by Andrew Dudek
Nate crouched over a pile of dead vampires, like a lion defending his kill. Every time he added another to the stack, every time he turned a vampire back, two more closed on him. One was creeping up behind him when I buried my ax in the gray skin of the vampire’s head.
The thunk drew Nate’s attention. His eyes flitted my way for a fraction of a second, and then he was back to business. “Dave, get out of here,” he said.
“What?” I chopped a vampire in half. “I’m not leaving you guys!”
“‘Guys?’” Nate laughed. “Dave, there’s nobody here but me and you.”
For the first time I noticed that the bodies around Nate’s feet weren’t all vampires. There was Gianni, and Maureen, and Pablo. I felt sick.
“They must have sent a thrall or a ghoul to follow us back from 165th Street,” Nate said. His machete never stopped moving, even as he talked. “They figured out where we were.”
I tried for a bravado-laden grin, but I couldn’t manage more than a leer. The switchblade went through a vampire’s eye, and he stumbled backwards. “We can take ‘em!”
I could hear the sad smile in Nate’s voice. “No, we can’t. But you can get out of here. Take the tunnels to the next station, go to the surface, and disappear. Go to Squirrel. I’m sure he’ll let you stay there, like Maria. You can live, Dave.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Nate grunted with effort, exhaustion, and pain. “You know, I was never sure if this was the right thing to do. Now I know it wasn’t. I got everyone else killed, Dave, and I’m sorry for that. We lost the war, but you don’t have to die. I’m giving you one last order: Get out of here.”
Two vampires rushed me at the same time, giving me a moment to pause the conversation. I killed them easily enough with a pair of quick ax-strokes.
For a moment the vampires hung back, as if they were wary of another charge. The mass of pounding, shoving, shouting bodies reminded me of a mosh pit.
I didn’t want to leave Nate. We were a Family, after all, and that meant we didn’t abandon each other. Still, the truth was there wasn’t much of a Family left. What good would it do for me to stay here and let myself get slaughtered?
My eyes were so wide it was painful when I looked at Nate.
There were tears in his eyes, but he smiled. “Go,” he said.
I went.
Turning around, I began the process of fighting my way through the relatively thin line of vampires in the back of the circle. I killed a few of them, and the line broke, getting out of my way. When I was clear, I broke into a run and headed down the subway tunnel.
Chapter 15: The Beginning
I left.
The sounds of the battle faded away into silence, until the sounds of my own heavy footfalls reminded me that I was a coward.
Thump. You were so wrapped up in your own grief that you didn’t even wake up till the battle was almost over. Thump. They needed you, and you let them down. Thump. You don’t deserve to call yourself a member of the Family. Thump. You might as well have killed them yourself.
I left Nate there to die.
Something back there howled, a sound halfway between a dog and a cougar, and the monstrous cry echoed down the subway tunnel. A sound of triumph. So that was it, then. Nate was dead. He was as dead as the rest of the Family, as dead as my mother, and I was alone.
I took the first ladder I found. Maybe it would have been better to stay underground for a while longer so I could get some distance before coming up, but I was feeling claustrophobic and I knew that if I stayed underground a second longer I’d lose my mind. I climbed the ladder and emerged across a street from an old bodega.
Like nearly everything else in the neighborhood, it was abandoned, boarded-up, and empty to the world. I broke the boards in the front windows with my ax and crawled inside, then crept to the back of the store and exited into an alley. I ran, through back alleys and across streets, doing my best to go through every garbage can and Dumpster I passed, covering myself with the foul stench of trash. Vampires can track by smell, and I wanted to hide my scent.
I’d been running for a while—I honestly don’t remember how long or far I went—when I finally collapsed in an alley with my back against a cracked brick wall. A wave of self-revulsion, so powerful it was like nausea, washed over me, breaking at chest-height like a storm surge. I put my face in my hands and sobbed. I should have been dead, I knew, right there with the Family. I didn’t deserve to live when the rest had died.
I was a coward.
