Eternal Dawn by Rebecca Maizel
I turned away from the window when I spotted a vampire on a tree branch outside, leaning his head on his arm. Watching me.
‘Is this what the other –’ Tracy paused – ‘life was like? Death and fear all the time?’
I had thought she was asleep. She’d come home and gone straight to bed. I pulled the shades down, shielding our room from vampires watching in the night. I turned to her and leaned my back against the window again.
‘Isn’t that part of life?’ I asked. ‘Death?’
She lay on her side. ‘I’m not afraid to die,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I won’t get to live my life. Grow old, get married, have a zillion cute half-Asian babies with Tony.’
I liked the sound of that.
And I knew what she meant. The unlived life perhaps was worse than an eternity of being undead.
‘I want that,’ she said quietly, ‘I bet Kate did too.’
‘And Justin,’ I added.
‘Yeah . . .’ she said. ‘But the world is different after what I’ve seen. I’m different.’
‘Different how?’
‘I want to go to college. I want to sing in the Christmas pageant. I want to see my little brother graduate high school.’
I hadn’t even known Tracy had a younger sibling. I wanted to mention Genevieve but she continued. ‘I want to go to prom with Claudia and get our pictures taken in that stupid booth,’ she said, her voice breaking at Claudia’s name. ‘But now I don’t know if that can happen. We might die, Lenah. All of us.’ The tone of her voice was one of sadness and realization. She tried to tuck her hands away so I wouldn’t see, but they shook in the moonlight.
I moved to the side of her bed and took Tracy’s cold hands into mine and squeezed.
‘I’m going to protect you. I don’t know how but I’ll do whatever it takes, even if I die trying.’
Tracy hugged me to her small frame,
‘Get Rhode,’ she said with a sniffle. ‘Get him out. We can’t lose anyone else.’
I had almost forgotten that, in this world, Rhode and Tracy were classmates. Friends even.
‘What about Justin?’ I asked. ‘You don’t want me to save him any more?’
‘I’m not like you and Tony,’ she said with a wipe of her nose. ‘I don’t forgive.’ I didn’t want to tell her that I too had come to believe the same sad position.
She got up from the bed and snatched the pictures down from the mirror. She waited, keeping her back to me, but I could see her face in the reflection. She pressed her lips together and a grimace broke through as she fought not to cry.
‘Whoever that was – that thing that took over Justin’s body? – that is not the guy from freshman year. That is not him, Lenah.’ She sobbed once and turned to me, wiping her tears away. ‘I went to Brownies with Kate.’ She shook her hair back, swallowing her tears and lifting her chin defiantly. ‘And I want every vampire dead. Every single one.’ She stalked across the floor to the bathroom and shut the door.
I waited there by the side of her bed. I was sorry she wanted them all dead, though I could not blame her. Perhaps Tracy would never understand the complexities of vampires. She had only spent time with the Demelucrea and they were special – hybrids in possession of their sanity. If she understood Justin’s pain, would she be more forgiving?
Justin wanted nothing more than to destroy my life. I understood that compulsion, the need to destroy. Hadn’t I been brilliant at pain? Still, she was right. He was not the boy I had loved here at Wickham.
I walked to the bureau. The photos of Justin and Kate sat in a pile. I lifted one of Justin and his brothers. In the photo, his arms were around the shoulders of Curtis and Roy. Kate, Claudia and Tracy sat below them, also with their arms around one another. I needed to keep this. Perhaps to remind myself how quickly our lives turn. I slid it into the back pocket of my jeans.
I leaned on the cushion, snapped the shade up and peered outside.
The night should have been my friend. The sky and stars once provided guidance for my problems. But I could not decipher the constellations. All I could see now was darkness and shadow.
‘It is my hope that you will continue to abide by these rules,’ Ms Williams said at assembly the next morning. Tony, Tracy and I sat in the very back of the auditorium. We could see the whole student body this way. The administration went over a new buddy system. I had seen Wickham like this before. Buddy systems, signing in and out. It was all useless if –
My body jolted.
