“He’s been on his own a long time,” her mother said when Rahel called prior to her first client. “And you said he was one of your teachers. This might feel like a role reversal to him.”
Rahel was on the magtran, riding across town to her appointment. Seeing her mother’s face, even on the small com unit, felt like having her in the next seat. “I think I understand better about how you’ve been feeling. I’m worrying about him more, even though nothing has changed.”
Her mother was in her workshop, looking disheveled with a pair of safety goggles pushed up into her hair and a streak of something silver on her cheek. “I’m glad you understand better. Then you’ll understand that this next hantick will be one of the two longest of my life.”
“I’m a little surprised you’re home and not here.”
“I thought about it. Hard. But we made a deal. I trust you.”
Rahel enjoyed the warmth those words built in her chest. “What are you making?”
With a short laugh, her mother said, “Nothing. I can’t concentrate enough to be creative. But I can be very destructive. I’m doing some overdue disassembly and cleaning.”
“My clients aren’t like Mouse’s. They won’t hurt me. I’ll be fine.”
“And I’ll be right here, tearing apart frameworks and a few unsuccessful projects, until you call me and prove it.”
She didn’t tell her client this was their last session together until the end. He was devastated.
“I just found you! Now I have to start over?”
“I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m getting out of the business.”
“Why? You’re so good at it.”
“But it’s not what I want to do. Not forever.”
He fastened his half cape in place, the light blue of the builder caste. “I’ll never find someone else like you.”
“Go to a pleasure house,” she urged. “There are primes only three cycles older than me. They can pretend for you. You’ll be safer.”
“That depends on your version of safe. You know how it will look if I’m seen hiring a professional prime for that? I have children not much younger than you.”
Suddenly angry at his cowardice, she said, “Then keep taking advantage of children who have no options. And next time, maybe you should think about how you’d feel if one of your children was doing this.”
He shook his head, smiling. “I’m taking advantage of you? I was the one with my hands tied over my head.”
She barely managed not to push him out the door. The moment the lock engaged, she called her mother.
“I’m done.”
The streak of silver on her mother’s face had turned into four, plus a black smudge. “Thank Fahla. You’re all right?”
“I’m yanked. I tried to tell him to go to a pleasure house for his next prime, but he’s too afraid of being seen.”
Her mother’s jaw was tight. “Well, you tried,” she said. “And you’re done. One more to go.”
“You make it sound like there’s a bomb waiting to go off. There really isn’t. I’m perfectly safe. I don’t want you to worry so much.”
“There’s been a bomb waiting to go off in your life for the past cycle. I just didn’t know about it until a few days ago.” She swiped at the smudge on her nose, making it worse. “I won’t stop worrying until you’re truly finished.”
“That will be three days from now.”
Her mother looked around the workshop. “I’m going to get a lot of cleaning done.”
The final client was the blonde scholar. Rahel thought it made perfect sense that she would come full circle this way, and felt comfortable enough to say so. Her client agreed, gave her a substantial tip, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m honored to be both first and last. And I’m very happy for you, Rahel. Go and be the warrior you’re meant to be.”
She was a little sad to see the last of that client, a thought she kept very much to herself when she made the com call.
“I’m no longer a prime,” she said.
Her mother was in the workshop again. This time she pulled off the goggles and tossed them to the side before reaching out for something offscreen.
Rahel smiled at the sight of a small glass of grain spirits. “Time to celebrate?”
“Oh, yes. This has been a very long nineday. Rahel, thank you for keeping your word.”
“Did you doubt me?”
“No. But . . . thank you anyway.” She downed half the drink in one gulp, looked into the glass, then finished it off. “Ahh. Well, I guess I’m done using heavy tools today.”
“Do I need to start worrying about you in your workshop?” Rahel asked teasingly.
“I’m very responsible. I like to think I’ve taught that to all three of my children.”
They said nothing for a few moments, simply looking at each other.
“Have you said anything to Father?” She had been thinking about it all nineday.
The laughter was a surprise. “What I’ve said to your father is unrepeatable and mostly at high volume. No, I haven’t told him about your priming. I’ve told him quite a few other things. There will be no issues with supporting you for as long as it takes.”
“Are you talking about my appeal or my training?”
“Both.”
“But what about the shop? You can’t pay for me and pay for help in the shop, too.”
Her mother smiled. “You’re growing up.”
“Why, because I’m asking about the shop?”
“Because you’re thinking about consequences outside yourself.”
Hadn’t she always?
Maybe not.
“Your main objection to giving up priming was that you didn’t know if you could work full-time and train, too. Do you think you could work half-time?”
“I think . . . probably, yes.”
“Then we can support you and pay for half-time help in the shop. That’s all we’d need.”
She would rather they didn’t have to support her at all. After two cycles, it was strange to feel dependent. But she was glad to be free of priming. It wasn’t the work itself that bothered her; it was knowing who her clients were. She could never swallow her distaste for their preference in joining partners, despite having benefitted from it.
