Elvendude (26 page)

Daryl shrugged. "I do what I have to."

"Well, then," Peter said, flashing that blinding grin again. "Do this. So far as your cover job is concerned, your duties are to keep the men's locker room stocked with towels, mop it at the end of each day, and keep your eyes open for undercover law enforcement. They've never been here, but there's a first time for everything."

"But what about . . . the real job?"

"Okay, here's how it works," Peter said, entering a hallway, which led to an indoor swimming pool. "Once, sometimes twice, a week we get customers from out of town. We don't deal quantity to locals yet, because we haven't been around that long. We will give you a package and a key to a certain locker. After our customers disappear into the club for a half hour or so, you go in and put a workout bag of product in the locker we tell you. You won't be able to screw up because the key we give you will only fit one lock."

It sounded too good to be true. He was on the front line, and the first person to be busted should the deal go awry, but this looked like a pro operation. After all, Peter was the Man. And the Man didn't get busted. Ever.

His Corvette had seemed too good to be true at the time, too, and it turned out to be real. Sometimes good things happen, every so often. But one crucial question remained.

"How much do I make here?" Daryl asked.

"That's the best part. One hundred dollars a day. Five days a week. With or without a shipment."

Daryl felt like he was going to fall over. "In cash?"

"If you like. The IRS isn't interested in our books, if you know what I mean."

Daryl didn't, but nodded in understanding anyway. "I believe you got yourselves a deal," Daryl said, shaking Peter's huge hand. "When do I start?"

Peter produced a pair of shorts, a shirt, and an expensive pair of brand new Nikes, with the New You Fitness Center logo embroidered on it all. Daryl didn't notice the items before and had no idea where they came from. From thin air, it seemed, but he was past the point of caring.
One hundred dollars a day. Cash. And my insurance is already paid for. It's party time!

"Come in tomorrow, around ten. Don't stay out partying too late tonight. It would never do to have you show up wasted." Peter's eyes narrowed, and he lowered his voice. "Do we understand each other?"

"Oh, ah, yes sir," Daryl said. "I'll see you tomorrow." He turned to leave, and made it almost to the door, when Peter said.

"And Daryl? One more thing."

Daryl turned around in midstride.

"If you fuck us, we'll kill you. Now go home and get some sleep. You look like hell."

Shaken, Daryl nodded uncertainly and started out the door.

"Here he comes," Marbann said, but Adam had already spotted him walking down the hallway.

Daryl got into his Corvette and drove off. Adam looked over, saw a tall blond man standing in the entrance of the center.

"Who is that?" Marbann said.

Despite the fact they were still invisible with the concealment spell, the man was looking directly at them.

Their eyes locked, though Adam wasn't certain if he saw them or not; in that moment, he saw the terrible depths of pain this being had linked to his magical powers. He shivered, catching a glimpse of this power and comparing it to his own feeble grasp of magic, and knew then he was no match for this Unseleighe.

Adam turned the Geo on and pulled out of the parking lot. The elf with human seeming watched them as they left, his eyes tracking their course out of the parking lot and onto the adjoining street. When Adam glanced back, the man was smiling at them, his arms crossed in an air of defiance.

"Zeldan," Adam said, his hands shaking. "That was Zeldan Dhu. And he was looking straight at us."

Marbann hissed, and Adam sensed strong shields snapping into place around them. "As a human he looks even more disgusting. Is he following?"

"I don't think so," Adam said, after glancing in the rearview mirror. "How good was that spell we used to hide ourselves?"

Marbann took only a second to consider this. "The very best. He may have sensed our presence, but I don't think he saw us. . . ."

"We don't know that," Adam said, feeling vulnerable despite his powerful company.

Rathand stared at his work, unable to believe what was taking place.

Great Danaa,
he thought, mystified.
The nodes are healing themselves.

It was the only explanation he could find as he poked around in one of the cabinets, checking for signs of his sabotage. Instead of finding drained nodes, he found, among the tiny rivers of energy running from the capacitors to the Terminal, a bybass of node power that had definitely not been there before. It was as if these artificial nodes had a mind of their own, knew they were in trouble, and had taken appropriate measures.

