A Hero's Death: Aris Crow Vampire Legend

by Rachel McClellan

  Clark's head lobbed forward, and his eyes swam like he was struggling to stay conscious.

  Victor stepped to the next man, a redhead with sweat beading his forehead and blue eyes wide and alert. He looked familiar to me.

  Victor ripped the tape from his face and removed another sock. "Where were you when I was robbed, Fred?"

  Fred looked from me to him and stuttered, "I was talking to Tony about the sound system. It was sounding kinda scratchy, and I thought we should fix it. When I came back here, the fight was already over."

  "Interesting. So you didn't hear anything? There must've been a dozen shots fired."

  While Victor spoke, the Physician walked around the room eyeing everything as if he was taking mental snapshots of the scene. He fidgeted with a ring on his right hand, twisting it around his finger.

  "Like I said, the speakers were acting funny. They were louder than usual."

  Victor turned to me, his eyes boring into mine. "Your turn. He's lying. I want you to teach this guy a lesson. And if you don't? Your girl Emma will receive a special lesson from yours truly."

  28

  I resisted the urge to punch Victor for threatening Emma again and approached Fred, trying to decide how best to question him.

  "Where is your normal post on any given night?" I asked.

  "I manage the northeast area. I make sure no fights break out."

  "Northeast? That's just outside this door, and you're telling me you didn't hear any gunshots?"

  He shook his head. "I swear to you."

  Fred was definitely lying. I remembered seeing him in the room where I had rescued one of the teenage girls. The bastard had fled before I could stop him. Helping the girl had been my only priority at the time.

  I pulled back my fist and smashed his nose. Blood spurted and ran down his lips and over his chin. He moaned.

  "That was for not being where you should've been," I growled. "This next one is for lying about the speakers."

  I punched him again, nearly breaking his cheekbone. I felt no guilt for hurting him. I had seen first hand what he was capable of.

  "Did you feel that?" I asked him. "I almost shattered your cheekbone. The next time you lie to me, I will break something. So tell me again, where were you when the Crow broke in?"

  His eyes darted about the room as if looking for someone who might save him. He would not find compassion here.

  "I was talking to the DJ," Fred lied again. "I swear it!"

  Without blinking, I stomped hard on his foot. The crunch of bones breaking filled the room. He hollered in pain. Next to him, Clark began to cry while several of Victor's men cringed and turned away.

  "I will not be lied to again!" I shouted, my voice thunderous. "Where were you?"

  "I was in the gray room!" he cried.

  "And what were you doing there?"

  "I was just messing around. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" he sobbed.

  I glanced back at Victor, breathing hard.

  He nodded at me in approval and took my place in front of Fred. The Physician came to stand next to him.

  "If you work for me," Victor said, "You do exactly as I say. You knew the rules. Maybe if you had been where you are supposed to be, Crow wouldn't have stolen from me and gotten my men arrested. You've cost me valuable time and money."

  Victor glanced at the Physician and nodded. The Physician opened his hand and slowly moved the pointed end of the ring towards Fred's neck.

  He shook his head back-and-forth. "No, no, no. I told you what you wanted to know. I apologized!"

  "You're a plague on this earth," the Physician said. He fisted his left hand in Fred’s hair to hold him still while his ring came closer and closer until it finally pierced his skin.

  Fred choked on a sob, but within ten seconds he stopped moving altogether. He even stopped breathing. Victor held Fred's head up and stared into his open eyes. "This is the last minute of your life. Think of me when you're in Hell. And while you're at it, tell the Devil to get ready, because one day I'm coming there and I'm not about to share his throne. Hell is mine."

  Fred's face began to change colors. Panic filled his eyes as he slowly suffocated to death. Had I not had V in me, I would've shared the same fate.

  I glanced away before Fred's heart ticked its last beat, but Victor watched it all until it was finished.

  Victor addressed the other two men. "This is what happens when you don't do as I expect. Do you both understand?"

