Darkness Before Dawn (19 page)

“It’s never appealed to me. And then there’s the whole new diet. Blech.”

He grins, looks back out over the city.

I find myself more curious about him than I should be. Four hundred years. I can’t imagine. Seventeen years have been hard enough for me. I wonder if the years mean less to him than they do to me.

“What happened to your mom? I never hear anyone talk about Lady Valentine.”

“There is no Lady Valentine.” Unlike his father, Victor holds my gaze. “I’d been around for a century when my father got rid of her.”

“What? You mean, like, divorced her?”

“Banished her. That’s how it works with us. Vampires don’t do the whole until-death-do-us-part thing.”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that. For you, it really would be marriage for eternity.” I tuck my feet beneath me. “So your dad just got tired of her?”

“He wanted more children.”

It’s strange to think of Valentine as a loving dad. I think of him as a lord and master, as a monster, as my enemy.

“A female of the Old Family can give birth only once. Then she becomes sterile.” Victor shrugs. “And you have to be born a vampire to conceive a vampire. Those who are turned can’t reproduce. I guess it’s nature’s method of birth control for an immortal species.”

“My father once told me that a vampire can’t have children with a human.”

“True. Your father knew his stuff.”

I can hear the respect he had for my father in his voice—even though he never met him.

“So
did
Valentine have other kids?” I ask.

“Yes, a daughter. Faith.”

“I never knew that. Does the Agency know?”

“I don’t know. It’s not their business.”

“I guess not.” I look out at the Works and think about Brady, wondering if Victor appreciates having a sibling. “Brady, my brother, had a job there. At the Works. After he returned from the war.”

“You miss him.”

“All the time.”

“Share a good memory of him with me.”

I jerk my attention back to Victor. What he’s asking seems a simple request, but Brady is personal, so personal. He was my big brother. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still hear him laughing. He had the best laugh. But the most horrific scream.

I can’t talk to Victor about his death. Even though I was only nine at the time, and Brady was twenty, the memory is still fresh, raw. He died because of me. We were living in an older part of town then. My parents were working late at the university when the vampires came, and Brady shoved me in a closet. To keep me safe. To protect me. I was scared. I didn’t want him to leave me. To calm me, to reassure me, he said, “Don’t be afraid of the dark.” They were the last words he ever said to me. Then he shut the door. After that all I heard was the fighting. And the awful screaming. I curled up into a tight ball, wanting to get so small that the vampires wouldn’t see me if they opened the door. It was hours before the door opened, and when it did, my mother pulled me onto her lap. Brady was gone.

I can’t find the words to tell Victor the anguish that still consumes me after all these years. Brady died protecting me. His death influenced me, shaped my hatred of vampires. Every vampire I see is the faceless one who killed him. I live with his screams; it’s like he’s always in the next room, and I’m still trapped in that closet, listening with my hands over my ears, praying for an ounce of sunlight to come in through the windows. But it never did. I know it’s not rational. I was only nine, a kid. I just wish I could have saved him.

I want Victor to leave me alone. Brady is too personal, too private, too painful. I shake my head. “I can’t talk about him.” My voice is scratchy, as though I’ve been crying, but where Brady is concerned I have no more tears left.

Victor crouches in front of me. “I share with you pieces of my world. Tell me something about Brady. Help me to understand … your heart.”

Victor can be persuasive. Suddenly I want him to know about this place inside me that still bleeds. He’s shown me another side of vampires; maybe this will enlighten him about humans a bit more.

With my finger, I trace a circle over the back of my left hand. “Somehow, when he was working, coal dust got embedded in an open cut on his hand, and when the wound healed, the dust got trapped. It looked like a small flower blossoming, no bigger than a thumbnail. Sometimes he’d color with me in my coloring book. I’d watch his hand move as he carefully filled in between the lines, and the little petals would move back and forth like they were being brushed with a gentle breeze. They fascinated me.”

At least, I remember it looking that way.

