Blood Lines

slammed repeatedly between two large rocks, Vicki woke feeling smug.
    She was giving him more of a fight than he'd anticipated. His lord would not be pleased. As she had no protecting gods, merely a strongly developed sense of self, the failure would be perceived as being his.
    Akhekh did not tolerate failure and his punishments were such that anything became preferable to facing them.
    He needed more power.
    In spite of the cold and the damp, a Friday afternoon spent in the park beat the hell out of a Friday afternoon spent with the Riel Rebellion and grade ten chemistry. Brian tightened his grip across Louise's shoulders and turned her face up to meet his.
    Now this is what I call getting an education ! He thought as her lips parted and she flicked at his tongue with hers. I wonder if she'll let me slip my hand up under her… ouch. Guess not .
    He opened his eyes, just to see what another person looked like from that angle, and frowned as he saw a well-dressed man watching them from no more than five feet away. Oh, great. A pervert. Or a cop. Maybe we should… we should …
    'Brian?" Louise pulled back as he went limp. "Cut it out." His head flopped forward onto her shoulder. "I mean it, Brian. You're scaring me. Brian? "Oh, my God."
    He settled back on the bed, throwing the bags of feathers to the floor. Someday soon he'd have a proper headrest made.
    It was eleven forty-three-this culture's preoccupation with the division of time into ridiculously small units never failed to amuse him-and she would be asleep by now, her ka at its most vulnerable. Tonight she would not be able to stand against him; he would throw all the power from the ka he had absorbed this afternoon at her defenses.
    He closed his eyes and sent his ka forth, following the path his lord had laid out, entering through the image of his lord's eyes.
    It was as if something held her elbow and walked her through the house, observing, discarding, searching. She couldn't shake free. She couldn't dim the lights.
    She couldn't let it find what it needed.

    Except she had no idea of what that was.
    They climbed a staircase and started down a long corridor with a multitude of doors off to either side. As they reached for the knob of the second door, she saw the pencil lines and the dates, realized who waited within, and thought-or spoke, she wasn't sure-"Not the third door, anything but the third door, " and tried to push them forward.
    It stopped her, turned her, walked her down the hall, and into the third room. When they came out, it moved her on. It never came back to the second room.
    Obviously, it had never read Aesop's fables.
    She managed to protect her mother, Celluci, and Henry. It found everything else.
    Everything .
    He knew how she would suffer. It would take a while to arrange, even with some of the necessary influences already in place, but his lord could not help but be pleased with the result.
    * * *
    'You don't look so good. Are you all right?"
    Vicki shifted her grip on the aluminum baseball bat and managed a smile. "I'm okay. I'm just a little tired."
    'I'm sorry I haven't turned up any leads these last couple of nights but, to be honest, I never expected to."
    'That's all right. It was a long shot. Henry…" She sat down on the edge of the bed and with one finger stroked the patch of red gold hair in the center of his chest. "…are you still dreaming?"
    Henry pulled the sheet aside to expose a ragged clutch of multiple holes in the mattress. "I drove my fingers through here this morning," he said dryly. He flicked the sheet back, then covered her hand with his. "If I hadn't caught a hint of your scent on the pillow, I don't know how much more damage I might have done." She looked away and he decided not to say the rest, not to tell her that she gave him reason to hold onto his sanity. Instead, he asked, "Why?"
    'I just wondered if they were getting worse."
    'They haven't changed. You getting tired of standing guard?"
    'No. I just…" She couldn't tell him. The dream had seemed so important while it was going on, but now, faced with Henry's basic terror, it seemed stupidly abstract and meaningless.
    'You just?" Henry prodded, knowing full well from her expression that she wasn't going to tell him.
    'Nothing."
    'Look at the bright side." He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the scars on the inside of her wrist. "Tonight's the night of the party. One way or another, something's bound to…"
    '… happen." Vicki drew her hand