Darith fingered a small clip of cash in his pocket, but, no. She hadn’t done anything to imply she was one of those girls. Some of them secretly liked having cash tossed their way as a consolation prize. Gretta’s family wasn’t poor, though, just lower-class.
“Next week?” she asked.
“No. It’s been lovely,” he said.
“Lovely? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t take you for dim-witted.” Darith turned and walked back to his car. The black vehicle was parked as to block them from view of the road.
“Why?” came her breathy reply at last.
Darith looked at her reflection in the tinted windows of the car. Tear-filled eyes stared up at him, not yet angry, but that would come next. As his mother always said, the truth liberates and heeding those hurt by it is a pointless endeavor.
“My father is the count. My wife isn’t going to be some sweet-faced shop girl. You’re not going to be the mother of my children. What is the point of continuing once you start bandying around words like love? I can’t love you. Call that accountant you keep laughing about—he wants to hear your confessions of love and earns enough. Haven’t you wasted enough time chasing dreams?”
“You’re heartless, Darith Cortanis. You—”
“No, dear. Heartless would be to discard you, and some bastard child, only after I found a woman I intended to marry. This is pragmatism.”
Gretta threw a tuft of grass at him, the dirty roots brushing his calf.
“I never asked for more than ye can give. Never,” she shouted.
Darith rubbed his forehead, wondering if the money wasn’t a good idea after all. He’d enjoyed this one. The tears rolling down her cheeks shown in her reflection in the car windows touched him where her words failed.
“But you would have,” he said. “Would it be kindness to continue this a year or two until your other suitors are gone? How long before this affair gets out and you’re considered sullied? Any other planet than Yahal, you might be fine, but here? No decent man would have you. I’m too young to commit to a lifelong mistress, and you deserve a husband.”
“Why start if…?” Her words choked off in a sob.
“Because you are lovely, and I’m ending it because you want love. Call me heartless if the word consoles you.”
He’d thought Gretta had more common sense than this. Sometimes village girls understood intuitively what his attentions meant. He granted them some patronage, and they both enjoyed the dalliance. If they wanted a more liberated society, more options, then all they needed was a passport off of Yahal.
Darith opened the back door of the car and slid into the seat. Closing the door, he blocked out the sound of crying. The silence of the cab soothed the fresh pounding in his head. He tapped the glass dividing the front from the back to let the driver know he was ready to depart.
Where had this strange idea that she could win his undying affection come from? It spreads like a plague. It didn’t used to be like this. When I was younger dalliances were so simple.
“To town. Park at the outskirts. I don’t want to fight with carriage traffic,” Darith said through the speaker. The encounter with Gretta had left him with a sensation of slime over his skin.
They sped down the smooth black pavement of the motor road until at the edge of town the black merged with the packed dirt of the carriage path. Inside the city, there wasn’t enough space for cars and carriages to have separate roadways.
The car slowed entering town, catching up with a carriage. Darith rubbed his temples to ease the ache. But at this speed someone could see into the car, so he dared not use his gift. Even for a count’s son, it was wise to contain his aptitude for energy-bending or “magic,” as the lower class called it.
Traffic wasn’t likely to let up. Carriages always got right-of-way on the road since their occupants tended to be the rich. Darith didn’t really want to be seen in a car in town anyhow. All the wealthy folk had cars, but using them for anything but long-distance travel was looked down upon.
If I found a few black-market contacts, maybe in Brothel City, where it’s legal, I could have a hovercar and just fly over traffic jams. The idea of his parents’ faces if he were to go past the import restrictions on such tech and be seen in a hovercar lifted his mood.
“Park here.” Darith pressed the intercom button and on release, he waited for the driver to pull up to the curb. The location was a good one, close by one of the pharmacies with a little “herb” shop in the back. The illegally engineered smokables would keep his driver busy while Darith ran his monthly errand.
The door swung open, and Darith stepped out onto the pavement. The walk wasn’t far. Still, he risked tugging at the energy on the air.
Tufts of grass sticking up from the cracks in the sidewalk withered, browning and wilting. He wove their energy in his fingers, which he stuck in his jacket pockets. This one spell he allowed himself in public since its entire purpose was to remain unnoticed.
The energy curved around him, blurring his features and hovering around him like a voice whispering, Look away. There is nothing here worth your time.
He didn’t want his visit to the lower quarter getting back to his father. No, it was better if no one from the nobility ever witnessed his steps.
Darith brushed back his black hair. At nineteen, Darith knew his place in the world. As a noble, there were many advantages, but a handsome face offered its own set of advantages. The two together opened every door. There was nothing in the world Darith couldn’t obtain. But could and should were not the same.
I will not be my father.
