Battle Lines

by Will Hill

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” she replied, smiling at him. “How was the beach?”

  “Hot,” said Tim. “Far too hot for me.”

  “So why did you go?”

  “Because I didn’t want to give the rest of them something else to gossip about.”

  Larissa’s smile faded. “They talk about you and me?”

  “Of course they do,” said Tim.

  “What do they say?”

  “Nothing bad,” said Tim, starting to look as though he regretted raising the subject; there was a chill to her voice that was clearly audible. “They know I like you. That’s the long and short of it. And they think that maybe you like me. A little bit.”

  Jesus. What a mess.

  “How do they know that?” she asked.

  “How do they know what?”

  “That you like me.”

  Tim shrugged. “Because I told them I do.” Larissa opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “I told them because it’s true and because they’re my friends. I know you’re with Jamie, and I respect that, whether you believe me or not. But I also think that you do like me, maybe more than you want to admit. Maybe things would be different if you were single, or if you were staying here permanently. But they aren’t, and I don’t want it to be weird when I come to Blacklight with you next month. That’s why I came to find you. You’re my friend, Larissa, and I don’t want there to be a problem between us.”

  “Do you actually mean that?” asked Larissa. “If you don’t, then tell me now because I’m going to be seriously pissed off if you let me think we’re okay then try to kiss me the next time you see an opportunity. Which was a really shitty thing to do, in case you didn’t realize.”

  Tim nodded. “I know,” he said. “That’s not really me, I hope you know that. It was just a heat-of-the-moment sort of thing.”

  “I believe you,” she replied. “It’s fine. As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

  “It won’t,” replied Tim. “I’ve no desire to get on your bad side, Larissa. I’ve seen what you can do, remember?”

  She laughed, and felt some of the tension dissipate from where it had gathered in her shoulders.

  “So we’re cool?” he asked. “I won’t do anything else that’s stupid and inappropriate, and you’ll still take me to Blacklight with you when you leave. Deal?” He extended his hand. Larissa rolled her eyes at his attempt at formality, and shook it.

  “Deal,” she said. “Now shut up and play your hand.”

  * * *

  They played happily for a couple of hours, until Larissa announced that she was going to go and get ready for dinner.

  Tim nodded, and told her he was going to play a few more hands. She left him at the table, made her way through the casino, and into one of the elevators. When she was back in her room, she drank two liters of blood that she had brought with her from Dreamland, undressed, and stepped into the huge walk-in shower that took up half of the bathroom. She let the pounding heat of the water clear her head, hoping that it would wash away the promise that she now deeply regretted making.

  Tim Albertsson was obsessed with Blacklight. His grandfather had been a soldier in the Swedish army and a member of the FTB, the German Office of the Supernatural, for more than two decades. When Tim had been recruited into NS9, his grandfather had filled his head with grand tales of the European Departments, whose history and proximity to the birthplace of vampirism lent them an aura the Departments in other continents could never hope to match. And, above all, he had told his grandson about Department 19, the place where legends had walked: Van Helsing, Harker, Seward, Holmwood.

  Tim had applied for transfer to Blacklight three times in five years, and on each occasion had been deemed too valuable to NS9 to part with. But General Allen had guaranteed Larissa free rein in picking the six operators she took back to England with her, provided they were ranked below major, which seemed fair—she could not expect the NS9 director to let her gut the senior ranks of his Department, no matter how much he wanted to help Blacklight get back on its feet. This guarantee, which she had told Tim about one evening in Sam’s Diner, represented the answer to his prayers, a way for him to fulfill his one great ambition.

  I can’t take him with me, she thought. To hang out with me and Jamie and Kate and Matt. I just can’t. It won’t do anyone any good. I just have to hope he can understand that.

  Larissa turned off the shower, dried herself, and put on the pretty gray dress her mother had bought her the Christmas before she had been turned. It was one of a small bag full of things she had managed to grab from her room as her mother screamed into the phone downstairs, demanding that the police come and take her daughter away. It still fitted her, as she had essentially stopped growing the moment Grey sank his fangs into her neck. She adjusted it in the mirror, feeling a pang of painful nostalgia as she thought back to the Christmas morning when she had first worn it, an excited sixteen-year-old girl whose whole life was ahead of her.

  She’s gone now, thought Larissa. Long gone.

  She dried her hair, letting it fall around her face and down to her shoulders, applied a tiny amount of makeup, and headed downstairs to meet her friends, wondering what the night had in store for them.

  * * *

  The club was quite simply the most ridiculous thing Larissa had ever seen.

  It was a vast semicircle, full to capacity with barely clothed figures writhing and gyrating to a pulsing house track that vibrated through the floor and into her bones. A ring of tables, surrounded by red leather benches and topped with stripper poles, encircled a sunken dance floor. Away to the left, a long bar dispensed drinks of every conceivable size, shape, and color.

