Redlisted

by Sara Beaman

  Soon after we met I learned her husband was dying of brain cancer. I took it upon myself to do whatever I could to help Elena through it all. I offered her that—whatever I could give. I’d like to be able to say that I wasn’t hoping for the arrangement to become what it did, or that we waited at least until her husband was dead, but I did and we didn’t.

  Six months later I dropped out of the program. I hoped that would somehow allow us to stop hiding from everyone we knew. It didn’t work out. She broke up with me when I told her what I’d done.

  It was hard not to think about her now. She was only four hours away by car in Atlanta. But I was positive she had no desire to see me. I’d tried calling her—more than daily, in fact—but no one ever answered. I could only assume she’d blocked my number. Worse, I hadn’t learned how to control my violent impulses towards humans. Every time I passed a servant or visitor in the hallways, I would have the same reaction I’d had on that first night: my teeth would sharpen and my mind would be flooded with the desire to rip their throats open. The idea that Elena would provoke the same reaction was anathema. I couldn’t go see her. I couldn’t think of anything more terrible.

  Part of me wanted to do it anyway.

  Of course, it wasn’t really an option. Julian and Aya had me on a schedule like clockwork. Every day was the same. Minutes after sundown, Aya would come and retrieve me from my quarters, delivering me to Julian. Julian would then lecture me for hours on the revenant condition. At some time during each visit, I’d drink his blood from the amphora and have a private breakdown in the study. Aya would eventually come to release me, and then we’d spend the remaining hours before sunrise walking around outside. She’d talk about things I had no interest in, and I’d ask her questions she didn’t want to answer. And then back to the suite.

  One night, however, Aya came to my suite, but not to bring me to Julian.

  “I’m afraid Master Julian is traveling at the moment,” she informed me as I stepped out into the hall.

  “Oh?”

  She looked through the doorway into the sitting room. “May I come in?”

  “Sure.” I stepped aside.

  She sat down on the lounge, leaned on the armrest and stacked her legs neatly on top of one another, pointing her toes. She was barefoot, which was strange.

  “How have you been?” she asked as I sat down on one of the couches.

  “It’s been all of twelve hours—“

  “I mean, how are you? How are you feeling?”

  She was wondering whether or not I was planning any more suicide attempts. “Right. Well, I guess I’m feeling better.”

  “You guess?”

  “I still feel bizarre. Like I’m dead. Although I guess that’s normal...”

  A little wrinkle of concern appeared between her eyebrows. “Dead? How so?”

  “Except for right after I drink blood, I don’t feel fear, or anger, or anxiety, or... you know, anything. Not like before, at least.”

  She nodded, her lips parting slightly.

  “Is it always going to be like this?” I asked.

  “No, no, not at all. Master Julian hasn’t spoken to you about this?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it.”

  “You’re probably not getting enough blood. You’re really not eating as much as you should.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She fluttered her eyelashes, preparing to say something precocious. “The physical sensation of emotion comes from the endocrine system, is that correct?”

  “More or less, yes, but—“

  “Well, you see, you’re a bit malnourished. Several of your body’s systems must be shut down.”

  “Wait.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “So if I just eat more, I’ll stop feeling this way?”

  “Probably.”

  I frowned. How could it possibly be that simple?

  She stared into the empty fireplace. The image of the amphora in Julian’s study flashed into my mind.

  “Dr. Fletcher...” She took a breath. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  My jaw tensed. “Go ahead.”

  “All of your meals thus far—they’ve been from a glass, haven’t they?”

  “I know where you’re going with this. I just don’t know if I can—Jesus Christ. I can’t just assault someone like that. I don’t believe Julian when he says it doesn’t hurt.”

  She stood up, walked over and sat down next to me on the couch, leaving only a narrow margin between us. “Let me ask you another question, then,” she said. “You feel pain, right? If you run into something, it hurts, even though it doesn’t leave a bruise.”

  “Well, yes...”

  “You’d believe me if I told you I feel pain, too, wouldn’t you?” Her blue eyes were wide, her eyebrows furrowed earnestly. “And I do, of course.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  She pulled her hair over one shoulder and leaned her head to the side, exposing the gentle curve of her neck. “You’ll know if you’re hurting me,” she said. “If you’re careful, you won’t—“

  “Aya,” I began to protest, but then something about her presence changed. I could hear the faint sound of her heart beating in her chest, and when she placed her fingertips against my lips, her skin was warm. Her jugular artery throbbed gently.

  “It’s okay.”

  It was already happening. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I could summon only enough restraint to prevent myself from tearing at her flesh with complete abandon. I brushed her hand away from my lips as I felt my teeth sharpen, then placed my mouth as delicately as I could against her neck, right under the line of her jaw. For a split second, it was almost like a chaste kiss. Then I pulled my lips apart and bit into her.

  She flinched as my teeth penetrated her flesh. I could feel her pain as if it were my own, sharp and clear. It quickly subsided into a dull burning, warm and almost pleasant.

