by M C Ashley
“But what could I do to help?” Dorothy asked.
“You can live. You can make the world brighter just by being there. You can defend your fellow man and show them the gifts that God has for all of us. You can show that even during the greatest periods of strife and hatred that strength and friendship can endure, inspiring others to do the same.”
“I—but I—I’m not strong.”
I reached her and she stared into my eyes again. I smiled gently, letting her feel my sincerity. She looked away for a moment and into the waters below and then turned back to face me.
“You’re stronger than you think you are,” I said, hugging her.
I picked her up and placed her on the ground, not breaking off the hug.
Then I offered her my power. Doing so is normally illegal under the Laws, but in some circumstances, it was allowable for a Psionic or Sentinel to lend a mundane their strength to keep them alive or to heal them. I’ve done it before to offer a civilian the chance to survive a harrowing experience. The process is something that’s difficult to describe, since I’ve never been on the receiving end of a Sentinel-mundane merger, but it almost always works. I could see the suffering she had endured and I pushed it away, showing her how to overcome it by offering her feelings of my own. I showed her the Dream Team talking to each other and laughing together at a joke I’d made. I showed her my mother and father swinging me between their arms while I was a child, as I grinned from ear to ear. Lastly, I showed her Zea inspiring me to get over my guilt at living past my friends and accepting the fact that I had more work to do.
“I—I see,” Dorothy said a moment later. “You’re so strong.”
I looked over at Zea. “No, but I have strong people watching out for me,” I said. “And that makes all the difference.”
“Blake, we need to hurry,” Zea said.
I nodded and turned to Dorothy. “Get the slaves out of here,” I said. “Try to make it look legitimate if you can. If not, then get the heck outta Dodge as soon as possible. It’s not going to be a pretty place to be in a couple of hours.”
“You—You’re one of them,” Dorothy said. “The Gray Forum. I never dreamed I’d see them come back. I thought they were just bedtime stories my parents told me. Thank you. I’ll do as you say.”
Leaving us behind, Dorothy went down the hallway as Zea looked at me, a smile on her lips.
“Well done,” she said. “Now let’s stop this Feast.”
“Lead the way.”
Chapter 20
As efficient as Zoë had wanted to be, her overconfidence was her weakness. Not a single vampire was in the mansion, letting us escape unmolested. I gave a silent prayer of thanks as Zea and I integrated ourselves into the crowd of Vice City.
It seemed as if every resident of Vice City, young and old, poor and rich, vampire and human alike were all heading toward one direction. It had been easy to assimilate ourselves into their fold. As far as anyone else was concerned, we were just on our way to watch the Feast. It was astounding. All of these people and none of them had worked against this. Maybe I was being harsh. I’d never know of the struggle of mundanes fighting against an enemy that had once been a bedtime story’s nightmare. Even still, my mind had a hard time reconciling the past with this defeated future nightmare.
I watched an old man trudge forward, worry on his face. Upon closer inspection, he looked like a young man suffering from some degenerative supernatural malady. No doubt he’d been fed on enough by the vampires to end up a haphazard reflection of what he had once been. He wasn’t alone. There were others in the crowd, moving slower than their fellows, the telltale spiritual marks of psychic assault all over them.
I frowned. I could never understand what they’d gone through. The Feast had happened three times already. Most of the people in the crowd had probably witnessed at least one of them. Seeing that and being forced to cheer as humans were incinerated in a mocking ceremony was something I never wanted to think about. I had to stop it.
Zea moved faster than me, the price of my having used a part of myself to heal her. There had been no time to wait and heal myself, especially since there was the possibility of a tracker locating us. I didn’t feel that bad anyways, just moving a little slower. A good fight would reenergize me.
We wore hoods over our faces, dodging through the crowds. Thanks to the large assembly of the townspeople, our hoods didn’t make us stand out. Most of them were garbed in similar attire. Feeling something important, I gazed up at the sky and sighed. A blood moon filled the night.
“Dare I ask if there’s a plan?” Zea asked.
“Working on that,” I said.
“As expected.”
“Hey. I can’t change my personality so drastically in such a short time.”
“I wouldn’t want you to. I just haven’t come up with anything that sounded sane.”
“That’s because you live in servitude to your sanity.”
Zea paused and looked at me strangely.
“I was joking,” I said, shaking my head.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she said, rolling her eyes.
We moved forward, weaving through in unison, making sure not to lose sight of the other.
“Where do you think they are?” Zea asked.
“Somewhere safe I hope,” I said.
“But they’ll miss everything if they don’t come with us.”
“They’ll be there when we need them.”
“I haven’t felt them.”
“One of them is very good at concealing himself. I’m not surprised we can’t find them yet.”
“Do you trust them to come?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It is a valid concern. They are unknowns.”
I stopped and grabbed her arm. Zea looked at me in frustration.
“They’ll come,” I said.
Zea gazed into my eyes and sighed. “Well at least you believe that,” she said.
Having nothing left to say, we kept walking toward the center of Vice City, not knowing what to expect. I scanned our surroundings constantly, avoiding the gaze of the enforcers along our path.
