Nocturnal: A Novel

  That made Firstborn’s quarters in the Alamandralina look like a palace.

  Rex knew the room wasn’t part of the original ship, because the floor was level. The wood here was beautiful — deep browns sanded smooth, any holes long-since filled in, glossy lacquer reflecting light from both the electric chandelier hanging above and the dancing flames of dozens of candles in each corner. Thick rugs lined the floors. Decorations hung on the walls, mostly designs carved into human bones and skulls. Where there weren’t bones, Rex saw maps: tourist maps, Muni maps, hand-drawn sketches, a map of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, another of Alcatraz Island — and every map showed hand-drawn tunnel systems.

  The maps illustrated something Sly had said: there were many places to hide.

  Rex sat at the head of a long, black table. Behind him and to the left stood Fort, Sir Voh curled up on his thick neck. Behind and to the right stood Pierre, who held a shotgun with some kind of a drum clip. It was a big gun, but in his hands it looked like a toy.

  Sly sat at the right side of the table, Hillary at the left.

  Firstborn sat on the other end — no weapons for him. Was he still a threat? Sly thought so. Rex trusted Sly, but he had to figure this out for himself.

  The black-furred man was the oldest of them all except for Mommy. It wasn’t just his age or the gray muzzle — he had this air about him, a sense of importance. He really was like a knight, plucked right out of a movie and brought into the modern world.

  “I have stuff I want to know,” Rex said. “First of all, what’s happening to me? I’m getting stronger, I can feel it. And I can heal, like, really quick. I wasn’t like that before. How come I am now?”

  Hillary answered. “If you had grown up here, you would have been strong and fast like the other children. It’s because of smells. Down here, smells are everywhere. Up there, no smells, so you were like them. But I knew where you were, my king. I waited until the right age to send Sly up to put smells by your house.”

  “Smells,” Rex said, the word drawing forth the wispy memory of a strange scent. “Wait a minute. Before I got real sick, I smelled pee around my house. Are you saying I changed because someone peed on my house?”

  Sly stood and bowed dramatically. “I had the honor, my king. I’m so proud to know my scent brought you to us.”

  “But that’s gross,” Rex said. “Totally gross.”

  Hillary laughed. “Smells are just another way of talking. Soldiers mark their kills, a way of telling everyone I am the one that did this.”

  That made Rex think of Marco peeing on the dead cop. Poor Marco.

  Firstborn stared at Sly, slowly shook his head. “I should have known it was you, Sly.” He looked at Hillary. “You told Sly to do this?”

  She nodded. Hillary glared at Firstborn with defiance and anger, but also a bit of fear.

  Firstborn cracked his knuckles. His every motion drew tense looks from Pierre, Sir Voh and Sly.

  “You said he wasn’t the first, Hillary,” Firstborn said. “Have you really been doing this for eighty years?”

  Her smile widened. “You think you know everything, but you know nothing. Eleven kings I smuggled out, right under your nose. Some I lost track of. Maybe they were taken away by the people who took them in as their own. Some I could not find until it was too late, until they had passed the time that matters for becoming a true king.”

  Firstborn leaned toward her. Rex heard the shotgun rattle lightly as Pierre adjusted his grip on the weapon.

  “But how?” Firstborn said. “How could you get them out? How could I have never learned of this?”

  “I have secrets,” Hillary said. “Secrets I will keep. We can’t have new queens without new kings. The people know this, Firstborn, and they hate you for trying to stop it.”

  His fist banged against the black table. “With your own eyes, you saw the death that a king brings. We don’t need new queens. We are fine here.”

  “Fine?” Hillary scowled. She spread her arms out, the gesture clearly indicating the ship and the caverns beyond. “There is more to life than this. Even if we get a new queen, she will never change if she can smell Mommy’s scent. If our kind is to spread, we must send kings and queens to new cities. That is why I took Rex away. That is why I had soldiers watch him grow.” She looked at Rex again. Her warm smile returned. “If we had waited too long, you would not have the power to call others to you, to bind them to you.”

  The power to call others — Rex had done that before his fight with Alex Panos. “My dreams. Were my dreams part of calling to others?”

  Hillary nodded. “Yes. A king must get the smells while he is young. By fourteen or fifteen years old, if you have not changed, then the ability to call is gone forever.”

  Fourteen or fifteen was too late. Maybe it had something to do with puberty. Was there science behind it, or was this some kind of magic?

  “But how does it work?” he said. “What changes me? And how do you know what to do to make someone like me change?”

  Hillary clasped her hands in front of her. “It happens because it is God’s will. It has always been this way. I know how to make someone change because Mommy told me how when I was little. It was before, when her words still made sense.”

  God did it? Rex had seen many wonderful things, but he wasn’t sure if God’s will explained all of it. Could it be that his people really didn’t know why they were so strong, or how they changed? He would have to worry about that later — what mattered now was finding out if Firstborn could be trusted.

  “Firstborn,” Rex said, “what did you mean when you said the death a king brings?”

  Sly leaned back and crossed his big arms, as if he’d heard this story so many times it bored him. Hillary grew quiet.

  Firstborn closed his eyes. “King Geoffrey was born after we arrived in America. San Francisco was much smaller then. It was lawless. Every day, ships brought more people. I was young then — I felt Geoffrey’s dreams in my sleep, felt his visions when I was awake.”

  His shoulders slumped. He looked so sad.

  “What about my dreams?” Rex said. “Did you get visions from me?”

