by R. A. Nelson
Back at the tower, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not tonight. Not with the taste of his mouth on my lips. His arms around me.
Sagan. Just saying his name had my nerve endings on fire and my breath coming faster.
The darkness ticked.
I felt trapped. I had to get away. I wanted to run. Run somewhere as hard as I could. Fly right off the face of the world.
I actually only ran about seven miles, about half of it uphill. I ran down the middle of the road because it was the only way I knew to get there. I sailed along with my head down, only looking up to see the curves in the road, then looking down again as the white stripes flew past my eyes. I saw two cars just in time to get out of the way.
At last I realized where I was going: I was running all the way up Monte Sano. I was going to Papi’s favorite place.
It was called the Stone House Hotel. Or the Steinhaus, as Papi liked to say. Papi helped build the Steinhaus in the 1960s. It was once a sprawling hotel built in a state park on the edge of Monte Sano, complete with a ballroom and twin hearths large enough to walk into.
There had been a fire only ten years after the hotel had opened. It had burned to the ground. A man was arrested for trying to incinerate his lover. Only the stones remained.
I knew the road into the park well enough to find my way. I could see the picnic pavilion at the end of the dead-end drive just as clear as if I were looking at it in the daylight. You had to walk over a long ridge to see the ruins. Papi had brought me here countless times to play, but what I liked to do most was climb the Steinhaus.
The stones provided plenty of handholds and footholds. When I was a kid, I loved sitting on the edge of the high wall and looking out over the spreading valley. Papi showed me a stone he remembered laying with his own hands.
“This one we called the Bär. Which is ‘Bear,’ ” he had said, patting a massive rock that bulged out from the face of the wall. “Not one of the boys wanted to touch it, it was so huge. But I did.”
I stopped running as I topped the ridge. I could see the Steinhaus laid out before me, not one stone changed. And I saw my goal: as a kid I had always dreamed of scaling the main chimney, which rose higher than some of the surrounding oaks. There was no one to stop me now.
The ballroom was full of trees.
I patted the Bear’s smooth, cold surface, planted one foot on its rounded hump, and sprang—and flew halfway up the chimney stack. I sprang again, and I was there. At the top. I wanted to scream—for joy? I didn’t know. Joy was part of it, but it was too fierce to be joy. Something darker was in my throat, more like a war cry.
This should have been the best night of my life. But so much had been taken from me. Now Sagan. While he grew older and died, I would move unchanged through the centuries. Alone.
I dipped my hands into the chimney flue and coated my palms with soot. Painted my face in stripes of black. I stood, straddling the mouth of the chimney, threw my arms above my head, and screamed at the darkness. I wanted the monster to come.
* * *
When I came down, I sat on the Bear, thinking. I checked the watch Sagan had given me. Already past ten. I didn’t realize I had been there that long. At last I stood and brushed myself off, ready to go back “home” to my air mattress.
I hoisted myself over the low wall and started along the front of the ruined hotel back toward the park entrance. I wondered—
Someone stepped out of the trees and threw a blanket over me.
Wirtz.
I smashed at the hands holding me, but every time I got free, two more hands came from another direction. The vampire seemed to be everywhere at once, trying to crush me to him, suffocate me. I was thrown on the ground, wound in the blanket, and could feel his weight settle on me. I bucked my legs up, cursing and clawing at the edges, trying to work myself loose.
I got a hand free and snatched a fistful of hair and heard the vampire scream but was shoved back into the blackness. I bit at his fingers when I found them, never quite getting hold of one, my arms bound and then unbound as I fought my way out of his hold time and again. But he was so fast, so much faster than I had even realized. He seemed to be able to counter anything I tried to do.
Suddenly I was shaken loose, tumbling out of the blanket onto the grass, rolling down a slope. I caught myself in mid-roll and kicked off the ground, throwing my body into the air, landing like a cat on my feet.
I could see the vampire now, standing right in front of me, legs spread, hands on his hips, and … breasts. The vampire had breasts. It wasn’t Wirtz at all. It was a tall, thin girl about Sagan’s age with thick auburn hair tied behind her slender neck and wearing a long old-fashioned dress.
There were two others … a boy and a girl about my age. They could pass for brother and sister. Both were dressed in black shirts and blue jeans. They both had black hair—the girl’s hair a little shorter than the boy’s—and the boy was a little taller. They were crouched on either side of the tall girl as if ready to spring if I moved an inch. One of them, the boy, was laughing.…
I hurled myself at him. Hit him in the gut full force, hearing a giant oomph fly from his throat as his thin body was slammed backward to the ground. I was astride him now, moving so fast he almost couldn’t defend himself, pounding my fists into his face, his neck, chest, but mostly his hands as he tried to cover up.
The younger girl came to help. She plowed into my side, bowling me over. But I was stronger than she was and instantly jumped up and smashed the side of her head with my forearm. Now the two of them were down, and I drove my knees into their chests, knocking them flat, and started hitting them some more.
“Enough!” someone yelled, and I felt myself being yanked up in the air by my shirt collar. It was the tallest one, the girl I had mistaken for Wirtz.
