Page 118 of Lucy Undying

“Of course we are,” she says, as simple as that. After several lifetimes of trying to beat disease and death, she’s come to the same conclusion: The best thing we can do for humanity is end Dracula, once and for all. Even if it means ending ourselves, too.

My heart swells, both with Iris’s blood and with pride in my friends. The Doctor, the Queen, and the Lover. We all changed, eventually. Together.

We prowl floor by floor, leaving the living intact, with some exceptions, accidental or otherwise. By the time we’ve cleared the fifth floor of everything undead, it’s twilight. Things go much faster after that. I move from scent to scent, that metal clang calling me. No one can catch me, because there’s nothing to catch until it’s too late.

I don’t even notice I’m on the seventeenth floor until the Lover sweetly calls my name, bringing me back to myself. There’s some sobbing and a few small screams behind us. I remember nothing else about how I got here, and choose not to examine the evidence on my hands.

The Lover skips down the hall after the Doctor. “You’re beautiful to watch at work, Lucy.”

There’s grudging respect in the Queen’s voice. “ ‘Beautiful’ is not the word I would use.”

“It’s interesting to meet you both,” the Doctor says. “Lucy told me about you before we last parted ways. Clearly, I’m not the only vampire she influenced. But Lucy, how did you change?” the Doctor asks me. “I thought you never would. This determined, fierce woman is not the girl who moped out of Istanbul.”

“She forgave herself and fell in love,” the Lover says.

I expect the Doctor to scoff, but to my surprise she nods like it explains everything. She stops outside an office door that reads “Kyle Palmer, CFO.” She pushes it open. A man waits in the dark. Even though screams and sobbing drift down the hall, Kyle sits perfectly straight at his desk, an eager, almost beatific look on his face as he stares at the Doctor.

“Is he—” the Queen asks, horror cracking her serene expression.

The Doctor shrugs. “I was curious about familiars. I conducted some clandestine experiments. This one was successful.”

“I knew you’d come.” Kyle’s eyes practically roll back in his head in ecstasy. “I can smell the blood on you. The blood is life, and you are life, and I will do whatever you need, my god, my mas—”

“That’s enough of that,” the Doctor says. “Tell us where they’re keeping Dracula and Iris.”

“There’s a safe house in the desert. I can take you there myself!”

“The location is sufficient.”

His whole face falls, like an infant on the verge of bawling. It’s repulsive, but useful. “Let him take us,” I say. The easier it is for us to get in the door, the sooner we can save Iris and end Dracula.

I don’t have to think about what happens then. One step at a time.

100

Salt Lake City, January 26, 2025

Iris

What do you say to the mother whose corpse you stabbed so you never had to talk to her again?

“My throat hurts,” I croak.

“Yes, I would assume it does.” Her gaze is flat and emotionless. I’d say it’s because she’s dead, but she’s always looked at me like I’m a spreadsheet. Adding and subtracting in her mind, trying to find a way to make me worth her time. I never was worth her love.

I sit up a bit straighter. Everything hurts. Each muscle and tendon and bone, pieces of my body I never even knew existed making themselves known through sheer aching agony. I feel like I’ve been through an aggressive cycle in the dryer. “Can I have some water?”

“You don’t need water, you need a transfusion.”

I laugh, imagining Arthur Holmwood, Doctor Seward, Quincey Morris, and Van Helsing all lined up in the hallway, eager to make me theirs by filling my veins. Has there ever been a grosser analogue to sex? But I’d never have attracted their attention in the first place. I could never have played the survival game Lucy had to. They would have punted me straight into Dracula’s arms just to get rid of me, inheritance be damned.

My mother flinches with the force of her distaste over my laugh. I study her. She looks young and not dead, but there’s something off. Some lack. I never could explain it in a way that made sense, but growing up, that was how I figured out who was a vampire and who wasn’t. Not fangs, not claws, not glowing red eyes. Just an uncanny valley of absence. Simulacrum of life. Almost there, but not quite.

Maybe that’s why so many aspiring social media influencers, young moms desperate for validation and money, and aimless men who feel like they deserve more than they have are attracted to what Goldaming Life offers. It’s real life with a filter. Everything smoothed and beautiful and fake.

That’s why I didn’t notice “Elle” was a vampire. Lucy’s like them, but she’s not. She still has something vibrant and living and authentic about her.

I lean my head back against the headboard. Even though this is my childhood room, nothing in it was ever mine. The bed frame is sleek and sophisticated and hard; the bed and a nightstand are the only furniture. My mom must have had a chair dragged in here so she could lurk in comfort. The walls are white, the ceiling black, the only notable features those two baffling closet doors and the round red window dominating the alcove between them.

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