Here we go! The last piece of the whole wacky puzzle.
Be warned, this chapter contains a serious amount of blood-&-gore. Adult themes too, so beware the rating.
How…?
Immobilized, Saya takes in the scene before her. Throat clenched in an unseen fist.
Really, this shouldn't surprise her.
Inside, she saw it coming.
What surprises is the sensation bolting through her. Scalding her alive, as if she's swallowed a vale of lightning-fire. Tears blur the room; her eyes seem to be melting in hot rivulets down her cheeks.
Leaving livid red behind.
How could you?
She hears the sounds the woman makes, throaty intermittent chirps. Her swollen lips, gulping in air, pressing moist and frantic to his. Fingers coiled in the white creases of his shirt. Long red nails. Red lipstick. Bunched-up red skirt.
Red like blood.
Suspended in disgust, Saya notices each detail.
How dark and slippery the woman's hair is, swaying over her face. How tanned the flesh of one thigh is, hooked around his waist. How the muscles strain, taut and pulsing, as she slides up and down against the wall, in time to his each grinding rocking movement, her each trilling gasp.
Above them, medieval swords hang gleaming from the wall. A decanter of scotch rests at the table, catching the light from a single lamp. Its rays turn Solomon's hair to gold, throwing hollows against the muscles on his back, the knobs of his spine. His shirt isn't quite off. Melted folds hang from his biceps, exposing the upper-half of his body, the slant of shoulders and pale beads of vertebrae.
Saya doesn't know how long she stands before the snarl tears out.
The woman notices first. She squeaks, jerking against Solomon. Saya recognizes her. One of Solomon's assistants, once-immaculate dress disheveled, hair dripping from her chic updo. Saya has met her before at dinner parties. She's even dropped by at their flat to deliver documents from Solomon's office.
How long has Solomon been doing this with her? Has it been happening all along?
"…How could you do this?" Saya whispers.
Solomon turns slowly, as if he sees no reason to stop what he's doing. His expression is cool. One curl hangs gleaming over his eyes.
Saya remembers, with a sick twinge, how she enjoyed twining that particular strand between her fingers. Tugging it to bring his mouth to hers, to swallow the vibration of his mischievous laugh, his compulsive smile. Remembers how she'd liked raking her nails along those same shoulders, digging them like needles into the hard slant of his hips. Because he'd loved it when she hurt him just a little, turned just a little feral.
He'd sworn to love everything about her for all eternity.
How. Could. You?
A sharp pain courses through her, unlike any she's felt since Vietnam.
It hits her: this was how Haji must've felt, when she'd forsaken him for Solomon.
No—not even this—this is nothing to how Haji must have felt.
Haji, who'd devoted every second of his life to protecting her, without once asking for a payment in return. Haji, who'd loved her, in a way she neither realized nor deserved.
And whom she'd abandoned for this man staring so insolently at her now.
Solomon lets the woman go slowly, as if jealous of retreating from her warmth. Sets his clothes right with unhurried precision. The woman is clumsier. Her fingers trip across her buttondown blouse, jerking down her skirt. Her eyes dart from Solomon to Saya. Lips quivering to form words.
Saya fantasizes, for one wild moment, launching herself at the woman, tearing her apart as she screams mine mine mine!
But the impulse fades as soon as it blooms. The mine is irrelevant here. Solomon has stopped being hers since their fight in Berlin.
The pain she feels now is only for the time she wasted. For marrying him in the first place, abandoning Haji despite everything he'd done for her.
That vicious question—How could you?—is aimed not at Solomon's treachery, but her own.
"I think it's best if you left." Solomon speaks coolly, as if rescheduling a meeting with his bankers. "It might be unwise to stick around."
The woman doesn't need to be told twice. Awkward, she totters past Saya on her highheels. Saya can see the marks Solomon has branded all over her neck. Can practically smell him on her; hear her pulse humming like a buzzsaw in the air.
The apartment door clicks shut. Leaving Saya alone with Solomon.
Her whole body aches as if pummeled. She feels as if she has been wafting on opium all these months, entranced and oblivious, only to have the deadweight of reality slam on her skull.
In a way, she has.
She has been hibernating all this time, cocooned from her problems, shut off from the rest of the world. Almost dead. But now ugly reality rushes to drown her. Entire body ringing, a shrill scream like an alarm bell made flesh.
Painfully, intensely awake.
Solomon watches her from a distance, guarded. "I want you to know, that was entirely ad hoc."
"Shut up," she seethes. "I don't want to hear about it."
