The surest sign that something was wrong was how starkly boring the Archives were.
Not their actual work. That was still exciting and terrifying in equal measures. Between the live statements—which brought their own problems—the tapes Basira was still slowly feeding Martin when she could, and the statements they already had on the shelves, there was a lot to do, and Sasha was surprisingly grateful for Jon’s insistence that they keep working the ones that weren’t real, because it gave them a little bit of a break in between the stress and drama. Sort of.
No, what tipped Sasha off that something was wrong was when she realized, while dating a file, that they were almost two weeks into December and Tim had yet to bring in so much as a candy cane.
Tim loved Christmas. Even the first year he’d been at the Institute, when he’d only just begun thawing out after what had happened to his brother, he’d thrown himself wholeheartedly into the holiday. The second the calendar turned to the first of December, he’d worn a different Christmas sweater every day. His desk had been garlanded and ribboned and hung with tinsel and ornaments. His laptop background had rotated through festive scenes, every sound bite had been a jingle bell or a ho-ho-ho or a line from a holiday movie, and he’d left candy canes on every researcher’s desk. His second year he’d gone even further, hanging up stockings with each of his colleagues’ names and filling them when nobody was looking. Last year he’d hidden sugar plums and tiny presents on the shelves of the Archives and even persuaded Jon to let him set up a tree (or maybe he hadn’t asked; maybe he’d just done it).
But this year? Sasha realized with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t even heard him whistling Christmas tunes while he worked. She hadn’t heard him whistling at all, but it was like he’d forgotten it was Christmas. Or maybe he just didn’t want to celebrate it.
Tim was her best friend. Sasha couldn’t stand seeing him like that. And Jon and Martin needed a bit of Christmas cheer, too. If Tim wasn’t going to provide it this year, it was clearly up to her.
She’d told Jon she was taking the afternoon off—not asked for it, just told him—and he’d agreed without much fuss. She almost wondered if he’d really heard her, but she wasn’t going to quibble. So she waited until Tim left for lunch, told Martin she would see him Monday, and left before he could ask questions.
There was someone she needed help from. Actually, probably two someones, but one in particular.
“Sorry, we’re closing in—oh, hello, Sasha.” Gerry slotted the book he was holding onto the shelf. “Is everything okay?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘okay,’ but it’s not…that. Or not exactly.” Sasha turned the sign to CLOSED. “Is Melanie around?”
The look that came over Gerry’s face, however briefly, was one Sasha had come to be very familiar with in the last five months—usually directed at Jon, but occasionally at her. Considering the only thing she and Melanie had going on at the moment was a private bet on whether Gerry or Tim would be the one to seduce the other first, though, she felt like it was both unwarranted and a bit hypocritical. When he spoke, it was as casually as ever. “No, I think she’s at the Institute, actually. We got one of the books the librarian was looking for.”
Sasha kept the momentary disappointment to herself. “That’s fine. I need your help more anyway.”
“That’s not particularly comforting, but okay,” Gerry said dryly. He leaned against the shelf and crossed his arms over his chest. “Lay it on me.”
Sasha sat on the edge of the desk they used for a checkout counter. “Well, I’m the world’s worst friend.”
“Since I’m in contention against you for that title, you’re better off asking Martin for advice about that.”
“No, not—I know how to fix it, that’s what I need your help on. It’s just…” Sasha took a deep breath. “It’s Tim. He’s been my best friend since he joined the Institute, and I’ve been so wrapped up in…everything that we’ve learned in the last few months that I didn’t notice he wasn’t dealing with it well.”
Gerry’s shoulders sagged slightly, and a pinched look came to his face. “I don’t see how you could have not noticed. I’m terrible with the emotional stuff, and I noticed.”
“I mean, I’ve known he wasn’t handling things well since Martin came back to work. I talked to him, and I thought things were getting better, but…well, I realized today he’s not said anything about Christmas,” Sasha explained. “It’s his favorite holiday, usually, but he hasn’t even acknowledged it’s coming up. That’s not like him. I thought maybe if I…you know, brought him Christmas…it might make him feel better. And Jon and Martin have been so stressed out, too—maybe if Tim gets in the spirit, the rest of us can, too.”
