by John M. Ford
About ten o'clock the wind could be heard rising outside. That was strange: the house was built like a bank vault, and didn't let wind noise through. Then the lights went out. Someone shrieked. People collided; elf voices muttered in English and Ellytha.
Lit candles appeared then, and the hurricane lamps were lit. The dining room and ballroom chandeliers were lowered, and candles set in place on them. In fifteen minutes it was as if nothing had happened.
No, not quite. People seemed merrier now, as if they had been waiting for this.
It was well after midnight when things began to wind down. Danny found Patrise seated next to Fay, holding her hand. "1 think I'll go upstairs now, Mr.—my lord Cesare."
The candlelight made something strange and deep of Patrisc's smile. "Yes," he said. "Rest well."
A candle was waiting on the foyer table. Danny lit lamps in the living room, the bedroom, the bath. He had just hung up the cloak and the coat, and gotten the string tie loosened, when there was I knock at the door.
It was Carmen.
"Hi," she said. "Could I borrow your bathroom for a little bit, to get out of this stuff:"
"Oh. Sure."
"Thanks, Doc." She came in, shut the door, took a look around. "How was your evening?"
"Good. Yours?"
"Oh, I'm great." There was something in the way she said it that denied it. "Which way. . . ?"
He led her to the bathroom. "Stay there," she said, running water into the sink, "talk to me."
"What about?"
"Anything. You, for instance."
He felt odd, suddenly. This was too much an echo of two nights back. "I haven't ever been to a really big party like this."
"Halloween's special," she said above the rush of the faucet. "We all get to play being something else." She leaned into the doorway. A strip of flesh-colored adhesive tape hung off her fingertips, and one of her eyes had lost its tilt. "Big change."
Danny sat still on the edge of the bed. Carmen came out, toweling her face. "Whee, that's better. Just call me Blinky." She sat down on the bed, right next to him. "So I hear it's your birthday."
Oh, God, he thought.
"What's the matter?" she said, "What's the matter?" and her voice was aching so that he looked her in the face, and saw—
Oh, God.
He said, "Look, you know I—"
"Yeah, I know you. And her. And I know you're not."
He stared.
"No, she didn't tell me. She didn't have to. That's one—well, let's say wistful girlfriend you've got there, kid."
"I'm not... a kid."
"You're twenty by one day. I'm twenty-seven. And you're a virgin, which I sure the hell am not."
"Well, so what?"
She spoke softly. "So you're probably scared— take it easy, Doc. And I'm a horny old lady who can't hold on to a guy with handcuffs."
He flinched.
She didn't seem to notice. "So, how'd you like to lose it to No-Tell Daisy, up here where nobody's gonna notice? It'll make you
feel good. It'll sure make me feel good. And in the not-so-long run, it'll make her feel good too."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does. Watch." She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hard on the mouth, shoving her tongue between his lips. He sucked in a breath, pulled away. "See?" she said. "Everything south of your eyeballs knows it makes sense."
He stared at the floor.
"I'm sorry," she said, and the hurt in her voice made him look at her again. "What you do is, you say yes, or you say no. That's all."
"Yes," he said, though he wasn't sure the voice was his.
"Okay."
He stood up, dizzy. "Do you want me to wear a . . . the . . ."
"A condom?" she said, very gently.
"Yeah."
"Up to you. I've been tied."
"Wha . . . at?"
She looked straight at him. "Tubes. You know." She made a knotting gesture. "When I was sixteen, I figured I might not know what I wanted to do with my life, but I sure knew what I wanted to do with my personal equipment."
Danny nodded. He knew, in a book-learned way, what a tubal ligation was. He'd never heard of anyone at home with one, or for that matter a doctor who would admit to doing them. Here, apparently, the patient didn't even have to be twenty-one. He supposed it would be stupid to ask about parental consent. . . .
He thought about some other things he knew only in the abstract. Like how to put a rubber on. Nothing he'd heard had been particularly precise.
He sat down next to her, put a hand on her hands, reached experimentally around her shoulders, feeling softness, the smooth movement of the shoulder blades. There was hardk any fabric between. The lamp flickered highlights in her hair.
