by Kody Boye
Went out, it said in what I assumed was Aerick’s neat but scratchy writing. Be back later.
Where could they have gone?
Sighing, I turned and was just about to make my way into the kitchen when the doorknob began to jiggle.
“Guy?” I asked, turning to face the doorway. “Is that you?”
The jiggling stopped.
I froze.
Instantly, memories of what had happened in that downtown apartment began to flood my mind.
No.
No.
No.
It couldn’t be. Not now, not after everything we’d been through.
The blinds were drawn, the living room thrust into near darkness. Only the fleeting images of figures could be seen crossing the porch through the brief cracks in the blinds where lamplight shone through.
Desperate, now, more than I had ever been in the past, I fled into the kitchen and grabbed the one weapon I knew could aid me in any situation—the butcher knife.
When it came free of the knife rack, it glimmered in the light piercing through the kitchen window, briefly capturing my reflection and revealing the true horror that painted my features.
I knew I couldn’t afford to panic. For that reason, I began to creep toward the doorway while the incessant movements and jiggling doorknob continued—reaching, instinctively, for the phone that should have been in my pocket. When I found that it wasn’t, however, and realized that it was upstairs and still in the middle of the bed, I realized that I couldn’t afford to depend on anyone else.
“Who’s there?” I called in as loud a voice as I could. “I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it!”
Not afraid to use it? I could’ve laughed at such childish bravado. Surely if they were what I thought they were—Sanguine—then they would not be afraid of a gun.
Swallowing, I edged around the stairwell and began to back up the stairway—easing, with tender care, my foot over each and every step as I brandished the knife toward the door.
Something clicked.
All movement stopped.
Then, slowly, the doorknob began to turn.
I darted up the stairs with speed that I could’ve never imagined possible—fleeing with the haste of a jaguar and the clumsy elegance of a giraffe. Somehow—whether it was by dumb luck or practice running up and down the stairs at college—I was able to navigate the stairway without tripping and bounded around the corner just as I felt something brush along my shoulder.
I cried out in surprise rather than pain, but the latter hit me a second later—sharp, hot, and burning as if I’d just been out in the sun for too long.
I didn’t bother to cast a glance down the stairs as I ran into the master bedroom.
I locked the door.
I grabbed the dresser.
I pushed it against the door and then flung myself onto the bed.
The first numbers I dialed were conjured from muscle memory.
9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” the operator on the other end of the phone asked.
“Someone’s breaking into my house!” I cried. “Send someone! Hurry!”
“Sir, give me your address and I’ll—”
“—East 12th Street,” I managed through the sheer panic that overwhelmed my mind. “The red townhouse on the corner of East 12th and Springdale.”
“Can you describe your attackers sir?”
“No!” I cried. Then, in a lower voice, added, “I think they’re coming.”
“What’re you—”
Someone—or, rather, something—began to pound on the door.
“I can’t stay on the phone,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “I have to get out of here.”
“Sir,” the operator replied. “Remain where you are unless you are able to flee your residence safely.”
“I can go out the window,” I said. “The awning. It—”
A wicked, clawed hand burst through the three-inch-thick door and began to claw for the doorknob.
I didn’t bother to wait for the operator. I shoved my phone into my pants, flung myself toward the window, and began to push it open.
I kicked the screen out.
I slid out onto the awning.
I scrambled, head over heels, across shingles until I sat near the edge.
Then I did the unthinkable.
I jumped.
They always tell you to tuck your knees and then roll when jumping from a high distance, but they never tell you how jarring the impact will be. As I landed, my spine was instantly jarred by the sensation of hitting ground after being within the air and a wicked howl shot from my person, comparable to that of a Howler who’d just been mortally wounded. I rolled, though, and used the momentum to spring myself down the hill that the town houses rested upon, before pushing myself to my feet and then taking off down the road, the knife long gone and the operator still calmly attempting to coach me as the distant sirens began to be heard.
I didn’t care what anybody thought.
I ran, ducking around the corner and hurling myself into the old cemetery that lay behind the house.
Older than old and decrepit in that most of the graves were illegible, I scrambled through the trees that blanketed the side of the road and only stopped when I found a tombstone that was large enough to shield me from view.
When finally my panic began to die down, I closed my eyes and began to do what I thought I’d never do again: pray.
“Dear God, please, get me the hell out of this mess,” I whispered, feverish in my attempts to remember any words or verses that might find me some salvation in this hellish situation. “Please, get me out of—”
“Quiet,” a voice said. “They’ll hear you.”
I jumped.
I turned.
A distorted figure of an elderly black woman in a long blue dress looked back at me.
“Who,” I managed, “are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the woman replied. “You stay there now, you hear?”
The woman vanished in a plume of smoke.
I gasped, unable to believe that I’d just seen what I could only assume was a ghost.
