And it was funny because I had no idea if I had or not.
I thought I would know that I had fulfilled my purpose when all was said and done.
And mostly, I was fucking clueless.
But that was the order’s job anyway. I was just here to do my part.
I just hoped I had done it well.
I knew I had done it the best I could.
The burning feeling exploded all over my body, and my muscles went limp for the last time.
6
I opened my eyes to an empty warehouse.
The ropes were gone, and so was Lucas’s chair.
So was Lucas, for that matter.
I looked out the windows, but outside it was all white, like the entire building had been dry-walled in.
I was dead.
But why wasn’t I moving on?
As I thought about what to do next (I mean, even in death, I didn’t know what to do? Come on!), there were footsteps behind me. I spun around to where Lucas had sat while I burned.
It was the left-hand female of The Three, dressed in robes, having taken her smaller form.
I threw my hands up into the air in frustration at her.
“So where am I now?” I asked.
“Death,” she said with a small, curt nod of her head.
“Well, this sucks,” I said. “My afterworld is an empty warehouse with no windows?”
She smiled in amusement.
“Yes,” she said, raising her eyebrows and continuing. “See, the thing about immortals, if they should die, they don’t move on. They only go to a ‘holding tank’ of sorts, because, well, they’re immortal.”
She walked forward, her robes swishing, and turned around in the center of the warehouse near where I was, taking it all in, I assumed.
“The order won’t let them—or you—cross over.”
“So I’m stuck here?” I asked and couldn’t even muster the energy to get angry.
“Yes—well, no, because I’m here.”
I inhaled and let it out slowly, knowing what was coming.
“You’re going to send me back?”
She smiled again. This time it was almost a laugh.
“Yes.”
“Why even have me die in the first place?” I asked, raising my voice so that it echoed off the walls.
The left-hand female finally laughed at this one.
“Because it behooves everybody to think that you’re dead. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got it all under control.”
She continued chuckling while I stared at her, feeling neither afraid nor in awe of this creature standing before me. I wasn’t even sure exactly what she was.
“Who are you?” I asked, giving in to my curiosity.
She looked me directly in the eye, her gaze piercing mine, and I felt that I could travel through her pupils, the way they were pulling me in.
“You mean, what am I.”
It was a statement, not a question, and concealed within it was my own capacity for knowledge.
“Well, I’m certainly not human,” she said, turning her back to me and beginning almost to glide around the room, her robe concealing most of her feet.
“Are you a vampire?” I asked, knowing the answer was no.
She shook her head, turning back around toward me, as if she already knew I knew the answer and wouldn’t waste the breath to speak it out loud.
“I’m a...” she stopped, searching for the right words, her robes billowing around her though she wasn’t moving, “a reflection.”
She stopped me cold. I hadn’t been expecting that, but at her words something deep inside of me tugged, and I felt that I knew what I was looking at.
“You understand?” she asked, her indifference mixed with amusement.
“I think so,” I said and felt inadequate in front of her suddenly.
“That’s your problem, Victoria,” she said, her voice now loud enough to echo, my name repeating itself throughout this desolate warehouse. She became quiet once again and practically whispered to me. “You either know or you don’t. There’s nothing else.”
I sighed, her words and what I was about to do weighing heavily on me.
“So what’s next?” I asked, holding out my arms.
“You go back,” she said simply.
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
She moved toward me suddenly, and in a display of affection I could only assume was extremely rare, she kissed me on the forehead.
“What a beautiful, ignorant girl you are,” she said and smiled her biggest smile yet. She stepped away from my body, holding her arms out at her sides, and began to fade.
Her body became a point at which everything around us was sucked into. As she faded the room absorbed into her, until once again I could feel my body bound by ropes.
I was slack against them, my eyes closed. If I had been able to open them, I’m sure my skin would have looked in desperate need of some SPF 30.
There were two voices I could hear in the room—Lucas and Ivy.
So he had come to watch me fry, huh? Just couldn’t stay away.
They spoke in what sounded to me was just barely above a whisper, though in the expanse of the warehouse they could have been speaking normally and I just wouldn’t have known it.
And then I heard them. Footsteps.
Slow, measured, maybe just a little hesitant. This person would be entering the sunlight after all. But I knew who it was.
The footsteps got louder and louder, though I no longer felt any pain from the sun. Whether that was because I was too far gone or by the powers of The Three I didn’t know. And I didn’t care either.
Finally, the footsteps stopped, maybe ten feet or so from where I was bound. I sensed nervousness about getting too close, and, of course, I knew he was right to be nervous, though I still wasn’t sure what was about to happen.
The footsteps began again. One after the other in slow succession. There simply wasn’t that much space to bridge.
