Meeting the Sunrise
Please forgive me if my writing is a bit rough. I’m tired and still in some pain. But I am compelled to write this down.

Last night I had finally decided it was time to bury the cat. He was still in my boot box, still sitting beside me. But I knew it was time. I didn’t mind the smell so much as the lack of respect I was showing him. He was a true warrior, wasn’t he?

It took me longer to move the sofa away from the door than I thought it would. Other than my cat, I hadn’t eaten anything in nearly a week and my strength had deteriorated. My mental faculties also weren’t at their best or I may have realized how incredibly stupid I was being.

I put on my coat and stepped outside. It was disgusting out. Smoke lay heavy in the air and the streetlights glowed a muted and sickly orange. I had forgotten the fires burning all around me. I was confused at first but quickly moved on. It’s true that nobody walks in L.A., but I also don’t drive. I asked the security guard at the front gate to call a cab for me. I remember he asked if I was all right and if it wasn’t too cold to be out in bare feet. I had forgotten to put on shoes. I said something in order to placate him, which seemed to work and my taxi came not long after. I held the box close to my chest to keep myself from going for the driver. I concentrated and focused on my box, on my cat inside. And before I knew it, we had arrived at my destination.

I went to Griffith Park. I decided to climb up the trail to Mount Hollywood and quickly became disoriented in the smoke. If I had thought about it, I would have realized that going up in smoke was bad and that my view of Los Angeles would be non-existent. But I continued on, focused on giving my cat the perfect place to rest.

Finally, I stopped. Not at the summit, but at a small area just off the trail. I dug into the ground with my bare hands since I had forgotten to bring anything to dig with. I placed the box into the hole and waited for a moment, giving my cat his final moments to view the sky. Again, silly of me since not only was the sky obscured, but also he was in a box.

“You should cover it now, shouldn’t you?”

I looked behind me, confused. They appeared out of the hazy and thick air. Five of them. Dear Vincent was not among them anymore. The blond was still in the lead. He walked over and squatted beside me, looking into the hole.

“Sad thing. Go ahead and cover him. You don’t want the wildlife finding him, right?”

“No,” I said and began to push and pull the dirt, the earth and rocks falling on the top of the box the only sound. Even the constant hum of the city was far away up there. When I had covered it completely and pushed a large rock on top, I turned toward the blond.

“Well, Valerian, you have made a big stir, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said dumbly.

“I’m not sure about that. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. But you know how paranoid we are.” The blond stood and reached his hand down to me. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Venice,” he said with a smile as he pulled me to my feet.




I am told that the boardwalk in Venice Beach is a fun place to be in the daylight. I’ve seen live video feeds from it that make me believe the stories. At night, though, it’s dead. No future pun intended. The shops are closed, no one walks up and down it except the homeless or a few teenagers.

Venice Beach is a wide beach. Very wide and sandy. You can walk from the boardwalk to the water and it would take you quite a bit of time to get there. Once you get there, it is pitch black with very little light reaching the black ocean.

You can imagine that beaches, especially this one, aren’t exactly a common bloodsucker haunt.

“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I said as they pulled me across the sand. “I’ve told you everything.”

“We don’t believe you,” the blond said. One of his new goons, a woman who looked exactly like a soccer mom, had me by the arm as we marched toward the water and away from the lights of civilization. The sound of the waves slapping up onto the beach became louder; a shushing sound that made me extremely nervous.

When I saw the large stake driven into the ground, I freaked.

“No! No, don’t!” I pulled at the grip on me, but my strength was nearly gone. Not that I would have been much to contend with if I was at full strength. I regretted my inability to fight properly. But it didn’t stop me from being as much of a nuisance as I could be as I was dragged, literally, across the sand. I kicked and thrashed, but I was still thrown down in front of the stake.

“You know why we’re here, Valerian.” The blond hunkered down in front of me as I huddled at the base of the stake. “Like I said, I like you. Personally, I believe you a bit about the Sunrise liking you, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that you brought a Sunrise to the city and that he has now killed one of our people.”

“He said he did it because of what you did!” I shouted. “So obviously this is between you and him. Leave me out of it!”

