Hellbender

by Dana Cameron

  The trip seemed to take an awfully long time, but eventually, the light grew larger and stronger, and I heard a voice so welcome, I thought my head would explode.

  “This way, Hellbender! It is safer for you here!” I heard Quarrel’s commanding voice.

  “Quarrel, you are the very best power-hungry demonic manifestation of a friend a girl could have,” I muttered to myself. I redoubled my efforts and found the going easier, and finally, I found myself settled on a grassy hill, overlooking a meadow.

  My hand—the ring—was no longer stuck to Carolina’s head, but a connection remained. Those red electrical circuits remained, line segment geometry, laser-pure glow eating up the last of the Order’s implants. Carolina didn’t move, but she was still breathing, and I was glad of that. I hurt all over.

  I Changed back to my skinself. I noticed that the tendrils had evaporated and whatever connection Porter’s ring had made was now broken. I needed to think about finding a way to get her home—or at least back in her own little world—but that didn’t stop me from wishing, just for a minute, that I had a marker so I could draw a penis or write “douchewaffle” on her forehead.

  “Any thoughts on how I can get her home, Quarrel? We can’t keep her here.”

  Quarrel snorted. “Why not? She will cause less trouble here than in your world.”

  I had to marvel at a dragon’s pragmatism. “She’d cause more by being missing; we’d be the first ones suspected.”

  “You only have to push her,” he said. “Her inclination is to go back where she belongs.”

  “Okay, how do I—”

  “You really are not very skilled, are you?”

  “I’ve come up in the ranks suddenly,” I said, at once realizing the way I needed to behave with Quarrel and the others. I continued with a coldness to indicate he shouldn’t be fucking with me. “It’s to be expected that I will need advice from older, if lesser, beings.”

  At first I was afraid I’d gone too far, but Quarrel simply nodded. “You are correct, of course. I meant no disrespect.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m not sure how to explain it, but if you think of how you used to track an evildoer, in your wolf form—”

  “Yes, I know. And I still do.” I said it as much for my sake as Quarrel’s.

  “That’s very unusual, for a dragon of your considerable abilities . . .”

  The floor fell out of the reality elevator as I grasped what he meant. “Quarrel, what do I look like to you?”

  “As I do to you, no doubt. A fine beast with an aura that indicates your strength.”

  “Tell me what you see? For I do not think my perception is the same.”

  “A fine young beast—quite small, but the quality and number of the jewels in your armor more than impresses. As for returning that one, if you imagine you are scenting her track, you can . . . urge her to return that same way. It should not take much energy.”

  I nodded, doubtful. I let my eyes unfocus, and after actually sniffing with no result, tried feeling around for her trail. I found a slender iridescent blue thread, almost like a strand of spider silk, leading out of the space I could currently perceive. It reminded me of the threads that bound the Dickson Trips’ souls. There was a light of blue at the end, which I realized was Carolina. I shoved gently and watched the light fade as it followed the trajectory back, I hoped, to wherever it was Carolina was supposed to be. Before she vanished, however, I reached out, as I had with Dmitri Parshin, and nudged Carolina Perez-Smith’s being.

  I was going to change her mind.

  When she disappeared, I suddenly got nervous.

  “Quarrel, she’s okay, right?” I asked, suddenly worried. What if I’d sucked too much . . . whatever out of her?

  “Oh yes. You’ve merely removed the . . . alien artifacts from her. And given her a new way to think about things.” He snorted contemptuously. “She is no worse—or no better—than she was before she assumed the powers of that dragon.”

  And now I’d found what I was looking for. If I was in the field, doing archaeology, I’d say I’d defined the edge of a feature. I’d identified that I’d found something, still not knowing what it might be—a rubbish tip, a post hole, a privy, a fire pit. I’d identified what I needed to do about the Makers.

  “Thank you, Quarrel, you’ve been of tremendous help to me today. If you would help me return to the fight I just left?”

  And I was back in the woods.

  Because of the ill-conceived space that Carolina had taken us to, it took much longer to return than I expected. Nearly ten minutes had passed since I’d left, and I arrived back spent and battered from my own fight and the long journey between meta-realms.

  A lot can happen in ten minutes. Too much.

  As soon as I got there, I smelled smoke from the barn, and heard screams and shots. I thought I’d slow things down to suit my own pace, but stopping time really had lost its appeal for me after Kanazawa, and I couldn’t risk taking myself away from here again. And I suspected I was too weak to do that anyway.

  I could still Change, however, and felt better immediately. Claudia Steuben was suddenly by my side, her hair streaming out of the braid she’d had, her black ninja wear torn and matted with blood. She was smiling broadly, and it had nothing to do with humor.

  “Zoe! I was afraid you’d popped off again!”

  “Not as far as Japan this time. What’s the situation?”

  “We’re winning,” she said. “We’ve found the Boston Fangborn and Normals. The vampires have started coordinating memories so that we can turn this into a dinner party gone wrong.”

  “What?”

