by Anton Strout
“Please,” she said, fixing a wide-eyed glare on me. I felt a strange sensation of passiveness wash over me, and I knew she was projecting it at me. “Let me have this one to deal with.”
“No, Beatriz,” the boy said. “They’re both here because of me and that puts them under my protection.”
The woman eyed me with dark glee. “So selfish,” she said, then ran at me anyway. The boy let go of Connor, dropping him onto the cobblestones of the path. Before this Beatriz could reach me, he had by her throat the same way he had just had Connor. Aidan lifted her from the ground until he could extend his arm no farther. She let out a hissing choke as she struggled to free herself with both hands from his grip, but it was to no avail.
“Let . . . me . . . go,” she spat out.
The boy held her aloft a few seconds more, and then tossed her a good fifty feet into the forest. The female vampire crashed into one of the thicker trees with a dull thud accompanied by what sounded like cracking bone. She slid to the grass below, unmoving.
The boy turned to the rest of the crowd, which had closed on him. “Anyone else?”
The rest of the group was seething and writhed with an excited energy, but none of them dared move forward.
“Good,” he said after a minute. He walked over to Connor and helped him back up. Connor looked dazed, but when he realized who was helping him, he pushed away from him and walked back toward me.
“You okay?” I asked.
Connor nodded. “Sure, kid. I’m shaken, a bit stirred, but I feel a little better. It’s nice to know I wasn’t crazy all those times I thought I was dreaming.”
I looked past Connor to the boy. “Just what the hell was that all about, anyway? I was right about what I said before, wasn’t I? You’re the one I chased away from Connor’s apartment, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. That was me.” The boy smiled, the tips of two fangs showing at the corners of his mouth. He laughed.
“Hold on,” a woman’s voice called out. It was the one he called Beatriz again. She was now standing at the base of the far-off tree she had been thrown against. She bent her knees and leapt, closing the fifty feet or so in a second with my eyes barely able to follow her. She landed near the boy and started walking toward him. Her arm was bent at an unnatural angle and it dangled lifelessly at her side. “Why the hell are you telling them anything? They’re human.”
She stopped in front of the boy and he ignored her words, looking instead at a bit of bone protruding from just below her elbow. “You’re hurt.”
He reached for her wounded arm, but she batted him away with her good arm.
“Never mind that,” Beatriz said. “What were you doing visiting this Connor person anyway?”
Aidan’s eyes lingered on hers. He took her arm in his hands and pulled at the lower part of it until the bone disappeared under the skin. Using his thumb to trace the spot where it had reentered, he felt around for a second before pressing on it. As I heard bone scraping bone, Beatriz’s eyes widened.
“Dammit!” she hissed, pushing him away. She clutched her arm as I watched the hole in her skin close and the flesh knit itself together over it, leaving only a small amount of blood as a reminder of what had happened. Aidan reached out with his hand, extending his finger to touch the spot, and cleaned up the blood. He raised it to his lips, his eyes rolling back into his head as he tasted it. Beatriz moved closer to him, tension in her body.
When Aidan’s eyes returned to normal, she was still glaring at him.
“Well?”
“Well,” he repeated with exasperation in his voice, “I’m not sure.”
Aidan’s uncertainty washed out over us in a wave of raw emotion. Even the crowd around us felt it and roared to life in confusion and frustration. We were outnumbered by vampires by a wide margin. The bat in my hands had never felt more useless, and I could feel the anger and excitement of the crowd rush into me, making my nerves stand on end.
Beatriz raised her hands to beat on his chest, but Aidan wrapped his arms around her, holding her too close to do anything that effective.
“Contacting humans like this,” she said, pissed. “That’s not your decision to make!”
He smiled at her. “It’s not yours, either.” He looked around at the other vampires. They were visibly upset and eyeing Connor and me like we were blood-soaked Lunchables. Aidan looked worried. He looked back down at Beatriz with a hint of tenderness in his eyes. “He’ll know what to do.”
