He did not like what he’d seen in her unfocused gaze. Running on the spot—she’d said that too. As if they’d accomplished nothing. He’d never seen her so downhearted, so lost.
“Your turn. No talking.” Maura sat on one of the black, art deco style chairs around the table he and Vargr had claimed, then she took his hand, and began muttering over it. Fae blue surged through the delicate branching lines decorating her arms.
“Sure,” he said belatedly, thinking how similar this was to a visit to the doctor.
Low cloud floated past the outer café window where the venue overlooked the edge. He’d been told of how the skinsuits had rappelled down and smashed through the glass in a nursery and killed many of his fellow Worshippers… That was a bad day. Today, they had Little Mo sniffing for signs of skinsuits and stinkers, but there was always a risk when this close to the edge of the quarter.
He’d heard Drummer was looking at a way to use a scent molecule detector found on some of the police drug-detection systems—now that he knew of the skinsuit risk. They just needed to recharge those, reprogram them, and rig up a warning siren or something similar. This was all possible. At least Drummer was a doer, not a sitter.
Maura was still muttering, and he zoned her out, stroked his chin. There might be some buildings out there, below. A day’s travel to get where the drone had ended up meant they’d be covering a lot of countryside.
“Good. No change I can see.” She released him. “Now you.” Maura dragged her chair over to Cyn. When she touched Cyn’s left hand, the lines between her eyes crinkled deeper. “Be very still. You’re difficult to read.”
Cyn grunted an affirmation, not a ladylike sound, and Rutger smiled internally. His woman was done with being a lady. Demon-girl was more her style.
In Maura’s fae veins, the blue raced in spurts then drifted back. The murmured words and sounds she made seemed familiar yet were indecipherable. Fae, it made sense now they knew what they were.
At last she drew away, rubbing her divining hand against her other hand as she studied Cyn.
“Well? What have you found?”
“In you, puzzles. All of you three…” She beckoned to Rutger and Vargr also. “Come over to where we can talk privately.”
“Sure.” Amused, he followed her to another table where the woman slumped then propped an elbow on the table, with her curled hand resting beneath her nose. She looked past her fingers at them, as if she was thinking things through and was unhappy.
Cyn sat on the padded booth seat opposite her, and when he and Vargr sat they smooshed her between them. Pouting, she leaned back and wriggled to get some more room, elbowing him. When he grabbed her elbow and chided her, he earned himself a glare and a smile, then they all waited for Maura to begin.
“Okay. Cyn. You’re different, of course. Most of the others seem barely changed, though it’s been very little time that’s elapsed since I started doing this. Everyone else’s nanite levels are fairly stable, except Vargr too, but you have a mixture. The demon nanites in you have lessened.” She paused. “I think that must be good, Vargr? The jury is out on that, and there are no guarantees. I don’t know enough.” She dismissed him with a hand wave and turned to Cyn,
“And me? Am I pregnant, do I have gold dust in my veins?”
“Pregnant?” He ruffled her hair. She ignored him, but she had made him wonder.
What if the world was saner? What if they could have children and there was no one trying to eat them? What if he could once again have an apartment that looked out over the plains, or watch the birds fly by without worrying, have a pet, go on holidays, or drink wine with friends…
He shook his head, sank back to reality.
“You have more of those red demon nanites than you did only a few days ago. It is quite a perceptible change, and that does concern me because we don’t know what will happen as the level rises.”
As the level rises?
“Hmmm.” Cyn chewed off a broken nail. “I might be fine?”
He found himself highly aware of precisely how good and fine she felt against him, and he exchanged a glance with Vargr, who looked as worried as he was. Stoic but worried. He knew the beaster well enough to see the difference.
“Those notes of Willow’s on nanites—I told you there are samples stored that have never been used? Those don’t have labels, not exact ones, just guesses as to what they might be.”
Those words caught his attention. Had she said? So much had happened recently and he was getting muddled. His tombstone might very well carry that: Died because he wasn’t paying attention.
