Nightlord: Sunset (7 page)

“Wow.”

She giggled.  “According to the news, a sudden shift in the jet stream and a cold front from
Canada combined with a lot warm, humid air over New England… quite unexpected, really.  Nobody could have predicted it.  But perfectly understandable.”

I nodded.  “I think I did good.”

“In a manner of speaking, surely.  But, darling?”

“Yes, dear?”

She regarded the flakes on the ground—they were beginning to stick.

“Next time, don’t try
quite
so hard?”

It’s hard to shut down the University for something like mere snow.  But snow in June is unusual enough to warrant special attention.  We had a snow day in summer.  It scared me a little.

Okay, it scared me a lot.  I’d just upset the weather patterns for the whole eastern seaboard and possibly caused more than a little death and destruction with icy roads and downed power lines.  All
entirely by
accident
from fooling with forces that have far-reaching ramifications.  For all I know, I may have started a process leading to the melting of enough polar ice to flood Florida, or enlarge them enough to expose a land bridge from Alaska to Asia.  Ecology isn’t my area; I go for computer sciences and physics!  I just hope I haven’t screwed up my planet.

No more weather magic for me.

I stayed with Sasha and got to know the place better.  Nice house.  It had all the toys of the idle rich—game room, gymnasium, indoor track, indoor lounge, spa, the works.  There was an eccentric element I especially enjoyed—the showers.

There were a dozen or so, all of various kinds.  One was patterned after a waterfall—just a stream of water pouring over a rocky-seeming ledge.  The handles were disguised as stones in the concrete, and the whole thing looked like an actual waterfall.  The first time I saw it, I wondered if it were a broken fountain or something.  Another was a box—the express method of getting clean.  It had nozzles on all six sides.  I got in, turned the door latch, put a bar of soap in the compartment and shut that, then turned on the water.  Hot, soapy water blasted from all six sides.  Turn off the handle, lather up, turn the knob to rinse, and hit it again—Wham, I’m clean!  I called it the humanwash and considered it interesting, but not the best way to wake up in the morning.

I found out that Sasha had these things installed because her previous husband had always loved a shower—an oddity in a fellow that never made it past the seventeenth century, I thought.  She wanted the place to meet with his approval if and when she found him again.

I wasn’t arguing.  It had
my
approval.  The showers amused me so much I tried each of them.

We also went for a walk in the cold; it didn’t seem so bad, now.  Maybe that’s just dayblood physiology for you.  I did learn a very important lesson, however.  When a dayblood packs a snowball, it’s not a joke.  A fastball from that kind of pitching arm makes the major leagues look kids playing softball.  I didn’t clock the comet that smacked me in the face, but I did manage to get its license number while I was lying there afterward.  Ouch.

What would happen if a professional athlete was made a dayblood?  Would the difference in performance be that much greater?  Or would there be a leveling effect as a normal person and the athlete both moved toward a physical ideal?  I wonder… but I’m not going to experiment. 

It was late afternoon when I finally pried myself away from Sasha—I found I didn’t want to go.  But I remembered Travis, and some mundane things that needed doing.

“You will be moving in here, won’t you?” she asked.

“Of course.  I was just waiting for you to ask.”

She dimpled and curtseyed.  “If it is my lord’s pleasure to inhabit his manor, I will be most honored.”

I stood up straight and tried to look noble.  Ha.

“It is my pleasure.  Prepare this place for my return.”

“I have done so for a century.”

Ouch.

“Sorry.”

She kissed me on the cheek and smiled.  “I’m just glad you’re here.”

I hugged her and inhaled in her hair.  “So am I.  I’ll be back soon.”

“Drive carefully.  Body bags under the seat if you need them.”

I didn’t ask.  I was halfway into town in her SUV when it hit me—if I got stuck out here during sunset, I’d need something to keep the rays off.  Ergo, body bags.  Smart lady.

I stopped by my place and threw some stuff in a suitcase.  No need to seriously pack; just some clothes and things.  I could fetch the rest of it—books, mainly—sometime later.  Then I headed over to Travis’ place.

I knocked on the door; he shouted, “It’s open; don’t mind the alligator!” I went in.

“Hi, Trav, how's…” I trailed off.  I could see him, across the living room, through the doorway of the kitchen.

Travis was sitting at the kitchen table in what I always thought of as the Fifties Kitchen Chair.  It’s poorly designed from a comfort standpoint, thinly padded, and made out of tube steel and hardwood.  It’s the ’57 Chevy of kitchen chairs: big, heavy, and solid.  The bad part of it was the way he sat in it; his arms were hidden behind the chair back, and he was looking pretty beaten up.

I did not like this at all.  Normally, I’d have assumed it was a joke of some sort—he’d once put a lot of guys up to pretending they thought I was a vampire as a prank.  They’d chased me across an icy campus one evening, waving torches and wooden stakes and shooting at me with squirtguns.  In January.  I was not at all happy about it at the time.  In retrospect, especially now, I suppose it was pretty funny.

But you don’t have a black eye and bloodstains as part of a practical joke.  Well, not unless someone is a very poor sport indeed.

“Travis?”

“Hi, Rob.  Come in and get my arms, would you?  I can’t feel my hands.”

Rob?  My suspicions deepened.  I closed the door and locked it, then carefully looked around from my position by the door.  I didn’t see anyone, but the place wasn’t too terribly open.

“Are they gone?” I asked

“I think so.  I was kinda fuzzed out for a while,” he replied
and shook his head.
  He didn’t shake it fast enough to be trying to clear it.  It was a slower headshake, a clear “no.”  So whoever it was hadn’t left, but couldn’t see him. 

“Mind if I look, first?” I asked, picking up the empty hat rack in both hands.

“I’d really rather get both my hands untied first,” he replied, still shaking his head.

