Selling Out

by Justina Robson

  “Plain clothes will be fine,” she said, turning back to her almost empty wardrobe and staring in disgust at the shapeless, sexless corporate uniforms hanging there in white and black and grey and brown.

  “Treat me as your servant,” Teazle said, moving up behind her. He gently touched her arm with his hand. “Made by enchantment but absolutely mundane.”

  Slimy little trickster.

  Lila suppressed a smile, but it twitched at her mouth. She looked down at the clothes.

  “You lived here?” Teazle asked incredulously as she took them from him without a word and went to the bathroom. She heard the demon sniffing the air behind her and felt subtly violated.

  He can smell me, Tath said and curled up smaller. Lila thought his green increased.

  She took off her military blacks and automatically put the underwear into the washing machine, checking and packing the vest and combat pants with precision into her overnight bag. She was still fully gunned and most of the loads she was carrying were chambered and hot to go. She took a minimum of spare kit with her, fitting what she could into her dusty makeup case and throwing out dried mascaras and eyeshadows she’d bought but never used—who wants to draw attention to eyes hidden behind impenetrable shades? Their pastel colours spoke of contented secretaries, boyfriends, homes . . . she shoved them into the bin. Some moisturiser, a lipstick, a blush compact, she took those and tried to arrange them on top of the flat black-metal packs of explosive bullets and heavy jacketed grenade rounds, the cargo net and the colourful vials of the pharmaceutical spares. They didn’t exactly cover it. She pulled a pink and orange sarong out of a drawer and tucked that across the top instead. Knickers and bras down the sides. Shoes she could wear since her boots were really mostly her feet anyway . . . they were three sizes bigger than she used to wear but you could still get a decent court style to fit.

  She pulled Teazle’s tailoring over herself, put the shoes on, and then took a gold necklace off the dresser and added that. The few charms it bore were all birthday and graduation gifts from her family. The old item had a familiarity that caught her by surprise. For an instant she felt almost authentic.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. The long skirt and jacket were at once extremely conservative and, with their high collar and fine seams, deceptively sexy. The plunge front didn’t help much. Her bra showed in the middle and it was too plain and the necklace was girlish and too small and tentative for that kind of jacket. Her freckles stood out, and the magical stains on her face and neck and hair blazed brilliant scarlet in the dim light. Her silvered eyes . . . she quickly slapped on some foundation, cover stick, and sunglasses. Better.

  She was about to whistle out of habit, then remembered Okie wasn’t there. An unopened box of dog treats had gone out of date on the dressing table but a few of his hairs were still there, beige and white. She picked them up and stuck them on her sleeve then took the overnight bag back out into the bedroom and saw Teazle standing with all her clothes in his arms. He was fooling about with the mirror, looking into it and altering himself. “You need a hairdresser,” he said, not taking his eyes off himself as he stuck out his tongue—thick, pointed, and blue—examined his teeth, and then sighed.

  “I don’t want a posse going everywhere with me,” she said angrily. “Put them down and just go.”

  “Posse?” the demon asked and glanced at her ear. “An imp is negative posse. Is there more?” He kept hold of the clothes. In front of him the doors opened themselves to the kitchen. She heard her entire cou ture set go down the rubbish chute. She wished she cared but she knew it wasn’t worth the fight. Nothing in the apartment felt like her. Without waiting for him she went out and back down to the car.

  Malachi turned as he felt the bag land in the backseat and looked over his own shades at her. “Lookin’ good.”

  “Spare me,” Lila said. “Drive.”

  A big white object landed on the hood with a thump. Both Malachi and Lila jumped back at the sudden appearance of Teazle, in his demon shape.

  “Groupies?” Malachi asked, though his smile was grim and he bristled visibly, hands clenching on the wheel and gearshift, locked in place. A bead of sweat appeared at his temple.

  “Get off!” Lila stood up, reached over the windshield, and swatted at the big, skinny creature with her hand. She didn’t manage to connect.

