The Hero Strikes Back

by Moira J. Moore

  But not, however, according to Karish. “Care to use a different analogy for the tone-deaf partner in this Pair?”

  Picky, picky. “Like looking at a painting, and while red was a good choice, the artist used orange red instead of blue red and so the whole picture looks off.” See? Right there. Only don’t look with your eyes. Look with your mind.

  Karish let his hand fall to the table, flesh slapping against wood. “For Zaire’s sake, Lee!”

  “What?” Was he claiming to be colorblind, too?

  He snapped his shields back into place. As they weren’t actual physical entities, he shouldn’t have been able to raise or lower them with any kind of variety, but if my shields had been fingers, I would have yanked them back and sucked on their stinging tips. “What’s wrong with you today?” Sometimes his artistic moods were so tiring.

  “There’s nothing out there, Lee,” he snapped.

  “So, what, you think I’m lying?”

  Karish, being an intelligent lad, stepped around that. His voice slid into a tone of annoying, condescending patience. “I think you’re very anxious to find a solution and are therefore seeing things that aren’t there.”

  Ah. Delusional. So much better. “There is something there, Taro.”

  “Then why can’t I feel it?”

  “I don’t know.” Maybe he didn’t want to see anything. Maybe he didn’t want anything to be wrong. And that was understandable. The last time things had been unnatural it had resulted in a series of nightmares for Karish. To come home to learn things were once more odd was probably more than he needed to hear, especially with the other things going on in his life. So he agreed to a search of the forces to shut me up, but saw nothing because he didn’t want to see anything.

  I couldn’t very well tell him any of that, though. He would feel insulted. “All right, then.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “All right?”

  “Aye.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What else is there?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not buying that. No way would you just drop everything so easily. Tell me what’s going on in that dense, mysterious brain of yours.”

  I thought about that. Dense was definitely an insult, yet mysterious was alluring and therefore flattering. I wondered which I was supposed to feel. “Nothing more than usual.” I was wondering if I might have better luck with another Source, one who wasn’t experiencing some kind of mental block. Except none of the other Sources in High Scape were as talented as Karish. And my bond with Karish impaired my ability to work with other Sources. What I gained in working with a more openminded Source might be lost through the diminished talent and compatibility. “We’ll try it again next watch.”

  Karish groaned. “Lovely.”

  “If you want me to claim we’re working on it, we’d better be working on it.” He was the one who said it first, he was the one who had made the deal, and I was going to make him stick to it.

  “I knew that was going to come back on me.” He dug a coin out of his purse and spun it on the table.

  “Because you’re such a bright boy.”

  “Shut up, Lee.”

  “And in such a fine mood, too.” Should I ask him, should I not? Should I borrow the coin? Ah, what the hell. “What is wrong with you?”

  Hands through the hair again. “Her Grace is here.”

  Oh. All was forgiven. “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “How did she even know you were back here and not in Erstwhile?”

  “I don’t know. Magic. I don’t care.” His shoulders slumped.

  “Where is she staying?”

  “The Imperial,” he said, naming a boarding house like the one my mother was staying at, only for the risto crowd.

  “You don’t actually have to see her, if you don’t want to.”

  A short exhalation through his nose, a sound of disgust. “I have to see her.”

  Find me the law that said that. “No, you don’t.”

  The muscles along his jaw clenched. “Leave it, Lee.”

  Fine. Make yourself miserable. I only have to work with you while you do it.

  I watched Karish wander over to the wall and poke around the shelves. He came up with a deck of cards. “Want to cheat at slider?”

  I didn’t bother to protest the accusation. No need to get too predictable. “Can you afford to fall any further into debt? You already owe me your first six born.”

  “I guess I’ll have to figure out some way to work it off.” He winked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  The rest of the watch passed without incident. No surprises there. I spent some time wondering if High Scape had turned into a cold site. It had been known to happen. Sites constantly rattled by natural events suddenly went still, for decades, while sites that had been calm suddenly went hot. Maybe Creol had been the only reason High Scape had ever been hot in the first place.

