by Lee French
Stephen pushed his way out of the small room off to the side, wiping blood off his chin with one hand while he tucked his shirt into his pants with the other. His expression mirrored how Bobby felt as he stood there, finishing off a chicken leg he picked up off a table: pleased, sated, and righteous. He tossed the bone over his shoulder and stepped over bodies to join the vampire.
This place had also sated and pleased the dragons. They’d stopped pressing to break free, stopped pushing him to do something. He felt pretty good, too. They’d done something important, something worth doing. This scum had to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and he and Stephen were just the right tools for that job. Admittedly, he didn’t need Stephen all that much. For just cleansing this plague, he could handle that on his own.
They landed inside the small forward base nearest to where they’d been busy tonight. “Cant and Mitchell reporting in,” Stephen told his earpiece. “Mission complete, we’re stopping for tonight. I’ll call back in before dusk again.” They strode through the base together, Bobby having no idea of their destination. “Understood.” Stephen pulled the earpiece out again. “The unconscious guy didn’t survive being loaded for transport. The rest are either on the table or otherwise stable. So, five made it.”
Bobby nodded and tried to ignore the flashes of fresh memory. “Maybe we oughta split up. Get more done at once.”
Stephen stopped and put a hand out to grab Bobby’s arm, making him stop, too. “What are you talking about? We’re not here to get as much done as possible, we’re here to get Privek to trust us. Bobby, this isn’t about killing people, this is about getting closer to finding the others. Did you forget that already? ”
Scowling, Bobby looked away. “I didn’t forget nothing.”
The vampire pulled his hand away and crossed his arms, also looking off at nothing in particular. “We were going to stick together for a reason. After what happened last night, I don’t think…” He sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “You didn’t want to deal with those soldiers. Someone had to. What would you do if you wound up in that situation again?”
He knew the vampire was right. It changed nothing. “I ain’t helpless or nothing.”
“I’m not your dad.” Stephen snorted. “If you want to go it alone, it’s not like I can stop you. But, you don’t have one of these,” he held up the earpiece he used to contact Klein, “and I’m not giving you this one, because I need it, too.” Before Bobby considered swiping it, Stephen tucked the device back into his pocket. “I’m going to get some sleep. Which is your cue to eat. See you later.”
Annoyed, Bobby shrugged it off and gave Stephen a curt, unenthusiastic nod. His stomach growled with the mention of food, so he sniffed the air and headed for the mess tent in a sulk. He didn’t need Stephen, not to do this stuff. The vampire was smarter than him, he knew that. Stephen didn’t know everything, and these missions had nothing to do with brains. Out here, no one had that stupid drug, and none of those suits lay in wait. No one could stop him, and he had no need for someone to watch his back.
Brooding at his food tray, he shoveled food into his mouth without tasting it, a tactic that served him well out here. Whether Stephen wanted to admit it or not, this mission only needed killing, and he now had the best way ever conceived to do that. His entire body was made of hundreds of little assassins. Stephen didn’t think he could handle himself on his own. No one ever did. He could, and he would.
Of course, that did nothing to dispel the ghost of Saint Sebastian lingering at his back. Bobby had no idea how the guy’s voice sounded, but he could hear it anyway, telling him how he didn’t stand a chance, how Lily could see right through him. Sebastian would always be the better man, because he’d sacrificed everything to be a hero.
Bobby sacrificed nothing. He could kill everyone in the country—no, everyone in the world—without suffering so much as a paper cut. Sebastian had been a normal guy, rising above his human limitations. Bobby had no limitations to rise above.
Before now, he hadn’t dwelt on how thoroughly unstoppable he’d become. The suits stopped him by catching him off guard, in his human costume. What would happen if someone chopped his head off while he was drugged and couldn’t go swarm? That was an experiment he’d rather not try. Like Stephen, he preferred to just not know the extent of his nigh-immortality. But, out here, no one had that drug. The sooner he killed all these terrorists, the sooner Privek would declare the mission complete. He ought to get on with it.
