Between Friends, page 10
That earned me a grin. “Anyway,” she said, “I’m gonna be a bit busy, so you’re going to have to get them all together.”
I gazed at her stupidly for far too long, and then down at my useless legs. “I don’t think I can. They’re thralled; I can’t round them up like cattle, and I can’t force them to move, either. If I could walk, then maybe—”
“You have to,” she said. “There’s no one else, and I can’t keep off goblins and round up humans at the same time.”
“How—?”
“Dunno,” Pet said. “But if you hack back into your program, can’t you do something a bit different with the ambient track they gave you? Sorta pied piper ’em toward the right spot?”
Someone laughed, and it wasn’t until Pet grinned back at me that I realised it was me. “Do you always verb your nouns?”
“I’m a scrapper, not a writer,” she said, still grinning. “I don’t have to speak properly. That mean you can do it?”
“Yes,” I said, and there was still a laugh curling in my stomach because while I had been thinking of my shortcomings, Pet had been thinking of my abilities. No wonder she was pet to a fae, a vampire, and a Zero. “It’s a pity you’re already adopted. We work very well together.”
Pet’s grey eyes danced a little, but she only said, “I come in useful every now and then. You ready?”
“Nearly,” I said.
Then I lowered my head and began typing magic into lines and blocks that grew until they moved and took on a life of their own, ready to do exactly what I needed them to do. When I had typed the second-to-last stroke, my fingers still poised over the keyboard, I paused for a moment.
I asked Pet, “Are you ready?”
She was by the counter—had been since she pulled those swords from the table, and I fancied I could hear the sound of something scratching, scratching, deep in the lower floor.
“I reckon,” she said, without looking back at me. She stood easily, as if she’d always carried swords, her balance slightly to the back foot. I hoped she was as good with them as she looked holding them, because if the goblins got through her, there was no hope for the rest of us.
“If everything goes wrong, it’s your fault,” I told her.
She laughed. “Yeah, I hear that a lot.”
But the tickling in my stomach was excitement, not fear. Had the human world always had such a warmth and life to it? I didn’t remember feeling it before. The easy way to explain it would have been Pet’s enlivening presence—bringing with it, as it had, danger—but that was too easy an answer. Something within myself had changed. Something within myself, after being so long used to pining for the velvet blue of Beneath, had grown to appreciate the sunshine of Above. At least for today, that sunshine was as beautiful as the blue of Beneath.
More, I felt alive. Or perhaps I merely felt that for the first time, I had a purpose that I could serve, even with a body that was useless no matter which world I chose to live in.
“Don’t mind me,” Pet said. “Things are gonna get noisy for a bit, but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Just do your bit and we’ll be fine. I’m counting on you to get us out.”
This time she glanced at me for the briefest moment, and I saw the trust in her face. That was a dangerous face for a pet to carry around with her. It was the sort of face that made people—that even made Behindkind like myself—want to be worthy of that trust.
“Here we go,” I said. I started my dual-program running with the magic-laced press of a single button.
I’m not sure if the program or the goblin attack began first. I saw the closest of the café patrons twitch, his foot edging toward myself and my computer; and as he did so, there came the first slash of steel against steel.
“Get back, you ugly little needle-pusher!” said Pet, in a growl.
Something hit the wall behind me with a sticky splatter, and the high wail of a goblin battle-cry rose in the air, wild and savage.
I looked over my shoulder, unable to help myself, and saw Pet meet the onslaught of goblins with a competent, scything double sweep of her swords, blood arcing high to flower on the ceiling. The arms and legs that had been faunish and inclined to a likewise faunish awkwardness were no longer awkward—lithe, quick, and beautiful, Pet danced forward and then back, the twin blades never still for a minute, her booted feet kicking away goblin needles, daggers, and teeth.
Something soft whispered by my arm, and I started badly, my wheelchair creaking. The first patron was at my right hand; his eyes were still clouded, but he stepped forward without prompting from me, and was caught within the influence of the second part of my program.
