He considered Stefan first. “Having a friend is a pain in the ass. But you’re easier, Smirnoff. You pay me big bucks for the really entertaining illegal work. The rest of what I do—find someone, lose someone, suggest a reputable hit man, break a kneecap on a slow day, obtain and deliver rolls of plastic, duct tape, and three identical khaki green shirts when all the stores are closed during a Miami hurricane; the usual crap—it gets boring and before you know it I’m watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to see whose skin is stretched the tightest. But you? Lots of money, a yearly Hanukkah card, and occasionally crazy, wild shit that Spielberg would find unbelievable. You keep me on my toes.”
Saul zeroed in on me next. “As for you, you played things close to the chest, but so do I. Occupational hazard. And despite everything, it doesn’t change our plan or hopefully the end result. If anything, it gives us an edge we didn’t have before. Besides, dropping your ass means dropping Stefan, and I like his money too much.” As the elevator dinged—a low, expensive sound that could’ve been an ancient Tibetan gong—Saul grinned and shot me with his finger. “Looks as though you’re stuck with me, Mikey.”
Skoczinsky giveth and Skoczinsky taketh away.
The elevator was paneled in dark, rich wood, intricate crown molding, and a bench against the back wall covered in sedate black and gold striped cloth. The small discreet TV above the doors was the single exception to the British library look. “And books,” I muttered. “What’s a library without books?”
I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until Stefan told me to hold it together; we were nearly at the room. Adept as I was at reading people, a murderous mind is a terrible thing to waste; I had no idea what he was thinking. Since telling him and Saul almost all of what I’d held back, I’d been waiting for my brother’s reaction. He hadn’t shown one. He’d given me one last sandwich, had asked frequently how I was doing, had eased me out of the vehicle as I kept my arm wrapped around my complaining ribs, and had taken all the bags, but mainly he was quiet, deep within himself.
When the moment had come, it hadn’t come alone—but hand in hand with a trail of consequences. It wasn’t the truth that made a man, but standing face-to-face with the cost of deserting that truth. Whatever that cost was, I’d accept it. I took the key card from Stefan and opened the door wide, both of us visually checking out the room. That was the best I could do. Stefan could look under the beds for chimeras or bogeymen. My reserves were running out and I needed to save them. Saul’s door to the room beside ours shut, but not before I heard him on the phone arranging for a massage.
Eat, drink, and be massaged, for tomorrow we may die.
I went into our room. The beds were huge and the color orange was nowhere in sight. There were white puffy bedspreads. When the motels we stayed in had the option of charging by the hour, a white cover would last all of five minutes. There was a TV hidden away in a massive entertainment center, a refrigerator, coffeemaker, microwave, and the bathroom had a whirlpool tub and a shower. I saw it all in one swift scan. There was the soft snick of our door shutting, but I didn’t move out of Stefan’s way for him to dump our bags. Instead, I put my hand on his forehead, his chest, and then his abdomen. My ribs were a work in progress and my body fought my mind, but I was close enough to being whole that I was able to wrench enough control to assess Stefan. Normally I could’ve touched him on his arm and felt all of him at once. If there were anything wrong anywhere within him, I’d have sensed it. But close to whole wasn’t whole and I had to put more effort into it.
“You’re a human MRI, huh?” It was a comment, but the emotion behind it was impossible to interpret.
I nodded. No concussion, no brain damage. I moved my hand to his heart. “Improving my own self-healing wasn’t enough. All those sick animals I found, all the blind turtles, birds with broken wings”—and the chipmunks that escaped foxes but not soon enough. The rabbit with a broken leg, probably from a stray dog—“I fixed them. I’d thought for a long time: If I can take things apart, why can’t I put them back together? It’s the same principle, the same ability to manipulate cells. On the first day we moved to Cascade, I found Gamera in the woods, blind as a bat. That’s when I started to practice.” Last, I put my hand on his stomach. Good. There was no internal bleeding. He had bruises and cuts, but he was all right. He’d walked away from a collapsed building and I hadn’t. Human 1–Chimera 0. Life loved to mock our egos.