After Daybreak Part 4

"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 mea""

"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 s.p.a.ce. 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 ma.s.se. 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 tooa"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 d.a.m.n 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.

"Dawn . . ."

I'm still not ready. I may never be. Besides, Victor and I have bigger problems facing us now. Sin's army marching across the plains and deserts, destroying cities in its path, has nothing to do with what he told me in that mountain. What I saw there, what I learned, can wait.

Or maybe I'm just scared of what Victor will say.

"Just what Michael told everyone."

Victor brushes my cheek again, maybe knowing that I'm lying but not willing to push.

"What do you know about the vampire Sin drank from?" he asks.

I shrug. "Not much. His name was Octavian. He was Old Family. And ancient."

"Why do I get the sense that you're not telling me everything?"

I snuggle closer to him. "I'm tired."

"I won't push you, Dawn, but I want you to know that there isn't anything you can't tell me."

Maybe so, but there are some things that I'm not ready to tell him, because once the words are spoken, I won't be able to take them back.

Chapter 4.

Victor is eventually pulled into sleep. I know how difficult it is for vampires to stay awake during the day. It's one of their vulnerabilities.

Once the sun is high and I hear more activity going on beyond the building, I decide to do a little exploring. Now that I know the truth of it, I want to observe this fascinating town more closely.

Outside, Jeff is going over the car again with one of Crimson Sands's citizens. He's wearing a plaid s.h.i.+rt, covered with dust and oil, his hands deep within the car's engine searching for something.

"Hey," Jeff says to me. "Michael is around back, looking at the windmill. He wanted to see you when you got up."

"Thanks. Is the car okay?"

"No problem. Just tightening a few screws."

He smiles. He looks so natural here. Maybe I can bring a little bit of that back with us.

The windmill is easy enough to find, and when I approach it, I'm surprised by how large the housing is. It whooshes with an oddly beautiful sound, a music made by man but composed by nature. Inside, the wooden slats are separated enough to let through beams of light. Standing beside a woman in overalls, Michael watches the turning gears and cylinders.

"All the water comes from here," she says, her hair tied in a handkerchief to keep it away from her eyes. "We pump it up from the ground."

Michael shakes his head in astonishment.

"It's really something else," I say, wandering over.

"You can say that again," he says. "This is Laura. She's been giving me the grand tour. And look."

He points upward at the complex machinery. Ma.s.sive wooden gears, creaking and moaning, turn as the wind blows, compelling other gears to s.h.i.+ft and wooden pistons to move. It's amazing.

"Couldn't have done it without our vamps," Laura says. "No way we could lift these things up, but we carved it during the day, and at night Charles, our vamp mechanic, was able to place them with a little help."

"You would have had to build an entire machine just to build this one," Michael says.

The woman nods. "Yup. But not with the vamps around. We all donated a little extra blood to show our appreciation, had a small party at night once the water started pumping."

The gears mesh together and turn. I envision the human and vampire hands that crafted them also turning together, changing things for the better. So that all might live.

Later, we go to the donation site. A clean, sterile room, in a building separate from the infirmary. Dr. Jameson is inside, and so are ten other people! Ten! In a city of thousands like Denver, we're lucky if we can pull five a day.

"Is it always this crowded?" I ask her, somewhat in jest.

"Usually we have three to four."

"But after last night," a boy says, needle in his arm, bag filling with his blood, "we all wanted to chip in extra."

"You mean the raiders?"

"Yeah," says the man sitting beside the boy. "It isn't the first time our vamps have saved our b.u.t.ts."

"And it won't be the last," another chimes in. "And if any vampire hunters are thinking about coming this way, they'll have to deal with us first. No one messes with us."

Us. Humans and vampires.

For the rest of the day we walk through the town, including the cla.s.sroom where the kids are taught and the tiny workshop where sc.r.a.ps are made into things that keep the place running.

"It's amazing," I say to Michael as we sit on a bench, drinking lemonade that a freckle-faced girl with braids brought us. "Just amazing."

He nods. "I thought Los Angeles had it figured out, you know? With the walls and how no one bowed down to Lord Carrollton. But it was just an illusion. They were all Day Walkers in the Inner Ring, helpless humans in the Outer. But this place is doing it right."

I wish Mom and Dad could see it. This is the kind of world they wanted but never had a chance to see.

It's late afternoon when I return to where Victor is sleeping. I want to get in a few hours of rest before we leave. When I burrow in against his side, his arm comes around me and I drift off.

When I wake up, the room is still shadowed and I watch the sunlight slowly arc across the floor, turning from yellow to orange to something even darker, as if fighting the night itself. It's a losing battle of course.

I find that this is the moment I've always loved, the turning of the earth, the setting of the sun, the precipice between day and night. It feels like infinite moments and possibilities are in those last drops of sun color. When I was a little girl, I'd watch the sun from my balcony until my mom got tired of calling my name and pulled me inside. It felt like she was tearing me away from some great secret, some holy excitement.

Victor is behind me now, his arms wrapped around me, his hands just above my own. Doesn't this mean something, the fact that we can lie in complete silence and enjoy every second of it? There is more truth in this silence than in hours of discussion with a stranger.

I close my eyes, fantasizing about Crimson Sands and making my life here with Victor. Why not? They've made it work; they've even thrived. Why not us? They'd be glad to have a vampire as powerful as Victor, lucky to have such a terrifying presence on their side, watching over them. And I have extensive knowledge of vampires, more than most will possess in several lifetimes. After all, it's supposedly in my blood.

We would build our own house, and in that house we could be like this every night, watching the sun slowly descend, its rays a beautiful theater for us to enjoy. And the sound of rare desert rains on our roof, the feel of it on our skin . . .

I want that so badly that it hurts sometimes, because it can never be. Not with Sin so close.

I can't put into words the anger I feel toward that monster. He took Brady, he killed my parents. Now he's taking my future. This new war has just begun, and I'm on the front lines with no guarantee I'll make it back. There's even less of a guarantee that all those I love will survive.

Those are the infinite possibilities in the sun painting across the floor, slowly disappearing from sight. The possibilities of victory over Sin. The possibilities of death for all of us. It's real and tangible now, and as Victor squeezes me, I know he's realizing the same thing. This moment, so precious and rare, must be enjoyed because it may never happen again. Once we step outside, once we go to Denver, what awaits us?

The sunlight disappears and softer light takes its place, the glow provided by the kerosene lamps in the house.

"I like it here," I say quietly.

"Maybe we'll come back someday," Victor says.

"They're an example of how humans and vampires can live together. We can learn from them, Victor."

"The lessons will have to wait until we've dealt with Sin."

Rolling off the cot, Victor takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. He touches my cheek, gazes into my eyes. "I'll do everything I can to give you the kind of world you dream of."

Before I can respond, he's walking from the room. I'm not sure what I would have said. His words have left me speechless.