Keeping It Real (53 page)

the cloth up against her hand. She set them down on a span of flat, grassy earth on the cliff's edge. Zal

put his hands down easily on the ground, unwound his legs from her waist
and put his feet down with a

circus performer's grace. He unfolded to face her and shook himself off. The tips of his longest
strands of

hair were black and frazzled.

'There are a lot
of Saaqaa out
and about,' he said, ears twitching. 'Stand still.'

He sketched out a circle that
circumscribed them both and then he sang a line like the call of an

unknown bird from a distant time.

Lila suddenly smelled hot
dogs. The air around them fogged. 'Why didn't
you do that
when Dar caught

us the first time?'

'Hadn't
got any elf juice,' Zal confessed. 'My fuel stop got cut short by that
ghost
at
the Folly, but now

that I've swallowed most
of Aparastil I could even get you through to the Dead. Don't
they tell you

anything at
spy school?'

An dalune energy, but this is a demonic spell,

Tath said, jolting Lila with the sudden reminder of his presence; he had been so quiet.

We always suspected they had the power to form temporary transits through I-space. I trust

you'll be finding out how it works.

And then they were standing in a dark parking lot
under a sodium streetlamp. The air was damp with

rain and stinking with car fumes and the reek of charring onion and hot
fat. With a disappointment
that

was much more acute than she'd imagined, Lila's AI scan recognised the back of a burger stand, the

bumpers of six SUVs, some curious human faces that
were rather gaudily made up and the bulk of the

concert hall which had been their destination days ago.

'Don't
tell me you time-slipped!' Lila whispered from their partially hidden position behind the bulk of a

Chrysler Majesty.

'Of course not,' Zal said. "These people are all here to see the Rollright
Rolling Stones
.
Look at their

hair
.
But over there,' he pointed across the street
to the Victorian magnificence of the Cherry Hill Hotel,

'is a suite with my name on it
.
Let's go.'

'Why didn't
you materialise us in a room, or the lobby?'

'Steel box girders - bad idea to intersect
them, bad geology under the hotel, also media circus as elf

appears with robot from thin air.' His hand closed more tightly on hers. He tugged and moved forward

but
Lila found her feet
rooted to the floor.

'What's the matter?'

She didn't want to go back. 'Nothing.' She made her feet move again and they walked past the staring

lines waiting for hot dogs and the ends of the crowd filing in through the turnstiles. They crossed the

street, and came under the brilliance and finery of the Cherry Hill plaza where the doormen and car

jockeys waited, sitting on the low riding flats of gold plated luggage trolleys. Zal ran them through it,

around the edge of the building and in through the kitchen exit.

'You again,' said the chef, adjusting her white headscarf as she caught sight of them. Her sous-chefs

barely looked up, although they let
themselves gawp when they realised she couldn't
see them doing it.

'Go round by the vegetable deck and not
near my pastry with your filthy selves,' the chef added,

brandishing the filleting knife she had in her hand.

'Cook something for me,' Zal called with the sweetness of an angel.

'Filthy bastard,' the chef admonished him. 'Out, quickly, before I lose my licence! You look like

you've been rolling in the mudflats.'

Zal took the room service lift
to the penthouse.

'Don't
you think there might
be somebody in here?' Lila asked him as he starting punching numbers

into the keypad beside the overly ornate mahogany doors.

'If there is, I'll buy them out,' he said. The doors opened silently inwards.

There was no one there, although the door was signalling the hotel which was signalling the manager

that Zal was there. 'He'll just put it on Jelly's tab,' Zal said. "They won't even acknowledge I'm here. Jelly

will never know unless his Mastercard starts bouncing.'

His words reminded Lila that
she hadn't
so far made a single attempt to reconnect to the Incon

network or the Otopia Tree. The peace in her head had become normal to her, her brief life as a wired

girl more like a dream than any lasting reality.

She looked around the huge room with its highly decorated period antiques, beaded lights, velvet

comforters, mountains of cushions, specially printed fabrics and enormous, marble Jacuzzi. She looked at

her lover, his long, singe-fringed hair, his ruined clothing, his elegant eartips in a questioning forward

gesture, a flicker of yellow fire in his dark eyes. 'When are you going to call Jolene and let
her off the

hook?'

'What time is it?'

Lila read off her internal clock, which was picking up an update signal, 'Eight p.m. Pacific'

'Maybe tomorrow,' Zal said, stretching, arms above his head. He let go with a shiver. The

glass-shaded lamp beside him flickered in the classic electrical telltale of nearby wild aether. 'And are

you,' he waved the fingers of one hand beside his head, 'talking to the secret masters?'

'Maybe tomorrow.' Lila moved forward and put her hands up to his face, feeling the tingle of his

andalune
wind across her wrists. She kissed him gently on the mouth, exploring all the angles until they

both found one that gave the perfect fit.