"It's okay, we'll be good."
He grunted and moved off.
Sunny leaned over and whispered in her ear, "She's not nude; take a look."
She really didn't want to, but she knew Sunny wasn't a liar. In a hesitant manner, she dropped her hand and looked up. By that time, Vichnia waved her arms, swung and stamped her feet, and gyrated her body in greater abandon. She winced, but she took a good look. That's when she saw it: a thin, almost indiscernible border around her breasts and hips. She was wearing a costume, one that was so thin and matched her skin color so closely that it appeared invisible. That way, she could appear nude without actually being unclothed.
"Besides," Sunny added, "it's no worse than what we see in the Waking World, when Mayv takes us to a strip club." She giggled as she sat back in her seat.
Yeah, that's true, though I'm not all that comfortable watching those women either. Still, no sense causing a scene.
Sunny moved her chair closer to her. "You know, one of the barmaids told me her father is a powerful wizard in Lelag-Leng."
"Oh, yeah? Then what's she doin' here?"
"Rumor has it he wanted her to marry the son of a rival sorcerer, to make the families allies, but she wouldn't do it and ran away. Supposedly, she came here to spite her father. They said she'd continue to dance as long as he insisted upon the marriage."
She thought back on the other performers who entertained the patrons between their sets. All had been strippers of one form or another. "She does seem right at home."
Sunny gave her a cross look, but she didn't care. She just settled back in her chair and took a big swallow from her tankard.
As time went by, she felt herself relax. She wasn't turned on like the guys around her; if anything, she felt a mild contempt for Vichnia. Mostly because of the way she had treated her and Sunny, but also because she chose to entertain men in such a prurient fashion. She did not consider herself a prude. She could appreciate an exotic dancer just as she could a ballerina, and she had to admit, Vichnia was one of the best she had ever seen. She had a fluid, sensual grace that empowered her erotic display. Yet there was an underlying strength and discipline that gave it a hard edge, what with her precise movements and meticulous postures. It reminded her of a master practicing Tai Chi. She could certainly understand how she got her stage-name of Steel Gazelle.
As well, she saw nothing wrong with a woman making a career as an exotic dancer, as long as it was for self-expression. But she saw no point in dancing just to tease people, to titillate and excite them without following through. It was one thing when she did it to Sunny, because the whole point was to get her so excited she couldn't control herself. But she figured if she were to do it too often, Sunny would take a baseball bat to her head. It was inconceivable to her that any woman would routinely lead men on with no concern for the possible consequences.
She looked over at Sunny, who sat enraptured, staring at Vichnia. It upset her so much that it soured her stomach. She wanted to trust Sunny, but the thought that she could have the hots for someone else made her crazy.
Maybe I am jealous. It's just that she's never looked at me like that. Then again, I don't do for her what Vichnia's doing now, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I just don't have it in me. Sunny's made it easier for me to express my feelings than I used to, but I'm still somewhat reserved, even in private. I love her so much that I can't imagine living without her, but I still have trouble showing it. I always thought she loved me the same way. Maybe I was just taking her for granted. Maybe she's getting bored with me. I wish I knew. All I do know is she's paying way too much attention to Vichnia, and it's tearing me up inside. I wish we had never come here. I wish her father would come and take her away.
An odd noise roused her from her reverie. It had started out low, barely perceptible, but it had grown until it became a conspicuous distraction. Frowning, she noticed that Sunny also heard it, and looked around trying to find its source. She examined the common room herself, but not for the sound. It seemed to her everyone heard it--patrons, barmaids, bouncers, musicians, Tyco himself--and they were also searching for its source. Only Vichnia seemed oblivious, and she figured it was because she was too wrapped up in her concentration.
Sunny glanced at her. "You hear that?"
She nodded.
Baffled, Sunny stared at the ceiling. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it sounded like a jet."
She snapped her head up. It did sound like a jet!