She said, "I'm glad you asked, though. Guys don't, usually. Truebloods never do. And afterward they think there's something dirty about halfies."
"I can still get a—"
"Uh-huh. You know how? Don't fib."
"Well, I—"
"Right. Go get it. It'll take five minutes to demonstrate, and make your whole life better." She kissed him, on the mouth. It was just as startling the second time. He pulled her closer. Her tongue wet his lips. His hand slipped to her thigh, through the slit in her dress, closed involuntarily on something hard. It was a garter strap.
"Good place to start," she said in a thick voice.
He tried. It wouldn't give. Her hand closed on his, and she led him to the chair across from the bed. "Sit there, and watch."
Danny felt himself flush.
"No, really. Just watch. It'll be fun." She pressed down on both his wrists. "And you can't get up until I say so, all right?"
"All right."
She slipped off her shoes, tossed them aside. She stretched, then flicked open a garter strap with two fingers, reached around her thigh and did it again, and again. She sat back on the bed and began rolling down her stocking. Slowly.
Was the game that he was supposed to sit still? Soon enough he knew it was, and why it was a game, and that he was losing it fast. What was the elf word?
The Wild Hunt. Right. He tried not to think about that.
Now she was wearing some underthing of gold lace, no shoulder straps, barely over her hips. It had white pearl buttons down the side; it might as well have had printed instructions.
He started to get up, but suddenly she knelt in front of him, leaned on his lap. He gasped.
"Did I say you could get up?" She unfastened the first of his fly buttons.
He said, "Don't."
"One of us has to." Another button. "Jesus, Doc, you've gotta be hurting."
He was. "I'll do it."
Her fingers moved again, and one of Danny's braces flew free. "If you really want me to stop," she whispered, "make me stop."
He grasped both her wrists. Her eyes closed. "Now you got it, Doctor."
The Wild Hunt howled in the thickets.
She opened her eyes, all black. "You don't want to just hold mo, like that all night."
"I don't want—" He stopped. He was going to lie. He was scared to death and had the heartbeat to prove it. "—to hurt you," he said, which was the truth, or at least he hoped it still was.
"I didn't think you did. That I can get anywhere." She pulled easily out of his grip, picked up the long, thin black scarf with the starpoints in the silk. She draped it across her wrists, dropped to her knees again.
"There aren't a lot of girls who'll tell you what they really want. Doc. And damn few who'll trust you this far." With an improbable kindness she said, "Are you gonna abuse a girl's trust?"
He felt the silk. "I'll ruin this."
"That's Nancy silk. If you can tear that, I'd better send for the Kryptonite." She laughed. "You can't even take it. . . and I haven't got anything else you can take." She lowered her left wrist. "Meet me halfway. One hand, to the bedpost."
When he hesitated again, she reached out, put a finger on his hand. "Lis
ten. My safeword's 'tortilla.' Sounds dumb, right, but I'm not gonna yell it by mistake. You hear that, you stop. No guilt, no hard feelings, we just stop. Is that good enough?"
"I guess so."
"W 7 hat's the word again?"
"Tortilla."
"Good man." She leaned back, held very still as he tied her right wrist. He tried to hide the sudden heaviness of his breathing. He started to unfasten his shirt.
"Move back a little," she said softly, "let me see you."
He got undressed. He wasn't sure how; there was no sensation in his fingers, and she was watching the whole time. Then he crawled onto the bed and started on the pearl buttons. She moaned, and he was sure he must be crushing her. He shifted at once, but she just smiled, eyes closed.
He unfolded the gilt lace; she arched her back and he slipped it free, let it fall to the floor. There wasn't anything else in the way. In the lamplight she was all gold and darkness.
She tugged hard with her bound wrist. It was quite secure.
"See, Doc? You can't tear it, or stretch it. It's hard. It's got no mercy."
You re not at home anymore, he thought, what little of him could still think, nobody here cares. And he had to know. Maybe even for Ginny's sake. At least next time, he'd have some idea of how.
