Moonlight, The Next Chapter: Darkness

Chapter 10

Thea

Intro Song: True Confessions, Blondfire

Josef settled into his high-tech desk chair and hit the button that controlled its temperature.

"Arctic blast should be about right for this conversation," he muttered to himself. He didn't expect the conversation to be long – or particularly pleasant. Though… I'd rather be in bed with Simone… To his surprise, his fellow vampire was already on the Zoom call when he logged in.

"Julian! You're early! Thanks for making time for us to talk."

"For you, anytime, mon ami. I confess to being very curious about what you would want to talk about without the rest of our little committee." His black eyes studied his old friend on the computer screen.

"Our 'committee', as you call it, is exactly what we need - for most discussions. We need to be committing to the same course of action if we are to have any chance of success." Kostan stopped, wondering if this was the right move. Was he right in cutting Elijah – and Victoria – out of the conversation? For now? Yes.

"Then why-?"

"Why just the two of us?" Josef interrupted. "Because I need to fully understand what we are up against. Not colored by Elijah's caution or Victoria's passion."

"Alright, Josef. I will help if I can. What do you want from me?"

"During our last meeting, you brought up Thea. Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Julian snapped irritably. Dancing around the topic of Thea did no one any good and it irritated the hell out of him.

"I don't know. Is it? I'm interpreting what you said to mean that there's a connection in your mind between what happened to her and what we are facing now. And it occurred to me that I only have the sketchiest of ideas of what did actually happen to her - and how she is now. If you think there's a connection, I need to know more."

The New Orleans vampire sighed heavily and shook his head, his dark eyes sorrowful.

"Julian, I'm sorry to push my way into your private affairs. You know that's not my style - but, we have lost the luxury of keeping our affairs to ourselves." Enough. Let him think this through in his own way. Josef fell silent and waited, staring intently into the giant computer screen.

The moment of silence stretched out, taking on a life of its own, while Kostan waited patiently. He had been involved in enough high-stakes negotiations during his many years in business to embrace the old business adage - the first person who talks…loses.

Finally, Julian Coubertin laughed, a short, cynical sound. "Okay, Josef, you win. As you knew you would, I'm sure."

"This isn't a game, Julian –we either all win, or lose, together."

"Those words may be truer than you even realize – but you are right. I do think that what happened to Thea is connected, even though it happened almost twenty years ago." Julian hesitated, then nodded to himself as if making a decision.

I'm going to trust you, Josef. What I'm going to tell you, I haven't shared fully with anyone else. I'm putting both my life, and Thea's, into your hands."

"You have my word that this will just be between us unless we both decide otherwise."

"Okay, then. We shall see where this takes us. I'll start with Katrina. When that disaster was predicted, we vampires weren't any different in our reaction than the humans around us. Another hurricane. Big deal. They are a dime a dozen on the Gulf Coast, especially for those of us who had lived for a hundred years or more. The worst part of it in the modern world is when the power goes out for an extended period of time and our freezers are compromised, so we had all long ago learned to have generators to see us through. "

He paused to take a long drink from the dark red liquid in the tumbler beside his elbow. "You never really knew Thea…before. I wasn't her sire but she'd only been a vampire for about thirty years when we got together. I've never been with anyone – vampire or human – who loved life more than her. She loved what she was and had been responsible about it from the beginning. She was transitioned very well-"

Julian saw Josef open his mouth and anticipated his question. "No, I'm not going to tell you who sired her. That's not relevant here, even though I know you have an insane level of curiosity when it comes to gossip." He smiled at the look of chagrin on Kostan's face. "Sorry my friend, but you know it's true."

"Anyway, there was never any drama or issues with the community with Thea. She knew all our rules and understood the need for them. She thrived on the opportunities she had never had as a human. To travel. To learn. She enrolled in night classes – art and music appreciation, history and archeology. She pestered me constantly to tell her stories of the past – about vampires, about…me." His voice fell almost to a whisper on the last word. "Josef, I don't mind telling you that I had never been happier in my entire existence. I had found my soulmate, someone I could go through this long life with. You understand, right?"

