Serpent's Kiss

FIVE

Rhoswen strode quickly through the house. Rune kept effortless pace beside her, his long legs eating up the distance.

The oral histories in Carling’s research stated that the mysterious episodes increased in frequency and intensity the closer a Vampyre came to the end. He wasn’t sure yet what “the end” was, or what happened once a Vampyre reached it. It was possible Carling herself didn’t know, or at least she hadn’t at the point in her research when he had taken a break from reading.

Carling’s text was chronological in nature, and one of the things she was meticulous about was recording the date and time of each event or discovery. She did not leap ahead or fall behind. Whenever she made reference to something earlier in her notes, she did so in a kind of shorthand by simply notating the date/time. It was a simple enough method of cross-referencing short of using a software program for footnotes, although it slowed his progress down as he had to flip back and forth through the entries to get the full gist of things.

Rune asked Rhoswen, “How often are these episodes occurring?”

“Almost daily,” she said in a strangled voice. “It’s why I hate so very much leaving her alone. What if she goes into an episode when she’s cooking for the damn dog, or when she has taken off the spell that protects her from the sun? She sits so close to the edge of shadow when she does that. What if she has an episode and then the angle of the sun changes?”

He swore under his breath. Daily episodes weren’t a good sign. In one of Carling’s oral histories, one Vampyre had reached such a point and he was gone in a matter of weeks. Had he simply collapsed into dust? Usually mortal creatures struggled with death. Their hearts went into arrhythmia and their breathing became labored. If Vampyres were killed by the sun, they burst into flames first and expired in horrible agony. When they were killed in other ways, they disintegrated into dust.

He and Rhoswen reached a flight of stairs and took them three at a time. Rasputin rode silently under Rhoswen’s arm, his small foxy head swiveling to track Rune’s movements.

Rune said, “From here on out, we don’t leave her alone. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed. Sentinel, maybe I haven’t seemed very welcoming since you arrived, but I want you to know—I’m glad you’re here.”

Rhoswen didn’t seem very welcoming at the best of times, but he shouldn’t get snarky on her just when she appeared in need of a moment.

Instead, he said, “Don’t sweat it. Just stop calling me Sentinel, would you? It makes me feel like some kind of flea and tick repellent.”

The Vampyre darted a quick startled glance at him. He winked at her, and she coughed out an uncertain laugh. At the top of the stairs, Rune put a hand on her arm. When she stopped, he gave her a steady look that had nothing of humor in it.

“We should be prepared for the possibility that Carling won’t survive,” he said. Saying it aloud made his muscles clench, but he forced himself to speak calmly. “But I promise you, we’re going to do our damnedest to see that she does.”

Rhoswen’s mouth shook. “Thank you.”

He nodded and let go of her arm. She turned and led the way down the second-story hall, toward a pair of carved wooden doors at the hallway’s end. Rhoswen started to open one door, and sunlight—what looked like sunlight—spilled through the widening gap from the room beyond.

Rune didn’t pause to think. He grabbed Rhoswen’s shoulder in a hard grip and yanked her back, away from the light.

She stumbled and clutched the dog close as she looked around wild-eyed. “What is it? What happened?”

He said, his voiced edged, “I’m sorry. Look, it’s a knee-jerk reaction. That looks like sunlight, but it can’t be because the sun is setting and the house is almost dark. What is it?”

“What are you talking about?” Rhoswen stared at him. “What light?”

He took a deep breath. Let it out again. He gestured toward the half-open door. “There is light spilling out of that room, a very bright, strong yellow light like sunlight in the middle of the day. Are you telling me you don’t see it?”

“No I don’t,” Rhoswen said. Now the whites of her eyes were showing too, just like the dog’s. She looked nothing like her usual sleek composed self. She looked disheveled, frightened and very young. “It’s quite dark, actually. I just figured since you’re Wyr, you would have good eyesight and you’d be okay with that.”

