Excerpt: The Prey of Gods

Chapter One

Sydney

Sydney Mazwai cusses herself as the roundabout sucks her in like a sliver of soap circling the drain. She gets no respect on this piece of crap moped – rusted handlebars, no rear fender, no license plate, but there's no time to worry about being street legal when she's doomed to spend eternity doing clockwise circles in the midst of Beamers and Audis and tricked out droid taxis looking for an easy fare in the Arden district of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Buildings pass by again and again, jutting up into a cloudless sky. Sydney holds her breath and leans, cutting sharply in front of a tour bus, its blaring horn not helping her nerves this early in the morning. She passes eight beaneries on her way to work each day, but dropping twenty Rand on fancy coffee isn't an option. Not anymore. She'll settle for Ruby's tart brew at the salon. It tends to taste faintly of acetone, but it goes down smoothly enough. It's supposed to be for customers only, but everyone in the shop knows better than to get caught standing between this Xhosa girl and her morning Joe.

She cuts down an alleyway, kicking past black trash bags full castoffs from the Emporium they share an employee driveway with. Sydney props her moped up against the side of the brick building and takes her helmet inside with her. At least that has some value.

She stumbles in, beelines straight to the coffee carafe, and pours herself a tall cup.

"You're late," says Ruby, looking down at her with those eyes too wide for her face and an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips. "Mrs. Donovan is waiting. She's not happy."

Sydney glances down at her watch. She's three minutes early, but her clients expect nothing less of her than to bend space-time to accommodate their schedules. Especially Mrs. Donavan. Sydney rolls her eyes, grabs her alphie off its dock on the shelf, then puts on a smile that's somewhere south of sincerity but north of keeping her job.

"You appreciate me, don't you?" she says, clicking the alphie's on switch. The robot's screen yawns to life, and its spider legs extend down until they clink against the floor with the sound of a rat tap-dancing on a tin roof. Sydney strokes her hand over the smooth dome surface, and the alphie coos like a beloved pet – all preprogrammed, but it's nice to feel needed nonetheless.

"She's waiting!" Ruby's voice comes from out back as she snags a quick smoke.

Sydney grimaces, then slips into an apron. The alphie follows behind her obediently, carrying all her nail supplies, color palettes, and doggie biscuits -- staples of the job. Sydney tries not to let it go to her head, but she's the best nail artist Ruby's got. Ruby knows it, and the other ladies know it. They're shooting her scowls right now, in fact.

Mrs. Donovan is a hoss, but she tips generously when she's in a good mood. Very generously. It’s nothing more than a shallow display appreciation that makes Mrs. Donovan feel like there indeed is something beating in that rotund chest of her, but it’s not like Sydney’s going to turn down the chance to pay her rent on time for once.

She leaves the alphie at her station, then wades through the menacing stares of her coworkers, especially Gretchen Mpande who used to do Mrs. Donovan’s nails. Sydney smiles brightly at Gretchen, gives her a little wave with her fingertips, then broadens her chest to greet her most loathed customer.

“Mrs. Donovan! My heavens, you look radiant today.” Sydney says in the most saccharine voice she can muster, then switches to Afrikaans to earn some extra brownie points. “Like you swallowed the brightest star in the sky.”

Mrs. Donovan flushes, splotches of red on her paper white skin. Her features are striking -- sharp nose, brilliant green eyes, lips maybe a little too full for someone who claims pure Dutch descent -- though she’s hardly what anyone would call a beauty. Maybe she could have been, but the vileness inside her has leeched away any sort of hope for that, for sure.

“Precious, you’re too kind,” Mrs. Donovan says, shoving her way past Sydney and walking swayback towards her station. “Though it’d be kinder if you didn’t leave me waiting out there like a bag of dirty laundry. If it was up to me, Precious, I’d take my business elsewhere, but Sir Calvin Van der Pfeiffer just wuvs you sooo much!” Mrs. Donovan reaches down into enormous A.V. Crowlins purse, pulls a sleepy Zed hybrid out and aims his head at Sydney’s cheek.

“Good morning, Sir Calvin,” Sydney says, trying not to cringe as his reptilian tongue creeps along the side of her face. The best Sydney can guess is that he’s a whippet/iguana cross with his lean legs and gray peach fuzz fur peaking between patches of scales, but of course it’d be impolite to ask, implying that his creation was something other than the act of God.

Sir Calvin smacks his rubbery iguana lips, then immediate begins barking, which sounds more like something between a whistle and a sneeze, and it’s annoying as hell. Sydney fetches a doggie biscuit from one of her alphie’s compartments and snaps it in half.

“May I?” she asks Mrs. Donovan. “They’re from the Emporium, 100% organic ingredients.” Which of course is a lie, but it makes rich folk like Mrs. Donovan feel better. But Sydney doesn’t blame her. If she’d dropped half a million Rand on a designer pet, she probably wouldn’t want her Zed hybrid eating stale grocery brand biscuits either. Sir Calvin doesn’t seem to mind, and snatches it out of her hand before Mrs. Donovan even gets to answer. He curls up into Mrs. Donovan’s ample lap, and chews greedily, giving Sydney a long moment to regain her wits.

“So it’s a mani/pedi for you today?” Sydney asks pulling out a nail file from it’s sterilized packaging. “Special event this evening?”

“A fundraiser for Councilman Stoker,” she says, the councilman’s name practically oozing from her lips.

