The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Is that what he’s been saying?” Gunnar emits a bark of unpleasant laughter. “Wow. Well, then, let me assure you that ‘everything he’s told you’ has not been ‘the truth.’”

  “What does that mean?” I look at Jude, but he avoids my eyes.

  “Think about it. The prophecies have been around for thousands of years … Do you really think there’s anything the Syndicate hasn’t learned yet that they’re suddenly going to figure out now?” Gunnar shakes his head. “What could they possibly learn from studying you in Romania that they couldn’t learn by sending their scientists here, instead?”

  My insides are cold again, my heart a dead weight. “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t stop the Corrupter,” Gunnar finally says, his expression etched with sympathy. “He’s not a disease you can study under a microscope, or treat with antibiotics—and nobody even fully understands how the Ascension works, to begin with.” He rubs his wrist, the wound already closed again. “I’m really sorry, Auggie, but the prophecy can’t be prevented or undone. The future has been written, and it’s only a matter of time.”

  18

  Only a matter of time. It’s what I’ve told myself, what I thought I believed. But now that someone has said it out loud, chaos barnstorms my nervous system. My heart races, and my arteries are freezer-burned with a surge of adrenaline. You can’t stop the Corrupter.

  All the empty promises and sales pitches, the days I’ve spent waiting for help and trying to think of new places to search for answers … it’s been a waste of time—a precious commodity I’m running out of at a pace I can’t even predict. The truth of it crashes over me like a wave of dark water, cutting off my air. How fucked up is it that the only person who had a real solution to this problem and tried to do something about it was Mr. Strauss?

  “August?” Jude steps forward, tense with concern. “Don’t panic, all right? Not even the League of the Dark Star can prove the Corrupter is real, or that you’re—”

  “Stop it! Just stop!” I still can’t breathe. “I can feel vampires, and I’ve been having visions of the past and the future … I saw you, okay?” Accusatorily, I point from one of them to the other. “Both of you—on the beach, touching your fingers together, hoping nobody else noticed. There were fireworks … Was it New Year’s?”

  Gunnar blinks. “You saw that?”

  “August.” Jude takes another step closer. “What else have you seen? What else have you experienced?”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it?” I laugh, the sound utterly unhinged. “I mean, I’m already dead, right? Either someone kills me, or my body gets hijacked by a ghost that will doom humanity, and you both know it. You’ve known it all along, and you’ve treated me like some prize in a game show!” My chest catches. I refuse to let them see me cry. “Fuck you both.”

  They call after me as I turn and run, but I’m done listening. The only completely true thing either of them ever said was that I shouldn’t trust vampires. Will I still be me when my parents get back from London? And if I’m not, will they be able to tell? Someday soon, I’m going to wake up in the back seat of my own body—if I’m lucky—and a being with my face will introduce the world to a nightmare no one will wake up from.

  By the time I reach the dark side of the abandoned factory, panic and despair have given rise to a sense of unstable recklessness. If my fate is sealed, then who cares what I do? What have I been waiting for all this time? While everyone else was living their lives, I was hanging onto the promise that one day mine would finally start. I can run home and await the inevitable … or I can do whatever I want, because what do the consequences matter?

  I march straight to the bouncer at the velvet rope, giving him a cocky smile that feels as if it’s wearing me, and he waves me back inside. Within moments, I’m lost in the crush of bodies again, dancing, making contact. If this is all the time I’ve got, then I’m going to live it as hard as I can.

  The air is muggy with the sweetness of the artificial smoke, and my temperature rises as I throw myself around. This great big rock is hurtling through space, and we’re all trapped on it until I cough up the apocalypse, but right now, this dance floor is my whole universe. Strangers smile at me without menace, matching their rhythms to mine, and then we move on to new strangers and different rhythms. Soon, a dreamy buzz is damping the hard edges of my fear.

