I Am Forever (What Kills Me) Read online

  The creature snapped at my face.

  “NO!”

  I put my fingers in its mouth and it sank its teeth down to the bone. With a cry I tore its jaw off. It didn’t even scream, just reeled away. I scrambled back against a dresser, and a lamp smashed and fell to the ground. Still blind, I felt around until my hand closed around a shard of glass. I stood and the creature crashed into me, a storm of claws and teeth. As we slammed into the wall, it stabbed its talons into the back of my shoulders, the pain hot and intense. I drove the shard in between its ribs. We fell together.

  Laughter. I heard a low, hoarse cackle and when I looked toward the sound, I saw eyes. Blood red. And then they were gone.

  The monster was shaking me. It was talking. No. It had Lucas’s voice.

  Lucas.

  Suddenly, there was light. Lucas was crouched over me and I was twisted under him, mid-struggle.

  What? What’s going on?

  “Zee! Stop!” Lucas shouted. “Stop. You’re all right.”

  “Where is it?” I cried. “Where did it go?”

  “Calm down. You were dreaming.”

  “No, th-there was something in my room. Where is it?”

  “You were having a nightmare, my lady,” Uther said. He clutched the belt of his robe, eyes wide. A row of soldiers stood beside him, their gloved hands on the handles of their swords.

  “What...?” I blinked to clear the fog in my head.

  Lucas rose and helped me to my feet. Then he staggered back. He had blood on his hands.

  “Lucas, you’re bleeding!”

  “I’m fine.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “What happened?”

  Wincing, Lucas lifted his shirt and seemed to yank at the skin on his abdomen; he threw a piece of glass to the ground.

  The shard of glass. I put that in the monster. The monster is Lucas? No, wait.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Did I do that to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “In my sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I swear, there was something in my room and then someone else who was watching. I heard them. I felt them.”

  I reached around to rub my shoulder, searching for bloody punctures. No wound. I looked down at my rumpled dress, stained with sweat. I turned my hands over and searched for scratches. “There was something here. It was so real.”

  A chunk of the bed frame had splintered off. Chairs and tables were overturned. One of the doors had come off its hinges. Water from the vase, now broken, dribbled from the table to the floor.

  “Did I do all this?”

  “You had some help,” Lucas said.

  Uther nodded. “The swordsmith and the maids tried to wake you from your nightmare.”

  Oh no. “Did...did I hurt them?”

  “They will be all right,” Uther replied.

  Under the light the confusion dissipated and guilt swept in. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Lucas, are you okay?”

  “I’ve healed already, so don’t give it another thought.”

  I put my hands up as if I was facing a squadron of armed officers. “Sorry, everyone.”

  “Please leave us,” Uther ordered. The Aramatta filed out without a second glance.

  I plucked a few feathers stuck to my clothing. A cushion had been gutted and its fluffy innards were strewn all over the bed and floor. Lucas placed a hand on my still trembling shoulder. His fingers touched where the creature had pierced me with its nails.

  “You were stuck in a very bad dream, my lady,” Uther said.

  “I’ve never had a nightmare like that before,” I said. “Usually I dream that I’m horribly late for a final exam and I can’t find the classroom. But there were monsters. One was attacking me and biting me and I couldn’t get away. It was so real.”

  The creature’s fetid blood still lingered in my nose. It made me nauseous. I sank down onto the once-beautiful bed.

  “You’ve also never been through the kind of trauma that you’ve experienced,” Uther said. “Nightmares are normal. I’m going to arrange that you see Doctor Femi. You might really benefit from talking to her about what you’re going through.”

  “Is Doctor Femi a therapist?”

  “Yes. She’s wonderful.”

  “Okay.”

  “We should also have you pay a visit to Doctor Vosper for a quick medical checkup to make sure you are in good health.”

  “Sure.”

  “Good then. I will go and make arrangements and speak to the Empress’s staff.” Uther patted my back.

  “I’m not making a good case for myself, am I? Being a house guest from hell.”

  “My lady, the Monarchy is only concerned with your safety and well-being.”

  “Thanks, Uther.”

  “Try to get some rest, my lady.”

  “Yeah, I’ve given up the whole sleeping thing. It’s overrated.”

  “I will return shortly. If there is anything you need, just call for one of the maids.”

  “I don’t know how eager they’ll be to come in here after what’s happened.”

  “We are all here to serve,” Uther said with a bow before leaving.

  “I’m not,” Lucas said. He sat on the bed beside me. “But apparently I’m here to be your pin cushion.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m teasing you.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair. “What happened?”

  “You fell asleep while the cleric was trying to convince me to give you space. I refused and ended up resting on the couch in your room. Then you started sleepwalking and screaming.”

  “I was standing up?”

  “Yes, you threw a maid through the door.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. And anyone who touched you.”

  “Were my eyes open?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I tried to wake you.”

  “Then I stabbed you?”

  “Well, you did that after.”

  “After what?”

