Twilight Fulfilled (14 page)

After that they drove through countryside. Rolling meadows, forests and breathtaking mountains.

“Your land is so green,” he said at length, needing to distract himself from the dire thoughts in his mind.

“It's beautiful, isn't it? We do have desert, far to the west. But here on the East Coast, it's very green and lush. Those are called the Blue Ridge Mountains,” she said, pointing at the rising peaks around them.

“Ah. Blue Ridge. It is a good name.”

“Yes, it fits them.”

“And this road,” he said. “Has it no end? How did your people ever manage to build such a fine, smooth road for such distances as we have traveled already?”

She glanced sideways at him, her eyes amused. “We've only gone about sixty miles, Utana.”

He did not know how far a mile was, nor did he care in that moment. He was struck breathless by the smile in her eyes and teasing curve of her lips. Her sky-blue eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and they sparkled when they were unhindered by fear and worry and anger.

“We have many, many people and lots of great
big machines. There are roads like this one almost everywhere in our nation.”

“Amazing. And what of these…lines that have been painted upon their surface?” he asked, pointing.

Brigit explained traffic laws, lanes and passing rules, and the meanings of the various signs to him for the next twenty minutes, until he thought he understood most of it. It was a good way to pass the time, and eventually he said, “I will try it.”

She blinked at him. “Try…what?”

He tapped the steering wheel with his forefinger.

“You want to drive?” She shook her head. “No. Look, this is a serious mission we're on here, Utana. We've got lives depending upon us. Hundreds of innocent lives. This is no time for me to be giving you driving lessons.”

He frowned at her. “Would we not still be moving in the same direction?”

“Well, yes, but that's beside the point.”

“How it is beside the point? We keep moving forward, we lose no time—if I go too slowly, you will tell me. If I cannot go fast enough, you will retake the helm. Let us find food, and when we resume the journey, I wish to try…drive.”

She closed her eyes very briefly, then leaned over and reached past him to open the glove compartment. She pulled out the car's manual and dropped it into his lap. “Read that, and then put your hands
on the car and absorb its vibes or whatever it is you do to inhale information like air. And then I'll let you drive after we eat breakfast. Very briefly.
Very
briefly, Utana. In a parking lot, where there's lots of room.”

“But…that would slow down our pace.”

“It won't matter. It'll be daylight soon. We can't meet with the vamps until nightfall anyway. And we won't waste more than five minutes. Maybe ten.”

He went silent, staring at her. “You are taking me to meet with the vahmpeers?”

She looked at him, then away again. “I think it's the best thing to do. If we can convince them to accept the truce you offer, we can come up with a plan to free the Chosen without putting the vampires at risk.”

His throat was dry. The notion of facing the people he might very well have so deeply wronged—or might very well soon have to kill—made his stomach rebel and his chest feel tight.

“Utana, you're going to have to make your peace with them sooner or later.”

“Am I?” he asked.

She nodded. “I love them. I
love
them, Utana. Haven't you figured that out yet?”

He nodded, awash with yet a new layer of guilt. To distract himself, he placed his hands on the owner's manual of her precious vehicle—yes, he knew she adored this machine—and closed his eyes
to absorb its contents. He did not need to do the same with the machine itself, for he already had. It was likely, he thought, that he knew more about the car than its proud owner did.

 

Brigit was grateful that Utana had stuffed the suit he'd so detested into the pillowcase along with several of his preferred robes. Her belly-dancing outfit was in there, too, she noticed, as she dug through the makeshift rucksack.

She insisted he take the time to exchange his regal robes for more ordinary clothing before they got out for breakfast, and then she forced her eyes to stay on the road while he struggled to change in the tiny passenger seat. At least he looked passably normal when they walked into the Denny's at 6:00 a.m.

Two hours on the road and they were barely a half hour from where they had begun. But she'd deemed it necessary to head in the opposite direction for a time, and to change course several more times, before finally heading toward her ultimate destination: Maine, where her family were holed up, along a route that would take them past St. Dymphna's Psychiatric Hospital for a look-see.

She was nervous as hell about him meeting her family again. They were going to be furious with her for not killing him. But when she explained, they would have to understand. He'd been ill. What
he had done was no more his fault than the uncontrollable tics of a mortal with Tourette's syndrome.

They would understand. They would forgive her. And eventually they would forgive
him,
too.

Yes. There was no question about that. What else could they do? They were her family. They loved her.

