Nightmare City

Callie was right, I DID feel much better in the morning. I was filled with new vigour, my head finally clear. I moved about the house with energy, preparing everything I would need.

Chris had arrived back at the house sometime while I slept. “You weren’t in your room last night.”

“I was in Gabriel’s room.” I tensed up, waiting for him to say something about that. Instead he stepped up behind me and placed his hands gently on my shoulders.

“How are you holding up?” he asked gently.

I wasn’t used to Chris being like this, tenderness wasn’t normally in his nature. He must have been really worried about me.

“I’m fine.” I replied, shrugging away his hands. I had placed a long duffel bag on the coffee table. I unzipped it now and began packing it with the supplies I had gathered. Right on top went Katrina’s silver katana and her old revolver.

“What are you planning now?”

“What do you think? I’m gonna find Gabriel.”

“That much I can gather. What I meant was ‘how’?”

“I’ll have Callie point the right direction, and figure the rest out on my own.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What time are we leaving?”

I paused, but didn’t look at him. “We? You’re coming along?”

“If you’ll have me.”

I wasn’t used to Chris being so... complacent. “You’re the one with the car.”

He tossed his keys on top of the bag. “It’s yours if you need it.”

“The last car I owned was blown up, if you remember.” I reached my hand out and clutched the keys.

“I don’t care.”

I picked up the keys and held them back out to him, my head bowed. “I need you with me more than the car.” My voice was suddenly hoarse, I cleared it a little.

He took the keys from me. “I’ll always be whatever you need, Evie. Even a getaway driver.”

“Thanks Chris.” I said softly. “You’re the best big brother ever.”

“What’s that?”

Suppressing a smile, I asked, “You want me to spell it out?” I looked up at him, but he was turned towards the kitchen.

There was an expression on intense concentration on his face. “What’s that sound?” he asked.

I listened intently, my ears straining. The house was silent. “...what sound?” I asked.

“You don’t hear that?” his voice had a faint, faraway quality to it. “It’s so... beautiful...”

“I don’t hear anything Chris, and you’re freaking me out a little.” I sidestepped in front of him, trying to look into his face. His eyes were focused past the kitchen, to the front door.

“You seriously don’t hear that?” he asked, his voice filled with wonder. “It’s filling up the whole house...”

“Honestly? No.”

Without turning his head away from the door, he pointed to my bag. “Shotgun.” he said.

I pulled one of the shotguns out of the bag. “I’m not giving this to you when you’re like this.” I said firmly.

“No, I can’t be trusted. Point it at the door.”

“Why the door, what’s going-” It was then that I heard a sound, a sound that chilled my blood. It was not a beautiful sound. It made my eyes go wide and I whirled around to face the door.

The sound was a slow, metallic, grinding noise, followed by a very loud click. It was the sound I heard every time I unlocked the front door, and right now, my keys were still in my pocket.

I held the shotgun level with the door as it burst open, slamming into the coat closet. A figure stood in the doorway, curvy as an hourglass under the moonlight. Her hair frizzed out all over her head in wild black curls, going down to her waist. Her three inch stiletto heels clicked softly on the tile as she stepped inside.

“You thought you could hide from me, didn’t you, Angel? Well, I’ve found you now.”

Chris visibly relaxed. “Thank god it stopped.” he whispered.

“Desyre?!” I asked incredulously, recognizing her unique voice. “What the hell are you doing in my house!?” I kept the shotgun pointed at her.

She walked into the kitchen, and I could see her better. She was wearing a black vinyl catsuit and matching knee high boots. Her eyes were heavily made up, as always, and her full lips were a bright gold. Her milk chocolate colored skin was heavily bronzed, due to the copious amounts of sparkly powder applied to her face. She was lucky vampires didn’t sweat, or her face would be a horrible, caking, mess.

“My Angel, come out, come out wherever you are...” she said in a singsong voice that would make real angels weep. A shiver went through Chris. “Don’t make me come and get you...”

