Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 15
Pitched Battle
By the time the bus arrived at the Jerrold Mountain RV and Trailer Park on the opposite side of town from where Owens and I arrived, Van and Vance had recovered nicely. Moreland reported that Longtooth never made his illustrious presence felt at Wolfie’s lair. I had earlier directed Moreland to send the bus to the trailer park, where, I assumed, we’d prepare for a rumble. Vance was worried that the Wurdulac would attack the town. He thought that filling the RV park with vampires from Jerrold Mountain would lure the Wurdulac into an ambush, thus diverting them from the town proper.
We recruited as many townsfolk as we could by fanning out in teams of two and doing a sniff test. If a house contained humans, we passed the house by, but if it didn’t, someone knocked on the door and explained the situation. They were told to hunker down or join us at the trailer park, their choice, and we gave them meteor bullets if they had the right caliber guns, and .308 caliber weapons from local gun shops plus meteor bullets if they didn’t.
And what was the situation? I wasn’t certain. Nobody else knew, either. Vance thought that the Wurdulac were in the area specifically to cull the Jerrold Mountain vampire population. Owens said that made no sense. It didn’t explain the Atlanta murders. But Vance thought those were separate. His theory was that the Longtooth had decided to make themselves known for an unknown reason, if, in fact, it was the Longtooth clan doing the killing. The threads didn’t connect, but we had little to go on.
After meeting Vance and Van, Moreland felt compelled to introduce each new vampire, declaring a new clan in every case. “Twelve new houses,” she said proudly. Owens didn’t look happy as Moreland iterated across the semi-circle that surrounded her. With the help of Raygun, she used the influencers’ screen names to introduce them.
Vance and Van tended to a long oblong barbecue grill that looked about the size of a pool table in the middle of the large open area where Moreland did her introductions. I cuddled with Daphne on a huge beanbag chair in front of them. I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier than I was in that moment. I realized that I didn’t care about her longevity or the fact she could never have my child. A part of her got baked into me whenever we spent a moment together. That was enough.
Moreland began her introductions with Freon, a popular poker-playing streamer on Twitch whose name derived from his nerves of steel. She named Lovelace, an OnlyFans celeb with a heart of gold who happened to own the most famous breasts in our part of the online world. The woman I knew as Veronica, who had alerted me to the Ice Game Z video, was better known online as Blacktard because she was a beautiful chestnut-colored woman who always wore a one-piece black leotard when she cooked what she called “racy and exquisite food guaranteed to act as an aphrodisiac” on TikTok. There was AngryJoe, who ran a political podcast with 40 million subscribers. He wasn’t a Republican or Democrat. He hated them all equally, and apparently, so did a lot of other people.
SeoulFood was a female K-pop star who wore a different hairstyle every time she showed up on TikTok or YouTube with her bandmates. When Morgan introduced DarkHammer, who was a Lebanese Warhammer doubles champion who hadn’t lost a match in three years, everyone chanted, “Al-kahest!! Al-kahest!!” I had no idea why. When she introduced his Warhammer playing partner, a Moroccan named DarkSkiver, the same chant continued. Again, I had no idea why. Something about the game, which I had never played.
Next up was MajorTom, who was a TikToker popular with singles for his creative microwave cooking using mostly what he called, “astronaut food,” which was usually food in an envelope — stuff like pre-cooked rice and sauces. He was pretty good. I had watched a few of his videos. I thought about chanting, “Rice bowls! Rice bowls!” but I thought better of it.
Moreland introduced a ravishing young Black woman named CamiSoul next. She was another TikToker. Her specialty was dancing and lip-synching while wearing camisole lingerie. Sometimes she slept, and people watched that, too. I had never seen her before noticing her on the bus earlier.
Vance and Van wore party hats, and each time Moreland introduced a new vampire from the bus, they blew party favors and applauded. While Moreland was making her introductions, vampires from the town of Jerrold Mountain trickled in. When a town vampire arrived, Vance or Van, or both, led them to the grill and offered something to eat and drink.
Moreland finished the introductions with three gamers who each had more than ten million Twitch followers. I knew them well and had competed with them all. Lombos Duros was a Brazilian who always added rousing vulgar assessments to his streaming activities while he played. He had been suspended twice from Twitch, which meant he was one suspension away from a Twitch death sentence. The other two were teammates from the ESL Pro League, Bash Lopez, and Terrible Taunting Tito, two Mexican dudes from a team called Los Hombres Encadenados.
She saved the bus driver, Alfredo, for last. When she introduced him, he danced and yelled out what sounded like a war chant in a language I didn’t recognize. Alfredo was famous for creating a set of serial horror videos on YouTube that each had tens of millions of views. He was more famous among young people than any Hollywood horror filmmaker. General internet chatter suggested that he was the “genius” behind recent events surrounding Team Fang. Some even suggested that the murders were staged for Halloween.
