by J. E. Cammon
Once free, Scarlet took a rapid step backwards, her body poised for some attack or defense. David gave her a wide berth on her path to the kitchen where she retrieved all of her things. Nick hid his surprise at that, a part of him wagering her to at some point turn around and start the entire evening all over again. For whatever reason, she did not.
Before leaving the apartment proper, however, Scarlet mentioned again that she would be finding the truth of all of this, and all responsible would pay a dear price. Right then Nick really hoped that he wasn’t responsible. He could tell she meant it. He wanted to say something—not just something, but something important and life changing. He knew what he wanted the words to say, but not what they were; he knew what he wanted the words to achieve, but not how they could.
Then she was gone, and Nick was alone with a lycanthrope who was wearing a pair of his sweatpants; it was also likely that he had moderate internal bleeding.
“I hope Jarvis isn’t involved,” Nick said some time after Scarlet left.
“Me too,” David replied. “For her sake.” He saw Nick’s expression and shrugged. “He isn’t nearly as nice and forgiving a guy as me.”
Nick tried sticking the two of them on a comparative scale, lifting each up and down on whim. He came up with no argument.
David looked down at the crisp school logo on the thigh of the pants. “Man, I gotta find a new place to live.”
Chapter Eleven
Jarvis said once to David that the most telling characteristic about any person was how they reacted in the face of fear. They were watching a movie on his television, and during a cold winter scene, a group of people marched through the white snow with orange torches and wide eyes.
“So trite, but so true,” Jarvis said. It was one of his more eloquent moments, and even then he mumbled it. Normal ears wouldn’t hear him.
The people in the movie beat down the gates, slew the monster, and the dawn rose on a changed day. Jarvis wasn’t sure until later about who was supposed to have won. He made his statement about fear because the movie triggered a memory in him.
He was young, then. Time was different; the sun went down, and came back up. It got cold, stayed cold, and then eventually it became warm again. The night in question happened during the cold time, and despite the light from the torches making the night look like morning, they provided no warmth to speak of.
The Mistress, that’s what she wished to be called, bade him go and defend her. He could not deny her; she commanded and he obeyed. He supposed it was his nature, to be a tool. It didn’t happen like in the movie. The frightened people with their big eyes were a field of scarecrows, almost frozen with their thin skin and fragile bones. He was young. Jarvis bathed in the senselessness of so much death; his task was a dull memory and the reasoning behind it was even further away. He was like a spear thrust into their midst, and out of their back.
When he was done, he turned to see the light from the burning manor. Jarvis stood there for a long time marveling at how fluid and slippery time could be. He was even more surprised by his sense of allegiance to the woman who ended and began him.
The men who killed her hid among the dross of terrified farmers and townsfolk. They had special weapons and tools, the like he would see again; but that was the first, confusing time. She was laying amongst them, still clinging to whatever it was their kind clung to at the end. She might have survived, too, had Jarvis not decided to take her head with him and leave her body there. She couldn’t stop him, and when she realized she couldn’t control him, she begged like a spoiled child. They were less and yet greater than they were in life. No one knew what Jarvis was in the beginning, which always made his ends that much more unpredictable.
That same, uncertain terror was what he imagined the old homeless man saw a split second before he was dragged down into the sewer. Part of Jarvis was surprised that the man allowed his curiosity to endanger him in that way, but man’s curse was his endless wondering. Jarvis took a moment to ponder at where the transient’s loved ones were, and if they were thinking of him. There was the yip of a stray dog and the scream of an onlooker from across the street. Jarvis was as careful as he could to get at the blood without killing the man. His prey squirmed, his desire even for his downtrodden existence resurgent, but in the end he was still and quiet.
The flow of time felt even murkier than usual, but the vampire would say that he wasn’t significantly injured in decades. To regenerate broken bones and ruptured flesh took a surprising store of living blood. Burned tissue was even more demanding. The old man was mostly empty before Jarvis regained enough lower body structure to walk. He left him there, a mute witness at the bottom of the drain. Jarvis distracted himself wondering about those who would point feverishly at the drain, tell their stories, conduct their investigations, and make up their legends. Going from hearsay to a crowd of torch bearers required a smaller step than he knew most people would believe.
Jarvis was near the side of town with the house he dwelled in when the sun mercifully set, and he set to outlining the Moguls’ territory in terror and death. As the night crept on, Jarvis came to realize many things. The killing of the betrayer at his home left him with a much greater reservoir to fill and a fuzzy sort of inkling that he only experienced a few times before, most recently with Nick’s escaped summoned visitor. His memory engaged when he tried to find the language to articulate how he was feeling. The Mistress came to his mind—her lessons and her large, empty eyes. “Threshold,” was the word she used.
Jarvis rolled a dead man onto his back and robbed him. He found another constable’s badge and suspected that he should be paying more attention to things. That made him think of David, and of Nick. They were more finite; it was natural for them to think about day-to-day consequences. Jarvis could do the same thing with years, but to examine something so tiny required concentration. They were better at the finer details of shorter context.
