"She can't swim!" he gasped before slumping in the demon's furry grasp.
We turned back and looked. The underwater ghost light was pointed right where one of the elves had gone over the side.
A frantic hand broke the surface of the water for a moment and then slipped back beneath the waves.
It was perfect: one less foe to fight. One less threat to my unborn son. A psychological, as well as numerical, blow to our pointy-eared enemies. So there's only one explanation as to what happened next.
I just didn't care.
Looking back later I had to reconcile my response to the logical default any other sane and sensible man would have taken.
It wasn't heroic.
I mean, I'm not that kind of guy. Not any more and maybe I never was. Once upon a time I was a decent guy, a nice guy, with a wife and a daughter and a life in the suburbs. I had already learned a number of lessons about life being unfair and how shit happens and such. It took an encounter with Vlad Drakul Bassarab V and half of the necrophagic virus that transforms the living into the undead to learn that death is just as unfair as life. And that if you think shit just happens while you're breathing then you don't know shit at all.
The problem with heroes is they approach problems as if they are puzzles that can be solved, tasks that can be completed, or foes that can be vanquished. I knew better, now. Dr. Henry Kissinger once said: "All of the world's great problems are not problems, at all. They are dilemmas, and dilemmas cannot be solved. They can only be survived."
So, not into heroics these days, and not seeing a lot of potential in the survival column, either. Let's just chalk up my impulsive "rescue" attempt as "depressed, angry guy with a growing death wish sees another opportunity to play chicken with Mr. Death." Gives the cylinder on God's revolver another roulette spin and leaps into the black waters. Don't give me that look—the one that murmurs "rationalization." Metaphysically it's more selfish than selfless, calculated even. Assuming there are such things as the Pearly Gates, they can't turn me away. What? Suicide? C'mon, Pete, let's watch the replay again: I jumped in to perform a good deed. How was I to know the giant sea monster with the glowy eye was going to chew me into Purina Shark Chum and feed me to her litter of fish fiends? Not my fault I ruined God's little game of Let's Torment Cséjthe Some More . . .
Hitting the water was like flopping into a cold concrete wall: it knocked what little breath I had left out of me. Fortunately, the nanobots were already at work reconstructing the artificial gill at the back of my throat. The only reason I swallowed so much water this time was I continued to cuss the whole way in.
I immediately started sinking like a rock. Vampires will do anything to avoid crossing running water for this very reason and, while I was still technically alive, I was no longer humanly buoyant. My last escape from the watery Ouachita had been a fluke. No pun intended.
Then the cramping started.
Bad enough to drown but to go out with a bad case of gas?
My descent slowed as odd sensations began to spread throughout my body. The cramping eased into an uncomfortable bloating sensation.
Oh.
My.
God.
The 'bots were effecting further biological modifications, creating some kind of half-assed sub-marine buoyancy system! Worrisome enough, but what if they elected to excise body parts when it was time to "drop ballast"?
I had no further opportunity to dwell on the unpleasant side effects of cybernetic modifications as company was arriving.
Fand was maybe twenty feet below me and being dragged along the river's bed by the current. The underwater beam of light caught the white corona of her hair in its icy gaze, dispelling any doubts as to her identity. Nor was there any question as to who the new arrivals were: a quartet of Black Lagoon wannabes had arrived to see if they could make things any more unpleasant than they already were.
I reached toward them and kicked down. And farted. I shot downward like a torpedo on target. Not "jet-propelled," you understand; just less buoyant.
So quit smirking.
There were other forms at the periphery of the light. Moving. Humanoid. How many of these things were there? I felt a prickling sensation erupt all over my body and considered the possibility that I might not make it back to the boat even if I elected to turn back now.
But: Screw 'em, I decided.
According to Mama Samm, these were bad guys on a cosmic scale (heh, again no pun intended). These were the Deep Dudes who were supposed to have a hand in waking up Octogod, Lord of Slumber and Sodomizer of Worlds. I had glimpsed their kind scavenging a storm-battered New Orleans in my eye-blink vision, utilizing human skulls and viscera as bricks and mortar for the New Order. More than self-defense, more than rescuing Fand, I owed these guys a round of deaths on higher principles. If I had just a few minutes left before the nanites rehabbed my insides into tuna casserole, I was going to spend them violating the parish fish-and-game codes in unusual and spectacular ways.
