“When was the Hagler-Hearns bout?”
“1985.”
Nico made a note to view it later and then continued watching the match, reading the details that popped up. Shyla O’Fey, sister to Shayla and the vampire-witch the fight was credited to, cleared the pit of living spawn in three minutes, then entered the spawn’s own tunnel, her shots exuding warping light. She emerged two minutes later and climbed out via a rope hanging down the side, the remaining spawn rushing for her. But they attacked too late; Shy gained the top, unscathed.
“Going into the spawn’s tunnel was suicide,” the shoe shiner remarked. “Raised the odds nicely, though.”
“Shyla O’Fey is one of five fighters to conclude Slaughter Spawn unharmed,” Dorothy announced. “She is also one of two fighters to ever clear the pit and emerge before the six minute mark.”
Nico replayed the footage that caught Shy’s face briefly on camera as she departed from the pit area. Her horrified, frozen gaze held no victory.
“Her record has not been beaten,” Dorothy said.
***
“Shayla will be with you soon, honey, she has something to take care of out back,” the robot hostess said to Nico above the diner’s morning din. “Is she dressed pretty? Well, I’m not one for fibre clothing, but I don’t think she wears that cotton fabricated dress of Pantone colour swatch 13-1020 TCX for just anyone.”
Nico stood before the hostess’s podium, hair freshly brushed and shoes gleaming. The thought of Shayla somewhere behind the diner made her recall the wolf gang that had stolen the ribs.
“Yeah, Shayla thinks they’ll be back after spending the night in jail,” the hostess said, reading more of Nico’s thoughts. “First thing in the morning, once they’re released. Why do you ask?”
Nico looked at her, then spun around and exited.
She sped around the diner and heard the approach of motorcycles. As she rounded the corner she saw the driver by his delivery van, the wolf gang barrelling for him. The old cook yelled at the scullery entrance. Shayla stepped past her and into the gang’s path, her long skirt and hair catching wind. She turned to face them. Her bracing foot slid back just as Nico ran up from behind. The driver and cook scurried for cover.
Nico skidded, but the warping around Shayla’s body had begun. Adrenalin pumped Nico into hyper-awareness. She watched in slowed time as a cryptic shot’s recoil burst from Shayla’s back and lashed. The oncoming blast pushed against Nico’s teeth.
She collapsed backwards, the top of her head aiming for the ground, and felt the recoil’s air displacement ripple across Bear and through her sternum, shaking it. The force clipped her chin.
Nico slammed into the ground and dimly heard motorcycles screech and crash. She made her head rise.
Shayla stood calmly, her warping burst having shoved the riders and their bikes aside, sprawling them. From the safety of cover, the cook and driver looked on.
“Turn yer bikes off, now,” Shayla ordered. “Leroy, Séamas. Stand before me.”
Nico tried to rise as the wolf boys obeyed Shayla. She promptly fell back again.
Need a moment, still rattled, she thought to Bear.
The weird matter disruption had not hit like a pulse blast’s searing fist to the face. Instead, the recoil had punched past Nico, its accompanying shockwave then penetrating, exiting, and leaving her molecules shaken in its wake.
But even as Nico lay dazed, she analysed Shayla’s cryptic gun blast and formed a mental diagram, that of a lightning fast corkscrew accompanied by a shockwave hard enough to shove oncoming bikes.
Leroy shambled forwards, suffering the effects of the shockwave’s thrust against one side of his body. His bravado dissipated, he hung his shaggy head. Séamas glowered, but Shayla addressed them with authority.
“The Makepeace jailed ye fer brawlin’. When they released ye, ye tried tae celebrate with thievery. Dinnae justify or deny,” she added warningly when Séamas opened his mouth. “Are ye wolves, or are ye sly? Are ye hunters or carrion thieves?” Nico watched as even Séamas looked away. “Go earn yer licence to hunt, and then may yer mums and I respect ye!”
Shayla said no more, and the chastened wolves accepted that as their cue to leave her presence. They picked up their bikes in silence. But one who had stood by and dutifully taken the admonition then approached.
