Family

by Robert J. Crane

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and I saw genuine contrition. “I got waylayed by Wolfe, and I barely got away with my life. By the time I got free, I couldn’t—” She stopped, broke off. “I did everything I could for you, I promise. And I’m still working for your benefit, even though you might not believe that—”

  I would have responded but something stopped me, the same something that caused her to break off mid-sentence. Sound, movement, something fainter than the sirens going off in the distance, warning us about danger that was supposed to be at the dormitory but instead was coming to us. The vampires, both of them, were moving toward us at speed.

  “What the hell are those?” I heard my mother ask as she drew a gun from her waistband.

  “Angel and Spike?” I suggested.

  “Get behind me,” my mother said as she stepped forward to block me from them.

  “Unless you’ve got some sort of miracle bullets in there,” I said, catching hold of her hand, “those will do nothing. They’re vampires, and they don’t take any sort of damage from guns.”

  She turned, whirling her head toward me, but I caught a hint of fear rather than anger. “Can we outrun them?”

  I thought about it for a second. “No. But…” I turned and saw the training building not far from us, in the opposite direction of the vampires. “…we might be able to beat them if we had some weapons.” I tugged on her arm and started to run. “This way!”

  She looked for a second like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t, taking up with me as we ran for the training facility. I didn’t slow as we approached, and saw the vamps gaining on us. We came up on the door of the building, the glass front, and I wondered if it was unlocked.

  My mother raised her gun and fired, bullets shattering the glass panes of the door. I flinched and hesitated, fearful that the bullets were going to ricochet back at me. After five shots the glass fell out, breaking into pieces that covered the ground. I flew through the hole in the middle of the door, slowing down to make sure I didn’t trip. Mother followed, the vamps only about a hundred feet behind us. “Over here!” I called to Mom, and dodged toward the practice room, opening the glass door and running inside, cutting across the open mats and stopping at the wall of weapons. I stared up and cast a look back at Mom, who was waiting at the door.

  “Sword,” she said, nodding at the broadsword on the wall next to me. I tossed it to her and grabbed the katana for myself. I ran to join her by the door as we heard movement in the hallway. “You take the ugly one,” she whispered.

  I was about to question her on which one was the ugly one when I noticed the smile creasing her lips. “Did you just make a joke?”

  “It seemed the appropriate time.”

  The glass window to the hallway exploded behind me and I turned to see Blondie enter through it, glass filling the air around me as a rain of broken shards was came down sideways. I held up an arm to protect my face and spun backward to avoid the worst of it. In that moment, I heard the door slam open and my mother spring to action against the second vamp. I heard a great exhalation of breath from her as she swung her sword and I heard it hit flesh. After that I was done listening because the first vampire was in front of me and I had a fight of my own to deal with.

  I raised my blade as he feinted toward me, catching him on the wrist and opening it. Whether he noticed or not was open to debate, because he didn’t react at all, pushing hard against the edge of the blade and sending it back at me, knocking me off balance as he did so. I came up and got a good look at his jagged teeth, formed into a smile under blond hair that looked bleached, and a face that was so lacking in humanity it made Wolfe look like a compassionate school guidance counselor by comparison. He pursued me and I tried to step back, but off-balance as I was, it turned into a hop as I tried to buy time.

  It worked enough to let me get my footing, but he was still coming, so I poked at him, at the chest, and the tip of my sword bit into his dark shirt and the flesh beneath. I turned it into a hard, ramming motion that again elicited no reaction, but I pushed and he stumbled back from the force, as though I had shoved him with my hand instead of a pointed blade. Still, he made no noise; the only sound in the room was my breathing and my mother’s, somewhere behind me.

