by P. T. Hylton
Alex considered that a moment before replying. In truth, she didn’t have an answer. Yes, they’d released the virus, and they’d seen what it had done to the vampires in the bunker with them. Thinking about Owl suffering her second death in minutes was enough to make Alex shudder.
But would it affect the vampires further away? Would it spread? If Brian was correct, the virus would wipe out every vampire on the island, possibly in a matter of days or weeks. The virus might even spread farther.
An image leapt into her mind: Firefly, bleeding from the nose and eyes, falling to the ground the same way the vampires in the morgue had. If the virus worked, such an outcome was inevitable.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Brian thinks it will, and I trust him. But we need to find out for ourselves.”
“You’re saying I should send you back down there? After everything that’s happened?”
“I don’t know that you have a choice,” Alex said. “Brian brought back a sample of the virus, and he says he can make more, but we need to understand what it’s doing. The GMT needs to go down there and investigate in a day or two. We need to see if the Ferals are really dying.”
“Maybe,” General Craig replied. “You’ll have a chance to make your case. In the meantime, you’ve got other business.” He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the bracelets around her wrists.
“You’re letting me go?” She rubbed her wrists as she spoke, the surprise clear in her voice.
“You complaining?” He put the key back in his pocket and stood up. “Look, you’ve still got a lot of explaining to do. I told CB I wouldn’t be able to protect him if he went rogue, and the same goes for you. I’m not sure what the Council is going to decide. But I was a GMT man long before I was a member of the City Council. I know what it’s like to lose soldiers. We can talk about all this tomorrow.” He pulled open the door and nodded toward the hallway beyond. “Go. Your team needs you.”
She found them at Tankards, just like she’d known she would. They were sitting around their favorite table in the corner, and they had a beer waiting for her.
The bartender, Louie, gave her a silent nod as she walked past, his eyes filled with sorrow.
Alex looked around as she walked to the table and noticed there were no other patrons in the bar, something that never happened. She reached the table and slid into her seat. “Louie shut down the bar for us?”
Chuck nodded. “As soon as we told him about Owl and Patrick, he kicked everyone else out. Told us drinks are on the house tonight.”
“I guess he’s grieving,” Ed said. “Just like the rest of us.”
CB smiled weakly. “Well, Patrick did spend about eighty percent of his salary here. No wonder Louie's taking it hard.”
Alex surveyed her friends. Of the four of them, only Brian bore no obvious wounds, though there was a hollow look in his eyes that made it clear he hadn’t escaped the battle with no mental scars. CB’s shoulder was bandaged, as was Chuck’s arm. There was a heavy plaster cast on Ed’s forearm.
“You all holding it together?” she asked.
Ed pointed at his cast. “With a little help from this.” Then he nodded at his beer. “And that.” His voice caught in his throat. “I can’t believe they’re gone.”
CB put a hand on his shoulder. “Me neither, son. You were a good brother and a good friend. They died in the heat of battle. There was nothing you could have done.”
He looked up at CB. “Maybe not. But there sure as hell is now.” He turned to Alex. “We have to get back down there. I want to make sure every damn vampire on that island is dead. I want to put a bullet into every one of their corpses.”
Chuck let out a soft whistle. “Not exactly Shakespeare, but your point’s taken.”
Ed scowled. “I’m done with that Shakespeare shit. Jaden introduced me to Shakespeare. I don’t want anything from that murderer.”
Alex and CB exchanged a glance.
“I’m with you,” she said, “and I’m working on getting us back down there. But that’s not what tonight’s about. Tonight’s about remembering our friends.” She raised her beer and waited for the others to do the same. “To Patrick and Owl. They were true GMT, and they died so humanity could live. We’ll carry their spirits on every mission. We’ll never forget.”
“We’ll never forget,” the others echoed.
They clinked glasses and each person took a long drink.
