Someone like Draven. But a Second Order Superior, of course. Thirds were superfluous, non-entities. No harm in taking pity on a promising one every now and then, giving him a little boost. Especially when the Third proved useful, and it became convenient or beneficial to Byron’s job to have him around. Like now. Having a Third around on dangerous missions had become the norm—to distract or be used as a decoy, or to protect the Enforcer. And Draven had proved good company, too, for the most part. A little discontent and restless, but that could work to Byron’s advantage in getting Draven to do something he wasn’t keen on doing. Most Thirds didn’t know anything, anyway, not even about their true natures. They’d believe any line from a Second.
Byron watched Draven dressing, almost disappointed at losing the sight. With his clothes on, Draven didn’t look too special. Just another expendable Third. Too bad they hadn’t figured out a way to make Thirds evolve without the need to feed. That would really come in handy—a killing machine that needed no fuel.
Draven came up the dune, his wet hair clinging to his face. He didn’t look like a killing machine. He looked grateful and wanting at once. The pathetic face of the Third Order.
45
They had skipped the usual talk at the beginning of their walk, since the storm had blown up. Now Byron caught up to Draven. Draven noticed that although his friend was older and therefore stronger, he had become a bit slower than Draven for a few days. The animal blood had kept Draven in fair shape, although it had the unpleasant side effect of causing him to be sick every evening when he woke. He rid himself of the foreign substances that he couldn’t use, but still he stayed stronger from what he absorbed.
“We’re close,” Byron said.
“We’ve been close for many days.”
“Now we’re very close. We must move silently, be alert. We’re nearly on him now. Tonight we will catch him, or he will catch us.”
“We have to kill him, don’t we?”
“Do you want to bring a bound prisoner back, over all the miles we’ve covered?”
The men moved on, scanning and alert, wooden short-swords in their hands. Draven stopped even his breathing and strained with every sense he had, casting as far as he could, but found no trace of another being. They crept silently onward until Byron lifted a hand. He stood looking at the screen of his pod.
“He is here,” Byron whispered, his voice barely discernible in the silence.
Draven looked around, felt for a shape, a sound, but his senses detected nothing.
“He should be right here,” Byron repeated. He and Draven both turned, finding nothing but sand.
“I don’t sense anything,” Draven said, and then all at once he caught the sound of grains of sand brushing together, the scent of Ander, a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. Before he could turn to face the man, Ander rose up out of the sand and drew a dagger across Byron’s throat.
Blood dribbled from the Enforcer’s throat, but Draven had only a moment to notice before he faced Ander on his own. Ander let Byron’s body crumple and fall to the sand. In the moment when he released the body, Draven sprang at him. The wooden blade drove into Ander, tore his shirt and sank into his flesh. But even as the knife entered the man’s body, Draven knew he had not dealt a fatal blow. Ander had turned while Draven leapt through the air, and Draven hadn’t had time to correct his aim. Ander screamed as the knife sliced into his abdomen. Byron hadn’t made a sound.
Draven had the advantage of striking first, but Ander was stronger, and he swung his dagger at Draven with incredible force as he dropped to his knees. Draven blocked the blow with his wooden dagger, and the two men stabbed at each other, Ander using only one arm and holding the other close to his side. He dove forward onto his feet, thrusting his dagger at Draven, and when Draven blocked the blow with his own, the force of the collision sent a cracking sound into the stillness of the desert around them. In the peaceful silence of the night, the two men struggled.
It wasn’t until the daggers met again that Draven realized the source of the cracking sound. His wooden sword, his beautiful, gleaming knife, had split. A few more clashes and the thing gave way entirely, leaving only a splintered stump. Ander stopped, stepped back from Draven, and laughed.
“Now I have you, little yes-man,” Ander said. “Did you really think I’d let a scrawny Third Order puppet be the end of me? You’re a flea on my side, nothing more.”
