“In trouble, but we’re going to save him,” Jackson said before turning back to Holly. “I’m going after Erasmus—it’ll be the distraction you need. As soon as you hear all hell breaking loose, you and Zoe smash the door over there into pieces—make some ad hoc stakes. Hopefully I’ll have killed Erasmus by then, and the other two will be distracted enough you can stab them in the back before they kill me. Clear?”
“What should I do?” I asked.
He handed me his knife. “You’re with me. When I make my entrance, they’ll all converge on me. Cut loose Ethan and Vance as things get messy. If I’m wrong about Erasmus’s limits, you, Zoe, and Holly will need all the help you can get if you’re to have any chance of getting out of here.”
It amazed me he cared for bloodsuckers like us, but I suppose he saw us as his followers, and so his responsibility.
Jackson pulled his .45, and we raced through the half-open door down a long, torch-lit hall. It was lined by other doors, and while the screams had slackened, there was a stench in the hall that only became stronger as we continued on towards the last entryway.
Together, Jackson and I crashed through the door, splintering its great lock. Inside, we found a torture chamber far less elegant than the dungeon I’d been held in. The walls were thick with the accumulated viscera of ages. This was the Demarrkad priests’ meat locker, where they would keep the living and undead alike. Cages were suspended from the ceiling, some still holding the remains of humans dead a year or more.
On what looked like medieval racks were Ethan and Vance. Stripped naked, Brothers Marc and Matthew had been driving hot iron pokers into their undead flesh. Ethan, such a dandy, and Vance, so handsome, each had at a half-dozen pieces of metal sticking out from their torsos, groins and legs such that they looked like insects kept under glass. They writhed in agony.
The lesser priests were still standing by their victims, Erasmus closest to the entrance.
His face twisted in rage at seeing us, and the veins of his hands ignited verdant.
Jackson pushed me to one side. “Come on,” he said to Erasmus.
The high priest lunged at him with a subhuman growl that seemed unfitting for a vampire so old. His hands stiffened to talons, and drove at Jackson’s chest.
Jackson reached up with his left hand, ignoring the agony he must have felt from the wound to his arm, and caught Erasmus’s by the wrist. Erasmus tried but couldn’t pull away. Jackson sneered at him. “Something wrong?”
The other priests converged on Jackson while I raced towards Vance and Ethan. Cutting them loose wouldn’t do any good if they were still impaled to their racks, and their screams renewed as I began ripping the iron rods from them.
Meanwhile, confusion washed over Erasmus’s face, and he stabbed with his still-free hand towards Jackson heart—only to have his fingers, throbbing with magic, bend backwards as they struck his chest bone.
Erasmus screamed. At least one of his brittle finger bones had been broken. He stared at Jackson, horrified. “It can’t be—it works on any nachtkinder, regardless of race. Unless …”
I wonder if he too began to suspect what Jackson really was. If he did, he never had a chance to finish. With his right hand, Jackson shoved his .45 at Erasmus’s chest—the high priest’s body was so physically weak that its outer layers of flesh actually gave way like gelatin to the gun’s barrel. Then he pulled the trigger, and through Erasmus’s torso, his hideous skin thin as a paper lantern, I could see the muzzle flash silhouetting the high priest’s ribs.
The shot spun Erasmus around. His back, and the massive exit wound, were now facing Jackson. Frail as his body was, the iron will that had allowed Erasmus to survive whatever tortures had wrecked his body kept him on his feet, calling to his fellow priests.
That yawning wound in Erasmus’s back must have been too inviting—with his free hand, Jackson punched into it, the blood of his wounded arm mingled with that of the high priest.
The brother priests stopped, staring at something they in their centuries had never seen. Inside Erasmus, Jackson felt around as though looking for change between sofa cushions, and finding it, pulled.
Out came the high priest of Demarrkad’s withered heart. It glowed brightly with that same strange, green energy that had churned in Erasmus’s veins. Jackson was laughing as he squeezed the thing to a pulp, threw it on the ground and stomped on it.
