“Lieutenant Anne Sanger, Women’s Army Corps, zero three three six two four eight nine one two.” Ann smacked the guy again. He was so big, and so, er, hard, and weirdly slippery, that her slaps slid off him. “Lieutenant Anne Sanger, Women’s Army Corps, zero three three six two four eight nine one two, get your damn hands off me.”
Obligingly, he dropped her. Instantly the water closed over her head, and she flailed about until she reached the surface. Her mind was trying to process too many things at once. The room, big and open and airy. The water, an odd color and an even odder smell…not bad, not remotely bad, but different. And the man. Big. Muscle-bound. Blond, with storm-gray eyes. And what was with that long hair? It was down to his shoulders, the color of gold and shadows, and weirdly, it didn’t seem out of place. It should have; a man with hair like that would have had to fight out of any saloon he was dumb enough to walk into. But instead it went with the tanned skin and the big white flashing teeth and the intense gray eyes. It looked good. It looked right.
“Lieutenant Anne Sanger,” she said again…she expected to say it many times, per her training. It had been one class out of many: What to Do If You Are Captured. Preceding it had been: How to Break Down an Army Carbine. “Women’s Army Corps, zero three three six two four eight nine one two.”
“That is very nice,” he told her. “I am Maltese, second in line to the throne of the SandLands, Prince of the Exalted Ranges of the OnHigh Mountains, Lord of the Snowy Islands—”
“Are we in England?” she asked. It was one of the few places she knew of that had princes and lords. “How’d you do that? What am I doing here?”
“I wished for you,” he told her, which was terrifying to the extreme, “and you came. You are here for me.”
Chapter 5
“Damon! Lois!”
“Doors,” Lois told her prince. “That’s what this place needs. Fewer curtains. More doors.”
She had just pulled the coverlet over herself when Maltese galloped in, wet and nude, pulling a young woman in an olive green uniform (also wet) behind him. She was frantically trying to free herself from his grasp, but since she came up to the middle of his chest, and his arms were as big around as her thighs, she was having no luck.
“Look! Look what is here!” Maltese thrust the wet woman at the startled couple on the bed.
“Lieutenant Anne Sanger,” the wet woman told them. “Women’s Army Corps, zero three three six two four eight nine one two.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lois said automatically. Damon jumped out of the bed (also nude) and bowed. The woman blushed harder, if that was possible.
“You’re all in a lot of trouble,” Lieutenant Anne Sanger continued. “Kidnapping a member of the Armed Forces—during wartime!—is punishable by—”
“How’d you do it?” Lois interrupted.
“Pardon, ma’am?”
“Kill yourself. How’d you do it? Welcome to the SandLands, by the way. You’ll love it here.”
“I doubt it,” Lieutenant Sanger said. Her light blue eyes appeared to frost over as she continued, “I did not kill myself. I was getting ready to go on shift when all of a sudden I was wet. And here.”
“I told you,” Maltese said proudly, reaching for and attempting to hug her, and getting slapped back for his trouble. “I wished for you, and you came.”
Lois was studying the woman. Really very cute, if you liked them small and dark-haired and fine-featured and blue-eyed. Which Maltese clearly did. The poor lug could hardly keep his eyes off her. Meanwhile, the lieutenant looked like she was ready to whip out a pistol and start busting kneecaps.
“What’s with the uniform?” Lois finally asked. Then, “Damon, for God’s sake, here’s a sheet. Cover up. I know, don’t give me that look, but the lieutenant is new here.”
The woman mulled over the question, and just as Lois was getting ready to repeat it, louder, she replied, “I’m a WAC.”
“A whack?” Maltese repeated.
Lois was so startled she dropped the sheet, then snatched it back up. “WAC? As in, World War Two babes in the Army?”
“I’m not a baby,” the lieutenant said hotly.
“What—what year is it? For you, I mean.”
Another odd look, followed by, “Nineteen forty-five. And I really, really have to get back to work. My country needs me. Please let me go.”
“Oh, fuck,” Lois said, and flopped back down on the bed.
