by Foz Meadows
‘Ooh!’ shouted Evan, pointing across the street. ‘That guy is giving away free noodles!’
‘Lord, here he goes,’ Jess murmured.
‘Come on,’ sighed Manx. ‘We might as well.’
And so, as was only to be expected, off they went.
A Visit From Sharpsoft
For a long while after the group of Rare had left, Professor Erasmus Lukin sat at his desk, hands spraddled flat on the paperwork, lost in thought. Apart from the gentle tick tick tick of an antique clock, the room was silent. At one point he rose, walking over to the terrarium and lifting out Columbus, the largest of his snakes, draping him over his neck before sitting again. As if in jealousy, the smaller two, Philo and Rufus, hissed softly, bumping the glass with their blunt, copper-coloured noses before subsiding. Columbus pulsed and shifted, stretching idly whenever Lukin reached up to stroke him. Occasionally, the professor would pick up the five completed surveys and leaf through them, reading without reading. Always his eye was drawn back to a single form, written in the scrawl of someone who had filled it out, to use his late mother's favourite expression, one hand kneeling.
‘Solace,’ he said, out loud. When nothing came of it, he gave a short laugh. The name alone would have been a coincidence, but a vampire? It has to be her. Distracted, he flexed his shoulders, the better to accommodate Columbus. The thought scared him as much as thrilled him. One part of his work was done, which was always satisfying – the surveys had worked exceptionally well, with Mikhail's enchantment compelling both humans and Rare to answer truthfully. The data would have been no good to him if idiot college kids decided to play along for a couple of laughs, if the truly powerful kept silent, if anyone over or under exaggerated. Mikhail had been drained, of course, but all for the greater purpose. The greater good. From atop his shoulder, Columbus hissed.
The problem was – well, it wasn't so much a problem as a reluctance. Having found the girl, he'd have to call Sharpsoft, and Sharpsoft wasn't so much unsettling as possessed of some bizarre, lizard-like quality so far beyond unsettling that it had just about come out the other side. Sharpsoft made Erasmus Lukin nervous, and as there were precious few things on Earth of which this could be said, the fact of it made him angry. Sharpsoft was unfathomable, mysterious, and therefore profoundly untrustworthy. Still, the professor was forced to concede his usefulness. Beggars can't be choosers, he thought, and academics do not choose their bedfellows. How long have I worked for such a chance? There is more at stake here than petty personal preference, and I would do well to remember it.
As would Sharpsoft.
Columbus slithered down his arm and onto the floor with a soft, serpentine plop. Lukin wiped the sweat from his brow, and after rummaging around in the jungle of his desk for the telephone, made a call.
It was late noon. As usual, nobody was awake at the warehouse. After their meeting with Lukin the previous day, Evan had led them on a wild goose chase for free food which, predictably enough, had ended at the Gadfly. It hadn't been a big night, but they were tired, and everyone slept deeply as a result. Jess and Evan lay sprawled in the lounge like a discarded mess of limbs, each breathing in time to the other's gentle snores, while upstairs, Manx, Electra and Solace slept on Electra's big bed. All but forgotten by his housemates, Glide, wrapped in his usual stupor, sleep-swore softly and sporadically in a combination of Spanish, Aramaic and Icelandic. Given the obscurity of the mixture, it would have been reasonable to suppose that, even had someone been awake and listening, they would have had difficulty in identifying all three languages – unless, of course, that person not only comprehended all three, but was close enough to make out Glide's muttered words.
Such a person was, in fact, present, although not yet known to the denizens of the warehouse. The stranger was male and of indeterminate age: six feet tall, perhaps a little over, with light, soft skin, and glossy white-blond hair. His eyes were easily his oddest feature: each iris two-toned, half silver, half gold, split cleanly and definitively on the diagonal around a pupil not black, but dark purple. He was covered almost entirely by a bleached, bone-white leather coat, noticeably heavy and falling from a high, folded collar to just above the floor, partially concealing the toes of two massive, green-black boots. Dexterous, solid-looking hands, calloused and with perfectly square nails, rested on opposite forearms, while the stranger's sharp jaw, high cheekbones and expressive mouth gave the distinct impression of strength.
