by Lili Zander
The enforcers are here.
I shrink back into the tunnel. I should run away, but something compels me to stay where I am.
Three sleek choppers approach from the inner city. I see the vampire running as fast as he can, but the ice is treacherous, and he slips and falls. Before he can scramble to his feet, they’re firing their weapons.
The first brilliant blue ray grazes his arm, burning it away.
The second leaves a hole in his chest.
The third sends him to the ground.
He doesn’t get up.
I want to turn away. Bile rises in my throat. My stomach churns, and I retch violently, but I force myself to stay where I am. My parents taught me that every life was sacred. Even the life of a vampire. They’re gone now, but in honor of their memory, I make myself watch, and to ease his passage to the afterlife, I whisper the prayer of the Long Night.
Sing your death song, vampire. Die like a hero going home.
2
Raven
Boarus 4
Sunrise, SecondDay of FourthMonth
Run, Raven, run.
There are no cameras inside the tunnel, just at the entrance and exit. I stay huddled in the corner of the underpass, hidden from sight. A few minutes after the vampire falls, a chopper lands. Two enforcers emerge from it and walk over to the crumpled body.
They check to make sure he’s dead, and then one of them reaches for his comm. I can’t hear what he says; the wind is whistling too loudly for me to be able to catch the words.
The vampire had told me to flee.
Any moment now, the enforcers are going to set off in search of me.
Any moment now, more choppers are going to land.
Any moment now, they’re going to gun me down, the way they did the vampire.
I’m poised to make a break for it. My muscles are tense. My heart is hammering in my chest.
But nothing happens. After a few seconds, the two of them turn away and head back to the chopper, leaving the body of the vampire behind.
Nobody is searching for me.
I start to tremble, a combination of fear and nerves. I sink to the icy ground and lean against the tunnel wall, retching violently as the bite works its way through my system. For thirty minutes, I’m too weak to move. All I can do is curl up into a ball and wait for it to be over.
Once the waves of nausea pass, my mind starts to work again.
He didn’t look well, the vampire that bit me. His clothes were tattered, and he reeked of sweat and booze and worse. He seemed crazy. Paranoid.
It’s not a crime to be bitten; it’s an honor. Hell, Ingrid was just bitten by her vampire lover, and he’s set her up in Sector 7, a huge increase in status for the former miner.
I have nothing to worry about.
But I learned at the re-education camps to be cautious.
The vampire ambushed me outside the tunnel, but my hood was up the entire time. The exterior cameras will show a vampire biting a human, but there’s nothing that’ll identify me. Nothing that will lead the enforcers to my door.
Even if someone’s watching the feeds, they’ll be looking for a hooded human. To be safe, I take off my warm cloak and toss it in the trashcan. I wind my scarf around my neck to conceal the bite and wait until four women enter the tunnel. “Can I walk with you?” I ask them. “The gangs…”
I don’t need to say more. Everyone knows there’s safety in numbers. “Of course,” one of them says. “Fall in.”
Concealed among them, I make my way home.
“The first mention of the vampires was in the twenty-fifth century. Who can tell me where?”
Ma Kaila runs an illegal history class in her home. I’ve been attending it for the last four years, ever since I reached the age of majority and left the re-education camps. At the start, it had been a small act of defiance, a way to prove that I could still think for myself, that I was still my parents’ daughter. I hadn’t expected to find myself fascinated.
Now, four years later, this class feels like home, and Ma Kaila feels like family, a substitute for the mother I so badly miss. Not that I’d ever admit that out loud. The re-education camp taught me that to care for someone was to become vulnerable. Vulnerable people die.
Samin lifts her hand. “In the Diary of the Unknown Explorer,” she says. “The inhabitants of Old Earth were looking for new planets to resettle in, but the vampires controlled most of the galaxy.”