I rammed into the first amphibioid and pulled Fand's arm from its grasp. Other silhouettes closed in, blocking segments of the spotlight and the closest fish folk swarmed me.
I lost my grip on her arm. Then I lost my bearings.
It was a different fight this time. I wasn't struggling for air, feeling the erosion of thought and coordination as my lungs caught fire. I thrust my hands, arms, even legs, understanding that they were deadly weapons if I so willed it. The biggest problem was finding Fand again and getting her to the surface before she drowned. And not mistaking the elf for a finny foe in the meantime. I was stabbing and slashing whatever was within reach and reaching back. In moments I was enveloped in a confused tangle of mutant bodies and a cloud of blackish blood. And the fluids from eviscerated bodies were negating any advantage the ghost light had offered just moments before.
These things had to be cold-blooded so I tried shifting my vision over into the infrared spectrum, figuring to pick Fand out of the underwater lineup. I had never tried doing this underwater and either it wasn't working or Fand was as cold-blooded biologically as her personality suggested.
Or already out of range as the temperature of the water was probably acting like a diffusion medium.
Either way, she would be drowning while I was playing patty-cake with the Cousteau Twins, here. At least it felt like I was down to two . . .
Make that one.
And as I jerked him close enough to deliver the coup de grâce, a rising red tide behind my eyeballs rolled like a tsunami throughout my body. I felt like I hadn't eaten in days, maybe weeks! And, except for a cup of O-Neg the other night, I probably hadn't. And, since waking back up in my own carcass, I had been burning through my meager reserves like a refinery fire. I wasn't just hungry, I was starved!
The fact that the gill in my throat was filtering oxygen out of a fluid medium that was more blood soup than river water was only making it worse. If aquaman, here, had been any more human—and I had fangs—I would have gone for snackage right then and there.
And then I felt the prickling disturbances in my gums.
The nanites were reprogramming to adapt to my perceived survival needs. I was growing fangs! Silver-laced ferrocarbon fangs, as like!
Not that I was about to use them, of course. No way I was going to bite one of these fish people on their slimy necks and suck—
My opponent shoved his hand in my face, digging his claws into my temples and bending my head back until I felt like the headliner at a contortionists' convention. Even as I grabbed at his unyielding arm, instinct took over and I bit the heel of his palm as it pushed between my jaws.
Another explosion of blackish blood and the gill structure somehow revalved to allow me to swallow. Strange, amphibious fluids trickled down my throat to refuel the arcane biological mechanisms that kept me alive and functional. As fuels go, it was a very odd octane.
As food goes . . . it tasted like sushi. Bad sushi.
Sea Haunt removed his hand quickly. Then turned and fled, running into some sort of obstacle just beyond the range of the ghost light. I let him go for the moment. There had to be others and one more or one less right now wasn't going to make the difference that eclipsed the other matters immediately at hand. A major fishing expedition, however, had just moved way up on my to-do list. For now, however, I turned to follow the current. The Hunger was still there, still strong, but momentarily bearable. Fand took priority for the moment.
Twenty, thirty, forty yards was enough to give me the bad news: if the bottom current had gotten her, she could already be a mile or more downriver. I turned and kicked back to the surface to get my bearings. More gas cramps and the overall tingling sensation turned itself inside out. As my head broke the surface I saw dozens of spiny protrusions on my hand slide back down beneath the skin.
For a few moments, at least, my prickly disposition had found a means of outward expression.
No wonder I was starving: the energy requirements for microbiological replication and construction had to be tremendous. First you had untold millions of microscopic fabrication and construction machines requiring fuel just to operate. Then there were the additional energy costs for manipulating and reproducing materials at the cellular level. Factor in my body's accelerated demands for healing and repair every time flesh or bone had to be breached for a projecting claw, spine, or blade, sundered and reknit for internal reconfigurations—you were looking at a growing energy demand that couldn't be met by a plate full of cheeseburgers or a bowl of crawfish étouffée!
