Selene

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Selene dug in her wallet, pulled out a fiver credit to pay for the coffee, and swept the file together, jamming it back into her bag. What was it about werecain and Nichtvren? They weren’t quite enemies, and some Nichtvren controlled werecain, couldn’t they? Or so it seemed. None of Nikolai’s thralls were werecain—not that she’d seen, anyway. But there was something else, too, something she was forgetting.

  She couldn’t remember. Her memory wasn’t what it used to be, what with all the murder and screaming and changing into the walking dead. No, not dead. Undead. And bloodsucking.

  I’m really dealing with this quite well, she thought, and laid five carefully on the table. Her wrists ached savagely—the spurs and bone formations that were the last thing to Turn and solidify on a Nichtvren. The fine mechanisms of the claws were there, and nobody knew why they were the last thing to finish changing.

  Can the lecture, sister, and get the hell out of here. Danny’s voice, urgently whispering in the center of her head. The medallion warmed against her chest. Something’s wrong. Something’s tracking you.

  She eased out of the booth, sliding the strap of the bag over her head. Her nostrils flared. It was only a breath of scent, but she recognized it instantly, and the recognition froze her in place for a few precious seconds. Her pupils shrank, and the entire restaurant seemed to darken, a cloud passing over the booths and the few customers, who continued on with their meals, oblivious. One of them—a man in the window, his dark brown hair sleek as a seal’s head—lifted a cigarette to his lips. The smell of the cigarette mixed with that other reek, the one Selene recognized.

  Death and pain and blood, something male, ancient—and hungry.

  Danny’s killer. Whatever it was.

  Selene straightened. She stuffed her hand in her pocket and closed her fingers around cold metal. The gun. Is it out on the street? And why is it tracking me?

  Another realization hit her at the same moment.

  The curse. She hadn’t felt the swimming weakness or the slow burning of her curse since she’d murdered that poor man at the bus station.

  Am I not a tantraiiken anymore?

  She was still standing there, her fingers around the butt of the gun, looking down at the fiver on the table and the full cup of cold coffee, when every window along the front of the restaurant crashed inward on a shockwave that threw Selene back against the wall.

  ***

  Her body moved on instinct, the fierce joy of action slamming into her stomach. If she’d been human the thing would have killed her.

  Well, it still might, Danny’s voice said peevishly in her head.

  Her fingers dug into the plastered ceiling. She hung on the ceiling like one of those cartoon images of cats. If I had a tail it would be puffed up by now. Her bag hung down, the strap digging into her neck. It was a good thing the ceiling was pre-War plaster rather than shoddy acoustic tile, the tiles would never have held her.

  The thing was fluid and low, a shape of hairy darkness. It didn’t smell precisely like a werecain—that other smell, the smell of Danny’s killer, cloaked its furry stench. A hired hand. The helpless urge to giggle almost swallowed her whole. Or hired paw, har de har har.

  The ceiling was too high. The werecain thudded back down onto the floor, too heavy to leap straight up at her.

  Here I am clinging to the ceiling in a restaurant after I’ve murdered a bus-station janitor, and I don’t even know what this thing wants, except to kill me. Why? What did I do to deserve this?

  It leapt again, blindly, claws outstretched, twisting to thud down on the floor once more. The entire building shuddered when it did that. It’s dense, denser than even a Nichtvren. The lunatic desire to laugh rose up again, she shoved it down. This wasn’t funny, but her brain just wouldn’t quit. Get it, denser than a Nichtvren? And boy golly, they’re pretty dense.

  She didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do now. Her feet hung down, she could fold in half and get them up out of the way—but how long could she hang by just her fingers? The medallion burned against her chest, growing steadily hotter and hotter.

  The werecain leapt again and she flinched. The bag swung, and the creature’s claws whooshed through empty air, a low deadly sound.

  Is it after my bag? It doesn’t like my accessories? If it eats my feet can I grow them back?

