Manifest (The Darkening Trilogy)

by Jonathan R. Stanley

  “Good.” She walks a few feet over to my prized antique meridienne armchair and impales the cushion with my sword. She gives me a challenging look then storms off into her room. “That was childish,” I call after her, taking my weapon out of the chair and heading for my bathroom.

  I rinse down my sword, treat it with oils, place it back on its stand and then strip down in the tub. In that order. I let my clothes rinse at my feet. A few minutes later I sense Sabetha is suddenly panicking. With a towel around my waist and my sword once again removed from its stand, I look out from behind my bedroom door.

  “That was fast,” I stammer, astonished. The dark goopy organ stains which once covered the majority of our apartment are gone, as is the deflated corpse.

  “I didn’t do that!” She hisses. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer, not used to the phrase. “I didn’t feel anything at all.”

  “Is it in the building?”

  I shake my head. Just the other two tenants below us. They don’t ask questions.

  Sabetha and I scour the apartment looking for any clues. We even check the security tapes. Nothing. Since the attack, no one came in, no one left, and yet only the two of us remained. The damage was still there though: a new door for the guest bathroom, a demolished piano, and an impaled antique armchair – but nothing of the flesh golem.

  Meeting Sabetha’s intensely worried gaze for a half a second, I start to laugh. This is the most alive I’ve felt in a while. As someone who has very seriously contemplated suicide over the centuries, this is a rather amusing turn of events in an otherwise dull routine. Sabetha begins to laugh too, but her amusement is short lived.

  I sigh and walk over to the rotary phone to dial a friend.

  “Hey, it’s me. I need you to come over for the day.” I pause. “I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t.” I hang up the receiver and then go change into some sweatpants.

  Within fifteen minutes Val arrives – vastly quicker than he foretold, but I know him well enough to expect as much. Val is short, only five-foot-five and five eighths, and his build is a slim one hundred forty-seven pounds. There is nothing particularly threatening about his appearance at all. He isn’t intimidating, his shoulders usually round off under baggy clothing, and his balding head is indistinguishably plain.

  I met Val while he was working for Cynthecorp. He was in R and D then, a really dorky guy, but made a remarkable – and necessary – transformation after becoming darkened. He has a ruthless will to survive and it’s been enough for the past couple years. Now he’s a reconnaissance operative in the darkened world; a black sheep working for wolves. Because he is the most recent ilk to survive a pure darkening he’s also in my good graces. But he’s not the type to change anything.

  “Package delivery,” Val calls from outside the shredded fire door. He’s dressed like a delivery man, complete with a fake brown box, but in his free hand, hidden by the parcel, is a silenced pistol. He’s obviously distressed by the door’s condition but as I come to the threshold in my lounge wear and wave him in casually, he enters with the gun lowered. He won’t put on the safety for the duration of his stay.

  “What happened here?” Val asks, looking at the hole in the wall to his left.

  “An intruder.”

  “Am I disturbing any evidence?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” I laugh. “Feel free to dig around in the fridge. The rifle’s under the couch. My home is yours – you know how it is.”

  Val nods, then closes the inner door. I head back to my room, stopping to face Sabetha on the way. Despite her nervous laughter from before, she isn’t enjoying this nearly as much as I am and it’s written all over her face. Somewhat reassuringly I say to her, “Tomorrow night.”

  She nods.

  I have a fucking heart attack in the middle of the day as my senses alert me to the presence of a man standing over the outer threshold. In an instant my eyes pierce the barrier between me and the intruder and I see that Val is talking with a repairman. They remark on the door and then Val signs some documents on a clip board. I throw my head back down on the pillow angrily and try to go back to sleep.

  When I wake again, I dress, and exit my room, heading for the kitchen. I look towards the couch to see the back of Val’s head. One hand is in a bag of potato chips while the other waves at me. The grandfather clock strikes seven just as I sit at the center island, breakfast-makings in hand. Val joins me, walking over to the marble counter top and sliding onto a bar stool. “I fixed your door,” he says as I shake a box of cereal into a bowl. “Yeah, I know. Thanks,” I reply, adding milk.

