The Price of Life

by T. M. Nienaber

  “I, um, I don’t know.” Kristopher kept his eyes on Lucian, not daring to turn around and face the mother directly.

  “You promised our boy could be brought back to life.” The father spoke now. His tone wasn’t hysterical, but something even more worrisome. It was flat, matter of fact, and deadly.

  “We’re working on it, sir, as you can well see.” A politician to the last. “But every soldier knows the risk when they enlist.”

  “Your patrols forced him to enlist! We never would have let our only child go joining your pointless war if we could have kept him home!” The mother continued to scream but this time her tirade ended with her falling on her knees and weeping.

  “This is a war and that is always a risk. Your son did know this could happen, and forced or not he fought for his country.”

  “We were promised he could be brought back. Death isn’t permanent. That was your campaign slogan wasn’t it?”

  “But you didn’t believe!” Lucian jumped in before Kristopher had a chance to collect his thoughts.

  “What?” The father looked confused and the mother paused her fit to look up. Kristopher started to worry. Alexander had said Lucian would be waiting for a time when he could cripple Kristopher and then leave. This resurrection was being broadcast live. It was turning into a disaster.

  “I’ve never seen you in my congregation, you son wasn’t in training to learn what we do, and not one of you has ever assisted in a resurrection for anyone else,” Lucian snarled. “And now you expect me to do my best work when you’ve contributed nothing!”

  “We pay our taxes, not to mention the sizable fee to get you here. This is a state service after all.” The father returned to his flat tone.

  “We’ve, well, we’ve always, umm, been, well, Lutheran. We don’t well,” the mother paused somewhat apologetically, “you, umm, you know.”

  “You don’t what? You don’t get involved with things you think smack of Satanism? Is that your, you know?”

  The mother stood up only to begin staring at her feet. It was all the acknowledgement Lucian needed.

  “Well, well, well. And now you’ve come running. You’ll use what we offer but you won’t support us. Not anymore!” Lucian continued in his snarl and the room seemed to get colder and darker. “If you’re not one of us, you don’t get the benefits. You get this.” Lucian snapped his fingers and the soldier stood up.

  At first the mother was excited, she ran up to her son and wrapped him in her arms. He hugged back as best he could, and that’s when the mother backed away. She looked into what were once the eyes of her son and backed away even further. Whatever she saw there now scared her. She opened her mouth to scream, closed it, and then pushed her husband between her and the creature using their son’s body.

  “Tell all your friends.” Lucian smiled. “Or warn them. It’s really up to you.” Lucian started to laugh and the creature joined in, trying to imitate its master. That was the breaking point for mother and father, both broke into a run together, leaving Lucian’s mansion as quickly as they could.

  “What in god’s name have you done.” Kristopher couldn’t even bring himself to yell.

  “Nothing. Haven’t you been listening. I don’t work in your name either. Not anymore, Kris.”

  “Do you have any idea how fast this will spread? My support will tank in a day! This was all caught on camera!”

  “Your support may tank, but my congregation will triple by tonight.” Lucian locked eyes with Kristopher to make sure the full force of what he had to say got through. “I think it’s safe to say we’re no longer on the same side. And it’s time you got out of my house.”

  “This is war, Lucian.” Kristopher held his gaze through the threat, but didn’t waste any time getting out.

  29. Miriel and William

  “Now, Elle, we really need to concentrate on what we’re going to do to improve our immigration rate.”

  “Are you sure that’s what we should be focusing on right now? We have more people here than we can support as it is. I think it would be more beneficial to focus on making our compound a little more self-sufficient.”

  William glared at Miriel until she lowered her eyes. “As I was saying. We need to get more people in, and then when the population starts to drop the numbers don’t look so dramatic. We can deal with population control as it comes, we can always kill more people.” William chuckled.

  Miriel nodded, but her eyes were distant. It wasn’t that married life had taken any of the fight out of her. She just decided she didn’t care and the apathy was all-consuming. She did what William asked and performed her duties to society, but was always behind a wall. It was hard to admit, but Miriel finally realized if something dramatic didn’t happen she was going to grow old and die in that compound with William. Instead of giving in, Miriel decided to simply wait until she saw an opening and then make her move. Until then she felt no reason to put more effort into living than necessary.

  “I have a good idea about how to make that happen too, it’s something we founders used at the very beginning to attract members. You don’t get the most desirable crowd in the world, but that doesn’t really matter.”

  “And you think it’s got a strong enough pull to get people to brave Lucian’s army and Kristopher’s patrols?”

  “Oh yes.” William looked pleased with himself. “Like I said, these aren’t the most desirable, most of them aren’t too smart, but they are dedicated.”

  “Oh.” Miriel tried to look interested but all she could think about was how much more work this was going to make for her.

  “We’re going to bring back the vampire!” William smiled and looked like he was about to pat himself on the back.

  “The vampire? Really.” Miriel knew she should have controlled herself but the idea was absurd, and her tone conveyed exactly what she thought.

