I Am Eve

by A. Q. Owen

  He lunged forward and kicked me in the back before I could turn and defend myself. The force of the kick sent me reeling, and I hit the railing with a painful thud. My sword rattled free from my hand and I collapsed to my knees.

  The guard stood over me with his sword raised. “You’re a pretty one, aren’t you? No sense in killing you before I have a little fun first.”

  The cold kept coursing through my bloodstream, now faster than it had before. “Freeze it,” I said.

  The guard’s eyes went wide with horror. Then he grimaced in agonizing pain, dropping his sword and grabbing at his crotch.

  He screamed like a little girl, at a pitch no man should ever achieve, his member suddenly frozen at subzero temperatures.

  His sword clacked on the floorboards below as I struggled to my feet. I bent down and picked up my sword, eyeing him with disdain. I was about to cut off his head when out of the corner of my eye I saw the other two guards in the tower across from me. They were taking aim, ready to fire arrows and end the fight right then and there.

  I grabbed the guard in the nick of time and spun him around as the arrows loosed. The sharp tips plunged into the guard’s chest, and the focus on the pain in his crotch turned to the realization that his comrades had just killed him. I shoved the guy forward and let him flip over the railing to his death below.

  I focused on the flooring of the other tower and spoke softly again. “Freeze the floor,” I said.

  The cold wind blew again, and suddenly the men in the other tower lost their footing. One slipped and fell onto his backside, while the other slid forward and fell over the edge to the ground below. I reached down and picked up a bow, notched an arrow, and took aim at the last guard. He scrambled to his feet and braced himself on the railing. His head lifted the moment I released the bowstring.

  The arrow flew through the air with incredible speed. The tip sank deep into the guard’s neck. He grasped at the arrow, but there was nothing he could do to save his life. He gurgled momentarily and then dropped to his knees before falling over onto his side, dead.

  I breathed hard and looked down at the courtyard. The prisoners were starting to gather around the entrance. Several had seen the whole thing and were still staring in disbelief.

  Reluctantly, I made my way down the stairs to the courtyard and stopped by the gate at the bottom. As I walked across the space, Tattoo met me halfway and halted a few feet in front of me. He looked into my eyes and searched my face for something. To this day, I don’t know what he was looking for. Maybe he wanted to know if I was a real person or maybe some kind of alien. I have no idea. All I know is he got down on one knee, as if I was royalty.

  I watched as others joined him, taking a knee as they would before a queen.

  I shook my head at their kind gesture. “Please, get up. I’m not royalty or anything like that.”

  “You just saved our lives,” Tattoo said.

  “For now,” I corrected. “We still have to get out of here. I don’t know how long the ice in the prison will last. Sooner or later, those guards will get out. It’s best if we’re not here when that happens.”

  The mass of kneeling people hesitated, and then they stood up.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “No. Thank you. Maybe you’re not royalty,” Tattoo said, “but in this day and age, we need a leader we can look up to, someone who isn’t in it for power or selfish reasons.” He made a fist and pressed it to his chest. “I will follow you no matter where you go.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Seriously, what do you say to that? Thank you? I didn’t say thank you. Instead, I told them that where I was going would be dangerous and that anyone who followed might not make it out alive. The first stop would be the west side of town where the vampire attack was coming.

  And yes, I left out the part about the invading army being composed of vampires. Maybe that was dishonest of me, but the last thing I needed was these people panicking. If they were ready to fight and die, what did it matter if the foe was an army of undead blood suckers?

  “Those coming with me, we’re heading to the west side of the city to meet the rest of our forces. After that, I go to find my parents and you’ll be free to do whatever you want.”

  “What about the zealots?” one woman asked. “They’ll send their army to kill us. We have to go with you.”

  That brought up another issue I’d let slip my mind. Where were all the zealot forces? On top of that, where were the people commanding them? I’d have to answer those questions later. For now, I had to focus on the coming darkness to the west. We’d have to simply deal with any zealot fighters along the way.

  16

  When my rabble and I arrived on the western side of the city’s perimeter, Diggs had already massed his small resistance into a defensive formation.

  We’d met little in the way of zealot police or soldiers on our way over, which was disconcerting, at least in my mind. Where were they? If everyone was so concerned about the gestapo the zealot leaders put in place, I’d have thought they’d be everywhere.

  Diggs was surprised to see me when I arrived. He was more surprised to see all the people I’d brought along for the ride.

  “I thought you left. Okay,” he corrected, “I thought you probably died trying to get into the prison.”

  “Almost. I appreciate the honesty.”

  He rolled his shoulders. “So…did you find them?”

  A pain shot through my chest. “No. My parents were gone when I got there. But some of these people knew them and told me where they went. They were sold as slaves to a warlord in Appalachia.”

  “The mountains?” His voice sounded more upset than I expected.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked disturbed. “That’s a rough place. Crazy things happen up there.”

  “Take a look around, Diggs. Life isn’t exactly a bowl of peaches here, either.”

  “Fair point.”

