by D. J. Bodden
Fangston released his grip on Jonas’ shoulder. “I’m afraid the box has to stay here for now, and I think the rest should as well. You’ll tell me if you find the coin? It could be vital in helping us discover what happened to your father. Your mother might not last much longer without him.”
Jonas swallowed. “Of course,” he said earnestly, placing the jacket and the other objects back in the box. “I want to know what happened to him, too.”
Fangston blinked several times and shook his head, seemingly disoriented, then said, “Jonas?” His eyes flicked to the box on the table. “Oh… of course you do,” he continued, somewhat clumsily. “Now, do you have any other questions?”
“No, sir,” Jonas said, confused. It was as if the anger and tension in Fangston’s face had vanished.
“Very well then, you can head back to your training class. It’s always good to see you, Jonas. Stop by anytime.”
♚
Sunday night, Jonas stumbled into his apartment, exhausted. He’d trained for three hours on Friday, three on Saturday, and had just come from completing another five to wrap up the weekend. His muscles and joints hurt, but he’d expected that; Eve was tireless. She’d worked him over like a machine, hitting anything that hadn’t been hit already, and then doing it again just to be sure. They’d started incorporating a half-squat into the drill, and Phillip basically had to carry him most of the way home.
“How are you feeling?” his mother asked.
“Thirsty,” he said, reaching for the water pitcher. He poured a glass and drank it, then another. He couldn’t seem to get enough water in him. “Do they always work the new trainees this hard?”
“Is Viviane teaching you, or are you just doing drills?”
“Drills,” Jonas answered. “Eve had me—”
“Eve?” Alice interrupted.
“My training partner. She had me—”
“How old is Eve? In actual years, not how she looks.”
Jonas felt the tension in the room go up a notch. “I think she’s just a year or two older than me. She was turned last year.”
His mother seemed to relax. “Oh, I see. And what did she have you doing?”
Jonas wondered why she’d be concerned about the age of his training partner. Did it matter? He shrugged it off. “Not much, really,” he replied, “Just the same drills done in different ways. We took breaks, it’s just that every time I seem to catch my breath—”
“Viviane makes you start again, or makes it harder,” she said, finishing his sentence. Her tone was academic, as if she’d been testing a theory.
“Want to clue me in?” Jonas said, finishing another glass of water and reaching for the pitcher.
“Yes, but before you drink that…” She turned and walked down the hallway, returning a few seconds later with an aluminum pouch, like the ones he’d seen in the Agency cafeteria. “Try this,” she said, and tossed it to him.
He caught it, almost dropping his glass in the process. The thought of what was inside — some random person’s blood — made his stomach churn.
“Humor me,” his mother said.
He pulled the tab and felt the heat in his hands, then stuck the straw in, and took a sip. It was warm, tasteless, except for a slight metallic flavor, and had the consistency of thin soup. “Nothing,” he said, placing the packet on the counter. The bottom was flat, keeping it upright with the straw sticking out. “So what are they doing to me?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think they’re trying to provoke an immune response.”
“To what? Am I sick?”
“To death. The disease of vampirism — or curse, because there’s some magic in it too — is usually triggered by the victim dying. The fact that the stimulus and the disease vector are the same is irrelevant. It takes action to preserve itself by protecting its host.”
Jonas stared at his mother. “They’re trying to kill me to see if I turn into a vampire?”
“Yes… or as close as they can without actually killing you. We can come back from some things, but we’re not true immortals.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“Of course. There are angels and demons, and a few other things you might call a demigod or force of nature. You can fight them or bind them… sometimes you can even disperse them for a few decades. But they always come back. Then there are things, like us, that are just really hard to kill, or require a very specific tool.”
Jonas’ head throbbed. I don’t even know how to start dealing with all this, he thought. Every time he talked to someone, the world got bigger, stranger, and more dangerous.
Alice smiled. “I know that’s a lot of information to take in at once. If you want to learn more, there’s a library in the Agency building. Go read a few books, maybe you’ll find the right questions to ask.”
He looked at her and checked his barriers in a panic. They were still up.
Apparently she’d read the look on his face. “I’m your mother, Jonas. I’ve had sixteen years of extraordinary insight into the way you think. Now, is there anything else before I go to work?”
“What’s up with Fangston’s name?” he asked. “It’s a joke, right? Because he’s a vampire?”
Alice shook her head. “He got that nickname in the army, before he was turned.”
Jonas frowned. “He was in the U.S. military?”
“Roman legion,” Alice said, “back when there were less than 10,000 of them. We met a very long time ago.”
“But you don’t like him?”
She went blank, the way she always did when she was deciding whether or not to tell him something. Finally, she said, “I was an enforcer before the experiment… a high-ranking one.”
“You said you volunteered for it.”
“I did. We did — your father and me. I owed it to Victor.”
Jonas was confused. “Why?”
“Do you remember what I told you about letting Amelia know?”
Jonas nodded. “You said humans don’t react well to abnormalities.”