Then I heard the screech of tires and calls for hands to go up.
Gunfire ensued a short moment later.
Screams sounded from up the street.
Soon, it was over.
And I, scared out of my wits and unsure what to do, did what I thought was best—hid.
5
It was dark by the time they finally found me. Huddled on the ground, not willing to move for anyone except myself or the strong arm of the law, I was first approached by, then made to stand for an attractive black man who declared himself to be officer Jared Jenkins.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
I trembled, but nodded as he reached out and set a hand on my shoulder—as he considered the scrapes and bruises I could now feel flowering upon my person as he helped me to my feet and considered me with dark black eyes that were as hypnotic as they were authoritative.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Supernaturals,” the man replied. “And they left you a message.”
“What message was—”
“Jason!” Guy called. “Jason! Where the hell are you?”
“I’m here!” I called back, turning just in time to see Guy push his way through the treeline that blanketed the driveway opposite our home, shortly pursued by Aerick. “I’m ok. Just… scared.”
“The Sanguine came back,” Guy said. “And left us a message.”
“Which was?”
“DePella,” Aerick replied. “Dead.”
“Did you do something to anger the Sanguine?” the officer named Jenkins asked as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a notepad. He flipped it open and armed a pen to take notes.
“Yes,” I said, then sighed, reaching up to wipe a hand through my sweat-stained hair. “I… stopped them from feeding.”
“On my
people,” Aerick added.
“Several weeks ago. Before… before—”
“Their emergence,” the officer said.
Both Aerick and I nodded.
Guy stepped up behind me and pressed a hand against my waist, protectively encircling me within his grasp as the officer continued to take notes.
“Did you… kill any of them?” I asked.
“One,” the officer said. “Another is in for questioning.”
“How did you—”
A second figure emerged from the shadows. This time, I was able to sigh my relief when I realized it was none other than Scarlet Jane.
“Scarlet,” I said.
“I thought you’d gone,” Guy said.
“I was informed that more shenanigans were happening here in Austin,” the Hunter replied. “So I came back and found that it was at none other than the house the Agency assigned to you.”
“Who’re,” Officer Jenkins said.
Shadow also appeared from the darkness. “It’s nothing,” he said to the officer. “Return to your vehicle and continue to take statements from neighbors.”
The officer turned and left without even looking at Shadow.
“Fancy trick,” Aerick said. “Can it get us out of this mess?”
“Other Supernaturals are immune to our powers,” the Wiper replied. “Otherwise I would be more than willing to help you.”
“Which is why I came back,” Scarlet said, “and why it is imperative that we find out who is orchestrating these attacks and for what reason.”
“They want to kill Jason,” Aerick said. “I think that’s reason enough.”
“Vampire attacks are becoming more frequent in the Austin area,” the Hunter explained. “Seeing one in broad daylight, however, in a heavily-populated area of the city, was a bit of a shock.”
“You can say that again,” I sighed.
“You’re hurt,” Guy said, brushing a hand along my burned shoulder blade. “What did this to you?”
“My guess?” Scarlet asked. “A witch.”
“A witch?” I asked.
“A witch,” Scarlet nodded. “It’s not uncommon for them to gravitate toward flocks of Sanguine. There’s power in blood, especially blood spilled to feed unearthly creatures. To know that they’re aligned with them, however, and that they’re singling you out so desperately, leads me to believe that they want something.”
“Which is?” I asked.
Scarlet shook her head. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Which is why I’m going to remain here and help assist the police in protecting you.”
“But you—”
“Have better things to do?” the young woman asked. I merely stared at her and offered a forced smile which she didn’t return. “No. I don’t. And besides—The Agency wants me on top of this.”
“Why you?”
“Because it’s within my jurisdiction, which is the Central Texas to west Louisianan territory.” She crossed her arms over her chest and considered me for a moment before saying, “You should go inside.”
“Wait,” I said, turning to acknowledge the grave that I’d been hiding behind. I stared at its faded countenance and its letters which could only be discerned by the play of shadows upon its weathered surface before sighing and saying, “Someone helped me.”
“Who?”
“A ghost?”
“Not uncommon,” Scarlet said. “Especially not here, in this old black cemetery. Goes back to the eighteen-hundreds from what I understand.”
“So you believe me?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” the woman responded. “I’ve seen it all, killed it all, dealt with it all.”
“Just haven’t done it all,” Aerick smirked.
“Watch your mouth, Wolf-Boy, or I’ll shove my fist in it.”
“Kinky,” Aerick replied.
Scarlet rolled her eyes and gestured the four of us—including Shadow—toward the edge of the cemetery. “Come,” she said. “I’ll go pick us up tacos or something. Courtesy of the Agency.”
