A Dark-Adapted Eye

by Crews, Heather

  “You and Ivory did,” I pointed out. “After I found out you hunted vampires, I asked you to promise you wouldn’t get killed, remember?”

  “He promised. I didn’t.”

  “Well, whatever. I’m promising now. And I’m glad you’re alive, even if you didn’t promise.”

  One side of his mouth lifted slyly. “Oh yeah? How glad?”

  “You just . . . you don’t know what you do to me, you jerk.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Oh, come on,” Ivory groaned from the couch. “It’s not going to be like this all the time, is it?”

  “It’ll be worse,” I called back to him. I grinned at Les, and he leaned down to kiss me.

  ~

  I didn’t expect to find Rade or any other vampire at Shiver that night, so I biked to his apartment in the dark. It was closing in on midnight when I arrived, and I felt only a little afraid of the late hour.

  There was darkness behind him when he opened the door and stared down at me without a word of greeting. I knew he knew why I’d come.

  “If you want me to do it,” I said, “it has to be tonight.”

  “Fine. I’m ready.”

  He stuck my bike in the back of the ink-black El Camino and drove.

  Witcher Park was a great place for seeing stars, far as it was from the center of town. I felt privileged to be able to take advantage of its isolation for the first time. Rade and I would sit together all night, so I would be safe until dawn.

  The car rested in the parking lot. I led the way along the familiar trails until we were walking parallel to the natural wash. This was the place, I decided. Trees were to the south of us, the wash to the north, and to the east nothing but scrubby undeveloped land and distant mountains over which the sun would rise.

  “Here,” I said.

  We stood side by side on the cement trail, not looking at each other. After a few minutes I took a few steps into the dirt, closer to the water. The edge of the drop was hard to see so I didn’t stray far. My death wasn’t tonight’s goal.

  “I thought this place would be ruined for me,” I said, listening to the roar of the water below us. “But it isn’t.”

  He just shrugged, unmoved, and stared into the dark. It was so frustrating talking to someone who just didn’t care because I did, despite everything.

  “Do you finally feel sorry for all the things you’ve done?” I asked him, a slight edge to my voice.

  “It would be nice,” he said blankly, “to feel something. I almost did, with you. I don’t know why. Maybe because you were the only one I ever saw again. I felt . . . as if I created you somehow.”

  “You didn’t,” I said sharply, then softened my voice as I went on. “But I wondered about that before. If what you did played a part in who I am. I decided it didn’t. There are people I love, who love me, who did more to shape me than you ever did. And ultimately I decided how I’d be.”

  “You’re strong, you know. I could tell from that very first moment.”

  I lowered myself to sit on the dry dirt and tried so hard not to look at him. Not to cry. I wanted to appear fierce and fearless, both to him and to myself.

  “I wish I’d never found out about you,” I said tightly. “I felt such compulsion to see you, but I hated myself every time I was with you. I never wanted to go to you, Rade. I had to. It was like you’d left something behind when you bit me and it never went away.” I sighed, gazing at the stars with hot eyes. “I don’t just blame you. I could have stayed away, if I’d really tried. But I didn’t.”

  Rade sat down, a quiet specter beside me, nearly invisible in his black clothes. I could see only a slice of his white face and the pale line of one arm.

  “Have you ever heard of a binary system?” I asked after a moment.

  “No.”

  “It’s a system of two stars that revolve around a common center of gravity. Sometimes one of the stars sucks hydrogen from the other to get bigger and brighter, and look younger. It’s called a blue straggler. It lives longer than it ever should by making a victim of its companion.” I dragged a finger through the dirt in front of my shins. “Sometimes they become a single star because the one has taken so much from the other. So,” I finished, “it’s a pretty bad relationship. Violent. Not healthy.”

  “I see,” he said.

  His voice actually sounded sad, or maybe I only wanted it to. When I looked at him he had his head down, hair hiding the pale shape of his face.

  “When the blue straggler finally dies, though,” I told him carefully, “it’s really beautiful. It’s a big, bright explosion and it can be seen from almost anywhere in the universe.”