  They frantically nodded.

  "Good," Victor said and turned to the Physician. "Get rid of this body."

  The Physician visibly shivered as if excited. He rubbed his tongue across his canine tooth.

  Victor turned to me. "You did better than I expected. In fact, I'd say you enjoyed that."

  "I admit, it was satisfying." That was the first true thing I had said to him.

  Victor wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me out of the room. "Let's have a drink. It's time I got to know you."

  For the next several hours, Victor and I sat at the bar. At first I avoided drinking, but when he eyed me funny at my refusals, I gave in to avoid suspicion. But I drank slowly.

  As the night wore on, I became more relaxed. I even chuckled at some of Victor's stories. When prompted, I made up my own tales of dorm room pranks, garnering the laughter of several people around us. I hated pretending to be someone else.

  Despite having several drinks in me, I remained alert. Victor was not to be trusted. Ever. I didn't care if he had helped my mother. He had poisoned the city with his drugs and killed numerous people, among many other crimes. And he had threatened the life of the woman I loved.

  As if sensing my thoughts, a dark shadow crossed over his face. "Have you ever been in love, Adam?"

  "I don't think so," I lied.

  He swirled the liquid in his glass, staring into its foam. "I was once. She was a beautiful woman. The kind that makes the whole world brighter. I know that sounds stupid, but I swear to you, everything was more vivid. Even the buildings in Pigtown didn't seem so dirty. I could have loved this woman forever."

  I flexed my muscles, wondering if he was talking about my mother. "What happened to her?"

  "She was murdered. I was on my way to save her, and she was killed by someone I considered a friend." He looked at me, his eyes hooded. "After that, the illusion was destroyed, and I saw the world as it really was. Pigtown wasn't a nice place. It was filthy and dirty and gross. The people around me were, too, myself included. I saw them for who they really were. I guess you could say I became a realist the day she died."

  His hands balled into fists. His right one held a slight tremor. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but I saw the distinct twitching of someone under a lot of emotional turmoil.

  "You could find love again," I offered.

  "Oh, I've loved plenty of women, but no one has or ever will own my heart the way she did."

  I stared down into my almost empty glass, not knowing what to say. Here I was having a drink with the one man I'd wanted to kill my whole life, and I almost felt sorry for him. How screwed up was that?

  We talked a little more. Victor asked a bunch of questions about myself, but I kept to Adam's narrative as much as possible.

  "What are your thoughts about this vigilante?" he asked, changing the conversation suddenly.

  I leaned over on the bar clasping my hands together. "I think the guy is nuts. It's just a matter of time before he's killed."

  "I couldn't agree with you more." He leaned over on the bar with me. "But I'm wondering why he hasn't been killed yet. It's not like my guys are untrained. He somehow even managed to survive the Physician’s special touch. No one survives that unless he wants them to. How do you think he did that?"

  I held back from swallowing the lump in my throat and shrugged. "There must be something different about him. Maybe he's ex-army, or maybe he's an inside guy who knows everything about your dealings, including a fix to whatever your Doc is giving out.
Have you screened all your men recently?"

  "I thought about that, but even with special training, he shouldn't have won against five men with guns. There's something wrong with that picture, and I want to find out what."

  "Good luck with that. I've heard nobody knows who he is."

  A slow smile spread across Victor's face. "Ah, but we do know a guy who knows this imposter Crow fellow."

  This time I had to swallow. "Oh, yeah? Who's that?"

  He finished off his drink and set the glass back down on the bar. "Some punk kid we caught handing out money to the poor. The same money the Crow had stolen from me."

  "But how do you know he knows the Crow? Maybe this kid stole it from the vigilante?"

  "We were in the process of asking him just that, when the Crow broke in to the Devil's Playground and busted him out. So now we know for sure they are working together. We've searched everywhere for the kid, but no one knows where he went. Him and his bedridden sister are just gone."

