Three

Caitlin and Caleb walked slowly along the bank of the river. This side of the Hudson was neglected, littered with abandoned factories and fuel depots no longer in use. It was desolate down here, but peaceful. As she looked out, Caitlin saw huge chunks of ice floating down the river, slowly separating on this March day. Their delicate, subtle cracking noise filled the air. They looked otherworldly, reflecting the light in the strangest way, as a slow mist rose. She felt like just walking out onto one of those huge slabs of ice, sitting down, and letting it take her wherever it went.

They walked in silence, each in their own world. Caitlin felt embarrassed that she had shown such a display of rage in front of Caleb. Embarrassed that she’d been so violent, that she couldn’t control what was happening to her.

She was also embarrassed by her brother, that he’d acted the way he did, that he was hanging out with such losers. She had never seen him act like that before. She was embarrassed she had subjected Caleb to it. Hardly a way for him to meet her family. He must think the worst of her. That, more than anything, really hurt her.

Worst of all, she was afraid where they would go from here. Sam had been her best hope in finding her dad. She had no other ideas. If she did, she would have found him already, herself, years ago. She didn’t know what to tell Caleb. Would he leave now? Of course he would. She was of no use to him, and he had a sword to find. Why would he possibly stay with her?

As they walked in silence, she felt the nervousness well up, as she guessed that Caleb was just waiting for the right time to choose his words carefully, to tell her that he had to go. Like everyone else in her life.

“I’m really sorry,” she said finally, softly, “for how I acted back there. I’m sorry I lost control.”

“Don’t be. You did nothing wrong. You are learning. And you are very powerful.”

“I’m also sorry that my brother acted that way.”

He smiled. “If there is one thing I’ve learned over the centuries, it is that you cannot control your family.”

They continued walking in silence. He looked out at the river.

“So?” she asked, finally. “What now?”

He stopped and looked at her.

“Are you going to leave?” she asked hesitantly.

He looked deep in thought.

“Can you think of any other place your father may be? Anyone else who knew him? Anything?”

She had already tried. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She shook her head.

“There must be something,” he said emphatically. “Think harder. Your memories. Don’t you have any memories?”

Caitlin thought hard. She closed her eyes and really willed herself to remember. She had asked herself that same question, so many times. She had seen her father, so many times, in dreams, that she didn’t know anymore what was a dream and what was real. She could recite dream after dream where she had seen him, always the same dream, her running in a field, him in the distance, then his getting further away as she approached. But that wasn’t him. Those were just dreams.

There were the flashbacks, memories of when she was a young child, going away with him somewhere. Somewhere in the summertime, she thought. She remembered the ocean. And its being warm, really warm. But again, she wasn’t sure if it was real. The line seemed to blur more and more. And she couldn’t remember exactly where this beach was.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I wish I had something. If not for your sake, for mine. I just don’t. I have no idea where he is. And I have no idea how to find him.”

Caleb turned and faced the river. He sighed deeply. He stared out at the ice, and his eyes changed color once again, this time to a sea-grey.

Caitlin felt the time was coming. At any moment he would turn to her and break the news. He was leaving. She was no longer of any use to him.

She almost wanted to make something up, some lie about her father, some lead, only so that he would stay with her. But she knew she couldn’t do that.

She felt like crying.

“I don’t understand,” Caleb said softly, still looking out the river. “I was sure you were the one.”

He stared out in silence. It felt like hours passed, as she waited.

“And there is something else I don’t understand,” he said finally, and turned and looked at her. His large eyes were hypnotizing.

“I feel something when I’m around you. Obscured. With others, I can always see the lives we’ve shared together, all the times that our paths have crossed, in any incarnation. But with you…it’s clouded. I don’t see anything. That’s never happened to me before. It’s as if…I’m being prevented from seeing something.”

“Maybe we never had any,” Caitlin answered.

He shook his head.

“I would see that. With you, I can’t see either way. Nor can I see our future together. And that has never happened to me. Never – in 3,000 years. I feel like…I remember you somehow. I feel I am on the verge of seeing everything. It’s on the tip of my mind. But it’s not coming. And it’s driving me crazy.”

“Well then,” she said, “maybe there’s nothing after all. Maybe it’s just here, now. Maybe there was never anything more, and maybe there never will be.”

Immediately, she regretted her words. There she went again, shooting off her mouth, saying stupid things which she didn’t even mean. Why had she had to say that? It was the exact opposite of what she’d been thinking, was feeling. She had wanted to say: Yes. I feel it, too. I feel like I’ve been with you forever. And that I will be with you forever. But instead, it came out all wrong. It was because she was nervous. And now she couldn’t take it back.

But Caleb was not deterred. Instead, he stepped closer, raised one hand, and slowly placed it on her cheek, pushing back her hair. He stared deeply into her eyes, and she watched his eyes shift again, this time from gray to blue. They stared deeply into hers. The connection was overwhelming.

Her heart pounded as she felt the tremendous heat rising up all throughout her body. She felt as if she were getting lost.

Was he trying to remember? Was he about to say goodbye?

Or was he about to kiss her?

Four

If there was anything that Kyle hated more than humans, it was politicians. He couldn’t stand their posturing, their hypocrisy, their self-righteousness. He couldn’t stand their arrogance. And based on nothing. Most of them had lived barely 100 years. He’d lived over 5,000. When they talked about their “past experience,” it made him physically sick.

