Bloodline by Joel Abernathy

9

I staredat Daniel for what felt like hours. “You are a vampire?” I finally asked, unable to mask my disbelief.

He frowned. “Of course I’m a vampire. You can’t tell?” He sounded offended.

“I cannot,” I admitted. He pushed away from me, leaving me just enough space to breathe once more. The others seemed as bewildered as he was.

“We’re all vampires,” said Bobby. “You seriously can’t sense it?”

“Your eyes are neither red nor white,” I said, looking at each of them just to make sure. “How else am I to know?”

Bobby stepped closer, and I flinched, but she stopped a few feet away. She reached up and my stomach churned as she put her fingers into her eye and peeled a layer of clear flesh out of it. I cried out in horror, recoiling from it as she held it out on her fingertip to show me. Sure enough, her eye was blood red underneath.

My reaction must have amused Catch because he snickered. He stopped abruptly when I turned to face him and the color drained from his face.

“They’re contacts,” Bobby said flatly. “It’s plastic.”

“Plastic?” I frowned, still repulsed by the wobbling thing on the edge of her finger. It had a blue orb like an iris painted on the inside.

“He really is the real deal,” Catch mused, scratching his jaw. “Doesn’t look like much, but he sure talks like he’s old as dirt.”

“Unfortunately,” Bobby muttered, flicking her head toward Daniel. “This is the guy who’s supposed to help us bring down Enoch?”

“Bring him down?” I echoed. “If you belong to the Thomas line, are you not his children?”

“Children,” Daniel scoffed. “That’s rich.”

“It’s the way Enoch tells it,” grumbled Catch.

“I don’t understand. You say you’re vampires, and you say you come from Enoch’s line, yet you unearthed me to aid you against him?”

“Enoch sired half the damn vampire world,” Daniel said impatiently. “Being his ‘child,’ as you put it, means nothing.”

I swallowed hard. So the army was not merely a rumor. “What is the date?”

“Twenty-forty,” Bobby answered.

“Twenty…” My head was spinning from the revelation. Not so terribly long as it had felt in the coffin, but still. Two thousand and forty. I hadn’t imagined the world would last that long at the rate it was going.

“He doesn’t look so good,” said Catch. “Maybe we should put him back in the coffin.”

“You will do no such thing,” I hissed.

“Relax! It was a joke.”

“You try living in a coffin with a hunk of wood in your chest for two hundred years and tell me how amusing you find it.”

“He has a point,” Bobby said, smirking. “But it does raise the question… what are we gonna do with him now that he’s awake?”

“Give me a moment with him,” Daniel ordered. “While you’re at it, head back to the church and see if Sister Grover needs anything.”

Neither of them moved for a moment.

“I’m sorry, did I accidentally speak in Latin? Move.”

They scattered, and Daniel turned back to me. “Marcellus,” he muttered, shaking his head as if he didn’t want to believe I was the one he’d been looking for. It was hardly the first time I had disappointed someone, but usually they at least got to know me first.

“You were expecting someone else?”

“I was expecting something else,” he answered. “Considering you’re the one who sired Enoch.”

“Not willingly.” When I saw the confusion on his face, I explained, “Enoch forced me to turn him. I wanted no part in it and ran from him the very same day. I haven’t seen him since.”

His eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide whether he believed me. Something about the thought infuriated me. He was the one who’d brought me here, he was the one who’d dug me up, he was the one who acted as if I owed him an explanation, and now he wanted to treat me like a liar?

“And the vampire who sired you? What is his name?”

“I do not know.”

“Bullshit. How could you not know your own sire?”

“Would you remember the name of a man who robbed you in the night?” I spat, tired of his questions and his world. For centuries, I had longed for freedom, but now, I was tempted to crawl back into that box and pull the lid shut on everything. “It’s been so long, I don’t even remember his face, and he never gave his name.”

Daniel frowned. “He must have turned you for a reason.”

“He didn’t turn me at all.” More curiosity lit his eyes, and I knew this was my chance. I had something he wanted. “I’ll tell you nothing more until you’ve given me the chance to at least change out of these dreadful things,” I said, looking down at the charred bits of cloth the Harts had buried me in. “Or have manners and common decency completely fallen by the wayside during the time I’ve been underground?”

Daniel hesitated, but he finally gave in. “Fine. You can use the shower.”

“Shower?” I asked.

“Just come on,” he said, walking past the odd kitchen with all its gleaming black windows and harsh metal fixtures. He opened the door to a room filled with tile, even on the far wall. There was an oddly shaped spigot coming out of the side of the wall and a mirror hanging above the sink. I gasped at my reflection when I saw how disheveled I had become.

If there was one good thing about being in a coffin for as long as I had been, it was forgetting what I’d looked like. Now, I could see why the others had been so frightened. I was an alarming enough sight as it was, without my hair in such disarray and my clothing in tatters.

I leaned over the sink and peered at my eyes, an even ghastlier shade of pinkish-white than usual. What a monster I had become.

It occurred to me that Daniel had left when I couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror. I turned around only to jump out of my skin when I saw him standing right beside me and staring at me with every bit as much incredulity as I felt.

