The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  At last it was true. At last she had what Theroen had promised her more than two years ago. Love and safety and time; at last she had the time. Two smiled at her friends. Nodded.

  “All the time in the world,” she said.

  Epilogue

  The wailing, cowering things that kneel before her are not human.

  This is not a trick, not some mental exercise used to prepare herself for the things she is about to do. This is not self-deception, so often essential to the psychological health of those who kill for a living. This is not her living, but her very being, and she needs no such cerebral trickery.

  The things that are huddled in the corner of the room, knowing they are dead but not yet ready to accept it as fact, are not human. Their teeth are sharp and built for piercing. Their internal organs can process only blood. All of them are pale; all are also twisted, their affliction having caused horrible growths, extended ears and fingers, other deformities.

  She waits, not out of sympathy or any desire to prevent what is to come, but only because the order has not yet been given. These creatures’ cries mean nothing to her. In truth, she is unable at this point to equate them to anything human, or even anything alive. They are making the sounds of the dead. She has heard these sounds before, she thinks, though the past comes to her now only in flashes and fragments.

  Memory is difficult. The day begins with meditation and the needle, ends with practice. For many months this practice was held against inanimate targets, machines, or even humans wearing protection. More recently, they have begun to bring her these things that scream, that spray when she stabs or slashes, that thrash and howl and beg when she shoots. Their bodies shake with seizures as they react to the poisons in her darts. In all cases, in the end, they die. This is her purpose, the thing for which she has been made, and she takes righteous and savage pleasure in performing her duties.

  This journey began with death. She knows that, though she can no longer see the faces of those she seeks to avenge. She does not know if she would recognize them, even if shown a picture or video. It doesn’t matter. The past has been driven from her, or buried deep and locked tight. Now there is only her master, and her mission, and the dead.

  Her body trembles. Excitement and rage, joy, a need that is almost like lust. These things wrestle within her, yearning for release, as she waits for the word that will let her unleash the hate within her. She will work until she is empty, a hollow vessel that, by this time the next day, will be full once again.

  The voice of her master comes. “Kill.”

  She leaps forward, and the wails become shrieks of terror. Her body sings with excitement and release. She works with the blades she holds in both hands, though she could just as easily use the guns at her side or the darts strapped to her chest. Each choice has its merits, each has its time.

  Today she wants the blades. They are eighteen inches long and made of carbon steel, honed and cared for with reverence. They are not elegant weapons; there is little aesthetic value to their design. They are brutally effective devices, built to pierce and slash and kill, augmented only with the most rudimentary of hand-guards for catching or deflecting incoming attacks. She is capable of maneuvering the blades deftly, at startling speeds, with either hand.

  The first vampire dies as she brings the right blade up in a long arc that begins just below his gut and ends with the very tip of the metal skidding along the bone of his sternum. The blade tastes air for a moment between the creature’s chest and chin, then cleaves through the flesh and bone of his skull. The head falls apart like two halves of a ripe melon.

  The second of the creatures has time to scream a name, presumably that of the dead thing lying on the floor, still twitching. She hears this and her left arm, which had been pressing the pommel end of the weapon against her chest, shoots out and to the side, catching the vampire in the throat and impaling him against the wall. His cries become harsh coughing noises and his fingers scrabble at the blade for an instant before she yanks it sideways, ruining the neck and sending blood spattering against the opposite wall.

  The motion spins her to the right, which allows her to note that the third and final vampire has decided – laughably late – that his best option is to stand and fight. He is charging her, but he is so slow. She almost takes a moment to smile at this comical attempt, but there is work to be done, so instead she drops to her knees. The outstretched arms pass harmlessly above her head, and she catches him in mid-stride, driving the left blade up and into the vampire’s crotch, burying all eighteen inches of it in a near-vertical thrust.

  The force of this attack combines with the vampire’s momentum and causes him to flip forward. She takes the opportunity to drive the other blade into his skull and end his miserable existence. The body thuds to the ground as she stands.

  It has been only moments, but all three vampires are dead. She waits in the center of the room, soaked in blood, eyes closed. She is not even breathing hard, has not worked up a sweat. Her heart is barely beating any faster than it was before the killing started. The only thing that has changed is her hate; it has gone to where it goes to grow again, and she has been left hollow, shaking with relief and the pure joy of killing.

  Eyes still closed, she allows herself a small smile.

  “Good,” her master says. “That’s very good.”

  * * *

  Book 2

  The End

  Book 3 • The Children of the Sun

  Dedication

  For my brothers and sisters.

  Nick and Jessie

  Patrick

  Korey

  Kasey

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  A Cut on the Arm

  The blade made a rushing, hissing noise as it traveled through the air in front of her, and Two Ashley Majors brought her own weapon up to parry. She knew that if she was slow, or if she misjudged her timing, then blood would spill. The man attacking her wouldn’t let the strike kill her, but neither would he stop it from cleaving deep into her flesh. Two knew this because it had happened before, more than once. She was in no hurry now to repeat the experience.