“God, I didn’t even think about that,” Gerry said under his breath. “You’re right, I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone about Christmas. What did you have in mind?”
Less than an hour later, they were seated opposite one another in a train pulling out of Euston. Sasha had been a tad skeptical of that, but Gerry had been in his own way insistent, and had also paid for her ticket before she could really protest, so she wasn’t arguing.
“Trust me,” he promised her, settling back and crossing one leg over the other. “Biggest Christmas market in the United Kingdom, and it runs the gamut from gaudy to classy, from Victorian to modern. Whatever you’re looking for, you’ll find there—even things you don’t know you’re looking for.”
Sasha had to admit, it sounded intriguing. “You’ve been often, then?”
“Twice. Martin’s school chorus got invited to perform there one year, and I went up with Neenie and Uncle Roger to watch. The three of us went up again the year they turned eighteen.”
“Oh, I thought it might’ve been a tradition or something.”
“No, not really. Christmas wasn’t something we had a lot of traditions for. Half the time Mum and I were out of town over Christmas anyway.” Gerry got quiet, staring out the window at the shifting landscape. Somehow, though, Sasha didn’t think he was really looking at it.
She let the silence stretch on for a bit, then prompted him, “But when you were home?”
“Hmm? Oh.” Gerry looked at her, and his eyes were somewhat haunted. “Actually, you’re not the only one who feels like you need to bring Christmas to someone you care about. It’s—it can be a rough time of year for both of them.”
“I—I hadn’t noticed,” Sasha confessed. “I mean, I didn’t know Melanie last year, but Martin…I guess I just thought it was him being stressed about work. And then…well, we found out he knew you and that you’d…” She trailed off, not sure who might be listening.
Gerry nodded in understanding. “That probably didn’t help. But when he was a kid…it was his grandfather who always made holidays special for him. He had a stroke just before Christmas when Martin was nine, lived a couple more months after that, but it put a damper on the holiday for him. And Melanie’s mother spent her last Christmas in hospital, so it was a double whammy for her losing the old man. So yeah, I always tried to…to bring them something to make them sparkle when I could.”
“Like a trip to Birmingham.”
“Or presents from abroad. Or just something unexpected. I mean, I liked to do that for them any time, but especially when they were on school holidays in the dead of winter at a time of year where everyone they loved seemed to have left them.” Gerry looked down at his hands. “I guess I just wanted to remind them that there was me left, at least.”
Before Sasha could formulate a response, he looked back up at her and added, “I’m glad you said something. I—I was meaning to do something for them anyway. It’s my first Christmas…back in three years, and the year before that we were still recovering from our encounter at the Mermaid Inn, so we need to do something special. Something big and flashy.”
Sasha wanted to ask about that “encounter”, but swallowed the urge. She felt like that was something she either needed to ask all three of them about, or Martin specifically. Instead, she said, “You said you didn’t have traditions for Christmas. But you did for other things?”
“For the stuff that was important to us, yeah. Birthdays mostly. Mine we go to Regent’s Park, have a picnic, and take a picture in the same place in the same pose. Martin’s we take a day trip out of London. Neenie’s we go skating in Hyde Park—she used to do that with her mum before she died, and Martin was the one to get the idea of us going with her.” Gerry looked down at his hands again. There was something guilty about his pose that Sasha kind of wanted to poke at. “And I found out this year that both of them still leave out soul cakes and wine on All Souls’ Day to see if the dead come back to visit.”
“Do they?”
“Not the ones they were looking for, or at least they didn’t stop in. But I sat out on the stoop that night to watch,” Gerry said quietly. “They’re not easy to see, even for me…but there were ghosts walking, all right. Looking for loved ones, or loved places, or just wanting to see what was going on.”
A bit of a chill ran up Sasha’s spine. A year ago she wouldn’t have believed something like that, but…maybe next year she would try it herself. She could only just remember her own parents, and she wondered if they’d been out roaming the streets of London in search of her.
“I never had much of a Christmas tradition either,” she told Gerry. “Dunno about Jon. But I grew up in the foster care system, so it wasn’t like I was anywhere consistent.”
Gerry huffed a soft laugh. It didn’t sound particularly amused. “Does anyone in the Archives have anything approaching to a stable family life?”
