by R. J. Blain
“Please explain what you mean by convert.”
Xena shrugged. “With enough work, we can change someone from human, or another species, into a unicorn. I guess we evolved since we have shitty luck reproducing. Well, part of that is our own damned fault. We live a long time, so why breed like bunnies? Humans don’t live as long, so they tend to have a bunch of children all at one time. We don’t do that. We take our sweet time about reproducing usually, and then we tip-toe around it, and then we’re old and no longer interested in having foals. Mom’s foal obsessed, and she’s absolutely unhappy unless she has a foal around, so she’s constantly seducing our father. He likes it, because well, he’s an attentive stallion.”
“And there goes all of my preconceived notions about the purity of unicorns.”
“It’s okay. Your preconceived notions were boring anyway. The reality is far worse. We’re, frankly, rather dull. I mean, look at me. I’m going to take over the world because I’m bored.”
I pointed at Dean. “And what’s his excuse?”
“He’s a male, Layla. We just went over this.”
“Xena, what nonsense have you been telling her?”
“That attentive stallions want women for food, sex, babies, to protect, and to pamper.”
Heaving a sigh, Dean bowed his head. “While some of that is true, you’re missing a few important things.”
“I am?”
“We aren’t eating our women. We eat regular food.”
Xena leered at her brother.
“You’re a disgusting pervert.”
“I am. But I meant a stallion’s duties include feeding her. To provide food.”
“Well, why didn’t you say that, you little idiot?”
“I just did, moron!”
“Can my card buy you both some common sense?” I asked, digging out the plastic rectangle that held the key to my future. “Does this card have enough money to buy such a thing?”
“Probably not,” Xena admitted. “But where’s the fun in being common?”
“All right. Focus. Dinner and hotel. In that order. I think I’ve reached my threshold of unicorn insanity for one day. Both of you, please behave. You already drove off the incubus who was supposed to be teaching me important things.”
“He’s an incubus, Layla. He’d teach you math by having you count the number of times he made you scream his name. That’s what incubi do.” Xena rolled her eyes and pointed down the street. “I saw a restaurant that way. We can start teaching you how math works while we eat dinner. We need to start somewhere and counting grains of rice is a good place to start.”
While I figured I’d done something during my incarceration to deserve dealing with a pair of rowdy unicorns, I already wanted to beg for forgiveness or a quick trip back to prison.
I understood prison.
I didn’t understand unicorns.
Chapter Five
I understood more about math than I’d thought. It was like someone had, over the course of my life, established the basic framework for mathematics without bothering to teach me how everything connected together. Xena provided those connections, and when it clicked, things started fitting into place.
I almost liked math until she gave me the menu and wanted me to make sense of the numbers. The menu proved a challenge, as the existence of the decimal point vexed me.
While I struggled to make sense of the menu and its evil numbers, Xena ordered half of the restaurant, Dean ordered the other half, and both took turns ordering for me. Then, since he hadn’t been evil enough ordering half the restaurant, Dean made the waiter let us keep one of the menus so they could continue torturing me with it.
Asshole unicorns.
“Everything has a value,” Xena announced, holding up one of the newly arrived egg rolls. “This egg roll is valued at two dollars. Two dollars is two hundred pennies. How many pennies are in a single dollar?”
As I had five fingers, and I understood the relationship between one and two, I discovered I could determine how many pennies were in a dollar with little effort. “One hundred pennies.”
“Correct. For correctly answering the question, you may eat this egg roll.” Xena placed it on my plate, and she dribbled some of the orange sauce beside the roll. “Dip it in that and see if you like it. I have just made a rule. Every time you correctly answer a math question, you get to eat. Otherwise, you starve.”
“You are not going to starve Layla while teaching her math.” Dean snagged another egg roll and placed it on my plate. “If you’re hungry, eat. There will be no food restrictions associated with math skills, so can it, Xena.”
“Why are you ruining all my fun?”
“Because your fun encroaches on Layla discovering Chinese food.”
“Oh. Right. You’ve never had this before, have you?”
I regarded the egg roll warily. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to eat this.”
“Dip the end, either one, into the sauce. Insert the end into your mouth, bite off enough you can chew.” Xena grabbed one and demonstrated. I followed her lead, and I discovered that whatever the hell was in one, it tasted even better than the cupcake. “Now, dip it again, and repeat until you have put the entire egg roll into your stomach where it belongs.”
“I’ll make sure we get actual utensils, as I expect the chopsticks would pose a problem.”
I expected a lot would pose problems for me in the near future. “Is this how people usually eat?”
While I’d thought my question to be a sane one, both unicorns stared at me with dismay before staring at each other.
Dean recovered first, and he shook his head. “No. You don’t remember much about life before prison, do you?”
“Not much. I was just in the way all the time, and my mother wanted to get rid of me. She ultimately did. I guess my father won’t be sending me cards now. The prison system always forwarded them to me. I never replied, though.”
“Because you don’t know how to read or write.” Dean scowled. “We’ll change that, although I’m not sure I want those humans near you.”