"It did not mean anything. It just happened. I was feeling so pent-up from all this tension at home. I just wanted something that could help me—"
She turns to walk away. "I don't want to know!"
Suddenly, Solomon is right before her, grabbing her arm. "Well I want you to know. I want to know why you treat me as if I don't exist, especially if it seems I can't be allowed satisfaction anywhere else."
"Satisfaction?" Tears burn her eyes, but Saya can't feel them. Can't feel anything except this blinding rage within.
This incident is a caveat of exactly why her marriage must end. She can't stay with Solomon. Each day, it is clearer that choosing him was a mistake. They're all wrong for each other—she should be running back to Haji right now, falling to her knees and sobbing for his forgiveness.
Violence and coercion from Solomon, she might have endured. In the war, both were part of her life and who she was.
But treachery, betrayal, is beyond even her capacity to stomach. It is the very reason she was so wary of Solomon in the first place. If a man could deceive his own Queen, go against his Chevalier's instincts without a qualm—then what real limits did he have? What other atrocities could he be capable of?
With a chill, Saya realizes that she's just finding out.
"I can't do this anymore."
Solomon gaze sharpens like his grip. "What?"
"This, Solomon. Us. It's over. I can't be with you. Not after all this. I'm going back to Okinawa."
"Back to Okinawa? Why?"
"Why?" Disbelief paralyzes her. Then she tears away. "After this, do you think I'm going to stay with you any longer? Do I really need to explain myself about why?"
Solomon's eyes narrow, an icy wrath both contained and controlled. "You are not walking away from me, Saya. I will not have you treat me like I'm invisible one minute and cast me off like trash the next."
"Cast you off like trash! You just betrayed me with some slut and now you have the nerve to act like I'm the culprit?!"
"As if you haven't betrayed me?"
"What?"
"There are different kinds of infidelity, Saya. There's physical, and then there's emotional. For example—" Reaching in his coat, he brandishes a crumpled paper at her face. "If I ever sent this to anyone, wouldn't it come under adultery as much as anything else? Would it not be tantamount to the same thing?"
Saya freezes, recognizing the paper. The letter she wrote to Haji—not a letter, more like a page from a nonexistent diary, a penitent's ghostly words in a confessional. All because Solomon has kept her so stifled that she has no other way to vent her agonies, except through the methods of a caged prisoner.
She pales, lips parting. "Wh-where did you get this?"
"That is none of your concern. But can deny it is yours? That is your handwriting. Those are all your words. Haven't you anything to say about that?"
"This… was something I—"
"What? Are you going to tell me you did not write it? Or that it is not addressed to your precious Haji? You think you can get away with things like this, and then play the martyr when I cannot take anymore of your transgressions?"
She stiffens. "It's not my fault you were unfaithful to me!"
"If I am, it is only because you are gone." His finger jabs her temple. "Here, in your head, you have ceased belonging to me. It was your indifference that drove me this. You're the one who—"
"You're blaming me for what you did with that woman? This is your way of rubbing my face in my inadequacies? By finding the first woman you can get your hands on, and—"
"I told you. It meant nothing. I don't want her. I want you. I always have. But short of breaking your door down and forcing you to the floor to take what I want, there's no other way for me to reach you!"
"No other way to—" Her eyes flash. "So this was your way to get my attention? By bringing some nameless woman home to give me a free show? To remind me that what you can't get from me, you can easily acquire elsewhere?"
"I just wanted to shake you out of your stupor! For Christ's sake, we are married, yet you behave as if I'm some filthy habit you decided to drop! You won't sleep with me, nor speak to me, or even look at me! What am I supposed to think? Especially when I keep finding remnants of your darling Haji, wherever I turn my head! If he were so essential to you, why would you choose me in the first place? Why would you marry me at all, if it is only to remind me every second that I can never fill his place!?"
Saya jerks like he's picked her pocket. Blood rushes to her face; she can feel her mouth forming impotent words.
What can she say to that?
He's right.
If there's one thing Solomon does, it's show her what she always fights so hard not to believe about herself. Even in their earliest meetings, this is what drew her so strongly to him. He makes her intensely aware of all those stifled aspects of herself. His unapologetic acceptance of their Chiropteran lineage, his candor of what they truly are—this is what attracted her most, beckoning and seductive in a world where her own origins and priorities felt so skewed.
But at the same time, he makes her lose sight of what is right and important to her; makes her lose sight of who she truly is. If Solomon is the tempest crashing around her, Haji is her compass. She can't find her way without him, she will only lose herself if she tries.
In many ways, she already has.