  Tim shouted something over the music, but even her supernatural hearing was unable to pick it up. He tried again, and she shrugged and shook her head. Eventually, he tipped a cupped hand toward his mouth and pointed at the rest of their friends, who responded with nodded heads and raised thumbs. He wrestled his way toward the bar with Kelly following closely behind him, as Danny pointed toward the dance floor, his eyebrows raised. Kara and Larissa nodded, and the three of them began to make their way down toward it, Larissa holding her coat tightly in her hands.

  They became separated almost immediately.

  One second Larissa was right behind her friends, the next she was standing by herself. She scanned the steaming mass of bodies, searching for Kara or Danny, but could see neither of them. She decided to try a different angle, and began to work her way slowly toward the wide pool that lay beyond the open doors at the edge of the club’s main room.

  She stepped out into the warm evening air and surveyed the scene. The pool had a wide ledge that was barely six inches deep. Men and women were dancing furiously in the shallow water, splashing and stomping and occasionally falling flat on their backs. Many of the women had stripped down to bras and bikini tops and had acquired an admiring audience. Larissa left them to it and made her way around the pool. A ring of two-story cabanas were full of men and women drinking bottles of beer and smoking cigars, while to her left an island in the center of the pool was full of slot machines and gambling tables. Larissa grinned; in Las Vegas, the opportunity to gamble was never more than a few seconds away.

  She was about to walk toward the island, thinking that she might play a hand or two while she waited for her friends to find her, when a scent filled her nostrils that made her force her eyes to remain normal and her fangs to stay in place, a powerful aroma that she was unused to experiencing without her weapons and uniform.

  The scent of another vampire.

  Larissa stopped where she was and surveyed the crowd. There were fewer people out by the pool than inside, but the area was still busy. People strolled across the wet stone and huddled around the cabanas, laughing and chatting and shouting. She paid them all no att
ention; she was looking for someone different. And then, as though a spotlight had been suddenly shone down from the hotel that towered above the club, Larissa saw her.

  The vampire was a woman in her early twenties, wearing a blue sundress and carrying a tall drink in a glass the shape of a test tube. She had long, honey-colored hair, smooth, pale skin, and was wandering slowly along the edge of the pool, her bare feet in the shallow water. There was nothing to obviously single her out from all the other beautiful women in the club, but Larissa had no doubt—somehow, she just knew.

  She made her way toward the woman, never taking her eyes off her. She closed the distance quickly and spoke in a low voice.

  “You’re like me.”

  The woman turned, a look of annoyance on her pale face, and for a split second Larissa saw red flicker in the corners of her green eyes.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  Larissa shook her head. “No,” she replied. “But you know what I am. We’re the same.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes and looked about to protest, when a smile emerged on her face, and she laughed instead. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Larissa. “I picked up the scent of another vampire, but I don’t know how I knew it was you. I could just see it.”

  “You could smell me?” asked the woman, her smile fading. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s not a bad smell,” said Larissa, quickly. “It’s just . . . well. Can’t you smell it? When there’s another vampire around?”

  The woman tipped back her head and breathed in sharply. “There is something,” she said, eventually. “Sort of at the edges, if that makes sense? Is it you?” She nodded. “That’s weird. How come I’ve never smelled that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Larissa. “Maybe you’ve never been around another vampire before?” The idea seemed ludicrous even as she said it; she could not conceive of a world in which other vampires were not a constant feature.

  “I used to date one,” said the woman. “A guy in LA. But he’s the only one I’ve met, as far as I know.”

  “Wow,” said Larissa. It was all she could think of to say.

  “Why?” asked the woman. “Have you known a lot of vampires?”

  Larissa smiled. “That’s a bit of an understatement.”

  “Really?” said the woman. “I’m Chloe. Do you want to get a drink? I feel like we might have some stuff to talk about.”

  “I think you might be right. I’m Larissa. And I could definitely do with a beer.”

  Chloe smiled and took Larissa’s hand. The sensation was odd, but she let the woman lead her toward the bar on the gambling island, where she ordered a beer and a refill of her own enormous cocktail. When the drinks arrived, Larissa followed her between the craps tables to the edge of the island, where Chloe sat down and dangled her feet in the water. After a moment, Larissa pulled off her shoes and sat down, putting her coat on the ground beside her.

  “So how long have you been turned?” she asked.

  “Turned,” said Chloe, rolling the word around her mouth. “Is that what it’s called? Like, the official term?”

  “There aren’t any official terms,” said Larissa. “‘Turned’ is what some people call it.”

  “About a year,” said Chloe. “Someone bit me in a club in New Orleans, on Super Bowl weekend. I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when I opened the curtains and my arm caught on fire.” She smiled, and Larissa returned it with one of her own.

  “How did you get through the hunger the first time?” she asked.

  “I killed a dog,” said Chloe, matter-of-factly. “It belonged to this gay couple who were in the bungalow next to ours. It was a small dog, a tiny yapping little thing, but it was enough. What about you? When were you turned?”

