Like the Poison in her Arms
From here.
Sunshine.
She was dead. The sky was falling, and everyone knew skies didn't fall, so she had to be dead. It was kind of nice, to be honest. Restful. Though there had been something, hadn't there? Something she'd been trying to do before she'd died. Had she done it? She couldn't remember. Did she want to?
Sunshine.
Why couldn't they leave her alone? She was dead - she shouldn't be able to hear anyone calling her name. Thus, logically, she wouldn't. So leave her alone. She didn't want to be here, lying in this polluted, corrupted body... her hands... her hands had...
She wouldn't remember.
So she wasn't dead, she admitted, but she was dying. Which was good, because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life being careful not to remember.
But she did hope she had done what she had hoped to do.
Maybe... maybe she could go back, just for a little while, and find out?
Sunshine.
Con was on his hands and knees over her, as great chunks of the building fell around them, causing the ground to shake and crack under them. Not a good place to be if you weren't already dying. She wanted to tell Con to go, to leave her and let the flying debris finish her off. She didn't want to linger. Her poor hands...
The ever-stoic Con sounded positively emotional. Rae would've been amused, had she been able to muster that much effort. "Sunshine. We must get out of here. Bo is finished - you have undone him; this is your victory. But too much of his... animus... was released in his final destruction, and it is pulling this place apart. Listen, Sunshine," he leaned down to her as she began to drift away again. "I cannot carry you through this. Listen to me."
She wanted to struggle as he lifted her up - why wouldn't he leave her alone - but couldn't. She could feel him hold her to his chest, cradling her head and tilting it towards his body, where Bo's vampires had torn into him.
There was blood. Blood in her mouth. She could have let the dark blood spill back out of her lips, She could have refused to drink. She had been here before, but she had been ignorant then - she knew better now. She knew what this was.
This was Con's blood. This was no blood of a doe, taken because the doe was like Sunshine - more like Sunshine than a vampire, anyway. Now less like Sunshine, in that the doe had accepted her death. While Sunshine now chose, without hesitation, to live by accepting Con's blood.
She lifted her head with a gasp, struggling to her feet. Con rose with liquid grace beside her, took her hand in his, and they ran.
They ran through the night and a wind like the end of the world howled around them. Sunshine ran with a strength that she knew was not hers, shouldn't be hers, knew the blood coursing through her was allowing her this strength. The running kept her from having to think about what her hands had recently been doing.
They ran with giant machinery and pieces of the building coming crashing down around them, just as likely to be crushed while running as standing still, and for that moment, Sunshine seemed actually committed to staying alive.
The two of them found themselves under the open night sky once more.
They ran right into a division of SOF.
----
It was one thing too many for Sunshine. A combination of the night's events plus the undead cocktail raging through her veins... luckily, they got a bind on her before she did much damage. Really lucky, one of SOFs - Pat, of all people - recognized her. As Sunshine's mind cleared, she had trouble calming down - if they had caught her in a bind, what had happend to Con? SOF staked vampires on sight.
She was let up; her gaze went straight to Con. He was much calmer about being taken into custody - they had put him in handcuffs. Rae was a horrible liar; everything she thought showed up on her face. She hoped, in this moment, that the SOFs couldn't see her thinking, Hey dummies, you've put cuffs on a vampire. Vampires could break out of regular cuffs like a human might break out of a doughnut.
Con wasn't breaking out of his cuffs. He was docile, calm, and, to Sunshine's quiet amazement, passing as a human. Somehow.
"You okay?" she asked.
When Con nodded, Pat asked neutrally, "Friend of yours?"
Sunshine nodded. Pat must've seen them running... She looked behind them. The building they had been in was rubble. The buildings on either side were almost as bad.
"I can take the cuffs off your friend too, if you say you know him," Pat said, again a little too neutrally.
Rae looked at him. "I know him."
Con was released. Stepping slowly, jerkily, like a human after a bad night rather than like a vampire, he came to stand near Sunshine. They were both still covered in blood, their clothing ruined and clinging to them.
Pat eyed Con speculatively for another long moment, before looking at Sunshine.
"You'll both have to come with me," he said, actually sounding sorry for it, "Depex Jain wants to debrief you. On the way there, Sunshine, you can explain to your... friend... about our Goddess of Pain."
Shit.
There were no clean, fluffy towels or showers or a place for them to rest when they got to SOF headquarters. There was, at most, an offer to let them use the bathroom. Sunshine accepted, and felt the Goddess of Pain would have rather denied her even the time in the bathroom, to sooner get her claws into them.
They were taken to the Goddess' office to be debriefed. Kindness beyond kindness, they were offered food and drink. Sunshine took tea but no food, to make Con's refusal of food less conspicuous. Besides, the food they would offer would be food she'd have to touch with her poor, ruined hands. Con also took tea, and sipped at it as they were questioned. Sunshine clung to her cup of tea, but soon found herself drifting again, since the Goddess went mainly after Con.
