by Sara Beaman
Shit.
“Do you want to try any of this on?” she asks, barely looking up.
I shrug and shake my head no, then unload my finds into the cart.
“Well, if we’re done here, let’s get you some shoes.”
I drag my feet as I follow her to the shoe department. She peruses a rack of boots while I stare at her smartphone and try to think. If only I knew a phone number to call. I guess I could call 911, but—oh, who am I kidding! I’m mute!
Haruko picks up a pair of shoes, inspects the soles, and puts them back on the shelf. “Everything all right?”
I shrug.
She grabs another pair of hiking boots off the rack and hands them to me. “Here. Try these on.”
I sit down on a bench and wedge the sneakers off my feet. I pull on the boots, lacing them up; they fit all right.
“Those look like they’ll work.”
I nod, pull them off and throw them in the cart. I shove Haruko’s tiny sneakers back on my feet and follow behind her as she pushes the cart towards the back of the store.
I’m not going be able to get away from her. At least not yet, not the way things are going. Maybe if I distract her somehow? Get her talking?
Slowly I type out a question into the text-to-voice application: How do you become a...?
“A revenant?”
I nod.
“Well, first off, you have to be dead. There’s a three-day window between when the heart stops beating and when the soul departs,” she says in a tone one might use to discuss car maintenance or personal finance. “During that time, if a revenant gives you three drops of their blood, it might—might—revive you, turn you into something like us. But usually it doesn’t work.” She pulls a large black backpack off a hanger and throws it in the cart.
I type out my next question. What happens then?
“If the initiation doesn’t work, two things can happen. The first is nothing—the corpse stays dead. That’s how things normally turn out. The second is worse.” She lowers her voice. “See, sometimes the corpse re-animates, but something is wrong with the link to their soul, and then... they come back as something kind of like a zombie, mindless and violent, but instead of brains they seek blood. We call them ghouls.” She throws a canteen into the cart.
Putting that image to the back of my mind as quickly as I can, I type out another question. What’s it like to be you?
She pauses for a moment. “That’s an interesting question.” She pushes the cart back into the aisle and starts walking towards the front of the store. “I suppose I’m proud to be what I am. I’m a Warden; that’s why I don’t have any flashy powers like the other two. Wardens nullify supernatural power. And we work to protect humanity from... well, the rest of us. If it weren’t for us, the others would run rampant. They’d keep all of mankind under their heel. That’s actually how things were up until a few hundred years ago, back when the House of Mnemosyne was in charge.”
I hang back a little, then a little more. Haruko keeps walking and talking.
“But yeah, I chose to become what I am. That’s how it works in my line. I actually grew up with Wardens, out in the Pacific Ocean on an island near Hawaii. My, you know, ‘real’ family has served my Warden family for generations. Some of my natural relatives are Wardens as well. I started training for my initiation when I was eight. The training takes fourteen years, usually...”
She’s yards ahead of me now, still chatting with herself, oblivious. I duck into a row full of action figures and Legos. If I can make my way to the back of the store, I can try to go through the employee area and out the back entrance. Or maybe there’s a side entrance somewhere.
I rush to the aisle on the other side of the row, preparing to sprint, and then I round the corner, and there she is again.
“Hello again,” she says. “Just so you know, I can track you. I can track anyone with even a drop of revenant blood in their veins.”
I look at my feet.
“Give me my phone back.”
I hand it over without looking up.
Feeling like an idiot, I follow Haruko to the grocery section. She starts picking up the kind of food you’d take on a hike: energy bars, some little pop-top cans of fruit, saltine crackers, beef jerky. I pull a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts off the shelf and throw them in the cart. If I’m going to be stuck with these people I’ll at least make them buy food I like.
“Those are bad for you,” she says.
I consider giving her the finger.
We find the personal care section. I grab a toothbrush, a hairbrush and a bunch of hair elastics. I look down for a second as we near a corner; when I look up, Adam is standing in front of me, carrying a first-aid kit. I jump, my heart fluttering inside my chest.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Haruko looks at me, then at him. “Well, you did shoot her...”
“Can we not talk about that in public?”
“Sorry. You’re right. Well, uh, are we ready to check out?”
He throws the kit into the cart. “I got what I needed.”
“Let’s go, then.”
We walk towards the front of the store. Now that we’re done here, we’ll be going back out to the car, back out on the road, and from there... I don’t know. I don’t think they’d be buying all this stuff for me if they were still planning to kill me, but I still don’t think I can trust them, not once we’re alone.
I gnaw on a fingernail as we stand in the checkout line. If I run now, I might make it. We’re surrounded by people; there’s even a police officer by the exit. Haruko and Adam would have to try to chase me down with everyone watching. There’s a complication, though—I still need vampire blood. I know I need it, deep down in my gut.
Wait. That was what I was going to the third sub-basement to do. To get blood. If I can make it back there, I should be fine—
Adam grabs my wrist.
