Chapter 30 Contradictory Sensation
Contradictory Sensation
How? How had the revenants tracked and found her? An ordinary civilian, even one beloved of a Dreamer, wasn’t capable of such things while alive. When infected and slowly consumed, they knew only appetite and the god’s urging.
Nigel could not, for the life of him, figure it out. There were far more pressing problems.
The sky was full of diamond stitchery, heat lightning responding to intense invisible pressure.
No moisture, not even a few isolated drops of rain though the air was heavy save for uneasy, flirting micro-bursts of breeze incapable of cooling.
The city’s giant gilded angel glowed sullenly.
Between the noise, the stray electricity, and the Mad God whipping his hunters to frenzy, few in the city could be sleeping peacefully.
All of which was now counterproductive so far as the god was concerned, since conscious, jabbering mortals would create a great deal of interference for covering Nigel’s numb, shaking lirai.
Cass’s shivers were concerning; she was dead pale, two red blotches high on each cheekbone, and her pupils were huge even for the bit of comparative darkness they now sheltered in.
She had retched twice in the parking garage, unable to produce anything but bile, and—of all things—mumbled an apology, as if she feared he would be offended by such a reasonable response to the thick reek of shadowbeast, revenant, and the god’s free-floating hatred.
Getting out of the hotel was the difficult part.
Nigel was slightly more sanguine about their chances now—pursuit would have to clear the building floor-by-floor, wading through confused ordinaries.
There would no doubt be a body count covered up by the normal authorities, but so long as his Dreamer was not among the casualties he could not find the will to care.
And he was sealed. No longer did the Mad God crouch outside a thin circle of protection, waiting for one false step, one instant of straying too far from grace.
Now, Nigel belonged wholly to another deity, and his gratitude was so immense if could have choked him were there not so many tasks to perform at the moment, so many considerations to keep track of.
“Nigel?” Soft and slurred, as she leaned against his side.
“I’m here.” He had to quell a deep, shameful shudder of outright pleasure. “Catch your breath, you’re close to shock.”
She gave a thin, disconsolate laugh as white glare drenched the street—four separate bolts of lightning streaking down to slam into the hotel two blocks behind them, a short moment of airless tension as thunder’s expansion fought with resisting air.
Nigel moved with with surf-roar of noise, his Dreamer’s feet not even brushing the pavement, and the next bit of cover accepted them easily.
The light had also shown his opponents—a group of sarnaki bolting across the empty street to the north, prowling nthlei, skulking kthlei, scuttling spiders both jana and leng, junior kthul with stubby vestigial wings flapping uneasily as they slunk along rooftops.
The storm was wonderful for stirring up night-fears and covering the movements of the god’s servitors, giving the less-physical many a gap to slither through, but the creation of so many unsettled potential-paths covered a lirai and her sealed Son quite handily as well.
If he were quick enough, quiet enough, brutal and cunning enough, he could acquire transport and slip through the city limits by dawn. The night was old, lightning-confused streetlamps flickering in semaphore.
He propped her against the brick wall of a closed bakery and studied the street once more. Not a lot of parked cars in this part of downtown, unless he tried another garage. Too easy to be caught in a concrete cul-de-sac there, though.
“Nigel.” She stirred, brushing at his jacket’s shoulder. “You should leave. Just go, keep heading east.”
Did she think so little of his competence?
He couldn’t blame her. Nigel watched a slithering excrescence tremble on the edge of visibility three and a half blocks away, calculating the odds if the thing did decide to achieve physicality.
She was less vulnerable to contagion, but shoggoth had a near-direct line to the Mad God and tradition held they performed some variety of nearly physical nerve function for him.
“Please.” Low and urgent, plucking at his sleeve. “You have to go now, or you won’t make it.”
She had sensed the revenants; maybe she sensed something else. “Which way?”
Her hand fell free, as if struck. Then she pointed—northward, and slightly west. “They’re thinnest there, but not for long.”
I was planning on going that direction anyway.
