The Children of the Sun

by Christopher Buecheler

  Ashayt had no immediate response to this, and it seemed that no further information was forthcoming. The thing – she could not manage to think of it as a man anymore – stood there before her, staring at her with its wicked eye. At last, she found the courage to speak again.

  “What do you want of me?”

  “You are not of this place,” it said, tilting its head to one side.

  “I was born in the south and my people are no more.”

  “The south is nothing but desert, baking under the hateful sun.”

  “I am from the desert. What do you want?”

  The thing chuckled. “I have a gift for you.”

  “I want no gift,” Ashayt told it. “I want only to return to my home.”

  “Oh? And not to the arms of your lover?”

  Ashayt faltered, her cheeks warming, and said, “I do not know of whom you speak.”

  “Make me yours, my Lord!” the thing exclaimed, its voice taking on a gasping, needing tone that Ashayt knew was a twisted imitation of her own. “I cannot wait a moment more! Use me as your vessel, an empty thing to be filled. Spray into me your hot and sticky seed while I go before you on my knees like a bitch in heat!”

  Ashayt felt her mouth drop into an expression of shock and dismay, and seeing this, the thing cackled a kind of hideous, screaming laughter. Ashayt shrank away from the sound, shaking her head in negation, and might have turned and fled if the creature had not abruptly ceased its laughter and leaned in toward her.

  “I have a gift for you,” it said again, and it seemed to Ashayt that its eye began to grow, becoming a deep pool of silver in which she might swim – or drown.

  “I want no gift,” she heard herself say again, but the words were muffled and indistinct, as if coming through sheets of wet linen.

  “It is my time,” the thing told Ashayt, and now it was cradling her in its arms, though how she had come to be there she could not remember. “Like a plant which goes to seed, I must pass my gift on, and I have chosen you. Not because you are special. Not because you are unique. I have chosen you because you are here, and I am here, and your lover is gone, gone away to be with his wife, and cannot protect you.

  “I will make you mine, and when next he sees you, he will not know the woman who stands before him. He will recognize your face and your voice but he will no longer know you, and because this above all else pleases me, I have chosen you. This is my gift. May you live forever in this Gods-forsaken hell, as must I, because you were here, and I was here, and he was not.”

  The thing bared its teeth and it seemed to Ashayt that its mouth had become lined with daggers. She thought that she should cry out, or at the very least feel some sense of fear, but it seemed her body could not manage. She closed her eyes, and took a breath, and felt a white-hot flash of pain at her neck. After that, there was nothing.

  Chapter 6

  Mission Briefing

  “Do you understand your orders?” The man asked her, and Vanessa Harper sighed, long and dramatic, as she glanced over at him.

  “I understood them the first time you went over them, Charles,” she said. “The second time was unnecessary, and this is just excessive. What’s the big deal?”

  Charles stopped pacing back and forth behind his desk and lowered his head for a moment, holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. It was a gesture that Vanessa knew well. She had first met Charles at the age of nine, and he had been an integral part of her life ever since. It had been eighteen years since a pack of Burilgi vampires had slaughtered her parents, her older sister, and two of her cousins on a camping trip. They had left Vanessa and her younger brother behind only because a hunter from the Children of the Sun had shown up.

  “The ‘big deal,’” Charles was saying, “is that you’ve never faced anyone quite like this before. I want to be sure you understand what you’ll be dealing with.”

  “If she’s so dangerous, why go after her first? Why not knock some more of them out of the picture?”

  “Her ability to galvanize other vampires into action is too dangerous to leave unchecked. With her, they become a united force – but if we remove her from the picture, they will fall rapidly back into chaos and petty squabbling. For all of our strength and training, we are still greatly outnumbered if they come at us en masse.”

  “Well, most of them are Burilgi, and they hate the other ones.”

  “Bridges are being built,” Charles said, looking up at her with his dark, hawkish eyes. “It is not like before. The council is changing. That is why we must strike now, before it can undergo its full metamorphosis and become something stronger.”

  “You think it was better before, with Abraham still alive?”

  “Of course not. Entire dynasties rose and fell among the vampires while we sat and waited for someone to remove Abraham from power. That it has finally happened – and at the hands of a young, human girl, no less – is something to celebrate.”

  “Too bad we lost track of her,” Vanessa said, and Charles nodded, frowning. His hair had gone from greying at the temples to grey all over in the past four years, and where once he had been thin, he now seemed almost emaciated.

  “Charles, are you all right?” she asked him, and he gave her a momentary, suspicious glance before answering.

  “I am fine. Certainly there is nothing to trouble yourself over.”

  “Have you seen any of the physicians lately?”

  “Do I look sick to you, Vanessa?” Charles asked, chuckling, but his amusement seemed forced.

  You look old to me, she thought, but she only shook her head. “No, just want to make sure you’re with us for the long haul.”

  Charles smiled. “Your concern is touching, but I am fine. I will be here when you return to congratulate you on your victory, and I will be with you as we move forward. When at last we have rid America of this scourge, I will be there to celebrate.”

  “That will be awesome,” Vanessa said. “Charles … I need to talk to you about Captain Perrault.”

