Fall Thru Ch. 04

"If you're not going to eat that, give it here," Fever, Cherry's girlfriend and my pseudo-guard, demanded with her usual gruffness.

I stared down at my plate. Yesterday had been mysterious meat kebab, the day before that, a cheese tart thing, and so on and so forth for a week. While all the dishes Tessa brought out of her kitchen tasted divine, I felt something in me crack.

An egg the size of my fist was face down on the sky blue and red platter, surrounded by a thick orange syrup that smelled like Jack Daniel's. It was nine in the morning. I was in strange clothes, eating strange food, hearing strange people speak my language in a strange city named Apricot. Everyone was nice, accommodating, yet I couldn't help feeling adrift. I was alone in a foreign world. No amount of calling home or watching TLC was going to change that. I poked at the jiggling egg. Hmm, maybe not egg.

I poked it again, and again, and again. Somewhere along the line I started to stab it, digging in with my serrated spoon, before abandoning the utensil and attacking the egg with my hands.

"It's not fair!" I screamed, nails scraping against the wood, scoring deeper grooves into the wide bowl.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I had a plan! School, money, marriage, children, and finally death. Vacations and heartbreak were thrown in for good measure, but how the hell was I going to find those things now?

I chucked the bowl at the wall, satisfied when it split and clattered to the floor. Fever and Cherry flinched, grabbing for their dishes as I waved my arm and cleared the table. Glass shattered, and wood scraped against stone.

"I'm not supposed to be here!" I wailed, pounding my fists against the table again and again.

Cherry slithered behind me, wrapping his arm like appendages around me. I kicked, screaming out as tears rushed down my face. I can't breathe! Shit, I can't breath.

Fever came in front of me, evading my legs to clamp her hands over my cheeks. Her fiery skin almost burned. Fire demons were, unsurprisingly, freakin' hot!

"Tilly," she yelled over my tantrum, "pull it together. You keep going ape shit and I'll splatter you across this room."

My screaming hiccuped to a stop. I so did not want to get splattered on anything. I liked myself right where I was.

"Good," Fever soothed. "Now breath, girl. Come on. In and out. In and out."

"I'm . . . not in labor," I snapped as I followed her directions.

She cracked a smile, showing a hint of fang. "Push, Tilly. Push."

I growled, reigning myself back in with every deep breath. "Bitch," I mumbled on the last deep breath.

"Guilty as changed." She pulled back, gave me a once over and nodded to Cherry. "Let her go, baby. She's good."

I felt his arms slide from around me, leaving a sticky trail in their wake. Cherry moved around me to his girlfriend and slapped her playfully on the butt. "Pay up, Fi."

Fever reached in her pocket and pulled out a scrap of something then passed it to him. Cherry's black eyes heated, before he tucked the piece into one of the pouches on his body.

A week, I thought, closing my eyes. Not too bad. I pegged the freak out much early, right after Duke and everyone left my room. But there had been no time to digest my situation, there was always too much going on. This morning I had nothing to do. My subconscious finally processed the fact that I was here for a year, with no way out.

I could barely even think past a day in this place. Maybe it would pass quickly, uneventfully. I mentally snorted. Flying pig chance in hell of that.

I cleared my throat as Tessa and her group of kitchen helpers stumbled into the room and gasped. "I—had an accident," I explained quietly.

The green dragoness gave me a look, tail swiping against the floor in agitation. Tessa directed the three behind her to clean up the mess, stopping to sigh every so often as she did it. Her tongue clicked as she spoke, "Looks like you lost your mind."

I bit my lip as I bent down and helped. A few minutes later, the room was cleaned and Tessa informed me I would not be getting lunch. "Punishment," she'd said.

I placed my elbows on the table and bridged my fingers. "I, uh . . . well—"

Fever waved it off. "Happened to me once. I forgot which day the portal closed, and thought it already had. I was a crying mess, calling Cherry and babbling about missing it." She laughed, "It's always bad, worse, than 'I can get through this'."

I smiled gratefully. Fever and Cherry were my guards, sort of. They kept me out of trouble and showed me the lay of the land. Fever was great because she'd been to Earth and Cherry was just a big teddy bear most of the time.

I sighed, unknotting my hands and sliding them through my hair. "I really can't sit here and do nothing for a year. I can barely do it for a day. Every time I think about it I just—" I shivered, shaking off the feeling of slowly falling into an abyss.

I stared at Fever, jealous of her super cool crimson hair. I'd tried that color once. It came out as burgundy, faded in a week, and left me with horrible bleached hair. Hers was natural, and went perfectly with her whisky brown skin and glowing gold eyes.

I moaned, "You have to give me something to do."

Fever cast a sidelong glance at Cherry and shrugged. "What do you want to do?"

"Anything."

She raised a brow. "Dangerous?"

"I'm not looking to shorten my life, but a few bruises wouldn't be a problem."

The demoness leaned back in her chair, golden eyes staring off into space. She blew out a ring of smoke without the help of a cigarette. Like everything I saw, first time was amazing, every time after was "the usual."

She leaned over and whispered something to Cherry. He barked out a high pitched laugh, "If you can get her to do it, I'll be amazed."

Fever's eyes practically glowed. "And I'll be wanting my panties back."

So that's what the scrap of lace was. Gross. "T.M.I. you two."

They whipped their heads to me. "What?"

I wanted to slap my forehead. Stupid colloquialisms. "Too Much Information."

