Black Fall

by D.J. Bodden

CHAPTER 6

  Finding Marcus Fangston’s office wasn’t difficult; he had a conventional, wooden door with a brass knob and knocker. The door looked heavy and old, stained almost black, and set in a steel frame. The polished brass knocker, a demonic face biting down on a ring as thick as Jonas’ thumb, was just above eye level. It was unnerving; the demon’s face was eerily lifelike and, as Jonas reached for the ring, he became aware of a faint clicking sound that seemed to be coming from…

  “Jonas Black?” a voice said, to his right.

  He started and turned, stammering, “Yes?” His voice cracked a little, and he blushed.

  “Hi! Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Linda,” said a smiling, attractive young woman sitting behind a desk. “I’m Mr. Fangston’s secretary.”

  “Um… hi,” Jonas said, recovering, wondering why he hadn’t noticed her sooner. She looked normal, no rotting flesh or missing parts, just an early-twenties woman with a computer and bookshelves… he could have been in any office in the world. “I’m supposed to see the Director?”

  “Yes, he’s waiting for you. Just rap the knocker twice and go on in.” She turned back to her screen, and the clicking sound resumed.

  Jonas shook his head, rapped the knocker twice, and pushed the door open.

  “Mr. Fangston?”

  “Jonas! Good to see you. Come in,” said Fangston.

  The room was different from the rest of the facility, darker and more personal. It had stone floors covered in thick rugs, and stone walls hung with tapestries depicting fantastic creatures in ancient battles. There were several pieces of heavy, dark wood furniture that his mother would have approved of, and the majestic fireplace came complete with a set of intricately shaped wrought-iron tools.

  Where does the smoke go? Jonas thought, as he felt the warmth of the flames.

  “It’s a radiator,” Fangston said, watching Jonas without rising from his desk. “An acquaintance of mine wove the illusion fifty years ago. Air vents behind the tapestries, too. Helps keep things mysterious, but comfortable.”

  The far wall was a sort of personal armory, a variety of weapons, bits of armor, and a rectangular shield resting on hooks and stands. A double-edged, polished silver sword was mounted on the far wall. The blade was three-feet-long and devoid of ornamentation, with a plain but sturdy looking cross guard and leather-bound handle. There was also an intricately etched silver spear, with a spearhead shaped like a long oak leaf. It looked way too heavy to be practical.

  “The sword was your mother’s,” the Director said. “Gave it to me for safekeeping about half a century ago. Always thought she’d have asked for it by now, but things have been more peaceful than either of us is accustomed to.”

  Peaceful? Jonas thought. He’d grown up with the shadow of war in the Middle East hanging over his head, although he’d seen on TV that they were trying to bring everybody home within the year. But he supposed that anyone who’d used the weapons on the wall probably thought modern warfare, with its rules, short campaigns, and periods of relative peace, was civilized and restrained by comparison.

  Fangston gave him a warm smile, and Jonas thought his teeth looked pretty normal.

  “Lots of practice. Please, take a seat,” Fangston said, pointing to one of the high-backed red leather chairs. Jonas felt dwarfed by it when he sat down.

  Then Fangston walked around his desk and sat down in the opposite chair. They stared at each other for several moments of awkward silence; at least that’s how it felt to Jonas. The vampire didn’t seem bothered at all.

  “You said there were things I should know?” Jonas said.

  Fangston smiled. “Let’s see… you’re a vampire, monsters are real, and your father died hunting a particularly nasty bunch of them.”

  “Died, or disappeared?” Jonas asked.

  “He would have gotten in touch by now, and I can think of very few beings who could have taken him against his will.”

  You’re probably one of them, Jonas thought.

  Fangston sighed. “Yes. Your mother too, or at least she used to be.”

  Jonas blushed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Jonas. How is your mother?”

  Jonas looked at his feet. They didn’t quite reach the ground, sitting in the ridiculously oversized chair, and he fought the urge to swing them back and forth. He needed help, but he didn’t want to air his dirty laundry in front of someone he hadn’t seen in almost a year. “I was hoping you could train me, so I could defend myself next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time, Jonas. Phillip and his pack will keep you and your mother safe.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry, Jonas, it’s out of the question. Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “She sent me,” Jonas said, picturing her putting the card on the couch.

  Fangston shook his head. “She gave you the means, Jonas. Did she give you the address and tell you to come, or did she just leave the card where you could get it?”

  She just left the card, Jonas realized. It had been his choice to come.

  “So, you can still go home without contradicting her, and if you try and fail, it will be your fault, not hers.”

  People don’t think like that, he thought, while trying to keep his facial expression neutral.

  Fangston steepled his fingers in front of him. “People don’t think like that. Neither do you, not yet. But our kind, Jonas — vampires — we tend to get… subtle after a century or two. Has your mother been acting detached, spending time alone? Maybe she’s even looked surprised to see you on occasion, at times when you would normally be home?”

