by J. Thorn
Sam pushed the faces of her children from her mind, trying to stay focused on the facts.
I’ve been captured by the uglies and now I’m stuck in the basement of the CD Palace & Music Emporium without CDs. Or music.
She sighed and tilted her back against the cold cinder block wall. The old human mindset in Sam longed for a window until her vampire blood reminded her that a window would be as useless as a sun visor on a snow plow.
She decided to apply her detective skills on her entry into this world as that might logically lead to an escape plan. Samantha rewound the mental tape, seeing her minivan plummet over the guardrail. She fast-forwarded through the injuries, the healing and her entry into the cave. She skipped over the cave paintings until she arrived at the altar. Sam thrust a hand inside of her shirt and felt the locket secure on her chest.
The locket.
She couldn’t be sure if it was the box, the altar, the locket or the circumstance that had brought her into the future, but the only item that came with her through time was the charm. And it was still around her neck.
Best to keep that hidden for now , she thought. Both the item and the story.
Samantha stood and walked to the front of the cell at the same time a vampire came down the steps. She knew it was Voldare before she even saw him. The air sizzled in her lungs and she sensed a power, as if she were standing too close to a portable generator.
He crossed the room but stopped five feet from the entrance to her cell. He turned his head sideways, his red eyes piercing the gloom and beckoning her forward. She felt an attraction, a magnetic pull, and found herself grasping at the bars and yearning to be free, to be close to him. Danny entered Sam’s mind for a moment until she remembered the image of her husband kissing another woman.
Voldare spun around and walked back up the steps.
Samantha felt the mental grip loosen and the air returned to its usual, dank feel. She wanted him to return and yet, she was frightened at the same time. Sam wrestled with her feelings until she decided to sit back down against the wall and let them pass. While her vampire blood intensified her senses, it amplified her emotions as well. She experienced a degree of hatred, love and lust that would have been incomprehensible to a human. It seemed that Voldare agitated all of these in Samantha, all at the same time.
She heard voices coming from the hallway at the top of the steps and Sam knew it wasn’t the manager of the CD Palace & Music Emporium asking a cashier to check their stock.
“She is a spy for Silven.”
“How do you know, sir? She has not been seen by any of our warriors. Nobody knows where she came from and why she has yet to shed her human persona.”
“He will use her against me, of that I’m sure, Tun,” said Voldare.
Samantha waited as the vampires paused.
Voldare’s first lieutenant spoke again. “So, what shall we do with her? We are too embroiled with the V.I. to babysit this infant vamp.”
“She may look like a child to us,” said Voldare. “But she could cause irreparable harm to the Bloodline.”
“Very well, sir. I will have a guard…”
“No,” Voldare interrupted. “We don’t have the luxury of time.”
Samantha waited to hear Voldare’s command as did Tun.
“I will torture her. We will get what we need, one way or another.”
If I close my eyes, this will all be over.
Samantha slid down the wall on to her backside, dropping her head between her knees. She looked up as Tun turned on the landing and proceeded back up into the main floor of the shop.
“If you tell me the truth, I will not hurt you.”
She giggled, the line sounding as cheesy as something out of a Hollywood movie. “Whatever,” she said.
The faces of her children flashed in her mind and Sam’s breath hitched. She didn’t know whether to mourn their deaths or the fact that she’d missed their lives. Either way, they were forever gone and out of her reach. Unless there was a way for her to return, to go back…
“…in time. It may be possible.”
Samantha stood up, biting her bottom lip and rushing toward the front of the cell where Voldare remained on the other side of the bars. She had read the minds of humans, but he captured the thoughts of other vampires.
“You can read my mind?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I can catch pieces, feelings. I’ve been at this for a very long time.”
Sam took a step back, trying hard to clear her head, but every time she did so, more thoughts rushed in.
“Relax. I’m not going to torture you and I’m not going to scry inside your head. You must trust me.”
“Why?” she asked.
“What choice do you have?”
Samantha sighed and considered Voldare’s question. She nodded and took a step back from the door of the cell.
“My warriors. They must believe I will ruthlessly do what is in the best interest of the Bloodline. I cannot rule with weakness or compassion, not in this world. They will remain upstairs while I ‘torture’ you. I may ask you to scream or moan occasionally.”
The beginnings of a smile creased the lower half of Voldare’s face, the thin yellow skin stretched over a bony skull. His red eyes flashed and whatever amusement bubbled to the surface disappeared.
“The first thing I would like to do is remove my uniform as I believe it will put you somewhat at ease.”
“What uniform?” Sam asked. She saw nothing but leather cuffs and a loincloth on a winged demon.
“You are quite an immature vamp, aren’t you? You have not yet discovered the cellular metamorphosis that allows us to transform our outward appearance. To shape-shift.”
“You chose to look that way?” she asked. Sam thought back to the battlefield and Silven’s warriors of the V.I. Her mind raced with insinuations and implications.
“Why the surprise? Do you not choose the clothing you put on your body each day? Is this different?”
