by Dave Ferraro
***
My breath caught in my throat when I spotted my house, its once cheerful yellow paint now cracked and ridden with holes from insects. The lawn was overgrown and an ugly, dead brown, and the narrow sidewalk leading up to the front porch had more crevices than I remembered.
One tentative step at a time, I approached my house, my footsteps falling in the same spots they had when I’d come home every day from school; or when Orion and I had snuck back in after a night of carefree recklessness (mostly harmless practical jokes on our friends); the same sidewalk that had listened to the sometimes hysterical conversations between Leo and me.
The night was quiet. A single streetlamp, its shade broken, threw sketchy patches of faded yellowed light on the porch, making the shadows dance as I slowly wrapped my fingers around the handle. Taking a deep breath, I cautiously pushed the front door open.
A triangle of orange light fell on the dust-coated wood floor in front of me, my shadow frozen as it peered at the remnants of a forgotten time.
So many memories lay wrapped up in that house, the one my father had vowed to raise my brother and me in so we wouldn’t have to constantly move around with our Marine Corps mother. There was the old pink couch, faded and worn, where I had curled up with a good murder mystery on so many cold winter days. My dad’s favorite recliner sat in the corner, his hot-spot for watching football or Penguins’ hockey on our tiny, used flat screen TV. Orion’s hockey gear still laid in the pile he’d always thrown it in after practice, right by the door (to the disgruntlement of our father).
I swallowed hard and took a step inside. The floorboards gave a comforting squeak as my eyes fell on the old rocker in the living room, where my father would entertain my brother and me with stories of the South. The fireplace looked lonely without its cheerful flames. I walked over to it, as I had so many times when I was very young, and ran my finger along the dust on the mantle, eyeing the photographs of my parents. My father, with his beautiful ebony skin, stood next to my mother, with a head of blond curls and skin as white as milk, their arms linked around Orion and me. We looked like a normal American family. I’d dare say we even looked happy.
Directly ahead of me was the dining room, where my father, brother, and I had spent many evenings dining without my mother, and just past that was the kitchen and then the stairs. At its base, I saw toddler-me in my mind’s eye, clutching the blanket I’d had since I was an infant to my chest as I listened to my parents argue, the same argument they had nearly every night after they thought my brother and I were asleep downstairs in our room. Memories of their voices ran through my head, shouting at each other over money (or our lack thereof).
The floorboards behind me creaked ever so slightly, and I drew my pistol, scanning the patches of darkness within the living room. A set of small windows casted squares of red moonlight on the dusty planks. There, so light it was nearly unnoticeable, was a footprint in the dust, much too large to be my own.
Fear, icy and tangible, tapped its claws along my spine and up the base of my neck. I froze for a long second before rushing to the front door, my head screaming, Get out! Get out now!
I was literally inside the door frame, one foot in the house, one foot out, when a hand reached out of the shadows and grabbed me by the throat, slamming me into the wall so hard I lost my breath.
Someone wrested the pistol from my grasp before I could collect enough of my senses to think to fire it. My fingers were so clammy I couldn’t get a hold on my attacker’s hand as I clawed at it, trying to free myself. A thumb pressed into my air tube, and I choked as a tall, lithe silhouette stepped in front of me. The figure’s gaze shifted, its eyes reflecting red like the lenses in a cat’s eyes as it glanced at my right wrist, where the tattoo was bathed in moonlight.
“What are you doing here, hunter?” came the low, musical voice of a man. Though his timbre was soft, there was a steely edge to it.
I coughed and sputtered, glimpsing the bottom corner of a black leather trench coat and ruling out that my mother’s guard had caught up to me. The Scarlet Guard got their name from their red uniforms… and their thirst for bloodshed. But if this man wasn’t with the Scarlet Guard, then who was he? What was he doing here – in my house, of all places – on the anniversary of the Eclipse?
The figure leaned in. Wispy platinum blond bangs came into view, though his face was still obscured by shadows. He studied me a moment longer before I heard a tiny gasp. “It can’t be…” he whispered in disbelief, and my brows furrowed.
Who is he? Do I know him? He’s not Orion...
My eyes dropped to his slightly agape mouth, and my blood ran cold. There, just visible beneath his upper lip, were the points of two fangs.
A vampire? But he can’t be. He looks so… human.
