Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (38 page)

Noises downstairs
, the door. Clay’s voice, a woman’s, familiar. Hurriedly dries her eyes, listens at the landing. Someone in the kitchen, laughing with Clay. She rushes down the stairs, across the room. Not looking at the woman she throws herself into Clay’s arms.

“Tharcia! Is everything
okay?”

When she looks up at him, he can see that it is not. Her face is drawn with
fear.

“The news. So much killing. Clay are you alright?”

“I saw your vids on YouTube, that’s how I am.” His look is grim and relieved. “More to the point, how are you? You were gone so long.” He’s holding tight like he’ll never let her go, trying to be calm on the outside.
How did her hair get so white?

Over Clay’s shoulder, Tharcia catches the woman’s look.
Lillian. Lylit in her avatar, from the beach. How is she here with Clay?
Raven hair frames a serene face, dark eyes dance. The woman’s look so open, gazing with amusement at the spot where Vardøger’s talons pinch her shoulder. Tharcia is certain Lillian sees the gnomish pervo.
You bitch.

Clay is not letting go, searching her face for answers. She presses hard to his chest,
pushes away. “Clay, I am so so sorry. I’ll tell you. Not right now.”

“You’re sure.”

“Need to straighten myself out. Just got home.” Not ready to talk about the shit she’s in, needs to know why Lillian is even here.

“I’m glad you’re alright. Glad you’re home safe.”

“Well safe home calls for a drink,” Lillian declares brightly.

“Tharcia, this is Lillian. Lillian, my daughter Tharcia.”

Tharcia gives an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry to be such a mess.” So ironic. Clay thinks he’s introducing them. No move from either woman to shake hands.

But
Lillian’s smile is sincere. “It’s totally fine. What’s going on out there would unsettle anyone.” Out of Clay’s vision, Tharcia shoots Lillian a cold glare.
We need to talk.

Helping Clay with bags of food from the car, Tharcia watches him with
the woman. Something she’s never seen in him. He’s easy, relaxed in a way she never knew, never missed until right now. He is happy. Telling stories, his past, about his sailplanes. It’s a side of him she loves. Lillian has seen his airplane, they have gone flying together. Tharcia gathers they’ve been together all during the time she was with Lian.

W
atching Clay with Lillian there rises in her a green-tinged sickness she hasn’t known since sixth grade. Tharcia steps between them, hands on his chest, pushes him backward, away from the intruder. She looks up into his face.

“Clay I
can tell you where I was.”

“
When you’re ready. It's enough for me that you're okay.” It’s a lie and they all know it. He is avidly curious. Her frozen room now un-frozen, her absence for so many days, Tilton’s visit, her face on the news.

Lillian leans against the counter, wine glass at her lips, waiting.
Nods her head slowly, watching Tharcia’s face.

“
I was at the Pentagon. You saw the pictures, all over the Internet now. With the guy there.” Soon as she says it, Tharcia feels the absurdity. Oddly, she laughs, looking at him. He does the same. Lillian smiles.

She
starts again. “Clay I'm not shitting you and I'm not nuts. I was there, with that man, in the Pentagon. I know what you've seen. I know about Annetka, what happened in her apartment, what they found there. I know, I talked to the one who did it, the one who killed all the others. He told me why. It was him. It was Lian. He did it for her.” She points a hard finger at Lillian.

“Lian, who is Lian?” Clay has absolutely no way to reconcile any of this.
But his first rule in talking to any woman is to ask one simple question.
He asks it now.

“Can you tell me more about that?”

Tharcia studies Clay’s face. “Well first I conjured a demon, in my bedroom. That's what you smelled, I lied to you, it stunk and I really did it. I thought I was conjuring my mom, I wanted to slap her silly. I thought she was in hell and I could summon her and tell her my shit. But the demon that came after that was not her at all. That is who froze my room.

“It left behind a spell, in my handwriting
, it totally punked me. I recited that spell while looking at the Pentagon on your lappy, the one you keep in the shop. That’s what called Lian to the Pentagon. The spell wasn't about my mom, it was to summon him. I didn’t know. The one they call Lucifer. But I talked to him and his girlfriend, he's really not so bad.” Tharcia catches a look from Lillian, the question in her eyes.
How far will you go with this?

Clay cannot keep himself from laughing out loud. He squeezes
Tharcia’s shoulder, the one Vardøger sits on. She feels Clay’s hand and the goblin’s pinch in the same place. It gives her the willies but she’s gone numb to shock.

Clay grins in her face.
“So you talked to the devil and he’s really a cool dude.”

She slugs his arm. Her head feels in two places at once, she knows how ludicrous
she sounds to someone who didn't experience it. But she has to try.

“Clay please please listen
. I know it sounds loopy. But I can tell you things.” She points at Lillian. “She is not even real. You met at Sea Snake, she is Lian’s eternal girlfriend, Lylit. What you see is only her avatar, it’s not who she is. They are Spirit beings from before time began, way before Earth or Eden. She was created out of Lian. They were separated for eons. They punked me into calling him here. She made love to you all night long and you have never felt a woman needing you so much. She might feel love for you too. But Clay she is not real. She won’t stay.”

Looking from Lillian to Tharcia, Clay’s
world spins. Lillian’s serene face conveys no denial. Smiling on Tharcia, the expression Lillian most registers is sisterly pride.

“How do you know this? Did she tell you?” Clay's face
reveals that Tharcia is too much on the mark.

“Remember Porte
rfield? He is my dad, partly. I have two sets of DNA in me, the other one is from you. They call it being a chimera. But also I had two souls. Lylit, your friend Lillian here, was one of them, since I was conceived. Lian was ready to kill me, totally, for using her spell to summon him. But he saw her soul in me, and she stopped him.”

