by Justin Sloan
“Remember what we discussed,” Valerie told the Captain as she prepared to part ways with him. “I don’t want to have to find you to fix the mistake of letting you live.”
“Believe me,” he said, with a very serious nod, “the last thing I want is someone of your, er, abilities, angry at me.”
She kept an eye on him, and then nodded sharply. Turning to Sandra and Diego, she said, “You two ready?” She grabbed a bag and started to walk off the ship.
Sandra nodded, and Diego said, “I’m with you until we find this… what was it again, Captain?”
The Captain had already started walking off after his men, but he turned back and shouted, “Capital Square. You looking for that city of yours? That’s gonna be the place to ask.” He grunted, then added, “Don’t forget, leave my name out of the discussion, or they might send you out on your butt.”
Diego laughed and said, “Thanks, Cap!”
The Captain stopped and pointed at Diego. “Son, I’ll let that one slide. But call me that again and I’ll owe you a punch next time we meet. You remember that.”
And then he was off, disappearing into the darkness.
“So, yeah,” Diego said, grabbing his luggage and running to catch up to Valerie and Sandra. “The ‘Cap’ says Capital Square, some old pub there that’ll point me in the right direction. He told me how to find it. And you two are doing what?”
“If they have answers, we might want to head there too.” Valerie patted the pocket of the jacket she wore. She’d taken it from one of the female pirates, and although it was purple and had looked ridiculous against the pirate’s pink ensemble, it added a nice flair to Valerie’s black pants and blue blouse. The best part was the hidden pockets where the pirate had kept a flask beside her knives. Valerie had ditched the flask in favor of the vials of vampire blood.
Now it was time to first see if she could figure out why a pirate ship had vials of vampire blood, and then get to her own task. She was here to make allies and set up a defense against Donovan.
When he came and tried to attack, the craptastic ass and his rat-sucking goons would find themselves hung out to dry in the light of day. Or with their heads chopped off. Or… well, it didn’t really matter, as long as the end result was dead.
“Do we have any contacts here, Mistress?” Sandra asked.
“Contacts?” Valerie turned to her companion.
Sandra’s eyes narrowed, but she quickly recovered. “I assumed there was a plan, like we’d meet up with them and then have your revenge, or….” Sandra’s voice trailed off.
“First, this isn’t about revenge,” Valerie said, taking her young handmaiden’s arm in hers and walking toward the large groupings of buildings, Diego leading. “You have to understand that clarification. This is about justice, about making sure that bastard brother of mine doesn’t do to this wonderful place what he did to France.” She paused a moment, then added, “And perhaps a bit of vengeance.”
“I see,” Sandra said, clearly still bothered.
“Okay, maybe I acted impulsively, but you didn’t see that child—”
“Actually, I did, Mistress.” Sandra glanced over with fright, having never interrupted Valerie before. She looked around to see if anyone was listening. “But, and I mean no offense and don’t want to overstep my bounds, but… you are vampires,” she hissed.
“She’s got you there,” Diego said with a chuckle.
“You, furball, walk faster so you can’t hear us,” Valerie told him, then turned back to Sandra as Diego stepped out ahead of them. “Yeah, I honestly didn’t think it’d be such a big deal. We go out there, this ferocious if small army in the Fallen Lands, secure another outpost for the Duke, and call it a night. Then there I was, feeling for them.” She walked for a moment in silence, her mind racing, then she just let it all out. “It was like… everything I’ve been told until now was that we were doing the right thing, for our kind. That the Duke had the right idea, him being wise, old and generally more knowledgeable than myself. I know he doesn’t look it, but he is, and….” She paused, hitting a point in the story that was harder to admit.
Sandra encouraged her gently, “Yes, Mistress?”
Setting her shoulders, Valerie continued, “I started wondering if everything I’d believed was false. This leader, he tells us what to do, but at the cost of a child’s life?” She exhaled with force before continuing. “Donovan would argue that the little child was just human, and we are above them. Uh, sorry.”
She paused to see if Sandra had taken offense to that, but if she had, she didn’t show it. “But what I’m saying is that maybe the Duke, and Donovan—they are all wrong.” For a moment, she stared at Sandra, wondering how to convey everything she was feeling, and then added, “I’d like your thoughts on this, Sandra.”
“Me?” Sandra turned to her, shock on her face. “I’m with you, no matter what you decide. But if it’s down to killing innocents or not killing innocents, well, I’d have to side with not killing innocents.”
