After the Battle – Part 2
Michael followed Selene up into the night, running after her down dark streets and through alleyways, wrestling with a ridiculous embarrassment at the fact that all he had on him was a pair of worse-for-wear jeans. He had never been one for exhibitionism, although he knew he didn't look half bad without his clothes on, and he really hoped that Selene was taking him back to his apartment by the quickest route possible. If anyone I know could see me now…he thought, squirming inside, and then had a sudden, sobering thought. If anyone he knew did see him right now it would probably sign their death warrant. Either the vampires or the lycans who would shortly be hunting him would kill a human for that information. Michael started hoping that nobody he knew would see him for a completely different reason.
As he ran, he began to notice things about this strange new body he'd somehow acquired. For one, although it was the middle of a late October night and raining, he didn't feel the cold. Or he felt it, but it simply didn't bother him. And his eyesight. He could see as clearly as though it were daylight, although the cold light of the moon washed all color from the world. Edges were sharp, shadows had texture and depth that he didn't remember them having before. Sounds he was so used to that he'd stopped hearing them years ago were suddenly new and painful. Cars screeched and roared, water rushed and hissed, pigeons they startled as they ran across a rooftop fled into flight with a sound like thunder, scaring him almost as much as he had scared them. And it was so easy to move! The strength flowed through him, heady and powerful, making him want to test it, to run and leap and climb. Selene kept up an inhuman pace, one he would never have been able to follow only a couple of days ago, but now he almost wished she'd go faster. His medical training noted the steady beat of his heart, the ease with which he breathed and how the muscles – abused so recently in the beating he'd taken from Viktor – worked tirelessly without any sign of flagging. He felt exhilarated and a little frightened. That this new body had its limits he already knew from his battle with the vampire elder, but he was starting to realize that those limits might have been largely in his mind. Given a little time, a little training, what could I do? What could I become?
Now the streets were starting to become familiar. Michael looked around, noting the subtleties his heightened senses revealed to him that added a whole new dimension to familiar territory. Smells he'd never really noticed before and couldn't identify yet, sounds and sights he'd barely paid attention to that now seemed bright and new and urgent. He wanted to slow down and explore the changes to his world, but there was no time for that now. They were here out of necessity only, and they must leave as soon as they could or risk being found. Michael felt a quick rush of regret, the precursor to a darker fear, that of leaving behind everything and everyone he'd ever known. Ruthlessly he pushed that fear out of his mind. Later, he told himself. I'll think about that later. Right now, staying alive long enough to have regrets would be pretty miraculous.
They paused on the rooftop opposite his apartment block, Selene crouched on the edge like a cat, looking this way and that for signs of the enemy. Michael hung back a little, watching her and conscious that despite his newfound senses, he wasn't much use to her. He didn't understand half of what he could smell or hear and if there were vampires or lycans waiting for them, he would probably be dead before he knew about it. She was so still, poised on the edge of the roof as though she was about to step off a curb, not drop five stories onto concrete. Michael glanced down at the street below and quickly looked away again as a rush of vertigo twisted his gut. He wondered how long it would take for him to become used to the fact that he could leap such distances and land on his feet, unharmed. He wondered how long it had taken her.
She glanced back at him and nodded once, then disappeared off the edge of the roof. Michael's heart leapt into his throat and he hurled himself forward, looking over to find her straightening up from a crouch with her usual animal grace. She looked up and gestured impatiently for him follow, then turned and marched across the street. He sagged against the cold concrete in relief and muttered, "Idiot," to himself before taking a deep breath and following her.
He was still marveling at his lack of broken bones when they reached his apartment. The door was busted and there was yellow crime scene tape across it. What crime did they think had happened here? Michael asked himself as he followed Selene inside. He wondered what on earth the neighbors would have made of the snarls and howls they had heard the night the lycans had tried to kidnap him. The night he had first met Selene, and she had saved his life more than once by the end of it, he realized. Michael stood in the middle of his apartment and looked around, amazed to find it so little changed. How could it look the same when he was so completely different, when the world he knew had changed so completely?
"Michael?" Selene's voice broke his reverie.
"Hmm?" He asked vaguely.
"Clothes," she prompted. "And money. Do you have a gun?"
