The park was so often used for events that it was home to a substantial brick building holding restrooms for each gender and a locked section Christian figured was for the use of the park staff. Mark's description aside, this area of the park wasn't really so crowded that the restrooms were high-traffic areas.
Mark nodded towards a hot dog vendor not far away. “Any idea what you want to drink? I'll grab us each one.”
“Sure. Root beer? Or just whatever kind of cola if they're out.” Automatically, he reached for the money in his pocket.
“I've got it, don't worry about it.”
“Thanks.”
Mark shrugged, and headed towards the vendor.
Christian went the other way, pushing open the bathroom door.
It was, well, a public bathroom. He had to give the park staff credit for keeping it tolerably clean under the circumstances, but all in all, he was just as happy avoiding touching anything he could. Because he was alone, he gave the urinal handle a telekinetic push to flush, and did the same at the sink to turn the water first on, then off.
The door opened just as he was turning away from the hot-air hand dryer.
The person who came in could have passed for human, at least on casual inspection, though what physical sex, or for that matter what intended expression of gender, remained very much in question—not remotely unusual for liminals. Rather pale, especially for late summer, hair was very short and grey-white over a face whose age Christian wouldn't have wanted to have to guess. Those clothes were entirely dark red and hung rather loosely on the bony frame beneath, some of it with a vaguely velvety texture, some of it a dull matte, some of it with a near-metallic gleam.
And that aura, when Christian looked, was... strange, barely extending outside physical boundaries at all, and he had no name for that exact shade but it reminded him of a moonless January midnight sky during a cold snap, when the wind sucked all the heat out of your body.
Accustomed to liminals with a range of affinities, Christian nonetheless could feel his skin crawling in proximity to this one—who was also between him and the door out, and was watching him with interest, and showing no sign of intending to use the facilities or otherwise move aside.
“Hello,” Christian said warily. “Could I get by, please? I need to get back to my friends.”
“I've been hoping to talk to you.” The liminal took a step closer. There was something wrong with that very smooth motion: it wasn't so much graceful as suggestive of unconventional physiology.
“I didn't think I was very hard to find. I know the house shields are strong, they've been there a really long time, but I'm out a lot. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I recently arrived here, and found traces in multiple places of a witch with a gift for working with liminals.”
“My mom and grandfather taught me a lot.” Including faith in his own instincts, and every instinct was currently insisting stridently that this was a very bad situation, that he did not want to be cornered by this particular creature. “Could we talk outside in the fresh air, maybe? Instead of in here? This isn't really the most pleasant environment.”
“It's more private, however.”
What should he do? He had a handful of options as far as direct or indirect attacks, but it was distinctly possible that whatever this was, any such attempt would only anger en and leave Christian still unable to escape. He could try talking his way through this, but if he said the wrong thing, he could commit himself to something terrible or give some sort of insult.
His family had told him, repeatedly, that if he was in danger, he should tell Mark.
But what could Mark do?
Seth and Rosa, Vadin and Iambe, had all been quite insistent. And they wouldn't be, unless they knew something he didn't—something that fell within Mark's 'need to know' range that he hadn't so far had any need to know.
“I'm not really into kinky stuff in public bathrooms,” Christian said, trying to keep his tone light. “Especially not with strangers of any sex. What's so private it has to be here?”
An audible shout probably wouldn't work, but Mark was very close by. After the past few weeks, he was quite familiar with what Mark's unique presence felt like against his inner senses, and he had a very good idea of direction and distance. He couldn't get details without more time and concentration than he had to spare, but he gave Mark a telekinetic tug in the direction of the restroom. With any luck, Mark could figure it out.
“I want to make you an offer,” the red-clad liminal said, with a smile that showed teeth that looked wrong—pointed, but also, the front incisors on top and bottom seemed shorter than those next to them, which were shorter than the next ones, creating an odd sort of circular impression. “And the offer is only for you personally, so I'd prefer to keep it between us.”
