by Lund, S. E.
She drops my hand. "Come to our house and have something to eat. We have lots. I used to stock up at the warehouse store in Gloucester each week, just to keep Dylan happy. He was always going on about having six-months of food in case of a disaster so we're all set. I know he'd like if you came by." She squeezes my arm, and I think it’s a sign she knows who and what I am.
"I'll drop by later," I say.
While Julien goes to do his first shift in the command center, I go to the Rhys house. When I arrive, Mr. Rhys is sitting in the semi-darkness of the conservatory, staring out the window.
“Oh, hello Eve,” he says and stands. He's disheveled, his hair messy. "You'll excuse my messy clothes but we have no electricity for an iron. The solar panels use batteries with plastic in the casing. They're useless."
I shake my head. "Of course. You don't have to explain."
The Gould Steinway has music spread out on it – I imagine from Mrs. Rhys's lessons from the previous week. I doubt she'll be teaching anytime soon.
"Play for us," Mrs. Rhys says, urging me forward.
I shake my head. "I'm not really in the mood…"
"Please," she says. "We've been so sad. Something pretty would lift our spirits. Play some Bach. Sarah would have liked it."
I sit at the piano with reluctance and force myself, just to please them, for they’ve been so nice. I play scales for a moment to warm up. Then, I start to play the repertory I learned before my father went into an asylum, starting with a Bach prelude, but I'm just not in the mood and stop. I glance up and catch sight of Dylan standing in the doorway. I stop, turning to him.
"Don't stop because of me," he says and motions for me to continue. "Play something – play your most favorite piece."
I take in a deep breath and play the first few bars of the Chopin Nocturne. The memory fills me with a sweet melancholy that could easily change into grief. When I finish, I sit there in silence, emotions roiling inside of me. No one says a word.
"Come," Mrs. Rhys says and holds out her hand. "I have something for you."
I let her take my hand, feeling close to tears. She leads me down the hallway to Sarah's room. It's been cleaned up and all evidence of Sarah's death is gone. Mrs. Rhys goes to the desk on which is a tray of seashells.
"Here," she says. "She said you liked them. She'd want you to have them to remember her."
I hold the tray and examine the shells. Conch shells, mollusks, bivalves, starfish, sea stars, sand dollars. All these Dylan collected for her, the beloved brother.
"Dylan doesn't want these? He gave them to her."
Dylan stands in the doorway.
"Take them. It would make me happy for you to have them, of all people. And this," he says and goes to a drawer in the dresser and removes a small box. Inside is a leather bracelet made with cowrie shells. He fastens it around my wrist. "I gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday. It should go to you."
Mrs. Rhys retrieves a box from the closet and we start placing the shells inside. She shoves handful of tissues in with the shells so they don't move around.
"I have to go," I say, feeling close to tears.
Mrs. Rhys nods. Dylan doesn't argue or try to convince me to stay and I leave, my emotions almost overwhelming me.
People meet in the town hall during the day and at night by candlelight to exchange information and provide assistance to those who need it. People resort to using horses to travel and when plastic items are brought into the area of contamination, they disintegrate, so whatever it is that caused the destruction is still active.
It's so hard to be in the dark like we are – almost no communications with the world outside into the affected area except by messenger, but even then, Julien tells me that they are dropping packages with food and messages into the affected zone using air balloons. No planes fly over the affected zone. Barbed wire had been run along the perimeter, with warnings that no personnel are permitted to leave on pain of death. Reports came back to us that people have been shot trying to cross the perimeter.
We're totally cut off.
That Saturday afternoon, about an hour before dusk, Julien and I go into town to collect our ration of food – a glass jar of peanut butter and a tin of canned tuna. Evidence of the red rain is still present in dots on the sidewalk and on the roofs of the buildings for the weather has been exceptionally dry and no rain to wash off the surfaces. A few abandoned cars line the street running through the center of town, their doors opened, trunks and hoods gaping like the mouths of dead fish. The seats have disintegrated, the material now like sludge that sticks to my fingers when I pick up a piece. Parts of the car have also disintegrated, so that the metal bits hang off or have fallen to the ground.
Off in the distance, the road leading to the highway is silent. Usually, the traffic's audible in town but it's quiet enough to hear a rusted street sign swing in the breeze. Now, cars sit abandoned on the road. I can just make out small figures walking along the highway. Others ride horses. All appear to be on a trek out of town.
Julien comes to my side as I shade my eyes and watch the exodus.
"Where are they going?"
"Who knows?" he says. "We’re in quarantine. There's nowhere to go."
"What do we do?" I ask, meaning us as hunters. "Do we go back to Boston?"
"We'll stay in place for now until we get orders. We have to try to understand what their plan is."
"Their plan?"
He shrugs. "Whoever it was who did this. Right now, all I know is that it's Blackstone for sure." He shades his eyes and watches the exodus in the distance. "Whatever, we can't leave the affected zone. The National Guard is lined up to keep people from leaving so the contamination doesn't spread, but even so, the wind's spreading it day by day. People already left the affected zone and took the contamination with them. There are spots of growing infection around the world. We have to stay here, try to survive until they find a way to neutralize it."
