Hero (Gone 9)

Kill us. . . .

CHAPTER 12

Rare Moments of Peace

MALIK PUT AWAY his phone.

“Bad?” Shade asked him.

Malik nodded. “I think Dekka was crying.”

The utter improbability of that was disturbing all by itself. Dekka? Crying?

Dekka?

“When do we get a day off from this?” Shade muttered. She was frying eggs in the brownstone’s designer kitchen surrounded by gleaming copper and shiny stainless steel and every known or unknown kitchen device. It was, Shade thought, a kitchen you could run a restaurant out of. But frying eggs was the limit of Shade’s culinary skill, and she was pretty sure she was screwing even that up.

Malik sat perched on a barstool at the granite-topped kitchen island and kept his hands busy arranging a basket of fruit by size.

“You ever read Heinlein?” Malik asked. “Something Wicked This Way Comes?”

Shade’s answer was a knowing, mirthless laugh.

Malik had heard the heralds of a great evil in the voices of men begging for death. He had heard it in the hopelessness of Francis’s voice. Worst of all was the awed pity in the voices of his friends and the policeman. They were seeing something unspeakable. Something wicked.

Something was coming that would obliterate this small moment of normalcy with Shade. Any moment of peace, any moment that was not a crisis, was precious to Malik now. His head was full. He felt like a swollen water balloon that only needed a few more drops to burst. He had not a moment of freedom from the Watchers; if anything, it felt as if there were more of them than ever. Part of him wondered if they had become alarmed at his penetrations into Over There. He felt no emotion from the Watchers, seldom did, and when he sensed anything like an emotion, it was eagerness or impatience.

Malik wished he felt fear from the Watchers; that would be a good sign. He wanted them to be afraid. He wanted to be what they feared. But it was more important than ever to be very careful about what he believed and what he did not, to separate facts from wishes. Malik had never been one to accept anything at face value; he always needed evidence, and of Watcher panic he sensed none.

“Feeling the Watchers? You kind of went silent on me.”

Malik snapped back to the present, seeing Shade’s concern. “A bit.” Then he forced a smile. “You know what we’d do if we were smart?”

“What would we do if we were smart? Dammit! I broke one of my eggs! I mean, one of your eggs.”

“We would trademark the Rockborn Gang and license our name for merchandise. We could make millions for doing no work.” He forced a smile. Soon Dekka and Francis would be back. Soon this small moment of peace would end.

Shade slid the eggs onto two plates, taking the broken one for herself. “Here. And no complaints: I am not a chef.”

“Merch, movies, a lecture tour . . . ,” Malik went on. “Salt?”

“Comic-Con. We could absolutely do Comic-Con. Salt’s right there. The grinder.” Shade took a stool beside him. “Yeah, millions, with which we would do what?”

Malik shrugged. “Run away to New Zealand?”

They ate for a while. Then Shade said, “Do you think it’s upsetting the group dynamic, me and you, I mean?”

Malik smiled and laid his hand over hers on the counter. “It’s done good things for my personal dynamic. I assume that was your goal.”

“Mmm? My goal?”

“I mean, sure, you find me irresistible—who wouldn’t?—but I know you, Shade. You never have just one thing in mind.”

Shade put her fork down. “You think it was charity?”

Malik shrugged. “Call it a morale boost.”

Shade sighed. “You too, huh? Shade Darby, always up to something. Always manipulating.”