Throat

by R. A. Nelson

  “We’ll be fine,” Donne said, looking exasperated. “Let’s just get on with it.”

  You’ll be fine, I thought. What about me?

  The moon was high now, but Sagan was holding a flashlight. He came over. The sudden brightness made the other four of us blink.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re not going to … bite her, right?”

  “No,” Lena said. “That is not necessary. Only that we are close to her throat.”

  “Slow down. Let’s think this through,” Sagan said. “What if … what if you can’t control yourselves? There will be nothing I can do to stop you, right?”

  “Afraid not,” Anton said, winking. “But I promise—not a drop!”

  “Emma, you don’t have to do this,” Sagan said. “Surely there must be some other way.…”

  “There is no other way,” Lena said wearily, sounding like what she was … a woman who had been alive more than 150 years before Sagan was even born. “If she is truly an Eye, we will be able to see what she sees. Please trust us. Only the Sonnen can accomplish this—Verloren don’t have the willpower.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, taking his hand and giving it a quick squeeze.

  “All right already,” Donne said. “We’ll be here all night at this rate.”

  “Very well,” Lena said. “Emma, please hold as still as you can.”

  I swallowed a sour lump of fear and held my head as motionless as I could. Forced my breathing to be more regular, deeper. “I’m ready,” I said.

  Lena moved closer and raised her hand. She was holding Donne’s X-Acto knife. She placed the razor tip against the bite mark on my neck, made a little flicking motion—I winced—and the wound was open. My blood, warm and wet, began to ooze down my neck.

  Lena put the knife away and re-formed the circle. The three vampires closed their eyes. Their faces were less than a foot away.

  “The center of your Feld is released with the opening of the Kehle and the releasing of your blood,” Lena said softly. “As your blood flows, so flows the Feld within. Our hunger is drawn to your blood. As your blood draws our hunger, with it, it will draw our Felds. Our four Felds will unite as one, and we shall see what you shall see.”

  She still had her eyes closed. The whole thing felt a little embarrassing, like I was taking part in some weird cult ritual. Especially with Sagan watching.

  I tried to ignore him. “Okay, so what do I do?”

  “You must do what you have been doing to join with him,” Lena said. “The Verloren, Wirtz.”

  Okay, so now this was really feeling dorky. I had no idea if I could pull it off with anybody else around. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll try.”

  I could still feel the blood on my neck, kept wanting to swipe it away before it reached my shirt collar. Instead I put my hands down and began to stroke the scar on my leg through my pants, saying the words.

  “Take me to Wirtz—”

  “No.” Lena’s eyes popped open. “In the Kehle. The throat.”

  “Oh. Right.” I closed my mouth and started speaking the words within my throat, feeling the familiar rumble. Only it didn’t seem so ridiculous now.

  Take me to Wirtz. Take me to Wirtz. Take me to Wirtz.

  I stroked the scar faster and faster, but nothing seemed to be happening.

  “Maybe I’m too self-conscious for this,” I said.

  “You can do it,” Lena said. “Please keep trying.”

  “What if I sit down?”

  “Standing is better,” Lena said. “Sitting would impede the flow.”

  “Okay.”

  Take me to Wirtz. Take me to Wirtz. Take me to Wirtz. Instead of closing my eyes, I glanced at Sagan. He looked concerned. I concentrated on his eyes, nothing else.

  Take me to Wirtz. Take me to—

  Everything went away, like fingers snapping—the forest, Sagan, the Sonnen, the stone walls around me … all of it disappeared in an instant, as if a door had opened beneath me and I had fallen through into darkness.

  My arms shot out from my sides uncontrollably, flailing around. I knew the Sonnen had to be right there, but I couldn’t feel a thing in any direction. I was sinking into the blackness like a swimmer losing strength in the middle of the ocean.

  Dying, I’m dying.

  What happened next was hard to explain. Inside my panic there was something else. A change coming over me … It feels good, I thought. Like nothing I had ever felt before. Letting go. I’m letting go.

  I was angry with myself, even in the joy of letting go, or because of it. Because I no longer had control. That was it … it made me angry, letting go of control, giving it to someone else—angry that it could feel so good.

  A liquid bliss began spilling over me. Is this what it feels like in the womb?

  The darkness slowly peeled away and my vision gradually cleared—I could see the outlines of objects around me, some of the colors they were giving off. But instead of the Steinhaus, I could see darkened buildings around me. Some of them had signs. MONSANTO, SAIC, RAYTHEON. The grounds around the buildings were dotted with pools of light and shadowy shrubs. I could see striped parking lots, roads lined with jogging trails, and decorative lampposts encircling a huge artificial pond shimmering with reflected light.

  I know this place.

  Sagan had driven me through here on our date. It was called Research Park, a sprawling high-tech industrial park only a mile or two from the Space Center.

  I became aware of a presence.

  … Someone is here with me.…

  This is what it felt like: once at Papi’s house I had found a pair of long white gloves that had belonged to my grandmother. This was like pulling on those gloves … except it was the vampire’s body I was slipping on, every inch of it.

  My feet touched the ground and I felt myself running. We moved together, darting from bush to bush, dipping around corners. And then there was no more “we”—there was only “I.”