It allowed Sunshine to dwell, though unwillingly, on her future. If she had a future, of course. If she did, it would be a strange future, devoid of useable hands. She'd never be able to knead dough again. She wouldn't risk anyone else being doomed by her handling their food.
Of course, she wouldn't have long to worry about excusing herself from work. Rae could practically see the green-black lines of the poison, the last, concentrated evil of their defeated foe, reaching up her arms. Death, as an infection. She'd be dead the moment those lines reached her still-beating heart. She could see no trace of the light-web.
The future that occupied her most, though, was the immediate future. She had to get Con safely away from here; she owed him that much. Beyond that, his future was his business.
It was just... so hard to think, and the things there were to think about were not things she wanted to think about. So much easier to drift. She could hear the questions and answers going on around her.
"What is your name?"
"Connor. Malcolm Conner."
"And you live?"
"I have only recently come to this area, and have not yet decided if I am staying. I rather think that I am not."
"But your local address?"
"I am renting a house by the lake."
There was a loud intake of breath from everyone but Sunshine and Con.
"No one lives by the lake anymore," said the Goddess, as though having caught Con in a lie.
"Yes," Con said, shrugging slightly. "My rent is very reasonable, and I enjoy the solitude."
This caused the Goddess to pause.
"What brought you to the area?" she asked, steely-eyed.
"It's natural beauty."
This actually stopped her for a moment. Sunshine couldn't see the Goddess as a trees and nature kind of person. Nor did she strike her as a downtown highrise person... or an Old Town person... or as a person with any kind of life at all. Maybe she spent her off-duty hours folded up in a drawer. If she had any off-duty hours.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I am fortunate in not having to work for a living."
This time, Con's answer stopped the Goddess completely. Sunshine could see her shifting her view to relishing despising this already-suspicious character, now revealed to be a parasite on the body of society. A tick or leech. Something bloodsucking, anyway.
Sunshine drifted as the questions went on, the caffeine in the tea doing nothing to help her focus.
What did help her focus was a stray thought - what time was it? How long had they been here? When was sunrise? The thought brought her crashing back to herself.
There was a gap at the corner of the window blinds - it most definitely looked lighter than it had when they'd first arrived. She thought she saw the Goddess of Pain's eyes flicker towards the window, too.
Okay, so what were her options? She could throw herself at Con the moment the shade was drawn, but that would reveal two things simultaneously - what Con was and what Sunshine could do. That wouldn't work.
The air in the room was stifling her. What would it matter if she gave herself away? The lines of green and black she felt creeping up her arms would soon reach her heart, and she'd be dead.
But it did matter, Rae found. She'd be giving Con away, too. In a brief moment of silence, Sunshine reached her treacherous hand into her pocket and pulled out her knife, the knife that glowed with daylight in the dark, the knife that burned Con when he touched it. Maybe she was already dead - undead - maybe that was why she couldn't seem to think, why nothing seemed quite real, even her fear. Her knife was warm against her hand, like the touch of a friend.
There apparently had been news, because one of the Goddess' minions had risked interrupting her to whisper hurriedly into her ear.
"Pardon me," Sunshine said to Con, putting in all the effort she could to be present and aware. "I want to return your knife to you before I... forget."
She didn't even know if it'd work - it was just the only thing she could think of to try.
Con turned towards her, catching the knife as she tossed it to him (he plucked it out of the air a little too neatly, but not inhumanly neatly). He immediately closed his fingers around it, resting his hand on his knee, the knife and any resulting burns hidden from view. "Thank you," was all he said, before turning back to the Goddess, who was dismissing the minion once more, having received its report.
"Well!" the Goddess sighed elaborately, as though asking everyone in the room to relax. It didn't work. No one relaxed.
The Goddess smiled, but it wasn't a very good smile. "It's has been a long night. And from the reports, you two warriors" - she failed to make this sound unironic - "have been apart of the destruction of a major vampire sanctum, perhaps an instrumental part in that destruction, so you'll have to forgive me for what may appear to be my excessive zeal here tonight. I would appreciate it if you would return, later, when you are rested, and fill out formal statements. Meanwhile," she was moving behind her desk as she spoke, " perhaps after the night that has passed, the light of morning will make us all feel better."
With the word 'better' she pulled up the window blinds. Daylight fell full on Con.
Nothing happened.
How long after sunlight touches him before a vampire burns, Sunshine wondered, frantically. The stories say immediately, but how immediately?
Five seconds? Ten? Thirty? Surely thirty was longer than immediately. What if Con were about to collapse into a pile of cold ashes without any intermediate conflagration? Forty seconds. Fifty. Still nothing.
Sixty.
That's good enough.
Sunshine burst into tears.
