The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Hello, August.” The familiar voice, smooth as maple syrup, comes out of absolutely nowhere, and I jolt so hard I almost knock over my untouched mocha. Jude is sitting in the chair across from me, having arrived so stealthily I didn’t notice. He’s even hotter than I remembered. “I’m glad you got in touch.”

  “Don’t do that!” I splutter, my heart pounding my rib cage hard enough to leave dents. “You can’t just … sneak up on humans like that! It’s not cool, okay?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking.” Jude gives me a blameless look. “You were so wrapped up in whatever you were doing, you weren’t paying attention. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I shoot back. “Homework. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Do you want some help?” He reaches for the worksheet, and I snatch it off the table. Arching one of his eyebrows, he remarks, “I’ve been around for a long time. I bet I know the answers to all those questions.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not letting a vampire help me cheat on my science homework.” My glasses slip down my nose as my face gets hot again. I would absolutely let a vampire help me cheat on my science homework—I would let anybody help me cheat on my science homework—but these are not the right conditions. “That’s not even … Why are we talking about this? Stop being all … flirtatious and whatever!” That impish grin spreads across his face again, and I scowl. “Why do you keep smiling like that?”

  “It’s hard not to.” He folds his long fingers together on the table. “You’re just very cute sometimes.”

  I glare at him, confused by my spin-cycling emotions. Of course the first hot guy to ever tell me I’m cute would also happen to be an undead monster. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t appreciate mind games. So let’s just … stick to business.”

  Jude’s smile fades. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “And just in case you get any ideas,” I hiss under my breath, “I still have my crucifix, and I drank some holy water earlier. If you eat me, you’ll have a really nasty surprise.”

  “I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it as many times as necessary: I’m not going to hurt you, August Pfeiffer.” He looks me square in the eye, no blinking—but who knows how much practice he’s had over the years with lying. “For the record, though, I was sick of mind games even before I became a vampire. I prefer to say what I mean. And to flirt whenever possible.” His smirk returns, unnervingly sexy. “Besides, isn’t honesty the best policy?”

  “No vampire is a hundred percent honest,” I reply in my courtroom lawyer voice.

  “Neither is any human,” he counters. “You lied to me just now when you said you’d consumed holy water.”

  “That’s different! That was self-defense.” My neck goes all hot and scratchy. How did he know that? “How did you know that? Were you spying on me?”

  His answer turns out to be somehow even creepier. “I can hear your heart beating. When humans lie, their pulses accelerate. It’s the same operating principle as a polygraph machine, actually.” Nonchalant, he adds, “Also, the adrenaline levels in your blood increased when you said it, which is—”

  “Excuse me, what? The what in my what?” I lean as far back as possible—as if the extra inches make a difference.

  “I’m not trying to scare you, August.” Jude’s tone is measured and silky. “I’m answering your questions honestly. Yes, vampires are predators, and I can tell by your scent when your body secretes adrenaline.”

  Startled, I shift in my chair, picking at the cardboard sleeve on my terrible mocha. I’ve been so focused on how much stronger Jude is than me, how much deadlier, that I haven’t even considered all the other ways in which I am totally outmatched. My head starts to spin again, my heart beating faster, even as I realize that he’s no doubt taking stock of these changes, too. How much adrenaline is in my system now? What does it taste like?

  “August, listen to me,” Jude says, his tone forceful but controlled. “I know you’re scared right now, but what’s happening isn’t going to stop if you run away. You’re having the dreams, right? Which ones? A beheading in Scotland, a death by burning in France, a firing squad in Russia?”

  My fingers go still around my mocha, and I stare at him, my dream coming back to me. The pillar of rough wood, the blistering fire—ugly words from an angry crowd imprinted on a borrowed memory: hérétique, sorcière, trompeur. Heretic, witch, deceiver.

  I don’t even know French.

