Alysha's Fall Read online

  Paid. Paid to hit her. An expensive key, and obviously a different one than she’d ever seen being sold in her two months of working at Phantasies. Alysha’s claws shot from her hands and she rushed into the hallway. Beside her door, the light glowed not blue, not clear, the lights she knew for the keys they represented, but an eerie purple-black. She ran down the hall, scanning for other black signs until she found one. Alysha palmed the door open.

  Rispa knelt on the floor where she’d been bound, pale corkscrew curls hiding her face as she bowed with her nose to the ground. On the bed a gray-striped man used Angel’s hair for reins, pulling her body into an arch so tight her white wings splayed unevenly and silent tears ran helplessly down the Malarai’s hairless face.

  The moment Alysha required to process the visual information was completely devoid of emotion. Then she threw herself at the male, digging her claws into his upper back and peeling it open in parallel rows down his spine. The man shrieked, jerking away from Angel to grab at his shoulder blades. Tottering away from the bed, he left himself open for Alysha’s advance as her hands streaked across his side. She did not pursue him when he ran from the room, blood spurting from his ribcage.

  Alysha dropped to the ground and sliced Rispa’s fetters apart. “Rispa! Little star! Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” She gently pried the gag out, touching the torn edges of the girl’s lips.

  “No more than usual,” the white Tam-illee answered, looking up at her guilelessly.

  “No more than usual!” Alysha clasped Rispa’s upper arms, mouth dropping open. “Rispa! You know that hurting people that way is wrong, don’t you?”

  “Yes . . . but my mother didn’t mind it, so I thought it must be a little okay.” The girl leaned into Alysha’s arms.

  “Mother?”

  “Oh, yes. We used to be paired, when she was still here. I guess they liked to look at me, or have me there or something.”

  Alysha felt the tiny Tam-illee’s shrug. Her eyes glazed in shock. She shook herself and pulled the girl out of her lap. “Rispa, do you have any relatives? Any that would have you?”

  “I have an aunt,” Rispa said, one foxine ear sagging. “She lives in Gea Vespera.”

  “Why didn’t you go to her when your mother . . . ”

  “Died. She died.” The girl lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “I didn’t have the money.”

  “Doesn’t Tiell pay you?”

  Rispa’s gray eyes turned up to hers. “He said I wouldn’t make him any profit until I was old enough to use and that I should be grateful that he’s being nice enough to give me room and board.”

  The world vanished, sucked away into a blank white field. Alysha swayed, holding onto Rispa, to the smell of blood, Angel’s small whimpers. Her vision cleared, and then her fingers flew to her ears, detaching the hoop earrings she’d worn since she’d been six. She pressed them into Rispa’s small hands.

  “Remember I said that Karaka’A give gifts on birthdays?”

  Rispa nodded, staring at her.

  “Take these to a jeweler. They’re worth something. They’ll get you enough money to go to your aunt. That’s my gift to you.”

  The Tam-illee’s brow furrowed into a tiny frown. “But—”

  Alysha grabbed Rispa’s shoulders and stared into her eyes. Frenzy threatened to shatter her tenuous hold on it. “Promise me! Promise me you’ll leave right now! Promise me you’ll get away from this place and never come back!”

  The girl said nothing, then leaned forward. Her tiny fingers lit on Alysha’s upper arms as she slid into the Karaka’An’s embrace, reaching up. Her lips met Alysha’s cheek, her smaller, faster heartbeat shivering against Alysha’s skin as the girl pressed their bodies together. Alysha tried not to tremble. Against the backs of her tightly closed eyelids she saw comets trailing backward, up into a gray night.

  Rispa slithered off the floor and ran out the door. Alysha didn’t even hear the girl’s footsteps. Her naked ears sent tingles down her spine as she stood and checked the bed. “Angel?”

  “Is that . . . you?” The Malarai lay on the bed, shuddering, her tear-encrusted eyes lifted unsteadily to Alysha’s face. “It is.”

  “An,” Alysha whispered, touching Angel’s shoulder as her gaze traveled over the multiple gashes. “Can you walk?”

  “I don’t know. My arm and wing are broken.”

