Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

And very far away. She glanced back at him. He was staring straight ahead down the tunnel. His eyes looked glazed.

  “Totally empty,” she mused.

  “Yes.”

  She seized his hand and ran for it.

  He grabbed her up under one arm and carried her there. Up the chute, grinding hot against each other the whole way. Tossing her over the stone in the entry and she rolling, bucking and scrambling to rip off her clothes while he bounded free of the chimney and yanked at his belt. Cotton and leather flying through the air, and then the wonderful rapturous fantastic crush of his body on her bare breasts and his hot hardness pressed home and she screamed against his chest as he penetrated and she came with an explosion like thunder, all heat and sound and light and a bolt of something blazing bright and ruthless snapped out of her and he was trapped tight.

  “Ungh!” he said, and that was all he said, although his mouth was still working. His eyes snapped open, staring but not seeing, the eyes of a man in the first endless instant after death. He shook once, violently, and then he began to thrust hard and fast, his body heaving urgently and his face slack and dead. She felt him cum, as the Great Spirit had done, pouring something of himself inside her without diminishing his desperate lust in the slightest. It was hot, whatever it was; it was hot and alive and seemed to stab all the way into her womb where she just…took it in, and as soon as she did, she was cumming too, cumming too ferociously to see or breathe or even feel him.

  It felt good. Not the way that sex feels good, not even the way that orgasm felt good, but the way, oh, the way a vampire’s first bite into a human throat must feel, or that first explosive burst when a volcano blows and all its heat goes flying, flying, screaming upwards and outwards forever. It felt good and something inside her, the vampire, the volcano, drove itself forward out of Olivia’s very soul and bit deep, deep into Bodual’s.

  They thrashed furiously on the stone floor, throwing off sweat and musk and madness, their two bodies fused into a single live wire of kinetic carnality. She was not aware of him except as a dim shadow and searing heat, the source of this endless outpouring of whatever raw force she was stealing and transforming into climax, she only knew that it felt so good and she wanted him to keep giving it to her. It was not until he began to groan that she realized he could not stop until she released him, no matter how often or savagely he climaxed.

  And her first thought, when she did realize, was a selfish, hungry will to drive him on regardless, to take it all, every drop, to suck on the straw until his empty soul rattled—

  Then horror crashed into her and she tried to push him off, but his gullan body worked on in a frenzy, immoveable.

  No. She wasn’t holding him with her hands. On instinct alone, Olivia withdrew inside herself to that dangerous place of sexual fission and tried to wrench them apart.

  Bodual howled against her shoulder, scathing pleasure scarring across the hot core of him that she was somehow draining. He pitched against her hard enough that she heard her hips creak in protest, and still he could not stop.

  Olivia realized she could see him, even with her eyes closed. She could see the damage she was doing to him, see his heart hammering in a blur of white within a soul gone red with pain, and knew that more of this really would kill him, and still she had no idea how to end it.

  In desperation, she recoiled until she felt her mind’s eye detach from her physical senses and open on a much greater world. With this new clarity, she saw only the brilliant glow of her spirit below her, the fading light of his, and the taut bond connecting them. From here, it was a simple thing to reach out with her mind, unhook him and sent the shreds of his self snapping back to him like a broken rubber band.

  Bodual roared in her ear and dropped over her, and yes, she could bear it easily and yes, it did feel fine.

  Olivia settled back down out of that high place into her flesh. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see him, see energies like golden light ebbing out of his body like sweat and settling inside her. His strength. His life, maybe.

  Great Spirit, thought Olivia, horrified. What have I done?

  “Olivia,” he moaned, half-unconscious.

  She crooned to him softly, worriedly, and he opened his eyes again.

  “What’s happening?” he asked groggily.

  She started to ask what he meant and then realized she could smell it, too. The scent of their passion was easing out of the air, being absorbed into her body. His sweat, the oils of sexual heat, even the torrents of his semen, all fading into nothingness. Taken. Translated.