  “You can feel me, can’t you?” Jude asks next, his eyes riveted on mine, drinking me in. I don’t even have to ask what he means, because of course I feel him: that scratchy, restless sensation creeping up my spine … it’s him, his presence, activating something inside me. I don’t know why I didn’t feel it when he first showed up; whatever it is, it’s not consistent. “I lied, August. I did sneak up on you when I got here, because I wanted to see if you would sense me. You didn’t at first, but now…”

  “What—” The words get stuck, dread bottlenecking my throat. “W-what did you do to me?”

  He opens his mouth. “It isn’t—”

  “Auggie?” A familiar voice interrupts the tense moment like a car coming through a plate-glass window. “I can’t believe it, you’re, like, the third person I know that I’ve run into tonight!” Mentally, I will her to stay away, to turn around and leave, but instead she marches right over to us. “Someone I was supposed to tutor canceled on me at the last second, or I wouldn’t even be out here. What are the odds?”

  “Daphne,” I manage to respond, my voice like a dirty rag caught in a very delicate bit of machinery. “I, I’m…”

  Her eyes move from me to Jude and back to me again, and her eyebrows do a strange little dance. “Sorry, but am I interrupting? Are you … on a date?”

  “No!” I exclaim.

  “Yes,” Jude answers simultaneously, his smile uninviting.

  Daphne eyes him, and her lips press into a smile like a paper cut. “Excuse us, but I need to talk to Auggie about something—alone.” I don’t fight her when she pulls me away from the table, dragging me under one of the hidden speakers, some cheerful pop song beating down on us from above.

  “Daphne,” I begin, but she stops me.

  “You do know that boy is a vampire, right?” she demands, half under her breath and still somehow loud enough for the entire Chicagoland area to hear her. When I don’t answer right away, she grips my shoulders. “Come on, Auggie! He’s pretty, but … come on!”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking.” My reply sounds feeble, because I don’t know what she’s thinking—and I don’t know what’s going on, either.

  “Did he mesmerize you? Are you mesmerized right now?” She actually pries one of my eyelids farther open, and I bat her hand away.

  “He didn’t mesmerize me, we’re just talking!”

  “Yeah, sure—now.” She snorts. “Why is he here, anyway? What did he tell you?”

  “It’s a long story.” I adjust my glasses, the situation spiraling out of my control. “Just … I’m not in any trouble, okay? I promise. He says he’s not going to hurt me.”

  “Of course he says that, they all say that!” She shoots a suspicious glare at Jude, who’s been watching us this whole time. Can he hear us over the music? Can he read our lips? “Look, Auggie, I know Fulton Heights has … limits, and I get it if you’re lonely, but this? Isn’t worth it. Human and vampire relationships don’t work out!”

  “That’s not what’s happening,” I insist flatly—even though, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve spent plenty of private time this past week wondering if Jude really wants to suck more than my blood. If you know what I mean.

  Daphne waits for more, but what can I tell her that she won’t feel compelled to share with my parents? So I just shake my head, and she frowns, disappointed; and then, abruptly, she spins around, marching straight back to the table where Jude waits. Pulling out a chair, she drops into it with the force of a co
met crashing to Earth.

  My anxiety climbing all the way up to my scalp, I hurry after her just as she snaps, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not leaving him alone with you.”

  “Doesn’t he get to have a say in that?” Jude retorts. “We were having kind of a personal discussion.”

  Triumphantly, she counters, “You’re not a person.”

  “Well, fair point.” Jude grants her a polite smile. “But whoever you are, I assure you you’re overreacting. As I’ve told August—several times now, and I believe to his satisfaction—he’s in no danger from me.”

  Daphne narrows her eyes, unimpressed. “I know how vampires like to trick people into thinking with the wrong body parts, so I intend to see that you keep your teeth and hands to yourself. All right?”

  I’m burning alive again, but it’s not a dream; when I die and my life flashes before my eyes, I hope they let me fast-forward most of it.

  Jude’s expression doesn’t change—but something predatory glitters in the look he gives her. “That’s very bold talk … Daphne, was it? But the fact is: I am a five-hundred-year-old vampire, and I could break this table in half with my bare hands. If I really meant to harm August, do you honestly think that you could stop me?”