  I took the attack to him, swinging my sword as he used his hands to block, that soulless grin still exposing his teeth. Every strike opened his flesh, but no blood dripped out, and I watched as the skin seemed to pucker and bind back together before my eyes. I made a dance out of my sword, practicing a kata of my own creation, a free-flow of motion, the sword spinning in my hands. I went low, hacking at the legs, wondering if I cut the muscles if it’d slow his motion. I buried a strike in his knee and he wobbled before recovering and slicing me across the shoulder with a slash of claws that caused the fabric of my shirt to rip at the sleeve.

  I whirled in a circle and came at him low again, catching him in a perfect strike across the back of the knee that cut his leg out from under him – not literally, but the force of my blow was so great that when the blade had bitten in, it reached the bone. When the momentum of my attack had nowhere else to go it pulled his leg from the ground as though I had performed a leg sweep.

  The vampire stumbled, now on one leg. Sensing his predicament, I launched into a side kick that would have killed a human, hitting him in the head with it. As it was, the vampire lost his footing and hit the far wall, shattering one of the mirrors and landing on his face.

  I leapt to exploit the advantage and landed on his back, driving my sword into it. I felt the impact up my arms as I drove home my blow, the tip of the blade striking and sticking against his ribs, its momentum halted. The shock of the attack caused him to whiplash and it drove his head into the mat, from which it rebounded up, a jarring motion of the spine that would have killed a normal person by breaking their neck.

  His neck.

  I heard the voices whisper in my head, Gavrikov and Wolfe, giving me the answer I sought. It took me only a moment to grasp their meaning and I dropped to my knees, straddling the vamp’s back as I grabbed the dulled edge of my blade and slid the sharp edge against his throat and pulled.

  The blade cut through the tissue without effort, then stopped, halted by a spine that was strong, as though it was steel. His hands came up and seized mine, trying to stop them, but he had no leverage. I pulled, and felt the blade stir another centimeter, then another, ignoring the lancing pain in my hands as he clawed at them, tearing through my gloves and into my skin, ripping at my sleeves and my wrists.

  I felt the last tug cut through and the hands tearing at me went limp as the sword burst free from the back of the vampire’s neck. I fell onto the mat as something heavy that wore a patch of blond hair bounced off my chest. I batted it away with a free hand. Yuck. I scrambled to my feet to see Mom and the raven-haired vampire locked in battle. She was giving him about eight different kinds of hell and he was giving it right back. I angled myself to come up from behind him as she was falling back from a wave of his attacks. I struck as he was moving forward, a hard swing to the back of his neck that sent him to the floor face-first. I followed up with a repeat of what I’d done to the other vampire.

  Mother stood back and watched as I pulled, again, hands forcing the blade against his throat until I finished and fell backward again, similar to the last time, this time not bothering to get up immediately. I lay on my back, breathing hard from the exertion of what I’d just done. I saw a hand reach down. I looked up and took it, and Mother helped me to my feet. “Nice work,” she said, looking at the two separate bodies that lay on the mats. “I ran across a vampire a long time ago, when I was working with the Agency.” She frowned. “Had to use a flamethrower to put that one down.”

  “Yeah, I used a flaming club to take it to these two the last time I fought them,” I said, peeling the shredded gloves off my hands to examine the damage they’d done to my skin. The gouging wounds left by their claws were mostly superficial, but they still stung. �
�Tough bastards, though.”

  “Yeah,” she said, and nodded. “We should get going.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to go with you.”

  I saw a veil slide down behind her eyes, whatever momentary pride she was feeling evaporated. “We’re leaving. Together. You are coming with me.”

  I felt something like steel run down the length of my spine and I pushed my chest out as I stood up straight. The air was heavy in the room, like summer humidity was creeping in from the window we’d broken out front. “No, I’m not.”

  “You will,” she said again, her voice rising, “and—” Her hand came up and then she jerked, twitching hard and falling to her knees. As she dropped, I saw two little threads trailing off her back and leading to someone standing behind her, in the shadows, a taser extended from a shadowy hand.

