Sell you a Bridge chapter 263

June 5th 2016 The Nightside 10:00 AM EDT

Taylor,  as it turned out, WAS willing to take Zee to see where her mom had used  to live. She had apparently moved into a house near to Taylor's when  they were teenagers, and he brought us by his old place first, looking  nostalgic and a little afraid to be back in such a long forgotten place.  He told himself that it didn't bother him, that he was happy to do this  for Sindella's daughter, but I think I'd have sensed that lie even  without my powers, whether he spoke it aloud or not. Some things were  necessary for one reason or another, but being willing to do something  and being happy weren't the same.

Which was how we found  ourselves standing in front of a small, unobtrusive house on a normal  looking street in some random Nightside suburb. I hadn't believed Taylor  when he mentioned we were heading for a suburb, it had seemed  ridiculous, that a place this crazy and messed up would have normal  parts, but the street we were on was decidedly mundane in appearance on  the outside, if a bit run down. Zee assured me every house was heavily  warded, since she could detect that even as my own ability to see magic  was compromised by my lack of aura sight access.

The house  we were standing in front of was not what I'd have expected from  Taylor. It was old, shabby but well cared for, as if someone had done  just enough maintenance over the years to undo the wear and tear, but  not enough to fix it up. It was a faded yellow, made with strips of  siding you saw on older houses from the nineties, and the roof was  patchy dark shingles. The yard was ragged, with only a few weeds and  patches of grass growing around most of it, with the exception of a big  patch of tall grass under a leaky water spigot.

Taylor was  staring through the window into the empty and dust covered house, but I  was under the impression he was seeing much more than the bare wood  floors we could spot through the glass. Zee stood next to him, and I  could tell she was impatient. She could tell this was important, and she  wasn't cruel enough to interrupt. When Taylor started speaking, his  voice was soft. "I was twelve years old when Sindella moved in next  door. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It took me three  weeks to get up the nerve to speak to her. Not that it mattered, she  didn't speak a word of english."

Zee burst out in a  surprised giggle, covering her mouth quickly in embarrassment, but  Taylor just grinned. "She never told you about that did she? Sindella's  family lived in a secluded homo magi city in Turkey before they moved  here. They fled the city as political refugees I think, though she never  did tell me the exact reason they went on the run. I didn't ask. It  never mattered. That said, when she arrived here she spoke exclusively  Turkish. She chattered at me for a good fifteen minutes before I was  able to shake off my stupor and manage to communicate that."

The  beaming smile on Zee's face was so beautiful it took my breath away.  The rest of us just remained silent, letting them have their moment. Zee  looked around. "You said she lived next door? Which house was hers?"  She sounded fascinated by the very idea that her mother might have lived  so close by, like finding the house would reveal some kind of secret  truth that she hadn't known before, like it would let her get closer to  her mother even now.

Taylor smiled and gestured to a  shabby looking sky blue house made of the same siding, a one story house  with a faded pink flamingo in the front yard. He gestured at her to  follow him, which she did, and he led her over to the fence separating  the two houses, a wooden structure made of unpainted slats that looked  like they were more likely to cause splinters than actually keep  anything out. He stepped up to the fence, placed a shoulder about a foot  from the top (he had to bend his knees a bit) and his hands on the  wood, and pushed.

There was a pop and the fence post came  loose with no damage, and I recognized the long refined motions of  ritual. Taylor had done this more than a few times. He stepped over to  the other side of fence, Zee following, and then led her down the side  path of the house to a large stone bird fountain. He put his arms under  it and lifted with his knees, and the thing ground slightly against the  cement platform under it as it moved. When it was out of the way, he  gestured down to the platform, and we stepped up to take a look.

There  were names on the platform. Some were familiar. John Taylor. Sindella  Aydin (though the last name was new to me) but some of them were  strange. Billy Bedlam, Quinn, Vincent, Melinda Dusk. Names of people I'd  never met, and judging by the sadness in Taylors eyes, I probably never  would. Zee knelt down, tracing her mothers name with her fingers.  "Aydin. I never knew. Mom never talked about her family. She said they  were part of her past, and daddy and I were her future. She didn't like  to look back. I wish she'd done it a little more."

Taylor  looked sadly down at the stone. "Every person on that slab except for me  is dead now."His voice was empty, completely free of the sorrow in his  eyes. He paused. "Well, except Billy. He was just never born. I have no  clue why his name is still there, it really shouldn't be, but that's the  Nightside for you. It never really lets any of us go, no matter how  hard we try to get away." He watched Zee trace the slab, a small smile  breaking through the blankness. You had questions for me?" There was  kindness in his tone as he reminded her.

