The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “You’re right,” Jakob said, his eyes lighting up. “The access panel is in the utility closet in the men’s locker room.”

  “What if they’ve thought of that already?” Theroen asked, but he was already moving toward the rear of the building.

  “If they’ve closed off the roof, then we’re likely dead,” Jakob said, following him. “Personally, I’m going to hope for the best.”

  “What about Mike?” Two asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the ring where her fellow competitor had died.

  “He will burn along with the others who’ve fallen here,” Jakob said. “I would have it otherwise, but we can’t very well avenge him if we die in here. Two, we must go.”

  “Yeah,” Two said, and after a moment she followed. “I guess we must.”

  The door to the access panel was locked. Without waiting for suggestions, Theroen drew back his fist and punched through the thick plywood, reaching down to open the door from the inside. In another moment it swung open and Theroen withdrew his fist, which had gone dark purple from the blow.

  “Oh, baby, you shouldn’t have done that,” Two said. She reached toward his hand but Theroen held it away, smiling.

  “Need I remind you that you have an eight-inch gash across your face?” he asked. “I will be fine, Two, and it will be worth it if we get out of here alive. Please …”

  Two nodded, turned, and grabbed a rung of the ladder. She hauled herself up and soon was rapidly ascending the thirty-foot climb, the others following her. At the top she found a trapdoor, its latch easily sprung, and she shoved it open. The cool night air touched her face, untainted by the chemical-laced smoke coming from below, but she waited for a moment, hesitant. No attack came, and so she took a breath, hoping for the best, and hauled herself up.

  The roof was empty, occupied neither by other vampires nor by the humans bent on destroying them. Climbing out onto it, Two felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Whatever might come, they weren’t going to burn alive inside of this gym in the middle of nowhere.

  “That’s much better,” Theroen said, pulling himself up after her. Sasha followed, and Jakob brought up the rear. Soon, all four were standing on the edge, looking down at the chaos below. Many of the Ay’Araf had made it out of the building and were still engaging some of the Children in the parking lot.

  “We have to stop them,” Sasha said. “We have to—”

  “It’s too late,” Theroen said. “Look, they’re retreating.”

  It was true; the Children were pulling back, disappearing into the night. In a matter of only moments they were gone, and there was nothing but the crackle of flame and the groans of the injured. Two could see several Ay’Araf with minor injuries tending to those who had not been so lucky.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “They may be regrouping to make another push,” Theroen said, and Jakob nodded. Two glared at them both.

  “Those people down there need help, and we’re not doing shit up here. You stay if you want,” she said, and without further word, she leapt off the edge of the building.

  She had never in her life done such a thing, and was not entirely sure her body would handle the impact without anything breaking, but it did. The landing didn’t even take her breath away, and she was on her feet and moving toward the wounded before the others had even hit the ground.

  * * *

  “How is your face?” Theroen asked her, and Two glanced over at him for a moment before returning her gaze to the buildings flying past the Porsche’s window.

  “It hurts,” she said after a moment. “I don’t mind. It’s … it’s not like I can complain.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Theroen replied, and he was quiet for a time. Two watched the Newark skyline pass by.

  After another few minutes, she said, “He was going to win that fight.”

  “Mike?” Theroen asked, and Two nodded.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I would’ve had to cut an arm off or something. He would have fought until he fell down. He was willing to go that far just to beat some stupid fledgling chick who shouldn’t even have been there.”

  “The Ay’Araf are dedicated,” Theroen said, his voice noncommittal, as if he already knew where Two was going with this line of thought. She supposed he could sense it.

  “If I hadn’t been there—” she began, and Theroen cut her off.

  “Then someone else would have been in that ring and he or she would be just as dead.”

  “But it wouldn’t have been Mike.”

  “Two, do not go down this path. In your life … in any life there will be regrets, but you cannot obsess over what might have been. There are too many chances, over the course of a life, and it will tear you apart. Your life will be longer than most.”

  “Not fucking likely,” Two muttered.

  Theroen opted not to respond to this, and there was another lengthy period of silence during which they entered the Holland tunnel, heading back into Manhattan. Two watched the lights flashing by on the tiles. Finally, Theroen spoke.

  “It hurts you,” he said. “It is because it hurts you that I love you, because you are not callous or uncaring even after all you’ve been through. Because you toss sometimes in your sleep and call out Melissa’s name, or Samantha’s, or Stephen’s.”

  At this, Two looked over at him. Theroen glanced back, then returned his gaze to the road, down-shifting and accelerating past an ailing pickup truck.

  “I didn’t know I did that,” Two said.

  “I put my arm around you when it happens, and you cling to me so tightly I fear that in your dreams, you are drowning.”

  Two shook her head. “Not drowning. Falling. I’m always falling.”

  Theroen nodded, glanced up at the buildings as they emerged into Manhattan, and sighed.

