by J. X. Evans
Some of those kids though are not as lucky. Those born of the union of regular people in the not so civilized world, will either not be discovered for a long-long time, or they will be killed some time after their changes are noticed. There are stories of children being possessed by demons, stories of how the ‘sins’ that the mother had committed during pregnancy have corrupted the unborn child. How the seed that the devil planted had finally taken root and blossomed inside the soul of the poor thing. Of course the bastards would do what they figured best, which is try and exorcise the evil from within the child in any way possible and when all hope was lost and the gods seemed to have abandoned their servant to the demon’s claws, the people of the uncivilized village would compassionately release the kid from its torment. Some could be spared, if agents working for the Order could find them before it was too late. But the children were few and the world is vast and the road is never paved with roses, only the thorns more likely. The best that the Order can do is try to keep track of the offspring of children born of superhuman parents but for some reason did not develop their powers. Such kids seemed to have a higher chance of producing an empowered offspring themselves in the future. Such a case was none other than Perry Adamis, a breathing living example of the formula’s success.
Perry was the oldest son of a rich family, born and raised in Athens. Boy turns seven, irises start turning pale and in a couple of days later, agents of the Order arrive at the family’s door, though not before the kid is taken to a baffled ophthalmologist. Of course the life of such families is effectively changed after attaining such a knowledge, the knowledge that the world around us is not what 99.9% of people figure it out to be. Perry’s younger brother, Orpheus along with his wife, have given their lives to researching how and why the metamorphosis happens, why some people change from regular humans to basically super humans, why at that age, why the eyes and many more questions some people all over the world are trying to find answers to. And as it so happens with a lot of other interesting questions, the answers can’t seem to arrive fast enough, and almost every time a question is answered more questions come to mind. Researching it must feel like battling a hydra. Perry’s parents took it mildly enough though, as far as Mark knew, but he had never actually met them in person. They had continued living their lives, doing investments, getting richer and from time to time, donating money to the Order. The one most affected by the knowledge of the existence of monsters living among us, in the family, was Perry’s youngest brother, Thanos. Mark liked Thanos, he was fun, although admittedly a bit kooky. About thirty-five years old at the moment, he had always been obsessed with monsters. He used to read his big brother’s textbooks and notes, and stare at the disturbing pictures of monster anatomy at bestiaries since he was not even old enough to understand the drawings whenever Perry would return home. He was now living in a secluded house a little outside the city of Athens, hunting low class monsters. Perry did not approve, and justifiably so, the life of a monster hunter was dangerous enough even for trained Knights. At least Thanos was wise enough to understand whenever he was in out of his lead and let the professionals handle the situation. He was actually the one that brought the minotaur case to their attention, he had called Rob to let him know. And Rob had used the knowledge to trick Perry out of a couple of bucks at innocent bet.
But Mark had strayed from his thoughts. The bottom line is that there are sixteen generations of Knights living under the same roof at any given moment in the Academy. So that would be around one thousand nine hundred people, which is quite a lot of people to know at a personal level, though not so much as not to have glimpsed every one of them here or there.
Zora kept on leading the way down the street, seemingly more comfortable in silence than in companionable banter. And Mark was fine with that. After some little, boring time had passed they reached a medium sized fridge truck and Zora got in, and sat behind the wheel. Mark found the choice of driving such a vehicle a bit peculiar but he got in after her without asking any questions. He close the door and wore his seatbelt. It was winter, and it was chilly, but he suddenly felt like some ice cream for some reason…was it the truck? Though when they reached Orpheus’ and Ariadne’s home and he opened the truck’s storage space he found no ice-cream, only some cartons of Greek yogurt. He scowled and grabbed a carton to carry indoors for later use.
19. MEETINGS UNDER THE MOONLIGHT
Rob lost the cops. He had not had that much fun in a while. He had changed his ruined boots for a new pair he had left at Orpheus’ place; they all had left spare clothes or equipment scattered at various places around town for a time of need. He ran around for a little bit, playing with the cops, and at some point, when he was certain that Mark and Zora would have definitely escaped, he picked up speed, turned at a corner and jumped up to a building’s low first floor balcony. He stayed there, smiling like an idiot, and the cops passed right by him, or under him more like. Rob jumped down, and returned to the scene of the crime, fitting since he was the alleged culprit of the mock robbery. The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime… ‘Actually, they rarely ever do that. It would be stupid now, wouldn’t it?’
He thought that the handbag would have been empty, but when he grabbed it he felt a heavy weight shifting inside. He got scared for a second, thinking that he had accidentally actually stolen a wrong bag, from a wrong person. There was an old iron placed inside the bag, and a large candy bar. ‘Some kind of prank?’ Perry would have been the probable rascal, and although Rob seemed to miss the point he made a mental note of retaliating in the future.
