How Cold Is the Sun?

By Matthew Vidamo

Every folktale is pearl: layers of hearsay spun from a single grain of truth.

Humans have discovered that truth of the myth of the vampire: They are not bloodthirsty revenants brought back from

• Language: English
• Publisher: MaVoroshi PreCla
• Release date: Nov 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798989129614

Book preview

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Certain references to historic (and prehistoric) events have been altered for this book, and may not necessarily reflect the reality of this universe.

Copyright © 2023 Matthew Vidamo

All rights reserved. All of them.

Paperback: 979-8-9891296-0-7

Ebook: 979-8-9891296-1-4

Author contact information:

[e-mail]

For everyone who checked out early because

they felt like the world didn’t want them.

Month I ‘Grip’

"Something inside the cards I know is right,

Don’t wanna live somebody else’s life."

-The Red Hot Chili Peppers, I Could Die For You

Prelude

Notion

1

It was the fifth of the month, but June truly started at the chime of the final bell that signaled the closing of the year. With another chapter of life shut tight behind them, twelve of Midpoint Valley 7’s elementary students surged down a knoll of dark grass, swathes of weeds, and blooming dandelions. The force of their charge kicked up white seed clumps that were pulled helplessly along with them. Only the reserved fifth grade class held back, prepared for ascension to the lofty rank of middle schoolers.

Behind them all came the highest ranking squadron of the tiny rural school, the eight eighth graders, still outranked by the high schoolers, but they and their classrooms on the opposite side of the building were already forgotten.

Ruby had started first grade with a class of seventeen, and each passing year, families left for the city until the class dwindled to less than half of its original size. Certainly, next year, her class would shrink smaller still. And, certainly, she and her mother would never move back to Five Points, or any other city.

Those kids of the countryside had no concept of cliques in their town with one school which barely served enough students to warrant separate classes. Though, the eight did tend to drift toward two groups of four, and thus did they walk the beaten dirt path for the last time until August. Ruby’s amber eyes locked on Victoria from beneath the floppy brim of her straw hat.

Victoria’s usual ponytail was absent, letting her pitch black river of hair flow with the summer breeze that shifted the oak leaves above which, still strong with the spirit of spring, did not rustle but flapped like a thousand flags. Within their shade, cicadas sang.

I’ve been saving since the end of last break for the summer games sale. That'll be my vacation spent. Jada’s accent peppered her words, though years of American schooling had diluted it, pure Jamaican in all but her eyes, the Noble gold-purple swirl. How ‘bout you, Pascal?

Oh, well… I’m old enough to work at Zed’s gas station, so I’ll get a job, I suppose.

"Ah, I shouldn’t have expected anything less fuckin’ boring. It’s our last summer before high school! You can’t waste it on something lame like that."

Plus, don’t you still need to be fifteen for that? Victoria added.

Well… he said I’m old enough to work under the counter.

Victoria gave a sarcastic gasp. A law-abiding citizen like you!?

Pascal rolled his eyes. What about you, Ruby?

Ruby’s eyes snapped back to the group from the horizon they had fixed on. What did you say?

Your summer plans, Victoria said. Out with them!

Oh. Summer’s a busy season for farmers. My mom’ll probably need my help.

She’s not enlisting Chrys this year? Pascal asked.

I mean, she probably will, but I figured I should offer first… to help… Jada was the only one who looked back to confirm that Ruby wasn’t smiling ear to ear at the ending year.

Well, don’t let her forget about my sister. She could always use the money, Pascal said.

Hey, you guys! The group of four turned to face the fifth. Felix grinned at them with the same star-spangled swirl in his eyes as Jada’s, his three companions close behind. We were thinking about heading down to the river this afternoon. Wanna come?

I’m down, Victoria said without a moment’s thought.

Sure, why not? Jada said. When Pascal appeared hesitant, After all, the gas station’s not going anywhere.

Yeah, I’ll come, too. Ruby?

Actually, I think I’ll sit this one out.

Aww, what? Victoria said, swinging her backpack lazily in circles. You’re missing out on the first day of summer!

The first day of summer is tomorrow. For the first time that day, she offered them a smile. We’ll have the entire break to do stuff. I just… I’m not feeling up for it after today.

Jada dropped her gaze. Oh, right. I suppose that makes sense. She quickly raised another smile. Yeah, take your time. Like you said, we’ve got all break.

