Blood Legacy: The Story of Ryan (18 page)

“Randy! Here boy! Randy!”

Susan glanced over. Jason had moved some distance from her and she could barely make him out in the lengthening shadows. She called to him. “Jason, don’t go any further.” She stood up and started towards him.

“Randy,” Jason called out, “where’d you go boy?”

Susan picked up her pace. Jason was still moving away from her, and now she could only see his white tennis shoes. “Jason,” she called out, trying not to sound alarmed, “I’ll be right there, stop where you are.”

Jason stopped, but then heard a yelp from the shadows. The plight of his puppy was probably the only thing that would make him disobey his mother. He disappeared into the shadows.

Susan began running, truly afraid now. “Jason!” she cried out, “Jason, come back here!”

Jason reappeared from the shadows, he himself shaken at the darkness. He tried to muster his courage to re-enter the blackness to search for the puppy. He took a deep breath to do so, but Susan caught his arm just in time.  She yanked him backward to her. She crouched down, clutching him tightly. She could feel her heart beat against his chest and tried to calm her irrational fear.

A shadow fell over her.

Susan felt nausea leap up into her throat, so quickly did her fright return. She slowly turned her head to look upward, uncertain of what she would find.

Ryan stood gazing down at them. She was gazing at the boy. She held the puppy out toward Jason. “Is this your dog?” she asked in her silvery voice.

Susan was so relieved she couldn’t be angry. Jason seemed enthralled as he stepped away from his mother. He reached up to take the puppy from her. “Thank you,” he said, then continued uncertainly, “you’re the lady from the hospital.”

Ryan nodded. “And who might you be?”

Jason put on a mock-serious face. “I’m Batman,” he stated sternly. He glanced up at the golden-haired woman. “And you,” he stated with some authority, “will be Robin, the Boy Wonder.”

Susan’s tired relief immediately transitioned to mirth as she muffled laughter in her hand. Out of all the things her son could say to this creature in front of him, that had to be the most inappropriate. Ryan simply stared down at him with her unblinking gaze.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

Susan controlled her laughter. It was hard to judge this woman at times. Susan revised her last thought. It was hard to judge her all the time.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

Ryan turned her attention to Susan. “Not long,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder in the shadows. “I don’t think you should be out here, though.”

Susan felt a cold chill of fear once more. She wondered what Ryan saw in the shadows that she could not. Ryan did not elaborate. “I will walk you home,” was all she said.

It did not take them long to reach Susan’s house. Jason, against his protestations, was put to bed. His puppy slept in a box next to his bunk, and when Susan glanced in on him five minutes later, both he and the puppy were asleep in the bed.

“I once slept like that,” Ryan said, gazing over her shoulder at the sleeping child.

Susan jumped. She wished Ryan would make a little more noise when she moved about. She closed the door behind her. “Would you like some tea or something?”

To her surprise, Ryan accepted her offer. While Susan made the preparations, Ryan leaned in the doorway. Susan rattled some pots and pans for a minute, then began boiling the water. She was actually glad Ryan had showed up this evening. The story she had told in her study had haunted Susan, to the point where she even dreamed about it. She still wasn’t certain if she believed the woman, but she wanted to hear the rest of it, anyway.

“What happened after you drank that man’s blood?”

“Victor?” Ryan asked, slightly surprised Susan had asked. At her affirmation, Ryan said, “After that, I slept for a very long time.”

Susan wondered if that was what she had been talking about earlier. “How long is a ‘long’ time?”

Ryan’s eyes became distant. “I slept for nearly 14 years, which was about half the expected life-span of a peasant like myself at that time.”

Susan pulled the boiling teakettle from the stove. “Well, other than the fact that what you’re saying is impossible, sleep is needed for physical regeneration.” She poured the water into two cups. “Sleep deprivation causes all sorts of physical and psychological problems.” She was suddenly struck by the memory of the continual REM Ryan demonstrated while unconscious. “Do you dream?”

Ryan glanced at her sideways, a charming smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She appeared to possess a sudden and remarkable innocence.  “You’d better be careful, Dr. Ryerson. Despite your qualifying statements, you sound as if you’re in danger of believing me.”

Susan frowned, but without anger. “Well,” she said, attempting to be as noncommittal as possible, “I’m a scientist. I try to be open to new experiences.”

Ryan took the cup from her hand and followed her into the living room. “Yes,” she said, “I dream. And I dream with the eyes of anyone I’ve ever Shared with as well.”

Ryan used that word in such a strange context. Although Susan thought she had a pretty good idea what Ryan meant by “Share,” she still wasn’t certain. She wasn’t ready to address that just yet.

“What happened when you awoke?”

Ryan settled into the rocking chair. Her eyes were distant and it was evident she was reliving the moment. “It was very strange,” she said, “and difficult to describe because there are no words for it in the human language. It was as if I was suddenly bombarded by sensations I had never experienced before.” Ryan shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right.”

Susan tried to help her. “Your senses were enhanced?”

Ryan again shook her head. “No, not just enhanced. It goes far beyond that.” Ryan glanced over at the silk shirt that Susan was wearing. “When you first put that shirt on today, you could feel the silk against your skin, could you not?”

Susan nodded, thinking back to the experience as Ryan continued. “And yet, within minutes of wearing the shirt, you became deadened to the experience, and now you can no longer feel it.”

