Parasite Soul (14 page)

Jock looked mildly offended. “I don’t work for her. I operate independently,
just throw the old crow some coin to use the
‘Nymph
as a base of
operations. No; some of the goings-on at that place are a hair too
uncanny for my tastes.” He glanced up at Sasha. “No offense.”

Sasha just looked at him, her head tilted slightly. She seemed
to be slightly distracted, or perhaps that was just her regular state.

“Jynn, right?” Jock was studying Niu now, who had pulled her hood
back.

“You ask a lot of questions for someone in the business of
discretion,” Niu noted, then added, almost hopefully, “Have you been there?”

“Nah.” Jock lay back, hands folded behind his head, one knee pointed
toward the stars. “But I see a few traders come through ‘Parade once or
twice a year. You lot all have those silly hats that look like a house
with a bell on top.”

Simon tried to imagine that as Niu adopted a frown of annoyance.

“Hardly
all
,” she said irritably. “Only merchants of
standing wear…”

“There’s something out there,” Sasha interrupted, pointing.
Simon and Niu jumped their feet, scanning the dark fields. Simon was able
to discern only dark and motionless lumps - bushes and hedges gone wild - but
they, and the taller stretches of grass, could easily have concealed a
crouching human or predator. He was reminded of the night spent in the
barn, when he’d ignored Niu’s warning of someone prowling about outside, and
shuddered.

“Human?” Jock asked lazily. He didn’t seem concerned.

Sasha sniffed the air, listening hard.

“I don’t know,” she admitted at length.

Jock stuck a tongue-dampened finger in the air. “Hmm. No
breeze to carry the scent. Well, don’t concern yourselves,” He advised
Simon and Niu. “If whatever-it-is comes anywhere near us, it’s in for a
rude surprise.” He waved vaguely toward Sasha. “Sasha doesn’t
sleep, and she’s probably getting hungry.”

“I am,” the bruxa confirmed. Perhaps it was a trick of the
firelight, but her pallid face seemed to contort inhumanly for a second, so
that even Niu recoiled from that unexpected, ravenous grin.

Simon didn’t sleep well. In fact, he tried not to sleep at
all, worried that he might awaken to find Sasha savaging his throat, but
eventually his bone-weariness betrayed him. Countless times throughout
the night he was awakened by anxiety about his future, concern for his father,
or fear of the bruxa. Every time he woke, he saw Sasha standing in the
same place, staring out across the dark fields. She didn’t move all
night. Never once did Simon hear whatever she was listening for, and
morning dawned uneventfully.

A bleary-eyed Simon gave Jock directions to Brand as Niu splashed
her face in the pond. As Jock had predicted, his horses meekly returned
to servitude for the promise of a carrot, and before long, the cart was
trundling down the open road once more. The youth didn’t appear to be in a
hurry. He gave the horses their head, more or less, and sagged back in
his seat with his hat pulled over his eyes. More than once Simon had to
remind him to turn down a road that he would otherwise have ignored. They
traveled through several villages hardly deserving of the term, Sasha unnerving
the locals by returning their curious stares with a fixed, unblinking
gaze.

For her part, Niu seemed indifferent to her surroundings. She
tucked herself between two sacks, using another as a pillow, and dozed.
Simon was annoyed by her disinterest; he’d been hoping, if not to impress her,
at least to share his homeland with her. Familiar landmarks overwhelmed
him with nostalgia, as though he’d been absent for years rather than
days. More than once, he contemplated accidentally-on-purpose kicking Niu
so that he could point out some icon of his childhood. Each time, he
sighed and resentfully allowed her to slumber on.

There was the Phoenix Stone, thrusting skyward from the center of an
otherwise unremarkable field, looking nothing like its namesake; Simon and his
friend Jeb had attempted to scale it as young boys, with the result that Simon
had scraped his shins and Jeb and broken his collarbone. Further down the
road, an eerie stand of ancient oaks once worshipped by the semi-mythical
Druids of Phthalam still stood. Modern farmers were still superstitious
enough to give the grove a wide berth, especially when the mists rolled in. The
cart dipped briefly into Crook Hollow, which was rocky, thickly forested, and
unsuitable for farming. Simon had spent much of his youth playing here,
down by the pools. This was where his cousin Dannon had introduced him to
the concept of claustrophobia, headfirst into a hollow log.