He closed the cabinet doors, disturbed at what he saw, more disturbed at what it implied.

Does Zeldan, or even Morrigan, know what I'm up to?

Zeldan watched Daryl climb into the Corvette and snickered to himself when he remembered the fright-trip his minion Mort pulled on the boy the night before.

He will be a good little pool of terror,
he thought.
And he's still relatively sane. We should be able to throw all kinds of horrors his way before he finally snaps.

Until his mind became useless, Daryl promised to be a faithful servant, acting as a front for their larger coke transactions when he wasn't mopping the locker-room floor. And during those inevitable moments of weakness, when the miserable human indulged in Dream, the horror show would begin.

He chuckled to himself as the Corvette drove out of the lot. Then, in another corner of the parking lot, he sensed the presence of something else. Zeldan's eyes focused on the spot, and he reached out with his magics, but not with much force, as he didn't know quite what he was dealing with yet. Just a tentative pass, enough to tell him that something was out there.

His smile didn't waver, but the discovery bothered him. Then, the presence moved, and Zeldan saw the vague outline of an automobile, but nothing else: a small car with an unknown number of passengers.

They think they're invisible,
Zeldan thought.
I will make them think otherwise, whoever they are.

His eyes fixed on the blur, which resembled shimmering heat waves off hot pavement; a slight quiver in the fabric of the human's realm, where agents of Underhill dwelled and spied on him. He didn't know who they were, exactly, but he had a good idea.

Avalon elves. Perhaps even the King himself.

Zeldan resisted an urge to fling a levin bolt directly at the moving vehicle, partially because it would have attracted a lot of unwanted human attention, and also because it might be agents of Morrigan keeping tabs on him. Instead, he gazed after the concealed vehicle, pretending to be able to see it completely.

Seleighe maggots,
he spat, as soon as the vehicle was gone.
I look forward to crushing you, Tuiereann. Now, let's go see what Rathand has cooked up from our little friend's nightmare.

Down in the basement, Zeldan found Rathand studying the contents of an artificial node, supplied the night before. On the crystalline Terminal, Zeldan recognized the crushed remains of the Corvette, the mutilated face of Li-who-was-Mort. The multifaceted images flashed by swiftly, as if Rathand were holding down a fast-forward button.

"Mort does good work," Zeldan said, and Rathand grunted. "The boy had no idea it was all an illusion."

Rathand turned and stared at Zeldan with an attitude the Unseleighe didn't find appealing. "He does good work, all right. The boy almost died of heart failure during that little trip you put him through."

Zeldan stepped within an arm's reach of Rathand. "Yawn," the Unseleighe lord said sarcastically as he surrounded himself with the magics needed to turn from human to elf. Peter Pritchard underwent a brief but drastic metamorphosis: skin darkened, ears and nose lengthened, a robe replaced the yuppoid outfit of the New You staff. The Unseleighe lord glanced down at the cowering Rathand, who looked like he regretted everything he'd just uttered.

"You were saying?" Zeldan said.

"It wouldn't have mattered," Rathand murmured, turning back to the console. "What's another human life?"

"That's better," he said. "You will see, in due time, how dispensable these cattle are. Provided it is not a senseless waste. These banks," Zeldan said, walking over to the computer cabinets, "house our livelihood. When they are empty, we go hungry. If we can milk enough terror out of an eighteen-year-old human to fill one of these banks, it is well worth his life. There are many, many more where he came from."

"Yes, Zeldan," Rathand said. On the console, a crystal lit up. When Zeldan noticed it, he groaned. "Let me guess. The
bitch
requests an audience."

"It appears so," Rathand said. "Shall I—"

"No," Zeldan said, waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Put her through. I'd rather deal with her now. And while you're at it, would you ready bank delta?"

