Celia Friedman - When True Night Falls

Damien stiffened. He knew the Hunter well enough to become alert when his tone changed like that, and to listen very carefully to his exact choice of words. Five midmonths at sea had taught him a lot. “You’re leaving us?”

“That seems prudent,” he whispered.

“Not to me.”

“You need answers.” His voice was quiet, but hunger resonated in his tone. “I need . . . food.”

He drew in a deep breath, slowly. Trying to sound calmer than he felt. “You’re going ashore to kill.”

The Hunter said nothing.

“Tarrant—”

“ I am what I am, ” he interrupted sharply. “You knew my nature when you invited me to join you. You knew than I would kill, and kill often. That I require killing in order to sustain my own life. You knew that, and still you chose to invite me. Don’t play at hypocrisy now,” he warned, shaking his head. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Damien’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. He tried to force his voice to be steady. “When?”

“As soon as we’re out of surveillance.” He nodded toward the distant cliffs. “They’re watching us, you know. They’ve been watching us since we first arrived. By now there will have been messengers sent, defenses mobilizing . . . they will assume us to be a vanguard of their enemy, until proven otherwise.”

“All the more reason for us not to separate.”

“I’m no good to you here,” he said sharply. “If a war fleet surrounded us tomorrow, I could do nothing to save us. On land I can follow your progress, Know the enemy, utilize the power of the earth-fae—”

“And feed.” The silver eyes fixed on him. Diamondine, piercing. “I am what I am,” he repeated. “That issue is not open to debate.” He turned from the bow. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, there are things to be taken care of before I leave. I need to prepare.” He bowed, a minimal gesture, and left Damien’s side. A short walk took him past the wheelhouse, to the recessed midship section. There were people there, crew and passengers both, and they parted like a magicked sea at his approach. Some gazed at him in awe as he passed; others superstitiously averted their eyes, as they might do for a passing demon. He ignored them all. They had feared him once, as men will always fear the demonic, and some had even muttered that the ship would be better off if they exposed him to the sun and then scattered his dust upon the waves. But his performance during the storm had changed all that. Four dozen men and women who might once have turned against the Hunter now regarded him with a reverence just short of worship, and any who found that mode distasteful had learned to keep their silence.

If this were a pagan mob, they’d have turned him into a god by now, Damien thought darkly. He wondered if the Hunter’s nature would allow him to accept that. Or did enough of the Church’s philosophy still cling to his soul that even power, in such a form, would be abhorrent? Thank God we’ll never find out.

He looked at the Hunter’s retreating form—at the worshipful faces that surrounded him—and corrected himself grimly.

Pray God we never have to.

Tarrant’s cabin was belowdecks, in the dark and crowded space normally allotted to cargo, livestock, and machinery. It had been by his own preference. Damien had originally provided him with a cabin alongside his own, whose tiny windows had been carefully barricaded against the sunlight . . . but Tarrant preferred a truly lightless demesne, where no living man might put his life in jeopardy by opening a single door. And Damien really couldn’t blame him. If anything, the incident drove home just how vulnerable the Hunter was during the daylight hours.

Now an alteroak door guarded the jury-rigged sanctuary, reinforced with iron bands and—Damien had no doubt—as much dark fae as the coarse wood could absorb. That power would have been growing down here since the light of the sun was first shut out, seeded by the darkness in Tarrant’s own soul. Not a pretty thought.

He was bracing himself to knock when the heavy door swung open. The light of a single candle backlit the Hunter, its corona like a halo about his light brown hair. For a moment Damien thought he could feel the dark fae swirling about him, a hungry, malevolent power that drew its strength from darkness and isolation. Imagination, of course. He couldn’t See that power—or any other—without first adjusting his senses.

“Come in,” the Hunter bade him, and for the first time since the chamber had been sealed months ago the priest entered.

The hold of the Golden Glory was a stifling place, its still air thick with the reek of animal droppings, stale smoke, and oversalted fish. Damien knew that such a stink was unavoidable— you can only shovel shit so often, the captain had assured him—but he had often wondered how Gerald Tarrant, normally so fastidious, endured it. Now, as he passed over the Hunter’s threshold, he stepped into another world. Here, in this nightbound sanctuary, all was sterile. Here the power of the dark fae had been used to leach all the scents of life—and death—from the air. The Hunter might not have access to power that would serve him on the moonlit deck, but here in this carefully nurtured darkness he was lord and master of his own.

On the bed lay Hesseth, and the light of the single candle by her side was enough to illuminate a body rigid with tension, fur drawn erect like a cat’s. A thin membrane had drawn across the interior corner of each eye, giving her face a truly alien appearance. Long, tufted ears were flattened tight against her skull, in terror. Or hostility. Or both.

“You okay?” Damien asked softly. She nodded, and even managed something that might have been intended as a smile. Her sharp, carnivorous teeth made the expression particularly feral.

Tarrant pulled over a stool to the side of the bed, and motioned for the priest to sit. As he did so he noticed that Hesseth’s wrists had been tied to the sides of the bedframe. He looked up sharply at Tarrant.

“She has claws,” the adept reminded him. “I considered such precautions . . . prudent.”

The slender furred hands were balled into fists, tightly clenched. He could see the muscles inside her arms tense as she tested the strength of the bonds. “You really think she’d strike at you?”

“I prefer to be prepared. For everything.” He glanced at Damien, and the priest sensed just how much was being left unsaid. Her species is still primitive. Still possessed of a bestial soul. Who can say whether instinct or intelligence will rule, when she perceives herself to be threatened? But there was more than that also: a darker undercurrent that flickered momentarily in the pale eyes, and then was carefully hidden again.

He still hates her, he thought. All her people. They bound him once, and he’ll never forget it.

God help her if he ever decides she’s expendable.

“Now,” the Hunter said softly. The familiar warning was all the more powerful for not being voiced: Don’t interfere.

Tarrant sat by her side on the narrow bed, and for a moment was still. Gathering himself. Then he reached out and placed his hands on her face, slender fingers splayed out across her features like the legs of a hungry spider. She stiffened and gasped and a soft moan of pain escaped her, but she made no struggle to escape. Not that it would have done her any good. The dark fae bound her now, more perfectly than mere ropes ever could. Damien was sickened, envisioning it.

“Now,” the Hunter whispered. Coaxing the power. Seducing it. Meticulously manicured fingers stroked the sleek fur of her face with what seemed like loving tenderness, but Damien had seen the man Work often enough to know his power for what it was. Killing, always killing. The object of his attention might be a lone, frightened woman or a swarm of bacteria—or the follicles on a rakhene woman’s face—but the pattern was always the same. The Hunter drew his power from Death.