Rob entered the hospital grounds through the side-wall, the same way he and Zora had entered earlier so that the guard would not spot them. ‘Raging success on that part.’ Orpheus was not where he had left him, big surprise there. He would probably be at the police station, giving his side of the events. They had anticipated that. The man could not simply disappear like that right after giving his name and showing his face to the police, it would cause trouble for him. Well… he could get in trouble now as well, less likely though, and the Order could easily clean any mess up after this whole mess blows over, shortly after the organization had gathered itself up from the whole vampire incident earlier today.
Rob dropped the heavy handbag to the floor and sat down on the cold musky ground, leaning against a small tree which bended awkwardly from his weight. He grabbed the old Nokia 3310 phone from his pocket. Orpheus had lent it to him earlier so they could communicate, since his own phone had died…murdered actually. He started a game of snake while enjoying the chocolate bar Perry had put in the bag. The enjoyment lasted no more than twenty seconds. He concentrated on the game, he lost on the first try but beat it on the second. He got surprised, he had not played in a while, but then again when the game had made its first appearance Rob was at it constantly. His feelings were a bit mixed, he thought it would have taken him a couple more tries at least until the skills came back to him. He could go at it again, but it just does not feel the same after all these years. So he had nothing to do now but wait, and we all know how fast time can actually pass when the only thing you do is waiting for it to pass, staring at the clock’s mismatched hands. The night was cold, but he had been through worse and he had passed the first seven years of his life in Sweden, so that actually seemed more like a soft spring evening rather than a cold wintery night. He turned his gaze upward, the clouds were clearing from the sky, an almost fool moon could be glimpsed from time to time whenever the clouds and the wind decided to cooperate. He closed his eyes and placed the Nokia on his chest, the phone moving up and down in rhythm with his breathing, like a ship on a mild sea. Orpheus would give him a call when he arrived.
Rob felt weird, in a bad way. He had slept, though he did not know for how long. He felt a presence in front of him, a bit to his right maybe. He grabbed the Nokia from his chest and flung it towards the presence. There was the sound of Nokia on wood, either his assailant was after all nothing but a
tree, or he had missed. He opened his eyes and moved to grab the bag with the heavy iron in it. ‘I am partial to a flail if nothing else is within easy reach.’ And his other hand reached for the inside of his coat where his mace laid in waiting. A tall, thin figure was standing in front of him and a little bit to his right. ‘At least my senses seem to still be on point.’ Or more accurately he was leaning to one side, looking at the Nokia on the ground beside him. Seems like Rob had not missed, the man had dodged. ‘Seems like my aim is on point as well.’ The man turned his eyes back at Rob, one thin long eyebrow arched in a questioning manner. It was none other than Dimitri, the vampire provider/coroner. Rob felt the same feeling he had in the morning, the one he always had when he happened to be near him.
“Don’t look at me in that way, you startled me. I once nailed a ghoul using this particular model as a projectile.” Rob said, standing up a bit so that he was now only sitting on the chilly ground instead of laying on it. Rob had underestimated the cold apparently, it was chilly enough. He rubbed his cold legs with his cold hands, trying to restore some warmth to them. He took his hand from the mace but gathered the heavy bag closer to him. ‘No reason not to be careful.’
“An interesting story, I am sure.” the vampire said in a conversational manner. If Dimitri wanted him dead he would have already attacked, and he could have done it without him realizing anything while he was asleep.
“Not much about it. Th-“
“I didn’t ask!” Dimitri said in a low spidery voice. “It was not a question.”
“The ugly bastard and his friends had practically taken over a small village. Perry and I took care of it. After we were done I took my phone out, played some snake since the thing was the time killer of the month, or should I say the year. One of the things was crawling on the floor, using its nails to drive itself forward, or more like half of the thing, the upper one. The stupid snake did not respond to the button and bit its tail, and I was only a couple of points from beating the game too. I tossed the phone to the crawling ghoul, and it stopped crawling. It did not start again.”
Dimitri looked at him for a moment “To me, it looks like…”
“No, it was a phone kill. Last hit is what counts. Everybody knows that.” Rob said with a smile. Even the vampire snickered a bit, and his face was practically made of marble…or maybe it was the moonlight playing some trick.
“Ah, I see…rage problems.”
“No actually. Everything is under control. I don’t even count to ten anymore.” Rob’s smile disappeared gradually, “Why are you here…?”
“We should talk.” Dimitri said, picking up the phone and tossing it at Rob. Rob easily caught it in one arm, though he also got ready to move at the same time. The old toss and charge trick was no stranger to Rob, he had used it himself once or twice, it is efficient. Nothing happened though and Rob relaxed a bit more.
“We could have talked this morning, when I came to find you. You lied to me. You could have saved us a lot of trouble and danger.”