“Well, now you’ve met my friends,” I said to Daphne, referring to a conversation that now seemed years old when we had talked at the coffee shop about finding Ice Game Z’s killer.
She remembered the conversation. She laughed when she said, “I already knew most of ‘em. Z. You’re not blowing him off.” She looked at me, saying, “Thanks for that.”
“You were worried I was?”
“Oh, I dunno. I guess not really. But so much has been happening. I mean, there’s a lot of balls in the air.” She was quiet for a moment. Reflective. “This all still feels like some staged event. None of this seems real to me.”
“Do I feel real?” I asked.
She grabbed my chin. “You’ve never seemed real,” she laughed. “All of this is like an extension of your strangeness. Which I’ve always loved, but it scares me now. I don’t like that it scares me to be with you. Even like this, snuggling.”
“I’d never hurt you. You know that, I hope.”
“Oh, God, Jade, you’re the last thing I worry about. It’s everything that goes on around you. I had no idea how crazy it all is. I mean, shit’s about to really fly around here. Isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yep. Remember when I went around before Moreland’s intros a while ago giving everyone one last chance to get out of here?”
“Of course. I can’t believe there were no takers.”
“And you know how much I hate Moreland, right?”
Daphne laughed. “You don’t hate her, but yeah.”
“I trust her taking you back to the city and finding you a safe place to hide, and finding people from my community to protect you, if you want to leave now.”
“I’m okay, Jade. But I don’t get how you can trust her and hate her,” she said.
“Either do I. It’s like, I trust her with my life, but I can’t shake the resentment.”
“My dad in Korea. I never told you he’s a Christian pastor there, did I?” asked Daphne.
“I think you did, actually.”
“Well, he runs some megachurch. We are kinda distant because I never got on board with that shit. But he said something once. He said, Christians in America are – I forgot the word. Oh yeah, apostates.”
“Apostates?”
“Yeah. Like, everything they do is contrary to what they’re taught by the Bible. He said the only message he tries to give is about love and forgiveness, cuz it’s the only message from the Bible that is in both testaments. I don’t know about any of that, but I thought that was cool. He said that a refusal to forgive kills. He said resentment becomes a cancer, like, for real. My mom, she left for America when they were both in Europe while she was working as a civil engineer in London. He had his megachurch thing going then, too, and he was developing a following in the U.K. But he said that he couldn’t forgive her, and he says that he developed a stomach cancer that healed after he finally did forgive her.”
“That doesn’t sound like a loving God, Daph. Forgive or get cancer?”
“No, that’s not it. We do it to ourselves. We let our inner turmoil manifest itself kinda. Resentment builds into cancer. Or some other sickness.”
“Is that why I never see you angry? You don’t want to get sick?” I laughed.
“Nope, I don’t think that’s it. I just am into everything. You know. Life. Except this shit here. I don’t like this stuff too much.”
“Me neither, to be honest.”
“But I guess vampires don’t get cancer, huh?”
“Actually,” I said, “we do. Rarely. Our cells heal so fast that cancer cells don’t get a chance to spread very often. Still, the immortality thing is overblown. The myth comes out of the way our wounds heal so fast. I could cut myself and you’d see me heal in front of your eyes.”
“That’s kinda cool. Can I try?” she laughed.
“You want to cut me?” I asked. That didn’t sound like Daphne.
“No, silly,” and she put her lips near mine, “I want to bite your lip!” she giggled. Then she pushed me against my chest. “Anyway, don’t let the cancer get you, Jade. K? And, hey, isn’t most of it a myth? I mean, I’ve never seen your skin fry in the sun.”
“Yeah, I don’t know where that one comes from,” I said.
“And you’re body’s not cold. It’s actually pretty hot,” she giggled. “Hey, I’ve noticed you haven’t tried to talk me into letting Moreland turn me.”
“If I had my way, I would turn the other way. Become human. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. Especially you.”
“Why? You’ve seen, like, history! You lived through stuff I read about in history class, and you saw things. Things I’ve only read about.”
“That’s not a gift,” I said.
“Oh. Why not?”
“Most of history is dominated by human violence. Don’t take this personally, but humanity is a bit of a shit show.”
“Well, I knew that,” she laughed.
“If I’m honest, we’re not any better. In fact, maybe we’re worse.”
“Yeah, you kinda are,” she laughed. “I mean, and don’t take this personally, you’re kinda parasites, you know?”
“Ouch.”
“Well?” she said.
“Hey, it’s not our fault Mother Nature made us dependent on humans.” I told her how that was so, and when I was done explaining it, she kissed my cheek in a way that made me realize I hadn’t kissed her lips since she found out the truth. I wondered, sadly, if I ever would again.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Daphne noticed things like that. Noticed every shift of my mood.
“Oh, nothing. Other than I think I liked it better when you didn’t know I was a vampire.”
“It’s taking some getting used to, Jade. It’s all so surreal.”