Cyn nodded.
“Well, I also found where they list the calibrations of the ones that are inside us. They set limitations on the reproduction of our nanites. It stops them multiplying once their blood levels reach, say, X percent. Gargoyle, fae and dwarf all are programmed to stabilize early. The troll limit is higher. And your nanites, I couldn’t find any data on them. They seem to have forgotten to set a limit.”
“Oh.” She stared at Maura. “Crap.”
More like fuck.
“In theory, they may eventually reach one hundred percent. All I can see that is stopping them is the nanites you have in you from your bondmates.”
Double fuck. So sex was keeping her normal. Make that normal-er.
She nodded, slowly, looking past Maura at everyone in the café. They were chatting, laughing, scratching their heads, doing what was normal.
Here in this neglected café was a collection of all her living friends, and many of his. Rutger tried to imagine what she must be thinking. That if she went full demon, she would be a danger to everyone else? He’d bet on it.
“Are you afraid of that, Maura? Of me?”
The fae woman inhaled, exhaled slowly, all while meeting Cyn’s gaze. “I wish I knew if I should be. What do you think?”
“I… have been feeling odd today. Surreal, as if I’m separated from everything around me.” Several seconds passed before she continued. “Everyone I connect to is here, you and my lovers, my friends.” Her voice grew quiet. “These others I met, the Warriors, I feel nothing for them or even for those left behind at Mercantor and Worshipper Quarters. My feelings seem to have drowned on this tide of muffled surrealness. Do I wish all the humans up Top to live, yes, but more than that…” She nodded, and her jaw wiggled from side to side as she tensed it. She spoke louder, deeper, gnarlier. “I want the Ghoul Lords to be fucking dead, dead, dead. That consumes me.”
Those last dredged-up words had chilled him. Judging by her expression, Maura was shocked.
“But is that me or is it the nanites? I feel I am losing myself. You ask if you should be afraid of me? I am beginning to be afraid of me.”
Gods. He looked over her head at Vargr and mouthed the words: We need to talk.
Vargr nodded.
Chapter 11
After all the hurried preparation, the scurrying about, the planning and the worry, Big Mo simply clomped down the side of War Quarter to the ground without a single error, shattering only a few windows and barely scarring the façade. Then he strode away across the rubble with that lurching movement she’d come to expect when he had to negotiate uneven terrain.
“Well done, Mo. Well done.” With one hand she unclasped the seat-belt buckle while licking the last of the chocolate off the fingers of the other hand. Five years old and perfectly aged liqueur choc. Next stop, the champagne.
“Thank you, Cyn.”
“Very well done indeed.” Rutger unclipped his belt and stood, stretching out the kinks. She could hear the cracks and crunches. “I’ll go see how Kiko and Vincent fared.”
“I’m coming.” Behind her, Vargr stood, and she watched her males walk down the corridor, swaying, grabbing holds when they had to as the vehicle tilted or shook, this way or that.
Mo was a ship on a rough sea.
She stuck her boots on the dash, as she liked to do. “Still figure on a day to reach the drone, Mo?”
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“Yes.”
“Good.”
Five minutes later and V and Rutger had not returned. Were they chatting, chiseling their names on Vincent? Whatever, she had a notion.
Their previous route to find Big Daddy had skirted the periphery of the missile strike and come close to emerging into the open, but not quite. They’d been surrounded by the towering remains of collapsed scrapers.
Here was different.
This was the Below—ground level and Outside, both.
She gauged the vehicle well out of reach of any ghoul guards, for all of those were stationed miles above on the Top. The shield over Mo’s nose was retracted, and she was looking out through armored glass. A half-moon shone down onto the windshield, making patchwork shadows and light. In the far distance a silhouetted herd of some four-legged animals grazed. This was originally a game reserve so those could be anything.
Horses or perhaps zebras, from the pale markings?
Plants marched by as Mo passed them—to her it seemed as if the vegetation moved and walked, waving their branches and stalks. They sprouted from piles of rubble as if it were normal to just plain grow wherever they wanted to.