Seemingly bored of Glide, he turned noiselessly from the room and padded unerringly down the hallway to where Solace, Electra and Manx were collapsed in sleep. The door was closed, but unlocked, and slid silently open at his touch.
Upon entering, he scanned the room, despite the fact that the three occupants were in clear view on the only piece of furniture. Eventually, he gave a short nod of satisfaction. Without waking either Manx or Electra, he sat next to Solace on the left-hand side of the bed and snapped his fingers.
Solace woke. To her credit, the sight of such a strange man on her bed resulted in neither panic nor hysteria. Instead, she sat up slowly, took note of her sleeping friends and met his gaze, uncertain but not threatened. Abruptly, her groggy senses detected a change in the room, but without providing any intuitive data as to the source. In the same way that a wound does not hurt until the injured party looks down and sees it, this provoked a singularly unusual fizzing sensation in Solace's bones, as though their marrow had been mysteriously transmuted into Pop Rocks. Tilting her head, she stared hard at her impromptu visitor, studying him in the sure and certain knowledge that he was responsible for whatever-it-was. To this effect, her eyes asked a question. When no answer was forthcoming, she spoke.
‘Who are you?’
The man smiled. His teeth were very white, but only a little pointed, as if he wanted people to notice the difference and perhaps wonder how much sharper they were capable of becoming.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is not a helpful question.’
Distantly, Solace found herself thinking that his voice sounded like mahogany. Realising the absurdity of the analogy, she still clung to it. A mahogany voice. Slightly irked by his answer, she crossed her arms and lifted her chin.
‘Humour me.’
The smile widened. ‘My name is Sharpsoft. Who you are, however – that is a much better question.’
‘I'm Solace,’ she said, more calmly than seemed appropriate. Somewhere, her hindbrain was screaming dangerdangerdanger like a tiny neural siren, but her fight/flight reflex had, it seemed, been temporarily disabled by higher curiosity.
Sharpsoft grinned and shook his head. His ghost-hair danced and shivered. ‘That is only your name, little nomad,’ he said. ‘And though important, a name is not who.’
‘Then what is?’
‘Heritage. Look at me.’
Solace looked. His eyes were hypnotic in their oddness. Where Manx's colours were merely mismatched, this queer combination of silver and gold and purple was something entirely else, unnatural and metallic. The more she stared, the more she felt sure that they were spinning; that the diagonal divide was really a flicker, like the deceptively slow metal line of a whirling helicopter blade. Solace felt herself wax and wane and stumble. In her mind, Sharpsoft's eyes had grown larger and brighter, until they burned and turned like suns in mutual orbit and the rest of the room was forgotten.
‘Who are you?’
‘I –’
‘Answer.’
And then, quite simply, she knew. Her blood began to twitch beneath her skin, singing against the sizzle in her bones, pulling like a tide beneath the moon. Something welled up inside her, a memoryknowledge born of dreams and echoes and half-spun threads, sewing itself through the atoms of her flesh. Solace spoke, and her voice came from somewhere distant.
‘I am the daughter of Lord Aaron and Lady Morgause Eleuthera of Starveldt.’
She opened her eyes, unaware of having closed them. Sharpsoft's large hands had enclosed her own, and were radiating heat. He
was smiling.
‘Eleuthera,’ she murmured. ‘That's my name. Not Solace Morgan. Solace Eleuthera.’
‘There,’ he told her. ‘You are whole.’
‘How did –’
‘Blood has its own memory; the blood of our kind, more so. The Lord and Lady made you. They died. You lived. And you are theirs. And so they did not die. I am pleased to meet you, Solace Morgan-becomeEleuthera. More than pleased. We will speak again, but at a better time – and that, I think, is a fitting gift. Yes. Until whenever, lady.’
And in one fluid motion, Sharpsoft knelt by the bedside, kissed her fingertips, winked, and then – Solace was not entirely sure how – he was gone, his odd pronouncement left hovering in the air like an indecisive bird. She blinked, and then found that she was lying in bed, as if she'd never sat up, as if Sharpsoft's visit were only a dream. Manx and Electra breathed softly on the mattress beside her, their own placid rhythms inviting sleep. But Solace was no longer tired.
