She checked to make sure they were alone, her senses highly attuned to the presence of another. Satisfied that her meal wouldn’t be interrupted, she crouched beside him and hauled him up to a sitting position. She pulled a handkerchief from the inner pocket of her fur coat, which she wore merely for fashion. The cold had ceased to affect her long ago. Prying the bottle from his hands, she saw that there was still a shot or two of vodka left inside. She poured some onto the handkerchief, and used it to clean his face and neck.
As she touched him, his head lolled to one side. He whispered, “Irina.”
Esme paused. He spoke the name with such sadness that she couldn’t help but wonder who she was, and what had become of her. She resumed wiping his face, and he opened his eyes. He raised his head to look at her. She met his gaze, and saw such perfect despair in his eyes. She also saw how beautiful he was. Too beautiful to waste on a single meal.
“Are you an angel?” he asked her in slurred Czech.
“I can be,” she replied in his language. “What kind of angel would you like me to be? An angel of mercy?”
He laughed, drunkenly and bitterly. “An angel of death,” he said, “come to take me to her.”
“To Irina?” she asked. He nodded. Esme cast aside the handkerchief and caressed his face. She saw power there, and anger, hidden beneath the surface of grief and despair. “I can send you to her,” she said, “or I can make you an angel, like me. An angel of vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” His voice lost all traces of drunkenness as he repeated the word. So did his eyes, revealing the intelligence behind them. “How?”
Esme smiled. “Let me show you.”
He nodded. She opened her mouth, and he flinched, startled, as her fangs extended. But he showed no other sign of fear as she opened his coat and bared his neck. He embraced her as she bit into him, held onto her tightly as she emptied him of his life’s blood. Even near the point of death, he still clung to her, and drank hungrily as she poured her own blood back into him. Only when it was finished and he fell into transformative sleep did he finally release her.
She carried him back to her hotel, sneaked him in by way of the fire escape, and placed him in her bed, where they slept the day away. It was midnight when he finally awoke, a new creature, full of hunger and lust, with vengeance on his heart. He was glorious. And he was hers. As long as she helped him hunt down his enemies, he belonged to her willingly, following where she lead, wreaking vengeance on those who had wronged him by night, making love and feeding on each other by day.
In all the long decades that she had walked this earth, that was the only time that she had been truly happy.
A knock on the door cut through her reminiscence. Esme sat up, welcoming the distraction. “Yes?” she called.
The door opened. A red-haired beauty walked in, wearing the black uniform that their kind had adopted to set themselves apart from the humans. Her face was an ivory mask of efficiency as she held a clipboard out to Esme. “Sorry to bother you, Mistress. We’ve received the requisition order for tomorrow’s collection.”
With a sigh, Esme waved her over to the sofa and took the clipboard from her. As she looked over the order, it depressed her that this was what their race had been reduced to. A powerful race of hunters and killers, forced by the blight on humanity to fill their shoes and become administrators and bureaucrats. She pressed her lips together in mild disgust as she signed the order and handed it back to the guard. “Anything else?”
“No, Mistress.” The younger vampire’s gaze flicked to the broken glass by the bookcase. “Would you like me to send for the janitor, ma’am?”
“No, I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Celine.”
With a curt nod, the girl took her forms and left.
Esme rose from the sofa and crossed to the bookcase. There, she slid open a panel to reveal a decanter of aged Scotch. Such spirits were no match for the medicinal and intoxicating powers of fresh, warm blood, but the latter was off the menu, and the former was better than nothing. Esme removed a tumbler from the shelf and poured three fingers of the golden liquid. She drank it quickly, enjoying the burn as it traveled down her throat and settled in her stomach, then poured herself another glass.
If she was forced to work and starve like a human, then she might as well drink like one.
SIX
A long afternoon bent over a sewing machine left Hannah with a sore back and neck. She was grateful when the bell finally rang, and she put her work away and followed the crowd to the cafeteria for supper. Phyllis found her there, and Hannah let her do most of the talking while she tried to work out the kinks.
