Jaguar struggled for breath.
I’m dying, she said.
Do you choose that?
Was that her choice? Did she prefer that to her grief? She didn’t fear death. Maybe she didn’t believe in her own death enough to fear it. Or maybe she’d seen too much of the world of spirit to see death as fearful.
But no, she didn’t choose it. Not yet. There was something left for her to do before that. Still, what she feared most was in the living rather than the dying.
What do you fear?
Jaguar breathed through the twisting knot in her chest. What she saw was Alex. Just Alex.
If I love him he’ll die like they died, like he dies in my dreams and I can’t I can’t let him die can’t bear to live with that grief without him without him.
Yes, One Bird said. Your fear.
Her fear. That her love would be death to Alex, to anyone she loved. That his death would destroy her. That there were some losses even she couldn’t survive with her spirit intact. That she was someone whose feelings ran so deeply such a thing could destroy her. Afraid of love. Always afraid of it.
Now you know, One Bird said. Now you know.
But what difference did it make? How could it help her or Alex or any of the people Senci would kill to get at her?
What do I do? What do I do?
She felt something like a sigh move through her.
You know. Let the love be bigger than the fear, Jaguar. See who you are. Be what you see.
One Bird’s hand moved over her, and Jaguar felt the tearing release as she entered emotions she’d hidden from for so long, in so many ways. Without anything left to stop her, she fell like a stone dropped into the bottom of a canyon, into something that felt nearer to death than to sleep.
Home Planet—New York City, USA
New York, Alex noted, shone and sparkled in the night, clean and easy and ready for anything. Though it had 3 million people less than before the Serials, it still could seduce you with its rhythms, its passions and glory.
Alex walked down a street where pretty young people moved in groups of threes and fours, laughing, heading into clubs, emerging from cafes that stayed open all night. He was heading toward the cop shop and their computers where he could track recent registration to hotels and recent airline travel by fingerprint code. He’d called ahead to let them know a Planetoid Supervisor wanted their help, something the Manhattan cops in particular were responsive to. And if he couldn’t find her that way, he’d have to find her another. But find her he would. Preferably, alive and kicking.
When he found her, he’d kiss her. If he found Senci first, he’d try and kill him. He might as well. He’d already given his life over, handing in his resignation just before he left.
He stopped at a corner and read the street sign. There used to be a good bar just a few blocks from this corner. A place with sawdust on the floor, where you could get a hearty beer in a dark room without anyone trying to pick you up or look you over. He made his way to it and found it still existed. He elbowed his way to the bar, slapped down his money, and ordered a pint.
When the bartender brought it and he was raising it to his lips, he saw a flicker of something in the bar mirror. A flicker of something unusual. Golden, and spotted with the eyes of the night.
A golden jaguar, raising a paw to her mouth and licking it.
She lowered the paw slowly and looked up at him.
He turned away from the reflection and toward the crowd. The jaguar stood and sauntered to the door. Nobody saw her except him.
“Okay, then,” he said, and put his beer down, pushed his way to the door and back to the streets.
He looked left and then right, saw her still sauntering in a leisurely way down the street, invisible to everyone except him. He followed, staying well behind. She turned down a side street, and he sped up, turned the corner and saw her still there, still leading him on. Then, she took another corner into an alley, trotting now, and he trotted, too, quickened his pace to a run as she began to run, went down the alley she leapt into, saw her golden fur catching some unseen source of light that made her glisten in motion.
He followed at a run down the narrow lane, keeping his eye on the light glinting off her fur in the night.
I choose you, she said.
Then, he heard laughter. Laughter, like that of children making mischief. Abruptly, he stopped running and listened. The voices of children reached his ears. Girl voice. Boy voice. Girl voice again.
“Stop it,” girl voice insisted haughtily. “I told you how we’re doing it.”
“Think you know so much.” Boy voice was petulant.
“I got him this far, didn’t I?”
