by Dima Zales
“No.” She begins trembling. “Call him. Bring him here.”
“If that vampire dared to come here, Fluffster would make sure it’s the last thing he does.” Felix’s tone is uncharacteristically menacing. Then his gaze softens as he registers the misery on Ariel’s face. “I’m sorry, but either way, I don’t think he cares enough about you to come to the rescue, especially from Russia.”
Ariel starts thrashing erratically, and Felix and I exchange worried glances.
“Ariel.” I gently touch her shoulder. “Please st—”
With a spasmodic slap, Ariel swats my hand away, nearly dislocating my shoulder. “I need it,” she gasps, tossing her head from side to side. “Don’t keep it from me.”
I recall something Baba Yaga said on the phone—something that seemed like hyperbole at the time. “Your girl still has major withdrawal symptoms,” she said. “She’d be a danger to you and herself right now, but I can keep her clean for the few weeks she needs to get over it.”
Ariel leans over the couch and vomits soup onto Felix’s shoes.
He and I exchange glances again, our worry upgraded to panic.
Ariel continues to fall apart, moaning and thrashing on the couch.
I reach for my phone to call Nero, to see if he might be able to help. At the very least, he should demand a partial refund from Isis. Her healing abilities are clearly lacking.
A squeak in the hallway announces the opening of our apartment door.
Ariel suddenly looks alert and hopeful. Does she really think Gaius just arrived?
“Vlad and Rose,” Felix guesses, a moment before they step into the room.
Ariel sniffs the air like a dog and stares at the newcomers with watering eyes.
“I have your t—” Rose starts to say, but then she lays eyes on Ariel and turns ghost pale.
“Please,” Ariel says, extending her shaking arms toward Vlad. “Please…”
Vlad’s eyes narrow.
Ariel sits up and swings her feet to the floor.
“Ariel,” Felix says. “What are—”
Moving with insane speed, she pushes Felix aside and rushes toward Vlad.
Cup in hand, Felix flies a few feet and slams into another lounge chair, the hot tea spilling all over him as the cup falls and shatters into pieces.
Groaning, he rolls over on the floor, and I wince as I see his palm land on one of the shards. He yelps, raising it to his face, and I fear he’ll faint at the trickle of blood.
Ariel freezes mid-stride, the sight of Felix’s blood jolting her out of her addiction haze. “Is that… Did I do that?” Some semblance of sanity returns to her eyes, and she starts toward Felix, her hand extended as if to help him up.
Then her shoulder jerks convulsively and she stops.
Her eyes glaze over again, and she turns back to stare at Vlad with zombie-like determination.
“What are you doing?” Rose screams, but Ariel is already leaping at Vlad.
She’s not the only one with good reflexes, however. The vampire catches her in mid-air and very ungently throws her back onto the couch.
Something wooden breaks inside the couch with a crack, but Ariel doesn’t look like the landing even tickled her.
She slides from the cushions to the floor and starts crawling on all fours in Vlad’s direction.
“Please,” she moans, her gaze fixed slavishly on him. “Just a sip.”
“You have to go to rehab,” Vlad says. “You’re in the worst stages of withdrawal and—”
“Just a little.” Ariel’s crawl picks up speed. “I’ll do anything you want.”
Pink energy dances on Rose’s palm, and she angrily points her hand at Ariel.
“Do not take her strength, love,” Vlad says to Rose. “She’ll need it.”
Rose reluctantly lowers her hand, the pink energy dissipating.
Ariel is now next to Vlad, her head precariously close to his crotch.
“Whatever you want,” she says, and though I think she meant to say the phrase seductively, it sounds creepy instead. “I need it.”
She reaches for Vlad’s zipper, mumbling x-rated promises.
Vlad catches her wrist and forcefully pulls her up to her feet.
She looks hopeful for a moment, but then he grabs her hair in his steely grip and forces her to look at Felix—who’s still on the floor, cradling his bleeding palm, his eyes wide from Ariel’s abominable performance.
