The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “Shut up, bat,” the man growled, and he pointed. “Go stand in the corner, face the wall, and look straight ahead.”

  Two did what she was told and heard them telling Theroen to do the same, only with the opposite corner. Their cellmate, who still hadn’t moved, was in the corner between them, the one furthest away from the door.

  Two felt something cold and metal slip around her ankle, and understood she was being chained to the wall. The guard who was kneeling behind her stood up and said, “When I take these cuffs off, think real hard about the two rifles pointed at your fucking head. If you even try and turn, you’re going to die. You can move when you hear the door close.”

  “So, this is how you treat all your dates, right?” Two said, but she kept herself still.

  “Keep up the jokes, bitch,” the soldier said. “Keep ‘em right up. The colonel loves jokes.”

  There was a click and Two felt first one cuff and then another being taken from her wrists. She resisted the urge to flex her arms or make any other motions that might earn her a hail of bullets to the back of the head. She heard the guard going through the same set of commands with Theroen, and in a moment more they were alone with their cellmate. The door clanged closed, the bolts latched, and Two took a deep breath, ignoring the pain in her side. She glanced down and confirmed that she was attached to the wall by an eight-foot chain.

  “This is going to be a long night,” Theroen said.

  “No shit,” Two replied, turning around. Theroen was leaning against the wall, holding his arms out in front of him and flexing them.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Been better. I think that motherfucker might’ve cracked a rib. How about you?”

  “Some bruises. Nothing terrible yet. I am not looking forward to his return.”

  “Me neither,” Two replied. She glanced over at their cellmate. He was sitting in the darkest part of the room, head still down, and the only attribute she could discern was that his skin was a dark brown. “Hey, buddy … you still alive over there? Hello? Mister traitor-man?”

  He looked up at last, and Two felt a bolt of recognition run through her when she saw his face. “Jesus Christ … Thomas?!”

  He managed a weak grin at the shock that was evident in her voice. “That’s me. Still alive, Two, but I’ve seen better days. Sorry about your rib.”

  “You’re the traitor?”

  “That’s what they keep calling me.”

  “Wow. We thought … I mean, when you left L’Obscurité, Naomi just assumed the Children had called you back.”

  Thomas smiled, shaking his head. “I told them she knew about me. Told them, but do they listen? No, they never do. They were so sure she had no idea. I was called back, but they gave me something to do before I left. That was the problem.”

  “What did they want you to do?”

  Thomas sighed. He stood up, and Two could see that he had lost a substantial amount of weight. He had not yet lost all of his muscular build, but he looked thinner, and his smooth, dark skin seemed to hang off of him. Where his head had always been clean-shaven before, he now had a few weeks’ growth of curly black hair, and he had grown a rough beard.

  It didn’t look like they were treating him well. His eyes were sunken, and Two could see that at least one of them had been blackened in the not-so-distant past. She supposed he had spent weeks alternating between the cot, the toilet, and his spot on the floor.

  “They told me to kill her,” Thomas said.

  “You refused,” Theroen asked, and Thomas glanced over at him.

  “Not exactly, my man. I told them I’d do it. That’s what I was there for, right? Five fuckin’ years of watching that girl, learning everything I could about her. It would’ve been crazy to bring me back without having me give it a shot. I knew where she lived and how to get into the building …”

  “When did you decide not to do it?” Two asked, and Thomas gave a small laugh.

  “Well, it’s crazy … I broke into her place one morning, all set to do it nice and quiet. Needle full of toxins, stuff to rig a fire, all that. So I go into her bedroom, and she’s lying there next to three empty bottles of wine and an open bottle of pills. Looked to me like she was trying to do my job for me.”

  Two felt something then, at the back of her mind – a suspicion that had been there for some time, but also something more tangible. There was another consciousness touching hers, and after a moment she turned to Theroen.

  “You knew,” she said. “You’re not surprised … because you already knew.”

  Theroen looked back at her, his expression unreadable, always so goddamned calm. “No, I am not surprised. She told me about it the night of the attack on the council.”

  “And you kept it from me? Theroen, what the fuck?!”

  “She asked me to keep it in confidence.”

  “Yeah, but … she’s my friend! She needs help.”

  “Two, she is my friend as well. I know that she needs help, and should we survive this night, I am prepared to give her anything that she asks of me.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “If she had asked you, as a friend, to keep her secret, would you have told me?” Theroen asked. There was no smarminess or self-satisfaction in his voice; he seemed genuinely interested in her answer, and it was this more than anything that helped Two calm herself. She thought about it and shook her head.

  “No, I guess probably not. I guess sometimes you have to keep things to yourself if you’re asked to.”

  “Just so.”

  Thomas spoke up. “So she was really trying to … to end things?”

  “It has been a difficult few years for Naomi,” Theroen said. “A difficult few years in a difficult life. She has lived long and lost much, and her people are prone to despair. I saw the very same thing in the woman who made her a vampire.”

  “Man …” Thomas seemed lost in thought, shaking his head.

  “Thomas, what happened after you broke in?” Two asked, and he glanced up.

