14 - Paul
I hope he’s worth it
The leftovers are waiting for me in the main floor grand lobby when I make my way down there. They are all lined up, like they’ve planned a little ceremony.
Twenty-one. Twenty-one lost men. My army.
I pause on the last landing to sigh. It’s not Legion, by any means. But it will have to do.
One of the scions steps forward. “My lord!” And when he says this, they all kneel in unison, bowing their heads and staring at the floor.
The one in front lifts his eyes up. They are a nice shade of gold, which I like because he reminds me of Ryet, and this is the only reason I know his name. Everything I do these days goes back to Ryet. Since the moment he was born, it has always been about Ryet.
Why, though? Why am I obsessed with that man? There’s no rhyme or reason to it. He’s attractive and I am drawn to him for that reason, I’ll admit that. But this one here, Jeff, I like him naked as well. And though this one does balk a bit at times, he never positioned himself as an adversary the way Ryet did. He’s much easier to enjoy, that’s for sure.
So why Ryet?
When I don’t say anything, Jeff gets anxious and stands back up, which compels the others to do the same. “We haven’t completed the coat yet, but we have secured some pelts from a local fur trader about twenty miles south, so we’re…” Jeff looks over at another guy. “Well… tell him.”
“Yeah.” The other guy looks very nervous. “I did check the YouTube and I did find a pattern for Jon Snow’s coat. But?—”
“Stop.” I put up a hand. “I don’t have time for this. What the actual fuck are you talking about?”
This guy’s eyebrows shoot up in confusion. “My lord?”
“What are you going on about? We’re in the middle of a battle of Biblical proportions. Why are you talking to me about a coat ?”
This one and Jeff exchange a look. Jeff clears his throat. “Well, my lord, you asked us to make you a Jon Snow coat out of wolf pelts.”
Without thinking I guffaw. Then do it again. And it feels good to let my strung-out emotions free like this, so when I’m done laughing, I suck in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m sorry. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Jon Snow is a pussy. Do I look like a Jon Snow? I’m not cosplaying Jon Snow. And this isn’t a fantasy!” I kinda roar this. “This is reality! And you’re my Army of Darkness!” Here I pause. “Wait. No, wrong movie. Never mind that. We’re not the Army of Darkness! They are!”
Every scion head nods in agreement. But it’s one of those cautious, ‘he’s insane’ kind of agreements. And now I do kind of remember something about Jon Snow, and I might’ve asked them to make me a coat.
So I feel dumb.
Also… crazy. Have I lost my mind? Has the whole ordeal finally caught up with me? Is this how Paul the Vampire goes out? A deranged lunatic who can’t discern dream from reality?
Only if I let it be.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sighing, but also rallying. “I’m not myself right now. We’re in the middle of things. It’s confusing for everyone.” They emphatically agree with me now. “And I never really explained your role in the endgame, so it’s all my fault. But”—I smile at them—“you are…” I need the right word here. Something that conveys all the meanings and bolsters their faith in me. “You are… the Chosen.” Oh, yeah, that’s perfect. “That’s right. The Chosen. I chose you?—”
But before I can finish, the front doors of the lodge slam open and a ray of sunshine bursts through them. And behind that ray of sunshine is—well, whoever it is, they are backlit. So it takes me a few more seconds to recognize Tristin after he steps forward.
“My lord!” He’s bellowing at me. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”
This is when I realize I don’t know. I felt so sure of myself when I took Kael up to White River. I had a plan, the plan was for Ryet and Syrsee, and it was executed. This internal wordplay nearly causes me to snort at my double entendre.
But now I’m confused.
Which isn’t something I typically allow myself to be.
I close my eyes, breathe, and try to calm myself. Because I’m acting strange. Even if there weren’t twenty-one scions and Tristin looking at me like I’m insane, I can feel my approaching madness.
Something has gone wrong. Again .
Tristin walks towards me with a concerned look on his face. “Paul?”
“What?”
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“All right.” But he doesn’t believe me. And when I check the faces of the scions, neither do they. “So why are you all still here? And where did the scions go?”
