"That's okay," she said. She took his hand again and felt the shaking stop. He gave her a slow smile that she had not seen before. It confused her, warmed her. She gave him her other hand, but felt utterly foolish because she could no
longer look directly at him.
Because he did nothing for a while, apparently felt no need to hurry, she regained her composure. "You like what you are, don't you," she said.
"I didn't care much for it today."
"Because of me." She managed to look at him again. "But you like what you are most of the time. You think you shouldn't like being a majority of one, but you do like it."
He held her by the shoulders. "Girl, if you convert okay and get even more perceptive, you're going to be spooky."
She laughed, then looked at his hands. "Don't you have to scratch me or something?" "I would if I weren't so sure I didn't have to."
"What?"
He drew her to him, kissed her until she drifted from surprise at the thrust of his tongue to pleasure at the way he warmed her with his hands.
"You see," he said. "Who the hell needs biting and scratching?" She laughed and let him lift her onto the bed.
She expected to be hurt. She had read enough and heard enough not to expect the first time to be romantic and beautiful. And there was her illness to make things worse. She had never known it to make anything better. At least her
medicine was still working.
Somehow, he managed not to hurt her much. He handled her like a fragile doll. She did not think she could have stood that from anyone else, but from him, it was a gift she readily accepted. She had some idea what it cost him.
Eventually, pleased and tired, they both slept.
It was ten to two when Keira awoke. She stumbled off to the bathroom, her mind barely awake until she saw the clock on the bookcase. Ten to two. Two. Oh God.
Eli himself had given her reason to go. If she stayed and somehow lived, he would pass her on to some other man. She did not want to be passed on.
And she did not want her father to leave without her-or try to leave and be killed because she could have helped and
had not.
By the time she came out of the bathroom, she had made up her mind. But how to get away from Eli? The door was locked. She had no idea where the key was. In his clothing, perhaps.
But if she went searching through his clothing, then unlocking the door, he would awaken, stop her, and she would not get another chance.
She would have to hurt him.
She cringed from the thought. He had gone to some trouble to avoid hurting her. He was not exactly a good man, but she liked him, could have loved him, she thought, under other circumstances.
Yet for her father, she had to hurt him. After all, he had not only the key to the room door, but the keys to the
Wagoneer. Without the car keys, her father might have to spend too much time getting into the car and getting it started. He would be caught before he drove a foot.
There was the clock-a nondigital antique with a luminous dial. It ticked loudly and needed neither batteries nor electricity. If she hit Eli with it, he could probably be hurt, but would he be knocked unconscious or would he wake up
and knock her unconscious? The clock was heavy, but awkward and big. The elephant bookend would be better. She
had noticed it when she put away the book she had tried to read. The space between the elephant's trunk and its body offered a good handhold. The base was flat and would do less damage, less gouging and cutting when she hit him. It was unpainted cast iron, dull gray, heavy, and already just above Eli's head on the headboard bookshelf.
She went back to the bed, climbed in.
"Hey," Eli said sleepily. He reached for her. The gentleness of his hands told her he probably wanted to make love again. She would have given a great deal to stay there with him.
Instead, she reached for the elephant, gripped its trunk, and brought it down with all her strength on his head.
He gave a cry not much different from the one he had given at orgasm. Frightened, she hit him again. He went limp.
She had hurt her own hands and arms with the force of her blows. She knew she was weak, had feared at first that she could not really hurt him at all. Now she feared she had killed him.
She checked quickly to see that he was still breathing, still had a strong pulse. She found blood on his head, but not
much of it. He was probably all right.
She got off the bed, pulled on her caftan, and stepped into her shoes, then she tore into his scattered clothing. She found the car keys at once, but could not find the one for the room. The door was definitely locked, though she could not remember him stopping to lock it. And there was no key.
She went to one of the larger of the four windows. It was not locked with a key, but it was closed so tightly she could not budge it. She could break it, of course, but that would bring any number of people running.
On the bed, Eli made a whining sound, and she tore at the window. It opened inward rather than upward, but it had apparently been painted shut.
She tried the other large window and found the same thing.
Finally she tried the two smaller center windows. When one of them opened, she dragged a chair to it, thankful for the rug that muffled the sound. She spent long desperate seconds trying to get the screen open.
In the end, she broke the catch, pushed the screen out, and jumped.
PART 4: REUNION PAST 19
"I feel like hell," Andrew Zeriam whispered. "Everything stinks. Food tastes like shit. Light hurts my eyes ..." He groaned.
"You want me to go away?" Eli asked. He spoke very softly. Zeriam sat in a darkened room-he had refused to lie down-and held his ears in this silent desert place, trying to shut out sounds he had not noticed before. What, Eli wondered, would happen if the disease spread to the cities? How would newly sensitive ears endure the assault of noise?
"Hell no, I don't want you to go away," Zeriam whispered. "I asked you to come in, didn't I?" Silence.
"Can you see me, Eli? I can see you, and that's some trick." "I can see you."
"It's pitch dark in here. It must be. It's night. The windows are shut. The lights are out. It's dark!" "Yeah."
"Talk to me, Eli. Tell me what the hell is going on."
"You know what's going on. Lorene told you yesterday."
More silence. Then: "What are you that you can sit there and admit what she said is true?" "I'm what you are, Andy-host to millions, or more likely billions, of extraterrestrials."
Zeriam lunged at him, swinging. Zeriam was faster and better coordinated then he had been, but he was not yet significantly stronger. Eli caught him, held him easily.
"Andy, if you don't sit your ass down or lie down, you're going to make me hurt you."
Zeriam stared at him, then burst into bitter laughter. "Hurt me? Man, you've killed me. You've killed . . . Shit, you may have killed everybody. Who knows how far this plague of yours will spread."
"I don't think I've killed you," Eli said. "I think you're going to live." That stopped Zeriam's words and his struggles. "Live?"
"Your symptoms are like mine-weird, nerve-wracking, but not devastating. People who don't make it can't even stand
up when they're as far along as you are. Hell, you're not even shaky." "But... people die of this. Lorene's husband, Gwyn's..."