by Chris Vola
Ryan remembered having to research the Cloisters shortly after he and Jennifer had begun dating. She had wanted him to take her there, and he had to convince her that he’d already been there, that they should go to the first showing of a Civil War documentary at the Brooklyn Historical Society instead. The Cloisters was where the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased its medieval art and artifacts, way uptown, in the middle of a large, hilly park near the northern tip of Manhattan. If he remembered correctly, it had been commissioned by a Rockefeller early in the twentieth century, and partially constructed using imported sections of European monasteries. Strategically, the Committee couldn’t have picked a better place for a stronghold. It was as far out of the way as you could get on the island, not easily accessible from any direction, naturally fortified. But he hadn’t come here to discuss strategic decisions.
“Why are you telling us all of this?” he said, cutting Van Pelt off. “You didn’t call Vanessa in for a history lesson, and I couldn’t care less about Xansati’s relationship with the former head of a family I’m no longer a part of. What’s the point?”
Van Pelt cleared his throat, then studied Ryan for a few moments before continuing. “What I am trying to do is to paint, for both of you, a picture of someone who has no respect for a gentlemen’s agreement, and no regard for life, human or otherwise. Two weeks ago, going against everything he promised to the Committee, he set a plan in motion that resulted in the theft of the seventh statue. An intricate scheme that also seems to have involved seeking you out, Ryan, prying into your personal life, culling your tribe, and finally baiting you directly by taking your friend—who I am assuming was more than just a friend—to the processing plant. Maybe the eighth statue is in Brooklyn, maybe it is not; Harker would have been an imbecile to share its location with anyone, even his own progeny. He was many things, but never stupid. What is certain is that your friend was killed, if he or she was in fact taken to East 80th Street. The plant is a sort of living memorial to a crueler, more wasteful era, one that the rest of my tribe ended years ago. We allowed Xansati to continue to use the building as he wanted, as per our agreement, but we’ve kept a constant watch on it to clean up the trash, to cover for his people’s sloppiness. We have found limbs dumped in or near the East River, bodies of humans who were deemed unfit for consumption. The last cleanup crew we had to send in found two castoffs who were still alive, a man and a woman, both O positive, both heavily sedated and badly injured. The man died in a matter of minutes, but the woman showed incredible fortitude. Early indications were that she would survive. We decided that she should have another chance, a fuller life, that she would make a welcome addition to the tribe. Vanessa, that woman is your newborn. We were waiting to tell you until she’d made it safely through the transition, which I trust she has.”
“Oh my God.” Vanessa swallowed hard enough for Ryan to hear it through the speaker. “Oh God,” she repeated, “that’s why she was so out of it when Brad and Randall brought her in. I thought it was part of the … Yes, yes, she’s doing well, all things considered. She’s done a great job.”
“Good,” Van Pelt said, nodding and smiling thinly. “That is excellent. Have you met her yet, Ryan?”
“I have,” Ryan said, forcing a polite grin. “But I’ve tried to keep my distance. I remember what it was like to be a newborn. The, uh, lack of restraint.”
Van Pelt nodded and snickered before taking another sip from the tube. He reached up and smoothed a misplaced lock of hair that seemed unnaturally wiry, as if it weren’t his own.
Ryan tried to process everything he’d just heard. Nothing that Van Pelt had said contradicted anything in Derrick’s research, even if he had left out significant portions. Vanessa, still audibly on the verge of hyperventilation, wasn’t faking anything. And finding Jennifer discarded but alive was a plausible explanation for what had happened to her. She was a fighter, stronger than she appeared. It was one of the main reasons Ryan had been attracted to her, the biggest reason to think that she might have still been alive when he’d crossed the river to find her.
“I want to offer my condolences,” Van Pelt said. “And I’m going to make you a promise. Xansati will be dead this time tomorrow. That’s why I called this meeting. Vanessa will be part of a team of our most capable and seasoned warriors, a team that is going to go to the Cloisters, cleanse it, and lock the statues up for good. We cannot allow one insane misanthrope to jeopardize everything we have worked to build. Some of the other board members wanted to wait until next week, to do more in-depth reconnaissance, but after hearing you today, I am convinced that we need to strike as soon as possible, while we still have superior manpower and the element of surprise. While Xansati thinks there is still a truce.”
Ryan looked at Vanessa. Her breathing had steadied and any shock she might have been feeling had been wiped clean, replaced with a calm, almost frightening resolve. The briefest mention of a mission had transformed her circuitry, switched her into full-on soldier mode.
She was ready to kill, no questions asked.
“I want to go with them,” Ryan said.
Van Pelt frowned. “You’re dying and you want closure,” he said. “You want an eye for an eye from those who have wronged you. You have nothing left to lose. It’s a natural response, a timeless one, one I deeply respect. But what could you hope to accomplish in going besides a quicker demise than the one you’ve already been dealt? No, I have a better idea. I want you in my tribe. I was prepared to offer you an invitation before I’d met you, but now that I have, I am even more convinced that it is the right course of action. Rodney, the strapping specimen standing outside this room, has been with us for twenty years. A little young, certainly, but we feel that he is ready to take on a parental role. Especially knowing that his newborn has already undergone the process, already understands the transformation and all that it entails. It will be easier for both of you.”
