Book II: These Three Remain

Chapter 10: Ghostsongs and Videoloops (part 2)

The door opened, and I relaxed a little when Joe walked in. He was wearing a huge backpack and seemed to be in a good mood.

"Good morning, Sydney," he said.

"Is it morning?" I said, scooting over to my usual spot near the wall. Part of me was still stuck in Ms. Terwiliger's class, and I squinted at Joe, wondering if he was real. "Did I make it through the night?"

"You did," Joe said, and slid his backpack off as he sat down near me on the carpet. "I guess you had a rough one, huh?"

"It was... busy," I said, in a hoarse voice. Now that he had gotten closer, I could see that his hair was wet. I could even smell his shampoo. He must have just showered. I wanted a shower, too. I wanted a lot of things.

"You didn't sleep at all?" he asked, as he unzipped his bag.

"No," I said. "Vigil."

"It didn't wear off?" he asked. He had begun looking through his bag for something.

"No."

"Oh," Joe said. "That sucks, Sydney. I hate staying up all night. I only got two or three hours myself last night and I feel like shit, so I can only guess how you feel. It isn't even starting to wear off?" He had tilted his body away from me, and seemed unwilling to really meet my eyes.

"I think it's starting to wear off a little," I said. "After all I'm not–" I cut myself off before I said, "I'm not hallucinating anymore." I sat completely still for a moment, experimentally, then answered, "I can sit still again, that's a good sign." Then I kicked one of my feet without meaning to, and shook my head. "More or less..."

"Well, that's good at least," Joe said, absently. He had started taking things out of his backpack, trying to find whatever it was that he was looking for. He pulled out a big sweatshirt with a Mets logo, a few crumpled up pieces of paper, and what looked an awful lot like a girl's scrunchie.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Hang on," he said. "Oh, there it is!" He pulled a plastic grocery bag from his backpack and dumped the contents on the carpet in between us. There were two foil-wrapped rectangular packages, two bottles of Vitamin Water, and a package of those bright orange crackers with peanut butter on them that you always see in vending machines. "I um, grabbed this stuff from the kitchen this morning, and brought it as a peace offering," Joe said. "I thought you might be hungry after, um, everything."

"Wow," I said, honestly touched, even though this was not at all the kind of food I would have chosen. "Thank you." I opened one of the packages of peanut butter crackers and took a bite. I chewed it, swallowed it, and tried not to make a face at the chemical aftertaste. My stomach wasn't at all sure if it wanted this food or not, even though I knew that I needed to eat something.

"Well, you got your protein in those," Joe was saying, gesturing to the crackers. "Peanut butter. And there's two kinds of Poptarts," he said, gesturing to the foil packages. "These ones are strawberry flavor, for your fruit needs."

"Very healthy," I said, trying to smile.

"And these are S'mores flavor. For your uh, chocolate and marshmallow food groups," he said, and I smiled at that in earnest. "And," he went on, "I got you a Revive flavor water, that's the pinkish one, and a Defense one, that's the red one. I thought you could use some vitamins."

"I could stand some revival and defense, too," I said.

"Right," he said. He looked down at his hands, which were tapping on his thighs in a staccato beat. Joe had always seemed to prefer movement and constant action. Even in the car, he hadn't been content to just ride – he'd needed to follow the progress on the map, constantly checking on how things were going. But now his nervous energy was beginning to worry me a little. What was going on?

"Really, Joe, thank you," I said. "This is more than I expected, and just what I needed. I haven't had much to eat or drink since Thursday night."

"Thursday?" Joe said. "No one's given you any food or nothin'?"

"I got some candy yesterday," I said, but didn't elaborate on its source. "What day is it today?" To be polite, I began to eat another one of the cracker sandwiches.

"It's Sunday morning," Joe said. "About 5:30."

"Wow," I said. I thought about it. Thursday had been the art show. Thursday night had been that wonderful night with Adrian. Friday morning, the guys jumped me in the parking lot. I spent all day Friday in the car. Saturday I had woken up here, and now, I had just passed through the world's longest, crappiest Saturday night ever. So now it was Sunday. Maybe I'd get a little mercy today, in honor of the Lord's day. And maybe Strigoi would start lining up to repent and be restored. I sighed.

