by Oliver Atlas
He nods his head, as though reading my mind. “Well, as for me, I’ve been waiting for today. I’ve been watching for the right time to act. But if I’m guessing why most people put up with it—” He glances sadly at Zoe, “—I would say it’s because we’re a bunch of arrogant egomaniacs. We’re always ready to believe that our own lives are worth someone else’s suffering. We might sentimentalize their suffering, we might glamorize it or mystify it or rationalize it or try to forget it or repress it, but in the end we’re saying, ‘My well-being is worth more than yours, and so I’ll let you suffer for me. My life is worth more than yours, and so I’ll let you die for me.’ That’s why history is full of sacrifice.”
“That’s an odd perspective for a Pastor, isn’t it? I mean—” and I dangle my cross necklace for emphasis.
“Oh, right,” says Pastor Jon. “Well, I can already feel Clara tensing for one of my rambling sermons, so I’ll be brief—perhaps cryptically. Here’s my view, Blake. Most sacrifice, as we know it, is false sacrifice. It’s meant to basically apologize for the ways we desecrate the earth and our neighbors. It’s a way of saying, ‘We want to do right. We’re just not quite ready yet. So here’s a token of our intent.’ Some far fewer sacrifices, however, are true. They aren’t symbolic apologies or bribes. They’re passionate actions. They’re not arrogant offerings of someone or something else. They’re bold offerings of one’s very self. These sacrifices aren’t meant to stall. They’re not making excuses or trying to postpone change. Instead, they’re giving everything, even their lives, to treat the world and the people around them as sacred, come what may. That’s what the roots of the word sacrifice mean, after all: to render sacred. Most people use the Zoe’s of the world to institutionalize the first kind of sacrifice.”
“But you,” I interject, “want to live out the second kind.”
Pastor Jon catches Clara glaring at him. He glances back at me with an embarrassed flush. “I want to want to live out the second kind.”
I give him a reassuring smile. “I understand. But you were saying about the Nameless One?”
“Oh, yes,” he says, as though waking from a dark daydream. “The Nameless One . . . . Well, I probably shouldn’t say any more.” Jon checks over his shoulder, toward the horse door. Behind it, we can still hear the voices of Yaverts and Lancaster Moon. “But don’t worry,” he reassures me. “You’ll have to find out soon enough.”
“Why’s that?” I ask with a frown.
“Because,” he says, his face blanching in the morning light. “We’re almost to Sylvan. And there’s no hiding the secret there.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Sylvan’s Secrets
It doesn’t matter how many times I ask ‘what secret?’ because Jon isn’t telling. I press him anyway. I already know about Zoe and the Cure. I don’t get how it works, but I know they all think the two are vitally connected. I already know about the group’s ties to Schlozfield. I don’t get that connection either, but I can guess that they’re all trying to help him in his work.
I already know about the Faction, too. I don’t really understand what the mysterious group wants, but odds are it has something to do with the secret awaiting in Sylvan. When I mention my guess to Jon, his eyes dart away.
“I knew it,” I say with a grin. “So it’s learning about the Faction I won’t be able to avoid.”
“That’s right,” interrupts Yaverts, standing in the partition between the gondola’s compartment. “Because you two are going into town for the rendezvous. The rest of us would be recognized on the spot. Prose, leave your Ranger gear here. And take this.” He sets his shotgun beside me. “It’s loaded with just what you’ll need. And trust me. This time you’ll want to pull the trigger if need arises.”
I can’t help marveling at Yaverts’ uncanny ability to grease his way from eavesdropping into issuing orders. “How about telling me the secret now?”
“Hell no. Not until you’ve made the rendezvous. Then Jon can tell you everything. Then you’ll have the last piece to the puzzle.”
“Why can’t he tell me now? So you can torment me?”
Yaverts grins. “There is that. But mainly so you’ll have the balls to get the hell off this lift.”
I almost choke. “Are you kidding me? After everything we’ve been through, you think if I knew the secret I’d be afraid?”
The big man’s green eyes go wide. “Oh yeah.”
