streets. And as I control all the computer records, no one's going to notice if I liberate a few drops now and then, for myself and a few special friends. You can't try and run a hellhole like Mistport without some crutch or other to lean on. And we don't all have it in us to be incorruptible heroes, like Investigator Topaz. I'm not an addict. I can control it. I'm not so sure about you, Hazel. You always were the greedy kind. Coming off it the last time nearly killed you. You really want to go through that again?'
Hazel stared down into her mug, not looking at him. 'You don't know the pressure I'm under, John. So much has happened in such a short time. One minute I'm just a small-time outlaw, of no interest or importance to anyone but myself, and the next I'm a rebel, and everyone's after my head. Including some of those supposed to be on my side. As long as I was fighting and running for my life and didn't have time to think, I was fine, but now… Everything I do matters, everything I say has consequences, not just for me but for the whole damned rebellion. They've made me a bloody hero and a leader, and expect me to be perfect.
'And that's not all. Something happened to me on the Wolfling World, John. Something… changed me. I'm more than I used to be, and I'm scared all the time. I don't think I'm me anymore. I have bad dreams, and I can't tell if I'm remembering the past or the future. I can do things now that I never could before. Strange and terrible things. The Blood is the only thing that helps. It… stabilizes me, calms me… helps me believe I'm still human.'
She put down her mug and reached out with her hand, and the glass phial of Blood leaped up from the table and shot into her waiting hand. Silver looked at her, startled.
'I didn't know you were an esper, Hazel.'
'I'm not. I'm something else. Something… more.' She unscrewed the top of the phial and sniffed delicately at the black liquid inside. Her nostrils flared as the familiar scent filled her head, dark and smoky. She breathed deeply, sucking it into her lungs, and sparks flared and fluttered in her veins. She tilted the phial carefully, and allowed a single drop of Blood to fall onto her tongue. She swallowed quickly, to avoid as much of the bitter wormwood taste as she could, and then refastened the phial's cap and put it back on the table, so not to be tempted to take a second drop. She leaned back in her chair, and groaned aloud as the familiar heat rushed through her, burning along her nerves, making her strong and powerful and confident again. The pressures and the duties and the doubts that plagued her were swept away, and, for the first time in days, her face relaxed. She smiled slowly. It felt so good. So good not to have to care anymore.
Silver watched her from his chair, keeping his own counsel till he was sure she was well under. He had intended to join her, but memories of what Hazel had been like in the worst throes of addiction had changed his mind. He wasn't an addict. He could control himself. So he stayed straight and sober, because he had a strong feeling that Hazel needed him to be there, watching over her. Even as he thought that, her half-shut drowsing eyes snapped suddenly open, and she sprang to her feet, looking wildly about her. Silver was quickly on his feet, too, putting his mug on the table so he could take Hazel by the arms. She didn't seem to notice him, and her arms were rigid as steel bars. Silver watched her carefully. You had to be careful with Blood users, when you weren't cranked yourself. With their new strength they could kill a normal human in a moment and not give a damn till after the Blood had worn off. Hazel stared about her, her head twisting violently from side to side, her eyes huge in her suddenly gaunt face.
'Hazel,' said Silver, keeping his voice carefully calm and even. 'What is it? What's wrong?'
'It's different,' Hazel said thickly. 'I'm different. I shouldn't have taken Blood here. Not with so many espers around. They're… affecting me. I can't tell what's in my head and what's outside. The Blood's… awakening something within me. Something I didn't even know was there. I can see things, John, so many things. Nothing's hidden from me anymore.'
She stared at the wall before her, and suddenly it was gone. It only took Silver a moment to realize that he was seeing what she was seeing; her mind linking with his to show him what was in the next room. The young burglar named Cat was spilling brightly shining jewels onto a table from a leather pouch, while his fence, the woman called Cyder, laughed and clapped her hands. Hazel turned her head away, and the wall became visible again. She glared at the opposite wall, and it disappeared to reveal a card game deteriorating into muffled shouts and accusations.
Silver tried to shake her, but couldn't move her an inch. She suddenly turned her stare on him, and in that moment he felt utterly transparent, as though she could see everything within him, good and bad and in between, all captured in a moment. She seemed bigger than Silver, towering over him like some ancient god of judgment with no trace of mercy or compassion. He stepped backwards, jerking his hands away from her arms as though they'd burned him. Hazel's stare turned inward, and images began to blink in and out around her. Visions came and were gone in seconds, cycling through faces and places, some of which Silver recognized.