Jarvis posed the man into the symbolic posture so that the kills would count as the Moguls’. It was important to Bethel that he be feared. The youth was so unlike his father.
Reaching David’s was an experiment in discovering to what extent the betrayer’s severing changed him. The man was strong; that was Jarvis’ conclusion after experiencing a few things. Among these, there was the newfound ease of motion. Reaching the top of a building became as easy as reaching out his hand to touch the edge of its roof and willing himself there. It might be thrilling under different circumstances.
Stalking into view of the huge dwelling allowed him to see that David wasn’t there, and probably wouldn’t be coming back. A woman, vaguely familiar, was standing in the living room, visible because of the large hole in the side of the building. She was talking to half a dozen other people. Some of them were policemen, some were not. Jarvis could even hear bits of conversation, the blowing wind willing, but there were still so many noises in-between him and the apartment that it was more distracting than anything.
Jarvis knew the distant horizon would be developing a rosy tint soon. Being caught outside at day more than once in the same week was living beyond his want. Jarvis pondered for a moment that stretched farther than he intended, and realized he had no idea where Nick lived. He was reasonably confident that’s where David would be. He was running or chasing something, most likely chasing. The vampire spied some of the lycanthrope’s favorite things still on the mantle and kitchen tabletop. He would take those things with him, even if there was a fire. Those were the words David used. Jarvis stared across the street, focusing on the fleshy details of the woman’s face. This was definitely not the first time he saw her, or even the second.
In the stairwell behind him, people were talking as they made their way to the roof. Jarvis stepped from his perch into the alley below, deciding that it might be better to walk home, at a mortal pace. On the way, he passed the diner that never closed; insi
de there were people asking questions about David at the counter—David and anyone else seen with him.
Jarvis crossed the lane, putting his back to the entire situation. He remembered from before how sometimes things changed after sleeping. It was like he took a nap and things happened in the meantime. Jarvis couldn’t remember what dreams were like, but he heard them described.
Moving through the quiet streets with the dark faces of homes on both sides, Jarvis eased back into his habit of seeing things from a distance rather than up close. The city grew, strangely in both size and speed. The forest was pushed back, but fear returned to the people in the form of unknown alleys or mysterious next streets over.
Jarvis never thought of any place as his home, not the way people meant. His thoughts recalled the sentiment the Mistress expressed on that evening, and it made him pause. Others came to visit her and left, and they all had different opinions, different reactions to this existence of theirs. Hers was the least accommodating, and the most intractable.
“I’ve run before,” she said. “This is my home now, and if they want it, they can come and take it.”
It never occurred to him to go to the house he used, pack the few things he possessed in a bag and simply leave.
His first thoughts were on finding David and mending whatever was broken. Inside him there was a stirring, and it wasn’t the realization of the ironic similarity between himself and his Mistress. He wasn’t sure what it was he was clinging to, but that didn’t make it any less precious, he realized. Jarvis remembered the old beggar man’s glassy eyes. He and that dead man were alike with no effort or fault on the part of either.
That thought pocketed, Jarvis looked for the solid comfort of the sharp steel he carried. Looking up, he searched the sky for stars, those little dots of light that defied the dark blanket that made the world sleep and fear. The city slowly swatted them from the sky as the years went by, but his vision could ferret out the remainder wherever they hid. A few of them winked down at him, content not to know who was staring back. What mysteries they saw and would never tell.
It was one of the very few times Jarvis could not easily access his indifference. He discovered what scared him the most before, and each time he realized it after forgetting made it fresh.
Chapter Twelve
When the sun came up, Jarvis rested. He sat on the floor in the basement, forced his eyelids closed, and waited.
The day brought as many surprises as the night. Through the tiny windows he could hear the neighbors and the animals, the sound of wind blowing between the buildings and leaves scraping across the ground. Things were clearer, and he could make them out at a greater distance. It was similar to waking up that first night; Jarvis thought he could hear everything and see everything, in comparison to how he heard and saw before. It was strange to think that he was so terrified of the change back then; everything scared him. Everything scared all of them.
In the midst of it all, the vampire only noticed the car’s engine when it turned off, the sudden absence of the sound followed by the closing of two car doors. Right after that he heard a conversation carried on by familiar voices.
“Oh wait, I just remembered, he won’t be happy I showed you where he lives. Don’t touch anything.” David.
“What did you think I was going to do?” Nick.
“You ask a lot of damned questions. It annoys him. It sort of annoys me, too. Just, you know, be quiet.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Do you feel…weird?”
“No. Why?” Nick asked. The two of them stopped moving.
“Nothing,” David said.
The lycanthrope was wrong. Nick’s questions didn’t annoy him. Jarvis didn’t know what annoyance was, really. It simply made things less problematic the less people knew. He contemplated on whether to stay or leave for much of the morning. What he discovered was that the more people knew, the more good would be done by leaving, but greater was the cause to stay. He unfolded himself and drifted upstairs towards the front door to open it before the knock came.
