Newt set her tarnished silver goblet down. "I rather like Mesopotamia," she said airily. "It's so easy to distinguish the haves from the have-nots." Smiling, she regally motioned for Brooke to bring us a plate of cheese and flat unleavened bread. "And the wannabes."
"No need to be catty, Newt," Al replied, then nodded at Brooke-who was now in rags. "See, I told you she was good. It takes an unusually skilled familiar to stockpile all the changes needed to run this place. On a busy day, there might be three shifts an hour."
"Three shifts?" I said, now understanding why you didn't bother to order from a menu. You got what you got. "So Brooke has to change herself? It doesn't just happen?"
Al grunted his answer, grabbing a handful of bread as Brooke set it down. "Newt, can you remember the last time you saw Mesopotamia?"
"I can't remember the last time I was here," Newt shot back, and I smiled nervously, not sure if she was kidding or not.
"So all those buttons are different restaurants?" I asked, looking at the jukebox, now totally out of place, like a British police call box on the deck of the Titanic.
Al bobbed his head and downed a glass of red wine. "They are memories," he said, looking at Newt. "Apart from the last one, we've not had a new one for thousands of years."
Newt's brow furrowed, and she flicked a grape at him. "I apologized formally for that," she muttered. "It was Ku'Sox's fault."
"Ku'Sox." I breathed in, wondering if Al had made this memory as I snatched up something that might be a cracker after a few thousand years of civilization. How Ku'Sox had anything to do with the lack of new memories at Dalliance was beyond me. Maybe he'd broken the machine. He certainly had broken my life. He and Trent. Stupid elf. You can summon me back any time now, Ivy.
"Stay away from Ku'Sox, Rachel," Al offered as he filled my empty glass from a flaccid wineskin.
My nose wrinkled. No way was I drinking anything that came out of a bag with fur still on it from its previous owner. "Not a problem," I said. "Besides, last I saw him, he was hiding out in reality, and what are the chances that he'd come back here?"
Newt sipped from her silver goblet, her fingers playing in the candle flame. "Everyone finds his way home eventually," she said, and as I watched, her eyes changed. Though she made no move as she reclined in idleness like a goddess on a throne, the light behind her black orbs went from complaisant to virulent hatred.
Al noticed, too, and he motioned for me to shut up.
"You want to kill him?" Newt asked me, her mild tone a stark contrast with her hidden anger.
"Yes!" I blurted out, then hesitated when I saw her fondling a knife on her hip. "Uh..."
"That's two of us, then," she said, interrupting me. "Give me enough time, Gally, and I'll have the majority."
"No one likes the little genetic designer dump," Al said, trying not to look at her, but it was hard not to. "But we can't kill him. Same as we can't kill you, love," he said to Newt, clinking his glass to hers. "Genetic material is genetic material."
"Al," Newt pouted as I puzzled over the designer-dump comment. "Is that what I am to you? Genetic material?"
"Of course not, love," he said, playing with her. "I want your library, too."
I watched Newt's mood sour as she stabbed a grape and ate it off the point of her knife. "I despise the bastard even more than you do, Rachel, though that might change as he takes everything you love. You need to be clever to best him. Are you clever, Rachel?"
Oh God. She wants to know if I'm clever. I glanced at Al, and he stared at me, then shrugged. Licking my lips, I said, "It's the shiny pot that puts a hole in the sky."
Al's mouth dropped open, but Newt thought about it, her expression thoughtful and her fingers finally leaving her knife. "Very true," she said as she eased back into the cushions.
With a soft click of his teeth, Al's mouth shut. His eyes were cross, and he seemed peeved that I'd found a way to satisfy her without compromising myself at all. Hunching into his drink, he muttered, "Dali is headed this way. Newt, I swear, if you get me kicked out of here tonight, I'll never sell you another familiar as long as I live."
"Boohoo," Newt said, a wiry arm rising delicately to the demon approaching behind her, an invitation to take it, I suppose.
Sure enough, the robe-bedecked, extravagant civil servant gone tent restaurateur elegantly touched his lips to her fingers before gesturing for more fruit and cheese. "Is everything to your liking?" Dali said, only the slightest hesitation hinting at his annoyance with Newt being here. Inside me, a feeling of warning coiled tighter. There were too many eyes on our table.
"As always, Dali," Al answered, and the demon frowned at him.
"I was asking Newt."
Newt beamed, fully aware that she wasn't welcome and relishing the fact that they had to put up with her. "I can truly say I don't remember a more perfect evening, Dali. As Algaliarept says, it's as wonderful as always."
A brief flash of teeth, and Dali turned to me, his veneer of pleasantry becoming transparent. "And you, Rachel? Enjoying Mesopotamia?"
"U-uh," I stammered, not liking being put on the spot. Crap, the demons watching us were pointing now. "I can honestly say I've never had an evening quite like this." Dali was hunched a little too close, his mood a little too aggressive, even for a demon. If everyone in the place hadn't been watching us before, they were now. Why is he over here?
Al seemed to be thinking the same thing as he set his cup down and pointedly looked at Dali. Newt, too, cocked her head, clearly waiting. "It's not me, of course, but others," Dali said, a thread of his eagerness to cause trouble coloring his voice. "Some of the clientele feel that a member of your party is not a demon and therefore should wait outside."
"Rachel not a demon!" Al shouted dramatically, and I twitched. "Who dares?"
"I do!" exclaimed a strong voice, and my head turned to the tattered awning that now marked the entryway to the restaurant.
Shit, it was Ku'Sox.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Frightened, I stood amid a smattering of exclamations. Some were against me, but most were protesting Ku'Sox's presence. Clearly he wasn't much liked, but there was far less anger than I'd expect from a demon they had imprisoned in the next reality over, even if the demons at the informal bar fire were enthusiastically exchanging bets. The drums had stopped, and loud conversation had taken its place. I was scared, but Newt was smiling deviously as she stood my bench upright from where it had been, pushed over when I'd found my feet.