He was a well built young man with a scruffy chin and a forelock of red hair. He spoke low to Shayla, his attitude seemingly hopeful. He looked up from beneath his brows.
Shayla answered him, also low, and Nico was struck by the formality of the exchange, despite forelock boy’s provocative gaze. He seemed to accept Shayla’s answer with solemnity and returned to his motorcycle. The wolf boys turned their bikes around and roared off, Shayla watching them go.
Nico stood, unsteady, as the delivery man resumed his duties. When Shayla turned around, her eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh, lass, I dinnae ken yer presence!” Shayla quickly approached and held Nico by her arms. She searched Nico’s eyes, as if to discern injury.
“You are ‘To Sir, With Love’,” Nico blurted.
“Niky, did my recoil hit yer head?” Shayla said, baffled. “Come into Lucy’s and we’ll put a cup of blood in ye.”
“No-no, I’m okay,” Nico assured. She was embarrassed to have been that shaken when she hadn’t even been hit. Shayla turned to the watching cook.
“That’s me, away now,” Shayla bade.
“Thank you, Shayla. You have a good day.” The cook turned for the scullery as Shayla returned her attention to Nico.
Nico sucked in breath and a very familiar chemical sensation touched her tongue. She then understood why the wolf boy had approached Shayla. The taste was of the heat and arousal signal from the surface of Shayla’s skin, anticipating her moon cycle.
Nico’s fangs emerged.
“Chick,” Shayla said, both relieved and amused. “If ye can make such a face, then ye’re okay.”
Nico put her vampire aspect away and clasped her hands.
“I’ve a sudden need to get very Joycean with you,” she said. “And then we can calmly go for a chat. Or, I mean, I can calmly go for a chat.”
Shayla looked at her, wide-eyed.
“I’d really like to go down on you,” Nico whispered.
She stilled, inwardly damning her concupiscence.
Shayla nodded.
A janitor’s closet in the terminal; a utility sink. Nico topped the sink with its cover, lifted Shayla to sit atop, and placed Mr Bear where he could watch. Shayla’s mouth sought hers, but Nico ran her own mouth along the soft skin of Shayla’s jaw and up and down the muscles of her neck, her hands capturing Shayla’s hair. And when Nico descended lower, Shayla was with her, flushed and fecund, her hands tangling in Nico’s locks. Hot, hot quivering woman; Shayla’s breath quickened and her grip tightened. Femoral blood thundered against Nico’s pressed ears, and she buried her mouth, fingers, and mind, obliterating the memory of dead-eyed children with Shayla’s cries.
When Nico stood once more, the sight of Shayla’s satiated, roseate state was her second reward. Nico grinned, silly, and Shayla moved to kiss her.
Nico turned aside.
“Sorry,” Nico said, contrite, but Shayla held her close, cheek to cheek, until Nico sighed. She breathed with Shayla, simulating heartbeat and blood flow, and Shayla pressed her lips to the corner of Nico’s mouth, the contact long and loving.
“Thanks,” Nico whispered.
***
After a sex encounter, Nico would usually extricate herself and disappear into the night. But once she and Shayla were back in the spaceport’s terminal, Shayla kept her arm around Nico’s shoulders, her manner languid, and Nico felt being thus embraced was the only place to be. Whenever she caught sight of her own reflection (and entirely mussed hair) in a shop’s glass or in terminal windows, her double wore a goofy expression. Shayla glowed.
She is so rock star.
Don’t get creepy, Nico then warned he
rself. Shayla did not mean more by her affection. It was merely appreciation, as one would express when very pleased with a puppy’s trick.
Nico dismissed the hollow feeling the idea brought. Perhaps she’d invalidated her chances for being considered a person—a romantic interest—by acting the groupie. She thought of forelock boy.
“Did forelock boy proposition you?” she asked, curious.
“Forelock—? Oh, ye mean Aedan. Aye, he did. He wanted tae gie me sex. A giftie is how he meant, just as ye gi’ed tae me.” Shayla sighed. “He was temptin’. But I know his mum.” Her hand moved to the back of Nico’s neck, and her thumb idly caressed.
