S. Stirling - Shadows of Falling Night

Normally he would have let it heal conventionally, with perhaps a little Wreaking to ensure that there was no scarring or internal adhesions. Now…

He finished the brandy, set the glass down on the sideboard, twitched up the blanket and gently laid his hands on the bandage. She stirred in protest.

“No, lover, you’ve just worked hard,” she said.

He smiled at her sleepy face and tousled hair. “And we may both have hard work ahead tomorrow. We can’t have you limping or leaving a blood trail when you need to be Ellen the Scourge of the Shadowspawn.”

He took a deep breath and calmed his mind. Healing required a process that basically convinced your own body that it had suffered the injury itself, then duplicating the process of Power-assisted cell division.

This was going to hurt.

“Will…will it hurt?” the woman said, and Monica pulled a chair up and sat across from her and her husband.

The guest stateroom was compact but comfortable…though the porthole was far too small for anyone to squeeze through and the door could be securely locked from the outside. Adrienne Brézé hadn’t done anything as pedestrian as hire a local craft for her impromptu sea voyage. Months ago she’d had her yacht-the Morey -sail from San Diego through the Panama Canal, across the Atlantic and wait for her in Istanbul on the off chance that she would need it; of course, her hunches were of a different order from those of ordinary mortals. It was a modified Grand Banks schooner originally built to order in Oregon, three hundred tons and two tall masts, with ample room to pick up a couple of lucy candidates and all the special features she desired.

Hunting and killing is all very well, but one-night stands tire after a while, she’d said. You want something more emotionally complex. And I don’t want to leave a trail of floating empties across the Black Sea. That would be…uncouth.

“Ummm…” Monica said, wondering how to put things tactfully.

You poor dears. It’ll take a while to adjust.

“Well, not the feeding so much,” she went on, trying to be reassuring without an offensive chipperness. “At first there’s only a little sting and you feel…detached, accepting…And later, after a couple of times, it gets really, ummm, nice . A major rush, better than anything including…well, better than anything. You start craving it quite a lot after a couple of days without.”

Worse than cigarettes or even heroin, in fact, but there was no need to go into that just now. The couple sitting on the guest room bunk were quite young…though no younger than Monica had been when her car broke down passing through Rancho Sangre that evening so long ago.

They’d gone into the wrong…or right…café in Istanbul on their honeymoon and caught Adrienne Brézé’s eye as she prepared to depart, and ended out stumbling after her in a daze of Wreakings. It was touching to see how the young man kept his arm protectively around her shoulders, despite his own terror.

Right café, Monica told herself firmly. Pretty soon, being a lucy is going to be the luckiest thing in the world. It’s all for the best in the long run. I’m sure we’ll be good friends eventually…it will be nice to have some company again, people who understand.

“Th…that doesn’t sound so bad,” Jessica said hopefully.

Monica sighed and went on gently: “But other parts of it are probably going to hurt a bit, yes. And be…stressful. You should just keep thinking I can do this all the way through and it won’t go too badly, though. It takes a while to get used to.”

Jessica Bertsch whimpered slightly and gripped her husband Todd’s hand; his eyes flicked to her and then to Dave Cheung leaning in the doorway with a Glock in his hand. They were both extremely frightened, of course; your first glimpse of a nightwalker transforming evoked primal terrors. A hundred and fifty thousand years as the prey species of Homo nocturnis ensured that the genes remembered, besides the way it knocked the world out from beneath your feet.

Then there was the kidnapping, the armed guards and the prospective violation.

“The Doña is going to be, ummm, very hungry when she wakes up. She’s doing a lot with the Power tonight, you don’t need to know the details yet, but it makes a Shadowspawn ravenous. Our blood is the fuel for the Power. Though they eat normal food as well, of course.”

“She turned into…a tiger,” Todd said; his voice held the peculiar tone of someone who had no doubt that they’d seen something but still didn’t really believe it. “A tiger. And she walked through the wall. And her body was still there.”

“They can do that, yes. It’s called the aetheric body, and when they come out it’s called nightwalking. And…umm, they can read your mind, too, so…no fibbing! It has to be a completely honest relationship. And they can do a lot of other things. Right now, though, you need to focus on getting through your first feeding.”

“And you…” he said.

“Oh, yes, I’ve been a lucy for ten years now. So you see, it isn’t that bad. What I’d advise is that you, Jessica, be right next to her when she comes back from nightwalking and re-enters her body. She’ll just go for your throat then, and after she’s drunk a pint or two of your blood you’ll be…sort of glassy and spaced-out for a while. That will be the drug in the bite getting a hold on you.”

Todd Bertsch was a graceful-looking man, with wavy dark-red hair and freckles and a body that looked like a gymnast’s, shown to advantage in the briefs that were all either of them wore. He also looked mutinous. Monica smiled at him and spoke reassuringly.

“No, really, Todd, I understand your concern and it’s very sweet, but that’s safest for her. Then Jessica will be quiet while the Doña , ummm, well, she’s going to be feeling playful by then. Excited. When the Doña has been at you for a while and fed again on you she’ll be more relaxed and less…well, a bit less dangerous for Jessica when it comes to playing. So you’ll be protecting her this way, really.”

That would appeal to his feelings, and had the advantage of being true. Monica patted the sobbing woman on the shoulder.

“It’s all right to cry and be scared, honey. I was too and I cried all the time at first. But this whole thing is natural. Just remember you’re serving this need . It can be quite satisfying if you think of it that way, feeling your blood draining into the hunger. It’s what we humans are for, like flowers for hummingbirds. It can be beautiful as well as terrible. The Doña is really the nicest Shadowspawn there is, too.”

“There’s more of them?” Todd said.

“Oh, thousands . All over the place, little bunches everywhere. They run the world, pretty much. I mean, who could stop them from doing anything they want? They just don’t let people know, though I understand that’s going to change soon.”

She looked at her phone; it wasn’t long before dawn. “Come on, let’s get things ready.”

Dave Cheung motioned with the gun. Todd glared at him, but they both rose and walked down the corridor, through the sitting room and into the stateroom of the Morey. Which was named after the giant eel, a voracious ambush predator.

It was part of the stern of the ship and ran its full width, darkly lit by light reflected off the surface of the water and coming through the outward-slanting windows that made a semicircle at the rear. The panels and floor were African rosewood, and there was an oval king-sized bed and a few other items of understated furniture and some Tabriz carpets. Adrienne looked almost childlike as she lay with the cream silk coverlet drawn up under her chin and her arms crossed on her shoulders.