Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel (32 page)

The problem came, however, when that never happened. Why my mother never became involved was unclear, though I wondered if many small items might’ve begun slipping through the cracks as my mother’s health trickled away over the last months, but the ghouls realized too late that Madeline Scott wasn’t going to intervene as promised. They attempted a local protest against the plan, and made quite a lot of fuss at city meetings, but they were simply the owners of a small, threatened local business, and without a big and powerful ally in their back pocket, they ended up in the situation of every other small but beloved local business since the beginning of time—steamrollered by the incoming supermarket chain with its very deep pockets and slick advertising campaign.

The supermarket had opened five months ago, and the butcher shop had lost half of its business virtually overnight. At first, the ghouls had put their savings into the shop to try to ride it out, hoping that those who had gone to try out the new supermarket got tired of getting a much lower quality of meat in exchange for a little bit of savings and convenience, and would return to the store. That didn’t happen. They had to cut back on some of the variety that the store offered, and lost more customers as a result. They still had the local ghoul population, which relied on the store to break down and distribute the human organ meat that they needed to maintain their health, but the problem there was that the ghoul community treated the human meat as a shared commodity—it was obtained by those who owned funeral homes or worked in professions that gave them access to the organs, then passed along to the butcher shops, then distributed to all the households, all without money changing hands. The ghouls of course did do all their other meat purchases at the stores that were ghoul-owned, but that wasn’t enough to offset the loss of the human patronage that had made up such a vast percentage of the customer base.

When the autumn tithe to my family was due, the butcher shop had already been struggling and didn’t have the money to pay the bill. They’d turned to others within the community, who had gone around and raised the money by each business and individual household putting forward what they could spare, which had allowed them to get by that time. But when the winter tithe had been due at the end of December, the butcher shop’s profits plunged even further, and on top of that the other businesses were facing tight times as well, and hadn’t been able to offer an equal amount as in the autumn, leaving the butcher shop owners with a large shortfall to make up. They’d stretched as long as possible, and were in fact in the middle of acquiring a loan, with the owner using his house as collateral.

“That’s completely unacceptable,” I said bluntly.

“No,” the owner said frantically, “if you just give me a few more days—”

“That’s not what I mean at all!” I replied. “That grocery store isn’t going away, and the last thing that should be done is for the tithe to be the deathblow to your business. No, what I mean is that I’m going to have one of our accountants come up here today, and you’re going to go over all your records from the five months since the supermarket came in. The tithe is going to be readjusted to reflect the difference in what is a real-case bottom line in the current market conditions, not what existed before in the best times.”

The owner looked at me, so incredibly grateful that it hurt to even see it. “That’s amazing, Mr. Scott,” he stammered, “and we’re so—”

I cut him off, anger filling me. “No,” I said. “We dropped the ball on our end, and you’ve had months of stress and hard decisions as a result. If we hadn’t been able to stop the supermarket, then adjustments should’ve been made to the tithe immediately. So I’m also going to be telling the accountant that you need to be issued a credit for the tithe amount that you essentially overpaid. I also want credits issued to all the businesses and households that put money forward to help you when you almost went under in the autumn.”

They stared at me, unable to process what I’d said at first. “You mean,” one of the younger men said finally, almost forcing out the words, “that you’ll be talking to your family, and that this is your recommendation that—”

“No. This is what’s happening, and I’m getting that process started today.”

The owner began to cry, fat tears sliding down the deep wrinkles in his face. And I was suddenly surrounded by all four of the ghouls, all of whom were clasping my hands and thanking me in as many ways as they could say it. I nodded, uncomfortable but knowing that they needed to do this, studiously ignoring the expression on Suzume’s face.

We didn’t leave the butcher shop for several hours, not until Dulce Scarpati, the accountant who was the Black Sabbath fan, had arrived, somewhat surprised at my unexpected call, but well conditioned to follow Scott orders without question, and had made as much headway as she could on the numbers and tithe recalibration for the day. I signed off on everything, making my signature large and unmistakable, the whole time trying to hide from the euphorically relieved ghouls just how unbelievably pissed I was.

Once Suze and I walked back to the car, and were out of sight of both grateful ghouls and a mildly bemused accountant, I tried to get out some aggression by kicking at a wall of iced-over snow that had been created by multiple plowing passes through the parking lot. Suze watched silently as I chipped away at it, not commenting. Finally I felt at least ready to get into the car, if not exactly drive safely, and unlocked the Scirocco.

We sat silently beside each other as the car slowly warmed up. After several minutes, Suze slowly turned to look at me, her face very grim. “So, you know that your family is not exactly going to take this well,” she said at last.

“I don’t give a shit about them right now,” I said through gritted teeth.

