Dark Season: The Complete Third Series (All 8 books) (57 page)

Letting out a roar of pain, Benjamin pulls away, but it's too late. He can't reach the device to switch the collar off, and the collar itself is rammed so far into his mouth that part of the sharp, twisted metal has come out through the back of his neck. He stumbles away from me, before falling to the ground. A vampire such as Patrick, or myself, can withstand the pain of that device, but Benjamin - for all his plans and ambitions - is only human. His body convulses for a moment, and then he's still. I can sense that his heartbeat has stopped. He's dead.

"Are you okay?" I ask, turning to Patrick, but I immediately see that he's at the point of death. Hurrying to him, I kneel next to his body and look into his eyes. Did I do the right thing? I had two fathers in the end: one real, and one who sought to take the position by force. Looking at Patrick now, I see something in his eyes that I never saw before; I see compassion, and maybe even love. "I'm going to destroy this place," I say to him, feeling as if I have to burn everything and then get as far away from Dedston as possible. "I'm going to make sure there's no trace of Benjamin's experiments left".

Patrick stares at me for a moment, and then he opens his mouth and it seems as if he's trying to say something. A faint rasping sound comes from his throat, but he's too weak to form any words.

"It's okay," I say, putting a finger against his lips. "I understand. You don't have to say anything".

He pauses, and then finally something happens that I never, ever thought I'd see. He smiles. As he does so, a hint of smoke starts rising up from his clothes. I step back as I realize that his body is starting to burn. I have no idea how vampires die, but within a few seconds I have to shield my eyes as a raging inferno flares all over his body. The heat is intense, and it seems to be growing and growing. My first instinct is to run, but then I realize that maybe I should just stay here and hope that the fire consumes me. After all, I don't think I can live with the things I've done. I killed Shelley, and Todd, and Donna. I don't deserve to live. Maybe the blaze from Patrick's body will incinerate me as well.

Sitting down, with tears streaming from my face, I feel the intense roar of the flames start to surround me, as the white heat flares and burns. I hold out my hands and see that they're slowly starting to burn, and I realize that if this fire can destroy Patrick's body, then it can also destroy mine. I'm the last vampire, but maybe the world would be a better place if there were no vampires at all. Instead of starting a new vampire race, I can end our species right here and now. When Patrick wanted to kill all the vampires, he had to kill thousands. I'm lucky. I can do the same thing, just by sitting here and letting myself die.

No more pain.

"You have to get out of here," whispers a female voice suddenly.

Turning, I see a woman staring at me. It takes a moment before I realize it's my mother. It's Sophie.

"This is how it should be," I say, my voice trembling as my flesh continues to burn. "I don't want to be a monster. I'd rather just die right now".

"So many people have died because they wanted to make sure you'd be born," she replies. "Shelley. Todd. People you never even met, like Vincent. Don't throw it away just because you're scared. Get up and walk out of here, Abby. You'll never be a monster. There's only one monster here, and that was Benjamin".

"I killed Shelley!" I shout at her, suddenly unable to control my grief. I've been holding it back, trying not to think about the way I ripped Shelley apart and drank her blood, but now I'm terrified that I'll do the same thing to someone else. Shelley was the closest thing I had to a real friend, and I caused her to die slowly and painfully. How can I ever get close to anyone else, ever again, if there's a chance I might turn around one day and kill them?

"That doesn't mean you have to die today," Sophie says. "Abby, please..." She leans closer and kisses my forehead. "I love you".

"I love you too," I say, gulping back tears, "but -" Suddenly I realize she's gone. Sitting alone, with the fire raging around me and burning my body, I pause for a moment before deciding that I can't let it end like this. Standing up, I turn and start walking away from the center of the fire. I walk past the rows of jars, where the dead creatures are burning; I walk up the stone steps and into the cavern, which is already filled with smoke; finally, I walk up to the exit and out into the forest. My burnt skin is already starting to heal, and I look back at the entrance to the cavern and see smoke rising into the early morning Dedston sky. There's a second plume of smoke a few miles away, and I realize that Benjamin's facility must be burning as well, since it was connected to the cavern by an underground tunnel. After a moment, I turn and look across the forest, and I realize that all the ghosts are gone. I'm completely alone.