“He wanted to gift you? Really?” Nico had no idea sex gifting was a thing on Darqueworld. It made her think of sacred sex worship, like for Astarte.
“I’m really glad I gifted you properly then,” Nico said. “And that you chose me.” She then grinned at a sudden thought. “This is another first for me. I usually give sex to women for something in return.”
“Oh? Ye don’t seem the devious sort, love. Dae ye mean a blood donation, now?”
“I love a woman’s monthly donation,” Nico whispered, and Shayla bit her lip, her gaze sparked with interest. But Shayla shuttered the reaction, and her hand fell away from Nico’s neck.
“Chick,” Shayla said. “I think ye had questions for me?” She then paused in their walk.
Something had caught Shayla’s attention behind Nico, and Nico turned around.
A lobby’s holo display played the news for waiting travellers. The dark figure of a slim girl in short skirt hurried across a parking lot before a boarded up ranch house. Mr Bear’s shape against Nico’s body was unmistakable.
Nico turned back.
“Now that we’ve seen the janitor’s closet, why don’t we find someplace bigger?” she quickly suggested. “For chatting.” She took Shayla’s arm and led her away.
***
The manicured john at the ranch house happened to be a high profile councillor of the city-state, and that breaking news played everywhere in the terminal.
Nico sat stiffly at a tiny bar table while Shayla sat across, watching yet another holo projection of the ranch house story over Nico’s shoulder. The bar had been the nearest place Nico had hurried Shayla into, filled with weary travellers. Just as the server brought Shayla her orange juice and Nico an overpriced shot glass of blood, the morning program cut away to the ranch house news.
Shayla finally looked at her, and Nico stiffened more. Shayla’s scrutiny expressed—in fleeting succession—disbelief, amusement, and then aroused curiosity.
“Can—can I say,” Nico said. Before I ruin things. “As a girl to a girl? That your dress is really pretty. I love the eyelets, and the crochet pattern. And the scalloped edges. Is that Pantone colour ‘apricot’?”
Shayla smiled.
“What would ye like tae talk about, Niky,” Shayla said, her tone gentle.
Nico composed her thoughts, and Shayla drank her orange juice and waited.
“If I can understand how Darqueworld works—at least in some aspects,” Nico began. “Then perhaps certain things will become clear to me. There’s a mystery I hope you can explain, and it seems a very witch-like thing, this mystery.”
“A mystery? There are many of those, love, and I’m not so wise as that.”
“Heh.” Nico thought of crones. Shayla was hardly that. “Well it’s—like here we are, having travelled by conventional means. From Lucy’s to this spot. Or, uh, from the janitor’s closet to this spot. But when I first arrived on this planet and was in immigration...poof. I was moved around in places without my moving.”
“Ah, veil work. That’s pure magic.”
“Do—do you mean magic, as in great? Or magic as in magic.”
“Oh, as in great,” Shayla said. “Pure quality—that’s a belter, veil work, it’s so subtle. When done well, it feels like no change at all.”
“That’s what it felt like,” Nico said. “Was I passed around in dimensions? Or corridors?”
“It’s dimensions, chick.” Shayla smiled. She pondered a moment. “If ye don’t mind makin’ a wee excursion, I can show ye what I mean.”
***
They left Jifk Spaceport by the Five, and with the news no longer present, Nico relaxed and chatted, while Shayla lounged and listened, her own body and attitude at ease. Nico did not talk of what happened that night, but of—
“Her name is Esche—it means Ash, for the ash tree,” Nico said. “My canvassing turned up nothing and I have no leads. But at least I’ve ruled out the hostel’s surrounding streets.”
“It was good of ye tae become her champion,” Shayla said, her tone warm. Nico pulled out her Id and showed her Esche’s holo photo.
“Oh, she’s lovely.” Shayla touched the projection.
“Hopefully she’s safe somewhere, and I’m just being a paranoid goof. And when she finds out I made myself her champion, laughs at the idea, and then tells me to get lost?” Nico said. “It would be worth it. If someone had done the same for me—”
I would have wanted it. I would have wanted it so badly. Save me.
“I guess I wouldn’t have minded,” Nico said.
