The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “I can’t believe they’re gone,” she said, her voice hoarse. “William and Mother Ashayt. I can’t believe those murderous, hateful … merde, there isn’t even a word for what they are. Not in any language I speak.”

  “They are like all zealots,” Theroen said. “Blind and unthinking automatons that run on faith alone. These people represent a particularly ruthless sect. If we are to survive, we may have to become just as ruthless.”

  Naomi considered this and sighed. “I don’t know if I have it in me. I feel like … oh, never mind.”

  “You can speak without fear of judgment,” Theroen told her.

  “These past few years have hurt me,” she said, and in her voice Theroen could hear an aching, bottomless sadness. “They’ve hurt me badly, and tonight is … I don’t think I’ve even begun to process it.”

  “You have lost much in your life,” Theroen said. “I am sorry for the part I had to play in all of it.”

  Naomi shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” Theroen said, and Naomi made a scornful sound.

  “I’m not sure I believe you, Theroen-Sa,” she said. “I’m not sure anything matters. So many people that I loved are dead, and I’m still here. Despite everything. Despite … no, I don’t think anything truly matters.”

  “It depends on how you define it, I suppose,” Theroen replied. “To this planet, even our long lives are but the blink of an eye. Even the many years that Mother Ashayt walked upon this Earth are but the passing of an instant. In that respect, it is certainly possible that nothing really matters. Why, then, do we press on? Why do we not accept the inevitable, that endless blackness that came before us and will follow us when at last we go to our end?”

  “Why indeed?” Naomi muttered. They were walking now along the stone wall that separated Central Park from Fifth Avenue. Theroen glanced over at her.

  “We make our own meaning,” he said. “Each one of us decides what matters, because it would be unacceptable to us if nothing at all mattered. We could not live with ourselves or with each other if nothing mattered, so we choose.”

  Naomi glanced sidelong at him and gave him a sad smile, shaking her head.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I agree with everything you just said.”

  “Then how is it possible you’ve concluded that nothing matters?”

  “We’re here,” Naomi said, pointing across the street to a tall building faced in limestone.

  “Naomi …”

  “No. Not standing out here in the middle of the street, Theroen. Please. William is dead, Ashayt is dead, and the council is in ruins. I want to go home. I have a few bags of blood in my refrigerator and a bottle of incredibly expensive Burgundy in my wine chiller. I am going to warm two of the former, and I am going to open the latter, and I am going to drink all of them to the last drop. Perhaps while I do that we can talk. You are welcome to my guest room. Otherwise, I bid you goodnight, and I hope that we never again see each other like this.”

  Theroen put the fingers of his left hand to his forehead for a moment, closing his eyes and considering. At last he came to his conclusion.

  “I would be happy to take you up on your offer,” he said. “In truth, I do not want to try to make it to my apartment in this state, and I want to call Two as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll make it four bags of blood, then,” Naomi said, and she started across the street. Theroen followed.

  * * *

  “She’s still not answering?” Naomi asked, and Theroen glanced up from the laptop he was hunched over, frowned, and shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “But that … it doesn’t mean anything. She might not have her phone.”

  “She might not,” Naomi agreed, and she sat down beside him on the couch. She was holding a glass of Burgundy in one hand and in the other held a bottle of expensive skin cream. As Theroen continued to scan various news sites for reports of the ‘terrorist attack,’ Naomi began to slather the lotion onto the right side of her face.

  “Will that help you heal?” Theroen asked, looking away from the screen for a moment as Naomi sighed.

  “I have no idea,” she said, “but it feels absolutely wonderful.”

  Naomi’s face was already healing, as was Theroen’s shoulder. The pain there had lessened substantially after he drank the two bags of blood. He had wondered if they were depriving some innocent human of vital blood that should have been at a hospital, but Naomi had assured him this was not the case.

