Selene

by Lilith Saintcrow

Nothing. No tingle of Power in the air. No sound of his pulse.

  There is no comfort in alone.

  She scrubbed at her face. Soot crackled, fell off, drifted on the floor.

  Her black bag lay forgotten by the side of the bed. Selene stared at it, fixedly, for a few long minutes, her jaw slack and her pupils dilated in the dim light. She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively.

  Finally she pitched forward, her palms meeting the wooden floor with a grating shock that clicked her teeth together again. Her lip stung. Her shoulders ached savagely. Her wrists were twin bracelets of agony, and her legs refused to fully obey her.

  She crawled across the floor.

  Finally, she reached the bedside. She flipped the bag open with trembling hands and slid the athame free. The blade glinted, sharp steel undimmed by blood. There was an echo, or did she imagine it? A faint breath of Danny’s wards, lingering in the wood and steel.

  Oh, Danny. Selene held up a fistful of her hair, set the knife close to her skull, and started sawing.

  It took a while, but finally she finished. Each handful of hair she tossed over Nikolai.

  His body, she told herself. Grigori had stabbed him through the heart. And Nikolai had been burned and dangerously drained even before that fatal wound.

  She stared at the knife’s gleam, clasped in her hand.

  The she jerked herself up onto her knees and flung the knife at the wall.

  If it had cried out when it left her hand, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, it only made a thin whistling sound and buried itself, tchuk!, hilt-deep in the paneling.

  Her tarot cards, in their hank of red silk, were next. She scattered them all over the bed. The Priestess landed on Nikolai’s unmoving, bloody chest. The Four of Wands landed on his right hand. A thick drift of cards slid down to rest in the crevice between his body and the mattress on either side.

  When she flipped over the Death card she hesitated only a little before she laid it gently on his forehead.

  She tore the flannel shirt into strips and scattered them on the bed too.

  What the hell are you doing? she thought dimly.

  The only thing I know how to do now. I’m giving him the best sendoff I can. In the camps they would just leave the bodies at pickup points for mass burial. The sendoff came afterward, with home-brewed hooch and filthy jokes, keening songs and fistfights.

  But she was here. She would give what she had.

  Finally, she dug out two quarter-credit coins—emergency payphone, help, my brother called me. . .he’s a shut-in, something’s wrong—and laid one on each eyelid. They glittered at her, winking.

  Dawn’s approach weighed her down with lead.

  Selene’s arms trembled. She braced them on the mattress and leaned over, pressed her lips to Nikolai’s charred cheek. The skin was cold and leathery. There was none of the cold pulsing Power that had hung over him before.

  “Nikolai,” she said against his face.

  What are you going to do? Danny’s voice, awed and reedy. She found she didn’t care if he was dead and really speaking to her, or if she was talking to herself. It didn’t matter. What are you going to do now, Lena?

  Selene hitched herself up to her feet. She stumbled to the door.

  It took her two tries before she could get the iron bar down from the brackets. They’ll come to bury him, or burn him. He’ll have planned something for this, of course he would.

  The thin edge of numbness between her and the huge crashing blackness grew a little thinner.

  I’m free.

  She dropped the bar with a clang. Then she dug under her ruined tank top and pulled the medallion over her head. The chain caught in a tuft of hair and she yanked. There was a moment of pain, the chain ripping free, then she turned the medallion over in her hand, tracing the lion’s head with one soot-blackened, bloody finger.

  Selene swayed on her feet. Her wet boots made little squeaking sounds.

  She laid the medallion over his broken, laced hands. “I don’t know what this is,” she husked. “Isn’t that ridiculous? All this time, and I don’t even know what this is.”

  The bed shifted, just a little. Selene put her hands around one of the bedposts and pulled. If the nest is attacked, you will find a safe passage out. It is hidden behind the bed, and will respond only to the medallion. . .I would ask that you stay.

  Sure enough, behind the headboard and a fall of red velvet was a small wooden door. It swung back when Selene squeezed behind the bed and pushed on it with tented fingers.

  The ‘passage’ was a tunnel carved out of solid rock. I had no idea, Selene thought through the soupy haze of exhaustion. She slid into the tunnel—it was only four feet high. As soon as she was completely in, the door shut and the green glow of total darkness descended on the tunnel.

  I’ve got to get out of here, find a place to sleep for the day. Then, tomorrow night, I can find a bus, or even a transport. I’ve got enough money for that. Get out of here, go somewhere.

  I’m free. He’s dead and I’m free.

  Why do I feel like crying?

  Selene hesitated for just a moment. She could stay here, take over Nikolai’s thralls, keep the city under control—except she had no idea of how to. She was tired and burned, there was a big gaping invisible hole in her chest, and going back into that room with a dead Nichtvren on the bed was the one thing she couldn’t force herself to do.

  She was free now. She’d worked and prayed and longed for freedom, and now that she had it, she didn’t know what the hell to do.

  It doesn’t matter. I’ll find something. I always have.

  But she didn’t have a lot of time before dawn.

  Selene raised her chin, settled the bag strap more firmly, and began to climb toward the thing that had eluded her all her life.

  She didn’t bother wiping away the tears. They would stop when they were done. She couldn’t do anything about it, she needed all her failing energy to find a safe bolthole. She would sleep through the inimical day and wake when the sun slid below the horizon. When she did, she would be a new person, a Selene who didn’t have to beg or plead anymore. She would head to the bus station or the transport lodge, and get a ticket to anywhere.