“It’s okay. I get it.”
“I mean, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be here two hundred years after. It’s weird. And I get why you didn’t tell me. I can’t be mad at you for that. If you had tried to tell me, I would have thought you were cray-cray,” she laughed. She didn’t know how badly I wanted her to set up an appointment with Moreland for admission to eternity, or something close to it by human standards. But I couldn’t ask her to do that. I wouldn’t ask her to do that.
“Humans and vampires aren’t as different as it seems,” I said. “Each one of us is a self-destructive masterpiece of a divine invention.”
She squeezed my hand. “It’s cute that you believe that. Especially now that I know you’re a fucking vampire,” she giggled.
The next words out of my mouth were going to be, “I think I’m falling in love with you,” or something like that, but a scream from the edge of the woods shattered my thoughts.
We jumped up to get a better view but didn’t see anything that seemed alarming in the direction of the scream. SeoulFood was standing alone next to a tall oak tree, expressing dismay with her hands, which were slapping the sides of her legs while she spun around looking for something. She yelled out loudly in her new, improved vampire voice, “Joe!?” To a human, it would have sounded like it came out of a megaphone, but to me, it was more like how a voice aimed at getting attention should sound.
“Come on,” I said to Daphne. Daphne reached on the ground for her Bergara. I couldn’t imagine her yet being able to shoot it, but she had taken Owens’ class, so I figured it was possible. It was weird watching her run to SeoulFood with a military rifle in one hand.
“What’s going on?” I asked when we reached SeoulFood.
“Me and Joe were talking, and he went over there to pick a daisy for me. He’s nicer than he seems online, you know? But then, he just disappeared. I mean, like, disappeared into thin air. No sound or anything. Except, I felt some wind or something. A breeze? I dunno. Maybe not. Anyway, he’s gone.”
When she said that, a set of screams erupted from the grilling area. We all ran over, including SeoulFood. “What?” I asked, exasperated.
“They took Vance,” said Van with the kind of expression on her face you would expect. Like others with ancient vampire lineage, she was exceedingly tall. She towered over the new vampires mingling nearby. The new vampires’ offspring would likely be tall, but new vampires were stuck with being what Wolfie called “little people.” Van had long, flowing brown hair, which was probably dyed, but she allowed streaks of what must have been her naturally purple hair to sneak along each side and across part of her short, curled bangs. She had the eyes and face of someone I’d expect to find in the steppes of Siberia. Her face looked heavily worn like it had been exposed to harsh Siberian winds for hundreds of years, which it probably had.
“What do you mean, they took him?” I asked.
“An upyr. Snatched him.” She looked like she was in shock.
“Like Charly,” I said. “Charly!” I yelled out.
Moreland and Charly emerged from a picnic table and trotted over to us.
“Vance is gone. AngryJoe is gone. Just like what happened to you, Charly.”
Charly looked up into the trees.
“It happened to you?” asked Van.
Charly nodded.
“But you’re here. How did you get away?”
When she asked that, a flash of light blinded me, and I assumed, everyone else. When I rubbed my eyes as they recovered from the effects, I saw someone falling out of a tree where we found SeoulFood.
“It’s Joe!” SeoulFood said, running to him.
I looked for Moreland, who had to be the source of the flash, but my eyes still had big dark, round, opaque circles from the flash impeding my vision. “Daphne?” I asked.
“I’m here, old man,” she said, taking my elbow.
“Moreland?” I asked. Just beyond Joe, I saw Vance twisting on the ground like a crawling pretzel, but he looked okay.
“She’s over there,” said Charly.
Over there was about ten feet away. Next to her was the body of a Wurdulac convulsing on the ground. Moreland was standing over it, again with a scimitar dripping with blood. Its head was a few feet away, somehow left with a strange hissing noise escaping its beak-like mouth. Moreland had some serious talent.
I walked over to her. “How do you even do that?”
“Which?” She asked. “This?” She held up the scimitar.
“No. Well, that’s impressive, too. But no. The light thing.” All these years and I never asked her.
“You know what?” she said. “I’m not even sure. It’s like instinct. When I know a Wurdulac is near, it’s like it turns on or something. It’s almost like it happens a split second before my nose smells the disgusting thing.”
“Why can’t I do that?” I complained.
“Why can’t you do a lot of things I can do?” she sneered.
That’s when it happened. If I was Owens’ worst nightmare, this was mine. I’d never heard of a flock of Wurdulacs in all of history, but there it was, dive bombing toward us with shrieks and whistles that filled the forest and the valley around us.
Before one second passed, I was able to count thirty-seven of the things. My first reaction was Daphne. How to protect her. The flock attacked the perimeter first, ripping two vampires to shreds before the vampires knew what hit them. I wasn’t sure who they were. I think they were sitting on the ground, maybe eating cheeseburgers. There wasn’t much left of them to identify as they became engulfed within a crowd of Wurdulac wings that flapped as the beasts stood on the ground, bent over, finishing the job.