“What kind of offer?”
“I can help you. If we team up, you'll have access to my extensive knowledge of other liminal species. And you'll be quite safe from all of them, no matter what. You'll need to waste much less time on sleeping, and you'll be able to learn and absorb new things much more quickly.”
“There's always a price.”
“Some prices are more like inconveniences, or things that can be accommodated. The witches who become truly great summoners know that.” The liminal took a step forward, eyes never wavering from Christian's.
The bathroom door again; the liminal's expression changed from intense interest to annoyance as it glanced back.
Mark leaned casually against the door as it swung closed. “Well, what've we here?”
The liminal sighed. “Perhaps we can continue this discussion later.”
“I don't think so,” Mark said. “Your conversation is over. Permanently.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you have any idea how stupid you are?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“You thought you could get away with hunting for a new host in a city that's very clearly marked as a lamia's territory. That's pretty damned stupid.”
Host? That didn't sound pleasant.
The liminal hesitated. “You're human, and not gifted. You have no part in this discussion.”
Mark smiled, and something about it made Christian nearly as nervous as the red-clad liminal did. “Oh?” he said, very softly. Shadows gathered from nowhere, twisting around him, flexing and writhing like living things, then faded away.
A woman stood where Mark had been, inhumanly beautiful, clad in a halter and pants and heeled boots, all of something black and shiny and skin-tight over a fit body with sensuous curves in all the right places. Her long raven hair fell loose, her golden eyes were lined heavily with black and her lips were tinted the same colour, in sharp contrast to her smooth ivory skin. That smile was the same, though, as she regarded the liminal—which had gone in a heartbeat from irritated uncertainty to full-on fear, Christian noted.
“Did you honestly believe that I wouldn't notice?” she said, straightening up and taking a step away from the door. “Or that I wouldn't care? But the stupidest mistake of all was to decide that that witch over there was going to be your next victim.”
The red-clad liminal, already pale, turned perceptibly grey. “He's... yours?” en said faintly.
“He is under my protection.” No wonder en was alarmed: dark power ebbed and flowed in her aura with all the strength of ocean waves. Dusky wings, the edges indistinct, unfurled, like the wings of a dragon made all of shadows; Christian could faintly see the pale wall and duller door through them. They arched over her, cupped around her, stirring slightly with each breath she took. He wasn't entirely sure he shouldn't be more terrified of her than of the red-clad liminal.
He held his ground, but not easily, and he was conscious that he was breathing fast and his heart was thumping too rapidly. He doubted he could look away from her, and was even less sure why he’d want to. Should he be doing something?
The red-clad liminal's outline wavered as en edged back, away from her.
Before en could even finish the motion, before Christian could recognize that en was trying to shift planes, she'd closed the gap and had one hand wrapped around ens throat. Long glossy black nails dug into the skin, which peeled back like torn plastic from the punctures, though there was no sign of blood. The red-clad liminal squirmed frantically in her grasp, letting out not so much a scream as a high-pitched screeching that hovered at the very edge of Christian's hearing. Despite ens struggles, she held it in place with no visible effort on her part and no visible success on its. If en was still trying to escape to a different plane, then she must be anchoring somehow, because en was quite firmly in this one.
She drove the other hand, nails first, up under her captive's ribs and yanked something out that Christian thought was ens heart, though there was still no blood.
The heart crumbled into coarse grainy dust in seconds. The body in her other hand shrivelled rapidly, shrinking and contracting, the limbs disappearing and the texture changing to reddish cracking skin all over. She strode over to the garbage pail, dropped the handful of heart dust inside, then the worm-like thing, which was now the length of an arm and as big around as her wrist.
