by Justin Sloan
“Go ahead and change,” the man said. “They’re sound asleep.”
“Thank you.” Diego glanced back up at the carving as he put on the blue jeans and plaid shirt. A thought hit him, and he realized that, given their nature, the statue might not represent a dog at all. With the way Franklin’s eyes had gone moist and were now fixed on the floor, he was pretty sure. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said as he put on the shirt.
“She’s not dead, at least,” Franklin sniffed, moving to the kitchen half of the room and pulling out some cold beans to warm up and fresh eggs to fry. “Taken by Enforcers when they found out her true nature, forced to fight in this hunt, this war on vampires and suppression of our people.”
“Weres?” Diego said, more to fill the air than confirm what he already knew.
The man nodded and stirred the eggs, scrambling them.
“This hunting.” Diego walked over and leaned against the wood counter as he spoke, “I mean, they’re vampires. What chance do the humans have against them?”
“Ask all the vampires whose blood they drain each day and night,” Franklin told him. He put the eggs and beans on a plate and handed them over to Diego, then poured a glass of beer. “They got their ways, and it’s not like the vampires of old. Not that I’m sure there ever were vampires that could walk in the sun.”
“You think those were tall tales, lies, myths or what?” Diego asked between bites. “For what purpose?”
Franklin pursed his lips and answered after a moment of consideration, “To inspire the young vampires, maybe, I don’t know. Now there’s talk in the market, if you keep your ear to the shadows, that one of them has returned and is off somewhere in the Fallen lands putting a stop to this hunting business. A sun-walker, they say, with powers unlike any we’ve ever imagined.” He took a drink of his beer, his eyes losing focus. “A Dark Messiah, if you were to be a religious type.”
A shiver ran down Diego’s spine. He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of a Dark Messiah. Sure, it could mean the end of humans hunting and abusing members of the UnknownWorld, but if one vampire had that sort of power, he could wipe out all the Weres if he ever felt the need.
Or she, Diego realized.
He swallowed, his mind feeling like it was about to explode. “Wait, you don’t mean… Do the rumors talk about whether it’s a man or woman?”
Franklin raised an eyebrow at this sudden query. “They’re stories, boy, nothing more. But no, nothing either way in that regard.”
With a final swallow of the food, his heart sinking when he realized how bad it would look if he licked the plate, Diego thanked him and stood up to take the plate and glass to the kitchen sink. As he put the plate down, he asked, “I need to be going. But… can you tell me anything you know about the Golden City?”
Franklin chuckled, “You do love to dream, don’t you?” He pointed toward the front door. “Yeah, head east until you hit the coast. Then north. You might find it, you might not.”
He adjusted his chair to look Diego in the face. “But I got bad news for you. That city is a city of those that have escaped the service—Weres who refuse to serve the Enforcers and risk death in their escape. Whatever you heard,” he looked to deep into Diego’s eyes, “what, a mecca for Weres? It’s not that.”
Everything in Diego’s heart told him this man was wrong, had to be wrong. He’d believed in the dream of the Golden City too long to accept this. But his mind knew it was the truth, even if he hoped it wasn’t.
“Dad?” a soft voice said, and the two turned to see Franklin’s young boy. “Are you coming to sleep?”
“Yes, son,” Franklin said. He nodded to the door and said to Diego, “Best of luck to you. Head in the clouds as you are ... you’ll need it.”
“Thanks again,” Diego said as the man walked him to the door. They shook hands before Diego walked out, the door shutting quietly behind him.
Everything was falling apart for him.
His dream wasn’t to come to America and hang out with a vampire and her sidekick, or to run off and warn them about the hunters. It certainly wasn’t to search for answers about this rumored all-powerful vampire returning. And it most definitely was not to give up on his dream to live among Weres in the Golden City.
But his curiosity, loyalty to Valerie and Sandra, and trust in everything Franklin had just told him all added up to mean his dream was slowly crumbling to dust in his mind.
He looked toward the main part of Old Manhattan and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he started walking in that direction.
Disillusioned or not, vampire or not, Valerie and Sandra had come for him, and he would be damned if he wouldn’t be a good friend, first.
The Golden City could wait.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Near the run-down hotel
Valerie pulled Sandra up to the next ledge outside of the hotel while Cammie led the way in the darkness. Up and up they climbed, with the Peace Enforcers swarming below and the lights from their rifles darting across the windows as they searched the building across the street.