  He stepped into the light the moon cast across the floor from the windows, and I recognized his face. “Sorry to interrupt this moment of mother-daughter bonding,” Michael Mormont said with a malicious grin, “but I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that the two of you aren’t going to be going your own way.” His mouth twisted, and his eyes slipped into the shadow as his grin became more perverse. “You’ll both be coming with me.”

  Chapter 22

  One Year Ago

  I did get up off the basement floor, eventually. I went upstairs and showered, a long one that lasted over an hour. I scrubbed myself clean of the accumulation of waste and stink that I had gathered in the time I’d spent in the box. After that, I sat down in the tub and let the hot water run over me, let it tap at my skin, on my head, felt the warmth as it washed over me.

  I took deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth; I read that helped purge strong emotion. The smell of the chlorine in the tap water was faint, but I welcomed it. The aroma of the box lingered, even after the repeated scrubbings, and all I wanted was for it to go away.

  I ate after that, sitting at the table in the kitchen alone, the quiet almost overwhelming. I kept the lights off. The only source of illumination was the sun slipping through the cracks from behind the blockaded windows. I ate the turkey sandwich I made for myself one slow bite at a time, tasting the bread, the mayo and the meat, and trying to keep myself from wolfing it down after going without food for almost a day. The dull colors of the walls of the house weren’t visible in the dark, but the lack of light was oddly soothing.

  Once I had eaten, I found myself in mother’s bathroom, staring at the checkered tiles – one little black one every four white ones, in square patterns. The room was small, closet-sized, with an old countertop, and porcelain toilet. There was only one shower in the house, and it was in the bathroom Mother referred to as mine. She did everything else in her own bathroom, though, and there was long, brown hair gathered around the white baseboards in knots, as though it had fallen and somehow gathered itself together and tied itself up.

  I took the heavy cleaners from the kitchen and scrubbed the sink, the toilet, the vanity and the floors. The sharp smell of the chemicals was heavy in my nose, and I felt lightheaded. The toilet had a permanent ring on the inside of it where the water line rested, and no matter how hard I scrubbed, I could never seem to get that faded yellowish ring off. Today I tried harder than most.

  I took a brush out next, a small one for scrubbing floors, and I started rubbing at the tile. It should have been easy, should have been simple. I scrubbed as I thought about what I’d done, what I’d said, what she’d said back. I took another breath, heavy, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and kept scrubbing.

  I thought about the box, all the times I’d been locked in it, and I rubbed at the tile. There was a dark spot on the floor between the wall and the toilet. I wrestled myself in the gap between them, almost wedging myself in, and started to scrub, going so far as to clean the corrosion and lime off the valves that shut off water to the toilet. I focused again on the spot on the floor, which was under where the plunger rested. I scrubbed harder, seeing the ring fade slightly with the effort.

  I pushed harder, the last little bit of it resisting, standing out from the white tile. I heard something crack, and felt a sharp sting, pulling my hand back as though I’d touched a lit eye on the stove. I looked at my palm and watched a trickle of blood run down it. My hand; the recurve handle of the scrubbing brush had broken off, and the plastic edge that remained was sharp enough that it had stabbed me when it broke.

  I hurried my hand under the sink and turned on the water. I watched the clear liquid turn red as it ran over my wound and down into the white porcelain basin, rinsing the blood down the drain. I watched it swirl, catching the light, and after a few minutes I pulled my cold hand out. The blood had started to clot, and I put a bandage over it, taking care to treat it gingerly, taping it carefully to my skin. Once I was done, I held it up in the mirror in front of me.

  I saw my face for the first time since I’d gotten out of the box that morning. Dark circles rested under my eyes, and they were swollen and puffy. My hair was frizzed, because I’d not bothered to straighten it with the flatiron after getting out of the shower. I usually did, because Mother got upset when I let myself slip in hygiene; it wasn’t disciplined to let oneself go, she’d say.

