Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (31 page)

I giggled. He was being sarcastic.

“What
did
you do to the girl?” Nyx asked. I had finally found her
and was trying to get a good look. But she was upside down. No, I was upside
down. No, I was looking at her from upside down. My head hurt.

“I didn’t know you were so hard up that you had to drug them, these
days.”

“You’re hilarious,
cousin
. Jane is just fine.”

“Yes,” I clarified. “I’m
fine
.” Then I lowered my voice to hiss,
“Put me down” at Ryu.

“Are you sure?” he murmured. I nodded.

He set me gently on my feet, keeping a protective arm around my waist. I
looked down.

Oh shit!
“I’m naked,” I whispered to him.

He nodded, the slightest smile breaking through his grim expression. But
his eyes were still cold.

“It’s so small,” the voice said, disparagingly. “Like a little doll. I
know you’re barely past adolescence but I did think you were done playing with
dolls, Ryu.”

I bristled, assessing the creature spouting off in front of me. She was
tall—taller than Ryu by a few inches—and she had the rangy, muscular build of
an aerobics instructor or modern dancer. Her features were small and sharp and
her lips were thin, made thinner by being compressed into a tight little
grimace that I think passed for a smile in her world. Her light brown hair was
short-cropped like Ryu’s, but that was their only family resemblance. She was wearing
a tight black minidress with black knee-high fuck-me boots. I guess she was
good-looking, in a Gap model sort of way, but her attitude spoiled it.

“She’s a total bitch,” I observed.
Did I just say that out loud
?
my ambrosia salad speculated.

Ryu snorted, and the bitch looked at me sharply.

“What did you say, halfling?”

I thought for a moment. “I just called you a bitch,” I eventually
clarified.

She sputtered, staring.

“Because you really are,” I advised. “You might want to work on that.”

Nyx was stalking toward us, and I realized she wasn’t happy.

“I was just trying to be helpful,” I told Ryu, defensively. “Nobody
likes bitches.”

He put a hand firmly over my mouth and pushed me behind him. I shrugged
and looked around for my dress.

“Nyx,” he warned, “calm down and back off. We’ve got things to discuss.”

“Like how much I’m going to enjoy ripping off that little shit’s head?”

I straightened up, but before I could open my mouth Ryu’s hand was
clamped back over my lips. I bit him. He winced, but he left his hand where it
was.

“No one is ripping off any heads,” Ryu said, dryly. “Leave Jane be;
she’s not herself.” He paused. “And she’s right, anyway. You are a bitch and
you know it.”

Nyx’s thin lips stretched as she deigned to laugh. “What you call
‘bitch,’ I call ‘natural leader with a flair for intrigue.’ Maybe someday
you’ll understand that,
investigator
.”

Ryu had let me go and I’d spotted my dress. I tottered over to it, and
wrapped it around me. The sash gave me some trouble, but I managed to beat it into
submission and knot it securely.

I picked up my shoes, underpants, and bra and waited where I was for Ryu
to finish questioning Nyx. I think I was starting to sober up. Either that or I
was just too stoned to move.

“Yes, well,” Ryu persevered through his obvious irritation. “That
reminds me of why I’m so happy to see you. I wanted to ask you about
something.” His voice was level, but his eyes gleamed with anticipation.

“Peter Jakes,” he said, finally, with the air of someone dropping a
bomb.

We both waited.

The bomb fizzled, unexploded.

Nyx just smiled. “Oh, you mean the halfling. He served me.” Ryu looked
startled—he’d obviously been expecting some kind of subterfuge from Nyx. “What
do you want to know about him?” she queried, innocently.

Ryu recovered swiftly. “Did you know he is dead?”

“Oh, yes, I’d heard through the grapevine. It’s too bad, he had his
uses. He was practically human and absolutely terrified of me, so he’d do in a
pinch for a feeding.” Nyx looked over at me. “You know how it’s handy to always
carry a packed lunch,” she said, eyeing me venomously.

I tried giving her the finger, but accidentally gave her two.

Ryu wasn’t giving up, asking Nyx what Peter had been working on when he
died.

“Oh,” she said, sweetly. “I don’t know. I’d loaned him to the Alfar.
They asked to borrow his services and I’m nothing if not helpful.”

“What would the Alfar want with Jakes?” Ryu’s voice betrayed his
concern.

“Jarl has Orin convinced that there’s something to studying halflings,
and Jakes could identify halflings.” Nyx shrugged. “Some of the higher-ups are
growing concerned about our falling birth rates—they’ve apparently hit an all
new low. I think that just means more opportunities for the rest of us, but
some still bear a sentimental attachment to the young.”

“So, Jakes wasn’t working for you, he was working for the Alfar,” Ryu
clarified, and Nyx nodded.

“I don’t know what they were doing, but yes. That’s my story.” She
smiled sweetly. “And I’m sticking to it.”

Ryu frowned. I could tell he was disturbed by what Nyx had just told
him. The female vampire stretched languidly, her muscles rippling under the
tight fabric of her clothes.

“Well, it’s my time to hunt,” she said. “There’s a hillbilly bar an hour
from here that I enjoy terrorizing, if you want to leave your baby doll and
come along for a real meal. Or maybe we could compromise and chase her around
the Compound. She doesn’t look very fast, but we could give her a head start.”

