by Shan, Darren
He stopped. Seba had stood up and was heading for the stream. He got in and told Wester to tie the blindfold around his eyes. As the pair of young vampires watched in silence, he extended his arms and stuck out the index finger of both hands. Seba crouched low over the gushing water and held his position like a hovering hawk. For a long time he didn’t move, and his assistants were motionless too. Then, in a flash, his left hand shot into the water. When he pulled it out again, his finger was stuck through the middle of a small silver fish.
Seba tossed the fish onto the bank, removed his blindfold, and raised an eyebrow at Larten, inviting an apology. But Larten was in no mood to beg his master’s forgiveness. With a curse, he suggested a dark, warm place where Seba could stuff the fish, then spun on his heels and stormed off.
“Larten!” Wester cried, struggling out of the stream. He wanted to go after his friend, but before he could, Seba called to him.
“Hold, Master Flack.” When Wester looked back, he was astonished to see Seba smiling. “Let him go. It will do him good to sulk for a while.”
Wester frowned, then looked for the fish. Picking it up, he sniffed carefully. “This isn’t fresh,” he whispered.
“I would be shocked if it was,” Seba chuckled. “I caught it some hours ago, while you were hunting for my pheasant. I had it concealed up my sleeve. As a trained magician, Larten really should have noticed. Perhaps he was too hungry to concentrate.”
“Larten was right,” Wester snapped. “You’re making fools of us.”
Seba’s smile faded, and he shook his head. “You are like sons to me. I would never do that to you. The tasks I have set are all within the means of vampires of a certain standing. You and Larten are not yet ready to pass such tests, but they are legitimate, and there is no shame in failing them.”
“I don’t understand,” Wester frowned. “Why set the tests if you know we can’t complete them?”
“To provoke a reaction like the one we have just seen.” Seba sighed and stepped out of the water. “Larten is a fine young vampire, honest and obedient, but he lacks patience. He also tries to hide his true feelings. It is important for a man to control his emotions, but sometimes we need to be able to express ourselves freely in the company of those we love and trust.
“Larten needs to rebel,” Seba said. “He has stood by me loyally ever since we met in that place of the dead, but the time has come for him to face the world by himself. He must choose his own path, not simply march with me down mine.”
“Why don’t you just tell him that and cut him free?” Wester asked.
“It is important that he thinks it is his own choice,” Seba said. “If you have to be told to rebel, it is not a true rebellion.” Seba noticed Wester’s confusion and laughed. “You might have assistants of your own one night, and then my actions may not seem so curious.
“In the meantime I must ask you to trust me. Say nothing of this to Larten. Continue to suffer with him as he fails more tasks and grows ever angrier. If he asks how I reacted to his insults tonight, tell him I fumed and cursed his name. Let him think I am as angry with him as he is with me.” Seba’s eyes softened, and his voice dropped. “By no means tell him that I love him dearly, or that this hurts me a lot more than it infuriates him.”
Chapter Twenty
The three vampires came to a city in the middle of the night. It was raining, and they trudged through the streets in silence, keeping to the shadows. Larten and Wester were paying little attention to their surroundings, heads lowered, waiting for their master to find a spot where they could rest up. They assumed Seba would lead them to a graveyard or the ruins of an old building, as he usually did, but this time he surprised them by stopping in front of an inn.
“I feel like sleeping in a comfortable bed tonight,” Seba said. “How does this establishment look to you?”
“Very nice,” Wester said, beaming at the thought of spending the night indoors for a change.
“Fine,” Larten grunted, casting a weary eye over the front of the inn. Then he paused and studied it again. It was an old-looking building, with blue glass in the windows. Not many inns had such curious glass. In fact, Larten had only seen one exactly like it, a long time ago, when he was still a human child and passed by this way quite often.
“I know this place,” Larten whispered, raising his head and staring at the street with more interest.
“Do you?” Seba asked, faking innocence.
“I’ve been here before. This is…” He stopped and gulped. “This is the city where I was born.”
Wester and Seba stared at Larten with surprise, though Seba’s stare was forced. “Really?” Seba purred. “I had not thought. But yes, now that I cast my mind back, you are correct. It was in a graveyard not far from here where our paths first crossed, aye?”
Larten nodded slowly.
“Well, this is a nice surprise,” Seba chuckled. “Or is it? Would you rather we move on and not spend the night here? It might stir up old memories. Perhaps we should—”
“I don’t mind,” Larten growled, feeling strangely uneasy but not wanting to admit to his concerns. “It makes no difference to me. Stay or leave—I don’t give a damn.”
“Very well,” Seba sniffed. “In that case we will stay. And, Larten?” He shook a finger from side to side when Larten looked at him. “Do not.”
The innkeeper was surprised to see three travelers abroad at such an hour, but Seba said they had been traveling in a carriage that had crashed when their horse lost its footing. The innkeeper expressed his sympathy, then gave them a reduced rate for the night–against Seba’s protestations–and led them to their rooms, one for Seba and one for his assistants.