He blinked. "Uh, no. No gun." But he looked around again with purpose. "I've got to change," he muttered, and headed for the bedroom.
Selene watched him go with a frown. He looked dazed, punch drunk, which was not surprising really. Even she was feeling a strange kind of numbness after this night's events. With dull amazement she realized that she hadn't been this affected by a battle in a century. She had become so inured to the blood and the violence that it had become meaningless, except as a way of marking the progress of the war. It took the death of my sire to shake me out of it, she thought. No, it took Michael. First a human, then a lycan, and now…. Selene drew in a quick breath at an unexpected twist of terror inside her. What have I done?
"Selene?"
Her expression froze and she turned her head to see him standing in the doorway with a duffel bag in one hand and a frown on his face. He was dressed again in a clean pair of jeans, a new shirt and a hooded jacket, and had found a pair of sneakers.
"Do you need any clothes?" He asked awkwardly. "I mean, nothing I have'll fit you, but I've got a couple of shirts if you need them. Until you can get yourself something else, anyway."
Her throat was dry and her heart was beating way too fast. She swallowed and shook her head, not trusting her voice. Michael looked at her with that peculiar way he had, as though he was looking right into her.
"Selene, are you alright?" he asked, taking a step into the room, his voice filled with concern.
Terrified that he would come closer and see the fear, she faced him squarely and said, "I'm fine," in a hard voice. "We'd better go. Do you have what you need?"
"Just one more thing," he said, and went past her to the desk below the window. The drawer was open and for a moment he stared at it in confusion, as though surprised to find it so. He rifled quickly through the contents. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he started a frantic search of the desktop and the other drawers before he suddenly spotted something on the floor. He knelt down to gather a handful of scattered photographs. Selene watched him, feeling suddenly guilty with the knowledge that she had left been the one to leave them lying there, casually discarded.
"You might as well leave them," she said more harshly than she'd intended. "You can't go back."
His hands stilled for a moment, and he looked down at what he held. Selene could see that the top photograph was the picture of him and Samantha, the woman who had been his fiancé before her tragic death. Her death had brought him here to this city to face his destiny. Or his doom, depending on which way you looked at it.
"If I leave them here, the lycans or the vampires might find them," he said quietly. "I don't want them to have them."
She could understand that. And she could understand the other reason, the need to hold on to what it was that made him human and connected him to his past. She felt a quick pang of regret at the thought of the one faded picture she had of her own family, now beyond retrieval in the vampire mansion. That and her memories were all she'd had of them. Now all she had were the memories.
"Lets go," she said, and strode out of the room. Michael stuffed the pictures in his jacket pocket and followed, closing the door quietly behind him.
He had to jog a few steps to catch up with her she was moving so quickly down the corridor. Michael could sense that something was wrong, but he didn't know how to broach the subject with her. He didn't know if he should anyway, they were still on the run and Selene needed to stay focused if they were both to make it through the next day. He decided not to say anything just yet, restricting his questions to, "Where are we going now?"
"We have to pick up some supplies," she said over her shoulder as they went down the stairs, Selene peering over the rails to check the lower levels for intruders. "We need weapons, ammunition, blood." She glanced back at him briefly. "Then we have to find shelter for the day. It's just over an hour until sunrise."
Oh yeah, Michael thought. He'd forgotten. An image rose unbidden in his mind, of Lucien's lover, Sonja, screaming as the sun stripped the flesh from her bones. He shuddered, and wondered if he would suffer something of the vampire's fate with the sunrise. Lycans could tolerate sunlight, he knew that, but he was half vampire. Did Selene know how he would be affected? Did the lycans? He could recall nothing from Lucien's memories of a creature such as himself ever having lived. The only hybrid Lucien had known of – and Michael's mind flinched from the pain the memory held – had been the child within Sonja's womb. It had died with her when Viktor had killed his only daughter for consorting with a lycan.
