouldn’t still be here if he wasn’t.”

“Got it,” I said. “Andy?”

“Step away from the door!” he shouted, just in case Kyle was close enough to hear.

The sound of Andy kicking in the door was viscerally satisfying in a way that was difficult to describe. I drew my gun, holding it low as I motioned for Andy and Sloane to lead the way, and we entered Kyle Johnston’s home.

If Michael and Linda’s house looked like it had been decorated several years ago and then allowed to slip slowly, inexorably out of style, Kyle’s condo was the polar opposite. Every article of furniture and piece of artwork on the wall was perfectly hip, perfectly new, perfectly
now
, like there was a chance that a lifestyle magazine could arrive and start grading at any moment. The only thing out of place was the trail of blood that started halfway down the hall and extended toward the back of the condo.

I pointed to the blood trail and then to Andy, indicating that he should go that way. Looking to Jeff and Sloane, I pointed in the opposite direction. We needed to cover the whole place, and we needed to do it as quickly and quietly as possible.

Sloane scowled, pointing in the direction of the blood. I shook my head and pointed again at the door on the other side of the room. Still glaring at me, she grabbed Jeff’s arm and dragged him with her as she finally deigned to follow orders.

Andy had waited for me—less out of respect than out of a healthy desire not to go wandering off into a narrative-infected house all by himself. He raised an eyebrow as I turned to face him. I rolled my eyes and started following the blood, my gun braced against my wrist and Andy a looming, familiar presence at my back. We had done this routine before. That didn’t make it any easier.

The blood trail ended at the bathroom, where wads of gauze and bloody towels carpeted the floor. There was no sign of Kyle Johnston. Andy and I still searched the cupboards, closet, and bedroom before turning and retracing our steps, looking for the rest of our team.

We didn’t have to go far. Sloane and Jeff were in the kitchen, where a slim, good-looking man with bandages wrapped around his otherwise bare chest had collapsed on the linoleum. He wasn’t dead. He was breathing, and what’s more, there was a certain strange vitality about him that caught and held my eye, almost like it was daring me to come close, to smell the lingering traces of his cologne and read the birdwing traceries of his collarbones—

Sloane’s hand caught my elbow as I started to step past her. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said, and for once, her voice was almost kind. “A woman in your condition and a narrative running this close to the surface, there’s no telling what could happen.”

I reddened. “I wouldn’t,” I said, my protest sounding hollow even to my own ears.

“You’re a fairy tale princess, Henry. You get too close to a sleeping prince and you’re not going to have a choice.” She let me go and pushed me back a step in the same motion, somehow making it seem like it had been my decision to retreat. “We’ve got this. Go wait by the car.”

“Dammit,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes hard with the heels of my hands. “All right. Call if you need anything.” I’d always known that there would be downsides if my story ever went live. I had never considered that an inability to stand near an active Prince might be among them.

Footsteps followed me out of the condo and down the walkway to my car. I didn’t stop or look behind me until my hand was resting on the hood. Then I turned, looking at Jeff, and asked wearily, “Is this where you say ‘I told you so’ and tell me all about how I was inevitably going to wind up enthralled by the first sleeping prince I saw? Because I’m not in the mood.”

“No, this is where I ask if you’re okay,” he said. He took a breath before ducking his head and adding, “I also wanted to say that I was sorry, if you’re in the mood for an apology. I was stupid before.”

“You’ve been being stupid for a couple of weeks now, and we’re on a case,” I said, folding my arms. “What makes this the right time to come and apologize to me?”

“Well, there’s the fact that you may need to be distracted to keep you from going and flinging yourself on our currently comatose guest—not that you’d want to, you understand, just that there’s a chance the narrative would try to manipulate things so as to leave you no choice.” Jeff reached up and nervously adjusted his glasses. “There’s also the fact that our fight earlier this morning was about princes, and now we’re dealing with one. That seems unlikely to be a coincidence.”