Alex peered into the darkness at the end of the alley. The jaguar was gone, but there, at the end of the alley, a little girl and little boy faced off. His fists were hard at his side. She had her hands on her hips and tapped a foot. He’d seen that gesture before. Seen that stance before. It was pure Jaguar. He wondered if Jaguar would recognize the boy stance as his.
For the first time in days, he smiled.
The boy shrugged and walked away, and the girl turned to Alex, walked toward him. He waited, not moving or speaking.
When she stood directly in front of him, she said, “You’re looking for Jaguar, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he admitted.
“Then come with me,” she said, and walked back to where the alley met the street, humming as she went. He followed, and in attending to her he forgot to pay attention to his back. So he was taken completely by surprise when something hard came down with force on his head.
He fell for what seemed like a long time, into a place of absolute darkness.
Chapter 15
Her knife plunged into alex’s chest, and his eyes were triumphant.
Jaguar pulled it out, felt the sucking of the wound as he fell to his knees. Voices moved through her, asking questions.
Do you want this, Jaguar? Is this what you want?
But then there was screaming. Someone wouldn’t stop screaming, a sound like metal on metal amplified twenty times. It was awful.
“Jesus,” Jake shouted over Jaguar’s screaming. “She makes a lot of noise.” He kept his hand pressed against her throat as the horrid sound erupted volcanically all around them.
“It’s the poison,” One Bird shouted back. “She’s full of it. I’ll get more sage.”
As soon as she left the room Jaguar’s eyes flew open, though Jake knew she wasn’t awake. She cursed him, swung at him. “You fucker,” she screeched. “I came here to feel better you fucker, I hate you I hate you I hate you.”
Jake chuckled softly as he held her arms down. “Good thing you don’t know how weak you are,” he said. “You’d be really pissed off.”
One Bird returned, bearing a clay bowl filled with loose silver leaves. She held a match to it, let it catch, then sang as she used a feather to spread the smoke over Jaguar.
“People are getting a little worried,” she mentioned when the song concluded. She jerked her head to the side, and Jake looked out the small window, where a group had gathered.
“Tell them to make a fire. Get a drum circle going.”
One Bird frowned at him. “Do we need it?”
“It’ll drown out the noise,” he said.
Once again she left, and Jake took the glass of water at the bedside, dipped his finger in it, then passed his fingers over Jaguar’s eyes, her lips, her throat. He lifted his hand, ran it lightly over her chest.
The screaming subsided into a moan. One Bird returned with a basin of fresh water and bathed Jaguar’s face with a wet cloth.
“That’s better,” she said. “She stopped fighting.”
“For now,” Jake said. “Don’t count on it lasting. I wish she’d shed some tears, though. She’ll need them.”
One Bird put a hand on her forehead and followed Jaguar’s now silent journey as she was drawn down and down and down to a place smaller than
a coffin, where she had to crouch, bend low, her shoulders crushed against her knees.
A coffin, trapping her, getting smaller and smaller. But she couldn’t get any smaller. Couldn’t be smaller than she was. Her face was pressed to the bottom of the box, the weight crushing her and only a small hole to breathe through.
“Come on, girl,” Jake encouraged. “Don’t stop here. Keep going. “
She flattened herself to the hole and asked herself to become her breath and leave this place, flow out of it, not smaller, but different. Instead she was reduced to her skeletal self, emerging without skin into the world she longed to leave, her bones angry and restless. She reached out for something—anything—felt her bony hand grasp the warmth of another beating heart. Wrenched the heart from its casing of rib and flesh and held it high. As it beat in her hand she sang, and flesh flowed over her. Her moaning grew louder, soon rose into a wrenching cry of pain.
“Hurts, does it?” Jake asked, and continued to smooth his hand over her heart.
One Bird brushed smoke over the area. “Keep going,” she admonished. “You know what’s next. You gotta cry it out.”