  “For some reason, Carolina Perez-Smith is trying to calm everyone down. Says her house caught on fire, and she’s concerned about her guests. Nothing so far about the Fangborn.” Claudia gave me a look. “Was that you?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, now there are reporters, firefighters, and police officers here. We’re going to keep all trace of the Order out of the news, but we Fangborn, we’re going to star in the late news. We’ve decided that we might as well be caught on camera, saving folks from the burning buildings.” She looked at me. “I-Day.”

  I nodded again. “Still lots of details to work out with Carolina—just don’t let her get away.”

  “Oh, no. All the folks who were Order, they’re all offstage, so to speak, and Max is guarding them.” Another smile let me know how much she was enjoying that thought. “Gerry is rounding up the ones who got away. Everyone so far is safe; some bad wounds, but nothing we can’t handle.” She hesitated.

  “Will?”

  “He’s fine; that giant red dragon came back and kept him from dying.” Claudia frowned. “I’m very glad he’s not dead, but we needed that dragon to help us fight.”

  “I know.” A thought struck me. “Where’s the senator?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then that’s where I’m going. Thanks, Claud.”

  Without waiting for a response, I tore off through the woods, heading toward the barn where I’d seen the senator heading with Eli Passey. Their scent trail veered away from the crowds and lights at the main complex. I followed.

  When I found them, they were in a dark clearing. With my keen eyes, I didn’t need lights to see what was going on. The senator had Changed; I’d never seen his fangself before: His ordinarily carefully groomed hair was now wild, stripes of green amid the gray. His scales were also gray, with those same green streaks. His prominent nose had vanished to a nubbin, and his fangs were shockingly long. The senator’s clothing was torn. He’d been fighting and he was in a rage.

  I could see the reason. His former henchman, Zimmer, was lying on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. Eli Passey was also Changed to his wolfself, his shirt missing entirely. He was standing over Zimmer and snarling
at Edward Knight.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “This old fool of a vampire doesn’t want me to kill this traitor,” Passey said. A smell of scorched fur told me he’d been in the fire, but another smell told me that the senator had spat venom at him.

  “I want this man brought to justice,” Knight said. “Get away! And you, stray, this is not your business!”

  “It’s entirely my business. Back down.”

  To our surprise, Knight actually relaxed, whether it was because of my limited ability to use a vampire’s voice of command or some new authority, I didn’t know.

  Passey took that moment to snap Zimmer’s neck. He glanced at me, looking for approval or a fight.

  I nodded, wondering whether Knight had actually been trying to rescue Zimmer. “We have work to do. Passey, take the body with you, but keep it hidden, away from the civilians we rescued.”

  Without another word, I turned and left.

  Chapter Seventeen

  All my life I’d wanted to be some place stable, for good. Own a house, something. And now I was finding out what a responsibility running a household—hell, an island castle, complete with retainers—was. A small price to pay for what I needed to do, but a very steep learning curve.

  The morning after the fight at Carolina’s, Will knocked on my door.

  “I came to check on you. You barely said a word last night. Are you okay? Why are you hiding, Zoe?”

  I looked up from the documents I was studying. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  I stretched, feeling a thousand years old. “Will, it’s over. We are over. From the very first, I was right, that I was a danger to you. I was right to leave you the first time. And when I ran into you in Berlin, and then in Greece, I was thrilled.”

  “So was I!” Will’s face lit up. He didn’t have a scratch on him, not after Naserian’s ministrations. “Zoe, this is good!”

  “You don’t understand, Will. I wanted you. I wished for you to want me back. I didn’t know I had vampiric powers, and so might have compelled you to love me. So, yeah, I dragged you into this even more than you dragged yourself. I was right to leave you that first time, because if I wasn’t a serial killer, something—call it intuition, call it prophecy—was telling me I wasn’t going to stay plain old Zoe the werewolf, either. There were just too many things . . . off about me.”

  He shook his head, quite sure of himself. “Vampires can’t . . . make someone fall in love. Give them an idea, yes, make them inclined toward someone, want sex, even, but not . . . fall in love love, like we had.”

  “Nope, they can’t, Will. But you forget. I’m not a vampire. The rules don’t seem to count for me.” I picked up where I’d left off with the inventory. “So it is over. I love you, but I am not the same girl who loved you a year ago, or three years ago.”

  Okay, so I wasn’t expecting that hesitation, that tightness in my throat. This all sounded so reasonable—how could it hurt so much, when I knew in my heart I was right? I promised myself a good cry at the end of the day. I love a good shower cry; no one can hear you, and it’s easier on your eyes.

  Will was still denying my words. “Jesus, Zoe. You’re so wrong. We can make this work! You were right before; you just need time. So you take your time, all the time you want. Lick your wounds; give yourself a chance to get your head around all that’s happened. You’ve done enough, more than enough—let the rest of us handle I-Day.” He smiled confidently, now certain he was right.

  It struck me. Will thought I was trying to be alone because I was tired and confused. And I was, but not the way he thought. Not about him, not anymore.

  I was so stunned at his naiveté, his complete lack of comprehension, that it took me a moment to collect myself. I was so used to being the one who was playing catch-up with everyone else around me; this was a novelty that took me by surprise. But that only underscored the knowledge that I was right.