  I dance with a girl, and then a boy—and then two boys, and the hum gets louder. Maybe it’s the vampire blood pumping through my system, or maybe it’s something else, but everyone I touch stays with me when I move on. The girl is mad at her friends, and her anger is a fleck of ash caught under my tongue; the boy is a vampire, recently Turned; and the couple’s desire leaves me confused and aroused, my body a network of sparks.

  The electricity is too much for me to contain. I can sense when it erupts from me—when the hum leaps beyond my skin and touches someone else, our connection as secure as if we’re holding hands. And it spreads like smoke, enveloping one dancer after another until I contain multitudes, until I’m delirious with connectedness. The crowd is a mess of emotions, but I get to choose which ones I put my hands on, and I choose bliss. All these people are one with me somehow, part of a seamless current that runs through my blood, and I pick up their thoughts like coins from a fountain.

  … finally in love …

  … didn’t know it was possible to be happy …

  … hope I remember this night forever …

  “Auggie!” The voice pierces my haze, and I look up to see that Gunnar has found me. “Look, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I’ve got no idea how I can make it up to you, but this…”

  He trails off as the spreading euphoria touches him as well, pressing against his defenses. Whatever armor he’s wearing, it’s strong—but when I touch him, the barrier dissolves, his emotions rush into me, and I know the truth at last. He’s attracted to me; he thinks I’m going to die, and it makes him sad; he never fully believed in the Corrupter until now, and he’s both excited and scared; he’s glad we kissed … but he also regrets it, because he really does care what happens to me.

  The electricity grows stronger, the shared bliss of the crowd spilling into both of us. His eyes flash gold, his expression going first bright with surprise and then dark with lust. He steps closer and I let him, welcoming him into the circuitry, and his hands find my waist. “Auggie … I really want to kiss you again.”

  “I know.” I touch his jaw. “So why don’t you?”

  He pulls at my hair, forcing my head back, and when his lips meet mine, the circuit flares. His mouth is exquisite, and more memories pour out of him: a guy at a diner, with brown skin and soft curls, who smiles when he catches Gunnar staring; losing his virginity on the beach at night, the water freezing, but the stars endless and perfect; teeth sinking into his neck, and a single thought pulsing in his mind, Yes, yes, yes …

  “What’s happening?” Jude stands before us, eyes glowing and heavy-lidded, caught in the same honey trap as the rest of us. His thoughts tingle when they touch me, and I move closer as he asks, “Why do I feel so…”

  When I take his hand, a shudder passes through both of us. He wasn’t lying about his reasons for flirting with me, and he wasn’t lying when he said he’d look into ways to stop what’s happening to me—but he doesn’t think it can be done. He tells people he doesn’t believe in the Corrupter, but he’s always suspected, and deep down he’s afraid the only way to stop it is for me to die.

  And lately, unexpectedly, he’s not sure he wants that to happen.

  I pull him closer, pushing the thoughts aside, because I can. The stress, the anxiety, the conflict … it’s endless and unbearable. If I wake up dead tomorrow, I don’t want my last night to be drowned in suffering—and underneath it all, buried by his own self-imposed miseries, Jude’s bliss cries out for freedom as well. So I give it a tug and bring it forth.

  His eyes blaze, and he stumbles closer. “August?”
<
br />   “It’s okay.” I’ve never meant anything more sincerely. A week ago, I’d never been kissed, and tonight … “I know what you want. It’s okay.”

  He moves in, and when our lips touch, his memories erupt in my mind: his sisters singing a duet; a debonair vampire helping him out of a shallow grave; a gallery of faces; a mudslide of emotions I shrug off.

  Jude’s kiss is even more aggressive than Gunnar’s, like it’s our only chance and he wants to make it count. His hand drops to my waist, where Gunnar is still holding onto me, and their fingers knit together. The air thickens, and our intimacy spreads throughout the room—other mouths colliding, other tongues, other hands—and all of the sensations pass back into me. Whatever drug this is, I’ll never get enough.

  When Jude pulls back, his cheekbones are sharper, his teeth extended. He and Gunnar stare at each other, and then finally reconnect. Their hands are still together at my waist, and I’m tied to their emotions, a kite caught in a turbulent sky. Their history storms and surges, love and hurt and want, and their desire builds until the pressure between my legs is almost too much to bear.