With a smattering crash, an explosion of glass sent kaleidoscopes of sunlight all over the room. Screams erupted and the upper-school students leaped to their feet. Most students were at the doors before they could see who was attacking.
Vampires of both sexes and all ages swarmed the auditorium. There must have been thirty of them. The one I’d seen on the street in the leather jacket raised one long arm and pointed directly at me.
I slid my dagger from its sheath and jumped to the aisle.
Tony followed behind me.
‘No. Get them out of here. As many students as you can!’ I cried.
Tracy pulled a girl I didn’t recognize towards the door.
Another vampire ran towards me, but Tony back-handed his face and sent the vampire to the floor. I dropped to one knee and stabbed the vampire in the heart.
‘There’s another one!’ Tony cried.
‘Get the students and teachers out!’ I yelled. ‘Remember the painting in the gallery?’ I cried to Tony. ‘Get yourself to a safe place.’
He squeezed my arm in a gesture of good luck and ran for the main floor.
At least ten more vampires crawled in through the windows.
Cassius! I cried in my head.
We’re here! Just as his voice sang through my mind, he ran out from behind the auditorium stage. The vampire from the street was throwing students aside in order to get to me.
‘Lenah!’ Tracy called out. I couldn’t find her in the fray. I kept my eyes on the vampire running at me. Once he was within arm’s reach, I kicked, getting him in the shins.
Students dodged us, running through the aisles and to the exit.
‘Give it to me,’ the vampire from the street cried.
‘Give what?’ I ducked a punch and swung the dagger. He jumped back and I missed. A backpack flew through the air.
‘Don’t play dumb. Give it to me and I’ll kill you before Justin can.’
The vampire clawed at me, but I twisted my hips, throwing a sidekick so he fell back over the seats.
‘Someone help Lenah! Call security!’ Ms Williams shrieked, but she was pushed out the double doors by a mass of students.
‘Look at their teeth!’ a girl in the second row cried, and a vampire pushed her to the ground. Her chin hit the floor with a smack as he continued up the rows to me.
Cassius crawled up the seats to me like an animal.
Two more vampires ran down my row, one from the left and one from the right. I was attacked from all directions. I held my dagger in both hands and drew a held my breath, preparing. I wished I had my sword.
Cassius yanked at the other vampire crawling up the seats by tugging his ponytail and pulling him to the floor. There were dozens of vampires coming at me at once. They were a blur of arms, legs and fangs.
A familiar yell ripped through the air. Tony’s voice.
He stood at the base of the auditorium with his hand outstretched as if he had thrown a disc. The door was behind him and daylight trickled in from outside. The sun glinted off of a circular piece of silver that flew through the air.
Tony’s weapon. The ring.
The silver ring became a strange olive colour. It grew into an orb. All the vampires stopped, their eyes following its movement.
I searched fruitlessly for Tracy among the few remaining students in the auditorium. The orb pulsed its energy through the room.
Tony waited in the doorway. The ring that represented the element earth was an orb darkening in colour fr
The floor vibrated and shook beneath me and I held on to a nearby seat.
The airborne land mass grew bigger and bigger. Little explosions of dust rained down in the auditorium. Some of the vampires scrambled over each other for the exits as cracks edged through the dirt.
I froze in my row at the top of the auditorium. The deluge caused by Tracy’s bracelet had been swift. The water rose in seconds and soon filled Justin’s house. This brown orb hung in the air; everything fell still till it seemed even quieter than silence could be. Any minute now . . .
I searched again for Wickham students but couldn’t find any in the crowds of vampires. It looked as if they’d all got out.
With massive strength the earth fell to the floor, crushing the dozens of vampires in the auditorium. Cassius and Micah held on to Tony by the back of his shirt. The whole building shook and I hoped the ceiling wouldn’t collapse in on us. A weight of that magnitude would have killed any human instantly, but it was also strong enough to break the necks of vampires.
