“I don’t know about him starting it, but he did say that if I needed anything, I only had to ask,” Luci admitted reluctantly. “He even said he’d leave a lifelong pass to the Mother Ship for me at the Human/Kindred Relations building.”
“Well, there you go!” Rochelle threw up her hands. “The HKR is a just a few blocks down from us. You could walk there. You need to get your ass moving right now and go take the first shuttle up to the Mother Ship to talk to him!”
“It is Friday night and I’m not scheduled to work tomorrow,” Luci said thoughtfully. She usually did do Saturdays at the clinic, but she had this one free. “I don’t have to be back here until Sunday.”
“Call your mom, ask her to keep the kids, and get going,” Rochelle advised her. “Look, I’ll drive you myself if you don’t want to walk it, since your car is down at the overflow lot. Come on—we’re going now.”
The more she thought about it, the more Luci had to admit there was nothing else she could do. She hated to ask the big Kindred for help but she couldn’t lose her mom or her kids and Raze had offered to do anything he could for her if she ever needed anything.
She just hoped he would keep his word.
Fifteen
The Kindred Mother Ship was a big place—like a giant city floating in space, Luci thought, as she looked around her in awe. She wished she had time to explore it all, but she was on a mission to find Raze. She had already taken the tram to the center of the ship, which was dominated by a kind of park-like area surrounded by picturesque shops and eateries, but she wasn’t quite sure which direction to go from here.
Let’s see now, Raze said he lived in the Unmated Males Section, but where is that?
Luci looked at the vast expanse of green and purple grass and the green artificial sun shining down overhead. There were couples picnicking and kids playing.
Towards the rear of the large area, she saw a grove of green and purple trees. Several women with green hair and eyes were moving around there and Luci wondered if they were some kind of gardeners. If they were, they were like no gardeners she had ever seen before—all of them went barefoot and wore long, flowing robes.
“Excuse me,” she said, to a passing girl who looked to be about her own age. “But could you tell me where the Unmated Males area is located?”
The girl frowned and pushed a sheaf of wheat-blonde hair behind one ear.
“The Unmated Males area? You sure you want to go there alone?”
“Why? Is it not allowed?” Luci felt her heart drop. “Please, the Kindred I need to see it there. So—”
“Oh, so you have a guy there, do you?” The worried look cleared from the girl’s face at once. “You should be fine, then. Just go straight to wherever he is and don’t linger in the street or anything.”
“Okay,” Luci promised. She didn’t want to admit she didn’t know exactly where Raze was, for fear she might not be allowed to go. Surely she could find someone who knew him once she got there, she thought. After all, how big could the Unmated Males area be?
As it turned out, pretty big.
After finding the area the girl had pointed her to, Luci looked with dismay at the long streets of the Unmated Males area. It was located right off the big park area and seemed to be made to house hundreds of warriors. Rows of small but neat single-residence apartments, some several stories high, lined the streets. There were a few little shops interspersed with them, but it was mostly residential, as far as Luci could see.
But the sheer volume of housing wasn’t the most intimidating thing. Everywhere Luci looked were Kindred warriors and all of them seemed to be eyeing her with interest.
Luci had on her cutest scrubs with cartoon dogs saying “Woof” and cartoon cats saying, “Purr” in little thought bubbles, but from the way these guys were looking at her, she might as well be wearing the skimpiest bikini imaginable.
Like a pack of dogs hungry for fresh meat! she thought and shivered.
Suddenly, two of the warriors stepped into her path. One of them had dark hair and brown eyes and the other had light hair and blue eyes but their faces had very similar features which made Luci think they must be brothers. Also, both of them were almost seven feet tall.
“Can we help you, lovely one?” the dark-haired Kindred asked.
“You look lost, my lady,” the light-haired one added.
“Oh, um…” Luci took a step back from them uncertainly.
“Are you here with a male?” the dark-haired Kindred asked her.
“Or are you seeking a mate? Or possibly mates?” his brother asked.
“Mates? Plural?” Luci was taken aback. Dios! She’d heard there were certain types of Kindred who both married the same woman, but she’d never expected to meet any of them.
“We are Twin Kindred, lovely one,” the dark-haired brother explained. “So yes, if you mated with us, you would get both. Two strong warriors for one beautiful female.” He grinned charmingly. “I believe you humans call that a bargain.”
“I…I’m not looking for bargains…or mates, either,” Luci said quickly. “I just want to find Raze—that’s all!”
Their faces creased into nearly identical frowns.
“Raze?” the dark-haired one asked. “Who is that?”
“He lives here—at least he told me he does,” Luci said. “He’s really tall…or well, all of you guys are tall, I guess.” She laughed nervously. “He’s a mechanic. Oh, and he’s a, uh, a hybrid—I think that’s what he called himself.”
“A hybrid mechanic?” The dark brother frowned. “A hybrid of what two kinds of Kindred?”
“He’s half Beast Kindred and half…half…the half that has a dragon inside,” Luci stammered. Dios, they were making her really nervous. And other Kindred had started to take an interest in their conversation—several tall warriors were drifting towards her.
“So this Raze is half Beast and half—” the light-haired brother began.