“Oh-kay,” said Rune. He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “Let’s go carefully here.”

He stepped toward the door and pushed it wider open slowly, watching to make sure that none of the light he saw—or thought he saw—spilled directly onto Rhoswen. The hallway brightened further as the door opened. It still looked like sunlight to him, and it felt saturated with magic.

He drew a line through the air with a finger. “This is where the light that I see ends. I want you to cross that with just the tip of your finger.”

Now she looked at him as if she suspected he was crazy, but she did as he asked and extended her forefinger until it crossed the demarcation he had shown her. They both stared at her finger, which remained unburned.

“Do you still see the light?” Rhoswen asked.

“As plain as day,” he told her. “But at least it doesn’t appear you are in any danger of burning from it. We should still go carefully.” He gazed at her as he considered. “Do you have Power or magic ability?”

She shook her head. “I have only what every Vampyre has, which is enough for telepathy or making a crossover to an Other land. It’s a by-product of the virus. When I was human, I was a complete dead-head.”

A dead-head, when used the way Rhoswen meant it, referred to someone who had no Power or magic ability whatsoever. It did not refer to a Grateful Dead fan. If Rhoswen didn’t have much magical ability, then she didn’t have many magical defenses. Rune shook his head. “Right. Well, magic is spilling out of that room, just like sunlight, and I’m not inclined to trust any of it. I want you to stay here.”

The Vampyre’s chin firmed. “Carling might need me.”

He refrained from rolling his eyes. It wasn’t his responsibility if Rhoswen chose to risk her life, and who knew, maybe she was right and Carling would need her. He said, “Fine, but I’m going in first.”

Rhoswen stayed behind him as he stepped into the doorway, into both magic and light. The soles of his boots landed on something shifting and pliable. He looked down. That looked like sand. It felt like sand.

If it walked, talked and quacked like a duck, if it tasted like a duck when he caught and ate it . . .

He took another step, and another. The barest outline of a shadowed room surrounded him. Superimposed upon the room was a brighter, hotter reality. He looked up and squinted into a pale blue, cloudless sky that held a burning yellow-white sun.

“Sentinel?” Rhoswen called him again. This time she sounded panicked. “Rune! You’re fading.”

He could just see her. She was a pale, insubstantial ghost-like sketch, as was the rest of the room. He called back, “I’m here. Can you hear me?”

“Barely,” she shouted. She sounded far away. “You’re disappearing right in front of me. What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he shouted back. “I’m going to look around and see what I can find out. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“I’d much rather you didn’t,” she called. “I would like for you to come back now, please.”

But the mystery that lay spread out all around him was too compelling to ignore. Ahead of him was desert, and greenery, and the blinding glint of sunshine on distant water. Behind him was Rhoswen, the doorway and the island.

Son of a bitch, this kinda felt like a crossover to an Other land. Crossovers were the dimensional passageways that lay between Earth and Other lands. They had been formed when the Earth had been formed, when time and space had buckled. Crossover passageways followed physical faults in the landscape. The crossover passage that led to the island was part of a fissure at the ocean’s bed. He had never before heard of one existing in a manmade structure, such as in a second-story bedroom in a house.

But this also felt different somehow than a normal crossover. He fumbled for a way to describe it to himself, to understand what he was sensing. It felt . . . bent, as if it turned a corner that other crossover passages didn’t. And if this was a crossover point, why didn’t Rhoswen sense it and cross over as well? Was it because of her lack of Power? Carling had a hell of a lot of Power. He would have thought she would have noticed by now if there was a dimensional passageway in the middle of her bedroom and considered it worthy of some mention. If it was a crossover passage, where did it cross over to? Or was he caught in some kind of elaborate illusion?

And where, in all of this mystery, was Carling?

He rubbed the back of his neck. He had always thought he was more of a Cheshire Cat than an Alice, but this really was curiouser and curiouser.

There was only one way to try to understand it.

He strode forward, into the full light of a scorching desert day.

