by Heather Knox
Out of film and still a few minutes to kill. Just two minutes until midnight, according to her phone. She wonders if ghosts are as precise? Almost all ghost stories involve the stroke of midnight. She resolves to not make this a wasted trip—if the note in the art room was a prank, at least she could salvage her night and make sneaking out worth it.
She crosses the road, pausing in the center. She glances to the church, then the schoolhouse. The clock turns to 11:59 p.m. Now or never, she thinks, laying down in the road, lining herself up with both doors as the story goes. She smooths her skirt nervously, resists wiggling one saddle-shoed foot. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath.
The hairs on the back of her neck rise.
“Boo,” says a female voice rather flatly, startling Kiley’s eyes open.
She’s looking up at a girl about her age, gray skate-style shoes nearly grazing her temples, though Kiley didn’t hear her approach. She wears a worn black T-shirt, cropped—or ripped—that reads “feminist killjoy,” the screenprint having seen better days. A thick lock of Kiley’s hair has escaped its ponytail and now lays partially trapped underneath the girl’s left foot. The girl’s arms are crossed as she looks down at Kiley.
“Why’re you laying like that?”
“Who’re you?”
“The caretaker. Why’re you laying like that?” she repeats.
Kiley raises an eyebrow. She shakes her head to indicate no, but the motion is cut short as the shoe pulls painfully on her hair.
“You’re not the caretaker,” Kiley accuses.
“Nah, you’re right. I’m not,” the girl admits.
Her lips curl into a smile, sharp cuspids showing.
“I’m a vampire.”
“YOU’LL NEED TO DISAPPEAR, DELILAH. WILL anyone come looking for you?”
I shrug and then shake my head.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
I fiddle with a loose thread in the upholstery of a chair that looks too expensive for this simple apartment. I’ve showered and am wearing an undershirt of Zeke’s and a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants. I smell my bloodied rags in a black trash bag by the door.
“We’ll deal with that if they come looking, then. From now on, you’re dead. There’s nothing left in their world for you now.” He draws thick curtains closed. “You’re a vampire now. Sunlight will kill you—you won’t bloody glitter, you’ll burst into flames and turn into ash. Holy water will burn you in the same way, but if you somehow fall into a vat of holy water you’re probably leaving behind bigger problems for us to clean up. Anything blessed that pierces your flesh will turn you to ash. That other garbage—garlic, running water, crosses, needing an invitation to cross a threshold—that’s Hollywood. You’re not immortal, but if you play your cards right you’re pretty close.”
“I drink blood?” I finally ask, voice steady, avoiding eye contact.
He nods. “We drink blood. You won’t be able to keep anything other than blood down and it’s a waste of energy to try. Delilah, you need to understand something—” He crosses to kneel in front of me. He lifts my chin to meet his gaze. “We’re Keepers. We don’t kill. Not intentionally and certainly not often.”
“But tonight—”
“Tonight we were Praedari. I’ve been infiltrating this pack for a while now. The Praedari, they embrace the Beast and believe it their right to hunt and kill indiscriminately. They are hunters, whether solitary or in a pack, and aren’t to be trusted. As Keepers, we seek to control our Beast and protect the mortal world from the Praedari, and worse.”
“The Beast?” Even as the question tumbles from my lips I know the answer. The Beast. Maybe I don’t have a soul anymore and this thing fills that void. Maybe where my heart once beat it now lurks. Geography of my anatomy and this transformation aside, I understand.
Zeke has answered and moves on as I become aware again that he speaks. “There was a time when we weren’t thought of as monsters because we simply weren’t thought of. We remained in the shadows, hunting but protecting. But times are changing, Delilah. Now we are on the verge of war—the Keepers with the Praedari, the Everlasting with humanity.”
He continues. “I am your Usher, the one who guided you through your Becoming. Except that no Keeper has gone through what you have because that was one of the Praedari’s savage traditions. Normally it’s far less traumatic—pleasant, even.”
