Chasing the Dragon (6 page)

Lila smoothed the wrinkled ruffles of her dress, which didn't improve it, and fiddled with the silver spiral on her necklace. "I got a
new dress," she said.

Greer took a step back and looked at it critically, eyebrows raised.
"I'll buy it for what it's worth, which is a heap of nothing so far, but
I'm a patient guy. It looks like crap, by the way. And Zal?"

Lila looked at Malachi for a long moment. "Destiny took him," she
said.

They both looked at Greer, who swapped glances from one to the
other of them, searching their souls. Apparently what he saw convinced him, "Ah shit!" He shook his head and marched for the door,
"Why can there never be an answer I can use in a goddamned report?"
He paused, the door handle in his grasp, door ajar, and looked back.
"Black, Mal will show you to your office. Be nice to the staff; they have
a lot of adjusting to do most days and some of them are starting to get
a little threadbare. When you're ready to go do something let me the
hell know what it is."

ila looked at Malachi for some time after Greer had gone. "Well,"
Ishe said, "I wasn't expecting that."

Mal prowled forwards so he could look into her face from less distance. "You don't have to take him up on it."

"You took him up on it." That came out more accusingly and with
more jealousy than she intended. She released the rigid fold of her
arms and loosened her shoulders and neck. "You're right, but his
charm has got me itching to know what else is going on around here,
what the humans know. So much potential and information at my fingertips.... I don't think I want to resist."

"The humans." He slid his shades down his nose and looked her
directly in both eyes, his startling orange irises glowing, the slit pupils
narrowing to black lines. He made a show of sniffing around her head, his
broad nostrils taking her all in, the shadow of long whiskers on his cheeks.

Lila nodded. "Strange days, huh?"

Then Malachi was taking a longer, more interested sniff and she
waved him off, seeing that he was picking up more than he expected.
He got a faraway look as things connected in his memory. "Strange
indeed," he said in a knowing tone, a puzzled tone. As she walked to
the door she could feel his eyes on her back burning with curiosity.

She examined the doorway pointlessly to give him time to catch
up, decide what he thought about what he'd sniffed out, choose what
to say, and then hung there, turning back to see him. As he did now at
moments of mild stress he took on extreme catlike aspects-nothing
too surprising to look at, just a few mannerisms, a way of moving that
changed. He was exactly like a cat in a human body. If you saw him in
a dark alley you might get him the wrong way round. Then as his
thoughts resolved his form reassumed all the elegance and manly
demeanour of a slick guy about town, and apart from his eyes there was
no hint of predation or whiskers. He slid his shades back up his nose
and adjusted his shoulders in their immaculate suiting as he stepped
to her side. He fingered a ruffle of the disreputable dress,

"I have to say this is mildly shocking. For years I've been assuming
that when you returned you'd take a journey into Faery again, to find
Zal, or some other harebrained scheme. I spent decades wondering how
to put you off any further entanglements with the Three. Of course I
failed. And I was hoping you would have this." He pointed to but carefully did not touch the silver spiral on her necklace. "Because I would
like to see what has happened to Madrigal, now that the Giantkiller is
dead and gone. And I could have gone alone, but I made my excuses
to wait for you." Finally he let the damp fabric go, his puzzlement
complete. "And you come back with this. And ..."

Lila put her finger to his lips and stopped him from completing his
sentence. "Never mind about that. I am going back for Zal. Of course
I am. And I hardly want to be hanging around here. Too much like
being in my own grave already when I look at those ... things. But I
don't even know what I need or where to start, so until I do, then being
in the middle of something is as good as sitting in a cave...."

"I knew it. Wood ash, shellfish, seaweed, sand, and that odd musty
... you've been living in a cave on the cliffs. Wondered where you went."

"Why didn't you follow me then?" She looked up into his face, and
there was a moment in which she saw a difficult struggle in his feel ings and felt sorry for him, and conscious of just how good a friend he
was. Perhaps her best.

"Clearly you didn't want me to," he said, and his nostrils flared one
more time. He looked unhappy and disquieted.

"We all have our secrets," she said.

His glance was hurt but not condemnatory. He nodded and she saw
the anguish of his secrets briefly make his face tighten. He stared at the
dress with misgivings, then the necklace. "You've grown up wild. And
now the wild and changeling things are claiming you for their own."

She blushed unaccountably and became aware of the pen that was
hidden in the cloth sash at her waist where the dress had decided it wasn't
doing pockets today, only Grecian folds. It was not really a pen, in the
same way that it was not really a dagger, or even a sword, though she'd
held it as all those objects. It seemed to burn her through the material,
taunting Malachi that he couldn't see it and yet was almost seeing it. It
was such an unnerving thing she had to quickly break the moment.

"You wouldn't dare to call me not the mistress of my fate, would
you?" she teased him gently, not liking his sudden macabre turn. His
pronouncement chilled her, though she didn't show it.

"You know me, Liles," he murmured, as suddenly soft and amiable as
he had been piercing a moment before. "I'm the waiting kind, not the
daring kind." He straightened up and led the way down the corridor.

She didn't reply. She couldn't imagine waiting for herself for fifty
years in this place, day in and day out. She didn't have that kind of
patience. She'd like to persuade herself that time was different for him,
that he was able to move through it as he pleased, so what was fifty
years? But she wasn't persuaded.

"Hey!" She ran a couple of steps to catch him up. "Who else is
still here?"

"Not the elf," he said as they moved shoulder to shoulder.
"Nobody you know."

"Did they replace him?"

"Master mages are in short supply," Mal said, pausing to push the
elevator button and facing her briefly. "That's why you've got his office
now. All his gear. Just as he left it."

