by Alice Bell
There were full page spreads of my exploits in the vampire quarter. My favorite was a photo of Dru and I locked in a kiss to end all kisses, her legs wrapped around my waist. I studied the picture, trying to find the tell-tale flaw, but it was a photo-shopped masterpiece. I was out of control, the tabloids said, and about to be unleashed on the human world. Thanks to Dru, I’d been taken down just in time.
I found comfort tucked away amidst the library’s towering shelves. Scarlett, with her suitcase full of books, was never far from my mind.
I read human classics written in English and familiarized myself with the angelic luminaries of the day. Only a few of the books in the library were written in Celestial speech.
When I searched the shelves for information on Vampires, I found what I was looking for in a surprising book—an encyclopedia. My parents had had an almost identical set. I pulled out the leather bound V volume. Inside, I saw it had been printed in the United States.
I flipped through the pages and saw the definition of vampires I was most familiar with as mythical creatures. And then I came across a subsection on psychic vampires. According to the encyclopedia, psychic vampires were social predators who left others feeling drained. And then there were psychic vampires who achieved states of higher consciousness from sources of energy which they gleaned from the elements.
That got me thinking. Why couldn’t I get energy from the elements, like the full moon, or a lightning storm? Not that it did me any good here. There was so much I knew now I wished I’d known then.
One night, Zillah had a party and I worked late to clean up. As I pushed my mop back and forth on the marble floor of the veranda, a scurrilous sound alerted me to the top balcony. Glancing up, I caught a glimpse of a shadow. My stomach caved. You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. But no. There was the tell-tale sweep of Dru’s braids, before she ducked down.
Unbelievable. She was spying on me now?
I moved under cover of the stairs. How did Dru dare to show her face to me? Didn’t she know I was capable of anything? What could they do to me afterall? Drag me back to the dungeon?
I heard her coming down the stairs and gripped the handle of my mop.
“Devon?” her voice was tiny, coming from somewhere above me. “Devon, I need to talk to you.”
She wanted me to come to her. I almost laughed.
I stayed where I was.
I heard her breath, as she ventured closer. “Devon, listen… just listen to what I have to say.”
My jaw clenched.
“Please…” there was desperation in her voice.
She’s nothing but a liar, I thought.
And yet, I stepped out from under the alcove to look her in the eye. She was dressed up in diamonds and jeans, like a movie star, like the Angel she was. “I—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Devon—”
“Leave, Dru. Walk away now. ”
“I want to help you. Please listen.”
“I’m going to lose it in about five seconds.”
“Can you just—”
“One one hundred.”
“Devon.”
“Two one hundred.”
She lurched toward me and I jumped back, dropping the mop. To my horror, she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around my waist. Scarlett’s memory lashed at me.
“I’m so sorry,” her voice was muffled.
“Get up,” I grabbed her arms, like I’d done with Scarlett worlds ago. I yanked her to her feet. She let herself go limp and dropped to the floor.
“Stop it,” I said.
But she stayed on her knees. She took my hands and kissed them.
I stilled.
“I can get you out,” she whispered.
I didn’t believe her.
“They’re closing the realm, Devon. You have to go. Tonight.”
I would be insane to trust her.
“They’re killing all the rogue Vampires. When the last soldier comes home, the realm will be sealed.”
I was at her mercy. She could lead me straight to my death. In fact, I figured she would but I followed her out into the street. It was worth the risk. If I had to stay here, I might as well be dead anyway.
We made our way from the heart of the city, passing by the glowing capital. I cast a glance up at the light-filled windows. Zillah was in there somewhere, in her royal purple gown.
We turned down more streets. Lamps cast our shadows.
As we approached the vampire quarter, the lights got fewer and far between. Dru took me through an alley, to a back door that she wrenched open.
Inside, music throbbed, bootlegged and old school.
I remembered Scarlett playing the piano the night we met, the night I’d followed her home. There had been a crystal chandelier casting her in a pink, fractured light. I’d watched her from the shadows; invisible, dangerous, the worst kind of predator—the kind who wants your soul.
“Hey,” Dru said. “Keep up.”
I followed her around the corner. A hulking shadow stepped out to block our path. I braced myself for a steel toe aimed at my crotch, but he turned out to be a bouncer who shoved a leather bag into Dru’s arms.
“Come on,” she led me down a skinny hall to a dingy bathroom. She slid the deadbolt across the door.
A yellow bulb hung above us, bare and ugly. My gaze dropped to an image of my face on the grimy wall. My lips were red, a drop of blood dripped from my fangs. Dru unzipped the bag and took out a bundle of clothes to throw at me. “Put those on.”
“Oh, shit.” They were leather, like Decimus wore. “This doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“It is a good idea,” she said. “It’s the only idea.”
I laced up the tall boots and she produced a barber’s kit from her bag. “Come here, darling,” she said. “Let me make you beautiful.”
I had to sit on the floor for her to reach high enough to shear my hair. Dark curls fell around me. When she was done, I stood up and leaned back against the sink, while she combed and snipped at my overgrown beard.
Her eyes were amber, a shade darker than Zadie’s. Her tongue came out to wet her bottom lip a few times.
