George Martin - Fevre Dream

Marsh scowled and tugged at his whiskers with his good hand. He couldn’t do nothing, he knew. It was up to Joshua. Only Joshua was burning up, Joshua was getting weaker by the minute, and he wasn’t going to move so long as Marsh’s life was at stake. If only there was some way to get Joshua moving… to wake the thirst… somehow. How did it come now? Every month, something like that, except it didn’t come at all when you used the bottle. Wasn’t there something else? Something else that might bring on the thirst? Marsh thought there might be, but he couldn’t think of it. Maybe anger had something to do with it, but it wasn’t enough. Beauty? Real beautiful things tempted him, even with his drink. He probably picked me as his partner cause they told him I was the ugliest man on the goddamned river, Marsh thought. But it still wasn’t enough. Damned Damon Julian was pretty enough, and he got Joshua awful angry, but Joshua still lost, always lost, the drink made it so, it had to be… Marsh began to think back on all the stories that Joshua had ever told him, all the dark nights, the deaths, the terrible bitter times when his thirst had taken hold of him body and soul.

… caught me in the stomach, square, said Joshua, and I bled badly… I got up. I must have been a terrible sight, pale-faced and covered with blood. And a strange feeling was on me… Julian was sipping at his wine, smiling, saying Did you truly fear I would harm you that night in August? Oh, perhaps I would have, in my pain and rage. But not before… Marsh saw his face, twisted and bestial, as he pulled Jeffers’s sword cane from his body… he remembered Valerie, burning, dying in the yawl, remembered the way she had screamed and gone for Karl Framm’s throat… he heard Joshua talking, saying the man hit me again, and I lashed out backhanded at him… he was on me again…

It had to be right, Abner Marsh thought, it had to be, it was the only thing he could think of, the only thing he could figure. He peered up at the skylight. The angle was sharper now, and it seemed to Marsh that the light had grown just the tiniest bit red. Joshua was partly in shadow now. An hour ago, Marsh would have been relieved to see it. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“ Help me…” the voice said. It was a broken whisper, a ghastly pain-racked choking. But they heard it. In the darkened silence they all heard it.

Sour Billy Tipton had come crawling out of the dimness, leaving a trail of blood behind him on the carpet. He wasn’t really crawling, Marsh saw. He was dragging himself, sticking his goddamned little knife into the deck and pulling himself forward with his arms, wriggling, his legs and whole lower half of his body scraping behind him. His spine was bent at an angle it shouldn’t have bent at. Billy hardly looked human. He was covered with slime and filth, crusted over with dry blood, bleeding even as they watched. He pulled himself forward another foot. His chest looked caved-in, and pain had twisted his face into a hideous mask.

Joshua York rose slowly from his chair, like a man in a dream. His face was an awful red, Marsh saw. “Billy…” he began.

“Stay where you are, Joshua,” said the beast.

York looked at him dully, and licked his dry, cracked lips. “I will not threaten you,” he said. “Let me kill him. It would be a mercy.”

Damon Julian smiled and shook his head. “Kill poor Billy,” he said, “and I must kill Captain Marsh.” It sounded almost like Julian again now; the liquid sophistication of the voice, the chill within the words, the air of vague amusement.

Sour Billy moved another painful foot and stopped, his body shaking. Blood dripped from his mouth and his nose. “Julian,” he said.

“You’ll have to speak up, Billy. We can’t hear you very well.”

Sour Billy clutched his knife and grimaced. He tried to raise his head as much as he could. “I’m… help me… hurt, I’m hurt. Bad. Inside… inside, Mister Julian.”

Damon Julian rose from his chair. “I can see that, Billy. What do you want?”

Sour Billy’s mouth began to tremble at the edges. “Help…” he whispered. “Change… finish the change… got to… I’m dyin’…”

Julian was watching Billy, and watching Joshua, too. Joshua was still standing. Abner Marsh tensed his muscles and looked at the shotgun. With Julian already on his feet, it wasn’t possible. Not to turn it on him, and fire. But maybe… he looked at Billy, whose agony almost made Marsh forget his broken arm. Billy was begging. “.. . live forever… Julian… change me… one of you…”

“Ah,” said Julian. “I’m afraid I have sad news for you, Billy. I can’t change you. Did you really think a creature like you could become one of us?”

“… promised,” Billy whispered shrilly. “You promised. I’m dyin’! ”

Damon Julian smiled. “Whatever will I do without you?” he said. He laughed lightly, and that was when Marsh knew for a fact that it was Julian, that the beast had let him surface again. It was Julian’s laughter, rich and musical and stupid. Marsh heard the laugh and watched Sour Billy’s face and saw his hand shake as he wrenched the knife free of the deck.

“The hell with you!” Marsh roared at Julian, as he heaved himself to his feet. Julian looked over, startled. Marsh bit back the pain and went for the shotgun, diving across the room. Julian was a hundred times quicker than him. Marsh landed heavily on the gun, and almost blanked out from the pain that shot through him, but even as he felt the hardness of the barrel beneath his stomach, he felt Julian’s cold white hands close round his neck.

And then they were gone, and Damon Julian was screaming. Abner Marsh rolled over. Julian was staggering backward, his hands up over his face. Sour Billy’s knife was sticking out of his left eye, and blood was running down between his pale white fingers. “Die, goddamn you,” Marsh yelled as he yanked the trigger. The shot blew Julian off his feet. The gun kicked back into Marsh’s arm, and he screamed. For an instant he did black out. When the pain cleared enough so he could see, he had trouble climbing to his feet. But he did it. Just in time to hear a sharp crack, like a wet branch being broken.

Joshua York rose from Billy Tipton’s body with blood on his hands. “There was no hope for him,” York said.

Marsh sucked in air in great draughts, his heart pounding. “We did it, Joshua,” he said. “We killed the goddamned-”

Someone laughed.

Marsh turned and backed away.

Julian smiled. He wasn’t dead. He had lost an eye, but the knife hadn’t gone deep enough, hadn’t touched his brain. He was half-blind but he wasn’t dead. Too late Marsh realized his mistake. He’d shot at Julian’s chest, the goddamned chest, he ought to have blown off his head, but he’d taken the easy shot instead. Julian’s dressing gown hung from him in bloody tatters, but he wasn’t dead. “I am not so easy to kill as poor Billy,” he said. Blood welled in his eye socket and dripped down his cheek. Already it was crusting, clotting. “Nor as easy as you will be.” He came toward Marsh with languid inevitable slowness.

Marsh tried to hold the shotgun with his broken arm while he got two shells from his pocket. He pinned it under his arm against his body, stepping backward, but the pain made him weak and clumsy. His fingers slipped and one of the shells dropped to the floor. Marsh backed up hard against a column. Damon Julian laughed.

“No,” said Joshua York. He stepped between them, his face raw and red. “I forbid it. I am bloodmaster. Stop, Julian.”

“Ah,” said Julian. “Again, dear Joshua? Again then. But this shall be the last time. Even Billy has learned his true nature. It is time for you to learn yours, dear Joshua.” His left eye was crusted blood, his right a howling black abyss.