J. London - After Daybreak

Victor spins away from us, an angry flash, and I know guilt is gnawing at him. “We can’t leave it standing so Sin can create more monsters.”

“I agree, but we’ve only got enough gasoline to get us back to Denver,” Jeff says reasonably. “It seems to me that our best plan is to get our butts back home, regroup, and figure out how we’re going to stop Sin.”

Victor gazes out the window. The sky is beginning to lighten. Soon it’ll be daybreak. He’ll have to retreat into the shadows.

Finally, he turns to face us. “You’re right. Going to Los Angeles right now isn’t the answer.”

“I’m not comfortable heading out until the sun sets again,” Jeff says. “If we get jumped by Sin or his Day Walkers, I want to make sure Victor can help us.”

I can tell that Victor is anxious to get on the road, but he also recognizes the wisdom of Jeff’s plan. He nods.

“You can stay in that back room,” Dr. Jameson says to Victor. “It’s angled so the sun can’t get in.”

“You are very kind,” he says.

“I’m going to check on the car,” Jeff says.

“I’ll help you,” Michael offers. As he’s heading for the door, Victor pulls Michael aside quickly.

“Thank you,” Victor says.

Michael comes up short. “For what?”

“For going back to protect Dawn in Los Angeles. She told me—”

“It’s my job.”

“You made it your job.”

I think about Michael jumping off the train as it was leaving Los Angeles. He was seconds away from being free. Instead, he leapt into a swarm of vampires for me, knowing that he would probably die.

Victor’s right. Michael didn’t have to do anything. But he chose to. And that makes all the difference.

“Yeah, well,” Michael says, “just know if you ever hurt her, I’ll stake you.”

“If I ever hurt her, I’d want you to.”

I can tell that Michael doesn’t know what to say to that. I don’t either. Vampires aren’t supposed to feel emotions, aren’t supposed to love, but from the beginning I’ve known that Victor isn’t an ordinary vampire.

After they’ve left, I pull Victor into the room without windows, the place where Michael and I slept on separate cots. But Victor and I lie together on the one farthest from the doorway, where the sunlight stops as though it knows it’s not welcome in this tiny space. I can hear Dr. Jameson and George moving around, helping to get things ready for our departure.

Victor cradles my face, looks deeply into my eyes. I see the sadness and guilt in his. “He told you, didn’t he? Sin told you everything about the V-Process.”

I nod slowly. “The Victor Process. It was your creation.”

“You have to understand, Dawn, at each city we conquered, the citizens were given a choice, turn or be killed. Immortality as a slave or death now. Most chose to be turned. The V-Process made it merciful and quick. But I came to regret it. So many Lessers were turned, more than we could expect a human population to sustain. It’s the reason people were herded into cities, walled in. So we could control our blood supply and stop our Lessers from rising up.”

“But how could you have thought this was a good idea for humans?”

“I saved millions.”

“You turned them.”

“They would have been slaughtered, Dawn.”

“Look at what you’ve sown, Victor. If there weren’t so many vampires, we wouldn’t have a blood shortage. There wouldn’t be the Thirst!”

“I had to,” he says, containing his frustrations. “Humans were to be killed en masse. Women, children, men. The end goal, Dawn, was a world of a few thousand humans. That’s all. A few thousand . That’s all we needed to sustain a blood farm, to keep the Old Family vampires fed. Our armies of Lessers would starve until they were too weak to defend themselves, and then we would kill them too—their task complete.”

“How did you convince them to change their plans?”

“By lying,” Victor says. “I told them that the humans were too strong, putting up too much of a resistance. I told them that the easiest way to increase our numbers was by turning humans into vampires against their will. I . . . I preyed on your species’ fear of death, how closely it clutches its precious, fragile life. I knew that given the choice between death and immortality, people would choose immortality, no matter what strings were attached. When the war hadn’t yet reached a city, when the citizens saw it on television, they could hold high ideals and say, ‘No! I would never convert! I will never be a vampire.’ But when the walls fall down and we’re marching through the streets and their families are taken away, crying and scared, that’s when humans finally give in. It’s inevitable.”

Does he think this way about me? That I’m so easily broken?

“You’re wrong,” I say. “We humans are destined to die, which means we’re willing to do it for a cause.”

“I know,” he says. “I couldn’t stand by and watch everyone throw their lives away, because I know how short they are, and that makes each moment, each human heartbeat so precious. Without the V-Process, the war would have lasted decades longer, maybe centuries as we hunted down the remaining humans. By turning many, I saved so many more. The war was shortened, and lives were spared. You have to believe me, Dawn.”

What is there to say? I do believe him. He always said he felt like a monster, and I see why now: because his grand scheme turned millions. But it was all for one purpose: to save as many humans as possible. Would I have done any different?

“What about your father?” I ask. “What did he think of your plans?”

“Oh, Father loved them. I found a way for us to achieve complete vampire domination easily and quickly. It sickens me now to think that I ever did anything to make him proud. He hated humans.”

“Why?”

“Like most vampires, he could never find beauty in the world. He never saw the splendor of a flower or the wonder of a single shooting star. With his many years of living, these things were nothing more than facts and phenomena. Whenever he saw a human gazing up at the sky or holding a handful of sand, contemplating the aeons it took to whittle the stone down to these grains, he grew envious. Without beauty, he could live forever and never really live at all.”

“And you, Victor, do you see beauty in this world?”

“I spent my whole life looking for it. But I never expected to find it. I especially didn’t expect to find it trapped in a trolley car on a bad night after going to a party.”

I smile with the bittersweet memory. I was the one cornered by starving vampires in a trolley car on a bad night after going to a party. That was the first time he rescued me. I know he isn’t a monster, no matter what else happens or happened in his life.

I remember he once told me that he had created the world around us. I place my hand over his heart, am aware of its steady thumping. “You’re not responsible for this world, Victor. Humans, vampires, we all had a role in creating it. And even after everything I’ve learned, you showed me that not all vampires are monsters. And that’s so important.” I feel tears burning my eyes and I blink them back. “More than you realize.”

He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “What else happened in that damn mountain, Dawn? Is it the one you were dreaming about?”

Nodding, I bury my face against his chest, not ready to deal with that reality. He pulls me in close, holds me tightly. I inhale his spicy scent, absorb his warmth, draw strength from his comfort. I can’t believe that while we were apart, visiting each other through dreams, I had considered they might prove a way for us to be together. Nothing is better than his solid form holding me near, nothing can beat his actual presence.