Vampire Miami

by Philip Tucker

  “I needed to know that you would. I am pleased.”

  She didn’t even try to understand him. He looked almost small, a slight man, his skin bronze in a manner that no human skin could ever be. The kind of man you might lose sight of in a crowd were it not for his world-devouring eyes. She began to move faster, skipping down the steps, picking up speed. Ever faster, allowing her pain and despair to propel her forward, forward into oblivion.

  He never moved, not that she saw. One moment he stood solid, the next his fingers gently closed around her outflung fist and he was at her side, his arm guiding her forward momentum down and then up so that she lost her balance, her footing, and flipped into the air. The world spun crazily, and she fought to right herself even as she fell, headlong, onto the pavement below. She hit hard. Didn’t bounce, but rather slid, flipped midslide, and came up into a crouch, one hand down on the pavement to arrest her momentum, heart sinking as she saw the vampire king begin to ascend the steps toward Cloud. Who forced himself to stand, who faced the monster as he came, and did not run.

  One last time. One last chance. She threw herself forward, raced up the steps so quickly, she could’ve run across water. Right at Sawiskera’s back. Leaped at him, seeking him with both hands, but once again he wasn’t there. He was beside her, his elbow buried so deeply into her spine that she went from moving forward to slamming straight down onto the steps, chin cracking on stone, back wrenching into utter agony and fire, thoughts broken and unable to reform.

  Selah lay still, groaning. Watched, unable to move, as Sawiskera stepped up to where Cloud stood, and looked up at the taller youth. She tried to stand. Her back felt broken. She couldn’t move her legs. The pain was coming for her like a red tide, sweeping up the reaches of her mind, seeking to drown her. She gritted her teeth. Reached out with shaking hands and pulled herself up a step. The effort caused her to cry out in sheer torture. It was too much. She fought, fought as hard as she could, but the pain was a growing coruscation and it took her mind and drowned it in an infinity of fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Selah fought for consciousness, to emerge from the dark fist by fist, as if a rope hung from the land of the living down into the black pit in which she had fallen. Fought for thought, for perception, for an awareness of self. Dimly became aware that she was hanging from her arms, her shoulders in agony from taking her weight, hands numb from where the circulation had been cut off. She managed to get her feet under her and stood, taking the pressure off. Straightened and forced her eyes open.

  A large room. Caramel marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows along one side. She recognized this place. Where she had first spoken with Karl and Charles. The penthouse apartment. She was tied to a marble column, and tied firmly. She was about to test her bonds when she saw Cloud seated in an armchair, head hanging down before his chest, clearly unconscious.

  “Cloud!” she cried. He didn’t respond. He was still alive, though. Why else would they put him in a chair? She struggled against the wires that bit into her wrists, but couldn’t snap them. Most of Theo’s vigor had left her. She cried out in frustration and put all her strength into snapping her bonds, but succeeded only in drawing blood.

  Selah subsided. Looked out the window, and saw that the moon was low in the sky. It had to be around—three or four in the morning? Sunrise wasn’t far off. Her passive acceptance was gone, it seemed, and now she was a snarl of anger, the sight of Cloud inciting her to fight on. She looked about her feet. Nothing but smooth marble. She shook her bonds once more, and then sank back against the pillar.

  The door opened, and Sawiskera stepped inside. He was bare-chested, his physique compact and without an ounce of fat. Skin burnished as if by ancient suns, his braids pushed behind his shoulders. He walked in a wide circle about the room, and then came to a stop before Selah to examine her with those damned eyes of his.

  She wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. She didn’t speak, but did the only thing she could in this situation—she raised her chin, and looked at him with complete disdain.

  “You are a rare gift, Selah Brown.” His voice was strange, the sentence disjointed as if the words fit poorly together. “One that I have waited centuries for.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “You’ve no idea how happy that makes me.”

  Sawiskera seemed unperturbed by the venom in her voice. “When last I came across one such as you, I did not want the gift he had to offer. Now, however, I am ready.”