“Again Friends,” Shayla mused. “I’ve not heard of them. Are they new?”
“Perhaps they are.” Nico refrained from consulting Dorothy. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay at the Y like you suggested. It was perfect. I love nice things and especially what tastes nice.” Shayla smiled at her words. “But I didn’t exactly arrive with a suitcase full of gold bullion,” Nico added.
“Darqueworld values yer natural gifts,” Shayla said. “Even more than how much ye can spend.”
“I’m not sure I—” Nico thought of Esche’s psionic scores and of the blinding flashes in the hologram room. “Or maybe I am good at something. At least they thought so. This may be the first countr—planet, I mean, that lets people in with their arsenal. But then I read that they had to because of the magic-wielders and psionics. Your weapon is you, isn’t it?”
Shayla’s mouth quirked, enigmatic.
Nico made a pistol with her hand. “Pow, pow.” Shayla grabbed it and brought it down.
“Wissht,” she admonished.
“Still,” Nico said, as Shayla let go. “I could have been an awful person.” Like my maker. “And I don’t mean one with exceptional skills or knowledge that can make the under-holarchy look the other way. I mean a waste of space and DNA, murderous animal. I could be that.”
“They’d have destroyed ye on entry if that were so,” Shayla said casually.
“By just asking me if I was a mass murderer?” Nico said, incredulous.
“Ehm, no, there’s a Po present when ye arrive. They’re a telepathic race. Ye might’ve seen one; they appear as huge heads.” She motioned around her own head.
“A telepathic head? Isn’t that illegal?”
“I believe they’ve a sign up that telt ya. The telling is required by law.” She squeezed Nico’s arm. “The Po saw nothin’ wrong with ye. Ye’re okay.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Nico murmured, but she smiled.
***
The train station let out on a business sector’s street right before the building they intended to visit. Nico lost all idle speculation on whether she’d get an impression of being in some version of Manhattan, because it was nothing like Manhattan.
They exited into a great circle with an impressive central fountain, shooting high-reaching geysers. Buildings curved around the circular plaza, but it was the structure they were visiting that made Nico pause and stare up at what seemed an infinite, undulating glass edifice.
“Darqueworld’s Immigration Centre, love,” Shayla said, “one of three on this world.” Organic steel blue framework formed a lattice and twined through the building of shining glass, reaching for the sky. Nico craned her neck and brought Bear up to look too.
“This is too beautiful for a governmental building,” she soft
ly exclaimed. It was a rocketing, beanstalk tower, and with its shooting fountains, perfectly phallic. “Heh,” she added.
“Aye, and it’s the tallest, for it must receive the sun, all around. When ye take your citizenship’s oath, Niky, it will be before the face of Merope and her witnesses.”
“Face the sun without burning up?” Nico murmured. “That’s too much to ask.”
“Shall we, Niky?” Shayla asked, smiling.
“Yes,” Nico answered, excited, and they climbed the great steps for the building’s forecourt.
They did not enter the building, though Nico could peer past the entrance and into the busy lobby. Shayla led her around the building’s forecourt and to the side. Ahead, a garden courtyard lay, cloaked in the building’s shadow.
They entered the space. Again, beauty created by and for a governmental place impressed Nico; the design was of a Zen rock garden, with ordered and sculpted green growth, sand designs, and gravel paths. Even the noise of the city faded from her perceptions, muted by unseen means. A simple arch stood on one path, and it reminded Nico of the one she entered at the airfield. A plaque on a pedestal read:
By our gift
This temple given
Enter
And be lightened
The plaque was simply that, not even programmed to emit a holo message. Nico could see through the arch into the garden’s other side. Shayla stopped before it.
“Here lies a veil,” Shayla said. “One where you may enter a dimension, love. From one slice to another, then back again.”
“Why aren’t we all travelling like this?” Nico said. “Like Star Trek teleportation?”
“It’s a secret used only by celestials and the under-holarchy, Niky, and even then, it’s forbidden knowledge. Sacred.”
“Don’t tell me witches don’t try it too,” Nico said. “Nothing’s sacred.” She touched the arch itself.
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