by P. N. Elrod
Instinct took over. I am a Preserver, not a Promethean. I leapt for the window, leaving the Burner choking on his blood, his body twitching as his comrades’ bullets plowed through it. Down I fell, landing cat-light on the street and bolting.
Two dead, seven to kill. I could find them again with little problem, but now my prey would be wary.
I retreated across the street, black blood and other liquids fouling the dress Virginia had made for me. On a rooftop with a good view I crouched, and I watched.
I did not have to wait long.
* * *
Sirens rose in the distance. Exactly three and a half minutes after I’d fled through the window, four men carried the body of a fifth out of the brick hotel. None of them held the scent of dominance, but all of them reeked of petrol and fear. An anonymous navy blue minivan accepted the body as cargo, and they crowded in after it. One, a slim dark youth, took the driver’s seat. He paused before opening the door, his curly head cocked, and I had the odd thought that he could feel my gaze.
That was ridiculous. No mortal could possibly …
And yet. Sensitive , the first man had said. I had not questioned further. Now I wondered if I should have.
I became a stone, sinking into the rooftop, my vision gone soft and blurring as I pulled layers of silence close.
The youth shook his head, opened his door, and hopped nimbly in. The vehicle roused from its slumber, and I shook off the silence just as a soft footfall sounded on the stretched-tight drumhead of the roof behind me.
Quinn? I turned, my ragged skirt flaring.
It was not Tarquin. Of course not. He would be silent.
The shaggy-haired man crouched, naked except for a rag clout the color of dirt. His torso rippled with lean muscle and scars glinting gray-silver. The reek of wildness and moonlight hung on him, like the brief tang of liquor before a Kin’s metabolism flushes through it.
I dropped down into a crouch. They do not usually run by night, and I had never glimpsed one without clothes or fur. My claws slid free, and I hissed, baring fangs. It would distort my face, I would not have done so in front of my charges. Now, I cared little—except he was interrupting. My prey might well go to ground, I could possibly lose them if I was delayed here.
The lykanthe did not snarl. He merely cocked his head. His eyes were bright silver coins, the pupils wavering fluidly between cat-slit and round. He made a low sound, back in his throat.
An inquisitive sound.
I straightened, slowly. My claws retracted. The purr of the minivan retreated, almost swallowed up in the hum of traffic.
I pitched back, grabbed the waist-high edge of the rooftop, and plummeted. It is no great trick to land softly from a height. The sound of cloth tearing was lost in the backwash of sirens as the mortal authorities arrived to wonder at the damage caused.
* * *
When there were no traffic laws, sometimes a vehicle could escape. They were lumbering-slow, true, but the flux and pattern of other crowding carriages sometimes provided cover. Nowadays, though, if you stalk a metal carriage through the streets, there are only certain choices at each intersection. If you can keep the sound of the engine in range, even better.
I did not worry about the padding-soft footfalls behind me. If the lykanthe had meant to attack, he would have. I cared little about his intent, as long as he did not rob me of my revenge.
The van was aiming for the freeway, a cloverleaf looping of pavement. It slowed, straining and wallowing through a turn. I leapt, catching the overpass’s concrete railing, velvet snapping like a flag in a high wind as I soared.
Thin metal crunched as I landed hard, claws out and digging through the van’s roof. It slewed, wildly, more predictable than a frightened horse. I am small and dark from childhood malnutrition even the Turn could not completely erase, easier for me to curl in tightly and hold on.
How Zhen had laughed at me. Tall lean Zhen with his grace. I was gymnastic, he told me in his mellifluous native tongue, not a dancer . I laughed with him, for it was true. But it was I who brought home stolen life each night, to fuel his leaps and turns in the mirrored room given over entirely to his dancing. Shelves of CDs and the equipment to transfer music from one form of storage to another, all burned and dead now, and dance was an evanescent art. He would never discover another movement, another combination, inside his long body now.
The van slowed, still swerving wildly, and I held, wrists aching where the spurs responsible for claw control moved under the skin. When I had the rhythm I would lift one hand and tear the top of the minivan open like one of Amelie’s cans of—
Pain. Great roaring pain.