“It won't take very long for it to vanish entirely and no one's going to notice it there. Those things are parasites without much physical reality, even showing themselves to humans long enough to try to find a new host is all-or-nothing. They look for humans to possess and then feed on their energies and adrenaline while driving them into increasingly risky behaviour. It doesn't lead to a very long life expectancy.” She shrugged, and those dark wings folded around her, flowed away as shadows from Mark in his usual jeans and t-shirt, who turned towards the sink to wash his hands. That dark aura of power was simply gone without any evidence it had ever existed. “You can snap out of it now,” he added matter-of-factly. “Nothing else is happening.”
Christian took a deep, shuddering breath. Probably he should be feeling queasy about the killing of something sentient in front of him, but it had all happened so fast, and he was fairly sure he was nowhere near processing it yet. Without the immediate stimulus, it was at least possible to use a lifetime of training to calm and centre himself. Not easy, but possible.
That allowed what she'd said to register properly.
“What... you knew that thing was around? And that it was dangerous?”
“Yeah. I found traces of it the past couple of nights. But it was hiding from me.”
“I was bait?” And here he'd thought Mark had actually been interested in his company.
Mark glanced over his shoulder, forehead furrowed in perplexity. “No. I knew it would come after you because you're the only witch in the area. This seemed like a probable time and place, since it couldn't get into the house and it didn’t have much time without a host. I made sure I'd be close enough to step in if it did. It wasn’t going to be a problem for long either way.”
“All right, what are you?”
“What do I look like?”
“Don't give me that. I want to know what I'm sharing a house with!”
Mark turned off the tap, shook water off his hands, and wiped them on his jeans. “I'm a lamia. Sometimes I'm exactly what you see. Sometimes I'm what you just saw. Mark and Alexandra are both me, but there are differences beyond the obvious.”
“Lamia's not one I know.”
“Not surprising, we're rare, and most don't tend to associate with witches a lot. Not in any way witches are terribly eager to acknowledge, anyway. And when a lamia wants to be overlooked...” He shrugged, and didn't finish.
That was definitely impressive camouflage. A lifetime around liminals, many of which were able to change between two or more forms and some of which lived in the human world, hadn't left Christian with any impression that it was possible to pass so perfectly for human on so many levels. Witchblood could always see liminals on this plane and identify them as such—at least, so he'd thought.
“What are you doing living in my family's house, then?”
“Lamias need somewhere to live too, y’know. We do sleep and all. And unlike some, we aren’t comfortable outside this plane for long. There are a variety of ways to deal with that, and they all have drawbacks. This particular new option seemed worth a try, although I wasn't all that optimistic. So far, it seems to be working much better than I really expected and I'm glad I took the chance.” Mark shrugged again. “Anyway, it's dead, no longer any kind of threat. Val's going to be waiting for you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Among other things, I have a territory to explore further, and boundaries to make sure are so clearly marked that absolutely nothing can possibly miss it. There isn't much out there that's both strong enough to be really dangerous and either stupid enough to ignore my presence or aggressive enough to pick a fight anyway. That thing must have killed off its last host and thought it could avoid me until it had a new one.”
“Yuck. I owe you one. I have no idea how I could've handled that alone.”
“My territory markings will keep most threats away, and I'll be staying alert for anything dangerous and stupid or aggressive trespassing, but that doesn’t change what we were talking about earlier, the odds that sooner or later you'll run into something worse while you're housecleaning.”
“Um... yeah. I mean, Vadin’s presence didn’t keep everything away, either.”
“If you need something killed, probably I'll do it. Or rather, Alexandra will. If it's a threat to you or harassing you, then there's no question. Any other help you can ask for, but I might or might not give it. Since I have more free time than I'm used to and I frequently have no idea what to do with it, probably I will. Anyway. Go find Val. Everything's fine. I set the drinks down outside so I imagine they’ve disappeared by now, sorry. I'll see you at home tomorrow and you can tell me how the food was.”
Slowly, Christian nodded. As much as it had hurt, that initial jolt of feeling like he'd misjudged, this obviously needed to go into the category of 'liminal perspective, just accept it as such' rather than being analyzed through a human perspective. He could deal with that, it was just life as usual. And at least now he had answers. “All right. And thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
The park was so often used for events that it was home to a substantial brick building holding restrooms for each gender and a locked section Christian figured was for the use of the park staff. Mark's description aside, this area of the park wasn't really so crowded that the restrooms were high-traffic areas.