“You have a reflection,” he said without blinking.

“Of course.” I turned and startled again when I realized he didn’t. “My word,” I breathed, clutching my chest as I looked him over. “So the legends are true.”

He frowned. “What legends?”

“For years, I researched the lore, hoping to learn more about my kind,” I admitted. “Most of it seemed like fiction.”

“It’s not fiction. You’re just an anomaly,” he said, staring down at me. “Moreso even than Enoch.”

Where had I heard those words before?

I wanted to ask more, but the prospect of getting out of the burnt clothes was too tempting. “How does this work?” I asked, walking over to the spigot.

Daniel leaned over and turned the knob on the basin. Water began spraying out from the spigot with more force than I imagined. Steam filled the room, and I realized he wasn’t planning on leaving.

“I must disrobe.”

“Go ahead,” he said, leaning against the wall. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

I set my jaw, prepared to argue, when I realized there was still a good chance he’d put me back in the coffin if I angered him. He pulled out some glossy slab from his pocket and stared down at it as if it contained all the knowledge in the world. At least he seemed too focused to pay attention to me.

I wasted no more time taking off my clothes and kicked the shreds away before stepping beneath the water. Sweet, blissful agony. The scalding rain soaked my dusty hair and poured down over my body like acid, but it was glorious. A gasp of pleasure escaped me, and when I looked over, Daniel was staring. He quickly turned back to his slab, and I tried my best to focus on getting clean without worrying about my audience.

At least there was nothing about my body for him to gawk at quite as much as my face. I was leaner than I had been, due to the extreme starvation, and my collarbone stuck out a bit more, but that seemed to be the extent of it.

“It’s like a waterfall, but hot,” I murmured, staring at my hands as the shower washed them clean. My nails had grown long and pointed. I would have to do something about that, but I doubted Daniel would give me access to shears.

“Plumbing has come a long way,” he remarked flatly. “You almost done?”

“In a minute,” I said, making certain to wring the last of the dust out of my hair since I wasn’t sure when I’d next have the chance. When I at last forced myself to turn the dial the other way and bring the glorious cascade to an end, I turned to find Daniel holding out a towel for me, his gaze averted. It seemed a strange concession to make around another male. Perhaps etiquette had changed.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the towel to dry off my tresses first. It occurred to me that this man had seen me naked, and I had taken his blood, yet he was still a perfect stranger. I wrapped the towel around my waist but still felt quite unclothed. Daniel was staring at me so intently I hardly dared to disturb him in fear that he would remember his irritation. “May I have a change of clothes?”

“Of course,” he muttered, hurrying as if he’d been snapped out of a trance. He left the bathroom, and I reluctantly followed him out. He disappeared into one of the other rooms and came out holding a small stack of clothing. “Here. I don’t know if these will fit, but…”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the clothing from him. When I realized him turning around was as much privacy as I was going to get, I sighed and pulled on the strange trousers. They were softer than any cotton I’d ever felt and thick like animal skin. There were no buttons, but two strings around the midsection allowed me to fasten them tightly enough to stay up. I looked absurd in the plume of extra fabric, and the thin, long-sleeved shirt he gave me did little to help.

Daniel looked up as I was shaking my curls out of the collar and the look on his face gave me pause. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

“And I’m to be allowed to roam freely?” I asked, doubtful that he trusted me enough.

“Around the apartment, yes. There are wards in place to keep you from leaving.”

“I see.” It was certainly not the most inhumane way I had been restrained. Out of one cage and into another. As Daniel led me through the well-lit hallways, it struck me just how many windows there were.

“Don’t any of you have an aversion to the sunlight?”

“They’re UV tinted,” he answered, tapping the glass that overlooked a nauseating array of buildings below. We were up higher than I could fathom, and the skyline…

I’d once thought Boston was metropolitan, but these buildings reached the heights and hubris of the Tower of Babel. They were hideous, crystalline and metal structures thrusting up into the sky. Were the inhabitants of the city below unoffended or simply unaware of the grotesquely phallic nature of these obscene structures?

“You okay?” Daniel asked warily. “You look paler than before.”

“I am fine,” I said, taking a step away from the window. If I spent any more time looking out at that nightmarish hellscape, I wouldn’t be. “It’s simply a lot to process.”

“I’m sure. So it was what, the eighteen hundreds the last time you were awake?”

“Things were quite different then,” I admitted, rubbing my throat. It was still dry from the centuries of desiccation. “I don’t suppose you have any coffee?”

He stared at me as if he was expecting something. A punchline, perhaps. “You drink coffee?”

“Yes. Is that so unusual?”

“I mean, we can drink, but the caffeine doesn’t do anything for us. Our metabolisms are way too fast.”

“Well, it’s the one remotely human vice I can indulge in.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” he grunted, walking into the kitchen. He opened the cabinets, and it didn’t take long to realize they were full for a house full of vampires.

“Who uses the kitchen?”

“Catch mostly.” He smirked, as if he understood the cause of my dismay. “He was turned more recently than most of us. Never got over the love of food.”

