Jerusa still couldn’t believe the strength of her senses. She could focus her eyes like a hawk and count the blemishes on the skin of the growing bystanders. Though her friends were across the street and inside the diner, she could hear their voices with perfect clarity.
She listened as the police questioned the three about their knowledge of the accident. Thad told a decent lie about how his Jeep had gone missing earlier in the evening. He was doing a convincing job until the police asked why he hadn’t reported the theft.
“I, um, well, I wanted to wait and make sure,” Thad said, stumbling over his words.
“Make sure of what?” one officer asked.
“That some of my buddies weren’t playing a prank on me. They do that from time to time.”
It was a good recovery, but the police officers weren’t buying it. They turned their questions to Shufah and Foster. Both remained calm and still, answering the questions with soft-toned voices. Jerusa wondered if they were trying to hypnotize the police officers, lull them into an impressionable state, and then demand that they be let go. Could vampires really do that, or was that another movie myth? She wanted to ask, but neither Taos nor Suhail seemed the teaching type, so she let it go.
She knew that vampires could beguile humans with their beauty and exotic movements — at least enough to draw near for the kill — but outright mind control seemed to be beyond their scope of powers, because the police were now demanding that Thad, Foster, and Shufah accompany them to the station for further questioning.
Taos turned and sat with his back to the wall. “You see, this is why I never hang around with humans. Always more trouble than they’re worth.”
“What are we going to do?” Jerusa asked. “They can’t go with them.”
“They won’t,” Suhail said. His voice was flat and emotionless and it sent a chill down Jerusa’s spine.
“What do you mean? How are they going to get out of there?”
Taos barked out his derisive laugh, which by now was beginning to feel like needles in Jerusa’s brain.
“So young,” he said, glancing at her. “So incredibly sweet. Tell me, what would you do if your back was to the wall? Oh, I’m sure you’d go quietly, like a little sheep, and sit in one of their cells until the sun came up. But Shufah knows that is not an option for a real vampire.” His inflection on the word “real” felt like a punch to the gut.
“They’re going to kill the police?” Jerusa asked aghast. “They can’t do that.”
Taos shrugged. “The police aren’t giving them much of a choice, now, are they?”
“But what about all the people on the street? They’ll all be witnesses.”
“Not if we move fast,” Suhail said.
Taos rubbed his hands together with greedy delight. “I have always wanted to do this.”
At first, Jerusa couldn’t comprehend what the plan was. What had Suhail looking grim and calculating, and Taos giddy as a child? But then Alicia appeared, her mouth drawn tight, her eyes wide with horror, her hands waiving before her in warning. Then the whole bloody plan fell open before her.
“You’re going to kill everyone on the street?”
“There can be no one left to tell the tale,” Suhail said without a hint of emotion.
“But … but…there has to be thirty people down there.”
“That’s why it is imperative that you help.” Suhail’s eyes darted from person to person as though he were mentally mapping his path through the crowd. “Be fast. Be brutal. Do not take time to feed. Break their necks or crush their skulls, then move on to the next target.”
Jerusa’s stomach rolled and she vaguely wondered if she vomited would there be anything but blood. “We can’t do this. I know some of those people down there.”
“You were a witch,” Suhail said, a slight bite to his tone, “a spirit seer. They never accepted you. Now you are a blood drinker, an immortal. To humans, you are an abomination. Your name is anathema. Do not allow yourself to be snared in empty sentimentalities. They are cattle to you now, and if they become witness to us and live, then our chances are dead. If the Stewards are merciful, they will simply kill us. But they are rare to show mercy. They are more apt to seal us up and let us linger in starvation until the Gray Death overtakes us.”
Jerusa was struck dumb by the fierce emptiness in Suhail’s eyes. Though they were beautiful to behold, they were no less deadly than the black, suffocating vacuum of space. Taos rolled back onto his knees, peering over the edge of the wall in expectant glee. The voices of the policemen were growing more agitated. Soon, their questions would shift to orders, guns would be drawn, and then blood would be spilled. Jerusa felt the time rushing away in the ticking pulse of her temples.
“There are too many,” she said, almost begging. “More than just those on the street. There will be people watching from windows, doorways, passing cars. Suhail, we can’t kill them all. Someone will get away. And then what? What will we have gained? The Stewards will still have us killed. There has to be another way.”
“What do you suggest? Make it fast because once Shufah moves on the police, we are out of options.”
Jerusa was at a loss for words. Her mind was a blank page. She had gambled with words, but it had all been a bluff. It was time to show her cards and she was holding an empty hand.
Alicia snapped her fingers in front of Jerusa’s face. As always, the ghost made no sound, but it was enough to grab Jerusa’s attention. Alicia stood on top of the wall pointing across the street.
Jerusa followed Alicia’s finger to a power line pole that hosted a large yellow streetlamp on the opposite corner. Jerusa shook her head. No, that wouldn’t work. Knocking out one light would do nothing to help their cause.
Alicia sighed, pointed at the pole again and motioned for Jerusa to look a little higher.
At the top of the pole, near where the thick and sagging black power line came together, was a large gray canister.