“Tim does. Did. He and his family were relatively close until…Danny.” Sasha cocked her head at Gerry. “Has he told you about that?”
“Told me he died, and that’s why he came to work for the Institute. I haven’t asked for any details.” Gerry’s eyes darkened slightly. “He’ll tell me when he’s ready.”
They spent the rest of the train trip in silence.
Sasha felt her mood lift almost instantly when they stepped onto the street where the market was being held. It looked, and sounded, and smelled like something out of a fairy story, or a cheesy holiday movie. People laughed and chattered and went from stall to stall laden with boxes and bags. Others stood around with plates of hot food and mugs of mulled wine. Kids chased one another in and out of the crowds, and faintly over it all came the sound of Christmas carols. Gerry, too, raised his face towards the sky and smiled before leading Sasha deeper into the market.
“Maybe we should bring everyone up here,” she said as they turned away from the man selling delicate hand-blown glass ornaments that had Martin written all over them, a box of a dozen tucked in the bag with the pine garlands she’d bought from a previous booth. “If this doesn’t get people in the Christmas mood, nothing will.”
Gerry laughed, in a way that sounded a lot more carefree and boyish than she’d heard from him…well, ever. “If bringing all this down doesn’t work, we can kidnap them all next Saturday and bring them up here. Do you think Jon will trust us enough to come along?”
“He’ll come if Martin does.” Sasha suppressed a smirk as that look crossed Gerry’s face again. To needle him further, she added, “They’re spending a lot of time together. Exploring and the like. If there’s anyone Jon trusts completely, it’s Martin.”
Gerry gave her a very practiced side-eye. “How many older siblings do you have?”
“None, why?” Sasha asked innocently.
“You’ve been hanging out with Neenie too long.”
Before Sasha could come up with an appropriate reply to that, a voice spoke loudly from right at Sasha’s elbow. “Hey, baby, why’n’t you come out with a real man, eh?”
“Not interested, thanks,” Sasha said automatically. She did slide a glance over at the guy, though. Usually the sorts of people that said things like that were sleazy guys with five o’clock shadows wearing trench coats and nothing else. This time, though, it was a guy who looked like he was auditioning for the role of Gaston in a community production of Beauty and the Beast where the director insisted the Beast be taller than all the other actors and couldn’t find anyone over five nine to play the part. He was good-looking and he knew it, definitely thought he was God’s gift to women, and wasn’t accustomed to taking no for an answer.
Great.
Sure enough, the man stepped into Sasha’s path, forcing her to stop abruptly lest she crush the bag—and the fragile glass baubles—between them. He was still grinning, leering really, but there was a faintly menacing look in his eyes. “You really want to be seen with this loser? C’mon, let’s go for a spin.”
“Push off, mate.” Gerry was obviously trying to sound bored, but Sasha could hear the tension and anger in his voice. She glanced at him and noticed his hands were trembling, very faintly, and he seemed unusually pale.
“Wasn’t talking to you, mate,” the man said. His eyes, if anything, grew colder, but his smile never wavered. “I was talking to the lady.”
“Who has already told you she isn’t interested.” Sasha took a half-step back in the hopes the man would get the hint. She was bisexual, and her taste in men, such as it was, ran to the unconventional—Tim was probably the closest to a traditionally hot guy she’d ever been with, and she’d been incredibly drunk at the time—so this wasn’t the first time she’d had to fend off someone trying to lure her away from a date or even just a friend. She was hoping this one would leave her alone, maybe hurl a few insults at both of them as they walked away, but she was already surreptitiously scanning for escape routes, improvised weaponry, and people she could call on for assistance. The area where they stood was close and cluttered but didn’t have anything particularly interesting, so most of the crowds had walked past and they were more or less alone, but she figured she could scream for help in a pinch.
Sure enough, the man’s grin took on a decidedly unfriendly aspect. “Y’don’t mean that, sweetheart. I’m prime.”
“Good for you. Save it for someone who cares.” Sasha stepped closer to Gerry, hoping he’d wrap an arm around her or at least take her arm, play up the couple aspect a bit to get away from this jerk.
“My sister has told you no,” Gerry growled, and okay, that worked too. Sasha tried not to let the surprise at being called his sister show on her face. “Get out of the way or I will make you regret it.”
