by R. G. Nelson
“What’s wrong with her?” Laney asks. I remember that she has never seen that drug in action–only heard us talking about it after the massacre of the Elders.
“It’s Metz’s concoction,” I tell her. “The one that can paralyze vampires.”
Laney nods, remembering. “Will she come out of it?”
And there it is. The crux of it. Vera is old by my standards. Old for most of us. But her age is nothing compared to the Elders for whom this was designed. I have no idea if she has enough years to carry her through this. And it definitely seems as if human blood won’t be able to help this time. Sadly, the one guy who might have answers is a heap of ash back down inside the factory, which is itself ablaze and on its way to turning into a giant heap of ash.
But looking at Laney–she seems so vulnerable. I can almost understand her spur-of-the-moment decision earlier to choose the “safety” of the militia over us. In fact, I almost feel the need to comfort her: Not only does she seem legitimately concerned about Vera, but I’ve also basically taken her whole world from her tonight. I stand by my decision, yet I’m not insensitive to the situation that this will put many of the surviving vampires in. And not all were evil, twisted beings that relished in harming living humans.
So I lie. “Yeah, I’m hopeful,” I offer up with as much positivity as seems appropriate. I’m not, though.
Laney’s visible anxiety eases. An almost girlish exuberance seeps back into her countenance. “Well, you should drink it then. Don’t waste it.” As I look at her I realize, not for the first time, that she really is stunning in her own way. She’s angelic looking like a framed and mounted Botticelli painting, while Vera is angelic in the dark, mysterious way of a fallen angel. But Laney’s not my type–at least, not when compared to Vera. She sees me assessing her and returns the favor. “I mean, no offense, but you really look like you need some blood.”
I do need it. But again, that old guilt is there, and I’m not sure that I want to allow myself this critical inflow. How can I deserve to be satiated and get my healing blood going again when my girlfriend is potentially frozen for life in a living coma? But then I get an idea. And I don’t feel bad at all when I throw my head back and greedily consume the bag’s sanguine contents.
It does the trick. Not only do I feel my skin and muscles thicken, but my senses sharpen and heighten. I can make out the first distant stirrings of sirens–I suppose that the factory fire has reached a level where it can be seen from a distance. The remoteness of the location will buy us some time, but not too much more. That’s okay, though; it’ll be enough for my needs.
Putting my idea into motion, I pull the syringe out of Vera’s leg and push down on the end, draining the precious contents onto the roof. Shame, but I need the syringe empty. I just hope that there are no more surprise powerful Elders to fight for the time being. Next, I plunge it into a vein in my arm and then draw back on the end, extracting my own newly enhanced blood into the void within. When full, I carefully remove it, not wanting to break the needle in my haste. I line it up with a similar vessel in Vera’s arm and empty my life’s blood into her. And then I do it all over again. And then again.
Laney watches, understanding. “V, you’re gonna be okay,” she coos. With a begrudging (but I think teasing) shrug, she tosses me another blood bag. I absorb this as well, and then pass on what I can into Vera in the same method. As I work, I caution Laney. Surely even she can hear the sirens now.
“You gotta get out of here,” I warn.
“And go where? Everything is destroyed. Everyone left is scattering. The people I cared about are gone–all except Vera.” She says this with just a minimum of accusatory notes in her voice. But I understand why she feels how she feels.
“Go, live. Join the world as best you can,” I urge. Someone like Laney will be able to find a new home. Even though Mike is sadly long gone, if she decides she wants male companionship, guys would line up to take her in–to love and protect her the way I do for Vera (or tried to do for Vera. The jury is still out on how well I managed to protect her–in the end, she more protected me). Or Laney could start her own clique–fall in love with and ensnare some young human naïve enough to find being a vampire alluring.
But she has other things on her mind apparently. “Can I stay with you guys?” Laney asks softly, but directly. A hint of hope in her tone starts to mingle with the culpability that I feel for her situation, weakening my resolve to strike out alone with Vera after all this. She continues, not easing up, “We can make a new family, a better one. You could lead it. You could show us the way.”
It’s tempting. Maybe I could use my powers to be a new Joseph. A better Joseph. A more moral Joseph. I could build a family of vampires for this century–and the many we’d have beyond.
