by J. Thorn
Now that she understood the significance of the locket and why Voldare wanted it, she realized she could give him what he wanted and destroy the dark future that her children faced. She had the locket but did not know how to use it. Voldare had the history and the arcane knowledge, but he didn’t have the charm.
Together, they might be able to go back and save it all. But before that could happen, there was Silven and the V.I. to deal with and Samantha needed to know how the vampires got here. And, if she had any chance of saving her children, she needed to know what had caused the pandemic. With the two factions at war, Voldare was probably her best shot.
“The pandemic. What happened?”
“I don’t remember it all that well.”
“Tell me what you remember, Voldare. I need to know everything.”
He ran a hand through his thick, black hair and looked to the stone floor inside the cell. Samantha wondered what Tun would think if he found Voldare inside the cell, talking to Silven’s “spy” and wearing his Neo outfit.
That’s his issue, not mine, she thought.
“It started as seasonal flu. Not H1N1 or any highly-publicized strain. This was something none of the scientists knew about, not even the CDC. This is why the Bloodline have no faith in the scientific discoveries theorized by the V.I. But I’m jumping ahead…”
Sam waited for him to continue.
“As all viruses tend to do, it struck the elderly, the young and the sick. For all we knew, there was nothing unique or extraordinary about this virus other than it was the one to destroy humanity. There were no signs, no panics like the avian flu epidemic, although the media reported everything from the beginning. The doctors and scientists started contracting it. That is when everything changed.
“At first, the virus spread through emergency rooms and hospitals. It struck down those employed there, which amplified the contagion. The vampires paid no attention to the looming crisis. Not being affected by human maladies, there was no reason to do anything. In fact, it made nightly feedings even easier. One could prey on the sick and dying, maybe even relieving some of the guilt, knowing they would die anyway.
“As you can imagine, once the medical infrastructure collapsed, society was not far behind. There were riots, pillaging, murder and eventually, abandonment. The virus killed ninety-five percent of humanity within nine months. The survivors either hunkered down in lonely outposts, what they called ‘preppers’ at that time, or they roamed the roadways, becoming easy prey for an increasingly hungry vampire population.
“Although we could feed on the sick and dying, the blood had to come from a living person. Sure, we could have saved it, stored the blood as you would the fall harvest for a long winter. But without civilization functioning, we had no way of doing so for the long term. No electricity, no grid, no easy way to preserve food and so, all of those people died. And along with it, so did our food source.”
Samantha listened and yet, she could not help but imagine what her family went through at this time, on their own and without her. Wherever she was in the trajectory of time, she was not with them, where she should have been.
“Then what?” she asked.
“Without order, infrastructure or leadership, society crumbled. Survivors turned into gangs and gangs turned into our sustenance. They fought us off for a few years but we easily overpowered what little resistance they could muster. Humans are no match for a vampire army.”
Sam shuddered, both fearful and proud of Voldare’s statement.
“Within a decade, vampires took complete control of the planet. Although, I’m not sure if that was a win or not. Without the controls in place, civilization did not just die, it imploded. Nuclear power, coal-firing plants and all of the massive systems built to maintain our way of life had nobody monitoring them, controlling them. Imagine a meltdown or environmental disaster the scale of Chernobyl happening somewhere in the world every week. The atmosphere choked on the destruction and whatever happened here affected the earth’s polarity, its relationship with the moon, ocean tides and levels, everything. Consequences beyond our imagining surfaced and we’ve inherited a dying planet with a sun choked by a toxic atmosphere. We have night and we have eternal twilight, neither of which allows us to rest as we would during a normal day. I’m sure Silven’s scientists are working on a way for us to sleep during the night, but I don’t care. This ship is sinking and without humans, we will die. Forever.”
Samantha nodded and wiped a tear from her face. She hated what humanity remained inside and she hated the vampire she had become. Being forever dead did not seem to be a bad option.
“Do you need any assistance, sir?”
Voldare stood and threw his voice at the landing where Tun waited, not descending into the cellar as instructed by his commander. “No. I’m still interrogating the spy.”
There was a pause. Voldare looked back over his shoulder at Samantha and opened his mouth in a mimed scream.
“Please stop. Please,” she said, picking up on his silent suggestion.
“Very well, sir.”
Tun shut the door at the top of the steps.
“They will start getting suspicious,” Sam said, waiting a few extra seconds to make sure they could not be heard upstairs.
“They already are,” Voldare said. “We do not have much time left to either convince them you can be of aid to the Bloodline or that you have been, shall we say, dispatched.”
Samantha nodded.
“They value my judgment and have honored me to lead them, but we lost many vampires in the battle and the Bloodline are eager to re-gather forces and go at the V.I. again. Most of the soldiers up there have no desire to play mind games with a P.O.W.”
“Then get to it. How did the vampire factions come about?”
Voldare sat back down, confident they would not be disturbed again unless there was a crisis above.
