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If he'd had his own way he'd have done all of this alone. It felt like a personal fight no matter how he'd justified it to Edith otherwise, no matter that he'd lifted civilian-bound FEAR from the past two excursions. But the close call with Shade had left him feeling more circumspect.

Ideally, he thought, he'd rope in someone experienced and close and reliable for the tougher targets, the ones whose memories, arriving in scraps, suggested that they might pose the same kind of challenge Shade had. His first thought had been Bashmet, Death division or no, before he'd heard the rumors trickling in that the Russian had popped into the infirmary from a Sahara deployment with a clone in tow. He hadn't breathed a word to him about it and Taym had been willing to let it go as classified information, just glad to know the thing's whereabouts, but the information that Rep had been along on the mission had sealed the misgivings about bringing Bashmet along: no, the pool was shallower now, and with America out of the running it left Bix and Peyton, neither of whom he'd had the balls to approach just yet.

The next target on his list shouldn't pose such a problem. At worst, he thought, he just needed a second pair of hands, someone to wrangle the thing's pendant while he took care of the rest, maybe.

Cee had been a calculated decision: she had clones of her own and seemed interested in getting her hands on actual experience dealing with them, mostly. She was the right rank, and he'd worked alongside her in the Shadow Run. But now, with Bashmet apparently working directly with Caelius and the clones, Taym wanted a Death division hunter on his side. Zeke being in Death hands complicated the situation considerably. He wasn't sure if Cee would be useful, but it couldn't hurt, and maybe having her along would help him phrase the request.

The fact that it might put a bee in America's bonnet was only a bonus. He'd already done that, anyway, with Nora.

Actually...





So he was camped at the portal ten minutes too early in his civilian gear and waiting for her arrival, his mission bag slung over his shoulder, chain smoking cigarettes, nervous and agitated even though his plan, at the moment, consisted entirely of ransacking Shade's apartment while there was still time and hoping that his piecemeal understanding of the situation was accurate: that the one they called the Brother would show up there.

He watched his cigarette go with a tiny suppressed sigh, but made no protest, attention turned back toward his phone for a second--it was always a little odd to watch his skinny shaky hands move with so much confidence over a touchscreen, a little reminder that he was younger than he seemed--before he answered.

"I was about to express skepticism about your earrings but I realized if it gets rough you're probably just gonna do the hold my earrings thing." This, in a spot on impression of a tipsy barfly about to throw down. "Nice tattoo," he added.

He eyed the cigarette but finished it off. "I am not going to be your hype man." Grinding it out under his heel, he shifted into business mode, reaching into his bag to toss her a pair of gloves. "We're going to be looking for and cataloging s**t on the other side that might be useful in helping track down other places these things are targeting--paperwork, floorplans, activated phones. Relevant," he deadpanned, "to your division, see. There's a chance we'll be running across some runic tech and weaponry in there too. Hopefully it hasn't been ransacked yet--they wouldn't let me back in before until it settled from the ruckus that got raised last time."

He paused, a little nervously. "But what we're hoping for--what I am, anyway--is that one of the copies is going to show up to do a changing of the guard or figure out why its buddy hasn't checked in. If that happens, I'm charging you with trying to get its pendant off its neck so it can't try to use it. Do not try to ******** use it. Don't bother fighting it til the pendant's gone. I am not going to be standing idly by holding your earrings, either."

And then he met Cee's eye--a thing he very rarely did--and he was quiet like he always was, and calm. "I know that you work for Caelius, not me. But I'd take it as a personal ******** favor if you kept anything you picked up here to yourself besides the generalities going into the report. I don't want his claws in this more than they already are." A heavy beat. "If you plan on turning any specifics back in to your boss I'd rather you leave now. Otherwise I'm in your debt and aware of it."

"I'll take it under advisement," he said drily, and they stepped through the portal.

The walk to the apartment was short, and this time breaking and entering was considerably eased by the possession of an actual key.

He pushed the door open quietly--silently--and he made a "stay back there" gesture at her. He'd never had an opportunity to see how stealthy she could be and clearly didn't plan on doing an assessment now. With his knife in one hand he made a circuit of the tiny apartment, and the reason he was originally filtered into death was immediately apparently: he was soundless, catlike, thorough. He didn't relax until every room had been passed through and the closets searched, even the door to the water heater closet opened.

"Lock the door," he said, Fiona disappearing once more. "Start looking for useful s**t. YOu ever done any breaking and entering before?"

"Well, most of this s**t appears to be unlocked," he said, rifling through a drawer. There were notebooks--so many notebooks--left by the Lifers for Taym to sort through. It unsettled him that it was true, that he'd understand it all better. He fanned pages of what looked like gibberish. "Not that kind of lock, anyway," he added tiredly.

After a few minutes of rifling--broken only by occasional monosyllabic requests that Cee look for x, or sort y into this pile and that with him, he said suddenly: "Keep it down, by the way. I'm expecting one of them to show up at some point, obviously, and it doesn't too much matter if it hears me--it'll think I'm the other one--but I don't know what's going on with your..." he trailed off, uncomfortable. All the possible words--clone, fetch, doppleganger--died in his mouth. "Anyway, just keep it quiet. If you're just a vague female voice you could be anyone or anything but I don't know if it's something they'll recognize." A pause. "We might be here a while," he added grimly.

He waved a vague hand, scrutinizing a notebook. "I for one ********' refuse to wait around forever and I'll be ******** if I'm sleeping here. I brought food if you're hungry and there's a kitchen with a sink in it if you're thirsty." The deal with it was unspoken and yet incredibly loud. "You'll live."

This apparently jostled a thought loose, and he looked up from his indecipherable page.

"Yeah, hey, speaking of which. Much belated thanks," he said, in the sarcastic voice of someone who is the opposite of grateful, "for running off to America with that side jawn bullshit. Really appreciate it. I know I went and got pissed at you over text but seriously, thanks a <******** lot."

"Yeah, you had nothing to do with that couple of the year s**t, so save your you're welcome. You were, if anything, a ******** setback. Do you keep a secret if explicitly asked? Or is everything fair game?"