The Big Bad II

by John G. Hartness

  “No,” Harriman said, “we just come to the end of our usefulness. Why did you finish it, if you were just going to destroy it when I got here?”

  “I’m a scientist; this has been my life. I had to know if it worked.” He coughed and shifted painfully in the seat, arthritis hampering him as much as the wounded hand. “Smashing it was just for spite. But it isn’t necessary. You win. Go. Take it and go wage your xenophobic war. It won’t keep you from losing; it won’t keep the rest of us from rising up to stop you. And in the meantime, the chase has kept you from doing even more damage than you have.”

  Harriman gritted his teeth, his anger a white-hot star in his gut. “How clever. I hope it’s enough to comfort you while I torture Isobel to death in front of your eyes to atone for all the time you’ve taken from me and the rest of humanity.”

  Yalson half-rose from his seat.“You son of a bitch! Humanity!? How dare you speak of humanity! You haven’t got a shred of it, you soulless bastard! You’re not human, you’re a demon from hell! You’re an abomination, the embodiment of the spirit that drove all of us to flee from Sol in the first place! The fear of difference, the...the racism that you all hold so dear and call your purity!”

  “Racism? I’m the one trying to pull us all back together! To unite us all the way we were meant to be! Racism? You’re the ones that have splintered humanity into a thousand tiny shards, split us into little covens that are all defined by our differences! It’s that very...tribalism that I’m fighting against!”

  Yalson had drawn back from the wild light in Harriman’s eyes, and Harriman relished it, bracing himself and leaning into the old man. “You’ve used the time and distance between our worlds to isolate yourselves, to tinker and play with your genetics and your minds and experiment with ways of being different from us. And humanity has stagnated because of it! Wasted its potential in uncoordinated, disjointed meandering! Your device, the ability to communicate in real time across any distance, will break that isolation, unite our efforts! And you dare withhold it? You dare to think that you have the right to decide how it will be used? It is necessary, and it is needed, and that need will follow you to the ends of the universe until it is fulfilled! Just like I will.”

  Yalson’s voice was bitter, afraid. “You’re insane.”

  “No.” Harrison’s eyes were afire. “I am nothing more than what you said: I am the embodiment of the spirit of Sol, the spirit of humanity, and I am here to take what is rightfully mine!”

  Yalson was silent for several moments, then smiled a slow, sad smile. “Yours, eh? Not really, I don’t think. I meant what I said before: you win. You want this thing, you can have it. But I don’t think you’re going to like it very much.” Before Harriman could ask what he meant by that, Yalson reached over and flipped a switch.

  The colors in the device began shifting faster and the coiled eye blurred again, the blur quickly spreading throughout the device even as the colors made a sudden shift down into deep indigo and once again seemed to exceed the boundaries of the crystal. Yalson gave Harriman one more significant glance before pressing another button. Speakers arrayed on the far wall came to life in a cacophony of sounds. Nothing recognizable came from them; it was all clicks, beeps, dots and dashes, each speaker seemingly feeding a separate channel of independent noise.

  No, not noise.

  Harriman realized in a sudden flash that each one was actually a modulated signal: communication. He rounded on Yalson.

  “Someone else has developed the technology? While I’ve been chasing you, someone else was working on it and...and...” The room seemed to spin for a moment as a chasm of possibility opened up beneath him. It had never occurred to him, but now, all that time, had someone else beaten him to the prize? But Yalson gave him a deep, mirthless chuckle.

  “Someone, yes, but not who you think. Sol never worked out the equations, and when you started chasing us from colony to colony, the theories we had got bottled up with us and weren’t shared with anyone else. As far as humanity is concerned, this was a dead end and the technology was abandoned.”

  Harriman’s brow furrowed. “But then, who...” His eyes widened.

  Yalson nodded, his grin spreading. “Yes.” He gestured at the speakers. “And there’s more than one. I’m picking up signals from several widely different directions. No idea how far away. Could be in the next galaxy, could be in the next star system. We always wondered why we never saw evidence of other intelligences in the universe. Lot of people took it as proof that we were the only ones. Turns out, we were just behind the curve. Still bumbling about with radio while everybody else had moved on to better technology.” His smile turned feral. “What does that do to your grand plans?”

  Harriman didn’t answer, just stared at the wall of speakers, listening to the sounds. His mind reeled and they faded, blending together into a white noise like the sound of waves upon a shore. His vision of a united humanity, held firm and strong across the thousand light years of the colonized worlds, suddenly felt very small and vulnerable, a castle made of sand. There was a vast ocean suddenly before him, an inhuman and uncaring sea that lapped hungrily at his feet. And the tide was coming in.

  I Think of Snow

  J. Matthew Saunders

  The weathergirl says the temperature is going to be over a hundred again tomorrow in Los Angeles, and I think of snow. It actually accumulated on the Hollywood sign in 1949. Yet when I close my eyes a far different memory comes to me. Delicate white flakes fall on the gray fur trim of Lilliana’s coat as she steps out of the carriage. The apples of her cheeks are flush from the cold. I admire her beautiful heart-shaped face, her small, slightly upturned nose, her almond-shaped, crystal blue eyes. A stray ringlet of black hair falls from underneath her fur shapka, breaking her perfect poise only for a second. I know from that moment our fates will be forever intertwined. But it is a memory from a place eight thousand miles and two hundred years away from here.

