The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt. 04

"I think if we don't allow him his wicked way, he'll explode!"

"That would be messy," Elena mused. She opened her legs and drew her fingers through her wetness. "Come and get it Mr Forrester."

"Hey, we were going to toss a coin for it!" Jess turned and adopted a similarly wanton posture, openly displaying her dripping sex.

"Choose."

The poor man was nearly cross-eyed as his gaze flicked from one to the other, but he looked suddenly cunning. "Shift over," he said and lay on his back between them, his cock doing a decent impersonation of a flagpole.

"You choose." He put his hands behind his head.

The girls stared at each other over his chest. "It's no good," said Elena, "I'll get my purse," and she rolled off the bed to trot downstairs. "No cheating now."

"She didn't say I couldn't kiss you," murmured Alan as he drew Jess to him.

Elena felt their passion interfere with her sense of self as she made her way down the stairs, and she clutched at the thick rope that stood in for a banister.

"Oi! Tone it down you two, I can't think straight!" she shouted and heard Alan and Jess burst into laughter. Elena was abruptly brim-full of happiness, and she did a little dance on the floor of the loft to celebrate it. When she stopped, there was a round of applause from the grinning faces looking over the edge of the mezzanine.

"Hurry up, girlfriend, we want to get to the good stuff!" Jess said and she turned to kiss Alan on the cheek. He wore the expression of someone that has unexpectedly won the lottery.

Elena discovered her tote behind the sofa and making sure that the other two were still watching, ostentatiously bent to display her assets to the gallery.

"Get your arse up here now!" Jess growled and Elena giggled. Proudly holding a fifty pence piece aloft, she made her way back up on to the mezzanine.

The others stood to welcome her and the three of them cuddled, kissing and caressing and stroking until Jess groaned aloud, "Someone, anyone, do something!"

Abruptly Elena pivoted to face her girlfriend, fell to her knees and lifted Jess' thigh on to her shoulder. Resisting the urge to simply bury her face in Jess' sex, she grasped Alan's tumescence and steered the purple crown to her lover's opening where it disappeared from view as Alan thrust with his hips. Jess' clit begged for some attention and Elena leaned forward to run her tongue over the sensitive bean.

Again there was the feeling of dissolution as they gave themselves to physical passion, unsure where one of them ended and another began. Male, female, Sapiens, Folk, all labels ceased to have meaning.

Jess' breathing accelerated to a series of hard pants and then she uttered a cry that was half groan, half scream. Alan grunted and climaxed a moment later. Elena wasn't sure whether she peaked but it hardly seemed to matter as she was swept along in powerful currents of mutual desire. What she did know was that Alan had withdrawn and she was now able to sup a delicious cocktail oozing from her lover's gaping cunt.

"No, no, a moment, love," gasped Jess. "I don't think I can take anything more right now," and Elena came reluctantly to her feet, her face glistening. "Oh," Jess moaned and proceeded to lick the erotic mess from Elena's face. Alan shook his head to clear it and discovered that, perhaps unsurprisingly, he was back in action.

Very shortly the tables were turned as Alan eased the bulbous head of his shaft inside Elena. She groaned aloud with the sensation of being stretched, subtly unlike the same feeling from a dildo. She hadn't had a proper cock since Andre, not counting the three week dalliance with Jack. He might have redeemed himself a little since then, but he was still way short of 'fondly remembered fuck' status.

Elena took his stiff member, possibly even stiffer than before, deep inside her, while Jess knelt in front of her to lash her clit. Delirious with lust, Elena heard herself crying out in time with Alan's thrusts as he withdrew almost completely before spearing into her once again.

***

Afterwards, Alan fell quickly to sleep and as his consciousness became more muted, it continued to give off wafts of smug self-satisfaction. Underneath, however, Jess detected a layer of vulnerability that found a curiously precise echo in Elena.

Her girlfriend was dreaming.

Thankfully the martial arts dance troupe were absent, and Elena sensed Jess was nearby, even if she couldn't see her. So this was a true dream, not some encounter with the uncanny. However, Elena knew with stone cold certainty that she might not be in that eldritch dream, but she was most assuredly in another.

She was in darkness, the air hot, thick, and oppressive. In the distance there was an orange glow with the silhouette of a man before it. With typical dream logic she was suddenly present at a forge. The smith might have been a man, but Elena felt it would be unwise to look too closely.