Susan moved the shirtsleeve against her arm, trying to recreate the initial feeling. Ryan was correct, even now it was difficult to consciously feel the softness of the shirt.

Ryan continued thoughtfully. “I read in 20th century literature that this ‘deadening’ was a product of human development, that without it, human senses would be overwhelmed, and you would be so distracted with the feel of the silk against your skin you could not protect yourself from danger.”

Ryan’s gaze was distant. “When I awoke, it was almost as if that protective mechanism had been removed. Not only were my senses enhanced, but I was no longer capable of filtering out unwanted stimuli, or any stimuli for that matter.”

Susan shook her head, but more in disbelief than disagreement. “How could that be? How could you keep from going immediately insane? How could you even walk across a room if you were so flooded with sensation?”

“It was not easy,” Ryan said, “at the time, of course, I did not know any of this. I simply woke up seeing and feeling things I never knew existed. And I dealt with them, with a great deal of help from Victor.” She then added as an afterthought, “My Change was not an easy one.”

Susan was retracing their conversation, trying to organize the questions that were flying about in her head. Ryan was still thinking aloud. “Perhaps that’s why I slept for so long. At the time I had no idea what had happened to me. With 14th century eyes, I thought perhaps my soul had been stolen or I had become one of the walking damned. But looking at it now with eyes that have seen the 20th century, I think perhaps I slept so long because my brain was reworking itself to deal with what I had become.”

“Is it unusual for you to sleep that long?”

Ryan nodded. “I have not slept nearly that long since. It’s not unusual for me to sleep for weeks, or even months. But years, years is extremely rare, and I have never approached 14 since.”

“So what do you see? What’s so different about your perception?”

Ryan looked around the dimly lit living room. Her gaze settled on the cinnamon candles burning on the mantle. “I would have as much luck describing what I see as you would have describing colors to a blind man. You could say that red is ‘hot’ or blue is ‘cool,’ but that simply reinterprets what you see. It never allows the blind man to actually see it.”

Ryan glanced back at Susan. “Did you know that heat is a color, and it’s not red?”

It was Susan’s turn to look over at the candles. That certainly made sense, but it was difficult to imagine. All of the different wavelengths of light probably had corresponding colors; humans were only capable of seeing the “visible” spectrum.

“I suppose your hearing is the same?”

Ryan nodded. “I can hear your heartbeat from across the room.” Ryan smiled her shark’s smile. “And it just skipped a beat.” Susan blushed as Ryan continued. “You would feel ultrasound; I can hear it. I can feel things you can only hear, and I can see things that you can only feel.”

“As I grew older, my senses became more powerful, more refined. I began to feel forces swirling around me. It was not until science described the earth’s magnetic field that I had a name for these forces.” Ryan shrugged in her impassive way. “Of course, placing a label on what I was feeling did not alter the experience.”

“Having had the luxury of many, many years of study, I would have to say that eastern mystics are probably the closest to having a perception like mine.”

“How is that?” Susan asked.

Ryan contemplated the room around her. “I see everything as a whole. It’s the only way to process the information my senses draw in. There is no separation, no division until I consciously draw it. Human development chose a different path, chose to divide things, to alter reality to increase your chances for survival.” Ryan looked at her for the first time with something close to disapproval. “And then your race forgot they did so.”

This approach was interesting to Susan, but she thought she saw a weakness in Ryan’s reasoning. “So you believe you have the one true perception of reality?”

Ryan laughed, easily anticipating the coming argument. “Absolutely not, I just think my version is a good deal closer to the mark than yours.”

Ryan abruptly stood, and it was evident their conversation was at an end. Susan thought for a moment that Ryan was simply going to disappear, but she stopped, appearing thoughtful.

She turned to Susan. “I enjoy our conversations, Dr. Ryerson. There is a courage about you that I admire.”

Susan was embarrassed at how pleased the statement made her. Ryan glanced down at her. “Against the counsel of my manservant, Edward, I have decided that I will allow you to study me.”

Her voice hardened and her unblinking gaze locked with Susan’s. “But you must not publish anything else.”

Susan nodded her agreement. “Of course,” she said glancing down, “Just the knowledge alone—”

Susan glanced back up, realizing that she was speaking to an empty room.

Ryan was gone.

Ryan climbed into the back of her limousine. Edward could not hide his disapproval.

“So you have done this deed?”

Ryan nodded, oddly tired from her conversation with Susan. She realized she was not completely recovered from her injuries. The healing process took incredible amounts of energy and she would require much more sleep than normal until she was completely recovered.

“Yes, Edward, I have done this deed.”

Edward turned away and stared out the window. He brooded over this turn of events in silence. It was Ryan who finally broke that silence.

“Edward,” she said firmly. It was both a request and a command. Edward turned to his youthful master. She chose her words carefully.

“It is only a matter of time before my past actions catch up with me. Dr. Ryerson has, without intent, now accelerated this process. I think it would be foolish for me to overlook her as a resource.”

Edward vented his frustration. “You could just as easily force her to do your will. Or seduce her. You don’t have to allow her to study you.”

Ryan’s demeanor did not change. “She will work much harder if she is driven by her own ambition. She may give me the clues I need to withstand what will come.”