A Sacrifice
From here.
Well, well, said a silent voice into their minds. This meeting has been much more amusing than I had anticipated.
It may have been silent, but the experience of that voice, the centuries of malevolence it carried, was like the burn of acid on Sunshine's skin and mind. Still, she didn't have to hear Con's derisive snort to know that the voice was lying when it said "amusing."
And she knew who this was. Bo. Mr. Bo-jangles. Beauregard. The one who they'd come to have a rather fatal meeting with. One way or another. At this moment, with the clotting and sticky blood on her skin, in her hair and eyes and mouth, and the ongoing terror of the night's work bringing the cobwebs of sick exhaustion to the corners of her vision, Sunshine didn't know which outcome she preferred.
But while her conscious brain focused on grinding out concepts like worthwhile and not worthwhile, her medulla oblongata was determined to keep them alive, whatever the cerebellum was nattering about.
Welcome, welcome. Do come in, continued the voice, sending gusts of pain through Sunshine with every breath. Welcome between us, Connie, has been a curious affair for some years now, hasn't it? I imagine you haven't been too surprised. Perhaps you explained it to your companion. I hope so, Connie. I t would have been rude of you to omit explanation, I feel, and you have always been the soul of courtesy. Your little human, Connie, is very enterprising. She has been nosing about me for some little while. I'm surprised, Connie, that you would allow a human to do your, shall I say, dirty work?
And Sunshine had thought Con's laugh was bad. When Bo laughed, she blacked out - it wasn't a voluntary response.
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 do insist you pay your respects to me personally, now that you've come. It would be so rude of you, otherwise, and wasn't I just saying, Connie, that you are the soul of courtesy?
It felt as though that voice were flaying Rae alive. Her entire conscious mind was taken up and addled by the effort it took to remain... herself. Slowly, painfully, she moved her right hand into her stuck-shut pocket, and closed her gummy, sticky, and aching fingers around her knife. It wasn't burning hot as it had been, but the painful pressure of that voice in her mind eased a little. When she dropped her eyes to the skin of her forearm, she could see the occasional gleam of golden webbing under the blood and muck.
Do walk on. Pleeeeeeaaase.
That 'please' seemed to last a century. Of course, walking on was exactly what Bo was seeking to prevent them from doing, by the sheer pressure of his voice. Sunshine stood, gripping her knife white-knuckled until she was able to take a step forward, pushing with both mind and body.
As she stepped forward, so did Con. He didn't take her hand, but as they moved, his shoulder brushed hers. Rae knew, somehow, that it was important to not look as though they were struggling - or perhaps that was simple stubbornness talking. Con likely could have moved faster than her, easily, but he didn't; he waited for her. So she took another step. Breathed, the pain of Bo's attention causing the air to burn in her throat. She took another step. And another. Con matched her for every step, and with every step, their shoulders brushed each other, or the backs of their hands touched briefly.
You must be tired, said the voice. You are walking so slowly.
But Sunshine heard it too. Bo was losing this round, as he had lost the first. Because we weren't paralyzed and helpless - because she wasn't dying under the scourge of his voice.
It became easier as they went on; Bo had withdrawn, Rae figured, plotting his next move. There weren't any more... minions... to fight, either. Rae kept her hand wrapped around her knife, the other hand brushing by the lump in her left pocket that was the Straight Way. She couldn't feel the engravings, but she could see them in her mind. The sun shining above - the doe, her doe, head lifted in acknowledgment of her oncoming death - the tree, spreading wide its branches to take in the sunlight, its roots unseen in the deep mystery of the earth to take in the dark.
She pretended to be going forward bravely, as though the voice hadn't wounded her with the bitter burning of acid, leaving her body throbbing with it with each pain-stricken heartbeat. She tried not to shiver. It would only make it worse, and, pathetically, she didn't want Con to despise her for being weak. As their shoulders brushed by each other, she felt him offering her strength, and she forgot again that he was a vampire and that she was afraid of him. Forgot hat she hated him, too, for what he could do and had done, tonight, hated him for making her find out what she was capable of. He was all she had. If she was going to let him down, it would be because she was killed outright, not because she'd simply lost it.
They entered what was a huge room, enormous pipes and scaffolding and machinery everywhere, along all the walls and across the ceiling. A derelict factory, one of the many that dotted No Town, but this one was different. Sunshine felt she had seen it before. Weeks ago, with SOF, the Bad Spot out at the lake. She'd seen this room, then, in the fear that had caught her as they had gone through the Bad Spot - an echo of the ongoing sick-making terror of this night. A true echo, for the horrible eyes the color of oblivion she had seen as they had gone through that Bad Spot were the eyes of the figure on the dais across the room from her now.