  “Stephen got me started,” she had said, indicating toward the bags. “He insisted that we keep emergency supplies of our own blood. It’s easy, really. You draw a bit off every few days, and you have bags and bags of it before you even realize. It’s not like we used the refrigerator for much else, and if vampire blood has an expiration date, I’ve never reached it.”

  “So that’s your blood on the stove,” Theroen had said, and Naomi had nodded.

  Now she finished applying her lotion and leaned back against the couch, eyes closed. She took a long, slow sip from her glass of wine. Theroen picked up his cell phone, called Two again, listened to it ring, and heard her voicemail message begin. He mouthed along with the words:

  “This is Two’s phone. Leave a message and if I like you, I’ll call you back.”

  “How many times have you called?” Naomi asked.

  “I’ve lost count,” Theroen said, hanging up the phone. He refreshed CNN’s website again. The explosions were mentioned in a red banner across the top, but no further information had yet been posted.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Naomi said. She opened her eyes again and looked over at him, trying to smile. Her makeup, on the half of her face that hadn’t been burnt, had run and smeared; she didn’t look particularly convincing.

  Thereon gave her a tired smile, nodded, and said, “I’m sure you’re right.”

  Naomi was silent again for a time, and then said his name, her voice questioning.

  “Yes?” he responded.

  “What … what is it you see in her?”

  Theroen gave a small laugh and glanced again at Naomi, who seemed engrossed in the study of her glass of wine.

  “Could I not ask you the same?”

  “So she told you everything about us?”

  “She kept the intimate details to herself, but … Naomi, I figured it out for myself on the first night. Your feelings for her were pouring off of you.”

  Naomi made a sound of distaste. “Lisette always said your mental abilities were going to be amazing. Do you even need to ask me what I see in her … saw in her? Can you not pull it from my head?”

  “You know I don’t do that. I can’t help picking up what people throw off, but I don’t go prying, especially not with my friends.”

  “I envy your restraint,” Naomi said. She drank again from her glass and shook her head. “I envy your calm, and your surety, and your faith, and your strength. I always did, from the very first night Lisette brought you home. You seemed so controlled, so confident, even in that strange new place. I envy you so much for who you are, but above all that, I envy that Two loves you so much that it very nearly consumed her completely when you were taken away.”

  Theroen paused, unsure how to respond. Finally, he said, “There is someone like that out there for you, Naomi. I am sure of it.”

  Naomi laughed. “Oh, yes? How I have searched. I thought I had it with Andrew, but that only lasted nine years, and only half of those were any good. Nine years is nothing, for us. It’s nothing, and when he told me he was moving to Prague with Sofia, and that he would rather not ever see me again, he broke something inside of me that I don’t think will ever be repaired.”

  “Naomi …”

  “I’m not asking for your pity,” she said, and she smiled at him.

  “When did I offer pity?” Theroen asked, and Naomi’s smile widened.

  “You never have.”

  “You wish to know
what I see in Two?” Theroen asked. “I do not think my list would be so different from yours. She is a beautiful woman, despite her claims to the contrary, and to be sure I am physically attracted to her, but that by itself is not so large a thing. How many pretty faces have we seen, in our years? How many beautiful men and women could we have owned, if that was truly what we wanted?”

  “An inexhaustible supply,” Naomi said. “I understand. So, then, what is the answer to my question?”

  Theroen thought about it for a time, not because he doubted his own feelings but because it was difficult to put them into words.

  “She is wild, and uncontained, and so amazingly powerful … and she has absolutely no idea,” he said at last. “She is only now learning who she really is. She was a victim of random chance, enslaved by a drug she never asked for and never wanted, and still on that night when I first walked by her in Brooklyn, her strength simply burned from her. That was what drew me to her at first, and there were many nights after when I would come and observe her. I suppose you could say I stalked her, really, but I could not help myself. It was her strength that drew me, but watching her, learning who she was … that was how I began to love her.