At first he heard nothing but the vast, lonely howl of the wind as it sang its eternal song. Then the harsh, wordless cry of a bird sounded overhead. Heat hammered down and sand blasted him in the face. He paused to pick three landmarks to triangulate his position so he could return to this point if it really was a crossover passageway and the area ended up being his only route back to the house.

He put at his twelve o’clock a sere, squat bluff that rose above the rest of the landscape. That put the silvery glimmer of water at ten o’clock, a little too close to the bluff for the best triangulation, but it would have to do. He looked over his right shoulder, and saw nothing but desert dunes. He picked the tallest dune, at five o’clock. The dune would be useless for long-term navigation, of course, since the wind and the dunes would shift over time, but hopefully it would do for his purposes. He didn’t plan on staying . . . wherever here was . . . for very long.

Then like discarding a suit of clothes, he let his human facade fall away as he shifted into his Wyr form. He stretched massive wings out and crouched, his lion’s tail lashing, and he leaped into the air to fly through the brutal heat toward the bluff. Usually when he flew in an urban area, he cloaked himself to avoid complications with air traffic control systems, but this scene looked rural enough that he didn’t bother.

His flight gave him a bird’s-eye view of the land. The watery shimmer became a great, winding river bordered on either side with lush green vegetation and gold fields of grain that came to an abrupt end at a bordering desert.

Realization battered him. Hells bells. Unless he was very badly mistaken, that had to be the Nile. He had flown the length of the Nile several times in years gone past. He had seen it in all three stages of its ancient flood cycle, before the Aswan Dam in 1970 brought all seasonal flooding to an end. With the fields ripe with rich barley and wheat, this looked like Shemu, the Season of the Harvest, which fell roughly between the months of what would be May and September on a modern calendar.

He banked and flew in a wide circle as he scoured the landscape. With his eagle-sharp eyes, he could see for miles.

He saw no power lines, no satellite dishes, no motored boats on the river, no vehicles, nor any paved or gravel roads. No modern irrigation techniques or machinery. No plumes of smoke from distant refineries. No airplanes.

Simple dwellings made of mud-baked bricks dotted the riverbanks. A plume of dust rose from a group of brown-skinned men traveling on horseback along the western bank. They were over a mile away. From what Rune could see, they wore shentis, or loincloths, and were armed with copper-headed spears and wooden shields.

Okay, he was still looking for something to make sense here.

He inclined his eagle’s head to study the land below him.

He saw a tiny upright figure, staring directly up at him with eyes shaded, about five hundred yards away from a cluster of eight buildings. A bundle of grain and a knife lay on the ground at the figure’s feet.

And here he was with no Rand McNally atlas or GPS system. Not only did Rune like chick flicks and women’s fashions, but he also knew how to stop and ask for directions when he was lost. Plus he was secure in his masculinity. He might be one of the world’s only four gryphons, but he figured if you added those qualities up with all the rest, it made him unique as all shit.

Keeping the figure in sight, he slowed into a spiraling descent.

It was either a child or a small adult. Well okay, if he suspended all disbelief and just went on empirical evidence (which was patently impossible, but he was really trying to go with the flow here), any adults he might encounter would also be small, at least smaller than those in the twenty-first century.

The figure wore a shenti as well, and nothing else. The grubby scrap of cloth was wrapped around narrow hips. Child or adult, every line in the figure’s posture shouted amazement, but at least it wasn’t running away in a panic. So far, so good.

Rune shapeshifted as he landed about twenty yards away. He paused to give the other figure time to react. He was betting it was a female child. She appeared frozen in shock. Her skin was darkened from the sun into a rich nut brown. She had a light delicate bone structure, dirty feet, and a small rounded belly under a narrow rib cage.

The child’s tangled dark hair had rich auburn glints in the sun, as if she was lit with a deep, internal fire. Her hand fell to her side, and he saw that she had long, lustrous almond-shaped dark eyes that glittered with sharp intelligence.