  Alysha felt the fury rising again. “It’s a different key, isn’t it? Tiell sells a key that allows the customers to beat us.”

  “A black key,” Angel said. “ ‘No permanent damage.’ It’s . . . what I left for, when he first started it a few months ago. They keep breaking my wings, and I . . . I don’t know if I can ever fly, but if they do it enough I won’t even have the chance. . . . ” Her pale, furless face had flushed a delicate, shell pink, and tears tracked down the side of her nose. “But I had to come back, to this.”

  “Hold on,” Alysha said, sliding her arms beneath the Malarai’s legs and back.

  “What are you doing?”

  Alysha grimaced as blood smeared across her wrists and Angel’s voice broke into a piteous whimper. “I’m going to take you to a healer.”

  “You can’t do that. . . . Tiell has a medkit in the kitchen, and one in the dressing room. That’s where we’re supposed to fix ourselves after a black key.”

  The rage overrode her self-control long enough for her to stare, shaking, into Angel’s eyes. “Can you move?” she asked, each word bitten off at the end.

  Angel did not answer for several minutes, her eyes glazed and body stiff. Her voice barely held a whisper’s volume when she finally spoke. “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alysha said abruptly, contrite, ears flattening. “I . . . I’m sorry. I’m going to lift you now. It’s going to hurt, I’ll do it slowly.”

  Biting her lip, Angel nodded. She passed out halfway off the bed. Alysha rearranged the limp girl in her arms, careful with the broken wing, and slid out the servant’s door in the closet. Fortunately, the Harem Rose had the stage. Tiell liked the Tam-illee and never missed any of her performances, often “buying” her key for himself. Alysha didn’t think the foxine would recover from the manager’s attentions.

  Cradling Angel to her breast like a fallen star, she stole into the streets, hardly noticing her own limp. She’d barely had time to force down the pain from the kick Tiell had delivered to her side in the early evening before her violent customer had reminded her of it.

  The air outside cleared Alysha’s mind as she held Angel to her breast. She oriented herself, then stepped off the ledge and into the darkness surrounding the night club. It was nearly four mark; few people dotted the streets as she strode toward Leigh Walk, trying to rush without jarring Angel. As she passed in and out of the lights of the few working street lamps, Alysha studied Angel’s smooth, hairless face. The Malarai had a translucent pink nose pad beneath her humanesque nose, and her lips bowed into perfect arches, slightly parted to reveal pointed teeth. Her brows pressed together in mute pain; Alysha could feel blood soaking through her fingers and against her arm, her chest. She gritted her teeth and began to jog.

  Taller homes gradually replaced the small shacks surrounding Phantasies. The pavement glowed in the light of well-maintained street lamps. Some of the houses even had tiny pleasure gardens in lieu of lawns. As the neighborhood improved, Alysha saw fewer and fewer signs of activity until she remained the only one awake, hastening through the darkness, a fragment of it broken into motion. Her chest no longer felt the heat of Angel’s breath. Her strength waned, arms tiring and her side throbbing from Tiell’s recent attentions. When she crossed Reign Boulevard and saw the soft sculptured light of the clinic’s staff on one of the houses, Alysha let out a gasp. She staggered to the door and pressed the chime. As she waited, she let her forehead rest against the door frame, cradling Angel to her breast.

  A few minutes later, the door slid open to reveal a sleepy white Asanii feline in rumpled clothing. “Sun and stars, do yo
u know how late it is?”

  Alysha straightened, meeting the other’s brown eyes, watching as they fell to the body in her arms. She smiled wanly as the other female gasped and said, “Come in, come in, quickly. I’ll get my husband.”

  Alysha followed her and glanced around the inside of the house, footfalls silent on the tile floor. The front room had been papered in pale blue and three beds with haloarches occupied one of the walls. She set Angel in one of them, mouth tightening at the dark crimson stains that soaked the Malarai’s feathers. Backing away, she fell to pacing the small room, gaze ripping from the beds to the few paintings on the opposing walls to the dark room beyond the open door.

  A Tam-illee foxine appeared in the doorway, tying his robe shut. He did not even pause to nod to Alysha, brushing past her to the bed and activating the haloarch. She could hear him muttering as he opened a nearby cabinet and snatched materials from it.

