by Brandon Hale
She wanted to kill something.
“We’ve got troops scouring the woods,” Cooper said, “but I doubt we’ll find him. According to the security cameras, he scooped up Carl’s body and shot to the trees. Once he was in the woods, he pretty much disappeared. He could be anywhere in the state by now.”
“How did this happen?” Lily whispered.
“He played us,” Grung said. “There was no vampire looking for you. It was Travis.”
Scott nodded in agreement. “He probably made some kind of telepathic link with that woman. He knew exactly what it would take to get us to bring her here. I can’t believe we fell for it.”
“On the way here,” Cooper said, “I ran her name through the database. She had a long history of serious psychological issues.”
“It was perfect,” Lily said. “She was unstable, yet married to a Day Soldier. I bet Travis has been searching for somebody like her for years.”
“Someone’s head is gonna roll for this,” Grung said. “Her husband should never have been allowed in the Day Soldiers. Why the hell didn’t they do a background check?”
“It was a low level tech job,” Cooper said. “He didn’t have access to anything confidential. I doubt they do background checks for entry level jobs like that. And if they do, it’s probably basic stuff about the soldier, not his wife.”
“For all we know,” Scott said, “he married her after becoming a Day Soldier.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Grung said. “Somebody should have caught that the man was married to a psychopath. I’m launching an investigation of that division.”
“Drop it, Grung,” Lily snapped. “The guy wasn’t a soldier and whoever hired him didn’t cause this to happen.”
“Right,” Scott said. “We caused it. We let Travis play us. Again.”
“No,” Lily countered. “We didn’t cause this. I did.”
“Here we go,” Grung said. “Just like old times. Everything bad in the world is Lily Baxter’s fault.”
“Everything’s not my fault,” Lily said quietly, “but this is. I should have killed him, Grung. I should’ve killed him sixteen years ago. And because I didn’t, Carl’s dead.”
“In all likelihood,” Scott said, “he’s not dead. Do you think Travis took his body to give him a proper burial? Face it, guys. Carl’s probably a vampire now.”
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Cooper asked Lily. His eyes were cold. Angry. Judgmental.
Lily didn’t blame him. She answered quietly and honestly, without a hint of defensiveness. “I thought we needed him.”
“You thought we needed him.” Cooper’s voice was trembling. “You thought he’d be a great use to us as a headless body in a tomb. I gotta say, that’s not your best plan.”
“He was our nuclear option,” Lily explained. “I didn’t know what would happen to us after the war. If the Topians ever attacked, we wouldn’t have a chance, Coop. The entire world is run by vampires. Travis was my secret weapon. He is the most destructive force I’ve ever seen. If things got too bad, I wanted the option to unleash him on the Topians.”
Cooper laughed humorlessly. “Well, grats, boss. The Travis missile has been launched.”
“Ease up, Coop,” Scott said.
“No,” Cooper snapped. “Sorry, Mr. President, but I happen to agree with Lily on this. This is her fault. She can go on all she wants about how he was a ‘nuclear option’ but we know that’s a lie. Lily and Travis have always had some kind of weird-ass bond. She didn’t kill him because she couldn’t kill him. Everything she just said is a bullshit rationalization to justify the fact that she didn’t have the strength to kill him.”
The room was silent. Nobody had a retort.
“Carl was my friend,” Cooper said. “And because she didn’t have the stones to kill a monster, we have to kill our friend. Excuse the hell out of me for being upset by that.”
“Stand down, soldier,” Grung said. “We need to focus on what we’re gonna do next.”
“You know I’m right,” Cooper said.
“Do you want to be right,” Scott asked, “or do you want to catch Travis before he does more damage? We’ll have plenty of time to blame Lily after we stop him.”
“We’re not stopping him,” Lily said. “We’re killing him.” She looked at Cooper. “I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate myself right now. But I promise you this… Travis is going to die. I know it’s too late for Carl and too late for the people he’s going to kill before I find him, but when I find him, he’s going to die. Sparing Travis is the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life, but it’s a mistake I’m going to fix.”
“Well,” Cooper said, “I’m sure that’ll make Carl feel much better as he falls dead from the stake in his chest.”
“I said stand down,” Grung said.
“Go to hell, Grung!” Cooper yelled.
After a moment of shocked silence, Scott said, “Coop, take the rest of the day off, buddy.”
“I’m sick of it, Scott,” Cooper said. “Your little B-Team lucked into some big historical events and now the entire organization worships you all. But I’ve been close enough to see how it really is. You only care about the people who are inside your little clique.”
“That’s not true,” Scott said.
“Bullshit!” Cooper spat. “When Ellie died, you acted like the world was about to end. I was there, remember? Well, guess what, every person there lost people in that battle. But they weren’t part of the B-Team, so it didn’t really matter. They were background characters in the story that really mattered, huh.”
“Mention Ellie again,” Grung growled, “and you’ll regret it.”
“Fine,” Cooper said. “How about I mention Carl instead? You know, the guy you didn’t give a shit about. The guy you treated like crap for sixteen years. You people make me sick—”
Lily punched him in the face. Cooper’s head snapped back briefly, but other than that, he didn’t move.
