Captive moon, p.13
Captive Moon, page 13
part #3 of The Sazi Series
A voice that was calm and filled with disdain echoed from the other side of the room. “Feeling a bit petulant today, are we?”
Tahira’s eyes followed the words, and she was surprised to see a youngish man seated on the couch near the far wall. He was sipping coffee from a china cup and had a shisha tobacco pipe bubbling nearby. The combination of scents was heady and covered any emotion scent the man might have. She knew many men in the village who smoked the water pipe that contained a concoction of loose tobacco leaves, apple molasses, and milk.
Antoine kept his body between her and the other man, but she could see his face. He wasn’t Turkish. His facial structure was wrong. It was narrower, more Egyptian. He was darkly handsome with large, expressive eyes, black hair that was combed back from his face, and a slim, narrow neck rising from a slender but muscled body. The eyes were narrowed in anger. As they stepped closer, his scent rose over the bubbling concoctions on the table. He was also a snake, but he smelled like a toxic cloud—a noxious rolling scent that reminded her of creosote plants in the desert. She knew without a doubt that he was far more deadly than the guards, and she had to fight her instinct to either attack him on sight or run for the door.
It was hard to equate the man with the scent. His appearance was of a well-to-do Arab businessman, looking at ease and comfortable in slacks and an open-necked white shirt.
Antoine’s voice was likewise calm and at ease. He spread his legs slightly and crossed his arms over his chest, keeping Tahira behind him. “We have an appointment, Ahmad.”
The man carefully placed his cup on the saucer and then leaned back into the cushions. He regarded them with an eerie calm. “No, we had an appointment forty-seven minutes ago. You are fully aware that I wait no more than fifteen minutes for anyone.”
Standing still while the power bleeding off both of the men boiled over her was the hardest thing Tahira had ever had to do.
Antoine didn’t budge. “You said you would wait. Time was not mentioned.”
While the words on both sides were polite, there was an underlying tension that made her skin crawl. They stared silently for long moments. Finally, Ahmad picked up his cup. “I take it this is the girl you spoke of? Come closer, child—into the light.”
Tahira felt herself straighten and let out a low growl. “I am not a child.” She took several steps around Antoine to where she was only a few feet from the coffee table. He might be a millennium old, and could probably wipe the floor with her, but that wasn’t the point.
Ahmad had raised the cup to his lips to drink and glanced at her over the rim. His eyes widened, and a shock of scent rose into the air. He sat up too quickly, causing coffee to splatter in his lap. With a vicious oath, he grabbed a small stack of paper napkins from the table and wiped the liquid from his pants. Tahira didn’t need animal hearing to note the amused chuckle from Antoine.
After a few seconds, Ahmad collected himself and looked from Tahira to Antoine with mingled surprise and annoyance. His gaze finally settled on Tahira. “It seems I’ve underestimated your skills at deception, Antoine. I was under the impression that the Hayalet was a mere schoolgirl.”
He stepped slowly around the table and circled her once. She stood very still, even though the magic that emanated from him was a hot, biting wave of power. It seared along her bare skin painfully and should have been able to set her gown ablaze. He was doing it intentionally, but he was not going to get the best of her this early on. Her breath was coming in small gasps just from his proximity when he stopped in front of her.
She steadied herself against the onslaught and looked into his eyes. “My name is Tahira Kuric—Ms. Kuric to you—and I am proud to be of the Hayalet Kabile.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “I see. May I say, Ms. Kuric, that you are most definitely not a schoolgirl. No, you are very much a woman,” Faster than she could react, he picked up her hand and pressed his lips to it.
If his presence was painful, his touch nearly stole a scream from her throat. His power flowed into her, burning in her veins like lava. She couldn’t move her hand, as though she’d grabbed a live wire. She felt her heart beating faster and her skin heat to burning. She would have dropped to her knees if Antoine hadn’t stepped forward just then and forcibly removed her hand from Ahmad’s.
“That’s enough, Ahmad.” Antoine’s voice was a rumble from deep in his chest. He pulled her backward with a hand on each arm, tight against his chest. “She is our guest, not prey to toy with.”
