But perhaps I was being insensitive. I owed her the respect to hear her out. To acknowledge her concerns. After all, I hadn’t been this way long, and I didn’t intend to remain like this forever.
Not once I caught Alice…
Was singing at the club selfish? Was I thinking about myself without recognizing how I might be complicating the lives of people like Donnie? People who would have to go on living in this form of existence even after I was gone?
Doing the right thing isn’t as black and white as people make it out to be.
Take it from someone who used to eat people.
4
I CLIMBED THROUGH the window of the warehouse, the Edge of Hell. I’d managed to shimmy the window open before, and so long as I left it unlocked I could come and go pretty much as I pleased.
There was no way to be free.
Not like this. Not in this world.
We had to be careful not to reinforce stereotypes. But why should I have to turn down opportunities because of other people’s ignorance?
What people don’t realize is that if you’re a part of this community, sometimes the hardest part isn’t the explicit hate. It’s not the people who reject you for what you are, for who you are.
I’ve accepted that a lot of humans are closed-minded. They’re fearful creatures who tend to despise what they don’t understand. It’s not a shock when someone laughs when they walk past me going down the street. I’m used to that. It sucks—but it’s something you regrettably get used to.
What’s harder than all of that is the little ways you have to adjust your life, the sacrifices you have to make “for the sake of the cause.” It’s the systemic oppression, the little ways that biases—conscious and unconscious—force us to live our lives in ways we shouldn’t have to.
It’s about not being able to find a place to sing, and not being able to sing in the one place that would have me because doing so could potentially reinforce other people’s unfair stereotypes.
It’s about others in the community not being able to compete in sports. After all, if you were assigned “male” at birth, it’s presumed you have athletic advantages over female competitors. But trans women can’t compete with women without both denying their true selves or being accused of using hormone therapies to unfairly improve performance.
I’m not saying there aren’t concerns on both sides of the issue. But the way much of society would have it, and as many politicians would argue, there just isn’t a place in the world for trans athletes.
I resonated with that struggle as a singer, albeit for different reasons. There just wasn’t a place for me, no matter how talented I was, how much better a singer I might be than others who had their choice of gigs.
I’m not sure there’s any one person to blame. It’s the whole system—a society with gendered institutions, gendered activities, and gendered roles. It is what it is.
I didn’t ask for this.
No one did.
Surgeries weren’t an option for me. Can you imagine how doctors would respond when they cut into me and water poured out on the floor? And I couldn’t just cut it off. I’d drain out before I could stitch myself shut.
Eventually, even if I drained out, I’d come back with all my “wounds” restored, and anything I happened to have chopped off would be back as it was. Trust me, I tried it once before.
Doesn’t take a big wound for me to drain. Even a small paper cut will do it if left unattended. But once I’d drain out, my corpse would absorb water and I’d be back again. Throw me in a river and it would happen faster. Bury me or leave me out in the open and I’d absorb moisture from the soil or the air. In the Midwest, with so much rain and humidity, it wouldn’t take as long as you’d think before I’d be back again.
I only had one option.
I had to kill Alice.
I had to get my abilities back.
I had to return to my old life.
Maybe Donnie was right—maybe I wouldn’t find happiness that way. I hadn’t for centuries. But at least I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this…
Did you know that the suicide rate for trans persons is ten times the rate of the general human population? It’s worse if you’re trans and an ethnic minority—their rate is more than thirty times higher than average. Some studies suggest that upwards of fifty percent of all trans persons have attempted or will attempt suicide.
Too many people turn a blind eye to the problem.
It’s about escape…
Escape from this conflicted existence.
Escape from a world where we just don’t fit.
Escape from all the bullshit, the sacrifices we make that we shouldn’t have to make just to be ourselves…
I couldn’t transition. Suicide wasn’t an option. I’d eventually come back from that just as I was.
But I could escape.
I could recover my abilities.
And Wolfgang, the former nightwalker I had chained up, had offered me a shot.
Maybe he’d betray me.
So what if he did? What’s the worst that would happen? Maybe he’d kill me. I’d get over it.
Sure, the place had a security system, but it wasn’t all that sophisticated. And I didn’t need free reign over the place. The part of the building I used wasn’t accessible from the rest of the haunted-house attraction.
Still, I appreciated the poetry of it all…
I was, in a very literal way, taking my vampire hostages to the edge of hell itself.
I held a wooden stake as I climbed through the window.
I hoped I wouldn’t need it. But if push came to shove, at least this time I wouldn’t get blood on my Jimmy Choos.
Yes, I’d changed. My Louboutins were back at the apartment. These Jimmy Choo stiletto boots were my favorites. Not the most comfortable pair I had, but when I wore them, I defined glamorous.
I pulled out my phone from my pocket, turned on the light, and shone it around the hall as I went to the room where I had Wolfgang bound. I directed my phone’s light to where I’d had him chained.
The chair was empty.
The chains, still with garlic cloves pushed through the links, lay on the ground.
“Shit,” I said out loud.