  I’d changed, profoundly. Little c change, but every bit as cataclysmic as the Fangborn transformation.

  Especially to those around me.

  “Will, I’m out here because it’s the best thing for everyone.” I held up my hand before he could interrupt. “No, no, not that way. A much bigger scale. Remember the demonstration, when I blew the shit out of that target without even trying? Now I could take out all the humans on the planet. They’d be orderly then, wouldn’t they?

  “For another thing, you and the whole Fangborn Family need distance from me, deniability, if I can’t do what I need to do next. You all need a lightning rod, to keep the shit-storm that would follow that failure away from you all. If I screw up, I can be the scapegoat, you can say I was a rogue, you can throw me under the bus, and there’ll still be a chance for the rest of the Fangborn to be safe. There are too many variables, between Carolina, the Makers, and I-Day. Too much can go wrong. This is insurance.

  “The other thing is that physical distance from the mainland and population is a good thing, in case someone—Normal, Fangborn, or Maker—comes after me. Someone wants to declare war on me, they can, and it’s not gonna take out Boston or New York or London as well.

  “Also, we need the perception that I am in fact the representative of the Fangborn. Again, separate is good. And if for some reason the Makers decide to show up, somehow, in person, we’re gonna need a place for them to land. A place for them to have their embassy or something—I’m not really sure about the politics. That way, they’re separate from the US, from the rest of the world, and we can say that we’re being impartial.”

  I rubbed my head. “I don’t know if that will work, or whether I actually want the US to be in charge of that discussion, but for now, this is how we’re going to go. We can worry about ‘most favored nation’ status or whatever after.”

  Will’s mouth hadn’t closed the whole time, and he sagged back against the stack of crates. He closed it, and then started to speak, but nothing came out.

  Finally: “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I got a big promotion, Will. And it’s also high risk. So I’m learning a lot and trying to keep up with what could happen in addition to what is happening this instant.” I’ll cry later, I’ll cry later, I’ll cry later, I promised myself. Just keep going. Just do this. “Last night showed me something, when you insisted on sticking with me, wouldn’t take my orders, still wanting to protect me. You don’t see me as I am. And I’ve changed.”

  “You sent Naserian—”

  “Of course I did. I wouldn’t let you die. You’re too dear to me. After what we’ve been through?” I shook my head. “But I don’t have the option of staying out of things, and that’s all you want for me. I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  After he didn’t say anything, I did. “Please, Will.”

  “No, I got it. I’m good.” He glanced at me, still not quite sure of anything but the notion that he’d completely misjudged the situation, a situation that had depths he couldn’t begin to plumb. “Okay, well, I won’t say I’m thrilled about this, but . . . okay.” He raised a hand in farewell, slapped his leg with it. “See you, Zo.”

  It was seeing Will so nonplussed, again, that did it for me. I could fix this, and I couldn’t fix other things, and I should make the most of that possibility while I could. Better to be right than happy, sometimes.

  “Will . . .” My voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything. Just . . . everything. Turning your world upside down—”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Sure it is.” I tried a small smile.

  Will smiled back, but he didn’t mean it. He was trying to be decent about it. “Yeah, okay, it’s on you.” He looked away, cleared his throat. “Well, I’m going to go back to the Boston house, help Heck out. I-Day’s here.”

  I nodded unhappily. “Happy I-Day, Will.”


  He nodded, turned, and left for the launch.

  That was the last quiet moment of the morning. Everyone was nervous and busy. Phones and computers were overworked, preparing for the official moment when the Fangborn Identified themselves to the world.

  I excused myself from breakfast, saying I’d be back shortly, that I was going to my room at the lighthouse. If I succeeded in what I was about to do, they’d barely notice I’d left. If I failed, they wouldn’t know about it until it was too late.

  That thought haunted me as I sat down. I was in the mind-lab.

  “I have to do something, and I’m not sure it’s right,” I said to Sean. “I’m not sure I can. But I have to do something.”

  “Most people would pray,” Sean said.

  I shrugged. “You know that’s not me.”

  “Well, it’s a lot of folks, and Zoe, do you ever need to get out of your head.”

  I gave him another look that suggested he should be the last one to suggest it. “What, and leave all this?” I gestured around me. The lab was looking more chaotic than ever, and it occurred to me that with all the new things I’d been learning, acquiring, I’d no time to sort things out. There was a direct correlation between the state of the lab and the state of my psyche, because, well, they seemed to be the same thing. Or at least they were carved out of the same multiverse.

  But he had a point. I only had a short time until I had to do whatever it was I was going to do. I could go for a run, but me running would look like “Zoe’s fleeing danger” and I wanted to avoid freaking everyone out. I made a note to get a treadmill in there.

  But for now . . . I needed to empty my head of everything but the job ahead of me. I remembered my moment dancing with Toshi and knew immediately, that was it.

  Some percussive music has the ability to stimulate the mind to want to move or dance; your participation in that movement causes you to fill in the musical gaps, to make connections. People in many cultures use music with repeated rhythms, along with drugs, a lack of sleep, movement, and special environments to create both a trancelike state and a sublimation of the self in favor of shared spiritual experience.