"I'm sorry. I told you before, this was all a mistake. I never meant to hurt you. But… that's why I can't do this anymore, Solomon. We're no good for each other. We need to end this before—"
"End this?" Solomon's rage thaws, face turning strained and pale. It's amazing to watch, like ice melting at a high flame. "Saya, I told you, what happened wasn't intentional. I didn't want that woman. I just wanted to—"
"I know what you wanted, Solomon. You just wanted something to take your mind off the pain. Make everything else go away for a while. Except… none of that lasts for long. All those things we both want… a chance for fresh start, to completely forget everything…life doesn't work like that."
"What?"
"Don't you get it? I chose you for the same reasons. Because I was running from all my problems, and I hoped you'd help me forget all about them. But I can't forget them, and I'm so sorry I didn't realize this sooner."
"You keep talking like I'm some drug you shouldn't have tried out! Yet you told me, in Berlin, that you loved me. Are you going to act like everything between us didn't happen? Like it was all some—some sick hallucination?"
"I do love you!" Her voice strikes sharply off the walls. She winces, looking away. "I do love you, Solomon. I care about you—I can't seem to help it. Maybe it would be easier if I didn't…but nothing about you is that simple. You've done things for me I'll never be able to repay. You've lost so much because of me, and I can never forget that. But I don't love you the same way you love me. I can't. Not enough to live with you."
He seizes her chin, forcing her to look at him. "What makes you think you can switch this off and on at will? What gives you the gall to abandon me like some toy you've outgrown? What about our marriage, and the vows you made to me? What about our daughters?"
When he says it, all the blood in her body seems to rush to her womb. The room wavers as if she's going to pass out.
Instead, she whispers. "Our daughters… are the only clean things that have come out of our marriage."
"What?"
"Giving me children is the one way you really have helped me, Solomon. And carrying them is the only good turn I've offered you. But anything beyond that is over now. I won't have them born in a home full of screaming and pain. I can't do that to them."
"Saya…it doesn't have to be that way." Solomon crowds her back against the wall, hands on either side of her. "Please just come back to me. Let things be the way they first were between us. I promise, I will do everything in my power to make you happy. None of this ugliness will ever be mentioned again. You know I can't live without you. You can't possibly do this to me after—"
Saya has to avert her eyes. His gaze is like a red-hot iron. "Solomon. I'm so sorry. I made a mistake, but I need to correct it now. This whole thing—you and me—it just isn't going to work."
"Why shouldn't it work? Saya, I love you. I made you happy once; it can be that way again. You can learn to feel for me the way I do for you. We have an eternity to try. Please—just give me another chance. I don't want to lose you, not after all the happiness you have granted me. Angel, please I—"
"Solomon. Don't make this harder than it already is. I'm sorry, but I've made my decision. I just can't do this anymore. I'm tired. I need to rest."
"And you think… with Haji, you will get that? You honestly think that man can love our daughters the way I do?" He presses a warm hand to her belly. Her babies kick as if galvanized. "—You think that he'll accept you after all you've done? That he will see you the same way? Saya, you know that isn't possible."
She struggles against sharp tears. "Solomon, I'm sorry. Let it go. It's over now."
"Over? Saya, emotions don't just turn off and on at will. You can't tell me you feel nothing for me now? I miss you so much—don't you miss me even a little? Things were so good between us—why do you want to ruin everything this way? Please just come back to me. I swear, I will do whatever it takes to change. I'll—"
She tries to break away. "Don't. Please just don't—"
He stills her face in his hand, thumb rubbing the curve of her cheek. Looming in, he gently probes her lips with his own. She stiffens but doesn't open. He kisses her again, chin, neck, jaw, but she remains inert. Willing herself not to look at him, not to confess some sign of weakness.
Solomon's jaw clenches. "What's wrong with you? You don't want me anymore? Is that it?"
"Solomon—"
"Or maybe you just liked it better from Haji? Maybe you liked it better from him all along?" He reaches out, cups one breast in his hand. Even through the material of her shirt, she feels the heat of his palm. "You like when I do this? Does it make you think of Haji?"
"S-Solomon, please—"
"Did Haji make you feel like this?" Thumb and finger closing around one nipple, squeezing until she squeaks. "Did he make you cry out this way? Like a little slag in heat?"
This scalds her. She elbows him off.
Solomon lurches back, pressing a hand to his face. Quieter, he murmurs, "I'm sorry. That was out of line."
His words still buzz through her, searing. She doesn't answer.