Damned cold centipedes.  They love my spine.  I was listening to Travis, listening very carefully.  Both hands.  Two people?  Why else would he mention
both
hands?

“Coming up,” I responded, then catfooted around through the hall; there was a second entry to the kitchen just around the corner.  I took a deep breath, hefted the hat rack like a staff, and spun around the edge.  I wished fervently I’d taken more martial arts classes.  I just never thought I’d need to be incredibly dangerous with my hands.

Two men.  Both in suits, standing on either side of the other entryway, obviously prepared to roll around the edges and go in.  One had a gun already out; the other had a sort of mace-like affair, rather ornamental-looking—but still a heavy, nasty weapon.  I wondered with a part of my mind why he had a
mace
, of all things.

The hat rack snapped up as the first guy—who turned immediately when I swung into view—swung around to aim at me.  The gun fired wild when I hit his arm with the coat rack; both made cracking sounds and he screamed.  I suppose I shouldn’t call the bullet “wild,” really, since I could feel it move through my hair.  I wasn’t hurt; that’s the point.  The gunman, though, was suddenly the proud owner of a broken forearm.  He was busy for a second or two.

The man with the mace decided that, since God was on his side, he should pray about the situation, loudly, and smite me with the Holy Mace of Head-Beating.  I didn’t feel like a theological debate, so I stuffed the end of the coat rack in his gut before he finished his remarks.  His argument dissolved into a sort of “whuuuuuuffffff” sound and I shoved him back, moving forward as I did so.

This brought me next to Joe Gunman.  He tried to grab me with his good arm; he succeeded.  I kicked him in the broken one and he changed his mind quickly.  I brought the hat rack up in both hands and hit him in the throat with the middle portion.  The hat rack broke and didn’t do his throat any good in the process.  He slammed back against the wall and gurgled his way to the floor, trying to clutch at his windpipe. 

Joe Priest, meanwhile, was fumbling out a vial—holy water, I can only assume.  I got as good a swing as I could with the base-end of the hat rack and it made a lovely thud alongside his head.  Like a good thump on a melon.  When you crack the melon.  He snapped sharply to the side, rebounded off the wall, and collapsed to the floor.

It was suddenly very quiet.

I dropped the pieces of the hat rack and got the gun.  I searched the rest of the place. 
Then
I untied Travis.

Then
I took stock of what I’d just done.

I’d just beaten the hell out of two big men.  Let’s be honest—I killed them.  One had been trying to
shoot
me.  I felt for an instant as if I was in a bad kung-fu flick, taking on multiple opponents with improvised weapons—except I
wasn’t
in a movie, and I
had
just done it, and there were two
bodies
lying on the floor because
I killed them.

This was surprising and disturbing, because it brought home to me exactly how much I’d changed in the past few days.  A lot.  More than I’d realized, that was certain.  I sat down in the other kitchen chair and developed a nice case of shakes as my adrenalin high wore off.

Travis went to the bathroom and cleaned himself up.  I was busy figuring out how I felt about things.  It was fine while I was in the middle of it—I just saw and reacted.  I didn’t freeze up and become a statistic.  That was a good thing to know.  But afterward… afterward, I could think and realize just how ugly things might have been.  They beat up my friend and tried to kill me.  Now they were dead.

Killing someone at night is one thing.  A tiny piece
from each of them becomes a part of me.  It’s not the same as… as…

I hurriedly kicked Travis out of the bathroom and threw up.  I’ve never been in deadly combat before.  I’ve never killed anyone with my bare hands before, either.  Fine, fine—bare hands and a hat rack.

When I felt steadier, I got up, rinsed my mouth at the sink, and splashed my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and, yep, I could see where the bullet had gone through my hair.

At that range, the bullet was still hot enough to singe. I don’t like the smell of burnt hair.

Travis opened the door a crack and peeped in.  He was sporting an ice pack and a couple of bandages. 

“You all right?” he asked.

“I think so.  Well… no.  I just killed two men.  But I’m… doing better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no,” I said, waving my hands.  “That’s not it.  I don’t like the idea of killing a man, but I don’t feel at all bad about killing people who are trying to kill me—or you.  Or anyone I care about.  I’m thinking that
I
killed two men.  It wasn’t even as though they started a fight; they were there and I laid into them without even thinking about it.”

“And you don’t feel that’s normal,” Travis said, nodding.

I came out of the bathroom and sat down in the kitchen.  “Hell no, that’s not normal.  I’m a
teacher
.  I’m almost a
professor
.  I’m not a
soldier.
”

Travis sat down in the same chair he’d recently occupied.  He thought about it for a minute while I pulled myself together.

“Perhaps,” he said, “this change… Is it possible it has some neurological—and psychological—effects we haven’t gauged?”

I considered my sudden ability to levitate small objects and to manipulate magic.

“Maybe,” I admitted, and changed the subject.  “But I’m feeling better, at least.  How about you?”

“I feel like a Bond martini.”

“I didn’t know you liked martinis.”

“I don’t.  I just feel shaken, not stirred.”

“I’m a bit shaken, myself,” I admitted.  I glanced at the bodies.  I felt a little queasy, but not bad.  It might have been different if there were entrails all over the floor.  “Let’s look at the door prizes.”

They were, indeed, dead.  One with a collapsed trachea, the other with what Travis diagnosed as “severe head trauma.”  I hadn’t intended to crack his skull.

I take that back.  They had been trying to kill me without so much as an “Excuse me, but aren’t you a vampire?”  I had meant to break them, and I was not sorry.  But I regretted it, if that makes any sense.

Neither of them had identification—not surprising—but both had sizable quantities of cash, which did surprise me.  I let Travis have the money, something on the order of a thousand dollars.  There were some other unusual things about them, too.