Mortal Danger (The Immortal Game) (3 page)

I dug it out and passed it across the table. Upside down, I watched him enter his name and program his number.

“When you’re ready to request your first favor, call me.”

“Really?” My brows went up.

“You expected more flash?”

“Well, after the mountain trick…”

“I could pop in at random to ask,
Are you ready yet?
but I thought you’d find that startling. And creepy.”

Caught off guard, I laughed quietly. “You have a point.”

“And
you
have a nice smile.”

I winced. “Don’t. You already got me to agree to the deal.”

“I won’t apologize,” Kian said, “but I’ll stop if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It just makes me think you’re full of shit.”

Taking my words as a sign to wrap things up, he waved at the waitress to get the check, and once he had it, dropped a few bills to cover it. “Let’s go then. I’ll see you home.”

I hurried toward the doors, hating that moment of vulnerability when the rest of the world could stare at me. By force of habit, my shoulders came forward and my head went down. Hair the color of field mice tumbled forward to hide my face. I felt better once I pushed out into the early morning light. Kian caught the door as it swung back, and then he was beside me, another flash of heat and color in a morning warming up in shades of salmon and vermillion, colors I never wore, but whose drama suited him.

“Are you gonna…?” I trailed off and waggled my fingers.

He arched an amused brow. “I’m sorry, what?”

I tried snapping my fingers. “You know. Presto! We’re at my place.”

“Is that your first favor?” Kian tilted his head, and I noticed how tall he was—six feet plus, with a lean build. His muscles were clean and compact, something I rarely noticed about boys before. Admiring guys I’d never date felt too much like a beggar pressing his face against a bakery window in hopeless longing for the delicious things he’d never have. Kian was that kind of forbidden beauty, not for me.
Never
for me.

I covered that feeling as best I could. “No way. Are people seriously that dumb?”

“Not the ones
I
save,” he said softly.

It was stupid how good that made me feel. Warm. Being smart had never mattered like it should; it never made me happy. It only let me notice how I didn’t fit in. I could spend hours on equations, but I didn’t know what to say to people my own age. Not that the snobs at school had ever given me a chance. I shouldn’t care what any of them thought, but a dark, seething part of me craved payback. I imagined myself, cool and beautiful, sweeping through the halls while the guys who had called me names stared, knowing they’d never get me. Kian could make this happen.

I was startled to notice we’d reached North Station. “What if I’m ready now?”

“You know what you want?” Surprised tone. Kian led the way to the T. Evidently he planned to escort me to my door.

This has been an incredibly weird morning.

Some people might think this was a superficial request, but they wouldn’t understand
why
I wanted it. Not just so I’d know—for once—what it was like to be one of the beautiful people. No, once I got inside the Teflon circle, I’d dismantle it brick by brick. A sharp, angry smile cut free, and I didn’t care what Kian thought. From this point forward, I had a goal—and
planning
was my forte.

I nodded. “By the time we get to my place, I’ll have the verbiage ironed out.”

“Let me guess, you’re worried about the favor twisting back on you.” A faint sigh escaped him, rich with weary impatience.

“You get this a lot, I guess?”

“Often enough.”

It was a little odd to be
ordinary
. Predictable. At school, I was the weirdo. Nobody talked to me for fear of coming down with a case of social leprosy. For the last two years, I had been eating in the bathroom, which was disgusting and unsanitary, but it beat the cafeteria, surrounded by empty seats, while the buttholes from the lacrosse team threw pickles at the back of my head.

“I don’t need to worry about that?”

He shrugged. “You can. But I’ll point out that if I don’t make you happy, if I make your life worse, than you’ll end up on the bridge again, and we won’t get our favors repaid.”

That sounded logical, but nothing could’ve prepared me for how
strange
this day had been. “Isn’t there a codicil preventing a human from killing himself when he owes favors?”

“You still have free will,” Kian said. “Even under the company’s aegis.”

