Keeping It Real

by Justina Robson

  In her heavy armour Lila was now taller than he was, and well aware that she must look freakish. Zal was grinning by the time he reached her. He touched the back of her gauntleted hand with his fingertips in a curious, fleeting gesture.

  “Is this what you went to get?”

  “I read your letters,” she said, considering that adequate explanation.

  “I need to stay here tonight,” he countered. “Anyway, I thought you read them before.”

  “Oh yeah, the elvish stuff on the surface all about the way you’re bringing the race into disrepute and corrupting the magic of the old kingdoms. Death to the infidel bringing shame on all their houses. And then I read the other things. I think you and me need to have a talk, don’t you?”

  But in the time it had taken for them to get this far Sorcha had followed her curiosity. She slid in under Zal’s arm and wrapped her long tail around his waist. “Who’s this, Zal?”

  Sorcha looked Lila up and down much as her followers had done, and Lila was surprised by the interest, approval and admiration she saw there. She hadn’t met many demons, and then only before her accident. They had a universal adoration of strange, occult or unusual things and now Lila realised that she must be one of those things.

  “Hey girl,” Sorcha said to her with a respect that confused Lila even more. She’d thought someone like that, so famous and powerful, would brush her off as invisible, or worse.

  Sorcha’s eyes were red fire, surrounded by yellow glowing lava where white would have been. Her mouth covered beautiful, sharp white teeth. She really was astonishingly sensual. Nearly naked, she purred up against Zal’s side and moved closer to him, teasing.

  Lila kept her face completely still. She felt angry at Zal and angry with herself and could not, would not admit that she was hugely disappointed. She suppressed a blush with a self-administered shot from her resupplied internal medic system. She wouldn’t give way. No way.

  Zal’s smile broadened as he looked into Lila’s face. He took his hand from Sorcha’s shoulder and slapped it on her bottom, giving her a pinch and making her squeal. “Sorcha, this is Lila, my new shadow. Lila, this is Sorcha, also known as Sorcha the Scorcher. My sister.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lila was still reeling over the revelation an hour later. She had communicated with Sarasilien about it and to begin with he had not believed her. He said that it must be some publicity stunt. But Sorcha insisted it was true. The conversation had taken them out of the party room and up to Zal’s where they continued talking as he packed.

  “Don’t you have opposed magical… I mean aetheric… I mean, aren’t you antibodies or something? Elf and demon… like… ?”

  “Angel and demon?” Sorcha laughed and snarled at the same time, quite a feat. It showed her pointed little teeth. “They can’t be blood related like you mean by the word brother and sister, no. For sure not.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head at the idea, laughing and snorting. “No.”

  “So he isn’t your brother.”

  “Yeah he is so, and anyone who says otherwise or treats him like he isn’t of our estimable kin incurs my family’s eternal vengeance.” Her tone left no doubt that she meant it quite literally.

  “Family of choice?” Lila suggested, not beginning to imagine what choice that was from Zal’s point of view.

  “Hell no. How could some elf live with demons and what demon would want to claim relation to one of them?” Sorcha stared at her as if Lila had suggested bestiality. “How could we have kinship? Are you out of your mind?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” Lila said patiently. “I never heard of anyone being… adopted… across species. Especially not across your two.”

  Sorcha grinned and a little steam rolled off her.” Well, I ain’t gonna tell you, sister. You have to find it out for your bad self. It’s not something that can be told. Only known. See?”

  Lila did not see. “It’s a secret, then?”

  Sorcha shook her head and narrowly missed igniting the curtains with a dismissive flick of her hand that sent small jets of fire from the tips of her fingers.

  Lila nodded and sent her findings back to Sarasilien. Finally, rather desperately, she asked, “So, are you going be… are you an elf sister, then?” The demon froze and Lila braced herself, eyes squinting, in case she was about to be barbecued.