The group was silent for a moment, each left with their own memories. Finally, Brian spoke.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. About the way Owl died. Her insides… they looked like they were squirming. Trying to get out.” He shivered. “I can’t stop thinking about how I did that to her. I made the virus that killed Owl.”
Alex looked him in the eyes. “Don’t do that. Don’t take the blame, but not let yourself take the credit. If one is yours, so’s the other. If you killed Owl, you killed Jaden, too. You saved my life. And if the virus spreads, you saved a lot more than that.”
Brian broke eye contact and stared into his glass. “Maybe. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for what I did to her.”
“Jaden made her a vampire,” CB said. “You didn’t kill her. You set her free. Owl’s suffering is over.”
Owl’s eyes snapped open and a piercing cry met her ears. It took her a moment to realize the scream was coming from her own mouth.
“Silence,” someone ordered.
Owl’s mouth snapped shut, the scream cut off. Her hands went to her eyes, wiping away the remnants of the thick black blood that had settled there. When she’d cleared her eyes enough to see, she managed to get her feet under her and stood.
The morgue was much like she remembered it. Daniel, Helen, and Griffin lay dead on the ground, their mangled bodies crumpled near pools of dark blood that smoked on the silver floor. Silver shrapnel lay scattered about the room, sticking out of furniture and her fellow vampires’ fallen bodies.
And across the room, there was something else. A strange, twisted figure with a slightly hunched back. It stood perched on two feet, leaning slightly forward as if it were ready to pounce. Owl’s eyes were still blurry, and she couldn’t make out the details. It was challenge enough to keep her feet under her. She felt different. She felt wrong. In the moments after Jaden had turned her, she’d felt powerful. That power was still there, but other sensations demanded her attention. Her skin felt stretched and painful, and her limbs ached.
The creature across the room turned to look at her, its eyes wide. “This is madness.”
She nearly gasped as she recognized the voice. “Jaden? What happened? How are we still alive?”
3
The stagnant air trapped the smell of death in Owl’s nose. She felt herself starting to panic, but she suppressed the emotion. As she pushed herself off the floor, she noticed that her hands had changed. The fingers were longer by a half inch. Her nails had grown to a point. She rubbed her eyes again and tried to get a better look at Jaden.
He walked over to her and gave her a long, cold look. “Why you?”
Owl could now see him more clearly, and what she saw made her flinch. She fought the desire to look away. The perfect, immortal vampire was gone, and something else had taken its place. His hands were longer and the nails formed something resembling talons. His spine had a slight, but noticeable curve, which hunched his body forward. His face, which was covered in dried blood, had changed as well. His features were still recognizable, but everything seemed to be elongated. His jaw stuck out in a more pronounced way. The shape of his ears had changed as well; they came to a dull point on the top. Owl again felt herself starting to panic.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Her voice sounded raspy and strange.
Jaden didn’t answer, he just looked around the room. Then she got it. All the other vampires were dead. Somehow, she and Jaden had been spared. The virus had changed them—painfully, and her body still ached from
the grueling experience—but it hadn’t killed them.
Jaden started toward the door. “Stand up, let’s go.”
Owl immediately stood. She felt like a puppet on strings. She hadn’t commanded her body to get up, or even fully processed the words that Jaden had spoken, but as soon as the command left his mouth, she obeyed.
Jaden walked out of the morgue and Owl followed. As she stumbled her way through the hallway, she could tell that more than her hands had changed. Her center of gravity had shifted. She touched her face and felt the twisted features. “Are we becoming Feral?”
Jaden continued on in silence for a moment. “We haven’t been here long. The pools of blood in the morgue are not fully dry. I’m guessing it’s only been a few hours since the battle. A day, at most.”
“Then why are we changing?”
He stopped and turned toward her, leaning in close so that their faces were only inches apart. “You tell me. It was you fools who released that virus. Maybe it was designed to turn all vampires into Ferals. Maybe we just haven’t finished dying yet.”
