Chapter Text
Actions that task even a Calabite of Theft: trying to get a keycard to work in a hotel room's lock while supporting a half-dead partner almost twice my weight, holding a backpack wedged with heavy Vapulan tech, and dealing with a broken arm that I had to pretend wasn't broken through the entire song and dance with the clerk at the front desk. It takes four tries before the light swaps to green and I can get all of us inside. Would've been easier if I could have left the bag in the car, but that vehicle's so hot someone is going to burst into flames if I don't get it away from our current bolt hole soon.
Zhune's still walking. Sort of. He collapses on the bed in the room, too much pride to keel over on the floor, and curses quietly, viciously, extensively in Helltongue once the door's closed.
"Right," I say, and drop the bag next to him. "Try not to die while I'm out."
He mutters something rude and not entirely coherent. As good as a promise. So I leave him there, and get back to the business of getting rid of stolen property.
The car I leave in a Target parking lot, one more anonymous red Civic in a sea of its cousins. Inside the store, I duck into the men's restroom when no one is looking directly at me, and get lucky: no one outside of the stalls inside. Which means I can dodge into a stall myself, and swap vessels. Leaving me rather taller, male, and without inconvenient structural damage slowing me down. At least the Civic was an automatic; I hate trying to drive stick with a broken right arm.
There's a part of me that says I ought to steal whatever I want from this place. On principle. But it's been a long day, and the cash in my pocket is stolen; paying for things the good old-fashioned way isn't exactly dissonant when it's more convenient than the theft would have been, and shoplifting would require some actual thought right now. Besides, it's...petty. Boring. I cannot take stealing jeans from Target seriously two hours after running like hell from Judgment, which probably still wants that tech back.
Zhune has no problem with petty theft, but he also believes in style. I guess I split the difference, between the two of us. I don't care about the clothes, the flash, the dramatic reveals, but I like a clean plan and pulling off the impressive heists. It's satisfying to run away from yet another near-death experience, still alive.
Usually still alive. I stand in the checkout line like an ordinary mortal doing a bit of shopping on a lazy Tuesday morning, and try to count up how many vessels I've gone through. First ever from Fire. The replacement from the War. The exact replacement from that one, which I held onto through going Renegade and working for War (and Freedom, now and again) and being caught by Theft. The one Valefor gave me as a present to Zhune. The one he gave me as a present to me for fixing that thing with the plague ritual, and that I'm wearing right now. And finally my default since he dragged us back out of the Marches, which is currently sporting a broken arm and waiting wherever unworn vessels do. An exact replacement again, and not for a look I like.
But Zhune's right. It's useful. And it's good to have two, to have some way of swapping visuals when unhappy people are looking for someone of my description. Which they should've spotted on the way in; I've run into angels dozens of times in that vessel appearance. Some day Heaven will put together a proper database of known vessel appearances for all the demons they encounter across all their different Words, sync it properly, set it up to do facial recognition on people walking into Tethers, and...well. Those of us in Theft who specialize in Tether work are going to have some problems.
Fortunately, Heaven's almost as bad at harmonious community and toeing the party line as Hell, so we're not likely to start worrying about that any time soon.
I hike a few blocks away with my bags, and. It's a nice day. Not the sort of thing I notice much, but it is. Spring's starting to pull its weight here in New England, which means something different than it did where I worked for Fire. Flowers and birds and pale green sprouting everywhere, the way it does in the media that seems to believe every story ever is set in this climate. Maybe Nybbas is really fond of the area. Whatever the reason for the cliches, they make for a decent stroll until I find a parking garage to investigate.
Before I pick a new car, I make sure the security cameras on that floor of the parking garage aren't working. Depending on how much Judgment wants that tech back--and with how much Technology is paying us, I'd say there's a good chance the answer is a lot--they might well be scouring every video they can pull around every reported car theft in a ten mile radius, and I'm trying to keep this vessel from being tagged as demonic for a while yet.
Divine Fire spotted me once in it already. Which was...awkward. On several levels, some of which I don't think about for the sake of my own mental health. But maybe not well enough to connect me-being-invisible with me-pretending-humanity, and anyway, they're not on speaking terms with Judgment. Which is good. If as many parts of Heaven hated Judgment as parts of Hell hate the Game, I'd be in even better shape there when it comes to secrecy.
I crack the door on a few different cars until I find one with its garage ticket sitting inside, and then take a different car entirely. When you're not sure which types of information the enemy can track, confuse as many as possible. Slows them down, gives them headaches, and it's just plain good practice.
Resonating the tires flat on the SUVs I pass would be satisfying and quiet, but too likely to paint a big Calabite Was Here sign on the garage, so. I don't. There's a lot more self-control involved in working for Theft than I would've guessed from the outside.