Chapter 6
“But you can’t keep her, Maltese,” Lois protested. “She’s not a stray dog, for the love of Christ.”
“But she came here. Like you.”
“Not like me. She’s got a life she wants to get back to. She says she didn’t kill herself. I think—I think maybe she stumbled across a—a thin space between our universes. Or something. And I guess those spots run through time as well as space…I mean, 1945? Jesus! It’s 2010 where I come from. The war’s—that war—has been over for…what? Sixty-five years? Where I’m from she’s probably…” Dead and gone, Lois had been about to say, but closed her mouth with a snap. Still, she got a sharp look from Damon, and imagined she’d be getting grilled later.
“Where is Lieutenant Anne right now?” King Sekal asked, the first time he had spoken during the hastily called meeting.
“In my quarters, of course,” Maltese said. “Where else would I have put her?”
“She’s not a mantelpiece, Maltese, you dumb-ass! You don’t put her anywhere. Jesus, Jesus…” Lois rested her head on her hands.
“Maybe we should go talk to her,” Gladys Commoner, Lois’s mother and the king’s current hot monkey love interest, suggested. “Perhaps it will make her feel more at home if she hears our stories.”
“What, that we ended it all and woke up here? She didn’t, Mom, that’s my point. She’s here by accident. Not,” she said, glaring at Maltese, “because you wished for her. For God’s sake. She’s a woman, not a Cracker Jack prize.”
“I myself am not sure quite how it happened,” Gladys admitted.
“Good lady, we would hear your thoughts on this,” the king ordered.
Gladys colored slightly, but continued, “I just meant, I don’t know what happened. And Lois doesn’t know, either. I think what she said—thin spots between galaxies, or whatever?—is as good a guess as any. Does anyone here ever disappear?”
Damon, Maltese (Shakar was a-hunting, and wouldn’t be back for some time), and Sekal all looked at each other. Then Damon shrugged the peculiar one-shouldered shrug Lois had noticed of SandLands inhabitants. “Not that this family has ever known. But the SandLands are large. Perhaps—”
“Well, that doesn’t help us now,” Lois interrupted. She rapped her knuckles thoughtfully on the floor for a moment (meetings were always held on floors, the attendees sitting cross-legged in a circle), then said, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her. Poor kid must be massively confused.”
“She will get used to the SandLands,” Maltese said. “And us. You did, Lois.”
“Uh…I didn’t have anywhere to go but here, Maltese. I thought this place was the afterlife, at first. Shit, maybe it is, I don’t know. I studied criminal justice in college, not theology.”
“What is criminal justice?” Damon asked.
“What is afterlife?” Sekal asked.
“Later, you guys. Let’s go talk to the lieutenant, first.”
“Nice one, you goob,” Lois said when they pushed the curtain aside and observed the palatial, yet empty, chambers that belonged to Maltese. She went to the window and far, far in the distance could see the tiny dot that was Lieutenant Anne Sanger, Women’s Army Corps, zero three three six two four eight nine one two. “Jeez, lookit her go,” she added, impressed.
“Where does she think she’s going?” Gladys wondered aloud. “It’s all sand out there. I know…I was out there for weeks and weeks with my group.”
“I will bring her back,” Maltese declared.
“Wait—” was all Lois got out before Maltes
e dived through the open window—from three stories up, the idiot!—transformed into a tan puma in midair, landed splayfooted in the courtyard, and bounded off after the lieutenant.
“Oh, yeah,” Lois said. “This is gonna go real well.”
Chapter 7
Anne had no idea where she was going, but staying put had not been, in her estimation, in her best interest. Fearless Americans did not sit quietly and wait to be tortured or brutalized or mocked!
Even better, the good-looking fool hadn’t locked the door or the window. In fact, there were no doors or windows. But it had been child’s play to climb down; she’d spent the first fifteen years of her life in Colorado and could climb before she could walk.