Ryu shook his head. “You’ll never change, Nyx. I realize that, even if
no one else does.” He walked away from her, toward me. The ambrosia salad was
about halfway converted back to brain matter, and it recognized that Nyx had
been completely serious about hunting me. Which it didn’t appreciate.

Ryu took my free hand, the one without the underwear and shoes, and led
me back toward the gate.

“Is that a no, cousin?” Nyx called out behind us. “Well, good night
anyway. Enjoy your little mongrel girlfriend. Although how she can satisfy you
is beyond me. I guess some of us have more sophisticated palates than others.”

We both ignored her. If there had been any doubts in my mind as to the
status of halflings, Nyx had clarified them for me.

Her nasal voice echoed behind us as we walked across the little
courtyard and into the Compound. Neither of us spoke until we were safe behind
the doors of our shared rooms.

“I’m sorry,” Ryu murmured, pulling me close the minute the lock shot
home.

“I know,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

“But still, that was totally uncalled for. Which I guess is the
definition of Nyx, really—‘uncalled for.’ ”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said while shedding my wrap for the final time
that night. I climbed into bed, my brain still buzzing but my body suddenly
exhausted. “I’m used to uncalled for,” I finished, thinking of Linda and
Stuart.

Ryu stripped off his wet clothes and slipped into bed beside me. His
skin was chilly, and I gasped as he wrapped himself around me for warmth.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. I forgave him.

I turned over so I was facing him, our noses nearly touching. “That
Jakes wasn’t working for Nyx, it’s not good, is it?” I asked, quietly.

Ryu’s eyes closed. When they reopened, he sighed. “No, it’s not.”

I thought of my name on Peter’s master list, underneath the others that
had been crossed off. I turned back around, pressing myself up against Ryu’s
chest. He tightened his arms around me.

“Jane?” he asked, eventually.

“Yeah?”

“What did you mean when you said you weren’t really you? That there were
two Janes?”

I gulped.
Way to sound schizo, genius.

“Oh, that? Nothing. Who knows what I meant.”

Ryu didn’t push it, but his body, stiff behind mine, told me he wasn’t
happy with my response. So I snuggled back against him, pulling his hands up
from my waist to cup my breasts.

“You’ll stay here with me?” I murmured. “Till I’m asleep?”

“Of course,” he murmured, relaxing against me as he kissed the nape of
my neck.

Sleep came quickly that night, despite all that had happened—all that
I’d seen. But my dreams were dark and I knew that, on the morrow, I would face
an even greater challenge.

For I had no doubt the dawn would bring more Alfar intrigue and—worse
yet—another pair of Iris’s dreaded high heels.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S
tanding
on the very edge, I eyed the swimming pool with trepidation. I did
not
want a repeat of last night’s performance. Starring as a crack whore for one
night was enough.
Did I
really
offer Ryu sex for swimming?
I
wondered, again.
Thank god I never tried drugs. I’m a public service
announcement waiting to happen.

I stretched my leg forward, balancing on the other, and started to dip
my toe in before reconsidering: a toe might be too much. Instead, I sat down on
the side of the pool, legs crossed beneath me. I cautiously extended my right
hand toward the water. I’d start with a finger.

I’d fallen asleep for a few hours the night before, and then at about
three in the morning my eyes had
pinged
open. If I’d been afraid of
being hungover from my crack-pool experience, I needn’t have been. I was
completely awake and I felt like the Energizer bunny hooked up to a nuclear
reactor. Luckily, Ryu was up reading and we managed to find ways to amuse
ourselves. He was particularly keen to imitate my behavior after my dip in the
Alfar pool, for which I had to discipline him thoroughly. Around six, he
switched himself off and succumbed to catatonia, leaving me to fend for myself.
I read Ryu’s book—Dostoevsky’s
Notes from Underground
translated by
Pevear and Volokhonsky. It’s one of my all-time favorite reads and the
translation was amazing, but my attention was so insanely focused I read it in
half the time it should have taken me. Having exhausted Dostoevsky, I took a very
long time in the bathroom, mud-masking and shaving and exfoliating and
basically trying to kill as much time as possible. Which was difficult, since I
was so energetic I was moving at light speed.

When I did emerge from my morning toilette, I was relieved to find
Elspeth waiting for me in our little sitting room. She took me down to
breakfast and showed me how to get to the swimming pool. My buzzing nerves
appreciated the reprieve that her calm presence granted.

Eventually we’d ended up back at my room, and Elspeth had excused
herself. I’d decided to put on my swimsuit and try out the crack-pool again,
but carefully this time. And here I was.

My index finger hovered right above the surface of the water until, very
slowly, I dipped it down so that the water came up to just above my nail. It
was like jamming my finger in a light socket—power surged up from the pool,
into my arm, and then coursed through my body. I withdrew my hand, feeling like
I’d been struck by lightning in reverse. And kind of liking it.

I dipped my finger in again, then a third time. I laughed, feeling the
slightest bit giddy but also enjoying the sensation the water gave me even
though I had no idea what the feeling meant. I got how everything worked when I
was swimming: The ocean filled me with power and I used that power to help me
manipulate the ocean. There was a direct relational exchange I understood. But
could I use that power outside of the water? I didn’t see why not, in a
theoretical sense, but imagining myself producing mage lights or whammying my
friends and neighbors with a glamour struck me as ridiculous. I still thought
of myself as, fundamentally, the same Jane True that had gone to work over a
week ago not knowing anything about the world whose edge I was currently skirting.