The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “It won’t be long before somebody comes for me.”

  “Am I facing the wrath of the council, Jakob? Forgive me if I’m not shaking in my boots.”

  Jakob turned to look at him. “You’ve not properly thought this through.”

  “Au contraire. I’ve thought it through quite well. It’s quite simple: I hold your friends here until their friend comes and gives me what I need.”

  “You have no idea how long that will take.”

  “And who will come for you in the meantime? Malik? He can barely hold the council together, let alone mount an attack.”

  “Sasha will come.”

  “By herself? How very effective that will no doubt prove.”

  Jakob frowned. “Even if you are able to hold me here, when Two comes she will bring Naomi and Stephen.”

  Aros slapped his hands to his cheeks in mock surprise. “A single warrior and an Ashayt politician?! However will we defeat them?”

  Jakob said nothing, and Aros grinned at him.

  “You see? There is no one. Abraham’s death has left the country empty and weak. You are perhaps the most dangerous vampire in the United States at the moment, other than myself of course, and I already have you here.”

  “You consider yourself more dangerous than I am?”

  “I do have four hundred years on you.”

  “Four hundred years with swill in your veins.”

  Aros’s lip curled, but he maintained his composure. “That was impolite. Must I remind you, Jakob, that you live only because I’ve had no particular reason to kill you? It’s the humans I need.”

  “If you’re expecting me to cower or beg for my life, you’re in for a long wait.”

  “That remains to be seen. For now, I am content. You are correct: the blood in my veins is not of the same quality that yours is. That will soon change.”

  “Yes … I believe this is where your plans move from ill-conceived to outright madness.”

  “It’s a simple matter of vision, and you lack any.”

  “You truly believe the things that you claim Abraham promised you?”

  “I do. We had an arrangement, and I delivered my part of it. That he managed to get himself killed by some human whore is not my fault. He owed me blood. I want it.”

  “Abraham is dead. His son is dead. His son’s daughter is a human with only the slightest trace of Eresh in her blood. By the time she returns, she may well be an Ashayt fledgling. Even if Abraham wasn’t lying to you, and he almost assuredly was, you can’t really believe that her blood can do anything for you.”

  “You don’t understand the research Abraham has done on our blood, and on his own most particularly. You have no idea what strength still lies dormant in the human girl’s blood. I have known for many decades now that Abraham’s research held the key to ending the misery of the Burilgi.”

  “And when you left the council, you struck a deal with him. Build him an army, and he would make you an Eresh.”

  “Not an Eresh. Something else.”

  “Indeed. And now you have an army, but no blood.”

  “Yes.”

  “What, pray tell, are you going to do with all of these poor creatures you’ve tricked into following you? What will happen when you fail to lead them to the promised land?”

  “There is no trick. That is what you fail to understand. They will be delivered. We will all be delivered. The Ay’Araf, the Ashayt, the Eresh … they will be wiped out.”

  “You plan to wage war against the other races?”

  Aros again flashed his disquieting grin. “Why make war when all I need is the blood from a single girl?”

  * * *

  “I’d like to know what you meant, before.”

  Sarah was sitting on the couch, where she had spent most of the past two days. Rhes had been more active, taking advantage of the compound’s indoor pool and weight room, but Sarah had not been able to find the motivation. At this moment, her husband was taking an after-dinner walk around the grounds, enjoying the unexpectedly warm weather for December.

  “What I meant about what?” Aros asked.

  He had arrived unannounced at the house just after Rhes had left, and Sarah doubted this timing was a coincidence. He had rung the bell and waited outside, apparently not minding that it took her a couple of minutes to make her way through the unfamiliar surroundings and open the door. Sarah had asked him why he hadn’t simply entered. After all, it was his base.

  “It would be impolite,” Aros had said as he stepped through the door.

  “So is abducting people,” Sarah had pointed out.

  “Sometimes it is necessary to be impolite. This isn’t one of those times.”

  “Why are you here, Mr. Kreskas?”

  “I thought I would stop by, check in on the two of you, see how you’re getting along.”

  “Rhes isn’t here.”

  “Perhaps we could talk, then? I was hoping to find out a bit more about you.”

  Sarah had agreed to speak with him. Why not? It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do, and though she had tried, she had not been able to dismiss his comment about her eyes from her thoughts. Now, after some small talk, she had worked up the courage to ask, and he was toying with her.

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “Your eyes.” There was a smile in Aros’s voice.

  “Yes, my eyes. Tell me what you meant.”

  “I don’t imagine you enjoy being blind.”

  “No, I don’t. Can you fix me?”

  “That is an interesting question. I have seen many remarkable things in my time. Some have even seemed miraculous. I have seen the blind restored to sight more than once.”

  “In humans?”

  “No, Sarah. Vampire blood – and there’s no sense pretending that’s not what we’re discussing – can perform small feats of healing in human beings, but it is not going to fix your eyesight.”

  “Well … shit.”

  “In order to truly take hold of the body and begin to restore complex functionality, the blood needs complete control. You would need to embrace the gift of vampirism.”

  “Not interested,” Sarah told him.