The smith took four bars of black metal and interleaved them with four bars of silver. He tied them together with wire and placed them in the fire. When they glowed white hot, they were drawn out and hammered on the anvil into a single bar, then clamped and twisted many times into a spiral. He continued to work, and Elena edged forward in fascination as the metal grew and changed like a living thing.

Finally, atop a long slim cone, a flat leaf shape rested on the anvil. Helical striations in silver and black marked the surface and it looked wickedly sharp. By now, any notion of the surreal was long gone, replaced by the sensation that she was witnessing the crafting of a very special weapon.

The polished silvery point was dipped into water. The smith reached in and plucked the tip from the spearhead but when he pulled the weapon from the bath, it was unchanged. However, in his other hand, between thumb and forefinger, he held a flawless, colourless jewel.

Setting the spear aside he retrieved a simple circlet of gold and set the stone into it. Elena stared at the symbols of kingship.

At the limits of hearing there was the ticking of a mechanism. She turned her head to try and hear it more clearly and the smith, his forge, the spear and the crown were gone.

There were many rhythms to the sound, all in various cycles, all harmonious, all synchronous. Elena became aware of the whisper of the fastest, just at the edge of audibility.

'hurry up - hurry up - hurry up - hurry up'.

It was the sound of an imminent deadline, the cadence of feet late for an appointment. Its inherent stress threatened to pull her in, and she wrenched her attention away.

At the other end of the scale there was the magisterial 'tock ... tock ... tock' of the grandest grandfather clock you ever did see. However, it too had an air of inevitability about it, the percussive sound of a countdown.

A countdown to what?

'hurry up - hurry up - hurry up - hurry up', it whispered in the darkness.

***

Jess dipped in as lightly as her training had taught her and discovered to her astonishment that she didn't have to intervene at all. With glacial slowness, the two auras were shifting, matching shades, synchronous patterns, and elegant movement, acquiring the characteristic resonance of entanglement, to the faint, barely perceptible, beat of a clock.

***

The loft 30 ^th May

Alan came awake slowly, memories of the previous evening trickling in and widening his smile. Elena's innate scent came to him, and he hummed in satisfaction. He turned his head to the side and lost himself in her cool grey eyes.

"Morning," she whispered.

"God, you're beautiful," he murmured, reaching to brush the hair from her forehead.

Footsteps sounded on the mezzanine stairs and Jess appeared with a tray of cups and the press. She put the tray on the fridge and sat on the edge of the bed, placing a possessive hand on Elena's rump.

"How are you feeling?"

He sat up. "I feel great. Actually, I feel better than great. I feel amazing!"

Jess simply smiled at him, and his expression faded. His fingers rose to his temples and Elena picked up on his unease. She looked from one to the other. "What's going on?"

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"Me? I didn't do anything. You did this all by yourself." Jess wore a tight little smile.

"Did what?" Elena asked, not liking Jess' expression.

"He's bound himself to you. He thinks you're the most perfect woman that ever lived. He's not wrong about that by the way." Jess trailed the tips of her fingers over Elena's thigh and smiled.

Alan had his face in his hands and was muttering, "No, no, no, no, no," over and over again.

Elena sat up and gave Jess a stern look. "And you had nothing to do with this?"

"No, but I thought it was a good possibility," Jess said blithely, still very pleased with herself.

"You don't understand!" he said frantically, "I'm investigating a manifestation of the Slànaighear."

Elena was baffled, investigating a what?

Jess snorted, "That's an old wives' tale."

"Our auguries have been squawking about it for the last ten days and she's spiking in significance!" he shouted, pointing at Elena.

Elena's perplexity grew. "Significance? Significance how?"

"The Trinity, you've made the Trinity!" he groaned. "The likelihood of instantiation has increased massively!"

"Nonsense!" scoffed Jess. "Elena is a mundane and can't make a Trinity."

"Be quiet!" Elena said sharply. "I am neither of the Folk nor part of the furniture. And that's another thing, you can stop saying 'I am of the Folk'!" she snapped. "It's not some universal get out you can quote every time you do something weird or stupid!"

Alan and Jess stared at her.

"But Elena, darling-"

"Don't 'darling' me! Not now!"

