The Big Fix (21 page)

“Duh. Of course I did,” I said, around a mouthful of fries.

“Shouldn’t be a problem, then. Thomas’s contracts are the best muzzles I know.”

“Yeah, me too. Of course, Mark will probably jump down my—” I stopped myself. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

He shrugged it off with no more than a slight clenching of his jaw. “It’s okay. It would be stupid to pretend he doesn’t exist. So, have you talked to him since…?”

He courteously left off “he screwed your brains out,” but it reverberated in my head anyway. “Yeah,” I said. “I, um, explained the circumstances to him.”

“And how was that received?” Billy asked wryly.

“Not well. He was … understandably … angry with me.”

He nodded. “He texted me to cancel the job we had scheduled. Said he could handle it alone.”

“Are you still mad at him?” I asked after I got up the courage.

“Fuck yeah.” He expelled an exasperated breath “No. Not really. If I’m honest with myself, I probably would have done the exact same thing in his position. Doesn’t mean I’m not glad he’ll be gone for a while.”

“Billy, I can’t tell you how sorry I—”

“It’s done, cuz. Let’s try to forget it.” He took a huge bite of his burger, without dribbling any of it down his chin.

Okay, I was cool with forgetting. I could do that. I looked at the array of wadded up mustard- and ketchup-stained napkins on my side of the small table.

“I still don’t understand how you can eat something this messy without spilling any of it,” I said, more than willing to change the subject.

He lifted a fry and let the cheese and onions drip into his mouth before finishing it off. “Practice. Loads and loads of practice.”

I shook my head. “Even with an adaptor metabolism, by all rights you should be three hundred pounds.”

“Maybe I am,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Nah. You enjoy being comfortable too much. I would have caught you by now.”

“Comfortable” was adaptor code for being yourself. It was possible to hold a secondary aura for extended periods, but it did require more energy, so most adaptors liked to relax in their own forms. Even me; otherwise, I’d maintain an extra four inches of height indefinitely.

“True,” he said. “Anyway, you eat almost as much as I do, and you’re still a shrimp.”

The fact is, you’ll rarely see an obese aura adaptor. Apparently projecting other people’s auras burns a lot of calories.

“Yeah? Well, you’re a big doofus,” I said, and threw a particularly dirty napkin at him, which he caught handily and lobbed back at me.

I batted it out of the way and was rearming myself when he picked me up and tossed me on the bed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I suppressed a huge grin, because I knew exactly what he was doing.

He landed on the bed next to me. “Now that I’ve topped off your tank, I’m taking you for a spin.”

“Oh, boy, a joy ride!” I said.

Turned out his choice of metaphor was apt—my head
was
spinning within seconds after he started kissing me. And no onion breath at all. One of the nicer perks of being an adaptor.

This,
I thought while I was still capable of thinking at all.
This
was why I couldn’t let go of Billy. This playfulness. This teasing. This
fun.
Laughter was as essential for me as food and water, and he provided it better than anyone else I knew.

But it wasn’t only the laughter. “Billy,” I said hesitantly, later, as I lay cradled to his chest during a lull in our activities, “I found the parachute. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

I felt him shrug beneath my cheek. “It made me think of you. I was hoping it would make you think of me.”

“It will. It’s perfect—I love it.” I lifted my head and looked at his face. Curls, damp with sweat from our exertions, spilled onto his forehead. “You know, you’ve never said it to me either. Not seriously.”

The humor in his eyes was instantly replaced by something deeper. “I love you, Ciel. I always will.”

*   *   *

Guards. Jackson had hired guards. Every door, every ground-floor window, and even some guy on the roof dressed in workman’s gear who might have been hired to fix the terra-cotta tile, but I wouldn’t put money on it, because he was scanning the grounds a lot more than he was working.

Either our Jack was terribly worried someone was out to kill him, too, or else he hadn’t found Angelica’s file yet, and didn’t want anyone to beat him to it.

“Shit,” I said.

Billy nodded. “Agreed. I can’t see a good way in.”

