Forever Young

by Daniel Pierce

  “I’m good.” I knew my face must be red as a beet by now. “Sorry. I’m sure it was kind of awkward for you.”

  “Kid, I’m a thousand years old. Nothing’s awkward for me at this point. Nothing. I don’t even care anymore.” He waved a hand. “Get off my lawn and all that. But here’s the thing. Don’t get cocky about taking Tess down in that fight, okay?”

  I frowned and pulled back. “What do you mean?” I didn’t think of myself as cocky about it, but I also knew I probably wasn’t the best judge. No one ever thought of themselves as cocky.

  “I mean Tess was only going at you at about half speed, guy.” He patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll pick up more speed and dexterity as you get used to your new body. And you’re a damn sight better than anyone else as new as you has ever been. I can tell you that. Still, don’t get cocky.”

  Half speed. I bowed my head. Clearly, I had a long way to go.

  11

  I was all set to head out to the beach to do some more fire work, both to soothe my ego and to get some actual practice in when I heard the screams. Those weren’t happy screams, either. Some were shrieks of terror, and some were the screams of an animal on the attack, but none of them sounded good.

  I hadn’t realized just how quiet the sub-basement was until I heard those screams. Whatever was happening upstairs, it was loud.

  Mort’s face drained of color. He snapped his gaze over to me and looked me over for a second. “Stay here,” he barked. “I’ll go check it out.”

  “Wait, Mort!” I started after him. “What’s going on?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to go upstairs, now would I?” He shook his head once in frustration. “Like I said, sit down, shut up, and stay safe. No one should be able to find this place.” He ran up the stairs, leaving me alone in the sub-basement.

  I sat down on his folding chair, fuming and terrified by turns.

  The screams were just about all I could hear. They were muffled by two layers of stone, concrete, and dirt, but I could still hear them. They made something in my soul quake. I didn’t know any of the other Ferin, but those were almost certainly the people being hurt up there.

  I didn’t know that for sure. As far as I knew, they might be just fine. They might be the aggressors; bringing home living people to butcher and make into the incredible sausages we’d had for breakfast that morning. Although to be fair, that didn’t seem at all in character with Tess or Margaret.

  I wouldn’t put much past Mort, but if I was honest with myself, it didn’t seem in character for him, either.

  Still, I didn’t really know any of them. I shouldn’t make assumptions, even if they seemed like reasonable assumptions at the time. Anything was possible, and no one knew that better than a guy who’d woken up with his twenty-year-old body only a few days ago.

  The way the hair on the back of my neck stood up told me the Ferin weren’t the aggressors here. I had no basis for that thought, no way to be sure, but every instinct told me the vampires had arrived.

  Did Ferin have any other enemies? Mort hadn’t told me. No one had told me much, which was part of the reason I was still sitting down here, trying to guess my way to safety.

  I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind as we had in the yoga class Linda hauled me into all those years ago. I wasn’t going to do anyone any good if I worked myself up into a panic, least of all myself. I breathed in for four seconds, held it, and let it out for seven. In four, hold, out seven. I wasn’t a sitting duck, waiting for vampires to come and finish the job they started. No, I was a calm fucking lotus leaf.

  As I deep-breathed my way to bliss, I found I could hear more. It wasn’t that the screamers got louder, although they were definitely screaming for everything they were worth. No, I could just hear better. I could hear the chipmunk burying something in the dirt just above the wall, where the basement window would be. I could hear the propane heater kicking on.

  And I could hear people talking.

  I heard a voice I’d heard before. “The vamps are here!” The speaker barely managed to croak the words out before she gave out a last gurgle and died. The sound of metal on metal reached me, like swords clashing, or maybe knives. The stink of iron, rusty and rich, clouded my senses, and I had to pull back.

  It was a slaughter up there. The vampires had found the mansion, and the Ferin were dying. For all I knew, Mort was dying. Maybe Tess or Margaret too.

  I couldn’t just hide out down here in the basement. I was a sitting duck, waiting to be butchered. If I had to die today, I’d go out trying to live.