Draven knew the incredible pain of a wood-inflicted wound, and he had to admire the bravery of his enemy. He had brought three weak saps around a building after his injury and received praise for it. This man could kill another Superior with one arm after sustaining a similar wound.
Ander dove at Draven, and Draven held up what remained of his weapon, but Ander soon stripped him of even that. Ander slashed at Draven, slicing the wooden handle from his hand and opening his arm from wrist to elbow with one strike of his steel dagger. Then Ander fell on him. Draven was no match for the sheer strength of the older man, wounded or no.
Ander sunk his long dagger into Draven, and for a moment Draven thought through the blinding pain that the man had missed. He’d sunk the dagger into the soft flesh on the inside of the shoulder, pinning Draven to the sand. But Draven soon saw that it was no accident. The man Ander did not miss when he aimed. He sat and pulled another steel dagger from his belt and sank it into Draven’s other side, pinning him to the wet sand, both his arms incapacitated and nearly separated from his body. Draven screamed then, but he hardly heard the sound.
“I will enjoy this next part,” Ander said, leering at Draven. Then the large man leaned down and sank his teeth into Draven’s neck.
The life began draining from Draven. In the desert brightness, he watched the snake tattoos slithering across Ander’s skull. He wondered in his delirium if homo-sapiens felt that way when Superiors drew from them. Had Cali felt this when he bit her neck? Surely it hadn’t hurt this much. She could not have borne the pain without screaming. He could not.
He didn’t know how long Ander took life from him. The pain stretched in all directions, like the desert, as did terror that knew neither beginning nor end nor boundary. He could not remember a time before the horror or imagine one after. He knew only the panic of his life draining away and of being pinned, helpless, while it happened.
A shadow rose up behind Ander. Draven saw it before Ander sensed it, only because the man had focused his attention on Draven’s torment. Because, in his arrogance, he thought he had killed one man already.
Byron had no weapon, but he had his body, and he flung it upon Ander. Ander sat up, his blood-streaked face a mask of pain and fury, and let out an animal roar before turning on his attacker. Draven could see, even while pinned to the earth, that Byron’s injury still incapacitated him, and that Ander enjoyed the same advantage that he had with Draven. Ander would gain even greater strength after tonight. After feeding from two of his own kind, he’d gain unimaginable strength.
Draven registered his brief moment of freedom and saw that only the steel blades held him to the sand and not the strength and weight of Ander. He wrenched against the restraints, felt his flesh tear and the flood of pain burning him clean. He gave himself only a second to recover, then threw himself up against the hilts of the daggers and broke free. He reached out and found the hilt of his own weapon, the splintered wooden handle. He struggled to stand without much use in either arm, but when he saw Ander holding Byron, and the way Byron lay limp in Ander’s arms, he gave up on standing and crawled across the sand on his knees.
Ander deposited the limp body of Byron into the sand. Draven could see his friend’s head lolling back, half separated from the body. His glance flitted from his friend to his enemy, and a blind rage encompassed him. This man preyed on humans, and that was bad enough. But now he had killed and cannibalized Draven’s friend and mentor, and would do the same to Draven without hesitation.
But again the man’s arrogance played against him. He had assumed D
raven lacked the strength or will, having lost so much blood and being in such pain. He had turned to finish off Byron, assuming his prisoner would remain pinned to the sand when he turned back. Instead, Draven knelt behind him.
This time, Ander did not stop to deliver a blow. He opened his bloodstained mouth in a roar of rage, meaning to latch onto Draven again. But when the blood-soaked mouth came at him, gnashing teeth glinting in the darkness, Draven drove the splintered end of his dagger into the gaping maw.
Ander’s scream of fury mixed with disbelief and pain this time, and he fell back, clawing at the protruding wooden instrument. Draven held tight to the hilt and jerked it back from Ander’s mouth, afraid the man would retrieve it and turn it against him. He drew out the wood, slick with blood, the sharp splinters mimicking Ander’s teeth only moments before. He drove the hilt into the man’s chest. Before Ander could recover from the blow, Draven yanked it out and buried it in the man’s neck, then his throat, his mouth, and his chest again.