  “Nothing. Forget it,” she heard herself say, but it was a different voice, one that spoke directly to his mind. She could almost see his thoughts realign themselves around her command, could feel the exact moment that they rooted, and then he dropped heavily onto his face beside her, so heavily that she thought he was dead right up until he began to snore.

  What have I done? she asked herself again, almost panicked. What am I still doing?

  She didn’t want to know the answer. Scrambling to fasten herself back into her clothes, Olivia left Bodual to his unnatural sleep and fled.

  9

  “Jesus, where were you?” Cheyenne asked crossly. “I sent that idiot off ages ago.”

  Olivia looked at her watch in alarm. More than two hours had passed since Bodual had come to her cave. Two hours spent writhing wildly in the entry room of an empty cave, and she could scarcely remember any of it.

  Cheyenne had a preternatural ability to sense guilt. She narrowed her eyes and smiled her hard, vicious smile. “Getting some on the side, huh?”

  “Give it a rest, for once.” Olivia unslung her pack and went to wash her hands. “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, look, it’s like this.” Cheyenne drummed her fingers restlessly on the side of the bench where she was seated. “I know how you said I was weak and everything, but I don’t feel weak.” She glared defiantly up at Olivia. “I want to get up. I’ll stick to the women’s tunnels if that makes everyone happy, I’ll even do a few chores, but I am getting up. And as long as I’m asking for things, I want that wrinkled old bat to cart her ugly ass out of my room.”

  “This isn’t your room,” Yawa said irritably from where she sat, scraping goat-hides. “It is my room, and you are damned lucky I allow you to share it.”

  Olivia looked at Cheyenne. “She’s right. You don’t get your own room, Cheyenne. That’s the reality of living in the women’s tunnels.”

  “Oh, it speaks,” snorted the redhead with dripping contempt. “How many rooms of your own do you have? Three? Four? Come on, count them up! And what did you ever do for it but fuck the Big Bat?” She started to stand.

  Olivia surprised them both by putting her hand on Cheyenne’s shoulder and pushing her back down. “Just in case you didn’t hear me the first five times I said so, you are bed-bound, lady.”

  “Eat me raw, hon,” said Cheyenne, and gave her a shove.

  It wasn’t a hard shove. Certainly she’d been shoved around worse and managed to keep her feet, but the business with Bodual was still high in her mind and she wasn’t expecting it. So she was shoved, and she didn’t scramble back and find her balance and maybe lose her temper and give Cheyenne the smack she so richly deserved.

  She fell.

  She went down hard, seeing with shocked clarity Cheyenne’s startled expression sweeping away from her, and then her head hit the raised lip of Yawa’s pit with a sound like an egg exploding right inside her skull. She tasted peanut butter, very suddenly, very strong. Her vision swam yellow, then grey, and then gradually bled true color back into the room. She sat up, reached at her hair groggily and stared at the blood on her fingers.

  She was dimly aware of commotion across the room. After a few minutes she thought it might be important enough to bother looking at.

  Yawa was wrestling Cheyenne violently to the ground.

  “What goes on here?” bellowed Horumn, barreling through the doorway. The El
dest took one look at Olivia, her unfocused gaze and her bloody hand, then turned and roared for Tina.

  This is going to get rapidly out of hand, thought Olivia. She tried to stand up, toppled over on her face, and tasted oranges. Bizarre.

  “Don’t stand, be still,” Horumn growled, and pressed her hand firmly against her shoulders when Olivia tried to stand anyway. She had never seen Horumn look like this before, and it took an inordinately long time to recognize the expression that so completely filled her field of vision: It was terror.

  Tina showed up with Crugunn and Tobi, quickly took Olivia’s face in her hands and started shining lights at her.

  Cheyenne was screaming and cursing. Yawa was snarling right back at her, and considerably better as far as obscene vocabulary was concerned. Horumn was trying to shout over the whole noise, and Tina’s mouth was moving but there didn’t seem to be any sound there at all.

  Then the clamor subsided, until only Cheyenne’s shrill expletives could be heard.

  “What goes on here?”

  That was Vorgullum. Olivia tried to turn towards him; her vision swam yellow again. She’d never heard of that before. Yellow. Huh.