Ryan sighed and shook his head. “Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but I’m going to pass. I’ve made my peace with whatever’s going to happen to me. I’m not scared of dying. And it just wouldn’t feel right joining a new tribe after being in my old one for so long.”
Van Pelt sat silently for a few moments before letting out a small chuckle. “You know,” he said, “I believe that is almost exactly what Harker told me when we gave him the same option.”
“You knew Arthur personally?”
“I spoke to him face-to-face only once, and briefly,” Van Pelt said, “shortly after he left your tribe and shortly—he told us—after turning you. He seemed like a good man, intelligent, weary of the gift after so many years, confident that he had made the right decision leaving Brooklyn, although he regretted that he had left behind a newborn as young as you were. But ultimately he was more Lenape than Dutch, blinded by what the statues represented to him and not what they actually were. Though we have only just been acquainted, I don’t see any of that part of Harker in you. You seem like your own person. You follow a lonely path, but a true one. That is more than can be said about most of us. On second thought, there is a part of tomorrow’s assignment where you might be able to help us, if that is really what you want, if you are as selfless as you make yourself out to be.”
“No fucking way!” Vanessa shouted. “He doesn’t have any training. He’s not healthy. What could he possibly—”
Van Pelt lifted a hand, silencing her instantly. “Ryan, I have enjoyed our chat,” he said, “but you must be getting tired. You need to rest, to hydrate, to prepare your body to give whatever it has left in it. While Vanessa and I go over some of the more tedious details of the assignment, as well as a few unrelated matters, why don’t you head back up to the lobby? They will get you something to eat while you wait. Vanessa will fill you in on your role later. I wish you the best of luck tomorrow and I sincerely hope to see you again.”
Before Ryan could respond, the section of the chamber in front of him slid into the floor and he was assaulted by
a rush of freezing air. He nodded at Van Pelt and glanced for a moment at Vanessa, who was looking at the floor, trying to hide her distress and doing a poor job of it.
When Ryan entered the hallway, Rodney, the muscular sentry, was standing in the same position against the wall, arms still crossed. He saw Ryan and grinned. “Well, are we going to do this or what?”
“Do what?” Ryan asked.
“You know, turn you. Make you my, uh, offspring, or whatever you want to call it. At first I was a little, like, iffy about the whole deal. I was hoping they were going to give me that tight little hottie who was all messed up when we dragged her out of the river. What a body on her, bro. I’m telling you. But then I thought about it and if we did end up doing anything, wouldn’t that be kind of like incest? I’m probably better off with you.”
Ryan felt his face flush, his body tense. “I decided not to take Van Pelt’s offer,” he said between clenched teeth.
Rodney looked confused. “Huh,” he grunted. He shrugged. “No worries. They’ll find someone else for me soon enough. You can count on that. Hey, you’re staying with Vanessa, right?”
Ryan nodded.
“Do you have her number? I’d like to show her newborn around, when she’s finished transitioning. I don’t like them too feisty, you know?”
Ryan turned and headed for the elevator. The coldness he’d felt when Van Pelt had opened the glass chamber was replaced by a boiling irritation that seemed to be increasing in intensity with every step he took.
Instead of trying to stifle the heat, he embraced it, let the fury build so that he would be ready for the next day.
He needed to keep burning.
28
“I still don’t see the point of you going with them,” Jennifer said, massaging Ryan’s chest while he recovered from a massive coughing spasm. “I’ve barely just got you back in my life, barely started to figure out who you really are.”
They were intertwined on a mattress in the darkness of the containment chamber attached to Vanessa’s apartment, which was functioning as Jennifer’s bedroom until the tribe set her up with her own place.
Lying on his back, waiting for his breaths to slow and the ache in his chest to diminish, Ryan gazed through a large skylight at the cloud-dulled, orange-tinted night. “I want to see that the people who harmed you, the people who killed Seamus and came after the rest of my tribe, are going to suffer for what they did,” he said. “I want to be there to feel their pain.”
Jennifer sighed and withdrew her hand. She rolled over onto her back, parallel with Ryan, her right shoulder pressed against his left. “But isn’t it enough to know that they’re gone?” she asked. “Vanessa said that the job’s going to be a relatively easy one, that the tribe’s team will have strength in numbers, that What’s-his-name and the other defectors won’t expect anything. She doesn’t anticipate any casualties on our end. Pardon the expression, but won’t you just be dead weight?”
“One of the reasons there won’t be any casualties, why we’ll be able to catch them off-guard, is directly because of my role in the assignment, which is minimal. I’ll be in and out before any real fighting starts. And, if something does happen, it’s not like I have that much of a future to look forward to, anyway. I figure a couple months at the most.”
