Page 12 of A Shade Too Far
My boss was a world-renowned artist with a passion and insight into the human condition few could rival. But as a fixer for the magic community, those qualities dimmed, and she took on a more hard-edged cast. I didn’t like it. No one knew someone for forty years and then felt nothing at their death.
I balled the tissue up and shoved it in my pocket.
“I’ve outlived a lot of people, bubeleh,” she said in a gentle reproach. “One learns to prioritize the grieving.” She squeezed my knee. “I’m glad you did the smart thing and saved yourself.”
We were silent for a while, save for the golem’s snores and snorts.
Fact: self-preservation was Tatiana’s golden rule.
Did my boss ever suffer a crisis of conscience over conflicted loyalties or was there only her agenda with everything else falling to a distant second place? Had she always been this hard or had she once been idealistic like me, time and experience scabbing her heart over with calluses?
I didn’t want to become that version of myself.
The flight attendant served us a delicious entrée of whitefish with a lemon sauce, accompanied with piping-hot rolls and real cutlery. Suddenly starving, I devoured every morsel, even taking seconds of the bread to mop up the sauce.
Only once we were enjoying tea and cream puffs did Tatiana speak again, looking more like herself. “A dybbuk killed Santiago?”
“Yes.” The ice pack I’d requested earlier had grown warm, so I unfastened the Velcro straps holding it against my knee and set it aside.
Tatiana tapped her nail against the armrest. “Is that what Laurent faces every time?”
She’d never seen him in action?
I rubbed my arm, feeling an indefinable melancholy that she’d missed out on the wild beauty and savage mastery that Laurent displayed when dispatching dybbuks. “Yes.”
She nodded but her face twisted in pain for an instant.
Tatiana was Laurent’s honorary aunt. His grandparents had been her best friends and she’d known him since birth. She’d expressed displeasure about him killing dybbuks on more than one occasion, and I could only guess it was because she worried about him.
Fact: she wasn’t totally unfeeling.
“He’s really good at what he does,” I said to put her mind at ease. “And he’s in wolf form when he kills them. Plus, this one behaved oddly in the way it attacked.”
“I couldn’t see the dybbuk, but Torres was fighting tooth and nail.” She clucked her tongue. “I expect that the dybbuk got away since you made the flight.”
Her worry was apparently short-lived.
“Uh, yeah.” I licked a blob of cream off my lip.
Tatiana placed her cup on the saucer. “Tell me how you got the gloves.”
I recounted the tale, ending with Naveen’s interest in the demon artifact.
“Oy. Laurent will kvetch about us giving them to a vampire. Well, Naveen won’t get them before Zev does, and at that point, it won’t be our problem anymore.” She finished her tea. “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks. I think.” Praise was better than hearing I’d screwed up, but I wasn’t proud of me. I picked up another cream puff but immediately set it down, my heart heavy.
“This day was inevitable. Santiago had a lot of enemies,” Tatiana said. “No wonder Sherisse was more uptight than usual. He should have hired me to protect him. Silly man.” She motioned to the flight attendant for more tea. “He was always convinced that between his magic and his security, he was invincible. But there’s always a way.”
“And you can’t fight what you can’t see.”
She nodded. “Pride and longevity do not make good bedfellows.”
I debated whether to tell her about my suspicions concerning the woman at the fight. It was one thing for Tatiana to set up a hotline in Vancouver for people to phone in suspected cases of enthrallment, but this woman could be anywhere in the world. My boss would not consider finding her a good use of resources. And yet, it wasn’t better to ask forgiveness than permission with Tatiana either.
I adjusted my seat, seeking the best position for my aching body. “The dybbuk that killed Santiago enthralled one of the guests.”
“A na’ar geyt tsvey mol dort vu a kliger geyt nit keyn eintsik mol.” The Yiddish Yoda serenely stirred sugar into her drink.
