The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  Clairvoyance. Perception of the future. But if I accept any of this, it means that someday—possibly soon—Jude and I might have relations. It’s … I don’t even know what it is. The words won’t come to me. But the wind shifts, and I smell him, a mixture of lemongrass and fresh soap, and I am embarrassingly aroused.

  “I have to go!” I blurt madly, punching my coat as far down as I possibly can, as if he doesn’t know where every drop of blood in my body is at this very moment. “My bus is supposed to be here!”

  It’s the least sophisticated exit line of all time, but he doesn’t give chase when I sprint past him, heading for the pathway leading to the front of school where the late bus will hopefully be waiting. Before I’m out of earshot, however, he calls after me.

  “Hey, August?” His voice is musical, delighted, and I look back at him with sweat freezing at my temples. “You know, if you ever want to taste me again, all you have to do is ask.”

  His cocky laughter pursues me around the corner of the building and all the way to the front entrance.

  * * *

  I’m hoping for the late bus, but I find the turnaround deserted—save for a single, familiar car parked in the spreading glow of a streetlight, a familiar girl perched on the hood of the trunk. My steps falter when I see her.

  “You two boys have a nice conversation?” Daphne asks, deadpan, and for just a moment I could swear she’s referencing my horny vision of the future.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like.” This might be a lie.

  Sliding off the back of her car, Daphne lets out a weary sigh. “Forget it. I’m not your mom, and you can talk to anyone you want. I just … I wish you’d listen to me, Auggie. You can’t afford to trust Jude Marlowe, even if you think he’s cute.”

  “It’s not even…” Frustration robs me of my words. “Why does everyone act like I’m just some walking boner, and that all a guy has to do is smile and I’ll forget my life is in danger? For your information, I don’t trust him, and I told him so. I didn’t ask him to come here, by the way. He was waiting when I came out of the school.”

  “He heard about your teacher?” Daphne’s guess, at least, tells me why she’s also shown up out of the blue. Her expression turns sober. “I’m sorry, by the way. I can’t believe … I didn’t mean to kill him. The stake must have punctured his axillary artery, or something, but I swear it was an accident.”

  “He was trying to kill us,” I remind her. “It was self-defense.”

  “Not what I mean.” She shakes her head with a glum smile. “I know he wasn’t just another teacher for you. You liked him, and he’s dead, and … well, it would be hard news to take even if the circumstances weren’t as completely fucked up as they are.”

  “Thanks,” I manage, my eyes immediately filming over with more tears that I don’t want to shed. “It’s…” I have to wait it out for a moment. “It’s pretty fucked up, yeah.”

  Sniffling, I try to wipe all the tears away before they can really get started, but Daphne crosses the space between us and puts her arms around me. So I cry for a little bit. She doesn’t say anything, and I finally realize that this is all I’ve wanted—just someone to sympathize without demanding that I promise to feel better.

  When Daphne steps away again, she runs her fingers through my hair. “Get in. I’ll drive you home, okay?”

  Once the car is moving and I’ve got my composure back, I exhale. “Jude … It wasn’t about Mr. Strauss. He wanted to warn me about some vampires—two groups that worship the Corrupter. They’re already in Fulton Heights, and he thought I should have details.”

  “I bet he did,” Daphne grumbles, her knuckles white around the gearshift. “Let me guess: ‘They’re super dangerous, August. You’d better let me spirit you away to Transylvania where you’ll be safe and never heard from again. Tallyho!’”

  In spite of myself, I giggle. “First, your British accent is terrible, please never stop using it. And second … Okay, it was kind of like that. But I don’t think he was just trying to scare me. Some of the things he said kind of … made sense.”

  She frowns sharply at this. “What exactly did he say?” So I start to tell her, but I don’t get any further than League of the Dark Star before Daphne curses out loud. “Duclos, of course. I wondered when we’d hear from her.”

  “You were expecting this?” I can’t quite keep the annoyance out of my tone, since what the actual fuck? “Why didn’t you say something before?!”