“Good luck,” I told him.
I clicked the new mail button and the patron flickered slightly as the magic assimilated him. My finger hovered for just an instant longer over the mousepad, the cursor on the send mail button, but Pet was fighting for both of us at the other end of the café, so what else could I do but hit the button?
The patron vanished completely, and a moment later, the text at the bottom of my email client said message sent successfully.
I might have whooped.
“Good grief!” said Pet, her voice strained and just a little shocked. “I thought one of them had slipped past me! Working, is it?”
“Perfectly!” I said, relief blossoming bright and fragrant in my heart. I caught the next two patrons in the program—new mail, send mail—and they followed the first without a hitch.
Now this, I thought, grinning at my reflection in the computer screen, was what hacking life should always be. The delight of being always one step ahead of everyone else.
My fingers danced across the mousepad—new mail, send mail—and Pet swept the café clean on her side, until there was a kind of hollowness to the click of the mouse buttons, and Pet said from behind me, “They’re gone.”
I looked around in surprise to see who were gone, goblins or patrons, and found that we were entirely alone in the blood-soaked and magic-ridden café.
Pet threw the swords down on the seat next to me, where they made a sticky, bloody patch. Now that the time had come for our own departure, that patch of blood pointedly reminded me that there was a vampire waiting for me in the library—not to mention one Behindkind fae and, apparently, a Zero. What exactly would they say to my less-than-legal exploits today? It was very possible that they would report me, at the very least.
“Don’t reckon they’re game to poke their heads above the floor-line just yet,” Pet said. She added encouragingly, “We’d better go now while they’re still scared.”
I let out a slightly shaky breath as carefully as I could. I didn’t like to look like I was too frightened. “I may have misled you somewhat.”
“About what?”
“I might have given you the impression that some of what I do is allowed under Behind law…”
This time, Pet really did look impressed. It was a sop to my bruised ego. “Flaming heck!” she said. “You’re playing both sides, but in reverse.”
“Not very clever of me,” I said. “But it’s a good living, and I don’t particularly like either side all that much.”
“Don’t worry,” Pet advised. “Zero doesn’t care about stuff like that.”
“Who is Zero, anyway?” I was beginning to feel, somewhat desperately, that this skinny, apparently friendless little human was backed by far too many people. A fae owner and a vampire owner were bad enough—what type of owner was this Zero?
“He’s my other owner,” she said, confirming that uneasy suspicion. “There are three of them.”
“What’s this one? Trollstock?”
“Nope,” said Pet, without the kind of offence I would have expected from Behindkind, should I have said it to one. She added, “And don’t think I don’t know you were being rude, either.”
I grinned. “That doesn’t surprise me,” I told her. I was beginning to think that nothing about this human should surprise me any longer.
“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about them reporting you for stuff like that. Not if you’re not doing wrong stuff with it, anyway.”
Since this reassurance was paired with a slightly stern look that made it difficult for me not to smile, I said, “I certainly won’t be doing anything like this again in a hurry.”
“All right,” Pet said, satisfied. “Oi. When we go through and the program stops, it’s going to collapse on itself like you said, yeah? ’Cos there aren’t any more humans to feed on?”
“Yes,” I said. I had wondered if it would occur to her.
“Will it kill them? The rest of the goblins, I mean.”
“I doubt it,” I told her. “But it’s possible, if they’re weak enough.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“All right?” I was curious to know how she felt about that. I had known ruthless humans, and Pet wasn’t one of them. She had killed in self-defence, but I hadn’t seen any sign of enjoyment from her—just determination and a certain grim pallor.
“It’s better than what Zero and the others would do to them,” she said. “And it’s time I took responsibility, if I’m going to be protecting people.”
“Why should they be your responsibility? You said you’re a pet.”
“Because there’s no one else,” Pet said. “And there should be a human looking out for humans. You ready?”
