Guardian by Blood

by Evie Byrne

  Ivar made a couple of quick hand signals to Wat. She caught the gist: I’m going to have a look around. He strapped on his snow shoes and plunged off the side of the ridge, landed on his feet, and ran downhill through deep snow, his gait splayed, but somehow graceful.

  Wat jumped off the rock and came to her. “You’re sweating.”

  She raised a brow. “So?”

  “Sweating is bad. Take off your other coat. I should have told you to do it back at the cabin.” He spoke in a peculiar, closed-off tone, not quite a whisper. She got the impression he was aiming his voice at her and her alone, like a ventriloquist.

  Back at the cabin, he couldn’t have pried her Patagonia off her, but now she stripped it off willingly; she was, indeed, hot and sweaty.

  Wat wedged it between two rocks. “We can get it later. If you still want it.”

  Only if I want to be seen in public again. But she had to admit that her Nanook-wear worked. With only her sweater under the loose coat, her skin could breathe, and the sweat started to dry.

  Below, a tiny Ivar skirted the lake, moving slowly in irregular patterns, head down, squatting occasionally, scanning the area.

  Gunnar joined them, talking to Wat in similar, closed-off tones, “I can hardly wait.” His eyes were over-bright, his chest rising and falling fast. Blood lust was on him. She knew the signs, even if the context was different.

  “A taste of the wild will do you good,” Wat said. Again, she got the feeling his voice wouldn’t carry more than two feet. How did he do that? “But remember, keep your blood cool. The Sacrifice might take fright.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Gunnar said, and proved the opposite by sulking.

  Wat said nothing, only went back to watching Ivar, who was heading toward the forest edge. She guessed they’d be waiting for a while. Figuring general conversation was allowable, as long as it was conducted in church tones, Eva said to Gunnar, “It’s too bad—”

  Both men shushed her. She widened her eyes at them. Even a whisper was too loud? Really?

  Wat stripped off his gloves, shoved them in his pocket, and held up the first two fingers of either hand. She shifted her gaze between his two hands, wondering what he meant. He extended his fingers toward her throat, his expression inquiring. May I? She nodded, the response instinctual.

  He laid his fingers either side of her neck, just beneath her ears. All she could see was his chest. They were a half step from a full embrace.

  His fingers gently probed under her jaw line. One of his thumbs brushed her chin. An involuntary shiver passed through her. He slid his fingers forward until they met over her larynx. “Speak to me,” he said in his closed-off tone. “Speak to me thus.” She raised her eyes to meet his, knew he was using a little compulsion, and accepted it.

  “I speak to you, thus.” It didn’t work. Her voice drifted on the wind.

  He moved his fingers. Her eyes went to his lips, pink and wide and framed by copper bristles. “Again.”

  “I speak to you, thus.” She felt it then, the trick of it, and knew how to replicate it. “I understand,” she said, for his ears only.

  He smiled. She smiled back. His fingers were still on her throat.

  “That’s not how I learned it,” Gunnar said.

  Wat stepped away. Eva cleared her throat and used her new voice. “As I was saying, Gunnar, it’s too bad that your only experience with human blood was bagged blood. Bagged blood is disgusting. But live, hot blood is another thing altogether. Feeding on a human is a thrill like no other.”

  Both Gunnar and Wat gave her identical, flat, disapproving looks.

  She held out her flippers. “What’s wrong with it? Tell me.”

  “Humans are our cousins,” Gunnar said. “We’re not cannibals.”

  It was time for her to deliver a lecture, just like Wat. “We’re the top of the food chain. We have the right to feed from any creature on this planet, but we choose to feed from humans, not only because we live among them, and there are so many of them, but also because their blood is rich with memory and intellect and spirit.”

  “Animals have spirits, too.” Gunnar said.

  “I’m sure they do,” Eva said, imagining all the good it did Wat’s family to imbibe goose spirits and deer spirits. Really, it was no wonder they were so weird.

  “It comes down to this,” she said. “We are what we eat. It shows in our behavior. That’s why we don’t feed off the evil or the insane—and we don’t feed on animals. Besides, we evolved to feed from humans. They are our most natural prey.”

