Chapter 26
Author's Note: Sorry for a delay in updates. I have to admit, I had great difficulty making myself get down to writing it. My country is on the verge of a civil war and that kinda puts everything else into prospective. On the other hand, the news about Lost Girl being picked up for season 5 gave me a nice push, so here is the next chapter. Hope you'll enjoy it!
"The stupid brats had it coming," Dar grumbled stubbornly, pretty relaxed, despite a length of rope strapping him into a chair, "They were disrespectful and ignorant and whiney. Irritating."
Trick couldn't help nodding his understanding and threw his granddaughter a chiding look. "Yes, they are all of that but you had no right to interfere and mess with their nature," he still felt obliged to rebuke the dark fae.
"I did not interfere with their nature, I am not that powerful, only with their abilities," the fairy jerked his chin up in protest.
"And you think that has no correlation with the nature?" Kenzi jumped forward, her voice practically at screeching tone. "I almost killed a person and, mind you, I was never homicidal as a human. I did…, " she tripped over her own words, "other things I'd never have done back in my human days."
Dar did the best shrugging he could, given his tied-up status, "New abilities affecting your core nature or just pushing forward something dormant before? That's stuff for a thesis I don't feel like writing, not this century."
"That's beside the point," Dyson opted for a straightforward approach and leaned over the diminutive figure, letting his eyes go yellow and his teeth elongate into fangs, "You change them back or I'll have a nice non-vegetarian snack and a jar-worth of your sad remains will rest in peace in the nearest dumpster."
"Easy, wolf," Dar shifted gears, shrinking back against the back of the chair, "I never said I wouldn't. I would if I could but I am too exhausted. To return the succubus powers back to their owner will take a lot of energy and I am running low, that's why I went to the casino, to catch a feed that you interrupted. Bring me a little something to recharge my batteries and I'll set the girls right. Something with an artistic flavour would be just fine."
Trick gave the fairy a quick once-over and nodded his confirmation, "He is not lying, he is weakened, unable to perform."
"Right! Is the cage in your backroom vacant?" Dyson asked with a frown and with a flick of a claw cut the rope loose. "Let him stew in there while we are hunting for his dinner," he added lifting the small fae off the chair and heading for the door but Trick rushed to bar his way.
"That cell is currently on disinfection, may I offer you another one, no less comfortable, in the adjoining cellar," he explained smoothly and hurried over to his antique roll-top desk to retrieve a set of keys from a drawer.
After Dar was safely locked up in the cell, the gang went up to the main room to talk their next step through.
"We need to feed him a bit of expendable talent," Bo stated, "Any volunteers for the cause?"
'I did a bit of choir singing in my day," Hale drawled contemplatively, "Does that qualify?"
"I heard him, believe me, that amount of talent won't feed an anorexic canary," Dyson scoffed and prodded his chest with his index finger, "Boxing? A championship belt, actually."
"For laughing out loud!" Hale returned the taunt, "Strategy is totally beyond you, you just turn on your wolf and punch the lights out of however threatens to kick your butt. It's like drumming with your fists on the piano keys."
Bo shifted her gaze from the snarking men to the other occupants of the room.
"Don't look at me," Trick declined hurriedly, "Too busy ruling the fae, changing fates, serving drinks to cultivate any talents."
The slender blonde woman rose a tentative hand, "Will I qualify?"
"No," Bo's reply was quick and categorical, her glowering look preempting any discussion on that point, "we need all your numerous talents undented, Lauren."
"Okay, we can just find someone else," Kenzi cut in, "Someone annoying enough to deserve to be fed on. Suggestions?"
The suggestions came out in a downpour:
"The street mime I bump into every time nip to a corner shop? His white face just creeps me out."
"The TV presenter on the evening news – his voice makes my ears bleed internally."
"Vex! What? He is annoying all right."
"I start wishing I hadn't eaten Taft, he might have his uses now – plenty of crazy talent."
"My ex street-mate Svetlana," Kenzi finally hit on a more viable option. "We used to hang out together, shared a squat or two, both danced and she was really gifted, let me tell you. But then she got all tangled-up with a guy, who was no good news, and one day scarpered with all our cash. I found her later, in a sleazy little place, dancing topless, taking her act off the stage and on to the customers' lap, and further down south if the price was right. I thought we were friends, offered her a job, of a con variety admittedly, but still cleaner than shaking your assets in front of assorted assholes and servicing them in a booth. She agreed and then shopped me to the mark for a price. I barely escaped with my hide near-intact but my heart heavily scratched. I can make a call or two, find out if she is around."
"Well, considering no one has a better idea…" Bo spoke for all of them and Kenzi grabbed her cell.
While the little succubus was jabbering into her phone, alternating Russian with English swear words, the rest of the gang fell into a silence of uneasy contemplation, everyone busy gnawing internally at their own agenda.
Kenzi's smile, when she terminated the last call, was unenthusiastically victorious.
"I've got her, another filthy dive, working the night shift. She hasn't gone up in the world much," she announced, "I'll nip down there, pour on some of my juices and bring her back, meek as a lamb."
"Kenz is taking no prisoners," Bo teased a bit uncomfortable at her bestie's surge of ruthless decisiveness.
"She can afford to lose a bit of talent, seeing as the use she's been putting it to is far from salubrious," the Russian answered dismissively, "Might even make her take up a cleaner job."
"You'd better take back-up," Bo warned her, "A place like that might spring a surprise or two on your unwatched behind."
