The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (32 page)

Byron worked his way around the room, holding his device at every angle to try for a signal. Finally he climbed the stairs and held his device against the trapdoor and found a weak signal. It failed the first few times he tried to send a message, but after several attempts, he got one through to Milton as well as one to Drake, which he wasn’t sure arrived. His signal cut out halfway through sending. He knew they’d both sleep until evening before they got the message. Fortunately, it seemed that Angel had gone to rest, too, or at least left them alone for now.

Byron had searched for Angel Sinclair in the Official Directory of Persons without result, and now he searched for the name in information. After a few tries the signal went through. A minute later his screen blinked on. A record did exist.

Photo: Unavailable

Given Name: Unknown

Aliases: Angel Sinclair, Olgen (last name unknown)

Date of Evolution: Unknown

City and Country of Origin: Unknown

Occupation: none recorded.

Byron skimmed through the form, almost all of which was filled with the word
unknown
.

Until he came to the bottom of the form.

Other: Solitary lifestyle. No criminal record. No debt. No permanent residence. Last recorded sighting: Africa 2194. Other sightings: battlefield in Hundred Year War (South America) 2081, Greenland (principality) 2022, Philippines (cur: nonexistent) 1998, Ukraine (cur: eastern Belarus) 1978, Madagascar (cur: nonexistent) 1906, eastern Russia (currently Orient) circa 1790, Latvia (possible sighting) 1633.

Byron sat stunned for a moment, looking at the screen. No wonder Angel was so strange, and so strong. He was very old, even by Superior standards.

“Hey, Caleb. Come here. I found something.”

“Oh lords. Me, too. Come look.”

“No, come here first. You have to see this, and I might lose signal.”

Caleb came over, his shirt pulled up to cover his mouth and nose. The smell of decay and death lingered around him. “I think Angel is First Order. Look how old he is.”

Caleb scrolled through the screen. “Christ. Why didn’t he just order us to leave?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure he’s of sound mind. Otherwise he would have, and we couldn’t do anything about it.”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said, handing back the device. “Look at the comments section.”

Byron scrolled to the bottom section, a place he rarely looked on a Superior’s record. That section usually held nothing but insults from scorned lovers and praises from current ones. The comment section could go on for infinity.

Angel’s only had one comment. He read it aloud.

“Europe, (location and date unknown.) Possible incubus.”

The men sat in the putrid basement looking at each other. “What does it mean?” Byron asked at last.

“He’s some sort of mutation.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But what is known about this mutation?”

“Not a lot. They’re not sociable creatures like us. They don’t organize, or obey laws or governments, but they’re not violent either. They just want to be left alone, I think. That’s as much as I know.”

“More than I know,” Byron said, setting his device on the top step. “What do we do? Does knowing help us get out?”

“I don’t think he’ll kill us, and that’s good,” Caleb said. “He’ll probably leave us down here, I’d guess. I only knew of one ever being seen in my whole life. Friend of mine in Belgrade said they found one stealing humans. They cornered him, and he killed a couple men, but only to escape. He got away and no one ever saw him again. I think once we find them, they just run and settle somewhere else. They don’t like to be seen.”

“So he’ll just leave us here?”

“Probably, if he’s anything like this other one. My friend said the one he saw was super strong, and he was trying to subdue them all or trap them, and the two he killed were accidents. Once he got the rest tied up, he left them there.”

“So how long do you think we’ll be here before they come after us?”

“I don’t know. Day or two.”

Byron sighed. “Well, at least we solved the case, right? And we’ll get out of here alive.”

“Hey, come see what I found.”

“Do I want to?”

“Not really.”

The men went around to the far side of a pile of decaying boxes with black mold climbing the sides. Caleb lifted a large piece of plywood to reveal a rectangular hole about a meter deep. Inside, a line of six boxes lay open, each holding a decayed body lying on her back, each with her head on a pillow.

“Christ,” Byron said, pulling his own shirt over his nose and mouth. “Superior or human?”

“How do I tell?” Caleb asked, his voice muffled through his shirt.

“Look at the teeth, you idiot.”

“Why don’t you look?” Caleb asked, but he’d already clambered down into the pit. He had a small piece of plywood in his hand, and he bent and poked at the faces or moved the hair aside to get a better view of their mouths. All had been females with long, blonde hair.

“Sapiens,” Caleb said, climbing out of the hole. “All of them. Would you look at that.”

The bodies were old, some of them many years, maybe as much as a century. Byron couldn’t tell by senses alone. They all wore dresses that looked as if they’d once been expensive and high quality. Four dresses were white, two pale pink. One had a white veil. The newest one looked only a few years dead.

“Corpse brides,” Byron said, resisting the urge to laugh at the gruesome spectacle.

“They have gifts,” Caleb said.

They did. All six of them had small boxes under their hands or near their faces. Most had jewelry around their various bones. Dead, dried up flowers adorned the pillows next to each girl’s head. These looked like a new addition. So the mutant paid tribute to his dead lovers. How fascinating. Byron wished he had time to do a study on it. If it didn’t smell so bad, he could look much longer.

But he turned and went back to the stairs. “Close that grave,” he said. “It smells like death.”

And what about the other sapiens? Did the incubus only keep the bodies of the ones he loved? He must have disposed of the rest. And the Superiors, too. But Caleb had said incubuses—or was it incubi?—weren’t violent. Maybe some had violent tendencies and not others. From what Byron had heard over the years, no one knew much about the mutated creatures. Where had Angel put those bodies? And if this mutant was responsible, that left no room for Meyer Kidd in his theory.