I whirled around, aiming to backhand her in the face, but she dropped me at the last moment. I got to my feet, scowling menacingly.
“You want some too?” I said, and lunged.
The older girl sidestepped my charge and slammed me in the back of my neck with the edge of her hand. It felt like being hit by a two-by-four. I collapsed to my knees and she put her foot on me. I twisted beneath her, got my hands on her ankles, and yanked. The taller girl sat hard. Her dress blossomed in the air around her and started to float back down.
We stared at each other. I was breathing fast and had spit in the corner of my mouth. Other than when I was Tasered, it was the first time I had ever been truly tired as a vampire.
The two younger ones I had been pummeling got up and walked over to us, the girl helping the boy, who had a hand covering one eye. I jumped up, face hot, and crouched, ready to fight.…
“I must apologize,” the taller girl said, breathing heavily herself, “for frightening you. We … were a little frightened ourselves, hearing you shout the way you did. We didn’t know what you were doing here. My name is Lena.”
Her voice sounded older than she looked. She had long sleeves, though it was plenty warm. Her dress came well past her knees and hung in folds like old curtains. The fabric was ragged along the hem, with dirty dangling threads.
Lena had big green eyes shaped like almonds, a long, smooth neck, a small mouth, and full lips. She looked like someone out of a movie and might have been the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
“She’s strong, Lena, and a fighter,” the slightly built guy said.
He was still holding his eye where I had belted him, but smiling. He had straight black hair and the darkest eyebrows I had ever seen. His features and hands and fingers were small, his shoulders narrow. He came forward, taking his hand away from his eye and offering to shake.
“Anton,” he said, trying to clasp my hand. I just looked at it. He seemed to have the slightest trace of a foreign accent, but I couldn’t place it. His dark eyes were wide and interested. He nodded at the younger girl. “And this is Donne.”
The girl named Donne continued to glare at me. She stood protectively close to Anton, s
till holding his arm. She had dark hair with chopped bangs, a small, pointed nose, and was slightly built as well. Their jeans were ratty with holes and their T-shirts dusty and stained. They could have passed for high school kids except for the fact they had no blue glow.
Their color was lavender.
“Who are you?” I said through my teeth, covering my fear with anger.
“Shouldn’t we be asking that question?” said Donne, the younger vampire girl, speaking for the first time. There was nothing unusual about her voice. “Don’t you know any better than to trespass on someone else’s Strecke?”
The word sounded German, but I couldn’t place it. Papi was forever scolding me for not taking more of an interest in the language of my ancestors.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “You grabbed me.…”
“Strecke,” the girl said again. “Range. You’re trespassing on our range.”
“Range? It’s a freaking state park.”
“The way things are divided by humans in the daylight has nothing to do with us,” Donne said.
“What’s on your face?” Anton said. He shook off Donne’s arm and came a little closer.
“My … face?” I put my hand to my cheek and remembered the soot.
“You look as if you have marked yourself for battle, yes?” Anton said. “We saw you climb. When we heard you shouting up there, we thought maybe the war was back on.”
“War? What war?” I said. “I was just … messing around. I felt like screaming, so I screamed.”
“The war between the—”
“Anton,” Lena said, lifting her hand. Anton immediately shut up. Lena was obviously the leader.
They were trying to be subtle about it, but I could see that they were separating now, slowly circling me.
“We only wish to know what you are doing here,” Lena said.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ve been coming to this place for years. What are you doing here?”
“You are not Verloren?”
“Never heard of her.” I stayed in my crouch, ready to pick out a target. “And you’d better stop circling me, or one of you is getting trucked.” I figured I would smash Anton again and just keep on running.
“Verloren is not a person’s name,” Lena said. She straightened up and lifted her hand. The other two vampires stopped moving. “Verloren is a way of thinking. You might call it an absence. An absence of faith.”
“Um … okay … whatever you say.” I looked from face to face, stalling for time, trying to figure out what to do next.
“She doesn’t understand, Lena,” Donne said. “I think she’s a Fresh. Look at her color.”
“My what?” So I’ve got a color too?
“You’re right,” Anton said. He looked me over. “Kind of a wispy blue. Very likely a neues Blut.”
“A Freshblood,” Lena translated. “Someone who was just recently turned.”
“So you really are … vampires,” I said.
Lena’s jaw tightened. “Yes, but we do not use that word very often.”
“Too many negative associations, right?” Anton said, smiling.
“You still haven’t told us what you’re doing in our range,” Donne said.
Lena looked at the two younger vampires and again waved her hand. They went over and sat down on a low stone wall. I began to relax my guard … but only a little.
“So … if there are three of you here … then I’m assuming that means … the world is full of vampires,” I said.
“Yes. But we try to remain … unobtrusive. Most of us,” Lena said. She glanced at Anton, who grinned.
“How many?” I said.
“Who would know? Not nearly as many as the daylight men. Only a fraction. Maybe a very small fraction. I don’t know of anyone who keeps up with the numbers. If we were to … confederate … it would make us too visible.”
“And it would be seen by the Verloren as provocative,” Donne said, leaning forward. “I don’t think we should be talking to her, Lena. We don’t know who she is. What she is …”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I’m like you.”