  Firth and Stone came to relieve us, something I always looked forward to. I loved Firth.

  “Karish, my beautiful, my one, my only,” she crowed, as she always did.

  Karish, who had risen to his feet as the ladies entered, scooped up Firth’s hand. As he always did. “Claire, my lovely,” he said in a voice as smooth as sanded wood. “It is a treasure to see you, as always.”

  “You liar,” she retorted. “You’re such a tease.”

  That was a little blunter than usual. Fun to see Karish gape like a fish, though. “I never am,” he protested.

  “Sure you are, lad. All heat and promises and just when you get a girl all worked up you slither out of it.”

  Karish blushed. I cackled. Stone smirked.

  Granted, I wouldn’t want a man as old as Firth drooling all over me, but Karish asked for it. He was something of a slut and wore the reputation almost proudly. From what I understood, Firth was a slut, too, and she’d had many more years to practise it. She knew how to make the elegant, confident, suave Lord Shintaro Karish blush in a way no one else could, and it delighted me every time I saw it. He should have learned to back off by then. On the other hand, he might have forgotten after all that time spent away from High Scape. For certain he beat a hasty retreat out of there, taking me with him.

  “Rrrrr,” Karish growled, once I closed the door behind us. “You have too much fun with her.”

  Hey, it wasn’t my fault. He’d started it the year before by oozing all over Firth when they met. “I have nothing to do with it.”

  “No, you just sit back and laugh.” He sounded almost bitter about it.

  “Poor boy.” My feigned sympathy couldn’t have sounded more false. “Can dish it out but you can’t take it.”

  He appeared scandalized. “I never behave like that.” He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at the Stall.

  “No, you’re a little more subtle, but give it time.”

  He huffed. “I will never act that way.”

  “All right.” We’d wait and see. When his looks began to fade a little. In twenty years or so.

  “Brat.” He took my hand, and we trudged through the snow back towards the city. “Come out for a drink with me?”

  “Sure.”

  His hand squeezed mine a little with his surprise. “Really?”

  We’d never gone out for a drink together before. “Aye.”

  He smiled. “Good girl.”

  “Aye, you’d think so.” Karish was a real fan of debauchery. Not that that was where I was headed. I’d just watch him for a while. From what I’d heard, he put on quite a show when he was enjoying himself in a tavern.

  “Lord Shintaro!”

  He jumped. I didn’t. Score for me. I did want to scowl at the interloper, though. But I didn’t, because Karish was doing it for me. “You’ve got the wrong number,” he snapped.

  The man halted his jog and stared at Karish, nonplussed.

  I looked up and stared at Karish, nonplussed.

  “Lord Shintaro Karish?” the man tried again.
/>
  Karish gave up on the not-a-lord issue. “What do you want?”

  The tone was not at all friendly, but the man bowed. “William Smith, at your service.” I thought that if he truly wanted to be polite, he might pull his scarf away from his face a little so we could get a good look at him. It wasn’t that cold. “I am a member of the Raiborn, and we’re recruiting members. We were hoping you might be interested in joining us.”

  Karish’s fine black brows drew together in a frown. “Uh, what?”

  I stifled a giggle. Good retort.

  “A club, my lord. A kind of gentlemen’s club.”

  “What kind of gentlemen’s club recruits members on the street?” Karish demanded with scorn.

  “Our kind of club, my lord.”

  As statements of the obvious went, the delivery of that one had admirable panache.

  “Didn’t one of you people already send me a letter inviting me to this club of yours?”

  “We very well may have. You are exactly the kind of—”

  “And if I recall I sent you a response saying no thanks.”

  That didn’t slow the man down for a moment. “It was no doubt an open invitation, my lord. Should you change your mind.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” Karish declared with exquisite hauteur. “And I won’t. I don’t like gentlemen’s clubs. They always let in the wrong sort.”

