Throat

by R. A. Nelson

  I suddenly felt his body start, rise up against the tug of all the things he was attached to.

  “Enkelin …”

  “Papi! Oh, Papi!” I leaned over and threw myself into his arms. He hugged me as gently as a baby. His hands were shaking as he lowered them to the bed.

  “You crying?” he said, a little croak in his voice.

  I sniffed and brushed my hand across my eyes. “No, I’m not.”

  “Ho, you can’t fool this old wolf,” he said, smiling. He looked around, lifting one arm and weakly gesturing. “It’s this place. It makes you think I am going. And ja, I am going … going right out of here. Got my tomato plants in. Corn coming along. You should see it. A lot of rain this spring.”

  I looked at the window. “It’s raining now, Papi.”

  He didn’t look. He wouldn’t take his eyes away from me. “It’s so good. It’s so good to see you.” His voice got suddenly stern. “You … you tell me … where have you been? Why were you gone?”

  “Please … please don’t make me tell you that. I’m all right.… You just think … about getting better, okay? What happened? What did they say? You’re going to be okay, aren’t you?”

  Papi tried to snort, ended up coughing for a long time instead. “I was leaning over in the backyard,” he said when he got control of himself again. “Turning on that faucet, you know … the one next to the clothesline? Mein Gott, it feels like an elephant sat down on my chest.”

  “But … the doctors, what did they say?”

  “Doctors.” Papi made a soft little disgusted sound. “What can they tell you?” He reached a hand to touch his chest, then had to put it down and reach with the other one, because the first hand was dragging too many tubes. “Here. What do they know about what is in here? Nah. Not important.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “Don’t say that. Don’t. You’d better not …”

  I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t say, “You’d better not die.”

  “Some boy … he hurt you, huh? Make you a little bit crazy?”

  “No, Papi. No. It’s not that. It’s not drugs. It’s not any of those things. It’s not anything for you to feel bad about. I just had to go away for a while.”

  “Your mother … you know you are hurting your momma so bad.”

  The tears started flowing again, so hard my shoulders were shaking.

  “Hey … hey … here now, my darling girl. It’s going to be okay, you know. Whatever this thing is … whatever it is has hold of my Enkelin … you are going to beat it, you know that?”

  I tried to speak, but I was still shaking. I raised my head finally. “I’m so sorry, Papi. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my fault. Running … it was the only thing I could do.”

  He patted my hand. “There is always something you can do. You left your Familie out of things. Your mother …”

  “I know, I know.…”

  “You talk to her, ja? You go to her, you have a little talk.” He coughed again. “Back to … back to school, Enkelin.”

  “I know, Papi, I know. Soon. I hope it can be soon. I’m doing the best I can.”

  He closed his eyes, started looking sleepy again.

  “Papi. Papi? Do you need something? Are you okay?”

  “I’m … okay. Just sleepy. These fools, they give me what they give me.”

  I bent and kissed him on the cheek. He waved his hand at me and made a face.

  “Oosh, I need a shave.” He was drifting off, eyelids rising and lowering. He said something that I couldn’t hear. I leaned closer.

  “What? What, Papi, what did you say?”

  He whispered, “You know you are always … my … my Kämpferin.”

  His fighter.

  * * *

  I found a courtesy phone in the waiting room, called the Blue Onion, and left a message for Mom. Then cried like a stupid baby the whole way out of the hospital.

  He had always been so strong.… It killed me to see him lying there like that, wasted, damaged at his core. That’s what happens when you hurt someone you love, I thought. You damage their center.

  It was raining harder when I reached the street. The pavement was slick, reflecting the reddish glow of the streetlamps. I took off at a run that sent streamers of water flying up from my feet.

  Sagan’s Jeep was still parked in front of the Solar Observatory when I got back to the Space Center, and some of the lights were burning in the cafeteria. My shoes scraped wetly on the cement as I walked up the path to the observatory entrance.

