A.N.: Please review!
Grit
02
"I mean, really, is there anything better than gooey, gooey cheese?"
"Well, I like my pizza Creole-style," Rhett smiled, as she shook Tabasco sauce and chilli flakes onto her pizza loaded with red onion, celery, orange pepper slices, garlic, purple and green cherry tomatoes and grilled baby Creole shrimp and ham; dropping into Rhett's quiet, warm little motel room, Kenzi had asked whether Rhett liked pizza; Rhett had traced to her favourite New Orleans pizzeria and brought back a small feast.
"So…" Kenzi said, watching Rhett as she sipped her soda. "Are you gonna tell me what exactly the hell you are?" Rhett smiled as she wiped her fingers on a napkin.
"Well, I can't be entirely sure, but from some of my abilities, I'm descended from Necromancers," Rhett said honestly. Kenzi frowned. "Necromancers have the ability to walk between the realms of the living and the dead, and they can also control spirits. Sometimes I'm called to escort souls on."
"What do you mean, called?" Kenzi asked.
"I get this…feeling. I know where the souls are, and I know where they have to be escorted," Rhett said.
"Like heaven and hell?"
"Elysium, the Underworld, the afterlife," Rhett said, smiling without amusement. "Whatever you call them. I escort the souls of the dead wherever it is their place to go next."
"Man, so my mom's priest was right!" Kenzi grimaced. "But I thought necromancers were fairytales." Rhett smiled warmly. "Are you gonna tell me who those dudes were? Why'd that blonde one's eyes go all freaky when he came into that office?"
"Your parents told you fairytales at bedtime," Rhett said softly, and Kenzi nodded, though Rhett didn't need that confirmation. "For millennia, the fey have chosen to stay in hiding, living symbiotically with but separate from the human race." Kenzi gave her a perplexed look. "Necromancers, dwarves, mermaids, dragons, sirens…they're all real." Kenzi's eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. "For a millennia, the fey have been divided between two factions, the Light and the Dark. In any given place on Earth, territory is divided between the two, and there are agents who work closely with humans to make sure none realise the existence of the fey."
"How many fey are there?"
"Well, fey is a general term, just like 'human'," Rhett explained, sipping her drink. "There are thousands of species of fey, some are what you'd call 'monsters', some are humanoid, some change forms, but each species has ritualistic ways of marking themselves. Tattoos, ritual scars. Piercings."
"Piercings," Kenzi's eye slight up interestedly, her eyebrows flying up as she beamed. She had a thing for boys with piercings.
"You'd love rage-demons," Rhett smiled. "Their rites of passage among males include very precise scarring and piercing rituals. Piercings in very strategic places if they know how to use them properly." Kenzi laughed, her pale face lighting up with warmth.
"Then hook me up, sista!" she said exuberantly. Rhett smiled as she chewed and swallowed.
"I can't. Humans are forbidden to rage-demons. The venom their fangs secrete during the mating ritual would kill you instantly," Rhett said.
"Forbidden fruit, huh," Kenzi grinned, undeterred. "I like that! So…those two cops. They were…fey? Are they necromancers too?"
"No," Rhett smiled. "Asking a particular fey their species is a very intimate question. Learning their species means learning their particular weaknesses."
"So…how many people have you told about your, uh…abilities?" Kenzi asked. For a moment, Rhett didn't respond, slowly chewing.
"You're actually the first living person I've had much contact with since I was about thirteen," she confessed, and Kenzi's eyes widened.
"What are you, some kind of hermit?" Kenzi asked. Rhett almost laughed aloud.
"When I was younger, my seeing ghosts caused a lot of people on the streets to think I was insane," she said, and Kenzi nodded understandingly. "But the ghosts I saw became my friends."
"That's kind of sad," Kenzi said softly. "So you ran away from home?"
"No, I grew up on the streets in New Orleans," Rhett said. "I say grew up… One day I just sort of…was there. On Bourbon Street. I was carrying my journal, and wearing this," she said, indicating the knot-like pendant dangling from her throat, "two things I've never been without since that day."