Yeah. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, probably.

Take care, Ruby!

She stepped off the path and turned toward the forest that framed Midpoint Valley 7’s northwestern corner, long legs lending a length to her stride that swept her swiftly from the scene.

What happened today? Felix asked the proverbial room.

Oh, have you not heard yet? Simon said as he pulled up beside him, his own Noble eyes, a shade duller than the other two, but elation made them shine twice as bright. "I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the river. Lemme tell you, Ruby is way stronger than she looks. I guess it makes sense, considering she’s a farmgirl and all."

2

The woods ended at the border of the farm where a quarter mile of trees had been lopped off to make way for expansion. Ruby had discovered the path by the forest during her second year at Valley 7 Preparatory School, though she hadn’t found walking home alone preferable until recently.

The barn was the first structure that wormed its way into view where the trees cut off like a note on a snapped guitar string. Its bright red paint had faded through the years with no one willing to spend time reapplying it. Its walls had once been designed like planks of wood, but as the coat wore thin, the concrete beneath dragged itself to the surface.

When the Midwestern Province was populated by subsistence farmers, the barns they filled with livestock, feed, and tools were a fourth of the size of Kiara MacAskill’s, and hers was one of Midpoint Valley 7’s smallest. The faded warehouse dwarfed an adjacent building with decorative wood slats below the front windows that had shed their blue paint even longer ago.

With spring’s breezes felled, Kiara no longer left the front door open, now locked behind the black metal screen. Ruby drew the key from her pocket, only slowing herself down as it stuck halfway into the lock, as keys do when one forgoes care in haste. Once both barriers yielded to her advance, she sighed and flung her hat at the wall hook in the entryway. It missed by a foot and fell to the floor. The running faucet in the kitchen choked.

Ruby?

She didn’t answer her mother as she shut the door to her room a bit too forcefully.

Drawn curtains pitched the room void-black. No hindrance to her vision, and even if it was, she had lived in that tiny bedroom all her life, or all of it that counted, at least. Ruby ripped off her sweat-soaked shirt and went searching in her dresser for a new one, groaned when she found none and then searched through her hamper, finding none to her liking. She chose one from the floor, growled upon discovering it was backwards, then fought with it for a while until she had it in place and threw herself onto her unmade bed.

No sooner had Ruby managed the impressive feat of changing her shirt did a knock come at her door. She had expected it, but still tossed her forearm over her eyes, then sat up.

Yeah?

Kiara slowly pushed the door open, her own bright red hair pulled back in a messy bun for work. She stepped across the minefield on the floor, resisting the urge to comment. Ruby hunched over, elbows on her knees as her mother joined her on the bed.

Do you wanna talk about it?

No.

Will you at least tell me what happened?

I got in a fight, Ruby said after a moment’s consideration. She felt Kiara flinch beside her. Don’t worry, I didn’t kill anybody.

Kiara chuckled. Well, I figured that much. But…

Hardly anyone saw… I didn’t do anything to put us in danger.

Neither of them spoke. Ruby hunched over further, breathing scarcely more than a corpse.

Well, Kiara finally said. It’s time for me to switch the Hawks. Talk to me about it soon. It’ll—

Eat me up like locusts on lettuce, I know.

Exactly. Kiara smiled as she closed the door. Ruby heard her footsteps down the hall and to the door, then on the dirt outside, then gone.

Ruby forced herself to stand when temptation to fall back and turn in for the day crept upon her. She flipped through a box marked in the sloppy handwriting of a six-year-old: Dad’s Rekerds. There were eleven in the box, a meager shadow of the countless albums her mother had been forced to leave behind with the apartment in Five Points. Ruby drew The Rare Occasions’ Futureproof. She didn’t particularly care for them, but they were one of her father’s favorites. She set the needle in place on the turntable and slipped out of her room.

In the kitchen, the curtains were drawn over the window above the sink. With the sun on the other side of the house, she could pull them back safely. Beyond the glass stretched the four thousand acres over which her mother ruled, a large farm for only a single operator. Five dozen drones working the fields created a constant flow of maintenance for Kiara. She usually hired temporary help for summer and autumn, though they could never have permanent farmhands on the premises. Two can keep a secret if one is dead, said the old adage, so they were already tempting fate.