  “After a struggle. Let’s just say that I learned very quickly that I could never fight you.”

  I slapped my hands to my face. I wanted to fold into myself and disappear. I’m dangerous. This is partly why the Monarchy hunted me in the first place. They feared that I would be out of control and murderous. The Empress would have something to say about this. Maybe this was enough proof that I could not be free.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this.” Lucas pulled my hands away from my face. “You’ve done enough beating up today,” he added with a wink.

  “Seriously. I hit something so hard that my hand was sore.”

  He slid his thumb into my palm and massaged my hand. “You’re all right?” he asked.

  “Mmhmm,” I murmured.

  I turned my hands to feel him trace my skin with his fingertips. He grazed the inside of my wrist and the pleasure radiated up my arm and into my core.

  “Thanks for waking me up,” I said.

  “Thanks for not killing me in your sleep.”

  “That’s not even funny.”

  “They have cameras in your room. You could probably ask to see the whole thing.”

  “No, I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. Hey...I didn’t...I didn’t pull off anyone’s lower jaw, did I?”

  “What? No.”

  “Okay, thank goodness.”

  He put one of his hands protectively over his mouth and I laughed. Our knees touched and I was suddenly aware of how close we were.

  “You know, Zee,”—he had lowered his voice to a whisper—“we can go, anytime you want.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “The world is a very big place.”

  “When?”

  “How about now?”

  I pictured us slashing at soldiers and shoving maids aside as we raced through the castle. I pictured the Empr
ess screaming at us and sending more vampires after us.

  “It just doesn’t seem like the right time,” I said. “I feel like we need to stay until—until everyone is comfortable with the idea of me.”

  “The Monarchy isn’t the place for us. You’ll see. We can’t trust them.”

  Uther appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat. Lucas slipped off the bed.

  “The Empress would like a word with you, my lady,” Uther said.

  I swallowed. A sliver of fear embedded itself in my mind.

  “Uh, is she upset?”

  “Upset?”

  “About my nightmares.”

  “No, of course not. She wants to show you something.”

  “It better not be a cage.”

  The Empress was a shadow against a massive, glowing flat screen. It was split into dozens of rectangles showing surveillance and hand-held footage. Violence. Explosions. Fallen soldiers.

  “Empress,” I said.

  We were separated by a long, oval glass table. I could not see her face against the glare of the videos. But I could see her eyes in the dimly lit room. How they glowed. It reminded me of my dream, and it lifted the hairs off my arm.

  “My lady,” she said.

  “Uther said that you wanted to see me.”

  “Are you well, my lady?”

  “Yes.”

  “The cleric has been tending to your needs?”

  “Yes, Uther has always been good to me.”

  She walked around the table, her movement slow and smooth, as if she was moving through water. It was hypnotic. She wore a skintight, sequined silver dress with an intricate pattern of gold jewels on the front; it looked like she was wearing a medieval suit of armor.

  “My lady, the cleric told me that you had a troubling dream.”

  Swallowing thickly, I nodded. This is where you say you’re troubled that I tore the room apart and tossed your maids around like dolls.

  “It must have been terribly frightening,” she said. “I am saddened to hear that you suffered such discomfort. I too have bad dreams sometimes.”

  Surprised, I could only say, “Oh.”

  “I have bad dreams after we lose our children.”

  I had a hard time imagining the Empress waking up in a sweat over dead vampires, especially when she regularly ordered the execution of so many.

  The Empress turned to face the screen. “My lady, these images are of the battles we’ve fought around the world. We have had peace and order for centuries, but in the last few decades a small number of our children have taken it upon themselves to make war. The terrorists are determined to undo millennia of history and tradition.”

  Terrorists. She means the rebels. It was hard for me to think of Samira as a terrorist.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I believe them to be driven by an insatiable lust for power. They fight against everything that we believe in, everything that is sacred. They reject our laws. They deny the Sacriva, and claim that all of the book’s prophecies are lies. And look, here you stand before me as the Sacriva foretold.”

  She gazed at the screen, her expression blank.

  In one video, a masked vampire tossed a lit match, igniting a pile of beheaded bodies dressed in blue cleric robes.

  “I refrain from saying this publicly to avoid spreading the terrorists’ message of fear and hate,” she said, “but the Monarchy has suffered many losses. Key leaders, including elders and our former general, are gone.”

  I wasn’t sorry about the general. I was sorry about Noel, Jerome, Kinman—our contact in Taiwan—and even Nuwa.

  “The terrorists perceive this as weakness,” she continued. “We must show a strong face. We must remind everyone of what is at stake and what we are fighting for. We fight for you, my lady. We fight for life.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “We are all your children. We are your family. And your family will look to you for strength and protection. You must stand up and take your rightful place. The terrorists battle for supremacy, but that cannot be had. That right is yours and yours alone.”

  Supremacy?

  “We sent a message to the population that all must worship you. The terrorists have already responded.”