Fever shrugged, and Cherry finished the rest of his meal.

Fever pushed back her chair, wood scraping on the jagged stone. The dining room was a fifteenth century lord's dream, except for the electric chandelier. It was its own Lego piece, separate corridors shimmering from every doorway.

She strode over to me, leather soles squeaking on the floor. The woman loved leather, the tighter the better, and anything low cut was just a plus. I had yet to see anything the didn't show off her cleavage, navel, and arms.

"Bookeeper," Fever announced as she hopped up on the corner of the table near me and crossed her legs. "I think you'd like the job. And we're a bit thin because of the disappearances."

"Disappearances?" I asked.

She waved the word away. "Don't worry about it. Interested?"

Bookeeper. That sounded about as boring a job as they came. "I've never been good at math. And gambling's not really my thing."

She frowned at me and looked over her shoulder at Cherry. His scaled shifted, reflecting green before shifting back and settling into black. His emotions were reflected in the changing color of his scales. Green for uncertainty or confusion. Pink for embarrassment or anger. Orange for amusement. I hadn't seen the rest yet, but I was sure there were more.

Fever turned back to me. "If they have Bookeepers on Earth, I'll tell you they aren't like ours. We don't do math, and we don't gamble."

"What do you do?"

"Go on adventures," she breathed. "See the world, find out all its secrets. We're like spies. We write everything down in a book, all the important information, and once a week we go to D and let him read it."

D was Duke. No one except me called him by his full name because it was rude. Of course, he let it slide for me because I was human.

"Okay," I agreed. "I'll do it. On a trial basis," I warned, wagging a finger. "When do we start?"

"Start?" Fever laughed and hopped off the table. "Why don't we ask D if you can even do it first."

I nodded and slid out of my chair. "Sounds like a plan."

"No."

I crossed my arms. "No?"

Duke looked up from the book he was reading and said slowly, "Yes, Tilly. No." He went back to his book.

I bit my lip and held back my bitchy retort. Duke only cared about three things: his wife, his kids, and his province. I figured that out the day after I arrived and all my human novelty wore off. If I was dying or in deadly trouble, I could talk to him, otherwise that was what Cherry and Fever were there for.

"Why?" I asked, shifting on the hard seat. His office was chrome and black, ultra-modern. Similar to the dining room, it was its own Lego piece.

He closed the book with a thump. "What did Milan say you could do the first day you arrived?"

I thought back. "Anything I want as long as it doesn't effect this world."

He nodded sharply. "Becoming a Bookeeper would be opposite that. You'd be finding out people's secrets and telling them to me. No one likes their dirty laundry known, Tilly.

"Besides that, what you write down could mean the start of a war, a feud. It could mean life or death for some." He paused and leaned forward on the chrome desk. "This job is not to be taken lightly, and it's not something you do to pass the time."

I opened my mouth to retort, but closed it. He was right, I just needed something to pass the time, but the job sounded interesting. I wanted to do it. From what Fever had told me on our jaunt to Duke's office, being a Bookeeper was like a spy, diplomat, and researcher all rolled into one.

My Women's Studies degree prepared me for life as a diplomat and researcher, also a debater at times. I was golden on those fronts, and the mish mash of Zumba and Self defense classes I'd taken in college prepared me to be the spy I never thought I'd be. I felt confident I could do it. And getting to explore the world I would be calling home for the next twelve months was doubly awesome.

I wanted this job. Bad.

"Look, Duke, I'm not doing this just because I'm bored. Fever explained it all to me and I really like the position, think I'd be good at it. You can pick where I go, for how long I'm gone, and when I go. I don't care, but I can't just live in this . . . place for a year doing nothing."

"Tessa could use help in the kitchen."

"I've burned Mac and Cheese," I said flatly.

"My assistant could use some help."

My eyebrows shot up. "So, you'll trust me to help your assistant—the one who handles all your business, personal and otherwise—but not as a Bookkeeper."

He flashed fang. "Point taken." Duke sighed and pushed back, lolling in his rolly chair. "Why a Bookeeper, Matilda?"

"Tilly, please. And why not? It sounds interesting, and it's right up my alley. Plus it's not like I could write it on my resume—the receptionist job, I would try though. You've got nothing to lose, and you don't have to see me and hear me bitch and whine."

"Which you do a lot," he muttered.

"What I'm trying to get at," I said loudly, ignoring his jab, "Is that me being a Bookeeper would affect your life in no way whatsoever."

"Unless you're speciest," he shot, righting his chair. "If you don't like a certain species or person that can affect what you write."

I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at Fever and Cherry who stood leaning against the wall. "Check out thing one and two. A serpent and a demon," I stressed the words. "You would know by now if I was a speciest nut."

A tick thrummed in his jaw, and his eyes flashed. He wanted to find a way to debate me, say I shouldn't be a Bookeeper. There were many reasons, all I which I would combat with the same quick, assuredness I had with everything he said. Now was just a battle of wills.

I decided to throw the gauntlet, and suggest a final reason. "I would be one less thing to worry about. Assign me a partner. Make me his responsibility. 'Cause if you don't, I might just decide I'm going through a crisis every morning at three . . . and four . . . and five . . . and—"

"Fine," Duke snapped. "Fever will train you and I'll find you a partner. You'll go on weekly assignments, and report back to me the second you step foot in my home. Understood?"

"Uh-huh." I smoothed a hand over the tight-fitted, jean skirt. "When do we get started?"