“Why does he live here, anyway?” Nick asked.
As David was answering, the vampire opened the door to find the two of them silhouetted against the bright sunlit world beyond, David’s arm upraised to knock.
“Please come inside so I can close the door.” Jarvis stepped away from the debilitating heat and let the two shuffle in. He closed the door, locking it fast.
“You don’t keep it locked when you’re here?” Nick asked.
Jarvis didn’t feel the need to answer. Instead, he walked deeper into the house, towards the stairwell that led down. The summoner did not speak again, and the two followed him down the old stairs. Once in the basement, he turned around to face them.
“Interesting choice of neighborhood,” Nick commented awkwardly.
David made a face like he was struck.
Jarvis addressed him, “The police were at your apartment.”
David made a different face now. “Yeah, that’s sort of why I’m here,” he admitted.
“You cannot stay here,” the vampire responded. It was a reflex he was unaware that he had.
David put his hands up defensively. “Oh no. No, no, no,” he waved his hands. “I don’t…I mean, I wasn’t going to ask that.” He put his hand behind his head and smoothed his hair down. “Not that the place isn’t nice,” he added quickly.
“He doesn’t have furniture,” Nick said. Then again, to Jarvis, “You don’t have furniture.”
David made the struck face again. “I need money,” he said quickly.
Jarvis nodded. It was a simple thing, the exchanging of paper for goods and services. The vampire surmised that he had more than some, perhaps more than most, but he also provided a highly illegal and specialized service to his employers. He stepped to a corner of the basement and reached inside one of the several garbage bags placed there. He blindly opened one of the mismatched luggage pieces he kept inside the bag and retrieved a stack of bills. He proffered them to David, whose mouth dropped open. So did Nick’s.
“Holy shit,” David said. Jarvis presumed that meant that it was more than enough. “Where in the…” He looked up into the vampire’s face, and stopped talking.
Nick looked like he hoped for the answer Jarvis never gave.
“This is enough,” the vampire stated simply.
“I’m sorry, but you really have garbage bags filled with money?” Nick said.
“Dammit! Will you shut up?” David snapped. To his credit, Nick actually reigned in his curiosity and closed his mouth. “Yeah, this is…damn. Yeah. I don’t know if this is going to fix things…” he trailed off.
It was Jarvis’ turn to be curious. “So, it isn’t enough money.”
David shook his head. “No, no, it’s not the money,” he said. “I can’t go back to work, I mean, the police are looking for me, and I can’t just…” He trailed off again, forgetting about the money in his hands. “I need to work, I need my credit. I have to live.” He looked up at Jarvis, and his expression changed a little when he realized the vampire had no reference for such ideas.
They talked once about what was necessary to live, how identity and that identity’s security became paramount. David had documentation revolving around where he was born, when he was born, what family he belonged to, and other things like that. They discussed giving Jarvis a last name; it wouldn’t mean anything, because he would have no connection to anyone else with that same name. Jarvis never had a family.
“This is great, thanks,” David said, sincerely and a bit sadly. Jarvis gathered that he felt bad about them being so different when their relationship was such that they could depend on each other. “I’ll pay you back,” he added.
“Don’t worry about it.” Jarvis mimicked a tone he heard before. The inter
change of lending between associates had a specific rhythm. David wasn’t going to pay Jarvis back, and David knew Jarvis didn’t need to be paid back. What would he buy? Mostly, the vampire kept the money around because of some distant feeling that if other people valued it that much, so should he.
“No, I’m serious.” David he looked at the money. “It’s going to take a while, a long while, but I will.”
The vampire nodded. Whether or not there would be any repayment was no longer important. What was important was that David promised. They had a pact.
“So, the police,” the big man reminded him.
“Yeah.” David tried folding the money initially and then, impatiently, just shoved the sack into one of his pockets. Nick didn’t hear the rip. “Nick’s girlfriend jumped me and I reacted sort of harshly.”
“Jumped you? You did kill one of her friends,” Nick retorted. He seemed conflicted.
“That was only after she jumped me. That guy was a casualty, technically.” David hesitated just so. He did not have the practiced posture of someone used to ending lives. “She had faerie dust and guns and a whole ninja get-up. It was crazy.”
“Nick’s girlfriend is a hunter,” Jarvis said flatly.
“Dammit, she is not my girlfriend,” Nick flared suddenly, offended almost.
“That’s what she said, yeah,” David said.
“They can be very dangerous,” Jarvis noted. “What happened to your clothes?”
“Well they got...oh no, these are Nick’s clothes. You run into these hunter types before?” He tugged at his pants and shirt, but he could not fix that they were simply too big.
“Many times. There was one near your building, several nights ago,” Jarvis said.
“I guess that’s not important now.” David looked over at Nick. “You better warn her. She comes looking around here, she might get shot by some of his neighbors.”