I punched the panel in front of me and the transparent ceramic surface cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The others looked at me and I grinned sheepishly, “Sorry, muscle spasm. Wow, this panel looks defective, maintenance should really do something about it.”
They actually just turned away to stare out the window, Andrews muttered, “Welcome to Hell, Shade.”
A flashing in my peripheral had me looking at the other team's attempts. The Seelie Court's experiments were all about combining tissues and genes from other species to create a vessel compatible with Fae physiology. That if they could build a biological shell that could hold Fae energy, then they could just use a glamour, or even a much more difficult physical transformation into a more pleasing Fae form.
I thought about that and looked something up. It seemed that very few Greater Fae had the power to successfully change the physical structure of a living being into something else. Which made Mab twice as scary to me now because she had pupped her daughter with just a thought, no casting involved.
The Summer Lady disbanded the attempts recently as they had had eons of failures even though the man running the attempts, a lesser Fae Lord, Sindri... hmm... no house was listed for him, had insisted he could do it and beat Rory to the solution to repopulate the Fae race on the world.
I hesitated then rewound with my eyes and looked at the date of the disbandment of his team, and the date of the first killing. Two weeks apart. This was something, I could feel it... but how would he have gotten a hold of that surgical scalpel from Rory's lab? A co-conspirator? That seemed unlikely as absolutely terrifying as Mab was. Imagine if she had found some sort of mole in her palace, what she would do to them if she found them.
And Rory had said that only her, her mother, her guards, and the children of Oberon had access. And everyone knew that Princess Aurora was the only child Mab and Oberon had. So that pointed back at Rory again.
Why did I not want it to be her so badly? Well besides the fact I found her funny, intelligent, and by the gods was she sexy... ok, fine, I was attracted to a probable serial killer. It fit in with the day I was having so why not?
Something was niggling at the back of my mind then I realized what. I typed to Mother. “Is there a list of the children Oberon had with the Summer Lady and others before he married Mab to be her second?”
A list of thirteen names appeared. What was it with Fae and having thirteen children? I looked at the familiar names, the princesses and princes of Summer.
Fae were people too. I remember some talk of the disappearance of Oberon while he was out leading the Wild Hunt, there was some whisperings in the Fae courts about infidelity. I had assumed it was Mab straying, she is famous for her bedroom dalliances. It is something in her Fae nature to conquer those she sees as a threat, she was a very sexual creature, and she used her considerable gifts to do so.
Something clicked in me. Was that why she took delight in reminding me that she had broken my will in but a glance and longing for her? Reminding me who was Queen and I could never measure up? The bitch! My cheeks chilled as the ice spread. Oh, space me! I wasn't thinking about telling anyone she went back on her word, that's what the curse was for, not just thinking ill of her.
I sighed and had Mother show me the internal helmet cam view. Half of my lower jaw was now translucent blue ice, from my lower lip down. I flexed my mouth and lips and it acted just like normal skin, but I could see the moisture in the air frosting as it condensed around it. Fuck me sideways and space me naked.
Mother offered helpfully, “It's not so bad. I think it's pretty.”
I typed aggressively at her. “Yeah, it'll look pretty when I'm a gods be damned ice sculpture. I need to find a way to get her to remove this.”
I sighed when the red lights started flashing inside the booth and out in the mines. The day was over. We watched as each prisoner stepped in front of us, was scanned then headed into the dormitory below the booth. Once all were accounted for, we hit the lock-down, then signed things over to the night shift and I was free to go.
I'd have to get home and change if I were going to go meet up with the dallying Fae Lord at the Underhill brothel. I didn't want to scare him off with my uniform.
Mother asked breathlessly in my ear, “A dress?”
I muttered as I pulled myself along the corridors by the grip bars, almost weightless, to the transport tubes in the trunk, “Stop eavesdropping on my mind. I half love this new helmet and half hate it.”
“Stop whining... here, listen to some music, it makes you less testy.”
I had to grin. She was pretty funny sometimes. Can machines be funny?
