The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “I’m sorry.” He looks helpless. For the first time since I encountered him outside the school like two weeks ago, he seems uncertain of his position. “I wish I knew some way to suppress the Corrupter, or alter his course.”

  “What is the Corrupter?” I ask quietly. I have Ximena’s answer, and I have one from Jude as well … but I want to see if his has changed—if this is another thing that’s been kept from me all along.

  But what he says is: “I don’t know. I’m sorry, August. There have been so many false accounts over the years, so many reasons to disbelieve the entire myth, that the Syndicate has long since given up on finding a concrete answer to that question at all.”

  “What if I took an oath to the Brotherhood of Perseus instead?” I don’t know why I’m bringing it up with him, except that … who else do I have? “When they realize what happened to Daphne, they’ll probably have someone else contact me. If I pledge myself to their cause, then it keeps the Corrupter’s power out of the hands of all vampires.”

  “If the oath works,” Jude reminds me cautiously, something troubled lurking behind his expression. “And only if they don’t have something else in mind.”

  The way he says it is so ominous I expect lightning to strike. “W-what else—”

  “Truly, I’ve been trying to understand the Brotherhood’s angle in this all along. Not to mince words, but even though you’re human, you’re also a threat to humanity—the threat.” Jude drags a hand through his curls. “I assumed they had access to materials we didn’t and were working on a way to divert the Ascension, or that maybe they were simply protecting you until the last possible moment, hoping for a miracle.”

  It is by the grace of God that I don’t diarrhea myself as I supply, “But?”

  “I haven’t just been sitting on my hands these past weeks. When your art teacher tried to kill you, I took a deep dive into his background.” He shifts his jaw. “Jesse T. Strauss was born in Richmond, Virginia—and died three months later from an undetected abnormality in his heart. The man who came to Fulton Heights using a deceased infant’s name and social security number, and some expertly forged documents and professional references, was named Kyle Galloway. He was from old money in New England … and he became a Knight with the Brotherhood of Perseus when he was nineteen.”

  “That’s … not possible.” It doesn’t even make sense. “If he’d been with the Brotherhood, Daphne would have known! Even if he went rogue and tried to ninja me to death on his own, they would have found out afterward!”

  “Maybe they did,” he suggests, too lightly. “Maybe they told her and she kept it from you, because she didn’t want to shake your faith in the Knights’ ability to protect you. But,” Jude adds, his brow tensed, “someone set him up with that ID. The documents, the references, the deep cover … He was here for a year and a half. That would be hard to pull off without support.”

  “So what does that mean?” My stomach gurgles some more. “They sent him to watch me, too, and he decided to change the mission?”

  Jude looks down at his hands, taking a moment to choose his words—a long moment—which makes what’s left of my stomach curdle into cottage cheese. Finally, “Your tutor’s name wasn’t really Daphne Banks.”

  “Okay.” I stay perfectly still, even though the entire mall capsizes.

  “I mean, it makes sense,” he adds cautiously, “since the Brotherhood seems to prefer false identities for Knights working undercover—but I couldn’t find a paper trail for her at all. She wasn’t a registered driver in the state of Illinois, she wasn’t enrolled at Northwestern, and the car she was driving belonged to a ninety-six-year-old woman in Skokie who’s been bedridden for three years.” He shrugs in a performance of confusion. “Why would the Knights craft a detailed alter ego for one operative, and send the other out with … literally nothing?”

  “Because she wasn’t the one trying to get a job at a public high school.” I can barely breathe the air I need to say the words. “She didn’t need all that stuff.”

  “Maybe.” Jude studies my face. “Or maybe Kyle Galloway isn’t the one who went rogue.”

  24

  It’s the second time I’ve shoved myself up from this table, drawing attention from other people in the food court. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. No matter what her name was, Daphne saved my life!”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Jude says, getting to his feet as well. “I’m sorry to put it like this, but the most obvious way to protect humankind from the Corrupter is to kill the vessel.” His tone is modulated, careful. “She knew that. If your body dies before he can Ascend, his time on Earth is over for a generation.”

