by Tanith Frost
Bethany gives her head a little shake and pages through the book. “Something you might find just as interesting as our outing the other night. We haven’t discussed how you react to light, have we?”
“No. It’s a strange one. Like I’m not feeling it directly, just its physical effects on me.”
She looks up at me, eyes shining. “It is odd, isn’t it? I feel other powers as physical effects, but with light it’s different. There’s something missing, like…”
“Like having the effects of being electrocuted without actually feeling the electricity pass through you,” I finish, and her smile warms me.
It feels good to be speaking the same language.
“And how do you feel about it?” she asks.
Of course. Because all of this is still a test, and it always will be.
She won’t know if I lie. The thing is, I don’t need to stretch the truth to tell her what she probably wants to hear. All I have to do is think back to the night I woke up in the recovery facility.
“I want to feel neutral about it,” I say. “I want it to be like whatever it was we felt the other night in that little creature. Something to investigate, even be curious about, but impersonal.”
Bethany steps closer. “But?”
“But it is personal. It rejected us. It actively wants to destroy us—not just those of us who are sensitive to these things, but all of us. It’s…” My mouth has gone dry, and my tongue tastes bitter. “It’s an enemy in a way that nothing else is, isn’t it? But one we have to tolerate if we want to survive, given its connection to humans.”
“True enough. For now.”
I glance down at the book. “Is that—What exactly are you working on here?”
She flips through the book too quickly for me to make out what’s written on the pages, stopping at a drawing of what looks like a human lying on a hospital gurney with tubes attached to both arms. Beside this image is another, labelled “fig. 2”, of an eye with its lids clamped open. Pages of notes follow, interspersed with more drawings of strange contraptions and charts noting doses of various substances.
I lean in for a closer look. Bethany snaps the book closed. “We wondered whether the light in humans might be hindering us in some way even if we didn’t feel it, and whether removing it from them might provide a better feeding experience. It took me decades to make any real progress in removing it, and it’s the only one I’ve had success with in any living creature.”
“Because it’s not in them.” I speak without thinking, but it’s okay. I’m not telling her anything she doesn’t already know.
“Very good. Most of them aren’t even aware of it, and early experiments showed that the connection would wither through neglect. But it’s stubborn. We’ve had to go to great lengths to actually sever it.”
Though I’m embracing my separation from the living, a chill grabs hold of me at the thought of experiencing what I did after my death but while still alive and without the void to offer its cold consolation.
I clear my throat to dislodge the lump that’s formed there. “You’ve achieved this in the living? And the shock didn’t kill them?”
“It was a close thing, believe me.” Bethany smirks, and in her cruel amusement, she’s more beautiful than ever. It’s terrible and, as Ava, it’s everything I want to become. She tilts her head as she looks me over, seeming to come to a decision. “Follow me. It’ll be easier to explain if I show you.”
We leave the workroom, and Bethany lectures as we walk. “The results have been truly fascinating. As it turns out, light gives humans more than just a connection to something larger than themselves, and removing it changes them in a fundamental way. They still have life. Little changes on a physical level. It’s just… well, you’ll see.”
We’re heading back toward the interrogation rooms again. Past them, the corridor splits into a T. We turn right, but voices to the left catch my attention. So does the humidity in the air, and the thick, organic scent of lake water.
My steps slow.
“What’s going on down there?”
Bethany turns back and frowns. “Sounds like the water’s off, so I’d guess some human decided the waterfall was their way out of here.”
I listen more carefully but can’t make out what anyone is saying. “Randolph said that no one could escape that way.”
“They can’t.” Bethany sounds amused and exasperated at the same time. “The force of the waterfall is enough to ensure they drown if it doesn’t crush them outright. We turn off the water so we can retrieve the body—so they don’t pile up and clog up the drainage pipes. It’s too risky even for us to send a crew down there otherwise.”
I follow her, unwilling to let the ideas brewing deep in my mind take conscious form. They feel dangerous, but that only highlights their importance—and how important it is to keep them hidden. I just have to trust they’ll be there when I need them.
“Do they still have souls when the light is gone?” I ask, as if I have no further interest in suicides or escape routes.
Bethany frowns at me. “That’s irrelevant and impossible to test. For all we know, their connection to the light is the same thing as a soul. Why?”
“Just curious.”
We pass through a doorway into a cleaner, drier corridor. Bethany opens one of the steel doors to our left and motions for me to go ahead.
I brace myself, focusing on the disconnect from humanity that I felt at the graveyard before Gracie’s arrival. This is science, no different from how humans experiment on animals they consider lower than themselves, hoping to benefit their own species. Ugly, but many would argue necessary.
It’s a little like the room I visited with Lachlan last night with its speaker and doorway, but the room beyond the window here is larger. Well lit, too, in stark contrast to the dark space Bethany and I now occupy. It looks like a small apartment with a bed, a TV, a bookshelf, and a bathroom. I step closer. There’s no door for the bathroom. No light switches.
A human lies on the bed, wrapped in a puffy red blanket. He’s staring straight at us, but not reacting.
