MV: The Interview

"How're you feeling, son?" asked the big man, looking him over carefully. 

Andy resisted the urge to respond with sarcasm; he was strapped down, and very much at this man's mercy. "Did you happen to get the number of that truck?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. Okay, so I'm in the hospital, they have me strapped down... They're either worried that I'm infected, or they know I am.

The big man chuckled. "You're Andrew, right? Andrew McFall?"

"That's me," Andy answered, nodding. He drew a slow breath, listened to the sounds of the machines...  

"I need to ask you some questions, Andrew."

Andy hesitated, then nodded carefully. "Can we take turns? I have a lot of questions too."

The man frowned, but after a moment he shrugged. "Seems fair," he admitted. His dark hair was in a buzz-cut, and his face was almost impossibly square-jawed; he looked like he'd just walked off a recruiting poster, except for the long and very obvious scar along the back of his left forearm. 

He unlocked his phone, pulled something up, and set it on the metal tray beside the bed. "We're recording," he said clearly. "Andrew McFall, Medical City Plano, May third, nine forty-seven p.m. Let's start simple, Andrew: how much do you remember?"

It took a moment to sort things out in his head, and to decide how much information this hunter would really want. He had to be one of them, specialized law enforcement -- though there were some mercenaries -- who dealt with the unclean things of the world to keep humanity safe. Finally he said, "Short version? Amy and I were, um, studying on the couch when we heard sirens outside. Then the front door kind of... exploded. There were three of them..." He hesitated. "Some sort of animal, something that looked like a corpse with white hair and skin, and the third one... I'm not sure. It seemed to have shadows all around it."

"Keep going, if you can."

Andy swallowed. "The beast bit me, but I shoved the lamp in its mouth and was trying to hold it back... it turned on Amy, and then the corpse shoved me down and put a hand on my face. Then everything went black."

The hunter nodded as if that was more or less what he'd expected. 

"What happened to Amy?" Andy asked quietly.  

"I'm sorry, son," the hunter said gently. "She didn't make it. If it helps any, it was a clean death -- and fast, as these things go."

A clean death, Andy repeated to himself. Not like mine. Because he was fairly sure he'd died, and if he was answering questions now, well... it hadn't been clean. 

"My sister?"

The hunter snorted. "Technically, it's my turn, but I'm going to pretend you asked what happened to everyone else. Your sister Judith... she's a sharp kid. Heard the commotion downstairs, came down and saw you and your friend, then locked herself in her room and called 9-1-1. Your parents flew back in; they're with her now."

Wait, how long has it been? He decided not to ask -- not yet. It was the hunter's turn, and the man was being unexpected generous with... with whatever the hell I am now... He nodded and waited. 

"Do you know which way they went?" asked the stocky man. 

Andy shook his head. "No, whatever the corpse did put me out completely."

"And you don't have any sense of them?" 

"I think it's my turn," said Andy, and offered a small smile, "but let's count that as part of the same question. No, I don't have any... awareness? Connection? I'm not sure what you're hoping for, here."

The hunter nodded, looking resigned. "It was worth checking, at least. Most victims don't, but every once in a while, for certain kinds of monsters..." He shook his head. "Your turn, I guess."

"All right. Um. What happened to me?"

The hunter sighed. "According to the doctors, you came back as a wight -- like the corpse-guy who put you under. They're... kind of like vampires, but they don't have fangs -- just really big claws. And they don't drink blood, they drain... youth, vitality, life-force, something like that. I'll see if one of the nurses has a mirror if you want, but... well... right now, you look like a hundred-year-old corpse with no skin and white hair."

Andy felt himself go numb, even as he was thinking, Of course I do. That's how it works. The bite you, or they kill you, and then you turn into one of them. It didn't work that way for all kinds of monsters, but it was common enough that he'd expected it. 

Of course, expecting it and hearing it stated outright were two very different things.  

"Last question for now," said the hunter. "Did they say anything? Plans, directions, anything that might tell us what they were doing?"

"Nothing," Andy said, regretfully. "There was some snarling and growling, but that's all I remember. There were sirens outside, and I think voices too -- I think it was regular cops, not hunters. If I had to guess, they were in a hurry to feed and then move on."

The hunter smiled. "Sharp kid," he said. "For what it's worth, that's what our analysis looks like so far." He stepped forward and started to reach for his phone.

