Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (37 page)

“They somehow find an excuse to have something like this just about
every weekend,” he said. “The Alfar have the resources, and everyone else gets
bored, so it’s something to do. As you’ve noticed, the Compound is as much a
family home—albeit a dysfunctional family home—as it is a seat of power. The
servants who live here are less employees and more inhabitants who make sure
that the upper echelon are properly taken care of. The Alfar, in turn, keep
everyone safe and they circulate their power about—feeding the land, the pools,
and all that. Even the air we breathe is charged, for those who have access to
air elementals. But all of this also means the Compound has to be out of the
way, away from humans and the excitement of human life. So the beings that live
here year-round come up with stuff to lure the city types in on weekends. Of
course, it
is
also the seat of power, so anyone who has any important
Territorial business to conduct tends to do it here. But no matter what the
occasion, everybody likes a party.”

As befitting the circumstances, all and sundry in attendance looked
resplendent. There were lots of designer clothes flashing about, but also a lot
of stuff that looked like costumes from some kind of sci-fi or fantasy movie.
Except some of the costumes, I realized, were actually shape-shifter tricks.
One woman had a luxuriant feather bikini, like a Las Vegas showgirl, but a
closer look revealed that the feathers were actually growing from her flesh. A
few other people appeared to be hybrids: There was a cat-woman and cat-man
couple, who I don’t think were wearing costumes, and I spotted what looked like
a minotaur in a corner. Ryu nodded when I asked him if that was a nahual.

“They like to play with their appearance,” he said. I was getting an
insight into human mythology that just about blew me away. Archetypes my foot;
humans had just been the victims of tricky shape-shifters. The likes of Carl
Jung and Joseph Campbell were in trouble.

Ryu and I wandered about, him conversing with various beings while I
smiled and tried not to stare. He seemed to know everyone and was treated with
quite a bit of deference by many. Nyx had seemed to be making fun of him when
she called him an “investigator,” but I got the impression that he was actually
well respected.

Speak of the devil
, I sighed, as a familiar form came toward
us.

“Cousin,” Nyx greeted Ryu, ignoring me.

“Nyx,” Ryu said. She was wearing a tight white sheath dress that left
nothing, and I mean
nothing
, to the imagination. If she’d had any pubic
hairs, I could have counted them. I also noticed that she had a very befuddled
looking man standing behind her. He was huge—bulging with muscles but
presenting to the world a slack-jawed expression that emitted a zero on the
personality scale. He was dressed in a suit, but it didn’t look like it fit him
very well. And then I noticed his neck.

What I’d first thought were love bites were actually just bites. All
over his neck raw looking wounds glistened angrily in the low light of the
hall.
He’s human
, I realized.
Nyx just gave a whole new meaning to
the expression BYOB
.

“I see you brought your own dinner, as well.” Nyx’s voice echoed my own
thoughts, and then I registered that she was talking about me. Ryu’s jaw
clenched and I squeezed his hand. After the provocations I’d endured in my
life, Nyx was no more annoying than a mosquito buzzing around my face. If I
could ignore her, so could he.

Ryu’s voice oozed contempt. “You never cease to impress me with your
refinement, cousin,” he said. “Remember to leave this one alive; I wouldn’t
want to have to run you in for improperly disposing of your garbage. Again.”

Nyx smiled sweetly. “That was just an accident, Ryu. Can I help it if
I’m simply too much for them? But this one looks strong, doesn’t he? He should
go the distance.” She shrugged, as if to indicate it didn’t
really
bother her if he didn’t. “And then I’ll put him back where I got him, with only
a few nightmares to remind him of our time together.” She gave me a predatory
look. “No harm, no foul,” she sneered, her tone rubbing my nose in her words.

I watched in horror as a flicker of what looked like fear crept over the
big man’s features, before a sweep of Nyx’s hand over his eyes ironed out his
expression so that it was as bland and lifeless as before. I turned to Ryu but
he hadn’t noticed the man’s discomfiture.

