by David McAfee
More muttering from the group, I thought I heard something about a ‘renegade’ but I couldn’t be sure. Then Herris continued.
“You owe Ramah a debt of gratitude. Should we spare you tonight, you may wish to remember that. Ramah’s request is not enough, however, you have been spared thus far so that you may speak before this council. Do you have any idea why?”
“Yes, Headcouncil Herris, I think I do,” I replied. “You wish for me to tell you where Raine has gone.”
The silence that followed felt like a tomb. For a short while nothing stirred, no sound escaped. I had ceased to breathe. It seemed the entire world hung upon what Herris might say next. To me, I guess it did. But Herris’ next question surprised me.
“Is that so?” he asked. “And do you know where Raine is hiding, boy?”
Here it comes. Here is where the fun really begins.
“No, Headcouncil Herris, I don’t.” Somehow I managed to keep the fear out of my voice as I braced for the inevitable.
“Of course you don’t. We didn’t think you would.”
It took a second for that to sink in. When it did, my surprise must have been evident on my face. Herris spoke again, answering the question I didn’t dare ask.
“Raine would not have told you where she was going, or even that she meant to leave. It was her way of trying to protect you from this very meeting. In any case, you were unconscious when she left, sleeping safe in your bed. It’s all right here.” He held up a small brown book, which looked to be bound in leather, with the name “Raine” written across it in golden, flowing script.
Comprehension dawned on me. A Journal! Not just any journal, but her Journal. Raine’s journal! Whatever Raine had done to me, it might be written down in there. Might I be able to undo it? I hoped so, but looking around, trapped as I was by the Council and their servants, I doubted it. Even if I could, I didn’t think the Council would give me the chance. I’d been kept alive this long so they could talk to me about Raine, and that was all. When they were finished talking, I was sure, they would have no more use for me.
“So, you realize what this is. Good,” Herris continued, “This was found in Raine’s private chambers on the evening of her disappearance. In an effort to learn her whereabouts, we have read it. That is how we learned of you. And of her attempt to Turn you.”
Several more murmurs at this, some of them angry. I saw Ramah shift a little in his seat, perhaps more than a little uncomfortable at the crime his own daughter had committed. How much had her indiscretion cost him personally? That line of thinking led me down another one. Why had he campaigned to spare my life? Wouldn’t it have been easier for him if I just disappeared, as Raine had? Wouldn’t he have been better off with this problem out of the way? Logically, he should have wanted nothing more than to sweep me under the rug and leave me there. I’m sure he has his reasons. He did, of course, and I would learn them soon enough. Ramah, it turned out, was full of surprises.
“To change a human into Bachyir without the permission of this Council is expressly forbidden,” Herris continued. “There are nearly one hundred thousand of us in the world right now. We live on all the inhabited continents and in every single country. All of them, each and every one, was first brought before this very council for our approval.” At this point Herris poked the tabletop with his finger for emphasis, “Every… Single… One. Those that are created without our blessing do not last long.”
One hundred thousand? That would take years. Centuries, even. Yet I didn’t doubt him.
“The reason you still exist, Vincent, is because Raine left a message for you here,” he tapped the journal with his finger, “and rightly or wrongly, I am compelled to allow you to read it.” With this, he nodded again toward Ramah, and I thought I saw the slightest nod of Ramah’s hooded head. As if he were telling me to go ahead.
Herris set the journal on the table, and motioned with his right hand. The book then floated to me, hovering lazily about three feet above the floor. Two days earlier I would not have believed levitation was possible. Then again, two days earlier seemed like another lifetime. I no longer doubted much of anything.
“Turn to the very last entry, Vincent,” Herris said as I grabbed Raine’s journal from the air. I did so, and sure enough, there was a message for me in the end of it.
My Dearest Vincent,
If you are reading this, then you are standing before Herris and the other Councilors, and my plans to leave you alone have failed. I beg you, do not anger the Council. There are a great many things they can do to you that would make death seem a trivial thing. If they have allowed you to live long enough to read this, then there is hope. Perhaps you might yet make it through this alive.
Please forgive me, Vincent. In a moment of weakness I did something to you I should not have done. Something that violates one of the most sacred laws of my kind, and has forced me into exile. I am sure you now know what that is. You have felt it. Your senses have been bubbling inside you like a cauldron. I know, I have been there, too. All Bachyir have.
Oh, Vincent! Why didn’t you stay away? The effects would have worn off in a week and the darkness would have lost its toehold on you. That is why I left; it was for your own protection. I knew you would look for me, but I hoped you would not be able to find the Halls. You would have been fine, if only you’d stayed away.
There is nothing more I can do for you. The Council will decide your fate. Whatever happens, please know that what I did, I did because I wanted to be with you always. Ironic that it has instead forced me to leave you. I wish I could be there to help you through this, but my own life is now forfeit among my people. Be brave, Vincent, and be strong. I will think of you always.
Please forgive me,
Raine
The last few lines were blurred by the moisture forming in my eyes. My anger seeped away, slipping between the cracks of the words Raine left for me to read.
I could see why Herris had felt compelled to let me read it. I was responsible in part for her decision to leave, after all. I guess he thought I deserved to know why she vanished.