“He can’t see us, can he?”
“No.” Bethany stands at the window with her arms crossed. “Just a mirror. And he can’t hear us, either.”
I lean in closer, squinting. “He’s alive?”
“He is. He could get up if he wanted to. Read something, watch something. But this is how they are without light. They don’t speak even when spoken to. We have to remind them to go to the toilet, or they’ll piss the bed, and we’ve had to force-feed them from time to time.” She rubs her fingers over her chin as she observes him. “They’re not depressed, exactly. More like empty. There’s a spark missing.”
What I’m seeing is horrible, fascinating. I don’t let myself think of humans I know, how it could be them in there. It’s easy enough to forget, to become lost in the possibilities. “Is it permanent?”
“The disconnect seems to be. But they eventually get over this state of shock and become a bit more animated. That’s when we have to keep an eye on them. We never give them access to sharp objects or anything they could use to harm themselves—or us. They become aggressive, attacking vampires without warning or any sense of self-preservation. Hard-won lessons, I’ll tell you.”
“And has it improved them as stock?”
Bethany lets out a frustrated sigh. “To use a modern phrase? They suck. That’s the question we’re working on now. Logically, removing the influence of an energy that harms us should ultimately help us, but their blood is flat. Dull. Not lifeless but far less appealing and less beneficial. That’s why we’re keeping this subject in fairly normal surroundings, offering stimulation to see whether that makes the difference. It’s a process. We’ll get there.”
I have so many more questions—how many humans lost their lives or their sanity before the experiments got to this stage, what they know but can’t communicate that drives them to seek death over this state of being,
what she thinks becomes of them when they die if they might not have souls.
The human stirs, then stills. My chest clenches.
He’s staring right at us. His expression hasn’t changed, but there’s something in his eyes.
“He really doesn’t know we’re here?” I ask.
Before Bethany can answer, the human rises. His legs tangle in the blanket, and he stumbles, slamming into his mirrored wall. I back away, but Bethany doesn’t move. The human’s not looking at either of us now, just screaming meaningless sounds that ring out from a speaker on the wall and beating his fists against the glass.
Bethany pushes a button on the wall next to the speaker. “Stop. Now.”
The human screams again and bashes his forehead against the glass. He whips his head back and throws it forward again, and blood smears across the window.
“Shit,” Bethany whispers, and turns to another speaker near the door we entered by.
The human’s screams are threatening to split my brain in half, and I want to destroy my ears just so I won’t have to hear the rhythmic slamming anymore.
He falls silent. He looks dazed and stumbles back, apparently ready to stop, but a bright spark comes into his eyes, and he throws himself back into the task.
It’s impossible that a human should be capable of the damage he’s doing to himself. Nothing is inhibiting his strength. The glass cracks in a spiderweb pattern, but the damage is minimal compared to the bloody mess he’s made of his skull.
Bethany presses another button below the speaker. “Gustav, we have a situation.”
The speaker crackles. “Be there in a few minutes.”
“I wouldn’t be calling for help if I had a few minutes to spare,” Bethany grumbles, and turns to me. “Give me a hand. I don’t want to lose another one.”
I order my feet to move, but Bethany’s got the door beside the window unlocked and opened before they comply.
The human sees her, screams again, and throws himself into a slam to his head that seems to shake the entire room. He slumps to the floor, twitching.
“Damn you.” Bethany falls to her knees beside him and takes his head in her hands, prying his eyes open, assessing the damage. Then she drops him and wipes her bloodied hands on his blanket.
“He’s dead?”
Bethany stands with her hands on her hips and glares at him as if he’s offended her personally with his actions. “They’re incredibly fragile at this stage, physically as well as mentally—another question we have to resolve. We should go. Someone else will deal with this.”
She heads to the door but pauses to wait for me.
I look over the body lying crumpled on the floor, trying to remember a time when I’ve felt the kind of desperation that must have led to this. The closest I can come is when I’ve been starved for blood, weak, and needing to renew my connection to the void. Even then, though, I’ve had that sustaining energy in me. This man’s loss was as complete as what I felt after my death, but he hasn’t had even the dark, horrifying hope I was offered when the light left me.
I shouldn’t care, but I hope he’s getting what he wanted—that the light finds him again in death.
The human’s skin pales. Purple veins appear on the skin of his face and neck, visible even under the smears and spatters of fresh blood. The ones on his hands stand out as though sculpted onto his skin.
“Bethany?” I ask.
She steps back in and takes me by the arm. “Another change we don’t understand yet. Let’s go.”
I let her lead me out but glance back over my shoulder in time to see the little finger on his left hand twitch. “He’s not dead.”
“He is. The veining only appears after brain activity has ceased.” Bethany pulls me through the dark observation chamber and into the corridor, then locks the door behind us before moving on. “There’s still electrical activity in his muscles. I’ve heard dead bodies belch or pass gas before. Doesn’t mean they’re remotely alive.”
