Keeping It Real (50 page)

Virtual Warrior Suite closing down. Normal Status resuming.

Guilt flooded her, but it had a hard time getting anywhere because of the suffused pleasure of Zal's

andalune
body, occupying all the space Tath had once occupied. 'Tath?' she said aloud, to him and to

Zal. There was no response from the place Tath used to be. 'You mean Tath!'

'Yes, him. Unless there's someone else here I don't know about,' Zal snapped, completely unable to

disguise how exhausted he was and how angry.

'He saved your life, you know.'

'Don't
even start, girl. Hold still.'

While Lila could not find Tath at all, Zal located the echo of his spirit easily. Zal's
andalune
wasn't like

Tath's, or Dar's, Lila recognised. It
had a sparky quality to it, glowing at
strange, half-glimpsed levels,

like far-off cities in her mind where night skies were alight with dark red and amber warning flares. It

flowed harmlessly, smoothly, an ocean of potential.

Zal breathed energy back into Tath, though Tath fought
it
every inch of the way. Tath wanted to die,

had thought he already had. The fact that it was Zal reanimating him made him furious and shamed, but

as soon as he had enough strength to do it he turned, as fast as a snake, and began dragging on Zal

suddenly, sucking energy through him as though he couldn't
get
enough. He
pulled
Zal towards him

through the aetherial current, and with a filament
of words, bound them for an instant
.

Lila, inhabited by both of them, watched their fusion and felt
the triple shock of it: Tath hating and

loving Zal, Zal mostly furious with him, the two of them locked in something like a territorial war with Lila

the landscape. The energy and the emotion suffused her body, intoxicating. There was a flash and recoil.

She smelled brimstone and Tath was once more the bright
green burn of resentment he had been in

the first
instant they were fused together. Zal's contempt for him was blistering.

'Now,' Zal said to Tath. 'Be a sweet boy and go to sleep.' He did something devious to Tath's energy

body and Lila felt
Tath slump eagerly into dormancy, ready for oblivion if it meant escaping Zal's regard.

To Lila, Zal said wearily, 'If you poke him hard, he'll wake up. So don't poke him.'

'Poke him?'

'You know what I mean.' Zal withdrew his
andalune
and sighed
.
She felt him relax
.

Oh, she thought
sadly, Is that
all it
was for? To save Tath? She wanted him to come back, but had no

idea how to get there from where she was
.
But, as it
had done before, the conjoined healing therapy of

Sathanor left her exhausted in mind and spirit
.
Lila struggled to stay awake, even though she was colder

now. She took some confidence from the fact
that his arm was still around her, his hand on her, his body

close and warm against her back. 'Zal?'

'Yes.'

She could tell by his voice that
his eyes were closed
.
That
was a strange thing, she thought. Or

perhaps it was in the deepening relaxa-tion of his body. 'How come you can hear me?'

"Through my skin. It's dull as hell, and everything sounds like we're living in glue, but it works, just like

yours.'

She thought he was opening his eyes, more awake than he had been a second ago and then he lifted

his hand from her waist and gently brushed heavy strands of wet hair back from the side of her face.

Suddenly she wasn't drowsy at all. She was fearful of breaking this moment of apparent tenderness and

stumbled somehow in the simple words, 'Does it
hurt? Your ears I m-mean.'

'What
do you think, Einstein?'

Be practical,
said a voice in her head. Shut
up, Lila thought
to it
viciously. 'I haven't
got
any drugs left.

And your heart

'Is like a sponge, but
it's still working.' Zal's fingertips caressed her cheek so softly they barely touched

it. They traced the shapes of her face with a sensuous gentleness she had never been touched with

before, passing over her ordinary skin and the magical stain and the filaments of metal beside her temple

without pause. Not even her mother. . .

Without the slightest warning Lila suddenly felt an enormous surge

of emotion. It was so overpowering that she had no defence against it. She didn't even know what it

was. It was too strong to identify, too intense to bear. Tears welled and burst
from her eyes and heat

flared across her exposed skin. She couldn't
breathe or see anything. She was as rigid with fear and

shock as a rabbit about to be run over by a truck.

Zal's flutelike voice seemed to come from another world, one that
obviously didn't
contain her,

because it
was one where thought
was still possible. T always wondered what you'd look like if you

didn't have your pain locked up in your face.'

Lila could not speak. Tears streamed unchecked from her eyes. She hoped he wouldn't
stop, and at

the same time, if she had been able to move, she would rather have knifed him than have him continue

now he'd given a name to her agony and released it
into her mind. Zal's touch opened all her self-loathing

and her anger, everything she'd never said to Dr Williams or Sarasilien, everything she'd never ever let

make it
through from the inside of her to the universe of thoughts, in case it
sneaked into words and one

day gave her away. 'No,' she moaned.

'You don't
mean it,' Zal said softly.

His touch was so lovely, it
was killing her. 'Please.'

'Ah, you mean that,' he said and she felt him lean up on his elbow to look at her. His move freed her

from her immobility
.

'Stop!' She rolled around towards him suddenly. Her hands were locked around his neck and she

could feel his pulse under her thumbs and his breath moving carefully beneath her palms.

Zal's face was calm and gently intent
on hers. He blinked slowly, soporifically, without
the slightest

reaction to her hold on him, and continued his exploration of her face and neck on the other side he

hadn't
been able to touch before
.
She stared at
him, shaking, 'What
are you doing?'