  He peters off awkwardly, and the silence between us is made from barbed wire. It’s not like I hadn’t considered this same issue—I even asked Daphne herself about it. But Rasputin intervened before I ever got my answer.

  If Daphne and Mr. Strauss were both with the Brotherhood of Perseus, then one of them wasn’t following orders; and if Jude’s telling me the truth, then only my art teacher’s background is confirmed. Meanwhile, I can’t even prove Daphne was who she said she was when I first found out she wasn’t who she said she was. Why would she have protected me, saved my life three times, and finally died so I could escape Rasputin, if she worked for an organization that wanted me dead? And if she didn’t work for them … who was she?

  Jude rubs his jaw, stretching out his long, elegant throat, and I stare at it. A few centuries ago, human and terrified, he decided that vampirism was the least of two dire fates—better undead than just dead. My pulse is going berserk, my skin hot and cold at once.

  If I die, the Corrupter dies with me … but what if I come back?

  “What happens if I Turn?” I ask before I lose my nerve. This isn’t even something I’m sure I want—to live like Jude or Gunnar; to figure out how to break the news to my parents. But I don’t want to die. “We could stop the Ascension, and I wouldn’t have to—”

  “No, August.” Jude stares, eyes filled with pity. “I’m sorry, but I … I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I’m fighting the urge to scream it.

  “For one thing, the Syndicate has strict rules about that. I’d need their approval—and I won’t get it, specifically because of their conflicting views on the Corrupter. And if I do it anyway … well, there are, in fact, fates worse than death, and those of us who don’t die easily can suffer the worst of them.” Jude shakes his head and gives me a beseeching look. “You don’t really know what you’re asking, August. You’d never see the sun again, you’d never see your parents. Eventually, you’d bury them, along with everyone else you know and love.” He sits back down heavily. “Gunnar wanted to Turn, too, you know. His life was dismal, and I couldn’t say no to him, even though I knew it was a mistake. And look how that turned out. He hates me now, and sooner or later, so would you.”

  My voice is almost too rough to pass through my throat. “All I ever wanted was to get out of high school so I could live a normal life, like everyone else.”

  “I’m sorry.” His expression is sincere, beautiful. “You know, Gunnar’s not the only one who remembers what it’s like to be mortal—who misses it. Everything is new: your first kiss, your first dance, your first time reading Emily Dickinson or trying foreign cuisine … It’s intoxicating and exciting.” He gazes out across the food court. “It’s what got me in trouble when I met him. I fell for Gunnar so hard, and Hecuba blew an absolute gasket when she found out I’d become involved with a mortal while out on assignment.”

  “What happened between you two?” I ask, because I’ve got nothing to lose by being nosy at this point.

  “Everything. Nothing.” Jude gives a listless shrug, lost in the past. “It’s all so hopelessly tangled now. But in the beginning, it was like seeing the world again for the first time.” He looks back at me again. “That’s what I want. Not a world where vampires and humans battle each other until the subjugation of one or t
he extinction of the other; not a world where the only alternative to a horrific end is a deathless existence until the end of time. I like the world.” He shrugs with an open, helpless smile. “And I liked kissing you. If we’d met under different circumstances, it could have been fun. Not the kind that would get me in trouble with Hecuba, but the kind where we would have kissed again. Maybe a lot.”

  No matter what happens, tonight is about us. I’m running out of time for that future memory to take place, and I still don’t know what it means. Was it ever even real?

  “Rasputin has my parents, and one way or another, I’m going to save them. If I have to take an oath to the Order of the Northern Wolf, then so be it,” I declare. It’s a stupid threat to make. The Syndicate might disagree internally about whether the Ascension should be celebrated, but Jude wants to stop it, and he’s already divulged the only effective plan he’s got. “I have until Thursday to decide.”

  Jude studies my face, and I school my features into a deadpan glare. I don’t think he believes I’ll go through with it—my poker face is bullshit—but he gives me a nod anyway. “I’ll see what I can find out about Rasputin’s operation and where your parents might be. Give me a day or two, and we can talk about a plan to rescue them.”

