The Children of the Sun (20 page)

As soon as she knew Theroen was armed, Two leapt forward, joining the fight. Theroen was right behind them, and the four of them quickly dispatched enough of the attackers to convince the rest to retreat.

“We need to make our way to the front door,” Jakob said. “They’ve already blocked the emergency exit and they’re holding the hole in the wall, but the front door was still open last I saw it.”

“What about the others?” Two asked. From the corner of her eyes she saw someone that she recognized – she thought it was one of the Janssen twins – fall to his knees after a blow to his midsection. Several blades immediately cleaved him to pieces.

“They will fight their way out or die,” Sasha said. “Jakob, they’re setting the club on fire.”

As soon as Sasha said the words, Two became aware of an acrid odor in the air, the scent of wood smoke and something else that she thought might be the melting paint on the walls. Indeed, the last of their adversaries were now in retreat, moving toward the front door.

“We’re not going to get out that way,” she said.

“I’m open to suggestions if you have any,” Jakob said. He sheathed one sword and ran a hand across his brow, leaving streaks in the blood that covered his face.

“I am unenthusiastic about burning to death,” Theroen said, and Jakob cast him a sidelong glance.

“As am I.”

“There aren’t any other exits?” Theroen asked.

“Not unless you can fit through a nine-inch drainage gate,” Sasha said. She was glancing around, as if seeking to prove her own statement false. Two could see flames licking at the walls.

“Where’s the roof access?” she asked. “Don’t tell me there isn’t any … this building’s flat. You have to be able to go up and shovel in the winter.”

“You’re right,” Jakob said, his eyes lighting up. “The access panel is in the utility closet in the men’s locker room.”

“What if they’ve thought of that already?” Theroen asked, but he was already moving toward the rear of the building.

“If they’ve closed off the roof, then we’re likely dead,” Jakob said, following him. “Personally, I’m going to hope for the best.”

“What about Mike?” Two asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the ring where her fellow competitor had died.

“He will burn along with the others who’ve fallen here,” Jakob said. “I would have it otherwise, but we can’t very well avenge him if we die in here. Two, we must go.”

“Yeah,” Two said, and after a moment she followed. “I guess we must.”

The door to the access panel was locked. Without waiting for suggestions, Theroen drew back his fist and punched through the thick plywood, reaching down to open the door from the inside. In another moment it swung open and Theroen withdrew his fist, which had gone dark purple from the blow.

“Oh, baby, you shouldn’t have done that,” Two said. She reached toward his hand but Theroen held it away, smiling.

“Need I remind you that you have an eight-inch gash across your face?” he asked. “I will be fine, Two, and it will be worth it if we get out of here alive. Please …”

Two nodded, turned, and grabbed a rung of the ladder. She hauled herself up and soon was rapidly ascending the thirty-foot climb, the others following her. At the top she found a trapdoor, its latch easily sprung, and she shoved it open. The cool night air touched her face, untainted by the chemical-laced smoke coming from below, but she waited for a moment, hesitant. No attack came, and so she took a breath, hoping for the best, and hauled herself up.

The roof was empty, occupied neither by other vampires nor by the humans bent on destroying them. Climbing out onto it, Two felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Whatever might come, they weren’t going to burn alive inside of this gym in the middle of nowhere.

“That’s much better,” Theroen said, pulling himself up after her. Sasha followed, and Jakob brought up the rear. Soon, all four were standing on the edge, looking down at the chaos below. Many of the Ay’Araf had made it out of the building and were still engaging some of the Children in the parking lot.

“We have to stop them,” Sasha said. “We have to—”

“It’s too late,” Theroen said. “Look, they’re retreating.”

It was true; the Children were pulling back, disappearing into the night. In a matter of only moments they were gone, and there was nothing but the crackle of flame and the groans of the injured. Two could see several Ay’Araf with minor injuries tending to those who had not been so lucky.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“They may be regrouping to make another push,” Theroen said, and Jakob nodded. Two glared at them both.

“Those people down there need help, and we’re not doing shit up here. You stay if you want,” she said, and without further word, she leapt off the edge of the building.

She had never in her life done such a thing, and was not entirely sure her body would handle the impact without anything breaking, but it did. The landing didn’t even take her breath away, and she was on her feet and moving toward the wounded before the others had even hit the ground.

* * *

“How is your face?” Theroen asked her, and Two glanced over at him for a moment before returning her gaze to the buildings flying past the Porsche’s window.

“It hurts,” she said after a moment. “I don’t mind. It’s … it’s not like I can complain.”

“No, I suppose not,” Theroen replied, and he was quiet for a time. Two watched the Newark skyline pass by.

After another few minutes, she said, “He was going to win that fight.”

“Mike?” Theroen asked, and Two nodded.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I would’ve had to cut an arm off or something. He would have fought until he fell down. He was willing to go that far just to beat some stupid fledgling chick who shouldn’t even have been there.”

“The Ay’Araf are dedicated,” Theroen said, his voice noncommittal, as if he already knew where Two was going with this line of thought. She supposed he could sense it.

“If I hadn’t been there—” she began, and Theroen cut her off.

“Then someone else would have been in that ring and he or she would be just as dead.”

“But it wouldn’t have been Mike.”

“Two, do not go down this path. In your life … in
any
life there will be regrets, but you cannot obsess over what might have been. There are too many chances, over the course of a life, and it will tear you apart. Your life will be longer than most.”