  “Mike did not deserve to die, but it is not your fault that he is dead. Every day, people die who have done nothing to deserve it. Every day there are accidents, catastrophes, and deliberate acts of destruction that take innocent lives. Every day a solider is shot in the line of duty by the very people he seeks to aid. Every day a child is left unattended for just a moment – just the merest instant – by those who would wish only to protect her at all times, and she finds a way to die. The great, beautiful, horrible dance of life continues on and on, and we who might live forever still move to the same tune as all the others.

  “You will not die of cancer, or heart failure, or cirrhosis of the liver. Your brain will not age to the point that it develops lesions that rob you first of your memory, and then of your dignity, and at last of your life. Still, you dance, just as every one of us must, and if tomorrow some crazed man or woman once again points a spear gun at your head and fires, and if the bolt flies but two inches to the right of the path it took tonight, you will die. There will be nothing that I or any of those who love you can do about it. That may happen tomorrow, but for tonight you are alive.”

  They were at a stoplight now, and Theroen looked over again, meeting her eyes. “Do you think Mike would wish it otherwise?”

  Two shook her head. “No.”

  “If he is somewhere else now, looking down, would he be glad that you have survived?”

  “Theroen …”

  “In the days after Lisette was killed, I lied awake in the painful hours after the sunrise, wondering why it was that I had lived and she had died. What had I done to deserve that mercy? How was it right, or fair, that I still drew breath? How could I not ask myself these things?”

  “Then you know I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself.”

  “No, and I am only trying to guide you. I am trying to help ease your pain because I love you, and because it hurts me to see you like this. It hurts me to hear you say these things, to insinuate that it is somehow your fault that Mike is dead. It is not your fault. It is Tori’s fault, and the Children of the Sun’s fault, and the American council’s fault, but it is not your fault. You were merely there.”


  “I’m tired of being ‘merely there,’” Two said. She clenched her hands together in frustration a few times, thinking, trying to put her feelings into words.

  “It’s not just Mike,” Theroen said, and Two shook her head.

  “No. Theroen, we have to stop this. We have to find Tori and get her out of there, and then we have to go on the attack. We can’t just keep sitting around.”

  “I fear that words will not be enough to slow her down.”

  “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

  They were pulling now into the gated garage that lay below their building in SoHo. Theroen eased the Porsche into its designated parking space and killed the engine.

  “No,” he said. “It does not. It just means that we should be realistic about the potential outcome, should we ever have the chance to confront her.”

  “We’ll see her at some point,” Two said.

  “That does seem inevitable,” Theroen agreed.

  “Will you help me?”

  Theroen smiled, pulled the keys from the ignition, and leaned over to kiss her on the left temple, well above the spot where her cheek had been slashed. Two closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

  “You are my love, and you are also my fledgling. You are Theroen-Chen, and if that never comes to mean anything to anyone else, it still means that you will always, always have my help.”

  Two nodded, opening her eyes and giving Theroen a small, sad smile.

  “I wish I was in the right place to thank you for that,” she said. “I wish I could kiss you and tell you how much I love you, and make love to you right here in this cramped fucking car, and believe that everything was going to be just fine …”

  “But everything is not going to be just fine, and even if it was, you are not in the proper place to appreciate it. Two, I understand. Does that … I hope it comforts you.”

  “It does, Theroen. It’s just so hard, and it’s not even done yet. Please put up with me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. You know what else would comfort me right now? Getting the fuck out of this car, and out of this shitty gym outfit, and taking a long shower, and going to bed. You’re invited to any of that. All of it. Interested?”

  Theroen smiled, nodded, and opened his door.

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 10

  State of Emergency

  Five nights had passed since the attack on the Ay’Araf club. On the first of these, Jakob and William had held an emergency council meeting, open not just to members but to all vampires who wished to attend, in an attempt to analyze the attack and formulate a response.

  The meeting had been long and quarrelsome, and while Two felt no joy at the sight, she recognized very well the look of frustration on Jakob’s face during the entire event. She knew what it was like to sit and wait for the council to determine its course of action.

  In the end, they had decided only that they would need to reconvene. Until the next meeting was set, all other activities that might bring vampires together in large groups were suspended. Two had spent much of her time since with Jakob and Sasha in the small gym at which they trained. She thought that all three of them had a lot of anger to work out. Theroen hadn’t seemed to mind. He had brought his notes on the constructed vampire language and sat off to the side, studying. Two sometimes envied him his calm, his ability to distance himself, his control of his emotions. For her part, she could not seem to stop seeing Mike’s last, dying look whenever she closed her eyes.

  The other vampires of New York had laid low, waiting for the next meeting, formulating their arguments and opinions. All had been quiet, and it felt as if there was hesitancy in the air, as if the entire city was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then had come the phone calls and emails, the announcement of another meeting with only two hours’ notice. As a result, only the official council members and a handful of others, perhaps two dozen, had been able to attend.

  No one seemed to know what it was about, and William himself had shown up only minutes before the scheduled start, going directly to the podium and refusing to talk to anyone individually. They sat now, watching, and when his opening pronouncement came, it caught them all off guard.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” William said, his voice hoarse and broken, and he paused, staring out at the crowd, as haggard and unkempt as Two had ever seen him. “I didn’t know what to do … so I called you all here.”

