The Vampirists

by R. G. Nelson

  “Really? Because that's when it got confusing for me,” I quip.

  She turns to me and stares deep in my eyes. Even though I’m no longer human and really vulnerable, they still have an almost hypnotic effect on me. They calm me and make me giddy at the same time.

  “Shut up. I'm being serious,” she says as she squeezes my sides. “It's like my journey brought me here to you. All the horrors I’ve seen, everything I survived … then joining this family. My path hasn’t been straightforward, but it did transform me into a vampire capable of loving you, a human.”

  “And worth being loved,” I can’t help adding. She likes that.

  “And now that I’ve brought you into my world–made you my equal–well, almost my equal,” she teases, giving me a hard nudge that reminds me just how strong she really is. “You came out of nowhere and made me fall for you so completely, so easily. You probably don’t even realize what a big deal that is for someone like me–I haven’t had tons of boyfriends or been in love much despite my years. I honestly don’t even really understand what happened with you. Maybe I’m being a silly girl, but I can only explain it by thinking that somehow I was meant to be here with you, now. I feel–I know–that we can get through anything, together.” She pauses for emphasis before continuing, “And the best part is that it doesn't have to end. We have centuries ahead of us, millennia even.”

  “Everything comes to an end,” I remind her, thinking of Mike. She comprehends my words; the look of grief that crosses her countenance makes me instantly regret saying them. They seem especially cruel in light of the declaration she just made.

  “But not yet,” I say quickly, trying to smooth over her hurt feelings. I pull her tight and kiss her deeply. I willfully try to lose myself in her embrace. To let all my other cares disappear for these few precious seconds and focus only on the pleasure of being here, with Vera, now.

  It doesn’t work. Being with her like this has driven home just how much I have to lose. Worry has started to amplify in my mind. As sad as I am for Mike, I recognize that much of what bothers me about his passing is that I realize it could just as easily be Vera some night. I squeeze her tight, so tight that a human girlfriend would be complaining by now, but Vera just lies still in my arms.

  I think she understands my fear, my fear of being given this gift of immortality but then denied the chance to spend it with the person I care about. That has to be a fate worse than the neverend. I know right now with more certainty than ever that I will do whatever it takes to protect her. To make sure that I will never have to live in a world without her (or “exist,” really, since it wouldn’t be much of a life without her).

  “You know I can’t live without you?” I breathe in her ear. “That I’d do anything for you?”

  “I know,” she purrs back.

  I mean it, too. I don’t know if I like what the Vampirists or the Movement or whatever is making me into, but I do like being with her. I wonder if we could run away from all this, just pick somewhere and go and never come back. But I know that she’d never leave. She’d never go back to that life of uncertainty without the protection of the Vampirists.

  That may seem strange to me, but I’m sure that I can’t fully grasp what it was like for her before, hiding constantly and always being on guard from discovery by humans or attacks by other vampires. Maybe after seeing the classics, now I can understand a bit. And honestly, that’s not a life I’d want to have. In the end, I guess I’ll just have to watch myself to make sure I’m staying true to who I want to be, because I see little choice but to stay put and fight for this cause. To fight for a future for vampires. For a future for us.

  When I finally manage to tear myself away from Vera, I look once again toward the house. I finger an envelope that sticks out of my pocket.

  Vera notices. “You want to go in?” she asks.

  “No. I don’t belong there anymore,” I respond.

  I peck her on the cheek and walk up to the door. I pause at the threshold and listen to the TV. A news reporter is speaking in that friendly yet robotic tone, the mastery of which is apparently required before appearing on the news. “The Vice-President has continued to gather bi-partisan support for his bill, which would grant the White House unprecedented power to deal with the escalating situation spreading across the nation. Global leaders have also begun to weigh in and voice their support for the Vice-President, as the organization known as ‘The Movement’ has begun to take hold in cities overseas as well. The President, a long-time supporter of reduced federal power, has remained strangely silent, perhaps waiting to see how the political drama will play out with voters before ….”

  It’s the same old political dance. The Vampirists and their outer Movement have really been stirring things up, but short of a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 type situation, I doubt the humans will get themselves together to form any solid cohesive political response. So I stick the envelope of money underneath the door and retreat back to Vera’s side quickly.

  I can tell that my dad noticed. The clink of his beer hitting the table and the squeak of the chair let me know that he is getting up to investigate. So we take a quick look around for nosy neighbors and then super-speed away when we confirm that the coast is clear. Still, I don’t make it too far before I hear his anguished voice calling out my name into the night. But I don’t turn around.

  15)

  Days pass, or I should say nights. Though I mostly avoid everyone except Vera, I can’t help realizing that a lot of people feel Mike’s loss. Even those Vampirists who weren’t so close to Mike don’t like being reminded that they aren’t really immortal. While humans in the Movement must simply think he quit or was sent away, the militia vampires look at me and my remaining cell with a little bit of sympathy.

