“I was only asking.”
“Well next time don’t bother,” he informed me, “unless you want to become a cleaning zombie.”
I knew when to keep my mouth shut; I’d seen the state of his flat. Nick hauled his jacket on and passed me his guitar case. I took it without complaint.
“So, do I get tomorrow off?” I was probably chancing my luck.
Nick frowned at me. “What the hell do you need a day off for?”
“I kind of still have to pay rent unless you’re going to pay me to be a cleaning zombie?”
“Oh, right. That’s a bit balls.”
“You’ll need to sign my ‘back to work’ form.” Then I’d need to find an actual paying job at a place that recruited Animates. I got the feeling that was going to be quite a bit harder than it sounded. I couldn’t remember seeing Animates working anywhere out in the big wide world besides the castle. I got the shivers just thinking about it.
“Well, you’re lucky I don’t have any gigs this weekend. You’ll need to find a job where there’s no weekend shifts,” he said, “and you’ll have to let me see the work contract before you sign it.”
Crap. I had to get pre-approval now too. This was going to just suck big hairy donkey balls.
Three – Kit
The digits on my alarm clock flashed. I hit the snooze button before it could have the audacity to start beeping. It was nine a.m., and I could barely make myself move. My eyelids drifted shut. The bed was warm and soft and relaxing…
When the ringing started I almost rolled out of bed in my efforts to turn and hit snooze again before I was fully awakened by the shrill noise. The button didn’t work. I snapped my eyes open and took in the time. Half ten? No freaking way. I must have turned the alarm off instead of snoozing it. The ringing wasn’t coming from the clock; it was coming from the other room. Who was calling me this early?
I yanked the covers off and got up, grumbling to myself. I at least had time to have a nice bath and breakfast before I had to open at twelve. The thought should have made me smile, but right now I was still irritated at my sleep being broken. It had been a heavy night, after all.
I got to the living room and picked up the handset, ready to go nuts at whatever idiot cold-caller had decided now was the perfect time to phone me.
My sister’s overly cheerful voice assaulted my ears instead. “Kitty, how are you? Listen, I know you said you had a cake made for Sam’s birthday but I found the most amazing little bakery down Rose Street and I just had to get him one of their adorable pirate ship cakes.”
I yawned and rolled my eyes at the same time, one of my most typical reactions to dealing with Katrina. I didn’t even bother trying to stifle the yawn.
“Oh, dear. You sound tired. Are you working too hard again?”
“You have no idea,” I muttered, thinking about the cake Pete had ruined and how glad I was that I hadn’t thrown away another forty quid having it replaced. I should have known Katrina would do this. She always asked for help only to turn around and say she didn’t need it. “Does Sam even like pirates?” I vaguely remembered him being deathly afraid of Johnny Depp in one of those awful sequels they showed on TV last Christmas.
“Of course he does,” she scoffed. “What little boy doesn’t?”
I was too tired to care much, of course, but I did mentally change today’s bath to a shower so I’d have time to hit the bakery for some chocolate cupcakes. At least the kid could still have his favourite treat even if his mother was going to hit him with a fancy birthday cake she’d only cut once the party was over and his friends were leaving.
“What time are you coming over?”
“I have a lot to do…”
If I was going to have to close the pub extra early to see my nephew on his fifth birthday I supposed I could handle breaking that news to my regulars. It wasn’t a bad excuse. That wasn’t to say they wouldn’t complain.
“So what time do you need me there?”
“Um, say about five?”
“I’ll be there at half past,” I agreed, planning to close at five. It wasn’t a bad plan. Maybe my bar flies would even drink faster to make sure they got the most out of the shorter drinking time-frame. I could only hope.
“Good. I’ll see you then. Oh, and Kit? I have some news about Mum and Dad.” With that aggravating tease, she hung up.
I gasped in annoyance at the phone and slammed it down. “You total bitch!”
All right, so I knew why she wouldn’t idly mention it over the phone. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have just kept her mouth shut until I got to Sam’s party. Now I’d be wondering what the news was all freaking day. I had a good mind to call her back… In fact, that’s what I was going to do. I picked up the phone and dialled her number. Engaged! How dare she?
Taking an agitated breath, I headed for the shower. Time was ticking, and I was ready to explode.
Four – Mickey
My neck was stiff when I woke up. Empty bottles of beer clinked together when I sat up, dropping my feet to the floor. Had Pete come home last night? It was his flat but then again he was under Nick’s control now. The shivers that thought gave me wouldn’t let up even when I stood up and stretched. Every bone in my body ached. I had to stop falling asleep in stupid places.
“Pete?” I called out, turning the TV on and heading into the hallway. Man, I really need to stop falling asleep when I’m drinking. My bladder felt like it was ready to burst. I rushed into the bathroom, ignoring the creepy blood stains as I drained my over-stuffed bladder. “Ahhh…”
The front door opened and banged shut again. “Mickey?” Pete’s voice called through.
“Where you been, bro?” I called back, flushing and washing my hands without soap. It sat there in the soap dish looking decidedly unclean. I gave the bloodied towel a miss, too.
“Getting a paper. I need to find a job.”