  “Well, I told her, ‘Girl … I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but I’ve been sent here to do this thing. I want you to know I’m sorry.’” He shook his head again, this time in a kind of sarcastic disbelief. “Like that matters, right? As if it would have been any fucking comfort if she had heard me.”

  “It might have been,” Theroen told him, and Thomas shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter. I took out the needle, uncapped it, and knelt down next to her. I was this … fucking … close to sticking it in her neck. I’m not lying and I’m not ashamed to say that if it had been you, or even Two, or any other vampire on the planet, I’d have done it. I would’ve stuck you and gone home to get my next assignment.”

  He sighed again, tightened his hands into fists for a moment, and then opened them up.

  “But it wasn’t one of us,” Two said gently, and Thomas looked up at her.

  “What the fuck has she ever, ever done to anyone?!” he cried. “I’ve been watching that girl for five years. She comes into my bar every night, she has a glass of wine or two, she finds someone in the club who’s not coked out of their mind, and she bites them. She doesn’t even hurt them, let alone kill them. She just bites them and then leaves them in the bathroom, and five minutes later they come out the door grinning like they just got laid and hit the lottery at the same time. They don’t even remember and they’re still happy.

  “Sometimes she takes Sonya, the cocktail girl, home for a night. Sonya never remembers it either, but for the next week, she’s on top of the fucking world. She’s all humming and smiling and flirting with everyone in sight. The main reason she’s even lasted so long in this shit business is because of Naomi.

  “So I’m kneeling there, with this big needle at her throat, and I’m thinking to myself, what has she done to deserve getting killed like this? What has she ever done except make everyone who’s ever known her happy? She’s never bitten me – I’m too well-trained t
o get mesmerized, so I know she hasn’t – and she even makes me happy. I used to spend every night at that club waiting for her to show up. She’s probably the most sweet and sympathetic and caring person I’ve ever met. I just … I mean …”

  “You couldn’t do it,” Two said. “You couldn’t kill her, because you lo—”

  “Knock that shit off,” Thomas said. “Don’t pretend like you know how I feel. She’s a bat, just like you and him and all you other motherfuckers. Just because I’m weak and couldn’t hack it doesn’t mean anything more than that. I split the entire scene and tried hiding out in Atlanta, but they found me and now I’m getting what I deserve. I had to look my sister in the eye and admit that I failed her, and failed our family. I don’t need your judgment and I sure as hell don’t need your goddamn pity.”

  “Never offered any pity,” Two said, and Thomas looked up at her for a minute, eyes in slits as he studied her. Finally he shrugged and sat back down.

  “Whatever,” he said. “It’s all done now. You’re still alive, so that means they want something from you … answers, I guess. They’ll bring someone in who can get them from you.”

  “We’ll see,” Two said, but the words sounded braver than she felt.

  “Yeah,” said Thomas, and he shook his head before laying it back down on his crossed arms. “We’ll see.”

  * * *

  It was impossible for Two to determine exactly how much time was passing, and she didn’t bother trying. She could only hope that the colonel wouldn’t be able to return before the vampire army descended upon the place. She and Theroen weren’t going to be able to open the bay doors, obviously, but that was acceptable; there were contingency plans.

  Thomas didn’t seem interested in further conversation, and Two didn’t press him. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through – he had turned traitor to his people. That he had done so for what was, she thought, an excellent reason probably made little difference to him at the moment.

  Theroen, too, was silent, but she suspected this was due to concerns about Thomas. The man might have betrayed his orders, but he had certainly not come all the way around to being their ally. Theroen wouldn’t want to let slip any information that Thomas could give to the colonel upon his return. Thomas had to be treated as an enemy at least until they were out of this cell. With any luck that would be in another few hours, but she didn’t know how Thomas would react to the attack – or to what was likely going to happen to his sister.

  Eventually Two sat down on the floor and drew her knees up to her chest, much like Thomas had. She was still sitting there, trying not to think about the experience of having pieces of her body cut off while being probed for information, when there was the noise of a door slamming in the hallway outside. Heavy footsteps echoed up the hall, audible even through the door to their cell, getting closer. Two felt adrenaline surge through her and she stood up.

  “No! Fuck, that’s way too soon!”

  “There is only one person,” Theroen said. He had his head cocked and was listening to the approaching footsteps.

  “Maybe he decided to handle it himself,” Two said. Losing her own pieces would be bad, but she thought she might be able to stand it. She thought she might be able to keep her mouth shut. What was making her sick with terror was the knowledge that they would make her watch them do it to Theroen. If they did, she was not sure she could resist telling them whatever it was they wanted to know.

  “We can only wait, my love,” Theroen said. “I will not allow them to do anything to you without a fight.”

  “I’m not scared for me,” Two muttered, and she saw him nod. He glanced over at her and for a moment that ethereal calm broke, and she saw below it a smoldering rage similar to what she had seen in him when Abraham had revealed his part in Lisette’s death. Thereon had been strong then, and he was even stronger now. She thought a single chain at the ankle might not be as secure as the Children believed it to be.

  Theroen took a deep breath and shut his eyes, and the calm descended back over him. Two envied it, whether it was a true ability to keep from worrying or merely the will to mask it. She possessed neither such talent, and felt at the moment so electrified by fear and anticipation that she could barely keep from fidgeting like a child.