Ryu shook his head and gave Nyx a mocking little salute, before leading
me away. When we were out of earshot I stopped him. “You’ve got to do something
for that man,” I said. “He shouldn’t be here, not with her. Did you see his
neck
?”
I finished, my hands going to my own throat.

Ryu sneered. “She likes to leave them unhealed, so that they freak out
when they wake up. It causes no amount of trouble for the rest of us, but
nothing we do can stop her. For some reason she has Morrigan’s favor and she’s
allowed her little games.” Ryu was angry, but I could tell that he was more
irritated that Nyx got special consideration rather than that she had enslaved
some poor human who she was clearly abusing.

“Ryu,” I said, trying to keep calm. “What about the man?”

He looked down at me, as if suddenly realizing what I was talking about.
“Oh, he’ll be fine. She doesn’t dare kill this one, not after what happened the
last time. And he must have gone to her willingly enough to begin with,
otherwise she couldn’t have enthralled him so thoroughly.”

“So he was asking for it?” I said, contemptuously. I couldn’t believe
what I was hearing.

“Look, Jane, it doesn’t make me any happier to see him like that than it
does you. You know I don’t do things the way that Nyx does. I find her…
predilections equally distasteful.” I sensed a
but
coming.

“But,” he continued, affirming my suspicions. “I have no authority to
tell her how to conduct her affairs. As long as she doesn’t bring undue
attention to our community, my hands are tied.”

I closed my eyes, trying to get my emotions under control. I was so
angry I could spit, but I didn’t know who pissed me off more. Obviously, Nyx’s
behavior made her a strong contender, but I wasn’t having sex with Nyx. Hearing
the man who—just hours ago—had made love to me talk about the murder of some
human as an
inconvenience
to his own kind made my skin crawl.

Ryu took my hand to kiss my palm, and for the first time in our short
relationship feeling the touch of his lips did nothing for me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, registering my coldness. “I wish you hadn’t been
confronted with all this. Not yet, at least.” He searched for the right words.
“Our ways are not human ways,” he said, after a while. “Some of us are more…
considerate in our use of our powers than others. Some of us are, quite simply,
what humans would deem monstrous. But you can’t judge us by human standards,
and eventually you’ll come to understand that. You’re one of us, Jane, whether
you like everything about our community or not.”

I stared at him, unable—unwilling—to process what he was saying.

“In the meantime,” he continued, uncomfortably, “we do have a system of
checks and balances to make sure nobody gets too out of control. And I’m part
of that system. So please don’t look at me like that.”

He sounded so apprehensive that I blinked, shaken out of my appalled
reverie. I looked deep into his golden eyes, as if I could find the answers I
wanted written on his corneas. But all I got for my trouble was a flash of
memory—the moment I realized his eyes must be hazel when we first met. I
grasped that memory, attaching to it like a leech.

“Oh, Ryu,” I said, reaching for him. He folded me in his arms. “I want
to go home.” And I really did, I realized. Rockabill, and the word
home
,
had taken on a whole new significance for me.

“I know, baby,” he whispered into my ear. “I’ll take you home when this
is all over. I promise.”

Let’s hope it’s not in a body bag
, I thought,
thinking of that poor man’s neck.

He held me for another minute, as I recovered my equilibrium. We were
interrupted by the loud clang of a gong sounding from the edge of the raised
dais.

“Dinner time,” Ryu said. “You okay?”

I nodded, shaking myself mentally. Ryu took my hand and led us to our
table. We were sitting in the first row, near the dais, with Wally. Ryu was
careful to keep himself and a few other beings between me and the djinn. Wally
and Ryu exchanged covert little nods, and I knew they had something up their
sleeves. Even if the genie wasn’t actually wearing any.

After we took our seats, the Alfar high table filed in and took their
places. Morrigan and Orin were seated at the center of the table in the
fanciest chairs, naturally, and Jarl was seated next to Orin. He looked
particularly threatening in a high-collared royal-blue robe that made him look
like he’d raided a Martian overlord’s closet. I also saw, with a start, that
Nyx was seated at the very end of the high table. Her hunk of human man-meat sat
disconsolately on the edge of the dais, at her feet. He looked lost and my
heart went out to him.

