Saying Goodbye to the Sun

by David McAfee

  “I’ll tell you why,” Anna continued without waiting for a response, “It’s because all creatures need a soul in order to survive. Without one they would fall and die where they stood. That is the nature of death; the soul leaves the body to depart for realms unknown. To put it simply, a soul equals life, the lack of a soul equals death.”

  “So?”

  “So we Bachyir don’t have souls, they leave our bodies when we change. Yet all living things need souls to survive, as I said before. That is why we feed on the blood of humans. We need to import their souls into our bodies so we can keep going.”

  “OK,” I said. She had my attention. I’d wondered why vampires fed on blood, and I was interested in spite of myself. What was it about the blood that made us Hunger so?

  “The souls we take into our bodies do not belong to us, but to the people we kill. In effect, we trap them when they would rather go elsewhere. The ability to do so is part of the mystical energy that makes us who we are. These trapped souls constantly fight for their freedom, and little by little, they gain it. The souls we capture slip away from us as surely as sand through an hourglass, and we must take in another, beginning the cycle anew. This is how we survive, one soul at a time.”

  So, that’s why we had to kill; it was literally kill or die. I could at last rationalize the need to feed. As much as I hated the idea of killing, I hated the idea of dying more. Yes, I knew it was evil, but evil was beginning to feel necessary, even good. Like the dark sin everyone wishes they could commit, but they don’t dare.

  I would dare. I would have to.

  I nodded, and I noticed the smile on Anna’s face turn down. Her mouth became a thin, disapproving line pressed between the top and bottom half of her face. I had a sudden feeling I didn’t want to know what else she had to say.

  “Think, Vincent,” she said. “Think for half a second. If all living things must have a soul to survive, then why must we import them from an outside source?”

  I shrugged. Anna frowned.

  “You have no soul, Vincent. It’s gone. All that remains is a shell that needs to be filled or it will stop functioning altogether, like a car needs gasoline.”

  “In other words…?” I asked, a glimmer of her meaning finally inching into my head.

  “In other words,” she continued, “you are dead. You died the night you drank Lannis’ blood. When you awoke, your soul had moved on. That is why you were so Hungry. You were empty, for lack of a better word.”

  I’d been standing by the bed, but at her words I sat down on it, too weak and shocked to remain vertical.

  “How do you feel now that you are full?” She chuckled. “Stronger? Faster? More confident? That’s what having a soul will do for you. You’ll need another in a few days.” With that, she turned away from me, doused the lamp, and plunged the room into darkness.

  The dark suited my mood, and I slipped backwards to lie on the bed. The springs in one of the other beds creaked, and I knew Anna had climbed into hers to wait out the day.

  Good. Maybe she won’t talk to me anymore. Every time she taught me a ‘lesson,’ I ended up worse off than before. Certainly more confused and afraid, anyway.

  I’m dead. I wondered idly if my soul had managed to get into Heaven, then realized I’d probably never find out.

  Raine didn’t just turn me into a vampire, she’d killed me.

  The room seemed to grow even darker, if that was possible, and my vision swam with streaks of red. I’d find her, all right. I’d find her and Heaven help anyone who got in my way. I would find her and I would do what I had to do, and if that meant there was not enough left of her for the Council to punish, so be it.

  Be brave, Vincent, and be strong. I will think of you always.

  Please forgive me,

  Raine

  Raine’s last message to me. I would think of her always, as well. Or at least long enough to get my revenge. If she thought she was sorry before, wait until I found her. And if those fools on the Council of Thirteen, who had let her go in the first place, didn’t like what I did to her and chose to punish me, so be it.

  I lay on the bed, not bothering to crawl under the covers. My last thought was of Raine standing on a moss-covered stone in the middle of a river, begging me to stay out of the water.

  Then I closed my eyes and died for the day.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Boston

  September 30, 1985

  Over the next two months, Anna and I split our time between searching for Raine and going over Bachyir history, skills, and society. During these sessions Anna would frequently become agitated and resort to violence. Many times she got so frustrated with me that she smacked me halfway across the room. Her volatile temper was probably due to the pressure. Quite simply, we could not fail. To do so would mean a return to the state of a Lost One for Anna, and probably a similar fate for me. The Council of Thirteen is not known for mercy.

  Anna taught me the basics of my abilities, and showed me some of my limitations. She showed me how to charge my body with blood, enabling me to run faster or jump farther than any human ever could. She taught me how to grow claws, which I could use to shred an opponent in hand-to-hand combat. She also showed me how I could use my will to force suggestion on humans.

  The vampire will is extremely compelling, and more often than not a human can simply be told to follow and they will. A certain percentage of humans possess enough strength of will to resist, but they are the minority and are still too weak in body to fight back. Anna encountered one such woman two weeks into my training. The woman resisted Anna’s call to come into the alley, so Anna reached out with her clawed hand, grabbed the woman’s arm, and pulled her to her death.

