by Tanith Frost
I glance up at him, suspicious. Daniel’s not the therapy type. He’s more the drop-and-give-me-fifty type. But I suppose things are changing. I’m in the field now, and he’s back at his old job. Maybe now that basic training is over, I’ll have to adjust to another new reality.
I’d think God help me if I wasn’t training myself out of that mental habit. There’s no help for me there anymore.
I take a cleansing breath and let it out. The visual results are no more impressive than they were on that rooftop across from the church.
“I’d like to tell you,” I say slowly, and realize how true this is. Not talking about my past has been a barrier to feeling close to anyone. And though I shouldn’t want that, I do. I want to call Daniel a friend.
Daniel nods but looks straight ahead, leaving me room to remember.
“I guess you saw most of it in my file before you took me on,” I say. “Born and raised in Ontario, never travelled farther than New Brunswick in my life. Good kid. Didn’t get straight A’s or anything, but no bother to anyone. Kind of a keener.”
He snorts. He wasn’t Canadian when he lived, but he’s been around long enough to understand.
“My mom died not long after my sister Gracie was born, when I was eight. That was hard, but we survived. And then my dad had a fatal heart attack when I was fourteen. Gracie and I went to live with our grandmother.”
My heart still aches to think of it. Gracie never knew our mother, and her Daddy was her world. I’d been through it all once, and having those wounds ripped open again had been unbearable. I’d had a hard time with it. Acted out. Lost friends. Daniel doesn’t care about any of that, though, or how I pulled myself out of it when high school ended and I realized I needed to take responsibility for myself and my sister.
“I worked a bit after high school,” I tell him. “Grandma didn’t have much money or energy, and Gracie… Gracie needed me around. She was having trouble as she got older. Needed guidance.”
I blame myself for that even now. I was so lost in my teenage problems, magnified a thousand times by the loss of my parents, that I’d let her drift. Declining loans and university acceptances so I could be around to help her with her homework was too little, too late.
“Gracie was getting into trouble. I always thought of her as a little kid, and I didn’t realize how bad things were until it was too late. I’m not sure we ever see other people’s struggles as being as big and real as our own, you know?”
Daniel doesn’t answer, but he’s listening.
“Drugs. Drinking. Sex.” I try not to sound too judgmental. At least one of those isn’t so different from my own mistakes at a similar age. “Daniel, she was fourteen.”
His steps slow. We’re rounding the corner at the end of the block. “I often forget how hard it can be to be alive and young,” he says. “Unbelievable.”
“Not entirely. Things have changed since you were that age. Maybe if I’d believed it sooner, if I hadn’t been so caught up in myself, I could have helped her. I tried. I went after her one night. Followed her to a place where her friends were hanging out, this patch of woods behind the mall.” I can see it all clearly. “They’d lit a fire, just like their sort did there back when I was in high school.”
“Their sort?”
I sigh. “In local terms? Skeets.”
He gives me another tight smile. He’s heard the word used to describe ignorant, trashy dirtbags. “Enough said.”
“The ground was filthy, littered with bottles and garbage. Couple of dirty sleeping bags.” That had come as no surprise. I’d scouted the area earlier that week, during daylight hours. “All these kids were standing around and drinking, wearing matching black jackets like they were a fucking gang or something when they were just a bunch of suburban brats with issues. I didn’t even consider the idea that they might be carrying weapons.”
I can’t help the dread that crawls over my skin. It’s like I’m watching everything on a screen now, wanting to scream out to the characters before me to stop, but they won’t. Everything is done. This is just the replay.
“I was just going to confront Gracie at home after I confirmed what she was up to. Get her help, somehow. But as I watched them, this kid slapped her. Backhanded her right across the face. He was big, too, and older than her.” In my mind I see Gracie—my little sister, my pain in the ass, my everything even when she was acting like a punk—fall to the ground. And that bastard strutting like a peacock. That was what set me off. His fucking pride in putting her in her place. I remember how my blood raced as my heart pounded. My last great adrenaline rush.