  “Now, don’t act like that.” William sounded like he was scolding a child. “It really does have a wonderful feel to it, and it’s the one thing almost everyone loves about the Victorian age.”

  “And where are you going to find a vampire? I suppose they’re spending time with Lucian’s zombies. They must be the more discriminating of the two, with a taste for blood but not raw flesh?” Miriel started to laugh.

  “You really are a stupid woman!” William yelled. He’d never laid a finger on his wife out of anger, but only because he was afraid of how Miriel would retaliate. Any other woman and he would have gladly beaten her into submission rather than deal with her insolence. “It’s not a real vampire, it’s a method.”

  “Less ridiculous, but not very practical.”

  “Well, of course it’s not very practical.” William had gotten control of his temper, but he was still angry. “What it is, is effective.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how you can be so stupid. It amazes me how you managed to survive this line of work for so long. Not to mention be successful.”

  “Enlighten me.” Miriel responded sarcastically.

  “It’s how the game started. When we opened the compound it was just us founders, but then it expanded to a few friends and relatives we didn’t really care for. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped. No one wanted to come stay with us and that made for a very boring game. So, I perfected the vampire method. Using a two pronged insert hooked to a blood bag I started to drain people’s blood. One of the other founders would leak the story outside and people flocked here for a chance to meet one of those creatures of the night.”

  “I’m not sure it’ll have the same draw now that people have seen the undead Lucian is selling.”

  “You really don’t see it?” William looked surprised and then shook his head. “Of course you don’t. People would think we have the secret to a different kind of immortality. We lure them here with the false hope there’s a way to bypass the whole Kristopher and Lucian mess and they’ll be willing to risk everything to come here.”

 
“And if the other founders don’t approve? This plan needs the cooperation of a city or it won’t work.”

  “I can leak the story.”

  “But the founders are going to realize you’re behind it. And if that whole group doesn’t agree you’ll have a lot of enemies out for your blood.”

  “I’ve thought of that. It’s where you come in.”

  “You think so?” Miriel wasn’t surprised William had been planning to stick her neck out for his scheme. She should have assumed that was how it would go. The plan did have the traces of a workable idea. He was right about people jumping at the chance to have immortality without dealing with Lucian and the cult, or the order, or whatever they were being called now. There was also a large number of vampire fanatics who would go to hell and back for the chance to meet an actual descendent of Vlad Tepes. It crossed Miriel’s mind that Lucian and his cult could have had something to do with him too, the idea made her smile.

  William misinterpreted the smile for enthusiasm. “See, we’ll start with Emily, she’s a young, vulnerable woman, easy prey for a vampire. There’s the added convenience that she’s staying here in my office, so I can show you how to use the equipment undisturbed. Then, and this is the real stroke of genius, we’ll start going after the other founders. They’ll be so worried about who’s going to be next no one will trust anyone. That will take the heat off me.”

  “Not to mention give you a chance to get rid of your biggest competitors.” She had to applaud William’s resourcefulness. He could boost his count and secure his place as lead founder at the same time.

  “Added bonus. What do you think?”

  “William, I don’t think I have much of a choice. I could tell you this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard and you’d still make me do it.”

  “So glad you agree.” William smiled. “I’ve already set up the equipment by Emily. Might as well start now.”

  Miriel had nothing else to do with her time, but she resented his assumption she would drop everything and go. Emily had been looking healthier the past few days and Miriel had hoped that meant William was going to let her go. It was sad to think the girl had been kept alive for this. It would have been more of a mercy if Lucian’s creatures hadn’t let her go.

  “Well, hurry up!” William tapped his foot impatiently. Lost in thought Miriel hadn’t bothered to stand up yet.

  “Sorry.” Miriel got up and followed her husband to the back of the house. The fact William could work from home was maddening. Miriel didn’t even get a reprieve from him during the day, and now that he was married William had dropped his number of house calls to almost none in order to ‘spend more time with his wife’.

  His office looked the same as it had when Miriel stayed there. She wondered what would have happened to her if William hadn’t recognized her. It was even more unsettling that he’d known what she looked like, not to mention all the details he knew about her work. It was like being married to your stalker. As much as they idolized you, you couldn’t help but shake the feeling you were going to be murdered in your sleep.

  “Now, come here.” William waved her over to Emily’s bedside. The girl was sleeping but looked well enough to have been talking with them if she were awake. “This is a heavy duty sedative.” William held up a needle. “I’ll be able to give you enough of this to take care of all the founders we need to get rid of. I stockpiled it when we first opened the compound, just in case. It’s old but still quite effective. And we don’t really need to worry about it being toxic.” William chuckled.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Well, first off it’s very important to use the sedative. People like to make such a fuss when they’re dying, and the blood draining process takes a long time.”

  “Alright.” Miriel wanted to get on with it. William had a habit of talking when he should’ve been working. A lot like a cartoon villain who spends so long monologuing the hero not only has time to get away and foil the plan, but he gets bored first.