“But—”
Bethany guides me to the side of the corridor, making room for the team of six security vampires who jog past us. “I’ve seen it enough times to know. This phase of the experiment is over. All we can do now is figure out where we went wrong and do better next time.” She rubs one hand down over her face. “I had such high hopes this for this one. Come on. I need a drink. Or blood. Or both.”
I follow her back up the corridor, straining to listen for noises from the rooms behind us. There’s nothing. Everything is quiet, as it should be if the guy’s as dead as he seemed.
I’m willing my mind to go blank, but there’s one question chasing its tail around in the empty space, and it’s not one I think Bethany would give me a straight answer on even if I could ask without raising suspicion.
She saw his injuries and wanted to save him but didn’t call a medic. She saw the blood but didn’t call a janitor.
Why was her first instinct to call security?
21
Whatever small measure of trust I’ve earned here, it apparently doesn’t give me the right to have any idea what’s going on.
Lachlan didn’t find me again last night after my time with Bethany, for which I was grateful. But as Paige pulls the corset-like laces at the front of my dress tight enough that a human wearing it would faint, I’m sick with the knowledge that my time is running out. He’s summoned me, sent up the clothes he wants me to wear, but no one has told me what to expect tonight. The black dress tells me nothing except that I won’t be doing any practical work. For all I know, he wants me to look my best when he gets back to the hard questions that Bethany interrupted. I suspect he’d find it rewarding to set me up for something more pleasant before tearing into me, searching for the truth about Viktor, Maelstrom, and everything else I’ve kept so well hidden.
I’ve prepared a confession that will come solely from Ava. I’ll admit anxiety and uncertainty over what might have happened if I told him everything, and to being so immediately enthralled by Tempest that I feared losing it all over a mistake left too long unadmitted. Then I’ll beg him—on my knees if need be—to forgive me, insisting that I want nothing more than to help now.
I close my eyes and sink deeper into that. Into Ava. I don’t let myself think about the risk of losing myself or Daniel’s promise to save me. Even having that at the back of my mind is too dangerous. Though the knowledge that I’m no longer alone in this is comforting, it has nothing to do with me. Ava knows what’s best for her, after all. And she has no problem revealing Maelstrom’s secrets to save her own ass.
They’d have come out eventually, anyway. Survival is the thing. Aviva is dead. Long live Ava.
Paige smooths my full, knee-length skirt down and looks me over with a critical eye, then nods to herself. “Very nice.”
“Am I to wait for an escort?” I ask.
“No. You’re supposed to go to the ballroom.”
I glare evenly at her. “You said you didn’t know what was going on.”
She just shrugs. I guess she has her orders, too.
I hear the crowds before I reach the top of the stairs, and my stomach clenches painfully. My steps quicken, though I’m not entirely eager to reach my destination. I can’t help it. I have to know for sure.
Sure enough, when I reach the ballroom, I find it set up for another fight. It seems I’m not to be questioned tonight but tested. Again.
I turn as I feel Lachlan approaching. He stands close behind me, and though the vampires around us back off a few steps as if they’re giving us privacy, their conversations cease so they can listen in.
“Will you be joining me this evening?” Lachlan asks.
I glance over the crowd, buying myself a few seconds. The last thing I need is to have him watching my reactions up close, especially if he’s throwing Daniel back in the ring. But I also can’t let him think I’m hiding anything.
“I think I’ll try sitting in the thick of it again,” I say. “I didn’t really understand th
e appeal of it last time, but everyone sitting ringside seemed excited.”
The words come out smooth, calm. A little bored, even, though that flatness is probably courtesy of the fact that I’m beyond the point of feeling anything. And not a lie among them. I didn’t get it last time. Things were crazy down here.
So much depends on whether a half truth is actually a lie.
Bethany approaches, looking as prepared to enjoy this as I am. “I’ll take her seat,” she says. “I don’t need to be close enough to smell the blood.”
Lachlan smirks. “It wouldn’t kill you to enjoy yourself.”
“Only because I’m already dead.” Bethany sighs. “I’m here. Don’t ask me to pretend I couldn’t be using my time better elsewhere.”
Lachlan places his hand on the small of her back and guides her toward his seats—the same over-familiar gesture of control he’s used with me on several occasions. It’s innocuous on the surface. A gentle touch, a helping hand through the crowds. But it’s unnecessary. Bethany is capable of making her own path through the crowd, and he knows it, just as she knows she can’t refuse his help. No matter how powerful or useful she is, he won’t let her forget who’s in charge.
A few vampires watch them jealously. The right hand of the high elder is a fine place to be, and all it costs is a little pride—a little reminder of who holds the leash.
I sit in the second row with my back to Lachlan and school my face into a mask of neutrality worthy of Daniel himself. I won’t be punished for disinterest any more than Bethany will—only for lies or dissent. And that’s what hurts about all of this. Even as I look for the darker truths about Tempest, even as I see that this isn’t truly the world I want, it’s so damn seductive in so many ways. Not the least of those is that this does seem to be a place where a vampire like me could find herself. This clan has allowed Bethany’s gift to blossom and Randolph’s artistic vision to thrive. It’s a place where the darkest, truest parts of our nature aren’t ignored but rather celebrated.
