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Devon strode briskly down the frosted sidewalk, flashing an inexplicable smile at everyone he passed. His children were both tucked safely in their corners of the city. His wife was skiing down thieves in Geneva and calling it work. And since pulling the plug on Kraigan Kerrigan’s twisted scavenger hunt, his daily stress level had shrunk by the size of an entire psychopath.
He didn’t want to jinx it. But overall, things were starting to feel a little bit—
A pair of hands flashed out of nowhere, grabbing him by the collar.
—better.
The next thing he knew, Devon was being dragged off the street and into an alley, slammed without ceremony against the brick wall. His eyes popped with stars, and for a brief moment, the world started spinning. The image steadied nearly as quickly, resolving into a trio of strange men.
He stared for a split second. Then blind instinct took over.
“What’s wrong?” he asked without thinking.
The men glanced between each other with a touch of confusion, like he’d deviated somehow from the script. The one in the middle started to say something, but Devon beat him to it, closing the distance between them and gripping onto his arm. No time to linger, he was already running late.
“Are you okay?” he repeated. “Do you need something?”
That’s when he saw the knife.
...oh, right.
Like flipping a switch, his body went abruptly still. Only his eyes were moving, jumping from one person to the next. When at least they reached the last, they lit with a conspiratorial smile.
“...is this a mugging?”
At that point, they were almost offended.
The one in the middle set his jaw. “Yes, it’s a bloody mugging. Now could you—”
Devon reached into his pocket, carefully extracting his phone.
“Do you mind if I make a quick call?” he asked hopefully, eyes jumping between them. “It’s not the police, I promise. Here—you can watch.” He reached for a number on speed-dial, then held the speaker to his ear. “Julian, you are never going to guess what’s happening to me right now.”
The men stared at each other in disbelief.
“Yes, a mugging!” he cried in delight. “Can you believe it?” All at once, his face became serious. Then stern. “I mean, can you believe it?” he repeated dryly. “It’s like I wasn’t forewarned.”
The knife prodded menacingly. He swatted it down with his hand.
“Are you watching cartoons?” he asked accusingly. “Have you taken up the violin? My life could have been in jeopardy, Decker. You’re telling me you didn’t see this coming?”
There was a scathing pause.
“Well, I think you’re being unreasonable.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket, turning to the trio with a sigh. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. Where were we?”
* * *
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Devon and Julian approached from opposite sides of a bakery. They stopped at a distance, locking eyes in the crowd and throwing up their hands. A look of exasperation passed between them, but they conceded almost as quickly—sweeping in unison through the door.
There would be time for accusations later. They needed coffee first.
A few minutes later, they were already in the car.
“So, how was the mugging?” the psychic asked as they drove across town—blowing steam off paper cups of espresso and flying over the frosted streets. The speed was excessive, but the bakery had been merely the first stop on their list of appointments. They had a schedule to keep.
And Julian’s clairvoyance had made him the slightest bit reckless.
“Exhilarating,” Devon replied stiffly. “Thanks.” He threw a glance over his shoulder as they sped through intersection. “That was a stop sign, by the way.”
Julian’s lips twitched with a smile. “You offered to help them, didn’t you?”
...not exactly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I did nothing of the sort.”
A moment passed, and Devon flashed a sideways look. “Why do you ask?”
In hindsight, it’s probably best his partner didn’t reply.
The road bumped beneath the tires as they continued the drive in silence—streaking past blurs of multi-colored twinkle lights and hitting occasional pockets of ice. The fox’s hands flew to the ceiling with every precarious lurch, clinging there, until the psychic was openly scowling.
“Could you stop that?” he finally demanded as they skittered along the edge of downtown, arrowing towards the houses. “We’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine, all right? I’ve seen it.”
Devon nodded sagely, still gripping the handle. “A wise man once said, the future can always change—”
“Just eat your scone,” Julian snapped, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. He cast another look across the car. “Why did you even get a scone?” he added, just as quickly. “We’re literally on our way to my dad’s house—he’s cooking us something for lunch.”
Devon took a bite, chewing quickly. “I can’t eat the stuff your dad cooks. It’s too spicy.”
For a second, the psychic forgot they were feuding and glanced over in surprise. They’d had a few of these father-son lunches now. He was just realizing, the fox had eaten before all of them.
“Are you serious?” he asked incredulously, flying through another intersection. A chorus of angry horns echoed in their wake. “If it’s too spicy—just tell him.”