Ruby watched her mother hold up a rectangular metal case by the edge of the wheat field, tapping a few buttons and releasing a cloud of glinting metal specs. The buzzing whir of mechanical wings followed them as the Hawks dispersed throughout the fields, ready to seek and destroy any insects that came within a foot of the crops. Kiara tucked the empty box under her arm alongside one filled with another set of Hawks ready to be recharged.

Notion faded out as Ruby returned to her room and replaced the record in its case. Putting on a plaid button-up over her Chili Peppers t-shirt, she left the house under the shade of her straw hat as her mother returned.

Heading into town?

Yup.

Be careful.

Yup.

Ruby kept her hands in her pockets, arms tucked to her sides, shoulders slumped, like an ancient star collapsing on itself, fragile glow clutching at the edges of a limp straw circle. A thousand square miles of farmland engulfed Midpoint Valley 7, and the MacAskill farm managed to be the most secluded despite residing on the inmost band. At the edge, the farms did not end, but began anew in different midpoints. And where the farms of those midpoints ended, still others until the border of Five Points’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy District to the north and Starpeak District to the east. To the south and west, the farms continued forever, as far as Ruby was concerned.

Only the unpaved one-lane shipping roads sundered the crop-seas between Points and midpoints, converging on depots where uncountable tons of produce gathered for the journey to the capital. One such road was the fastest route from the MacAskill farm to the midpoint proper, but the few people that made the journey between the two preferred the meandering trail that split off from town and wormed through the woods.

The trail terminated in an alley between Creek Harvest Grocery and Rob’s Auto Shop. Past the buildings was a street with a proper concrete sidewalk, Station Row, the only road that outsiders passing through on their way to or from the city would ever see. Ruby exited onto the southbound half. Across bridges at each end of the town, she could reach the northbound counterpart. Below, a gravel ditch housing a single train track divided them.

Most businesses in Midpoint Valley 7 resided on one of Station Row’s two halves, hoping to pull the occasional traveler, though such people were a rarity so far off the beaten path.

As summer approached, most elected not to loiter in the cramped parking lots outside of Station Row’s stores; any students seeking cafes, restaurants, or the arcade were already inside. Ruby turned to the front window of Creek Harvest and its Fossil Creek Bulletin; each midpoint had its own local name, though this particular one could have been called Horsefuck Stadium for all Ruby cared.

She was probably the only person under the age of sixty in all of Fossil Creek that so much as spared the board a glance. With the death of printed newspapers (now available only by special request), Roger Sleightman kept a small stash of them by his store bulletin, where he pinned the most interesting pages to attract the old timers of Fossil Creek, who grew up in similar towns from an age far removed from the apocalyptic decade just past.

Two Nests in JFK Burned! was the title of the centerpiece article. Humanity claimed another victory this past Thursday with the eradication of two infamous vampire nests in JFK. Between the two, the AVD tells us that their body count approached fifty civilians. Two ExCALIBUR units put their killing spree to an end, leaving a total of seventeen vampires dead.

No matter how much she wished to avoid the subject, her eyes always locked to the center page like magnets. Once she started reading, the words rushed in like a nightmare flood. Ruby forced her gaze to the next page. Midpoint Valley 14, Population 23, WIPED OUT By Vampire Attack! The last title she read was, NYC Man Wins Lottery On 98th Birthday, Dies the Next Day.

The automatic door slid open to expel a Valley 7 Prep freshman. Ruby cast an eye-corner glance toward him. He flinched and dropped his plastic bag of instant noodles and corn chips at the sight of her.

Ruby? He muttered.

Now, she turned to face him. You called?

Uh— wait!

She raised an eyebrow. He picked up his bag, turned to run away, hesitated.

I— He clutched his hands to his chest and looked away. Ruby began to walk in his direction, staring past him.

I’m sorry!

She paused right beside him, listening to his accelerating heartbeat. It’s a good thing the rest of the Republic is afraid of violence’s efficacy on children. She continued to her intended destination, the door that he had just left through. Even as it closed behind her, she heard the relief in his breath.

Somewhere between the size of a corner store and a small grocery, Creek Harvest was a perfect fit for the isolated betweenlands of the midpoints. Roger, a heavyset middle-aged man with his receding hair slicked back, glanced up from a Nat Geo magazine to wave. Ruby returned it with a half-hearted peace sign and selected a plastic package of potato bread at random, then made her way to the refrigerators at the back with it slung over her shoulder. Humming a Vista Kicks tune, she slung a six-pack of strawberry milk under her arm and picked up the last item, dried seaweed with sesame oil, on her way to the register.

