Quickening, Volume 1

by Amy Lane

  And… good feeling gone. “I so hate you,” I snarled, walking toward the trapdoor that led down into the living room. The door opened on its own, which it did sometimes when Green had the niskies looking out for me. The creatures were between one and two feet tall and varied in appearance, but most of the time they could pass for shrubs or parts of bushes or really big irises or Indian paintbrush blooms with thick stalks. It had taken me a while to figure out exactly why the flowers kept moving when my back was turned. By the time I had, I’d just sort of learned to accept that those things happened.

  In this case, the trapdoor rose and I winked at one of the bolder niskies, who liked to look at me with big pansy eyes. (Literally—she was a pansy. Her eyes were the giant brown splotches in the middle. I loved Green’s hill.) Behind me, Teague made a grunt that indicated he had probably seen the niskies but, as I had for the first couple of years, was still processing. It was sort of like the creature in the pond, really. Unless there was a reason to know, you just didn’t know.

  And that thought let me go down the stairs, to my shower, to dinner, and into our venture tonight.

  You couldn’t compress the space-time continuum so everything happened at once, and if you did, you’d miss out on the little things.

  Like Teague muttering, “I knew those things were alive! Dammit, why doesn’t anybody tell me this shit!”

  THE GODDESS grove grew misty in the chill of the September night. It always seemed so unfair that we could spend the day in the sweaty nineties and the night in the low fifties and high forties, but that was the combination of climate change and living in the foothills.

  Of the group of people standing on top of Green’s hill in the mist, I was the only one susceptible to the cold, so I was the only one wearing a hooded sweatshirt, a scarf, and fingerless mittens. I’d long since gotten over feeling silly about it—irritated, yes, but embarrassed? Not really.

  Besides—Green had made sure the blankets and cushions lining the granite bench we’d be sitting on were kept warm and cozy. It was typical of Green to mind the comfort of the other people who were going to be sitting next to him staring out into space.

  I looked at Nicky, frowning. “Are you sure you won’t stay?” I asked plaintively. “I could always use an extra—” I was going to say “battery,” and I knew he’d take that with no hard feelings.

  “Eyes and ears in the air?” he supplied smartly.

  I grimaced. Goddess, but I was worried. I didn’t recall being quite so anxious about other operations like this. I wasn’t sure if I was just more susceptible to emotion now, or if I was more acutely aware of the things I could lose, but somehow, sending all these people into the air and along the ground without being next to them was not okay.

  “Just stay in the air,” I ordered. “Don’t come close. What’s not bad guys with funky elf-bitch magic is morons with shotguns who might want to eat themselves some fucking rare-ass bird.”

  Nicky grinned. “My meat’s too rare for their table,” he said, mangling Shakespeare, and then he stepped into my space and rubbed noses with me. In the ambient light that glowed off the mist, I could even make out the faint freckles across the bridge of his nose and the fact that he was wearing one of the hats I’d knitted him last winter. Nicky was a great victim—er, recipient—for knitting. He never minded something new or avant-garde that was challenging and fun to knit.

  I tugged the brim of the navy-colored bucket chapeau. “You’d better not forget that in trans,” I said, trying to keep things light.

  He framed my face with his hands, and the wool of the matching fingerless mitts I’d made him felt plush against my cheeks. “I’ll be fine,” he reassured, and I opened my mouth for his kiss. I clutched him tight for a minute, because I wasn’t going to be out with him like I usually was—and did I mention the worry?—and then I let him go. He flicked the end of my nose, then went and planted one on Green too. He was about to saunter away when Bracken turned from a conference with Marcus and grabbed him by the ear, hauling him into a tight embrace and a perfectly filthy kiss of his own.

  Nicky grinned and blushed, still disarmed by the blooming relationship he and Bracken had developed since that stunning night a couple of weeks ago, then took his place with the other Avians in the circle around us.

  It was time.

  I looked at Green, and he nodded permission for me to start.

  “Okay, guys—before I go over this one more time, let’s go through the checklist. Has everyone eaten?”