Connor stood at my side, still dazed from the sudden shock of discovering his brother was alive. Well, alive-ish, anyway. It felt like it was up to me to get some answers.
“He who?” I asked. “Whose decision-making abilities are we talking about here?”
“Brandon,” Aidan said. “He . . .”
Beatriz hit him hard in the chest, stopping him. “Let’s not introduce the entire clan, shall we? God, we don’t want these blood bags to put everyone on their hit list just yet.”
At the mention of the word “blood,” the rest of the vampires went wild, barely keeping their distance.
“Take us to him,” I said.
“Are you nuts?” Connor said, finally speaking up, disgusted. “Kid, you want to go deeper into the dragon’s lair?”
I looked back over my shoulder at the distant entry doors now closed behind us. They may as well have been miles away given the speed at which these creatures moved. “Would you rather take your chances with this lot?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Aidan added. He lowered his voice. “I don’t think I can take all of them, and frankly, I don’t think I want to. They are family, after all.”
“Family . . .” Connor muttered, and gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t talk to me about family.” He held his hand up in a Vulcan salute. “Fine, then. Take us to your leader.”
As we approached the distant castle, it was difficult processing all of this. My mind knew that outside the Gibson-Case Center, the hustle and bustle of New York continued on, but in here it was another world—the thick forest all around us and now a castle that looked big enough to take up the whole city block by itself. The exterior-wall fortifications of it were made of rough-hewn stone blocks that stacked up at least forty feet tall. Aidan led us across a drawbridge over a moat and through the main portcullis into an area that opened up into a courtyard. Several smaller buildings lined the open area along with a host of people, but I didn’t have much of a chance to check any of them out. Aidan was already across the yard and heading into an ornate building that looked like it was the castle proper. Inside the building, the interior stonework was finer than the outside and the walls were lit by electric sconces, giving the place a somewhat cheaper Medieval Times feel. We ran to keep up with the vampire while Aidan led us through a dizzying array of corridors until I lost all sense of direction. If he wanted to kill us now, his odds were pretty damn good before I stood a chance of finding an exit. To comfort myself, I threw my bat up on my shoulder as we walked along. Aidan turned to me.
“You can put your bat away now,” Aidan offered.
“I’m good,” I said, keeping it out. “Thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Aidan said after a moment of giving me a dark look. “Not a good way to enter into things, if you ask me.”
Connor had been silent the whole time, giving his undead brother wary looks as he followed along.
“Yeah,” I said, “about that. Just what are we getting into here?”
“That’s not really for me to say,” he said and fell silent. “Just be happy I got you out of there, okay? The clan’s a little peeved that I’m bringing you to the castle.”
“Why are you bringing us here?” I asked. “Wait; don’t tell me. I suppose that’s not really for you to say, either?”
Aidan smiled, showing me his fangs again. “You learn quickly,” he said. “Not bad for a mortal.”
Aidan stopped at an intersection of halls, checking in all directions. As the three of us stood there, I noticed
a certain stillness in him, then realized it was his complete absence of respiration. I looked at his boyish features—Connor’s features, really.
As we walked through the castle corridors, curiosity got the better of me. “So your name is Aidan, right?”
“Yes,” Aidan said. “Although how he knew that, I have no idea.”
“He who?” I asked.
Aidan jerked his head in Connor’s direction. “Him.”
“Hold on,” I said, stopping. “You didn’t know his name before I said it earlier?”
Aidan stopped and turned to the two of us. “You said he was Connor. I’m sorry; where are my manners? Gentleman, my name is Aidan.” He gave a low bow, the hood on his sweatshirt flopping forward. He stood back up. “And you might be . . . ?”
“I’m Simon,” I said, “and this is my bat. It doesn’t have a name yet, although I’m thinking of going with Swingy.”
