Chapter 6 On the Road Again
On the Road Again
“All clear on the Thirteen. Goldilocks, come back.” Cha tapped the path box to the opalite channel, the one she and Dy had agreed upon for this mission—at least until something changed, like finding out the fae authorities had found more ways to crash it—and waited for her partner’s reply.
“Hiya Bandit. Goldilocks here and flying smooth. Normie and I’m here for it.”
Cha nodded and tapped off. As she’d expected.
The first leg of this trip shouldn’t arouse any interest from the authorities.
They weren’t just surface legit at the moment; they were on the up and up.
Big Betty was stocked up with a cargo of agnicurna, all invoiced and licensed for sale in Sheenatown.
Nerd Girl had come through with not just the stockpile, but the paperwork, too.
As for Cha, no need for her and Katu to play decoy unless something untoward happened.
In the meanwhile, they were out for a joyride so far as anyone else was concerned.
Things would only get interesting once Big Betty crossed into Obsidian, where the fae probably might care about a truckload of agnicurna, but they’re care a lot less once it was mixed with black dust. But that was hours away.
So long as the two of them kept to the posted ley-line speed maximums, nothing eventful should occur.
So they’d do that, even though it was boring.
Katu growled a little, adding slight impatient surge before returning to his cruising along the black ley line with his characteristic smoothly muscled glide.
“I know, baby cat, I know.” She patted the dashboard. “I want to go fast, too. But not yet. Time enough for that. Today we’re just normal people out for a nice ley ride.”
“Bandit, that you and Katu just passed me?” The path box lit up on the general channel with someone’s broadcast call.
“Bandit here,” she answered. “Who dis?”
“Vomit trolley, here. I can’t believe you’re showing your face on the leys again. I heard you and Goldilocks got skunked good. Otto fucked you girls harder than a gang bang in fae prison.” Vomit Trolley hooted with glee.
“Ha ha, Puke Boy,” Bandit snapped. Not her wittiest retort, but…
“When you retire, Bandit, you gotta stay retired,” he replied. “You and Goldilocks are the cautionary tale now. Leave the leys to the younger pros. Grannies go home.”
Oh, ouch. Now that was low. But she could take the high ley. “Not working like the rest of you miners,” she replied. “Katu and I are just out for a little sightseeing.”
Several ley riders chimed in, agreeing that the weather was lovely for a joy ley ride. One thing about the ley-riding community, legit carriers or smugglers, everyone covered for everyone else. The fae authorities didn’t need to know their business.
“Then how come I saw Big Betty, huh?”
Silence greeted that faux pas. What a shithead. He deserved what he got, so she said it. “You’re just mad I wouldn’t do you at the last ale festival, Puke Boy.”
Several other voices chimed in with agreement. Cha and Dy had more friends than enemies among the ley riders even now. Still, it was a bit disheartening to have Nerd Girl’s dire assessment verified. Everyone did know about this last debacle.
“I wouldn’t have you, Bandit,” Vomit Trolley shot back.
“That’s not what you said when you begged me for just a little taste.” She spotted a fleet of rhino carriers in the slow lane. “Nero was there and saw the whole thing.”
“Yes I did, Bandit,” Nero drawled. “I also saw Vomit Trolley living up to his handle that night too.”
A chorus of raucous sneers lit up the path box, all of them taunting Vomit Trolley for his inability to hold his ale and please his sexual partners—with wild speculation on the depths he might sink to in the search for someone, anyone, to give him some.
“Bitch,” Vomit Trolley snarled. “You give it away to everyone but me.”
“No sparkle, no pussy,” she sang out. “I don’t make the rules; I just follow them. She decides who she sparkles for and I’m only along for the ride. Her instincts are infallible.”
“I can vouch for that!” Tourqe chimed in, eliciting a number of salacious jokes and a grumpy flounce from Vomit Trolley. Good riddance. “Been a minute, Bandit. Missed ya.”
She’d seen Tourqe on the last run and she knew he hadn’t forgotten that. So, he had something on his mind. “Always glad to chat up an old friend,” she replied.
A lesser used channel, tourmaline, lit up and Cha tapped it live.
There were no private conversations on the path boxes.
They operated with a version of telepathy enchanted by the fae into communication devices anyone could use, which meant anyone could and did use them.
The best you could do for discreet was pick a little-used channel, which usually meant less robust and reliable, like the opalite channel Dy and Cha had agreed to employ for this trip.
Until circumstances forced them to change it.
The tourmaline channel was favored by most of the ley riders for the next best thing to private, most everyone observing the courtesy of not parachuting into one-on-one conversations, though that didn’t mean people couldn’t and didn’t listen in.
For the other ley riders, eavesdropping was fun and alleviated the boredom of long ley transport runs.
For the fae authorities, it was data mining.
That’s why everyone used handles, lingo, and outright coded language.
Sure, playing with the slang was fun, but a big part of the charge came from confusing the very literal fae.
“Hiya,” she said to the tourmaline channel, figuring she knew who it was.
“Heya sweet thing. Good to see you on the leys. You can sparkle for me anytime. I got time today, in fact.”