She ran, ignoring the stitch in her side, and kept her eyes on the odd horizon. Perhaps she could find someone sympathetic to the Allies. Perhaps she could find a gun. Perhaps she could wake up and find this was all a horrible, vivid—
She heard a thud-thud-thud behind her, methodic as a metronome, but didn’t turn. In another few seconds, a large yellow cat was sprinting past her, then checked itself so hard it almost flipped over, then came to a dust-rising halt in front of her, which forced her to stop. In truth, she was glad…her side hurt like heck.
The cat looked her over then said, “Hello again. Need you a drink?”
No. He didn’t say it. He thought it. At her. Because his lips weren’t moving, and even if they were, big cats—was it some kind of cougar? mountain lion?—didn’t speak English. Didn’t talk, for heaven’s sake.
“It’s bad enough you’ve kidnapped me,” she said, staring furiously into the cat’s storm-gray eyes. “But you get out of my head. Talk with your mouth, Charley.”
At once, the large blond man was standing in front of her. Naked. Argh. “As you wish,” he said cheerfully. “Are you ready to come back now, Loo?”
“Loo?”
“Loo-ten-unt. Loo,” he added, “is the affectionate nickname I have given you. My brother’s mate has many nicknames for him. It is a sign of their joy with each other. Retard, idiot, dumb-ass, schmuck, loser…all these and more. What will you call me?” he asked, looking absurdly hopeful.
“How about Crazy Man?” She was trying not to look at his groin, and failing. She’d never seen a naked man in her life. His hair was much darker than the blond mass on his head. His penis looked long, but soft.
Stop looking at it, Anne.
She tried. And failed. In fact, she’d joined the WACs so she could see the world—and meet someone. But not like this!
“Are you not warm in those clothes?” He indicated her long sleeves, pants, and jump boots. Which, in the desert heat, were drying quickly.
She jerked back from his touch. “Don’t even try to talk me into being a degenerate like you, you—you—you nudenik!”
“Ah, Nudenik! That will do. But Loo…” He took a step toward her, his long penis swinging against his thigh. She took a compensatory step back.
“You know what? Change back into the cat.”
“As you wish.” And boom, he was a cat again. It was the best trick she’d ever seen. If it was a trick. And of course it was. She was…
Dreaming. It was a dream! A very strange, realistic, odd, odd dream. She’d fallen asleep after a day of training and…
She pinched the skin on the back of her hand. It stung. She took a step toward the great cat, grimacing, expecting a bite, and touched the fur on the top of his head. Thick and plush, like an odd kind of silk, soft and warm under her hand. The cat cocked his head, but didn’t bite or claw her.
She stepped back, thinking hard. The cat, thank the Lord, stayed out of her head so she could ponder. Okay, scratch dreaming. Ah-ha! She was being brainwashed! Someone had captured her and they were doing things to her mind. For what purpose, she did not know. She was a small cog in the great wheel that was the Women’s Army Corps. But if she could just figure out how they were brainwashing her—
She covered her eyes with her hand and always, always, the great cat watched her, his eyes luminous with curiosity.
Nobody was brainwashing her. She wasn’t dreaming and nobody was putting things in her head. She was not an imaginative girl, and she could never have thought all this up. And if she was being brainwashed, they wouldn’t try to make her think she was in a strange place, with strange people who could turn into animals just by thinking about it.
She was here. It was real.
She burst into tears.
Chapter 8
“Now, my good lady…”
“Please, Sekal. Call me Gladys.” The older woman smiled. “I’ve asked you many times.”
“Yes, my…Gladys. Are your rooms comfortable? Are you finding our table with good things to eat? Because if not—”
“Sekal, my rooms are wonderful. Why, I had an entire apartment back home that you could have fit just into the room I’m sleeping in now. And the food is wonderful. To tell the truth, I don’t recognize a lot of it, but it tastes delicious and it doesn’t make me…I mean, my stomach doesn’t…”
“She means, she’s not getting Montezuma’s revenge,” Lois announced, walking into the great hall. “They’re coming back, if you guys care.”
“Who?” Sekal asked, gazing deeply into Gladys’s brown eyes.
“Your second-born and the woman who dropped out of nowhere? Remember? Any of this ringing a bell? And if you inch any closer to my mother, Sekal, I’m shooting you in the face,” she added irritably.
