The Children of the Sun (2 page)

“I believe you’re ready,” he said at last.

“Ready for what?”

“I’ve made you wait longer than I should have to visit one of our clubs, because I have a reputation to uphold and it wasn’t enough just to know that you could survive. I wanted you to be able to win, and I think you can now – at least against some of the younger fighters. You’re fast and strong, well ahead of where you should be at your age, but it’s not just that. You have a feel for it now. You’re creative and clever, and you act on instinct the way a fighter should.”

“Training is a filter for instinct. That’s what Stephen told me,” Two said.

“Exactly so.”

“When do I start?”

“The next session starts in two weeks. I would be happy to accompany you then. I’m curious to see how you’ll fare. I don’t think we’ve had anyone who has trained for so little time, but there’s never been a fledgling quite like you before, either.”

It was true; Theroen was the first of his kind, a vampire in which the three dominant strains had been reunited. He was neither Eresh, as he had once been, nor Ashayt, nor Ay’Araf. He was instead
Theroen-Sa
, a source vampire, and she was his first child:
Theroen-Chen
.

Two ran a hand through her unruly blonde hair. She had kept it short – about three inches – ever since Stephen had instructed her to cut it on the first night of her training. She smiled.

“OK, I’m in. What’s it going to be like?”

Jakob grinned. “One or more young Ay’Araf are going to try and prove that a pretty little baby vampire has no business in their ring. I expect you to make them beg for mercy.”

Two laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’ve no doubt that will be fine. I will send you an email with the date and directions to the club. Theroen is welcome to come if he’d like to spectate, but I’m afraid he won’t be allowed to fight without a sponsor.”

“I don’t think he fights unless he has to, anyway,” Two said.

“Very good. See you at our next practice?”

“Yes. Thanks, Jakob.”

The vampire nodded to her and turned to go. Two, who had managed to work up a thin sheen of sweat, tinged pink with the blood on which she now survived, headed for the showers.

* * *

“What have you done to yourself this time?” Theroen asked as Two took off her leather jacket and tossed it on a nearby chair. For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about, and then she remembered the large gash in her upper right arm. Some blood had seeped through the wrapping, forming a maroon splotch on her T-shirt. She glanced at it and grinned.

“Technically, Jakob did it to me,” she said. Theroen rolled his eyes, but that subtle smile she so adored remained on his lips.

“I am certain you in no way provoked him,” he said.

“Well maybe … but I won!” Two exclaimed. She raised her arms in a gesture of victory, then winced as a streak of pain ran through her wounded tricep.

Theroen’s smile became a momentary grin, and he nodded. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks. Now give me a kiss.” Two leaned over from behind him, her face upside-down, and pulled his lips against hers. Theroen kissed her, reaching up to cup the back of her head with his hand. After a moment they broke apart and Two moved toward the kitchen, grinning.

“Whatcha been up to?” she asked, pouring herself a glass of Bordeaux. Two had become a fan of the wine during her many evenings with Naomi, the vampire woman with whom she had shared a short but intense relationship in the months before Theroen had returned to life.

“Studying,” Theroen said.

“Oh, right.
Nan mivraten tah. Tah se posar
.”

“
Posir
. Unless you meant to say that the blood is fat …”

Two set her glass of wine down. She flopped onto the couch next to him, kicking off her shoes and putting her feet up on the lacquered coffee table.

“I haven’t really been keeping up with my lessons,” she said.

“My surprise is legendary,” Theroen replied, his voice dry. He placed a bookmark into his notebook and closed it, looking over at her with his luminescent, light-brown eyes. Two laughed and stuck her tongue out.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“If you insist. So, you beat Jakob and nearly lost an arm. Did anything else interesting happen?”

“Oh! I totally forgot. Jakob said I’m ready to fight at the clubs!”

Theroen pondered this for a moment before asking, “Is he sure?”

Two frowned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Theroen reached over, touched her hand, smiled at her. “I believe in your abilities, my love. But … Jakob is careful to make sure that he does not maim you. I worry that these others may be less cautious. I detest seeing you hurt.”

“I’m not a fan, either, but Jakob wouldn’t let me go if he didn’t think I was ready. It’s not like they’re going to put me up against the best guys or anything.”

“And this is something you want to do?”

“Totally. I want to go beat up some Ay’Araf. It’ll be fun. Will you come watch me?”

“Are you sure you want me there? I might be all atwitter from nerves,” Theroen said, glancing sidelong at her, and Two grinned.

“It would be so worth it just to see you … what’d you say? ‘All atwitter.’”

“Then I would be happy to attend.”

“Awesome.” Two leaned back, closing her eyes for a moment.

“Naomi called,” Theroen said. He was keeping his tone neutral, but Two could hear a certain cautiousness there. Theroen had never quite made peace with the knowledge that Two and Naomi had been in a relationship. It was one of the few areas in which it seemed she could genuinely hurt him if she wanted to – or even if she was simply careless.

“What’d she say?”

“She is going to be at
L’Obscurité
– how did she put it? – ‘annoying Thomas’ at around one. We are welcome to join her.”

“I don’t think she’s
ever
annoyed Thomas,” Two said.

“He seems quite fond of her,” Theroen agreed. “All the more so when one considers that he is an agent for a group of cultists who wish us all dead. It’s a remarkable acting job.”

“Not sure he’s acting … least, not about liking her,” Two replied.

“You may be right. At any rate, I am not against joining her for a drink.”

Two glanced at her watch. They had twenty minutes or so. “I could do that.”

