"Fucking hate inquisitors." Mei grumbled under her breath. "Then again, it is a pretty good way to make sure their kind doesn't have any competition. If there's nothing left to hunt them, then they can truly rule the Earth. But could you imagine what would happen if we could finally figure out how things work with them? How they charge their Words, or what they use to track us?"
"And we'd have to talk to one to figure that out," Dahlia pointed out.
Mei just hummed something that sounded almost like agreement. "Or make out with him in a club. Yeah, that might start some talk."
"Sure, before I knew he was a damned priest - " She paused. "Inquisitor. He's not a priest. That's going to take a bit to wrap my mind around."
"Which kinda makes it sound like you want to talk to him again," Mei teased. "I mean, he was hot. Sadly, that's one man you'll have to play with alone. He makes my skin crawl with his damned wards."
"My goal is to avoid him," Dahlia said.
Mei's lips split into a grin. "Which means you do like him! Otherwise, you would've said you wanted to kill him!"
Ignoring the teasing, Dahlia dug deep into her boot to find the stash of stolen cards. "We are outnumbered, out-powered, and too smart to consider anything but running, Mei. Every eidolon who tangles with the Church dies. One way or another, the inquisitors will track us down unless we fall off the radar. So, if we don't leave a trail, they might just forget we even exist. As long as we look like everyone else, they won't know how to find us."
"You hope."
"Yeah," she admitted. "I do. If we just vanish and lay low for a bit, they'll forget all about us. Maybe we should buy a nice little cabin in the middle of nowhere and let a few centuries pass us by. Just think about it... Being able to decorate and pick the color of our towels?"
Mei turned to face her, walking backwards. "Maybe a few family photos on the walls. Me, you, me, me, and some more of me."
"Dozens of you," Dahlia promised. "There's nothing more beautiful I can think of to adorn my home."
"Except you." The giggle that slipped out was honest. "The perfect blonde bombshell, ready to break men's hearts with a glance."
Dahlia squealed a laugh and caught Mei's waist. "Listen to you, the little Chinese hottie over here!"
"Yep." Then Mei pointed. "Now over here is the exclusive designer outlet called le Family Dollar." Mei pulled her toward a crosswalk. "I'm sure a Norse princess has never seen anything nicer."
"Wasn't a princess," Dahlia grumbled, rolling her eyes.
Mei winked. "I almost was."
"You were a whore."
"Concubine!"
"Same thing." Dahlia pressed the button to make the light change, refusing to release her lover. "I figure that's like a high-priced whore."
"More like a backup wife." Mei leaned back into her. "Dahl? You have any descendants?"
"Only the four. They died before I did."
"No nephews, nieces, or such who had kids?"
"None. Everyone died," Dahlia admitted. "The whole village was lost."
"Sorry." Mei gave her an understanding smile as the light began blinking for them to cross the street. "Took almost two hundred years before my line died out. Kinda a relief though, you know?"
Dahlia waited until they were on the other side before asking, "Why?"
"Because I don't want to sleep with my many-greats-grand kid. That's just gross."
"But don't you like the idea of knowing your life mattered?"
"Nope." They'd just entered the parking lot, so Mei took a straight path toward the doors of the store. "My life didn't make a damned difference. I was a plain woman in the Ming Dynasty. I'm just glad my father was poor enough that he needed me to work the fields. That's the only reason they didn't break and bind my feet."
"Rice?" Dahlia asked.