Mark nodded towards a hot dog vendor not far away. “Any idea what you want to drink? I'll grab us each one.”
“Sure. Root beer? Or just whatever kind of cola if they're out.” Automatically, he reached for the money in his pocket.
“I've got it, don't worry about it.”
“Thanks.”
Mark shrugged, and headed towards the vendor.
Christian went the other way, pushing open the bathroom door.
It was, well, a public bathroom. He had to give the park staff credit for keeping it tolerably clean under the circumstances, but all in all, he was just as happy avoiding touching anything he could. Because he was alone, he gave the urinal handle a telekinetic push to flush, and did the same at the sink to turn the water first on, then off.
The door opened just as he was turning away from the hot-air hand dryer.
The person who came in could have passed for human, at least on casual inspection, though what physical sex, or for that matter what intended expression of gender, remained very much in question—not remotely unusual for liminals. Rather pale, especially for late summer, hair was very short and grey-white over a face whose age Christian wouldn't have wanted to have to guess. Those clothes were entirely dark red and hung rather loosely on the bony frame beneath, some of it with a vaguely velvety texture, some of it a dull matte, some of it with a near-metallic gleam.
And that aura, when Christian looked, was... strange, barely extending outside physical boundaries at all, and he had no name for that exact shade but it reminded him of a moonless January midnight sky during a cold snap, when the wind sucked all the heat out of your body.
Accustomed to liminals with a range of affinities, Christian nonetheless could feel his skin crawling in proximity to this one—who was also between him and the door out, and was watching him with interest, and showing no sign of intending to use the facilities or otherwise move aside.
“Hello,” Christian said warily. “Could I get by, please? I need to get back to my friends.”
“I've been hoping to talk to you.” The liminal took a step closer. There was something wrong with that very smooth motion: it wasn't so much graceful as suggestive of unconventional physiology.
“I didn't think I was very hard to find. I know the house shields are strong, they've been there a really long time, but I'm out a lot. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I recently arrived here, and found traces in multiple places of a witch with a gift for working with liminals.”
“My mom and grandfather taught me a lot.” Including faith in his own instincts, and every instinct was currently insisting stridently that this was a very bad situation, that he did not want to be cornered by this particular creature. “Could we talk outside in the fresh air, maybe? Instead of in here? This isn't really the most pleasant environment.”
“It's more private, however.”
What should he do? He had a handful of options as far as direct or indirect attacks, but it was distinctly possible that whatever this was, any such attempt would only anger en and leave Christian still unable to escape. He could try talking his way through this, but if he said the wrong thing, he could commit himself to something terrible or give some sort of insult.
His family had told him, repeatedly, that if he was in danger, he should tell Mark.
But what could Mark do?
Seth and Rosa, Vadin and Iambe, had all been quite insistent. And they wouldn't be, unless they knew something he didn't—something that fell within Mark's 'need to know' range that he hadn't so far had any need to know.
“I'm not really into kinky stuff in public bathrooms,” Christian said, trying to keep his tone light. “Especially not with strangers of any sex. What's so private it has to be here?”
An audible shout probably wouldn't work, but Mark was very close by. After the past few weeks, he was quite familiar with what Mark's unique presence felt like against his inner senses, and he had a very good idea of direction and distance. He couldn't get details without more time and concentration than he had to spare, but he gave Mark a telekinetic tug in the direction of the restroom. With any luck, Mark could figure it out.
“I want to make you an offer,” the red-clad liminal said, with a smile that showed teeth that looked wrong—pointed, but also, the front incisors on top and bottom seemed shorter than those next to them, which were shorter than the next ones, creating an odd sort of circular impression. “And the offer is only for you personally, so I'd prefer to keep it between us.”
