Page 100 of Middlegame

Roger laughs. He doesn’t say anything: he just laughs, helplessly, sinking lower and lower in his seat, until his head is almost level with the top of the booth.

Dodger sighs. “Right. Should I answer it?”

“There aren’t many people who could call you on a dead phone. You’re one of them. Pick up.”

Dodger nods, and presses the button on the side of her phone before raising it to her ear. Roger stops laughing.

“Hello?” she says.

Leigh hasn’t spoken to the Cheswich girl since she was a baby, red-faced and squalling whenever taken more than five feet from her brother. Still, she’s heard recordings, has seen pictures, and she knows the voice of a cuckoo when she hears it. She smiles, eyes half-lidded, and leans back in the chair she’s commandeered for her use.

“Why, Dodger,” she purrs. “You sound like such a big, grown-up girl. How old are you now? Twenty-nine? Almost an old maid, and nothing to show for it but a lecture tour and a few books that have already being remaindered in some stores. I read your first one. You should be proud of your scholarship. That’s one thing I’ll never try to take away from you: you have a brilliant mind. It’s a pity you didn’t do more with it while you had the chance.”

“Who is this?” Dodger’s voice is low and tight with fear. Leigh’s smile grows. All the math children are like this, wary and easily frightened when they assume the danger is to themselves. Threaten their other halves and the response is very different. That’s why it’s important to come at the problem sideways, putting pressure on the weak link.

The math children will die to defend the language children. Many of them have. Most of them have had no capacity for defending themselves. It isn’t part of what they’re made of—and Leigh knows very well what they’re made of. She was one of the people who did the making, after all.

“My name is Leigh Barrow. I assume you’re with Erin. I want you to lower the phone and say my name. Watch her eyes. You’ll understand how serious I am. Once you’ve done that, come back to me. Oh, and Dodger? If you let her take the phone away, I’ll hang up, and you’ll never know what I’ve done.”

Dodger doesn’t say anything. Leigh keeps smiling, and listens. In the background, she hears Erin’s startled, wordless exclamation, followed by a run of words too fast and too distant to be understood. That’s all right. She doesn’t need to know what her creation and former protégée is saying to know that it isn’t anything good, because no one ever has anything good to say about her or the things she does. Not even Reed, who supposedly values her contributions to his work. Leigh doesn’t mind. Being universally feared and disliked has its advantages, and she is legion; she needs no one’s company but her own.

“Hello?” Dodger’s voice, querulous and—yes—afraid. Oh, good. That will make things so much easier.

“Hello, dear. Where are you?”

“No.”

A simple refusal, flat, nothing to latch onto or exploit. Leigh’s smile grows. This is going to be fun. “I don’t think you understand. You know who I am. You know what I am to you. Not mother—that questionable honor was reserved for a farm animal who got more than she deserved when I slit her kiss to crotch—but midwife. I was there when you were born. I yanked you into the world screaming, covered in blood and mucus, and I’ve always hoped I’d have the opportunity to send you out of the world the same way. You know what I am. If you want me to be merciful—which isn’t easy for me, I’m not going to lie to you—then you need to tell me where you are, and let me come to you.”

“No,” Dodger says again, and it’s so stark, and it’s so simple, and it’s never going to be enough. Maybe if she’d been the firstborn . . . but if she’d been the firstborn, Leigh wouldn’t be calling her. Always go for the weak link in a hunt, if there’s any possible way.

“You don’t have to be so stubborn, you know. We could be friends.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Oh no? I have something I can offer. Something I think you’ll want very much.”

Dodger pauses. She knows the importance of barter, of bargaining; the math children always think they can get something for nothing, or for not quite as much, if they play their cards correctly. “What’s that?”

“An easy death. I’ll kill you so gently, Dodger. I’ll slit your throat before you have a chance to blink, and you’ll bleed out on the floor still waiting for me to strike. If I do it fast enough, there won’t be any pain—not for you. Erin may even be able to keep your brother alive, if she uses everything I’ve taught her. You could set him free. I know you’ve tried to do that before. I know that’s all you’ve ever really wanted to do.”

Silence.

“Oh, but I haven’t given you any reason to go along with my proposal, have I? Here’s a reason: your parents are dead.”

“What?” The word is half-gasp. Leigh can picture the look on the girl’s face. The horror, the anger, the fear, all mixed together in a delicious cocktail of pain. She wishes she could actually see it, but hearing it is almost as good.

“Your parents. They’re dead. I killed them, in case you were hoping this was about a car crash or something of the sort. You see, I couldn’t find you anywhere—and I’ve been looking ever so hard. I assume you’ve been twisting time around yourself to muddy the trail. That’s not very nice of you, you know. You’ve been denying me. I don’t like to be denied, so I took a little trip to the address where Reed placed you.”

Dodger finds she can’t breathe.

“I rang the doorbell. Your mother answered. She was wearing a pink robe with blue satin trim. Very out-of-date. It soaked up the blood nicely when I stabbed her.” The blade sliding between her ribs, slicing flesh and organs indiscriminately. Her lung had deflated like an old balloon, no longer capable of holding air or sustaining a body. It was a simple move, and one Leigh had practiced many times, on many bodies. “Did Erin ever tell you how she killed your little Indian girl after you and Roger were stupid enough to request a DNA test? She learned that move from me, and I showed it to your mother tonight. She didn’t even have a chance to scream before she was on the floor. You’ll be happy to know that her body’s going to be donated to science. My science. I always need more parts.”

“You’re lying.” It’s the whisper of a wounded child. There are voices behind it, loud ones, raised in exclamation and dismay.

Leigh leans back farther in the chair, letting the weathered leather wrap around her like a lover’s arms, and closes her eyes. It’s a good chair. A pity about the bloodstains, but all things must come to an end in this world. “Am I? Or do you simply not want to listen to the truth? I admit, it’s a painful truth, but it’s the one we have, and it’s not negotiable for people like you and me. Your brother, he can argue with the truth, within reason . . . but he can’t raise the dead. Only a very good alchemist can do that, and believe me when I say you wouldn’t appreciate the results. They’re rarely pretty. Even when they are, there’s always a cost. Everything costs.”

“You’re lying.”