I thought of the creature I had faced only a few minutes ago, of its animal urge to kill me, and panic fluttered in my chest. In the few short years humans had known vampires existed, never had we seen one that looked exactly like a regular human being. The fact that it could talk was stunning; I didn’t even know vampires could speak. Of the two I had faced, they both seemed hell-bent on ripping out my throat first.
Suddenly, the man – the vampire – in front of me seemed twice as dangerous as any monster I had encountered. And he had my pistol.
“What’s your name?” the man asked. His musical voice was cool and soft, and all the more frightening for it.
His thumb released just enough pressure that I could feel my voice box again, and I gulped for air. I had to get out of here, away from him however I could. A wild, irrational thought formed in my mind, and I tried to speak, my words strangled because I could barely breathe.
He leaned in. “What did you say?”
I looked up, a wicked smile on my face. “Trick-or-Treat,” I rasped.
Somehow, the man – or vampire, or whatever he was – had missed the dagger when he subdued me, most likely too focused on the pistol and thinking it to be my only weapon. I brought the dagger straight up, tip first with the serrated side facing out, with the aim of impaling him in the chin, but he hissed and stepped back before it could ever make contact. He released me, and I took a huge lungful of air.
Moonlight glinted off the pistol in the man’s hand. “I’ve heard of Scarlet Steel, but have yet to see the marvel for myself. Impressive.”
“Well, its beauty’s only half its charm,” I replied coolly.
My mind was spinning with a milieu of questions. Not only did I want to know who he was and what he was doing in my house, but I didn’t fully understand what exactly I was talking to. Was he truly a vampire? He was speaking to me as casually as if we were commenting on the weather.
He took a step closer. “But does it work?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
His cat-eyes reflected red again, and my gut told me I wasn’t dealing with a human. I would have to look for Orion later, if I made it out of this alive. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
I leveled the blade and charged.
Somehow, fighting him in my house – in my territory – didn’t feel so opposing as it had facing down the vampire by the bus. It was familiar, almost comforting, and I felt strangely empowered as I fought him head-on.
He sidestepped my thrust, knocking the blade aside with the barrel of the pistol, but I quickly recovered, swinging back with a powerful back kick to his face, which he also deftly blocked with his forearm muscle. I tried slashing at him again, this time toward his ribs, but he deflected that too with the pistol, his movements matching my own. Reaching beneath my blouse, I pulled out a regular switchblade and made a series of gouges toward his eyes, throat, and heart, which he also blocked. Frustrated, I flipped the knife so the blade was in my hand and flung it as hard as I could toward his head. He ducked – while laughing, I might add – and I fumed at him as the blade struck the wall.
“What’s so funny?” I demanded, furious. Was he mocking me? And why wasn’t he fighting bac
k?
His laughter quickly died away. “Nothing about this is funny,” he said stonily. “Not a damn thing.”
Huh? Did he mean being a vampire? I tried to imagine being changed into one – which, from what we knew, required one to be completely drained and to drink the blood of a living vampire – and my blood ran cold. We knew it was possible, but improbable. The vampires we had studied usually killed their victims before changing them, they were so out-of-control.
I couldn’t imagine a worse fate than being turned, and suddenly this talking, seemingly sensible man before me became incredibly tragic. He would never age, a beauty queen’s wet dream. I couldn’t imagine being a teenager forever. There were too many things I wanted out of life. Then I remembered he was a vampire, and any pity I felt vanished.
You need to get rid of him, now.
Thinking fast, I dropped to my knees, gripped a handful of the rug, and yanked. The vampire started to slip, doing a backhand spring with one hand before he could fall, but I was ready. Getting a running start, I dropped and slid right beneath him as he sailed through the air, running the blade along his chest. It sliced through his shirt like butter. He cried out, his agony turning into a ferocious growl as he dropped the pistol, and I knew the blade had struck home.
When I got to my feet and whirled around, he was already coming at me.
That’s more like it.
He threw a punch toward my temple, which I blocked with my arm, quickly slicing upward with the dagger and cutting his wrist. He hissed and retracted his hand, bringing up his knee to catch me in the stomach, but I brought the pummel of the dagger down hard, connecting with a sickening crack to his kneecap.
It didn’t stop him. He never paused, his speed increasing as he attacked, throwing an open-hand gauge to the side of my neck, followed by another punch to my shoulder, all while I blocked as swiftly as I could.
I tasted the first twinges of panic. He’s been trained. His moves are too practiced not to be. Stay calm. Pretend you’re fighting Leo.
