The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (14 page)

“If you’d like, I’ll take whatever you’re having,” Byron said. He missed sap from a can.

“Would you like it warm? I myself prefer it chilled if I can’t drink directly, but I know I’m the exception to the rule.”

“Actually, I’m a fan of a cold drink myself,” Byron said, smiling. He found it difficult not to treat the child like a child. He waited for the boy to return, reminding himself not to patronize. The boy seemed sensitive about it.

Meyer had a way of moving that was stiff but somehow laced with grace. He wore his hair slicked back in an old fashioned way, and he dressed in crisp, almost formal attire. He returned carrying a tray with two frosted glasses of sap and handed one to Byron.

Meyer settled into a chair and rested the sole of one shiny black shoe on the edge of the sitting-room table. “Yes, Herman was my favorite sapien,” he said. “I took him everywhere with me. I know lots of Superiors who frown upon such extravagances, but I say, if you have the means, why not use them to your end, eh?” He smiled and sipped from his glass. “I always did love Coca-Cola.”

“Yes, I used to drink it myself. So, tell me the circumstances surrounding the disappearance, and what was done to recover him.”

“Ah, yes.” Meyer patted his gelled hair as if making sure it held its perfectly gelled place. His face, still childlike, was pure white with a few freckles dotting his nose. Byron found himself wondering again how old the boy had been at the Evolution, and why he evolved if he didn’t have parents, and if he did, where were they? But these were not Byron’s concerns, so he made himself focus despite the oddity of the boy’s situation.

“You see, I come up here to the mountains to ski every winter. There really aren’t many nice places around or I’d have something more to my taste,” Meyer said, glancing around at the sparsely furnished room. It was plain, undecorated, sterile. “Anyhow, there’s a separate quarters for a sapien, so I rent this apartment every year. Would you like to see it?”

“Sure, that would be fine,” Byron said. He followed Meyer to the sapien quarters, which looked exactly like the one Byron kept his own sapiens in. In fact, the whole place had an identical layout. “I see. And your sapien was in this area when it escaped?”

“Well, I always had a favorite sap, like a pet and a meal at the same time, see?” The boy smiled in a most charming way. The child fascinated Byron. Part of him wanted to take the boy home and take care of him, and another part sensed the boy was secretly laughing at him.

“Well, that’s irrelevant,” Meyer said when Byron didn’t answer. “I do that, anyhow. It’s a privilege I allow myself, and who’s to stop me? So I brought Herman with me up here every year for maybe four or five years. Sometimes I get tired of my pets and get new ones, but Herman was particularly tasty and well-trained.” The boy raised an eyebrow at Byron. “Do you own livestock, Enforcer?”

“Yes, four of them, currently.”

“Ah, so you know the value of a well-trained sap. They are priceless. But, I’m afraid I may have let mine have a little too much freedom in the end,” the boy said, sighing. “I kept him in his area during the day, but at night when I went out, I let him roam in the apartment if he wanted. He cleaned for me, did little chores while I was away. I even let him go get his own food at the store when he asked for a pass. Well, one night I came in and he was gone. I thought he’d gone out later than usual to get his things. Saps need all kinds of things we no longer find necessary. Of course you know this, though,” Meyer said, resettling himself on the chair that sat perpendicular to the couch.

“So you reported him missing, when?”

“The next night. I went to sleep, and I thought it was odd that Herman hadn’t returned, but mostly I was irritated by his thoughtlessness. He knew I liked to eat before going to bed.” The boy looked petulant as he recounted the indignity. “I got tired of waiting and went to bed, and when I woke, he was still gone. So I called the Enforcement office, and they came down and asked a few questions and said they’d send out a tracker. I called a few times and there was never any news.” Meyer shrugged. “There still isn’t any news.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but if you are a Superior of means, why didn’t you send out your own trackers until you found him, if he was so valuable to you?”

Meyer’s eyes narrowed. “Would you go to that much expense to recover a sap?”

