Nocturnal: A Novel

Rex looked carefully at Firstborn. The man was lying about something, Rex could tell. What Firstborn said didn’t make sense — if they killed Savior, then the people could hunt without fear. Firstborn had secrets. To keep the people safe, he had killed his own kind for over a century. What else had he done? What else had he allowed to happen?

“Sly is right,” Rex said. “If you really wanted to protect the people, you would kill Savior.”

“We have tried,” Firstborn said. “Savior kills all who go against him.”

Sly crossed his arms and shook his head. He was angry, but also excited — he finally had a chance to say what he wanted to say. “That is not so, my king. Some have gone off on their own and never come back. But others have tried, failed, and come back Home — when they did, Firstborn killed them to send a warning to everyone else.”

Firstborn stared down at the table. Rex didn’t have to ask if the accusation was true — it was clear he had done what Sly said. Rex could feel emotions inside of Firstborn: rage, shame, a horrible burden of responsibility … loneliness.

Rex stood and walked to the other end of the table. Hillary stepped aside. Rex put his hand on Firstborn’s muscled, furred forearm and gave a little squeeze. “Tell me why. Tell me the truth.”

Firstborn looked up, big green eyes hard at first, then softening. There was desparation in those eyes, even relief — he had been a villain to his own people, and now he finally had a chance to share the reason.

“We need Savior,” he said. “Sometimes the urge to hunt becomes too much for some of us. When it does, soldiers hunt beyond the need for food. They hunt just to kill, over and over again. They draw attention. If the police find these rogue soldiers, these insane soldiers, then the police are that much closer to discovering us again, slaughtering us again. By killing the rogue soldiers, Savior unknowingly keeps our secret safe.”

Rex let go of Firstborn’s arm. That was why he let Savior kill? To remove people who disobeyed Firstborn’s orders? A true leader — a true king — would let no one hurt his people.

He walked back to his seat. “Do the police know about Savior?”

“Of course,” Sly said, disgust thick in his words. “The police help him kill our brothers.”

The police and Savior, nothing but bullies who wanted to hurt and kill Rex’s people. “Sly, how do you know Savior is hurt?”

“I told Tard to watch his house.”

Firstborn stood up. “I gave orders that no one was to go near the monster’s house!”

Rex pointed at him. “Sit down! Your orders don’t count anymore unless I say so!”

Firstborn’s lip curled, showing the edge of a tooth, but he sat.

Rex let out a slow breath. People shouldn’t do stuff to make him mad like that. “Do we know where Savior is?”

Sir Voh skittered to the middle of the table. “The police will know,” he said. “Tard said cop cars came to his house and followed the ambulance that took him away.”

Rex leaned back in his chair. “Do all the police know about us?”

“We think only some,” the little creature said. “If all the police knew, the newspeople would probably talk about us but they never do. Fewer people knowing makes it easier to control information.”

“So then which ones know?”

Sir Voh shrugged his tiny shoulders, a comical expression considering his much larger head. “We have no way of knowing.”

“Sure we do,” Sly said. His yellow eyes narrowed in time with his smile. “When you wanted to know the secrets of Marie’s Children, you asked Firstborn — you asked our leader. We can do the same with the police.”

That made sense. If there was some kind of secret among the police, a pact or whatever, then someone high up would probably know about it. Why not start at the top?

“I won’t let the police bully us,” Rex said. “We’ll get their leader to tell us what she knows. As soon as it’s dark, we visit the chief of police.”

Hillary stared at Rex like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “We can’t do that. To go after the chief of police? It is madness.”

Then Firstborn spoke, softly and slowly. “My king, doing that could expose us to discovery.”

They wanted to be safe, to play along with the way things had always been? No. Firstborn and Hillary had grown too old to do what had to be done. Maybe that was what happened after so long without a king.

Now that a king was here, the way things had always been done wasn’t good enough anymore. That night, things would change.

Aggie’s Price

Aggie James was alone in the white dungeon. If he’d been a religious man, he would have prayed, but he knew there was no God. God wouldn’t have let his wife and daughter be murdered right in front of him. God wouldn’t have allowed these monsters to exist. And if God did exist and allowed these things to happen, Aggie sure as fuck wasn’t going to worship him.

So while he didn’t pray, he most certainly hoped that he could get out of this horrible place.

The white jail cell door slowly screeched open. Hillary entered, alone, carrying a heavy knit bag and a familiar-looking, familiar-smelling blanket. But there was a new scent … faint, just a tiny sensation in his nose. It smelled beautiful.

Hillary walked up to him. She held the bag out by its handles, offering it to him. “Are you ready to help me?”

“If you’ll let me out of here, hell yes.” Aggie took the knit bag and opened it. Inside … a baby?

A sleeping baby boy with deep black skin, far blacker than Aggie’s, the skin of a child from lower Africa. He was swaddled in a blanket marked with crudely drawn symbols. One symbol looked like a triangle with an eye in the middle, another seemed to be a circle with a jagged lightning bolt through it.

“You take this boy,” Hillary said. “I thought the king would make things right, but he is going to do dangerous things. And Firstborn, I think he will try to kill the king. If he succeeds, then he will come for me. I have to act while I still can, get one more baby out.”

She stopped talking. She just stared at the child, as if she forgot that Aggie was even there.

“Uh, Hillary?”

Her eyes snapped up. She blinked, seemed to come back to the moment. “I am going to hide you and the baby somewhere.”

“Somewhere up on the surface?”

“No,” she said. “A special hiding place. You will stay there with the boy until I come to take you above.”

Aggie nodded violently even though he didn’t really understand. “Yes, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

She smiled a smile of power. “Of course you will.” She unfolded the smelly blanket and draped it around Aggie. “You wear this and be quiet, just like you did yesterday.”

He nodded. He really had no idea if he’d last seen her yesterday, the day before or just a few hours ago.

She finished adjusting the blanket, tugging and twisting in her motherly way. “Good,” she said. “Now hold him close. Very close.”

Aggie pulled the baby-filled bag to his chest. Whatever this kid was, it was evil. Aggie would play along, say whatever he had to say, do whatever he had to do until he got out of here. Then he could toss the baby into the bay for all he cared about it.

He smelled that beautiful smell again. It was the baby … the smell came from the baby.