"How old were you?" Kenzi asked curiously. Rhett smiled sadly.
"Someone told me I looked about eight years old," she said. "I have no memory of anything earlier than opening my eyes and being in the French Quarter."
"Bummer," Kenzi said, her expression turning quirky.
"Isn't it," Rhett smiled. "So, the city became my home. After a little while I found a group of other homeless kids. We looked after each other, until I started spending time with a little girl named Brenda."
"What happened to her? Didn't they like her?" Kenzi asked.
"Oh, she's a ghost," Rhett said, and Kenzi's eyes widened, and Rhett smiled as she glanced past Kenzi's shoulder. A little girl, barely six years old, holding a little knitted rabbit, blonde hair curling down the back of her dainty night-dress, smiled adoringly at Rhett, peering curiously at Kenzi. Kenzi was oblivious, and she glanced at Rhett, eyebrows raised.
"Is?"
"Mommy," Brenda beamed, eyes bright. She peered at Kenzi, reaching out her hand to touch the sparkling barrettes binding intricate braids to Kenzi's pigtails. "Pretty."
"Brenda's standing right behind you," Rhett smiled, and she smiled as Kenzi whirled around in her seat, almost falling out of her chair, her eyes wide as they darted around the room. "She likes your barrettes."
"Thanks…?" Kenzi said, staring three feet from where Brenda stood.
"I have to say, you deal with the macabre very well," Rhett said softly, glancing at Kenzi, who laughed weakly.
"I watch a lot of horror movies and crime TV-shows," she said, scanning the air for Brenda.
"Learning forensic counter-measures for your cons?" Rhett smiled. "What's your latest?"
"Not a con!" Kenzi smiled, giggling softly. "I just sell bud at the high-schools."
"Well, help yourself to the complementary robe and shampoos," Rhett said, and Kenzi grinned as she licked her fingers of pizza grease.
"Thanks!" she smiled. While Kenzi cleaned out the room of its 'free swag', Rhett smiled and pulled a blank notepad, topped with the motel letterhead, from the dresser along with her pen.
"Dude, we gotta problem," Kenzi said, rushing out from the bathroom.
"What's that?" Rhett asked, pen poised to put another entry in the journal.
"I think I dropped my wallet at the auction house," Kenzi grimaced guiltily.
"How did you lose your wallet?" Rhett blurted disbelievingly.
"It must've fallen out of my bag while I was putting shit in it," Kenzi said.
"Wonderful," Rhett groaned softly. "Alright, grab your bag, you can fill it again. Got it?" Kenzi grinned and grabbed her bag, shoving it over her shoulder, and held out her hand to Rhett, who smiled, took it, and she traced them to the auction-house.
"You're getting better," Rhett smiled, as Kenzi let out a harsh breath and steadied her trembling hands on her buckling knees. Kenzi gave her the thumbs-up. The auction-house was empty now, and Rhett released them from the spirit realm so Kenzi could rush about searching for her wallet and pocketing anything small enough to carry.
"Oh my GOD!" Kenzi shrieked.
"Kenzi?" Rhett called, tracing exactly to Kenzi. She was gawping, wide-eyed, at a gilt-framed portrait.
"What the hell, dude!" Kenzi blurted, gasping, as she turned to gape at Rhett. Rhett stared at the painting. Mother, creepy father, the little girl with the doll. "I thought we burned that thing. I wasn't dreaming, was I?"
"No, we burned it," Rhett said softly.
"Well how do we destroy it?" Kenzi blurted indignantly.
"Well, when a portrait is haunted, it's always the subject itself that haunts it," Rhett said softly.
"Okay, so we have to go through that creepy family's dirty laundry?" Kenzi grimaced.
"Yeah. Come on," Rhett said, touching Kenzi's arm.
"Er…why are we here?" Kenzi asked, shivering after the warmth of the auction-house. The blackened slush piled against the sidewalks, ice puddles frozen over, people heavily laden with thick coats, hats, scarves, gloves, it was a Northern winter and there was a reason Rhett loved the private island she had been paid with for a job ten years ago.