"And uh," Joe went on. "I just wanted to say sorry. I was a little snippy with you yesterday. It was rude of me. So uh, like I said, consider this food a peace offering, or something."

"It's OK," I said. "You've been pretty nice to me, considering. That anesthetic lotion was a big help. I'm not angry at you." That wasn't exactly true, of course, but it wouldn't help my situation if I was harsh to Joe.

"I had to give you the lotion," Joe said. "Any decent guy would've done that."

"Still," I said. "Thanks." I set the crackers aside and opened one of the Poptart pouches, taking a quick glance at the nutrition label first. "This is perfect," I said, though inside of me, something screamed Forty percent of your calorie intake for the day! I tried not to think about it. "Strawberry is my favorite flavor," I said. This wasn't exactly true, either, since I had never really had a Poptart, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

"It's my favorite too!" said Joe, smiling widely. "We have a lot in common."

I examined the pastry and took a small bite. It tasted of preservatives, sugar, government surplus corn gluten, and fat. I chewed, swallowed, and arranged my mouth into a smile. "Want the other one?" I asked, gesturing to the remaining pastry.

"It's for you," Joe said, but he eyed it with interest.

"I'm a little nauseated," I said. "From the Vigil. Why don't you have the other one? I still have the S'mores one for later, right?"

"If you're sure," Joe said, and hesitantly reached for the pastry. I nodded, and he took it and began to eat. For a minute or two, we just munched on our Poptarts in silence. It was like eating the contents of an unmarked Erlenmeyer flask, but I made myself eat the whole thing.

"Listen, Joe," I said, when we had finished eating. "I don't mean to sound unappreciative, but what are you doing here? I mean, the snacks are great, really, but what's up?"

Joe looked down at his feet. "Am I bothering you?"

"Well, I do have this incredibly busy schedule at the moment," I said. "Essays to write. Phone calls to return."

He looked up in surprise, maybe because he hadn't expected me to make any kind of attempt at a joke. "Yeah, I guess you are pretty busy," he said, looking around the nearly empty room and up to the ceiling. As he leaned back, I was momentarily fascinated by a small reddish mark on his neck. Was it a birthmark?

"Seriously, Joe," I said. "Why are you here?"

"Like I said, I wanted to apologize for before. You just hit on a sore spot, you know?"

"I know."

"But I know you're just doing your best," Joe said. "I mean, I know it's a weird situation, but it's going to get cleared up soon, and for now, we can just sorta... agree to disagree."

"I'm not sure we can," I said. "I want to be free from here, and we can't 'agree to disagree' on my fundamental human right to not be kidnapped and tortured. We can, however, agree to stop talking about it."

"I guess that'll have to do," he said. He hadn't stopped tapping on his leg. "I really am on your side, though. I wish you'd believe me."

"I believe that you think you're on my side," I said, and he nodded, apparently satisfied. "But... should you be in here? At some point, aren't they going to wonder what you're doing here, hanging out with the vamp-lover?"

Joe winced at the words as if I'd said a horrible curse word, then shook his head. "It's OK," he said. "No one's here yet, it's too early. Just the night shift, and they're OK with me coming and going."

"But what about the security camera?" I asked. "If they see you giving me food..."

"Oh, don't worry about the camera," Joe said, dismissively. "I installed that shit. I know how to put the video on loop so we can actually have a conversation for a few minutes."

"On loop?"

"Yeah. The monitors are just showing a loop of the last fifteen minutes, you walking around in the dark room. The guys looking at it, they can't really see so good because of the dark, you know? But they can see you still just... doing whatever you were doing for the last 15 minutes. I figure it's a long enough loop that they can't notice any pattern unless they're paying close attention."

I stared at him. "That's... really smart."

"I'm not as dumb as people think, you know," he said.

"I never thought you were dumb," I said.

"People think just because you got a accent or something, that makes you dumb."

"People are dumb," I said.

Joe smiled. "I set up most of the systems around here," he said, proudly. "I can really do whatever I want. I can go in almost any room, just... whatever."

