by Jen Pretty
I leaned back in my chair, thankful the pants had an elastic waist and sipped my coffee. I inspected each of the vampires in the room for the first time. They all had dark hair and olive skin and spoke fluently in Marwari. A woman on the far side of the room caught my eye. Her hair was stark white, and she winked at me.
When my gaze finally made it around the table to Nara, he was already studying me. He smiled, and I got stuck in his brown eyes for a moment before turning away. The conversation continued among the men and women around the table for a few more minutes before Nara said a single word and everyone rose, taking their dishes with them and cleared out like their pants were on fire.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I told them to get out,” he said with a laugh.
“Rude.”
Singh hopped down from his seat and wandered off too. He would probably find a bed to cat nap in.
“They have work to do. Your arrival and immediate discovery of a rogue vampire amongst us was an embarrassment. I would never want Durga to think we don’t keep our city clean. I know what happens to people who don’t mind their manners in her presence.”
Durga preened, rolling under my skin like he had given her a huge compliment.
“You shouldn’t say that kind of thing. She'll get a big head.”
One side of his mouth crept up into a crooked smile, reminding me of Frankie, though he looked nothing like him. I was just homesick, and I knew it. It didn’t have to make sense.
“I have tried to compliment you. It doesn’t seem to work.”
“Does that line work on women here?”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a laugh. “I’m just quite taken with you.”
I shook my head and drained the last of my coffee. I would probably kill for a pot of it right now.
“Can I show you my city?” he asked with a hopeful look on his face.
“All right,” I said, against my better judgment. Vampires and I had a terrible history. I should probably discourage him with some horrible attitude right now. It would save us both time and trouble if I were a horrid bitch upfront. Instead, I let him take my hand and link it through his arm like the typical old-timey vampire he was. I grabbed my shoes and pulled them on, wincing at the sandy texture inside. He led me out of his home and around the building to the wall of the fort.
“This walkway goes around the whole fort,” he said as we walked close to each other along the narrow path.
“The first wall kept most invaders away as the army would fire rocks at them from this walkway. But if the enemy made it up here, people would drop rocks, hot oil or boiling water from the windows and balconies above.”
I looked up, and the wall climbed another three stories, making it a true fortress. No way would someone make it past both walls.
“This is the only fort that has stood against every attacker, in all of history and the only one left today that thrives.”
“That's amazing.”
We walked along further, and I looked over the side of the wall, down towards the city. It was nearly the same view as the bedroom balcony. I looked up, but the balconies along this section all looked the same.
Nara pointed to one. “Your lion sleeps there. Can you hear him?”
I listened and heard the Singh’s snores floating down on the light breeze. I laughed and shook my head — lazy lion.
“So, what made you come here?” I asked.
“I wanted a change. The desert is beautiful, and the people here are so bright and friendly.”
I nodded. “That's true. The desert villages were generous and welcoming.”
“Well, that was because you travel with a white lion. They love and worship Durga. I imagine if they had been wealthier, they would have adorned you with gold and jewels.”
“I would not have accepted that,” I replied. We came around a curve and found ourselves in the middle of a group of tourists. Their cameras clicked. Some of them were taking videos and narrating. They said hello in Marwari, which was one of the few words I recognized, so I played along and returned their greeting.
Once we were past, Nara spoke again.
“I knew you would not accept gifts, that is why I did not give them to you, but please let me give you this?” He took my right hand and slipped a ring on it.
I looked down at the biggest ruby I had ever seen. The surface sparkled in the sunlight. The band was gold and fit my finger as if someone made it for me.
“I really can’t...”
“Please? I won't try to give you anything else, just wear my ring as a sign of my devotion to you and your mission.”
Durga rose, casting everything into a red light. Nara took a step back and bowed his head. “Goddess,” he whispered.
“Thank you for this gift. Lark is young and doesn't understand the old ways, but I accept your token and your devotion.” She raised my hand and placed it on the vampire's head. “Be at peace, vampire, and maintain the balance, always.”
She receded to her place inside me. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Nara looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “Today I am truly blessed,” he said. He wrapped his arms around me and spun me in a circle, laughing. “Thank you!” his lips met mine in a kiss and I relaxed into his arms. All that time in the desert made me crazy. I should have pushed him away, but instead, I wrapped a hand around the back of his head and let him kiss me on that ancient wall in the beautiful city.
When he broke away, he was still smiling and giddy. “Come, I have so much to show you.”
He took my hand and walked us back to the gates of the fort, then through to the market. “You must try this,” he said holding up what looked like a small potato.
“What is it?” I asked. His enthusiasm was contagious.
“It’s a Langsat fruit.” He peeled it like an orange; only it looked tougher. Inside was a white almost translucent looking fruit. He broke off a piece and handed it to me.
I popped it into my mouth. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t what I got. It was the consistency of jello and super sweet. There was a slight citrus taste to it, but it was mostly just sweet.