  “I think I could have loved you,” he said then, the words barely more than a whisper, “if I’d had enough time. But maybe not. There’s no love in me that I’ve ever known.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to love me, Rade. And I would never have loved you back.”

  There wasn’t much to say after that. Whatever had been or could have been between us was dwindling with each hour the dawn drew near. I didn’t owe it to him to sit here, I reminded myself several times in the night. I didn’t even owe him the mercy of a quick kill. But there I was anyway, trying to decide which was more fitting for him: a slow, peaceful death or a supernova blast.

  The sky took on a tinge of pink so gradually I hardly even noticed it at first. “Morning’s coming.”

  “I know,” Rade said listlessly.

  “What does the sun do to vampires?”

  “You’ll be able to answer that soon, won’t you.”

  “I think I already know, actually. It won’t kill you, will it? Not for a while, anyway. But you’ll be in pain. You won’t be able to move.” He didn’t respond even when I stared hard at him. “Aren’t you afraid?” I asked.

  “Afraid to die? No. But I should be, I suppose. Everyone I ever touched was afraid.”

  I rose to my feet and waited for him to do the same. When he stood facing me, I slipped Les’s knife out of my pocket and carefully flicked it open.

  “I’ve never used one of these before.”

  “I won’t resist you.”

  He wouldn’t. His slackened posture, his solemn mouth, his tone of voice, his eyes—everything about him conveyed a weary willingness to die. It made me strangely sad to think that soon he would no longer be in the world, yet the thought also brought with it a kind of selfish relief.

  “If you were a star,” I said, “you’d be Algol.”

  Holding the knife was unfamiliar and awkward, but I put it against Rade’s throat as gracefully as possible. I pressed in with revulsion and followed the line of his finger as he drew it across his skin. He didn’t flinch or show any sign he felt pain, but the bright blood flowed freely past his collar and a gleaming wetness appeared on the front of his black shirt. After a moment, he collapsed slowly to his knees.

  Pitying sorrow took root in my chest. I crouched in front of him as the sun rose in far-reaching stains of orange brilliance. The light on us was softer and more gradual than the sky’s blazes would suggest. But it was enough.

  A pale yellow shroud fell gently over Rade’s back and caressed my face. He lifted his head as it rose higher, grew stronger, and surrounded us. He was still bleeding, growing weaker by the second. I saw a flash of agony in his eyes just before he opened his mouth in a silent scream. His fangs were long and sharp, gleaming whitely. They were terrifying.

  I found I couldn’t stand his suffering, almost as if I felt it too, but the knife had already dropped from my hand into the dirt. Impulsively I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his middle, holding him as he writhed. It was the first time I’d touched him of my own will. The only time.

  At last he was still and limp in my arms. I pulled back, letting him slump gently to the ground. My shirt held a matching impression of the bloodstain on his. His blood had soaked into the left side of my hair. I could feel it drying on my face.

  “Goodbye,” I whispered.
r />   I left him there and took the trails back to the parking lot, heedless of my appearance. No one was around to see me anyway. The morning was brighter now and less hazy. Last night and the past few moments felt peculiarly like a dream. And I was light without the burden of my vampire. It wasn’t upsetting that he was gone. Only freeing.

  The El Camino was the only car in the parking lot. I walked toward it to get my bike, glancing in the window as I passed. The keys were still in the ignition.

  It looked like now I had my very own car.

  I wondered what the others would say when I came home in it. My brother, my two best friends, and the guy I loved with a crushing fierceness, whose face I could see in my mind, who smiled for me, who loved me, who’d never give up on me. Then I realized it didn’t really matter. They could like it or not, but I was sure Rade had left the keys on purpose. This was my car now. I was keeping it.