She rose, shutting the door silently as she slipped into the hall. Her fingers ached oddly from Sharpsoft's kiss, an icy burn, as though she'd plunged them into frost. Passing by Glide's room, the skin at the top of her spine began to tingle. She stopped, listened, waited. Carefully, she opened the door and peered in, hugging the frame.
Face down, Glide was passed out on the bed, his head turned slightly to one side. His lips were moving. Remembering what Manx had said about different languages and dreams, she stepped into the room. It wasn't as if she'd be able to understand him, but she was curious as to whether or not it was true. As she struggled to listen, the diverse sounds tickled her ears. Was the cadence familiar? Abruptly, the room seemed to spin sideways, and for a moment Solace was so dizzy that she almost fell. Her hand throbbed, sending a barb of frozen pain shooting up through her arm, shoulder, neck, jaw, skull. Staggering, she was pierced by a moment of utter uncertainty – who am I? – and then, just as bizarrely, reality clicked back into place, and her sense of self with it. Shaking a little, she straightened. The disorientation had been so sudden and inexplicable that it almost might not have happened: except that it had, she knew it had. Frowning, she leaned closer to Glide, wondering if the strange vertigo had affected him too. As best she could tell, he hadn't even moved; he was still dreaming. Puzzled, she made one more effort at listening – and stepped back, shocked.
The words made sense.
She blinked, touched her ears, blinked again. The words weren't English: she was translating. The content of the dialogue didn't even register: the fact of her comprehension was strange enough. She backed away, infinitely more frightened by this sudden burgeoning of talent than she'd ever been of Sharpsoft, but found she was unable to leave the room. Curiosity pinned her like a tack to a noticeboard, until, breath quickening, she forced herself close again. As she listened, Glide switched languages; once, twice, Hebrew to Latin, Latin to Arabic. His voice was thick with sleep, the pronunciation muddled and scrunched, but intelligible. And yet Glide, despite his use of real languages, was talking random nonsense, disconnected sentences strung one after the other like flotsam on a fisherman's line, dialect changing almost with each new thought.
‘Save the eldest,’ he whispered. ‘But, no – she oughtn't have come. It's dangerous. What price for the one at left? More trouble than it's worth. If Simru finds out, there'll be more than tax to pay. We'll burn an offering. Need a new mizzen-mast after the last storm. Come home safely. Please.’
Fragments, she thought. They're all fragments.
More puzzled still and similarly shaken, Solace finally left the room, making sure to pull the door shut behind her. How much strangeness did this new life hold? Moving automatically, she headed downstairs, focusing on the familiar. Sunlight was valiantly struggling into the lounge through the cluttered skylight, although neither Jess nor Evan was in a fit state to notice, both still sprawled in sleep. For a moment, Solace wondered if she should wake up Manx and tell him what had happened, but decided against it. No. Until she knew what was going on and what (if anything) it meant, there was no need to tell anyone. No need to create a fuss.
She realised she was hungry – even more so than usual, and probably, she considered, due to shock. This being in her power to remedy, she headed for the kitchen.
Somewhat ironically, the fridge proved to be empty with the exception of, for reasons probably best left unexplained, a half-empty packet of bicarbonate of soda, two hard-boiled eggs, an old blue sneaker and several giant snake lollies. After brief deliberation, Solace took a snake, chewing thoughtfully on its head. Strange things were happening. She wasn't sure that Sharpsoft was any more reliable than Lukin, but speaking her parents’ names aloud had filled her with a calming resonance, something that went bone-deep and well beyond her ability to doubt the truth of it. Blood has a memory. Were her parents vampires? Human? Another kind of Rare, as Lukin had called them? And where, or what, was Starveldt? Solace had the grumpy, aftershock-inspired thought that if she was heir to some kind of treacherous Romanian castle, she'd like to be told properly, thank you very much, not just given its name by an odd-eyed, overly-tall stranger. She swallowed the rest of her snake and was contemplating risking an egg when someone groaned into wakefulness on the lounge.
‘Morning, Evan,’ she called, without looking around.
‘How'd you know?’ her friend asked, rubbing the back of his head. Solace smiled, only too happy to be distracted.
‘You make a clicking noise in the back of your throat when you wake up, just before the sounds of horror. It's quite distinctive.’