  “She makes me laugh when I expect to be angry, and sometimes she makes me angry when I expect to laugh. Do you understand? She is wild and free and beautiful. She would kill or die for those she loves, including you and me. She will do whatever she thinks is necessary, no matter how hard it is. She will do it regardless of whether it might kill her. She is so strong. Funny. Caring and infuriating, maddening, beautiful and brilliant, and … and …”

  He looked over at Naomi and saw that she was weeping again, though this time the tears were coming slowly and it seemed as if Naomi had not even noticed them.

  “How could I not love her?” he asked, and he shrugged. “Did you not feel it yourself? You loved her within days.”

  Naomi closed her eyes and nodded, laughed a little, sipped at her wine. “I did.”

  “I do not have it in me to be sorry that I am alive,” Theroen told her. “I am so very, very glad to be here. But I am sorry that I hurt you, and that she hurt you, and that the two of us being together hurts you. I loved Lisette and I love Two, and you loved them both as well, and it is not fair that I somehow took them both from you. I know it is not, but I do not know what to do.”

  “There’s nothing for you to do, Theroen. It is done.”

  “Nothing that is still so clearly hurting you can possibly be called ‘done,’” Theroen said.

  “The hurt can’t be helped,” Naomi said. She emptied her glass of wine and leaned forward, refilling it, and Theroen saw that she was near the end of her bottle already.

  “But I—”

  “What are you going to do, Theroen? You cannot make Two love me, nor would you do so even if you could.”

  “No.”

  “Then please, do me the favor of not pressing the issue.”

  Theroen regarded her for a moment, feeling nonplussed. Finally he said, “Very well. Could you do me the favor of not trying to seduce my girlfriend in any more public bathrooms?”

  “Oh, go to hell,” Naomi muttered, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I was drunk.”

  “That’s a common excuse for a lot of behavior, but I am unsure that it is a very good one.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Naomi told him. She was looking away, out the window and across the treetops of Central Park.

  “Then why did you ask about my feelings for Two?” Theroen asked. “Were you looking for some hint that she and I might be—”

  Naomi cut him off. “No, it wasn’t that. You don’t understand. I know she’s yours. She was always yours. I spent the better part of a year sharing her bed, and she was still yours for all that time. It was maddening, but I assure you, I had plenty of time to get the point. The bathroom at L’Obscurité … I was drunk, and sad, and lonely. It was a bad combination and a stupid mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  “Very well, Naomi. I am sorry I brought it up.”

  “I asked you about Two because I was curious if she reminded you of Lisette.”

  Theroen shook his head. “No. At least, I do not think so. One can draw similarities, of course, but they are so different. Two would never have sat and waited for Isaac to kick in that door the way Lisette did. She never would have seen her own end coming and accepted it without a fight.”

  “Lisette sacrificed herself for our sakes,” Naomi said.

  “Yes, and Two wouldn’t have, and it is not that I love her more for it, but rather that I love her just as much. Two would have fought tooth and nail until her last breath, and probably gotten us all killed. That is who she is, and that is not who Lisette was.”

  “Do you think that was a failing on Lisette’s part?”

  “No, though I do not agree with her choice. What about you?”

  “I don’t blame her for giving up. If Isaac hadn’t come to collect her, Abraham would have done so himself, eventually. She knew it from the start, which is why … oh, forget it.”

  “It’s why you blame her for contacting me in the first place,” Theroen said. “You wish she never had.”

  Naomi glared at him. “Are you reading my mind?”

  “Actually, I was reading your expression. Naomi, why are you doing this to yourself? Talking about Two and Lisette hurts you. I can see it.”

  Naomi took a few deep breaths before responding to this. At last she looked over at him.

  “If I asked you to do something for me as a friend and a former lover – and above all else as a good and decent man – would you do it for me?”

  Theroen tilted his head, perplexed, and fought within himself the urge to pry into Naomi’s mind. Instead he said, “I cannot answer that without knowing what it is you would ask.”

