Vampire Redemption (21 page)

"Sure thing. Come on, I'll lend you mine. It's a sweet new model." Jane walked quickly to the steps, light on her feet. "You need Goggles? FingerTips?"

"No, not really." Selah followed after her. "Just a quick call."

"Sure thing." Jane skipped up the stairs, up to the second floor, and then down the hall. Without any prompting, she began to tell Selah about herself--how she had moved here from Alabama two years ago without knowing a soul, simply because her sister, who had died five years before, had described these mountains as her favorite place in the world. Jane had had an abortion back in Alabama, and when her boyfriend had left her, she'd felt so lost, so alone in the world, that coming up here had felt like re-connecting with her sister, like following in her footsteps. Her sister had been a geologist, not something she was into, but her freelance work had taken off while she had worked at Helen's healing center, so everything had come together like, well, magic. The place, she said, turning to Selah as they entered her room, felt like home, the first she had ever had.

"Uh, wow," said Selah. She had never had somebody tell her so much personal information all at once. "I'm ... sorry. About what happened back in Alabama. But, yeah. I'm happy for you."

"I know." Jane shrugged philosophically. "But that's the past. I'm invested in being here now. Of course, this universe, you know? The minute I start getting settled, it dumps a new vampire war on me. Go figure. Anyway, here's my Omni. Let me log you into a guest account."

Jane's room looked like an explosion had gone off in it. Shirts, socks, dirty plates, pillows, underwear, magazines, blankets, ski gear, all of it was tossed across the floor. She picked her way over to the desk and unplugged the Omni from the screen and its externals and handed it to Selah, who sat tentatively on the edge of the bed and logged in.

She paused, staring at the screen. It was so tempting to just quickly scan the web, see what was going on, what had happened. But no. She went straight to her private Garden and logged in. Immediately the same insanity as before began to flood the screens--over 425,000 friendship requests, 1,345,000 notifications, far too many mentions in other people's Gardens, vBlogs and related media, high-ranked connection requests from media outlets--too much. She panicked and closed down all the feeds. Stared at her blank Garden, and then fled into her Shrine.

It was as blank as before. A handful of messages were beeping there, private access-only messages from friends and family. She saw two from Mama B, one from Cloud, and a score from old friends in Brooklyn. She looked at their frozen faces and they seemed so young to her, almost alien. She glanced up at where Jane was leaning against her desk. "Erm, do you have any earbuds?"

"Oh! Sure. Here." She handed Selah a pair.

After fitting them in, Selah activated her grandma's messages. The first was a response to the one she had sent from Armando's safe house, so many lifetimes ago. Mama B was distraught, fierce, demanding, and Selah didn't even hear what she said. Her eyes burned with tears, and her heart felt like it had tripped on buckled pavement. She simply stared at Mama B's face, heard her voice, and then closed her eyes. The message ended. Something about the Lord and love and forever. She saved it and then opened the second message.

Mama B looked up at her, expression soft, loving, wondering. "Oh, child. Oh, Selah. I love you, I believe in you, and I know that the Lord will protect you. You are alive when I though you lost, you are healed when I thought you fallen, and, oh, you have made me so very proud. I love you with all my heart, Selah, and I will be telling the General that you're going to the military. I know he will work it so that you are set free. We will soon see each other again, Selah. I know this. Until then, child, stay strong, believe in yourself, and trust in the Lord."

The message ended. Selah took a deep shuddering breath, closed her eyes again, and saved the message. She felt warmth spread through her and nodded to herself. She stared at Cloud's message. It blinked blue. She didn't know if she was ready to hear what he had to say. Instead, she opened a call to General Adam's number. Cloud would probably answer that anyway.

Instead, a window opened on the screen showing the General's face. He looked older than she recalled, his face clean-shaven, but his eyes had lost nothing of their mineral mica gleam. "Selah. Are you all right?"

"I am. General. Thank you. For your help. For doing everything you've done." Selah wiped the last of the tears away and sat up a little straighter.

"That was nothing. Where are you? Are you in immediate danger?"