She rounded on Alan. "Explain what in God's name you are talking about in language I will understand."

Elena's aura was a complex mixture of steely grey logic and black anger, and Jess was daunted.

Alan turned to Elena with his best puppy-dog eyes and Jess tossed her head, did he really think that adolescent tactic would move Doctor Kowalski? Evidently, it did, as Elena softened imperceptibly. An undesirable consequence of their binding. She felt a little jealousy seat itself in her emotions.

Alan raised an eyebrow at her. "The Law of Unintended Consequences biting you in the arse, Calamar?" he said acidly, and turned back to Elena.

"I'm so sorry that you're mixed up in this, Elena. Our factions may be broadly aligned but we have differing views on the right approach. As we said last night, the Centrists are conservative and leery of attracting too much attention. Her lot are Adventists and favour more open engagement with your kind."

"My memory is perfectly good, thank you very much, and do not refer to me as 'your kind'," Elena gritted.

"Schoolboy error," Jess laughed, only for Elena to round on her.

"QUIET!"

The impact was like a thunderclap. Jess was white-faced. Elena had never spoken to her like that.

Elena started to pull on her clothes. "You and me," she said briskly, looking at Alan, "are going for a walk. On our own." She gave Jess a thunderous look, and her girlfriend's face was devastated.

Alan said nothing as he pulled on his own clothes and followed Elena as she strode swiftly to the door of the loft. Jess stared after them, conscious for the first time that in her eagerness to prove her value to her superiors, she might have miscalculated. Just a little.

***

In the park, Alan trailed Elena by a couple of paces as she marched angrily along, her aura trailing in slow complex forms. He'd never felt anything like it. Her determination, glittering and crystalline, hardened by the experience of forcing her way to the destination she had set herself more than a decade earlier. Then her trained and formidable mentation underneath, parsing, evaluating, calculating. Like Babbage's Analytical Engine on steroids.

No ... like Leviathan.

As he watched her walk, he unhappily appreciated that Elena was an ideal fit for the Slànaighear, if it wasn't for the fact that she was a mundane. Then again, the DNA had merely been indicative. If you can call a 95% confidence rating indicative.

Actually, they were probably all in very deep shit. Certainly he was.

They sat on Jess and Elena's special seat, looking out over the river. It was not particularly warm, and the sun only made fitful attempts to penetrate the clouds. The wind was keen down the river and Elena wrapped her arms around herself wishing she'd put on something more substantial before stomping out of the loft.

Her thoughts on her partner were stormy. She still loved Jess but by fuck she was beyond cross! They were going to have a shouting match and Elena was going to win, witchy powers or no. However, right now she was going to squeeze her new compadre for everything she needed to know.

Part of her observed that he was still irritatingly attractive, even the morning after, unshaven and with his hair mussed and his eyes slightly bloodshot. A tiny pulse of heat stirred, and she quashed it ruthlessly. More of Jess' meddling? Jess had promised her that she couldn't make anyone fall in love against their will. Promised.

"What exactly is entanglement?"

Alan's eyebrows came up. "Jess hasn't explained it?"

"Not really."

"Um, it's a defensive reflex. If two people are entangled, then they won't act against each other."

"So it's not love?"

"Yes and no, depending on your definition of love. If we're adhering to the modern hearts and flowers notion of romantic love, then no. However, if you use the Greek ideas of love then it grows out of storge, philia and agape." He paused and tried to judge whether he was dissembling.

Elena nodded. "We're back to the notion of the extended family and the tribe and the need to make allies." She waved a hand for to him to continue; every scientist loves data.

He smiled in acquiescence. "And it often goes hand in hand with eros. Even-" he caught her eye, and she gave him a warning look, "-mundanes can act as if they're entangled. For the Folk it's a bit of certainty, some icing on the cake."

"Huh," Elena grunted. "Now tell me of this instantiation," she ordered.

Alan let out a long sigh. "What do you know of the legend of King Arthur?"

Elena looked at him. "As in the Knights of the Round Table and all that stuff? That's all in the head of Geoffrey of Monmouth."

"You know that much. That's good but the fact that you know it at all is due to Thomas Malory, T.H. White and Hollywood."

Elena's brow furrowed. "Are you talking about transmission of the meme?"