Resolved to end this war on his own, he crammed the rest of his meal into his mouth and hurried out of there. He didn’t know where exactly to go, but how hard could it be to find people that wanted to kill American soldiers when he looked like one? Not hard at all. At the edge of the camp, he broke into the swarm and flew up and away. So far, all the missions took them to the north part of the country, so he went that way.
Landing just outside a small town an hour or so later, he walked boldly down the road. A stone wall about five feet high all the way around the low, squat buildings all squished together in a clump. Four men loitered with assault rifles in front of the wooden gate, watching and pointing at Bobby as he got close. Considering nothing else had probably happened near them in a while, he took no offense at the pointing.
Going by looks alone, these men needed killing. They looked the same as those other men, the ones he knew deserved the unpleasant deaths he gave them. But he couldn’t be completely sure everyone here needed that kind of judgment passed on them, and thought he ought to give them a chance before meting it out.
Approaching the four men, he held up his hands and let them take a good look. He stopped twenty feet away and turned around to prove he had no weapons. Their actions would decide how this went, not his.
Two pointed their guns at Bobby, one held his more casually, and the fourth rested his against his shoulder, looking unconcerned with this foreigner on his turf. He was the biggest, taller than Bobby and more muscular, and stood with his feet apart enough to be intimidating with his confidence. Intimidating to someone actually worried about death or debilitating injury, anyway. Bobby gave the guy some respect for show.
“Hi there,” he called out. “Don’t s’pose any of ya speak English?”
Confident Man nodded. “Some. What you want, American?”
Bobby suddenly realized he needed a story. It had to be something where they’d feel free to treat him however they wanted, instead of how he wanted them to based upon a gun to their heads. “I got separated from my unit, and kinda need to use a phone or something. If’n you can spare it, a drink of water’d be appreciated, too.”
Confident Man turned enough to speak to the others, using another language, and chuckling at some grand joke. Casual Rifle Guy grinned and replied, jerking his chin to indicate Bobby. Confident Man eyed Bobby up like a predator checking out potential food. “Come, phone.”
Anyone else would have been six kinds of stupid to follow that man. Someone genuinely in the situation he pretended to would be better off wandering around in hopes of bumping into Americans. Bobby, though, smiled. “Thank you kindly.” He ambled after the man, acting like a stupid hick. Stephen would probably tell him that he came to the role naturally, and he’d be right.
As expected, Casual Rifle Guy tried to use the butt of his rifle to hit Bobby in the back of the head. Instead of the impact the guy hoped for, Bobby burst into dragons and let them run wild. It took them half an hour to spread through the town and kill all the men. Women and children, he left alone. Without pausing to examine his handiwork in human shape, he put the town behind him and moved on.
That term, “human shape”, covered it. He wasn’t human, he had a shape that appeared human. In reality, he was a great big bunch of dragons all linked together. His life up until he discovered that had been pretend, or maybe learning how to blend in. Considering it that way, he didn’t deserve to be considered a murderer. Instead, he ought to be thought of a janitor. They should to thank him, even, for
cleaning up their stupid messes. They weren’t even worth getting fussed up over, anyway. Anything that could die so easily couldn’t have much value.
He let the landscape go by under the swarm, only stopping when he saw another town. This time, as soon as he saw the men who looked exactly like those other ones, he let the swarm go without bothering to pause and check them out. Because they didn’t matter to him, he let the dragons kill whoever they wanted without paying attention. Instead, he floated in the middle of the bloodbath, trying to figure himself out.
If he was a big pile of dragons, what was the Bobby part of him, this overall mind? He remembered seeing a TV show once where a bunch of little things that were dumb individually got smart when they all came together. That seemed to kind of fit, though he couldn’t imagine how it must work. Loosed from a physical shell, it didn’t make any sense that his consciousness actually came from his brain, though when he tried to move the part that he knew to specifically be Bobby, nothing happened. He was as chained to the dragons as they were to him.