  “There is blood on this floor.” The low rasp of claws on stone. Sniffing. “This is the blood of my Olivia.”

  A very long silence. Even Cheyenne was still.

  “Now, beast, you die.” He went for her.

  “Babies,” Olivia managed to gasp, and her vision went slightly blue. This would be fascinating if it weren’t so frightening.

  “There will be other young.”

  “Please.”

  He stood tensely at arm’s reach of Cheyenne. His whole body was expanding with each breath he ripped from the air. His hands were curled into deadly claws, capable of cutting through rock like warm butter; Cheyenne would be opened clear to her spine.

  Time crawled by. Tina’s voice was a soothing whisper as she probed at Olivia’s head. There was no other sound. No one even seemed to be breathing.

  “Done,” he said at last, a growl of liquid rage. “Know this, beast: You live at the whim of my loved mate. But you will never rise from that pit to work your evil again in my mountain. Turn her.”

  Cheyenne didn’t have time to struggle before Yawa had her on her stomach. Vorgullum caught her kicking feet and pinned them both in one of his huge hands. His claws slashed across the backs of her knees in a gush of gore and the sound of scraping bone. He released her as she shrieked and bucked in agony, but her legs only swayed sluggishly in the spreading pool of blood.

  “Bind her,” he commanded, and turned his back.

  Tina was cutting swift eyes at the writhing, screaming woman in the pit, but she kept her arms around Olivia as Vorgullum crossed and hunkered down beside her.

  “How badly is she hurt?”

  Tina didn’t immediately answer. That was never a good sign coming from a doctor. Neither was looking at the world through hazy shades of yellow, come to think of it.

  “Vorgullum, her skull is broken.”

  His voice was deceptively calm. “Are you certain?”

  A longer pause this time, and when she spoke, it was in a frightened whisper. “Vorgullum…I can’t fix this. She’s going to die.”

  Oh drat, thought Olivia, and knew no more.

  10

  “Waken, daughter of Bahgree.”

  Olivia shut her eyes even tighter and tried to roll over. Too early to wake up. Too heavy. Too hurt.

  “Waken.”

  Olivia groaned softly and cracked her eyes open. The room was full of stars. No, the room was full of Urga. Urga was full of stars.

  The goddess of the moon stretched out the lump of her hand impassively. “Come to me, come out of that husk you wear. My mate and master commands me to make you whole again, and you cannot endure my power and live.” Nothing in Urga’s voice or face suggested she would be much dismayed by Olivia’s death. “Come to me, else you die.”

  That was finally starting to sink in. Olivia fumbled out her hand and ran it clumsily through the air until it slapped down on Urga’s arm. That awful, meaty appendage at the end of her wrist closed over Olivia’s hand. There was a painless, tugging sensation and then she was standing.

  She looked back over her shoulder in confusion and saw a woman lying in a sleeping pit, tangles of hair protruding from the bandaged mass of her head, and blood underneath that, blood that had dried across the sleeping bag she lay on like a dark halo. The woman’s hand flopped limply out of the air and onto her stomach, where one finger continued to jitter and twitch. Her face was pinched and shockingly pale except where it had been streaked with blood. She looked like she was sleeping, and having the mother of all bad dreams.

  Who is that? she asked.

  Urga looked faintly amused. “It is the sack of mortal flesh you wear.” She reached out her other hand and felt the air just above the sleeping woman’s face. “Cooling now with coming death. It would not take much, I think, to still the heart that vainly beats within this mortal breast.”

  Olivia looked around, still locked in Urga’s clammy grip. There were shadows moving about in the room, but she couldn’t seem to make them out. It was as if a great light were shining down on just this place, casting all the rest of the room into blackness. She supposed Vorgullum was there, somewhere. And Tina, maybe. And maybe Amy.

  “Will you beg for your life, daughter of Bahgree?”

  No, she said, but with distraction, still trying to pierce the veil and identify her visitors.

  A long, considering silence. “Why will you not?”

  What would be the point? You’ll save me or you won’t.

  “And if choose to allow your husk to die?”