  “Gift?” She stopped. “What are you talking about? You mean, my blood?”

  “No.” He stood still. No pacing, no moving of his arms, his head. There was a preternatural discipline in how immobile he was, how divorced he was from normal human body language. “Your ignorance is not surprising. Few who walk these nights know what your heritage is, and your consequent potential. What you can offer a vampire such as myself. I was surprised and pleased when Karl Plessy approached me. It is rare for one as young as he to have absorbed so much lore in so short a time.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “My brother’s blood flows through your veins. You are a child of Teharonhiawako, and though his blood has been diluted by countless generations, it still protects you from the dark. We are family, you and I.” Selah heard the words, but they were meaningless. It couldn’t be. She wanted to rub her face, to laugh, but all she could do was shake her head mutely. Sawiskera’s lips pulled back from his teeth in what could have been an attempt at a smile. “If one such as myself drinks of your blood, then I can, for a few hours, partake of your humanity. Teharonhiawako’s goodness can redeem even those as fallen as my children. You, in turn, enjoy the powers of my kind, and then the exchange fades and we return to our normal state. There is, however, a means to permanently effect this exchange. For one who knows the correct ritual, it is possible to take your humanity, to become human. Forever.”

  Selah’s heart stuttered. She stared at him. “What are you saying? You’re going to steal my … humanity?”

  Sawiskera smiled then, and it was a horrible expression. There was foolishness in it, inhuman happiness. No, that wasn’t quite it: rather that it was a smile that a child might give, without self-consciousness, without guile. Sawiskera smiled at her, and nodded.

  “I grow tired. I long to see the sun with my own eyes. My feud with my brother has grown so old that it no longer sustains me. For centuries I have contented myself with possessing the spirits of animals and riding their bodies by day. Seeing the blue sky and the yellow sun through their eyes. And for a while, that was sufficient. Then you humans invented the television, a means to capture the very rays of the sun itself so that one can watch it forever. I thought that might suffice, but it has only quickened my desire. I want to feel its warmth on my skin. To see the world lit in bright colors. I want to laugh in the light of my brother, to raise my hands to him and call him down in peace. I want the day. You will make that possible.”

  “No,” said Selah, voice trembling, quiet. Then it spiked up into a shout, “No! You can’t do that! You can’t—you can’t—”

  “But I can,” said Sawiskera, stepping forward, “and I will. Once Karl told me of what you were, our fates became intertwined. I only needed you to fulfill the one condition that the rite requires for us to proceed, and tonight, you have shown yourself willing.”

  “What condition?” Selah tried to guess it, thinking desperately through what had happened. Wondering if she could foil it, even now.

  “For the rite to work, you have to willingly undergo it. Teharonhiawako was a creature of good; you have to agree to the exchange out of love.”

  Selah laughed. “Then you’re out of luck. Here’s an update you might’ve missed: I don’t love you, I don’t want to give you my humanity, so sorry. You got it all wrong.”

  “You don’t have to love me.” He was infuriatingly patient, calm. “You have to agree to the exchange out of love. You risked your life for this man. What is that if not love? I wi
ll compel you by threatening him. If you do not agree to this, then I will hurt him until you do.” Sawiskera smiled at her again, that smile of a child. “I am good at making pain, at making it last. I can break his spirit slowly, so that by the end, he will not be the man you know. So that by the end, you will cry and be broken in turn for having allowed it to happen, and beg for me to end his torment. You will even agree to kill him yourself to grant him peace. Know that this is true: I have done this before, many, many times.”

  His eyes devoured her. They were the bright, black eyes of an animal, a bird of prey. There was nothing in them that she recognized, nothing at all. Her mouth was dry. She tried to swallow, barely managed. Oh, Cloud. She looked at him, at his tousled mop of black hair. She couldn’t see his face. Recalled his smile when she appeared in the cage to save him. His ironic smile, relieved and confident both, his smile that showed that despite it all, they hadn’t yet even come close to breaking him. She gazed into Sawiskera’s eyes. This one could. She knew it. He could break Cloud, and through him, he could break her.

