Valentine Lux: A Serial Novel

Daniel stared at the door of the Dingo as it closed with a soft click. Jesse tossed him a roll of duct tape and they methodically sealed every seam, chink, and cranny where light might enter. The Dingo was basically impermeable, but it didn’t seem like the moment to take any chances. Inside, he knew, the vamps were cocooning themselves in as much of the gear as they’d been able to spare from the packs brought from Rex’s apartment. 

            “It should have been you!” Edie grabbed Homer’s shirt and slammed him back against the interior of the Dingo as it careened north toward the Henry Hudson bridge. “It should have been you instead of him, you loser, you waste of space!”

            “Stop it!” Jane cried. “There’s no room to fight in here. These humans are dying!” The Dingo lurched and she grabbed frantically at Evan to keep him from rolling off the seat. “Homer!”

Just as Daniel was about to give up trying to open the Dingo’s door it suddenly popped free and India and Ransom came flying through, landing on him in a tangled pile before the door was slammed shut again. He almost pissed himself before he realized it was them, but there was no time for catching up because India was so limp and pale and the air so close that, still scrambling and trying to hug them and also keep them from squashing Marina he rose up out of the mess and popped the hatch with no effort at all.

The din of the infrasound being emitted by the Collective exploded across Valentine’s soundscape as the IMV crashed through the wall of vamps, shaking Valentine backward into a warm body she hoped wasn’t Marina. Edie shrieked, and Valentine knew she was hearing it, too, and suffering.

When Daniel rolled into the kitchen late the next afternoon he was feeling about as good as he’d felt since the night before the double chump battle back at the Rebel Moon. In spite of the abuse he’d taken since then, after a few more servings of soup, a scalding hot shower, and another fourteen hours of sleep in the Emily Dickinson room (the bed turned out to be pretty comfy), not to mention just the right amount of booze to keep him even, he felt like a new man.

Valentine felt like a guest at some demented dinner party waiting for the post-prandial game of charades to begin, and it didn’t surprise her in the least that the humans had gravitated toward each other in this awkward tableau. Daniel stared dully into the fire, nursing his drink, Jesse perched on the arm of his chair like a watchful chihuahua, every muscle alert and quivering under her thin, pale skin, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.

Daniel woke up into a dim twilight and experienced several seconds of disorientation so complete he thought at first he might be dead. But no, as his gummy eyes adjusted he realized he was sweating (i.e. not dead) under a wool blanket on a high twin bed with a hard mattress.

Valentine ripped at the fingers clinging to her face and was able to see, in flashes, that the hands of her attackers had carried her down the stairs into a tidy, nautical-themed cellar. Finished to keep out the damp, but still with a basement chill, the narrow hallway was painted navy blue. Beige utility doors, each embellished with a miniature white wooden anchor, were clearly marked in brass letters: “Laundry”; “Fitness”; “Exit”; “Storage.” The signs passed in fast-forward as the hands dragged her unceremoniously down the hallway on her back, and finally through the last door marked “Bike Room.” The hands released her and she hopped into a crouch, arms extended, ready for what was to come.

Marina was crying against the side of a Number 6 train. She sobbed in great heaving gasps, and Daniel thought his mind, already teetering on the edge, might tumble off it like an overfed pigeon if he had to listen to the sound for even one more second. Every molecule in his tired body cried out for bourbon, delicious, smoky, cauterizing bourbon, bourbon to deaden the panic of the little boy inside him watching his aunt, his grown-up, disintegrate before his eyes, bourbon to quell the rising panic that someone, something, somewhere, was going to hear her lamentations. Instead, he lamely patted her shoulder and tried not to piss his pants.

Just after sunset, Valentine climbed the stairs to rally the chimps. She dreaded having to roust them from the escapist stupor they seemed to have fallen into over the last twenty-four hours, but she found the demoralized little army packed and ready to go, sitting quiet and alert under the harsh glare of the security lights.