“That’s not an option,” he says in a low, calm tone that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
He turns to Haruko. “We’ll meet you out at the car.”
Adam drags me out to the parking lot. I try to wriggle away, but I can’t get my hand free from his grasp. He’s stronger than me, and I’m exhausted just from walking around the store. Eventually I give up and let my wrist go limp in his hand.
Let go, I implore him. I’m not going to run.
He doesn’t answer.
I couldn’t run if I wanted to. You know that.
He releases me. I clutch my bruised wrist, nursing it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Whatever. You made your point.
“You can’t go back to Atlanta. You saw what they did to you.”
What do you mean?
“That ritual they did in the interrogation room? I’m sure that’s why you’re mute. And that recovery tank thing with the blood?”
You saw all of that?
“Yes.”
The thought makes my skin crawl.
“Look, I know...” He sighs. “I know you’d rather I hadn’t seen any of it. And I can’t blame you for that. But I want to help you. I don’t want to force you to come with us, but...”
Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?
“I suppose that's fair,” he says. “Listen. I know someone in Kentucky who should be able to help with your voice. At least come with us that far, all right?”
Fine. Whatever.
We find Aya and the car. Adam gets back into the driver’s seat and stares out into space as we wait. Five minutes later, Haruko returns, carrying several bags. She tosses them all into the middle of the back seat. Soon, we’re back on the highway, heading north into the wilderness. In the dark, the route is virtually featureless. Endless hills full of endless trees lie for miles and miles before and behind us.
“Where are we stopping next?” Aya asks.
“We should be able to make it to Blacksburg,” Haruko says. “Desmond owns
a house with a basement near Virginia Tech. It’s only about three hours from here.”
“Actually, I was thinking we could head north to Lexington,” Adam says.
Haruko frowns. “Lexington? You mean Kentucky? Why?”
“I know someone there. A friend of Julian’s. Someone who might be able to help her with her voice issue,” he says. “A daughter of Coventina. Her name is Tara—“
“Adam, no. That’s a terrible idea.”
“Think about it,” he says. “She can’t testify if her voice is shot. And it doesn’t seem to be healing along with her other injuries. I think she’s cursed.”
I curl into myself and stare out the window. If they’re going to talk about me like I’m not here, I guess I’ll pretend not to listen.
“Yeah... I don’t know,” Haruko says.
“It’s not that far out of our way,” Adam says.
“That’s not it. We shouldn’t be making contact with any other revenants before we get to Red Hook.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Adam assures her. “Tara hates Mirabel, and she’s practically a hermit in any case. She doesn’t even talk to her family.”
Haruko frowns. She starts packing the contents of the plastic bags into the black backpack. I nurse a bottle of water she bought me at checkout. I’m exhausted. I wish I’d thought to buy some coffee.
“Have you heard anything from Desmond yet?” Aya asks.
“I haven’t, but that’s probably a good sign.”
Adam, who is Desmond?
“He’s Haruko’s uncle. We’re bringing him the head,” Adam says.
“She knows about the head?”
“Yes,” he says. “Is that a problem?”
“How much else did you tell her?”
“I explained the basics of the situation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I told her about our mission. How we reclaimed the head from Mirabel.”
“Jesus Christ.” Haruko brings a hand to her forehead. “Well... what’s done is done.”
Why is the head so powerful? I wonder.
“The head... well... all right. It’s a long story,” Adam says. “First of all, let me give you some background. Beheading doesn’t actually kill a vampire.”
Haruko snorts. “We’re using the v-word now?”
“A revenant. Whatever. We can’t generate our limbs or heads, but we can have them re-attached.”
So how do you kill a vampire?
“You have to go for the heart.”
Like with a stake?
“Or whatever. It doesn’t matter. You just have to destroy the heart.”
“Why are you telling her how to kill us?!” Aya asks, alarmed.
“It’s not like she’s in any shape to attack you, so why would you care?”
“Well...” She shifts in her seat. “I don’t know.”
So the head is still... conscious?
“Essentially.”
I open a package of Pop Tarts. Where’s the rest of her body? With Julian?
“Well, it was, but it isn’t any more. We... don’t know where it is.” He pauses for several seconds. “It went missing about a year ago, at the same time her head did. We thought Mirabel had stolen both, er, halves, but the more we find out about the situation, the less likely that seems.”
I nod again, nibbling around the edges of the first pastry.
“Our current theory is that a third party stole both parts and then sold the head to Mirabel or gave it to her as a gift,” Adam continues.
Doesn’t the head belong to Julian? Why aren’t we bringing it to him?
“There are... protocols we need to follow,” is all Adam says.
I stare down into my lap. I’m too confused to ask any further questions, so I finish the rest of my pastry in silence.
The three of them go quiet. I lean my head against the window and try to keep myself awake, but the hum of the engine and tires on asphalt soon make me unbearably drowsy, and so I close my eyes, hoping for just a moment’s dreamless rest.