  I heard movement out in the living room, the familiar beep of the alarm system turning off, and I jerked in automatic motion. I hurried to pick up the bucket and cleaning supplies, throwing the broken scrub brush into the garbage can and jamming my hands back into the gloves I’d taken off to clean; breaking a major rule, even for ease of cleaning, was a big no-no. I took a quick look, inspecting my handiwork, and realized I had been cleaning for three hours.

  I came down the hall to find Mother standing in the dining room, looking at several envelopes in her hands. She was frowning at them, concentrating, and one after another she threw them in the trash can. I brushed past her without saying anything, and stowed the cleaning supplies back under the sink. She tossed another envelope into the garbage and I started past her again when she spoke. “We’re going to do martial arts practice in five minutes.” She let a postcard drop into the garbage and raised her head to look at me. “Did you hear me?” I nodded, and she shook her head as I headed toward my room to change into workout clothes.

  The workout was long and focused on katas. I did the same one, over and over, working on my breathing as she watched me, calling out criticism where she felt it was warranted. I executed every move as crisply as I could; blows strong enough to hurt and kill were the standard. Weak hits, anything that looked pretty but lacked force, were called out, and my punishment was to do push-ups. I stared at the blue mats as my arms pumped up and down and my breath cycled in through the nose, out through the mouth. I let out a last breath as I finished my ten push-up punishment, and snapped back to my feet. Laggardly behavior carried its own sort of punishment – more push-ups.

  “All right,” Mother said, her arms folded, her navy nylon gym pants clashing against her white t-shirt. Her complexion was darker than mine, partly due to her exposure to the sun and partly due to genetics. “I can see we’ve got some work to do on strength training, but we’ll save that for another time.” Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed me. I stood at a ready position, my hands in front of me and my body stiff at attention. “We need to work on precision; you’re getting sloppy.”

  My eyes followed her as she started to move, but I felt a burning inside. Deep breath in through nose, out through the mouth. She walked to the wall and pulled a katana from the pegs and tossed it to me. I reached out and caught it, whipping it around in a wide arc and then returning to a ready position again. I avoided cringing on the upswing; the hilt was mashing against my bandage, and I felt the wetness of blood as my cut tore open under my gloves.

  “You’ll do your entire form with the sword,” she said, arms folded again now, taking one small step at a time, as though she were about to circle me. “Crisp, perfect, and with every attack I had better see the appropriate amount o
f force.” She waved a hand in the air. “This is an exercise in control. It’s not a butcher’s knife, and it needs to be guided properly.”

  I nodded and began my kata. Each move, I tried to focus, tried to keep my eyes on the place where my sword was going. I tuned out the pain, the dull, stabbing feeling that came as I wrapped my hand tight around the hilt. Mother didn’t help; she was hovering, following me around. Three times I turned to deliver my next attack and was forced to deviate as she placed herself in my path.

  “Testing your control,” she said, stepping out of the way each time – after I had altered my kata to avoid her. Each move caused me pain, as I held the sword in the hand that wore the bandage. I felt blood dripping down my wrist and into my sleeve. Mother had little tolerance for anything but perfection, and admitting that I had hurt myself might reveal that I had been cleaning with my gloves off – which meant the box, again. I was holding my breath now, as much as possible, trying to bottle up the pain. Beads of sweat rolled down my face in a trickle, and I swore they might have been blood as well, as though the pain were everywhere and the blood was too.

  I came to a finish and I heard slow clapping start behind me. I turned my head, still frozen in my last move, sword extended, one of my legs far in front of the other. The clapping was maddeningly slow, like a mocking laugh. She put her hands together over and over, letting seconds hang in the air between each clap.

  I felt my face redden, as though the blood that wasn’t running down my arm was rushing to it, felt the heat in the room turned up to twelve. My breathing exercise wasn’t working to purge the emotion anymore; the feeling was too strong. I held myself in place, but I felt my hand shake with the sword in it. I knew my face was betraying me, but I couldn’t hold back the tide of emotions. I let my feet drift back to a closed stance, shoulder-distance apart, and I brought the sword up.