  “You weren’t supposed to know who I was before!” she protests. “This isn’t easy, by the way. All the lying and subterfuge and shit.”

  I run my tongue along my lips and my teeth, refusing to be lured. Daphne saved me, and I trust her way more than I trust anyone who isn’t named either Pfeiffer or Adriana, but she lied until her hand was forced. “What do you know about Viviane Duclos?”

  “Not much, unfortunately,” she growls. “What did he tell you about her?”

  “Not much,” I echo. “Unfortunately. French sorceress, blah blah, nobody’s ever seen her, she might be fake, et cetera. You got anything else?”

  Her fingernails tapping the gearshift, she surprises me by saying, “Yeah, actually, I guess I do. The basics are these: She’s not fake. Her origins aren’t totally clear, but the first time she came to anyone’s attention, she was a courtesan in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV.”

  “Courtesan?”

  “A … professional companion. Basically like a fancy sex worker,” Daphne explains. “That’s not what it means exclusively, but in her case it does. Access to the royal court was a big deal back then, and if you had it, you didn’t squander it. A lot of high society types—of all genders—who’d been forced to enter into marriages of convenience with people they didn’t particularly like, looked for companionship elsewhere. Viviane Duclos was a popular courtesan, known for her shrewdness, her intellect, and her ability to tell the future.”

  “She was a psychic?”

  “She read palms and tarot cards—the usual sort of stuff,” Daphne answers with a disinterested shrug. “Apparently, she was good at it. She kind of fell in with a bad crowd, though, and got caught up in one of the biggest and most shocking scandals of the seventeenth century. It was called the Affair of the Poisons, and shitloads of people were implicated, including a former mistress of the king. There were dozens of arrests, and ultimately thirty-six executions—for murder or witchcraft or both.” Her eyes dart to me and then back to the road. “Duclos was named and arrested, but before she could be put to death, she was sprung from jail by a German mystic named—”

  “Erasmus Kramer,” I supply.

  “Yeah. Kramer.” Daphne downshifts as she navigates a turn. “Nobody knows exactly what went down with the two of them. Kramer was already a balls-to-the-wall believer when it came to the legends, and as best we can tell, Duclos was still fully human when she was sentenced to die by hanging. But the dude got to her in her cell, freed her, Turned her, and she joined his cause forevermore.”

  “And now she’s here.” I look out the window, as if I might see her flying by on a broomstick or something.

  “So he says.”

  It’s almost dark now, and Daphne’s window is fogged again, a ghostly version of my own face gazing back at me. “What does she look like?”

  “Nobody knows.” Her reply is prompt, corroborating Jude’s claim. “She’s deliberately stayed out of the public eye—and, you know, she’s an actual bona fide sorceress. She might know countless glamours to disguise her age and appearance.”

  “Great. I’ll punch everybody I meet, just in case.”

  Daphne nods absently, like I just proposed a wise plan. “You said there were two groups. What’s the second?”

  “The Mystic Order of—”

  “Rasputin?” Daphne snaps a look at me, and the car swerves. When I gasp, gripping the dashboard, she forces her attention back to the road. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t … Northern Wolf, right? That’s what he said?”r />
  “Yeah.” I blink a few times, trying to relax again. “He told me Rasputin is an unstable whack-job.”

  “An understatement.” She takes a corner, steering into my neighborhood. “Look, I don’t know what Marlowe told you, but Rasputin is real bad news. Even when he was still human, back at the turn of the twentieth century, he was a first-rate con artist and Svengali—grifting his way into the imperial court and taking advantage of the royals’ trust to accumulate massive amounts of power. And since becoming a vampire, he’s only gotten better at it.” Daphne’s mouth tightens. “He finds lost, damaged humans, Turns them, and gives them not just eternal life and more strength than they’ve ever known, but also a purpose. They worship him, and he worships himself—and there’s nothing more dangerous than that.”

  “If I promise you I’m already scared out of my fucking mind,” I say, my heart beating so hard I can see my retinas pulsing, “will you please stop talking now?”