The world changed the night the red rain fell but in my grief and shock from Sarah's death and revelations about Dylan, it's unreal. Seeing people walking west finally makes it real for me. I turn to him, examining his face, which seems even more somber than usual.
"How do we survive?"
He shrugs. "We're fine for now. We'll be hungry, but we'll probably survive if we can maintain law and order. I've got a shift for the next four hours."
He turns to me and reaches for me but then stops. "Sooner or later, Blackstone will make a move." He shakes his head. "After that, all bets are off. Vampires will no longer feel they have to remain in the shadows."
Then, Julien smiles, a rare event during the last few days. "Maybe you could cook us up some beans and biscuits, like an old camp cook on a cattle drive."
I nod but don't smile back, not in the mood for any form of levity. I watch him walk towards the center of town for his shift. Alone now, I cross the street, walking down the center of the deserted road to the pier. The world is falling apart around me. Blackstone has succeeded in bringing down modern technology as Julien said they would. Now, we wait for the vampires to make their appearance. So far, nothing has changed and I wonder what Blackstone has planned.
Things are manageable right now in Davis Cove, although we'll run out of food soon and who knows what else – medicines, treatments. So much of our world is based on petrochemicals.
I'm afraid. Michel said I was key to preventing Dominion, that once the end started, I’d realize that I had made a mistake and would go to him. I'm afraid that Michel was right and I was wrong not to go with him back at the Abbey. If I had, would we have prevented this? I can't believe that could be possible… How could my going with Michel have changed things so much that Blackstone didn't release the plague?
Still, doubt nags me. I'm sick to think that my selfish desire for Julien and happiness has led to this. That Sarah and so many others have died because I was afraid of going with Michel – afraid of what I'd be expected to do when I was with him.
Part of me wishes I could go back to that day at the Abbey and go with Michel instead, just to see if this would still have happened.
As I walk along to the pier, lost in thought, I look up to see Michel walking toward me. I stop in my tracks at the railing overlooking the water. I didn't call him so why is he here? Did he read my mind and know I was feeling regret and fear?
This is the moment – the one I didn't believe would really happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes away the years."
Rupert Brooke
We stop on the pier and stand side by side, looking out over the ocean as the sun starts to set.
"I didn't call you," I say. Beside me, he's silent. I expect him to be all I-told-you-so, but he seems just as upset as I do.
"Did you really need to call me?"
Finally, he exhales and turns to me, leaning on the railing. He tilts his head to one side in that characteristic de Cernay way, his skin so pale, his blue eyes intense. His expression isn't judging. It’s sad.
"You saw all this?" I say, anger in my voice. "Why couldn't you have told me?"
"I saw this happen as one of many scenarios," he says. "This was the most likely, but depending on what everyone did and chose, it could have been slightly different. I knew we would meet and talk. And that you would come back to me. I already told you that if I told you exactly what I saw, you'd die. I can't have that."
"I haven't said I would come with you."
"You will," he says and reaches out, touching my cheek. "It's the only way to stop it from getting even worse."
I shake my head and pull away from his touch.
"I only have your word on that."
"Isn't this enough to convince you?" he says and points to the town and then to the dock. Down below us, the dilapidated remains of several boats and yachts float and bob on the water. Everything with any plastic component either melted or disintegrated, leaving non-plastic parts to either sink or float depending on their material. A brownish sludge coats the surface of the water.
"All this tells me is that Blackstone was successful in attacking technology. I have no way of knowing if my being with you is key to stopping them from taking more power. All that prophecy stuff is just too hard for me to accept."
"You think I made it up so I could have you as my own? I could have forced you long ago if I wanted that. Like Julien did."
"He didn't force me."
"He took you. Didn’t listen to you. Pushed you because your mind and body are torn."
"I wanted him, Michel," I say and finally look at him straight in the eye. "You've lied to me so much since I met you, either directly or by omission that I don’t know what to believe any more."
"Come with me and learn for yourself if you don't trust me. You can leave at any time."
I shake my head.
"Why would my being with you have prevented this?"
He just shakes his head. "I don’t know exactly how, but it did. Now, that's not possible. The genie is out of the bottle. We have to try to put it back in before the whole world falls."
"And my being with you does that how?"
"I said I don't know the details, just the cause and effect."
"How can I just leave Julien?"
"He'll understand."
"You think he'll just let me go to be with you as your little submissive and pet?"
"He will. All you have to do is tell him you're going with me."
I frown and turn away.
"You couldn't be more wrong. Julien's extremely jealous of you. He found your book and note before I did. It upset him so much, he's not even sleeping with me."
Michel says nothing. I imagine what Julien would say to me if I was to tell him I was going to be with Michel. I can’t imagine he'd be as accepting as Michel seems to think. "If I was to go to you, it would break his heart. He loves me."
"He does love you and he will accept it. He'll think it’s for the best," Michel says, his voice soft. "He may even suggest it."