  Her own weapon, an inferior version of the same sword her adversary held, was thirty inches long and made from layered steel alloys. Two could feel the soft leather that wrapped its hilt, smell its oiled blade, sense its weight and balance as she moved. Not as beautiful as the other, it was no less deadly and cut just as deep.

  It could also be used to deflect an incoming blow, and it was to this purpose that Two put her weapon now, stepping sideways even as she brought it up. There was a jarring shock as the swords connected, the sound of metal on metal, the briefest whiff of something like electricity in the air.

  “Good!” the man cried, and even as he complimented her he spun, swinging his sword at her midsection. Two evaded this blow by springing backward, and the blade passed as easily through the air as it would have through the skin and muscle of her belly.

  “Jesus, Jakob,” she growled, repositioning herself. “You trying to gut me?”

  “Trying to teach you how to avoid being gutted,” Jakob replied, pausing only a brief moment before advancing on her again.

  Two had graduated to live sparring five months ago, and this particular session had already lasted nearly thirty minutes. It was a long time to go without a break, even for a pair of vampires, but both of them were in excellent shape. Not yet winded, Two grinned as Jakob moved forward.

  “Having fun?” he asked, feinting to the left before attacking from the right. Two bit on the fake and found herself off balance, unable to parry the blow. She could fall to the floor and avoid the incoming blade, perhaps, but knew that she would only find the weapon’s tip held to her back. There was another option available, though, if she was brave enough.

  Two lunged forward, letting the blade hit her right shoulder. It sliced through the skin and subcutaneous fat, biting deep into her muscle, and Two felt blood pouring down her arm even b
efore the pain caught up to her. Snarling, refusing to let go of her grip on her sword, she let herself fall sideways. Her left hand hit the floor and she pivoted on it, spinning away and dislodging the blade from her shoulder. Jakob, caught off guard, moved too late to parry.

  She punched him in the jaw with her left fist, sending a jolt of pain through her arm. Ignoring it, she pressed her advantage, grabbing Jakob’s right wrist and, in a single fluid motion, reversing her grip on her own weapon and bringing it up to press against the soft spot below his chin. Jakob went rigid.

  “Call it off,” Two told him. This close, she could see tiny bits of stubble against his olive skin, already growing back from his evening shave.

  “Lord, but you’re fast,” Jakob said, and she felt his right arm twitch in her grasp.

  “Don’t even! Flattery’s not getting you anywhere. Call it off.”

  “I yield,” Jakob said. “Yes, all right. Well done, Two.”

  Two let go of his wrist, but she kept her sword against his neck as he slowly knelt down to set his blade on the floor. Only once her friend’s weapon was out of his grasp and he was standing again did she remove the blade from his throat, stepping back and favoring him with a wide grin.

  “First time,” she said, and Jakob gave her a rueful smile. She had come close on a few occasions to winning a round against him but had never before succeeded.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I won’t fall for that again.”

  “I know. And I know you could have killed me a dozen times during that fight, anyway.”

  Jakob laughed. “Perhaps. That was good, though. You took the hit on purpose.”

  “Did I have a choice?”

  “I think not. I was expecting you to dive and preparing to end the match. Your strategy was a bit unorthodox, but it was courageous and effective. Stephen would be proud.”

  Two smiled at this but felt a twinge of sorrow inside. It had been more than two years since her friend Stephen Connelly had been killed in the battle with the mad vampire Aros Kreskas, and it still hurt to think about it. Stephen had helped her reshape her body and promised to teach her to fight, but he had never got a chance. Jakob, who had shot Aros twice in the head only moments after the madman had stabbed Stephen in the chest, had taken up the task.

  “How is the wound?” Jakob asked her, and Two glanced at her shoulder. The right arm of her T-shirt was soaked crimson with blood, and the liquid had run in rivulets all the way down to her fingers. She put one in her mouth and grimaced. Already cold.

  “Hurts like a bitch,” she said.

  “It will heal.”

  Two nodded. Yes, it would heal. The blood – that amazing, nearly magical substance that coursed through both of their veins – would see to that. Already the wound was closing, beginning to knit. In only a few days there would be little more than a scab.

  “Does it bother Theroen when you come home like this?” Jakob asked. He had picked up his sword again and was cleaning it with a large cloth.

  “What, carved up like a ham? Not really. I’m not sure he understands it, exactly, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. You know how it is, though … nothing bothers him.”

  Theroen had been the most unflappable person Two had ever met when they had first become lovers, and neither the two years he had spent in a state of near-death suspended animation, nor the two and a half since, had changed that about him. His eternal calm stood in direct contrast to her own tendency to charge headlong into the fray.

  Still, she loved him, and knew that he loved her. She could feel it, not only in the metaphorical sense but through the very real mental connection the two of them now shared. This connection seemed to grow stronger with each passing day as Two’s vampire abilities continued to develop. Someday, she knew, they would be able to communicate entirely without speaking, simply by listening to each other’s thoughts. The idea of that sort of intimacy alternately thrilled and terrified her.