  There was a buzzing noise, and then a heavy clunk as the door unlatched. It swung inward, and for a moment the light from the hallway was so dazzling even to her eyes that Two could see only a featureless silhouette. Then her superhuman vision adjusted so quickly it was nearly painful, and she felt again a shock of recognition. It wasn’t the colonel, returned to continue his interrogations. It was instead—

  “Hello, Two,” Tori said, and she stepped into the cell, closing the door behind her. It didn’t latch, and Tori didn’t seem to care.

  Two could barely find words, so great was her surprise not only at the woman’s unexpected arrival, but also at the greeting. Eventually she managed, “You … remember who I am now?”

  Tori stood by the door, her arms crossed, and watched in silence for what felt like a long time. Finally she said, “I remember you.”

  “Well, that’s fucking great!” Two exclaimed. “What about Theroen?”

  Tori glanced at him, disinterested, and then back at Two. “Yes, him too.”

  Two looked over at Theroen, who met her gaze and raised his eyebrows, giving a little shrug. This was her domain, he seemed to be saying; he had only ever known Tori as a mindless animal. Two nodded and looked back at the woman who had once been her friend.

  “You’re not here to let us go, are you?” she asked.

  “Why would I do that?” Tori asked her. “So you can run rampant through the building, killing more of my people?”

  “We didn’t come here for that, though God knows they fucking deserve it,” Two said. She was having the polar opposite reaction to Tori’s unearthly calm that she had to Theroen’s; where in him it made her comfortable and happy and warm, here it was infuriating. It made her want to smack the look of unimpressed disinterest off of Tori’s face.

  “What did you come here for?” Tori asked her in that same, dull tone, and Two’s patience snapped.

  “We came here to save you!” she cried.

  Tori considered this, looking for a time at the floor. At last she lifted her head up and asked, “Why would I need saving from my own people?”

  “These aren’t your people.”

  “They’re the closest thing I have now that my parents are dead,” Tori said, and now her voice was quiet and distant, as if lost in memory. “Where were all my wonderful vampire friends when that happened, Two? Where were you?”

  “I was—”

  “Shut up!” Tori roared, and now there was emotion in her voice. Two suddenly understood the truth: the exterior calm had been a carefully constructed shell, but a thin and brittle one, and now it had cracked. When Two met her former friend’s eyes, what she saw there was not calm or disinterest, but instead a kind of pure and righteous anger.

  “I’ll tell you where you were,” Tori hissed. “I don’t need you to fill in the blanks, because I know exactly what you were doing. You were in New York, doing whatever you pleased, while my parents were being held down on their kitchen counter and butchered like pigs!”

  “I—”

  “It would be bad enough to have to sit here and listen to your bullshit – whatever pathetic excuse you’ve got prepared – if I didn’t know the whole truth, but I do. I know everything, and the only thing I don’t understand is how you can show your face to me. How dare you come to me like this after what your people did?!”

  “Tori … what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Your council killed my parents!” Tori shouted. “They held them down, and slashed their throats open, and let them bleed to fucking death, and left them there for me to find!”

  “The council did nothing of—” Theroen began, and Tori whirled on him.

  “Keep your fucking tongue in your mout
h, Eresh-Chen, or so help me God I will cut it out.”

  “Theroen-Sa,” Two said, and when Tori turned back to her, she continued. “He’s a source, now. I’m Theroen-Chen. And you? You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. The council didn’t kill your parents. Why would they do something like that?”

  “How can you stand here and lie to me?” Tori asked, and there was a plaintive note in her voice, the tone of someone truly unable to comprehend her situation. “What did I ever do to you? We saved each other, and I thought we were sisters. That’s what you told me, that we were sisters forever, and then you left me there, trapped in that empty, grey nothing. When your people came to punish me for what I did to Abraham, you didn’t even stop them. You couldn’t even be bothered with me anymore!”

  “Tori, I am not lying to you!” Two cried. “I have never lied to you about anything ever. I left you in Ohio because I thought you were safe there, and I was stupid, and selfish, and I wanted to get back to being a vampire. I never meant to abandon you, and I never meant for you or anyone you loved to get hurt. The council did not kill your parents. We freed them from Abraham. If that wasn’t true, I’d be dead right now.”

  “What bullshit,” Tori said. “They were afraid to touch Theroen’s chosen one, so they took it out on me by killing my innocent, defenseless parents. Do you know what it’s like, Two? Do you know how it feels to stumble into a kitchen and have to stare your murdered father in the eyes, and know that for as long as you live all that blood that’s pooled underneath him will be on your hands?”

  Two was shaking her head. She felt like crying but fought against it. “They didn’t kill your parents. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t the council. It wasn’t.”

  Tori clenched her jaw and stared at Two for a moment, then she shook her head.

  “I am going to kill every last member of your council, and every last member of your people,” she said. “I’m going to kill a thousand vampires for every drop of my parents’ blood they spilled. I’m going to kill and kill until there aren’t any left, and the innocent human beings in this world are safe at last from this fucking scourge.”