Sometimes I wonder if other Magpies have more fun. Steal what they want, go where they want, get an occasional order from higher up the chain and take care of that before returning to the high-paced hijinks of crime. The Media wants to suggest that, but I'm not so sure it's true. Valefor doesn't toss us down onto the corporeal plane to have fun, but to support his Word. There's room in that for some undirected work, spreading confusion and irritation across the landscape, but it's not exactly the wild life of near-Freedom that some people would make it out to be. The least directed Magpie out there is just all the more subject to someone with a distinction or Word showing up to take control.
But then, from what I've seen of Freedom, they're not all that free either. Less explicit hierarchy never means more freedom, it just means...less clarity. Less protection. And the Game waiting to nip at your heels because it doesn't like a lack of structure.
All this contemplation aside, it continues to be a nice day, especially with the window rolled down as I drive back to the hotel by an indirect route. No sign of followers, though you never know with some of the birds wheeling overhead. If Theft got to have Kyriotates, we would win at everything. It's enough to make you wonder what the hell the Wind is up to, that they're not more effective. Too caught up in stupid pranks, maybe. For all that Theft and Wind are supposed to be suspiciously similar, we're not very. They do a little Word support for the Boss by accident, we cause a little chaos as a side-effect of our work, and that's pretty much it.
Sure, our attunements are a lot like theirs. Of course they are. The Boss stole them. If Judgment hasn't figured out that part by now, they're not very bright.
At the hotel, it's easy to remember which room is ours. The one with the disturbance humming out of it. And me here with my key card left in the pocket of a set of jeans on my other vessel. I lean back against the door, and wait. Could break the lock easily, but I'd like the room we're using to continue locking, please, especially if anyone is on our tail.
Zhune yanks the door open so fast I'm probably supposed to fall in backwards. But I was expecting that. I duck under his arm, and drop the bags on the floor, next to the one full of tech. "Did one of those shots hit you in the head? Because this is no time to throw around Essence. Judgment has sharp ears."
"Judgment has no idea where we are," Zhune says, "unless you're a worse driver than I thought. Or unless you kept the car--"
"Please. Like I'm that stupid." I crouch down by the bags, and pull out clothes I bought him. "Since it's too late to be quiet, we'd better keep moving."
"And you expect me to wear that?" Zhune asks, dry and arch. He's probably still reeling on his feet, unless he's blown a lot more Essence than I think he has left for the healing, but that's never stopped him yet from making a point about style.
"Bit less conspicuous, isn't it?" I shove the clothes into his hands. "Shower. Change. And we'll move. I'll even let you pick the next hotel, since I gather this one's not up to your standards."
"A fucking Quality Inn is never up to my standards," Zhune says. He stares at me for a moment, narrow-eyed, because I am being pushy and he clearly doesn't like it, but he can be pushy right back when he's not making noise and wobbly. He stalks away to the bathroom. I get back to work with the bags.
By the time the shower turns off, I have the tech stashed in two cheap backpacks that wouldn't draw a second glance on a college campus, each piece wrapped in a few layers of towels. That'll keep the noise down, avoid any telling lumps seen through the fabric, and maybe most important, keep my own entropy field from eating through to something delicate. VapuTech is too delicate for me to risk so much as a scratch on anything inside. Would rather not die in a self-made explosion again, thank you very much. Once is more than enough.
Making other people die in explosions is more fun. If Technology actually took Calabim... Well, there's a time when I would've been tempted. But they don't, and that time is past, and I promised Zhune that I wouldn't set any more buildings on fire while I'm inside them, so, whatever. Beside the point.
My partner leaves the bathroom with a towel in hand and new clothes on. It's not a bad look, if you want to look like no one in particular. Jeans and t-shirts and cheap jackets don't draw attention. But my Djinn doesn't want to look like no one in particular, and it's a long ways from his preferred James Bond fashion sense. He tosses the towel on the bed after a last swipe at his damp hair, and says, "Next time, I pick the clothes."
"Next time, maybe you'll be conscious enough for the shopping trip." I hand him one of the two backpacks--no tossing for these, again because of the potential explosions--and sling the other over my shoulder. "Meanwhile, we could try inconspicuous? For the change of pace?"
Zhune only rolls his eyes at me. But he lets me lead the way, because I know which car the keys go to.
#
A full state away, Zhune gets us another hotel room. Something up to his standards. I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, try to decide what I want to do next. Getting thoroughly drunk, that sort of can't-think-straight place where nothing inconvenient ever comes to mind, would be high on the list, but I'm not sure it's a good plan when we're still holding onto the tech. Bad plan, even. So maybe what I need is one beer and a good book, something I've read two dozen times and wouldn't mind paging through again.
