by D. N. Hoxa
I faded.
III
The year was 1798 and I happened to be in New England. Even then, I had no real interest in anything; I was just passing by. I’d stayed for two nights and fed enough to last another week. The plan was to ride Buckle, my beautiful Friesian, to New Hampshire as soon as I woke up.
Unfortunately, when I did, I couldn’t even open the door to the garage I was renting because of the snow. It was supposed to be a nice Saturday, but it turned out to be one of the worst storms New England had ever seen. Snow everywhere. Wind that almost took me with it when I broke the door and got out. If I was human, I would have died from walking for half an hour. I wanted to go to the stables where I had left Buckle for the day and make sure he was alright. So I kept walking until I hit something. Something as cold as I was.
There was snow everywhere on my face so I had to wipe it off before I could see in front of me. I noticed the beautiful dark green eyes first. The long eyelashes dripped on her pale cheeks as if she were crying. But the lack of redness on her soft-looking cheeks told me she was nowhere near crying. She was like me. A vampire, stuck in the snow.
“Did you want something?” Her voice was like the rest of her: strong and very authoritative. Only then did I realize that I’d grabbed her by her arm.
“Not…” I didn’t get to say anything else, because she jerked her arm and moved forward.
I had no trouble following her. I was going the same way she was.
She was tall, almost as tall as me, and I could see the top of her head coming out of the snow. It was covered with a beautiful shade of wet red. I could tell her hair was dyed, but it still looked great on her. She knew that I was following her—she was a vampire so she could hear as well as I did. And when she turned to the left, heading for the same stables where Buckle was, I knew she was there for the same reason. I also knew we were meant to have a conversation. I just had no idea how good or bad it was going to be.
She managed to open the door to the stables in one kick. I was kind of hoping I’d get to help her, but I got in after her all the same. The horses’ whinnies and nickers didn’t stop when they felt us there. She went straight for the second stall on the left, while shaking the snow off her long leather coat and her ponytail.
I found Buckles where I’d left him and offered my hand to calm him before I went in closer. When I turned to look, still thinking about how to spark the conversation, I didn’t see her, but I heard her. She’d laid inside the stable with her horse.
After calming Buckle down, I went over and saw her patting the horse’s neck calmly.
“Is it yours?” I asked.
She looked up at me with a raised brow. “She,” she almost hissed. “She is mine.”
“She’s beautiful,” I said, and she was. A beautiful Saddlebred.
“Her name’s Antoinette,” the girl said.
I wished I could hold the laugh, but it was impossible.
“What’s so funny?” she snapped. Her temper was ridiculous.
“Nothing, nothing,” I said, trying to stifle my laugh. “It’s a beautiful name.”
I’d just never heard anyone name their horse Antoinette.
“You from around here?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said, kind of excited. “Just passing by. You?”
“Same. Though if I’d known I’d get stuck like this, I’d have never come to this fucking place,” she said in disgust.
“It’s not so bad.” Plenty of heavy sleepers to feed from, and the hole I was sleeping in was nice enough.
“You know how many rapists I’ve had to kill in the last two nights?” Anger flashed in her eyes.
I shrugged. Those days, a man did what he pleased with his woman. Nobody called it “rape.”
“Eight,” she hissed. “Eight fuckers who thought they could do whatever the fuck they wanted and get away with it.”
Eight people. She’d killed eight humans in two nights. And she smiled in satisfaction.
That sort of thing simply didn’t sit right with me, so I stepped back.
“Good to meet ya,” I said, and headed back for Buckle.
Past experience taught me to never trust a vampire who lets you see too deep inside them on the first meet. There’s just something about our world and secrets. Maybe because that’s what we were– a secret, all on our own. It was a shame. I really liked her.
I was patting Buckle’s elegant neck when we heard a scream. A woman’s scream. It was coming from behind the stables. I heard the redhead hissing before I saw her, eyes silver and mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. She was ready for blood.
I followed her when she walked past me, and straight to the makeshift back wall of the stable. The screams kept coming, please don’t, God, please, please, the woman pleaded. But whoever was hurting her didn’t stop.
The redhead broke the wall with one fist, and the rest of it gave under her weight when she stepped right through it. Outside, snow fell constantly, but she didn’t stop, and I followed. After just three steps, she kicked something. I smelled wood, and I heard it crack under the weight of her foot. Once, twice, and it broke.
The screaming stopped for a second. Only a second, and then when it started again, it was much worse. A man and a little girl joined in.
I walked inside the broken wall and into a room that was half-filled with snow now. The man was holding a knife in his shaking hand, directing it to the redhead. The woman lying on the bed was naked, and she had knife cuts under her breasts and on her left arm. The little girl turned my stomach over. She was behind the door, sitting on the ground with her arms around her knees, rocking and crying. She’d cried so hard for so long that I could barely make out her eyes.
She had been watching this man raping her mother. I felt my teeth begin to sharpen. I barely had time to move my eyes before the man fell on the ground, the knife that he’d been holding stuck right in the middle of his forehead.
