Chapter 2 #2
Those who lived long became as stone, physically and in all other ways. Unless…
Unless you are strong enough to kill the protector of that scent. Why do they not mask her? Such a simple precaution.
A cold, rational, sane thought, one he clung to as he ran.
He veered down a gravel side-road, which widened to a small, irregular trampled space abutting the green skein of an aestival-vanished creek.
The metallic scent of water was barely a drouth-choked trickle, and a large rectangular shadow loomed.
The shape was possessed of wheels as well as two large night-blind eyes watching him, curiously insectile, glossed with starlight.
Ah. Glass, front-facing. Along the thing’s flanks were irregular hints of golden glimmer.
Candlelight? Here?
It was a camping vehicle, he realized slowly, halting at the very edge of what had to be a place for locals to park when the creek was high enough to hold fish, or dabble toes in a cool flow.
The scent was very strong; she had been resident some while.
That realization peeled another layer of insanity from his encrusted mental processes, and the resultant jolt was almost as pleasant as the great gripping lungfuls of golden-brown spice he took in greedy gulps, waiting for her protector to show.
Nothing. The night wore on. His senses, muffled by age and madness, whetted themselves with each new draught of scent.
The distant murmur of her voice was just as he had imagined, a soft sweet song capable of enticing any sanguinant into the whirlpool, onto razor rocks.
A desert wanderer would follow that whisper over the sands until the carnivorous flame-spirits feasted upon his bones; a fur-clad steppedweller would ride every horse he possessed to foundering in pursuit.
Inside the vehicle, her muffled laughter, edged with something…
anger? Disdain? He could not tell. The wanderer, now invisible even to those of his own kind, was patient.
Each soft, controlled breath, freighted with her magnificence, was whetstone to a rusty edge.
Perhaps he could gather enough sanity, enough flexibility to fight effectively when her guardian appeared.
Yet why, why would any sanguinant announce her presence like this? Did they not grasp the risks? Impossible. Even a fledgling knew to conceal, protect, jealously shield such a nonpareil.
Unless… was she alone? Which made no sense either, for who had meted out death to the trespasser? One of her kind did not engage in combat; it was simply unthinkable. No sanguinant would ever allow such madness.
The vehicle moved slightly, rocking on rubber wheel-feet. A flimsy fortress indeed, and no hint of invisible seals. Either the wanderer was missing a critical element of the scene and her protector was even now stealthily preparing for the kill, or…
Was it possible? It would be a miracle, an insanity in and of itself.
Clicking, sliding metal. A rectangle on the vehicle’s side flung itself open, dim golden glow limning a slim shape. A bounce, a hop, and she folded down to sit on a low, handmade wooden stepstool, clearly accustomed to the maneuver.
A cat poised to watch unwary prey would have seemed frenetic next to his utter motionlessness, breath and pulse both in abeyance, his own scent thoroughly masked.
In fact, another of his age and experience might have sensed something wrong in a single frozen patch amid the flow of night, camouflaged in long grass and scrub bush greedily seeking the creek’s hidden damp.
Between starshine and candleflicker she perched, lithe and graceful, long fingers rubbing at her nape under rippling dark hair just the color he had scented—cedar bark, matching the spice of her scent.
Sandalwood, clove, cardamom, cassia, all rich and wonderful savours mixing to fill his mouth with the tingling honey-numbness of change and analgesic agents, his true teeth sliding free without a single betraying crackle of shifting bones.
His eyes burned, dry and avid; suppressing the pinpricks of killglow required an effort of will he was unused to making.
The wind, capering across miles of empty rolling grassland, wrapped him in her warm, enticing fragrance. Another layer of dust peeled from his perceptions; he marveled at how dull his senses had become.
And oh, was she not superb? Wide dark eyes under winged brows, her cheekbones starkly shadowed, a sweet bow of a mouth drawn with some emotion he could not name, her slimness very obviously tense even as she sighed and gazed at the distant horizon.