  It reminds me of deaths in human families. Extended relatives stop by to give their condolences and cast pitying looks your way, but short of dropping off a casserole and saying a prayer or two, there’s nothing else they can really do. They look on and both secretly rejoice that it wasn’t someone close to them and get anxious about the day when it will be. Still, as Hamad points out when I encounter him at the apartment, Mike’s wasn’t the first death for the cause, and it won’t be the last. The other vampires will get over him soon–as a species we have to adjust quickly, or else we’ll go mad from all the loss that we will experience during the course of our elongated journeys. The neverend is always there, lurking just beneath the thin veneer of our immortality.

  Laney also withdraws into herself. Vera and I try to hang out with her to keep her mind occupied, but it doesn’t work. In case seeing the two of us together as a couple isn’t helping, Vera asks for my okay to spend more alone time with Laney–just the girls, she says. Frankly, I’m surprised that she is taking it so hard, given the relatively little progress Mike made with her compared to the effort he put in. I’m kind of reluctant to give my permission and tell Vera that I’m not so sure whether Laney is really feeling the loss of Mike or simply feeling guilty retrospectively that she wasn’t always nicer. Vera tells me pointedly that some vampires have a very different sense of time and just don’t rush into things quickly. Maybe that’s true; Vera did mention that our courtship was unusually short, but I find myself kinda annoyed at Laney. I guess I feel a bit as though Mike died for her, but I doubt that she had such strong feelings back. Either way, I sense that this is a situation where I should just shrug my shoulders, give Vera a kiss, and back down. Which I do.

  So I spend long stretches wondering the nighttime streets and rooftops alone; I kinda want to test myself out a bit. I’d been feeling like my powers were a bit heightened ever since I fought and drank from the Native-American vamp. When I told Vera about this and how my cell (or what’s left of them) wanted Joseph to give us his blood, she wasn’t surprised. She r
eminded me of a conversation that we once had when she told me that this type of power enhancement was possible. But she said it’s rarely done in practice–such swapping is very personal and intimate unless done by force, which would obviously be hard to do, considering the likely power dynamic.

  Still, she’d made it a point on a few occasions since to keep including this blood swap in the mix during our bedroom sessions, whether for my future safety or for pleasure, it’s hard to know. Done between us, it partially feels unbelievably amazing, but it simultaneously leaves one feeling unsettlingly vulnerable. You are totally exposed when you let another vampire feed from you and share your essence.

  Though I may not totally agree with the reason, my temporary break from Vera is a good excuse to take some time to myself and stretch my legs–to lose myself in the anonymity of the city landscape at night. Plus, it’s been too easy to go from apartment to headquarters to mission to apartment and insulate myself from the real impact of the Movement. Now, now I want to observe and soak in the chaos. Reading about it on my phone or seeing the news on TV doesn’t do it justice. Things have really stepped up a level. Or three. Demonstrations seem to be the new norm instead of special events as they were in my last days as a human.

  I watch the protests from above. I look on as tent cities are broken up by police. I see dozens and dozens of kids being arrested. But it’s like the more they arrest, the more young people spring up to take their place. Mobile videos of police stuffing wagons full of passionate teenagers fly across the internet and serve as a call to action.

  I still don’t know how many of the demonstrators are real believers or how many just think it’s cool to protest something and miss some classes, but when I look at the crowds now, it’s not just the societal misfits I see. From Miami to Seattle, the youth of Middle America are coming out of the woodwork in masses. Now, it’s also the idealistic high school and university crowd, the bored, the unemployed, the adventure-seekers and risk-takers, and frankly, some of those that just don’t want to miss out on being a part of history. Most probably can’t voice the Movement’s philosophy past “Government bad. Movement good.” That doesn’t stop them, though, from devoting day after day and night after night to endless marching, picketing in front of large financial and governmental institutions, and implementing a variety of sit-ins, lock-ins and even break-ins.

  Not surprisingly, some of these turn violent. I don’t know if Joseph and the Movement leadership are officially encouraging this, but they don’t seem to be trying to prevent it, either. People try to copy some of our earlier tactics and set fire to dumpsters, cars and increasingly, whole buildings. After one sixteen-year-old girl was caught on camera being savagely beaten by police despite having already been subdued with multiple tasers, a few protestors on the other side of the city decided to pay the authorities back with Molotov cocktails. Let’s just say that helped ignite some of the more intense clashes. Now blood is routinely spilled, though the police do go out of their way to use non-violent countermeasures. Apparently, even with the Vice-President’s tough talk on TV, they aren’t ready to have bodies of teens in the streets. But there are plenty of bruised and bloodied teens in hospitals and jails around the country.

  16)

  My week off hasn’t officially ended before I get an urgent call from Hamad. He’s rather abrupt and sounds stressed: “rescue mission, time sensitive” is about all I get out of him. So I find myself heading to our rendezvous point with absolutely no idea of what this night will have in store, but praying like hell it’ll be better than the last mission we endured. Vera is again off with Laney for a few hours and so I don’t even have a chance to say goodbye to her should the night go very badly for me.

  Man, I can’t afford to think like this.

  I hope I won’t be setting out on missions for the next decade with such negativity in mind.

