Fairy Thief (32 page)

Orji imagined Saffron was giving him looks of disgust and rolling her eyes and all of her usual facial theatrics, but, thanks to the veil, he couldn’t tell.

“
Here it is, sir — the loveliest veil in the store for your loveliest wife.”

Saffron rolled her eyes. People shouldn’t try to lie if they couldn’t do it well.

“
Baby, I don’t think we should invest in something so exquisite without you trying it on first, do you?” Orji’s lips curved under his veil.

Before Saffron could answer, the entrance bell jingled. Saffron, Orji, and the clerk turned to see a young man come in. His hand came up in greeting, then he took off for the far right corner to peruse some wares.

Saffron reached up to yank off her veil. She wanted to try the other one on, quickly, and get the hell out. Why had Orji wanted to come in here anyway?

The clerk noted her intent, and let out a strangled, “Aaaaaggghhh! Madame! The dressing room is this way, Madame.” He took her by the hand and followed his upturned nose towards the back of the store.

Why do I need a dressing room to try on this veil? I could just whip it on right here! Why do I need to try on this veil?
She suddenly got the creepiest sensation that Orji was up to something but, since she had no idea what, she felt powerless to stop it. “What
are
we doing here?” she grated out.

Orji just smiled and held his finger to his lips. “Shhh, I’m helping you. We’re discovering together….” He held the dressing room curtain back and gently pushed her in. “Try it on, honey.”

In a huff, Saffron whipped her veil off and slid the new, tranparent veil over the bar, then put the bar back into the holes in her drooping turban. She smiled at herself in the mirror. This was more like it! She could actually see her face, and she could see through this veil without the thing aggravating her like the other one did. She came out of the dressing room, did a twirl for Orji and said, “Well, what do you think?”

“
I think you’re beautiful when you smile.” He enjoyed it this time when she rolled her eyes. “Well, Saffron, it’s truly beautiful, but let me make sure it’s sitting on your head correctly. We’ll have the clerk give his advice, shall we?”

Saffron frowned. Why in the world would they want the clerk’s opinion on this? She wanted to tell Orji, ‘No,’ but he had already taken off. Saffron watched the other shopper as he made his way to the dressing room with a fistful of veils.

When the shopper noticed Saffron standing clear-veiled before him, he jerked to a stop and sucked in his breath. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“
No, wait — it’s okay — you can use it.” Saffron thought he wanted her dressing room.

The man backed up one step, hesitated, then quickly cast a look over his shoulder.

Saffron watched the man look at Orji, who was deeply engrossed in conversation with the clerk at the counter.

The man closed the space between them — getting way into her personal zone.

Warning bells chimed in her head. Something was wrong here, but she still couldn’t figure out what.

“
Your eyes are so…so…mmmmmmmmmmm.” He growled out ‘mmmm’ like a bear slobbering over its raw, fleshy dinner. His mouth curved into a friendly-neighborhood-pedophile arc, and his perfectly straight, white teeth came out to gleam.

Saffron blinked and looked at the wall. She looked back at the man. She thought the whole foot-fetish thing was weird — this guy was practically drooling over her eyes. Freakazoid.

“
You want to see
my
eyes?” He panted the words.

Saffron crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him — hard and steely. “Whatever floats your boat, man.”

Quickly, he lowered his veil, and stared at her with penetrating, dark chocolate eyes.

Saffron stared back at him. He would’ve been good-looking, if he wasn’t
such a creep.

He rolled his eyes and looked up. He was starting to breathe heavy. Saffron looked up. Was there a spider on the ceiling? What the hell was his problem?

“
Ooooh, you’re a tease!” He put his face right near hers and stared at her without blinking.

“
Okay, that’s it….” She was pissed. She
still
wasn’t sure what was going on, but she
knew
that Orji had set her up. She heard the voices of Orji and the clerk as they approached. Saffron saw fear fill the perv’s eyes just as he raised the veil again. He dropped the veils he had in his hand and fled the store.

Orji and the clerk watched the man scamper away. The clerk was confused, but Orji was trying to suppress his glee.

When they rounded a rack of veils, the clerk took one look at Saffron, sucked in
his
breath, seemed to quickly get hold of his reaction, and walked close-kneed over to her. “My dear, your husband is searching for a second opinion on the fit of your veil. May I have permission to approach and check the fit?”

Saffron waved her hands around in the air. What
was
this? “Yeah, whatever!”

He approached her slowly, as if she were a set trap. When he was about a foot away, she noticed how his breathing hitched and became ragged, and how he was trying to control his actions.

Orji was behind the clerk, wiping his eyes with his veil and covering his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“
This…” the clerk fingered the veil lightly as he stared and
stared
at Saffron’s eyes, “…seems fine.” His voice cracked at ‘fine,’ so it sounded like he said, ‘foyne.’

Orji erupted into a “Bwhahahaa” barrage and disintegrated with laughter. He was laughing so hard that he couldn’t catch his breath.

Saffron finally realized what was going on. To these people, these cover-your-eyes-but-nothing-else weirdoes, she had just exposed herself like some exhibitionist. Images of kicking Orji in the head danced and twirled through her mind. But, she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of laughing at another one of her outbursts. She clamped her mouth shut, marched back to the dressing room, and frantically worked her opaque veil back on the rod.