“That’s right, and your father was no different. He didn’t react well when he found out what I was; made the sign of the cross and tried to exorcise me. He was very devout.”
“Wow.” Jonas said. “But it all worked out, right? You talked it over and—”
“I bit him. He forgave me, of course — vampirism couldn’t change that about your father — but it took him the better part of a year to come around.”
Jonas gaped.
“Anyway, when your dad first approached me about the experiment – giving vampires the ability to withstand sunlight – I was fine with his fantasy of becoming a little more human. It made him happy to think we’d be able to enjoy a sunset together. Like I said, I owed him that. Then you came along – a wonderful surprise, but it wasn’t supposed to happen. Someone increased the dosage beyond what we’d agreed, and most of my powers were diminished in the process. I left the Agency.”
“And you think Fangston did it?”
She shrugged. “Did it, ordered it, allowed it to happen… it doesn’t really matter. I understood that he and I had radically different views of the world. But if he wanted me out of the way he should have just told me.”
Jonas felt a surge of anger fill the room, similar to what he’d felt from Fangston during training, when the Director had set the cigarette on fire, but it faded much quicker.
You must have been terrifying before, Jonas thought. He’d almost said it aloud but couldn’t quite find a way to turn it into a compliment. “Do you think he had anything to do with what happened to Dad?”
His mother looked surprised. “No, Victor was the closest thing Marcus had to a friend. He would never have hurt your father.”
But Dad didn’t tell him about the coin, Jonas thought.
“Anyway, that’s enough about that. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Sleep well.”
After she’d gone, he just sat there, almost too
tired to move. But somehow he managed, putting his glass in the sink and then grabbing the blood pack to pour it out.
It was empty. I must have finished it while we were talking, he thought, frowning. Then, realizing he had school the next morning, he tossed it in the trash and went to bed.
♚
Jonas woke feeling sore, but rested. It was still dark outside - he knew because his room was the only one in the house without heavy drapes over the window. He tried to check his phone for the time, but it was dead. When was the last time I used it? He plugged it into the charger, threw on sweatpants and a t-shirt, and went into the living room.
The display on the cable box read 5:30 a.m. It wasn’t blinking or anything, so the time seemed accurate. How am I not still asleep? He had two hours before he needed to get ready for school, and his mother wasn’t home from work yet. Normally he would’ve gotten back in bed, but he wasn’t tired.
He was halfway through a bowl of cereal when his mother came home.
“Hi, Mom.”
She gave him an appraising look, like she was trying to figure out how tall he was. “How did you sleep?” she said.
“Not bad. No dreams, and I woke up feeling like I’d slept for twelve hours.”
“Well you didn’t, because I left a little over nine hours ago and you were still awake then.”
He nodded. He’d gotten maybe eight hours, tops.
“Do you need another pouch of—?”
“No,” he said quickly, not wanting to go down that road again. Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d drunk the other pouch of blood. One second it was full, the next it was empty. His mother had a look like she was about to say something else, but he spoke first. “I’ll let you know if I feel… thirsty. Seriously. I just don’t want one right now.”
Alice clasped her hands in front of her. Jonas didn’t see her worried very often. The last time was when his dad hadn’t come home.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
She looked him over again. “It’s nothing. I guess I’m just tired. We get… I get a little lethargic around sunrise.” She pinched her lips together, then added, “Get dressed in the living room this morning, and stick your hand under the drapes before going outside.”
“What?” he said around a mouthful of cereal.
“I don’t know how this is all going to work, Jonas. A human would have thrown up from downing a pint of blood that quickly, but you—”
“I didn’t—”
“You did. You just don’t remember doing it because you’re young and you blocked it out. That’s why, in the old days, a proper sire didn’t let her fledglings feed from humans without supervision. They’d kill without realizing it.”
Jonas used his tongue to feel around his mouth. “My teeth are still normal.”
His mother nodded. “On the other hand, a vampire would have thrown up from eating… that,” she said, waving at his breakfast. “I just want you to be careful, dear. There have only been a few vampires born over the past millennium and all of those because a pregnant woman was turned. Most of them died young, so we have no idea what abilities — more importantly, what weaknesses — you’ll develop, and how quick onset will be.”
“Onset?” Jonas asked.
“You could be unaffected, or start tanning more easily. Or you could step out the front door and burn like flash paper the second sunlight touches your body.”
Jonas swallowed hard. “I’ll be careful.”
“Thank you. I’ll have someone install heavier drapes in your room today, after I rest.” She walked to her room, and Jonas heard the door click shut.
He dumped the rest of his cereal into the garbage disposal — he wasn’t hungry anymore — and grabbed his clothes, shoes, phone, and backpack from his room. Then he sat and stared at the clock. It was 5:49. He bit his lower lip and drummed his fingers on his knees. Checking his phone, he noticed that he had two voice-mails and six text messages from Amelia that he didn’t want to deal with. 5:55.
“I need a shower,” he suddenly announced, and walked to the bathroom. He shut the door and stared at it for a minute. I’m being paranoid, he thought, then stuffed the bathmat into the gap underneath and got undressed.