I expected shouts again. Screams of terror. Instead, I turned around to see the woman, still naked, looking at the vampire with eyes wide, filled with admiration. I’d lived long, but I didn’t remember ever seeing anyone look at any vampire that way. The woman dragged herself to the corner of the bed, never taking her eyes off the redhead, who now looked like a normal and very beautiful girl.
“What are you?” the woman whispered. I heard no trace of fear in her voice.
“Get your kid and get out of here,” the vampire said.
“No,” the woman cried, shaking her head. “There’s nowhere for me to go. Not like this.” She touched her arms. “Make me,” she breathed. “Make me like you.”
“No.”
“Please, I beg you. I will do anything,” the woman cried.
“You have no idea what this is,” the vampire hissed, pointing at herself.
“You’re strong!” she cried, as if that was the only thing that mattered.
“And you can be, too.”
The woman cried and begged. The vampire only shook her head. The child still had hers tucked in between her legs, rocking back and forth.
“Please,” the woman chanted. The redhead walked over to the dead man, pulled the knife from his forehead and threw it at the bed.
“Learn how to use it. Keep it with you at all times,” the redheaded vampire said before she turned around and disappeared into the snow.
I’d never seen something like that. She refused the chance at being a Doyen, this woman. Only Doyens could turn others, but a begging human being, willing to sacrifice her beating heart and put it in the hands of a vampire…that vampire could turn her and become Doyen. And the woman just turned the chance down.
I forgot the satisfied smile on her face when she confessed to killing eight people. I wanted to know all about her. I wanted to know why she would turn such a thing down.
So I followed her back into the stables.
“My name’s Hammer,” I offered and when she turned to look at me, I could swear she was a mad
woman. She’d caught my smile, though. That seemed to soften her a bit.
“Chandra,” she said.
“What you did there—”
“I didn’t have any choice,” she snapped. “He was—”
“You did right, but that’s not what I meant. I was talking about the woman.”
“Nobody should have to become the way we are,” she said, her voice sad all of a sudden.
“And what are we?”
I was curious to hear her opinion.
She turned to look at me, her face stone cold. “A mistake,” she spit.
“I can’t say that I agree with you on that, but I can say that I was impressed.”
She started to laugh. “Oh, Hammer,” she sang. “I think I like you.”
“Why?”
“You’re honest. It’s hard to find a vampire who is honest these days,” she said almost reluctantly.
“I’m not always like this.” In fact, I never was. But there was something about her.
“I know,” she nodded. “I’ve heard about the mighty Hammer. You cut your Doyen to pieces and buried each one in six different parts of the world.”
I wasn’t that mighty. I’d never killed my Doyen. He made me say that I did, but nobody knew that. Nobody could know. I’d taken all the glory, though it was wrong. They’d even started to call me Hammer, because that’s what I had with me when I went to “finish my Doyen.” I liked the name, so I kept it.
“It doesn’t hurt to be cautious,” I said, shrugging.
“But you’re not tonight.”
“That’s because of you.”
“You’d be a fool to trust me. Or anyone, for that matter.”
“Oh, but I have a feeling about these things. I’m a good reader,” I said, stepping closer. I didn’t stop until I was right in front of her, and she put her hands on my chest.
“If you think you’ve read me right, then you, mighty Hammer, are just as much a fool as the rest of them.”
And she kissed me.
IV
I trusted her for no reason I ever understood. She was my Chandra, my beautiful redheaded vampire, who I loved dearly. I did loved her, must have loved her, since I spent so long chasing after her and having her chase after me. It was solid what we had. It worked. So yes, I loved her, but I was never in love with her. When you lived for longer than a century, you learned to see the difference.
We did almost everything together. We were comfortable around each other. Until one day, she disappeared.
The first time I met Morta Fox, the first time I spoke to her, I realized she was a different planet from what Chandra had been. If it had worked with her, it wasn’t going to work with the petite white-haired beauty, even though I’d felt attracted to her much more than I had to anyone before. It was even bigger and stronger than what I’d felt that night with Chandra.
Then I spoke to her the second time, and the third, and the fourth, and somewhere along the way, I understood. I understood why Chandra left. I understood why, even if she hadn’t left, I would have. We worked, me and her. We had harmony in every move.
With Morta, it was a whole other story. We never saw eye to eye. We never moved the same way. I never knew what to expect from her, and I realized once while we were running, that that was it! That was why it was always going to be Morta and me, forever. Because we weren’t the same, because we pushed each other, and because one touch from her hand and I was ready to set the world on fire. One smile, so small I barely saw it, and she pulled me so hard, I dived headfirst into love.
I raised up on my knees. The smell of my burning flesh made me want to gag. I looked around for Ray Bardos. He wasn’t there. There was no way he’d gotten out so fast. I was going to find him.
I didn’t care how long it took. I was going to find him and get out of here because…because Morta. She was out there, waiting for me. And she was going to get me out of the Red Dimension. Not Chandra—I would’ve never had the will to try for her. But Morta was going to get me out of it.
The first step was always the hardest. Others, too, but the first one felt like your whole body was breaking, little piece by little piece, while on fire. I walked and dragged myself in the direction I’d last seen Ray.