For a long breathless moment the storm held itself in abeyance, the city darkening as the Mad God sought to focus his will through ancient, immovable barriers keeping his bulk—if not his hands, tentacles, or a fraction of his restless, loathsome intelligence—well away from a tiny, rocky planet and its bright, cascading reverberations through multiple planes of existence.
“Right then.” He spared a moment’s thought for how much ammo he had left. Well, Sons survived long before firepower, he would find a way. “Listen. Do not broadcast through me, Cass. Keep buttoned up so far as you can, or you’ll burn out. Let’s go.”
“Just leave.” She dug her heels in, and he halted though it wouldn’t take much effort to simply drag her. “You can make it back to your people, I’ll be fine.”
“Not an option,” Nigel informed her, grimly. “I can either carry you upright or over my shoulder, love. Pick one.”
She shook her head, her chin jutting stubbornly, and he realized not only was she his lirai but also most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. “I won’t—”
Her refusal was cut off as his arm snaked around her waist and he burst from the alley’s mouth, moving with all the blurring speed a Son was capable of.
* * *
An hour and a half later, his sides heaving and the metallic taste of inhuman exertion filling his mouth, Nigel again propped her against a vertical surface, this time the side of a parked white van.
Thunder rattled angrily, but not so overwhelming anymore—the lightning had slowed as well, and an edge of grey showed at the mountains’ shadowed heads.
One or two sullen red spots dotted the flanks of a nearby spur; hopefully the fires would starve before achieving residential areas.
The nearby church was small as such things went. But its lot wasn’t fenced, parking spaces empty save for two big white people-movers. Bad mileage per gallon—still, at this point, though not a beggar, he was not quite a chooser either.
His pale, fading Dreamer trembled convulsively, ribs heaving and her large, liquid eyes terribly vacant.
One arm lifted; she coughed rackingly into the tender hollow of her elbow.
Her T-shirt was sadly the worse for wear, rips and holes widened by the speed of their passage, but at least she wasn’t spattered with unclean ichor.
He’d managed that much.
The church crouched in a residential section stuffed with gated compounds, but much of the ‘security’ was for show. It was, Nigel thought sourly, bloody amazing that he hadn’t found better transport to steal in an American city.
The most likely escape avenues were crawling with the God’s minions, both human and otherwise. No doubt many of the prowling cops were unaware of why their patrol patterns had been changed, and irritated at chasing figments of civilian imagination during an odd weather event.
The van was sturdy, and a faint tingle in his palm said its electrical systems were at least live, if not quite up to par. The alarm disengaged and locks chucked obligingly when he applied a bit of sorcerous pressure; Nigel eased the passenger door open. “Up you go,” he whispered.
“Oh, God,” she replied despairingly, perhaps at the prospect of climbing into a vehicle, aesthetic horror at such an inelegant choice, or moral distaste for having to steal yet another set of wheels. It was an open question.
The engine roused, a crackling hum rising from interior speakers; he jabbed at the radio button with scarcely restrained vengefulness.
Ninety seconds later Nigel found the van was reasonably responsive if a trifle top-heavy.
A sigh of relief escaped his lips, and he checked again—yes, her seatbelt was securely fastened.
Cass huddled in the passenger’s bucket seat, staring at the windshield with a variety of disbelief so intense he was hard put not to give a short, bitter laugh.
The sound died in his throat as she hunched, burying her face in her hands.
Oh, no. “Are you hurt? Cass?”
“’M fine.” Muffled and tiny, the sound almost hurt to hear.
“Try to rest.” He hit the turn signal, flicked the headlights on, and mercilessly squashed the feeling of having won a small victory. Getting cocky now was an invitation to disaster. “When dawn’s a bit higher I’ll ask you for one more thing.”
“Only one?” She didn’t lower her hands, but the faint hint of rueful amusement in her sweet quiet voice was a comfort.
“You’ve done very well indeed. Splendidly, in fact.” What did one say to a woman who had just been dragged through hell?
“You should have left me.” A heavy sniff. Her hands loosened slightly, only enough to grant her voice clearer passage. “I’m a disease.”
For a moment he thought his ears had failed him. He eased onto the brake, bringing the van to a balanced, very legal stop, and decided they should turn left since the shadows to the right were far thicker than they should be.