“If you think the narrative wants you to apologize—”

“I think that if the narrative wants
anything
where the two of us are concerned, it’s exactly what it’s getting right now: a fight. It wants us to be alienated from one another. It wants me to be so…insecure about what your story means that I withdraw and stop trying to build on what we may have. It wants you to be alone. Lonely people are easier prey for the idea of true love in a single kiss and a partner who’s too busy sleeping their life away to protest.”

I frowned slowly. “You think the narrative made you pick a fight with me?”

“No. I think my own insecurity and inexperience with dating since my own story started and desire not to mess up our friendship made me pick a fight with you. I think the narrative wants me not to apologize.” Jeff shrugged, his mouth thinning to a firm line. “I have waited a very long time to be able to have inappropriately timed discussions about the status of our relationship with you. I don’t intend to let my own stupidity take this opportunity away from me.”

“I’m not an opportunity, Jeff,” I said. “I’m a person. I lead your field team. We’re always going to be peers before we can be anything else.”

He shrugged. “I know all that. I also know you’re the one who brought me back when my story was trying to take me away—and we’ve all seen Demi, we know what would have happened to me if it had succeeded. I don’t know how my story could have been turned offensive, and I don’t particularly want to. The kiss didn’t work because kisses break spells, Henry. The kiss worked because it was
you
. I really want to give us a try. I’ll do my best not to freak out on you like I did today.”

“I hate princes,” I said, without thinking about it. I just spoke, letting the words flow through me and out into the air. “They don’t even get
names
half the time, they just get passed around like little narrative explosions, and all you can do is hope you won’t get caught in the blast. I’ve never thought much about what I’d want in a significant other, but I’ve always known that it wouldn’t be a prince. Being active isn’t going to change that.”

“So what do you want?”

I thought about it for a moment before I smiled and said, “You.”

We were both professionals and we were technically at work, even if I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere near the crime scene until Kyle Johnston was safely stowed in the back seat of Andy’s car. So we just stood there, smiling awkwardly at one another, until Sloane came out and gave us the all-clear. She was smirking when she did it, like she could tell what we’d been discussing just from the way that we stood.

Let her smirk. I was too happy to care.

We were done in the field and back in at the Bureau by four o’clock—plenty of time for me to walk up to Deputy Director Brewer’s office and tell his secretary that I needed to see him. He let me in five minutes later. It was an impressive response time, especially considering the number of active stories we’d had recently. I guess when you’re at the center of the storm, you stop putting things on hold.

“Can I help you, Agent Marchen?” he asked, walking back around his desk and retaking his seat.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “We have reason to believe that the next stage in Birdie’s plan involves modifying borderline stories to guarantee a dangerous and potentially violent resolution.”

He looked at me like I was speaking Latin.

I tried again: “She’s weaponizing fairy tales, sir.”

“As if they weren’t dangerous enough already?” He leaned back in his seat, still staring at me. “What do you suggest we do about this?”

“Sir, I am down a body and dealing with things that have been twisted out of true. I think you know what I want to do about this.”

His gaze hardened. “You’re making a request that could end your career.”

“With all due respect, everything I’ve done in the last month could end my career. What’s one more?”

“Are you sure you can manage her?”

“I think she wants to prove herself. The archivists have confirmed her claims: her story was vulnerable to Birdie’s targeting. We can prevent that from happening again.”

“Are you sure enough that you’re willing to risk your entire team on it?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it? I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He sighed. “Then I’ll sign the papers. But I hope to God you know what you’re doing, Marchen.”

“I do, Deputy Director. I really do.”

Kyle Johnston was in the Archive, sleeping and receiving medical care. Jeff and I were going out for coffee after work. And I was getting Demi back.

I knew exactly what I was doing.

I just hoped that I was doing the right things.

Scarlet Flowers

Memetic incursion in progress: tale type 426 (“The Two Girls and the Bear”)

Status: IN PROGRESS

Gerald March, high school English teacher and purposefully
ordinary guy, had not started his Tuesday expecting to end up running for his
life.

