Going Under

by Justina Robson

  He didn’t answer. She got down, secured the covered section after hauling her bag out, and met Malachi who had come around the side of the house to the front door. She was about to open it with her key when it opened for her and an ethereal, wispy, teenage kind of faery girl stood looking at them, blue eyes huge in her lilac face.

  “‘Tis most late,” she said in a childish, whispery voice. “The Mistress doesn’t like late callers.”

  “I live here,” Lila retorted, sounding like a bull moose in comparison.

  The fey floated forwards, feet barely touching the wood panelling. She blinked at Lila and then at Malachi, to whom she simpered and then giggled behind her hand, “King cat!” before leaving the door open and wafting backwards. “Naughty naughty pussycat,” she admonished as they passed her. “So many sleepy moths and hardly a dream left to scatter. What will we be eating after winter if things go on as they are?”

  Lila ignored this as so much nonsense, leaving it to Malachi to extract any meaningful information, and pushed on with growing disbelief. She had to step carefully, as almost every bit of floor space was taken up with sleeping fey. As her eyes grew used to the dim light she discerned smaller ones heaped on top of larger ones, and tiny ones on the radiator and the shelves and on top of the coat hooks. “What the fuck?”

  The lilac faery appeared in front of her, levitating, a cross expression on her pointed features. “No talk before the sun! Naughty! Miss Max won’t thank you big galumphing boot stamper for waking up good brothers and sisters.”

  Lila scowled and pushed past her. “Where is Max?”

  “She sleeps without a dream upon her bed indeed,” the faery scolded. “No room for big clumsy girls…”

  Lila turned in midstride and gave Malachi a look. “Tell her.”

  He made a sign to the faery and she glared at him but scooted off into the open doorway that led to the living room. Lila put her head around it and saw more bodies, some awake and in little huddles playing cards by candlelight. Teazle was right. Her house was full of damned faeries. On the staircase another one stood, poised dramatically. She was half human size, dove grey, willowy, and pretty with big round breasts and a round bottom barely clad in black silk that seemed to stick to her by static rather than any normal clothing convention. Her arms and legs were covered in silk stockings and bound with purple crisscross ribbons. The stockings were quite holey and her heels and toes showed through. She had silver grey hair, tipped with black, that floated around in its own way, curling gently against her skin to reveal and then hide a black dragon tattoo on her upper right shoulder. She had oddly light orange eyes and the pretty pretty face of a nymph.

  “You must be Lila,” she whispered. “I’m Nixas. Poppy’s friend.”

  Figured, Lila thought dourly, getting used to the extreme glamour that faeries liked to flaunt in Otopia. Then she was taken aback as Nixas literally flickered and became a perfect small male specimen, wiry of body and taut of muscle, before shifting into his/her female shape again. She smiled a small, shy smile and leaned against the banister where Lila had used to hang her coat. “Max lets us stay here. Things aren’t so easy for faeries now. A lot of us lost our jobs.”

  Lila rolled her eyes. She knew that things since the Mothkin arrived had turned against the other races, but not how badly, nor had she expected to walk into a refugee camp. She wished she felt compassionately warm but in fact she simply felt annoyed that her plans for a quick heart to heart with Max followed by some naked rest with Zal were all ruined. Behind her Malachi murmured greetings to various people and then to Nixas. They seemed to know one another vaguely.

  “Ah,” Nixas said in response when Malachi asked about healers. “I know something about that, probably as much as anyone here. Shall I take a look while we wait for Miss Max to wake up?”

  The Miss Max stuff was starting to irk Lila. She got the feeling that the faeries would all pounce on her if she tried to go upstairs or make any kind of noise. The dogs, who had barked at her arrival, were now quiet in the kitchen. Through the glass of the door she could see little lights glowing on in there. She bit back her anger. “We need to rest and eat here,” she said.

  “We?” Nixas said as the lilac faery floated by and gave them all a finger wagging.

  Malachi explained it.

  “Demons?!” Nixas said. A rustle of agitation suddenly went along the lines of assembled sleepers.