Suze continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Even if they end up agreeing with you in the larger sense about reducing the tithe and attempting to keep the business alive in order to maintain a long-term stream of revenue, you should’ve brought this one back to the group to discuss and agree on.”

“We couldn’t agree on whether or not to eat ice cream at this point.”

“They’re going to be pissed, Fort. Pissed at you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, fed up at last. “This is an unsustainable situation, and I know it, Prudence knows it, and Chivalry is trying as hard as he can to not know it.” I took a deep breath and looked out the window at the ice and snow for a second, then turned back to Suze. “It’s time to just accept what things are, Suze, rather than what we’d like them to be. So that’s why I actually did something for the ghouls, even though I know it’s going to cause trouble with my family.”

Suze watched me steadily. “If that’s true, Fort, and how you really feel, then how far does it go?”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Your hands are restless when you’re listening to someone. Your pupils are wider than they should be. I don’t think you even notice it, but I’ve seen the way that you’re tracking all the people around you today.” She reached over and touched my arm, very gently. “In another day or so, you’ll notice it yourself. But by then you might be getting dangerous.”

I wanted to yell that this wasn’t true. I wanted to beg for just a little more time. I didn’t do either, because she was right. “You’re saying that I need to feed,” I said, forcing the words out.

“I’m saying,” she said, her eyes so brilliantly dark and lovely, so sharp and knowing, “that you need to accept what things are, rather than what you’d like them to be. And accept that it’s not your fault that you are what you are.”

I couldn’t say anything at first, and I just moved my hand over to hers and twined my cold fingers through her warm ones. We sat together, watching the movement of people and cars and the whole city around our tiny oasis of the parked Scirocco.

“Will you help me?” I asked finally.

“You know I will.”

“Okay. Then it will be tonight. Before I’m dangerous. Tonight.”

It hurt to say it. To lose that last dream and illusion. But this was the path that I’d started down from the moment that a collection of multiplying cells suddenly created a heart that could beat. And after all that fighting and terror, it finally came down to this—that tonight I would feed on a human.

We waited until well
after nightfall before we went out. It wasn’t for solely atmospheric purposes, though it didn’t escape my notice that we were going out on a Friday night for the same reasons as muggers and rapists—we were looking for a certain kind of inebriated and potentially vulnerable individual, and it would be easier to get that person alone and unobserved if we waited until most people were well into their third or fourth drink. Also, Suze wanted to have dinner before we headed out, arguing that she did her best work on a full stomach.

It was after ten when we found a parking spot for the Scirocco about two blocks away from one of the revitalized downtown areas where derelict warehouses had been transformed into lofts, boutique shopping, and trendy nightclubs. Given the weather, most people had sprung for the valet services, or had paid up to put their cars in the nearby lots, so there were plenty of spaces available. I took my Colt out from its usual place in my duffel bag and ejected the clip to see how many bullets I had left. I was certain that I had put a full clip in before we’d left the apartment, but my foster father had always emphasized staying in the habit of verifying exactly what was present as often as possible. Just as I’d expected, it was a full clip with eight rounds, and I reloaded it and flicked on the safety. Beside me, Suze gave a loud snort.

“What are we doing, holding someone up at gunpoint, Fort?” she asked derisively. “If so, I forgot to pack my niece’s Princess Elsa mask from Halloween.”

I put the Colt in my parka pocket and zipped it closed. It was a sizable handgun, but my parka had been a Christmas present from my brother, one of those long, wonderful concoctions of goose down and rainproof material, with a removable hood and at least a dozen pockets of various sizes, one of which was not only long enough and deep enough to contain the Colt and save me from having to fuss with trying to access a hip holster on a knee-length coat, but also didn’t even show the shape of what I was carrying. “No, I think we’ve got a workable plan,” I said, “but this is just an insurance policy.”

Suze shook her head. “I’m the mastermind behind this plan. Insurance is unnecessary.”

I looked at her patiently, making no move to remove the Colt from my pocket. Finally she stuck her tongue out at me and wiggled out of her own jacket, tossing it to me, revealing her sparkly backless club top and black leggings. “Hold that,” she instructed. “I’m practically going to be hypothermic when I get back.”

We walked together to the club, separating at the front. She strutted up to the entrance and was ushered inside, no cover charge, while I circled around the building until I was at the back door, right beside the Dumpster. It was one of those doors that only opened from the inside, so anyone coming out and intending to get back in would’ve had to prop it open, but I wasn’t worried—after all, no part of this plan involved me actually entering the club. I stood slightly behind the Dumpster, ready to duck behind it if someone just came outside to dump trash or vomit their guts out (which several frozen piles revealed to be a pretty standard activity choice), shifting from one foot to another in the frigid night air. I could hear the muffled thudding of the music’s bass line from where I was standing, and it provided a strange counterpoint to the utter stillness around me. Every time I breathed out, I could see the steam of my breath curl in the dim security light on the back door, a small pool of weak light surrounded by the dimness of branching alleys and the complete darkness around several stores that had closed hours ago.