"How can you know that?"
"He's been compelled."
"What?" I turn to him. "Soren compelled him to like the idea of me being with you?"
"Yes," Michel says, glancing away. He looks back at me, his face guarded. "Soren doesn't want his heart to break. If you were to tell him and he wasn’t compelled to accept it, he'd give up. Soren wants him in fighting mode. He has work to do. Besides, we need him to help in the end. When it comes to destroying Soren."
"No," I say, fisting my hands, digging my nails into my palms. "I won’t come to you, no matter what."
"If you don't, Julien will grow more and more distant, and finally, he'll tell you that you must come to me. He'll get angry with you. He'll kick you out, eventually. Then, he won't speak to you again unless you come to me. Soren wants Julien at his side. The other night at the party, he compelled Julien to accept you being with me."
I frown as I try to process this.
"Soren wants the three of us together as his servants," Michel says. "If Julien is too jealous, it will impede his performance. Soren plans on performing miracles to convince people he's a god. We'll help him at first, or appear to," Michel says, but then he takes my shoulder in his hand and leans closer, his lips beside my ear as if he's afraid Soren will hear us. "And then, when he's secure in our obedience, when he thinks he's ready to take power, we'll strike. We'll kill him and all the Ancients. Then we'll finally be free of them all. This is what my group in the Council has been planning for years, Eve. This is endgame. I tried to keep you out of it, to find another way, but I failed."
I stand in silence for a moment and consider. "Why do you need me as your pet?"
"He wants us to be his servants and if we don't comply, he'll kill us all. He needs your compliance, but because you can't be compelled, you have to be controlled through other means. Love is the perfect lure. Dominance and submission is a perfect way to control you just as he's now controlling Gabrielle."
I just look at him. "Has this all been a charade? Do you even love me? Or have you also been compelled?"
"Of course I love you," he says and closes his eyes, leaning in to me, his forehead against mine. "More than anything. How can you even ask that?"
"Maybe you're playing me so you can have your own endgame. Maybe Soren's compelled you to tell me all this."
"No," he says, his face so serious. "He can't compel me. Not anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"When I ascended, I became uncompellable."
"Why didn't Julien?"
"What Blackstone did to him prevented it. They needed vampires who could be compelled. When he ascended, he was still susceptible."
"So Soren wants me as your submissive so you can control me. So you can make me do his bidding when he needs me for his rise to power."
"Exactly. He fears you, and needs to be reassured that you're under my control. When he is, he'll let down his guard and then we strike."
"Why does he fear me?"
"Because he knows you can either make him a god or destroy him."
"Why does he think that?"
"It was prophesized."
I sigh, shaking my head at the nonsense these religious people believe. Dylan included.
"And Julien? How does he fit in?"
Michel sighs. "Soren gave you to him, hooked him in, and now will deploy him like a weapon. Julien will be the most powerful warlord a god could want. He'll be obedient because he thinks he'll be protecting you, even as you and I are lovers again."
"I love him," I say and turn to Michel, tears in my eyes.
"I know," Michel says, and wipes my cheek.
"I want him."
"Not now, Eve. One day if we succeed, you may have him again. But not now."
He takes me in his arms, wrapping them around my body, his face buried in my neck and I let him hold me, needing some contact because of all the fear and stress and loneliness I've felt si
nce the red rain fell.
Finally, I pull away and he lets me go.
"I have to think about this."
He nods. "Don't take too long. Once vampires feel secure that humans are helpless, they'll come out from hiding. You'll have to fight to stay alive every day, Eve. People in town will start to die. Then, the enslavement will start. This is a test-run of their weapon to see how it goes and how people respond so they can adjust their strategy."
His words fill me with dread.
"Tell me how we're going to kill him or else I won't believe you. This could all be a way to reel me in, to make me submit so Soren can become this god you speak of."
"I can't tell you. Soren could find out."
"I'll block him."
"You can't be compelled, Eve. None of this would have happened if you could because I would have wiped your memory and sent you back to oblivion. But you can be tortured. He'd torture his way into your mind if he had to. This way, you don't know any details."
"I have to go," I say and walk backwards away from him, my arms around myself. "I can't go with you if you can't at least tell me what we're planning to do."
"Don’t do this Eve. This is your fate. Come to me before nightfall," he says, his voice soft. "You won't be safe after that."
I walk back to the cottage and sit in the dimness with my weapons by my side, facing the door so I can watch in case some vampire has compelled the owner to let them in. I figure I have a fighting chance as long as I see them first.
Is Michel right? Will vampires now start to claim Dominion now that Blackstone has struck?
Julien arrives home from his shift at the community center sometime later. He takes off his jacket and comes into the room. It's dark out and I can see just a bit of light in his eyes as he stands by the fire and looks around the room for me. I'm sitting in a chair in the darkened corner, my stake and gun beside me.
"Eve," he says, and comes towards me. "What are you doing?"
"Michel says that vampires will start claiming Dominion now that Blackstone has struck. He says we're not safe at night any longer."