with resin - and for a moment he could even smell the roasting meat...
... Until he smelted something else!
Smelled - heard - sensed - something else!
A presence! An intelligence!
And this time he simply could not be mistaken. Footsteps, running. A mouth, gasping. A heart, pounding.
Radu's heart pounded, too, but just once: a single great throb in his breast, finaly bringing him awake ...
Bonnie Jean came to the place of her Master. She came panting, with pictures of the vat-creature's slit of an alien eye still burning on the eye of her own mind. And she came pondering the question of her own presence here. It was hardly the first time she'd so pondered, and it wouldn't be the last. But did it constitute uncertainty, making her unworthy? Surely not. Surely it was part of the ritual: not only to perpetuate Him but her own faith in Him. For after al she was of Rim, however many times removed.
And the creature in the vat? Was that o/Him, too? Bonnie Jean knew that it was, and once more was set to wondering: what sort of a future world would it be, when He came up to elevate mankind into His kind? What part could a Thing or things such as the vat-creature play in the dark and deadly future world of her Master's forevisioning? His guardian creatures? But against what, in a world where the dog-Lord was the ultimate power?
At the western extreme of the lair she recognized her location, came to a halt, controled her breathing. It would never do to approach Him in this agitated state, showing signs of her uncertainty. But as she waxed more and more like Him, the more fearful she grew ...
... And that was a thought to give pause, too! What, Bonnie Jean Mirlu, His from birth, fearful? And of Him? Ridiculous! It was this place, playing on her nerves, her mind; it was the creature in its resin vat; it was ... anxiety, yes! The advent of Harry Keogh, and the watcher in Edinburgh, and recent events in general.
But most of al it was awareness of the fast-approaching time of her Master's awakening, when He would be up again. A time of change, when her oh-so-long established way of life must of necessity change, to accommodate His.
For at present He was only her Master in absentia, and she was the 'wee mistress.' But... how much influence would Bonnie Jean retain when the Master was back? And if it's true that when the cat's away the mice wil play, how 'playful' the cub when the Wolf is not to house? Would her Master have given thought to such, or was it beneath Him? Could He consider such things, in His long sleep, and why did she give thought to it? Had she been unfaithful, if only in her mind, in her thoughts? Bonnie Jean didn't think so; but in any case never seriously, and never maliciously!
But then, she would be Wamphyri! And they were ever prideful, territorial... and this had been her territory for close on two hundred years!
What!?
She couldn't go to Him thinking these thoughts! She hadn't intended to think them! It was this place, her mood, the question of her own continuity, when al that should concern her was His!
How would it be when He was up? What would be alowed, and what disalowed?
Men? Oh, she'd known men over the years. But that had been entirely compatible with her faithfulness to Him. Indeed He had required that she know men, so that she might be experienced in al things. He wished no wilting, virginal hand-maiden sitting at His right hand in that dark, future world of His visions but an experienced woman. No naive, blushing bumpkin but a scholar in al Man's ways, in his emotions as wel as his sciences. For the more a man (or a woman, or a changeling creature out of the myths and legends of the past) knows his enemy, the more easily he may dispose of him.
Intelligence ...
Aye, intelligence, that was it! ... To gather knowledge of the world around, for His sake. And surely to have intelligence was to be intelligent and to question things? Even such questions as Bonnie Jean had asked herself? But they were not symptomatic of treachery.
Never that.
Intelligence? ... A presence? ... Bonnie! Bonnie Jean! (A grunt, almost of pain, finaly of recognition, but sounding in her mind!)
And then B.J. reeled as if struck in the forehead, as she knew that the