“Gabriel’s not here.” I said firmly. “How did you find out where he lives, Desyre?”

“Desyre? Wait, I know that name.” Chris mumbled to himself, closing his eyes as he tried to recall.

“She’s the singer.”

His eyes flew back open. “The singer? THE singer? Desyre? The one with three platinum records?”

“That’s her.”

“What the hell is she doing here?!”

“She knows Gabriel,” my voice was tight. “...apparently.”

Desyre ignored the both of us, instead turning her eyes to the stairs beyond the kitchen. Her voice lowered to a sultry purr. “Your pets are adorable, Angel, but I don’t have time to play. I’m late for a gig.”

“That’s it, I’m shooting her.” I aimed the shotgun carefully.

She turned to me finally. “That’s a heavy weapon for such a small pet.” she remarked.

“I can handle it just fine.” My eyes narrowed. “I said already, Gabriel is not here.”

“Well... where is he then?”

“How did you unlock the front door?”

“You first.”

“I don’t know where Gabriel is.”

“Then I’m not telling you how I unlocked your door.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh, I am so shooting you now.” My finger gripped the trigger, but I didn’t pull it.

“If you could, you would have done so already.”

The shotgun felt very heavy in my hands. I lowered it gratefully. “God damn influence.” I moaned.

“I thought you were immune to vampire magic?” Chris asked.

“When I can see it coming, yeah. I don’t know how she’s doing this.”

“Fear not, I mean you no harm.” Desyre announced, walking over to us. “Not unless you do me harm, that is. Otherwise, I can see us getting along quite nicely.”

“Gabriel didn’t look like he wanted to get along last time he saw you.” I pointed out.

Her mouth twisted into a small pout. “My Angel is a bit of a coward when it comes to me.” she admitted.

“Just how much stronger than him are you?” I asked warily.

“Oh, I’m a weakling compared to him. If I were stronger I wouldn’t be rid of him. He fears me for another reason.”

“Which is?”

She put a finger to her lips. “I don’t give out my secrets for free. Tell me where he is.”

“I already said I don’t know.” I hesitated for a second, glancing at my bag. “But... I am going out to look for him now. You’re welcome to join us, if you want. We could use all the help we can get.”

She reached into a glittering gold purse and pulled out a clam shell cellphone. She opened it up and pressed a number. “Alejandro?” she said sweetly into the phone. “I’m cancelling.” She snapped the phone shut and stowed it away. “When do we leave?” she asked brightly.

********

“Do you think it’ll live, Doctor?” The boy’s voice came drifting back, filled with worry.

“I’m not certain, Ciel, I’ve never seen a subject this badly burned before.” This was a new voice, older, masculine. “I’ll give him a thirty percent chance to survive. No... twenty five percent.”

“It’s a male, then?” the girl asked. She was trying to mask the curiosity in her voice, but it eked out of the edges.

“Judging by the size and shape of the shoulder bones. See here, Anais? Even without the primary sex characteristics, you can judge gender based on skeletal formation.” He sounded like he was teaching. Had I become a lesson while unconscious?

“Doctor, how can he still be alive? So much of him is... well, missing.”

“His ribcage managed to protect his heart. As long as that is intact, everything else will regrow. He must possess great strength and ability, to have survived a full day in the sun. I’ll have to run a marrow test, but I will hazard an age estimate of about five hundred years.”

“That would make him almost our age, Anais!” Ciel exclaimed excitedly. “I can’t wait till he’s healed. I wonder what he looks like.”

“Now, don’t get attached, there is a very good chance he won’t make it.” the doctor said sternly. “I’ve got to get back to the patients, I’ll leave you two here tonight, but tomorrow you must go back to work. The patients need you.”

“All right.” Ciel and Anais said together. There was a sound of a door closing softly.

“He’ll live. I’ll make sure he does. I’ll heal him myself if I have to.” the boy sounded optimistically determined, an odd combination. “Then, he’ll be alive because of me, because I saved him. I’ve never done that before.”