  “Didn’t wake you, did we?”

  “I’m a light sleeper.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that it’s one-of-a-kind. Best damned security door money can buy.”

  “Shall I await the bill?”

  “It’s your door.”

  I tip the bowl to my lips to get the last bit of pink milk. “Officially nighttime,” I say. “It’s safe for Sabetha to get up.”

  “How can you always tell?” Val asks for the eleventh time.

  I tap my temple with my index finger. “I’m an almanac.”

  He smiles. “Will you need me tomorrow?”

  “What, you don’t like hanging out with me?”

  He shakes his head, defeatedly.

  “Eating my food? Buying me doors?” I continue.

  Val walks to the inner door, grabbing his coat on the way. “Goodbye, Delano.”

  I jump in the shower and let the steaming water drape itself over my neck and shoulders like a warm blanket. As I emerge dripping from the tub, I quickly snatch a towel from the rack and wrap it about my waist. I wipe a streak through the mirror with my hand and run my fingers softly over my chest and stomach. Scars paint my pale physique like tiger stripes and leopard spots. I got them when I was still young, the only reason they didn’t heal, and even after this long, they still feel foreign.

  As steam rises off my body in wisps I am reminded to be grateful for my body heat. Sabetha, in all her beauty and grace, cannot warm the sheets she sleeps in, nor the lover she may lie next to. I’ve studied chyldrin long enough to know that I can’t possibly understand the suffering they endure on a constant basis, however cursed my own existence is. It’s the reason they have an insatiable need to consume. And not just blood. Chyldrin who possess the funds – fifty-four percent are middle class or higher – tend to fill the space where their souls used to be with material goods. Those without the means simply feed on the life force of those around them literally and figuratively. They are pools of empty where happiness goes to drown.

  Sadly, their decadence and cruelty are inevitable. Since none of them were born as vampires and all were once ilk, they all lost something in the darkening. Some less than others since many were predisposed to become vampires anyway. Water seeks its own level and misery loves company, so the mixed-metaphor goes. In order to survive as chyldrin, they have to rely on society for sustenance and at the same time tear at its seams to subsist. I call it the cannibal’s dilemma.

  Though we immortals vehemently deny it, we were all once young, stupid humans, and with that bit of humanity come two things, be you a chyld, a gazer, or a sentiner: the range to do extraordinary things, both truly selfless and unspeakably vile, and the ability to adapt to any circumstance. No matter how bizarre, painful, or seemingly impossible, humanity in all its forms, adapts.

  If Sabetha has taught me one thing only, it is just this. Darkened can resist the darkening. They can resist the immense pressures that would force them to choose between what they were and what they have become. As bipolar as Sabetha can be at times, it is her refusal to submit to herself or to society, and the strength it takes to continue that struggle for a millennium that I admire most about her. Few other vampires have persevered for as long.

  I exit the bathroom and I slip into some black dress pants with a black turtleneck and dark gray blazer. Under the jacket is a hol
ster that holds my fifty-caliber pistol. It’s loaded with incendiary rounds, but I keep a few hollow point mags on me too. Low caliber firearms are only moderately effective against supernaturals, since the comic-book weaknesses died out long ago. Best way to kill a supernatural now is massive trauma, or in the case of chyldrin, sunlight.

  Sabetha emerges from her room as if stepping out of a Cynthefashion Magazine: Businesswoman. High heeled, knee-high Phobes, pleated black Manuela dress pants, and a Cynthefiber button-down blouse under a one-button jacket. Her trench is Exo-tiq leather, custom made like my waist-length bomber.

  As we collect our gear, I sense some tension coming from her. She’s carrying a duffle bag full of metal, and guns aren’t usually her thing.

  “The canvas really clashes,” I say, nodding at the duffle bag.

