Iron Night

by M. L. Brennan

  She paused and took another long drink from her teacup. I measured what she had told me and said, “But that’s not how you made me.”

  Madeline set the teacup down carefully in its saucer. “No,” she agreed. “Because Prudence is my pride and my joy, but she is not what our species needs.” She put the saucer decisively down onto its tray and sat back in the chair, her posture perfect and elegant again, and steepled her fingers. “Humans have always vastly outnumbered our kind, but that is as natural and acceptable as deer outnumbering wolves. They were not a threat. This began to change when technology developed and the humans became more organized. Our kind slipped into the shadows, just as most other sentient or magical species did, and any who did not at once learned their lesson during the Inquisition or the witch burnings. To many we are a myth, and that is safe. But it has never been possible to hide our existence from all—some are useful, and when properly deployed can serve in their own way or maintain the secrets. But others know what we are, and seek to kill us. As technology passed from wooden clubs to steel swords, from swords to pistols, those who sought to kill our kind found success easier to attain, and there were those who died. When I was a child in my mother’s castle, our kind did not find this a cause for concern—many who died were young or stupid or weak. The strong remained, and we fought among ourselves for territory or prizes, not fearing a decline in our kind at first, for too many assumed that stronger offspring would be brooded to replace the dead. And there were so many that were foolishly squandered and lost . . . my own first fledgling, my little girl, killed at barely half a century over a squabble. I left England then. . . .”

  She went silent for a long moment, frowning. I didn’t say anything. She almost never talked about Constance, my sister who had died in England before Rhode Island had even been granted the royal charter that brought it into existence. Then Madeline seemed to shake herself out of older thoughts, and continued. “I crossed an ocean, settled in a new land, had another daughter to replace what I’d lost, but I was paying attention. And even we who live as long as we do can stand to learn the lessons of a new age and join them with the lessons of history. There were wolves in the forests of England when I was a child—great wolves. But they were long gone at the dawn of the 1800s, hunted to extinction. Other extinctions were happening in this time, and I realized that our species was very precariously perched. We are long in maturing, longer in reproducing. As great as we are, we are vulnerable.”

  This made sense to me. “An apex predator,” I suggested. “Like a great white shark.”

  Madeline nodded. “Precisely. The words for what we needed would not come until Darwin’s studies, but I had already realized before the Beagle sailed that what we needed was to change. To adapt. So when your brother was born, I killed the host father at birth, but I left the host mother alive until he was twenty. I discovered that her life held his transition at bay—your sister, like me, transitioned naturally as she left childhood and passed through puberty. But for your brother it did not happen until the day his host mother died.”

  I stared. I’d known for months that something about me was different from the average vampire, but I’d had no idea that my brother was also different. “Chivalry . . . ?”

  “Yes. And you can see the differences. His lack of fixated self-interest, his devotion to his wives, the real love he feels for them. This is different. The bonds between vampires are always strong from parent to child, but less within the sibling nest—more from socialization than instinct—and beyond that there is rarely anything.”

  I was confused. “So, by leaving both Henry and Grace alive . . . by having Jill and Brian raise me . . . you wanted me to be able to love?” The thought set my foundations, not to mention everything I’d ever thought of my mother, reeling.

  Madeline chuckled softly, amused. “You make me sound like such a romantic, darling. No, love for your fellow man and the empathy that seems to hound you to the point of immobility were side effects that must be lived with.” The smile disappeared from her face, and she was entirely serious again. “No, my darling. I wanted you to have self-control, and an understanding of humans and their behavior that your sister and I, and even your brother, lack.”

  “Did your experiment work?” I asked.

  A slow smile that had nothing to do with humor and nothing particularly nice about it spread across my mother’s face. “Who can say for sure, my darling? Transition, despite your sister’s best efforts, has not been completed. Who can know what butterfly will emerge from your chrysalis?” I shuddered as the realization of how much I could lose, and how close I’d come to losing it tonight, filled me. Madeline’s sharp eyes caught it, and her smile widened. In deceptively gentle tones, she asked, “Now, why don’t you tell me what action you took that so enraged your sister that she would defy me in such a way? I find myself quite curious.”

  There was no point trying to lie to her or to sugarcoat the situation. I knew that Prudence would be only too eager to fill in any gaps that I left, and in the worst way possible, so I forced myself to tell my mother the unvarnished truth about what had happened with Matt, what he had seen, and how I had stopped Prudence from killing him. The smile was long gone from Madeline’s face when I finished—she was grim, and her lip had curled back from those long fangs. Clearly she was very unhappy and the focus of that unhappiness was on me, not my sister. There was a long silence when I finished, broken only by the soft sound of my mother tapping a nail thoughtfully against one of those heavy fangs. It was a creepy sight and an even creepier sound. I waited, barely able to breathe, knowing that Matt’s life hung in the balance.

  When Madeline finally spoke, it was slow and almost reluctant. “You are close to an adult,” she began, her blue eyes considering as she assessed me. “I will let you make this decision—but remember that he and his actions are your responsibility now. If Mr. McMahon is dangerous to us, you will have to kill him. Not me. Not your sister. Not even your brother. You.”