  Firstborn shook his head slowly. “I did not. Perhaps I am too old. Perhaps it is because I did not go up to the surface enough. But I know the power of a king’s mind touching mine. I felt it from Geoffrey. We would hunt together. I was by his side, always, but death came when Geoffrey grew so proud he abandoned our rules.”

  Sir Voh scrambled down Fort’s chest and jumped onto the table next to Rex.

  “The rules,” he said. “The rules make us cowards.”

  Rex looked from the shriveled man with the big head back to Firstborn. “What are the rules?”

  Firstborn opened his eyes. He stared at Rex with a pleading expression that said listen and truly understand.

  He held up one black-furred finger. “Never hunt those who will be missed — take only vagrants, immigrants, people with no home and no one to report them missing.” He held up a second finger. “Never allow a soldier to be seen. Because of cameras and cell phones, this is a far greater challenge now than when I was young.” He held up a third finger. “Finally, never let the humans know we exist. We are stronger and faster, we prey on them, but they are so many. Mommy told us stories from the Old Country, handed down for generations, stories of times when the people forgot the rules, and of how the prey would rise up and overwhelm us with numbers. We survive, my king, only because they don’t know we exist.”

  Firstborn looked off to a corner of the room. He stared at a tall candle burning there.

  “Geoffrey was arrogant,” he said. “He ignored the rules. He let the people hunt openly. Instead of culling the herd for the weak and the unwanted, we took whoever we liked. Some of us were seen. The police” — he spat the word like it was poison — “they found us. Them and the Saviors. They attacked us, butchered us. They captured Geoffrey and dozens more — soldiers, ouvriers … even our children. I sa
w them tied to poles, some with ropes, others with shackles and chains. I saw the townsfolk gathering wood, saw them light the flames. Sometimes when I sleep, I still hear the screams of our people and it makes me want to claw out my own ears.”

  Rex thought of all the people he’d met down here. He thought of Sly, Pierre and Hillary, the children, the babies, all tied to poles and set on fire. Only animals would do such a thing.

  That was what humans were … animals.

  “Why didn’t you do something?” Rex said. “Why didn’t you save them?”

  Firstborn hung his head.

  Hillary stood. She walked to Firstborn and hugged him. He did not look up.

  “He saved Mommy,” she said. “And he saved me. I was just a little girl. Firstborn was so brave. He killed so many to get us away. He saved the queens so our kind would live on.”

  Firstborn nodded. A black-furred hand covered his black-furred face. “Mommy was smaller then, but it was still difficult,” he said. “We had to start over.” He looked up. Rex saw the pain in his eyes, the fear that all his work would be for nothing and the people would die out.

  “The city was changing,” Firstborn said. “The ships that brought us and thousands of others, they had been buried in landfill as the city expanded the shoreline. I dug down to one of those ships and made a burrow in the captain’s cabin. I brought Mommy down there and sealed her in.”

  Rex leaned back. “Wait a minute. The ship she’s in now, that’s the same one?”

  Firstborn nodded. “She hasn’t moved from that room in a hundred and fifty years. I brought her new grooms. She gave birth to ouvriers, to ringers and soldiers. Hillary raised the ouvriers until they were old enough to work, while I taught the soldiers how to hunt, taught the ringers how to be our eyes on the surface. We survived. We rebuilt.”

  Rex looked at his gray-muzzled warrior with a new respect. Everything in these tunnels, every room, every brick, every person — it was all here because of him. Firstborn had brought the people back from disaster.

  “The rules keep us safe,” Firstborn said. “Sometimes the prey has money. The ringers use that money to buy what they can, but most of our food comes the way it always has, from hunting.”

  Hunting. The word sent a shiver through Rex’s spine, made his stomach tingle. He remembered the thrill of stalking Alex all the way to April’s house. Rex had needed that. The feeling had faded with Alex’s death, but the urge was calling once again.

  Sly had sat silent during the story. Now he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the black table.

  “Our history is important,” he said to Firstborn. “But it’s just that — history. You’re forgetting the parts where you ruled like a tyrant, where you didn’t just kill babies, you killed people who hunted without your permission.”

  “We must not be discovered,” Firstborn said. “That is what drove every decision I made.”

  Sly rolled his eyes. “Whatever, old man. You’re so brave? Then why do you let Savior slaughter our people?” Sly turned to stare at Rex. “Savior is nothing but a bully, my king. And Firstborn lets Savior live.”

  Bullies. Rex thought of Alex, Issac, Jay and Oscar. He thought of Roberta.

  Firstborn’s eyes narrowed. “You know nothing. My way works. You are too young to understand.”

  Sly stood and snarled. “We cower. We are murdered and you … do … nothing! You forbade us from attacking Savior, from killing the walking nightmare.”

  Firstborn looked away and waved a hand dismissively. “Everyone knows that Savior kills anyone who tries. To attack him is suicide.”

  “Lies!” Sly pounded a fist against his chest. “If I die trying to kill the killer of my people, that is a life better spent than burrowing in the dirt like a worm.” He turned to face Rex. “Savior is hurt, my king. If we could find Savior before he heals, we could end the monster’s murdering ways forever.”

  Rex felt Sly’s anger, felt it and shared it. Maybe Firstborn didn’t know what it was like to be bullied. Firstborn was big and strong. He’d been in charge so long, he couldn’t possibly understand what it felt like to live every day in fear.

  “Savior is devious,” Firstborn said. “He is probably trying to trick us, Sly, tyring to lure us in so he can follow you home and kill Mommy.”

  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 kin
d 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.