  Then I die. And Somurg dies, and all the babies will die. Ultimately, that means the death of this tribe. The thought made her sad, in a vague way.

  Urga stared at her, her moonlight wings fanning the dead air. “And if I restore your life to you?”

  I’ll be grateful. And I’ll do what I have to do to try and save my son.

  “Will you indeed be grateful?” Cold appraisal. “Will you be grateful, even as my mate of these many ages comes to you? Will you be grateful as you call him to lie with you?”

  One of the shadows crawled into the pit beside the sleeping woman. Olivia still couldn’t make out any features, couldn’t even tell if it were human or gulla.

  Urga?

  “Yes?” Expectant, triumphant, prepared to hear a plea.

  Thank you for helping Beth.

  Silence.

  And thank you for coming to be with me when I was in labor. Thank you for helping me deliver my son.

  Silence.

  That’s all. I’m ready to die now.

  Urga looked down at the woman in the pit.

  The shadow was embracing the sleeping woman. Had to be Vorgullum then.

  Urga pressed her hand against the woman’s serene brow. She seemed almost to hesitate. Then her hand disappeared beneath the skin.

  The woman’s body lit up slowly from within; she burned with the cold blue light of the moon. None of the shadows seemed to notice.

  Urga’s hand withdrew. “Return, then.” Her voice was strangely subdued. “Return, daughter of the River. Live, for now. Return.”

  Olivia wanted to say something, but the pull of her body was too strong. She closed her eyes, felt herself bending backwards, falling.

  11

  “Thank you,” she muttered. “I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry about…about…” Someone was holding her. She opened her eyes, puzzled.

  Vorgullum was lying beside her, his arm tight around her waist, his head buried in the join of her neck and shoulder.

  Olivia sat up.

  There was an immediate bay of surprise, human and gullan alike. Olivia clamped her hands over her ears, wincing. The sound was bright, cut into her like knives.

  Tina pulled her hands away and shone a flashlight into her eyes, causing her
to squirm back, mewling. “Hold still. What hurts?”

  “Nothing hurts. Hang on.” Olivia rubbed her face, braced her hands on the small of her back and stretched, then reached around and felt gingerly at the back of her head. “I took a hell of whack, didn’t I?”

  “You broke your head-bone, girl!” Tina looked as if she couldn’t decide whether she should be amazed or exasperated. “Bend down. Goddammit, get back, Vorgullum!”

  Olivia obediently put her head between her knees and offered Tina the back of her head.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s gone,” Tina breathed.

  “Merciful Spirit, I thank you,” Vorgullum murmured and rolled onto his stomach as if not daring to move.

  Olivia straightened in time to see an expression of near-religious awe melting over Tina’s face. “I didn’t do it,” she said. “Urga healed me.”

  Tina immediately frowned and bent her over again. “No,” she muttered, “No, it’s really gone.” She allowed Olivia to sit up again. “Eyes look good, color’s good.” She plucked Olivia’s wrist up and looked at her watch. “Pulse is strong.”

  “Urga healed me,” Olivia said again.

  “Um, yeah. It…You know what, fine. Makes as good an answer as anything else.” Tina glanced at Vorgullum, still pressing his face into the bedding, and reached over to take his pulse.

  “Is Cheyenne okay?”

  Tina checked herself before she actually dropped her jaw and gaped, but it was a near thing. “Is Cheyenne okay? Jesus wept, girl!”

  “Now I know she is well,” Vorgullum muttered, his wrist limp in Tina’s grip.

  “Cheyenne is…well, she’s not okay, but she’ll do. She’ll probably lose the use of her legs from the knees down, but at this point, nobody cares. Except you. She lost some blood, but not so much that she can’t recover, and not enough to hurt the babies any. Rumm and Thurga are taking turns changing bandages and force-feeding her orange juice and in the meantime I’ve been giving her some of Murgull’s all-purpose baby aspirin stuff.”

  “Where’s Somurg?”

  “Still with Amy and Kurlun. I’d better go see them; they were both scared green when Vorgullum carried you in here. There’s about twenty gullan camped outside your chimney. Are you going to throw up?”