It was silver. Not entirely, of course, but a layer of sterling over something much harder, which apparently, go figure, was one bit of folklore that actually had a claim to truth. Blisters rose wherever the metal touched, bursting and re-forming with agonizing regularity as her wracked body tried to escape both the bonds and the terrible foreign substance busy making her every vein a stream of twisting, convulsive fire.
What had the old vamp said? Something about young fledglings—but that was useless, he was left behind in the Continental Hotel, and Simone couldn’t even begin deciding if this was worse than being trapped in an airless space behind ‘seals’.
At least he hadn’thurther. Fucked her to hell and gone, sure, but not poisoned or… or betrayed her. Maybe he was actually honest about what he wanted or intended?
The point was, for a bloodsucking hurricane of a monster, ol’ blue-eyed John was looking comparatively good right now.
She barely noticed when the helicopter landed, despite the jolt wringing a miserable half-choked cry from her raw throat. The whine of the rotors slowed; a metal shelf shuddered, rattled, and the plastic sled was drawn out into a burst of cold predawn air redolent of pine, freshness, and a peculiar thinness meaninghigh altitude, don’t go for a jog just yet. There was a squeak anda groan as the sled was thumped atop a metal cart, its wheels rattling over what felt like frost-heaved pavement, and she tried to blink, to gather impressions.
A mountainside cresting like a dark wave, blotting out the horrible, dangerous grey haze on the horizon. Smaller electric lights blinking, the helicopter’s whine cut off clean as a knife-slice, a gush of gasoline smell accompanied by a patter of running feet.
“—make it downhill to Aspen for breakfast,” someone called, before the waning stars were blotted out by a roof. Simone was hauled into a giant mouth carved from sheer rock, her entire frame shaking and shivering as the vamp infection fought with poison, hoping he wouldn’t jab her again.
The wheels smoothed out, clattering against smoother flooring. More heartbeats and running feet, excited voices. Simone’s hands ached, fingers contorted as her claws slid free and retracted in spasms like her fangs, and now a new and more terrible torture was rising.
The thirst-spot at the back of her throat dilated all at once. In a moment between waves of muscle-grip wringing, she tried to turn her hands, to drive her claws into the sled. The urge to rip, tear, strike out wildly even if her limbs wouldn’t fully obey because they were locked by toxin-flooded muscles poured through her, the last desperate attempts of a tied-down animal sensing the approach of black nothingness.
“What the fuck?” Barry, nearly hysterical. “It’s killing her, you can’t… Jesus, man, it’s killing her!”
“Get this into the lab!” Elton Huske bellowed, for once without that nasal, wheedling California accent. “I’ll fire every fuckin’ one of you if we don’t get some fuckin’ samples, nowmove!”
Dawn grabbed Simone while her body was still convulsing, and the thirst followed her past the threshold for a few moments before dropping away.
Nothing, then. Not even relief.
CHAPTER 22
Tumblingto earth as the sun lifted its massive fiery rim from hoary, mist-drenched horizon, then Jonathan’s boots landed heavily next to a small, glass-clear mountain stream, dislodging a spray of pebbles. His eyelids fell closed; he groped internally for that subtle unmistakable whispering of the Blood’s connection, strengthened by deep feeding yet lost as a fledgling’s daylight sleep took hold.
His leman must be unconscious now, possibly gravely wounded. Had the mortals left her to the sun’s not-so-tender unmercy?
If they have, I will find them and make them regret it before they die. Then I will kill every other mortal I can reach. I will wipe this entire world clean before I die of calcification, and those of the Blood will starve or grow stupid upon animal claret. The thought was cold, crystalline, and clove a tide of rising whispers with its sharp razor gleam.
His skull was full. The madness was returning, not in tiny dribs and drabs with the slow passage of mortal years but trickle-to-flood as a melting glacier. Eventually a jagged crack might open in the floor of his consciousness where the animal ofsurvival lived, the creature grown strong and ruthless with aeons of hunting, drinking, hiding.
He opened his eyes. The chase must now continue under different conditions; fortunately, there were other methods.
Which required careful decision.
Aspens shivered in strengthening golden mistglow; the stream chattered happily. Perhaps the landscape was beautiful, but all Jonathan saw was rock, dirt, wood, the entire world a soulless painted panel unblessed by his leman’s presence. If she were beside him at this moment…
But no. Addiction tugged at his veins, the thrall running sharp rowels all along his bones. A fading ghost of her scent clung to his clothes, his fingers, his tongue; he strove for a moment of stillness and clarity, in order to use any following effort most efficiently.
Bitch might wake up in transit, the ferret-faced man had said. At the moment Jonathan—he clung to the name, an anchor amid dark, unsteady waves—had been laboring under the assumption of an escape attempt aided by mortals, which he could see now was certainly not the case. This was acapture, andtransitmeant they had taken his treasure elsewhere.
Most unwise, to touch a sanguinant’s leman. Even more so totakeone. He had been traveling in a reasonably straight line so far, chasing the whirligig-craft.
Helicopter. Use the proper words; do not forget how she likes you to speak.
A shake of his head, one hand flashing to close around the bole of a slim sapling leaning to look at its own wavering reflection. A slight groan, bark and inner tissues compressing, and its branches’ shimmer was reminiscent of his leman’s trembling, hopefully with pleasure but more likely with overwhelming fear.
How can you not remember? It’s your name.
He had not yet time to teach her even the barest of essentials, and had not learned more than a few tantalizing hints of her past and preferences. If he were ever to discover more, he must be swift and canny now.
No, it was not like his cautious Simone to be thus taken in—or was it? Her method of hunting fledglings had clearly been to wave herself before them, unaware that her very scent made them desire-drunk; perhaps she risked herself as a matter of course?
A habit he must deter; he would never again allow her to wander past arm’s length.