  “I can assure you, my lord, we seek out only the—”

  “Leave now.” Karish pulled me away and started us down the street.

  Listen to him. So used to being invited into exclusive high society clubs that the very invitations themselves irritated him. Must be nice to be so sought after.

  “My lord!”

  “Don’t call us,” Karish muttered.

  “Maybe we’ll have a better opportunity to speak another time, my lord!” the man shouted after us. Didn’t follow us, though. Smart man.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “You heard him.”

  “But your refusal was a little harsh.” And not like Karish. Karish, in my experience, was usually quite polite.

  “He came up to me on the street.”

  “Aye, I wouldn’t have thought that was the way they did it.”

  “It’s not. At least, I’ve never had anyone ask me like that before.”

  “So you have been asked to a gentlemen’s club before?” He really did live in a different world. One I couldn’t understand. Which, considering I was his partner, was rather sad.

  He shrugged. “I was Lord Westsea’s younger brother. Then people thought I was going to be Lord Westsea myself.”

  “And you turned them down?” I would have joined, out of curiosity if nothing else.

  He snorted. “Why would I want to lock myself away with a collection of self-important asses who obviously have no real appreciation for women?” Ah, but think of all the fun he could have had with the men. “Besides, I’m not married. What do I need a gentlemen’s club for?”

  The thought of Karish married was enough to make me choke on nothing but air and saliva. Good thing I was a Shield, with unsurpassed control over my reactions. Else I might laugh.

  Karish was looking down at me. “What? No derogatory comments?”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “You always have something to say. You just choose not to.” Happy with that little comment, he released my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  Damn all perceptive men.

  Chapter Six

  Music came pouring out through the windows and the door. A fiddle racing over octaves. A pipe emitting a plaintive haunting tone even as it danced over arpeggios. And a flat drum with a rolling syncopated beat. My heart sped up and I bit my lower lip. Images clashed in my mind. Waves crashing against rocks. A window shattering in the intense heat of fire. Standing at the edge of a cliff and wanting to dive over just to feel the air rushing over my skin as I fell. I pulled back on Karish’s arm. “Not in there.”

  Karish had been leading me. He had picked this tavern. He turned back to me, a corner of his mouth turned up in a dangerous smile. Dangerous to me, anyway. His eyes were glowing. “Do you like this music?”

  Was he insane? “Of course.” A person would have to be dead not to like this music. It was glorious. It lit the air. It moved.

  “Do you want to go in? Not—” he cut off my answer with a raised hand, “should you go in. But do you want to? If you had nothing at all to worry about, would you go in?”

  There was a bit of a breeze winding its way through the night. It played with his hair. One dark strand was fluttering along his cheek. I wanted to brush it back. Then I wanted to sink my hands into that black mass.

  My blood was practically dancing through my veins. My heart was pounding so hard I felt the pulse in my throat. My muscles were tense with the effort it took not to start running or jumping around like an idiot.

  I licked my dry lips and nodded.

  “You trust me?”

  I nodded again, because I wasn’t sure I could speak coherently.

  “I won’t let you do anything you regret. I promise.”

  The smart thing to do was to refuse to go in. To insist we go somewhere else. Or to let Karish go in alone while I went home. Gods, the music . . .

  “So what do you say?”

  He wanted so much for me to go in with him, I could tell. He’d be disappointed if I refused. I could feel it even through the music that was filling my head and scrambling my thoughts.

  I’m stupid. I’m so stupid. “Aye.” Was that breathless voice coming from me?

  The smile widened into a grin. Karish chuckled and opened the door. The music, of course, got louder, enough to make me dizzy. I crowded in closer to Karish, my free hand clutching his arm. A part of me screamed that this was a very bad idea. The rest of me beat that single part into silence.