Recognition kicked him in the teeth. Her immature features already showed the promise of a spectacular bone structure. Her mouth hung open, the childish curve of lips hinting at the sensual beauty that was to come.

Holy shit.

“Hello darling,” he whispered, staring.

She was a breathtaking impossibility. He couldn’t be looking at the child Carling had once been, but somehow he was. Was he caught in her memories? How could that be? It all felt so real, it couldn’t be an illusion. Could it?

The girl said something in a shaky, high voice, the liquid-sounding words alien and unintelligible.

For a few moments his frozen brain refused to respond. Then, like flexing an unused muscle, his mind made sense of what she had said to him. She had spoken in a long-dead language.

“Are you Atum?”

Atum, to the ancient Egyptians, was the god of creation, the being from which all other deities came. Rune shook his head and fumbled to find the words and the concepts for a reply that this version of Carling might understand.

“No,” he said, trying with all his might to project comfort and reassurance into his voice. Whether this was reality or illusion could be discovered later. At this point it didn’t matter—gods, he just hoped the child Carling didn’t bolt and run from him. “I am something different.”

The girl pointed with a shaky hand. “But I saw you come out of the water.”

Rune turned to look where she pointed. The river wound out of sight. Atum, according to the myth, rose out of a primordial watery abyss that circled the world. When Rune had changed into his Wyr form and launched into the air, from a distance it must have appeared that he had come out of the water.

He repeated, gently, “I am not a god. I am something else.”

He did not expect her to believe him. She had just seen him fly in his gryphon form. To her, how could he be anything else? The early religions were filled with such things, as the Wyr shape-shifted and began to interact with humankind. Egypt’s pantheon of gods was especially filled with human/animal forms.

He was useless at human things, but if he had to guess, he would place this Carling at under ten years of age. Was this really what she had been like as a child, or was this a projection of her mind? Was this who she thought she had once been? Simple wonder made her intelligent eyes shine. She was so delicate, the sight of her caught at the back of his throat. She was the merest infant. She had the whole of a very long, strange, and what must have been an often difficult life ahead of her. This Carling couldn’t possibly understand any of that.

Moving slowly and easily, he crouched into a squat so he didn’t tower over her. She shivered when he moved but still she did not break and run. Such a brave baby. He cleared his throat. “What’s your name, darling?”

Darling. He used the English word. He knew of no direct equivalent in the ancient Egyptian language.

In a classic childish gesture of self-consciousness, she lifted one of her narrow shoulders toward her ear as she gave him a small smile. “Khepri,” she whispered.

Rune tumbled head over heels in love. He laughed a little breathlessly, feeling like a mule had just kicked him in the chest. “Khepri,” he repeated. If he remembered right, the word meant morning sun. “It’s a beautiful name.” He pointed in the direction of the cluster of small buildings near the river’s edge. “Does your family live there?”

She nodded. Curiosity overcame her wonder, and she dared to sidle a few steps closer. “What is your name?”

His breath caught. He willed her to trust him and come closer. “I am called Rune.”

He watched her mouth form the strange word as she tried it out silently. She would have been a quick child and would have rarely needed to be told something twice. He wondered when she would have taken on the more anglicized name of Carling, and what the reasons had been behind the change.

He gestured toward the bundle of grain and the knife. “You are harvesting.”

She looked at the bundle and heaved an aggrieved sigh. “It is hard work. I would rather fish.”

He grinned. “Where does your village take its grain?”

She pointed north, downriver. “Ineb Hedj,” she told him. She added, proudly, “It is a very great place.”

Ineb Hedj. The White Walls. The city had been named for the dam that surrounded it and successfully kept the Nile at bay, one of the first of its kind in human history. Established around 3,000 BCE and sitting twelve miles from the Mediterranean coast, the city had a long, illustrious history. Eventually it would be called Memphis. At one point it had been the largest city in the world. Khepri was right, it was a very great place.

