Rachel Caine: Last Breath

“Oh, this is good,” Eve said. “I’m putting down a bet that it’s a parade float.”

“Not taking that one,” Shane said. “Hey, do we get cool shotguns?”

“No,” Amelie said, and made a sharp, military gesture. “With me. And stay close.”

There is a certain freedom in giving up all hope. One is no longer bound by the cords of dread or fear; you simply move toward the inevitable without thinking on the consequences.

I knew that we would not escape the draug; that much, history had taught me. I’d seen entire vampire clans vanish—drawn, drowned, drained. I’d seen the mightiest and most clever of our kind brought to ruin; the more vampires fought, the more draug swarmed, until all was lost.

So why was I driving toward what was certainly going to be my doom? Perhaps only to stop running from it. It had been following me a long time—all my life—like a dark and lengthy shadow, and perhaps Claire had been right from the beginning: perhaps it was time to stop and draw a line, and hold it.

Even if there was no chance of winning.

I had lost so many whom I cared for, over the years; losing was the natural state of existence for one like me. But Morganville . . . Morganville was a special thing, a creation unlike anything in the rest of the world, and I did not think I had the strength, nor the courage, to build it again, somewhere else, only to see it fall and shatter again.

I was the Founder of Morganville, and maybe it was fit that I should end my days here, after all.

“Left,” Claire said. She pointed, and I turned the wheel of the Bloodmobile in that direction. Myrnin had made an excellent choice, I thought, in liberating the large black vehicle; it had ample room inside for any we could rescue, and two large coolers well stocked with human blood. If we could, in truth, drag any vampires from the water, they’d be mad with hunger.

Of course, the chances of any rescue were remarkably small, but it felt right to be prepared. One should not go to one’s doom without a proper effort. It was a bother that these young people, with all their short lives ahead of them, should be so willing to throw them away, but that could be said of any soldier in any war.

And we were at war. One we would inevitably lose.

I had not properly appreciated how much Morganville had changed in the past few days; I had spent too much time walled up in my office, hiding from the truth. A fight was under way between the Morganville police and a ragged band of human opponents, who were surprisingly holding their own. There were no businesses open in town, not even one. All was dark, closed, abandoned.

Dead.

Human habitations still burned lights, and I expected that inside them families huddled, terrified and waiting for some kind of rescue; morning would dawn soon, and they would prepare to go to Founder’s Square, where they’d been promised what they’d always craved.

Freedom.

I would not be there to see their betrayal. I mourned the fact of it, and the necessity, but at least I would pay for it with my life. That was a kind of redemption, wasn’t it?

The closer we drew to the old Civic Pool, the quieter Morganville became. Lights still burned in homes, but in many the doors were open, the inhabitants lured away, or worse. It was as if this part of the town was dead and already rotting away. Myrnin’s machine produced a steady, low-level humming that was maddening in its monotony, but it did block the eerie, seductive call of the draug.

For now.

“Can you still hear it?” Claire asked me. She was sitting down on the bench seat behind us, while Myrnin had taken the passenger position to my right. “I can’t. Is it still there?”

“Oh yes,” I said. There were hints of sound breaking through the interference, random wails and whispers, but not enough to create a hold on us. But, I reminded myself, we were still not face-to-face with the draug, or with Magnus himself. That would make things much more dangerous. “If you begin to hear it, tell me immediately.”

“We have these,” Claire said, and held up a pair of blue earplugs. “They worked before.”

“They might not now,” Myrnin said. “The draug’s call gets stronger and louder as they grow, and I can promise you, they are growing. You have silver weapons in that bag, I assume?”

“Yep,” Shane said. He unzipped it and threw a fencing épée to Eve, who snatched it out of the air with the panache of someone who had seen far too many films in which the heroes lived. He took out bottles and put them in his pockets, handed more to Claire, and finally drew out silver-coated stakes. “The crossbows won’t work, too much force. It goes straight through them, right? Not enough damage.”

“Correct,” I said. “Their substance is deceptively soft, and anything moving at high velocity, unless it spreads, will only slow them down. To stop a draug, you must cut or stab them with silver that stays in place for at least a few seconds for it to take effect. They will collapse and flee in liquid form to escape it. But don’t touch them even then. In liquid form, they have tiny needles which can pierce skin.”

What I did not say, and could not, was that the vampires in the pool were not submerged in water—or not wholly in it. The draug entered the water and dispersed, and fed, then emerged again. The pool would be swarming with the things, invisible and deadly.

And there was very little that could stop them that would not also kill the vampires we sought to rescue. Vampire and draug shared a common root, in the dim mists of time. We had taken very different paths, but had some vulnerabilities in common, still. Had there been no vampires in the pool, we could have poisoned it with silver; at the very least, it would have forced them out and on land, where we would have the advantage.

But this was far worse.

“How are we going to get them out?” Claire asked. “They’re tied or something, down at the bottom.”

“Someone will have to dive in and free them,” I said.

“Guess that’s me,” Shane said, leaning forward. “Take a right up here. We’re almost there.”

“Why you?” Claire asked, frowning. “I could—”

“Swim team in high school,” Shane said. “I can dive, too. I can stay down longer than you.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Eve asked me. “Vampires don’t need to breathe.”

“There are draug in the water. A vampire who goes in . . . is not likely to come out without help.”

“See?” Shane said. “My job. You guys just hold them off.”

It wasn’t going to be so simple, but his principle was correct, and there was no reason to cast pessimism on our cause now. We were committed.

Freedom in abandoning hope, indeed.

There was one still-working streetlight here, and I parked the Bloodmobile as close as I could to the curb underneath it. Light mattered little to me or to Myrnin, but it would be important for our human friends, if we were able to emerge from this place. I turned the engine off. Even with the constant humming cycle of Myrnin’s tone generator, the call of the draug was there, pulling inside me like a faint whispering shadow. I could resist it, but it stained the world around me with its desperation.

“Myrnin and I will go first,” I said. “We will clear a path and hold it for you. Eve and Claire, you will hold the rear against any who try to come from outside to attack. Shane, when we clear the way to the pool, you will dive in and begin to cut the captives free. You’ll have to drag them up and out of the water, one at a time. Get as many out as you can.” I hesitated, then said, “You’ll feel a burning sensation. That will be the draug draining you. It will weaken you quickly. Be careful.”