Setting all of that aside, she walked beside Utana into the restaurant, where the air was thick with the succulent scents of bacon and maple syrup and fresh coffee. Her stomach growled.

The place wasn't crowded, but there were more customers than she would have expected at this early hour. No one gave them a second look as the hostess led them through the place to their booth. Scratch that. No one gave
her
a second look.
Everyone
looked at Utana. Not because he was odd to them, but because he was so big, and so freakishly good-looking. Men watched him with wariness in their eyes, maybe sensing the innate danger in him. Women watched him with blatant admiration.

They slid into a booth, and the hostess laid their menus and silverware, rolled up in napkins, on the table and said their waitress would be with them shortly, before scurrying away.

Brigit picked up a menu, opened it and felt her stomach rumble.

A waitress was on them almost instantly.

“Coffee?” she asked, full carafe in hand.

“God, yes.” Brigit turned her cup over, then
glanced at Utana, who was taking in the place with fascinated interest. He was looking at everything, the people, the tables, the food, the kitchens, and he was sensing and smelling and feeling it all, she knew. His first time in a restaurant—well, except for the one he'd demolished in Bangor.

He'd come a long way. What a strange journey this must be for him. She reached across the table and turned his cup upright, as well. “Him, too. You'll like this, Utana. Trust me.”

He nodded, meeting her eyes as the waitress filled his cup, as well.

The woman dumped a handful of tiny plastic half-and-half containers on the table and said, “Be back in a minute to take your order.”

Then she was gone.

Utana stared at the black liquid in his cup. Raising it, he sniffed and then wrinkled his nose. Then he tasted it, just a sip, and grimaced.

Brigit bit back a grin and told her heart to stop twitching spasmodically every time he did something so damned adorable. “Watch me,” she said.

He did, and she peeled the paper seals off of two of the tiny creamers and poured them into her cup. He did the same. She took two tiny white packets of sugar from the rectangular dish stuffed full of them and added them, as well. He followed her lead, avoiding the blue and pink packets, and using only
the white, as she had. But he tasted the sugar first, on his fingertip, and his eyes grew huge.

“This…it's sweet.”

“Yes. That's the point.” She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee.

Watching her every move, Utana did the same.

Setting the spoon aside, Brigit lifted her cup and took a sip. Then she closed her eyes. “Mmm. I needed that.”

Setting his spoon aside, too, Utana took a sip of his own. And then he grimaced again, wrinkling his nose.

“You don't like it?”

“It is bitter. Perhaps more…” He took another white packet and read the label. “Soo-gar,” he said.

She shook her head. “Sugar,” she corrected, but he ignored her, pouring five more packets into his cup, stirring and tasting after each one, before finally nodding.

“Ahh. Now it tastes good.”

“Oooohkay.”

“Mmm. Yes. Good.” He drained the cup and set it down. “Where is the food?”

“They will prepare it in the kitchen, which is back there,” she said, pointing toward the doors beyond the counter. “And then they'll bring it to us, but not until we tell the waitress—that's the lady who was just here—what we want.” She opened his menu and placed it back in front of him. “Here. These are our choices.”

He looked at the images of the food and nodded. “They look…so real.”

“Very convincing, aren't they?”

“There is so much. What is good?”

“All of it, Utana. Trust me on that.”

He looked skeptical, probably doubting the wisdom of her taste buds, after the coffee.

Pursing his lips, he nodded. “Then I will ask for all of it.”

Her brows rose, and she peered over the top of her menu at him, but he was still engrossed in his. “How about this? Since I've had just about everything they serve here, why don't you let me order for both of us? Would that be okay?”

He smiled at her. “That will be very…okay with me. But keep in your mind that I am very hungry, Brigit, and that my capacity for food is far greater than yours.”

She nodded. “Understood.”

St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital
Mount Bliss, Virginia

Roxy's shift had begun early. 7:00 a.m. But that was all right. She'd been spending almost all of her time at the hospital, just to stay on top of things. She'd fallen a little bit in love with some of the patients. Particularly little Melinda Hubbard, a girl who, she had decided, was not only one of the Chosen but also a powerful psychic.

The girl's mother, Jane, was neither. Her sole purpose in life was to protect her little girl. Roxy respected that, even if the woman had taken a huge misstep in bringing the kid here. Who the hell could blame her for trusting her own government?

