“Yeah,” her boyfriend said. “Maybe you don’t even realize it yet, but you’ve got answers for us.”
“Answers to what questions?” I asked, drawing closer to Jackson so everyone would know I was with him.
“Like what are we supposed to do,” the Carolina guy said. “I mean, living forever is great, don’t get me wrong. What’s the point? To stay alive—or existing, whatever—as long as possible? It doesn’t seem like enough.” He jerked a thumb back towards the more ancient Nightfallen at the back of the crowd. “I get the feeling unless you’re part of something bigger, you’ll just get bored after a while. It’s important to be part of something bigger than yourself.”
“Yeah. It’s why I was in all those service groups at college,” his girlfriend chimed.
“I’ve lost my sire recently,” a voice called from the front of the crowd. It was the dapper, older guy—Country Club Dumbledore. “I could use some direction, some meaning. Messiahs can usually use helpers.”
“Apostles,” the UNC girl corrected.
The word sent a shockwave through the crowd, and debates whether or not to sign up with the new Church of Jackson Wheel were carried on in whispers.
“I’m Vance,” the Carolina guy said. “This is Zoe. We want to help you. Let us.”
Country Club Dumbledore stepped up. “Me too. I’m Ethan Clarke, at your service.”
Jackson was trying to gracefully edge away.
“You don’t have to make any decisions now. We’ll give you our numbers—just text if you need us,” Vance said.
A voice boomed, and the whispers around us fell silent. “Stop.”
The crowd parted as the three priests approached us. The high priest in the lead pulled back his robe’s hood, revealing a ruggedly handsome face on the one side, an acid scarred one on the other. Hydrochloric or sulfuric would have healed within a few hours with enough fresh blood to drink. Those wounds were clearly from holy water, and would never heal.
“We heard Demarrkad’s vessel—his Oracle. This is one of the Three Sons, who will usher in the destruction of the world. What happens to us when this mortal plane dies?” the high priest asked the crowd. “The answer is obvious, isn’t it? We cease to exist as well. Cease to exist, and are cast into Hell, where we burn forever.”
I could see nods among the crowd. Amazing how quickly people can go from wanting to be converts of a new messiah, to being open to stoning him.
“But the Oracle, in identifying the agents of this world’s destruction, has also given us a means of preventing it,” the high priest said. From his outstretched hand, an emerald energy pulsed beneath his skin. “How, you ask? By simply killing him.”
“Hold on, please,” Ethan said, walking cautiously towards the high priest. With his formal clothes and obvious comfort speaking before a crowd, I had no doubt the old man had been a lawyer in life, and was winding up for a thoughtful defense of Jackson.
He get the chance. The high priest swung his arm around at Ethan almost casually. When his glowing hand connected I heard Ethan’s ribs snap like uncooked spaghetti. He was collapsed with a scream.
Zoe ran to him, pulling Ethan away from the priests. It was an act of seeming selflessness I didn’t understand until realizing that she was trying to protect someone she thought of as a fellow in-group member—another believer in the Three Sons.
Vance, meanwhile, had positioned himself between Jackson and the high priest, fists up like it was going to be a schoolyard scrap. The high priest laughed.
Jackson put his hand on Vance’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” Then he turned to me. “You too,” he said, gesturing me to one side.
“You know, I don’t care what the dead girl said. I’m not much for theological discussion.” Jackson pulled his 1911 from his holster. “A fight I can understand, though.”
“I don’t care how new you are, you do realize that bullets won’t kill us?” he asked.
“No, but .45 ACP does a good job of breaking undead kneecaps, I’ve found. So, come on. Just you and me. Leave your boyfriends out of it,” Jackson said, nodding at the other priests.
The high priest held out his fists, the sinews beneath his skin glowing green again. The air itself seemed to become charged, and I smelled ozone. “I will kill you.”
“Everyone keeps promising me that,” Jackson said.