Devon shook his head, wolfing down another bite. “I can’t tell him,” he replied simply.
The aging psychic had survived decades of torture and imprisonment in the bowels of an otherwise lovely cathedral the others had driven past almost every day. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also Julian’s father. He was going to eat whatever the man put in front of him.
They drove a while longer.
“You should tell him,” Julian repeated under his breath.
There was a little pause.
“You should tell him.”
In what felt like no time later, they rolled to a stop in front of a stately-looking house in a residential pocket of town. It was an older neighborhood, one of the places the gang had actually considered when they’d first moved out of the dormitories and started looking for housing of their own. Despite Molly’s sincerest wishes, it had been out of their price range at the time.
Tristan’s car was already parked in the driveway, half-buried in inches of snow. Given how much time the two had been spending together lately, it was likely he’d arrived hours before.
The men leaned over in unison, staring through the window.
“Does it ever creep you out?” Devon asked abruptly. “When they hang out together?” He cast his friend a bracing look. “Do you ever think they talk about us?”
Julian would like to have said no, but he found himself nodding. “Yeah, kind of.”
They stared another moment as the car idled by the pavement.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Devon asked, peering through the glass.
“Our fathers have come together in a show of support for your promotion,” Julian recited promptly, delivering the same reply he’d been priming his friend with all week. He glanced abruptly across the car, looking rather severe. “You will endure it. You will make me proud.”
A muscle twitched in the fox’s jaw. “I haven’t been offered a promotion,” he muttered.
“Devon, no one likes a complainer.”
The door opened a second later, and Julian stepped out of the car—slamming it shut behind him. The fox stared without moving at back of his head, before following him out with a sigh.
A rousing speech...
The snow had melted sometime in the night, and then re-frozen early that morning, fusing together to form a thick layer of ice. It slipped precariously under the psychic’s boots as they headed up the cobblestone path. Devon offered a theatrical arm of assistance, and got slapped in the face.
By the time they reached the front porch, tempers had frayed and the pair had already begun to squabble. But they turned as Tristan pulled open the door, flashing matching pearly smiles.
“Good morning!” they chanted in unison.
“Good morning,” the man repeated with a chuckle, having heard every word of their ongoing argument since they’d pulled onto the street. “You guys are early, Jake’s still cooking. Hey, Jules.” He clapped the psychic’s shoulder as he walked past. “This one giving you trouble?”
“You need to deal with him,” Julian replied in exasperation, hanging his coat on a rack by the door. “I’ve reached my limit. Feel free to rough him up a little,” he added over his shoulder.
Tristan chuckled again, staring after him—before turning to his son.
“Antagonizing the psychic, huh? I thought we talked about that.”
“It’s good for him,” Devon answered dismissively, stepping in for a one-armed hug, before stripping off his coat as well. “At any rate, you should have seen how many times he nearly killed me on the way here. Some people have trouble with the ice,” he added loudly.
There was a curse somewhere inside the house, followed by an angry rush of Hungarian.
That word, I know...
Tristan wisely stayed out of it, gesturing down the hall.
“You ready for some goulash?” he asked lightly.
“What’s that?”
Sounds like a punishment.
“It’s whatever Jake’s been making,” his father replied, casting a look towards the kitchen. “I couldn’t tell you what’s inside it, but it looks like some kind of spicy—”
“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Devon interrupted wearily, following him inside.
Together, the two men proceeded down the hallway—a place that was framed with so many paintings and pieces of childhood artwork, they could no longer remember the color of the original walls. Despite having spent so much time apart, the psychics shared a distressingly similar design aesthetic; one that combined the salary of an intelligence operative, with the primal need to create.
A few weapons and instruments had been interspersed around the edges, along with some reluctant cooking paraphernalia and endless, endless cups of tea. But overall, the place was a museum.
Lily absolutely adored it. Most of the paintings were her own.
Julian was already perched on the counter in the kitchen, swinging his legs petulantly against the cabinets, with his fingers gripped around a beer. It was scarcely eleven in the morning, but the psychic had apparently deemed it a necessary remedy. His expression darkened when Devon arrived, but he said nothing further. He merely lifted the bottle to his lips and drank.
Cheers, Decker.
“Devon, thanks for coming.” Jacob glanced over his shoulder with a warm smile, stirring at something that was bubbling on the stove. An explosive combination of paprika and caraway seeds scented the air around him, making the fox’s eyes water the second he stepped inside. “Bejgli?”