That was something I’d never known about myself. I knew about fear, sure, but I didn’t realize that there was something inside me so abhorred by the possibility of death that I’d abandon my friends.
For the first time in years I thought about my father. He left when I was two—I had no memories of him. My mom took all of the pictures down and insisted that I didn’t need to know anything about him. As I grew up, of course, I asked questions, but Mom would never tell me. Really, she played the role of both parents, and I’d never realized how grateful I should have been. I’d always told myself that I’d never commit the same sins as my father—that I’d never walk away from a responsibility or betray the people who depended on me. But I had, hadn’t I? When the going got tough, I got gone. Just like my father. Just like a coward.
I’d vomited at some point, gotten it all over my shoes, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything except for not becoming my father.
I stood up. It was too late to help the Family—but that didn’t relieve me of my duties. All I had to do—all I could do—was fulfill my last obligation. I could avenge them.
First thing: I’d need to talk to Squirrel.
Maria stood up when I entered the shop. She was in a little cubicle behind a half-wall. Her hair was shorter than it had been when she lived with us, her arms were covered with new tattoos, and she looked like she was actually wearing makeup.
“Dave?” she said, a crack in her voice. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “Where is he, Maria? Where’s Squirrel?”
Her eyes flicked momentarily to the front of the shop. I became abruptly aware of two things: one, I was still holding a blood-stained ax, and two, there was a burly biker dude sitting on a couch and holding a dogeared titty magazine. He was gaping at me from behind a rat’s nest beard like he’d never seen something like me before.
I ignored him. “I asked you a question, Maria: Where is he?”
Something in my tone, I guess, shook her, because she frowned, swallowed hard, and said, “I’ll go get him.”
I looked at the biker. “ ‘Sup? Here to get inked?”
He nodded. “Nice ax.”
“Thanks.”
Maria emerged from a back room, leading Squirrel. The big man’s eyes were bleary and his hair was a mess. He looked tired. He looked guilty.
I pointed the flat top of the ax in his direction. “We need to talk.” I frog-marched him back the way he’d come, into his studio. Behind me I heard Maria apologizing to the biker and telling him they’d need to reschedule his appointment.
Squirrel’s studio was small and cramped. There were a couple of chairs, upholstered with old vinyl, and a large workbench like the kind you’d see in a garage. On the desk were Squirrel’s tattoo machines and ink caps. On one of the chairs was a half-finished sketch of a skeleton riding a motorcycle.
Maria followed us into the cramped studio and slammed the door. “What the hell is this, Dave? Is something wrong with the Family? Is everyone all right?”
“They’re all dead,” I said, aware of how high-pitched and emotional my voice sounded. “All of them.”
“My god.”
I looked over my shoulder. Maria had her hand clasped to her mouth. There were tears in her eyes.
“All of them?”
“Yeah.” I turned back to Squirrel. “Because of a job you sent us on.”
“I never sent anyone anywhere,” Squirrel said. For the first tim
e I noticed how big he was. If he wanted to, he could have folded me in half and used me as a basketball. “You know I was never comfortable with it, but I knew Nate, and I knew he was gonna do it anyway, so I tried to keep you all alive.”
“Nice job,” I sneered.
“Dave.” Maria’s voice was gentle, almost motherly. I wondered how she pulled that off, considering she was only a few years older than me. “Tell us what happened.”
“We hit the place on 165th Street,” I said. “There was nothing there but a ghoul. We killed it, but Nate thinks there must have been another one, and it followed us back to the station. They hit us just after sundown, less than an hour ago. There were more vamps than I’ve ever seen. Must’a been at least fifty of ‘em. Everybody’s dead. Everybody but me.”
I looked at my feet. I could feel their eyes staring at me, but I couldn’t lift my gaze.
“Son,” Squirrel said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but this isn’t my fault.”
“Fool me once,” I said. “That’s what you said when Hector died.”
There was a blow to my left cheek. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it took me by surprise and I needed to blink back tears. Maria’s face was set and angry. She’d slapped me for using Hector’s memory to score a point. I guess I deserved that.