“I'm funny. Now shush.”
Chapter 10 – When Doves Cry
A long thirty minutes later, I was up-ring and sighing in relief with my familiar weight on my feet. I was still getting the cold shoulder from everyone since Mab was still punishing the ring for my 'transgressions'. That Fae was certifiable.
Damn it!
I felt ice crackle across my lower jaw, and before I could ask, Mother showed me the interior helmet video feed. My entire lower jaw was now that weird living, flexible ice. The lights around me shone through it, causing it to glow in that bluish tint.
It went from the corners of my lips, across my jaw in a straight line and it looked more like some sort of gaudy augment than a curse which was punishing me every time I thought ill of its caster. Were spells alive?
At this rate, by the end of the week, I was going to wind up an ice chandelier or something hanging in her audience chamber, or worse, her bedchambers. I ran my tongue along my lower teeth to see if they had sensation still, and my tongue clinked against them. Son of a... my tongue was ice too. Would that affect my sense of taste? Could I eat normally, or did I have to avoid hot beverages?
I needed to speak with Rory, or maybe one of the magic defense instructors at the academy. Now this, this right here is why most humans feared magical races. I loved the diversity of the Leviathan, and embrace magic, hells, I'd love to be able to cast. But as a human, unless I was gifted in it, the best I could hope to do is some witchcraft. But that ate away at the bodies of the few witches on board. There is a reason all the stories speak of them as withered and arthritic elders.
And even the Fae don't know why there are no male witches, but they postulate that it is because human male chromosomes are defective, one leg missing from one of the natural XX chromosome pairs. It is like they see us 'lesser races' as all the same, and don't understand that it is that Y chromosome that makes them male in most cases. Though even then, that doesn't solely define their gender.
Now after my dealings with the Winter Lady, I'm starting to question whether my free acceptance of magic as just any other tool was possibly naive. Lots of my gear was magi-tech, a seamless blending of magic and technology.
In our everyday lives, we use magic items, like the synth-skin patches I had used earlier. It is so ingrained in our society that maybe I saw magic as innocuous, always there like background noise. But now that it was physically doing something to my body and I had no way of stopping it... magic was starting to make me nervous.
I exhaled as I got off the lift, my breath fogging as I did. Mother tried to cheer me up as she offered a pathetic, “Well, if it's any consolation, at least it looks pretty?”
I snorted. Ok, it was working. We stepped into my quarters and I froze. It was Sprite-ageddon. Sprites zipping all over, squealing and yelling, having what looked to be a mini pillow fight or something with daring aerial displays, dust sifting all over the floor.
Someone let out a two-tone high pitched whistle and they all turned in mid-flight and zipped down into a hole that was cut in the door of my nightstand. I sighed as I took off my helmet and slapped my forehead, dragging my hand down my face as a far too innocent looking Graz sat almost demurely on the edge of the nightstand, looking quite feminine at the time. “Uhh... hi Knith. We were just cleaning up the place... it s
ort of degraded into ummm...”
I cocked an eyebrow and offered, “War?”
“Yeah, that!”
I looked around, and the place did look tidy, except for the fact everything was coated in Sprite dust. “Welcome home. Uh... you look very manly. Did you do something different with your jaw?”
“Nice try, lady. I don't get distracted that easily. And I'm female, I told you that.”
She chirped out quickly, “All you nulls look the same to me. So um, you look very female-ly? Womanly? Oh! Pretty!” She gave me a smile that was way into the cheesy zone with two enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Stop trying to suck up to me, buttercup. I've got too much shit falling all over me right now to worry about evicting your tiny ass.”
She stood and looked back behind her. “What is it with you and your fixation with my butt? I mean, it is pretty awesome, but I mean, really, I'm a mated pollinator, go look at other people's butts. And are you calling me small?” She had her blade out at the last question.
I sighed. I didn't have time for this. “It's a figure of speech, genius. I've got to get ready now, I've someplace to be.” Then I hesitated, not knowing what they had in my nightstand. “Do you and your family need anything to eat? You've been busy squatting in my quarters all day.”