  “Outside,” Lila said, not adding—for now—as she thought it might make things worse. She didn’t understand why these fey wouldn’t like demons as Malachi had never had any problems. He came up close to her and murmured an explanation: “Demons have a history of capturing faeries for pets and doing various unpleasant things to them to extract their magic. We are the most powerful of the aetheric races, whatever the others like to think. On the other hand, the faeries know what parts of demons have the most use… It is an old war.”

  Lila nodded, sick and tired of all the interracial fighting and its results. She manoeuvred her bag carefully around herself to avoid whacking two hand-size creatures off the occasional table and nodded up. “I want to go to my room.”

  Nixas meekly let her past and had some kind of talk with Malachi as she went up. Lila stepped over a fat-bellied man with a strange crooked hat who had wrapped himself up in the hall rug and opened her door. Several pairs of luminous eyes blinked up at her from the plain futon mats she used as a bed and a mass of fabric shifted in the chair by the window. “I’ll be back later,” Lila promised, “and then I want my space back, whatever Max said.” She put her bag by the wardrobe and went back downstairs, steps creaking under her, until she caught up with Malachi and Nixas at the kitchen door.

  “Nixas says she’ll take a look at Teazle,” Malachi said, “but she’s afraid. So if he does anything, she’s not helping.”

  “And where are you going?” Lila glanced down at Malachi’s hand on the doorknob.

  “Breakfast,” he said and rubbed his stomach with a poor-me expression on his face. “Nearly five o’clock and I’ve been running on beer and nothing since this time yesterday. One of these guys is a pandygust and Max lets him use the kitchen, so… if you’ll excuse me…” and he went in without waiting to see if she did. To her total astonishment once the kitchen door opened a wave of warmth, voices, and incredible cooking smells came out, not to mention bright cheerful light. As he closed it after him the hall returned to its predawn darkness and the glass showed only a few glimmers. There was near silence.

  Lila glanced down at Nixas, who smiled nervously. “I will look,” she said, with a clear steeling of her nerve.

  “He’s not…” Lila was going to say dangerous, then realised that it was such a whopping lie not even she could fall for it. “I’ll make sure he behaves.”

  Nixas looked at her dubiously and then said bravely, “Yes, if you say so. Show me.”

  Lila led the way back to the truck. “So,” she said, trying for some conversation to ease the mood as she dropped the tailgate, “what was your job here?” She figured something in the hotelinos but Nixas just smiled enigmatically and said, “You can look me up on the World Tree.”

  Lila did the surf as she held out her hand and helped the small fey up onto the truckbed, unsnapping the cover slowly to give Teazle time to wake up and react. Then she saw what Nixas did.

  “Holy shit.”

  The faery coloured a delicate rose across all her cheeks. “I like human men,” she said, with just a hint of defensiveness. “They’re so stupid. It’s kind of sweet.”

  Lila closed the images that had spilled across the back of her mind’s eye. “Is that a triple X category?”

  “NC-17 mostly,” Nixas said, hanging back. She looked up. The dawn was glowing more brightly now, turning the sky and her skin a soft greeny blue.

  Up and down the street the lights of early risers were going on. Lila hurried. She didn’t want to be explaining the presence of fey here to the oh-so-conservative element. Under the cove
r shadow made it too dark to see.

  “You first,” the faery whispered, shivering, her flimsy bits of cloth flapping about her in an otherwise intangible breeze.

  Lila got the impression that the shiver wasn’t because it was cold. She nodded and crawled into the narrow space, able to see Teazle easily when she switched on her heat vision. He tried to lift his head up but finally decided to slide and turn it on his long neck the better to see her. She explained the situation and he grudgingly agreed to let himself be seen though he didn’t care for the idea of it much judging by the angle of his ears. Lila had to get out for Nixas to get in then, so she only heard Teazle’s sudden inhalation and rasping chuckle. “A water nymph. Ha. That’s funny. What did you say to her? That you could help me? Don’t waste my time. Get out before I get hungry.”