He’d been having a reasonably good day, as school days went:
his students had been about as well behaved as high school students are capable
of being, and some of them had even read the material before first period,
which verged on the miraculous. The weather was good, the cute barista at the
Starbucks had given him extra whipped cream on his morning mocha, and he’d even
managed to snag one of the faculty parking spaces in the front row. Everything
had been going just fine until fourth period.

Fourth period was when the herd of deer had appeared on the
quad.

Thanks to the modern wonder of smartphones and data plans,
the entire school had known about their visitors in a matter of minutes. He’d
lost control of the class before he’d fully grasped what was going on. They’d
rushed to press their noses to the windows, and he’d followed them, trying to
figure out what all the excitement was about.

As soon as he’d appeared behind the glass, the deer had
turned, every one of them, their heads swiveling toward him with a predatory
intensity that was rare in herbivores. He’d paled, taking a large step
backward, and then—to his shame—he’d turned around and run. He hadn’t even
stopped by the office on his way off campus. That would mean the end of this teaching
job for sure. No matter how good a teacher you are, you can’t just run off and
leave a class of high school sophomores on their own. He was dimly aware that
he should call the school and tell them he was sick, or that he’d suffered a
family emergency, or
something
, but he didn’t have time for that. If he
stopped running, they would catch up with him, and if they caught up with him …

Gerald March had spent his entire life working to become the
man he wanted to be. He wasn’t going to let some stupid story pull him back
into its clutches now. So he ran, and he hoped that his sister—who had never
had the sense to step away from her own doorway into the narrative—would be
there to break him loose.

It had been a long damn day. There are workdays that fly by,
and others that seem to last forever. This one fell into the latter category.
Birdie was off somewhere licking her wounds, and things had returned at least
temporarily to something approaching normal. The only narrative incursion
reported in the area had been a Cheshire Cat, presumably looking for an Alice
to latch onto, and it had been handled by another field team, leaving my team
to finish the paperwork we’d been slacking on for weeks. I lifted a sheet of
paper and scowled at it, like that would somehow fill in the rest of the blanks
in my after-action report. It didn’t.

“Anyone care to finish this for me so that I can go home and
commit to a long evening of drinking hard lemonade and not doing paperwork?” I
asked.

Sloane didn’t even raise her head as she flipped me off.
Andy scowled. Jeff, who was the only one of us who didn’t have a pile of
paperwork to get through, laughed at me. I silently pledged to hate him.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you did it every night like you’re
supposed to,” he said.

“I do the important parts every night,” I protested. “The
parts that can actually impact the narrative are filed with the Archives before
I leave the office.”

“Yes, and that’s why you haven’t been reprimanded or
otherwise disciplined for setting a bad example for a field team, but that’s
only a small amount of the job’s required documentation.” Jeff somehow managed
to make the bureaucratic nonsense sound less like a lecture and more like
normal human conversation. I wasn’t sure whether that came from his connection
to the narrative, or whether it was something that was inherently
him
.
“And before you ask, no, I won’t do your paperwork for you. I will, however, go
and get more coffee.”

I amended my previous pledge from hatred to adoration.
“Coffee would be wonderful. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do to keep you all from murdering me,”
he said, and left the bullpen.

“Think he’ll remember cream and sugar?” asked Andy.

“It’s Jeff, and he’s fetching coffee for Henry,” said
Sloane. “He’ll probably remember cream, sugar, biscotti, and a portable
Starbucks.”

Demi, who had been sitting silently at her desk during this
entire exchange, lifted her head and asked cautiously, “Is that a thing his
story can actually do?”

“No, but he could probably build a Starbucks overnight if we
hooked him up with a barista who was on the verge of starving due to a lack of
available franchise coffee shops to work in,” I said. I tried to keep my tone
light, despite my general irritation with the world.

“Mouthful much?” asked Sloane. “I thought Snow Whites needed
to breathe.”

