The II AM Trilogy Collection

by Christopher Buecheler

  “I apologize for this,” he said in his customary, calm tone, and then, with a powerful twitch of his shoulders, he drove her face first into the wood-paneled wall. There was a cracking noise that Two hoped was the mahogany and not Vanessa’s skull, and when Theroen let her go, she dropped to the floor, dead or out cold.

  The man who Vanessa had called Baker was still alive, which Two thought was something of a miracle. He had managed to avoid one or two killing blows from Tori, and now he parried another. He was clearly very strong and well conditioned, but Two could tell from his breathing that he was starting to tire. She thought it would be only a few more seconds before Tori finished him off.

  In this estimate, she proved correct. Using an amazingly agile fake, Tori changed direction at the last moment and, with a flick of her wrist, slashed across the man’s unguarded chest. He screamed in pain and, when he clutched at the wound with his free hand and looked down, she took the opportunity to drive her sword upward, pommel-side first, and hit him under the chin with it. The man’s eyes rolled up, and as he fell she cut off his head.

  For a moment there was silence. Tori walked over to the blade she had dropped, picked it up, and sheathed both weapons. She turned to look at Two and Theroen.

  “Is she still alive?” Tori asked, indicating toward Vanessa’s prone figure. Theroen knelt down beside the woman, checked her pulse, and nodded.

  “Good,” Tori said. “I really didn’t want to kill her.”

  “How’s your arm?” Two asked, and Tori glanced at her wound, unconcerned.

  “Hurts, but it was a clean shot. It’ll heal in a day or two.”

  Thomas had spent the fight lying on the floor, but now came up to stand beside them, looking at his sister.

  “I know you guys didn’t have to do that,” he said. “Theroen, you could just as easily have snapped her neck, but you didn’t. So thanks.”

  Theroen nodded. “I take no joy in killing and I could sense … this woman guards her thoughts well, but right now she is very conflicted. She didn’t want this fight, and her heart wasn’t in it.”

  “What do we do with her now?” Two asked.

  “We forget her,” Tori said. “After the Emperor’s dead, we can come back. Until then, nothing else matters.”

  With those words she strode forth, pulled open the doors to the Emperor’s inner chamber, and stepped inside.

  * * *

  “Swanky,” Two said, and beside her Thomas laughed.

  “Guy calls himself The Emperor of the Sun, right? Doubt he’s gonna shop at IKEA.”

  “Good point. You think he’s still here?”

  Theroen and Tori spoke simultaneously, the doubling of their voices so uncanny it was almost comedic. “He’s here.”

  They glanced at each other and Tori raised an eyebrow. “You can feel him, huh?”

  “Yes,” Theroen said. “At least, I sense something. It is not like anything I have ever felt before. Can you feel it?”

  Tori shook her head. “No, I just know he’s here.”

  “Then you better find him fast, Captain,” Thomas said. “I don’t think we’ve got too much time ‘til this place goes boom.”

  Tori glanced at her watch and nodded. “An hour, tops. Thirty minutes if we want to be safe.”

  There were four doors leading from the receiving area, not counting the massive set that opened back onto the entrance hallway. Tori stood in the center of the room, looking around.

  “I’ve never been here or even seen plans,” she said. “I don’t know where to go.”

  Theroen pointed to the right-most door and said, “Begin with that one.”

  “Why?” Tori asked.

  “Whatever I am feeling, it seems strongest from that direction,” Theroen told her, and that seemed good enough for Tori. She tried the door’s handle. It moved easily, making only the slightest clicking sound, and the door swung ajar. Two could see some kind of large room beyond it, filled with pillars and lit no better than the room in which they currently stood. Even her eyes could not make out the far end of it.

  “This is a big damn place,” she muttered, and beside her Thomas laughed again.

  Tori took a step into the room and then, after a pause, a second step. She glanced back at them and shrugged, turning to walk further. That was when Theroen started shouting and everything went to hell.

