by Dima Zales
“Zion. Don’t shoot her.”
“Like hell I won’t,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I’m serious. That’s my sister-in-law. Don’t.”
The Porsche roared up, and Williams and Graham jumped out.
Something moved inside the van, rocking it slightly. Then a dark shaped leapt out and hit the ground running. Williams reached out and the shape tumbled to the ground.
We all approached. It was the deer, but now it was the color of the green man — dull black, like a chalkboard, with shimmering patches of green where a passing headlight caught it just so. Williams must’ve encased it in a small sphere. I couldn’t sense the barrier itself, but the deer was all balled up.
Kara sat down heavily.
“Girl, that was some sick driving. Sick.”
I hoped she meant “sick” in a good way.
Oddly, I didn’t feel frightened. Maybe it was because I’d been the one doing things instead of getting things done to me. I remembered I hadn’t felt afraid after the thing at the mill, either.
Graham and Williams turned to survey the minivan.
They were holding hands.
Oh my god, hilarious. I put both hands over my mouth to hold in the laughter. It was so not the time for that. If I pissed Williams off right now, I’d get to play battery instead of Graham.
The van was trashed, so we abandoned it. Williams stuffed the green-man-covered deer, still in its barrier, into the Porsche’s trunk, which was already pretty full of gear. Then he and Graham got in back. I perched in between them, though there wasn’t actually a seat there, just a flat console for drinks and doo-dads. Kara took the front passenger seat, and Zion drove.
“Sure not falling asleep anymore,” she said, shaking her head. “Damn.”
Graham lasted about an hour. Then he started to look sick and faint. I held my hand out to Williams, absolutely dreading it.
“Just relax. Let it happen,” he said impatiently.
I nodded, but the advice didn’t really help. If anything, realizing that he was already annoyed with me made me tenser.
Some part of him slid into me and pulled something out. The barrier he was working sprang into my awareness, small and dense and rigid in the trunk of the car. He pulled more out of me. It hurt just as much as last time, only this time it didn’t stop.
“Goddamn it,” he growled, frustrated.
I tried to allow it, tried to be open. Lord knows, I didn’t want Justine to get away any more than he did. But it seemed wholly out of my control. It was like I couldn’t tell what he was taking, so I couldn’t release it to him.
It was beyond horrible — the pain, the sense of violation. Soon enough, I was sobbing uncontrollably.
Kara leaned back between the seats.
“Beth, I’m going to sedate you, okay?”
I nodded, hiccupping and gasping. She took the arm Williams wasn’t holding and injected something. Almost immediately, my muscles loosened. I slumped back against Graham and drifted, only vaguely aware of what was happening to me. I knew it was something bad, but it didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
14
I surfaced slowly. I was lying on a hard surface. Something was buzzing. Someone was bending over me. Focusing was a struggle. Annoying. I turned my face away. The floor was pleasantly cool and solid. My arms and legs felt heavy, immobile. There was a touch. Someone was touching me. I didn’t want to be touched anymore. No more invasion, no more pain. I pushed away, whimpering. I felt myself held and began to struggle.
Suddenly, my head cleared. A strange man was bending over me, touching my face. He was the single most arresting person I’d ever seen. He had a languid, almost bored expression, but I also got the sense of tremendous energy running beneath the surface.
He was astonishingly beautiful — to the point of unreality. He was more like a work of art. Every lock of glossy black hair hung just so around his face. His mouth looked sculpted with light in mind, so that shadows would offset its shape. His nose was bold, faintly aquiline.
I looked into his eyes. Each brown iris contained a tawny starburst pattern, which shifted as his pupils contracted. His complexion was olive and completely even, like he’d not only never aged, but never had a pimple, never scratched a bug bite, never gotten razor burn.
He was no more human than the green man.
This must be Cordus.
I stared up at him, awestruck.
He held my gaze for several long seconds, then looked away, releasing me.
“Have you stolen her capacity?” he asked.
That was definitely the super-sexy voice I’d heard on the phone. His tone reminded me of the one Graham had used when he confronted Williams and Kara in my living room — barely interested, yet menacing. So this was what Graham had been imitating. Palely.
“No, My Lord,” Kara said from behind me. “She consented, but she didn’t know how to share. It was hurting her, so I sedated her. She consented to that, too.”
You couldn’t mistake the fear in her voice.
There was one of those long pauses I remembered from talking to him on the phone. Then he looked back down at me.
“Is this true?”
I nodded.
I couldn’t have spoken for the world. He terrified me in a way Williams didn’t. With Williams, I was frightened of getting hurt, getting killed. Those were terrible things, but at least I could conceive of them. Cordus made me aware that I could suffer the unimaginable.
“Very well,” he said.
Kara let out a shaky breath.
He straightened and moved away from me. I stood up and did a quick survey. I was in the grand entryway of what seemed to be a large, opulent house. Everything was white marble shot with pale gray. The central space was at least sixty feet across. Matching staircases swept up either side. A massive silver chandelier sparkled above us, its tiny lights irregularly spaced. It was a beautiful room, but cold and impersonal.