“I’m Connor,” Connor said. He held out his hand. Aidan reached out and shook it. As I watched, I was a little disappointed. There was no sweep of violins or any grand moment of reunion. They simply shook hands with no sense of recognition on Aidan’s face at all. He spun around on his heels, shoved his hands deep into his sweatshirt pockets, and walked off.
I gave Connor a look, but he held his finger up to his lips. He mouthed the words, He really doesn’t know.
Before it could even sink in, Aidan called back to us. “Anytime, fellas . . .”
Connor took off first, looking confused but full of questions.
“So this Brandon you mentioned before, is that who you’re taking us to?” Connor asked.
“Affirmative,” Aidan said. “Think of him as king around here, not that we’re feudal or anything.”
“Let me get this straight,” Connor said. “The king of your little undead castle here is named Brandon?”
Aidan shrugged. “It’s what he calls himself now, anyway. That’s all you need to know.”
Connor laughed. “I see.”
Aidan hit the foot of a steep set of poorly lit stairs and started up them. “Watch your step . . . Listen, if you must know, vamps have a lot of downtime, given the whole longevity thing. Boredom sets in, but thanks to modern technology there are so many wonders to fill in the gaps. The Internet, movies, podcasts, television . . . especially television. We’re big on television . . . and movies. Anyway, Brandon takes his name from one of his favorite shows from the nineties. You ever watch Beverly Hills, 90210?”
“This is worse than I thought,” I said. “We’re dealing with the Prince of Darkness and he takes his name from Brandon Walsh? Please tell me this television thing is not a recurring theme with you people cuz if I have to parlay with Count Richie Cunningham, I may have to seek out psychological help.”
Aidan shook his head. “No, it’s not,” he said, stopping at the top of the stairs. We were on a ten-foot landing that led to a thick wooden door that ran from floor to ceiling. Aidan looked at my bat, then at me. I felt his eyes working some kind of influence over me and I fought to stop it. “You really ought to consider putting that thing away.”
“Why?” I said, doing my best to resist following his command. Even so, I felt myself lowering my arm.
“Because the man behind this door?” he said. “He’s not like the rest of those downstairs. He’s older than them all, which would more than qualify him to lead, but on top of that, he’s got the best head on his shoulders. Him, I listen to. Him, I would die for.”
14
Aidan knocked and then pushed the enormous door open like it weighed nothing, but I doubt I would have been able to move it by myself. The wooden planks of the door were thick and looked like they’d take a week to get through using an ax. Aidan walked into the dark room beyond it. Connor followed him through, and the second he cleared past Aidan, he broke into a sprint.
I came into the room. Brandon’s chambers were ancient and sprawling, a mix of cold stonework filled with treasures both ancient and modern. Off in the darkness, a distant screen glowed at the far end of the room, which was lit by a fireplace. Several figures were seated by it, and that was where Connor headed. I ran after him. As we neared the circle of chairs, a man with shoulder-length wavy black hair stood. From the way the other figures remained seated, it was clear he was the alpha male. Brandon.
Connor leapt at him, pulling a wooden stake out from one of his sleeves.
“You did this to him?” Connor shouted. Twenty years of rage, loss, and sorrow was bubbling to the surface in an instant. “You made him this?”
Brandon did not look at all like what I pictured. He was tall but looked a bit like his television-show namesake, only with longer hair and a bit more hip in the clothes department. He wore dark jeans and a brown long-sleeved button-down with an Ed Hardyish swirly print on it, but I didn’t have time to figure out what it was. He blurred out of Connor’s direct path, but Connor—seasoned as he was—must have caught something in his movement and compensated. My partner swerved right and raised his hand with the stake in it. The blur of motion connected with it and there was the tearing sound of fabric. Brandon slowed to human speed, checked the tear in his shirt near his chest, and knocked the wooden stake from Connor’s hand. It slid off across the floor.