“The pandemic raged and we knew in the early years what the outcome would be. Just a few decades later, our worst predictions came true. And beyond. We didn’t anticipate the devastating effects the infrastructure collapse would have on the planet and on us. Although it didn’t happen to any of the vampires in my clan, we walked the empty highways of this country and heard stories from other travelers, vampires dying of starvation, a fate practically unknown to us in our ancient history. But those travels are a story for another time.
“The surviving humans reverted, devolved into beasts. Imagine a domesticated pig escaping into the forest. After a generation or two, you have wild swine once again.”
“That’s a visceral and somewhat unflattering analogy,” Sam said.
“It is the truth,” Voldare said. “Feeding was not so simple as stalking a woman in an alley and biting her neck. We had to coordinate and cooperate in our hunt. And it didn’t always yield game.”
Sam winced at the way Voldare spoke about humans. She understood why and realized she would have been speaking the same way had she been in his situation, but she could not help but think of her own children whenever he spoke of hunting and wild game.
“Because of that, we had to become better organized. This is not always in a vampire’s nature, as I’m sure even you realize. We are lone, solitary creatures and moving in packs is not something that comes naturally. But when your eternal life depends on it, you do what you must. I don’t know what happened in other cities or regions, but here, I began to attract a following because I was fair in dividing up the spoils of the hunt. Others followed Silven because he catered to those seeking luxuries, comforts beyond pure sustenance. I do not fault him or the others for desiring that, even though I have no such inclination. They developed a different set of priorities and therefore, our camps and our lifestyles became more divergent.
“Silven drew former scientists, doctors and academics. These vampires, because they lived a privileged life as humans, craved finer pleasures. I’m sure on the battlefield you saw the distinction between our chosen appearances.”
“Um, yeah. I could tell you apart.”
Voldare smiled and rubbed a hand through his hair as if to convince Samantha they didn’t have to look so ferocious.
“These vampires developed a hypothesis. They claimed that by using the scientific method on a reclaimed lab hooked up to portable generators, they could study existing human blood samples, and from those, do two things. Number one: they could purify it from the pandemic’s scourge. And two: they could use the stem cells to create more plasma. In other words, they believed they could manufacture our food, freeing us from the time and labor-intensive act of hunting, which would make room for the ‘finer’ things in a vampire life.”
“So, what’s the problem?” Sam asked. “Why wouldn’t you want to store food and enjoy some luxury every now and then?”
“We do. The problem is that it’s still a theory. None of Silven’s scientists have proven they can replicate blood. Until that happens, we have a fundamental difference on how we should stay alive.”
“Which brings us to you and the Bloodline.”
“Yes,” said Voldare. “We agree that our food supply must be regulated, protected. We disagree on how. Those who followed me after the pandemic came from the laboring class, the workers. As humans, they believed hard work was the key to success. They had always been skeptical of science, and now, as a starving vampire race, they were even more suspect. Again, I can’t be judgmental. There are aspects of the Bloodline I find disturbing and ideals of the V.I. I adore. It’s not so clear cut. But what I do know is we cannot accept the V.I. theories without proof. And as of now, they have none.
“We developed a contained zone, keeping the human survivors restricted but comfortable. We gathered shelter and planted crops. We encouraged socializing and mating. We—”
“You farmed humans.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that.”
Sam shivered and wanted to stomp out of the cell. Instead, she let Voldare continue.
“We made their lives as best as we could and we harvested blood from the sick and dying. We never bit a healthy, robust human.”
“Yet. What happens when the survivors continue to die off?”
“They haven’t.”
“But they will,” Sam said. “And then what?”
“Then we will be like the V.I., hunting humans while testing theories.”
Voldare spat the last word from his mouth.
“You’re disagreeing on the worst of two evils.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. All of us, the V.I. and the Bloodline, we’re doing what we need to survive, but it is not our choice to live this way. Silven and I have stood face to face on that battlefield more times than you can imagine. Yes, we fight for our principles and which solution we believe is most viable. But we also fight for the present. The dwindling resources we have right now. However, he has no desire to fix the future, whether that means using the powers we have now or going back and fixing the past. Silven is happy to rule here and now, forever.”
Sam leaned her head back on the wall. The complexity of the situation and her raw emotions made it hard for her to think.
“You’re damned. I’m damned. We’re all doomed.”
“Unless we alter our future—”
“By changing the past,” Sam interrupted. “Stopping the pandemic.”
Voldare nodded and stood.
Just before he left the cell, he quickly shackled her to the wall.
She hadn’t expected that. “Hey!”
“It is for your protection.” He unlocked the cell, stepped out and locked it again.
“We need you, Sam. I need you. The locket doesn’t work for me anymore and I don’t know why. You could be our only chance at survival.”
Sam thought about Voldare’s last comment, hoping the locket would work for her just one more time.
She watched his black overcoat billow out behind him. It folded under as he climbed the steps, yellow wings sprouting from his back.
7
“Does she have it?”
