The Armageddon Blues | Page 7

y ken Selvren turned around, intending to inform
this stranger that she was quite content walking. She would do so in the
iciest tone of voice of which she was capable, which was considerably
so
/light blue eyes smiling at me and there is power that shines on him and

pours from him broad shoulders plain face and the power the power he
is smiling at me .../
/silver eyes .../
when something strange happened.
"Freeways," said Jalian d'Arsennette, in an accent that Georges had
never heard the like of before, with a voice so soft and clear that it
sounded like running water, "were made to be walked upon."
Georges got out of the car, and Jalian watched him, waiting; not unsure
or confused or wondering, simply waiting for what would happen next.
Georges Mordreaux stood at the side of the still-running green Camaro,
looking at the girl who stood at the edge of the cement, on a small
stretch of gravel, who was looking back at him with very silver eyes,
and suddenly he was more in love than he had been since the age of
nineteen.
You know, that was in 1731.
Dateline 1969 Gregorian.
Ralesh d'Arsennette y ken Selvren, Eldest Hunter of Clan Silver-Eyes,
lay comatose in the hospital that the ambulance had taken her to. The
doctors who examined her fully expected her to die. Her entire system
was in shock; she appeared to have suffered radiation burns of some
sort.
Her personal effects the doctors found vastly strange; a white overtunic
and white leggings, three knives, and two devices that they found
themselves unable to understand in any regard. One of the gadgets
looked like a meter of some sort, or a compass; the other looked like a
hand grenade. The local police were still debating whether or not they
ought to call in the F.B.I., two days after Ralesh had been admitted.
For two days, while the police argued among themselves, Ralesh lay in

a coma, a glucose solution dripping slowly into her veins.
On the third day, the silver-eyed freak was gone from her room in
intensive care, and her personal effects were missing from storage.
In place of the items that she took, the Eldest Hunter of Clan
Silver-Eyes left two things; a male intern and a female nurse. The nurse
had been tied and gagged and knocked unconscious. The intern, who
had simply not been born the right sex, had his throat cut from ear to
ear.
Dateline 1968 Gregorian.
"Walk?" asked Georges blankly. "On the freeway?"
An eighteen-wheeler blasted by them. The wind sent Jalian's hair
streaming backward. She nodded silently.
"Walk on the freeway," Georges repeated. He considered the idea.
"Where are you headed?"
"Anywhere." Jalian shrugged. "Nowhere. One place seems as good as
another, as long as it can be reached over a freeway. The freeways," she
added, "the freeways are beautiful."
"What are you?" Georges was staring at her.
Jalian studied him, without meeting his eyes particularly. "I might ask
you the same question.... I'm a wanderer. I walk the freeways, and I
wait for the fires that you destroyed yourself with. There are," she said
with the gravest expression Georges had yet seen on her, "thirty-eight
years until Armageddon."
"Thirty-eight ... what do you mean?"
Jalian said abruptly, "I return your question. What are you? You are
unlike any male I have ever known. You are much like a person," she
said courteously.

"Well," said Georges. "Thank you.... Where are you from? I don't
recognize your accent." Jalian's lips parted as though to reply, then
closed. She made a gesture of helplessness, and turned to leave. She
stopped in the act and said to Georges, "There is a bridge on my map. It
is..." She paused, converting time units in her head, "...a fifteen minute
walk from here. I will wait for you there, for a little while." She
gestured to the car, somehow managing to convey supreme contempt.
"Do not come in that, if you come." She began walking without waiting
for a reply.
Georges watched the retreating figure for a long time, until she had
passed from sight. He was horribly tempted to get back in the car and
leave and never be faced with this white-haired woman again.
Georges Mordreaux tended to think of himself as something a cut
above the ordinary mortal, almost semi-divine, and it was a fact that
Georges tended to awe people. It was strange to find someone who had
the ability to set herself up as his equal on their first meeting.
It was a long time before he started after her, on foot.
Behind him, the Camaro's engine began to falter.
Jalian d'Arsennette and Georges Mordreaux stood at the edge of the
bridge. A small, nearly dry river