  I nodded as a surge of relief filled me, followed almost immediately by an equally strong rush of dread. Everything rested now on whether I could convince Matt to keep quiet and hide the explosive truth that he’d seen in the clearing. I wasn’t sure if I could live with myself if I had to kill Matt—frankly, I wished I could be sure that I wouldn’t be able to—but at least this was a chance. Such a slim one, but if Matt could be persuaded not to talk . . . if, if, if. But it was a chance, and I grabbed at it with both hands, even if its edges were as sharp as knives.

  “Okay,” I said simply.

  All of the energy seemed to drain out of my mother, and she leaned completely back into the chair, almost sinking into the cushions. Her blue eyes were strangely drained, and the color looked almost gray. Exhaustion was suddenly clear in every part of her, as was her immense age. She waved one thin hand vaguely. “Off you go, then, my darling. Much to do. Your brother can handle everything else here.” A moment later I could feel the thump inside of myself that indicated that Chivalry had just entered the mansion, and I wondered how long my mother had been aware of his approach.

  I left quietly. Madeline’s eyes were already drooping as I eased the door closed. I hurried down the hall, knowing that I needed to get back to Providence as soon as I could and see what was waiting for me on that side. I passed Chivalry on the staircase. From the expression on his face my brother clearly knew that something was very wrong, and he gave a wordless shout at the sight of me, but I shook my head and moved past him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not slowing down. “I can’t stop and talk. Mother will tell you everything.”

  The Fiesta was still running in the driveway where I’d left it. Thankfully, the engine had stopped steaming, but when I put the car in gear and headed out the driveway there was a very new and deeply unhappy rattling sound from the engine, a clear sign that there would be many consequences for what had happened tonight. I pulled out onto Oce
an Drive slowly, babying the car, and praying that it would get me all the way home. I couldn’t imagine what kind of figure I would present to a AAA tow driver.

  I’d shoved the Colt under my seat for safekeeping, and now I retrieved it and dropped it on the passenger’s seat after checking to see that the safety was engaged. Then I picked up my phone and called Suzume, wondering what had been happening in Providence during my own adventures in Newport.

  I could hear the question in her voice the moment she answered on her end, but she didn’t ask whether Matt was doomed or not. Instead she simply told me that they were both in my apartment, waiting for me. Lilah was gone, having had to take Felix and Iris home. I thanked her and let her know that I was on the road and that I’d be there as soon as I could.

  “Oh, and one last thing,” Suze said just as I’d been about to hang up. “Apparently your Fiesta is hot.”

  “What?” The Fiesta had been called many things, but never that.

  “That’s how Matt knew where to find us. At some point he stuck a GPS tracker on the Fiesta. When you talked with him this morning he realized that you were still holding out on him, and he spent the rest of the day tailing us. So that’s how he was able to arrive like the cavalry.”

  “Shit,” I said, but I was too tired to put any force behind it. I’d wondered briefly how Matt had somehow found us, but had frankly had far too many other pressing topics on my mind (primarily how to keep him alive) to fully explore the topic. “Okay, I’m coming back.” We exchanged good-byes, and I hung up.

  The drive back was very slow, the Fiesta making progressively louder noises of protest as we went. I was exhausted, my head splitting from my trip against the wall, the slices on my arm throbbing, and a thousand other sore spots making themselves known in a general miasma of misery. And I would’ve gladly spent a year in this condition, with no hope of even a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to clean out my cuts, in exchange for not having to face Matt.

  When I finally limped home, the Fiesta gave a sputtering rattle when I turned the key in the parking lot of my building. I gave the steering wheel a pat—it was very clear that the Fiesta would need a long visit with my mechanic before it drove me anywhere again. Matt’s big Buick was in the parking spot next to mine, so it was clear how Suzume had gotten everyone away from the park.

  I climbed the three flights of stairs to my apartment very slowly, but finally there was no putting the moment off any longer, and I let myself into the apartment.

  Matt was tied to a chair in the middle of my living room. Suzume’s creepy hostage kit was still riding in her duffel bag in the trunk of the Fiesta, but she had apparently been quite willing to MacGyver herself a solution, and Matt was tied up with several of my long tube socks and the two formal ties that usually lived in the back of my closet. It should’ve been funny, but the closed, hostile expression on Matt’s face when he looked at me kept any part of it from being humorous. The left sleeve of his shirt had been cut off, and there was a clean white bandage wrapped around the spot where the half-blood elf had cut him with the butcher knife.

  Suze was sitting on the sofa, within easy grabbing distance if Matt showed any signs of wiggling out of his bonds, but she got up immediately when I came into the room, her face very carefully set in neutral lines.

  I paused for a long moment at the door. I’d spent the entire drive over thinking about what I would do and what I could say, but all of my carefully prepared speeches flew out of my mind.

  “Suze,” I said quietly. “Can you give us some privacy?”

  Those dark eyes bored into me, trying to figure out what I had planned, but I knew that she failed, because I didn’t even know myself. Then she nodded and walked past me and out the door. I heard her footsteps going down the steps as I pushed the door closed behind her, and I realized that she was actually doing what I’d asked—going far enough away that she couldn’t hear what we said.