The thought kept him busy until swarmed together again, burning the blood off of each others’ tiny bodies. Letting them do what they wanted to these people took no effort on his part, and even felt good, like relaxing a muscle he hadn’t noticed was tense.
In the next town, the dragons went through and killed everyone, then he found an empty bed in a room with no bodies or gore and lay down to grab himself some rest. He fell asleep easily. When he woke, vague impressions of unpleasant dreams sat on his shoulders. Standing and stretching brushed them away.
The sun set while he rummaged through the kitchen. He found crackers, raw vegetables that tasted fine, and some pastes and sauces he liked. One tub in the fridge had some chicken with lentils he devoured with gusto.
“Bobby, are you still here?” Stephen’s voice drifted through the window from the street below.
How did the vampire find him? He scratched his cheek and figured that ignoring Stephen would be childish. Instead of shouting out the window, he went dragon and poured out of the house, re-forming on the street a few feet away from Stephen. “Yeah, I’m here.” The stench of death—raw and rotting meat, blood, urine, feces, bile—hung heavy here, and flies buzzed everywhere.
Stephen held an arm up to shield his nose. “I see you’ve been busy.”
“Ain’t no sense in waiting.”
The vampire pulled his arm down and rested both hands on his hips. “No? Am I slowing you down by giving a shot at trying to determine if people we kill actually need to be killed or not?”
This sounded like the start of a lecture. Bobby’s eyes narrowed and he scowled. “If’n you got something to say, then say it.”
Instead of answering, Stephen pointed. Bobby’s eyes followed the line of the gloved finger until he saw it. A little boy lay surrounded by his own gore, dead eyes staring up at the sky. Next to him was a woman that might be his mother, also dead. She held an infant in her arms, also ripped apart. The handiwork was obviously his own; no one else came and did this while he slept, but he didn’t remember doing it. He hadn’t been paying attention while the dragons exercised their freedom.
Bobby turned away from that horror and found himself looking at another two young children, faces twisted in terror. He’d casually murdered children whose only possible crime was being born here instead of someplace else. By not caring enough to keep track of the dragons, by feeding their blind rage, he killed these kids, that mother, that baby. He could live with killing grown men who took up arms to fight. Little kids, though…
Bending over, he put his hands on his knees and threw up into the street. Everything he ate came back up, most of it still recognizable. Stephen stood by in silence, only moving a foot to stay clear of the new mess. When he had nothing left inside, Bobby suffered through a few dry heaves, then took a drink from the canteen Stephen offered him and spat it out.
“I thought maybe you’d had a psychotic break.” Stephen took the canteen back and tucked it away in a pocket.
“What did I do,” Bobby breathed, eyes wide and staring. “What did I do?”
“That’s an excellent question. Offhand, it looks like you decided to pass judgment on a few thousand people, if you count the ones in the other two places you went through.” Stephen’s voice held no emotion, only detached curiosity. “Which is interesting, since you’re so disturbed by my drinking blood, something I am forced to do to continue living and which does not require the death of my victim. As I recall, it also disturbed you when I discovered how much I enjoy killing someone when I do it.”
Bobby stumbled back a few steps, tripped over something, and landed on his backside in congealed blood mixed with other things. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. He killed these kids and that baby, and others like them. What was he doing when the dragons forced their way into these little mouths? Pondering his existence? Thinking. When he should have been acting, when he should have been in control, he’d been thinking about life, about his invincibility, about his superiority.
Stepping gingerly to Bobby’s side, Stephen offered him a hand. “We need to get you out of here, Bobby. I thought I was the one that would have trouble with all this, but it’s you.”
“What did I do?” Bobby stared at Stephen’s hand, not sure what to do with it, not sure if he deserved it.
“Only you can answer that question.” Stephen reached down and took Bobby’s hand, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go ponder it someplace else. The ambiance here hasn’t been improved by adding your breakfast to it.”
