26 - Paul
A petty monster
I stumble through the door of the building where Tristin is babysitting my scions, trying to hold in all the feelings.
“Well?” Tristin asks excitedly. “What the hell happened? Where’s Ryet?”
I’m looking down at my feet, which are bare, and clawed, and muddy, but my eyes slide up to meet Tristin’s. “I left him.”
Tristin shoots me a confused look. “Left him…? Where?”
The exhale that precedes my answer is long. “With Josep, of course.”
“Why? What was the point of leaving here if you weren’t gonna save Ryet?”
“I am saving Ryet.” But I look away now, hedging. Because the ending I’ve been planning for nearly two thousand years now hinges on many loose ends.
Loose ends like Syrsee. Who is not the strongest of protagonists. She’s rather impressionable, actually. Which is a good quality when you’re trying to coerce someone into doing horrific things that are completely against their human nature, not to mention their inhuman one. But not ideal when you’re relying on them for the final, dramatic ending.
Loose ends like Josep. Who must succumb to certain desires. And while I do know he has Echo, I’m not sure where things stand at the moment. Does he want her enough to save her? Or will he sacrifice her in the end?
Loose ends like Ryet himself. Will he embrace the Darkness? Or will he fight it?
And then, of course, there is an end that was never tight in the first place.
Me.
Before I was the vampire Paul, I was no one. Just a skeptic who spent all of his early adult years whoring around and being inebriated.
But then the miracle happened and there was this moment—a single fucking moment—when I became a believer.
What a mistake that was. What a prime example of wrong time, wrong place. Because this moment of belief caught the attention of my Maker. Which led to me being a scholar, which led to me being a teacher, which led to me being a threat to the Roman Empire itself. Which is where everything really went off the rails, of course. Though you won’t find any of that in the history books.
A picture has been painted over the last two thousand years. Of things I have done, or didn’t do. Good deeds, mostly. But the records of these deeds, like almost everything in this world, are a combination of superstition, outright lies, and good storytelling, to be honest.
For sure, I did the things they say, but it was never with a committed heart.
I was forced. All of this was forced on me. I never wanted to be the Vampire Paul, let alone the harbinger of the Antichrist. Who the hell would want that job?
No one. Not even me.
And yet here I am.
I reach into my pocket, half-expecting it to be gone. But the little glass vial is still there. I pull it out and hold it up to the window, taking advantage of the fading light.
“What’s that?” Tristin asks.
My smile is crooked when I look at him. “Dead Black blood.”
He offers up another look of confusion. “Where did you get it?”
“I took it from the last Black witch I killed. Actually, I threw it up.” I laugh here. It’s a loud one too. And I’m still laughing when the rest of my words come out. “I was giving her the Long Drink and she tricked me into drinking her blood after she died. I got violently ill. Threw it all up over the course of a week.” I chuckle again, thinking of that week that was only a few months ago, but feels like centuries. I tilt the vial back and forth in the dying sunlight, making it sparkle and take on a purple sheen. “I had given up on this, you know that?” Tristin stares blankly back at me. “I looked for it. For hundreds of years, I looked for the little bottle of dead Black blood that I gave Josep when made this little deal.”
Tristin shrugs. “OK.”
“But it’s like he knew or something. He disposed of it. Or maybe just hid it well, because I never could find it. That’s the only way to kill a vampire, you know. Dead Black blood.” I eye Tristin now, who is very much confused. “It was the only way, really, to make this all work.”
“So why did you give it away?”
“It was the only thing of value I had when it came time to talk Josep into accompanying me across the ocean. I mean, I had the lie, of course. ‘We’re gonna steal the Darkness, Josep. We’re gonna take its power and make it ours.’” I chuckle again. “The American Vampires.”
“That was a lie?”
“No, you idiot. It was the truth, of course. You can’t lie to the Darkness. Not when it’s inside you. And all vampires have the Darkness inside us, even me.”
“I’m not following.”
“Of course not. You’re, what, a hundred and twenty-eight years old? You don’t even have wings, Tristin. How could you know anything?”
“Ya know, for a guy who only got this far because of me, you’re sure being a dick about it. It’s not my fault I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Sorry,” I say, rolling my neck until it cracks. “I do appreciate your help and I didn’t mean to be so blunt.” I rock the vial between my fingers again. “This is the only way to complete the final step of my mission. The fact that I had to give it away in the first place is just… well, divine irony, I suppose. A way to build character, perhaps.”
“So you’re gonna poison Josep with that?”
I shake my head, frowning. “No, Tristin. I’m going to poison myself .” And then I pop the cork on the vial with my thumb and tip all the Black blood into my mouth.
“Wait!” Tristin comes over to me, trying to grab the bottle out of my hand. I let him do this, because it’s too late. It’s empty, save for a thick coating on the sides of the glass. “What are you doing, Paul? Why did you just drink that?”
“Because”—I smile at him now—“it’s the only way.”
Tristin is panicking now, probably imagining how he’ll get out of this mess if I’m not around to save his ass. “The way to what?”
“To give all my Darkness to Ryet. Because, you see, when a maker dies, his protégé inherits all his power by default. And in this case, that would be Ryet. He’s the real hero of this story, not me. I’m certainly not going to be stuck here on Earth acting out the role of the fucking Antichrist for the next seven years. That’s ridiculous. Regardless of how many corners I’ve cut, my mission ends tonight and that means I have an appointment with my own Maker and I’m gonna get the last word here no matter what.”
Tristin is shaking his head. “This is about… spite ?”
I shrug. “Call it spite, call it revenge, call it petty, if you like. This is what two thousand years of character-building has turned me into. A petty monster. It is what it is.”
Across the room, the scions begin to wake, moaning a little as they struggle to open their eyes and get to their feet.
I throw up my hands and grow bigger, my skin turning blue-black, my wings popping out of my back, my clothing ripping into shreds as I become the demon I was always meant to be. “Rise, scions!” I bellow.
They look up at me, still half-drunk off the blood, but struggling or not, they all get to their feet with a great expectation.
“It is time to end this now.” I turn to Tristin and make a little bow. “You will stay here. You’ll be safe. Thank you. I sincerely mean that, Tristin. If any of this gets into a history book, I hope they turn you into the unsung hero you are.”
“But… what? Wait!”
But I’m already slipping into the floor. I’m already on the highway to Hell.
And all my scions follow me down into the earth.