“You’re going to hurt everyone you love,” Vlad says. “Is that what you want?”
A semblance of comprehension appears on Ariel’s face.
She tries to look away, but Vlad doesn’t let her.
“I’m sorry,” she half sobs, half mumbles. “Please. Please. I need it. I need it so bad.” She wipes her runny nose. “I need… I need help.” The last line is so faint it’s barely audible.
Vlad’s eyes become pools of mercury once again, and he jerks Ariel’s head back to face him.
“I will help you,” he says in that hypnotic voice. “You will stay at the Tranquility facility in Gomorrah, until you can make your own choices.”
“I will stay at the Tranquility facility in Gomorrah,” Ariel parrots in a hollow voice.
Vlad lets her go, and she stands rod straight, awaiting further instructions.
“You used glamour on her?” Felix painfully sits up. “I didn’t think it could work this well on our kind.”
“The blood addicts are even more susceptible to it than regular humans,” Vlad says, his mouth tightening. “Now we better take her to Gomorrah.”
“How long will she be under your spell like that?” I ask, extending my hand to help the clearly shaken Felix get to his feet.
“Couple of hours, unless the glamour is reapplied,” Vlad says. “But they have better methods to keep her comfortable at Tranquility—which is where we’re going right now.”
“I’m coming with,” Felix says, swaying on his feet as I let go of his hand.
“Are you okay?” I grab his arm again.
“Fine.” He wipes his bloody palm on his shirt when I release him. “It was more scary than painful.”
“Go wash up while I get us a cab to the airport,” I tell him.
Felix slinks away, and I pull out my phone to summon a ride.
“The car will be here in five minutes,” I say a moment later, doing my best not to meet Vlad’s gaze. I feel guilty that he has to ride in a Ford Fusion instead of his shiny Tesla.
“I’ll stay here with Fluffster,” Rose says, bending to pick up the shards of Felix’s cup. “Go help Ariel.”
Vlad herds Ariel to the front door, where we join up with Felix, who’s now wearing a shirt identical to the one Vlad borrowed and sporting a Band-Aid across his palm.
“The elevator probably doesn’t work yet,” I say, leading the group toward the staircase.
“When did Baba Yaga nab you?” I ask Ariel, then look at Vlad. “Can she talk in this state?”
He catches Ariel’s gaze and commands, “Answer.”
“I was on the way home that Saturday,” she says in a monotone. “I had just finished escorting Gaius to JFK for his trip to Russia when Koschei attacked me. I thought I killed him at first, but—”
“Did they hurt you?” Felix asks, and it’s clear he’s afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know,” Ariel says. “My memory is blank after Baba Yaga used her energy on me.”
We walk the rest of the way quietly, and everyone except Ariel looks extra gloomy as we pass by the wreck that used to be the building lobby.
At least someone got rid of the broken bits of Tesla. Vlad already looks pissed enough as it is.
By the time we get into the cab, I feel like the guilt might drown me.
I suspected Gaius wasn’t good for Ariel, but I didn’t do anything about it.
I should’ve also realized that Ariel had been kidnapped so many days ago. I didn’t even get the hint when Baba Yaga almost admitted to having Ariel in he
r clutches.
Hell, if we go deeper, I should’ve ignored Ariel’s wishes and pried and pestered her about the PTSD she claims not to have. She’s been self-medicating for a while now—using drugs I knew couldn’t be that great for her—but I never took decisive-enough action, just gave cautious advice. Now I wonder if her traumatic experiences in the Army are why she was particularly vulnerable to vampire addiction.
Oh, and let’s not forget that her first taste of Gaius’s blood was after she got hurt helping me.
Midway to JFK, I break from beating myself up to fantasize about obliterating Gaius for what he’s done to my friend. It’s possible I currently hate him more than I do Baba Yaga.
My gloom continues as we exit the cab and trek through secret corridors to the gate hub.
Felix must pick up on my mood because he leaves me alone, opting to speak to Vlad in Russian in a loud whisper.
