Echoes & Silence Part 1

by Angela M Hudson

  “It puts you both at risk,” Arthur added, laying the scalpel aside.

  “Well, why would the baby get stuck?” I asked, kind of laughing.

  “Many reasons,” Falcon said. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now. And you needn’t worry yourself. That’s our job.”

  “And, based on the mess you were in after you fell from the lighthouse, Amara, it’s my opinion that, if enough force were used, we could break through your skin.” Arthur considered me for a second. “I’m just not willing to test that right now without good reason.”

  “On that note”—I went to hop down but paused, holding the sheet tightly around my waist with one fist—“can I go get dressed now, if you’re finished trying to cut rashers out of me?”

  “Of course,” Arthur said, looking at the screen again. “Then come back and I’ll show you your baby’s first pictures.”

  * * *

  “Oh my God!” Emily covered her mouth with both hands, slumping heavily down on the kitchen chair. “How did you not die of embarrassment?”

  “It wasn’t that bad, Emily,” I said, but the heat in my cheeks moved up into my ears, melting my hair. “Besides, look what I got.”

  She snatched the flimsy square page from my hand and her eyes went wide and sparkly. “Aw…”

  “That’s pretty incredible,” Blade said, leaning in to look.

  “I know, right.”

  “Now you make me want a baby,” Emily cooed.

  Blade laughed and plucked the picture from her fingertips, passing it back to me. “Congrats, Ara. She looks lovely.”

  “Like a lovely little alien-monkey,” Em said, dreamy-eyed, and I knew that was a compliment.

  “I am worried about her size, though.” I tucked the picture back into my pocket.

  “Start eating more then,” Blade said, motioning a hand to my body and then the fridge. “You’re a bit skinny these days.”

  “I know.” I pinched my hip. “I do eat, though. But I’m not really putting on weight.”

  “Why?” Em asked.

  “Arthur says it’s my metabolism. That both pregnancy and immortality naturally burn more energy. So I need to be eating for, like… ten.”

  Em leaned on her hand, sighing. “Lucky. At least you can have babies.”

  “You can, too,” I said. “I could reverse you and then change you back once the baby was born.”

  She shook her head. “I’d lose my human compassion.”

  “Why?” I frowned, then it clicked. She fell in love with Mike while he was still human enough for that compassion to set it. But she loved Blade now, and he wasn’t human, and never could be, given that my venom had absolutely no effect on Lilithians. If I turned her back later, she’d be a very different person, er… vampire.

  Blade took her hand and kissed it. “If we ever get married, maybe we can adopt.”

  Em’s eyes were on me when he said that, so I saw them brighten suddenly, a big smile sweeping her lips before she masked it and shrugged casually at Blade. “If we ever get married. But you’d have to ask me first.”

  My cocky, confident knight turned to jello then, sending his bashful smile to his lap and leaving it there.

  “Falcon’s gonna deliver the baby,” I said quickly to switch the focus.

  “I know,” Em said. “He’s been training for months.”

  “How come everyone knew about this but me?”

  Blade slid the teapot over. “Drink it down.”

  “Drink what down?” I asked.

  “The self-pity. Tea and sympathy,” he said, his bony shoulders moving up toward his dark, nearly shoulder-length hair.

  “Shut up.” I threw a brownie corner at him.

  He ducked, laughing. “Poor Ara. No one tells her anything.”

  “Don’t tease me.” I pouted jokingly into my teacup.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s not nice to pick on the fat person.”

  “Blade!” Em backhanded him.

  He laughed, rubbing his chest. “I was joking. Ara knows that.”

  Emily looked at me. I nodded.

  “I’m not pitying myself, by the way,” I clarified. “About no one telling me what Falcon was up to. I just feel kind of left out. Like maybe he thought there was a reason not to tell me.”

  Blade shook his head, pouring my tea to sip with his sympathy. “He was worried he’d fail or decide against it and then look like an idiot—or get your hopes up. He just wanted to be sure first.”