To here.
Sunshine.
She was dead. The sky was falling, and everyone knew skies didn't fall, so she had to be dead. It was kind of nice, to be honest. Restful. Though there had been something, hadn't there? Something she'd been trying to do before she'd died. Had she done it? She couldn't remember. Did she want to?
Sunshine.
Why couldn't they leave her alone? She was dead - she shouldn't be able to hear anyone calling her name. Thus, logically, she wouldn't. So leave her alone. She didn't want to be here, lying in this polluted, corrupted body... her hands... her hands had...
She wouldn't remember.
So she wasn't dead, she admitted, but she was dying. Which was good, because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life being careful not to remember.
But she did hope she had done what she had hoped to do.
Maybe... maybe she could go back, just for a little while, and find out?
Sunshine.
Con was on his hands and knees over her, as great chunks of the building fell around them, causing the ground to shake and crack under them. Not a good place to be if you weren't already dying. She wanted to tell Con to go, to leave her and let the flying debris finish her off. She didn't want to linger. Her poor hands...
The ever-stoic Con sounded positively emotional. Rae would've been amused, had she been able to muster that much effort. "Sunshine. We must get out of here. Bo is finished - you have undone him; this is your victory. But too much of his... animus... was released in his final destruction, and it is pulling this place apart. Listen, Sunshine," he leaned down to her as she began to drift away again. "I cannot carry you through this. Listen to me."
She wanted to struggle as he lifted her up - why wouldn't he leave her alone - but couldn't. She could feel him hold her to his chest, cradling her head and tilting it towards his body, where Bo's vampires had torn into him.
There was blood. Blood in her mouth. She could have let the dark blood spill back out of her lips, She could have refused to drink. She had been here before, but she had been ignorant then - she knew better now. She knew what this was.
This was Con's blood. This was no blood of a doe, taken because the doe was like Sunshine - more like Sunshine than a vampire, anyway. Now less like Sunshine, in that the doe had accepted her death. While Sunshine now chose, without hesitation, to live by accepting Con's blood.
She lifted her head with a gasp, struggling to her feet. Con rose with liquid grace beside her, took her hand in his, and they ran.
They ran through the night and a wind like the end of the world howled around them. Sunshine ran with a strength that she knew was not hers, shouldn't be hers, knew the blood coursing through her was allowing her this strength. The running kept her from having to think about what her hands had recently been doing.
They ran with giant machinery and pieces of the building coming crashing down around them, just as likely to be crushed while running as standing still, and for that moment, Sunshine seemed actually committed to staying alive.
The two of them found themselves under the open night sky once more.
They ran right into a division of SOF.
----
It was one thing too many for Sunshine. A combination of the night's events plus the undead cocktail raging through her veins... luckily, they got a bind on her before she did much damage. Really lucky, one of SOFs - Pat, of all people - recognized her. As Sunshine's mind cleared, she had trouble calming down - if they had caught her in a bind, what had happend to Con? SOF staked vampires on sight.
She was let up; her gaze went straight to Con. He was much calmer about being taken into custody - they had put him in handcuffs. Rae was a horrible liar; everything she thought showed up on her face. She hoped, in this moment, that the SOFs couldn't see her thinking, Hey dummies, you've put cuffs on a vampire. Vampires could break out of regular cuffs like a human might break out of a doughnut.
Con wasn't breaking out of his cuffs. He was docile, calm, and, to Sunshine's quiet amazement, passing as a human. Somehow.
"You okay?" she asked.
When Con nodded, Pat asked neutrally, "Friend of yours?"
Sunshine nodded. Pat must've seen them running... She looked behind them. The building they had been in was rubble. The buildings on either side were almost as bad.
"I can take the cuffs off your friend too, if you say you know him," Pat said, again a little too neutrally.
Rae looked at him. "I know him."
Con was released. Stepping slowly, jerkily, like a human after a bad night rather than like a vampire, he came to stand near Sunshine. They were both still covered in blood, their clothing ruined and clinging to them.
Pat eyed Con speculatively for another long moment, before looking at Sunshine.
"You'll both have to come with me," he said, actually sounding sorry for it, "Depex Jain wants to debrief you. On the way there, Sunshine, you can explain to your... friend... about our Goddess of Pain."
Shit.
There were no clean, fluffy towels or showers or a place for them to rest when they got to SOF headquarters. There was, at most, an offer to let them use the bathroom. Sunshine accepted, and felt the Goddess of Pain would have rather denied her even the time in the bathroom, to sooner get her claws into them.
They were taken to the Goddess' office to be debriefed. Kindness beyond kindness, they were offered food and drink. Sunshine took tea but no food, to make Con's refusal of food less conspicuous. Besides, the food they would offer would be food she'd have to touch with her poor, ruined hands. Con also took tea, and sipped at it as they were questioned. Sunshine clung to her cup of tea, but soon found herself drifting again, since the Goddess went mainly after Con.