Turning the corner of the last aisle, Ruby nearly tripped over a spindly metal appendage that launched at her legs. A nimble swordswoman’s dodge saved her from eating tile.

That gotdamn— Roger muttered from the counter.

Ruby stared at the arachnoid cleaner drone and its dozen mismatched limbs (some of which duct tape held together) mopping the floor, dusting the deep recesses of shelves, and spraying Simple Green on bags of potato chips.

New pet?

Roger sighed. Bought the damn thing off Tatum Hess, o’er in Valley 5. ‘Just needs a little polishin’ up,’ he said. Four hun’erd for the aut’ and almost twice that on repairs, and all the piece ah shit does is attack customers and clean the gotdamn Kettle Cooked.

Never go cheap on a drone; if you’re spending that much money, might as well splurge on something quality.

Another gruff sigh. S’pose you’re right. But, since I’ve put this much down on it already…

And that’s the sunk cost fallacy. Best to just have Rob scrap it and sell what you can.

Maybe, were his pa still alive. Old Rob I’d trust, but I hear ‘is boy’s more fit for breakin’ parts than anything else.

She shrugged and set out cash for the groceries.

Take care, Ruby, he said as he counted out her change.

Later.

Ruby crossed the southwest bridge to the other side of Station Row and entered the door of the tallest building on the street, Ancient Secrets. The scent of aged, dusty pages swirled with sweet cinnamon. During the school year, the library was usually well-populated by students after school. Now, the only occupants were three old men in one corner of the building, sipping ceramic cups of coffee.

Congratulations on surviving eighth grade, Harvey said, peering over the top of his well worn copy of The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe and adjusting a pair of dignified square frames.

Thanks. Good luck on surviving the summer.

We always have.

Anything interesting and new added to the collection this year?

Yes.

What?

Secret. One I think your friend will appreciate. The artist.

Victoria?

That’s the name.

What, new comics?

Something a little different.

Well, since you don’t seem keen on telling me, I’m gonna put my stuff in your fridge.

Right on.

Harvey returned to Poe, occasionally jotting notes for his first lecture of the summer semester on a yellow legal pad. Ruby stepped up to the bartop counter set into the wall behind the front desk. Beneath it was a heated glass display shelf stocked with cinnamon-sprinkled donuts and cookies. Red bean dorayaki, anpan, and anko taiyaki were all sparsely placed in the display, as few people ever came to the bakery for exotic desserts.

Hi, Masami, Ruby said as she set her grocery bag on the countertop.

Masami looked up from her collection of tea leaves and coffee beans. Ruby! I thought I heard you come in. Last day of school, right?

Yup. Longest year of my life, so far.

It only gets worse from here, Masami said with a smirk.

How reassuring. Does summer have anything to offer for you?

She shrugged. "There are less kids coming in from school for books, but all the anime fans will be buying tons of mochi. That’s the unfortunate thing about finishing school. There’s no more end of semester breaks to look forward to. She sighed. Don’t drop out of college, Ruby."

"Don’t worry, I still have to worry about getting into college before I have the chance to leave."

Conversations like this always make me feel better about our decision to move out here. Masami stared past Ruby with a hint of regret in her dark eyes. I suppose it could be a lot worse.

Yeah, you’ve got a reliable source of strawberry milk, after all. So long as you put the rest in the fridge. Ruby pushed the bag across the counter.

Masami pried one bottle free from the plastic rings. What desert for you today?

"Strawberry milk for strawberry daifuku sounds fair to me." Ruby dropped the seventy-nine cents that she had received in change from Roger into Masami’s tip jar, and four more bills on the counter.

Coming right up, she said with an appreciative smile. When she and Harvey had first opened Ancient Secrets, Masami’s mini cafe had gotten almost no business until she added donuts and coffee to the menu. She was easily the most Starstruck resident in all of Midpoint Valley 7 with her dream of opening a tea shop in Nankou City. If the Republic of America was the land of freedom, opportunity, and dreams, Five Points was their graveyard.

Paper bag of pastries in hand, Ruby made her way to the other side of the building. The shelves of the library were marked only by broad genre names, but were organized more deliberately by Harvey in a way only fellow obsessive-compulsives would recognize. Some were alphabetical by author first name, some last name, alphabetical by title (sometimes including articles, sometimes excluding), some by theme or philosophy.