Which meant, presumably, it happened. My shoulders tightened with confusion and uncertainty.
Too late for buyer’s remorse.
While I wanted to believe that Kian knew what he was doing and he was being straight with me, I didn’t have a trusting nature, especially with the beautiful people. Still, I was alive so far, which was more than I’d expected from the day.

We boarded the train in silence and for several stops, I constructed my request. Eventually as we approached Saint Mary’s Street, I decided simplicity would serve best. I took a deep breath and followed him off the train. The neighborhood wasn’t quiet, even at this hour. A few undergrads laughed as they stumbled home from a night of partying. I lived in the no-man’s-land just beyond the bounds of Fenway. If I squinted, I could glimpse how the other half lived, a block away in Brookline proper. This area was a weird mix of broke college students and rich medical professionals, but you could usually tell who lived in which buildings by how well they had been renovated. The brownstone where I lived wasn’t pristine, though residents tried to brighten things up by decorating their window boxes.

Belatedly I realized that Kian was waiting to hear my first request. “I want to be beautiful without losing any aptitude I have. No time limits, no melting face,
no
surprises.”

His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “That’s easy enough.”

“For you, maybe.” A thought struck me, and I stared up at him, wide-eyed. “Or did you wish for the same thing, however long ago?”

“Do
you
think I did?”

His features were strong but too symmetrical to come from natural design. Everything aligned just so, lending an exotic cast to his perfection. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on what bothered me about him until just now.

“Totally. I’d bet my life on it.”

“You’ll throw that away at the least provocation, won’t you?”

“That’s not an answer. Admit it, you weren’t born looking like that.”

No wonder he had been so nice to me. Beneath the swan feathers, he hid an ugly duckling skin. It made me like him a little more. If he’d been in my shoes, maybe he lacked the natural meanness that I’d experienced at school.

“You’re right,” he said softly.

“Which means you were in my position once. Doesn’t it?”

He sucked in a surprised breath. “People don’t usually deduce that so fast.”

I imagined him poised on the verge of ending his life, and a chill swept over me. I wanted to touch him—and that wasn’t like me at all. Still, my fingers flexed with the urge. Questions boiled in my brain, but we didn’t know each other well enough for me to ask what had been so bad about his life that he’d wanted out. Seeing him now gave me hope. One day I could put this misery behind me, right? Eventually I’d look back on this moment and be grateful Kian stopped me from making my final mistake.

It also answered the question about his origins. He might not be human anymore, but he had been, once. It hinted of scary things lurking in my future, yet if I scheduled my favors right, I could enjoy life before I started serving Mephistopheles—or whoever Kian worked for. If I wasn’t numb with shock, I’d be more worried.

“In turn, that means you survived your three favors and the repayment.”

“There’s a limit to what I’m allowed to tell you, Edie.”

“It’s like a secret society,” I guessed. “And I’m only permitted what’s available to initiates of my level.”

“You’re too damn clever for your own good. Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Positive.” The moment I said it, my wrist burned like fire, and I whipped it up, narrowly restraining a cry. A dark line appeared across the top of the infinity sign, creepy as hell, like ink working its way out of my skin from the inside. I gasped as the burn subsided, touching my wrist as if I might smear the mark, but it was cool and dry.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you. That’s a tally. When you have three lines—”

“It means you’ve used all your favors. Got it. Can I see your wrists?”

He offered them without complaint, and I saw now that he had a kanji similar to mine on his left arm, and an infinity sign struck through with three lines on his right. I frowned.

“Why is one of yours a little different from mine?”

“Spoilers, sweetie.”

I was delighted to catch him quoting
Doctor Who
. Smiling, I went into the brownstone and traipsed up the stairs to our apartment. “You can’t be serious,” I said over one shoulder.

“About what?”

“Not being able to answer. You said you couldn’t until I signed on the dotted line. Well, I have. So start talking.”

“I was kidding, actually. Ownership symbols are tweaked according to a variety of factors, including the faction represented. This line here,” he pointed, “represents Raoul.”