Our teacher smiles approvingly. “Good,” she says. “We all know what happened next. The citizens of Old Earth were met by Jomar Hafsson. He agreed to let them settle in his world in exchange for blood. Thus was born the blood tax.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Samin says. “The humans were on refugee ships, fleeing their dying home planet. Vampires were powerful. Jomar Hafsson could have enslaved the humans, but instead, he welcomed our ancestors, and struck a deal with them. Why not just take what you want by force?”
I wince. Samin’s new, and she doesn’t know yet to avoid certain subjects. Ma Kaila, who saw her family slaughtered in front of her eyes by Dieter Zimmer, the current Overlord’s father, sees all vampires as the enemy, to be hated and feared in equal measure. Nothing angers her more than reminders that without the vampires’ help, humanity wouldn’t have survived the first exodus to the stars.
Our teacher grits her teeth. “Maybe Jomar Hafsson was that rarest of rare creatures—an honorable vampire. Does it really matter? Since then, the vampires have shown us again and again who they are. Ruthless. Violent. Evil.” She glares at us. “Can you picture the Overlord acting in such a way?”
No, I can’t. Ma Kaila is right. Jomar Hafsson’s motivations aren’t important. The treaty is part of the past.
It’s been only an hour after the bite, but my body is already changing. I feel stronger. More alert. I’m always cold in Ma Kaila’s classroom, but not today. Every sound is magnified. I can hear the crinkle of the notes that the Osaka sisters pass each other in the back. Samin Tolat’s pained breathing, a legacy of too many years in the mines, echoes harshly in my ears.
The unwanted gift is at work. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Samin shuts up. Ma Kaila moves on to her next point. “However,” she says, “As you learned last week, Old Earth historians have always suspected that there was prior contact between the two species. Humans have written about vampires since the eighteenth century. The creatures in Old Earth literature slept during the day and walked at night. They drank blood. The coincidences are too many to be mere chance.” Her gaze travels around the room. “Raven, what did the Old Earth writers get right about the vampires, and what did they get wrong?”
I yank my wandering thoughts back to the classroom. “Vampires feed on human blood. They got that right.”
“What else?”
Should have paid more attention to the assigned reading. I search my mind. “Old Earth writers thought that when humans were drained, they became vampires,” I remember. “But that’s not true. Vampires and humans are separate species.” It’s coming back to me now. “Vampires do slumber, and sunlight does affect them, but only on planets with a yellow sun, like Old Earth.” And Boarus 4. “The Old Earth writers also believed that vampires were immortal, which they are not.”
Ma Kaila’s eyes wander the room and she finds her next victim. “Joanna, what else did the Stoker Manuscript get wrong about vampires?”
“They thought vampires couldn’t be seen in mirrors,” Joanna responds promptly. Unlike me, Joanna’s done her reading. “Holy water hurt Stoker’s vampires. Garlic repelled them. And they could be killed by driving a stake through their hearts. None of that is true.”
“Pity,” Ma Kaila says, her voice bitter. “As we all know, vampires are exceedingly hard to kill.”
I linger after class, in no hurry to get home. Joanna’s talking about the upcoming Night of the Shayde tournament, her cheeks flushed. “I heard the Empress’ brother, Prince Ragna
r, is coming to our tournament this year,” she says, her eyes shining with enthusiasm.
Every planet in the Empire has a version of the annual summer games. On Boarus 4, the Night of the Shayde is simply a way to blow off some steam. The mines are closed, as are other businesses. The normally strict curfews are relaxed, and the citizens flood the streets at all hours of the day, partying and celebrating. People wager on their favorite contestants, and the unlicensed gambling dens run by the Oensi Federation make a fortune during the week.
“He is?” I ask skeptically. Joanna’s probably mistaken; there’s no reason for the prince to attend our tournament. Boarus 4 is not nearly important enough to be visited by the high-ranked vampires of Starra.
“Yes.” She sighs dreamily. “He’s so gorgeous, and, according to the gossip, he’s currently unattached. He doesn’t have a bô. I’d undo my braids for him anytime.”
Gorgeous or not, he’s a vampire. Hard pass.