Raine had done this to me because she loved me. True, she did not exactly say those words in her missive, but the meaning was there, just the same. She had wanted to be with me forever, and went against the laws of her people to try and make it happen. I could understand rash decisions like that. After all, hadn’t I pretty much been stalking her for three days prior to helping her in the alley? Hadn’t I run to her aid without question or pause when I thought she was in danger? Hadn’t I killed for her? That Kagan wasn’t dead didn’t change the fact that I’d thought I’d killed him.
This time I did laugh. Not loudly or for very long, it was nothing more than a snicker, really, but I couldn’t hold it back. I had tried to protect Raine. She, in turn, had tried to protect me. And in the end we had both failed miserably. Raine was on the run, hunted by her own people, and I stood only a breath or so away from an unpleasant death. Sometimes the fun just doesn’t stop.
I closed the book, running my finger along the spine, hoping to feel some of Raine in the binding. As far as I knew, it was the last trace of Raine I would ever see. I felt the tears slide down my cheek, but I made no effort to hide them. It wouldn’t matter for long, anyway. Herris and his peers could not let me leave, I knew that already. Truth be told, I had known it from the instant I was ushered into the chamber. I was a danger. I knew too much.
I held the book out for Herris to take, though I didn’t really want to give it back.
But Herris didn’t take it.
“Keep it, Vincent. It may aid you in the nights to come.”
Momentarily lost, I had to stifle the urge to ask what he was talking about. ‘Nights to come?’ What did that mean? I looked up from the book, and the question must have been plain on my face.
“You may recall my saying that we demand to meet all prospective new Bachyir so we might take their measure,” Herris said, “We must know who and what
they are, as all Bachyir must serve the Father’s will. If we receive someone in these chambers whom we do not feel is up to the task, they are terminated. However, if their minds are where they need to be, we allow them to join us. We must screen new blood in order to preserve our own safety. We cannot have some uncontrollable ham-fisted lout out in the streets killing indiscriminately. Above all, we must maintain our secrecy if we wish to continue to occupy the same world as Man. That is why we terminate those who are Turned without our blessing, it is a warning to all Bachyir that the responsibility is not one to be taken lightly.”
I nodded my understanding. That much made sense.
“Most Bachyir caught Turning a human without consent run, as Raine has done. Invariably, we track them down and do what we must. Once we capture them, they are turned into Lost Ones.”
I felt a shudder as I remembered the Lost One in the hall, and how its touch had given me my glimpse of Hell. So that was where those things come from. I would not want to be the one who made this council angry. I would much rather be destroyed than to become one of those maggot- infested things. But that was exactly the fate he had planned for Raine. That’s what they did to Bachyir who Turned humans without permission. This served to strengthen my resolve. I would find her, and then the two of us would disappear forever.
I realized Herris was still speaking, and so I returned my attention to the conversation at hand, lest I risk offending him and making him think twice about his apparent decision to let me go.
“…you, however,” Herris was saying, “have brought yourself to us. Perhaps not intentionally, but the effect is the same in any case. Yet you are not finished. Which proved to be a dilemma during this council’s earlier discussions on the matter for those opposed to letting you live.”
Not finished? What the Hell did that mean?
“Your blood has been tasted by a Bachyir; Raine. Yet you have not tasted Bachyir blood in return. This is necessary for your conversion. Thus you are not technically an unauthorized member of our race. How could you be when you are not yet, in fact, a member of our race at all? You see the problem inherent in the logic.”
I nodded again. Of course I saw their trouble. They did not want to kill me (not all of them, anyway, Lannis seemed Hell-bent on it) because I’d helped one of their own, but since I’d come waltzing right into their lair they couldn’t just let me go, even though Herris had a use for me. Since I was not fully a vampire they could not sentence me as an unauthorized Bachyir, it would in fact just be an execution simply for the sake of doing so. While I didn’t think they would have a problem with that under normal circumstances (they killed humans all the time, didn’t they?), there was still the fact that Ramah had managed to convince enough members of the council that they owed me something for my aid.
So what could they do about it? They didn’t want to kill me but they could not let me go. What was left? A prisoner in this place for the rest of my life? Could that, in fact, be what Herris had meant about the journal helping me in the nights ahead? Maybe that I would be able to read it and remember Raine while I sat in my cell waiting for my jailer to bring me my next plate of raw meat? The hair on my arms pricked up at the thought of staying in these dark halls indefinitely, especially with the Lost Ones roaming about.
Was that what they had planned for me? It seemed unlikely, but the only other option was…
…it was…
“NO!” I screamed, forgetting Herris’ warning not to speak out of turn. That was a minor consideration in light of what he was getting at. “You are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to let you do that to me, Herris!”
As I screamed, the rest of the council stood, some whipped their hoods back to reveal their shocked and outraged expressions. Still others made to come over the table, as though they meant to get their hands on me and rip me to shreds. Chaos had erupted in the council chamber, a kind of wild, evil pandemonium. I welcomed it. I shouted obscenities at Herris and the rest of them hoping that it would anger him enough to fulfill his earlier promise. I had finally figured out what I feared more than the touch of a Lost One, and my only hope was that I could make them angry enough to kill me outright. In that instant, I did not fear death. I would have welcomed it with open arms and thanked my killer with my last breath.