Hearing Tourqe’s complimentary invitation gave Cha a flush of pleasure, no lie—who didn’t like being invited back for a reunion bang? Surprisingly though, the idea gave her zero pussy sparkle. Concerning realization.
Once upon a time, she absolutely would have taken him up on the offer—and had, more than once.
Even thinking back to Tourqe’s truly excellent performance in bed did nothing for her.
Instead, Azul’s indigo blue eyes loomed in her mind and her skin tingled with the memory of the way his soft, sensitive wings had caressed her, and those deft wing-fingers…
She shook the erotic haze away. They say once you go fae, you never go back, and she was deeply worried about the truth in the old saw.
She had been fae-dazzled and now she was ruined for human men.
Probably what she should do is take Tourqe up on the offer for a quick sex-break—and break the erotic spell Azul had cast on her. Annoyingly enough, the idea didn’t only elicit zero sparkle, it felt vaguely repellent.
What a fine kettle of rotten fish that was.
But no sense fretting about it right then.
She needed to keep her mind on the job, even if this part was straightforward, things could and did go to shit fast in their world.
And just maybe, when she saw Azul again and liberated him from whatever bind he’d gotten himself into, that would break the spell of nostalgia.
He’d be an arrogant and aloof asshole and she’d get her brain and sparkle back.
Meanwhile…
“Wish I could,” she replied through the box.
“Is it that blueberry shake?”
Figured Tourqe would remember seeing her with Azul at Big Jo’s.
That was a direct reference as they’d been drinking bayberry milkshakes, tweaked to hint at Azul’s decidedly purple shading.
She wasn’t sure why Tourqe was probing. Yes, she’d turned him down then, but she and Tourqe were far from exclusive.
They weren’t even friends with benefits or fuck buddies. More like occasional snacks.
“Things to do, people to see,” she told him. “No time to do you.”
He chuckled, unbothered. Always one of his finer qualities. “Tick tock on the clock, huh? Figured you for not just on a joy jaunt.”
Probably she shouldn’t have been that candid—who knew who might be listening in, she reminded herself for the nth time—but the ley riders supported each other.
The advantage of being in the human realms was the community.
Everyone dabbled in a little black-market coin and black-magic profit.
That was just survival. She and Dy weren’t fooling anyone except maybe the more oblivious fae monitors.
Katu and Big Betty on the leys at the same time meant one thing.
“A girl’s gotta make a living,” she replied cheerfully. “Anyone out there looking to close the store early?”
“Matter of fact,” Tourqe answered laconically. “Why I thought you might wanna take off for an hour or two. Wait for the shadows to get a little longer.”
“Aww. And here I thought you missed my sparkle.”
“Well, that too, Bandit. You know I love to get your glitter on me. But I get the tick-tock. Watch yourselves around Lordgay. There’s a pop-up look-see. Anything they shouldn’t grok, you might take the loop.”
Cha groaned to herself. That meant the fae, probably with the greedy cooperation of the notoriously corrupt mayor of Lordgay, had set up a traffic stop on the Thirteen, the ley line that most commercial traffic traveled back and forth between the human realms and the huge trade depot in Obsidian.
They’d be “inspecting” cargo for contraband magical goods—the fae—and leveling arbitrary tariffs on anything they could—the corrupt mayor.
Even though Big Betty’s cargo was legal, it would draw attention of the wrong kind.
Greedy mayor’s eyes would pop out of his head like a starving goblin’s and he’d extort as much as he could out of them.
Even if they got away with minor bribes, it would burn time, not to mention slowing and backing up traffic for hours.
Taking the loop—meaning going on the series of side leys to circumnavigate Lordgay and the traffic stop—would burn a bunch of time, too.
Especially since everyone like them who didn’t want to deal with the cluster of problems, would be doing that too, slowing and clogging those rural leys.
There weren’t many ways around Lordgay, because of the geography of the area.
Something the Lordgay regularly exploited to line their town and personal coffers.
“Thanks for the heads up,” she said.
“Anytime. Watch those blueberry shakes. Bad for your health.”
“Ha ha,” she said aloud, but after tapping the box off.
Surely Tourqe wasn’t jealous? They didn’t do jealous.
And Tourqe was a good guy, great in the sack, but he wasn’t a brainiac.
She very much doubted he’d figured out that Azul was fae.
She hadn’t and—while no genius herself—she wasn’t an idiot. The glamour had been convincing.
No, probably Tourqe figured Azul for the fancy bit of human fluff he’d seemed to be and wanted to put his own bid in. It had been good of him to give the warning. Speaking of, she’d better discuss with Dy.
She tapped open the opalite channel. “Goldilocks, say hi.”
Dy answered immediately, unusual for her. She tended to daydream about new spells rather than rot her brain listening to the inane chatter on the path box. That was Cha’s job. “I heard,” Dy said without preamble.
“You were eavesdropping?”
“You two aren’t as sneaky as you think,” Dy answered drily. “Watch that boyo. I smell jealousy.”
Cha wasn’t touching that. It would just be her luck if Tourqe was listening in on this. “So, what’s your flavor? Stick it out or go the loop-de-loo?”
“Door number three,” Dy answered. “Catch up and grab my tail.”
Ooh, interesting. Cha patted the dash. “Guess we get to race a bit after all, baby cat. Let’s hit it.”