They came through in a whisper, a pale, tightly-packed flicker of light, memory and sound that unreeled out of Black’s mind like an old fashioned home movie.
When that movie played, I saw the vampire king still alive.
I saw him with Black, crouched on the back end of the Memorial’s dome. I saw Black realize what was happening… I saw the vampire crouched beside him realize the same. I saw the exchanged look between them, the instant Black and the vampire king both realized they’d been outmaneuvered by Uncle Charles.
I saw Black nod, telling him to go.
I saw surprise touch the vampire’s face, reaching his eyes, his mouth.
Then I saw Brick clasp his arm––a fierce, almost violent grip.
Then he was gone.
He slid off the domed roof so quickly, he might have been made of air.
My last glimpse of Brick was of him running. I saw the blond, otherworldly and psychopathic vampire, Dorian, at his right side. The African-American female vampire ran to his left, a gun gripped in her hand. I watched through Black’s mind and light as the three of them disappeared into the trees, running in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial.
Watching them go, it hit me that Charles was right.
It might really be over.
25
NEW EARTH
BLACK AND I sat in leather swivel chairs in a conference room at the Pentagon.
Even now, I found myself gazing out over the rectangular room without really seeing it, trying to think past the roaring in my ears.
Probably a third of that room was taken up by a massive, oak conference table.
No windows broke the bland uniformity of the walls.
Only extra chairs sat around the edges of the room, apart from the flat screen monitors that hung from the ceiling on three sides. Each of those screens was active now, showing a different news station with the sound turned down. I glanced up to see images of the bombings in New Orleans, and of the President addressing a crowd of reporters on the White House lawn from earlier that day.
I didn’t bother to read the news headlines scrolling at the bottom of the screen.
Most of the seats at the oak conference table were empty, but seers wearing suits and earpieces stood in a line against one wall under one of the screens.
I could feel them controlling the psychic space of the room.
I knew I was exhausted.
I also knew that wasn’t the only thing wrong with me.
I still felt like I was in a dream, like nothing going on around us was real.
Across from me sat Charles. Four seers I didn’t know sat around him, two on either side. I found myself glancing at their eyes, noting the colors, the stillness living behind those inhuman stares, the inhuman stillness of their bodies.
They watched me back silently. I couldn’t read anything in them––not in their faces, not in their lights.
A human entered the room, bringing a tray covered in small sandwiches, bagels, lox, cream cheese, chives, tomatoes. Another human walked in after the first, holding a tray covered in tall glasses filled with some kind of fancy-looking coffee beverage.
Both humans set their trays on the table in front of us and walked out without a word.
I couldn’t help wondering who they were.
Given their expensively-cut suits, they didn’t exactly look like admin assistants. Then again, I was having trouble seeing anything happening in here as not part of the wider message my uncle was sending to me and Black.
He controlled the humans here.
He controlled all of them.
I stared at the food, and coffee. I knew I was hungry, but the idea of eating right then made me feel physically sick.
I was still staring at the tray covered in sandwiches when Black took my hand, pulling it to his thigh and clasping it tightly in his.
“I’m sorry I alarmed the two of you,” Charles said, once the humans were gone. He gave Black a grim look, then looked at me. “I know you require an explanation.”
“Not really,” Black said, gripping my fingers tighter.
I looked at him, then back at Charles.
“I do,” I said. “I require an explanation.”
Looking around the room, at the four seers sitting around my uncle, the six or so more lining the wall behind him, I returned my gaze to Charles.
“What is this?” I said. “What are you doing?”
Charles smiled, looking from me to Black, then back to me.
“This level of control won’t be needed forever,” he said.
From his voice, he meant his words to be reassuring.
“…This is just until we establish a new method of organizing things, Miriam. We’ll partner with humans in this eventually, whether they know of our role or not. For now, however, massive changes are needed to lay the groundwork for all that will come after. We can’t simply ‘nudge’ humans into change at that scale. I’m talking about massive reorganization, Miriam… at a scale seldom seen in history, and encompassing basic elements of the economy, in addition to changes in leadership, policies, priorities, technology, etc.”
He opened his hands in what felt like a kind of apology.
“I’ll be honest… It will likely require a whole new form of government. The legal system will definitely require adjusting, as will major industries across the globe.”
He held up his hands a second time, smiling.
“Again, all of this is just temporary. It also won’t all happen overnight. Most humans won’t notice anything at all, not at first. And we will give these things back to the humans to control, for the most part, once they are arranged in a way that eliminates some of the current problems and streamlines decision-making. We might need to keep control of some of the key economic and political sectors, of course.”
I frowned, glancing at Black, then back at Charles.
“The President?” I said.
Charles clicked softly, shaking his head.
“No. The President stays… in this country, at least.”
“Meaning?” I pressed my lips together when he didn’t speak. “You already have him under your control, is that it? He’s your puppet?”