Zhune hums out the Song twice more, disturbance spreading around us. Not enough to catch attention from anyone not already in the hotel. Let's hope there's not a Malakite convention in town.
"You could've done that in the car," I tell him. "Unless this is your subtle way of saying you want to keep moving?"
"I could've had let those angels tackle you," Zhune says dryly. "Should we try that next time?"
I wave away the comment because, fine, he has a point. "How long until we can get rid of this junk?"
"Day and a half."
"This is what happens when we're too efficient. We end up holding the bag when we could be taking a break." Not that I have any idea what to do during a proper break. Work on learning more useful skills, so that we can take trickier jobs, I guess. At least the jobs are interesting. I never used to get bored, aside from that itchy period when I was Renegade with nothing to do but be afraid, and I'm not sure when it started. Used to be I could stare at the television or the ceiling and not care much which, during the long nights of pretending to be human. Doesn't work so well anymore. It doesn't help that I no longer need to pretend to be human for the Symphony, just for people looking at me right then.
"So change vessels," Zhune says, "and you can take a break. No one's about to break down the door and demand this back."
"They might." I could almost wish for it. Terror and life-threatening situations give me something to do. "If you're bored, go find a human."
"When you're right here?"
I spread my hands out on the bed, and do not look at him. His voice tells me everything I need to know, if there were any mysteries left on this particular topic. "Low on Essence, and staying inconspicuous. That vessel is not inconspicuous, even aside from the part where Judgment's too damn used to seeing it now."
"Not that low," he says, "and if they are going to break down the door, might as well not risk that vessel, if you're so attached to it."
"I am. I'm generally attached to my vessels. I like keeping them attached to me. Which is easier if I don't walk around in the same one all the time, where eventually the Host might buy a clue and jump me when I get within half a mile of one of their Tethers."
He sits down on the edge of the bed, his weight tilting me towards him. Doesn't mean I have to look at him. "You're going to be petulant about this again. Aren't you."
"Look," I say, wanting to be somewhere that isn't this expensive room with its ugly bedspreads and boring ceiling, "if you're that invested in having sex right now, and that convinced it has to be with me, get over the stupid monkey hangup about what body I'm wearing. I've never had any problem with this kind of thing, and why you do, I cannot possibly understand."
Zhune snorts. And then he swings over me, knees on either side of my hips, and stares down at me with all the sneering grandeur that a Balseraph could bring to bear. "As if," he says, "you wouldn't find another excuse."
"Might," I say. "Or maybe you'd stop caring about this so much once you got rid of that hangup." Which would be a nasty dig, against some Djinn, but Zhune's never been the sort to--well, to care if I know what he cares about. He's too confident to bother faking apathy.
He just sighs, like I'm being difficult in some petty, tedious way. Which maybe I am. Maybe I should just let him have what he wants, since he's less likely to come up with subtle revenge later if I let him have his way, but I cannot be forever giving in. It's not the details, it's the principle. "What you're saying is that I should pick up more beer if I want to get any use out of you tonight."
"You could get that kind of use out of me right now," I say. "No buzz required, much less needing to do it twice once I swapped to a sober vessel. Just learn how to deal. Do you need instructions? I would've assumed you'd have figured them out by now, but--"
He lays a hand over my mouth, and leans on it. Not hard enough to hurt. Exactly. Just enough that I can't keep talking without wiggling free, and that's not likely to happen. When my dread Prince decided to give me a recent upgrade, apparently being stronger wasn't on the list of available presents. And I know where getting into actual physical fights with Zhune ends up. He's strong enough and fast enough that he can hold me down without ever needing to hurt me enough to pick up dissonance from the process.
"You're being unreasonable," he says, calmly and patiently. "You need that arm fixed, and better now when we're not in trouble than later when we're in a hurry. Don't be childish."
There are a lot of things I could say to that, but his hand's still locked over my mouth, so I settle for making a few rude gestures. Oughta pick up ASL and make him learn it too, so that I can get more eloquent during these discussions.
"Yes, and I'm taking that into account," Zhune says. He sits down on my thighs, and lifts his hand. "Do you need Essence for the swap?"
"No," I say, and pull the other vessel on. Which brings the pain back, with that broken arm. "If you're in such a damn hurry to make the hotel echo--"
"Shut up, Leo," he says mildly, and sings me back to health and lack of pain. Simple as that. "Room service?"
"Have you seen the menu? Their beer is crap." And he's not going to let me wiggle out from under him just yet, which means I need another line of attack if I don't want to lose this argument here and now. "You get beer, and I'll go buy you some stupid spy novel. The kind that comes with a dark silhouette on a blue cover."