  Sorcha peered at her with blazing eyes. “Do I LOOK like an elf to you, baby?” Then, relenting, she shook herself and laughed. “Me, get into all that health food and macrame? You have to be joking. I’d sooner cut off my left tit” She jerked upwards with one talon of a thumbnail and made a slicing action, snorted and stamped her foot. A fine tremor ran through the floorboards and the carpet suddenly gave off a singed smell. Sorcha hummed a little tune to herself, chuckling, “What demon would ever want to do that? In fact, what living being of any soul at all? Hah!”

  “So, it’s rare,” Lila said.

  “Far as I know, sugar, he’s the only one,” Sorcha said. “Only one with any brains at all but that don’t mean he has many.” She sighed. “I’m so into him. Isn’t he great?” After this point Lila was only there to listen, as Sorcha didn’t seem to need responses and had no intention of returning to their subject. “I love Mode-X. So dark and bad. So funky. I might do some of it myself. Hey what is taking you so long, Legolas? Is all this stuff going with you?” Sorcha gestured at the room’s furnishings.

  “None of it’s mine,” Zal said, placing some worn-looking clothes into a carryall. “Except the painting.”

  “Oh, Titia gave you that? Hah. Pity she’s a faery.” Sorcha paused and confided to Lila, “Elves put faeries to sleep in close contact. It’s the aura thing, y’know?” Then she continued to Zal, “And all your girls here the same, it’s like a freakin’ nunnery. Are you getting rootsy for Alfheim now you’ve left home? Going puritan on me?” She kept darting little glances at Lila as she spoke, full of mischief. That was in between the time she spent opening drawers and sniffing around the room, trailing her perfectly manicured fingers along the surfaces, restlessly moving. Finally, she seemed contented and curled up like a cat in the middle of the bed.

  Zal ignored her with filial contempt and went into the long, walk-in dressing room, closing the doors after himself.

  Sorcha instantly turned to Lila, rolling over onto her stomach. “There’s a Game between you two, isn’t there?” Her hair waved around her face in tendrils of living fire that was only prevented from burning the house down by careful enchantments.

  Lila refused to confirm or deny it. She was trying to retain a professional detachment with which she could vaguely impress Sorcha, but it was a pointless effort since demons were known for their affinity to wild magic. They couldn’t control it any more than anybody else, but they could sense and read it with unmatched aplomb.

  Sorcha’s grin of delight intensified, “Oh, my, you have it bad! What is it?”

  Lila shrugged, suitably ignorant for a human.

  “Ah, you don’t know yet. Want me to find out for you?” Sorcha’s long, pointed tongue was out, licking her glossy lips in anticipation. “Go on, before he comes back. It might give you an advantage. I’m really good at these things. Quick, give me something of yours.” She bounced across the bed to Lila and held her hand out.

  Although Lila could think of a hundred reasons why not, she found Sorcha’s enthusiasm and personal charisma impossible to withstand. Worse than an elvish glamour. And her care for Zal was indisputable, oddly, for demons and elves generally were well known as having no time for one another. So, despite her misgivings, Lila found herself opening a zipper on her jacket.

  Sorcha was dancing with excitement as Lila handed her a flechette round from her pocket. “I like you so much!” she exclaimed, turning the bullet over in her fingers. “Personal weapons of grisly death! And now something of Zal’s. Oh!” She leapt over and touched the round to the painting and hummed a note. A faint werelight grew between the two objects. As it st
rengthened into wavelengths even Lila could see Sorcha gently moved the round away from the picture frame. A fragile skein of near invisible tendrils stretched out in the air between, and the spider’s web of lines briefly moved into letters of the demonic language before they vanished.

  “Aaah!” Sorcha squealed. “Zal you bad, bad dog!” To Lila she turned around and gathered herself and came and sat down, pulling Lila close to her. Her red eyes zipped with glee. “Girl, didn’t your Momma ever tell you never play with the elves?” Her changes of mood made Lila feel dizzy. Sorcha was now as concerned and intent as a kind mother herself. “This is the oldest Game there is, honey. You know what I mean?”

  Lila didn’t know how to respond at all. She was out of her depth. She kept a thoughtful silence. This increased Sorcha’s pity, which Lila could have done without.