  She smiled and relaxed as her blood flooded my mouth, pleased with herself.

  ///

  Aya made the same offer again the following night, which surprised me. She was even willing to continue the practice after Julian returned a week later. I accepted this as I accepted all the other alterations to my life: with a lot of angst and protest at the outset, followed by the queasy realization that it had already become comfortable for me.

  Soon I no longer felt compelled to assault every human I ran into upon hearing their first heartbeat. I even managed to conduct a few short conversations with some of Julian’s staff. He had an army of people in his employ: accountants, mechanics, housecleaners, landscapers, even artists and musicians, in addition to what amounted to a harem of attractive, anemic-looking individuals—men and women both—whom I gathered were handsomely paid for their single, very specific function.

  I slowly began to feel faint glimpses of emotion wavering in my chest as well. I found that if I forced myself to recall what a specific emotion felt like before I died, I could summon the ghost of it. I meditated on this in my free time, reflecting on my most potent memories until I could summon their echoes.

  Despite my constant seeking, I still couldn’t remember what had happened with Alison, how we had died. I started to wonder if I’d sustained a head injury in the crash.

  ///

  The evening after Julian returned from his trip, Aya led me up a flight of stairs and through a long hallway on the first floor to an immense, neatly maintained library. We found Julian there, standing with his back to us in the center rotunda. He seemed unsure where to look or where to place his limbs. Hearing us approach, he turned to face us, clasping his hands behind his back.

  “You both look well,” he said. “Please, come in.”

  I took a step forward. Aya turned to leave.

  “No, Aya, I mean you as well. I’d like to talk to you both about something important.”

  She turned around. “Oh. Of course.”

  He walked towards a staircase at t
he far end of the room. “I just returned from Chicago, from a meeting of the Watchers of the Americas,” he said, gesturing for us to follow. “I had to request clearance from them to discuss what I plan to tell you tonight. I’m going to need to ask you both to keep this information confidential.”

  Aya nodded fervently.

  “Sure,” I said, apathetic.

  “Thank you.”

  He climbed a narrow staircase to the balcony level above. Aya and I followed closely behind. We crossed to a bank of windows that looked out over the gardens.

  Julian sat down in one of three chairs around a table. “I need to apologize, Aya—much of what I’m about to say will be old news for you.”

  “Oh, no, not at all, sir. I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of it anyway,” she insisted, sitting down in the chair next to his.

  I sat down and waited for him to continue.

  “Let’s see... where should I begin? There’s so much to explain...”

  “Sir, is everything all right?” Aya asked.

  “Yes. Of course.” He shook his head. “Let me start from the beginning. I will do my best to be concise.

  “We have always defined our epochs based on which sanguine house has dominated our political landscape at a given time. Our current age has seen the ascendancy of the House of Wardens, with their policy of noninterference in mortal affairs. We call it the Sanguine Consensus, or simply the Consensus—although the name implies some sort of sweeping agreement among us, and the reality of the situation is far more complex than that. The majority of revenants don’t abide by most of the rules the Wardens have established.” He shrugged. “But I digress.

  “Before the age of Wardens there was a long, protracted conflict that decimated our population. And, before that, our own House, the House of Mnemosyne, was ascendant.

  “Our House was ruled utterly and completely by its immortal matriarch. After the fall of the Roman Empire, she turned her attention to Europe, where she cultivated the relationships that enabled her to oversee their monarchies for generations.

  “None within our ranks would ever think to question her authority. To be frank, she rendered us incapable of insubordination. And for centuries, none of the other sanguine houses made any significant attempts to challenge her.

  “Mnemosyne’s primacy went unchecked for nearly a millennium, until the House of Wardens began their campaign some five hundred years ago.

  I turned and looked out the window, barely listening to him.

  “Mnemosyne most decidedly did not agree with the idea of the Consensus,” Julian continued. “The concept that humans could manage themselves without her guidance was inconceivable to her. She believed that their mortal lives were too short and their perspectives too narrow for them to merit real autonomy.” He shrugged. “I suppose time will tell whether she was correct.”

  Julian pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. A question was on the tip of my tongue—that’s all very interesting, but what does it have to do with us?—but he continued before I could ask.

  “I myself was initiated after the war with the Wardens was already under way. The Wardens had used the increase in naval activity in the mercantile age to their advantage, and had established bases of operation all throughout the New World and much of Africa and Asia.”

  His gaze drifted away from us, out the window into the darkness beyond.

  “My initiation was a bid on our mother’s part to regain some lost leverage in the Indian subcontinent. Before my own death, you see, I was the bastard son of the third Earl of Cumberland, Sir George Clifford.”

  “Who?”

  “The first Governor of the British East India Company.”

  I still wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “He had no other living heirs, and she was hoping to use me to blackmail him. She was getting desperate, I suppose, given how badly things were proceeding with the Wardens. She wasn’t known for choosing her progeny on such disreputable terms.