Ahmad studied Antoine for a long moment, then smiled broadly. “Oh, I wasn’t considering her prey, Antoine. Very much the opposite. But… perhaps another time.”
He backed up a few paces and dipped his head, while Antoine led Tahira to a chair. She nearly collapsed into it and struggled to control the feeling that her skin was trying to crawl off her body.
“However,” he said as he stepped around the table once more, “I did confirm what I wished to. I fed power into her, and she received it and remained alive. What I just did would have killed an ordinary were-animal. She is quite alive, albeit a bit… singed around the edges. Congratulations. You have indeed discovered one of the first power wells to exist in a thousand years or more.” He sat down on the couch one cushion from where he had spilled his coffee and poured another cup from an ornate pot. He waved his hand airily as an invitation to join him. But at the moment, hot fluid didn’t really interest her.
She shook her head, causing him to nod. “Wine then, perhaps?”
The wine had previously helped her calm down, but she was annoyed with him. “That would be fine. And in the future, please let me know when you’re going to try to cook me from the inside out. I didn’t enjoy it.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you try that again, I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
As Antoine sat down on the opposite chair, he winked at her and smiled just a bit. It made her feel better. Ahmad slid two glasses from the overhead rack and opened a decanter. As he poured the first glass, there was a splash and a clink. He picked up the glass and peered into it, extracting a key ring with a shake of his head. He pushed it to the side and removed a third glass. Apparently he was refusing to acknowledge what Antoine had done to his guards other than the initial comment.
After pouring the wine, he returned and handed them each a glass. Tahira was very careful to touch the part of the stem where his fingers weren’t, which brought a dark smile to his face.
“The problem with power wells,” he continued as though he had never stopped talking, “is that power drained is power lost. It is rumored that if a power well were to totally drain a Sazi—or, more precisely, any shapeshifter—that person would never regain his powers. If the person had a talent or gift, it would be lost.” He sat back down on the couch and took a sip of coffee.
Tahira’s brow furrowed. “So what are you saying? That I’m some sort of energy vampire?” The aching pound in her ears and fire still burning inside from his power made her fear rise and put a shaky edge on her words.
Ahmad leaned back, tapped a manicured fingernail on the rim of his cup, and put his heels on the table. After a moment of thinking, he replied. “I don’t believe that’s the case. From what I’ve gathered in the few references in print. There are books on the subject in Charles’s library if you wish to read them. It’s more that you are a container, a pitcher. You can be filled and then distribute what is inside. But you cannot seek out the power. Hence, a power well. If a water well is empty, it remains empty until the rains fill it.”
Tahira realized she was shaking her head as he spoke. “But that’s not what happened. The two times this has happened, it just… well, happened. Nobody, with the exception of you, has intentionally tried to give me power. I pulled it out of them.”
“What she says is true, Ahmad.” Antoine’s voice was calm, but she realized it was a lie. While his lack of scent was still frustrating, his body language gave him away. He was worried. “Neither time when my power bled into her was planned.”
Ahmad stared at them with amusement. When he spoke his voice was thick and oozing with sarcasm. “I would have thought that even an alpha of your… limited experience should understand the nature of our magic, Antoine.” Tahira saw Antoine’s eyes narrow in anger, but he didn’t reply to the dig.
“Think of our power as a fishing net. We can cast it out and snare things—” he glanced upward briefly with a slightly annoyed sound that made Antoine smile darkly, “—or we can draw it back inside ourselves. But always our power is. The size of the net we are given was determined at birth. A net sized for panfish won’t hold a flounder. A three-day Sazi can throw a net of magic at me, but I will barely feel it. But the magic that you and I naturally exude from our pores is cast without thought. It surrounds us, bleeds from us. It can be painful to other Sazi, and even humans feel it if we are not careful.”