"We have to find out what happened with the family in that painting," Rhett said. "The first place to look is always the local library. They keep archives of all the old newspapers and documents."
"A library?" Kenzi grimaced, but she followed Rhett into the ionic-columned building, which was blissfully warm after the frigid icy air outside. A round-faced, helpful and rather excitable older man came forward to help Rhett at the information desk, eager to go through the archives for her, since so few ever did.
"You said the Zebediah Plumfeld family, didn't you?" he said eagerly.
"Yes," Rhett smiled softly. "Very unusual name to mistake."
"I pulled up every scrap of local history I could find," the librarian said. "Are you a crime buff?"
"Why do you ask?" Rhett asked curiously. The librarian held up the coversheet of an antique newspaper, dated April 16, 1912.
"Hey, the Titanic! That's a sad movie," Kenzi said, eyeing the front-page article. The librarian tapped at a smaller article to the left of the photograph of the Titanic. It read 'FatherSlaughtersFamily,KillsSelf'.
"The entire family was killed?" Rhett said, raising her eyebrows.
"It seems this Zebediah, he slits his daughter's throat, then his wife, then himself," the librarian said excitedly.
"And it wasn't even Christmas," Kenzi sighed, shaking her head, and the librarian chortled.
"Does it say why he did it?" Rhett asked. The librarian scanned the newspaper article.
"Well, there were rumours that his wife was planning to pack up the daughter and leave him—says here he was stern and had a harsh temperament, ruled his family with an iron fist… Zebediah was a barber by trade, he used a straight-razor, and…" He drew his finger across his throat.
"What happened to the family?" Rhett asked.
"They were all cremated, interred in the family mausoleum," the librarian read off the newspaper.
"Did you find anything else?" Rhett asked.
"Yes, actually, I did find a picture of the family," he replied, bringing out a heavy book and going through the pages. "Right here, somewhere—here it is." He placed the book flat on the table. Avoiding the doll, Rhett frowned at the painting. Something was wrong.
"May I have a copy of this, please, and the article?" she asked politely, glancing up at the librarian.
"Sure, I'll go photocopy them now for you," the librarian smiled.
"Thank you."
"Jeez. This Zebediah guy reminds me of my stepfather," Kenzi said, pilfering a stapler and a tub of paperclips. "He was such a dick."
Rhett glanced at Kenzi as she fiddled with a ball of rubber-bands. "Is he the reason you ran away?"
"I was always running away," Kenzi shrugged unconcernedly. She glanced up at Rhett. "But the real reason…I made my mom choose between me or him, and, uh…she chose him, so…"
"I'd never choose a man over my child," Rhett murmured to herself. Although, she had neither, so the point was moot. But if she did have a baby of her own—which she wanted—she would never abandon them. Kenzi had cleaned out half the information desk of its accoutrements before the librarian returned with still-warm printed copies of the newspaper article and the family portrait, which Rhett was sure was different. To satisfy Kenzi's curiosity and stomach, again, Rhett traced them into a coffee-shop, where she paid for two café au laits and slices of chocolate-cake, and sat frowning at the copy of the portrait while she sipped her drink.
"Okay, dude, you really have been alone too long!" Kenzi laughed. "You don't even talk to yourself, let alone me." Rhett smiled subtly.
"I'm sorry. I'm not used to, er…" She wasn't used to talking to the living. To integrating into the human world at all. It was so very different from when she was little. She was so different from when she was little. "I was just thinking that this picture is different. The painting at the auction-house, the father is looking down at the little girl." She showed Kenzi the copy. "The painting here, he's looking out at us. The painting has changed."
"So you think daddy-dearest is trapped in the painting?" Kenzi said, sipping her café au lait and getting froth on her lip.
"Maybe," Rhett said, handing her a napkin. "Maybe something else changed too, like the DaVinciCode or something."
"I still haven't seen that movie," Kenzi admitted, with a wince.
"Read the book," Rhett smiled. "It's good."