  I reached into my pocket for the headset gadget and pressed the button that made a little shrieking noise that was supposed to pass for a ring.

  “Emma—” There was a big burst of static as Sagan answered, cutting him off.

  I thumbed the talk switch. “Hey, I’m back. Come let me in.”

  Another burst of static. The fancy electrical stuff inside the dome must be messing with the frequency. I pressed the button again.

  “Hey, did you hear me? I’m outside. Let me in. I’ve been running my legs off. I want to sit down.”

  I waited a little while, then saw Sagan hurrying toward the air lock. He pushed open the inner door and started reaching for the outer one. He was saying something through the glass as he put his hand on the handle. I have never been good at reading lips.

  “What?”

  Sagan cracked the door slightly. Not like he was going to open it for me, but to tell me something.

  “Run,” Sagan said through the crack in the door.

  “Huh?”

  “Run, Emma. Run.”

  I stood there paralyzed a moment, looking at his eyes.

  “Run! Run!”

  I reached for the door and jerked it out of Sagan’s hands, almost tumbling him out onto the sidewalk. I yanked him up and within less than a second I was at a dead run down the driveway, Sagan slung over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  Something solid and heavy slammed into my legs, making them buckle sideways. Sagan was thrown off, rolling over and over in the grass and leaves next to the path.

  I got up feeling as if my face were on fire from scraping the pavement; a squatty, muscular guy was standing over me. I lowered my shoulder and sprang at him with all my might, driving my fists into his big gut.

  The squatty man’s eyes popped wide and he let out a tremendous “Oomph!” and sprawled back against the observatory building. His meaty elbow knocked out a section of glass with a tinkling shriek as he crashed against the metal window frame.

  “Let’s go!” I yelled.

  Sagan had gotten to his feet and was staggering toward me. We had just started to run again when three more Verloren collapsed on top of us, pinning us to the ground. My mouth was driven into someone’s side and I could barely breathe. I kicked and screamed, wildly lashing out with my arms.

  The vampires each had an arm or a leg. They lifted me up, tugging so hard, I was scared for a minute they might rip me into four parts. One of them got a huge arm crooked around my throat, crushing my windpipe. There was nothing I could do.

  Sagan was jeered at and prodded as the vampires forced us inside the observatory. Two muscular Verloren had me by either arm while a third huge vampire—the one with his arm around my throat—kept shoving me from behind.

  Once inside the conference room, the three vampires held me against a wall of louvered doors that housed the blue cables leading to the satellite feeds. The other two vampires threw Sagan down on his back on the conference table.

  “Stinkender Mensch,” the stocky Verloren snarled.

  Whatever that was, you didn’t want to be it.

  Sagan writhed and struggled until finally I could see him weakening. He knew what I knew. Without our weapons, we were dead.

  A tall figure was standing in the back of the large room. He came slowly over. For the first time since encountering him on that lonely Georgia mountain, I saw Wirtz in the flesh again.

  His eyes were as black as I remembered, features pointe
d, and the flap of skin above his right eye looked almost moist, as if his scalp had been peeled away yesterday, not hundreds of years ago. I could see thin little fingerlets of pinkish veins running through the exposed tissue.

  He came closer until he was too close, leaning over me so that I was aware of every filthy inch of his body. His coat was dirty and ragged and his shirt sweat-stained, though the skin of his face was taut and unnaturally dry, like yellowing paper.

  He licked me.

  Wirtz’s hot fleshy tongue moved over my cheek like a slug that had traveled through centuries of filth. I tried to twist away, but the others held me still. I tried to bite him, but he snatched his head away.

  I spat in his face.

  I had expected to make him furious, but instead the vampire touched his finger to my spittle and then touched the finger to his tongue. I could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. His broad shoulders immediately hunched forward and he almost seemed to retch a little. Then he closed his eyes and drew in a long breath through his narrow nose.

  “So it’s true, then,” the vampire said in his deep voice. “You have eaten … Nahrung.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” I said.