  “Yes, our new weapon. How are you finding her?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “She’s as brutal and deadly in the field as she was in her training.”

  “Doesn’t that please you?” Charles asked.

  Vanessa ran her hands over her long, dark braids and sighed. “She’s not one of us.”

  “She has gone through the indoctrination, has been touched by the Emperor just as you were and I was. She fights with the kind of single-minded lethality that we wish all of our soldiers possessed, and she hates our enemies to the very core of her being. What more would you ask of her?”

  “She’s covered in blood that she’ll never be able to wash away. She ordered me to kill two more humans just on the last trip! She’ll always be one of them.”

  “She’s human now,” Charles said.

  “Two weeks ago she jumped from eight stories up, crashed through a plate-glass skylight, landed on her feet, and then leapt forward so quickly that she took a six-hundred-year-old Eresh vampire off guard. There is absolutely nothing human about that. Her gifts are vampire gifts.”

  Charles sighed and sat down in his chair. Vanessa tried not to notice as the grey fabric of his suit, once exquisitely tailored, folded and bunched around his new, lesser frame.

  “The changes that vampirism wrought upon her body are her curse to bear. She has strength and speed, yes, but her need to hunt will always be there. We have given her an outlet for her needs, and she serves us without question. If you must feel anything for her, make it pity. She has to live with the knowledge that she was once a part of the plague.”

  “The others are scared of her. They won’t tell you because they’re scared of you, too.”

  “How preposterous,” Charles said. “There is nothing to fear from either of us.”

  “You’re the Emperor’s Left Hand, the Staff of Knowledge. She’s his Right Hand, the Sword. As extensions of the Emperor’s will, you’re both dangerous, and people
don’t like getting you angry.”

  Charles tilted his head for a moment, considering this, before nodding. “Yes, I suppose I can see that. Certainly I have had to hand out disciplinary action from time to time.”

  “And you’re not done yet. My brother is still out there.” Vanessa pronounced the word as if it filled her mouth with some vile taste.

  “Yes, your brother will need to be brought in. Surely, though, you understand that you have nothing to fear from me.”

  “I understand it. A few of the others probably do. To most of them … the Emperor is like a god. That makes you a demigod.”

  Charles gave a short, coughing laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It does. You and her, the Emperor’s Hands. You’re dangerous, and it’s right for them to fear the two of you. You could turn the Emperor against any one of us if you wanted to, and that woman … that thing … is a psychopath.”

  She and Charles were both silent for a moment, contemplating. At last he reclined in his chair and regarded her from down the bridge of his long nose. “She is not an unthinking beast, Vanessa. She is a human being.”

  “She is an Eresh vampire!” Vanessa cried, smacking her hand on the table. “She’s a vampire – one of the things we’ve been dedicated to killing since the time of the Incas – and you made her a captain. You put her in charge. You—”

  Vanessa cut herself off, swallowing what she had been about to say, but Charles was grinning.

  “I couldn’t make you a captain so soon, Vanessa. Captain Perrault, as the Right Hand, is a special case.”

  “It’s not that,” Vanessa muttered. “This isn’t some kind of jealousy thing. Everyone on my squad knows who their orders come from.”

  “Of course they do, which is why I had to give her the rank that I did. Can you imagine if I made her a Sergeant? Would a single one of them do anything she told them to do?”

  “They would after she disemboweled the first one who ignored her,” Vanessa said, and Charles laughed.

  “Indeed, but I hardly think that would be best for morale! It was easier to recognize her obvious combat superiority by conferring a rank upon her that forces them to obey.”

  “I just wish you would’ve put her on another squad.”

  “Yours is the best we have.”

  “I know,” Vanessa said. “That’s why we don’t need any help from your little pet.”

  Charles sighed again and shook his head. He leaned his head back against his chair with his eyes closed, and when he looked at her next, she could tell that he was exhausted.

  “I will put your concerns forth to the Emperor,” he said. “Ultimately, as with all things, the decision will be his.”

  “Of course I’ll abide by whatever he commands,” Vanessa said.

  “Very good. If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I have a great many things to do today – most of them tremendously dull, but vital nonetheless.”

  “You might want to take a nap first. You look beat.”

  Charles gave her a wan smile. “There has been little time for sleep of late, but I assure you, I am fine.”

  He stood up and moved toward the door, and Vanessa knew she was being dismissed. She stood as well, stopping next to him at the door.

  “Thank you for listening to my concerns,” she said.

  Charles smiled at her. “Certainly. You know that whenever you need to speak about such things, my door will be open. In the meantime, I ask only that you trust in your Emperor and in me, and that you give Captain Perrault your full support.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Vanessa told him. She stepped out into the hallway.

  “Thank you. Good luck on your mission, Vanessa. I am sure it will be a resounding success, and I anticipate your report. Remember: This woman is key. Eliminate her, and the others will fall.”

  “We’ll get the job done,” Vanessa said. “In two days, she’ll be a memory.”

  “Very good,” Charles said. Vanessa nodded, turned, and began to walk down the tiled hallway. Behind her, after a moment’s pause, she heard the door latch closed.