I find it hard to believe that being dead and then suddenly being not dead could be, as he describes, pleasant. Even so, a faint sensation bubbles forth at two points in my neck, warm and electric, and I bite my lip at the quasi-thought of something I can’t quite remember. I feel a subtle flush creep into my cheeks so I glance around the room as he speaks to avoid him seeing. I can read every title on the bookshelf, even in this dim light, and distract myself by committing them to memory. The black trash bag by the door should conceal the smell of my bloody clothes, I realize, but it’s as if I’m bathing in the metallic odor. Outside, sounds of life carrying on: wet tires humming on the street, transformers buzzing, a siren too many miles off, stilettos clicking on sidewalk.
I stand and cross to a window, tugging up, the window nearly tearing out of the frame as it crashes to the top. I need air. I try to breathe deeply but am assaulted by the stench of days-old fried egg rolls baked onto the metal bottom of a dumpster and floor shifting underneath me. My fingertips graze the windowsill as I fail to catch myself.
“Oh!” Zeke is behind me in a flash, steadying me.
“Too much . . . ” I manage to explain as he lifts me back to the chair.
“You’re overwhelmed—your senses are in overdrive. That will calm down some, but all Everlasting gain heightened sensory awareness. You’ll adjust to it. You’ll find that you’re also stronger, faster, and more graceful than most mortals. You’re a predator now. These Gifts belong to all Everlasting.”
He brushes a stray curl of hair from my eyes, his touch lingering just a moment too long before he notices I notice. He recoils his hand as if I’m fire.
“Other Gifts are passed through the Blood, are distinctive of our lineage. That’s likely where your visions come from. Sometimes these Gifts skip generations, but eventually those that have roots in your Blood will manifest and bloom given some time and attention. Some of these come at a price—like how we can sense the ebb and flow of the Beast in others, but we feel more deeply than other Everlasting. Where others may get angry, our Beast rages. Where others develop a sense of loyalty or duty, ours swells to devotion, even obsession.” He hesitates a moment. “We can bury it, but at great personal cost. Too often those of our lineage burn out rather than seek release,” he warns, his gaze meeting mine only after skimming my legs upward, coming to rest at my lips before he catches himself. I notice, but do not say anything.
He continues with a quick bark of throat-clearing. “And all of this could be exploited by others, so it is often best not to flaunt what you’re capable of around other Everlasting. Of course, others disagree, using this tactic to intimidate. Watch them, memorize their strengths, exploit them when you need to—but trust no one.”
“Now what?” I ask after a brief pause.
“’Now what?’ That’s your response to all of this?”
I notice for the first time that he is handsome, rugged and dangerous, but his eyes softer than I would have guessed, skin smooth with just a bit of stubble. He’s young, though older than me, maybe in his mid-to-late twenties. Smells like spice and wood and it’s taken me this long to realize he doesn’t wear cologne. The scent of something within him. His pupils dilate slightly. My Beast stirs but this time I do not thirst.
I lean forward and put my hand on the back of his neck. My lips nearly brush his. My heart doesn’t beat but I feel the phantom twinge of it racing in my rib cage, like an amputee might feel an arm no longer there.
“I don’t remember anything before your fangs in my neck. Now is everything. Now is all I have,” I whisper before kissing him. He return
s the kiss, pulling me to the edge of the chair. He stands. I gasp at his strength, more than human, and I wrestle with those words even as I run my hands through his hair.
“You feel this way because of the blood, because you’re mine,” he murmurs in my ear. The two points on my neck where once his fangs sank into my flesh alight with a desire that emanates outward, enveloping me.
“Why don’t you let me decide how I feel.”
LOOKING BACK, I KNOW THAT I HAD NO CHOICE IN whether, after my Becoming, I went with him. No choice in whether I wished him to keep me safe. No choice in trusting. I had no recollection of who I was before, what life I may have led. Covered in grave and blood, and Zeke—Ezekiel Winter, an Elder of the Keepers, my Usher whose blood awakened the Beast in me—in that moment he became at once my past, present, and future. The Everlasting liken it more to obsession than to true love. Even now I’m not sure.