“Get out of here,” Lily said.
“Lily,” Scott said. “Let’s all just calm—”
“Shut up, Scott!” Lily said. She turned to Cooper. “I killed a man to save Carl’s life. Not a vampire. Not a werewolf. A man. A good man. And I killed him to save Carl’s life. You can say this is my fault and I won’t argue with you. It is my fault. But don’t you dare suggest Carl meant nothing to me!”
“Speaking of Greg,” Cooper said, “why did you kill him? Could it be because he was under Travis’s control? Travis made you kill a man, yet you still let him live.”
Again, everyone was silent.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Cooper finally said. “I’m supposed to be the fun guy. I guess this just hit me harder than I expected. I’ve lost a lot of friends in this war, but Carl… I dunno… he had a life. He had a wife, two kids. He survived the war and had a happy ending. He deserved better than this.”
Lily sat on the concrete slab. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a peace time leader. I’m a warrior. I know how to survive a war, but this… I’m out of my league.”
“I’m gonna go,” Cooper said. “Maybe Travis left some kind of clue in the woods.”
Lily felt the tears rimming her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Save the apology,” Cooper said as he walked out the tomb’s door, “for Carl’s family. You can start with Ellie. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”
“Ah, crap,” Grung said.
“Yeah,” Scott said. “And it’s not just Ellie. It’s Lily.” He looked at Lily. “The other Lily.”
“Right,” Lily said. “And his wife.”
Grung shook his head. “It breaks my heart to think that Carl’s out there… somewhere. Right about now, he’s probably finding out he’s a vampire.”
“Yeah,” Scott said. “And I’m sure he’s not taking the news well.”
Chapter 7
Carl the Vampire
“This is awesome!” Carl said. He looked at the ceiling of the cave.
It was about fifteen feet above his head. “I bet I can touch the ceiling.”
Travis laughed. “That’s exactly what I said when I was turned. Except I was talking about the ceiling of the White House, not the roof of a cave.”
“Why do I feel so great?” Carl said. “I should be devastated, but I feel absolutely amazing.”
“Every vampire feels that euphoria when they’re first turned,” Travis explained. “It goes away when the hunger really sets in.”
“And that’s another thing,” Carl said. “I don’t feel evil. I mean, I do want blood, but I don’t have a sudden desire to go kill my family and friends. I think I’d be fine with a deer or something. Can we do that? Can we live on animals?”
“You can survive for a while on animals,” Travis said, “but eventually, it wears you down. You get consumed by a bloodlust and you lose the ability to restrain yourself.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Carl said. “Human blood doesn’t have anything in it that makes it different from animal blood. There’s no reason we can’t survive on animal blood.”
“Stop thinking like a scientist,” Travis said. “We’re undead creatures who live for eternity. I think we exist outside the normal rules of biology there, hoss.”
“That’s disturbing,” Carl said. “It suggests we are, in fact, inherently evil.”
“Stop with the evil shit already,” Travis said. “That’s just Day Soldiers propaganda so they don’t feel guilty about killing their own family members. You just said you don’t feel evil.”
“Yeah,” Carl said, “but human blood is the only thing that sustains us. If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is.”
“Newsflash,” Travis said. “There’s no such thing as evil.”
Carl was silent. For years, he’d made the same argument. He didn’t actually believe in evil. So why, he wondered, am I so desperate to make it real now?
“I’ll grant you,” Travis went on, “the old bald guys you used to fight were pretty close. They’re bloodthirsty little monsters who are driven by pure instinct. That’s not evil, but I can understand why humans would say it is. But we’re not like those ugly little vein-faced freaks.”
“You’re evil,” Carl said.
Travis laughed. “Whether or not I’m evil has precisely jack to do with being a vampire. I was the way I am long before becoming a vamp. You know that.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Carl said. “You’re evil. So evil, in fact, that you started becoming a vampire on your own. That’s pretty strong evidence of evil.”
“Wait,” Travis said. “I wasn’t ready for that. Say it again.”
“Huh?”
“Say it again,” Travis said. “I didn’t have a reply ready. Now I do.”
“I said you’re so evil that you started—”
“WRONG!”
Carl sighed.
“I became a vampire because of power,” Travis said. “Not evil.”
Carl sat on a rock and thought for a moment. “One question,” he said. “If you can answer this question, I’ll concede the argument. I mean, it’s not like I want to be evil.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why can Lily Baxter kill you with a touch?”
“Okay,” Travis said. “I admit I’m still working on that one.”
Carl smiled. “That’s what I thought.”
“Even if you’re right,” Travis argued, “it doesn’t change anything. Maybe I am evil, but you’re not. We both know that.”
“We don’t know it yet,” Carl said, “but I’m going to find out.” He looked at the mouth of the cave. “Once the sun goes down, I have a plan.”
Travis snapped his fingers. “The sun! I’d almost forgotten.”
Carl raised an eyebrow. “Forgotten what?”
“The sun doesn’t hurt me,” Travis said, “but it was instant death to every vampire I made. I think it’s because they were weaklings. You’re annoying as hell, but you’re no weakling. You’ve killed. I’m damn curious to see what the sun does to you.”