“Remember what I said about attentive stallions being protective? This is an attentive stallion being protective. If you don’t want him hovering, you’ll have to tell him no.”
“I’m used to telling people no using objects with excessive force. Does just saying no actually work?”
“Sometimes,” Xena admitted. “Not always, though. So, if someone doesn’t listen when you say no, fight back and request an angel to verify the truth. The court must abide by a self-defense request for angelic verification. That’s your right, especially in a case where you used self-defense to protect yourself. If you’re assaulted and take it to court, always request for an angel.” Then, the woman heaved a sigh. “You didn’t know you could request an angel, did you?”
“No.”
“Dean?”
“What?”
“I think you should trot down to the courthouse in the morning and make certain that the judge knows that Layla wasn’t aware of her rights.”
“I think I shall do that, if you can keep an eye on her while I’m gone.”
“I will feed her a cupcake for breakfast, and I think I’ll have it laced with pixie dust. She’ll have a good day. I’ll get her a good grade. She’ll want it after riding one of us—”
“She will ride me, if you please.” Dean’s tone implied he’d fight his sister over it, and Xena held her hands up in surrender. “Anyway, you’re borderline too young to carry a rider.”
“Damn it.”
“Her weight could damage your spine. No.”
Xena grumbled curses under her breath.
“How old does a unicorn need to be before being able to carry a rider?”
“Our species develops slowly. I couldn’t safely carry a rider until I turned twenty-five, but I was ahead of the curve. As Xena’s a mare, she’s a little slower on development. She probably won’t be able to carry a rider until thirty-five t
o forty or so. We can live for hundreds of years. Mom’s almost a thousand.”
Damn it. I hated new numbers. “I’m not sure I understand what a thousand means.”
“You’re in your mid-twenties, so you’ve lived about a quarter of a human’s normal lifetime.” Dean selected an egg roll and held it up, then he used a knife to cut it into four pieces. Gesturing to one of the pieces, he said, “This is what a quarter of an egg roll looks like.”
I regarded the three remaining pieces with a frown. “I guess I’ve really spent a lot of time in prison, haven’t I?”
Dean grabbed three more egg rolls and added them to his plate. “My oldest sister is almost four hundred years old. So, this is how old she is if counted in egg rolls that represent roughly eighty years. We’ll round up to a hundred since you know how hundreds work now.”
“Compared to you, I’m going to die young, aren’t I?”
“Not if I convert you into a unicorn. I promise you’ll enjoy the process.”
“I will?”
Xena reached over and smacked her brother. “No. You will not have sex with her so many times you convert her that way. There are other ways, one that doesn’t potentially involve you repopulating the entire unicorn race through her on your own.”
My eyes widened. “You can have sex with a woman so many times you can change her into a unicorn?”
“Yes. The mares can convert their man that way, too. Usually, people being converted drink a small amount of their partner’s blood every day for a year or so. That is usually sufficient. And it won’t work unless the person being converted genuinely wants it. But most conversions are successful, since unicorns won’t convert anyone other than their life-long mate.”
“Just so you’re aware, an attentive stallion wanting to convert you would have to bed you just about every day for five or ten years to convert you into a unicorn that way. You’d probably have a ridiculous number of children before he finished the conversion process, and well, he’d probably want to be extra sure. You’d end up like our mother, with a foal constantly around. And my brother, fool like he is and too much like our father for your good, would enjoy it.”
“Yes, I’ll enjoy it, and I’ll make sure she does, too,” Dean announced.
Heaven help me. One unicorn wanted to take over the world, and the other had much naughtier ideas in mind. I reached over, claimed one of the egg rolls, and dipped it in the sauce before chewing on it, pondering the best way to tell the unicorns they were out of their minds. Before I could inform them of the truth, the waiter returned with the first of the dishes, covering every inch of free space. With so many new things to try, I abandoned my attempt to tell the unicorns they were crazy and went to work exploring the wonderful world of Chinese food.
I ate enough for six people, only to discover Chinese food magically vanished from my stomach and left me hungry again after an hour. The hotel room, which had two beds, lacked any obvious ways for someone to feed themselves, and my stomach insisted it needed more food.
It kept growling at me.
“I’m not sure how this is going to work out,” I admitted. I let them decide if I meant my cranky stomach or our sleeping arrangements.
“You take one bed; we’ll take the other. Dean’s used to having me latch onto him in the middle of the night. We unicorns like nap piles. The last time we had a family reunion, everyone decided to sleep on Dean, since Dad tossed him to the wolves.”
“He took Mom on a date. That is not tossing me to the wolves. It’s my fault I didn’t run away like the rest of our brothers. Also, you and the rest of my sisters are not wolves. You’re blood-sucking vultures.”
“You’re so mean to me, Dean.”
“Just be happy Mom and Dad decided you were old enough to go off on your own.”
“Conditionally. With you.”
I needed to figure out how to contact Westin and kick his ass for abandoning me to the unicorns. I eyed the beds and their close proximity. “What are the odds of me waking up covered in unicorns?”
The siblings glanced at each other, and as one, they shrugged.
“Why am I hungry again? I just ate. I don’t understand this.”