Roxy was enjoying a cup of coffee and working a jigsaw puzzle with Melinda, while her mother showered. The rooms weren't bad, actually. The workers here had gone out of their way to make the place look less like a hospital and more like a hotel. Each room had a little round table and a couple of chairs. TV sets were mounted high on the walls. The railings had been removed from the beds, and nightstands with clock radios and pretty lamps and doilies had been set up. Really, they were pretty nice. You know, if you could get past the knowledge that you were being held prisoner, anyway.

Roxy thought most of the inmates were starting to figure out the prisoner thing. There was an air of restlessness permeating the place. People had asked to leave and been told no. People had asked to go outdoors and likewise been denied. It wasn't sitting well.

Jane emerged from the bathroom, a thick towel around her head.

Her back toward the hidden camera Roxy had pointed out in the front corner of the room, she whispered, “I don't know how much longer I can stand being here, Roxy.”

“It won't be much longer.” Roxy picked up the remote and cranked up the volume on the TV set, just in case. “Senator MacBride ought to be making her report soon. This place is going to be shut down in short order, you mark my words.”

“You did well getting her out here,” Jane said. “I'll always be grateful for your help.”

“Yeah, well, we haven't been sprung yet.”

Roxy lifted the remote to turn the volume down again, then froze, her eyes glued to the screen as an announcer gave the grim news that Senator Marlene MacBride had been found dead in her Washington, D.C., apartment that morning. Cameras jostled for a shot of a body bag being carried from a posh-looking building to a waiting ambulance.

“Oh, my God,” Jane muttered.

The reporter went on. “No cause of death has yet been released to the public, pending autopsy, but a source close to the senator claims she was murdered by a vampire. Senator MacBride had recently been named head of the newly formed Committee on U.S.-Vampire Relations, and sources claim her initial report would have strongly favored funding what's been called ‘A full-on, no-holds-barred effort to contain and monitor the Undead.'”

“That's not what she was going to report at all,” Roxy whispered. “She came here. She knew…”

The little girl looked up at her, her huge eyes far too knowing.

“Don't be scared, Melinda,” Jane said, hugging her daughter close. “We're going to be all right.”

“I know we are, Mommy. That lady senator wasn't supposed to help us anyway. Someone else is. A guy. A really big guy. He'll be here soon.” She sighed and lowered her head. “And then he's gonna die. Just like that lady senator did, and that makes me feel really sad.”

A
n hour later, after watching Utana down three full breakfasts and a handful of sides, Brigit returned with him to the parking lot. Much to her dismay, he went straight to the driver's door and started to get in. But he didn't get very far, because he was simply too big, given the way she had the seat adjusted.

“Guess you don't fit. Sorry about that,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.

He sent her a knowing look. Too knowing. Then he crouched until he found the buttons for the electronic seat adjustments, and after a few false starts managed to get the seat moving in the direction he needed it to: backward. And then he slid behind the wheel, fitting just fine.

“I never should have let you read the manual,” she muttered, but she got into the passenger seat and, reluctantly, handed him the keys. “Here you
go. Now, go very slowly. This car cost me a small fortune, and I love it. A lot.”

“I will…use care.”

“You'd better.”

She instructed him as, step by step, he depressed the clutch, started the engine, slid the shift into first gear, released the clutch while pressing the accelerator and promptly stalled. But only once. The second time he managed to take off quite smoothly, and the car only jerked a little as he shifted into second, then third. Soon he was driving in smooth circles around the empty far end of the parking lot.

It amazed Brigit how quickly he picked up the rhythm of shifting, of using the clutch and gas pedals in smooth synchronization. After about ten laps he nodded, smiling at her, and brought the car to a stop, remembering to use the clutch so that it didn't buck and stall.

As he shut off the engine and turned toward her, he was beaming like a kid on Christmas morning. “I like this…driving. I wish to do more.”

“It takes most people at least a few days to learn to drive a stick,” she told him. “You're some kind of a genius, aren't you?”

“I do not know…geneeus.”

“Genius. It means a person who is far more intelligent than most.”

“Ah.” He shrugged. “Immortality bestows much…
intelligence. Consider how a newly born one cannot easily direct his hands to do what he wishes.”

She nodded. “Right, newborns have no hand-eye coordination.”

“But as they grow older, it becomes natural.” He shrugged. “Is it not reasonable, then, that the longer one lives, the more…graceful…one would become?”

“Without the bad parts of aging, I suppose that makes perfect sense.” She got out, and he did, too, trading sides so Brigit was behind the wheel again.

“And I would guess,” she went on, “that the ability to absorb knowledge and an understanding of how things work just by touching them must help, too.”

“Yes.”

“Did that come with the immortality?” she asked, as she restarted the car.

