Real Vampires Don't Sparkle (18 page)

“Why not? Why the fuck not?” Carruthers demanded.

Quin tilted his head to the side, enough to catch Matheus’ gaze out of the corner of his eye.

“You’d be killing the only one of us ever to cry over a human,” Quin said. “Look at his face.”

Matheus blinked, noticing the sodden weight of his eyelashes for the first time. He touched his cheek, sliding his fingers through the sheen of wetness. Rubbing his fingers together, he glanced up, meeting Carruthers’ stare. He couldn’t speak, too trapped by the things he wanted to say to focus on a single thing. So he said nothing, and Carruthers said nothing, and the silence deafened. The moment stretched, time expanding to hold all the things unspoken.

Finally, Matheus looked away, scrubbing at his face.

The crossbow sagged.

“What you want is under the driver’s seat,” Carruthers said. “I see you again, I’ll kill you.” He dropped the crossbow and walked away, his shoulders curved forward as though his ribcage had vanished.

Quin exhaled, turning to Matheus.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Matheus wanted to rage at him, but instead he climbed mutely into the passenger’s seat, watching in the mirror as the thick trees thinned and disappeared.

The cell was dark and damp and stank of shit and piss and the woman sat huddled in the corner and her hair was matted to her skull and his father was too close, talking in his ear
, Sie ist verdorben.
The knife pressed into his palm, sweaty and shaking, not his hand, someone else’s hand and his head ached from the booze and not enough sleep, and oh, God, his father was talking again, talking, talking, talking, words sparking dark.
Dieses Übel muss bereinigt werden.
The woman was crying now and begging, snot dripping down her face and he hated her.
Wir sind das Licht. Wir sind die Hand Gottes auf Erden.
And now he was running, running in the dark, running so far and fast that the wind burned against his skin and tore into him and still his father’s voice followed him, a bright arrow,
Töte sie und seien Sie einer von uns,
and he could never run far enough, never, never, never, never, the words sought him out in the dark and it was all dark, always dark,
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn….

Matheus dove for the light, awareness breaking over him like the snap of a rubber band. He trembled in the center of his bed, winding the sheets in his hands. He’d had that particular nightmare before, but the last occasion had been nearly eight years ago. He didn’t know how dreaming was even possible. For all the picturesque language linking the two, sleep was sleep, and dead was dead. Matheus was supposed to give people nightmares, not have them himself.

He ignored the soft knock on his door. Quin called his name, once, twice. Matheus heard his soft sigh slip under the door before footsteps signaled his departure.

The lamp cast a fan of light up the wall. Matheus stared into it, twisting, then untwisting, the sheets into hard sheaths around his fingers. When he closed his eyes, he saw Carruthers’ face, sunken with bleak confusion, mouth working without sound. Disconnected, like a director’s commentary, the boy’s shrieks played and repeated, overlapping into a solid block of sound. Matheus could do nothing to stop either, so he tormented the sheets, stared at the light, and waited for the night to pass.

“Sunshine! Get your ass out of bed!”

“No!” Matheus shouted. “Go away!” He pulled the covers over his head, snug in the little hollow he’d carved out for himself.

For the first awful week, Quin left books and newspapers beside his door, clearly intent on distracting Matheus from his guilt. He waited until Quin gave up talking at Matheus through the door and walked away, then, in a dash, pulled the piles into his room. He always rushed to return to the circle of light, just as he had as a child, when the monsters still lived under his bed.

The second week, Quin’s patience waned, but by then, it was too late. Matheus had a supply of reading materials to last him half a year. He sank into his Matheus-shaped hollow in his mattress, content to remain there until Armageddon.
Really
, he rationalized,
there is no need to leave.
He moved often enough to prevent bedsores, if corpses even developed bedsores, and he didn’t sweat, so how dirty could the sheets get? Matheus didn’t understand why everyone didn’t live this way, barring, of course, the certain necessities of the living.

Quin pounded on the door.

For a moment, Matheus was alarmed it might break. The door was old, but well-made and sturdy despite the nightly attacks.

“You’ve been in there for a month!” Quin yelled. “Stop fucking moping!”

“I’m not moping! I’m depressed! Leave me alone!”

“Goddammit!” Quin stomped away.