Both men took a step towards the other before a melodious laugh punctured the night. “Come now, Erasmus, there’s no need for this.”
Both Jackson and the high priest turned as the crowd parted again, this time to let pass the girl from whose dead lips had issued the demon’s prophecy about Jackson.
She walked up to both men confidently, indifferent to how the silk wrap she wore didn’t so much conceal her nudity as highlight it.
“How did you know my name, girl?” the high priest asked. “Once our Dread Lord’s spirit leaves a vessel, you’re no different than any nachtkinder.
“Please, call me Holly. You’re right—in form I am no different,” the girl said, “but did I not have the Great God Demarrkad inside me? How could he not help but leave some pieces of himself behind? Knowledge of your name being but one example.” Holly turned to Jackson, “Knowing something of Sergeant Wheel’s nature being another.”
Even with my unbeating heart, the blood in me ran cold at that comment. Did she know what Jackson really was?
Jackson’s own face was unreadable as she spoke, but he shifted his weight so he was angled at both of them. The better to shoot at Erasmus, and the girl too.
“Our Dread Lord would have known my reaction to the revelation of the Son in our midst,” Erasmus said.
“Maybe he just didn’t care,” Holly said before turning to speak to the crowd. “You heard Demarrkad speak through me! Did it sound to you like our Lord wanted the Son dead? All our fates are sealed—we are all going to burn one day. Don’t you think our torment will be worse, and our day of reckoning come quicker, if we disobey our god?”
Erasmus protested, but the murmur of agreement with the girl was enough for him to know he’d lost his parishioners. “Vox populi,” Erasmus eventually said, the charged, green glow leaving his fists. “At least for the moment.” Then he turned, and lifting his hood over his scarred face, led his fellow priests back into the woods.
4
Deconstructing Prophecy
The next night, Jackson and I were walking Ramsgate’s upper quad. “What do you know about this My Three Sons prophecy?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “The Prophecy of the Three Sons. It’s actually pretty famous among all the vampire races, not just us Mathesons.”
“Okay, but do you know what it means? All that seeds of destruction stuff? Also, if I’m supposedly one of the Three Sons, who are the other two?”
“My kind has been trying to riddle it out since Ur was the world’s Manhattan,” I said.
“Then let’s go find someone that might shed some light on the subject,” Jackson said. “Maybe Claremont can shed some light.”
Outside of Dey Hall, we could see the light in Professor Carolyn Claremont’s office still burning. Jackson threw some pebbles at the window until she finally peered down to see us.
“We need your help,” Jackson shouted to her. “Buzz us in.”
“You could have called first,” Claremont said.
“Actually, we can’t. Kind of like how video can’t record us, phones won’t pick up our voices.” It was true—Alexander Graham Bell hadn’t been much use to the undead, but whoever came up with text messaging would have gotten a medal from us.
“Your voices don’t carry over phones? That’s so fascinating,” Claremont said, her eyes drifting from us as she considered the implications.
“Are you going to let us in or are we going to have to break in again?” I called. The place was hardened against Nightfallen, and it had been a pain burglarizing it before. I decided if she was going to make it hard on us again, I’d use her hide to make some leather
gloves for myself.
Instead, she told us to wait at the front, and with an eventual buzz, the door opened. There were still crosses here and there as we made our way to her third floor office, but Jackson wasn’t affected, and was good enough to cover them for me as I passed.
“Ever hear of something called the Three Sons?” Jackson asked her.
“Certainly. We have an Aramaic version of it in our museum of oddities,” Claremont said. “It’s printed on Dire Wolf leather.”
“Good to know,” Jackson said. “What’s it mean?”
“Prophecies are useless. Fairy tales the weak-willed tell to give themselves some hope about the future, or else amuse themselves by riddling it out. Essentially killing time until the future arrives, and the prophecy can be explained in retrospect,” Claremont sniffed.
“I’d speak with more respect about it if I were you,” I said, flashing some fang.
