Heat (95 page)

She heard Tagen sigh as she pulled her shirt on, and she tossed him a glance, her nose wrinkling even as her brows raised inquiringly.

“Shame to the world that demands you to cover,” he said.

She felt herself blushing and turned away to look for her underwear. “You really need to meet more Earth girls.”

“I have. A great many.” His hand came into the field of her vision, offering her panties, but he drew them back when she reached to take them. Tagen moved behind her and knelt, holding them for her to step into.

She wasn’t sure whether she felt more pampered by this act or merely ridiculous. She disguised her awkwardness by saying, “I’ve been dressing myself since I was six, actually.”

“A terrible loss to the males of Earth.” The thick pads of his fingers slid up along the outer edges of her panty, bringing a delicious shiver up her thighs to her spine and out through the rest of her. His lips pressed lightly to the very small of her back, and then he stood away. “I think I would never let you dress yourself if I thought I could get away with such a command. Of course, I would never let you dress at all…”

His teasing tone faltered on the last word. His eyes cut sharply away and he did not continue. She didn’t reply. They stood inches apart and worlds away and did not touch.

“So,” Daria said at last. It was a singularly woebegone sound. She cleared her throat and tried again, forcing brightness into her voice. “So I had a thought.”

“Did you?” He moved away where she could see him. His hands were clasped behind his back and his shoulders were squared. She couldn’t see his face and she was glad for it. His voice was impersonal enough. “Tell me.”

“I figure, either he’s still heading west looking for a place to hunt, or he’s all done and making for his ship, in which case, he’ll still be going west. So my thought is, we go west until we either hear where he hit, find him at a hotel, or come to I-5 ourselves.”

“I see.” He still wasn’t facing her.

“And…” Daria sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, staring glumly at the floor. “And if we get all the way down to Highway 20 without hearing anything, then, Tagen…I think maybe…”

“I had best leave,” he finished for her. And then he did turn around.

She had been braced to see that soldier’s indifference with which he had armored himself against her earlier on this trip. Instead, he let her see his sorrow plainly, and it struck her briefly speechless. That he could hurt that much and still be so calm and objective…the thought came to her disjointedly that he had to be one hell of a soldier.

“And you are correct, of course,” he continued quietly. “Protocol would demand nothing less and my orders are explicit. All the same, I find myself reluctant to obey them.”

She offered him a crooked smile. “Isn’t there an ancient Jotan cure for that?”

The pain in his eyes sharpened, but he had an answering smile for her. “No,” he said. “On that, even the ancients are silent.” He looked around the room, and then went to collect Grendel from the bed beside her.

Time to go. Daria finished dressing in heartsick silence.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe there’d be a huge murder spree down in California this morning with all of E’Var’s trademarks. Another motel, maybe. An RV park, anything. A huge bunch of bodies would just be such a great thing to hear about today.

Oh, she was so going to Hell.

*

“County fair,” Sue-Eye said.

Kane raised himself up from his half-sleep and looked at her curiously. She could be a frustratingly chatty little beast, but she wasn’t really in the habit of blurting.

She was looking out the window, her eyes tracking a colored marker-board tacked to a tree as it neared, and then passed behind them. Her gaze shifted to him, hesitating, gauging his receptiveness. He didn’t give her any kind of encouragement, but he must have seemed amicable to her because she said, “We should check it out.”

“Are you kidding?” Raven demanded. “You want to stop and ride the Ferris wheel?”

Neither of them were making any sense.

Sue-Eye glanced at Kane. “Good hunting,” she said.

Some disquiet ghost from the back of Kane’s mind slipped through him, cold and thin as space itself. He tried to chase down its source and could think only of a dark room, the thump of engines, and the sound of his father’s voice. Just the sound, not the words.

“Big crowds,” Sue-Eye went on. “Lots of noise. Tents everywhere. Security’s pretty slim. The Dog Pack used to work fairs all the time, rolling for wallets and stuff.”