“What kind of offer?”
“I can help you. If we team up, you'll have access to my extensive knowledge of other liminal species. And you'll be quite safe from all of them, no matter what. You'll need to waste much less time on sleeping, and you'll be able to learn and absorb new things much more quickly.”
“There's always a price.”
“Some prices are more like inconveniences, or things that can be accommodated. The witches who become truly great summoners know that.” The liminal took a step forward, eyes never wavering from Christian's.
The bathroom door again; the liminal's expression changed from intense interest to annoyance as it glanced back.
Mark leaned casually against the door as it swung closed. “Well, what've we here?”
The liminal sighed. “Perhaps we can continue this discussion later.”
“I don't think so,” Mark said. “Your conversation is over. Permanently.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you have any idea how stupid you are?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“You thought you could get away with hunting for a new host in a city that's very clearly marked as a lamia's territory. That's pretty damned stupid.”
Host? That didn't sound pleasant.
The liminal hesitated. “You're human, and not gifted. You have no part in this discussion.”
Mark smiled, and something about it made Christian nearly as nervous as the red-clad liminal did. “Oh?” he said, very softly. Shadows gathered from nowhere, twisting around him, flexing and writhing like living things, then faded away.
A woman stood where Mark had been, inhumanly beautiful, clad in a halter and pants and heeled boots, all of something black and shiny and skin-tight over a fit body with sensuous curves in all the right places. Her long raven hair fell loose, her golden eyes were lined heavily with black and her lips were tinted the same colour, in sharp contrast to her smooth ivory skin. That smile was the same, though, as she regarded the liminal—which had gone in a heartbeat from irritated uncertainty to full-on fear, Christian noted.
“Did you honestly believe that I wouldn't notice?” she said, straightening up and taking a step away from the door. “Or that I wouldn't care? But the stupidest mistake of all was to decide that that witch over there was going to be your next victim.”
The red-clad liminal, already pale, turned perceptibly grey. “He's... yours?” en said faintly.
“He is under my protection.” No wonder en was alarmed: dark power ebbed and flowed in her aura with all the strength of ocean waves. Dusky wings, the edges indistinct, unfurled, like the wings of a dragon made all of shadows; Christian could faintly see the pale wall and duller door through them. They arched over her, cupped around her, stirring slightly with each breath she took. He wasn't entirely sure he shouldn't be more terrified of her than of the red-clad liminal.
He held his ground, but not easily, and he was conscious that he was breathing fast and his heart was thumping too rapidly. He doubted he could look away from her, and was even less sure why he’d want to. Should he be doing something?
The red-clad liminal's outline wavered as en edged back, away from her.
Before en could even finish the motion, before Christian could recognize that en was trying to shift planes, she'd closed the gap and had one hand wrapped around ens throat. Long glossy black nails dug into the skin, which peeled back like torn plastic from the punctures, though there was no sign of blood. The red-clad liminal squirmed frantically in her grasp, letting out not so much a scream as a high-pitched screeching that hovered at the very edge of Christian's hearing. Despite ens struggles, she held it in place with no visible effort on her part and no visible success on its. If en was still trying to escape to a different plane, then she must be anchoring somehow, because en was quite firmly in this one.
She drove the other hand, nails first, up under her captive's ribs and yanked something out that Christian thought was ens heart, though there was still no blood.
The heart crumbled into coarse grainy dust in seconds. The body in her other hand shrivelled rapidly, shrinking and contracting, the limbs disappearing and the texture changing to reddish cracking skin all over. She strode over to the garbage pail, dropped the handful of heart dust inside, then the worm-like thing, which was now the length of an arm and as big around as her wrist.
