by R. G. Nelson
“What the–?” Brad’s confused; he strains to see the source of the interrupting voice. He takes a few hesitant steps inside while his boys chill behind on the sidewalk, too drunk to be really interested. He looks back at his buddies when he realizes they aren’t following.
“It’s probably just some bored protestors messing around,” one mumbles.
“He called me by name,” Brad counters, moving even farther into the alley. As Brad’s eyes adjust to the darkness, his stance relaxes and he starts to walk more confidently. He sees that it’s just Franklin.
“Oh, hey, is it safe for little girls to be all alone in an alley?” he taunts. Not a smart move. Not even with his backup now joining him in the shadows of the narrow passage.
Brad starts to chuckle, “My, you have such beautiful eyes!” He turns back to his two snickering friends, probably just to make sure that they are paying attention. Satisfied, he continues, “Do all the guys like them?”
His bros are cracking up. “Holy crap. Dudes got like glowing blue contacts. What a choad!” one says.
“They’re fago-lous,” the other agrees. They are laughing so hard that they don’t notice when two stealthy shapes land behind them, cutting off their retreat back to the lit street that represents the relative safety of the human world. I’ve said it before: Alleys are a place for vampires.
Franklin’s head cocks sideways, locking in the familiar predatory position so innate to our kind. It’s like we are trying to get a better view of the blood vessels in our prey’s neck. “You think you're a real tough guy,” Franklin says. More of a statement than a question, really. “Let's find out.” And that was a definite challenge.
Brad picks up on that. “What? You seriously wanna throw down here?” His boys look at each other with incredulous mirth, still oblivious to death behind them. “I'm gonna murder your ass,” Brad declares, literally pounding his fist into his hand in anticipation. He advances on Franklin with his boys edging behind automatically, perhaps to join in, perhaps just to get a better shot of the action. Whatever the reason, the space they vacate now fills with the remaining forms from above: five in total lurk just out of perception’s range.
Franklin speaks with a venom and menace I’ve never heard from him before, and he and I have had some bad fights: “No, Brad. I'm afraid it's not going to go down quite like that.”
I know how this ends.
I consider, briefly, calling out a warning. But that would give me away–I’m not even supposed to be off base. And who knows if I could even outrun the VG should they decide to give chase to me? I doubt that Brad and company knowing what is about to go down could actually prevent it from happening at this point. They were dead the moment that they walked into the alley. I’m surprised how much that bothers me–especially given how often I wished that he would drop dead in high school. I’m just glad Megan wasn’t out with them tonight.
Brad winds up to launch a blow at Franklin, but stops mid-swing. I watch his grin turn to terror and know what he sees. For the other VG have now bared fangs, too, and hiss at Brad’s hapless bros.
“Jesus Christ!” Brad gasps. They always seem to say that.
Now it’s Franklin’s turn to chuckle. “Not even close.”
The last thing I hear as I disappear away into the night is a choked-off scream.
Newbies are sloppy.
* * *
Night wraps itself warmly around the city. As I stand here, a veil lifts up from the metropolis beneath me, exposing the secrets of its genesis. I see now that it is alive, truly alive. Millions of souls have combined to give veritable life to this amorphic being–regardless of whether or not the individual parts are aware of this transformation. Everywhere around me, she bears her gritty innards and reveals her true vulnerability. With my opened eyes, I discern her veins and arteries flowing with countless dotted cells of red and yellow. Little capillaries fragment off, driving life to penetrate and permeate throughout her mass. I see that this city, like all others, survives only through its inhabitants. The stream of humanity is its life blood: circulating, ever moving, and keeping it afloat … keeping it alive. But just as the city and country as a whole depend on their parts, so, too, do the parts depend on the whole.
I’m not sure where vampires fit into all of this, but it’s clear to me that we need the city alive just as much as humanity. Perhaps under other leadership, we could serve the city, weeding out other undesirable elements that infect its core like the spread of viruses: organized crime, street predators, gangs …. Now, though, we see it only as a resource to be drained and a potential enemy to be tamed. Sadly, we are just a malady of our own creation. A cancer. We are the toxins in the body, clotting the arteries with our protests and corroding vital organs with our manipulations.
A look out across the vastness brings this home. In the far distance, I can make out sections of the veins where there is no flow–those areas where traffic has been shut down. Nearby, sections of darkness grip what must be whole city blocks; it seems power has been shut off, whether by Movement protestors or the government, I can’t be sure. But it’s clear that just like the power, life as we know it is in danger of blinking out here–and now the militia wants to take all this to the next stage of infection.
What would a world with Vampirists in charge look like? In power, we’d operate under permanent martial law, free of judicial oversight. We could shut down the streets and deny the freedom to assemble. Resistors would be crushed brutally or simply disappear, just as Annie and her family were swallowed into the void. We’d move on to controlling the media; if you control the message, you go a long way toward controlling the population. We’d get inside the psyche of the nation, creating a sense of fear that we’d feed and nurture to maintain our government’s twisted role as the saviors of society. We’d inhibit science and delay human progress. That means diseases that won’t be cured and collective problems that won’t get solved. The march of modern man would be stopped, and the road back to darker ages opened once more. The living organism that is our modern society would wither and die.