  Selah closed her eyes. Could she do it? Could she agree? Become a vampire. A monster. Even the best of men and women when embraced became callous, indifferent. They changed. She wouldn’t be Selah, not anymore. Nor would she be simply dead; it would be a form of walking purgatory, an ongoing eternity of nights filled with blood and pain and hunger. She would inflict countless horrors upon others, and she wouldn’t care. She would enjoy it.

  Selah shook her head. It was too much. She couldn’t encompass the enormity of it. Couldn’t understand what was at stake, not really. She took a shuddering breath, then a second. Fought for calm. Looked up at Cloud. Where he sat. Could she live with herself if she allowed him to die instead? She couldn’t face that. Couldn’t think of it. Two impossibilities. Both led to damnation, but one allowed Cloud to walk free.

  She thought of his lips on hers. That one moment of bliss in the madness of the arena. She thought of his kiss, his laughter, and closed her eyes. The fight went out of her. For a moment that seemed infinite while it lasted she fought the words that had to come, but then she nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sawiskera didn’t laugh, didn’t celebrate in any way. He simply nodded. This was what he’d known would happen. She hated him for his confidence, his surety in manipulating her. He walked away, and after three steps was simply gone. Selah stared at the door, looked around quickly. Just gone.

  “Cloud?” She tried to keep her voice steady. His head hung still. “Cloud? Please wake up. Please …”

  He didn’t respond. She blinked furiously against the tears. Think. Think. What could she do? Who could help her? Hector? No. He was long gone, if he hadn’t already been caught. Maria Elena, Mama B? Back at the Palisades, injured and heartbroken. Even if they tried to come for her, how would they even get in the building, much less up here? General Adams? He probably didn’t even know what had happened, where she was. And he’d said the US government had refused to directly intervene. Theo? Trapped in a cell of his own making, bound by laws of obedience woven into his very blood. Who? Cholly was dead. Cassie and Joey too. There was nobody else. Nobody.

  She rested her head against the column. Thought of her father. Imagined him swinging in through the window on the end of a rope, gun in hand, glass shattering before his feet. Swinging in to save her, helicopter outside to whisk them away. Almost smiled at the ridiculous image, which in turn brought back her tears. How she missed him. What she would do to see him one last time.

  Sawiskera returned. He was suddenly crouched before her, carefully pouring out a white powder in a circle around her. He poured carefully, drawing a line all about her pillar, and with that completed he placed a small woven red mat on the ground just outside it. He opened a simple leather pack and drew out feathers, beads, strangely colored stones. These he set before him with ceremonial deliberateness. He disappeared. Selah was almost getting used to this. A few minutes passed, and he was back, setting a beaten copper bowl on the ground before his mat. Into this he poured a mess of small branches and kindling, which he then efficiently arranged into a small chimney. He waved his hand over the small branches and they caught fire, crackling into flame as if by magic.

  Selah watched, mesmerized. He tossed different powders into the fire, and the smoke took on a sweet smell. Sawiskera sat back on his heels, closed his eyes, and went still. That vampiric immobility. Selah tugged at her bonds again. Gazed out the windows. Only an hour or so left before dawn. The smoke that had at first been sweet began to take on a cloying smell. It hung in the air, not dissipating, and soon she saw it follow the circle of white powder, blindly tracing its course so within five minutes, the white powder circle was mirrored by a hovering one of gray smoke.

  Sawiskera opened his eyes and began to chant. Selah couldn’t make out the words, or even the separation between them. The tones rose and fell, from guttural croaks to high-pitched calls, streaming ever on without pause for breath, a horrifying torrent of sound that no human could ever make. He stared right at her as he chanted, and the sound of his voice began to reverberate in her mind, echo within the confines of her skull. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to dislodge it from her mind, but it only grew louder. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus. The words mixed with the smoke and made her feel nauseated, panicked. She thrashed against her bonds, and then gave in, panting.

