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medium that was more blood soup than river water was only making it worse. If
aquaman, here, had been any more human and I had fangs I would have gone for
snackage right then and there.
And then I felt the prickling disturbances in my gums.
The nanites were reprogramming to adapt to my perceived survival needs. I was
growing fangs! Silver-laced ferrocarbon fangs, as like!
Not that I was about to use them, of course. No way I was going to bite one
of these fish people on their slimy necks and suck
My opponent shoved his hand in my face, digging his claws into my temples and
bending my head back until I felt like the headliner at a contortionists'
convention. Even as I grabbed at his unyielding arm, instinct took over and I
bit the heel of his palm as it pushed between my jaws.
Another explosion of blackish blood and the gill structure somehow revalved
to allow me to swallow. Strange, amphibious fluids trickled down my throat to
refuel the arcane biological mechanisms that kept me alive and functional. As
fuels go, it was a very odd octane.
As food goes . . . it tasted like sushi.Bad sushi.
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Sea Haunt removed his hand quickly. Then turned and fled, running into some
sort of obstacle just beyond the range of the ghost light. I let him go for
the moment. There had to be others and one more or one less right now wasn't
going to make the difference that eclipsed the other matters immediately at
hand. A major fishing expedition, however, had just moved way up on my to-do
list. For now, however, I turned to follow the current. The Hunger was still
there, still strong, but momentarily bearable. Fand took priority for the
moment.
Twenty, thirty, forty yards was enough to give me the bad news: if the bottom
current had gotten her, she could already be a mile or more downriver. I
turned and kicked back to the surface to get my bearings. More gas cramps and
the overall tingling sensation turned itself inside out. As my head broke the
surface I saw dozens of spiny protrusions on my hand slide back down beneath
the skin.
For a few moments, at least, my prickly disposition had found a means of
outward expression.
No wonder I was starving: the energy requirements for microbiological
replication and construction had to be tremendous.First you had untold
millions of microscopic fabrication and construction machines requiring fuel
just to operate. Then there were the additional energy costs for manipulating
and reproducing materials at the cellular level. Factor in my body's
accelerated demands for healing and repair every time flesh or bone had to be
breached for a projecting claw, spine, or blade, sundered and reknit for
internal reconfigurations you were looking at a growing energy demand that
couldn't be met by a plate full of cheeseburgers or crawfish étouffée!
Daddy's little helpers were ticking time bombs, noshing through my veins like
teeny-tiny Pac-men, gobbling up every nutrient in sight. If I didn't feed them
soon, they would start cannibalizing me in ways that would make piranhas look
like butterflies. If my own body didn't starve to death on the cellular level,
first.
A quick three-sixty of the river's surface yielded no further evidence of
Fand but there were extra forms at theNew Moon 's railing. A second look and I
was treated to a zoom-in close-up view like Steve Austin's bionic eye.Stop
that! Bad nanos, bad! The last thing I needed was to amp up their energy
consumption when I was already dangerously low on my own reserves.
I turned and began a weary breast stroke for the houseboat, trying not to
look again.
If it was Fand I saw being helped aboard, I didn't need to waste any more
energy, much less optical reconfigurations, on another look-see. And, if it
wasn't, she was as good as dead by now, and swept downriver to points unknown.
Besides, the real temptation was to look at the second figure standing next
to her.
And there was no sense risking further disorientation until I was back on
solid footing and could make arrangements to cross the river to the blood
bank.
* * *
I was too weak to climb the ladder when I finally reached theNew Moon 's side.
Zotz had to jump back in and assist me, as I would later learn he had done
with Fand and her other rescuer. Once aboard, a blanket was thrown over me and
I was taken into the salon.
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Fand sat, huddled on the sofa, her blanket already soaking through. Stefan
Pagelovitch's AWOL enforcer stood beside her, dripping and dribbling water
like a broken fountain. A blanket was puddled on the floor behind her as if it
had just slipped from her shoulders.
"Suki?" I whispered, weary beyond comprehension. Her head turned to track me
but her eyes were dark and lifeless. Dead. "Where have you been?" I murmured.
Her mouth opened slowly, as if she were hesitant to speak. But no words came
out. Just a freshet of river water, dark with silt and sediment. And then a
tiny crawfish tumbled over her lower lip and rode the waterslide down the
front of her rotting blouse.
There's a reason why vampires, as a rule, won't cross running water. Or any
other kind that's deeper than they are tall. The undead don't swim. Don't
float. Once in and under, they don't come back out. They drown. You might
think drowning is no big deal to something that's already dead. But it is.
Don't ask me how or why I've personally dodged that particular bullet and I
hope to God I never find out, firsthand.
But Suki . . .
I tried to walk to her but my legs gave out from under me. Zotz swept me up
before I could hit the floor and carried me back into my cabin.
* * *
I didn't "pass out."
And "swoon" is such a girly turn of phrase.
I had just hit the last of my reserves and my body went into
energy-conservation mode. Which pretty much meant I could only lie there and
try to tell Bats why my arms and legs no longer worked. Slurring my words like
a drunken stroke victim didn't help and the demon seemed to lose interest,
leaving the room while I was still explaining that I'd be perfectly happy to
skip the reheating process and eat the crunchy, frozen blood packs like snow
cones. Anything to hurry the process along!
I closed my eyes for a moment. Maybe if I rested a few
minutes . . . ten . . . twenty . . . I could gather enough strength to get
back up and . . . do what?
All Zotz had to do was get to the other side of the river, drive my other car
to the blood bank, use my keys and pass code to get in and bypass the alarms,
grab some blood (preferably from the excess stocks but I wouldn't nag in this
particular instance), remember to reset the security tapes and alarms and
relock the doors on the way out all without being seen by local law
enforcement or passersby, and avoiding run-ins with furry or faerie foes.
I really needed to get up right now!
Before Fand recovered enough to have me clapped in chains. Or worse, seeing
as how chains hadn't worked the last time . . .
Besides, resting wasn't working. I was so hungry I couldn't relax enough for
my muscles to recover. I lay there, feeling like a darkening bruise and
wondering ifnot passing out had been such a good plan after all.
A warm hand touched my cooling forehead.
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Opening my eyes seemed to use even more of my dwindling reserves. It was
worth it, though: Fand's sylphic sister was sitting on the edge of my bed
looking down at me with wide, luminous eyes.
"Thou ailest," she said. Her lips moved in all sorts of interesting ways when
she talked and her voice almost sounded . . . regretful.
"I'm tired," I muttered. "Escaping from being chained to a chair is a lot of
hard work."
"And yet you returned and repaid my sister's treachery by saving her life." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]