I flew, weightless, the egg in my chest cracked as my heart struggled to function, its bone shield almost pierced. The thudding was agony, I twisted as I rolled, glare of light and horrific screaming noise before I was hit again and dragged, the stake in my chest clicking against the road. My arm was caught in something, mercilessly twisted and hauling me along, shoulder savagely stretched.
A heavy crunch and a snarl. The dragging stopped short. Little hurt sounds, I realized I was making them. And bleeding, a heavy tide of stolen life against unforgiving stone.
Not stone. Concrete. Bleeding on concrete. A stake. I ached to pull it out, but my hands were loose and unresponsive. My claws flexed helplessly, tearing at the road’s surface.
Footsteps. “Be … still.” Halting, as if the mouth didn’t work quite properly. “Not … hrgh … enemy.”
Twisting. Wrenching. Each splinter gouged sensitive tissue as he pulled it free. A gush of blood, steaming in the chill night air. Too much, I was losing too much, I would not be able to feed them when I returned—
I remembered they were dead just as the stake tore free and was tossed aside. Then I was lifted, limp as a rag doll, and the night filled my head.
* * *
Daylight sleep is deep and restorative. It is a mercy that it holds no dreams. Though I could swear I saw them all printed inside my eyelids. Each one of my charges, my wards, my war against Time.
My battle to preserve .
The older you become, the incrementally earlier you rise. Purple and golden dusk filled the vaults of heaven, a physical weight as I lay on my belly, flung across something soft and smelling of dry oily fur and musk. There was weight curled around me, heavy and warm. As if Amelie had crept into my bedroom again, but it could not be her. It was too big. Zhen, perhaps? But he was past the time of needing reassurance. Virginia? No, she prized her solitude. It had to be Peter. If he had finished a miniature, or broken something, he would want comfort.
I rolled, slowly, sliding my arm free. My fingers rasped against fur—no, hair. Shaggy hair, not Peter’s sleek silken curls.
The lykanthe lay half across me. His face was buried in my tangled hair. His throat was open, chin relaxed and tipped up. He was much heavier and bulkier than he looked, or he’d had a chance to eat. How long had the humans had him, torturing him in that dank hole?
The throat was inviting. And blood from another denizen of the twilight would strengthen me immeasurably.
His eyes opened, and he tensed. But he did not drop his chin. Finally, he spoke. It was the same halting slur as before. And he used only one word.
“Fr … Fr-friend. Friend .”
I swallowed. My throat was dry. It was not the Thirst. His kind was an enemy. A pack of lykanthe could destroy many of the Kin during a daylight hunt.
And yet, he had pulled the stake from my chest. What had it been? I had to know.
“The stake?” I whispered.
He thought this over. Finally, a light rose behind his silver-coin eyes. His pupils were still flaring and settling. How much damage had they caused him?
“Gun,” he finally said, and flowed away from me. The bed creaked. I blinked. My hair was wild, a mass of dark smoke-tarnished curls. I had cut my braid, it was buried in Amelie’s … grave, behind the charred hulk of my house.
My house no longer.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. The windows were dark, blankets taped over them.
It was a small efficiency apartment. There was a large white fridge. The lykanthe opened it and stuck his head in. He made a snuffling sound of delight. I sat up and looked at my hands.
I would need to hunt. Then I would track them.
“What is your name?” I did not know why I asked. A lykanthe’s name would mean less than nothing to me.
And yet.
He stiffened. “Don’t. Know.”
“You need more food. And rest. I must hunt.”
He slammed the fridge door. A ripple ran through him. “Hunt. Good.”
I muttered a word that had been ancient—and obscene—when Augustus was but a child. “No. Not you. You eat human food.”
His chest swelled. He’d found a pair of jeans somewhere, thank the gods, but the fabric strained as he bulked, the change running through him like liquid.
“No,” I said, sharply, just the tone I would take with a new, inexperienced fledgling.
The growl halted. He dropped his shoulders, expressing submission with a single graceful movement.
