Chương 19: A plan

Caspar sits bolt upright, breathing hard. His mouth hangs open. He touches his cupid's-bow philtrum, where a moment ago my lips lay on his. He's back. Oh, no. Oh, shoot. Should he not have done that? Am I angry? Why else would I have sent him back? An ineffable starspawned being from beyond his reality just got right up in his face and his response was to kiss it. It must have been like a dog licking my face. Or a bug landing on my skin. Obviously when I said "love me" I didn't mean that. He's such a fool.

Forget not being in my league. He's not even in my dimension. He didn't even ask permission. You don't just up and kiss a lady like that, without asking permission. Especially not after cussing her out and throwing her gift right back in her face. He's a damn beast. Of course I'm angry.

"I'm not!" I cry aloud.

"Go back to sleep and come fuck my stupid brains out!" I know he can't hear me. I hate this warlock shit. Why is it so limited? I vocalize an exasperated growl. I can't even be angry, not at him. This is my fault. Caspar climbs out of the cot. He's sweated through his shirt in his sleep. He thinks about how it was to kiss me, to hold me. He had been trying very hard not to imagine how my body would feel like wrapped around him, how my lips would taste. And then it happened.

And now he knows, damn him, and he can't un-know. I feel incredible. I feel perfect. His skin tingles with just the memory of me. His fingers flex to remember my softness pressed against him, the curve of my heart-shaped ass, plush and giving beneath his touch. The enraptured, desperate little noises I made. My scent, my breath, the stone fruit taste of my plump lips. The tendrils of my hair caressing and exploring him. My tongue. How long can my tongue get? He needs to focus.

He's on a vessel he halfway know how to steer, with the Archbishop of his entire diocese tied up in the closet. And anyway, he can never do that again, even if his body cries out for mine like a puzzle with a piece missing. He'll figure out his apology before he goes to bed tonight and faces the music. I gotta rebuild that pyramid so I can throw myself off it. Can't you fix this? You're human, right? Go get on an aerodyne and fly over there and tell him Irene wants to suck his cock. Pass him a note or something.

Sorry. You're busy. Sorry. Forget I asked. I'm just quite frustrated. The steely blue matte of early morning punches through the windows like slate pavement. In the cockpit he finds Jordan, snoring gently, her boots up on the dashboard and her. 45 in her lap underneath a crinkled and folded Relic City drama comic. He wonders what she's up to in Bina's demesne. I admit to a certain curiosity myself; I send a subvocal query to Bina for access and she cheerfully allows me a manifestation.

My Irene body has become too precious to me. Its senses are too heightened, its emotions too complex. Its frame too small and soft. I don't really want to send it out into other demesnes. I don't want to share it anymore, with anyone but Caspar. I decide to craft a new one. The replacement is similar, just streamlined. Nothing under the dress but shadowy insubstantiality, nothing behind the eyes but my usual, unaffected self. No plumbing, no hormones. Nice and simple.

I check back in on Caspar while I build my mini-Irene. He's carrying the sleeping inspector in his arms to the dormitory. Her head rests on his upper arm, tilted back and issuing a gentle snore. A cocktail of illogical and confusing emotions flush through me. Caspar deposits Jordan in the bunk across from his own and returns to the cockpit. He checks on the hostages in the storeroom. Both asleep, their arms above their heads and ziptied to the steadyholds on the walls.

Caspar looks at their loose, insubstantial robes in this high-altitude chill. He finds some thermal blankets amid the supplies and swaddles the archbishop and his lady companion up as well as he can. Tilliam groans and shifts in his sleep. Caspar remembers how often he gazed at that face, the passage of time marked by the graceful aging of it—gray temples, crow's feet. How secure he felt in the mercy and enthusiasm of his Archbishop. How befriended and beloved.

In the flesh, without the lighting and the makeup, Tilliam looks older. Slighter. Caspar finds a protein ration and tears the blister pack open. There's a trading card in it: Saint Drusus of the Sword battling a many-headed demon. The inverse has a prayer for protection on it. If he recalls right he had about a half dozen of the many-headed demon cards. A pretty common pull. He had a member in his unit who managed to collect the whole 200-card set.

She took a bullet in the head in Tabarka and can't eat solid foods anymore. Miss Irene, he thinks. I know we aren't in great shape right now, me and you. But I am grateful that when I pray, there is someone listening. Come back to me, Caspar. I love you. Maybe if I think it hard enough he'll be able to feel it, somehow. A little inkling of it. I love you, I love you, I love you. Caspar chews on the sawdusty energy bar as he returns to the cockpit.