“We need to eat fast if we’re going to get a good seat in group,” Phyllis told her.
“A good seat?” asked Hannah. “Is it therapy or entertainment?”
“Yep.”
They ate quickly, and put away their trays. Others were already filing out of the cafeteria before them as Phyllis hurried Hannah toward the door. She led her to a room with about thirty folding chairs arranged in a circle, and more chairs lining the walls, many of which were already occupied. “We should sit in back,” Phyllis suggested, “otherwise they’re more likely to make you share.” She started to take a seat near the door, then seemed to reconsider. “I mean, unless you want to share your story—”
“No, this is fine,” said Hannah. “I’m really not in the mood to talk about it just yet.” She sat down in the seat closest to the door, and Phyllis took the seat next to her.
The room filled up quickly. Hannah tried to study each person that came through the door, trying to learn who her neighbors and fellow survivors were. She recognized the laundry room foreman, a few women from the morning’s shower and from the sewing room, and the rabbi who had urged them both to attend this session. Everyone else were strangers.
In moments, everyone was seated and the rabbi was calling them to attention. As he was speaking, another figure slipped into the room and stood by the door, one that Hannah recognized, conspicuous in his white lab coat amidst all of the prison orange.
“What’s he doing here?” Hannah whispered.
Phyllis followed her gaze. “Who, Dr. Creepy?” She shrugged. “I told you earlier, they like to monitor our gatherings, make sure we’re not organizing a revolt. I guess tonight was his turn.” She frowned. “Weird, though. He doesn’t usually stick around camp this long.”
As if he could sense that they were talking about him, he looked in their direction, and locked eyes with Hannah. There was nothing sinister in the look he gave her. It seemed more curious than anything, and appraising. Still, it made her uncomfortable. She tore her gaze away and fixed it on the speaker.
A skinny boy stood up, obviously several years younger than Hannah despite being nearly six feet tall. He had dark hair and freckles, and he fidgeted with the sleeves of his jumpsuit as he spoke. “H-hello. I’m… my name is Ben.”
“Hi, Ben,” the rest of the room answered in unison.
“It’s okay, Ben,” said the Rabbi reassuringly. “Tell us your story.”
Ben nodded, looked around at the faces that filled the room, and swallowed. “We were on the school bus when it happened. My little sister and me, I mean. The bus slowed down, and then it stopped, ‘cause there was a traffic jam. My sister was up at the front of the bus, with the little kids. I was sitting at the back, ‘cause that’s where the older kids always used to sit. The high schoolers, the ones who weren’t driving yet and still had to take the bus.” Again, he swallowed. “All of a sudden, the bus was surrounded by people. They were banging on the sides, rocking us, and they were all making these moaning sounds… well, you know. The little kids were screaming, and the bus driver was yelling at us all to sit down and stay calm. I tried to get up and go get my sister—I could hear her calling my name. She sounded scared. She sounded so scared—”
At this point, Ben broke down and started to cry. Rabbi Zuckerman went to him and put an arm around him. “It’s okay, son. Y
ou don’t have to keep going.”
But Ben wiped his nose and shook his head. “So the Zeds, they kept pushing on the bus, and finally they got the door open. They started piling onto the bus, and the first one in grabbed the bus driver, Mr. Callahan, and the ones behind him started to grab the little kids… my sister was screaming, and I tried to get to her, but the other kids were all rushing the back of the bus, trying to get to the emergency exit. I got out of the aisle and tried to climb over the backs of the seats, but I wasn’t fast enough. She… Mary. Her name was Mary, and she was seven.” Tears streamed down his face as he told his tale. Hannah squirmed in her seat, and thought of Noah. The thought of watching him get taken made her stomach turn.
