Bloodsong Ch. 06

CHAPTER SIX: CHRYSALIS

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"What, again? It was fifty just last week!"

"And it's fifty-five this week, cuz, you see — supply chain — the war . . ."

"Bah to the war, this is robbery!"

Valeriana slunk out of the way as the irate human woman turned away from the counter and barreled past her. A can of something or other got slammed down on a nearby shelf; probably not where it was supposed to go. Valeriana eyed it, torn on whether she ought to feel apprehensive. She hadn't been able to follow the exchange. Whatever had left the woman so incensed about the innocuous container was lost on her.

By some miracle, the shop window survived the high-pitched hollering, which continued to spring forth until the dissatisfied customer stomped out the door, tossing it closed with so much force that the walls rattled. The man behind the counter waved Valeriana's way, not looking the slightest bit troubled.

"You can come up."

It took a significant amount of self-convincing for her to detach from the wall.

Did she remember the list? The whole of it? She had a copy folded up in her pocket. If it came to the worst and she clammed up or forgot how to pronounce something, she could slide it over for the human to read. Most of them could read, she'd been surprised to learn.

"Hello!" she sounded out, pitching her voice to emulate Tonya's. There'd been lessons, these past few days, every night for an hour after dinner, during which her host would say stock phrases for her to repeat. The proper greeting for early afternoon eluded her, but 'hello' was adequate across the board, or so she'd been told. "Can I buy . . . two grape jam, one bleach, one margarine, twelve spam, one large flour . . . in a bag?"

"Bleach, is that one jug, one gallon, a one-gallon jug . .?"

"Uhm." Valeriana suspected, from the not unfriendly but too sly smile she received, that the man was making fun of her. She rallied as best she could. "One gallon. In a jug. What is the price?"

She was to walk out if the answer was a number above the one on the bill she kept next to the list. The total turned out to be under by a hair. She pocketed the change and swept the groceries into the basket that Tonya had also given her. The cashier made an odd sort of noise when she picked up the flour bag last, tucking it under her arm. She didn't understand his surprise. It was plainly too big to go with the rest.

"Lift a lot, do you?"

"I'm sorry. I am still learning English," she sang, those words flowing smoothly. She'd practiced them to the point of exhaustion, figuring that she'd have to say them often. Since they had concluded the transaction with success, she prepared for a swift exit. "Thank you! Goodbye."

How long had it been? Five minutes, ten? Frank had told her he'd be driving around in fifteen.

Valeriana felt painfully awkward, standing outside the store with the basket hanging from her shoulder and the flour under her arm. On Earth, the impression of being out of place forever assailed her. She woke with it and went through the day with it and went to bed with it and took it into her dreams on the nights she got respite from the nightmares that had plagued her since her arrival.

This is not your world. Everything around her, every word overheard and unknown, screamed it. The first time the sentiment had occurred to her in so many words, she'd laughed. She knew that. Of course she knew she wasn't home — how could she not?

Still, it was one thing to know something for a fact and another to experience it continuously, like an unsettling, lingering draft.

Today Earth's pale sun shone and, wrapped in enough wool to dress a herd, she had no complaints regarding the cold. It was a busy hour and there were plenty of humans out and about, the commotion of vehicles on the road and talking and walking masking the absence of a background tune, making the street feel friendlier. There was no one she needed to entertain or be mindful of or avoid. Not even Lady Marabeth; she hazarded an educated guess that the woman would sooner hack her own leg off than be caught shopping among humans. She was beyond anyone's notice, and that ought to have been a relief.

Not yours. Not for you.

Perhaps this was why there'd never been a serious interest in making Earth part of the Tsikalayan dominion. Its inhabitants being unwelcoming would have been a minor hassle, but when it was the world itself that felt resentful of her presence . . .

Frank's van had an unusual way of honking, like a blood song of its own. Valeriana breathed out, relieved, when the strident gwhee-ing provided a distraction.

"Oh, did we make you wait? We thought it'd take longer, there's usually a big line," Tonya said. Valeriana shrugged and handed in her bounty through the side window, with as accomplished a feeling as she'd ever had. Until Tonya, like the cashier, made a strange noise at the flour. "Gosh, no, wait, that's too heav— Frank, help!"