“I see.” Not that I could blame him. My memories of being human were all but nonexistent, yet I often longed to experience the rapture with which humans enjoyed their finer meals. The brief buzz caffeine afforded me was the closest I ever came to being moved by that particular form of art.

“I’m sure he’d make you something if you asked nicely.”

“That’s alright. I won’t traumatize him anymore than I already have.”

Daniel gave me a strange look, but whatever was on his mind, he moved on. “We have a lot of ground to cover, so this is probably going to be easier if you listen and I talk,” he said, pulling out some contraption from the cabinet he then placed on the stone countertop.

I’d never seen anything like it. It was a small machine with lights that chirped and whirred as he poured in water from a clear canteen. I jumped as the machine started hissing like a demon and watched in fascination as it spurted out steaming hot coffee that smelled like heaven.

I soon realized Daniel was watching me with equal curiosity. “You paying attention?”

“Yes,” I said, sitting down on the backless chair in front of the counter. As cold and unfamiliar as the rest of the dwelling’s fixtures were, the stools seemed to be made of old, unfinished wood and rusted-out gears. Perhaps they weren’t as wealthy as they seemed, if they were willing to cut such corners instead of having a proper kitchen table.

“My soldiers dug you up, so I’m the lucky one who gets to fill you in on two hundred years of human and vampire history. Listen close,” he said, planting his hands on the counter and leaning in. It would’ve been easier to focus if my imagination weren’t running wild with the way his thick arms strained against that ridiculously thin shirt, the sleeves of which didn’t even cover his biceps. And here I had thought the lady was obscene.

“You might think the world you went to sleep on was chaotic, but the one you woke up to is post-apocalyptic. Digging you up wasn’t plan A, it was plan Z, and we’re still split fifty-fifty on whether it was a good one,” he said, setting a cup of coffee in front of me.

“Post-apocalyptic?” I echoed, daring a glance back at the window. “The world out there seems to be thriving well enough.”

“I’m not talking about burning buildings and falling meteors,” he answered. “The change was subtle. So subtle, most of us didn’t even realize it until it was too late. Enoch is good at hiding in plain sight, and by the time he’d amassed his army, the human population in the northeast was a fraction of what it once was.”

“And no one stopped him?” I asked in disbelief. I knew so little of my own kind, and those who had awakened me only confirmed my long-held suspicions that theirs was a world I was clearly unwelcome in, but it seemed impossible that there was no governing body to prevent such chaos.

“Vampires aren’t exactly known for cooperating, but Enoch changed all that. Families that hadn’t spoken in decades began banding together to build armies of their own in an effort to preempt whatever power grab Enoch was going for,” Daniel said, growing even more somber. “By the time we got our shit together and formed VOICE, it was just a matter of damage control.”

“What is VOICE?”

“Vampiric Order of International Constraint and Extermination,” he answered without missing a beat. “The only sheriff in the West these days. The rest of the world has cut us off. What you knew as the United States and Canada have essentially been cordoned off and quarantined, subsequently merged into the same territory.”

I felt my eyes widen. I must have looked like a child listening to a ghost story, but I couldn’t help it. Everything he was saying just seemed so impossible. “You’re telling me the humans know of our existence?”

“Oh, they know,” he said flatly. “When it became clear the human population in the West was dwindling below the threshold of sustainability, VOICE acted unilaterally. The revelation was first made to the newly formed United Nations, which you’d know nothing about, but the rumors had already begun among the civilian population. Everyone knew someone who’d either been turned or preyed upon.”

“And the humans accepted our existence?” I asked in astonishment.

“They didn’t have a choice. We only stood a chance against Enoch with the combination of their military infrastructure and our expertise. Most of those with law enforcement or military experience are on VOICE’s payroll now, and the others are protected in habitats like the one you see out there.”

“Where is this?” I finally asked. I had given up on trying to recognize the world I knew in this one.

“You’re looking at what remains of Los Angeles. ‘City of Angels’ turned out to be a little ironic.”

“So it did,” I breathed.

“You doing alright?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a little hard to believe that after more than a thousand years of seeking others like me, there are so many of us we’re in danger of outnumbering the humans.”

There was a spark in his eyes, as if something had just occurred to him. “You didn’t recognize us as vampires. I’m thinking it’s possible you’ve met a lot more of our kind than you think.”

“Perhaps. I mostly kept to myself before Jonas.”

“Jonas?”

“The hunter whose family interred me beneath the church,” I answered. “I don’t suppose you know what became of the Hart line?”

Daniel was silent for a few moments, and I could tell he was deciding whether he wanted to divulge that information. “They’re still around. Pray you don’t get the pleasure of a reunion.”

So they hadn’t changed much. Somehow, it was a comfort. The years had not dulled my grief, but rather sharpened it. Vengeance had never been something that flourished within my soul, but centuries of nothingness were remarkably fertile ground.

“There’s some shit I have to take care of,” Daniel said, pushing away from the counter. “Bobby can show you to the room you’ll be staying in. Try not to get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I murmured. With that, he left me to stare at the rippled reflection in my coffee. It was the only way I could tolerate looking at myself dead on.

Perhaps this world was nothing like the one I remembered, but I’d say one thing for it. The coffee was decent.