But even once charged (as if charging made a difference) his phone remained silent. Reginald tried to dial Maurice’s phone number and predictably couldn’t connect. So, frustrated, he searched the Fangbook profiles of vampires who he knew lived near Maurice’s mansion and soon realized why his efforts to reach it had failed: the entire neighborhood had been burned flat by the AVT, then scoured in a second pass by AVT troops firing ammunition that vampires reported “stopped strong men and women in their tracks.” There was even a video posted. In it, several vampires were visible on the ground, their skin green and covered with blisters, as Vincent’s had been in the tomb of the Luxembourg Chateau. In the video, on the hill, Reginald could even make out what he thought was one of Maurice’s fountains. Behind the fountain was nothing but a smoking crater.
They were all gone. All dead. He knew it, yet he refused to face it. He shut off those thoughts, turning his attention to the codex, which might be all he had left other than Nikki.
First Paris.
Then New York.
Then Philadelphia.
Then the small bend in the river, where Google Earth (which was still up; what the hell?) showed an old, colonial-era graveyard. The kind of graveyard that might contain old statues, possibly including a few of blasphemous angels.
First the codex, then reality.
First futility, then sorrow.
It was more than a lot of people had.
He turned on the location-spoofing software he’d patched into his phone’s operating system and logged in to Fangbook using the dummy account he’d set up before they’d left. He poked around for a while and then pulled out, his face twisting in disgust.
“How are things on the antisocial network?” Nikki asked, watching him while painting her toenails. It was such an inconsequential activity during the apocalypse that Reginald found himself both amused and charmed.
“Delightful. Our esteemed president Timken is still in charge in America. He also seems to be moving in on Europe too, seeing as the European Council was scattered by the AVT, but there’s already a dick-measuring contest going on as spear-rattlers in Europe push back. Stateside, he’s put the Young Seditionists to work cleaning up bodies. It reads like a Boy Scout civic responsibility job. Who knew — a quarter billion corpses makes things stink and attracts flies.”
“And rats. And disease.”
“Exactly. And while the disease doesn’t matter to the rather cavalier and hilarious population of Fangbook, they say the flies and rats are gross. What’s more, the bubonic plague could get an encore. Again, no problem for vampires, but do you really want to bite into a human and discover after you’re already drinking that they’ve got pestilence in them?”
“Ugh,” said Nikki.
“So they’re gathering bodies and burning them. I saw some videos. It’s disturbing. The mood in the videos is like the mood around a victory bonfire after your high school football team wins a big game. They’re all drinking alcoholic blood, screwing in the light of the flames. All right out in the open. In the middle of Central Park in New York. The humans are simply staying away.”
“If there are any left,” said Nikki.
“Oh, they’re left. Because another thing that’s popular on Fangbook right now are a series of groups, posts, and articles explaining how to find them. You can’t break into their homes and you can’t glamour them into letting you in, so you have two basic options.”
“One is to find them outside,” said Nikki.
“Right. And there’s a whole series of tips on ‘where to hunt wild humans.’ They read like classroom instructionals on how to find potato bugs under rocks. There are homeless people, newly homeless people, traveling groups — each has its own how-to article, you understand.”
“It’s only logical,” said Nikki.
“And the second way… are you ready for this?”
Nikki raised her eyebrows, intrigued.
“You can evict them. Or foreclose.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The Fangbook ads I saw most often were for vampire lawyers who will evict humans so that they can be fed on. There are vampire judges in collusion with them. If the humans you want to get are in a rental, for instance, the lawyers have to secure eviction notices, then post them on the humans’ doors. They then have thirty days to vacate. Afterward, the sheriff — who’s no longer bound by the restrictions protecting a human home — can go in and remove them, so the clients can eat them.”
“Again, you’re kidding.”
Reginald shook his head. “The arbitrary rules have become so much more arbitrary.” They’d had this discussion before, when the angels had first threatened vampirekind. The entire interaction between humans and vampires, from the beginning, had the feel of a board game. The rules were so random, so conveniently structured as to keep things fair.
Nikki laid back on the hotel bed. “Well,” she said, “that’s what you get for not paying your rent.”
“The irony is how easy it is for those who’ve figured it out,” said Reginald. “While the world is ending, it’s not like anybody is paying attention to things like rent and mortgage payments. The evictions and foreclosures would be totally legal from a human point of view, which is probably why it works. But who’s going to just move out when vampires tap on your door at night… but instead of clawing and taunting, they tack a notice to it?”
They slept. In the morning, they moved on.
Making Paris wasn’t difficult. They didn’t encounter any AVT troops as they entered the city’s outskirts, and the only humans they saw were terrified ones. There were only vampire troops and authorities to contend with, and Nikki moved like a vampire. Yes, she had a fat guy strapped to her back, but that was a curiosity if it was anything, so as they traveled among others, they were left alone.