As soon as he said the words, Tahira understood. She had thought she was feeling flushed because of the power Ahmad had fed into her. That was part of it, but she realized that she could feel several distinct lines of magic pressing on her, like water pooling on a sponge before it disappeared inside. One line was from Ahmad himself. His power was unique in the prickling, stinging sensation like black flies biting at her skin. Antoine was likewise bleeding power because of his exertion in holding the guards against the ceiling. While he made it look effortless, it wasn’t. The guards were not taking their imprisonment lightly. They were actively struggling against his power. Their efforts were making her muscles tight and her temples throb. She needed to get away from these people, run outside in the cold or swim downstairs again.
Ahmad stood and walked around the table. When he stopped in front of her, she forced her attention to his face. His eyes were twin bits of coal, glittering and hard. “But our Hayalet tiger is different. Her net is deeper and wider than any of ours. Her net doesn’t have to seek out fish. It merely has to exist, to remain motionless in place. If a fish happens to swim nearby, it will become snared—from the panfish to the marlin and beyond. And like fish, once our magic is netted inside her, we cannot free ourselves easily, and we might lose a fin or two in the process.”
Tahira made a half-snarling noise that reflected her edginess. “Will you please stop referring to me in the third person? I’m right here! I understand the analogy of the net and fish, I think. But every net has a limit. What happens if too many fish are force-fed into me?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Why, what happens to any net that becomes overstretched? It rips. Only in your case it will be the equivalent to a nuclear explosion, and anyone who happens to be nearby will be reduced to smoldering ash.”
Chapter Eight
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing over there?” Margo was rubbing her nose with an expression of distaste as Antoine stirred the steaming fluid in the pot. He ignored her criticism and concentrated on running spice bottles through the steam at various distances. “That concoction is vile.”
“Only to your decidedly inferior human nose. Trust me, Margo. I’ve nearly created the perfect combination. Just a bit more anise oil and … yes, I think perhaps a bit of Hungarian paprika.” He collected a pinch of the red powder between his fingers and carefully rubbed them together to drop small bits of the spice until he was satisfied. He took a deep breath of the resulting brew. “Ah! Now that is perfect.”
The swinging kitchen door burst open and Tahira raced through with a look of determination on her face. “What’s happened in here? Is anyone hurt? It smells like someone is absolutely terrified in this room! I could smell it all the way in the library.”
Antoine chuckled at Margo’s shocked expression and waved a hand to Tahira with no small amount of satisfaction. “You see, Margo? A satisfied customer.” He stirred just a moment longer, and then pulled the pot from the fire to cool. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Tahira. But someone I just met swore to me that Chinese hot and sour soup smelled like fear, so I decided to test the theory.”
Tahira walked farther into the room and put her nose over the copper pot. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Antoine could see the back of her jaw clench. She had to swallow deeply to keep from salivating on the stove. “This doesn’t smell like any hot and sour soup I’ve ever smelled, and I go to Chinatown a lot. But I’d pay you to try this! How does it taste?”
“Sadly, it tastes horrid, but that’s not the point. I’m hoping to entice Babette to eat. She’s a bit depressed being here without the other cats. She hasn’t touched the antelope or the rabbits. I thought perhaps it’s because she can’t chase the game, so I thought if I sprinkled some of this on the rabbits I hid, she’d eat one or two and then realize she was hungry.”
Margo shook her head and sneezed again. “Well, as much as I like you, boss, I can’t stand that smell anymore. It smells like rotten meat cooking in bleach. If that’s what dinner smells like to Sazis, I’m much happier being human. Give me strawberries and chocolate any day. I think I’ll go work on the bills upstairs where I can light a candle or something. You two enjoy yourselves down here.”
Tahira dipped her finger in the steaming soup for a second and put it in her mouth hopefully as Margo walked out the door sneezing. She grimaced. “Blegh. It tastes like meat in bleach. But it smells heavenly. You should figure out a way to bottle this. You’d probably make a fortune selling it to zoos and shelters and stuff.”
Antoine sighed. “Sadly, that’s exactly why I can’t bottle it.”
