by Seth Eden
“Let’s get you some food?” Kal suggested, as they made their way from the car across the quad.
Tess yawned and nodded in gratitude. “Please.”
Then a shower, she thought. Then hopefully, if she was lucky, some new clothes. Kal led her to the cafeteria which sat in a sprawling brick building between the dorms. It was eerie inside where there had clearly been a campus Starbucks and a few other chain cafes, now shuttered. But the counter of the main commissary was staffed and it must have been lunchtime. A number of women were sitting at tables, eating and talking. They look up at her in interest before turning back to their food.
“Kal!” A Vampyren man wearing the dressed-down version of a unit uniform came trotting up to Kal. Tess got the sense that they were about to embrace, but they stopped short and just regarded each other for a moment before clapping each other on the back. “Haven’t seen you in two years,” the man said grimly. “You look different.”
“I went native,” Kal said, shrugging. He turned to Tess and said, “Tess, this is my brother, Mark. And…” Another woman came up next to Mark. She was a little taller than Tess and she wore black jeans and boots, her dark hair in a long ponytail on top of her head.
“Oh!” She said, her eyes large. “You’re Tess! Good to meet you. I’m Crystal.”
Tess smiled tightly and shook her hand and it was all a little awkward for a minute, the Vampyren brothers seeming a little uncomfortable with each other after so long. But then Crystal rolled her eyes and said, “Tess, you must be starving. Come eat.”
The food wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. Considering Tess had been subsisting on whatever was edible that she could get her hands on for the past few months, she considered the spaghetti and salad to be a five star meal. The meatballs gave her pause but when she looked at them funny, Crystal assured her that the meat was locally sourced and she trusted the people who inspected it. She took the risk. When Crystal handed her a fudge brownie wrapped in plastic and a can of Coke, she gasped.
“Coke and chocolate,” she said, pretending to cry. “How long has it been?”
Kal laughed at that and they exchanged a little look. Shoot, that Vampyren was cute. She’d seen Vampyren who were hot. Kal was both hot and cute. That was definitely new.
“Yeah, we keep finding Coke,” Crystal said. “It’s the strangest thing. Although I’ve heard there are some pop factories opening up here and there? Of all things? Oh great, highest priority is definitely Sprite.” She shook her head, smirking at the thought.
“She complains about everything,” Mark said, nodding at Crystal. “You’ll get used to it.”
“He’s only saying that because I mostly complain about him,” Crystal snarked.
They gave each other a cute little look and Tess finally caught on, raising her eyebrow. “Oh. You guys are… together?”
“Yep.” Mark winked at his lover. “She’s my mate.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about um… cross… couples?” She frowned, feeling uncertain in her terminology and not wanting to offend anyone, but Crystal and Mark didn’t seem offended at least.
“It’s bound to happen,” Crystal said, shrugging. “I mean they’re pretty hot.”
Tess didn’t mean to, but she found herself looking right at Kal when Crystal said that, as if to confirm her statement. He looked at her and grinned and finding herself caught out, she flushed crimson and glared down at her Coke and brownie.
That was not why she was here. She was here to rescue helpless “crossbreed” children from their awful and punishing prisons. She needed to clean up, give herself an evening to rest, and then plunge right into her work the next day. There was the stealth rescue stuff but more than that, there was the public side. She was trying to get a meeting with the region’s Vampyren Council. It was considered the proper channel for grievances and she didn’t expect much, but she’d heard the Council in this part of the country was beginning to give way on some things. Vampyrens in general were beginning to… mellow, if that was the right word. Perhaps it was because the constant threat of the Lucian beginning to invade along the West coast.
Tess had seen a Lucian once. She tried to forget it. She’d barely gotten away with her life. She preferred Vampyren to Lucian, any day. They were tall and leanly muscled. They were much quieter than Vampyrens who were brutal but not exactly stealthy. Lucian were just as brutal but you didn’t see them coming. They were like wolves in the night. She had been traveling alone, hiking in Kentucky, after freeing another creche. She heard a gust of wind behind her head and suddenly, there was a Lucian. At first she thought it was just a tall, pale man. But he’d brought with him a sense of dread and strange metallic smell. He hadn’t said a word as he stared at her with empty, yellow eyes, the moonlight glimmering off his silvery but sallow skin. Tess had turned run when she’d realized it was one of those; one of those monsters people spoke about that were worse than Vampyren. She turned to run, and he’d grabbed her, two fingers digging into her throat as one immovable arm held her fast. He would plunge his fingers right into her throat and rip it apart. She’d known that was his intention as he’d pressed harder and harder. He was going to crush her windpipe, and she was going to die slowly and painfully… It had only been luck that had brought the Lucian’s companions out of the dark woods that night. They made strange screeching sounds that didn’t sound quite like speech. They didn’t appear to actually speak to each other at all. He dropped her to the ground, and she’d fallen hard to her knees. Then he’d walked away as she struggled to regain her breath, her knees bleeding where they’d hit the gravel. None of them so much as looked back. She was one small woman and not even worth the trouble. There was something terrifying about that too. They were all ants to the Lucian. They were not even valuable as sources of food or breeding like they were to the Vampyren. To the Lucian, humans were as dispensable as dirt.