“They’re right here, Tristin.” I pan my hand to my Army of Not-Darkness.
“Not them ,” Tristin snaps. “The ones we poisoned !”
A flash of sanity hits me and suddenly the plan is back in my head. “What? They’re gone?”
“Yeah, they’re gone.”
“They can’t be gone , Tristin. We put them in the ground.”
“We did,” he says, trying to be patient with me. “But there’s nothing but displaced dirt where they used to be. They dug themselves up. They’re not there. Trust me, I looked.”
“Then where the hell are they?”
Tristin growls at me. “That’s what I’m asking you . You know, since you’re the king of the American Vampires and in charge of this entire fucking scheme!”
“OK, perhaps it’s time for a meeting?—”
“Meeting?” Tristin cuts me off, scoffing. “There’s no time for a fuckin’ meeting! We’re on a schedule here!” Then he turns to look at the scions. “And why haven’t they changed? What the fuck is happening?”
I’m doing my best to sort out his words before I speak so I don’t sound crazy, but there’s no hope. My mind is… not well. Because I say, “Is there a costume change that I missed?” And even though these words just came out of my mouth, I hear the absurdity.
“ Costume change ?” Tristin is aghast. “Holy shit. You’ve lost your mind. We’re not actors in a fucking movie, Paul! We’re about to annihilate the Darkness, remember?”
I laugh. Because that’s right. I do remember that. “Yes. The Darkness. But?—”
“You haven’t fed them yet!” Tristin pans his hand in the direction of my leftovers. “How the hell are we supposed to fight the Army of Darkness if you haven’t given them the proper weapons?”
I point at Jeff. “See, I knew the Army of Darkness was relevant here.”
Jeff nods, but he side-eyes Tristin at the same time.
“We need to find Josep.”
“No.” Tristin laughs this word out. “No, Paul, we don’t .” He’s red-faced with frustration now, so he takes a moment to breathe through it and collect himself. “OK. I… don’t know what happened to you, but you’re… confused. So I’m taking over.”
“Yes.” I point at him. “Agreed.”
He turns to Jeff. “We need to get the fuck out of this lodge. Josep could come up at any moment and this asshole is not going to save us. Where can we go so everyone can drink?”
There is a bit of excitement here among the scions. They are hungry and I’m starving them. Not on purpose, though. I was just… preoccupied with something else.
I just can’t remember what that something else was at the moment.
Have I actually gone insane?
“The purple rec room?” Jeff says. “It’s all the way across the compound, but I’m pretty sure Josep doesn’t even know it exists.”
“Don’t count on that.” Tristin laughs. “That thing is not stupid. And we’re…” He pauses here to look at me. “We’re at a serious disadvantage.”
“It’s still the best place,” Jeff says. “It’s small, and out of the way, and near the woods.”
“All right,” Tristin agrees. “Get over there and get ready. Paul and I will be right behind you.”
Tristin waits until all the scions have left before turning to me. He’s concerned. “Paul, what is going on with you? Where have you been? I’ve been waiting at the rendezvous since last night for you to arrive. I only came here to look for you because it was the last place I expected you to be.” He looks around for a moment, then lowers his voice to a whisper. “Where is Josep? Is he in the bunker?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
He and I just stare at each other for a moment. I can tell that he wants to get angry with me, but he’s doing his best to control it. “Do you know what we’re even doing?”
“We’re… killing the Darkness, of course.”
“Of course. Yes. But… you do remember who the Darkness really is, right?”
It hits me then. And things start coming back to me. “Of course. And I was busy all day yesterday preparing .”
“Preparing? How? Because you didn’t feed the scions, Paul. That was literally your only job!”
“I was killing Kael up at the White River camp. For Ryet and Syrsee.”
Tristin blows out a breath. “So you’re really going to jeopardize everything for him?”
And with these words of his, clarity manifests for me. I remember everything again. Who I am, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. “Yes,” I tell Tristin. And as soon as this word comes out, I’m back. Calm, calculated, smarmy. “Yes, Tristin, I’m going to risk everything. And anyway, it’s done. I sacrificed Kael, got the blood I needed, and have already given it to Ryet. He’s probably feeding Syrsee right now.”
