Dead Matter (37 page)

“Too soon?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “I can go alone.”

“No,” she said, starting to walk again. “I want to be there. I feel … responsible somehow, for not being around to help Nicholas the past few days.” He’d asked Jane for technomantic help fixing all the bugs Beatriz had created in the arcology’s computer systems.

“I think you’re excused,” I said. We were closer to the kiosk now and were surprised to see Nicholas actually standing at it. “You had enough to contend with, having been eaten by the building and recovering since getting out of it.”

We reached the kiosk a minute later. Nicholas turned to look at us. “Not eaten,” he corrected. “
Absorbed
. Sorry … Didn’t mean to listen in, but preternatural and all.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m getting used to it by now. I just pretend I’m being wiretapped all the time. It’s just easier that way.”

“I see,” Nicholas said, his face somber as I realized my attempt at humor was lost on him. “If you give me a second to power down this unit, I’ll escort you back to the castle.”

“Powering down?” Jane asked.

Nicholas nodded, the ponytail of his hair bobbing. “Until I can confirm that this unit is clean, I’m shutting it down.”

“Oh,” Jane said.

Nicholas brought up a series of windows on the touch screen and flashed through them with lightning speed. With a final few taps at the console, the touch screen went dark and Nicholas turned his full attention to us. “There,” he continued. “Now, if you’ll walk with me …”

The three of us headed back through the corridors of shops and restaurants. I was thankful that this time Nicholas was walking at a human pace. While I first thought this was a courtesy to us, I realized I could feel the waves of sadness rolling off of him as we walked.

“How you holding up?” I asked.

“I have been better,” he said.

“But you think things
are
going to be okay with the Center?” Jane asked.

Nicholas looked unsure. “Half the building’s systems are down right now,” Nicholas said. “It’s proving quite the challenge to sort through every set of code, routines and subroutines. The building is just a bit too sentient for my liking right now, and until we can clean out the damage Beatriz had done hiding her trail in the system, I’d rather play it safe.”

I could see that just saying Beatriz’s name caused Nicholas pain. Even after centuries of life, he couldn’t hide his bitterness at the way things had turned out. I let go of Jane’s arm and fell in step with Nicholas as we approached the living-statue guardians at the ornate door leading back to the castle. Nicholas started shifting the various shapes in the door to let us in.

“Listen, Nick,” I said, “about Beatriz … I’m sorry. If there was any other way …”

He took his hand from one of the large glass blocks he had just shifted and held it up to silence me. “It’s all right. I understand why you had to do what you did. I’m not thrilled she’s gone. I’m not going to lie. She was dark and vicious and callous … sometimes all three in a single moment, but to know her, to look upon her … Well, she was a thing of beauty, like a cathedral. But as any good architect will tell you, sometimes a building rots from within, usually when it’s too late to help salvage it.”

“Still …” I started, but he shushed me.

“An old friend of mine a century or so ago had a theory. He called it the ‘greatest-happiness principle.’ He said that one must always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Within reason, of course. What you did probably saved countless lives on both sides.”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” I said, nodding. “Or the one.”

Nicholas looked at me and gave a smile. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be,” Jane added. “You haven’t seen
The Wrath of Khan
, have you?”

Nicholas shook his head. “That’s a
Star Trek
movie, yes?”

“I’m sure Brandon has it somewhere in his DVDs,” I said. “You should check it out.”

Nicholas went back to opening the puzzle door. I stood there watching, but Jane drifted off to look at some of the art pieces over here while we waited. Nicholas looked back over his shoulder to see how far Jane was from us and lowered his voice.

“How’s Jane?” he whispered.

“Like a cathedral, too,” I said. “A true thing of beauty. To yoink your poetic little metaphor there.”

He stopped again and looked at me quizzically. “Yoink?”

I opened my mouth to explain, and then shut it. “Never mind,” I said. “We’ve got time to get to it later. I really think you could use a little introduction to our modern century.”

Nicholas finished, and the door clicked and whirred open. Jane came back and the three of us headed down the dark tunnel and out into the nighttime forest that surrounded the castle. We followed Nicholas off to the right of the path in a direction I hadn’t been in before. A simple dirt path wove through the trees. It eventually opened into a small clearing in the forest where several recognizable stone structures rose from the ground.

“A graveyard,” Jane whispered.

I nodded. Figures both familiar and strange filled the clearing and surrounding edge of the forest. A lone coffin sat by an open grave where Brandon stood with several members of his council. Connor and Aidan were there as well.

Nicholas remained with the two of us at the edge of the forest and didn’t move to join any of his people at graveside.

“Have you talked to Aidan at all?” Jane asked. “I mean, you two do have something in common, after all … Beatriz.”

Nicholas shook his head. “The two of us have never been on the best of terms, and while I think with time this incident may bond us, I think he grieves too much with a young heart for that to happen right now. I’ve had centuries to be bitter and torn apart by Beatriz. I will give him time before approaching him about it.” Nicholas hung his head for a moment before looking up at me. “It’s good that he has Connor to help him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I talked Connor into coming back to the offices early, but he’s still got some vacation time coming and wants to take it. I think he and Aidan are planning a kind of Road Trip of the Living Dead or some such nonsense.”

Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “And all is well in your Department with you?” he asked. “Your people have taken you back?”

“We’re working on it,” I said. “Despite my jailbreak, they can be rather forgiving when it comes to preventing mass slaughter in the streets of New York.”

We stood in silence watching the final moments of the funeral as the coffin was lowered into the earth.

“So,” Nicholas said. “What now?”

“Now?” I repeated. “Now we take it slow. A while back, Brandon told me that what he really wanted was for his people to be left alone.”