I can only snort.
All the same, ten minutes later Clara has managed to ease Zoe into her arms and I have Yaverts’ shotgun in mine. I’m peering out over the western horizon and a small city sprinkled across hills covered with old growth forest. The sun has passed behind thick brown clouds, making day little more than a layer of gray shadows smothering black ones. Cold rain splatters against the windows and the whole carriage rocks sideways with random gales. At our high speed of descent into Sylvan, it feels as if we’re on a haywire bush plane, not a stately gondola lift.
Despite Yaverts’ ominous warning—or tease, or whatever it was—the town doesn’t look very frightening. It has a few highrises and one stately building with a large marble dome. Otherwise, most of the structures are elegant cottages and mansions. They’re lined with gardens and creeks, each flowing into the next with intricate artistry. It’s hard to imagine being terrified of a people with such a sense of elegant aesthetics.
And yet . . .
And yet something does bother me about the place. But I can’t put my finger on what it is. I’m still chewing at my lip when the gondola takes its last dip toward the station and Yaverts carries Zoe to the rear compartment. I follow, taking a moment to rub Enemy’s nose and retrieve my GPS and the last syringe for infection. I’m not sure why I want either—we didn’t see any zombies from the air—but my gut insists I keep them on me. Before we leave, I say goodbye to Zoe. As I lower my head to kiss her brow, her eyes open and seem to stare right through me. When I touch her, she mumbles. I don’t know what it means. For all I know, every touch is trauma to her and will be for many years, if not forever. But I have to hope that eventually she will learn to feel and receive proper love.
When the carriage opens we greet the station managers—two balding men, small and timid. They ask our business in Sylvan and Jon replies that we’re here to purchase the city’s famous red wine. The men take a step back, groveling. Will our horses need any care? they ask. Jon tells them no, gesturing to Clara, who will stay and care for them. He then pays our fees and we start down a narrow, cobbled road, lined with tall, Tudor cottages. Even though it’s now well into morning, the lights of the houses are still mostly dark. As we cross into town, we pass very few people on the streets.
Pastor Jon leads with a brisk walk, his mouth pressed into a grim line. He takes us past the great domed building and names it the Territory’s capital. For the seat of government in a place as volatile as Oregon, I would have expected more bustle. But everything is tranquil, boasting no more than a congress of shadows, columns, and cold marble. A single janitor in a baby blue jumper sweeps the steps of the capital’s portico, whistling tunelessly. The sound makes me shiver.
Beyond the capital building, we find a tidy street full of small shops. Everything seems closed. The shop windows are dark. Except for one. It has a simple sign out front that reads, Sangreal. We enter to the gentle ringing of a bell. Behind the shop’s counter, a young woman of Middle Eastern descent is polishing wine glasses. The hum of crystal haunts the air.
“Good morning,” she greets us. “I am Oneiza. What may I do for you?”
“Good morning,” says Pastor Jon. “We’ve come for something special.”
Her eyes narrow. “Everything here is special.”
“Then perhaps we’ve come for the ordinary.”
“Ah,” she says, setting down her polishing rag. “Very wise. Then you’ll want our table red. It is barely more than dregs.”
Jon half bows. “Perfect.”
A minute later and we’
re back in the street, heading for the steeple of a modest chapel. Like many of the buildings in Sylvan, its walls are a blue-gray stone covered in bright green moss. Its thick iron doors stand open. Inside, we find only candles, icons, and empty rosewood pews.
Carrying the newly purchased wine, Jon strides to the Confessional. He tells me to wait and ducks behind the curtain.
“Forgive me, father,” I hear him say. “I have sinned.”
After a long silence, a deep, nasally voice responds. “What is your sin, my son?”
“I have stolen.”
“You are also drinking, I see.”
“No, father. This is a gift for you.”
“Is this gift the thing you’ve stolen?”
“No, father. Only a symbol of it.”
“Drinking is no sin, my son. Only the habit of drunkenness. Do you plan to return what you’ve stolen?”
“Never.”
The unseen priest clears his throat. “Then I absolve you. Go in peace.”