Then the entertainment began. There was another singer, but this time he
was unmistakably a kelpie. Like Trill, the man had grayish-green skin and
seaweed hair. He was also unabashedly naked, although whereas Trill was
relatively smooth and hairless, this guy looked like he had a coral reef
extending down his chest to his groin, mostly covering his genitals. I leaned
back into my seat to enjoy the sound of his singing. His voice spoke to me of
the sea, and I closed my eyes. Through his words, I felt the ocean on my skin,
tasted her salty tang, and thrilled to the echo of her waves in my ears.

For the first time since walking into the great hall I relaxed just a
fraction. And when I felt Ryu’s slippered foot glide up my calf I smiled, my
eyes still shut tight. Until I remembered that Ryu wasn’t wearing slippers, and
my lids snapped open. Wally gave me his Buddha-riffic grin from across the
table, and I sat up straight, carefully withdrawing my leg. Ryu hadn’t noticed
his friend’s infraction, so I kept mum, shooting the genie a dirty look. He
shrugged at me, looking for all the world as peaceable and harmless as a
castrated monk.

But I was finally beginning to understand that nothing was as it
appeared, here in the Alfar court.

After the singer, we were entertained by a group of incubi and succubae
who danced like Cossacks trained by whirling dervishes. They spun like tops,
kicking high their legs and tossing each other gracefully up in the air. Ryu
put both hands on my knees, to remind my suddenly totally aroused body that it
had to stay in its seat and not get itself a little tossing of its own.

I breathed a sigh of relief when they were finished. Dancing sexpots
were all a little too much for my human half. Finally, dinner was served, and I
dug in. Rather than individual plates, we were given large platters of food to
share among the table. Everything was, of course, delicious. About the only
thing I could unreservedly say was good about the Alfar was that they sure knew
how to keep a body fed. I’d never eaten so well in my life, and my dad and I
are both pretty dab hands in the kitchen.

During dinner there was a band. One person played an electric guitar,
another a bodhran, and a third the panpipes, but they were the only instruments
I recognized. After the meal, the musicians all cleared away, and another group
of succubae—this time all dressed in belly dancing clothes—stood up to take
their place.

Oh no,
I groaned inwardly.
Not again
.

But just as the little group jiggled merrily into position, Jarl stood.
He’d been oddly unfocused for the majority of the meal, his eyes turned inward
as if he were in a trance. I’d kept an eye on him throughout the evening, trying
not to feel like a fly caught in a web.

Everyone’s attention was riveted on Jarl. The succubae wordlessly
cleared the stage.

“They’ve returned!” Jarl’s voice rang out, just as the double doors at
the end of the hall flew open. Everyone stood. After exchanging concerned
looks, Ryu and I joined them on our feet.

For a moment no one appeared. And then for another moment, I was too
short to see what was happening. I cursed my midget-hood, although when I
finally did get a glimpse of what was coming up the aisle, I wished I hadn’t.

Jimmu was in the lead, and flanking him was an honor guard of eight
nagas—four on each side, consisting of all nine nestmates in total. They glided
down the central aisle with the same serpentine grace and they looked like
siblings, not least as they were all dressed in the same punk style. Except
that each of them carried on their backs a sheathed sword, and they weren’t for
decoration.
Not even the Ramones went in for swords
, I thought, not
liking where tonight was going. Nine Jimmu clones, all armed, did not bode well
for my safety.

They strode soundlessly down the aisle, and all in attendance shrank
back as they passed. I was clearly not alone in being scared witless by the
nagas. As they neared our table, Jimmu’s cold eyes flicked to mine and it was
like his hand had reached around my throat. I gasped, fighting to breathe,
until his dry eyes swept back to gaze ahead. Ryu placed a protective hand on
the small of my back to remind me he was there.