by Amy Cross
“I'm sorry, Izzy,” Gaal continued, holding a pair of long rubber tubes with sharp hooks at the ends, “but the gateway can only be opened with blood.” He limped closer. “All vampires have access to the race memory, but the key to remember is that it's not really a memory at all. It's more like a seam of experience that runs through all of us, a way of going back and seeing everything that has gone before. Some vampires have a stronger sense of this seam than others, and I've always been particularly adept at accessing and controlling the entire experience.” Reaching her, he held the hooks up for her to see. “As my daughter, you must have that same strength. Still, it won't be enough for us to merely sniff at the edges. We have to go to the library, which is where the core of the seam can be found.”
“What do I have to do?” she asked.
“My blood alone would not be enough to open a direct gateway into the library,” he explained. “At least, not one that I can physically go through. Yours, on the other hand, if sufficiently strengthened and amplified, will give me the chance I require. Then I can go back to a key moment and stop my earlier actions. I can change history, so that I no longer commit such terrible crimes.” He paused, seeing the fear in her eyes. “You can still change your mind, Izzy. I won't force you to do anything. If you want to turn around and leave, you can. I'll stay here and try this alone if necessary, even if I die in the attempt.”
She stared at the hooks for a moment.
“Of course,” he added, “your mother would most likely remain lost...”
She took a deep breath. “Exactly what do we do with these things?”
“There's going to be pain, Izzy,” he replied.
She flinched. “Okay.”
“It won't be easy.”
“I know.”
“And you have to trust me.”
She paused, before swallowing hard. “Sure.”
“But if it works,” he continued, “the whole world will change around us. You and I, at the center of the storm, will remember everything. For others, however, it will be as if my worst crimes never happened.” A faint smile flickered across his face. “Can you imagine that? Can you imagine having the opportunity to go back and undo all the cruelty and pain you've inflicted upon others? Can you imagine redeeming yourself in such a pure and powerful manner? No need for petty, groveling apologies. Just action!”
“Maybe we should get started,” she replied, before glancing over her shoulder and once again wondering what had happened to Rita. “I think -”
“Close your eyes.”
She turned back to Gaal.
“Close your eyes, Izzy,” he said again. “I don't know any other way to do this, and it's going to hurt you a great deal. Just remember that all the pain is worth it, and try to focus on the fact that the pain you feel is nothing compared to the pain we're going to wipe from the world.”
“And we get Mom back, right?” she asked, still not quite able to believe that such a thing might be possible.
“Yes,” he said with a smile, “we get your mother back. Now close your eyes.”
After taking a deep breath, Izzy did as she was told. With her eyes closed, she could hear Gaal shuffling closer, and she clenched her fists, ready for the pain. At the same time, she felt her mind reaching out, curling through the darkness as if her consciousness was searching for something. It took only a moment for her to understand that she was searching for Rita, that she was trying to detect her distinctive blood-song somewhere nearby. She felt certain that Rita had been close, perhaps even in the tunnel system, until a moment earlier, when her presence had seemed to vanish without a trace. Almost as if...
Suddenly she felt Gaal placing a hand on her shoulder.
“What -”
Before she could finish, one of the large, sharp metal hooks was pushed straight through the side of her neck. She screamed and opened her eyes as she felt the hook digging into her jugular, but Gaal quickly forced her onto her knees as he twisted the hook around and slid the tip deeper and deeper into her neck.
“Stay strong!” he hissed. “Izzy, the pain is for your mother! Think of her!”
Still screaming, Izzy felt her whole body trembling as the hook gouged all the way down to her chest. A moment later, her father raised the second hook and then forced it into the other side of her neck. Blood erupted from Izzy's mouth as the second hook was twisted and pushed deeper, and she quickly felt the tip grinding against her collarbone as it moved further into her body. With one final twist, however, she saw Gaal standing back, and she reached up with trembling hands to feel the hooks deeply embedded in her body.
“I've been collecting blood,” Gaal explained, limping past her. “So much blood, so much richness and purity.”
Turning, Izzy saw several large plastic containers nearby, and she watched as her father connected the rubber tubes to valves on the containers' sides.
“Vagrants, passersby, people who happened to wander too close to the mining system,” he continued, turning a switch on one of the valves. “They all contributed, in their way. You have no idea how hard it was to save the blood, instead of consuming it and helping my body to heal. The pain in my gut has been immense, but I stayed strong because I knew that this day would come. I knew you, Izzy, would finally be delivered to me, and that we would work together. Father and daughter, as it should be.”
As blood from the containers began to flood into the tubes, Izzy felt a rumbling sensation in her neck. Despite the immense pain, she forced herself to focus on thoughts of her mother.
“The Crucible of Attaroth will act as the key,” Gaal continued, taking the silver bowl and carrying it across the room, before setting it in front of Izzy. “The blood of others will flow through your body, and in doing so it will be changed. It will merge with your own blood, which you will then release into the bowl. The flood will be enough to open a gateway into the great library, and then I – as one whose blood is almost the same as yours – shall pass through that gateway and undo the cruelty I brought to this world. Do you understand, Izzy?”