Pastor Jon reappears and nods for the door. His face bears a strange mixture of relief and fear.
“Hold on, Jon,” I whisper, grabbing his arm. “That was him, wasn’t it?”
Jon shakes his head. I can tell he’s not telling me no. He’s telling me not now. Which is what people are always telling me. Which, this time, is also as good as a yes, the voice behind the veil belongs to Malcolm Schlozfield.
But no one is around. Why all the subterfuge? Why don’t we take him with us right now?
“Jon,” I whisper again, refusing to let go of his arm. “Tell me the last piece of the puzzle. What’s the secret?”
He yanks his arm away. “Blake, we need to go.”
“No.” I grab his arm again. “Tell me.”
He frowns. For a second I’m sure he will refuse to answer. It seems that he may even start to run. But then he says, “Look at your GPS.”
So I do.
It reads with a few hundred green dots, here and there, and a whole multitude of red dots. “But that makes no sense,” I say. “There aren’t any zombies here.”
Now Jon grabs my arm—hard—and hauls me through the chapel door. “Work it out on the way,” he says through gritted teeth. “And put that thing away.”
I tuck the GPS into my jacket and stride beside him back through town.
Gripped by the mystery, tantalized by the edge of the secret, my mind begins whirling. There are obviously no zombies in town. Then again, there are obviously too many buildings in town, and too many well-kept houses to support only a few hundred people. And yet the streets remain quiet, nearly dead. The people we do pass smile and wave with studied polish. But there are too few of them. A city the size of Sylvan should have tens of thousands. Where are the zombies? Where are the people?
No walls.
Then it hits me, the something that bothered me when we first swooped in over the city: it was the fact that the town has no walls. It has no ditch or pikes or ring of fire. It is completely exposed, completely vulnerable to zombie attack.
The grand cottages line either side of us, with crescent moons carved in their shutters and exotic animals sculpted in their shrubberies. Their shining windows watch us, empty and dark. I can tell that the houses are occupied. I can feel that the houses are occupied—and obviously not by zombies. Although there are zombies in Sylvan, thousands of them. And they must be . . . underground?
But how? And why?
Pastor Jon is scowling. “Have you figured it out yet?” he asks, keeping his voice low.
The gondola peeks through a corridor of trees ahead of us, only a few hundred yards away. The two station masters pace about in front of it. Clara leads a few of the horses as they graze. But not Abe. He’s still hidden. He’s too distinct, maybe even more so than his master.
His master.
Lancaster Moon. I suddenly remember when I first used the GPS and discovered it couldn’t register the man. Not at all.
So.
There it is.
The connection I need.
What kind of people would this GPS fail to see? And what kind of people would feel no need for walls? And would keep zombies underground? And would have Malcolm Schlozfield hiding under their noses as a priest?
I stop dead in my tracks and unsling Yaverts’ shotgun.
Jon doesn’t wait. He doesn’t pause. He simply looks back and hisses, “What are you doing?”
Without answering, I unlatch the gun’s hopper. Inside, I find sharp fragments of dark wood.
I pluck out one of the thumb-sized splinters and roll it between my fingers.
Yaverts’ sly voice fills my head. It’s loaded with just what you’ll need.
Wood.
Well, there it is.
I’m slow . . . really slow . . . but there it is.
Dropping the wooden bullet, barely containing the urge to run, I start speed walking toward the gondola, the hair rising on the back of my neck.
Chapter Fifty-Six
West at Last
Now I understand why all the windows in town are dark. Now I understand the hollow-eyed fear etched around the eyes of the station masters. They think we’re like most of Sylvan’s sleeping denizens. They think we’re—
“This way, sirs.” The two men usher us into the carriage and fire up the giant bull wheels that move the lift’s cables. Our gondola dips, jerks, rises and we’re soon zipping toward another lonely cable-tower far to the northwest. Yaverts follows Clara into the front compartment, hands on hips, face unreadable.
“Well?”
Jon collapses onto one of the fixed orange chairs.
“We found him. He got the message.”