I came out of the bathroom of horrors and followed Pete into the kitchen. He put the paper on the counter and started flipping through it. “No. No. Live humans only. Nope…”
I checked out the fridge and put the door back on with a weary sigh. I was going to have to head home. “Aye, you really need a job. The fridge is empty all the time now.”
“I’m not buying beer anymore,” he said with a frown. “Why the hell would I? I can’t drink it.”
“Oh, aye. Right,” I said. I’d forgotten about that. I checked my pockets. At least my keys were still in there, I wouldn’t have to steal Pete’s…
“Eh, I can’t go home.” It was a shit thing to realize and I wished he’d realized it first.
“Why the hell not?” He was squinting at the paper, fingers tapping the page. “Hmm… do I want to learn how to be a stripper?”
“Your mum.”
He looked up from the paper, turning his black dead-guy eyes on me. “My mum.”
“You haven’t told her.”
He closed his eyes. “Shit. I forgot about Mum.”
I could see how that could happen. He’d had a lot on. Still, this was going to be a tough one and he was going to have to do it because I sure as hell wasn’t about to.
“Can you tell her?” he asked, giving me his pleading puppy look which had a rabid tint to it with his satanic eyes doing the pleading.
“Eh, no chance.”
“She’ll start crying, I know she will.”
“How do you know that?” I actually winced at the stupid question that fell out of my mouth. We both knew she’d cry. What kind of mother wouldn’t? “You are actually still you in there. Maybe she’ll just be glad…”
“Remember Frankie?”
I tried to think. Frankie? I couldn’t match the name to a face, let alone anything that had something to do with what was going on right now.
“Oh, right. It was before you came to live with us.” He shook his head. “He was Mum’s boyfriend. Nice guy, and he treated her right as far as I know. He died and joined the king’s guard. She cried for wee
ks.”
“Oh. Well… you’re not joining the King’s guard though, at least?”
“I can’t tell her. I just can’t.”
I had to bite the bullet on this one. I sighed at the thought of it. “It should really come from you.”
“She might not know it’s me when she sees me. She might freak out.”
“Come home with me just now. I’ll tell her and then you’ll come in. Deal?”
Pete sighed deeply and nodded. “Deal.”
Five – Tim
After a few more theatrically played out sobs Nine started to warm to my proposal. I watched the conflict play out on her expressive face. Her gaze kept pulling to the body on the carpet. I’d have to deal with that soon, but her acceptance had to come first. I eyed her tattoo, thinking over a solution to it.
“They would know,” she said softly, silent tears starting to fall down her pretty face.
“They wouldn’t.”
“How do you know? I don’t have the power she has,” she admitted, sniffling pitifully.
I could sense her magic. She’d inherited Britt’s magical talent. “She let you think that.”
She blinked, her eyes widening. “But I can barely even levitate…”
“Show me.” This was make or break. You couldn’t fake level ten. She wouldn’t need to if she was a passable seven, a solid six even. It would be enough. Suspicions wouldn’t be raised. No-one would ever need to know.
She got up shakily, wiping the tears from her face and sucking in a deep breath. She closed her eyes and summoned her magic in a rather clumsy muttering. She had never been taught how to use it properly. I was already running through alternate options in my head. When she opened her eyes again she smiled broadly and moved slowly upwards, body posed in a gymnastic crouch. Her clothes changed in mid-air. She was suddenly wearing a sparkling blue dress and silver heels. Not bad. She stopped three feet up, twisting and turning in a graceful dance before back-flipping back to the ground. She shook and her clothes changed back.
“Ta-da!” She sounded pleased.
“You can lift higher than that?”
She frowned at me, right hand on her hip. “I would have hit the ceiling. Spacial awareness is really important when it comes to turning tricks.”
The snort that escaped me was completely unexpected. She drew me a derisive look, sending chills down my spine. That was the real Britton Rocks. She’d been a harsh bitch with a false smile, cold to the bone. “This will work.”
“I get to be her?”
“You win the audition, hands down.”
She stood there, staring past me, lips twitching. “They’ll know.”
“Who? No-one will know.”
“The others will,” she insisted, meeting my eyes. “Five will kill me for trying to be her.”
It hit me like a ton of identical bricks; she was talking about the other clones. I tried to remember how many there were. It had been recorded in some tabloid, which I probably shouldn’t trust. If I recall the article correctly, Britt had been a fan of numerology. She’d deigned nine to be the perfect number; kind of ironic now. “How many are there?”
“Nine,” she said. “Including me. Five will be a problem.”
“What’s so special about number Five?”
She sneered. “She’s a robot. Don’t you know anything?”
Apparently, I did not. What to do about the clones? It was probably true they wouldn’t be so easily fooled by the new Britt as the general public. “Do they spend a lot of time with you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh. We live together.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to think of a solution that didn’t involve murdering a bunch of clones and one A.I.
“I mean if I get to be the real Britton Rocks, where has Nine gone? Everyone will ask.” She sounded genuinely bothered by the prospect. Grieving for herself already. Perfect.
I looked at the body. It was really time to do something about it before it became a bigger problem. “Does she have more of those robes?”
