Kirev's Door (12 page)

I do,
Coreq affirmed.
Very much, brother.

Kirev felt his light expand with feeling...so much so he couldn’t speak at first. He felt relief, yes, for being forgiven. He felt regret too. More than either of those things, he felt love. He remembered how sad he’d been. How much he’d missed his friend. So much. He’d been so alone...so alone after they took Coreq away. He’d become an animal, too. An animal like all of the others, fighting and snarling for scraps.

He’s missed him so much. So much. His heart had been broken that day.

Mine, too, brother,
Coreq told him softly.
Mine, too.

Kirev nodded into that dark, unable to think past the feeling in him, that warmer love he could still feel from Coreq, and for him. He felt himself breathing into that love, relaxing in a way he hadn’t in longer than he could remember. It had left him so gradually since that day, Kirev had scarcely noticed, until he forgot what it was too feel so much entirely.

The night sky continued to whisper past them.

Beautiful. Silent.

Kirev rested in Coreq’s presence, letting it happen.

Are you taking me somewhere?
he said then, tentative.

Yes.

Where?
Kirev sent.
Where are you taking me? Is it where you are now?

No,
Coreq sent.
I cannot do that...I am sorry.

Kirev fought with disappointment. He tried to shake it off, but felt that closing in his chest want to reassert itself again, to protect him from whatever Coreq might tell him next.

Do not worry, brother,
Coreq sent, pulsing more warmth at him.

But where are you taking me?

I am taking you where you can make a real difference, brother...
Coreq whispered, soft, again coiling around him.
I am taking you to a place where you won’t be found...not for a long, long time, at any rate. Here, you will join the rebellion. You will work for them...

For our own kind, you mean?
Kirev sent, his thoughts defensive.
Of course I will! It is for the good of the race, brother...like we always talked about. It is like Syrimne...like all of the seers before us who have fought slavery, to beat back the human animals...

No,
Coreq sent.
No, brother.

Kirev felt his anger worsen. His frustration. His hurt.
 

He had thought his brother would see this the same.

He had thought they would be the same in this.

Our hearts are,
Coreq assured him.
Our hearts very much are the same in this, brother. Which is why I want to help you...it is why when I saw you there, I wanted to help you...

Help me? How?
Kirev sent. His thoughts grew openly bitter.
You think I should not help my race? That I should sit still? Passive? Obedient? Like the rest of those trick dogs who live off the scraps humans leave us?

Coreq shook his head.
It will be easier to see this where we are going. It will be easier when you can see what they do to all living beings, not only those of your own race. Then you will see the truth. Then you will understand.

Understand? Understand what?
Kirev sent.
I don’t understand
any
of what you say, Coreq!

But his childhood friend went on as if Kirev had not spoken at all.

...They will not find you here at first,
Coreq whispered into his light.
They will not even know how to look for you in this place, brother...not at first. You will be able to see what they do...how they do it. As long as you are careful...as long as you don’t let them discover what you are.

Kirev felt his puzzlement worsen.

Humans?
he sent finally.
Where humans won’t find me?

There was a silence.

Then Coreq seemed to sigh, filling Kirev’s head with even more light.

Humans were never the enemy, brother,
he said, softer still.

Really? They’re not?
Kirev sent, fighting anger once more as he remembered the human Bilford, what he’d wanted to do to him in that upstairs room. He remembered the human Marcous, holding Venai’s leash, the countless others from the camps, the guards who would take turns beating and raping them when they were bored.

Then who the fuck is, brother?
Kirev sent bitterly.
If not humans, who?

That time, Coreq didn’t answer him.

9

THERE ARE NONE OF US HERE

KIREV OPENED HIS eyes.

Sunlight greeted him...more than he could take at first.

He raised a hand up to shield his face from that glare and groaned when pain shot up that arm, nearly blinding him at first. He let the arm drop, gasping as he recovered from the shock of that pain, the unwelcome swell of nausea that accompanied it.

His arm. He’d been shot, hadn’t he?

Where the hell was he now?

Using his good hand and arm, he struggled up to a sitting position, grimacing from the pain in his throbbing arm as well as a lower-level headache throbbing somewhere in the back of his skull. His eyes met blue sky. Above him, tree branches swayed in a higher wind, their new, sharply green leaves rippling in sunlight.

He realized he was sitting on grass.

Well, lying on it might be more accurate.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this.

He fought to scan back through his memories, back through what he remembered of the time leading up to this one. He remembered the party at Sutro Heights. He remembered Dan, the cylindrical key he stole, the house burning into the night sky.