“But I can’t. You are very much a part of it. Why would you know a Sunrise in the first place? What crime did you commit that you were exonerated from and allowed to live?”

“Nothing! I haven’t committed a crime, damn it! I live a quiet life! Quiet!” I shouted.

The blond shook his head. “You don’t see them coming. You don’t walk away alive after seeing them.”

“Yeah, okay, I know. But I just happened to be… around.” He looked at me disbelievingly and I heard a few chuckles around me. “I am innocent!”

Outright laughter was my reply from all of them.

“Hun, none of us are innocent,” said the soccer mom.

“I haven’t committed a crime against our kind!” I crawled closer to the blond, felt the others move in closer as I grabbed his arm. “Please,” I said softly. “Please. I haven’t caused any problems, have I? I’ve been anti-social with you, but that doesn’t make me a criminal. I’ll… I’ll take your offer of a protector. I’ll live with the clique. I’ll prove to you that I am harmless.”

He smiled and petted my hair. “And if I let you in, let you see our inner-workings, will you inform your lover so he can eradicate us?”

“No! He isn’t my lover! He isn’t my anything!”

“But he killed in vengeance for you.”

“I didn’t ask him to do it!”

“How do we know this?”

I grabbed both of his arms, pulling myself nearly completely between his spread open thighs. “Please! Don’t do this!”

“But you hid yourself in your home, starving yourself. Was it out of guilt for what you were going to do to us? Were you trying to draw us in so your man could kill us?”

“No!”

“Then why were you hiding?”

“Because I didn’t want you to get me!”

“Because why? I thought we had made our deal at our last meeting? That we were even and squared. Did you hide while your lover planned and executed his attack? Were you kept safe and out of the way while he attempted a take over?”

“No!”

“Then why hide? Why starve yourself? Surely my way is a better way to go?” He looked up at the stake. “Quick and clean.”

I shuddered. “No.”

“You’re not giving us enough answers to the very important questions, Valerian. How can I help you?”

“By not doing this, bastard! You can help me by leaving me the hell alone!” I shoved him hard enough to make him fall on his ass and I scrambled away. He easily grabbed my foot and dragged me back. Not that I could have gone anywhere. A goon or two stood in my path no matter where I went.

“Put him up there,” the blond said and two pairs of hands grabbed me. I fought and kicked and spit and bit. It was the biting that pissed them off and the soccer mom took hold of my wrist and shoulder, wrenching my arm back and breaking my elbow. I’m sure I screamed, but I blacked out a bit at that moment. I became fully aware of myself again as they tied my hands behind me to the pole. The blond was staring into my face.

“I’m sorry, Valerian. I really am. But you didn’t satisfy us. You have been deemed a threat to our city. You have been found guilty of conspiring to harm our kind and our city’s leader. You have been found guilty of conspiring to mutiny. For this, the penalty is death. Your material wealth will be confiscated and used to pay back the city for your crime.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Sorry. But you were good that night. I can see how you live in the luxury you do. Unfortunately, the others believed you were being supported by your lover as he blackmailed cities for protection money.”

“Did he do that? Did he ask you for money?” I asked angrily.

“No. But he might.”

“Fuck you! You fucking bastards!” I screamed as he stepped back. I kicked sand at them and spit more. “This is why I don’t mix with you! Cunts! Twats!”

“Don’t let your last words be so foul. You always seem so elegant,” one of the goons said as the walked away. “Snobby, but elegant.”

“Fuck you!”

I yelled some more at the night. I wept in pain as I struggled to pull free from the pole. And finally, I slipped down into the sand and watched the water slowly wash away as the tide went out.

The sky was clear there where the sea breeze pushed the smoke away and inland. The moon was big as it crossed the sky into the western horizon. I thought about Julian and wondered what he would look like in a couple of nights. I felt bad that I hadn’t sent the clothes I had promised him. I felt good that the cat had found his resting place.

But I also felt anger. A lot of anger. As I starved in my home, it was of my own choosing and will. I don’t think I even had the thought that I was going to die, only that I was staying away from the bad. I knew I would probably die, but it wasn’t a conscious decision to end my life.