“I might,” Byron said. “If it was important to me. It’s not as expensive as buying another sap.”

“That’s true,” Meyer said slowly. “I guess I should have done that. Sometimes I have too much faith in Enforcers’ ability to do their jobs.”

Byron looked at the child for a long moment. Maybe Meyer had learned how to live on his own, but that didn’t mean he should. But Byron was a guest, so he swallowed the insult without reaction and went on.

“So, you left without your sapien that year? You didn’t wait for news?”

“I’m a very important man, Enforcer. I can’t let my schedule be dictated by saps. Yes, I left as usual and went back to my business.”

“Should I know what that is?”

“You’ve never heard of me?” Meyer said, looking slightly surprised.

“No, I don’t believe I have.”

“Well. I’m one of the founders of Furr-Bines.”

“Really? That’s…lucrative, I imagine.” Actually, Byron had never stopped to imagine what person came up with such an idiotic idea as fancy-looking wind turbines. It was not something that he’d ever considered in personal terms. Like the inventor of the silly rubber decorations people used to put on the top of car antennae.

“Oh yes, tremendously.”

“I think that’s all my questions for today. We may be in touch again later. Thank you for the Coca-Cola sap. I hadn’t had that flavor in a while.”

“It’s my favorite.” The boy stood and offered Byron his hand. “If there’s anything else, do let me know. Or if you find my poor Herman’s…remains.” Meyer made a face like he’d eaten something distasteful.

“We’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

They walked to the door. “I do have one more question,” Byron said, turning to the child. “Have you heard anything about him since then, among others or even saps? Have you heard about other saps disappearing?”

Meyer shrugged, his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “No. But then, I don’t live here most of the year. You might ask a resident of the town.”

“Of course. Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome.”

Byron walked back to the car slowly, glancing at the bars around the outdoor area for the sap. He couldn’t get the boy out of his mind for the rest of the night. Something about Meyer just didn’t seem right, but Byron didn’t know if it was the disconcerting effect of meeting such a young
Superior
or if Meyer had something to hide. Byron had always been able to detect deceit better than his fellow Enforcers. He hadn’t noticed anything specific that indicated the boy had lied. Just a general feeling that didn’t sit right with him.

He could have shrugged it off, attributed it to the surprise of meeting a man-child, and the boy’s manner that swung between courtly and childish. But Byron didn’t typically disregard the hunches he developed. He would keep an eye on the boy, and if his suspicions proved groundless, he’d shrug it off then. Until he knew for sure, he’d find more reasons to drop in on the boy, even if he had to invent them.

Chapter 23

Sally stood in the solemn group in the white light of moon on snow. The group shuffled in the cold, same way horses moved around when they slept standing up.

“Hey, Sally,” the man on her left said.

“Hey, Herman.”

“What will you vote on?”

“Don’t reckon I know. It was up to me, I’d just stake them on sight, I reckon.”

“That’s brutal.”

“Yeah? Well, you must not’ve been in there the other night then, you think I’m brutal. My way is humane.”

“But they’re not humans.”

“Yeah, so? Neither is dogs, and iffen one of them gets madness, we up and shoot it. Put it out of its misery.”

“That’s true.”

“We call to order this meeting,” Uncle Tom said from the makeshift platform the men had erected. “Now all y’all get quiet so we can get to the good part.”

“Okay, let’s get started,” Mr. Henson said. He stood on the platform with Tom and Mr. Conley, the three of them outlined by the moonlight and casting shadows that fell over the snow in the yard and reached clear to the woods. Sally thought about the man inside the shed, waiting to hear his sentence with the rest of them. He hadn’t moved or spoke since that first night. She wondered if in summertime flies would get in his wounds and lay eggs in there and he’d turn all to maggots.

She shuddered. She sure was glad it would be over by then, and she knew the bloodsucker would like that, too. He’d already wanted to die, and she couldn’t rightly blame him. Weren’t nothing right about torturing a creature that way, be it live or dead. It seemed pretty much alive, far as she could see. She already knew a whole lot of what she’d heard about bloodsuckers weren’t true at all.

