I stood there to consider this and took some sadistic pleasure in their impatience. The two women were trembling. Had Alaric not felt my strength firsthand, he might have tried to take her from my arms.
“All right. You’ve softened my heart. I will go in with you.” I strolled blithely, which added more grief to their already frantic countenance.
The two women locked and barred the two sets of doors at the entrance while we headed further underground. Alaric took the lead now, taking us past the majestic dining hall where the first dinner had taken place. It was still a beautiful place, but it had diminished, lost some of its luster. I wondered if it had been the fever working that night. This was the place where we had first met. All that felt so far away from here, millions of miles away in my memories.
“Mordecai…this way.” I snapped out of it. Alaric motioned me to the door on the far end. I followed him and held Rhiannon a little closer to me. She’d been asleep so long, longer than anyone else I’d turned before. I wish she’d just wake up.
We walked through the heavy reinforced door and into a second house underground. The two women barred this door shut as well. Alaric showed me to the main bedroom. It was a more austere replica of their bedroom upstairs. The smell told me that no one had slept here in a long time. I thought about lying here beside her, taking in her youthful scent. It felt wrong to do it, especially when Alaric was present, but he didn’t have to know.
I laid her down on the bed, slowly and reluctantly. It must have annoyed him when I lingered for a bit longer than I should have, but I didn’t care. I took another look at her face, noticed the small pin-sized freckles on her cheeks, the way her nose would curve into a point, and her full, pink lips. Her marble skin had not blanched at all. She looked just as she did a few days ago. Something about it made me uneasy.
Summoning up all my willpower, I left them alone in the room. I felt jealous of Alaric, angry for some strange reason, like he’d taken something that belonged to me. In the old days, that would have been the rule. Those you changed were bound to you by blood. They were like family. Now it felt like I was leaving her.
Snap out of it, Mordecai.
I shook it off and walked out to the living room. Evelyn and Magda were busy tidying up, as if they were preparing for visitors. They were right about that. It was about a half hour later that I heard the steps through the walls. They were quiet, like scurrying rats, and I wondered if our undead invaders had not made their way underground.
I was the first to hear the knock at the door on the opposite site of the basement. It was soft at first, timid. I think they were testing to see if the place had been overrun. Evelyn ran over to the door and knocked in a pattern. Tap, tap-tap, tap. They tapped a complement piece in response. It reminded me of “Shave and a haircut.” Two bits, my mind replied, bringing out a short-lived smile and a chuckle. Evelyn opened the door and our guests began to file in.
I began to realize that the basements of Jericho must have been joined by some interconnecting tunnel network. Survivors had the ability to retreat to another shelter if their own was compromised. The downside was that the zombies could use the same tunnels against us if given the chance. I could only hope it would not come to that.
I expected beleaguered survivors of the war taking place outside. Instead, we got the minister’s wife and her children looking no worse for the wear. She had a lofty, refined air that reminded me of the old aristocracy. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on her dress or a lock of hair out of place. Her children looked a little ruffled, but it looked like the signs of child’s play rather than struggle. I noticed the worry on her face.
“Settle down, children! I said, settle down. You’ll be the death of me yet,” said the mother, herding the children through the door.
I watched the small band of rowdy children trample through the place. They were so blithe that I wondered if they even knew what was happening outside. The older ones followed them. Six of them I counted, four boys and two girls. The oldest one, Jessamine, was the last one inside. Alaric locked and barred the door behind them.
“Rachel, it’s good to know you’re safe,” Alaric told her. “Come in.”
She came in and made herself as comfortable as her band of children allowed her. They ran around and spilled a few things on their way, prompting Evelyn and Magda to clean up behind them.
“Settle down or I will whip you!” said Evelyn. That seemed to pacify the children for a minute before they returned to their impish ways.
Alaric hesitated a beat before asking her, “I understand your husband was leading the crowd when all this happened. Have you heard anything from him?”
That last question caused her to collapse like a sack of potatoes. She began to swoon. I caught her and set her down on a chair. She collapsed into it and began to break down in tears. Her whole world came crashing down. Even the children paused and looked at their mother in puzzlement.
“Evelyn, Magda! Please take the little ones to one of the rooms. Keep them distracted.” Evelyn looked at Alaric with sorrowful eyes, as if she had just been handed a death sentence. My heart went out to her, but better them than me. I’ve already explained my fondness for children.
Betrayal
Never play with your food, my mother once lectured. I was never very good at listening to her advice. Jessamine walked by me and gave me that timid, subdued look of hers. I would have imagined her to be too distressed at the uncertainty of her father’s fate, but a minister’s daughter will be the same in any era, I suppose. She came over and clung to my arm. Her mother was so distraught that she missed the impropriety altogether. Alaric did as well, in his attempt at calming the grief-stricken woman.
I wondered at the fate of the minister myself. Like the rest of the people that were outside during the blast, there was a good chance that he did not make it. If he did, he was probably in a shelter that did not connect to ours. I wanted to comfort the woman, but I feared that I might be raising her spirits for nothing.