They found Paris lit but quiet, and they found Charles de Gaulle airport operational — something Reginald had been almost certain would be the case. Air transport was still a necessity, even for vampires. Reginald had heard rumors about ancient, very powerful vampires being able to fly in extreme circumstances, but even if those rumors were true, he doubted anyone was flying across the ocean. Unless the new Vampire Earth wanted to isolate itself into distinct tribes, transatlantic traffic would continue.
The apocalypse made security lax (Nikki made a joke about carrying brass knuckles in her pockets and bringing vast amounts of forbidden liquids in her carry on) and they were easily able to sneak into an aluminum shipping container bound for the US. Eight hours later, they touched down in New York and Nikki said that not once had she put her seatback and tray table in their full upright and locked positions. She had, however, done a nude stewardess demonstration by lamplight during the trip wherein she’d indicated the locations of the exit doors and several other things.
Not wanting to push their luck with public transportation, they again saddled up and ran once they found dark American soil under their feet. They were approaching Philadelphia — and the old graveyard near the targeted spot in the river — when the sky began to blush red on the horizon.
Reginald wanted to push on and search for the statue of the angel, but Nikki held him back. She pointed to the horizon, to the rising sun, and said that as much as she knew he wanted to find the codex, it could wait for another day. She was too kind to point out that the war was essentially over, and that the codex, if it existed, could wait an eternity of days because they were already too late.
They found a small, one-story motel nearby with a dilapidated sign advertising heart-shaped hot tubs. The sign used a red, heart-shaped tile instead of the word “heart.” Once inside the first room, they found the hot tub cracked and in use by two dead humans. Nikki said that the corpses deserved their privacy and they found another room, which only had a conventional tub and shower.
They climbed under sheets that seemed too clean and hygienic for a roadside motel. And the day passed.
STARFISH
REGI
NALD DIDN’T SLEEP.
NIKKI TRIED. While the sun reddened the edge of the two blankets they’d draped over the curtain rod behind the motel drapes, she lay beneath the covers, her eyes closed. Reginald laid next to her, his face turned toward hers. He didn’t close his own eyes. He just watched her, his vampire-enhanced ears open and listening. There were no sounds from the other rooms. There were no sounds on the roads, and no sounds from the city in the distance. That might change as humans came out to forage, possibly to set some fires. But for now, there was nothing. There was the small room and the exterior hallway outside, and there was Reginald, and there was Nikki. Reginald’s cell phone remained mute, seeming to confirm his worst nightmares. Even if Claire was dead, he’d think that one of the others from the house would use a normal phone to try and call his phone in the conventional way. The cell networks were up and they all knew his phone number. But there was nothing.
He looked again at Nikki. There was nobody else and nothing else that mattered. She was all he had left. All he needed.
He watched her sleep, wondering if this existence could be enough. They were vampires. All they needed to live was blood. If push came to shove — no matter who won this increasingly one-sided war — could they live on their own, feeding on animals if necessary? Reginald decided they could. Humans only needed food, water, and shelter to live, but vampires really only needed blood. Would it be ideal? No. But what had ever been ideal in the life of Reginald Baskin? When he’d been human, he’d had his television and his greasy snacks and his internet and all of the modern conveniences, but he’d had no real friends, no companion, and no respect — especially respect for himself. Then, when he’d become a vampire, he hadn’t gained any respect (again, including and especially for himself), and while he’d gained immortality, he’d also gained a new level of contrast that made him more different from his so-called peers than ever. Even when his cache had risen in the vampire community, his mental powers had made him a freak. After that, he’d become a treasonist and a traitor and a pariah. And in this final reckoning, it turned out that he might be the cause of the end of days.
There was always something missing. If the world went to shit and only he and Nikki and a food source survived, would it matter?
No, it wouldn’t matter.
Still, he couldn’t help but hope. The graveyard was close. He had no idea what he’d find when night fell and they began to search, but in his fantasy, the angel statue guarded the entrance to an ancient, Indiana Jones style underground chamber. He’d trip through catacombs, dodging booby traps that couldn’t hurt him. He’d be flattened by a huge round boulder and would stand back up, healed and fat as ever. He’d find the codex on a plinth, and he’d swap it for an equal-weight bag of sand.
Once he had the codex, then, he’d see the pieces of the future that even Claire hadn’t been able to see. And then, maybe he’d be able to change it. Fate was fate, but he was beginning to suspect that predestination was more malleable than he’d been allowing. The angels couldn’t see the future because they couldn’t understand free will. It was their one major fault, and it was the reason Claire’s appearance had unseated their plans. So once Reginald saw what eternity had planned for the future of humans and vampires, wasn’t it possible that he’d still be able to change it? He thought so. Dominos were inert. Beings were not. The minute he saw the hand that was tipping history over, he thought he might be able to challenge it. He might be able to use his free will to challenge it, if he didn’t feel the ending of the story was a sufficient happily ever after.
Nikki’s eyes opened.
“You’re not sleeping,” she said.
“I can’t sleep.”
She sat up. “I know. I can always feel it. When you can’t sleep, it’s in the air. The air, not my blood.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Because when you can’t sleep, I can’t sleep. It sucks.”