She titled her head sideways and shrugged.
Good point.
“Fine,” she said. “Remove your uniform, but keep the loincloth at least.”
Voldare folded his wings in tight against his back and he gripped the cell bars with both hands, wrapping his talons around the 2 x 4s. He put his head down, waiting. Before Sam could speak again, a slow mist rolled up from the floor and crawled over Voldare’s body. The fog hid him completely and Samantha did not dare to blink. As the mist receded, it left a man behind. He had medium-length black hair slicked back to reveal an angular, strong jaw. His dark eyes replaced the demonic red ones. He was dressed in black, a knee-length overcoat over a black t-shirt and black jeans. His patent-leather combat boots reflected the meager light in the room. Voldare appeared to be in his early thirties, muscular and lean.
Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, Samantha thought before immediately visualizing Voldare before the transformation, hoping he wasn’t in her head. Sam loved Neo, especially in the overcoat. She wondered again how much access Voldare had to her thoughts.
“How is this?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s a bit better than your flying bat outfit.”
Voldare smiled, this time for real. Sam looked into his eyes and saw empathy strangled by hopelessness.
“May I come inside?”
“Is that the old vamp gag? If I invite you in, I seal my own fate, right?”
Voldare shook his head but did not respond. Instead, he unlocked the cell door and stepped inside. He pulled it shut and locked it from the inside, placing the key in the front pocket of his jeans.
“You don’t trust me?” she asked.
“I trust no one.”
“Your lieutenant, Tun, thought I was a spy, but you knew immediately I wasn’t.”
Voldare shook his head.
“So you locked me up and ordered torture, as you would for any V.I. spy captured in war.”
“You have not been here long, but you understand this pl
ace.”
This time, Samantha smiled, her eyes locked on Voldare’s.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Samantha. Samantha Moon. You can call me Sam.”
Voldare nodded. He removed his overcoat, revealing arms that were barely contained by his tight shirt. Scars raced up both wrists toward his elbows and disappeared beneath the sleeves.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“Just a flaw in the cells. The skin doesn’t entirely cover my wings when I, eh, change.”
Voldare sat down across from Samantha.
“What now?” she asked.
“I know you’re a new turn. You’ve developed some of the powers, but they are still raw and unrefined. What I don’t know is how you got here. And why.”
Samantha felt Voldare probing the edges of her mind, so she constructed a wall in her head, pushing back at him. He wasn’t climbing over it but he wasn’t retreating either. Whatever was in her head could be accessible to him, so she concentrated on relaying only what she knew to be fact, hoping to hide the truth.
“I crashed my minivan. I crawled into a cave to call the police, and maybe a tow. When I came out, I was in the middle of your unholy vampire war.”
“Don’t be flip with me. Do not confuse my rational approach with weakness.”
“That’s the truth,” she said.
“Where did you come from? Or, more specifically, when?”
“2009,” she said.
Voldare shook his head and his mouth moved silently but produced no words.
“And now it’s?” Sam asked.
“2100. Eighty-one years into the future.”
Sam gasped and covered her face with her hands. The emotion welled inside of her, threatening to break loose in a tidal wave of tears. She thought of Danny, Tammy and Anthony. Were they dead? Did they live a full life? Did they suffer when the world ended? The questions came faster than Samantha could process them and she began to cry.
“I am not inside your thoughts. You know this. But the humanity left in me knows why you grieve.”
She kept her head down, ignoring Voldare.
“Your reaction tells me all I need to know. You are not here of your own volition. You are not Silven’s spy.”
He stood, picked up his overcoat and put it on. Voldare reached into his pocket and retrieved the key. Samantha heard it in the lock and looked up through a veil of tears.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I have what I need and you are in no condition to continue. I will put a guard at the door until I must come and ‘torture’ you further.”
He winked at Samantha before the mist returned. Before he made it to the first step, Voldare’s wings twitched on his back and his red eyes glanced back at her.
Sam put her head back between her knees and no longer fought the tears.
6
“Good morning.”
Sam looked up to see Voldare at the cell door. He held a stainless steel cup.
“It’s not really morning. It’s not anything here. I thought I would embrace the unending twilight, the gracious gift between day and night. Now, I want anything but that.”
He stood before her as a man, the persona she thought of as Neo. Samantha did not sleep and she had no sense of the passage of time. It could have been hours since he left her wailing in the cell or it could have been days. Sam felt lightheaded and she had black circles at the edges of her vision.
“You need this,” Voldare said, not needing his powers of clairvoyance to see her fatigue.
Sam nodded and Voldare opened the cell door. Again, he stepped inside before locking it and placing the key in his pocket. He took one step and handed the cup to her. She knew what was inside before the liquid hit her lips. Samantha gulped, tossing the blood down her throat and shaking the cup until the last drop hit her tongue. She sighed and felt a thrumming in her feet and a tingling in her arms.
“I gave you my ration. Hid it from my men. It would not look appropriate if I was wasting sustenance on Silven’s spy.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. She handed the empty cup back to Voldare.
