Chapter 26
Home Again, Home Again
Vigau, Arielle, Bonaventure
It certainly looked like the door to Giger's house, but after so long, it did not seem real. Just to be sure, he pinched Gally's cheek.
"What are you doing?" she asked in dull annoyance.
"I'm checking to see if I'm dreaming," Giger replied.
"You're supposed to pinch yourself," she said, seizing a chunk off the side of Giger's belly.
In a display of the sort of maturity you would expect for a man his age, Giger responded to this by pinching harder and Gally retaliated in kind. There was little telling how this battle of wills might escalate, but Mordekai stood in front of them and flicked both of their foreheads. This succeeded in breaking the stalemate as the hands doing the pinching were redirected to holding the stricken foreheads.
"If you two must flirt, you can at least have the decency to wait until we're inside," Mordekai said.
He had played that card one too many times, so instead of flustered denials, all the two of them did was exhale an exasperated sigh.
"You breathe as one," Mordekai said with a grin. "If only Kamellia and I were in such perfect synch."
Giger's annoyance at Mordekai went up a couple notches. It was bad enough when he was talking about answering Kamellia's long-held unrequited feelings for him when he was in the body of a twelve-year-old boy, but what was he intending to do now that he was in a woman's body?
Mordekai was apparently having the same thoughts as he looked down at himself and said, "I can't have her see me like this."
He closed his eyes and his body began to shift and grow. His jawline squared and the rest of his features became sharper and more angular. When the transformation was complete, he looked much as Giger remembered him from the days before the Vigau Incident, only significantly younger, around twenty or so like his female form. If it was frustrating to see how attractive he was as a woman, it was no better seeing him as a man. Even Gally's eyes widened a little when she saw him.
His voice now a rich baritone, Mordekai said, "That's better."
"What happened to the Star Seed having the stronger form?" Giger asked, trying not to let his annoyance show too much.
"It's like flexing a muscle, Giger," Mordekai explained. "At this point, I could take just about any shape I pleased so long as I maintain my concentration."
Giger had to bite his tongue before asking if Mordekai could pick a shape a little less easy on the eyes. He could already imagine how Kamellia would react and he was not particularly eager to see it.
Mordekai, for his part, actually looked a little unsure of himself as he was about to knock on the door. A number of choice curses came to mind.
Taking a breath, Mordekai said, "Well, here we go."
He knocked on the door. They had practiced a particular knock to let Kamellia know it was them when they returned. Hopefully she had not forgotten it.
Mordekai had to knock a second time before they could hear the squeak of the hinge as the spyhole opened.
"Hello there, Kamellia," Mordekai said. "We're back."
"Mordekai? Barz? Oh... Oh, my..."
Giger rolled his eyes.
"Give me just a minute to get things in order," Kamellia said. "Just a minute, please."
The spyhole closed and they could faintly hear the sound of hasty footsteps inside.
"What the hell's going on in there?" Giger asked. "What things does she need to get in order before I can go into my own damn house?"
"Come now, Giger," Mordekai said. "A lady needs time to prepare herself."
The thought of Kamellia primping and prettying herself to look good for the young and handsome Mordekai was yet another thing to add to Giger's annoyance.
To take his mind off the things that were annoying him, Giger asked Mordekai, "Are you sure things are going to be alright over there?"
"Over where?"
"In Nylos."
"Central has lost control of its two Mages' Guilds and lacks the resources to launch an effective amphibious assault. Our friends in the Cerberus Guild have been brought to heel and even if you still doubt them, we have my other half keeping an eye on them."
Before they made their return to Bonaventure, Mordekai made a copy of himself to maintain his hold on Central-Prime. Normally you could only sustain a copy for a short time and at a relatively close range, much as Giger himself had done when he confronted Countess Ariana, but these limitations did not seem to apply to Mordekai with the sort of power he now wielded.
"Don't tell me you miss the smell of those dens," Mordekai said with a wry grin.
"I'd rather cut off my nose than have to smell that again," Giger grumbled.
"It was time to move on," Mordekai said. "If I hadn't, you would have taken Galatea and run off."
So he saw through that, did he? Giger was not surprised, but he was not happy about it either.
"Besides," Mordekai continued, "it's as I told you. I wanted to take stock of the situation elsewhere and coordinate our response."
"It's not looking like there's much response to coordinate," Giger replied. "The Witch-hunters are out in force and have rounded up just about everyone. We're lucky they haven't gotten Kamellia."
"I had faith in my star pupil," Mordekai said. "Didn't you?"
"More like I know better than to underestimate the damn Witch-hunters."
"Well, I'm sure she'll have plenty to tell us. Now, what's taking that girl?"
It felt strange hearing Mordekai call the woman who birthed him 'that girl', but old habits die hard, Giger supposed.
Giger could not think of another topic and was starting to get impatient when the door finally opened. Kamellia was wearing a black schoolmarm-ish dress and ushering the way in. There were six maids and two young manservants lined up, four and four. The maids curtseyed and the manservants bowed, saying in unison, "Welcome home, master."
One of those maids, Prissy in her human form, promptly broke ranks to spring into her master's arms.
"Gi~ge~r!"
Giger caught Prissy before she could tackle him to the floor, but this left him defenseless as she kissed him. There was a lot to process at the moment, but one particular thought screamed in his mind.
What the hell's going on here!