“We save humans all the time, Ciel.” Anais pointed out. “It’s our job.”

“That’s different, they don’t matter. This is one of us. I’ve never saved one of us before.”

“They’re our food, dummy. They matter the most.”

“We can always get food somewhere else.”

“Not as good as this. I don’t know if I want to share with someone else.”

“Of course we should share. We have so much, anyway.” The boy’s voice grew closer. “You should drink, you won’t heal until you do. Here, it smells vile, but it’s really good for you. You’ll get better in no time.”

My sense of smell was like my sense of sight: non-existent. Liquid touched what was left of my mouth and I drank, not caring what it was. Swallowing hurt enough to make me pass out again, but I held on stubbornly. I didn’t know how long I had been like this, but I knew that if I drank, I would heal. I had to heal. There was something important I had to get back to...

*********

“Are you sure this is the place, Evie?” Chris asked, pulling up in front of the apartment building. Storm clouds gathered overhead, giving us the perfect backdrop for my situation and mood.

I finished typing into my phone before answering him. “Callie says this is the last place he was at before she lost him.” I answered. “The hunter’s line crosses here too before she loses it.”

“Well, it looks condemned.” he remarked, looking up at the building through the windshield. “It’s the kind of place I would bring a body.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and he quickly looked away. “Sorry.” he said, then busied himself with unbuckling his seat belt.

Desyre sat in the backseat, her legs crossed. “He’s been here, I can smell him.”

I twisted around in my seat till I faced her. “You can really smell him from inside the car with the AC on? Even when vampires don’t sweat?”

Her eyes went to the side. “I can feel him, that’s almost the same.”

I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the jeep. “Well, let’s do this.”

Chris shouldered the bag while Desyre exited the car gracefully. We all looked up at the building. It was derelict and abandoned, with broken windows and part of the wall on the upper floors collapsed in on itself.

Plywood walls had been erected around the building, a large work order and license posted up, but incredibly aged by sun and rain. Two pieces of plywood were chained together, supposedly marking the entrance to the site.

Thunder flashed overhead and rain began to fall. Desyre hissed, glaring up at the sky with exposed fangs. She tried to pull the collar of her expensive leather jacket up over her hair, but nothing on earth could confine that force. Chris pulled the umbrella out of the bag and passed it to me. I handed it to her. “Don’t twist the handle too hard.” I cautioned.

“Danke.” Desyre said, opening the umbrella gratefully.

We walked up to the makeshift doors. Chris set the bag down and pulled out a pair of chain clippers. He handed them to me and I quickly dispatched the chain barring our way.

We entered the site as the rain poured down.

********

“Okay, I think he’s shed all the ash he’s going to.” Ciel said cheerfully. “Sister, pass me the gauze, I’m going to wrap him up until he regrows his skin.”

“I’ll help, he’ll look like one of those mummies at the museum. You know, except without arms.”

“Be careful with him, he’s very delicate. Do you see the tube system I hooked up? This way he’ll have a steady stream of nutrition, even while we’re working. He goes through food so fast, I don’t want him to starve and die while we help the patients.”

“He drinks so much because he’s regrowing his internal organs. He’s lucky we have so much extra.”

“When do you think he’ll grow his eyes back?”

“Probably not for a few weeks. What worries me is the right side of his face. He suffered more damage here than on the left, probably due to the way he was hanging. The skull cracked under the pressure inside of his head. The brain tissue will regenerate, but he’ll be missing some memory, possibly skills he’s learned and who knows what else. We won’t find out until he wakes up.”

“Do you think he’ll remember what happened to him?”

“I hope so, I’m curious about that. He was hung up like a Christmas tree ornament and left to die. Looks like hunter’s work.”

“We’ve already got the protesters, are we going to have to deal with hunters too?” Ciel groaned.

“Hunters are worse than protesters.”

“Protesters are louder.”

“Hunters are more dangerous.”

“They’ve both been known to employ fire bombs.” Ciel pointed out.

“Touche.”