It's a comfort, in a way, knowing the special forces flyboys eat the same processed crud as the militia troopers. He sits at the controls, and becomes aware, more than ever, that an arcade game is not representative of a real airship. The misspent days of his youth have prepared him, but not sufficiently. He knows enough to see that the numbers on the propellant and hydrogen gauges are dire.

Once Jordan's awake again, the two of them will get started siphoning and storing additional propellant from Tilliam's blown-out engines, and tap into the envelope to max out their hydro PSI. Then they'll cut the yacht loose and get a good amount of efficiency back. Even with that top-up, a transmontane crossing will push the interceptor to its limits. He reckons Perry could pull it off. But the fella had to go and explode. Add it to the list of shit that's gonna get them killed. Oh, well.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ I stake a slice of myself into the perspective of my warlock and pour the majority behind the eyes of my public manifestation. It spins into being at the lip of a grotto, tunneled into a chalky cliff face. Bina sits with her legs danging in the water. Her manifestation still has its wings and pseudopods and lupine head, but it feels like every time I see her she's a little less chaotic, a little more humanoid. Today she's positively legible.

She's wearing a one-piece swimsuit with a little frill along the hip. I scoot onto the rocks next to her." Beany. Is that an hourglass I see?"

"Well I don't know!" Bina's tendrils rise defensively.

"You always look so pretty and you seem like you're having so much fun waving your butt in Caspar's face."

"You're copycatting me now. Getting a warlock, a teasing nickname, seducing the warlock…"

"I am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Yo, Bina." Jordan's call echoes out of the grotto's mouth.

"You coming in or what?"

"One second," Bina singsongs. She stares daggers at me.

"Don't be weird about it, okay? I'm not being weird about your thing."

"Sure. Sure."

"Pinky swear," Bina demands. Once that's extracted from me, we slip into the water and emerge deeper into the grotto, which is lit in soft orange by a battalion of pillar candles. An open chute in the cave ceiling spears a warming pool of day into the depths and highlights Jordan, drifting lazily atop the pool on a bright blue float recliner. Her finger taps the edge of her cocktail glass along to the smooth shaker music emanating from some unseen corner of the cavern.

"Howdy, Miss Irene."

"Hi, Jordan. What you got there?" She stirs it with a pink plastic straw.

"Jungle Bird. Bina sure knows her cocktails."

"I studied." Bina puffs herself up a little.

"Wanna show us what Caspar's doing?" I surreptitiously ensure there's nothing scandalous to show, then rest a finger in Bina's pool and transform it into a window to Diamante's reality. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"Jordan, your butt's in the way," Bina says. Jordan stretches a calf out and pushes herself out of the center of the pool. She rests her head halfway into the water, eyes shut in restful meditation, while Bina and I watch Caspar. The light of morning streaks golden strips across the still and sterile interceptor cabin. In the cockpit, Caspar has found a SAUR thirty-aught-six, and is occupying himself by stripping and reassembling it.

This was the gun he carried in his trooper unit back in the militia, thanks to his bulky frame. There were some nights, after he came back from the front, that he'd wake up at two in the morning, to some time-traveling noise, a car engine like a divebomber. He'd do this over and over, tiring himself out enough to get back to sleep. Put it together, take it apart. Stock, receiver, barrel. Vesta never liked that he still had his old service weapon, even without a single bullet in the house.

Asked him why he had to cling to it like this. Prayed for him over it, she said. It's been a few years since then. He's surprised he still knows how to strip a Saur. As he screws the barrel into the receiver, he hears the rustling of fabric. He pauses for a ten-count, then cautiously returns to assembly. Another crinkle noise and he's on his feet, the autogun slung from his shoulder and tight in his grip. He circles wide as he sweeps his sights along the armory entrance. Tilliam is still snoring.

His lady friend, however, has awakened, and is now trying very hard to pretend she hasn't.

"You," Caspar whispers.

"Camilla. Up." A twitch in her. And she stands, the ziptie dropping away as she does so. It's been cut neatly.

"Corinne," she says. Tilliam grunts and fidgets.

"Hands on your head, ma'am. Step out of the armory." Caspar backs away as the woman trudges out into the fuselage.

"How did you get free of that tie?" he asks.

"Would you believe a lady had a sharp nail and some determination?"

"No." She tsks.

"Well, I suppose the cat's stayed in the bag long enough. I'm taking my right hand off my head. Just for a moment." She holds out her forearm. A scythe-blade claw scissors out from her forearm like a utility knife. Caspar takes a stutter-step back.

"You're a warlock," he says.

"That's right." With a flick of her forearm the blade sheathes back into her body. She returns her hand to its place on her platinum bob.

"And not Camilla. Or Corinne."

"So you are…?"

"Adaire," says Adaire.