  Jonas licked his lips and nodded.

  “That’s solipsism, Jonas. It means your mother is losing her grip on what’s real — thinks it’s all in her head. It happens to all of us, over time. Haven’t you ever seen something you thought was real, only to discover it wasn’t?”

  “I’ve had dreams like that,” Jonas said.

  “Well, it’s like not knowing whether you’re awake or asleep. Most of us have something that anchors us. Do you remember your father’s lucky coin?”

  Jonas nodded. His father had spent hours rolling that coin across his knuckles, rubbing it with his thumb, and pretending to pull it out of Jonas’ ear.

  “It was unique,” Fangston continued, “Something no one could forge without him knowing it wasn’t the genuine article. An anchor can be a place, or a habit, or just an object we know really well. It can even be a person, though we discourage that. Would you care to guess what was anchoring your mother?”

  “My dad,” said Jonas, his eyes watering.

  Fangston stood and walked over to the faux fireplace. “It’s not your fault. I warned her for decades, but she wouldn’t listen. She was an enforcer, too, you know, just like your father and me.”

  “What’s an enforcer? Like police… for vampires?”

  “Not just vampires, other supernaturals and humans as well. There are agreements in place, some because they’re common sense, and others to keep the human governments happy. We mediate disputes, keep the peace, and make sure hunters don’t go around murdering supernaturals.”

  Jonas froze. “Did you say hunters?”

  “Yes, why? Have you heard that term before?”

  Eve had mentioned it, but he hadn’t realized that she didn’t mean humans with guns. “I was attacked on the way here, I think. It was a hallucination of some kind, and everyone looked like—”

  “Where was your escort?” Marcus interrupted.

  “Phillip and Bert put me on the bus, but it happened on the way here.”

  Fangston sighed. “I’ll take care of it. Go on, what about the hunter?”

  Jonas wrung his hands. He hadn’t meant to get anyone in trouble. “Well, the voice said not to trust the wolf, the hunter, or the demon.”

  Marcus smiled. “Well, Jonas, it sounds like good advice to me. You obviously can’t trust wolves, or Phillip would have been gu
arding you when this happened.” The expression on Fangston’s face was pleasant, but his tone was anything but. “And hunters are mostly murderers, plain and simple. Some do it for kicks, some because a family member or friend was hurt, but they don’t differentiate between us. We all look like monsters to them.”

  Jonas felt a light pressure in his head, like the beginning of a headache, but it disappeared as soon as it started.

  Fangston’s eyes were distant. “No, mustn’t do that,” he muttered.

  “And what about demons?” asked Jonas. “Are those real?”

  “Yes, there are demons. Never trust them. We use them when we have to — the Agency, that is — but they’re only interested in destruction. Now,” Fangston said, looking Jonas in the eye, “I’m very sorry, but I am going to have to check you, and it’s going to hurt a bit.”

  Jonas felt like he was being pressed back into his seat. It wasn’t a light pressure; it was a full scale lightning-bolt-out-of-the-sky migraine. He could feel someone tearing through his mind, knocking things over, looking at parts of him he’d never want exposed.

  “You didn’t tell me about seeing your father die, Jonas,” Fangston said, pushing harder.

  “It was just a dream,” Jonas said, through clenched teeth.

  Flecks of light danced before his eyes. He tried to push back with his own mind, or willpower, or whatever he could muster, but all he got for his trouble was a sharp, stabbing pain above his left eye and a ringing in his ears.

  “This will hurt less if you don’t fight it.”

  Jonas convulsed, coughing. He’d held his breath a bit too long. Water streamed from his eyes. He couldn’t control his body. He tried to shove his mind somewhere safe, to run, hide, push, pull… anything. Finally, he felt himself grab onto something.

  He doesn’t know anything, said Fangston’s voice, in his head. Jonas was reading the vampire’s thoughts!

  It was Madoc, but he didn’t tell the boy anything useful.

  Then it stopped. He was still sitting in the chair, with the worst headache he’d ever felt. He groaned and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Fangston said, as he let go. “But now that I’ve seen what happened, I think it’s imperative we train you as soon as possible.”

  Anything to stop that from happening again, Jonas thought. His breath still came in ragged bursts, as he tried to regain control of his body.

  “Good. Now I need you to picture a wall, or some kind of enclosure. It doesn’t matter what it’s made of, or if it’s real, but it should be familiar — the more detail the better — and you should believe it to be absolutely unbreakable. Do you understand?” Fangston sat perfectly still as he spoke, like a statue, his voice almost mechanical.

  “I think so,” Jonas said. His mouth felt dry, like it was full of cotton.

  “Good. Now picture your barrier, and I’m going to test it.”