"So…what do we do now? Check out the painting to see what's different?" Kenzi asked, and Rhett nodded. "Hey…you don't mind me tagging along, right? I mean…it was your idea in the first place?"
"I don't mind," Rhett smiled. She actually enjoyed Kenzi's company. A mutual history of living on the street and stealing to survive had drawn her to this girl, but her continuous chatter and smart mouth kept Rhett intrigued, almost on the verge of laughter. She was like no street-urchin Rhett had ever known, almost incessantly optimistic, cheerful even if she considered herself a Goth and claimed not to like smiling very much.
"Cool," Kenzi grinned. "So… Necromancer, huh." Rhett nodded. "How did you figure that out?"
"Well, after Brenda appeared, she started pointing out other ghosts to me, how to recognise them from the living and such. One night, I was sleeping in an abandoned theatre, and I could sense a dead body in one of the backstage rooms," Rhett said, and Kenzi gazed at her over the top of her coffee. "I fell asleep, but in my dreams I was fixated on that body…I woke up to it climbing up my leg, drawn to me." Kenzi's eyes flew wide.
"Shit!" she whispered.
"It was easy to get rid of. I just focused on releasing the spirit from the decaying body," Rhett said softly, "and I ran like hell."
"Sure, sure!" Kenzi nodded, eyes still wide. "That happen to you a lot?"
"Never unintentionally, now," Rhett said, and Kenzi shivered.
"Do you like raise armies of zombies or whatever?" she whispered. Rhett grinned.
"Not entire armies, but there is an annual competition amongst the fey, a sort of deadly Amazing Race where the most dangerous fey in the world compete for artefacts and talismans, and the last round is a gladiatorial battle," Rhett said, and Kenzi gazed at her.
"Gladiator! I love that movie!" she said, humming delightedly. Rhett smiled.
"The three competitors with the highest scores have to go up against each other, and against every fey the elders provide for the bloodbath," Rhett said.
"So…when they're killed, you bring them back?" Kenzi said, and Rhett smiled.
"I can reanimate the corpses to battle the other fey," she said, "so I can focus on the other contenders."
"That is so awesome!" Kenzi laughed suddenly, clapping her hands. "You could take over the frickin' world with a zombie army." Rhett shrugged slightly. "So, you can like talk to ghosts and shit?"
"Talk to, control," Rhett said, shrugging slightly. "I can reanimate corpses, travel between the realms of the living and the dead, and I can both give life and bring death."
"Wow," Kenzi breathed. "Just like, one zap, and they're gone?" Rhett smiled over her coffee.
"It's not so much of a zap, it's more… Every living being, and the dead, I can see their spirit, even in this realm. I used to have to do it physically, reaching into a person to take hold of the soul to remove it," Rhett said softly, and Kenzi's eyes widened. "Now, I can do it mentally."
"So you could like kill me right this second?" Kenzi gasped. Rhett smiled.
"I would never kill you, Kenzi," she said gently. "You have an incredibly pure spirit." Kenzi let out a laugh. Rhett's lips twitched. "When I say pure, I don't mean in the Christian angelic sense." Kenzi laughed again. "I mean your spirit is incorruptible." Kenzi was quiet for a moment.
"Okay, so…are we gonna head back to the auction-house to exorcise that freaky painting or what?" she asked.
"You're awfully eager," Rhett smiled.
"What can I say, this is the most fun I've had in weeks," Kenzi shrugged, giving her a smile as they climbed out of their seats. Kenzi stole a handful of lollipops from the jar on the counter as they left the café, and Rhett smiled as Kenzi offered her one, then her hand, and walking into a nearby alley, unwrapping their lollipops, Rhett gently touched her palm to Kenzi's, and traced them to the auction-house. The painting was gone.
"Uh…where's the painting?" Kenzi said, gazing around the blackened auction-house. In the maybe two and a half hours since they had been investigating and drinking their coffees, it had disappeared. "Don't tell me they sold it. Dude, some other family's gonna get slaughtered!"