He used every bit of strength he had, only vaguely aware of the nuisance of the two steel daggers keeping him from his usual range of motion. He didn’t feel the pain anymore, only the endless drive that had replaced it. He held onto that, knowing that when the pain returned, it would paralyze him. Only after Ander had lain still for several minutes did Draven’s blows begin to ebb, and he plunged the splintered wood into the gaping, bloody cavern that had been Ander’s chest before rolling away and surrendering to his own pain again.
Draven lay in the sand for quite some time, breathing again, breathing in the cool night air that became cold and then frigid. He moved nothing but his lungs. Pain seared through his chest. A movement caught his eye, and if it had been Ander, Draven would not have had strength to fight again, not even for one more breath.
When at last he turned his eyes to the sound, he found his friend with his face in Ander’s chest.
He had to work to form words, to put them together into a sentence. “What are you doing?”
Byron lifted his head and croaked, “I’m taking back what he took from me.”
Through the pain, Draven’s mind swam with sickness at the thought. “But…he is…one of us.”
“And he drank the life from me. If I want to live, I need the strength to do it.”
“But…that is…cannibalism.”
“You were once only a sap, and yet you eat from them without thought.”
“I…am not…sap…now.”
“No, but you were once a lowly creature like them. And now you are better, and you take the advantage you are given. Now Ander isn’t one of us, because he’s dead. So I take the advantage, because I want to live. See how much stronger I am now than you? Come and take back what he has taken from you.”
Draven struggled to find an argument, but the throbbing in his shoulders clouded his mind. He reached up with both hands and clutched the hilt of one of the steel blades before resting. When he had summoned every bit of his energy, he tugged on the dagger until it slid from his flesh. He lay on the sand and let dry sobs wrack his body. Then he pulled the other dagger in the same manner. Blood ran from the openings where the swords had been. The blood trickled away, and in the same slow way, Draven lost himself and slept, the last thoughts flowing away with the trickle of blood filtering down into the desert sand.
46
Draven woke with a hunger he hadn’t known possible. He found his pack in the tent with him, tore it open, and ripped the seal off a bag of powdered sap. He poured the contents into his dry mouth, and then another packet, and then another. After five packets, he unzipped his tent and stumbled out.
Byron sat nearby. He’d found a supply of wood somewhere and built a fire against the chill of the night. A pile of twisted dry branches lay behind him.
“Ah, my friend, you rise again. Bring your pack and come sit by the fire.”
Draven obeyed and sat on his pack across the fire from Byron. His friend looked as he always had, healthy and strong and noble. “How long have I slept?” Draven asked.
“Three days and three nights.”
“I need water.”
“Yes, here,” Byron said, handing Draven a bottle of water. “While you slept I scouted the area. I found water about a night’s walk from here.”
“You left me sleeping out here alone?”
Byron laughed. “Nothing is out here that can harm you now, soldier. You have disposed of the enemy.”
Draven hadn’t forgotten the night of his injury, but he started at the reminder. “I killed a man,” he said, trying to make himself believe by saying it aloud.
“You killed Ander. That was our assignment. You have more than fulfilled your obligation. Without your courage, we would both be dead.”
“My courage? Your neck was slit and you took him from me when he was draining me like a sap.” Draven touched his neck where Ander had left a gaping hole. He’d taken a chunk of flesh from Draven that hadn’t grown back yet.
“There was that. But you stayed alive until then, and you killed him while I lay in the sand doing nothing.”
“Yes. I did that.”
“Yes, you did. And don’t ever say you’re like a sap. You’re a courageous, brave soldier. Not one of those sniveling, repulsive brutes. Here, I have a bottle of wine. Let us celebrate. I’ve been saving it for this night.”
“Thank you, no. Now that I have water, I believe I’ll mix more sap. If I’d known you had wine I would have drunk it days ago. We were parched.”