  A hand wrapped around her arm, and she flinched.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you.” The Asanii woman from the front door smiled weakly. “I asked what happened.”

  “I . . . she . . . ” Alysha stopped, collecting herself, then said, “An accident.”

  “I . . . see,” the other said, considering her. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know,” Alysha answered, eyes riveted on the doctor and Angel.

  Gentle hands tugged her away. “Come with me. Nathan doesn’t appreciate people staring over his shoulder while he works. You look like you could use a seat and maybe something hot to drink.”

  Alysha said, “I shouldn’t leave her.”

  The Asanii stared up at her, then said, “Trust my husband.”

  Alysha glanced at her long enough to take in the earnest, dark eyes, then looked back at the bed where Angel lay, the haloarch chiming apace with her thready heartbeats. She ground her teeth, then nodded and let the woman guide her through the doorway into another room. She sat in a chair by a round dark table as the Asanii vanished behind the counter, rummaging for a pot. “So what’s your name?”

  “My name?” Alysha asked, starting from her reverie.

  “You do have one, don’t you?” the woman asked, amused. She set the pot on the heating element and poured water into it.

  “Alysha. Alysha Forrest.”

  “My name’s Laelkii Takara Lifeweave.”

  The scent of tea rose in the air, but Alysha discounted it after the first whiff. She stared at the floor, mind lost in the patterns of the colored tiles. A few minutes later, the other woman drew back a chair and pushed a hot cup into her limp hand. She stared blankly at it.

  “Arii . . . look, Alysha. I know you’re worried about your friend. . . . ”

  “She’s not my friend,” Alysha said. “I don’t even know her.”

  Laelkii shook her head once, squinting. “Okay. You don’t know her name. You don’t know her. So how’d you pick her up?”

  “We’re . . . coworkers,” Alysha answered, fingers curling around the cup as she rested her elbows on the table.

  “I see,” Laelkii said. Her pointed stare reminded Alysha that she hadn’t bothered to change from her jeweled gauds. “You must not have known her long to not know her name.”

  “Just tonight,” Alysha said. She warmed her hands against the walls of the cup.

  “And she had an accident, so you rushed her here,” Laelkii said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if she wasn’t your friend before, I’m sure she will be now,” Laelkii said, sipping her own tea. “You’ve a good heart.”

  Alysha frowned, directing her stare at the Asanii. “One action isn’t enough to base a character judgment on.”

  “Well! That’s the longest sentence I’ve gotten out of you.” Laelkii grinned.

  Alysha glanced sharply at the woman. Straight gray hair fell out of a messy braid that looped over her shoulder to the top of her rib cage, providing counterpoint to her short, white fur. Above her brown eyes, gray bangs brushed the right side of her forehead, obscuring a pale brow. The slim line of her figure and hands set her probable age at a smaller number than the wrinkles around her eyes would admit. Something about her seemed familiar, white on white, stars and snow and sugar.

  Drawing back from the barely-formed pattern, Alysha said, “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very friendly.”

  Laelkii patted her wrist gently. “You look like you’ve had a long night. I don’t expect sterling conversation.”

  A shadow fell on the tiles of the kitchen as the male Tam-illee appeared in the doorway. Alysha stood.

  “She’ll be fine,” the man said. “With rest.”

  Alysha let out the breath she’d been holding as the man studied her with narrow green eyes.

  “What do you know about this girl, young lady?”

  Alysha shrugged. “She’s a coworker. As I was telling your mate, I didn’t know her before tonight.”

  “And your profession?” the man asked.

  Something in his face prompted Alysha to answer, voice level, “Exotic dancers. Prostitutes.”

  “Licensed?” he said.

  Alysha shook her head.

  The Tam-illee foxine sighed and nodded as he took a seat. His equanimity surprised Alysha, though Laelkii’s ears had paled visibly at her words. The male poured himself some of the tea. “I thought as much. She has abortion scars, several of them serious and not well-healed.”