Patrick

Standing by the river, I watch as Abigail walks through the forest. She's alone, and she's wandering aimlessly. She has nowhere to go, no-one to visit; she has no plan, and no idea what she's supposed to do. She's completely free, as I was once. It has been hundreds, thousands of years since I was her age. Like her, I had to set out from a destroyed home and find my way in a world that seemed far too big and far too noisy. Fortunately, Abigail is stronger than I ever was. She won't make the same mistakes; she'll make her own mistakes, but she'll be able to deal with them. She's strong enough. She's the last vampire, now, and the first of a new species.

"She's hurting," says Sophie, standing next to me. "She killed Shelley, and she thinks that means she's an evil person". Pausing, she turns to me. "It's not going to be quick, is it?" she asks. "It's going to take her years to come to terms with her past, but..." She looks back over at Abigail, who walks along the opposite side of the river, oblivious to the fact that we're watching her. "She'll be okay, won't she?" Sophie asks finally as we watch Abigail disappear into the distance.

Reaching down and taking Sophie's hand, I lead her away. Abigail is alone for now, but she won't be alone forever. She doesn't need old ghosts watching over her and helping her; we'd just hold her back and tie her to the past, when she needs to be focusing on the future. When I was her age, I made the mistake of dwelling on my own failings, and focusing too much on my needs. Abigail, I think, will avoid that mistake.

"Now what do we do?" Sophie asks as we walk slowly between the trees. "After I died, I made a conscious decision to wait for you, but now... Where do we go?"

I don't reply. I just lead her toward the horizon, which has begun to get brighter. I could try to explain to Sophie what happens next, and what the next world will be like, but it's hard to put into words and - anyway - I've never been particularly good at that kind of thing. Instead, I lead her into the light that's starting to rise in the sky, its rays spreading through the forest. I can tell Sophie's nervous, but she still trusts me. I don't deserve her love, not after everything that happened, but it seems that she has seen past my actions and has recognized the depth of my love for her. I can't begin to understand how she can be so intuitive and understanding, but all I can do now is to make sure she never, ever has cause to regret her decision.

We stop as we reach the threshold between this world and the next. The white light bathes us with such intensity, it's getting hard to see her face even though she's standing right in front of me. I reach out and put a hand on the side of her face. The moment is here; the moment I waited for from the very first time I ever saw Sophie's face. One day, many hundreds or even thousands of years in the future, perhaps we'll come back to this place in order to greet Abigail when she reaches the end of her own life. For now, Sophie and I will be going on this journey together, but there are others waiting for us on the other side. Vincent, Shelley, Todd, Cassandra, Garvey, Comfortable... Sophie's parents... Everyone who died will be there, and we'll be together.

"I love you," Sophie says, with a hint of fear in her eyes.

I stare at her, and for a moment I don't reply. Finally, I lean closer. "I love you too," I say, kissing her as the light engulfs us and we pass through the threshold into the next world.

Epilogue

New York City, Eleven years later.

This place is hell. Absolute hell. Every time I have to come to New Mercy Hospital, I find myself having to force my way through crowds of walking wounded, all of whom are convinced that
their
injuries demand immediate attention, and all of whom are angry that
they
are being ignored. Tonight is no exception, with the ER room packed from wall to wall with walking wounded, while a handful of bewildered medical staff try to make sense of the chaos. Like I said, this place is hell, and I never come here unless it's absolutely necessary.

"Detective Cooper," I say, flashing my badge at a security guard over by one of the staff doors. He flicks the door open, barely even bothering to look at me.

