Chapter 4
He had dealt with mortal hunters before—they had been a touch more effective, as such things went, before steam engines and factories.
Perhaps something essential had been lost as those technological marvels rose.
Still, the soldier had to admit many wonders were built in exchange, and cities in the old days had certainly smelled far worse.
He drifted in mistform near the ceiling for a short while, watching their interactions.
The constant internal clock every child of the Blood bore ticked away, a slowly mounting warning.
Dawn was closer than dusk, he could not linger overlong—but he was greedy for knowledge of his nymph’s mortal affairs, in order to arrange them most effectively.
What he saw was unpleasant. Play soldiers at best, save for the wary bare-chested brute who held his silence longest. Though this location was acceptable for a hidden camp and there was even a touch of intelligence evident in the arrangement of detritus to provide cover, they did not set a watch.
No, the men were too busy arguing—and insulting their sole female companion—to notice danger.
Dismally unsurprising performance. Only the half-clad mortal would have proceeded past the initial application stages for catspaw duties; none were fit for consideration as dogsbodies. Not even cannon fodder, was his final evaluation.
Only she was sensitive enough to discern his attention, often shivering and glancing about.
The soldier had always thought he preferred women in gowns, but the denims clung lovingly to her legs and the peach cotton top showed her to advantage—though what would not?
She was simply, sheerly incandescent, graceful even while holding herself stiffly, clearly en garde among male animals.
Indeed the group was laughable, and on the edge of falling apart under its own inconsistencies.
The soldier paid particular attention to the one who had pressed her against the wall—her scent still lingered upon him, though also saturating a few other corners of this ramshackle place.
The group had been resident some while, and the only real surprise was the large photograph atop a stack of files, his own face clearly captured by film and telephoto lens.
Newer digital devices were easier to guard against.
Sloppy. Realizing just how rigid he had become, how unaware, was chilling.
Fortunately she would cure him of that. Sound, sight, sensation poured through him, a glorious welter, and she was so very distracting.
Tendrils of dark hair escaping her braid framed a soft sweet face; even pulled tight with pain or fatigue her mouth was eminently soft, and her eyes lingered in a shade between wintersky blue and ice-grey, fine lavender lines in the iris.
Her cheeks were drawn, her collarbones stood out starkly, and the cotton top’s short sleeves could not disguise new, dark-flowering bruises high upon her arms.
The evidence of damage was enough to make the beast in him turn coldly watchful, straining to leap upon whichever of the dolts below had dared lay a hand upon such fineness.
Leila, they called her. An eastron name, ancient even as sanguinant reckoned, lingering sweetly inside his chest like a struck crystal bell.
Then the mortal who watched her most avidly—each time the pug-nosed blond male addressed as Ben spoke, a shadow of distaste crossed her expression—as he swilled the watered yellow water they called beer in this benighted age made the mistake of advancing to open insult.
Therefore, this Ben was the one to be taken first, and the soldier’s only regret was that it was a swift death instead of the lingering agony such behavior deserved. At least the mortal’s blood was hot and fresh, absorbed within moments.
Next he took the most competent male—half-naked as a fighting Gaul, plucked from the flimsy chair and dead almost before the soldier reached the roofbeams with a struggling cargo.
Just as he finished the last long, artery-pressurized swallow, the first mortal’s corpse hit the floor with a deep, almost amusing thud.
Which was lost in a cry of warning, for the mortals scattered—save for the sandy-blond man who had been merely, cruelly dismissive of little Leila.
Her pulse had changed as she gazed at the one addressed as Dan; the soldier took some pleasure in simply striking the blond’s head off its stem instead of draining him.
One precisely calibrated blow, cervical bone-cable snapping, and the soldier vanished before a single red droplet found itself free and jetted high from the stump of a mortal neck.
They were so very fragile. He would have to take much care with his prize both before and after the Gift wore through; leman did not reach the strength and speed of even an elder sanguinant. Perhaps it was payment for their immunity to ossification, and if so well worth the bargain.
Two mortal males and a frightened dryad, all attempting escape through passageways bored in stacked rubbish.
The soldier struck again, plucking the speediest contestant—the mortal who had been on a rooftop with a sniper rifle earlier, easily distinguishable from the sound of his hammering pulse.
This specimen’s blood was a little sweeter than the others’, lingering on the edge of cloying since the pancreas was having difficulty.
Diabetic. At least you are spared a lingering decay. The soldier was long past the age of sympathy for any prey, yet a subtle pang went through him. Did little Leila know of her companion’s illness?
Not that it mattered. Now there was only his lovely one left, and the male who had held her against a wall.
The soldier was forced to revise his opinion of their group slightly upward, for they had clearly drilled in escape.
The male was in the lead, breathing harshly, his glands emitting bursts of acrid terror familiar from any battlefield.
It was the scent of defeat, of rout, of hearing Pan’s shriek or the clatter of the goat-god’s hooves, and perhaps that was how he gained enough speed to outpace even a divine creature.
“Pete for God’s sake,” she cried, a lost, lonely sound, as the stocky fellow nipped through a heavy iron side door.
It banged to just before a clattering—something outside fallen, perhaps deliberately placed to block the exit.
The darkness was near total, though no difficulty for sanguinant eyes, and the soldier realized she was about to cast herself upon the sealed exit in an excess of terror, possibly gaining some injury.
Which could not be allowed.
One last time he plunged, hawklike, his arms closing carefully upon tender rose-musk salvation.
She screamed, the sound cut in half as the quietus snapped about her—peculiar psychic pressure used to keep a fledgling’s prey from wriggling, honed and strengthened for many other uses when dealing with mortal authorities or witnesses, and even though the soldier was well-practiced in the art she still managed a startling amount of resistance.
Then again, she was leman. Exquisitely sensitive, a marvelous combination of strength and delicacy, precisely calibrated to shatter the calcified prison of a sanguinant dying by inches.
His true teeth ached, attempting to free themselves; the soldier denied them, rising swiftly, shattering a section of the hovel’s rotted roof.
Never, he promised silently. You will not suffer such filth again. I will not allow it.
Yet this was the easy victory. Much more difficult to keep what he had taken—and there was the problem of Father, as well. The patriarch would not like this turn of events.
He would like the soldier’s next moves even less.
More of the terrible numbing ossification broke away, sheets of dusty apathy shaken loose by deep lungfuls of that wonderful, dizzying fragrance. Successive future challenges were even somewhat pleasant to contemplate, despite the sudden, novel, pulse-clenching feeling of having something to lose.
The soldier bore his prize swiftly through sultry darkness starred with electric light, and found, with a sharp wonderful burst of surprise, that he was smiling.
He would have liked to be in a location where he had personal resources, so to speak, but every mortal city eventually accumulated certain places catering to the demimonde.
Finding one was simply a matter of looking for a few nearly invisible signs.
Not that much searching was necessary in this case; there was a giant glass-sheathed hotel in a slice of downtown very near where he had first scented his new leman.
Very convenient indeed.
A modicum of mental pressure secured all requirements, and the capacious pockets of his trousers—a modern fashion he had nothing but admiration for—also held a pair of cellphones, a wallet full of plastic cards, plenty of the current imperium’s cash, and a few other small items. He could travel very lightly indeed, but his nymph might…
Well, she certainly required, as mortals did. But she might also prefer something other than a march to the next destination, digging camp, orders given, objectives achieved, breaking camp, another march.
Just what her preferences might consist of, the soldier could not begin to guess. Once the reasonably large pink-and-white suite was secured and invisible seals set, he was forced to admit himself… well, not quite at a loss.
But for the first time in a very long while, actually uncertain.