“In lieu of any peaceful solution,” Nicholas said, “perhaps. However, I think we may find that being left ‘alone’ doesn’t necessarily mean the end of communication between our kinds. Hopefully I can convince our leader that being left alone could simply mean that we are no longer hunted.”

“And what will you do?” Jane asked him.

Nicholas shrugged. “My hands will be full for a while,” he said. “There is much to be done in restoring the Gibson-Case Center to its former glory. After that, I think I would like to visit Spain and England … There is much in my past that I have let go of for too long. My feelings for Bea triz were just a small part of that. There are several churches and structures I should like to see again.”

Nicholas looked momentarily content, if not happy, which, all things considered, was a vast improvement. He looked back off toward the funeral. The vampires were leaving the graveyard now, most of them heading for the castle. I looked at Nicholas. “Listen, if this is a bad time, we could always come back …”

“Hold on,” Nicholas said. His lips kept moving, but I couldn’t hear any sound from them. Off in the graveyard, I saw Brandon turn his head to us and start talking as well. I couldn’t hear him, either. When Brandon was done, Nicholas turned back to us.

“No,” he said. “It’s fine. Come with me.”

 

 

The subterranean lab was just as dank and unappealing as I remembered it. The only thing brightening up the dark space was the crowd of assembled vampires, and if that was what it took to lighten up a room, I thought I could easily pass on the visit, but by the time Nicholas had brought me and Jane all the way down here, it was too late to back out.

Nicholas led us along the now-familiar row of cells until we reached the last of them. The vampires parted soundlessly as we walked through them, almost floating back as we went. Brandon, Connor, and Aidan were gathered at the last cell. Brandon nodded to me as I approached.

“You sure you want me to do this?” I asked.

Their leader nodded again. “It is what I would prefer,” he said, “yes.”

I looked past Brandon and into the cell. The vampire that used to call himself Perry no longer looked like Perry or a vampire. The caged creature was more gaunt and feral-looking than before. I didn’t think it would have been possible, but there it was before my eyes. It paced back and forth behind the bars like a panther, as if it sensed all the living and undead just beyond the cell doors.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because he’s family,” Brandon said. “Because the book said you will show mercy. Because, like it or not, you are a part of that family now. Consider this a sort of … initiation.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, pulling out my custom bat, “but not because your book told me to. I’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Brandon started to speak, but I silenced him as I hit a key combination on the bat. It sprung to life.

“Very well,” Brandon said. “Whatever reason you choose to believe in.”

Aidan moved to the control panel set off to the side of the cell and started punching in a code. “How do we want to do this?” he said. “You want us to hold him or … ?”

“Just open the cell,” I said, and stepped square in front of it. The sound of the bars sliding out of the way made the creature step back and tense. No doubt it saw its chance at freedom and was getting ready to take it.

Quick as a shot, I stepped into the cell as soon as there was room enough to clear the door, blocking the feral creature’s way. It bared its teeth and a low growl started to rise in its chest, but I stepped quickly toward it, my bat cocked back and ready. I reached in my pocket, pulled out a preloaded syringe, and jabbed it into Perry’s chest.

“Sorry, Perry,” I whispered. “Let’s hope there’s something better than this lined up for you.”

The creature reared back in agony and let out a pitiful cry. The sound echoed out into the large chamber behind us, but Perry was already doubling over and falling to the floor.

I turned and stepped out of the cell. Aidan slid the door shut behind me. Jane and Connor were waiting for me. Jane didn’t say a thing, but wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight.

“You okay, kid?” Connor asked.

I nodded, my face solemn.

Brandon stepped over to the bars of the cell and looked down at the creature on the floor. “I thought you were going to dust him,” he said. “What did you do to him? I thought you were going to show him mercy.”

“I did,” I said.

Brandon looked wary. “What did you do?” he asked.

I reached into my pocket and produced several ampoules of a greenish liquid.

“Hopefully, saved him.”

Brandon’s eyes widened. “What?”

I held up one of the ampoules, watching the light play through the emerald green of the liquid. “Antivirus,” I said. “Allorah’s not one hundred percent sure it will work, but since you were ready to have me put down Perry, I figured the odds are better than a one hundred percent chance of me staking him.”

Brandon took the ampoule and twisted it around in his hand, marveling at it. “Allorah did this?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “When I read the two of you together, I saw the world as the two of you see it, but even with that, I can’t say for sure. If I had to hazard a guess, though, I think she prefers vampire science to vampire hunting. Dealing death is hard.”

“Death
should
be hard,” Connor said. He turned to Brandon. “I think that’s something both sides should remember.”

“Agreed,” Brandon said.

I looked at him. “Are we through here?”

Brandon nodded. “For now. Thank you.”

I looked back toward the cell. Perry was asleep on the floor of it, but already his skin looked a little better. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was just a little optimism making him look that way.

“Good luck with your friend,” I said. I took Jane’s hand and we headed back toward the stairs that led up to the castle above, the surrounding forest, the Gibson-Case Center … and the Manhattan that I knew and loved. Full of a life where I hoped the worst thing I had to contend with for a little while was maybe a paper cut at my desk or picking out a cheese for Taco Night. First thing was first, though. I wanted to sleep for a thousand years … but not in the vampiric sense.

ANTON STROUT was born in the Berkshire Hills mere miles from writing heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. He currently lives outside New York City in the haunted corn maze that is New Jersey (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you).

 

His writing has appeared in several DAW anthologies—some of which feature Simon Canderous tie-in stories—including:
The Dimension Next Door
,
Spells of the City
, and
Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies.

 

In his scant spare time, he is an always writer, sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the world’s most casual and controller-smashing video gamer. He now works in the exciting world of publishing, and yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds.