"True," Mina responded, fascinated with the flood of words. She didn't think anyone could speak that fast. And while the waitress was obviously worried she'd offended her, most beings who met her knew exactly how she'd lost the fingers, so it had rarely come up in conversation. She found the waitress's observation quite logical. "It's a little too difficult to explain."
"Fair enough." She beamed. "What can I get you to drink?"
"Some of that?" Mina gestured at the pot.
"Coffee. Sure thing." The waitress turned over an upside-down cup on a saucer in front of Mina and poured. "I'll give you a couple minutes with the menu. I'm just about to end my shift, so it's going to be Diane who takes your order. She's a sweet little thing, just like you."
Mina blinked. Nodded. Felt David's amusement.
Are you listening in?
In a way. My sense of hearing is very refined.
Eavesdropper.
Well, after the saloon, I realized you're full of surprises. I thought you might start flirting.
Do I strike you as the type of person who flirts? But she felt something ripple through her stomach at his velvet teasing. Would you like me to practice? There's a man at the counter who looks very broad in the shoulders, broader than yours. He is wearing these blue, somewhat tight pants that make a very noticeable display of his—
You're baiting me.
Am I? Or am I flirting with you? She felt his surprise, as well as some of her own. Besides, why would I bait you?
Because you enjoy it.
What would you do if I did flirt with one of them?
A hum of energy moved through her body, slow, like a thick liquid spread by his fingers over her vital organs. His palms were on her skin, his breath in her ear, the heat and weight of him bearing her down. So real, it seemed she could twine her arms and legs around him, feel the silk of his feathers through her fingers as she stroked him with her wet, heated muscles.
I would remind you of my touch, my mouth, until you couldn't think of another.
"Oh," she said faintly. Despite herself, she pressed her lips together, compressing the sense of his touch there, a pleasant combination with the coffee's rich aroma. How did you do that? Is it the blood we share?
Yes and no. I'm in you, Mina, as you're in me.
"Okay, have you decided what you want?"
Mina tuned in to the new waitress in front of her with effort. Diane was not much taller than herself, dark-haired and brown-eyed. Eyes red-rimmed from crying. From the uncomfortable shift of the girl's gaze, it was obvious she was hoping no one would point out the obvious and trigger a new flood.
Mina knew all about not wanting someone to push, and unlike a certain angel, she respected that. Plus, she was far more interested in the inanimate objects of the human world than the irritatingly complex animated ones. She wanted to examine napkins, utensils, the array of dishes before her. Study how people dressed, their jewelry, what they chose to eat. If she could figure out how to be invisible, she'd go from table to table, looking. Visit the kitchen and watch them prepare food.
I can snatch the toy from the baby in the elevated chair behind me and determine how it is making that incessant rattling noise.
Mina.
I didn't say I was going to.
"Ma'am?"
"I want chocolate chip cookies. A dozen of them. Warm, from the oven. Do you have those?"
"Sure." Diane nodded. "That's, like, one of our specialties. It will take just a few minutes to do a new batch. Anything else?"
"That's all." Mina didn't have any money, but eyeing the few bills that the man at the counter had just handed to the older woman behind it to pay for his meal, she could illusion a facsimile of them that would pass inspection until they left. While she didn't care for stealing any more than David did, she figured there was a reason she was here that was more important than the relative cost of a few cookies.
Though going from table to table wasn't feasible, she spent the wait gazing around her with interest. A couple of families. A pair of men in dust-covered clothing, both lean as whips but eating enormous amounts of food. In a corner booth, a trio of old men analyzed human politics, looking so comfortable they had to come here often. The brawny man she'd mentioned to David was drinking his coffee alone, but speaking on some type of phone.
She didn't see anything that suggested the Schism's reason for bringing them here. Perhaps the Schism had experienced a benign moment and was merely giving her the opportunity to provide David cookies. Her surroundings felt magic and threat free.