The dirt lay in heaps as high as the base of the broken windows. The pungent odour of deep soil enveloped the room. What had been thirty or so vampires running at me had dropped to six.
‘Give it up!’ the vampire on my left cried and jumped at me.
I steadied myself, spun on my heel and cut my dagger through the air. I looked for skin, for flesh to disarm. I ducked but was kicked in the stomach. I fell back into the last row of seats. An armrest jabbed into my back. I tried to sit up but my stomach muscles shook with pain. Another vampire jumped at me. Cassius flew into the air and sliced his sword across her neck. The vampire’s head went flying into the heap of soil.
An army of vampires was climbing through the windows. They just kept coming! We couldn’t fight them all.
I placed both hands on the dagger again and winced at the soreness in my stomach. I braced myself for impact, for the clash of bodies, for the pain as they drew my limbs apart. I would fight. The rotten smell of blood wafted to me. I drew breath, ready for –
The air around me crystallized.
Tiny crystals floated around me.
Every time I exhaled, my breath unfurled in white tendrils. I wiped sweat from my forehead and spun, trying to understand what was happening.
I was encased in a sphere of the lightest air.
The commotion on the hill of dirt stopped. The vampires looked at one another, then to where I stood. They twisted and turned.
‘Where did she go?’
‘What happened?’
My heart thudded and my dagger remained clenched in my hand.
I loosened my grip and my forearm released with an ache. I reached out, trying to find the limitations of where I stood. The very molecules around me were suspended in the air. My fingers fluttered through the crystal dust motes but they sifted away like soft clouds.
The crystals moved. They travelled outwards, down the dirt that covered the rows and to the auditorium floor. They made a tunnel all the way down the grass and dirt to the stage behind the podium. Laertes appeared, walking out of the darkness of the backstage area and up the hill of earth towards me.
‘Lenah?!’ Cassius yelled. He stood right before me. The terror in his voice made my gut clench.
‘Cassius!’ I cried. He did not acknowledge me.
I tried with my mind. Can you see me, Cassius? Laertes is here!
Can you hear me?
But he did not answer. My thoughts couldn’t reach his mind from this place.
I could die in this sphere with the great vampire walking towards me. But I did not fear him. The last vampires scrambled out of the auditorium the way they had come in, some muttering insistently that I had escaped by some powerful spell.
Laertes, the missing Hollow One, walked towards me, limping on his left leg. He wore his familiar black habit, though it was ripped to tatters. Despite his limp he had no problem marching up the hill. In his eyes was not the fight I expected. He lifted the side of his mouth into a smile. He was a very old man, with a gaunt face, thinner than I remembered. He might have been fifty when made a vampire, but he seemed much older to me now. When he finally stood across from me, he pointed at Fire’s dagger clenched in my hand and chuckled.
‘She does have fantastic taste, doesn’t she?’ He took the dagger. My calmness surprised me. Wouldn’t I have been better off frightened? Fighting him? What overwhelmed me most was my need for answers.
‘Did you somehow get my blood because of the onyx ceilings? In your house?’ I demanded. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Good question,’ he said, admiring the stones on the hilt. ‘Onyx is very powerful.’
‘Great. Riddles,’ I replied, disgusted.
Laertes laughed again. A sea of shattered glass clung to the bottom of his robes. A thick fall wind came through the window, bringing with it the smell of Lovers Bay. The room was empty now.
‘I just saved your life, and I’d think you would offer me a thank-you,’ he said.
‘You’re late. And you’re holding my dagger. I don’t think I’m out of the woods yet.’
‘Oh, do trust me, Lenah Beaudonte. You could kill me with your bare hands.’
Laertes took slow steps to a chair. Through the broken glass windows people called my name. Laertes eased slowly into the chair. It was only then that I understood just how badly he was hurt.
