Sunshine

Con hesitated no more than a moment when offered tea or coffee, and chose tea. He wrapped the blanket around himself. It was yellow, and didn’t help his complexion. He was impressive as a vampire but mostly just ugly as a human. There was a kind of threateningness to his ugliness but you couldn’t have said why. There was a study once about whether ugly or good-looking people are more imposing. Generally the uglier you are the less imposing, till you reach a sort of nadir of ugliness and then you get really imposing. I thought Con just missed the nadir. Just. He was also shorter as a human. I didn’t get this at all. But if it meant the goddess would underestimate him that would be expedient. Possibly even life-saving. Although I wasn’t sure how I felt about going on having my life repeatedly saved. My thoughts were moving slowly and indistinctly, and they stumbled a lot. I’d had to take the tea mug into my hands to drink from it, but I kept my fingers well away from the brim where my lips would touch. They offered us food, but I refused; it would be sandwiches, something you’d have to touch with your hands. And my refusal made Con’s look less odd, maybe.

When Pat took us up to the goddess’ office, there were seven of us. Pat, Con and me, Theo and John and two people I didn’t know beyond occasionally seeing them at Charlie’s: Kate and Mike. The goddess wanted to dismiss everyone but Con and me—she had her own people present, of course—but Pat, going all formal, declined to be dismissed, and began reeling off some directive or other. I’d heard him asking for some SOF reg book and seen him poring over it in the little turnaround time between the car and the goddess’ office, but I hadn’t thought about it. He was now proving that since he’d nabbed us in the field, he was responsible for us, even in the presence of a superior officer, because he was a field specialist and she wasn’t, and the situation was insecure.

One for Pat. But the lines around the goddess’ mouth got harder, and her mouth more pinched. And we were all going to pay for it.

Mainly she went for Con. Because she knew there was something wrong about him? Or because he was the stranger? If she hadn’t done it before I skegged the HQ com system, she would have read any available file on me after, which wasn’t a happy thought, especially the presumption that it would get fatter as a result of her interest. I wondered if Yolande could make a ward against SOF ‘fo-collecting techniques. A ward that didn’t proclaim itself as a ward, that only made me look boring. Because my natural boringness would have taken a fatal injury tonight. Nobody—certainly not Pat or the goddess—was going waste any more time believing my story about having blown myself out the night I blew out their com system.

But there I went again, planning as if I had a future, and I hadn’t decided about that yet. The future would be difficult without usable hands, and the old wound on my breast…But I wanted to get Con out of here. His future was his business.

There were more voices. The goddess’ voice made my head ache. I had to listen, to pay attention, and I had to think, to be careful, to be ready…ready…The effort was making me start to disintegrate again…I was drifting, it was so much easier to drift…

What is your name? asked the goddess.

Connor, Con replied.

First name?

Malcolm.

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.

Loud intake of breath from everyone except me and Con.

No one lives by the lake any more, said the goddess, as if she had caught him out in a lie.

Con shrugged gently. Yes: my rent is very reasonable, and I like the solitude.

There was a momentary pause. It was true that nobody lived by the lake any more, but there wasn’t a good reason why not. There were bad spots, but there were bad spots everywhere, and there were perfectly good not bad spots by the lake too. The goddess might think no human could bear the hauntedness of the lake, but she couldn’t nail him as an unregistered partblood or illegal Other on it. Let alone a vampire. And my little trouble five months ago had been the first of its kind in years. Con’s choice of location would bring that trouble to mind, of course, but there wasn’t any way that my presence in the middle of whatever had happened tonight wasn’t going to bring that trouble back to center focus in everyone’s mind. Maybe Con even had a plan. Which was a lot more than I had. I wanted to rub my aching head but I didn’t want to use my hands.

Who is your landlord?

I do not know. I pay the rent to a post office box in Raindance. The rental was arranged through an agent.

What agent?

I do not remember; the papers are at home.

You could produce the papers.

Yes.

What brought you to this area?

Its natural beauty.