They breathed, she’d seen that with her own eyes, seen the man’s breath coming out in bloody bubbles, heard the gluppy sounds of it gurgling in his lungs. And them bloodsuckers felt pain, no matter what nobody said. She’d seen and heard the pain of that man—Draven? Sounded like a bloodsucker name. So maybe he weren’t dead, neither. Maybe people just said that so as they didn’t feel bad about killing them.

“Let’s do this in an orderly manner,” Mr. Conley said. “If you have a suggestion, raise up your hand and call it out when we point to you. Then we’ll have a vote.”

“Burn it!” one of the Henson boys yelled.

“Chop off its head with an ax!” another called.

“I think we should just stick with regular old staking,” Herman said, raising his hand. Sally looked at him, surprised. He smiled at her.

“I think we should do some experiments and see what-all kills him,” Larry said. “I mean, we don’t never keep bloodsuckers around long enough to know if there’s other ways of killing them. What if there’s an easier way we ain’t tried yet?”

“Such as?” Mr. Conley asked.

“Such as, if he gets in the sunlight, will he explode into flame? ‘Cause that would be pretty cool to watch. And it might kill him.”

“Does anyone else have a suggestion before we vote?”

“I like Larry’s suggestion,” the oldest Henson boy said. “I mean, we know they can heal, but how much? Like, if we’s to grind it up in the grinder, would all his parts find their way back together, or would he just die like regular?”

“That’s a vote, Neil,” Mr. Conley said. “Please wait until we call for a vote before agreeing with someone else. Anyone else have your own suggestion?”

No hands went up, so Uncle Tom stepped forward. “Now, as y’all know, only those of marrying age can vote, but you can bring your kids to the extermination if you want. Please raise up your hand when you hear the option you like the best. We got burning, staking, de-cap-tation, and experimenting on the table.”

Sally watched the crowd as a few hands went up for burning, a handful for staking, and three for taking the head off. About ten hands went up for the last option. Sally felt a little sick. She looked at Herman, and he shrugged. They’d both voted for staking.

“Sorry, Sally. I know you’re tender hearted.”

“I ain’t tender hearted,” she said. “But I ain’t mean and heartless, neither. You was here for the viewing, right?”

“Yup.”

“Did you stake that man?”

“Sally, he’s not a man. He’s a bloodthirsty killer.”

“He ain’t never killed one of us. And you ain’t had to watch him every night since then. All he do is lay there moaning and crying-like. It’s just wrong to do that to anything, even a bloodsucker.” Sally turned and went on in the house.

Sissy ran after her. “What’s exper-mentin’?”

“It’s doing real bad stuff to hurt something and not putting it out of its misery,” Sally said. “I sure hope your daddy don’t let you watch that.”

“Why not? I want to watch. It sounds like fun.”

“Well, it ain’t. It’s scary and wrong, and you shouldn’t get to watch.”

“I done watched all the killings. They’re real gross,” Sissy said, wrinkling her nose.

“I bet. Now, I’m gonna go on out to the shed and talk to the…bloodsucker. You coming?”

“Why you talking to him?” Sissy asked with big eyes.

“’Cause he thinks he’s gonna get to die, and he ain’t.”

“Why’s he wanna die?” Sissy asked, following Sally out to the shed.

“’Cause we’re so mean he don’t want to live no more.” Sally unlocked the shed and the two of them stepped inside. “We ain’t supposed to be here, so you can’t say nothing to your daddy about it,” she said to Sissy. Then she turned to the cage. “I can’t turn on the light, but I just came to tell you ‘bout the vote.”

“Hello, Sally,” the man said from the dark. “Hello, Sissy.”

“How’d he know it was me?” Sissy whispered.

“I can smell you,” the bloodsucker said. Again Sally noticed the warmth of his voice, as soothing as a warm bath in the wintertime.