  Her fingers slipped and the werecain growled. The sound made the tables rattle. Selene dimly heard screaming. Of course, some of the waitstaff would be left alive. Had it killed the customers? She craned her neck to look, could see nothing but shattered glass and tables, smashed wooden chairs. God, what am I going to do? There’s no way I can fight that thing, and sooner or later—

  The little bell over the door jingled. Selene twisted, trying to look. Couldn’t, she had to twist her legs up out of the way as the werecain leapt again and thudded back into the floor. Another wounded howl. Her fingers slipped again, and she jackknifed, trying to get her legs up around a light fixture—something, anything.

  Her fingers slipped free of the ceiling. White dust pattered down. She twisted in midair. If I land on top of that thing I’m as good as dead.

  She hit the ground, her feet thudding into a litter of broken glass and a tide of spilled coffee. It was amazing, her body moving without thought to let her land lightly as a cat. The black-furred werecain-thing scrabbled, doubling on itself. Claws and teeth, and a stink of something both physical and magickal.

  Realization struck her. It’s being used. That’s why it doesn’t smell like a regular—

  “Move!” He slammed into her from the side, knocking her down, the breath leaving her in a whoof! that would have been funny if she hadn’t been flying through the air and skidding across a glass-topped table to hit the wall.

  The beast snarled and leapt at her, but Nikolai moved first, something blurring silver in his hands. There was a solid meaty sound, and the werecain thudded to the floor, this time limply. It made a horrible little mewling sound and Selene gasped, sliding off the table, scrambling to her feet. Nikolai knelt in a swordsman’s crouch, the bright length of metal making a humming sound. Then he rose like a dark wave.

  Nikolai grabbed her arm with his left hand. In his other hand he had. . .well, why should that surprise me? A sword. She wasn’t up on her metals, but it looked slightly curved, a slashing blade far too large for a human. A type of longsword, maybe. His eyes burned black and her knees went weak.

  He held her by one arm, his hand clamped painfully around her bicep, and examined her from head to foot, his eyes flaring with deadly catshine. Then he nodded, shortly, and turned on his heel. Selene caught her breath again. The human habit of breathing, she thought, and tried to pull her arm out of his grasp. Even her newfound strength couldn’t help her. He simply shook her as if she was a kitten in a mama cat’s mouth, her teeth clicking together painfully, and dragged her away from the creature. A spreading pool of black tarry stuff was sliding out from the furred hulk. The smell was awesome, biblical, a roiling stench that would have made Selene gag and puke if she’d still been capable of it. Power boiled in the air.

  Nikolai’s hand around her arm sent a prickling wave of heat through her. The medallion was burning, white-hot, the mark on her throat suddenly flaring to life. I thought this was over with. The familiar weakness spilled through her. Nikolai’s face was set and white, his eyes an incandescent black, if such a thing were possible. He carried the sword as if it was natural and normal to walk around dragging a woman with one hand and carrying a bright unsheathed blade with the other.

  Nikolai kicked the restaurant’s door open and dragged her out into the street. Sirens whooped in the distance. He smelled like gunpowder and musk, the scent hitting the back of her throat like strong liquor. The familiar dampness between her legs began to throb.

  He chose right, south on Klondel, and set off down the sidewalk. Selene pulled fruitlessly against his grasp. He barely even slowed down, even when she tried to go limp and resist him that way.
Though when she did that, he did put the sword away, and stopped for long enough to shake her again, her head wobbling back and forth, and he slapped her, once, a light sting across her face.

  He could have broken my neck. Another wave of terror-soaked desire washed over her. “What are you going to do?” she gasped.

  He said nothing, but showed his teeth, fangs sliding out from behind his upper lip, his aquiline nose wrinkled. It was a silent snarl. The medallion was still white-hot. She was afraid it would start to cook her skin soon.

  “Nikolai?” It was her pleading voice, the one that she only seemed to have for him, the breathless begging. What if I’m still a tantraiiken? Oh God, Nichtvren live forever and if I have to do this forever I’ll. . .I’ll. . .He killed it. Did he kill it? “Did you kill it?”

  Nikolai shrugged, dragging her along. “It was werecain once,” he said, shortly, and his steps quickened. “I don’t know if it’s dead.”

