The Last Vampire

by Jon F. Merz

  The sun bore down on me as I walked. The shadow cast by my staff made me feel like a walking sun dial. But the miles fell behind in my wake and before two o’clock, I was standing in front of a brilliant red sign that, while weathered, still looked fairly new.

  It had the international symbol for radiation along with DANGER in both English and Spanish.

  I slipped on the protective respirator and gloves as well as the hood. Then I checked my ability to draw my pistol fast from the holster. When that was done, I looked back over my shoulder. This was my last chance to back out; I could have gone in any other direction and let Isella continue to try to rule the world with her nefarious plots and dreams.

  But even if I was okay with that, the fact remained that Isella still had Ares. And I wasn’t about to let that stand. Ares, for whatever crimes she’d committed, didn’t deserve that fate and I intended to see that she was able to try to put her life back together.

  I gripped the staff a bit tighter. Shrubs and grasses fell away pretty fast about a quarter mile in. From there on, it was desert. Just sand as far as the eye could see. And with the sun still bearing down from overhead, I was going to lose a lot of water in my sweat.

  But I didn’t really have a choice. I wasn’t going to wait around until nightfall.

  I wasn’t going to wait around at all.

  I took the first step.

  Then another.

  And kept going.

  33

  I found it three miles further in.

  It erupted out of the desert landscape; the sole piece of rock for many, many miles. In the far distance, mountains scarred the horizon, gray with snowy peaks. But here, the sun bore down, blazing from above on something that looked like someone had turned a brown turd on its side.

  Deep scars ran across the rock mesa, both horizontally and vertically. In some places, the surface had been worn smooth from the constant sand blasting as winds whipped around it. In other places, it was rough to the touch with handholds and footholds pockmarking it all the way up.

  It was big, but not so huge that you couldn’t walk around it in about twenty minutes. The sands of the desert had piled up around it in drifts that fell away from you as your feet pushed into the ground. It felt a bit like quicksand as I stood there staring at it from every possible angle.

  Trying to find a way in.

  If this was where Isella had taken Ares, I was going to have quite the job getting inside. Was the opening on top of the mesa itself? Even if I was an experienced climber, it would have taken me hours to make the ascent, and that was with gear and safety lines. As it was, I was encumbered by the protective gear and my weapons and water. Climbing was not going to be in the cards.

  I thought it was a bit ridiculous that you would have had to climb up there anyway. Unless Isella could turn herself into a bat or something else from the legends - which I’d never seen any evidence of other suckers being able to do - then she would need an easier access point.

  I took another look around the desert landscape. Undulating hills of sand went on for miles. It was possible, of course, that there was another location she could be using. But I didn’t think so. Something felt right about this. And given Isella’s personality, it seemed like exactly the sort of place she’d want for her own. It was imposing and stark; a blatant outcropping amid the sea of sand.

  Of course, she’d be in there.

  I took my time walking around the outside of the place again, letting my hands run all over the face of it. As I made a second circuit, I felt a small indentation in the rock face and stopped. My gloved hands retraced their steps and then I saw the small bit of discolored rock that looked out of place with the rest of it. It wasn’t noticeable unless you really gave it the stare. But it was different enough that I halted my advance and examined it more closely.

  Then I pressed it in.

  Instantly, the front of the rock face shifted and pulled inward, exposing an entryway shrouded in darkness.

  I didn’t think Isella would be waiting directly inside. It was too risky that she’d be exposed to sunlight. So I stepped in and checked the radiation meter that Sam had given me. It was reading nothing. I checked outside just to be sure and it gave me a small reading. But back inside of the mesa, it was completely clean.

  I had no idea how it worked, but I didn’t care. I stepped inside and looked for the button to close the entryway that I’d come in through. I found it and the rock face slid back out, cutting me off from the outside world.

  I was in what I thought at first was complete darkness, but as my eyes adjusted, I could see ambient light spilling down from somewhere up above me. And then I saw the circular stone stairs cut into the side of the wall that corkscrewed around and ran up. Whatever I was in, it felt old.

  I know the government had once maintained a series of bunkers in odd places for use in nuclear holocausts. But this wasn’t a government bunker. No way. This was far older than I’d ever imagined.

  The only way was up, so I checked the radiation meter again.

  Nothing.

  I took the protective gear off and stowed it close to the entryway. If I was coming back out this way, I was going to need it. Then I mounted the steps and started my way up, keeping my back to the wall.

  As I climbed, I spotted what looked like cave drawings etched onto the walls. I stopped and looked at them. From what I could tell, they seemed to detail battle scenes between two tribes of aboriginal peoples. But who they were and how long ago they’d lived, I had no idea. As the steps took me higher up, I wondered how anyone had been able to carve out the interior of this place. It would have taken immense power to do so. And since I couldn’t see any evidence of this having been bored out by some machine, I was guessing it was something else entirely.

  A breeze drifted down from somewhere above me and the coolness of the dark made my skin prickle with goosebumps.

  She was here.

  I could feel her now. Her presence. Her will. And her determination to destroy me.