Wolfgang was the best lead I’d had since New Orleans. I mean, he didn’t have any hard evidence on Alice’s location. Not from what he’d told me. But he knew her habits. Her tendencies. Her behaviors. Short of any specific information on her whereabouts, his knowledge was the next best thing.
Vampires tend to be creatures of habit. The older they are, the truer it is.
I could relate to that, I suppose. As an elemental, I didn’t often do anything new. Float around in the waters in relative bliss. Wait until my essence demanded sustenance. Focus on a human target, connect to their mind, take the form they desire the most.
And the rest, well… I’d say it was history. But it was just dinner.
Then it was back to the waters, more floating… like a dream, without many cares or concerns. Lonely, perhaps, but at least as an elemental I didn’t have to worry about fitting in or meeting other people’s expectations.
I suppose a vampire’s existence was a bit more complicated than that. But they still tended to get in a rut. They had feeding habits, ways of securing prey and feeding that they tended to repeat. They had their regular hunting grounds, usually a series of spots they’d frequent. The older the vampire, the less regularly they’d appear in any single location.
Older vamps didn’t have to feed as often. It might be decades before a vampire returned to the same place to feed. But chances were, if a vampire was found in a particular place or in a general part of town, unless they were a youngling they’d been there before.
I sighed. Even with Wolfgang’s help, catching Alice was going to be hard.
I was about to turn around and go home. Then someone cleared their throat. I turned around.
Wolfgang stood there, leaning against a support
pillar.
I lifted my stake and was about to charge when the vampire raised his hand.
“Now just hold on.” Wolfgang had the sort of calm in his voice that only centuries of surviving precarious predicaments could warrant. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”
“Go ahead and try taking me down, vamp.” I widened my stance. Since vamps move fast, I needed to brace myself in case he charged my position. I’d have to act fast to ensure that my stake hit its mark.
Wolfgang laughed. “I’m not going to fight you, Nyx.”
I raised my eyebrow. Not a lot of folks called me that. Only those who knew me as a vampire hunter—supernaturals, witches, and vampires, folks like that who were a part of my late-night life. In my regular nightlife, and during the day, I was Nicky. “How do you know that name?”
The vampire shrugged. “You’ve become something of a boon to the Order, Nyx. Anyone involved in the business of hunting vampires knows of the elusive Nyx—mysterious, unidentified, efficient. You’re doing a lot of the work that we used to do.”
“I thought you weren’t a part of the Order anymore… I mean, you were hunting, you were feeding…”
Wolfgang huffed. “The Order used to send us to places like that to feed on sinners. We are to be their judgment. It’s how the nightwalkers are sustained.”
“So you’re a part of the Order, still?”
“Of course not.” Wolfgang shook his head. “After the incident with Alice, the nightwalkers were disbanded. Most of us were staked, our hearts burned. But as the oldest remaining nightwalker, they couldn’t capture me so easily.”
“Doesn’t explain why you’re still targeting my community.”
Wolfgang shrugged. “I was a part of the Order for so long that old habits die hard. After a while, we acquire a particular taste. The conflict, the emotional turmoil in your community, there’s something delectable about it. It pleases my palette.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said, diverting my eyes downward.
“At least I only drink blood,” Wolfgang said. “You used to eat humans whole. Do you mean to tell me you’ve come to empathize with them, the creatures you used to hunt?”
I sighed. “I suppose I have, to a point. Some of them, anyway. The people in my community.”
“Your community?” Wolfgang asked. “Tell me, Nyx, how many in your community would support your desire to become a flesh-eating water monster again?”
“They support my desire to be free. We all support our efforts to be our true selves.”
“But I doubt they’d agree with the alternative, with choosing to return to what you once were.”
I sighed. “Probably not.”
“You see, Nyx,” Wolfgang said, “you and I are more alike than we are different. We are both… conflicted. I have a history with the Order, a moral compass that tells me the monster I am is an abomination. But I’ve also known what it is to fight for a system, an organization, that hates me for what I am.”
“So the Order is hunting you now, too?”
Wolfgang shook his head. “I wasn’t telling the whole truth when I said I have a taste for your community. Don’t get me wrong, I do. But limiting the communities from whom I feed to those approved by the Order, it’s a part of our agreement.”
“So you’re no longer a part of the Order, but you have an agreement with them?”
“The Order isn’t as strong as it used to be,” Wolfgang explained. “The original chapter in Rhode Island was… decimated. It’s a long story, and not relevant to our discussion. But there are lesser chapters around the country, including one here in Kansas City. And they haven’t given up on eliminating Alice.”
“And they want your help to do it,” I said. “To eliminate another nightwalker.”
“Former nightwalker,” Wolfgang said. “And in exchange, they’ve agreed to leave me be.”
I snorted. “So, you’re turning on your own kind to get the Order off your back?”
“You could say that.”
“Seems cowardly.”