Tristin gives up. “All right. You’re the king. But this decision of yours? It might ruin everything. By trying to save Ryet, you might kill everyone . So I hope he’s worth it.”
Then Tristin turns away and follows the scions out the door.
I hesitate, playing his words back in my head. Yes, I might actually kill everyone. Or at least sentence them all to an eternity of Darkness.
But I need to get something out of the last two thousand years.
And Ryet is my something.
Tristin watches with an almost lustful fascination as, one by one, I feed my scions. It is during the feeding that my mind begins to return to me. I hadn’t anticipated the insanity that came with the Blood Mother ritual. And, in fact, I haven’t even fully comprehended the consequences of it yet either.
This is the only expected thing that’s happened all day—my confusion. Because how would I know? I’ve never made a Blood Mother before, let alone an Army of Not-Darkness. There’s a learning curve. I can’t be expected to know everything, all of the time. I have fallible moments every now and then.
But I feel confident that my memory is on track to catch up with the times. And, as proof, I realize that as the feedings go on, other things start to make more sense too.
Things like… me .
Where I started and how I got here.
Bits and pieces come back to me. Of course, I never actually forgot what I was doing or why. It just… stopped being important somewhere along the way. Two thousand years was more than enough time to talk myself into the idea that it never happened that way to begin with.
That it was a dream?
A nightmare?
A trick?
It could still be all three.
But it’s not. I know it’s not. From the moment I saw Syrsee in that dreamwalk on New Year’s Eve, I remembered. I just didn’t spend much time pondering the significance of that memory.
And now, as I pass my blood magic onto these men, it’s all I can think about.
Syrsee. And how she showed up in the bath that night I was made. And how she washed my back, wings poking through, and gave me hope.
Because I have to be honest here, I wasn’t feeling hopeful that night I was born. The only thing I was feeling was forsaken.
Why? Why me ?
What had I done to deserve this… curse?
A book was written, back in the day, that answered these questions. But that account was written before third-born Paul killed the Fifth Roman Emperor, so it was never completely accurate. To the victor go the spoils. The ‘good guys’ always get to write the history books.
But I do remember the true story of how and why I was made. And even if my path from that moment to this one here is quite crooked, here I am nonetheless.
The scion who is feeding has finally had enough and he falls to the side of the bed, unconscious. Tristin, this being his one job, jumps into action and grabs the man under his shoulders so he can pull him off the bed and drag him across the floor where the rest of my fully satiated scions are all lined up.
I sigh, looking over to the men still in line. There are five of them, all staring at me with hungry eyes as they bare their teeth and lick their lips.
But they don’t rush me. They wait like good little almost-vampires.
They will never be vampires.
I mean, I suppose it’s possible that one survives the change, but it’s highly unlikely. Josep and I have made hundreds and hundreds of scions over the years and Ryet is the only one who took. These men never had a personal feeder who was bred for the sole purpose of helping them through the transition.
But they will not take as long as Ryet to emerge, either. I glance up at the clock on the wall and see that it is nearly dawn now. They will sleep off the blood intoxication and be awake by this evening.
It might be too late. And when I think these words I inadvertently glance over at Tristin. Because he’s been reminding me on repeat that feeding these scions was my only job and if, by some chance, Josep doesn’t come hunting us before they wake, it will only be by luck.
“Are you trying to ruin this operation?” That was another thing he said.
And, if one looks at it objectively, there could be an argument for this last one.
I don’t feel particularly concerned about things. There is no sense of urgency now that the final feeding has commenced.
This is how it used to be. This… indifference . In the first days, in the beginning days. When that insufferable child of an emperor would torture me and the only escape I had was my mind. And the mission.
I hadn’t forgotten about the mission. Hadn’t given up on it, either. It just stopped being relevant. When you’re in survival mode you do what needs to be done. Good or evil no longer matters. The only thing that matters is to keep going.