  Right now there is nothing I can do until the sun sets. I turn off the television, cutting off the weathergirl’s inane chatter mid-sentence, and amble to my darkened bedroom. I don’t need the sleep, but I welcome the few hours of unconsciousness. It’s the only time the memories of Lilliana do not haunt me.

  ***

  When I wake up I know what time it is without looking at the clock—a little after eight, and the sun has only just set. I hate summer. The long days keep me inside more than I’d like, but I remind myself it would be worse in Moscow or Petersburg. In either of the two cities I called home before this one, I’d only have about five hours of reprieve from the daylight this time of year.

  I get out of bed and pull off my rumpled shirt. I settle on a new one after some deliberation, taking care to leave the top two buttons undone. I grab my hat, then push back the curtains and open the door to the balcony. Outside I let the warm breeze and the din from the street thirty-six floors below wash over me. I can see the entire city from up here. Los Angeles is nothing like Moscow or Petersburg, but at night it’s almost beautiful.

  I swing one leg over the railing, then the other. Climbing down the side of the building is faster than waiting for the elevator. I don’t worry about being seen. Anyone who does see me won’t remember anything more than an odd shadow.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later I find myself in a small house in Arlington Heights. A woman stands next to an open window studying me, a cigarette balanced in her long, elegant fingers. She has tried to tame her wild brown hair in a ponytail with only partial success.

  “Something is bothering you, vampire,” she says.

  I hate it when she calls me that.

  I gesture to a shrine in the corner of the room, the ceramic statue there surrounded by flowers, candles, fruit, coins, and several small glasses of gold-colored liquid I assume is tequila. The expression on the saint’s face might be described as placid if it weren’t painted
to resemble a skull. “Your saints are mistaken this time, Mercedes.”

  A faint smile plays across her lips. “The saints are never mistaken, but I don’t have to consult them to know something is wrong, Valentin. You hardly ever come here anymore. Why tonight?”

  The warm night air flows in through the window, billowing the sheer curtains and carrying with it the scent of oleander as well as the sound of barking dogs, police sirens, and a lonely melody played on a distant guitar. For years, Mercedes has been my supplier for prescription drugs from Mexico and one of the few humans I could almost call a friend. She’s right, but I resent the fact she can read me so well.

  “Maybe I just needed a change of scenery.”

  “Maybe you’re looking for some sort of guidance.”

  I laugh. “Guidance? From you?”

  “Why is it such a strange idea?”

  I peer at her over the rim of my glasses. I don’t need them to see, but someone told me once they make me look dapper. “Your God doesn’t accept me, remember? Rosaries, crucifixes—they’re not very good for my health.”

  “You’re thinking of the Pope’s God. Maybe mine is a little more accommodating.”

  I glance again at the shrine in the corner. “She is Santa Muerte, right? Saint Death?”

  “If your kind has a patron saint, can you think of a better one?” She puts out her cigarette in the ashtray perched on the windowsill. “Why do you still torture yourself, Valentin? There’s nothing you could have done.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not true. I should have been able to save her, Mercedes. If I had been a second faster, I would have taken that goddamned werewolf’s head off.”

  “But you did eventually have your revenge.”

  “It doesn’t bring Lilliana back,” I snap. “You of all people should understand that.”

  For several moments Mercedes gazes out the window into the blackness. When she turns back to me, her eyes are wet. “You may ask the saint a question, if you like.”

  “How do I do that?”

  She rifles through the drawer of a nearby desk, then hands me a slip of paper and a pen. “Write it down. Then set it aflame with one of the candles. The smoke will carry your question to her.”

  I do as she says, writing in Russian. The Cyrillic letters give me a certain amount of comfort and ensure Mercedes can’t read my question. I approach the shrine, expecting the pain to come, but to my surprise, it doesn’t. Maybe she’s right. I study the statue of Saint Death, adorned in her white robes and holding an hourglass. Then I touch the paper to the flame of one of the candles. It lights easily. There is a small ceramic bowl next to the statue containing the ashes of what I guess are other petitions. I drop the burning paper into the bowl and watch the pungent black smoke swirl around Santa Muerte.

  I whisper her name.

  ***

  My next appointment is in a park within a gated community called Bel Air Havens. All around the perimeter the would-be palaces loom in the darkness, their shadowy façades more frightening to me than any baroque cathedral. I am meeting Chelsea, a blonde rising high school junior with serious social ambitions. A pretty girl, albeit in a generic sort of way. She is already there when I arrive.

  “You’re late, Valentine,” she says, glaring.

  I cringe. “My name is Valentin. Vah-len-teen. Valya if you’re my mother. Valentin Vladimirovich Kovalevsky if you owe me money.”

  She smirks. “Whatever. I told you I didn’t care about learning your Commie language.”

  “I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party,” I respond, placing my hand over my heart.