Still, she didn't relax entirely. Though she didn't particularly want to interact with people, she did pay attention to their mannerisms. If they were going to be among humans for a while, she needed to blend, a vital technique every sea creature knew was necessary for survival. All in all, their behavior didn't seem much different from that of average merpeople.
However, it was different to be an unremarkable part of that, not treated as a pariah. But she was disturbed by her own comfort with it. It had been the other way for too long. It would be too easy to embrace this, to forget to be wary.
Fortunately, as normal as her surroundings might seem, the Schism wasn't about to let her forget its presence. A shimmer when she looked out the window gave her the opportunity to see a school of sea horses swim by, followed by a whale who surged forward with a flick of his tail, despite the background of the desert landscape. Apparently the Schism had co-opted her imaginings and was amusing itself with them. No one in the diner seemed to see the creatures except the wide-eyed baby perched in the high chair in the next booth. She gurgled. Mina noticed she also seemed very preoccupied with looking toward the ceiling and waving her arms, as if she wanted whatever was up there to come down and see her. Hold her.
Yes, angels had that effect. One particular angel had that effect on Mina, not that she cared to admit it. She wanted to say that they'd only known each other several days, use that as a way to deny his love, but she knew as well as he did that it had been going on far longer than that between them. Since they'd first met, he hadn't been far. She'd sensed his presence even when other angels were guarding her. Knew from conversations she had overheard between Marcellus's men that he'd talked to them often. And it had reassured her, when it shouldn't have.
I think the Schism has a sense of humor.
David spoke in her mind, indicating he, too, had seen the whale.
Or it could just be free-form chaos, she responded. This place is a sketch pad, a workbook for outlining magics before implementing them elsewhere. Something's subconscious.
Have any idea yet whether it's good or bad?
Either. It's a design board. But whatever runs it is territorial, and recognizes the wrong kind of chaos, if it doesn't permit Dark Ones.
So you must be the right kind, if you're this close to the main Schism and it's interacting with you.
I'm not sure this is about us.
"Here you are." Diane was back. She'd put two of the cookies on a plate, and the smell coming from them had several heads turning. Mina had to agree with their interest, but unfortunately, it seemed to have the opposite effect on her waitress. She was growing pale, her skin looking clammy. "If that's all..." Diane ripped the ticket from her pad and laid it down. "Here you go. I've put the rest in this bag to keep them warm and in case you want them to go. Excuse me."
Turning on her heel, she fled, her hand clapping over her mouth. As she retreated, her hip struck the baby's high chair. So intent on being sick, Diane didn't notice until she was past the chair and startled cries alerted her. As she spun, the baby's chair was going over. Mother and father both made a lunge for it. Missed.
The front door whipped inward and hit the concrete wall, the glass shattering in the metal frame. More cries erupted at the shocking noise, but Mina's gaze was frozen on the high chair, which made one last slight rock as it settled back in its upright position. Like everyone else, she'd seen nothing, but the baby was laughing and twisti
ng her head this way and that. Looking for her guardian angel, Mina suspected. The child had a white and brown feather clamped possessively in a chubby fist.
A snowstorm of napkins was spinning off tables and floating toward the floor, the tinny noise of shattered glass pinging off the tiles of the entranceway.
Diane stood stock-still, staring at the baby.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" The father was up and shouting at the white-faced waitress, his fists clenched. "Why are you running when you have children sitting in the aisle like that?"
"I-I'm sorry," Diane stammered.
"Stupid idiot." He shook off his wife's hand as she tried to get him to sit back down, making soothing noises. The baby, sensing her parents' mood, began to look alarmed, scrunching up her face. "God help the kid who gets you for a mom."
Diane's stomach made an alarming noise. Tears flooding her face, she spun and ran again, crashing through the kitchen door.