Owl blinked hard, staring at him. If even Jaden didn’t understand what was happening, they were in a world of trouble. “What about Helen and the others? Will they change too?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders “They’re dead. These amazing warriors, who had more wisdom than you will ever know, are now puddles of dead tissue on the floor of a long-dead hospital. Somehow, you and I are still here. This is wrong. You have made the world wrong.” His lips curled back, revealing long, pointed teeth. “I should end you for what you and your friends have done.”
Owl decided that this was her moment. She would attack and see who ended whom. At worst, he’d kill her, ending this miserable new existence. At best, she’d finish the job that Alex and the GMT hadn’t.
Except, when she went to act, nothing happened. Her arms and legs did not respond to her commands. Apparently, she was unable to attack her vampire master. She scowled at him as she spoke. “You forced our hands. If you would have—"
“Be quiet and follow me.” He turned and continued walking. Owl had no choice but to obey.
The two marched in silence through the halls and up the staircases of the hospital to the main lobby. Jaden’s ship was still there. It had taken some damage when he crashed it into the side of the building, but not as much as Owl would have expected. At least on the exterior. Outside, the city was dark. Owl could still see well with her vampire eyes, and she guessed it was near midnight. Outside the entrance to the hospital, a horde of Ferals stood shoulder to shoulder in the street. Owl flinched, taking a step backward and reaching for a weapon which was not there; she had left it on the morgue floor.
Jaden frowned at her. “Come. You no longer have anything that they want.”
Owl stepped to Jaden’s side and looked at the hundreds of Ferals that stood eighty feet in front of her. It must have been the smell of the humans that had drawn them, she realized.
The reality of her situation hit home at that moment. She was a dead thing, like the Ferals. She would never be human again, never feel the sun on her face again, never walk with her friends on New Haven again. With mounting horror, she suddenly realized that she didn’t even know what had happened after she’d passed out. “Did the GMT survive?”
Jaden’s expression hardened. “I hope not, but let’s find out. Take me to where your away ship was parked.”
As they approached the exit, one of the Ferals leaped inside. As soon as it set foot on the smooth metal floor, smoke rose from the bottom of its feet. It hissed in pain, then vanished back into the crowd gathered outside.
Jaden paused, then bent down and carefully placed a hand against the metal surface. Nothing happened. No smoking. No sizzling flesh. “Owl, touch the floor.”
She squatted and laid both hands on the floor. Just like Jaden, she felt no effect. “Why isn’t the silver affecting us?”
Jaden continued to stare at his hand. “It seems the changes to our physiology are even more complex then they look. Let’s see if your ship is still here.”
Owl exited the building and marched toward the place the ship had been, trying not to think about the horde of Ferals between her and her destination.
“I would suggest not making any quick movements,” Jaden said. “They know you don’t have human blood, but they can still be quite aggressive if they feel threatened.”
She stepped into the crowd of Ferals. They were spread far enough apart that she could just squeeze through without touching them, but it took some maneuvering. She took a breath through her nose and almost vomited. Ferals had always smelled like death, but the scent was amplified in her new condition. The Ferals around them raised their noses and sniffed as they moved past.
Something caught Owl’s eye: a thin tendril of smoke curling through the air. A crowd of Ferals stood around it digging into the ashes at the edges of the burnt area. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Owl realized that this was where they’d burned Patrick’s body. Even worse, she could smell him, and the odor stirred a hunger deep inside her. She pushed the hunger away, disgusted with herself.
The smoke still rising from the funeral pyre convinced Owl that they had only been out for a few hours, as Jaden had said. Their new forms must really have been the result of the virus.
They reached the location where Owl had left the away ship. The space was empty, but a group of Ferals clawed at the dirt where it had been. These Ferals seemed to be enraged. Then Owl smelled something that she had never smelled before. It was sweet and made her salivate. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she knew that she wanted it more than anything else. She turned to Jaden “Do you smell that? It’s amazing.”
Jaden gave the smallest smile “How quickly you forget your friends.”
