The tone of her voice made him stop and be still. His orange-red eyes blinked and his wings briefly manifested around him in shimmering clouds of anthracite dust. His skin darkened to the true black of his faery form and around her the dress became lissom and floaty, rising in waves of bloodstained white fabric. The strips coiled slowly, taking on the movement of snakes.
‘I was sent—’ he began.
‘I said – did you know?’
His face was a mass of changing emotional reactions but she held his gaze as he struggled, although that delay in itself was almost good enough for an answer.
‘Yes, but . . .’
Lila took a step back, straightening up, and flicked out the fingers of her right hand, changing them into blades. His slit pupils widened and he jerked back. The chair bumped the yurt’s back wall.
Lila stuck her fingers into Tatterdemalion’s high collar cut straight through from top to bottom. Her edges were so sharp they made only a whispering sound as the cloth parted. She didn’t know if the dress was surprised or not, but it wasn’t important. She tore it off her shoulders and legs and bundled it up into a ball before flinging it at him. It was heavy and it sent him toppling backwards off his seat although she didn’t stay long enough to see what happened next.
‘Lila!’ he shouted after her, sounding hurt and angry.
She ignited the jets in her boots.
CHAPTER TEN
The rented house on the hill was glowing from all of its windows. Lila could see it from miles away after she turned to follow the line of the upstate highway – a few bright spots in a huge wall of dusk. She landed short, in the woods, and took off her armour and boots the old fashioned way, leaving herself naked except for a vest and underwear. The air was cold and damp against her skin. It felt refreshing and she stood and bathed in it for a minute or two until the last of the heat had ebbed from her. She lifted her face to the sky, listening to the woodland sounds, the cicadas, the breeze. She would have given a lot to be able to sit there and do nothing but enjoy the night, but there wasn’t time for that.
Instead she sat down on a rock and picked up the shoulderguards of her bike leathers and looked at them with machine eyes. In the days of her cyborg youth these had been her issued clothing but latterly she had come to spontaneously create and absorb the armour and even cloth items. Her surface could be remade in any material, her insides too. She knew that on the inside, although she felt as human as she ever had, there was little that resembled human biology now. She looked and sounded like the real thing, but it was like the faeries’ glamour and the demons’ generosity – an illusion. But she hadn’t examined this process in action before. Probably she would never have, since it made her extremely uneasy to the point where she would rather do almost anything than continue.
And then Lane had turned up. A clone. A life-size, real, updated to the last living second clone. One of potentially many. But at least one that was an exact copy of the original at some point. Instantly Lila had wondered how Lane had done it and instantly her answer had come – in the same way that Lila made her armour.
Until this moment she hadn’t considered removing her self-made armour the same way she’d take off ordinary clothes. Sure, she’d once stripped off some of her synthesised skin to make a point, but that was strictly to make the most of the moment. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could remove pieces as a matter of habit and then, after that thought did cross her mind, she felt like it would be removing a part of herself and she was repulsed and a little frightened. Now she sat and held the pieces and they felt and acted exactly like the human-made artefacts she had copied so faithfully. In fact, they were comically accurate when seen from a machine angle.
Lila had copied leather, Kevlar and metal, picking the engineering plans out of the machine whisper as easily as breathing. She could have done what the machine had done to her and simply given the appearance of those materials whilst creating something entirely other beneath the surface, something much more effective, but she didn’t feel ready for that.
More to the point, having removed the items she could hold them now and in no way did they feel like holding her own severed arms. They felt quite detached, because they were, in every way except one, just leather biker armour. The difference existed in the extra information they contained at the quantum level, one step up from raw energy. This code was like a watermark. Their pattern was her pattern, an holographic exactitude of sameness at a fundamental plane. Lane and Bentley’s choice of form was more than a political statement, it was a kind of ironic art. The evolved cyborgs were truly, exceptionally plastic. Having thought of that Lila still didn’t get what was so great about being Boring or Evil Barbie without the hair or the little shoes.
She did wonder where all the material came from. Where did the sheer mass come from out of which these things appeared? She didn’t feel smaller now. In fact, weight for weight, she was the same. So when she absorbed it, where did it go? Was she creating her own miniature inequality that would tear space and time apart when she left the two sides of the equation unfulfilled? Is that what the elves had done in their own way? Did it start like this?
She put one of her gauntlets back on and this time watched closely as her body assimilated it. Sure enough, the weight of the gauntlet vanished as it vanished into her skin and left her, freckles and finger-nails, exactly the same as a moment before. The machine part of her mind revealed with impeccable observation that the gauntlet was simply unmade into pure energy again. But that begged another and even more curious question: where did the energy come from, and where did it go to? The gauntlet itself contained enough pure energy to run Otopia for a week, if converted into electricity say, but she didn’t feel a thing as these processes – their speed and nature incomprehensibly rapid and accurate to her human mind – flowed effortlessly to the guidance of her will alone. She realised she could make anything.
Anything.
Surely there must be some price? So where was her debt?
A similarity struck her then. Lane could make anything, including copies of herself. She could make any object and fill it up with her own awareness. What then was Tatterdemalion? Did it make sense to think of the faeries the same way, as aspects of an awareness that existed in forms that weren’t tied to living things, or places, or times?
