Haven (9) It was not only her dread that made her seek Martin out, though. There was a matter of some urgency awaiting them back at the motel. She hoped desperately that the hunt for Martin led by his master had thus far been unfruitful. As she ran she wished that she had paid more attention to Martin when they first entered the city, and he had pointed out to her several places that he remembered from his life in Haven. She had been scouring the city for an hour now, and no inkling of where to find him. She was also well aware that she was totally lost. She stopped in the middle of the city and took a look around her. She was starting to see some of what Martin had meant. When viewed as any other city, Haven would appear as just that. However, Amanda was now seeing it as a totally alien landscape where she was familiar with nothing. From this perspective it seemed that every shadow writhed sickly with a life of its own. The night itself seemed to breathe and surround her in a wall of living darkness. For a moment, Amanda stood, taking in the secret sentience that Haven seemed to possess. Then, from nowhere it seemed, something leapt upon her, knocking her to the ground. She found herself face to face with a man looking at her with a frightening fire in his eyes. Long tangles of bronze hair fell lightly from his head surrounding Amanda’s face. She stared at this man for several long moments with something that fell pleasantly between adoration and fear. In those first few moments it had never even occurred to her to speak. “I am sorry,” he finally said to her. “I did not know.” Amanda got the distinct impression that she might have missed something vital in this conversation. “Didn’t know what?” she asked as he pulled himself off of her. When she made no move to stand up, the man stretched a hand down toward her. She took it gladly; all too eager to touch this man again, especially now that she had gotten a better look at him. “I did not know that you were…” he put a hand to his chest in a very Tarzan-like gesture, “like me.” Amanda found herself instantly charmed by this being’s simplicity. “I assure you it is quite all right.” Had she thought herself capable of it, Amanda would have blushed just being in this man’s presence. “Do you have a name?” she asked coyly. “Mark,” he said, sounding unsure. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mark. I’m Amanda.” He seemed perfectly pleased with Amanda’s response, casting a broad smile her way. “How long have you been in Haven?” Mark pondered this question for several moments before he answered. “A long time, I would think.” Amanda did not comment on the strangeness of his words. She was too enthralled by him to notice. “How long have you been a vampire?” It was one of those questions that Amanda was always unsure about. Her experience had been that some vampires found the inquiry to be a breach of etiquette. Mark seemed altogether baffled by the question. “I…” He appeared to lose himself in deep thought. “I have always been what I am.” This took Amanda by surprise. It was certainly not an answer she had expected. “How can that be?” As she asked the question a terrible thought struck her. Perhaps he was not a vampire, and both of them had mistaken the other for something else. “I am not sure about so many things. What is this thing that you call me?” He looked as though he was putting forth a lot of effort to understand her. “Vampire,” said Amanda. “An undead person that drinks blood.” She was almost sure now that Mark was something else entirely. “Yes!” he said, excitedly. “But what does undead mean?” “Someone that has died and returned to life.” She could not fathom why he would not know these things. She entertained a brief thought that he might be some kind of vampire amnesiac. “I believe that I would remember something like that,” he said, frowning at her. “But,” he said in that same doubtful voice, “I don’t remember much.” Amanda took a step toward him and slowly extended a hand in the direction of his face. Mark jumped away from her quickly. “It’s all right,” she said. “I just want to see your teeth.” “Quiet,” he hissed at her. “They are coming.” “Who?” she mouthed without speaking. Mark held up a hand and looked around into the night. “Run,” he said, urgently throwing his hand out behind him. “That way.” Amanda decided not to question him. She bolted off into the streets away from Mark. She could not believe that she had wasted so much time talking to some vampire that scarcely seemed to know where he was. She smiled as she thought this. It was obvious why Amanda had taken her time to talk to him, and no part of her could deny it. There was no doubt in her mind that she would try to find him again when she had the time. For now, though, she knew that she had to keep her mind about her and find Martin quickly to sort out this mess that was quickly spreading over the city. She knew that Martin was running out of time in more ways than one. Still, though, her mind kept drifting back to Mark. * * * * * * * Sarah stopped beneath a streetlight and bathed herself in yellow luminescence. She had been moving about the city for just a little under a day searching for the vampire that she had created. For the most part she knew that she had little hope of finding Martin. The only person that Sarah thought could find him was Angelique. However, Sarah could not persuade her to help. Actually, Sarah too was having doubts about Martin’s guilt. She could not imagine Martin committing the atrocities that she had seen in the old hall. Then there was the matter of the missing books. Martin had never really been the studious type, especially when it came to what he was. There was also the matter of two vampires that had been found the evening before. Angelique claimed that Martin was there with her when it happened. Why had Stephanie said that Martin was responsible? While she stood there in the pool of light, Sarah silently decided that she would be a little more forbearing in hearing his explanation. She realized that it had not been fair of her to corner him in the cemetery the way she had and not expect him to run. Tears once again crept into the corners of Sarah’s