I was angry that they had taken that from me and that they were making me die on their terms. The blond lied. True, this way would be quicker and cleaner, but it wasn’t better. Kissing the sun is a pretty awful way to die. It’s not like the movies. We don’t go up in a puff of ash. The sun gives us third-degree burns within ten seconds of being out in it. The longer we are out in it, the longer we burn. Our skin blackens and peels layer by layer. Our muscles are exposed and they begin to burn and shrivel. It takes a long time before the sun gets through bone, which means our brain is quite protected and able to give us all sorts of horrific information about how we are dying. By the time we are truly dead, our bodies still cooking, it will be nearly fifteen minutes or more, depending on the clothes we are wearing. It takes another thirty minutes for our bodies to be rendered ash. Quicker than starving? True. But it wasn’t a pleasant way to go.

And I didn’t want to die like that. I didn’t want to die at all. I sat against that pole and wanted to keep on going. I had gotten bored, yes. I had begun to slow down, yes. Maybe He had been right, maybe I was fading. Wasn’t it horrible that my malaise ended just as the sky began to turn pink and my executioner was rising to meet me?

I had the strong urge to stay where I was and attempt to hide behind the pole. Ridiculous, of course. I decided, instead, to slide around toward the east to greet the sun and see it again. To enjoy it and to die with dignity. Maybe I would even laugh and curse it just as its rays reached for me.

“Don’t cry, Koha. I’m here.”

I jumped, then moaned as it jarred my broken arm. He stepped around me, his form clearly seen in the early morning light behind me.

“I’m not crying,” I said. Sometimes I think my mouth works independently of my brain. Other times I think that it was my rigorous social training that forces me to respond when spoken to.

I didn’t want to look at him. I hated the sight of him. He looked just as he did the night I met him. Tall, but not excessively so; I think he topped out at about five feet eleven inches. His skin was still the same warm brown. His black hair was styled a bit differently, wearing it long and primitive now. He was still as expansive as he had always been, large in the chest and shoulders. And his flat nose still sat upon his broad face.

“Yes, you are,” he said. “Or it’s raining only on your cheeks.”

“Have you decided to die with me?” I asked calmly. “You should. You got me into this. It’s only fair.”

His smile split his face as he squatted down in an exact copy of the blond’s earlier position.

“No, Koha. You got yourself into this. How many times do I have to tell you not to run away?”

“Running is one of my best qualities.”

“Well, we’ll need it.” A knife appeared in his hand and he gracefully slid it through the rope binding me. How incredibly pathetic that they only needed simple rope to hold me. I am nearly ashamed. My hands came loose and I gasped as my injured arm moved.

“Oh, my god,” I moaned and tried to hold it in place.

“Come on. We move.” He grabbed my unbroken arm and hauled me to my feet. I whined in pain. I really don’t like pain. A spank or hair tug I have no problem with. Bone shards floating under my skin is something I have always tried to avoid.

With his hand around my wrist, we moved across the sand back towards the boardwalk and its nice dark buildings and cars. But this meant we were walking east and the sky was in stages of brightness that left me panicky.

“No! No, we have to go back!”

“Where? There is nothing behind us.”

“We can go in the water!” I started to pull back, my feet dragging in the sand.

“No. We move.”

“No! We don’t!” I pulled at his hand, trying to get it off me. My panic, disorientation, hunger, and pain were beginning to make me act in an unbecoming way. I was having a pretty bad night. I snapped at his arm and clawed at his hand and dug my bare feet into the sand. I may have started to hiss or growl.

My broken arm was grabbed and I shouted, the shock of pain making me still.

“We are moving this way. Do not slow us down,” he said in a low and menacing voice. I was suddenly reminded of who I was with and tried to pull away, slowly this time.

He grunted and grabbed me, hauling me up and over his shoulder. The pain from my arm nearly unmanned me. I grabbed the back of his shirt and squeezed hard as he broke into a jog. I felt like an idiot rag doll.

We crossed the bike path and moved into the parking lot. The buildings were now casting shadows on us but I could practically feel the sun on us as it came closer to cresting over the city.

“Hurry,” I whispered. “Hurry.”

He moved past a beaten down van where a few of the last hippies slept inside. On the quiet street was a dark silver car, some sort of flashy kind with black tinted windows. It beeped at us and he opened the door and shoved me inside. The door closed on my shout of pain. He followed me inside and slid behind the wheel.