  “Whatever it is, we are here to help you, William,” Naomi said, and Two could hear in her voice a slight, perplexed hurt. It was clear that she was upset that he had not shared his news even with her.

  William sighed, shook his head, and stood for a moment in silence. Finally, he looked away from them, off to the left toward a gigantic, stained-glass representation of the Crucifixion, and spoke.

  “They have killed Mother Ashayt.”

  His voice broke on the last word, and Two saw his jaw clench as he fought against the emotions that wanted to swallow him up. There was a sudden rushing noise as the occupants of the cathedral gasped in unison, followed by a deathly silence.

  “Oh, dear God,” Jakob murmured from four seats to Two’s left, and he brought both hands to the back of his neck and held them there, staring down at the floor.

  Two couldn’t seem to move, could barely breath. The news seemed to have knocked all sensation from her body, leaving her numb and empty. Not even a week past the massacre at the Ay’Araf club, and now this? Ashayt, that being of such pure peace and calm, was gone?

  “No,” Naomi said. “No. Ce n’est pas possible.”

  “It’s very possible,” William said without looking at her.

  “It’s not,” Naomi replied and then, louder, “it is not!”

  There was a shrill note in her voice that made Two start, and she managed to reach out, touching her friend’s shoulder. “Hey, Naomi, don’t—”

  “Get off of me,” Naomi hissed. “Get your hand off of me! She cannot be dead. William, your information must be wrong.”

  “I wish that it was so,” William said, and now at last he turned to face them. “I wish with every part of me that it was so, but it is not. It was Tyler, her host in Los Angeles, who found her. He called me directly. He grew worried when he didn’t hear from her for several weeks, and went to check on her. He found her lying in her bed, stabbed in the side, her throat slashed. It … he said there were no signs of resistance.”

  “They couldn’t have taken her by surprise, not up close like that. She must have refused to fight,” Two said. Her throat hurt, and it felt like there was a hard lump there that couldn’t be swallowed. The idea that Ashayt was dead, that the elder vampire who had brought Theroen back and likely saved them all from death at the hands of Aros’s superior numbers was gone forever, was impossible to accept.

  “Her story is told in the old scrolls,” William said, sounding like he might be ill. “She killed only once, her very first feeding, and swore never to do so again. It seems she followed this vow to her death. They broke into the bungalow, and butchered her, and left. She is gone. She has been gone for almost a month, and we only now know it.”

  “Can’t we bring her back?!” Naomi cried, and now her voice was breaking as well. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, those animals … those awful—”

  “With what would you bring her back, Naomi?” William asked. “Have you a supply of preserved elder blood of which I am not aware?”

  Naomi shook her head, refusing to meet his gaze.

  “No,” William said. “Nor have I. We’ve had our miracle for this millennium. He is sitting three feet to your left.”

  Theroen looked uncomfortable with this statement but said nothing. Two took his hand, squeezed hard, and looked at William with a thin smile.

  “Let’s not act like this is Theroen’s fault,” she said, and William shook his head.

  “No, it is not his fault. It is the Children’s fault, and may they rot in hell for
all eternity for it. We had thought her dead, only to learn that she was there all along, and now she has been taken from us. We have lost not only her strength, but also her great wisdom and kindness. It is terrible. Terrible.”

  “Now there is only one source left,” the senior Eresh council member, Leonore, said, and Two could hear distaste in the woman’s voice. She forced her hands, balled into fists, to relax. Leonore was grating, but now was not the time to fight with her.

  “That is correct,” William said. “Theroen-Sa is here, and he is the last. I do not know if there will ever be another.”

  “Ask again in four thousand years,” Theroen said. “Perhaps by then I will have an answer.”

  His voice was quiet and calm, as always, but Two could hear within it a deep sadness. Theroen had held great respect for Ashayt, as much for her pacifism and her love of her fellow vampires as for her age and wisdom. Two was not surprised that his sorrow at her death was audible.

  “You plan on living that long?” Leonore asked.

  “I expect to live through this night and hope to live through the next,” Theroen said to her, unperturbed by her tone. “Can any of us say more? Could even Mother Ashayt have said anything else? Four thousand years is a very long time, but each day was just another in succession.”

  Leonore looked unimpressed but held her tongue. Two thought this for the best; Leonore was not well liked among the members of the council. Young and impressionable when she had come to serve as Abraham’s apprentice, she had taken on many of his beliefs about the superiority of the Eresh strain and had never learned to conceal her lust for power and advancement.

  Lewis, one of the two Burilgi on the council, spoke up. “Listen, we have to do something. The Children aren’t going to stop. They’re going to keep hitting us until we respond, or until we’re all dead.”

  There were murmurs of agreement at this. The council had already lost four members, all of them Ay’Araf. Three were dead. The last, Erik Jannsen, had resigned after the death of his brother.