The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Oh wow,” I coo breathlessly. “Your commitment to policing vampires and protecting humans is so dreamy! Can I feel your muscles?”

  Jude’s gorgeous face pulls into a frog-like scowl. “That’s not—I’m not trying to seduce you!”

  “No, you’re just feeding me a load of Syndicate propaganda,” I return. “You eat people. You’ve got your reasons for wanting to keep some kind of balance between humans and vampires, fine, but you’re not Doctors Without Borders.”

  “All ecological systems with hunters and prey require stability for both populations to thrive.” He lifts his chin. “I consume blood; I don’t eat humans.” That feline look creeps back into his expression. “I rather enjoy humans, actually. And biting can be fun for both—”

  “Okay, okay!” I stuff my hands in my own coat pockets and punch down, because now he’s looking at where my dick is, and I kind of don’t want him to see it at just this moment.

  “But there are many undead who absolutely desire vampire supremacy.” Anything coy about his demeanor is gone in an instant. “They are infuriated by their vulnerabilities, find it intolerable that they must hide among shadows while humans run this world into the ground, and are outraged by the Syndicate’s control. They want a change in the world order, and the ones who believe see the Corrupter as their chance.” A car passes by the side lot, tires hissing against damp pavement. “They are dangerous, August; and for many reasons, we cannot afford to let them get what they want.”

  “You’re telling me,” I mumble, but now my cold sweat is starting to break out in a cold sweat—because all I hear is that if the Corrupter is real, Jude’s buddies would rather kill me than let me fall into the wrong hands. “Is there a cure? I mean, if this thing is real?”

  He shifts, glancing down. “We’re not sure. As I’ve said, there really isn’t much information available, and the prophecies are incomplete. Our scholars have done research over the centuries, but never particularly seriously. Most of them honestly don’t believe it’s real, and it isn’t knowledge any of us have needed before.”

  I reply with a stiff nod. What he’s continuing to not say is We just figured we’d kill you. The easiest “cure” of all.

  “I promise I’ll … I’ll look into it.” He winces, seeming to immediately regret saying so—but before I can parse his expression further, he adds, “Listen: I said there were three vampires watching your house last night, and it’s important you understand what that means. You need to know about the two major cults that have formed around the Corrupter, because they are gathering in Fulton Heights. Now.”

  A dead deer sucked dry in a farmer’s field just past my neighborhood, a vampire purring at me, the Dark Star rises … I swallow. “Of course they are.”

  “One is called the League of the Dark Star.” Jude steps out from beneath the safety of the overhang. When he doesn’t burst into flames, I check a mental box. Clouds = adequate protection from sunlight. “The League was founded in the sixteenth century by an undead mystic named Erasmus Kramer, although he’s believed to have been killed by Brotherhood hunters sometime in the late 1700s. Since then, they’ve been led by Kramer’s chief lieutenant—a powerful French sorceress named Viviane Duclos, who is notorious for her cunning.”

  “Oh neat.” I shuffle back a few steps as Jude comes closer, wanting to keep a little distance. “And she’s been watching my house?”

  “No, sentry duty is grunt work. She wouldn’t expose herself like that.” He pulls out another cigarette, just as I back into the end of someone’s car, and he pauses to light up. “No one’s seen her for centuries, there are no photographs, and the only portrait of her was destroyed in the eighteenth century. For all we know, she died when Kramer did and the League has been using her name as a false front to spread disinformation ever since.”

  With a frown, I ask, “So what do you actually know about these people? What am I on the lookout for here?”

  “There’s probably fifteen members, they’re all skilled fighters, and they’re all very, very smart.” Jude leans against a Prius parked across from where I’m standing. “Kramer was choosy, and Duclos even choosier, when it came to building the ranks. They expect to become demigods with the Ascension of the Corrupter, and they don’t want that privilege going to just anyone.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Mostly they lie low, stay out of trouble. They either abide by the Syndicate’s precepts or break the laws in ways we can’t prove, so we monitor them but generally leave them alone.”