"I'm afraid so," Rhett said softly. She glanced at Kenzi, and at the same time both blurted, "Invoice." Rhett almost laughed as Kenzi darted toward the spiral-staircase; she grabbed hold of the girl's coat and traced them upstairs, into the office. Pouring herself a tumbler of whisky, Kenzi searched the cupboards and sideboard, pocketing several things, while Rhett went through the filing-cabinets.
"Here it is," Rhett said, shining the light of the lamp on a fresh invoice. She noted the address of the purchaser from the delivery order, and took the two extraordinarily expensive vintage bottles of whisky, dating from the 1920s, from the sideboard, tracing first to her motel-room so she could drop them off, then grabbed Kenzi and traced outside the new owner's house.
One window was illuminated downstairs, but nobody answered the bell; Kenzi went to peer through the windows, while Rhett checked the door; it was locked.
"Kenzi!" she whispered, and the underfed little urchin reappeared. "It's locked. Come here." Kenzi offered her hand almost eagerly now, and they reappeared inside the hall.
"Hello?" Kenzi called dubiously. "Hello my god!"
It was a massacre. Blood painted the polished wood floor, staining the expensive Persian rug, splashed across the upholstery of the armchairs and sofa, the eyes of four figures wide and petrified, their throats slashed so viciously they were nearly entirely decapitated.
"Come on," Rhett whispered. She saw no ghosts here; their spirits had already been shepherded on. But she glanced at the painting, and Kenzi screamed as the father appeared to move, looking right at them.
"Oh my god! Oh my GOD! The painting moved! He moved!" Kenzi shrieked hysterically, panting, clinging to the front of Rhett's coat. "He's after me! I've been chosen! He's going to murder me! It's like The Ring, anybody who sees the painting move is gonna die! Oh my god!"
"You haven't been chosen!" Rhett said calmly. A siren's wail made them both jump; red and blue lights flashed through the sheers draped over the windows.
"It's the fuzz!" Kenzi gasped, tiptoeing to the window to peer out. "The jig is up!"
"Then get away from the window, they'll see you!" Rhett said exasperatedly.
"How'd they get here so fast?" Kenzi asked, scowling.
"The neighbours probably heard the family screaming," Rhett said, keeping her eyes on the painting. As long as all of the figures were still within it, they were safe. She did a double-take as movement caught her eye; Kenzi was cleaning out the furniture of everything expensive-looking. "Kenzi!"
"What?" Rhett offered her hand. "Oh, right! Jeez!" she gasped, as the front-door was opened. Two now-familiar cops entered the house. Kenzi turned to gape at Rhett, whose eyebrows rose.
"Why's it always them?" Kenzi whispered. Rhett shrugged. She wasn't complaining. That blonde shifter was beautiful. The chocolate-skinned siren let out a low whistle at the sight of the massacre.
"This is the third set of victims in two weeks," the Light shifter, Dyson, sighed, squatting down to examine the teenaged girl lying on the carpet, his hands encased in gloves.
"It's definitely fey," the siren said softly, glancing over his shoulder at the cops taping off the scene. "You getting anything?" Rhett watched as the shifter inhaled deeply, his eyes flashing momentarily black and amber.
"Something," he said quietly. "Some kind of hair-product…watermelon candy." Kenzi turned wide eyes on Rhett, having just removed the watermelon lollipop from her mouth. "Human, a female. It's the same scent I picked up when we went back to the Greggs', and at the auction-house." Kenzi cast Rhett a guilty glance.
"Anything else?" the siren asked.
"Yeah…" Rhett allowed herself to enter the shifter's mind, and her own knees went weak as she enjoyed experiencing the same things this Dyson did when he inhaled her scent. He bounced on the balls of his feet while he squatted down, because his legs had gone jumpy to follow the scent, his cock swelling painfully once more as the scent brought to mind sultry bare-skinned nights in heat-lightning storms and warm rain, sweet, earthy, mercurial.
"So, they're fey?" Kenzi whispered. Rhett nodded. "What kind is he?" She pointed out the shifter.
"He's a shape-shifter," Rhett murmured.
"Really?"