She cocked her head and turned against the counter with her hands in her pockets. “Huh? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s much like what your kabile said about your hair. It’d draw too much attention. My sister Fiona has managed to make a good living using her nose as a tester of new perfumes. But it’s one thing to have a ‘perfect nose’ like some people have perfect pitch. There are several humans with that ability. It’s quite another to explain how I know what fear smells like. The press would jump all over a story like that because of my show. They’d hound me until the day I died—and that won’t be for a very long time. No, even if it works, it will have to remain a secret.”
She sighed in an understanding manner. “You’re right, but it’s really a shame. This stuff could help a lot of cats.” She reached out her foot and lightly touched his leg as he knelt down next to the sink. “I think the way you treat your cats, if Babette is any indication, is really terrific. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about what tigers and lions have to go through, but Babette seems to be really happy with you.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment as he bent over to look under the cabinet for a sponge. “Merci. But my cats are my family, rather than mere props I use to entertain, so I treat them as I would a sister, child, or uncle. And, like family, they’re more than happy to tell me when they feel they’re being mistreated. I’ve endured more than one scolding by them about staffing. I went through several handlers who didn’t understand that the cats are individuals, with different needs and wants, before I found Bruce.”
He finally spotted what he was looking for and pulled a new sponge in a plastic wrapper from far back in the corner of the cupboard. It was blue, but the color wouldn’t matter. He just needed to get the scent onto the prey.
Tahira seemed to understand what he planned, and handed him a pair of tongs from a ceramic crock of kitchen utensils. “I wondered about that earlier. Can you really talk to your cats—like you’re talking to me now? Do they answer?” She opened a few drawers until she found a box of plastic sandwich bags and pulled one out.
Antoine tried to decide how to answer. He dipped the sponge into the pot repeatedly until it was dripping with the savory scent. Then, while Tahira held open the bag, he dropped the sponge inside. It would have to cool for a moment before he could take it downstairs, but hopefully it would help. Babette couldn’t afford to get any weaker. The birth had been unusually hard on her, even though she’d had several other litters of cubs.
“That’s a bit of a difficult question to answer, I’m afraid. Wild cats don’t think like you and I do. They think in images and concepts. While I’ve been able to see what they were saying in my head since I was a teenager, it took me a number of years to understand what the images meant. They understand pain and anger, hunger and pride. They share happiness and instill fear. But beauty and art are more difficult. Training a cat for a show that humans will find beautiful or artistic takes patience unless the trainer resorts to brute force all the time.”
“Well, I’m glad you don’t force the cats to do what you want. I think that’s terrible.”
Antoine crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter next to her. From her scent of indignation and relief, he realized she had gotten the wrong impression. “I didn’t say that, mon chat du feu. There are indeed times when brute force is necessary. Hierarchy is very important. They must know that I’m the Rex. I certainly don’t harm my cats, but occasionally I have to flex my muscles, so to speak, just as the cats would do among themselves in the wild.” He pressed his fingers against the sponge through the plastic. It was cool enough that it wouldn’t burn her tongue. “Why don’t you join me downstairs? Babette likes you quite a bit and would probably enjoy seeing you again. We can continue our discussion while she hunts.”
He walked to the doorway that led to the staircase and was pleased she followed. Even something as mundane as discussing business seemed a bit more enjoyable when she was around. Perhaps it was wrong to continue to spend time with her, but it had been so very long since a woman had intrigued him enough to make him actually want to spend time with her.
Tahira’s scent was now curious, and the sweet, thick scent seemed so very fitting against the musk of her cat. “You don’t yell at them or use whips or anything, right?”
He laughed and it echoed off the high ceiling of the stairwell. It was something reporters asked him every time he was interviewed. “Good lord, no! Of course, I have to raise my voice on stage, because the audience can get quite loud and the cats can’t hear me speak. But a whip? Never! No, if one of the cats misbehaves on stage, I’ll simply use magic to hold it off to the side while the other cats complete the set. In training, I quite often change form and wrestle with them until the cat winds up on his or her back. Once I’ve proved myself dominant, I’ll impress what I want of them in their minds. I know it’s harder for human trainers to work with them, but I prefer to use the gifts I have available to me.”