  Yeah, it was nice that the Avians and part-time furry people nodded, but what I was really looking for was consensus among the vampires. If they’d fed from the shape-shifters they were partnered with, it was easier for them to get a read on what the other was going through. Besides, it was important for feeding to not be high on their priority list tonight, because they were going to have to settle for a nip and a tuck of me and mine in order to make our bonding more powerful. We’d also discovered an interesting side effect of the vampires blooding with either me or the elves and with their shape-shifters in short order. The telepathy that had previously been a hallmark of the elves only had become a tool and a weapon during the last week of searching the area. If they fed from their shape-shifters, then fed from me, it was the supernatural equivalent of having an earbud network—and it was going to prove invaluable in the fight ahead. We’d made sure the shape-shifters were awake and ready to take one for the team promptly at sunset.

  “Good,” I said when I’d met every last red and glowing eye. “Now, I understand that I’m tasting a bit… floral? Is that the general opinion?” There were several repelled and enthusiastic nods. “Yeah, I’m tasting a bit floral for general consumption. Grace thinks it’s to keep you all from harming me or the spawn, which is dandy, but you still need to bond with me. Marcus, can you handle some roses with your wine?”

  Marcus nodded soberly, then nodded to the lean, dangerous-looking man standing at his shoulder. “Phillip’s coming with me. He’ll have some sorceress blood too.”

  I didn’t ask if Phillip was ready—I’d trusted him with my life and the lives of everyone I loved, and I’d done it more than once. If he’d risen this evening thinking he was going to go out and run a mission, I wasn’t going to gainsay him.

  “Fair deal. Kyle, Ellis, I understand you’re taking a quadrant tonight?”

  Kyle nodded, and my stomach clenched as his young lover nodded next to him. God, Ellis was a spaz. A jumpy, freaky spaz who was going out on a run that required finesse, and Kyle had lost so damned much in his death already. But Ellis still felt bad for bailing on the jailbreak, and Kyle had told me he wanted to redeem himself. I was worried—so worried—but they clutched hands and looked at me earnestly, and I couldn’t deny either of them.

  “Okay. Good enough. You guys up to some sorceress in your veins, or would you rather take some elf? They’re on the table tonight, since we’re all going to be doing the radio-broadcast thing.”

  Kyle’s eyes darted out and, to my surprise, landed on Lambent.

  “Uhm, if Lambent doesn’t mind….”

  I looked at the three of them. Although they weren’t up to blushing the way Adrian used to, they were definitely looking a little sheepish.

  “Lambent, you old dog. I thought you preferred women!”

  Lambent gave me a bored look. “If you haven’t noticed, luv, there’s three blokes to every bird here. If I’d left it to you, I would have never gotten laid.”

  There was general laughter then, which I didn’t mind, because it helped to break up the tension. “Fair enough. Can you donate a little bit of ichor if you’re going to be on the ground?”

  Lambent nodded. “Oh, yeah—no worries. Especially because it means we can communicate better too. I’ll be chatting with Green, you’ll have Kyle’s ear. We’ll be a team.”

  I nodded and asked the other five teams who wanted a piece of me and who would be going for Green or Bracken or even their counterparts on the ground.
Using the previous nights to narrow things down a bit, Lambent’s map had yielded five quadrants that showed promise. We had one flier at high-range recon, one flier at low-range recon, and two runners on the ground.

  Our runners and our vampire fliers needed to know each other—and hopefully work well together. One of the benefits of the past nearly two years of a unified hill was that the vampires had discovered their long-term feeding partners began to develop some of the abilities of someone marked by a master vampire. I used to be able to hear Adrian’s thoughts and vice versa—and our vampires and select shape-shifters had shown a similar ability. It wasn’t a perfect system—sometimes, like with Green and me, words became more of a hindrance than a help, and sometimes the emotions that were the usual currency in the exchange got in the way, but the teams we had in place were close enough and could frequently predict each other’s actions or thoughts enough for us to count on it tonight.