“A kind and generous gentleman,” Seba noted as the innkeeper returned to his post. He turned questioningly to Larten. “Are all the people in your city of such fine standing?”
“Not that I recall,” Larten said darkly, thinking about Traz and the way the foreman had murdered Vur Horston all those years ago.
“Well, perhaps they have improved in your absence,” Seba smiled, then bid the pair good night and turned in.
Larten sat by the window in their room and said nothing, staring out at the darkness and the few people who passed by during the remainder of the night. He was remembering his old life, the days when he and Vur had set off to work each morning, fearing Traz’s wrath but pleased to be together, making wild plans for the future, dreaming of a time when they could break free of the factory and city and head out into the brave, unexplored world beyond.
Wester kept a close watch on Larten. He was certain that this was no accident. Seba had brought them here on purpose. He guessed it was to get Larten thinking about the past, the path he had taken in life, the decisions he had made. Nothing could turn a person’s thoughts towards the future more than a volley of ghosts from the past.
Wester didn’t want to play Seba’s game. He was worried where it would lead and what might happen to Larten if he rebelled as Seba wished. He was tempted to say nothing, keep his head down, and hope that Larten stayed in the room until Seba announced that it was time for them to leave. But that would have been unfair. He could sense, by the way Larten shot him occasional glances, that his friend wanted to talk about this. So in the end he put his concerns aside and asked the question that Larten needed him to ask.
“Are you going to visit your family?”
Larten blinked as if the thought had never crossed his mind.
“What family would that be?” he replied.
“Your human family.”
Larten shook his head. “I am no longer human. They mean nothing to me.”
“They’re still your family,” Wester said.
“The members of the clan are my only family now,” Larten insisted. “Vampires have no need of human relatives.”
“But don’t you want to find out what happened to them?” Wester asked. “Aren’t you interested in their fate, if they’re alive or dead, sick or well, su
ccessful or poor?”
Larten shrugged. “I put such concerns behind me when I became Seba’s assistant. I serve him now. I do not wish to divide my loyalties.”
“How can finding out what happened to your family result in a division?” Wester pressed. “It’s natural to be concerned about those you were close to. Your family played a huge part in your life when you lived here. I know you were closer to your cousin than any of the others, but you still cared about them, and I’m sure they cared about you.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Larten huffed. “I bet they were glad to be rid of me—it meant more food for the rest of them.”
“I doubt they were that cold,” Wester said softly.
“You never met them, so how would you know?” Larten sneered.
“They were your kin,” Wester said. “They shared your blood. They must have had some good qualities, or where did yours come from?”
“Don’t try to flatter me,” Larten growled, fighting to hide a warm smile.
“You know that I love you as a brother,” Wester said.
“Stop!” Larten winced. “You’re going to make me cry!”
“Shut up,” Wester snapped. “I’m serious. I love and respect you, Larten, and have always looked up to you. But I’m envious of you too. Not because you’re faster or stronger than me, or because Seba is much prouder of you than he is of me—don’t deny it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Larten said.
Wester’s face dropped. “Weren’t you?”
Larten chuckled. “Well, maybe I was.”
Wester grinned, then continued. “None of that matters to me. The reason I envy you is because you have family and I don’t. I wouldn’t trade my time as a vampire for anything in this world, with one exception. If could restore life to my parents, brother, and sister, I would. If it meant giving up my powers, turning my back on the clan, Seba, and you, I wouldn’t have to think twice. I miss them so much, even all these years later.”
“But I wasn’t as close to my family as you were to yours,” Larten said quietly.
“All the same,” Wester sniffed, “they were your family. If I had a chance to see Ma again, to listen to Da grumbling about the weather, to fight over some stupid argument with Jon…”
Wester fell silent. It was dawn outside. The two vampires sat in their room and watched the sun rising, the street outside coming into sharper focus.
After a while, Larten sighed and stood. “I’m going out.”
Wester nodded, asked no questions, and said nothing for a few minutes. Then, when he was sure that Larten had left the inn, he raised his voice slightly and said, “He’s gone.”
In the room next to his came a muffled response from Seba. “Good.”
Then the vampire master and his assistant lay back on their beds, separated by the thin wall, and stared anxiously at the ceiling, wondering where Larten would go and what he would find in the city of his long-lost youth.
Chapter Twenty-one
The city had changed vastly since Larten had fled from the factory. New factories had opened for business. Old houses had been torn down and rebuilt. There were whole streets and roads he didn’t remember at all.
Yet much was as it had been, just a touch dirtier and dustier than before. The markets still existed, traders laying out their wares as they had when he was a child. Popular inns and taverns drew the same sort of rowdy customers. He passed familiar churches and government buildings.
The silk factory was gone. That surprised Larten. He had never considered the possibility that it might have shut down or moved its premises. When he first came to the building, he thought he had made a mistake and turned around slowly a few times, searching for the factory. When he realized that he had come to the right spot, he studied the structure in front of him. Some windows and doors had been replaced, a couple bricked up and a few more added. The sign over the main door had been changed. Larten could not read the new name, but he could tell by the smell that the place had been converted into a slaughterhouse. That seemed appropriate to Larten, given the bloodshed he had experienced on his final day here.
