The Darkening Dream by Andy Gavin Page A

there, dressed in a robe of silver and blue, with a high hat and jewel-studded breastplate. To his side hunched a crone, dressed in rags and leaning on a stick.
    “When I met his gaze, I felt rubbed thin, my will stripped. I found myself a mute spectator to the play of my life. Maria tugged me forward, and she held up the bundle: a swaddled baby.
    “‘My lord Simeon, we present this child for your blessing, so that we might all be saved.’
    “A dark radiance rolled off the old man as he took the infant and I still remember his words: ‘Now instead of releasing your servant, Master, according to your word, in blood; for my eyes have seen your damnation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples; a darkness for revelation to my people, and the glory of the night.’”
    “That sounds like a passage from Luke,” Anne said.
    “It is,” said Alex. “A perverted version. I’d found myself in the midst of an unholy feast, a dark parody of the Ipapandi, and it was about to get worse.
    “Simeon’s dark eyes devoured the torchlight, his hands became claws, and the mouth… you’ve seen what happens to the mouth. I was frozen. The old lady completed a similar metamorphosis, and beside me, Maria’s beautiful face had become the maw of a beast. They surrounded the baby and their faces and hands soon glistened with blood.”
    Alex forced himself to swallow.
    “When the deed was done, the old lady held the body aloft. ‘Behold, this child is set for the falling of many, and for a sign which is spoken against. Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul, that the world shall be consumed.’ ”
    “Oh, God,” said Sarah, her face pale.
    Anne held her hands by her ears, as if she might need to cover them at any minute.
    Alex licked his lips. “Their terrible feast complete, the teeth withdrew.”
    “And you just stood there?” Sam said.
    “For a long time,” Alex said, “I merely thought myself a coward. But now I believe Simeon held me in his glamour, my mind enslaved to his, and he no more worried about me than he would his own hand. For only then did he acknowledge me. ‘So, Maria,’ the master vampire said, ‘you brought us a second treat, shall we save him for the afterfeast?’
    “The girl argued on my behalf: ‘Master, make him one of us. Give me a little toy of my own.’”
    “That’s arguing on your behalf?” Sarah said.
    “I’ll never know what Simeon would have done, for I heard a hissing crunch, and flames burst from Maria’s breast. She hung there, then was engulfed in fire, the light from her burning body illuminating the figure behind her.
    “It was Dmitri, who lifted the pole he’d impaled her with and tossed her aside, then slapped me from my trance. Next he waved a giant wooden cross in the direction of the two remaining vampires. Their fangs had returned, but they slunk away, hissing and screeching as we backed up the steps.”

    His story left the table in stunned silence until Emily leaned in.
    “Anne told me your parents are dead. Were they killed by vampires too?”
    “Emily!” Anne hissed.
    Alex felt the blood drain from his face and that crawling feeling in his testicles, not so different from being kicked between the legs. Hard.
    “They died while I was little, and Grandfather won’t tell me how. To be honest, I don’t remember what happened.”
    Thinking about it, his skull began to throb and his brain felt thick as mud. The usual fragments came to him: terrible growls, thick mist, fire — he could almost smell the flames — and screaming, always the screaming. If he pressed deeper into his memory, his head would hurt so badly he couldn’t even talk.
    When he recovered, he noticed Sarah staring intensely at a page in her notebook.
    “These monsters crossed our paths for a reason,” she said without looking up. “We know they’re real, and it’s up to us to do something about it.”
    “Do?” Alex hadn’t expected this.
    “Yes.” She tapped her