He heard the rhythmic strike of hoofbeats in the distance, and remembered the men on horseback that he had glimpsed earlier when he was airborne. If Khepri’s village was able to get grain into Ineb Hedj, the city could not be more than a day’s walk away. Probably the riders came from the city.

He smiled. Everything about this child enchanted him, from the way she pulled at her lower lip with thumb and forefinger to how she stood with one dirty foot balanced on top of the other. How had she come from such a poor, obscure beginning to become one of the most Powerful rulers in the Elder Races?

He asked, “Have you been to Ineb Hedj?”

She shook her head. “I am not allowed.”

“That will change some day,” he said.

Khepri looked in the direction of the hoofbeats. She asked, “Do you hear that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Something is happening.” She looked excited and disturbed all over again.

The village must be far enough from the city for the men on horseback to be an event. He frowned and straightened to look north. Khepri moved closer to stand by his side.

Villagers emerged from the huts as the riders appeared. No one noticed Rune or looked in their direction. They were all staring at the approaching riders. Rune set his jaw. He did not like the look of how the riders held their spears, or their aggressive speed.

He put a hand on Khepri’s shoulder. She felt so fragile underneath his fingers, her bones as light and slender as a bird’s. She gave him a frowning look.

“Listen, darling,” he said. He kept his tone quiet and easy. “I think we should step into the field and hide in the grain, just until we know what those men want.”

Or at least that’s what he tried to say to her. Even as the words came out of his mouth, the solid feel of her shoulder melted from underneath his touch. He made an instinctive attempt to grab hold of her. His fingers clenched in an empty fist. Khepri stared at his fist and reached for it with small brown fingers that had gone transparent. Her hand passed through his. Her face tilted up. They stared at each other.

Rune sent a swift glance around. The outline of a room had appeared, sketched over the hot desert afternoon. A vertical line of curtain slashed through the riders who had lifted their spears. The rider in the lead took aim and threw his spear at the nearest villager, a slender middle-aged male. The spear’s copper head emerged from the man’s back in an explosion of liquid crimson.

Ah, hell no.

He glanced down at Khepri and saw her lips move on another word. He recognized it even though he couldn’t hear her. Papa. She opened her mouth wide to scream.

No, dammit. Whatever was really happening—memory, illusion or reality—he did not want to leave the child this way, not now, not yet. He tried to lunge in front of her so she couldn’t see anything else the riders did. He tried to scoop her up and run away with her, but she passed through his arms, as insubstantial as a ghost.

Khepri and the rest of the desert scene faded from sight. He sensed again a kind of passage, that peculiar bent, going-around-a-corner feeling, but no matter how his mind tried to grasp hold of the concept, it slid away.

Then he stood sweating in a large cool, darkened bedroom. A king-sized four-poster bed dominated one wall. A sitting area with armchairs, footstools and side tables was set up on the other side of the room, in front of a comfortable-looking, well-used fireplace.

Carling sat in one of the armchairs, an open book resting on one of the chair’s arms. Rasputin had leaped onto her lap and was licking at her cheeks. Rhoswen knelt on the floor beside her, gripping her by the hand and saying her name. With a grimace, Carling nudged the dog away from her face. Rasputin switched to licking her hand as he wagged his tail frantically. Carling caught sight of Rune. She looked at him, at the dog and at Rhoswen as though she had never seen any of them before.

She said, “Something’s happened.”

Carling struggled against a feeling of disorientation. She had been trying to read a rather mangled history of the Dark Ages, finding the author alternatively amusing and irritating. The last thing she remembered was putting down her book as she looked at the late-afternoon sunshine, and now her bedroom was in near-complete darkness. Despite her best effort to stave it off, apparently she had faded again.

Distress weighted the air. Rasputin was always disturbed whenever she had an episode. How the dog sensed what was happening, she didn’t have a clue. She gave up trying to calm him and simply clamped her hand down on the back of the dog’s neck to contain his frantic wriggling body in one spot.

