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* * * *
Valentine left the Consul's office, hazy and flattened beneath a steamroller of a headache. He felt pressed flat by fatigue, as though the fading sun could pass through him as if he were a blood-smeared microscope slide. Consul Solon was persuasive. Valentine had to allow him that. He was also quite possibly a megalomaniac. It was a formidable psychological combination. No wonder Solon had come so far, so fast, in his quest for a federated empire of Kurian "states."
But like many ambitious conquerors, Solon had a problem. Would-be empire builders historically had two moments when even the smallest successful show of resistance might bring collapse. One was at the empire's birth, and the other was when it quit growing. Valentine doubted he'd live long enough to see the expansion stop.
That left turning Solon's Trans-Mississippi into a stillbirth.
olumbia, March of the forty-eighth year of the Kurian Order: The Reapers.
For the residents of any Kurian Zone, fear of the Reapers is as natural an instinct as hunger, thirst, need for sleep or sexual desire. The Reapers come and go as they please, the eyes, ears, mouth and appetite of their vampire masters from Kur. Pale-skinned, yellow-eyed and black-fanged, one might think they had been designed to inspire dread; death incarnate, as painted with the fearful symmetry of Bosch. And one would be right. The Reapers are designed and grown by Kur to be their avatars among the human race, for the process of extracting the vital auras the Kurians use to extend their lifespan into immortality. When animating one of their Reapers, the Reaper is the Kurian and the Kurian a Reaper, the ultimate version of a puppet. The symbiotes consume humans -the Reaper feeding off of blood, and the Kurians restoring themselves through the energy created by all sentient beings. Even a plant gives off vital aura, though in such minuscule quantities that only one Kurian Valentine had ever heard of managed to exist off of it, and even that was at the cost of lassitude and an addict's pangs. Like their brother Lifeweavers, divided millennia ago by the great schism over immortality gained through consuming sentients, a Kurian can appear to humans in many forms, but even this is not sufficient to protect their precious lives-all the more valuable thanks to their belief that they've cheated entropy. So for the dangerous work of mingling with, and feeding off, humans, they employ a team of Reapers, going from consciousness to consciousness and place to place the way a pre-2022 human might flip cable channels.
The Reapers are instruments built to last. Cablelike muscles are fixed to a skeleton as light as ceramic and strong as high-tensile steel. They're strong enough to take apart a car without tools, and can run faster than a horse from the time the sun goes down to dawn. They wear heavy robes and cowls of bullet-absorbing material. Daylight is not deadly to either them or the Kurians, though it interferes with the link between puppet and master, and obscures lifesign, the ethereal emanations created by vital aura that the avatars use to home in on prey. So the Reapers restrict their dark purposes to the sunless hours.
Like the night David Valentine came in for his interview with a vampire.
* * * *
"Have a seat, Mr. Knox le Sain," the Reaper hissed. It had a dry, menacing voice, like old bones grinding against each other. Its skin had all the life and animation of a rubber mask; its heavy robes had a faint mustiness, but a sharper smell-like hospital disinfectant-came from the sleeve holes and cowl. Piss-colored eyes, as cold and unblinking as a lizard's, fixed on him. The Reaper's gaze escorted him into the room.
"Colonel Knox Le Sain, my lord," Valentine corrected, sitting in the armless chair across from evil. The presence of a Reaper made the everyday motion into a fall. It was poised, still, and every instinct in Valentine's gut told him that it would spring into action, a praying mantis going after an unwary fly. He wondered how many fearful tells could be read on his face, and tried to assume the complacency of one who is used to conversation with a Reaper.
"That remains to be decided, do you know to whom you are speaking?" The Reaper's face had all the expression of an Easter Island monolith.
"I haven't had the privilege of your lordship's acquaintance."
"I can handle introductions," Xray-Tango broke in. "Le Sain, you're in the presence of the governor of New Columbia, Lord Mu-Kur-Ri. You understand how this"-blink-blink-bliiink-"errr, works?"
"I know I'm speaking to his lordship's vehicle for interacting with us. At least that's how it was explained to me."
"You're nervous, le sain." The Reaper used a quiet monotone, so Valentine wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement.
"Put yourself in my shoes. Wouldn't you be?"
"We are beyond emotion, you need not be frightened, we simply wish to thank you for your service in our recent flooding, had the warehouses and their stores been lost, our preparations would have been delayed, it is time for this territory to be pacified, once and for all. it has already taken far too long, one concern remains."
Sometimes the Kurians liked to toy with their food. Valentine wondered if the ax was just slow to fall in this case, or if the creature was speaking the truth.
"What concern?" Valentine asked. He tried to lower his lifesign, worried that the Kurians could use it as a lie detector of some sort. He imagined jamming all his fear into a blue bag he could reduce to the size of a marble that he could carry about in his pocket.
"The origins of your ghost commission, our cousins in Louisiana do not care to cooperate with us in tracing you. Certain inconsistencies need to be explained."
Valentine tried not to react at the word "ghost," his code name. "Guilty. I'm not a colonel. I was a captain once, but I got busted back to the ranks. Got involved with the wrong man's daughter. I heard you needed men fast. Figured it would be a chance at a new start, fresh ground."
"Sort of a Foreign Legion, Le Sain?" Xray-Tango said. "Not a bad idea. They've got one of those on the Mexican border with California. From what I hear it's a success."
"The Aztlan Rangers do not concern us in the Trans-Mississippi, General, tell me, Le Sain, how are you at following orders? Do you put your ambition ahead of your lord's trust?"
"My main ambition was to get out of the swamp. Then find a position where there was a chance of promotion. Done and done. You've already shown yourself hell-and-gone better man their lordships in Louisiana and Natchez. Food and uniforms are both an improvement up here. You said something about a reward?"
"We shall get to that, but where are my manners, colonel? General, have some food brought in."
Xray-Tango left, "he is an efficient officer," Mu-Kur-Ri's caped mouthpiece said, "he carries out orders intelligently, you would do wise to learn from him, in all things save one. He is a blade lacking an edge."
"Meaning?"
"He is shy of the hard decisions that come with a man of his position and responsibilities, at times, to keep a machine running smoothly, worn-out parts must be replaced, do you think you could do better?"
Valentine shook his head. "No. I've shot a few men in the back, but I'm not much at stabbing them there. Running a command of this size isn't in the cards; I don't have the know-how." Valentine smiled. "At least, not now."