“People don’t go to the fair by themselves,” Raven argued. “It’s broad daylight, there’s no cover of any kind—”

“There’s plenty of cover. There’s woods all around, it’s just a matter of dragging folks off behind a booth, and then into the trees. I’m telling you, I’ve done it before. Easy hunt.”

Kane’s claws flexed slowly on the lid of his pack. Nine empty vials. Could he fill that in one hunt? He had filled ten at the motel-hunt, but then there had been darkness and isolation and sleeping humans. This was full day all around them and from the sound of it, Sue-Eye was talking about many, many humans.

“Raven,” he said. “What’s the danger?”

She scowled, but it wasn’t a look she was directing at him. “It’s just stupid to kill a bunch of people right out in the open and think no one’s going to notice,” she said. “People practically expect to get their pockets picked at a fair. Dying is different. It’s not like rolling for wallets.”

“No, it’s better,” Sue-Eye said calmly. “Since they won’t be getting up after a few minutes to start looking for a cop.”

“And people aren’t just going to be in a big crowd, they’re going to be
families
in a big crowd, which means they’re going to be looking out for each other. They’ll notice if Cousin Bob goes missing.”

“People may go to the fair as families, but they almost always split up after they get there,” Sue-Eye countered. “They split up, they lose track of time…it’s totally natural.”

“I have purple hair!” Raven shot back angrily. “We can’t go around killing people in some backwater boondock! They’re going to be staring right at us the whole damn time!”

“Bullshit,” was Sue-Eye’s blunt reply. “There’s nothing more normal than some out-of-towners taking in a county fair on a hot day, especially one just off the highway on a boring stretch of road.”

“Hot day,” Raven interrupted. “We’ll be there half an hour and he’ll go into Heat. No one is going to overlook
that
.”

“I said there’s woods all around, didn’t I? What, you don’t think people fuck at the fair? Whoring is even more popular than picking pockets.”

“That’s enough,” Kane said, and drummed his claws on the top of his pack as he considered. It was a risk, or Raven thought it was, much more than the other hunts Sue-Eye had led them on. But Sue-Eye believed it could be done, and that she’d had experience in a similar hunt. Nine vials of dopamine would render down to four of concentrated Vahst, maybe five if he cheated it out a little. And once they got into the woods and left the roads, he wasn’t likely to find enough humans to fill even one vial more before he returned to the ship. This could be his last chance for a big hunt.

“Pull us over, Raven,” he said. Immediately, that sense of ghostly warning grew and he wished he could call the words back. But he couldn’t show uncertainty, not to his
ichuta’a
. “We’ll have a look at least,” he said instead.

Both his females nodded, although Raven had that too-still quality to her features which meant she wasn’t happy. But she’d obey. She knew who her commander was.

Kane settled back into his chair and watched the forests of Earth slide by. He flexed his claws to hear them scrape on his pack and feel the resistance of the hard synthetic material, putting himself in the mindspace for hunting. For some reason, it was more difficult than it usually was to work up the killing mood. He wondered why and heard, as if in reply, the wordless timbre of his father’s voice.

It bothered him. It kept bothering him as Raven slowed and turned off the road onto a dirt path and into a rough parking bay. Sue-Eye, sitting quietly and perfectly behaved beside him, kept drawing his frustrated eye as Raven slowly prowled for a place to put the groundcar. She was responsible for this scratchy feeling, somehow. If she weren’t here, he could simply tell Raven he’d changed his mind and she’d take them away without a question or even a glance. But Sue-Eye would see weakness. And Sue-Eye might try to use it.

He really should just kill her. Fifty
crona
wasn’t worth this kind of aggravation.

But they were here already. He might as well look around.

Raven found a place to dock and Kane could feel Heat sinking into him almost the instant he stepped out of the car. It was crowded, too; more humans milled about in the parking field than Kane had ever seen in one place, outside of a breeding facility. Males, females, pregnant females, old ones, young ones, even infants, all of them exhibiting the high mania of celebration that so often flared into temper. It was easy to see why Sue-Eye considered this to be good hunting grounds. It was easier to see Raven’s caution.