“You’re going to have to keep this bitch of yours on a collar if you want me to help you,” Claremont said.
“Settle down, Ginny,” Jackson said before turning back to Claremont. “But she’s got a point, Professor Claremont. I don’t think it’s just psychobabble.”
Claremont hesitated, weighing whether to believe us. “Come on, Carolyn,” I said. “Is it any more insane than you holding office hours for two vampires? Is it crazier than any of the artifacts you have in your museum?”
“Those are the present and past, respectively,” Claremont said. “Predicting the future? Another thing entirely.”
“Supposing, though, it was real, I want to know about the Three Sons,” Jackson said. “Has anyone else ever claimed to have been them?”
“Dozens. At least, according legend. Yet the world still abides.”
“You said many have claimed to be one of the Sons. Are you aware of anyone that was identified as one of the Sons?” I asked her.
“Perhaps I’m not understanding you. What do you mean identified?” she asked.
“I mean ID’d like Jackson was last night by the Great God Demarrkad speaking through a newly risen vampire as if she were a puppet,” I said. “Ever hear of that happening before?”
Claremont looked at Jackson. “You’re one of the Three Sons?”
“That’s what a possessed blonde tells me,” Jackson said. “I need to know if it’s true, and if so, what do I do?”
“As I said, I don’t believe in predestination, but if I did, I suppose I’d want to know which son you were. Did this … entity say?”
“No, because that would be too easy,” I said.
Claremont went to a whiteboard and wrote out the prophecy:
There will come Three Sons.
The First Son shall be the son of light
who dwells in darkness, and under his reign
the seeds of destruction shall be sown.
The Second Son shall be the son of darkness
who dwells in the light, and under his reign
the seeds of destruction shall take root.
The Third Son shall be the son of darkness
who dwells in darkness, and under his reign
the seeds of destruction shall bear their fruit.
“Now, we can see several problems in understanding what is actually being discussed here, largely because our terms aren’t defined,” Claremont began, acting much more relaxed and human now that she was in teacher-mode. “We seem to be on firm ground by the use of ‘Son’. We’re clearly talking about males. But whose sons? Are all these sons related? Brothers to one another? Or perhaps some patrilineality—kinship determined by male bloodline?
“The uncertainties only magnify from there,” she continued. “For instance, taking the first substantive stanza, we don’t know what ‘son of light’ means or what ‘dwells in the dark’ refers to—these metaphors are so broad as to be almost meaningless.
“Similarly, what does ‘reign’ mean? Hard to imagine them rising to the level of king in this day and age, but could it mean the presidency, American or otherwise? Or could ‘reign’ just be an artful way of referring to a given Son’s lifetime? Each interpretation is plausible.
“When we come to the real action stanza—where they discuss the ‘seeds of destruction’—note that it doesn’t say the Sons themselves are actually doing the destroying. So, are the Sons really instigators of evil, or do they merely allow it to happen? By choice or by negligence? Again, we don’t know.
“Since vampires are immortal, are the Sons contemporaries or are they separated in time? By decades? Centuries? We don’t even have the barest of timelines here. All the destruction that’s being promised here—what’s to say even if it takes root today that the fruit won’t bloom in a thousand years?” Claremont concluded.
“Isn’t it reasonable to assume that if no one else in history has turned out to be a legit Son, that I’d be the First?” Jackson asked.
“It’s certainly reasonable,” Claremont said. “On the other hand, the First or Second Son may have only gotten started on these seeds of destruction recently, and so we wouldn’t have yet heard about them yet. Meaning, you could just as easily be the Third. Assuming there’s any truth to what you were told—an open question given you claim to have been told this by some lesser Prince of Lies—there’s simply no way of telling which Son you are.”
“He’s got to be the First Son,” I said. “Jackson being identified as a Son was all over the Nightfallen darknet by the time I bedded down last sunrise. Everyone was posting about it. If anyone else had been similarly ID’d as a Son, word would be out already.”