What was I to do now? We studied each other, lykanthe and Preserver, and I felt the weight of responsibility settle on me. And the hateful machine inside my head decided he could be useful.
“You can track.” I slid my legs off the bed. The boots were sorely the worse for wear, and my dress was merely rags. “You can track them .”
He nodded. His pupils settled, cat-slit now. Which was a very good sign. Lykanthe are pack animals, and they need to know their place in the hierarchy.
What would happen when he remembered what he was?
I decided I would answer that question when it arose. For now, he was watching me carefully. And I might well need his help, since they had some infernal invention that could hurl a stake through my chest. I was grateful it had not been hawthorn: the allergic reaction might well have sent me to join my charges before vengeance was complete.
“Very well.” I straightened. “I need clothes. You need food. And you need a name.”
He thought this over, his pupils holding steady. Then, slowly, he lifted one hand, pointed to his chest. “Wolf.”
I nodded. “Of course.” Pointed at myself. “Eleni.”
It was a start.
* * *
The marks of my claws were fresh and glaring on the freeway’s surface. We waited for traffic to clear, crouched in the shadow of the overpass. He had no feminine clothing in the efficiency, but I’d found a pair of jeans to cut down and a belt that served with a few extra holes delicately claw-punched. A none-too-fresh white tank top—laundry had evidently never been his specialty, if this was indeed his apartment—and a too-large brown leather jacket completed my oddest sartorial statement ever.
He watched with no sign of impatience or disgust as I hunted, and when my victim—a drug dealer in one of downtown’s less savory quarters—was dispatched and I rifled the pockets, Wolf stayed wide-eyed and calm. No fur had rippled out through his skin.
The roll of cash was sticky with God alone knew what, but it was serviceable. Twenty minutes later, at a street vendor’s stall, Wolf swallowed several slices of pizza; at another, he ate at least five gyros and washed everything down with a large soda. Empty calories, certainly, but better than nothing. He stared longingly at a soft-pretzel vendor, but I drew him away and he followed without demur.
Traffic roared past, a cavalcade of glaring white eyes. I heard a dead spot coming and rose. The lykanthe crouched easily. “Do you have the scent?” I asked again.
He nodded, lifting his shaggy head and sniffing. Fur crawled up his cheeks, spilled down his broad chest. Now I knew why lykanthe rarely wear shirts—tearing them in the change must be annoying. “Run,” he said, his mouth moving wetly over the word as his jaw structure changed, crackling. “Run them down .”
“Good boy.” I could not help myself. But he shivered as if the approval was pleasant, and launched himself into a leap. I followed, and a double sound—the cloth-tearing sound of the Kin using inhuman speed and the howl that burst from him—echoed under the orange-lit city sky.
* * *
The mansion was several miles from the city limits, a graceless mushroom-white thing with a colonnaded porch, the grounds extensive but overgrown. Wolf skidded to a stop and crouched, snarling; I curled my fingers in the thick ruff at the back of his neck. It was an instinctive move, because I sensed the thread-thin wire strung between once-ornamental and now shaggy trees, metal humming with ill intent.
“Easy,” I whispered, under the deep edge of his snarl. “Easy, young one.”
Chill night air touched my cheeks. Wolf’s growl stopped between exhale and inhale. He remained thrumming-tense, muscles bunched and ready.
I kept whispering, though there was little need. “They are on their guard now. Hopefully they are stupid enough to think their stake-gun disposed of me, but we cannot depend on that. We must go carefully, and quietly. Come back to your other form.”
Shudders ran through him in waves, but I waited. The moon, half full, was a bleached bone in the sky, above the orange stain of the city. The night was young.
“Come back,” I insisted. Fur melted, and soon I clasped the nape of a crouching young man in a loose corduroy jacket and torn jeans.
“Hear them,” he whispered. “Five, six. Maybe more.” The sibilants faded into mush, but I was better at deciphering his words now. The muzzle had damaged something, and he would be a long time healing.
“Good.” My fingers moved, soothingly. It was a cross between petting a restive animal and soothing a child. He finally relaxed. “Now. You will wait here. Do not disobey.”
