Real Vampires Don't Sparkle

by Amy Fecteau

  “Fix it?”

  “Turn human again.”

  Quin raised himself up, resting his weight on his elbows.

  “Listen to me,” he said, his voice clear and tight in the darkness, shining blue as the edge of a freshly honed blade.

  Matheus pressed hard against the wall, crushing a few mushrooms.

  “There is no going back. You’re never going to be human again.”

  “But—”

  “Matheus, stop it. You’re going to torture yourself if you keep thinking that.” Quin paused before adding, “I’ve seen it before.”

  The lack of regret in Quin’s tone halted any more questions. The cold, simple sentence served as a brick wall to further conversation.

  Matheus rested his chin on top of his knees, quiet until Quin lay back down. If Matheus concentrated, he heard water dripping in the walls. Two drips; one with a four-beat rest, and the other with seven. Matheus counted to twenty-eight, marking the time when the drops coincided. Eins, zwei, drei, vier, he thought before forcing himself to continue with five, six, seven, eight. Numbers clung in the grooves of Matheus’ mind, long after he’d overcome everything else. Even after ten years, he still began with eins, zwei, drei.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I didn’t have much of a life anyway.”

  “I know. I watched you, remember?” Quin shifted, his back sliding over the tops of Matheus’ feet.

  Matheus poked his big toe into the hard spinal muscle, then unsuccessfully dodged the flick Quin aimed at his knee in retaliation.

  “Quin, why are we here?” Matheus asked. “Tell me there is a point to all this.”

  “There’s a point.”

  “And?”

  Quin flicked him again.

  “They threw grenades at us. Grenades.”

  “You’re going to have a very unsatisfying life if you obsess over reasons for everything,” said Quin.

  “I watched you kill five people.”

  “And, most likely, you’ll see me kill a lot more.”

  Matheus shook his head.

  “People die, Sunshine. It’s what they do. Some people die sooner than others, but everybody goes in the end. I’m not going to worry about a handful trying to kill me anyway. I kill to eat, to survive, and I don’t see the point in feeling guilty about that.”

  “You enjoy it,” said Matheus.

  “Sometimes,” said Quin. “Depends on who I’m killing.”

  Matheus plucked another mushroom, squishing the spongy stem between his thumb and forefinger.

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “What about you what?”

  “Did you enjoy killing me?”

  “Honestly?” Quin paused. “No. Killing someone who’s fainted feels a little like cheating. Not much sport in it at all.”

  Matheus threw a mushroom at his head. He smirked as Quin’s return shot splattered on the wall a good six inches from his head.

  “Why kill me at all then?” Matheus asked. “The real reason, this time.”

  “I can’t tell you now,” Quin said, clearly annoyed as a second mushroom bounced off his forehead. “It’s too…maybe one day.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Matheus picked another mushroom. The sun didn’t rise for another two hours. He needed some way to occupy himself.

  “The next mushroom you throw is going somewhere extremely unpleasant,” Quin threatened.

  “New Jersey?” Matheus asked.

  Matheus opened his eyes at sunset, his face mashed against the rough stone floor and a heavy weight on his back, impacting his ribs into a solid mass. He pushed himself onto his elbows, rolling his neck back and forth. The symptoms of life were hard habits to break. He looked over his shoulder at Quin, then elbowed him in the chest.

  “Hey,” Matheus said.

  Quin didn’t move. Slackness loosened his features.

  Matheus pressed a fingertip to Quin’s cheek. The flesh molded into an oval depression before slowly resuming a normal shape. He was dead, Matheus realized.

  Well, of course he’s dead, Matheus thought, making a face. They were both dead, when it came down to nuts and bolts. Quin just had less mobility at the moment. Matheus tried to inch away as much as the small confines of the cave allowed. He might be a hypocrite, but knowing that didn’t stop the gut-sinking realization that a dead thing lay next to him.

  A dead thing that blinked at him. Matheus relaxed his arms, dropping back to the cold floor. He turned over to face Quin.

  “Urgh,” Quin groaned.

  “The sun’s gone down,” Matheus said, pointing out the obvious in the face of Quin’s inability to rise and shine.