Michael nearly stumbled as he suddenly made the connection. Viktor had killed Sonja for the child she carried, just as he'd tried to kill Selene for helping Michael. Lucien had been trying to remake himself as the beast Michael had become in order to fight Viktor. Michael's blood would have made that possible. He remembered Selene telling him that no-one had ever survived a bite from both a vampire and a lycan; no-one, that is, until him. Why had he survived the bite of both species when few enough humans survived the bite of one? His specialty was not viruses such as the ones the lycans and the vampires carried, but it occurred to him that he could now be carrying a mutated strain that would be lethal to both vampires and lycans. But how did they know my blood was the key? He wondered. The lycans went to so much effort to find me, and the vampires to try to kill me. What did Lucien think he would become? What did Viktor fear enough to kill his own daughter to prevent?
They were out in the city again, which was darker now that the moon had set. In the small hours before dawn a stillness had descended, making their presence that much more conspicuous. Selene was moving more cautiously now, and Michael could feel the tension radiating off her. She was afraid, he knew that, but Michael dared not interrupt her concentration to ask her any of the questions that were crowding his mind.
She led him to a deserted building, quickly scaling up the fire escape to the top floor and in through a window – shut, but not for long – into a room that Michael immediately recognized. It was another interrogation room, not unlike the one Selene had taken him to before. He looked around in distaste at the implements of torture, the chair with its chains and the table covered with dried blood. He could smell the fear in the place, it coated the back of his throat and made the hair on his neck rise.
Selene was opening the safe, taking out guns, ammunition, and a couple of weapons which Michael could not identify that looked as though they were designed for close-quarter combat, all of which she dumped in a pile on the table. When she'd cleared out the safe, she turned her attention to some of the weapons that had been left discarded on a tray beside the table, picking out some lethal-looking throwing stars and pocketing them. She then checked the guns, making sure they were loaded. As she worked she glanced at Michael.
"Look in that corner over there," she instructed. "You'll find a cooler box. There's a fridge underneath the counter. Put some ice packs and the blood in the cooler box."
Michael did what she asked, although he still couldn't believe himself that he'd actually want to drink blood. He stared at it and wrinkled his nose a little, disconcerted with the thought of the demands his body might now make on him, demands that he was not sure he was comfortable with. Would he want to hunt and kill and feed? Would he be able to control it if he did? The thought that he might be dangerous to people hit him hard, and he packed the blood away carefully, wondering where they were going to be able to get more when they needed it. He clenched his jaw, vowing to himself then that there would be no time when he would be that hungry or that crazed with bloodlust that he would ever resort to killing people.
When they left that place it was by the roof, and with the sky in the east starting to turn deeper indigo with the coming sunrise. Michael suggested that they try one of the motels in the seedier part of town, somewhere where their early arrival would cause little or no comment. They were close enough now to be there before the sun. Selene agreed, and they ran across the rooftops in the grey light of the coming dawn, Michael easily keeping pace with her even if he made the jumps with less grace.
They found a room somewhere where the clerk behind the counter barely made eye contact, and made it inside before the sun had risen over the city. Selene pulled the curtains shut, and then she and Michael stood staring at each other over the double bed. Michael, who was not feeling the least bit tired, smiled a little awkwardly and said, "I'll keep watch if you want."
Selene blinked and realized that she hadn't even thought of that. Her mind had been chasing itself around in circles ever since they'd left Michael's apartment. She was exhausted, more so than she cared to admit. It wasn't physical – she'd been on hunts which had lasted several nights before now – but a bone-deep weariness that stemmed from too much of her life being suddenly wrenched off center. Even as she longed to curl up on the bed, close her eyes and not wake up until they needed to leave this place, she was terrified that as soon as she did, all that had happened last night would replay itself in her mind. She really did not want to face that right now.
"We need to talk," she said instead, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Michael looked a little surprised, but nodded and said, "OK." He pulled over the one chair in the room and turned it so that he could sit astride, leaning his arms on the back as he faced her. "What about?"
"I think it would be best if we left the city as soon as possible. There are too many vampires in this town, and they know you and me by sight. We're never going to be able to dodge all of them. If we stay on the move for the next couple of weeks at least, we should be able to keep clear of them."
Michael nodded cautiously, although she knew he had little grasp of the dangers that they faced. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"I think Prague first. After that, Berlin, Paris, then I'd like to try and make it across the channel."
Michael's eyebrows rose. "To England?" he asked.
She nodded. "London, more specifically. Big cities are easier to hide in, and from London we can get anywhere in the world if we have to. Also, I know the city. I spent the last thirty years before the millennium there running one of the Death Dealer covens."
