Byron

Hours passed before Byron decided he didn’t need to watch over an unkillable warlock—much to the protestations of Billie. If honest, he was stir crazy. He liked to be outdoors. Not cooped up in his friend’s old broken-down home, which stood in defiance of its age. A cookie-cutter model house once so common made rare by the world end.

He planned to see if he could meet with the Catherine about Vic, so he trudged through a dark field of mud and sticks which ran along the foot-beaten path to Alma. The sun used to shine down on wild oats and make the tips golden when he was a boy. No one saw the vibrant blues and greens of a summer’s day anymore. Or heard the rhythmic chirps of crickets and the song of birds. The old sounds of stillness were dead quiet.

A rustling in a nearby pile of brush interrupted his thoughts. Whatever it was had seen him first, so Byron did not hide. He heard a shuffle and a crack before a gray, old woman emerged in a maroon cloak. She adjusted the hood and belt of her attire as she walked and patted down her clothes with a wrinkled hand. “Who?” he asked.

She ignored him and once at his side said, “Mara has smiled on you.” Electricity sparked in the tips of her fingers and she massaged her face into a new form. “Do you want to know this woman?” she asked and let the hood of her garment fall to her shoulder, revealing honey brown hair.

Byron shook for a second as he stared at Rory’s face on the body of the old woman. “What trickery is this?”

With a flip of her hood, the woman looked away, and Rory’s countenance vanished. The gray locks and wrinkles returned. “It isn’t a trick, Byron. It’s a message,” she said. “I’ll ask again. Do you want to know the woman I showed you? The one you know, but don’t know.”

“Yes. I would,” he said. “But first, who is Mara and why is she smiling?”

“I can only answer the question of where you’ll find Rory. And that is over by the mountain where the Blueskins are burned.”

“Mount Forlorn?”

“I believe that’s what it’s called now.” The old woman closed her eyes tight and nodded. “Yes. That’s the place. Where the counting happens.”

Byron looked down at his feet, and his stomach sank. The counting she referred to was that of the corpses of Blueskins killed in service to the Catherine. It was the price for the blood feast on the Immaculate Daughters. If Rory was there, she’d see the vampires’ shame.

A soft hand fell on his shoulder. “She’ll be there.” And then the old woman turned and walked out of sight. Moments later, a black heron flew overhead and vanished behind dark clouds.

It wasn’t always like this, Byron reminded himself. Long ago there was plenty for all vampires. Billions of people everywhere. A drink didn’t cost your soul. When he was first made, there were the juke joints where they played the real music. You bought a round, showed a little interest, and then they’d give you some blood. The juke joints folded and became discotheques; the discotheques became nightclubs. Vampires knew of each other back then, but weren’t forced into a dark alliance for survival.

But that was before the world ended.

Everyone ignored the early signs. The record-setting hurricanes, global pandemics, tremors of the earth. It was all a big party, and the music played so loud it drowned out the voices of reason. One of whom was his maker, Galena, who was from an old part of Eastern Europe—so old no one knew its name when she’d say it in her long dead mother tongue.

Galena would kiss him on both cheeks and whisper about the end. “Enjoy, enjoy my boy. We’ll only have so long before it’s over.”

“What will be over,” he’d ask.

“All of it,” she’d say. Then she’d demand he dance with her.

He’d laugh and tease, “I think you only made me so you’d have a dance partner until the end of the world.”

She’d let her lips fall into a wry smile and wink. “And what would be wrong with that?”

Many years later, around the time of the massive die off that followed the super volcanoes blowing their stacks, Galena sighed. “You see. It is as I said.” Byron did his best to warm her in his undead arms. She laughed and said, “Old habits die hard.”

When he asked, “Why didn’t we stop it from happening. If you knew all along?”

She said, “It was never up to us.”

They held on to each other for a while after that. Some days were harder than others and feeding the two of them became nigh impossible, but they never cut each other’s throat. They were there when Alma became more than singed earth and the Daughters took up the white.

When the first Catherine caught them feeding on her charges, Galena struck a deal. Protection for blood. At that point, the protection was from vampires. Later it was from Blueskins as their superior numbers became a more present danger to the peaceful folk of the camp.

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One day, Galena called Byron to her side. She hugged him close and frowned into his shoulder. “My time is near,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“It was fun, my boy. One last dance with Galena?”

They danced to the music in their heads. Slow and with the precision of a pair that’s practiced their moves for centuries without losing a step. At the end, Byron begged her not to leave.

She pressed a finger to his lips and shushed. “In time, someone who is not Galena will make your blue eyes sparkle as they do now. And you will know the joy you bring me.” She gave him one last kiss and away she ran. Byron tried to follow, but she was far too fast. It was as if the wind itself was at her back.

Heartbroken and astray, a numb Byron watched as Vic took over as the negotiator with the Catherine. Others in the brood asked him if it wasn’t his rightful place and Byron wouldn’t respond. If pressed, he’d say, “Just show me what to do and I’ll do it. Don’t talk to me otherwise.” And that’s how it was.

* * *

Byron didn’t dawdle on his way to Mount Forlorn, but he didn’t run either. He had no clue who Mara was or who her messenger had been, but he sensed both truth and danger. Best to conserve energy for whatever lies ahead.