Cautiously, Matheus lowered the blanket, listening for a second before reaching for his book. This had become a daily ritual. Quin came and yelled at him through the door, Matheus refused to leave, and then Quin stormed off. It was nice to have a routine.

Matheus curled onto his side, propping his book up on the pillow and snuggling into Quin’s thousand-thread-count sheets. The words blurred into a grey mess as he fell into the pleasant daze of doing absolute nothing. He missing sleeping, but a vague, meditative state served as a diet-alternative. He floated, a fuzzy blip outside of the passing world, secure and timeless. Which was why he had no idea how long Quin took to unscrew the hinges off the door.

“Christ!” Matheus jerked upright as the door hit the floor with a heavy and resounding bang.

Quin stood in the doorway, one arm still extended, palm outward. In his other hand, he held a screwdriver, ancient and rusty, which, considering it was Quin’s screwdriver, had probably been used to shiv a guy. He glared at Matheus and lowered his arm.

“It’s time to get up,” he said.

“No,” said Matheus. He flopped down, crossing his arms over his chest.

Quin threw the screwdriver at him. It bounced off Matheus’ head and landed on a teetering stack of books.

“Ow! That fucking hurt!”

“Good,” said Quin. “Now, are you going to get up or am I going to have to drag you?”

Quin had to drag him.

Matheus did not go easily. He clung to the bed, tearing off all the blankets as Quin hauled him out of the room by his feet. His fingernails left channels on the hardwood floor. He howled as he tore off yard-long strips of wallpaper. Nothing worked. Quin had freakish strength and no qualms about throwing Matheus over his shoulder and tossing him into the shower fully dressed. Matheus shrieked as the water hit him.

“Bastard!” he yelled. “You didn’t even turn on the hot water.” He shoved at Quin’s hand holding him under the stream. The shower curtain hid the rest of him. Apparently, Quin preferred not to look at the object of his torment.

“You would have gotten hot water if you had gotten up willingly,” Quin said, raising his voice to be heard over the water. “Pass me your clothes.” His hand withdrew a little, fingers opening and closing in a
give
gesture.

Matheus yanked off his sodden shirt, hurling it over the shower rod at the spot where he thought Quin stood. It hit the floor with a splat. Fumbling at the drawstring of his pants with numbed fingers, Matheus cursed Quin. He hopped, trying to wrench off the pants as they clung to his legs like flypaper with separation issues.

“I hope you get gonorrhea and your prick rots off,” he said, throwing the pants after the shirt.

Quin’s arm disappeared.

“Lovely to have you back, Sunshine,” its owner said.

“Go to hell!”

Matheus sat on the couch in the living room, clean, dry, and sulking. A visible cloud of soap aroma surrounded him, a scent too floral to be masculine. He sniffed. Lilacs; he smelt of lilacs. As best as he remembered, Quin did not smell like any sort of flower. He wore one of those designer colognes engineered beyond any identifiable scent except, perhaps, expensive. Matheus concluded that Quin thought he, Matheus, was the type of person who enjoyed smelling of girlish plants and had purchased soap accordingly. Either that, or the soap signaled a new, subtle form of torture. Matheus sniffed again, and decided he preferred the second option.

“I hate you,” he said as Quin entered.

“That’s nice,” said Quin. He stood over Matheus, immaculate in dark grey slacks, a navy shirt, and narrow tie. His rolled-up sleeves had cuffs so perfectly crisp and matched Quin must have used an iron and a ruler. He didn’t look at Matheus, absorbed in fastening his watch.

Matheus tilted his head to catch the name of the maker and repressed a whistle. Quin had close to two hundred thousand dollars clasped around his wrist. No wonder he hadn’t balked at the Mercedes.

“We’re going shopping,” Quin said, straightening.

Matheus leaned back quickly, scowl set into place.

“Why?” he asked.

“You need clothes.”

“I have clothes,” Matheus said. “Look, I’m wearing them. Shirt, pants, boxers, even socks. I am a clothed man.”

“Good clothes,” said Quin, pulling a wallet out of his pocket. He picked up another one, slightly thicker and made of deep brown leather. Dropping sideways into the armchair, he transferred the contents of the old wallet into the new one. “Clothes that don’t belong to a fourteen-year-old boy still being dressed by his mother.”