“I could not have talked to you this morning. I did not know if I wanted to talk to you yet. And I did not know that it was going to happen today.”
“A man could still be alive if you had talked. My home and base would still be standing. My cat would not be missing. All of us could have died. What do you mean you could not have talked?” Rob said, getting angrier and angrier, tagging on the bag’s straps, but overall trying and managing to keep a calm exterior. Dimitri was not moved in the slightest by the trio of things he could have prevented and even though he could see Rob’s blood getting hotter, he did not seem the least worried.
“I was practically under oath.” Dimitri said.
“What oath?” Rob scoffed.
“An oath to my own kind. You know, most of the vampires liked the idea of wiping you ‘Knights’ off the face of the planet.” Dimitri walked to lean against a tree a bit to Rob’s left, and crossing his long arms to his chest he continued, “As you may have guessed by now, I did not share their view on the matter. In fact, I opposed it.”
“So instead of helping…you lied to me? You could have said something. I would have informed everyone. Do you even know how many Knights died tonight? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“There are laws human, unwritten ancient laws. There was a conclave. During that conclave the future actions that our race would take were decided. One cannot simply intervene on the path the many want because he does not approve.” Dimitri said, his cold voice the same pitch and tone as always. “And as I already told you, it was not meant to go down today. Someone seems to have chosen to take it upon himself to speed things up. A miserably wrong choice. You are still alive after all, and I presume that so are your companions, since you lay here sleeping and you still haven’t launched at me. Hmm?”
Rob let a gallon of air run out of him through his nostrils before he continued the conversation. “When was it supposed to go down then?” he asked quietly.
“The attack was not supposed to have happened before three more months had passed. The date had been decided. It was to be the date when the last battle was fought during the Great War. And there is an ‘if’ in there actually. The tables could have turned and we could have chosen to lay low for a while longer until the time was ripe. We have an eternity in front of us after all, and it would not have been the second time that such a thing would have happened, more like the third one.
“A third one?” Rob asked.
“Three.” Dimitri gestured, extending three white, slender fingers. “Someone must have not liked that, got impatient and decided to take matters into their own hands.”
‘So, the vampires had started preparations for a revolt twice before and we never noticed…Damn, makes you wander.’
“Awfully emotional of you. The date.” Rob said after a while.
“Yes…I thought so too.”
“So, you thought you had ninety whole days longer before anything was to happen.”
“Yes, but someone chose not to play by the rules. From one side of things, I am glad that they spared me the agony of choice but from the other…tsk, tsk, tsk. I like choices Robert, I don’t enjoy being swept with the current. And as I told you I still held hopes for stalling.”
“Who the fuck does?”
The vampire turned its gaze towards the sky, towards the moon that had just peaked behind a dark cloud, then it spoke “I was here before the war. Long before it actually. Think about it.” Rob thought about it. “And you say you are old.”
“I never said that actually!” Rob cut in. Dimitri ignored him and continued.
“Not many of us remain. I liked it best before the war, long before it. I was what you would call a lord of some sorts. Passed my time with science and art mostly and a fair deal of boredom, boredom is the plague of the immortals… I had human families under my wing, protected them, fed them, clothed them, I taught letters and numbers to the children. I only ever took what I needed to survive and almost never more than what the human could safely spare. And trust me most of them enjoyed it. Oh some of them enjoyed it to the death even. But I did not kill even those who asked for it. I usually made them leave and come back when and if they thought they could handle it. Most of my brethren were not much unlike me in that regard, you would not kill a good hen that lays many eggs, nor slaughter a cow that gives you lots of good milk, would you? I liked humans, which is why I spent time studying them. I have actually ‘discovered’ and spread a lot of today’s medicinal knowledge, anatomy, physiology, all of that stuff. I enjoyed it, so naturally, I became a coroner. Anyway, even those less ‘soft’ of us were not really that much worse than the worst of your kind.”
Rob could not argue with that last part; some men could be at least as bad as monsters. Worse even. Vampires abused humans, which they dimmed beneath them, not members of their own race. “I gather not everyone liked how things were rolling at the time. Seeing how the plan code name: Enslave the planet came to pass.”
Rob thought of himself in front of a trillion cows, wearing a crown, the cows kneeling before him…idiocy. “No. Apart from some pretty sad and graphic videos on YouTube.”
“That is cruelty and stupidity, it is a child stepping on an ant hill because it can! ... You people seem to be experts on that.”
There was a moment of silence, “Not all of us.” Rob answered kind of offended, but he knew he was right on the part of idiotic cruelty. It is not like vampires were playful retriever puppies with polka dotted bow ties though, and they were not that bad? Please… Rob was not saying that Dimitri was lying but life had taught him to take anything he heard with a grain of salt. This was no less true for words coming from the mouths of monsters.