High Society

by Bond, Casey

  During the ride, I had time to think. I remembered a dream I had after landing in the battlefield of discarded corpses. A disturbing dream. A dream that felt so real, it hurt. It replayed over and over in my mind in an incessant loop. It had to be fake.

  I remembered my mother. I remembered the store. The beam of sunlight. It felt warm on my skin, until the light began to fade into nothing but a sliver. Only then did the cool touch me. I remembered it. It was real. At least, I thought it was.

  Throughout our ride, I kept quiet for hours, waiting as late afternoon faded to evening, and catalogued my long list of discomforts. My ass hurt from riding side-saddle. The gown he’d insisted I wear was too small. My abs ached from sucking them in just to keep from ripping the fabric, and don’t get me started on the painful stays. I thought bras were uncomfortable, but I humbly stand corrected.

  “You’re squirming. Stop it,” he growled.

  “My ass hurts.”

  “My ass hurts, too,” he retorted. “But I manage to keep still.”

  “Ride in my lap and see if you can keep still after this many hours.”

  He seemed too normal, and I was afraid of that. Enoch hated Asa. He loved him and respected him, but I also knew he harbored an intense hatred for his brother. There had to be a reason for it.

  I remembered Terah’s comment on Enoch’s ship; how she had asserted her strength, comparing herself to Asa, when Enoch quipped that although she was as strong, she wasn’t nearly as evil as Asa. Those words kept pounding through my head. Enoch wouldn’t lie to me, and his sibling agreed with his statement about Asa’s character.

  Maybe Asa was just acting civil in front of these people, and all bets would be off when we got to wherever we were going. “Did I mention that my ass hurts?” I needled him. It was so hard not to.

  He didn’t even acknowledge the complaint.

  “Will we meet up with Enoch?”

  “When?” he asked.

  “When we get wherever we’re going.”

  Asa shrugged. “I’m not sure when he’ll be there.”

  “Where is Terah?” I need to find Titus.

  “She is where we’re going.”

  He smiled as I fumed. He was infuriating. “Which is…?”

  “A little over an hour away, so stop complaining about your ass.”

  Chapter Three

  Titus

  Chicken feathers floated all around me. The hen house I crash-landed into now had a man-sized skylight. The fat birds clucked and squawked and flapped all around. I wanted so badly to cover my head with my hands, or to move my tongue and lips to get the dust and feathers settling on them the hell off. But I needed a minute. Or sixty.

  Internally, I winced, despite the fact that the muscles of my face would not work. My back hurt. While plowing into the ground hurt, plowing into layers of wood and taking them to the ground along with me absolutely sucked.

  I couldn’t say the same about chickens, though. They were delicious. I imagined them cooked nine different ways before I could get my body to emerge from the shock that always followed the landing.

  My stomach growled in response to my thoughts.

  Slowly, my body awakened, my suit accelerating the healing it required. I was finally able to stand up and stretch my arms over my head, leaning backward and enjoying the feeling of movement. My head poked out of the wooden hen house where the roof had recently been whole. I dusted myself off and unlatched the door, quickly securing it behind me. The chickens could fly out of the hole I’d made if they were determined enough, but I wasn’t making their escape easier.

  Beyond the coop was a modest wooden barn with a loft filled with hay. A horse whinnied from inside. It was morning, and a thin layer of fog hung over the low-lying valleys in the land. On a hill above a low valley sat a large, white house with equally large, white columns. Stately rows of trees flanked a pathway that led up to the home.

  Despite the commotion I caused, no one emerged.

  I made my way to the barn and slipped inside, the scent of hay and dung assaulting my senses. Saddles hung from short posts. I grabbed one and hurriedly studied the horses. I didn’t know a thing about them, but I quickly decided one of them hated me, which helped me decide swiftly against stealing him. The horse was white with brown spots and looked lean and strong, but his eyes promised he would throw me and stomp my ass into the earth for good measure.