As previously agreed, Jock pulled over a few miles distant from
Brand. It made sense, Niu had said earlier, to enter the village quietly,
not from the road, until they knew how the land lay. The handmaiden
annoyed Simon by bounding out of the cart immediately; she hadn’t even been
asleep, just disinterested in her surroundings.

“Right then,” Simon told Jock after Niu, who had withheld half of
the payment until Jock had fulfilled his bargain, paid up. “Thanks.”

Jock tipped his hat, and that was it. Simon very much doubted
he’d see the young smuggler or, thankfully, the bizarre bruxa ever again.

“Wait,” Sasha called as Simon – uncharacteristically confident now
that he was on his home turf – led Niu past the thin, scrubby line of trees
which separated the road from acres of farmland. Reluctantly, Simon
turned to face her. She looked extra-dead in the bright afternoon
sunlight, pallid and washed out, her dark eyes hollow. “I’m coming with
you.”

“What?” Simon spluttered. Even the laconic Jock raised an
eyebrow.

Her lips compressed. “I’m coming with you,” she repeated, hopping
down from the cart.

Simon glanced at Niu, who looked thoughtful. “Why?”

“I don’t see much of the outside world,” she said. “Every time
I try, Mother threatens to unmake me. She doesn’t like the idea of my
telling anyone what she does… because she would be hanged or, you know, torched
alive.”

“I…” Simon faltered. From the little he knew about creating
bruxas, the process involved reviving a human corpse with the soul of a
departed vampire, or some similarly horrifying witchcraft. If that was
true, then Sasha was a ravenous monster cohabiting a soulless shell. Arv
Shecklin, Brand’s Priest of Vanyon, would instantly and understandably label
her an abomination. Simon could imagine the bristling rows of pitchforks if he
returned to Brand with this creature in tow, but her fears, even uttered as
they were in a lifeless monotone, triggered some small measure of sympathy in
him.

“You are running from something,” Sasha continued tonelessly.
“If it finds you, I could help you kill it.”

“That is true,” Niu admitted, nodding.

“Or she could get hungry and eat
us
,” Simon pointed out.
Sasha’s echoing silence did nothing to allay that fear.

Jock cleared his throat. “Bad idea, Sasha. Your mother
needs you to help her around the
‘Nymph
. You know that.
That’s why she made you.”

“It would be very easy,” said Sasha, “For her to make a new bruxa.”

“Maybe,” Jock allowed, “But you said it yourself. She won’t
let you be, knowing that you could get her arrested. You know that.”

“Tell her I’ll say nothing.”

“Well, see, there’s that.” Jock lifted his hat and scratched his
head anxiously. “Me going back with the news that you took to your heels,
she’s not likely to look favorably…”

Sasha’s expression didn’t change, but she interrupted Jock with a
loud huffing sound.

“I’m going,” she said. “Mother must have known she couldn’t
hold me forever, like the bruxas who came before me.”

“Yeah, but what you don’t know about
those
bruxas…” Jock began
ominously, then threw his hands up. “You know what? Fine.
I’ll figure out something to tell her. I didn’t know you’d tagged along,
I couldn’t force you to come home. But mark my words, she won’t let this
lie.”

“Thank you, Jock.” Sasha said gravely. “Even though I am
extremely hungry, I won’t eat you.”

“Sure, anytime,” Jock muttered.

“And we get no say in this?” Simon’s voice sounded pathetically
plaintive even in his own ears. The bruxa just stared at him, head
slightly cocked.

I guess not
, he thought bitterly.

