I stared around, trying to make sense of what I was…okay, not seeing, it was dark in here, wherever it was. When had it become in here? We’d started out on the streets of No Town, more or less. Well, we weren’t there any more. Given the…mess…I was glad no humans were likely to stumble across us. I tried to settle down, settle back into my skin—except I didn’t want to be in my skin any more. I didn’t want to be me. I didn’t want to know me.
But the animal body was overriding the conscious brain, the brain that ground out concepts like worthwhile and not worthwhile. My medulla oblongata was determined to stay alive, whatever my cerebrum said. For a moment I seemed to be floating up above myself, looking down at the bloody wreckage, at the two figures still standing, Con and me, standing next to each other, facing in the same direction.
When Bo spoke again, I snapped back together, body and mind. I could almost hear the clunk, as the bolts slotted into place, trapping me with myself again. I may have hated and feared myself now, but I hated and feared Beauregard worse.
Welcome, welcome. Do come in. Welcome between us, Connie, has been a curious affair for some years now, eh? I imagine you haven’t been too surprised. Perhaps you explained it to your companion. I hope so, Connie. It would have been rude of you to omit explanation, I feel, and you have always been the soul of courtesy, haven’t you? Your little human, Connie, is very enterprising. She has been nosing around me for some little while. I’m surprised, Connie, that you would allow a human to do your, shall I say, dirty work? You must have found your experience a few months ago more debilitating than I realized. Or perhaps more corrupting.
And I had thought Con’s laugh was horrible. I blanked out when Bo laughed, like you blank out when you’re conked on the head. It’s not a voluntary response.
Maybe I should have been insulted that I was being ignored. I wasn’t. I didn’t want him to say anything to me. The mere experience—I won’t call it sound—of his voice was like having the skin peeled off me—the skin I hadn’t wanted to fit myself back inside a few moments ago. Very, very distantly it occurred to me that if I was feeling a little brighter I might find it funny that Bo seemed to be accusing me of being a bad influence. On a vampire. But I wasn’t feeling brighter.
Oh yes, I am here, waiting for you. Do keep coming on. After all, you have worked quite hard to progress so far, have you not? It would be a pity to waste all that effort. And I really don’t feel I could let you go now without paying your respects to me personally. It would be so rude. And wasn’t I just saying, Connie, that you are the soul of courtesy?
The voice itself was flaying me alive. What was left of my mind and will were addled with the effort to remain—myself. Slowly, painfully, I moved my right hand, slid it stickily into my pocket, and closed my gummy and aching fingers around my little knife. It wasn’t hot any more, but the painful pressure of the voice eased a little. I dropped my eyes and through the smeary muck on my forearms I could see the occasional gleam of golden webbing.
Do walk on. Please.
That please seemed to last a century.
Walking on being precisely what he was trying to prevent us from doing, by the nonsound of his voice. I squeezed my knife till I could feel it grinding into my palm, and took a step forward. So did Con. He didn’t take my hand again, but as we moved, his shoulder brushed mine. I realized it was important not to appear to be struggling. Con could probably have moved faster without me, but he didn’t; he waited. So I raised my other foot and took another step. And another. Con matched me, and with every step we touched, briefly, shoulder or arm or back of hand. There was a sort of quiver against my breast, as if the chain that hung there was rearranging itself.
You must be tired, said the voice. You are walking so slowly.
But I heard it too. He was losing this round, as he had lost the first one, because we weren’t paralyzed and helpless. Because I wasn’t dying under the scourge of his voice.
I wondered how much worse it would be if he said my name.
It became easier as we went on; he’d withdrawn, I guess, plotting his next move. We didn’t get rushed by any minions trying to kill us either. I kept my hand wrapped around my knife, and I felt the little hard lump that was the seal against my other leg. The chain felt stretched across my breast like a rock-climber spread-eagled across a particularly tricky slope. I pretended I was going forward bravely, ready for the next challenge. But I’d been wounded by that voice: the bitter burning of acid. My body throbbed with it, despite the talismans, despite the light-web. Every step blew a little gust of pain through me. I tried not to shiver, which would only make it worse; and besides, pathetically, I didn’t want Con to despise me. As our shoulders brushed, I felt him helping me, offering me his strength. I forgot again that he was a vampire, that I was afraid of him too, that I hated what he could do and had done, tonight, hated him for making me find out what I could do. He was also all I had. He was my ally and if I was going to let him down, which I probably was, at least let me not do it because I just lost it.
The silvery luminescence that began eerily to come up around us was genuine light of some sort, light that a human eye could respond to. But there was nothing here I wanted to see, that I wouldn’t rather be able to trick myself into half-believing I wasn’t seeing, that my human neurons were confused by the vampire thing I was infected with.
We were in a huge room. There were enormous pipes, and the remains of scaffolding, and machinery, all round the walls, and more overhead. Some kind of derelict factory; No Town was full of them. This one had been renovated, in a way; the sickly wash of marsh-light gleamed off knobs and rivets, dials and gadgetry that no human had ever invented, let alone put together. I wondered, dimly, if there was any purpose to them, or if they were merely backdrop, window dressing, the latest vampire version of Bram Stoker’s febrile fantasy of ruined castles and earth-filled coffins. Big or important vampire gangs always had a headquarters, and headquarters usually contained some accommodations for those nights they wanted a change from eating out, and they felt like throwing a dinner party at home. Such a space would be suitably decorated to inspire further adrenaline panic in their visitors, and the word was that techno degeneracy had been the staging of choice since the Wars, although how anyone found this out to report it on the globenet was a mystery. Stoker and his coffins had always been nonsense, but the vampires had borrowed the idea for a century or two as a ruse-en-scene because it worked. The lack of scarlet-lined black capes and funny accents tonight wasn’t making me happy.
I knew immediately that I didn’t like techno degeneracy either, but I wouldn’t have liked earth-filled coffins any better. If there was any surprise, it was that I had any energy left to dislike anything.
I was much better off disliking the decor, and trying to convince myself I wasn’t seeing it anyway. At the far end of the big room there was a dais, and on that dais sat Bo.