"Your sister was just this way with me too, that's all. Come here, then go away. Like a damned traffic cop. She knew how much I cared about her, but still, it was never enough to keep her happy. I was never enough to—"
At her palely uncertain face, he breaks away, disgusted. But it seems directed at himself more than her.
Saya realizes he despises his own ineptitude for prompting this betrayal, far more than he does her for carrying it out. His time as Diva's Chevalier was composed of nothing but. Of feeling worthless, useless, at every turn.
And by rejecting him, she's only validated those pathetic images he has of himself.
"Solomon, I-I'm not saying our marriage didn't happen… or that it wasn't good while it lasted, but its over now. I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry."
He jerks back as if burnt. "So… you really mean to forsake me for Haji?"
She winces. Part of her wonders if Haji will even take her back after this. But either way, her liaison with Solomon is truly finished—and she nods to tell him so.
Solomon draws a shaky breath. For a moment she wonders if he's about to cry.
But his face is unmarked, impassive. A vein ticks in his jaw.
"Over my dead body."
"Wh-what?"
He grabs her arm.
"Solomon, what're you—" She freezes when he flicks out his pocketknife. Light bounces off the bright metal, reflecting her wide eyes. Suddenly the only sound in the room is her pounding heart.
Solomon presses her against the wall, knife raised. Does he mean to cut her open? Still, she doesn't move to stop him. Her whole body feels jammed in quicksand.
"S-Solomon, what're you—" She gasps as he yanks up her palm, slashing the blade across it.
Blood wells from the wound, smearing the knife. Solomon draws it away to squeeze the blade in his own palm. Skin slits, her blood mingling with his, catalyzing that reaction that she knows too well.
When Solomon drops the knife, there are gray cracks branching across his hand. Brittle shards, like crumbling granite, spreading to his fingers, up his wrist, into his sleeve.
Saya is so stunned she can only stare.
No.
No.
"Solomon!"
Her husband doesn't even flinch. His expression is drained, eerily composed. "I'm sorry, Saya. If I can't keep you here, I can't bear to let you go, either. Perhaps it's better all around, if I do this. I can't stand watching another man take what's mine, right before my eyes."
"Solomon—what are you doing?!"
"Doing what we both want. Now if you'll excuse me a moment—"
His entire hand is ashen now. But he acts as if nothing is wrong. Sidling to the dining table, he pushes a chair out with his foot, slumping into it. Shakes the hair from his eyes in a careless, boyish gesture, picking up the decanter of scotch with his undamaged hand.
He takes a long swig, faster and deeper than she has ever seen anyone put away.
"S-Solomon—"
He pauses mid-gulp. "I'm so sorry. But I think you know as well as I do, how it feels to have nothing to live for. And without you, I really do have nothing. Might as well go out on a high note, and end things the easy way, right?"
Saya blanches, nausea swooping in.
Ohgod—this will kill him.
Kill him the same way her father died, kill him the same way she dispatched Riku to his grave. Karl. James. Irene. Diva.
Death—nothing but death everywhere around her.
No—I can't let this happen!
Acting on instinct, she lunges for Solomon. He cries out as she slams him to the floor. The scotch decanter crashes away.
She grabs fistfuls of his shirt, tearing it wide open, buttons skittering. His arm has crystallized so fast—the whole limb is rock solid. Gray cracks spread toward his shoulder, over his chest. She needs to stop them—needs to cut them off before—
Her eyes alight on the swords hanging from the wall. Decorative bronze hilts with razor-sharp blades. She flashes back to that mission in Vietnam, where Phantom axed off his own leg to stop the crystallization. It had worked for him. He'd managed to escape her and get away.
Maybe I can—
"Saya—" Solomon seems to intuit what she's thinking. "Don't bother. If you've any mercy left, just send me off. Just kill me so that I—"
"Shut up!" She shakes him hard before rushing to the blades. With a grunt, she yanks a sword from its hooks. It is surprisingly heavy in her hands. Listing from its weight, she hurries back to Solomon. Planting her feet on either side of him, she hefts the weapon two-handed over her head.
Solomon's eyes widen. "No—"
Before he finishes, the blade whistles down, cutting fang-sharp into his arm and shoulder. There is a massive blood-spray. She feels the tear of stringy muscle, the crunch of splintered bone. Has to swing the sword twice to fully sever his arm. Red matter splashes the walls, flooding the carpet, her clothes and arms.
Red sprays across Solomon's face. His head lashes back in a snarl.
Flinging the sword aside, Saya drops to her knees. The carpet is soaked in blood—Solomon's torn arm lies a few feet off, inert and stony as a sculpture's. One side of his shoulder is a ragged stump, but there are no more cracks. The infected part was sliced off in time.
