Chapter 12
1279 Words
The black SUV didn't follow Sarah when she finally bolted from the apartment building. Instead, it remained anchored to the curb like a predatory shark in shallow water. Inside the vehicle, the air was conditioned to a precise, bone-chilling 16°C. Beatrice sat in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on the third-story window where the shattered glass caught the morning sun.
She didn't look like a woman who had just pointed a gun at her sister’s head. She looked like a woman finishing a difficult brief at a law firm—composed, sharp, and entirely devoid of hesitation.
"The friend is involved now," a voice crackled from the dashboard's encrypted comms. "Orders?"
"Leave her," Beatrice replied, her voice smooth and devoid of its usual warmth. "She’s a distraction. The police will chase their tails for forty-eight hours, and by then, the trail will be cold. Focus on the harbor sweep. My sister is soft, but she’s resourceful. She won't stay in the open."
Beatrice clicked off the radio and looked down at her lap. Resting there was a tablet displaying a live thermal feed of the Boston wharfs. Two heat signatures had vanished near Pier 44. One was a steady, rhythmic pulse—Chloe. The other was a void, a cold spot in the shape of a man.
"You always were the one who wanted to save the world, Chloe," Beatrice whispered, a flicker of something—regret or perhaps pity—crossing her face. "But some things are meant to stay buried."
Five miles away, beneath the rusted hull of an inactive dry dock, the world was dripping and dark. The smell of salt and rotting timber was thick enough to taste. Chloe sat on a damp concrete ledge, her hands stained with a mixture of grease and the dark, shimmering fluid that was leaking from Cassius’s side.
Cassius was slumped against a support beam, his breathing labored and sounding like the rattle of dry leaves. The shard of silvered metal was still embedded in his flank, glowing with a faint, malevolent blue light that seemed to eat away at his flesh.
"I have to pull it out," Chloe said, her voice echoing hollowly in the cavernous space. "Cassius, if I don't, the infection... or whatever that light is... it’s going to kill you."
"It is... hallowed," Cassius gasped, his eyes clenched shut. The veins on his neck were bulging, black and stagnant. "Science tempered with... old blood. They have found a way to weaponize the very things that made us."
"I don't care what it is," Chloe snapped, her fear finally manifesting as a sharp, desperate anger. "I am a nurse. I don't let patients die on my watch, especially not in a sewer."
She reached into her pocket. She had managed to grab a small emergency kit from her bag before they fled. She pulled out a pair of forceps and a bottle of high-grade rubbing alcohol.
"This is going to hurt," she warned.
Cassius opened his eyes. They were a dull, pained grey, the crimson completely gone. "I have survived the rack in the dungeons of France, Chloe. I have felt the lick of the inquisitor’s flame. Thy tiny needles are nothing."
But as Chloe gripped the end of the metal shard with the forceps, Cassius’s hand shot out, catching her wrist. His grip wasn't the crushing force of the previous night; it was a desperate, trembling hold.
"If I turn," he whispered, "if the beast takes the reins to survive the pain... thou must run. Do not look back. I will not have thy blood on my soul alongside Eloise’s."
"Shut up," Chloe whispered, her eyes stinging with tears. "You’re not turning into anything."
She braced her feet against the concrete and pulled.
The scream that ripped from Cassius’s throat was not human. It was a harrowing, subsonic wail that shook the very foundation of the dock. The shard came free with a spray of dark fluid, and the blue light flared once, violently, before dying out.
Cassius went limp, his head falling back against the beam. Chloe didn't waste a second. She poured the alcohol directly into the jagged wound. The sizzle of the liquid hitting his preternatural flesh sounded like water on a hot griddle. She worked with a frantic, focused energy, stitching the wound with the last of her silk thread, her fingers moving with the precision of someone who had done this a thousand times in a well-lit ER, rather than a dark hole under the city.
When she finished, she slumped back, her chest heaving. She was covered in dirt, glass, and vampire blood. She looked down at her hands, the hands that were supposed to be safe and clean, and started to laugh—a low, hysterical sound that quickly turned into a sob.
"Chloe," a weak voice called out.
She looked up. Cassius was watching her, his face a pale mask in the gloom. He reached out, his fingers catching hers. For the first time, his hand didn't feel like ice. It felt... cool. Almost human.
"Thou art... the bravest soul I have known in nine centuries," he murmured.
"My sister is trying to kill us, Cassius," Chloe said, wiping her face with her sleeve. "She’s not a lawyer. She’s some kind of... hunter. She knew exactly what you were. She knew about the sleep. She knew everything."
Cassius’s gaze darkened. "The 'Hunters of Hunters.' In my time, they were the Brotherhood of the Cross. They have traded their robes for suits and their swords for light, but their intent is the same. They do not want to study us, Chloe. They want to harvest us."
"Why?"
"Because our blood is the only thing that can stop the clock," Cassius said, his voice gaining strength as the wound began to knit. "Immortality is the ultimate currency. And thy sister... she is a high priestess of that greed."
Chloe looked toward the entrance of the dry dock, where the morning light was starting to bleed through the cracks. She thought of her boring life, her sisters, the mantelpiece photos, and the gold coin. She realized then that the "veil" hadn't just been over Cassius’s world. It had been over hers, too.
"We can't stay here," she said, standing up and offering him her hand. "The boat she had... they’re sweeping the harbor."
"We go North," Cassius said, taking her hand and pulling himself up. He moved stiffly, but the lethal grace was returning. "To the woods. The trees do not have eyes, and the earth does not keep files."
As they moved toward the back exit that led toward the old rail lines, Chloe’s phone—which she had forgotten was in her pocket—vibrated once.
The screen was nearly black from the cracks, but a single notification glowed through the ruins.
One New Email: Beatrice.
Chloe, don't be a martyr. He is a corpse that speaks. Bring him to the clearing at Blue Hills by sunset, or I’ll tell the police that you assisted in the murder of the man in the basement. I have the footage. Don't make me destroy you too.
Chloe closed her eyes, the weight of the betrayal feeling heavier than the city above them. She didn't show the message to Cassius. She simply tucked the phone away and stepped into the light, leaving the nurse she used to be behind in the dark.
- Writer