  Jakob finished cleaning his sword and crossed the room to a glass-walled case where he set the blade down upon a wooden display stand. Two cleaned off her own weapon and slid it into its stiff leather sheath. Unlike Jakob’s sword, it was not a masterwork and would be fine secured in a locker.

  “You’ve become quite good,” Jakob said as she turned around. He was leaning against the wall, head tilted to one side, appraising her. Two shrugged.

  “Good teacher, lots of time to practice, good blood …”

  “Yes, but I think you’ve a natural talent for it. The blood makes you fast and strong, but it doesn’t shape your instincts.”

  Two smiled, feeling her cheeks color a little. She dropped her gaze for a moment, and when she looked back up, Jakob was still regarding her. He reached behind his head and pulled away the band that was holding back his long, dark hair.

  “I believe you’re ready,” he said at last.

  “Ready for what?”

  “I’ve made you wait longer than I should have to visit one of our clubs, because I have a reputation to uphold and it wasn’t enough just to know that you could survive. I wanted you to be able to win, and I think you can now – at least against some of the younger fighters. You’re fast and strong, well ahead of where you should be at your age, but it’s not just that. You have a feel for it now. You’re creative and clever, and you act on instinct the way a fighter should.”

  “Training is a filter for instinct. That’s what Stephen told me,” Two said.

  “Exactly so.”

  “When do I start?”

  “The next session starts in two weeks. I would be happy to accompany you then. I’m curious to see how you’ll fare. I don’t think we’ve had anyone who has trained for so little time, but there’s never been a fledgling quite like you before, either.”

  It was true; Theroen was the first of his kind, a vampire in which the three dominant strains had been reunited. He was neither Eresh, as he had once been, nor Ashayt, nor Ay’Araf. He was instead Theroen-Sa, a source vampire, and she was his first child: Theroen-Chen.

  Two ran a hand through her unruly blonde hair. She had kept it short – about three inches – ever since Stephen had instructed her to cut it on the first night of her training. She smiled.

  “OK, I’m in. What’s it going to be like?”

  Jakob grinned. “One or more young Ay’Araf are going to try and prove that a pretty little baby vampire has no business in their ring. I expect you to make them beg for mercy.”

  Two laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’ve no doubt that will be fine. I will send you an email with the date and directions to the club. Theroen is welcome to come if he’d like to spectate, but I’m afraid he won’t be allowed to fight without a sponsor.”

  “I don’t think he fights unless he has to, anyway,” Two said.

  “Very good. See you at our next practice?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Jakob.”

  The vampire nodded to her and turned to go. Two, who had managed to work up a thin sheen of sweat, tinged pink with the blood on which she now survived, headed for the showers.

  * * *

  “What have you done to yourself this time?” Theroen asked as Two took off her leather jacket and tossed it on a nearby chair. For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about, and then she remembered the large gash in her upper right arm. Some blood had seeped through the wrapping, forming a maroon splotch on her T-shirt. She glanced at it and grinned.

  “Technically, Jakob did it to me,” she said. Theroen rolled his eyes, but that subtle smile she so adored remained on his lips.

  “I am certain you in no way provoked him,” he said.

  “Well maybe … but I won!” Two exclaimed. She raised her arms in a gesture of victory, then winced as a streak of pain ran through her wounded tricep.

  Theroen’s smile became a momentary grin, and he nodded. “Congratulations!”

  “Thanks. Now give me a kiss.” Two leaned over from behind him, her face upside-down, and pulled his lips
against hers. Theroen kissed her, reaching up to cup the back of her head with his hand. After a moment they broke apart and Two moved toward the kitchen, grinning.

  “Whatcha been up to?” she asked, pouring herself a glass of Bordeaux. Two had become a fan of the wine during her many evenings with Naomi, the vampire woman with whom she had shared a short but intense relationship in the months before Theroen had returned to life.

  “Studying,” Theroen said.

  “Oh, right. Nan mivraten tah. Tah se posar.”

  “Posir. Unless you meant to say that the blood is fat …”

  Two set her glass of wine down. She flopped onto the couch next to him, kicking off her shoes and putting her feet up on the lacquered coffee table.

  “I haven’t really been keeping up with my lessons,” she said.

  “My surprise is legendary,” Theroen replied, his voice dry. He placed a bookmark into his notebook and closed it, looking over at her with his luminescent, light-brown eyes. Two laughed and stuck her tongue out.

  “Don’t be a jerk.”

  “If you insist. So, you beat Jakob and nearly lost an arm. Did anything else interesting happen?”

  “Oh! I totally forgot. Jakob said I’m ready to fight at the clubs!”

  Theroen pondered this for a moment before asking, “Is he sure?”

  Two frowned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Theroen reached over, touched her hand, smiled at her. “I believe in your abilities, my love. But … Jakob is careful to make sure that he does not maim you. I worry that these others may be less cautious. I detest seeing you hurt.”

  “I’m not a fan, either, but Jakob wouldn’t let me go if he didn’t think I was ready. It’s not like they’re going to put me up against the best guys or anything.”