"The only way to tell for certain is to take all his clothes off," Rhett said softly.
"Dirty," Kenzi grinned.
"What is it?" the siren asked, because Dyson's head had perked up. For a second, his eyes lit exactly on Rhett's. She swallowed, her heartbeat quickening, because she was sure he had seen her, his warm, clear eyes so cutting.
"I don't know," he frowned, still gazing at Rhett, though now unseeingly. "I thought I just heard…and there was a blonde…"
"Wishful thinking, dude," the siren laughed. "Hey, you never told me what went down with that nymph the other night."
"This is so weird," Dyson frowned.
"That you don't brag, yeah," Hale laughed.
"No, I mean…there are absolutely no prints. No murder-weapon. No evidence whatsoever. There's no scent on the bodies themselves, so if it was those females, they're good…"
Rhett traced her and Kenzi back to her motel-room.
"Dude, that cop was rawr!" Kenzi slashed her fingers through the air like claws. "Tasty!"
"He was," Rhett grinned. Her smile faded, however, too troubled by this absurd turn of events. "And he saw me."
"I thought you said nobody could see you in the spirit realm," Kenzi said, picking up the bottle of whisky Rhett had set on the dresser to examine the ancient label.
"They never have before," Rhett said. "Only other necromancers, and I've only ever met one other before." She shuddered at the memory of meeting that other necromancer, and put it out of her mind. "And he could scent me, too."
"Is that good or bad?" Kenzi asked, making a popping noise as she plucked the lollipop out of her mouth.
"It's just bizarre," Rhett said quietly. "I've never known anybody to sense my presence at all. I leave no scent to other fey. And he was definitely fey. He must be a very old shifter."
"He didn't look very old," Kenzi said. Rhett smiled at her.
"In the fey world, looks are always deceiving. A thousand-year-old nymph can look nineteen," she said, and Kenzi's eyebrows rose.
"Now that's aging gracefully," she said, and Rhett smiled. "So…what now?"
"We'll have to wait to examine the painting till the morning," Rhett said, tugging her boots off. "Hopefully the cops will have gone by then."
"You mind if I crash? I've kinda been couch-surfing," Kenzi said guiltily.
"There are two beds," Rhett said, indicating the unused double. Kenzi let out a squeal of delight and bounded onto the bed, groaning as she sank into the mattress. Kenzi pulled a tattered deck of cards out of her pocket, smiling.
"Do you play?" Rhett smiled, climbing onto the bed beside her.
"Three cards, please," Rhett said, half an hour later; the comforter was a mess of pretzels, gumdrops, bottles of 1924 whisky, antique Fabergé snuffboxes, expensive watches and other trinkets Kenzi had lifted, and Kenzi smirked delightedly as she dealt three cards to Rhett. "And I'm gonna take one card."
"One card. Straight or a flush, Kenzi?" Rhett smiled. "Which are you trying to fill in?"
"Well, considering the odds of filling in an open-ended straight with one card are five to one against, while a flush draw is more like 4.5 to one, I guess you'd say if I was smart I'm drawing to a flush. Hm… I think I'm gonna go all in on this."
"I will too then," Rhett smiled, pushing the remaining gumdrops from her bag, two lollipops, a handful of miniature bottles of liquor from the mini-bar and the pair of Christian Louboutin heels Kenzi had tried on and gushed over. "So, are you?" she asked.
"Am I what? Am I drawing to a flush?" Kenzi asked. "Or am I smart?" Rhett shrugged, smiling.
"Either."
"Well, I am dazzlingly brilliant," Kenzi said, "but, actually, I was drawing to a full house. Eights over sixes." She set her cards down, smiling triumphantly.
"That's good," Rhett said, sighing, and Kenzi grinned cockily as she reached out to drag everything toward herself. "Oh, wait, not so fast, Dodger. I too have a boat." She placed her cards down. "Jacks over threes!
"That's like a hundred to one against!" Kenzi blurted indignantly.
"Ninety-seven to one, actually," Rhett grinned, chuckling softly at the appalled look on Kenzi's face as she examined Rhett's cards, as if for watermarks of authenticity.