Daddy's little helpers were ticking time bombs, noshing through my veins like teeny-tiny Pac-men, gobbling up every nutrient in sight. If I didn't feed them soon, they would start cannibalizing me in ways that would make piranhas look like butterflies. If my own body didn't starve to death on the cellular level, first.
A quick three-sixty of the river's surface yielded no further evidence of Fand but there were extra forms at the New Moon's railing. A second look and I was treated to a zoom-in close-up view like Steve Austin's bionic eye. Stop that! Bad nanos, bad! The last thing I needed was to amp up their energy consumption when I was already dangerously low on my own reserves.
I turned and began a weary breast stroke for the houseboat, trying not to look again.
If it was Fand I saw being helped aboard, I didn't need to waste any more energy, much less optical reconfigurations, on another look-see. And, if it wasn't, she was as good as dead by now, and swept downriver to points unknown.
Besides, the real temptation was to look at the second figure standing next to her.
And there was no sense risking further disorientation until I was back on solid footing and could make arrangements to cross the river to the blood bank.
I was too weak to climb the ladder when I finally reached the New Moon's side. Zotz had to jump back in and assist me, as I would later learn he had done with Fand and her other rescuer. Once aboard, a blanket was thrown over me and I was taken into the salon.
Fand sat, huddled on the sofa, her blanket already soaking through. Stefan Pagelovitch's AWOL enforcer stood beside her, dripping and dribbling water like a broken fountain. A blanket was puddled on the floor behind her as if it had just slipped from her shoulders.
"Suki?" I whispered, weary beyond comprehension. Her head turned to track me but her eyes were dark and lifeless. Dead. "Where have you been?" I murmured.
Her mouth opened slowly, as if she were hesitant to speak. But no words came out. Just a freshet of river water, dark with silt and sediment. And then a tiny crawfish tumbled over her lower lip and rode the waterslide down the front of her rotting blouse.
There's a reason why vampires, as a rule, won't cross running water. Or any other kind that's deeper than they are tall. The undead don't swim. Don't float. Once in and under, they don't come back out. They drown. You might think drowning is no big deal to something that's already dead. But it is. Don't ask me how or why—I've personally dodged that particular bullet and I hope to God I never find out, firsthand.
But Suki . . .
I tried to walk to her but my legs gave out from under me. Zotz swept me up before I could hit the floor and carried me back into my cabin.
I didn't "pass out."
And "swoon" is such a girly turn of phrase.
I had just hit the last of my reserves and my body went into energy-conservation mode. Which pretty much meant I could only lie there and try to tell Bats why my arms and legs no longer worked. Slurring my words like a drunken stroke victim didn't help and the demon seemed to lose interest, leaving the room while I was still explaining that I'd be perfectly happy to skip the reheating process and eat the crunchy, frozen blood packs like snow cones. Anything to hurry the process along!
I closed my eyes for a moment. Maybe if I rested a few minutes . . . ten . . . twenty . . . I could gather enough strength to get back up and . . . do what?
All Zotz had to do was get to the other side of the river, drive my other car to the blood bank, use my keys and pass code to get in and bypass the alarms, grab some blood (preferably from the excess stocks but I wouldn't nag in this particular instance), remember to reset the security tapes and alarms and relock the doors on the way out—all without being seen by local law enforcement or passersby, and avoiding run-ins with furry or faerie foes.
I really needed to get up right now!
Before Fand recovered enough to have me clapped in chains. Or worse, seeing as how chains hadn't worked the last time . . .
Besides, resting wasn't working. I was so hungry I couldn't relax enough for my muscles to recover. I lay there, feeling like a darkening bruise and wondering if not passing out had been such a good plan after all.
A warm hand touched my cooling forehead.
Opening my eyes seemed to use even more of my dwindling reserves. It was worth it, though: Fand's sylphic sister was sitting on the edge of my bed looking down at me with wide, luminous eyes.
"Thou ailest," she said. Her lips moved in all sorts of interesting ways when she talked and her voice almost sounded . . . regretful.
"I'm tired," I muttered. "Escaping from being chained to a chair is a lot of hard work."
"And yet you returned and repaid my sister's treachery by saving her life."
It didn't seem prudent to point out that my return was prompted by a pack of weres. Or that said return was what knocked Fand overboard in the first place. Or that, in spite of all my thrashing around in the water, someone else had actually pulled her sister out of the river.