Blood spreads out under him in a dark circle, in tandem with Saya's sharp relief.
Thank God.
"Why—did you—" Solomon is breathing raggedly, skin waxy with sweat. "Why did you—stop me—"
Her eyes blaze. "I'm not letting someone else I care about die because of my blood! I won't have another death on my conscience!"
"It wasn't about you—"
"I don't care! I'm won't let you do this!" She grabs his face, shaking him hard. "Don't die, Solomon! For God's sake—don't do this to me! I never meant to make you suffer this way! Please!"
"Get. Off. Me—" With the other arm, he tries to shove her off. But the blood-loss has weakened him. He tries to sit up, but dizziness slumps him back on the carpet. She can almost feel him trembling with the effort not to groan.
So much like herself—refusing to let anyone see what they see so clearly.
She presses a hand to his cheek. "Please. Stay still. I need to get some blood into you—"
His eyes flash red. "From where? Your neck?"
Lightning-fast, he grabs her throat. She strikes him on reflex. He hits the bloody carpet with a squelch, panting. Red eyes fixed on hers, giving off a horrible heat.
God, what's wrong with him? Is the blood loss making him delirious?
Her eyes burn.
She never meant for this to happen. She never meant to do any of this to him.
"Please, Solomon. Please stay where you are. Just let me get some blood."
She runs to the kitchen, moving awkwardly because of her belly. But there are no blood packs in the refrigerator. Either Solomon had forgotten to order more, or they all finished last night. Hands trembling, she jerks the drawers and cupboards open, looking for other packs, bottles, cases. Nothing.
She runs to the locked cooler in his study. Punching in the memorized code, she wrenches the handle open. Three full blood packs inside, with old Cinque Fleshe logos. They're shaped differently from the usual packs Solomon feeds her—but she's seen him using these during long travels. Perhaps they're richer in nutrients?
There's a warning label under each pack, but the detail doesn't register.
Not until hours and shrieking horrors afterward.
Snatching them up, she runs to the dining room. Caught up, all the while, in thoughts of Haji. How frantic she'd been when he'd fallen from that cliff at the Zoo, and when he'd sipped her blood and started flailing like a marionette. All the chaos that had followed. The blazing mansion. Joel's corpse. Diva's smile. All her mistakes, her stupidities, led to one irreversible tragedy after another.
Solomon is a tragedy too, ruined and heartbroken because of her. She must face up to everything she's done to him.
Running to the livingroom, she sees that Solomon has crawled to a corner by now. There's a long smear of blood in his wake. Propping himself against the wall, he touches the pulpy stump of his shoulder with a jittery hand.
Seeing her, his eyes crackle.
"Should've just let me die."
"Solomon, you know I can't do that. I care about you—I can't let you—"
"Care?" He lets off a sharp cruel laugh, then hisses and clutches his shoulder. "You wouldn't know the word if you tripped over it, you heartless witch. You supposedly cared for Haji too—but that didn't stop you from abandoning him, did it? Then you claimed to love me, while the truth is, you're incapable of that sentiment in every goddamn sense of the term."
"Solomon…" She's never heard him talk this way.
"You can pretend all you want. Pretend you've got human emotions, that you're capable of feelings. I'm sure that sweet little face of yours would fool everyone. Except your heart's a piece of flint—god help anyone who tries to sink his teeth into it. Christ knows, I got defanged trying to sink in mine."
"Solomon—please stop talking like that. You're losing too much blood—you aren't healing as fast as you should be." She comes closer, tearing a blood-pack open.
Solomon blanches. "No—I don't want—"
She thinks it is sheer perversity. A little boy screaming out of exhaustion that he doesn't want to sleep. But, looking back on it later, she'll try to replay, justify, each thought and action from that moment. Try to decide where her first mistake was, to parse out where she acted wrongly, where she should've done something different.
Because what happened next, she would never forget.
Solomon tries to crawl past her, but she seizes his shirtfront, dragging him back. "Solomon, please. Don't do this just to spite me. Just take the blood!"
She presses the dripping pack to his mouth. He whips his head left and right, lips curdling in disgust. "No! I don't want—"
"Solomon—" No choice but to fight dirty. Reaching for his bloodied chest, she finds a nipple, twisting it until he howls.
The moment his lips part, she thrusts the dripping pack into his mouth. He gags, but she presses harder against his lips, rubbing his windpipe until he starts swallowing. Blood dribbles down his chin and between her fingers. The aroma is thick, sharper-smelling than she is accustomed to.