I never stopped, no matter how bad everything hurt. Somewhere along the way, I froze. And when flames took me again, I continued. Memory after memory played in my mind from the time before her, and the time after. Bugz was right. She had changed me. I thought of all the bad things I’d done—and the good ones—and I thought of how I’d lied about killing Ray. When I saw him again, I wouldn’t lie anymore. I was going to really kill him this time. Because he left me behind and didn’t look back when he owed me. The fucker owed me for what I’d done for him.
Ray Bardos always was what you’d call a badass. It was the late sixteen hundreds when he found me. My father had beaten me so badly that I was lying in the middle of the street of Esperanza, a small village in the north of Spain.
I was on the verge of dying when Ray found me. I was unconscious most of the time, but I felt him drag me by my legs and into the woods nearby. I didn’t have the strength to scream. I was barely breathing. I heard him speak, but I couldn’t make out a word he said because it was in English. I only knew Spanish at the time, and in Spanish, I asked him to save me.
I tried to see, but I couldn’t. It was too dark. And then I felt it. I felt something sharp pierce the skin of my neck, and I wanted to scream. I couldn’t. I was too far gone. Beaten and scared and shocked. I remembered closing my eyes and thinking it was good that I was going like this—food for an animal. That was the only thing that made sense to me then.
But when I woke up and saw him, and he told me who he was and what he’d done, I wanted to kill him. I was going to, but he ordered me to sit tight. I found that, even in a different language, when he ordered me, I had no choice but to obey.
I’d wanted to kill him, and loved him without reason, for too damn long. So, a century later, when he ordered me to kill him on the thirteenth of September, 1782, I was fucked in the head. I wanted to, so badly, for turning me without my consent. Yet I didn’t want to, because he was my Doyen and I knew I’d be lost without his guidance.
Turned out I was better off without him when he broke his promise, and the Red Dimension claimed him.
Ray had killed a Doyen whose last order to his vampires had been to avenge him in the worst possible way—for a vampire—in case of his death. Oh, yes. Jericho had left word to his vampires that, if someone, somehow killed him, they were to catch him, tie him in silver, and torture him for exactly one century before killing him. He’d left instructions in a small notebook, they said. And he had forty vampires. Ray knew he had no chance at escaping. And he couldn’t handle a century of torture. So he figured he’d die before they got to him. He ordered me to kill him. More than that, he promised he’d let me.
But when the time came, he chickened out. He ordered me not to go anywhere near him, right before he disappeared and I never saw him again.
So now, when I found him, I was going to cut his body to pieces and bury them in all parts of the world for real. Right after he got me out of the Red Dimension.
I walked for so long, you’d think I’d gotten immune to the pain and anger. I never did. I got beaten by some, beat some myself, until the second I saw Ray Bardos sitting there on the ground, completely frozen.
I could’ve cried from joy. I could’ve shouted to the skies. I did neither, but hurried as much as I could to reach him while I still was in flames.
It took me a while, but I finally fell down on my knees in front of his frozen body and wrapped my burning fingers around his throat. He saw me and tried to blink, but I didn’t care. I was going to get the anger out first.
I felt the kick I received in my groin, and my fingers went numb. A body fell on top of mine and knocked me to the ground. Pain and anger boiled my blood, and I tried to hit whoever was on top of me. I managed to push him away
with my feet, but before I could fall on top of him, I realized that it was a her. A female. I could tell by the shape of her chest, because the rest of her was on fire.
A moment of hesitation, and it cost me, because in the next, I felt the cold gather in the tips of my toes, and spread fast up to consume me.
I looked at Ray. Calm, he blinked, over and over again. He blinked it first to me, and then to her. Once, twice, and then she blinked the word back.
Was it possible that this was the third person, or was she just someone he’d found to replace me? As if hearing the question in my head, Ray blinked three. Three. We were three vampires who could communicate.
I would’ve moved if I wasn’t frozen. To at least slap him across his face for leaving me. But I couldn’t. She was the only one who was in flames at the moment.
She watched me for a long time, and there was nothing I could do but stare back. She seemed curious. I could tell by her eyes, because nothing else on her face was recognizable.
Hammer, I blinked. If she was the third person who was going to help us get out of here, then so be it.
Harley, she blinked back. I looked at Ray and then back at her, and told her through my eyes that he was my Doyen. She shook her head to tell me that he wasn’t hers. I knew that. I knew all the vampires that Ray made. Some had tried to kill me after I’d pretend-killed him, and some had sent me gifts. She wasn’t one of them.
It was a while before flames took me back, and I could move. Even then, Ray was still frozen. It was different for each of us. I’d never seen Harley frozen though it’d been a long time since I’d found them. When I could move, I sat in front of Ray and blinked.
Full moon, and I hoped he understood that I wanted an explanation.
His eyes blinked, and he looked at Harley. 42 days.
Sure? I blinked. Was it possible to know? She nodded. She knew. It all seemed impossible, but she really looked like she knew.
Forty-two days. Call me a fool for believing, but I did. I believed them both. They had no reason to try and trick me about this. They wouldn’t bother because what good could come from it?