  A smaller, gray horse stuck her nose out of her stall. I held up my hand so she could get my scent. I’d seen people do that with dogs on the broadcasts. It had to be similar, right? Horses and dogs were both animals. Both needed to trust the humans who cared for them. “Easy,” I coaxed softly as she snuffled against my palm.

  The gray horse seemed okay with me, so I unlatched the door and reached out to pet her. That was about the moment when the otherwise docile beast pinned her ears back and began to panic. It turned out that horses were great judges of character, able to discern a threat when they saw one. I looked over my shoulder to see Terah leaning against the stall door, a smirk on her face.

  “Finally, you show up without your friends.”

  Instinctively, I grabbed a stake from my holster.

  She smiled at the sharpened wood. “I’m getting really tired of you and your little friends pointing those things at us.”

  “Are Eve and Abram here?”

  “Come see for yourself.” She glanced toward the house.

  “Look, I don’t want trouble. I just want to find Eve and get the hell out of here. Judging by your clothing, we didn’t make it home to twenty-one-fifty-seven.”

  “You certainly did not. For such awe-inspiring capability, your kind isn’t very intelligent about using your gifts. You’ve managed to land yourselves in the middle of a war.”

  “Then I should be comfortable enough here,” I quipped, waiting until she stood up straight and waved me toward the house. I kept the stake in my hand, just in case. I thought she was going to eat me there, for a sec. “I just want to go home. We won’t be here long.”

  “Good,” she replied nonchalantly. Outside the barn, the sun was starting to reach its rays across the land, shining brightly. The fog was beginning to dissipate and dew lightly sprinkled the grass and hay. “But before you go, you’ll need to fix that chicken coop.”

  Terah didn’t walk. She didn’t trot. She swayed her hips and displayed her sass even beneath the prim gown she wore. There had been a few times I thought she and I could get along, that we might be civil with one another. Not friends exactly, but not enemies, either.

  Then there were the times when I thought there was no way I could ever be anything other than her enemy.

  When she was with Enoch, he brought out a calmer side of her. Asa did the opposite. Somewhere in between lay the real Terah.

  The more I was shoved into her presence, the harder it was to see her as anything other than a target. My target.

  That was the crux of why I didn’t understand Eve. Somewhere along this crazy journey, she’d fallen for Enoch. And while I could see that he was the best of the three, there was something in his eyes that said he might also be the worst.

  The closer we got to our time, the more I knew what we would have to face. I just couldn’t look past what I’d seen back home, and I didn’t see how Eve could. At some point, Victor had told her Enoch was the one who’d sired the vampire that killed her mother. With that knowledge, how could she love a monster like that? How could she even stand to look at it?

  At one point, it comforted Eve to put a face to the fiend who ripped away her life. I envied her the knowledge, something Victor hadn’t divulged to me. I didn’t know who sired the vamps who murdered my family. It could’ve been Terah, Asa, or just as easily, it could have been Enoch. While I wasn’t sure they deserved the stake in the past years we’d visited, who was to say they didn’t now, or that they wouldn’t somewhere along the way?

  Who knew when we’d make it home, or if we ever would?

  Duri
ng our last jump, we linked arms and jumped together in the hopes it would pull us back to our time, but it didn’t work and we didn’t land together. I had been inexplicably pulled to Terah. If Abram was drawn to Asa and Eve to Enoch, we would know for sure that the next time we travelled, it didn’t matter if one or all of us jumped or if we held hands and sang a song together… we wouldn’t land as a group.

  I followed Terah down a wide dirt path made of dark red clay, imagining how best to attack her given our proximity and surroundings. We stepped in and out of beams of sunlight the tree branches let filter to the ground in an alternating rhythm of brightness and comfort, until we reached the house – which was bigger in person than it had looked from the chicken coop.

  The door opened and out stepped Eve, wearing a dress even puffier than Terah’s.

  “Hey,” I said, jogging up the steps to her.