Feeling helpless with my stupid slingshot and measly karambit while I held on tightly to Daphne, I said, “Moreland, do something!” I saw Owens on the other side of the encampment firing his gun at descending Wurdulac. I didn’t like his chances of survival.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m spent.”
But her new babies weren’t. More blinding flashes of light filled the campground. The new vampires had inherited her gift. A dozen Morelands suddenly didn’t seem like a bad thing.
The effects of all the flashes of light were as if the sun was spinning like a strobe light. It was almost impossible for me to see what was initially happening. Gunfire, Wurdulac shrieks, and what I normally would have thought to be the vocalization of seasoned warriors in attack mode mixed with the flashing light to create a stew of confusion. Something pressed hard against my arm.
“Take this you fool,” said Charly.
I took the Bergara, then Charly handed me three clips. For some reason, probably because I didn’t want to hit the wrong person, I fired blindly into the air. The gun was frustrating because I could only fire one round at a time.
I could hear Owens barking orders of some kind. His voice was getting closer. It sounded like he was creating a formation. As my eyes began to clear, I saw that he was with us and that there were two rings of new vampires and vampires from the village surrounding us.
Owens pulled Daphne away from me and pushed her prone to the ground, then grabbed two village vampires and told them to cover her with their bodies. He managed to do all this while taking shots at flying Wurdulacs preparing for another attack as they circled us.
It was then that I realized that Owens wasn’t seeing well, either, because one of the vampires that I thought was from the village was Longtooth, who was now covering Daphne with most of his body under his long cloak. I had no idea where he had come from. I needed to make a quick decision. Do I trust him to protect her, which seemed ridiculous given his history? Or shoot him in the head?
The answer seemed obvious. When I pointed my gun at Longtooth, Owens, of all people, pushed the aim of the barrel away. “She’ll be okay,” he said. “Focus.” Then he pointed his gun skyward and wailed away on a flying Wurdulac, firing one round, quickly reloading, and firing another.
When a Wurdulac fell right in front of me, I blasted its right eye out with a round from the Bergara. “This thing is ridiculous,” I complained to Owens. “It’s a damn sniper rifle. We need something that will fire more rounds.” Somehow, Owens was managing to hold and shoot the thing with accuracy, anyway.
“My fantasy,” he grunted, “was picking them off from long range. It’s what we usually do with vampires.”
“Coward,” I said, looking for more targets. But the Wurdulac shrieking stopped.
Owens wiped some sweat off his brow. “A high-capacity weapon might seem like the best thing, Mourning, but you can shoot these creatures silly, and nothing happens. Said so yourself, and it matches with how to bring down you fuckers. Accuracy is key. Snipers and hunters usually use a shooting bipod to prop up the gun. But vampires are stronger than humans, so they can fire without it. We practiced without the bipods.
“And the great thing about this gun?” he continued. “It doesn’t take a lot of practice for someone to be accurate with a shoot. These cars practically drive themselves. Take a look.”
There were already about ten Wurdulac bodies on the ground in varying degrees of injury. The new vampires had indeed learned quickly and well. Moreland was racing around chopping off heads of any Wurdulac that showed signs of life. But this was no victory dance. We could hear shrieking in the distance from Wurdulacs who had survived.
But still. We had done well. Round one in our favor. We lost two of our own, two villagers, it turned out. Moreland’s new crew of vampires were all accounted for. But another round of hellfire was surely on its way.
While Owens was defending his choice of weapon, Longtooth rose and lifted Daphne from the ground and presented her to me like she was a trophy. “Well, Atticus, I certainly did enjoy that.”
“Are you okay?” I asked Daphne. She nodded but looked shaken.
“Not a hair has been moved, nor an artery broken, she remains as is, without a breath being spoken,” Longtooth said. He bent down to leer into Daphne’s eyes. “Do you enjoy poetry, my dear?”
God bless this woman. She said, “Only good poetry.”
“Good golly! Little wonder you love this tiny creature!” said Longtooth, referring to someone who was most likely the tallest female human in fifty miles. When he said that, Daphne’s eyes grew wide. He patted her on the head like you would a child.
“Maybe if there’s another wave of attacks, Jade, you can not have one of your vampire friends lay on top of me?” said Daphne, not sounding angry, but not exactly chirpy, either.
“That was Owens’ idea,” I said.
“Owens?” she said, tugging his sleeve as his eyes scanned the sky.
“You didn’t enjoy that experience?” asked Longtooth. “I found it rather engrossing.”
“Yeah, creep. Of course, you did. You got a damn chubby. Gross is the word.”
“Violence excites me like few things,” said Longtooth. “My deepest apologies.” I thought I could feel the heat of his breath even though I was too far away for such a thing. “I could smell the fear in your blood. It was delightful.”
Daphne shook her head and pretended to hide behind one of my arms. Then she said, “Eww.”