Thirty minutes after Suze entered the club, the back door opened and she emerged, towing a blond college-aged guy built like a defensive linesman. There was a glazed look on his face, and his eyes were tracking strangely, not following either of us, even as I stepped out to meet Suze, but looking at things that weren’t there, silently mouthing words and then listening intently as if to another side of a conversation.

“Here,” Suze said, looking pleased. The club must’ve been incredibly hot inside, since there was sweat streaking down her forehead, and for a moment she looked refreshed by the night air rather than frozen. Somewhere she’d acquired a great deal of glitter in her black hair, and between that and the sequins covering her top, she caught and reflected the meager light. “He’s the rapey-est one in there.”

“What?” I handed Suze her coat before she could start developing frostbite and took over the job of leading the young man away from the club, down the increasingly dark alley to a spot where no one would see and potentially intervene with what was about to happen.

“You’re about to take a bit of a nip off his life span, right?” Suze asked, tugging on her coat and zipping it up as she followed us. “Well, I’d personally like to have that happen to an ass-grabber who was trying pretty hard to distract me from my drink, if you know what I mean, and I’m sure that this will make you feel better as well if you find yourself inclined to postmeal remorse.”

I considered for a moment. She was, it had to be said, entirely right, and I was already feeling substantially less guilt over what I was about to do. Actually, taking into consideration that he’d apparently tried to roofie Suzume, I was suddenly feeling rather eager about what was going to happen, even beyond that instinctive part of my brain that was A-okay with everything, so long as it ended with a mouthful of blood on my part. I gave the guy one last yank as we reached a corner, behind some old discarded pallets of wood and trash, where only my sharpened vampire eyes were allowing me to see at all, and our companion was blinking, confused at where the light had gone. “He looks pretty out of it,” I noted to Suze. “Will he remember any of this?”

“No.” Suze’s mouth curled into a very mean smile. “I was touching his skin when I started working on him, and the only person whose perception I’m affecting right now is him—so I’m definitely cooking some A-level fox mojo here. He thinks he’s going home with me right now. But”—the blond made a sudden, very hoarse, very frightened sound—“he’s not going to like what happens in this memory.” Suze gave him a hard shove, and the guy fell backward onto the ground, scooting himself away from whatever was frightening him until his back hit the brick wall and he couldn’t go any farther. She crouched down smoothly, tilting her head and watching him consideringly. “I’m an educator at heart, Fort,” she mused. “And I think this one is going to end up with a lot more respect for women after tonight.”

I eyed the look on the guy’s face. “Respect? Or fear?”

She smiled. “I don’t argue with results, man friend.” And with a quick motion she flicked out her switchblade and made a deep slice across his wrist, bringing a thick wave of blood out. I hesitated for barely a second before I was down on my knees, grabbing the wrist with both hands and locking my mouth around the wound. Instinct had pushed me forward, but the moment the blood hit my tongue, I didn’t need instinct anymore. It wasn’t the same as drinking from my mother, but it was so far from the experience I’d had drinking the stale, refrigerated blood that my siblings had brought me that it was like slicing into a piece of perfectly cooked and sauced filet mignon after a lifetime of eating nothing but twice-reheated meat loaf. I never lost awareness of what was around me, and was comforted by Suze’s alert presence beside me, but the blood demanded my attention. It was hot, and alive in an indefinable way, fizzling down my throat delightfully, and the first few swallows just whetted my appetite for more. I knew that Suze was watching me, and would stop me from taking too much, so I just did what my body demanded, drinking and drinking, until finally I got the “that’s enough” full signal from my belly, and I stopped. I lifted my head back, warm and replete as if I’d just finished a good meal in a fine restaurant, and watched benignly as Suze slapped a square of gauze over the slice on the guy’s wrist and pressed down hard to stem the bleeding. I blinked, utterly content; then suddenly my body was sending me a whole different signal. I jumped to my feet, looking around desperately, but we were in an alley and the sudden screaming warning from my bladder left no doubt at all that this was a code-red emergency, and it was a question of either taking action or suffering an indignity that I hadn’t experienced since potty-training.

I shuffled around fast, putting my back to Suze, whipped my fly down, and held my parka hem up with one hand as I peed against the alley wall, panting with relief.

Behind me, Suze was laughing hysterically. “Holy shit, it’s really true,” she gasped, and continued into a series of such belly laughs that if I’d been able to really take my attention away from my current predicament, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her rolling on the ground. As it was, though, I was in the middle of an epic pee break, and was doing my best to make sure that my shoes and pants were spared. “I was wondering if that would happen,” she chortled.