The surprise must have shown on my face because Nara smiled and pulled off another piece. He held it to my lips, and I opened my mouth and let him feed it to me. I wanted to give my head a shake. This was dangerous ground I was treading with this vampire. I needed to take a firm step back, but instead, I let him loop my arm through his and stroll me down the narrow path between the shops.
I had become a masochist. That was the only explanation.
“I wanted to show you where we keep the rogue vampires,” he said.
“You keep them?” I asked, confused.
“Yes, they must pay for their sins.” He said before turning down an even narrower street and knocking on a door.
The door swung open, and he held my hand, towing me downstairs and underground. A light flicked on, and mournful moans echoed through the long hall before me.
On either side of the hall were doors, dozens of them on each side. The rooms beyond the doors couldn’t have been any wider than a single door, based on how tightly packed they were.
Nara led me forward and swung open a door on the right. My heart raced as he flicked on a flashlight and what lay before me was worse than my worst nightmare.
CHAPTER FOUR
It looked like a skeleton. Much worse than Trevor had been when I saved him. This vampire could barely move. His fingers twitched, and his bared teeth clicked, but he had decimated otherwise.
“Oh, shit.” I stumbled back. “Why have you done this?” I asked, horrified.
“I am punishing them. They are rogue and murderers,” he insisted, his smile changing to confusion. He swung the door wider, and Durga rose inside me to look at the sad vampire laying on the floor.
“Today the suffering ends. This is not the way, Narayan. You do not keep the balance through torture.”
Nara’s gaze returned to the priso
ner for a moment and then swung back to me. “I did not know. Forgive me, Goddess!” He fell to his knees.
“I have not made my will clear to you, but today, you end the suffering. Gather your men and kill all who dwell here.” Durga slid back into her place, but Nara remained on his knees.
“Please forgive me. I did not know.”
All I could see was Trevor. I missed his smiling face and silly giggles as we watched movies with Drew on the couch. “Can we go?”
“I am so sorry. Of course, Goddess. Thank you for your grace Durga, I promise I will never keep another soul here.”
“Sure,” I said, hurrying him up the stairs and back to the street. “Do you have a phone?” I asked. “I need to make an international call.” If I didn’t hear Trevor's voice at that moment, I was sure I would have to go back own there and make sure he wasn’t there. It was irrational, but I was irrational these days.
“Yes.” Nara pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “It doesn't always have reception. There is a better phone in the house.”
I turned on the phone, and it had one bar, good enough. I dialled by heart and heard a scratchy ring, then a second ring. A soft voice came over the line.
“Hello?”
“Trevor?” I yelled, trying to make myself heard over the static.
“Lark?” he yelled back. “I can’t believe it's you! Where are you?” he asked, his words slightly broken up, but I could hear most.
“Jaisalmer, the middle of the Indian desert,” I said.
His laugh was a tinkle that made muscles relax I didn't even know had been tense. “It’s so good to hear your voice,” he said, but whatever he said next was too static to hear.
“I’ll call you back,” I yelled into the phone three times in case he could still hear me.
“Thank you,” I said, handing the phone back to Nara. He still looked depressed, like a kicked puppy. I took his hand, to get that look off his face and led him back through the city towards his home in the fort.
“Is Trevor the one you love?” Nara asked as we walked up the stairs to his house.
“No, he is just my friend. My very good friend who I miss a lot.”
“Is he a vampire?”
“Yes, but he is new. He had been starving himself when I found him and brought him home with me. Seeing your prisoners just brought back a lot of memories.”
As we climbed the stairs to Naras home, he nodded. “I am truly sorry for my misjudgment and the pain I caused you. My men are already clearing the prison and should be done by sundown.”
I nodded and left him standing in the large, well-appointed living room of his house. I found Singh laying stretched out on his back on the bed, and I curled around him. He purred as soon as I pet his whiskered chin. He rubbed his face on me, and I wished for a moment I could be the silly cat. His life was so much easier. If he didn’t like something, he bit its head off.
“Can I join your lion club?” I asked.
His tongue flipped out and caught my hand, pulling it back into his mouth where he held it between his teeth for a moment. When he opened his big jaws, letting me take it back, it was all drooled on. Gross.
I wiped my hand on the pillow on his side of the bed before tucking it back into my chest. The midday sun cast a pattern on the floor through the lattice covering the window. I felt groggy but remembered that someone was on their way with news of Mahishasura. I would leave here again soon. Probably not soon enough.
I must have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes, voices were yelling.
I rolled off the bed, and Durga flashed my knife into my hand. That was my first sign that shit was going down.
I set the knife down and pulled on my shoes because no matter what, I wasn’t fighting barefoot. I grabbed up my knife and ran out the bedroom door to see what was happening.
Vampires filled the house — dozens of men and women with pointed teeth.
“What the hell?” I asked. Before anyone could answer, Durga pressed me to get moving. Evil was all over the city.
“Something happened in the dungeon. Our men are dead, and there are dozens of prisoners running free,” a woman's voice rang out from the other side of the room.