“The transformer,” Jerusa said, springing to her feet.
Suhail snatched her by the wrist and pulled her back down. “So — what of it?”
“It’s a power transformer.” Jerusa felt the terrible rush of time as though she were falling toward the ground. It was all she could do not to jumble her words. “If we destroy the transformer, it will knock out the lights for the whole block, maybe two. It’ll be so dark, Foster, Shufah, and Thad can escape and no one will see it happen. No one will have to die.” She wanted to scream this last part in Suhail’s face to drive home the message, but fought off the urge.
Suhail glanced at the transformer, then down at the police cruisers, which were still spilling red and blue light in rotating waves. He fell into his own thoughts for an excruciatingly long moment, enough to make Jerusa want to tear out her hair.
“Taos,” Suhail said, startling Jerusa with the suddenness of his voice. “Can you reach the transformer with fire? Can you burn it? Tell me the truth. Do not boast.”
Taos considered the distance. “I can reach it, but my gift with fire is not that strong. It may take a moment to burn the wires.”
“Then do not delay.”
Taos moved to the corner of the building, giving him an almost direct line of sight with the transformer. He sat on his knees as if in prayer and extended both hands toward the heavy gray cylinder.
Jerusa wasn’t sure what to expect. She thought maybe a stream of fire would gush forth from Taos’s open palms, but nothing happened. Not even a dancing distortion of heat waves in the air. Jerusa hoped he hadn’t overestimated his own ability.
“If the lights do go out,” Suhail said to her, “we still have those to deal with.” He pointed down at the three police cruisers and their flashing lights. “It will be our job to take them out.”
Jerusa was about to ask him what he meant by “take them out” when a thin plume of smoke began to rise from the top of the transformer. It gave a high-pitched whine, as if in pain, then the transformer exploded in a re
splendent green fireball.
All around them, darkness took hold. Windows went dim and the buzzing streetlamps extinguished, leaving only the police lights and a cascade of sparks spilling from the transformer. The growing crowd gave a collective scream and scattered like startled sheep, unsure of where to seek safety.
Jerusa turned to Suhail just in time to see him hop over the edge of the wall as if it were no more than a three-foot drop on the other side. She peered over the side and watched him fall the entire four stories, landing with the grace of a cat.
“Remember,” Taos said, rushing up beside her, “don’t think. Don’t fear. Just act.” And with that, he sprang over the side.
Jerusa’s borrowed heart was beating fast. Her stomach squirmed. She hated heights, though whether that was a natural fear or one her mother implanted, Jerusa didn’t know. The thought of leaping over the side, dropping forty feet onto the pavement and subjecting her bones to any and all sorts of fractures went against every natural inclination she had.
Then again, she wasn’t a natural being anymore, was she?
Jerusa climbed to the top of the wall, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped off into nothing.
The air exploded up around her in a cool drift, ripping through her loose hair with growing ferocity. Her speed increased as physics took over and she dropped as any other body of mass would. Had she expected to float down like a leaf in an autumn breeze?
Despite her eyes being closed, Jerusa had a perfect sense of her surrounding, even the ground climbing ever faster to meet her.
Within seconds, Jerusa’s journey from roof to sidewalk was complete. She gritted her teeth and winced reflexively when she hit, fully expecting to hear her own bones explode like gunshots. But there was no sound of breaking bones, no pain, not even a stumbled step. She landed with a grace she had never before known.
Jerusa looked at her own body in astonishment, though, why this still surprised her she didn’t know. She wanted so much to scale the wall again so that this time she could make the leap with a running start, but Suhail and Taos were already rushing toward the police cars.
Suhail pummeled the police cruiser before him as though it were a rampaging beast, circling it, punching great gaping holes in the metal skin with his small, narrow fists. He scurried to the roof, jumped high into the air, and came down with crushing force on top of the spinning lights. The roof of the cruiser collapsed, the tires exploded, and the frame bent upward. Suhail jumped again, planting his feet on the hood and shoving the motor through the bottom of the car.
Taos attacked his police cruiser as though he were a professional wrestler, running past the car, up the wall of the diner, then shooting back through the air in a Superman pose. He landed on the roof of the car with a great belly-flop, causing the windows to explode with a great pop. He rose on his knees, hammering at the car with his fists, flattening it better than any junkyard crusher could. For good measure, he ripped open the hood, tore out the engine, and sent it skipping down the street like a flat stone upon a placid pond.
Jerusa darted with preternatural speed through the crowd, which was now rushing in panicked mobs away from the destruction of the police cars. The sparks from the burning transformer had dwindled and now the only light came from the red-and-blues of the remaining police car. Later, she would wonder just what the people would say happened. How much had they witnessed in the psychedelic red and blue strobe lights? And how many would be able to shackle their preconceived notions long enough to accept the truth of their eyes?
But these were questions for later. Right now, Jerusa was caught up in the rapture and euphoria of the moment. The leap from the building, the speed and power of her body, the exhilaration of it all swelled within her until she collided with the remaining police car, bellowing with laughter.
Though Suhail and Taos had both chosen to attack their respective cars from above, Jerusa instead, lowered her shoulder and rammed the space between front and rear doors with all her might.