Kara and Zion were standing behind me. Williams and Graham were standing behind them. Neither man looked happy to be there, but the similarity stopped there. Graham was trembling and looking down, clearly terrified. Williams, in contrast, was tracking Cordus like a wolf watching its prey for weakness.
Boy, talk about getting things mixed up — like a wolf stalking a T. rex.
The deer, still wearing the green man, was standing behind everyone, as though it had bolted for the door. It was clearly immobilized.
Cordus walked over to it. “A green man, hunting one of my people, within my territory. How singular. Your ambassador will have much to explain.”
He gripped the loose skin at the deer’s throat and tore the green man off of it. The deer collapsed and lay still. For a few seconds, the green man hung there like a flayed deerskin. Then it shivered into its familiar shape. Cordus had it by the neck. It dangled from his fist, for a moment, then began squirming and snapping and hissing.
Its talons caught Cordus in the side.
He flinched, then smiled and said, “That was ill-advised, young one.”
The green man brought its right hand up and flexed its clawed fingers. They were tipped with Cordus’s blood.
Then the creature reached across its body and, screeching, dug a chunk of flesh out of its own left arm. It dropped the tissue on the floor with a wet plop and dug out another piece.
I watched, horrified.
“Why is Lord Limu hunting this individual?” Cordus asked, drawing the green man’s face close.
It continued mutilating its own arm, writhing and screaming as it did so. With a terrible shock, I realized Cordus was forcing the creature to injure itself. I swallowed convulsively, struggling not to throw up on that nice marble floor.
Cordus gazed into the green man’s crazed eyes for several long minutes as it tore away chunk after chunk of its arm, until only bones and ligaments remained. He seemed wholly unbothered by its agony.
Then it started in on its belly. Cordus set it down
on the floor, and we all stood there, watching it kill itself. It ripped away almost its entire abdomen before it finally died, its hoarse screams fading into whimpers, then gurgling breaths, then silence.
The stench of blood and feces was overpowering. I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed.
Cordus said, “Mr. Williams.”
Williams’s fingers twitched, and the green man’s remains drew together into a ball. He bent and picked the mass up by whatever invisible netting was holding it together, and headed outside with it.
Cordus turned to us. If he’d found something out from the creature, he didn’t share it.
“You may refresh yourselves and rest in your quarters. I shall speak with you in the morning.”
Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he turned to me.
“Miss Ryder, you will attend me now.”
I stood watching Cordus examine the deer. He’d had it carried to what looked like a guest bedroom and laid on the bed. He’d spent some minutes passing his hands over its body without actually touching it.
I found myself mesmerized by his fingers, which were long and graceful, like a pianist’s. I was terrified of him but couldn’t stop looking. My eyes strayed to his side, where his shirt was ripped and a little bloody. I wanted to touch him.
“She is alive, but weakened,” he said, jolting me back to attention. “I assume her trip here was neither easy nor pleasant.”
He turned to me.
“Miss Ryder, do you believe this animal to be your sister-in-law, Justine Jenson Ryder?”
God, I was going to have to talk to him.
“Um, I don’t know.” I searched for something else to say. “Zion was sure it was her.”
“I sense only an animal. Odocoileus virginianus, to be exact.” He tilted his head to one side and studied me. “Why was Zion so certain?”
Haltingly, I told him about taking Zion to Ben’s house, and about her inability to sense anything other than a human woman there until I passed on the advice from Ghosteater.
Cordus observed me again in silence. Finally he said, “‘Unfinished’ and ‘fragment’? The beast used those words, specifically?”
“I think so. That’s what I remember, anyway.”
“Fascinating,” he murmured, turning back to the deer.
He passed his hands over it once more without touching it and then reached down and cupped its nose in his palm.
The reaction was sudden and violent. The deer’s eyes shot open and it took a great, shuddering breath. Then it exploded into hundreds of small blue spheres that looked soft, almost fluid, like globules of paint. A few more spheres popped into existence, then all of them regrouped and became Justine. She lay naked on the bed, moaning groggily. The entire transformation took maybe three seconds and made no sound whatsoever.
Slowly, I got up off the floor. I didn’t feel too bad about my reaction. Even Cordus had taken a quick step back when the deer exploded. He stood there, looking down and rubbing his chin. No more bored look — I could see his eyes tracking back and forth. He was thinking furiously.
After a few seconds, he went to Justine and touched her arm. She relaxed into unconsciousness. Then he turned to me.
“Elizabeth Joy Ryder, I charge you to reveal nothing of what you have seen here. You will not speak or sing of it or depict it in a work of art. You will not encourage another to guess at it. You will not allude to it indirectly through the use of analogy or any other figure of speech. You will take no action that you suspect might violate this charge, even if I have not specifically forbade that action herein.”
All that seemed to call for a formal response, so I said, “I understand.”
He stared at me. “You must not only understand the charge, Miss Ryder, but agree to abide by it.”
“Right. Yes, I agree,” I said, flustered.
