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A baleful yellow eye, slit-pupiled, peered at him from a face pinched by internal agony. It hissed, fought for breath.
Gail Foster Post had given birth to a Reaper.
Suki backed away, hand over her mouth.
"Boy or a girl?" Gail said, then, when there was no reply, "What? What?"
Boothe showed her.
"Get it away from me!" Gail screamed. "Bastards! Lying bastards!" Her words trailed off into sobs.
"Stay still," Boothe ordered. "Suki, put three more drops in another shot glass."
"Give it to me," Valentine said, extending a towel. He took the struggling infant-cleaned its sexless body.
"What a mess. Tearing everywhere in the uterus," Boothe said. "I hope I can fix this." She turned her light on Valentine. "Just pinch its nose and mouth shut. Bury it outside."
Valentine took the infant out into the December air, instinctively holding it close against the chill. He looked at the blood-smeared face, purple and green and blue, crisscrossed with veins, horror in miniature. Black nails, impossibly tiny, gleamed wetly as it moved its hand.
The future death machine coughed.
Did yellow eyes make you evil? A pointed tongue?
"Do you have a soul?" someone asked, using his larynx, tongue, and mouth.
Valentine wondered if he'd directed the question to the newborn or to himself. Tiny nostrils, long little jaw; he could smother it one-handed.
My DNA is 98% identical to a chimpanzee. How much code do I share with you?
However much, a tiny amount of it was Kurian. Evil.
Or Lifeweaver. The Dau'weem and Dau'wa shared however many gene pairs they possessed, thirty thousand or three million. They differed only in their opposition over vampirism.
Could he say a creature fresh from the womb deserved to die, thanks to its appearance?
Not appearance, design.
A newborn, innocence embodied in what felt like ten pounds of sugar. Harmless. But experience told him otherwise.
Songs of Innocence and Experience. William Blake.
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Valentine closed up the towel, protecting the newborn tiger against the chill. The Reaper's head turned, sensing something it liked in Valentine's wrist.
Valentine pushed his pulse point a little closer, offering.
Its mouth opened, latched on, and Valentine felt the prick of the sharp tongue. The penetration only hurt a little.
Softly, the Reaper fed.