She waits until he has wrung the pack dry, before making him drain the second, then third. As he drinks, his pulse jumps like gunfire under her fingers. Skin flushing, breathing going erratic. His eyes widen, flickering in and out of focus.
Concerned, she draws the pack away. "Solomon… are you all right?"
"God—w-why did you—" He sounds strange, almost fevered. Pupils of eyes dilated, ring of green completely covered.
"Solomon, what's wrong with you?"
He grimaces, throwing his head back. All the veins in his throat rise like wires.
The bloody stub of his shoulder coalesces, knitting to muscle and bone, faster than she's ever seen. It's like watching a video of a plant growing on fast-forward. Arm extending, branching into blue veins and red sinew. Overlapped by a coat of pale flesh, layer upon layer. Forming palms, fingers, thumbs, nails.
She imagines this is how her babies have been growing, inside her womb. Tiny cells burgeoning into skin, into limbs and bodies and lives.
As his arm regenerates, Solomon gasps as if pained. Beads of sweat cling to his forehead. His whole body is racked in a violent shuddering.
"Solomon—what's wrong?"
His eyes dart to hers. Voice deep-throated, almost demonic. How he sounds when he is in his full Chiropteran form. "Get—out of here—"
"What?"
"Go—just get out of—" He breaks off with a snarl—a deafening rumble like an engine. The sound shoots like a current up her spine.
And the Chiropteran in her knows it like a bad wound.
Danger.
"Solomon…"
He is trembling harder now. Breathing ragged, sweat dripping past his nose, sliding down his neck. Veins she's never seen before rise across his body.
She remembers the mental mapwork she'd once made, of all the veins and freckles on his skin. He is pale like Haji—one can see all the blue tributaries on his wrists, on the backs of his palms. He has a tiny black mole under his left ear. Another on his thigh, and between the fingers of his right hand. A strange scar, probably a wartime injury, branded on his right flank.
Spiral-shaped, she remembers calling it. Like a nebula or a black hole.
Which is exactly what Solomon's eyes are like now.
Blazing red, staring at her, right into her. Sucking all the warmth out of her body.
"Solomon?" Warily, she reaches for him. He jerks back with a growl. The fangs are bright between his bloody lips, gleaming like scimitars. "Solomon, what's happening to you?"
"Go—just go. Get out—!"
"What?"
Abruptly, he doubles over, clutching his stomach. Body taut, trembling like a puppet's. She feels a peculiar hum around him, a static buzz like from a high-tension pylon. He looks like he might shoot up any moment and start flying and smashing all over the room like an unleashed electric surge.
"Solomon…" She reaches for him, but jerks back when he swats her off.
She stumbles hard into the shelf behind her. It sways wildly, rows of cutlery crashing down. Saya shrieks, hands raised to deflect the avalanche.
Then Solomon is there, tackling her down, rolling on top of her to shield her from the cascade.
The flood of metal and glass is deafening. Cutlery clangs all around them. A dish shatters two inches from Saya's head. Knives dig like arrows across the carpet. Solomon is heavy and overheated on top, taking the entire downpour. She feels him gasp as jagged metal chunks strike his back and shoulders.
When he lifts his head, his eyes are frantic, swimmy. "Are you—all right?"
Winded, she can only nod.
At once, Solomon hauls her up by the arm. "Listen to me. I don't have a lot of time. You have to go to the study. Find a tranquilizer—get anything to sedate me with. Knock me out before I—"
"Knock you out? Solomon, what are you talking about? Why are you acting so strange—"
"Just do what the hell I tell you!"
"No! At least tell me what's wrong first! Is it because of the blood I gave you? Did it—"
Suddenly Solomon jerks back on a scream, hand flying to his forehead. The veins in his temples bulge like cords.
"Solomon—"
He gives off a sharp snarl, doubling over. Entire body shuddering, as if cold or in pain. His lips spill a fractured litany into the air, a hissing stream of oh god oh god oh christ oh god. Hands slipping, clawing at his flesh, as if trying to flay it off. Chest, neck, arms, legs, wrist—everywhere at once.
All the muscles on his body rise, turning erect. The tic-tic-tic at his throat tells her just how fast his heart is racing.
And she understands, too late, why he told her to sedate him.
When his head whips up, there is no recognition in his gaze.
His eyes are red and delirious. Expression an emblem of pure insanity.
"Solomon…" Nervous, she takes a step back. A broken teacup crunches under her bare foot. She shrieks, hopping on one toe, yanking the shard from her heel. Blood trickles from the cut, its deep aroma suffusing the air.