Continued here.
Well, well, said a silent voice into their minds. This meeting has been much more amusing than I had anticipated.
It may have been silent, but the experience of that voice, the centuries of malevolence it carried, was like the burn of acid on Sunshine's skin and mind. Still, she didn't have to hear Con's derisive snort to know that the voice was lying when it said "amusing."
And she knew who this was. Bo. Mr. Bo-jangles. Beauregard. The one who they'd come to have a rather fatal meeting with. One way or another. At this moment, with the clotting and sticky blood on her skin, in her hair and eyes and mouth, and the ongoing terror of the night's work bringing the cobwebs of sick exhaustion to the corners of her vision, Sunshine didn't know which outcome she preferred.
But while her conscious brain focused on grinding out concepts like worthwhile and not worthwhile, her medulla oblongata was determined to keep them alive, whatever the cerebellum was nattering about.
Welcome, welcome. Do come in, continued the voice, sending gusts of pain through Sunshine with every breath. Welcome between us, Connie, has been a curious affair for some years now, hasn't it? I imagine you haven't been too surprised. Perhaps you explained it to your companion. I hope so, Connie. I t would have been rude of you to omit explanation, I feel, and you have always been the soul of courtesy. Your little human, Connie, is very enterprising. She has been nosing about me for some little while. I'm surprised, Connie, that you would allow a human to do your, shall I say, dirty work?
And Sunshine had thought Con's laugh was bad. When Bo laughed, she blacked out - it wasn't a voluntary response.
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 do insist you pay your respects to me personally, now that you've come. It would be so rude of you, otherwise, and wasn't I just saying, Connie, that you are the soul of courtesy?
It felt as though that voice were flaying Rae alive. Her entire conscious mind was taken up and addled by the effort it took to remain... herself. Slowly, painfully, she moved her right hand into her stuck-shut pocket, and closed her gummy, sticky, and aching fingers around her knife. It wasn't burning hot as it had been, but the painful pressure of that voice in her mind eased a little. When she dropped her eyes to the skin of her forearm, she could see the occasional gleam of golden webbing under the blood and muck.
Do walk on. Pleeeeeeaaase.
That 'please' seemed to last a century. Of course, walking on was exactly what Bo was seeking to prevent them from doing, by the sheer pressure of his voice. Sunshine stood, gripping her knife white-knuckled until she was able to take a step forward, pushing with both mind and body.
As she stepped forward, so did Con. He didn't take her hand, but as they moved, his shoulder brushed hers. Rae knew, somehow, that it was important to not look as though they were struggling - or perhaps that was simple stubbornness talking. Con likely could have moved faster than her, easily, but he didn't; he waited for her. So she took another step. Breathed, the pain of Bo's attention causing the air to burn in her throat. She took another step. And another. Con matched her for every step, and with every step, their shoulders brushed each other, or the backs of their hands touched briefly.
You must be tired, said the voice. You are walking so slowly.
But Sunshine heard it too. Bo was losing this round, as he had lost the first. Because we weren't paralyzed and helpless - because she wasn't dying under the scourge of his voice.
It became easier as they went on; Bo had withdrawn, Rae figured, plotting his next move. There weren't any more... minions... to fight, either. Rae kept her hand wrapped around her knife, the other hand brushing by the lump in her left pocket that was the Straight Way. She couldn't feel the engravings, but she could see them in her mind. The sun shining above - the doe, her doe, head lifted in acknowledgment of her oncoming death - the tree, spreading wide its branches to take in the sunlight, its roots unseen in the deep mystery of the earth to take in the dark.
She pretended to be going forward bravely, as though the voice hadn't wounded her with the bitter burning of acid, leaving her body throbbing with it with each pain-stricken heartbeat. She tried not to shiver. It would only make it worse, and, pathetically, she didn't want Con to despise her for being weak. As their shoulders brushed by each other, she felt him offering her strength, and she forgot again that he was a vampire and that she was afraid of him. Forgot hat she hated him, too, for what he could do and had done, tonight, hated him for making her find out what she was capable of. He was all she had. If she was going to let him down, it would be because she was killed outright, not because she'd simply lost it.
They entered what was a huge room, enormous pipes and scaffolding and machinery everywhere, along all the walls and across the ceiling. A derelict factory, one of the many that dotted No Town, but this one was different. Sunshine felt she had seen it before. Weeks ago, with SOF, the Bad Spot out at the lake. She'd seen this room, then, in the fear that had caught her as they had gone through the Bad Spot - an echo of the ongoing sick-making terror of this night. A true echo, for the horrible eyes the color of oblivion she had seen as they had gone through that Bad Spot were the eyes of the figure on the dais across the room from her now.
Continued here.