"Oh, really?" I said. "That's cool. Did you install special codes on the door or something?"

"You think I'm going to tell you that?" he said, and laughed. He didn't seem offended that I had asked, but he also wasn't fooled.

"Can't blame me for trying," I said. I started to open one of the Vitamin Waters, then made a show of not being able to. Joe happily took it from my hand and opened it for me and gave it back with a flourish, extremely pleased with himself for having helped me again. Sydney Sage, master manipulator.

"Yeah," Joe said. "I can come in here, use the wi-fi, whatever I want. Since I'm staying with... uh, someone else, at their place... I like to come here just because it's a bit of privacy." I wondered who he was staying with, and why he was shy about saying the name. Either it was a romantic partner - in which case, why the need to come here for privacy?- or it was someone whose name I knew. Someone, maybe, whose last name started with a W.

"I'd be doing the same thing," I said. "It's terrible not having any privacy." I gestured up to the security camera.

"Right?" Joe said, apparently not noticing the irony. "I just want a little space to myself."

"So, were you here last night?" I asked.

"What?" he said, shifting around uncomfortably.

"Were you hanging out here?" I asked. "You said you didn't get much sleep, so I thought that maybe you came here." I took a deep breath, knowing I was treading onto potentially dangerous ground.

"I don't know, I guess so," Joe said. "I mean, I'm usually here for a while..."

"Oh," I said, then added in the blandest of tones, "That makes sense. It would explain how Angeline got in."

I was watching Joe carefully, and when I spoke the dhampir's name, I saw a confusing mix of emotions flood across his face before he mastered his expression again. "Who's Angeline?" he asked. But I knew the arrow had hit home.

I pointed to the scrunchie on the floor. "Why do you have a scrunchie?" I asked. "Let me guess: you used to have really long hair?" I looked closer. "And was it... strawberry blonde back then?" I pulled a stray hair from the scrunchie and held it up to the light.

Joe stood up. "I should go," he said. "I'm not supposed to be here talking to you anyway. We're not really friends or anything, at least not until... this is over."

I was starting to feel pretty annoyed with Joe. For one thing, if I was right about what was going on here, he was such a hypocrite. And for another, he was being shifty about it. But I kept my tone friendly.

"Oh, be real, Joe," I said, as if I were amused. "You know we're friends by now! You share a Poptart with someone, you're friends forever. So just sit down and talk to me." I smiled and patted the ground where he had been sitting.

Joe looked down at the empty foil wrapper, as if I had actually stated a scientific fact about the friendship qualities inherent in a Poptart.

"Someone had to let her in," I said. "Someone with access. Someone with a girl's scrunchie in his bag. That was you, Joe, right? You let her in here so she could talk to me."

Joe shook his head miserably. "No," he said. "I don't even... I don't know who you're talking about."

"I saw her, Joe," I said, gently. "I saw her. Last night. In this room. We both know she was here. She and I had a whole conversation."

"But she said you were –" Joe said, and then shut his mouth, realizing his error a few seconds too late.

"What did she say?" I asked, in the same gentle tone.

"She said you were hallucinating and didn't know that it was really her," Joe said, sitting down heavily. "She said you was completely tripping balls, actually."

"I guess I was," I said. "The Vigil did that to me. I had conversations with all sorts of people who weren't really there. But she was really there. So... tell me. What is going on here?"

"Nothing is going on," Joe said, running his hands through his hair in apparent exasperation. As he did, he leaned his head back again, giving me another chance to look at the mark on his neck.

"You have a hickey," I said.

Joe threw his hands up to his neck, groaning. "You can see it?" he asked. "Oh my god, this is awful. She told me it wasn't visible..."

"I hate to tell you this, but it is," I said. "And now that the whole thing is out in the open, you might as well talk about it. I mean, who else are you going to talk to about this stuff? Mr. Wheldon?"

Joe snorted. "That's likely," he said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

"So, talk to me," I said. "I have nothing else to do at the moment but listen to you."

Joe gave a bitter little laugh. "Thanks for your interest," he said.

"Come on," I said. "Tell me. How did you two even meet?"

"She is some sort of ally of the group," Joe said. "Her and her people, I think."

