Chapter 7
The garden was not as empty as he had hoped it would be. As he walked around to keep the chill from settling into his bones, he came upon a large stone fountain. A young woman with a pony-tail wearing cut-off jeans, a bikini top, and nothing else sat on the edge of the fountain, her bare feet dipping in and out of the water.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked. "Or is that your thing? Your, um, your abnormality?"
"One aspect of it, yes," she answered quietly, giving him a surprise.
"Aleka?"
"I won't bother with a lecture on how bad cigarettes are for you," she answered, still not turning as he approached. "No doubt you've heard it all before. I can hardly blame you for needing something to settle your nerves after everything that's transpired."
He walked up to her, meaning to sit on the edge of the fountain next to her, to apologize for calling her a creature instead of a person earlier, but he froze as he drew close. Without even thinking, he reached for her back with both hands.
Enormous parallel scars ran from her clavicles straight down her back until they terminated just above her waistband.
They were terrible: deep and wide and puckered on the edges, a horrible livid red mottled with traces of purple and silver. She froze at the feel of his hands but made no move to pull away. Nor did she ask him not to touch her.
"Did it hurt?" he whispered, lightly running his fingertips over the scars, feeling amazed to find that they still felt slightly hotter than the surrounding tissue even though they were obviously ancient history, healed for years or even decades. "Having your wings removed?"
"The healing process was slow, but medication kept the pain largely in check. The worst part remains the fact that I still sometimes feel sensation in them," she answered, shrugging.
"Phantom pains? Wow. And you did this to yourself just to be able to Pass as a human being?" he asked, trying to understand. He couldn't imagine mutilating himself like that, not for anything.
"Being able to show your face in public in the light of day is more important than a man such as yourself will ever know. I don't regret my decision, Detective."
"Name's Joe," he reminded her. "Was it hard? Giving up eating humans?"
"I'm always hungry, never satisfied. I smell you standing so close and the ache and longing increase."
"I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone."
"No, don't go." She shook her head. "I make a point of surrounding myself with humans for as much of each day as possible."
"Don't take this wrong, but that seems a little masochistic given what you just said."
"I can't risk relapse. I must constantly relearn the art of restraint for everyone's safety. Please feel free to join me, assuming my earlier behavior hasn't made it impossible for you to trust me."
"You put a gun to my head after taking it from me by deception. I know damned well that I shouldn't trust you. I just can't not." He shrugged in confusion, then remembered Sally's advice. "Did you do that to me?"
"No. Any effect you might have felt from what happened in Helen's study would have dissipated hours ago. If you trust me now, it's because you know full well that I was completely capable of pulling that trigger and still chose not to do so."
He considered this for a moment, then sat down next to her on the raised lip of the fountain.
"You take this case personal," he noted.
"Wouldn't you in a similar situation?" She shook her head. "The killer's a Siren, one of my own. I should take it personally. It would be odd if I didn't."
Joe frowned. "Are you going to be comfortable helping us catch this guy?"
"Not comfortable, but I'll still do the job. I'd rather someone of my own blood not be taken down by a typical. We have our own ways, and they are nothing like yours."
"Fair enough, I guess, as long as justice is done. I don't like the idea of going outside the law, not one bit, but I also don't like the idea of setting a predatory Siren loose in a human prison given what I know they're capable of."
"Pragmatic of you." She turned her head and smiled at him, face pale in the moonlight.
"If a guy were sitting here thinking to himself that you're a very beautiful woman, would that be him or his reaction to your abilities?"
She smiled and shook her head. "I have made no attempt to influence you beyond the original, Joe Kavanaugh. I'm given to understand that all of this, our entire world, is something you've been aware of for less than twenty-four hours?"
"Yeah. Still finding my feet."
"You must be a remarkably open-minded man. It says something about you that you're willing to sit here alone in the dark with a 'creature' such as myself."
"I'm sorry. It was a bad word-choice. I was out of line."
"Not remotely," she answered, shrugging. "I am a creature. I'm not an animal and I'm not a human. I'm an 'other'. And, I assure you, I'm routinely called far worse than 'creature'."