Outside, the drumming began and they could smell pinyon and sage smoke, someone cooking a hot dog. Jaguar writhed and cried out, but she shed no tears.
“She don’t cry easy,” Jake noted.
“She needs to,” One Bird replied. “You know why.”
Jake rubbed a hand across his face. “Yeah. We got any tequila?”
“I’ll check.”
When she returned with the bottle Jake took it and poured some into his hand, then smoothed it over Jaguar’s forehead, her throat, her chest. One Bird put her hand back on Jaguar’s head and witnessed what happened within.
Jaguar stood on a mesa, Alex facing her. He pulled her close, kissed her.
Now? Now, Alex?
Now is what we have, he replied.
Jaguar, alone and filled with tearless grief, stood outside of desire as if it were a house she wanted to either occupy or destroy. But she couldn’t beat the door down with her hands and she couldn’t run from it with her feet and she couldn’t stab it with her knife so she stood still and listened.
Listened to her heart beat out this song.
Simply listened.
In Jake and One Bird’s dirt and sagebrush yard more people gathered around the fire. As Jaguar’s voice rose into screaming and subsided into silence, drumming wove in and out of the night and the drummers turned to each other and nodded. It was a good sound. It went with healing. Within the house Jake and One Bird continued their task while night turned itself into morning. At dawn the people dispersed, only to be replaced by other people, all willing to work the drum.
The song went on. The healing continued. The morning turned itself into day, and the day turned itself into night.
Finally, One Bird wiped her hands on a towel and stared down at Jaguar. “I think that’s all we can do,” she said.
“Shit,” Jake said. “No tears. Not one. She’s gotta have some tears.”
“The poison’s left her, and she knows a thing or two she didn’t know before. Maybe that’s all we get. Maybe she’s gotta find her own tears.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”
“We should let her rest. Real rest.”
Jake ran a finger down the side of her face and spoke to her softly in Zuni. She murmured in response, automatically. Her breathing shifted, and the lines on her face smoothed into true sleep.
When One Bird and Jake emerged from the house they looked spent, but they nodded at the people who circled the fire.
Gaiwayo, someone in the circle said. A Seneca woman. Gaiwayo.
All is well.
One Bird agreed. She brought out a pot of stew, a basket of bread. Coffee and water. Everyone drank and ate.
Home Planet—New York City, USA
Dr. Senci emerged from the hotel feeling better, but still very hungry. His feed had relieved the pain in his head, but she had died while he was still sexing her. That was pleasant, but not filling enough. He needed more to satiate his energy needs. He would gather as much energy as he could before he went to Jaguar.
He walked down the streets to a section of the city where working women still plied their trade. They eyed him as he strolled their ranks, assessing their chances for a good night’s pay. He assumed his most appealing aspect and returned their stares, making it clear he was looking to hire one of them. Before long a woman in a short leather skirt and halter top grabbed his arm.
“Want some fun, mister?” she asked.
He considered her. She was thin, but for him that wasn’t a bad thing. It could mean she had higher energy levels, and what he ate was energy, not flesh. “Perhaps,” he said, smiling, and caressing her. “You were offering...?”
“Good times,” she said, and snapped her gum at him. “Right this way.” She crooked a finger, sauntered off toward a building. He followed, though he wasn’t sure if any sexing would truly satisfy him anymore.
He wanted Jaguar. Wanted her. The closer he drew to having her, the more anxious he was to own her completely, make her fully his.
“You got something big on your mind, Joe?” The woman asked. He blinked up, and saw that he was in a bedroom with her. He had no memory of coming here, but that wasn’t unusual. He often lost time, since it meant so little to him.
“Yes,” he said, “something big.”
She peeled herself out of her tight clothes to reveal unnaturally large breasts in a red bra. “I like big,” she said. “Show me.”
“Come here,” he said to her.
“Okey doke,” she said cheerfully and joined him where he sat on the bed. He unhooked her bra, cast it aside, pressed his mouth to her nipple and sucked.