  “Let’s see what the Victory condition is.” The succubus slowly turned the round in her hand and sang a few notes to it. She listened, her blazing eyes closed for a moment. “Ah. Not too bad,” she gave Lila a wink. “The loser is the one who cracks first and begs the other one to end the Game. The oldest ones are the best. Now the Forfeit.”

  “Forfeit. Isn’t that it, when somebody wins?”

  “You really washed in on the last tide,” Sorcha said. “There’s always a Forfeit, though most humans don’t know that until it’s too late.” She went to the painting. “I can even tell you who started it. D’you want to know that too?”

  “No,” Lila said. “That’s enough already.” She was wondering what the Forfeit had been on the other Game, and if it had been avoided. Surely Sarasilien would have told her of it? Was there a compulsion lying on her now that she didn’t know about? She couldn’t believe he would cross her like that.

  “Honey don’t be down.” Sorcha pressed the round gently into Lila’s hand. “People are playing this stuff all the time, it’s no big. What? What’s the matter? You’re not thinking of quitting are you?”

  Lila glanced at the dressing room but there was no sign of Zal. She decided, on an impulse she might well regret, to take Sorcha at face value. She told her about the letters. “I’m obliged to lose,” she said. “It’s in the way. So, if all I have to do is…”

  “No no no no,” Sorcha rapped smartly. “You have to mean it. That’s the condition. It has to be genuine lust that makes him beg for your favour, lust over sense with every last shred of personal pride biting the dirt. Otherwise it isn’t worth the entry charge, is it? Trust me. I’ve played this before a hundred times. Loser cracks first and then the Forfeit—well, no, then the rooty, unless you’re playing a real bastard, and then the Forfeit. Forfeit could be anything. You have to watch those.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lila said, biting down irritation at the wretched binding rules of the magic and her ignorance of them. “Can you lift the Game?”

  Sorcha waved her hand dismissively. “No. Don’t look so worried. I have four or five on all the time. Life’s no fun at all without them. Sometimes I can’t even remember who’s playin’ what on whom. Look though, before you lose, if you could lose even, don’t you think you’re better off knowing the Forfeit at least? No sense in suffering agony over a tin of kitty food, and no sense giving in sight-unseen on eternal banishment to Zoomenon or something. Here, let me.” And before Lila could stop her Sorcha stood up and spat onto the polished wooden chest of drawers beneath the painting. She sang a complicated melody and extended one of her fingernails into a claw. With this she scratched a mark into the saliva. It shaped itself and froze into a tiny lens like a magnifying glass. Beneath it the forfeit could be read, as though it was stamped into the wood in clear letters. Lila bent close.

  “Still wanna lose?” Sorcha asked, clearly surprised.

  The spit window frosted, and deliquesced to nothing with a few greyish flickers. The Forfeit it had shown her was etched in Lila’s mind: the loser will live a lifetime never being able to love anybody else.

  Curiously, she found the idea almost comforting. She might have to suffer a brief and difficult short-term period of fixation on Zal, true, but he’d leave as soon as the Game was done, and she was used to living far away from people she cared about. Very used to it. It wouldn’t be so hard to put another picture in her pocket and, after that, have the security of knowing that she’d be in no emotional danger ever again.

  Sorcha was staring at her. “You scarin’ me now,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh come on,” Lila retorted. “The alternative is having your brother love me for the rest of his life, and he’s going to live for centuries, and then… gods know what.”

  Sorcha made a warding sign at the mention of gods. “You listen to me, Metal Molly. I’ve seen a hundred girls looking for the right angle or minute or chance with him, and I never liked one of them as sister material. But there’s something about a huqaan girl who’s been made over into a death machine with the fires of hell driving her…” She gave Lila a long glance and Lila knew that Sorcha was talking about the reactor—something she shouldn’t have known anything about at all. It was one of the many things she would have questioned her on, but Sorcha hadn’t paused to let a word in. “And that makes me feel for you, makes me like you, and I can think of worse fates that might be riding much closer to him than that, can’t you?”