“How much farther?” Sandra whispered, but Cammie just held up a finger. They climbed up one last level to reach the roof, then she went to the ledge and leaned out. Together, Cammie and Sandra looked over the ledge.
Valerie joined them, and felt a bit disoriented at the sight of ground so far below. How they’d climbed so high so fast was beyond her, but they were more than lucky to have Cammie leading the way. Valerie would’ve hated to have to kill all those people.
“Maybe’s now a good time to tell us what the hell’s going on,” Valerie asked, tension in her voice.
Cammie looked over at the Vampire, before turning back to look at the lights below, “I told you, they were hunting you. These ones,” she pointed down below, “some of them likely work for the same person who pays the hunters, but technically they’re law enforcement.”
Valerie turned to her. “And the vials? This person?”
Cammie pulled Valerie back as a light moved their direction, then looked between Sandra and her with a stern expression. “Before you two came along, the vials were just another of a thousand rumors. One I wasn’t quick to believe.”
“The idea that people would feed off of vampires?” Sandra asked.
Cammie shook her head, “No, I’ve seen that. It’s the vials themselves, and the idea that someone has figured out a way to package the blood. It could be very good for vampires, or very bad.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Sandra pressed.
“Wait,” Valerie said. “You’re telling me feeding on vampires is normal here?”
She paused, “Not normal, but well known among certain crowds, yes,” Cammie admitted. “I only know because of the forced roles my brothers and sisters have had to play tracking your kind down. The good or bad though…” She motioned for them to follow her through a doorway and they hid in the shadows as a police pod flew past, its antigrav technology keeping it quiet, but not quiet enough that their hearing couldn’t pick it up.
Valerie wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Cammie had to say, but she knew she had to understand. Her eyes watched the police pod continue into the night, here voice even, demanding. “Let me have it, the truth.”
Cammie nodded, grimly. “A few members of higher society have been capturing vampires and bleeding them for feedings. They keep them locked up, tubes running through them to pump out the blood so that they can drink it and stay young, healthy, and virile. You know a lot of medical knowledge was lost after the fall. But with vampire blood, well, some cancers they couldn’t deal with even before now can be healed—and more. And those that are in power plan on staying in power for decades, if not centuries. At least, that is the rumor.”
“But now that someone’s figured out how to use vials,” Valerie murmured, catching on, “they can simply drain the vampire completely, kill it, and keep the blood frozen.”
Cammie nodded, paying attention to a group of Enforcers t
hat seemed to be getting instructions from their leader down on the street below. “Exactly. Good that there’s less suffering, bad that it means you die.”
The vials in Valerie’s coat pockets suddenly felt much heavier as her mind spun with this information.
“So, if I gave one of these vials to Sandra here…?” Valerie pulled one out, holding it up to look at the thick substance.
“I wouldn’t,” Cammie shrugged. “You probably found them in some sort of enclosure, right? Well, I’m willing to bet that was working to keep it from going bad, but now that you’ve been carrying it around like this, it’s useless.”
Valerie felt annoyed. She'd been carrying the vials around thinking they were valuable. Well, they could still serve as a clue to who was perverting the blood supply. Except, this wasn’t why she was here in this new country. Now she had been derailed again, with another mystery she hadn’t wanted in the first damned place.
But also one she didn’t feel she could just ignore. There was a repugnance to this blood selling that turned her stomach. What the hell was she going to do?
Two more police pods went by, and Cammie motioned for the other two to follow her from the deep shadows of the doorway. She led them along the side of the building, and then turned toward the next building over, one they were able to reach by jumping, even Sandra. They went through a door on the roof into the apartment hallway. As they walked through, only one head poked out of a door before pulling it back in, asking no questions.
In this manner, they made it to the fifth building over, and then worked their way down fire-shafts until they were at the first floor. Here Cammie had a team of Weres waiting with their own anti-grav pods. The pods were similar to the police ones, but painted completely black. There wasn’t much doubt that they’d stolen these from the police at some point.
Valerie held back, so Sandra did too.
“This whole blood and hunters thing,” Valerie spoke, when Cammie turned back to see why they weren’t making their escape, “it’s not me. I came to find others like me and set up a team to stop my brother. He plans an assault against America, here. I don’t want to start a war with a crooked politician.”
“Well, that’s something you’re going to have to figure out,” Cammie said. “But for now, can we get the hell out of here? When we get to our hideout, that’ll be first on the discussion agenda, I promise.”
