He saw a family of deer and came down upon them, surprised at his own speed. With his leg wrapped and a hole in his thigh, he’d imagined he’d be weak and slow, but he seemed as strong as he’d ever been. Stronger. The deer tasted disgusting, furry and foreign, but he ate from it nonetheless. When he had done with it, he’d appeased his hunger and gained still more speed. He began the descent down the side of the mountain.
He did not know what had come over him, what blessing had given him such power, but he didn’t stop to question it. Soon he came out on the road near the stream that Sally had mentioned. The smell of water and the sound of it rushing over the rocks stopped him. After a moment’s pause, he plunged down the slope, ignoring the sting of twigs scratching his bare chest and arms. When he reached the water’s edge, he dropped the backpack and sank into the stream. He wanted a river, careening and wild, to wash him away. To dive into it, to pierce its current and plow against it until it gave in and turned to his will.
But he met only a stream, flowing gently over smooth stones. He struggled out of the jeans that had belonged to Sally’s father, with the undershorts he’d worn for seven months stuffed into the pocket, and washed them in the stream. After looking at the shorts, ragged and stained with blood on blood on blood, he gave up hope of keeping them. The jeans, also stained, had three holes where stakes had torn through, but he kept them nonetheless.
For a time, he lay in the stream doing nothing but letting the frigid water course over his body. He scrubbed himself all over, found a bar of soap in the bag Sally had given him, and scrubbed himself again. He hadn’t known how much he missed being clean. It seemed he’d never stop feeling like he wanted to scrub his skin off. Cleanliness after so long lying in filth almost brought discomfort. He felt bare, somehow, exposed.
He wanted to stay there forever, so clean and new, raw and red from scrubbing, and naked. When he lifted his face, he felt the breeze for what seemed the first time in years, saw the stars again, millions upon millions watching over him, creating millions more in the water around him.
But he knew he must find somewhere safe before daylight, safer than a spot in the ground, where they’d found him before. So he climbed from the stream, wrung out the jeans, and hung them on the backpack. Inside the pack he found a pair of his white linen trousers and a loose shirt, along with some extra supplies Sally had packed for him. She hadn’t found his other pack, but she’d made sure this one had plenty of clothing and gear. But tonight, Draven did not spend time looking at what she’d given him. An urgency pressed upon him, an instinct to move far from his place of torture. After burying the undershorts near the stream, he drank as much as he could and started along the road again.
He stayed clear of the road and traveled instead along the stream, and when that died out, he paralleled the road. Already the pain in his side had ceased. The healing had occurred more quickly than he’d imagined possible. Perhaps his body had adapted to all the injuries and had accelerated its healing process.
The smells of dust found him, along with the smells of the forest, and…living things. He scanned the area, waited, and tried to identify the scents. Leaving the shelter the trees provided, he stepped onto the road. The pavement lay cracked and rutted and pushed upward by roots passing under it and wind over it and ice through the cracks. Wispy brown grass now grew through the cracks and swayed with each breeze. The breeze blew the wrong way for his purpose, and he could not catch the scent again. He returned to the woods and tried to move quietly. Then he saw the town.
Draven moved into it quietly, alert as he went. A strange mixture of scents greeted him—mold, decay, Superior, sapien, the awful smell he’d found at the door that wouldn’t open on the front of Sally’s house, and something living that he could not identify. Somehow they all seemed familiar. Draven wondered for a moment if his senses had failed him, if under the conditions he’d encountered, he’d lost his ability to track scents.
But of course that could not happen.
As the scent of sapien grew stronger, Draven identified the strongest and most familiar scent. Larry. He hadn’t simply scented a sapien, he’d found Sally’s family. She had told him they would take this road. She had not told him they’d remain in the town. The smell hung too heavy for a track—he had scented saps, not just their trail. Draven followed the scent but stayed inside or near the crumbling buildings. Sapiens couldn’t see in the dark, but they would hear him if he upset a pile of rubble.
He considered seeking revenge for what he had suffered, but he remembered his promise to Sally. So he passed quietly, even when he saw, just beyond the shadowy doorway of a sagging building, a figure. The scent told him Larry stood inside. He imagined he could have a bit of fun, cruel fun, at the sap’s expense. But instead, he turned away and continued. He could not break his promise to Sally on a technicality, and he had promised no harm. And also, he knew Larry could harm him as well, if he gained the advantage as he had before. He knew precisely how much Larry could harm him.
Just then, he scented Superiors. He wondered why that scent seemed familiar as well. Perhaps it wasn’t the smell of a particular Superior, but simply the old, comforting scent he’d known in all his years since he’d evolved. He hadn’t known how much he’d missed the scent until he found it again. In the past half year, he’d not encountered it once.
Draven stopped suddenly. Why would a Superior come out here? He could think of only two possible explanations. One, Sally’s community had picked up some supplies, a few runaway sapiens, and a new plaything or two from the Superiors in Princeton as well. Perhaps he should go back. He couldn’t let someone else endure what they’d made him suffer. But if he returned, he’d have to harm one of the sapiens to free the Superior. Superiors, he decided, testing the scent again. So familiar, so comforting.