Yaverts nods in satisfaction. “Good. He should meet us soon. And how about Mr. Prose? Did he get the message?”
“Did I get the message?” I’m already pacing, my mind a frothing mess. I don’t know whether to feel angry or terrified or dumbfounded. “Did I get the message? I guess that depends on whether or not the message was the flipping undead!”
Nobody objects, so apparently that was the message indeed.
“And the Faction?” I cry, feeling my hair stand up. “They’re . . . ”
“Bloody bloodsuckers,” concludes Yaverts.
“Damon?”
He nods.
“Maplenut?”
He nods again.
“What about . . . ” My eyes dart to the door of the back compartment where Lancaster Moon remains. Then my heart drops as I remember Zoe. She’s not with us, so she can only be in back. With him. I dash for the door but Yaverts steps in the way.
“No,” he says with iron in his voice. “Lancaster isn’t one of them.” I’m ready to yell but he cuts me off, bearing down with a glower. “Moon isn’t vampire. He’s dhampir. Half vampire. He’s never made a kill. He’s still alive.”
“But Zoe!”
“Come on, Blake.” Yaverts gestures for me to simmer down. “Lancaster has already saved you a few times. Now that you know a fraction of anything, you’re going to panic and act stupid? I think you’d best keep steady. Moon is a dhampir because that was the only way the Muses could save him. He wasn’t born that way, which makes his vampire nature much easier for him to control. Zoe, too, is a dhampir. That’s what this is all about.”
A rush of black blurs along the sides of my vision. I must start wobbling, because Yaverts grabs me by the shoulders. He walks me to the wall and pushes me into a seat beside Pastor Jon.
“Whether you’re trustworthy or not,” he says, “I suppose we have to trust you now.”
I barely hear him over the blood rushing through my temples. The seat of government in Oregon is a hamlet of vampires. The thought almost makes me want to turn around and go back to Texas.
Yaverts sits down and leans forward. The look in his eyes, for him, is sympathetic. Then he tells me a tale I wouldn’t believe if I wasn’t sitting where I am, half-dazed, mind spinning, having seen what I have just seen.
“Long befo
re the outbreak of zombies, vampires had been humanity’s biggest problem. Well, other than our damned selves. But by the time of the outbreak, they were steadily nearing extinction. Vampire hunters had become too strong. Instead of elites dedicated to protecting innocent people from the undead, the hunters spiraled into a culture of trophy-hungry daredevils who stalked vampires for sport. They hunted even those vampires who had foresworn harming humans. To most of the hunters, a vampire’s morality made no difference. Governments, too, began investing enormous resources in researching and extracting vampiric powers. Black Op squads were formed, charged with capturing vampires and delivering them for experiment. In this context, vampires became nomadic fugitives, hunted at every turn. At one point, almost all of them had been captured.”
“There were several experimental facilities in the U.S. that were conducting experiments with vampire blood. They were searching for anything useful, anything powerful, anything that could be used to ensure national security. But one facility had a breakthrough before the others. It was the first. It was also the last. Researchers found that when a certain strain of vampire blood was irradiated, it became a pathogen with incredible potency. Their first experiments were on monkeys. The results are by now familiar: brain functions shut down, blood and electrical currents route exclusively to the amygdala, the subjects transform into single-minded eaters, incapable of higher reasoning, but capable of sustained bodily animation despite widespread cellular decomposition. They had invented zombies.”
“The experiments moved on to human inmates. Again, subjects lost neuro-function across-the-board, especially in their cerebellum, basal ganglia, and ventromedial hypothalamus. That meant—among other things—severe loss of smooth body control, balance, and any regulation of satiation. In short, they had created ravenous, raging, bumbling automatons. If they had been more patient with their experiments, they would have discovered that, when fully integrated into a body, the pathogenic vampire blood became itself a parasitic entity able to animate dead bodies to whatever extent the amygdala still had connection with its members. But the researchers weren’t patient. They were greedy, lusting after a cash-cow, power-grabbing eureka, and ready to forego long-term studies as a result.