  “Yes,” Daphne returns immediately, her voice pitched low, so filled with icy conviction that I actually get chills, “I do.” She shakes the sleeve of her jacket, and a slim, wooden stake, whittled into a lethally sharp point, appears in her hand as if by magic. “Besides, you’re only four hundred and thirty years old at the absolute most, Jude Marlowe. Stop lying about your age.”

  Jude’s eyes go as wide as mine feel, and I take my seat again, because what the fuck?

  “You’re Brotherhood, aren’t you,” Jude observes—and it isn’t a question; his tone is hammered steel. Totally lost, I look from him to Daphne and back again, my hackles rising by degrees. They’re locked in a battle of silent glares, and I’m not sure my nerves can take another second of it.

  “What is he talking about?” I finally demand. “What the hell is ‘Brotherhood,’ and how do you know his name? What’s going on?”

  Daphne’s eyes flicker to me, and she lets out an unhappy sigh. “The Brotherhood of Perseus. It’s a secret society dating to the Middle Ages, a fraternal organization of—”

  “Assassins.” The word is as cold as an unfired bullet when Jude spits it out.

  “Warriors,” Daphne amends crisply, her fingers tightening around the stake in her grip. “I told you my parents were vampire hunters, Auggie, and I let you think that meant they were part of a volunteer defense squad, but … that wasn’t the truth. I’m sorry.” After a moment, she slumps back, and with another shake of her sleeve the wooden stake vanishes again. “The Brotherhood of Perseus was founded in the twelfth century by two dozen knights who pledged their lives to battling the undead—humans who risked everything against an enemy that could barely be killed. It was dudes only at first, hence the name, but the organization is gender-inclusive these days. Back in the Middle Ages, vampires could attack peasants in the countryside, or raze entire villages without anybody—”

  “That hardly ever happened,” Jude interrupts crossly. “Yes, there were some bad vampires roaming around nine centuries ago, but they didn’t rack up even a quarter of the body count that humans did!” Shaking his head, he lets out a disgusted snort. “Your lot have always exaggerated the dangers of vampires as a means to excuse your own barbarism. Or aren’t you planning to address the role the Brotherhood played in the Crusades? Burning down libraries and slaughtering whole families that refused to convert to Christianity—”

  “That’s vampire propaganda!” Daphne jerks upright, icicles dripping from her tone. “The Knights of Perseus rode in the Crusades, yeah, but their mission was to root out vampire strongholds. People were idiots back then—they thought the Earth was flat, and half of them died of the plague because they believed bathing was dangerous!” She slams a finger down onto the table. “You make it sound like there were six or seven bad, fang-toothed apples rolling around, sucking the blood out of a few women and children at the edge of civilization, but the Knights have extensive records, buddy. Vampires were crawling all over the Holy Land, picking off travelers like birds on a line, and during the Crusades their numbers were cut in half thanks to the Brotherhood.”

  “A lot of things were ‘cut in half’ thanks to the Brotherhood,” Jude rejoins without missing a beat, “including a few hundred peaceful shepherds and farmers.”

  “You know what? This is stupid.” Turning to me, Daphne states, “I was raised by people who took an oath to protect humankind against vampires.” With a pointed glance at Jude, she states, “I don’t care what tall, dark, and Dracula here has heard, or thinks he can convince you he knows—the Brotherhood of Perseus has always been a bulwark against the undead. Don’t fall for his crap.”

  “‘A bulwark against the undead.’” Jude rolls his eyes. “Give me a break. If you Perseans are so virtuous and steadfast and all that other bollocks, why didn’t you tell August the truth about who you are?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be a secret society if we went around handing out business cards, fucknut. While we’re talking backgrounds, though, maybe now’s a good time for you to tell Auggie about your work for the Syndicate!”

  “Th-the Syndicate?” The blood drains out of my face, sinking all the way to my ankles. The undead like to keep humans in the dark as to their organizational structure, but everyone has heard of the Vampire Syndicate.