eyes. She and Stephanie had barely spoken to each other in the last two centuries, but that did not change the fact that Sarah would not be half the vampire she was if it were not for Stephanie. Before they had met one another, Sarah had known nothing about what she was capable of. Stephanie helped her to develop abilities that she never even knew she had. So, Sarah knew that she had to truly know what had happened in the old hall before she acted against Martin. Honestly, she did not see how one so young as Martin would have been able to murder a dozen of Haven’s eldest vampires. Though, she desperately wished for an answer to this puzzle, her mind simply could not find it. However, she held fast to her conviction that if Martin was responsible, she would kill him, and it would be a death that his soul would remember for eternity. Slowly, she wandered out of the pool of light. Her movements were slow and sluggish. Fatigue had finally caught up to her ageless muscles. She longed for simpler times. When she had hunted the streets of London, never had she cared about vampire law that had been set through channels of dark bureaucracy. Sarah had then known the glory of being a feared goddess of death. Haven had become an example of what the intelligent species of undead had to look forward to. In dealing with humans as equals her race had become subhuman. The Society had bribed and killed its way into what they thought was freedom from humans. To maintain that notion of freedom, though, they had become slaves. The High Ones were given limitations to be enforced upon the vampire populace to keep the killing within “acceptable limits.” Sarah walked vacantly along the sidewalk considering the effects of these most recent events on Haven’s vampires. Was it so improbably that men of the law would begin a systematic destruction of the Society once they discovered their unchecked existence? Almost all of Haven’s police force knew that Sarah and her kind were not just myths and fairy tales. It was a shocking prospect that the entire city could be turned against her people so easily. Did whoever had killed the High Ones realize the events that they had set into motion? It was a very likely possibility. Sarah’s mind went instinctively back to Martin. He had never been content with the knowledge of what he was. Again, Sarah did not think that Martin was capable of such devious plotting, but she reminded herself that he had had thirty-five years to change. This also meant that he had had thirty-five years to contrive such a plan. While these long thoughts still rolled around her mind, Sarah absently turned and entered an all-night convenient store. The middle-aged man behind the counter stared suspiciously at the store’s only other customers. Sarah shot them a quick glance and saw that they were a group of fledglings talking noisily around a concession machine. She pushed a thought toward them, telling them to behave. Immediately the whole of the trio fell silent and stared at Sarah with bewilderment. She exchanged a few words about the weather with the man behind the counter and purchased a pack of cigarettes. The man made a remark about how smoking would kill her, and Sarah laughed at him. She turned to leave when one of the fledglings caught her eye and said, “Find what you were looking for?” She immediately recognized his tone of voice. The story of her search for Martin had spread quickly through the channels, gathering plenty of rumors along the way. This brave young fledgling only represented the fear that most young vampire would not view her with. “No, not really,” she answered as she left. * * * * * * * Jenny moved uncomfortably through the night in clothes that were not her own. So far she had encountered three vampires that said that they were searching for Martin. Jenny found this very strange, but none of them had wanted to explain what was happening. Martin had never been a real concern of hers anyway. In fact, before he had left the city one of Jenny’s favorite pastimes had been taunting and frightening him on a nightly basis. Tonight, more important things than Sarah’s yes-man occupied Jenny’s thoughts. Someone in the city had tried to kill her, and she intended to find out who it was. Unfortunately, doing this involved the employment of certain powers that she would rather stay away from. As much as she disliked the idea of communing with the Fae, she knew it was the only way to exact her revenge. Only one Fae that she knew of would help her to do this since most of their kind did not approve of vampires, especially Jenny. One of them owed her a favor, though, and she would probably jump at the chance to be out of Jenny’s debt. Jenny did think it an unfair trade for the Fae girl to use her oracular power in exchange for Jenny once saving her life. Pepper was not an easy creature to find, though. None of the Fae truly enjoyed the city and they tended to only skirt its edges of stay entirely out of it. Thankfully, Pepper ventured into the city more often than most of her kind. Still, Jenny knew that finding her would not be an easy task. Jenny prowled around the city border, thinking of how she had first met the impish girl that called herself Pepper. It had been on a winter night much like this one when Jenny was still caught in the blood addiction. She had been wandering the back alleys of Haven picking off the sleeping homeless when she heard screaming coming from the forest. Jenny had chosen to investigate since those sorts of screams usually led to bloodshed, and in those days Jenny was more than happy to clean up someone else’s mess. When she arrived at the source of the screams she was not at all happy with what she had found. A raksasha (at the time, their kind was new to Haven) had pinned a young girl to a tree and was taunting her before it killed her. For a moment, Jenny only watched for it was the first time she had seen one of the creatures in the flesh. The raksasha were not a pleasant species and unlike most of Haven’s other dark breeds, they had no chance of blending into human society. They were not a favored race by the Society or the Pack even though they shared traits of both. The blue-skinned man held