“What?”
“Kneel.”
The word was repeated in a tone which brooked no disobedience.
“I can't kneel. My leg is broken and in a cast. It's not physically possible.”
“Get. On. The Ground.”
Will did as he was told, his legs compliantly buckling. He was not sure if he was acting out of true obedience or vampire influence, and it didn't really matter. He was obeying and that was all Maddox seemed to care about. He couldn’t kneel, but he could lie face down on the floor like a particularly loyal subject prostrating himself before a king.
“So good,” Maddox purred, looking down at Will with hooded eyes, his own gaze containing reflections of many horrors. He crouched down and let his fingers toy around the collar at Will’s neck. “This is where you belong. This is where you will always return. No matter what happens outside in the hunt, or anywhere else for that matter, this is where you will find yourself at home. Understand?”
Will thought he might understand. It was an unfamiliar sensation of being grounded and safe. When Maddox ran his fingers through Will’s hair, he felt an incredible tingling running through his scalp and down his spine. He felt a tail he did not have tucking itself between his legs, and a whimper rose to his lips.
“You will kill the next feral you encounter. Of that, I am certain. It is in your blood, Will. The need to end life is part of your flesh, and it has been far, far too long, hasn’t it?”
Will nodded slowly, licking his lips. He was hungry for blood. There was a rising darkness inside him, though that darkness didn’t feel as out of place as it once had.
“Give in to those desires and impulses. You no longer have to fear them now you have me to guide and moderate you. You don’t have to try to be something you’re not. You’re free to become exactly who you already were. Do you understand?”
Will nodded, slowly, half in trance, half basking in the glow of Maddox’s attention. He made Will feel like the only living thing in the world, the only one who mattered. It was a powerful feeling, one he sensed he would crave when it faded.
But it didn’t fade. It stayed. Maddox kept him there in that position and in that trance-like space for what felt like a small eternity. When Will regained awareness, it was dark outside and he was hungry.
“Did you keep me like that all day?”
“I like you under my power, boy.”
That was all the explanation Maddox felt the need to give. That was how things were. Maddox wanted something and he got it. For now, Will was that something.
“Let’s try another outing this evening,” Maddox announced.
“I’m still…” Will pointed to his leg cast.
“You can be exposed to your prey without having to actually hunt it. It would be good for you to become acclimated to the city again. You have spent too much time confined. I wonder if it was not the sudden lack of confinement that caused your reaction than actual fear of a feral vampire.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I don't know.”
Will was not certain. He wanted to please Maddox, at least, some part of him did. But there were other stronger, older parts that wanted to just run again. Being locked up for years had instilled a desire for open vistas and nothing in the way of obligation. The collar about his neck reminded him that would never be possible, and the cast on his leg reminded him that following his impulses only made things worse.
“Lorien! We’re going hunting! Come on!”
“Lorien is coming?”
Will had hoped he and Maddox would be alone. Lorien filled up the space between them, talked too much, looked too much, had too many expressions. Stabbing him in the throat with a fork was one of the most satisfying things Will had done in a very long time.
“Lorien can show you different ways to take out ferals. It’s best to do it before they know you’re there. A silent kill is a kind kill.”
“I can’t kill like a vampire kills.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll do it in the simple, blunt way humans do things. You should be able to follow along if you pay attention.” Lorien appeared suddenly in the way vampires often did, making Will bristle. He was pretty certain that it wasn’t actually possible for Lorien to form a sentence that wasn’t inherently smug. If only he were human, and Will had him to himself for an hour or two. It would be so satisfying to…”
“Come, boy!”
They left the house in the car and headed out into the city. Will was not looking forward to this outing. He didn’t want to kill vampires. Being that close to one the first time had fucked his head up. It was like being in the presence of something rotten and fetid and also absolutely terrifying. He'd been disgusted and terrified at the same time, and both of those feelings had combined to overwhelm him. He didn’t see how he was ever going to get past it. How could he kill something he was too repulsed to touch?
He was so preoccupied with the problem that at first, he didn’t notice that their destination was the same building as before, the one overlooking the alley where he’d shamefully lost his nerve and frozen rather than kill his enemy.
“Not here again.”
