LITMIR.BIZ

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she said.

      Joshua took a step back. “Who are you?”

      “My name is Jasmine.” She paused. “I owe you my life.”

      “You don’t owe me anything. I do what I do.”

      She had a feeling and smiled. “Quickly. Fill Ishmael with the other can.”

      Josh rolled the lifeless man over on his belly and poured the viscous liquid from the other can into the spigot at the back of his head. Nothing happened, though. The man remained still as the earth.

      “Too far gone,” said Jasmine softly. She inspected the can Josh had used on him. It was dented, with a small crack. “Or maybe this Hemolube was just contaminated.”

      Beauty interrupted softly. “Who did this to you?”

      “A Vampire and a Griffin, they thought Ishmael and I were Human. Left us for dead when they found out we weren’t, like the others.”

      “What others?”

      “Six others, in a carriage, tied together. All Humans.” She stopped. “Were they your people?”

      “Most likely.” Josh stared into the distance.

      “Well, then,” said Jasmine, standing. “Let’s get them.”

      She found her caftan behind a log – camo-colored, of elegant design, a flowing yet nearly indestructible fabric – and put it on. Only then, when she was no longer naked, was Joshua aware of her sexuality, like ungrounded electricity. Beauty noticed it too, but ever the gentleman, he looked away.

      The sun dipped its last light under the crest of the hills, putting everything in a somber cast. In the quiet of the moment, Isis cocked her ears and jerked her head left. The others looked in the same direction, but saw nothing. The black Cat sped off to the top of a long rise of rocks. In a few seconds she raced back to where the others stood.

      “Yarrrrl,” she growled.

      Josh ran silently with Isis to a niche in the rock pile and peered over it across the western plain.

      Walking slowly toward them, a quarter-mile distant, were a dozen of Jarl’s soldiers sniffing at Joshua’s trail. Five appeared to be Bears, two were Ursumen, the other three Joshua couldn’t discern. He ran back to the others.

      “JEGS,” he said. “Too many to fight. Time to run.”

      “I dislike this running from,” Beauty said distinctly.

      Jasmine looked from face to face, finally looking at Beauty. “When I was young, two hundred fifty years ago, there was a truth well known. It was said that for every thing, there is a season. Your fight, I think, isn’t with these soldiers.”

      Josh and Beauty looked back toward the rise, where Jarl’s Elite Guard would be in a few minutes, and then ahead at the Forest of Accidents looming in the near east.

      Jasmine spoke again. “I know a place to wait and think. A sanctuary, a friend’s hideaway. In the Forest.”

      She held their faces in hers. They looked at each other. She knelt beside the man she’d called Ishmael and placed a hand on his forehead. “Good-bye, I,” she said, and looked at the others. “His nickname was I. That’s what people called him.” She took a moment to remember her friend, then began running toward the Forest. “Come on,” she shouted over her shoulder.

      They followed her at a trot. By the time they reached the edge of the wood a minute later, night had fallen hard.

      In the Forest, a blackness filled the air, deeper than any thought - a blackness without form. Shapes could be imagined in the night, differentiated only by subtle, textural variations. Here, a glossier black, there, more flat, and over there a thickening in the blackness: wet rocks in a stream, a cluster of young trees, an animal.

      Occasionally through the matte of clouds that was the sky, a fleck of starlight escaped, but it was caught in the web of vines and branches that filled the forest. No light this night. Just cold, with the color of snow in a deep cave.

      No sound rattled the leaves or clicked the stones. No rodent skittered, no tail slapped, no thing moved. Except once - perhaps the flapping of a great bird that could be heard high above the fringe of the farthest trees. But this noise, if it even existed, was quickly absorbed by the faint stale wind and carried into the depths of the wood.

      So black, cold, quiet, still. A sense of breath lost, or held, of a momentary pause in the flow of things, of…

      A pure, low, demented cry tore the fabric of this weave. It was a blind, inhuman sound, terrible and brief.

      The five animals stopped, listened, and held their breaths. This wood concealed Accidents.

      “It’s not far,” whispered Jasmine. Beauty held an arrow drawn.

      They tiptoed across a game path into a thicket. The night and the smell of moist earth surrounded them, like different kinds of overgrowth. Another noise, in another direction, made them all turn their heads at once. Something rustled. There was a click.

      A blast of light flooded to the left. Josh involuntarily brought his arm up to shield his face. Beauty raised his bow at this illumination that broke the substance of the night as they realized it was a door being opened in a huge boulder. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the lamps in the room beyond. Jasmine walked up to the dark figure in the rock.

      “Is Lon here?” she asked.

      “Whom shall I say is calling?” said the form in the doorway. But as soon as he saw her face clearly, he ushered the five fugitives in, closing the door behind them. Outside, no trace of door remained. Only the mossy boulder, half buried in the jungle-thick forest.

      In Which The Travelers Learn Of A New Animal In The South

      INSIDE, a small room had been hollowed out of the center of the rock, so its walls and floor were of stone, with a stairway descending into the earth. The hunters were led by the doorman down two long flights of these turning stone steps. So steep was the descent that Beauty almost fell, and had to keep balance with his hands on the wall.

      Finally they reached level ground. A spacious tunnel led them to a great gothic archway, which opened upon a wood-paneled room, thirty by thirty feet long, fifteen feet high, and decked with rough-hewn cedar. Paintings lined the walls, illuminated by gilt candelabra. Velvet overstuffed chairs proliferated, and there were oriental carpets and crystal chandeliers.

      “Wowww,” meowed Isis.

      As the doorman left, in walked a handsome man with short hair, deep sensitive eyes, skin of reddish hue, long, powerful fingers, and the secure smile of a civilized patron. His mouth was parenthetically punctuated by a gently curving fang at each corner. He was a Vampire.

      He spread his wings when he saw Jasmine, and his smile widened. As she ran up to him with her arms out, he encircled her, warmly touching his lips to her neck.

      “Lon,” she murmured.

      “Jasmine,” he replied. He pronounced her name “Yahzmeen.” His voice was deep as the grotto.

      “Yowww,” cautioned Isis. Josh and Beauty were tense and ready to bolt. Josh cursed himself for falling into such an easy trap and wondered if he could kill a Vampire at close range. Beauty measured the distance to the door and the distance to the creature. He would not make the first move. Treachery always loses strength when it must declare itself. Humbelly fluttered around the room, mindlessly upset.

      Jasmine finally broke her embrace with the Vampire and turned back to the others. “This is my friend, Lon,” she said. “We’re safe here. Lon, these are my friends… but I don’t know your names,” she realized in midsentence.

      “Josh,

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