  “What the hell—it was controlled! By whoever killed Danny!” She sounded shrill and terrified even to herself.

  “It appears so.” His jaw set. He didn’t even break stride. He had Selene’s right arm, so she couldn’t dig in her pocket for the gun without him noticing. “I doubt that even cursed steel can kill it completely, but the Power I used perhaps worked. Come along, Selene.” He jerked on her arm, hurrying her down the street. People stared, but the sirens behind them seemed to fade. O maybe she just couldn’t hear them through the rushing in her ears.

  “You Turned me!” Still trying to twist her arm free from his iron grip, and still accomplishing nothing. “You bastard, you Turned me!”

  “I did.” He stopped and pivoted. “I should have done so long ago.” He dragged her into a convenient alley, stepping over piles of refuse and puddles of oily liquid. The smell rose around Selene and she choked, but the medallion cooled against her skin and the stench became more bearable. “You were shot twice in the back, Selene. You would have died had I not shared my blood with you.”

  “I suppose it never occurred to you to let me die rather than Turning me into a sucktooth,” she blurted, horrified at herself but unable to stop. You made me into a murderer, I killed that man, my God, you made me do it!

  But she could have stayed out in the sun, couldn’t she. Her own weakness disgusted her. Again. She wanted to survive—was that so bad?

  He took her shoulders, his fingers biting into her coat, and shoved her against the wall. “No. It never occurred to me to let you die, Selene. You should thank your gods it didn’t.”

  “Fuck you,” she spat at him. “I hate you!”

  “Master.” He shook her, lightly. Her head bounced off the brick behind her, a brief flare of pain. “That’s the proper way to address your Maker. I hate you, Master. Say it.” His face, lit with the same light that blurred over everything now that Selene’s eyes were a night-hunter’s eyes, was drawn tight, his eyes burning holes, his fangs extended and pressing into his bottom lip. It should have looked ridiculous, corny—the image seen through the lens of every bad B-movie and pulp paperback cover that had survived the fire of Gilead and the greater fire of the War.

  Instead, she slumped against the brick, her fingers plucking at the pockets of her coat. She shook, great trembling waves of shudders passing through her from head to foot, her entire body becoming liquid again. I thought I was done with this. “Go fuck yourself,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. Maybe if she shut out his face she could stop shaking like a windblown leaf.

  The sirens whooped closer.

  The blow came out of nowhere, not a light slap this time but a hard smack against her cheek, it rocked her head back, bouncing off the brick, and she literally saw stars, bright little silvery points of light. “That was a warning,” Nikolai said quietly, propping her up against the wall again. She’d almost toppled over. Her breathing came in short little gasps. Heat pooled in her belly, raced through her veins. “You can take much more damage now, Selene. Do not force me to prove it to you. I have Turned you, you are angry. Very well. Better you survive to hate me than I mourn your passing. Why do you not understand this?” He sounded fractionally calmer. At least he didn’t hit her again. “You are not tantraiiken anymore.” His right hand left her shoulder, brushed back straggling strands of her blonde hair. His fingertips felt good, cool against feverish skin.

  “I still. . .” She trailed off, licked her lips.

  “Yes. But only for me now, since I Turned you. My blood in your veins, your curse in mine.” He stroked her cheek, touched her lips. “That is what happens when a Nichtvren Turns a tantraiiken. That is why you are such valuable pets, when you’re human. A bargaining chip, a counter, or a companion to while away eternity with.” His fingertip traced the sensitive outline of her lower lip.

  Selene’s breath jagged in, out. I don’t have to breathe. Her right hand fumbled for her pocket. So why do I feel breathless?

  Nikolai paused, retraced the line of her lip. “I am lonely, Selene, and I recognize much of myself in you.”

  Familiar heat flooded her. He was fucking with her head, again. She would be free of the curse if it wasn’t for him—and after so little time without the need pulsing in her body she couldn’t stand the thought of going back to it.

