Chapter 8: Coin

The rain in Seattle stopped at ten in the morning.

Kyle stood at the apartment window, staring at that wall for a long time.

He turned and walked to the desk, picked up Irene's letter, and read it again.

"When she grows up one day and can protect herself, then you can decide whether to open it."

He folded the letter and tucked it into his left sleeve, against the drawing.

The sound of a car door closing came from downstairs.

He didn't walk to the window. He stood still and listened. Footsteps, one person, walking across the street. Leather shoes on the wet sidewalk, each step steady, unhurried.

The footsteps stopped below the apartment building.

Kyle's hand reached for the knife at his back. The Demonbane rune pressed against his palm, cold.

The person downstairs didn't come in. He stood there, motionless. Kyle stood upstairs, also motionless. Two people separated by a building, listening to the same city's rain.

Then the footsteps left, slowly, each step keeping the same rhythm. Walking back to the car, opening the door, closing it, engine starting, car driving away.

Kyle stood in place, hand releasing from the knife handle, palm covered in a thin layer of sweat.

He walked to the window and lifted the curtain. The corner was empty, just wet asphalt and a puddle. There was a coin on the steps. Twenty-five cents, heads up. It wasn't there when he came back last night.

He went downstairs and pushed open the door. Crouched down and picked it up with two fingers. On the back of the coin was a cross, with two letters next to it: P.M.

He put the coin in his pocket and turned back upstairs.

At two in the afternoon, Kyle left the apartment.

He didn't use the front door. He went out the back, through the alley, taking another street to get to the hotel where Marcus was staying. He passed three intersections, stopping at each one to watch the traffic, the pedestrians, the windows in the buildings across the street. No one was following him.

The hotel was on Crimson Avenue, a six-story brick building with a sign hanging precariously at the entrance. Kyle pushed through the door. No one at the front desk, just a dying pothos plant and a dusty registration book. He went up to the third floor and knocked on door 307.

Marcus opened the door. He'd changed clothes—gray hoodie, jeans, sneakers. His hair was washed but not yet dry. He looked a bit better than yesterday, but the dark circles under his eyes were still there.

"Come in," Marcus said.

The room was slightly bigger than Kyle's safe house, with a window facing the parking lot across the street. The window was cracked open, post-rain air seeping in from outside, carrying the mixed smell of wet soil and car exhaust.

Kyle didn't sit. He stood by the window, looking at the parking lot below. A silver sedan was parked in the middle of a row of empty spaces, windows clean, tires new.

"That silver sedan downstairs, was it there when you came in?"

Marcus walked to the window and glanced down. "Yeah. Why?"

"Nothing." Kyle turned around. "When you uploaded the files, did you use the network here?"

"No. I used my own encrypted line. Never touched the hotel's network."

Kyle nodded. He walked to the desk, set down his backpack, and pulled out the USB drive Marcus had given him, placing it on the table.

"Here, this is yours."

Marcus looked at the drive but didn't take it. "Didn't you say you were keeping a copy?"

"I did. This one's yours."

"Which copy did you keep?"

Kyle didn't answer. He pulled something else from his backpack—the envelope Lisa had given him—and placed it next to the USB drive.

"What's this?"

"From Vera. Copies of contracts signed by your father, experiment record summaries, and a list of names."

Marcus picked up the envelope, opened it, and looked through page by page. When he reached the last page, his hand paused. It was Harold's memo, handwritten, dated three years ago.

"When did she give you this?"

"Yesterday. In Portland, after I got the stuff from the safe deposit box."

"Her people were waiting for you in Portland?"

"Yes."

Marcus put the papers back in the envelope and set it on the table. He walked to the window, looking at the silver sedan below.

"Why did she give you this?"

"She said to let me decide after reading it."

"Decide what?"

"Whether to come to Seattle."

Marcus turned around and looked at him. "You came."

"I came."

"So she bet right."

Kyle didn't speak. He pulled out a third item from his backpack—the photo Seer had given him, the one with the burned body, and placed it face-down on the table.

Marcus looked down at it. "What's this?"

"My death certificate. Three months ago, gas leak. There's an autopsy report, death certificate, neighbor testimony."

Marcus stared at the burned face in the photo for a long time. "This is you?"

"Seer says it is."

"Are you planning to take on a new identity?"

Kyle flipped the photo over, face-down. "No."

"Then why are you carrying it?"

Kyle didn't answer. He put the photo back in his backpack and zipped it up.

"Pastor's here," he said.

Marcus's hand stopped on the table. "You saw him?"

"No. Last night he parked a car outside my apartment building, stood there for a while, left a coin, and left."

"A coin?"

Kyle pulled the quarter from his pocket and placed it on the table.

Marcus picked it up and looked at the cross on the back. "This is his mark?"

"Should be."

"You kept it?"

"He left it for me, so I kept it."

Marcus put the coin back on the table. "Have you ever seen him before?"

"No."

"Are you afraid of him?"

Kyle looked at him. "Have you ever been afraid?"

Marcus didn't answer. He looked down at the scar on his wrist.

"I was afraid," he said. "On the second day at the Nest, I was already afraid. Not afraid of dying. Afraid I'd never get out. Afraid that door would never open. Afraid I'd become just a shadow on the wall, waiting for someone to wipe me away."

"And then?"

"Then I started carving. One stroke each day. With my fingernail, with a spoon, with anything that could leave a mark. Later they gave me a pen, so I used the pen to write. Wrote her name, wrote her number, wrote the date. By the hundredth day, I realized I wasn't afraid anymore. Not that I wasn't afraid—fear just didn't help. Fear wouldn't make the door open."

Kyle looked at him. Marcus's finger stopped on the last scar, the final stroke of A7.

"Something happened to you," Marcus said. "Two years ago, you were supposed to come get her. You didn't come."

"I came. Arrived forty minutes early. Then got a phone call saying the mission was canceled. I left."

"Who called?"

"My handler."

"He's dead."

"Yes."

"You think Pastor killed him?"

Kyle didn't answer.

"What are you going to do?"

Kyle put the photo away, placing it in his left chest pocket. "Wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Wait for him to come find me."

The sound of a car door closing came from downstairs. Both men looked out the window at the same time. The silver sedan was still there, no one getting out. Across the street, a woman pushing a stroller passed by, the child asleep inside. Everything normal.

Marcus closed the window and pulled the curtain shut.

"Vera's in Seattle too," he said.

Kyle looked at him. "How do you know?"

"She called me last night. Said she'd arrive today."

"What's she here for?"

"To see someone."

"Who?"

Marcus was silent for a moment. "She said she's here to see you."

Kyle didn't speak. He stood by the window, his finger touching the edge of the drawing in his left sleeve.

"When does she arrive?"

"Tonight."

"Where are we meeting?"

"She didn't say. She said you'd know."

Kyle walked to the door and picked up his backpack.

"Where are you going?" Marcus asked.

"Out for a bit."

"When will you be back?"

Kyle didn't answer. He pushed open the door and walked out.