Ruby scanned back and forth over the Golden Age of Sci-Fi section stocked with the works of Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick; they were to her, by now, a comfortable, familiar ride. Finding her favorite leather bean bag in the corner, hidden amidst the shelves, Ruby lost herself in the novel for the next hour. She snacked on the daifuku, careful not to let any rice starch fall onto the pages.

Eventually, the combination of sugar and concentration blurred the words before her. Making a note of the page number, she closed the book reverently and hauled herself up and to the front counter, where Harvey had set aside his own book to type out a set of discussion questions from his notes.

Made your choice? He clicked away from his class documents to a spreadsheet as Ruby set the book before him. "Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. He typed as quickly as he spoke. Excellent choice."

He set her grocery bag, retrieved from the cafe, next to the novel. Have a good one, Ruby.

Later.

Much to her disdain, the sun still stood arrogantly above the horizon, and the days would only be growing longer. Passing her gaze over Station Row to ensure that she was alone, Ruby stepped into the shadows between Ancient Secrets and the 7-Eleven. Her orange predatory eyes even pierced the tinted windows of The Hamilton Slice on the chance that one of its patrons might catch a glimpse of her. Certain that no earthly soul perceived her, she crept back into the alleys behind the shops lined by dumpsters and bulk trash.

One lot over from the library was the liquor store, Booze Creek. The front and most of the side walls were painted paper white, highlighting the grime that clung to them. Like the rest, the back of the shop was atonal gray as the unpaved walkway that ran past them all.

Gravel crunched under Ruby’s faded red sneakers as the cicadas became nearly inaudible in the static air. Sparse clouds in the dizzying blue sky watched birds enviously as they rode upon their own wind. Laughter echoed back to her from Station Row as children ran down the sidewalk, never staying outside or in one place for long.

One other figure lurked behind the shops, hunched over on a wooden crate beside Booze Creek’s back door. She was older, almost an adult, dressed in a cropped leather jacket over a Beatles t-shirt and a black miniskirt with lipstick and eyeshadow to match. The milky scar on her inner thigh was partially concealed by the band of her fishnet leggings. Mikayla Wheeler dressed to please her clients, though she knew not to waste her time doing so for Ruby. Her outfit most likely meant that one of the high school boys was kicking the summer off in a big way that night.

My favorite budding alcoholic, right on time! She greeted Ruby with a condescending smirk.

Ruby kept a displeased expression that wasn’t forced in the least, and extended her hand, which held a bottle of strawberry milk with twenty-five United Republic Dollars coiled around it. Mikayla answered her offer by hefting a twenty-two ounce bottle of cinnamon whiskey from behind her crate, placing a hand on her hip with a smug grin. Ruby immediately made a grab for it and Mikayla jerked it back with a chuckle.

Look how bad she wants it! Her free hand snapped out and locked onto Ruby’s payment, the younger girl clinging to it a moment before letting it go. Only then did Mikayla relinquish her own bottle.

Ruby inspected her newest purchase, ensuring that the seal was unbroken. Mikayla twisted off the cap of the milk bottle and sipped from it, licking her lips as she watched Ruby stare at the whiskey. She don’t wanna weigh it, but she gotta know, she sang.

Tucking the bottle carefully into the bag with the remainder of the milk and the bread, Ruby turned to leave.

Everything that I do for you and you won’t even talk to me. You better start being nice to me or I’ll up my rates again!

Ruby stopped to glare over her shoulder. I should’ve let you bleed out on the train tracks.

Oh, Ruby, you wound me! Surely that’s not what you really think!

She turned the corner and headed back to Station Row, though she could still hear Mikayla’s voice clearly. "Watch yourself, sweetheart. No matter how much you deny it, you know you need me."

Final errand finished, Ruby returned to the wilderness farm. Around that time, her mother would be working outside. Drinking at home equalled suicidal. Hearing was Ruby’s strongest sense, and smell was her mother’s. She could never let her mother find out, not because it would upset her, but because it wouldn’t; Ruby feared that heart-wrenchingly understanding nature.

She slipped inside, dropping off the book in her room, the bread on the countertop, the milk in the fridge. One more bottle was pried from the pack and tucked into her shirt with the whiskey, both bottles uncomfortably cold against her stomach. Then, she vanished into the forest beside the farm.