She didn’t need to hide from Longtooth for long. Because in that instant, he disappeared.
“Shit,” I said. Charly hadn’t moved out of position yet and was also scanning the skies. “Charly. Think. What happens when they make us disappear like that?”
“Sorry, man. I have zero memory of it even happening, much less knowing what they were doing with me.”
“They got the freak?” asked Owens, looking around instead of up at the sky.
“Longtooth is gone,” I replied, just in case he was thinking of another freak.
“There must only be a few of them that can do this,” said Owens. “Cloak themselves, make their target invisible. Otherwise, they’d all be doing it. It’s a clear advantage.”
I wondered if Moreland was still spent. I called her over as she lopped off another head. She sounded out of breath when she hurried over and said, “We did okay, right?”
I nodded. “Good enough for now. But Longtooth is gone.”
“I didn’t know he was ever here,” she replied.
“Either did I until he just sort of showed up during the fight,” I said.
“Was he helpful? Or was he on their side?” Moreland wasn’t much of a Longtooth fan, either.
“He was helpful,” said Daphne, rolling her eyes. “I mean, he was sorta trying. But he was awful, too.”
“And now he’s gone?” asked Moreland. “As in Charly gone?”
“I’m right here, sister,” said Charly.
“You know what I mean.”
“It seems so,” I said. It wasn’t even occurring to me to ask about Longtooth’s ability to appear from one place to the next the same way Moreland did.
“I don’t smell a strong Wurdulac scent, as in, it’s right here,” said Moreland. “The Wurdulac that got him got away fast. But if it’s still nearby I may be able to flush it out.”
A part of me wanted to say, “Well what are you waiting for?” But another part of me, the part that had bonded with Moreland centuries ago, the part that was now inadvertently developing a new bond of forgiveness, perhaps forged by Daphne’s earlier encouragement, grabbed her shoulders instead. “How do you feel?” I asked. I worried that if we asked too much of her, she’d weaken and become vulnerable to a Wurdulac attack.
“I’m okay,” she said somewhat breathlessly. She looked at Daphne. “Charly,” she said, “Do you see that tall wooden structure on the other side of the clearing?”
Charly nodded and said, “Vance said it’s a kiddy zip line. They climb the stairs, and it takes them across the campground.”
Moreland looked at Daphne. “I know you want to help. I can see it in your eyes. I wish you would have let me turn you. You should have, dammit.” Daphne looked a little hurt. “I’m not mad at you,” Moreland soothed. “I know I sound it but that’s because I’m stressed out. But I’m not mad. Just saying that it would have made it a lot easier for you to survive this.”
“Well, Raygun’s okay,” Daphne said.
“Is he?” Moreland looked around. Raygun was chatting with Vance and Van. “Okay, well, whatever. What’s done is done. But I saw you shoot during the dick’s impromptu class. You’re a natural, you know that? Charly? We perch that gun of hers on a bipod up in that zipline structure with you keeping guard and doing the same thing. And girl, you pop a few of these Wurdulac right in the eyeball with that gun of yours.” Moreland got close to Daphne and kissed the top of her head. “You up for something like that?”
“Moreland,” I said. That sounded like an awful idea to me.
“You got a safer place for her to be?” asked Moreland.
I didn’t. “Yeah, Messina, Italy.”
“You almost got her killed having her cling next to you in the middle of that fight,” admonished Moreland, swinging her head away from Daphne. “Sometimes, you can care too much.”
“I’m up for it,” said Daphne, almost with the cheerful voice I was used to. “Especially if I got Charly with me.”
Moreland looked at Charly.
“You really need to ask me?” asked Charly.
I knew why Moreland didn’t want me up there with Daphne. Because she was right. Sometimes we care too much. I was likely to do something stupid trying to protect her. Daphne was no damsel in distress. By giving her a task in the battle, Moreland was empowering Daphne’s formidable courage.
“What about Ray?” I asked.
“I’m not as worried about him,” answered Moreland. “He doesn’t have some sad sack vampire hovering over him panicking over his every step.”
“It’s sweet, Jade, but I’ll be okay,” said Daphne. “I’ll feel more in control if I can fight back.”
“You and Charly get up there, then watch my every move,” said Moreland. “I’m going to see if I can sniff out Longtooth’s captor. If you see a bright light, you’ll know I found them.”
Daphne’s eyes were beginning to light up. She was already finding the entertainment value in her new task. Charly noticed it, too, and smiled. “Come on, you crazy human,” he laughed, and she took his hand as they ran off to the zipline structure.
Owens, who was probably still annoyed at getting poked by a fork, said, “Moreland, if you accidentally lop off Longtooth’s head when you do your flashy thing, the Atlanta police department will look the other way.”
“What are they waiting for?” I said out loud while looking up, wondering about the next wave of Wurdulac dive bombers.