He remembered the laboratory under the ground. Those glass cases with those...things. The metal that lived, that whimpered and screamed into the silence. He remembered the wall that morphed into a keyhole...the room with the star-like lights.

Coreq.

He remembered Coreq.

Rubbing his eyes with his fingers, Kirev sat the rest of the way up.

He found himself looking at a familiar skyline, down below a slanting row of colorful, Victorian-style houses and a slope of steep grass-covered hill attached to where he sat. He knew this place. Alamo Square...a park in the city. He’d only been here once.
 

Dan had taken him here just a few days previous, to show him a view of San Francisco’s downtown. He’d been acting the part of proud tour guide of his home city to his new pet.

Still. Something about that skyline...

Kirev blinked, staring at it. Shaking his head, he decided to brush it off.

He had only been here once. He couldn’t be sure of anything.

But of course, he could be sure. Like all seers, he had a photographic memory. And something in that skyline wasn’t right.

Pushing it out of his mind a second time, Kirev struggled to his feet.

How had he gotten here?

He would have expected to wake up in a prison, maybe. Or an armored bus, being taken to a work camp for interrogation. Or a featureless room filled with SCARB interrogators and instruments meant to cause him pain.

Or...conversely...he would have expected to find himself bouncing and jostling down a highway headed for the Canadian border, lying in the back of that delivery truck with Venai and Ute and Wreg and that Middle Eastern seer, Loki, and all the rest of his comrades.

Hell, he would have expected to wake up in Dan’s apartment before this––finding out that everything he’d thought happened had been nothing but a dream, that the party at Sutro Heights hadn’t yet happened.

This, though. This, Kirev’s mind could not explain in any way.

Remembering, his fingers went compulsively to his throat.

No collar. He remembered Wreg pulling it off him in that upstairs room in the Sutro Heights mansion, giving him a pat on the back after he flung it into the fireplace with a grimace, as though he’d been handling something covered in shit.

Kirev gazed up at the sky.

How had he gotten here?

“Hey, nosebleed!”

The voice made him jump, then swivel around to face behind him.

A small group of young humans stood there, maybe in their early twenties. Or he assumed they must be human. They wore no collars, and their clothing, while a little strange compared to what he usually saw since he’d been in the United States, looked like that of a Western human.

“What are you doing, sleeping here?” the male in front said, pushing up a pair of black-rimmed glasses. He frowned at Kirev. “Go home. The party’s over, square!”

“Leave him alone, Randy!” a girl said from next to him, grabbing his sweater-clad arm. “Someone really knocked him around. Look at him. He’s bleeding...”

“So he got a good pounding?” the one named Randy said, making a contemptuous sound. “He probably deserved it. He’s obviously drunk as a skunk, being out here...”

Giving Randy a disapproving look, the girl began walking purposefully towards Kirev.

“Sharon...” Randy said, sharpening his voice. “Stay away from him! You have no idea who that guy is!”

She ignored him though, folding her arms over the powder blue sweater draped over her shoulders and her white blouse, jutting her chin as little as she focused on Kirev with some determination. She walked right up to him.

Kirev himself hadn’t moved, unable to decide how to respond.

Did they not realize what he was?

He’d never been one of those seers who could pass.

As soon as she got closer to him, she paused in her steps, as if seeing him clearly for the first time. She sucked in a breath when she met his gaze. Kirev stiffened, feeling his body coil into a near-fighting stance as he saw her eyes widen.

She knew what he was. She had to. They would run now.

They would run and call SCARB to come pick him up.

But she didn’t run. She didn’t even scream.

Instead she gaped up at him, as if his appearance had completely shocked her.

“Your eyes!” she said, that wonder in her voice. “What is wrong with your eyes?”

Kirev didn’t know how to answer that.

How did she not know he was a seer? Had she never seen one before? Even if she had not seen one in person––which was possible given that she was not obviously rich enough or old enough to own one, or the right gender to have fought in any wars––how had she not seen one on television? How had she not learned about his kind in school?

Did she not at least know they had unusual eye colors?

“How did your eyes get to be that color?” she said, her voice still holding that breathless wonder. “Were you born that way?”

She flushed, her cheeks turning a bright pink.

It occurred to Kirev that she’d just realized she was being rude.

“I’m sorry,” she said, even as he thought it, covering her mouth briefly with a hand, as if to take back her last words. “It’s just...I’ve never seen eyes like that before...” She stared up at Kirev’s gold irises as if she couldn’t tear her gaze away, a near awe in her expression. Looking over the rest of him, that awe shifted again, making her blush more.