Behind Clay, Lillian is shaking her head at something.
Clay lets out his breath, looks around. “I think I’m ready to sit down now.” Parks on the couch, in the middle. “Ladies, please.”

Tharcia
steps past Lillian with a hard glance and sits on Clay’s left. Lillian refills Clay’s wine, lifts the bottle toward Tharcia with raised eyebrows. Tharcia shakes her head. Lillian hands Clay his glass, sits close. She folds one leg under and cuddles her breast against him like everything’s all normal.

Clay looks
from one to the other, tries to regroup. There are small things about Lillian that could fit, but it’s too jumbled up. He asks the first question that comes to him.

“
What did you and Lian talk about?”

“I’m making a bargain with him.”

“A bargain. Let me guess, for your soul?”

“Yes, Clay. That is what people do.
What Lian does.”

Clay’s head is
rolling side to side, slow, like he’s trying to get a marble to drop in a hole. He looks at Lillian, who regards him serenely.

“Lil, is there anything you want to tell me?”
Why the hell is she not surprised at any of this?

She leans forward and kisses him soft
. He pulls back, annoyed at the gesture. Still, she looks at him warmly. “She’s telling the truth, Clay. You are getting more of this than most people will, because you two are so close.”

“But what about the last three days? With us?”

“You will understand in time, Clay. Tharcia knows much of it but she gave you the short version. The best thing you should know is that a change is coming to the world and Tharcia is one of the players. She didn’t make it happen. But she set things in motion. It was time. She unknowingly put herself in danger…”

“Or you did, with your
fracking Sumerian spell!” Tharcia looks square at Lillian’s face. “Lylit,” she hisses, just to clarify her point.

Lillian nods. “She is right. Clay, listen to me. You and Tharcia are so close. I was part of her all this time
, her second soul. When you came into that brew pub I felt such attraction for you. I didn’t figure it out until yesterday. It is because of the way Tharcia sees you.”

Clay
turns to Tharcia. “Mostly the last year you’ve been pissed at me.”

She
pulls on his arm. “No Clay. It’s all my shit about Mom. And here is where it got us.” Covers her face.

“Tharcia
Sis,” Lillian says softly, “what’s happening would have begun without you, without me. This outcome might give me what I dearly want, but the main things will not hold back, not merely for you or me.”

Clay
turns to Lillian, empty place in his gut. “She said you are not real. What about…”

“Clay, I am real
, but not as you imagine. We don’t share a destiny. I knew when I read Tharcia’s poem.” She does not belittle him by explaining that she’d never experienced human emotions, that the time with him was her awakening into being mortal, into creating her world with a human lover as Tharcia is onward bound to create her own.

Clay stands, facing the women on the sofa. “Let me
think a minute. Tharcia. You have been through three days of living hell with some kind of supernatural being. The photos all over the Internet. Are you really alright?” Clay watches her eyes for anything strange, sees nothing, only the girl he loves as his daughter. She’s tired and frightened, but safe. For Clay, if Tharcia is not hurt, this thing with Lillian can just go away, far as he is concerned.

Tharcia glances at
Lillian, at Lylit. “I am alright, Clay. Scared out of my wits, but okay.”

“You must be scared.”
He sends her a look steeped in three days of worry, turns to Lillian. “I don’t know what you are. But how did you get Tharcia caught up in your scheme?”

“
Tharcia summoned Lian, Clay, the path she was on. He was unable to come here, but she made it possible. She was trying to conjure her mom but she called Lian.”

“Lian
. The lizard guy at the Pentagon?”

Lillian nods.

“And you gave her something, a spell, without which it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Yes.”

“Here’s how I read this, Lillian. I don’t know who or what you are. But I don’t want you anywhere around me, or Tharcia. You are doing the worst thing women do, which is to act like sweet passive dummies to manipulate people.”

“What? Nothing could be farther from the truth!”

“The hell it’s not! You could have said you were just in it for the sex. You saw I want to be in a family, and used that. You are manipulating Tharcia too, to get what you want. I totally draw the line at that. You admit you have a guy in your life, Lian, whatever he is. So why are you fooling around with me? Don’t even answer. Why did you spend the last three days giving me googly eyes every minute?”

“I was lonesome! And I liked you.”

“I liked you. And you totally misled me, you didn’t care. What you’re doing is the same thing women blame men for. Own up, Lillian.”

“It’s complicated.”

Clay sweeps her words from the air. “That’s such a typical cop out, Lillian. Or Lylit. It is beneath you. Supernatural being. You don’t know squat. Go back where you came from and leave us alone!”

Lillian jumps up, plan
ts herself in front of Clay. “You are right about one thing, I don’t know anything about being human. I have been a captive since Tharcia and I were conceived. I admit I have been short-sighted.”

“Well stop manipulating and stand up.
Ask for what you want instead of conniving for it. You are a poor example for Tharcia. Just stay the fuck away from her, and from me.”

Clay
’s fury boils up. He walks quickly out the door. Trying in his mind to make sense of everything. On one side, a pit of disappointment. Clay will never say to Lillian the words so near the surface. The years he has waited for someone who meshed so close, and she’s some kind of alien from another dimension. Ripping at the dream, he shakes his head.
What were the odds?
On the other side, deep relief that Tharcia is back. The only thing that matters is that she’s safe, and that Lylit stays away from her.

The women follow with their eyes as he disappears inside his shop.
Tharcia’s face is set.

“You really hurt him.
It was unnecessary.”

Lillian
nods, mouth turned down. “Come for a walk?”

Tharcia is ready to say no,
to hiss out evil curses. “He’s right you know,” Tharcia tells her coolly.