  “I disagree.” Wat said. “Strick and Shutley found evidence that we evolved to feed on game, that feeding on humans was a later adaptation, based on overpopulation.”

  “Strick and Shutley are fringe theorists.”

  “Their theories line up with our experience, our history, and our folklore.”

  “Let’s lay aside right or wrong for the moment and focus on the practical. It would be much easier to live in a city and feed on humans than to hunt up here. Yes or no?” She looked at Gunnar for the answer.

  “Well, yes,” he said, twisting his mouth. “You can’t walk a step without running into a human in the city, and they’re kind of stupid, so it would be easy enough to feed on them.”

  “Exactly. Living in the city is like living in paradise. All the fruit is hanging on the trees, ripe and luscious.”

  Wat said, “I’ve seen humans hunted. Pretty it up any way you want. If you drain them, it’s murder, if you leave them alive, it’s a form of rape.”

  She liked to think hunting humans was similar to a team of naturalists swooping down on an unsuspecting lion, tranquilizing him, taking a blood sample, and then speeding off. The lion wouldn’t know what hit him, and he wouldn’t be harmed—much. Not the nicest form of interaction, maybe, but not rape. Not in her book. At least it was better than killing.

  “Yeah,” Gunnar said. “Even if they don’t know you took their blood, it did happen, and they’d never have let you do it if you’d asked. That’s rape. Isn’t it?”

  Wat grunted his agreement.

  This kind of argument had no answer. She couldn’t change their minds—but perhaps she could tempt them. Not Mr. Upright, maybe, but she had a chance with Gunnar, who was awash in hormones and weakened by blood lust.

  “You know, I can’t argue against that, because I don’t like hunting much, either.” Suddenly she had their full attention. “Hit-and-run hunting is very old school. It’s far more common these days to use feeders.”

  “What’s a feeder?” asked Gunnar.

  “A human who agrees to feed you.” She gave him a bright smile. “It’s all consensual. Problem solved.”

  “Why would they let you do that?” He seemed suspicious, but intrigued.

  “Oh, lots of reasons. Some are into all that Hollywood vampire crap. I screen those applicants out. I can't spend all my time myth-busting. My feeders understand that we're animals, just like them, only better. Vamps won the evolutionary lottery. We're faster, stronger, more durable--and of course, much hotter." Gunnar didn't smile at her last crack. Instead, he was listening to her like she was laying down Holy Writ. She returned to the point. "Some let me feed from them for the thrill. Others believe there are health benefits to regular bleeding and the enzymes in our saliva. Most do it for the sex, though.”

  Gunnar’s blue eyes went wide under his bangs. “Sex?”

  She gave him a slow smile, imagining he saw her as the devil incarnate. She didn’t dare look at Wat. “It’s well known that blood tastes best at orgasm. And you know, with all the fluid exchange and penetration going on during sex, it just makes sense to push it a step further.”

  Gunnar’s mouth fell open. She tried not to laugh. “Sex and feeding go together so naturally that it’s hard for me to separate the two.”

  Wat stepped into her line of vision, glaring at her.

  A high, keening cry, like a hawk, cut across the valley. Wat leapt onto the high rocks, scanned t
he area, and gave an answering call. The eerie sound gave her shivers. No doubt all the edible critters in the valley were shivering, too.

  “Snowshoes,” he said.

  He had to help her with the straps. “Just do your best,” was his only advice on operating the things. She waddled forward, tangled her shoes, and cursed. Remembering Ivar’s splayed gait, she tried again and did better.

  “You’ve got it,” Wat said, and then he led them down the ridge by a less-steep route than the one Ivar had taken. She quickly learned that if she thought about where the snowshoes were, she’d trip. If she ignored them, her body knew what to do. It was kind of a miracle to be walking on the surface of the snow, but it was also hard going.

  Wat put a finger to his lips, and then extended it in the direction they were traveling, indicating silence from there on out. They hiked down the ridge and across the valley, past the lake, following Ivar’s big tracks. There were lots of other marks in the snow, animal tracks, though she didn’t know what kind of animals had made them. Between the cold and the exertion, she was working up an appetite. Too bad she was shit out of luck. She consoled herself by fantasizing that they’d stumble across a cabin stuffed with toothsome European backpackers.