Sydney decides to pry. That’s half the reason why she earns the fat tips she gets. She’s a confidant to these ladies, stuff they wouldn’t tell their therapists or trust to put in their diaries, they spill to her with ease. She’s nobody to them, after all. Just a poor black girl stuck in a dead end job, struggling to make ends meet. She doesn’t swim in their circles, so who cares if she knows about their infidelities or indiscretions?

“He’s handsome, that Stoker,” Sydney says, buffing away at the ridges in Mrs. Donovan’s nails. Working two jobs, she normally doesn’t have time to keep up with politics, but rumor has it that Stoker’s about to throw his hat into the race for Premier of the Eastern Cape. He’s an Afrikaner, but he’s as genuine as the boy next door, and the rampant rumors about his enormous endowment probably don’t hurt his popularity either. Especially among those constituents of the feminine persuasion. “You know him? Personally, I mean?”

Mrs. Donovan fans herself with her free hand, rose splotches once again springing up on her cheeks. “The epitome of masculinity. Precious, if I weren’t married…” she trails off, then takes a moment to compose herself. “Yes, we’re good friends. Our families have been close for centuries.”

Sir Calvin begins yapping again, and Sydney hastily shoves the other half of the biscuit in front of him.

“Centuries, you say?” Sounds like the perfect opportunity to hear a long and convoluted story about how Mrs. Donovan’s family came to South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War with intentions of raping the country of its precious metals and gems. Not that Sydney needs a refresher history course since she’d lived through it nearly two hundred years ago now, but it’ll give her a chance to do the thing that’s the other half of getting those fat tips. Sydney grabs a small bottle of organic botanical oils and squeezes a drop onto each cuticle, then she begins to rub as Mrs. Donovan drones on incessantly about her lineage. Warmth begins to bud inside that empty space inside Sydney, right behind her navel, and it travels up and through her fingertips. She watches Mrs. Donovan’s nails lengthen, just a quarter inch – enough to notice, but no so much to raise suspicions. Sydney then rubs out all signs of imperfection and hangnails.

By the time she gets to the left hand, Sydney’s stomach has already started cramping, but nothing a couple of aspirin won’t take care of. When she’s done, she reaches into her alphie’s bottom compartment and pulls out a bottle of clear coat, keeping it palmed safely out of sight in her hand. The empty spot inside her grows as she reaches inside Mrs. Donovan’s head and pulls out the shade of the dress she’ll be wearing tonight. Sydney clenches her fist, envisions a nice complimentary color, and when she opens her hand, reveals a feisty shade of mauve.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” Mrs. Donovan says, looking down as the first coat goes on. “I swear, Precious, the colors you pick for me are always spot on. Sometimes I think you can read my mind.”

“With your skin tone, there’s not a shade that wouldn’t look lovely on you, Mrs. Donovan.” Sydney winces again the burn in the pit of her stomach, but manages to turn it into a convincing smile. Then Sir Calvin starts up with the yapping, and all at once she’s got a splitting headache, too. She goes for another doggie biscuit, but Mrs. Donovan shakes her head.

“Too much of a good thing,” she says, then leans back into her chair, eyes closed and fingers splayed carefully apart. “Don’t want to spoil his appetite.”

Sydney tries to tune Sir Calvin out, but he’s right there in her face as she gives Mrs. Donovan her pedicure, which is torture enough with those meaty bunions of hers and heels that make even the roughest Emory boards envious. Sydney knows she’s already pushed herself too far this morning, especially without the aid of caffeine, but she draws anyway, rubbing her warm hand under Sir Calvin’s throat. His bark mutes, though his mouth keeps moving, which angers him even more. He nips at Sydney, soundlessly, but drawing blood. Sydney seethes and gives him the eye. There’s no way this little monster is going to cost her her tip, not after all she’s put into it.

“Oh, what a playful little boy,” she coos at him, stroking his head, pushing thoughts of calmness into his mind. The emptiness inside her makes itself known, pressing up against her ribcage and threatening to break through. She forces it back, looking for any spare inch, just enough to make this damned Zed hybrid go to sleep, but his will is just too strong. Sydney promises her body that she’ll give it time to heal, no more drawings for the rest of the day, if she has to. A small cry of pain escapes her, but the Zed hybrid lies still in its master’s lap. Sydney doubles forward, catching herself on the leg of Mrs. Donovan’s chair.

She takes a quick glance around the salon, hoping her foolish antics have gone unnoticed, but Gretchen stares back at her fiercely, her thick jowl set, cheeks tight, eyes intense like they’re filled with the knowledge of every single one of her Zulu ancestors. She grabs a stack of towels and stalks towards Sydney’s station.

“Fresh towels,” she says perkily in English, before slamming them down beside the alphie, then whispers in Bantu so that Mrs. Donovan can’t understand. “I know what you are.”

Sydney gulps, then moves her attention to Mrs. Donovan’s heels, scrubbing feverishly at them with an Emory paddle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in return.

Gretchen clucks her tongue. “Umuthi omnyama,” she says, picking up a bit of biscuit, then crumbling it in her hand before storming off. Black muthi, dark spirits conjured through doggie treats nonetheless. Great. Sydney closes her eyes and sighs to herself. She’ll have to be more careful. If Gretchen thinks she’s a witch, it’s only a matter of time before the other ladies find out. Even if they don’t believe it, rumors are enough to cast suspicious looks in Sydney’s direction, making it harder to do those things she does.

A witch. She laughs at the idea, wishing things were that simple.

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