“Yes, of course.” Valerie noticed Diego glancing back with a confused expression. “What?”
He slowed enough to not have to raise his voice, then spoke to the two of them. “Just, when I met you and found out you were a vampire from Europe, I figured you were one of the Forsaken, but you sure don’t talk like them.”
“I’m not familiar with that term,” Valerie said.
“You know, the vampires that put themselves above humans, who don’t give two shits about life unless it’s their own?” Diego looked between their blank faces. “Never heard of that term? Seriously? What do you call yourselves?”
“The Blessed,” Valerie answered. “Because of our destiny.”
“Let me guess. You achieve greatness, but at the expense of others?”
She hadn’t thought of what the Duke had promised that way before. But now that he voiced it like this, she had to admit Diego had a point.
“Only, now you’ve broken from them, right?” Diego asked. “Which makes you, what? Like the old days and TQB?”
“TQ who?” Sandra asked.
“You know—”
“The Queen Bitch,” Valerie said, and a chill went through her spine. “Bethany Anne.”
“Oh….” Sandra’s face was pale now, her eyes glancing around as if someone was going to suddenly jump out at them.
“So you’ve heard of her?” Diego asked. “I mean, who she was rumored to be… what, like a hundred and fifty years ago?”
“Yeah, we know the stories,” Valerie confirmed.
“Evil incarnate,” Diego said. “At least that’s how my peeps thought of her, but you know what? My parents escaped the Sacred Clan, and then we started hearing different stories, about a vampire who wasn’t so much a vampire as a modified human, and she even cared about human lives and did a lot of damn good working to save our planet. Well, until it all fell apart anyway.”
“There’s a vampire like that?” Sandra said, eyes wide in amazement. She glanced over at Valerie, and then added, “I mean, more than one?”
Diego laughed. “No, I was talking about the same one. Bethany Anne. All those stories about her being evil? Well, that was according to the ideology of the Sacred Clan. But once my family escaped, there were others of the UnknownWorld with a completely opposite viewpoint.”
All Valerie knew of Bethany Anne was that she’d been one of the most powerful vampires ever, if not the most powerful. But she’d gone missing around the time of the collapse of the world, which had been way before Valerie’s time.
Valerie’s eyebrows scrunched up, “And you think I’m like her now?”
Diego looked her up and down. “Not quite. Even the stories from those that hated her say she had legs that went on for miles and much fuller, perkier br—”
“Okay, we get the point,” Valerie said, folding her arms across her breasts—which she had always considered perfect for her size. “I could be the new Queen Bitch if I wanted.”
“Y
eah, of course. And I can stop becoming an undersized puma when I transform, and become a grizzly bear instead.”
Valerie’s hand clutched her sword as her anger flared, but then she forced herself to breathe deeply and ignore him.
It was a good time to start paying attention, too, because they’d just passed under a makeshift archway, and the buildings were starting to look less like nuclear shelters and more like an actual city.
What had looked impressive from far off now rose before them like nothing they’d ever seen. The neon lights were everywhere. The grandest was a large, digital sign of an elegant Asian lady that would then turn into an image for a ship much like they’d come across in, followed by the words Help rebuild while seeing the world.
“How do they have the energy to fuel all this?” Valerie asked. She spun to see a large tunnel light up yellow as what she assumed to be a metro train of sorts went zooming past.
Diego shook his head, just as impressed as the other two.
Sandra huddled close to Valerie and seemed to be doing her best to hide that she was shaking. Either she was cold, or terrified.
Valerie doubted the former, as it was warm and muggy enough for Diego’s t-shirt to be clinging to his back—the captain had been kind enough to lend him a change of clothes so that Diego wouldn’t have to walk into Old Manhattan in pirate clothes. “Kind” might be a bit misleading, though, since Valerie told him to do it and saying no to her wasn’t exactly an option.
Red and blue lights bounced off of the nearby buildings as a flying police pod floated down from above. The pod was almost oval, with sleek, tinted glass circling an area on the top half. It stopped to hover beside them, and then a voice came over the speaker that said, “Best be moving on, walls are going up in five.”
“Um, excuse me?” Diego said, with an awkward wave.
A window rolled down and an annoyed, humongous cop stared out at them. “You didn’t hear the speaker? Move along.” He glanced at the two women and back to Diego.
Diego pointed the way they’d been going, and the officer nodded.
“Capital Square?” Diego added.
The cop’s eyes narrowed at that, but he nodded, leaned out and pointed the same direction. He returned to his seat and was about to roll up the window when Valerie stepped forward, causing him to really notice her and do a double take.