  “I would’ve said no.” Em took the teapot. “There’s no way I could spread my legs for Falcon.”

  “Ara doesn’t seem to have a problem spreading hers for anything with a penis,” Blade joked, then stopped with a subtle gasp, Emily and I practically burning him with our eyes. “Sorry.” He winced. “Too far?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Em stood up and walked the teapot over to the sink.

  “As it stands, I’m more comfortable with Falcon,” I told Blade. “I’ve never ever ever had any sexual feelings toward him. At all.”

  Blade nodded, his eyes small and screwed up with awkwardness. “I do know that. And I’m sorry, I just—”

  “I know. It was a great opportunity for a joke, even if it was at my expense.”

  “It’s not true, though.” Emily sat back down. “You were just young and confused when you slept with Jason. I certainly wouldn’t say you’re a slut, Ara.”

  “Thanks, Em. I mean, I never thought of myself as a slut anyway, but… thanks for saying that.”

  “Hey, if you’re a slut, then so am I,” Blade said. “And so is Falcon, and Quaid, and…”

  “I get it.” I put a hand up to stop him.

  “All I’m saying is that those guys have been with more girls than you’ve had living dinners,” he added. “Quaid’s always convinced he’s in love with at least one girl at any given time.”

  “Yeah, and you were convinced you loved Ara,” Emily teased.

  Blade’s cheeks went as pink as a pig.

  “Nice one, Em.” I offered her a high-five.

  “I had that one coming, didn’t I?” Blade said.

  “Yes.” Emily punched him in the arm. “You’ve been in pick-on-Ara mode all day today.”

  He rubbed his arm. “She’s just so easy to pick on.”

  “I have feelings, you know,” I said, looking into my cup.

  “I know. But your feelings aren’t hurt.” He picked up my stray brownie corner and threw it back at me. “So don’t pretend they are.”

  “What? Can’t I milk a bit of sympathy?” I showed him my cup. “I’ve heard it goes great with tea.”

  “And fidelity goes great with marriage too, yet—” he started, but Em shrieked, grabbing the laughing knight by the ear then hauling him to his feet so fast he didn’t get to finish what he was saying.

  “Bed. Now,” she ordered, smacking his bottom. “Naughty boys don’t get to stay up late.”

  “Night,” I called.

  Em just tossed an apologetic wave over her shoulder as they fled down the corridor.

  I laughed into my lonely cup and then looked at the fridge. “Now, what’ve you got inside for a second midnight snack?”

  * * *

  Fourteen of the children that started the week off as vampires were now human again. The ones we turned after David and Jason left were still suffering the psychological effects of their immortal tortures, but I could at least take solace in the fact that it wouldn’t be long before the boys returned and got started right away on the erasure phase.

  The fact that they’d have to wait made turning the children that little bit harder though; knowing they’d wake as little humans but the nightmares of their past would still be so vivid in their minds. I just wanted them all to be okay now. Completely okay.

  Plans had been set for a Mobile Transformation Unit to head out to Lamia next week and change those who’d already been adopted. Before months’ end there would be no vampires under th
e age of sixteen in our community and there would be a few more empty cells in the manor’s underground chambers. I would sleep better at night knowing I wasn’t resting peacefully right above so many suffering right below.

  But the upcoming plans had me stirring in anticipation all last night, leaving me tired and overly emotional today. From the dawn start, to the harrowing ordeal of prying open a cell door that hadn’t been unlocked in a hundred years, to the three severely mentally damaged children I’d already turned back, I was utterly exhausted, taking brief trips to the corridor to cry between patients. These little children were so savage and demonic, so far beyond mental repair that we had four guards in the room, straps binding the small bodies to the beds and a hell of a hard time keeping them still enough to get venom in their systems.