Kostan pictured Sara's lovely face, and nodded. "I do."

"Well, I let her down. When she needed my protection, I failed her..." Julian looked at his West Coast friend, his eyes full of sorrow. "I was a lot like some of our fellow leaders – had my head in the sand, refusing to see warning signs of what was coming."

"And what was coming, Julian?"

"Crucis. Fucking Crucis! There had been reports of vamps gone missing, but I ignored them. You know how we are – so fucking secretive, such suspicious loners. Territorial idiots. I chalked all the rumors up to that. I wasn't the head of the community then, but I had standing. I could have made it an issue but I didn't. I was in love, having fun for the first time in years, and I pretended the threats didn't exist. Thea paid the price," he added, his voice bitter and full of self-loathing.

"I'm sorry for your pain, I am. But I need more specifics if this is to help us now."

With a groan, the New Orleans vampire continued. "You are right, you do need more. So, if reports are to be believed – and I think they were correct - there were suddenly many vampires missing in the two days before Katrina hit. The last day before all hell broke loose, it was more than fifty in a single day. Added to the previous missing persons list, it totaled well over one hundred."

Josef gasped audibly.

"I know. Seems inconceivable, right? And how could we not sound the alarm? Well, we did have a Category Five hurricane bearing down on us, which complicated things just a little – but mostly, it was leadership not wanting to acknowledge the truth."

"Which was…?"

"That we were being systematically hunted…and exterminated. By then, I was shouting it from the rooftops because Thea-" Here, he swallowed hard, tears in his eyes. "Thea went missing two days before Katrina hit. We'd talked about leaving New Orleans for a while but she argued that we should stay, that we could help. Help our community, help the humans. By then, we both knew how bad it was going to be. I agreed to stay, mainly because I wanted to protect my fucking property, big man that I am."

Again, he stopped to drink from the tumbler, downing the remaining fluid as if he hadn't taken blood in days. "Give me a minute, Josef. I need a refill." Coubertin disappeared from sight, but reappeared almost immediately with a large carafe full of the life-sustaining liquid, pouring himself another tumbler full. "This trip down memory lane is taking a toll on me…"

"I'm sorry, Julian. If it weren't so important, I wouldn't ask-"

"Don't worry about it," the other vampire snapped. "It was my reluctance to confront this in the beginning that Thea had to pay for. I'll never turn my back on it again. So, where was I?"

"Thea went missing two days before Katrina…" Josef coaxed.

"Right. No warning, no message. I didn't think too much of it that first day. I was busy getting my property prepared, New Orleans was in chaos, and I just assumed that Thea was helping out with volunteer work to get prepared. She was a free spirit and she'd talked about that, about how she could help the ignorant humans who hadn't done anything to get ready…" He shrugged. "I just didn't worry – until she didn't come home the next morning. She'd never done that before. I searched for her that day – and then, that night, Katrina hit."

Julian leaned toward the screen. "If you've never been in a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane – and most people haven't - it's tough to describe what it's like. The wind howls like it's alive, like it's a madman coming after you. The rain drives so hard, it's like being hit with knives. The water surges and floods without warning. It's hell on earth and it goes on for hours, if not days. And Katrina was the biggest, baddest storm ever to hit a major city."

He sank back in his leather chair. "I wanted to keep looking for Thea but it was impossible, even for an older vampire like me. There were no phones, no lights, no transportation. To go out in that storm was to die if one was human, so if anyone saw me out, it would create all kinds of suspicion… I told myself that Thea got caught up in her volunteering, then had to stay put so that she wouldn't draw attention to herself. I told myself that, but I knew it wasn't true. I knew it, but I stayed hunkered down, all nice and dry, while she…" Tears streaked down his face now. "While she suffered in agony."