  Teazle leapt with froggy speed and morphed in midair, landing in time for his ghostly dresser service to kit him out once again. He smiled and gave Malachi the honour of a male-to-male solid fuck you glare.

  Lila sat slowly down and stared straight ahead though nobody was in any doubt that she was addressing Teazle when she said, “I don’t have time for this shit. If you want to help me, protect the rest of my family from whatever the hell is going on. Otherwise get out of my way or I’ll put you out of it for good. Mal—drive.”

  Malachi pushed his shades back up his face and returned Teazle’s look with interest as he lazily spun the wheel and took the car in a sweep backwards around the demon. He rested his free arm on the seat back and took them back to the road in a cloud of dust, sparkling with black motes.

  In Lila’s ear, in a voice only she could hear, Teazle whispered, “Your servant.”

  What the hell was wrong with all these people?

  She closed her eyes and let the wind mess up her hair.

  “. . . I’ll be so much better, I’ll do everything right, I’ll be your little girl forever . . .” Pink sang.

  “Stop at the store,” Lila ordered. “I want cigarettes.”

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “I’m starting.”

  “You know . . .” Malachi said, with nervous fey wisdom.

  “Finish that line and you will eat this car,” Lila promised him honestly.

  He didn’t even pause, bless him. “Menthol or lite?”

  “Whatever,” she said.

  At the store parking lot Malachi promised to do the walky-talky necessities, and she let her head fall back against the rest and closed her eyes, bathing in the warm sunshine. Hearing the ordinary Otopian birds, traffic, and voices was a relief after Demonia’s raging beats. A stream of metadata from her AI about all her missed calls and urgent messages and so forth blurted from the one bit of her insystem she couldn’t turn off where work placed its most important information. It was annoying that the damn thing always reset every time she set foot back on home turf or came close to a port where Otopia Tree was active, but once she’d let it pass unanswered it went onto a sleep cycle for another hour.

  She relaxed and thoughts of Zal drifted into her mind. Her reluctance to log into the Tree fought briefly with her longing to hear his voice and lost. She linked in and placed a call. When there was no answer all the sad weight of the day became crushing. Flat, she listlessly dialled for Poppy, hoping he had just disconnected and was maybe with the band or somewhere easy to get hold of.

  Poppy’s automatic answer system came online, the recording of her bright tones quite saccharine and nauseously perky, “Hi! Poppy can’t answer your call right now because she has gone back to Faery for a short stay and for the May Queen Festival. Don’t panic! Poppy will be in Otopia from Thursday morning onwards to do whatever you like and to return to the stage for another sellout show of all perfect No Showy goodness! Next stop Transylvania. For other dates in Bohemia call Jolene . . .”

  Lila hung up. She wasn’t sure she could face Jolene’s Angel of Death act if something else had gone wrong with the band’s schedule. Viridia and Sand—she didn’t feel she knew them well enough to call. She phoned Luke, the bass player. He answered, muffled and half asleep.

  “Shanny, listen baby, I was . . .”

  “This is Lila Black. I was looking for Zal.”

  There was a moment of silence and then, “Oh,” surprised but, she thought, relatively pleased. “Hi. Um . . . he and the DJ had a fight and he’s gone for a few days . . . it’s kinda sad because she came back looking for him yesterday but he�
�s not in the Tree. I think Jo said he’d gone home for some personal thing.” In the background a girl’s voice murmured something mildly complaining.

  Home? “Thanks, Luke.” She hung up, and then added, “Have a good day.” Home? But why? She’d been a bit disappointed he hadn’t magically appeared in Demonia but assumed he was finally taking something moderately seriously and keeping to the tour dates in Otopia. Sorcha hadn’t said anything about a visit . . . but then she remembered. Adai had come because she knew Zal was going to be at the house in Bathshebat by now. Luke made it sound like he left a while ago. So where the hell was he?