  “Now the two pronged needle goes into the neck, obviously, and you connect this plastic tube to the medical bag. It’s important you keep a close eye on the bags and change them out immediately after they’re full. If a bag is overfilled it breaks, and that’s a mess we really don’t need to clean up.”

  “What do we do with the blood and the body?”

  “The body you can leave to be discovered. Get rid of the blood. I don’t care where. Do you think you can handle this?”

  “Of course. I wish I’d brought a book. It looks like it’s going to be a very long night.”

  “Usually is.” William looked like he was ready to settle in as well.

  “I can handle it from here.” Miriel smiled sweetly. “I’m sure you have more important things to spend your time doing.”

  “Yes, but I think I should monitor the process this time.”

  “No, no, you’re such a wonderful teacher I know I’ll be just fine.”

  “Well.” William was torn between not wanting to be there and not trusting Miriel to do things his way. In the end laziness won out. “Alright.”

  Miriel managed not to cringe when William kissed her good night. As long as he left her alone Miriel had a plan to keep Emily alive. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to keep the girl alive, it was more of an impulse than something she’d been planning for a long time. The chance was there and Miriel decided to take it. It took several hours to drain Emily to the appropriate point. Miriel had collected enough blood for William to think Emily was dead, but enough was left to keep the girl’s heart beating weakly.

  “Emily,” Miriel whispered harshly in the girl’s ear. “Emily!” Miriel slapped her cheek.

  Emily weakly opened her eyes and looked up.

  “Emily, Em,” Miriel turned her head so Emily could look at her. “I need you to do something for me, can you?”

  Emily nodded weakly and then started to close her eyes as her head fell back.

  “I need you to fight, Em. I know you can. You’ll get better, I promise, but only if you can fight for me now.”

  Emily forced her eyes open.

  “I need you to get up. I can help you get as far as the woods, then it’s up to you. Can you handle that?”

  Emily blinked. Her eyelids were getting heavier. Both of them knew there was no other choice. Either Emily died in William’s surgery or she went to the woods where she would most likely die alone.

  “Come on.” Miriel helped her out of bed and carried her out. Miriel knew she was moving faster than what was safe for Emily, but there was no other choice. This was the only way. The only way to keep Emily safe was to act like she was leaving the girl for dead in the woods. Emily looked scared when they got to the line of trees, luckily the patrols weren’t around so things were quiet. That improved Emily’s chances of survival.

  When Miriel let her go Emily fell to her knees, but there was nothing else she could do. Miriel left her and ran back home, hoping the girl would somehow make it to safety. Emily’s arm was a mess, the bite was far from healed and the punctures in her neck were weeping blood she couldn’t afford to lose. She did manage to stand up and shuffle on her own. The girl was stronger than she seemed.

  Miriel was gone less than ten minutes for a trip that would have normally taken twenty, but William was already waiting.

  “Where the hell is my body!” William was furious.

  “I got rid of it,” Miriel’s voice was cool.

  “Did you not hear me when I told you to get rid of the blood and keep the body?”

  “This is better.”

  “Oh really? How do you figure that?” William snarled.

  “You spread the rumors but no one has a body to trace back to you. It’ll keep the founders off guard and then they can start finding each other’s bodies. It’ll keep suspicion off you and on everyone else.”

  William nodded. “You deviate from my orders again and there will be severe consequences.”

  “Yes, sir.” Miriel mocked
before turning to go upstairs, hoping Emily made it behind the cover of the trees.

  30. Kristopher and Alexander

  “So that’s it! You’re telling me that myself and my family can be killed at any second just because you can’t play nice!”

  The remaining two members of Kristopher’s Cabinet were furious. Lucian had taken over his house and forced Kristopher and his people out. The administration had relocated to an abandoned office building not too far away, but no one was happy.

  “I do have a plan.”

  “Shut up, Kris! Unless that plan involves crawling back to Lucian and begging for forgiveness on your knees I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “Stop thinking about yourself for a few seconds, please.” Kristopher was still calm. He’d expected a real war for some time now and it wasn’t much of a disaster. All he had to do was get people to hate Lucian and the cult. Then all would be forgiven. Lucian would go back to obscurity and Kristopher could run things as he pleased. Sure, there were a few holes in that scenario, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

  “What about my family?”

  “Your family,” Kristopher replied coldly. “You mean the two children you take every opportunity to call disappointments and the wife you’ve been cheating on for years?”

  “You’re on dangerous ground! You just watch what you say.”

  “Why? You can’t do anything to me.”

  “I can pull your support from my end, and I can tell people what kind of game you’re really running.”

  “You can try. No one cares what you have to say. People don’t even know your name. You’ve always been a bit player and if you continue to be difficult I’ll end your part completely.”

  Both Cabinet members took a few steps back. Kristopher had gotten into the habit of killing off his own people when the jails got low. No one wanted to be near him when he was angry. Especially when the day was almost over.