  Ivar materialized at the tree line on the far side of the meadow. They joined him silently He made a bunch of hand gestures, and said one word. It sounded like jor. It caused a lot of excitement. Wat glanced at her and Gunnar, answering Ivar in sign. Gunnar must of followed most of it because his mouth opened in protest, and then slammed shut again. Wat made an emphatic sign at him, and he answered in kind. Wat shook his head and signed some more.

  Ivar was paying no attention to the exchange. His eyes had taken on a glassy quality, and he was sniffing the wind. Suddenly he snapped out of it, and, his expression fierce, signed at Gunnar, his fingers jabbing hard at the air. Whatever he said stopped Gunnar’s silent argument. Gunnar gave her an accusing look and gestured that she should stay with him. Wat and Ivar melted into the trees, moving so slowly, so deliberately, that they hardly seemed to be moving at all—yet somehow they made silent progress.

  When she could no longer see them, Gunnar tugged at her arm and pointed out the direction they should go. They backtracked, circling around until they came to a frozen stream. Gunnar chose a big tree and signaled that they should climb it. They left their snowshoes leaning against the trunk and scrambled upward. This Eva knew how to do well. It was one of the easier ways to get the drop on a human if you had to hunt. They sat close on a thick branch about twenty feet off the ground.

  She used the magic voice. “Sorry you got stuck on the short bus.”

  He blushed, and then answered, his head so close to hers that his boy-breath brushed her skin. “It’s my own fault. I want it too bad. So bad the boar can hear my thoughts.”

  “Boar?” Did he really believe an animal could read his mind?

  “Yeah. Ivar found a boar. We’re hunting that instead of the buck. Well, you know, they’re hunting. We’re waiting and staying out of the way.” He fiddled with a pine cone. “So don’t think about the boar, okay? Or about being hungry. And don’t move.”

  They both went very, very still—so still they became part of the branch. All vamps were good at blending with their environment. Well, except the idiots. There were idiot vamps; one of her main tasks as Alya’s Hand was riding herd on them.

  She was curious about the boar, but turned her thoughts to pleasant distractions, to hot tubs and good wine, which led to impure thoughts regarding her favorite feeders. Feeling horny as well as hungry, she refocused by calculating mortgage rates. She needed to refinance.

  A raven landed on a nearby branch. It cocked its head and considered them. Eva didn’t blink. I can too stalk. It croaked once, suspicious, and then fluffed its feathers and began to preen. The woods around them, quiet already, became ominously still beneath the fairytale coat of snow and ice. A frozen stream cut across the landscape, picture perfect. A bright half-moon appeared on the horizon, beginning its journey through the sky.

  A crash in the shrubbery broke the enchantment. Eva and Gunnar turned toward the source of the sound. “Holy fuck,” she said.

  Ivar was running full out, his lean form a dark blur between the tree trunks. Even though he was knee deep in snow, she’d never seen anyone move so fast. And no wonder. An enormous, bristly guided missile was hot on his tail. That was a boar? It looked more like a prehistoric monster than a pig. A crazy black mohawk ran down its spine, making it appear even larger.

  “It’s a freakin’ rhino,” Gunnar murmured.

  Just then she spotted Wat sprinting down the frozen stream, sans snowshoes, moving almost as fast as Ivar. He held something in his hand—a short club, maybe. From the distance it looked like a runner’s baton. Tracing his trajectory, she realized he was positioning himself to intercept them.

  “Where are their guns?” she asked Gunnar, who was leaning so far forward he was about to fall from the tree.

  “No guns.”

  “Bows? Spears?”

  Gunnar clenched his fists. "Go, Wat!”

  The boar had committed itself to killing Ivar. That much was obvious. It was no great stretch for her to sympathize with its feelings. Yet that very focus kept it from noticing Wat’s flanking maneuver. He came up from its side and tackled the beast at a dead run.

  That couldn’t be a good idea.

  The boar squealed. Wat and the boar tumbled together, rolling sideways with the force of his impact. Ivar reversed direction and came racing back. Gunnar leapt from the branch and started running toward his cousins. Eva stayed put, riveted.