“People are stopping ahead of us,” Zea said.
I perked up and watched them. I knew exactly where we were. At least, what it had been. Bayfront Science Park. The Corpus Christi Museum of Science & History was right next door. There wasn’t much to it, but as a kid, I’d gone there often, fascinated by the displays and waterfront it offered. Now the building had fallen into disrepair, the fountains dried up, and was now owned by the Sanguine Collective.
“Monsters,” I said, clenching my fists.
“Calm yourself,” Zea said. “Don’t raise your energy.”
I grumbled under my breath and did as instructed. I watched the people assemble around a huge platform erected in the center of the Park. Most of them were drinking and singing songs to commemorate the Feast. Enforcers stood around them, making sure no one rushed the stage, but they needn’t have bothered. The crowd was far too lost in their forced merriment to bother defying them. It was easy to tell how trained their partying was. I doubted most of them would’ve been able to gather the courage to not participate.
In the center of the platform stood Zoë Slinden, smiling smugly as she gazed at the crowd herding around the stage. Behind her were enforcers, all armed to the teeth and ready to kill anyone they wanted. To her right stood Cinderella, dressed elegantly in the white robe I’d seen earlier. I watched her intently. She was smiling, but I could sense its fakeness. She turned toward my direction and I got a better look at her face. She was stunning. I’d never noticed how beautiful she was. I frowned again. Someone like her should never have been forced into this situation. A brief flash of Akemi and Rica’s faces formed in my mind, but I brushed them away. I couldn’t worry about that now.
I stared to Zoë’s right and did everything in my power not to cry out in terror. On the furthest side of the platform were five massive cages
holding the sacrifices for the Feast. They pleaded for help, begging with their deity or person of choice for some way to escape. They wore ragged robes, and were malnourished, as if the tiniest breeze could topple them. The children cried, sitting down on the metal floors of their cages, not fully comprehending what was going on. I saw the child that Cole had caught trying to steal from me among them. He was searching desperately for some way out of the cage, but he looked back down on the ground, defeated by reality.
“We need to get closer,” I said.
“Are you insane?” Zea asked. “She’ll know we’re here for sure.”
“Trust me.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to offer.”
“I have a good feeling.”
Zea closed her eyes and pinched her nose. “Why me, God? Haven’t I always served You faithfully?”
I chuckled, but she glared at me. “Sorry, thought you were using an old joke.”
“Why would I joke about my service to God?”
“Well, uh, well it’s like—”
“Great. Not only a fool, but a heretic at that.”
“I am not a heretic.”
“It was a joke.”
“You—” I said, pointing a finger at her, before I laughed. “That was actually pretty funny. For you.”
Zea smiled. “Lead the way.”
I grinned. That was promising. I led her through the crowd, holding her hand to keep her with me. The people were pliable enough, too lost in the celebrations to care about someone moving around. We got as close as we could to the stage. I tried to formulate something that didn’t involve the two of us ending up as bloody smears on the street, or worse, participants in the Feast itself.
A sudden flock of people appeared on the stage, all garbed in strange robes and wielding giant staffs. I flinched. Was that supposed to be us? I wanted to laugh. As garish as some of us used to dress, none of us would’ve ever dared going out in public like that. And no one in the Gray Forum used a staff to channel their invocation that I knew of. The very idea was silly. The body should be sufficient enough to do the job. They were more wizard than anything else. Clearly no one there had ever seen the Christened in action.
To the right of the stage, from which Zoë and Cinderella had departed, appeared a group of vampires in shining armor. I gazed at them inquisitively.
Before the audience could react, the two sides charged at each other. The wizards flailed aimlessly as the vampires struck them down. The wizards said things like “Fire Bolt” and “Ice Beam” with nothing happening. I frowned. If I’d been in a better mood, I might’ve made a crack about the downfall of LARP-ing.
The wizards tried to rally one another, but ended up falling over each other, while the vampires dispatched them. One by one the wizards fell to their enemies, save for one couple. Alone, a man and woman were approached by a vampire, who struck them through with a sword. They looked at each other pitifully as they “died.” Oddly enough, the man’s death scream seemed to be a second off from the woman’s, even though both had cried out at the same time.
Movement to my left distracted me and I looked down to see Zea clenching her fist, her body shaking furiously. She took a step towards the platform. I grabbed Zea by her shoulder and pulled her back toward me. She looked at me once and huffed before composing herself.
“Okay, normally I’d be the one about to run off to do something stupid,” I said, as the crowd cheered at the vampire’s victory. “Care to explain why I have to be the voice of reason here?”
“It’s just…” Zea gazed at the play. “I…I don’t even know if this is true or not, but it still hurts.”
“What?”
“For all I know my parents were there when this happened. To have seen this and survived for so long, only to barely live long enough for me to be born? I just…my anger took over. I haven’t given them much thought before now. I don’t know why I did this.”
I placed a hand on her shoulder. “I get it. The not knowing. Our pasts are a bit different, but the lack of knowledge I get. The frustration. The questions. We can’t focus on them. If answers come, they come. If they don’t, they don’t.”
Zea paused. “That was surprisingly insightful.”