Darith picked up his pace with a glance to the now-empty street. He turned off into a thin offshoot alley fit only for foot traffic. The clutter of shops narrowed the passage, making the entrance to the alley a flurry of color, but past the vivid displays, the area darkened. Lights in garish colors flashed from the sides of the buildings. Signs stated the types of sexual acts offered within.
Has Father ever seen this place? Has he actually stepped foot here? Seen where the flesh he buys comes from?
A pang of guilt followed the thought. His father’s appetites were more of concern now than usual due to their houseguest. He’d protected Little Marim from his father since her mother died, and although she’d now reached the cusp of womanhood, she wasn’t quite old enough to lose his father’s interest. All the more reason to hurry and get through his errand.
One task at a time.
The alley reeked of piss. Darith was alone but for the eyes behind the frosted glass windows, some shining wordless signs in neon. A few servants rushed by him to fetch what their masters wanted, enduring the stench of excrement and the undertone of drug-laced smoke so that the nobles they worked for could wait in a starched hotel rooms. The idea of renting a hotel room made Darith’s gut tighten with anger.
All the proprietors and dealers of flesh knew him. No one catcalled him or stepped from the doors to try to entice him. In one of the doorways, a seated drunk leaned against the doorjamb, moaning in his sleep. His pants were folded neatly in his lap. Darith averted his eyes, not wanting to recognize the man on the off chance he was from the nobility. He had little enough respect for his father’s generation as it was.
Toward the end of the alley, Darith approached a tall, brick building. They would wait until he walked up the stairs to open the door. Darith didn’t ever enter the establishment. Just as he only came in daylight. There were rules. Rules helped. Once he reached the top, a boy slid out, opening the door only as much as needed for his thin body.
“Timmy,” Darith said. It was not a name, more like a title. It represented boyhood to the patrons. If you asked for Timmy, you knew what you got, someone between eight and thirteen.
This Timmy was new and offered a bright hopeful smile. As he aged, he would grow silent, sullen. But for now, Darith still saw the gleam of hero-worship in the boy’s eyes.
I can’t rescue him. He couldn’t change a damn thing
about Timmy’s life for the next handful of years. Darith averted his gaze from the boy’s eyes. There was a hope there that Darith couldn’t answer.
Timmy lowered his eyes and shuffled his feet, making Darith distinctly uncomfortable. He did not come here to witness a child in pain and floundered for any vaguely adequate words to give the shirtless child.
“It doesn’t last forever,” Darith said.
He handed the boy a large fold of bills. He almost cautioned the boy to split it with the master of the house, but that was a lesson Timmy needed to learn on his own. I hope he’s saving the money. He could have a future, escape his current existence, but I can’t live his life for him.
It wasn’t enough. The last Timmy had been found strangled on a hotel-room floor. The only comfort Darith had was that his father had been at home the night before the body had been found. His father might pay to sleep with the boys, but he hadn’t killed any. The hotel staff never spoke of who’d occupied the room, though they must have known. It had been a few days before the kid’s eleventh birthday.
“Thank you,” Timmy said softly.
Poor kid. How did he come to this? How does any child? The parents—it’s always the parents. There should be restrictions on parenthood.
“Don’t thank me. Follow the rules. Never cheat the boss, and get out of this place the moment you can.”
Darith turned and left the alley. Eyes bore into his back. It wasn’t enough. Money solved nothing, but it was all he had.
No one looked at him when he reached the shops, and on the main road, he avoided eye contact. He brushed his fingers over his pants as if he could wipe the stench of the alley, the slime of existence from him.
A pounding ache taunted his temples.
He was relieved to reach the black Town Car. The driver sat on the hood smoking, but on seeing Darith, he dropped the burning, drug-laced paper, opened the back door, and moved into the driver’s seat. Darith pretended he hadn’t seen the drugs. The guy was a good driver, and Darith’s mother would never tolerate such a thing.
Darith slid into the backseat. He closed the door, blocking out the town and encasing himself in the expensive interior. The silence of the cab soothed the fresh pounding in his head. He let the driver know he was ready to depart.
As they drove, Darith glanced at the tinted glass that obscured the driver’s view of him. Unsanctioned magic was more illegal than the drugs he pretended not to see. No one would keep that secret for him if he got caught.
Still once outside of town with only the long stretch of tree-lined road between him and the Cortanis estate, the pounding in Darith’s head demanded he take the risk of exposure.
Darith lifted a finger, a pale glow forming at the tip. Placing the finger at one temple and sweeping it to the other, he let the power trickle from his finger and loosen the pain in his head. The steady beat of pain slowed, dimming into a dull ache. A sigh escaped his lips.
The encounters of his afternoon had spoiled his mood, and when the car pulled into the Cortanis estate, he welcomed the known pitfalls of his parents’ home.