I slightly perk up when I see the gate that leads to Gomorrah—then feel guilty for that.
My friend is going to rehab, not on vacation.
When we exit the gate on the Gomorrah side, however, the view of the sky yanks me out of my self-flagellating funk.
Like on my last visit, the time here doesn’t match home. We reached JFK around dinner time, but it’s late at night here already. On the bright side, the night sky is as spectacular as I remember it, with a majestic fire-and-brimstone-looking nebula instead of a moon.
Also like on my last visit, the size of the city takes my breath away. It’s like a Platonic ideal of a megapolis that every huge city tries to futilely reach.
We use the speedy elevators to get down again, and though I’ve seen it before, I gawk at the building’s museum-like lobby.
The pattern of gawking continues as we walk down the street. The last time we merely crossed it to get to Nero’s Earth Club, so this longer walk should be a treat.
“It’s like every sci-fi and fantasy movie blended into one,” I whisper, staring at the exotically futuristic clothes of different types of Cognizant on the street.
We walk by a green orc man in a skintight shiny outfit, then by a blue-skinned being of indeterminate gender who has both a nice décolletage and a bulge in his/her pink leather pants. When I ogle the four-foot-tall bearded dwarf, she narrows her beady eyes at me and gives me the finger.
Feeling like a dumb tourist, I turn my attention to our inanimate surroundings.
The unusual storefronts all around us beam holographic ads of life-sized supermodels onto the pavement, giving me a small glimpse of local culture. Clearly, the unrealistic expectation of Gomorrah’s fashion industry states that a female orc must be around linebacker size, but the elf-women models would make even their most anorexic human counterparts feel obese.
We turn the corner, and I stare at a glass structure that I guess to be a parking lot.
Wow. The drabbest car here—not to mention, out on the street—would make Vlad’s deceased high-end Tesla look like one of those vintage clunkers they drive down in Cuba.
Before we enter the lot, the wind picks up, and the most delicious odor I’ve ever smelled wafts from a little shiny vehicle that looks like a landed flying saucer. It must be this place’s version of a food truck.
“I’ll get some food for you,” Vlad says, noticing my gaze.
“Thanks,” Felix says.
Vlad walks up to the contraption and does something I can’t make out.
He then comes back holding three packets made out of papery material.
“Eat in the car,” he says when Felix snatches a packet out of his hands. “Let’s go.”
We enter the glass structure, and Vlad swiftly walks up to one of the parked cars, seemingly at random. I don’t catch what he says to the car, but it must like it, because it automatically opens its rounded doors.
We all get in the back seat, so the thing must be self-driving. Vlad orders, “Tranquility Center,” in plain English, and the car closes the doors and pulls out of the lot.
The streets we pass are teeming with more types of Cognizant dressed in uncanny outfits, and my earlier sense of being in a futuristic fantasy movie intensifies.
And this is at night. Like NYC, this city must never sleep. Even Times Square isn’t this crowded at this time of night. People must crawl all over each other during the daytime here.
“Try the food,” Felix says, opening his treat.
Vlad hands me and Ariel the remaining packets, and I taste mine as Ariel stuffs hers robotically into her mouth.
Yum. Though the food visibly resembles something like a knish or a pierogi, the concentrated savory flavor reminds of my favorite umami Japanese dishes—all rolled into one.
In fact, the food is so good I momentarily forget about our surroundings—but only momentarily, because we soon enter an area so gorgeous that my gawking recommences.
The closest Earth approximation might be the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, only this is much bigger and with a slew of plant-covered skyscrapers disappearing into the night sky.
I make a mental note to come back here during daytime; it must be even more majestic then.
We glide into a parking lot next to the greenest of the buildings and exit the car.
As Vlad leads us inside, I’m so distracted by everything that Felix has to drag me by the hand.
“Something will fly into your mouth,” he tells me.
I close my wide-open maw, only to have my jaw drop again soon after.
If this is the Tranquility place, maybe I should also develop an addiction.