Owl’s eyes widened as she realized what she was smelling: blood. She was smelling the drops of blood that her teammates had left in the dirt when they boarded the ship. The thought sickened her.
Jaden sniffed deeply. “I can make out Alex’s blood, as well as CB’s and Chuck’s. They all have their own unique scent. Over time, you will be able to pick out their individual smells. For now, we should get away from this place. The Ferals are focused on the smell of blood, but groups this large can be volatile.”
The two vampires walked until they found a small pond in the courtyard of some ancient office buildings. The moon reflected off the still surface of the water. Jaden lay down in the water completely submerging himself. Owl looked at the blood that covered her hands and clothes, and she followed him into the water. The pool had a pink hue by the time the two of them stepped out a few minutes later.
Jaden sank down on the grass and crossed his legs. He looked up at the moon, his expression unreadable. Owl, not sure what else to do, sat down next to him. They stayed silent for a long time as the water dried off of their clothes and skin. Owl was aware of the cold, but it didn’t bother her, as it had when she was alive. There were no goosebumps or chills; just an awareness of temperature, like looking at a thermometer.
Owl finally broke the silence. “What do we do now?”
Jaden didn’t answer immediately, and when he did speak, it didn’t seem to relate to her question. “They didn’t die.”
“What? Who didn’t die?”
“The Ferals.” He paused a moment, still staring at the sky. “We passed hundreds of them. They didn’t change like us, and they didn’t die like Helen and Daniel.”
“What are you saying?” Owl asked. She realized that he was right. The other vampires in the battle had died as soon as they were exposed. She and Jaden had somehow survived, but they were deformed and had been knocked out for hours. The Ferals seemed unaffected. Once again, panic was threatening to take over. “The virus didn’t work?”
“Perhaps. Maybe it doesn’t spread like we assumed it would. If the virus doesn’t kill the Ferals, then nothing has changed. We’ll clear this island and make a new home for humans, just as we planne
d.”
Owl stared at him for a long moment, unable to believe her ears. “Are you kidding? Everything has changed. You lied to us. You killed humans. You killed me, you son of a bitch! Look at us. The virus did something.”
He turned toward her, and anger flashed in his eyes. “Yes, there were unfortunate deaths. On both sides.” Then the anger was gone. “Things went wrong, but they haven’t changed. At least, they have not changed much. These mutations may be temporary, or we may be able to find a cure. The relationship between our cities may be tense for some time, but it will get better. Humans have a short memory. In one generation, two at the most, this will all be forgotten.”
Owl glared at him. “You think that your long life gives you perspective, but it doesn’t. You’ve lost sight of the value of a single life. A lifetime may not seem long to you, but it’s all we have here. I care what happens to me and the people I love. You write off generations of humans like we don’t matter. We do.”
The corner of his mouth turned up in a sad smile. “You’re not human anymore. You have much more than a lifetime. Eventually, you’ll understand.” He stood up and brushed off his legs. “For now, we need to find shelter. Dawn is coming.”
Owl stayed seated. “Maybe we should just sit here and watch the sun come up. You’ve lived long enough, and I don’t want to exist as whatever I am.”
Jaden scowled down at her. “I can’t wait for you to feel daysickness. Come.”
Though the glow of morning had yet to appear over the horizon, the moon was low and dawn would soon arrive. Jaden picked out a building that looked mostly intact. Its exterior was overgrown with vines, and one of the windows on the ground level was broken out. As Owl climbed through the window, the interior’s musty smell hit her nose, and she noticed moss growing on some of the furniture.
Three Ferals wandered aimlessly around the lobby. They took little notice of the strange creatures that entered, and Jaden paid them no mind. Owl followed him down a long hallway. After opening a few doors and dismissing what he saw as unacceptable, he led Owl to what must have been a small kitchen. The room had no windows, and only the one entrance. Jaden moved a few tables to the side, cleared an open area, and laid down on the floor.