  It takes me a moment to realize what he’s saying. “Just like that?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” He rises to his feet again with a funerary air. “I had to report last night’s attack to the Syndicate. It was a serious breach of our protocols, and they’d have learned of it regardless. They’re sending reinforcements, and in a matter of days I’ll lose the advantage of being able to make decisions and justify them later.” His eyes travel over my face, my lips, and he looks away. “Hecuba wants to bury the Corrupter forever—even as a rumor, it’s caused nothing but trouble. Supposing you died, August … all it would do is reset the same conditions. She hasn’t given up on looking for some way to stop him permanently, and I haven’t, either. I’ll do everything I can, for as long as I can, to keep you from having to make this choice. You have my word.”

  With a final, sober nod, he turns and leaves me at the table, disappearing from view while I try to figure out if I’ve just moved forward or backward.

  It looks like the Brotherhood actually wants me dead, and that Daphne defied them by protecting me. It’s chilling, because even if I can’t figure out why, I’m less safe than ever now that she’s gone. Conversely, Hecuba apparently wants a way to stop the Corrupter that goes beyond just executing me like vessels of yore—and as one of the original Syndics, she clearly has a lot of influence. That doesn’t mean she cares about keeping me alive, of course, or that a way to thread that particular needle even exists … but at least she doesn’t want me dead. Yet.

  The chair beside me scrapes the floor as someone joins me at the table, and when I look up, I freeze all the way to my marrow. A familiar face, a familiar voice, a familiar smile. “Thank God; I thought he would never leave.”

  My lungs constrict, fear stretching its sharp claws in my chest. I push away instinctively, and she closes a hand over my wrist, her grip enough to bring me to a trembling standstill. I refuse to believe my eyes. I won’t. “No…”

  “Don’t lose your shit, Auggie,” Daphne says with an amused look. “You should know by now that I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Riveted in place, I just stare at her, aware of nothing but the pressure of her confident grip—of that telltale whispering sensation that never went away when Jude departed. Her features are off somehow, her cheeks a little sharper and her hair a darker shade of blond, but it’s unmistakably Daphne Banks. And she is unmistakably a vampire.

  “What did he d-do to you?” I barely get the question out, my insides rioting, all my fluids wanting out by their most convenient possible exits.

  “You mean Rasputin?” Daphne gives a derisive snort, rolling her eyes. “Please. He got lucky because I was pulling my punches. If you’d run when I told you to”—she gives me a reproachful look—“we wouldn’t even be sitting here right now. His pathetic, three-card-monte ass would be a pile of bones.”

  “You’re a vampire,” I whisper.

  “Okay, Auggie, I’m really sorry to have to do this, but I need you to calm down so you can hear me out.” Daphne looks me in the eye, gold light shimmering across her irises—and just like that, she’s in my head.

  It’s as familiar as her scent, the delicate way she plucks at my thoughts, a harpist searching for the sweetest notes; and a bottleneck forms where I fight against the bliss she wants to let into my body. This is what I did to the crowd last night—this is what Jude said he could have withstood if he’d wanted to. And as the pressure builds, a tranquil happiness spreading wide and waiting to envelop me, I understand why Jude gave in to it.

  When I stop fighting, the tension floods out of me in an instant. Even as my heart rate slows, my body relaxing with a rush of dopamine, I know this is all false. I’m being manipulated, but I don’t care, because for the first time all day I’m finally not drowning in terrified misery. Taking a breath, Daphne exclaims, “Wow! That was some impressive resistance, mister. Pretty soon, I bet tricks like that won’t work on you at all.”

  “You had vampire blood in your system.” The noise in my brain quiet at last, I’m thinking things through. I remember the capsules she forced into my mouth after we hit the tree—when my shoulder was almost certainly broken, and my only hope for recovery and escape was to borrow power from the undead. If she’d done the same for herself, to boost her strength, and then she died …

  “It takes vampirism twenty-four hours to gestate,” Daphne interrupts my thoughts patiently. “Or thereabouts, depending on where you are. Sundown to sundown, anyway.” Gesturing at the domed skylight above us, the panes a bleak gray-white from the cloud cover, she notes, “And the sun’s not down yet.”

