Free Rainbow Bridge by Gwyneth Jones Page B

to stop clinging to our little gods, what the fuck happens to my morale if we lose one? But refugees can’t help it—
    The missing years returned, filling her mind with wild scenes and horrible revelations, mainly irrelevant. I am pregnant, I am not sixteen, we are starting again from nothing; that seems to cover it. A garret in Paris, a cabin on a cold beach in Mexico, and here we are again. Our house of sticks, this destitution, to which we keep returning, it feels so right. We keep trying to declare ourselves bankrupt, to crawl out from under the mountain of debt that fell on us, but it never works. Fucking global crisis, the death of a civilisation, fine, all things must pass, but the dying takes so long, we are so sick of it… Someone was coming. She sat up, pulling the blankets around her. Min padded up the bed, burrowed into her lap and set his front paws, like plates of meat (he’s going to be a huge cat) on her knees. The two tall men came in, making very little sound as they flowed like smoke into her space.
    ‘Fiorinda?’
    They were holding hands, a rare gesture with them. Brother-enemies, she thought, the annexe dream still her reality. ‘You’re holding hands.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sage, holding Ax’s hand up to his cheek, kissing the knuckles, Ax leant his brow against Sage’s shoulder. ‘Something wrong with that?’
    ‘Wang Xili must be a terrific date. What happened?’
    ‘I said no,’ said Ax and let go of Sage’s hand to scoop up the kitten. Min burst into rapturous purrs, pummelling Ax’s chest with razor talons. ‘But nicely.’
    ‘No repercussions about Richard’s performance?’
    ‘None at all, it wasn’t mentioned. They’ve made it clear, by everything that’s happened, that they want the Reich. I’ve made it clear we’re interested, but that we don’t want to seem too eager.’
    ‘A proper, decent reluctance,’ remarked Sage, taking off his boots. ‘Very maidenly collaborators, us. Is there anything to eat? Any offerings at the shrine?’
    ‘Yeah. A Dave haybox with a chicken stew in it had appeared when I got home. It’s extremely tasty.’ She watched them settle. They stow their boots, they touch their totems, they casually brush a hand against my bag; they sniff out the food and tuck in. These two big simple animals, my tiger and my wolf.
    ‘Where was he speaking from? Was he in the flat?’
    An uneasy glance between them.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Ax. ‘Head and shoulders, I couldn’t tell.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Fiorinda. ‘I couldn’t give a toss.’
    ‘Dian probably made the whole thing up,’ Sage passed the spoon, ‘to see if she could get me to take her on as Mata Hari. Either that, or Wang is occupying Rufus’s love-nest for exac’ly the reasons stated, to exorcise the pernicious delusion.’
    He was keeping the photos in the bathroom aspect to himself.
    ‘He’s a cool customer, then. The chances that he really thinks my father was just your average unpleasant megastar with dodgy politics are very slim.’
    ‘We don’t know what they really think,’ said Ax, around a savoury mouthful of chicken and wild mushrooms. ‘Don’t know what’s going on there at all.’
    The ugly rumour Dian had offered as tradegoods troubled them. It had the ominous, unlikely ring of truth; and that was very bad. But if Dilip was somehow in Chinese hands, alive or dead, there was nothing they could do. They certainly dared not use Dian as a double agent. Stick with Plan A: buy some power first. Power had to be their primary objective, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
    ‘Just keep Dian away from Allie,’ said Fiorinda.
    “Agreed,” said Ax. “She doesn’t need a bright idea like that.”
    They reverted to issues within their reach, while the stew got finished. What to do about Smelly? Marlon, Silver and Pearl, the next steps for the reborn Reich.
    ‘ And he asked me to marry him,’ Sage confided. ‘Finally. He tried to brush it off as a joke, but I