“So where is this new creche where they took the children?” She said, sitting up straight.
Crystal snorted a laugh at that and Tess bristled but she saw Kal smile a little admiringly in her direction so that was something, she supposed. “How about we get you a shower and some clothes first?” Crystal said, taking a swallow of Coke. “Ease in. Then we’ll go over the map.”
“Very well,” Tess muttered.
“I think it’s really admirable, the work you do,” Kal said. It sounded vaguely rehearsed but not disingenuous and it was enough to make both Mark and Crystal look at him in surprise like Tess was doing right now. “It… I mean I was drafted into the invasion,” Kal sputtered. If a Vampyren could blush, he might have. “Like my brother here. But I never agreed with it. Never agreed with taking children away from their parents or forcing the human women to breed.” His mouth snapped shut, and he sat there, frowning into his lap as if he was embarrassed by his entire speech.
“He’s always been a free thinker,” Mark said, and Tess was sure he sounded impressed. He was looking at his brother like he admired him. “Never made it easy for him.”
Kal tittered at that, perking up a bit. “Hey, we’ve both always been free thinkers. I’m just...a little more evolved than you.”
There was an easing of tension between them suddenly. Tess could feel it happened. Watching the two of them become easy with each other after not seeing each other in such a long time made Tess’s own heart ache for her siblings. But this world was harsh for family reunions and they often didn’t have a happy ending after all.
“It’s happening you know,” Crystal said Tess, in a kind of conspiratorial whisper as the brothers fell into their own private conversation about what they’d been up to since they’d seen each other last. It sounded like a lot of melancholy rehashes of battles and deaths. Tess leaned on her hand and nodded at Crystal to go on, curious. “I mean the Vampyren sort of… evolving? I think they’re more… malleable than we originally thought. They’re impressionable to humans, you know? I think their own world is very harsh, this planet is less so. They’re…�
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“Mellowing out?” Tess said.
“Yes, sort of.” Crystal shrugged, and she rubbed her lips, looking bothered. “Hope they can hurry up and organize some new system or government. An infrastructure. As long as they’re not going anywhere. I’m tired of this shit. I… I got a kid.” She shrugged, looking somewhat sheepish. “With Mark. A little daughter.”
Tess’s stomach flip flopped uncomfortably. “Oh shit. Is she in the creche?”
“No!” Crystal said quickly. “Thank goodness. I have a couple friends keeping her while I’m here. I’ve been able to visit a little. But… I just want to… you know.”
“Settle down?” Tess said.
“Yeah,” Crystal whispered. “Never thought I was the type. But yeah. I want to have a little family in a little house. That’s the dream anyway.”
“Someday maybe,” Tess said, though she wasn’t sure if she believed that or not.
They ate and chatted and then Crystal took Tess to the dormitory where she lived, away from the rest of the women who were there to breed. There was a tension there, Tess couldn’t help but notice. She got the feeling that Crystal had been spared the duty of breeding for the creche from now on, perhaps because of her Vampyren boyfriend and perhaps that was why the other women resented her. But Tess wasn’t about to bring that up.
“We get in clothes every once in a while,” Crystal said as Tess followed her up the stairs. “Everyone just kind of grabs what they can but I picked out some stuff for you. Hope it works out. And I got you some clean underwear and some essentials.”
“What is it the breeders think I’m here to do?” Tess said a minute later as she sorted through the clothes, nodding in approval. It was simple stuff mostly; jeans, black cargo pants, tank tops and t-shirts, a jacket, and a couple button-ups, and some socks. Some of it was a bit baggy on her. Tess got the sense that Crystal thought of her taste as utilitarian, maybe by her reputation. Tess laid out an outfit and longingly looked at the bathroom in the empty dorm where Crystal had settled her.
“You’re my infertile sister,” Crystal said, chuckling. “I wouldn’t worry about it anyway. The breeders can be catty but they know me. They’re not assholes and they won’t talk. I used to be one of them. Besides, I’m a trader. I get them all the good shit.”
“Oh!” Tess’s eyebrows shot up as she grabbed one of the towels Crystal had provided her. “You’re a trader. Good to know. You’re everyone’s best friend then.”
“You know it.” Crystal said, tossing her a wink. “Listen, just shower and get some rest. Tomorrow we can talk about heading down to the new creche to do some recon. Talk about our plans.”
“Thanks,” Tess said and Crystal tossed her a smile. Tess found herself feeling more relaxed than she would have suspected after so long feeling like she was walking a high wire. It almost seemed like she made a friend, maybe more than one.
“Okay,” Tess said, sighing. “But how do we get in there?”
As it turned out, she was sent on recon with Kal and not Crystal. She sort of hated how pleased she was by that. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Crystal either, only Kal was easy to be around and she hadn’t felt attracted to anyone in ages, it seemed. It was a good feeling. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was like when he used his pheromones. She’d never been interested before.