It was fate that Kyle had to brush shoulders with them, walk past these politicians every evening, as he rose from his sleep and exited above ground, through their hub at City Hall. The Blacktide Coven had entrenched their habitat deep beneath New York’s City Hall centuries ago, and it had always been in close partnership with the politicians. In fact, most of the supposed politicians swarming about the room were secretly members of his coven, executing their agenda across the city, and across the state. It was a necessary evil, this commingling, this doing business with humans.

But enough of these politicians were real humans to make Kyle’s skin crawl. He couldn’t stand to allow them in this building. It especially bothered him when they got too close to him. As he walked, he leaned his shoulder into one of them, bumping him hard. “Hey!” the man yelled, but Kyle kept walking, gritting his jaw and heading for the wide, double doors at the end of the corridor.

Kyle would kill them all if he could. But he wasn’t allowed. His coven still had to answer to the Supreme Council, and for whatever reason, they were still holding back. Waiting for their time to wipe out the human race for good. Kyle had been waiting for thousands of years now, and he didn’t know how much longer he could wait. There were a few beautiful moments in history when they had come close, when they had received the greenlight. In 1350, in Europe, when they all had finally reached a consensus, and had spread the Black Plague together. That was a great time. Kyle smiled at the thought of it.

There were a few other nice times, too – like the Dark Ages, when they were allowed to wage all-out war across Europe, kill and rape millions. Kyle smiled wide. Those were some of the greatest centuries of his life.

But in the last several hundred years, the Supreme Council had become so weak, so pathetic. As if they were afraid of the humans. World War II was nice, but so limited, and so brief. He craved more. There had been no major plagues since, no real wars. It was almost as if the vampire race had been paralyzed, afraid of the growing numbers and power of the human races.

Now, finally, they were coming around. As Kyle strutted out the front doors, down the steps, out City Hall, he walked with a bounce in his step. He increased his stride as he looked forward to his trip to the South Street Seaport. There would be a huge shipment awaiting him. Tens of thousands of crates of perfectly intact, genetically-modified Bubonic Plague. They had been storing it in Europe for hundreds of years, perfectly preserved since the last outbreak. And now they’d modified it to be completely resistant to antibiotics. And it would all be Kyle’s. To do with as he wished. To unleash a new war on the American continent. In his territory.

He would be remembered for centuries to come.

The thought of it made Kyle laugh out loud, although with his facial expressions, his laugh looked more like a snarl.

He would have to report to his Rexius, his coven leader, of course, but that was just a technicality. In truth, h would be the one leading it. The thousands of vampires in his own coven – and in all the neighboring covens – would have to answer to him. He would be more powerful than he ever had been.

Kyle already knew how he would unleash the plague: he would spread one shipment in Penn Station, one in Grand Central, and one in Times Square. All perfectly timed, all at rush hour. That would really get things rolling. Within a few days, he estimated, half of Manhattan would be infected, and within another week, all of them would be. This plague spread quickly, and the way they had engineered it, it would be airborne.

The pathetic humans would cordon off the city, of course. Shut down bridges and tunnels. Close air and boat traffic. And that was exactly what he wanted. They would be locking themselves in to the terror that would follow. Locked in, dying from plague, Kyle and his thousands of minions would unleash a vampire war unlike anything the human race had ever seen. Within a matter of days, they would wipe out all New Yorkers.

And then the city would be theirs. Not just below ground, but above ground. It would be the beginning, the siren call for every coven in every city, in every country, to follow suit. Within weeks, America would be theirs, if not the entire world. And Kyle would be the one who started it all. He would be the one remembered. The one who put the vampire race above ground for good.

Of course they would always find a use for the remaining humans. They could enslave those who survived, store them in massive breeding farms. Kyle would enjoy that. He would make sure to get them all plump and fat, and then, whenever his race felt like feeding, they would have an endless variety to choose from. All perfectly ripe. Yes, humans would make good slaves. And quite a delectable meal, if bred properly.

Kyle salivated at the thought. Great times were ahead of him. And nothing would stand in his way.

Nothing, that is, except for that damn White coven, entrenched beneath the Cloisters. Yes, they would be a thorn in his side. But not a major one. Once he found that horrible girl, Caitlin, and that renegade traitor, Caleb, they would lead him to the sword. And then, the White coven would be defenseless. Nothing would be left to stand in their way.

Kyle flared with rage as he thought of that stupid little girl, escaping from his grasp. She had made a fool of him.

He turned down Wall Street, and a passerby, a large man, had the bad fortune of walking his way. As they crossed paths, Kyle bumped his shoulder into him for all he was worth. The man stumbled back several feet, smashing into a wall.

The man, dressed in a nice suit, screamed, “Hey buddy, what’s your problem!?”

But Kyle sneered back, and the man’s expression changed. At six foot five, with massive shoulders, and huge features, Kyle was not a man to challenge. The man, despite his size, quickly turned and kept walking. He knew better.

Bumping the man made him feel a bit better, but Kyle’s rage still flared. He would catch that girl. And kill her slowly.

But now was not the time. He had to clear his head. He had more important things to attend to. The shipment. The wharf.

Yes, he took a deep breath, and slowly smiled again. The shipment was just blocks away.

This would be his Christmas day.