“Bite me,” I suggested genially. Demi had only officially
been back with us for two days, and she was still jumpier than I liked. I was
fairly sure we’d missed the Cheshire Cat call because it would have meant taking
Demi into the field, and while I was grateful to have a little more time for
her to get re-acclimated, I also knew that we couldn’t put off her full return
to active duty forever. The narrative doesn’t work that way. If we tried to
keep her behind a desk, the narrative would see her as a weak spot and go out
of its way to force her back into the field. We needed to beat it to the punch.

“I think that’s something that’s better left to our
archivist,” said Sloane. Her voice took on that singsong quality that meant she
was preparing to taunt me as she continued, “He’s a useful boy, you know. Have
you come up with any new uses for him recently?”

I reddened, aware that my blush would look like clown makeup
on my snowy complexion. “Back off, Sloane.”

“Make me, snow-bitch,” she said.

“Please don’t make her,” said Andy. “We’ll just wind up with
two more hours of paperwork if Henry assaults a teammate.”

I sighed. “What’s really sad is that’s a legitimate reason
not to hit her. Sweet Grimm, what I wouldn’t give for a distraction right now.”
I dropped the paper I was holding, following it a split second later with my
head. My forehead made a pleasant bonking sound when it hit the desk.

“Ask and ye shall receive,” said Andy, sounding faintly
amazed. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

That was enough to make me lift my head again. Andy was
staring wide-eyed at the space behind me. Sloane, who had finally looked away
from her own pile of paperwork, was doing the same thing. I closed my eyes for
a moment, sending up a silent prayer that whatever was behind me was
not
some horrible, dangerous beast, and opened them again as I turned.

Jeff was standing in the aisle of the bullpen, next to a
redheaded, blue-eyed man in chino slacks and a white button-down shirt. He
looked haunted and slightly rumpled, like he had just taken a long road trip
with little preparation and less sleep. I found myself on my feet without fully
realizing that I was going to stand. Old anger and fresh confusion warred for
control of my actions, finally fighting each other to a draw.

“Gerry?” I whispered.

The smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth didn’t
quite make it to his eyes. He looked so much older. He’d always looked older
than me, but now … he could have been five years my senior. “Hey, Henry,”
he said. “Long time no see.”

A third contender for control of my actions rose: relief.
“Oh my God, Gerry!” I cried, and started to throw myself at him, trusting him
to catch me the way he always had, ever since we were little kids. Anger could
come later.

Sloane caught me instead. I didn’t know how she’d managed to
move so fast, but she was suddenly there, her fingers an iron band around my
wrist, holding me in place. “Not so fast,
Princess
,” she hissed. “Make
sure our prodigal son knows the score before you go doing anything you’re going
to regret later.”

I froze. “Oh my God,” I repeated. This time there was no
relief in the words. Gerry started to step forward, looking puzzled. I shied
back against Sloane, shouting, “Stay away from me!”

“Uh, Henry?” Gerry stopped moving. That was something at
least. “What’s going on? Because I’ll be honest, I thought you might not be
happy to see me, but I sort of expected a warmer welcome than ‘don’t touch me.’
I’ve had a really rough day.”

“Oh, because you’ve given so many fucks about the sort of
days
we’ve
been having,” snapped Sloane, keeping her protective grasp on
my wrist. “How long has it been, Gerald? Eight years, and not even a Christmas
card? We’ve had some pretty rough days ourselves.”

“Could I get an introduction if we’re going to fight?” asked
Jeff. He adjusted his glasses with one hand before looking Gerry slowly up and
down, clearly taking his measure, or trying to. “I found him in the lobby with
a visitor’s pass, asking for an escort to the bullpen. I thought it was best to
bring him here, but I’d still like to know who he is.”

Sloane started to laugh, although her iron grip on my wrist
loosened not one bit. “Oh man, is the cobbler
jealous
? All right, Gerry,
welcome home, and Snowy, I take it back. This is the best day we’ve had in
months. Let’s see if he suggests a duel at dawn.”

“It’s good to see that some things around here haven’t
changed,” said Gerry wearily.

“Some things never will,” said Sloane. “What are you doing
here?”

“Why are you restraining Henry?” Gerry countered.