  She shrugs off the comment and waits in the hallway, tapping her toe while I check and recheck our new door. As I lock it, though, I can’t help but think about how fragile the walls around the door are. Feels like I’m locking a foot-thick vault door to a vault made out of chicken wire. With a sigh, I face Sabetha who tilts her head and asks if I’m ready to go.

  We exit through the back of the building and head over to Rolla. Betha unlocks the doors and starts the engine with the press of a button and we take our places. The duffle bag is placed lovingly on my lap and its weight is comforting to me. The Velcro flap crackles as I tear it open and run the heavy gauge zipper down its length. Inside is a jumble of gun barrels, handles, scopes, and magazines. I pull out a slim black pistol with an extended, vented barrel and run through its firing system before sliding a clip into the underside of the handle. Setting it down on top of the others, I use my other hand to retrieve my sunglasses, flip them open, and place them delicately on my face.

  “So do you want to talk about it?” Sabetha asks.

  My stomach tightens slightly. I know what she’s referring to, but I play dumb. “About what?”

  “You froze up last night. Haven’t seen that in a while. What happened?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I think it might matter a lot.”

  “Well I don’t.”

  She nods.

  “So who’s first?” Sabetha asks, slowing the car as three figures cross our headlights at the intersection. “What the fuck is a pimp doing in our neighborhood?” she sneers, insulted by the man’s presence. “I swear to god, they’re like cockroaches. We should just kill them all one night.” She’s said it a thousand times before and never meant it once.

  One of the two girls collapses under a broken high heel and falls to the pavement in a heap of frizzled blonde hair and fake fur. Sabetha honks the horn. It’s a modified noise, deep and robust like a growl mixed with a trombone. The pimp turns and erupts into a boisterous display of arm movements and shouting, walking towards the car with a nickel plated revolver brandished. I step out and stand behind the door.

  “You wanna get out tha car?” He threatens, cheap jewelry clanging about his neck and wrists, gold teeth glistening under his lips.

  I put the first bullet through his nasal cavity. The webbing of bone there makes for a more… dramatic exit wound.

  I hate pimps. I look at the two fish he was with, both diseased and hopelessly addicted to innumerable vices. I pretend like I’m making a choice, but I’ve already done so. With a disappointed shake of my head, I retrain the gun and put them down.

  Getting back in the car and straightening my jacket, I answer Sabetha’s previous question. “We’ll talk to the cyperas first.”

  She weaves Rolla around the three bodies and continues on.

  Three

  A sentiner is really just a glorified historian. Some say journalist, but we don’t publish anything we write down. My peers and I make up the Hyperion, the secret and sole organization in Gothica which bothers to record anything beyond finances. And as the highest ranking sentiner under the council members, I have quite a few… employees. At my level, the job description changes significantly and while most sentiners, the rank and file cyperas, stick to the shadows and lead very secluded lifestyles, I am somewhat of a socialite. To be successful, my job requires that I have a large network of informants even outside the Hyperion.

  Nigel is my secretary, an official title within the Hyperion and by no means a misnomer. He takes messages for me and filters out the crap. He is next in line for a lieutenant position, having been with us for two-hundred and ninety-six years. My old lieutenant has been dead so long I might not even bother to put in the paperwork.

  Nigel is dark skinned with a mop of shiny black ringlets for hair and a honey smooth voice. His mannerisms are humble and reflect a woeful un-appreciation for his own talents, but he’s still quick to make a joke and laugh at mine. As a classic sentiner, he never interferes and just sits in the shadows, taking pictures and keeping up with documentation.

  “Delano, Sabetha. I uh, I meant to get those reports to you…” he stammers after opening the front door to his row house.

  I smile and hold up a hand to cut him off, “You’re not in trouble.”

  “Oh. So what’s up then?”

  Sabetha laughs, catching him off guard. Apparently she thinks it’s funny that I only talk to my subordinates when they’re in trouble. She clears her throat and gestures for me to continue.

  I overemphasize my words to make him understand I am not joking. “We were attacked.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Our home.”