They never found my brother’s body. After I became a delegate, I was able to get my hands on the Agency report of the incident. It said they’d found so much blood, they suspected he died in the apartment and the vampire dragged him away, maybe to the sewers or a vampire lair. I hate that image the most: a horde of vampires slowly feasting on the remains of the boy with the flower tattoo on his hand. Not knowing what became of him leaves me to imagine the worst.

“I’ve been wondering something,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t say anything. Just waits. I guess when you live for eternity, patience comes naturally.

“You seem to know the vampires who live in the city. I don’t suppose you ever heard who took him. Whether he died quickly or slowly.”

“I’m sorry. No. I never heard anything.”

I sigh. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“I can understand how his death shaped your opinions about us. But please know that we’re not all monsters.”

“Yeah, so I’m starting to realize.” I look back toward the Works. I can’t look at him, because I’m afraid that if I do, something inside me will crumble, that this protective shield will melt away. And I’ll care about vampires. Worse, I’ll care about Victor.

Chapter 19

F
riday afternoon, Michael and I head to the Daylight Grill after school. I need this time with him. Last night with Victor was too intense, encompassing a riot of emotions. It made me feel like a traitor to Michael. I know he wouldn’t approve of my spending time with a vampire. And I care about Michael so much. I love everything about him, and I drink in the details as we walk. The way his muscles bunch when he moves. The way he smiles when he looks at me.

At the Daylight Grill, we sit across from each other and hold hands. I just can’t seem to touch him enough.

He furrows his brow. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“That guy in the snake hoodie isn’t bothering you again, is he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t
think
?”

I shake my head. How to explain without sounding like I’m losing my mind? “Sometimes I feel like I’m being watched. And I thought I saw him the other morning on my way to school, but when I went after him—”

“You went after him?”

“It was fine. The streets were crowded. I don’t even know if it was him. I lost him.”

“Okay, starting Monday morning I’m walking you to school. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

He sounds so confident, so sure. But then, so did Brady.

Tegan and Sin come in and join us. We talk for a while, but the conversation seems to drag. Finally I suggest we play some pool.

“Don’t you guys ever get bored with this place?” Sin asks.

“Yeah,” Tegan says quickly, which is news to me.

“What do you say we do something different, then?” Sin asks.

“Like what?”

I don’t like where this is going.

“How about we go wall-walking?” he asks, a gleam in his eye.

I knew he would bring trouble.

“Forget it,” I say. “We can’t make it to the wall before sunset.”

He has to be crazy to suggest it. During the day is one thing, but at night … we’d just be asking to become a late-night snack. I’ve heard of people setting up stakeouts to wait for the vamps so they can ambush them. Personally, I’ll leave that job to the Night Watchmen and wall guards.

“Come on,” Michael says. “It’s fun.”

I stare at him. “You’ve done it?”

“Sure. Well. Kind of. I mean, I went there once during the day, walked along the wall for, like, three hours. Found some really weird stuff, you know. But couldn’t find a hole to the outside.”

“Trust me. It’s too dangerous. Maybe tomorrow afternoon, but not at night.”

“That’s when it’s more fun,” Sin urges. “Michael and I will protect you. No one’s going to bother us.”

“I’m not worried about people. I’m worried about vampires.”

“Don’t be,” Michael says. I can tell he loves the thought of protecting me against any fanged enemies.

“I’ll only go if Dawn goes,” Tegan says, turning to me.

Great. That’s her way of saying,
If you don’t go, I’ll be mad at you because you blew my chances with Sin and now everything is ruined and blah blah blah....

“How about this,” Michael says. “We start out, and if you want to turn back, just tell me, and we’ll go. No questions asked. No complaints. We’ll do a one-eighty and head home.”

Tegan widens her eyes and mouths,
Do it!

It’s a bad idea, but then, I seem to have a track record lately of embracing bad ideas.

“Fine.”