“I’m not.”
Before Carl could react, Travis grabbed him and threw him out of the cave.
***
Carl landed on the ground in front of the cave. Beams of sunlight shot through the treetops and attacked him. The brightness of the sunlight hurt his eyes.
But nothing else.
Carl held out his hand and watched the soft yellow light bounce off his skin.
“I’ll be damned,” Travis said as he stepped from the cave. “Every other vamp I created baked in the sun. What’s different about you?”
Carl looked at him with agitated eyes. “I don’t know, but that was a real jerk move, man. I could’ve fried.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I could have,” Carl said. “You turned me into a vampire then immediately tried to kill me. I haven’t even tasted blood yet.”
Travis’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” he said. “You haven’t fed yet.”
“I’m not saying I like the idea of drinking blood,” Carl said, “but I admit I’m curious. I mean, you guys act like it’s the greatest thing since peanut butter and jelly.”
“You haven’t killed,” Travis said. He was talking to himself more than Carl.
“What are you babbling about?”
“I get it now,” Travis said.
“Get what?”
Travis laughed. “Everything! I understand everything. I know why the sun isn’t killing you right now. And more importantly, I know exactly what Cassius is planning. I know what he’s trying to do to the world.”
Carl scratched his head. The sun didn’t kill him, but it was making him itch. “And you learned all of this by throwing me into the sun.”
“Yep,” Travis said. “Come on inside. I’ll explain everything.”
***
The Davidson home sat at the edge of Iveyton. Lily, Grung, and Scott sat in chairs on the back porch, facing the woods behind the house. Ellie Davidson was inside with her mother. It was ten-thirty at night. They’d been sitting on the porch since before seven-thirty.
In the years since the end of the war, Iveyton had become a military town. Most of its residents were either Day Soldiers or family members of Day Soldiers. And since almost every resident knew Lily was alive, it gave her the freedom to come into town when needed. Of course, Iveyton had also become a bit of a tourist destination, so Lily typically only came to town after dark.
“How long have they been in there?” Grung asked.
“Three or four hours,” Scott said. “I gotta say, I’m surprised by how well Ellie took the news. Her biggest concern was about how her mom would take it.”
“It’ll sink in later,” Lily said. “Right now, she’s focused on her mom and her sister so she won’t have to deal with it. As long as you have other problems to deal with, it’s easy to run from your own.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Scott said.
Lily looked at him. “You know I am.”
“Anybody heard from Cooper?” Grung asked.
“Not since he left the tomb earlier today,” Lily said. “Frankly, I’m glad.”
“Yeah,” Grung said. “He was kind of a jerk.”
Lily looked at Grung. “No, he wasn’t. He was heartbroken by the death of his friend, and he was angry because that death could’ve been prevented. Back during the war, if Ellie had died because of one of my decisions, you wouldn’t have taken it well.”
“Stop that shit,” Grung said. “You didn’t kill Carl. Your addiction to guilt is very annoying. I hope you know that.”
“I didn’t say I killed Carl,” Lily said, “but it was my decision to keep Travis alive. And contrary to what Cooper said, I made the decision rationally. Travis is a force of destruction and he has no allegiance to the vampires. I just wanted to figure out how to use him as a weapon against them. It was risky, yes, but it was a valid strategic decision.”
“Well,” Grung sai
d, “I gotta say, I like that answer much better than the ‘woe is me’ crap you were spewing in the tomb.”
“I was just in shock,” Lily said. “Everybody was. My mistake was that I underestimated Travis’s resolve and ingenuity.”
“Why do we always do that?” Scott said. “He’s always outsmarting us, yet we continually underestimate him.”
“Because we like him,” Grung said.
Scott and Lily just stared at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Grung said. “You know it’s true. He’s charming and funny as hell. He’s fought with us as much as he’s fought against us. We’ve never dealt with someone like that, but because we like him, we’re determined to turn him into an ally.”
“Deep,” Scott said.
Grung shrugged. “You know I’m right.”
“Well,” Lily said, “those days are over. I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him.”
“Is that revenge I smell?” Grung said.
“Actually, no,” Lily said. “Amazingly, I’m not angry at Travis. He’s a monster. He’s never pretended otherwise. He just does… what he does. But I realize now that he’s too dangerous to be kept alive. I have to find him and I have to kill him.”
“He’s obsessed with you,” Grung said. “Odds are, if you stay put, he’ll seek you out. Which is ironic, considering you’re the only person on Earth who can actually kill him.”
“Well,” Lily said, “if he seeks me out, he’s dead. I’m not hesitating this time. The world needs Travis to die.”
Behind them, the door opened and Ellie stepped onto the porch. Everybody stood up to greet her.
“How is she?” Scott asked.
“Devastated,” Ellie said, “but not surprised. This is the day every wife of a soldier dreads.”
“How’s your sister?” Scott asked.
“We’ve not told her yet,” Ellie said. “Dad has gone on missions for weeks at a time. Lily doesn’t realize anything’s different. That will give mom and me more time to figure out how to tell her.”