“Oh, now, you will not,” Gladys said, jerking back. Sekal had been kiss-close for a few seconds. She sighed. “I brought you up better than this, Lois. Behave yourself.”
“Yeah, well…” Lois walked over to a window, pulled back the heavy tapestry in front of it, and peered out. “Dad canceled all that stuff out. That poor kid. She looks whipped.”
“Exhausted,” Gladys translated for Sekal, who looked alarmed. “Of course she does. Think how strange this place was to us, dear, and we came from modern-day Earth.”
Lois watched the couple approach. Maltese was padding toward the palace in his puma form, and Lieutenant Anne was walking beside him, her head down, her arms folded across her chest. She looked desolate, to put it mildly. Maltese didn’t look much happier.
“She got a room yet?” Lois asked without turning around.
“Yes, we have put her beside my Lady Gladys’s room. I thought, the good lady being such a kind woman, she might help our visitor be settled.”
“Oh, Sekal…” Gladys breathed. “You’re so nice.”
“Kindness to such a gentle lady is simple courtesy, my lady, and I would be kind to you, always.”
“Oh, Sekal!”
“Barf,” Lois said, still looking out the window.
“Ma’am, will you help me escape?” Anne asked dully.
The dark, curly-haired woman, who had been showing her where extra blankets were kept, slowly turned around. She was very pretty, about Anne’s height, and was wearing a fern-colored robe. Anne was still in her uniform and, by the grace of God, would remain so. Those robes were more revealing than bathing costumes.
“I’m, um, not really the person to ask,” the woman replied. She had a pleasing Midwestern accent, neither twangy nor drawly, and it comforted Anne to hear another American speak. About anything. “See, I’m what they call she-who-will-be-queen. Um, that means if the king—God forbid—dies, my husband and I are in charge.”
Anne said nothing.
“So, um, I guess I could be considered one of them. Sorry.”
“Dear, it’s not that we don’t want to help you.” The older woman, Gladys, was still hard at work. She was an older version of Lois, slightly shorter and heavier, and had the same fox-like face and pretty eyes. She had bustled and fussed about the room, trying to make it perfect. It was a waste of time, in Anne’s humble opinion, as the opulent rooms were as close to perfect as anything in creation. But it seemed to please Gladys to be busy, and so she rejected the first five coverings on the
enormous bed, and was now smoothing out the sixth.
Now she turned to Anne, who was standing in the middle of the room feeling lost, and added, “We don’t know how. We came here by accident ourselves. One minute we were driving, or…” She shot a disapproving look at Lois. “Anyway, we don’t know how we got here. We don’t know how you got here. So we couldn’t help you get back. We don’t even know how to get ourselves back.”
Her training prompted her to reply. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“But this place grows on you,” Lois said. “Seriously. I know that sounds like a load of shit…”
Anne gasped.
Lois blinked. “What? They don’t swear in 1945?”
“Women of loose…um…that is to say…”
“Well, she does have a pottymouth,” Gladys said primly, and Anne laughed for the first time that day. Both of the women stared at her, so she cut off the inappropriate noise.
“Ma’am, you were saying how this place, this strange awful horrible place that is not my home and will never be my home, you were saying, ma’am, that it grows on you.”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what I was saying.” She and the older woman traded a look. “Don’t you, uh, like Maltese? I mean, aren’t you weirdly drawn to him? Even if you’re pissed about being here? Aren’t you thinking about him right now?”
As a matter of fact, Anne was. Specifically, she was thinking about that long soft penis, and what it might look like if he—if he liked her. She was wondering how that dark pubic hair might feel if her fingers were tangled in it, and she was wondering if she’d lost her mind at some point today. In fact, it seemed a certainty.
“Did you never want to escape, ma’am?”
The women traded another look. Finally, the crown princess—she-who-would-be-queen or whatever—sat down on the bed. “Okay, Anne. I’m gonna give you the straight poop.”
“I appreciate that, ma’am.”
“And stop calling me ma’am. I’m Lois, okay? Just Lois. And don’t call me princess, or your highness, or anything goofy like that.”