Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [37]
“Nice little icecap you got there,” he said in a hoarse voice, unable to believe that he had just said this: but there’s nothing like Letheon to turn a decent fellow into a hopelessly depraved cad. “Gives some perspective on the Hollow Earth theory,” he added, wishing he were dead.
The girl turned toward him, and he could make out a small pale face and two eyes like black holes that sucked out his spinning planet of a heart.
“If you want to plant your flagpole,” said the brunette with a lighthearted, musical vulgarity that was the sweetest melody Gabriel had ever heard, “you’d better help me first.”
She plunged back under the bed and soon dragged out a pair of high-cut, thick-soled boots that made Gabriel’s heart leap even higher. He approached and knelt down beside her.
“Those bastards took my clothes away. They must be under the bed,” she whispered.
Thrilling from this intimacy, he groped around and quickly felt a soft bundle under his fingers. The girl was rather small and her arms were not long enough to reach it.
“I think I got them,” he said, triumphally.
“Okay, just be on the lookout and we leave as soon as I’m ready.”
Gabriel did as he was told, very happy to do so, almost not noticing that he was pulling at the cork again and pushing the phial back up his nose.
“You know a way out?” asked the girl as she stepped into the hallway, slipping on a kind of black hooded cloak.
“You’re the little black riding hood, aren’t you?”
“You’re an old satyr, aren’t you?” she answered playfully.
She was, he was almost sure of it, the girl he had glimpsed earlier at the Toadstool. He could now see her features. They had nothing frail or delicate about them, but even the baby fat was alive with currents of sparking astuteness that put the cute back in electrocute.
“You care for some?” asked Gabriel, handing her his phial. “It’s on the house.”
“I’m going to know your thoughts,” she said.
She took it and sniffed quickly.
“You should be ashamed,” she smiled, her eyes boring straight into his as she gave him back the phial. “So, how do we scram?”
“Hmm …” said Gabriel, his head whirling slightly. “The doors are rather busy. We should try the window. It’s only the first floor, after all.”
The girl went straight back into the room, and Gabriel heard her opening the double window. Before he could react she had jumped through it, and he followed her, as he would have anywhere. There was a little cornice that made the whole affair easier, and with bones made out of Letheon draughts, he felt there was little chance that he would sprain or break anything. He landed on the stone ledge and took another spring that sent him onto a welcome and welcoming layer of powdery snow. From there, there were a few yards to cross and iron railings that were not much of a challenge. She laughed as she saw Gabriel overplay his ease in climbing them and then somehow get tangled in their unexpected reality.
“I’m Stella, by the way.”
“I’m Gabriel. I hope I’m not seeing you shining from a too distant past,” Gabriel said, panting a little.
“You’re funnier when you talk dirty,” she said with a flattered smile.
“Ah. Dimple,” he noticed, pointing accusingly at her right cheek. “And just on one side. You have decided to kill me, haven’t you?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Would you care for a drink of something strong before I do?”
Compared to the Toadstool, the John Dee was a notch lower in the underground. Owned by the now retired members of the amplified Elizabethan cult band Lord Strange’s Men, it was a rather dark place, lit with a few braziers around which huddled a more sombre and possibly more dangerous species of Boreal Bohemian. Under this wavering, uncertain light, the cabalistic figures that decorated the walls were glimpsed more than really seen, which only made them more evocative. The Sun Dogs had started their career here and the band now on the stage was the Mock Moons, who obviously followed their traces, though their music was more upbeat and grating. The