Larten thought of entering the building and asking about the silk factory and what had happened to it, but he decided it didn’t matter. It made no difference to him whether the owners had gone out of business or moved on.
“I hope your ghost haunts this place,” Larten muttered beneath his breath, staring at the building and thinking of Traz. “I hope you became a tortured soul when I killed you, damned to remain trapped here forever. It’s all you deserve.”
Larten spat on the pavement, then turned his back on the spot where the factory had stood and stormed away, pulling the collar of his coat up high to shelter his neck as much as it could from the rays of the rising sun.
Larten moved faster now, aware that he didn’t have much time. Even with his cap and coat, the light was starting to burn him. If he wanted to avoid a bad case of sunburn, he would have to conclude his business swiftly and get off the morning streets before the sun rose much higher. The midday world was no place for a creature of the night.
Larten hurried through the old neighborhood, familiar to him even after such a long hiatus. This part of the city hadn’t changed as much as other areas. The poor couldn’t afford to tear down and rebuild as freely as the wealthy, so they had to make do with what they had. Some old buildings had crumbled and were nothing but ruins, and a few new hovels had been constructed, but for the most part the borough had not been touched by the passage of time.
When Larten came to the small, gloomy house that had once been his home, he felt his heart tighten and his eyes begin to water. Surprised by his reaction, he scowled and blinked away the tears. He almost turned and left without going any farther, but he forced himself to skirt around to the yard at the back, so that he could not later accuse himself of fleeing from his painful memories.
The pair of barrels stood as they always had, full of water, one for drinking, the other for washing. Larten entered the yard and angled towards the latter barrel. He was not afraid of being challenged. It was late morning, and anyone who lived here should be at work. If that wasn’t the case and somebody was at home, he could simply claim to have stumbled into the wrong yard—all of the houses looked much the same from back here.
Larten didn’t give much thought to the possibility that any of his family might still live here. It had been a long time. His parents had probably died, while his brothers and sisters almost certainly would have moved out to raise families of their own.
Larten stood over the barrel and stared down at his reflection. He remembered the last time he had done this, how he had immersed his head then studied the patterns formed by the orange dye from his hair swirling in the water. Vur had been alive then. They had set off, laughing, for the factory, no idea of what lay ahead of them. If he could go back and warn those two boys of what they could expect from the rest of that day, would they believe him? Or would they dismiss him as a crank, certain that nothing so awful could happen to a pair of harmless, innocent boys?
As Larten studied his melancholic expression, someone coughed inside the house, and the back door began to open. Reacting instinctively, Larten leapt and grabbed hold of the wall to his left. He hauled himself up, then pounced onto the roof like a cat and spread himself flat. Edging forward, he studied the yard from a height, unseen and unnoticed.
An elderly man stumbled out of the house and shuffled to the barrel of drinking water. He dipped in a mug, filled it, then drank slowly, hand trembling, drops spilling from the mug and dripping from his lips back into the barrel. When he was finished, he paused and looked up at the sky to check the weather.
The man was Larten’s father.
For a human of that time, Larten’s father was ancient. He had outlived virtually all of the people he had grown up with, Larten’s mother, and several of his children too. His skin was wrinkled and stained with dark spots and patches. He was almost as skinny as a
skeleton and could not stand straight. His hair was long and untidily kept, caked with dirt. But despite its poor condition, it was a brilliant white color. Traz’s dye had kept its sheen even after all these decades.
Larten wanted to launch himself from the roof, throw his arms around the old man, and announce his return. The pair could laugh and cry together, go for a drink in an inn, reminisce about the past, and catch up on all that had happened since their paths were so cruelly parted.
But Larten was a vampire, a creature of immense speed and power, who had barely aged since he was blooded. How to explain his youthful appearance, his aversion to the sun, his need to drink blood? If his father had been younger and healthier, perhaps they could have reconnected. But Larten sensed that he would only throw the old man’s world into disarray if he revealed himself now. His father was frail and elderly, surely not much longer for this life. It would be unfair to shock him. Better to let him live out his last few months or years in peace and quiet, troubled by nothing more than dark clouds in the sky and the threat of rain.
The old man muttered something beneath his breath, then dragged himself over to the wall that Larten had leapt onto. With much wheezing and coughing, he knelt and touched some dead flowers that had been set at the base of the wall.
“I’ll get new flowers for you soon,” Larten heard his father mumble. Then he picked out some of the decomposed petals and tossed them aside. He carefully rearranged the others as best he could, sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and started to pray.
Larten didn’t care to eavesdrop on such a personal, sensitive scene, but he could not rise and slip away without alerting his father to his presence. He didn’t want to have to flee from his own flesh and blood, so he remained where he was, spread-eagled, trying to tune out the old man’s words and afford him as much privacy as he could.