  “Okay.” I adjust my glasses a little. “They don’t exactly sound terrifying. From what you said before, I was expecting a bunch of Baeserta nutjobs.”

  “Don’t underestimate them, August.” Jude’s brows dip down. “They’ve spent hundreds of years waiting for this. They’ve been careful not to make waves, because they couldn’t risk giving the Syndicate any justification to crack down on them. But now that they believe their moment has arrived, they’re not going to let anything stand in their way. If Duclos wants you in her grasp, she’s had since the sixteen hundreds to devise countless ways to manage it.”

  “Fantastic,” I croak. We’re outside, the sky spreading everywhere, and suddenly I feel like someone’s sitting on my chest. A centuries-old sorceress-slash-vampire is out to get me, and my only protectors are my math tutor and a vampire who might want to stuff me in a cage. “Just … fantastic.”

  “It’s the second group that’s truly dangerous,” Jude goes on, finding the only words that could possibly be worse. “The Mystic Order of the Northern Wolf. They are … Well, they make those ‘Baeserta nutjobs’ look like the Von Trapp family. They make the Manson family look like the Von Trapp family.” He pushes off the side of the Prius, coming even closer, and I shuffle sideways along the length of the car until I bump against the side-view mirror. “They hold nothing sacred and have no limits. Where the League venerates the Corrupter, Northern Wolf sees it as a weapon—a doomsday device they’ll use to annihilate whoever or whatever displeases them.”

  “Is that their endgame?” My voice sounds like a radio transmission from Mars. “Doomsday?”

  “Effectively, yes.” He doesn’t even blink. “They want absolute power, a world where they’re in charge and humans are hunted for sport, and this is their chance to make that dream a reality. What the Corrupter offers them is a pathway to total domination, and they will happily drown the Earth in blood for a chance to seize it.”

  “Neat.” It’s all I can manage, my esophagus suddenly in a half-Windsor.

  “When I said I don’t eat humans, I meant it. From the night I was reborn, I was trained to control my hunger, and the only kills on my conscience were committed in self-defense.” He stops right in front of me, casting yet another half-finished cigarette to the pavement. “The vampires of the Mystic Order of the Northern Wolf might as well be feral. Their leader Turns humans on a whim and lets his progeny run wild, because he believes that for a vampire to kill a mortal is of no greater significance than for a mortal to pluck an apple from a tree.” He sets his jaw, his eyes cold. “They’re reckless and self-destructive, and when they die, their leader just Turns more humans and repopulates his crew. It’s nearly impossible to keep track of his membership, because he doesn’t care who becomes part of the Mystic Order; he just wants followers—easy to control and impressed by his cheap parlor tricks.”

  The incident at Sugar Mama’s flashes through my mind again: a reckless attack on humans in a public place, a vampire who apparently just wanted to get close to me. Pulling my coat tighter, I ask, “What kind of parlor tricks?”

  “Conjuring, localized teleportation, some minor defiance of gravity.” Jude rolls his shoulders, sounding bored. “It amounts to magical fireworks, but he was a mystic in life, and it flatters his ego to pretend he’s some kind of latter-day Merlin.”

  “So you know who he is,” I observe, certain I don’t want to hear any more.

  “Yes. He’s a newish vampire, Turned in the early part
of the twentieth century, and his carelessness put him on the Syndicate’s radar almost immediately. In fact, you’ve probably heard of him, too.” The thick clouds overhead are quickly choking off what remains of the daylight, darkness coming on faster than scheduled, and the streetlamps blink on without warning. “Grigori Rasputin. The ‘Mad Monk’ of Russia.”

  13

  “Rasputin?” I repeat, goggling at him. “Rasputin as in … Rasputin?”

  “The one and only.” Jude is unimpressed. “What do you know about him?”

  “Not much, I guess.” Weeding through the dust of my school-related memories, I hazard, “We did a unit on the Russian Revolution in World History last year, and our teacher said he was supposed to be some kind of spiritualist and healer. And his influence on the tsar was one factor that turned public opinion against the Romanov dynasty.”