"Wait," said Andy. "If you've got a business card or something, could you leave it on the cart? If I do start getting any sense of where they might be, I can have somebody call you."

The hunter paused to study him for a long moment, and finally said, "I'd be grateful if you did." 

MV: In The Hospital

He hadn't expected to wake back up. The bite in his shoulder, made by that thing that wasn't quite a wolf but wasn't quite a panther either, had been pulsing -- shivering his limbs, paralyzing him, burning him up in waves that made his bones ache. Then the hand had come down over his face, not-quite-cold leaching everything out of him, weakening him beyond the point where the pulsing could lock up his muscles... and then finally the world had gone dark. 

Waking up in the hospital room was a profound surprise. The restraints, once he thought about it, were less so. Rogues. Oh God, I was attacked by rogues. Amy?

It had to have been pure, dumb luck. There was no reason to target his house, especially with his parents out of the country and his little sister Judith upstairs in her room, studying for finals. He should have been studying too, but Amy had come over to study with him and they'd... well, they'd gotten distracted. 

Sirens outside weren't uncommon. Sirens on their street were, and they'd been in the process of straightening themselves up and looking for cover when the trio had burst in through the front door. If they'd been hidden, instead of right there in the living room...

Amy had screamed. Understandable, but not helpful, since it turned the monsters' attentions onto them. On the other hand, it might have kept them distracted from Judith, who as far as knew had been studying with her headphones on upstairs.

There were no IVs here, no attempt to introduce blood or even saline into his veins. A couple of tabs were glued to his chest, but he couldn't hear anything that sounded like a heartbeat and his body felt weirdly cold and still. Not uncomfortable, just... empty. Some sort of headband monitored what he suspected was his cerebral activity; that machine was starting to whine in a way designed to draw doctors and nurses...

...And hunters, evidently. 

The man who pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room was probably six feet tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, with a thick leather belt that held a variety of devices and pouches. 

Andy licked his lips and said, "Hi." 

Dauntless: Bright Future

The boy named Bright Future pulled himself out of the bath -- a hot bath in a big tub, all to himself! -- and reached for a towel. He couldn't get used to this place: two floors just for the single family and servants, a comfortable bed of his own, clean sheets and clothes, and so much to learn. 

Strangest of all was having a new father and an older sister.  

He'd been cautious at first -- "diffident," his new father Baleful Flowering had called it -- but he was slowly coming to accept that he was wanted here, that he wouldn't be beaten if he was trying his best. And he was eager to try his best. He'd never had anyone try to teach him anything before, not properly. But Bale wanted him to know numbers and letters and books of both, and his sister Terri -- short for Terrible Grace -- was eager to see if he could learn magic. 

There were rules, of course -- so many rules -- but he was eager to learn those as well. How to dine at a proper table, how to dress to match his new station, the correct ways of speaking and how to say certain things without putting them into words. 

This new world was a puzzle, and he rejoiced every time he solved another piece of it. 

Wrangling My Schedule

I spent last week sort of half-sick, and would have like to spend the weekend recovering. Alas, 'twas not to be; Secondborn decided that she needed a second prom, and went to one that a friend had mentioned -- at a community center about half an hour away. Which made for two one-hour round trip journeys Friday night, followed by the child's birthday party on Saturday. The birthday party theme was "Build Your Own Boffer Weapon" and I did an initial demonstration before turning the kids loose. They had some kind of Capture The Flag game over at the nearby park, ate a pretty fair amount of pizza, and generally had a good time. 

One of her friends gave her a harmonica, though, and I'm not at all sure we're going to survive that. 

I did my best to have a restful Sunday -- a bit of D&D (playing, not running), a bit of writing, a bit of reading Vampire Smut -- but was still a bit later getting down to sleep than I would have preferred. Not as late as Secondborn, though. I'm pretty sure she was still bouncing around at 4:30 a.m. and I think I'm going to have to inflict a bedtime on that child.

::SIGH::

I'm back at work and catching up this week, at least, which is kind of a relief. Still need to pull together some follow-up from the conference, and jump back on some things that slipped through the cracks and/or have proven ridiculously recalcitrant, but at least I'm in a condition to work on them again.