“
Sir,” she heard the clerk spit with disdain, “I don’t see the humor in all of this —your wife needs to learn a little discretion, if you ask me.”

Saffron’s mouth dropped open. What was that clerk saying? That she was some kind of whore?!

“
Hey, buddy, I know I’ve got the raciest, fun-loving wife – and I didn’t ask for your opinion!” Orji hooted some more and walked towards the front of the store to wait for Saffron.

The clerk followed close at his heels. “You know, you can get arrested for indecent exposure around here!”

“
Then call out the squads, because it’s raining asses out there — arrest them all!”

The clerk ‘yiped’ and took a step back. “I’ll thank you to leave my store, and take your street-cat wife with you!” Then he stomped his foot.

Saffron came charging out of the dressing room, rammed down the aisle, knocking veils and rods to the floor, and shoved through the store’s front door.

“
Buh-bye,” Orji waggled his fingers at the clerk, then was off in Saffron’s wake.

Saffron stomped past the twins, who jumped to their feet in alarm. First, the townie had come charging out and, now, Saffron. They didn’t like it when they weren’t the cause of the melee and pouted as they ran after her. They pouted because they had to run, too – their wings were getting itchy, being all cramped up and unflexed for the better part of two hours. “What?
What!”
they nagged Saffron, to no avail.

She kept walking. Her scarf drifted down from her shoulders, floated behind her, and slapped at her buttocks. She stopped suddenly and grabbed the wrist of a woman who happened to be going in the other direction. “Please, which way to the town building?” The woman pointed to a silvery pyramid about fifty yards to Saffron’s left, then yanked her wrist back from Saffron’s desperate grasp and hurried away. Saffron stormed all the way to the town building, through the double inner doors, through the double inner doors, and over to a large wooden desk, helmed by a short, dumpy woman.

The woman’s veil appeared old and discolored by the sun. “Yeah?” She barked out the word in a gravelly voice without looking up from her tablet.

“
Which way to the portal, please?”

“
Up the stairs, down the hall to the left — the door with the portal insignia.” She crunched into what looked like tree bark and kept reading as crumbs fell on her lap.

“
Thank you.” As Saffron charged towards the stairs, Tai, Wo, Deva and Orji came skidding through the inner entrance doors. Deva clacked and lost her footing on the smooth-as-glass stone floor.

Orji sprinted extra fast and was soon at Saffron’s heels. “What do you think you’re doing, Saffron? Do you think you’re going through the portal without us?” He tugged on her hand.

She pulled it back and slapped his hand when he reached for her again. “Losing you in the portal transfer would be a blessing, jackass.”

“
Oh, good. We’re speaking again. You’d be lucky
not
to lose me, you know.”

He was so arrogant! Saffron could only stand there and stare at his veil.

He tipped his chin down; his smiling eyes peeked at her from above the rod.

Who the hell was he, anyway? Really. He was just some strange person she had picked up in some strange realm. For the very first time, she consciously realized she didn’t know
what
the hell he was. He couldn’t be human — humans were from the
Earth
realm.

Tai and Wo arrived on the stairs behind them. “What’s going on?” They said it at the same time like twins on a commercial.

Saffron would have liked to assault them all at that point. She burned with humiliation. She turned away from them, mounted the rest of the stairs, and shot down the left-hand corridor. Suddenly, she came to a halt. There had to be over a hundred doors here, which of course was impossible — they were in a pyramid. And they were closer to the top of the pyramid than the bottom. It was impossible that the corridor was that long. Saffron groaned.

“
Well, baby, which door is it?” Orji leaned on the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

Saffron closed her eyes for several moments and forced herself to take deep breaths. She already needed him. Blek. He probably knew what the insignia for a portal would be — maybe the twins could have figured it out — but he already knew. She could tell by the way he was standing there. He was so smug!

She couldn’t guess. Each door was made of glass – dark, purple, opaque glass, and each had a symbol on it. She didn’t know what any of the symbols meant. She could go downstairs and ask toady-lady which door it was, but somehow, she imagined, if she asked that woman for any more help, she would probably get herself eaten. Besides, she couldn’t raise suspicion — she was
supposed to know
what a portal insignia was.

Orji interrupted her thoughts. “A portal insignia, Saffron, looks something like a rod — like a staff with a hole in it. It has a slot at the top, like the eye of a needle.” He flexed his muscles like Hercules. “See that, Saffron? See that brute strength? Go ahead, touch it — feel that muscle; it’s hard as a rock!” He grinned.

She stood rigidly, glaring at him.

“
C’mon — come feel my muscle — it’s incredible!”

“
How do you know that?” She arched one angry brow. “The twins told me portals weren’t common knowledge — that it was dangerous for common people to have portal knowledge.”

Orji feigned pain in his heart, and put both hands on his chest. “Are you calling ME common? Why, you little tart!”

“
Orji, don’t avoid the question.
Why
do you know so much about portals?”

As he walked away he said, “Come along, little fireball. Come feel my muscle.”

One of the doors opened and a woman emerged. She had caught the end of Orji’s order to Saffron, and now walked down the hallway with a smile. “I’ll test that muscle, big guy!” Her gapped teeth were pearly white under her veil. She reached for his pumped-up arm with two greedy hands. As soon as she touched Orji’s arms, she snatched her hands back in alarm. She wasn’t sure what she had just touched — couldn’t describe it — it
just wasn’t right.
She walked away quickly, confused and concerned.