But this scent wasn’t tied to the sapien scent. The Superior scent wandered through the streets, blowing on the breeze, lingering around corners and over rubble heaps. The sapien scent blew from one area, where they had stationed their party. The Superior scent drifted, faint and anchorless. So they had passed through and departed. Or perhaps it was the second option—they had tracked the sapiens here. Again, Draven thought of going back. But he’d promised Sally he would not harm her people. He had not sworn he would protect them. He had not promised no harm would come to them, only that he would not inflict it.
After a pause, he continued moving. He could not concern himself with their safety. His concern was staying alive. He moved over a heap of broken cement and spotted two cars ahead. Not the old rusted bodies of cars, but shiny Superior cars without markings. From a distance, he could not identify the color, make, or occupants of the cars. But he had stumbled upon new cars in an old town.
Superiors remained in the vicinity.
Draven let himself drift slowly into the shadows and backed into a building. If he got out of the town, he would not look back. A pang of sympathy traveled through him when he thought of Sally. But the Superiors wouldn’t kill her family, not if they could avoid it. They would take them to a place they could never practice their evil again. They would learn how it felt to be bled every day. And they would deserve it.
For a moment Draven watched the silent cars, almost certainly unoccupied. Then the other scent, the strange one he couldn’t identify, swelled around him, and he turned slowly, only then realizing he’d been so preoccupied with scenting the sapiens and Superiors that he’d ignored all else. He knew he was not alone only seconds before he saw the boy standing in the corner watching him.
46
“There you are,” Drake said, looking down through the splintered hole at his two partners.
“Thank goodness you found us,” Caleb said, starting up the stairs in front of Byron, much to Byron’s annoyance. Byron followed, breathing in the invading air, so fresh compared to the reeking odor inside the basement.
“Shit, you two smell awful,” Drake said, stepping back from them.
“You should s
mell the bodies,” Byron said. Something on the air whetted his appetite. He was so hungry he could almost smell his next meal.
“I got the names of all six of them,” Caleb said. “First names only, but I bet we can match them right up once we look at the list again. I also estimated death dates, but I’m no expert in that area.”
“Me, neither,” said Drake. “But from the smell of them, I’d say they’re pretty old.”
“I’m hungry,” Byron said. “Let’s go back, get some food, and figure out what all this means. Plus, we may have an incubus in the area.”
“What’s that smell?” Caleb asked, scenting the air outside.
“I think it’s us,” Byron said with a wry smile. He was so relieved to get out of that place he could buy them all a drink. Right after he showered for a good long time.
“Smells too good to be us,” Caleb said, but he shrugged and followed Byron to his car. Drake had parked right behind it, unable to maneuver around. When he got to his car, he stopped and breathed deeply. Byron didn’t blame the man for wanting to be upwind of him and Caleb. They smelled like they’d steeped in death all day, which in a way, they had.
“I smell sapien,” Drake said, his voice almost a growl. “Live sapiens.”
“I think it’s coming from the movie theater,” Caleb said. “Maybe Angel found himself a new bride.”
Byron sighed. He wanted a hot shower and a cold drink and time to think. Didn’t look like he’d get that tonight. “All right,” he said, relocking his car and turning to his partners. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get them.”
47
Draven and the boy looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Something about the boy’s strangeness frightened Draven a bit, although he found it difficult to fear such a lovely creature, especially one so young who appeared so frightened himself.
The boy spoke first, but Draven didn’t understand the language. It was an old one, probably forgotten by all but the few who had spoken it as humans, hundreds of years before, in the time before the War and the Great Evolution.
“I do not speak your language,” Draven said. “Do you speak mine?”
“Yes,” the boy said with a serene smile.
“I am called Draven. You must be Angela’s lover.”
The boy stood, a movement like water flowing backwards out of a glass. “You know Angela?” he asked, his voice as lovely as his appearance.
“No. Her sister has spoken of you.”
“She has?” the boy asked, his eyes large and pleased. “Did she say good things?”
“She said Angela loved you very much.”
The boy smiled at something very far from this room and this moment, something only he had seen and only he would ever see. After a moment he spoke, although his eyes stayed on the far-away memory. “I’m Angel.”
“Angela and Angel. That makes sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” the boy smiled, and that was beautiful, too. “I thought so.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because this is where I am. Why are you here?”
“I am on my way to Princeton, and trying not to die on the way. Do you wish me harm?” Draven knew little of Angel’s kind, but he did not think they could gain sustenance from Superiors.
“Why would I wish you harm?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes people have not needed a reason.”
The boy came very close to Draven, and for a moment Draven wondered if this being wasn’t capable of hypnosis, because he was so beautiful Draven only wanted to stare at him forever. “I see that you are very sad,” the boy said, looking incredibly sad himself. He touched Draven’s face. “And that you have known great pain.”
“I only want to leave this place in peace. I did not intend to disturb you. I apologize.”