“Ready,” I said. If I had before thought her adorable and slightly unnerving, I now found that I respected her more than a little. “Hold tight.”
“Yep,” said Pet, and her voice was slightly breathless.
“Scared?” I asked, over my shoulder, smiling.
“Never travelled by email before,” she said. “What about you?”
“Terrified!” I said, and clicked on the send mail button.
* * *
I had said I was terrified. Perhaps I even thought I was terrified. But when we rolled smoothly into the library, as safe and whole as if we had simply entered through the door, I knew real terror.
Because approaching through the shelves of books, a Between sword strapped crossways on his back, was Lord Sero—heir to half of the Behind world and leader of the Troika.
Blinding white hair, icy blue eyes, and a pale, severe brow I had seen last encircled by a band of white gold, danced before my dazzled eyes.
Zero? Her third owner, Zero, was actually Lord Sero?
He was so much bigger than I expected in real life, and so much icier. Looking up to greet him was Athelas—that Athelas?—his friendly smile no longer a thing to be trusted. JinYeong the vampire, his eyes malicious, cocked an eyebrow at me, but I couldn’t find it in my dazed being to look away from Lord Sero.
“Who are you,” Lord Sero demanded, “and why are you playing with my pet?”
Pet made a small, grumbling noise, but she said to me, “Didn’t I tell you? It’s pretty stupid of people to imprison other people’s pets when they don’t know who the owners are.”
“That’s Lord Sero,” I said, resisting the urge to open the button that seemed to be choking me.
“Who are you,” repeated Lord Sero, “and why are you playing with my pet?”
“He’s ’Zul—”
“Marazul.”
“—and before you start getting blood-ragey and majestic, he is the one who started the spell that sealed up the café, but he didn’t know what the goblins wanted it to do. He didn’t trap me in there, either; I did that myself because I thought it would be easier if one of us was in there.”
“The advantage in one of us being in there, Pet,” said Athelas, his eyes amused, “diminishes considerably when it’s not one of us.”
“Rude,” said Pet. “I fixed it, didn’t I?”
Lord Sero opened his mouth again, but to my astonishment and terror, she didn’t let him speak a single word.
“It’s no use saying bad pet at me, either.”
Lord Sero closed his mouth, but his eyes narrowed.
JinYeong, his eyes dark and liquid, leaned over and bit Pet on the shoulder, lightly.
“Oi!” yelped Pet. She turned and glared at him, rubbing her shoulder.
“Bad. Petteu,” the vampire said, very distinctly.
“If you turn me vampire, I’m gonna spend the rest of my immortal life pinching all your left socks!” Pet said, still scowling at him. “I’ll make you so flamin’ sorry you turned me that you hand yourself over for voluntary immolation.”
The vampire shrugged and leaned back against a bookshelf. He radiated a faint smugness that was as irritating as it was subtle. It must have irritated Pet, too, because she stuck her tongue out at him again and turned her shoulder.
“Anyway,” she said. “We fixed it, and I think that means—”
“There’s no renegotiation of terms,” Lord Sero said, without allowing her to finish.
“The Troika!” I croaked, feebly gripping the arms of my chair. I should probably have kept quiet while they were talking between themselves, but the words forced themselves out.
“Yeah,” said Pet. “That’s what Behindkind call ’em, anyway.”
She rolled me forward again, and my hands frantically sought the wheel rims to stop a forward motion that only brought me closer to death.
“You didn’t—you didn’t tell me—”
“I did!” Pet’s voice was indignant. “I told you that the goblins were stupid for kidnapping me because of whose pet I am.”
“Perhaps you should lead with ‘Troika’ next time,” suggested Athelas.
Now that I knew it was the Athelas, I felt as though I should have known from the start. Who else is called Athelas, with a soft, deadly gleam to his eyes, and is occasionally accompanied by a vampire? I hadn’t heard any talk of a pet, of course, but it felt as though I could have pieced together that much at least.