  The steps ended thirty feet above me at what appeared to be another opening cut into the rock. I continued the climb and finally came to the opening. But this time, I held back. If Isella was here, and she surely was, then I didn’t want to give her any advantage.

  I needn’t have bothered. Her voice called out as if I’d been a friendly neighbor stopping by for a quick cup of coffee and a chat.

  “Come in, Declan. Don’t be shy.”

  I stepped around the opening and into the room beyond it.

  It was wide open, circular, and complete with a sarcophagus in the center of it, the top of which was off to one side.

  Isella stood before me, still draped in the black robes that she’d worn when she’d projected herself into the chamber back in Diablo. Her smile was wide as ever but her entire essence dripped with evil. Here she was at last: the creator of the scourge that had defiled my planet and ruined the world as I’d known it.

  “Surprised you can stand to be in my presence,” I said.

  Isella shrugged. “Surely you noticed that the radiation isn’t a factor in here. Neither is your stench. I can keep them both at bay for as long as I wish.”

  “Where is she?”

  Isella didn’t move. She simply stood there smiling. “Is that the only reason you’ve come here, Declan? To save the creature that you would have used to kill me with?”

  “I’m pretty intent on killing you as well.”

  Her laughter echoed off the chamber walls. “I have little doubt you would enjoy that. But I’m afraid that is not my destiny.”

  “I’ve found that destiny isn’t carved in stone. It can be changed. Thwarted, even.”

  “Mmm,” said Isella. “And I’ve seen it done. As many times as I’ve hunted you throughout the ages, you have somehow always managed to defy my expectations and intentions.” She sighed. “Until at last, we find ourselves here. Me, the creator of that which you have scorned. You, the creator of that which hunts my
children. Neither of us winning the war of the ages. One that would see everything we love or have ever loved destroyed beyond measure.”

  “You’re not capable of love.”

  “Aren’t I?’ asked Isella. “Don’t you think that every time I create a new vampire that I think of them as my children? My sweet babes who only want to suckle at the sweet nectar of the humans they lust for. And yet you would deny them that simple pleasure.”

  “I would.”

  “And from my perspective, I wonder if you are capable of love as well. After all, you have killed thousands over your lifetimes. Down to your own wife.”

  “You forgot my son,” I said with a frown.

  “Well, now he wasn’t really your son, per se. Was he?”

  “I loved him like one,” I said.

  “And Ares? Do you love her, too?” Isella’s expression was one of amusement. I dearly wanted to wipe it off of her face. One stab with my staff was all it would take. But she was too far away at the moment. And I still didn’t know where Ares was.

  “No,” I said simply. “I don’t.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Isella. “What else would make a man come across these inhospitable lands to track down a woman, if not one that he loved?”

  “Duty,” I said. “Honor. And a quest for justice. A chance to right all the wrongs, even.”

  Isella waved her hand. “Useless human aspirations. Power is the only thing that matters.”

  “Where is she?” I asked again.

  Isella gestured toward the sarcophagus. “If you really want to know what happened to her, then all you need do is look inside.”

  34

  I moved carefully toward the open sarcophagus, keeping an eye on Isella as I did so. But she seemed content, at least for the moment, to wait for me to look inside. I eased over and peered into the ancient stone sarcophagus.

  Ares lay inside.

  Asleep? I didn’t know. But her eyes were closed and her hands were crossed over her chest. She looked like every person I’d ever seen in an open casket. And seeing her in there didn’t make me feel especially awesome.

  I looked up at Isella. “Did you turn her?”

  Isella smiled. “I may have indulged just a little bit.”

  “How many times?”

  Isella waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry yourself over it, Declan. I can turn someone at will with just a single serving. That old trope of three times is just something I let percolate among you mortals. It gives you hope that the worst can’t happen when the unthinkable does, even though it’s mostly too late. Psychologically, you’re already programmed to accept the idea that you can be turned and that makes the process much easier.”

  I looked back at Ares. If she’d been turned then I was going to have to kill her as well. And I didn’t want to do that.

  Isella, on the other hand, I definitely wanted to stake. Gripping my staff, I turned and regarded her. “So what’s your end plan then?”

  “I’m not going to waste time discussing my plans with you, Declan. You should already know what they are. Why I’m here. And what is in store for your pitiful planet.”

  “You want to rule over a world of vampires.”

  She shrugged. “If that’s what it comes to, then so be it. But vampires are merely one creature that I would welcome from the pits of my world into this plane. Watching the planet fall under darkness would be an utterly satisfying end to the eons that I’ve been wandering this forsaken environment, trying my best to enact evil wherever I can.” She sighed. “Yet you humans seem so bent on maintaining goodness and balance despite every inclination to the opposite. You allow fools to lead you into war and then somehow manage to come back from that time and time again. You let despots and criminals murder and plunder and victimize whole nations, and yet you always manage to right your own and find the balance again. It’s tiresome. You seem so hellbent on plunging into darkness but you can’t quite complete the freefall into oblivion.”

  “And you’re here to help.”