There was no sound for long seconds other than the soft sobs Julian couldn't contain.

"If you need to stop -" Josef began.

Coubertin interrupted him. "No!" he shouted at the screen. He wiped away his tears with short, angry movements. "You have to know everything. I owe Thea that much."

"Okay, okay. Then tell me." Kostan could see that what began as an exchange of information had turned into a confessional, with the other vampire seeking absolution. That's not my forte…

"They – Crucis – had kidnapped Thea two days before Katrina. I didn't get her back until a week after the storm was over – and only then because they discarded her. They had a large group of vampires they'd kidnapped before the storm and taken to an underground bunker out in the Louisiana countryside where they were safe from the storm. Safe – and free to do what they wanted with their captives. And what they wanted was to torture, maim and kill them."

"You're sure it was Crucis."

"I am. They told them who they were; Thea confirmed it – when she could talk coherently again. They told all the vamps that they were going to kill them. Slowly. Cleanse the world of the 'scourge' of vampires. One leader, in particular, was apparently almost evangelical about it. The operation had already been planned but Katrina gave them the cover to expand it to a larger number of us. It was just luck that I wasn't caught up in their sweep."

Coubertin leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples as if he were suffering from an intense headache. "This is the hardest part for me," he confessed, dropping his hands and staring intently at Kostan. "Please bear with me."

"These animals… experimented… on many of the vamps to see what would cause the most pain, what would inflict damage we couldn't heal from, what would kill us. The leader I spoke of? He goaded them on, according to Thea, encouraged them to come up with new and different ways to torture their captives. Thea was beautiful and she fought back hard, so they kept her alive longer than all the rest." He grabbed the tumbler and drained it.

"This is where you are probably inclined to say something like 'well, thank god they did' - but you would be wrong, Josef. Thea suffered in ways I cannot bring myself to fully describe. When we're injured, it's painful, of course, but then we heal. And drinking blood helps the process along even more quickly. Now, imagine that you're being hurt, over and over again. Nonstop. Cut. Shot. Burned. Dismembered… Raped." His voice faltered on that last word. "You know, rape is as much of a violation for a vampire as it is for a human. And it all happened over and over. Think of it. No blood to help you heal. Silver rubbed into your wounds to keep them from healing. Hearing the screams and pleas for mercy – pleas for death - of your fellow vampires. Your friends. Watching them die in agony. For days on end. It…broke…her."

Now, Kostan was the one with tears in his eyes. It was so much worse than he could have imagined.

"By the time Katrina had passed and they needed to go back to their lives and families, she was the only one left. The only one. When the sun came out, they took her to a field. They staked her and tied her down because, god help her, she was still trying to fight them. They ripped off all her clothes and the last ten or so of them assaulted her again. In every way possible. Then they left her staked out there in that godforsaken field - but they had the presence of mind to untie her so it wouldn't be obvious that she'd been murdered if her body was found. They left her there. In the sunlight. To suffer and die alone."

Josef choked back his rage to ask, "How did you-?"

"How did I find her?" His response was dripping with self-hatred. "I'd like to lie and say that I scoured the earth for her, didn't rest until I found her, but that wouldn't be true. I was still kidding myself that she would show up after she'd gotten her fill of being a do-gooder. But I was really just afraid of finding out that she was dead. What I know now is that it would have been so much better for her if she had died."

"How did you find her then?"

"A fellow vampire I'd done business with. He was looking for some of his employees and saw a news report about an anonymous young woman that had been found in a field, thrown there by the force of the storm with a piece of timber impaling her. A Jane Doe who matched Thea's description. It was one of those incredible stories of survival that news outlets seize on – just not from the storm. My business acquaintance didn't even know I'd been looking for her but those few of us still left were all searching for our fellow vampires. He eventually found out that all of his employees who had gone missing were killed by Crucis.

"You said it broke her. What did you mean?"