  “Ah. A shame, though, spending your life in darkness.”

  “Science has come a long way in twenty years,” Sarah said.

  “Indeed it has.”

  “Maybe in another twenty, they’ll be able to give me my eyes back.”

  “Anything is possible, I suppose,” Aros replied. His voice was serene, but Sarah thought she could hear an unpleasant undertone to it. She had the sense that Aros was mocking her, and enjoying it.

  “Rhes … he thinks you’re just saying this stuff to, you know, fuck with me.”

  “Rhes is paranoid, and his impression of me has been stained by talking with Jakob. He says he doesn’t care about vampire politics, but the influence is clear.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

  Aros chuckled. “I’ve not lied to either of you since you’ve arrived, nor have I made any attempt to ‘fuck with’ you.”

  This was true, at least as far as Sarah could tell, but she didn’t want to discuss it any further.

  “Let’s change the subject, huh?” she said.

  “Whatever you’d prefer,” Aros said.

  “Well, you’re the one who showed up at our door …”

  “I was merely curious about how you and Rhes were finding it here.”

  “It’s fine. Comfortable. We’d like to go home … we’re worried about our daughter.”

  “My sources tell me that she’s been taken in by Jakob’s fledgling, Sasha.”

  Sarah didn’t respond to this, but Aros must have read something of her shock and dismay on her face.

  “Not fond of that idea? Can’t say I blame you.”

  Sarah sighed, shrugged, said, “Not much I can do about it now.”

  “That is true.”

  “Do you have any idea how long we’re go
ing to be kept here?”

  “I have some idea, yes. Your friend is no longer in London, and no one seems quite sure where it is that she’s gone, but Jakob himself informed me that he has heard from one of her escorts, and that they will be back in the United States ‘soon.’ I have no doubt that your friend will come for you, when she hears that you’ve been taken.”

  “When you have her, what are you going to do with her?”

  “Vampire things,” Aros said, and made a little giggling noise that Sarah didn’t like at all. When he made no further elaboration, she debated pushing him and decided against it.

  “OK. I was just curious. We have lives to get back to. If Rhes hadn’t taken a bunch of vacation time this month, you’d probably be costing him his job.”

  “I am aware that this is inconvenient. Unfortunately, it is also essential. I assure you, all of your worries will soon be over.”

  Not liking the sound of that, Sarah chose to say nothing. After a moment, Aros continued.

  “I will go now, Sarah. Do not feel the need to escort me out.”

  “OK. I … well, thank you for telling me about Molly.”

  “Certainly. I am sure we will speak again. Perhaps you can think some more about my offer.”

  “We’ll see.”

  She heard Aros stand up and say, “Goodbye for now.”

  “Bye.”

  She heard him cross the room and exit through the front door. His footsteps on the concrete sidewalk dwindled away. Sarah sat back on the couch, took off her glasses, and put her hands over her broken eyes.

  * * *

  In her dreams, Sarah could see.

  The world of her dreams was oversaturated, radiant with light and color, and Sarah found herself moving wildly, trying to take it all in at once. She would weep at the beauty of it all, spinning in circles, arms outstretched, laughing and crying all at once.

  Rhes would be there, and she would run to him, and he would kiss the tears from her cheeks, and smile at her, and look into her eyes. They would stay like that, communicating without speech, talking with their eyes, until at last the dream would begin to fade.

  Usually, she woke from these dreams filled with melancholy, wondering if her mental image of what Rhes looked like was even correct. Did she have it right, or had her brain turned him into something he wasn’t? Sarah hadn’t seen anything but darkness in twenty years. She only knew what her fingers had told her about Rhes’s face.

  This time, though, when he appeared before her, she felt no joy. With every step he took, a curtain of darkness descended further and further upon her. Sarah cried out to him to stop, to wait, but he didn’t seem to understand her words, and by the time he had reached her there was only an unending black, darker even than an empty ocean in the dead of night.

  Sarah woke, weeping in the dark. She tried to stop herself but felt overwhelmed, unable to gain control. Here she was, lying in this strange bed, trapped in this strange house, captive of a creature she could never truly understand. Now he was taunting her even in her dreams. Aros held the key to that which she had wanted most for twenty years and was dangling it now just out of her reach. It wasn’t fair.

  Rhes stirred beside her but did not wake. Sarah stared upwards with her sightless eyes and wept.

  I don’t even know what he looks like, she thought, and sobbed again. I only know his eyes are brown because he told me. I only know his hair is black because he told me. How can he stand that?

  Rhes moved again beside her, twisting onto his side, and said, “Hon?”

  Sarah rolled onto her side as well, turning away from him. “Don’t,” she said through her tears.

  “Don’t what?” Rhes asked, his voice groggy and perplexed.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t look back!” Sarah cried. She covered her face with her hands.

  She could hear Rhes sitting up. God damn her ears and how they had adapted to her lack of sight. God damn her sense of smell, and touch, and taste for doing the same. God damn everything about her blindness.

  Rhes touched her shoulder and said, “It’s never bothered me that you can’t look back. I’m sorry it hurts you so much.”