But could I? Could I even trust her–or any of the others out there? And more importantly, could I really trust myself–trust myself to be better? To lead others when I’m still so relatively new at this? And what about all the enemies we would have: the loyal Vampirists scattering to the wind? Could I put Laney and other recruits in danger just by their association with me?
I know the answer. And it’s not one that she’ll want to hear. “No, I’m sorry, Laney. But I don't think I'm meant to do that. Besides, Joseph’s still out there somewhere, along with remnants from the militia. Someone has to deal with them.”
The sirens are now at hand, or better to say at foot, given that they are far down beneath us on the ground. I nudge Vera, hopeful that my blood will have had some effect. But there is no movement yet. I try to refrain from being discouraged and focus on the next task at hand: getting very far away from here. I steal over to the edge cautiously and peer down. As expected, several ambulances and fire trucks are below.
Laney is by my side, gazing down into the night. She seems resigned. I guess that she hadn’t really expected that I’d let her come along after all. Again, a wave of guilt washes over me as I realize how much she has had to take in stride: the way I came into Vera’s life and monopolized so much of her time, the way Mike was brutally ripped from this world, and the way her life is going up in flames in front of her. But then I see her for what she is–what so many of the vampires are: survivors. Hardened veterans of the ages. Though she seems soft on the outside, she will pull through. She will adapt. She has to.
Still, I reach out and give her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, Laney.” And then I clarify, “I’m sorry things had to go down like this.” She nods. I think that she is crying, but she turns her head away so I can’t see. “Thanks for the blood,” I continue, pretending not to notice her tears.
Laney breaks free of my grip and quickly wipes her face before turning back to Vera. She steals to her side and kisses her cheek affectionately. I look away, giving her a moment of privacy. “You'll take care of her?” she says from behind me. I can’t tell if it is a question or order, but it doesn’t matter. My answer would be the same.
“Of course. She's my everything.”
I realize that I’m speaking to nothing but the starry night: There’s now a vacant spot on the roof next to me. I focus myself once more on the scene beneath me. On the fringes of the panorama below, out of sight of the growing human presence, they loom. The others. The remnants. From the outer edges of the inferno, their eyes reflect the raging fire in dotted pairs of shimmering, blue-edged molten gold. Maybe they watch me: Maybe they know what happened up here between me and their so-called immortal supreme leader. Maybe they hate me for it. Maybe they are in awe. Or maybe they are just waiting around because they, like Laney, have nowhere else to go.
I recognize that Franklin might be one of them if he hasn’t been smart enough to really disappear. He could be down there now, plotting some way to locate Joseph and get a group of Vampirists back togethe
r so that he doesn’t have to be alone. I’d like to think that I was being serious about my threat to him, but who knows what I would do when or if the time comes. I sincerely hope that we never have to find out.
Below, like tiny, faraway flames, the watchful eyes start to flicker and disappear one by one in the night breeze.
Gathering Vera under an arm, I do the same.
* * *
It’s strange to think that it was just hours ago that Vera and I were up here. Strange to think that when we last parted, I really thought we were over. And now … now she lies at my side, still as motionless as the first moments after dosing herself in sacrifice for me–for my desire to stop Lukos and the Vampirists, a desire she made plain earlier tonight that she did not share. All while not knowing if she would ever recover.
If she doesn’t ….
I don’t want to think about if she doesn’t. I don’t know that I could leave her like this, frozen and trapped inside herself. But I don’t know that I could contemplate doing anything to release her from this fate, either. Maybe that’s what someone would do in a book or a movie for his ill-fated true love, but this is real life. And I’m not that strong. Or maybe I’m just too selfish.
I know that we need to get out of town and find a place to lie low so that she can have a chance to recover. I half thought of returning home and hiding out there. My dad knows about us now and could protect us in the daylight. But then I rejected that line of thinking pretty quickly; I don’t want to place him in any more danger.
Still, I couldn’t help myself from checking on him one last time. Even with Vera in tow, I had to risk it. I took the rooftops, avoiding the street battles between the military and its human Movement opponents. There were gunshots and other louder explosions. No doubt the news tomorrow will continue to paint an ever-grimmer picture of the situation. I didn’t have time for that; I didn’t stop to torture myself with scenes of violence to whose development I contributed (which I have to admit that I did, however reluctantly at first).