I pursed my lips, but decided not to fall for the bait this time. “There is a time for the jokes to stop. We need to be focused if we’re going to succeed here.”
Zea nodded and turned to watch. The vampires bowed to the applauding chorus of Vice City. They separated when Zoë moved forward and they bowed to her reverently. Zoë wore a revealing black dress and sleek high heels. She held a microphone to her lips.
It was then that I became aware of the cameras filming the Feast, all crewed by men in camera cranes that moved around gathering better shots of the action. There were actually television crews live broadcasting this. I’d had no clue that technology had even survived this long before now. There was even a giant projector screen right against the side of a tall building overlooking the stage. The weapons I could get, but this was something else. If this was any indication, Vice City must be the third world compared to where they were sending these images of the Feast. This wasn’t good.
The crowd cheered, but Zoë wasn’t ready to start for whatever reason. Zoë turned to caress Cinderella, who jolted up in response.
“They’ve escaped,” Cinderella said, quivering in fear.
I flinched. She knew we were here.
“Where are they?” Zoë demanded.
“I sense traces in the mansion,” Cinderella said. “It is possible they haven’t left.”
Zoë turned to her officers and said, “Search the mansion and kill them if they resist. I cannot afford to have anyone ruin the Feast. Our father would be displeased.”
The officers turned to do as ordered, but Zoë stopped one of them.
“Cole, you stay here with me,” Zoë said. “It is possible they may come to disrupt the Feast. I need someone I can trust to help me.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Cole said, as I clenched my fists.
An entire contingent of enforcers left her behind, leaving no one on stage to protect Zoë. I watched the area around us, seeing the rest of the enforcers doing the same.
“This is good,” Zea said.
“She must really be worried about us,” I mused. “Guess we really left an impression on her. Her loss. She didn’t leave any enforcers behind except for Cole.”
“Be careful. There could be some we don’t see.”
I nodded. I didn’t know if Zoë was too prideful to think she was safer here by herself or whether there was something about her I’d overlooked. Either way, it made me hesitant to attack just yet.
Cinderella whispered something into Zoë’s ear.
“What do we do?” Zoë asked, throwing her head back and laughing. “We start the Feast of course!”
Chapter 21
“People of Vice City, welcome to the Feast!” Zoë shouted.
The crowd responded with massive jubilation. My heart twitched, wondering again how these people were willing participants in this horrid exchange. I shook it off. I needed to focus.
I looked at Zea, seeing that same fierce determination in her face. You’ve got to admire a woman that focused.
“Today we celebrate with our twelve sister cities a most momentous occasion!” Zoë shouted. “The day that the Sanguine Collective triumphed over our hated enemies: The Gray Forum! Those who would dare keep you from your proper place in the world! They who slaughtered us to rule the world from the shadows!”
I flinched. The world had ended and people still felt the need to spin things their own way. Bunch of opportunistic propagandist degenerates, the lot of them.
Zea gave me a confused look. I shrugged. I suppose there were more important things to be indignant about.
Zoë walked across the stage, provocatively enticing the men closest to the stage to her, but withdrew before they could touch. The poor fools never stood a chance. I barely
had, and I’d been trained since birth. I frowned.
A flash appeared on the closest video projector, showing a map that appeared to be America and Canada. There was a gap where parts of Oregon, Washington, and all of Baja and regular California were, puzzling me, but I focused on the other bits of information offered by the map. Thirteen cities glowed brightly with a dark red light, showing off New York City, Chicago, Vancouver, Memphis, Montreal, Des Moines, St. Paul, Chancellorsville, Winnipeg, Helena, Albany, Paducah, and Vice City.
Thirteen simultaneous Feasts and I could only do something about one of them, if even that much. How many people would die because I couldn’t reach them? How many more would die if by the grace of God I succeeded in one city? They were planning to do these annually now. It was too much. I had no answers. I trembled.
Zea grasped my left hand and looked me in the eye. “If answers come, they come. If they don’t, they don’t.”
I sighed. Of all the things in the world: to be corrected by myself. It hadn’t even been three minutes.
We returned our gazes to Zoë, who watched the projector showing scenes from the Feasts in Memphis. The forlorn expressions on the sacrifices made me want to turn away, but I forced myself to watch. I would remember them all.
Someone had to.
The projector flashed and suddenly Vice City was the center of the world’s attention. I breathed heavily. It was close and I still had no plan.
“Hello, brethren of the Sanguine Collective!” Zoë shouted from center stage, lighting from previously unseen stage lights displaying her lustrous beauty for all to see. “And welcome to Vice City!”
The crowd cheered. I heard applause from the twelve cities of the Sanguine Collective reverberate from the screen. How many people were left in the world? How much did the Sanguine Collective really own?
A lone vampire, their face obscured with a hood, walked from cage to cage, reciting something that we couldn’t hear. Zoë paid them no mind, too focused on the euphoric crowd to care. Done with whatever job he had, the vampire directed a thumbs up to one of the cameras and walked off stage. I gazed at the video screens, seeing that they had planted smaller cameras at the doors to allow the audience to view the captives at a closer range.