  “Tori, there is something … look out!” he cried, but the warning came too late, and Tori was only beginning to turn when a large figure – making amazingly little noise for the speed at which it was moving – came from out of the shadows to her left. It hit Tori with enough force that they both went flying out of Two’s line of sight, and after a moment she heard chilling thudding noises, like someone swinging a croquet mallet over and over into a hanging side of beef.

  “Jesus Christ!” she shouted, shoving forward past Theroen and into the darkened room. She could hear Theroen and Thomas moving right behind her. A voice shouted something from the right side of the room, but Two was too focused on Tori – who she could now see was pinned underneath a hulk of a man – to make out the words. She was reaching to grab the shoulder of the man who was pounding his fists down upon Tori when there came from behind her an unimpressive popping noise, and something that felt like a white-hot sledgehammer slammed into her side.

  The impact spun her around in a half circle, and before she tripped over her own feet and fell backward, Two was able to see quite clearly the man who had shot her, still holding the smoking rifle. As she began her fall, she saw Theroen turn toward this man and, with one snarling leap, cover the distance between them. He raked out with his fingernails and with this blow removed most of the soldier’s neck. Two saw the man’s head loll forward like that of a marionette with a broken string, and then he was out of her field of vision. In a moment more, her head hit the stone floor and her vision filled for a while with dancing sparks of gold and white.

  When time returned to Two, it brought with it severe disorientation. Someone was shouting from what seemed a long distance away. Closer to her, she could hear grunts and animalistic snarls. She tried to sit up and cried out in agony as a bolt of pain tore through her midsection. Lying on her back and taking quick, shallow breaths, she became aware that the distant-sounding shouts were now much closer. Theroen was calling her name, a terrible urgency in his voice.

  “Help Tori!” she tried to shout, but the effort involved caused pain to lance through her side once again, and the words came out as a croak. Theroen fell to his knees as he reached her side, and when he put his hands on her, she had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming again.

  “You’re going to be fine, Two,” Theroen said, his expression doing very little to back up his words.

  “I’m good. I’m all good,” Two said, her voice hoarse, and she coughed once. She was unable to contain her cry this time as once again it seemed something stabbed into her side.

  “My love—”

  “Help Tori. Theroen, look at me. Help Tori!”

  Theroen glanced up, and his expression moved from one of deep concern to one of shock so extreme it was almost comical.

  “I … do not believe she needs any help,” he said, and in the next moment it became apparent why; Tori had regained her feet and was driving her adversary back and into Two’s line of sight, attacking with all the ferocity of a wounded and cornered animal. The snarling noises Two had heard were coming from her, and she was using what looked like a combination of martial arts and raw strength to batter her opponent into submission.

  “Is that your best, Manuel?” she screamed as he stumbled. “I’m going to eat your heart, do you hear me? I’m going to punch through your chest and eat your fucking heart!”

  She leapt forward again, and when the man raised his arms to ward off the incoming blow she instead dipped low and spun, kicking out with one foot and knocking the legs out from underneath him. Even as he began to fall, she lunged up and forward, hitting him in the side with her kne
e. There was a cracking noise as the man’s ribs broke, and he bellowed in pain. Tori threw him to the floor and stepped on his neck.

  “Look at you,” she snarled. “The Emperor’s personal guard and … who was that, Major Bishop? Good thing he stuck around. He almost managed to take out one of us before getting himself killed.”

  “Betrayer!” Manuel choked out. “How dare you come here and—”

  “Fuck you,” Tori said, and now her voice had grown icy cold. “Were you there with them, Manuel? I bet you were. They don’t mention you in the emails, but no one ever mentions you, do they? You’re just there. Did you hold one of my parents down while they did it? Did you?!”

  “I do whatever my Emperor commands!”