“The battle cost us warriors on each side. Silven and the V.I. will not be in a hurry to meet on the battlefield again, at least, not in the near future.”
“So, what are you saying?” Sam asked. “Does this mean you and I can continue to date?”
Voldare smiled and Samantha returned it.
“I know you mourn the loss of your offspring. Of your previous life.”
“You sure have a way of destroying the moment.”
Voldare nodded.
“Silven will replenish his army. As I will do for us. We have some time, but not much.”
“I want to know what happened to my world. How we’re here.”
“You don’t get to make demands,” Voldare said. “You will get what you want after I get what I need.”
“Rolling Stones?” she asked.
Voldare stared. “I hated rock and roll.”
“Never mind,” she said. Sam smiled at Voldare and she saw the sparkle in his eyes. “No offense, but I don’t care about your world or your war. I’ll deal with it in eighty-one years when I catch up to the future. In the meantime, I want to get back to my children and their long, natural lives. That’s all I want.”
“It’s not in my power to give that to you,” Voldare said.
“You mean, you really don’t know how I got here?” she asked.
“I don’t.”
Sam recognized the vibration of truth in his words, her vampire powers strengthening as she used them.
“There is only one method known to the vampire race and unless you have a locket—”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“A locket. Unless you have the Locket of Lir, there is no—”
Voldare stopped speaking. Samantha dug a hand beneath her shirt and removed the locket. She held it up in front of her face, the charm dangling from the golden chain.
“You mean this?”
Voldare raised his eyebrows and clapped his hands together.
“Yes, my dear. Yes.”
Sam waited for Voldare to continue.
“I will tell you something secret, something no other vampire in this world knows. Not even Tun.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“So you know you can trust me. The locket around your neck once hung on mine. I used it once and know of its incredible powers. I need you and I need the locket to save us all.”
“Slow down, cowboy. Back up the story a bit.”
Voldare closed his eyes and inhaled. He nodded and continued.
“Dying the second time was no easier than dying the first.”
Sam looked at Voldare and nodded for him to continue.
“My name was Sean Leary. I was an Irish immigrant living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the boom of the steel industry. I came over from County Cork with my parents and seven brothers.”
Sam’s eyebrows arched.
“Irish-Catholics,” he said. “By the time I was fourteen, the war machine was churning. My older brothers were shipped off to Europe or the Pacific, leaving a massive need for factory workers. While many of the wives went to work, many of the children did as well. At age fifteen, I was working sixty hours a week in the steel mills. The furnaces felt like the gateway to Hell.”
“Your brothers? Where were they?” Sam asked.
“Some went off to war and died there. Some died in the mills. By the time I turned twenty-one, I had just two surviving siblings. But it was in that year when I was turned.”
Sam leaned in close.
“I was walking down Eighth Avenue in Homestead. We lived in a crumbling row house across the tracks from the mill. All the immigrant families working the mills did. The bars along Eighth Avenue remained open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate all three shifts. It was probably one or two o’clock on a Saturday night and I knew I would not be in the mill on Sunday.
I was a bit loose with my coin and my drink.”
“You were drunk,” Sam said.
“Yes,” Voldare said. “I cut through an alley and that’s when I saw her.”
“The lady is a vamp.”
Voldare turned his head sideways and looked at Sam.
“Keep going.”
“She came out of the shadows, more floating than walking. She came up to me and asked for a cigarette. Once I looked into her eyes, well, it was over. I have memories, but they’re like still photographs and not a movie reel. We had our hands on each other, I moved in to kiss her and then things became fuzzy. I woke up, lying on my back in the middle of the alley. My neck hurt and my chest was covered in blood. She was gone, along with whatever normal life I hoped to live.
“I spent decades drifting across the United States, staying hidden in the shadows and feeding when I could. I felt the guilt of the newly turned, saddened to have to take a life to sustain my everlasting death. But as time wore on, the guilt faded and I simply survived. When the plague hit, it felt like I was dying a second time.”
Sam shivered and placed a hand over her mouth. She had to ask the question and yet, did not want to hear the answer.
“When did the pandemic strike?”
“2009? I don’t recall the specifics any more. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It does to me,” Sam said. She thought again of her children and all of the possible futures for them. In this scenario, all outcomes seemed bleak. She spun the wedding band that was still on her ring finger. “If you want access to the locket, if you want me to help you defeat Silven, I need to know everything.”
“You still don’t understand, dear Samantha. This is not about winning. This future is dead and there is no winner. In order to preserve our race, we must eliminate the future completely.”
“By going back in time,” said Samantha. “And to do that, you need the locket along with someone who knows how to use it.”
Voldare closed his eyes and nodded.
***
Sam made Voldare tell her as much of his story as he could remember, even though she realized it probably wasn’t relevant to the situation. Something about the timbre of his voice and the words he chose made her feel warm, safe. Intellectually, she knew he was an experienced vampire and that he had been practicing his charm for longer than she had been alive. And Samantha thought she would be fine with that.
