Changer's Daughter (37 page)

“No, sir,” Aduke says softly. “Does that mean that he is beyond the power of the
orisha
?”

“Not at all, little daughter,” Anson assures her. “When men get power, men become drunk on power and believe themselves greater than the gods. Even the
orisha
must make sacrifice, if only to their own heads. When this Regis forgets this, he will be in my power.”

Listening to Anson speak, Eddie cannot decide whether his friend he really believes what he is telling the girl. Certainly, Anson looks as if he believes what he is saying. His eyes are almost preternaturally wise, and his voice is without even a hint of laughter.

“Moreover,” Anson continues, “Shopona has acted rashly in taking our friend captive, for Ogun is
ogun
. What I mean is, Ogun, the same man who sits there across the table from you drinking palm wine, was given his name by Olorun from the word for ‘war’ and the taking of prisoners opens one to the retaliation of war. Isn’t that so, my friend?”

Both Aduke and Dakar nod, their motions perfectly matched, as if Anson has charmed them.

“Now,” Anson says, “I think the time has come for us to plan our war. Lady Oya, they call you the wife who is more terrible than the husband.”

“That was said when Oya was compared to Shango,” Oya chuckles. “I don’t think I want to offend Ogun.”

“I was never married to you, woman!” Dakar shouts.

“Maybe so, maybe not,” she says lightly. “That is not the point. What I am saying is that war is not my strong point. True, I have the winds, and I have stolen some small amount of Shango’s lightning, but war is a man’s profession.”

Eddie asks, “Are you in contact with Shango, then?”

“No,” she answers. “I have not seen Shango since my arrival in Monamona. Nor have I sought him out. I did not approve of his letting illness run through a city that claims him as its patron.”

“Shango is here, too?” Aduke says, her voice tight, as if her grasp on reality is slipping. “I don’t understand! Are you all truly
orisha
?”

“We summoned the wind together, Aduke,” Oya soothes her friend. “Trust me a bit longer.”

“I don’t understand!” Aduke repeats, but although her tones are still urgent, she no longer seems in danger of slipping into hysteria.

“Understanding,” Anson says, “is highly overrated. Does it matter what names we use if we are agreed to stop the smallpox plague that is threatening your people?”

Aduke bites her lip, then says softly, “I suppose not.”

“Then trust us,” Anson urges.

“And will it be all right, then?”

“We sincerely hope so.”

“Then I suppose I must trust you.”

In Aduke’s smile,
Eddie thinks,
so brave yet intelligent, is everything worth fighting for, everything good about the human race. Blind faith would be easier to take, and not nearly as worthy.

 14

Tout s’en va, tout passe, l’eau coule, et le coeur oublie.
(Everything vanishes, everything passes, water runs away, and the heart forgets.)

—Gustave Flaubert

T
he Blind Lion tour had been set to kick off in Las Vegas, and so to the City of Slots and Neon is where they go. Georgios is beside himself with excitement.

By the time the auditions had ended, Tommy had selected twelve theriomorphs for his backup singers and dancers: six satyrs, one of whom is Georgios, and six fauns, one of whom is Demetrios.

Georgios—who has decided that “Loverboy” would look a lot better in the program book—has established himself as herd stallion. Dominating the smaller, shyer fauns had been pretty easy. (He chooses to overlook Demetrios for now). The satyrs had proven a bit more difficult, but a few solid brawls and he had come out on top. Stud has even stopped complaining about his bitten right ear.

And on top Georgios is... or he wants to be... especially when he looks at their choreographer, strutting up and down the line in her leotard and tights. Mary Malone has the body of a nymph but the soul of a drill sergeant.

“All right, you guys!” she shouts. “Let’s go through the steps for ‘Heart Teaser’ one more time.”

Georgios sighs. He’d never realized how much work went into those dance sequences in the music videos he’d enjoyed watching on MTV. Obediently, he moves to the side of the stage, stopping on the red X that is his mark.

“Where the hell is Lil?” Mary demands.

She starts to say something else—being as intolerant of absenteeism as she is of a sloppy dance step—then swallows it. After all, Lil Prima is the one who signs the paychecks. If Tommy wants her to grace the stage show with her presence, that’s their business. Mary’s job is to make it work, even when Lil doesn’t show for rehearsal.

“I’ll walk through Lil’s part,” she decides aloud. “You ‘satyrs’—Hunk, Stud—pay attention, damn it! Fauns, are you ready?”

Demetrios answers for the group clustered around a couple of green X’s chalked on the practice floor to represent the primordial grove that the folks in stage design and lighting are still working overtime to complete.

“Wait a moment,” he says with the precise diction of a schoolteacher. “Phoebus has something clogged in his pipe.”

This is too much for the satyrs. Guffawing and making lewd gestures, they mime what they’d do with a clogged pipe. Standing over where Lil would begin her entrance, Mary Malone is visibly regretting the waiver of sexual harassment that she’d signed as part of her contract.

“We’re ready now, Miss Malone,” Demetrios calls politely.