“I couldn’t do anything for Mary,” Ben continued, “so I ran. A bunch of us got out the back while the Zeds were focused on getting in through the front, and we ran toward the woods. I used to play basketball, so I was in pretty good shape, and I just kept running and didn’t look back. I got to the woods and I kept running until nobody else was behind me. I… I was a Boy Scout, so I knew what to do in the woods, you know? I mean, it wasn’t easy, but I knew how to take care of myself if I got lost, until I got rescued. Except, there wasn’t anyone to come and rescue me. I don’t know how long I was out there. I tried to make my way home, to try and find my parents, but I never made it. I mean, the vampires found me, and I was brought here.” By the end of his story, his voice had grown calmer, and his face more resolute. “So that’s my story,” he said. “That’s how I survived.”
The rabbi clapped him on the back. “Thank you, Ben. You can take a seat.” He looked around at the crowd. “Who else would like to share?”
At the back of the room, several chairs down from Hannah, a waif of a young woman raised her hand. “Yes, Cheryl,” said the rabbi, nodding in her direction. “Go ahead.”
The woman stood up. She was rail thin—just like most of the people there—and petite, with straggly, dirty blonde hair. She looked around at the room and offered a small wave and a nervous half-smile to all those who had turned in their chairs to see her better. “Hi, I’m Cheryl,” she said, unnecessarily.
“Hi, Cheryl,” said the room.
“Some of you know that my husband, Carl, he didn’t treat me too well. I mean, sometimes he’d get drunk, and whoever or whatever he was pissed off at, he took it out on me. So I was used to him coming after me. But that morning, it was like nothing else I’d ever seen. He’d gone out to work on his truck before he had to go to work—that thing was always breaking down. I’m surprised it ever got us anywhere. Anyway, I was making breakfast when he come in. Things were usually okay in the mornings. He was usually sober, and Carl was a morning person, so he was usually in a good mood. Mornings were always my favorite time of day, ‘cause that’s… that’s when it always seemed like he liked being married to me, and like we could get along okay if only he’d stop drinking.”
She spoke so matter-of-factly, like this was a story she was repeating by rote instead of something that had actually happened to her. She went on. “But that morning, he come in and, and something was wrong. I mean, wrong, you know? There was blood on his shirt, and when I asked him what happened, if he was hurt, he just stared at me. He didn’t cuss me out or tell me to shut up or anything. He just stared, and in his eyes, it was like there was nobody home. And then he started coming towards me. He didn’t say anything, just made this sound… this gurgling sound, and blood kept, like, bubbling up in his mouth. I didn’t know what to think, or what to do, but I was more scared of him in that minute than I have been in our entire twelve years together. I tried to run to the door of the basement, but he grabbed me by the hair. He didn’t yank me back or throw me down or anything like usual. He just held on, and kept making that noise, and kept on shuffling his feet toward me. That’s when I grabbed the skillet—”
Suddenly Hannah was no longer listening to this woman tell her horror story. She was reliving her own, feeling the iron skillet in her hand, the crying baby nestled against her chest, seeing her mother’s vacant eyes and gnashing teeth. She felt sick. She took a deep breath and leaned over to Phyllis. “I have to go,” she whispered.
Phyllis blinked at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just… I can’t do this. I’m heading back to my cell.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Thanks.” Hannah stood up and made her way quietly to the door, trying not to draw any attention to herself. But everyone else in the room seemed to be riveted by Cheryl’s story. Everyone, that is, except the doctor. He watched her, and Hannah couldn’t decide whether the look on his face was curiosity or concern. She did her best to ignore him and avoided eye contact as she slipped past him and out of the room.
“Miss Jordan?”
She turned to see that the doctor had followed her out to the corridor.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. She didn’t really know how to answer that question, so she just laughed. He seemed to realize it was a stupid question, and looked slightly chagrined. He came toward her. “It’s not safe for you to walk around here alone. I’ll walk you back.”
She laughed again, disbelievingly. “You mean I’m safe with you?”
He stopped and leveled a gaze at her. “Yes. You are.”
Something about the way he said it made her want to believe him, to trust him. She wondered again about vampire powers of hypnosis, and shook her head. “Thanks, Doctor, but I’ll be fine.”