“Here. Again,” Maddox insisted. “You don't have to do anything tonight. You need to watch and learn. I should have shown you myself in the beginning. What happened was not your fault. It was my fault.”
Will knew that was supposed to make him feel better, but he did not need to be shown how to kill. He’d done it enough times to see it in his sleep, and sometimes in his nightmares.
The alley was much more populated on this occasion. There didn’t seem to be any humans, though. If Will wasn’t very much mistaken, the whole crevasse of concrete was crawling with ferals. Dozens of them, at least, going back and forth from one end of the alley to the other, bumping into each other, biting and hissing like a hive of demented bees. The ends of the alley had been blockaded so they couldn’t get out. It was a very strange scene.
“What is this?”
“Bad news,” Lorien said. “Real bad news. I haven’t seen an abandoned brood of this size in a long time.”
“Abandoned brood?”
“It means someone turned a lot of humans and left them here, either with the intention of returning, or they’ve been rejected as unsuitable and left to burn when the sun rises.”
“That seems cruel.”
“It’s incredibly cruel.”
“Stay here,” Maddox said. “Don't move an inch. If I come back and see that you’re off the spot you’re standing on, you are in some serious trouble, you understand?”
“I get it.”
He watched as Maddox and Lorien descended into the breach and for want of a better word, slaughtered every feral down there. They killed swiftly and efficiently, turning tortured flesh to blissful dust. It took them less than five minutes and it was over, a complete extermination completed without so much as breaking a sweat.
Watching them with a mixture of awe, jealousy, and no small amount of sorrow that he was not allowed to get down there and join them, Will couldn’t help but notice the elegance both Maddox and Lorien brought to their violent acts. Some of the ferals attempted to fight back, but they all fell, one after the other with an inevitability that made their resistance absolutely futile. It might have seemed brutal to an onlooker, but it was an act of mercy and Will understood that.
Maddox and Lorien were back up on the roof in very short order, strolling directly up the vertical walls like they had suckers on their feet. No broken legs or fractured egos for them, they arrived in style.
“Good boy, you didn’t move,” Maddox praised Will, dropping a kiss on his head.
“Yes, what a good boy,” Lorien smirked in agreement.
“We have a problem,” Maddox noted, talking over Will’s head. Will had become background again, not part of the conversation so much as an observer of it.
“A problem? This feels like a war.”
“It is a war. It’s what happens when the dominant vampire is removed from a city. Every pretender to power is going to be making their move. And the lesser vampires, like you, Lorien. The ones less than a few centuries of age, they will be getting their first taste of power, imagining the possibility of becoming more than they are…”
Lorien looked vaguely uncomfortable, Will noticed. His expression had gone from smug and self-satisfied to mildly dyspeptic. Did vampires get heartburn?
Maddox decided it was time to go home. They took a different route on the way back, a path which made it clear that the city was starting to break down into chaos.
There was carnage on the streets, dozens of vampires flowing through the human crowds unnoticed and unseen, hunting one another rather than the people who thronged Times Square for the lights and the sounds, and not the spatter of blood and ash.
“Why aren’t the people paying attention?”
“Most of it happens too fast for them to see,” Maddox explained. “The human mind is a filter. It takes in endless amounts of information and narrows it all down to what it believes to be relevant. It is not, in any way, good at determining relevance. You would not believe what people can ignore, even though it is happening right in front of them. In fact, sometimes, you can even tell people what is happening and that will actually make them less likely to see it.”
“You’re saying people are stupid,” Will said.
“Oh, incredibly,” Lorien laughed.
For a moment, Will thought Maddox might tell Lorien to shut the hell up or similar, but it didn’t happen. Lorien seemed to get away with doing and saying anything he felt like doing or saying, no consequences necessary.
The rest of the journey home was busy. Not for Will, but for Maddox, who was clearly digitally rallying the troops. Will found himself staring into the mid-distance, wondering when he might experience something approximating freedom again. Prison had not been pleasant, of course, but at least he’d shared it with other people, humans who he had something in common with. He’d proved himself among the community there, earned some respect, developed a collection of ramen to rival any other inmate, and walked to the front of every mess hall line. In Maddox’s household, he was nothing and nobody. The bottom of the food chain in every sense. He hated it.