  “Food,” one of the monsters holding me said. “You have eaten human food—”

  Wirtz raised his arm for silence.

  “And the Blut? Do you … drink it?”

  “How did you find us?” I said.

  Wirtz grabbed my whole face in one hand and squeezed. His fingers smelled of old soil and wood bark. He kept squeezing, harder and harder.

  “I asked you a question.”

  I swore and gritted my teeth. “Never developed … a taste for the stuff.”

  Wirtz let me go and turned away, thinking.

  I looked at the other vampires. They were younger than Wirtz in appearance. The two holding me had to be brothers; both dark-skinned with short cropped hair, of average height, but well muscled. Wearing dirty jeans and T-shirts. If I hadn’t known they were vampires, I would have sworn they were in their late teens to early twenties.

  The third guy holding me looked older, maybe late twenties, and he was a kind of giant, taller and much heavier than Wirtz, with curly blondish hair and a baby face. Big-boned, heavy legs, a barrel chest. He looked monstrously strong. He was wearing a ragged mechanic’s outfit that had once been blue but now was stained a mahogany color.

  The stocky Verloren holding Sagan looked to be in his mid-thirties and had on an old dark suit that was torn at the knees and discolored in several places. Underneath was a filthy cream shirt that was ripped here and there, exposing his olive skin. He had a shiny scar running across his crooked nose.

  The last Verloren looked slim and graceful, with small features and short trimmed hair. She was wearing a dark, stretchy jumpsuit and would have been beautiful if not for the chilling fact that her face was frozen in the most lifeless expression I had ever seen.

  “You’re … the friend of this … Vollmensch?” Wirtz said, nodding. I looked at Sagan lying on the table and hurt all over for him. Not only was he being held down by vampires, he was also the only one of us who couldn’t see in the dark.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Human. He is … a human.” Wirtz spoke the word as if he were talking about a disgusting little piece of slime that had crawled out of a sewer. Something that wasn’t even a man.

  Again Sagan struggled and bucked, but the Verloren girl pushed him back down with a single hand. She’s missing one of her thumbs, I realized.

  “They’ll be here soon,” Sagan said, his voice distorted.

  “Who?” the woman said softly, leaning mockingly close to his ear. Kill her. I want to kill her.

  “The … police …,” Sagan said. “We called … we called the police.”

  “Good,” Wirtz said. “I’m thirsty.”

  Sagan started to say something else. Wirtz gestured, and the girl clapped her hand over Sagan’s mouth. Wirtz came over to me again. I closed my mouth to keep from tasting his smell.

  “You asked how we found you,” the vampire said. “The big symbol—NASA—I saw this while you and I were … joined.… After that it was only a matter of time.”

  The tower, I thought. He saw the logo on the tower.

  “It’s truly too bad, all of this,” Wirtz went on, looking at the stocky guy. “Is it not, Bastien? She could have been a Kriegerin.” He turned to face me again. “Do you know this word? A … warrior. If only you had honored my Call. But now …”

  We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, and I wondered if there was something to it … the idea that a vampire could control you with his gaze. I had a sense of falling into something black and bottomless. I blinked and shook my head and the spell was broken. Wirtz sat down in one of the conference chairs and crossed his legs.

  “So, you think this is the Ende, girl?” he said. “Don’t you? That’s what you are waiting on. No, this is the beginning. We are here to unlock your secrets.”

  “I don’t have any secrets.”

  The vampire looked at his hand as if admiring his nasty fingers.

  “How do you do it? Go out into the daylight? And how do you live without blood?”

  I stared at him, waiting.

  Wirtz gestured at the girl. “Lilli.”

  The female Verloren twisted Sagan’s face so it was smashed against the table. She looked as if she was about to break his neck.

  “Stop!” I said. “You should know! You did it! You …” I swore again. “When you attacked me. You. Did. It. Somehow things got scrambled. It’s nothing I did. It just happened.”