  I swallowed the last of the clear liquid in my glass. "How does a guy like that just disappear? And you say he has a sick sister? Maybe the Crow killed them because they knew too much."

  Victor laughed. "Not that pussy. The Crow doesn't kill. That's one of the few things I've learned about him. A weak spot I plan to exploit."

  He stared me in the eyes a few tense seconds. I resisted the urge to look away.

  "I want you to find this punk," he said. "His name is Oz Lewis. I've had my guys watching the bus station and anywhere else he might escape to, but I'm convinced he's still in the city."

  "I may be able to crunch a few bones, but I'm no detective."

  "I'm not asking. I want him found." He motioned to the back room. "You've seen what happens when I'm disappointed. Don't let me down. Oh, and Adam? You have forty-eight hours."

  29

  I hurried toward Ironwood, circling back to where I had dropped the diary. I still couldn't believe Victor had asked me to find Oz. I better figure out something and quick, because there was no way I was going to hand him over. But if I didn't, Victor could hurt Emma. That left me with only one option: take care of Victor once and for all. No more waiting.

  It was almost three in the morning. The night's storm clouds had dropped lower, and its murky gray hovered between the tops of the city's tall buildings. This trapped warm moisture in the air and it clung stubbornly to my skin.

  This night had been one of the strangest of my life. I was still in shock from spending the last several hours in a casual setting with my enemy. The one thing I never wanted was to understand Victor, but after reading my mother's diary and seeing his heartache spill all over the table, I actually felt a little sorry for him. I could only imagine what would become of me if I lost Emma. Would I become cruel and bitter too?

  Dropping into the underground entrance, I picked up the journal, thinking of Victor's feelings toward my mother. Had she returned them? Her words didn't give one indication or another. She only expressed love for my father.

  I jogged the rest of the way to Ironwood to burn off any remaining energy, but slowed when I reached the boardwalk. When I heard Oz laughing, I stopped outside my house and looked through the window. He was sitting at my table with his sister playing cards.

  Someone else was there. A woman. She turned her head slightly, and I recognized Kristen.

  What was she doing here so late? It had been a few years at least since she'd come to Ironwood. I crossed the old road and stepped up to my front porch. The sound of my footsteps drew their attention.

  Oz came to his feet. "You’re back."

  "You look like you've been run over by a dump truck," Amy said.

  Kristen smiled slightly. "Hi."

  "What are you doing here?" I asked her. "And why are you all up so late?"

  "I wanted to see if you were okay," Kristen answered.

  "What she said," Oz added. "We expected you hours ago."

  "We were worried," Amy said. Her big eyes wide, eyebrows lifted.

  I stared at each of them, warmth filling my chest. This is what Victor didn't have. People who truly cared about him.

  "I'm fine, but I've been busy." I looked at Oz. "Victor's still looking for you. In fact, he put me in charge of bringing you back, or else..."

  "Or else what?" Amy asked, looking from Oz to me.

  "We need to talk." Kristen pushed away from the table and stood. She walked in front of me and rested her palm on my arm. "I'm sure you have questions."

  "What are we going to do?" Oz asked, his brows drawn together in frustration. "We can't hide down here forever."

  "We'll think of something. I'll be right back."

  I followed Kristen out the door. She led me to the Halo where Roman sat. He wasn't in his usual spot meditating in the center. Instead, he leaned against the side, his head tilted up as if he was listening to a million sounds. He probably was.

  "You've had quite a night," Roman said.

  "How much did you hear?" I asked.

  "Enough to know that you're working for Victor now."

  "What?" Kristen blurted.

  "It's not like that." I walked across the room away from them both and pulled out the diary. "Why didn't you two tell me the truth?"

  An awkward silence followed. Kristen spoke first.

  "We didn't want you to have a negative image of your father."

  I stared at her in surprise. "You thought it was better for me to believe a lie?"

  They looked at each other.

