Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  Jumping to the ground, Libby walked inside and was greeted by the school’s own stylized wild: a large courtyard of small trees and plants that hummed with life. From the outside, the school seemed only a large rectangular building, but, inside, the four walls opened into a barely enclosed wilderness.

  Turning in a circle, she recalled walking down the four perpendicular hallways that surrounded the garden. The halls were in the open air, fully exposed to the courtyard. Many of the classrooms, too, having no fourth wall, opened into the garden. The young people of her kind needed to be outside: they needed rain, and wind, and sunshine, and the sounds of other animals.

  On a whim, Libby decided to visit the class she used to study in before her father had taken her away from the rest of the children in the village and singled her out for specific training as the heir of the pack. She remembered she had felt privileged at the time. It wasn’t until later that she understood that it had all been a lie. There was no special training, just solitary training. Her father had been embarrassed by her slow development and was afraid that the pack members would believe the family weak as they saw her struggling.

  She walked up to the room, wondering how much had changed in time. She pulled open the door and stopped short.

  There was a boy in there already, sitting in one of the desks, or rather, sleeping in one of them. His body was bent over it, his head and shoulders resting directly on the wooden surface. A vampire. She could tell from his temperature and his skin color. His hair was dark, like most of the vampires, yet it was surprisingly also mixed with shots of light brown, a color close to her own. She wondered absently if vampires dyed their hair. His hair was short in the back, cut shaggily around his nape, but longer in the front, almost covering his face. With his hair dusted over his face like that, his head resting on the desk, he seemed like just another one of the boys in her village — relaxed, bored.

  He looked to be in his twenties, like her, but he was a vampire, so there was no way she could be sure of his age. Still, he seemed to belong here all the same. His arms were crossed and almost tucked inside of the desk, as though in his struggle to get comfortable he had finally decided to place his hands inside the empty desk rather than bother with holding them up.

  Was he really sleeping mere hours before the test? In enemy territory? Incredible, almost reckless. Was he that self-assured of his ability? Or was he just that careless?

  It was possible that he had wandered here and become too lethargic to get back to the guest quarters. The sun exhausted vampires. She continued to stare at him, trying to solve the puzzle he presented. Even though he was a vampire, he was a mix of the strange and familiar. In an odd way, he was beautiful.

  She noticed the soft edge of his left ear poking out of his hair. It almost seemed like something private about him, a vulnerable truth that his hair normally hid. Illogically, she suddenly had the idea of going to touch his ear. She vaguely remembered her mother tucking her hair behind her ear. She had felt loved and connected in those moments.

  But why would she want to touch him? Could she touch him? A forearm, a shoulder, even a knee she could touch without too much awkwardness. If he woke up because he felt her, she could easily claim that she had only been touching him, shaking him, trying to wake him up. But his ear? How could she explain that?

  She giggled at herself, and then grew self-conscious. Here she was fantasizing about touching him, carrying on a conversation with herself, and now laughing at her own silly ideas. My God, if he wasn’t actually asleep what would he think of her? Vampires, she had been taught, were essentially dead and emotionless, their bodies more like instruments than homes for the soul. That boy there could feel and hear almost everything around him, even better than Libby’s own people. If he were awake, he would have heard her surprise. He would have heard her heart rate and her breathing speed up as she watched him … He might even be able to tell that she found him attractive. More than attractive, actually — he was kind of mesmerizing. His round, pink lips, the graceful, balanced way that he slept …

  Was he using some kind of vampire power to lure her in? Maybe this was one of his powers. Maybe he really was one of those vampire types she had studied — one of the vampires that could control your feelings. Maybe that’s why she wanted to touch his ear. Giggling again at herself, she heard her laugh echo off the walls and grew nervous.

  Looking closely at him, she could see his breath misting the dark surface of the wood of the desk. He was breathing steadily and deeply. Such deep breathing usually meant sleep, right?

  Of course, if he wasn’t sleeping, then a complete stranger — and, as her father would remind her, an enemy — now knew how truly strange the pack heir was. But it couldn’t be helped. If he wasn’t asleep, he just wasn’t. Not one to avoid things, she gathered some courage, cleared her throat, and very simply and quietly asked, “You are asleep, aren’t you?”

  • • •

  Caleb’s gut was rolling. The devil wanted out. He was hungry, incredibly hungry. Caleb was almost mad with it. He wanted blood. Every cell in his body called for it. Blood. Blood. Blood. His logic, his ideas, all of the things that made him him were gone. Hunger made him like the beast inside him, incapable of rationality, reason, feeling. His stomach was on fire, the desire sharp and agonizing.

  He needed to lie down. He wanted to be in his own space, back in the city of his kind, where he could climb away and simply hide from his own thirst. But there was nowhere to hide away in this miserable wolf camp. He had hunted carefully before coming here in order to avoid an attack this strong, but clearly he had not done enough.

