Page 12 of Fallen Thorns
“I understand this is a lot to take in, but I’m here now. We’re all here and we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We’ll get through this together.”
All I did was blink. For a good ten seconds.
“Arlo? Did you hear me? We can help you. You aren’t alone here. You never have to be.”
“I’m...” I gulped. “So, I really did die then?”
Mars nodded. “Sort of.”
“And I’m a...”
“Honestly, I’ve been one for almost a decade and it still sounds silly to say it out loud, but yes. You are a creature of the night. One who feeds upon life’s vital source. An immortal cursed with the burden of an unbeating heart.” They flashed their human looking teeth, raising their hands like comical claws.
“But I am sorry.” Mars dropped their arms, eyes softening.
“Why do you keep apologising?”
“Because it’s my fault. I found you. You were seconds away from death, lying in a gutter, and I took one look at your innocent face, and I wanted to save you. And I did. But I’m also sorry because I did not have your consent. I was selfish and thought only of myself. And now this is your life.” They rubbed their bandaged left arm.
I was speechless. I raised my hand to my chest and listened for the beat. Nothing. My body was an empty shell, yet it feltgood. Should it have? It didn’t matter. I would no longer have to tune into that uncomfortable pounding while I was lying awake in bed, or suffer the feeling of the booming drum-beat of my heart whenever I was stressed or anxious. I could be at peace.
“You are probably going to want a list. You know, the Ts and Cs and whatnot. I want you to meet the rest of the gang, too. Well, we’re not so much a gang, more of an organisation. We keep the peace while the humans think they’re doing all the work. They call us The Thorns, well, we call ourselves that ‘cos we think it sounds cool.” Mars was trying hard to lighten the mood, and I nodded, surprised their tactic was working.
“And that too was an absolute lie because I named us and everyone hated it for years.”
I half laughed through my nose. Whatever they were doing to calm me was definitely proving effective.
“Right.” Mars slapped their thighs and crossed their legs. “We’re the closest thing to what fiction deems a ‘vampire’, but in reality, we’re more like immortally infected human hosts. That’s probably the best way to describe it. It’s a parasite that is only transmitted if the person is fatally drained and then transfused somehow withourblood. I don’t know the science, but the blood flows itself, it’s that strong of a parasite.”
I slowly nodded along, though I feared their words went in one ear and out the other.
“Sunlight burns. But not like the movies. You aren’t going to step out onto the street later and instantly disintegrate into a pile of smouldering ash. The average summer’s day here won’t so much as tingle, but if you find yourself stranded without shelter in the middle of the Sahara, you’ll last a day, give or take, before it really starts to peel away at you. Think blistering sunburn but amplified as though you were sitting in a kiln. Not pleasant, and yeah, fatal.”
I raised an eyebrow at the image conjured in my head.
Mars studied my expression and sucked in their top lip, stifling a laugh. “That… got dark. Just be sensible, and you’ll be more than fine. I take it you’re not one for enjoying sun anyway.”
True.
“And we can Manipulate. Quite intensely. It’s kind of how we’ve managed to stay hidden all this time,” they continued. “You’ll learn that naturally over time but it’s essentially the ability to erase a memory, and in some cases, stuff something back in there. You can make humans think and do pretty much whatever you want. Fellow vampires are much harder to get to but it’s perfectly possible if their guards are down. You can sometimes smell it in use if you’re playing close attention. Although, I doubt I have to warn you it’s extremely frowned upon — anyone with a scrap of humanity left wouldn’t dare take advantage of an innocent like that. Not without reason.”
The tension rose and my brow ached.
I was Manipulated.
Mars stood up and began pacing. “Most other things you’ll learn as you go. I’ve never understood where the garlic myth came from, though. It makes absolutely no sense and I still love garlic bread, so…” Their head twitched back to me. “Silver, or any precious metal, can kind of hurt because our skin reacts differently but they’re not going to melt you or anything dramatic. We’re all unique and so it affects some of us more than others but I see you’ve not noticed the fact that you’re still wearing that pretty ring so it looks like you must have quite a high tolerance already, which is great.” They patted the head of the chair I was sitting in, the closest they could get to patting me on the back.
“Part of the deal is you don’t physically age. Yes, you will heal quicker than the average human, but...” they removed their bandage, revealing a vertical pink scar across the centre of their wrist. Still fresh. “You’re not immune to wounds.”
“That’s...”
“How I turned you. Yes.”
By this point, I must have been exhausted or disassociated, as I was taking it all in remarkably well. Nodding along, I casually accepted my fate. If you had told me the moon was made of cheese, and the earth was flat, I would have nodded, too. As if it were obvious.
“You can still live a relatively normal life, you know,” Mars insisted, tone raised in a questioning manner.
“Yeah,” was all I could say. Looking back, none of their words had sunk in yet. I was still a little hazy. “You’ve done this before then? You know... brought someone back?”
