Hidden Faults (43 page)

Cos I am one.
He smiled at my shock.
All hush hush until now, but the president’s gonna be making an announcement any day now. The paranormals are getting their own police again, like they had before the terrors. I’m officially a member of the PPP civil defence unit—Paranormal Protection and Policing.

What a bloody horrible name.

S’what Hermi says. Kregan ‘convinced’ the president that the best people to keep paranormals under control were people like them
. Less resentment and stuff. I got a badge and everything.

It would never have been possible under Pregar Noret, but Noret had been one of our earliest successes. Police corruption had been a powerful wedge to open up public opinion in our favour—a local outlet here, a news skim there, reporting on corruption allegations, the arrests of dirty defs for shaking down paranormals made an unpleasant splash. More revelations took the scalps of public servants, then a minister, and then Noret was finally toppled when he was heavily implicated in a drugs-related bribery scandal. Kregan replaced him, and we’d made sure his decisions supported our cause. At that point, we realised our plans would probably succeed, but it had still taken many more months of hard work to finally achieve liberation.

Kir had been heavily involved in all that. Still, to become the policer of our own people....

But is this what you want to do?
I asked.

Hell yes. You think I want to keep sneaking around to protect our kind? This way, normals gotta listen to me. They ain’t shoving me around any more, or anyone else. You don’t like it, do you?

I...have trouble seeing you dragging in a paranormal for committing a crime.

Already done it. Been training with the defs for the last few months, that’s why I couldn’t talk to you about what I been up to. See, it’s hard, but it’s good, cos we can make sure it’s all fair and square. Our people do the wrong thing, they get a better deal than before, but the normals know they still gotta pay for what they done. It’s gotta be done right or no one’ll take it seriously.

Idealistic. Realistic?

Hope so. It’s gotta be better than what we had, right?

We had a lot of catching up to do, and it was a bittersweet thing, a pleasurable ache to talk to someone who knew me, my history, and from whom I had to hide nothing, not even my desire for him, though we didn’t talk about it. We ate dinner while he told me all the latest from Vizinken, using his voice for ordinary matters, switching to mental conversation when the topic turned sensitive. After a while I couldn’t remember which we’d used at any particular point.

At the end of the meal, as we were served jilaj—the beverage had become fashionable, at least in Tsikeni, in honour of the help the Weadenisis had given the paranormal population in rebuilding lives and careers—he fished in his pocket for something.

You asked me for an address a while back. You never got this from me,
he said, handing it over.

I read the note in Kir’s rather childish handwriting. Lotiwei hon Zuso, born Lotiwei hon Neim, lived in Kardelo, a bare fifty pardecs from Tsikeni—how ironic was that?

“His son.”

“
Yeah.”
Actually, it’s semi-official, cos they changed all the laws about marriages and adoptions and stuff, but strictly speaking, you should’ve applied and give a reason. I figured you...maybe didn’t want to do that.

No. Thank you.

I folded the paper carefully and put it in my wallet. I needed to think about how to approach the man, but now I had the information I needed to do so. If only Neim had waited a little more time...but I hadn’t known then how drastically my life would change, so how could he have done?

“You didn’t come down here for a social visit, did you?” I asked, looking at him over my cup. “Not with the uniform and coming down a day early.”

“Actually I’ve been here three days.” I set my cup down and stared at him in shock. “Sorry. It’s all...look, we should talk about this somewhere private. Come up to my room?”

“I’m ready.” What was this cagey bastard up to now?

He said nothing as we walked to the elevator. My mind raced with all the possibilities, but I couldn’t come up with an answer. I was still processing the idea of Kir as a cop, and what a paranormal police force meant for us. The potential for corruption and abuse was strong, but it could be of great benefit too.

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking but you’re sure being loud about it,” he said with a grin as he opened his door.

“Unlike you who gives nothing away.” He smirked at me as I entered the room and stopped dead. Tsikeni wasn’t as old or elegant as Vizinken, but this could have been any room in any high-class inn the capital had on offer. “Wow...this is pretty swish. They didn’t pay you to have a little break in the south, did they.”

He gestured for me to sit down in one of the lovely armchairs. “No, they didn’t. Jodi, they asked me to work down here.”

“What? Why? When?”

“
Hold on, I’ll tell you. You want another drink? I think they got a bar in here someplace—”

“No, I don’t want a bloody drink. I want an explanation.”

“Okay.” He began to fiddle with the pocket chain of his uniform. “They need people to set up a unit down here, working with the regular defs and street security. They asked me a couple of weeks ago if I’d be part of it. I said I wanted to come down here and talk to the locals, sniff around, see if I liked the place.”

“So this was never about me. Visiting me.”

“Yeah, it was, but there’s other things to think about.”

I frowned at him. “You sound less than enthralled. Because you’d be moving away from Hermi and Jeyle?”

“Not really. I’ll miss them like hell, but they’re busy. Hermi’s all for the PPP thing. He says he could never do it cos of his talent, but he thinks it’s what we need.”

“
Then what’s the problem? It’s not the prettiest city in Pindone, but does that bother you?”

“No, it ain’t the city.” He stopped fiddling. “It’s you.”

“Ah.” I bit my lip. “Kir...I wouldn’t interfere with you in any way, you know. I’ll even leave town if that would—”

He put his hand on my wrist. “I don’t want you to leave. I got to know if you want me to stay. That’s...what I had to find out. Because of...well, you know. Your feelings and stuff. I don’t want this to be torture for you.”

