The combination of her and Zal was, at the very least, ill advised considering the sensitivity of their positions, the instability of their personalities. And then of course Zal had to mention the one outstanding issue that bothered Malachi the most: Lila had been one of Incon’s own, saved because of loyalty they said, but he was more than sure the truth was more like she got sucked into a job she didn’t understand the depth of, was hideously damaged because of it, and could have been pensioned off with disability packages. That had happened before. But instead of that she was made into a one-person army and there were other things that did not involve experimental, pioneering technologies. The word “victim” kept playing through his mind like a bacchante’s distant screech.
He decided to pay a visit to Calliope Jones.
Calliope was a brinkman, or, as they were known in Faery, a strandloper, one who was able to wander the edges of worlds. Even among strandlopers she was unusual, because Calliope was made, not born, with her talent. She had started life like Lila, unsuspecting and human. Unlike Lila, Calliope was made by accident and so far as he knew she was the only human ever to have seen one of the Others. Thus today she was good for two reasons and that set his intuition on a happy road, so he went to her.
The white body of Teazle was easy to track until he vanished in midair over a broad canal that lay between the mainland and the many islets and sandbars of Bathshebat proper. Lila saw him fade from view against the dark background of clear water reflecting the night sky. At the same moment all trace of him slipped from her heat sensors and radar. Whatever he was pursuing continued to flee, a blinking enhanced dot in her AI vision, but then, in midflight of its own, it crumpled for apparently no reason at all and then plummeted directly into the water below. There was a splash of white water to mark the spot and, a few seconds later, a bobbing body in the wavelets.
Lila slowed her swift descent and stood on her jets. Thanks to the speed of the flight and her nakedness she was now freezing cold and although many demons wore little or nothing she felt uncomfortable and vulnerable too. Without thinking about it she moved into defensive mode. Looking down she saw that the person Teazle had pursued was entangled in a silvery net which sparkled with magic. She was not used to magic, even now. Her human senses were not the rare kind able to sense whether such an enchanted thing was hostile or friendly to her and she didn’t want to touch it. The trapped person thrashed about ineffectively and then became more still as they managed to get their head above water. So, they had to breathe at least, she thought and looked around for any sign of the demon.
A hot, damp breath passed over the back of her neck. She scanned —nothing there apparently, but on the instant that Tath whispered, Chameleon . . . she had already come to the same conclusion and did not move. Undetectable even to machine targeting and scientific methods, gifted with nonspecific, nebulous white power—she could easily understand now why Teazle was among the deadliest of his kind. If he had wanted to kill her she would be dead already, so instead of bothering with fear she said, “Who is that?” and pointed into the water. Her jets roared softly, making the patch beside the floating captive into a blur of frothy white and steam.
“Your prisoner,” came the soft reply. “Your rules. I leave you to choose their fate.” There was a hesitation, then, “If you decide to slay them for their insult I only ask you do it at the party, for my mother’s sake. It would make her so happy.”
Lila took a breath automatically to give her opinion on such an idea but there was a crack like a lightning strike, only without light, and in that instant she knew Teazle had dematerialised. Simple air rushed in to take his place.
Pathetic, abominable barbarianism, Tath said with real venom. Disgusting excrescence of intolerant stupidity! His sudden burst of hate for all demonkind and everything they stood for was hot and fearful in her chest. Lila reeled for a second with the impact. It was short lived. Tath got hold of himself in another moment and shrank down again to near indetectability; a residual shimmer of loathing.
“He teleports,” she said aloud to herself, with considerable dismay.
There was some more thrashing in the water below and a few audible gasps for air. Lila extended a narrow fibre line from a reel in her right forearm and bent down to her lower leg where there were some small containers holding a few lengths of metal rod. Taking one out she bent it into a grappling hook and affixed the line to it with several carefully made bow lines. Then, careful of her jet wash, she manoeuvred herself into a position where she could catch a good hold of the net. In a few moments she was confident that everything could take the weight and locked her hands together to stabilise her grab. Moving slowly but surely she raised her captive from the water and began a stately progress up and up, over the water, rising until she was able to safely clear the approaching rooftops.
She did not head back towards the mountain retreat but instead took a route towards the flat landing deck of the Ahriman family mansion. At the end of her rope the prisoner, a relatively lightweight hundred and fifty pounds, twirled and dripped in silence. Then Lila felt a small vibration through the line and realised they were attempting to cut free. At this point they were several hundred feet in the air. Beneath them lay a labyrinth of tiny streets and narrower canals, covered alleys and tented squares. No doubt the fall was a risk worth taking. Lila would have taken it. Now she ground her teeth in annoyance, stood up on the jets, and gave the cord a furious jerk.
The net and its contents sailed up towards her and she dropped towards it efficiently, reaching out and taking a firm hold on the wet, cold body and the netting together. She exerted a great deal of pressure and heard the satisfying whuff of someone’s lungs losing a lot of air very quickly. They struggled and she increased her grip to vicelike, then they stopped. With a subdued roar and careful manoeuvres Lila deposited both of them on the smooth landing surface of the roof.