“ENOUGH!” Herris shouted above my voice and those of the Councilors who were calling for my blood. His voice rumbled through the chamber like thunder, and when he shouted that single word in that tone I knew lightning must be close at hand. Right away the others ceased their rumbling and froze. Some wore expressions of fear. Others, Lannis included, bore faces that shone of anger and resentment.
“A valiant sentiment, Vincent,” Herris said. “But I did not ask your permission.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Herris spoke again. This time I could not understand the words, as they were in another language. (It turned out to be Aramaic, I would later learn.) As he spoke, he raised his hands to the ceiling, and a reddish glow emanated from them. The glow expanded, and small, whip-like tendrils of crimson light formed inside it, crackling about like lightning. It reminded me of a plasma ball; one of those glass spheres with the energy that radiates from the center. If you place a finger on the outside of the glass the energy seems drawn to it. That’s when I realized he was reciting a spell. The realization broke my paralysis and before I could think twice I lunged at him, determined to go down fighting.
I never even got close. As soon as I bent my knees to lunge, the tendrils of crimson shot toward me in brilliant streaks and wrapped themselves around my arms, legs, and chest. Off balance, I fell to the floor hard, but for once I managed to keep from hitting my head. As I rolled to a stop I felt the red whips wrap me up as neat and snug as any spider ever wrapped a fly. I lay there struggling to escape, hoping to find some weak spot I could exploit. It was no use, and in seconds I lay pinned to the floor with my arms to my sides and my back on the hard stone. They had me. I would not escape.
Then Herris spoke. I tried not to hear it, but of course I could do no such thing. The ears hear whether you want them to or not. In any case, I could have been completely deaf for all the good it would have done me. I knew what was coming, and the tears flowed freely from my eyes as Herris confirmed my fears.
“Vincent Walker”, he said, “since we do not wish to kill you and we cannot allow you to leave these halls with the knowledge that your visit has brought you, it is my recommendation as Headcouncil that your transformation be completed post haste, so that you may join the ranks of the Bachyir this very night.”
The room fell into a sudden silence as the rest of the council took in Herris’ plan. It didn’t take long for the hush to be broken by murmurs of approval. When the question was asked, it was supported by a nearly unanimous ‘Aye.’ Only one voice said ‘Nay.’ I heard it and mentally blessed the speaker. At least one of them couldn’t be all that bad.
Then Herris announced my doom.
“Vincent Walker,” he said, “it is the judgment of this Council that you join with us, effective immediately. Welcome to our race, young man. May the Father watch you and bless you.”
Still I struggled, though I knew it to be useless. All around me, the council members engaged in an angry, whispered discussion, but I could only make out a little of what was said. I heard Lannis’ clear, sinuous voice demanding something, but I had no idea what it was. Whatever it was, the other council members did not argue against it, at least not to any great degree.
The sound of approaching footsteps spurred me on, and I renewed my efforts to free myself. I pushed with all my strength at the sides of my bonds, trying to tear myself free of my crimson cocoon. With one last, desperate effort, I forced a hole. As I did so, I felt renewed strength coursing through me. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d had earlier. Perhaps it was merely extra adrenaline brought about by desperation, or perhaps it had been there all along, hidden by some aspect of the room. I didn’t
know, nor did I care. There was no time. I pushed, and the spell broke. It broke! There was an audible tearing sound as the strands first gave way, then tore completely. Once torn they began to dissipate, fading away as though they’d never been there at all. All their strength gone.
Judging by their surprised gasps, my captors hadn’t expected that. By their reckoning, I should have remained on the floor, helpless. Easy pickings.
Yet break free I did, and unlike the Councilors around me, I was not frozen by surprise. I sprang to my feet and bolted for the door. I shoved the single Councilor who stood between myself and the exit aside, yet another thing I should not have been able to do. All the Councilors were strong. Far stronger than me. In the normal course of things, for me to push one aside would have been more akin to me pushing against the side of a building and hoping to move it. I should not have been strong enough.
Yet I was, and I did, and I almost made it to the door. The same door where the Lost One waited. It would have stopped me from getting out, I’m sure, but in my mad panic I’d forgotten about it. I wanted only to reach the door and get to the other side. Nothing else mattered.
I didn’t make it, of course. The surprise I gave the Councilors was temporary, and less than a heartbeat after pushing the one aside, the rest of them regained their senses. Suddenly I felt tendrils again wrapping me up in a tight cocoon. This time there was not one set, but at least eight, all twining and twisting and binding me into a nice, tidy bundle. Very soon I lay again on the cold, hard stone. My short-lived escape attempt nothing but a memory only seconds after it had begun.
That did it. I lost all my will in that one instant. Fighting seemed a waste of energy. A kind of hopelessness settled over me as I heard the footsteps of the approaching Councilors. A sharp stab of pain flared in my side as one of them kicked me in the ribs, breaking three of them. I believe he would have kicked me again if Lannis’ cold, unmoving voice hadn’t stopped him.