  Her brow furrowed, and Terah stepped around us and into the house. “What are you doing here?” Eve hissed.

  “What are you talking about? I just landed and… you’re already dressed. You didn’t have any issues landing? Are you feeling okay?”

  “Exactly who do you think I am?” she asked carefully.

  “Eve.”

  “Yeah, and you’re Titus 1777.”

  The realization finally dawned that this wasn’t my Eve.

  With a sly grin, she shook her head and stepped close, whispering into my ear. “I’ve been working for over a year to get close to them, and you’re not going to ruin this for me,” she quietly seethed. “Now, I want you to go. I’m about to be the first to complete our mission. My name and number will go down in history as the one who outsmarted the Triad and saved humanity. Not yours. If you get in my way, I’ll stake you instead of them.”

  Triad. It’s what Victor and Kael called the three Nephilim.

  “Leave,” Eve’s clone hissed again. “What part of what I said do you not understand?”

  She looked exactly like Eve. My friend.

  During our last jump, Abram had sired a vampire from one of my clones. I remembered my vampire clone in Asa’s yard, backing up his sire Abram as he tried to take control of something uncontrollable. I remembered that while my clone resembled me, there were subtle differences. In the style of our hair, in the scars he bore on his hands and arms, and even in his clothes.

  This clone of Eve’s had been careful to avoid anything that set her apart from the original. Which made her smart and very dangerous.

  In the distance, at the farthest end of the row of trees leading to the house, came the thundering sound of galloping hooves. The billowing dust cloud left in their wake obscured the riders. The bulk of the group split from a single rider and turned toward the barn, while the lone horse trotted toward the house. On the horse’s back was Asa, and sitting on Asa’s lap, was another Eve.

  How many had he collected? Why her? And why was Eve 1776 trying to target Asa instead of Enoch?

  The Eve in Asa’s lap elbowed him hard and jumped from the horse. “What the hell is this, Asa?” she yelled.

  That was my friend! Thank God she was okay.

  “This,” Asa drawled, “is my fiancée, Eve 1776.” He looked at Eve’s double. “Darling, go inside and fetch me something cool to drink.”

  The clone gritted her teeth as she smiled at him. “Of course.”

  I wiggled my fingers at her as she yanked on the door handle and let it slam closed behind her.

  The real Eve grabbed her skirts and ran up the steps to me. She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed hard. “Is it really you?” she breathed.

  “Yes. And you know what I’ve been thinking?”

  “What?” she asked, letting go of me and taking a deep breath.

  “If we ever see Victor or Kael again, I’m going to make them pay for this whole clone thing.”

  “Did you really think that clone was me?”

  “When I first walked up,” I admitted, “but then she opened her mouth. Even though her voice is yours, it became abundantly clear that she wasn’t.”

  “I’m glad you know me well enough to tell the difference. And yes, when we get home, we will see that they pay for what they’ve done.”

  “Unless they succeed in their plans,” I added. “If they manage to take the three of them out, no one will care how they did it. It’ll all be justified, and the two of them will be worshipped until the end of time.”

  I groaned because he was right.

  Asa swung down from his saddle and handed his horse off to a woman who led it away toward the barn where the others were dismounting in the grass and shade. A few men began filling troughs with water and oats, while others worked to unsaddle their horses.

  A few pairs of fangs glinted in the sun as humans complained about the long ride and the vampires accompanying them teased them for being so weak. “Some of them are vamps,” I gasped.

  Eve nodded. “I know.”

  “Where’d you land?”

  She glanced from Asa and back to me, but Asa answered for her. “In the middle of a battlefield full of nothing but smoke, the dead, and the scavengers that feed on them.”

  Eve tensed as the memory washed over her features.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t care that Asa was listening, but I wanted her to hear I meant it.

  She set her jaw. “I’m okay.”

  I didn’t think any of us were truly okay. Every time we bumped through the past, we were less and less okay. And I was absolutely losing my mind thinking we never would be.

