Chapter 27. William
william
The three vampires move swiftly through the trees, faster than any forest animal. The physical exertion is the only thing keeping William’s mind from imploding.
Just seconds ago, he thought himself the lone vampire in the world and was resigned to being a high school student with only his Familiar for an ally. Now he is about to join a secret vampiric society, and Huntington is already in the past.
He stumbles on a rock, which is rare for an immortal. It means he is losing energy. “How much farther?” he asks. William has consumed too little blood since awakening, and if he does not have more soon, his body could collapse on him and force a state of death-sleep.
“We’re almost to the train station,” says Nate, glancing at William’s feet like he can tell the latter is struggling.
William does not want to admit weakness, so he tries to engage them in conversation in hopes of slowing them down. “How long have you been awake?”
As they are surrounded by trees, he imagines it is safe to speak freely here.
“Forty-four years for me,” says Cisco, and to William’s relief, the brawny vampire slows to converse.
“My coffin was found on a sunken ship. You should have seen the face on that coroner when I came to on the dissection table!” He punches William on the shoulder, confirming that even his playful touches are painful.
“Fifty-six,” says Nate. “A construction crew found me buried under the foundation of a house they were renovating. I was so weak that I had to compel them to sit in silence while I drank my way through them.”
“What about the Treaty?”
Nate stops moving, and Cisco falls in line next to him. William is glad for the break.
“What’s your name?” asks Nate.
“William Pride.”
Nate studies him before asking, “When did you wake up?”
“A few months ago.”
“Where?”
“Similar story,” says William, opting for a simple lie. “When a construction site was demolished, they found me.”
“How did you meet your Familiar?” asks Nate, still scrutinizing him.
“I was ravenous, so I trapped her,” says William, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“I could not feed much at once, so I made her catch me up on how this new world works. Then the feeble mortal fell in love with me.” He might or might not be borrowing some ideas from the Twilight movie.
“I have emotional control over her and do not deem her a threat.”
“Do you deem us a threat?”
Nate steps closer to William, and so does Cisco.
“No,” says William, looking between them and trying to decide which one to incapacitate first if it comes to that.
“Then tell us,” says Nate, “what assignment is the human working on for you?”
“I have her tracking down all the members of the Stoker family within a hundred-mile radius.” William came up with the idea while running, since he had a feeling Nate would bring up Lorena again.
“That won’t get you anywhere.” Nate sounds both unsurprised and disappointed, as if he expected this answer but hoped for better.
“There are plenty of human Stokers in the world, but without a Stoker vampire to turn them, they’re useless.
It’s like having all the matches we could want but no way to light them. ”
It takes a moment for the meaning of the words to hit William.
There are no Stoker vampires left.
Panic stirs in his gut, making it hard to keep a neutral expression. Yet Nate seems to have already gotten his read of William, because he starts running again without another word.
Something heavy knocks William a few times on the back, and Cisco says, “We know how you feel, brother.”
“How”—William is interrupted by another of Cisco’s comforting pats—“how many of us are left?”
“Fifty-four. Including you.”
William feels as if his insides have hollowed out entirely.
He cannot have heard correctly. Fifty-four. Fifty-four. Only fifty-four vampires left in the world!
“Life isn’t what you remember,” says Cisco mournfully.
“What happened to us?” asks William, no longer caring how raw he sounds. “How did we erase ourselves from history?”
“Not here,” says Nate from far ahead. “Keep moving.”
WILLIAM HAS never ridden a train before.
He follows Nate and Cisco into the underground transport station, where they stop at a machine with a screen, and Nate starts tapping buttons.
“Life was a lot easier before everything became automated,” Cisco says to William in an undertone. “Back then, you could compel people to do anything. But machines don’t work that way.”
They weave through the crowd, following numbered train tracks until they get to the right one.
William stares in open awe at the feat of man that surrounds him.
They look like metal snakes, and having read about all the different styles of engines in Huntington’s library, he is curious to know if these are electric or—?
“William, over here,” says Nate from a good distance away.
Inside, the train is even nicer than the bus. William imagines the ride will be smoother because it is a bigger and more stable vehicle, and it runs on tracks.
They are on their way to New York, where Nate and Cisco live. William tries not to think of the fact that she is also from that state.
He is determined not to look back; beyond being pointless, it will only put her in more danger. Now that he is aware of the precarious state of the vampires, he understands why Nate is so concerned about Familiars. Secrecy is imperative to their survival.
Our survival, he corrects himself.
No one can ever know about or see the video Lorena made. He must rectify that situation himself, the first chance he gets.