“I saved it for a victory. I waited for you to wake before I opened it.” Byron opened the wine and held it out. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I do not like having waste.”
“All right soldier. I will celebrate our victory my way and you can do it your way.”
Draven retrieved two more packets of sap, wondering if his bottomless hunger would ever fade. He didn’t feel like celebrating. He had killed a man. He didn’t like knowing he had done such a thing, even to a man like Ander. And in such a horrible, savage manner. He always tried to avoid hurting saps, didn’t like to see animals suffer. And yet he had brutally stabbed a man to death with a splintered piece of wood.
Still, a sense of relief had begun to build in Draven. He had finished the task he’d set out to accomplish, even if he didn’t like to think of the manner in which he’d done it. He would receive his payment—a lot of payment. He would purchase Cali and procure a home that accommodated livestock. He would buy her caramels whenever she wanted them, and draw from the most delectable source he’d ever imagined. Just thinking of it made his teeth throb.
After mixing the packets in a bottle of water, Draven resumed his seat. Byron drank the wine and Draven drank two bottles of reconstituted sap. After a time, Byron threw a piece of wood on the fire. “Can I ask you a question, sir?” Draven asked.
“Anything, soldier. What is it you want to know?”
“Why do you hate saps so much? I think they are…mouthwatering,” Draven said, the roots of his sensitive teeth singing with memory.
Byron laughed without mirth. “Everyone experiences the world differently, Draven.” He took a drink of wine from the bottle. His voice sounded thicker than when he’d started drinking. Neither man said anything for a long time. Byron drank the wine, and Draven sat looking at the fire, wondering if he should let himself drink more sap. He thought his hunger would never end, and though he’d slept enough for a week, exhaustion still weighed on his limbs.
When Byron spoke, Draven started. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts he’d almost forgotten the drunken man on the other side of the fire. “You can’t understand, you can’t know what it was like,” Byron said, his voice almost a sob. “You don’t know. For you it was easy and civilized, and I know, because I evolved some of you and I monitored the ones I changed, and I helped them to get through it, Draven, I helped so nothing would happen like it happened to me. It was terrible, I did a terrible, terrible thing and I didn’t know.”
“Wha
t…what did you do?” Draven asked, not sure he wanted to know.
“When they did it, the First Order, they did it so fast, and without any preparation, and we didn’t know. Most of us didn’t even know such a thing existed, what we are now, people didn’t know about it. I didn’t know. I’d heard stories, but they were legend, tall tales. And they came in the night to kill us, to kill everyone, or we thought they were killing us. Except the children. They killed everyone but the children, when we were sleeping or sitting at home watching the news, they came in silent like armies and they killed us, and some of us killed them too, and that’s why most of the First Order are dead. That, and the War, and not many of them to start.”
“How…I mean…they didn’t really kill you. They just evolved you. I thought it was a good thing.”
“It is, now. But then…we were humans, you know, stupid and scared and weak. They came and they killed us, or we thought they had, but they’d just changed us, the ones they wanted to evolve, mostly the men and some women, the ones who looked strong or pretty, and then they let us go. I didn’t know what happened, I didn’t know what I was. I thought I’d been killed, but then I woke up, so I knew I hadn’t died. I was mad, crazy, you know. And others, the other new Superiors, they were mad, too, everyone was running mad and scared because no one told us what was happening. And we all wanted something, we were hungry and we wanted to eat but we didn’t know what it was we wanted. That’s how they planned it, you see. They changed enough of us and let us go to kill everyone else. And we did.”
“You killed Superiors?”
“No, not until later, not until the Hundred Year War. Then I killed a lot of people. But at first, we only killed the humans. They owned the earth. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what the world would be like if the saps ruled everything?”
“I’ve heard tales, of course. But no, I can’t quite imagine.”
Blood Moon: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Vampire Novel (The Superiors Book 1) Page 25
