Saints of Evil | Trepidation Trilogy | The Empty World Sequence

Two

Stuck in Alexandria.  Nothing good to do.  Waiting for a plane, Mother had said.  Apparently certain parts of the world had a shortage of these vehicles.  They ought to ask the USNA for some, Trepidation thought as he sucked in smoke.  Americans are always so willing to help their pitiful human brethren across the ocean, eager even, much more so than they were to help their fellow Americans.

     At least he'd get to see his father again.  When they found a plane in this lugubrious place then they'd fly to Poland.  Trip had been almost happy at the thought of going back to Berlin, but Mother had told him Father had moved to Poland again.  Father was usually pretty kewl. Well, when he was around. The vampires called him Sweet.  Trip never called his father Sweet, it sounded pretty kinky to him, that name.

     The door opened.  Yellow light fell on Trepidation.  "Verdammte Scheiße!" he coughed.

     "Don't you curse at me—Are you still smoking those marijuana cigarettes?"

     "Ja," Trip sighed.

     "We're going to church, you want to come to church?"  David was behind her.  They were dressed all in black, very formal. 

     "Church?  You never go to church."

     "Well, this is Alexandria, everyone goes here, I thought I would try it.  At least get out of bed.  You can lay in bed all day and night and be in New York.  Do you want to go back there?"

     "I'm not going to church."

     The door was shut.  Trepidation flicked off the door.  The crunch of cigarette ground into glass.  Trepidation ran his fingers up through his stiff hair, scanned the surfaces of the room for clothing.  It was all black, not so much by choice.  They'd dressed him in what they could fit him in as a baby, and the vampires had all worn black.  Now Trepidation just seemed to gravitate toward the color, toward its absoluteness, its darkness. 

     He pulled on a few wrinkled dusty pieces of cotton, stepped into a pair of boots some soldier had probably died in.  The war had ended when he was still a kid, but, in the family, the people, clothes were passed down and shared.  The Goths, the vampires, all his mother and father's people had worn clothing salvaged from battlefields.  Trip opened the window and jumped into the night.

     There was a slight staleness, a scent that Trip knew came from him, because the open air outside was so beachy.  But he guessed it might only be the clothes.  He didn't smell much, didn't have that animal smell that the humans did.  It kept him slovenly, this knowledge, and it had made certain visiting vampires ask his mother and her maker if Grunge weren't coming back. 

     Trepidation walked over the wide walkway of pebble, sand and shell.  He noticed this, but not much else, though he knew somewhere inside his mind that the Capital and Haven of Alexandria was supposed to be one big modern wonder of the world.  He walked up the stairs to the library, not really caring that it was the library, but not wanting to go back toward the church. 

     A familiar sound, as if in greeting.  Trepidation had come to associate this close plastic sound with his mother.  Fingers tapping at a keyboard.  These were always much more popular than the weird silent boards, the sound helped you count characters.  Trepidation followed the tapping and came close.  It was just the other side of these shelves, and Trip peered between the spaces books were missing from wanting to see who was making this sound.

     He found a way through and walked slowly along the tall case of shelves watching the dark-haired human man he approached.  The man went tense, it killed Trip's spirit.  He'd seen this happen so many times before.  This was the other thing Mother never talked about: the obvious fact that Trepidation's proximity frightened people, and he was not in control of it.  The man scried into the black parts of the monitor before him and a smile flickered over Trepidation's lips as he realized the man was hunting a reflection.