  Isn’t that what got you into this mess in the first place? The voice in my head didn’t sound like anyone but myself.

  I ignored it, just like I ignored Mort’s orders, and ran up the stairs. I wasn’t a shrinking violet. I might not know anything about vampires, but I could shoot fireballs. That had to do something against them, right? No one liked a blast of burning gas in their face.

  I tore up the narrow stairs, two by two, until I got to the ground floor. I threw open the door, fireball at the ready, only to find myself face to face with a vampire in all its repulsive glory. If his fangs weren’t confirmation, his coppery, ancient stench pushed my mind over the edge. It was a bloodsucker, and he was fast.

  He reacted to my presence in a blur, giving me a good hard shove, and I went tumbling back down the stairs to the first basement. It hurt. I felt bones snap inside of me, only to knit themselves back together in a flurry of sorcerous action that sent my synapses into overdrive. The healing hurt almost as much as the breaking, and I groaned when I hit the bottom.

  I’d have loved to lie there in a heap and lick my wounds, but my attacker had given chase. He hadn’t even had to run. He jumped and glided down the stairs, almost flying, with his long black leather duster billowing behind him. If I’d had time, I would have mocked him for his cliched fashion choices, but his foot hammered me in the ribs as he laughed in a chattering squeal, somewhere between a hyena and a leaky balloon. If I didn’t kill him for being a vampire, I would damn sure kill him for his laugh.

  I rolled out of the way but cleverly struck the wall with my face, resulting in a crack that sent stars through my vision. The vamp kicked me in the ribs again—it seemed to be a hobby for him—and his foot barely missed my spine. Pain bloomed anew, and I started thinking seriously about how I needed to vacate the room. I’d get kicked to pieces if I stayed.

  I had to move. It hurt like hell, but I had to. I forced myself to get up. Instead of ducking away and running, I went up and in, grabbing the bastard by the chin in one hand and the hair with the other. His greasy blonde curls gave me a good hold, and using everything I had, I wrenched his head to the left. When his neck caught, I kept going, doing my best to rip his fucking head clean off.

  I heard the dull snap, and then it repeated as more than one vertebra broke from my efforts. For a second, my enemy went limp, then the rest of his body turned to follow the unnatural direction of his head. He grabbed my arm in both hands and used it to flip me into the wall, upside down. All of the air flew out of my lungs—again—and I reached for his leg with the intention of buying some time.

  I struggled to catch my breath. I didn’t have a plan, but it was the only thing I could think of. When my grip was stable, I let my instincts direct me, and they told me to pop his head like a grape. Full disclosure, I saw it in a James Bond flick, but given the vamp’s toughness, it seemed like a good play. I brought my legs together around his head and squeezed.

  He staggered around for a second, probably more because he couldn’t see than because I was doing anything to harm him. He was a vampire, after all. Breathing was kind of optional, but my weight and pressure were enough to cause problems despite his unnatural strength. Once he got his bearings, he ran into the wall full force with me as the buffer.

  Stunned, I fell to the ground head first as he leaped back, fangs bared in a feral hiss.

  He used his feet in a flurry of ki
cks, each landing like a hammer. I was winded. I was hurt. I was—no one. I was nothing. I was larva as far as Ferin went. Most of my body was still human, and I had no control over my fire ability.

  The thought was like a spark to the tinder in my brain. I had an advantage Death Breath here did not.

  I had fire.

  If the average horror film was true, the undead and fire didn’t mix. I rolled myself into a ball, trying to protect my head, and reached into that nuclear core inside of me.

  The vampire spoke. “What exactly do you think you are, an armadillo? This is Maine, not Texas, dumbass.” His tone dripped with sarcasm, the words tortured because of his fangs.

  “Cute accent, dickhead.” I lifted my eyes, targeting him with every ounce of heat I had. My fireball didn’t emerge. It erupted.