  Fight it. Fight his mind. Remember who you are, Emma.

  I saw something up ahead: a jogger moving down the sidewalk. A guy out by himself late at night because he worked some crazy shift. He had his shirt off and was wearing those tiny jogging shorts with a split up the hip, showing off his muscular thighs. He had a great body and he knew it. Only no one was there to see. Well, no one except me.

  My eyes were glued to the man—the beauty of him. But then I started to realize that the beauty was really coming from inside my hunger. I wanted him.

  Please. Somebody come.

  The jogger might as well have been running in cookie dough the way I closed the gap. I slowed when I was about twenty yards behind. Could feel my breathing and the rhythmic tap-tapping of the jogger’s shoes.

  Please, anybody. Help him.

  I willed the trail to flood with people, drive me back into hiding. No one came. The jogger took a long looping curve toward a darkened belt of woods. I could see apartment lights on the other side.

  I loped soundlessly behind, feeling the pull of a sickening, bottomless hunger. I wondered why I hadn’t taken him already. It would have been so simple.

  I could hear the rush of water as we approached a bridge that crossed a shallow creek. I let the jogger get all the way over the bridge, and now he was bathed in the bright orange lights of a parking lot.

  The jogger picked out one of the apartment buildings and ran up the stairs. There was a narrow landing at the top. I tried to see the apartment number, but the young guy’s body was blocking it. Yes. Inside. Yes. I waited for the jogger to put his key in the lock and swing the door open, then I leapt up to the landing and pushed my way in behind him. I swung the door shut with a backward fling of my hand.

  The jogger turned around, saw me, and swore. At first it looked as if he would come after me, but then he got a good look and backed away, throwing one hand up to his mouth. I felt horrified for him. The jogger tried to rush into a bedroom in the back, but I had him by his neck before he wa
s halfway across the living room. I threw him down on the couch.

  “What … what do you want, man?” the jogger said, voice trembling with fear.

  “We will get to that in a moment,” I said, mouthing the words that were not mine. “But first … I need your key.”

  “My key, man? Why do you need my key? Oh God, come on, don’t hurt me. I’ll give you whatever you want, but oh God.”

  “Your key,” I said.

  I extended my arm. It was hard to look at the guy on the couch, who was now basically scrabbling against the wall. He was staring right at me; I was the person who was going to hurt him.

  “I … I threw them on the table, man. Over there on the table.” The jogger unclasped his hands and was shakily pointing.

  I walked over and picked the keys up, then made the poor guy show me which one was the right one to the front door. I pushed him, hurrying him.

  “On the floor.”

  The jogger tried to stand beside the couch. I shoved him down on the worn brown carpet. He looked pathetic lying there, short shorts, shiny-chested, one arm up, pleading. I gave him a kick that sent him skidding across the rug into the kitchen.

  I want him in the kitchen because …

  I fell on the jogger, gashed open his throat. The young guy screamed, then his voice was nothing but a tortured gurgle.

  I began drinking.

  I want him in the kitchen because … because … it will be easier to lap up the spills.

  I fell into darkness again. This time there was no comfort in the void, only pain. I was slipping into my own death. I was the man lying in his kitchen spurting dark blood all over the linoleum. I wanted to be him. Because I didn’t want to be Wirtz. Not ever again. I was trading my death for the relief.

  But there was no relief. Only pain and more pain and falling. Everything felt attached to me in my falling.… I had torn through the universe and was pulling it into the hole after me.

  But even as I was falling, I was still inside the vampire. I got up from the jogger, his hot blood still running down my chin. Walked down the hallway to a bedroom and started blocking the windows with blankets.

  “Catch her! Catch her!”

  Someone close by was shouting. I could feel myself sliding out of Wirtz’s body and back into my own.

  My eyes popped open. The Sonnen were still arranged around me, but they were rigid, as if in a trance.

  I pitched forward.

  Sagan forced his way into the circle just in time for me to topple against his chest. He put his arms around me.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  I couldn’t speak. I clung to him for a long time, feeling dizzy. The Sonnen were still in their circle. Finally words started coming back to me. I started shouting.

  “I know where he is! I know where Wirtz is! We’ve been there! Sagan, do you know what this means? As soon as it’s daylight, we can go. He’ll never be more vulnerable. We could go there and kill him, Sagan. Kill him in his sleep …”

  The three Sonnen vampires were staring at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Daylight, Emma,” Anton said. “You said daylight.”

  “I knew there was something,” Donne said, jaw tightening. “I knew it.”

  “I need to sit down,” I said, going over to the wall and finding a spot.

  Donne followed. “So when were you going to tell us? Don’t you think this was a pretty important thing to let us know about? What other secrets are you hiding?”

  “Nothing. That’s it,” I said.

  “How are we supposed to believe you?”

  “Okay …” I sighed. “I apologize for not telling you up front. You want to know the truth? I was afraid you wouldn’t accept me for what I am.” I looked around at the three of them. “I needed you guys. I figured you would kick me out … or worse. Vote me off the island.”

  “And what makes you think we won’t now?” Donne said.