Plus I didn't have the strength for a long, drawn-out conversation.
But there were questions that had to be asked.
"What does your sister want with my son?" I demanded. At least it was supposed to be a demand. In my condition it didn't sound very "demandy."
"It's—it's complicated," the so-called goddess of health and beauty stuttered before turning her face aside.
"I think I'm owed something, here," I grumbled. "How about we start with an explanation?"
"You will not accept it."
I stared at her. "So what? Not much on the accepting with the non explanations. Without knowing what this is about, I tend to default to the worst-case-scenario mind set. Which means any explanation—even one I don't like—is bound to be better than my not-so-optimistic assessment of your motivations." Whew. Did that even make sense? I was starting to grow delirious.
Liban turned her face back to mine and took my hands in hers. "Very well." She took a deep breath—which made my head swim in all sorts of interesting ways and I think I lost a moment of linear time.
"Your demon familiar says that you must have blood ere you will die," Liban said, looking at me as if I had just changed color. I got the impression I had missed a sentence or two. "Is this true?"
Thanks a lot, Zotz. Does Jimmy Olsen phone up Lex Luthor and discuss kryptonite?
"Just a little hungry, that's all," I said. "A snack would be nice. I'm a little hypoglycemic . . ."
"Must you have blood? Will other food do?"
I sighed. It was a squeamish subject even for me—and I sure as hell didn't like discussing my dietary requirements with strangers. "Look if there's any of my stuff left on board—"
"Setanta threw them all out," she interrupted. "He says you are a monster and he has seen your eyes fill with blood. He feared it would make you too powerful and monstrous to contain."
"Yeah? Well, tell Billy-Ray it's those Happy Hemoglobin Meals that keep me from turning into a monster. Without them I have to go all snack-attack on someone's neck!"
She stared at me. "I see. I presume that would be the case if you actually had the strength to sit up at all."
Great. Can't fight, can't run, can't even bluff. I was so screwed. "Just let my demon familiar go fetch me some more, okay? That way I won't turn into a monster and everyone will be a lot happier . . ." "Happier" is actually a very difficult word to pronounce: try saying it the next time you go to the dentist and get a face full of Novocaine.
She started to get up. "I'll see if I can find anything else in the galley."
I tried to hold onto both of her hands and was only half successful. "Wait. I want that explanation, first."
"But—"
"I know you want to change the subject. Change it after you answer the question!"
She settled back down on my bunk and took my free hand back in hers. "Very well. There is a Telling. Actually two. Both concern the End of the World as we know it and both, we believe, involve your son and a blood sacrifice . . ."
Don't ask me questions about elven prophecy—where they get it, how it's handed down, and particularly how it's interpreted. Elves aren't particularly direct in their approach to the mundane so expecting clarity on the subject of their theosophical underpinnings is largely hopeless for us humans-come-lately.
Especially a skeptic who was holding on to the fringes of consciousness with non-metallic and very dull fingernails. For a change.
Apparently one of their End-of-the-World visions involved what would happen if an elven queen and a human had the bad taste to breed.
I know, I know; Romance literature is populated with references to the "halfelven" and there's cross-species dalliances a-plenty if one knows where to look (and how to read between the florid lines). These affairs generally led to problems, though. If not for the original, hormonally engaged and their git, then somewhere down the line when the consequences tended to hit the fan with all that pent-up karma. The classics are all pretty clear on that particular theme and not-so-many variations.
And if elven royalty were involved it was like swapping out gunpowder for uranium 235 and plutonium. Something in Fand's bloodline was especially volatile in terms of human genetics and any hybrid offspring were going to make Oedipus Rex look like the Nativity by comparison—picture The Omen meets Middle Earth.
Forget rings of power or immortal flowering trees or the next recipe for the perfect Keebler cookie; the biggest quest before the People's Court—Seelie or Unseelie—involved the management of Fand's social life. No wonder she was so testy: everyone had been conspiring to keep her an old maid for at least a thousand years.
