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 damn 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 shirt, 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. Massive wooden gears, creaking and moaning, turn as the wind blows, compelling other gears to shift 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
“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 butts.”
“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 classroom where the kids are taught and the tiny workshop where scraps 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