Well, if she couldn’t make it as a warrior, at least she had a good alternative career.
As she watched her mother refill the glass, she decided not to share this thought, either.
29
DARK ROAD
For someone who had been initially horrified at the idea of her joining him in the servicing trade, Mouse was surprisingly grumpy about her retirement. He tried to hide it, but Rahel had known him too long to be fooled.
“He feels abandoned,” Sharro said at their session the next morning.
“Did he tell you that?”
The moment she spoke, she wanted to take it back. Of course Sharro would never share anything Mouse said in his sessions.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Forget I asked.”
She was lying on the couch with her head in Sharro’s lap, enjoying the soft caresses on her face. If she had to choose a favorite position, this would be it. She loved being able to open her eyes and see Sharro watching her with such concentration.
“Mouse has walked a dark and lonely road for most of his life. For a while, he had you as a companion. Now that you’ve left, he’ll find that road twice as lonely.”
“But I still live with him. I’ll be living with him all through my training. It’s not like I’m leaving town.”
“No. But you’re leaving a shared experience. And you have your mother back, so you’re leaving another shared experience.”
“Of being on our own.”
“You were two outcastes, surviving together. Fighting the world together. You’re moving on, and Mouse can’t follow you.”
She closed her eyes and sank into the feel of gentle fingertips on her jaw, her throat, her bare shoulders.
/> “He has options,” she said. “I don’t understand why he won’t take them.”
Sharro did not answer for several ticks, lulling Rahel into a near-doze with her touch. “One of the most difficult things about loving,” she said at last, “is that the people we love are not ours. We can’t make them do what we know they should. We can only watch them make their own choices.”
She mulled that over. “My father tried to make me do what he thought I should.”
“And you see how well that worked for him.”
“He lost me. Permanently.”
Sharro made a hum of agreement and combed Rahel’s hair back.
“I don’t want to lose Mouse.”
“Then you must let him make his choices.”
Sharro’s advice was good, but it was difficult to follow when Mouse was making worse and worse choices. The night he came home drunk, Rahel snapped.
“It’s bad enough that you’re taking clients at night when you told me not to. But walking home at night, drunk? Are you trying to get your face beaten in? The last time I saw you walking like this, I followed you halfway down the bayfront just to make sure you were safe. You know muscleheads look for easy targets.”
He flopped onto the couch and kicked off his shoes. “I’m an easy target whether I’m drunk or not. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that you can run when you’re sober. You can get away.”
“Yes, but where do I run to?”
She wasn’t sure what he was asking. Nor did she get a chance to find out. He was snoring by the time she turned around from putting his shoes by the door.
He didn’t remember the conversation the next morning, a fact which made him unexpectedly contrite. “I’ve never had memory loss before,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. I suppose I can call you when I’m done with a client. But only when I’m done—I’m not doing the before-and-after chain your mother had you on.”
“After is all I ask. So is that a promise?”
“You need an actual promise?”
“In case you don’t remember this conversation, either.”
The tease made him smile. “Fine. I promise. Happy?”
“As Fahla’s third lover.”
For the next three ninedays, she was frustrated by his intermittent compliance. To her, a promise was solid. It wasn’t something to make one day and forget about the next. But Mouse forgot as often as he remembered, and his inconsistency made it impossible to know when she should be worried and when she should just wait it out. The one time she called to check up on him yanked him so much that it didn’t seem worth trying again.
“Sometimes we go over our time!” he said furiously. “Did I ever call you in the middle of a session? Do you think your client would have appreciated it?”
She understood. Few things could disrupt a session more than a com call at the wrong time. Or at any time, really. Clients paid for services, and they expected uninterrupted attention.
But she wouldn’t have to worry if he would just keep his shekking promise.
He apologized later. “I’ll try harder. I’ve been doing this a long time and never had to remember to call home. It’ll sink in eventually.”
Late one night, after a day of heavy rain, she was looking out the window at the wet street and worrying. Mouse had left for a client appointment two hanticks ago. He should have been done after one hantick. But he hadn’t called.
After these last few ninedays, she wanted to apologize to her mother for all the concern she had ever caused.
When her com unit chirped, she pulled it from her pocket and sighed in relief. It was Mouse.
“Finally!” she said. “I was getting worried. You’re on your way home?”
He looked . . . wrong. For a moment his mouth worked with no sound. Then he said, “Rahel. I need help.”
His words were flat, lacking his usual intonation.
“Where are you?”
“Robber’s Rest. Fourth floor, room six waterside.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen ticks. Will you be all right until I get there? Do I need to call the City Guards?”
“No Guards. I’ll be all right. Just . . . hurry.”
“I’m leaving now.”