“Of course. Do you think I’d be spending so much time in that filthy cage if she did not?”
Tun leaned back on his stone throne and looked at the others seated at the granite slab. Torches hung from the walls, held by iron plates left over from the mining boom of the nineteenth century. The light flickered on the faces of the Council, Voldare’s closest and most trusted Bloodline warriors.
“Does she know its power?”
“Somewhat,” said Voldare. “She understands it brought her here, but she does not understand how.”
“Does she know the history, the significance of the Locket of Lir?”
“No. I don’t believe she does.”
Tun nodded and the other eight vampires spread out on each side of Voldare did the same. Dripping water landed in a puddle in a far off, unseen tunnel deep in the earth. The sound of it resonated in the chamber like a ticking bomb.
“Are you certain she is not Silven’s plant? She appears fresh, unspoiled.”
“I understand your concern, lieutenant. And based on her physical appearance, you’re correct. She is newly turned and only beginning to understand the vampiric metamorphosis we all experienced so long ago. But I do not believe she is in league with Silven. Vampires in this rotten world, they all have a certain tarnish, regardless of the exterior they project. She does not have that.”
Tun straightened up and looked at his taloned hands before speaking again.
“Is it possible you are charmed by her, maybe not seeing all there is to see?”
Voldare leapt from the chair and grabbed the first lieutenant by the neck. He spun and pinned the vampire against the cold, rock wall of the cave. The lieutenant’s feet dangled a foot from the ground.
“Are you questioning my judgment?” Voldare asked.
Tun gasped, but could not speak with Voldare’s fist clenched around his throat. Instead, he shook his head as much as he could within Voldare’s grip.
“Are you certain? I cannot tolerate disloyalty, questioning from the ranks. If you do so, what does that say to the rest? You all followed me. You trust my leadership. If you want to challenge for the high throne, so be it. If not, I suggest you do not question my motives in dealing with the prisoner, or anything else for that matter.”
Voldare removed his hand from Tun’s throat and the vampire collapsed to the ground. He gasped and wheezed. The lieutenant climbed back to his throne but kept his head down, waiting for his constricted throat to open again.
“Do not mistake my strategies for compassion,” Voldare said, looking from one member of the Council to another. “My aim is to save the Bloodline, not destroy the V.I. I would welcome them with open arms if it meant a future for us all. We are all vampires.”
Those at the table nodded, even Tun.
“And because of that, I will harm no vampire unless it serves us all. That includes the new turn sitting in the cell below the shop. But should she provide us with what we need to survive, I would bring her into the Bloodline as I would any other vampire. As I have with each and every one of you.
“Should the V.I. discover the method to replicate stem cells, or manufacture blood, or whatever it is they seek to do in order to survive, I would consider it. Should our method of controlled breeding prove to be a long-term solution, I know Silven would pay attention. But do not fool yourselves. Neither approach fares well over the next thousand years. The pandemic eliminated our sustenance and the problems we face now will be forever present. There is only one solution. It is what we have sought and it is what Silven will fight against. He believes they will find the science to remain here. Silven has no desire to live any other way.”
“The locket,” said Tun, his voice raspy and raw.
“Yes. The locket. But we’ve known of the locket. We understand its power and how to use it. But we haven’t been able to locate it. Now, it sits on the chest of a fem
ale vamp we have under lock and key.
“Our future is the past. No matter what we do here and now, we will always be trying to make the best out of a hellish existence. Even Silven’s delicacies are nothing compared to what we had prior to the pandemic. Our only chance is to go back and therefore, eliminate our present entirely. That is my aim. It has always been my aim. Warmongers thriving on skirmishes with the V.I. will not solve the problem, only prolong it. I will fight them so long as it makes sense to do so but I will say it again. We are all vampires.”
The members of the Council began to clap, each vampire acknowledging the words spoken by their leader.
“I have no desire to live in this empty and desolate place. I will continue working with the prisoner, the holder of the locket, in order to save us from ourselves. I’m counting on your support and I hope that someday, none of us will ever meet.”
Voldare stood and left the chamber while the rest of the Council stood, clapping each other on the shoulder and chattering about how they would destroy their bleak future. All except Tun, who remained sitting on the stone throne, rubbing the bruises from his neck.
***
The light faded momentarily and Voldare dismissed it. He was no longer hopeful the sun would ever permanently break through the toxic clouds, ever release them from an eternal twilight without rest. A cloud of chemicals passed in front of the sun.
He held the loose chain in his hands, his fingers stopping where the locket used to hang. The tarnish remained but the hasp holding it did not.
And now the locket returns to me, taunting me.
He knew he could not use the locket again. He had tried several times, but the ability to time travel seemed to dissipate with each use, as if its power had gradually faded. Samantha held the charm for the first time and therefore, could take advantage of its full powers. But then it would fade for her as well, as if the locket was designed to protect the user from himself. Samantha might only get one or two more travels and he hoped it would be enough.