  All in all I learned well, and even Anna admitted I was unusually apt. I seemed to have a knack for acquiring and using the gifts of my new race. Anna thought this due to the fact that I was created by two very powerful vampires, one of which was actually a Councilor. She was probably right, but I also think I did so well because I was enjoying myself. After all, I was invincible, and getting more invincible every night.

  Before long Anna’s temper softened. I didn’t know if she was mellowing out or if she started to fear me as I grew stronger. Not that I cared. She eased up on me. That was enough.

  The search for Raine was not going as well. Our first lead, the hospital where she died, proved to be a dead end right away. It was long gone, replaced several times over. Where the old hospital once stood was now a ragtag grouping of dilapidated apartment structures, the low rent district. The area was rife with crime and drugs. And vampires, of course. It made a perfect hunting ground for my kind because it stood lost and forgotten in a ragged section of the city, and no one cared what happened to the people who lived there.

  Anna and I asked the locals, both Bachyir and human, if any of them had seen Raine. A few claimed to have seen a woman matching Raine’s description, but all their stories led to the same place: an abandoned church in the heart of the neighborhood. Anna and I approached it, but of course we were repelled by the blessings laid upon it by the faithful, which held strong even though the church looked long abandoned. It stood to reason if we could not enter, neither could Raine.

  At this point I suppose I should explain something; not all vampires are affected by crosses or crucifixes. We come from all walks of life; all faiths, religions, beliefs, sexes, nationalities, etc. It does not matter who you are in life, you can be turned. The Council of Thirteen, in fact, predates Christianity by about four thousand years. So of course a cross or the name of Jesus would have no effect on them.

  What does affect us, however, is divinity, and the faith it inspires. To put it simply, we as a race are in the employ of the Father, who is a servant of the netherworld. The netherworld has an opposite, as do all things. This opposing force is known by many names: Heaven, the Promised Land, Valhalla, etc. And like the netherworld, it also has its servants.

  The servants of Heaven (note:
I call it that only so you can relate to it) possess a certain amount of divinity, and they inspire faith in humans who seek it. Those humans who possess faith in the divine also have the ability to call down, through prayer, the blessings of those whom they worship. These blessings can be placed on an item (such as a crucifix), or a place (such as a church), or even a person (such as a priest). It is one of the few things capable of repelling a vampire. It doesn’t hurt us, and we don’t bare our fangs and hiss at it a lά Hollywood, but we can’t approach it.

  Such was the case with the old church. The blessings laid upon it many years before still held, and Anna and I could not enter. We assumed Raine would be unable to enter it as well, for the same reason, but we posted ourselves there for a week just to make sure. We never saw anyone who looked like Raine enter or leave the place. The only people we saw were junkies, transients, and the occasional drunk ambling down the sidewalk in a daze.

  Having dismissed the possibility that Raine could be in the church, Anna and I returned to questioning the people on the streets. It was during one of these sessions that I heard a familiar scratchy voice asking questions. When I heard my name mentioned, I perked up.

  The voice sounded like anger and cigarettes. I’d know it anywhere.

  No, I thought. He can’t be here, can he? I had to be mistaken. I peeked around a corner and caught sight of the one person in the world I least wanted to see. Fat as he was, I couldn’t have missed him.

  Somehow Joel Kagan had followed us to Boston, and now he was walking around and questioning people, much as Anna and I were. No doubt Carl Sanders was nearby doing the same. I ducked out of sight before he saw me, and ran to find Anna.

  She was in an alley, draining a drug dealer. She looked up when I approached, the lower half of her face red with blood.

  “Kagan is here,” I said. “And he’s looking for us.”

  “Are you sure it was Kagan?” Anna asked, “Could it have been someone who looked like him?”

  I shook my head. I knew Kagan when I saw him. “Believe me, it was him. I’d know that son of a bitch anywhere.”

  “If Kagan is here, Sanders must be nearby. We should go.”

  No shit.

  The two of us hurried back to our basement apartment, hoping Sanders and Kagan would not know about the safe house.

  They did.

  Luck was with us that night. The house wasn’t far from where I’d spotted Kagan, and as we rounded a corner and approached it from the back, I heard a muffled, pleading voice coming from inside the place. I never would have heard it as a human, but my heightened senses picked it up easily, even though I couldn’t quite make it out.

  Then I heard a voice I recognized all too well. Carl Sanders was in the house talking to our host. He sounded pissed.

  I put my hand out to stop Anna, and brought a finger to my lips. Anna gave me a confused look, but stopped. I motioned for her to duck behind a car parked across the street, and she did. The two of us huddled in silence as we watched the house.

  She can’t hear it, I realized, she doesn’t know why we stopped.

  No help for it, I wasn’t going to tell her and risk Sanders hearing me. I would just have to hope she listened to me and didn’t make a sound.

  After a short conversation between Sanders and our host, Sanders apparently grew tired of questioning. I heard a sharp cry and a snap that sounded like breaking bones. Then the thump of a body hitting the floor.

  Anna heard the cry as well, and her eyes narrowed. In another minute, Sanders emerged from the door, wiping his hands on a towel and looking around. Anna and I remained where we were, and Sanders turned to his right and walked up the street.