I turn to leave. Joanna falls into step with me. “Raven, wait up. I need to talk to you.”
The bite mark is gone—I checked—and the night air doesn’t slice through me the way it usually does, but I wind my scarf tightly around my neck and shove my hands in my pockets, just like the other students. The cold is bearable, especially with my new vampire-gifted powers, but I don’t want anyone to know about my encounter. It feels too dangerous. “What’s going on?”
She frowns at my outfit. “It’s freezing. Where’s your cloak?”
“It tore as I was leaving for class,” I lie. “I didn’t have time to mend it.”
“Hmm.” She doesn’t look like she believes me. “I have a spare. I’ll bring it to the next class.”
“Thank you.” She could sell it for extra money, but that kind of thing wouldn’t even occur to Joanna.
She waves away my gratitude. “Are you going to take part in the tournament? The choosing is on FifthDay.”
“Me?” I stare at her in confusion. “Why would I do that?”
She drops her gaze to her feet. “You learned to survive in the camps. You’d do well.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “They’re allowed to watch the tournament. You’re one of their own. To see you on the holos would give them hope.”
The re-education camps are brutal, and Joanna’s brother Mical has an eighteen-month sentence. He’s fourteen. A rich inner-sector kid. Soft and weak. He’s not used to being cold and hungry. He’s not used to deferring to authority. Joanna’s obviously fearful for him, and she’s right to be. The odds aren’t in his favor.
“The prize is a lifetime waiver of the blood tax,” she adds. “And money. And an all-expenses-paid trip to Starra.”
Get to Starra, the vampire that bit me whispers in my mind. Find Ivar Karling. He will know what to do.
I ignore that voice. Joanna’s waiting for me to answer, but I can’t let her pin her hopes on me. After what happened to my parents, I won’t do anything to draw attention to myself. “I’m sorry. I cannot take part.”
Her face falls. “I understand. See you next week, Raven.”
Her fight is not mine, but that still doesn’t stop me from feeling like an asshole all the way home.
3
Saber
Starra
Sundown, SecondDay of FourthMonth
Starra, the world of eternal dusk, is a cesspool of intrigue. I rarely set foot in the capital, but this time, I have no choice. When Harek Levitan, one of the five members of the Ruling Council summons you for a mission, you show up. Or else.
“Colonel Hafsson.” Levitan leans back in his chair and surveys me with cold black eyes. “Still proud, even after the disaster that was Rothis.”
I expect this taunt, and so I don’t respond. Unfortunately, my teammate, Nero, isn’t quite as good at concealing his emotions as I am. He stiffens in outrage and almost opens his mouth to say something in our defense before a glance from me shuts him up.
Zeke Ulrich, who’s sitting on my right, stares straight ahead, his back ramrod straight. Usually, Zeke’s got a ready smile on his face and is near impossible to ruffle. He’s not smiling now, but at least on the surface, he’s calm. I know better. Nero might be easier to read, but Zeke’s just as angry as Nero is.
Rothis was indeed a clusterfuck. Our mission was to guard a convoy of cargo ships carrying boarium from the outer reaches of the Boarus system to Xancar. It should have been a routine op, one my team of elite soldiers was vastly overqualified for.
Our route was top secret. The cargo had been disguised as a shipment of exotic icefruit. And yet, at a refueling stop in Rothis, we’d been ambushed by a well-armed squadron of smugglers who had known exactly who we were and what we carried.
Somewhere down the line, there’d been a leak, one that led to the deaths of five members of my team.
Even worse, every one of them had been human.
The whispers have already begun. How strange it is that Saber Hafsson, so-called champion of equal rights, sent all of the human members of his team into death. How hypocritical.
Humans I considered friends have avoided me since I returned from Rothis. Even worse, Vampire First, an organization I abhor for their naked, raw racism, is making overtures to me.
The ambush was four weeks ago. While I recovered from my wounds in a hospital in Xancar, Zeke, the most talented hacker on my team, spent his time searching for the person responsible for the information leak. His investigation led him to…
…the person sitting across from me.