Putting the two cookies in the bag with the others, Mina rose and went out the side door as the manager tried to placate the man. A pair of waitresses was examining the front door, speculating on whether or not it was a sudden gust of wind. The baby's screaming began in earnest, ironically spurred by the family's reaction to the aversion of tragedy rather than the actuality of it.
She circled to the back, but instead of finding David, she found Diane, retching into a trash can that was apparently the receptacle for kitchen leavings. The smell of the garbage was vile enough to have Mina's stomach heaving. The girl was not only vomiting, she was crying at the same time, so the result was pitiful, grunting animal noises of distress.
Mina approached as she saw David leave the roof, drift down and tuck his wings in tight behind his shoulders. An extremely quick, cursory glance would have him passing as human. A mostly naked, extraordinarily beautiful human in the middle of the blinding desert.
It didn't seem to be a major concern right now, however. Diane held the sides of the trash can, her arms trembling. David was nearly behind her, so Mina hung back. While she was surprised he was getting involved, comfort wasn't really her area, so she was happy to let David handle this.
He'd halted and was studying the girl's bent head, with eyes gone sharp and probing. Reaching out cautiously, he passed his hand just above her back, as if feeling for an aura, a magical signature of some kind.
Diane stiffened. When her head snapped up, she saw Mina first, but she dismissed her, spinning around to seek David.
He was already backing up. To decrease the sense of threat, Mina was sure, since being confronted by a man of his height and musculature, wearing nothing more than the unorthodox short battle kilt and brace of daggers, would likely be cause for alarm in Diane's world.
But she didn't seem to register any of that. Diane stared at him through tear-filled eyes, gracelessly wiping her hand over her mouth and running nose.
Seeing a cue for something she could do, Mina moved forward with a napkin she'd put in the bag with the cookies. She'd been tempted to put a handful of the myriad little packets on the table in the bag, but had resisted, with effort. "Here."
Diane pulled her gaze from David reluctantly, focused on the paper napkin. "Thank you."
As she took it, Mina managed to retrieve the lid of the can and replace it. At least there was no trash in the sea. Waste came from natural things or was utilized by them, so the only garbage came from what humans threw into the ocean. Even many of those things the sea could convert or use, like the sea glass, or, on a larger scale, turning downed ships into coral reefs.
"I'm sorry. I..." Diane's gaze filled with tears again, and her knees trembled. Mina saw a discarded fruit crate and shoved it under her as the woman crumpled. "I've got to sit down," she rasped, unnecessarily.
Mina shot a glance at David. The angel was still keeping his distance, and she couldn't read his expression. Was this some kind of angel thing, the silence before humans? Why had he made himself known, then? She wished he'd say something. He was certainly better at this than she was. Gods, a sponge was better at this.
Awkwardly, she patted the girl's shoulder. That's what Anna would do. Actually, Anna would have subsumed her into one of her soul-deep comfort hugs. Since even the thought of them terrified Mina, she didn't think her attempt to imitate one would work, since it seemed to require an effusion of the happy, fuzzy vibrations Anna had in ample supply.
Instead, she tried to think of Diane as she would one of the merpeople who came to her for potions. Why would she be crying? Nothing appeared to be wrong with her, other than a little indigestion. Teenage merpeople often acted this way, though. Usually due to some dramatic tragedy about unrequited love.
But this was the Schism. Magic was often irritating, dangerous and hard to understand, but there was always a purpose. And Mina's intuition was picking up more than hormonal histrionics.
"What's the problem? Why are you crying?" Direct was best, she decided, since she didn't have patience for any other approach and her companion had become mute.
David, what are you doing, damn it?
"Nothing. Just nothing. I'm sixteen years old. Almost seventeen." Diane said that with a gulping sob and managed a quick look at Mina, as if that statement might have some hope attached to it, but at Mina's blank look, she burst into tears again.
David.
She practically shouted it in her mind, and he continued to stand there like a statue. Mina was prepared to give him a fierce glare, anything to compel him to step in. Unfortunately, not only was his mind silent, he wouldn't look at her. Only at Diane.