She tried to reply, but the pain from the hooks was too great. A moment later, she felt blood rushing through the hooks' tips and entering her body.
“Now we must open a route for it all to come washing out,” Gaal told her, wincing with pain as he began to kneel next to her. “The pain isn't over, Izzy, but focus on your mother. Think of her. She'd be so proud of you right now.”
Before Izzy could even try to say anything, she felt a sharp pain running across her left wrist. Looking down, she watched in horror as Gaal sliced a knife's blade through her flesh, causing thick red blood to start running free.
“Into the bowl,” he said firmly, moving her hand down until the blood ran into the Crucible of Attaroth. “Don't waste any. Make sure it all goes into the bowl.” He paused, before cutting her other wrist and setting that, too, over the silver bowl. “I've waited so long for this moment, Izzy. Father and daughter, fighting side by side to make the world a better place. Doesn't that seem somehow right? Don't you feel as if you finally belong?”
Sobbing blood-red tears, Izzy tilted her head back as she felt the relentless rush of blood filling her body, while a pulsing, throbbing pain pushed through her every fiber. After a moment she let out a stuttering, mangled groan of agony, but the pain was too great and she could barely manage to move as blood flowed into her neck and then out through her wrists. Feeling a hand on the top of her head, she forced herself to look up and she immediately saw Gaal's face smiling down at her.
“It's okay,” he said, his voice flickering through the scream that filled Izzy's mind. “You're doing very well. The gateway is already opening.”
Still holding the top of her head, he tilted her face down until she could see blood not only flowing into the silver bowl from her wrists, but also overflowing from the bowl and starting to run through a series of cracks that had been carved into the rocky ground.
Her eyes widened with shock as she saw that the
cracks formed a series of large, interlinked concentric circles. The air all around was starting to flicker with a dancing static charge.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Rita was certainly right about the dynamite,” Natalie pointed out as she climbed over the rocks, shining her flashlight ahead to reveal what was left of the mangled metal door. “Looks like she blew it completely off its hinges.”
“But what happened to her?” John asked, looking around but seeing only rubble and debris. “She can't have...”
He paused, before turning to Natalie.
“What if she didn't manage to -”
“Do you care about some random human,” Natalie continued, “or about the life of the vampire you raised? Not to mention whatever the hell Gaal is planning down there. Besides, humans are ridiculously fragile. It's a miracle Rita lasted as long as she did.”
“I know, but -”
Stopping suddenly, John shone his flashlight down and saw a patch of blood sprayed across the nearby wall. Before he could say anything, he heard a faint, pained gasping sound over his shoulder, and he turned just in time to see that someone was trying to climb out from beneath a pile of rubble.
“Rita?” he called out, hurrying over and pulling one of the rocks away. “Rita, is that -”
Before he could finish, the figure lunged at him, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into the wall.
“You need to get out of here!” O'Malley sneered, with blood flowing freely from a wound on his charred face. “The human bitch gave her life for nothing! Don't interfere in what Gaal is doing, John! For the first time in his miserable life, he's actually trying to set things straight!”
Pushing O'Malley away, John grabbed him by the throat.
“You double-crossing bastard,” he sneered, as O'Malley struggled to get free. “How could you betray us like that? What did Gaal offer you in return?”
“You've always hated him,” O'Malley gasped, too weak to fight back. “With good reason, maybe, but you can't see the truth, John. Gaal's finally trying to do the right thing!”
“Impossible!” John said firmly. “Gaal RaYuul only cares about himself!”
“But couldn't -”
“What's he doing with my daughter?” John shouted, shoving him back against the wall.
“Your daughter?”
“Tell me!”
O'Malley gasped as John squeezed his throat tighter.
“Let him speak,” Natalie said, clambering over to join them. “John, he's trying to say something!”
John squeezed O'Malley's throat for a moment later, before relaxing his grip a little.
“He wants to go back,” O'Malley stammered breathlessly. “Don't you get it? After a lifetime of cruelty and evil, Gaal wants to go back and undo it all, to make himself a good man again.”
“Impossible!” John spat back at him.
“He's going back into the great library!” O'Malley explained. “He tried once before and he failed, but this time he's going to succeed. And when he gets there, he'll find a way to enter the seam of our race memory. From there, he can change his own past.”
“No,” John replied, “he can't. No-one can do that.”
“Gaal can. Face it, he was always smarter than the rest of us. He always decided what he wanted to do first, and then found a way to do it. Before, his strength of will was used for evil, but now he's trying to set everything straight. He needed Izzy's help for that, but if his plan works, everything will change.” He paused, waiting for John to release his throat. “He'll even change it so that Genevieve never died.”
“Liar!” John shouted, pulling him closer and then slamming him even harder against the wall.
“That makes no sense,” Natalie suggested, with a hint of panic in her voice. “The vampire race memory doesn't work like that at all.”
“Gaal found a way,” O'Malley gasped.
“No,” she continued, “he didn't. I've studied vampire traditions, I know enough about race memory to know that there's no way to physically alter the past. Fleeting impressions, glimpsed shadows... That's the limit. No-one can make wholesale changes.”