“You’re not … like us.” Donne got up and came close to me now, reaching out as if to touch my arm. Instead she held her hand up as if collecting something out of the air. My color. “We told you. You’re blue. Almost a human blue.”
I held my arm up. It wasn’t glowing that I could see. Weird.
“You can’t see your own color,” Anton said, starting to laugh. “What did you think?” He got up too and looked at me closely. “Wait just a minute.… You’re not an Unschuldig, are you?”
“What’s Unschuldig?”
“Oh man,” Donne said.
“One who has never hunted,” Lena said.
“Never made a kill, you mean,” Anton chimed in.
Lena glared in Anton’s direction. “It’s not a polite word to use. But it has been a very long time since we have spoken with … anyone else. Please sit.” She indicated the wall again.
* * *
Okay, so now I was sitting down with three vampires just like we were friends at school. The thought made my skin crawl. I also noticed that no matter where I was, there was always at least one of them on either side of me.
“How have you done it?” Anton said. He reached over and grabbed my arm. I jerked it away.
“Hey!”
“How have you survived? You look so good, hey? How long has it been since you were turned? You must be completely blutrünstig with hunger by now.”
I didn’t know what to say. I rubbed my arm where he had touched it.… His hand had been so … smooth.…
“It … wasn’t that long ago,” I said.
“And your name is?” He gripped my arm again, scowling a little.
“Cut it out,” I said. “I … I don’t …”
“Can’t you see she doesn’t want to tell you, Anton?” Donne said. “My God. You’d tell your whole life story to a complete stranger.”
“Oh no! That’s Lena, believe me. Just give her the chance!” Anton said, brightening again.
“I really should leave,” I said, standing up. “I’m sorry I stumbled onto your … your Strecke. I won’t come up here after dark anymore.” After dark … careful. Don’t let them know your secret.
“Wait,” Lena said. “Please, sit with us awhile longer. It would mean very much to us if you were to stay.”
Was it some kind of trap? I wondered. Were they working with Wirtz? They didn’t seem dangerous, but …
“Why? So you can throw another blanket over me?” I said.
“I told you. We were frightened,” Lena said. “You never know who may be Verloren. Your color is blue, so it is plain you are a neues Blut, a Freshblood, perhaps even an Unschuldig, as Anton so rudely put it. It is just that it has been … so long … only the three of us. We will not hurt you, as long as you promise not to hurt us. We are … isolated. We can observe the world of … people … down below, but that only gets one so far.… Could you stay for a little while? Tell us something about yourself?”
“I don’t really know if I should,” I said. “To be honest, I feel like you guys are okay. But there is someone else … who can’t find me.”
“Who?” Anton said.
I wanted to bite my tongue. “I’d rather not talk about it. I’ve said too much already.”
“Let her go, Lena,” Donne said. She hadn’t smiled once. “I don’t care if we are isolated. I don’t trust her. She’s so fresh.… She could go down into the city and tell someone we are here.”
“What could she tell?” Anton said. “Three … vampires … are living at the state park? I’m sure that would bring the policemen running.”
“You know what I mean. Maybe she wants to claim this place for herself?” Donne said.
“I have my own place,” I said, glaring back at Donne. “I told you, I came here because of my grandfather.”
“Does he live here?” Anton said.
“No. But this—this was our favorite place to visit. He helped to build it.” I pointed at the stones. “It’s always meant a lot to us … and I was feeling … alone. So I just came up here to see it. Impulsively.”
I couldn’t quite believe I was sitting there in front of Papi’s beloved Steinhaus talking to three vampires. But I was so curious, so desperate to have my questions answered.
“Okay … what if I do stay a little while,” I said. “Do you promise to let me go when I’m ready?”
Lena smiled warmly. “Yes. You have my word on it. But I will leave it up to them. Anton?”
“Sure! I’d love to talk with her some more.”
Donne shook her head. “I don’t want to take the chance. But I can see you two have already decided to trust her. As usual, I’m outvoted. She can stay.”
“Wow, thanks a lot,” I said sarcastically.
Lena looked at the younger vampire without saying anything.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” Donne said. “It’s just that we have to be so careful. We don’t want to lose this place.”
I wanted to dislike her, but I could see some of myself in Donne. “Hey, I like your name,” I said, working hard to smile at her. “Where did you get it?”
“My mother,” Donne said. “She was … how would you say it … you’re so fresh—a fan. My mother was a big fan of the poet John Donne.”
“Paradise Lost, huh?” I said.
“That’s Milton,” Donne said. “Donne is the guy who wrote ‘No man is an island, entire of itself.…’ ”
“Right, right.” I remembered, feeling a little embarrassed.
“You still haven’t told us your name?” Anton said. Almost everything he said sounded like a question.
“I don’t know …,” I said.
“We told you ours.”
“Okay. It’s Emma.”
“How old are you, Emma?” Lena said.
“Seventeen,” I said.
Lena pulled at her lip. “I was your age, Emma, in … let me think … 1859.”
“Oh my God.” Just thinking about it made me start feeling a little dizzy.
Lena’s laugh was high and musical. “Wait just one minute! I’m not even two hundred years old yet.”