  You bastard. Selene’s hand found the cold weight of the gun. She slid it out of her pocket, moaning a little, her head tipping back. Nikolai’s touch almost drove all rational considerations out of her head.

  She pressed the barrel to his chest and pulled the trigger in one motion. There was a coughing roar, and Nikolai stumbled back.

  How many shots do I have left? Enough to kill him? Probably not. She squeezed the trigger again, and again. How many were in the clip Rigel had left her? How many could she afford to spend on Nikolai? And the werecain, was it even now hauling itself up off the floor of the restaurant and sniffing for her?

  Blood. She smelled it, the paranormal tang to it, and it smelled like food, as familiar as her own smell. Nikolai’s blood.

  You made me a murderer and got my brother killed, you wouldn’t leave me alone, you USED me! Why were tears standing out in her eyes, and why was she making the hurt little sound as if she’d been shot?

  Selene fired twice more. He staggered back, dropped to his knees, his arms spread. His head flung back, she saw the line of his chin and a flash of pale throat. His body jerked as she squeezed the trigger one more time.

  You bastard. Now I’m free—if I killed you. I hope I did.

  She bolted, scrambling for the end of the alley, her boots slipping in crud and muck but her new body leaping and running with preternatural grace and speed. The curse pounded in her belly, every nerve in her body screamed that she go back to Nikolai, let him do what he wanted, stand still while he caressed her, slid his fingers under her shirt and. . .

  Selene burst out of the alley and fled south, leaping along Klondel Avenue with all the speed she could possibly force out of her new body. Wind sang in her ears, and a crazy exhilaration burst inside her chest. She’d shot him and escaped.

  She’d finally escaped him.

  She was free. Whatever else happened now, she was free. For the first time in her miserable, awful, poor, hungry, dirt-trodden, whoring life.

  Free.

  Laughing like a madwoman, her hair streaming behind her, Selene streaked down the street faster than a human could, the sound of pounding feet and screeching laughter making the humans crowded in doorways or strolling on the cracked pavement flinch and scatter.

  I’m free at last. The tears spilling down her cheeks didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered. Not now.

  Free and sob-laughing, Selene fled into the night.

  Twelve

  The abandoned church on Trivisidero Street sat under gathering clouds, its windows blind and boarded. It was surrounded by a long stretch of pitted wreckage, the remains of carpet-bombing still echoing in the ground twenty years later. There weren’t enough people to fill this part of the city yet,
but it was only a matter of time. Another baby boom was right on course, though casualties had been mostly civilian in this part of the word and the sexes were now roughly equal because of that simple fact. In others places there weren’t any men left, in some–like in parts of what used to be Russye–there weren’t any women, mostly because of the huge community burnings.

  Thank God I wasn’t born over there. I wouldn’t have made it past puberty. Selene hefted herself over the ruin of the fence, some of it even old wrought-iron that hadn’t been salvaged, and landed balanced on two feet. Only an hour left till dawn.

  She’d read that Nichtvren had an internal clock that told them of the sun’s approach. It was another thing entirely to have that clock beating inside her pulse, an irrational compulsion to get under cover hunching her shoulders and quickening her steps.

  She found loose boards nailed over an opening, spent a little time carefully pulling two aside enough so she could slip through. When she was inside, standing on a set of wooden stairs, she pulled the boards back and hoped they would stay.

  Then she eased down the steps. The stairs were cloaked in blackness, but the greenish light everything emitted was enough for her to find her way down to a cellar full of boxes and other things stacked in close ranks. There was an old rust-pocked boiler furnace standing against one wall.

  Selene made a circuit of the whole place, chose a spot behind a pile of rotting wooden boxes labeled Lent and Easter in antiquated, faded handwriting. It was in the farthest corner of the cellar, no windows to spill sunlight in at her, and hidden from the door by which she’d entered.

  She slumped down, her legs trembling, and propped herself against the wall, sitting down with her legs splayed in front of her. The exhaustion was beginning to set in.

  Selene pushed her hair back and opened up the bag, pulled out the lump of material Danny had hidden his book and something else in.

  Her fingers shook as she unwrapped it.