  Tori stared at him for a long moment, her eyes pulled tight in disgusted slits. At last she said, “Not anymore you don’t,” and she stomped down with her leg. There was a sound like a bundle of small twigs being broken over someone’s knee, and Manuel made a strangled grunt.

  Two could see his eyes as they went distant. She tried to think of all of this as necessary, but she wanted so badly for it to be over. She wanted to go home and lie down – the idea of sleeping seemed very appealing to her right now.

  “Theroen, buddy, your girl ain’t looking so hot,” Thomas said from somewhere behind Two, and Theroen turned back to her with concern.

  “Hey, baby,” Two murmured, her eyes half lidded.

  “Two, stay with us,” he said, and with an expression of sorrow he shook her slightly. Two shouted as pain lanced through her again, but she could feel herself come fully back to consciousness.

  Tori spun around and stalked over, kneeling next to Theroen.

  “Did it occur to either of you to put anything on the wound? Oh, for … get out of the way. Thomas, go get Manuel’s shirt. It’s huge. Cut it off him.”

  She handed Thomas one of her blades and he headed in the direction of Manuel’s corpse. Tori looked back down at Two.

  “I’m fucked up pretty good, huh?” Two asked, and Tori nodded.

  “Yes, but you’re also lucky. If he’d been using incendiary rounds, the bullet would’ve exploded somewhere inside your small intestine, lit most of your abdominal cavity on fire, and you’d probably already be dead.”

  “Hey, thanks for the pep talk,” Two wheezed, and she caught Tori stifling a slight grin.

  “The good news is that the bullet came all the way through, so we don’t have to go digging for it. Now shut up and save your strength.”

  Thomas returned with the tattered shirt and Tori took the bulk of it, folded it up into a compress, and handed it to Theroen. “Press that against the wound.”

  “Is that going to hurt?” Two asked.

  “Yes,” Tori said, and without further hesitation she grabbed Theroen’s hands and forced them down against Two’s abdomen.

  “OH, JESUS FUCK!” Two screamed, involuntarily arching her back and clawing at the floor. She could feel the stone tiles grinding against her fingernails, a sensation that, in another time and place, would have sent chills rolling down her spine. Now, she found herself focusing on it, savoring it. Anything to help take her mind off the pain.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Tori said. “Theroen, keep pressure on it.”

  She tore a long strip from what remained of the shirt and folded the rest of it into another compress.

  “OK,” she said, “I need to lift her up and get this under her.”

  “Oh, God, wait. Don’t—oh you fucking bitch!”

  “Thomas, get her hands off me. Get them … thank you.”

  “Is all this strictly necessary?” Theroen asked, his voice tight.

  “Not strictly,” Tori said as she shoved the second compress under Two and began to loop the strip of fabric around Two’s midsection. “I could let her bleed out while I go after the Emperor. If you want her to live, it’s necessary. Now grab this.”

  She handed him one side of the long fabric strip, snaked the other underneath and around Two one more time, and brought it back to the end that Theroen held.

  “Tie it off. Tight. Sorry, Two.”

  Two could do little more than whimper at this point. She could feel sweat pouring from every part of her, and her entire body felt like it was on fire, with the core of the blaze centered in her abdomen. Her vision was fading in and out and her heart was beating so fast she feared it might burst.

  Tori leaned back and surveyed her work, but after a moment more she shook her head. “This isn’t enough. There’s too much trauma. If we had a surgeon and some supplies we could get the bleeding stopped, but I’m trained to take the blood out of people. I … wait, I’m an idiot. Blood. She needs blood!”

  “She can have every drop,” Theroen said, moving forward and holding out his wrist, but Tori grabbed his arm.

  “Not you. I want you at full strength.”

  There was a slight pause as both of them looked over at the man crouched behind Two, still holding her arms down.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Thomas said, letting go of her wrists, and Two coughed out laughter even though it hurt to do so.

  “Thomas, please,” Theroen said.