  Kristen kept talking. "Your father was a good man once. He just let his thirst for power control him. Daisy even wondered if there was something in the V blood that could've changed his personality."

  I glanced at Roman, a ray of hope ignited. "Is that possible? You studied V blood as much as my mother."

  "There's no way to know for sure without extensive testing, but I do not believe it changes a person's personality. It can, however, amplify one’s emotions—especially anger." He lowered his head. "Jonas became who he was because he craved attention. I remember him once telling me about an interview he did with the city's top reporter. It was about a time when he had saved people from a burning building. All but one. A kid he couldn't get to in time.

  "Not once did he mention or show any remorse for the seven-year-old boy who died. All he cared about was how the reporter had called him a superhero. That’s when I knew we had lost him." Roman's voice was hollow as he spoke.

  I dropped the diary to the ground, no longer wanting to hold it. "The last thing I read was my mother wanting to confront my father. She was going to take me and leave. How does it end?"

  "Why don't you sit down?" Kristen suggested.

  I remained standing while she lowered to the floor as if she could no longer support herself.

  "I was with your mother that day, helping her pack,” Kristen began. “Daisy had been crying for weeks leading up to this. Not because she was going to leave him, but because she was saddened by how much he had changed. It also broke her heart to take her child away from his father, but your safety came first. She was afraid of the influence he would have over you. She'd experienced his cruel side and didn't want you to."

  When she stopped speaking to catch her breath, I said, "Keep going."

  I had to know everything. I couldn't move forward, couldn't even begin to make right choices if I didn't know the whole truth.

  "Your father wasn't supposed to come home early. They were going to meet at a restaurant for dinner. In public, so she could talk to him. But then he was just there, like he knew what she was going to do.

  "Daisy handed you to me and snuck me to a back bedroom. She told me if Jonas started yelling, I was supposed to take you out the window and get out of the building. She said that no matter what I heard, I had to make sure you got as far from the building as possible. Your safety was all that mattered.

  "I begged her to come with us, but she said it had to end. She also told me to find Roman." She glanced over at Roman
, who was back to looking up toward Coast City. "She said I could find him underground, and all I'd have to do is say his name and he would find me. This had surprised me because everyone thought he had left the city, or had been killed. No one had heard from him for weeks."

  I paced the room, trying to picture the scene in my head. What fear they must've both felt. I'm glad I was too little to remember.

  She continued. "I heard some of what they were arguing about. Jonas talked about becoming a god among men. Because of his special abilities, he would rule the day per the orders of the Principes Noctis."

  My eyes flashed to Roman. He flinched at the phrase, but a second later his expression was unreadable.

  "I don't know what he meant, nor do I want to. When Daisy told him that his abilities should only be used for good and to help men be free, he laughed at her and called her naïve.

  "They continued to argue and Jonas began throwing things around. When I heard him say he was going to take you away from Daisy, I texted Victor and snuck out the window. Victor replied right away that he was coming." Her eyes filled with tears. "I hated leaving my sister there. If I didn't have you with me, I would've rushed in to help her even though Jonas could've killed me with one punch. And I don't doubt that he would have. He hated the influence he thought I had over her."

  She paused and wiped at her wet cheeks.

  "Anyway, I escaped out the window and made it to the bottom of the fire escape just as an explosion went off in the building." She spoke quickly. "I screamed and held you tightly while the building burned. I was still there when Victor showed up. He didn't see me, but I saw him. I watched that man break in the middle of the street. Without any confirmation, he knew your mother was dead.

  "I almost went to him, but then you said your mommy's name. That's when I knew I had to get you away from all of it. Everyone knew you were the son of the great Jonas Crow. People would try to use you. Even Victor. Your mother wouldn't have wanted that for you. So I took you to Roman, and we gave you the best life we knew how while also keeping you safe." She sniffed and drew in a breath. "I'm sorry we lied to you. We did what we thought was best."