  Naomi sighed and nodded, as if expecting this. Without a word, she rose from the couch and walked to the hall closet. She reached up to the top shelf and took down what looked like a shoebox, carried it back to the living room, and sat back down on the couch with the box on her lap.

  “I bought this a few weeks ago,” she said, and opened the box. Sitting inside was a six-chamber revolver with a short barrel and a molded black grip. “It’s a Smith and Wesson, and it’s loaded.”

  Theroen stared at the weapon for a moment, feeling a creeping dread steal over him, knowing what it was that Naomi was about to ask without having to look into her thoughts. How long had she been waiting? How long had she known it had come to this?

  “Oh, Naomi …” he said, and she gave him a hopeful smile.

  “I want you to take this gun out of the box,” she said, “and I want you to put it up against my temple, and I want you to pull the trigger.”

  “Naomi, please don’t ask me to do this.”

  “It won’t be hard,” she said, her voice soft and far away. “We can go in the bathroom if you want, so it won’t make a mess.”

  “That is the very least of my concerns,” Theroen told her.

  “Are you afraid of being caught? If you use a pillow to muffle it, no one will hear. No one knows I have moved here. It will be weeks before my body is discovered. Maybe months. I’m paid through the entire year. Your fingerprints aren’t on record. No one will ever know.”

  “Naomi, for God’s sake …”

  “Oh, who are you to speak of God?!” she cried, turning her gaze back to him, brows knit, her whole body rigid. “Surely you of all people know that there is nothing out there.”

  “But why?” he asked her. “Why now, of all times, and why me?”

  “Who else should I ask? Who better than my oldest friend? We have spent centuries apart, but we also spent decades together when we were young and still new to this world. Forty years, Theroen. Do you remember them?”

  “I remember them well,” Theroen told her. “Sometimes I remember them better than I would prefer. Lisette would never have wanted this.”

  “I cannot think of a
person with less right to judge me on this matter than Lisette,” Naomi said, and there was darkness in her eyes. “She gave up on us. She gave up on everything and left us to our fates.”

  “You said yourself that she sacrificed herself to save us.”

  “Yes, she did, but she could have fought. You would have fought, if she had let you.”

  “I tried to do so anyway,” Theroen said. “Isaac threw me against the fireplace and nearly caved my skull in. What threat were we to him? If not for Abraham, I might never have had my revenge, and as it turned out, it was against Abraham that I should have been raging all along.”

  Naomi sighed, shook her head, and said, “It doesn’t matter. Isaac is dead. Abraham is dead. Lisette is dead and I would join her. There is nothing left for me here, Theroen. I want it to end. I am so tired of being cold and empty and alone.”

  “So you want me to put this gun to your head and shoot you. Naomi, I do not advocate this, but … could you not simply do it yourself?”

  Naomi was quiet for a long time, looking at her hands. Eventually she said, “I am afraid.”

  “That seems to me a strong suggestion that you are not yet ready to die.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I am not afraid to die. I’m afraid that I will fail again. I … already tried once.”

  Theroen was momentarily taken aback. At last he said, “You shot yourself in the head?”

  Naomi shook her head. “I tried pills, first. A few weeks ago. I took, God, I don’t know how many Percocet. I lay down in bed, drank two bottles of wine, and took those pills. After that … everything is grey. I have strange wisps of memory, as if someone came and talked to me, but nothing concrete. When I woke up, four days had passed and my entire body ached, but I was alive. That was when I decided to move here and buy the gun.”

  “Were you waiting for the opportunity to arise to ask me to use it?” Theroen asked.

  “I didn’t plan on asking you until perhaps an hour ago. Oh, Theroen … if only you hadn’t stopped me from fighting the woman who killed William, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. She would have killed me, and it would have been you and Two on the fire escape, and you’d be fine. I’d be dead, and you both would simply look on it as a terrible thing that had happened, and it would be done. But you had to pull me away and save my life, so you get to be the one I ask to take it.”