“I got the same intel as Squirrel,” Maria whispered. “I was the one that brought it to you guys, remember? Do you really think that I’d sell you out? Do you think I’d sell Nate out, after what the vampires did to Hector?”
I rubbed my sore cheek and thought. Maria hated vampires as much as anybody else. There was no chance that she’d work with them. So Maria and Squirrel had been fooled…or they’d been enthralled.
The switchblade opened in my hand with a soft pop. The silver glinted under the studio’s electric lights. All six eyes in the room were focused on it.
“Give me your hand, Maria. Please.”
I watched her face for a moment, looking for signs of hesitation. There was confusion, for a moment, but no longer, and she offered me her left hand, palm up.
I cut her with the silver.
According to Nate, vampires controlled their thralls through a kind of magic. And, like most magic, it could be disrupted by pure silver. Supposedly the touch of silver to the blood would be enough to break the connection.
Maria winced as the blade tore a slash in her skin, but that was all. There was no sign of an enchantment breaking.
I nodded. So it was true. We hadn’t been betrayed. The Family had died because the vampires were just smarter than we were.
“Where are they?” I asked. “You must have some intel. Rumors, stories, children’s books for all I care. You have to have an idea where they’re hiding.”
“Hang on.” Squirrel opened a drawer in his desk and took out a large, folded up map of New York. He stood over it for a moment, considering. “Here,” he finally said, pointing. “Washington Avenue, it’s just off 165th. Supposed to be a big old house, like some kind of castle. They could be hiding there. That’s how they knew where you were.”
I nodded. “I know where it is.” Looking at Maria, I said, “You coming?”
She looked away. Her hair was still long enough that it dropped to conceal her eyes. I knew how she felt: afraid to be seen as a coward, but even more afraid to die.
“Never mind,” I said. “Stay here. I guess…I don’t know, I guess the city’s gonna need you guys soon if I…if I don’t make it back.”
I picked up my ax from where I’d propped it near the door. Looking at Squirrel and Maria for a moment, I opened the door to the hallway. Maria refused to meet my eyes. Squirrel looked at me with something like concern.
“Well, guys,” I said. “I guess this it. ‘Bye.”
I ran out of the shop without looking back. I didn’t want them to see my face, so they couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.
God, I was so scared.
Sure enough, the house at the corner of Washington and 165th Street towered over its neighbors like the battlements of some medieval castle. The outer walls were shale gray, making it look like cool, unforgiving stone. Ivy crawled up the sides. Spray paint covered many of the visible surfaces—competing gang tags and other typical urban graffiti. The windows were largely boarded up, shielding, I was sure, the interior of the place from the harsh, vampire-killing rays of the sun.
Day was about to break. The light in the sky was gray, and huge battleship-like clouds massed in the sky. They were so thick that I figured vampires would be able to walk under their cover without pain from the sun, but I knew they wouldn’t venture outside. I’d been at my post, behind a Dumpster, for better than three hours and I’d seen them return.
I counted forty-two.
A curtain in one of the windows on the top floor, at least forty feet in the air, moved, and I squinted at it. Was someone up there watching me? The house was surrounded by an unusually large yard, and it was overgrown with weeds so thick I’d need Sacajawea to cut through. I grimaced and shrugged. Not like it mattered much. There was no way I’d get through it quickly, and the vampires surely knew I’d gotten away. They’d be waiting for me.
This was a suicide mission. I had no illusions. I didn’t expect to survive this battle, or even to win it. No matter what happened, some, maybe a lot, of vampires would still be standing after I was dead. I didn’t care. As long as I took a few undead sons of bitches with me, I’d be okay.
On the long walk from the shop, I’d thought about what Nate would have done. First of all, he wouldn’t have deserted his family. I pushed that thought away and decided that, if Nate had survived in my place, he wouldn’t have rested until he’d killed all of the vampires in that house, or he died trying.
I owed it to him to do no less.
