The Anathema by Zachary Rawlins Page B

to the Black Sun?”
    “You’re the excitable type, aren’t you?” Alex asked, lying down on the examination table. “Look, not like it’s any of your business, but you’ve got everything wrong. Anastasia is my classmate, not my boss. I don’t work for her. I'm not a member of any cartel, not even the delightful one you are a part of, whichever that is. And I haven’t accepted help from anyone, much less a volunteer bodyguard; which, by the way, you are doing a stellar job of convincing me that I might actually need. Anyway, Katya’s totally not an assassin, right?”
    “Totally,” Katya agreed, deadpan.
    “See?”
    “I haven’t completed the training yet,” Katya continued blithely.
    “That is not helpful,” Alex complained. “I am trying to make the angry guy go away.”
    “Sorry about that,” Katya said, still watching Grigori, her body tense and her hand hovering near the shining instruments. “Bad habit of mine.”
    “What is wrong with you, Warner?” Grigori demanded, clearly dumbfounded. “I came to warn you about a threat to your life, based on the positive reports on your character I received from Emily Muir, and instead I find you cracking jokes with the threat? This is simply too much.”
    “Wait, Emily gave positive reports about my character? What did she say?”
    Katya moved on the balls of her feet, like a cat, walking circles around Grigori.
    “I have never liked you, and your accent makes you sound like my grandmother,” Katya said deliberately, just out of his reach. “I spent a lot of time in Mr. Cole’s class thinking about what I would do to you, if you didn’t have a cartel to stand behind you. Well, I have a job now. You get close to him,” Katya said, pointing at Alex, “and then I’ll do what I have to do. It will be my obligation.”
    “Ahem.” Rebecca cleared her throat, fingering the scalpels embedded in the wall with obvious trepidation. Behind her, a doctor and handful of nurses peered out in suspicion and hostility. “I’m just going to say it. Everyone in this room is in a whole lot of trouble.”

6.
     
    “Am I,” Eerie said slowly, searching for words, “in trouble?”
    “That would be the gist of it, yes,” Gaul said patiently. “Quite a bit.”
    He gave her a minute to let the news sink in. Eerie said nothing, a vacant smile on her face, her head cocked to the side and her eyes focused on nothing that he could see. The silence stretched out longer than he thought that he could stand.
    “I don’t want to be,” Eerie concluded.
    “Ah. Yes,” Gaul agreed slowly. “Yes, I would imagine so.”
    Again, the silence stretched out until Gaul felt practically compelled to cough.
    “Uh, I’m – I’m sorry?” Eerie said hopefully, her hands clasped between her knees. “For whatever?”
    “You can’t rectify this situation simply by apologizing, Eerie. In this particular case, it might be more appropriate to…” Gaul trailed off when he realized that Eerie had her hand held up politely above her head, waiting to be called on as if she were in a classroom. “Yes, Eerie?”
    “I am very sorry,” Eerie said firmly. “A lot sorrier than before.”
    “Yes,” Gaul said, coughing. “I do understand. However, I think that…”
    “Eerie,” Rebecca cut in, leaning over Gaul’s shoulder, from where she perched on top of one of his filing cabinets. “Why San Francisco?”
    Gaul had to combat the urge to bury his head in his hands, to shout at either of the infuriating women who had occupied his office and turned this conversation into a farce, but he did not. Not the least because he was not entirely sure what he wanted to do about Eerie in the first place. If Rebecca had any kind of solution, it was worth tolerating her interruptions.
    “You don’t like San Francisco?”
    Eerie rubbed her temples and looked puzzled.
    “No, why did you want to go to San Francisco?”
    “Oh. I wanted to shop, and then to go dancing.”
    “Right, but