Williams turned her old face to Lila as she cut the call. “That was ill advised. Higher authorities will be notified now.”
“You could hide it,” Lila said.
“And if I get found out I’ll be in prison without a job and you’ll be the top of the rogue agent list. I believe the term they like to use in the lab is Terminate. What a charmless bunch they always were.” She sighed and raked her hands through her white hair. “You have to realise that my power to protect you is very limited. Your behaviour recently has stretched beyond my ability to mitigate the damage.”
“You mean Zal.”
“I mean marrying demons, in Demonia. You must realize this was a political act of major consequence, Lila.” She looked at Lila closely. “And you bring these demons here and we are all expected to accept your judgement as a feature of our security, when there’s nothing about you to suggest your judgement is anything but whimsical. For all anyone here knows you were coerced into it. We know almost nothing about demons, really. Nor the damned elves come to that. And here you are, a further unknown quantity… understand that the only reason you are alive and still here doing this job is because we are keeping you close to watch you and because you have been our best inroad into those realms. So far.” She shook her head grimly. “I wish I could say otherwise and that it was care that made us continue but really—do you understand your situation?”
Lila swallowed. In truth she hadn’t really thought of how she appeared to the human governance at all. Her mind had been filled with other things. “I realise how it looks,” she said, stammering slightly. “But you can trust me…”
“No, Lila, I can’t,” the doctor said, sitting down in her chair and rummaging in her desk drawers. She finally found a small pack of tissues and some vitamin sweets. She offered Lila a sweet. “You just destroyed government property…”
“It’s mine by right!”
“Yes. I agree that it ought to be. Then again, who in their right minds would let you wander around in the wild without some form of leash? You were once a girl we knew. Now you’re something quite new and quite lethal. Your every action proves that you are far from what we would normally hire as a reliable soldier or agent. You are wilful and disobedient. You put yourself first, not the good of the human world. Parts of you are…”
“Machine, yes I know. Thanks for telling me. But I’m still me.”
“Machine and magic.” Williams put a sweet in her mouth and took out a tissue, folding it meticulously and dabbing her nose with it. “And you have an intimate relationship with someone who is considered a risk. We don’t even know what to consider Teazle Sikarza. By any normal standards of practice he would be classified as a security threat and refused entry. If his reputation is as you claim he would be shot on sight here.”
Lila was distracted from the conversation by her distinct sense of the creeping presence moving around them. It had been behind her but now it was behind Williams. It kept a distance, but it paid attention.
“You need me. You need us,” Lila said, entreating. “Malachi, Sarasilien, and a few goodwill flunkies aren’t going to be enough to help you in what’s coming.”
Williams nodded and fixed her with a level stare. “And what’s that?”
Lila counted things on her fingers. “Ghost activity rising, Mothkin, universal instability due to missing world seven… there’s three for a start. And you have the nerve to lecture me about responsibility when you were the ones who picked up some found piece of supertechnology and started welding it onto unsuspecting casualties. You don’t even know who gave you the blueprints.”
Williams folded her hands together and stared at them for a moment, deep in thought. “It was decided that the only way to gain insight into the technology was to begin to use it. We connected it to existing computers to begin with. When the instructions arrived we delayed a long time but it was decided they were from a benign source…”
“It was decided? No, it wasn’t. Someone decided that. Not you, I’m guessing, but someone. You have no idea who sent any of this. It didn’t strike you that you were being manipulated?”
“Of course. One assumes that is the case.”
Lila snorted. “Waiting for me to start shooting presidents?”
“Maybe. Do you see why we kept the controllers? We needed some way of stopping you in case it was a method of invasion. But there was always the chance it wasn’t that.”
“And what about leaving me with my arms and legs and future children?”
“The neural damage caused by the attack was so bad, Lila,” the doctor said. “You would have been in institutional care for the rest of your life.”
“It still didn’t give you the right…” she trailed off, feeling how pointless it was. “Never mind.”