the child by the throat, bringing his face dangerously close to her own and then drawing back. Each steamy breath the thing exhaled at the little girl looked as if it sickened her and brought forth another volley of screams. Jenny had given up her vampire stealth to draw the raksasha’s attention (even Jenny did not approve of killing children). The beast turned its hollow black eyes on her and bared a mouthful of yellow-stained fangs. It was said that a raksasha was as intelligent as any vampire, but Jenny had seen no trace of intelligence or civility in the face of that monster. She was never sure if the creature knew what she was, but he did not attempt an attack. He merely dropped the girl and darted into the forest. To Jenny’s surprise the red-haired girl stood and casually brushed the dirt from her clothes. “One of my least favorite kind of undead,” she had said to Jenny in a conversational tone. Pepper had made it clear that night that she did not favor Jenny’s kind either. However, Pepper thanked her several times and assured her several times that the Fae always repaid their debts. It was that payment that Jenny sought this night. She needed the Fae girl’s powers of prophecy to tell her who it was that had tried to kill her, and how they had managed to wound her so badly. Finally, Jenny felt a stirring of thought that she recognized as a Fae mind. Her legs carried her a little faster as she moved toward this psychic spore. Within twenty minutes she realized that she had come fifteen miles into the forest and away from the city. The telepathic buzz had become much stronger, but she still did not see any signs of a Fae. “Damn it, where are you?” she whispered under her breath. “Behind you,” said a voice at her back at equal volume. Jenny would have screamed had she not spent a century conditioning herself against such things. She whirled around on the source of the voice. It was indeed Pepper, standing with her hands on her waist looking expectantly at Jenny. “It’s about time,” was all that Pepper said. “What do you mean?” Jenny remembered why it was that she did not like these people. “You’ve been thinking about me all night. You might have written it in the sky as strong as you were broadcasting thoughts of me.” Pepper sat down in the snow and pine needles and giggled a little at Jenny. “Then why didn’t you reveal yourself earlier?” Jenny followed suit and sat cross-legged in front of the elfin child. “Where’s the fun in that?” Pepper smiled broadly. Jenny ignored her spiteful attitude and hoped that this meant that Pepper would indeed help her. “So, you know why I’m here, then.” “Yes, but I’m afraid you may overestimate my powers.” She frowned at Jenny and let out a long dramatic sigh. “I don’t ask for much. I only need the location or names or reasons that someone tried to kill me.” “You don’t understand, vampire. Prophecy is easy. I can tell you your future, but the past is a tricky thing to grasp.” “You’re right,” said Jenny. “I don’t understand that.” Pepper seemed satisfied with Jenny’s admission of ignorance, but did not speak. It was obvious that she was waiting for something. “Care to explain.” It was hardly a question in the tone that Jenny spoke with. “The past has already happened,” Pepper said as though the words carried some kind of mystique. “It is gone. It is much more difficult to grasp for something that isn’t there than to find something that will be someday. That is only one of my problems in reading the past.” “What can you tell me?” Jenny said in a growl. Pepper seemed unnerved by this show of Jenny’s impatience. “Sometimes it tickles me, the future.” Despite Jenny’s open show of anger, Pepper giggled again. “So many things run together. Certain beings become stress points in time. For a time it can seem that the entire world rides upon one persons shoulders.” Pepper stopped to ponder this for a moment. “Although, it seems that individuals are unaware of the—“ “Just tell me,” Jenny snapped. Pepper looked as though the words had physically harmed her. For a long moment she said nothing, and Jenny feared that she had been too harsh. She was actually surprised to find that she regretted hurting the Fae girl’s feelings. “Find Martin,” she finally said. “Find him and listen to his story. That will tell you what you need to know. Find him quickly, though. The span of his existence is an uncertain thing.” Pepper stood and bowed to Jenny curtly before she disappeared into the trees. * * * * * * * Unconsciousness slowly ebbed away to bring the pain of wakefulness to Abby. She lay still for a long time with eyes shut, trying to assess what had happened to her. The pain in her thigh had been dulled, but a slow throbbing still remained there. Her hands were bound tightly as were her feet. She did not know what had happened to her, and she was not entirely sure that she wanted to know. A rustling from somewhere behind her told her that she was not alone. Slowly she opened her eyes to almost total darkness. She peered into the shadows for many long moments before any of her surroundings became evident. It was a small room with two large windows that gave her a slight view of a few buildings outside. From the arrangement of a television set and two small padded chairs, Abby surmised that she was in a motel room. For the first time since her awakening, Abby realized that she was lying on a bed. After a time she became possessed with a kind of bravery. “Who’s there?” she asked hurriedly. “No one here but us Gideons,” said a voice from behind her full of giggles. “Who?” she asked groggily. “Never mind. Just a joke. It really doesn’t matter who I am.” The voice was nasal and unrevealing of sex. “OK. Why am I here, then?” “Someone put you here,” said the voice. “Yeah, I figured. Just tell me why I’m here.” Abby knew that she could be playing with death, but she wanted answers. “I imagine that whoever brought you here was attempting to hide you from us.” A dry chuckle came from behind Abby, making the voice sound more male than female. “But, it seems we’ve found you after all.” “What are you going to do?” Abby was slowly becoming more and more frightened.
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