  “Dude, I was getting ready to fuckin’ kill you people not ten weeks ago. Now you want me to let her chomp down on my neck?”

  “The wrist will do,” Tori said, her voice dry.

  “Look, I like Two … but I like being alive better. No offense.”

  “Thomas—” Theroen began again, and Two reached out a hand and grabbed his arm, stopping him. She rolled her eyes back, looking up at Thomas.

  “How many people has Naomi killed in your bathroom?” she asked him, and at first he only stared back at her, jaw clenched. Then he sighed.

  “You owe me for this. I don’t even know what, but you owe me something.”

  “You’re a good man,” Two said, taking his arm in her hands and drawing it toward her mouth.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t tell anybody else that. Is this gonna hurt?”

  Two smiled. “Not for long.”

  Thomas swore when she bit into his wrist, and she could feel his arm tense in her grip, but he didn’t make any attempt to pull away. Two could feel the warm liquid gushing into her mouth, and not since the first time she had ever drank, standing on the street and latched to the neck of the man who had killed his wife, had the thirst been this strong. This desperate. She fought against the swoon that wanted to envelope her. She was not going to allow herself to kill this man.

  At last she forced his arm away, grunting not with the effort of moving it, but of resisting the urge to latch back on. Thomas quickly hauled his arm back and asked, “Should I wrap this up, or something?”

  “You don’t need to,” Tori told him. “Watch.”

  “How are you feeling, Two?” Theroen asked, wiping sweat from her brow with his hand. The care she could feel in his touch made Two, still wrapped in the afterglow of feeding, feel like crying. Everything in the entire world seemed beautiful to her in these moments.

  “Better,” she said. It was true; the pain in her side was lessening even as they spoke, and the strange waves of ethereal semiconsciousness had left her.

  “Holy shit, wouldja look at that,” Thomas said, his voice tinged with amazement. Two glanced over and saw that he was staring at his own wrist, which had already healed to the point where there were only two small, red dots visible.

  “We get magic spit,” she said. “It’s part of the deal.”

  “Gross,” Thomas replied, but her turned to look at her and smiled. “You’re looking better, Two.”

  “Yeah, thanks. You’re right, I owe you big.”

  “OK,” Tori said. “A couple minutes more and we get you to your feet. We have to keep mov—”

  She was cut off by the sound of slow applause, a single pair of hands clapping again and again as their owner emerged from the dark at the end of the hall.

  Two looked over and saw coming into the light a man of less than six
feet, slightly stooped but possessed of a solid, blocky frame. His hair was dark and straight, his skin reddish-brown and lined with shallow wrinkles. She could not immediately guess his age; he might have been forty, or perhaps much older. His eyes were little more than black slits, dug deeply into his face below heavy, dark brows and above a strong nose and thick, sensuous lips.

  “Losso mahjeton bestuti, losso mahjeton,” he said, and his voice pronounced the vampire words with an accent that Two had never heard before. “How very resourceful you are.”

  “You …” Tori said, and her voice held equal amounts of awe and disgust, a tone of reverence coupled with deep loathing. In a moment more, Two understood who it was standing before them.

  “It’s him,” she said, her voice still hoarse. “It’s the Emperor of the Sun.”

  “That is the name by which I have come to be known,” the man said. “Though it is a title that was, in truth, never meant for me. It was meant for a man long-dead, who sat atop his golden throne and looked down upon me, and did not know until it happened that his time on this planet had come to an end.”

  The man grinned now, and it seemed to Two as though his mouth opened far wider than was humanly possible, and that there were too many teeth contained therein, and that each of them had been filed to a needle’s point. He opened his eyes wide and they seemed to flare yellow, luminescent, glowing out from their sockets in in that dim and cavernous chamber. She had seen these eyes before, though never so intense, and she knew them in an instant. It was a moment more, however, before she could find her voice. When at last she spoke, the words came out tiny and breathless.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “He’s a vampire.”

  Chapter 27

  Awakening