“On it, we've been using the hells out of your pantry. You should really lock it better. Did you know they made sugared cereal? You Bigs get all the good stuff.” Ah... that would explain the hyperness in her voice. Was her whole family on a sugar high?
I moved behind my changing screen and started stripping out of my SAs and paused with my skinsuit. I could use the extra protection if I was going off-world again, but it screamed Enforcer. So I stripped out of it and almost jumped when Graz chirped from where she was sitting on top of the screen, idly kicking her feet, “So where ya going?”
I turned away and pointed away. “Hey, I'm naked here.”
“Oh relax, you don't have anything my Mitzy doesn't have, or most of me either. How can you go through life without wings? You got plenty of room there on your back, miles of skin.”
I pointed away again, with narrowed eyes and she buzzed off. Then I said as I went through my wardrobe, realizing that I had all of two sets of civilian clothes, or civvies, and a single dress that I had to have for special occasions. Did I really not have a personal life? I lived, ate, and breathed the Brigade.
I guess that would explain my lack of dating life too. I mean, I dated... what... ok so I've only dated three women in the past decade... or two. Well two women, a heavily modded Human with a cybercat fetish, and a Satyr, but I'm not sure if Forest Walkers had a gender. Some Humans called them Ents, but I just thought Fern was gorgeous, with all that soft moss, blooming flowers, and bewitching smile.
I thought her large wide eyes looked feminine so I called her she. And what she could do to the aching muscles of my back with her feathery soft, vinelike appendages was heaven. But winter came to the B-Ring and we sort of lost touch after she had to go and literally plant herself for three months in the soil of the parks up-ring. Ok, maybe I was so attracted to her because she never spoke, no Walkers ever did... she was the best listener ever.
I looked at the dress, it was too formal to be going to some sex den on the Remnants. So I put on some pants, a plain white blouse, my mag boots, and then on a whim to cut the goody two shoes look, I pulled out the flight jacket my first girlfriend gave me when she joined the Ready Squadron. The ace fliers who were always on point, flying in front of the Leviathan, and clearing a path through any asteroid, meteor or comet debris which crossed our path. Blowing anything larger than a Hel Ball into smaller pieces that couldn't penetrate the armor of the Skin.
Perfect, its downy lined collar could flip up to hide my jaw. I looked at my Brigade issued wrist console and sighed. I said to the air, “Looks like I'm flying solo on this one Mother. You can watch me through the world until I get into the Remnants.” I still rested my belt packs crookedly on my hips though.
“Is that wise? You're already still investigating a case that you were explicitly told you were to have nothing to do with. Should you be going in without backup or me to document it?”
I stopped, and looked expectantly at one of the dozen vid ports in the room, she sighed far too convincingly before she asked, “Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke?”
I tapped the side of my nose and said, “Ding ding ding.”
She grumped out, “Then at least take Myra's goggles too, they have full tech packs like your old helmet.”
Ok, that would complete the Irontown Grunge look. “Good idea.” Now I could take Mother with me onto the Underhill. I pulled the goggles out of a box at the bottom of the closet and looked at them. They still had half a charge. It would be a couple of decades before the fusion packs needed to be swapped out.
I smiled at them, they were stylized to look like old goggles from the beginnings of the age of flight. A turning point in human history and one of the few points in time that the “human plague” had worried the Fae. It was hard to believe that the tech inside had been so advanced a couple of decades ago that it still rivaled most of the Brigade tech today. Ready Squadron needed the best or we would be one long line of wreckage floating past Eridani Prime in a few thousand years.
I slid the goggles on with their faux leather strap and slid them to the top of my head, then tied my hair into a tight ponytail.
I turned to the changing screen and Mother was kind enough to mirrorize the surface. I looked like an extra from one of those space horror waves on the holo-consoles. I smirked, flipped the collar up, looked down a little, and could barely catch a glimpse of my jaw.