  Driving home with the cool morning wind in my blood-crusted hair and my eyes squinted against the sunlight, I couldn’t help but smile at how luminous the world seemed just then, how absolutely bright.

  eighteen

  one week later

  radial velocity: the movement of an object either toward or away from a stationary observer

  The driveway was cool and splashy beneath my bare feet, thanks to the sudsy hose water running down it and into the gutter. I grabbed my sponge out of the bucket and ran it across the dark blue hood of the new car. New to us, anyway. Ivory had traded in the pickup to get it. It was a smallish SUV, practical because it could seat seven people and still have room for luggage and stuff. The five of us—Criseyde, Ivory, Aleskie, Les and I—would be plenty comfortable when we left.

  “Ivory and I went to see our dad earlier this week,” I told Criseyde.

  “Oh, yeah? And how’d that go?”

  “Eh. Not great. But at least Ivory didn’t kill him.”

  “So it wasn’t a happy family reunion?” There was a note of sympathy in Cris’s voice as she swiped her sponge over the windows.

  “No. But I didn’t really expect it to be. We met him at his room and then walked across the street to eat at that pancake house. He said it took him two years after he left to even start trying to get sober. Now he’s worked at the recycling center for about six months, which is probably the longest he ever held a job. I guess he’s doing all right.”

  I laughed hollowly, without humor, unsure how I felt about the whole situation. The guy was my dad, but he’d hardly raised us and it had been so long since I’d seen him. My last memory of him until recently was a crappy one. It was still hard to feel anything for him.

  “I mentioned my astronomy,” I continued, “and Ivory actually talked a little about hunting vampires. Dad was really impressed with that. But in the end, just . . .” I shrugged and felt something suspiciously like regret. “There wasn’t really much to say.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, you went and saw him. That’s something. Probably more than he deserves. More than I would have done.”

  “So you’re all done moving out of your apartment?” I asked, making my voice bright.

  “Yep!” she replied happily. “And I’ve already put in my notice at work. I’m about to be a free agent.”

  In the past week, she had sold her futon and various other items from her apartment. Now all her clothes were hanging in Ivory’s closet, just like we’d once joked about. We teased him mercilessly.

  “I’m not sure any girl has ever seen the inside of your bedroom before,” I’d told him earlier that morning. “Now Criseyde’s clothes are in your closet and Aleskie is sleeping in your bed.”

  “And you’re on the couch!” Cris had added, bursting with laughter. He’d muttered some gruff retort, his eyes flicking shyly to Aleskie.

  “I can’t believe we’re leaving so soon,” I said now.

  “I know! It’s exciting.”

  The military was still stationed on the roads out of town, just as they had been for the past year, but it was just a formality now, not to keep people in or out. People could come and go whenever they wanted. And we were going. The new car, clean and shining, would take the five of us out of town to somewhere new.

  We had plans, but not definite ones. We didn’t know where we were going. We didn’t know how long we’d be gone. And we didn’t really care.

  Smiling to myself, I plopped my sponge in the bucket and grabbed the hose to start rinsing off the suds.

  “You’re not doing it sexy enough,” Criseyde informed me. She was wearing a tight tank top and short shorts, which was a lot sexier than an old t-shirt of Les’s, the sleeves tucked up over my shoulders, and a pair of cutoffs.

  I laughed good-naturedly at her. “I don’t want to be sexy. I’m trying to wash this car, which we somehow got stuck doing while everyone else sits around and drinks beer.”

  She looked over at the guys, sitting several feet away on the half wall that separated our driveway from the neighbor’s. Ivory had invited Ethan and Rhys over to talk about vampire stuff—what was left, if anything, for us to do now that the government was involved. Or maybe they were just talking about regular guy stuff. My brother planned to grill hot dogs for everyone later.

  “You don’t like beer,” Cris said.

  “Well, no, but maybe we’ll go to the store after this and get daiquiri stuff. I like strawberry daiquiris.”

  “Ooh, me too.” She grinned suddenly. “Hey. Watch this.”

  She dipped her own sponge into the bucket with exaggerated movements and shook her hair over her shoulders. She squeezed the sponge over one of the tires, but purposely got most of the water on her legs. Rhys gaped at her. Ethan glanced up appreciatively, then punched his younger brother in the arm.