“Hopefully they are busy picking apart Longtooth’s carcass,” said Owens. Yeah, he really hated that guy. Owens’ eyes were locked to the sky again.
Moreland called Raygun over and told him to text everyone some instructions. Through Raygun, Alfredo was tasked with making sure bipods were attached to a line of guns now that we had a minute to redeploy our forces.
Bash Lopez and Terrible Taunting Tito led a line of vampire villagers, now twenty strong and with their own assortment of guns, to form a semicircle along a tree line that encircled the RV park.
Various other deployments were ordered as Moreland hunted for the Wurdulac who snatched Longtooth. The shrieking that had been haunting the skies since the initial wave was dissipating. To me, the final silence that emerged reminded me of the eye of a hurricane. The smoke from Vance and Van’s grill fires was snuffed out while the nervous army of newly minted vampires kept their eyes on the sky and the forest that ringed the trailer park.
Occasionally, a shot would ring out, but it was a false alarm. One even popped out of the zipline structure, which shook me enough to want to run to it. I resisted that urge but it wasn’t easy.
Dusk settled in almost unfairly, bringing me new worries. Vance had confirmed that he, too, had almost no recollection of his abduction. “One minute I’m grilling a burger, next minute I’m falling out of the sky. Or something.” But there was a difference for him. He said he felt like he had been in a weird dream. Angry Joe said he remembered nothing.
Now that you know a bit about Longtooth, you may find it strange that I was concerned about him. I don’t know what to say to that other than we’re all at least somewhat tribal. But his was not really my tribe, so perhaps that’s a poor explanation. Maybe it was just that the thought of anyone in the grasp of a Wurdulac made me feel charitable.
I even worried for Wallace, who would occasionally buzz by, unaware of the dangers. Raygun had told me some time ago that Wallace had stopped livestreaming, but he continued to record everything. And I worried for Raygun almost as much as I did Daphne, for he was truly defenseless, although he proudly carried his Bergara like he was a seasoned special forces soldier.
I checked in on Veronica, aka Blacktard. I had felt an affinity for her ever since she had alerted me to Ice Game Z’s demise. She wore a devastatingly tight black spandex leotard that declared she should be doing almost anything other than fighting a pitched battle against Wurdulac. “One day,” she said to me in a voice that would have lured a bishop to bed, “I’ll cook you a memorable feast so succulent that your skin will crawl with lust.”
I told her I looked forward to that. No sooner were those words out of my mouth than I thought of Daphne. My eyes, as if drawn by a supernatural force, rolled up toward the zipline structure. Centuries of bottomless remorse over the loss of Resila were now roiling within the waters of a new set of feelings that were destined for their own inevitable doom.
Maybe that’s another reason I felt empathy for Longtooth. He knew I had succumbed to a uniquely human foible. He thought it made me weak. And he was right. It did. An attachment like this to a human offered me nothing but a date with grief. I wanted Longtooth to live because his clan represented the kind of survival mechanisms our species needed for it to continue.
I knew all this, and I didn’t care. Not even a little bit. I longed for Daphne in a way I hadn’t longed for anyone during the last several centuries.
My peripheral vision also remained on Moreland while she hunted and searched and sniffed for her foe. Occasionally, she’d signal Daphne and Charly when she moved to a new location.
But in the end, her search was fruitless. She found me while I was talking to Lovelace and SeoulFood. When she reached me, she said, “Nada.” She texted Daphne and Charly, who descended the zipline structure and made their way to me.
“The weird thing is,” said Moreland, “I should smell something. Even if they left an hour ago, they should leave their stench behind. I don’t smell a thing. Just the humans here, and just the animals and plants of the forest. And dead Wurdulac. It’s almost like they’re becoming more cunning in just the few hours since I first exposed them. Like they’re learning how to defeat it.”
“Or,” I said, “maybe, they just high-tailed it out of here faster than you could chase them down.”
“Maybe, but some of their rank odor should remain, even if only traces. This sounds weird, Jade, but it’s almost like their biology is getting altered even as we speak here.”
“Yeah, that does sound weird,” said Charly. “After thousands of years, suddenly they are evolving overnight?”
The thought gave me a shudder. “You know how you were explaining to Owens how when you bite a human you are editing genes?” I asked Moreland.
“Uh-huh.”
“You know that humans have developed gene editing capabilities that can cure cancers. Just in the last few years. The problem is that each therapy is prohibitively expensive because they kind of need to cater to an individual’s genome.”
“Okay,” said Moreland. “I have no idea where you’re going with this.”
“Either do I,” I said. “Just bear with me while I think out loud.”
“That’s usually a signal for me to leave,” said Moreland.
“What if someone is altering Wurdulac DNA? Editing it?”
“Why would anybody do that?” she asked. “How would anybody do that? Can you imagine trying to stick a hypodermic needle in one of those things?”
“I can’t, but I know someone who probably can.”
“Nope,” said Charly. “Nope.”
Moreland looked at Charly. “Who?”