Afraid to let the dragons out, Bobby stood there, his mind gone blank. Stephen solved the problem by hefting him in a fireman’s carry and flying upwards. Slung there like a sack of potatoes, Bobby chased circles in his head. Those people died because failed to prevent the dragons from killing them. He’d spent time worrying about himself and ignoring the rest of the world, and those people all paid the price for it.
Stephen flew for a while in the darkness, then touched down in a spot with nothing around for miles. He dumped Bobby into a pile of wild grass where he got an unobstructed view of the star-filled sky. No light pollution spoiled the view, and he stared up at the impossibly full, moonless night.
All those millions of sparkly dots burned with heat so intense his dragons wouldn’t withstand it. They stared down at him, not giving a crap about his problems or confusions or wonderings. Once upon a time, he might have prayed to God for forgiveness, but had had no idea if that would help now. It didn’t feel like that mattered much.
Several minutes later, he said, “The dragons, they’re me and I’m them.” He left it there for a bit, feeling small and insignificant compared to the sky. A few minutes later, he he opened his mouth again, not sure what would tumble out of it. “I keep thinking of them as something else, but they’re me. I’m all little bitty parts jammed together into one bigger piece. What they want, it’s what I want. They did all that while I wasn’t paying attention, only I was, because they’re me. I knew what they were doing.”
“They controlled you instead of you controlling them,” Stephen murmured into the darkness.
“Yeah. And no. And yeah.” Nothing had changed since he killed those two suits, other than efficiency. Then, he’d been surprised they could do such a thing at all. Now…he didn’t want to think about it something this confusing and disturbing. “I gotta get outta here, afore I ain’t nothing left worth having.”
For a few minutes, Stephen said nothing. He stood nearby, also staring up at the sky with his hands in his pockets. “Agreed. Let’s get moving. If we’re lucky, we can get a fair distance before anyone notices we’ve gone.”
Bobby let the dragons peel off, ready to carry his own weight again, at least for traveling. It would be unfair to expect Stephen to haul him any further. Not that fair had a seat at his table right now, but if he wanted to take control back, he had to start someplace. “What about Privek?”
“Screw Privek. None of those eleven w
ould want you to sacrifice your sanity, to become a monster just to get them free.”
Uncertain how to take that, Bobby nodded before his head dispersed into dragons and had the swarm follow Stephen. They flew all night, pausing a few times to let Bobby eat, then went to ground for the day in some rural area Stephen thought might be in Turkey. As little as he liked them, Bobby choked down more of those stupid protein bars to keep his stomach under control.
“We’re going to discuss what happened,” Stephen said as he leaned against the rock of a shallow cave. The direction the mouth faced meant he could expect to be in the shade for most of the day.
“I ain’t got nothing to say ‘bout that.” He sounded childish and knew it, and didn’t care.
“Fine, then. You can listen.” Stephen pulled his hat, sunglasses, and balaclava off, setting them aside and moving on to his gloves. He looked tired, which came as no surprise. Bobby suspected the vampire wouldn’t take any crap from anyone right now. “To me, humans are basically over-glorified cows. Walking, talking food. It’s really difficult to actually care about them as people. Yet, I grew up thinking I was one of them. Sure, I always suspected I wasn’t quite as normal as everyone around me was, but I was human as a child and had a family that cared about me. My parents are good people, so are my brother and sister. Pastor Chris is a good man.
“And yet, here I am, looking at people like that Elena chick and thinking ‘food’.” Stephen stared directly at Bobby, the weight of it so intense Bobby had to look away, down at the ground. “Since I’ve had a fair amount of time to think about this, it seems to me that is entirely because people are now food for me. At first, I bit my girlfriend during sex. Didn’t even realize why I was doing it, I just did it. She didn’t remember me doing it, and the sex was great. As women do, though, she got her period. She didn’t like sex during that, said she felt too crappy. Which is fine, I could live for a week without sex. I still needed to eat, though.