  “She forced herself on me to make me what I am, and then she forced me to drive my mortal father into ruin.” His mouth twisted into an expression of disgust. “Once my father was finished, she intended to kill me, as I was of no further use to her. She would have gone through with this plan, I’m certain, if it hadn’t been for the intervention of my elder brother Lucien, my mentor and confidant.”

  I felt a wave of heartbreak so potent and raw that at first I mistook it for my own. Then I realized it was coming from Julian.

  “I won’t elaborate about what happened between the three of us. I can’t stand to think about it,” he said. “In short, Lucien distracted her until he could broker my escape to New York. Then, about a century later, when she found out what he had done, she murdered him.”

  He paused for a moment. Aya closed her eyes and nodded her head.

  “By that time I had defected and was working with the Wardens. I gave them whatever information I could, did whatever I could to aid their cause—not because I believed in the Consensus, not really, but because I hated her so much. In turn, they taught me how to cultivate the ability to shield my mind from her grasp.

  “All of that is common knowledge at this point, but what no one else knows save myself and a tiny council within the Watchers of the Americas is this:

  “Like most of my siblings and cousins, my memory is flawless. It’s the hallmark of our lineage. I remember everything since the moment of my second awakening, save a few months I lost to starvation while crossing the Atlantic. All with the exception of a single year: the year eighteen ninety-three. When I look back, the entire year is missing. Erased completely.”

  “What happened during that year?” I asked.

  “Well, in short, I beheaded Mnemosyne and took control of our House.” He smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Or so I’m told. I don’t remember any of it.”

  ///

  “But why does that matter?” I asked Aya later that evening on our walk through the grounds. “Why does it really matter whether or not he can remember what happened a hundred years ago? Especially given the Wardens have records of it all.”

  “They can’t possibly have records of anything. And it’s not like he just forgot. An entire year—a year exactly—has been burned out of his memory. Someone must have done it to him, and it must have been family.”

  I frowned.

  “Speaking of family, Julian’s daughter, Mirabel, will be visiting next week. I can’t help but wonder if that’s not part of the reason he told us about this now.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I doubt she’s the culprit, though. The two of them are too close.”

  “That’s nice,” I replied, not even pretending to be interested. “It sounds like any number of his relatives would have had both means and motive, though. Don’t most of them hate him, anyway? Why does it really matter which one of them did it?”

  Aya glared at me with a disdain I’d never seen from her before.

  “In any case, whatever happened, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” I continued.

  “How can you be so cold?” she snapped.

  I must have made a face. Suddenly I felt embarrassed, which meant she felt mortified. She turned away, too flustered to even attempt to apologize.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m probably not being fair. I’m just... he expects me to solve this mystery for him, and I don’t think I can.”

  “I can understand why you would feel that way,” she said, her voice faint. “But I know you’ll be able to do it. So does Julian. He wouldn’t have told you about any of this if he didn’t think you could help.”

  After all, she realized, he never told any of the others—

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Oh God. No. You didn’t hear that,” she whispered to herself.

  I watched, confused, as she turned away from me. Moving as if in a trance, she walked to the double doors with the stained glass windows. I watched her walk inside without me, oblivious to m
y absence. I waited for several minutes, assuming she’d realize her mistake and come back out to revive me. She didn’t.

  For once, I was truly alone.

  I looked out into the grounds. They seemed to extend for miles, far past the horizon into a vast wilderness. What would happen if I just kept walking out into the trees? It was impossible to tell whether or not I’d be able to find shelter before sunrise, and it was getting late.

  I walked around the perimeter of the building, through a grove of magnolia trees to a paved driveway that terminated in a huge loop in front of the main entrance. In its center was a marble sundial set into the ground, perhaps twelve feet in diameter. I laughed, shaking my head. What use could a vampire possibly have for a sundial?

  I couldn’t see where it led, but the driveway seemed promising. Certainly it would empty out into a road, a passage back to the twentieth century, to normal human civilization, maybe even to Atlanta. I didn’t have any money, nor any identification. Nor did I have any idea what I would do if I could find my way to a human settlement.

  I didn’t care. This was my chance, maybe the only one I’d get.

  I set out at a brisk pace. The driveway was straight as a ruler and lined with perfectly manicured bushes and trees. I passed row after row of identical landscaping, row after row after identical row. Soon it had been fifteen minutes, maybe more, since I’d set off through this unchanging landscape. Certainly I’d covered at least a mile, but I had yet to find my way to a road.

  I choked down my anxiety and kept walking, increasing my pace as I went. I discovered that I could accelerate even to a sprint without feeling winded, but it didn’t seem to matter; I continued for at least another hour without ever finding a road. The only part of the scenery that was changing was the horizon: it was slowly shifting from black to blue.

  A dull dread crept in to the back of my mind. I had been so determined to move forward, so single-minded about my attempt to escape that all this time I hadn’t looked back towards the estate, not even once.