“I yelled, and they all stopped and stared at me. I tried to help Gracie up, but she pulled away from me. She was hurt, but it was like this was no big deal. Like me embarrassing her was worse than getting hit. I didn’t know what to do. I was angry. At her as much as him by that point, but she was already on the ground, so I turned on him. I wasn’t thinking. Just screaming, hitting him back, asking how he liked it. I might as well have been smacking a boulder for all it hurt him.”
I won’t admit as much to Daniel, but I’d love to get my hands on him now that I could do some real damage.
“Gracie yelled for me to stop, to go home, to let it go and wait up for her and we’d talk later. She still sounded embarrassed, but there was real fear there. The rest of them were laughing. A couple of the guys joked about it, this big guy getting beat up by a tiny girl. He pulled a gun out of his pocket, and I backed away. That shut most of them up, but a few kept on. Called him a pussy. One said, ‘Pull the trigger, asshole!’”
Like a joke. I remember that clearly.
“And he did. Aimed it sideways like a perfect asshole, took a step back. Stumbled over a root. Pulled the trigger.”
Daniel raises his thick eyebrows. “An imitation gangster shot you because you yelled at him?”
“I don’t think he knew it was loaded. Or maybe the shot was an accident.” I remember the shock on the kid’s face as the gun recoiled and I staggered backward. Gracie’s screams, louder than anyone else’s shouts. The smell of melting rubber as I stumbled backward through the fire. My killer dropping the gun like it was a snake about to bite him and taking off into the forest.
None of it is supposed to matter now, but it’s seared into my mind. “He didn’t mean to kill me.”
“But he did.”
“Yeah, he did. Shot me somewhere below my heart.” I’m not totally sure where. The wound was healed when I woke up as a vampire. “I doubt he could have aimed that well if he was sober. Bad luck for both of us.” I pause. “Anyway, I guess I got off lucky compared with our adult victim in there. My death was quick, if not painless.”
“Someone who loved you saw it, though.”
“Yeah.” I get what he means about why this crime scene would affect me. Tears are gathering in my eyes for the first time in ages. Incredible. They’re not warm, but they’re real. “Gracie just kept screaming, and someone yelled at her to shut up. They all ran, except Gracie and this other kid who rolled up his coat and made it into a pillow for me. He went to call for help, but I think he knew it was too late.”
I don’t remember the blood. I didn’t have the strength to look down to assess the damage. I remember how heavy my body felt, though, the pressure in my chest and the white fog that crowded my mind.
“I wanted to say something to Gracie, to tell her I loved her and I was sorry, but there wasn’t time. It was so damned fast, though I feel like I held on for longer than I should have been able to.”
Daniel nods. “That’s not unusual for someone with the blood factor. For people born with the potential for existence after death, we seem to cling rather hard to life.”
His voice has taken on the vaguest hint of an accent. Something British, maybe, but I’ve never been good with placing it. He only lets it slip like that when he’s reminiscing, so I don’t get to hear it much. It’s nice.
“Do you remember your heart stopping?” he a
sks.
“Yeah. And even after that. The police and ambulance coming. Someone saying I was dead, but I was still there. But at the same time, I kind of knew they were right.”
Daniel smiles slightly, as if at some long-buried memory.
“I drifted off then. This peaceful black cloud came over me, and I felt like things would be okay. And the next thing I remember is waking up strapped to a hospital bed, screaming.” I don’t know what happened to Gracie, or to the kid who killed me. I don’t know where they are now. I probably could find out, but I really do understand why we have these rules. I could so easily become obsessed with a life that’s not mine anymore, and I don’t want that.
Aviva Siobhan Walker died that night. I’m just Aviva now. I want so badly to move forward and find out exactly what that means, but it’s been hard to let go.
“And you had your difficult transition period after that,” Daniel adds. He pauses before speaking again. “Do you hate them? Whoever turned you?”
