“I am sorry,” she murmured. “I do not mean to go on.”
“You can talk forever and I’ll listen quite happily.”
Well, wasn’t that good to know. “I am not unfamiliar with some of the things I witness here, but for the most part this is all a revelation. The seeing bowls we have on the Other Side offer but snapshots of what transpires upon the Earth, focusing on people, not objects—unless such an inanimate is part of someone’s fate. Indeed, we are provided only destiny, not progress . . . life, not landscape. This is . . . everything I wanted to become free for.”
“How did you get out?” Which time? she thought. “Well, in the first instance . . . I realized that when my mother granted audiences to people from down below, there was a small window whereby the barrier between the two worlds was . . . a kind of mesh. I discovered that I could move my molecules through the tiny spaces that were created—and that was how I did it.” The past drew her in, memories flaring to life and burning not just in her mind, but her soul. “My mother was furious and came forth unto me, demanding that I return to the Sanctuary—and I told her no. I was on a mission and not even she could derail me.” Payne shook her head. “After I . . . did what I had to . . . I thought I would just live my life, but there were things I did not anticipate. Down here, I need to feed and . . . there are other concerns.”
Her needing, specifically—although she wasn’t going to explain the way her fertile time had hit and crippled her. It had been such a shock. Up above, the Scribe Virgin’s females were ready to conceive nearly all of the time, and thus the great swings of hormones did not o’ertake their bodies. Once they came down below, however, and spent more than a day or so thus, the cycle came upon them. Thank fate it was only once a decade—although Payne had wrongly assumed she’d have ten years until she had to worry about it.
Unfortunately, it had turned out that that was ten years after the cycle first initiated itself: Her needing had started up no more than a month after she’d been out of the Sanctuary.
As she remembered the great pains to mate that had left her defenseless and desperate, she focused on Manuel’s face. Would he service her in her time of needing? Take care of her violent cravings and ease her with the release of his sex? Could a human even do that?
“But you ended up back there again?” he said.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I did. I had some . . . difficulty and my mother came unto me anew.” Verily, the Scribe Virgin had been terrified that rutting males would set upon her only daughter—who had already “ruined” so much of the life that she had been given. “She told me that she would aid me, although only on the Other Side. I agreed to go with her, thinking that it would be as before—and I could once again find the way out. That was not what transpired, however.”
Manny’s hand covered her own. “You’re out of all that now, though.”
Was she? The Blind King was seeking to rule her destiny just as her mother had. His reasons were less selfish, granted—after all, he had the Brotherhood and their shellans and a young living under his roof and that was a lot worthy of protecting. Except she feared her brother’s view of humans was shared by Wrath: namely that they were but lessers waiting to be called into service.
“You know what?” she said.
“What.”
“I think I could stay in this automobile with you forever.”
“Funny . . . I feel the exact same way.”
More click-click-clicking and then they took a right.
As they went along, there were fewer cars and more buildings, and she saw what he meant about night improving a city’s visage; there was no grandeur to be had in this neighborhood. Broken windows were blackened out like missing teeth, and the grime that faded down the flanks of the warehouses and stores were age lines. Pockmarks made by rot or accident or vandalism marred what once had no doubt been smooth facades and bright, fresh paint jobs had faded, the bloom of youth long lost to the elements and to time’s passage.
And indeed, the humans who were propped up in the shadows were in no better condition. Wearing wrinkled clothes in the colors of pavement and asphalt, they appeared to be weighted down from above, as if an invisible bar had forced them all to their knees—and was going to keep them there.
“Don’t worry,” Manuel said. “The doors are locked.”
“I am not afraid. I am . . . saddened, for some reason.”
“Urban poverty will do that to you.”
They went by yet another rotting, barely roofed box attended by two humans sharing a single coat. She never thought she would find any value in the Sanctuary’s oppressive perfection. But mayhap her mother had created the haven to protect the Chosen against sights like this. Lives . . . like those.
The environs soon improved slightly, however. And shortly thereafter, Manuel pulled off the road into a lot that ran parallel to a sprawling, new facility that appeared to cover a great plot of land. All around, lights on towering, craned arms cast peachy illumination upon the low-slung building and the shiny tops of the two vehicles that were parked and the clipped shrubs that bordered the walkways.
“Here we are,” he said, stopping their ride and turning to her. “I’m going to introduce you as a colleague, okay? Just roll with it.”
She grinned. “I shall endeavor to do that.”
They got out together and . . . oh, the air. Such a complex bouquet of good and bad, of metallic and sweet, of dirty and divine.
“I love this,” she said. “I love this!”
She put her arms out and swung herself in a circle, pivoting on a foot that had been booted just prior to their leaving the compound. As she halted her spin and her arms came to rest at her sides, she found him staring at her and had to laugh in embarrassment.
“I am sorry. I—”
“Come here,” he growled, his eyelids dropping low, his stare hot and possessive.