  On and on went the words, the sound intrusive, invasive, and it felt as if they were slowly sliding around her mind like fingers tickling their way under the belly of a fish, softly and subtly encircling it. Getting between her thoughts and her self, creating a barrier so that she panicked once more, tried to thrash, and realized that she could do little more than groan and stir her arms.

  Selah fought to open her eyes. She couldn’t do more than crack them open. The fire before Sawiskera seemed to have grown into a tall spear of flame, impossibly high, a tongue of crimson that danced and weaved like a cobra, the rest of the room hidden behind a wall of smoke that now stretched from ground to ceiling. She tried to stand, tried to do anything, but couldn’t. Her body was numb, no longer hers. His words and sounds poured into her mind, around it, and she tried to scream. Was unable to even lift her head.

  He stood, then. Stepped through the smoke, over the white powder, and right up to her. Reached up and broke her bonds with ease, and cut deeply into each of her palms with one of his nails. She didn’t even feel the pain. Stood swaying as if held up by a great invisible hand. Watched with horror as he sliced each of his own palms deeply, as his black blood welled up, and then she closed her eyes as he took her left hand in his left and her right in his right, wrists crossed, their wounds pressed together.

  It was too much. Too much. She felt his blood press into the cut in her palm like an eel might force itself through a bank of weeds. It wasn’t passive bleeding but a questing, thrusting of his blood. And her own blood in turn began to pour into his palm, so that within moments his blood was circulating into her body, hers into his. The smoke, his words, all of it crashing upon her.

  Selah felt something dislodge itself from her core. From within the center of her body, close to her heart—but it was deeper than that, somehow, from some dimension that was not physical. It was the essence of self, and it slowly pulled away from her body, began to lift. Selah gasped, choked. It was a pain beyond mere physical agony. This was a desecration of her spirit. She shivered, shook, but could not break his grip. Could not fall, could not pull away. Watched, numb with shock, as her spirit began to flow through her right palm into his.

  And then, somehow, the ritual became worse. Something was flowing out of his left hand. Coursing into her along with his blood. Something foul and putrid, black and rancid. It was alive, in its own distorted way, a power, a need. It was a hunger, a blind and demanding appetite that at last did make her scream, despite all the bonds that held her. She threw her head back as that violation entered her lef
t arm, and screamed, screamed for the death of her self, her innocence, her spirit.

  Cataclysm. It was as if a lightning bolt of searing mercury blasted her, and she felt Sawiskera being wrenched away. Flung from her, their bond broken. Selah fell to her knees, mind reeling, their connection broken. What remained of her spirit flooded back into her, and the infection severed, so that what she had received wiggled into her core, leaving the rest in Sawiskera. She fell forward, onto her hands, her face pressed against carpet. Coughed. Sobbed. Looked up.

  Theo stood tall and terrible between her and Sawiskera, who was gazing up at him with the first human expression she’d seen on his face: fury. Theo’s fists were balled, his feet shoulder-width apart. Ready, chin lowered. Staring at his sire, whom he had just flung aside. Had just impossibly flung aside.

  “You dare,” hissed Sawiskera. “You dare!”

  “You’re worse than filth,” said Theo. “All these years. All these years I’ve done what you’ve asked. Never had a choice. Now I do. And I aim to redress those wrongs.”

  Sawiskera rose to his feet. Selah slowly stood as well. The nausea was deep in her belly as if a bucket of slime had been poured down her throat. Her head throbbed and her spirit throbbed, violated in some visceral, unthinkable manner. But something else—a deep and alien strength roared within her now, akin to the pounding of the ocean on the shore. Instead of feeling weak and bewildered by what had happened, Selah reached for her anger and found it. Reached for this new strength, this power that Sawiskera had poured into her, as great as storm clouds and as harrowing as forest fires, and let it lift her to her feet.