Out the window, his father sat on a lounge chair in front of the heated pool—some modern conveniences were not looked down on even on Yahal. A glimmer of red hair and white flesh from the water alerted him that their house guest, Marim Cortanis, was out there with his father. He smiled thinking of her gliding through the water until he realized that it was his father sitting there watching her.
Sick lecher. Darith lifted his hand to tap on the glass but never made the motion. He didn’t need to stop the car. Marim didn’t need his protection, as she had when she’d been younger. Being the daughter of the count’s best friend should be protection enough during the daylight.
Darith had puzzled over the two men’s friendship since he’d been old enough to understand the difference between the chief of police and the count. The only possible conclusion was that Berrick was a complete moron who had managed to be fooled for upward of twenty years by the count’s empty charm.
Both men shared the same staunch, old-fashioned, anti-tech values and had chosen to return to Yahal after attending a university on another world. But many people on Yahal clung to those values. Marim’s father could do better, keep her away from here.
Darith bit his knuckles as they drove by the pool. If she’d still been a child, if he had been, he’d go out to her, but things were different. Marim was one of the only pure things in his life. He wanted her to continue to see him as her white knight, to hide from her the slick, poisonous secrets. How selfish his reasons really were for helping her or how wicked the soil he sprang from was. It wasn’t too much to ask for one person in all the world to believe in him.
And Father wouldn’t hurt her.
The car stopped at the end of the drive, and Darith got out in front of the stone façade of his parents’ mansion. His mother stood in the doorway, her back as stiff as a wooden board, her gray hair pulled into a severe bun. Despite the hair, dour expression, and lack of any discernible cosmetics, the countess remained an attractive woman. Darith had inherited her sharp, strong features and pale, blue eyes. Though his hair was still a healthy black, not faded and tortured to gray by years dealing with the friendly, social, voluble, and utterly adored count.
“Mother,” Darith said, stepping up and kissing her cheek.
“Walk with me. The evening air is pleasant, and we must speak.”
Darith took her arm, which was as stiff and unyielding as her back. They ambled back down the drive next to fragrance-free roses in exotic colors.
“You stink of village girl,” the countess said.
Darith laughed and patted his mother’s arm.
“Will this require paying a family off?” she asked.
“No, by the Gods’ Mother. I don’t want a bastard child any more than you do.”
“The time has come to put aside these childish encounters.”
“And marry little Marim? She’s all of sixteen. With how you’ve felt about the family in the past, I counted on you to support me. She has the body of a boy. I know Father enjoys it, but I have no desire to bed children.”
The countess gave his cheek a sharp slap. Her cheeks moved as if to smile, but her mouth never twitched. His father’s activities were a closely kept secret and not to be spoken in the open air. However, the countess seemed to take a vicious joy in hearing her husband judged. After she reclaimed his arm, they started walking again.
“You needn’t choose her, though the merger with the chief of police’s family is what your father wants. Her mother was a moron, but I have no issue with the girl’s family. I only wish she weren’t such a fool herself. You’d think her mother’s death would have lent her some wisdom.”
An image of Marim’s small cherub mouth smiling came to Darith. Such warmth. What would it be like to kiss those lips? No point in wondering. I’d only hurt her. I can’t ever let it happen.
“I never fail to be amazed at your tact, Mother dear.”
“Yes, my kindness is matched only by yours. Nevertheless, the girls all seem to like you. Cecelia Birch sends you love letters and Taria Midland twitters every time your name is mentioned. You have the face of an angel, boy. Perhaps you should choose a bride before your personality gets in the way and you’re left with only dregs. Marim may wind up your only option.”
“Maybe I want a girl who likes my personality.”
“We all have our dreams. I wanted to be an opera singer.”
“Get on with the point, Mother. Why did you ask me out here?”
“Eliza’s ball is in three days—”
“I’m not going to that farce.”
“You are taking Marim. Her father is away, and she needs an escort.”
“No.”
“Don’t say no to me, boy. That girl’s life has been rotten and the least you can do is allow her to attend the party of the season while her idiot father is doing gods know what.” His mother paused, then drove on. “And if you desire
a bride who likes you for who you are, that little ball of fluff is your best gamble. She’s been sweet on you since she first came to stay at our house after the deaths in her family.”
Darith remembered that. He remembered Chief Trehar sobbing over his wife’s coffin. He’d looked over at his mother, who’d had this little smirk on her face. Like she was just barely holding back an “I told you so.” Everyone knew she’d never liked Polly Trehar. The chief’s wife had been a plain, simple woman who’d only wanted to see the good in things. The countess had often wondered aloud if the woman didn’t have some mental deficiency and continually stated that Polly’s trusting nature would get her in trouble. Anyone else would have regretted their comments, staring at Polly’s husband in tears beside her coffin. Not the countess.
Spider's Kiss Page 2