“That’s a fascinating list of questions.” Vladimir snapped. “Are you going somewhere with all of this?”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said sourly. “I’m not sure that we are fighting who we think we are fighting. I know they use Weir, and there are some Witches involved, but this isn’t their normal M.O. We can’t fight them effectively because we don’t know who our enemy is.”
“Then let’s put it to the test,” Gaul said firmly. “We’ve been in defensive mode, reacting to their moves for too long anyway. Instead of responding, let’s try out some moves of our own, and see how they deal with that. Rebecca, I want you to go light a fire under the Committee-at-Large, get them to authorize new Auditors. When you are done with that, go put Alice Gallow back together enough so that she can get out there again. I want a full complement of Auditors, as soon as I can have them. I’ll talk to Michael about accelerating field training for all of our current candidates.”
“Alice might take some work,” Rebecca said hesitantly. “And I still need to deal with Alex and Eerie…”
“So you will be busy,” Gaul snapped. “Borrow people from Operations, if you need them.”
“Aren’t I supposed to be in charge of this stuff?” Alistair asked, and then caught Gaul’s stony expression. “Never mind, never mind — what is it you want me to do?”
“Set up a hit team,” Gaul said, lifting one of the files on his desk and handing it to his Chief Auditor. “Whoever you want to use, except Rebecca. This is the largest coven that we are currently aware of. We’ve been letting it continue for surveillance purposes, but no more. I want a full Audit, an accounting, and prisoners.”
“Right,” Alistair said, glancing at the file’s contents.
“So get to it, then,” Gaul said, urging them out of his office. Rebecca grumbled and protested, but Alistair was already so absorbed in the details of the file that he barely looked up as he left the room. Vladimir stayed silent until they were gone.
“You are worried about the barrier,” Vladimir observed.
“I am worried about the barrier,” Gaul agreed. “Vlad, if Central isn’t safe, if the Academy isn’t safe, then we have nowhere to retreat to, and we’ll lose a critical psychological advantage. My people feel safe here. They need to feel safe here. So I need to know…”
“Yes?” Vladimir prompted.
“I need to know whether our enemies are finding ways around it, or whether it is getting weaker over time,” Gaul said slowly, wishing that he didn’t have to say a word of it, didn’t have to ask the question in the first place, not to the only person that he honestly considered something of a friend. “I read the doctor’s reports, Vlad. You’re getting worse. I need to know how much longer you can keep protecting us.”
“What do the doctors know?” he said contemptuously. “Didn’t they say I’d be gone last spring? I’m fine, Gaul. I wish I could tell you that it was just me losing a beat, a step or two in my ‘old age’. They are clever bastards, that’s all. I’ll revise the barrier; try to close some of these loopholes. I never anticipated the dead attacking us, you know.”
“Vlad…” Gaul insisted, feeling bad.
“Don’t worry so much, Gaul,” Vladimir said comfortingly. “I’ll keep all of you safe until I’m dead, I promise. It's about all I can do these days. And I’ll try and give you two week’s notice before I kick, so you can put out an ad for a new barrier.”
Gaul smiled, but he didn’t feel like smiling. The cancer that was slowly eating away at Vladimir’s mind was a constant weight on Gaul’s shoulders; it nagged at him every time he saw him, weaker and sicker than the last. Gaul hated very few things. Nevertheless, as irrational as it was, he hated those rioting cells in Vlad’s poor brain more than anything else he could think of. He didn’t say anything else as Vladimir made his slow, clumsy way out of the office. Anything he would have said would only have embarrassed both of them even more.
10
The heavy bag was obstinate, despite Alex’s best efforts to move it. He punched from his legs, from the motion in his hips, he put all of his weight behind it, but nothing worked. He had lost count of the attempts when he hit it wrong, aggravating his injured forearm, causing him to grab the arm and holler, partially from pain, partially from frustration.
“You are never going to be a boxer,” Michael observed, from the other side of the bag. He glanced dispassionately at his arm.
“There go all my hopes and dreams,” Alex replied, shaking his arm out in a vain attempt to stop it from hurting. “I’d be happier if I never had to fight anybody again.”
“We’d all be happier, son, but that isn’t the kind of world we live in,” Michael said, with surprising melancholy. “All we can do is the best we can do. The rest is in God’s hands.”
Alex got suddenly, dramatically uncomfortable — the same way he felt every time someone he respected unexpectedly turned out to have religious convictions. Not that he had anything against it, exactly; it was more like he hadn’t ever really considered any of it as a possibility. After all, what would any of the major religions have to say about him, about what he’d done? Better just to hope for nothing at all.
“I’m not really sure if I believe in God,” Alex said cautiously, wary of offending him.
“Then you don’t have to worry about whose hands it’s in, right? Now get ready to punch the damn bag…”
The bag was punched many times, but never to Michael’s satisfaction. After, there were weights, and then a heavy leather ball that they threw back and forth, then finally and worst of all, outside for hurdles in sets, across one hundred agonizing meters. It would be wrong to say Michael allowed him to stop at that point. Rather, Michael acknowledged the inevitability of stopping once Alex couldn’t get up anymore.
He lay on the grass, under a sun that had not yet grown hot but was starting to hint around at it, while his muscles twitched and jerked and complained. Michael sat down behind him and drank some water from a plastic squeeze bottle, seemingly content to be working out.
“How much trouble is Eerie in, anyway?”
“Technically, you’re in trouble too,” Michael advised him cheerfully.
“But with you,” Alex pointed out.
“Right.”
Alex rolled over on his stomach and reached for his own water bottle.
“So I’m in ‘extra laps’ kind of trouble. What kind of trouble is she in?”
“She’s in ‘embarrassed Rebecca in front of Gaul’ trouble.” Michael said, shaking his head ruefully. “The worst possible kind.”
“Really?” Alex asked, pausing to squirt water in his mouth.
“No,” Michael said, laughing. “For most people, though, that would be a very bad thing. When Rebecca came to the States when she was a kid, she still had an accent, so she had a hard time at first. She’s still sensitive about being embarrassed. However, Eerie grew up here at the Academy, and believe it or not, Rebecca loves that girl as a surrogate daughter. Eerie will be alright.”
“Oh, good.”
“Eventually.”
“Oh.”
“Now,” Michael said, standing up and stretching out his shoulders. “About those extra laps you owe me…”
Rebecca sat on the couch, legs tucked against her chest and her chin resting on her knees, a cigarette dangling from her left hand. The ashtray sat precariously on a couch cushion in front of her, while Eerie sat just behind Rebecca, patiently braiding her hair.
“What was all that about, Eerie? Why’d you run? You know I wouldn’t let Gaul do anything bad to you…”
“I don’t know,” Eerie said quietly, in a small voice that sounded almost like she was humming to herself. “I thought you would decide it was dangerous for Alex to be around me. Everyone kept saying I would get kicked out of the Academy.”
“Who is everyone?”
“You know, everyone,” Eerie shrugged, patiently plaiting a lock of Rebecca’s chestnut brown hair into a fine, even braid. “The other kids. And you can be scary when you want to. You did that thing to me, and I could feel you poking around in my head.”