“Excuse me—I really have to go,” Luci blurted before he could finish. Out of the corner of her eye she had spotted a little building which said, “Scent Shop.” Figuring that it must be some kind of perfume store, Luci dodged around the tall warriors and ran inside as fast as she could.
To her infinite relief, none of them followed her. She closed the door behind her and stood there for a moment with her back pressed against it, breathing heavily. She scanned the store but there were no other customers.
Thank the Blessed Virgin! Feeling relieved, Luci left the doorway and looked around the little shop. Since its sign had said “Scent Shop” she would have thought it would be filled with perfume bottles—like Perfumania in the mall back home. But strangely, there were no bottles or even shelves to hold them. The front of the shop was just a small, plain, bare room with white walls and a single metal counter in the back.
Well this is weird…
Luci looked around the empty shop, wondering if maybe it was closed down. But if so, why was the door open? Another idea occurred to her—maybe the shop had just opened and the owner hadn’t moved his or her stock in yet.
She hoped she wasn’t trespassing but she really didn’t want to go back out into the Unmated Males section and have to deal with all the horny Kindred looking for mates! Not that they were nasty about it, but a girl could only take so many big muscular men looking her over that way!
She was just debating on whether she ought to leave and try calling Raze somehow—though she didn’t have his number—when a most peculiar looking person came out of the back room area of the shop and stood behind the counter.
It was a man—(Luci was pretty sure he was a man anyway, because of his beard) wearing a long, flowing purple and yellow robe with a pattern of bright pink flowers printed on it. But it wasn’t his clothes that made her stare. The man had two noses—one right on top of the other.
The first nose looked normal enough—if rather large and with long, curly hairs coming out of the nostrils. But where the bridge of a normal per
son’s nose would be, there was a second, more petite nose instead. Both sets of nostrils quivered as the strange man inhaled deeply.
“Well, hello there, my dear,” he said, smiling at her. “And how may I help you today? Are you here looking for a gift or are you wanting to make some extra money?”
“Make some extra money?” Luci’s ears perked up at once. “What do you mean? Are you looking for a saleslady to sell your perfume?”
“Sell perfume?” The man with two noses looked confused. “My dear, we have no perfume here. Well, unless you count perfume of the intimate variety, that is.”
“The intimate variety?” It was Luci’s turn to be confused. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ah, I see. It’s your first time in a scent shop, isn’t it?” the man with two noses asked.
“Well…I mean, I’ve been to Perfumania down on Earth lots of times,” Luci said. “But I’m not sure if you’re selling the same kind of, uh, scent that they are.”
“As to that, we most certainly are not,” the man said emphatically. “What we sell here are the intimate scents of women for Unmated Kindred males to smell.”
“Really?” Luci was intrigued. “But…why?”
“Well because males love the scent of a beautiful female, of course,” the man with two noses said heartily. “Would you like to smell some of our wares? We don’t keep them out in the front of the shop for obvious reasons,” he added and winked.
It didn’t seem obvious to Luci at all, but just then she saw the two large Kindred who had been talking to her earlier staring with interest into the small glass window of the Scent Shop door.
“I’d love to see, er, smell your wares,” she said quickly. “Can we go right now?”
“Of course, of course. Right this way.”
The man with two noses raised the metal countertop and made a courteous “after you” gesture, indicating that she ought to come into the back of the shop.
Luci hurried to do exactly that. Following the two-nosed man through a small doorway, she found herself in a much larger area than the small, bare front of the store.
There were still no perfume bottles but what she did see were rows and rows of bookshelves. And every one of them was crammed with books. Some were fat, old-fashioned leather tomes that reminded her of the old encyclopedia set her grandparents used to have. Others were paperbacks and still others were as thin as pamphlets. All of them seemed to be shelved in random order and Luci didn’t see any titles or author names on the spines.
“Oh,” she said. “Is this some kind of library? Who wrote all these books?”
“The books are not for reading my dear—they are for smelling,” the man with two noses emphasized. “These are scent books. Here—allow me to demonstrate.”
Walking to the nearest bookshelf, he selected a book seemingly at random, and opened it up. Luci came to look at the book and saw that it had many little clear pockets in it, with a single scrap of white fabric in each pocket. It looked a little like an old-fashioned photo album except all the “pictures” were the same boring thing—the little white swatches of fabric.
“Oh,” she said, feeling disappointed. “That’s, uh, nice.”
“How can you know if the book is ‘nice’ or not unless you smell its contents?” the two-nosed salesman asked, frowning. “Here—try this one.”
He tapped one of the pockets with one fingertip and it opened at once, the clear plastic cover unfolding like a flower to display the patch of cloth it had covered.
“Now, just breathe that in,” he told Luci and took his own advice, inhaling deeply. “Ahhh! Such a heavenly aroma!” he moaned as all four of his nostrils quivered in apparent delight.
“Uh…all right.” Leaning over, Luci took a deep sniff and smelled…not really much of anything. The white cloth might have a faintly tangy odor but that was it.
“Do you see?” the man asked her. “Or maybe I should say, do you smell?”