Despite myself, I dream.
10
A Dream of Insomnia
{Adam}
I woke up on a couch in an unfamiliar bedroom, alone. I sat up, reached for my glasses, surprised to be awake or even alive.
The couch was surrounded by books of all shapes and sizes, their covers heavy with dust. One volume halfway down a pile caught my eye. Careful not to topple the rest of the stack, I pulled it out from underneath the others.
Exploring the Human Memory by Dr. Elena Ortiz, Ph. D.
The door to the bedroom opened. I looked up with a start.
It was Julian. “You’re awake,” he said. “How do you feel?”
I shrugged. I had no intention of talking to him about that.
“You might be a bit groggy for a few hours. It will pass.”
“What happened to me?”
“Aya put you into a state of sensory deprivation. We refer to it as a whiteout.”
“Oh.”
“I should have warned you, Adam. It’s all but fatal to expose yourself to sunlight.”
“I see,” I said, pretending I hadn’t deduced that already. “All but fatal? So... what would happen, exactly?”
“Any contact with sunlight would untether your soul from your body,” he explained in a level tone, “but the blood would keep your body alive. Well, alive in the sense you are now. You’d become a ghoul. Your entire existence would be the search for blood.”
I grimaced.
“You will find an almanac in your desk. It lists sunrise and sunset times for the coming year. Please be careful.”
“Right.”
“Adam...”
“Yes?”
“We have a theory.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “We believe that no one who has accepted their mortality can be reawakened. That is to say, no one who is at peace with their death can be initiated. We are all, every one of us, desperate to continue living.”
“That’s funny,” I said, “given I’m pretty sure I just tried to kill myself.”
///
I spent most of the next three days alone in the suite. It seemed to get smaller and more confining with every passing minute. I tried to distract myself by reading, but I had no interest in my textbooks, nor in any of the other books they’d provided. Yet there was nothing else to do, except to sit and think and get more and more agitated.
Nothing else but to wander the halls. I made several attempts at that. Each time I left the suite, the configuration of passages had shifted. Their permutations seemed endless; they were never the same way twice. Still I wandered, but it was never long before Aya caught up with me and insisted in guiding me back to my suite.
I didn’t have to feel emotional to be angry. The two of them—Julian and his submissive girlfriend, or whatever she was to him—were holding me against my will. Why? What did they hope to get out of me? I couldn’t surmise what they wanted. Something to do with curing amnesia, perhaps. Why couldn’t they just tell me? I would do it. I would do almost anything for the freedom to leave.
What bothered me most was the flashback I’d channeled, Aya’s memory of Markus. I thought of it every time I glanced at the four-poster bed. If I could trust what Julian had said about the sun, Aya must have forced Markus to become a ghoul. She’d exposed him to the sun, severed the link between his soul and his body and turned him into a blood-sucking zombie.
As much as I hated to admit it, Aya frightened me. Part of me still wanted to die, but none of me wanted to become a ghoul.
///
One of the few diversions I was allowed were my daily trips to Julian’s office. They always came complete with a lecture. The first two were meandering diatribes about some secret vampire society he called the Watchers of the Americas. He peppered these monologues with seemingly irrelevant asides and personal accounts, talking for hours just to talk.
His lecture on the third day, however, was sh
ort.
“Have you had any interesting dreams lately?” he asked from behind a bookshelf. “Since you’ve come here, that is?”
This was his habit. He would start speaking as soon as he heard the doors to his office open, before he emerged from the mess. Sometimes he wouldn’t even bother to come out. He’d leave it up to me to follow the sound of his voice and find him. I hated it.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” I replied—neither a lie nor the truth.
“Really?” He stepped out into view. “Why not?”
“I haven’t felt tired.”
“What have you been doing all day long, then?”
“Reading. Thinking about what’s happened.” Trying to figure out how to escape.
“I only ask because dreams of peculiar insight are one of our family traits. It’s not a gift I possess, sadly, but it’s one that often accompanies telepathy.”
“I see.”
He walked towards the study. “Oftentimes, members of our line dream the memories of other people. Especially those whose blood they’ve consumed.”
“If you’re asking me if I’ve dreamed anything about you, I haven’t.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Why? What could I tell you that you don’t already know?”
He opened the doors to the study and gestured for me to step inside. “Someone of my advanced age must expect to suffer a few holes in their memory,” he said, smiling.
“Wait. Is that why you’re so interested in retrograde amnesia? Because you’re senile?”
He laughed. “Well, no, not exactly.”
I sat down and folded my arms across my chest. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is that you want from me?”
“I suppose that’s fair.” He reached for a glass. “If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you can have something to drink... and if you happen to have any strange dreams, do tell me about them, will you?”
He filled the glass from the amphora and placed it in front of me.
“Julian...”
“Yes?”
“Who was Markus?”
He blinked twice. “Markus?”
“I had a vision. About Aya and someone named Markus,” I said.