Valthor: Family Horrors

Valthor leaned on the railing and looked out over the ocean, trying to remember the dream. Sy, the cleric of the Harvest Maiden who had attached himself to their group, had suggested that the strange dreams he had in the darkness of the underground prison were likely to be significant, but...

His sister had come to him, he remembered that much. Darkness and mist... She'd spoken of the blade he'd taken from her corpse. Not his mother's work, as he'd initially suspected, but far older... it was a family blade, older than the Starfall, born of deceit, betrayal, broken oaths, and murder. To fully unlock its power would require him to follow in that family tradition... How had she put it? 

It will grow in power as you deceive, betray, and especially kill those to whom you are bound: benefactors, liege lords and loyal servants, friends, allies -- and of course, your kith and kin. 

If he was being completely honest with himself, Valthor didn't like the taste of that. He wouldn't mind killing some of his kin, and he certainly wasn't above a certain amount of artful embellishment when it came to certain kinds of facts, but if there was one thing he'd learned as part of a mercenary company, it was that he was strongest with trusting and trustworthy friends working together. Betrayal and Oathbreaking held no appeal for him... 

Well, mostly. As a jackalwere, his brother Vildern had always been stronger than he was, and his attentions were damnably hard to avoid.  He could see a scenario where he pledged his loyalty to Vildern with the intent of betraying and murdering him when the opportunity presented. So yes, he could probably work with this. 

More than that, though, could he change it? If it was a family blade and had taken its character from his family, could he afflict it with his own trust in well-chosen loyalties?

He'd have to see.

"Valthor?" 

He turned, blinking, to find Kiela standing beside him -- wiry, nimble Kiela who was frequently manning the crow's nest when she wasn't up in the rigging, inspecting the sails. "Oh. Hello." 

"Are you well?" she asked. "You looked pretty lost in in there..." She reached up and tapped the side of his head with a fingertip. 

"I was," he said. "I'm back now, though."

"Should I ask?"

"Probably best if you don't," he said. "I... A lot of my life is very difficult to explain."

"Oh." She hesitated, running a hand nervously through her short red hair. "Listen, a few of us were going to play cards down in the hold, and some of us would love to know how you and your friends managed a jailbreak out of that place. Would you--?" 

"I'd love to," he told her. 

DS: Companionship

It was just before dawn when Jalua slipped into the druid's pocket alongside Borgios. He had been dozing, but he stirred at her approach. "Wha...?"

"I found my father waiting," Jalua said, chittering in that way that only another wererat would understand -- though a good hunter could distinguish it from the sounds of ordinary rats. "He blessed us, said I could stay with you. He's worried by this demon -- there were stories, two generations back. We have to keep the clan informed, and they'll inform others."

"That's..." Borgios managed not to yawn. "That's wonderful." 

"Yes. For now, we get to be rats together."

"That was a quick decision," Borgios observed.

Jalua nipped gently behind his ear. "I told him about your clan. My father, he prizes survivors." 

DS: And the return

Borgios slipped back down the alley. It was nearly dawn, and the sounds of a woman's voice were clearly audible: 

"That young man said he'd give me to someone who could get me home, and instead I'm just lying here in the palm of some drunken lout. A dirty back alley is no place for a woman of quality like myself. Tivros? Tivros, you promised to take care of me. Where are you? How could you forget you were carrying me around like that?"

Borgios slipped the gloves into the druid's pocket, then dropped the pile of clothing next to its unconscious -- but still living -- owner. All in all, a good night's work. He thought of the time he'd spent with Jalua. All in all, a good night. The temptation to depart here, join her clan, and stay with her was strong, but... I don't know. Rune was stronger than he was, and likely didn't need his help -- but he'd been kind enough to take in a stray rat when Borgios had been in desperate need of shelter, and as much as the wererat hated to think of himself as honorable, he still felt a debt there. 

"So this is your druid?" asked Jalua, from behind him. 

Borgios nodded. "This is him."

"Oh, great," said the amulet. "Now there are rats. Merciful Yondalla, I beg you to get me out of this place. I have always been a pious woman..."

"Why is his face glowing?" Jalua had slipped up into human form again, and was looking down at Rune. 

"He has a demon trapped inside him," Borgios said. "The runes hold it in. Its power is trapped separately."

"That sounds... worrisome. Are you sure you'll be safe?"

"He thinks I'm just a rat," Borgios said. "And besides... I owe him."