“To be honest, not really,” Luci admitted. “It doesn’t smell like much of anything to me. I’m sorry,” she added, feeling bad for disappointing him.
“Ah, my dear—it’s all right. You cannot help that your olfactory capacity is so limited. After all, you only have one nose,” the salesman said sympathetically. “I weep for you, truly I do, not to be able to smell this exquisite scent!”
“Well, what is it, anyway?” Luci asked, her interest thoroughly piqued by now. “I mean, is it some kind of flower or plant or what?”
“No, no, my dear!” He looked shocked. “I told you, we sell the intimate scents of women here.”
“So this little cloth—you rubbed it on some woman’s body and then put it in a pocket for people to smell?” Luci asked hesitantly. This weird business model completely eluded her, but she supposed that maybe Kindred had a much better sense of smell than humans. Raze had commented several times about how much he liked her scent—she’d always thought he was smelling her shampoo or body wash. But maybe not.
“Actually, a young lady—such as yourself—actually wore this little scent receptor close to her body for a period of time. Then we treated it with scent preserver and put it into a scent book, dedicated just to her.” The salesman closed the book carefully and tapped its cover. “And she made quite a nice piece of change for it, too.”
“She did?” Luci’s ears pricked up and she remembered that he had asked her if she wanted to make some extra money. “That, uh, sounds like a really easy way to earn money,” she remarked.
“It is indeed!” The two-nosed man’s pale yellow eyes sparkled. “And we are always looking for new candidates to add to our little ‘library’ you know.” He cocked his head at Luci. “Might you be interested in trying it yourself?”
Luci was most definitely interested—as long as it was as easy as he claimed. Maybe she wouldn’t have to find Raze and beg him to lend her some money after all. She had hated the idea of doing that in the first place and if she could earn some in another way, she would certainly take it.
“So all I have to do is wear that little cloth? Where do I wear it? In my, uh, armpit or what?” Which was the smelliest part of the body Luci could think of. Though why anyone would want to smell someone else’s armpits in a book was more than she could understand.
But the two-nosed man was frowning and shaking his head.
“I’m afraid that’s not the kind of scent we’re looking for—charming as your armpits might be, my dear,” he said.
“I never claimed they were charming—Dios.” Luci gave a little laugh. “But if you don’t want me wearing the cloth in my armpit, then where do you want me to wear it?”
“Think, my dear. I don’t like to be indelicate, but what part of the female anatomy do you think lonely Kindred males most like to smell?” The man raised his eyebrows. “Hmmm?”
“Oh…oh!” Luci exclaimed, finally understanding. “You mean you want me to wear the little cloth right next to my…my…” She gestured at her crotch, her cheeks getting hot.
“Indeed, yes.” He nodded firmly. “And of course, nobody has to know you’re wearing it. I can supply you with several scent receptors—that’s what we call our ‘little patches’ as you so charmingly put it—and you can wear them throughout the day and then seal them up and return them to me when you’re done.”
“That sounds really easy.” Luci frowned. “What’s the catch, though? There has to be more to it than just wearing a little cloth next to my hoo-hah and then turning it in to you.”
“Well…” The man cleared his throat. “You do have to be, er, aroused when you’re wearing it. The more aroused the better, actually. And if you might happen to pleasure yourself at the time you are wearing the scent receptor, well…” He cleared his throat again. “Let’s just say that some scents pay better than others.”
Luci felt her cheeks getting hot. This man was saying she ought to play with herself while she wore the little white patch he called a “scent rece
ptor” and then give it to him to sell to some horny Kindred who wanted to smell a horny lady!
Having been raised a strict Catholic, the idea made Lucy blush. At any other time, she would have slapped his face and left for suggesting such a thing. But now she really needed money.
“How much?” she asked unwillingly. “I mean, how much will you pay me to wear your little patches?”
The man named a price that made her jaw drop.
“Dios—that much?” she exclaimed. “Really, just for that?”
“Indeed.” He nodded, his four nostrils quivering. “Would you care to do it?”
Luci didn’t even have to think about it. She wasn’t sure the money he was offering would pay all her impending legal fees, but it was definitely a good start. It would at least get her foot in the door at a good law firm, anyway.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, absolutely—I’ll do it.”
“Excellent!” He smiled broadly. “Then let me get you set up with a beginner’s collection kit. I’ll be back in just a moment.”
He nodded genially and then excused himself and went through another small door on the far wall, presumably to a storage area of the store.
Just as the door clicked shut behind him, Luci heard a familiar voice say,
“Lucia? What in the Seven Hells are you doing here?”
Whirling around, she saw Raze standing there with a horrified look on his face.
Sixteen
“Raze?” Luci eyed the big Kindred warily. “Why are you here?”
“That’s what I’m asking you!” he exclaimed. “Why would you even come in a place like this?”
Luci bristled.
“I came in because two Kindred guys were talking to me and wouldn’t leave me alone!” she said stiffly. “I felt nervous and I wanted to get away so I ducked in here.”
“Oh.” Relief filled his mismatched eyes. “So you just came in by accident then?”
Dark and Light: A Kindred Tales DUET Novel. Contains: Saved by the Drake AND Captured by the Kru'ell One Page 7