  “Ger dobit.” Quin groped along the floor, searching for something before recognizing his situation and giving up.

  “You’re so articulate. You must get all the pretty boys.”

  Quin gave Matheus a dark look. Closing his eyes, he folded his arms over his chest. Matheus wondered if he intentionally chose the creepiest position possible, or if that came naturally.

  “Are you going to get up?” he asked. “I know the stone floor is comfy, but don’t we have things to do?”

  “Si vos errant meus filius, vendideram in meretricis antes vestri decimus natalis,” Quin said without opening his eyes.

  “Really? You can’t manage a ‘good morning,’ but you reel that off?”

  With a long, sustained sigh, Quin raised himself into a sitting position. He looked around the cave, at Matheus, then down at his feet. He blinked a few times, then slid, like a trickle of molasses, down the wall to pool on the cave floor.

  “Bonus oriens,” he said, his eyes drifting closed. “Vos somnus puteus?”

  “Ego dormivi quasi mortui.” said Matheus. He raised his eyebrows at Quin’s astonished stare. “Twelve years of Catholic school.”

  “Your accent is terrible and the grammar is off,” said Quin.

  “You try learning with an armed nun hovering over you.”

  “An armed nun?”

  “Those whippy metal rulers,” Matheus said. “They could take a finger off.”

  “Poor baby,” said Quin with a faint grin.

  Matheus glowered at him. “Latin’s a dead language, anyway,” he said.

  “Bite your tongue.” Quin sounded like a shocked grandmother.

  “That’s English you’re speaking,” Matheus said. “The language that sidles up to other languages in dark alleys, mugs them, then rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary. It’s the bitch-whore of languages and it owns the world. Suck on that, Rome boy.”

  Quin groaned, turning to bury his head onto Matheus’ shoulder.

  Matheus’ nerves felt as though someone had dipped them into a pail of dry ice. Usually, Quin limited his touches to the kind practiced by pre-adolescent siblings or extreme violence designed to make a point. This was…different.

  “You would be a morning person,” mumbled Quin.

  “It’s night,” Matheus said through numb lips.

  “Same annoying behavior.” Quin slid his palm upward, resting it in the center of Matheus’ chest. Dirt crusted Quin’s nails, packed underneath the tips. They were slightly too long for current fashion, trimmed with square, coarse cuts. Matheus bet Quin had never chewed his nails in his life.

  “Sorry.” Matheus fought the urge to push Quin’s hand away, not because the contact bothered him, but because it didn’t. Matheus didn’t think of himself as homophobic, but he drew the line at cuddling with other men. The strange connection he shared with Quin had to be the reason he wanted to curl closer.

  His gaze moved up Quin’s arm, over his shoulder and up the sweep of his neck. He examined Quin’s ears, flat and neat against the fine curvature of his skull. Matheus pinched his forearm, his nails leaving tiny half-moons in his skin. Yes, he thought, definitely the connection, nothing else.

  “I’m going to get some air,” Matheus said.

  Quin made a noise in t
he back of his throat and curled up until his chin touched his knees.

  Matheus shook his head.

  “Pathetic,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” said Quin.

  “You wish.”

  Quin responded with a physical gesture Matheus didn’t recognize, but assumed was obscene. He replied with a more modern version of his own, but Quin didn’t notice, busy trying to pull the stone over his head á la blanket.

  Matheus wiggled out of the crack into the claustrophobic passage that twisted and bent its way to the main cavern. He emerged with a fresh collection of scratches, the soles of his feet raw. The main room formed a shallow half-egg shape, hidden underneath an overhanging ledge. A natural path zigzagged down to the riverbank. Leaves, wet from an earlier rainstorm, littered the ground, a slick coating for Matheus as he skidded haphazardly down.