"Immediate, no. In a couple of hours, maybe. We're in McCance. We escaped the base last night. The chopper crashed. We lost... We... I mean. We made it down. We have two men from the Hybrid program with us. And Sergeant McKnight. I think you know her, right? And Dominique, one of the scientists from USAMRIID. She was the one working on the vaccine."

"All right, good. What are your immediate plans?"

"We're leaving McCance now. I think we're going to try for Denver. We heard something about the base being attacked last night?"

"Yes, it was. Nothing like the attack you saw in LA, but it was still close. You got out just in time--the whole base is on lockdown. Get to Denver." He looked offscreen. "That should take you three hours. Two if you go fast. We have people there who can protect you. Old friends of yours. Call me when you hit the city limits. I'll arrange an escort for you there."

"All right. General, what's the plan? What happens next?"

The general rubbed his face, and Selah saw the exhaustion for the first time behind the iron control. "First, we make sure you're safe. Then we need to speak with this Dominique about what sort of facilities she needs to create the vaccine. Then we publicize it and force the President's hand." He said each phase with calm certainty, such that it sounded almost simple.

"All right." Selah took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm going to get going then."

A voice spoke from offscreen and the General paused. "One moment. Cloud wants a word."

"I--I really have to get going. Maybe later?"

The General raised a hand. "I don't know everything that happened between you, Selah, but Cloud wants to say something brief. It pertains to your safety. I'm asking you to hear him out."

"Oh." Selah wanted nothing more than to kill the connection, but finally she sighed. "All right."

The screen swooped as it was handed over, and then Cloud was looking up at her. His face was so familiar. He hadn't shaved in a few days and his upper lip and chin were covered in stubble; she remembered how he couldn't grow any on his cheeks or jawline.

"Hey, Selah." His voice sounded strange. Like he was trying to play it professional. But his eyes were liquid, with depths to them she didn't want to explore.

"Hi, Cloud. What's up." It wasn't a question. A mere acknowledgement. It was still too much to talk to him. She didn't want to open those doors just yet.

"We need to start talking about your public image."

"My what?" That she had not expected.

"Your public profile. It was pretty huge before LA, but after you posted that public goodbye to your grandmother, it's taken off. You've gone viral."

Selah blinked. 
425,000 friend requests. 
"I, uh. I don't know what you're talking about."

Cloud shifted from side to side, licked his lip, clearly thinking hard about how to convey this to her. "Look. Real quick, because I know you have to run. You started this all with that broadcast back in Miami, remember? In Magnum? Then it snowballed when you saved me from the cage fight on live broadcast. Then Sawiskera died that night. You wouldn't believe the conspiracy theories. Well, maybe you would. The next time you appear is in LA, the night everything went to hell. You posted that public goodbye to Mama B, and you said something about a vaccine. Followed immediately by the start of the second vampire war."

Selah blinked again. Her brain felt stuck in second gear. "Public? I sent it ... to her privately." Her stomach sank. "But I didn't plan any of this."

Cloud grinned and that smile hurt. It was the first unselfconscious smile she'd seen since LA. "I know. That's why it's been so effective. The government ignored you at first, but two weeks ago, they put out an official statement declaring that your vaccine claim was a hoax. That really got people going. Totally backfired. Now, anybody who's anti-Lynnfield is up in arms and you're like their martyr, or Che Guevara or something. Selah, you're huge, and we need to start thinking what we're going to do with this."

Selah closed her eyes. She thought of Jojo staring up at her, his eyes mute with pain and depths of alien emotion. Theo striding toward her. Tom. The nightmarish descent to town. That was real. That was what her life had been about. This? 
1,345,000 notifications.

"Cloud. I don't-- No, I can't handle this right now. Not now."

"I understand. Just don't post anything public until we've talked this over, all right? Things are getting critical. I don't know how much you've kept up, but the country, shit is getting so real I don't even know. We need to play your next move carefully. It could, if we do it right, spark a revolution."

Selah laughed. "A what? A revolution? Whatever, Cloud. Look, I have to go."

"All right. Just think about it. That's all I ask."

"All right. I will."

Cloud smiled up at her, and then she saw awareness steal back over him, a layer of shadow slip behind his eyes. The moment fell away and so did his smile. "All right, Selah. Take care."

"Yeah. You too." She killed the connection. Stared down at the blank screen, took a deep breath, and looked up.