  “So what does this mean?” Anton said. “What are you?”

  “I have a theory,” I said. “I guess you could call me half vampire, half human.” I explained about a seizure scrambling my transformation.

  “So you can go out in the daylight,” Donne said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t drink blood.”

  “No. Well, just the once.” Nobody smiled.

  “And we’re supposed to believe you, Fresh?”

  I took Sagan by the arm. “I brought him to meet you, didn’t I? How’s that for trust?”

  He smiled sheepishly.

  I was hoping for Lena to weigh in. So far she had been silent. Now she was walking over.

  “I cannot speak for Donne and Anton,” she said. “But nothing has changed for me. I can understand why you did what you did, Emma. And I can understand Donne’s suspicion. But here we are. And in spite of being only half vampire, as you say, you are most certainly all Auge. Perhaps the most powerful one I have ever known.”

  “Just imagine it,” Anton said. “Being able to go out in daylight. The advantages would be incredible, huh?”

  “You’re right: she doesn’t face the same dangers we face,” Donne said. “But it’s more than that, Anton. If Wirtz wasn’t on her tail, she could go back and live with them.” She gestured accusingly at Sagan.

  “Hey, what did I do?” he said.

  Donne turned on him aggressively. “What haven’t you done, don’t you mean? When have you or your kind ever had to hide? When were you ever not in control of the entire planet? When—”

  “I thought you said they were human,” Sagan said to me.

  Donne lunged at him and I lunged at her. We collided with Sagan wedged between us.

  “Enough!”

  Lena was there, pulling us apart.

  “We are forgetting something,” Lena said when things had calmed down.

  “What?” I said.

  “What you intend to do in the … daylight.”

  “Oh. Going to find Wirtz while he’s sleeping, you mean?”

  Lena looked dismayed. “I cannot tell you how dangerous that would be. Perhaps not to you personally—”

  I swore. “Me personally? He’s coming to kill me personally. I would say that’s pretty dangerous, wouldn’t you?”

  “You misunderstand,” Lena said. “I am speaking of the Sonnen … as a whole. You know my feelings about provoking the Verloren.”

  “They’re monsters, Lena. If you keep running from them, if you never fight back, you know what will happen—”

  “We have no choice,” Lena said.

  “Neither do I.”

  Driving back to the Space Center, I took a cloth Sagan offered and held it against the knife cut in my throat.

  “This has been a very, very weird night,” he said, patting my leg.

  “You can say that again,” I said.

  “This has been a very, very weird—”

  “Jerk.” I punched his arm. “What was that ‘I thought you said they were human’ crap?”

  He let go of the wheel briefly and stretched. “Just trying to keep it light. Are you okay?”

  “Watch the road. I feel okay. Well … I’m scared.”

  “Me too,” Sagan said. “You think she’s right? Lena?”

  “I don’t like thinking about stuff like this in the middle of the night,” I said. “It’s too strange.”

  “No joke, you really want to do this in the morning?” he said. “Break into a dead man’s apartment to kill a vampire?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He was silent while I watched stripes passing under the Jeep. “Do you like them?” I said. “The Sonnen?”

  Sagan ran a hand through his hair. “Vampires. What’s not to like?”

  Nine-thirty in the morning. I had slept, but only fitfully. Everything had a foggy air of unreality.

  The apartment complex was a good bit nicer than the one I was used to: tennis courts, a little waterfall that splashed down into the pool, brick instead of vinyl
siding. The parking lot was mostly empty; everybody had already gone to work. I could see the building right in front of us, the one from my Auge vision where Wirtz was hiding.

  I was holding a mini-sledgehammer from Home Depot, feeling ridiculous and terrified at the same time. We had gotten the stake from a big real estate sign I had uprooted and shaved to a sharper point with a hatchet.

  Sagan had a wicked-looking Japanese sword lying across his lap—something his great-grandfather had brought back from World War II.

  “This is insane,” he said.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “I still say we should call the police.”

  “And tell them what? That I saw a guy murdered in a vampiric vision last night? And then they find the guy, and where does that leave us?”

  Had last night even really happened? I put my hand on my neck. The fresh cut Lena had made was already mostly healed. The light of day and the green garbage cans in the hall where the buildings joined together made all that stuff seem imaginary, impossible.

  But I recognized those wooden stairs, worn smooth in the middle by years of feet. I could see the jogger’s door, though I couldn’t read the number from this angle. The white plastic shades on his windows were pulled. That’s the way all of the windows in the complex looked. Like they all were hiding something.

  “Here are our options,” I said. “I go up there and check and nobody’s home, and it was all just a weird, whacked-out vision—”

  “Or … the kitchen is covered with dried blood and there is a vampire sleeping it off,” Sagan said.

  “Wirtz would have lapped that up.”

  “Good God, Emma.”

  I turned to face him. “Look, the first thing I’ll do when I get inside is get some light coming through those windows. Then what can he do?”

  “Kill you?”

  “Not funny.”

  “I wasn’t meaning to be funny. What if he’s waiting for you and gets to you before you can get the curtains open?”

  “Then I should break in through a window. Establish a beachhead of sunlight. What could be safer?”