“She’s holding me back because there’s something I haven’t
told you yet.” I straightened. “Sloane, you can let go now. I’m not going to
fling myself at him.”

“That’s not what you would have said a minute ago,” said
Sloane.

“I hadn’t had a chance to think things through a minute ago.
It’s okay.”

“If you blow us all up with fairy tale stupidity, I’m going
to kill you,” she cautioned, releasing my wrist. Her fingers had left livid red
marks on my skin. I rubbed it, feeling the beginnings of a bruise. Just what I
needed.

I took a deep breath, turned to the rest of the team, and
said, “Everyone, this is my brother, Gerald Marchen.”

“It’s ‘March,’ actually,” said Gerry. “I changed it when I
went into teaching.”

Jeff blinked at him, looking utterly baffled. “I’m sorry, I
don’t understand. I’ve read Henry’s file, and—” He stopped mid-word, the
reality of what he was about to say hitting him. Both Gerry and I watched him
curiously, briefly united in the synchronicity of our twinship as we waited to
see what he was going to do. Jeff swallowed, obviously making adjustments to
the files in his mind, before sticking his hand out and saying, “Agent Jeffrey
Davis. I’m a member of your sister’s field team, and a fully activated
five-oh-three.”

Gerry cast me a half-panicked sidelong look. I smiled. This,
too, was totally familiar: the unprepared twin looking to the prepared one for
the answers to an unexpected quiz. “He’s connected to the Elves and the
Shoemaker.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you, Agent Davis.” Gerry finally took the
offered hand, apparently adding Jeff to his list of safe people. My heart broke
a little as I watched.

I wasn’t on that list anymore.

And I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be.

“A pleasure,” said Jeff, shaking Gerry’s hand before pulling
away.

Gerry turned to look at me again, expression turning
quizzical. “Now do you want to tell me why Sloane—hi, Sloane—”

“Hi, Gerry,” said Sloane, with a little wave. “Go fuck
yourself.”

“—decided to go all human chain on you when you tried to
give me a hug?”

“About that.” I kept rubbing my wrist. It gave me something
to focus on beyond the betrayal I knew I was about to see in his eyes. “She
didn’t want me to touch you because … well, because you were almost Rose
Red.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” From him, the statement
wasn’t sarcastic: it was an honest request for me to tell him what was wrong,
what he was missing about the scene. “I’ve lived with that story for my entire
life.”

“I know. But I …” I hadn’t even been thinking of my
brother when I ate the apple. I hadn’t hesitated to sink my teeth into the
forbidden fruit and change both our lives forever. To be fair, it had been
eight years since I’d seen him. Not thinking about my brother was practically a
daily activity. “I’m a Snow White now. For real. My story’s gone active.”

Gerry blinked at me. The betrayal I’d been expecting didn’t
appear. Instead, a quiet, resigned understanding flooded his face and he shook
his head, stepping forward to wrap his arms around me. I stiffened. We were almost
the same height, and I could see Jeff over my brother’s shoulder, staring at me
with a bemusement that echoed my own.

“Don’t worry, Henry,” said Gerry, still embracing me. “You
can’t activate my story. It’s taken care of that all on its own.”

I tried to pull away. “What?”

“A bunch of deer showed up on my campus this morning. They
were looking for me. Don’t ask me how I know that. I just do.” Gerry tightened
his arms, refusing to let me go.

“I don’t have to ask,” I said. I stopped trying to get away.
If he needed something to hold on to, I could play that role, at least for now.
If he was falling into his story, he had just become my responsibility. “When
they come for you, they’re impossible to ignore.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve been ignoring them for weeks. Birds in the
bushes outside my apartment, a runaway horse that someone had been transporting
to a vet until it somehow got out of the trailer and wound up standing in front
of my car—standing.” Gerry laughed unsteadily. There was an edge of madness to
the sound that I didn’t like one bit. “That thing wasn’t standing. It was
posing
,
like it thought I was going to swoon and jump onto its back and let it carry me
off into the sunset.”