“We’re ready now...” Georgios mimics in a prissy voice.

“Shut up and ready on my signal!” Mary hollers. “One and a two, and music!”

A roadie starts the recording. Thunderous chords from bass and rhythm shake the air, followed two measures later by a wild riff from the drums.

“Now!”

Mary walks a diagonal line across the stage, not strolling as Lil has in the few rehearsals she’s attended, but waving her arms and shouting directions to the dancers.

Georgios, corrected for the third time in as many measures, feels the music, even in recorded form, touching something primal within him.

It isn’t right that she tease him like this!
There’s a heat in his head, a swelling in his groin. He thrusts from the hips, answering the music.

“Not yet!” the drill sergeant barks. “That’s in the next measure, Loverboy! Why did I ever promise I could get you idiots ready for an early debut! Cut the music!”

When the music dies, so does some of Georgios’s frantic lust, enough so that he notes the worry in Demetrios’s eyes. Then Malone is yelling at them again, reciting their steps:

“Leer right, leer left, follow her with a shuffle step, then begin to follow more rapidly. Short steps. When Lil stops to look at Tommy—that’s when the pelvic thrust comes in. Remember! You’re miming out the lust that she’s containing, that he’s too absorbed in his music to feel. Got it?”

Georgios nods stiffly. He’s got to get laid. If he doesn’t get laid, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. For a wistful moment, he wishes that he were at home, where the mares are near. Then he remembers that there is a city out there full of women available for a price.

Absorbed in this fantasy, Georgios shuffles back to his mark. The cowboy boots he’s wearing hurt his hooves, but he hardly feels the pain. When the roadie starts the recording again, Tommy’s music enflames his imaginings as he begins to plan.

He’ll take a couple of the other satyrs with him. They can sneak away from Demetrios’s surveillance if they’re careful. Then they’ll take a cab to the nearest red-light district and buy a couple girls for a couple hours.

Nobody’ll listen to a whore if she says that a couple of men hung like horses—and with horse hooves and tails—bought a few hours of her time. They won’t be violating their promise to Arthur and Lil that they’d be prudent.

Georgios licks his lips, imagining each of the women he’ll have in exquisite detail: buttocks, breasts, long legs, round thighs, ripe mouths. He’s panting as the music comes to an end and not just from the exertion of the complicated routine.

“Perfect! Perfect!” shouts Mary Malone, her leotard damp and transparent with sweat. “That’s just perfect!”

Yeah,
Georgios thinks.
It will be just perfect.

When Chris Kristofer enters his office, he finds a note from Arthur glowing on his terminal.

“Meeting. My office. As soon as you’ve checked your mail.”

Obediently, Chris does checks his mail, thinking as he reviews the messages and taps out a few routine responses, that Arthur has become much more considerate over the last week. Before the conference about Tommy Thunderburst’s concert, the King would have ordered him and Bill to appear without delay, then complained when they didn’t have the answers he wanted.

Over at the other side of the office, he can hear Bill chuckling about something.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing much, just a cat joke the Wanderer tacked to the end of her last report. She’s on her way to Tennessee to get away from the winter weather.”

“Lucky her. Ready for the meeting?”

“Yeah. Wonder what impossible quest King Arthur has for us today?”

They find out as soon as they get settled in the King’s office, and Arthur has offered them juice and pastries from a tray that he had prepared with his own hands.

“Yesterday, I spoke with Lovern,” Arthur begins, “and learned how desperate are his staffing needs. I agreed to speak with several athanor for him. I need your help in locating a couple.”

When the humans nod acknowledgment, and Chris readies paper and pen (having learned that such little gestures reassure Arthur that he’s paying attention), the King continues:

“One is Alice Chun, the novelist. You may be familiar with her books. I’ve been trying to reach her for several weeks, but I can’t get past her agent. Find her.

“I also need to speak with Anson. I’ve left messages for Eddie, but I have no evidence that he’s picking up his e-mail.” A week before this omission on Eddie’s part would have been enough to set Arthur sulking, but now he accepts it as the way of things. Chris can’t help but wonder what Eddie had said to his friend and liege to so alter Arthur’s behavior.

“Try and find him. Their itinerary places them in the city of Monamona, but I don’t have a hotel address. You may need to phone every place in the city asking for either Anson A. Kridd or Eddie Ibatan or possibly Dakar Agadez.”

Bill raises his hand. “Are you certain they’re using those names?”

“I’ve checked our files here,” Arthur answers, “and there is no record of any of them getting extra identification papers for this trip. If those names don’t work, I’ll give you the name of my one local contact. I don’t want to call on him too soon, since I don’t know the details of Anson’s business.”

Chris nods, understanding such delicacies from his days with the newspaper. “The last thing you want to do is mess up Anson’s deal just when you need a favor from him.”

Arthur grins. “Precisely. Can you get started at once?”

The two humans nod, but, despite Arthur’s reformed behavior, Chris feels he must caution the King not to get impatient.