The glowing lamps that ringed the area gave enough light for her to see well by without adjusting her vision, but no matter how she adjusted it she found she could not properly see the person she was holding. The net was clear as day, wet and fine and spiderlike, glistening with tiny silver sparkles of charm. The body did not glisten. It was greyish and matte, like a shadow.
It is a dark elf, Tath said with surprise and contempt. Aether suckers . . . his tone became disgusted. Like Dar, but this one is magical and he was . . . less so. It is in shadow. If you release the net it will disappear into the wind.
It feels solid enough, Lila objected.
The person was like a thin, two-dimensional silhouette to look at, but three-dimensional to hold. It was extremely disorientating. Breezes from the lagoon drifted around her, making her suddenly cold. She wished she had worn her usual clothing and not the stupid demon dress. She wished she had not made such a grand gesture as to throw the stupid dress away.
Anyway, why are you so hostile? I thought all the elves were of one brotherhood.
We are a divided species. Zal and I are of the diurnal type. This is nocturnal. We collect aether. They hunt it. They are the vampires of our kind. I thought you would know all this, you being the favoured human of such a mighty elf as Sarasilien, and he said the name with sarcasm.
Suddenly the complexity of your civil war makes perfect sense, Lila said to him, losing patience with his casual bigotries. So, Dar was loathed because of his caste and his kind?
That is correct. Loathed only in the light court of course. But no great deal to the dark court either, because he was not truly theirs. People like Zal and Dar are of no value to anyone, because their loyalties lie only with themselves. This is why Zal can never return to Alfheim.
I knew there was a reason it wasn’t so bad to kill you, Lila sighed.
It is not a good idea to be powerful yet valueless, Tath said sharply. I am surprised the school of politics, economics, and international relations lets you out alone.
The simmering tension between them disappeared. Lila reckoned they were abo
ut equal. What do I do now, then?
It is entirely up to you, Tath said. But if you plan not to slay your would-be murderer you will need to neutralise them some other way.
You could talk to them.
I could, but then they have power over you, by being able to betray me to anyone here. Knowledge is power and whatever you have over someone else you should use only when it may be lethally employed. Value. You would be a fool to hand over knowledge without a great cause and this is not one. You will have to deal with it yourself.
Lila groaned inwardly, resenting Tath’s schoolteacher primness and hating the fact that he was right. “Hey you,” she said to the shadow elf. “What’s your name?” She didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one. “Great,” she said to them. “And while you’re at it don’t thank me for saving you from drowning when you were ready to finish me off. Speaking of which, why were you trying to shoot me? Oh, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It hardly matters. But if you have any tips for getting you into safe custody before everyone else here decides to barbeque you for dinner, that’d be handy.”
The elf took a small, shuddering breath and spoke a word. The world went pitch black and utterly silent. Lila did not lessen her grip. The net held. The prisoner cursed.
Light and sound banishing, Tath said. That takes a lot of aether. Just hang on. It will get tired before you do. At least there is one advantage to your mundanity.
She was almost dry by now but she felt even colder in the absolute darkness. She closed her eyes and when the elf moved she tightened her grip until it could barely breathe enough to live. After a long time the glowing lights of the landing began to glimmer faintly, or she imagined them, but then the Bathshebat night returned, soft and full of the sound of insects and many kinds of music.
If you want to get your answers, wait for dawn.
But Lila was bored of waiting. She used the net to tightly truss up the elf, paying no attention to what it looked like, and then with one hand caught in the tough webbing she dragged it behind her towards the door. The landing area was flat, smooth stone, so it would not be too painful. However, before she reached the door she realised that she had nowhere to save this person, nowhere to put them. The house did not have cellars due to being built on pilings, and although it retained a traditional Catchment where trespassers against the family could wait for justice, she didn’t think that leaving an elf to the passing whims of a nest of demons was wise. She was lost in thought, staring out across the lagoon, when she noticed the coloured smokes rising from the Yboret Souk where aetheric trading went on. Somewhere down there would be a demon good at casting who would sell spells.
As Tath saw the idea forming in Lila’s mind he bubbled with misgiving but she ignored him. “It’s a good idea,” she said, annoyed at how defensive she sounded.
It is a lousy idea, he said. Even going there is a lousy idea that stands out in the brief yet terrifying history of lousy ideas you have had since I have known you. Naturally, since you have no magical awareness and almost no cultural sense here you will go immediately to the highly sensitive area of aetheric business dealings and attempt to duel wits with some of this world’s most powerful and no doubt unscrupulous mages. You have a lot to hide, mostly me, so of course we must go straight to the place where we are most likely to be discovered and all because you cannot be bothered to wait two hours until the light of the sun uncloaks this shadow monger so it can be made to talk, when, I have no doubt, it will inform you that it is loyal to some unheard-of faction back in Alfheim determined to exact revenge on the person they consider to be the catalyst for the war. We do not even need to bother asking. Just tip them into the canal and be done with it. In terms of honour alone you would be doing them a favour.
Lousy, Lila said to him, going inside and then hoisting the netted elf over her shoulder for the walk down to her rooms. Listen to you. You’re getting more like me every day.
!