  I scorched the walls, and the soot marks would probably never come out of the ceiling, but most of my fireball hit him square in the chest. The vampire’s leer turned into a round “o” of surprise as the flames took hold. He tried to kick me yet again—old habits die hard—and then the licking flames raced over his body like they had places to go.

  If vamps smell bad on a good day, then setting one on fire reminded me of six-day-old gas station sushi with bad barbecue thrown in for good measure. The stink of decay combined with roasting, overcooked pork, making me regret having eaten anything in the past week. Death Breath clawed at his own face, ducking away as his hair turned to ash.

  His skin bubbled before it charred.

  My life had been pretty sheltered before that, in the sense that I’d never seen someone burn to death before. I should have run around him, ducked away from him, and run to safety, but I was horrified. Transfixed. I couldn’t look away like the horror movies my best friend and I used to sneak into when I was a little kid.

  Exactly like that, in fact, but with the stench. I resolved to never eat a spicy tuna roll again, watching in fascinated horror as the burning vamp’s flame guttered to a halt.

  I could feel the fire go out, drowning as each flame starved for oxygen. I gasped and clutched at my own chest, staggering back. I hadn’t realized yesterday when dousing the flames had felt so wrong, that this would be part of it. Before I could figure out a way to fight back, to reignite the flames that had been so cruelly killed, Death Breath straightened up.

  Moving caused him unbridled agony. I saw it in the way he contorted, his face a rictus of pain. But he did stand up. And just as I couldn’t look away while he burned by my hand, now my own sense of horror compelled me to watch while his skin stretched back over charred bone and vaporized muscle. It grew back as smooth and alabaster as it had been before.

  I almost thought it had been an illusion, that my flames had failed me somehow, but no. Death Breath’s clothes had burned away in the inferno. The ceiling still bore the marks of what I’d done to him, and the walls too. His hair had not grown back. I didn’t know enough about vampire physiology to know if or when it would return, but his scalp was shiny and scarred from what I’d done to him.

  He advanced on me as I stepped back in confusion. “You’re going to pay for that, you little bitch,” he snarled in a voice now rough with smoke and pain. “I’m going to teach you a lesson you will never forget.”

  12

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to know what Death Breath meant by a lesson I’d never forget. If it meant he had no intention of killing me, maybe that was good, right? Except I knew it wasn’t because my knowledge of vamps included a healthy respect for their inhumanity.

  He lunged for me, fist whistling forward to connect with the wall. His fist connected with it, sending a crack racing through the stone, but I dodged, my mind wild as I tried to find a solution for how to kill the bloodsucker in front of me.

  For that matter, I needed to kill any vampire, and fire hadn’t done it. I was running out time with no answers, and he was winding up again as flecks of charred skin drifted from his limbs like nightmarish dandruff. I knew he wouldn’t miss again. I knew this as sure as I knew my own name. I braced myself because I had nowhere left to go, but a metal spike punctured his chest from behind, emerging in a shower of gore that was crimson and black. The vamp had the good manners to look surprised, snarling once, and crumbled to ashes, as his remains filled the air with noxious dust.

  Standing behind him, holding a big, ugly metal spike, was Tess. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, and I’ve been to an endless lobster buffet.

  She scattered the ashes with her boot. “You okay?” She looked me over, eyes darting as she assessed my general state.

  “I’ll live.” And I would. All of the injuries I’d taken in my fight with the vamp had healed. Mentally, I didn’t think I could use the term “okay.” I’d survive, but “okay” might not be quite right. “What the hell just happened?”

  She hid her spike back inside her black leather jacket. “Vampires can only be killed by silver.” She turned her head for a second. “The whole manor is under siege. There must be twenty of them.”

  “Nineteen now,” I said with a weak grin. I didn’t like to see Tess looking so defeated.

  “No, twenty. There were thirty.” She quirked a brow at me, and I shut up. “Come on. We’ve got places to be.”

  My stomach turned. I didn’t want to think about twenty more vampires, especially if my main trick didn’t work. “Are we going to fight?” I asked, looking around for something sharp and obviously silver.

