Page 8 of Prior Claim
Ellisandre’s breath caught, though they didn’t move.
“I’m a fool.” Sevastyan shook himself and strode toward the outer doors. His feet were on the gray mat, his hand raised to push outward.
“Stop.”
His hand spasmed and ceased to move.
Ellisandre ghosted over the floor to stand behind him. They lifted their hand and held it, just above his shoulder. “Tell me your safe word.”
A muscle twitched above his lip, but his shoulders unfurled, a true release instead of the faux one of a moment before. “Kapusta.” It was the same word they’d used before. He even said it with the same distaste.
“Tell me you’re not being watched.”
“Why?”
“You are coming to my dominion.”
Ellisandre
It was a risk. If this went poorly, Ellisandre would have to find an entirely new bolthole and arrange to move everything. Not even Linda knew where this place was. It was just for them. With the arrival of a child in Linda’s and their lives, even more of their secrets had come to reside in this apartment, held under a corporation and three steps removed from their legal name.
Ellisandre turned the key in the lock of the ordinary apartment door in one of Chicago’s old buildings, the kind with a dark carpet of indeterminate original color, stairs that creaked, and elevators that rattled and used collapsing grates in the lift instead of interior doors. The door opened on a six-foot-long hallway leading to a second door, this one a century more modern, made of steel, a keypad above the handle and retinal scanner where the peephole might have been. Ellisandre motioned Sevastyan to step into the hall and shut the ordinary door behind him. While they hadn’t arrived together or traveled together, only Ellisandre could bring him in.
Ellisandre scanned their retina, entered the code, and then motioned Sevastyan forward. “I’m giving you access. Let it scan your face.”
He looked at them with that same lost look that he’d worn since the doors of the museum, the one that said he did not comprehend Ellisandre’s actions.
And what was there to comprehend? They both lived in a world of other people’s madness. Sanity was overvalued. It only allowed the mad to spot you as prey. The greatest veil of protection was the lunacy of Ellisandre’s exterior.
With Sevastyan registered into the security system, Ellisandre led the way through the second door and into the apartment itself.
“The Bolthole. You are the first to come here. Not even Linda knows of this place. Shoes off.” Ellisandre lifted their hat, revealing long, pure-white hair swept back from short sheared side fades. The lengths were held up with a leather clasp and shot through with tiny braids. They shrugged out of their coat, hanging it and the hat on an antique cast-iron coat stand near the entrance. Then they tugged their gloves from their fingers and offered Sevastyan their hand, nodding at his winter wear.
Sevastyan glanced at Ellisandre’s eyes, dropped his gaze and reached up, pulling off his beanie. Pale, almost white hair fell loose over his shoulders. His fingers carded through it, making it fall smoothly. Ellisandre took the beanie from his fingers as he plucked open the buttons of his coat and slid the weight of it off his frame. Ellisandre hung it up, then took off their own boots. Sevastyan did the same, moving more slowly, eyes still on Ellisandre.
Let him watch.
Ellisandre moved to a small, round, cherrywood table balanced on a single carved pedestal in a style at least seventy years out of date. The surface was topped by a quilt of small, flowery squares sewn together without a pattern. Ellisandre unloaded their primary firearm, their secondary hand gun, two knives, two phones, and an emergency med kit onto the surface.
“Tell me if you have new allergies.”
“Coconut gives me indigestion.”
Ellisandre nodded. They lit two sticks of incense and stuck the ends of the sticks into sand in a small bowl on the edge of the table. “Put anything I shouldn’t touch there.” They tapped their fingers on the table.
Sevastyan approached slowly. He laid out his own weapons with lingering hesitation. Three phones, one of which was hidden on his leg, two handguns, brass knuckles, a small med kit with a tourniquet. A passport—American—which he was not.
He met their eyes as he put it down, an almost stubborn set to his jaw.
Ellisandre nodded toward the rest of the apartment. “This is my secret lair. Tell anyone else about it and I’ll whip you raw. The window is privacy glass, one way only. You can trust it.”
Ellisandre motioned at the corner with windows on both sides. It was perfect for the mountain of plants sitting in front of it. They were all on automatic watering systems for the weeks that visiting was ill-advised or impossible. The plants hung from the ceiling or sat on planters that held most of them up to at least the base of the low-slung glass, the heights differentiated to mimic mountains and valleys. On the long side, opposite the coat stand, was a low couch, half submerged beneath knitted throws in a riot of natural colors and pillows to match. The battered wood floor was covered in rugs. Old landscape art in overwrought gilded frames of chipped gold and silver paint hung on the exposed brick walls.
Ellisandre motioned through the arched doorway behind them, deeper into the apartment. “Kitchen in back. Emergency exit. Bathroom there.” They pointed to the door directly around the corner from the coat stand. Inside were relics from the seventies, fully functional but Pepto Bismol pink. People in previous decades were so much more imaginative. “There’s a bedroom. Weapon cache in the closet. Medical notions and equipment in the mahogany armoire—your presents are in the other one, the one with the white roses on the front.
He blinked slowly.
“You thought I wasn’t waiting for you. And I wasn’t—waiting. I prepared.”