‘I used my last strength to come here. I escaped the one place I made nearly inescapable.’
‘You had to flee your own home?’
We remained in the sphere as we talked.
‘How do I know you weren’t sent here with a mission like the rest of those vampires?’ I asked while pacing. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to sit down.
‘What? As though I’m some kind of spy?’ he said with another chuckle. When his mouth opened, I gasped a little at the dark holes, although I knew the Hollow Ones had removed their fangs as part of a commitment to knowledge and power.
‘Yes,’ I said finally. ‘You could be a spy.’
‘This attack was a foolish tactic on Justin’s part to drive you out. I knew this would kill you,’ he said. ‘So I had to come for a variety of reasons. I waited until your situation was most dire.’
‘You could kill me.’
‘Do sit down,’ he said. ‘I have something to give you.’
He dug in his robes and unearthed a piece of paper.
‘You get this from Justin and you will serve your purpose, Lenah Beaudonte,’ Laertes said. ‘I could not get it from him myself. He is guarding it too closely and I, well . . .’ he said, gazing at his wrinkled hands, ‘I don’t have the strength any more.’
I unfolded the piece of paper.
On it was one word: Vereselum.
‘That’s it!’ My voice jumped in pitch. ‘Vere-selum,’ I sounded it out slowly. ‘What does it mean?’
‘I will tell you only this. That this –’ he gestured to the paper – ‘is the best gift I can give you.’
I knew from old that the matter was now closed for discussion; he would not tell me more no matter how much I begged.
Something about Laertes’s demeanour shifted. I remembered all too keenly his desire to siphon out my blood in return for calling the Aeris. This time his expression was one of admiration. He was more like a grandfather or a doting uncle, neither of which I had ever had, not even when I was a human.
‘Why are you giving me this?’ I asked.
‘Let’s just say, as of late, I’ve had a change of heart.’
‘Heart?’ I chuckled. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’
‘That’s a nasty cut,’ Laertes said, referring to the jagged line running down my middle finger.
‘Why?’ I asked, ignoring him
‘You should clean that up.’ He pointed to the cut again and sighed. ‘If you must know, we never meant to lose ourselves,’ Laertes admitted. The strange air still hovered around us. ‘At first our knowledge was a means to power. The most powerful vampires, standing as kings on the black wings of the vampire world. Then we removed our ability to love. But with that we lost passion, compassion and joy.’
‘Justin has too,’ I said softly.
Laertes extended his right arm and I gulped hard. He splayed his fingers wide, showing that his index and middle fingers were cut off at the knuckle. The skin was brown and bruised where he had lost the tops of his fingers.
‘He only had to cut off two before I revealed the secret of how to remove love. So much for inner strength. I was more powerful with my brothers.’
He meant Rayken and Levi. Did I dare feel pity for this monster?
‘We thought that making hybrids was another example of our power. If we could make day and night wanderers, we could kill at any time. Rule the day as well as the night.’
Laertes stood up, still holding my dagger. He turned it over in his hands.
‘We were nothing more than the lowest form of vampires. We wanted to siphon out our pain. We were cowards,’ he said, still admiring the rubies.
‘And now you’ve made a monster,’ I said quietly.
‘He does not love. And without me he will not be as . . . effective.’
‘But you tried – you tried to put back the love you removed.’
‘I spent hours, years, decades attempting to put it back into myself once it was gone.’
‘What about the onyx? Maybe if you destroyed the ceilings in your house, the love would come back?’
‘Love is not a spell. Love is beyond spells. Beyond power. It is a white light like your soul. Once removed, it can never come back. No destruction of onyx will help me. Why do you think we had Rhode search it out? It’s impossible. All I feel now is pity. Guilt. Maybe a shred of compassion, perhaps, in some limited way. But not love. I cannot bring myself to feel love for anything. So Justin made me take it out so he would no longer be a victim of his love for you.’ he paused. His mutilated hand still held the dagger.