Kenzi's eyes swung from one tall man in the room to the other before she called out, "Hale?" The siren suddenly busied himself with his fedora, taking it off his head and readjusting it back on before getting up from the couch he had been lounging in.
"I actually have a bit of business to attend to," he finally mumbled, "An unfinished report with a deadline long expired. Can Dyson take you?"
The wolf nodded in the affirmative cementing his features into a whatever expression while his heart made a flip and refused to settle.
And the room was thrown into a burst of activity again, with Hale beating a hasty retreat, Kenzi and Dyson trying to play their joint exit with maximum nonchalance and Bo navigating her way straight to her blonde lover. Trick, however, cut their tenderness session short, unceremoniously taking hold of his granddaughter arm.
"Lauren can fill her time with a book or two," he waved a magnanimous hand towards his tome-packed shelves and saw the young scientist's eyes light up with insatiable curiosity, "while you and me need to talk about something, Bo."
"Really? It might be my last human hours," the brunette pouted, "And you want me to spend them talking to you. That's quite a new way of cock-blocking me."
"I just don't want to make the same old mistake of keeping important things from you," the older fae sighed under her reproachful look, "And I am going against my own better judgment and a millennium-worth of habit here."
Bo appreciated the gravity of his tone and the sincerity of the expression as she unlocked her hand from Lauren's. "What is it, Gramps?" she asked, suddenly apprehensive.
"Your mother," Trick nodded towards the backroom, "She is here."
####
As the streets were flying by outside the car window, still shrouded in the early morning gloom, Kenzi could stand the silence no longer.
"Do you realize these are my last hours as a succubus?" she asked and Dyson nodded, his jaws clenched, his eyes never straying from the road ahead.
"I'll be a fragile, pathetic human with poor vision and small boobs again," the girl went on, "And I used to like that human a lot. I hated to be of little use when it came to big fae-fights, but on the whole I liked me. And now … now I am dreading becoming me again."
"At Daisy's flat you told me when the spell was over, your love life would be back to normal," the wolf managed out through gritted teeth.
"I am not sure it will be normal again, some things cannot be forced back," the girl looked down at the hands clasped in her lap, "I won't need you to feed any more, but will I not need you? Will you feel anything for me?"
Dyson jerked the steering wheel as the pent-up frustration strove for a vent, sending the car into a shudder as it hit a curb. The engine still running, he turned to grab the succubus by her thin shoulders, his eyes glowing yellow, his breathing heavy.
"Human or fae you're Kenzi," he said huskily, "That's your power on me. The rest doesn't make any difference."
"For the record, I only really used my power on you that first time at the abandoned house," Kenzi whispered, "but I was so starving."
"The abandoned house?" the wolf clacked his tongue, "Good times!"
"Would the times have been so good if I hadn't been enhanced? Hey, dude, have you ever been with a human at all?" the girl shook herself free of his grasp, "Your previous track record this century includes a fairy queen, a pombero and two choice succubi. Are you sure a human woman can satisfy your wolf?"
"I can only answer that question when I try it with a human woman," Dyson smiled and his fang-y smile was weirdly naughty, "If she gives me that chance."
For a minute their thoughts went completely off track, mission forgotten, the outer world fading into a background hum as they locked eyes, looking into each others souls. Then, their common pangs of conscience resurfaced and made them break off from each other.
"Hale," Kenzi muttered, "I can't let him suffer."
"And that's the horns of the dilemma – I can't let you suffer," Dyson replied restarting the car.
####
Bo sidled into the room and approached the cage she herself had once occupied, courtesy of the scheming kitsune.
"Mum," she called hesitantly and the form, crouching in the corner, shot to her feet, the beautiful face beaming a smile, the huge brown eyes shining with love tinged with unhinged.
"Isabeau, my baby," Aiofe said in her sensual husky voice and extended her arms to the younger woman through the bars, "At last, I see you, I can hug you."
"Trick said you are running from Odin," Bo stated flatly without moving any closer, "From my father."
The succubus frowned at her words and her arms fell down to her sides. "I should've told you about him, warned you about him, but we had so little time together," she sighed.
"Yes, what with raping my boy-friend, plotting mass killings, you kinda forgot to mention the sick bastard had been holding you prisoner for breeding purposed and conceived me as a twisted experiment," Bo exclaimed bitterly.
"You really think something like that would be easy for any mother to say to her new-found daughter?" Aiofe shot back, "I though we'd better bond before I knock you down with any revelations of the kind."
"Oh, yes, and bond we did," Bo was dripping sarcasm but immediately got serious to demand, "What does he want from you now?"
"I have no idea," the succubus shrugged her shoulders with contempt, "But whatever his agenda is, it cannot be good. And seeing as my leader doesn't want to protect me, I figured my Daddy would be my best bet. At least, worth a try. Didn't work out that well last time I leaned on him, but he's changed over the centuries, mellowed out."
Bo passed a hand over her suddenly sweaty brow as the answer to why Odin would need Aiofe again started forming in her mind.
"Trick will protect you, but the question is are you worth it?" she asked sternly, arms akimbo, channeling her granddad.
"Whatever you think of me, Bo," her mother was back to pleading, "Don't you doubt for a second that I love you."
"Really?" Bo asked painfully, "I've already had one parent reveal the depth of his love to me, why not try the other?"
She pressed herself against the cage and thrust her own arms through the bars to hug the woman inside. Aiofe grabbed her daughter like a lifeline, her long fingers stroking Bo's shoulders lovingly, but a heart-beat and a vibe read later she flinched and stepped back, aghast, as the realization sank in.
"How can it be?" the succubus shrieked, "you are human?!"