“You don’t say,” said Hellequin dryly.
“You okay back there, Lulu?” Nim called from where she walked alongside Asenath ten metres or so out in front.
“I’m peachy.” The reply came out as slurred, accompanied by a fresh stumble.
Hellequin pulled the ladyboy back up. “He’s jacked up on Dazzle Dust,” he called.
“Ahhh, don’t tell her,” Lulu groaned. He put his forehead in his hand.
“That old poison, hey, Lulu?” Nim shook her head and gave her attention back to the uneven path of salt bricks. They were passing through one of the medina’s unlit spots, an alley thick with shadows.
“She’s pissed now.” Lulu muttered something about the HawkEye wanting Nim and sacrificing all others. His chin dropped onto his chest, the weight of his head a burden.
“I’m a soldier. I deal with facts,” Hellequin offered half-heartedly. He could wish Lulu’s soul to Hell and the ladyboy would still cuddle closer.
But Lulu surprised him. Peering up into Hellequin’s face, he looked freshly earnest.
“Ask me, you’re more fond of us freaks than you’d like to admit. This whole ‘Daxware makes me protect you’ argument is just a way to stop us guessing the truth. That while you’re wired with electrical conductors, a small part of you remembers the man you once were.” Lulu poked Hellequin’s stomach, the other man tensing at the contact. “You’re just a soft belly when it comes down to it.”
Hellequin exhaled heavily. He put his hand to the back of the ladyboy’s neck, steering him. Staring up at the great cavern of starry sky, he muttered, “Maybe you’re right.” He felt no different inside though, only filled to the brim with nothingness.
“How’s your neck?” asked Asenath.
Nim kept the makeshift bandage of Lulu’s handkerchief applied to the spot. “Not as bad as it looked. Bleeding has eased up.”
“Why’d you let men paw you like that, like they did back at the bar?”
Nim stared over, struck by how the woman at her side seemed to take on all sorts of angles in the darkness. The Jeridian’s eyes sparkled. She’d the look of a devil.
“I’m more likely to keep on breathing that way,” she shot back.
“You could fight back. I’d teach you.” The Jeridian tapped the neck of the hessian bag she carried over one shoulder. “Plenty of men have learnt the hard way
“And plenty of whores I’ve known have ended up buried in the dust for complaining.” Nim jutted her chin. “Could be I’ve had enough violence forced on me that I’ve learnt it’s easier just to take it.”
“That’s a bad way of living.” The Jeridian shook her head. “Might as well hold up a sign that says ‘I was born pretty. That’s my fault.’”
Nim laughed sourly. She liked the Jeridian in spite of her vile hobby of collecting heads. But it was difficult not to resent the way Asenath made her feel – as if she’d a duty to her sex to fight back against the tongues, hands and genitals. And hadn’t she fought in the beginning! With nails and teeth and bucking hips and spit. Nothing had spared her. In fact, it had only made them ride her harder.
“Born pretty is a better state of being than born bad.” The Jeridian inclined her head towards the blooded bag at her back, her wide mouth grimly set.
“Are you referring to you or the folk you behead?”
Asenath’s lips parted. Her teeth were white as fresh clothhod milk. “I suppose I came out the womb pure as any other. The Showmaniese spoiled me when they picked off my family and sold them to the blood worms.”
Nim couldn’t imagine a nastier fate. The blood worms operated mainly in Zan City, selling out their fellow men to those in need of a fresh body or two.
“I didn’t lose family to one of those devils, but I do know what its like to have my flesh re-stitched against my will. Troubles like ours harden the heart over time.” She didn’t want to dwell on the bad times. Glancing back down the path, she stopped walking and said, “Where’s Lulu and the HawkEye slink off to?”
“Maybe Lulu has finally persuaded your soldier boy to try a different flavour.” Asenath snorted. She slung her sack of flesh down onto the salt brick path and arched her spine, bones cracking.
“More likely the HawkEye has lost patience with my old valet and gone back to the bar. Now we’ve had a glimpse into his lineage, it’s not like he’s the type to stick around those in need. We’d best go back and look for whatever hole Lulu crawled into.” Nim glinted softly in the darkness of the alley. Neon pulsed around the contours of her lips, crackled and shorted out.
“You know, it doesn’t have to be like this.
A hand slipped behind Nim’s neck, prompting her cheeks to glow faintly. Threads of neon lit up either side of her throat. Asenath moved in, her hard lips, hips and ribs moulded to Nim’s softness. The Jeridian’s mouth was a spiced taste against Nim’s lips. Asenath’s tongue whipped up behind Nim’s teeth, a long muscle that fed on her... Images penetrated Nim’s mind. Hands that massaged her windpipe as she bucked. The digging into her by countless fingers, cocks and every other instrument they found to probe her with. The savagest of rapes in their turning out her natural light when implanting their own beneath her virginal skin.
She pulled away.
“I am no one’s,” she said firmly. The beaded light across her bare shoulders went out. “I’m broken,” she added more softly.
“Think about what I’ve said.” Asenath retrieved her sack and swung it back up onto her shoulder. She fixed Nim with glassy black eyes. “Think about me.”
Nim bit her lower lip. There was a residual trace of Asenath’s taste there. Spice of a red-skinned Jeridian. Smokiness of a woman.
She stared back down the alley. “We should look for Lulu.”
The Jeridian nodded sharply. She strode off back the way they had come, the gore-soaked sack knocking against her lower back.
Nim raised her eyes to the heavens. She felt the sting of tears at her eyes. So much damage was ravelled up inside her. But she wanted to exist beyond her failing circuits sometime. Not now though, she thought, overwhelmed by tiredness suddenly. She let her eyes drop and prepared to follow in Asenath’s footsteps.
Large masculine hands grasped her from behind. Her gasp was smothered by a stinking, soaked rag applied to her mouth and nose. The world kaleidoscoped.
Asenath dropped her sack and raced back towards Nim, swift footed over the jagged salt bricks.
“Krvi crvi!” Blood worms.
Her cry woke the jackals from their slumber near the fire pits. As the dogs lifted their snouts and howled, Asenath leapt into the air and drove both heels into one man’s back. The blood worm matched the dogs with his own howling.
Nim was hiked up over one man’s shoulder. Her neon network faintly illuminated her assaulters. Showmaniese, junked up on Dazzle Dust by the look of their wide, bloodshot eyes and jerking movements. The man carrying Nim wore an old duster coat – military in origin, Asenath surmised. The emblem had been torn off one sleeve. Misjudging his step, the man tripped and fell forward onto his knees, cursing as the jolt re-sparkled Nim’s circuitry. Her body blazed into life even as she lay across the man’s shoulders like a bag of bones. Asenath blinked against the light, and made out the shape of the HawkEye, arms draped over the shoulders of two Showmaniese, head lolling, heels dragging. She went to pull her scimitar from the sheath at her back when a blunt block swung in and connected with her temple.
Consciousness returned in a prickling of awareness accompanied by searing pain. Asenath blinked several times. She became aware of the rough texture of bricks against one cheek and pushed herself up. She sat a moment, temple pulsing, rubbing the dirt and salt from her palms.
A voice came to her, small and uncertain. She rose shakily to her feet.