He gestured to a basket beside him, filled with tiny pastries of stuffed bread.
The fox approached cautiously, giving it a ginger sniff.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
“Devon doesn’t like walnuts,” Julian interjected in spite of himself, taking another swig of beer. “And there are so many poppy seeds, he won’t be able to pass a drug test.”
“What makes you think I could pass one now?” the fox teased, hopping onto the counter beside him. He eyed the bottle, debating whether to steal it for himself. “Although, I’m clearly not the one with a substance abuse problem. It’s ten-thirty, Decker. You want to pace yourself?”
...or share?
Jacob smiled to himself, turning back to the stove. “Julian, get your friend a drink.”
The psychic rolled his eyes, but hopped obediently off the counter—rifling around in the refrigerator, as the others looked on with secret smiles.
Since making a sudden and rather dramatic reappearance in his son’s life, Jacob Decker had dedicated himself to the task of repairing what had broken between them, making up for the time they had lost. It had been slow going, at first. The Deckers had almost two decades of experience working against them, and while one had quite forgotten what it meant to be a father, the other had never really learned what it was to be a son.
They’d found common ground in the arts. Those first fledgling afternoons had been spent in relative silence, flashing secret looks over the top of canvas, a pair of easels stationed like barricades in between. A joint heritage was something else to share. The day after Julian had expressed interest in returning to Hungary, his father had purchased a sprawling villa on the river. They’d learned the language, and spent a few weeks there each summer, rediscovering all those tiny details about each other, and wandering the streets where Julian’s mother had grown up.
The others had watched with a careful ‘lack of interest,’ giving the men space to acclimate to one another in their own time. But it was Tristan who had suggested their monthly luncheons. Angel had already instituted a standing dinner-date at the psychics’ favorite restaurant across town.
These casual familiarities were payment in kind. Each one, a small treasure.
“So I heard something the other day,” Jacob announced without warning, switching the stove to simmer and turning back around. He leaned back against it with his arms folded and legs crossed, looking every inch the absentminded professor. “Something you may not have heard.”
Devon fought back a smile.
They look so similar when they do that.
“Oh, yes?” Tristan said with endless patience, stepping to the counter beside him. These playful attacks were nearly always meant for him. He reached out a palm, and the psychic handed him a knife. “Some juicy piece of gossip that stumbled upon you before me?”
“That’s right, Tristan.”
“Me, the famously affable headmaster of a teenage boarding school. You, the distressing urban shut-in, with a sordid past.” The fox blurred the knife with an idle smile, pouring a finely-diced carrot into the stew. “You think there’s a way on this earth you heard something before me?”
Jacob’s eyes flashed with a challenge. “I heard Andrew Carter was back in town.”
Tristan blinked in genuine surprise. “Well...yes, Jake. Everyone knows—” He caught himself just as fast, setting down the knife to face him with a thoughtful frown. “But how do you know? Due to the aforementioned—”
“I ran into him at the bakery,” Jacob interjected smoothly, “because some people live near enough to civilization to afford such luxuries, whilst other have settled amongst cows and sheep.”
Tristan regarded him steadily, twirling the blade on the tip. “And why were you at the bakery?” he asked.
There was a pained silence.
To see if they had a delivery-service?
Jacob went still for a moment, then flashed a pained look at the window—plagued by an endearingly familiar compulsion to tell the truth. After a few drawn out seconds, he replied.
“...to see if they had a delivery-service,” he muttered.
That’s what I thought.
“That’s what I thought,” Tristan replied smugly. “Though, why you couldn’t have just—”
“And why must you phrase it like that?” Jacob demanded, turning to face him as the burner behind him caught fire. “Why, when I tell you I’ve had drinks with a friend, must you twist it into something foreboding and dour? You should come with a warning,” he concluded darkly. “It’s how I’m going to introduce you from now on. Beware my friend, Tristan. He secrets a kind of gloom.”
Devon caught Julian’s attention, whispering into the air.
“We’ve had this exact same conversation.”
The psychic nodded with a grin.
“—wasn’t trying to rain on your one social outing,” Tristan was saying earnestly, reaching behind him to turn off the burner. “It was only...wait...you got drinks with him?” He glanced up intently, reading the psychic’s face. “You said you guys met up in a bakery...so you went out for drinks after? Why didn’t you call me? I’m literally forty minutes away—”
“If you do that drive in forty minutes, Mom is going to kill you,” Devon interjected mildly, pointing between them to the fire. “It’s reached the cabinets, now.”