  Tess shook her head and grabbed my hand. She led me back toward the sub-basement. “We can’t. There are too many of them. Margaret has ordered everyone to evacuate.”

  “Evacuation, huh?” I straightened up as I followed Tess through the training area. “She’s got that kind of clout? I thought Mort was in charge.”

  “Nah. Mort’s the scholar, but she’s definitely the leader. She’s got the best head on her shoulders. Mort’s smart, but he’s kind of an asshole.” She stopped at the farthest wall of the dojo and looked it over. “Now where was it?”

  “Okay, but how are we supposed to evacuate if the whole safe house is under siege? I wasn’t even able to kill one vampire, never mind twenty..” I couldn’t see anything about the wall she was staring at that could offer a solution.

  Tess apparently did. She put her hand on one stone in particular, one that looked no different from any other, and the wall slid back. She pushed it to the side. “Come on, into the tunnel.”

  I stepped into the musty, dark tunnel, and Tess slammed the secret door shut behind me. There was no light, only the sensation of age and the scent of damp earth and forgotten pathways. “Is this a grave?” I whispered. I imagined bodies being stuck down here, like in a mine accident.

  “Not yet.” Her voice came from somewhere near my left elbow. “Come on. Let’s move.”

  Okay. I exhaled. If I couldn’t use my eyes, I’d have to rely on other senses. People did it all the time. I tried to concentrate. I couldn’t hear much, but I could feel the faintest breeze on my face. That had to be the way out. I set off in that direction, moving slowly with my right hand out as a guide, so I didn’t scrape myself raw on the walls.

  “Where does this tunnel go?” I whispered.

  “I have no idea,” she whispered back. At least I wasn’t the only one whispering. “All I know is that it’s supposed to take us somewhere safe, you know?” We crept a little farther, and I hoped for the best. “I’ve never been down here before. Only a few people have.”

  “Makes sense, I guess. If no one knows about it, no one can sell us out.” Something skittered along the ground behind us. I pretended not to hear it. Some things are best ignored.

  “What do you mean, sell us out?” She scoffed at me and swatted my arm. “My God, you’re paranoid. No one’s going to sell us out, okay? All the Ferin in the manor are friends and companions. We’re all close. We’d all die for each other. No one’s going to go blabbing to the vampires about anything, okay?”

 
“Okay.” I didn’t want to argue about it. She’d probably lost some of those friends and companions today. She’d known them for a century. I hadn’t. The vampires had found us somehow, but it didn’t necessarily mean betrayal. It just meant they’d found us.

  Maybe I’d let my experiences with Linda color how I saw life now. My body might be in its twenties, but my brain remembered everything. In fact, now that it was younger, it remembered more than ever. Oh well, water under the bridge now. Water under the bridge, and Jason under the...lawn? Forest? Beach? I had no idea where we were heading, just that we were going out and a little bit up.

  We hiked for a silent eternity in solid darkness, our only companion each other. I could hear her breathing but not her boots on the dirt. My own feet clumped solidly along the floor, indelicate from my new status as a Ferin. In time, I would develop more agility and stealth, but for now, speed was our concern.

  Don’t get cocky, Mort had said. Had Mort survived? Margaret? I didn’t dare ask.

  When I saw light at long last, it was almost blinding, forcing me to raise a shielding hand across my face. Tess did the same. We eased into the light slowly, to give ourselves a chance to adjust.

  I hesitated at the top of the incline. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

  Tess shook her head. “You’re just jumpy because of the vamps. Don’t let it spook you, Jason. That kind of lingering suspicion is—well, don’t worry. We’ll get to the next safehouse. You’ll be fine, and we’ll pick up your training again without a hitch, okay?”

  I licked my lips. It wasn’t just nerves. Something about this moment felt off like that second in the horror movie before the teenagers on camera go into the creepy old cabin that’s been boarded up for years. That kind of off and Tess wasn’t doing anything to help. For someone who’d lost friends in a vicious, blood-soaked raid, she was remarkably calm.