Olivia came out of the bedroom wearing the same outfit as when I’d first met her – yoga pants and a tank top. She hovered around the groceries I’d brought back. For a few moments I let myself daydream that I was on a little date holiday with a girlfriend, rather than on the run with a witch I barely knew. The jarring difference between fantasy and reality grew too painful too quickly and I let it go. Olivia didn’t talk to me, making herself busy in the kitchen. I tried to meditate on what the hell I was going to do about all this, but was interrupted by the ringing of my phone. It was Justin.
“You’ve stumbled into quite the shitstorm,” he said when I answered.
“I figured that out myself.”
“I’m not joking. You’re in a genuine shitstorm. I got ahold of my boss’s boss’s boss. He’s in DC, and he really hates vampires so I knew that he wouldn’t sell you out to Lord Ruthven. Turns out he runs a little thinktank meant to come up with worst-case scenarios regarding the Other so that OtherOps can make contingencies against them, and this exact thing is one of their scenarios. He called it a Level Four, whatever the hell that means. He says that you’re absolutely right – that this is an end-of-the-world-as-we-know it kind of threat, but it also isn’t immediate, so the government doesn’t give a shit.”
“That … doesn’t sound helpful.”
“It’s certainly less helpful than I’d hoped,” Justin admitted. “The best he can offer is to put you and your witch friend in witness protection while he puts together a taskforce that will spend the next couple of years convincing an OtherOps judge to create new Rules to specifically eliminate this loophole that Boris is taking advantage of.”
“Years?” I asked incredulously. Olivia had moved from the kitchen and was now fiddling with something behind the TV. Her head popped out briefly, and she eyeballed me. I tried to ignore her.
“It might be quicker,” Justin said, “But it might not.”
“And in the meantime, what will you do about Boris and Lord Ruthven?”
“Lord Ruthven has powerful friends in OtherOps. If it was Dracula or someone else, we could probably get together a team to jump in and confiscate Boris’s blood tally. But not Ruthven. Our hands are tied.”
I considered this for a few moments, feeling ill. “I have an idea. Can you fake an investigation?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, let’s say that the OtherOps Cleveland office has had their eye on Boris for a while. They knew he was up to something shady but they couldn’t prove it – until they found those redacted contracts in the Cuyahoga County courthouse.”
“You want me to confiscate those contracts and create a paper trail that proves we’ve been investigating Boris?”
“Yup.”
“To what end?”
“To keep Lord Ruthven from killing me. Here’s what’s going to happen: I call Jacques and agree to finish the job. I bargain for my life or whatever. Then I finish tracking down Michael, but when I go to return him to Boris, an OtherOps team steps in and relieves me of the blood tally. Lord Ruthven’s name is never mentioned in your records. He has nothing to do with this.”
“How is this going to save your life?”
“Because then you can file a report to the Vampire Lords, with a straight face, that you’ve completed an investigation against Boris Novak. You hand the blood tally over to your boss’s boss’s boss, who makes it disappear. Jacques might still try to kill me and Olivia – but it’s more likely that he’ll back off once he knows that OtherOps is involved. Vampires don’t like the attention, after all. And no one is ever going to believe that a reaper agent went crying to OtherOps. Shit, I’m the one saying this to you, and I don’t believe that I’m running crying to OtherOps.”
Justin was quiet for a few moments. “Okay, hold tight. I’ll call you back in five.”
I did just that, sitting up on the couch and putting my head between my knees, wondering if Olivia was still in shock. She sure didn’t seem in shock. She’d successfully connected her Nintendo Switch to the flat-screen of the AirBnB and was now flipping through games. “You hear that?” I asked her.
“I got the gist,” she replied, setting her controller aside and turning toward me. “You really think it will work?”
“Maybe. Do you want to go into witness protection for a few years?”
“Fuck that.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Mags?
It’s … not a great plan. But it’s not your worse plan either. If it works.
Every plan is a good plan if it works.
You’d be surprised. What are you going to tell Nick the Necromancer? If everything worked out, he’ll be out of prison in a few days.
And if this plan works, this whole thing will be done by the end of next week. Besides, hanging out with a powerful necromancer might be another good reason for Jacques to leave me alone after OtherOps steals his glory.
Fair enough.
“Where do you go?” Olivia suddenly asked.
“Huh?”
“When you cock your head like that? It’s like you’re on the phone, but there’s no phone.”
I felt a chill go down my spine. People had called me out on my conversations with Maggie before, but everyone always seemed to chock it up to me being a little bit off. No one had ever described it as an actual conversation before. “Just thinking,” I answered as nonchalantly as possible.
She’s very perceptive, Maggie grunted.
Still have a crush on her?
Absolutely.
I was relieved when my phone rang. It was Justin. “Yeah?” I answered.
“You’re on. It’ll take us until Monday to get everything together and do it quietly enough that none of Lord Ruthven’s spies in OtherOps gets a whiff of it. Can you stay hidden that long?”
Five days. That was a long time to sit still while a Vampire Lord’s henchmen were looking for you. Boris – who still had no idea any of this was happening – was going to start asking questions before that much time passed. And then there was Michael. Would he still be alive in five days? “I think we can do that,” I said.
“Good. Hang in there. We can do this.”
I hung up the phone and let out a deep sigh. It was interrupted by Olivia dropping onto the couch next to me. “Okay,” I told her. “I think we might actually live through this. My friend at OtherOps is on it. But it’s going to be dicey, and there’s a chance Lord Ruthven might still try to kill one or both of us afterwards.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? You should be pretty furious at me.” Looking into Olivia’s eyes, I could see she was still in a little bit of shock. But she also looked tired and determined. I had to remind myself that this was a woman who’d told the Cleveland Coven to fuck off. There aren’t a lot of independent witches out there, because most of them couldn’t survive in the wild by themselves. I needed to stop underestimating her.
She shrugged. “I’m a bit pissed, but I don’t really see it as your fault. Blame is useless. Besides, I figure if we live through this, I can milk this whole thing pretty good.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re going to finish painting my kitchen.” She thrust a remote into my hand. “Now, let’s see how good you get at Mario Kart over the next five days.”