Not quite a traditional stake-through-the-heart, but just as effective. The light dimmed in Erasmus’s body as he collapsed dead onto the flagstones.
The other priests had recovered themselves and pressed their attack. Jackson placed a few shots into them but none connected with a knee or other joint that might have slowed them down. They careened into him, and his 1911 went spinning across the floor.
Each holding a long, splintered piece of door, Zoe and Holly now rushed in while the priests had Jackson pinned to the floor. Holly managed to stab one in the back but missed the heart, while Zoe’s stab was slapped away.
I’d yanked the pokers from Ethan and Vance by then, and cut them loose from the rack. Without blood, they wouldn’t heal in enough time to make any difference in this fight. I left them to try to help Holly and Zoe. The one priest, though, took the stake he’d slapped from Zoe and threw it at her. It impaled Zoe in the stomach with such force that she dropped to the floor at once.
Running by Zoe, I ripped the makeshift stake from her guts, trying to press on the attack.
Then I saw a green glow throb in Jackson’s hands.
The priests had each kept a foot on him, crushing Jackson in place as they dealt with Holly and Zoe’s attack. They hadn’t noticed the verdant light that was slowly starting to stream in Jackson veins. His shirt was off, and I could see that energy making its way around his body.
He saw it too, and almost as an experiment, grabbed by the ankle one of the feet that was pinning him, and twisted.
The one priest went down with a shriek, his ankle crushed like a soda can. The other priest looked down, but before he could get away, Jackson had placed a hand on his kneecap, and then pushed. The priest’s knee cracked and bent in the opposite direction.
Jackson stood up, still shaken from their attack, and shaken too by the energy that was now coursing through him.
Vance crawled over to Zoe and they held each other, the blood of their wounds running together. Ethan propped himself on his rack, looking at Jackson with sufficient awe that for the moment at least he forgot his own incredible pain.
Holly, too, looked at Jackson like a risen god. “I knew it. I knew my visions were right.”
“Enough of that,” he said, then kneeled between the two writhing priests. His hands’ veins still glowing, he pressed gently on both their chests, but each priest acted as though a Hummer had been parked on them. “Ginny, Holly, go see about getting some blood for our wounded. As for Vance and Ethan, I think some payback is in order. Grab some pokers, gentlemen. I’ll see to it that these two aren’t going anywhere. You can take as long as you want.”
12
Epilogue
A few weeks later, a full moon was rising over the same hill where Holly had first made her prophecy about Jackson. Where we’d first met Ethan, Vance and Zoe, and later where I’d found Holly again with her stack of deer heads. How time had flown by.
The six of us had taken up residence in the Black Ziggurat.
Eerie as it was I was grateful to have someplace more luxurious, not to mention protected from the sun, than a foreclosed house to stay in. To Jackson, it was a potential treasure trove of enemy intel, while to Holly, a place to research her visions while keeping tabs on Jackson. For the others, I suspect it was symbol of the purpose they’d been seeking. After all, Jackson had a new role, and they did too because of him.
“High priest? Quite a ways from soldier and spy,” I’d said to him not long after we’d finished the other two priests. By Jackson’s order, Zoe and Holly were cleaning out the priest’s charnel pit dungeon.
Ethan and Vance, meanwhile, had been assigned to fishing duty, using chunks from the priests’ bodies as bait for the iridescent lake monsters.
We’d stood at the entrance to the cave watching the two men on the bridge take turns shooting into the waters below us.
“I’m still a spy. Just pretending to be a priest now.” He’d held up his hand. The energy coursed visibly through his veins before he let it die down again. “And now featuring some new weaponry.”
“Between priesthood, being the star of a prophecy about world destruction, and getting devil-fueled magical powers, your bosses might start to wonder about you.”
“I’m sure they would, if I were going to tell Langley or the Pentagon any of this.”
So he was keeping secrets from his own people now? For the moment, that was good enough for me.
