Chapter Forty-Four: In Praise of the Sun

As I moved between rooms, pushing aside shelves and opening crates, my mind remained fixated on that damned trickster. Tony would never have the chance to become the Sun King; I’d slice off his fat head and ears with a dagger coated in viper's blood and use them as a toilet...

Wasteclock called out, “Here it is, right?” He had managed to pry open the iron door of the auction house; the beam of his flashlight illuminated a room brimming with a dazzling array of auctioned items. The first thing we saw was the Ikes Idol of the Evil Goddess, and as expected, the room was filled with corpses.

The idol depicted a woman in red, hanged.

Recalling the tragedies of the previous two attempts, I shuddered with lingering fear. My shadow emerged across my palm, making my lips dry and a sheen of sweat break out over my skin. I said, “All of you, get out and lock the iron door…”

Suddenly, the flashlight went out. I stood alone in the empty corridor as darkness stretched on endlessly, cold seeping into every vein. I shouted, “Lamia! My love!”

I turned around. The woman in red hung her head, her blood-red eyes locked onto me from a deathly pale face, her long black hair trailing across my neck.

Her gaze unsettled me. I muttered, “I… wasn’t calling you. I have a wife, sorry.”

Her hand, cold as marble, seized me, and I couldn’t help but scream.

Terror clamped down on my nerves and mind like a vise. I heard sorrowful wails, saw blades flashing, blood spraying. The one I loved grew feathers and fangs, became ugly and twisted, exuding the stench of death. I saw myself sever her body and burn her to ashes.

These were Lamia’s memories, Wasteclock’s memories, Solace’s memories—their emotions converging in a sea of blood and corpses, battering against me. The Ikes sisters tried to destroy me with their tragic pasts, and with my past, destroy them.

I endured bitterly, feeling as if I were falling—plunging into an icy abyss. With a crash, perhaps I landed in a desert, dust filling my nostrils and mouth.

It all felt half-real, half-illusory. Whose memory was this?

I saw the Magistrate, Missouri Teardo. He reached out and scratched the fur on my chin—I was in werewolf form now, I was LeSteel, and this was LeSteel’s memory.

Beside me stood another—not Michael, but someone who looked much like LeSteel. The difference was LeSteel had short hair, while this man’s was long.

Missouri said, “My hounds, the hunt begins!”

That man transformed into a werewolf too. He and I grinned, joy welling up inside—what could be more exhilarating than fighting alongside my brother at night?

We dropped to all fours, fully wolves now—giant tundra dire wolves, the largest breed in the world. We raced across sand dunes toward an enemy encampment, home to at least a hundred soldiers.

I—LeSteel—called to my brother, “You take the left, I’ll take the right.”

He shook his head. “No, I’ll take left, you right. Whoever kills more, wins.”

LeSteel bared his fangs in a low growl. “No cheating. No miscounting.”

Brother shouted, “On three…” and suddenly charged down the slope. LeSteel smiled, swiftly giving chase.

They began a slaughter—frenzied, brutal. LeSteel’s right eye was shot out, his hind leg blown off, but he drank the enemy’s blood, healing his wounds. The camp erupted from quiet to chaos, then back to silence.

LeSteel tallied seventy kills—he had won. But instead of satisfaction, fear gripped him. He knew his brother was no less capable; the gap should not have been so wide.

He howled twice, sniffed the air—his brother wasn’t in the camp. Whining, he followed the scent and found his brother’s corpse.

He circled the body, then lay down and wept in agony, feeding his own blood to his brother, but it was too late. His brother’s body withered in his arms, rapidly becoming a skeleton.

LeSteel understood that no human could have killed his brother. He tried to track the enemy, but the sun was rising. He found a large stone, dug a hole beneath it, and hid.

When night fell, all clues were lost. Rage made him restless, but unlike other vampires, unlike other Gangrels—those with wolf blood—even in fury, he never lost reason.

He found his adoptive father. Missouri wept tears of blood, stroked LeSteel’s head, and swore to avenge his foster son.

And they did. The culprits were a group of hideous vampire hags, hiding among the tents of local nomads. By day, they appeared as anemic beauties, shunning sunlight; by night, they were bloodthirsty monsters.

LeSteel learned that days earlier, his brother had rescued innocent mortals from their clutches, so they sought revenge—posing as prostitutes to infiltrate the army camp. When his brother burst into the tent, he was ambushed.

LeSteel personally tied these heretics out in the desert. When daylight came, the sun burned them alive.

LeSteel couldn’t fathom how his brother could fall to such feeble hags—it was a disgrace, unthinkable. He also noticed there was little blood around his brother’s corpse.

