The Children of the Sun Read Online Free Page B

out we could bring you back.”
    “I am not reading your mind, Two, I promise. If I doubted your faithfulness, I would say so.”
    Two sighed, picked up her new glass of bourbon, took a large swallow, and grimaced. “Naomi went home.”
    “Yes, I gathered.”
    “She’s drunk and lonely, and now I’m pretty sure she thinks we both hate her. I’m damn sure she hates herself.”
    “Not because of what she did, though,” Theroen said, and Two shook her head.
    “No, not because of that. She hates herself because she hates loving me and she can’t seem to stop.”
    “Perhaps it would be best if the two of you broke off contact for a time,” Theroen said, and Two gave him a bitter laugh.
    “You’re not getting out of council meetings that easily,” she said.
    “I wasn’t—”
    “It was a joke, hon. Just a joke.”
    Theroen nodded, smiled, picked up his scotch and sipped at it. At last he spoke.
    “Life is beautiful, is it not?”
    Two rolled her eyes but gave him a tired grin. “Fucking gorgeous.”

Chapter 2
First Strike
     
    The man’s name was Matthias Vanden. He was an Eresh vampire, more than six hundred years old, and he had come to visit America at the request of his two fledglings. Thus far he had enjoyed it; the three of them were staying in a luxurious apartment that took up the entire top floor of its building and offered views of Lake Michigan, the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, and Soldier Field. They had been in the city for six months and had not yet tired of it. When and if they did, he thought, perhaps they would try Los Angeles or New York.
    The two younger vampires, both Dutch and both in the middle of their second century, were in the living room now, entertaining two women and a man. The humans had become frequent guests, happy to provide their blood to the vampires in exchange for the ecstasies that came with being bitten. Matthias wasn’t worried by this; at the end, the humans would remember little of their time with the vampires except that it had been extremely enjoyable.
    He sighed, filled with the pleasurable melancholy that came with reminiscence. He no longer needed the blood in such volumes, no longer yearned for it with the passion of an insatiable lover. The centuries had left him able to subsist for weeks on but a few mouthfuls, and he rarely interacted with humans. Still, though, he could recall how it had been, the blood pouring forth in hot torrents as he drank and drank, fighting against the swoon. He envied his young fledglings the experience, even while he appreciated his freedom from the need for it.
    He was reclining now on the gigantic bed in the apartment’s master bedroom, watching the television with the volume turned off and the closed captioning on, aware of but not really listening to the music from the other room. He and his fledglings had spent the early evening walking along Navy Pier, enjoying the throngs of people around them. Then there had been the bar, a curious place in a mostly commercial downtown area, specializing in martinis and playing lesbian pornography on its many screens. Matthias could remember a time, not long ago at all, when the bar would have been burnt to the ground for such things. He had found it deliciously scandalous, and his fledglings, more comfortable in the modern age, had in turn found his reaction highly amusing.
    Matthias leaned back on the bed, grinning, remembering their laughter. He looked up through the skylights, where he could see a thin crescent of moon and a few bright stars. He could also see the lights of a nearby office building and a flashing red beacon he thought was meant to warn airplanes and helicopters of a radio tower. He could see something else, too – something that he did not immediately recognize. It seemed to be getting closer, however, and in a moment more Matthias realized that he was looking at a human form, plummeting down from a great height and angled directly at the glass windows above