  Wat came out of the roll attached to the boar’s back, his arms wrapped around its massive neck. His club was locked to the boar’s throat, and he was pulling it up and back with the strength of his arms. Trying to cut off the boar’s air? The boar was bucking and spinning, trying to throw him off, but Wat kept his legs tucked high and tight against its ribcage, well above the thrashing hooves. A rank, panicked smell tickled her nostrils, even at a distance. She didn’t want to imagine what Wat was smelling.

  Who strangles boars, Wat? Who? She realized she was gnawing on her knuckle.

  Now Ivar was there, squeezing in, his hands beside Wat’s, helping him pull the baton against that thick, stubborn neck. Short, wicked tusks flashed in the moonlight as the boar swung its head, the points dangerously near Ivar’s hip. The brothers fought to keep the boar’s head away from him, fought to draw the baton backward.

  After a couple of agonized minutes, the boar stopped leaping. Instead, it planted its legs and focused the last of its strength on breaking the hold around its neck. Wat and Ivar held on, ruthless as wolves. The boar stood its ground. The struggle seemed to hang in balance, timeless, endless, like the battle of the sea against the shore. She knew that one slip, one mistake on their part or a surge of cunning from the boar, and the static scene would explode into bloodshed.

  The boar’s front legs buckled. Wat planted his feet on the ground and jerked the baton up and back. The boar fell.

  “Gun!” Wat shouted, hoarse. Gunnar was already there, tossing a rope from his open pack over a sturdy tree limb. Eva jumped to the ground and hiked up to the kill site, a little wary of the scene she’d find.

  Wat and Ivar were not feeding, as she expected—they were trussing up the boar with rope. Eva stopped a little distance off, about the same distance people choose to stand away from a traffic accident when they wanted to gape, but felt no desire to get involved.

  Working together, the three men hoisted the boar so it hung upside down, its snout a few feet from the ground. It was a magnificently ugly creature: the head huge, the snout long and wrinkled, the teeth exposed in a death snarl. Its tiny eyes reflected no light, but still looked angry. Dangling from the rope did nothing to diminish its size. It was the Moby Dick of pigs—and it reeked of 10,000 lockers and unwashed jock straps.

  “You assholes,” she said. “Don’t tell me you kill
in this crazy, boneheaded way so you don’t waste a drop of blood.” Wat grinned at her, unrepentant, proud, flushed with testosterone. Happier than she’d seen him yet, and prepared to be amused by her rudeness. Despite the cold, he sweated freely. His hair had gone dark with it, but his eyes gleamed bright. And that smile of his almost made her forget he had a beard.

  He grinned. “That’s exactly why, milady Hand. It’s a sin to waste blood.”

  “What about a trank gun?”

  “It would knock us out when we drink.”

  True. “Blow to the head?”

  “Not for a boar. Head’s too thick.”

  “Stab and suck real quick?”

  “Again, not for a boar.”

  “Capture it in a net?”

  “Where's the challenge in that?”

  He pulled a knife from his belt and turned to business. The men bowed their heads for a moment. Gunnar fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a…cow horn? He knelt next to Wat. Wat’s knife flashed, and she caught a whiff of unfamiliar, ripe, gamey blood. Gunnar held the horn to the wound. Eva realized the horn was a cup. He collected the first flow, wisps of white steam rising from the cup. Ivar leaned in next with his own horn. Meanwhile, Gunnar was downing his portion, drinking like a man given water for the first time in days. Finally, Wat took his own share. All three guzzled and refilled at the pig fountain again and again.

  Wat paused and met her eyes. His face glowed with the thrill of the kill. Blood stained his mouth. Yep, he was a Viking all right. He extended his cup toward her. She swallowed hard and took an involuntary step backward. Yes, she longed to taste hot blood, but not that blood. Not like this.

  She didn’t live a stainless life, but it disturbed her to witness the transformation of the boar, ugly as it was, from a strong, magnificent beast to so much stinking meat hanging from a tree. She didn’t kill to eat. Turning away, she sat down abruptly, her stomach roiling.

  After a while, Wat came and sat down beside her. When he didn’t say anything, she felt like she should speak. When she did, she was surprised by the tightness of her voice.