"I'm Salome's warlock. Charmed." Caspar keeps the gun steady.

"Likewise."

"Oh, gosh!" Bina looks excitedly toward me.

"That's good, right? Bargaining chip." I just nod, chewing a knuckle intently as I observe. Adaire's fingers fidget.

"May I take my hands off my head, sir?" Caspar shakes no.

"Had a run-in with a hostile warlock in Chamchek, tried to stab my eyes out."

"Well, that warlock didn't know which way their bread was buttered. I've seen you in action. I'm not nearly so martial." Adaire clears her throat. Her voice has evened out into a silken alto monotone.

"If I may speak directly to your patron for a moment, sir?"

"She can hear you."

"May I have the honor of knowing the Old One I address?"

"Irene."

"Ahh." Adaire nods.

"Golden-eyed Irene. Good. Hail, Irene." She bows at the waist.

"My mistress Salome requests a council. Perhaps an arrangement can be made. One that spares this humble warlock's life and brings mutual benefit. You're taking this airship to Pastornos, we imagine?" Caspar doesn't answer. Good boy. Salome is our second-eldest sister after Eight. She's clever. Slippery.

"And you have a plan to gain access to the Suzerain?" The uncertain twinge I feel from Caspar must reflect in him somehow, because Adaire smirks.

"Perhaps not. Perhaps you're in the market for some collaboration."

"You'd have to ask Miss Irene."

"Exactly our intention." Adaire lifts her slim hands off her head and rests her palms on her hips. Something about the action—the gesture, the attitude, the cock of their hip—transmogrifies her. The runny makeup and the flimsy robe suddenly seem like fashionable affectations, like she's a picture starlet doing a promo shoot.

"You brought Bina and Saoirse onboard. Nearly half of the willful family. Milady is impressed. She's prepared to discuss a contribution to your cause. So long as your warlocks keep her servant—that would be me—alive and in comfort."

"Interesting offer," Caspar says.

"Interestingly invested in your comfort."

"I'm paraphrasing." She gives a catty shrug.

"Next time you have the chance to rest your head, perhaps your mistress will give you her decision. Until then, it's in your best interest to keep Tilliam and I alive. If you want the Suzerain, you need a plan. Old boy isn't exactly taking appointments."

"And you've got one?"

"No. I was just schtupping a gross old archbishop for the love of the game." Adaire laughs a twinkling laugh.

"Of course we had a plan. You've blown it open. Fair play you. The advantage is yours. But I think you need me, mister… it was Cas, yes?"

"Caspar."

"Caspar." She favors him with a gorgeous smile.

"If we work together, we can patch it up. You seem… well, we can blame the oopsie-daisy abduction on the dead guy. You seem competent enough." I fall into rumbling subvocal conference with Bina. Of course, she's a yes from the jump. My youngest sister is always eager to trust. Jordan twists in the water to see what we're doing; when it's clear we're being secretive, she returns, unbothered, to her relaxation.

"Now, I'm just about freezing my tits off in this robe," Adaire says.

"With your permission, I'd like to excuse myself briefly back into the armory to find myself a change of clothes."

"Afraid I can't just let you out of these sights." Caspar indicates the gun.

"Learned a couple hard lessons."

"Suit yourself, sir warlock." Adaire shrugs.

"Not my first peep show." Caspar follows them past the still-slumbering Tilliam and stands guard as she slips from her robe and into a uniform of black-and-gray fatigues. As she buttons and adjust the jacket, she rolls their shoulders and her entire mien changes again like quicksilver, just as Caspar witnessed before. When she turns back around, her ramrod back and wide stance has totally erased the starlet of before. Now she looks like a handsome young soldier right out of a recruitment tract.

"Goodness, that's impressive," Caspar says.

"Had me wondering who you were a second. That a spell?"

"A blonde wig and some chutzpah are their own kind of spell." Adaire pulls the bob from her head and runs her fingers through her cropped ginger hair to fluff it out.

"I've leaned on the eldritch, now and then, for my more daring transformations, but I consider it a professional challenge to do without." Even her voice is different, masculine and clipped. The archbishop grunts in his sleep and shifts under the blanket. Adaire speaks sotto voce.

"Let's move this conversation to the cabin before we wake Tilly, shall we? He'll be more useful if we keep him thinking I'm his fellow hostage a while longer."

"So quick to presume you're not." Adaire cracks a grin that melts her soldier-boy face back into dazzling glamor.

"You see right through me." Caspar gestures with the gun.

"After you."

"The blanket was clever, you know." Adaire strolls past him back into the cabin.