"You see," Liban explained, "Setanta is actually—"
"Yeah, I know. Cuchulainn," I said. "The Hound of Ulster. Which explains that whole Brock Samson vibe he's got going on. Somehow Fand got wind of the plot and was able to circumvent it. Or plots, as he's still alive. And long after he should've been dust. But they're still together, as well. Someone should tell Fand's ex he should never wash a magic cloak. It rinses those amnesia spells right out. Dry clean only."
Liban shook her head. "Humans . . . You see nothing unscientific about the invisibility of the hummingbird's wings in flight. The visible light spectrum is but a small portion of what other creatures see and sense. A high-frequency sound is not nonexistent merely because it ranges beyond your human limitations. Telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, clairaudience—all well within acceptable theories of science when you reach the quantum levels. Your many religions teach you to pray to that which you cannot see nor touch, asking it to set aside the laws of physics and medicine and produce anomalies called miracles. Cosmology posits a multidimensional universe, even other universes: a multiverse with an infinite number of worlds, realities, histories occupying the same space." She sighed. "Yet you cannot conceive of creatures who are like and yet unlike yourselves. Whose vibrations are set to a separate frequency and thus do not occupy the same spaces in quite the same ways as you. Who see and sense the spectrum of energies a bit differently. You misname our ability to channel levels and frequencies of q'u'orernen, calling it 'magic,' as if it were something fanciful and without boundaries or law such as the nonsense in Aladdin or Harry Potter.
"We are not impossible merely because we outlive your species. There are sequoias that are over 2,000 years old, bristlecone pines alive today that were two thousand years old before your Christ was born. Both are plants. And yet so many other plants are encoded to sprout, grow, bloom, seed and die, all within a single season. You cannot hold a single measurement of longevity to any species. Are we fantastical because we measure our lives in millennia? Or are humans because you measure yours in decades?
"You laugh and mock your own legends and myths. But most are founded on actual history and passed down in the oral manner with the resultant distortions. Your own historians are constantly redefining recent events for they understand how facts and personal accounts may be altered in the handling of its written records."
"Like the evening news," I said. "So, what are you trying to say here?"
"That, time factors and details aside, you and my sister have a great deal in common."
"What?"
Her lips twitched a smile so sad and so fleeting it was almost imaginary. "You both fell in love with someone who wasn't like yourselves. And a lot of people schemed to keep you both from the ones you love. As a result, you've both been changed, damaged even. You, of all people, should understand her dysfunctional behavior."
"Every time I've crossed paths with her I seem to get the worse of it," I replied. "Seems pretty functional to me."
"She's my sister, Cséjthe! We're both sea goddesses, yet she almost drowned scarce a quarter of an hour ago! She no longer functions in her natural element! And Cuchulainn . . ." Her eyes flickered, went from angry to sad. "His mind is so deeply scarred that he not only has no memory of who he once was, but how they once were. Oh, he bears her much devotion . . . but his much vaunted pride and arrogance are gone."
"Really? Hadn't picked up on that so much."
"You didn't know him then. The Hound of Ulster is a mere puppy now. I believe that two people must see themselves as equals if they are to be great lovers. What my sister was left with is but a shadow of love's glory, crumbs from passion's banquet, mere—"
"Yeah, yeah, okay! I get it! Love among the ruins. But there was this prophecy, I understand? Something about doom and the end of the world?"
"If they were to conceive a child."
"Yeah, well, not that I don't feel the tragedy now that they're all Bobby and Whitney—"
Liban gave me a blank look.
"All Britney and K-Fed," I amended.
Still the look.
"Liz and Dick? The point is, just because the honeymoon's over doesn't mean they don't need major birth control. I mean, they still look pretty cozy to me."
Fand's sister looked rather taken aback. "Conception is not so haphazard among our people," she said slowly. "Our wombs quicken when we choose to bear children. Otherwise our lovers and mates may have no issue with us."
It took a moment for that to sink in. I was still working over the various implications when she continued: "My sister has circumvented the doom of the prophecy by adopting a child one generation in every four. Her needs to motherhood are met and so she may continue with her consort, slaking her desires on both fronts, without combining them in such a way as to fulfill the fate foretold."
"So," I muttered, trying not to slur my words, "you're saying as long as she adopts some kid every couple of hundred years and raises him, she cools the fertility jones that would get her preggers with Cuch. And, as long as they don't produce their own franchise of little Fandchulains, the elves escape their doom?"