We’d hopped into Billy’s rental car first thing that morning (thank God his Mooney was being serviced) and resumed brainstorming on our way to Vegas. The only concrete part of our plan so far was “find the file.” Anything else we did would depend on what was in it. Trouble was, Jackson seemed to be avoiding my calls. I’d tried his landline and his cell phone (which the messenger I’d hired had assured me had been delivered at precisely three minutes before ten the night before) several times each. Shunted to voice mail every time.

“I suppose we could just knock on the door and ask to speak with him. One of us could keep him busy while the other searched,” I said.

Billy shook his head slowly. “That might work if we knew where it was—if he let us in to begin with—but I think those guards are a good indicator of Jack’s level of paranoia. I doubt there’d be the opportunity for a lengthy search. Also, we know he has guns. And, if he is our culprit, obviously isn’t afraid to use them should we get caught.”

I gave him a sideways look. “I thought you were the king of risk takers.”

He draped an arm over my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Not where you’re concerned.”

I thought about arguing with him. Saw how firmly his mouth was set, thought ahead to the likely outcome, and didn’t waste my breath. My mind tumbled crazy ideas around. Skidded to a stop at one that was insanely simple.

“Hey,” I said, “what if I could walk right past the guard and search the whole house without ever being seen?”

“And you would do this how, precisely?”

“Easy. I’d be invisible.”

A few months earlier, while working on a solution to a particularly tricky aura-adapting glitch Molly had been dealing with, James (my nonadaptor scientist brother) had come up with a formula that had had an interesting side effect. It had suppressed his primary aura—the only aura he was capable of projecting. As a result, he’d disappeared. But only visually. He’d been as solid as ever if you happened to bump into him.

Billy hadn’t seen it, but I’d told him all about it afterward.

“I thought that only happened to James because he’s not an adaptor. Besides, didn’t you tell me it made him sick?”

“He was a little washed out—so to speak—but not until it was wearing off. He was perfectly fine while he was invisible, and he recovered quickly enough. As for it working on an adaptor … well, we won’t know until we try, huh?”

Billy still looked skeptical. “It might be worth a shot, but only if I’m the one doing it.”

“Oh, geez. Are you getting all macho on me again? It doesn’t make sense for you to do it. I’ve studied Jackson’s house”—the plans were in his dossier—“so I know it better than you do.”

“I doubt that. Remember, I was going to do the snake job until I passed it along to you. I met with him at his house, so I’ve been inside it, which is more than you can say. Plus, I have infinitely more experience than you when it comes to moving stealthily through houses where I don’t belong.”

I quirked my mouth. “No doubt. Never mind. We’ll discuss it later. It might be moot, anyway, if James’s magic potion doesn’t work on adaptors.”

He tugged my hair. “Dibs on testing it.”

*   *   *

“No. Absolutely not. I can’t let you risk it.” James’s face was set.

We were at his lab, James having refused point-blank to simply send the damn potion via the fastest possible courier. One thing I’ll say, flying was getting easier for me, if not more pleasant. I hadn’t even needed any medicinal gin. Instead, Billy had spent most of the flight giving me hand massages. He claimed the acupressure would help with my anxiety. Maybe it had, but it was more likely the naughty suggestions he kept whispering in my ear that had distracted me.

I cocked my head and asked Billy, who’d been trying, along with me, to make James see reason, “Do I look that sour when I get all stubborn about something?”

“No, you look positively adorable when you get stubborn. Cuter than a speckled setter pup.”

I growled at him.

“See,
that’s
when you look sour,” he said with a wink.

James shook his head at our banter. “Amusing. The answer is still no.”

I tugged the sleeve of his white lab coat. “Come on, James, I explained why we need it. If we test it out—”

“And by ‘we,’ she means
me,
if that’s your concern. No sisters will be harmed while conducting the test,” Billy said.

I didn’t object, figuring James would be more amenable to risking Billy’s skin than mine. Like all my brothers, he was on the protective side. Besides, I figured if it worked on Billy, it would work on me, too. I’d save the argument about who was going into Gunn’s house until we got back to Vegas.

“I can see why you didn’t want to send it to us”—not really; I was humoring him—“but this will be under your supervision. Come on, James. If it didn’t kill you, it’s not going to kill Billy.”