“The only vampire who’s been snatched and hasn’t been found,” I said.
“Nope,” Charly repeated. “Huh-uh. Can’t go there.”
“What if,” I continued, ignoring Charly’s understandable reaction, “what if Longtooth wasn’t snatched at all? What if he has edited his genes to do, well, what you can do, Moreland?”
“What is that, anyway?” asked Daphne.
“It’s a quantum thing,” said Moreland. “You wouldn’t understand it. Hell, I don’t understand it.”
“If this Longtooth guy can do it, why doesn’t he have that big flash of light thing when he says, ‘Beam me up Scotty’ that Moreland has?” asked Daphne.
“I dunno, Daph,” I said. “It’s just a thought. Not even a theory. Just a thought.”
“Lemme get this straight,” said Charly. “You’re suggesting that Longtooth has found a way to domesticate and weaponize Wurdulacs. I gotta say it again. Nope.”
“I don’t know that at all, Charly. Leave no stone unturned, right?”
Charly nodded at that. “Consider all possibilities to avoid getting ambushed.”
“Ambushed again, you mean,” said Moreland. “We can’t discount it. He’s a pretty foul bastard. But he’s also highly intelligent.”
“He’d crash the moon into the earth if he thought everyone would die but one or two Longtooth would live,” said Charly. “Ain’t no denying.”
“Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument,” said Moreland, “that that is exactly what is happening. What do we do with that information?”
“One, run it by Owens,” I said.
“I thought you hated that guy,” said Moreland.
“He’s one of the smartest humans I’ve ever met. And he’s growing on me some.”
“Okay, but he’s going to have a very human response,” said Moreland.
“Which is?” I asked.
“Something very destructive. Guaranteed.”
“I agree with Jade,” said Charly. “We should tell Owens. He has ideas about things when he isn’t saying something that makes me want to punch his face.”
“We need Longtooth’s DNA,” said Daphne.
“Shit, Daphne,” said Moreland. “That’s so obvious I don’t think anyone would have thought of it. I’m not being sarcastic.”
“I know, right?” Daphne smiled.
“And we have Wurdulac DNA right here,” said Moreland, surveying the grounds.
“But then what?” I asked.
“Then we need to find someone who knows how to edit and study genes. A gene therapy person,” said Daphne.
“I don’t know of anyone like that, do any of you?” I asked.
“I have a friend who lives in the Bay Area,” said Daphne. “Well, not a friend. An in-law. He’s married to my brother.”
“The Bay Area?” I asked. “Which bay area? There are a lot of bays in the world.”
“Yeah, he works for a biotech company in South San Francisco,” said Daphne. “He’s kind of a big shot there I think.”
“I’m imagining the conversation,” I said. “Hey brother-in-law, sup? Can you dig out your electron microscope and check out this vampire DNA we got from a Longtooth vampire? And this beast tissue? Maybe you can bring Wallace so you can record the convo.”
“You are so silly, Jade,” smiled Daphne. “You know I can find a way to do this.”
She was right. She probably could talk a squirrel into handing her its acorn. “Okay, well, it’s not like we have a choice,” I said.
“You’re not human, you just play one on TV,” smiled Moreland, looking at Daphne. That was the ultimate compliment to a human from Moreland.
“Twitch, you mean,” smiled Daphne.
“And if I know Owens,” I said. “He’ll find a way to get that DNA and then find a way to poke around London to see if Longtooth has some kind of sinister lab right out of an Austin Powers movie.”
“Owens!” I yelled out. He was sitting against a tree, passed out with his fedora covering his eyes. He tipped the brim up. “We have a theory!” I yelled again in a voice that caromed around the valley.
When he meandered over and I summarized our thought process, he reacted in a way that made me want to ask if this was the first time in his life that he had ever been happy. Because he flashed a look I’d never seen. Daphne’s theory excited him but then worried him. He shot down our theory after the initial thrill wore off. “Longtooth seemed awfully pissed off about the Wurdulac taking out Wolfie,” he said. “If he’s domesticating Wurdulac, he isn’t doing a very good job of it.”
“No,” I said. “He probably isn’t. Besides, there’s a zero chance of his getting them all to, so to speak, do what he wants them to. He can only edit a subset of these genes. Partly because he won’t be able to get his hands on all of them.”
“And it’s just a theory, anyway,” said Daphne. “We’ve got, like, zero other theories.”
“And if we did, they’d all be just as preposterous,” said Owens, suddenly sounding unconvinced. “Fuck it. Let’s act as if. The guy’s a maniac. I hate the idea that he might be an evil genius, too, but it’s what’s in front of us.”
Owens next began to worry that the Wurdulac would not return. The number of vampires from the town had significantly reinforced our numbers. We were well armed with lots of vehicles. Owens thought out loud about risking his job to go to London to take the attack directly to Longtooth. “Wouldn’t be the first time I steered left when my bosses wanted me moving straight ahead,” he said.
