The tech suit they promised was impenetrable to vampire fangs? Enoch’s fangs slid into it like a hot knife into butter.
Titus and I were upgraded for speed and strength, but even with those enhancements, we were no match for Terah and Asa. Getting close to Asa hadn’t been easy. I had to wade across a stagnant moat and climb the stone façade of his home to a balcony where I slid inside, waiting and watching for an opportunity to strike. He stayed mostly to himself, almost to the point of being a recluse. But still, his men hovered, casting a wide net around their master and giving him the berth he needed.
I disguised myself and pretended to be one of his servants, inching my way closer to him slowly, carefully. Hour by hour, day by day, until one day while I was scrubbing the stone floor near his study, he emerged, shaking with rage. He started toward me and I dropped the rag I was cleaning with, holding tight to the stake I’d hidden in the bucket of dingy water, sure this would be my only chance to get close enough to end him. Just then, one of his men interrupted his fit and called him back into his study. That was the only thing that stopped Asa from attacking me.
A day later, God answered my pleas and provided a way out. When the messenger came, I rushed out of the castle, across the drawbridge, and into the wood. Climbing a tree to get a better vantage point, I barely registered Asa’s run through the forest. He was a blur of dark fabric and urgency.
The messenger Enoch had dispatched with the summons to his brother was human and easily subdued. I jumped down onto him from a tall branch, plunging my stake into his chest and sending us both tumbling off his stallion – which I stole. The horse knew his way home.
Imagine my surprise when I found Titus and Eve dining with their targets. Laughing with them. Sharing secrets the monsters should never hear.
Empathizing with them.
Eve, the most cunning of us all, it seemed, was also the most treacherous. I couldn’t wait to tell Victor about what she’d done. He would finally see her for what she was and finally know that every time I’d spoken against her, I was right. Absolutely right…
By the time I awakened, the sun was hidden by alternating streams of wispy and dense clouds, but was still too bright. It reflected in every valley and on every peak, cresting and dipping over the sea’s surface. I couldn’t look out over the water without squinting. My eyes were dry, gritty sandpaper.
I sat up and rubbed at them, hoping to stifle the irritation, and then stood and stretched my arms up over my head. The weakness in my muscles had already faded away. My hands swept the grainy patches of sand from my suit and I walked inland, hoping to find a landmark that might point me toward the Compound.
I’d only left it once since being accepted as an Asset, but I remembered some of the things I saw. There were streets bisecting each other in a vast concrete grid littered with abandoned cars, motorcycles, buses, and bodies. That day, Victor insisted that I see what once was, so I would know what could again be – if we managed to rid the world of the vampire race. The Compound was a tall, dark, heavily fortified building that seemed to dominate the structures around it, but on the outskirts of the city there were buildings that stretched into the clouds.
Victor and I rode in the back of an onyx-colored armored vehicle. I held tight to the leather handle, unaccustomed to the vehicle’s movement, and the two of us chatted about the mission. He asked me whether I had reservations about traveling. I had only one: Eve. I told him as much and his response still sent a hot stream of anger through my veins. “Eve is the most important among you.”
What would Victor have thought if he saw the way she threw herself at her target? Everyone saw her as special. Unique. Beautiful. Deadly. But she was none of those things. I was the only one who saw her for what she really was: a coward. Altered to the point of being as destructive and evil as the vampires themselves, and dangerously disloyal.
Victor refused to hear me out about my reservations and observations about her. Instead, he cut the outing short, ordering his driver to turn the vehicle around. We rode back to the Compound in silence, driving beneath the building through heavy security.
Before the driver unlocked the doors and let me out, Victor turned to me. “If you want to remain in the program, you will have to control your hatred for Eve. I won’t have you jeopardizing the mission I’ve designed, and I will not allow an Asset – whom I manufactured – to question my judgment or authority, or to harm another in the program. Rein your emotions in, Abram, or I will do it for you.”
I’d bitten my cheek so hard, the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
“Have I made myself clear?” Victor asked coolly.
“Yes, sir.”
“If Eve is the heart of this mission, Abram, you are the anchor. You are the most dedicated, the most dependable. You’re the leader. I need you to focus on being all those things – none of which have anything to do with Eve, as she has her own concentration. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I answered, staring at my bare feet on the rubber floorboard.
“Good.” Victor seemed placated. “You are dismissed. And Abram? Don’t tell anyone, not your trainer and not your peers, about the privilege of this trip.”
Victor was so wrong about her. Eve wasn’t the heart of the mission. She was its Achilles’ heel. She had crippled and compromised the entire plan with her deviousness. I would enjoy watching her pay for her crimes.
I walked until the flat land began to slope upward and then climbed a hill to see what lay beyond it. The only thing I could see for miles were more hills. I walked over and through them until the sun finally sank and the air cooled. My eyes found relief as soon as the oppressive heat and humidity ebbed, and then they took in a glorious sight.
Nestled in a quaint valley was a small, scrubby town. It wasn’t home, but it would be a welcome stop along the way and one I desperately needed to find food, water, and rest. The first signs of a migraine headache were showing themselves and I had to abate the symptoms any way I could, as quickly as possible. I refused to let something so trivial slow me down. I wanted to reach the Compound before Eve.
The wind kicked up as the sky darkened. The clouds that had been unraveling over the sky all day stacked and arranged themselves into thick walls, lightning streaking over and between them. It was going to pour. I hid behind a small shop and made my way around to the side of the building, watching the townspeople walking here and there from the safety of the shadows. Some men carried burlap sacks of goods on their shoulders, while women carried baskets of clothing or stirred the contents of pots hanging over fires.
A small boy shepherded a small flock of sheep through the muddy streets, using his crook to keep them from straying too far. He clucked his tongue at a wayward sheep and scolded her soundly. His accent was strange. As were his clothes.
Like a fist to the gut, I realized I wasn’t in my own time, after all.
The question was, what year was it? I decided to wait until things in the town settled; either when night fell, or when the rain began falling in earnest. God would provide me with clothing and the knowledge I needed. I just had to bide my time. Sitting in the shadow cast by a small building, I closed my eyes and let my mind rest.
Rest was what I needed.
Even in the cool darkness, my head and face hurt. There was a pressure building in my skull, a throbbing pain behind my eyes, and an aching sensation in my mouth that alternated between dull and sharp and made me want to tear my head off my shoulders and hurl it into the street. The myriad of vibrations was blinding and intense, making my vision hazy around the edges.