He wondered if Maddox might have some eventual plan to turn him too; clearly, Maddox had the ability to do so, and then he, Will, would be more powerful than ever. And yet, Maddox had specifically sought out a human to act as a hunter to ferals he and Lorien could dispatch in a matter of minutes. It all made less than no sense.
Returned once more to his room, Will limped around, frowning to himself and wishing he hadn’t been dumb enough to break his own leg. He could hear events taking place below, doors opening, voices entering. Being in Maddox’s possession was like being at a party he was never going to be invited to. Will was bored, in short. And frustrated. He was not good at experiencing such emotions. Whenever he felt any feeling strong enough to actually notice it, he usually hit something, or more typically, someone.
He couldn’t stay in the room. He couldn’t go to sleep, not after all he had seen, not when he was still not certain what role he was supposed to play in it all. His own presence was deeply confusing, and he could not forget it.
He went downstairs, and immediately regretted it. Over his short life, Will had developed a sixth sense when it came to law enforcement. The people he could see through the narrow gap between two thick steel beams comprising the upper stair supports were cops. He could tell by the way they stood, the way they talked — even though he couldn’t actually hear a word they were saying. The mere cadence of their utterances filled him with fury.
“What are you doing, welp?”
Maddox was suddenly there, apparently having used his vampiric powers to not only detect Will but come to him on the stairs.
“Nothing,” Will growled. He did not want to invite Maddox’s ire, but he had plenty of his own to deal with and nowhere to disperse it.
Maddox reached out, ran his fingers through Will’s hair gently, then suddenly made a tight fist and pulled his head back. Will found himself stuck looking into his vampire master’s dark gaze. Some of his righteous anger and frustration faded, but not much.
“What is the matter? You have been very quiet. I always find myself concerned when you are quiet, perhaps because it occasionally ends with you leaping out a window.”
Will was shocked. He had not expected to be asked what the matter was. He had expected words of censure and punishment and to be sent back to his room to suffer in solitary annoyance. He was so surprised, he didn't even know what to say at first.
“Well?”
“I…” Will tried to form some coherent words. It was hard when he found himself suddenly receiving the full brunt of Maddox’s attention. It was almost too much, like staring at the sun.
“Why is Lorien always with us? And why is he always so…”
“Obnoxious?”
“Yes.”
“Lorien is a young vampire. He will be obnoxious until he grows out of it.”
“And how long does that take?”
“Vampires are truly mature at around five hundred years. That is the earliest age most are able to tolerate midday sun and to successfully create their own fledglings. Those who attempt either before that age either experience or cause excruciating pain.”
“And how old are you?”
“Older than dirt,” Maddox smiled.
“And Lorien is just a baby?”
“Well, he has learned a thing or two in his ninety years. I wouldn’t call him a baby, but his time under the dark sun is only just beginning.”
“Okay. Well. Why me?”
“Why you?”
“I know you don’t need a human. Even a violent one like me. You can kill ferals much faster than I can. And you have cops on your payroll.”
“Of course I don’t need you, pup. I want you.”
Will basked in the warmth of that statement for all of a second before logic blasted it into cold, rational pieces. “But you didn’t even know me when you came to the prison. What was it, what is it about me that makes me useful?”
“Excellent question. And one that will eventually be answered. But you’re not ready to hear that answer yet.”
“I’m not?”
“No.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because your first hint of failure sent you into a shame spiral followed by a gravity fed one and here we are. To know the truth, you must have the stomach for it. I do not intend to burden you with more than you can handle before you are able to bear it.”
Will found himself believing Maddox, though the words themselves sounded like some total bullshit.
“Now, you are tired,” Maddox said. “Go to bed. Let me take care of everything.”
What a beautiful invitation, to be entirely taken care of. Will found himself feeling very sleepy, more sleepy than he had been in quite a while. Perhaps he was very tired, or, more likely, Maddox’s handling had sapped all his ferocious energy and left him with nothing but the softer, gentler impulses.
Yes. He was tired. He needed to sleep. To close his eyes. To stop worrying. To forget.
Maddox was beside him on the long walk back to his bed, guiding him on the journey with soft words and a tender touch. The little part of Will’s mind still functioning clearly was astonished how Mad could be so brutal at some times, and so gentle and kind at others. He felt warm. He felt cared for. He, perhaps, even felt loved.