Sucked deeply.
“Hey, that’s special. That feels—hey. What the hell?”
Her voice wavered. He sucked, and looked up at her face, saw her eyes roll back in her head. He braced a hand at the back of her neck but she slid down onto the bed and passed out.
He stopped his feed, felt at her neck for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. He’d wait until her energy returned just enough to bring her to consciousness, then he’d feed more. She’d be frightened, already knowing she was about to die. That would make for a good feed.
He calculated it would take her about fifteen minutes to revive, and while he waited, he turned his thoughts back to his apartment. He sensed nothing wrong. All was quiet there. No surprises. Then again, the children were used to being on their own, since he often left them alone so he could hunt. They knew better than to misbehave, and right now they had something special to keep them occupied.
He searched and felt the presence of the little girl, heard her contented humming. Alex was there with her, unconscious, and she was guarding him carefully just as instructed. Peter was impatient to start on him, but the girl wouldn’t let him. She had her instructions and she’d follow them to the letter.
He’d promised her a horse if she did exactly as he asked, and she was looking forward to getting it. Not a pony, though, she’d insisted. A real horse. White, with a dark star on its forehead. He’d agreed.
Now, sensing her compliant satisfaction, he knew he could take his time to feed here, returning home tomorrow or even the next day. Then he’d watch the children play with Alex before he consumed him. As an Adept, he’d make a particularly good feed.
The woman on the bed gasped, opened her eyes. She sat up hard and tried to stand, but fumbled it. He grabbed her arm, pulled her back onto the bed. She clawed at his face and he smiled. A little scuffle was nice now and then.
He let her get on with it, allowed her to feel some hope of escape because that would intensify the flavor of the meat. Then he shoved her hard onto her back and put his mouth to her nipple, getting his teeth into it this time, drawing blood and drinking in earnest.
It was good. Full of the energy of flight. Full of fear.
After a while she began t
o spasm, her hands flailing out at nothing then clutching at her throat. He lifted his head and watched her face, saw the bursting of blood vessels behind her eyes. He went back to her breast and continued to suck until she was drained dry. Then he bit off the end of the nipple and swallowed it.
He licked his lips. Not a bad feed. He decided to find at least one more. A young one.
He patted the dead woman on the leg and left her there. The next one he would sex first, and then feed off of. Perhaps it was old fashioned of him, but he preferred it if those he sexed were still alive.
* * * *
When light returned and vision with it, Alex found himself prone across a round bed covered with deep red satin, his hands and legs bound by steel cuffs. The bed was soft, and the satin slippery, but he managed to elbow his way up into a sitting position and look around.
The round bed was in the center of a large and well-proportioned room with a domed ceiling. Inset lights played on the mirrored walls. Pictures of people in a variety of sexual acts adorned them, and on a low bureau sat statues of Chinese erotica, all in jade and gold.
“Great Mother,” he said to himself. “Where the hell am I?”
The oak door creaked open to answer him, and a group of five children, ranging in age from perhaps eleven for the youngest girl, to maybe sixteen for the oldest boy, filed into the room. Two boys and three girls. They approached the bed, keeping a safe distance, and stood staring at him.
“He’s alive,” the oldest boy said.
“Of course he is, Peter,” the youngest girl said. “He’s supposed to be, isn’t he?”
“I thought we got to kill him,” one of the middle boys said. He pushed his face forward and sniffed Alex as if he might smell bad, then pulled back and stood silently picking his nose.
The girl he’d spoken with in the alley stepped forward and slapped his hand. “Don’t do that,” she said. “It’s gross.”
She walked closer to Alex, looking him over. “Does your head hurt?” she asked.
“Not too bad,” he replied. “But thanks for asking.”
She creased her forehead as if she didn’t understand what he said. Not much courtesy in her life, he supposed.
The Green Memory of Fear Page 14
