17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

W hen I woke up, S?ren was gone. My first instinct was to run out and check the parking lot, because if he’d abandoned me after the fiasco that was last night, I didn’t know what I’d do. Die, probably, after a lot of melodramatic running and screaming. Nothing about that thought appealed, so I closed my eyes again, took a deep breath, and ran my hand over the other half of the bed. Still noticeably cool. Okay, that was good. He hadn’t been gone long.

I opened my eyes and sat up, carefully not letting myself freak out yet. I checked for the car keys—there they were, right where I’d left them on my duffel bag. I couldn’t hear the shower going and the bathroom door was open, but if he’d gone out, he probably hadn’t gone far. Maybe he was hungry. Shit, now that I thought about it, I was hungry. The last time I’d eaten anything was…yesterday, late morning. Lunch with Andre. It felt like a hundred years ago already.

I eased myself to my feet, expecting to feel more fragile than I did. Last night had been—I didn’t really know what to think about it. It had been intense. Painful. Sad. Mostly sad, and if I thought about it too much, I’d just end up feeling guilty, and not only over S?ren. I knew exactly what Officer Henley was doing right now, and it wasn’t pleasant. I did feel a bit better after ostensibly giving S?ren some comfort, but any pleasantness was fleeting. And that had to change.

Fuck this. Fuck being down and out; fuck the nerves; fuck the worry . I was a goddamn seer. I was the son of a woman who had manipulated an entire government into freeing her. I was primed to succeed . I needed to leave behind my doubts and jump into this feet-first, or I would lose.

Number one thing on the agenda: get decent and get some food. Number two: get moving, but mindfully. I’d always hated that word—it was the sort of thing Marisol would throw out every now and then when she was in a particularly new-agey mindset, but right now, it seemed pretty cogent. I needed to be mindful of S?ren most of all. I mean, yes, mindful of his vengeful relatives too, but if I couldn’t hang on to the landv?ttir on my own, all of my problems became purely academic because I’d probably be dead. So. Bathroom, clothes, find S?ren, get us some food, and get out of here. We’d make it to Santa Rosa when we made it.

I put on jeans and a T-shirt, covered my more distinctive tattoos with my suit jacket, the only part of the getup that had mostly survived the carnage of yesterday, and headed for the office. I hadn’t looked too closely at the kid who’d checked us in last night, but I’d seen enough to get a glimpse of what he spent most of his time on.

My hunch was correct. S?ren was there, sitting cross-legged on the grimy floor in yesterday’s clothes, dual-playing with the kid as they shot up purple aliens on a screen that was way too small to be good for this.

“The one on the left, the left. Switch guns!” the kid insisted.

S?ren switched to something that shot grenades and fired.

“Better. You’ve gotta be ready to change things up, otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed. I can’t believe you’ve never played this before.”

“Me neither.” S?ren seemed to be enjoying himself. He looked over at me as I approached and grinned. Apparently we were moving on from the trauma of last night without another word. I was absolutely fine with that. “You and I haven’t played this game. Why not?”

“I think it’s too new for us to have played it.”

“It came out last year,” the kid scoffed. “That’s not new. And by the way, if you’re not out by ten, we’re charging you for another day.”

It was already nine forty-five. Wow. We—at least, me—had slept a lot. “I’ll go load up the car and get the key.” I left with only a tiny sigh of relief at having found S?ren safe and sound and headed back to the room. I stuffed my clothes into the duffel bag, silently promised myself I would get some new gear soon, made sure the weapons were secure, and then…

God, I wanted to use my phone. Apart from the fact that it had GPS and I could look up directions on it and a zillion other useful little things, I felt kind of naked without it. I was cut off from my network, my community. I couldn’t turn the thing on without worrying about it being traced by Papa Egilsson, though. So that meant I was stuck with finding a payphone, if those even existed anymore, or borrowing someone else’s phone, which came with a certain amount of risk attached for the person I was borrowing from. For all I knew, Egilsson could track S?ren remotely with magic, no need for technology, but I didn’t have to make his job any easier on him.

Payphones it was. Which meant I needed a way to occupy S?ren while I made some calls, which meant that I really hoped he ate food. I threw my stuff in the car and went back to the front desk, where the two of them were still playing.

“We’ve got to go,” I told S?ren, who frowned at me. “I’ll buy you a Switch, okay?”

“When?”

“After we get something to eat.” I turned to look at the kid. “Is there a decent diner in this town?”

“There’s a Denny’s two blocks that way.” He pointed west. I felt my lips purse involuntarily.

“Is there anything better?”

The kid raised an eyebrow at me. “Have you seen this place?”

Good point. “Denny’s it is.” I expected an argument from S?ren, but he stood up without any prompting and left the office without bothering to say good-bye.

“Weird guy,” the kid said.

“You have no idea.” I handed the key over. “If anyone asks, we were never here.”

“Who would ask?”

“Hopefully no one.”

“I was wrong,” the kid muttered. “You’re both equally weird.”

He had a point. I left and joined S?ren in the Electra. It started smoothly enough, despite the hell we’d put it through in the past eighteen hours. “Are you a breakfast person?” I asked him as I backed out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“I don’t need to eat much.”