  The scrape of big claws against steel. Nixas shot back against Lila’s leg.

  Lila stuck her head under. “Stop fooling around. You need healing. She offered.”

  Teazle snarled at her. His sweat smelt ill even to Lila. She wasn’t sure that he was entirely in control of his mind.

  “I’ll hold him,” Lila said to Nixas, afraid the faery would give up.

  She slid into the crawl height space and pawed her way across Teazle’s body. He was still growling but he didn’t try to stop her. His gaze was baleful and flickered on the edge of self-control. She didn’t bother with any niceties like she would with anyone else. She just engaged some power and moved him around until he was in a position where her two arms and one leg could pin him and still let the little fey have enough room to see what she was doing.

  “It’s okay now,” she said to Nixas. The faery hesitated, then fluttered forwards, shrinking herself in size to fit better into the cramped space that was now almost entirely filled up with awkwardly placed bits of bodies. A lovely scent filled the heavy air and then, like a raincloud, gently burst, leaving clean fresh air in its place. Nixas dusted the last of some powder off her hands and briefly touched Teazle’s quills and feathers.

  She giggled, “No wonder you don’t want to be inside, demon.” She spread her hands out and moved them close to his body. “Now let’s see what’s wrong with you.”

  Teazle never let up his growl except to suck another breath in between his T rex teeth. His body vibrated in Lila’s grip, muscles continually testing against her hold so that the two of them seemed to twitch in unison. Nixas trembled but kept on moving her hands above him until she had swept as much of him as she could reach without actually crawling on him. She sat back on her heels.

  “This is very bad!” she said, her face a picture of girlish dismay, eyes huge. Rays of yellow had begun to appear in her hair, and areas which once been black in her were turning deep blue. It was the sunrise, Lila realised. She reflected the sky.

  “Do what you can,” Lila said. “I’ve done everything I know.”

  Teazle made a major break for it and Lila sat on him so hard she thought she was going to break something new. He snarled and snapped his jaws, starting to brew up a fury as she asserted dominance over him. At the same time she felt his body start to heat up in a new way. He was getting aroused. Trying to subdue a raging horny demon was a challenge she could live without, even when he was this badly hurt. It didn’t look like the nymph had any defences so she couldn’t miss a trick.

  “Hurry up for hell’s sake,” she muttered, trying not to sound too aggravated.

  Nixas gave Lila a female-to-female glance of amusement and some admiration as she, too, noticed Teazle’s changes of state. “He’s a real live wire.” The faery had grown in size, her colour changing once again to a soft blue lit from within by inner fire. Her mouth was dark as ink, eyes closed. Her face hovered a millimetre above Teazle’s skin, nostrils flared as she breathed in over his injuries. As she did so her body darkened fractionally and then she put her mouth on him in a kiss that looked like it was the precursor to a bite, and some flickering, thick liquid light spilled out of her lips and into his flesh.

  He hissed and ground his teeth, body going taut with pain, but he held still and when she lifted away he shuddered with relief. His snarl changed to a kind of purr.

  “That was the least of them, demon,” she said with strange relish, her eyes wide and avid, her fingers probing across him for the site of another injury. “It will cost me a week of work to fix you halfway. And Medusoid poison too. I cannot rid you of more than half that tonight. You will be slowed down, even if I can put you on your feet.”

  “Get on with it, strumpet,” Teazle growled, sliding his snout into the corner of the truckbed and pressing it there in an effort to help himself regain some conscious control.

  Nixas glowed and repeated her measures over another place.

  Teazle’s limbs bucked. Lila felt his bones grind in her hands and under her boots as his effort forced her to tighten her hold to a ridiculous level. Once he backed off and Nixas paused she let go a little just to keep his circulation going. Teazle rammed his head against the metal side as if he was going to bash himself into oblivion. One of his wings started to work itself loose under Lila’s forearm.

  “Be quiet,” Lila said, feeling the truck rock. “The neighbours are already bad enough. All we need is for one of them to come snooping over. They’ve already made it hard enough for Max to stay here, without giving them something to really get their teeth into.”