An old man sat slumped on a cot, worn and broken down by life, wearing a janitor's uniform. 'They broke me. Go look somewhere else for your savior or leader.' Then he was gone, and Owen took his place, bleeding from a dozen wounds, sword held out to ward off an unseen enemy. 'When you see the opening, run, Hazel. I'll keep them occupied.' A mob of shadows surged forward from all sides, and he disappeared beneath them, still swinging his sword. They blinked out, replaced by a grinning Ruby Journey. 'I'm just in it for the loot.' Silver tried to reach out to Hazel again, but couldn't get near her. Her memories had the force of reality.
Ruby was replaced by a tall, furred, and lupine figure that Silver realized with a jolt had to be a legendary Wolfling. The huge figure looked right at Silver, and said, 'It is a sad and bitter honor to be the last of one's kind.' He disappeared, replaced by a Hadenman with glowing golden eyes. Behind him towered a vast honeycomb of gold and silver, thickly encrusted with ice. The long-lost Tomb of the Hadenmen. The augmented man called Tobias Moon stared at Silver, and said in his buzzing inhuman voice, 'All we ever wanted was our freedom.' And then the ice melted, and strange colors came and went on the air, and the Hadenmen emerged from their Tomb, great and glorious and perfect beyond hope. And then there was only Owen again, staring sadly into Hazel's eyes. 'You can't fight evil by becoming evil.'
Hazel turned away from him, and Owen disappeared as she looked at Silver. Their eyes met, and new visions appeared. Silver, making deals with crooks and scum, to keep the peace in Mistport's streets. Silver, paying off legbreakers like Marcus Rhine, so they wouldn't interfere with his Blood distribution network. Silver, looking the other way, as rivals were eased out or shut down the hard way. The visions faded away, and Hazel looked at Silver with new, cold eyes.
'Just a few drops, now and then, for you and a few special friends? Bullshit. You've been running your own distribution network for the drug, all over the city. How many new plasma babies are there out there now, John? How many Blood junkies lying stiff and cold in empty rooms because they couldn't afford your prices?'
'I don't know,' said Silver. 'I try not to think about it. I'm just… getting by, like everyone else in Mistport. Inflation's gone crazy since the esper plague. Money's not worth half what it was. What savings I had were wiped out. If I wasn't doing it, someone else would. You know that. I never meant to hurt anybody, but…'
'Yes,' said Hazel. 'But. There's always a but, isn't there?'
Silver stepped forward, one hand reaching out to her. She grabbed it with her own, and he winced at the harsh, unforgiving strength in her. She smiled at him coldly. 'The show's not over yet, John. You've seen the past and the present. Now here comes the future. Whether we're ready or not.'
Her hand clamped down hard, and Silver cried out as the room disappeared around them and chaos took its place. People were running screaming in the streets of Mistport. Buildings were burning. Attack sleds filled the skies above. Energy beams stabbed down through billowing clouds of black smoke. The dead lay everywhere. War machines smashed through the city walls. Burning barges floated down a River Autumn thick with blood and choked with corpses. And above it all, a never-ending scream that had nothing of Humanity in it. Hazel released Silver's hand and reality crashed back as the small cramped room reappeared around them. Silver fell back a step, shaking and shuddering, his head still full of the stench of spilled blood and burning bodies, the hideous unending scream still ringing his ears. Hazel stood and looked at him, cold and unforgiving as any oracle.
'That's the future, John. Your future and mine. And you helped bring it about. Something Bad is coming to Mistworld, Something Very Bad. And it will be here soon.'
And then suddenly she was just Hazel again, her cloak of power and majesty gone in a moment, and she sank back down into her chair by the fire again, looking small and tired and very, very vulnerable. Silver slowly moved forward and sat down in the chair facing her. Part of him wanted to run screaming from the room, but he couldn't do that. Part of him was frightened almost to panicking by the hideous thing he'd seen his old friend become, but he couldn't let her see that. She needed him, needed her old friend and comrade, and though he had done many awful things in his time, a few of which even he was ashamed of, John Silver was damned if he'd let her