Kane stood at the rear of the groundcar and pulled his hat down low over his eyes, feeling sweat bead up already along his brow, and watched the humans stream around him. He had wondered if he could really fill nine vials with dopamine on one hunt in broad daylight. Looking around now, seeing all these unknowing targets, he knew for damn sure he could. It put the blood in him for hunting, but his unease lingered. He listened for his father’s voice and heard nothing.

Well, what did he expect? He had always been the thought behind his father’s ghost. But it bothered him all the same.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Raven asked, stepping to his side.

The words, so close to his own thoughts, scratched at him and he answered with more fang than she merited. “Don’t question me, Raven. I’m not your partner, I’m your commander.”

She drew a breath and nodded, not in the least surprised by his venom, and Kane instantly felt annoyed with himself, which in turn made him want to snap at someone else. If there weren’t so many humans around, he’d have given Sue-Eye a sound cuff. But there were, and they might raise an alert if he was seen punching one of his females, so he got a grip on his simmering temper and started walking, following the flow of humanity.

He could smell smoke and sweat from here, but the closer they came to the gates, the stronger the smells of food became, reminding him of his hunger. There was music also, many different strains of it, and screams that might be born as easily of fear as excitement. Piercing child-screams stung the worst, but Kane contented himself with knowing that it was all temporary.

Sue-Eye bought their entry, and then they were inside. The ‘fair’, as it was called, went on as far as Kane could see, although the trees rose in the distance on every side as proof of finite borders. It stretched out in orderly streets, flanked by single-room shelters that acted as shops, display booths, information kiosks, and food stores. And all around, visible in colorful bursts over the flimsy roofs, were some dramatically unsafe-looking structures the humans were using as playthings—riding in cars on modular tracks, spinning in wheels, swinging on hammers. For the fun of it, by all appearances, although when Kane thought of fun, squeezing into an open car and riding it through a loop on a rusted metal bar was nowhere on his lengthy mental list.

Gradually, the staggering unfamiliarity of the place began to fade. Kane walked slowly, camouflaging himself with motion as he studied the hunting grounds. The first order would be to find the perimeter. The interior of the fair was simply too dangerous, even to patrol like this. With so many humans around him, he was well aware that he stood out from them in appearance and in dress. If a body were discovered, as eventually it would be, it was not far-fetched to think Kane would be suspected merely because he would be best-remembered. So, find the perimeter and stay there, away from the greater crowds. Hunt his fill, keep Heat at arm’s reach, and maybe take a meal on his way out to the parking bay. Trade the car out as quickly as possible afterwards, too, just in case. After that, one last drive, and then cool space, floods of money, and home.

Kane got Raven on one side of him, Sue-Eye on the other, and aimed himself at the nearest stretch of forest. All around him was Vahst. He prepared himself for one last hunt.

D
ozing on the road again, damn it all. He’d given Daria orders to keep him engaged in conversation, but driving made her nervous and it was too easy for her to forget to talk when hazards such as curves, crossroads or other drivers came into sight. Likewise, occupying himself with Grendel was the worst way to combat fatigue, as the cat merely curled up under his hand and taunted him with blatant sleep. It was a nuisance, really, as it meant that he would not be tired enough to sleep when they stopped for the night and that would make him drowsy (and thus prone to doze off) the next day. A vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.

Tagen was irritably sinking into a doze nonetheless when Daria made that gentle coughing sound that meant she had something to say. He straightened up at once, displaying wakefulness, and she said, “Are you hungry?”

She must have meant the question rhetorically, he decided, glancing out the window. He could see nothing but trees.

“Because I’m about ready to stretch my legs,” she continued. “I know it’s hot, but if we park in the shade and leave the windows open, I’m sure Grendel will be all right. We won’t be all day or anything. Just long enough to grab a bite and shake the needles out, you know?”

This was sounding less and less like a rhetorical matter. Tagen looked again. The trees persisted. There were no towns. There were a few houses here and there, but surely she wasn’t planning to pick one at random and invade a kitchen.