  “How many safe houses in Boston?” I asked when I was sure he was gone.

  “About a dozen. But this was the most obscure. Only a handful of Bachyir know about it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes,” she hissed, “That’s the reason I selected it.”

  “Well, looks like we need to find another. Fast.”

  Anna nodded. The worried look in her eyes scared me almost as much as the thought of Sanders and Kagan catching up to us.

  ***

  We had to leave the V-Max behind. Neither of us wanted to be seen on it with Sanders and Kagan about. We also left behind what few clothes we had acquired since coming to Boston. We’d been able to buy most of them with money taken from our victims. It surprised me how easy it became to accept murder. I killed one person a week, and by the time Kagan and Sanders discovered our hiding place, my body count had risen to nine and I no longer had any qualms about it. Going out to kill became as natural and as easy as going out for a cheeseburger. I even started to enjoy my victims’ fear.

  It made their blood sweeter.

  However, fear is not as fun when I’m the one feeling it, and neither Anna nor I wanted to stay in the area. We did not even go back into the house to check on the human who given us shelter. Neither of us cared. I had never even learned the man’s name. Instead, we walked along the street in the direction opposite Carl Sanders, and when we saw a young man get out of his car in front of us, we stopped him.

  “Give me your keys,” I told him.

  “Fuck off,” he replied and kept walking.

  I was about to grab him and teach him proper respect when Anna stepped in front of him and smiled. He looked like he was about to say something, but then his shoulders slumped and his head rolled to one side. He smiled back, not even blinking.

  “Give us your keys,” Anna said sweetly. I’d never heard that tone from her before.

  “Sure,” he replied, handing the keys over. “Anything you want. Here, take this, too.” He reached in his pocket and handed Anna his wallet.

  “Thank you,” Anna said, “Now go on inside and go to bed. Sleep until morning.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” he replied, a dazed look on his face. Then he walked up to his door, let himself in with a key he picked up from under a stone, and went inside. Anna and I climbed into his car and I drove it away.

  “Why didn’t you just kill him?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to risk attracting attention. There’s no telling where Sanders and Kagan are.”

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. Ramah said he would tell me later, but who knew when, or if, I would ever make it back to the Halls of the Bachyir. I had a right to know, since they were tracking us all over the fucking place. I knew I would have to fight them sooner or later. The question was out before I could stop myself.

  “Who the hell are they, Anna?”

  “Ramah didn’t tell you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’d have thought he’d fill you in on something that important, especially since it relates to your own situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sanders is a renegade vampire. He was created about a hundred years ago by a female Bachyir who did so without seeking the permission of the Council.”

  I could relate to that.

  “As you know,” she continued, “vampires who create unauthorized ‘children’ are turned into Lost Ones, and their offspring are hunted down and destroyed without exception.”

  Anna paused, then she looked over at me. The lights from the street faded in and out of the car, giving the impression of shadows moving across her face in constant, repetitive motion.

  “Well, almost without exception,” she amended, casting a significant glance in my direction.

  “They couldn’t catch him?” I asked, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Oh, they caught him. Raine was assigned to capture him and bring him in, which she did. He escaped. No one knows how, but the Council was furious.”

  I could imagine. “Is that why he’s after Raine? Because she’s the one who caught him?”

  “One would assume so,” she replied. “Although his interests would be better served to disappear altogether than to carry on some silly vengeance against Raine. For whatever reason,
he chose to take it personally, and has never stopped hunting for her.”

  That didn’t make much sense to me. Why would Sanders spend a century hunting Raine? She was only doing her job. Maybe she did something to him while she had him in captivity. Something horrible. The Raine I knew would not do such a thing, but I had come to realize I did not know the true Raine at all. There was still so much I didn’t know.

  “Turn right here,” Anna said, indicating a road that led into Dorchester. “There’s another safe house there. If Sanders has not already been there, we should be safe enough for the day.”

  An excellent point. Sanders or no Sanders, dawn was not far off, and we would have to find a place to stay soon.

  “Why hasn’t anyone been able to capture him?” I asked.

  “Sanders is dangerous, Vincent. There aren’t many who could stand against him, and fewer still who would try.”

  “But why? What makes him so dangerous?”

  “Because he was never taught anything about being a vampire. The one who created him was turned into a Lost One soon after, so he had no one to teach him how to use his abilities.”

  “Wouldn’t that make him easier to defeat?”

  “So thought the Council, thus they did not make his capture a high priority. They sent a low-level Enforcer to capture him.”

  “I thought you said they sent Raine? Councilor Ramah told me she was their most powerful Enforcer.”

  “She is now,” Anna corrected. “But in 1871 she wasn’t as strong as she is today. In the last hundred years or so she has risen through the ranks through deed and skill.”

  That made sense.

  “Sanders is so dangerous because he was never trained,” Anna continued. “The abilities he has managed to acquire, he learned with no guidance whatsoever. Without someone to teach him what he could and could not hope to do, he has managed to learn things on his own. Most of the skills we possess, he possesses, as well, but he learned to use them differently, and many of our elders simply do not understand how they work.”

  That made sense, too.