Terminal (Terminal trilogy #1)

14: Revered return

Blake. Yep. Time to start dealing with matters I really cared about. Unfortunately, Rhamiel was on the verge on becoming one of those things- I had a weak heart for sob stories, I'll confess.

He didn't seem to care that I stood up and walked off. I glanced back as I settled down across from Pepper, at her table a few rows back, and he was back to gazing out the window. Probably working up some more killer prose.

What a dumb kid. I kept his ring, and if he noticed I hadn't returned it, he had yet to notice.

Pepper had acquired a plate of chips and a selection of sauces, and I stuffed my face. It'd been too long since I had last eaten, and Pepper looked a bit indigent as I said, "Hey. Let's get going."

As the sky began to darken, people began to gather in the club. They were the rich sort of folks, high-contrast suits and well fitted dresses. It wasn't the sort of environment I wanted to hang around in. We left The Blues and The Banes, and Pepper led me down another winding path through the city blocks.

"What's Blake been up to then?" I asked.

"Oh, you're going to want to ask him yourself."

"I know that, but he's not here right now and you are fully capable of telling me."

"You should work on your patience," giggled Pepper, "Anyway, he's been talking about you a ton! I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees you."

When I failed to respond, she tried again. "Aren't you excited? I think I'm more excited than you are, and it's your reunion."

"You seem like you're always excited with everything."

"Pretty much."

"Doesn't that like, make everything you're excited about sort of meaningless?"

"That's an awful way to think of things. Like, imagine that you have a bunch of houses or whatever and you upgrade them until they're all the same size. They're all equal size-wise, but inside they are very different and they're all bigger than everyone else's houses, so who cares?"

"Not a good metaphor."

"I think you're just jealous that you're so sad all the time. Or whatever."

"I'm not sad."

"You're not the one looking at your face right now."

The sun was setting fast, at a pace appropriate for an October night. The stars here were preprogrammed so shift like the sky above- except, instead of the proper constellations, all of them were visible in the dome of the sky.

They shined as bright as they would from a secluded hill, a circle of the zodiac. Ophiuchus, the thirteenth sign that Alexander Scott used, lay in the center of the sky.

With nightfall, the streets lit up. Two glowing paths showed the edges of the street, another carefully planned feature of the city. The foot traffic didn't slow either, many people still heading to and from work and a large majority slinking off to the bars.

"Blake's in the hospital," explained Pepper, "Not like, literally in the hospital. Just visiting. We're going to meet him down in the back."

"That's never a good place to meet someone."

She laughed a particularly stilted laugh, "You'll see."

The hospital looked like nearly all other hospitals, very large, nearly square, and with a slight curve on one side. We waited in the darkness of a nearby alley, illuminated only by the unnatural lights from above.