Solomon's nostrils flare. He lets off a sharp growl, sidling closer. She realizes he is lured to the scent of her blood. Loping fast and menacing toward her, a predator on the prowl for prey.
She raises trembling hands. "S-Solomon… wait! What's wrong with you? Don't you recognize me!"
Head tilted, he takes her in without seeing her at all. Blinking slowly, as if his eyes don't work anymore.
His head moves around the ravaged room, examining it as if for the first time. She imagines how it must look: the bloodstained carpet and red-speckled walls. The upended shelf. The glittering mess of china and silverware spread out on the floor. The bloodied sword.
The crystallized arm.
He freezes when he sees his severed limb. His hand flies immediately to his rejuvenated arm, clutching it as if shot. Eyes narrowing, a strange consternation pulling his features down.
He turns back to her with a growl.
"Solomon? What's wrong with you? It's me. It's Saya. Don't you recognize me?"
He doesn't answer. Merely lunges at her, whiplash sharp.
Startled, Saya ducks out of his way. Solomon slams into the shelf behind her. The crash reverberates through the entire room.
Heart hammering, she whirls. "Solomon—!"
He charges again. Saya evades narrowly, crouching behind a high-backed chair. "Solomon! It's me! Snap out of it! What's happening to you!?"
His face is so pale she can see the fine arterial veins on his temples. Sweat rolls down his forehead. His eyes are fixed on hers. Feral and unmoving. Filled with nothing but the purest, most unadulterated terror and madness.
A chill seizes her:
Oh God—this must have been how I acted, when I went crazy in Vietnam...
Then Solomon's lips twitch, stretching into a smile. Not his usual smile, but a smile unlike any she's ever seen before. All the teeth showing, outlined in blood. An animal baring his fangs at the enemy.
Suddenly, Saya wants to scream.
Instead she jumps onto the table, vaulting it for the sword on the floor. She doesn't want to hurt him, but the look on his face is terrifying. She needs something, anything to defend herself with.
Solomon leaps after her onto the table. Crouched on all fours like an animal.
She bends to scoop up the sword, just as he dives at her, poised to strike. Says cries out as his sudden weight slams her down. She hits the carpet face-first, her belly taking the full-brunt of the fall. A sharp pain explodes through her. For a moment, she nearly blacks out.
Solomon snarls, breath humid on her nape. His elbows and knees make four knobs of agony on her back. Fangs sinking, without warning, right into her neck.
She cries out in more shock than pain. Red lights erupt before her eyes. Solomon's mouth makes an obscene liquid sucking noise as he drains her blood. She feels it streaming warm and sticky down her shoulder, plastering her hair to her throat.
Whole body weightless, papery, held prisoner by his weight.
And a familiar seductive whisper, so often heard in the war, floats in:
Don't struggle.
If you stop moving, he'll kill you.
It will all be over.
The moment she hears it, she almost succumbs. Beautiful surrender, filling her whole body until her arms, her legs, her very heart, fade to fog. Beyond the oblivion of hers and Solomon's lovemaking, beyond the reprieve of her Long Sleeps. Wonderful death, wafting through her like an opiate, gently detaching her from life.
Until the babies kick inside her.
Her heart jumps, and she feels, as if for the first time, the cool circlet of Haji's bloodstone against her chest.
No.
She elbows Solomon in the ribs, shoving him off. He grunts and rolls back, fangs stained with her blood. Mouth and neck smeared red, glistening.
Saya staggers up. Whole body a pulsar of pain—worst in her spine, the ache stabbing like a dagger.
Solomon regroups quickly, circling her with a growl. She sees his tongue moving against his red teeth, relishing the blood that is as fatal to him as a gulp of cyanide.
A wild dismay fills her.
"Solomon, no!"
But he can't understand her. There is no sign of sanity on his face, let alone reason. Whatever was in those blood-packs has pared him down to the psychosis of pure instinct. Whetted him to an absolute beast.
This slavering, crimson-eyed demon—he is no longer her infuriating unfathomable impossible husband. He is not the Solomon she knows.
And in a few moments, he will cease to be anything but a frozen memory.
He lunges for her again, but she swerves away. Her eyes rake his form wildly, alert for any cracks or graying. How hasn't he crystallized yet? Surely a few sips are all it would take to—
She notices then, in greater detail, the cut Solomon inflicted on her palm. The wound should have healed up minutes ago. But its red lips are only half-closed.