  “I’m making this worse—I’m sorry.” She pulls the car to a stop, and I look up at my house. The lights are on in the front window, my dad moving around in the kitchen, and my heart lurches. As if reading my mood, Daphne says, “I already asked for backup, just in case Strauss had other friends, but I promise I … I’ll figure out a way to keep your family safe. I pledged to protect you, Auggie, and that goes for them, too. You have my word.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper, unable to speak any louder; then I bolt from the car—three different vampires registering on my silent radar before I even reach the porch. The night watch has already arrived.

  14

  Almost a week passes where nothing actually happens—no bad dreams, no deadly attacks, no impromptu visits from the undead—and gradually my anxiety subsides to a more manageable level. I won’t pretend that I’m not still scared, though, or that I don’t still look over my shoulder every five minutes, expecting a bony, greasy-haired giant with a scraggly beard and pinwheel eyes to come leaping at me out of the darkness.

  Because, oh yeah: I’ve looked up pictures of Rasputin, and each one pretty much screams HUMAN REMAINS FOUND IN AREA MAN’S FREEZER. I mean, axe-murdering cannibal mountain men would cross the street if they saw this guy coming.

  Over the weekend, the number of vampires surveilling my house went from three to six, and now I’m sensing them everywhere—even during the day. A car will drive by me while I’m on my bike, its windows tinted so heavily I can’t see inside, but that familiar, conclusive ripple will pass across my skin; or a sudden tingle between my shoulder blades will tell me I’m being watched from one of the empty houses between home and school. Maybe it should unnerve me, but instead it’s having the opposite effect. They’re keeping their distance, and even though each side is just trying to make sure the other doesn’t get to me first, they’re all otherwise leaving me alone.

  On Tuesday, Daphne makes good on her word to protect my family in a way I didn’t expect: Out of nowhere, my mom receives an email from an appraiser interested in her hideous rag doll, having heard about it from an unnamed colleague. The twist is that he wants to see it in person, but he lives in London and isn’t capable of traveling. The twist on the twist is that my parents have always wanted to see London but haven’t been able to justify the expense, and the twist on that twist is that, seemingly overnight, their frequent flier account tripled—to the point where their tickets would be all but free.

  I don’t know how the Brotherhood pulled it off, or how they’ll keep my parents safely out of town long enough to see things through to the end, but I’m already planning to name my first pet Daphne out of gratitude.

  If I live long enough to have a pet of my own. The end might be anytime. Someday, maybe soon, I could wake up and find the Corrupter in control of my body.

  But I’m still in command of all my parts on Wednesday when Gunnar texts to ask me on that official date: Hey! How do you feel about ice-skating? I’m afraid to be honest and tell him it scares me—especially because it’s a silly thing to fear after I literally almost got murdered—so I reply with a thumbs-up emoji, an ice-skate emoji, and an explosion emoji, which is vague enough to signify either excitement or imminent calamity. And I’m still very much me when I get home from school on Friday, my stomach so packed with butterflies they don’t even have room to flap their wings, so they’re all just crawling around in there until I’m pretty sure I’m going to barf.

  After my shower, I spend a few eons agonizing over what to wear—because what outfit says I’m into you, but I might die soon, so let’s not play games?—and then a few more trying to make my hair look cool. Eventually I give up on that dream and try to settle for “messy, but maybe it’s intentional,” and then … I’m out of time.

  I graciously allow my parents exactly two minutes to speak with Gunnar when he arrives, and then I’m pushing him out the door again, promising to honor my dad’s routine exhortations to be careful. Regardless of the statistics, Fulton Heights is still a vampire town, and I still have a crucifix in my pocket. The night air is crisp but wet, following our third straight day of rain, and all the snow is gone. Around us, I feel the undead watching, shifting restlessly when they realize I’m not alone.

  “It’s good to see you,” Gunnar says, pushing a hand through the tousled waves of his hair. It’s shiny, and I have a feeling it would be soft to the touch if I were in the right position to pull on it. The thought does funny things to my insides, and in spite of myself I’m suddenly horny again. He reaches over and tugs the lapel of my jacket. “You look really cute tonight, by the way.”

