Back downstairs, he swung through the kitchen and picked up the strip of wallpaper with the male's face on it. Eating up the features with his eyes, he found himself getting bluetick hound dog excited even though he was still aching all over.
The hunt was on and he knew who else to use. There was a crew of five lessers who he'd worked with on and off during the past couple years. They were good guys. Well, good was probably the wrong word. But he could deal with them, and now that he was Fore-lesser he could give them orders.
On his way out the front door, he tugged his hat into place and tipped the brim to the dead people. "See y'all later."
Qhuinn walked into his father's study in a bad mood, and he sure as hell didn't expect to leave feeling all glowy and shit.
And there you go. The second he entered the room, his father let one side of the Wall Street Journal flop loose so he could press his knuckles to his mouth, then touch each side of his throat. A quick phrase in the Old Language came out in a mutter, then the paper was back up in place.
"Do you need me for the gala," Qhuinn said.
"Didn't one of the doggen tell you?"
"No."
"I told them to tell you."
"So that would be a no, then." Like asking the question in the first place, he pressed for the answer just to be a pain in the ass.
"I don't understand why they didn't tell you." His father uncrossed then recrossed his legs, the crease in his slacks as sharp as the lip on his glass of sherry. "I really only want to have to communicate things once. I don't believe that is too much - "
"You're not going to say it to me, are you?"
" - to ask. I mean, honestly, the job of a servant is self-evident. Their purpose is to serve, and I really don't like repeating myself."
His father's free foot tapped at the air. His tasseled loafers were, as always, by Cole Haan: pricey, but no more showy than an aristocratic whisper.
Qhuinn looked down at his New Rocks. The treaded soles were two inches thick at the ball of his foot and three inches at his heel. The black leather went up to the base of his calves and was crisscrossed by laces and three boss chrome buckles.
Back when he'd been getting an allowance,before his change hadn't cured his defect, he'd saved up for months to get these mean-ass motherfucking shitkickers, and he'd bought them as soon as he could after his change. They were his prezzie to himself for living through his transition, because he knew better than to expect anything from the parents.
His father's eyes had nearly popped out of his establishment skull when Qhuinn had worn them to First Meal.
"Was there something else," his father said from behind the WSJ.
"Nah. I'll get good and ghost. Don't you worry."
God knew he'd done it before at official functions, although really, who were they kidding? The glymera was fully aware of him and his little "problem," and those cobassed snobs were like elephants. They never forgot.
"By the way, your cousin Lash has a new job," his father murmured. "At Havers's clinic. Lash fancies becoming a doctor and is interning after his classes." The newspaper flipped around and his father's face briefly appeared... which was a curious killer, because Qhuinn caught the wistful cast to his old man's eyes. "Lash is such a source of pride for his father. A worthy successor to the family mantle."
Qhuinn glanced at his father's left hand. On the forefinger, taking up all the space beneath the big knuckle, was a solid gold ring bearing the family's crest.
All the young males from the aristocracy got one after they went through their transitions, and Qhuinn's best friends both had theirs. Blay wore his all the time except when fighting or out downtown, and John Matthew had been given one, although he didn't put it on. They weren't the only ones with the flashy paperweights, either. In their training class at the Brotherhood's compound, one by one the trainees were going through the change and showing up with a signet ring on their finger.
Family crest pressed into ten ounces of gold: five thousand dollars.
Getting it from your father when you became a true male: priceless.
Qhuinn's transition had occurred about five months ago. He'd stopped waiting for his ring four months, three weeks, six days, and two hours ago.
Roughly.
Man, in spite of the friction between him and his dad, he'd never thought he wouldn't get one. But surprise! New way to feel out of the fold.
There was another rustle of the paper and this one was impatient, as if his father were shooing a fly away from his hamburger. Although, of course, he didn't eat hamburgers, because they were too common.
"I'm going to have to talk to that doggen," his father said.
Qhuinn shut the door on his way out, and when he turned to go down the hall, he nearly bumped into a doggen who was coming from the library next door. The uniformed maid leaped back, kissed her knuckles, and tapped the veins running up her throat.
As she scampered off, muttering the same phrase his father had, Qhuinn stepped up to an antique mirror that hung on the silk-covered wall. Even with the ripples in the leaded glass and the blackened flecks where the reflective part had flaked off, his problem was obvious.
His mother had gray eyes. His father had gray eyes. His brother and sister had gray eyes.
Qhuinn had one blue eye and one green eye.
Now, there were blue and green eyes in the bloodline, of course. Just not one of each in the same person, and what do you know, deviation was not divine. The aristocracy refused to deal with defects, and Qhuinn's folks were not only firmly entrenched in the glymera, as both were from the six founding families, but his father had even been leahdyre of the Princeps Council.
Everyone had hoped his transition would cure the problem, and either blue or green would have been acceptable. Yeah, well, denied. Qhuinn came out of his change with a big body and a pair of fangs and a craving for sex... and one blue eye and one green eye.
What a night. It had been the first and only time his father had lost it. The first and only time Qhuinn had ever been struck. And since then, no one in the family or on the staff had met his stare.
As he headed out for the night, he didn't bother to say good-bye to his mother. Or to his older brother or sister.
He'd been sidelined in this family since the moment of his birth, set apart from them, benched by some kind of genetic injury. The only saving grace to his pitiable existence, according to the race's value system, was the fact that there were two healthy, normal young in the family, and that the oldest male, his brother, was considered acceptable for breeding.
Qhuinn always thought his parents should have stopped at two, that to try for three healthy children was too much of a gamble with fate. He couldn't change the hand that had been dealt, though. Couldn't stop himself from wishing things were different, either.
Couldn't keep from caring.
Even though the gala would just be a bunch of stuffy types wearing gowns and penguin suits, he wanted to be with his family during the glymera's big end-of-summer ball. He wanted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother and be counted for once in his life. He wanted to dress up like everyone else and wear his gold ring and maybe dance with some of the high-bred, unmated females. In the glittering crowd of the aristocracy, he wanted to be acknowledged as a citizen, as one among them, as a male, not a genetic embarrassment.
Not going to happen. As far as the glymera were concerned, he was less than an animal, no more suitable for sex than a dog.
Only thing missing was a collar, he thought, as he dematerialized to Blay's.
Chapter Four
Over to the east, in the Brotherhood's mansion, Cormia waited in the library for the Primale and whoever it was he thought she should spend time with. As she paced from couch to club chair and back, she heard the Brothers talking in the foyer, discussing some upcoming fete of the glymera's.
The Brother Rhage's voice boomed. "That bunch of self-serving, prejudicial, light-in-the-loafer - "
"Watch the loafer references," the Brother Butch cut in. "I have some on."
" - parasitic, shortsighted motherfuckers - "
"Tell us how you really feel," someone else said.
" - can take their fakakta ball and blow it out their asses."
The king's laugh was low. "Good thing you're not a diplomat, Hollywood."
"Oh, you gotta let me send a message. Better yet, let's have my beast go as an emissary. I'll have him rip up the place. Serve those bastards right for how they've treated Marissa."