  He paused at the bottom, sticking his feet in the river and letting the cool water wash away the stinging heat. The clouds had cleared away, leaving behind a dizzying amount of stars. Matheus hadn’t seen that many since he was a boy, twenty years at least. A long stretch of flickering points streaked across the center of the sky, the edge of the Milky Way a cross-section of time and light. The night sky never looked like this in the city. Maybe nature had its upside. He could buy a cabin and—

  Something slimy brushed against Matheus’ ankle, and he jumped, landing hard on his bottom. He waded out of the river, doomed to spend the night with wet pants. Who the hell was he kidding? If he wanted to look at stars, Kenderton had a planetarium. Matheus nudged at a pebble with his toe. He wondered how much longer Quin planned to lounge about. The moon had begun to rise. In a couple of hours, Matheus wouldn’t be able to see the Milky Way at all. He poked at another pebble, rolling it next to the first and beginning a mini pebble pyramid. Behind him came the sound of soggy footsteps. Matheus turned.

  “Oh, so you finally decided—” Matheus cut off as a pair of hunters leapt toward him, grabbing at his arms. He screamed, and jerked one arm free in a quick, snapping motion.

  The hunter swore as he clutched at Matheus’ shirt. He hooked one leg around Matheus’ ankle. All three went down in a jumble, water and sand splashing up around them.

  “Get his wrists!” someone shouted as Matheus struggled to stand. One of the hunters drove his knee into the base of Matheus’ spine. He leaned forward, all his weight pressing Matheus into the silt, while the other hunter twisted Matheus’ wrists until the bones shrieked.

  “Where’s the gag?” he yelled.

  Matheus arched his neck to the brink of breaking. He spat out a mouthful of sand and mud, and drew in a huge breath.

  “Quin!” he screamed. “Quin! Get your ass—”

  A hunter jammed a gag into his mouth, homemade, wooden with leather straps, marred with teeth marks. Matheus felt sick. Plastic zip-ties bound his wrists together. The other hunter lifted his knee, and hauled Matheus upright. Two men stood on either side of him, one holding a broadsword a half-inch away from Matheus’ Adam’s apple. Four more ranged in front of them, hands ready on their crossbows.

  “Where’s the other one?” asked the hunter on the left.

  “He’ll be around. He won’t go too far from this one.” The speaker walked forward, letting his crossbow swing loose at his side. Late forties, gray hair cut high and tight. A necklace of fangs rattled around his neck, the kindergarten art project of a future serial killer. Some of the fangs still had a rust-colored crust around the root.

  “How do you know?” asked the man with the broadsword. He reeked of cigarettes. Matheus recognized him as the smoker from the cabin.

  “I told you, if you want to play the game, you have to pay attention. This one,” the man nodded at Matheus, “is fresh-turned. No way his master is going to let him wander away. Not an old one like Quin. The young ones, they don’t understand the old traditions.”

  He shot a look at the hunter to his right.

  Matheus growled through his gag. He threw himself backward. The hunter holding him let him fall, then delivered a trio of quick kicks to his ribs. Choking, Matheus rolled onto his stomach, saliva dripping out around the gag. Someone reached down, and grabbed his bound wrists, forcing him to stand. The sword kissed the skin of his throat. Matheus froze, his eyes going wide at the older hunter. The man gave him a dismissive look, then turned away, pointing up the steep hill.

  “Set up camp over there, on high ground,” he said. “Send a party into the cave. At least three men.”

  Half the hunting party split off, including the sword bearer, and headed for the narrow path. Matheus screamed through the gag. He hurled his weight to the left, knocking the hunter into the river, and tangling his feet around one another. Stumbling backward, he tried to turn, tripped up by his own unruly limbs.

  “Stand back,” said the older hunter as Matheus found his equilibrium. The man about to grab Matheus stepped back with a smirk.

  Matheus barely had time to process this before something struck him in the chest.

  His body went rigid as every nerve overloaded, overwhelming pain blocking out the entire world. Matheus’ reality compressed to the wild, jittering tension of his muscles. He thought he shrieked for the hunter to stop, but he didn’t possess enough control to force out the sounds.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he slurred around the wooden gag. His cheek pressed into the wet dirt, his legs splayed out akimbo. He didn’t remember falling. A tired ache vibrated deep in his bones; the shock had torn out any muscle fiber he’d possessed. Twisting his eyes up to the hunter took more effort than Matheus had ever exerted in his life.

  “Fifty thousand volts,” the hunter said, stroking the Taser with a fond smile. “Military grade. Best purchase I ever made.”

  Matheus closed his eyes. Looking at things hurt.