  * * *

  Eve

  Titus worried his lip between his teeth. “Where’s Enoch?” he asked. There was a strain, a nervousness in his voice that wasn’t normally there.

  “Not here,” Asa interjected.

  “And Abram?” he asked, keeping his eyes trained on mine.

  Asa answered before I could tell him. “I’ve sent men to capture him.”

  “Are you saying he’s out of control?” Titus asked, finally looking at Asa.

  “He’s never been in control, and never will be,” Asa drawled.

  “Wait,” Titus laughed. “Isn’t Enoch the one who controls him? You talk like you’re the one who sired him, like you’re in charge, but that’s not really the case, is it?”

  Asa’s smug grin fell away and he closed his eyes. The fog the sun hadn’t burned away began to gather and thicken, drifting ominously toward the house, shrouding our feet before rising to our legs, waist, and chest. Before it covered our heads, Asa opened his eyes and stared at Titus for a long moment. Titus, watching the fog commanded by the Nephilim standing before him, stared with bulging eyes and a gaping mouth.

  “Whomever sent the three of you did you a great disservice. They lied to you,” Asa alleged. “They filled you with a false sense of security and no sense whatsoever of self-preservation. You speak of control as if you have a speck of it, when in fact, you have none. You’d do well to remember that.”

  The fog disappeared as he ended his sentence, the cold tendrils evaporating as quickly as his words. Asa stepped between me and Titus and opened the door to the house, holding it for us and gesturing for us to step in first. Titus and I exchanged a wary glance and he nodded for me to lead the way, firmly placing himself between me and Asa.

  The house was immaculate. Light and airy, the white walls boasted tall windows that beckoned in the sunshine. I could almost hear it stretching across the warm, wood-planked floor. I paused in the entry and Titus stopped next to me, our arms bumping together.

  “Welcome to my home,” Asa invited from behind.

  “Your home?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Yes, Eve. My home. My brother has his own farm, his own land. But do not fret, it is close by. If your people have succeeded in anything, it is that you’ve brought my siblings and I closer together.”

  “Enoch…” I paused to choose my words carefully. “I was under the impression that you and Enoch weren’t on the best of terms. In thirteen-forty
-eight, you were estranged. In seventeen-seventeen, there was certainly no love lost between you.”

  “Time and necessity influence change,” he answered, infuriatingly vague. “Speaking of change… I suppose the two of you will want some time alone to recover from your travels. My brother has confided in me about the whole of your very brief and inconsequential interruption in his life.”

  I turned to find Asa’s glittering dark eyes watching me. Did Enoch really tell him everything that passed between us? It felt like a betrayal. It stung like a cheek that had been slapped.

  “Those are your words, not his,” I replied.

  “Perhaps they are. Perhaps they aren’t,” he replied cryptically. I hated the mind games he loved playing.

  “I wouldn’t bother listening to his lies, Eve,” Titus inserted, nodding toward Asa.

  Just then, a woman approached from a side room and Asa asked her to show us to our rooms.

  Sleeping under the same roof as him wouldn’t be easy without my stakes. I’d have to borrow one from Titus until I found mine and took them back.

  Halfway up the staircase, the world began to spin. I clutched the railing and closed my eyes, but that didn’t help. Slumping onto my hip, I listened as my blood whooshed loudly through my ears.

  “Eve?” Titus said.

  I could feel my lips move, hear myself tell him that I was okay, but I wasn’t. I was definitely not okay.

  For a moment, a swarm of black dots filled my vision. Muffled chatter came from all around. I blinked and my vision cleared. The roaring in my ears subsided and the world stopped spinning. Titus was worried, crouching next to me. “I’m good. Sorry, I just felt dizzy for a second.”

  “That was more than dizziness,” he said, helping me to my feet.

  “No it wasn’t. I’m good now. You know how fun landing is for me. I’m still shaking it off, that’s all.”