  “Alien sex threesome in Bay City suburban garden leaves neighbours outraged,” Nixas whispered and giggled to herself.

  “Just because it got you two million dollars further up the coast,” Lila muttered.

  “Oh I can still eat out in this town on that story,” Nixas said. “Moths or no moths.”

  Teazle fought and to distract herself from noticing his growing erection Lila said, “What are you doing here then, if you’re still good uptown in celebrity heights?”

  Nixas did another section of Teazle and then said, “They like me. I don’t like them. Their minds are full of filth.”

  “Forgive me for being a bit stupid,” Lila said, not daring to move as Teazle heaved and snarled. He slammed his snout into the truck and she heard and felt the metal dent. “But if you’re going to strip naked, dance and… um… entertain for money in the porn industry, wouldn’t you expect a bit of that?”

  “Oh I don’t mind pure fun,” Nixas said, coming up for air and glowing a lighter, paler blue. Her dark points were turning a soft rose red though her orange eyes never changed. “It’s not the activity in itself. It’s the intent. Those people don’t know fun at all. They want to punish themselves and others. They’re all mad.”

  Teazle had nearly got his wing free enough to move. It had razored bits of horn on its edges. Lila couldn’t think of a way to grab it without losing something even more dangerous. “We’ll have to stop in a second.”

  “I will do a general vitality,” Nixas announced, looking at the wing fighting steadily free, like an emergent Satanic butterfly.

  “That’ll make him feel better, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Nixas smiled sweetly as if Lila was an A student.

  “Get ready to run, then,” Lila said grimly, not even wanting to think about it.

  Nixas gave Teazle a speculative glance. “Demons are so hard to read for me,” she said. “I never know if they want to eat me or f…”

  “Probably both at the same time,” Lila said to discourage any thoughts Nixas might have of sticking around and finding out. She felt Teazle relax deviously and become languid and buttery as if he had fallen asleep.

  “At least they’re pure of heart,” Nixas said with a sigh. She took a breath and went dark like a light being hidden under a blanket.

  Lila heard and felt Teazle take a big, easy breath in. “Out!”

  Nixas darted past her into the daylight and suddenly Lila was holding nothing but thin air. She backed out of the truck and jumped down into the driveway. Teazle was standing in human form, dressed in his perfect dark blue suit, his w
hite hair hanging down his back as though just brushed and ready to advertise shampoo. Nixas had changed to her male form and was looking at him from behind the screen door, ready to bolt. Teazle was laughing silently but so hard he looked ready to burst a rib. Across the street Mrs. Pinkerstein’s Chihuahua started yapping. Lila turned slowly and gave the woman a wave but she thought it probably didn’t register since Mrs. Pinkerstein stood at the end of her own driveway, mouth ajar like a stranded fish, the Chihuahua dancing around her ankles and tangling them in its designer leash.

  Teazle made a pretend pounce in Nixas’s direction and he jumped and bolted indoors. In the same movement, fluid as a river, the demon turned to her, arms out wide, still laughing. “You didn’t really imagine I was so far gone I’d tear the place up?”

  Lila smacked at his hands but he was faster than she was and stepped out of the way. He looked relaxed when he did it, as if he hardly moved at all, but she missed him good. She shook her head in irritation as she turned and for a moment they played a little game of Wu Shu hands, Lila trying to grab his wrists and he winding out of reach. They danced along the path to the house, him backing up until his feet hit the porch steps when he stopped and made a funny fighter face at her, then dodged and pushed her so she tripped up the stairs, falling into a handstand on the top step to avoid it looking like she had been about to fall over. They both ended up laughing at the end of this bout. Teazle bent down and turned his head, hair falling across his utter white face and eyes as he tried to make himself upside down.

  “This poison is making me twice as slow,” he complained.

  It was true. Usually he could sit her in the dust in under two seconds.

  In spite of all her mechanics it was hard to hold herself on her arms. Her legs were so damn heavy. She flipped back to normal and heard a board crack under her. “So, coming in or not?”