I have to think about that for a second. “Sometimes. There are times when I’m glad to be what I am. Usually when I’m feeding. Sometimes when we’re training, when I’m using strength I didn’t have when I was alive.” I look up at the sky again. “When I realize how much bigger the world is than I ever understood before, when I feel like I might be getting a tiny inkling of where I fit into it all. But those are the high points. When things are low, or quiet, or when I’m hungry and have time to really think about what I am and how my existence depends on stealing life from others, when I—”
I can’t let myself finish the thought that comes to mind—one that starts with people filing into a church and ends with the phrase, She’s with God now. I know how untrue that sentiment is and always will be in my case. It’s too much, and Daniel has to be at the limit of his sympathy by now.
“Times like those, yeah. I hate whoever made me. Whoever recognized what I was, stuck around until I was dead, and then didn’t let me slip away.”
He nods slowly. “I understand that completely. It does get easier, though.”
I want to ask what he means. How he died. But we’re almost back at the house.
“I can’t say I’m sorry you became what you are, though,” he tells me, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. “You’re a pain in my ass. You have problems. But I still see in you what I saw when I took you from the facility. You have potential. And quite frankly, I think Trixie would have me driven mad by now if I only had her around.”
I laugh, as much out of surprise as actually seeing the humour in his words. “Careful, Daniel. I might get the idea you like me.”
He glares sideways. “Not in the least.”
I smile. That’s more like it. But this has been good. I feel lighter now than I did before. Stronger for sharing my sad little story. And maybe a little closer to letting it go.
We turn up the driveway, and Daniel pauses near the hood of the car. “Might I ask you for an unrelated favour?”
“Sure.” He never has before. Daniel does not ask. Daniel demands. This is the foundation of our relationship.
“Keep an eye on Trixie if I get called away.”
I’m not sure what to say. If anything, I’d expect him to ask Trixie to watch me. “Why?”
He looks up at the front window of the house. Though the blackout curtains are closed, I see hints of movement. The other half of the duplex is dark and empty. “It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.” He shakes his head. “Caring too little can be as dangerous as caring too much, even if it doesn’t leave you puking in the bushes.”
“Daniel?”
But he’s gone, hurrying toward the back door. I guess our discussion is over, and it’s up to me to decide what I want to do now. He hasn’t ordered me back in, but I force my heavy feet to carry me after him.
This is what I am now, and I have a job to do.
7
The kitchen is just as we left it, if a bit colder thanks to our comings and goings. Someone has turned off the electric baseboard heaters. The bodies are where they lay when I fled. Woman on the table, children dumped in a heap on the floor like discarded beer cans. I force myself to look at them. The oldest might be eight years old, a girl with curly brown hair and terrified blue eyes, dressed in a blue princess nightgown. The next, a towheaded boy with a crazy cowlick at the front of his hair, might have been old enough to start school, but I doubt it.
And then the baby. Not a year old, probably. I’m a bad judge. Never cared for babies. His chubby legs are folded under him, back arched, mouth frozen in a scream.
I didn’t do this. But I can’t help remembering how hard it was for me to stop feeding earlier when my victim was so fresh and unused. His strength still flows through me. He was there by choice, and I let him leave alive, but I’m not as different from whoever killed these children as I’d like to imagine.
I had no choice in becoming what I am. I wish it didn’t frighten me at times like this, when I consider what I could so easily become.
No. I am stronger than these rogues. I will never take a life, no matter how tempting it may be. Rogues are criminals, justifiably cast out from society, hunted for their crimes and executed. And execution for a vampire means oblivion. No heaven. No afterlife. This is it.
I make a silent promise to the children that I’ll do whatever I can to see their killers put to true death in what I hope will be the most painful way possible. It doesn’t make me feel better, but it’s something. It’s a purpose. A defense against what I could easily become if I lost control.
A dark shape flickers at the edge of my vision, but when I turn, there’s nothing there.