  Cris giggled and dumped our buckets. With a smile, I met Les’s eyes and shrugged. He returned the gesture and then something in the street caught his attention. I looked over my shoulder just as a gold sedan pulled up to the curb in front of our house. Two men in khakis, one in a sport coat, got out and approached us. I twisted off the hose and watched as Ivory stood up to meet them.

  Their names were Dave and Kevin and they were from Homeland Security. They were here to question us about vampires.

  Though only three of us had witnessed the eclipse and the events of that night, everyone filed inside somewhat reluctantly and took positions in various places around the living room. The atmosphere was slightly strained, as none of us knew quite what to expect, yet surprisingly laid back. These guys were here because they wanted our account of the eclipse, not because they suspected us of anything. And we had nothing to hide anyway.

  Almost nothing.

  “We just need to find out what you know,” Kevin, the one in the coat, said. He was the one who meant business, while the other, Dave, just sat back and looked around easily at us. “What you’ve seen, what you saw the night of the lunar eclipse. What’s happening is that we’re trying to rid the city completely of vampires, so it’s safe for people like you again, and we can only do that with everyone’s cooperation.”

  “Okay,” Ivory said, fully ready to cooperate.

  Kevin took out a small notebook. “How did you end up in the desert that night?” he asked after he’d taken all our names.

  “I was kidnapped,” my brother told them. He gestured to Les. “He and I hunted vampires for a few years. And one night while we were out hunting, this big vampire came out of nowhere and took me as his prisoner.”

  “You hunted them.”

  “Yeah. We killed a lot of them together. It started as a way to, you know, make money, but then we had to keep doing it after they all came here. We thought we could help make things safer for other people.”

  “A lot of people in Las Secas have killed at least one vampire by now,” Ethan put in. “I have.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Kevin said. He looked back and forth beneath Les and me. “What about you two? How did you end up there?”

  “We went to rescue my brother.�
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  “We spent a lot of time looking for him before we finally figured out where he was,” Les added.

  He went on to explain how we’d come to discover that Ivory had been at the Market. Instead of telling the entire truth, however, he just said we’d looked in a few clubs before receiving an anonymous tip. He’d lied, I was sure, to keep my involvement with Rade a secret. But his story was close enough to the truth and I nodded my agreement.

  “So the tip was just a way to lure you in?” Kevin asked.

  “I guess so. I don’t know what was going through the vamps’ minds.”

  “Have you had any contact with vampires since the eclipse?” Dave asked.

  No one had. I couldn’t speak for Ethan and Rhys, but the rest of us were lying, of course. I shifted a little uncomfortably, but Les and Ivory looked innocently impassive. Criseyde crossed her legs and gave a bored smile.

  Kevin and Dave asked a few more questions: if a vampire had ever bitten any one of us, if we knew of anyone who’d had contact with vamps in the past week, if we knew where any vamps were hiding. They told us that, thanks to the testimonies of several humans who’d been in thrall, the Guard had been able to uncover a couple of vampire hideouts. Nests, they called them. I shuddered at the word.

  We didn’t have anything to tell them.

  It wasn’t that I wanted to lie to government workers. I wanted vampires gone, out of my life. I wanted to walk around at night if I felt like it and look through my telescope without worrying that something would come after me. And I’d been able to, for the most part, since the eclipse. Vampires were lying low, leaving humans alone because they were trying not to get found and killed.

  But I had to lie. I lied mostly for Aleskie, who hid back in Ivory’s room and didn’t deserve to be shot on sight. I lied a little for the doorman at Shiver, for some reason.

  I lied because I had to wonder if there were others like Aleskie, who’d been forced to become vampires and who didn’t exactly embrace the bloodsucking lifestyle. Maybe there were humans who genuinely cared about vampires like that—family members, friends, lovers. I’d come across a lot more vampires who weren’t nice, of course, but maybe the other kind was out there. Somewhere.