Within a few miles of the mountain, he saw the peak floating on the horizon. Add a little more color and it would have made a pretty postcard. Framed in black and gray as it was, the peak appeared all the more menacing.

“This is where bad things happen,” Byron said. And it was. Before the world-shaking earthquakes, a good-sized city occupied the space. Afterwards, it was yet another natural monument to the Earth’s genocide of its inhabitants. He slicked back his straw-colored hair. No matter how much he saw it, the sight always shocked him with foreboding. “Why am I here?” he asked.

In a blur, a figure darted out and said, “Why the fuck are you here? And where have you been?” From the profanity laced with concern, the blonde hair and hourglass figure, Byron knew right away it was Sharona.

“Hey.”

“I didn’t just use up all that energy to hear you say ‘Hey.’ Why aren’t you dropping off bodies like the rest of us? What the fuck is your deal?”

Had it been anyone else, they would have likely circled around each other and fought. But she was all right. Rough around the edges, but all right. “You know what my deal is. I don’t like Vic and he doesn’t care for me either,” Byron said.

Sharona threw up her hands. “Well, yeah, man. Vic’s an asshole. Everybody knows that. Just because he’s the only one stupid enough to put himself under the gun with the Catherine he thinks he’s boss vampire. I know you guys have been mostly on the outs, but this time... he’s really pissed. Whatever you did sent him into a frenzy. Far as I can tell, you running off the other night at the blood feast and then not showing up to drop bodies at the Mount, well, there’s gotta be more to it than that to get him so worked up.”

“That’s my business.” Byron shrugged. “Look, I’ve got my suspicions, but for now. Let’s just say he’s up to something and I’m going to figure out what that is. I’ll tell you more if I know anything. Deal?”

“Deal.” She stared at him a beat too long before looking away. “I’m gonna leave you be then,” she said, before zooming off.

“Bye Sharona.”

* * *

A series of loud bangs sounded, one after another. Each blast echoed with the sharpness of a gunshot. Blueskins. Where there was gunpowder there was almost always Blues. As backwards as they were, one would think they’d carry more primitive arms. But in this solitary way they managed. He was fairly certain they didn’t have guns, but their crude bombs were more destructive.

With great care for his concealment, he crept behind an outcropping of rock. Once there, he looked over the large bowl between where he stood and the mountain. A thick cloud of smoke and flames brightened the sooty ground. Near a neat line of bodies laid out for the counting, the tattered remains of a dozen or more fresh corpses were strewn.

From his distance, there was no way of knowing if all the newly dead were Blueskins or if the pile also contained a certain witch. The mysterious woman in the maroon cloak had assured him Rory would be there, but she never said she’d be alive. Wouldn’t that be a waste? The things I could accomplish with her at my side. He adjusted his stance and felt the edge of her nametag in his pocket bite into his thigh. An unexpected pang rose in his chest. Was that for her? He sneered for even thinking such a thing. She’s useful. Nothing more.

Where the grade of the road steepened into a sharp descent, he found a horse and cart, and counted the tracks of its missing passengers. He shook his head and said, “Only three?” As he ran into the bowl, the back of his feet almost slapped his rear end from the near vertical slope. There was nowhere to hide on the devastated ground, so he carried the momentum into a full sprint.

The smoke thinned, and he stopped short at the sight of the largest man he’d ever seen.

The man held his hands against the chest of a bloodied body and said, “Come on, Sven. No dying today. You need to breathe. You’ve got drugs to do and people to screw over. Come on now.” A stick cracked under Byron’s foot and the giant shot him a sightless stare through milky white eyes. “Hurry up and breathe or we’re both cooked.”

Across from them, three Blueskins armed with long knives approached, and perhaps the big man smelled them. He swung his mighty arms around in warning. “I might not see you, but if I hit you, you’re dead.”

Byron pounced from one Blueskin to the other, dispatching each with a weighted punch to their throat. His killer efficiency even scared him. The last fell, and he said, “It’s good. You’re safe.” For now.

The large man frowned. His eyes still void of color. “Who?”

“Byron. You?”

“People call me Doc. I’d shake your hand, but Sven here might bleed out,” he said and looked back at his friend.

“Kind of a weird question to ask, but what’s a blind man doing out here?”

“Don’t worry about it. The blindness will pass.”

Byron squatted by his side and looked at the blood matted into Sven’s disheveled hair. A wisp of smoke escaped the injured man’s lips. “He a witch?”

Doc grunted. “What is it to you?”

“Just curious. Look, I noticed another couple sets of tracks by a cart over yonder. Were you traveling with someone else?”

“Oh no. Rory,” Doc said. His arms tightened against his patient.

Byron stood and looked around. “I don’t see anyone else. You think they grabbed her?”

“Wouldn’t put it past them. I tell you; it was strange how the Blueskins attacked us. Like they were lying in wait.”

“Aren’t much for the tactics, are they?”

“You can say that again.”

“You going to be all right here with your friend if I go looking for her?”

Doc paused and his head shook a small amount before clearing his throat. He said, “I’m in no condition to go looking for her at the moment. So yeah, if you can, it would be much appreciated. Sven’s pulse is normalizing, and he’s breathing—although a little ragged.”

Byron nodded. “All right, then. I’ll be back.” He walked a few hundred yards away. Once he figured he was out of earshot, he raced at speeds only vampires could reach.