Together they struggled to get the bag behind the seat while Valeriana stood by, dying on the inside and falling over herself to apologize. She'd forgotten — humans were weaker.

At least the groceries were correct. Tonya's only remark was that it should have been a two-gallon jug of bleach, but that it was her fault for not specifying. For Frank's part there'd been muttering about everything having been more expensive than predicted, about the Claytons being shameless thieves, yes there was a war ongoing, but there was overcharging and then there was what those cunts did . . .

Valeriana settled in the space she'd carved for herself between the backs of the two front seats, sighing with quiet relief.

Frank and Tonya had been considerate of her, and she'd behaved as best she could in return, but there'd been growing pains. Mrs. Drakma had dropped in two days into her stay, to check on her and hand in an assortment of clothing and toiletries. During that brief encounter, Valeriana had received the suggestion that it would reflect well on her to help with chores and whatnot. She'd felt wretched. Doubly so because it hadn't crossed her mind that she ought to offer.

She'd run into trouble whilst trying to make up for her lack of consideration, too.

She'd tried her hand at cooking, assuming she'd get the hang of it. She'd been wrong. Tonya had offered her cooking lessons after they'd put the fire out and requested that she never turn the stove on again without supervision. Valeriana had been too embarrassed to take the lessons and not touched the stove since. Attempts to clean hadn't resulted in so much disaster. However, after a while, she'd noticed that Tonya would dust and swipe the floors a second time after she'd gone over them, proving her efforts dire.

Currently, Valeriana did the dishes and set the table and helped with the vegetable garden. She wasn't gifted with plants, but she'd spent enough afternoons in sweltering greenhouses with Belladonna yelling at her to trust that she wouldn't murder every green thing she touched.

She might be on her way to settling in. She had nothing but good things to say about the hospitality she had received. She was ever so grateful.

She'd been counting down the days until word came from Jack even so.

Mrs. Drakma hadn't brought news when she'd dropped by. Tonya and Frank hadn't mentioned anything either, and so Valeriana had resigned herself to waiting, not daring to push for more. She could be patient. Jack would answer her message, irrespective of what had transpired between her and his aunt. Aunts. He had stood by her in the aftermath of murder. He'd be baffled that she'd tried to help a slave escape, but wouldn't wash his hands of her for that.

He would answer. Hopefully soon.

"We're going to stop at headquarters," Frank said, elaborating, when she shot him a look of startled incomprehension, "My workplace. Mrs. D said she'd like to see you, so we're spending the afternoon there while my darling wife fritters it away at the hairdresser — Toni, don't hit me, I'm driving!"

"She wants to see me?" Valeriana quashed a flutter of hope. Mrs. Drakma could need her for reasons that had nothing to do with Jack having sent news. Even bad reasons.

"Yes. Didn't tell me what she wants to talk about, though."

Valeriana let the subject turn to more trivial matters, which saw her shut out of the conversation for not knowing what to add. She still listened in; unraveling the ties that bound her hosts to Briseis Drakma had become something of a pastime for her. The woman herself had referred to them as associates. Tonya had made a passing mention of her running Frank ragged with the war business. Frank himself had kept a staunch silence that only raised more questions.

She watched the town slip by in a brown and gray blur.

Frank had taken her on what he'd dubbed a 'reconnaissance trip' on her first afternoon as their guest, showing her around, pointing out landmarks and citing names and events that had slipped Valeriana's mind no sooner than they entered it. It had been peculiar, being alone with a man who wasn't her father or Jack, even if he was human, even if she knew she had nothing to fear. Frank and Tonya were married, which she understood to be like being mated, but without a mating bond. She'd wondered how that could work, until she'd recalled the shortness of human lifespans. Perhaps there wasn't enough time for couples to tire of each other.

"This is it," Frank said. They'd pulled up in front of a four story building, with a brickwork front and a stately air. Westmont was a flat town overall, but there were clusters of taller buildings. Valeriana tried to decipher the plaque next to the main door. Frank followed her gaze and laughed. "Don't let the fancy trappings fool you, it's just to blend in. I don't think anyone's ever walked inside to ask what L. Freemore Investments invests in. Mrs. D has the paperwork sorted out if that day comes, though."

