Uh.
Then, seeing her wince: “But I take it you’ve done that before.”
Sonia blinked.
June 25, 1991; the Antichrist’s birthday, Grandpop always said.
They were up on the ridge that morning, north by northeast, following a tip on some Iraqi deserters supposedly seen at the outermost well. Handler and Koo walking point, Raycee behind. Horse bones to the left, picked clean, under a saffron bell of sky. Mortensen’s radio was still leaking static, even set as low as it went; it’d been that way since orientation back in Saudi. He kept fumbling with it, knocking the receiver on his helmet. When the job at hand gets second place, everybody suffers (DI Turner’s favourite phrase, his breath halfway up your windpipe like a pepperoni fart.) Sonia was in mid turn, Cut that shit out on her lips, when Mortensen’s foot met the mine.
Bright black string-man against the sand, stretched too thin to catch hold of. Too thin not to snap.
And Handler behind her, repeating: “Holy joe, Sarge. Holy joe. I mean, Jeeze.”
Screaming.
Her cheeks were wet.
Something touched her mind then, softly. Something—red.
Now listen.
A clawed hand peeled memory flat and laid it aside, folding the moment back on itself. Flame and noise shrank; a line, a dot. Handler faded.
No more time for words.
Sonia recognized the vampire’s words, cool now as clean sheets on a fevered forehead.
No—need.
O shadowless angel, reasonable beyond humanity.
A toilet flushed. Grillo would be back any moment, with Essen close after. The vampire drew his long legs back, clumsy, as the dark around him dimmed. Four square feet. Three.
Dawn shivered the window’s frame.
Step down, thought Sonia. Stay SAFE.
The vampire bent from it, until bone grated and locked.
Another thought, most insistently: Let this bastard BE.
“I’m nuts,” she muttered, stating the obvious. Then: “Mortensen’s dead, man. It wasn’t—I—couldn’t do anything.”
That’s no excuse, the vampire’s no-voice replied.
Sonia moaned.
Jesus Christ, get out of my HEAD—there’s enough of us in here already.
But her thumbs pricked, crawling, under the jacket. Her lips went dry; mouth, groin, nipples set abruptly alight. Her limbs shook. Fistfuls of tiny red ants emerged from her brain’s grey folds, each clamouring—in his voice—to be heard.
You came for a taste of power, the vampire not-said. To sit where my shadow should be, and watch. I commend your honesty. But let me go, and I offer you everything. Simply that. Let me free, and I swear I’ll come back for you. I’ll make you sister to the moon, mother of snakes. You’ll live forever.
Handler, keening. Grillo knocking at the rec room door.
Only free me.
Where the vampire ran out of corner, smoke began to rise.