"Yes, Zeldan," Rathand said, going over to one of the banks. "I've already upgraded the port with larger crystals. The old one was ruined during the last transmission." Rathand opened one of the cabinets, its interior illuminating him briefly as he glanced over the fully charged crystals. "Aye, delta is ready to send." He closed the cabinets and regarded Zeldan with pride. "Since delta is the largest of our banks, and the most fully charged, it would be perfect to test the new port. I doubt we'll have the same trouble as last time."

Zeldan hadn't noticed the old, fused port until then, set off in the corner. It had cracked as it cooled, and now resembled awkward ice sculpture that had been left out too long, and was slowly disintegrating. The replacement port, placed near the banks where the old one once stood, bristled with new, larger crystals, and looked like it could handle just about anything they had to send through it.

Zeldan jumped slightly as the Terminal flickered to life, and Morrigan's face appeared in its full hideous splendor. Rathand looked away, apparently not wanting to witness the exchange about to take place.

Morrigan sneered briefly before she said, "To date, what you have done with our product is only producing half what I anticipated. What will it take to increase the return?"

Zeldan stared at her, confused.
She had been ecstatic over that last transmission,
he thought,
and now she's saying it's not enough? She's starting to act like the addicts to whom we sell Black Dream. Will it
ever
be enough?

"My dear lady," Zeldan said, forcing a smile. "I was under the impression you were pleased with the last delivery."

Morrigan grimaced, then snorted. "Well, yes. And no. Once I saw what was possible, I desired more, and more of it. Not that we're in any way dependent upon the powers of human pain, mind you. It's just that once our desires our satisfied, they seem to grow."

Zeldan gestured toward delta bank, behind Rathand, who shrugged. He didn't seem to know what the answer would be either. "Morrigan, I have a bank I'd like to send you—"

"
Zeldan!
" she shouted, cutting him off. "A single bank?
Four
would not be enough, at this rate."

Zeldan resisted a strong urge to smash the faceted image on the crystal, while seriously debating whether it was worth dealing with this demon. He quickly calculated how much of the Dream elixir they had, how long it would last, and what they might do if their supply were cut off.

"I don't know what to tell you," Zeldan said, trying without success to conceal the edge in his voice. "I am, I believe, keeping my end of the agreement. Do you wish to renegotiate the terms?"

A long, uncomfortable pause followed, so long that Zeldan started to assume their pact had been terminated. The Unseleighe began taking inventory of his defenses if an outright battle broke out between their two factions, and quickly decided that such a move would help neither of them, not to mention postponing his primary goal of defeating the Avalon crown.

"Excuse me a moment," Morrigan said. "I wish to confer with my staff."

She vanished momentarily, and when she returned, her expression was victorious.

"Well?" Zeldan said impatiently. "What would you like to do?"

"First," she said, then paused as someone on her side distracted her again. "Send your bank. We can
always
use the power. Then we will send you a special vial of elixir."

Zeldan frowned, this time making no secret of his distrust by raising his eyebrows and giving her a disbelieving look. "Might you be a little more specific?"

Again that animal gleam in her eye, like a wolf contemplating a helpless lamb. "We have a project in mind for you, Zeldan. Tell me what you think. First, let me thank you for fulfilling your end of the agreement. We have been wealthy with human pain, and in no time in our recent history can I recall such prosperity.

"But . . . your harvest of pain simply doesn't seem to be enough anymore."

Zeldan felt empty, then cold, in response.
Does this demon want a war with me?
he fumed, glancing away momentarily lest he fling a levin bolt directly at the Terminal.

"We have a plan that I think you will be most interested in," she continued. Zeldan's anger leveled off somewhat, but still remained near the boiling point. "What I propose is a large-scale version of what you already have been doing. True, mixing Dream with the human weaknesses for certain drugs has its own naive charm, but I believe there is a more effective way of distributing the elixir."

Zeldan pulled an office chair up and sat, then leaned toward the Terminal attentively.

"Had it occurred to you that we might get more dramatic results if we added Black Dream directly to the humans' water supply?" she said casually.

The idea stunned him. The water supply? All humans, and animals, would have to ingest so much water for anything to even happen. . . .