He frowned. "By other Sanctuary staff?"
"No." She shook her head. "Staff is screened thoroughly and prejudice alone is usually grounds for dismissal even when there's been no overtly offensive behavior. But we can hardly start punishing our patients and guests for thoughtcrime."
"I keep hearing that distinction, patients versus guests. What's the difference?"
"A patient comes to us, usually because they cannot control their abilities which can make day-to-day life difficult and even dangerous under the right circumstances. You've heard of spontaneous human combustion?"
"Yeah." He nodded. Fringe as beliefs went, but who hadn't heard of it?
She nodded. "Most cases are actually uncontrolled pyrokinetics who panic when they first manifest. The ability is controlled by adrenaline, so fear makes it more powerful. The flames grow in intensity. It starts as a small spark, but that spark frightens you, so you panic and the flame becomes stronger, which scares you more which makes the flame stronger still. It's a vicious cycle for them. Death by immolation is the almost certain outcome."
"That's a scary thought. Not how I'd want to die."
"No," she agreed. "So those sorts of people are our patients, people who have powers they must learn to control for everyone's protection. Or, perhaps, abnormals who have become sick or injured through other means. Hate Crimes against certain abnormal groups are rampant, so we patch up a lot of beating victims. Again, patients. Or abnormals may feel frightened by their gift, or disgusted with themselves because of it, or fearful of being discovered. Those individuals see people such as Doctor Zimmerman and myself, the Sanctuary's psychological team. Every Sanctuary House has at least one or two psychiatrists or psychologists and we have others who are independent contractors all over the world."
"So people who come to you for therapy are patients, too. Got it. How are they different from guests?"
"Guests come to us without medical or psychological problems, generally for protection from the outside world. You've met Helen's butler?"
"Laurence, yeah." He nodded. "The Big Guy."
"Well, he first came to her as a patient. He'd been badly shot by some drunk and frightened hunters. Helen rescued him, removed the slugs, and nursed him back to health. At that point, he stopped being a patient, but he refused to leave Helen, either, so he stayed on. First as a guest and then as an employee. We turn no one away. Any abnormal who is too fearful to remain in the outside world is welcomed by the Sanctuary."
"And Will says you don't charge for any of this?"
"Naturally not. The Sanctuary is a public service, not a corporation."
"So how do you pay for it all?"
"Studying the ways in which abnormals are different from regular humans has allowed us to synthesize some wonderfully useful compounds. We hold the patents on numerous pharmaceuticals and medical techniques."
He chuckled, had to. "Like the Men in Black?"
"Yes, except we don't confiscate tech from off-world visitors. We simply adapt and apply the knowledge which we've gained from treating our patients. It's win-win."
"Sounds like it," he agreed.
She turned her face skywards, staring fondly up at the moon.
"Your species is nocturnal?"
"When it suits us to be. But we're highly adaptive. During the parts of the year when weather is good, the majority of shipwrecks would occur at night, so we evolved to be able to stay awake and alert in darkness. At other times of the year, storms caused most shipwrecks, so we had to evolve to be quite flexible in our schedules."
"You people here at the Sanctuary talk about evolution a lot."
"Mostly because it's inescapable. It's there, so we might as well embrace it."
"I guess. You evolved to eat human flesh? Why human?"
"Humans were convenient. We would have needed to compete with them either way. There were too many of them and they were too smart. And, once they moved into an area, other prey species were depleted in short order. It was migrate or adapt. We chose to adapt. We won the Evolutionary Arms Race and homo sapiens sapiens became our prey."
"Yet now you live among us and try to Pass?"
"The problem with an Arms Race is that it's usually a prelude to outright war. Things are different now. We don't need humans to survive any more. There's no reason not to co-exist peacefully. Being smarter and stronger doesn't make us better. It doesn't make you inferior, only different. You have the right to be given a chance to survive, just like any species."
He considered this. She may have said she felt no prejudice against humans, but her words and tone made it abundantly clear that she considered herself different, better. Which he didn't like but could at least understand.