“We don’t even know if it will work on an adaptor. It might only inhibit your ability to project secondary auras. Like with Molly, for instance—”

“You only gave her a tiny fraction of the dose that worked on you, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Well, yes,” James conceded. “That was why it took longer to suppress her unwanted secondary aura—”

“So, just give me the same dose you took,” Billy said.

“And what if that size dose damages your adapting ability permanently? Do you really want to risk that?” James said.

Billy raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking
me
about taking a risk? Bring it on.”

“As a scientist, it’s my responsibility—”

“To jump on it when the opportunity for scientific advancement presents itself,” Billy said.

“Wait a second, Billy. James, what are the odds of the formula screwing up Billy for good? Give me numbers.” Because I sure didn’t want Billy hurt just to get the file. If need be, we’d come up with another plan.

James took a deep breath and held it for a second. I could almost see his brain whirring behind his eyes.

“All right,” he said at last. “I admit the statistical probability of permanent impairment is low. But it does exist, and I can’t in good conscience allow—”

“Do it for Mother Science,” Billy said.

“For science!” I echoed.

James was weakening. I could see it on his face. “—you to go forward—”

“Who knows when you’ll get another willing volunteer?” Billy interjected.

James’s shoulders drooped. “… without knowing what you might be getting yourself into,” he finally said.

Another victory for Mother Science.

*   *   *

“It’s going to feel a bit odd at first—” James said.

Billy knocked back the small beaker of neon-green fluid like a shot of tequila, grimacing after he swallowed.

“—and it tastes vile,” James finished.

Billy nodded, coughing. “No argument there.”

“How long will it take?” I asked, watching Billy intently, trying not to hyperventilate. If anything bad happened to him, my conscience would hound me into hell. I’d have to retire from life, move into a convent, and spend the rest of my days trying to atone. After I, you know, converted to Catholicism.

“It didn’t take long for me,” James said. “I started fading within minutes … Ah. And there you go.”

Fading was the right word for it. Billy became progressively more transparent—at a fairly rapid rate—until he was gone. I instinctively reached out to him, reassuring myself that the empty jeans and shirt still contained him.

He took my hand and squeezed. His other sleeve rose, bent at the elbow, to face height. He was looking at his hand. Or rather, not looking at it. “Whoa,” he said. “This is freaking
awesome.
”

“You might change your opinion when you’re coming out of it,” James said.

“Eh. I’ve had my share of hangovers. I can deal with it,” Billy said.

I couldn’t seem to let go of him. It was so weird to see my seemingly empty hand, fingers curved, skin pressed flat against Billy’s see-through palm.

“Do you feel all right?” I asked. “No ill effects?”

“None at all. Other than a leftover bad taste in my mouth from the concoction, I feel great. Surely you can add something to the next batch to make it taste better, James.”

“Flavor isn’t high on my agenda with this stuff. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to run a few tests. Could you try to display one of your secondary auras, please?”

There was a pause, and Ian Somerhalder appeared in Billy’s clothes. He gave me a wicked wink (which I ignored) and said, “Well, I guess this is your answer—” Ian disappeared.

James, scribbling furiously on a notepad, nodded. “Interesting. Try another,” he said.

Billy dutifully cycled through about half a dozen more, ending with Kate Middleton. He did like to collect royalty. Each one, in turn, popped out of existence after a few seconds, as the effect of James’s magic elixir grew stronger.

More scribbling by James. “Try your primary aura again.”

The clothes were empty in an instant.

“Now a secondary one,” James ordered. The clothes remained empty this time.

“Okay, then,” James said. “Secondary auras are suppressed, too. Now, we wait.”

*   *   *

James got a call from Auntie Mo, reminding him he’d promised to visit Molly’s school that afternoon to talk up careers in science to her class.

“Of course I’ll be there, Mo. Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said into his phone. As soon as he disconnected, he said, “Damn. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I hear absentmindedness is part of the job description,” I teased.

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” He turned to Billy. “I’ll be an hour and a half, tops. If you start to reappear before then, lie down on the sofa in the alcove. You might feel light-headed—or even pass out—during the transition, as your body metabolizes the last of the stuff out of your system, but you should be fine once it’s gone. If your breathing becomes difficult, call me at once. Ciel, there’s an oxygen canister in the supply closet. Oh, and Billy—you might want to lose the clothes for now. They look damn freaky walking around empty.”