“Not fucking likely,” Two muttered.

Theroen opted not to respond to this, and there was another lengthy period of silence during which they entered the Holland tunnel, heading back into Manhattan. Two watched the lights flashing by on the tiles. Finally, Theroen spoke.

“It hurts you,” he said. “It is because it hurts you that I love you, because you are not callous or uncaring even after all you’ve been through. Because you toss sometimes in your sleep and call out Melissa’s name, or Samantha’s, or Stephen’s.”

At this, Two looked over at him. Theroen glanced back, then returned his gaze to the road, down-shifting and accelerating past an ailing pickup truck.

“I didn’t know I did that,” Two said.

“I put my arm around you when it happens, and you cling to me so tightly I fear that in your dreams, you are drowning.”

Two shook her head. “Not drowning. Falling. I’m always falling.”

Theroen nodded, glanced up at the buildings as they emerged into Manhattan, and sighed.

“Mike did not deserve to die, but it is not your fault that he is dead. Every day, people die who have done nothing to deserve it. Every day there are accidents, catastrophes, and deliberate acts of destruction that take innocent lives. Every day a solider is shot in the line of duty by the very people he seeks to aid. Every day a child is left unattended for just a moment – just the merest instant – by those who would wish only to protect her at all times, and she finds a way to die. The great, beautiful, horrible dance of life continues on and on, and we who might live forever still move to the same tune as all the others.

“You will not die of cancer, or heart failure, or cirrhosis of the liver. Your brain will not age to the point that it develops lesions that rob you first of your memory, and then of your dignity, and at last of your life. Still, you dance, just as every one of us must, and if tomorrow some crazed man or woman once again points a spear gun at your head and fires, and if the bolt flies but two inches to the right of the path it took tonight, you will die. There will be nothing that I or any of those who love you can do about it. That may happen tomorrow, but for tonight you are alive.”

They were at a stoplight now, and Theroen looked over again, meeting her eyes. “Do you think Mike would wish it otherwise?”

Two shook her head. “No.”

“If he is somewhere else now, looking down, would he be glad that you have survived?”

“Theroen …”

“In the days after Lisette was killed, I lied awake in the painful hours after the sunrise, wondering why it was that I had lived and she had died. What had I done to deserve that mercy? How was it right, or fair, that I still drew breath? How could I not ask myself these things?”

“Then you know I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself.”

“No, and I am only trying to guide you. I am trying to help ease your pain because I love you, and because it hurts me to see you like this. It hurts me to hear you say these things, to insinuate that it is somehow your fault that Mike is dead. It is
not
your fault. It is Tori’s fault, and the Children of the Sun’s fault, and the American council’s fault, but it is not your fault. You were merely there.”

“I’m tired of being ‘merely there,’” Two said. She clenched her hands together in frustration a few times, thinking, trying to put her feelings into words.

“It’s not just Mike,” Theroen said, and Two shook her head.

“No. Theroen, we have to stop this. We have to find Tori and get her out of there, and then we have to go on the attack. We can’t just keep sitting around.”

“I fear that words will not be enough to slow her down.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

They were pulling now into the gated garage that lay below their building in SoHo. Theroen eased the Porsche into its designated parking space and killed the engine.

“No,” he said. “It does not. It just means that we should be realistic about the potential outcome, should we ever have the chance to confront her.”

“We’ll see her at some point,” Two said.

“That does seem inevitable,” Theroen agreed.

“Will you help me?”

Theroen smiled, pulled the keys from the ignition, and leaned over to kiss her on the left temple, well above the spot where her cheek had been slashed. Two closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“You are my love, and you are also my fledgling. You are
Theroen-Chen
, and if that never comes to mean anything to anyone else, it still means that you will always,
always
have my help.”

Two nodded, opening her eyes and giving Theroen a small, sad smile.

“I wish I was in the right place to thank you for that,” she said. “I wish I could kiss you and tell you how much I love you, and make love to you right here in this cramped fucking car, and believe that everything was going to be just fine …”

“But everything is not going to be just fine, and even if it was, you are not in the proper place to appreciate it. Two, I understand. Does that … I hope it comforts you.”

“It does, Theroen. It’s just so hard, and it’s not even done yet. Please put up with me.”

“Of course.”

“Good. You know what else would comfort me right now? Getting the fuck out of this car, and out of this shitty gym outfit, and taking a long shower, and going to bed. You’re invited to any of that. All of it. Interested?”

Theroen smiled, nodded, and opened his door.

“Of course.”

Chapter 10
State of Emergency

Five nights had passed since the attack on the Ay’Araf club. On the first of these, Jakob and William had held an emergency council meeting, open not just to members but to all vampires who wished to attend, in an attempt to analyze the attack and formulate a response.

The meeting had been long and quarrelsome, and while Two felt no joy at the sight, she recognized very well the look of frustration on Jakob’s face during the entire event. She knew what it was like to sit and wait for the council to determine its course of action.

In the end, they had decided only that they would need to reconvene. Until the next meeting was set, all other activities that might bring vampires together in large groups were suspended. Two had spent much of her time since with Jakob and Sasha in the small gym at which they trained. She thought that all three of them had a lot of anger to work out. Theroen hadn’t seemed to mind. He had brought his notes on the constructed vampire language and sat off to the side, studying. Two sometimes envied him his calm, his ability to distance himself, his control of his emotions. For her part, she could not seem to stop seeing Mike’s last, dying look whenever she closed her eyes.