Through the dark, the glowing edges of the Scarlet Steel wounds burned along his chest and wrist, and I could smell the chemicals as they ate away his flesh. Both were shallow cuts and the acid would take far longer to penetrate the deeper tissue, that is, if his accelerated regeneration didn’t heal him before then. A minor setback I should’ve seen coming. I guess part of me didn’t think I would actually run into any vampires, believing the news when they assured us the military had pushed them all back. I had lapped it up just like every other American anxious for some hope in this dismal war.
The man stooped on his hands and spun low toward my knees, trying to knock me off my feet, but I leaped the second I felt his boot touch my calf and his leg soared beneath me.
“You’re fast,” he said, sounding amused and maybe a little impressed. “But I’m faster.”
In a move quicker than lightning, he stepped in so we were chest-to-chest, wrapping his hand over mine and pinning the dagger to my bosom. He stepped behind my right leg so our knees were directly behind one another’s. In a textbook move, he pushed me backwards, causing me to fall over his leg. He used the momentum to flip me onto my back.
I landed in a pool of moonlight, dazed as he knelt before me, pressing one hand down on my shoulder, while the other held the Scarlet Dagger to my throat (which he had jerked from my grasp the moment I’d started to fall). I sucked in a tight breath, eyeing the dagger. Scarlet Steel might not exactly be deadly to me, but the dagger itself certainly was.
I looked up at his moon-bathed features, and I momentarily forgot all about the dagger as my eyes widened in awe.
He was an angel. His hair was such a light blond, it had to be almost white (the red moonlight made it difficult to pin down the color), and it hung in loose, sweaty wisps around his narrow face. Thin lips siphoned in large breaths as he panted, and his eyes, though laced with pain from his wounds, were a brilliant, sharp cerulean. The black trench coat gathered around him, but I could tell by the shape of his shoulders and by how small the sleeves were that his frame was skinny, giving him a deceptively breakable appearance. If I had to guess, I’d say he was about my age, maybe a year or two older.
Frozen in time, like a statue.
For a moment, we held each other’s eyes, breathing hard and lost in our own thoughts. His eyes drifted to my collarbone, where my blouse had come undone, revealing a flower-shaped birthmark right above my heart. I saw the change in his eyes, felt his surprise and shock.
“It is you,” he whispered. “You carry the Mark of the Creator.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, blinking. What Mark? What was he talking about? It was just an ordinary birthmark, the same one my brother and I both shared. It was normal, nothing special.
Wasn’t it?
His face darkened, his mouth closing into a thin, grim line, as he met my eyes again. They were filled with regret. “Forgive me for what I’m about to do, but I have no choice.”
Without warning, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked my head back, exposing my neck before he sank his fangs into my flesh.
I cried out as pain, hot as fire, scorched my blood, followed by a blossom of endorphins as he drank deeper.
I struggled against him, punching him in the ribs, but he only hugged me closer and drank faster. Time seemed to stand still. I wasn’t sure how long we laid there, only that my strength was quickly fading as darkness closed in on me.
I’m dying, I vaguely thought, my hands falling limp at my sides. My gaze turned blank as I stared past the vampire while it consumed me, body and soul.
I should have been scared out of my mind, but for some reason I didn’t feel much of anything. My limbs felt numb as my heart slowly came to a halt. I closed my eyes, surrendering to death.
Orion… Leo… I’m so sorry…
Cold fingers were prying my lips open, and my head tipped back as hot metal dripped into my mouth and trickled down my throat.
No, not metal. Blood.
He’s turning you.
I was going to become a vampire. The thought danced along the forefront of my consciousness, the flame of which was nearly snuffed out, when I suddenly found myself inside a memory:
I was six years old, standing before my dad with big tears rolling down my cheeks. He had just picked me up from school, where some girls in my class had made fun of the color of my skin, calling me and my brother foul names. Orion had said some rude things back, not bothered in the least, but their words had been like knives to me.
My father knelt before me and I looked up at him with love and adoration, seeing the crow’s feet around his kind brown eyes – the same eyes I had inherited – and knowing he would take care of me. “Hey, little girl,” he said. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you what you’re worth, or who you are. You’re a princess in my eyes, and always will be.” Then he wiped away my tears and took me in a hug.
Those words stuck with me now, replaying over and over in my mind, the last thought I had before I couldn’t think anymore.
Chapter Three: The Scarlet Dagger