  The effects of Arthur’s sleeping toxin—the one thrown into the Black Cells before the doors were opened—hadn’t rendered the children quite as compliant as we’d expected, and it had been my decision to continue as planned anyway. Only now I wished we’d waited. And looking down at the small boy on the table under my hands set my decision about tomorrow in stone. We needed a better way. I couldn’t look into another pair of hollow eyes, so empty and ferocious, and hurt them that way—flood them with burning venom and then shock them until they were human again.

  In some ways, that seemed almost more brutal than leaving them where they were. Each little child I turned over the course of the day had taken hours upon hours of preparation before the procedure, followed by at least another hour from bite to finish. My soul, my heart, my eyes were all worn down and the toll it took on my physical strength could be measured in the decline of my enthusiasm.

  This had, without doubt, been the longest and hardest day of my life as queen. And there were still another twenty-six children in the Black Cells.

  “He’s gone limp, Ara,” Arthur called, snapping my mind back to the cold, empty room—nothing but a steel bed with iron cuffs and a stone-faced guard in each corner. “Time to use your hands.”

  I’d trained myself to switch off in those few seconds it took the flesh to turn, but as the day progressed, snapping back out of it again was getting hard. I placed my hands weakly on the tiny, fragile bones of the boy’s chest, and held my breath, giving a very low, very gentle shock to his heart.

  His spine curved, his body springing up in a jolt from the table. But the monitor didn’t start. His legs lay loose, weak and flaccid, and as the shock flooded his tummy, his bowels and bladder emptied on the table.

  “Again?”

  “Again,” Arthur said.

  I closed my eyes, drawing every ounce of emotional strength I had, and pictured this boy as a happy child—running through the fields of Lamia with other little children just like him. I imagined his smile, how the gap in his front teeth would eventually close as his adult teeth came through, and pictured his hair—how blond it would be without decades of dirt and blood caking it to his scalp. His eyes were black as opals when he’d looked at me earlier, and I took a quiet moment of pleasure, like a mom imagining her own child’s features before it’s born, thinking about what color his eyes might be when he woke up.

  That was the one thing I always looked forward to. I didn’t want to hurt this little boy again, but I knew this one moment of pain would bring the walls of eternal suffering down, and give him a chance to finally live. And with that hope, I reapplied the same amount of shock, sending a little prayer out with it.

  “Got it,” Arthur said before my eyes even opened.

  I drew my hands away and looked back at the monitor. “That’s a nice steady beat.”

  “It is.” He handed me a towel to wipe my hands and face. “And I think you’re done for the day.”

  “But we’ve only done four.”

  “And it’s been a tough four,” he said, fussing about the boy’s thin, waif-like body to make him more comfortable. “Emily, get some clean sheets, please.”

  Em nodded and left the room, closing the first door securely before opening the second. These rooms had originally been for observation but proved greater use now as Resuscitation Rooms until the new clinic was open. All the comforts of cushy beds and shelves with books and teddies had been stripped away, and the nakedness of the room seemed amplified by the white fluorescent light overhead.

  I looked down at the tiny little boy, no older than about eight, and cupped my hand firmly over his leg, feeling the pulse and flow of human life under his skin. It warmed with each breath he took, sending a different kind of life back into him—the color restoring in the minutes it took for Emily to come back in with a pile of sheets and a clean gown.

  “Go get some dinner, Ara,” she said. “It’s past nine o’clock. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  “Amara,” Arthur said sternly. “You worked all day yesterday and the day before, and I highly doubt you slept last night—”

  “I—”

  “I can tell from looking at you,” he added. “Go to bed. Fourteen reversals in two days is plenty. That’s not even counting the adults you turned for the media demonstration. Rome wasn’t built in a day, girl.”

  “Okay,” I said, sounding like an annoyed teen, playfully hunching over like one as well. “Fine.”

  “Good.” He looked up and smiled. “David will have me stoned if I let you run yourself into the ground.”

  “Doubt he’d care much.”