"But her people are the Keepers," I said, incredulous. "You mean the Keepers are in on this?"

"I don't know," Joe said. He looked glum. "I don't even know who or what the Keepers are. I just heard the name a few times."

I thought about explaining, but I didn't think there was time. "But you do know that Angeline is a dhampir, right?"

Joe covered his face with his hands. "I know now," he said, into his hands, then looked up at me. "But I didn't know when I first met her. I never thought that we'd be working with a dhampir. I just thought I had met a really cute, bouncy little redhead. And I'm a sucker for that accent." His face brightened with a smile. "Turns out she's a sucker for my accent, too."

Yeah, obviously she sucks, I thought. Out loud, I said, "So why did you guys come here last night? Just looking for a place to make out?"

"No," Joe said. "No way. I let her in because... she wanted to come in." He sighed loudly. "She's so damn cute, with those big blue eyes, and that little body of hers... And she's so... She's just... I can't say 'no' to her."

This was annoying me more and more. How could Joe work with a group that had some sort of nefarious plan to destroy all Moroi, and then make out with a dhampir? How could Joe have feelings for Angeline, and then scold me for my relationship with Adrian? And – the final insult – if he had to make out with any dhampir, why did it have to be Angeline? But he was too valuable of an ally to risk offending, so I tried to keep my expression neutral. At least he had the good grace to look fairly embarrassed about the whole thing. And maybe guilt over his weird hookup had prompted him to bring me this nutritionally devoid little feast. "So, you like her," I said, in as non-judgmental tone as I could muster.

"Yeah," Joe said, not looking at me.

"A lot?"

"I don't know her that well," Joe said. "We only met a few weeks ago. Apparently these people in the group were starting to doubt her loyalty, so they sent me down to talk to her, because I look so young, and they thought she'd trust me. So I drove down to Palm Springs and we ended up having this whole long intense talk..."

I wondered how long Angeline had been involved with this group. Then I wondered where I was I the day that Joe and Angeline were having their talk. Internally, I smacked myself in the head, because I had probably been freaking out about Adrian or something. Some help I was. "What did you guys talk about?" I asked, still managing to keep my tone in check.

"You know, stuff. Like about how we don't really fit in anywhere. How no one really respects our abilities, even though we're good at what we do. She never mentioned that she's a dhampir."

"I still can't believe you didn't know," I said. "I know how human they look, but didn't anyone tell you about her?"

"No, no one!" Joe whined. "They just said that she was from the Keepers, and they seemed to think that I should know what that meant, and I didn't want anyone to know that I didn't know, so I just didn't say anything and..."

"And you ended up falling in love with her or something before you figured it out."

"I'm not in love with her," Joe said. "I barely know her. But she's so damn cute." He smiled fondly, remembering. "She gave me a nickname. She decided to call me Joe-Joe. I don't know why I like that, but I just do. And she does this thing with her hair that kills me. Like she twists it around her finger and makes these little curls with it..."

"So you started up a thing with her?" I asked. "Did you visit her often in Palm Springs after your first... talk?"

"You don't get it," Joe said. "We never did nothing. I met her that one time, and then we chatted on the phone a coupla times. We never did anything, you know, like, kissing or nothing. We was just friends until last night. I mean, ok, I sort of had this crush, but nothing happened. And then I found out that she was a dhampir, so I stopped calling her. But then last night she called and said she was up here, and did I want to hang out, and I don't know, I thought it'd be ok. And the pizza place was already closed and there's nowhere else at all to hang out in the truck, so I said we should hang out here."

"The truck?" I asked. "What's that?"

"Oh," Joe said. "Never mind, not important."

"Are we all on a truck?" I asked, innocently.

"Don't worry about it," Joe said. "Forget I said it, ok? You'll find out when this is over, I just... have to draw the line." He looked so uncomfortable that I didn't think it would do any good to dig for information, so I nodded my assent. "Anyway," Joe said. "She got here at around, I don't know, midnight or one..."

"In a car?"

"Yeah, a station wagon."

"A brown Suburu Outback?" I asked, incredulous. "This year's model? License plate number 3XP –"

"Woah," Joe said. "I didn't see it so close. It was a brown Suburu, though, and in good shape. Why?"