“What?”
I said, without much tact or patience, but, honestly, I was having to pee in an alley in front of my girlfriend. I deserved a pass.

She was still snickering as I zipped up and turned. “You’re an obligate sanguivore, Fort. Just like a vampire bat.”

“I’m aware of that part,” I grumbled.

Her grin widened even further. “I did more research than you did? Oh,
Fort
. Come on, good buddy. Blood feeding is just about the most inefficient feeding process that there is. You have to suck in all that liquid, and your body needs to separate out the water from the good stuff as quickly as it can to make more room for the blood. Judging from McAssGrabberson’s face here, I bet you just guzzled down three, maybe three and a half pints. What did you think your body was going to do?”

I stared. “You mean that bats—”

“Start peeing halfway through a feeding? Hell yeah.” She snorted. “Watch a nature program sometime.”

“Oh my God.” Of all the things I’d thought about when it came to feeding on humans, my bladder had honestly never even crossed my mind.

“It’s cool,” Suze assured me. “And if I can keep finding douches for you, next time just take a piss right on him.” She leaned down to my silent victim and punched him hard across the face, breaking his nose audibly and looking deeply satisfied. “Now, let’s go dump this asshole in his car. He’ll get home on autopilot. Then, in a couple of hours, he’ll wake up with a memory of a deeply character-building experience, and a need for a tetanus shot.”

“A what?” I asked, hoisting the guy to his feet.

Suze was smug. “He’ll think that I sliced him with a dirty knife when he got too pushy. And then things got
really
interesting.”

We hauled the guy back to his car, but by the time we got there it was clear that, between some minor blood loss and whatever psychological trauma Suze had just put him in, he was in no shape to drive. A quick check of his license revealed his home address, and we deposited him in his backseat and Suze drove his car, with me following in the Scirocco. From the looks of where we ended up, it was his parents’ house, with everyone inside tucked neatly away in bed, so we left his car running in the driveway with the heater on high. He had an almost full tank of gas, so either he would wake up on his own at some point and stagger inside, or his parents would find him the next morning, asleep and in need of a low-priority trip down to the ER. Suze also fished through his pockets and confiscated a breath mint tin that contained several very suspicious pills that were definitely not mints.

She also took all his cash, assuring me that she had extremely important reasons for doing so.
Continuity
reasons for her fox trick, apparently.

We were less than a mile away from Suze’s house, and she was insistent that only her own shampoo had, as she put it, the balls to get all the glitter out of her hair. I was informed pointedly that men’s shampoo was completely weak, and got quite a lecture about it as I drove her to her own door.

“Thank you,” I said, very seriously, just as she was about to leave the car. “You made that not awful, and I don’t even know what to say to really thank you.”

She leaned back toward me and cupped my cheek with one palm, pressing her forehead against mine and looking deeply into my eyes for a long second. Then she pulled back and, giving my cheek one gentle pat, said, “You don’t have to thank me, Fort. It made me happy to help you.” A small smile played at her mouth. “Isn’t that something?”

Then she was out the car and giving me a jaunty wave as she walked up to her door and disappeared inside her house.

I got home to my apartment about twenty minutes later, and by then I was discovering that as good as that blood had tasted on its way down, it still left a distinctive funky taste in my mouth after some time had passed. I was definitely looking for some quality alone time with my toothbrush and half a tube of toothpaste. And maybe a Popsicle afterward, just because I’d earned it, and the blood in my stomach had put a definite pep in my step, but had failed to make the slightest impact on the achiness of my jaw.

The only light on in the apartment was the small one just by the door that we usually left on if one of us went to bed and the other wasn’t home yet. We called it the courtesy light, since by leaving it on you did the other person the courtesy of not having to fumble around for a light switch while also attempting to take off his shoes.

There was a movement in the darkness of the living room as I closed the door behind me, and I saw that it was Dan, sitting in our new armchair. He must’ve been waiting for me. Jaison’s heavy boots were on our shoe mat, so he was probably the reason that Dan’s bedroom door was closed. There was something in Dan’s face that I hadn’t seen before, and it silenced me before I would’ve greeted him, or asked why he was sitting alone in the dark.

He walked up to me, stopping just far enough away that we were almost touching, and when he started talking, it was barely above a whisper. “Jaison is sleeping, but, Fort . . . I just wanted to say . . .” He paused, then cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Everyone is talking about what you did today. And it’s just . . .” He was forced to stop again, and for a second it looked like he was actually fighting back tears. “I know how that could’ve gone down if it hadn’t been you who went there today. That, honestly, you could’ve just done things the way your family has always done things, and no one would’ve been surprised. So, I know they already said this, but
I
need to say this—thank you.”