What could he say? He was manifestly unfit for any kind of comfort, no matter how badly he wished to perform the function.
“That’s not true,” he finally managed. “It’s my fault. You’re exhausted, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”
His insistence garnered a reaction, at least. She dropped her hands into her lap and glared at him. “Stop. Just… stop, please. Those zombie things, those were Bern and Apoc, weren’t they.”
Were those their names? “Your friends, yes. They were dead the moment they were bitten—many’s the unclean which can turn normals into controlled corpses, mostly revenants and raving dead but sometimes higher-order things.
Doesn’t matter, really; I just can’t figure out how they found us.
Usually revenants can’t track a Dreamer. ”
“Revenants.” The word was loaded with bitterness, unlike her usual eager desire to learn proper terminology.
“Okay, whatever. Look, Nigel, I’m a curse.
Anyone I care about gets killed sooner or later.
You should get away from me while you have the chance, even if bogey-hunting is your job. Especially if it’s your job.”
Care about? It wouldn’t do to drive off the road, Nigel told himself. Dreamers were creatures of empathy, it didn’t mean she actually… and in any case, she wasn’t safe yet. So, he contended himself with digging in his jacket’s inner breast pocket.
“You’ve been hunted your entire life.” His fingers found the last burner; the pocket was safely padded, and flip phones were generally quite robust these days.
“That’s not your fault, and you cannot hold yourself responsible.
Your friends survived as long as they did because of you, I’m fully immune to the god now because of you, and in a little while you’re going to call in again, and get through. Try to focus on that, if you can.”
She uncurled enough to stare bleakly at him, her gaze pleasantly heavy. A Dreamer’s scrutiny was warm, wonderful, and a reminder of just how unfit any Son was even to know such creatures existed; to be the focus of his own lirai’s attention made every contradictory sensation that much more intense.
He extended the burner phone over the center console with its three deep cupholders and storage compartment, watching the road.
A little more driving and they would be out of this subdivision, he could almost feel the line of the highway beckoning.
A hint of bright orange limned the Wasatch, peeking under a lid of inky cloud, and the rattle of thunder was now distant and sporadic.
The god’s human hands wouldn’t expect a traumatized, nearly burnt-out lirai holding together enough to unerringly point out the gaps in their hunting patterns, and doubly wouldn’t expect their prey’s protector to take a giant church van.
Cass continued staring at him. “They found us because I brought them.” All in a single breath, and she hunched toward the passenger door as if expecting an explosion. “I can do things, when it looks like I’m sleeping. I was… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Be very careful, old man. What you say now is important. It was akin to taking confession from a Younger suffering combat-sickness, nerves scraped raw by adrenaline, strained psyche staggering under guilt barely channeled into aggression and the god’s persistent whispers.
“That makes sense.” He strove for soft neutrality in every syllable; she was untrained, and yet instinctively performing some of the most advanced and draining aspects of the Dreamers’ art—and under his very nose, as well.
The thought of what could have happened had she slipped, had his vigilance waned, or had they simply been a trifle more unlucky, was not to be dwelled upon at the moment.
“You were worried for them, and had no reason to trust us.” Or trust me. And you probably still don’t.
“Nigel—” Wan and breathless, his name lingered on her lips.
He strangled the dark satisfaction of hearing it.
“At any moment the Mad God could simply leave you alone.” Leave all of us alone, as well.
He must have better things to do, he’s a bloody god.
“That he chooses otherwise is not your fault. Please, Cass. Take this, and try to focus on wanting to get through. A bit of meditation, if you like. I have to drive.”
Cass’s fingers, cold and tentative, brushed his. An electric thrill shot through him, crown to soles, fingertips to toes. “Don’t turn left up ahead,” she said, finally, in a very small voice. “I can feel something nasty there.”
“Duly noted.” It would make getting out of the subdivision a little more difficult, but at least he had a Dreamer’s instincts to work with.
And he felt something as well—an intermittent tightening at his nape, subtle and familiar. It was the sense of being pursued by one of his own kind.
He was hoping it was Edward. And dreading the prospect at the same time, for reasons best left unsaid.