"And my sister," Liban clarified, clearly unhappy with my word choice, "escapes judgment with prejudice by the Councils."
I didn't have to ask what "judgment with prejudice" meant. I did have to ask: "Why my kid? I mean, maybe the first attempt but, now that I've put my foot down, it's time for her to move down the list and try some other adoption agencies."
Those green eyes narrowed and turned the color of stormy seas. "My sister is still outlaw for her chosen path. No elf will permit her to raise a child of their own—even those rarely orphaned. It must needs, therefore, be human. And only a very special human child will do."
"Still," I insisted stubbornly, "not going to happen with my kid. If she wants to play Mommy Dearest, she'd better get on with it and down the road from here!" I tried to growl that last part for emphasis and only ended up sounding like I had a touch of congestion.
"It is not only for personal reasons that your son was selected," she said, "but for a separate Telling, as well. One that involves the fate of the rest of the world—the world of men as well as our own."
"Yeah? Do tell." I leaned toward her. "Do."
She stared at me for a long time, her eyes seemingly haunted. "It involves a sacrifice."
I closed my eyes. "Of course it does."
I felt her hand laid along the side of my face. "I am sorry. I am so, so sorry . . ."
"Get out," I whispered. "Tell your sister and her sexecutioner that I want you all off of my boat when I get up or I'll damn well fix that first prophecy myself!"
I didn't have the strength to open my eyes but her hand slipped away and, after a long moment, the door to my cabin opened and closed.
I was such a fool! Playing chicken with the Grim Reaper was a thoughtless and impulsive act, seeking quick and selfish closure. In doing so, I had committed ultimate folly by rescuing one of the creatures who was bent on connecting my son to some inexplicable sacrifice! And, in doing so, I had further damaged my own ability to rescue him by depleting my physical resources.
Apparently the micromachine invasion required large reserves of energy when they got all creative and constructiony. That's why each transformation resulted in my Hunger ramping up to unforeseen levels. If I didn't ante up on the fuel sources via blood-drinking with the resultant iron molecules for spare parts, they would apparently take their pound of flesh via other means.
The good news? Since they were ostensibly programmed to preserve my life, I probably wouldn't expire right away.
The bad news? Since they were ostensibly programmed to preserve my life, I probably wouldn't expire right away.
The questions were: what biological materials would they consider to be nonessential, and how painful would it be, and how long before permanent damage accrued?
Bad enough.
What was worse: the end of world—some kind of end of the world—was on its way and my children were weeks away from being born, just a few blocks away from what was increasingly looking like Ground Zero. And, if it turned out that Mama Samm had failed on the rooftop of One Shell Square, then we were all smack dab in the middle of a battlefield between the undead legions of a powerful madwoman and an army of cunning, preternatural beasts with one hell of a storm thrown in for good measure!
While I just lay here doing nothing!
Having just failed at selfishly taking the coward's way out.
Could I be any more pathetic and despicable?
They say it's always darkest before the dawn, but suddenly everything got darker. I was sucked down into a hypnogogic undertow and pulled out into the sea of dreams.
Recipe for a nightmare:
Take one really big, dark gray barrel and cut openings around the middle.
Place dozens of octopi or squid inside barrel so that tentacles emerge from openings all the way around the center. Lots o' tentacles!
Crazy-glue giant yellow starfish to the top of barrel. Paste eyes at the end of each point. Add little red tubes ending in mouths between the points.
Crazy-glue second giant starfish to the bottom of same barrel. Add little red tubes between each of those points for—what? Poop chutes?
Add a half dozen or so batwings, folded up and spaced around the middle between the tentacles.
Altogether the thing was between six and eight feet tall. That was my best guess, based on its proximity to my dream self. And the book it held open before it with two of its five pseudopods. It closed the book with a snap but not before I discerned the image of a crowned elephant riding in a balloon and the title: Le Voyage de Babar.
Three antennae or feelers or eyestalks or something poked out in my direction.
"You cannot look upon its flesh and keep your sanity," intoned the weird Winky Dink voice.