  “He was a charlatan.” Jude’s tone is sharp and decisive. “A con man and birthday party magician who managed to inveigle himself into the favor of the Russian royal family. Alexei, the tsarevich, was a hemophiliac, and at the time, very little was known about the disorder or how to treat it. It was easily fatal, and because Alexei was the only male heir, his parents were pretty desperate about finding a cure.” He sweeps his arms out. “Enter Grigori Rasputin, who used vampire blood to save the boy’s life on several occasions, earning himself a permanent place in the Romanovs’ household.”

  “They knew he was a vampire and they didn’t care?”

  “He wasn’t a vampire when he first came to St. Petersburg,” Jude answers. “He probably wasn’t Turned before 1914, when he was nearly stabbed to death by a peasant. But two years later, he pretty famously refused to die when a nobleman attempted to finish the job. Over the course of a few hours, Rasputin survived being poisoned—repeatedly—shot, and then beaten. Then they put a bullet in his brain and dumped him off a bridge.” A cold smile turns up the corners of his mouth. “He finally got the message and played possum long enough to be photographed and pronounced dead, but then vanished. An unidentified corpse was buried in his place to reduce the kind of mythologizing that would have taken place if anyone had known the truth.”

  My whole body is one giant goose bump at this point. “Wow.”

  “He’s quite dangerous,” Jude declares softly. “And I’m pretty certain I know how you’re going to respond to this, but I have to say it anyway: There’s only so much I can do, watching your house at night. The League and the Mystic Order … they’ve got numbers on their side, and no matter how good I am, I can’t keep you safe by myself. Please think over what I suggested yesterday. There’s no reason in the world you should trust us, but the Syndicate does have the best chance of protecting you.”

  I’m more aware than ever of how close he is at this moment as I pick out my words with the care of a bomb squad. “Thanks for the amazing offer, but I’m kind of hoping this will all turn out to be the result of a brain tumor. So until I know for sure that I’m pregnant with an ancient demon, I’m going to have to decline.”

  “I figured.” He gives a half-hearted shrug. “You could at least let me take care of your elbow for you.”

  “My el— What?” Instinctively, I reach for my sore arm, glaring at him suspiciously. “How did … What do you mean, ‘take care of’ it? How do you even know there’s something wrong with it?”

  “August, please.” He rolls his eyes. “Identifying weaknesses in humans is a basic vampire skill—and, in case you haven’t noticed, I rather enjoy studying your body anyway.” Jude takes a step closer and I lean back, causing him to let out a frustrated sigh. “Would you please relax? I just want to fix it for you.”

  “Fix it how?” I demand. “Special lab work back at Syndicate Headquarters in the Carpe Diem Mountains?”

  “Carpathian,” he corrects, humor glinting in his eyes, “and don’t be ridiculous. We don’t have to go anywhere. Just a little bit of my blood—”

  “No. Absolutely not, no way.” I shake my head emphatically. “I am not drinking any vampire blood!”

  “August. Literally just a few drops, and your arm will heal within minutes. Maybe even seconds. It won’t hurt you—it requires a whole ritual for a human to Turn, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “It isn’t,” I insist frostily, even though it’s pretty much exactly what I’m afraid of. “I just don’t need any favors from the undead!” Squirming a little, I try to look composed. “I mean, no offense. Believe it or not, I’m cool with it healing the old-fashioned way.”

  “And if it turns out to be a hairline fracture, that could take weeks, during which you won’t have full use of your arm. Are you cool with that, too? A psychopath like Rasputin watching your house, Viviane Duclos biding her time and waiting for—”

  “Okay, you’ve made your point,” I cut him off desperately, already dizzy with alarm—because he’s right, damn it. After witnessing the intense battle between Daphne and Mr. Strauss last night, I’m fully aware that I could have a dozen arms or no arms at all, and I’d still be lucky to last five seconds in hand-to-hand combat with any of the killers currently gunning for me. But leaving myself deliberately weakened is unforgivable, especially when a cure is staring me right in the face. “Just … what do I do?”

