It was a beautiful night. The stars no longer looked quite so menacing and the wind was full of subtle beauty, its fingers playfully combing long grass in seawave ripples before touching her loose, messy hair. This was her very favorite part of the working day, never mind that she’d probably never see the sun again.
Not unless she started to go murder-crazy, that was. Would she have the strength of will to off herself before she was a danger to others?
“Fuck,” she said, drawing out the word long and soft. The night listened, as if it cared what she thought about anything;the feeling was immediate, not quite unwelcome, and downright unnerving.
What if therewasa cure? Examining the idea from several different angles returned the depressing verdict that the government would probably suppress news of that miracle even if they didn’t start trying to make vampire soldiers, just like they suppressed news reports about the monsters preying on humanity.
One argument in the online forums was that regular people didn’twantto know, and the interests of public peace required not peeling up the carpet to see the bloodstain squirming with maggots underneath. Others thought the governing bodies themselves were either full of monsters or beholden to them, which was either paranoiapar excellanceor par for the course. Either way, Simone had decided, it amounted to the same thing. A difference which made no difference, so to speak.
Game it out a little more. Subtracting government from the equation left a rich man—always one of the worst monsters in history, needing no help from any myth or folklore. This shady billionaire was probably looking for a way to weaponize the whole bloodsucking deal, not to mention seeing if the vamp-blood cure for shot knees, tinnitus, astigmatism, or several other run-of-the-mill medical annoyances could be made to turn a profit.
Wouldn’t one of the bloodsuckers have figured out a way to reverse vampirism by now, if it were possible? But they all seemed to go psycho instead.
Why didn’tshe? Or was she just living on borrowed time? Still, if she attended the meet carefully, after receiving evenhalfthe number Barry had given…
“Might be a good idea,” she told herself. “No harm in trying, I suppose.”
The dirty yellow taste of a lie lingered in her mouth. Any pleasure in watching the sky and listening to the wind’s low wandering song was soured by her own conscience as well as that persistent, unsettling sense of being watched. Her sharp vampire senses caught nothing wrong, not a hair out of place in the vast panorama of sky, grass sea, and distant dark mountains; the sensation was atavistic, not to mention creepifying.
Maybe she really was beginning to go down Psycho Lane. There was no way to confirm just yet.
She barely needed the clock in her bones to announce dawn wasn’t far off. The metallic note of deepest darkness had leached from the wind’s back, and now moving air held the subtle promise of another late-summer day creeping for the horizon. At least she was relatively safe during sunlight hours, with very little danger of a nosy sheriff wandering by. Finding good parking was an art she was well-practiced in by now.
Fuck it. She bounced to her feet, climbed back into her approximation of a home—better than the cushy ranch-style she’d shared with Curt, since it was completely hers, no matter how tacky—and embarked on the familiar ritual of getting ready for bed.
It wasn’t as soothing as usual, but that was to be expected.
CHAPTER 4
A volcanic dawnswell-shimmered upon the eastron horizon, throwing up gouts of red, gold, pink, orange. Safe in the shadow of long grass and dry anemic shrubs, the wanderer waited. During the deepest darkness, further layers of killing dust had sloughed free of his vision, his hearing, even his sense of touch as he caught lingering traces of her scent in the clearing. It was an agony to wait as night faded, and even worse to anticipate a heretofore-unseen protector returning.
Yet he had paid in painful coin for a marvelous, entirely worthwhile certainty. She was indeed unclaimed, and furthermore intended to sleep inside the vehicle. No sign of invisible seals, and even less of watchful, wrathful attention from another sanguinant. Now he was curious as to how such a mythical, beautiful creature came to be wandering about in this manner, and longed to hear her tale.
Was she simply waiting for a worthy guardian? He was savage enough to survive both fire and madness; he wondered if that was enough to hold such a nonpareil.
Mistform was denied to him between sunrise and dusk, but he could nevertheless slip soundlessly across gravel, a shadowin strengthening sunlight. The glare of Shamash’s eye scratched almost pleasantly along any bit of exposed skin. He vaguely remembered that at first his own eyes had watered and stung even on a cloudy day, but now the discomfort was minimal.
He had been daywalker before the disaster, he knew that much. For once, thinking upon the event did not drive him further into mental fracture. He could even separate threads of earlier languages from the spare, drawling tongue now current in this part of the country, heard as he watched mortals go about their brief, fascinating lives.
Occasionally his hide twitched, though, remembering old hurts. The great fire’s scars had been agonizing as they healed. He did not care to think upon the ocean of blood necessary to fuel that repair; he had drunk deep and often, risking the killing frenzy of glut. Lifted free by her scent, the peeling away of successive carapace-layers brought memories swirling where splintering chaos had once reigned; his ratiocination was shaky and the rest of him deeply distracted, the risk of overlooking simple dangers magnified for some short while, but he was certain of a few things now.
Yakum, he no longer remembered his mortal life or clan, nor his becoming sanguinant.Dì èr, he was somewhere upon the westron side of a rich, varied continent, and had held this territory for a century plus-some-while.Tertius, he must learn quickly of the world’s current state.
Most importantly, nothing could be allowed to harm this sweet, toothsome brown-haired leman, or jeopardize his claim. A prodigy had appeared in his steadily degrading existence, a salvation which now must be taken, cared for, sheltered.
Kept.
Lack of mistform thankfully did not mean he was denied other abilities. The vehicle’s side door was locked, though the mechanism was simple and yielded to the invisible pressureany sanguinant capable of reaching Elder status could deploy in varying proportions. A better deterrent was something which felt to his mental grasp like an iron bar, resting in brackets—so she did take some few precautions with her bolt-hole.
Good.
Not nearly enough, however. It was indeed an iron bar, and he settled it carefully back in its serviceable, slightly uneven handmaids. Had she bolted them on herself? The fragrance of his new prize enfolded him, strong and sure, stripping away choking dust and killing calcification, sending pleasant shivers through ageless flesh.
Cramped yet ruthlessly tidy, a complete house upon wheels in the style of home-ships or some nomadic caravans. A tiny galley innocent of dirty dishes—she did not require mortal food, though such fare could be pleasant, even luxurious to sanguinant—and cabinets of thin pseudo-wood, blinds fitted into and drapes drawn over every aperture. Even the glass-eyed front, where a driver and passenger would sit at relative ease as the carriage raced over paved roads, was shielded by ingenious lids made of cardboard, thin metal rods, and reflective fabric. Windows along the sides also bore extra curtains, turning the vehicle into a dim, breathless cave.
A tiny watercloset to the rear, bearing the dry faint tang of bleach. She was a cleanly creature; he took another long inhale and her scent worked into the bottom of his lungs, teased at his fangs, reknit the aching shards inside his skull more firmly. Unfamiliar peace swamped him, banishing the rage, the grievous terror and numb apathy, the unrelenting torment of an incomprehensible world.
On a shelf above the driving-seats, a cavern arranged very much like a trundle bed emitted drenches of that soothing, magnificent fragrance. The subliminal hum of her presence, adivine creature slumbering—a fledgling, caught in the grip of daylight rest, saw and felt nothing until dusk.