The shower was calming. He stood there for twenty minutes, letting the hot water run over him before soaping up. After another ten minutes the skin of his fingertips began to look like raisins, so he got out and toweled off.
Cautiously, he kicked the rug out of the way and jumped back. This is stupid. All the curtains are drawn, there’s no sunlight in the house. He opened the door and stood there, wrapped in a towel. Nothing happened. “Phew,” he said.
While he dressed in the living room, his eyes kept darting nervously to the window. It was 6:37, well past sunrise. He wondered what it would be like to live without a hand. Would it grow back? Only one way to find out, he thought, psyching himself up. He walked to the window, closed his eyes, and stuck his left hand under the curtain.
CHAPTER 9
He felt nothing. His mother had said he might go up like flash paper. Maybe if it was that fast, he wouldn’t feel anything, it would just be… gone. He pulled his hand back, opened his eyes, and stared in relief at five healthy wiggling fingers… another normal day.
He sat on the couch and checked his phone again. Most of the messages were from Amelia, asking where he was. But, there were also a few about the French test, which was that morning during second period. I completely forgot. He pulled out his notes and crammed until his security detail – Bert and Phillip – arrived to take him to school.
♚
He’d passed. At least he was pretty sure he’d passed. He might have even aced it. The mental exercise of maintaining his barriers and doing the staking drills with Eve had somehow made rote memorization seem easy. Plus, he was running on more sleep — or what felt like more sleep — than he usually did. When he’d first looked at the test, he hadn’t felt the usual dread. The trick questions seemed obvious, and the answers flowed easily from his pen. He’d finished the test well before everyone else, surprising both Amelia and his teacher.
The more pressing question was, did it matter? Any morning could be my last, he thought, trying to keep his cool. It was difficult with the sun hanging over him like a death sentence. He was just grateful he had no scent because, otherwise, Bert and Phillip would have smelled his fear during their morning walk to school.
Maybe I should just stay indoors during the day, he thought. There wasn’t anyone at the school that he cared to socialize with anyway, just acquaintances and classmates, certainly no real friends. Any relationships that were even close had withered in the year since his father’s death. The only one left was Amelia and, at the moment, she was talking to her friends, deliberately keeping her back to him. I probably deserve that, he thought, since he’d ignored her all weekend. He knew she only wanted to help. On some level, though, he knew his mother was right. He couldn’t tell her the truth. At best, she’d think he was crazy. At worst, some kind of monster.
He sat through third and fourth period in a daze, drawing squiggles and patterns in the margins of his textbooks. He rolled a quarter back and forth on his knuckles, the way his father used to, until the teacher caught him. And all he could think about while she threatened to give him detention, was that the light hurt his eyes and made him blink more.
If school and Amelia aren’t important, what is? Mom, Dad, barriers, not getting myself strapped to a roof? Not dying, he answered himself. Suddenly realizing the teacher was still standing there, Jonas said, “I’m sorry ma’am. It won’t happen again.” He stared at the board and took notes, occasionally raising his hand to answer a question. The only thing I can control right now is my barrier.
Viviane had spent the entire weekend trying to provoke some sort of reaction in him, and hadn’t explained much. But between what Fangston, his mother, and Doris had told him, and what he’d witnessed from Viviane, there were several ways to breach a barrier: permissio
n, trickery, widening a small gap, and brute force. He talked it over with Sam — slipping momentarily into the mental world — and the imaginary officer agreed. The barrier could stand an overhaul, but what they needed was a fresh perspective.
Fourth period history was taught by Mr. Edwards, an older man with a permanent limp. Jonas had heard he’d been in a war, though Mr. Edwards hadn’t mentioned it himself. Jonas approached him after class.
“Mr. Edwards?”
“Yes, Jonas?” he said, as he tucked a textbook under his arm and stepped toward the door.
“How would someone defend something from attack?”
Mr. Edwards paused and said, “From a historical standpoint, or are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Just historical. I’ve been trying to learn about walls and barriers.” Jonas thought that was close enough to ring true.”
“What is it you’re defending?”
“Information,” Jonas said.
There was a flicker of something on the teacher’s face — surprise, interest, greed — but whatever it’d been, it vanished before Jonas could be sure. “Well, the usual way would be to destroy the information before it fell into enemy hands. Burn maps, destroy communications equipment. That sort of thing.”
Torching his brain didn’t seem like a good idea to Jonas. “What if that wasn’t an option? If you couldn’t destroy the information, and you had to stay in one place?”
“This is a very broad topic, Jonas. Why don’t you pick up a book on military fortifications to get you started, and we can schedule some time to discuss it next week?”
It was longer than Jonas wanted to wait, but he didn’t think pushing the issue would be a wise move. “I’d appreciate that, sir.”
“Good.” Mr. Edwards turned back toward the door, then added, “Of course, fortifying a place is only a temporary solution. You remember the Alamo, right? You would have learned about it two years ago.”
