Page 244 of Eternal
“Make It Rain” by Foy Vance
Present
The music is soft, warm, and a little jazzy, not enough to dance to, just enough to keep the silence from being awkward. This whole thing feels like a show of alliance between the Zennites and the Lebanese, all under the same gilded roof.
Brian, the hacker Zanae told me about, has just finished her second cocktail and eyes mine.
“Every time you get a glass,” she says, pointing at me, “get me the same one.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Trying to keep up?”
She smirks. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”
If you only knew…
Zanae leans in, a light laugh bubbling in her throat. “Same. I might need some catching up.”
“You?” I ask. “Aren’t you the Emira? Shouldn’t you be...composedor something?”
She sighs dramatically. “Since I became Emira, I haven’t sat still once. Meetings, orders, calls. I miss this. Drinks and music. No one is asking me to sign something or kill someone.”
Brian raises her glass. “Cheers to escapism.”
We clink glasses. It’s easy,this. Strange, but easy, like slipping into a memory I never had.
Brian studies me a second, tilting her head. “Those eyes of yours. That’s not contacts, right?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s real.”
Zanae blinks, smiling softly. “I’ve never seen that before. They’re...warm.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, it almost hurts to hear. “I used to hate them. One eye always felt like it didn’t belong to me.”
Brian hums into her drink. “That’s poetic and depressing. I approve.”
Zanae nudges my arm, grinning. “You’re not what I expected, you know.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What were you expecting?”
She shrugs. “Sharper. Colder. I don’t know... more myth than person.”
I smirk. “I could say the same about you. Plus, I’m better at killing than talking. Doesn’t mean I don’t like talking sometimes.”
Brian lifts her glass again. “Well, tonight you’re drinking and talking. That’s good.”
I laugh. A real one. The kind that doesn’t feel like it’s stealing something from me.
Then I lean a little closer to Brian, lowering my voice slightly. “So... if I had a question about a pastor, you think you could help me locate him?”
“A pastor, huh? That sounds suspicious.”
“He’s from the Veil. Probably still operating in Vegas. He works at a private church, invite-only, and I don’t know where it is anymore, but it’s out there, somewhere, I only need to find him.”
Brian nods slowly, her fingers drumming the side of her glass. “Tracking locations is easy. Finding people... that takes finesse. But yeah, I can help.”
Zanae leans her chin into her palm, proud. “Told you. Brian’s the best.”
Before I can respond, someone steps into our little space, The Don, with a man trailing beside him. Tall, tailored suit, clean-shaven, blond hair, doesn’t look like he belongs to any of the families here.