Through the window, he watches the scenery evolve from mountains and trees to bricks and concrete.
There has been so much progress since his day that it is hard to take it all in.
He feels overwhelmed by the world, and yet he must contain himself because he is being watched, his every reaction noted by the suspicious Nate.
They change trains a couple of times, and each one gets progressively more crowded, until they finally get off at the Atlantic Avenue station and climb to the surface. When he reaches the street, William freezes.
Every particle of space is consumed by people and buildings and cars and streetlights, and all sound is drowned by the drone of honking and shouting and engine rumblings. The sidewalk is an obstacle course of people walking, skateboarding, riding bicycles, and handing out flyers.
He has never been in a place this alive.
“Welcome to Brooklyn,” says Cisco with a grin. “Nate hates it here, but to me, it feels like home.”
The streets are dirty and uneven, but William keeps spotting people sleeping on them. Back in his day, he would never have imagined that there could be more people than land in the world. It felt like there was so much yet to be discovered.
And now it is as if these humans do not have enough space. They look up at the stars as if they would colonize them, too.
William follows Nate and Cisco into a brick building and up five flights of stairs.
Nate unlocks the door, and they step into a residence that is startlingly modern.
A wide flat screen protrudes from a gray marble wall, facing a set of leather couches that are creased with wear.
William peeks past a couple of doors that lead to bedrooms, each with a desk and computer. The whole thing seems so …
Human.
“What were you expecting?” asks Nate, who does not miss a note of William’s reaction. “Candlelight and coffins? Why would we still be living like it’s the 1700s?”
“Fair point,” says William. “How did you come by this place?”
“How else?” asks Nate, as if it were obvious. “We ate the owners.”
William furrows his brow. “Why not compel—?”
“Relax, we signed a lease,” says Nate. “Compulsion doesn’t work for everything.”
Cisco is no longer with them in the living room. William is parched from today’s exertion, so the instant he senses warm blood nearby, his throat starts to burn with hunger.
Yet he does not hear or sense any humans in this apartment.
“Let’s say I compel the owner of this place to give it to me for free,” says Nate, who must be pretending not to notice that William’s fangs are sticking out or that he keeps sniffing the air.
“The owner answers to other people because he has bills to pay, maybe a spouse who depends on him. He would be forced to examine his decision to give it away for free, as would others, and that would bring us unwanted attention. Make sense?”
Cisco reappears then, and William does not process anything Nate said because all he is aware of is what the vampire is carrying. Cisco has three wineglasses in one hand and, in the other, a pitcher filled with warm blood.
He sets everything down on the coffee table, and Nate leans over to fill all three glasses. “To William Pride and his awakening,” he says, then he and Cisco clink glasses with William’s.
They all down their drinks in one go.
“Where does this blood come from?” asks William, licking his lips and serving himself a second glass.
“Humans donate it,” answers Nate. “Hospitals store the blood in freezers to be used for medical procedures. We take what we need from different places. We can’t always be killing people, or we’d be exposed.”
“But if we are drinking the blood of people who are alive, will they not become immune to compulsion?”
Nate shakes his head. “Doesn’t work that way. Familiars can only be made from the vein.”
“Yeah, Lenny tested it—”
“Let him drink,” says Nate, and William gets the impression Cisco said something wrong.
“Who is Lenny —?”
“We have to go now,” says Nate, and he and Cisco get to their feet. “Enjoy the blood. We’ll be back soon.”
Everything suddenly feels like it is moving too fast. William can hardly fathom what the vampires have been reduced to—just fifty-four survivors leading secret lives, cut off from Familiars and human society, scrounging for discarded blood, and all for … what?
What are they hanging on for?
“What is the point?” William asks in a low voice. Nate and Cisco are by the door, but they stay and listen. “We just go on living in the shadows, until when?”
“Until—”
“Cisco,” warns Nate, and he opens the door to go.
But William reaches the entryway in a fraction of a second, blocking their path. “Until…?” He looks from Nate to Cisco, his firm stance making it clear that he is not moving.
“Their return,” blurts Cisco, then he shoots a panicked glance at Nate, who clenches his jaw.
“Whose?” asks William.
“The vampires,” says Nate, staring William in the eye and studying him more intently than before. “We believe the rest of our kind is still in death-sleep, somewhere just beyond our reach. We’re waiting for them to wake up and rejoin us.”
William does not understand, but he does not let Nate see that. His stare does not waver. “And then what?”
A cold grin twists Nate’s lips.
“And then,” he says in a happier tone, prompting Cisco to laugh nervously, “we take our rightful place at the top of the food chain.”