  So he did the only thing he could do: he found a quiet classroom. There were windows all around and the sun crashed in, but there were blinds that he could pull. He had slowly and achingly lowered each of them. He stumbled through rows of desks. They were the typical kind, individual little spaces with cubbies inside for books. He chose the one farthest away from the sun’s rays and flopped into the small wooden chair. He just wanted to wrap his arms around his middle and whimper, but he had learned long ago that such behavior would not help. Crying was useless: that childish little remedy would offer no comfort, so he just laid his head down onto the cool surface of the wooden desk. That felt a little better. Maybe if he didn’t move, his nausea and his need would lessen. He willed himself to absolute stillness. If he didn’t move a single muscle, sometimes the hunger was less. It was the only defense he had.

  Caleb heard someone shuffling around outside and wondered idly who it might be. Whoever it was, they were certainly no threat, not in his current condition. Any aggression on their part would be enough of a trigger to set off his transformation, and if he shifted he would be more than powerful enough to face any challenger. He heard the door open. He still didn’t move. His bloodlust would make him virtually unbeatable. He did not even open his eyes. He listened, absorbing his surroundings almost entirely involuntarily. Disinterestedly, he acknowledged that whatever had entered stood by the door. He could tell because of the cessation of sound as soon as the door slid open. There was a quick inhalation of breath, and then nothing. The wind rushed past, pushing a scent toward him.

  It wasn’t a man. It was a woman, a girl. Her scent was sweet, a little floral, but mostly a little like vanilla or honey, warm. Caleb couldn’t quite place it. But it oddly settled his stomach. He unconsciously started to breathe in more deeply, more steadily. The more deeply he breathed in, the more deeply the sensation extended. His discomfort continued to dissipate. How strange! Was this possible? Or was he merely distracted from his pain? If he continued to breathe her in, and only her, would his hunger completely disappear? How incredible that would be. Could it be that the demon was drawn to this creature, drawn to the women of its own kind?

  She continued to stand there, and her scent continued to circle around him, wrapping him up and, miraculously, lifting him away fr
om the clawing sick that had been raging in his belly. Now, for the first time in a long while, he actually felt something akin to curiosity. He wanted to know. Who was this? He heard her speak; she was asking if he slept. What a little child. Couldn’t she tell? When he was sure that his head wouldn’t spin with nausea and dizziness if he opened his eyes, he parted his lids to look.

  Yes, indeed, it was one of them. A female. She was short, shorter than most of her kind and more delicately built. Looking closer, he noticed definition in her arm and leg muscles. That was unusual for the females of the wolves. He knew, from his people’s research, that the women of her generation practiced magic almost solely, saving battling for the men, and thus neglecting the physical training that at one time had been central for all of their kind. This, he thought, was what would eventually give his kind a decisive advantage. While it was true that the vampires’ strength could not compare to the brute power of these creatures, vampire women were still trained. In his clan every man, woman, and child could wield a weapon with deadly skill. These creatures, on the other hand, were getting too comfortable with the current arrangement. But not this one. This one was training. Still she seemed an odd contradiction — she was trained and physically honed, but she was slight of build.

  Why train one such as she? If the wolves were beginning to train females after such a long time, why not select a more typical female? To choose one smaller than usual, one that was sure to be an outlier, was illogical — ridiculous. An experiment with an exceptional woman would lead to bad data. Couldn’t they see even that?

  Ah. Of course. There was only explanation: one simple, perfect explanation.

  This was the pack heir. What a marvel. Caleb had stumbled upon the object of his mission: the young female cub who would eventually lead his enemy, the first female heir in the long generations of her family history, and, more importantly, the first female heir ever likely to inherit control of an entire wolf village. Looking at her now, she didn’t seem very formidable. He could kill her now, quietly, without almost any force. She would barely see it coming. She was small and weak and without any survival instincts — and if he wasn’t mistaken, the girl found herself “interested” in him. What a child. How could the pack put any faith in a girl like this? It seemed impossible. It probably was. In fact, after looking at this girl, he should probably report back to his father before acting. With this new data, it might be better to forgo his father’s instructions and abandon his current mission.

  This girl was no threat. As she ascended to leadership, her pack and her village would be weakened by her lack of skill and power. She would be unable to hold the packs together when war began. In that case, the wolves would be an easy target: the war would finally truly end.

  More probably, the wolves themselves would foresee this. And, if he knew pack mentality at all — and he had studied it well — they would gut themselves. They would fight internally because many of them would not accept her as their alpha. They would destroy her on their own, with no help from him. Indeed, they might even destroy themselves in the process, or, at the very least, be so weakened by their own civil war that a war with the vampires would not last long. He almost smiled. This all seemed rather perfect, and the longer he looked at her the more likely it seemed. Yes, it felt as though he was not looking at a wolf female at all. It felt as though he was looking at the destruction of the wolves. What a wonderful thought. He might have laughed over the idea, if he’d had the energy.

  That’s when he noticed how much his pain had changed. It was basically gone. He was able to feel pleasure instead of pain. He felt different, better, calmer. The roiling and clawing in his stomach had settled. His demon almost seemed asleep. Strangely, Caleb didn’t simply feel an absence of pain; he actually felt healed.