“She's right,” John said firmly, with his eyes still fixed on O'Malley. “You're lying!”
“I'm not, I swear!” he gasped. “Gaal explained it all, and I also overheard him tell Izzy what he plans to do! He's uncovered the Crucible of Attaroth and he's using that as a conduit to open a gateway into the library. Then he's going to go back and -”
“The Crucible of Attaroth?” John paused, before turning to Natalie. “I thought that thing was lost a long time ago.”
“It was,” she replied cautiously, “but even if he's found it...” She hesitated for a moment, as if she was slowly starting to understand. “The Crucible of Attaroth has nothing to do with the vampire race memory, there's no way in a million years it could work that way.”
“But he explained it all to me,” O'Malley gasped. “He -”
“You're a fool!” John sneered, leaning closer to him. “He lied to you, and you lapped up every word!”
“Then what's he really doing?” Natalie asked.
“I don't know,” John muttered, before pulling O'Malley away from the wall and shoving him toward the mangled metal door, “but this asshole is going to take us where we need to go. Whatever Gaal's doing down there with Izzy, he sure as hell isn't trying to break into the race memory.”
“He's clearly opening a gateway to the library for some reason,” Natalie pointed out. “The question is... Why? And what -”
Before she could finish, she spotted O'Malley lunging at John from behind. Instinctively, she grabbed a broken timber and thrust it at O'Malley's chest, only for him to swat her aside. Grabbing the timber, John turned and sliced it through O'Malley from behind, piercing his heart. Gasping, O'Malley froze for a moment, before slumping down.
“He was starting to annoy me,” John said a little breathlessly, turning and heading toward the metal door. “We have to find Izzy.”
Natalie followed, and the pair of them quickly made their way deeper into the tunnel system, leaving O'Malley's staked corpse on the ground.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“It's working!” Gaal shouted, his voice barely rising above the burst of energy that filled the chamber's far wall. “Izzy, stay strong! We're almost through!”
Still on her knees, with blood pumping faster and faster into her body and then spilling out through the wounds on her wrists, Izzy barely had the strength to open her eyes. Ahead, she could see blood filling the carved pattern on the rocky floor, and she recognized some elements of the pattern from the strange language in John's books. Further ahead, she was just about able to make out Gaal's figure, silhouetted against a vast, bright wall of light.
Blinking as blood trickled from her eyes, she realized that at the heart of the light, she could see the faintest hint of a shadow, as if something was edging closer.
“Keep going!” Gaal called back to her. “Everything's working exactly as I planned! Once I go through, you have to keep the blood flowing, do you understand?”
He waited for a reply, before turning to her.
“Izzy, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she gasped, with blood dribbling down her chin. She was watching the shadows in the light, hoping against hope that one of them might be her mother, even though she knew the idea was insane. “Just bring her back,” she whispered, her eyes closing for a moment as she tried to imagine her mother's return. “Please,” she stammered, opening her eyes again, “bring her back...”
Stepping forward, with the light burning brighter than ever, Gaal had to shield eyes from the intensity of the energy that was now rippling through the air. He stared with a hint of shock at the world he was seeing in the distance, and when he reached forward with his right hand, he felt energy dancing around his fingers, welcoming him to the gateway.
“I made it,” he stammered, as if he could barely believe that his plan had worked. �
��Those fools thought they could keep everybody out of the great library, they thought they'd built an impenetrable wall, but I found a way! There's nothing they can do, no barrier too strong... They should have known from the start that they could never keep me out! I pity them for their lack of faith in me.”
“Where are you?” Izzy asked, as the wall of energy grew and she saw Gaal stepping into another world. Despite the blood in her eyes, she was able to make out what appeared to be...
She frowned.
“Shelves?” she whispered.
“The great source of all vampire history,” Gaal explained, taking another step forward until he felt creaking floorboards beneath his feat. “An annex of the great library, a place where all vampire knowledge is stored. This is the source of our race memory, Izzy. Everything that has ever happened to our species, since the dawn of vampire civilization, is held in the library. That's what the race memory is, really. It's a way to access this information, to live it over and over again. Without this place, the race memory would be gone.” He turned to her and smiled. “It's no wonder the fools worked so hard to keep trespassers out. Anyone with access to this place can change what is known about vampire history.”
“But you're going back...” Izzy gasped, still struggling to remain conscious. “That's why we're doing this... You're going back to change what happened...”
“Nobody can go back, Izzy,” he replied. “That was my original plan, long ago, but eventually I realized that I could use the Crucible of Attaroth to tunnel into the annex. Now that I have access to the root of all vampire knowledge, I can wipe away anything I choose.” He turned and looked around at all the shelves, stretching for miles in every direction beneath a blood-red sky. “I can decide what is remembered, and what is forgotten.”
“You said...” Struggling to fight back against the pain in her chest, Izzy tried to get to her feet, only to find that her knees were too weak. “You said you were going to undo all your cruelty... All your mistakes...”
“I'm going to make people forget them,” he replied. “It's basically the same thing. I'll be able to start again.”