  “Should I believe you?” Wirtz said.

  “I don’t care if you do or not. It’s the truth.”

  “But you do care. You care very much.” He glanced at Sagan. “As I am going to show you. But first … no more lies. Tell me the truth. There is some Würde in that. Dignity.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. It was an accident.”

  He stood again and touched the side of my head with the tip of his finger, drawing the finger down the line of my hair to my ear. I jerked away.

  “We know that you have … family … somewhere nearby,” Wirtz said. “A sister. Whom I would very much like to … kiss.”

  I cursed him a third time.

  “It’s all right,” the vampire said. “I understand these things so well, Mädchen. You have a few moments where you still have thoughts, awareness. Right now your mind has never been more … open. That is all there is now, inside you, this openness. I think when someone … dies … there is so much to be learned in the last moments. When there is no reason anymore to think wasteful thoughts, everything is so clear.”

  I glanced at Sagan.

  “So. Are you going to tell me?” Wirtz said.

  I don’t have any secrets, I thought. I only have hate. That’s all you’re leaving me with, so I want to be dead. I have to be dead. Go on and finish it.

  “Let him go,” I said, nodding at Sagan. “Let him go and I’ll tell you anything you want.”

  Sagan struggled fiercely, trying to say something.

  Wirtz smiled. “You are worried about your pet Vollmensch? Why do I want to give up something I already have? Every part of his life has always been mine. You know a little about the Feld, I think? His whole life has been spent in bringing himself here. Making of himself a gift … to me.”

  I wrenched at the arms holding me. “Do what you want with me! But let him go. Leave him alone!”

  Wirtz looked up. “The Vollmensch—he is more important … than your own life?”

  “Yes,” I said, choking. “Yes, he is.”

  “Then tell me what I want to know. How is it you can go out in the daylight and eat the humans’ Nahrung?”

  “I told you. I don’t know. I don’t! But I think maybe it was because of my … epilepsy.”

  Sagan tried to say something. The stocky Verloren, Bastien, tightened his hold on him, making him wince.r />
  Wirtz looked at Lilli. “Epilepsy?”

  “Ergreifungen,” she said.

  “Ah!” Wirtz said. “And so that’s what it was. When I was … drinking … the bright lights, nothingness? Ja? You suffered a … seiz-ure … and because our Felds were … verbunden … joined—the seizure came to me as well. Is this right?”

  “I guess so. I don’t … I don’t remember things during a seizure. I think it scrambled us somehow. Scrambled my transformation. It’s not something I can just do. It was an accident. It can’t … it can’t help you.”

  “Oh. You believe I want to be helped?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Wirtz walked up to me again. “You are still … unerfahren. Young … inexperienced. There are things you come to realize in time, Mädchen. There is no help coming. There is nothing … good … out there that hears you when you pray. Once you realize that … what is one to do with this Leben … this life? I tell you this. The years go by. Until nothing is left but … curiosity.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Wirtz sighed deeply. “Oh. You have just now come to that conclusion? Let me tell you something. Who is sane? When we are born here …” He extended his arms and walked in a slow circle. “We are crazy. This … Leben … is the nightmare. All of us are sleeping and we can never wake up. Nothing matters. There is only each night and the night after it. You follow them or you die. But this is not something you can do for yourself. There is no dignity in a death like that. Someone else finds the courage for you. I have found it for you.”

  The vampire turned and sprang across the conference table, where the woman Lilli and the stocky man Bastien were holding Sagan. Wirtz pushed Lilli aside, grasped Sagan by his hair, and twisted his head back, exposing his pale neck.

  “Let him go!” I yelled. “I told you what you wanted to hear! There’s nothing else you need him for!”

  “Oh, you are so wrong to say that,” Wirtz said.

  “What do you want!”

  “It is something you owe me, not him. And so I will take this thing that you owe me. And this is how I will take it. I want you to watch while I do … this.”

  He sank his teeth deep into Sagan’s neck.