  He felt better than he could ever remember feeling. Why? Because of her? Had she wrought this change within him? It seemed terribly unlikely that she could have such power over him. Surely not. Look at her now: caught off-guard by an ill and unmoving man. Her mouth hanging slightly open, surprised, forming an unspoken “oh.” Attracted and gawking over an enemy, even though she’d surely been taught about the offensive nature of vampire beauty.

  Impossible. There was no way this worthless creature had done more than distract him for a moment, and then … and then, perhaps, the realization of the inevitable extermination of this pitiful nest of dogs had finally given him some needed rest and peace. He closed his eyes again. Now that he felt better he would rest. He wouldn’t sleep deeply. With the change this close, sleeping would be far too dangerous. But he could rest for a moment, now that the beast inside was calmer.

  She mumbled something, but he didn’t attempt to catch it. She could stay there as long as she liked. She was nothing to him.

  • • •

  Back at home, Libby tried to forget what had happened, but she just couldn’t. That boy. How infuriating! He was so … so … aloof, looking at her like she was some kind of wretched pest. There were no questions in his eyes, no surprise, no concern. He wasn’t curious about who she was or what she had been doing. He just looked at her in that disconnected and assessing way for what seemed like a very long time — although it had only been a few seconds — until, finally, he closed his eyes again and went back to his earlier position. To him, she was clearly negligible, not a threat, not even a distraction. Even though he wasn’t bothered in any way by her, she still felt embarrassed and guilty. It was completely unfair.

  Blushing, she had done the only thing she could do. Retreat. She had choked out, “Well, sorry to disturb you.” What a formality! Obviously, she hadn’t disturbed him, but she hadn’t known what else to say. She had stood there waiting for a response until finally, walking out of the room and muttering, “See you around.”

  See you around? Really? He wasn’t her friend. The next time they saw each other they were likely to be enemies in the training games. What was wrong with her? What did she expect him to say? Yeah, so, buddy, see you around. I’ll try not to maim you too much the next time we meet.

  She really was awkward with people her own age. Well, with people who seemed to be her own age. Really, for all she knew, that vampire could actually be older than her own father. You could never tell with vampires. And this was why she wanted to return to the school and train the young. Teaching them could be tough and frustrating some days, but unlike adults, children could be trusted, and she could be trusted with them. Even when she did make a mistake, they either failed to notice or failed to care. With the adults in her pack, she had failed too often, and they had all noticed. She was so worried that she wouldn’t be able to prove her worth today.

  She was going to drive herself crazy. She had done everything she could think of to lessen her tension and to clear her mind, but everything kept backfiring. Going to the school, going to the training grounds … all she’d succeeded in doing was tiring herself out. How silly! She was worse off than before. Now, she had the added worry that she was too exhausted to compete. She laughed a little to herself, shaking her head at her predicament, at what she had done to herself. My own worst enemy. Nothing new in that. She laughed again, a little louder this time. Maybe the exercise had worked. She hadn’t laughed in the last few weeks. So, either she was feeling better or she had finally snapped. She laughed again, this time just because it felt good.

  “You can laugh, Elisabeth, even now?” her father, asked, standing in her doorway.

  She jumped up reflexively, and, bowing at the waist, she formally greeted him. “Father.”

  “Answer my question, daughter. What can you laugh about in a time such as this?”

  “I apologize, father. I am not laughing. I was just releasing some tension. I thought it would be better to enter the tests with a calm head.”

  “You echo the teachings, but miss the lesson, as usual. Laughing and jesting is not calm. As gifted as you are with emotions
, I think you know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, I understand. Forgive me, Father.”

  He merely stared at her, his expression offering no sign that he had heard her apology, his gaze still steadily assessing: “I hear, too, that you’ve been training or … exercising … this morning. Is that wise, with the competition so near?” He said it as a question, but the accusation was clear.

  She defended herself as well as she could. “I was nervous. Exercise often has a calming effect. I had hoped it would allow me to ease some of my anxiety.”

  “I see you are at least somewhat cognizant of how important this day is for your future and the future of our pack. But with this inconsiderate risk to your stamina with the day ahead of you … ” He exhaled loudly. “I begin to think you still do not comprehend how fully this will affect all of us.”

  “I want to do my best. I really do, sir. Father, I know this test is important. I — ”

  Angrily, he growled, “You still persist in seeing this in the typical way. A test.” He clicked his tongue. “A kind of perfunctory formality, some compulsory step to maturity. A test, perhaps, for the others. But, for you? It cannot be this way. How can you not see it?”

  “What … I … ?”

  “Have you not considered the ramifications of your loss here?”

  “R-r-ramifications?”

  “Yes,” he hissed. “Do you honestly imagine that if you fail, you will be given another chance next year, like the other young adults here? You are not like the others. You are the pack heir. You cannot lose.”

  “I don’t plan to lose. I won’t lose. I have been training. I am ready for this,” she insisted, trying to make them both believe. She waited, but he said nothing.

  She prompted quietly, “You spoke of ramifications. I did not know that the pack heir’s test was different from the others. How is it different?”