Jane was staring at her in disbelief. Selah jerked her head back an inch, surprised, having forgotten she was there. 
Oh shit
, she thought. She winced. "You heard all that."

"You're Selah Brown! 
The
 Selah Brown. I didn't recognize you without the hair, but that's it. I knew I recognized you from somewhere. I mean, holy shit. It's you."

"Yeah. Erm... Can you not tell anybody? About me being, uh, me?" Selah felt as if she had fallen through a crack into an old episode of the Twilight Zone. Jane pushed away from her desk and crouched before her.

"Did you kill Sawiskera? Was it you? I know most people think it was Plessy, but it was you, right? Nobody knows for sure. And Arachne, was she really your twin sister?"

"What? No. What? Where did you get all this from?"

Jane grinned at her and ran her hands through her hair. "I mean, wow! Look, just tell me one thing. One thing. Did you-- Okay. Your ability to move like... Your vampire power. Is it ... Were you born from a vampire mother? That's my theory. Can you just tell me that? Are you a day-walker?"

"A vampire-- What? No!" Selah stood up. "I'm just a normal girl. I'm just--" She stopped. It wasn't true. She wasn't a normal girl, hadn't been in ages. "Look, I'm not-- My mother, I mean. Arachne was 
not 
my twin sister. And, okay, stop."

Jane stood up. Selah took a moment, composed her thoughts, put out both hands to forestall any further conversation. "It's not safe for you to know me. I'm serious. This isn't all right. I should have been more careful. You need to start packing and get out of here, and forget you ever met me."

"Sure," said Jane. "Sure thing. I'll not tell a soul. I promise. I'm a huge fan. I can't believe I didn't recognize you. Here, take my Omni. And my Goggles and my FingerTips. No, please. They're satellite linked, so you can use them anywhere. If you're going to be hitting the road, you'll need them, right? Much more than me."

Selah looked at the Omni in her hand. She opened her mouth to resist, then closed it. Jane was right. "Thank you. That really helps."

"No problem. Okay. I'm getting myself under control. I'm cool. I just want to say one thing. One last thing, then I'll stop. I really admire you. What you've done. Fighting the vampires like that. It's ... it's been really inspiring. Seeing you save Cloud. Doing all the stuff you've done. It's really made an impression on me."

Selah looked blankly at Jane. Was she serious? She tried to see things from her point of view. Cutting out the harsh realities of what had happened. The deaths. The sacrifices. The pain. "You're welcome," she said at last. "I'm glad ... I mean... Yeah. Thanks."

Jane nodded once, tightly, and then stepped back. "I know you need to go. I need to pack. If you think we should leave, I'm leaving. I'll get the others to go too."

"Yeah." Selah moved toward the door. She paused, turned back around. Jane was still watching her. "Did you mean that?" Selah was having trouble wrapping her mind around it all. "Never mind. Thanks. And ... take care of yourself."

Jane nodded and Selah escaped while she still could. Cloud's words came back to her. Revolution? She needed to learn what was going on. She had no idea how far or how badly the war had gone. She strode down the hall, mind whirling. Public profile? She stopped short. Her message to Mama B had gone public? It took a moment for that piece to slot into place. That had been meant to be private. What had she said? Selah closed her eyes. She couldn't remember exactly. She fought the urge to replay it right then and hurried on. Later. She would check it all out later.

Chapter 18

Dominique was downstairs at the dinner table with McKnight, looking uncertain and tentative, wrapped up in her soiled white USAMRIID snow jacket, face pinched and with a bowl of soup in her hands. She was eating it quickly though, which reassured Selah. Walking over, she hugged her from behind and was rewarded with a tentative smile.

"How you feeling?"

"Pretty good. Well, I've got a nasty headache. And it's a little hard to focus and, well... A ringing in my ears." She paused and smiled weakly. "So yeah. Pretty good."

"Yeah." Selah turned as Lee came down. Gordon made his way down after him, an improvised crutch under one arm. The heavyset Hybrid was moving with grim determination, his left arm in a sling across his chest. Both of them wore sunglasses and their arrival seemed to be a signal to the others in the hotel, who crowded in from the dining room and other parts to see them off.