Some in the Atlanta PD were already suspicious that something was up. Owens wasn’t even supposed to be out in the field. He was supposed to be shuffling papers at the downtown precinct until the investigation into the slaughter on the interstate was concluded. His immediate supervisors, though, knew he wouldn’t be sitting still. He was a trusted law enforcement officer, so they were giving him plenty of rope. Although he wasn’t in the office, nobody was likely to raise a stink unless Internal Affairs caught wind of it. Even if they did, he had enough allies to cover for him.
We spent a few hours in the evening strategizing about our next moves, then agreed to sleep on it. Only the three humans slept. Owens slept for a few hours. Raygun spent the night in one of the village vampire’s RV. Daphne slept in a hammock that Moreland hovered like a mother hen. I had never seen Moreland care about any human. It made me wonder about my centuries-long grievance. Was Resila collateral damage during a routine house war? Were Resila and my son still alive somewhere? I began to imagine us on a grand adventure together to find my wife and child. I sort of hated myself for thinking it, but there it was.
Questions about strategy were resolved for us at dawn by the Wurdulac and a volley of text messages from the townspeople. That’s the nature of war strategies, right? They’re often twisted by new developments. Jerrold Mountain was under attack. Some texts were saying that buildings were blowing up or on fire. The Wurdulac were feasting on humans, and the vampires that had hunkered down were not faring well against their common enemy.
“They’ve taken our strategy to us,” said Owens as we huddled in a large canvas tent that reminded me of a makeshift general’s quarters in a war. The only thing missing was a military commander standing over a table moving miniature military pieces around with a pointer on a map. “They’re trying to lure us into a trap.”
Vance was adamant. “And their plan will work. We need to go into town.” Town was only about a mile and a half away.
There were two ways into town, each on opposite sides of the same road. “If we send a line of vehicles into town, they’ll be sitting ducks,” I said.
“I can get there without a vehicle,” said Moreland. “Maybe the others can, too.” She was thinking of the recently turned vampires. “They have my genes now. But they haven’t taken the class on quantum travel yet,” she said.
“I didn’t know it had a name,” I said.
“It does now,” said Moreland.
“And I didn’t know there was a class for it.”
“There isn’t. But maybe there needs to be,” she said.
“You tried to teach me once. It didn’t take,” I said.
“I don’t have a clue,” said Moreland. “Maybe there’s a gene unique to our clan. The human mythology said that the Obayifo clan turn into fireflies. You know, that’s how we get around. We don’t, of course. I don’t think.” She winked at me.
“That would give Wallace a thrill, I’m sure,” I said. “Especially if you wore one of your see-through gowns.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Moreland.
“Sexy fireflies,” said Daphne. “Awesome. Maybe we can start a band with that name.”
“Shit,” said Owens to Daphne. “These people are gonna get you killed.”
“At least you’re calling us people, now, Owens,” I said. “I see growth.”
If you don’t know what Owens’ eyes did next, you haven’t been paying attention to the story.
“Try teaching them how you tried to teach me, Moreland,” I said.
“There isn’t much to it. I just think about where I want to go,” said Moreland.
“I think there’s more to it than that,” said Charly.
We were sitting at a long wooden table in the tent. There were hot cups of tea and coffee all around instead of a general’s war map, and Van was serving eggs and potatoes from big steaming platters.
“What do you mean?” Moreland asked Charly.
“I mean,” said Charly, “you think it and it happens, but go back. Go back centuries. To when you were a kid. Think about when you very first did it.”
“I’ve… never done that. It’s definitely not how I tried to teach shit for brains here,” she said, looking at me. I felt Daphne take my hand and squeeze it when Moreland said that. I glared at Daphne as if saying I didn’t need her sympathy, but she smiled, making it impossible to maintain the look.
“Well, what did you do? Can you remember?” asked Charly.
“My mom,” began Moreland. “She said to me that I had to think of the place I wanted to go to, but that I also had to believe it was the one thing I wanted in all the world. You know, because that’s what you say to a kid, right? I always thought that it was just a way to get my mind focused. I guess, though, now that I think about it, it was mostly practice after a certain point. And by repetition, it became no more difficult than just imagining my space changing to that place I wanted to go.”
“So,” I said, freeing my hand from Daphne’s to sip some coffee, “You just said to yourself as a kid, ‘Where on earth do I most want to be?”
“More than that,” said Moreland. “What on earth do I most want? And you have to believe it.” With that, I closed my eyes, which prompted a laugh out of Moreland. “You’re trying it now?” she said through the laugh. “Again, after all these centuries of giving up on the idea? Well, that’s precious.”
I was silent.
“Okay,” said Moreland, “but you’ll need to also remember that there is a big part of you that says the last place you want to be is under a Wurdulac assault in a dinky Georgia town called Jerrold Mountain.”
She was right. I found myself in Singapore.
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