‘Some psychic I am,’ Evan grumbled. ‘At least Jess can foresee the future. What can I do? Skim emotions off the tops of empty heads, which is nothing your average psychologist couldn't do. Dragonfly to a sea of stagnant ponds, me.’ He knuckled his eyes, looking blearily at Solace. ‘But then, I've never properly tried to do anything else. Perhaps I might really be useful and just not know it.’
‘It's possible.’ Solace frowned. ‘What do you mean, you've never tried to do anything else? Aren't you curious? Haven't you ever –’ she waved a hand, walking away from the kitchen, ‘– you know. Experimented?’
‘Not really. There was never that much of a need.’ He shrugged laconically. ‘Effort is nowhere near my middle name. Besides, what Jess can do is so much more… real, somehow. I never needed proof that I wasn't making it up – she was the proof. I mean, after your big sister has known to keep you out of school on the day your personal bully finally drops off the deep end and puts two other kids in hospital, doubt is pretty much non-existent.’
‘I suppose…’
‘Eh.’ Evan yawned. ‘I'll get around to it.’ Craning his head, he nodded towards the fridge. ‘Any breakfast?’
‘A couple of hard-boiled eggs. Not much else.’
‘Rats. Is Electra up?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Double rats. I should've stayed asleep.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
‘As well it should.’ He yawned again, scratching his neck. ‘You know, I should just ask Jess to do a week's forecast for me so I'll know when to bother getting up. Not that I bother much already, but – you know. A penny saved is a penny earned, and by “penny” I mean “as yet unidentified unit of physical exertion relative to my lack of breakfast”. Why go through a crap day if you don't have to? Unless there's one of those time-loop things going on, like in Twelve Monkeys. You ever see that film?’
‘Seers can tell the future,’ Solace said, somewhat dumbly.
Evan snorted. ‘Not exactly what I asked, but points for being quick on the uptake. So?’
‘So, we don't know enough about Lukin to be able to trust him. Anything could happen. We're flying blind.’ She almost added a comment about Sharpsoft and Glide, but checked herself in time.
Evan sighed. ‘And this is relevant why?’
‘Because,’ said Solace, patiently, ‘I think we should wake up Jess.’
It was some minutes before an
ything happened. While Evan roused his sister into consciousness via the entertaining but none-too-kind means of dripping cold water onto her face, Solace went upstairs to wake Manx and Electra. When the three of them trooped downstairs again, it was to find Jess sitting smugly on the lounge while Evan stood bare-chested at the sink, wringing out his shirt and muttering imprecations.
Solace raised an eyebrow at Jess, who grinned.
‘Old family proverb: he who waketh with water gets doused with water.’
‘Sounds fair to me,’ said Solace, not quite managing to keep a straight face. ‘Did Evan tell you my idea?’
‘About doing a reading to see what'll happen with Lukin? It was somewhere in between his laughing like a five-year-old boy and squealing like a five-year-old girl, but I got the gist.’
Manx, who'd been in the middle of a rather impressive yawn, made a strangled choking sound, the unfortunate result of trying to laugh with a momentarily locked jaw.
‘Will it work?’ Electra asked, turning to Jess.
The seer shrugged. ‘Maybe or not. I can try and focus on a specific event, but there's no guarantee I won't start talking about something else entirely, or nothing at all. It's an imprecise science.’ She paused. ‘And yet still more commonsensical than homeopathy.’
‘Nothing to lose, then,’ said Manx. He glanced with amusement towards the sole occupant of the kitchen. ‘Except, apparently, our shirts.’
‘Hah,’ grunted Evan, finally giving up and wandering over, scowling only a little. Grinning, Jess turned back to Solace.
‘Anything specific I should look for? Or would it be better to scry the day itself, bearing in mind that I may end up describing your fiftieth birthday?’
‘Look for –’ Solace considered it, ‘– something hidden. Lukin was holding something back. He seemed harmless enough, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.’
Especially given this morning, she added silently. A part of her still felt guilty about not mentioning Sharpsoft, but Lukin was, she told herself, the more pressing concern, and besides which, she wasn't exactly sure how to bring him up. Despite their cautious vote in favour of the professor's tests, Solace was worried that the others thought Manx overcautious. It was a relief to be proven wrong.