They were staking out the creche, a sprawling cement compound downtown. Kal had the binoculars and Tess was eating chips in between making notes on a pad about the layout from the outside and the number of guards and their behavior. The place was like a military base and it was supposed to be a home for innocent children. There was something very wrong about that. It looked more foreboding than the other creches Tess had seen, most of which were decrepit and in no shape to house kids.
“I got some faked unit papers,” Kal said, shrugging. “ID. Uniform, of course. They have human matrons doing inspections now, at least for show. You can say you’re one of them. Surprise inspection. Then we can get an idea, eyeball exits, see how many kids they got in there.”
“Sounds good,” Tess said, nodding. She glanced over and watched Kal stretch, his black t-shirt tight across his muscles.
Tess had not had sex since before the invasion and now she found herself annoyingly turned on It wasn’t just his looks, although she was getting to like his long face and his big dark eyes that seemed softer than the other Vampyren’s. It was that he cared. He’d always cared. She found herself especially turned on by that.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said, and her cheeks burned. She hadn’t flirted in so long. She wasn’t so much rusty at it as much as totally dysfunctional. “Nice when a guy like you cares about… kids. Ya know.”
“A guy like me?” Kal said, raising a thick, dark eyebrow.
“A Vampyren,” she said, smirking.
“Well, I told you, I admire what you’re doing,” Kal said, giving her an easy smile. “You look good doing it too.” With that he hopped out of the car and Tess smirked to herself.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.
2
Kal
After the first wave of invasion, when Kal had arrived on earth with his brother, he’d actually been optimistic. He’d never seen proper war before so he hadn’t known what to expect. But he’d heard a lot about how soft and weak humans were; they wasted their time on creative pursuits, and were strange and illogical. It wouldn’t be difficult to conquer them. All this Kal had taken has code for meaning that humans were interesting and different and had values that most Vampyren didn’t understand. He’d had no idea. Humans were such individuals. They were all so… different. Or it had seemed that way. He felt a kind of kinship, as a Vampyren who always felt like an outsider. His saving grace was that his brother was similar, if less quirky. But they always understood each other at least.
Kal hadn’t thought twice when he had the chance to desert his unit. He had tattoos on his body that stood for loyalty and honor to his men and to the Vampyren people. They meant nothing to him. All that was the old life and this new world meant a new life. He left and never looked back. He started dressing like a human. If he cut his braid and maybe found contacts to hide the flecks of glowing gold in his dark eyes, he might have been able to pass for human. But he hadn’t wanted to lie or pretend. That wasn’t what the new world was about from his point of view.
He stumbled into the resistance and found new purpose. But doing recon on the creche with Tess, who had been whispered about and spoken of in hushed and admiring tones by so many among the resistance, was the biggest mission he’d been given so far. That wasn’t saying much. It hadn’t seemed like a difficult mission at the time.
It was more difficult than he expected, just like the war had been.
It wasn’t difficult to get inside the creche. The matrons and even the other Vampyren had taken one look at him in his unit uniform with the stern look on his face and the sword at his belt and let him and Tess in without a thought. They had the Council and military leadership’s instability on their side. Things were always disorganized but they had to obey no matter what. So a Vampyren suddenly showing up and insisting on a surprise inspection of the creche for the Council didn’t sound particularly unusual.
No, the difficult part was staying composed when they saw the condition of the place and how the children were treated. They were thin and malnourished, that much was obvious. There were eight to a room that should have housed maybe three children and some of them had outgrown their beds and cribs which would likely stunt them. They never saw children playing, and that was the eeriest part. They were all too quiet, the matrons and guards obviously ruling with iron fists. Kal heard plenty of crying but he never heard laughing or the buzz of children talking or having any fun. The place was worse than a prison. But according to the standards of the Council, there was nothing wrong with it.
The most shocking thing that Kal saw, at least to his mind, was a toddler attacking another toddler. The older chil
dren were human. They were supposedly all orphaned from the war, though he had to think some of them had been taken from their parents for whatever the leadership eventually decided to use them for. But the babies and toddlers were all half-Vampyren; children of the breeders. That meant they drank blood, they needed blood, and they were apparently not getting enough of it. Or anyway, he had to assume that was why he saw a two-year-old attack another two-year-old in one of the nurseries as he’d hovered there in the doorway. The kid was still a baby and he’d bared his tiny teeth and tackled his companion, growling viciously, and drawing blood as the child screamed before a matron forced them apart. There was something chilling about the incident, but the matron didn’t look surprised.
“Does that happen often?” Kal had asked her.
“Sure, it does,” the matron said dryly. “Not enough blood to go around and the little bloodsuckers don’t know any better.”
The whole thing made Kal realize that humans weren’t any better than Vampyren, if he’d ever suspected they might be. They were just as capable of atrocity.
On the ride home, Tess stared out her window, facing away from Kal. She didn’t speak and Kal felt like he had to or he might implode. It was late by then and the roads were pitch black this time of night. Most street lights were out. Kal had to drive slow and trust the headlights, hoping they didn’t meet up with some surprise.