When I reached my childhood house, I didn’t bound up the porch as I did when a kid returning home. Instead, I stayed back in the shadows, as seemed fitting for a creature of my kind. I didn’t see other vampires around, but I guess you can never really know for sure–I didn’t want to risk being spotted by them. I observed my father through the window and saw him sitting alone at the dining room table with his phone out. He was just looking over old family albums, obviously killing time waiting for an update of some sort. Thankfully, there was not a can of beer in sight: only a nearly empty pot of coffee sitting on a worn heating pad. And interestingly, he had his old badge out–the one presented to him ceremoniously when he left the force. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so much as look at it since. I hope that tonight has reminded him of the man that he used to be–the man that must still be there.
I didn’t linger for very long. I just stuck around to see him receive the texts that I sent letting him know that I made it through the night, that Lukos was no more, and that I would be in touch. I saw him breathe a huge sigh of relief, once more realizing just how worried he must have been about me during these past months of my “disappearance.” I didn’t have the heart to mention anything about Vera yet; I figured that Taylor was enough for him to deal with tonight. And, of course, maybe I didn’t want to say anything about Vera because I haven’t given up hope yet–and because writing it down would somehow make things that much more real.
So I just sent one last message to remind him to watch out for stray Vampirists and to encourage him to also find someplace else to hide out at night for a while, just until we can be sure that no one is looking for revenge against me by coming after him. Franklin, for one, certainly knows where I live. I don’t know about Joseph or the other survivors. I really hope that my dad isn’t too stubborn to listen. Surely, Taylor’s fate must drive home just how dangerous we can be.
Yet more sirens in the far distance bring me back to the here and now. They can’t be headed to the factory fire; that is a ways off. From up here on my roof, my eyes can pick out the glow from that blaze, together with the dark smoke creeping upward against the nighttime city sky like a sinister signal fire. It’s hardly the only fire raging tonight, and any of a half dozen nearby sites where licking flames ascend skyward could be the sirens’ destination.
With a sigh, I wonder what will happen now that Lukos is gone. The danger of having a vampire in control of the human government is gone, for the moment, anyway, but will the Movement dry up? Will the humans go home, enroll in classes again or find some other cause to protest? Will the streets unclog and the tanks roll back to their bases? I suppose that only time will see how things play out without Lukos.
But I know one thing–it’s not over yet with the Vampirist Militia. I may get to affirm smugly that the first round has gone to me, but who knows who else they have in the administration? The Vampirists here may be scattered, but there are cadres and cells in other cities that they can seek out. Joseph will surely try to gather the surviving VG and rally the others–he’ll think of some way to continue.
And I’ll have to stop him.
Hopefully, I won’t have to do it alone. Maybe my dad can help me find a way to work anonymously with the human authorities; I hope that he still has contacts he can trust beyond Taylor. And Lukos and Joseph mentioned breaches in other cities: Perhaps it’s not wishful thinking to believe that there are others out there like myself, willing to stand up for what’s right. If they exist, it will be hard to find them. And likely it will be even harder to get them to trust me once I do, but I’ll have to try.
And then there’s Vera. I glance over at her again and frown to see that there is still no change. Lying there like that with the seashore backdrop of my mural nearby, she could be sleeping on the beach. The summer night yields up warm breezes that whisper through her hair seductively. If this were a fable, she’d just be waiting for my kiss to break the spell. But if a kiss could wake her, she would have stirred long before we reached this rooftop tonight.
I detect sunrise coming finally–it’s been an even longer night than I thought. Overhead, patches of the Milky Way are still out, but their presence is dwindling. The stars twinkle and observe, but for once I do not feel their weighing judgment. Instead, I sense something different. They are about to fade with the dawn, and it seems as if they go off satisfied for tonight. But they’ll be back tomorrow night–and the night after. To watch some more and wait. To wait for what comes next.
I sigh again to myself and admit, “It’s gonna be a long road.” But then, I smile, remembering. I reach over and squeeze Vera’s hand, giving voice to my thoughts while I do. “But we have time.”
I think I feel her squeeze back ever so slightly.
But maybe it was just my imagination.
THE END