  “We came to help fight the…enemy.” I tried to keep the identity of the approaching army a secret from the newcomers.

  “Most of them look like they’re on death’s door,” he said, eyeing the new recruits with suspicion.

  I turned around and took in the gathering. They were fifty feet away and couldn’t hear anything we were saying.

  “What better group to have defending the town than people with nothing to lose?”

  “Okay, sure, but I don’t know how much help they’ll be. Where’d you get them? The prison?” He was half joking. Then he saw the steady look in my eye. “Oh no. Seriously? A bunch of inmates?”

  “Again, they have nothing to lose.”

  Diggs sighed. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up in the way of weapons. There’s a big greenhouse not far from here. Maybe we can get them some garden tools or something. It’s better than no weapons at all.”

  “Thanks, Diggs.” I let my lips crease into a half smile.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You still have to find your parents, and we still have to defeat a vampire army.”

  “Yeah, and I have a feeling you and I are going to do most of the fighting.”

  Something caught his attention just over the rise heading back into downtown. The ground shook, and there was a repetitive sound like thunder. I stared up the hill for a minute until I saw what was causing the noise. At first, it was just a line of men marching toward us. Then it was several rows and columns. They stayed in perfect formation, marching toward us with swords, bows, arrows, crossbows, and even some artillery in the form of catapults and scorpion bows.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  Diggs swallowed. “The zealots.”

  The hundreds of men and women in our lines stared, terrified at the huge force marching their way.

  As the zealots drew closer, I could see one riding a horse. He was wearing military fatigues like all the others in the columns. These were no ordinary policemen. This was the zealot army. Now the only question was, would they just start attackin
g us or would they give us a chance to surrender?

  I don’t know military tactics, strategies, protocols. I was never in ROTC. Things had changed drastically in warfare. No more planes flying overhead. There were no tanks rumbling down the battlefield. War, it seemed, had devolved.

  I made my way to the front of the lines and stood next to Diggs.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked.

  He kept his eyes on the guy riding the horse. “I hold up a white flag. Then I go talk to their general and see if he’ll help us fight off the vampires, or if he’s going to kill us all right here.”

  “What do you think he’ll say?”

  “Well,” Diggs shrugged, “he’s a major d-bag, so he’ll probably just opt for killing us. Who knows, though, today might be our lucky day.”

  I stared at the zealot leader. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Elias Johnstone, and he’s ruthless. He’s Ronald Smith’s right hand. You should probably stay here with the others.”

  Johnstone? Smith? My mind flashed back a few weeks to a conversation with Darius. He’d said Smith was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, as well as all those sold into slavery.

  “I’m coming with you,” I said.

  Diggs sighed, exasperated. “I figured you’d say that.”

  He fixed a white rag to a stick lying nearby, and the second the zealot forces stopped moving he cautiously stepped out away from our pitiful group.

  He held the stick up high as he took one step, then another. My hand stayed at my side. I kept my eyes on the first line of soldiers, their faces angry, bitter, and hardened. They had the look of people who were just ready to kill something, anything.

  “General Johnstone! We need to talk!”

  I raised an eyebrow as we stopped in the center of the road, halfway between the front lines. “Is that official military speak?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  The columns parted, and the man on the horse rode slowly through the mass of people until he reached the first line. Then they closed up ranks again behind him. His horse meandered to us as if they didn’t have anything better to do and then stopped a dozen or so feet away.

  The general’s weathered face showed he’d spent much of his life outside. Wrinkles from squinting stretched across his skin from his eyes to his ears and jaw. I say the wrinkles are from squinting because he didn’t seem the type who would smile a great deal. Under his cap, the salt-and-pepper hair (more salt than pepper) was cut extremely short. It was hard to tell how tall he was since the horse made him look like a giant, but I figured him to be just under six feet. His broad chest and shoulders made him an imposing leader.

  “What are you doing here, Diggs?” Johnstone asked. “You should have stayed down in the sewers with all the other rats.” His tone was snide, and he spoke to us like we were beneath him. “You think you can just appear and I won’t kill you on sight because you’re waving a little white flag around?”

  “I thought those were the rules of engagement, General.”

  Johnstone snorted. “Rules? We make the rules now, Diggs. The rules of the old world died a long time ago. We’re what’s left.”

  “You know me, General. And I know you. I know you and your men, your leader, were too afraid to come chase us through the sewers. And I know why. It wasn’t just because of us down there. There was something else.”

  Johnstone’s eyes flashed. “What are you talking about?”

  Diggs spoke loud enough so that the men at the front of Johnstone’s forces would hear and maybe send a little fear through their hearts. “The Eliri have returned. They’re going to attack this gate tonight at sunset. We’ve come to help defend the city.”

  The general laughed again. “Defend the city? Against vampires? You’ve been down in the sewers for too long, my old friend. It’s made you crazy.”

  Old friend? I’d sensed some kind of weird tension between these two but blew it off initially. Now it was clear they knew each other before. What was the connection?

