Page 129 of Drift

Seeing him, Martin put the cleaner down as Drift eased away from the doorframe. The look in silver-grey eyes was too serious, too long his way.

“Crossover points, where talking might be a little less… offensive. Let’s find one,” Martin said eventually, and he went over and opened the door that led out onto the patio, leaving Drift frowning.

“Some only see two choices when it comes to doors,” added Martin. “In… out.” He toed at the bottom of the doorframe. “But most miss it, how just before you step inside, before you venture out, there’s this single crossover point, just a thin wooden frame, neither here nor there.” He looked at Drift. “The void, where the best vantage point to both can be found.”

A breath raced Drift’s neck, but he buried his shiver.

Martin glanced around the kitchen. “Stood in the crossover point, we get the same offer of visual imagery as those insidethe pen: what lies outside… who lies together supposedly in the heart of many a home: the kitchen. Only we don’tfeelit all with being in the void.” He snorted a small smile. “So when we step away from the void, we observe, we pick at the pieces to understand, where even here, with Gray who bends detail to mask just what he is, the devil in the detail to his home still shows a binary vascular system: where Gray’s past physically meets his present.”

Did he mean the table? How out of place it looked to the rest of the manor? He must have. Had it come from somewhere else Gray had called home? The binary vascular comment, how two hearts beat at the same time, seemed to suggest that.

Martin looked his way. “Personal anachronisms like Gray’s table. Until you, I haven’t met many who apparently come with none.”

“That bothers you. That I don’t come with any table or chairs… no pieces to those puzzles for you to work out my story, hmm?” Drift shrugged. “It’s not done to deceive. I move around a lot, amongst people who only want to know if I’m there to thieve off them or for them. Nothing else is needed or asked for.”

“But for safety reasons, nothing is offered from you either, right?” Martin came over to the table and took a seat. After a moment, he indicated the empty chair opposite. “Come take time out with me,” he said eventually. “Because everyone, no matter how good, leaves footprints through the doorway for someone to trace and track. Even you. Case in point….”

He tugged out West’s phone and placed it on the table. “Why’s Gracenot your job anymore?”

Drift stared long and hard at the phone, then glancing briefly at Martin—he headed for the door and… out.

Martin’s sharp whistle cut across the kitchen, and for a moment Drift thought the dog call to heel was aimed at him, and he did jerk to a stop. But a mass of fur came in, claw scratching tile and looking like it was disgruntled over losing something as a huge body almost knocked him over.

“Fuck… shit.” Drift instantly regretted that as the huge Maine Coon lowered her look at him, calling outLady here. “Sorry.” He crouched and scruffed at her ear, only to have the cat flop over and almost grin up at him, all floosy style. “Well, hello there, beautiful. You forgiven me yet for bleeding your ears out the other night?” The thing was huge, besting any labrador in size, but with long black fur coat and lionlike silver mane… “My God, you’re gorgeous,” he mumbled as the cat closed her eyes, tipping her head almost upside down into his fuss. “Right. You’re coming home with me. We won’t need a bloody guard dog with you around, mis….” He searched for a name tag and found none. “What? They not even bothered to name you, princess? Fuck it. You’re Neffi from now on.”

“Nefertiti…. Symbol of feminine power in particular. The kind that always manages to piss Jack off but he won’t swear her way because she is, well, a lady.” Martin seemed to try and bury a smile as Drift looked his way. “Could work.” He clicked his fingers once, and Neffi shifted almost instantly, brushing against Martin’s hand, then turning into it with this loud motorbike purr. Then she curled at his feet, sending a secret smile up at him before blinking innocence Drift’s way. All best buddies with… Martin.

“Oh, double-tap.” Martinhaddone his homework. Drift recognised an anachronistic setup to pets when he saw one, and he got to his feet. Yeah, he had a soft heart for any animal. But Martin was right. Everyone left footprints, and Martin himselfhadjust given out a tie to his past, unconsciously or consciously—Drift couldn’t really tell—so he tugged out a chair and sat down. He had a sneaky feeling it had been done deliberately to get him to take a seat anyway.

“Who’s Jack?” Something brushed against Drift’s leg, and he reached down, distractedly stroking through Neffi’s fur as she sat by him. “You keep mentioning him, but I’ve not met him yet.”

Martin eased back in his chair, arms folding. “What do you need to know about him? Although note: you’re playing distraction from talk on Grace.”

Drift switched to stroking at the back of Neffi’s ear. Yeah, he was playing distraction, but what did he expect? He didn’t know Martin. He didn’t know if he wanted to yet. “His name was on the playlist upstairs. I get the impression Gray and Jan are lovers, that Jack’s related to one of them in some way because the playlist is reservedforfamily. Light too. So who is he and why isn’t your name on the list?”

“My name is on that list,” Martin said eventually. “And Jack’s also Gray and Jan’s lover. They’re a triad. Me?” He shrugged. “Not Jack Here.”

Drift frowned over at him and stopped his stroke of Neffi. “But you’re on the playlistasfamily. And that’s a piss-take over younotbeing this Jack. So the family connection for you has got to be with Jack somehow, right? A brother?” He tried to work it out, clenching his fist to stop the shaking. “One you play up? Where you see this place he lives and loves in has a twistedHotel Californiavibe with laying down in a bed with Gray. Gray’s a psychopath.”

Martin tilted his head slightly. “Oh… the potential you have there, kid. You—”

Drift lost track of Martin for a moment. An uncle. He had a potential uncle here as well…? The possibility of a grandfather with the earlier mention of Greg Harrison? Everything crashed in a little too fast, sending the table spinning, and he gripped into Neffi’s fur. That… that was just on his father’s side. What about his mother’s?

Drift rubbed at his head, and Martin stopped what he’d been saying for a moment, then narrowed his eyes.

“Tell me. Do you get headaches often?”

Jan carefully tapped his head. “Does this play him up? Does it get him into trouble? Maybe hurt him?”

“Does it Martin?” West didn’t quite meet Jan’s gaze as she wiped hair from her lips. “Get headaches, I mean?”

Ah… headaches. Jan got a very sick feeling “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah it does.” Talk had started slow, painful, but Jan understood the wariness. “And Drift does too, huh? Does he get nosebleeds as well?”

West frowned, then stroked distractedly at a bruise touching her cheek. “Not nose bleeds, no.” That troubled look in her eyes, that touch to her cheek….

Shit. “He’s hit you.” Jan saw the bruise on her jaw for the first time.Reallysaw it, and his heart sank with it. “He did that, and it’s not been the first time he’s hit you?”

West snorted and dropped her touch. “It’s worse for Ava and her paid day-walkers.” She shrugged. “But with me…. He didn’t know. He never does.”

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