Whatever might have been there—grown from genuine affection or a by-product of the Blood—the Rite of Binding amplified. Each Usher has their own version, passed through their bloodline, but the basis of the ritual among the Keepers remains the same: to build a sense of trust in one’s Usher and, by extension, the Elders; to pledge service to the sect and, by extension, the Elders; and to come face-to-face with one’s Beast without succumbing to it. In essence, to fully embrace this new existence and weed out those too weak to survive, those that might become liabilities to the sect.
Some rites are cruel, excruciating rights of torture that last years, designed to break the new Everlasting of all ties to her past and condition her to need her Usher. Such codependent, abusive relationships rarely end well for the Usher and superstition surrounding this has led some to refuse to Usher at all. Other Binding rites echo the humane, forging something like loving bonds over time as with a caretaker, though a certain degree of codependency still plagues these Everlasting. More than one story has been told of a young Everlasting, still under the care of his Usher, who loved him so much he only wished to show him the beauty of a sunrise one final time—and with disastrous, ashy results for both. Still others rely heavily on the mysticism and the pageantry of elaborate ceremonies to bring Usher and Childe together—whether the magic of these rites is indeed magic or the bonding that takes place when sharing in something forbidden and secret, I’m not sure.
None of these—and all of these—characterize the Binding of my Bloodline.
YOU’VE DONE WELL, DELILAH, HE SAID SECONDS OR hours ago, before I heard a heavy door seal shut and his footsteps grow fainter as they retreated behind it.
I’m bound at the wrists by rough ropes reinforced by steel cable, a fact I discovered when I tried to chew through them in a moment of weakness. Wrists raw, steel cable now threatens to bite into nearly-exposed ligaments, my weight allowing no reprieve from the pain by virtue of gravity. I lean my head back, looking up at the rafters from which I’m hung. Black spots dance at the edge of my field of vision. At once I am both weightless and infinitely heavy, nothing and everything in this moment. Molecules of time writhe around me, trickle from my wrists down my arms. If I stretch, I can touch the floor with tiptoes, though it does nothing to alleviate my suffering.
I hear Zeke’s footsteps approaching so I let my head loll to the side and forward, eyes closed. Maybe if he thinks I am unconscious I can steal an hour or two of silence. My body begs for silence. I wince when the first slash of the ceremonial dagger tears into the taut fleshy shallows of my abdomen. I cry out with the second, eyes widening, pupils dilating. That familiar warmth boils to inferno underneath the surface as my Beast reawakens. I growl. Another strike. I roar, my body lurching forward within the confinement of my bindings towards the one who strikes me: Zeke.
He’s taken leave of the pack, citing his absence under the cloak of something far more perverse than this in the name of bonding. They do not question it—unlike the Keepers, the Praedari respect the right of the Usher to train his Childe in his own traditions for a short time before formally introducing them as one of the Everlasting or, in this case, initiating me formally into the pack. The allowance, of course, more a matter of convenience than sentimentality: part of this time is spent testing the young Everlasting, making sure they prove worthy of the pack’s brotherhood. Survival alone proves heartiness, but proving dedication takes a more delicate touch. I repress a shudder as I think of what the others have been through at the hand of their Usher—and what others will go through at their hand. To belong to the pack, I must first belong to Zeke—so they leave us alone.
He holds in his hand a ceremonial dagger, the blade almost woven of metals whose colors I don’t recognize and could not name, barbs spotting one edge, all of it attached to a polished wooden handle. Jagged fragments of something catch in the dim lighting, pinpoints of reflection dancing on the floor, my flesh, the wall like stars. I blink, wondering if I am imagining the light.