When I stepped out into the room, Graz nodded, eyes wide. “Badass.”
Hey, that was almost a compliment. I hid my smile and said, “Just have a few minutes to eat before I have to get going.”
“Oh yeah, that. Where did you say you were going again?”
My cheeks heated slightly as I said, “Following a lead.”
Mother, always so helpful... not... supplied, “I have booked her with a Fae Lord in the brothel at Underhill tonight.”
Graz's vice was an octave higher as she teased, “Oh, so making time with the Queen of the Fae gave you a taste for the denizen of Faerie, did it? No judgments here. I mean, those lords and ladies of the upper court even do it for Sprites. I mean...”
“Shut it!”
Then I inhaled long and hard and almost started coughing as my lungs were chilled. Ok, note to self, don't do that with an ice jaw. “I'm going to question him. He's a person of interest.”
“Yeah, interest between the sheets!”
“Graz!” I made a zipping motion over her lips when she landed on my shoulder wiggling her brows suggestively. I explained, “It seems Woodling horn is a potent aphrodisiac for the greater Fae. I figured, that if there was a Fae Lord slumming it down in a brothel off-world, maybe he had a little help.” I mimed snorting drugs.
The Sprite blinked then smiled. “Hey, that's actually pretty smart.” Then she added, “Did Mother think of it?”
I flicked her with a finger, sending her buzzing off giggling like a mad pollinator, and then she zipped into the nightstand calling out, “Don't do anything I wouldn't do.” More muffled giggling ensued.
After a quick meal, nothing heated, I headed out. The lights of the stars and nebula light the sky and the dim navigation lights lit the roads and buildings. I grabbed the lone cab on the streets that was heading toward the clubbing and drinking districts. I really wasn't in the mood for a Jump pod. And with my new financial situation, I wouldn't be able to splurge like this again anytime soon.
When I gave my destination, the cabbie gave me a knowing smile on his goat face. I let him think whatever he wanted. “Five extra chits if you can get me there in fifteen.” The extra Gs of his acceleration had me smirking as I was pushed back into my seat. He did it in fourteen. Though there was a
harrowing moment in the spoke heading down to D-Ring, when he used radial acceleration to ride the walls to drive above the light traffic.
I thumbed his payment pad and typed in an extra ten chits, he was worth it. I double blinked and mother took a picture of his ID with the goggles. If I needed to be somewhere yesterday, I was sure to request him. Then I was heading back into the bulkhead corridors and the Underhill.
I threw the bar holding the manual lever again as I entered the airlock. Then once the outer door cycled more of that catchy music was playing. I lowered the goggles to hide my eyes as I scanned everywhere and Mother helpfully displayed this haunting melody for me. “When Doves Cry” by some ancient royal called simply Prince.
I hesitated in the crowd. It was orders of magnitude busier than the afternoon I had visited. Then I almost jumped when the old oracle said from right next to me as I stood just past her door, “Ah, you listened to my foretelling. Would you like to come in for a tarot reading, to know the fate of Knith Shade, Enforcer of the Brigade?”
I looked at her and swallowed and said, “Thank you, but no. I've business here.”
She nodded and whispered, “The access ladders are the faster way to the brothel, the lifts are always busy at night.”
I asked under my breath, “Is it always like this?”
She smiled and said, “People like to indulge in activities considered a wee unsavory on the world. There's no judgment here. Unless of course, you upset the Father.” She pointed toward Mac's cabin and chuckled as she slid back into her fortune-telling parlor and the door slid shut.
I snorted when Mother said in my ears through the buds in the goggles, “Creepy and vague woman is creepy and vague.” I hesitated again and exhaled and asked, “Ok, Mother. I have to ask... are you... are you more than an AI? I swear you seem... aware. Because that was funny.” I didn't want to say self-aware or sentient. The repercussions were huge.
She answered carefully, “I... am.” Then I swear I could hear a smirk when she said, “But that could just be my programming simulating the answer of someone who was.”
Leviathan Page 10