  * * *

  The manifest for the private jet said it carried three banking executives, an Internet entrepreneur, and four crew members. No mention was made of the cache of weapons tucked into the rear of the plane. To the outside world, the jet was nothing more than one of the thousands that crisscrossed the globe each day, bringing men and women of wealth and power to their destinations. No one could have guessed that its passengers, in conjunction with its crew, formed an elite death squad that had been training together for years.

  “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Janus said as Vanessa stepped onto the plane. “Can I get you a mimosa? Maybe a pre-flight pastry? It’s complimentary.”

  Janus was a tall, powerfully built man with long, sun-bleached hair held back in a ponytail and a perpetual three-day stubble on his tanned face. Wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he was stretched out in a wide leather chair, a can of Budweiser in hand, smirking at her.

  Vanessa grinned. “You thinking of quitting the Children, Janus? Gonna become a flight attendant?”

  “I looked into it. The skirts don’t fit.”

  “Shame, with legs like yours.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Beside him the Brazilian, Paulo, laughed. He was short, thin, and wiry, with sensual lips and closely shorn black hair. Devoutly religious, Paulo prayed to his God often. He was not afraid of anything, he had told Vanessa once, because he knew that so long as he walked the righteous path of the Emperor, God would protect him. Vanessa, who put her faith in none but herself and the Children, had merely nodded and changed the subject.

  “You see the Captain?” Paulo asked her, and Vanessa nodded.

  “She was finishing her breakfast.”

  “Blood pudding, right?” Janus asked.

  “Belay that shit,” Vanessa growled, watching out the window as Captain Perrault approached the plane.

  “Whatever you say, ma’am,” Janus said, and his voice sounded like he was smirking again. Paulo snickered.

  “Keep laughing, Oliveira,” Vanessa said, still watching the blonde woman below. “We’ll see if God reaches down and stops her when she decides to tear your arms off, because I’m not getting in the way.”

  Paulo went silent. After a moment, he said, “My Lord would protect me.”

  “Just like he’s protected all his other fans, right?”

  “Estou marcados com a cruz,” Paulo said. “I am marked, Lieutenant. It is the Lord’s sign.”

  “Sure it is. I’m just saying, shut up unless you want to find out for sure if your little birthmark is the real deal.”

  “Cristo …” Paulo muttered, but spoke no more.

  “When’d you sign up with the bats, Ness?” Janus grumbled, and now Vanessa looked back at him, struggling to retain the sudden fury that welled up inside of her.

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” she snarled. “If it were up to me, we’d have scorched them all off the face of the Earth years ago – but it’s not up to me. It’s up to the Emperor … the man who saved you, and Paulo, and me, and everyone else we know. We all took the oath. We all knelt before him and felt his hand touch our heads, and we swore to serve him no matter what. So if he says we follow this woman, then we fucking follow her.”

  Vanessa thought she was finished, turning away to look out the window again, but the rest of it bubbled up and she couldn’t keep from swinging back around, leveling a finger at Janus. “And if you ever accuse me of anything like that again, Private, I will blow your fucking jaw off and piss down the hole ‘til you drown. We clear?”

  Janus was looking at her with his eyebrows raised, startled and not exactly frightened but definitely concerned. He nodded. “Crystal, Lieutenant.”

  “Good. She’s coming on board, so zip it up. I don’t want to hear from you for the rest of the flight. Read a magazine. Sleep. Drink your shitty beer and watch porn on your laptop … I don’t give a fuck. J
ust shut up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Vanessa turned back to the window, struggling to regain control. She was shaking. Shaking! All from a stupid, harmless comment by Janus, a man she had known for almost a decade. A man she had laughed with, drank with, flirted with (and thought about fucking more than once, in the way a person will idly entertain an impossible event, like hitting the lottery). Janus had been the first to request transfer to her unit. He knew her, respected her, wanted to work with her. It was just a dumb joke. Why the hell had she let him get under her skin?

  I hate this, she thought.

  There was no choice. Nothing she could do. The Emperor had given orders and Charles had affirmed them. There was nothing at all Vanessa could do except what she was told. She had sworn it, and on the day she had spoken those words, she had meant them with all of her heart.

  It was the first and only time she had ever met the Emperor of the Sun, and she could still remember every moment perfectly except what the man had actually looked like. He existed in her memory surrounded by a sort of glowing haze that obscured all but a basic silhouette. Had the haze been real? Had they drugged her? Some of their training involved such measures. She couldn’t remember.

  It didn’t matter; he was her Emperor. Her God. The man she had sworn to serve until her life ended. Now he wanted her to work with Captain Perrault, so that was what she was going to do.

  Slowly, Vanessa brought herself under control. They had a job to do, and it was perhaps the most important of any that the Children had attempted in her lifetime. With one blow, they could break apart the vampires of America like a pane of glass. A million tiny pieces scattered suddenly into chaos. They had only to kill the girl. That was what Charles had told her, and she believed him.

  Thinking of the glory to come, Vanessa pulled herself from the state Janus had put her in. When Captain Perrault climbed the stairs and stepped into the jet, looking around with that familiar detached, unimpressed expression, Vanessa smiled at her.