With the Black Ziggurat our home, we’d spent the rest of the time getting prepped. Priestly leadership might pass to whoever rips the heart out of the person that formerly held the post, but that doesn’t mean you actually know how to do the job. So we’d practiced, running through rituals and ceremonies like we were getting ready for a Broadway musical. I could tell Jackson didn’t like it, worshipping as gods the devils he hadn’t even heard about in Sunday school. With my help, he did a decent job of faking it, though.
Now it was show time.
“Ready?” I asked him. This was a regular Black Mass, performed on the night of a full moon. Not nearly as big a draw as Endet Hibernis, so a good, more intimate venue for making the new order known.
Jackson was in his high priest robes. Holly and I were set to lead out first. Vance, Zoe, and Ethan were in the crowd, undercover security.
“Always. You?” Jackson asked.
“Don’t I look ready?” I asked. Holly and I were in our matching, diaphanous priestess robes, primed to make an impression.
We headed up the hill to the altar rock. Coming over the crest, the crowd whispered when they saw us.
Something new on the horizon.
• • •
Author’s Note
Before beginning a series, I like to test the idea out, do a short story to see how it feels. It’s my way of quickly seeing whether this is a world my readers and I will want to explore, and characters we’ll want to hang out with. What follows is the prototype story for Nightfallen.
A lot of what would eventually become Nightfallen is in this first story. A human soldier pretending to be a vampire. Different vampire races. The moral ambiguity of the spy. Yet you’ll notice differences too.
“Nightside” instead of “Nightfallen” is used to describe the transformation from mortal to vampire—before I went to Amazon and discovered another series trading under that name, I was going to call the whole thing Nightside. Another obvious difference is that our series’ hostess, the cute yet deadly Virginia Dare Weston, doesn’t make an appearance.
A more subtle one is that our unnamed narrator, while undercover military like Jackson Wheel, clearly isn’t the same man as Nightfallen’s male lead. Jackson, though dropped in the same morally bleak underworld, retains some hope. Perhaps this isn’t surprising. Despite the odds and his orders, he typically finds a way to save human lives.
The character in the story you’re about to read? I get the sense he’s been out in the cold longer. More beaten down by his mission.
In a way, he’s Jackson Wheel if he didn’t have Ginny.
Yes, Ginny has her own agenda. Worse, she’s a killer. But besides helping him navigate the Nightfallen’s world, her companionship—friendship?—reminds Jackson of who he is, and what he isn’t.
She’s a monster that, despite her best efforts, helps our hero remain human.
Silas Schvercraft
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania
July 2015
Bonus Story:
A Drive in the Rain
“I’ve got to kill my dad,” Mansfield says to me. “I know he won’t stay dead, of course. But still. Kinda sucks.”
“Yeah, I imagine it would,” I say, though really I’m surprised he’s bothered at all. Vampires generally don’t give a shit about the hurt they inflict.
We’re in Mansfield’s apartment—or more accurately, the apartment that belonged to some Wall Street tool he’d kill last night. Mansfield would probably hangout here through the weekend before the dead guy’s next of kin started wondering why calls weren’t being returned. Then it’d be time to move on, such being the vagabond existence of the modern undead.
But in the meantime, the place is thirty-stories up, and Mansfield is looking out the window. Skyscrapers stab at the night sky. It’s raining, and every once in a while, lightning silhouettes the City.
I can see his reflection in the window. This isn’t surprising. There’s an entire vampire pantheon, each type with its own abilities and limitations. According to the handful of Defense Department personnel that know vampires exist outside of teenage chick lit, Mansfield would qualify as a Matheson class.
They’re strong—some can press two tons—and can more easily pass for human because unlike a Stoker or Whedon class, they show-up in mirrors and photographs. Plus, Mathesons can take about 30 seconds worth of sunlight before combusting, and aren’t quite as vulnerable to crosses.
So it’s no surprise that I can see Mansfield’s reflection. And Mansfield isn’t surprised to see mine, since I’m supposed to be a Matheson class too.
That’s the gag. I’m not really undead. Just under cover.
“Why now?” I ask him. “You’ve been on the nightside since the ’90s.” Most of the undead I’ve met have mommy or daddy issues. They tend to murder parents shortly after returning from the grave.