“Okay, so I’m the guy sowing seeds of destruction. Which leads me to my next question, professor,” Jackson said. “Should I lay out in the sun and kill myself?”
“Jackson, don’t,” I said.
“Shut up, Ginny,” he said. “I mean it, professor. Please be honest. Do you think it would save the world?”
She considered the prophecy written on the whiteboard for a moment before giving Jackson her answer. When she did, it was again as a teacher instructing a student.
“Do you see anything there about when the First Son sows—or allows to be sown—those destructive seeds? The beginning, middle, or end of his reign?” Claremont asked.
“No,” Jackson conceded.
“Precisely,” she said. “Killing yourself may not make any difference, Jackson. Whatever is to cause all this destruction, you may have set it in motion already.”
5
The Grayscale World
“What are you going to do?” I asked as we left Dey Hall.
“I don’t know.”
We walked up to Dominion Street. It was getting towards midnight, and all the bars were filled with undergrads.
“I’m disappointed,” he eventually said.
“Disappointed how?”
His big shoulders slouched like Atlas. “That there’s not a clear-cut answer.”
It was true. Jackson wasn’t well suited for a world painted in grayscale. “Clear-cut. Like killing yourself?” I asked.
“It’d be a hero’s death, even if no one knew it.” Jackson shrugged. “I’ve seen good men’s lives pissed away trying to redeem rotten people and worthless cultures. My life to save the world? It’d be a great deal, by comparison.”
“Being dead would put a dent in your whole spy mission, wouldn’t it?”
“Being a spy means just watching while blending in. That consists of keeping my mouth shut and gun holstered while you things murder, rape, and steal. And all the while, I wonder if I’m going to get found out and killed anyway. A blaze of glory to go out on would be better.”
“You heard Claremont. Whatever the Three Sons are ushering in, it could be hundreds years from now. It’s not like a murder-of-the-week cop show where everything gets bundled up in a single story. We’re talking season-long arc, at a minimum,” I said.
A few girls that couldn’t possibly be 21 poured out of a bar. Tight jeans, small tops showing just a hint of midriff
despite the early-spring coolness. No way around it—they were more desirable than me. Forever paused at 16, I probably couldn’t compete against this more ripened fruit, except in a jailbait sort of way. Their skin glowed to me magnificently, as if imbued like a solar cell with all those tanning salons’ energy.
They lit cigarettes and chirped to each other between drags. I could hear them across the street talking about this guy and that. So much laughter. They made me think of an ugly truth that perhaps Jackson needed to see.
“It must be an awesome time for them, riding that carousel of cock,” I said, gesturing at them. One of the girls saw me, gave me a dirty look. I flipped her the bird.
“Jealous?” Jackson asked.
“Not especially. I’m frozen in time. Funny thing, but it makes you more aware of how the years will singe and then immolate those not similarly blessed. Those girls over there? They’ll catch fire too. And sooner than they think.” Yes, first their eggs drying up like ants beneath a magnifying glass, then their skin losing that luster, becoming something closer to worn leather. “They have no idea what’s coming, so why not be disgusting and crude in an effort to lure in guys that don’t give a fuck about you, and waste your clock-running-down beauty on them?”
“So much anger there. Why do you care?”
“I don’t, except for something you probably ought to realize,” I said. “Trashy as they are, they’re better than most. Think of any American inner city you’ve ever seen. Think of all the shitty countries you’ve been dropped into. That’s the world you’d save, or at least a majority of the people in it. So the question is, would it really be that bad if it ended?”
“There’s more to the world than that.”
“You say that like it’s a lie you want to believe.”
“You’re right, it is what I want to believe. I have to believe it. The alternative wouldn’t be killing myself. It would be killing everyone else. Starting with you,” he said.
He looked over Dominion Street, all the tool guys and slutty girls. I could see the young life flowing through them—they all glowed like fireflies, flitting about on a summer night.
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