She didn’t know the answers, guessed it wasn’t so simple, and picked up the rest of the armour from the ground where it had become cool and damp with condensation. She was about to carry it up to the house when she hesitated and put it down again. What happened if she left it there?
This time a spooked feeling did run up her arms and down her back. Magic operated to energy signatures; she knew it was a big mistake to leave it where it could fall into unkind hands. She bent and picked it up again and absorbed the pieces by putting them on and unmaking them. By this time she had started to shiver – her body was programmed to react exactly like a human one – but she saw no point in feeling extra pain so she toughened the soles of her feet as she made her way up to the house and heated herself. It was genuinely strange to be without the faery dress, but she didn’t regret abandoning it. The relief was much greater. She hadn’t known until now that half her constant discomfort was the unwanted presence of Tatter-demalion and its unfathomable motives. Without Tatters she felt vulnerable, especially when she realised how much she’d relied on the faery to do her magical defending. She was like a snail without a shell, but she didn’t feel abused or overlooked or spied upon any more and that was better
Quietly she crossed the open expanse of the driveway and padded up the steps to the porch. The lights were all on inside, glowing low on standby. The door opened to her hand silently and she closed it behind her, listening. She could hear rock music playing very quietly. In the living area she looked past the central fire where logs were slumping down into embers and saw Zal’s blond head resting on the back of the sofa. A reproachful smell of cold Chinese food came from the kitchen.
She walked around the cosy scene and saw that the screen was on showing a live Hyper Metal Angels concert from the other side of Otopia. It was in Marentz, she realised as her AI matched city shots and ran TV guides. The show’s gaudy colours shone on Zal, slouched in the corner in an uncomfortable position, eyes slitted as he watched. Sassy was lying full length on the rest of the sofa, her head resting awkwardly against Zal’s shoulder where she’d fallen asleep.
Zal moved his eyes to look at Lila as she came into view although he showed no surprise. She felt a feathery touch and a slight sparkle and the room dimmed as he reached up to embrace her with his aetheric body. He glanced pointedly at the sleeping girl to indicate why he wasn’t leaping up and slowly extricated himself. He pulled one of the back cushions down to act as a pillow for her and straightened up gently as if he’d been lying there for a long time. Lila started to apologise but he put his fingers against her lips and pulled her into his arms.
Lila pulled back just enough to look up into his face. In the penumbral gloom of his andalune body it looked like it was made of rock. Then she smelled lime spritzers and recognised the smell of wild aether that gathered in sudden rushes around the blooming potentials of any major aetheric lightning bolt preparing to ground itself and discharge – suddenly her nose was full of citrus.
Zal’s eyes narrowed. ‘I do so hate it when that gives me away.’
‘Me too,’ Lila said, meaning that she had been in the same state, would have done anything just then to fall into bed with him and couldn’t care less about the game and its consequences one way or another. ‘But I missed it when it wasn’t here. Where did it go?’
‘I wondered about that,’ he said. ‘I had a headache maybe?’
They hesitated even longer, enjoying the feeling of each other’s bodies so close, the anticipation of the night, the fact that they weren’t accompanied by anyone – at least nobody awake. Lila was especially happy. Everything was simpler around Zal.
Lila glanced down at the sleeping girl. Her breath was long and even, she didn’t stir. Zal’s fingers against her jaw gently turned her head back to face him.
‘Will you run away?’ His whisper was soft but full of wolf promises.
She moved her lips closer to his, so that as she spoke they touched. ‘I never run.’
They sprang together with mutual hunger. She was stripping off his clothes, feeling stitches rip. His hands cupped her buttocks, lifting her, and she felt his moment of surprise as he succeeded easily in getting her off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his hips as she pulled his shirt free. His mouth was hot on her neck as she flung the remains to the floor. Across his back the demon flare was burning deep orange and red, the shape of the wings looking like a clear window into his body – an interior of living flame. It shone its flickering, weaving light on her fingers as she raked her nails along the powerful muscles, feeling the delicious resistance of smooth skin over the hard contours of flesh and bone.
He growled in appreciation and opened his mouth wide to bite hard into her shoulder, easing a need to use his teeth where it would do the least harm and she thrust a hand into his thick hair, pulling his head closer. The heavy fall of his hair slid over her forearms and tickled her. She kissed along the thick upper ridge line of his long exposed ear, feeling the gradual thinning with her tongue as she moved along to the tip and took the cool point in her mouth. She nipped it and he broke his hold to gasp in a deep breath.
On the sofa the girl stirred and muttered.
Zal carried Lila into the bedroom, ducking so that both their heads would fit under the lintel. He used the same movement with a well-timed burst of energy to fling her down on the bed and kicked the door shut behind them. Once it was closed the darkness was nearly absolute. His demon wings lit the room as if it was on fire. Yellow-orange light bled out across his skin as he undid his belt and kicked off his trousers. He paused, a half-grin on his face, one knee on the bed and she wondered what he was doing when she felt his fingertips brushing her face. She could see perfectly well that it wasn’t his actual hands but nonetheless it was there and sure, very light but as tangible as real flesh. It was his andalune body, so strong in the dark that he was able to make it solid, she realised. She looked down and saw her own tanned skin lit by his golden light. Uncast shadows moved across her where his touch slid down her collarbones and across her breasts.
