Question: who's the real paranoid here?
Brian looked better today: bruises already yellowing, swelling going down around the stitches. He was moving more easily, walking again, breathing normally again. It made Maureen's skin crawl, just thinking about it. Uncanny.
It brought up major questions, though. When the man got healthy, what was she going to do with him? She wasn't equipped for living with a man. Physically, maybe, she had the usual female equipment of tits and ass, but mentally?
Move back to Jo's, her being shacked up with that lyin' cheatin' no-'count guitar player? Find a third apartment with Brian's money? Trust the lock on her bedroom door? Crazy little Maureen was sharing an apartment with a man she'd met three days ago. A man she'd called a rapist. A man she'd threatened to kill.
Maureen's got a problem. Maureen's having flashbacks again.
Girl, six-pack of pre-mixed formula and box of disposable diapers, pack of condoms. Looked to be maybe sixteen, maybe not. Condoms? Now? Better late than never. Maureen counted out change.
"Have a nice day."
At least that's one thing hanging around with Jo had taught her. You'd never catch Jo without a condom in her jeans pocket.
Maureen's fingers danced their dance across the cash register, her eyes shifted from flickering gray monitors to prurient magazine rack in their paranoid patrol, her mind wandered the alleyways of sexual relationships. Maureen and men. Maureen and Brian.
Brian was behaving himself. She didn't know whether he was a nice guy or just a louse too badly hurt to show his true colors. He wasn't Buddy, anyway. She'd felt no sign of that suspicious warmth of his "glamour." He acted the proper British gentleman, not a word or gesture or touch out of place.
They played chess with an old wooden set she'd found when they moved out of Jo's. He was an unconventional player, brilliant but erratic. Sometimes the two of them combined for a grandmaster game, sometimes a total debacle. He tended to ambushes and sudden overwhelming power concentrated on a single point. She went in more for feints within feints within feints, with minor pieces or even pawns turning into devastating weapons when you least expected.
A shrink would have a field day with their different playing styles.
Sometimes, he'd overlook a simple mate in two because it was too obvious. Apparently his military life had been like that, flashes of brilliance mired in the retreat of a dying empire. The politicians called them victories, but most of his career sounded like one disaster after another. According to him, even the Falklands had been a total fuck-up. But you couldn't blame the bishop for being on the wrong diagonal when he was needed.
They watched movies, by preference old movies on the cable channels. Maureen liked knowing the ending ahead of time. Just like with chess, it helped her little problems if she knew the rules. Brian seemed to want a bit of predictability in his life, as well. Maybe he hadn't had enough of it.
They'd only spent a couple of days together, but time with Brian was strange. It went fast, and yet seemed far longer than it was. Seemed like they'd done too much to fit into the hours and there were too many hours to fit into the days. Maybe that's where the fast healing came from.
Whatever it meant, she was getting used to having him around.
He was a good patient, too. Never complained when his inept nurse fumbled re-bandaging or grabbed hold of the wrong piece of man when helping him out of a chair.
Twelve ninety-five for gas. She wiped the license number she'd automatically memorized when the car pulled up to the pump. If a car pulled out without paying, she either had the fucking license number or she ended up buying the fucking gas herself. Incentive plan.
She made change. "Have a nice day."
Half-gallon of milk and the Record Eagle.
"Good evening, Maureen."
She jerked, almost knocking over the sign showing the Megabucks winning number. She'd been watching the gas pump, out the window. Quit jumping like a Vietnam vet hearing a car backfire, you silly bitch!
But she didn't know anybody in the store. Maureen's eyes snapped into focus. Sleek dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin: Fiona.
No.
It was her shadow, the other elegant cobra from the strip club: Sean. If he let his hair grow long and wore his clothes cut for a slim woman, he could pass for Fiona's twin sister.
He wore Fiona's face, molded into a kind of androgynous maleness. Fiona had said something about sterility. Brian had mentioned XXY chromosomes and the hybrid problem. Didn't that mean impotent? Maureen couldn't remember.
Where the hell had he come from? He hadn't walked in the front door. And then she remembered Fiona in Carlysle Woods, appearing and vanishing without a trace. Frigging magic.
Alarm bells jangled in the back of her brain. Sean and Fiona--Brian said they were behind his beating. Brian said they were dangerous. They had never hurt her, though. Besides, something whispered in her head, you're safe here. Magic only happens in the alleys and the shadows. This is Quick Shop, the least magical place on earth.
What was so dangerous about magic? Fiona had laughed when told Brian said the Summer Country was dangerous. And the real world wasn't all that safe. Maureen had seen Brian kill a man about four blocks from here.
Well, maybe not a man, according to what Brian said.
Magic can't exist under fluorescent lights and monitor cameras. This tacky atmosphere would drive a stake through the heart of the strongest vampire. You're safe here. It didn't really sound like her critic, but the voice was as persuasive as the Snake in Eden. The alarm bells faded as if stifled in wads of cotton.
Her deep-rooted fear of men, of everyone, started to look laughable. This Sean, sterile, he couldn't be