The rest of the vampires leapt to their feet, their faces pulling back like taut leather as they popped their fangs, their true monster natures revealed. Their wave of emotion engulfed me and I stumbled backward, the sense of their projected fear overwhelming me. Brandon waved his hand, and the mob transformed back into their more human forms as the intense feeling subsided. For the moment the bloodsuckers were at bay, but who knew how long that would last?
“Forgive me,” Brandon said. His voice wasn’t what I would have expected from the lord vampire of the manor. In fact, he sounded like he might have a little West Coast in him, maybe due to his television-viewing habits. It helped put me a bit at ease. Brandon turned to Aidan. “And you are interrupting my council . . . why now?”
“This is the one I kept having the dreams about,” Aidan said, pointing to Connor.
Connor stepped forward. “What the hell is going on here? For almost two years this city has been vampire free. Now I find that not only are there vampires in town; they’ve got their own Medieval Times castle built inside some high-rise.”
Brandon went to speak, then stopped as he noticed Connor’s similarity to Aidan for the first time. His eyes widened as he looked back and forth between the two of them. Aidan, on the other hand, still just looked confused.
“Aidan, my dear boy,” Brandon said. “Will you excuse us for a moment?”
Aidan fell into the prototypical teenage sulking pose, shoulders forward, hunched over. “But . . .”
“Now,” Brandon snapped. Aidan looked a little shocked, straightened up, and gave a quick nod before blurring off across the room, letting the heavy oak doors slam shut behind him. Brandon turned his attention to both Connor and me. “I realize the nature of this situation must be hitting the two of you somewhat hard,” Brandon continued. He reached out, snatched my bat from my hand, and collapsed it down before handing it back to me. “I’m sorry, but I cannot allow you to insult me in my own home. Do you really think I’d allow you into my chambers if I thought you could do me any serious harm?”
Connor looked off to the far end of the room where the wooden stake had slid away. “It was worth a shot,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I doubt any sort of surprise attack would have worked.” Brandon smiled, turning his full attention to Connor. “You see, we’ve been expecting you.”
“Me?” Connor asked. “Excuse me?”
“We’ve been expecting you,” Brandon repeated. “More or less. It’s why we took Aidan in the first place. We believe you have a role to play in our future, Connor.”
Connor got right up in Brandon’s face. He looked ready to explode. “Yeah, right. Maybe you don’t understand it, but I’ve spent half my life thinking my brother was d
ead.”
Brandon’s face was impassive. “An unfortunate circumstance, I agree, but given our reasons for doing so, the conversion of one human into our kind is a small price to pay for the safety of my people.”
Connor was becoming more and more unhinged by the second, but I couldn’t let that happen. We’d be dead with that kind of raw emotional reaction.
“Easy,” I said, stepping between Connor and the head of the vampires.
“Got anything pointy on you, Simon?” Connor asked. “I’m not asking you to do the deed. I’m just asking what you’re packing.”
“Maybe we should let this all sink in,” I said, “and take it easy right now. You’ve just come across your brother, for God’s sake. Take a step back on this. Nobody is staking anybody.”
“You sure about that, kid?” Connor said, looking around for something readily available.
“I’m not sure of anything right now,” I said, “but look at it this way . . . Nobody seems like they want to feed on us. That’s a step in a positive direction, I suppose.”
Brandon clapped Connor hard on the shoulder, and then helped himself to one of the now-empty chairs in the circle. “You should listen to your partner,” Brandon said.
“Why would you do this to my brother?” Connor asked, the pain on his face killing me. “Why make him one of your kind? Why are you here?”
I could tell by the look on Brandon’s face that he was trying to keep his patience with Connor. “The reason that we’re here,” Brandon said, “is that we are vampire . . . We’ve always been here.”
I thought of the giant white erase board that hung over the main bull pen of the D.E.A. offices, recording the days since any of the divisions had to deal with vampires. “According to our records,” I said, “your people have kind of gone off the grid for the past two years or so.”
“Not that we mind,” Connor said. “It cuts down on a hell of a lot of my day-to-day workload. But why my brother?”