My uncle made a noncommittal gesture with one hand.
I saw a faint frown cross his lips, like he thought I was missing the point.
“That’s a bit too simplistic, Miri. There are elements of influence, sure… but he’s more or less on board with our plans now. We’ve made it more than worth his while.” He leaned back in his leather chair, watching me with those pale green eyes. “Anyway, this isn’t really about the United States. The restructuring I’m talking about will, of necessity, be a global restructuring. We need things to align across countries, not only within them.”
I stared at him.
Watching a female seer with dark orange eyes and an East-Indian face stare back at me, her sculpted mouth perfect on a high-cheekboned face, I looked back at Charles.
“Why?” I said. “Why are you doing this?”
Charles’ lips pursed, a quizzical ridge forming between his eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious, Miriam?” he said. “Hasn’t your husband told you anything about the world we came from?”
I looked at Black, then back at Charles.
“So this is revenge?” I said. “You plan to enslave them, because they enslaved you?”
Charles clicked at me reproachfully.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Miriam. This isn’t revenge… it’s prevention. We know how things played out when humans and seers occupied the same world in large numbers before. Why would we want a repeat of that horrific first history? Particularly when we can prevent a similar outcome with the benefit of a little hindsight?”
Pausing, he quirked an eyebrow, his lips pursed as he looked between me and Black.
“What is the point of knowing history, if one does not use that knowledge to prevent the atrocities of the past?” He made a graceful gesture with one hand.
“What is the point of walking the same dark road as our forefathers, if such a thing can be avoided?”
When I only frowned, Charles leaned towards me, across the oak table.
I could feel, even now, it was me he wanted to convince, not Black.
“Miriam, you have no idea what it was like there,” he said, his voice low, serious. “You have no idea of the horrors that were visited upon our people. You think that could never happen here, but I’m telling you… you have no idea at how quickly it started in that other world, and how fast it spun out of control. We are still as vastly outnumbered by humans here, even with the tens of thousands of seers who recently arrived. We are still at risk.”
Pausing, he studied my eyes earnestly.
“Miri, I watched the wisest minds in our clans hand our people over to humans, trusting things would ‘work out’ as long as they maintained the moral high road. They foolishly believed that as long as they behaved nonviolently, as long as they didn’t break their outdated codes of compassion and noninterference, everything would be fine in the end.”
His words grew bitter.
“I watched humans use those very things against us… slaughtering us, enslaving us, turning us into things, hurting us when we didn’t obey, experimenting on us, stealing our children, collaring us, raping us, codifying laws against us…”
Trailing, he clenched his jaw, shaking his head.
“Ask any seer in this room, Miri. Ask them how that grand experiment of our holy elders worked out for the rest of us. Ask them how they feel about leaving such a thing to the good graces of humanity, this time around.”
Clicking angrily, he shook his head.
“There are not enough tears in the world for the terrible things that were visited upon us, Miriam. It will be a hundred million years before all that karma is repaid. It will be a hundred million more before seers let such a thing happen to our people again.”
Feeling as much as seeing the heads nodding around me, I glanced around at the other seers, seeing the fierceness of their expressions, their clenched jaws.
Feeling the trauma behind that, the anger, I felt my own fear worsen.
Reaching for me across the table, my uncle clasped my hand, jerking my eyes back to his. He stared into my face, his voice fierce, proud, but also happy.
“Miri, we don’t have to do what our forefathers did! We don’t have to make the same mistakes! This is a virgin world for our people… a virgin history. We can write our own destiny here, the way it should have been written on Old Earth. Why else would the gods send our people to this world? Why would they give this planet to us, if not to make things right? If not to purge the sins of both great races?”
“Maybe the gods had nothing to do with it,” Black muttered, gripping my fingers tighter.
“And maybe they did,” Charles said, turning to glare at him. “If you think humans or seers created those doors, decided those coordinates, determined who would come here and who would not, you are far more naïve than I am, brother Kirev.”
When Black didn’t answer, my uncle’s voice sharpened.
“I would think you, of all people, would believe in the power of the gods, Quentin,” he said, still trying to catch Black’s gaze. “…And in fate. Or did you imagine you willed yourself to this world, all of your own volition? Did you imagine the gods had no higher purpose for you, in bringing you here? You were brought early, like me, to mark the way. Like me, you are now positioned to act as scout, prophet, harbinger, explorer… at the very least, guide… to your brother and sister seers who came to share this world with us.”
Black didn’t answer that, either.
Charles shook his head, his jaw still hard.
“You will understand.” He looked between us, a faint anger in his stare, and in his voice. “When everything is put in place here, you will finally understand. Both of you.”
The silence deepened.
In it, I found myself looking at Charles’ seers, scanning each face, trying to see some hint of myself in them, trying to see some hint of Black.
They just felt alien to me.
I could feel whispers of familiarity there, but it all felt so far away, and much of it may have been Charles himself, and flavors I remembered from him when I was a kid.