“I’m a survivor.” Wolfgang folded his hands in front of his waist. “As a vampire, you have to be a survivor first. We do what we have to do to ensure our ongoing existence. Call it cowardly if you must, but I’d rather be alive as a coward than courageous and dead.”
I chuckled. I supposed that most people, while they’d never admit it, felt the same. I mean, sure people who die on account of their bravery are celebrated in human culture. Not sure how vampires feel about it, but vampires used to be human, and in my experience they share a lot more in common with the species they feed upon than most vamps would care to admit. But given the choice, most people—hell, most creatures of any species—would gladly be perceived as cowards if it meant they could stay alive rather than be honored post-mortem for bravery.
The cowardice versus bravery dichotomy is only one way to look at it.
Smart versus dumb is an alternate, arguably more accurate, way to characterize the choice.
I mean, how smart is it to die, especially when you won’t be around to bask in the glory of your own courageous sacrifice?
I didn’t agree with Wolfgang’s motives. I loathed that he was complicit with the bigoted Order of the Morning Dawn. But he and I not only shared an interest in seeing Alice eliminated—we had a common mission.
“I suppose,” I said, “you’re proposing we work together?”
Wolfgang smiled and looked me up and down. “Do you have any other options, honey?”
My stomach turned. Was he flirting with me? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time someone I found creepy had hit on me. It was the first time, though, a vampire seemed to be undressing me with his eyes.
All in all, Wolfgang wasn’t an unattractive man. He had a well-toned physique. His hair was dark, parted down the middle, and falling to his shoulders. He looked as though he was probably in his middle-twenties when he was turned. He was dark and broody. If it wasn’t for his red eyes and the fact that he was a vampire, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find him attractive.
I mean, I don’t find a lot of humans attractive. And vampires, while possibly more alluring than most humans—which, like me, is a way they attract their prey—tended to be attractive in ways that humans would normally find attractive.
Not like me.
Before I’d lost my abilities I was customizable, my attractiveness catered to each of my victims.
Usually when I looked at humans, I was attracted to them in the same way a person might be attracted to a perfectly cooked steak. But the more I’d been human, or at least human-like in appearance, the more I came to appreciate their beauty.
“I’ll consider it,” I said.
“What is there to consider?” Wolfgang asked. “We both want the same thing.”
“We have the same goal,” I said. “That doesn’t mean that we want the same things. We have different reasons for why we’re hunting Alice.”
“Does it matter?” Wolfgang asked. “If we catch her, I don’t care what you do with her so long as she ends up dead.”
I bit my lip. “Like I said, I’ll think about it. Meet me back here tomorrow night and I’ll give you my decision.”
“Very well, Nyx.”
“In the meantime,” I said, holding my stake in front of my face, “stay away from my people.”
“Agreed,” Wolfgang said with a slight nod.
“And one more question,” I said just as I was about to leave.
“Yes?”
“You said the Order knows my name. But to them, my identity is a mystery. They don’t really know who I am.”
“I did.” Wolfgang grinned slightly.
“Then how did you know who I was? How did you find me?”
Wolfgang’s smile widened. “I have my… abilities. My skills. I’ll simply say this much: when there’s information I require, it doesn’t take me long to attain it.”
5
IT WASN’T THE opportunity that bother
ed me. It was the reason. I mean, why did Wolfgang even think he needed me? If he had all the information and I’d been basically spinning my wheels for months trying to find Alice without much headway, I was concerned why, since he’d managed to escape my chains, he wouldn’t just go after Alice on his own.
Perhaps he was afraid of her.
Alice was a badass vamp—especially now that she had my ability and could shapeshift at will. She had access to celestial magic, a sort of witchcraft the Order of the Morning Dawn erroneously claimed they’d gotten from angels. Even with Mercy Brown—one of the most badass vamps I’d ever encountered—by my side, Alice had come close to killing both of us.
The whole idea of us catching her was secondary.
Sure, that’s what I’d set out to do when I left New Orleans. But I wasn’t pursuing Alice because I was confident that if I caught her I’d be able to beat her. I’d been hunting her because I had no other choice—she’d taken something of mine and, damnit, I wanted it back.
Was Wolfgang hoping to partner up with me because he figured two of us had a better chance against Alice than either of us did alone?
It wasn’t unreasonable.
I’d garnered a reputation. I was every vampire’s worst nightmare. Wolfgang knew my name—“Nyx”—not because I’d told him or because he knew the story from Alice’s perspective. He knew who I was because I’d staked so many vamps in the last year that half of Kansas City’s vampire population had left town.
I hadn’t staked all of them. I’d only taken out a couple dozen, give or take. But those who left did so because they knew it was a matter of time before I found them.
I could smell them.
And I was really damn good at killing them.
It was getting bad enough, in fact, that before encountering Wolfgang, I’d thought about leaving town myself. I needed more vamps. More vamps meant more who might know where Alice was.
I’d probably put off moving longer than I should have, mostly because I had a community here. There were people here—both in the trans community, and the queens at the club—who had my back. They had Nicky’s back, anyway.
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 95