Afterwards, she nodded with satisfaction. “That’s better.” Something flickered in her eyes. “Why haven’t you asked me why?”
“Why you fucked me over?”
She swallowed.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, and I didn’t know why that was, except that it still hurt. “Knowing won’t change anything,” I said.
She nodded. “I want to tell you though… I went on a mission. I was one of the elite. But then I fell in love in the human world with the person I was supposed to aid. And I fell from grace. I—I wanted it back… I wanted to do something that would erase that fall… but,” she dropped her gaze. “It can’t be erased that way,” she looked back up, into my eyes. “I did something that—that to me, is far worse. I liked you, Devon. You were—you were innocent—”
I scoffed. “I’m hardly innocent.”
“You were. You didn’t know how… how political, and ruthless, things have become here. Devon,” she touched my cheek. “You would have been a great soldier.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She dropped her hand. “I do. But the conservative party is corrupt. They would have never let that happen.”
“Hence, you,” I said.
“Hence, me. And then,” she sighed. “I fell for you. I had this crazy idea we would escape to the human world together… but you already loved someone else. I…” once again, she lowered her gaze. She bit her lip. “This is the worst part. I—oh, god. That night, I got jealous and that’s why I did it… in the end,” she covered her face with her hands.
It didn’t matter, I realized. We were all cogs in an incomprehensible wheel. I patted her braids. “It’s okay,” I said.
“No,” she looked at me. “It’s not. But I’m going to do my best to get you out of here.”
Befo
re we left, she pulled one last trick from her bag, a gray pelt which she placed around my neck. “You don’t look like Decimus,” she said. “He’s a sorry imitation. But if anyone sees us, you’ll pass… maybe for just long enough. If we’re lucky.”
As we left the vampire quarter, I saw more graffiti with my face, my name slashed beneath it; hearts and arrows and blood. Ahead of us, white streets shimmered. The skeletal shadows of palm trees hovered. We turned down the hill that sloped to the sea. Only there was no sea. It was a mirage.
We went down a stairway, down and down, into the passages where luxuries from the human world came in.
“This is the tricky part,” Dru said. “Try not to attract attention. But… at the same time, be Decimus.”
“What's our story?”
“Decimus goes where he wants when he wants. No one questions it.”
“Isn’t he in the human world as we speak? Slaying Vampires?”
“He’s already back. I told you, the realm is closing tonight. We just need to get to the bridge.”
We passed by a couple of soldiers smoking. They dropped their cigarettes and stood at attention when they saw me. My heart thumped.
“Walk faster,” Dru whispered.
I saw the bridge rising up, black steel arcing over darkness.
My boots pounded the grid, ringing out and announcing our crossing with every step. I glanced back, sure someone was coming after us. But I caught only glowing embers of cigarettes, the back and forth of industry that never stopped, workers in rhythm doing what must be done before the gates closed.
We stood on the edge.
“You’re not afraid of heights are you?” Dru said.
“No.”
She took my hand and held it tight. “I’m glad I met you, Devon. Maybe someday we’ll meet again.”
“I hope so,” I gave her hand a squeeze.
“Now, I’m going to say a prayer and when I let go of your hand, you jump. That’s it. Right at that exact moment you have to jump. Any hesitation will mess up the time. I’m going to get you as close to when you left as I can. There’s always a lag though.”
“Can I get there before I left?”
“No. Some time will have passed, there’s no way around it. Hopefully Scarlett won’t be an old lady.”
I turned to her and she chuckled. “Just kidding.”
“Ha ha.”
“Close your eyes, Devon. I’m going to start praying.” She spoke in that strangely beautiful tonal language I recognized as Celestial Speech. It sounded almost like a song and I pictured holding Scarlett in my arms, like the night we danced at the bar. I prayed in my own way. Let her be safe. Let me find her again.
When Dru released my hand, I jumped.
It was soundless.
Starry, like the night sky over the desert.
When I hit water, I swam. I swam up and up, forever, until I broke through the surface…
Scarlett
Erin’s funeral was held at a cemetery across town, not too far from the river. Rain pelted my car. As I drove, I gripped the steering wheel tightly, feeling a sense of dread.
I parked behind a line of cars.
I hadn’t brought an umbrella but I wore a black hat with a brim and a veil. I had on one of my favorite dresses. The skirt was black and ruffled, long enough to graze my ankles. The bodice was black lace. The only jacket I could find to match was a black velvet blazer with glass ruby buttons.
I should have brought an umbrella.
I made my way to the grave site carrying a bouquet of white peonies. Cold rain soaked through my clothes. I shivered and stood in the back.
There were so many people, like the funeral of a celebrity. Everywhere I looked I saw black umbrellas. The peonies trembled in my hands.
Afterwards, I lined up to lay flowers on Erin’s grave. When it was my turn, I gave my condolences to Autumn. “I’m so sorry,” I choked out the words, hating their hollowness.
I had been in Autumn’s shoes. Of course, no one went to my mother’s funeral, except my grandmother and I. And the pastor.
Autumn leaned down to hug me. Whatever we’d argued about seemed to have happened another lifetime ago.