“Such a shame,” Ivy said, and I almost expected him to reach out and touch me, though he didn’t. He was maybe a foot or two from my body, and there was a nagging bit of confusion inside of him that he tried to push away.
“You should have joined me,” he said, in a quiet, almost desperate way.
And then there was just the slightest, almost imperceptible noise. If I had heard it, Ivy and Lucas had too. But I didn’t dare open my eyes.
Now there were voices, and footsteps, scuffling and a loud boom like something heavy hitting the concrete floor.
Ivy took a few steps away from me, though didn’t seem to be in any hurry, and then I heard Matt call out to me.
“Vic!”
He must have been horrified at my condition.
“She’s already unconscious,” Ivy called out across the warehouse. “It’s too late.”
I heard Matt run toward me and wondered if Ivy and Lucas could sense that he was no longer a vampire.
Ivy had been in the sunlight now for maybe two or three minutes, not enough to start the sting, but enough to tire him out just a little.
Matt reached me, though I didn’t feel his hands on me at all. I wished he would reach out and touch me, though I knew he wouldn’t.
I heard Ivy chuckle, and I pitied him more than any human or vampire I had ever pitied. Matt sniffled and I wished I could communicate to him that everything was going to be fine.
I had reached an impasse. The time to act was now and I had one thing going for me.
The element of surprise.
I needed to get to Ivy and sink my fangs into his neck. And it would be the last time I would ever do that.
Ivy was still near me though exactly how close I couldn’t tell. Matt was still right by my side, though without knowing what was going on and having a lack of vampire strength, I didn’t know how helpful he would be.
“Can I untie her?” I heard Matt ask and I knew that was the final piece to this puzzle
. Everything else beyond this point was on me.
“Yes,” was all Ivy said, and his footsteps started up again. This time moving farther away from me. Shit.
But then the sound got closer and I realized that he was pacing. Something was still bugging him, and that’s why he was staying nearby. But frankly, he didn’t have all that much time left in the sun before it would really start to bother him.
I felt Matt’s hands on my right wrist undoing the ropes and finally one arm was free. Matt supported my body as he worked on freeing me, letting my limp body hang on him until he was done.
Finally, the ropes were off and I was completely leaning against Matt. He laid my body down on the concrete floor and I knew the sun should be finishing me off any minute now.
I sensed Matt stepping away from me, maybe saying a final, silent good-bye. And then I heard Ivy’s footsteps once again and I knew this was it.
At this moment I had the first pangs of grief for my immortal life, and it really struck me what I was about to do. That’s when the footsteps stopped. Ivy was very close to me.
He had knelt down next to me and I couldn’t believe how long he was taking in the sun, when he didn’t absolutely need to.
I had the sense that he wanted to say something, but he never got the chance. I hesitated for just a second, a momentary stream of revulsion running through me, and then I opened my eyes and pounced.
I saw the fear, the surprise, but also the nagging doubt that had plagued Ivy since stepping into this warehouse today. He had only a moment’s realization that he had failed before I plunged my teeth into his neck.
He was disoriented and tired and it gave me a few seconds of uninterrupted drinking before he started to struggle. But then the struggling was stilled as more hands and voices erupted around me. Lola and Kace had run over and were holding him as still as they could, and Matt had grabbed the ropes and was tying him up.
I drank for what seemed like a long time. Finally, I had had enough.
I pulled back, wiped the blood off my mouth, and made eye contact with both Lola and Kace, who were wide-eyed and breathing hard. For a moment I wasn’t sure they knew what was going on, but then I realized Matt must have told them.
Neither of them seemed to want to say anything. They kept their hands on Ivy who had simply given up the struggle at this point and stared at me.
I could feel the transformation in my body. A warmth. A speeding up of bodily processes. And in my imagination, the image of a thousand little keys entering a thousand little locks.
When it was done, I didn’t really feel all that different. I looked at my hands and saw that my skin had repaired itself. For the first time in over three hundred years I stood in the sunlight without any danger, soaking up some good ol’ vitamin D just like anyone else.
My gaze went out the window, and I had to shield my eyes from the sun. Everything was beautiful—the asphalt, the garbage, the decrepit building. All of it.
I glanced up at Matt, who smiled with just a bit of trepidation, and I held my arms out to him.
7
I let go of Matt after a few moments, both of our bodies warm, and turned around.
Lola had let go of Ivy, who was now thoroughly bound, and came toward me, tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Vic,” she sort of choked out as she threw her arms around me tightly just as I did the same to her. “Matt told us what had happened... I couldn’t believe it... but, now, you...are you really?
She didn’t want to say the word, but, of course, she knew it was true.
“Yeah,” I said, stepping back from her. “I’m human.”