“More than just a blade—forged in a technique passed down from my Usher. I chose these metals especially for you, Delilah. Torture has long been used to extract information from the condemned, though most die in the process. As Everlasting, we stand condemned to an eternity of inner struggle—a struggle most Everlasting finally lose. But not us, not those of our Blood. Let the Keepers deny their struggle and cling to their own antiquated customs. Let the Praedari stay slave to barbaric rituals whose purpose has long since been lost to time. Thus we endure these rites in secret, away from the prying eyes of the Keepers and the Praedari who would not understand the lessons to be sought within them. Right now there’s only you and this—”
I cry out as the blade slashes my skin, the barbs feeling as though they tear out shards of my flesh as they drag across. Tears roll down my cheeks as I’m struck again and again.
“Our bloodline uses suffering to transcend ourselves, to free ourselves of the fragile shell of our own mortality. Others cling to what they were. They cannot be trusted, for they are weak. Only through suffering can we come face-to-face with our Beast and only in this way can we control it.”
Zeke circles me as he speaks. “If we can’t do that, it is best we die our Final Death so we may spare our bloodline the shame of failure. Do you understand?”
I nod, the room wavering as though on the brink of a vision. I feel him step in close behind me, the hand not holding the blade moving firmly to my arm, as though to steady me. The dizziness responds to his touch, ebbing. He kisses my cheek and wipes away a tear.
“I’m here. You’re here. Nothing can harm you. You are more than this.”
He coaches me to take deep breaths, each inhale expanding my lungs and stretching my torn flesh. Though as one of the Everlasting I need not breathe, the act serves as a sort of security blanket, soothing my nerves. I feel my Beast quieting, slinking in submission to a far corner of my soul, waiting for a moment of weakness from which to pounce.
“There. You’re doing great. Breathe, if that helps, if it is still instinct. You will overcome that echo of your former self, but rely on it now if it soothes you. Shall we continue?”
I lock eyes with Zeke, my voice such that it could command the stars to bow to earth.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
NOW WHAT? ZEKE WAS RIGHT THAT FIRST NIGHT. Such a subdued response was bound to erupt into something violent, something that would change everything forever, though neither of us could be sure when. The funny thing about time when you’re immortal is that it at once becomes both irrelevant and everything.
The next few weeks blurred into months into years before I was able to embrace what I’d become. I tried to kill him more than once. I tried to kill myself more than once. And I killed more times than I can remember, each corpse bringing me closer to the predator within, each corpse a mess for Zeke to clean up.
But I won’t bore you with that.
“EZEKIEL, BROTHER,” CAIUS CLASPS MY HAND firmly in his and pulls me in for a hug, clapping me roughly on the back with a few hollow thuds. A greeting between warriors, between b
rothers.
“I’m glad you could make it on such short notice. Did you have difficulty entering the territory?”
“What good’s a lone wolf like me if I can’t slip in and out undetected?” His teeth gleam, the smile of a predator, confident.
“Good. The packs that patrol the border have been on high alert since the Howling is nearly upon us. It’s almost as if they just got word of a Keeper infiltrating somewhere within the territory . . . ” I smirk.
Caius laughs, though his nose crinkles in concern. “I wonder where they heard that?”
I shrug innocently, then join him in laughter.
“Tell me you have a decoy, at least?” he asks once his laughter subsides, but I wave it off. “What about her?” Caius asks, indicating Delilah suspended limp from the rafters, head lolled to the side, eyes closed. Blood stains the grout between tiles in the floor. Wet droplets still decorate the tile, splatters forming constellations of bright red against the dingy.
“She’s fine, resting. You may speak freely in front of her,” I say. There’s nothing he could say that I need to shield her from. As we approach the end of her Binding, I know I can trust her implicitly—it is not as some Ushers would have their Childe, a quivering shadow of who they once were, afraid of angering their Usher, good for nothing more than errands or agreeing with their every whim. No, she will survive this, as I did, as my Usher did, and hers and further back than I can trace our lineage, and each of us stronger for it.
“This is her Binding Ritus?” Though Caius attempts to hide judgment, it’s impossible not to notice the quirked eyebrow and amusement in his voice. Very few could I trust in this space, the reek of blood enough to awaken the predator within even the most seasoned Everlasting, the most precious thing in the world to me strung up like a fresh kill, on display, vulnerable. A little judgment, a little snark, is nothing between brothers.