They bade Tonya goodbye and went inside, stepping into an empty reception area. There was a bell, but Frank didn't ring it, instead taking a key from his pocket and unlocking the door behind the main desk.

Valeriana followed him through, into a bustling hallway. Like at the Mayfly, there were no windows. Thankfully, that was as far as the place went in echoing it. There was wood paneling on the walls and a scruffy carpet of indeterminate color covering most of the floor, and signs and posters hanging everywhere. There was not one Ki-laar in sight. In their place there were humans, heaps of them, talking, muttering, complaining when someone bumped into someone coming the other way or just milling about.

Frank guided her to a less populated room, where a handful of people sat by a round table. He coughed into his fist and elbowed her. Getting the hint, Valeriana put her hand up and waved. She would have of her own accord, had she not been sidetracked upon spying Mrs. Drakma among the faces gathered.

"Ah, there you are!" Jack's aunt bounded over and coerced her into the nearest chair that wasn't serving as a glorified filing cabinet before introducing her to the rest of the room. "Gentlefolk, this is Valeriana Lazur, whom I've told you about. Valeriana, these are some members from the Westmont chapter of the Liberation Front, which I haven't told you about and would like to. Oh, and there're brownies, please help yourself."

Valeriana didn't. She kept her hands folded on her lap and her eyes downcast, thinking that her sisters would be livid at the mess. Darkness unbound, even she was horrified.

Those were the main thoughts kicking around in her head while Mrs. Drakma explained the Liberation Front, giving her the full company digest and succinctly summarizing every reason why the High Council had signed off on that kill-on-sight directive.

"Alright," she mumbled, once the woman fell silent. The humans must have had a passable command of Barashnik, because most had looked like they were following along and now they all turned towards her, causing her to gulp. "That's all very . . . I mean, it's kind of you, that you started this group to help fight the slave trade. And I . . . I won't share all of this that you just told me with anyone, even if it's not like there's much I could reveal, what with the Council already knowing and hunting you down for it, but I—"

"Oh dear, she's doing it again! Someone bump her on the back so that she remembers to breathe."

"No, no, I'm . . . I'm fine. I am." Just hopelessly lost. "I don't understand why you'd want me here to hear this, however. I mean, if that's why you wanted me to come."

"I'm telling you, and want you to know, because the Front could benefit from having you as a member. As would you from joining us." Her face must spell out her reservations, if overshadowed by shock. Mrs. Drakma went on talking while Valeriana struggled to come up with a coherent response. "Worry not, I don't expect an answer now. Today I'll show you around. Should make a nice change from being cooped up in the suburbs."

"I, I suppose?"

"Brilliant!" Mrs. Drakma paused and took a bite from her chocolate pastry, wiping crumbs onto the floor with a distracted swipe of her sleeve. Valeriana had already suspected that the humans weren't to blame for the chaos amid which they held meetings. Witnessing that absolved them wholesale. "Away with us, then."

Valeriana couldn't help but be reminded of her first day on Earth, of another tour of another building. However, the impression faded within minutes of trotting after the woman at a snail's pace, being made to peer into rooms and regaled with ornate descriptions of every piece of furniture and appliance. These were typewriters which one of the born-and-grown-in-town Front members had scrounged from his cousin's company. That was an electric kettle — the things humans came up with, very ingenious, so useful! — and couldn't be left unattended if turned on, because it had nearly caused a fire on one occasion. This, meaning a room where opening the door triggered an avalanche of paper, was the records room, but truthfully files got stashed anywhere where they fit.

Valeriana had noticed that. It would be rude to ask how the organization functioned whilst seeming powered by chaos, and therefore her lips remained sealed. But she wondered.

It took an hour for them to go up and down the building. Valeriana limited herself to listening and issuing harmless commentary when she'd gone too long without speaking. When they returned to the ground floor, sitting themselves in a wide office space which morphed into a kitchen midway through, she finally worked up the courage to broach the question that had wanted to jump off her tongue since her arrival.

"You didn't . . . have you heard anything from Jack yet?"

