I stand over the empty husk of Sloan’s body, and I know there’s no salvation for me now. I’ve lost everything. He won.
Star is sitting with her back against the wall. Her eyes are large, watching me. She saw everything, and either she’s too stunned to speak or she doesn’t know what to say.
Patrick has resumed human form, but he’s staying in a squat to hide his nakedness. He’ll shift again before they leave.
“I’ve stopped Stuart’s bleeding,” he says. “The healing process has begun, and he’ll be fine in a few hours.”
He looks up at me cautiously. I can tell by his tone he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know where to begin or what to think.
I by contrast, don’t care to think. I don’t care to speak. I take a few staggering steps backwards, away from the grisly scene then I turn and start to run. The change has progressed to the point that I move too fast for human eyes.
I run up the levee until I cross over to the road, and I keep going. The vampire blood circulates in my muscles, pushing me so fast, the scenery dissolves into a swirl of muddy colors around me. Vaguely in the background I sense the puma tracking me. Patrick’s keeping up, but I’ll lose him.
My vision is also changing. Instead of blinding darkness, I see clearly in this foggy night. By morning, my vision will be so heightened the sun will hurt my eyes. I’ll have to use sunglasses or stay indoors during midday to avoid blindness. As I run, my old nature dies rapidly, passing out of my system on my sweat. I’m turning into something powerful, something supernatural.
Run! Shock pushes me on. I haven’t allowed myself to reflect on what happened and how it changes my entire life. Running is all I want to do, so I do it. I run hard. I feel like I could run all the way to Princeton, but instead I run along the Interstate until I’m at Lake Pontchartrain. Turning, I keep going down the long, lakefront road. It’s quiet and deserted.
A neighborhood is up ahead, but I don’t want to be around people. Turning back south, I keep going until at last I’m on a wide, deserted highway. Slowing to a walk, I look around as I follow the concrete way. It’s vaguely familiar and completely abandoned.
Trees and scrub bushes grow thick along the roadside. It takes me a little while to figure out where I am. The faded red and blue sign is my only clue. It’s not even a sign anymore. The words are gone, and only a bare white background remains.
Lettering underneath says “Closed for storm.” I’m in Jazzland, the notorious Six-Flags theme park wiped out by seven feet of water after Hurricane Katrina. It was never rebuilt.
For more than a decade it has stood here slowly moldering away. Tall, black-iron gates stand open, and I walk through them in the eerie silence. Vaguely, I recall stories about how this place is haunted. Will I meet another monster here? The thought disturbs me, and as I get closer, my muscles tense.
Ridiculous. I’m a vampire now. I’m one of the strongest monsters in the lineup. The thought makes me cringe. Passing a hand over my face, my mind jumps to what Sloan said. All of our study and knowledge made him as strong as the most powerful old one. I know things about vampires it takes them years to discover about themselves.
Forcing my brain to calm, to focus, to return from the shock, I sift through my knowledge bank. Vampires don’t care for decaying, ruined places. They don’t hang around corpses. The ones in Lafayette cemetery are exceptions rather than the rule. Vampires prefer luxury and decadence.
Walking through the abandoned park, I survey the eerie landscape. A steel roller coaster rises above it all like a monument to destruction. Its network of wood and metal girders and beams is a rusted-out crosshatch on the verge of collapse.
Rippling ribbons of blue streak down the center of the wide path I’m following. It would be festive, but instead it’s covered in a thin layer of black muck left behind by the floodwaters. I keep going.
My boots make a muffled scuff on the dirty concrete. The air smells of mildew. Several tall, colonial-style buildings stand empty. A concrete clown’s head as large as my body lies on its side smiling grotesquely at the ground.
Graffiti covers everything. Messages from “Fuck off” to “Where do theme parks go to die?” prove kids frequently visit this place. An abandoned Ferris wheel is across the way from a lifeless swing ride. It’s all been left to fall to dust.
A large theater draws my attention. The rain has started, so I push inside to take shelter. It’s an enormous, empty metal building. Trash is all over the floor and canned light fixtures hang from ceiling far overhead. The sound of rain echoes in the space.
Onstage, I run my fingers along the limp edges of a ripped movie screen. Behind it, a circular-metal vortex forms a black hole as big as me.
Every bit of this decaying, dilapidated park mirrors my emotions. I lean against the wing and slide down to sitting. My knees bend, and I rest my arms on the tops, putting my face in my hands.
It’s all over. My identity has been stolen from me. My life has been taken and changed. What comes next? Will I grow cruel like the ones I’ve killed? Will I savagely kill and feed on other humans? My fingers tighten over my face, and I don’t know the answer.
My growl, ricochets through the emptiness. I don’t want to be alone with these thoughts. The second I ease the vice-grip on my mind, the one thing I’ve been holding at bay races to the forefront. It’s the one thing that pushed me harder and harder as I ran. Only, I’ll never run fast enough to escape her.
“Melissa…” My breath catches.
Leaning my head back, I lift my chin to the black metal ceiling and close my eyes. The pain of everything I’ve lost is brutal, but the knowledge I can never see her again crushes me. I’m not sure I can survive this.
“Melissa,” I whisper her name again like a prayer. “My lady, my love…”
Metal scraping across concrete snaps me to attention. “Who’s there?” I shout.
My defense mechanism is instinctive. I prepare to fight, when an oversized black Rottweiler trots through the door. Instantly I relax, although I don’t know where this leaves us. Still, after all our years together in the service, if anyone would find me, it would be Stuart.
He hops onto the stage and walks to where I’m sitting. For a moment he waits, until I slip my arms out of my thin jacket and pass it over. I only vaguely recall I have a gun loaded with silver bullets in my boot. He shifts into human form, wrapping my jacket around his waist.
“God, you stink!” Going to the opposite wall, he covers his nose with his hand in an almost canine fashion. “Fucking vampire scent.”
“Thanks.” I give him a bitter glance, but the truth is, I’m glad he’s here. “It’s just one of my new qualities.”
“Ah, Fuck.” Dropping his hand, he leans his head against the wall behind him. “What the fuck are we going to do with this shit?”
Lowering my knees, I look down at my hands. “You know what we have to do.”
“What?” I lift my gaze to him, and I don’t have to clarify before he blasts me with a, “No fucking way! I’m not killing you. God… No. We’re not fucking going there.”
“It’s the only solution.” My chest is heavy as I look down. “You know I’m right, and if you don’t know it now, you will.”
“Time out. You’re the one always saying how we don’t kill for sport. If we only kill for justice, what have you done to deserve death?”
He’s got me there. I don’t have an answer, and for a moment the only sound is the roar of rain on metal roof.
“Nothing yet, but I will. This nature is too powerful for me. I’ll fight it as long as I can, but ultimately, it will destroy me.”
He nods. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You and I both know what’s coming.”
Shifting on the stage floor, he sits forward. “I’m not ready to give up on you. Let’s go through that knowledge base of yours and see what we can find.”
“It’s no use. I’ve never found a vampire that doesn’t kill.” Resting my head against the wall again, I see the path before me. “I will never be like him.”