“It’s illegal to have a tinted windshield,” I said, absurdly.

“Yeah. That’s what the cop said.”

“Just before you ate him?”

“That was my punch line.”

“Sorry.”

I didn’t realize the car had already started until we pulled away from the curb.

“You can let me out near—”

“Shut up.”

I did.

I might have fallen asleep, or passed out, or maybe I just don’t remember the drive home. He pulled me out of the car and half carried me to my door.

“Thank you for a wonderful evening,” I muttered.

“Shut up,” he said again and got the door open with the keys from my coat pocket.

“You should have buried Arthur a lot sooner. It will be awhile before this airs out.”

“Don’t say that name!”

He gave me a sideways look as he dumped me on my sofa next to the door. I gasped and my face scrunched up in pain.

“You need to eat.”

I ignored him. My arm was in agony.

“Your body won’t heal unless you eat.”

“Thank you. I have been dead for enough years to know that,” I snapped.

He came to stand over me and I shrunk back. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I apologize for my rudeness. Thank you for your advice.”

“I’ll have something delivered,” he said and walked toward the phone.

“They won’t let escort services through the gate without a signature and time of arrival.”

He stopped and gave me a look. “That’s very inconvenient, Koha. Why would you pick such a place?”

It’s safe and pretty. But I didn’t answer aloud. I watched him wearily as he came back to me. He knelt down in front of me and rolled up the sleeve of his very nice button up Rag & Bone pleated shirt. I’m very proud that I could still spot designer clothing while in so much pain. I’m also a bit surprised that he would be wearing such a thing. I always picture him in jeans and palm fronds. Not that I imagine him at all.

He grabbed the back of my head and pulled me towards the inside of his elbow. I tried to pull away.

“No.”

“I’ll break your other arm and force feed you.”

There wasn’t much point in arguing after that.

Feeding like this, from another of my kind, is fairly distasteful to me. It’s an act of intimacy that I don’t want to share with anyone. It is something you do with family or lovers, and I considered him neither. To explain it to those who are confused, think of it like the difference between eating from a plate and being hand-fed. There is a closeness from taking the food from another’s fingers. It is something that is done when you are ill or in passion.

I may have been ill, but I didn’t want him feeding me.

“Am I forcing you?” he threatened.

I closed my eyes and allowed my instinct to take over. I half-hoped that I would tear a tendon out and render his arm useless for a while.

My teeth dropped down and I sank them inside the fleshy part at the junction of his elbow. He didn’t make a sound, even as I hungrily sucked hard.

I was starving. Instinct took over, my will to live, so newly restored, grabbed my body and directed me. I slid down onto the floor and climbed into his lap, pushing at him to give me more. I didn’t succeed in pinning him down, but he adjusted his arm and a new rush of blood spurted into my mouth. I moaned in happiness and in desperation, as I couldn’t seem to get enough.

He didn’t let me have my fill, but I don’t blame him. I’d have drained him of every drop if given the chance.

“Enough.”

My hands gripped his arm tighter, preparing to fight for my meal. He didn’t go for my grip, though. He went for my hair.

“No!” I shouted as my mouth was ripped away. I made an odd guttural noise while he tugged me further away from his healing wound.

“For a self-professed courtesan, you certainly say ‘no’ more than I thought you would.”

I struggled to get back to his arm until I was struck across the face. I blinked as my eyes filled with tears.

“Are you back with me, Koha?”

“Don’t call me that,” I whispered.

“Good. You are.” His hand released my hair and I slid off his lap. I leaned against the foot of my sofa, feeling the blood rush through me, filling me, nourishing me, helping my elbow—

“Oh, god!” I grabbed at my arm as it pulsed in pain. “You said it would be better! You liar!” I kicked out at him, barely missing his shin before curling in on myself, moaning in pain.

“Healing is usually as unpleasant as the breaking.”

“Stupid and ridiculous wise man, are you?” I snapped through gritted teeth. “Go fuck a hut!”

“Your mouth becomes really foul when you’re angry or in pain, did you know that?”

“Go screw in hell!”