Suddenly, she has a sick flash of rainfall and theater lights at the MET. Diva facing her in a tattered blue gown, a scarlet stain spreading on her chest. Blood streaming from her pale hands, finger rived in cracks.
Why? Why is it only happening to me?
A chill races through her.
Oh no...
Both Solomon and Dr. Julia had told her about this. Her healing would slow down, the moment her blood lost potency. And as soon as it did, she could expect her blood pressure to shoot up, and her cervix to start dilating. A signal that she was about to go into labor.
Saya freezes in place.
If her blood's poisonous content has finally diffused, then it will no longer have any effect on Solomon than Diva's.
And if that is true, then—
I'm going to give birth soon.
In a few hours... it's really going to happen.
An influx of terror strikes her. She realizes, until this moment, she hasn't been thinking about the childbirth at all.
At the same time, Solomon's livid eyes meet hers.
And she understands that she has to knock him out, put him under, before he does something unforgivable to both her and the babies.
Impelled by sudden urgency, she runs for the door. She recalls what he'd said about tranquilizers in his study. If she can reach them in time, if she can inject Solomon before he—
He grabs her flying hair in a fist, dragging her back. Saya screams as he slams her against the wall. Black spots dance in her field of vision. He holds her aloft over the floor, toes dangling, neck locked in his fist. She has a horrible split-second glimpse of his twisted face and blazing eyes before he leans in, fangs digging into her throat.
She cries out as sharp incisors pierce her skin, spilling blood down her neck. She struggles wildly; an erratic kick to his groin frees her.
Solomon howls, stumbling back. Saya slumps to the floor, wheezing raggedly. She feels the sticky warmth of her blood streaming down her neck, staining her collar and blouse. The room wavers like a shaky video-still.
From the corner of her eye, she registers Solomon moving into a strange crouch. Flat-footed, legs splayed, fingers wriggling like a nest of vipers. A dance?
No. A savate stance.
He must've been trained to fight that way in the Great War.
She barely evades the sudden jab of his open palm. The wall behind her cracks, plaster flying. Screaming, Saya scrambles out of his way. Solomon cuts her off in an eyeblink. One brutal straight-armed jab strikes her ribcage, sending her flying back. She hits the edge of the table, gagging in pain. Her ribs feel like they have been hammered by a cannonball.
Breathing hard, she leans against the table on trembling arms. Her eyes alight on the vase of roses before her.
Moving on instinct, she grabs the vase just as Solomon lunges for her again, whirling to smash the object in his face. Glass shatters, shards flying. Solomon growls and lurches back, blood streaming down his face. A large chunk of glass is embedded in his hairline. One side of his head is dark and matted with blood.
Roses tumble across the floor. The carpet is soaked with water from the vase, mingling with Solomon's dripping blood. Shards of glass glitter like gemstones at their feet, a few stained red from blood, others clear as teardrops. Emblems of fragility, of irretrievable danger and destruction.
Solomon's eyes blaze under crimson-stained curls.
Saya realizes, with a sinking dread, that he really does intend to kill her.
And in some eerie way, after how she jettisoned and ultimately ruined him, he has every right.
Tears fill her eyes.
"Solomon. I'm so so sorry…"
It is all she manages before Solomon slams her down, and the volley of blows begins.
What happens to Solomon is, loosely, called amphetamine psychosis. I've taken heavy liberties with the condition, but generally, it causes paranoid delusions, hysteria, and dangerous behavior. You start to see and hear things that aren't there. For instance your friend's tie suddenly looks like a snake—and you end up strangling him trying to 'kill' that snake. Or you may think the government's put cameras in your house, or that the shadows under your bed are going to fly out and eat you.
All this, and much more wackiness.
In any case, the results equal Going Apeshit. I just decided to be 'experimental' and see how it'd affect a Chevalier. I mean, the accelerated healing would ensure that they feel the drug's effects sooner. And go psychotic much sooner. And since Chiropterans are supposed to be feral creatures, Solomon would probably react to the drug like an animal.
That said, Saya's Vietnam spree always reminded me of amphetamine psychosis. She was terrified by everything, saw enemies everywhere, but still remembered how to use her sword properly.
Oh, and the part where her blood loses potency is my own bizarre theory. In the series, Nathan claimed that childbearing made Diva's blood turn useless, but I figure there has to be a certain phase in the pregnancy when that happens. So why not a few hours before labor? We could even say that watching Solomon attempt suicide induced it.
Hey, they used this strange theorem to explain Diva's death in the series. I figured I'd put in my (absurd) two cents XD
Any criticisms? General feelings of WTF? Don't hesitate to comment. Reviews are yummy ;)