“Who’s that?”

“The guy who offered me a deal.”

For a few seconds, I studied my own wrist, then his. “What part of the mark are you?”

“I’m the curved line crossing these two others.” He traced the arc on his left wrist with one fingertip.

“Ah.” As that was the only difference, the rest of the character had to relate to the faction Kian represented.
I’m totally getting a handle on this.
Fighting a blush, I asked, “Do you want to come in?”

It was safe to invite him. The day before, my parents had gone to a symposium, something to do with string theory. That was another reason I’d chosen this as the day. My parents wouldn’t be home until later, no chance they would’ve missed me before it was too late.

He nodded. “We have some planning to do.”

Music to my ears.
Inside, the apartment was small, cluttered with books. There was no television; I had been lucky to persuade my parents I needed a laptop for homework and research. I also watched shows on the Internet—not that they knew. I suspected my parents believed I was too serious and focused to pursue mindless entertainment, but sometimes I really needed to hide out in somebody else’s world when mine became unbearable.

The old brown tweed sofa sagged in the middle. Kian didn’t seem to notice when he sank down on one end. I sat on the other, hoping I didn’t look as nervous as I felt.

“You’ll have to go away for the summer,” he said.

Talk about lobbing a brick. “
What?
”

“Think about it. Your parents will question the changes if they happen overnight. We need to build a credible framework.”

“So I’m going to makeover camp? Or a Swiss finishing school? Somehow I don’t think my parents will go for it.”

Kian shook his head. “That’s why we craft the story to fit the audience. I bet they’d love it if you were accepted to the Summer Science Program, where you sharpen your academics and get college credit at the same time.”

“Yeah,” I said in surprise. “They would.”

“The actual changes? I can knock them out in a couple of hours. But you have to be gone or your parents will question how it’s possible.”

“And on campus, I’ll have a chance to practice being … the new me.”

“Exactly. It’s a no-risk setting for a test run. By the time you go back to Blackbriar, you’ll be self-assured, ready to teach them a lesson.”

I’d read all the psychology books. In theory, I knew that confidence worked wonders when it came to dealing with other people. That didn’t mean I could achieve it on my own; I had spent years doubting my worth on every level except my brain.

But Kian could give me a boost …

I put that aside, troubled over his insights. “You knew about the rabbits … you know I go to Blackbriar. How much do you know about me, exactly?”

He didn’t answer, only offered a level look, which was the only reply I needed. I told myself it was part of his job, and I shouldn’t freak out. There were probably a hundred other ugly girls in his phone, assigned by some creepy bureau of supernatural resources.

So I asked something else. “You really think I can pull this off?”

“The assholes at Blackbriar won’t know what hit them.” For a moment, a cruel light burned in his jade eyes, more catlike in the morning light.

“That sounds almost … personal. Do you have a score to settle there too?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Of course not. I just want to see them get what’s coming, after what they did to you.”

Naturally, he’d sympathize with me. If he had been a freak, geek, or misfit before his favors kicked in, he had scars where it didn’t show. The bullies
did
deserve this. No question. I hadn’t done anything to them.

Yet.

I never told him what I planned to do, though. “How do you know I don’t just want to be beautiful?”

His chin dropped, eyes sliding away from mine. “I saw the expression in your eyes when you asked. I’ve seen it before. And there’s nothing simple about it.”

He was right about that. The Teflon crew had created in me a powerful cocktail of hate, anger, shame, and a burning desire for justice. Maybe somebody like me couldn’t get it at Blackbriar, but the new Edie could.

I tapped the arm of the couch, frowning. “Back to the SSP. They require applications for a program like that, usually with references. I don’t see how I can get in. It’s already—”

“You saw what I could do earlier.” Kian chuckled. “You’ve accepted that I can change how you look. Now you’re questioning if I can get your name on a list?”

Heat pinked my cheeks, and I ducked my head. My glasses slipped down my nose. “When you put it that way … wait, this doesn’t count as my second favor, does it?”