He moved, and groaned. Her left hand brushed him—he nearly screamed—and then practically pulled him in; after that, it actually started to seem easy, something you could do again, almost without effort.
Like going down the stairs into the darkened cellar, and wondering what it could have been that you had been so afraid of.
And then, in the middle of the night, waking with the fear fresh again, all around you.
Carmen looked asleep. Carefully, trying not to wake her, he unfastened the loop around her wrist. He stroked the silk: it was, indeed, undamaged.
She wrapped both arms around him. "Hello, Doctor Hallow-night."
"Are you okay?"
"Great. You wanna continue the therapy anyway?"
"I, uh—"
"Uh-huh. I'd better fly."
"What time is it?"
"Almost five. Same morning." She stood up, wound the black scarf around her throat, picked up her gold slip. "I should go. Really."
"Well, do you—shall I drive you?"
"No. Jesse'll get me a ride back. Or I might just walk." She began dressing. "Safest night of all for it: all the mortals are afraid of the haunts, and who fears the devil? Not I. Not I, says Carmen alone."
He sat up, pulling the sheet to cover himself. "Well, shall I at least—"
"Don't do anything," she said. "I want to remember you just like that."
"Will I see you again?"
She laughed. "You see me all the time; figure that'll change?"
"I mean—"
"I know what you mean. No, I don't think like this. Not for a
while, anyway." Quickly, she said, "It wasn't anything you did, okay? You were fine. You were good. I'm just kind of. . . well. My birthday's in June. Maybe you can wrap me up a present. But I'll bet two silver Georges and a Trueblood's lock you're in love by then."
The same pain in her voice, still there as before. Nothing at all might have happened. "Maybe you 7/ be in love by then."
"You're very kind, Doc." She came over, bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "You are kind. I mean that."
"Maybe," he said, his mind's bearings grinding off-balance, "at the poker game—"
"No. Please, don't do that. It wouldn't make you happy. Even if you got me." She leaned very close. "Remember: no guilt. I made you do it. You were helpless." Then she tossed her coat over her shoulders, snatched up her shoes and stockings and walked out of the bedroom without stopping to put them on. He heard the hall door close.
He sat there for a while, wrapped naked in the damp bedclothes, all that had happened lingering thick in his senses. No guilt, Carmen had said. He had been—
Then he thought of the one other time he had said Will I see you again? and his heart fell, and fell, and fell.
one piece?" He thought of the drape of a shoulder, joining a sleeve. "What kind of loom?"
Cloud looked up at Doc. He pressed the heels of his hands together, arched the fingers. "Eight legs, same as spin it."
"Oh." Suddenly the beautiful cloth made him uneasy. "Thanks, Cloud."
"Always." He tucked the scarf around his throat. "May I ask you a favor, Doc? In return, if you please?"
"Of course."
"There is a hall of relics—a museum—in the city, just beyond the Shadow line. It is called the Field, though I believe that is a person's name."
"Yeah. The natural history museum. I've heard of it."
"Have you ever visited it?"
"No."
"Then would you like to do so with me?"
"Now?"
"If you have no other obligations."
Mr. Patrise assured Doc that he was free for the day. "Render unto Caesar," Patrise said.
"Sorry, sir?"
"Have Lisa give you some honest American folding money from the safe. The World has its ways."
Cloudhunter proposed that they walk, but after consulting a map and guidebook they decided that the museum would be exercise enough. When Cloud stood by Doc's Triumph, it never seemed possible that the Ellyll could fit into the little car, but he folded himself in without apparent effort. Doc drove them south, over the river and into the World. The transition was barely visible in clear daylight, and Doc felt nothing; if Cloud did, he didn't show it. "I appreciate this," he said to Doc. "I have gone with Stagger Lee to the science museum, farther down the coast, bur he has never shown much interest in this one."
"I always figured Stagger was interested in everything,* 1 Doc said idly.
"Oh, he is by no means impolite. But one sees/'
Doc glanced at Cloudhunter. The silver elf eyes were hidden by the sunglasses.