I looked around. Everywhere else was darkness. I looked back at the alien monstrosity. "Yeah? Well, looking right now and not feeling particularly crazy about the view," I shot back. I was really getting homesick for the good ole days when a vampire was about the creepiest thing I could ever imagine.
"You cannot travel within its mind and survive," the voice continued.
"What? Bloodwalk? Inside a giant rutabaga? Forget it! I'm on a low alien-carb diet!"
"You must be transformed . . . purged . . . purified . . . so that you may face the apotheosis of fear without reverberation. You must be reprogrammed. . . ."
The monster reached toward me with writhing tentacles and I turned to flee, to fly . . .
And eventually float, drifting down to nestle into an angel's embrace.
Heaven faded out. My cabin faded in. The angel transformed into Liban.
She had an arm around me, raising me from one pillow to another.
"I'm sorry to awaken you," she said, offering a bowl of something pinkish and sweet smelling. "But your familiar seemed to think it important to feed you as soon as possible. 'Tis not your accustomed fare but it seems best to try whatever we can until more human blood can be obtained."
"Across the river," I whispered. "Send Zotz. He knows where to go. What to do."
"Setanta departed with him two hours ago. Under the circumstances, I think it best we delay not ere they return." She propped my head up and brought the bowl to my lips. "Try a draught of this to see if it will sustain thee whilst we wait."
Yeah, that was a good idea. Drink strange concoctions brewed by the people who had held me captive and wanted to birthnap my son. The smart money was on waiting for Zotz to take down the Mullet and return with the real deal from my private stock at the blood bank.
The problem was if Setanta was the Hound of Ulster, I wasn't so sure of Zotz's supremacy in a little one-on-one. Regardless, I didn't think I could wait that long.
Not so much that I was hungry—I'd endured the inside-out, skin-crawling, eye-itching, hair-aching, brain-churning withdrawal pains of the bloodthirst before. It's one thing to go toe-to-toe with the pain when it's your own body throwing a tantrum over not getting what it so desperately wants. This, however, was something a little different.
It was still The Hunger—capital-T, capital-H. But it wasn't just me, now. It was tens of millions of tiny machines, all ravenous, all looking around their immediate vicinity for something to eat. If I didn't throw them some kind of bone, the phrase "dining in" was going to take on a whole new dimension.
Besides, what was the flip side of the risk?
If the Sidhe Sisters were trying to get me to ingest something harmful, the nanites were programmed to neutralize threats and adapt to preserve my life. Right?
I took a sip.
It tasted strange . . .
And wonderful!
And that was about the time I remembered the time lag the nanobots had evidenced in past adaptations. They needed a certain amount of ramp-up time as their programming sampled, analyzed, and constructed adaptive measures. Even if these things were foolproof—and there was insufficient data to assume that they were—a fast-acting poison could prove fatal before they could adapt to the threat.
But, too late now: I'd had my first taste and I couldn't stop!
I gulped at the soup in the bowl like a starving man. Not just because I was hungry and not just because Mengele's Nazi nanos were about to go all Teensy Terminator on my innards. I gulped because it was so damn good I couldn't stop myself!
Imagine the oldest and finest distillery in Tulach Mhóh converting over to produce honeydew nectarized soup instead of Tullamore Dew whiskey. At the very first taste it exploded in my mouth like meat stock boiled down to a demiglace—in terms of taste, that is—while retaining the clarity and consistency of consommé. Even cooled to tepid room temperature it thrummed across the taste buds, lively and quick! I could feel my entire body beginning to revive even before a third swallow had delivered its plasma-injected payload to my stomach. Whatever this stuff was, I could feel it doing double duty: rebooting all biological systems, kicking my cellular regeneration back up to optimum levels, and refueling all the micro gas guzzlers that were running on fumes at this point.
It should have been enough. In terms of biofuel, a little of this stuff went a long way. I was slamming on all cylinders before the bowl was half gone.
But the taste! And the way it made me feel!
I finished the bowl and then held it out to Liban, Oliver-style. "Please, sir; may I have some more?"
"More?" She had been watching me all along with a look of concern. A tincture of alarm now filtered in. "Do you require more to preserve your life?"
Then I saw the sleeve of her wetsuit had been unzipped and folded back to her elbow. There was a fresh bandage on her forearm.
Oh shit . . .