“You have a hideout?” Sandra said, eyes going wide. “Super. Cool.” She turned to Valerie, biting her lip with that typical servant look that said she was worried she was about to overstep her bounds. “We’d be like heroes, right? A secret hideout, going to save the day and all that?”
“Wow.” Valerie’s eyes were open wide, then she shook her head. “I don’t know if you’re serious right now, but think about this—every second we spend with this crap is time not spent preparing for Donovan’s arrival. If he brings my father’s army and wipes out this place, what good will playing a hero have accomplished?”
“An army of vampires?” Cammie stepped close again, interrupting the two, her eyes narrowed. “Tell you what, you commit to helping with this, and you’ve got yourself at least one new team member.”
“We’re still not sure we trust you,” Valerie said. “But… if it works out, you will increase the size of my team.”
“How big is it?” Cammie asked, looking between Valerie and Sandra.
“Including you?” Valerie chuckled, “three.”
Cammie offered her hand. “I’ll join—and no offense, but outside of you there isn’t one vampire I have remotely thought worth my time. Since you hate this Donovan guy, I’m pretty sure he is going to be pretty high on my suck-o-meter. Do we have a deal?”
Valerie and Sandra shared a look as they considered this, and then Valerie shrugged and took the Alpha’s hand.
“Great,” Cammie said. “Now, do you mind? Can we get the hell out of here before we’re all locked up or killed?”
“Sounds like a great plan,” Valerie agreed and the three of them slid into the vehicle.
***
Diego walked along the streets of Old Manhattan, trying to keep a brisk pace but not run. He looked around, trying to stay inconspicuous and not stand out. His plan was to avoid Capital Square, and make his way around south to get to the hotels he knew Sandra and Valerie should be staying in.
He wasn’t sure how he’d find them once he got to the hotels, though. The people he’d asked on the street had said it was a series of buildings, all packed tight and with multiple floors. He needed his Were senses to help him out.
“Were sense, don’t fail me now,” he mumbled, trying to keep his anxiety down.
However, judging by the pace he was maintaining, he wouldn’t arrive until sunrise. And that could be too late.
He’d stuck his hands in his pockets and found that Franklin had left him some money. At first he thought he’d save it for food, but when one of the yellow tubes filled with a subway went by in a flash, he nodded, grimly but with a slight twinkle in his eye.
The subway was the answer—in part because he was in a hurry, and in part because all such infrastructure had been totally demolished in Europe, and they’d never managed to rebuild it. He really wanted to go for a ride. America seemed to have its perks, in spite of itself.
Pretty soon he was standing in a cramped subway car with so many people he could’ve lifted his legs off the ground and still been held up.
He felt mesmerized by the view ripping past the window. It was amazing how the city zipped by him in no time—tall skyscrapers, billboards, and police pods. At one point he saw the dark street coming at them, then realized the subway tube had just changed direction and was going underground.
Somehow, the anti-grav technology that these things used also shielded the riders from feeling changes in directions. Otherwise, he would’ve puked within the first five seconds.
“Next stop,” a voice said over the speakers, “lower slums.”
He slipped between people to get out when the subway stopped, just missing getting stuck in the door as he broke free of the crowd. He found the stairs and hopped up two at a time to get out of the station.
When he emerged, he was startled by how close to Old Madrid this part of the city looked. Instead of the big city and all its lights, there were the ghetto hotels he’d heard so much about, and not much more. It would’ve been completely dark, if not for all the cops and Enforcers swarming the area.
At first he didn’t think anything of it, but as he started walking toward the buildings, a thought struck him—this might all be for Valerie. Somehow, she’d managed to get themselves in trouble, and based on the activity it was a lot of trouble.
The Peace Enforcers surrounded some buildings while police pods worked their way around others. Clearly a search was underway for the two of them. He stopped to consider his options.
The easy answer here would be to turn and run, and for a moment he considered doing just that. But, then he saw something. From this angle, his keen eyesight picked out a set of several pods blocks away, lights off to stay undetected, moving through the shadows off to the side nearest the water. Past them, the headless Statue of Liberty stood lonely with the moonlight scattered across the water before her.
Now, he’d just have to find a way to keep up with them, or get an idea of where they were going. He hated it, but he’d have to ditch the clothes in favor of his puma form, if he was to have any hope of catching up.
Finding the shadow of a building under construction, he started unbuttoning his shirt. He needed to catch up! Next he unzipped his pants and put a hand on the wall to steady himself. When he slipped on some pebbles and about fell on his ass, the jeans around his knees, he chuckled at his own stupidity and stripped the clothes less quickly.