"Tell me what the Kill is like," he directed. "Getting into a killer's headspace is usually the kind of thing I'd go to Will for help with, but I think, for once, I've got access to someone with insight superior to his."
"What I have to say is disturbing. Would you like me to use my Voice to calm you?"
"No, I don't want you messing with my brain-chemistry. I need to be in a specific state of mind to work a case. Just tell it like it is and I'll let you know if it gets too hairy and I need you to stop."
"Fair enough." She drew a deep breath. "The Kill. The Kill is the ultimate reminder that you are, in fact, alive. It's exhilarating, affirming. It is gaining a feeling of power by being willing to surrender yourself to something other than logic. It is a scream of agony, coupled with a plea not to stop, not ever. It's security, comfort, the smell of bread fresh out of Mama's oven on a Sunday afternoon. And the taste…" She trailed off, looking as troubled as Joe felt.
"And you gave all that up voluntarily?"
"It had turned me into a monster. It had to end…"
"Wow," he whispered, watching her through new eyes.
She talked about killing the way many successfully recovered junkies talked about their drug of choice. You remembered it and remembered it fondly for the most part because it felt good at the time. Which disturbed and disgusted you because you never wanted to be that person again. So you tried that much harder, made yourself be that much stronger. You'd never get out from under the addiction, but you could still triumph over it.
"I should go to bed now. Will you walk me?"
He nodded, looking for somewhere to discard the cigarette that had gone out at some point during their discussion without him even noticing. She helpfully pointed out a small trash-bin, discreetly tucked away between a bench and a bush.
They walked in silence until they reached her bedroom door.
"Good night, Aleka. I'll see you in a couple of hours."
She nodded and opened the door, then turned back to him. "If I were a different sort of person, I would use my powers right now to convince you to come inside."
He stared down at her with wide eyes. "Uh…"
"Too forward?"
He shrugged. "I want to. I'm just terrified to. I mean, how would I ever know if it was me?"
"If you feel fear, that isn't me." She shook her head. "There's no selective advantage to instilling fear in your chosen prey-species. Sirens are incapable of evoking most negative emotions with the Voice."
"So it's all me? Wanting to come in, too?"
"It is," she confirmed. "You aren't married, are you?"
"No, not for a couple of years."
"Girlfriend?"
"Too busy with work to really get out and socialize much."
"Then there's nothing to keep you from joining me," she said reasonably.
"Cops aren't encouraged to fraternize."
"With other cops. I, however, am a psychologist."
"You don't think it would make working together awkward?"
"Not if we're both clear at the outset what we want from this."
"What do you want?"
"Company, Joe. And sex, of course. The man who usually gives me those things is in London. Hardly convenient."
He stared at her. "Convenient?"
"Our arrangement is casual. He expects nothing from me other than what I give him at night. I'm free to take whoever I want to bed so long as that occasionally includes him."
Joe shook his head. "I don't really do casual sex."
"Fair enough, although I assure you, James and I both undergo routine STD screens. I'm clean and I have condoms in my room. Still, the choice is yours." She smiled up at him. "Sleep well, Joe. I'll see you in a few hours."
He watched her go, making no attempt to influence him even with further words, let alone the whole mind-control thing. Casual, something she could take or leave. Mildly insulting but hugely comforting as well.
"Wait," he murmured, grabbing her shoulder. "Uh… I don't do this kind of thing usually, but…"
"I understand," she assured him with a comforting smile. She reached up and cradled his face in both hands. "It's okay, Joe. You are okay. I won't do anything you don't ask me to."
"No Jedi mind-tricks."
"Fair enough," she agreed, nodding. "Now come to bed."
Unable to believe what he was doing, he accepted the hand she proffered and followed her into her bedroom. A cannibal in the equivalent of a 12-step program for her addiction to human flesh, a woman with 400 unjustified kills under her belt.
If this was how he reacted to her when she wasn't controlling him, he would hate to see what he would have acted like if she had tried to sway him. But he didn't believe he was being influenced either, not as conflicted as he felt, so he followed her to bed with something almost resembling confidence.