Once I'm through into the treatment area, I manage to relax a little. At least the general public can't get here, not without being led through by one of the nurses. Still, it's a pretty grotty scene. As I walk across the room, I pass a series of beds, each of them containing someone who's sick or injured. There's a guy with a gash on his leg, sitting tensely while a nurse sews the wound back up; there's another guy who has what appears to be part of a fence post rammed through his shoulder; there's even an old woman who looks positively yellow, and who is being completely ignored as she breathes slowly and harshly on a bed in the corner.

"Detective Cooper," I say as I reach the nurses' station, where a bored-looking nurse is writing notes in a log-book.

"And?" she asks blithely.

"And I'm here to see the guy who was brought in with part of his face missing," I continue.

"Cubicle twenty," she says, barely able to hide the disdain in her voice.

"Great," I reply, turning and heading along the next corridor. Somewhere in the distance, I hear someone screaming. God knows who it is, but in a place like this you don't even bother to notice such things. It'd almost be odd if there
wasn't
someone screaming, such is the general chaos and pandemonium of this fucking hospital. Seriously, the people who come to this crumby, worn-down hospital are the people who were already pretty far-gone to begin with. Drunks, hobos, alcoholics... They all get turned away from other hospitals and sent down to New Mercy, where they sit around and complain until someone takes pity on them and decides to take a look at whatever's causing them pain. Frankly, I don't see why anyone bothers helping these people; it'd be better if they were all taken out back and left to rot.

"Detective Cooper," I say as I reach cubicle at the end of the corridor. I find that there's a young guy in the bed, with a large bandage over the left side of his face. A doctor is checking his medical chart; young, hot and with a friendly smile, she's the kind of doctor who could only be in a place like this out of some misjudged sense of duty.

"He's asleep," she says, barely looking up from the chart.

"I can see that," I reply. "The question is, will he ever wake up?"

"Hard to say," she admits, putting the chart down. "He lost a lot of blood, and there seems to be some cerebral trauma. On top of that, I think he might have suffered a small stroke in the Pons section of his brain. I'm waiting for confirmation, but I'm pretty sure the stress of his accident brought on some kind of mild neurological event. I'm sorry I can't be more precise".

"Do you know what attacked him?" I ask.

She pauses, looking a little nervous. "I've got an idea," she says finally.

"What?" I ask. "Let me guess. Some kind of big cat? A bear? Seriously, you get all sorts in New York. Some rich collector buys a bunch of exotic animals, gets bored, and they end up being released into the sewers. Either that, or some fucking foreigner moves in and brings his fucked-up pet with him, and then it gets out and starts mauling people".

"This was none of those things," the doctor says. "Before he lost consciousness, Mr. Bell - that's his name, by the way - told us he was attacked by a humanoid creature".

"Humanoid?" I say. "What's that? Like... human?"

"Not quite," the doctor says. "He insists this thing was able to leap over a chain fence with ease. He says it had eyes that burned yellow. Also, there's this". She passes me a print-out, but it's full of medical jargon and I have no idea what it means. "There are toxins in his body," the doctor continues. "Inorganic. Unlike anything I've ever seen before, except..." She pauses for a moment. "There was a similar case last week. I think they're related. I think you've got a problem, Detective Cooper. I think there's some kind of creature on the loose in New York, and I think it's trying to drink the blood of its victims".

"Like a fucking vampire?" I ask, passing the sheet of paper back to her.

"Like a vampire," she says, "but not
quite
a vampire. Just something that shares a few similar traits. It's pretty unusual".

"Is that all you've got for me?" I say. "I came all the way down here, and all you can tell me is that something attacked this guy, and it might have attacked some other guy last week, and apart from that you haven't got a clue what it is but maybe, just maybe, it's a fucking vampire". I smile. "No offense, but I'm a little disappointed".
"You won't be disappointed if this thing follows the pattern I'm expecting," she says. "I've got some experience with this type of thing. I think we're looking at a Golv. They're usually fairly docile creatures, but for some reason one has become more aggressive. It won't stop of its own accord, so you're going to have to believe me. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And when you do, I can help you".