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thou shalt not kill

CLASSIC ROUND ROBIN

Chapter 9

by Ruby

The killer pair ran, fury and fear pulling their mouths back like animals. They were predators now, slick with sweat. They ran towards an old building near Chinatown. They’d seen enough in their monitoring of Chandler to suggest she also knew about the old subway tunnels, and more, if you believed the stories, that ran underneath New York. They had found an old tunnel in this building when they’d hidden a body behind the furnace. Thinking it might be useful later, they thundered down the basement stairs and ran toward it. They were angry, they tasted metal in their mouths. They wanted blood, and they would have it.

They entered the tunnel and ran, beginning to enjoy the sexual thrill of the chase. They were going to feast when they found her. They heard strange clangings in the pipes they ran past. They ignored them. Old creaking pipes had nothing to do with the hunt, the prey.

They skidded to a stop at the sight of a petite sandy-headed young woman standing in front of them, aiming a crossbow at them. “Stop!” she said. They smiled; they could taste the fear in her voice. They would feast on her blood, too.

They began to move again, and there was the hissing flit of a bolt hitting one of them in the eye. He howled and crumpled to the ground. The other did not even have time to fully register what had happened before another flit and another bolt struck him in the throat. He fell, gurgling curses and confusion that the predator had been felled by his hated prey.

Jamie stood there breathing hard as she heard Vincent run towards her. He quickly took in the scene that lay before him, blood seeping into the earth. He looked at her. Jamie had found her voice; she looked Vincent in the eye. “If they think they’re vampires, then only a stake through the heart could have stopped them.”

Lucy sighed and swung her heels over the swirling mists of the Abyss. It was strange to find comfort in this place but she did. Maybe it was because it was dangerous. Maybe it was because people were warned to be cautious and to keep their distance from it. But something about the endless black that curdled and clouded like milk in coffee gave her space to think. And she had done a lot of thinking these past six months. Six months since the killers had made it Below, only to be felled by two bolts from Jamie’s crossbow.

Their bodies had been sent away, back Above, but not her, not her. She held onto that. And Catherine had not been sent away, back to the life she was supposed to lead Above. Vincent had taken her to his bed, and they were the pair they were always meant to be, the sun and the moon. Lucy smiled; she liked that.

The vampires were back in the dusty books of this place, for now. Lucy believed in vampires, but they didn’t wear capes or sleep in coffins. They were the men who smiled but the smile never reached their eyes. And their victims didn’t turn into them, they turned into the people who either fell through the cracks or somehow, if they were very lucky, fell through the cracks and down, down, down into Below.

She hugged herself. She was not going to waste this chance. She laughed. It wasn’t even a second or third one by this point. A fourth chance? No, more. But that was all right, because one of the things she liked most about Below is how nobody kept a score. Nobody made you keenly aware of how every thing, every favor, came with a price. Because things were priceless here.

She wandered back to her chamber. Their chamber. The chamber she shared with Cullen now. He’d carved her a wooden box to ask her to join her life to his. They called it that, joining, way down here. A joining, like the pieces of furniture her partner made, like the pipes. A network of love and safety, and perhaps, most importantly, one that could be repaired. There was always another chance in a place where nobody is keeping score.

Filled with enough ruminations for the day she got up and brushed the sandy dirt off her skirts. She saw Vincent approaching and she smiled a greeting. “Come to brood? I’ve just finished. The ledge is all yours.”

Vincent chuckled. “I’ve found much comfort in this place, as terrible as it can be. I’m glad it’s been the same for you.”

Lucy nodded. She then reached out a hand and placed it on Vincent’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”

Vincent smiled in spite of himself. “I suppose every person I meet until the birth is going to tell me that.” His expression darkened again.

“It is going to be all right,” Lucy said firmly. “Catherine is the strongest person I’ve ever met.” She grinned. “Stronger than you, frankly.” Her expression became firm. “And she wants this child, your child, so much. She is going to have a beautiful, healthy child.” She grinned again. “And then you get a whole new batch of things to worry about.”

Vincent smiled and shook his head. “It looks like I just needed to come here today to talk to you.” And they turned and walked back towards the hub together.

They heard Tammy’s voice from a chamber to their right. She was reading to the children from The Secret Garden. Another story about a hidden place full of healing. Tammy was working as a hostess at Henry’s restaurant and living in a small apartment above Wong’s shop. She loved to read to the children, and she loved to read after a long day, often taking or returning a book after delivering a clutch of messages, herbs and tea.

A scholar can wear a prostitute’s clothes, like a valiant knight can wear a monster’s face, mused Lucy. Though she increasingly found nothing monstrous about Vincent’s appearance. And hoped for his sake he would rejoice and not grieve if the child Catherine carried resembled him.

Catherine was sitting in the chamber with a child on her lap, Marisol, two long braids down her back, and listening to Tammy read with a grave concentration. Lucy hoped Marisol would find her healing, too.

Vincent stole into the chamber on silent feet and sat by Catherine. She rested her head on his shoulder. Each giving strength to the other. Like plants that survive by helping each other. In gardens, secret or not.

Lucy smiled and kept walking towards home. Home, I have a home. She walked into their chamber quietly. As she expected, Cullen was asleep. An emergency pipe leak had kept him away all night on repairs.

She remembered the stories of vampires who slept during the day and shook her head. Cullen was a man, creased by sorrow and bitter experience, but one capable of healing, too. And capable of loving, too.

Lucy quietly undressed into her patched-together shift, pieces of old tablecloths and Mets t-shirts washed linen-smooth, and unbraided her hair, putting the fastenings in the box Cullen had made for her. It rippled with carved mermaids holding pearls in their hands and laughing as they combed their hair and looked in their mirrors. A beautiful thing.

She crawled into bed beside Cullen and pressed her forehead into his shoulder blades. Taking strength from him, and giving hers in return.

“Mmm?” Cullen muttered.

“It’s me, go back to sleep.”

Still half asleep, Cullen reached for one her hands and pulled them across his chest and drifted back off into his dreams.

Lucy smiled and closed her eyes, lazily dozing and drifting away in a hidden world hard as stone but soft as warm sunshine.