"But I thought I was supposed to be with the machine people?"

"You will be. But Sarasilien's old job is empty, so you've got that
one too. I mean, you're the closest thing to an elf there is left around
here." He winked at her as they got into the empty lift car.

Lila frowned, "The elves wouldn't talk to me if I were the last
person in Otopia."

His grin intensified; he was all loose-limbed bonhomie again.
"Then you'll get a lot of days off."

She wasn't sure she got why he was so amused by it until they got
to the door of the laboratories that the old elf had used to call his own
and opened the door. It was in the old building, which had been
remodelled but not rebuilt, though this part was untouched as far as
she could see. Cleaning couldn't disguise the wear in the corridors, but
it was almost as she remembered it. Malachi flittered his fingers and
undid some magical thing that had been around the door; then he used
a passkey and his thumbprint and got the door to slide back. The
lights came on, blinking slowly as though from a deep sleep.

Malachi hung back as Lila moved deeper into the abandoned space.
Everywhere she felt the presence of Sarasilien, as clearly as if she were
walking inside his ghost. Tears pricked her eyes and she felt her throat
harden. She wished he were there. She would have liked to punch him
because she was so damned angry about the way he'd held out the truth
on her for so long whilst letting her so easily fall against his surrogate
father support. She wanted to hug him and feel his narrow, powerful
arms hold her close to him, smell the strange herbal and sweet scents of
the layers of linen he wore, feel his vital energy surround her with its
healing, forgiving balm. He was a lying bastard, but he was the only
person she knew in whose arms she could have really relaxed, if only for
a second. She'd not been aware of it, but here, standing in his empty aura among his work and investigations and all the trivia of his daily
life, the loss of that comfort was a spear of sharp pain in her solar plexus.

Moving as if drawn on a string, she walked through the laboratories and pushed the door open at the far end that led into his personal
rooms. The hinges creaked and juddered, dry as old bones. The object
she was looking for was right in front of her under the dove grey drapes,
an unmistakable shape. She bent down and lifted the edge of its sheet,
slowly so as to let the dust roll back without clouding. Underneath it
the muted Persian colours of the old chaise longue glowed suddenly
with amber and crimson richness, and there on the edge lay a
diaphanous black-and-gold scrap of fabric, the very piece she had seen
him bury his face in, crying, the last time she'd laid eyes on him.

She saw her fingers reach out, black leather opera gloves, and take
hold of the feathery thing. As it moved a sudden scent of opium rose
from it, laced with sandalwood and brimstone. In her mind's eye she
saw Sorcha, sassy and sexy and opulent, lounging right here, teasing
the old elf with her immaculate feet, her sultry voice.

He'd loved her.

Lila put the scarf back. She wasn't ready to face it fully just yet.
She let the dust sheet fall and hide it again and sniffed, rubbing her
nose as it flooded to rid itself of dust, and straightened up. Malachi was
a short distance behind her. She turned and found him closer, taller,
more awkward, his face become entirely a beast's but so full of concern
that she wasn't frightened by it.

This was the shape he'd been in Under, a man-cat creature that was
feral and shadow. It had none of his contemporary beauty except in its
feline power. His clothes and shades were gone. Thick fur covered him,
black stripes glossy in matte black depths.

"The magic on this door undoes me," he said with great difficulty
around his massive teeth. "Nobody has been able to lift it."

She wondered who had tried to come here, and as if he read her
mind he added, "Nobody could touch anything. They tried for days. Months. Eventually they left it as you see." Seeing her puzzlement he
bent down and lifted the sheet where she had, stretching out one massive paw. It opened into a crudely fingered hand, with claw nails.
Gently he attempted to snag the scarf or touch the chaise, but within
the last couple of inches an invisible force stalled his movement. "Like
magnetism," he said, and gave up his attempt and put the sheet back.

She knew he'd seen her touch it. "He left it for me?"

"I thought so." His orange eyes were narrowed with thought and
slight reservation.

"Did you tell Greer?"

"He came to the conclusion by himself."

"You could have warned me." The resentment in her voice was
sharp. He twitched.

"Would it make a difference?"

She shrugged.

He nodded. "It was something you should know. If something here
is important ... maybe ... you would have missed it."

She sighed and relaxed, slumping, "Yes." She found her hand on
his arm, a strangely huge and muscled object she could barely reconcile with the Malachi she was more used to. "Forgiven." She looked
around her. "I'm not ready for any more of this today."

He nodded once, and together they walked out. As they crossed
the threshold of the laboratory there was a flicker and the bulky mass
under her fingers was suddenly a lithe arm in an immaculate jacket.
She looked down at it and up into Mal's human face. "I didn't know
your clothes were part of your glamour."

"They are not."

She looked at the doorway with a scowl. "So how ... ?"

Mal shrugged and patted her hand on his arm, drawing her attention suddenly to its tan smoothness, its faux ordinary skin. She made
a note to be damn careful of any mirrors back in there and wondered
what he'd seen in her place-had she changed?

Outside Greer was waiting for them, lounging alone in the corridor, hands in pockets, pretending to enjoy the wall art and the fulllength-window view of the courtyard. "So." He grinned at Lila, his
expectant glance to Malachi confirming their complicity. "D'you like
what we've done with the place?"

Lila punched him. It was so fast she knew he couldn't have seen it
coming. She pulled it a lot so she didn't do any real damage and was
back to her relaxed pose, arms folded, before his hand had even got to
his mouth. "See ya tomorrow," she said, and left him there tending his
split lip without waiting for a response. Malachi loitered a moment,
then came after her.