  Lila almost gaped with astonishment, but managed to turn it into talking. “What do you know?”

  “I know that you’re supposed to protect my brother from these maniacs and I want you to do that job and I think that this Game is working well for me, honey.” Sorcha’s delicate, supple body rose up and her tail coiled suddenly. Venom formed into a drop at its dartlike tip. She put her face right into Lila’s and Lila smelled fire on her breath and felt a sudden, blistering instant of heat. Sorcha’s voice was the quiet sound of a distant furnace roaring, “And I’ll tell you this for nothing. If you fail, then I’ll hunt you down with every demon this side of Tartarus and eat your head.”

  Lila simply stood there, astonished and slightly singed.

  Sorcha was already off, sitting down playfully on the bed again. She flicked a slender golden card out of the narrow belt that was all that held her bodynet in place. “Anyway, ten million dollars for you if he loses.” She grinned, reached out and tucked the card down the front of Lila’s armoured vest. “I like seeing him squirm. He gets all High Elf and sanctimonious, and his ears get right back like they’re welded to his head, and he gets really intense and kinda mad. Still as a statue, just frozen with rage, can’t do a damn thing.” She laughed at the thought. “Never tire of that. And trust me, he’s so gonna lose.”

  “Don’t be ridic—” But Lila bit her words back because Zal returned, gave them both a dark look, and threw his bag at the bed where it thumped against Sorcha’s side.

  “Ship out, Sorcha,” he suggested. “My shadow and I have stuff to argue about.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Sorcha got up and gave Lila a wink as she moved to the door. She looked at Zal over her shoulder and said something in demonic to him. Lila could hear it but, unlike other languages of the Realms, demonic sounded like music instead of words to ears it wasn’t meant for and she had no idea what was said.

  Sorcha blew him a kiss with a flicker of yellow fire between her lips and left the door open after her.

  Zal walked across and shut it with a kick before turning to Lila. “I’m not leaving here tonight”

  “You have to,” Lila said primly. “It’s all arranged.”

  “Un-arrange it.”

  “I’ll carry you out if I have to.”

  “You will not.” He folded his arms and planted his feet.

  “I will so.” She found herself copying his stance.

  He dodged her, jumping across the bed and out through the adjoining door into her room. Lila was so taken aback by his speed, and so grounded in the posture, that she didn’t even move for a good couple of seconds. As she ran after him she could hardly believe it had come to this.
>
  All the other intervening doors were open. She saw him hurdle the one sofa that stood in his way as he crossed the ocean-view room and then he was onto the balcony and over the rail before she had time to shout out. If there had been a Severed Realms Olympiad the elves would win all the running events, Lila reflected as she watched Zal land with cat-precision, roll and keep running in a leap that would have broken the legs of any ordinary human being. As she landed from her drop she felt a sharp and sudden pain and heard the whine and grind of machinery as motors worked to protect her. Darts and needles seemed to be pricking the inside of her legs and along the inner surface of her spine. She realised her mistake in not ditching the armouring of her legs, though it wasn’t so bad yet, she could run.

  But Zal was fast over the track into the hill woodland and Lila felt her new pain increase steadily as she pursued him. Her Al-self implored her to stop, informed her that an increased effort could result in serious tearing between the new layers of flesh and system. But Zal’s training had obviously worked well for him and she could see that if she even slowed down he would lose her. Lila ran on, burdened by the excess weight of her weapons.

  Slowly she gained on him until they reached the summit of the hill when she lost sight of the flag of his pale hair. He had turned off the path and into the dense woodland there. Lila turned at the same spot.

  A blast of icy air and wind suddenly hit her in the face. Leaves and earth pelted her skin and went in her eyes, blinding her. She couldn’t stop fast enough and her left shoulder struck the stiff trunk of a young oak tree, spinning her around and knocking the breath out of her. Invisible hands pushed her down towards the ground and she was off balance and fell beneath them as earth elementals tried to bury her.