  “Oh, Rhes, I just want to see you,” Sarah said. “I just … I dream that I can see you. I dream about it all the time.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Rhes said.

  “I never wanted to tell you,” Sarah replied. She shifted to her back, sniffling. “I don’t like you to think about me being blind. It scares me.”

  Rhes ran his fingers through her hair. “Scares you?”

  “I’m fucking defective. I’m broken. I’m afraid you’ll realize that and won’t want to be with me anymore.”

  She felt the pad of his thumb smooth tears away from first one cheek, and then the other.

  “I’m with you because I’m in love with you. Baby, I don’t give a shit if you can see or not. When we’re living our normal lives and things aren’t crazy like this, I don’t even think about it anymore.”

  “I don’t want you to stop loving me.”

  “There is no way that’s going to happen.”

  Sarah managed some semblance of a smile at this. Rhes slid back down next to her and put an arm around her waist. She curled up against him.

  “This is because of Aros, right? You talked to him again.”

  “I had to. He came by and I … I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry, but he’s lying to you.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think so, baby. Not about that. He really can fix my eyes, or at least he believes it.”

  “I guess.”

  “I told him no. I told him I wasn’t interested.”

  “Good,” Rhes said. He paused for a moment, long enough that Sarah thought he might be falling back asleep, before continuing. “Sarah … did you tell him that for you? Or for me?”

  Sarah considered this and couldn’t locate the answer. Finally, she gave Rhes the truth.

  “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  Jakob showed up at their door the next night, escorted by four of Aros’s guards. The guards left Jakob at the front door, saying they had been told to surround the house. One of them advised Jakob that if he wasn’t back out in thirty minutes, they would come in after him.

  “Glad to know you’re not dead,” Rhes said once they’d taken a seat in the living room.

  Jakob nodded. “I think Aros enjoys lording his control over me. At any rate, he has no reason to kill me yet, or either of you.”

  “Why would he kill us?” Rhes asked.

  “Once he has your friend, you are expendable. He might let you go, or he might murder you both. I am quite sure he’ll have me killed.”

  “You seem … pretty calm about that,” Sarah said.

  “I will go out fighting,” Jakob replied. “In the end, that’s my primary concern. He’s going to have to use up more of his Burilgi on me than he thinks.”

  “What the hell does he even want with Two, anyway?” Rhes asked. “He mentioned something about her blood.”

  “He believes he can use her blood to somehow change himself into some new type of vampire.”

  “Can he?” Sarah asked.

  “I highly doubt it.”

  Rhes rolled his eyes. “Awesome … so what’s the point?”

  “Aros has been a vampire for seven hundred years. That’s exceptional for a Burilgi, and as far as I’m aware, he’s the oldest living member of the race. Most of them die much earlier, usually within their first century or so. Aros has spent all of that time in envy of the other vampires around them, jealous of their blood. It’s driven him more than a little mad, I fear.”

  “You can hear that in the way he laughs,” Rhes said.

  Jakob nodded. “Yes, and you can see it in his eyes at times.”

  Sarah bit her lower lip, thinking, and said, “So if he gets Two and takes her blood, that will k
ill her?”

  “Draining someone’s blood typically has that effect,” Jakob said.

  “I didn’t know how much he needed,” Sarah said, her voice dry. “Why would he kill us, if he gets what he wants?”

  “As I said, I’ve no idea if that’s what he’ll do. In my case, it would be a test of whatever newfound power it is he thinks he’s going to acquire. Or, if it turns out that I’m right and all he ends up with is a dead girl and nothing to show for it, then he’ll probably just kill me out of spite.”

  “Jakob …” Sarah began, and then stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “I … I spoke with … you know what? Never mind. Forget it.”

  Jakob raised an eyebrow and glanced at Rhes, who sighed.

  “Tell him, hon.”

  “Aros told me he could cure my blindness,” Sarah said. “Can he?”

  Jakob considered this for a moment and said, “It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

  Sarah leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her crossed legs. “You’re sure?”

  “Vampire blood works to perfect the host,” Jakob explained. “It’s a slow process, and the final result depends on the blood. If Aros were an Eresh, he could guarantee it. The blood would go to work, repairing your eyes. You might begin to see again within a few weeks.”

  “That fast?” Sarah asked, and Rhes frowned a bit at the breathless quality of her voice.

  “Aros is not an Eresh,” Jakob reminded her.

  “Yeah, but still …”

  “Indeed. He is a Burilgi. That means there is a chance your sight will return. A relatively good chance, actually; even Burilgi blood is not always without its benefits. There’s the strength increase, for example.”

  “Familiar with that one,” Rhes commented.

  “You must understand the risks, though,” Jakob continued. “With another type of blood, you would be almost assured of regaining your sight. With Burilgi blood … Who knows? It could just as well leave you blind and curse you with deformities.”

  Sarah bit her lip, saying nothing.

  “Sarah … hon—” Rhes began.

  “I don’t need a lecture!”

  “Wasn’t planning on giving one,” Rhes muttered, frowning. Jakob glanced at him, and then back at Sarah.