Chapter 7 Cora #2
"He stopped being my friend the day he turned anti-Council. I have been grieving him for four years. Thank you for the quick."
"Yes."
The radio went quiet.
I came out from the basement entrance.
I went north.
The dawn was an hour away. The light was the pre-dawn gray that the Oklahoma flat country produced when the storm was twenty hours out.
The bodies were in the gravel at the north line.
Three Vampyren, three humans. The Vampyren bodies were the ones I did not look at directly.
I had not built a habit, in eleven years, of looking at dead Vampyren.
The human bodies were the ones I looked at — their faces I could read, their ages I could place, their hands I could check for wedding rings.
Two of the three humans wore rings. Home-made, both of them.
Twisted wire, the way humans married each other after the invasion when the gold supply had run out.
I did not write down the ring count.
Drew was at the body of the Vampyren on the right flank. He was kneeling. He had cleaned his blade. He had wrapped the dead Vampyren's hand around the hilt of the dead Vampyren's own blade. It was a Vampyren custom Renn had told me about once: the dead-warrior's blade-hand. It was a courtesy.
Drew did not look up when I came to him.
"Cora."
"Drew."
"You know what Renn was telling me on the radio about taking Verel quick."
"He was telling you to kill him fast because he had been Renn's friend."
"He was also telling me to kill him fast because Verel had been a senior warrior of the cohort and a senior warrior of the cohort got a courtesy. The courtesy was a quick death. I gave Verel the courtesy."
"Yes."
"I learned the courtesy from Renn telling me to give it. I did not know about the courtesy this morning."
"You learned it on the radio."
"I learned it on the radio."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Are you okay."
"No."
"Why not."
"Because the courtesy is a giving. The courtesy is a thing the senior gives to the senior.
I was not the senior. Renn told me to give the courtesy because Verel was Renn's friend.
I gave the courtesy because Renn asked. The giving was not from me to Verel.
The giving was from Renn through me to Verel. I was a vehicle."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"That is still a giving."
"Cora."
"You took the courtesy from Renn. You used the courtesy on Verel. Renn could not do it himself. He needed you to do it for him. You did it. That is a giving. The giving was through your hand. Your hand was the giving."
He was quiet.
He set the dead Vampyren's blade-hand carefully on the blade-hilt. The hand was already cooling. The fingers had not yet stiffened. Renn would close them in ten minutes when the rigor began.
Drew said:
"Cora."
"Yes."
"I am going to be quiet now."
"Okay."
"I am going to drive the third truck for the next leg. Sylvia will be in the lead with you. Renn will be in the second with Cruz. I will be alone in the third. I need an hour of being alone."
"Okay."
"Thank you."
I stood up.
I walked back to the trucks.
Renn was at the basement entrance. He had come up from the cache. He had the field kit in his hand. Sylvia had handed it to him from the basement. Renn was the closest thing to a Vampyren-cohort senior on the team and Renn was the one who would handle the post-engagement protocol. He nodded at me.
"He gave the courtesy."
"He did."
"He did not know about the courtesy this morning."
"He learned it on the radio. From you."
"He learned it from Verel's posture in the second before the cut.
The Vampyren cohort teaches the courtesy through posture.
The teaching is in the posture. Drew read the posture.
I told him about the left-side weakness because the cut had to be quick.
The reading of the courtesy was Drew's. The cut was Drew's. The giving was Drew's."
"Renn."
"Yes."
"He's grieving."
"He is."
"What does the Vampyren cohort do for a junior who is grieving the first courtesy."
"The cohort lets the junior have an hour of being alone."
"He asked for the hour."
"Then the cohort gives the hour. The cohort does not ask the junior to explain.
The cohort does not check on the junior during the hour.
At the end of the hour the junior comes back to the cohort and the cohort does not mention the hour.
The cohort treats the junior as the cohort always has.
The cohort never mentions the hour again. "
"Even between the senior and the junior."
"Never."
"That is. Renn, that is a thing."
"It is the thing. The cohort built it because the cohort knew that the first courtesy was the heaviest one. The cohort built the hour to carry it."
"Okay."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"You are not in the cohort. You do not have to honor the hour. You can mention it to him if you want to. But if you do mention it, Drew will not be able to tell you not to. He will not yet know how to refuse the mention. He will absorb the mention. He will carry the mention with the hour."