Sunshine

But this was something else. The big curly ripples of power I’d felt when we stood in front of the window seemed bigger and curlier than ever, and were slowing the rest of me down, taking up too much space themselves, squeezing the usual bits of me into corners, till I felt squashed, like someone in a commuter train at six p.m. Even my brain felt compressed. That sense of wearing some kind of harness that had also managed to nail itself into my major organ systems was still there, but I began to feel that it wasn’t so much carrying the burden as holding me together, so that the power ripples knew where the edges—the edges of we—were, and didn’t break anything. I didn’t feel frightened, although I wondered if I should.

We reached the edge of the trees at last, and it was better at once in their shadow. I felt more alert, and lighter somehow, although I wouldn’t have described the effect of the ripples as heavy. But that feeling of having all my gaps filled a little too full eased somewhat. I remembered what he’d said about daylight: I feel as if the rays of your sun are prizing me apart. The tree-shadow wasn’t thick or reliable enough to protect us from the sun so the power was still moving through me, but I didn’t feel I was about to overflow, or crack. I thought: okay. I can guard one vampire from the effects of bright direct daylight. I wouldn’t be able to guard two. Not that this was a piece of information I was planning on needing often in the future.

“We’ve crossed their line,” said the vampire. “The guard ring is behind us.”

“They’ll know we have, won’t they?”

“They’ll know tonight. We—do not pay attention to the daylit world.”

“Will they know where?”

“Perhaps. But I am following the traces from when they brought me here—and, so far, it is the same way they brought you—and without fresh blood they will have trouble deciding what is old and what is new.”

“Uh…” This wasn’t a topic I was looking forward to bringing up. “You know you and I are both, uh, wearing quite a lot of my, uh, blood already. Uh. Crusted. From last night.”

“That matters very little,” said the vampire. “It is only blood hot from a live body when it touches the earth that leaves a clear sign.”

I reminded myself this was good news.

He was silent for a while, and then he said, dispassionately as ever, “I had feared that even if you could, as you claimed, protect my body from the fire as we crossed the open space, that the sun would blind me. This did not happen. I am relieved.”

“Oh, gods,” I said.

“As you say. But as you said earlier, I did not see myself receiving any better offers either. It seemed to me worth even that price against the almost certain likelihood of annihilation at Bo’s hands.”

I said, fascinated against my better judgment, “You thought I could navigate you through the trees somehow?”

“Yes. I would not have been totally helpless. I can—detect the presence of solid objects. But it would not have been easy.”

I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed since I had driven out to the lake alone. “No. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been.”

We went on some time then in silence. We had to stop once for me to have another pee. Gods. Vampires didn’t seem to have bodily functions. I squatted behind him, holding one of his legs. While I was on the spot, so to speak, I had a look at his sore ankle. It still looked disgusting but I didn’t think it looked any worse.

It occurred to me several times that we were making much better speed than we would have with me walking barefoot. And while the iron-railing effect was pretty painful I have ridden in cars with worse suspension than being carried by a striding vampire. That liquid motion thing they do is no joke, and one-hundred-twenty (give or take) pound burdens don’t dent it either. If the ankle was troubling him it didn’t show.

The cut on my breast hurt quite a lot but I had more important things to worry about. He carried me so smoothly that it didn’t crack open anyway. Thankful for small favors. I felt that even our present momentous alliance might have been put under strain if I started bleeding on him again.

I was keeping a vague watch on the sun through the trees over the lake, and also, with the power alive and working, I seemed able to sense it in some way other than seeing or feeling the touch of its light, and I knew when noon had come and gone. I had had a drink out of the water bottle a couple of times, and had offered it to my chauffeur, but he said, “No, thank you, it is not necessary.” He sure was polite after he’d decided not to have you for dinner.

It was much farther back to my car than I’d guessed. Thirty miles, probably more. Maybe I still could have made it by myself before sunset, even barefoot. Maybe.

But I wouldn’t have made it much farther, and the car wasn’t there.