I let out a groan of anger and frustration. "She stole my car!" I said.

Joe looked confused. "She said she had borrowed it from a friend."

"She doesn't even have a license!" I said. "She probably left the emergency brake on the whole time. Oh, my poor Latte..."

"Latte?"

"My car," I said. "My car is named Latte."

"You named your car?" Joe said. "That's cool. I named my car once. I called her 'Lucille,' like how that guy named his guitar Lucille."

I took a deep breath and released it. "That's, um, cool," I said. I reminded myself that I didn't want to insult Joe, and tried to keep my aggravation to myself. Still, though. She'd stolen my car!

"It's funny," Joe said. "She never gave me the impression that you two were like, enemies. She really wanted to see you last night."

"I don't know why," I said.

"I don't know either," Joe said. "But meeting you, I woulda though you two would get along good. I mean, she's tough, just like you are. She's fun to talk to, like you. And she's cool. And, you know, she can really handle herself in a fight, like you can."

I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"About you, or about Angie?"

"About Angeline."

"She showed me some of her moves," Joe said. "She told me to attack her, and I did, just playing, but she flipped me right onto the floor. And then she..." He trailed off, smiling.

"I get the picture," I said.

"I'm kind of embarrassed she got me so easy," Joe said, and I wasn't sure if he meant physically, or romantically.

"Well," I said. "She is a dhampir." I said it as if that explained it all, and to Joe, it seemed to.

"I know, I know," Joe said. "I just didn't know how human dhampirs looked. I'm so screwed."

"Why?"

"Because I like her," he said, looking down at his hands. Now that his secret was out, all of his nervous energy seemed to be gone. "I mean, it's weird," he said. "In some ways, if she was a Moroi, it'd be easier. I never would have gotten close to her. But she's not, you know? And she doesn't drink blood or nothing like that. She can't turn Strigoi, either. It makes it harder to hate her."

"Yeah," I said, and waited for him to continue.

"Anyway," he said. "It's probably a moot point how I feel, after what happened."

"Because you two made out?"

"Not that," Joe said. He paused, then went on. "See, last night, Angeline wanted to go see you. Then she came out of your room, and then we talked a little, and then we, you know. We ended up fooling around. Only a little." Joe smiled uncontrollably then, and his cheeks colored. "OK," he added sheepishly. "More than a little. But then she said she had to go to the ladies' room, and she disappeared. She never came back. Now it turns out that all these files are missing."

"Files?" I asked. "Like on a computer?"

"No, I mean, like, file-files. Paper files."

"You guys have paper files?"

Joe shrugged. "Mr. Wheldon doesn't like computers. He's old. Anyway, a bunch of our files are gone. Someone broke into the C-D cabinet, the E cabinet, the H-K cabinet, and the one that has the first half of the M files." He looked stricken suddenly. "I don't know why I told you that. Forget I said it."

"Consider it forgotten," I said. "I wouldn't even know what it meant, anyway," I said. But of course, that wasn't true. I could make a pretty good guess for some of those letters. Dawes, Dragomir, Ivashkov, Mastrano. I wondered what the E cabinet could be for. Then I began to wonder if maybe I'd been too hard on Angeline.

"Do you think..." Joe said, and then trailed off. I nodded in an encouraging sort of way. "Do you think that maybe she didn't like me? That she only kissed me and stuff so that she could steal the files? I mean, it doesn't really matter. But it's bugging me."

"I don't know," I said, honestly. "Angeline isn't the world's most trustworthy person."

Joe pondered that a moment. "I know why you'd think that. It's hard for me to think of her as a... traitor or something. She's loyal to my side, even if she's a traitor to yours."

"But you're not on her side," I said. "I don't get this. What are you going to do now? Are you going to quit this group? Go off with Angeline somewhere?"

"Why would I quit?"

"Because you have feelings for a dhampir! Doesn't that make your current employment a little problematic?"

"I have nowhere else to go," Joe said.

"It's a big world," I said. "You could go anywhere."