“Are you still down there?” he called to Caleb.

“I’m looking at the bodies,” Caleb said. “His rituals are very interesting. They each have love letters. This one has dozens. We can find their names.”

“That’s a start. We can cross them off the missing sapien list. But it would be more interesting if they were Superiors.”

Byron sat on the stairs and sent his message to Drake again, in case it failed the first time. He had thought for sure Meyer had some connection with the case. The kid was so strange. Something about him just didn’t sit right with Byron, and if it wasn’t this, it was something else. Byron would keep looking even after the assignment ended and they solved the case. After all, he had a ten year contract. Maybe he’d convince the government to send him to
Texas
where he could watch Meyer until he figured him out.

When his pod flashed, he startled and snapped it open. He had a message from Drake.

“Tried calling but signal failed. Coming at first dark. Possible clue. You mentioned sap called Herman? Caught escaping sapien—kept repeating ‘Herman made me do it.’”

Meyer Kidd’s ‘escaped’ sapien at work. Byron smiled. He had known there was something amiss about the boy. His instincts never failed him.

Chapter 46

They walked until evening, until
Cali
’s shoes had begun to fall apart and her toes stuck out, until blisters covered her feet which ached beyond what she thought she could bear. Until with every step she took, she swore it was the last she’d ever take, and then she took another. Every part of her was so tired she didn’t think it could move again for days. Her legs ached, her throat, her lungs, her head.

They veered off the main road in the middle of the day, like the man had said. They left the road and went into the woods, down a path where only small trees grew, and into a dusty building that had mostly collapsed. The boards were grey and weathered, the room empty and bare. They sat and waited inside, resting their feet.
Cali
thought she couldn’t go any further. No one said anything. They were all too tired and grimy and sweaty to make conversation.

They rested for only a short time before they heard noises of approach. The blonde man took a long metal stick from above the counter in the little wooden shack and went outside. In a few minutes he returned with a woman and four more men. Two of them were older, but she guessed one was only a few years older than Shelly.

After that, things relaxed some. Cali looked around and noticed little signs that people had been there—two backpacks hung on the wall, along with another of the metal sticks with loops and things at one end, and some sharp-looking pieces of wood. The men took off their backpacks and sat and drank water, and the woman handed out strange drinks that tasted thick and chalky and sweet and awful. Cali had drunk something like it when she’d gone to the hospital and almost died of an infection in her arm. Now she shuddered at the taste, but she forced it down.

“This here is the gateway to freedom,” one of the older men said after they’d rested a while. “Welcome, newcomers. I’ll be your guide from here. I know you’re all tired, but you’ll have to get used to using your bodies as more than snacks for bloodsuckers. You will get used to hard work. Each of you will find a place in our community of your free choosing, but you must be productive. We all help each other and share with our neighbors. All major decisions are made by a vote of the people in our community. We have three elders who run things, as well. I’m one of these elders. My name is Michael Conley.

“In exchange for your freedom, you’ll be expected to help the community prosper and grow, and to protect it with your life. We’ll do the same for you. Women, you will find that you have your choice of partners. Our community is overpopulated with men right now, and your skill is highly valued. Please be selective in finding a suitable match, but please also be rapid in making your decision. I see that there are no men among you today. Is someone missing?” The man turned to the blonde and they spoke in low tones. The elder didn’t look too awfully happy.

“We will travel the rest of today,” he said. “Then we’ll stop for the night in a safe area. Tomorrow we’ll join the community. There will be a very special welcoming ceremony for you. You’re in for a treat. You’ve had time now to rest your feet, and we must go on. It’s a matter of life or death that we get to the safe spot before dark.”

The man swung a pack onto his back, and the blonde took the other from the wall and put it on. The elder took the other metal stick and the group departed slowly. Cali’s feet burned like fire where her blisters had popped. The fluid from inside the blisters now glued her feet into her shoes, and every time she took a step, the sticky shoe rubbed the raw area more. She walked in her own fog of misery until she noticed the blonde man beside her.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m Herman. What’s your name?”

“What happened to no names?”

“We made it to the safe zone,” he said. “So, you got a name?”

“Cali.”

“Cali-fornia. Nice name.”

“No, it’s Cali Youngblood.”

Herman laughed. “Ah, I see. California is a place, or it was, before the bloodsuckers had their big war.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“I read about it in a history book.”

Cali halted. “You can read?” She’d never been so amazed. Her whole life, everyone had said that humans couldn’t read, that only bloodsuckers had the capacity to learn that. She’d heard legends, of course, stories of humans running away and living free and learning to read. But she’d always thought those were only stories, fantasies. And now it turned out they were true, after all. She wished she could tell her sisters back home. They loved stories of people running away and finding freedom.

“Sure I can read,” Herman said. “You will, too. We teach everyone in the community to read. Most of the books got burned, of course, but one woman writes her own, and we read them and pass them all around. And another family found a stash of unburned books from before Superiors, so we’ve all read a lot of those, too.”

“Wow,” Cali breathed.

They walked in silence for a while. “Are your feet very sore?” Herman asked.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry to hear that. I might be able to fix you some sort of bandages once we stop for the night. I’d help you out now if I could, but it would take too long.”

“You talk different now.”

“Oh, yeah,” Herman said, smiling. “It makes me not stand out so much among the others. I forget when I talk to someone who talks good like you.” He shrugged, then switched back to his more accented voice. “I’m sure sorry I confused you. Besides, if we got caught, I’d draw attention if I talked different from everybody else.”