Alan was impressed. Again, at a stroke, she'd seized on the crux of the matter and cut out half a dozen of the usual steps of explanation. He shook his head and then nodded.

"Yes. A significant fraction of the population has heard of the story. There have been more than ten feature films in the last half century. Even Monty Python made one."

Elena's anger was easing. "Yes, the Holy Grail. Not as good as The Life of Brian but still had its moments. Go on."

Alan warmed to his theme. "It's everywhere! There are television series - don't get me started on Merlin - 19th Century operas, no end of books, comic strips, anime, even foreign language films for God's sake!"

Elena laughed. "What's wrong with Merlin?"

He slapped his thigh. "Bah! Barely disguised homo-erotica spread extremely thinly over five seasons."

She chuckled. "You'd have preferred a chunk of gay porn in fancy outfits?" Her voice turned sly. "The wizard slips his hand into the young king's codpiece and brings him to full stiffness, stroking and squeezing ..."

Alan turned pink and looked Elena in the eye. "I'm not completely hetero but sexual preference is not a lever you can pull with the Folk. Our partialities are obvious to one another."

Elena was appalled, what on earth had possessed her? She was in such turmoil she missed the next thing that he said and asked him to give her a moment. After she'd collected herself a bit, she tried to make amends. "Alan, I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me! Please forgive me."

He considered her for several seconds before nodding acceptance of her apology and continuing.

***

"The tales are probably myth. But they find their way into all sorts of things. King Arthur incorporates most of the tropes."

Elena pondered this information. "Was Arthur the ... the," she stumbled over the pronunciation and gave up. "The Saviour?"

"No, Merlin is the Slànaighear in that tale and it's not really appropriate to translate that as 'saviour', healer would be just as accurate. Arthur is often called the Comasaiche, a sort of combination of fixer and enforcer. It's sometimes called the Claidheamh na Ban-righ AKA the Queen's Sword."

"But Merlin was a man!"

He snorted. "We're a matriarchy, all the important roles are feminine, even if the holder's a man. Actually, the way to think of it is that women tend to want consensus rather than conflict. The Slànaighear is the one that heals divisions and brings the Folk together."

"I'm guessing that there are people that like things the way they are, so you have conflict anyway?"

"That's what the Comasaiche is for."

Elena absorbed this and pursed her lips. "You said that I'd been spiking in significance. What did you mean?"

"We have an augury who's been going off like Cassandra in the last couple of weeks but she's vague on anything more than a general location or description." He chuckled, "We know that it's a woman and she's got blonde hair and grey eyes, so it could be you Elena, except you're not of the Folk."

Elena considered this and decided it was probably better not to be involved in this fantastical idea.

"What's the other thing, the even more unpronounceable one?"

"The Queen's Shadow, her Spymaster."

"So, who was that in Arthur's court?"

"She wasn't in Arthur's court. In the tale, it's Morgan le Fay. What destroys Camelot is not Lancelot's fling with Guinevere, it's Morgan's attempt to usurp control of Arthur."

Elena laughed. "So, Arthur really existed!"

"Probably not," Alan said. "There's no solid evidence for him except possibly as a minor warlord in the 6^th century but the story exists and is given credence by enough people that it can seek to take control of us when the stars align."

Stars align? Elena smiled wryly; this was her turf.

"So, in summary, what you're saying is that when the conditions are right, the collective beliefs of humankind fuel a powerful stimulus that uses the Talent as a way to drive your behaviour. Then the Talent becomes a vulnerability."

Alan stared at her. "That's about the size of it."

***

Now everyone's getting involved

The loft

Back at the loft, Jess sat on the small sofa wondering what was going on with Alan and Elena. She oscillated between guilt that Elena had not been terribly wide of the mark when she'd accused Jess of interference, and annoyance that she was in trouble when she hadn't actually done anything.

But then again, she'd intended to, even if she hadn't acted, and moreover she'd not done anything to prevent it either. Under the tacit agreement they had, Jess should have protected Elena from the consequences of interactions with her kind. Her mouth turned down as she appreciated the inversion.

And 'interaction' was such a bloodless word to describe the joyous congregation of the previous evening. She liked Alan very much, even knowing, and in some sense appreciating, his role as an opponent. She liked that Elena liked him and relished riding the cresting flood of their passion.