"Nah," he said. "Look, maybe I've found out that some dhampirs aren't so bad. But I'm still sure about Moroi. They've got to go."

"But don't you think that any battle against Moroi will end up hurting a lot of dhampirs? It's possible that Angeline could even get killed in the process of trying to wipe out the Moroi race."

Joe looked down at the ground. "By then, I won't care."

"What?" I was flabbergasted at this pronouncement.

"Look, it's looking like the Creep-a-droo will finally get here tomorrow. He's supposed to help you with your problem, by the way, Sydney. Once he helps you get past your little Moroi fascination, you can go on and have a normal life. He could even make you forget you ever knew Ivashkov. Won't that be great? To just be normal again?"

"No," I said. "No, it wouldn't. I don't want to forget Adrian. He's..." Joe was looking at me carefully. What if this was all a ruse to get me to admit to something? "He's an OK guy. A good friend."

"You can make new friends," Joe said. "I mean, you and me, we could kinda be friends then. Maybe you'd even get to be friends with Gary and Dave." I gave him my most skeptical look, and he laughed, "OK, not that. But you and me could hang out. We could do assignments together. I don't really have a like, friend, in the organization. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to."

"That sounds really nice," I said. It wasn't even wholly a lie. "But look. Adrian and I, we had some great moments, and I learned a lot. Why would I want to forget a whole year of my life? How else do you learn, move on? I don't believe in just forgetting important things."

Joe shook his head. "You've been polluted, though," he said. "Better to start over. That's what I want to do. I'm going to ask the Creep-a-droo to change my memories, too, so I can forget that I ever liked Angeline. That way none of this will matter."

I opened my mouth to speak and realized I didn't have a single word to say. What can you say to someone who would volunteer to forget a love, or even an infatuation?

There was a time you tried to forget Adrian, reminded the Traitor. There was a time you would have waited in line for Mr. Creepy's brain wiping service.

"Well, I was a moron back then," I told her, mentally.

Out loud, I said to Joe, "You have to do what you think is right."

"Thanks for understanding, Sydney," Joe said. "OK, I better get going. Thanks for listening to my problems. I know they're minor compared to yours."

"Wait," I said, as he got up to leave.

"What?"

"When you get back out there, could you do me a tiny favor?"

"Depends on what it is," Joe said.

"It's easy," I said. "Could you please leave the security camera on loop for just another few minutes?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Well... I need the privacy," I said, then whispered, as if embarrassed, "I want to use the um, bathroom." I gestured at the toilet. I had actually only had to use it once or twice. There was something to be said for being starved and deprived of water.

"Oh," Joe said. "Yeah. It's awful how they don't give you any privacy for that."

I nodded. I had expected him to be empathetic about this, considering what he'd said in the car about not wanting to pee by the side of the road in case someone saw him.

"Look," Joe said. "I'll make you a deal. I'll give you ten minutes now. And, I'll write a little program so that it'll give you regular intervals of ten minutes of privacy, once at say, 6 am, before people get here, and once at 9 pm, after people leave. That's the best I can do."

"That's great," I said. "Really kind of you. But, um, I don't have a watch."

"Well, look up at the camera. When it's on red, that means it's recording the loop. When the light's out completely, you'll know it's playing the loop. OK?"

"Thanks," I said. "Really."

"Is there anything else I can do? That's like, within my means?"

"Let me out?" I said, and Joe smiled wryly.

"Look, I gotta clarify here," he said. "I think these guys are treating you way too terrible. I think they're really crossing the line. But I also think that they know what they're doing. Mr. Wheldon, he got a vision, you know? He's going to wipe out all the Moroi. And I'm going to follow him to the end."

I wanted to say something like, "And that will clearly bring back your long-dead mother." But I didn't. I knew better than that. All I did was nod.

"OK," he said. "We're clear, right?"

"Right," I said.

"Good. Well, uh, enjoy the snacks. You uh, got anywhere to hide 'em for now?"

I pointed to the drawers on the awful examination table. "I can hide them in there," I said. "Think that will work?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I think so. If anyone asks though, it wasn't me, right?"

"Of course not, Joe."

"Good. I'll see you later, maybe." And he left the room as if in a hurry.