  The tavern was dark and filled with people, loud chattering people, all the bodies creating waves of heat. The dim candlelight slid over cheekbones and jaw lines and fingers and wrists, glancing off dark eyes and flashes of teeth. I could smell sweat and perfume and beer and the musty scent of winter clothes recently pulled out of storage.

  And then, all of a sudden, the music stopped. Protests rose up. My heart didn’t slow down, though, and for a few moments I couldn’t hear the words being loudly spoken from the corner where the music had been coming from.

  People were turning to look at us.

  “It’s all right,” Karish said at high volume. “It’s fine. Keep playing.”

  I couldn’t see the musicians. I was too short, damn it. And I couldn’t hear anything else because that glorious music was still swinging around in my head.

  “It’ll be all right. Lee doesn’t get violent with music.” He faltered a little there. Usually I didn’t get violent with music. It had, unfortunately, been known to happen. It depended on the music, and the circumstances. But that music, and those circumstances, weren’t likely to arise in a tavern. “I won’t be leaving her alone. I promise you there’ll be no broken mugs or chairs.” And, as though to demonstrate how seriously he took his promise, he put an arm around my shoulders. “Please keep playing. I’d like Lee to hear it.”

  I was still hearing it. It felt good. Really good.

  But I could tell when it started up again. It felt even better. Smoothing over my face, filling my blood with light, bursting out through my muscles. It wrapped around me and held me apart from everything around me. I could see, but my mind didn’t understand what I was seeing. I wasn’t hearing the music but experiencing it inside my head. And the head became nothing more than an enthralling glow against my flesh. The removal of my cloak from my shoulders sent smooth material sliding over my skin. I started shivering.

  Then there was movement. Circular, gliding movement. Movement running with my blood, flowing with it, pushing it faster, lifting my feet, curling me through the warm darkness around me.

  Dancing. I loved dan
cing.

  I loved Karish. He felt so good. Long slim muscles lining strong limbs. Smooth skin over elegant fingers. His hair was so soft. Gentle light gleamed in his dark eyes. And his smile, such a beautiful velvet smile. I could look at him forever, touch him forever.

  Dance forever. The movement. Feeling the muscles work. Experiencing the shift in balance. Trusting your body to know what to do and just letting it. I could do it for hours.

  Sometimes the music softened a little, and I could think. It would change into something more gentle, more stately, the steps less acrobatic and more precisely timed, set into specific patterns as partners faced each other and clapped their hands and slid from side to side. I was able to see a little better, watch Karish as he played the gentleman’s role in the dance and admire how well he knew the steps, how well he moved. I would have thought the elegance would lose its impact over time, as I saw it almost every day, but I knew then that the unconscious grace of my Source’s manner of movement would never cease to rouse my envy.

  What was it like to know you always looked perfect? What was it like to know every single thing you did was done well?

  Or maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t think about it at all. Maybe it was so much a part of what he was that he didn’t think any more about it than I thought about the shape of my eyebrows, or the length of my toes.

  And I wondered how someone who couldn’t sing and claimed no interest in music was able to dance so well. Then the music would rise up again, and the ability to think about anything at all slipped away.

  After a while, Karish tried to pull me away from the dancers. I didn’t like that, and I resisted. If I stopped dancing my blood would explode out of my veins and spatter everyone, and that would be bad.

  “I’m thirsty,” he shouted through the music.

  “So drink,” I said. “I’ll dance.” Who needed a partner? I was just jumping around like an idiot, anyway.

  “No.” He headed towards the tables, his grip firm on my hand. “Be a good girl and have some beer.”

  Beer. Mmmmm. My throat suddenly closed in, rough and dry. Drinking something seemed like a good idea, and I moved more willingly. I could always dance after.

  Through the haze in my head I saw the occupants of a nearby table clear away. They looked up and saw us coming and with no hesitation or even discussion among them, moved away. I opened my mouth to protest. That wasn’t right.