  What little comfort had remained in the afternoon vanished like mist on the wind. She sat up and opened all her ports to the Tree, maximum bandwidths, security bypasses installing. Within seconds she could view camera feed of his arrival in Illyria at the airport and his transit to the hotel. She could see his room, his room service bill—pretty hefty, nothing too unusual . . . a deck of cards . . . She speed-viewed the day she left, looking at the hotel lobby, the activity records of the doors Zal used. She saw Malachi walk in, take off his coat, ask the receptionist something, and head to the elevators . . . There were no feeds in the rooms, obviously, and as far as she could tell he didn’t leave by the door that day. Zal was not recorded as having left the hotel, at least not checked out, but his activity there stopped about three hours after Malachi’s arrival. Then, nothing.

  She phoned Jolene. “Hey, it’s Lila.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. I suppose Zal is with you, is he?”

  “Uh, no,” Lila said, feeling a cold ball beginning to form in her stomach. “I was hoping you’d be able to tip me where he’d gone.”

  “I assumed he was with you.” The sound of Jolene’s tight-lipped anxiety snapped right across all technology and made Lila’s nerves ring. “He swanned off the day before yesterday, insisting he had to go to Demonia. Clearly that was a lie, but then I thought so at the time.”

  “But he said that’s where he was going?”

  “For what it’s worth.” Jolene managed to sound both royally pissed off and pleased at the same time. Lila didn’t bother to wonder about the reasons.

  “When I find him I’ll tell him you’re worried,” she said and cut the call.

  Malachi sat back down, an open brown paper grocery bag on his lap. He shut the door. Lila turned to him and took off her glasses.

  “You didn’t mention you went to see Zal.”

  Behind her eyes huge flashing messages were instructing her to report to Delaware immediately, to return to the offices, to debrief, to download. She dropped out of the network and closed down the AI once more. There was too much to explain and too little time to try.

  Malachi sighed and his shoulders slumped, “I woulda,” he said. “But there was all this other more important stuff I had to tell you first.”

  “He’s missing.”

  “Nah,” Malachi said. “He was going to see you.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “So, he’s probably doing something first if he didn’t catch up with you. It’s only been,” he shot his right cuff and looked at his watch, “forty-eight hours.”

  “Since what?” Lila demanded. “Since you took a trip all the way to Illyria to see him in person. Why?”

  Malachi drummed his fingertips on the wheel and stared ahead before turning to face her. “I was worried about you.”

  She stared at him, checking his inscrutable orange cat eyes for signs of deceit but she didn’t see any. He looked grim, and vaguely preoccupied. “And what happened?”

  “We played cards. Talked. He seemed to think you could handle anything.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He took a deep breath and his chin dropped as he fixed her with a blinkless gaze. He was deadly serious. “Li, you’re not long out of rehabilitation. The last month has been full of major shit and for some reason you and Delaware are about the only people who don’t seem to notice that you’re generating one mother of a psychic wake. Probably ’cause you and she are fighting for the lead role in Cleopatra, Queen of Denial. The only reason the turbulence isn’t killing you is that you run so damned fast. But you can’t keep the speed up, baby. You just can’t. All of us adepts can feel your pain.” He glanced at the red jewel in her ear. “Even Zal can’t do it. You’re going to crash and I don’t want you to burn.”

  “I . . .”

  Malachi cut her off without hesitation. “Nah, you’re just doing what most people would do. The interesting question here is why Delaware is doing it too. I never had much feel for her. She’s got the aetheric sensibility of haddock. It’s in her interests to make sure you succeed. But instead she overrules Williams and Silly the elf, and everyone else in sight. You have to wonder about that. Except, you’re kept too busy with all this distraction and that suits her fine. Nothing was nicer for her than the moment you hooked up with Zally and gave her a primary link into one of the biggest and oddest mystery people in the seven worlds. Without that she’d have had to hire an entire division just to follow him around.” He nodded and soberly held out the brown paper bag to her.

  She grasped it as she stared at him. Her mind was turning over what he’d said, slowly, like looking at a fragile jewel and suddenly noticing it was much more complicated than you thought. So many faces. “Six,” she said automatically. “Worlds.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was thinking of Samurai.”