“Old habits. I procrastinated when I was alive, too.”
“Doesn’t really answer the question. I mean, you could keep procrastinating.” I hope he does. I’m getting really tired of watching people die.
“No,” he says. “Times running out. I follow him every couple of months, just to see how he’s doing. It’s funny. I could see him becoming more and more gray, and losing his hair over the years, but it never hit me until I saw him last night. He was walking into a hospital, and I watched him holding the rail as he went up the steps like he’d fall off the face of the Earth without it. And it was the first time I realized that he was actually old. I’d never thought of him being capable of dying before.”
“Maybe he’s just got the flu.”
“Who goes to the hospital at night unless it’s serious? No, I was close enough to smell the cancer inside him. Kind of like meat that’s a day past its sell-by date, you can just tell the difference.”
“Guess you had a good relationship with your father,” I say, mainly to try to keep humanizing the old man to Mansfield.
It doesn’t do any good. “He raised me after mom walked—I owe it to him to save him.” Checking his pocket watch, he says, “No time like the present. Want to come with?”
Not really. “Sure,” I say. We hop in a Benz whose owner Mansfield killed a few nights ago, and cut out for the suburbs.
I watch the City pass by. I only see it at night anymore. Wasn’t always this way. I remember the sun in Iraq, how at high noon it made the land look like a crematory oven’s blasted interior. That was years ago. But I’m still a soldier, still following orders. I’m just behind enemy lines now, a forward observer doing recon.
Spliced genes, nanites, and bionic implants—this is my comic book life. Unlike the Army, I no longer carry my equipment anymore because it’s inside me. Actually, it is me. It lets me pass as one of them.
But I’ve also got to act like them as well, which is harder. They have no limits because they lose their souls when they go nightside. It’s why they’re all so scared of permanent death. They know Hell is real, and that’s where they go if they’re suntanned, decapped or staked.
“This is it,” Mansfield says.
It’s a battered ranch house, but the lawn’s still meticulously kept. From the fr
ont steps’ railing, an Islanders flag flies next to an American one. Perfectly lower-middle class. It’s hard to imagine a fop like Mansfield growing up here.
“You know, you don’t have to do this tonight,” I say. “Have you even thought about how you’re going to get invited in?”
“I was thinking about turfing the lawn. When he comes out, probably with a shotgun, I’d get him then. Really, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I’m getting that.”
“Hey, do me a favor. Can you change him for me?”
Oh Christ. “Isn’t that more of a son’s responsibility?”
“I just can’t do it right now. Come on, man—please?”
I can turn him down. Then what? Some other night, he’ll come out here knowing not to bring a buzzkill like me. And boom, he turns his father into another monster that spends an eternity maiming and killing, and occasionally turning others into monsters besides.
One way or another, the old man is dead. The only question at this point is whether anyone else has to die as result.
“Fine, I’ll do it.” As I approach the house, I see a union decal and a NRA sticker on the storm door. The former isn’t surprising. The guy probably retired before all the union jobs went to India. The latter gets my attention. Not many Second Amendment voters this close to the City, but if he’s armed, that may be useful when the times comes.
Vampires can’t enter a home unless they’re invited in by the owner. Being human, I don’t have that limitation, but I can’t just bust in home invasion-style or Mansfield will get suspicious.
There’s some street traffic, so I head around back. I pick up a rock from the garden, toss it through what I figure is the bedroom window.
Lucky. The room’s light comes on almost instantly. The curtains are pulled back, and I see an old man peering through the broken glass.
I don’t run or hide. I’m on the brick patio, just standing there, a shadow a few shades darker than his backyard.
The old man turns on the exterior light to illuminate his target. He’s smart, knows not to turn on the kitchen light as he opens the back door so that he’s not silhouetted. I’m so impressed that I wonder whether he’s ex-military or if he’s just street smart like all guys born before the ’50s were, before the culture got all pussified.
Nightfallen (Vol. 1): Books 1-4 Page 19