Nine nodded.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to change into what she’s wearing. Change your make-up and do something to your hair. You’re going to be her as of now.”
She nodded again slowly and moved towards Britt’s bedroom. She turned suddenly. “Hey. Who are you?”
“That isn’t important. We don’t have a lot of time.” She didn’t press things, which was just as well. I couldn’t think about that right now. “Bring your clothes back through when you’ve changed.” I knelt by Britt. A glamour would fix any differences between the two. This was going to have to go just right. I’d need to stick around to make sure everything went smoothly.
Nine came out the room looking a whole lot more like her predecessor. Something was a little off, though. I did a quick once over the corpse and back at Nine as she put her clothes on the floor. “You’ll need to do something about those,” I told her, motioning to her chest. “And covering the tattoo is going to take some creative thinking.” Other than that, she was good to go.
“I can glamour,” she said, blinking and muttering something under her breath.
“Do you have to do that?”
She cocked her head. “Do what?”
I sighed. “You close your eyes and mutter to summon magic. It’s not how Britt used to do it, and it’s very noticeable.”
She blew out a breath. “I knew I couldn’t do this.” She’d covered up her tattoo and reduced her chest. She looked the part now with her just-out-of-the-shower style. We just needed to fix her summoning style.
“You can do it. You just need to be careful until you find a better way to summon magic.”
“Three is right,” she said with a pout. “I’m just a mimic. I’ll never find the real me. All I can do is play pretend.”
She was making herself sound like the perfect clone. This was going to work. I could barely believe it, but it was. “You’ll only need to pretend for a while. It’ll become natural, and you’ll just be Britt.”
She smiled briefly. “You’re sweet,” she said, kicking at her little pile of clothes.
“Help me put your clothes on her.”
She shrugged and picked up her jeans, tossing them at me. “I go commando, so you’ll need to take her panties off.”
“No-one’s going to check that.” I grabbed the jeans and got to work pulling them on to her legs. The skinny style made it awkward. The mess Britt’s corpse had left on the carpet underneath her made it worse. I blacked out the three minutes it took me to get the jeans over her ass and zipped shut at the front. Nine had ripped the robe off the body by the time I was done. She was staring down, some unreadable emotion passing over her face. She was getting a whole new life, a dream life. I didn’t need to worry about her screwing this up. It was the chance of a lifetime for Nine, and I knew she wouldn’t waste it.
“She looks so small,” Nine said finally, kneeling close but careful not to touch the blood. “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t.”
She gazed at me silently and then picked up her t-shirt. “Why are you doing this then?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Maybe you should tell me it,” she said, carefully lifting one of Britt’s arms. “I won’t tell anyone else.” She put Britt’s arm through the sleeve and looked back at me. “You came through the portal. I can sense the magic you’re holding. It’s a lot.”
Damn. Was it really too much to hope for a dumb blonde? “No-one can know about me being here.”
“The King sent you?”
I shook my head.
She got Britt’s other arm into her other sleeve. “So you’d be in trouble if he found out?”
“He’s not going to find out.”
She shrugged. “I was only asking.”
It was hard to tell if she was being serious. I got up as she finished dressing the corpse. She frowned down at Britt as she stood back up. “Something’s missing
…” She snapped her fingers. “Blue eye-shadow. I always wear it. They’ll notice that.”
“Doesn’t she have some around here somewhere you could use?”
She shook her head. “She doesn’t keep much here. She has a make-up artist she calls in before shows.”
“Can you get yours?” It was time for another little test of her skills.
“Britt never comes to our quarters,” she said with a gasp of shock.
How silly of me. “That’s not quite what I meant. Have you never teleported an object through space?”
“Oh. I’ve never tried that.”
“Think about where you left your make-up.”
“In my make-up bag!”
“Right. Think about it, visualise it.”
She closed her eyes. I rubbed at my head. She’d really have to get out of that habit. “Put out your hand and imagine it in there. Call it to you.”
She frowned and muttered something that carried the tone of a kid enticing a pet to do a trick with the promise of treat in return. I shook my head. If this was going to work…
A shiny silver bag appeared in Nine’s hand, producing a squeal of delight from her as her eyes snapped open. Grinning, she waved the bag at me. “I did it!” She unzipped the bag and knelt back down by Britt. “Close your eyes,” she said cheerily as she pulled a brush out of the bag.
I watched as she set about whoring up the corpses make-up, hoping the coroner wouldn’t figure out it had been slapped on post mortem. Not that there would necessarily be one. There was a whole other set of rules for dealing with clones. They were basically the property of the original. Britt would be able to dispose of hers however she saw fit. “Do you know what your rights are?”
She glanced up. “Rights?”
“As Britt’s clone.”
“Oh. Oh, right. Um, I have the right to do as she tells me?”
“She’s dead, and we’re going to pretend she’s you,” I clarified, hoping I didn’t need to spell it out all the way.
“Oh…” She nodded and went back to making up Britt’s face. “There’s an incinerator in the lab. She uses it to deal with any inferior clones or accidents. If they don’t hit ninety-eight percent physical similarity she bins them.”
Death Magic Rules (Raised Book 2) Page 2