Sunlight and rain granted them that power.
It was a power the beasters had lost. Judging by what had happened to trolls who remained on Top at daybreak, those with gargoyle nanites would also turn to stone. Sunlight was their enemy.
But it was not hers. She probably didn’t even need sunscreen anymore. Cyn smiled wryly, pursed her lips. Surely a demon girl needed none of that stuff?
The view was in vivid natural color, yet it could not be the same as being out there.
She glanced around. No-one had returned and she looked down, expecting to see Little Mo below the dash, and of course he was not. Her instinct was to whistle him to heel. Like a small pet he’d begun to respond to that. Unfortunately, he’d been commanded, make that persuaded, to stay behind to help detect incoming skinsuits and stinkers.
By the time they returned it was hoped other means would have been perfected of detecting them. That would be another goal ticked from Willow’s list.
Here and now, she had no Little Mo. It was safer for him; also he was Big Mo’s back-up. If Big Mo ever went down, they’d still have Mo’s persona, or whatever it was called.
“Mo! Tell me. I saw a thing on your ceiling.” She swung the seat and pointed, sure that there were cameras on her. “One is there. Am I right in guessing you have access hatches to the roof?”
“I do.”
“Unlock that one for me, please.” She rose and dusted off her red leggings. Flecks of the chocolate Vargr had tossed her had melted into dark spots in a few places, and she was pretty attached to these new clothes.
“I am not sure that is wise, Cyn.”
“Going out the hatch? Why?” She raised her head, cocked an eyebrow. “What are the odds that anyone could shoot me from the Top?”
“Almost zero as there is a belt of cloud between us and them, and the distance is far enough that they’d need a spotter to know you were here. Taking into account the low odds of any ghoul guard possessing such a high-quality sniper rifle and—”
“So. Why shouldn’t I go up?”
“Nanodogs and unknown beasts.”
“The unknown… That sounds tempting.” She strolled to beneath the circular metal cover. “Anything small I can kill. Anything big you’d see on your radar, correct?”
There was a sound resembling a sigh. “Yes.”
“Open it.” She made a circle with her finger. The cover began making mildly irritating squeaks, until finally it popped upward by an inch. “Ladder?”
“It seems to have been misplaced. Sorry.”
Could this AI be being difficult? Yes, yes it could, she decided. It wasn’t worth arguing with Mo, so she leaped and caught the rail running beneath the perimeter. With one hand and a grunt, she thrust the cover upward and fully open before catching the rail again. Swinging there by both hands, she peered up.
Moonlight flooded in, followed by a couple of fireflies that dipped inside then exited. Cyn tucked up her legs, did a pull-up and finagled her way out by alternately wriggling, pulling then pushing herself upward once she was mostly outside.
She hoisted herself even higher and rested her bottom on the rim, sitting with her legs dangling inside the hole.
A breeze delicately toyed with her face, rustled her hair sideways, messing with her bangs and fluttering them over her eyes.
Wind.
Moon.
The stars above prickled the sky.
She smelled something new… plants? Moisture in the air. She breathed deep. Maybe rain was coming.
This was the Outside. Her heart pitter-patted.
She blew her hair aside then pulled up her legs and squirmed around. Before her was a raised parapet—two feet high, finished with a black gloss and a gleaming, fat, golden line, of course, and with a slight inward curve.
From below, this would seem a part of the roof of Big Mo and would suggest nothing was above except smooth roof.
After some fiddling, she managed to unlatch and erect from the floor, what she’d thought might be a seat, and it was. Voila, she had not one, but two, forward-facing, red-upholstered seats from which to benignly observe the surroundings as they stomp-crunched onward.
She sat in the left-hand seat and found a switch on the armrest. Pressing it made a six-foot long gun unfold from a forward recess in the roof, like the stinger of a sinister insect. As it slowly rose, it leaned backward until the handle and firing mechanism were within her reach.