“Move,” I said pushing through the crowd until I found the source of the voice. It was the woman with the white hair that had winked at me in the kitchen that morning. “Can you fight?” The woman was not much taller than me and wore jeans and a tank top instead of the usual women's clothing but had a long knife in a sheath at her hip. She also had a glint in her eye that made me wonder if she was crazy. Her muscles twitched like she wanted to go.
“Of course,” she said, unsheathing her knife and swinging it in a circle that had the men around her backing up — my kind of crazy.
“What is your name?” I asked. Durga pushed at me harder, but I wanted a team. A team of two would be fine.
“Pari,” she said.
I smiled and swung my blade too. “Let’s do this then, Pari.”
Her teeth flashed, and we ran out of the house. Durga pushed me to go faster, so I did. The woman behind me kept up, and a moment later we came to the first skeletal rabid vampire. He had already drained at least two people in the small tea shop. Others were huddled in the back corner as the vampire tore flesh from the human in his arms and ate it. Gross.
He hissed at us but didn’t drop his meal. I put a slight bend in my knees, ready to take him head-on. A blade flew past, sliding deep into his throat and he collapsed to the ground. I glanced over my shoulder, and Pari shrugged. I waited for a moment as she grabbed her blade and then we both ran, following the screams to a pair of rabid vampires who had cornered school children. The kids were crying and screaming as the monsters staggered closer.
“Hey!” I yelled. Both turned and hissed at me. Their eyes were blood red and teeth in a snarl.
I heard a chuckle behind me from Pari. I decided I liked her level of crazy in that moment as we faced down the nasty skeletal vampires. They launched themselves at us, and we went to work. My knife missed the first one's spine by a quarter of an inch. Instead, it took out his windpipe, so he gasped and bled all over the place but didn't slow. His teeth snapped next to my shoulder as I pushed him back to get a clean shot. Fallen vampires were strong even if they didn’t look it and I imagined this one was old and powerful before they locked him away.
In the scuffle, I tripped on the uneven footing, and his weight came down on top of me. He wasn’t that heavy in his current state, but it gave him the upper hand for a second and his teeth scraped my cheek, tearing the flesh. As he reared back to aim for my throat, I got my knife between us. As he came down, he impaled himself perfectly on my blade and collapsed. I kicked him off in time to see Pari nearly behead the vampire she was fighting with a strong slice that severed his spine.
She looked at me with blazing red eyes of her own. She was a scrapper, like me, and had taken a few bites to her arm.
“You aren’t so pretty now, are you?” she said with a laugh as her eyes bled back to normal.
I laughed and packed the flap of torn skin on my face back together so it could heal.
She reached out a hand, and I accepted it, letting her pull me to my feet. We took off again, the single vampires were easy to take down, but once we killed six or seven, a group of them sprung on us together.
They shouldn’t have been able to organize enough to attack like that, but here we were in the middle of a horde of feral vampires and fighting back to back. Our blades swung, killing with enthusiasm. More of the starved vampires came until they filled the small courtyard.
“Shit,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Durga. We can take ‘em.”
This vampire had a death wish. I liked it.
My blade cut through flesh and bone. Battle screams echoed from the city. I assumed other coven vampires were fighting the deranged ones too. It wasn’t just us out here, but I focussed my mind entirely on the fight. I kicked one vampire away as
another arrived.
I saw a flash of white. Singh had joined the fun. I caught sight of him now and then with his teeth wrapped around some vampire's neck as he shook them violently. The group was dwindling as we took care of business. Bodies were piling up. That's when I saw a man with blond hair that I would recognize anywhere. He had his back turned, but he was swinging a sword with practiced ease. I froze, and the vampire I was fighting got his teeth around my collarbone, clamping down and shaking me like a dog. I screamed as my flesh shredded and the bone snapped.
Flipping my knife, I stabbed it towards myself, impaling the vampire and my shoulder with the tip of the blade.
A fire burned in my skin where my blade had cut me as the vampire fell away. My vision faltered for a moment. Another rabid vampire took that opportunity to attack me, but I got my knife up in time to sever his spine through his throat. He fell, and my vision shifted black again. It cleared, and I saw Vincent. His chest was heaving, but he had a look of concern in his eyes. His sword fell to the ground with a clatter, but I saw it like I was looking out at the world through the lattice on the windows of the houses here.
I licked my lips, trying to form words, but nothing was working. My legs were like Jell-o, and I swayed in the breeze.
“Durga!” Peri called, but I couldn't look away from Vincent. His blond hair and glowing eyes. It was a mirage. It had to be.
My eyes closed, and I felt my legs go out from under me.
Then there was just darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Why isn’t she healing?”
“I don’t know!”
The voices seemed far away as if I was underwater. I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy.
“All her wounds have healed, except this one.”
I recognized the voice, but I my mind was so muddled I couldn't remember who it was. Then the voices faded away again.
“Please, Goddess,” a voice whispered. It was thick and full of desperation. “I’m sorry, Lark. I should never have left you.”