Up until now, he'd always seemed so confident-he was an angel, damn it. She'd had the freedom to be the unpredictable and moody one.
That was the danger of depending on someone else's dependability, she reminded herself darkly. What was she doing out here in the desert, anyway? She should have stayed in the ocean where she knew her environment.
"I'm pregnant." It was said so softly, Mina almost lost it in her own wave of irritation, which she knew was just a desperate shellacking over the rising tide of her own panic.
Mina turned her attention back to the girl. "Of course you're pregnant. What does that...?" She bit her lip, realizing that humans didn't have her ability to pick up changes in a woman's body the way a trained witch could. And in the same moment, she recalled the significance of a teenager pregnant in this particular type of human society.
"Oh, I guess you could tell. The getting sick and all." Diane wiped at her eyes again. "Isn't that something? I can't imagine it. I've got almost nobody. How am I going to take care of two babies? Twins. They're twins. My momma says I have to kill them or she'll throw me out. Says she's not going to raise my babies. I was doing real well in school. I made cheerleader this year, too. Nobody ever imagined white trash like me as a cheerleader, but my grades are good."
Human society ran on money. This girl's mother sounded like she'd administered a hard dose of reality.
Diane stood, but she was still shaky. Mina reached out. It wasn't a normal gesture for her, but she continued to try to imagine what Anna would do, even as she questioned whether that was what she should do. What did the Schism want? Maybe Mina's actions, or lack thereof, were completely irrelevant.
Diane turned, looked toward David again. When Mina followed her gaze, she drew in a breath. David's eyes were dark, the whites gone. Earlier she'd surmised that it was triggered by battle situations for human-born angels, and served a functional purpose, giving them increased sight scope. Perhaps it became permanent when they matured. But this wasn't about battle, was it? There was nothing in the sky, nothing near except one young waitress and the hushed breath of the Schism.
As Mina watched, his wings straightened and spread out to either side of him, an impressive mantle that made him appear otherworldly, unapproachable. Something to fear. The way most creatures felt toward angels, including her own merpeople.
Why was he trying to intimidate a young woman barely out of girlh
ood?
Diane took a step toward him as if she didn't see any of that. He, in contrast, took a step back. Ended up against the brick corner of the building.
"What did she call you?" Diane asked.
"David." His answer came slow, in a voice that was flat, remote.
"David." She repeated it.
"We're done here." He turned, and Mina realized he wasn't talking to her. To either of the women. He was looking around him, as if seeking some agent of the Schism to give him a free pass. "I won't do this."
"David." Mina snapped it. As he tensed his wings to fly, she felt the rumblings of energy beneath her feet, volcanic lava. He was defying something that wouldn't be defied. "She needs..." Gods, what did she need that they could give her? Why were they here?
Diane took another step toward him. "I know you," she said quietly. Though her hands still shook from the physical exertion of her upset stomach, her expression had gotten more serious, strangely more focused.
David went still. A muscle twitched in his jaw, his fists clenched. "Don't touch me."
The waitress came to a halt, but it had a strange quality to it, as if she were straining on the end of a tether toward him.
Since she'd met him, Mina had seen David in myriad situations. She knew he was a powerful fighter, lightning quick and strong. That he was musical and had a quietness to him, a core of tranquility that soothed and steadied anyone around him. She was even cultivating an appreciation for it, warily.
She'd gathered these and a multitude of other impressions about him over the past few months. Initially they'd been stored as possible defenses against him, ways to exploit weakness, but she'd admitted they'd also evolved into a regard for him, an understanding of what she could expect when dealing with him.
So to feel this unstable response pulsing off of him toward a young girl was unsettling. While Mina had no reason to interfere, she had a sense she might need to do so. She just didn't know whom she would be defending.
Diane stared at him. "I feel like I'm supposed to touch you."