“It’s one of the marvels of the modern world. I’m always hungry again shortly after eating Chinese food, too,” Xena admitted. “But it tastes so good, and then I feel hungry again, and then I get two dinners in one night, and there’s nothing wrong with two dinners in one night.”
“The only reason you get away with that is because you gallop around most of the time and burn off the calories. Layla can’t burn off calories galloping around yet.” Dean grabbed a black folder and flipped it open. “But as I, too, have mysteriously become hungry again, I shall order us pizza.”
While rare, pizza did show up at the prison messes, and I’d enjoyed it the times I’d tried it. Usually, we got it when we were well behaved as a group, which happened once every blue moon according to the other inmates. “I like pepperoni.”
“Well, that makes things easier. I’ll just get extra pepperoni. You can live with that, Xena?”
“Get one with pineapple and fungus.”
My eyes widened. “Fungus?”
“Mushrooms. My sister likes fungus and fruit on her pizza. Don’t ask me why. I haven’t figured that part out yet. She’s a weird one, but I love her despite her oddities.”
“You’re one to talk. You scouted active cases for someone interesting, and you requested to be pampered by a crazy person.”
“Before you get upset over that, Beanie, she’s totally right. I’m definitely crazy.” I was certifiable for going along with two crazier unicorns—and liking it. The liking it part concerned me.
“That is a horrific nickname.” Dean shuddered. “I’ll beg, but please never call me that again.”
“Clean? Sheen? Spleen? Dean the Spleen! Mean? Green?”
The stallion sighed. “Those are even worse than bean. Really, Layla? Spleen?”
“I feel my vocabulary is too limited right now.”
“Queen,” Xena suggested.
My eyes widened. “Dean the Clean Green Spleen Queen?”
“It somehow got even worse. I will order chicken wings, but please, no. My name is Dean. Without anything else attached.”
“I will not encourage Layla to come up with something worse if you refrain from trying to seduce her while I’m around.”
Dean pointed at the door. “Get out and get your own room.”
“No. That does not mean you can evict me so you can continue your seduction plans. She is unavailable to be seduced.”
I was? “This is not an invitation to be seduced or a rejection of any proposed seductions, but shouldn’t I have a say in whether or not I’m seduced?”
“Well, she seems to have the important, practical life lessons learned.” Xena pointed at me. “Listen to her. She has full say in whether or not she is seduced, and you’re just going to have to wait until she gives you permission.”
“I think you should go get your own room and leave me alone.”
“No. If I leave the room, you will begin your seduction plans. You do not get to do such a thing. You’re supposed to be my supervision, and I can’t take over the world if you’re busy seducing my sidekick.”
“You can’t have her. I saw her first.”
“I don’t care if you saw her first. She’s more useful to my plans.”
“How, exactly, is she more useful to your plans? My plans only involve her. I don’t care about the rest of the world. If you want to take over the world, do so properly without using Layla, if you please!”
“I do not please.”
I pointed at the menu. “Can one of you show me how to turn that into pizza, please? Also, I would appreciate if you showed me how to make that paper and my card turn into pizza. This seems like a very important form of magic.”
Dean wrinkled his nose at his sister before turning to me. “Ordering pizza is technology, not magic. To place a
n order, you use the phone or the internet. The menu, which you’re pointing at, just tells you what the restaurant serves. Since we’re at a hotel, and I didn’t bring a laptop with me for this trip, we have to use the phone. I will call the restaurant, tell them where we are, what room we’re in, and what we want to eat, and they will send over a driver. They’ll bring a device that can read the card, and they will take the money they’re owed for bringing us food. But I’ll use my card for this, as it’s my treat.”
“But how did your card get money on it?”
“When I’m not crashing court sessions, I have a job.”
“You do?”
“It is a very boring job, really. I’m on vacation.”
“For the next six months? How did you get a vacation like that?”
“I asked for it.”
“Who did you ask?”
“My boss.”
“So, like the prison guards in charge of assignments?”
“Essentially, except I work because I need to earn money so I can spend money. In my case, my boss is also my father, and my job can be done anywhere in the world. But right now, Mom is doing my job for me. I’m hoping it will prevent the next sibling from coming around for a few extra months.”
Xena clicked her tongue and shook her head. “He handles our parents’ finances. He’s the smartest of the males, and he likes stability. He’ll be very attentive, but if I’m not allowed to try to take over the world, he’s not allowed to be attentive.”
“Before you two start arguing again, can you do a demonstration of how food is ordered on the phone? I feel this is an important life skill that may prevent me from stealing again.”
Ordering seemed so much easier than stealing, even if I had to surrender the money from the card to receive my food.
“I’m not sure we’re adult enough to teach a woman the ways of the world without creating an entity of pure evil,” Xena admitted.
“With great power comes greater responsibility, and I’m going to misuse my great powers to teach her how to order pizza. Then I won’t worry she’ll be unable to feed herself should we be separated for any reason.” Dean picked up the phone. “Okay, Layla. I’m going to teach you how to read some numbers. See this number on the paper?” He pointed at a string of numbers.