  All the individual videos changed to the same feed. It showed two figures wearing white masks and black hoods. They stood motionless, their arms limp at their sides.

  A deep voice filled the room. The sound was warped but the words were clear. “To the enslaved vampires of the world, do not be further deceived. The Monarchy dangles a false god before you.”

  In the video, the masked figures parted to reveal a vampire with dark hair. She appeared to be about my age. She looked vaguely like me. Across her forehead someone had written “false idol” in black marker. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and red tears streamed and pooled under her trembling, puckered chin.

  “The false god will not protect you. The false god will not save you,” the voice warned. “All who align themselves with her will suffer.”

  One of the masked vampires grabbed her hair. The other gripped the victim by her face, burrowing his fingers under her chin. Her eyes flew open and her lips stretched away from her teeth in a scream. The vampire then tore the skin from her skull.

  I gasped and jerked my head.

  The voice dropped an octave. “We will expose the false god for what she is.”

  My eyes migrated cautiously back to the screen. Oh my God. The bloody, horrific skull. The whites of her bulging eyeballs and her jaws. She was convulsing, still alive. The masked vampires wagged the pelt at the camera.

  The Empress did not appear affected.

  Monsters.

  “They reject your power.” She turned to face me. “The night after tomorrow we will have a ritual ceremony at midnight to install you as the First, the Divine. We will give this world a vision of power that will inspire the faithful and strike fear in nonbelievers. Will you take your position, my lady, as our Supreme Being and stand for us all?”

  My mouth went dry. I couldn’t handle the magnitude of what she was asking.

  How could I trust the Empress and the Monarchy after all they had done? They had killed vampires that I cared about. They had tried to kill me. And now they wanted me to join them.

  I couldn’t ignore the fact that we were connected. The moment I cut myself in that ballroom, everything had changed. In an instant the Monarchy was painfully aware of how dependent they were on me for survival. I was somebody—somebody powerful. And the Empress wanted to recognize that.

  I just had to let her.

  If I could live up to that role, I could use that power to keep others safe. I thought of Lucas and how much I wanted to protect him. I wanted to stand for him.

  “What do I need to do?”

  The Empress stared into my eyes. “You must be a leader. You must behave like a pillar of strength and power. You must put the needs of the nation ahead of your own. The terrorists will try to dethrone you, but you must stand up to them and protect your children. You must be the Divine.”

  I had no clue how to be the Divine.

  I had just learned how to be a vampire. How could I act strong when I was having crazy visions and nightmares? And when did I become the archenemy to the rebels, who had helped me survive when I was on the run from the Monarchy? Unless the video was a fake meant to scare me. But why would the Empress do that?

  I pressed my shoulders down and showed a brave face to Uther and Lucas, who were waiting down the hall.

  “Everything all right?” Lucas asked.

  I nodded. “Did you hear anything that we said?”

  “It was just murmurs. What did she say?”

  I didn’t know where to begin. I needed to sort out the information before I explained it to Lucas—preferably in private. “Um, it was...more of the same—vamps worshipping me, et cetera.”

  Uther gestured down a hallway. “You have a scheduled visit with the doctor Vos
per now to ensure that you are at peak physical shape.”

  It had been a while since my last checkup. My older sister, Tiffany, visited our family doctor regularly because of her diabetes, but I was always reluctant to go.

  “I’m kind of scared of doctors,” I whispered to Lucas as we followed Uther through the halls.

  “I don’t particularly like them either,” he said.

  Uther stopped in front of a set of doors. “Please walk through the apothecary and through the main doors,” he said. “I will be waiting here when you are finished. Don’t worry, my lady, it’s simply a routine examination.”

  In the apothecary gray cabinets with marble-sized gold knobs were stacked several stories high; beyond hundreds of little glass doors sat tin canisters or glass jars with strange, gnarled things floating in liquid. Lucas and I walked around display cases containing golden scales, pipes, and various pointy tools.

  “Uther said it’s just a routine checkup. But they’re obviously not going to check my heartbeat or my cholesterol. What else is there to do?”

  “I don’t know. How routine is an examination of a god?”

  He said the last word so disparagingly. “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm,” I said.

  He stopped mid-stride. “The sarcasm wasn’t meant for you. It was directed at them. This whole god thing is absurd.”

  Ouch. “Fine,” I said, even more hurt by the latter part of his comment.

  “Hey. As I said, we can leave here whenever you want. You’re in charge, okay, boss lady?”

  I forced a smile. “Okay.”

  “Come on. Let’s get this over with. It’ll be all right. I’ll be beside you the entire time.”

  Lucas opened the doors to a bright, all-white lobby. A vampire with a chin-strap beard shot out of his seat behind a glass reception table and pounded his fist to his chest. “My lady,” he said. “The doctor is waiting for you in room eight.”

  I was thankful that I didn’t breathe; the air reeked of rubbing alcohol and bleach. We walked down the stark hall. I knocked on a door marked “VIII” and turned the knob.