When I got back to my car, I thought I caught a glimpse of blonde hair. I sucked in my breath. Lately, I saw Zadie everywhere. But it was like the time when I was a small child and I’d lost my mother in the mall, and everyone looked like her, but they weren’t.
I got in my car and locked the doors. The rain had ceased for the moment. I took off my hat and laid it on the seat.
I was about to put my key in the ignition, when I saw a light arc across the clouded sky. A tingling sensation stole over my flesh. Images came to me; a cat with one blue eye and one green, hands on my flesh, the curve of beautiful lips, a wedding dress.
Blood on white sheets…
My memories of losing my virginity came back but the images playing across my mind were too bright, like Technicolor, as gorgeous as a dream. Was any of it real? Or had I hallucinated it all?
Nausea coursed through my veins. The steering wheel felt cool on my forehead. I had to ask Autumn about the diary. To decipher what was real and what wasn’t. Or I would lose my mind right here in the cemetery.
A feverish ache had me in its grip. I peered out the windshield and watched people get in their cars and drive off.
Don’t bother Autumn with your lunacy. She’s grieving.
And yet, I climbed out of the car and made my way back to where Autumn stood, gazing down at the flowers covering her mother’s grave. She glanced up. “Miss Rain?” there was surprise in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Autumn. I don’t mean to interrupt. I just—I know how it feels. I lost my mother too. When I was young.”
It was a lie. I had no idea how Autumn felt. Her mother had been a compassionate person doing for others. My mother was the opposite. She’d brutally taken a man’s life to sate her own jealousy. Autumn’s loss had to be so much greater than mine.
Still, like my mother, I pressed on with my agenda. That was the nature of madness. It took precedence. “Autumn, I wanted to apologize for—for the way I acted. You know, with what happened with your diary.”
She blinked.
I licked my lips. “We argued…”
“Oh. Yeah. The day I realized I was done with high school,” she said. “You did me a favor, Miss Rain. I hated every day of high school. Except for art class. And your class. You were right to be concerned. If what I’d written in my diary was true, I’d have been in serious trouble. Having sex with a stranger who showed up on my doorstep?” She shook her head. “It was just a fantasy. I was so lonely back then.”
Just a fantasy… a fantasy.
“So the man you described was pure fiction?”
“No. I didn’t invent him. He really was trying to steal my cat. That part was true. Crazy as it sounds.”
“Did you… happen to get his name?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “His name? It was a random weird encounter,” she cocked her head. “Why?”
“He sounded familiar to me.”
Her mouth formed an O. She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said.
“It’s okay, Miss Rain. I get it. Look, nothing happened. I promise.”
“I know,” I said. “That wasn’t actually what I was worried about. Anymore.”
“Was he your boyfriend? Or… I mean, did you think the guy I described might have been your boyfriend. At the time?”
I shook my head. “Some things happened to me I can’t remember.” A chill snaked down my spine.
“Is that how you knew my mother? She was helping you remember?”
“Your mother felt sorry for me, Autumn. She wanted to help me, the way you would a drowning kitten.” I pulled the amulet from under the collar of my dress. “She gave me this.”
Autumn made a sound in her throat. “God, I miss her so much. I nev
er got to tell her good-bye.”
I touched her arm. “No one ever does,” I said. “Not really. I like to think it’s because the best parts of the ones we lose are always with us. Until we meet again.”
She sniffed. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and turned her gaze on me. “You have to trust your instincts. My mother would tell you the same,” her eyes misted. She reached out and touched the blue stone on the amulet. “There’s a reason she gave this to you. It’s angelite. To ward off evil spirits. Don’t lose it, Miss Rain. Sew it to your chest if you have to.”
I thought of Erin taking off the necklace and clasping it around my neck. As I walked back to my car, over wet grass, my body ached with fever. And guilt.
Would Erin still be alive if she hadn’t taken off her amulet? To give to me?
* * *
When I got home, I took a hot bath without taking off my amulet. Making an X with Scotch tape, I taped it to my chest, before crawling into bed.
The old hurt was inside me. I could relax with Valium and curb my obsessiveness with various medication but there was no medicine that had ever taken away my inner pain, without knocking me out. I didn’t want a tranquilizer. I just wanted to be happy. Or rather, content. No one was happy all the time. I thought of how my mother gazed at the stars. “Without the dark, we wouldn’t see the stars,” she said. It was a popular quote and who had actually said it first, I wasn’t sure. But my mother was the one who said it to me.
I knew it was true. You couldn’t experience true joy without knowing deep pain. You’d have nothing to measure it by.
As I lay there, curled on my side, listening to the patter of rain, I tried to remember the last time I’d felt joy. It had been the other night… dancing with Devon’s memory.
I tossed and turned on the sheets, trying to find a cool spot. When at last I slept, it was fitful.
I dreamed Zadie broke into my apartment, along with her friend Inka. They were touching my things and playing my records. They made cocktails. The scent of vodka wafted under the covers.
I heard Zadie and Inka talking. Their voices came closer.
The door to my bedroom creaked open. I tried to get out of the dream, to wake up, but my lids were so heavy. My body felt pinned to the bed.