“Yes.”
My grip tightens on her shoulder.
“Are you Taranis?” a higher female voice says.
“Of course he’s Taranis,” Monika answers in the same breath that I growl, “Of course I’m Taranis.”
“I think we should get you to the COE.”
“No way! We have to showeomma. Taranis and I need our picture taken together!” The higher voice giggles—giggles. Didn’t I just torture the woman a few minutes ago?
I snarl and take another step toward Monika’s blurry outline, away from the annoying voice, but I stagger.
“Whoa there, big guy. Whoa! Hey, I can’t take your weight.”
“I’m not that heavy,” I grumble, trying to find my footing. I feel like I’m moving through a swamp.
“Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” the other woman squeals behind me.
“Cynthia, please! Shut the fuck up!” Monika shouts in the meanest tone I’ve heard her use to date. “Get the fuck out of here. And don’t tell anyone about this.”
“About what?” I groan.
“I think we should head to the bathrooms. I think you need to see ...umph,” she grunts, trying to support me as we make our way forward, but struggling.
The annoying girl squeals, “Okay, I’ll go get help!”
“No! Don’t go get anyone! Fuck ... we need to get out of here quick,” Monika says to me in a lower tone. I’m aware of a door being opened and bright lights washing over us. “Here. Can you see?”
I nod, and it’s true. My vision has started to clear. But there’s something touching the top of my head that’s annoying me, and for some reason—maybe because we’re clearly in a bathroom—the feeling of needing to shit has come back tenfold. Actually, it’s a pressure higher up my spine than that. Like a knot sits at the base of my tailbone.
“There’s something on my ass,” I grumble, voice deeper and stranger than before.
Monika doesn’t hesitate, the warrior in her moving with efficiency and not a hint of sexuality as she reaches for my belt and undoes it. She shoves the ass of my pants down, boxers, too, while I grab hold of the edges of a sink made out of black stone. Only, as I look down, my head thunks against something and my hands look ... weird. My vision has cleared for the most part, so why is it then that my hands look so strange?
Whatever bathroom lighting there is in here must be off, because my hands look blue and fucking huge. “Monika, what the fuck is ...”
“Ssi-bal,” she squeals, followed by, “mein Gott” and “holy shit,” all uttered in perfectly native accents.
“That’s so fucking hot,” I whisper to her, voice sounding like I swallowed gravel and chased it with a bottle of scotch.
At the same time, she shouts, “Taranis, you have a tail!”
“A what?” I glance over my shoulder. Why is my tuxedo all ripped up? Frayed stitching sprays into my peripheral vision like the plumage of a peacock.
I expect to see Monika’s face. She’s a tall woman—tallish—and even though I’m six one, I strangely can’t see the top of her head. She must be bent way over. I start to turn, but she’s pulling on something on my ass and it feels fucking strange.
“Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” I zap her, only ... the strangest fucking thing happens. Well, among the strangest. This is turning out to be a generally strange fucking evening.
She staggers back, clutching her chest. She hits the bathroom-stall door, which is closed, so she thankfully doesn’t fall through it as she rights herself and blinks her eyes open at me. “I ... You ... you electrocuted me,” she accuses, only she doesn’t soundpissed; she sounds more intrigued.
“I didn’t see anything.” I frown. There were no sparks, no small flares of light to show where I’d struck her skin. I’d meant to strike her gently.
“I felt it ... here.” She points to her chest and swallows hard. “I didn’t think I’d have to ask you this, but please don’t kill me on accident. I’d prefer to know it was coming.”
I frown harder, and suddenly something behind me lashes out angrily into the space between us. She jumps. I jump. “What the fuck?”
She points. “Taranis, I told you! You have a tail. Look in the fucking mirror!”