My thoughts drifted back to Rhiannon. Her body was still not reanimated. Alaric had already expressed his doubts, and I was beginning to have my own. This only proved that I had not reached Elder status. Those with such high status were said to be able to revive even a freshly dead corpse, to recall a soul back from oblivion. I had yet to see this happen, or find anyone who had been made this way, yet the legend persisted.
Our second set of guests arrived a short time after the first. I was the first to hear the hurried footsteps going down the tunnel, their harried voices, and the haunting screams. There was a trip and fall. A young girl began to shriek. I heard the ghoulish moans of their pursuers as they seized upon her and began to feed.
“Linnea!” an older woman began to yell.
“We can’t save her. Come!” yelled a man’s voice.
“But my daughter!”
“It’s too late for her. Do you want to die with her?”
“Yes!”
There was a sound of a struggle. The older woman started to scream hysterically. More screams in the background, biting, ripping sounds. At some point her throat must have been torn out, because the screams ceased. I wished I could have tuned all that out. Poor Linnea had become an unwilling sacrifice so that the others could make it out. The sounds of the carnage grew fainter, as if they were dragging her away. Someone began to pound at the door. There were more sounds of struggle.
“Open up, please!” said the young man in a very hoarse voice. He whispered something to the woman as she continued to struggle.
Everyone looked around with unease. I knew they were weighing their options: let in the survivors and risk everyone else, or let them die in the hallway, their hopes of rescue dashed to pieces, along with their bodies. I alone knew how close they were, that there was a good gap between them and the undead. There was no time to waste deliberating. Soon they would stop feeding on Linnea and resume their attack on the survivors.
“What is wrong with all of you?�
�� They searched their minds for a convenient excuse while I went to the door and unbarred it.
“What are you doing? You’ll let them all in!” said Alaric.
“You can help me unlock this door or I swear I will rip it open.”
“But you’ll kill us all!”
“All the more reason to do it.”
Alaric stared me down to test my resolve and became frightened when he saw I was serious. He decided to hurry and open the door.
The two survivors fell through the doorway. My Vampire eyes could see the writhing figures in the dark. They saw us and started advancing.
“Is this everyone?” I asked the young man.
“Yes,” he replied.
“No! Lin-nea!” screamed the young woman with a desperation only a mother could muster.
I pushed the door shut and Alaric began to lock it. It was good timing, because the undead were almost at the door. They pounded and scratched at it, but the solid door held. Their moans took on a slightly desperate tone. They reminded me of an animal that knows its prey is just outside of its reach.
I allowed myself a sigh and turned around to our new guests. Needless to say, the woman was beyond consolation. She was in the middle of a hysterical tantrum while the young man tried to restrain her. It took Alaric’s help to restrain her, and she still almost broke free. She was like a caged wild animal. After a few minutes, her adrenaline ran out and she became calmer. Alaric picked her up and sat her down on the couch. I turned to help the young man get up. He looked up and pulled his arm away. I still couldn’t see his face because his hair had fallen over it. He moved it out of his way and glared at me. It was Matthias.
“Matthias!”
His father also noticed him and bounded off the couch, forgetting about the woman. He wrapped his tree-trunk arms around his son and gave him a crushing hug.
“Father, I can’t breathe!” His father relaxed his hold on him. I walked away in utter disgust at the scene. Matthias finally managed to break free from his father’s grasp and hurried over to the woman. He sat beside her and tried to comfort her, but there was no comforting her right now.
The undead would not allow themselves to be forgotten. They continued to pound on the door, demanding to be allowed inside to feed. I’m sure if they could think, they would feel angry and frustrated. All they felt was that all-consuming sense of hunger I understood all too well.
Matthias was talking to the woman, trying to convince her they had done the right thing. If I actually cared about him, I would have told him to give her space, that no amount of explaining would do right now, but I just walked away. Alaric was too preoccupied with his son’s reappearance to notice me, so I slunk off to see Rhiannon.
It might seem improper for me to think of myself now. While everyone out there suffered, I was sneaking in to visit someone else’s beloved. I told myself she was no longer his wife. The contract stated very clearly “until death do us part.” Death had come for her. She belonged to me now. We were married in blood, and our contract would last through the ages.
Her skin was still that silky coat of ivory that I saw when we first met. It reminded me of Snow White, if she had a blaze of red hair instead of ebony black. She lay there so peacefully one would be convinced she was merely sleeping. I even thought I saw her chest rise and fall. It was a lie, of course, but I needed to believe it.
My blood did not work, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t because I used too little. I had given her more than I ever gave any of my fledglings. My mind searched for other reasons, ignoring the obvious one: I had been bitten. My blood was poisoned, but somehow I survived while she could not. Then why was she not rising up to eat the living? I racked my brain for answers, but they would not come. Eventually I left the room, only to find a grim cluster of faces on the other side.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking beyond the obvious.
Alaric had lost his wife, maybe for good. Linnea’s mother, whose name I still did not know, had just lost her daughter. The minister’s wife did not know the fate of her husband, who had been in the streets when the attack began.