Jacob paced irritably to the sink, wetting a rag.
“—unless you happen to be standing at the precise point of reception, but that is not the point, Tristan. The point is that I ran into a friend at a coffee shop, because I am not a shut-in,” the psychic concluded indignantly. “...I just don’t know many people who are still alive.”
Devon pursed his lips.
A rather gloomy way to end.
No matter how hard the legendary psychic tried to fill in the gaps, it was sometimes painfully obvious a significant portion of his life was spent without the company of other people.
Julian shot Devon a pained look.
Families, huh?
“Why were you mentioning Carter?” Tristan prompted, bringing them back on point. “You said you’d heard that Andy’s back in town? That’s your salacious gossip?”
Jacob turned back to the stew, trying to determine if it was salvageable.
“You asked me to provide a segue,” he said without inflection. “There it is: I heard that Andrew Carter is back in town. Now you can be a grownup, and ask your son the question.”
Tristan’s cheeks flamed red as Julian made a compulsive movement behind him. Devon looked from one to another, feeling much the same as when he’d gotten mugged earlier that day.
“Ask me what?” he demanded, settling on his father.
Jacob flashed a look over his shoulder, then waved him closer.
“Let’s give your father a moment to grow, shall we?” He dipped a spoon into the bubbling sauce, extending it between them. “Try this for me. I can’t tell if it needs more pepper.”
Julian’s eyes glittered in the background, daring him to refuse.
“What did you want to ask me?” Devon asked again, bracing himself as the eye-watering concoction wafted his way. He threw a swift look at his father. “Dad?”
A tenuous silence hung between them.
“Will you take the job,” Tristan blurted, “if Carter offers?”
A spoon of molten lava shoved into Devon’s mouth.
Bloody hell!
In hindsight, it was quite plausible the psychic had timed the little venture perfectly, giving the young man time to formulate a response. More likely, he had merely overestimated the palate of his English friend. Whatever the reason, the words caught like a stone in Devon’s throat.
“That’s, uh...it’s a little bit, uh...” He pulled at the neck of his shirt, finding it suddenly impossible to breathe. “Does anyone else think it’s hot in here?”
Jacob studied him closely. “So that’s a no to adding more pepper?”
Tristan handed him a glass of water, studying him as well. Although it was clear the boy had recently begun to melt, his father had known him a long time. He knew when he was stalling.
“Dev...” He tilted his head, catching his eyes. “Will you take the job?”
His son tried to swallow, unable to formulate a reply.
A heavy silence stretched between them, longer and longer. So long, it was painful. When at last it became too much to bear, Julian leaned quickly forward. “He’s taking the job.”
The others glanced across the kitchen in surprise.
Devon turned to him slowly. “Am I?” he asked, with a bit of an edge.
Julian stared blankly in return before flashing their fathers a quick look.
“Of course you are,” he answered, making a sincere attempt at levity. “It’s the Presidency of the Privy Council, Devon. If Carter offers you that job, you’re going to take it.”
The fox set down his glass, folding his arms across his chest. “Am I?”
Their parents exchanged a quick look.
“You used to look at me like that,” Jacob murmured. “I used to think you might hit me.”
Tristan nodded with a smile. “There were times I considered it.”
Julian tensed with anticipation, setting down his beer. “Can we not do this in front of our parents?” he asked pointedly.
Devon scowled in the opposite direction. “You’re the one who started the discussion,” he muttered under his breath.
“I didn’t know it was a discussion,” Julian shot back in frustration. “How can it even be a question? This is your future we’re talking about Devon. There’s nothing I take more seriously.”
“Are you saying I’m not taking it seriously?”
“I’m saying you’re turning it into a discussion—”
Back and forth they went, pouring out weeks of aggression, as the two older men followed along like a tennis match, placing mental bets on who would come out on top. As the minutes passed, even the psychic couldn’t say for sure. With every scathing reply, the outcome shifted.
“—can’t believe you’re being serious,” Julian cried in exasperation, throwing up his hands. “Since we were sixteen years old, you’ve wondered what it would be like to sit in that office. You talk about it every New Years, you light up and make plans.” His eyes sparked with a hint of genuine anger. “Why else do you think I’ve been so—” He caught himself quickly, shaking his head. “You don’t get to back out at the last minute because it’s a lot of work. That’s not how you decide.”