  “He’d care more than he’d let on,” Emily said, holding a stern gaze against my guarded, uncertain one.

  “Point made.” I put both hands up. “I’m going. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Night, Ara,” Em called.

  “Night.”

  I walked back through the institute via the nursery, just to check on the sleeping little humans there, but the sound in the room as I opened the door was completely different to what I was used to. Human children, for a start, weren’t nocturnal. They slept peacefully, breathing deep, their little hearts beating, the smell of their blood and the heat of the fireplace warming the room. It was homey and calm in a way the Damned never had been.

  We’d originally equipped this room as a nursery and playroom for about ten children, but of the ten beds lining one side, with a window between each two, only eight were occupied right now. And one of them was a cot, sitting angled into the corner by two windows, a night nanny rocking quietly in the chair beside it. I offered her a smile and walked around to each bed, kissing the sweet sleeping children and stroking their hair, wishing them the loveliest dreams a child could have, then left through the front door, pulling it securely closed behind me.

  “Majesty,” the night guard greeted, bowing his head.

  “Clive.” I returned the bow. “Look after my babies for me, okay?”

  He smiled, looking up quickly when Katy stepped into the glow of the security light.

  “Katy. Hi.”

  “Hi. How’d it go today?” she asked.

  “Great. Our newest little humans are all settled in the hospital wing—except for one.”

  “You did lock the security door, right?” she asked, pale-faced.

  “Do you have a mirror?”

  “Um, no. What for?”

  “I just wanted to see if I looked as stupid as you think I am.”

  Katy laughed. “Sorry. I’d have asked that question of anyone. If the newly-reversed children get close to the others, they may be likely to attack out of habit.”

  “I know.” I laid a reassuring hand to her arm. “But it’s fine. Everything’s locked. And Em and Arthur are still in there anyway.”

  “I thought you said you were all done for the day?”

  “We had a hard time with the last boy from the Black Cells. Arthur thought it best not to leave him in the nurses’ care just yet.”

  “Okay.” Katy stepped past me. “Are they moving him to the children’s ward tonight?”

  “I think they’ll keep him in observation for the first few
hours.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. The staff are having a hard time with a few of the really damaged kids. We either need David to hurry back and erase their memories, or we need more staff.”

  “I’ll bring it up at tomorrow’s council meeting. But, on the bright side, the first batch of kids are doing well—the ones from the Damned cells.”

  “Yes, they are. But I’m still anxious for them. I wish I could erase their minds.”

  “Well, David will be home soon. And I was hoping to start on a new batch of kids tomorrow. I’m eager to turn the seven babies we have left.”

  “We don’t have the facilities to care for seven babies at once, Your Majesty.”

  “Like I said, I’ll see to hiring more staff, and—”

  “I think you should slow down.” She held up a hand, palm facing me and my eagerness. “There are still, at minimum, twenty Lost Children in the Black Cells, and then there’s the sixteen-or-so Damned in the village, and you’ve got half the adult population filing applications, too. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  I laughed. “That’s exactly what Arthur just said.”

  “And he’s right. Go home. Get some sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “See you at six tomorrow for some human rehabilitation exercises?”

  “Yep. Bright and early.”

  “Oh, and Chef put dinner away for you, okay.”

  “Excellent. Thanks.” I grinned, walking backward for a second.

  Katy waved and disappeared into the nursery.

  “Ara?” Quaid said, stepping up like a ninja out of the darkness. His skin blended almost perfectly with the night, his teeth the only thing marking his position.

  “What’s up?”

  “For you,” he said, and started at a run toward me, holding his phone out. “The king.”

  “Oh.” I grabbed it, quickly patting my pockets for my own phone, wondering why he hadn’t called mine. “Hi, David.”

  “Hey,” he said, and he sounded kinda happy.

  “How’s things going there?” I asked.

  “Great, actually. I’ve been trying to call for a few hours. Where’s your phone?”