  Blindly, Alysha grasped for a chair and guided herself into it. “Scars? Abortion scars? I thought . . . ”

  “Abortions were cleaner? They are if you do it at a clinic. They’re not if you scrape them out of yourself.” The doctor shook his head. “Birth control for Malarai is spotty at best. Your friend made a bad career choice, given her race.”

  Alysha stared at her tea as she absorbed that. The gold rim of the cup reminded her abruptly of her pillow. She wondered where Rispa had left it. “When will she be ready for release?”

  “I’d say two days.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  “Pardon?” the man asked.

  Alysha glanced up. “Your services aren’t free. What do I owe you?”

  “Kara, you barely know the girl and now you want to pay her medical bills?” Laelkii interrupted.

  She shrugged. “Angel’s in no condition to do it. Someone must.”

  “I can’t take your money,” the man said, “Not only that, but I should look at you. Your cheek is swollen, and so is your side.”

  Alysha caught his wrist as he started to stand and hissed, “I don’t want your charity!”

  White fingers wrapped over their hands. Laelkii said, “Why not just open a running account? When you’re done with whatever it is you’re schooling for, you can pay us back.”

  “A running account?” Alysha asked, startled.

  Laelkii smiled sheepishly, tossing her bangs off her eye. “Judging from your friend’s prior indiscretions and the state of your face right now, injuries are probably a recurring hazard at your present gig.”

  Stunned, Alysha could find nothing to say, until she curled her hand into a fist, eyes widening. “Schooling? How did you know?”

  Laelkii shrugged, ears flushing. “You don’t seem the type to be doing exotic dancing for the fun of it, kara.”

  “Is this settled now?” the man asked. “If so, you need to get under a haloarch.”

  Alysha looked from him to the woman. Something in Laelkii’s dark eyes passed her a reflection of herself, thin, wary, cold . . . yet she could sense their interest in her, their desire to aid her. Slowly she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, let her fur lie flat against her neck. “Very well.”

  Alysha strode into Phantasies two nights later, tossing her duffel onto the burgundy couch in the main room. Her perfunctory greeting died in her mouth. Honey shook as she applied paint around her red-rimmed eyes. The Harem Rose sat curled in an armchair, hugging a pillow, already dressed in gaudy emeralds and gold beads. White Angel rearranged the jars
on her table compulsively, wings mantling and hairless tail twitching against the dark golden wood of the floors. Even bitter Cinnamon seemed queasy, a blanket mounded against her midriff as she tried to brush red color onto her pursed lips.

  “What’s wrong?” Alysha asked, puzzled.

  “Steel,” Angel whispered. “He’s insane.”

  “Tiell? We knew that.” Alysha shrugged, pulling off her sweatshirt. The fur along her spine prickled at the absolute silence that followed her statement. “What?”

  “He’s coming for you,” Cinnamon said in a flat voice. “He beat us all until he found out who striped the two customers and what happened to Rispa.”

  Alysha paused, ears nicking forward. She felt their nakedness again. “Rispa . . . she’s gone?”

  “Completely. Without a trace,” Honey said, turning on her stool. “Steel, Steel, what have you done?”

  “I saved someone, that’s what I’ve done,” Alysha answered, one hand balling into a fist. In her mind, the upward-soaring comet had become fixed in the sky, a permanent star.

  “I hope it’s worth the price,” Cinnamon said.

  “It’s him!” Angel said.

  Alysha turned in time to see Tiell as the manager entered the room—something he was not supposed to do. Hadn’t the girls told her that this room was sacrosanct as long as the door was open? Yet he entered, wrath naked on his face. Behind Tiell, two strangers blocked the door with their impressive bulk as a third followed the manager into the room, carrying a leather bag. A fourth walked around her and grabbed a free chair, shoving it across the floor. The legs screeched as it slid to a halt somewhere behind her.

  Tiell walked up to her and stared her in the eye. He slammed her back into the chair. She lost her breath as she hit the thin cushion.

  “You’re responsible for Rispa disappearing, aren’t you,” Tiell stated.

  Alysha lifted her chin, voice cold. “Yes.”

  The manager turned in profile to her, studying his fingernails. “That’s not a crime. All my girls are free to leave when they want. I would’ve just beat you once, or maybe strapped you for variety.”