Heroic Hearts

THE VAMPIRES KARAMAZOV by Nancy Holder

In another life, it would be time to chant the morning prayers: Having risen from sleep, we fall down before thee.

But Alexei and his family had risen from sleep with the setting of the sun, and would go back to sleep with the dawn. A midsummer’s night was ending in New York City: hot, dirty, unpredictable. Alexei sat on a roll-around chair and faced a bank of camera monitors, the latest generation of tech. When the Karamazovs had first moved to New York in 1866, their home security system consisted of a chair and a rifle. As far as they knew, they were still the only living vampires in New York. No one had contacted them. No one had come after them. Still, they watched.

Alexei was on duty. Braced. He was always on duty, but his brothers didn’t know it. In their previous lives, he had taken holy orders as a monk, and as he could minister to no one else, his violent, graceless family was his flock. They were in ceaseless need: his father and brothers were like children, aggressive and violent. He was different, but then, he had always been different. No one else in the family would have dreamed of giving himself to the Church. But then again, no one in the family would have dreamed of becoming a vampire.

He caught the whirr of the elevator down the hall, the thunder of Pavel’s boots. His blissful solitude was about to end, and he consigned himself to the ensuing chaos as his father and brothers returned from their night revels, as inevitable as the sunrise. Drinking, whoring, feeding. The anonymity of modern life in New York eliminated accountability. Back in Victorian-age Russia, your neighbors saw you. If you committed a sin, your priest heard about it. Now there was no shame, only boasting, showing off how outrageous you could be, how many likes you could accumulate for bad behavior. Maybe it was foolish to hold vampires accountable for wrongdoing as had been defined for human beings. But the laws of the true God existed, and had endured for two thousand years, or else the world held no meaning.

But what about his existence? If he spent his time contemplating Christ, but couldn’t touch a cross, and was afraid to pray for fear of sullying the Lord’s name—what led him to the conclusion that he could turn anyone from the path of darkness to that of the light, least of all himself?

He had murdered his first victim. He had not known how to stop. The blood, flowing; his adrenaline pumping. The sheer lust. He had given in to it. And for that he was damned. He couldn’t confess, couldn’t receive absolution, couldn’t become clean again because he was cut off from the Holy One forever. God didn’t know of his struggles to repent. He didn’t know there was a sorrowful demon in vain pursuit of his own lost soul.

Then why not sin? asked the devil on Alexei’s shoulder.

He watched the monitors as the lumbering boots sounded, remembering the shifting hues in the stained-glass windows of the monastery, how the light would play over the huge mosaic icon and make the sad Madonna smile. The soft tolling of bells.

Then Pavel burst in, slammed the apartment door so hard the picture frames rattled, and flopped against it as if he had just outrun a band of marauding Cossacks. He was dressed like a Russian mobster in black leather pants, a black bomber jacket, black boots, and shades. His dark hair was close-cropped, his head almost shaved. He looked like someone you should avoid.

“Hi, Lex,” he said.

Alexei gritted his teeth. He hated the nickname.

Vodka fumes and the succulent aroma of blood billowed around Pavel as he staggered across their living room with its garish red velvet couches and Turkish rugs and plopped down into the empty chair beside Alexei. He’d drained some homeless person or maybe a beautiful rich girl, and no doubt efficiently disposed of the body. No doubt at all. No corpses, no questions. It was how they had lasted so long. Alexei’s secret vow never to take another human life endangered the family. For him, it was the lesser of two evils.

Pavel said, “I saw a car accident. Bad one.” He burped, which should be scientifically impossible. But being a vampire should also be scientifically impossible.

Alexei knew a confession when he heard one. “Were you careful?”

“Of course.” Pavel shrugged. “No one saw.”

It still unnerved Alexei that Pavel no longer answered his questions with sarcasm or scorn. Papa’s oldest, illegitimate son had been filled with poisonous jealousy all his human life, a crafty, manipulative imp who had goaded their half brother Dmitri into murdering Papa back in St. Petersburg. During the court trial, Pavel freely recounted his last conversation with Dmitri before Dmitri decided to act: good and evil were nothing but useless concepts. Morality was a fiction that promoted oppression of the masses. There was nothing sacred about human life. Breaking two of the commandments—dishonoring your father, killing him—was perfectly acceptable, especially if your father withheld your financial birthright and slept with the woman you loved.