  Connor had asked to get in on this action, so he stood next to Teague and Mario—and I worried about him. He wasn’t tight enough with Grace to hear her thoughts, but they could sense each other’s feelings after the feeding, so that would have to be enough. Looking at the four of them ranged together, I was suddenly, forcefully reminded of how many friends I had going out. Who would I put a higher premium on? Max, Renny, Marcus, and Phillip? Grace, Teague, Mario, and Connor? Kyle, Ellis, Lambent, and Ben—the placid, almost comatose werekitty who had offered without hesitation when he’d heard we needed paws on the ground? And the other teams as well. I might not have been close to every one of the twenty people putting their lives on the line, but I damned well knew them.

  And it was my job to keep them safe.

  God, Teague was right.

  I couldn’t do that if I was on the ground looking for funky werewolves.

  “Okay, y’all,” I said after a breath. “Marcus and Phillip first, then everyone get in line. Take a taste of your favorite mind reader, and at least shake my hand, vampires, and we’ll try to keep ourselves from flying around like blind monkeys fucking in the dark. Break!”

  Marcus and Phillip walked purposefully toward me. I smiled, almost grateful for the chance to give blood.

  “It’s so nice that I’m not a total pariah,” I said, feeling particularly warm toward them both.

  Marcus smiled back, circles under his deep brown eyes, his curly hair still unruly. “Well, my queen, anything we can do to spend some time in your presence,” he said graciously.

  I grimaced. “I’m so sorry about the falling asleep!” Because I had missed a lot of time with them, and I felt bad.

  To my horror, Phillip sank gracefully down to one knee. “You give us freely of all you have, my lady,” he said, his voice soft and clear as he took my hand. “I am honored to taste your….” He sniffed and winked, and his ice-blue eyes suddenly looked whole and unhaunted for the first time in nearly three months. “Your cedar, patchouli, and rose-scented blood.”

  I was mortified. “Oh, Goddess….”

  Phillip grinned wickedly, and if it weren’t for the fact that he seemed to be enjoying this more than I’d seen him enjoy anything in so long, I probably would have dodged down the granite staircase to hide in my room. “Well, now that we know what kind of perfume you like, maybe it’s time for dessert!”

  In spite of all the platonic love in the world, I was not in love with Phillip—or even Marcus, who had once harbored a sort of sweetheart crush on me before he and Phillip hooked up in earnest. But having someone’s mouth on your bare skin is always intimate, and in this case, there was a childlike need in Phillip. He’d tasted my blood many times—when I wasn’t smelling like cedar, patchouli, and rose, I usually tasted like all of the things the vampires remembered from their living days. And there was always something special, something human about tasting my blood.

  It made the bond between me and my vampires particularly sweet.

  Phillip’s heart radiated that need. He parted his lips and licked the inside of my wrist playfully, just to make me laugh. Then he extended a delicate fang and punctured, the gift of the Goddess taking the sting away almost immediately. He looked at the blood welling up longingly, as though it held the secrets to all the things that ripped at his soul and he’d held himself back from it by sheer force of will. Then he planted his open mouth against my skin and pulled hard, once. I felt his tongue lap the wound closed, and then he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and swished my blood around in his mouth, holding it against his palate for as long as possible before swallowing convulsively. Marcus stood behind him and stroked his straight black hair from his widow’s peak, and kissed his forehead as he shuddered in ecstasy.

  When he was done, he opened his eyes and gazed at me with such a look of adoration and joy that I felt tears start.

  I stroked his cheek, not minding the chill of his skin.

  “How was it, brother?” I asked gently.

  “It was beauty,” he said, a crimson tear falling, “such as I had forgotten existed. Thank you, my lady.” He stood and bowed deeply, then presented his face to his lover. Marcus lapped at his tears, a slight moan of arousal coming from him. I hadn’t known that this was a vampire intimacy, but I sure did now, and it seemed almost indecent to watch.

  But Marcus was aware of the press of time, and he fell to one knee as well. He licked the closed wound open and tasted a bare mouthful. He shuddered as well, also deeply moved.

