The Blood That Bonds by Christopher Buecheler Page A

Will she tell me what’s
going on?”
    “ In more detail than you
could possibly want.”
    “ What about
Abraham?”
    “ If you experience anything
less than abject terror, I’ll be amazed.”
    Two raised her eyebrows. “That bad?”
    “ And worse. Abraham is …
eternal. He is not like others of my kind, not even like myself or
Melissa. He never was. You’ll, well … no, you won’t understand, but
you’ll feel it. If it gets too bad, I’ll know, and I’ll do my best
to keep you from harm.”
    Two looked at the door with renewed concern.
This didn’t sound like anything she had any interest in
experiencing. Melissa sounded fun. Abraham sounded dark at best,
deadly at worst. Theroen looked at her, smiled again, touched her
cheek.
    “ You’ll be fine. He may
even like you. I don’t think you’re like anyone else he’s
met.”
    “ Couldn’t that work out
just the opposite?” Two questioned. She felt like crying, and
didn’t know why. It seemed as if she could find nothing but despair
inside herself, as if the duality of her human persona, light and
dark, had been half-erased.
    “ It might.” Theroen’s voice
was curiously gently. “I wonder the same.”
    Two took a deep, shuddery breath, looked
down the hall, steeled herself.
    “ Okay. Well, let’s go meet
Abraham.”
    Her voice trembled only the slightest
bit.
     
    * * *
     
    The room was pitch black. The doors, which
Theroen had opened with remarkable ease, did not make a sound as
they swung backward into a blackness that the light from the
hallway could not begin to penetrate. They stood on the threshold
like archeologists at some newly unearthed tomb, waiting to see
what might spring forth from the darkness within.
    When the voice came, it was all Two could do
not to turn and run, screaming, down the hallway. It was like
rotting graves; gravel grinding at the bottom of some blackened
abyss; the howl of wind through a cemetery in October. Age beyond
age, depth beyond depth, darkness beyond darkness.
    “ You visit me, my son. You
bring something? A treat? A taste for Abraham? So long since you
last brought me some lovely treat.”
    “ Hello, father.” Theroen’s
voice was low, subdued, respectful. Two could not detect fear,
there, at least nothing akin to the terror currently sitting
unsteady in her belly.
    The thing in the room chuckled, a low
grating sound that sent squirms of revulsion up Two’s spine. She
fought them off, gripped Theroen’s hand instinctively.
    “ But so bravely she
stands!” the creature said. “It should please you, my dear. Others
have been unable to stand even long enough to hear my voice. Such
bravery, yet such fear. Do the legs tremble, my dear? Does the
heart beat and beat? Does the blood run thin?”
    This struck the creature as uproariously
funny, and he howled out at them from the darkness. Two felt what
little grip she retained on her composure slipping rapidly away.
Theroen sensed this, spoke up, cut off the laughter.
    “ This is the one of which I
spoke, Abraham. This is Two.”
    A momentary pause. Two felt herself being
considered by the thing, the sensation like worms crawling
sluggishly across her skin.
    “ She is still young,”
Abraham said at last.
    “ Yes.”
    “ You are still young!” he roared suddenly at Theroen, and Two was
unable to keep from cringing, making some small cry. Her face
paled, then reddened with embarrassment. Theroen appeared not to
notice. He stared into the darkness. Nodded.
    “ You knew, when you made
me, what I was to be,” he said after a moment.
    A sigh, like the shuffle of old papers.
    “ Light a candle, my son,”
Abraham said. “I would see you as a mortal does.”
    “ No mortal sees like we do,
father,” Theroen replied, but he produced a match from a pocket,
struck it against the granite table directly to the right of the
door, lit the wick of the massive candle that stood atop it. The
room seemed to swallow this light and then, perhaps finding it
unpleasant