“You said his name is Zero,” I said, through numb lips. “That’s Lord Sero.”
“Maybe to you,” Pet said. “To me, he’s Zero. Oi. Where have all the people gone?”
JinYeong cocked his eyebrow at her instead. “Saramdul? Musen saramdul?”
She looked accusingly around at the three of them. “Did you let JinYeong eat ’em?”
“JinYeong is reformed,” Athelas said.
“What, since last night?” demanded Pet. “He took a bite outta the trolley boy! I saw him!”
The vampire grabbed her by the arm and jerked her close, covering her mouth as his eyes flew to Lord Sero. I tightened my grip on the wheel rims to stop the rocking her swift passage created, and looked up just in time to see JinYeong release Pet again with a disgusted noise.
“Don’t put your hand over my mouth if you don’t want me to lick it!” she said grumpily.
“Well, perhaps reformed is going a bit far,” Athelas allowed. “However, Zero saw the others out safely before they had a chance to notice anything else that they shouldn’t notice.”
“All right,” said Pet, but she still looked suspicious. “Anyway, like I said, this is ’Zul, and he likes to be called Marazul. He doesn’t like goblins much, either, and he hacks magic.”
“Exactly how,” enquired Athelas, his voice mild but his eyes distinctly unnerving, “did the two of you meet? I can’t help feeling it was very…coincidental.”
Pet looked slightly pink. “We both get coffee from that café,” she said. “And it was the goblins who thought it would be a good idea to try and trap me too. They probably thought they could get a ransom for me. Stupid little twits.”
“I see,” said Lord Sero, looking down at her. “Perhaps a visit to that café will convince a few Behindkind of the danger of thinking like that.”
“Don’t think there’s much of it left,” Pet said. “And I killed quite a few of ’em when they were trying to stop us from leaving.”
The vampire JinYeong showed his teeth for the length of a rather sibilant sentence.
“Exactly,” Lord Sero agreed. “I don’t like the idea of leaving stragglers. Besides, I’m interested to see what has become of my protection spell.”
I swallowed as Lord Sero turned his gaze inevitably on me, his eyes thoughtful and just a bit considering. I didn’t like that look. It could have been the look of a fae who was trying to decide how many limbs he should remove in case of hurt to his pet, or it could have been the look of a fae who was trying to decide how useful I could be to him. I didn’t much care for either option.
“Don’t go too far away,” said Lord Sero. “We might have a use for you.”
Oh no.
“There is certainly a use for him,” Athelas agreed, those quiet eyes of his dwelling on me in a way that made me cold to the bone.
“I’m really very little use,” I told them both, gripping the wheels of my chair on either side. “I’m not fully mer—I can’t even swim beyond the light or remain beneath the waves more than five minutes.”
“We don’t have any use for a merman,” Lord Sero said. “But we do have use for whatever you call this spell you’ve been fighting for the last couple hours.”
“It’s hacking,” Pet told him again, helpfully. “Sort of magic, and sort of not. I didn’t know people could do that sort of thing.”
“They can’t,” remarked Athelas. His eyelashes had dropped a little, but I still felt chilled by his gaze. “That’s why we’re so very interested. I believe you’ll have to resign yourself to seeing rather more of our Pet in the future—Marazul, was it?”
Lord Sero, with the slightest of frowns, said, “Yes. We’ll discuss that later.”
I had the feeling that we encompassed himself and me, not himself and Athelas. A little desperately, I said, “But your lordship—!”
“Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you,” Pet assured me. “I’ll make sure.”
I looked from Pet’s thin, waiflike frame to the whiplike JinYeong, and then further to the hulking mass that was Lord Sero, and felt a laugh bubbling up inside me. Best not to let that one out. I had the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t sound quite sane.
“Later, we will also discuss your unique use of magic,” said Lord Sero. “I want to know exactly how you got through my protection spell, and I very much want to know why you did it with my pet in the café.”