He looked around. “I shall have a second bed brought to this room. I am certain Mrs. Ryder will be confused and frightened when she wakes. Perhaps it will help if she is greeted by a familiar face.”
“Okay,” I said, “but she doesn’t like me. I don’t know how helpful it’ll be to have me here.”
I flushed and looked down, annoyed with myself. Why had I told him that? I didn’t want him to know any more about me than he already did.
“Why does she dislike you?”
I shrugged. “Jealous of the time her husband spends with me? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
He did the head-tilt thing again. “Perhaps she recognized you for what you are and feared you would reveal her.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. Huh.
“I shall leave you for the night. Members of my household will see to your needs. Until tomorrow.”
He inclined his head, then turned and walked out.
I let out a long breath. That hadn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
Then again, the green man probably would have disagreed.
Cordus wasn’t entirely right about Justine. She was confused when she woke up, all right, but “angry” would have been more accurate than “frightened.” She basically just sat up in bed and started screaming at me — since I was right there, clearly the whole thing was my fault. The central points of her tirade were that I was going to jail for kidnapping and that she was going to sue me.
I wasn’t surprised. I also wasn’t upset — with what I’d seen in the last week and a half, Justine in full threat display just wasn’t disturbing anymore.
“So,” I said, when I could finally get a word in, “you don’t remember turning into a deer and running off into the woods, abandoning your husband and children?”
She stared at me, seemingly speechless.
“You’re crazy. Oh my god. You’ve gone crazy.”
She bunched a bed sheet around herself and backed toward the door, feeling around behind herself for the knob. The door swung open, and she darted down the hall, yelling for help.
Too bad I couldn’t scare everyone else off that effectively. It’d be nice to be feared instead of fearful, for a change.
I didn’t bother going after her. I had a feeling people didn’t leave Cordus’s home without permission. For the moment, Justine wasn’t my problem. Thank god.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed but jerked my feet up when they touched cold marble. I looked around the room, which I’d been too tired to take in the night before. It was large — big enough to hold two queen-sized beds, a large sitting area, a standing mirror, a desk, and several bookcases without feeling cramped. Daylight streamed through three tall, sheer-draped windows, giving the pale carpets and bedding a soft glow and making the quartz veins in the floor glitter. The dark woods of the furniture stood out richly against the pale fabrics.
In addition to the exit, the room had two doors. Padding over to one, I found a spacious walk-in closet. The other revealed a bathroom with two sinks and a tub separate from the shower. It also had something I guessed was a bidet. The floors, counters, and walls were marble.
I stood in the entrance to the bathroom, looking around and feeling uncomfortable. The place was luxurious, yes, but it felt impersonal, like a hotel. I noticed a thermostat on the wall and went over to kick it up a few degrees, but it was already set above room temperature.
A hot bath or shower would do the trick. And since Justine was busy running around shrieking, I got first use of the bathroom. I guess there are some benefits to having people think you’re nuts.
I locked myself in, then drew a bath and eased in. The water was hot and the shape of the tub was perfect. Slowly, I warmed up. I can’t say I totally relaxed, but it did feel nice.
My mind bounced around and settled on Graham. He’d been so scared the night before, standing in Cordus’s foyer. I remembered the look on his face. He didn’t think Cordus was going to give him a true second chance. You could see it.
But he’d really helped us on the way here. Without his weird luck, the green man would’ve caugh
t Justine north of Stevens Point, maybe killing one or more of us, too. If it’d gotten her then, Williams never would’ve been able to keep a shield on her long enough to reach Cordus. Apparently I could give him enough power for an hour or two, but for twelve? Surely not.
And Graham had nearly let Williams drain him, too. Well, maybe he didn’t have a choice. Kara had said it was hard to limit what someone took, once you let them in.
I sighed and shifted in the tub. I felt bad about Graham. Yeah, he’d been up to something, but after what I’d seen Cordus do to the green man the night before, I wasn’t sure I blamed him. If you worked for a monster, betraying your boss was understandable — maybe even laudable.
But the way Graham went about the betrayal had endangered others. That was profoundly selfish. I shouldn’t make him out to be some noble freedom-fighter.
Then again, he hadn’t intended to endanger anyone. He’d assumed no one would find out about the strait.
But what about lying to me and trying to seduce me? If he’d been on the up-and-up with me, the thing with the strait might seem more like a one-time lapse, less like a larger pattern of deceitfulness.
Damn.
The bath had relaxed me too much — it had let some stuff come up that I really would rather not have thought about. After all, what could I do?
There was a fluffy white robe hanging on the door. I got out and put it on. The fresh scent was comforting. I wondered if Graham had a fresh, fluffy robe in his room.
Jesus, my brain needs an “Escape” button.
When I came out, Justine was sitting on her bed, looking scared. A tall, muscular white woman was guarding the door. She looked to be in her late thirties, and I could see she’d lived through some serious injuries. One particularly nasty scar ran from her jaw up into her hairline, pulling her left eye a little askew. She was almost as tough-looking as Williams. Maybe she did the same kind of work. No wonder Justine looked scared.