“Officer,” she said, not really sure how to address the police in this country. In her experience, they were the enemies.
The cop didn’t show any sign of annoyance, so she continued. “When you say ‘the wall,’ what is that?”
The cop laughed. “You must be new. Been through processing yet?”
She bit her lip, unsure how to answer that.
“Just see that you do,” he said. “It’s the best way to keep us all safe. Track who comes in, and keep the night-wackos out.”
He gave her a concerned look, then rummaged next to him and wrote something on the back of a small, square piece of firm paper. He reached out from the window and handed it to her. “That’s the old Hilton building’s location. Not what it might have been in its heyday, but it has rooms and won’t charge if you show them that card.”
“Thank you,” she said, unsure how to respond, or if the guy could even be trusted.
He nodded and closed the window before the car floated back up and away.
“So… what kind of whackos do you think he’s talking about?” Sandra asked, her voice shaky. “I mean, with you, I’m not exactly worried, but this is all pretty much outside my comfort zone.” She glanced around at the shadows, nervously.
“Considering the fight you put up back there against those pirates,” Diego said with a wink, “I’d say we’ll be just fine. But, to answer your question, first I have to ask how you two came here without knowing anything about it.”
“Watch yourself,” Valerie told him, annoyed with his comment that judged them. At least, it felt like he was judging them. “I’ve heard legends of this place since I was little girl, long before I was turned, and probably before you were born. But back then I thought it was a myth.” She continued to look around and check out the people while pretending to be sightseeing. “Later, I knew it as a territory we’d conquer, but pardon me if vampire education in Europe isn’t caught up on all things American.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But we should probably get moving, like the nice policeman said.”
Before long, they were walking through an elaborate maze of buildings, some looted and torn down, others built up with modified reinforced steel and covered in billboards. He told them the stories he’d heard in the alleys of Spain.
“America still has the greatest potential, if you know where to look. It has cities like this one, or parts of cities that had been great before the collapse and rose to a different type of greatness after. But then there were the in-between zones—the Fallen Lands, as some took to calling them.” He stepped over a large chunk of rusted metal.
“And those are?” Valerie asked.
“The Fallen Lands are … well, you do not want to go there,” he told them. “It’s where nothing works for miles upon miles. No electricity, no water. Nothing.”
“So nobody’s out there?” Sandra interrupted.
“Oh, there are people out there, and maybe more. I heard stories of nomad tribes, or these ‘Whackos,’ as the officer referred to them. They live on the outskirts of towns, trying to survive, and sometimes attack and plunder if they can. If their group is large enough, or the city weak enough.”
“Like pirates,” Valerie said.
“Exactly. Most of the pirates come from these nomad tribes—some are whackos who aren’t too far-gone mentally. They get to a point where they can afford a ship, or they steal one, and boom, there you go. Or sometimes one-offs, the real loonies, will go off and find a pirate group to join. Trust me, those pirates we killed back there? If the stories are true, they’ve earned their places in hell.”
“You wanna know about hell?” a woman asked, sitting in the shadows of a staircase.
Valerie’s hand went to her sword, but she relaxed when she saw the drugged out, lazy look in the woman’s eyes.
“We’re just passing by,” Valerie told her, and kept walking.
“You wanna know about hell?” the woman said, this time yelling, leaning forward and clutching her belly. “You’ve found it, I’ll tell you that! You’re walking right into the devil’s mouth, bitch!”
Sandra cringed at that and glanced back at Valerie, wondering if she was going to kill the woman for talking to her like that.
“Relax,” Valerie said. “I’m not my brother, and that woman needs help.”
“I imagine that even Bethany Anne would’ve at least slapped some sense into her, anyway,” Diego said. “You sure you’re not too soft for this place?”
Valerie chuckled. “Want to try me?”
He held his hands up in surrender. “Not particularly. I think I’m good.”
“And, if you don’t mind,” she gestured around at the shadows, where more men and women had appeared, watching them, “maybe we keep the Bethany Anne talk to a minimum out here? We don’t know who’s listening.”
Diego looked around, his eyes piercing the dark. “Good point.”
They walked on, doing their best to ignore the strangers in the shadows. At least half of them had the same dazed look in their eyes, and all of them wore grungy and ragged clothes. Then a turn brought Valerie into a wide, open area. Here the people were everywhere, as if they did their best to stay out of the side streets and found safety in large numbers.