Of course the judge was appalled. Alexei believed that the court had found Dmitri guilty despite flimsy evidence and the lack of witnesses because the Karamazovs as a family were so debased—with the exception of the youngest, Alexei, who had become a monk.

One had to consider that Pavel had been born of a sinful union, in a time when shame existed and a birth outside of wedlock was a scandal. It was a lot to overcome when you knew that people whispered about you behind your back, rolled their eyes, murmured, “What do you expect? Look at his mother.” People didn’t think like that anymore.

We are not people.

Another whirr of the elevator was like a growling dog, punctuated by yips of wild laughter. More Karamazovs coming in before the blazing dawn. Ivan had nearly burned to death the first morning after their rising. Lesson learned: Direct sunlight caused vampires to burst into flame.

“Oh yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh! I am so into you!” Out in the hallway, Papa bellowed some vaguely familiar song at the top of his lungs. There were no other tenants on their floor, or the floor above them or below—that was where most of their money went, renting so many apartments—but still, it was so careless. They didn’t need complaints—or drawing attention to themselves by dressing like thugs, for that matter.

The door crashed open. Dmitri, taller than Papa, stared at Alexei as he half carried, half dragged their drunken father across the threshold. Both of them wore black trousers and black T-shirts. Dmitri also had on a linen blazer, which classed him up. Dmitri was the tallest and the sexiest of the Karamazov brothers. Also, the most powerful of the four brothers now that he was Papa’s favorite. The murder had been a blessing, as far as Fyodor Karamazov was concerned.

“Oh, boys, boys, you shoulda come!” Papa shouted. He started singing again.

Dmitri was not smiling. His forehead was furrowed. Alexei went on alert: something was up.

“Let me get you into bed, old man.” Dmitri leaned over to gather Fyodor in his arms.

“Old? Man?” Papa flailed at Dmitri. “I’m the fucking king of the vam—”

The front door opened again and now Ivan stood in the doorway in board shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. His gaze was riveted on his father. The shock on his face reminded Alexei of when they had risen from their graves for the first time. When Alexei tried to catch his eye, Ivan shook his head and wiped his face with trembling hands.

Oblivious to all the undercurrents, Pavel got up and stumbled into the kitchen. “Let’s keep the party going. Who wants vodka?” he called.

Ivan walked over to Alexei, his back to Papa and Dmitri. He stared at Alexei as if he didn’t know who he was.

“How was your evening, Ivan?” Alexei asked quietly. Ivan remained silent.

“I want vodka! I want to drink with my sons! My boys!” Papa bellowed. “I love you all! And all your mothers! And vodka!”

“You’ve had enough.” Dmitri flung his arm around their father’s shoulders and walked him into the hall, toward their bedrooms. Ivan took a step in their direction, then fell into the chair that Pavel had vacated.

“Alexei,” he murmured, “someone saw Papa.”

Alexei stayed neutral, because he himself had most likely left witnesses, since his victims survived his feedings. Besides, each of the Karamazovs had slipped up at least once in all the decades. When Ivan didn’t continue, he braced himself. It was more than that. Something had gone very wrong.

“And . . . Dmitri dispatched the witness,” Ivan finally said.

Pavel returned with a bottle of vodka and four shot glasses, set them all down on Alexei’s desk with a clatter, and said, “Jesus, the old man is really out of it tonight.”

Ivan looked down at his hands. When Pavel began pouring out the shots, Ivan grabbed one and threw it back without waiting for the others. Pavel refilled the shot glass and the three clinked in a toast. The vodka was good, cold.

“Ivan, what happened?” Alexei prompted.

“There was a-a child,” Ivan whispered.

“No.” Dmitri loomed behind Ivan, stone-faced, rigid. He had returned from putting Papa to bed. “It was not a child. It was a baby.”

“What was a baby?” Pavel poured another round.

Dmitri said, “Papa tried to attack a baby.”

Shocked senseless, Alexei crossed himself. The other three recoiled from his gesture. Pavel’s cocky attitude evaporated and he stared in the direction of his father’s bedroom, lips parted, eyes wide.

Dmitri leaned forward and grabbed the vodka bottle. He chugged half of it down, then clutched it against his chest and said, “Family meeting. Let’s go out on the balcony.”

Ivan led the way, opening the sliding glass door, and Alexei was swept along outside with the others. Their balcony was sheltered by an awning that Pavel and Ivan had tied securely in place a few months ago. It stretched above their heads like a ceiling, and the family replaced it every couple of years. Below, the filthy alley that separated their dirty brick skyscraper from the dirty brick skyscraper opposite was bathed in pink and gold from the rising sun. Rays touched the graffiti that coated the bottom floor, the trash that was piled like snowdrifts.