She walked away, but he followed her anyway. “The ones who brought you here said they found an emergency shelter in your back yard. Is that where you were hiding all this time?”
“Yes.” She didn’t see any further point in denying it.
“How long were you down there?”
“I don’t know. Since the outbreak. About five months.”
“And your brother. He was born in the shelter?”
Hannah stopped walking. “Why are you asking about my brother?”
Dr. Konstantin turned around to face her. “I need to know his medical history.”
“Why? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. I just need to know if he’s had his vaccinations, or if he’s been exposed to any illnesses that we should be aware of.”
“Why are you so interested in him? What are you planning to do with him?”
“Do?” He looked taken aback by the question, maybe even a little insulted. His mouth twisted into a grim smile. “I see the rumors have wasted no time in reaching you.”
“What rumors?”
“That I’m an evil mad scientist, and I spirit away children to my secret laboratory to run tests and experiments on them.”
“Well?” Hannah asked. “Are they true?”
“No.”
“Why should I believe you?”
He seemed to think about it a moment, but then sighed. “Honestly, from your perspective I can’t really think of a good reason.”
“Neither can I.” She started walking.
He fell into step beside her. “Nevertheless, I am your doctor, Miss Jordan. Your brother’s, too. I’m going to need to know your medical history. If your brother’s never been vaccinated, we need to take care of that, and soon.” When she kept walking, he grabbed her elbow, not ungently. “Miss Jordan—”
“Don’t touch me!” Hannah jerked her arm out of his grasp and spun to face him, bringing her hands up defensively as she fell into ready stance.
Konstantin backed up a step, holding his hands up in a gesture of acquiescence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Slowly, he lowered his hands and ventured a step toward her. Hannah kept her hands raised. “Look,” he said, “you asked me to get you your brother. That’s what I’m trying to do. But you’re going to have to trust me.”
Hannah shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
The doctor gave her a long, sad look. Then he nodded. “I know.” His eyes filled with determination as he leaned in an
d said, with a low voice, “But you will.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he seemed to think better of it. With a slight shake of his head, he turned and walked back the way they had come.
Hannah didn’t let her guard down, but remained tense and alert as she hurried back to her cell. When she reached it, she found that the lower bunk had been made up for her, and some basic toiletries sat on the little shelf over the sink. Her own clothes lay neatly folded on the top bunk next to the spare jumpsuit and a pair of towels. She would have to remember to thank Louise for all of this the next time she saw her.
She sat on the bottom bunk, and looked around at the dismal little cell. Beyond the bars, she could hear the low buzz of murmuring voices, fellow survivors who had already become accustomed to this life, going about their business. It already felt like her time here had been endless. Only yesterday, she had been going about life in the shelter, caring for Noah and holding him in her arms. She thought about what Dr. Konstantin had said, and wondered if there was any way she could possibly trust him. She could use an ally, and she had a feeling he would make a powerful one, if he was true to his word. But he had yet to demonstrate that he could be trusted, and blind faith could get her and Noah both killed. Or worse, if those rumors about him really were true.
She got up and shut herself inside the cell, wondering how much she could count on the bars to keep the guards out if any of them decided they wanted in. She turned out the light and climbed onto the top bunk, where out the tiny window she could see the maximum security section rising against the sky. Tomorrow, she resolved, she would find a way up there, and get the lay of the land.
She pushed the clean laundry out of the way and lay down beside it, determined to stay awake and keep an eye on the cell door throughout the night. But the trouble with staying awake was that it gave her time to think, a luxury she hadn’t had since leaving the shelter. The events of the last couple of days had been overwhelming, and she’d never really had a chance to process any of it. It was like she’d somehow crossed over into another universe where nightmares all came true. Her old life, like her parents, was gone, and she was never getting it back. Her home, her college, her friends, her country... none of it existed anymore. All she had left in the whole world was her baby brother, and she didn’t even know that for certain. She suddenly missed him, missed everything, with an ache that hadn’t filled her so completely since that first night in the shelter.
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