Alaric shuddered when he saw me. He looked like he wanted to tear me to pieces. Not that there was a shortage of reasons for him to hate me, but I wondered what the reason was this time. Matthias was staring at me with no hatred in his eyes, only a little sparkle and the slightest smirk on his lips.
“Matthias told me what you have done,” Alaric said. He held up a small, tattered box with a stubby antenna sticking out from the top. It was held together with duct tape. Whoever made this remote was the man who blew up the walls. My eyes went back to Matthias, who had an expression of triumph in his face. I wanted to rip him apart right now, but that would complicate matters.
“That’s not mine,” I said. It was a pathetic defense, but it looked like I had been convicted anyway.
“You’re lying! Matthias attacked you because he found the evidence in your bag.”
“Here it was,” Matthias added, holding up my bag, that he had somehow taken after breaking into my room.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” asked Alaric.
“For one, how would I use a detonator if I was upstairs in the room, defending myself from you?”
“There, you see. He has knowledge of these things,” Matthias whispered to his father, convinced I could not hear him.
“Yes, I have knowledge of them. I have been around for a long time, before the Fall came.”
“You see? He admits it! He’s the one that set off those charges.” Matthias was no longer whispering, and he could barely contain his smile.
This was no kind of trial. I would have preferred to be in front of a judge to this. At least a judge was held to some standard of impartiality. Alaric was so convinced of my guilt, he would hold on to the thinnest shred of evidence to confirm it.
“You’re no angel, or any kind of divine being. You are a demon, come from the depths of hell to try to take our souls. The Good Book warned us of someone like you, someone who would try to seduce us into thinking he was a divine being. I was blind to see it, but I see it now!”
What a time to have an epiphany! “I know I am no angel. I know I’ve done despicable things. You have shown me hospitality and I’ve repaid you in the worst way. I deserve the treatment you’re giving me now, but I did not do this.”
“Even now, you continue to lie. Did you not ravish my wife at a time when she could not resist?” Evelyn gave me that same look she did when Rhiannon and I…consummated our union.
“Hey, hey, calm down. I did not ravish your wife. She’s the one that started it. I admit what I did was wrong, but I did not take her by force.”
“Even now, you lie to my face. Everything you say is a lie.”
Evelyn continued to look at me with a self-righteous smile on her face. There was no enjoyment in it for her, only a sense of justice.
Alaric continued, “You also lied about what happened in the woods with Matthias. He told me he shot you in self-defense, that you were climbing the tree to feed on him and leave him to the horde. Somehow he escaped with his life.” Matthias hugged his father. The scene was nauseating.
The anger was welling up from beneath. My fangs were coming out. I felt the hair rise up on the back of my neck.
“You set me up!” I said to Matthias. My face must have been frightening, because the women and children cowered and ran from me, crying and whimpering. Matthias was glowing with accomplishment now.
“You—need to leave,” said Alaric. I could tell he was serious, but I couldn’t just go and leave Rhiannon.
“And if I don’t?” I asked. Alaric’s anger wavered. He knew that he could not muster enough strength to force me to do anything.
“Then we will wait until daylight and kill you in your sleep,” Matthias chimed in.
“And do you think you can survive until daylight?” I replied with a fang-filled smile. He took two steps back. “Do you mean to kill me, like y
ou attempted the last two times and failed? Because if I rise again, mark my words, you’ll be the one going down.”
Matthias’ bravado was gone.
Alaric said, “If I cannot force you, I will still ask you to leave. I know that there is some sense of honor deep down inside you and that you’ll honor my request.”
He was right. That was my one weakness—my sense of honor. I could suffer slings and arrows for eternity, but this was the hole in my armor.
“I will be on the upper level of the house,” I went to walk away and pivoted back to Alaric’s room. “There is just one more thing I will do before I go. This is nonnegotiable.”
Alaric tried to protest, but managed nothing more than a grunt. That was good, because I would take nothing other than a yes when it came to this. I opened the door and let myself in.
She was still the same, as if frozen by time. This time I could walk around the room and not sneak around like a common thief. I walked up to the bed and leaned over her. Her face looked as lovely as the full moon on a clear night. I leaned over and kissed her soft lips.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I am leaving for now. I will be back for you,” I whispered. I truly didn’t know if there was anything left alive inside her, but I had to try. Alaric was standing by the door, with face twitching and nostrils flaring. I ignored him and walked out the door. He let me out of the basement entrance and I walked back up to the house.
The dark splendor of night still enveloped the house. My eyes adapted and right away I saw the undead pounding at the windows. They had managed to shatter them, but their bodies could not go through the narrow slits, or the bars that further protected those points of entry. The door was bending slightly from their pushing and pounding, but it held strong. All the commotion from below must have stirred them up. I wondered how long it would take for them to settle down.
They did not frighten me. Their glazed eyes searched past me, looking for food. I still decided it would be best to close the steel shutters. Their arms were sticking out all the way through the windows, but they did not try to attack me when I shoved them back. I remembered earlier times when they would mistake me for food and try to attack me. They did nothing of the sort now. We had reached a mutual understanding as predators.
After the Fall Page 13