"What the hell, dude!" Kenzi gaped. "I never lose!"
"You've never played against someone with telepathic abilities," Rhett smiled, and Kenzi's mouth fell open, gazing at the loot Rhett pulled toward herself. She could see the cogs whirring behind Kenzi's bright eyes.
"You wanna go to Vegas?" she blurted, her entire face lighting up, and Rhett smiled softly as she shook her head and popped a gumdrop into her mouth. "Me with my mutant card-counting abilities, you with your zombie mind-reading! We could clean out the house!"
"Maybe later," Rhett smiled softly.
"So, you learned to play on the street?" Kenzi asked, and Rhett nodded. "My dad taught me. He'd spend hours in underground gambling dens. Do you play often?"
"Difficult to play with no-one to play with," Rhett said softly, and Kenzi nodded. "Have you ever heard of Wei Qi?"
"It's called 'Go' here, isn't it?" Kenzi nodded. "I've never played. Isn't it the most difficult board-game in the world?" Rhett nodded.
"I like to play against myself. And chess. Though I translate it to a larger stage, now," Rhett said quietly.
"So, have you really been on your own since you were eight?" Kenzi asked, pale eyes sweeping over Rhett's face.
"Aside from my ghost familiars," Rhett said, nodding. "I only see clients to receive briefings and to deliver the goods, and if I'm not on a job or competing in the Hie, I'm at home, on my own."
"What do you do?" Kenzi asked.
"Drink," Rhett said, giving Kenzi a sad smile. "Read, listen to my favourite music."
"Dude, you need hobbies," Kenzi said, and Rhett smiled.
"I do have some," she said, "but they're not exactly contact hobbies."
"Like what?"
"Learning," Rhett said, and Kenzi's eyebrows rose. "I'm only in my thirties, and the fey predate humans. It's a lot of culture to absorb."
"How come you don't hang out with your necromancer buddies?" Kenzi asked.
"True Necromancers are rare. I've only ever met one other," Rhett said, shivering. "I assassinated her."
"Why'd you do that? Weren't you curious?" Kenzi asked. Rhett gave her an enigmatic smile.
"This Necromancer was…well, everything you'd imagine a Necromancer to be. Evil," Rhett said softly. "And I was paid to assassinate her. Being a mercenary means executing the orders you've been paid to follow. Emotions with mercenary work are a liability, so I couldn't let my own curiosity get in the way. Anyway, I learned a lot about Necromancers just in my attempts to kill her."
"So…you're some kind of Xena-meets-Buffy warrior zombie-momma?" Kenzi said, and Rhett smiled.
"Something like that," she said softly.
"Well, that's better than breaking into abandoned movie theatres to sleep," Kenzi said, yawning. "I'm exhausted!" Rhett checked her watch, Kenzi's eyes lighting up with delight as she saw the little watch-face concealed behind a little gold pyramid stud on the brown-leather strap. Given the dog-collar Kenzi was wearing, Rhett assumed she liked studs.
After another few rounds of poker, Kenzi attempting to win against Rhett and getting more and more exasperated that she couldn't, Kenzi yawned, tugging her boots off, and Rhett smiled as the young girl transferred the winnings from their poker-game onto the table instead of her bed, dragging out a pair of pyjama-bottoms and a long-sleeved t-shirt and cropped black shrug from the very bottom of her bag, scurrying into the bathroom to change and brush her teeth. Rhett changed into her pyjamas and climbed into bed, already dozing by the time Kenzi reappeared, her hair in low, plain pigtails without embellishments, and climbed into bed.
"You know," Kenzi murmured, her eyes closed already, "you're pretty cool for a zombie-queen."
"Thanks," Rhett smiled to herself, using telekinesis to turn off the lights. Kenzi's sweet little snores didn't disturb her, though it was strange to share a room with someone. It occurred to Rhett as she drifted off to sleep in the warm cocoon of her bedding that she hadn't asked Kenzi if she was okay after seeing those four murdered humans.
A.N.: Please review!