  The joke is lost on her. “Look, do you have the stuff or not?”

  “My special party assortment.” I hold up a bottle and shake it so the pills inside rattle.

  “Good, because the last batch from you was shit. You made me look like an idiot. I’m lucky anyone is even coming to another party thrown by me.”

  Not for the first time, I think about how similar American high school is to the court in Imperial Russia. Although a nobleman trying to curry favor with the tsar would blanch at the lengths a high school girl will go to in order to get in the head cheerleader’s good graces.

  She goes for the bottle, but I snatch it away. “Ah-ah, you know the rules. Money first, then the goods.”

  Chelsea reaches inside her t-shirt, clumsily inserting her fingers into her bra. She catches me looking and smiles. I don’t doubt the maneuver would work on an addle-brained teenaged boy, but to me she’s just a little girl trying to play grown-up. She hands me the cash, and I toss her the bottle.

  “Thanks, Valentine,” she says with a wink before she runs off.

  I turn to go myself, but stop when I see a slight movement by the trunk of a nearby tree.

  “I know you’re there,” I say. “You may as well come out.”

  A girl emerges from the shadows. Unlike Chelsea, her older sister Natalie has black hair to match her Goth fashion, but they both have crystal blue eyes. Natalie’s spark with an intelligence I find...intriguing. Mercedes thinks I’m still beating myself up over my failure to save Lilliana, but that’s not the whole truth. What has been troubling me ever since I met Natalie is that she and Lilliana look almost exactly alike.

  “Hi, Valentin,” she says. “Dapper as usual this evening. I like the fedora.”

  I keep walking. “I thought I told you to stay away unless you’re going to buy something.”

  She pulls closer. “You did say that, but I need to talk to you.”

  I increase my pace. “What could you possibly need to talk to me about? Go see your guidance counselor, or better yet your therapist.”

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  “I’m not your friend, Natalie, and I don’t do favors.”

  “I introduced you to my sister. If we hadn’t run into each other at that club on Sunset, you wouldn’t have a corner on the West Bel Air High School market.”

  The club on Sunset. I saw her first, across the dimly lit, windowless room. Idiot that I was I actually thought she was Lilliana. I pushed through the sea of bodies writhing to the pulsing music. The scent of sweat and perfume and other things hung in the air. More than a few of the horny kids on the dance floor were high on something I had sold them. In truth, I hate the club scene. The music is excruciating for someone with my sense of hearing, and I’ve always preferred Tchaikovsky. In fact I liked him even before he became popular. But I go to the clubs because I’d be stupid not to. The kids there will do anything for their next fix, and they always have the money to pay. On that night I forgot about money, though.

  Every time I glimpsed Natalie through the crowd, I felt a jolt of electricity. I willed her to look at me, to recognize me. I thought of the moment her eyes would grow wide and she would leap into my arms. I thought about what it would feel like to be in her embrace again as the rest of the world receded into nothingness.

  When I was close I realized it wasn’t Lilliana, and the grief slammed into me as if I’d lost her all over again. It nearly brought me to my knees, but then something of a miracle occurred. Natalie looked at me, cocked her head to the side and smiled, curiosity brimming in her brilliant blue eyes. Instantly I felt something I hadn’t felt since the night I lost Lilliana. Hope.

  But a lot can change in a few short months. Illusions never last.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” I say.

  “Still, I think you might reconsider after you hear to what I have to tell you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I know what you are, Valentin.”

  I stop. “What do you mean?”

  A smile snakes across her face. “You’re a Russian spy.”

  I chortle, despite myself. “What tipped you off?”

  Her grin widens. “You’re a Russian spy...and a vampire.”


  The corner of my mouth twitches, but I hold my reaction there. “You’ve been stealing too many of your sister’s pills.”

  “I told you when we first met I don’t do that shit. I’ve been watching you, Valentin. You know that missing sophomore from UCLA a month ago? I saw you with her at the club. I saw you leave with her.” She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Your face slipped. You had fangs and blood-red eyes, and when I followed you outside, I saw you wrap your arm around her and vanish into a shadow.”

  Once in a great while our tricks don’t work, and a human sees something unintended. When that happens, it usually doesn’t end too well for the human.

  “That is information you ought to keep to yourself, if you want to continue breathing.”

  “But that’s the thing. I don’t want to continue breathing. I want to be like you.”

  If my heart still beat in my chest, it would have just skipped. Natalie juts her chin out, brow furrowed and lips drawn into a thin line, just like Lilliana when she made up her mind about something. In those cases it was always best to surrender. You might as well try to talk the sun out of rising. She was the most stubborn person I have ever met, and it is one of the reasons I fell in love with her.

  I shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Please, spare me the speech about how your existence is such horrible torture. You and I both know it’s pretty fucking awesome. You live forever, and all the stupid rules the rest of us have to live by don’t apply to you.”

  “But there are other rules—”

  “I can handle those.”

  “Can you? It’s not just about staying out of the sunlight or being unable to enter a home without an invitation. You have to murder others just to stay...in existence. It’s not like the television shows and the movies. Animal blood doesn’t work.”