The windows ruptured. The tires shrieked as they were dragged across the pavement. Jerusa continued to drive the car sideways. When it collided with the curb, she thrust up with her shoulder, sending the twisted hulk of metal cartwheeling through the air, smashing into the diner’s wall. The horn gave a short blare in protest, the sirens warbled for a moment, then the car dropped back onto its wheels.
Jerusa rushed to the car, reached beneath it and grasped the rear axle. It was not as ready to move as when she had hit it at a full run, but with a great heave, she managed to toss the car into the middle of the street, just missing a young woman fleeing in terror.
A primal urge surged throughout Jerusa’s body. It was so much fiercer than hunger or thirst. It burned in her blood hotter than any other base emotion, such as lust or greed or fear. It was the need to hunt, and it stood pure and absolute.
Jerusa started for the fleeing woman, unsure if her true intent was to pounce and frighten the woman, or to kill and feed. But before she could take a step, powerful arms enveloped her, pinning her arms to her sides.
Jerusa struggled against the implacable grip, writhing and twisting with all her might, but the embrace only tightened until she thought her chest might collapse. She closed her eyes, willing the intense desire to hunt to leave her. The rush of power blew away like a violent but fast-moving storm. Peace and control returned and with it came shame and remorse. What would she have done if she had caught that woman? She tried not to think about it.
The constricting arms slowly released Jerusa, as if testing the sincerity of her control. She stood for a moment with her head hung low, unable to turn and face the one that had stemmed the violence in her. Shufah circled around Jerusa and lifted her chin.
“Are you all right, child?” There was such concern resting in her eyes that Jerusa wanted to cry. Yet something else was there, hidden among the eternally youthful lines of her face, a phantom so fleeting that Jerusa wasn’t sure she had witnessed it. Something about Jerusa had shocked Shufah, and for just the briefest of moments, this ancient and powerful vampire had seemed shaken.
“We must go,” Suhail said as he fled the chaos of the street. Taos followed him into the alley and back up the wall they had climbed.
Foster appeared at her side with Thad on his back, gawking blindly in the darkness. The crowd had dispersed, bringing an eerie silence to the world. Flashlight beams cut through the blackness within the diner, and the three policemen called to one another as they tried to regroup.
“Jerusa, we need to go,” Shufah said softly. “Are you able?” She nodded that she was. “Foster, give me Thad. It will be easier for me to carry him.”
Thad climbed from Foster’s back to Shufah’s like an overgrown child switching parents. Shufah ran into the alley and up the wall as though Thad’s two hundred-pound frame was but a burden of feathers. Foster took Jerusa’s hand and led her into the alley. She did not want to move, but what would be gained by standing in the street?
Foster stood looking at the rough brick wall with uncertainty.
“Don’t think about it,” Jerusa said, her voice weak and wispy. “Just hit it at a run, climb as fast as you can, and you’ll be just fine.”
Foster smiled and nodded. “Thanks.” He followed her instructions and within seconds, he was up and over the wall.
Jerusa stood alone in the alley, except for Alicia. The ghost watched her, her mouth fixed in a frown, looking oddly apologetic, though what she had to be sorry about Jerusa didn’t know. Alicia reached out as if to take Jerusa’s hand, but stopped just short of contact. A flashlight beam brushed the entrance to the alley. Alicia withdrew her hand and pointed up, indicating that Jerusa should follow the others.
Jerusa sighed, backed up as far as she could, and then hit the brick wall with a running jump. She scaled the wall even faster this time, and by the time she sprang over the ledge, onto the roof, she was feeling much better.
Yes, she had almost done something terrible,
but Shufah had been there to stop her. She followed the others as they skipped from rooftop to rooftop at dizzying speed. It came to her that Taos was right. She was still trying to see every situation through human eyes. But she wasn’t human anymore, nor would she ever be again. The rules had changed and she had better start getting used to it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They halted on top of one of the hotels near the center of town — a ten-story eyesore, several blocks away from the blackout. The group huddled in the shadow of one of the hotel’s massive air-movers, which hummed like a sleeping dinosaur.
Shufah had driven them hard, pushing them to get as much distance as possible from the calamity in town. They had climbed the back fire escape to the roof and stopped now only because there was nowhere else more convenient to hide.
The muscles in Jerusa’s arms and legs sizzled, her lungs ached. It seemed vampires were not above weariness, as the others were all huffing and puffing, bent at the waist. Jerusa knew that, later, there would be no soreness in her body, because she could already feel the vampire spirit working its healing magic.
Thad sat on the rubber roofing, his knees drawn to his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t felt sick none of that would’ve happened.”
Jerusa wanted to go to him, console him, but she didn’t quite trust herself with him. She also didn’t feel right about speaking up. She was an alien in this world of the undead. The rules and laws of this realm were as foreign to her as they were to Thad. Still, she couldn’t stand to see him this way.
“It’ll be all right,” she said timidly. She looked to Shufah. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“No,” Foster said. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’m the one who wrecked Thad’s Jeep. Without that, the police would have never come searching for him.” He sounded as one that was begging the mercy of a malicious judge.
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