  Nigel’s mouth drops and he looks back and forth between Sabetha and me with little spurts of half words, a sentence failing to form amidst his disbelief.

  He recovers himself, invites us in and I give him the details.

  “Definitely a flesh golem,” he agrees. “But I’ve never heard of one venturing out alone or disappearing like that. Let me check the records.” His answer for everything.

  I agree with a nod but then grab Nigel by the shoulder as he absentmindedly heads for his - well my - collection of files in the basement. “Nigel.”

  “Hmm?” he looks at me as if I just walked in the door. “We” – I use my thumb to point between Sabetha and me – “are going to check on some other contacts.”

  “Oh, okay.” He adjusts his thick rimmed glasses. “I’ll go look in the records then.”

  “Good man.”

  Sabetha giggles and Nigel, aloof to her amusement, smiles before heading downstairs. We show ourselves out.

  The rest of our first night involves driving all over Central Gothica and letting an assortment of grungy looking individuals know the finer points. Some disregard us – they’re young and living in their own horror stories. Frankly, they don’t give a shit about me or my problems. But the ones older than an ilk’s lifespan understand why this is so important. People don’t mess with sentiners unless provoked, and our laws try to keep us from provoking people. For someone to attack me, the Captain of Central Gothica, is a case worthy of the network. We’ll see what they turn up.

  “Not a very pretty bunch, are you?” Sabetha notes as we head back home.

  Defensively, I turn my whole body to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “You, Cassandra, maybe even Corbin with in a new wardrobe… but the prettiness stops there, my brother. The rest of you are bums with cameras and note pads; AV club rejects.”

  “Uh, Miquel?” I’m grasping. “He’s good looking, in a brooding, regal kind of way.”

  “Do you really wanna go there?”

  I recall their brief affair. “I suppose not.”

  Sabetha sinks into her seat like a kid nestling under some warm blankets, “us auxilias on the other hand…” she smiles. There’s no official document in the Hyperion that names the auxilias, but even before I came on, it was understood that sentinership is a depressing job. Perhaps the most depressing job. Ever. Our life expectancies – that is the age the majority of us live to before offing ourselves – were greatly increased by immortal companionship. Thus the auxilia
s. Not a few ilk were half-initiated into the Hyperion to grant them immortality, though without any of the other rights, privileges, and powers of the sentiners. The relationships range from brother and sister, like Sabetha and me, to husband and wife like Cassandra, captain of South Gothica, and her late husband Marley, to a comedic duo in the case of Corbin, captain of North Gothica and Roger one of the aforementioned immortal ilk.

  I think about them all for a moment. It’s so easy to lose contact over the years. I know to the minute how long it’s been since I’ve seen Corbin and Roger but the distance is nevertheless foggy. “You don’t think they’re in trouble do you?” I ask out of the blue.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Let’s get home. Sun’s almost up.”

  The following night, Sabetha whips the car around a corner, not knowing where we’re headed yet but in a damn-needless rush to get there. “So I was thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Charity.”

  I cock an eye brow. “Are you sure?”

  “At first it was about some new diamond earrings, but then charity. I’m sure of it.”

  “For whom?”

  “The ilk… who else? Anyway, why don’t they ever get blown up by the city?”

  “They’re too ineffectual to be targets of cycle,” I explain.

  “Compared to what? A single person just thinking about calling a lawyer to protest something?”

  “They’re a release valve. They ameliorate certain ills, like an ice cube in a hot tub, but more importantly, they provide an outlet for that pesky human empathy and longing for social justice.”

  “Huh… So then why do you tithe half you’re earnings to them?”

  Zing. She’s hasn’t caught me off guard like this in seventy-nine years. “How did you come across that little tidbit?”

  “Which tidbit exactly? The Youth Centers of Gothica? The Rehabilitation Answer Project?”

  “Okay, enough.”

  “The Animal Society of Gothica?”

  “C’mon.”

  “Oh, those cute wittle puppies-wuppies!”