  I’ve almost managed to convince myself that everything is fine and that it will just be another straightforward mission–i.e., something that will be no problem for a vampire such as myself–when I arrive to see Hamad waiting for me in a spring rain wearing an air of grave concern. It takes me longer to get there than I anticipate, and I’m ten minutes late. But somehow, I don’t get the sense that this is what is bothering him. He starts to climb in the passenger door of a large white van nearby that says “Grace Lutheran Youth Group” on the side. A large van: I guess we are back to bombings then, maybe as a diversion for the mentioned rescue mission? It’s not exactly as discreet as you’d expect for a sensitive mission.

  I notice that Jesús is not in the driver seat as I originally assumed. “Where’s Jesús?” I ask with surprise before Hamad shuts his door.

  “Yeah, about Jesús … he’s the problem,” Hamad says gruffly. “Let’s go, we’re already running late.” He motions for me to get in the driver seat.

  I get in and glance around quickly before pulling away. Nothing in back that looks like explosives. “So where am I headed?”

  “The police station on 8th,” he says simply. I’m sure that he registers the confusion on my face because he continues, “Jesús got himself arrested.”

  “What?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Apparently, Jesús’ plan to recover this week was to go with the humans into the streets and raise some hell. We don’t know what happened, but we know at some point earlier tonight he got snagged by the police.”

  I understand the concern and time pressure now. It’s 3 a.m., and the sun comes up in a couple of hours. That could be problematic. “Do we have a plan?” I query.

  “Yeah, get him out. Fast,” Hamad says. He’s really not in a good mood tonight. I wonder how his week off has been. We didn’t hang out much, or at all, though we did pass each other in the apartment a few times. Think we both took some alone time. I stay quiet for a bit to wait him out; he’ll have to brief me at some point. There’s no sound for a while but the rain hitting the window and cars trickling slowly by.

  I’m proven right a few minutes later as he sighs and starts to fill me in with more details. “We have a militia plant in the force. Night shift. He’s gonna meet us there and help us spring Jesús and the humans he was with.”

  “Why the humans?” I probe delicately. I’m curious, but don’t want to set him off.

  “Just being cautious. We don’t want anyone to realize Jesús is important to us. Better for him to just be another face in the masses.”

  When we pull up in front, a cop with icy blue eyes is there to meet us. A few other police hurry by with only a quick, inquisitive glance at our van. I think the rain is helping us here as people are keen not to hang around outside in it. Moments later, we’re being escorted inside in handcuffs by the vampire, Sgt. Johnson. He’s mid-thirties (well, he was in human years when he died, anyway), with a pretty decent build, and appears a little rough around the edges. In short, he looks like the perfect cop. I wonder if he was recruited as police or if this is just his cover.

  There’s no time to get his background, however, as he is filling us in on the situation. “We have a little hiccup, but it shouldn’t be too bad,” he explains to Hamad. The level of anxiety I detect as he delivers the message lets me know that Hamad outranks him on our totem pole of hierarchy. I wonder where I rank as a bloodshirt. Other Vampires seem to give us status around HQ, even the young ones, but I doubt I’d get too much on my own if it weren’t for my belonging to the cell of someone like Hamad.

  “Tell me,” Hamad commands brusquely. We’re almost inside now.

  “The humans are in holding, but they took your man to interrogation. Some federal suit is in with him,” he says.

  “Take us there,” Hamad orders.

  “I really shouldn’t–they got cameras everywhere. They could connect the dots later,” Johnson points out.<
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  “Then get us an escort,” Hamad says, just as we go in the main entrance.

  We pause inside. No one really pays much attention to us despite the fact that we are dripping wet from the rain. The place is not very busy, though there are more officers around than I’d expect for a late-night shift. I guess that is the Movement’s doing. No rest for the weary.

  Another cop walks by and nods absentmindedly at Johnson. The sergeant quickly sticks a hand out and grabs the man’s shoulder, turning his face to his. I see his pupils begin pulsing as he starts to speak. “Hey, Mac, do me a favor, would ya?”

  Now in the company of the cop whose name I read to be McKenzie, we head toward the interrogation rooms. I practice my skills at enthralling (it’s been easier for me lately) and have him take us in succession into each of the darkened little booths designed for watching the interrogations. We want to make sure that we have the right room before charging in for the rescue. When we find the right place, I pause and watch the scene in front of me through the two-way mirror. Of course, when Johnson mentioned that a fed was in with Jesús, I sort of half-expected that it might be Taylor, but seeing it firsthand still is a shock to my system. Jesús is seated silently, calmly even, despite his handcuffs. He wears only a wife-beater up top and from this side angle parts of his tattoos are clearly visible.

  Taylor’s voice comes through hidden microphones clearly. “I don’t understand why you are being so uncooperative,” he’s in the process of saying. “I mean, you’re really screwed here. You have a rap sheet a mile long going all the way back to when you were a kid in and out of juve.”

  Jesús smiles and speaks sarcastically. “I cleaned up my act. I haven’t been arrested in years.”