"She isn't the Thea I described to you before, the Thea I loved. She's not…stable. I told the authorities she was my sister and showed them fake documents to establish her identity. Of course, most of her external injuries had healed so there was no sign of the torture she'd endured. They'd burned her so that she'd lost two fingers on each hand, as well as one ear, but they had, of course, healed over, so they didn't look like recent injuries. The mental injuries though…she will likely never recover from them." He stopped, refilling the tumbler again, draining the carafe in the process.

"Tell me, Julian."

"At first, she didn't speak at all. Didn't even seem to know me. She was essentially catatonic. I brought her home, cared for her, pumped her full of blood. I wouldn't let anyone near her. Gradually, she started to come around. The day she spoke my name for the first time, I thought I'd never been so happy. I mistakenly assumed she was on her way back to me."

"Mistakenly…"

"She only made it part of the way back. I guess for lack of a better term, she suffers from severe PTSD. She has completely lost that joie de vivre I described to you. She's not interested in anything. Sometimes she will sit for hours without moving. As if she were truly dead."

"Jesus," Josef whispered.

"God has nothing to do with this, my friend." Julian sighed. "It gets worse. Being around any human male is triggering to her – and I can't predict how she will respond. Sometimes, she's frightened half to death, crying, hiding… And sometimes, she's…homicidal. And if she's in that state, she will kill whomever it is who triggered that emotion. No matter where she is. She'd kill them and drain them in front of the police if it struck her at that moment. Hell, if the president of the United States triggered her, she'd rip his head off on national TV. I can't allow her to be alone for a minute."

"Have you thought-"

"About killing her myself?" Coubertin interrupted. "Of course I have. But I can't bring myself to do it, Josef. I'm the reason she is this way, she is my responsibility to bear. I'm the one who failed her. Thankfully, there are almost no vamps left here in New Orleans. Those that weren't killed, moved away to avoid the storm and never came back. And…" His voice brightened slightly. "And, there's always the chance she could come back to me. I have had her in therapy five days a week with a very widely-respected vamp psychotherapist for years now. So, who knows…?"

Josef couldn't let that go unchallenged. "You know, Julian. You know she's not coming back, not after all this time. Katrina was almost twenty years ago! You are just punishing yourself now."

"And why not!?" Coubertin shouted, shoving his chair back to spring up and begin pacing, only occasionally passing through Josef's field of vision. "I let this happen to her through my willfulness and self-centered ignorance. I knew something was happening but I refused to acknowledge it or address it. Just like our leaders are doing now," he added ominously.

Kostan had to admit to himself that the New Orleans vampire was right. They were started down the same road. "We can change that, Julian. We can tell Thea's story to all of them so they understand the danger. We-"

"Absolutely not!" Julian roared. "Do you not remember that I told you I was putting our lives in your hands to tell you all this!? If it got out, Thea would be executed as a danger to the community, and I'd be killed right along with her for hiding it. You know I'm right," he added.

He was.

Fucking vampires, Josef thought to himself. "Okay, you're right. I think we could, however, tell them how they syphoned off and killed vampires from a stable community, which is not unlike what's happening now. We just aren't seeing as many disappear at a time."

"I'm afraid that would lead to more questions. They'd want to know how I know these things and that would lead them to Thea. She'd never survive questioning. I'm willing to help you, my friend, but not if it puts her in danger."

Josef was silent. Coubertin was right about that too. Fucking vampires, he thought again. "You're right. Let me think about this, Julian, and see if I can come up with a way to make use of what you know without threatening Thea. In the meantime, I have been a terrible excuse for a friend. It pains me to think of you having to go through all this alone. No one should have to endure that. If there is anything I can do, anything you need…"

Julian snorted. "A do-over, mon ami. I need a do-over for my Thea. Think you can arrange that?" His voice was heavy with sarcasm. Without another word, he signed off.

"What the fuck do I do now?" Josef asked aloud to the empty office after he signed off. Fucking vampires? Fucking humans is more like it.

End song: No Time To Die, Billie Ellish