“He was going to go after the baby,” Dmitri said. “I stopped him. But the mother . . . the mother was there and saw him . . .” He took another swig of vodka. The other three brothers traded unguarded looks of horror.

“What about the baby?” Pavel asked.

“I left it in the stroller. Someone will find it.” Dmitri gazed down into the alley. Alexei followed his line of sight. Spray-paint explosions of graffiti promised violence, retribution, revolution. “No one will find the mother.”

There was silence. They did not kill children. That rule was ironclad. But to kill a young mother, to leave the child alone . . .

“Afterward, Fyodor Pavlovich said I was mistaken, that he only wanted to look at the baby,” Dmitri said. “It was a lie.”

“Yes,” Ivan said. “I saw the whole thing.” Pavel threw him a questioning look, and Ivan said, “I saw them on my way home. Of course I ran into them. It was my usual route.”

Dmitri nodded as if to confirm Ivan’s statement. He and Ivan moved closer together, a unified front. A tick of suspicion—or maybe simply false hope—tugged at Alexei.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Alexei said.

Ivan shook his head. “You weren’t there, Alexei. You didn’t see.”

Alexei tried again. “He didn’t do that. The sin was not committed.”

“ ‘Not committed.’ Not committed.” Pavel laughed. “Is that what it says in God’s ledger book? ‘Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov: Sin number two hundred thousand and seventy-five. Not committed because someone stopped him. Skip to sin number two hundred thousand and seventy-six.’ When no one could stop him.”

“We have free will. All of us,” Alexei said. Except . . . he had been unable to stop himself. The police officer, his first victim. The one he had drained until her heart had given out . . .

Pavel snorted. “We’re vampires. And you’re a balalaika. You’re a dusty lacquer jewelry box with a little fairy-tale princess on the lid. You’re not a monk anymore, little brother. We humor you when you make your little faces and tsk-tsk-tsk at us. But everyone here is a black sheep.”

“Wolf,” Ivan corrected.

Silence. No one came to Alexei’s defense. Angry, frightened, he focused on the graffiti. The wall was a mess, so profane and ugly. Such a display would have been unthinkable back in their days in St. Petersburg. Offenders would have been whipped for vandalism. Or worse. Life had been cruel, and often unjust, but there had been far more respect.

Fyodor Karamazov was their father.

Their father who had turned them into vampires without warning. Without asking. How, he had never said. Nor why.

“He cursed us. He rules us. He treats us like serfs.” Pavel rapped his knuckles on the balcony railing. “Do you have any money of your own? A life of your own?”

“You’re trying to do it again,” Alexei said.

“What?” Pavel raised his eyebrows in feigned innocence.

“Make a case for murdering him.” Alexei lifted his chin. “And I will not discuss it.”

“Lex, Lexi-boy, so stern and sure,” Pavel taunted, cocking his head and pretending to strum a balalaika. “Don’t you think your god would be happy to have one less of us Karamazovs on this earth? Listen to Dmitri. Your father the precious tsar of your life was going to slaughter an innocent.”

There was silence. Finally, Dmitri said, “Alexei, Pavel has a point.”

“Which you both can make so easily, since you’re the two who killed him in the first place,” Alexei snapped. “You’re a devil, Pavel. And you are a sheep, Dmitri.”

He left them there and stomped into his room. Locked the door just to make his case and stared at the ceiling. Papa was snoring, not a care in the world.

“Oh, my Father,” Alexei blurted, then clamped his mouth shut. He must not pray.

After a time, he got back up and walked into the living room. Ivan should be stationed at the bank of monitors; he wasn’t there. Though the sun was out, Alexei went onto the balcony and watched the people walking through the alley. Guys in jeans and T-shirts, the occasional suit. Women in sleeveless tops and dresses. Kids. A black-and-white dog.

His eyes watered from the indirect sunlight. His skin puckered as he kept vigil. I want to love you, he thought. I want to hunt you down and kill you.

“Alyosha,” a voice said, using his real nickname, “how long have you been out here?”

Alexei stirred. Then his eyes flew open as he realized Dmitri was squatting on his haunches and leaning over him. He could barely see him. There was so much light.