The museum's columned, white marble front stretched for a block and a half. Broad stairs led up to the doorway. Doc reached for his wallet, but Cloudhunter waved a finger and paid both admissions. The ticket seller loudly and elaborately counted back the change, as if to a small child. Cloud jingled the coins in his hand as they walked past the booth; a few steps on, he showed them to Doc. "Nickel and tin," he said, vaguely smiling, and shoved them into a pouch.
They were in a high-ceilinged hall that ran from one side of the building to the other, display halls opening off to either side. "So," Doc said, "what shall we see first?"
Cloud examined a floor-plan brochure. "Upstairs, I think." He led the way up a massive staircase. The sign ahead of them read
DINOSAURS.
As they entered the hall, Cloudhunter's eyes blazed—not a twinkle, but a flash like close lightning. "Dragons," he said softly.
They were surrounded by the bones of giants. Doc knew Ty-rannosaurus and Stegosaurus by sight, but the variety of shapes and sizes on display here was a surprise. Some stood, some crawled, some ran; one dove on them from above, having apparently leapt from a tall glass case. They were all only bones, of course, except in the paintings that accompanied the displays, and a few surprisingly live-looking clay models. Looking at the skeletons, Doc was suddenly reminded of a fire he'd been to, in the hours before dawn: the sun came up on a blackened stick model of the buildings they'd tried and failed so save. He felt the same sense of Gone, won't come back.
Cloud was moving from display to display, case to case, quiet as a shadow. Across the hall, someone pointed at him. Doc tried to keep up with the tall elf.
Cloud said, "It isn't allowed to touch . . . ?"
"This one says you can," Doc said. There was a brown bone, more than a yard long, set in sand-colored concrete. "I think it's real.
Cloud put his fingertips delicately on the surface. "It is genuine, Doc. Touch it."
Doc put a hand on the bone. It felt cold, smoothed by who knew how many hands before.
"Now take my other hand."
Abrup
tly the light was slanting and fierce, yellowed by dust in the air. Doc's vision was tilted to the right. His head hurt; so did his back and right hip. There was a heavy, sweetish, boggy stink. Just before his eyes was a clump of fat-stalked plants, bristling with fine green shoots: the fresh scent made his mouth water, and he pressed his head forward, but his body wouldn't follow. He stuck out his tongue, but it did no good. His . . . tail? . . . stirred heavily, making his hip hurt even more.
Beyond the plants, blurry in the distance and haze, a mottled tan shape moved. Teeth inches long flashed in an enormous mouth, and the shape stumbled closer. Alarms rang somewhere in Doc's consciousness, pulling at his muscles to move.
Doc knew what was about to happen, and that he couldn't do a thing to stop it. This is bad, he thought idiotically, but could not clearly identify just what was Bad about it, why it filled him with such urgency and rage. The one obvious and understandable thing in his mind was the sight and smell of those green shoots: if he could get a mouthful of those, things would be much better. Everything else would pass.
The allosaur stomped closer.
There was a pop inside Doc's head, and he was back in the museum hall, Cloudhunter's hand on his shoulder, Doc's fingers tingling against the dinosaur bone.
"I thought the sight would be interesting," Cloud said, his voice a soft, plaintive rumble. "I am very sorry if I displeased you."
"No . . . I . . ." He shook his head to clear it. "The dino died."
"Not then. Memory needs time to dwell in the bone. It never knows its death." Cloud took his hand away slowly. "] would never hazard you, Doc. Still . . ."
"Don't be sorry, please, Cloud. It was wonderful. I didn't have any idea you could do things like that."
"Oh," Cloudhunter said, and turned to the text panel next to the bone. "Seventy million years. The depth of it . . ."
"How old are you. Cloud?"
"'I?" Cloud seemed startled by the question, and Doc worried that he had violated some Trueblood rule. "I couldn't tell you in years. I was not there to see the gates closed. Some of the Ellyllon were, and all of the Urthas—the Highborn." He put his fingers on the dinosaur bone again. "Seventy" million years ... I don't know if even Urthas live so long." He gave Doc a sidewise grin. "Though I shouldn't say such things. Come on, let's see more."