“I see, yes.” The boy smiled again, his smile a thing of beauty but also of blinding brilliance that almost hurt to look upon. “I also wish you no harm. I am content for you to leave, if you must. But I know a thing that you should, and I will help you if you help me.”
Draven looked at the strange boy and knew that whatever he was, he was older than evolution, either of the Superior evolutions. He had mutated a very long time ago. In form only he resembled a human. His expressions, his cadence, his movement, even his lovely smile seemed very far past.
“With what do you require my assistance?” Draven asked.
“They have taken my love,” the boy said, his big eyes eclipsed with tears.
Hardly believing it, he slowly touched the boy’s soft, cool eyelids with his fingertips. “You can cry.”
“Yes,” Angel said, dropping his gaze from Draven’s awed one. “Will you help me free her?”
“Who has taken her?”
“The humans. She is there,” the boy said, pointing to the square building down the street. A gentle rain had started to fall outside.
“Angela’s family took your human?”
“Who she is, I do not know. But already I love her by sight.”
“I made a promise not to harm them.”
Angel looked at Draven with more interest, almost accusation. “Who did you promise?”
“I promised Sally. Angela’s sister.”
“You made a promise to a human? And you intend to keep it?”
“Yes.”
Angel smiled again. “I knew you were going to help me. I can see good in you, that your intent is as mine. Come with me, and we will not harm them.”
“And what is this you wish to tell me?”
“There are others here. They wish to harm me. We must be careful.”
“And this is something I need to know?”
“They are dangerous. They chased me from my home only last night. They took my other lovers away, and now they will take this one if I don’t save her.”
“And what is this to me? If I choose to leave in peace?”
“You won’t find peace in Princeton. There is only peace where there is no person, and you are far from it,” Angel said. He paused and turned his head slightly, as if listening. “They come this way now. They will smell us. We must hide.”
Draven could see them now, three silhouettes coming towards them, walking down the center of the ruptured street, their footsteps sending echoes out before them with their scent.
With a shiver, Angel sank back into the shadows behind him and breathed a whisper of a word.
“Vampires.”
48
Cali woke suddenly, hot breath on her face. “Hey, pretty thing,” someone whispered.
In the dark, she couldn’t see who spoke, but she could tell it was a man. She didn’t know him well enough to recognize him before he started pulling at her wool jumpsuit.
“Stop it,” she said, pulling back, fighting his hands. “Who are you?”
“It’s just me, sweet thing. Don’t you recognize me?” He kept pushing her hands away, trying to figure out how to get the garment off her.
“Stop,” she said again, pushing him.
“Hey now, you just be nice,” he said. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. We’re just gonna have us a little fun.”
It was so dark. Why didn’t any light come in? The room had no windows, and Cali couldn’t see anything. But she could smell his warm breath, his sweat, her own stale sweaty smell and the smell of the others, the dusty smell of the room, and mold.
“Get off me,” she said, this time not in such a small whisper. She hit at him and caught his chin with the heel of her hand.
“Hey now, that ain’t very nice. I’m just trying to show you a warm welcome and that’s what I get for it? Now I’d say that’s just plain rude, wouldn’t you?”
He started undoing her suit while she hit him and tried to get him off. But instead of accepting her resistance, he lay on her so she couldn’t breathe. “Stop, stop,” she kept saying, but he didn’t listen.
“Be quiet now, you wouldn’t want to wake them others. They’ll ignore us if we’s just doing o
ur business, but I can’t have you waking everybody. Mama’s right by you.”
“Larry, stop. I don’t want to.”
He stopped for a second and lifted up enough so Cali could catch her breath.
“Why not? It’s just for fun. You don’t have to marry me when we get back.”
“I still don’t want to. I mean, I’ve never…”
“You ain’t never done it? That’s okay. I done a virgin before.”
“What’s that?”
“Y’know. Somebody who ain’t never done it. I’ll be nice. I promise you’ll like it real well.”
“But what if I get pregnant?”
“It don’t matter, the first one don’t even count nohow.”
He put his hand inside her jumpsuit as she wrestled to get away. “What does that mean?” she asked, pushing one of his pawing hands off her belly.
“It means the first baby don’t count, ‘cause you gotta give it away. Then on after that, you can keep ‘em.”
Cali sat up so fast her forehead cracked against Larry’s. Swearing, he sat up off her. “What?” she demanded. She might as well have stayed with Shelly in her own garden if things were the same everywhere. She thought only her master would force her to mate with men she didn’t know, have babies, and give them up. But it seemed these people expected it, too, even in their supposedly free community without Superiors. “Why?” she asked.
“Ah, come on, let’s not talk about it now. I’m all excited-like here.”
“No, I want to know why you said that.”
“I don’t know, okay? I just know that’s what you gotta do. Everybody does it. But you’ll have more babies, don’t worry. Them Hensons had eight. Two of them died, but still.”
“Who do you give the babies to?”
“The elders, course.”
“What do they do with them?”
“How would I know that? I look like an elder to you? All I knows is they take them, and then I reckon a time later they bring them back. I mean, Herman was born out here, and he come back.”
Blood Thirst Page 26