He realized the vehicle was deliberately parked to afford her quite the artistic vista, which bespoke some planning.
And her thinness was not that of fashion; her scent held a faint edge of burning sugar, caramel turned too dark upon high heat.
She was not properly fed, and no smoky screen of another sanguinant’s possessiveness hung upon that gorgeous, compelling aroma.
Can’t be. His mind trembled upon the edge of fracture once more; the sensation retreated as he allowed another trickle of air past his nostrils.
Even the most momentary relief was worth unending devotion; a sanguinant would pay any price, perform any feat to have unfettered access, to be near the source of that surcease.
It simply cannot be.
Yet it was. Sitting before him, in jeans and a soft, clinging long-sleeve shirt, an actual, unmistakable leman pointed her booted toes and sighed.
“Fuck,” she said, conversationally—an old word, perhaps older than himself.
He almost twitched, looking for her interlocutor.
Or did she speak to herself, as the lonely were supposed to?
He had, as the madness waxed over seasons and mortal years, babbled in the depths of night or cave. He had sung, hardly realizing the voice was his own, and howled during storms when the thunder-gods hurled bolts earthward. But she, she was too beautiful to ever know such things.
“Might be a good idea,” she continued, softly, ruminative.
A lovely voice to match the rest of her, a low restful alto, the sweetest song imaginable.
“No harm in trying, I suppose.” A long pause, as she leaned against the vehicle and tipped her chin up, examining the sky.
The lovely line of her throat—so tender, so exposed, a pleasant torment.
Young. Barely fledgling. The sure instinctive sense of another sanguinant’s age spoke, clarion-loud inside his own veins. And it added, Unclaimed. That was the important part.
Had she killed the trespasser? Impossible, and yet…
so was she. An unclaimed leman, deva, aima-glyza, imprima, sitting within his reach, staring at the starstrewn sky.
Dawn grew close; she should be behind invisible seals, in a secure, silken nest. His blood surged at the thought, an iron bar with its claws sunk deep in his belly, reaching to the base of his spine.
Diamond nail-flickers raced up his back, nerves and strong ancient muscles tensing by imperceptible fractions.
Unblinking, he watched. If her protector existed, they must strike now.
Yet no trace of another sanguinant lingered upon her, unless it were the fading tang of violent death—the trespasser’s.
She must have been responsible; there was no other explanation.
Perhaps their mutual opponent, drunk upon the very glory of her, had been singularly easy to dispatch.
The wanderer was very nearly thus himself, though another invisible layer of madness dropped from him with a stunning silent crash. He longed to flicker across the space, his teeth sinking into that naked, tempting pulse, carry her through the door into the vehicle, and…
She sniffed, heavily, rubbing below her pretty nose with the back of one hand. A strange, almost childlike motion, before she rose and re-entered her egg-thin castle walls. The door slammed, and he was left to wonder if she had indeed been weeping.
Where was the one who had granted her the Dark Gift? Had her protector been challenged and killed? If so, why had the victor not claimed her? A leman was not left to wander.
They were, simply and starkly, too precious.
Already the wanderer was more awake and aware than he had been at any time since the fire.
And—even more of a gift—the thought of the burning city, the heat, the sounds, the smell of roasting did not drive him to restless motion, seeking escape from an internal enemy.
Dawn comes. A fledgling’s unconsciousness was deep and utterly vulnerable, beginning at sunrise. Did she know how to set seals about her place of rest, or was she intending to sleep in this… this tin can? It defied belief and insanity both.
Scraps of that maddening, glorious perfume twist-trailed about him.
He longed to fill himself at the font; he craved a much closer acquaintance.
The fear that somehow she would vanish, that this was a hallucination preceding true-death, did nothing to aid him in discerning the most efficient course of action.
Balanced between caution and the mounting urge to claim this fragile, fabulous, utterly maddening miracle, he waited for dawn.