“
I see.” I got up and walked to the window. I still found it easier when I could see light and sky. The new clinic had been specially designed with the maximum windows its structure could support. A lot of claustrophobia sufferers lived in Tsikeni. “If I’m honest, Kir...it
would
be torture. But I have no right to stop you building a career. I could easily move back to Vizinken, or almost anywhere that needs a doctor. That’d be the simplest—”

I nearly jumped through the damn window when his hand landed on my shoulder.

“Shit, sorry, Jodi...calm down.”

“Don’t do that,” I said through gritted teeth. “You know why.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking. You don’t have to leave. I don’t have to take the job.”

“Yes you do. Because you’re an honest man and you’d do an honest job, and we need people like you protecting us. I’d offer to work for this thing as well except I’d be dreadful at it and we need doctors too.”

His hand on my shoulder urged me to turn. “I thought we was friends now.”

“We are. I want us to be. But.” I pulled away from his hand. “It’s been more than two years, Kir. I want you more than ever. With you in the north, I could cope, barely. With you in the same town...I’m sorry, I’m not that strong. I’m not even sure I want to be so strong that I can pretend I don’t want you, don’t love you. So...take the damn job, and let me do what works for me. There’s more important things than our relationship. We sweated blood to get to this point.” I moved back a little. “Uh...when do you have to decide?”

His hand, still reaching for me, dropped to his side. “When I get back. They want to move fast. If I said the word, I could stay here now, start right away. Jodi…what you said, goes for me too.”

“No, it doesn’t because you’ve got this impossible fear stopping you from doing anything, and all I’ve got is willpower. It’s not enough.”

He watched me pace around the room without saying a word for or against. I couldn’t see how we had any other option, given his belief about my untrustworthiness.

“But one thing,” I said finally. “One thing. If at some point in the future, I’m supposed to fling at you that you made me love you, why would my feelings be stronger now than ever? How would that work? How would I argue that point? Two years! Over two damn lonely, longing years, Kir. When I’ve wanted you and missed you and kept every message you sent me and damned if I don’t spend every night stroking that bloody wooden barchin you made because it’s all I have of you....”

I clenched my fist and stared at the floor. “Even if you made me feel like this, I don’t care. It’s what I want, what I feel is right for me. So why can’t you accept my word?”

He said nothing, seemingly rooted on the spot by indecision. I stalked over to him and sank to my knees. “You say I don’t trust you? I do. Enough for....” I put my hand on his belt and he flinched. I looked up into his anxious eyes. “Please. Please let me. Just once.”

“Jodi, no, I don’t want you forcing yourself, not for me, I don’t deserve it. I don’t want it.”

“
But
I
do! I want to be past this fear, and I want to be past it with you.” I leaned my face against his crotch. “Please, Kir. I want to prove this to myself and to you. Please.”

He touched my cheek with his horn-skinned palm, rasped it along my beard. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Please.”

“It ain’t—”

I clutched at his thigh. “Please,” I breathed against his leg.

No reply. I waited for him to protest, and when he didn’t, I decided the worst that could happen would be that he’d push me away.

No, the worst that could happen would be that I completely lost my nerve. I hadn’t seriously attempted to do this since prison. Suddenly, it seemed like a very stupid idea, and one that wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to his opinion.

But then his hand fell lightly onto my hair, and I remembered how gentle he’d been, and how much I’d loved sex with him, lying with him, and I needed that again so very much. If this was my last chance for intimacy with him, then I’d take it. His breathing stuttered as I slowly undid his belt, and then his pants. His hand on my hair tightened a fraction.

“Jodi....”

Don’t talk to me or I’ll never do it.
I used mental speech because I didn’t trust my voice not to shake.

No. Stop. Please. I don’t want this.

I pressed my face against his crotch, against his underpants and the flesh underneath it.
I need you.

He cupped my cheek, caressing me, and then he knelt, so he was face to face with me.

“I don’t need you to do this,” he whispered, his arms going around me.

Then he kissed me, tentative warms lips against mine. I couldn’t look at him, closing my eyes so I didn’t have to, but his lips insisted, demanding I pay attention, his tongue slicking against my mouth and asking for permission. The heat of his body against mine tantalised and tormented me. My chest tightened to agony at the thought of him walking away again.

Kir, don’t push me away. Please.

Look at me, Jodi. Open your eyes.

Reluctantly I did so.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said, brown eyes suspiciously bright. “I believe you. I do trust you.”

“But...I didn’t....”

“
Prove yourself? You tried and that’s enough. Don’t...don’t
ever
force yourself to do something like that for me, okay?”

I nodded, my throat tight.

So, can we get off this fucking floor cos it’s killing me.

He pulled me up, giving the lie to any implied infirmity of age, and then pulled me in tight by my sweater for a demanding kiss. My arms went around him, more for support than anything because I shook so hard.

“Kir...you won’t push me away?”

“I swear. I never meant to...I didn’t know. Fuck, I didn’t know,” he said almost to himself, then looked at me with those limpid dark eyes of his. “This stuff is all...I ain’t no expert in love, you know. No one never...you said you loved me, but I didn’t really...I see people’s heads all the time. People with the ones they’re married to, or fucking. And...they say it’s love but it’s more like hate. Or convenience. It’s ugly.” He stroked down the side of my face. “But you’re not ugly. To do that for me...when you could hate me and you don’t.... No one’s done that for me,” he said wonderingly.