  “General, you have to believe me.” Diggs glanced over his shoulder to the west. The sun was fading quickly, nearing the horizon with every second.

  “No, Diggs, I don’t. Go back to your motley crew and prepare to die. Don’t worry, my men will make it fast.”

  “He’s not lying,” I said, stepping forward. “There’s an army of vampires coming. We killed several down in the sewers. I tortured one to find out what they were up to. He told us everything.”

  “Who’s the girl, Diggs?” Johnstone asked, pretty much ignoring everything I just said.

  “She’s a great warrior, General. Do yourself a favor and don’t piss her off.”

  “I’ve seen what she can do. Why do you think I’m here? She released all these prisoners and killed some of my men in the process. We’re here to bring all of you in. If you cooperate, maybe I won’t kill everyone.”

  This wasn’t going well. The general had no intention of fighting the coming darkness. He didn’t even believe it was real.

  “Elias,” Diggs said, using the man’s first name for the first time since the conversation began, “if you don’t take a stand right here with us, the entire city will burn. You, us, everyone will die here this day.”

  The general searched Diggs’s eyes for the truth.

  I stole a look over my shoulder. The sun was dipping below the horizon. Darkness would be there in mere moments.

  “General,” I urged. “The sun is almost down. Prepare your men before it’s too late.”

  He tilted his head back and laughed. “Little lady, I’ve got bigger things to worry about than fairy tales and silly superstitions. There’s no such thing as vampires. Go back to your little group and prepare to die.”

  Johnstone turned his horse around and clicked his tongue. The animal started walking back toward the army.

  I looked back again and watched the last sliver of the sun dip behind the hills to the west.

  The general was halfway to his front lines when we heard it. The sound was a massive boom that echoed like a drum throughout the city.

  I turned my body all the way around and watched the horizon. Diggs did the same. Even the general forced his steed to halt so he could see where the strange noise came from.

  A dark forest stretched out over the hills. The shadows seemed to absorb all light from the sky, plunging the world into a deeper shade of black. At first, there was nothing to see. Just pinkish-orange hues streaking the sky at sunset.

  Then I saw the first signs of them. Their eyes glowed like red fire in the darkened forest. Thousands of them danced like little flames as the vampire army approached the city.

  “You know,” I said, “for a second I was wondering if that vampire we killed lied to us about the attack on this location.”

  Diggs set his jaw. “No. He clearly wasn’t.”

  Horse hooves clacked on the ground just behind us. I turned and saw the general peering into the forest. “What is that?” he asked. “All those little lights floating in the dark?”

  “They’re here, General,” Diggs said. “And it’s time to decide if you’re going to fight or let them march right over us.”

  The leader leaned forward as if the extra few inches would give him a better view than he already had.

  Coincidentally, one of the vampires stepped from the shadows. Even at that distance, Johnstone could see they were in trouble. Then another vampire emerged, and another. Thousands of them came out of the forest, all carrying swords, spears, and bows.

  One of the creatures stood in front of all the rest. He wore glimmering gold armor that was reminiscent of something I’d seen in the history books during the Renaissance period.

  The vampire leader raised his sword and pointed it at our position. Johnstone clicked his tongue again and kicked the horse’s side. The animal turned and galloped back to the army.

  “I guess he’s out then,” I said.


  “No,” Diggs said. “He’ll fight. They don’t have a choice. Come on.” He motioned his head toward their meager forces by the fence.

  He stalked down to his people and started speaking to them, I guess giving them some kind of a pep talk. There was nothing he could say that would change the outcome of this battle.

  A fleeting thought raced through my head. I could run, run far away from here. With the speed and power I’d used before, no one would even see me leave. I’d be miles away before any fighting ever began.

  I shook off the thought. I couldn’t leave these people. It wasn’t right.

  Behind me, the zealot army started marching toward the fence. Their faces were stiff, ready to take on the enemy.

  Even with their numbers, I doubted they could beat a whole army of vampires. It would be a fair fight. We’d be overrun unless…unless we somehow avoided the battle altogether.

  I ran down to where Diggs was encouraging his little band.

  “Diggs!” I shouted as I skidded to a stop. “I have an idea. Quickly, come with me to the top of that guard tower.” I pointed to an empty tower on the right side of the gate.

  “Why?”

  “Please. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  He frowned and sighed, but he gave a nod. “Quickly. We haven’t much time.”

  I hurried down to the stairs leading up to the top of the ladder then bounded up to the lookout platform. Diggs was a little slower, but he caught up and looked out over the hills leading to the forest.

  “Okay, we’re here. What are we doing?”

  “Darius once told me that when two people are focused on the same outcome, it is more likely to happen, and usually much faster. He also said with two, the effects are far more powerful.”

  Diggs frowned, not fully understanding.

  I let out an exasperated breath. “The universe, Diggs. This world. Everything operates under the premise that if two people work together, the load is lighter. I pointed at a table to my left. “If we both lift that, it’s lighter than if I do it alone. The power works the same way.”

  He narrowed his eyes. The skepticism was written all over his face.