There was a trail that cut through the woods, though Ruby had blazed her own to a particular place where the trees were exceptionally thick. She knew every clutch of weeds and treacherous root and patch of moss along her meandering path and deftly dodged each one. Deeper into the trees, the shrieks of cicadas died away. Far from the town’s stifling air, the canopy shrouded her from light and heat. Here, there was no smell of ripening crops or blooming wildflowers. The forest carried a nameless, earthy scent, of sprouting saplings and rotting logs.

At the base of the oak she sought were three identical empty bottles, scattered like toys left by children who vanished mid-play. The tall trunk was smooth like a stretched rubber tube with a thick branch twelve feet above the ground strong enough to serve as a seat. Summoning demon strength, Ruby leapt high enough to scramble onto it.

A small hollow opened beside the branch, probably the abandoned burrow of some rodent. Normally, the previous month’s bottle would still be tucked inside it, and she would drain the dregs from it before dropping it down to join the rest. She had already finished the last one, though. So, she opened the strawberry milk and took a small swig, clearing just enough space for a double shot of whiskey.

Midpoint Valley 7 was the name of her home on province maps. Fossil Creek was the name of her home within its own borders. In her mind was yet a third name for it, the only one she would ever call it by. She raised her drink to the sky in a mock toast. Another day in Hell, you cloudy bastard.

Then, she tipped it back, thanking God that it was so damn easy for a vampire to get drunk.

1

Apollyon’s Abandonment

1

The sun set to the melancholy opening riff of Brendan’s Death Song. Golden light from the open door framed the purple-shadowed barn loft where Ruby reclined, facing eastward, into the night’s star-blushed arrival as the day burned to death on the other side.

Today, the instrumental didn’t play from the turntable, but from the dark, polished body of an old Fender acoustic. Having learned it by ear, Ruby was sure some of the notes were wrong, but it sounded fine to her, and she didn’t play for anyone else.

"Well, if I die before I get it done, will you decide?

Take my words and turn them into signs that will survive.

When she began to sing the first verse, her fingers faltered. Notes played a beat behind, fell flat, dissolved into complete discord that clashed with her voice because she didn’t want them to forsake her. At every chorus, her rhythm returned. After the second verse, she stopped playing entirely, this time by choice, so that her voice could carry on its own.

"Like I said, you know I’m almost dead, you know I’m almost gone

"And when the boatman comes to ferry me away to where we all belong.

Let me live so when it’s time to die, even the reaper cries. She stopped singing, instead muttering the first line of the bridge under her breath, which gave her chills when she heard it, made her shiver in excitement when she played it, made her feel immortal when she spoke it.

Her eyes slid open and to the floor below. During the song, her predatory subconscious had marked another’s arrival, but civilization’s dulling stranglehold prevented it from placing exactly when.

Kiara looked up from the tablet in her hands. No need to stop; music’s nice for tedious work.

Ruby didn’t smile or even meet her mother’s eyes. It’s an interesting choice of words, I think. The implication that death is where we belong.

Kiara waited for Ruby to continue as she plugged the next drone into the tablet.

It makes sense. Death is the final destination for everything; it’s sort of like home. But it also makes sense that life is our place of belonging, too, since it’s the only time we’re conscious and aware. And, I suppose you could say that, really, we have no place of belonging, since we can never live forever and can do nothing after death.

You didn’t mention any implication of a kind of afterlife.

I’m sure that’s the intended meaning. I’m just thinking of real world applications.

Kiara laughed amicably. There’s that fiery attitude I heard about from your humanities teacher. You never told me about the poor girl that you sent out of the classroom in tears.

Ruby chuckled through a taught grin. Leah? I did feel a little bad about that. She’s a sweet kid. Naïve and sweet.

She laughed again. What happened to you between the beginning of the year and now?

Human Culture and Diversity Class, I guess.

"And what is that?"

Apparently, despite the fact that they rule the world, humans need constant affirmation that they’re in control. It’s a class about the rich history of human culture, a how-to guide on avoiding discrimination. I guess even with a sworn mortal enemy, they still can’t help but fight among themselves.

That sounds very like humans, yes. Well, what about it so deeply impressed you?

One of the sections in the class is talking about every major world religion. Well, they use the term ‘belief system’. Nobody likes religion.