Jennifer squeezed Ryan’s forearm, hard enough to make him flinch. “What about the people who care about you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to spend as much time with them as you can?”
“You mean the person who cares about me? I’m pretty sure Vanessa would have choked me out today if it hadn’t been for the glass cages separating us.”
“I mean,” she said, rolling onto her side and pressing her forehead against his cheek, “wouldn’t it be better to spend two more months together than just one night?”
Ryan sat up and put his arm around her. “I’ve lived a long, long life,” he said, “and you’re smart enough to live much longer than me. But you can’t think like that. Extra time doesn’t mean anything if you fill it with empty promises that might not ever materialize, if you spend it regretting the things you could have and should have done, if you’re too sick to do anything about it. It took me almost a hundred years of near-isolation to break out of the shell that I’d constructed around myself, to be able to lose myself in a perfect moment with someone else. Trust your gut, no matter how many days you think you have left.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Okay, Dad,” she said, teasing him. “Thanks for the words of wisdom.”
“I know it’s cheesy,” he said, “but I just want you to know where I’m coming from, and why you aren’t going to change my mind.”
Jennifer smiled, sadly at first. As she pulled the blanket off them and climbed on top of Ryan, her expression changed to a mischievous grin.
“Well then, I guess I’m going to have to carpe diem the shit out of this moment right now.”
She grabbed his arms, guided them to her thighs, and pulled him up by his beard toward her parted lips. Tongues intertwined, fingers fumbling, cupping, plying at warm skin that was collapsing in syncopated waves, the wetness between her legs. He slid inside and she mumbled stale heat against his neck, grunting, licking his ear, bucking, and he was looking up through the glass at the handful of stars that were pulsing, then dancing, singing, melting away the years, everything that had happened, everything he needed to do, transporting him to a place beyond his body, beyond pain, where there was only this instant, this heat, where there was only her.
* * *
He woke from a dream-free black hole, choking on the coppery sludge that had invaded his throat and nostrils, that was spilling from his mouth, running down his neck and chest and caking the mattress. The room’s air was thick with its sickly sweet aroma.
Ryan frantically untangled himself from the sheets and shot out of the bed. He made it two steps before a spasm caused him to lean over and place his hands on his hips and he was spitting, vomiting, coughing violently. Tears streamed from his eyes and mingled with the growing puddle on the floor. He looked up and when his vision adjusted to the inky predawn shadows, he saw Jennifer crouching in the corner of the room, watching him intently, rocking silently back and forth, her knees pressed against her chest and her arms splayed in a pose of prostration. A foot-long gash ran vertically along one of her forearms, partially healed but still glistening. Arthur’s knife, its blade stained black, rested a few feet away on the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered, “I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought that if I—”
But before she could finish, Ryan rushed past her and flung open the containment chamber’s door. He staggered through the living room, naked, half blinded by the track lighting that had been turned up all the way, past the dining table where Vanessa was sitting with a large set of blueprints spread out in front of her. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise. She started to get out of the chair, but Ryan waved her away and hurried to the bathroom that was adjacent to the kitchen. He slammed the door behind him and locked himself inside.
He turned the shower on, full blast and scalding, and scrubbed himself until his skin crackled, until it was on the verge of splitting. He watched the last of the smelly, viscous fluid congeal in the bottom of the tub and circle down the drain. After he turned the water off he stood for a few moments, gripping the rack that held the soap and shampoo, trying to slow his heart rate and combat the dizziness that made it feel like he would collapse at any moment.
When he emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, Vanessa was sitting in the same place, concentrating on what Ryan now saw was an architect’s layout of the Cloisters. There was a full glass of water on the table next to the blueprints. She looked up and motioned for him to take it.
“I never took you for the kinky type,” she said. “Or maybe you were just trying out something new?”
Ryan slumped into an adjacent chair that had been pulled out, lifted the glass to his lips, and
took a long chug. “She tried to turn me,” he said. He groaned as a migraine formed out of nowhere and began to split his brain in half.
“Apparently she didn’t do a very good job,” Vanessa replied. “I guess her talents lie elsewhere. You going back for round two? If you are, you might want to take care of business now. The sun will be up soon. We only have a couple hours before we have to suit up with the rest of the team.”
“I’m glad you find this amusing,” he muttered.
“Aw, don’t be so upset,” she cooed, faux-affectionately. “I think it’s cute. In a really sad, kind of fucked-up way.”
Ryan tried to clear his throat, unable to completely shake the sensation of blood-related suffocation. “I need to go back in there and make sure she’s not whittling her teeth into fangs and getting ready to suck me dry, or something worse. But while you’re here, alone, I wanted to ask you why you lied about me to Van Pelt, about what happened at the processing facility, why you didn’t tell him that your newborn was the reason I came to Manhattan. Doesn’t that go against your code of ethics? I mean, Van Pelt does seem like your typical upper-crust scumbag. I wouldn’t tell him anything, but he is your boss.”