His slanted, large eyes flicked to make contact with hers, teasingly, seriously. They flirted with a smile,

narrowing slightly from the lower edge, and then they went
back to work. 'Making love to you. I thought

it
was obvious.' He opened his lips and took a thoughtful breath
.
His fingers drew their patterns on her

forehead, around her eyes, across her cheeks, connecting things, solving things. He watched the place he

was touching with absolute concentration.

Her hands on his neck became slack. She let
them separate, lower and come to rest
on his

collarbones. The pungent
herbal odour of the

grass that
was crushed between them filled her nostrils. Lila knew the word for what she felt then. Sad.

How could she have been so stupid all these years? How could she have gone along like an idiot, letting

her employers mould her and make her, lead her one step at a time from her foolish, innocent life? How

had she agreed to all of this - until she was here, with him, disfigured beyond belief, a dead person

walking and him so alive in front of her, Zal who had never lost himself.

"The Game!' she cried. It was a stupid objection, but she was desper-ate to make this stop. Hot,

blinding tears streaked down across the bridge of her nose and ran down her temple into her soaking

hair. Her ribs had become rigid. Her breath fought in and out between her clenched teeth.

'Be quiet and let me do it, or punch me out and leave me here,' Zal said with a tolerant
frown, never

breaking the flow even for an instant.

'Please,' she said. 'Leave me alone.'

He stroked her brow, 'You're okay. See? Elf strong. Demon strong. Make pretty robot
girl hero

better.'

'You don't
understand!'

'Don't understand what? That it hurts to belong nowhere, to nobody?' He pressed gently on the centre

of her forehead, between her eyes, and then smiled to himself and let his finger trail down her nose and

down to where her lips met, where he let it rest.

It was as though he'd flicked a simple switch. Lila felt older, but the fury of feelings had abated and

become something past and done. It wasn't gone, it was resolved. Zal yawned and blinked at her with

catlike self-possession
.

Lila tried to smile but
it
didn't
work. 'I killed someone.' All the charm of the moment died, and she had

killed that too. She regretted it
bitterly. Her whole body shivered with intense love for him.

Zal took his hand away. His dark brown eyes, black in the indigo light, glanced down and left, into the

infinity of memories before they met hers. 'Me too.'

There was none of the joking, teasing demon about him in that minute. Lila saw only the elf, older than

she'd thought, whole worlds of experience far behind his gaze as he looked first
at her, then right
through

her with the thousand-mile stare she was coming to know so well. His skin was pure white in the

moonlight, all the shadows on it and in his hair soft blue tones, pools of liquid shadow
.
He came back

from his sojourning and looked at her again, no further, 'And don't
it
make my brown eyes blue?'

Lila wanted him as she had never wanted anything in her life. She rose up on her hands and knees and

turned him onto his back. Crouching over him she took a long look where her needles had pierced him,

the points only bruises now, mere shadows in a world of tree shade and cold moonlight. He lay with his

arms fallen either side of him, lax in the deep grass, his face expressionless as he looked up at
her. She

didn't know what he would do, but for the first
time she didn't
mind, even if he rejected her, and placed

her lips gently on the site of one wound.

His back arched and he made a soft, unshaped sound of pleasure
.
She felt the feather touch of his

andalune
body against the inside of her wrists, brushing the metal that
was antithesis to it, sliding off its

unreactive, impenetrable surface. She covered his throat with kisses, licking and biting his warm skin. He

stretched his arms out wide and lifted his chin, head tilting back in a wanton gesture that made heat flare

through her body like tracer fire. She moved her attention down, over the strong, flat muscles of his

naked chest. Where Aparastil Lake had tasted of nothing at all, his skin was faintly salty, sweet and

spicy. When she brushed across his nipple with her tongue and felt his hands in her hair suddenly,

drawing her closer to him, she forgot who and what she was and lost herself in sensation, action and

reaction, in the bliss of being close to him and his willing submission to her pleasure.

Lila heard Zal's breath come faster. He shivered and moved below her, pushing up towards her

whenever she lifted her mouth from his body. His
andalune
body came skating across the surface of his

skin, touching her lips and tongue, stroking her closed eyelids with tiny hot
snaps and languid tingling

blurts of energy
.
She felt tendrils of it dancing through her hair where it
caused static sparks to jump and

sting on her shoulders and neck as she bent low across him and licked her way over the hard muscles of

his abdomen, lingering in their hollows as they flexed and tautened in response to her touch. He groaned

and dug his hands into the ground, holding fast. His body was poetry in her mouth and below her hands,

moving inward, back from thought, into all that came before, pure desire. With a snick she opened the

switchblades in the index and middle fingers on her right
hand.

Zal glanced up at
the sound and smiled at
her, panting. She spent
a

minute looking at him, perfectly enraptured with the sight
of him, as beautiful as a statue, but
real and

panting beneath her
.
His long, pale hair, half dry, half wet, was tangled around his head making him look

like a fallen angel. He returned her gaze and then, slowly, closed his eyes.

Lila took hold of the waistband of his leggings, pulling them clear of his flesh, and cut through in two

precise strokes, slicing the heavy silk from waist to thigh down both groins. A flush of heat
raced through

his
andalune
where it touched her at her throat and breasts as she peeled the soaking cloth away and

bent over him again. He gasped as she licked up the length of his erection and then took him into her

mouth.

Lila lost
herself in him, in the game of drawing him to the edge and then leaving him there, in the