He had already escaped their encirclement, was safe, and healing—someone else had killed him, some vampire so strong he could not resist, a predator who controlled everything.

But LeSteel accepted it—the matter was settled. He did not object. Most of the time, only the strong can learn the truth, and only the strong can survive deadly truths.

The memory ended. LeSteel’s iron will revived me, and I began to ascend.

I broke through the darkness, escaped the hallucination, and by the faint light, saw a door with a fingerprint lock and a glowing spot at eye level.

I tried my fingerprint and iris—the door opened.

Behind it, an aged voice spoke: “Welcome back, my future self. I wonder, do you still call yourself Longinus?”

I realized this voice was not from a living person, not now at least. Ahead was a portable computer; on its screen was Professor Longinus. I had seen him several times and believed him my ancestor—he truly looked like me.

Longinus said, “It is now the year 2060. What year is it for you? But what am I doing—if you’ve made it here, it must not have been easy. I should be brief. I used that Ikes idol to create a portal to another dimension, and there is much I must tell you.”

I finally shook off the haze of dream and waking. I asked, “Vaga?” But there was no reply.

My ancestor said, “To be brief: You are me, and I am the Saint Longinus of history, the centurion who pierced the Son of God. Because I stained myself with the blood of a saint, I was cursed and became a vampire—a very ancient and powerful one. Yet as a vampire, I committed no evil, but benefited humanity. For this, they deemed me a saint.”

I wanted to skip this dialogue, pressed the spacebar, but nothing happened. I shouted at the screen, “I don’t know anything about history! What do you mean ‘I am you’? If you have something to say, say it—my companions are still below.”

In truth, I had no idea what floor I was on—above the fortieth or in the basement. I only wanted to find a way back to the auction house.

This was not artificial intelligence—just a recording, waiting for me to arrive, so my questions were futile.

Longinus said, “You are no longer a vampire. That is due to the special nature of saintly blood and the insights of my practice. Through self-sacrifice, reincarnation, and virtuous deeds, I gradually freed myself from the curse. In my generation, I retained almost no vampire traits, but kept their powers. This is a state countless vampires have dreamed of; I doubt even Cain achieved it, if he ever existed.”

I understood, but was displeased. “Why is there so little left for me?”

Longinus said, “Your memory is likely muddled, your strength depleted. That’s normal. The fact you’ve made it here proves you are still ‘alive’, doesn’t it? Typically, it takes a century from rebirth to full awakening. After a hundred years, you will become a figure rivaling the vampire progenitors. But I left this place to give you a small boost, to hasten the process.”

I urged, “Then hurry up!”

Longinus said, “The world’s destruction was caused by many factors, with different theories and responses.”

My scalp tingled and limbs turned cold. I never expected him to digress at such a crucial point.

Longinus continued, “Among vampires, the Ancients were the first to foresee the imminent apocalypse. They believed our ancestor Cain would someday awaken, draw all vampire blood into himself, and become God. So, as the world grew unstable around 2040, they began building shelters, opening pocket dimensions, and hiding away in deep slumber.”

I yawned to show my displeasure. He didn’t notice. I never knew a person—especially a past version of myself—could be so insufferably verbose.

Longinus went on, “The vampires were wrong. The world was not destroyed by Cain. But by hiding, the Ancients escaped the calamity.

“What truly destroyed humanity was the Sun. In a single day, it killed over ten billion people. Some strange element appeared in sunlight—anyone exposed, even briefly, melted into blood. After about an hour as liquid, they regained self-awareness, but were no longer who they once were. They would do anything to approach others—humans, animals—and merge their flesh and blood with them.”

I realized I was trembling uncontrollably. Horrified, I asked, “The Sun King?”

Longinus said, “These beings—or this being—call themselves the ‘Sun King’. They experience immense pleasure, a religious ecstasy they desperately want to share. Only the most exceptional humans can resist immediate transformation, but I suspect even they will eventually be assimilated or killed by the Sun King.

“I don’t know how long the Sun King can survive. Though they claim to be eternal, I doubt it. If there’s no one left to merge with, they fall asleep, shrinking into statues, sinking into the earth, or hiding in plants.

“Now, I will teach you an incantation. It can awaken part of your potential. If you have anyone you care about in this building, my advice is this: take them and flee at once. The upper floors of this tower have become the Sun King. Within its walls, floors, and pillars lie the sleeping Sun Kings, their presence causing endless stench. They may not awaken, but if they do—what a spectacle that would be. I trust you can imagine it.”