There was a deceptively soft click, and the man was suddenly holding a switchblade in his hand. “Regret this,” he snarled, and lunged at Gerry.
Sasha didn’t even have time to scream before Gerry lashed out a hand, catching the man square in the face and shoving him backwards, hard.
The temperature around Gerry suddenly dropped nearly ten degrees. At the same time, his skin flushed, starting with the hand that had touched the man’s face and spreading under his shirt until it blossomed above his scarf and up to the roots of his hair. The man stumbled backwards, but managed to keep his feet and braced himself as if preparing to attack again.
“Shit—look out!”
The shout came from somewhere up above them, and the man, seemingly on instinct, looked up—just in time for the speaker directly above him to make contact with his face.
Sasha did scream at that, stumbling backwards herself. Gerry caught her and dragged her a few steps away, then turned to shout at one of the people indeed now running towards them. “Call 999!”
There was quite a bit of confusion and commotion for a while, and Sasha lost track of time somewhat, but after explaining to a policeman what had happened—and being backed up by two or three other girls who’d barely escaped the same man’s attentions earlier that day—she found herself tucked in a corner out of the way, clutching a hot mulled wine in both hands, Gerry sitting across from her with his own cup and looking grim. They were, for the moment at least, alone.
“He was dead before you called for help, wasn’t he,” she said at last. It wasn’t really a question.
Gerry nodded, looking grim. “He was Marked for death when he stepped out. Got worse the more he talked, so I think he could’ve walked away and lived if he’d just been less of a moron.”
Or if Gerry hadn’t touched him, Sasha guessed, but she found she wasn’t particularly upset about that. “Thank you, by the way. You probably saved some poor girl from getting really badly hurt.”
“Yeah. That’s what I keep telling myself.” Gerry wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Well, you saved me, at any rate.”
“Please. You could’ve fought him off easy.”
“Yeah, but I’d have had to drop the bags to do it, and everything would’ve got broken, and I’d have been even more pissed.” Gerry laughed, a bit unwillingly, and Sasha decided to push him. “Look, I know you’re trying not to…lean into it, but don’t you think he deserved it?”
“I don’t think anyone has the right to make that kind of call,” Gerry said quietly. “To decide whether someone else deserves to live or die. Besides, it’s like with Hunters. They start out thinking they’re killing monsters, but the definition of ‘monster’ gets looser and looser until eventually it’s just anything or anyone who gets in their way. That pair in America that had Mum’s Book, I don’t know how far they were down that path. That detective that was investigating Gertrude’s murder is the same. I can tell myself I’m just Reaping monsters, but if I start letting myself do that, pretty soon I’m going to be Reaping people and finding something to justify it after.” He shook his head. “No. I can’t let myself do that. Especially since I know I can…not take it, and they won’t die. You didn’t. I shouldn’t have touched him once I realized…but at that point, I don’t know that I had a choice. That wasn’t something I did because I thought he deserved it. It was self-defense.”
Sasha got the distinct impression Gerry was trying to convince himself of that as much as he was her. “I believe you. And if it makes you feel better, I won’t say anything to Martin or Melanie about this.”
“Thank you. I—I’ll tell them myself, because we promised not to keep that kind of thing from each other, but…it needs to come from me.” Gerry took a deep breath and—finally—looked up at Sasha. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sasha assured him. “Are you okay? Other than…you know, that side of things?”
Gerry laughed again. This time it sounded more genuine. “Yeah, I’m okay. Uh, do you think we got everything we need, or should we see if there are some stalls still open?”
Sasha couldn’t help bursting into giggles. “We still need fairy lights, but we can get those somewhere else.”
“The hell with that. C’mon. We’re here, we might as well get them while we’re at it.” Gerry rose to his feet.
Sasha stood, too, tossed back the wine, and picked up the bags again, then bumped Gerry’s hip companionably. “Let’s go, brother mine.”
“Not yet I’m not,” Gerry grumbled, bumping her back. “At least buy her dinner first.”
That caught Sasha off guard, definitely, but the look of absolute horror on Gerry’s face as it dawned on him what he’d just said made her laugh so hard her sides hurt. And it made up for everything else that day.