"For a quiet night of reading at home?" Zhune arches an eyebrow, but he moves off me, dragging his fingers through my hair on the way. Need to cut it again, it's starting to look all girly. "Fine. What do you want?"
"Something that's...I don't know, 70 IBU or better." I roll off the side of the bed, and I'm back to my other vessel by the time my feet hit the ground, never mind about the noise. It's not that much, we can swap rooms again if we need to, and I would not mind some trouble. There are plenty of options for making trouble aimed at me reverse itself in a place like this, starting with calling in mortal authorities and ending with a lot of things on fire. I'm also clean out of Essence now, but so what? Sunset's about an hour away.
"Some Thieves," Zhune says wearily, "learn to assess diamonds, or tell forgeries from real in famous painting. Some of them can size up a mark's income and neighborhood at a glance. And I get the Calabite who cares passionately about beer."
"Not that passionately. I just know what I like."
"As do I," Zhune says. "Which you don't seem to understand." He offers me a quick, tight smile. "Never mind. We'll talk about it later."
I am not going to like it when later arrives.
Five minutes after he's left the room, I head out myself. Places to go, phone calls not to make. A usual mid-job sort of evening. But I can't just stay in yet another damn hotel room staring at the ceiling. I don't think I have enough of a life left to waste it on shit like that.
#
So that's why I'm here. Slouching against the parapet that lines this bridge, one of those old concrete ones they bothered to decorate instead of a blank gray barrier to keep pedestrians from toppling over into the river. Sunset Essence arrived an hour ago. Probably another hour to go until Zhune gets annoyed enough at my absence to track me down, unless he finds someone pretty enough to distract him in the hotel bar.
I've gone through a pack and a half of cigarettes already. Light them up, let them burn down between my fingers. The wind's been all over the place this even, catching away the white puffs of ash to toss it into the river or down the bridge or back into my face in about equal measure.
I almost always remember to drop the cigarette butts down into the river before they burn so low as to sting my fingers. There was a time when that wouldn't have been able to touch me, as harmless as water. There was a time when that would've hurt me exactly as much as anyone else. And now there is a time when my dread Prince has decided that the Discord I was made with didn't suit his preferences, and the touch of a tiny ember that some human could stub out safely against an arm leaves red sores between my fingers.
Should've remembered to buy gloves, back at the store, so Zhune wouldn't notice those. He takes my every scratch so personally lately. For all that he claims that whole incident in Shal-Mari a few months back was no big deal, just a stupid mistake on my part for coming after him, he's been clingier since. Or maybe since the thing in the Marches... I don't know. They happened too close together for me to tell what set him off.
Give it another few months and maybe we'll be back to old times. And I can cope meanwhile. We still work together fine, the current job being proof of that. Some Vapulan's personal project gets swiped by Windies, confiscated from the Wind by Judgment, and then stashed in a Judgment Tether? Call us in. We got everything back within two days of being pointed towards the right Tether, and I'm pretty sure we've muddied the trail enough that no one will be following us to the drop-off.
Well, following Zhune to the drop-off. He can handle that last step himself. I don't like dealing with Vapulans, or Habbalah, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual. I'd as soon send him to this city on his own to take care of everything and tell him to catch up with me when he's done. Would if he'd let me. I could spend two days in one of those college libraries that stays open twenty-four hours, and that'd be a lot less dull than drinking and hotel rooms and inevitably getting talked into letting Zhune have his way.
Which I minded less with Regan, who almost always got her way too, but that was different. I'm not sure how, but it was. She knew I was smarter than her, and she wasn't much older than me, and even if she insisted on being in charge she let me plan things. Zhune lets me come up with plans, he knows I'm good at it, but there's always that sense that he's...the emphasis is on letting me. That he could do it himself if he needed to, or wanted to, or just wanted to make a point. Which is bullshit. I know he's more effective with me than without, even if I've got some issues.
Maybe it's more that Regan was my own age, and Zhune's older than my Prince being one. There is no catching up to that, not in my expected lifespan. Zhune will always know more. Be better connected. I'm one in a very long series of his partners, and when this partnership breaks, it won't be from me moving on to bigger and better things.
I don't want bigger and better. I want a few possessions I can keep for a while, and a chance to make friends who aren't him, and, I don't even know. Nothing I can get. It's safer to only want his respect or approval and to get the job done. Getting the job done falls within the bounds of what is possible, and wanting the impossible leads to stupid decisions like going Renegade or calling angels for a chat.
Disturbance echoes past me, and it's a relief. To be able to stop thinking about any of this, and follow the sound. If that's Zhune, he might need some help. If that's not him, well, maybe I was wrong about muddying the trail, and I can scout for incoming trouble.
Anything's a relief, so long as I can stop thinking and go do something.