General Harek Levitan. Commander of the Imperial Army, Regent to Empress Astrid, member of the Ruling Council, and the second-most powerful vampire in the galaxy. Traitor.
My failure at Rothis has turned my world upside down. For four weeks, I’ve mourned my dead teammates. I’ve let the gossips of Starra talk. I’ve watched them shred my reputation. Mock my integrity. Even question my loyalty to the Empress.
All of that stops today.
Starting now, it’s time to fight back.
If I had proof that Levitan was responsible for the theft of the boarium shipment, I wouldn’t be in his office. I’d be petitioning for an audience with Empress Astrid herself or with her half-brother Prince Ragnar. Unfortunately, the only person who could identify Levitan as the source of the information leak was Nona Paraday, captain of the smuggler crew, and she is dead.
For the moment, I can’t act. Until I have evidence that implicates him in a crime of treason, I must pretend that I’m still one of Levitan’s loyal pawns.
“How may I serve the Empire, General Levitan?”
He gives me a measured, assessing look. “This footage was taken at daybreak yesterday,” he says. “Watch.”
The vid on Levitan’s wall powers to life. Nero, Zeke, and I turn our attention to the screen. A vampire stumbles toward a human woman just outside a tunnel. Judging by the man’s clothes and general bearing, he’s seen better days. The kindest description of him would be disreputable. I don’t blame the woman from shrinking away from him. For a second, she seems to want to flee, but then he says something to her and beckons.
Compulsion.
Zeke’s anger radiates from him. Compulsion is a vampire weapon, but it’s illegal to use. The humans are a sentient species. We cannot take away their free will.
The woman walks toward the vampire, her face hidden by her thick cloak. When she’s close, he pulls her in and bares her neck. His fangs erupt, and he bites.
Outrageous. Levitan is watching me. Every chink in my armor, every crack in my facade is a weapon for him to use. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I keep my face impassive, but tendrils of rage curl around me. It’s bad enough that the vampire has used compulsion on the human. For him to take her blood without her consent? I don’t have the words.
Once he finishes drinking from the human, he forces her to drink from him. The two of them have a brief conversation, and then something seems to spook the man. He looks into the sky, and his expression turns panicked. He sets off in a
run toward the open ice.
In the distance, I can hear the distinctive sound of choppers. Before I can see what happens next, Levitan turns off the screen. “This was taken on Boarus 4,” he says. “The man is Ottar Thistle. He is a known traitor, an enemy of the Shayde Empire. He used to be a captain before he was stripped of his rank and sentenced to prison. Before he could serve his time, he ran. That was two years ago. We’ve been searching for him ever since.”
I’ve never heard of Thistle. “What did he do?”
“That’s irrelevant to our discussion,” my superior officer snaps. “Thistle was killed shortly after this scene by the local enforcers. Unfortunately, the fools didn’t have the good sense to arrest the woman.”
His voice is icy. I have a brief moment of sympathy for those poor suckers. They probably didn’t even know she was there, though there’s nothing to be gained by pointing that out to Levitan. The General is furious, and he’s lashing out. Knowing him, the enforcers are probably already dead.
“Ottar Thistle talked to the human,” he continues. “I want to know what he said. Your assignment is to find her and bring her in.”
Why is their conversation important?
“Private spacecraft are rare in the far colonies,” he continues. “I don’t want you to attract undue attention. You’ll be taking public transport. A shuttle leaves for Boarus 4 in two hours.”
I exchange a glance with Zeke. Levitan doesn’t want us to attract undue attention from whom? It can’t be the local authorities—if we take a shuttle, we’ll land in a public spaceport. Our presence cannot go unnoticed.
“Your cover story is that you are performing a training exercise. The overlord of Boarus 4, Klaus Zimmer, will be instructed to give you all the aid you need.” He levels another cold glare at me. “Succeed in this, Colonel Hafsson, and your mistakes in Rothis will be forgotten. Fail me, and your career is over.”