I think I heard him laugh through my agony. Slowly, very slowly, the throbbing pulses of pain slowly ebbed away until it became a deep ache. I looked up then and saw that he had made himself comfortable at my dining room table and was looking through my papers.

“Don’t touch those.” I carefully heaved myself to my feet. I was a bit dizzy, still hungry, and still in pain, but much more coherent. “Those are personal.”

“You cash out the credit cards they give you. That’s very clever. Is this how you bought all these CDs and stocks?” He perused a bank statement and set it down just as I reached him. “I had wondered where you were getting the ready cash.”

“Don’t look at my personal things.” I reached out to snatch the pile off the table but my wrist was seized.

“Sit down if you want, but do not touch.”

“These are mine,” I said quietly.

“Yes. They are.” He looked hard at me and I slipped into a chair quietly.

I watched him go through my current financial papers. He nodded his head a few times and smirked once. I felt an odd mixture of insult, anger, and pride.

“You’ve lost money with this one.” He held up one of my stock statements.

“I thought I was, but I figured I’d hold out and see if it would come back.”

“Doubtful. The company is in a mess. It’ll fold, I imagine.”

“Oh.”

He looked through more before setting it down. He looked over at me. I looked back.

“I’m… not saying thank you,” I said petulantly. I do petulant really well, actually.

“I would never think that you would.”

“Are you… leaving soon?”

“You want me to step out into the sun?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I pressed my lips together to keep from answering honestly.

“I have to say that the continued wishes for my death are a bit of a damper,” he said and stood up.

“They are going to come for me again. I have to leave my city because of you,” I said quietly, trying to keep my tone neutral. I really wanted to throw something sharp and pointy at his head.

“No. I spoke to the head of the city. You will be left alone. For now.” He looked at me. “Or did you think they weren’t watching us leave?”

I actually hadn’t thought about it, but it had been my first execution where I was the condemned. I was a bit out of sorts.

“It was a trap. They decided to lure me out.”

“I was tortured and nearly killed to be bait?” I lost some neutrality in my tone with that statement.

“Yes.” He moved toward the bedroom. “And I went for it. But not before arranging your safety with the chief.”

I stood up. “If you hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have needed arrangements for my safety!”

“Not exactly true.” His voice floated down the hall. “They were already suspicious of you. My arrival was just the excuse they needed to put the screws to you.”

“You didn’t need to give them an excuse!”

“You’re right. You were giving them plenty to work with by traipsing up to San Francisco.” He appeared again, his shirt removed and only wearing a pair of very snug jeans. He was built like a linebacker: thick and muscled on top, compact but still muscled in the legs. Dark tattoos swirled over his pecs. “You’re not stupid enough to not know the cold war between the two halves of this state.”

I gave him a withering look. “Thank you, I am quite aware of the situation. I’m so glad, though, that they were able to send the message to your grass hut.”

“Watch your mouth, Koha.”

I gritted my teeth and looked away. “Yes. I will.”

“Good.” He stepped into the living room a bit further. “You stayed on the outside, shunned all contact with the others, and you made more than one trip into enemy territory a year.”

“They aren’t my enemy. I’m not involved.”

“I know you would like to believe that, but you are involved. You live in this city. You obey the head of it. Simple as that. Why he allowed you to float as long as he did, I’m not sure. You seem to have a supporter in the clique.”

My mind gave me the image of the blond and I grimaced.

“But your actions were always viewed with suspicion. You can’t bury your head in the sand, Koha.”

“It was your actions that made them look at me with suspicion.”

Putting his hands on his hips, he shook his head. “It amazes me how well you miss the facts. You excel at playing an idiot.” He looked hard at me. “But I know it’s an act. You are not as empty-headed as you like to pretend. Now come on. We’re taking a shower.”

My eyes went wide and I took a step back. “I’m not taking a shower with you.”

“Really?” he asked in a threatening manner.

I shook my head again and sat back down at the table. “I have to put my papers away.”

He looked at me until my eyes dropped away. “Suit yourself, Koha. I can wait a little longer.” He turned and walked back down the hall. I heard the shower come on a few moments later.

“You’ll be waiting forever,” I said to the room, too coward to actually tell it to his face.