  Jonas opened his eyes and stared at Fangston. His skin felt cool and damp, and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his forehead. “I don’t think I’m—”

  “Starting now.”

  Driven by fear, Jonas pictured the walls of Hunter College High School, one of the most exclusive schools in the country, and close to where he lived. It looked like a fortress made of bricks, with towers, crenelated walls, and narrow windows. He injected every detail he could think of, from the texture of the bricks to the black-painted fences around the playground. HCHS only accepted one-hundred-seventy-five new sixth graders out of the top ten-percent of the five boroughs. It wasn’t just solidly built, it was also virtually impossible to get into academically.

  He wrapped the image around the thoughts he’d stolen from Fangston during his first attack: the fear, the anger, and the name “Madoc.” He didn’t think it would be good for his health if Fangston found out Jonas had spied on him. He pictured a larger, outer wall around the first image, but it was difficult to give it the same level of attention, and it flickered in and out of existence in his thoughts.

  Fangston barged through the outer wall like a man kicking over a sandcastle. It hurt. Jonas kept throwing up new walls to slow him down, but Fangston knocked them over like they were nothing. He felt the older vampire getting near his inner defenses, but fear of discovery made Jonas clamp down on them so hard that Fangston’s attacks glanced off them and passed by.

  “Were you hit in the head during the break-in, Jonas?” Fangston said.

  Jonas could feel him testing the inner walls for weaknesses. “Yes,” he said truthfully. “I got a really bad headache from it.”

  “You have a damaged area, here,” Fangston said, as pain bloomed around his inner walls. “Not to worry though; that kind of thing will heal in time, for a vampire.”

  Jonas nodded. Sweat ran down his forehead, neck, and back, but he held onto his defenses and the second attack was over much sooner than the first.

  “Well, that’s the idea anyway. You’ll get better at it, with practice. That’s called a barrier.”

  Jonas didn’t say anything. His chest hurt, and he wheezed a little. He kept the secondary wall in place, shoring it up as best he could without making his headache worse. Can you still hear me think?

  Fangston cocked his head, like he’d heard a faint sound. Jonas felt something push against his walls. A few imaginary bricks fell, and Jonas slammed the brick fortress down on his innermost thoughts again. Everything he did was painful.

  The pressure receded. “Good. At least Alice will thank me for having a little more quiet around the house,” Fangston said, smiling.

  Jonas smiled weakly in return.

  “Come back Friday night, and we’ll get you started with a training partner.”

  “Friday night? I had…” I had plans with Amelia.

  “You have something more important to do?”

  Jonas thought of his father, and the vampire breaking into his house. He thought of Amelia getting dragged out of a theater, like Eve, and not being able to do anything to stop it. He needed to get stronger, find out who Madoc was, and make sure no one could ever rip through his mind the way Marcus Fangston just had.

  “No,” he said, after a moment. “I’ll be here Friday.”

  ♟

  Jonas walked the perimeter of his barrier, checking the brickwork. It was as solid as the last time he’d checked, but he kept coming back because the thought of another mental attack terrified him. What Fangston did hurt, but he hadn’t broken anything, even though Jonas wasn’t sure what would have happened if his father’s friend knew he’d read his thoughts. He didn’t have much hope of stopping Fangston, not in a deliberate assault, but he could at least try to keep Madoc, or whoever was attacking him, from turning him into a mindless vegetable.

  “You can sleep, you know. The wall will still be here in the morning.”

  Jonas spun around. There was a cop leaning against the inner side of the wall, watching him. Jonas felt something twist in his abdomen and looked around frantically for a hole the intruder might have come through.

  The cop pulled out his nightstick and tapped it against the wall. “She’s solid. Can’t help but think she’s a little low and a little thin, but we can manage.”

  Jonas stared at the man. He was an adult, and looked familiar. He might have been Jonas’ older brother, except Jonas never had a sibling. “Who are you?”

  “Call me Sam. I’m the part of your mind that’s obsessing about the wall every moment you’re awake or asleep. About two-hundred-thousand in case you were wondering.”

  “Two-hundred-thousand what?”

  “Bricks. I’d give you an exact number, but you can’t seem to make up your mind how big the outside wall should be,” Sam said, his tone mildly reproachful. “So I was thinking, maybe tighter and taller, until we get the hang of this thing?”

  Jonas looked at the wall. It pulled inward and grew about two-feet.

  Sam sighed contentedly. “Thank you, sir. Now, why n
ot get some sleep? I can handle everything here, and I’ll wake you if there’s trouble.”

  Jonas didn’t know what to say. This can’t be healthy, he thought, but Fangston had said that a little bit of disconnection happened to all vampires. He’d worry about finding an anchor in the morning. “Okay. Good night, Sam,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be talking to himself.

  “Good night, sir.”

  Jonas slept.

  NOVEMBER