After the Fall: A Vampire Chronicle (Book One) (10 page)

“See you around.”

Caroline stood where she was until the girl disappeared around the corner. She didn’t know what to make of the situation. It was strange in a chilling kind of way, but so many random people walked the streets of Manhattan, and so many random encounters occurred because of them, that for all extents and purposes, what had just happened could be classified as normal by New York standards.

For a moment, Caroline was torn. The encounter had thrown her for a loop – she suddenly wanted to be back in a familiar place with familiar faces, no matter how recently she had met those faces. Still, thinking about Chris and Lorenzo made her temper flare again. Thoughts of violence and doing bodily harm were taking over again. She needed to cool off first. Then, when she was thinking rationally again, she could figure out what to do about… well, everything.

              Lorenzo sat alone in the hotel room, comfortable in the silence, but too deep in thought to pay much attention to the text he was perusing. It had been several hours since Caroline had disappeared from the hotel, and almost as long since Christian had bolted out the door after her. He wasn’t worried about Christian – he knew the boy could take of himself. But he didn’t know Caroline Gallagher. He didn’t know what state of mind she was in, though he could imagine. She was upset and angry and looking to lash out at something, anything.

             
He didn’t like that she was in this situation. He had problems with the fact that Christian had divulged top-secret information to a girl he had only met a few hours before. He also had problems, however, with the fact that she was now most likely a prime target of the vampires roaming Manhattan, taking their orders from a Master Vampire.

             
He had to admit, to his chagrin, that he liked Caroline. She had conviction and personality, and the fact that she was so far emotionally surviving her survival attested to her strong character. He could understand the attachment Christian had already formed with her – Lorenzo could sense it. He didn’t agree with it – as much as Christian needed friends, he couldn’t afford to have them. Still, he could understand it.

             
Sometimes it was eerie how much Christian was like his brother. The similarities in their looks and some of their mannerisms, like the way he pulled on his ear when he was lost in a book. Brian had done that too. Lorenzo didn’t think about Brian a lot. They hadn’t been together that long. And then Brian had been killed by vampires, and his body had never been found. He had always known that there was always the possibility that his Hunter would be killed in action, and so he hadn’t let himself get that close to Brian. But when Brian died, it had still felt as if his heart had been wrenched from his chest. Which was why he had allowed himself to get as close to Christian as he had. Because it would still hurt. But he never let himself think about having to go through it a second time…

             
Brian had been a good Hunter. He and Christian had that in common as well. And he had been a good man. He had seen Brian and Christian interact and there had been a comfortable familiarity, a brotherly bond, and even through the inevitable teasing, fighting and sibling rivalry, the love and affection the Dreiden brothers had for each other had been obvious. But Brian had also been stubborn and hardheaded, not always listening to Lorenzo’s advice. He sometimes slacked on his training and when he got angry, his emotions got the better of him. They had ultimately gotten the better of him. Lorenzo kept it to himself, but for that, he blamed himself for Brian’s death. He had not had control of his Hunter and had not taught him well enough to save his life.

             
He was better with Christian. He had learned from his mistakes. Brian had had friends, had been around his family, had gone out and had somewhat of a life. But Lorenzo had grown to love Christian, considering him the son he never had, and he would do whatever it took to keep this Dreiden boy from dying. If having no life saved Christian’s life, so be it.

             
Shaking his head, trying to clear his thoughts, Lorenzo tried focusing on the book in his hands. It was a relatively new one, only about three hundred years old. He had found it in the rectory of Saint Joseph’s, which was one of the oldest Catholic churches built in Manhattan. At his age, there was no way he could help Christian fight the Master Vampire, except in an intellectual sense. He was convinced that the best way to ultimately defeat the Master Vampire was to discover where they came from – if he could find a pattern or clues that would help to track them down, then they could be destroyed.

             
For an hour, Lorenzo scoured the book in front of him, to no avail. Finally, as his eyes were beginning to water and the words swim in front of his face, a passage jumped out of him. Blinking twice, he picked up a pen and began to write it down on a pad of paper lying on the end table:

I had, by some grace of God, stumbled upon a manuscript in the crypt of San Pellegrino, dated a century prior to the emergence of the First Hunter. I could not discern who the author of the text was, although the monks of San Pellegrino claimed it to be a prophet of some sort. As far as I could tell, the text spoke of the Hunter, who was yet to come, and the words were as follows:

From the middle mountains emerge both dark and light,

and
Janus will be the god who governs them.

They will be blind who seek the answers,

though the veil of darkness is but an illusion.

Be forewarned – that which is so close to the eye and the heart becomes invisible.

The shadow will disappear with night. May God protect us all.

The text is now long gone, crumbled into dust, and I know not what it means.

              Lorenzo, as well, knew not what it meant, only that if he found enough passages, even the most bizarre ones should start to make some sort of sense. At least, he hoped so. He was about to start reading again when there was a knock at the door. He slowly stood and walked the length of the room to answer it. He looked through the peephole and, undoing the chain, opened the door.

