Or Lifeweaver. The Dau'weem and Dau'wa shared however many gene pairs they possessed, thirty thousand or three million. They differed only in their opposition over vampirism.
Could he say a creature fresh from the womb deserved to die, thanks to its appearance?
Not appearance, design.
A newborn, innocence embodied in what felt like ten pounds of sugar. Harmless. But experience told him otherwise.
Songs of Innocence and Experience. William Blake.
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Valentine closed up the towel, protecting the newborn tiger against the chill. The Reaper's head turned, sensing something it liked in Valentine's wrist.
Valentine pushed his pulse point a little closer, offering.
Its mouth opened, latched on, and Valentine felt the prick of the sharp tongue. The penetration only hurt a little.
Softly, the Reaper fed.
es: Nearly every part of the Kurian Zone is traced with "pipelines," or channels for escapees to reach safety. Other networks supply guerillas and underground information distributors, and a few do double, or even triple duties as criminal organizations involved in smuggling and black-market trading. In the better-run networks, each person at a pipeline junction only knows her links in the next stage of the operation, making it harder for a pipeline to be rolled up. Generally, the less that is known about a pipeline the safer it is to travel.
This has a drawback, however. Without careful preparation work, operatives who venture into unfamiliar territory will have no idea who to trust and who not to, as the man next door in the New Universal Church hostel might be the local pipeline operator or a Kurian informer.
A grim vocabulary exists among those who shuttle material, human or logistical, through the pipelines. Shutdowns and spills are bad, involving loss of a route, and a penetration is the worst of all, indicating that the Kurians successfully uncovered a line and cleaned it up after their "mole" crept its way through. A "rabbit" is an escapee that makes a try for freedom without any guidance whatsoever. Rabbits are useful in that "rabbit runs" divert resources that might otherwise be used to uncover a real pipeline.
Like a cottontail's dash for cover, most rabbit runs are fast, panicked, and quickly finished.
* * * *
Valentine switched places with Boothe as soon as they passed out of the light of the gates. It was a cloudy evening and the woods were black as a mine shaft. Only with wide-open Cat eyes could he distinguish a tree trunk or two. He relaxed a little once they passed where he had sensed the Reaper pickets on his reconnaissance and made it out of the hairpin-turn gully-if Valentine had chosen a spot to ambush the big-framed Lincoln, it would have been there.
The Reapers, if they were out there, hadn't caused the "Valentingle"-but with his blood loss, and nervous exhaustion after the strain of the past few days, his wiring might have loosened.
Boothe drove skillfully, just fast enough to choose the best way to negotiate the patched road without bouncing her passengers around too much. The rugged suspension on the truck helped. In the rear cargo area, Gail counted the bumps, but lost track at sixty-seven.
As they took the river road into town Valentine saw what looked like bonfires in the hills, on both sides of the river.
"What's all this?"
"Hell night," Boothe said.
"Meaning?"
"Kind of a tradition. Old, emptied houses get burned to the ground on Halloween night. Farther out it's grain silos and barns."
On this one night the town sounded lively. People crisscrossed the streets burning everything from road flares to candles in grimacing, fanged pumpkins. Valentine wondered at the pumpkins- Reapers had pale skin, not orange in the slightest, and a yellow squash might better reflect both skin tone and their long, narrow skulls.
They pulled up on the street leading to the NUC hostel. It, too, was burning. Firefighters and police fought the blaze with hoses.
"I thought you said only abandoned buildings?" Valentine asked.
Boothe stopped the four-wheeler well away from the conflagration and its attending crowd.
"Could be some drunk got carried away. I should see if anyone-"
"No," Valentine said. "Stay here."
He got out of the vehicle. A man in football padding sat on the curb, drinking from a bottle within a paper bag.