And it wouldn’t stop at the borders of this country–Lukos made it clear that he wants to take this as global as possible, or at least to kill a lot of people trying. And all for what? So that vampires can safely continue to exist as parasites behind the scenes? It’s the irony of our existence: We are already dead ourselves, but still kill to live.
We shouldn’t have this right.
I know in my heart that this has to be stopped, both on a micro level for all the Annies and Connors out there and on a macro level for the countless masses that breathe existence into this living world. But I can’t stop them alone. I need allies. I had hopes for Franklin, now dashed. He and the VG are in love with this whole un-life now, though some had certainly seemed shocked at first upon waking up in that underground vault.
I remember thinking then that maybe I could recruit some bloodshirts to my side. Maybe Hamad would realize that we are being replaced and resent that. Joseph is certain to favor his new elite unit at the expense of the less powerful, obsolete bloodshirts. The VG aren’t some rag-tag group of vampires that just banded together over time to survive. No, they are his chosen few, loyal to the cause as it is embodied in Joseph and Lukos. Why else would Joseph deny us his blood when requested so many times? Why else recruit only those Movement members who demonstrated the highest allegiance as humans?
Still, even if I could convince Hamad to join me, the role the cell played in my mom’s death has ended any hope that I have of working together with them. Part of me wants to see the bigger picture and try to move past it, but the truth is that I can’t let vampires like Jesús run around in the world. There are too many innocents out there who don’t deserve to meet him on a dark street some night. Or on
their front doorstep. And while Hamad is not a wanton killer to the same degree, he is a true vampire and wouldn’t turn on Jesús for some moral, principled reason. And more: underneath it all, I honestly just can’t forgive them. Even if Mike were still around … how do you look at and be friendly with someone who killed your mom, even unknowingly? The answer is: you don’t.
So it’s back to just Metz and me.
Unless ….
“Adam.” Her voice startles me, interrupting my thoughts. Her timing is so perfect that I almost think I’ve imagined it. But no, my senses are alerting me to her physical presence now that I’m tuned in. She’s there, somewhere behind me, in the recesses of the roof.
“Who let you out?” I ask simply and without turning around yet. I’m surprised that she’s here, but I’m not sure how else I feel about it. Maybe I’m touched, but I don’t know if I should let myself be.
“I have my ways,” she says, chuckling. Well, she certainly does.
I turn slowly, reluctantly, but I know that I can’t put this conversation off any longer. When I see her, her beauty literally takes my breath away. And that’s saying something, considering that I don’t even breathe. I’d say maybe it’s the forced distance that I’ve taken–maybe absence making the heart grow fonder and all that. But no, she’s just that beautiful.
Right now she’s framed against the backdrop of my painting: a Venus emerging from the curling cascade of foaming night time waves. Behind her, I realize that off to one side the bordering wall is smooth and ordered, while the other is jagged and weathered. It couldn’t have always been like that, but I guess being exposed to the elements has worn it back down into a rough-hewn state. For some reason, this really troubles me, especially with her placement in between.
Vera smiles tentatively, drawing my attention back. Her hair tumbles down haphazardly, speaking of her rapid flight over here to find me. It is not at all unpleasant–her hair reflects the silvery moonlight, serving to shape a small halo that crowns her. I wonder if she and I will ever have a chance to be together like this in reality–lost on some remote and romantic beach, under the stars with nothing but the breeze, the gentle roar of the sea, and the salty scent of the ocean for companions.
Maybe.
And maybe not. First I need to make it through this night. And even if I survive, we, Adam and Vera, need to make it through this night. But to know if that even has a chance of happening, I have to take a chance on us and tell her what I’m planning.
So I do.
“No way, Adam. You can't! You have no idea what you are up against,” are the first words out of her mouth when I’ve finished. From her crossed arms and severe expression as I spoke, I knew it would start off like this.
But I don’t back down. “Vera, I have to. This is bigger than me … bigger than us.”
“Human, I know it feels that way to you now, but when you've lived as long as I have, you'll realize that this is just one small drop in a giant ocean of eternal conflict, human and vampire. It's not worth our lives to try to stop it.”
“Our lives? What kind of life is this?” I throw back, releasing weeks–months–of frustration that built up as I began to finally grasp exactly what it was that I got myself into.
“It’s not so bad, is it?” She looks genuinely hurt. A wounded angel. “I thought you didn’t want to live without me?” she whispers, her voice laden with emotion.
Out of an instinctive desire to avoid hurting her, I ease up a bit and decide to choose my words more carefully. “True, you know I can’t live without you, but honestly, I can’t live like this either. I mean, Ver-bear, we're already technically dead. We only exist in the shadows and can’t really be part of the normal world. And we have to survive by doing horrible things. So what difference does it make if we go to the neverend or not? It’s better than being a monster.”