You sound like you don’t either. Her velvety voice transformed an accusation into an interrogative prompt.

I just thought it was funny. Every religion discriminates against some group of people. Then, the holier-than-thou secularists come in and act like the voice of reason. But even they hate vampires. She laughed.

Kiara sat down on a tool-cluttered workbench and gazed up at her daughter, backlit by the peach-gray caressing the rafters. I’m sorry. And Kiara always meant it, both condolence and apology for having put Ruby through it.

I never knew that humans could come up with so many creative ways to hate us.

Of course Kiara had known about the class, but not nearly as intimately as Ruby now did. In their war-torn world, propaganda and indoctrination were a given, but to see now how deeply the rot seeped… Why didn’t you say something to me?

Should I have? she said defensively. "I already know how much they hate us. It was just… entertaining to see how they justify it. Like, Christians think we’re the servants of Abaddon, the beings meant to bring torment at the end of the world. I like the Hinduist one. That we’re the ultimate incarnation of negative karma, a blight on seekers of moksha. A short chuckle faded into: In fact, some ‘Hinduist speakers’, in parentheses: (totally not agents of the AVD completely unafraid to speak blasphemy), have actually offered to help vampires. They ask us to turn ourselves into the AVD so they can help ‘recenter our dharma’."

She barely managed to finish speaking before falling apart into laughter. When she finally spoke again, her voice was still punctuated with giggles. I mean, you can’t make this up! The AVD has no shame! They’ll turn anything that gives people hope and happiness into a tool of war!

She took a deep breath. And then, of course, there’s everybody else. They don’t need any source of cosmic justice. We’re both predator and prey, and we’ve both gotta hunt or be hunted. That’s natural selection, baby.

Ruby leaned back and dropped from the beam she had laid upon, not the wood of agricultural tradition, but galvanized steel of the industrial way. To the floor, it was a fall of thirty feet, but her fragile human appearance was only skin-deep. In the end, it’s all just excuses, though. Every religious adherent is scrambling to find answers about what we are in their holy texts, and the rest are scrambling to find proof that, just once, genocide might be alright.

Kiara waited to make sure that Ruby was finished. That’s a lot to take in at once.

I got slapped with little bits of it day after day for a year. I’m not sure which is worse.

So, what happened with Leah?

Hmm… A lot of people look down on her because she was raised in a religious home. Ruby’s first musing smile of the day was burnt coffee-bitter. Like how most people were before our sudden existence reforged every belief system. Now, when kids start asking questions like, ‘Where did the universe come from?’ everyone’s too afraid to answer. ‘Leave it to public education,’ they say.

Maybe that’s not entirely bad. With growth comes a greater capacity for understanding.

But kids have a right to have their questions answered, and they shouldn’t be told to wait when they’re old enough to ask.

But then the views of the parent might unwittingly be impressed on the child.

So a parent should make sure the child understands that their answer is only one possibility out of dozens. Like how you taught me about Hinduism and Christianity and Evolution. You can’t give one definite answer when no one knows for sure.

In a perfect world, perhaps. But most people can’t even be bothered to consider what they themselves believe, much less what others do. And what about the parents? Shouldn’t they be allowed to give their own answer?

Well, at the right time, sure. They should let their kids form their own conclusions before telling them theirs.

Conclusions like that aren’t formed in childhood. Sometimes, not even in adulthood.

Whose side are you on here?

There are no sides, only questions.

Ruby paused. "You… sound like Mrs. Weber right now. No, she sounded like you a lot of the time."

I guess that means my lessons have stuck with me. Kiara smiled faintly.

Lessons?

Back before the Years of Upheaval, before the AVD, when I was your age… I was studying to be a teacher.

Ruby raised an eyebrow.

Kiara nodded. And teachers for vampire children living in secret, they don’t need to study the words of Mark Twain or the equations of Isaac Newton. They need to learn how to understand the kind of world they live in, and survive it. So, in a sense, I guess I was going to be a philosophy teacher, like Mrs. Weber.

That’s really cool. How come you never told me?

I suppose it never crossed my mind. Kind of like how it never crossed your mind to tell me about this class of yours.

Fair.

So, Leah?

"Right. Well, there’s not much to tell. For the end of the year, we all had to give a presentation about our conclusions from the class on a given belief system. Leah and I were basically opposites. She’s a Christian,