6
I struggled to comprehend the greater reason for the Sanguine wanting to kill me as I lay in bed that night. Pressed between Guy and Aerick, and comforted by both their body heat and the fact that they were so close, I sighed as I once again remembered that I was as safe as could possibly be with Scarlet in the room down the hall and Shadow in the one downstairs and tried to force myself to ignore the lingering thoughts in my head.
Why did the Sanguine want to kill me, I wondered, beyond for what I’d done to disrupt their feeding patterns. And why, I questioned, had the Agency not yet stopped them?
“It’s because they can’t,” I whispered. “Because there’s too many of them.”
Could the Agency employ the amount of Hunters necessary to kill the vampires that were threatening my existence, or did they just not believe them to be a big enough threat?
Vampire attacks are becoming more frequent in the Austin area, Scarlet had said.
If that were the case, why wasn’t something being done?
Politics, I thought. Pure, unadulterated politics.
With a sigh, I cast the covers off myself and crawled out of bed, toward the window whose screen had since been reset upon our return to the home. The door, however, had yet to be fixed, and as I caught sight of it in my peripheral, I shivered with the knowledge that they had been that close to getting a hold of me.
It would’ve only taken a creature slightly stronger than a Howler for them to bowl through the door and tear me limb from limb.
As I stood at the window, watching the rain fall on a night when it seemed as though everything was at stake, I crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes as I listened to the sound of the rain.
Thunder struck.
I jumped.
I opened my eyes.
I stood in the presence of a frigid landscape. Wearing only my underwear but not cold in the slightest, I stepped forward and watched as before me appeared the Kelda, head held high and the honeycomb nodules on her head glowing like the Aurora Borealis.
Jason, she said. DePella.
“Kelda Folkhagi,” I said. “Mother.”
Her essence swarmed about me, causing my body to become nearly unbearably comfortable with chill. Snow—gifted from the heavens—reigned supreme in this bizarre twilight, in this strange and sensual world, and though I tried my hardest not to falter in the presence of a being whom I knew did not judge me, I found myself trembling beneath her.
Her eyes—they were black.
Her spirit—it was not.
It glowed, stupendously, in the light radiating from her being, and caused my eyes to dilate in order to adjust to the light emanating from the stones about her person.
You have come because you have sought counsel, the Supreme Being said. Because you are troubled in an hour in which there is naught.
In which there was naught? Naught what? Understanding? If that were the case, then she was right, because I did not understand anything that was happening.
“I wish to know how to rid myself of the Sanguine,” I said. “I want them gone. Forever.”
The Starchildren are part of the balance, the Kelda said. Part of the trinity that sustains the Earth as a whole. But… you… you may find a way to your salvation through means of negotiation.
What could I use to negotiate with them though? I had nothing—nothing—that they could possibly want. My blood might not suffice. But if I had something else to give, then maybe…
I trembled as the snowstorm around us began to increase in intensity, shivering as my nipples hardened to diamond points and as the hairs on my body rose in an effort to sustain my person. I ran my hands first down my arms, then across my abdomen, over the fine trail of hair beneath my belly button and then to the swell of fabric over my waistline. The Kelda, in response, watched me, tilting her head as if she were a curious cat viewing the most unfortunate bird that she was meant to catch. As she watched, and a
s she shivered, I tried to determine just what I could possibly bargain with them, but found nothing other than what had been stated before.
Pierre had made a deal with the local Sanguine, Aerick had said. That they would stop feeding off the human population if they got a string of Howlers in exchange.
“No,” I said. “I couldn’t.”
You know what they wish, the Kelda replied, what they demand, what they require.
“I’m not sacrificing Aerick just to make them leave me alone,” I replied. “Besides—who’s to say that they would even leave me alone?”
There’s no telling what they may or may not do, Jason DePella. Only time would tell.
Only time would tell? I laughed. I couldn’t believe that this creature—this so-called benevolent being, this keeper of the people and mother of the Kaldr—was telling me that I should solve my dilemma through blood.
I shook my head, then, and crossed my arms over my chest in an effort to appear as confrontational as possible. “No,” I said. “I’m not doing it.”
Then I will give you but one message, she said as she opened her arms and ushered in the lightning that I feared so much—as it flashed and radiated throughout the sky and threatened to send me into a panic. They dwell in the south where the dead things lay—where time has preserved their essence and humanity has made fit to make them a spectacle. This is what I will tell you, Jason DePella, and this is what I offer: a chance, a warning, an opportunity to make right what has been wronged. The trinity has been usurped by your decisions. Only you can make right what has been soiled and tainted.
Lightning flashed.
I screamed.
I threw myself forward.
“Jason,” Aerick breathed. “What happened?”
“The… Kelda,” I said, only briefly taking note of the swell in the sheets as Guy rose and placed a hand at my back. “She… she came to me.”
“And what did she say?” Guy asked.
“That the trinity has been usurped,” I replied, “and that only I can fix it.”
“How?”