She instantly blurs over and stands tensely before me. “Adam, don’t talk like that. It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about you being gone.” Her expression is stern, but she still tries to take my hand, as if to re-establish the connection between us.
“Well, I’m just saying. I mean, at first, it was all fun and games and midnight runs on the rooftops. But somehow, it ended up at murdering innocent children in their homes. What the hell?” I vent.
“But you didn’t, though,” Vera points out, a little too optimistically.
“No, I didn’t. But you wanted me to,” I toss back.
“I needed you to,” she counters. “Can’t you see? We’re not monsters. Some people may be pure evil, like demented psychopaths or the worst serial killers. Others may be pure good, I dunno–saints and such. But most beings exist on a spectrum between the two, somewhere in the middle. That’s where I am. That’s where you need to get comfortable being.”
I’m silent for a moment. I know she won’t like what I have to say, but eventually I say it anyway. “I don’t think I can. Maybe I did initially, but I can’t.”
I know it for the truth when I say it. Too many Annies and Cathys and Connors will cross my path. And reading about the recent developments with kids blowing themselves up and others kids in uniform shooting protestors … it all just seems absolutely insane to me. It’s too high a price for what the Vampirists want to achieve to protect our supposed immortality. I know this now. I just need her to understand the same thing.
“Vera, you told me that you knew you were on the right path when you met me. Can you trust that feeling still? I hope being with me has changed you a little … can you join me now and continue evolving into … into something better?” Now I squeeze her hand to try to win her over. Such a small gesture, but she responds to my pressure and unconsciously draws just ever-so-much closer.
“You may take it for granted, but being a vampire is like being a superhero. We have powers. And they can be used for good or for evil. Choose to use them for good,” I urge.
I see her look at me, examining me, probing me with pink-glazed, tearing eyes. She squeezes my hand affectionately, and for a moment, I almost think that I’ve won her over. But then the moment is gone. She drops my hand and pulls back, shaking her head slowly.
“What do you want, Adam? It's too late to play human now; we've done too much.”
I guess I’ve lost. Ahead of me the future stretches out into a gloomy vastness: I see the same argument playing itself out over and over again, like a twisted and dysfunctional relationship.
“Do you love me?” I ask her quietly, almost afraid of what she might say to me now.
“Don’t be silly. You know I do. But this is my family, my reality. This is how I've survived for decades. I can’t turn against them.” She sounds resolute when she says this, but I sense an underlying confliction. “Still, I also haven't really felt complete, not until you. That’s why I need you here.” She starts to reach out for me now, then thinks better of it and lets her arm drop mid-way across. I stand firm, stone-faced. I can’t think of anything to say that would comfort her without compromising my values. And I see that she sees this.
Delicate red tears start to overflow down onto her porcelain cheeks. “This is all my fault,” she admits. “It was selfish of me to keep you around–to bring you into this. When I first read you, I knew you wouldn't fit here. I thought that maybe you could change, that you would adjust and become one of us. But I was wrong–that was just me lying to myself. That's just not who you are ….” And now she does reach out for me again, taking my hand and holding it against her moist cheek. She shuts her eyelids, as if she is focusing on the sensation of my skin on hers. “Not who I fell in love with,” she confides softly. Vera pauses briefly before opening her compassionate eyes and dreamily looking into mine to emphasize her next words. “Who I'm in love with,” she co
ncludes breathlessly.
She takes my hand from her cheek and gently kisses it several times. When she is done, she looks back up at me. I recognize that now the tears are gone, and there is a hardness in her gaze: a touch of ice to match the ice-blue color. Her voice is toned to match, “But I don't think I can help you kill yourself. Or kill our friends.”
So we’re at an impasse. She loves me, but won’t budge. And I feel the same. As much as I care about her, and she cares for me, maybe that’s not enough. Maybe love alone doesn’t cut it. Maybe you do need common values, or the ability to compromise … all those things you hear older people talking about, but ignore in the heady passion of young love.
I realize that I have one last card to play.
“You don't understand. It’s more complicated than that. I can’t stay in this Vampirist world with you because they are the ones who killed my mom: Jesús and Hamad and the others. Not to mention how many other mothers out there. I've gotta stop them.”
The tears again. I see that this is a blow to her; I feel guilty that that makes me kind of happy. It’s truly comforting to note the shock register with her. I didn’t grasp how worried I had been that maybe somehow she already knew or suspected this. “Adam, I'm sorry. I didn't know,” she says. Her voice has a pleading note in it, as if she is begging me to believe her. I do.
I see a new thought enter her head. She asks hopefully, “Are you sure? How do you know?”
Even now she has a hard time accepting that her precious militia could be anything other than what it is: a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires being vampires. “I am,” I assert. I don’t want to get into a debate over the merits of my evidence–not when I know in my bones that it was Jesús and the others. So I simply say, “You’ll just have to trust me on that. You know me.”