“I’m sorry.”
She sloughed back down, propping her head of dark hair up on one elbow. Reginald had been thinking how pretty she was — how pretty she’d always and forever be — while she’d supposedly been sleeping. But now that he could see her eyes, he thought it anew. She really was stunning. And she was all his. For some reason, this wonderful, funny, kind, and beautiful young woman had chosen him. The doombringer, the reject, the ender of worlds.
“It’s okay. Is it the codex?”
“Mostly.”
“The graveyard will be there tonight. I couldn’t get fried for it. I’m sorry. I hate sunburns. Especially lately.”
“Sure.”
“But you’re mad that we didn’t try with the time we had,” she said.
He shook his head. There was no point in being mad. Ever. About anything. Nothing Reginald had ever experienced, when compared to the current state of the world, seemed remotely worth being mad about — with the possible exception of his and Nikki’s attempted execution by Logan’s Vampire Council.
“I’m not mad.”
“Honest?”
“Honest.” He sat up, all pretense at sleeping gone. “Like you said, it’ll be there tonight.”
She was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t read. But that wasn’t right; he could read it fine. He just didn’t really like it.
“What?” he said.
She shook her head.
“Nikki, what?”
“I hate to challenge the logic of His Eminent Reginaldness,” she said, “but it just seems to me that finding some ancient scroll or whatever might not make any difference. You seem to be staking a lot on finding it.”
“Claire said it was the plan. We peek at the end, and it’s like spoiling a book or a movie.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Spoiling it.”
He jerked his head toward the window. “I don’t think you can spoil what’s out there now in a way that would make it worse.”
“I don’t believe in fate. I think we make our own fates. What will unfold, will unfold. I don’t know that we’re supposed to see it coming.”
“That still sounds like fate to me.”
She shrugged.
“Look,” he said. “I know that even if we find the thing and even if we can make the world better, it’s not going to solve everything. Billions of people are already dead. There’s no question about stopping any of this because it’s already happened. The reports I’m hearing from both sides, including the human pirate radio stations, are all in agreement: humans are fucked. The vampires won. They’ll make their pathetic little pockets of resistance, but it’s game over. They weren’t prepared enough. The stuff in the AVT’s gray bullets was supposed to be a bio weapon, like a disease, but they didn’t finish developing it before the war broke out. It was intended to spread — like roach poison, where one roach takes the poison home to its the nest. But they got it wrong. It kills the vampires who get shot with it, same as a wooden bullet through the heart, but it’s still a one-to-one weapon. They should’ve started earlier and finished the germ. They should have made more of the guns and bullets and stockpiled them. They should have told the general population a long time ago that we existed, so they’d be prepared. But that’s not what happened, and there weren’t enough of them who knew what they were facing. The number of trained fighters was pathetic next to vampires, almost of all of whom knew their frail enemies and were deadly even without training. The AVT was like a drop of water in the ocean.”
“What’s going to happen?” said Nikki.
He shrugged. “It’ll become a vampire planet, just like Claude and Timken wanted. They’ll keep some humans to farm for blood, like we used to keep cows for milk. Vampires will be on top, just like they seem to think they should be. They will have won.” He realized he was using third-person when referring to vampires, when really he should be using first-person. Like it or not, he and Nikki had ended up on the winning side. So he forced himself to add, “We will have won.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. Reginal
d had evolved a lot since he’d become a vampire — he had a brain like a library, senses sharp enough to read every detail around him, the ability to glamour vampires he was related to, the ability to talk to blood, and on and on — but he hadn’t evolved out of his self-deprecating nature. He’d had 38 years of feeling inferior and believing he’d earned the harsh treatment he received, and a few years as an immortal hadn’t been enough to change it.
“I just… I want to get the codex because maybe there’s still something that can be done,” he said. “Some weakness to exploit. Some tiny way to make things better.”
Nikki looked to the draped windows, to the post-apocalyptic world beyond. She said, "'Tiny’ is right.”
“You know the starfish story? The one where the kid is throwing dying starfish back into the ocean and someone tells him that he’s wasting his time — that there are too many starfish and he can’t possibly make a difference?”
“No.”
“After the skeptic says that,” Reginald continued, “the kid picks a starfish up and throws it into the ocean. Then he points and says, ‘I just made a difference to that one.'"
“Cute.”
He closed his eyes, sighed, then looked back at her.
“I need to finish something, Nikki. Just once. We took over the American Council, but then Maurice ignored his Deaconship and we let Charles take over. We tried to foil Charles, lost, and then Timken did what we couldn’t. And how did I respond? I backed Charles against Timken. I’ve tried to drink only blood and not eat human food. I’ve tried to train. Did you know that Maurice said that in a thousand years, I might be almost as fast and strong as he is now? But instead of practicing what I can do, I just watch TV. I somehow manage to get the pretty girl, and I take her for granted. Have I ever even given you flowers? Taken you out for dinner?”
Fat Vampire (Book 5): Fatpocalypse Page 13