Chapter 22: Pillow Talk

Cody sat on the bed, put his elbows on his knees, and rested his head on his palms.

“Are you OK?” asked Jewel.

Cody nodded as he lifted his legs on the bed and flung the sheets over his body. Jewel slid closer to Cody and put her arm across his chest.

“Really? You’re OK?” she asked in a concerned voice.

Automatically, Cody said, “I’m fine.”

He saw Jewel’s look. He felt the new talisman hanging hanging around his neck. It was cool to the touch.

“Do you feel anything?” he asked Jewel.

She reached to touch her talisman and shook her head. “No, it is not warm.”

Cody took a breath and stuttered a few times before he finally found his voice.

“I’m afraid she’s listening,” he started.

“Elaine? From what you’ve said, she is always listening, or watching,” Jewel said with disdain in her voice.

Cody dropped back against his pillow. His head clanged against the headboard. A moment later he touched his talisman again and then started speaking in a whisper.

“I’m afraid to talk, but if I don’t I’m afraid I’ll go crazy. I guess I have to trust that gizmo will tell us if anyone is nearby.” Cody paused as he rubbed the talisman. He continued, “No, Elaine will not be listening. I lied to Heidrick and Annike, or Argonne, earlier.”

Jewel’s eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open. “Lied? Why? They have been helping you.”

Looking around the room as if he could see Fidelia, Cody agreed, “Yes. But they also lied to us.”

Jewel propped herself on her elbow and motioned for him to continue.

“Annike and her identical twin. After the first attack, why keep it a secret that she has a sister? Especially if their combined powers are quite formidable? Seems like that would have been a pretty good morale booster.”

Jewel agreed with a small nod. She had a feeling that Cody had more to say.

“Elaine was not the only one that came to visit me earlier tonight. Her Guru, Fidelia was also here. Together they told me about Annike and her sister. I think they are truly afraid when Annike and Argonne are together. When time restarted Annike, I mean Argonne, got off an attack and she hit Elaine. As soon as Heidrick ran to me asking what happened, Fidelia stopped time again. She yelled at me as if it was my fault they attacked. Then she said, without emotion, just as a matter of fact, that Elaine was dead. She also gave me a final warning not to fuck up my job as her double-agent.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Jewel.

“I don’t know?” answered Cody. “For now, I am going to play for both teams. Kind of play it by ear.”

Jewel gave him a questioning look then relented. “Yeah, I guess that’s about all you can do.”

She snuggled closer and hold him tightly. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here and won’t lie to you.”

The next morning Jewel and Cody sleep until almost ten. When she rolled over and saw the clock she let out a surprised yelp, “Oh, the time.”

Cody rested his hand on her hip.

“Yeah, you were snoring pretty hard. It was a long day yesterday so I let you sleep.”

Jewel rolled back over to face Cody.

“Me? You’re the one that had the truly long day. How long have you been awake?”

“About an hour. Just thinking.”

“Come to any conclusions?” Jewel asked.

“Nothing more than what we discussed last night.”

Jewel got out of bed and went to the bathroom. When she returned she was naked. She crawled back into bed and rolled on top of Cody.

“It’s so late in the morning, I don’t think getting up even later will make much a difference.”

They lost themselves in each other for over an hour. By the time they got out of bed, dressed, and left the bedroom it was almost noon.

There was a knock at the door. Both Jewel and Cody reached for the talisman. They were both cool to the touch. Jewel was closest and went to the door.

“How are you?” Cody heard Heidrick ask Jewel when the door opened.

“We’re OK, considering what’s going on.”

“Can I come in? I brought lunch.”

Heidrick held up a bag with a logo from a new food truck that opened. They specialized in tacos and it looked like Heidrick had a enough for a week.

Jewel stood aside and let him enter. Cody headed to the kitchen and called over his shoulder. “What do you two want to drink?”

As they ate lunch, Heidrick told them about his conversation with Annike and Argonne.

“The sisters think we scared them with our attack. They want to go on the offensive and take on The Onyx directly. Me? I think we acted too soon. We let them know we can be a danger. They may not know how we can sense them but they now know they are not truly immune.”

As Heidrick spoke he stared intently at Cody. He was watching him to see what he may give away with a tick or grimace to the news. Cody kept his face frozen and did not give Heidrick any indication of what he was thinking or knew about Orion.

They finished eating. Jewel collected the wrappers and bags and dumped the trash in the garbage. Cody had said almost nothing the entire meal.

“Cody? Are you really OK?” asked Heidrick again.

“Yeah, I’m fine, if you an say you’re fine when you’re caught in some kind of fucking inter-dimensional squabble where one side wants to put you in a coma to be more effective at killing people and running the world and the other side has the equivalent of sticks and stones for weapons.”

Heidrick’s face hardened. “We are not exactly fighting with sticks and stones. This is not the time.”