It allowed Sunshine to dwell, though unwillingly, on her future. If she had a future, of course. If she did, it would be a strange future, devoid of useable hands. She'd never be able to knead dough again. She wouldn't risk anyone else being doomed by her handling their food.
Of course, she wouldn't have long to worry about excusing herself from work. Rae could practically see the green-black lines of the poison, the last, concentrated evil of their defeated foe, reaching up her arms. Death, as an infection. She'd be dead the moment those lines reached her still-beating heart. She could see no trace of the light-web.
The future that occupied her most, though, was the immediate future. She had to get Con safely away from here; she owed him that much. Beyond that, his future was his business.
It was just... so hard to think, and the things there were to think about were not things she wanted to think about. So much easier to drift. She could hear the questions and answers going on around her.
"What is your name?"
"Connor. Malcolm Conner."
"And you live?"
"I have only recently come to this area, and have not yet decided if I am staying. I rather think that I am not."
"But your local address?"
"I am renting a house by the lake."
There was a loud intake of breath from everyone but Sunshine and Con.
"No one lives by the lake anymore," said the Goddess, as though having caught Con in a lie.
"Yes," Con said, shrugging slightly. "My rent is very reasonable, and I enjoy the solitude."
This caused the Goddess to pause.
"What brought you to the area?" she asked, steely-eyed.
"It's natural beauty."
This actually stopped her for a moment. Sunshine couldn't see the Goddess as a trees and nature kind of person. Nor did she strike her as a downtown highrise person... or an Old Town person... or as a person with any kind of life at all. Maybe she spent her off-duty hours folded up in a drawer. If she had any off-duty hours.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I am fortunate in not having to work for a living."
This time, Con's answer stopped the Goddess completely. Sunshine could see her shifting her view to relishing despising this already-suspicious character, now revealed to be a parasite on the body of society. A tick or leech. Something bloodsucking, anyway.
Sunshine drifted as the questions went on, the caffeine in the tea doing nothing to help her focus.
What did help her focus was a stray thought - what time was it? How long had they been here? When was sunrise? The thought brought her crashing back to herself.
There was a gap at the corner of the window blinds - it most definitely looked lighter than it had when they'd first arrived. She thought she saw the Goddess of Pain's eyes flicker towards the window, too.
Okay, so what were her options? She could throw herself at Con the moment the shade was drawn, but that would reveal two things simultaneously - what Con was and what Sunshine could do. That wouldn't work.
The air in the room was stifling her. What would it matter if she gave herself away? The lines of green and black she felt creeping up her arms would soon reach her heart, and she'd be dead.
But it did matter, Rae found. She'd be giving Con away, too. In a brief moment of silence, Sunshine reached her treacherous hand into her pocket and pulled out her knife, the knife that glowed with daylight in the dark, the knife that burned Con when he touched it. Maybe she was already dead - undead - maybe that was why she couldn't seem to think, why nothing seemed quite real, even her fear. Her knife was warm against her hand, like the touch of a friend.
There apparently had been news, because one of the Goddess' minions had risked interrupting her to whisper hurriedly into her ear.
"Pardon me," Sunshine said to Con, putting in all the effort she could to be present and aware. "I want to return your knife to you before I... forget."
She didn't even know if it'd work - it was just the only thing she could think of to try.
Con turned towards her, catching the knife as she tossed it to him (he plucked it out of the air a little too neatly, but not inhumanly neatly). He immediately closed his fingers around it, resting his hand on his knee, the knife and any resulting burns hidden from view. "Thank you," was all he said, before turning back to the Goddess, who was dismissing the minion once more, having received its report.
"Well!" the Goddess sighed elaborately, as though asking everyone in the room to relax. It didn't work. No one relaxed.
The Goddess smiled, but it wasn't a very good smile. "It's has been a long night. And from the reports, you two warriors" - she failed to make this sound unironic - "have been apart of the destruction of a major vampire sanctum, perhaps an instrumental part in that destruction, so you'll have to forgive me for what may appear to be my excessive zeal here tonight. I would appreciate it if you would return, later, when you are rested, and fill out formal statements. Meanwhile," she was moving behind her desk as she spoke, " perhaps after the night that has passed, the light of morning will make us all feel better."
With the word 'better' she pulled up the window blinds. Daylight fell full on Con.
Nothing happened.
How long after sunlight touches him before a vampire burns, Sunshine wondered, frantically. The stories say immediately, but how immediately?
Five seconds? Ten? Thirty? Surely thirty was longer than immediately. What if Con were about to collapse into a pile of cold ashes without any intermediate conflagration? Forty seconds. Fifty. Still nothing.
Sixty.
That's good enough.
Sunshine burst into tears.
To here.