She pocketed the com unit and flew across the room to the shelf by the front door. While jamming her feet into her shoes, she grabbed her stave holster from the shelf and clipped it to her belt. The stave went in next, and she fastened the strap over the top before slapping down the tabs on her shoes. Her key chip went into her pocket, and she grabbed her rain cloak off the hook. Judging by the stars she had seen while gazing out the window, there was no danger of rain right now, but this was Whitesun in spring.
She slammed the door behind her, bypassed the lift, and ran down three flights of stairs while pulling on her rain cloak. Pausing only long enough to throw open the front door, she rocketed out into the street and kept running.
It was past night-one. The residential streets they lived in were empty, but the bayfront was still hopping, every tavern open and ready to serve. The deep-sea fishing fleet had returned that day, disgorging a large population of crew flush with wages and ready to spend them. Rahel ducked and dodged, running in the street when she could and going to the walkways only when skimmers bore down on her. Twice she had to shove slow-moving revelers out of her way, leaving angry people cursing behind her. When she reached Dock Twenty-Two, she turned onto the wooden pier and pounded down its length.
Robber’s Rest had once been an expensive inn located in prime real estate, on the very end of a pier where the wealthy moored their yachts. The best mooring spots of all had been directly beneath the inn, which was constructed flush with the edges of the pier. The rich could climb straight from their yachts up one of several ladders and into the building.
When Star Dock was built fifty or so cycles ago, the wealthy moved away and Robber’s Rest fell into disrepair. It had been through the hands of several owners since then, while the area around it grew more and more disreputable. These days, it was the worst place on the bayfront. Rahel had never set foot inside it, but she had heard stories.
She ran to the front door, yanked it open, and raced past the surprised desk clerk to the stairs. She had a brief glimpse of a packed tavern on the right before she was taking the stairs two at a time.
The stairwell was wide and had a beautifully carved wooden banister, both legacies of the building’s glory days. But the carpeting was worn to threads in the middle and dirty everywhere else. There were torn tapestries adorning the walls and the stains of Fahla only knew what in many places, though some of them had to be urine. Even in her brief time of servicing before she began to prime, she had never been in a place that smelled this bad.
On the fourth floor, she paused to catch her breath while figuring out which way to turn.
Left. She hurried down the corridor, found the door with an ancient, gorgeously scrolled sign reading “6 Waterside,” and pounded on the wood.
“Mouse!”
There was no answer.
She unclipped the holster strap and pulled out her stave grip, holding it ready. Then she tried the door handle.
It was unlocked.
Every instinct told her not to go in. But Mouse had called her. He needed her help, and he was in this room.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The moment she released the handle, the weighted door swung shut behind her.
There was very little furniture inside: an old, ornate wooden bed, a chair that didn’t match, and a cheap table. The bedclothes were mussed and draped on the floor. To the right, an arch opened onto an empty bathroom.
Mouse was nowhere to be seen.
“Mouse?”
“Well met, Rahel.”
She whirled to face the unfamiliar voice. A naked man was standing in the previously empty bathroom doorway. He was about her father’s age, average in height, with graying hair pulled into a tail and a body that displayed a long
lack of exercise.
“Where’s Mouse?”
He shrugged. “He served his purpose. I sent him away.”
She tightened her hold on the stave grip. “What did you do to him?”
“I shekked him, what do you think? He was perfectly acceptable until he said no. I don’t pay a spreader to tell me no.”
A spreader. Short for “leg spreader,” a filthy name for Mouse’s occupation.
She was just about to leave this dokker’s ass in his naked glory when he said, “He told me all about you.”
“What?”
“Indeed. Rahel this and Rahel that. I got the impression that you were Fahla walking among us.” He looked her up and down. “You’re not as impressive as I was led to believe. Still, you’re attractive enough. A warrior in training, I hear. I’m a warrior, too.”
She should have been gone by now. She should have been running out the door and away from this disgusting man with his slimy confidence, but for some reason, she could not move her feet.
He stepped toward her, close enough that she strained to sense him. There was nothing, not even a whisper of his presence. He was a high empath.
“With my abilities, I had the choice between the scholar caste and the warriors.” He laughed, a soft sound that made her skin crawl. “What choice was that? The warriors have all the power. All the prestige. I wanted that. Is that what you want, little girl?”
He took another step, smiling. “You’ll never get it. Power belongs to those with the ability to take it. I was curious about this mythical Rahel that Mouse told me about, so I made him call you. And here you are, ready to serve. You won’t tell me no, spreader.”
Slashing claws tore into her mind, slicing her apart. She screamed with the pain of it and was silenced, her mouth open but her voice gone. Somewhere, deep inside her brain beyond the reach of the claws, she knew what was happening.
He was an empathic rapist. Someone who took pleasure in tearing through every shield and protection, violating Fahla’s covenant, violating people’s minds and bodies. There was no defense against a predator like this. He controlled her as if she were a puppet dancing on his strings.