The sun began to break through the clouds, sending beams of light down like messages from the heavens. I swallowed hard. My heart pounded so I could feel it in my temples. The was the day I died.
I’ll see you soon, Nate, I thought. I’ll see you soon, Mom.
I put one foot on the bottom bar of the black wrought-iron gate, and started to climb.
“Dave. You’re David Carver, ain’t ya?”
The voice was distantly familiar, like I’d know it a long time ago. The man’s accent was southern, but faded and not so deep that it was incomprehensible—one of the Carolinas, I figured. Maybe Virginia. It was gruff, like its owner had spent lots of nights with moonshine. The man was unfamiliar to me, but I could tell that I wasn’t unfamiliar to him.
I hopped off the fence and turned, gripping the ax.
The man was dressed all in black: the long coat that he wore over a work shirt and jeans. His skin was tanned and leathery, the skin of a man who’s spent a lot of his life outdoors, under a strong sun. His head was shaven, but his beard was thick and wooly, curling down his cheeks, over his jaw, and around his mouth. He was one of the biggest people I’d ever seen: at least six-six and he must have weighed three hundred pounds. Judging by the way the coat bulged in the arms, shoulders, and chest, I guessed most of that weight was muscle. There were lines in his face that made me think he looked older than he was, but he was probably in his fifties. The expression on his face confirmed that he knew me.
But that wasn’t the weirdest part.
The strangest thing, even by my increasingly bizarre standards, was the fact that, on his left hip, the man wore a freaking sword.
I was far from an expert, but it looked like a samurai sword. Somewhere, in the recesses of my brain, I knew it was called a katana. The hilt was wrapped in black wire and, at the square piece of metal that would have protected the hand, were four red jewels of some kind. The sword gave off…an energy. Not something you could see, or hear, or smell, it was something you felt, like when you stood too close to the speakers at a concert. This didn’t vibrate and sway like music, though—this was constant and steady. The sword at this man’s side was powerful.
“Well, hell, boy,” he said
. “Don’t you look just like your daddy?”
I blinked. “You know my father?”
“Knew him, should say. We went back a long ways.”
The man frowned. Then, like dawn breaking in the sky around us, realization crossed his face. “Right. I forgot. Your mama didn’t want you to know who your daddy was. Or what happened to him, for that matter. ‘Fraid you’d run off and get yourself some revenge and get yourself killed in the process.” He smiled then, a knowing smile. “That ain't what you’re up to, is it? Tryin’ to get yourself killed?”
I shook my head and ran my hand through my hair. “Who are you?”
He slapped himself on his bald head, like he’d forgotten to pick up milk. “Damn! That was rude o’ me, I s’pose. M’name’s Bill Foster, Dave. I was your daddy’s best friend.”
“Well, that’s nice,” I said warily, “but I never knew my father, so I’m not real interested in his friends. He left me when I was a toddler.”
Bill Foster tugged at the end of his beard. He seemed to be puzzling something behind his dark, intelligent eyes. “Kid,” he said slowly, like he wasn’t sure he’d chosen a safe path through the woods, “your daddy didn’t run off on you. He died. He got killed.”
I felt myself slump against the fence. “What?”
“Yep. By a vampire.”
I sat down on the sidewalk. Hard. My ears were ringing and I felt light-headed, but I could still hear Bill Foster’s voice. I couldn’t hear anything else.
“I been lookin’ for you since I heard what happened to your mama, but you’re a tough kid to find. I just came from a pizza joint in Harlem. Guy that owned it told me an interestin’ story ‘bout a guy that was in there a few months back. Also mentioned a coupl’a kids that were there. Described ‘em, too, a black kid and white kid. I said to myself, ‘That white kid sounds like he could be Jesse Carver’s son.’ The pizza man had heard these kids talkin’, and it sounded like they lived in an abandoned subway station in the Bronx. Well, there’s only so many of those lyin’ around, and I got a city municipal worker who owed me a favor to draw me a map. The last few days I been walkin’ around and, just last night, I happened to walk into one of ‘em, and you know what I found?”
