Even so, I did what I could to allow the car to sweep me up, to not resist in any way as it started moving.
I opened my eyes again. Looking in the mirror, I could see only a portion of each of their faces.
The man’s hair was just starting to go gray at the sides, and he had a thick mustache. He was also the type, I noted as he started the engine, who wore a hat while driving. He wore a plaid flat cap with a brim, that made his hair stick out a bit on the side I could see.
In my memories of riding my bike, being aware of my surroundings had been key. Looking inside cars to see who the drivers were and what they were doing, so I could adjust accordingly.
Cell phone? Cause to be wary.
Wearing a hat while driving? Almost as bad.
Why? I couldn’t say, but the rule held true.
“Liam’s looking healthy.”
“Yeah. Good kid,” the man said.
Come on, I thought. Give me something more than talk about family.
But silence was what reigned here.
I looked out the window, hunching down a bit so I’d be harder to see in the rear-view mirror, and looked out the window.
An older couple, comfortable in their own company, long since out of things to talk about.
“Crawford was looking well,” he said.
“Lets her kids play too much with those games. Five years ago, you could expect them to be playing, running around, popping up every half hour to show us what they were doing. Now they’re little zombies, eyes on tiny screens you could cover with your hand.”
“Hm,” he said. “I kind of like it.”
She elbowed him.
“Let them have their distractions, Glo,” he said. “We don’t know how this is going to go. There’s a chance some of them will be orphans, by the time this is all over.”
“Ben!”
“You know there’s a chance.”
“You don’t have to say it like that!”
“If things were different, I’d volunteer to step up in someone’s place, make someone younger stand down and sit this one out. But things aren’t that convenient, Gloria. All hands on deck. Duncan all but said it.”
“Yours and mine included.”
“The parents too. Every child old enough to be awakened.”
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Neither do I, but we agreed to put up a united front.”
“He wants to go after the Diabolist. There’s some things that shouldn’t be included in that united front. It’s playing with fire, and he’s so intense about it,” she’d lowered her voice an octave, as if afraid she’d be overheard.
“He went head to head with the younger Rose in Toronto, he knows the personality we’re up against.”
“He says he did, but he can’t give details.”
“That’s scary in itself,” ‘Ben’ said.
“Yeah,” Gloria responded.
“Yeah,” the old man said, again.
A minute of silence.
“You were pretty quiet, when people were taking sides,” Gloria said.
“Not sure about sides.”
“I had that impression,” she said.
“Duncan seems to favor the younger one.”
“Alister.”
“Yeah, Alister. Can’t keep the grandchildren straight anymore.”
“He’s only eighteen.”
“So’s the Thorburn girl.”
“Twenty. Molly Walker was eighteen.”
“Close enough. He’s…”
He trailed off.
I checked the rear-view mirror, and I saw the older man looking straight at me.
I didn’t move, staying where I was, meeting his stare with a level one of my own.
“We got a problem here,” he muttered. I wasn’t sure if it was a question for me or a statement for Gloria.
“Do we?” I asked.
Gloria whipped her head around, but didn’t see me. Ben reached up and re-angled the rear-view mirror.
“Don’t recognize you,” Ben said.
“Might be for the best,” I said.
“Don’t recognize your type, either. Male Bloody Mary of some kind?”
“No,” I said.
“Can’t imagine you’re an elemental.”
“No,” I said. “I’m complicated.”
“You can use words longer than two syllables,” he observed. “Try using words to explain what it is you’re doing in my car.”
“I was curious about how the Behaims were doing, so I decided to ride along.”
“One of Johannes’?”
“No. I mostly belong to me. Some people or places might have tenuous claims to me, but I’d venture to say I’m as free as you are.”
“Who’re you siding with?”
“Nobody,” I said. “Everybody.”
“That might sound good to you, but the free agents around here are like wild animals, hunting, scavenging.”
I thought of the revenant and the faceless woman.
“That’s not my style,” I said.
“You’re just sating your curiosity,” he said.
“Mostly,” I said.
“To what ends?”
I thought for a second. “Bringing change.”
“I’ll say it again, as good as that idea sounds to you, you’re not convincing me here.”
“I’m not concerned with convincing you,” I said.
“I’m a practitioner, Gloria too. You don’t think we don’t have tricks up our sleeves? Be concerned.”
“I know how the practice works,” I said. “You need a good idea about what I am to really come after me. Without a nice label to put on this eerie stranger in your backseat, you’re forced to try a scattershot approach. To guess, or cover as many bases as possible.”
“While you only have the one thing you need to do,” he said.
I could see the faintest shift in his brow. The gleam of sweat beneath that cap of his.
If I kept this up, I’d give the man a heart attack.
“I’m assuming Duncan doesn’t want to be leader?” I asked.
“Fishing for information?”
“A little bit,” I said. “But I’m more interested in giving it. There’s a reason Duncan isn’t confident in his own abilities, and it has nothing to do with the wounds on his wrists.”
“Those wounds healed a long time ago,” Gloria said.
Ben’s eye was studying me, taking in every little detail.
“Ben,” I said. “You don’t strike me as someone who’s only dabbled. You’ve been involved with the game, probably with Aimon, before Laird was put in charge. You’re confident, sitting there.”
“You know an awful lot about us for a face I don’t recognize,” he said.
“You know an awful lot too,” I said. “You know how this plays out. You probably have even more tricks up your sleeve than you’re letting on. Above all else, you know how important and how dangerous information is.”
“And?”
“I want to give you information about the people you’ve put in charge. Laird was reckless. Duncan doubly so. Duncan lost a great deal of his personal power because he lied. Think twice about putting stock in his opinion.”