Sasha displayed no emotion as Jock’s cart clattered off back the way
they’d come. Simon wondered how long they’d known one another. Was
she even capable of emotion? Did any semblance of the poor girl whose
body she inhabited remain? Deeply uneasy, he led the way toward Brand,
keeping the wall of trees between himself and the road. The trunks were
thinly spaced and did not provide total coverage, but if they had prior warning
of oncoming traffic, it would be easy enough to duck out of sight in the high
grasses. Simon was more worried about attracting the attentions of
farmers, upon the fringes of whose property they were trespassing. Would
his father’s neighbors be sympathetic to his plight, or turn him to the King’s men?

For some time, the three of them didn’t talk. Simon couldn’t
imagine what to say to Sasha. She followed along gamely enough, and if
the occasional clutching thorns caught her bare legs and parted skin, she
didn’t complain. She also didn’t bleed.

As the sun sank ever lower in the sky, however, Simon found that the
silence became oppressive. His mounting nerves –
what would he find in
Brand?
– began to overwhelm him. Niu, who sensed his apprehension,
occasionally touched his arm or favored him with an encouraging smile.
Simon appreciated these gestures, but found that he needed more. He
needed to focus his thoughts elsewhere.

“So, Sasha,” he inquired nervously. “Who were you… I mean
before…”

If the question was offensive, as Simon knew it might be, Sasha showed
no sign.

“I was an artist, I think.” She cocked her head as though
considering. “Yes. I think I liked to paint. I haven’t since
mother brought me back. I think I miss it, but I’m not sure.”

“And you?” Simon persisted. “You yourself, the vampire?”

“Don’t be rude. We are both me. We were both artists,”
she said, brushing away a circling wasp which threatened to snag in her
hair. “Perhaps that’s why our souls were compatible.”

“What kind of artist was your… vampire self?” Simon dreaded the
answer.

Sasha stared at him solemnly for a moment. Abruptly, she
grinned, her lips drawn upward as though on hooks to bare teeth which were both
engraved with unfamiliar symbols and filed into points. Before he could
help himself, Simon recoiled. There was no element of merriment in her
grin; her eyes were as black and expressionless as before.

“An arcane tattooist,” she said.

“A what?” Niu looked as perplexed as Simon felt.

“Necromantic tattoos, mainly. Perhaps I will have occasion to
show you,” Sasha said dismissively.

“So is Sasha your name or the name of the vampire?” Niu asked
indelicately.

“Sasha is the name we agreed upon. Stop thinking of me as
separate people. We are the same now. Mother’s power brought us
both back.”

At what cost?
Simon wondered, but the
dead girl’s story saddened him a little, too. It seemed to him like Sasha
was two broken pieces, rather than any sort of whole, and he wondered what it
might be like to endure such an existence. Had both halves been better
off dead?

“This way.” Simon pointed out a pair of lonely barns on a low
hilltop overlooking a sprawling cornfield. “We can approach Brand through
the corn and no one will see us coming.” He returned his attention to
Sasha. “What did the vampire-you look like before…?” He trailed off,
aware his questions were tactless but unable to help himself.

“…before we were joined in this body?” Sasha finished. She
wrapped a strand of dark hair about one finger thoughtfully, consulting a
memory her divided soul did not share. “She can barely remember.
This, though…” She indicated the strand. “Was golden.” She touched
her nose. “This was a little sharper. These…” She cupped her hips. “Were
definitely wider. Actually…” She kicked out one leg and stared at
it. “She remembers being a bit larger all around.”

Embarrassed, Simon looked away.

“It took some getting used to for both of us, at first. We
lost many of our individual memories, and of course we disagreed on some
things. At those moments, neither one of us was in control, so we had to
learn to cooperate. Once we integrated, all in all, we like sharing this
form,” Sasha mused. “With our combined senses, we have become much more
attuned to the world, much faster.”

“I see,” Simon said. He decided not to pursue any of his
follow-up questions, like why she needed to be faster, especially when he
suspected he knew the answer.

“You say that you have united your minds,” Niu persisted, “And yet
you speak of the vampire as ‘she’.”

Sasha’s expression was slowly growing ugly.