“We thought that perhaps the machine and instructions were directed to us for a special reason, because the technology is not magical and neither are humans. We thought it might be the only communication possible from agents, perhaps from world seven.”
“What about the Others?”
“Who?”
Lila explained what she knew, from Zal and Tath and Malachi.
Williams listened and then she thought before answering. “Go and get rid of these bloody moths. That will go a long way to extending your welcome. If you care about me at all, take your entourage with you. When you come back we’ll talk again.”
Lila nodded. “One thing. I need the armoury, and the technicians.”
Williams waved her away, as if she had become trivial and annoying—probably because in light of what she had to do now in order to keep things running Lila’s problems were the least of her worries. “Yes, yes.”
“One more thing,” Lila said and waited until the doctor gave her attention. She pointed at the corner. “You need the special cleaners in.”
The doctor’s level gaze paused for a moment and she raised an eyebrow. Then she turned around and looked at the corner where Lila pointed. There was nothing to see with one’s eyes. Unconsciously she rubbed the shoulder that had been facing that direction until now. “Maybe I’ll take a walk,” she said, which was as close as either of them were going to get to an admission of anything.
Lila moved forwards and suddenly the presence was gone. “Never mind,” she said.
Why did it go?
When they are noticed they lose their power to influence, Tath said, as though it was obvious.
Pretty weak then.
They have been sufficient to corrupt all but the strongest, he replied dourly.
Will it come back?
Who knows?
“Lila?”
Lila found Dr. Williams looking at her and realised that her conversation with Tath had taken her far away for a moment or two. “Got things on my mind,” she said and then added, “armoury.”
The desk suddenly lit up with a rainbow of notices. With a groan the doctor trailed back around to take a look and then shook her head, “Your boys are here,” she said. “Malachi brought them in the quick way and now every alarm in the system is having hysterics. Must make these things more efficient. So annoying when there’s enough to be doing already.” She came back and held her door open for Lila, her face characteristically open and friendly in spite of all she had to do and say. Lila smiled at her.
“Demons,” said the old woman quietly as Lila passed her. “What are they really like?”
Lila looked into her expression and saw a gently curious, almost wistful quality there, as of someone who has had a lot of hopes and fancies and let them go. She answered as honestly as she could. “Terrible. Fabulous.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
She’d completed her trip to the armoury and visited the medics when screams and gasps told Lila where her lovers were. She realised the cause of the hubbub when she saw them with Malachi crossing the atrium where all the corridors finally met. Teazle was in his natural demon form—a dragon dog with quills and feathers and wings, white eyes like lit fires. D
espite still being horribly wounded, and partly because of it, he was excited and his skin and horns crackled with sparks. Zal was wearing a stripped down form of elven war armour over forest green cloth that rippled with shadows, his expression as serious as she’d ever seen it. A bow and arrows were strapped to his back and there were daggers in his boots. His long flaxen hair was held back by a complicated pair of braids and fell in a thick, sleek banner just behind his ears. He ignored all the humans and scanned the area with eyes that had gone night dark with predatory intensity. The sight of him took her breath away and made her whole body jolt. For the others present the twin impact of a celebrity, in what to them looked like a costume, and the shocking sight of an inhuman style demon who extruded electrical discharge and saliva whilst shredding the carpet tile was a bit much, even though in comparison to the rest of the population they were used to alien encounters and even though they’d had a lot of memos. Only Malachi’s graceful presence at their side, aided by his immaculate suit and faery charm, kept order.
Then she saw a small pall of smoke a short distance behind them and heard Thingamajig saying loudly, “I am with them, Madam! Unhand your foul netting, witch, or risk my eternal wrath!”
Lila walked out of cover, toting her forty-kilogram sack of supplies, and put it down on the marble floor, “Hello boys.”
Teazle growled softly and rubbed his huge ugly head against her thigh. Zal grabbed her in a bear hug, his cheek against the top of her head, thin and delicate body vibrating with power. He gave her a fierce kiss. They didn’t speak. The room had gone silent.