  Blood is what fuels the undead, what spawns their progeny, and what binds them together. If Daphne is right about his age, then four hundred and whatever years ago, Jude was a living, breathing human just like me; until a vampire drained him, fed him, and killed him—thus bringing him back from death.

  That means the blood that even now fills the chambers of Jude Marlowe’s heart—perennially still, unless he wills it to beat—is spawned from that of the vampire who Turned him. For however long they both walk the Earth, Jude will be linked to his maker on an elemental and psychic level; and because his maker has a maker, and so on up, that link extends all the way to the top of his bloodline.

  No one knows when the first vampires appeared, or where they came from, but there’s estimated to be a few million of them on the planet today … and roughly three-quarters of them can be traced back to a dozen distinct lineages. Short version? At some point in the distant past, a tiny handful of ancient, undead beings—each with considerable sway over their growing progeny—formed a coalition called the Syndicate to safeguard their survival and advance their interests.

  “Jude Marlowe was Turned in 1607 at age seventeen by Rudolfo Sanoguerra,” Daphne announces. “Sanoguerra was Turned in 1348 by Margit Bertóthy. She’s one of the real Transylvanians,” she adds, and I know what she means. Bram Stoker’s notorious 1897 novel inspired by the exploits of Vlad the Impaler was mostly bullshit, but it was so popular that vampires from all around the world suddenly started claiming a connection to the Romanian region where Castle Dracula was located. “These days, Margit’s maker goes by Hecuba. She’s used dozens of aliases, and no one actually knows how old she is. What we do know is that she’s one of the original Syndics; which means that Jude here is only three degrees of Kevin Bacon from the closest thing the undead have to a governing body.”

  Jude stares at Daphne, shock written across his face. “Who are you?”

  “I told you the Brotherhood keeps extensive records,” she answers smugly. “I’ve been studying vampire bloodlines since I could read.”

  “Hello? Can we talk about me some more?” My voice is higher pitched than I’d like, but I can’t help it. The Vampire Syndicate sent a representative to find me. “I mean, like, not to interrupt your romantic tension or whatever, but can we skip ahead to the part about why the undead government even knows my fucking name?”

  Slouching back, Jude flicks a distrustful glance at Daphne. “I’m no
t comfortable discussing Syndicate business in front of some Brotherhood gangster—”

  “It’s not ‘Syndicate’ business,” my tutor interrupts immediately. “It’s Auggie’s business, and I’m not leaving him alone with you.”

  They glare at each other, and pressure builds inside me until I can’t take it anymore. I don’t know if I want Daphne here for this or not, but I barely worked up the nerve to contact Jude at all, and I’m not leaving until I get my answers. Plus, she’s some kind of monster-killing knight, and maybe that’s what I need right now.

  “I’m not promising to keep anything you tell me a secret.” I look Jude straight in the eye, my fingers aching from the death grip I have on the edge of the table. “And Daphne’s not going anywhere, because no matter how pretty you are, you’re still a vampire and I’m still a human and it was probably dumb of me to meet you alone in the first place.” Clearing my throat, I state, “You came here to tell me something, so just tell me already.”

  Jude purses his lips, casts an annoyed gaze to the side, and then shakes his head. Finally, his eyes meet mine, his expression grave. “August, an ancient and powerful entity is rising here in Fulton Heights—now. And your body is the vessel prophesied to carry it.”

  8

  His words hang in the air, backed by a jazzy instrumental from the mall’s hidden speakers, and I would laugh hysterically if I didn’t think my mouth would shoot barf like a busted fire hydrant if I opened it. An ancient entity wants to use me as a vessel?

  Daphne goes stiff. “What are you talking about? What prophecy?”

  “I hate to break this to you, but despite the Brotherhood’s best efforts, vampires have still managed to preserve important volumes filled with the auguries and predictions of the oldest ones,” Jude explains with a sarcastic lilt.

  “Oh, of course, vampire auguries!” Skepticism drips from her tone. “Does this ‘ancient and powerful entity’ happen to have a name, or have you not made one up yet?”