“Out here?” Alexei repeated, muzzy. “What time is it?” He tried to sit up fast, but Dmitri put a hand on his chest. The sky glowed blue, yellow.

“Easy. It’s three in the afternoon. I thought you were in your room.”

Of all the brothers, Dmitri looked the most Slavic. A man blessed by the motherland, a country that tried and tried again to be just, and to be good, and sinned and failed and yet believed in hope. In the old days, in the old country, Dmitri had been closest with Alexei. With their father so often drunk or off chasing women, Dmitri had practically raised Alexei, the youngest brother. But once Alexei had joined the Church, Dmitri had wandered off, his job done. When Papa had refused to give Dmitri his birthright and allow him to set up his own household, he had rebelled in all the worst ways, drinking, brawling, whoring . . . and bashing their father’s head in with a fireplace stanchion.

“It’s dangerous out here,” Dmitri said.

As if Alexei didn’t know that. He had no idea why he had fallen asleep on the balcony in broad daylight. He slowly got to his feet and smoothed back his damp hair. He was sweating.

“Back home, when I studied with Father Zosima, do you remember?” Alexei said. “Everyone believed he was a saint. But when he died, he rotted, and everyone was stunned. They thought his body would stay pure.”

“I remember,” Dmitri said. He grinned. “It caused quite a scene. And a stench. Speaking of which, you could use a shower.”

“Will our bodies rot, if we die?” Alexei ran a hand along the railing. “I wanted to serve and glorify God. And now . . . I have no idea if God wants anything to do with me. Or if I should leap off this balcony so as not to cause further offense.”

“Alexei Fyodorovich, don’t torment yourself. You’re not like Papa,” Dmitri said. “You’re your own man.”

“I’m not a man anymore.” Alexei began to sob. He’d had no warning that he was going to, but he wept with every cell of his monstrous body. Every shred of his possibly nonexistent soul. “Don’t look at me, Dmitri. I beg of you. Please, go inside and don’t witness this.”

“Never be ashamed of longing,” Dmitri replied. His voice was gentle, as when Alexei had been a little boy.

“I long for oblivion,” he said.

“No. I think you long for heaven.”

“I don’t think we can ever go there.”

Dmitri shook his head. “You can’t know that. And if your faith sustains you . . .” He frowned. “I had no idea you wrestled with such misery. We used to be so close. I thought once the Church got hold of you . . .”

Alexei swallowed hard. “If I had one moment where I could forget what we—what I am, that I am not an accursed monster—”

“No, no, not you, little cherub. I—”

The balcony door slid open. “There you are!” their father cried, sticking out his head. He had a bottle of vodka in his grip and he reeked of alcohol. “I was afraid you’d run away from home, Alyosha! What the hell are you doing out here? You’ll go blind! He’s out here, boys!” he slurred over his shoulder. He drank straight from the bottle, swaying, grabbing hold of one of the nylon poles that supported the awning. Alexei darted forward and took his arm, steadying him.

“Easy, Papa,” he said, surveying the awning. Intact. Safe.

“Look at all those people.” Papa made a show of smacking his lips. “Too bad we can’t fly. We can’t turn into bats.”

“Or wolves,” Dmitri said archly.

“We are wolves,” their father retorted. He puffed out his chest. He had stopped aging at around sixty. No one knew exactly how old he had been.

After about a minute, Pavel and Ivan shuffled out in sunglasses and sun hats. They should all be wearing them. Alexei had to squint. The skin on his face was taut and itchy. Pavel and Ivan stood together awkwardly, as if wondering why they were all risking a fiery death instead of going back inside.

“Oh, look at that,” Papa said.

A woman with dark brown skin and a bouncy black ponytail was jogging down the center of the alley. She looked like a runner in her pink T-shirt and gray leggings, and she had the body for it. She moved as if life was good and no one would jump her or murder her.

“Look at that ass,” Papa crooned.

Something passed between Pavel and Ivan. Something decisive and solid. In unison, they moved closer to their father, Pavel ambling around to flank his father on his left side. Ivan was on his right. He stood between them now, leering at the woman, calling to her, trying to get her to look at him. His bottle of vodka sloshed in his hand as he wobbled on rubbery legs.

“Beautiful! Beautiful girl! Hey!” he called, waving. She ignored him.

“Look at that neck, Papa,” Pavel said, digging him in the ribs with his elbow.

Papa snorted and leaned forward. In his sunglasses, Pavel turned his head in Alexei and Dmitri’s direction. Dmitri sauntered behind Papa.