  And that’s when one of the massive windows high above us explodes, daggers of shattered glass raining onto the dance floor. The crowd shrieks and begins to scatter, just as a figure with bony limbs and long hair plummets down among us, making a dramatic three-point landing. The party crasher looks up, right at me, his eyes bright as molten bronze and his fanged teeth bared in a twisted smile. The spell of bliss broken, my blood runs cold as I recognize him from all my late-night research.

  It’s Grigori Rasputin—the Mad Monk of Russia.

  19

  Whatever magic was holding this crowd together, it dissolves in an instant. More glass shatters overhead, figures flying through the windows and plunging into the cavernous basement, while dancers—human and vampire alike—panic and try to take cover. Instinctively, I trip away from Rasputin, his freaky pinwheel eyes still fixed on mine, and the crowd surges with me. A body flies overhead, and then another, and a wave of frightened screaming sweeps through the mob.

  Suddenly, there’s a stampede for the exit, and I’m swept into it like a toy boat in a whirlpool. The music cuts off, but the lights continue to pulse and flash, fake smoke rolling while the horrific sound of tearing flesh and spraying blood fills the air. When something warm splashes my arm, adrenaline sends me into survival mode, and I start shoving.

  Another vampire drops out of nowhere, touching down only a few yards to my right, and the crowd diverts again. I’m brought off my feet, nearly carried into a concrete wall—but a hand grabs my elbow, an iron grip yanking me back to safety in the nick of time. When I look up, gasping for breath, Daphne glares back at me, irate disbelief in her eyes.

  “Really, Auggie? ‘I’m going to a rave with a bunch of vampires at the glassworks factory, you might need to come save me,’ really?”

  “You got my message?” I could actually cry, I am so grateful to see her right now.

  “Yes, obviously!” She pulls me closer as the frantic exodus swells, bottlenecking at the bottom of the stairs. People are starting to get trampled, and now vampires who came to party are starting to throw down with the ones who came to eat. Knuckles white around her stake, Daphne demands, “What were you thinking? Why the hell did you come here?”

  “I wanted answers!” My voice catches, and I blink tears from my eyes. Chaos rages around us, and I’ve lost the ability to choose bliss. “I’m dying, or … something, and the boy I thought I liked is actually a vampire, and he’s part of the Dark Star cult, and—”

  “Auggie, what—” She’s cut off when two vampires, eyes burning, claws sunk deep into each other’s flesh, slam against the wall beside us. Grabbing me, Daphne spins me behind her, backing away, deeper into the shadows. “Never mind—tell me later. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

  “But that’s the exit!” I point to the stairs, where bodies are piling up, blood spilling over concrete.

  “There’s always another way out, Auggie,” she whispers, herding me through fragrant mists into heavier and heavier darkness. “Never forget that.”

  I don’t know if she’s been here before, or she’s just a damn good guesser, but she pulls me through the gloom and into a lightless passage somewhere at the back of the building, a dark void closing tightly down around us. The space is narrow and the floor uneven, strewn with rubble and trash that I keep tripping over, and the terrified clamor of the dance floor chases us deep into its recesses. The chance that we could be ambushed in this stifling rat maze is all too real, and my ears ring with danger.

  We hit the end of the passage, and Daphne kicks hard against something—a door, metal scraping against damaged concrete as she forces it open—and then we’re in a stairwell. Moonlight weeps through filthy windows, and my bodyguard shoves me up the steps ahead of her. At ground level we find an exit; it’s chained shut, but the links are so rusted that they shatter under a few blows with a chunk of broken flooring. And then we’re out in the night air again, the frigid damp a welcome embrace.

  Just as we round the building, heading for a break in the perimeter fence facing the road, a figure drops out of the sky in our path. Landing with the force of a comet, fracturing the asphalt as it slams down, it’s another vampire. Eyes burning, her hair a mane of untamed curls, she shows us a fang-toothed grin. “Where do you two think you’re going?”