  “Nearly three years ago,” replied Larissa. “An old man bit me at a fair in England, where I’m from. I think he meant for me to die, but I’m not really sure. One of his associates took pity on me, gave me some blood, and told me there was a place I could go, but I turned it down. I thought my parents would help me.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “No,” said Larissa, a small smile on her face. “I lived on the streets for six months.”

  “It’s weird,” said Chloe. “Until I met Derek—he was the guy I mentioned—I just kind of had to work it out for myself, you know? The blood, the sunlight, the floating. But I got through it.”

  Floating, thought Larissa. She said “floating.” Not “flying.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hard being on your own.”

  They sat in easy silence for a minute or so, Larissa swinging her feet gently in the water, feeling the ripples move against her skin.

  “Have you ever had any trouble?” she asked, eventually. “Since you were turned, I mean.”

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Chloe.

  “People trying to kill you. That kind of trouble.”

  Chloe laughed. “I don’t hurt anyone, so why would anybody have a problem with me. And anyway, who would they be? The cops?”

  “Sort of,” said Larissa. “There are people that destroy vampires. Military organizations, secret ones. You’ve never heard about them?”

  “Nope,” said Chloe. “Never heard about anything like that. How come you know about them?”

  I assumed all vampires did, thought Larissa.

  “Someone told me,” she lied. “A man I knew in Rome. Like us.”

  Chloe smiled. “Sounds to me like maybe he was trying to impress you a little bit. Tell you a far-fetched story, make it all seem hot and scary and dangerous.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Larissa, smiling. “He told me Dracula was real, too.”

  Chloe burst out laughing. “Dracula?” she asked. “The old guy from the movies? With the cape?”

  “That’s the one. I think he could turn into a bat.”

  “I wish I could,” giggled Chloe. “That could be super-useful.”

  Larissa laughed, and drained the last of her beer. She set down the empty bottle and looked at the woman beside her. “It’s been nice talking to you, Chloe,” she said. “I’d better go and find my friends.”

  “That’s cool,” said Chloe. “I’m going to stay here for a while. You take care of yourself.”

  Easier said than done, Larissa thought. But I’ll certainly try.

  * * *

  She left Chloe with her feet in the water and headed back toward the main room of the club. She squeezed her way through the open doors and walked straight into Tim Albertsson, who was carrying two beers in his hands. He smiled, shouted her name just about loud enough for her to hear it, and handed her one of the bottles. She shouted her thanks, and didn’t protest as he took her arm and led her back outside.

  “Sorry,” he said, once they were clear of the doors. “I couldn’t hear a damn thing in there. About half the air force just turned up, rolling drunk. Took me about half an hour to get through them. Have you seen the others?”

  “Danny and Kara were heading for the dance floor the last time I saw them,” replied Larissa. “I thought Kelly was with you.”

  “I lost her before I even got to the bar,” he said. “Looks like it’s just you and me.” He smiled, and Larissa took a long pull from her beer, leaning back so her eyes stared up at the ceiling. When she lowered her head, Tim had closed the distance between them. His face was barely two inches from her own, his eyes locked on hers, and Larissa felt a shiver hurtle up her spine.

  “Don’t,” she warned, staring into his eyes. “You promised.”

  “I’m not going to kiss you again,” he breathed. “But I want to. And I know part of you wants me to.”

  They stood motionless, locked in suspended animation. Time appeared not to be passing, each second stretching out for
an eternity. Then Larissa’s phone burst into life in her coat pocket, breaking the spell of the deadly, dangerous moment. She blushed deeply and fumbled the phone out of her pocket, taking a step backward, a step away from Tim, as she did so. The screen glowed with a single word.

  JAMIE

  Shame, hot and bitter, flooded through her as she stared at her boyfriend’s name.

  I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.

  She pressed the REJECT button on the phone’s screen and stuffed it back into her coat. Then she stepped forward, feeling familiar heat in the corners of her eyes.

  “Enough,” she said, trying not to let her voice turn into a growl. “That’s enough now.”

  Tim stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go find the others, okay?”

  Larissa made him wait. “Okay,” she said, eventually. “Let’s do that.”

  Tim set off toward the club’s dance floor. She followed him, looking around at the garish opulence of the club with fierce disgust, as though she was suddenly seeing the place, really seeing it, for the first time. Her phone rang again, and she fought the urge to scream with frustration. She pulled it out, saw Jamie’s name on the screen, and pressed REJECT again.

  What’s wrong with me? she thought, the words hot and sharp. Why am I in this awful place while my friends are trying to save the world? What the hell am I doing?

  She pushed through the crowd, not caring when her elbows and shoulders thudded into the people around her, relishing the cries of pain and shouted insults that followed her. Occupying half a dozen tables at the edge of the dance floor were the group of air force men Tim had mentioned. There seemed to be dozens of them, most in their dress uniforms, yelling and shouting and doing shot after shot after shot. They had attracted a huge crowd of gawking girls, who were clambering on and over the tables to join them, their exposed stomachs and thighs gleaming under the spinning lights of the club. Larissa stopped and watched, disgust rising through her. Then the sea of navy blue uniforms parted, and she gasped.