He shivered. “Go. With.”
“Wait here. Should I need you, I will call. I promise.”
“Go with,” he insisted, tilting his shaggy head back as if to trap my fingers. “Need. Go with .”
My claws pricked. “You will wait here, lykanthe . Until I call.”
He subsided. Became a statue. I petted him absently as I considered the tripwires. When I could see them clearly in my mind’s eye, I took my hand away. The lykanthe made a faint whining sound, but he stayed put.
I backed up three paces. Four. Plenty of room.
“Eleni,” Wolf whispered, haltingly.
I leapt. Caught the tree branch I was aiming for, rough bark against my palms, a squeaking sound as force transferred.
Yes, Zhen had told me I was gymnastic, and it was his training I drew on now. Body flying, legs flung wide then pulled in, twisting and turning with inhuman speed and precision as I tumbled through the gaps in the tripwires. They had covered the likely angles of approach—if the threat was human . A Preserver trained by one of her charges in the use of inhuman flesh and bone? It was almost child’s play. I could almost see Zhen’s narrowed eyes, hear his shouted encouragements. Pull your knee up … think up, up! It is the center all movement flows from, Eleni! Arms straight, they are the fulcrum!
Twisting, spinning, my smoke-tainted hair flying, a fierce joy filled me. For a moment I could pretend they were all still alive.
I landed, rolling, on the gravel drive. Leapt again, soundless, and caught the edge of the porch roof. Pulled, a silent gasp of effort turning my face into a rictus, and spinning weightless … before landing soft as a cat’s whispering paw on the main roof, kneeling, arms held out to my sides in an approximation of one of Zhen’s movements. It is not enough to begin well and do well, he would say. You must also finish properly.
“I will,” I answered softly, and rose. Listened, head cocked.
Five pulses. No, six. Each human heartbeat is unique, echoing through muscle and bone, the differences like clarion calls to a Kin’s ear. They were familiar, distinctive. I had heard them galloping along inside the van as it tried to shake me free. One was directly below me. Young, and suddenly speeding up.
The Sensitive. Sensitive to me, perhaps. Or to any deniz
en of the twilight. Was that how they had found my charges?
I leapt for the edge of the roof, turning in midair and catching the gutter. It ripped free, but not before it provided me with another angle, and my filthy boots smashed the window. The rest of me followed, straight and slim as a spear, and the youth was stumbling for the door, screaming in a girl’s high terrified voice. I was on him in a moment, smelling the agony of fear as he lost control of bladder and bowels, right before my hand splintered ribs and I pulled the still-beating heart free. My hand closed convulsively, and the tough muscle splattered. Tiny droplets of flung blood dewed my face.
The body dropped. I cocked my head.
Two of the other five pulses scattered through the house quickened. A faint electronic buzz touched the edges of my hearing. Their security system, of course.
Good.
This was a monk’s bedroom, with only a narrow cot and a cross on the wall, lit only by moonlight streaming through the broken window. I pushed the door open with my toe, stepping over the still-twitching body, and smiled.
I do enjoy hunting.
* * *
Their method of driving a stake through the heart was a modified crossbow. The disadvantage of a crossbow is that it takes a certain time to reload, and it flings a heavy object like a wooden stake far too slowly for a forewarned Kin. By the time the second stake had bisected the air where I was standing a moment ago, I was on the first shooter. Cupping his face like a lover, smelling his terror and the stink of petrol, giving the quick sharp yank that broke the neck like a dry stick. My foot flashed out, catching the one next to him in the ribs and flinging him across the room before he could bring his guns around to catch me.
Then it was a leap aside, another bolt singing through space I’d just vacated, and I collided with another shooter. He was screaming as I hit him, and blood flew from his mouth as kinetic force transferred. He hit the wall hard, slid down in a boneless lump.
I turned on my heel. Two left. One stank of petrol—the last of the Burners. The other held the crossbow, staring at me slack-mouthed, and he smelled of dominance under a bald edge of roaring fear. The lieutenant.