She thought he was right. He was always right, sod him, and she could not admit it, at least not enough to make her change her actions. Maybe she was even doing this so as to not feel like Tath was the one taking all the major decisions. Yes, that hit a nerve, she thought, feeling her jaw muscles go tight. But now she couldn’t go back because that would be a double weakness, it seemed, and so there was only onward.
The elf became suddenly doubled in weight and Lila almost fell over. It let out a piteous whimper that managed to be both very angry and very sorry for itself. Lila longed for the march to her room never to end. As long as she was moving she was okay and need not face the bothersome doubts about bullheaded stupidity and embarrassment which crowded her. But by the time this wish had formed she was already there and there was not even a moment’s hesitation before she dumped the elf on the floor and left it to struggle feebly with the tightened net while she went to wash and get into some serious clothing. That was the problem with having to maintain control, you could not stop moving. She thought this, moving continuously, aware that if she stopped something waited to overwhelm her which, if she continued, could not rise up and show itself.
Zal screwed up the ninth attempt at a letter and threw it at the bin. It missed but he didn’t care. His aim had been out on the other eight too. He looked at the hotel notepaper with dislike and then threw the entire pad into the bin where it lay curled up in the bottom, accusing him of profligate waste, selfishness, and cowardice. He walked across, recovered it and put it back on the desk, opened the desk drawer, took out the religious book there, and threw that into the bin. He suppressed an impulse to retrieve it and instead looked across to where Poppy, Viridia, and Sand were playing cards. They were using jumbled tarot decks and, after several attempts to decipher the game one time, he had realised that his failure to learn the rules was because faeries played with constantly changing rules, and the rules changed according to who was winning at the time or what the stake was or both. Because they mostly played in silence or communicating across some aether he didn’t have contact with Zal didn’t even find it particularly compelling to watch although the play absorbed the three of them, or any visiting fey friends, for hours. It was how Poppy lost most of her money and won all her pixie dust. She had a bad habit, and he grimaced with Malachi’s accusation about his own.
Yes, he had told Lila truthfully that his conjuration of Zoomenon was necessary for his health now that he was exiled from Alfheim. But exactly how it related he had fudged somewhat and now his head was filled with explanations that sounded like excuses. He had started the practice when he was in Demonia. It seemed a long time ago. He had no idea what would happen if he really stopped. Thinking about it made the idea of Zoomenon seem suddenly important, vital even. He disliked that most of all. Addicts never wanted to think their preferences had a grip on them, but that was how control always worked at its most successful. Zal ground his teeth and derailed that thought with what he had been attempting to write in the letter besides the admission of weakness. He had wanted to tell Lila about his time in Demonia and that seemed the most inexplicable experience of all.
Incon had sent her there to discover the mechanisms of his transformation, he was sure. They’d asked him and he’d refused to answer. She hadn’t asked. It irked him slightly. He had the impression that for some reason she preferred being separated from him by at least one dimensional shift and also that she wouldn’t have trusted his story. Couldn’t fault her instincts on that one, he thought. Even if he had been a great writer it would have been difficult to put into words and it would also have led, inescapably, to mention of the Others. Zal, like Malachi, was confident of human ignorance on this score and since none of them who liked to think they knew something about the subject really knew anything at all, well, a conspiracy of silence was the natural thing. He was so used to subterfuge he could almost convince himself it was in the humans’ best interests.
He set his pen down and gave up. Ahead of him the day was filled with annoying small events: magazine i
nterview, radio phone-in, rehearsal, some songwriting time he always penned in but had lost the habit of using. Thank fate Sorcha had offered him a duet role on her cover song or he’d have nothing to be doing. In fact the lack of stimulation here and the obsessive attentions of the fan club with its million human teenage elf wannabes and the rest of it was all too distracting. He needed a break. He should go to the place where music lived and find himself in that. Then he wouldn’t even care about Zoomenon. No. He definitely would not.
He called Jolene, the band manager. “I’m going to take a break for a few days.”
“You can’t. You’re booked into the studio the day after tomorrow for Sorcha’s track and there’s a concert a day after that.”
“You can put it off until next week. This can’t wait.”
“No, Zal. You’re always messing up the schedule. Just hold it together for . . .”
He ignored the powerless pleading in her voice, “I’ll be back on Sunday. It’ll be fine.”
“Jelly will go ballistic.”
Jelly was the owner of Zal’s record label. No doubt that was true and he wouldn’t have to face any of the flak. Jolene would get most of it and whoever was standing next to her would get the rest. He had a big mouth but he was mostly wind and noise. “I’ll make it up to him. I’ll write songs.”
There was a moment of tense silence. “Where are you going?”
“Demonia.”
“But you can’t . . .”
Zal apologised for spoiling her plans, honestly, and hung up. He watched himself from a short distance of detachment as feelings of annoyance, worry, and uselessness at his feeble position flooded him with the desire to run, jump, sing, or throw all the furniture out of the window. He felt himself grow hot with inner fire, but did none of those things, just waited. After a time the horrible feelings slunk away and the fire dimmed to a glow. He went quietly into his room and looked through his things, spoke with the faeries about his plans just enough to keep them informed, and then left by the fire escape.
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