It might have been from my father.
In any case, I couldn’t think about this clearly now.
I couldn’t think past the fact that we’d been separated from our friends, from the people I truly considered my family––Angel, Nick, Dex, Cowboy, Kiko, Javier, Alice, Ace, Manny, Easton, the Native kids, Lawless, Lex… even the immigrant seers.
Apart from Black, all those people had been taken from me.
All those people had been taken from Black.
“Are we prisoners here?” I said finally.
Charles’ frown deepened. “Of course not! Why would you ask me that, Miriam?”
I felt my jaw harden. “Where are our friends?”
Charles sighed, combing his fingers through his blond hair. My heart started beating faster when he didn’t answer right away, but he shook his head at me, clicking softly, maybe to head off something he felt in my light.
“Your friends are perfectly safe, Miriam.” His voice sounded almost tired. “The humans are being fed and kept comfortable in another room like this one, only larger. The seers are being debriefed as we speak.”
Scowling at me, he drummed his fingers on the table as he added, “Unfortunately, they are proving to be as stubborn as you and your mate. All but one, anyway.”
I pursed my lips.
I had a feeling I knew exactly which “one” Uncle Charles was talking about. There was only one of the six immigrant seers I could imagine being on board with Charles’ New Earth Order.
“Raven,” I muttered.
Charles turned, giving me a hard look. “Yes. Elan Raven. She has a great deal of valuable military and organizational experience we can use. More importantly, she understands the vision we are trying to implement here. She has already asked for a place within our organizational hierarchy… one I am more than happy to grant her. One I would be even more happy to supply you and your husband, as well as any of your friends, human or seer.”
I grimaced.
I couldn’t help it.
Feeling my uncle react to my facial expression, I looked away, towards Black.
He continued to stare down at the table, massaging my fingers in his lap.
I don’t think I’d ever seen him this quiet before––about anything.
I was still looking at him when my uncle spoke, his voice verging on frustrated.
“The vast majority of humans won’t know anything has changed at all, niece.” He paused to glare at Black. “The vast majority of them will never know… and if it ever does come out that seers exist in this world, we will control entirely how that information reaches the populace.”
“And vampires?” Black said, his voice gruff.
He didn’t look up from the table.
Charles turned, staring at him.
“Does it matter?” he said coldly.
Black’s face remained unreadable. He gestured vaguely with one hand as he continued to stare down at the polished surface of the oak table.
“So you’ll exterminate them, then? Vampires. Just wipe them out?” Black paused, glancing around at the seers seated at the table, and those standing against the wall. He met their gazes, one by one. “Just to be clear… this is what we do now? Exterminate other races?”
The seers sitting and standing with my uncle stared back at him.
Their faces barely moved.
Even so, I glimpsed flickers of reaction here and there––the tightening of lips, the hardening of eyes and facial expressions. I couldn’t interpret those flickers entirely, but I definitely got the sense they didn’t appreciate Black’s comment.
I also got the sense they thought he was delusional, comparing vampires to what had happened to their own rac
e back on Old Earth.
Black’s eyes returned to my uncle.
“Will you tell the humans your plans to eradicate vampires from the face of the Earth? Or is that information they’re ‘better off not knowing,’ as well? Along with the fact that their entire society is being engineered by an alien race?”
There was another silence after he spoke.
Charles exchanged looks with the seers seated to either side of him. Then he exhaled, gesturing in a way similar to Black before he smiled at us wanly.
I noticed that smile never reached his pale green eyes.
“I admit, Kirev, I find it baffling that you would be the sudden champion of a race that imprisoned and tortured you. A race that views both humans and seers as little more than a food source… and as sexualized baubles for their amusement. It wasn’t all that long ago that I seem to remember you advocating for a ‘Final Solution’-type approach to the vampire race yourself. Moreover, you enlisted my help to that end… and the help of your human friends.”
He fell silent for a beat.
When Black didn’t respond, Charles made a conciliatory gesture with one hand, continuing in a more neutral voice.
“A common enemy can be a force for unity,” he said, still speaking to Black. “You are a soldier, nephew. For the same reason, you, of all people, should understand the psychology behind that need for an enemy to usher in peaceful societal change at home. Wartime can serve a purpose. More than one purpose, even.”
His jaw hardened as he glanced between us, his gaze uncompromising.
“We won’t kill them all,” he said, blunt. “But population control is going to have to be a priority for a while, especially in the beginning. Our human allies at this juncture, in particular the President of the United States and the leaders of several other major human governments, are in total agreement with us on this point. You might even consider it part of the first, true, interspecies treaty on this world.”
I stared down at the table.
I remembered Black’s nightmares after he got free of Brick. I remembered the scars, his rages after he got out of that prison––his fear.
I knew some part of me was trying to convince myself it was okay to go along with the systematic extermination of an entire species.
In Black We Trust Page 35