L’Obscurité
, the Manhattan nightclub at which Two and Naomi had met, was a short walk from the apartment she shared with Theroen, and just across the street from Naomi’s own dwelling in the West Village. Thomas had been there for years, ostensibly serving as head bartender. In reality, he was a member of the Children of the Sun, a secretive cult of vampire hunters, and had been posted there to spy on Naomi. That she was also spying on him was something he either didn’t know or didn’t care about. Two was still not sure of the truth.

“Have we any plans for this week?” Theroen asked. He scratched at the back of his head, his fingers disappearing into his dark brown hair, still short but shaggier than when she had first met him, and stretched.

“Council meeting on Friday,” Two replied. Theroen sighed, frowning.

“I am growing to resent their schedule.”

“At least William usually keeps things short.”

“It is easy to do that when they never have any news about Tori.”

Two grimaced. Tori’s situation was a particular sore spot for her and Theroen both. Once upon a time the girl had been a vampire, Theroen’s “sister,” also sired by Abraham. Now she was mostly human again and working for the Children. Or at least, she had been; shortly after the council had begun investigating her actions, Tori had disappeared completely, and the abductions of Burilgi vampires had come to a halt.

“Yeah, it gets old,” Two said after a pause. She sipped her wine, felt Theroen’s eyes on her, and gave him a questioning look.

“They don’t care about her,” Theroen said.

“Some of them do. Naomi does. Jakob does.”

“No. They care about
you
, and so they make a token effort on her behalf, but most of them would be very glad indeed if she was gone for good.”

Two shrugged. “I guess I don’t see it that way.”

“I understand,” Theroen said. “They are your friends.”

“They could be
your
friends too, if you’d let them,” Two said. She heard the trace of acid in her voice but was powerless to stop it. Theroen tilted his head, saying nothing.

Two sighed, put her hand against her forehead for a moment, looked up at Theroen, and said, “It’s hard. She just vanished. What are they supposed to do?”

“I know you wish I was more social,” Theroen said.

“That’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Is it not?”

“We’re talking about Tori. I know you think they don’t care, but they do, even if only because they don’t want her to pop back up and start killing people. We still don’t know whatever happened to those Burilgi she took, but it’s not like they’ve come back.”

“No,” Theroen said. “They are surely dead. I know this troubles Jakob and Naomi, and I know that if given the opportunity to learn Tori’s whereabouts, they would take it, but I do not think we should mistake that for their caring about her. What do you suppose they would do to her should they find her?”

“If they find her guilty, they’ll try to kill her,” Two said. “I know that.”

“Try and succeed, I’m afraid, even with her gifts.”

“Who says they’ll find her guilty? They didn’t find
me
guilty, and I killed their boss.”

“You killed an evil psychopath who had been lording over them for centuries, and you did it for honorable reasons. For most vampires in this country, Abraham’s death was a blessing. Tori, on the other hand, has abducted two dozen innocent vampires and most likely murdered them.”

“We don’t know she killed them!” Two cried.

“The Tori I knew would have killed them.” Theroen said. He paused a moment and then continued. “I apologize, my love. I know I am upsetting you, but … these meetings frustrate me. I am torn between my desire to find out what has happened to my sister and my knowledge of what will happen when they finally hunt her down.”

Two leaned forward, setting her glass of wine on the coffee table, and turned sideways on the couch to look directly at her lover.

“That’s why I want you to be more social,” she said. Theroen raised his eyebrows at this, inviting her to elaborate, and so she continued. “It’s just politics. It’s all the bullshit I swore I would never get involved with. If it was just us, if we only had to worry about you and me, I wouldn’t care. I’d say ‘fuck the council’ and go
anywhere
, do
anything
. I’d leave it behind if that’s what you wanted. You know that.”

“I would never ask that of you,” Theroen said, and Two shook her head.

“No, I know. I’m just explaining. I like the people on the council, but that doesn’t mean you have to, and I wouldn’t care if they liked you except …”

“You hope that if they think favorably of us, they will be lenient with Tori,” Theroen finished for her.

“Yes. Exactly. They might at least give us time to try and explain what she’s been through and why they
should
be lenient. If we’re there for her she has a chance, but if we give up on the council and they do end up catching her … it’s all over.”

Theroen considered this in silence for a time, then he gave her a gentle smile. Leaning forward, he took her glass of wine from the coffee table, sipped from it, and set it back down.

“Let’s go be social,” he said.

* * *

The girl sitting at the bar looked too young to be drinking despite having celebrated her twenty-first birthday in the early seventeenth century. Naomi’s body had been frozen forever in time at the age of seventeen, but she had been alive now for just over four hundred years. Lithe and beautiful, with hair the color of honey and large grey eyes, Naomi had been an object of desire wherever she went for all of her long life. She had become an expert at withdrawing into the shadows in crowded places, staying largely unnoticed, but tonight she didn’t seem to care. When she saw Two and Theroen, she leapt to her feet, swaying noticeably and waving.

Two smiled, waved back, and made her way through the crowd. Naomi gave both Two and Theroen a brief hug and then sat back down, inviting them to do the same.

“It’s so good to see you!” she said, taking a long drink from her glass of wine.

“Nice to see you too,” Two said. “Been here long?”

Naomi shook her head. “Perhaps twenty minutes.”

“Cool.”

Thomas made his way over to them, standing behind the counter and smiling his brilliant smile. A tall, gorgeous man with skin the color of dark chocolate and a smoothly shaved head, Thomas reminded Two of the models she sometimes saw in fashion catalogs, skintight leather pants and overpriced T-shirt included. She gave him a small wave.