Zee's eyes jerked  up from the cement. "Oh. Right, sorry. Tell me more about my mom? And  these other people, who were they? Some of them have last names like you  and mom, but others don't. Why is that?" She seemed reticent to ask,  clearly having noticed his sadness as well as I had and not wanting to  depress him, but he'd told her to ask so she wasn't going to hold back  on one of her only chances to get more information.

Taylor  chuckled. "Just depended on the kind of person they were. My first name  is pretty plain, I needed to add my last name for it to be a decent  record. Sindella was proud of her origin, and Billy was a cocky little  shit. Melinda was a power, even back then, and people knew her name,  while Quinn was still coming into his gift, and Vincent hadn't really  started to make a name for himself yet. So many of them became  important. Bad Luck Billy, who was never really the Jonah, Quinn, the  Sunslinger, and Melinda Dusk, the Hanged Mans Beautiful Daughter." His  voice tightened. "Vincent became the Mechanic, because we never realized  what he did until it was too late."

No one nearby was  stupid enough to push for more information when he had a tone like that.  Taylor waited until Zee finished looking and then lifted the fountain  and slid it back over top of the names. Then he turned to Zee. "Thank  you. Zatanna. I...it's been a long time since I could look back on this  time in my life. It was too painful, and it still is, but thinking about  the times that we all had together is nice, even if the things that  came later weren't. I'm sorry that you weren't able to get more from  this."

Zee shook her head rapidly. "No. Thank you for  sharing this with me. This was a part of my mother I never got to see,  and it means so much to me. Daddy never liked talking about mom after  she died, he was so broken by what happened to hear he couldn't bear to,  and I never wanted to see him suffer. I guess I never realized how much  I forced myself to avoid the topic for his sake. I guess it just seemed  like it was useless to dwell over. I couldn't get her back anyway, so  why hurt him over nothing. I followed his lead instead of pushing, and  it felt fine since I'd never see her again."

Which made me  wonder something. I slipped my phone out and scrolled through it for a  while before I found an email I'd never bothered to look at before. It  was insanely expensive and I tended to avoid those subconsciously  because even with my maximum output I wouldn't be able to buy them  anytime soon, but if DID exist. "What if you could?" She turned to me,  confused, and I held up my phone. I grinned excitedly. "I don't know how  I never thought of it. Its expensive as hell but I can do it. If I can  gather enough power I do have a way to revive the dead."

I  felt like a fucking idiot for never considering it before. Granted,  there weren't many resurrection emails, and they were all absolutely  insane in terms of pricing, but I still hadn't even thought of offering  to bring back Zee's mom. Some part of me just innately accepted that  death was the end of the line. I could do amazing and absurd things, but  the connection between Zee's mom being dead and the emails just never  clicked in my head.

Zee  was staring at me with wide eyes, looking shocked. I grimaced. "I'm  sorry baby. I should have considered this before, but the only methods I  saw for that were so expensive I kind of just took for granted I'd  never be able to afford them, between that and just kind of taking death  for granted I just never put it together. I-" I was cut off as she  threw herself on me, mashing her lips to mine in a desperate kiss. My  eyes flew open wide and I had to take a second to let my brain reboot to  figure out what had happened.

She  didn't blame me. Despite having been together nearly a year and never  being smart enough to realize I could solve the worst problem she'd ever  had in her life she didn't care. I could feel through our bond that she  was...exultant. It might be a little while before this could happen,  but I'd given her hope, and she loved me even more for it. I couldn't  even process the wash of adoration and devotion pouring into me through  the bond, all I could do was open myself up and accept it, letting her  feel the love I felt for her in return.

I  heard someone clear their throat, and we pulled apart, turning to see  Taylor looking at us strangely. "So...not to pry, but it kind of sounds  like you're talking about bringing Sindella back from the dead. I won't  ask you how, and it sounds like it's not something you can do  repeatedly, but if that is what you're talking about, I want to help. So  how about you tell me exactly what I can do?"

It  wouldn't be a same day kind of thing I knew. This amount of points  (even the cheapest of the three resurrection options I'd dug out were in  the tens of millions) would take a while even with rituals and my void  form. Sadly void form cost to use and I needed something with enough  output to balance that out before using it was worthwhile. "That  depends. Does this Collector guy have any weapons I could absorb energy  from?" Taylor got a sly look in his eye, and I grinned internally. I was  guessing we wouldn't be waiting for that meeting anymore. Seemed like  we'd be pulling TWO heists over the next few days. Or at least that's  what I was planning. If Taylor didn't agree we could talk him into it.