She appraised me for what seemed like a long while. Maybe trying to spot something that was now different. But I wasn’t sure what she saw.
In her eyes I saw sadness, and I knew why. We were no longer hunting buddies. We were no longer the same.
I started to wonder what Lola’s fate held from this point forth, but I was interrupted by Kace.
“Hey, guys,” he said, also stepping away from Ivy. “I don’t mean to, you know, rush this party and all, but we should get out of here. Especially with you two.” He pointed at me and Matt.
He was right. It was time to go.
“What about him?” Matt asked, indicating Ivy, who was now tied up in the same position I had been.
My inclination was simply to leave him. Leave him to the judgement of The Three and the justice of the order. But I wasn’t sure.
You either know or you don’t was what the left-hand female had said, and this time instead of deliberating back and forth, I just went with it.
“We leave him to the sun,” I said, and then realized we were missing somebody. “Where’s Lucas?”
Kace smiled at me, as there was a banging from the far wall.
“He’s with all his sleeping friends,” he said, smiling that same searing smile he wore when we first met.
PART ELEVEN
1
I sat on the grass with my arms behind me, propping me up. The sun warmed me as it hit my face and arms, and a breeze blew periodically that rustled the leaves and the grass. I loved every minute of it.
Matt hung from one of the bottom-most branches of a nearby tree, like a kid on a jungle gym, smiling and swinging.
“You know, I still wish I could climb and jump like before,” he said, swinging off the branch and landing on the grass. “And run too.”
He jogged over, a normal human movement, and sat down next to me, squeezing me with one arm and kissing my cheek.
“Yeah,” I said. “Those days are gone.”
I no longer received the kind of information I once got. No longer had superhuman insights, though my intuition seemed strong.
“Nice to be here in the daytime though,” Matt said, leaning back against his own arms.
It was nice to be here in the daytime. To see everything illuminated by the light, rather than by my former night vision. Although that might be the thing I missed the most—the way I had been able to see in the dark. For as long as I lived, I would never forget the way the darkness had shimmered around people and objects, making them just a little better and a little worse than they seemed in the light.
I breathed in deeply, enjoying the air, and let it all go a second later.
“Well?” Matt asked.
“Well what?” I replied.
“What’s next?”
I thought about it for a few seconds and didn’t know.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “What do you think?”
Matt looked very serious for a moment and I started to feel a little nervous. He nodded his head a few times and pursed his lips together slightly. He turned his head so he could look directly at me.
“I think we’re going to need to get jobs,” he said with the same serious expression. Then his mouth erupted into a huge smile.
I laughed. Both at Matt’s delivery of this line and the fact that he was right. We would need jobs eventually.
“You know, maybe I should be a chef. I could go to culinary school,” I said, raising my eyebrows at Matt.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Matt said. “I could get used to that, and you could make the best darn blood sausage in the world. No one would be the wiser of your expertise.”
I chuckled but I really was thinking about my new life and what would be in it. Being a chef was a definite possibility. It had only been three days since the scene in the warehouse, and it hadn’t all quite sunk in yet.
“What about you?” I said and watched as the wind blew Matt’s hair.
“Well, I could always go back to serving,” he said. “I mean, I am a recent college grad even if I was immortal for a few months. I could just pick up where I left off.”
“And how do you feel about being with an older woman?” I said, smiling.
“You know, I always thought ten years would be a significant age difference. I’ve never thought about, like, two hundred and ninety.”
He reached over
and tickled the little fleshy, sensitive part of my waist, and I swatted his hand away.
Some birds chirped nearby, and I found myself caught up in the sound of their life. What they were communicating, I didn’t know, but they sounded so alive and I loved it.
Lola popped into my mind, as had been the case recently. Kace too, but Lola mostly and I wondered what she was going to do now.
The word was spreading, I was sure, about what had happened with me and Ivy and it made things completely different. You could reverse your immortality if you wanted and if you were able, but the possibility was there where it never was before. There was an out.
Would Lola want to become human? Even if she did, I don’t think she had any idea where her creator was. Now that Raven was dead, she would be even harder to find.
My mind swam with questions and what ifs until Matt shook my shoulder and pointed off and up to our right.
My gaze went skyward and at first I didn’t see anything, just puffy white clouds floating along. And then...
“Hey! Doesn’t that look exactly like—”
“The Three,” I said, staring at the cloud that Matt was referencing.
I gazed a moment more, wondering if it was really them in some way, or just a trick of the eye. Not too long after, the cloud had shifted again and in their place was something shaped more like a duck.
“Do you think...?” Matt said, trailing off at the end.
“I don’t know,” I said, and knew that I would never know.
And that was okay.
THE END
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Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller Page 26