“No. I was that way from childness.”

“Childhood,” she corrected. “Ah.”

“So you've always been able to read a book just by touching it?”

“We had not books. We had tablets. But yes.”

“That's amazing.” She looked at him sideways as she steered back into traffic, heading toward the on-ramp to take them to the highway again. “Will you tell me about your childhood, Utana?”

His brows rose as she glanced his way. He was
surprised, she thought, by her interest. “I barely remember it. I lived some…” And there he paused, thinking. Brigit had no doubt he was translating his way of counting a lifetime into hers. “Nine hundred…years after the Great Flood. The earliest memories, they…”

“Fade,” she said, as he searched for the right word.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember your parents?”

“My father was more tribal chieftain than king. There were no palaces, no great city-states, yet. Not then. I remember our people moving, following the rains.”

“Nomads.”

“Yes. The…pictures in my mind are…thin. Dusty. Without color. So much time. So much time…”

“And what about your…adult life?” she asked softly. “You were a king. You must have had a…a queen?”

“I had…a harem. Slave girls to serve my needs. I treated them well. Had I not, the gods would not have chosen me.”

“So…no queen? You know, one woman more special to you than all the rest? One who ruled by your side?”

“To share power—especially with a woman—it was not the way of my time,” he said.

She sensed he was trying to explain something he knew she wouldn't necessarily approve of. “I
understand that times were different then,” she assured him.

“So different. So very different it is as if nothing remained the same.”

She nodded slowly. He must feel alienated and foreign, even still. “And what about the flood? Did you really build an ark and put all of the animals of the world…?”

“I merely interpreted the signs and moved my household—my women, my sons and daughters, my servants and my herds—to the highest place I could find. There I built a ship, to enable us to sail forth in search of other lands that had escaped the flood, other survivors. But we never did sail far enough to find any. One of your years we remained on the mountaintop, while the waters raged below. Eventually they began to recede, and we returned to the valleys.”

“Then why were you rewarded with immortality?”

He shrugged. “Why was I sent the signs so that I could survive while others did not?”

“I don't know.” She found herself fascinated by his story, but even so, she was trying to find loopholes without looking as though that was what she was doing. She wanted to convince this man that religion was not a good enough reason for genocide.

Then again, it was one of the main reasons why
anyone had ever committed such an atrocity or gone to war in the history of mankind.

“What were these signs, Utana?”

He shrugged. “The sun was blotted by the moon. I had seen it before, and always it foretold disaster. Too, I noted the animals vanishing from the desert.”

“And didn't anyone else see those things, too?”

“All who cared to look.”

“Then the gods didn't send the signs just to you. They sent the signs to everyone, hoping someone would listen and move and survive. Yes?”

He blinked at her.

She could only look at him in brief glimpses, because she was driving. “I mean, anyone could have interpreted them as a warning. You just happened to be the only one who did.” Then she frowned. “Or were you? Were there others who moved to higher ground before the floods came, Utana?”

“I do not know. How can I, when I was the first to go?”

“Well, when you returned to the valleys, were there others there?”

He nodded. “From other lands. None of my own tribe.”

“So you're not the only flood survivor. Maybe you're just the only one who was also a priest king and therefore sort of famous.”

“Then why was I the only one given the gift of immortality?”

Shrugging, she said, “Maybe the gods wanted you to start a new race. Or maybe it was just something you ate. Or maybe you were already immortal, even before the flood, and you just didn't know it yet.”

His eyes widened, and she sensed his shock and thought that she had probably pushed him far enough for one day. But then his expression twisted into one of pain, and he bared his teeth, squeezing his eyes tight.

Alarmed, she veered to the right before jerking her attention back to the road and correcting their course. “What is it? What's wrong? Is it what I said, because I wasn't trying to—”

“Fear. I feel fear.” He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his head. “And it is not from the vahmpeers. It is…mortal.” He lifted his head and speared her with a look. “It is the Chosens. They are near, and they are fearful.”

“You're right,” she said. “I can feel them, too.”

Brigit looked at her GPS. “I got so caught up in your story that I wasn't paying attention. We're getting close to the place where they're being held, Utana. I'm sorry. I should have warned you.”

“You have decided not to take me to your people first?” he asked.

Did she detect hopefulness in his tone? “No,” she said. “I just thought we could take a look. It's sort of on the way.”