  I pulled another chair away from my battered table and sat in front of Matt. He still said nothing, just studying me with those opaque cop eyes of his.

  I took a deep breath and started talking.

  It wasn’t what I’d planned, but at that moment I did what felt like the only right thing to do—I told the truth.

  I told him the truth about the Grann murders. I told him the truth about how Jill and Brian had been killed. I told him the truth about what I was, and the things that lived in the world under a veneer of normalcy. I told him everything.

  As I did it, I knew that it was probably the stupidest thing I could’ve done. I also knew that it was the only thing I could’ve done.

  He didn’t say a word, simply listening stone-faced as I upended everything he’d woken up knowing this morning. And when I was done I leaned forward and untied him, then sat back and waited for his response.

  At first he just looked at me, as if he’d never seen me before in his life. Then he leaned forward, very slowly and deliberately, and put his hand on my jaw. I knew what he was looking for, and I opened my mouth, forcing myself into passivity as I felt his thumb push my upper lip aside to reveal my teeth. I waited while he examined me, and when he finally took his hand away from my face, I said quietly, “I don’t have the fangs yet. But I will when I’m older.”

  “Did Brian know what you are?” It was Matt’s first question, and it struck me hard. Unable to speak, I just shook my head.

  “How many people know about . . . about all of this?” Now Matt got up from the chair and began pacing the room, and I could see the first edges of anger rolling in, like dark clouds before a storm.

  “A few,” I said. Then, looking at him, I repeated urgently, “Matt, you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Or what?” His voice was cold as he glared across the room at me. “Your sister will kill me?”

  “No.” I swallowed, then said the words. “It would have to be me.” Matt froze in his steps and stared. “That was the deal I made tonight to keep you safe. But you have to be careful.”

  His face was frozen. “Would you do that, Fort?” Matt asked slowly. “Would you kill me if I was a threat?”

  The question hung in the air between us. I paused, then said, almost begging, “It’s not just my safety, Matt—” And I broke off because suddenly Matt’s cop mask broke and I saw what lay beneath—the hurt, the stricken betrayal—and I knew the mistake I’d just made. “Damnit, I can’t just act for myself!” I yelled.

  “But that’s who I always acted for, Fort. For you.” Matt’s words fell between us like stones. His voice dropped, became very quiet, but I shivered at his expression. He meant every word. “Don’t call me,” he said. “I’m not a danger to you. But we’re done. Right now, this second. We’re done.”

  I started to say something, anything, trying to deny what had just happened, but he wasn’t listening to me anymore. I reached for Matt when he crossed the room past me, but it was as if my hands didn’t even exist, like I wasn’t there anymore. Then he was out the door, closing it gently behind himself, and his footsteps echoed briefly from the hallway and were gone.

  Matt was gone.

  Chapter 12

  I was on the couch when Suze came back up into the apartment. I didn’t know how much time had passed since Matt had walked out—all I knew was the numb, broken feeling that filled me.

  Suzume didn’t ask any questions. Since she would’ve seen Matt leave, maybe there weren’t any questions to ask. Instead she silently took me by the hand and led me into the bathroom, where she sat me down on the side of the tub and began the meticulous job of locating, cleaning, and bandaging all of the various cuts and bruises I’d accumulated that evening.

  I studied her as she used surgical tape to carefully attach long gauze pads in place over the long cuts that Soli had left along each of my arms. Bruises mottled her own face, and cuts ringed the knuckles of her hands.

  “Haven’t you shifted
yet?” I asked quietly. Those visible signs of the damage she’d taken herself in the fight could’ve been long gone if she’d returned to her four-legged form.

  She shook her head, splashing yet another cotton ball with a few drops of iodine. “I can do it later,” she assured me, then leaned forward to dab the iodine against a cut on my forehead that I hadn’t even been aware of.

  When I was fully bandaged, she led me into my room. My Ithaca 37 was on the bed, and I looked over at Suze in surprise. I remembered it being knocked out of my hand during the fight with Soli, but I had assumed that it was lost. Suzume gave a casual shrug. “We had some downtime before we had to leave the clearing, and I found it in the grass where you’d dropped it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but she turned away and began to fuss over pulling down the sheets, and then pestered me until I got into the bed and allowed her to tuck me in like an infant.

  “This isn’t going to help,” I said softly, when she’d finished.

  “Just go to sleep,” she urged. “Everything will be easier to deal with in the morning.”

  There was something in her face that made me reach out and catch her hand as she turned to go, some strange hint of withdrawal. “Are you leaving?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, not quite looking at me. “You’ll be okay. I got a call from Lilah when you were driving up from Newport. Your brother already called all the elves left, and just about everyone else in the community he could get a number for. Madeline laid down her punishment, and Lilah’s sure that no one will be coming for you.”

  I stared at her, trying to decipher the look on her face. Certainty filled me. “That isn’t it,” I said. “Why are you leaving?”

  She finally met my eyes, but she was in full poker face mode now. “Lilah said to tell you that she’ll call you in a few days once she gets everything settled with the Neighbors.”