  Daphne has her stake out in an instant, spinning it like a baton, demonstrating her skill. “Back up, you undead bitch. You’re not the only one in the mood for blood tonight.”

  The vampire peers around her, though, looking straight at me. “Don’t leave so soon, baby, the Master wants to talk with you!”

  “The Master?” Daphne blinks, spluttering with laughter. “Did you seriously just call him the Master? You have got to be kidding me.”

  “You are irrelevant.” The vampire snaps ferociously, her cheekbones sharpening as she glares at my protector. “If you put down your weapon and walk away, no harm will come to you. But the Master wants August Pfeiffer.”

  I take a step back, metaphorical violins shrieking in my ears, even as Daphne retorts, “Oh wow, I’m so relieved. You promise you won’t hurt me? Actually, you better come over here and show me how to put this down, just to make sure I don’t do it wrong!”

  “Keep making jokes,” the curly-haired monster snaps, eyes burning brighter. “Might as well get them out while you still have a throat.”

  “Mmm, okay.” Daphne pretends to think. “Got one! Why did the chicken cross the road?”

  A sudden impact shakes the ground behind me, and I whirl to find that we’ve been joined by two more of the undead. The first is a man with boot-black hair and a leather duster—it’s beginner Goth nonsense, but I can’t laugh about fully extended fangs and black-tipped claws. He sways toward me, and I nearly swallow my tongue as the second vampire is revealed behind him: my old friend from Sugar Mama’s.

  “Auggie, get back,” Daphne commands, all business now, her expression hard as flint.

  The Goth vampire lunges first, and Daphne feints a retreat before meeting the advance with a kick to the sternum; at the same time, the girl vampire tries to seize the advantage of distraction but is knocked back when that chunk of broken flooring shatters across the bridge of her nose. What follows is even more dizzying than the altercation I witnessed in the parking lot of the mall. Daphne spins, kicks, and blocks simultaneously, somehow managing to fight both attackers at once while keeping me on the outside.

  All the while, the man from Sugar Mama’s hangs back and watches, like he was only sent to observe—or maybe to keep me from running. If I separate myself from Daphne, I won’t get far, and if they overpower her … well, I’m a goner either way.

  Twice, Goth Guy lunges for me while Daphne is fighting Curly, and both times my erstwhile tutor deftly intercepts him. On his second attempt, though, she swings him around, driving her stake into his chest. He stumbles back,
his body going stiff—and Daphne has already spun away again when his death catches up to him.

  Here’s the thing: Vampire deaths are gross. Whoever this guy is, only the arcane magic of his blood has kept his body from deteriorating since the day he was Turned. Now, that magic dispelled by a stake to his heart, the forces of the natural world are making up for lost time. He rots in seconds, his flesh withering to the bone while his skin sloughs off in revolting clumps—and finally he collapses, his skeleton disjointing completely.

  When he hits the ground, his head detaches and rolls right at me. I’m winding up for the loudest, shrillest screech I’ve ever let pass through my lips, when Daphne swoops in and grabs it. Hooking her fingers into the dead man’s now empty eye sockets, she whips around and flings the skull at Curly’s face. The undead girl parries with a hard block, shattering the missile entirely—just as Daphne lunges in for her second kill of the night.

  There are still pieces of broken skull hitting the pavement when the girl vampire reels, clutching the hole in her chest. The glow in her eyes goes out—and then her eyeballs shrivel altogether, her lips peel away, and she gurgles as her throat and lungs desiccate. When her bones hit the ground, scattering like jackstraws, Daphne rounds on the man from Sugar Mama’s … but he’s already gone, leaping away into the night.

  Frozen, waiting for the other shoe to drop, I manage, “Where is he—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Daphne answers blankly, her gaze skittering around the vast lot, her fingers turning the stake in an agitated revolution. We’re on the moonlit side of the building, and people are scattering across the lot in a witless panic. Their screaming fills the air—and above it, the wail of approaching sirens keens ominously. “Come on, we’re getting the hell out of here.”