Michael stared at her, disconcerted to be reminded that she was so much older than her preternaturally enhanced looks would suggest. "How old are you?" he asked abruptly. At Selene's surprised look, he shook his head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, forget I asked."
"No, it's alright," she told him. "I was born in 1782. Born as a human, that is. I was twenty-four when Viktor-" and suddenly she choked off, surprised by a surge of rage and despair she hadn't expected.
"When the lycans killed your family," Michael said softly.
Selene stared at him, stricken, and realized that he didn't know. He had been lying on the floor twisting in agony with silver nitrate running through his veins when Kraven had shattered her world with the knowledge that Viktor had been the one who had killed her human family. And when she had confronted Viktor with that knowledge, Michael had been suffering through a very different kind of agony in the adjacent chamber as his body mutated into that of the beast. Slowly, she shook her head, took in a steadying breath, and said deliberately, "The lycans didn't kill my family. Viktor did."
Michael said nothing, just looked at her with wide-eyed horror. So she repeated it, and told him what she was slowly coming to realize herself. "Viktor killed my family. And then he turned me into the thing that had killed my family, and told me that the lycans had done it so that he could send me out to kill them for him. I wanted vengeance, so I did what he asked without question. I've killed hundreds, possibly thousands of lycans, believing that I was doing the right thing by ridding the world of savage monsters that preyed on the innocent." Selene stared blankly into space, and a cold, self-mocking smile touched her mouth. "Viktor lied to me. I trusted him, believed in him and in the war. I had no other purpose but to fight and kill lycans. The life I have lived, the war I fought for him, all of it has been a lie."
"Christ," Michael breathed. "Selene-" he broke off, then muttered, "Christ," again under his breath. She blinked like someone coming out of sleep, and looked at him with such a desolate expression that it tore at his heart. He got up out of the chair and went to sit beside her on the bed, taking one of her hands in his. It was icy cold, and although he knew by now that her body was not warm like a human's, he was sure that she shouldn't be this cold. Once again he could feel tension radiating from her, only this time they were not out on the streets running for their lives. "How did you find out?" he asked.
"Kraven told me. After he shot you," she said. "And when I confronted Viktor, he didn't bother trying to deny it. I think," she paused, a slight frown creasing her brow. "I think he actually believed that he was doing me a favor by making me into a vampire. He thought that I should be grateful."
Michael closed his eyes for a second and felt a deep rage somewhere within him. The depth of this betrayal was something he could do little more than imagine. If Selene had not killed you…. He thought to Viktor. For you, I hope that hell exists. Then he opened his eyes. "I need to tell you what started the war," he said quietly, and began to explain what Lucien's memories had revealed to him.
He told the whole story, including what Lucien had told him of the pact that made lycans the vampires' slaves and guardians in exchange for shelter and safety from the religious fervor of the times. He told how Lucien had fallen in love with the vampire princess, Viktor's daughter, and of their secret marriage in defiance of the Covenant. Selene remained silent as he spoke, watching him, her hands lying quiet in his grasp. As some point he realized that she was crying, but when he tried to stop she shook her head and insisted he finish. When he explained why it was that he thought Viktor had killed his daughter, her eyes widened in horror. He stopped then, watching Selene carefully, afraid that this was going to be too much. The war which had been her reason for living, that she'd believed had been started by the lycans, existed because of Viktor's personal vendetta against them. There was no grand purpose, no great service the Death Dealers were performing for mankind. All that was left were the lies and the hate.
She was so still for so long, her face devoid of expression, that Michael became frightened, thinking she'd gone into shock. Not knowing if it was the right thing to do, he took her into his arms and held her. Her body was as stiff as a board, but she didn't try to pull away. After a time he tried to get her to lie down and rest, but when he started to get up so that he could sit watch she held on to his hands, silently begging him not to let her go. He lay down on the bed and pulled her back against him, trying to warm her cold body with his and whispering the kind of stupid, meaningless comfort words people did at times like these. A long while later he felt her body gradually relax, and he realized that she had gone to sleep.
He stayed awake through that day and kept watch over her, again making his silent vow that he would be with her for as long as she needed him to be. On the heels of that thought came a colder one – he had nowhere else to go.