  “What are we going to do with him?” someone asked. The older hunter spat, the gob splattering on Matheus’ ear.

  “String him up,” he said.

  This is not the best day of my life, Matheus thought. He gave the ropes an experimental tug. His arms stretched over his head; his toes scraped over the ground. Matheus admitted that he had fantasized about being tied up, but not like this. He expected a bed, a safe word, and not so much threat of imminent torture and death. The difference came down to the balance of control. Matheus had none; the hunters had it all. He exhaled, opening his mouth wide to crack his jaw. At least the gag was gone.

  “What’s your name?” The older hunter stood in front of Matheus, his hands clasped behind his back. Flames silhouetted his body, the fire flickering high enough to dwarf the men gathered around it. They wanted Quin to find them.

  “What’s yours?” Matheus asked. The words felt jagged in his mouth.

  “Linken.” The man circled Matheus, sending him swinging with a shove. He did this several times, accompanied by a low, harsh laughter.

  Matheus gritted his teeth, fingers tightening around the rope holding him up.

  “Nice necklace,” he said as Linken returned to view.

  “I’ve killed thirty-one of your kind.” Linken stroked the necklace, the fangs clicking together in a delicate song.

  “Your mother must be so proud.”

  “She would be, if one of you hadn’t murdered her.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Matheus said. “I was washing my hair that night.”

  He knew he had asked for a smack, but the Taser was overkill. Linken delivered two bursts, maxing out the power. Matheus rose, rigid, on his toes as the scent of warm ozone sparked through the air.

  “Fucking Christ,” he moaned, sagging on the ropes. The branch creaked with the strain of his full weight, but offered no reprieve.

  “Are you sure you should be doing that?” one of the other hunters asked. He stood in a loose group on the opposite side of the fire. No one approached closer than ten feet. Matheus wondered if they wanted to avoid him, or Linken.

  “It’s not going to kill him,” Linken replied. He looked at Matheus. “Is it
?”

  “Go to hell,” said Matheus. He flinched as Linken raised the Taser.

  “You’re a mouthy one. You want the gag back?”

  Matheus pressed his lips together and glared. He grasped the rope again, pulling himself up with trembling muscles. Ash from the fire rained down like snow, sticking to his skin and catching on his eyelashes. A lacy ember landed on Linken’s shoulder, flickering out as he brushed it away.

  “How long do you think? I’m guessing twenty minutes.”

  “For what?” Matheus asked.

  “Until your master comes for you.”

  “He’s not my master.” A piece of ash landed on Matheus lip. He licked, tasting salt and dirt.

  Linken laughed unpleasantly.

  “That’s what you think.” He pulled a thin blade from a sheath around his thigh. Linken dressed like the kind of person who subscribed to survivalist magazines and kept a chemical toilet in his basement next to a pallet of MREs. Matheus bet he was on a first-name basis with all the clerks at the local Army Surplus store. They probably exchanged Christmas cards full of good wishes littered with dark hints of the apocalypse.

  “I know more about what you are than you do,” Linken continued, distracting Matheus from his speculation. “For instance, do you know that a wound made by silver will scar?”

  “Oh?” Matheus watched the tip of the blade flash in the firelight. The metal shone orange and shadow.

  “So, if I cut you here,” the blade whisked over Matheus’ cheek, liberating a bristle or two, “you’ll be marked forever. No matter what happens tonight, you’ll bear my mark for the rest of your life. Interesting, huh?”

  The triangular point of the blade tapped against Matheus’ nose. His eyes crossed as he stared at the tip.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you doing, Link?” Hunter Junior stood behind Linken, death grip on his crossbow making the bolt shake in its slot. He cast darting glances at Matheus, like a child afraid of a scolding.

  Linken half-turned, and gave the boy’s shoulder a friendly shake.

  “Just having a little fun, kid,” he said. “Go on and keep watch.”

  Hunter Junior met Matheus’ eyes, his expression a mixture of worry and triumph. He hoisted the crossbow and walked over to the edge of the camp, spine stiff with teenage self-importance. One of the hunters nudged the man next to him, and muttered something under his breath. Both laughed, cutting off quick as Linken glared at them.