  “Thanks. So do you.” I might start floating. I’ve never been able to say that out loud before, and the words taste almost guilty on my tongue, my head buzzing with satisfaction. This is what being on a date feels like. “I see you wore your best dude-necklace.”

  It’s a silly thing to say, but I can’t keep my thoughts contained, all of them running together. Gunnar just looks down in surprise at the pendant resting against his T-shirt, a fragment of stone on a leather strap, and laughs. “My dude-necklace—I like that.” He smiles at me sideways. “I found this on a beach in Iceland—it’s my good-luck charm.”

  “Does it work?” I ask as he opens the passenger door of his car for me.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” he murmurs, his breath soft against my ear, and by the time he shuts the door and circles around to the driver’s side, I’m buzzing everywhere.

  * * *

  Gunnar’s mouth is amazing. And I mean this purely from an aesthetic standpoint, because no kissing has happened (yet). But I’m thinking about it a lot while he talks. It turns out he has three different kinds of smiles: the mild one, where the corners turn up; the intermediate one, where his teeth show and a tiny parenthesis appears in each cheek; and then his advanced smile, when he really laughs, and his eyes crinkle and his whole face becomes animated. That one’s my favorite.

  We talk about music (which feels like a trap until I realize he’s genuinely interested in hearing what I like), and he asks me about my art and I ask him about Iceland, and against all odds, by the time we get to where we’re going, I’m almost relaxed again.

  He pays for our entry and helps me hobble out onto the rink, but there’s little help for me once we’re moving—our whole bodies balanced on millimeter-thin blades of metal, hurtling pell-mell across actual fucking ice. I fall six or seven hundred times in the first ten minutes, my ass bones shattering like Christmas ornaments, while children zoom by us, skating in loop-de-loops at light speed and shrieking with laughter.

  “Are you okay?” Gunnar has actual concern in his voice after hoisting me to my feet one time too many. “I thought maybe this would be fun, but I don’t want you to get, like … actually hurt.”

  “I’m all right.” I force a smile, glad I haven’t landed on my face yet. Bruises can heal, but my dad will freak out if I break my teeth or my glasses. “You stop feeling it after the twelfth time.”

  He grins—an intermediate smile—a
nd says, “Okay, how about this: We skate together. Grab on, and we’ll go slow.”

  He holds out his hands, his grip firm when I reach for them, and then we start to move. He skates backward, smooth and languid, and I find that if I keep my feet more or less planted and let him tow me along, it’s just not-terrifying enough to be sort of pleasant. Letting out some nervous laughter, I observe, “Hey, what do you know? Not falling down is almost like having fun!”

  Gunnar laughs—an advanced smile, warming my insides with victory—and eases us to a gradual stop. “Okay, I’m starting to think this was maybe not the best idea for a date.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wish the lights around the rink were a little dimmer, because I’m sure my face is bright pink. “I should have said something, it’s just … you seemed really excited about it. And, also, I kind of didn’t want to admit that I was scared.”

  He reaches over, tugging at the zipper of my jacket—a playful gesture that still somehow feels intimate—and shrugs. “You were scared, but you did it anyway. That’s more impressive than being a good skater.” Our eyes meet, and we stay that way for just long enough to make my heart race before Gunnar suggests, “How about a snack or something instead? The food here is … gross, but it’ll kill you a lot slower than snapping your spine in half on the ice.”

  “Music to my ears,” I reply, already hobbling along the raised guardrail that circles the rink, heading for the exit. It’s an indoor facility, with a bunch of small tables and a greasy-looking concession stand to one side. I claim our seats while Gunnar gets the food, and it’s only a few minutes before he joins me again, lumbering over the rubberized flooring in his skates.

  He sets down a tray bearing two Styrofoam cups of something pale and brown, and a cardboard container of tortilla chips covered in bright yellow goo. “I’m pretty sure this stuff is supposed to approximate cheese, but I wouldn’t swear to it in court, and the hot chocolate is just a powdered mix—I actually watched her rip the packet open myself.”