  When he stood up, he grinned at me, which was great, because the curiosity was killing me.

  “So?” I asked impatiently. “How’d I taste?”

  “Well, you tasted like cedar, rose, and patchouli, which is pretty gross, actually. I’ll never go into a mall again without wanting to hurl. But what happens when we swallow is pretty cool.”

  “So?”

  He grinned and gave me a quick hard hug. “You’ve got more people to feed, Lady. I’ll tell you when we get back.”

  I narrowed my eyes and stuck out my tongue, and Grace sank to one knee and licked my wrist. She grinned and winked after she swallowed and said, “I feel like I don’t cook enough for you to make up for that!” Then she gave me a brief hug and stepped back next to Arturo, who clasped her hand. Three more vampires took my blood. When they were done, I was grateful for the big pitcher of orange juice and the high-octane nibbles Green had ordered to be brought out before we even started.

  It didn’t take long, really. Less than ten minutes, and then we were ready.

  I looked at everybody one last time. “Good hunting, people,” I said sincerely. “Goddess be with you.”

  “So may it be,” they all echoed. Then the Avians changed form. They and the vampires lifted their faces to the stars and launched. The nonfeathered were all wearing black, violet, and dark gray clothes, so they disappeared rapidly into the clouds in that delicious flutter of cloth and flesh that reminded me of falling ashes. When they were done, I turned my attention to the shape-shifters, most of whom were naked and standing next to neatly folded piles of warm clothes. Except Renny. She was naked and standing next to a big fuzzy blanket and a pair of fur-lined slippers—which was all she’d worn out, because, in her words, it wasn’t like she’d wanted to put clothes on anyway.

  I looked around the clearing and fixed the map in my head, then let Green feed it into the minds of everyone on the ground. They’d all seen it, studied it, traced their territory with steady fingers, but running it would be something different.

  “Okay, all,” I said in a voice that carried. “Everyone link with your eyes in the air.”

  I could see multiple pictures from my vampires, and suddenly I got a reassured burble, almost all at once. All of them. Nobody was running this mission alone.

  “That’s it. Everyone, as fast as you can, because your vampires are halfway there.”

  And abruptly Green, Bracken, and I were the only ones in the grove.

  And my knees were wobbly.

  Bracken caught me first and helped me back to the bench,
making sure I had a giant glass of orange juice when I sat down. I gulped the OJ, parched as only giving blood could make me, and then started to throw down the crackers, jerky, and cookies that sat on the little table by the granite bench. In my head I tracked the vampires as they watched their shape-shifters and elves move into position and then positioned themselves at the farthest point from the hill.

  The vampires and Avians had a good vantage point, but there were things hiding in the shadows that they couldn’t see. The boots on the ground could see an enemy close up, but not the extent of the danger. It was a good system—we hoped.

  But air traffic control was problematic unless there was more than one of us. Tonight was Bracken’s first night with telepathic feed in his head. Green had confided to me that it was a rather select power—the fact that Bracken could wipe a mortal’s memory meant that he had it, but he wasn’t great at doing that yet, and this was going to be difficult as well. Brack’s job was keeping track of Lambent, Arturo, and maybe Nicky, and that was it—but given that both Lambent and Arturo were aggressive as fucking hell, that would be some show he would be seeing as I closed my eyes and devoured all traces of carbs and protein on my plate.

  Suddenly I gasped. “Marcus has something,” I said out loud. “Right on the edge of Kyle’s territory. Kyle’s not going to see it coming in from the west.”

  “I told Lambent,” Green reported. We must have looked so odd, all of us with our attention inward and our bodies huddled in the cushions and blankets on the bench.

  “A meadow in a place with no campground, a swimming hole, and some flat spots. Perfect.”

  “Lambent says there’s a trail of RVs heading that way,” Green added.

  “How’s it smell?”

  “He’s got nothing. He and Ben got separated—he’s trying to get Ben’s attention.”

  I talked to Marcus for a minute. “You fed from Max—what are you getting?”