But, as I sit here feeding my scions their death drink, I am once again thinking about that night when Syrsee showed up in my bath, back in the times of the Roman Emperor, Nero. It was the night of my third-birth and Syrsee appeared as a blur of golden light. Something not quite there, but also very real. I couldn’t see her correctly. Like some magic had been done on me so I couldn’t make out her face.
But I always knew. And I am considering the idea… entertaining the notion that I… might have… gotten some of this… wrong .
Oh, I have thought about that final conversation I will have with my Maker about all he has put me through. I’ve thought about that a lot. What I would say, the way I would seethe, and spit, and accuse. And I still plan on doing that. But I haven’t put any intellectual effort at all into what comes after that.
I’m a hell of a vampire. I mean—I actually chuckle out loud here— legendary really is the right word for the Vampire Paul. I embraced it. I embraced all of it. The blood, the sex, the magic, the Darkness. It was all mine for the taking.
Even the Darkness was mine. I’m sure it would disagree on this point, because it tried very hard to deny me the magic. But still, the magic came to me. Somehow, some way, it came to me like I was the true owner of that evil. And it did my bidding like I was the true demon it was made of.
This is how I got here. From that Roman bath to this little building in the Rocky Mountains. Every step of the way was paved in debauchery.
A word that perfectly describes my third-born life.
I have become what I once despised.
And that’s depressing.
Also not true. It’s easy to put myself in the category of those who were Fallen and named in the Book because I have committed many a sin and I have accepted the Darkness inside me and done its bidding. But there is a plan at work here. And I’m playing the starring role.
Good or evil, it is me.
Here I pause to chuckle and this chuckle disturbs the scion currently feeding on my wrist. He pauses his drink, eyes heavy with blood lust, but also suspicious. If a vampire is laughing at you as you feed, might this be a concern?
I pet his head and smile. “It’s OK. Drink. Drink all you want.”
The scion lets out a relieved breath, then dips his mouth back down to my wrist and continues his suckling.
He is not the cause for my chuckle. I am the joke here.
Me.
It’s always been me.
But I haven’t gotten this far without merit.
And it wasn’t the Hand of God that did that .
In the beginning it was Syrsee. That one visit gave me hope.
The Obscurati knew I was something special. I did, after all, kill the Emperor. Then, in the following year, I killed three more. They were all vile. Nero turned Rome into a complete shit show. Everything was up for grabs back then. I was a bit out of control so the Obscurati made it a priority to reign me in.
It was during this period that Josep and I first met. He didn’t mean anything to me back then. He was just a wretched creature in a prison. Something to be forgotten and it would take another eighteen hundred years before I saw him again and started figuring things out. By this time, we were both insane.
He wanted the Long Drink. To end it and start over again, I guess. The Darkness hadn’t understood the depth of human greed and depravity when it first manifested inside the body of beautiful Josep.
But it learned.
Still, Josep was done. I tempted him with the dead Black blood, promising him that little vial in exchange for his help in getting away. Starting over in the New World.
And by the time we got here, he was ready to try again.
But all of that was but a step.
The leaps didn’t come until I created my little coven of witches. It took a while to hunt down the distant descendants of the Coyrah in the New World, but I knew they were here.
Over the many thousands of years that the Coyrah was recycling, many had escaped. Nero wasn’t the only monster who ruled Rome, after all. As vile as he was, he had nothing on Caligula. It was Caligula who diluted the Black blood so badly, it was nearly worthless. He made so many little Black witches. Hundreds in the span of just a few years. So many, they lost track of them. Black blood babies were being born everywhere.
That’s how the Darkness spread around the world. Of course, looking at it objectively a couple thousand years on, even I have to admit that it feels more like a plan than a mistake.
And now these distant descendants of the old Coyrah line make Dark magic for me through the blood of my sacrificial scions.
Because that’s all a scion is.
Nothing but a sacrifice.
And Ryet is no different. Because by now, he will have consumed that blood and fed it to our dear Syrsee.
Who lives.
Who must live.
Who will live.
I know this because Syrsee came to me.
And that time in the bath was but the first.
She is my plan.
She was always the plan.
Without her, we lose.