We catch the trolley, but as I feared, the sun has set by the time we get to the end of the line. This is the farthest I’ve ever been from the city’s center and still within the wall. Normally, when I leave for Valentine Manor, Winston takes the carriage along the main road that goes straight from the heart of the city to the large main gate. But we’re far from that well-traveled path. Or from any of the other streets that lead to the south and west entrances, and plenty of little ones in between. Some say that’s why the city isn’t secure: too many ways in.

“This way,” Sin says. “I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

I have a feeling, too. That I’m going to regret this.

We head down a row of abandoned town houses, all lined up and identical except for which windows are smashed. They look prewar, and I can see what Michael meant when he said he’s found weird stuff out here. There’s no telling what’s in those houses. Relics from the past, family photos of people no longer alive … or vampires. The Night Watchmen like to do raids in this area, hoping to find small groups of vamps hiding in an old basement. I wonder if Michael is hoping to catch them in action and join in.

“It’s like a ghost town,” Tegan murmurs, her voice hushed.

“Are you scared?” Sin asks.

“Maybe just a little.”

He pulls her to him. She squeals and laughs. I exchange a look with Michael. He shrugs.

Sin opens up his backpack and pulls out four flashlights, handing them to us.

“You knew we were going to do this, didn’t you?” Michael asks.

“I had a hunch.”

They’re high-quality flashlights, all metal, bright bulbs.

“You can keep them,” Sin says. “A gift for helping me relieve my boredom.”

The farther we move down the street, the more destroyed it looks. It’s like the entire neighborhood was submerged underwater for a hundred years and then drained. The wood isn’t just shattered; it’s rotting. The lampposts aren’t just bent; they’re rusted, and the street signs haven’t been legible in years.

“There it is,” Michael says once we round a corner.

The wall is a stone’s throw away. I imagine the city architects deciding on its placement, the engineers building it. Maybe they put it here in hopes of renovating these homes, making them livable again. At the time, it might’ve seemed like the right idea. But now it just looks like it’s keeping the hideous town homes from escaping into the night. Maybe the wall is holding back the ghosts that walk these streets from haunting the rest of the world.

The wall seems bigger at night, looming over us like a slumbering animal as we approach. Here, it isn’t as nice as in other areas. It’s thick steel, with vertical girders bracketing it to the ground every few yards. The paint wore off a long time ago, and it’s warped over time, as if they miscalculated its weight and it’s now collapsing upon itself. Looking to the left and right, seeing it stretch into the distance, I can see the curvature that nature and time have forced upon it. What was once uniform has taken on a demented life of its own. Normally, at the top of the wall, there is a walkway for guards to patrol. But not here. Maybe everyone just wants to forget about this part of the city.

We each touch the wall and then begin walking along it, letting our hands glide over it.

“This is too thick,” I say. “We’ll never find a weak spot or a hole that leads to the other side.”

I’m not sure whether that’s true, but I want to go home. We’ve seen the wall. Isn’t that really the point?

“I think I might know a spot,” Sin says.

Of course he does. He’s been in town for only a few days, but he already seems to know everything.

We walk down another block. The wall is to our right, and long streets and corridors dart away to our left. As I look down them, the light from our flashlights disappears almost instantly, barely penetrating the inky night. We’re swallowed up by darkness, and much as I’d like it to be, I can’t help admitting to myself that Michael’s presence is not as comforting to me as Victor’s was.

“Maybe we should leave,” I say to Michael, who’s behind me.

“But we’re so close.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If Sin says he knows a spot, then—”

“You promised me that if I wanted to go we would. This is stupid.”

It’s cold and dark, and my feet hurt, and dammit, I deal with enough crap every day; I don’t need to go on dangerous field trips just because the boys want to. But looking at Tegan, I don’t think even she’d be on my side; she’s more infatuated with Sin than anyone.

“A little farther,” I relent. “But then we’re—”

“Got it!” Sin exclaims.

We run over to meet him. His light is shining on a pile of debris that he’s pulling away from the bottom of the wall. Behind it, there’s a hole just big enough for a person to crawl through.

“From the outside in,” Sin says. “Vamps must’ve done this.”