There was never any ambiguity about Rhoswen’s upset either. When Carling faded, it invariably threw the other Vampyre into a panic, which was why Carling had put off telling her about the episodes she’d had on the trip to Adriyel.

While Rhoswen’s panic was tiring, it wasn’t anything new. Carling’s attention switched to the source of the sharp, fierce emotions in the room. Rune flared against her mind’s eye like an aggressive, violent infrared volcano. He was breathing heavily, and he smelled of sharp male sweat and exertion. What had happened to him?

As she stared, he seemed to collect himself. He walked over to her with every appearance of calm, but of course she knew better.

“All right,” Rune said. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She frowned as she tried to reach for the elusive feeling, but it had already melted away. “Something did,” she insisted. “Something shifted.”

Rhoswen started a tearful babble. Carling was so weary of dealing with the younger Vampyre’s self-involvement she simply covered her eyes with one hand.

Rune snapped sharply, “Rhoswen, stop it.”

Rhoswen’s babble cut off in midsentence. She looked at Rune in affronted astonishment.

He told her, his voice hard, “Nobody needs that kind of excess right now. If you cannot add to the situation, get out.”

Carling’s eyebrows rose behind her hand. She was almost inclined to laugh.

Rhoswen’s reply sounded strangled. “I’ ll—feed the dog his supper and take him out.”

Carling touched Rhoswen’s hand and told her, “Thank you.”

Rhoswen sniffed and nodded. She scooped Rasputin off Carling’s lap and left with her head lowered.

Rune waited until the younger Vampyre was gone. Then he began to pace around the room. He kept his movements controlled in a slow prowl, as though he would give the appearance of relaxation, but the hot corona of violence that surrounded him all but obliterated her ability to see or sense anything else in the room.

He asked in an even voice, “The episodes aren’t painful, are they? Are you in any discomfort?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just tired.”

She was more than just tired. She was mortally exhausted. Not even the remarkable vitality of Rune’s powerful emotions could energize her this time. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept, or even just rested enough to become refreshed. It was all part of the progression of the disease: one lost the ability to take in physical nourishment and began to feed off emotions, and after a few centuries, one became unable to sleep and the episodes increased. She wrapped her arms around herself and huddled in one corner of the armchair.

Rune gave her a sharp, searching glance. He stopped at one of the side tables to light an oil lamp. It flooded the sitting area with soft light. He glanced at a windup clock on the fireplace mantel and continued on his prowl. “Rhoswen woke up earlier and came to check on you. The sun had not yet set, so you may have slipped into the fade at any time from late afternoon to early evening. It’s almost midnight now. Is that a typical length of time for one of these episodes?”

“They vary,” she murmured. “I recently had one that lasted a couple of days. It sounds like this one only lasted hours.”

“All right.” He stopped in front of the large windows and looked out. He went still, then muttered to himself, “Interesting.”

She regarded him wearily. As fascinating as she found him, right now she wanted nothing more than for him to go away and leave her alone. “What?”

He looked back at her. “Your windows face the east.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She caught how his attention diverted to the small movement. A strange expression crossed his lean tanned features, and a sharp emotion like pain pierced him.

She told him, “I like to look at the morning sun.”

“Khepri,” he whispered.

Icy shock rippled over her skin as she heard him utter a word that no one had spoken to her in millennia. “What did you just say?”

He walked to the other armchair and leaned his folded arms across its high back as he watched her with unswerving intensity. “The San Francisco Bay was visible earlier,” Rune said. “Now it isn’t. I was outside when it appeared just before sunset, which sounds very close to the time when you might have faded. Is that a coincidence?” He paused to give her a chance to respond. She said nothing. “Not?”

She admitted reluctantly, “Maybe not.”

He straightened and folded his arms across his chest. He did not look pleased. “It appears we have a lot to discuss.”

“We sure as hell do,” said Carling.