  “Consider me the final generator of momentum needed to get over the hump and plunge you all into the abyss.”

  “Let Ares go.”

  Isella shook her head. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  “Let her go and I’ll freely submit to whatever you have planned for me. You can finally destroy me. Send my soul off to die, whatever it was that you said you were going to do.”

  “I’ll do those things anyway.”

  I smirked. “Maybe. But maybe I’ll fight you and you’ll end up losing and dying in the process.”

  Isella laughed now. “Declan, when you’ve walked the world as long as I have, you tend to take steps to protect your interests. Backup plans are essential. Trust me, having chased you as long as I have, I’ve become accustomed to being disappointed in the outcomes. This time, I’ve tried to ensure that even the worst outcome is prepared for.”

  “But there’s no guarantee it will be.”

  Isella said nothing for a moment. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for her? You told me you don’t love her.”

  “I don’t know what I feel about her,” I said. “But she’s a good person.”

  “This good person sold her newborn for the drugs she craved. Are you so certain about your character assessment, Declan?”

  “I’ve known a lot of people who claimed to be holier than thou. Church every Sunday. Endless pontification on the need to be righteous. Always there to help those less fortunate as long as they could brag about doing so. And you know what? They were all exactly the same: hypocritical shits.”

  “My favorite,” said Isella.

  “Not mine,” I said. “The best people I’ve ever known have all had character flaws. Vices. Problems or faults. And they knew they had them. But that didn’t stop them from trying to get better. They didn’t brag about being on a 12-step program. They didn’t congratulate themselves for not being an asshole or try to paint some rosy picture of how amazing they were. They were honest. And brave enough to say, ‘yeah, I fucked up, but I’m owning it and trying to be better.’ Give me one of them any day of the week and I’ll be happier than being surrounded by self-righteous assholes who pretend they’re perfect and think their shit doesn’t stink.”

  “Because it always does,” said Isella. “Isn’t that right?”

  “It always smells the worst,” I said. “In my old world, when new guys wanted to be part of the unit I served in, we were always on the lookout for the saints. They never were. We wanted the sinners. Because at least you knew exactly what you were getting. It’s always the people who claim to have no bones in their closest that end up having racks upon racks of complete skeletons.”

  Isella smiled. “My sort of people.”

  “Take ‘em,” I said. “Somewhere along the line, humans got this stupid notion that they needed to be perfect to keep up with other people who were supposedly perfect. We forgot that we only really need to focus on ourselves and not give a shit what anyone else is doing.”

  “And yet, here we are,” said Isella. “At a crossroads, of sorts. Me on one side of it and you on the other. Poor Ares is stuck in the middle with no idea of the part that she has yet to play in all of this.”

  “What part?” I asked.

  “Is she a sinner or a saint, Declan? Does she have a good soul or has she already been twisted and bent to the darkness that you would try to protect her from?” Her eyes narrowed. “For that matter, what about your own soul? Are you as good as you seem to be or are you given to darkness as well?”

  “No one is one hundred percent one way or the other.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re not human, “ I said. “You just adopt that guise to make yourself appear more palatable than you really are.”

  “You’re so certain of that?” Isella wavered in my vision almost as she had back in the chamber at Diablo. “Perhaps you only think you know what I am. Maybe I am so much more. Or so much less.”

  “You
’re evil incarnate,” I said. “Your form doesn’t really matter to me. Or to anyone else. It’s what you do in those forms that matters.”

  Isella sighed. “I was once like you, Declan.”

  “A man?”

  “Naive,” she said. “I was so convinced of my place in the universe. I knew what I wanted, what I was supposed to want, and the things that I was supposed to do. I let myself be molded into something that I knew I truly wasn’t. But since it was the expectation, I went along with it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I finally got tired of being someone I wasn’t.” She shrugged. “So, I stopped.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Just like that.” Isella smiled and spread her arms. “And I became ever so much happier. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Coming from someone like me. Evil Incarnate, as you said. And yet, my happiness is pure. Can you dispute that fact?”

  “You being happy?” I shrugged. “Probably not. But you derive your happiness from the suffering of others. That still makes you evil.”

  “Perhaps I derive it from simply being true to who I am. Perhaps that is its own reward in the scheme of the cosmos. When I stopped pretending and started being true to myself, everything fell into place and I was able to see the destiny that I was truly born to follow.”

  “And what destiny was that?”

  “To rule this world. And all other worlds.”

  I shifted my staff slightly. “That’s an awful lot of worlds to conquer then, isn’t it?”

  “I have an eternity to do so,” said Isella. “Provided I can finally close the chapter on this one.”

  “Let me guess: I’m still standing in your way.”

  “You could say that,” said Isella. “I don’t anticipate it’s going to be an issue for much longer, though.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  Isella smiled at me. “I like you a lot, Declan. And we could do incredible things together. I wouldn’t dream of trying to persuade you, however. If nothing else, my time on this planet has gifted me with the ability to know who I can turn to darkness and who I cannot. You, tragically, represent the latter. And because of that, you have to die.”