"You wanted to keep us warm. But you also know how loud a military thermal blanket rustles. I could have freed myself and found a weapon without it. One part pragmatism, one part charity. Sharp. I see you." Jordan sips her Jungle Bird.

"I oughta tell the newbie buttering the dude up didn't work for me." I hum acknowledgement.

"It may be about time for you to wake up."

"Before I'm done with my drink?" Jordan clicks her tongue.

"Protect me, O Goddess." Bina giggles.

"Hold on. I'll dilate us." My chronological cerebellum itches and tingles as Bina stretches the passage of time in her demesne to a thin, crowded strand. The firehose of seconds becomes a trickle and our view flickers as it adopts a snail's pace.

"There we go. Take your time, Jordy. Then go back up Caspar. And tell the new warlock that the meeting's on."

"Hot damn. I should have become a devil worshipper a long-ass time ago" Jordan puts the straw back between her dark lips and tips her head back into the water. Her eyes drift shut again.

"Thankf, Bean," she says around her straw. Bina beams. She certainly doesn't seem to have a problem when Jordan calls her that.

"Oh! Jordan!" I snap my fingers in excited recall.

"I need you to pass a message on to Caspar. When you wake up."

"Hmm?" Jordan lifts her head out of the water. Her braids glisten. I can't blame Bina. She's quite striking.

"Sure." I think about what to say to Caspar and observe a curious phenomenon. Despite the total absence of interference in this manifestation of human sexual hormones, that little lighter-than-air feeling when I picture his face returns, unprompted. With a scientific caution I imagine him again: and with the imagining, the flutter repeats. Fascination and concern take up uneasy cohabitation within me. It was much easier to pin my Caspar fixation on the hormonal realities of the manifestation I was using.

That his face gives my larger mainframe an echo of that same giddiness, that is hazardous. I wasn't counting on it going this far beyond my humanoid biology. My yearning for Caspar appears to have spread through my entire manifold. I've been contaminated. I ought to be very upset. This could seriously impair my logical functioning. How strange that instead I feel something akin to satisfaction.

"Can you tell him…" I consider how open I want to be with the inspector.

"That I'm not angry with him. And that I'd like to continue from where we left off." Jordan smacks her lips.

"What's that mean?"

"Never mind what it means. Just pass it along, please." Jordan shrugs and takes another sip of her Jungle Bird.

"You got it." ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ Bina's ease with allowing me into her warlock's mind is something I might need to school her about if she's interested in getting closer to the mortal. I've shared Caspar's point of view, using the man like a camera, but I've kept his thoughts private from everyone else as a courtesy; it surprises me, sometimes, the value you humans place on even your silliest and least consequential secrets.

Jordan awakens with the phantom taste of Campari fading on her tongue, the warm water replaced by chilly air and dried sweat. She sighs unhappily and sits up. She belts her gun on and slouches into the cabin.

"Morning, Cas. Morning, hostage. Why don't they have tea on this dumb balloon, I wanna know."

"We can steal some from the yacht before we sink it." Caspar gestures to the newest warlock.

"This is Adaire." Adaire bows.

"Madame Inspector."

"All right, Adaire." Jordan puts her chilly hands in her pockets.

"Our mistresses say you got your meeting. But until then, you're going back in those zip cuffs."

"If it would put you at ease, we could pretend." Adaire extends her scythe claw again.

"But I'm afraid they wouldn't do you any good." Jordan frowns.

"Either way, we can't just let you wander around." Caspar nods.

"We take turns, yeah? Got to get everything we can off Tilliam's ship if we want to reach mainland. You take the fuel. Red cap in the engine room and you siphon it just like you would a car, more or less. I'll do the hydro once you're done. So someone's always got an eye on them."

"Solid." Jordan yawns.

"Guess I'd better go get the sky harnesses. By the way, Cas. Got a message for you from Irene." Caspar braces as though for a punch.

"She says she's not upset," Jordan says.

"And she'd like to keep going from where you left off."

"Oh." Caspar's heart does a somersault.

"Okay."

"What does that mean, anyway?" Jordan squints at him.

"What're you two doing?"

"Nothing. Uh, planning." Caspar's face is hot. Jordan's mouth drops open.

"Oh, my God."

"What?" Her expression snaps back to neutrality, though a held-in laugh flickers at the edge of it.

"I hope you two have a wonderful plan."

"Jordan," Caspar warns. Adaire's brow raises.

"I'm rooting for the plan, Caspar. Get on in there and plan the shit out of her." Caspar rests his face in his hands. He is so cute when he's flustered that it makes me want to scream.

"You gotta report back on what it's like, planning an Old One." Jordan loses control of her shit-eating grin. I'd like to scream at her, too, for other reasons.

"Jordan, piss off and get the harnesses, please."