             
“Well,” he said to the person on the other side, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”

              Christian didn’t return to the hotel room until dusk. He had spent the last few hours scouring the city from top to bottom, anywhere he thought Caroline might have run to. As each hour passed, he became more and more worried. What would he do if he didn’t find her? What would he do if the next time he saw her she was lying dead on a slab in the morgue? He had to find her, and yet the more he looked, the more convinced he became that he she was gone. What else could he do? He vowed to keep looking until there was nowhere else to look. Still, once darkness had started to fall, he realized he would have to return to the hotel to check in with Lorenzo and get some supplies to protect himself with; he didn’t want Lorenzo to worry about him the way he was worrying about Caroline.

             
He should have known she would take off, but he had thought she understood the danger she would place herself in if she left the sanctuary of the hotel. Obviously, she was stupider than she looked, because now darkness was falling, vampires were roaming, and she was out there somewhere, very much alone.

             
The elevator stopped at his floor, and he got off, racing to his and Lorenzo’s suite, throwing open the door.

             
“Lorenzo, I’m-,” his words died in his throat when he entered the room and found himself looking at not one, but two people sitting. Lorenzo was seated comfortably in one of the chairs, and across from him, on the sofa, sat Caroline.

             
Christian was so stunned that words failed him. She looked like she would rather be anywhere in the world but sitting in that room, but she was there. It was she who finally broke the silence.

             
“I wasn’t going to come back,” she said, and he heard the defensiveness in her voice, “but once it got dark, I realized I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to, so…” she shrugged, “here I am.”

             
A wave of relief rushed over Christian, followed by a wave of anger. He was furious with her. She had scared him half to death. He thought he was going to find her dead. Instead, she had been sitting here, maybe not happy, but at least safe.

             
“Do you know the hell you put me through this afternoon?” he finally exploded. “I thought the next time I saw you was going to be in the morgue.”

             
She frowned, and he could see that he was jump-starting her own temper, but he couldn’t make himself stop. He had never been as scared in his whole life as he had been this afternoon.

             
“Do you know how stupid you were? You could have died today, Caroline. I know I hurt your feelings and wounded your pride today in the park, but that was no reason to go suicidal on me!”

             
Suddenly, she was on her feet, her eyes blazing with an anger that she was finding almost impossible to control.

             
“Where do you get off?” she hissed. “What I do is my business. If I decide to run head long into traffic, it’s none of your concern. And give me some credit. You may think I’m a stupid half-wit, but I had the sense to come back here. See, this is me. Here.”

             
“I spent all day looking for you,” Christian said through clenched teeth.             

             
“Nobody asked you to,” she said through equally clenched teeth.

             
“You could’ve died today!”

             
“Chris, we’re all gonna die someday! You can’t save the world!”

             
And just like that, his anger disappeared. He felt himself deflate like a balloon. Because the thing was, he was supposed to save the world. That wasn’t just his job. It was his entire reason for being. Taking a close look at her, he could see she was still angry, but that her anger, too, was subsiding.

             
“I was worried about you,” he admitted. “You shouldn’t have run off like that.”

             
“I wasn’t out to get myself killed,” she answered back, her voice much more calm, though a little uneven. “I was just angry with you.”

             
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. He knew what she wanted, and he wanted to be able to tell her yes, she could help him find and kill the Master Vampire. But if he did, he was as good as killing her. But if he didn’t, she would probably go on hating him for as long as he was in New York. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

             
Lorenzo, who had been silent through the entire episode, finally spoke, startling both Christian and Caroline.

             
“If you are both done, might I have the floor for a moment?” he asked. Christian blushed, ashamed that he had allowed his temper to get the better of him, that he had acted in such a manner in front of Lorenzo.

             
“The way I see the situation,” the old priest said, standing up and approaching the two younger people, “is that Caroline is going to be a certain target now due to her witnessing the attack on her family, which means she must remain with us, no arguments allowed.”

             
Christian and Caroline both remained silent, waiting for Lorenzo to continue.

             
“The problem here is the same one you, Christian, yourself faced several years ago. What to do with this thirst for revenge? Obviously, Caroline’s cannot be channeled as yours was. Still, it would be unhealthy to keep inside. It would be suicide to actively pursue your family’s killers, Caroline. This you must understand.”

             
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but wisely, she waited for Lorenzo to finish.

             
“It will do your family no good if you are killed. How can you help them then?”

             
Christian looked at her, and for the first time, she seemed a bit ashamed, as if she had never considered this. She hung her head a bit.

             
“What I propose is this,” Lorenzo continued. “I have many books to go through that I hope will give us hints and clues about the Master Vampire and how to kill him. While you are with us, Caroline, I could use your help in researching these things. As much as I hate to admit it, I am getting older. I get tired more easily and my eyesight is getting weak. Having someone here to read with me would be a tremendous help. I would like Christian, however, to instruct you in ways to defend yourself against a vampire attack. While it would be suicidal for you to pursue them, we want you to have the upper-hand should they actively pursue you, which they most assuredly will.”

             
The old man looked from Caroline to Christian and back again.

             
“That is what I propose. Is that agreeable to you?”

             
Christian would have preferred to lock Caroline in a windowless room until the whole ordeal was over in order to ensure her safety, but he knew that was far from realistic. While he knew the proposal wouldn’t make either him or Caroline perfectly happy, it was a compromise, and one he could work with; he waited to see how Caroline would take it. Finally, she answered.