“It won't take very long for it to vanish entirely and no one's going to notice it there. Those things are parasites without much physical reality, even showing themselves to humans long enough to try to find a new host is all-or-nothing. They look for humans to possess and then feed on their energies and adrenaline while driving them into increasingly risky behaviour. It doesn't lead to a very long life expectancy.” She shrugged, and those dark wings folded around her, flowed away as shadows from Mark in his usual jeans and t-shirt, who turned towards the sink to wash his hands. That dark aura of power was simply gone without any evidence it had ever existed. “You can snap out of it now,” he added matter-of-factly. “Nothing else is happening.”
Christian took a deep, shuddering breath. Probably he should be feeling queasy about the killing of something sentient in front of him, but it had all happened so fast, and he was fairly sure he was nowhere near processing it yet. Without the immediate stimulus, it was at least possible to use a lifetime of training to calm and centre himself. Not easy, but possible.
That allowed what she'd said to register properly.
“What... you knew that thing was around? And that it was dangerous?”
“Yeah. I found traces of it the past couple of nights. But it was hiding from me.”
“I was bait?” And here he'd thought Mark had actually been interested in his company.
Mark glanced over his shoulder, forehead furrowed in perplexity. “No. I knew it would come after you because you're the only witch in the area. This seemed like a probable time and place, since it couldn't get into the house and it didn’t have much time without a host. I made sure I'd be close enough to step in if it did. It wasn’t going to be a problem for long either way.”
“All right, what are you?”
“What do I look like?”
“Don't give me that. I want to know what I'm sharing a house with!”
Mark turned off the tap, shook water off his hands, and wiped them on his jeans. “I'm a lamia. Sometimes I'm exactly what you see. Sometimes I'm what you just saw. Mark and Alexandra are both me, but there are differences beyond the obvious.”
“Lamia's not one I know.”
“Not surprising, we're rare, and most don't tend to associate with witches a lot. Not in any way witches are terribly eager to acknowledge, anyway. And when a lamia wants to be overlooked...” He shrugged, and didn't finish.
That was definitely impressive camouflage. A lifetime around liminals, many of which were able to change between two or more forms and some of which lived in the human world, hadn't left Christian with any impression that it was possible to pass so perfectly for human on so many levels. Witchblood could always see liminals on this plane and identify them as such—at least, so he'd thought.
“What are you doing living in my family's house, then?”
“Lamias need somewhere to live too, y’know. We do sleep and all. And unlike some, we aren’t comfortable outside this plane for long. There are a variety of ways to deal with that, and they all have drawbacks. This particular new option seemed worth a try, although I wasn't all that optimistic. So far, it seems to be working much better than I really expected and I'm glad I took the chance.” Mark shrugged again. “Anyway, it's dead, no longer any kind of threat. Val's going to be waiting for you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Among other things, I have a territory to explore further, and boundaries to make sure are so clearly marked that absolutely nothing can possibly miss it. There isn't much out there that's both strong enough to be really dangerous and either stupid enough to ignore my presence or aggressive enough to pick a fight anyway. That thing must have killed off its last host and thought it could avoid me until it had a new one.”
“Yuck. I owe you one. I have no idea how I could've handled that alone.”
“My territory markings will keep most threats away, and I'll be staying alert for anything dangerous and stupid or aggressive trespassing, but that doesn’t change what we were talking about earlier, the odds that sooner or later you'll run into something worse while you're housecleaning.”
“Um... yeah. I mean, Vadin’s presence didn’t keep everything away, either.”
“If you need something killed, probably I'll do it. Or rather, Alexandra will. If it's a threat to you or harassing you, then there's no question. Any other help you can ask for, but I might or might not give it. Since I have more free time than I'm used to and I frequently have no idea what to do with it, probably I will. Anyway. Go find Val. Everything's fine. I set the drinks down outside so I imagine they’ve disappeared by now, sorry. I'll see you at home tomorrow and you can tell me how the food was.”
Slowly, Christian nodded. As much as it had hurt, that initial jolt of feeling like he'd misjudged, this obviously needed to go into the category of 'liminal perspective, just accept it as such' rather than being analyzed through a human perspective. He could deal with that, it was just life as usual. And at least now he had answers. “All right. And thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