If a spa had a child with a fancy resort and it grew to the size of a theme park, the result might look like this rehab.
Despite the late hour, the place is teeming with people. I can’t tell the patients from the staff; there are all kinds of Cognizant mingling together, creating a Comic Con feel.
“Wait here,” Vlad says and leads Ariel away.
“We should’ve said goodbye,” I say to Felix, my guilt raising its ugly head.
“It’s okay. She’s not herself,” Felix says, looking around distractedly.
“True. By the way, how are we going to pay for Ariel’s stay here? The place looks expensive.”
“There’s a universal healthcare system here on Gomorrah,” Felix says, still looking around for something. “Everything health-related is free, even for visiting Cognizant like us.”
“Cool,” I say. “Do they also have healers here, like Isis? I thought you lose powers if you stay.”
“I think they entice some to visit,” he says, his head swiveling from side to side. “The Cognizant with practical powers, especially healers, are highly sought after here, as they can help with difficult cases that even the most advanced technology cannot yet cure.”
“Are you looking for someone?” I ask when I can’t take any more of his ADHD.
He looks back at me apologetically and sighs. “I have an old friend who works here. I was hoping to bump into her and ask her to keep an eye on Ariel.”
“Isn’t there a secretary here somewhere, or some other way you can locate your friend?”
“I’d have to leave you alone,” he says.
“I can manage.”
“If you’re sure—”
“I’m positive.”
“Then I’ll be right back.” He rushes off in the same direction as Vlad and Ariel.
I resume gawking, and do so for a couple of minutes until a woman approaches me with a huge smile on her face.
I know her, I realize in shock.
This is Councilor Kit—the sneaky shape changer who’d turned into Nero at my Jubilee and tried to seduce me.
“Sasha,” she says in her distinct anime-character voice. “This is very exciting. I didn’t realize you were also here.” She either claps her small palms together or rubs them like a supervillain; I can’t tell which. “What is your poison?”
“I’m just here escorting a friend,” I say when I find my tongue. “What about you?”
; My guess is addiction to hotdogs made out of dachshund puppies, but I don’t share this out loud.
“Believe it or not, I’m a sex addict,” Kit says, looking somber—an expression that seems foreign on her tiny, animated face.
“I would’ve never guessed,” I lie. “You, a sex addict? Get out of town.”
Her attempted seduction of me aside, I also caught her trying the same trick on Darian—and that time, she’d turned into me to get what she wanted. So not only can I easily believe she’s a sex addict, I also think she has major kinks on top of that—but hey, live and let live.
“And yet, here I am,” she says, and I congratulate myself for my lying skills yet again. “I check myself into this place when my condition gets a little out of control.”
Wow, okay. If the two episodes I’d witnessed are her normal, I’d hate to see her “out of control.”
“So, who is the friend you’re escorting?” Kit asks. “Is it Felix?” She makes herself look like him. “Or is it that delectable—”
“Sasha,” Vlad says from behind me, causing me to jump. “Where is Felix?”
“He has a friend who works here,” I say, turning to face Vlad.
What the hell?
Vlad is looking at Kit like he’s ready to rip her head off—something that’s now all too easy for me to picture.
I glance back and see why. Kit has made herself look like Rose, only Rose in her mid-twenties—or at least the way I’ve always pictured Rose at that age.
“Councilor,” Kit says in her own voice.
“Kit.” Vlad relaxes his fists. “Incorrigible as always.”
“Hello,” Felix says, looking at Kit’s young-Rose guise in confusion as he approaches. “Have we met?”
“We met at the Jubilee.” Kit turns back into herself and licks her lips lasciviously. “It’s Felix, right?” She looks at Felix and Vlad’s identical Matrix shirts. “Are you guys playing at being twins? Because it’s a game I—”
“I’m sorry, Councilor,” Vlad says as she transforms her top into a third copy of Felix’s favorite attire. “We’re in a rush.”
Without letting us say another peep to Kit, Vlad herds us out of the building and doesn’t slow the brisk pace until we get into another futuristic car.