‘Did it bite him?’
‘At least twice.’ Gilmour didn’t look up.
‘Is he-?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What can I-?’
‘Nothing yet.’ Gilmour examined Steven’s injured hand. With two fingers, he pinched the bite puncture, then massaged along Steven’s forearm with his free hand until a thin stream of blood flowed from the wound and pooled on the dusty wooden floor.
The bloodletting went on for while, long enough for Ford to calm down a little. ‘How much do you have to flush out?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Gilmour remained focused on what he was doing.
‘Can you do that to his neck?’
‘I’ll try, but I’m afraid it may be too late for that. I can drain the venom this way, but a bite in the neck-’ Gilmour grimaced, ‘that’s already circulated too deep.’
He let Steven’s arm rest beside the puddle and turned his attention to the swollen, purplish marks in the young man’s throat.
A wave, different from the swells that had been rolling beneath the brig-sloop all day, tossed the Morning Star off her heading. Her bow came down with a splash, noisy in the hold despite the background racket. Ford frowned and muttered, ‘Marrin.’
BRANAG’S WOLFHOUND
It was dark almost everywhere, except for a few points of light that were almost blinding. Steven squinted, putting a hand over his brow to see across the parking lot – an absurd gesture after dark, he had to admit. It’s headlights, high beams, he thought finally. Those are cars on the highway. A moment later, a van, a motorcycle and a family SUV passed by on their way into Golden. To the east, Denver glowed like a massive prairie fire, but he was too far into the hills to hear anything more than the occasional truck passing along Interstate 70. Downshifting on the last precarious slope before running out over nearly a thousand miles of flat nothingness, the trucks sometimes sounded like their engines would explode from the effort of slowing through the final downhill turns outside the suburbs. He could smell their brakes, even from here.
He was at the diner in Golden; they had the best pie in the Western hemisphere. It didn’t matter what kind; they were all the best. But the lights were out; the place was closed. Even the neon, which usually burned all night, had gone dark. Steven wondered if perhaps the city had run out of electricity.
It smelled good, too: clear mountain air with just a hint of pollution. Eldarn always smelled so clean, so free from pollutants and exhaust. He loved the smell of home; it was the scent of fallibility and progress all wrapped together in one heady aroma.
Hannah was here. She had met him to say good night. wish I could see you, just for a minute, just to say good night properly. Steven had driven down the canyon, anticipation tightening in his chest. He saw her now, leaning against the hood of her car, sipping from a Styrofoam cup. She must have arrived before the diner closed, before the city went black.
It had been too long since he had seen her, too long since they had spoken together. What would he say? What would she think of him, exhausted, thin and careworn, and full of some unexplained mystical legacy? Would it be the same, two twentysomethings dating, thinking about love, careers, marriage, and hoping for the future? He held his breath and crossed the parking lot.
‘Hello, Steven,’ she said.
‘I’ve been… I’ve- Hannah, I’ve been looking…’ he stammered.
‘I know. I’ve been looking for you too.’
‘How did you get here?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she smiled. Even in the dark he could see those tiny lines pulling at the corners of her eyes. Good Christ, but she’s beautiful. He fought off a wave of dizziness and reached for her.
Hannah boosted herself up on the hood of the car and took him into her arms.
Steven ran his hands across her back and down to the waist of her jeans. She wore the same blue sweatshirt she had worn the last time he had seen her here, but she too was thinner. He could feel her ribs pressing out through the soft cotton weave. ‘What happened to you?’ he said.
‘Never mind.’ She slipped a hand through his hair and pulled his face into the nape of her neck.
Steven inhaled. Lilacs. This has to be the only place left in the world where I can smell lilacs. The dizziness returned, this time getting the better of him, and his knees threatened to give way. He let her go, pressed his palms on the hood – it was still warm – and held himself up.
Hannah kissed him, soft at first, then harder, ardent, fierce, and he locked his knees, propping himself up so he could hold her, feel her move around him. She was squeezing his hips between her thighs, rubbing herself against him; he could feel heat rising from the engine. It was warmer than the night air in the foothills.
Pushing him back a little, not far, Hannah slipped the blue sweatshirt over her head and unfastened her bra. Steven tugged at it, all at once wanting it gone, out of the way; it caught on one shoulder, just for a second, then slipped free.
‘Help me with my jeans,’ she whispered.
He fumbled for the button while Hannah reclined, arching her back over the warm steel bed, luxuriating in the heat.
Her jeans were hard to unfasten. Steven struggled to stay focused; his own jeans were ready to burst. Pressing his bulging erection against the car, he tugged until Hannah’s buttons came open and she lifted her hips far enough for him to slide the jeans down to mid-thigh, not far enough, but Steven couldn’t wait. Yellow and red flares were bursting in the space behind his eyes, blinding him, and he blinked, let go for an agonising moment to rub his head.
‘What’s the matter?’ Hannah whispered, her silky hair splayed across the hood of her car. ‘Get up here with me.’
Steven swallowed. His throat was dry. Pressing himself harder against the car, he finally worked his own jeans open, slid the zipper down and tugged to get free. Struck by the hilarity of losing a wrestling match to a pair of pants in a public parking lot, Steven started to laugh. Hannah joined him, reaching a hand down and spreading her fingers across her lower abdomen.
Like an artist’s rendition of the Rule of Three, Hannah’s jeans were pulled open and askew across her lower thighs, her panties, cream-coloured and rolled over, a tangle of netting, and milky skin, dark hair and that glorious musty aroma that mingled with the smell of oil and exhaust, the smells of fallibility and home.
‘I’m gonna come,’ he said thickly. ‘I’m not even gonna make it up there.’
‘Yes, you will.’ She touched herself, briefly, before sliding her panties and jeans over her knees. They fell to the ground at Steven’s feet.
A dog padded around the front of Hannah’s car, stopped to look at them and then continued on. It was a big dog, like a wolf, and Steven yelped when he saw it. ‘Jesus whoring Christ,’ he cried, ‘did you see that?’ He let go of her thighs and watched the dog wander towards the far end of the parking lot, as if giving them a minute alone.
‘What?’ Hannah tried unsuccessfully to cover herself with her hands. She sat up, propped up on one elbow and strained to see. ‘Is someone there?’
‘No,’ Steven said, calming, ‘no, it was just a dog, someone’s lost dog, some big mutt out wandering around. It’s gone now.’
‘Well, good.’ Hannah ran her fingernails across his hips and down beneath his boxers. ‘Let’s get you out of these.’
He kissed her. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’
Steven moved his hips, letting his own jeans fall into a heap beside Hannah’s, then pulled down on his boxers. He was ready to burst; he just hoped he wouldn’t explode all over the side of her car. That’d be all he needed: to embarrass himself and have to find an all-night carwash in Golden.
The first of the spider-beetles crawled from the waistband of his boxers and, scurrying up his stomach, they fanned out on either side of his navel, like scouts for an invasion force.