“Does that mean you don’t like Belgian waffles?” There was the Denny’s, yellow and red and gross all over. I tended not to like places like this because I’d eaten at way too many of them as a kid, and living with Marisol had spoiled me. On the other hand, they were cheap and plentiful and, more importantly, there was a payphone on the sidewalk just in front of it.

“I’ve never had a Belgian waffle.”

“You’re in for a treat, then.” I parked, and we got out. “Unless eating makes you sick, in which case, we should avoid this place.”

“It’s not a problem for me; it just isn’t a vital necessity like it is for you,” S?ren said as we walked into the restaurant. There were probably twenty booths and tables, and only two of them were occupied. The hostess/waitress, a bored-looking woman with dark skin and bright red lipstick, showed us to a table and handed over menus.

“Coffee?” she intoned.

“Yeah, with lots of cream.” She left, and I found the waffles in the menu and pointed them out to S?ren. “If you like sweets, these are indulgent. If you don’t, they’re grotesque.”

“Like so many human pastimes,” S?ren said. “Do you think I’ll like it?”

I shrugged. “We won’t know until you try it.”

He looked at me curiously. “You seem much better today.”

“I got a little perspective, I guess. A little distance from the stuff that bothered me.”

“And that’s enough for you to let it all go?”

I laughed a little, wondering if my S?ren remembered how violent I’d sometimes been during my awful dreams. “No, I don’t tend to let things go. I hold onto them even when I don’t want to, but in this case, it isn’t too hard. I’m trying to win this competition, after all.”

“Very true.” S?ren nodded decisively. “Good. Since you’re in the mood to discover things that amuse me, I want to go here.” He handed me a thin pamphlet.

I stared at the roller coaster on the front of it. “Six Flags St. Louis?”

He seemed captivated by the image. “I’ve never been on one of those. I imagine it’s like being in a bolt of lightning.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Randall said he thought I would enjoy it.”

“Randall?”

“The child with the game I like.”

How much had S?ren gotten done while I’d been sleeping? If I wasn’t careful, I’d wake up tomorrow and he’d be demanding cocaine and a Maserati to sniff it off of. I’d been to a party where that had been a theme once, actually. Fucking Vegas.

“You want to go to an amusement park?”

He tapped the pamphlet. “This one.”

Well, fuck. At least it was on the way. “Um…all right, we can do that.”

S?ren beamed at me. “Good!”

Any more revelations were put off by the return of the waitress, who set down two cups of coffee and a little pot of cream and said, “What do you want to eat?”

“A Belgian waffle,” S?ren said immediately.

“You want the Slam, or just the waffle?”

“What’s the Slam?”

The Slam was the waffle, butter, syrup, plus two eggs, bacon, and sausages. It was the sort of enormous catch-all breakfast that satisfied when you were getting over a hangover. S?ren got all of that, plus whipped cream and strawberries for the waffle. I ordered two eggs, toast, and hash browns. I was hungry, but not that hungry.

The cook must have been bored too, because our breakfast came in less than five minutes. S?ren took the first bite slowly, like he wasn’t quite sure what he’d gotten himself into, but then he swallowed and smiled.

“This is delicious!”

“Glad you like it. Get ready to say hello to the wonder of the sugar coma.” I ate my own breakfast as quickly as I could and then got up. “I have a few calls to make. I’ll be right back.” I didn’t think he even noticed, he was so focused on his waffle. I got change for a five and headed to the payphone.

My first call should have been to Phin, but instead I found myself dialing my mother’s number. She didn’t pick up, of course. I hadn’t expected her to. Instead I got the familiar beep of her voice mail. “Hey. I got your text. I…have no idea if I’m doing this right or not. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, starting on this.” I glanced back at the restaurant, where I could see S?ren through the glass, plowing through what looked like his second waffle.

“I’m trying to do the right thing.” I paused, fighting to fit the awkward words into my reluctant mouth. “If I can’t, if I completely fail at this, then…I don’t know, maybe you should think about coming back down to the rest of the world?” My mother had plenty of reasons for keeping to herself, but if I was out of the picture, there’d be one less. “Bye.” I hung up and shook my head. Brilliant conversationalist, me. I put in more coins and dialed up Phin.

He picked up on the second ring. “If this is another telemarketer, I don’t want any of what you’re selling. I don’t need any of what you’re peddling, and if you don’t put me on your ruddy no-call list, I’ll hunt you down, hang you up by your ankles, and skin you alive.”

“I can’t imagine why they’d want to call you, you’re so fucking unpleasant,” I told him.

“Cillian. This about the drop bag?”

“Yeah.” Sort of, mostly. That was all that mattered to Phin, which was refreshing. I liked not having to justify every decision like I would with Marisol. “Can your friend get it to St. Louis?”

“Aye. Standard equipment?”

“I need a new phone in there. The old one’s compromised. Make it two, actually. And a handheld gaming system. And fresh underwear.”

There was a moment of silence. “How about I have him buy you diapers as well, since you’re clearly an infant?” Phin asked sourly.

“How about I tell Marisol the cologne she likes so much on you is actually a bottle of your mother’s perfume?” I retaliated. “Those older scents are so ambiguous, huh?”

“Fine, you bastard.” There was no real heat in his voice. “Where in St. Louis?”

I sighed. “Does your friend know where the Six Flags is?”