“Well, maybe now that I’ve sat in the office, I feel differently,” Devon snapped with a watery glare, his eyes still burning from the chilies. “And maybe it’s not the workload, it’s the isolation. And the pace, and the focus, and the...and the lack of everything I used to love about this job!”
His voice echoed across the kitchen, louder than he’d meant.
Most days, he would have flushed with embarrassment. But the outburst had been a long time coming, and there wasn’t a man in that kitchen who didn’t know what the answer to that particular question would cost. For the younger generation, it rarely left their mind.
“How do I decide?” Devon asked abruptly. He bypassed the others completely, focusing entirely on Julian. “You said that’s not how I decide my answer. How do I decide?”
For a split second, the psychic looked truly lost.
Then he lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “You ask a different question.”
Their eyes met in the silence.
“And what’s that?”
Julian opened his mouth to answer.
Then a violent buzz rattled his phone.
Devon got the message at the same time—a standard alert from the surveillance division, the ones who’d been poring over hours of backup footage from the munition’s dump:
Possible suspect sighting: 2841 Harington Blvd. 4th floor
They stared for a split second, then met each other’s eyes.
“We have to go.”
* * *
THE LUNCH WAS RESCHEDULED. The stew was forgotten.
The beers were left open on the counter.
Less than five seconds after receiving the message, both Devon and Julian had said their goodbyes and were racing towards the iced walkway, unaware of the two older men watching from the window—staring in concerned silence on the other side of the frosted glass.
“You take the car,” Julian said as they swept onto the porch, tossing over the keys without looking, “Harington is only about five minutes away from here. I can take a cab—”
“What are you talking about?” Devon asked, grabbing his arm. He caught the keys in the same moment, dangling them from his fingers. “I’m coming with you.”
The psychic glanced back in surprise; they were wasting valuable seconds.
“Dev, you need to get back to headquarters. When there’s a suspect loose in the field, they’ll need to lock down the base. I’ll go to the address and check things out. We’re probably the closest.”
He was right. Julian was always right.
Except when he was absolutely wrong.
“That’s bull,” Devon decided, dragging him to the car. The psychic stumbled clumsily after him, trying to get traction on the slick ice. “I’m coming with you.”
Julian righted himself with a gasp. “Dev, you can’t—”
“I’m coming with you,” Devon repeated slowly, looking him right in the eyes. He took a step closer, just inches away. “I’m coming with you, because you’re a bad driver in the snow.”
The psychic stared at him a split second, then gritted his teeth. “Fine.”
The two raced down the sidewalk and got into the car—flying down the street, just like they’d done a hundred times before. With Devon behind the wheel, their speed increased tenfold, but got ironically safer. Before ten minutes had passed, they were already flying past downtown.
“There’s no one else in the area?” the fox asked, flashing a look across the car.
Julian shook his head, flicking through a dozen messages on his phone.
“The nearest is Mason, but he’s all the way in Chelsea. Besides, it should be us.” He threw a glance across the car, warming with the ghost of a smile. “Just like old times.”
Devon grinned in spite of himself, feeling the surge of ink beneath his skin. He’d almost forgotten how it did that—in the moments before a confrontation. In the beginning, it had unsettled him, but now, it was a strange comfort. Almost like some invisible part of himself was checking in.
He flexed his fingers, staring down at his hands. “What did you mean earlier?” he asked quietly. “What question should I be asking myself instead?”
Julian stiffened ever so slightly, and shook his head. “This isn’t the right time,” he said briskly. “We should be—”
“What should I be asking myself instead?”
The car was idling now, stopped at an endless stoplight—behind one of the warehouses in a forgotten part of town. There was no one for miles, and the silence seemed to swell between them, pressing on the windows and straining the doors. Devon leaned into it, holding his friend’s gaze.
Since they were sixteen years old, he’d been hanging on the man’s opinion, weighing every decision against whatever was stirring in those staggering, prophetic eyes. But he wasn’t asking the psychic, watchman of the supernatural world. He was asking Julian. He was asking his best friend.
“What question should I be asking?” he repeated softly.
The psychic stared back at him, gripping the edge of his seat.
“You should be asking...” He cleared his throat, started again. “You should be asking, what makes you happy.” He looked up slowly, meeting his friend’s gaze. “What makes you happy, Dev?”
Their eyes locked, held for a moment. For whatever reason, the psychic smiled.
He was still smiling when a pair of headlights burst through the window.
