Free Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds by Debra Doyle, James D. MacDonald Page B

the dress peel away from her flesh, showing Ulle her naked back and buttocks.
    Klea’s gorge rose. She gripped the edge of the shelf in front of her and swallowed hard. The image faded and the nausea went with it, leaving her soaked in cold sweat.
    “Damn,” she whispered hoarsely. “Damn, damn, damn … kid, you have got to get some sleep.”
    She drew a long, shaky breath and reached again for the aqua vitae. It was no good—her knees started to buckle under her and she knew she was going to fall.
    A hand caught her under the elbow, supporting and steadying her. “Let me,” said a strange voice—ordinary, except for a faint trace of some accent she didn’t recognize. “No point in confirming Gentlesir Ulle’s worst suspicions, is there?”
    It was the man in the beige coverall. As soon as she was solidly on her feet again, his hand fell away from her arm and he reached up to take the bottle of aqua vitae.
    “Here,” he said, putting it into her shopping basket.
    “It’s not going to help you any, though.”
    The comment washed away any impulse toward gratitude she might have had. “I don’t need a sermon, thank you very much.”
    He smiled briefly, but his eyes—hazel under dark lashes—remained serious. “Good. I’m not in the sermon business.”
    “You couldn’t prove it by me.”
    “Look,” he said. “Drinking purple rotgut until your skull pops isn’t going to keep you from seeing things and hearing voices. I know.”
    How does he know … ? The shock of hearing her madness spoken out loud by a stranger made her sway and grab the shelf again. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
    “A neighbor of yours,” he said. “And somebody who can show you how to take care of your problem.”
    She laughed roughly. “Right,” she said. “Tell me another one. That line’s so old it has moss on it.”
    She turned her back on him and strode to the front counter, angry now at having the unexpected kindness spoiled by one more ploy like the ones she heard every night at Freling’s Bar. The anger buoyed her up, pushing her out of reach of Ulle’s nasty little thoughts and keeping her going all the way down the street and up the stairs to her third floor walk-up apartment.
    Klea had already locked and bolted the apartment door behind her before she realized the most truly odd thing about the stranger: for the first time in days she’d gotten no assault of unwanted feelings and images, in spite of the fact that he’d stood closer to her than anybody ever got who hadn’t paid in advance for the privilege.
    But he could hear my thoughts, oh yes he could, even when I wasn’t talking to myself like a crazy lady. Maybe he wasn’t just trying to get a freebie from the local hooker … maybe he does know how to stop what’s going on with my head … maybe … maybe … damn.
    “Kid,” she said, “I think you’ve screwed it up again. One more for the list.”
    There wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Moving slowly and carefully, she put the water-grain on the shelf by the stove, the bundle of greens in the cool-box, the marsh-eels in the freezer, and the bottle of aqua vitae on the table beside her bed. Then she stripped off her working clothes, stuffed them into the bag with the rest of her dirty laundry, and pulled on a plain white nightgown.
    She took a clean glass out of the cabinet and carried it over to her bed, where she filled it as full of purple liquor as her unsteady hands would allow.
    “And here’s to you, Klea Santreny … if the first one doesn’t do it, we’ll keep on trying until we get it right.”
     
    In spite of Tarnekep’s worries, Jessan was able to convert the bank draft into Raametan cash without any trouble. A sign at the gate of the landing field advertised a nearby establishment specializing in currency exchange; the street directions, in ungrammatical Galcenian plus three alphabets Jessan didn’t recognize, suggested that it handled a wide range of