By that time, the noise had become loud enough to drown out the music. The musicians stopped playing and she glanced at the stage, but Vichnia continued dancing for some moments until it dawned on her that she was performing a cappella. She ceased and looked down at them in an irritated fashion, but then she heard the roar. Her spine tingled when Vichnia jerked her head up. Though others were now watching the ceiling, she was the only one to do so immediately. Then her blood ran cold when she saw that the look on Vichnia's face was not confusion, as with everyone else, but abject fear.
From "Beast of Exmoor"
Sir Differel Van Helsing shifted her posture, but in a slow, careful manner that avoided large body movements. She had been sitting in the same position too long and her muscles had become sore, but she didn't want to call attention to herself or she might frighten off her prey. Despite the pad beneath her, the rock outcrop was too hard to be comfortable. At least there was no wind, but it had started snowing a couple of hours before. Not too heavily, but enough for the camouflage netting that covered her to be dusted like a powdered donut. Though bundled against the cold--she wore a fur-lined snorkel parka with thick leggings under her ankle-length skirt while wrapped in a blanket--she felt chilled after several hours of inactivity, and certain parts of her body, such as her face and hands, had to be either exposed or covered only by a thin garment. She couldn't use any kind of heated wrap that might melt the snow and make her look unnatural, though she wore battery-operated thermal socks under her fur-lined mukluks. On top of all that, the coffee in her thermos had grown cold, and lunch had been an unheated portable military ration consisting of a meat and cheese pocket sandwich, crackers, a nutrition bar, and trail mix. After eating it she understood why some soldiers referred to them as mystery rations and considered them inedible. Fortunately she had the foresight to bring along a few extra snacks.
She pulled an apple out of a pocket and polished it against her parka as she leaned forward and peered through the spotting scope draped in more netting. As bad as she thought her situation was, she wouldn't have traded places with the poor ewe staked out on the heath about twenty yards in front of and below her. As least it wore a thick coat of wool, but to her it looked rather miserable standing out there in the snow unable to move farther than the length of its tether. Besides which, it was meant to be bait to lure her target within range of her Weatherby Mark V .460 Magnum rifle. She realized that ammunition may have been overkill, since it had been designed to bring down rhinoceroses and elephants, but she didn't want to take any chances. No one knew what the Beast of Exmoor was, and she wanted to kill it with a single shot if possible.
She took a bite of the apple as she sat back. Since the seventies, locals had reported seeing a phantom cat haunting the Exmoor region straddling Somerset and Devon along the Bristol Channel. They described it as resembling a panther, between four and eight feet long from nose to rump, and either black, gray, or tan in color. Various theories had been proposed to explain it, including misidentification (which she considered unlikely since the locals were very familiar with the regional wildlife), a new version of the black dog myth (which she thought ridiculous since people still claimed to see black dogs), or an outright hoax (which she couldn't discount). One that she had favored at first was that it was a pet released after the passage of the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which made it illegal for private citizens to own big cats. However, after she investigated more thoroughly, she found four pieces of evidence that convinced her otherwise.
One
was the longevity of the Beast. If it was the same individual it would be at least as old as she was, and while she had no idea how long big cats usually lived in the wild, she figured twenty-two years was getting rather ancient. Another was that the Beast had been seen before 1976; in fact, local records indicated it had been observed for centuries; the seventies were just when it came to national attention. The third was it displayed an odd behavior pattern. The Beast was often blamed for dead sheep and red deer found on the moor, as well as the occasional moor pony foal or farm calf. However, roughly every seven years the number of killings sharply increased for a year or so, then dropped off; over 200 animals had been killed or disappeared between 1983 and 1984 alone. She had consulted zoologists and ethologists who were experts on big cat behavior and none of them could describe anything similar in any known species. Finally, a big cat killed its prey by biting the throat and suffocating it. When the current outbreak began, she asked Dr. LeClerc to examine a number of bodies. Most showed the telltale signs of having been killed by dogs or people, but a significant minority had had their necks broken by a
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