Mrs. Drakma stopped blowing on the tea she'd poured them both and set the cup aside. Despite not knowing her well, Valeriana had formed enough of an impression to realize that such a thing didn't bode well.

"I hesitate to say this, as it'll do nothing but worry you, but since you'll keep asking . . . I don't expect we shall have an answer from him anytime soon. The Montréal gate started barring crossings on Sunday. If he didn't receive your letter and write back before that, I doubt you'll have word of him until they sort the situation. How long that will take . . . who knows?"

"What situation?" Valeriana asked, puzzled and concerned in equal measure. She hadn't heard of anything that would justify closing off a gate. In fact, she'd never heard of a gate being closed off. Hadn't known it was something that could occur.

"Off-world invasion, by the Circles of Inocoria."

The answer bewildered her further, postponing her dip into panic. If pressed to say who might launch an attack on Barashi, Valeriana would have replied . . . Cynihe, or Kaldiciperia, and even then she'd name them with skepticism. For all that the former existed in a constant state of rebellion, and the latter was the sole Bound World that kept an armed force, they'd never.

The Circles of Inocoria would not even have emerged as a contender, for one elementary reason.

"But . . . they're not inhabited? There's nothing there, just ocean."

Mrs. Drakma picked her tea up again, the corner of her mouth twitching as she brought the cup to her lips.

"Perhaps someone ought to have taken a closer look at those waters."

"How, though? How did this happen? It's not . . . none of it makes any sense!"

"Mm," the woman said. "Would you like me to tell you what I know?"

"Yes!"

"It's all rather unpleasant." When Valeriana refused to falter, there came a longer pause, followed by a sigh as Mrs. Drakma arranged the narrative. "Two days after we met, one third of the High Council's treasury custodians got slaughtered during their quarterly meeting. By one of its own members, no less. A day later, another attack occurred at the Alkarosh City slave market. Fourteen dead and many more wounded."

Valeriana shuddered. She thought about her sisters. She thought about Jack. They would still have been in the city at the time. She tried not to make herself ill from contemplating the possibilities. She likewise subdued her distress as best she was able, lest Mrs. Drakma take either as a sign to stop talking.

"In the second instance, the culprit was put down by the city guard. Examination of the body revealed an unknown creature fused with their spine and brainstem. Interrogating the assassin responsible for the first attack, who'd been taken in alive, revealed information much more interesting." The woman took another sip of tea. This time Valeriana knew she was using the cup to mask a smile. "They call themselves the Inocore. They're aquatic, but can survive on land through fusion with hosts of compatible species, which comprehends anything with a level of intelligence. Given that they overtake executive functions and there is no way to extract them, their host bodies are as good as dead from that point onwards."

"Mindless parasites, then?"

"Mindless? No, oh, no. Where in all that did you figure they were mindless? They are clever enough, and broke into Barashi's seas — it's unknown at the moment how many crossed over, but everything points towards them being legion — with a clearly defined goal: to annihilate all of us that they can get their shiny little pleopods on."

The ensuing pause stretched long and weighty, at least on Valeriana's end.

"You . . . don't seem concerned." Delighted was more the word, and attempting to mask her disgust was a war she lost at inception. She'd thought . . . Mrs. Drakma was nicer than her sister, leading to the naive presumption of her being a better person. Doubts now formed in that regard. All the more because the woman reacted to the accusation with an unaffected shrug.

"I'm not. Barashi is a blight, spreading rot to whatever it touches. A world of slave traders and slaveholders, who won't change their ways without strong cause to."

"Not everyone there is like . . . like your sister. Some—"

"Some are complicit through their silence and inaction, yes. Perhaps the fact that for once, they are the ones being stripped of will and reduced to tools will afford them the perspective they lack. Hope, as the Great Dark, is after all everlasting. Or perhaps they won't — in which case, is losing them such a loss?"

" —some just can't do much, because it's not up to them." How Mrs. Drakma could sit there, accusing others of lacking perspective when she didn't recognize a fact so basic, boggled the mind. "Because their lives aren't up to them either, even if they are Tsikalayan! Not to mention the children — can you smile and say that those also deserve to be made as good as dead?"