  She looked at him a moment longer and saw that his frank, flat gaze meant that he knew perfectly well what he’d said, and meant it, then noticed the bag was cold. She opened it and saw a pint of mint choc-chip ice cream and a wooden gnome spoon (see it here, see it there, things taste better off faery-ware!).

  “Worry about it later,” he suggested, starting the engine and backing them out expertly. Without asking the directions he drove the way to her sister’s apartment—the long way, through the country park drive. Lila ate the ice cream, careful not to drip any onto her new suit. When she was done she threw the spoon into the grass at the roadside, ready for the gnomes to collect, and crumpled the empty carton and bag in her hand. The car drew to a stop. They were there.

  She fumbled her shades and put them back on her face, pushing them right up close to her eyes. Her hands didn’t shake but she felt like they were. In a flash she remembered the first time she’d seen them. They were so convincing she hadn’t known they weren’t hers until she reached out to pick up a glass of water and shattered it. Her hand closed into a fist and it didn’t open until a doctor with a portable keyboard came and plugged something in behind her back. She’d thought he plugged it into a wall socket. Later she discovered he’d plugged it into her spine. It took a few months to get the calibrations right.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, mostly to herself. As far as her sister knew Lila had gone to Alfheim on a work trip over a year ago and never returned. Nobody who knew her had seen or heard from her since. The reasons for that had always seemed so good—make sure you’re better, make sure you work, make sure of this and that . . . don’t want to get their hopes up and then . . . Lila, you can be our best agent . . . you have no choice but you can be it. And then don’t call because what to say? She felt like they belonged in a different universe to the one she moved in now. She wasn’t allowed to talk about any of it. What could possibly explain it, then? And the guilt was overpowering, crushing, because of course she should have called them to say she was alive the moment she was able to speak. How could she have said that she didn’t want them to see her like this? They’d treat her the way they always had, and she’d want to kill them, because she was nothing like the same and their presence would be an eternal reproach—you left us and now you refuse to turn back. She’d be there, but she wouldn’t. The Lila they knew didn’t exist any more. It was easier now to live without them. She’d often thought about them dying—that it would be better. No more worry about them and knowing they couldn’t think about her any more. They were dead and th
at era was over, dead with them. And she was free.

  Where was Zal?

  “Want me to come up with you?”

  She shook her head mutely and put the balled up paper back in the door side pocket before pulling the ancient handle and getting out. As she straightened a sleek black car drew up in a spatter of gravel and hissed to a halt beside them in the lot. The door opened and Cara Delaware got out: perfect black suit, black shirt, black glasses, sleeked hair drawn clear of her face, perfect lipstick, killer heels. She looked about five degrees cooler than the surrounding air. Her door closed with a soft whisper behind her. Cara walked forward with a professional smile, her hand held out to shake.

  “Welcome back,” she said, warm and friendly with that hint of viper overtone that Lila had always admired. You knew where you stood with Cara. Nowhere.

  Lila pushed the Eldorado’s door closed and enjoyed its heavy slam. “What’re you doing here?” She didn’t take the hand which was withdrawn calmly.

  “At such a difficult time I felt it was only proper the agency offered you full support. It can’t be easy.” She glanced at Lila’s clothing with what may have been a hint of envy and more than a hint of mild disapproval.

  “Nothing’s been easy,” Lila said. “But I’m fine. I’ve got Malachi.”

  “Ah yes, Malachi,” she stepped around Lila and leaned her hands on the Eldorado’s hood. “Now that I’m here to take care of things you can return to your investigations at the office.” Her polite textbook words did nothing to hide her order.

  Lila bristled with loathing. “I want him around.”

  They were interrupted by the door opening. Two dark shapes rushed out of the gap, across the porch, and down the steps, barking. They barrelled straight for Lila for a moment and then both stopped and hesitated, sniffing and looking, their heads to one side, then the other, tails wagging uncertainly, lips twitching.