“Oh I’m missing it, I’m missing it!” screeched the imp. “Unhand me, minions of the unspeakable she goddess, before I write your names in the book of the damned…” Somehow he got free and came dancing and darting across the top of the administration staff cubicles, making a final leap for Lila’s outstretched hand. He shot up her arm, transformed into his jewelled form, and became a mercifully silent earring.
“Time to go,” Lila said.
Malachi tried to lift her bag, and then gave up with a roll of his eyes. “Next time just a purse and a change of underwear?”
“I’ve got it.” She detached herself as Zal let her go, her fingers lingering on his hand, and leaned across the dispatcher’s desk to sign the forms that would let her take a truck big enough to carry all of them plus her new bike the hell out of there.
Like the sergeant who usually manned the ammo desk, the dispatcher, Delia, was alone among her nearby colleagues in never being fazed by anything. Lila rarely crossed her path and so far they’d never done more than exchange smiles and various bits of admin. Delia was about nineteen, goth, tall, taller in stack boots, with thick afro hair pulled into two little girl bunches at the sides of her head. Black liner and purple glitter lipstick caught the lights as she gave Lila and each of her friends a good once-over—in this case the only person she ignored was Malachi because she saw him every day. She leaned out over her desk to get a better look at Teazle, popping her green bubblegum and showing an impressive expanse of black glitter-frosted cocoa cleavage and lilac corsetry.
Teazle licked his chops and tilted his head to get a better view.
Delia gave Lila the truck without even glancing at the manifest details, smacked a control without looking at it, and as she waited for the keycard to print out, reached down and tickled Teazle under the chin. “Ain’t you the cutest,” she said and boosted herself back onto her stacks to get the card out and hand it to Lila with a smile, a wink, and a thumbs-up. “Nice going.”
Teazle rumbled in his chest, a sound that might have been a growl.
“I am so losing it,” murmured Zal in a completely audible whisper.
“Oh no,” Delia said, rounding on him with an apologetic smile, “it’s just, you’re a bit… white… for me.”
Zal looked down at the utterly chalk white Teazle with his silver and blue feathering, shrugged, and shook his head, mystified.
“Demons are all black,” Delia said authoritatively, glancing at her screens. “Oh, sorry. Really sorry, I just forgot… I mean…” She was suddenly all apologies, most of them focused on Teazle, because their real relationships were still all mostly a secret and no human outside the few in Williams’s office had any idea that Zal was anything other than a normal elf. “Man, that was so stupid… I…”
“Colour me surprised. It’s fine,” Zal said quickly. “We aren’t the dwelling kind.”
Delia turned around and picked her jacket off her chair to show him the reverse—a beautiful print of Sorcha in goddess pose from her last tour. “We’re all really bummed.”
“Her too,” he said, ears flat to his head.
Delia sat down awkwardly, deflated and puzzled.
“Thank you,” Lila said to her, really meaning for the thumbs-up, which was a nice contrast to the kinds of looks some other people were giving her. “Catch you later.”
“Sure. Don’t fall asleep out there.”
Lila picked up her gear and they turned to follow her. She heard Malachi stop behind them and say various low-toned things to Delia with a smile on his face.
She loaded the pickup, putting her bag and Teazle in the back under the hard shell cover.
“Where to?” Zal asked, catching her forearm with a strong, arresting grip that made her look him in the eye. He looked tired in the fluorescent lights and put his hand on the back, ready to jump into the uncovered section, since there was no way any elf was going to travel in a truck cab that would cut off most of his aetheric senses. His hold was almost painful. In the direct gaze of his long slanted eyes she read easily that he wanted to be with her alone, that it had to be soon, that he’d make sure it was. She lost her mind for a second.
Then she got it back. “Home,” she said. “I gotta see Max.” She took the bike keys out of her pocket and held them out to him. He took them and the side of his mouth flickered into a smile for a second. “Trust me with it?”
