11. Russell’s Story

"Are the lessons with Martha helping?" Russell sat by the fire, watching me.

I was a long time in answering, not because I distrusted Russell, but because I was still deciding. Eventually, I told him everything, including my fight with the Orc and Galadriel's departure, not knowing what, if anything, needed to be censored and worrying the detail I held back was the one needed to find the answer.

Russell had become agitated as I spoke. Consequently, he'd taken to wandering the room. "Dave is correct. If you're going to be battling fae monsters, we need to give you more weapons. Clive is the best with a sword, but I can teach you to shoot. We can do that tonight. Get you a gun."

"Thank you." I pulled up my knees again. Hugged them.

Waving off my thanks, he asked, "Does it work, the wicche glass?"

Resting my chin on my knees, I grinned. "Well, I knew you were coming to the garage to lecture me."

"No vision loss?"

I shook my head.

"Excellent. That makes you far less vulnerable."

"I'm not sure I should use it, though."

He swung around and pinned me with a stare. "Why?"

Shrugging, I wrapped my arms more tightly around my knees. "Those books I read said there had to be balance. What I'm doing is wrong. I'm invading someone's personal thoughts." Lowering my voice even further, I added, "I'm pushing people to do something against their—"

Russell hissed over the top of my words, glaring at me to shut up.

That answered one question I had. Russell knew what I could do, and he was making sure no other vamp with an ear to a door found out. Closing my eyes, I searched for blips. "No one's listening at keyholes," I whispered.

Crossing the room, he sat next to me in the window seat. "Your concern is that you will not be punished severely enough if you use the wicche glass?"

"Appropriately. If I violate a person's privacy, his will, with impunity, what's to keep me from becoming my aunt? The blindness—or Martha said I could channel the payment differently—is a reminder, an immediate one, that what I did was wrong."

"And who determines right and wrong?" he asked softly.

"Human decency?" I thought this was pretty basic stuff.

"We're not human," he countered.

"Sure we are. You may have fangs and I may get furry, but we still have our humanity. Or we should, anyway."

He leaned back against the bolster, studying me. "I should be punished for drinking blood? Clive? What about our long lives, our strength and speed? Should we be punished each time we use our gifts?"

"No, of course not. I just meant that I—"

"That you deserve to be punished. Is that it?"

Forehead to my knees, we sat in silence until I finally whispered, "Maybe."

The library door opened and closed. "No." A low, weepy, instrumental began playing a moment later. "You always forget the music."

Russell stood. "Sire, I'll leave you now."

"Sit," Clive said. He moved to the window seat, shifted pillows, sat on my other side, and pried my arms from my bent legs, pulling me against him. "No," he said again, kissing my temple. "You do not deserve to be punished."

"None of this, Miss Quinn, has been your fault," Russell said. "Not Owen, not Liam, not Galadriel, not the women those wolves attacked, not your father." He paused, tapping a hand on the cushion next to me. "Not your mother."

Clive squeezed the arm around my waist.

"Existence is not grounds for punishment," Russell said.

"Hear, hear," Clive murmured.

Russell studied his hands for a moment. "If you will allow me, I'd like to tell you a story."

Nodding, I curled up, leaning against Clive's chest as he wrapped both arms around me.

"I was born on a plantation in the Orleans Territory. Enslaved from birth. When I was a young man"—he gave a barely discernable shrug—"seventeen, eighteen, I heard the owner talking with the overseer. He was planning to sell a few of us for an influx of cash. We all knew he was short on funds. New wife, oldest daughter ready to enter into society. The buyer was in South Carolina.

"I'd tried to escape when I was a few years younger and was caught by the patrols, dragged back, made an example of." His dark eyes gleamed in the low light. "I'm not discussing that." At my nod, he continued. "I wasn't clear on the geography of the states, to be honest, but I knew South Carolina was the opposite direction of where I needed to go.

"It was a miracle, really. It was the wee hours of the morning on a moonless night. I'd made my way across the fields when I heard a huge commotion up at the big house. I learned later that the owner, drunk and unsteady, fell down the stairs. The dogs went running toward shouts for the doctor, and I travelled west as far and as fast as I could.

"I crossed streams to throw off the dogs I knew were then on my trail. I ran at night and found small, hidden, dark places to sleep during the day."

"Even then," Clive said, humor in his voice.

Russell inclined his head, a shadow of a smile, there and gone.

"I was somewhere in Texas when a group of patrols found me."

At my gasp, he reached out and patted bent knees. "I'm right here, Miss Quinn."

"But I've read. I know what they did to runaways." I knew he didn't want to discuss it. I understood, as I never wanted to discuss what had been done to me, either. Reaching out, I grabbed his hand before he had a chance to move it. "I'm sorry."

He squeezed my hand, nodded, and then pulled away from me. "I'd been with them for going on two days when the vampires attacked, glutting themselves on the patrols."

"Yay."

He glanced over and shook his head. "You'd think, wouldn't you? Turned out the undead were just as mired in white supremacy as the living. They wouldn't drink from a Black man."