  And then, the world.

  Epilogue

  They came back at midnight the following night, pulled by the force of the will they had sworn to serve. Jorge was first, carrying the cooler, Rigel paced behind him, his left arm in a sling, carrying the sword. Eric, his physician’s bag bumping his thigh obediently, coughed. The sound fell dead in the strained air.

  Price Netley carried another cooler full of bloodpacks. “I hope she remembered to unbar the door,” he said, nervously reaching over with his chin to scratch at his shoulder.

  “He’ll tell her,” Jorge replied. “Or she did. Selene’s not stupid.”

  “She killed Grigori.” Bradley’s tone was soft with wonder. The silence fell over them again, the silence of awe in the face of such an act.

  The door to the sanctum was indeed unbarred, and Bradley set his shoulder to it. It swung open slowly, brushing the floor.

  “Jesu Christos.” Netley sounded like someone had punched him in the stomach.

  “Get the packs.” Jorge didn’t hesitate.

  They moved slowly into the sanctum.

  Eric snapped his bag open. Hypos crackled in their plastic cartridges. “The sedayeenen wanted to be here,” he said, and Jorge set the cooler down on the bed.

  Nobody answered, though Rigel’s eyes glittered. The healer was under orders to stay in bed and rest until they were sure of her recovery.

  They worked together, Jorge snapping the hypos on the bloodpacks, Eric deftly pressing the hypos onto the transfer points. The bloodpacks began to drain.

  It was Rigel finally who said what they were all thinking. “Where’s Selene?”

  “She can’t have disappeared.” Jorge handed the doctor another bloodpack. “Not during the day.”

  �
�Here come the others.” Bradley accepted a full cooler of bloodpacks from Riverwolf. The tall man had spent shell casings tied in his long black hair.

  “Tarot cards. And look at this.” Eric pointed with his chin. His white-blond hair fell forward, hiding his expression.

  Netley reached down and touched the tarnished, blackened surface of the medallion. It crumbled into fine-powder dust under his fingers. “At least she left this to keep him alive.” His tone was flat, ironic, and terribly final.

  The quarter-credits slid from Nikolai’s eyes.

  A chill wafted up, brushing the velvet of the bed.

  They worked in silence. Six full coolers of bloodpacks came, were emptied, and left, passed out the door.

  The flesh began to move on his bones. Ribs cracked, settling back into their accustomed places. There was a sharp crackling sound, and the black mask of burn on the pale, aquiline face slid aside.

  “Search the house,” Netley murmured at the door. “Find her. If she’s on the grounds, find her.”

  A long, electric breath of silence descended on the sanctum. The men paused except for Eric, who jostled Jorge, reminding him to hand over another full bloodpack.

  The nest began to pulse with Power again. A rushing breeze slid through the sanctum, blew tarot cards off the bed, fluttering to the floor. The Death card slid from Nikolai’s forehead, fell behind the pillow. There was a faint soft sound as it slid, by some fluke, through empty space and finally touched the floor behind the headboard.

  “Holy Christos.” Jorge handed Eric another bloodpack. The chill plastic containers glowed like rubies. “The bed’s moved. She’s used the passage.” He swore, vilely and passionlessly, in another tongue.

  “You mean she—” Netley turned, the color draining from his cheeks.

  Nikolai opened his eyes. The entire house sighed, and settled on its foundations.

  He drew in a long endless waking breath, and his eyes settled on Jorge. “Jorge.” His voice shivered the air. “Where is she?”

  His first thought was of her. A ripple passed through the assembled men.

  Eric put the last hypo in. “Apparently she thought you were dead. She left you silver to pay the ferryman with.: He sounded flat and unconcerned.

  Nikolai’s eyes were black from lid to lid. “Where is she?” he asked, very softly, and every man in the room—even Eric—took a step back.

  “I saw her,” Riverwolf said from the door. “She fought Grigori, when you fell. Cut him in half. Carried you back to the shore through the river of death.” He nodded, the shell casings clicking in his hair.

  Nikolai said nothing.

  It couldn’t be avoided. “It looks like she went out through the passage,” Jorge said numbly.

  A long, ticking silence.

  “Leave me.” Nikolai’s tone was absolutely flat.

  There was a momentary crowding by the door as they all hurried, Jorge and Eric carrying empty coolers, Eric’s little black bag dangling from his big hands.

  The door slammed shut almost on their heels, and the iron bars dropped, crashing.

  Jorge stopped, as if tempted to look.

  Rigel grabbed his arm. “Don’t, Jorge. He’ll kill you. Come on.”

  From behind the door, the deadly silence spread. There was a huge shivering impact, and dust pattered down from the roof.

  “Was that the bed?” Netley’s eyes were uncomfortably round.

  Jorge turned away. “Let’s go. Hurry.”

  The silence settled in again, and it wasn’t until they reached the end of the hall, moving single file like a funeral cortege, that the scream rose behind them. It was a wrecked, massive noise that shook the entire house, echoing in every corridor, and rose into the swiftly-falling night beyond the manicured grounds to where the bleeding city licked its wounds, the fires finally put out, even to where the skeleton of a tanker ship settled low in the water, its ribs melted together and still sending up thin curls of smoke.

  “SELENE!“

  finis