Okay. She pressed the switch again and the gun tucked itself away.
Not so benign then.
She observed the land, the silhouettes of trees, other foliage growing from the debris of humanity, some tiny herd of animals with thin whippy tails hopping about on the rocks, watching her watching them. She waved; they scattered.
Mo continued onward, stomping, creaking, squeaking.
Benign or warlike, this was nice. She breathed out and settled into the upholstery. With the soft padding giving beneath her weight and the sway of this lumbering beast-vehicle, she imagined herself a queen come home. She was an Indian maharaja or maharani riding an elephant howdah through her kingdom.
Only this was no longer the kingdom of humans. It was the unclaimed.
“Please stop playing with the buttons, Cyn.”
Cyn frowned then stuck out her tongue. “Pfft to you, Mo.”
“Guests are coming up.”
“What? Who?”
It was Vargr and Rutger. They climbed out of the hole in the roof that lay between her and the gun’s receptacle, with Vargr’s wings barely squeezing through, then they shut the cover. Vargr collapsed into the seat beside her.
“Phew!” He landed his hand on her thigh, squishing in the fabric of the leggings. “Are you hiding up here?”
“No.” She looked at him then at Rutger. “Well, maybe a little.”
Rutger trained a bleak look on them both. “And where do I sit?”
“Here.” Mo sounded tetchy. Something clicked, and slightly to the fore where Rutger stood, but short of the long gun’s recess, a second pair of red seats rose. They swiveled then locked into place facing her.
The petulance of Mo’s response made her wonder what programming would require that. Likely it had come fully formed with being Big Mo, since Little Mo had never displayed this emotional range.
“Your throne, sir.” Grinning, she elegantly unrolled her arm and hand toward the seat.
Rutger lowered himself, sank into the seat and crossed one ankle over his knee. His sigh and narrowed eyes said he was not here to look at scenery.
“To what do I owe the visit?” She looked to Vargr. “Both of you.”
Leaning away from her, Vargr tsked at her as though considering his answer, but then said nothing.
“Speak. I was enjoying the scenery but now I have you two lumps obscuring the view.�
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“Things.” He flip-flopped his hand. “Are we lumps, man?”
“Nope.” Rutger looked about, clearly as impressed as she was by seeing the outside of the world for the first time in many years. If he ever had. From memory, though her memory was faulty, some people had never ventured outside the scrapers.
“Let me guess. Gifts, foot homage…” Cyn waggled her head. “You’re tax inspectors with my refund. I won the Lotto? Or slaves? You wish to be my slaves? This would be good.”
The snort from Vargr still didn’t elicit more words.
“Okay.” Rutger slowly seesawed his brows. “We are worried about you and want to know what has caused the change. Also we might do the foot homage. V?”
“V? You too? V? I do have more letters, lazy people.”
But he bent down and seized her boots, pulling her legs onto his lap. She let him, using the armrest and leaning head on hand to watch as he slid off her brown leather boots and dropped them to the floor… or was it roof? The little silver trinkets on the ankle trims glittered in the moonlight. Though she was sure her feet could not be the cleanest, due to the lack of recent showers, it being the apocalypse and all, he began to massage them.
This was devotion.
Her eyelids drifted down as pleasure subsumed thoughts. Damn. Nice. His fingers and thumbs went to all the right places.
“I think you’ve got the touch, V.”
“I do. Course I get to fuck you after.”
Her lips twitched. “Mmm. Your queen will consider this.” Cyn snuggled lower in the puffy upholstered seat, with her arm under her head as she bent her legs to fit in the space. “Now, what are these things?” She eyed Rutger. “Spit.”
She had some notion already, of course. You didn’t bondmate and not grow a feeling, a sort of new sensory apparatus, or whatever it was, that allowed you to be in synch with what your partners were feeling.
“You sure we should’ve shut that?” Vargr nodded at the hatch, and the tension in his fingers said maybe this anxiety was about more than her.
Cyn Page 7