"Whatever keeps you breathing," Clive remarked.

Russell grunted in response. "I'd been trying to keep as still and quiet as possible, hoping they'd forget about me. It almost worked. As they were leaving, one paused and cocked his head."

"Your heartbeat," Clive said.

Russell nodded. "Yes. He pulled a knife from the waist of a dead patrol and moved toward me. He'd just lifted his arm when another ragtag group of vampires arrived. They'd been following the patrols and had had their dinner stolen. They fought, tearing each other, limb from limb. I'd never seen anything like it. It was horrifying. I understood that they were the damned. And yet, I wanted to possess that kind of power.

"They'd all but killed each other off. There was one left, but he was a mess. I made a bargain with him. If he'd make me one of them, I'd drag him to safety and care for him until he healed." He glanced over again. "I had no idea what first thirst would be like, what would happen to me.

"In hindsight, I realize he was merely a fledgling himself. It shouldn't have worked, but the following night when I awoke, he was dead and I was ravenous. I could hear and smell everything. The night was alive around me and I was out of my mind with thirst."

"Yes," Clive murmured.

"I ran so fast, it felt like I had wings. I found another group of patrols, three white men with two female runaways. I pulled the bastards off the sobbing women, broke two necks with more ease than should have been possible, and drank the third dry. When my brain was working again, I saw the two women, naked and huddled together, their eyes like saucers in the firelight. I told them to get dressed and run, pointed west.

"For weeks, I was on my own patrol, killing the paddyrollers and setting the runaways free. I'd become the ghost story they told by the fire at night. When they jumped at noises in the dark, it was me they imagined." When he smiled, I understood why so many feared Russell.

"Eventually, I ran across other vampires. Strangely enough, when they were starving, the color of my skin became less important." He made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat and then continued. "Smartest, strongest, the one who reliably found food, it wasn't long before I'd been made Master. I hated them as much as they hated me, but I can't deny the bone-deep pleasure of having white men do my bidding.

"A week or so into my tenure, I found a huge group, twelve patrollers with twenty-three runaways. I planned the attack down to the smallest detail. They knew the rules. The runaways were always released. There were only five of us. The twelve patrollers were more than enough to sate us for days.

"It all went as planned. The following evening, though, when I went in search of the next patrol group, I found three runaways drained dry, their dead bodies barely hidden beneath tree branches. Leaving the vampires I led, the ones pushing me farther and farther east in order to find larger parties, I retraced our journey west. It wasn't long before I found more dead runaways.

"On the second night, I found an abandoned barn in a field gone fallow. I'd been hearing whispered voices, cries, that led me to them. When I saw—I've never felt such rage. All the runaways I'd thought I'd been freeing were being scooped up by another party of vampires, the rest of the group I was working with. The dead bodies of runaways were stacked like cordwood along the walls, while five, still breathing, clung to one another in the center of a pen, eyeing the vampires surrounding them with abject terror."

Russell leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. "Well, the details aren't important. I went in like the hand of God and slew them all. The runaways were near catatonic when I opened the pen and tried to set them free. That's when I realized that fangs trump melanin.

"I went back and found the ones I'd been traveling with. They were outside a plantation, pitifully trying to plan an attack, as only the criminally stupid can. I killed them all easily but felt no triumph. I'd thought I'd been using my newfound strength and speed to right wrongs, to find justice. Instead, I was just another Black man unwittingly being used to betray his own people."

"You betrayed no one," Clive said softly.

He shook his head. "Tell that to the ones who'd thought they'd finally broken free, only to be used—admittedly, in a bloodier and more immediate way—by different white oppressors."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"I traveled west after that, following my original plan. When I ran across vampires, I killed them. It didn't matter what nocturne they belonged to or who they fed on. They were a reminder that no matter what I did, what strengths or talents I had, I'd never be seen as anything but less than.

"Moving at night, I eventually made it to San Francisco. I heard about this limey bastard." He aimed a thumb at Clive. "And planned to take him out." He chuckled, and this time it was absent rancor. "I'd barely made my first move when I was flying through the air and bouncing off a tree. I'd never seen anyone move so fast. He overpowered me in a laughably short time. I waited for him to take my head, a little relieved if I'm being honest, but he asked who I was and why I had my heart set on his demise."

Clive's chest rumbled against my back as he laughed. "Seemed an important piece of information."

"As I assumed I was moments from being put out of my undead misery, I spewed every filthy thing I could, accusing him of all the heinous things other vampires had done. Instead of taking my head, though, he gave me a hand up and invited me to have a pint on him, as it sounded as though I'd been having a rough time of it."

He turned to me then, pinning me in his gaze. "Did I deserve to be punished, Miss Quinn? According to all laws, to the prevailing beliefs, the color of my skin meant I was little more than a work horse, a thing to be used up for the betterment of white society. I rejected their version of human decency. I upended their take on the natural order by stealing myself and others, depriving them of the ones they needed to step on in order to feel superior. Should I be punished for that?"

"Of course not," I breathed.

"So, it's just you? You should be punished for doing everything you can to survive?"