A crackle of lime green energy shot up between them.
“No,” she said. “It’s for the pain. You know?”
His smile became a grin that said he knew perfectly. He tossed the keys up and caught them. “If I’m not there in an hour I’ll be dead.”
She nodded and got the bike back out for him. She was about to get up into the truck cab when she felt him jerk her back again. He kissed her. His mouth was cold and hard and desperate for a second and then he was gone, already at the bike. She heard its engine roar, saw it rock off the stand, and then go fishtailing to the exit gate with a scream of tires. Who knew machines could go weak at the knees?
Behind her Malachi gently cleared his throat. “I’ll be taking my own ride. We’ll gather at your house?”
“Yeah.” She swung up at last and pushed the card into the security panel, hearing the truck’s V8 start easily and the whir of its system boot. Behind her Teazle made a sound like a kettle, his head beside the air grille that led between the cab and the pickup back, and then sighed before whispering gently, “I’ll be your dog.” It’s what he said the first time he flirted with her. What he always said.
“You’ll get yourself into a decent shape by the time we arrive,” she replied, mastering the alcohol in her blood with AI control. “My sister isn’t ready for you yet. We need a real big bottle of tequila before that happens. And some kind of bunker when she discovers I got married and she wasn’t invited.”
He made a long whining sound, in perfect imitation of a real dog. Human form was taxing for him and he was, she had no doubt, very very tired after all the day’s fighting. “I will stay here,” he said wearily, far from the perky creature he had pretended to be in the atrium. Covering his wounds up with glamour had taken all he had left and Otopia was no place for him to make a speedy recovery. A twinge of concern passed through her chest. She wondered if she ought to take another look at him before anything else happened. But not here. She reckoned he was tough enough to last half an hour’s drive.
She
followed Malachi’s ancient ‘65 Cadillac Eldorado out into the dawn where traffic was already starting to build on the southbound Bay City freeway. Faint mists of grey dust plumed here and there, swirling against the windscreen. At the exit ramp there was a huge poster of Sorcha, advertising Demonesse perfume. Her expression bubbled with seductive temptation and laughter. Lila sighed. It was going to be harder than hard to get past this.
She pulled up in the driveway behind Malachi, completely blocking Max’s old Ford in, and killed the lights. The porch was covered in little carved pumpkins and red Chinese lanterns flickering with candlelight that was just visible in the beginning of sunrisegod, she’d entirely forgotten about things like Halloween. For a second she was frozen with surprise. Indoors she could hear the muffled barking of the dogs.
While Malachi put the hood up on his car she jumped into the back to take a look at Teazle. He had not changed shape and lay panting on his side. In the cold morning air his breath was condensing and dripping down on him from the cover.
“Are you okay?”
“I am poisoned,” he said, allowing her to examine him where she had applied treatments back in Demonia. In fact he had been poisoned, stabbed, and almost gutted. His hind leg was fractured and there was something aetherically wrong with him that she couldn’t detect except as a bad frequency trembling in his muscles. How he’d managed to walk from the portal to the truck was beyond her.
Her stitching and glueing seemed to be holding up but she was keenly aware that he needed more than human doctoring. “I’ll ask Mal if he knows a healer. Can you walk inside?”
“Hnn, rather not,” he said to her surprise. “House is full of fey. Pull all my feathers out. Leave me here.”
“It’s cold,” she said, while wondering what he was talking about.
“Go,” he snarled, losing part of his control. His head jerked up and hit the floor again with a bang.
Fighting back his demon nature, which wanted to kill her, she knew, for being strong here when he was so weak. At least they were alone, which mitigated the drive somewhat. She rested her hand on a patch of unharmed hide and was careful not to let any sympathy leak into her voice. “I’ll be back soon.” His aggression at least gave her confidence that he wasn’t going under just yet.
Going Under Page 17