  “Well…” Jude steps even closer, our toes almost touching. “The most fun way I know is if I cut my tongue just a little bit, and then we kiss until—”

  “No. No thank you—next idea!” I’m dizzy again, and punching my pockets down again, because there is clearly something wrong with me. I’m being stalked by two different cults, my art teacher tried to sword me to death, and Jude just finished his second attempt at convincing me to surrender my life to the Syndicate, but thinking about sucking on his face just a little bit is already giving me a boner? I’m sick! I’m sick.

  “Okay.” He lets out a sigh. “The boring way, then.”

  From nowhere, he produces a folding knife, the blade flashing a bright silver as he flips it open. Slicing the pad of his index finger, he then squeezes a bead of garnet-colored blood to the surface. At the time, the thought of making out with him just to heal my hurt elbow seemed preposterously inappropriate, but it’s not exactly like it’s somehow less erotic when he pushes his finger into my mouth, sliding it across my tongue, murmuring, “Suck on it, August.”

  Nervous and trembling, I do as I’m commanded, blood issuing from the tiny wound with surprising ease. It tastes earthy and metallic, and it tingles as it slips down my throat. Everything tingles, all of a sudden. There’s a buzzing under my skin, that seemingly paranormal sense I’ve developed for detecting the proximity of vampires building to an ecstatic hum as this vampire becomes a part of me. And then my veins warm, electricity snapping—and I come fully alive, or so it feels, for the very first time.

  “Oh.” I let Jude’s finger pop out of my mouth. The sky is brighter, the world more colorful, and for a moment I’m transfixed by a halo of fine mist gathered around the glow of a streetlamp. The particles slide and shimmer, a veil of white gold fluttering in the oncoming dusk. I can hear the distant rustle of underbrush, the flutter of wings pushing air overhead, my own heart thud-thud-thudding away.

  “August?” Jude’s voice is deep and wonderful. “What do you feel?”

  “Everything.” When I look him in the eyes, I’m terrified and fascinated at once. They glow, molten with brassy light, and I fall into them without trying. There’s a hidden depth that calls to me and I’m in it before I know what I’ve done.

  He’s shirtless, standing above me, brown skin smooth over a frame packed with lean muscle. Candlelight flickers, carnal and rosy against exposed brick and dark curtains, and Jude licks his lips. No matter what happens, he says, reaching for his belt buckle, his fangs partly extended, tonight is about us.

  I fall out of the vision, gasping, and realize Jude is holding me—one hand on my waist and the other on my cheek. My instinct is to fight him off, until I see how concerned he is. “August, what’s
the matter? What happened?”

  “Nothing!” I’m still breathing hard, still remembering the warm light and the muscles flexing in his shoulders. The memory of a desire that I haven’t even felt yet consumes me, and I shudder with pleasure. “It was…” There’s no way to safely complete this thought, so I shake my head. “It was nothing. I got scared.”

  “It’s an intense experience.” He says it soothingly, his thumb rubbing my cheek, but it only awakens more confused feelings, and the pressure in my groin is unbearable. “The first time a human ingests vampire blood can be overwhelming, but you’ll be okay, I promise. How’s your elbow?”

  “What elbow?” I pull cold air into my lungs and carefully guide his hands off my body so I can think again, but my brain is fizzing and it won’t cooperate.

  “So I guess it worked.” Jude steps back, smiling a little, and draws yet another cigarette out of that pack.

  “Why do you smoke?” Frantic to change the subject, I jump at the first distraction possible. “It’s gross. And you don’t even breathe.”

  “I don’t have to breathe,” he corrects me, flicking the Zippo open with a ping of metal. “But my body is capable of doing anything yours can do. Maybe someday I’ll demonstrate.”

  Jude winks as he lights up, and I blush to my hairline. I can’t tell if he’s aware of what I saw, if maybe we shared that vision—or if I’m the only one who just lived the future.

  Because somehow I know that what I experienced when I fell into his eyes was more than just some sort of dream. It was concrete, as real as the moment we’re living right now … it just hasn’t happened yet. And even as I struggle to make sense of that, I remember Daphne’s words: The accounts document clairvoyance, telepathy, subtle forms of mind control …