She saw the same dark patterns move across his body – forming shapes that looked like hands for brief moments before they dissolved into cloudlike, nebulous forms and remade themselves again. They crisscrossed the iron-shirt ridged muscle of his torso and surrounded the base of his erection, moving languidly there. At the same moment she felt a touch much more like a tongue than fingers trail across the inside of each thigh. Her attention was all on Zal’s face however. She looked at him more closely than she had looked at anything in her life. In his expression she read beneath the desire and passion nakedly displayed and saw his abiding nature. Zal danced at the edges of all things, lightly. Beneath his apparent commitment to nothing was a complete commitment to his own nature. And there was love in his gaze, playfulness and deadly serious intent in equal measure as he came forward, prowling over the top of her, his breath hot. She lay completely relaxed and open beneath him. She had never wanted anything more than she wanted him. His presence was like medicine to her battered spirit. She reached up and drew him down. His hair fell around their faces like a veil, closing them off from everything.
‘It’s been too long,’ he said, not pausing as he entered her.
The feeling was so purely ecstatic she lost her mind for a moment and when she came round she found herself saying, ‘Never leave me.’
His reply was in elvish and muffled against her neck so that she didn’t hear the actual words but it didn’t matter.
They made love for a long time, at first fiercely and later lazily until the light in Zal receded beneath his skin and Lila couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. They slept until dawn.
When she awoke the first thing Lila saw was the strange girl, standing in the open doorway eating a popsicle. The headscarf was back in place, oddly adult and formal on her young head – reluctantly tamed dreadlocks peeked from its skirt at her shoulders. The pearly sheen on her black skin was distinctive, outlining her in a peculiar whiteness at shoulder and hands where the daylight streaming through the kitchen windows crossed the hall and caught her.
Sassy removed her popsicle with a smacking noise. ‘You’re in trouble.’ She said this with certain grimness and licked her lips in an interested kind of way. Her gaze was flat and direct. Lila noticed for the first time that her clothing was ragged and unwashed and too small for her.
‘Dial the news desk,’ Lila said, closing one eye. Zal’s legs were over hers and he was heavy and warm. She didn’t want to move.
The girl replaced the popsicle for a minute and continued to stare thoughtfully. Then she removed it to say, ‘I wish I could see into the spirit world, but I can’t.’
‘I wish I could stay in my own room without being woken up by staring people,’ Lila said. She noted the angle of the light and considered the time and day. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’
The girl rolled her eyes as if this was the most stupid question ever asked a being. Lila closed hers in response.
‘You know they’re not human, right?’
This question made Lila open her eyes again and now she was properly awake and resenting every instant of it. ‘Oh?’
‘The dead. Undead. Whatever you want to call them.’ Sassy leaned on the doorframe at an exaggerated angle of insouciance. ‘But you probably want to think they are.’ She shifted her weight, unable to keep her attitude stable.
‘Can this possibly wait until you go out and I get up and get dressed?’ Lila asked hopefully.
‘Most people don’t want to know,’ the girl said with a shrug. ‘I guess you’re the same.’
‘She’s not the same,’
Zal’s voice rose from behind Lila’s head, hoarse but distinct.
Sassy rolled her eyes again, suddenly choosing this moment to feel embarrassment, and pushed off from the doorframe and away. Lila heard the sounds of cupboards being opened and the rustle of a bag. She forgot it for a while, kissing Zal, then as they were lying with their heads close he said, ‘I don’t know all her story but she’s from one of those downtown slums that have become no-go areas for the average human.’
‘I don’t find any missing person report,’ Lila said. ‘But she’s under age. Interesting demographic down there. No wonder she wanted to leave.’
The place he mentioned was Cedars, a parkland development of social housing that had once been the height of the city’s civic pride, but that was back in Lila’s heyday. Now it was like the Diner, a gathering hotspot for outsiders and anyone who wanted to retreat to gangland safety from the twitchy arm of the law. Bay City’s murder capital, it was covered in the red dots of assaults and the black dots of deceased victims on the cop map. They suspected at least one Hunter killer to live in the dens there, but nobody short of a swat team was going to go find out, and there were no swat teams not occupied elsewhere in the country with the combination of Returners and the Hunter’s other rogue children. Cedars was one of the items high on the list of triple exclamation-point alert notes that the police commander had wanted to talk to her about. With the AI dealing with everything it could the only items left in her Inbox were those that couldn’t be dealt with except through her personal intervention and this wasn’t one of those. If Sassy was on the run from Cedars, Lila wasn’t about to rush to hand her over to the police or the gangs. It took a special kind of guts and guile to get out of a place like that, and maybe a special kind of reason.
‘I hate that she always knows what’s on my mind.’
Zal didn’t budge, kept his eyes closed. ‘I don’t. Just wish I knew what was bothering her.’
Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five Page 19