Daniel and Trixie are already in the living room, chatting with the technician and the investigator, waiting for the clean-up crew. Some day I’ll learn the ins and outs of how we cover up a mess like this, dealing with human police, nosy neighbours, reporters who might come sniffing around like bloodhounds hot on the trail. For now, I’m just thankful it’s not my responsibility. I can’t imagine it will be easy with this one. Rogues are supposed to be secretive. Furtive. I thought they’d cover their tracks, not wanting to be hunted down.
This is… this is fucking brazen.
Trixie gives me a concerned look, which I wave off. I’m thinking maybe no one else saw me flee until the technician shoots me a strange look from beneath her long lashes and smirks.
I’ve never heard a vampire gossip, but I’m sure word will get around somehow. Fantastic.
Daniel watches me from his position beside the sofa. He’s the only one not sitting. There’s no trace of the sympathetic almost-friend of a few minutes ago. He’s all business now, listening carefully, nodding as the investigator says there’s nothing more to see.
Daniel turns to Trixie. “What do you think?”
She shrugs. “Blood samples from the kitchen match the mother, at least in type. It makes sense. She wasn’t the one they fed from.” She sounds like she’s been doing this forever. Just another body. No sweat. “It’s too late for us to get any blood evidence of what the younger victims were experiencing when they died—they’re totally dry—but I think it’s easy to see they were terrified.” She turns to the technician. “Right?”
“You got it.”
Everyone looks at me, waiting for my thoughts. I want to slink back into the kitchen, but I won’t. The technician smirks again, looking like she’s about to say something. Trixie frowns. Daniel’s not giving me anything.
I’m not going to look foolish again.
“It was vampires, no question,” I begin, remembering the wounds on the children and the bite marks on the mother. “The youngest was bled from the femoral artery rather than the neck, but it’s all consistent. Rogues, obviously. This isn’t a sanctioned feeding zone, the mother isn’t one of ours, and none of the others were old enough to be legal stock.” Obvious stuff that anyone here could see for themselves. Not good enough if I want to impress them.
“What else?” Daniel as
ks. His gaze has grown sharp, and it’s making me uncomfortable. But he’s right. I already know more than this surface shit.
My mouth goes dry. “They wanted the fear.” This part makes me uncomfortable. I glance at Trixie, but if she’s making any connection in her mind between these victims and her own dark tastes earlier this evening, it’s not troubling her. I relax slightly. Whatever our inclinations, there are lines most of us won’t cross. “Rather than coming to the club and inducing it in a willing human, they tied this woman up and tortured her while her children watched, then fed from them when their terror was at its peak. Which I would guess means these aren’t garden-variety rogues.” I shake my head and try not to let my disgust overwhelm me. “They’re not feeding because they have to, but because they want to.”
My voice grows calm, my thoughts clear and analytical. I think harder about the scene, about my walk with Daniel. “The other half of this house is unoccupied. There are no curtains in the windows over there, and the snow drifts in the driveway don’t look like they’ve been shovelled in a while. Whoever did this has been watching this family, or might have found them through real estate ads. They didn’t want anyone to hear the screaming.”
“They planned well,” says the investigator in a mild Irish accent. He’s removed his black coat, revealing a sharply tailored pinstripe suit. Black shirt, black tie, almost-black hair slicked back. He could be a banker. Or a gangster.
“It also seems like they didn’t much care whether anyone stumbled on their mess,” I add. It’s all I’ve got, but I suppose it’s enough. Daniel relaxes.
“That is unusual,” the investigator says, “but not unheard of.” He goes to the window and runs his index finger over the sealant.
“Note this, as well,” he says, and motions for me and Trixie to come closer. “New windows, energy-efficient. Excellent sound insulation. All replaced recently. Whoever did this chose ideal killing grounds.” He holds out a hand, and I shake it. “Wallace. I don’t believe we had the pleasure earlier.”