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“I have been wondering,” Liliana said. “How did you arrive in time to save Pete and I from the widow spiders? Doctor Nudd said he couldn’t get there from Fayetteville in time to help.”
“I was at a bar called Locked and Loaded in Raleigh with a couple of the Other soldiers from Liberty. It’s just a few blocks away from the Mirror Club. I was worried about them with all the deaths and disappearances. When I heard them talking about going to the city to go carousing, I decided to tag along. So I was already close by when Nudd called.”
“Do you often protect the soldiers?”
Siobhan shrugged, kicked a toe at a clump of grass, and her pale human cheeks shaded pink, nearly as bright as her demi-plant form’s wings. “Those kids need someone to make sure they make it back to base in one piece.”
“Where did you get such a powerful gun on such short notice?”
Siobhan grinned, reached into her motorcycle saddlebags, and pulled out the machine pistol Liliana remembered, stroking it like a beloved pet. “I carry this baby with me everywhere, except on base.” Her expression turned sour. “The gate guards make me leave it behind.”
“Do you go on base a lot?”
“I do some work making weapons and ammo that are effective against bullet-resistant Others. They’re pretty hush hush about what they want them for.”
One of Liliana’s preferred strategies for social interaction when she was younger had been to get people to talk about the things that interested them. She remembered that it worked well for her then and went with it now. “I did not know that weapons of such power came in such a small size. Did you modify it?”
“A little, but not for size. It started out as a fully automatic pistol with a long barrel.” She ran a small finger along the barrel to show its length. “This model is designed to be easy to add on to. See the picatinny rail. I attached the forward grip to help me deal with the kick and an extended magazine, so I don’t run out of ammo.” She pointed to the section on the front that had a thick, short second barrel and trigger. “The grenade launcher is my latest addition. The kick-back is brutal, and I can only get stun grenades, but there’s just something so class about having a grenade launcher my size. The base model is a Kel-Tec PLR sixty…you really don’t care, do you?” Siobhan looked up at her with narrowed eyes.
Liliana’s cheeks flushed. The perceptive sprite had caught on to her strategy. “I know very little about guns, but I can respect any weapon wielded with courage and precision.”
Siobhan punched Liliana on the upper arm with a grin. “Nice save.”
Liliana rubbed her arm, wondering why the little sprite considered bruising her shoulder to be a gesture of affection.
Siobhan put the machine gun back in the saddlebag of her custom bike, mounted, and started it up. The quiet hum of the electric motor was completely drowned out by the blast of thumping base and screaming guitars that were probably supposed to be music.
“Later, Lilly,” Siobhan shouted, waved, and popped a slight wheelie as she accelerated onto the street.
As the pounding music faded away, Liliana smiled to herself. Siobhan called her Lilly, like Pete did. She liked that her friends called her by a different name from her clients.
Her friends.
She’d been alone for so long, then Pete was her only real friend for a while with the rest just allies or acquaintances. But Siobhan called her Lilly, and Doctor Nudd said they were friends, and Janice had lunch in her house. She didn’t just have one friend anymore.
Liliana had friends.
Since she left the circus, she had lived without friends. The life had been chaotic, but the camaraderie of circus folk ran deep. She hadn’t realized that she missed it, just as she hadn’t realized how much she missed flying on the trapeze or sparring with a worthy opponent.
She spun in a circle on her little patch of grass, letting her skirt swirl around her legs. Ignoring the risk of being seen, she opened her second eyes just so she could see all the brilliant colors of the stars. Her life had changed a great deal since the day a Celtic wolf walked into her shop and accused her of murder. It was almost as if she had been asleep for years. Her new friends woke her up and dragged her out into the light of the stars. Her friends reminded her to live, not just exist.
Friends made her life so much better. She shuddered at the thought of how much more barren her life would be when, after she had friends for a short time, she lost them all.
What she said to Siobhan was very true. It was hard to lose a friend.
She stood still in her yard, six eyes on the sky, two looking into the past, and swore an oath to herself and to her dead parents. “I won’t lose them like I lost you, Pater, Mut, Mamãe. I won’t go back to being alone.”
Chapter 12
Time And Patience
Liliana swung and flew from bar to bar and rope to rope in the space originally designed for a two-car garage and attic storage. Some decades back, she had removed the ceiling drywall, revealing the large attic under her high roof. She’d hung inch-wide metal bars and strong ropes from various parts of the house superstructure. It was the same space that she and Siobhan practiced combat in, but Liliana practiced in it for a different reason when Siobhan was not there.
Trapeze and high wire had been two of her favorite performances back when she was in the circus. It took focus and full attention, like combat. So now, she danced along the ropes and swung from one to another, watching where her hands and feet would land with her two human eyes, and watching other times, places, and people with her fourth eyes.
At least, eventually, she hoped to be able to do that. If she practiced a lot.
She had nearly died the first time she tried fighting with her fourth eyes open against Siobhan. Her first mother had been able to see blows coming both in the present and in the future. It made her incredibly formidable in combat. But Solifu did not live long enough to teach her young daughter the trick of splitting her consciousness that completely.
