Sunshine

Silence fell. Some things hadn’t changed.

“Bo is looking for me,” I said at last.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said humbly, “I don’t know what to do. I…I…All I did was drive out to the lake, that night, and everything else…I’m sorry,” I said again, a little wildly, and only too aware of the irony: “I don’t want to die, you know?”

“Yes,” he said again.

This time I heard the pause as one of those “you’re not going to like this” pauses.

“Bo is looking for me too,” he said. “When he finds me, he will be careful to destroy me. Last time was theatrics. This time he will take no chances.”

Well, that was the most cheering news I’d heard all week. Even better than ghastly revelations about the possible truth of my genetic composition. No one really understands genetics any more than anyone really understands world economics, and what I’d been guessing might not be true. I could just worry about it for the rest of my life. If I was going to have a rest of my life. As guaranteed bad news, vampires are a much surer bet. Great. Spartan. Let’s have a party. “Oh,” I said carefully.

I looked into what was probably a short, bleak future, and realized that one of the reasons I’d been glad to see that dark shape in the chair was that with him here, for the first time since I’d come home after those nights at the lake I’d felt maybe…not totally clueless and overwhelmed. Yes, he’d been the one shackled to the ballroom wall with me, but they’d been afraid of him. Twelve against one, and him chained to the wall, and they were afraid. The fact that they’d caught him could have been some kind of trick. It happened. Presumably among vampires too.

And now he was saying that he was out of his depth too. That it was hopeless. I wanted some nice human equivocation and denial. No, no, it’ll be all right! The table knife was an ugly accident! And by the way you’re not going to morph into an axe murderer!

Rescuing the odd vampire from destruction had already fulfilled my bad-gene quota of antisocial behavior. Please.

“Why does he hate you so much?” I said.

The silence went on for a while, but I could wait. What else was there to do? Walk outside and shout, “Here I am!”? I might be due for a short, squalid future, but as a basic principle I was going to hold on to what there was of it.

He hadn’t refused to answer yet.

“It’s a long story,” he said at last. “We are nearly the same age. There are different ways of being what we are. Mine is one way. His is another. Mine, it turns out, has certain advantages. If others perhaps thought the implications through, some things might be different. Bo does not wish anyone to think those implications through. Destroying me is a way to erase the evidence. Plus that he does not care for me to have advantages no longer available to him.”

This was interesting, and under other circumstances would have made me curious. Constantine couldn’t be very old—by vampire standards—only young vampires can go out in strong moonlight, like tonight. Middle-aged ones can go out when the moon is young or old enough. Later middle-aged ones can only go outdoors when there is no moon. Really old ones can’t be outdoors under the open sky at all, with any possibility of the dimmest reflected sunlight touching them. That was one of the reasons older ones began running gangs. If they survived to be old they’d also developed other powers. “He has another urgent reason, now. If he does not destroy me, he will lose control of his gang. Bo likes ruling. It is also necessary to him that he rule—to do with those advantages I possess and he does not. And while as the leader of his gang he is much more powerful than I am, alone, I am the stronger.”

“And you don’t run a gang,” I said.

“No.”

I thought of saying, So, what now, do we hold hands and jump? How long a fall can a vampire walk away from? How high do we have to climb first? A mere almost-human pretty reliably goes splat after about four stories, I think. I was beginning to feel sorry that he’d come. No. I’d rather jump out a window and get it over with fast than fall into Bo’s clutches again. I was merely resisting the idea that jumping was my best choice.

“I have thought of it a good deal, these last weeks,” he was saying, “for I knew what happened at the lake would not be the end. Not with Bo. I also know that singly you and I have no chance.”

I do wish you’d stop saying that, I thought.