 

It was not an ideal time for “reconnaissance,” as Brigit called it, Utana thought, as they sat in her car outside a building as large as any temple. But it was not a temple. That much was clear. It was a beautiful structure made of small red bricks, with arches of gray stone surrounding the windows and doors. It sat within a large grassy field and was enclosed by a fence, with a gate that opened in the front. The gate was of a different material, however. Black iron, not silver like the rest. To the left, beyond the fence, was a small woodlot. To the right, a large area with a surface like the road on which they drove, where many cars were stored.

In front, a circular drive wrapped around a tall statue of a woman, perhaps some modern goddess, bearing an oil lamp that contained an actual flame. Sentries were posted at the front entrance, one man on either side of the door. They wore green suits of clothing, the pattern blotchy, and they held weapons in their hands. Rifles. Tiny caps adorned their heads.

“They are soldiers?” he asked, not needing Brigit's nod to confirm it.

“Yes. Probably have no more clue what's going on inside than we do. Maybe less.”

“It is not a soldier's job to know, only to obey without question. So it was in my time, at least.”

“That much hasn't changed,” Brigit said softly.

She started up the car, began to pull away, but he put a hand over hers on the steering wheel.

“What?” she asked.

“We cannot leave. The Chosens are inside that building.”

“I know. But we can't rescue them right now, and there's no point in us being discovered out here casing the place. They'll throw us inside with the others if they catch us. And then what good will we be to them?”

She continued driving.

“We should stay here. We should return to that place after darkfall and free the captive Chosens.”

“We know where they are,” she said. “And we know Nash isn't going to kill them right away. Not until after he uses them to lure every vampire left alive to their death, at least.”

Her jaw was set in a familiar way, speaking to him of her stubbornness, as she drove. But she was going slowly, as if she, too, were reluctant to leave. “Our priority is to get to my people, to warn them that this is a trap and to convince them to let you help. Then we'll make a plan and rescue the Chosen. It's the only logical way to do this, Utana.”

He could tell by the way her voice trembled as she spoke that she was feeling the same pull he was. She, too, wanted to spring into action at once, to rescue the prisoners immediately. Leaving them behind was painful and difficult for her, as it was for him.

“Go that way,” he said, pointing to a road just past the property that turned left. “Drive around to the rear, that we might observe the portals and sentries there.”

“All right,” she said, nodding. “No harm in that.” And she turned left, driving slowly, watchful, lest they be discovered.

There were no entrances to the building along the right side. Just that large strip of pavement and the numerous vehicles parked there. He saw that the fence encircled the entire building.

“I wonder if that fence is electrified,” Brigit said as they drove on.

Utana knew about electricity. He'd felt its jolting power when he'd touched the gate at the mansion. He felt for the prisoners within, and the fear and unease he could still sense made
him
feel uneasy too. Nervous and restless.

They turned left again, now driving along the back side of the building. The lawn stretched out far behind it. At the building's base, panels of glass angled outward. They began at a man's height above ground level and then angled outward, slanting all the way down to the ground itself. Above, there was a fire escape.

“Odd, the windows there,” Utana said, pointing.

“They look like skylights—they must be there to let sunlight filter down into the basement.”

He understood. A basement—the subterranean
level of a building—would naturally be devoid of light. These rooflike windows would solve that problem. They also revealed that the basement must be slightly larger than the above-ground part of the building.

And yet still he saw no entrance to the building.

They turned left again, but this road, leading them to the one where they had started, ran alongside the woodlot, blocking their view of the building.

Soon enough they were driving past the front again, resuming their journey toward her beloved vahmpeers.

“If we tell your people about this place,” he said, choosing his words with care, “will they not feel compelled to come here? To try to help? And would that not be exactly what Nashmun wishes for them to do?”

He saw her brow crinkle in the center as she considered his words. The tiny lines that formed on the bridge of her nose distracted him from his train of thought, but only briefly.

“They'll know anyway. If Nash does something to hurt or traumatize the Chosen, my people will feel it. Already, you can feel it, and so can I. No matter how far away the vampires are, they'll know. If it gets any worse… Maybe they're already sensing the Chosen's unrest. And they'll come, no matter what.” She sighed, then nodded firmly. “No.
It's better if I tell them it's a trap. At least that way they'll be forewarned.”

“But still, they will come. Yes?”

She shot him a brief look. “Yes.”

“Would you not wish to prevent them coming here at all, if you could?”

“Well, yes, but I don't see how—”

“I will tell you how. We get the Chosens out. We do this before their distress becomes any…louder,” he said, for lack of a better word. He knew she would understand his meaning. “Alone?”