  I take a breath, and finally just ask the question. “Who are you?”

  “Just so you know, this isn’t how I wanted to have this conversation,” she begins apologetically. “I mean, there was never going to be a ‘good’ way to get this out in the open, but I’d at least hoped for better circumstances than these. Hell, I did my best to plan better circumstances, but … well…” Daphne squares her shoulders and meets my eyes again. “Auggie, my name was never Daphne Banks. That was an alias I adopted so I could get closer to you—closer to him. My real name is Viviane Duclos.”

  25

  The universe whirls, a mad carnival ride with us at its axis, and I hold tight to my chair to keep from being thrown clear. With one move, she’s shaken out the past, forcing everything into a new alignment. Rigidly, I croak, “That’s not possible.”

  Viviane Duclos—official cult leader of the League of the Dark Star. Jude’s ominous words go on a military parade through my brain: A powerful French sorceress … notorious for her cunning … if Duclos wants you in her grasp, she’s had since the sixteen hundreds to devise countless ways to manage it.

  “I’m sorry.” She almost looks sincere. “The truth is, we were never supposed to get to this point. You were never supposed to know me as anyone other than your math tutor—and after the Rising, I would be here, waiting for the Dark Star.”

  She looks dreamily into the distance, and I try to understand how this familiar face could be someone I never knew. It seems silly to feel hurt in this moment by the pettiest of her deceptions, but I can’t help it. My voice dripping with accusations, I state, “You told me you were with the Brotherhood. You said you were here to protect me.”

  “Two points,” she begins, holding up as many fingers. “First, I am here to protect you. I didn’t get into a swordfight and throw hands with Rasputin just to sell a cover story, you know. Keeping you alive is half the reason I’m here at all.”

  “Yeah, so I can keep incubating the Angel of Death for you,” I shoot back.

  “Would you have rather I let your art teacher chop your head off?” She arches a brow, offering no reaction to my knowle
dge of the Corrupter’s true origins. “Anyway, Jude Marlowe was the one who brought up the Brotherhood, not me. I saw you two sitting together, and I panicked—I didn’t want him to seduce you and kidnap you off to Transylvania, so I intervened. When he accused me of being a Knight, I went with it, because it was the easiest explanation.” She flops back in her seat, disgruntled. “I knew the Syndicate would send someone, and I should have figured it would be Marlowe, with his puppy dog eyes and slick vibe. They went straight for your hormones. Predictable.”

  “And you didn’t?” I counter, glad at least that the spell she has me under disguises how vulnerable I feel right now. “Or do you seriously want me to think it’s a coincidence that you sent a gorgeous surfer boy to work at my favorite café?”

  “Gunnar Larsen, that horny little dipshit.” Daphne—Viviane—pinches the bridge of her nose. “I want you to know that he was never supposed to approach you. His job was to watch you when I couldn’t, and that’s all. I didn’t even know the two of you had seen each other outside of Sugar Mama’s until you told me he’d been at that fucking party last night! Believe me, when I see him again, he’s going to get my entire foot up his ass.”

  I blink a few times, my throat closing up as I whisper, “I thought you were my friend.”

  “Oh, Auggie.” Viviane Duclos clasps her hands together and gives me an abject look, her eyes genuinely sad. “This whole thing got so much more complicated than I ever imagined. I’ve been chasing the Dark Star for almost three hundred and fifty years, and when I started planning for the Ascension, you were just a footnote in an ancient book—a vessel to be born at a particular time, bearing particular markers.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure it won’t mean anything to you to hear this now, given where we are, but … I am your friend. Or I was. I only came to Fulton Heights to find the Corrupter, but I found you, too. And I’m honestly glad.”

  “That makes one of us.” It’s a pitiful comeback, but I’ve got nothing else to fight with.