“Hey, baby!” Papa shouted. Drunk on his ass, leaning over the balcony, waving with both hands. Whistling at her.

Ivan and Pavel did the same, hooting, whistling. The woman didn’t react. She must have been used to this kind of treatment.

Papa leaned farther over. Ivan and Pavel crowded him in. And in that moment, Alexei finally understood what was happening.

“No, no, don’t,” Alexei said, rushing toward him. “Papa, step back. Step back now!”

Dmitri half turned, pushed Alexei hard against the wall, and mouthed, Stay back. Ivan and Pavel moved in closer, like advancing jackals.

Alexei lurched forward, trying to push Dmitri aside. Dmitri blocked his way. “Please, Papa. Get away from them!”

Pavel shouted, “Now!”

The vampires Karamazov started moving at once. Alexei lurched forward and found himself pushed against the railing as his three older brothers grabbed their father and started to hoist him up. A troika of murderers. Papa flailed and fought for purchase, but he had already leaned over too far. He was bowed outward, forward from the waist up, nearly clear of the protection of the awning.

“You bastards! Bastards!” he shrieked. “Help! Hey, help!”

A couple people looked up. A short man in a Jets T-shirt started tapping on his phone. A woman in a short denim skirt shouted, “Hey!” and began running toward the building and waved her arms. “Hey, someone call the cops!”

Alexei grappled with Dmitri, punching his shoulder with both fists. Dmitri shoved him hard; Alexei tumbled onto his backside and smacked the back of his head on the concrete. For a few seconds the bright world spun around, and his vision faded to gray with yellow dots.

Papa was yelling at the top of his lungs. Ivan was screaming, too: “You idiot! You selfish bastard! Die!”

Ears ringing, vision clouded, Alexei lunged at Dmitri’s legs. Dmitri kicked backward at him, shaking his head, bellowing, “Go inside! Get out of here!”

“Alyosha, save me!” his father shrieked. “Save me!”

All the rays of the sun gathered around Papa’s head like a halo. Or maybe his hair was catching on fire. The top of his head was less than an inch from the edge of the awning. One second, two, and it would be too late.

“God damn you all!” Papa shouted.

“Go inside, Lex! Pack our shit!” Pavel bellowed. “Get ready to run!”

“Oh, Lord Jesus Christ!” Alexei cried, flinging himself at his brothers, hitting, yanking at them. “Oh, God, my Father!” pummeling their backs and shoulders as they held Papa farther out and made ready to pitch him into the street. Was he burning? Was his face turning black? “Saint Sergius, on my soul!” He reached for Fyodor. “Papa! Papa!”

“Stop them!” Papa cried.

Then through all the yelling he heard a voice inside his head: Will you die for him? Oh, was it Christ who spoke? Was it the Lord?

“Yes,” Alexei said.

That drunken lout, the one who damned you—

“Yes!”

The demon who separated you from me?

“Yes! I will! I will die, I will die!” he yelled, raining fists down on Dmitri’s back. “Save him!”

Amen, said the voice.

The brilliant sunlight changed to washes of pink, light blue, lavender, swirls of soft color. The shouting faded and low church bells tolled. Images shifted, altered: his father stood out in bold relief, arms extended, but his brothers became cloudy, insubstantial. Alexei stretched his hands toward Fyodor Pavlovich. A strange pressure built in his shoulder blades, followed by a sharp release.

Alexei had wings. They were feathery and huge, extending on either side of his body.

He had no time for astonishment as somehow they lifted him upward, forward, floating—flying?—over the heads of his brothers. He grabbed his father around the waist, fully expecting it to be a useless action, but he wrestled Papa from the grip of his brothers and swooped upward. Surely he would not be able to hold him, or they would plummet into the alley below if he did.

His father shrieked and struggled. Papa began to burn, his skin to sizzle. Alexei folded the tips of his wings in a shield against the sunshine. Papa clung to him, panting, weeping. His brothers gaped up at the two of them. The crowd in the alley yelled, pointed, running to keep pace as he flew higher, and higher; the pastel washes around him deepened to crimson, indigo, emerald green: stained glass. The soft tolling became a chant he and his brother monks sang at Easter, the Resurrection:

Let my prayer arise. Lord, I have called to thee . . .

For an instant, he was in the monastery, in the stillness and joy, and it was before. All was right with his soul.

“With my soul,” he said aloud. He moved his wings, and they flew higher.

“Alyosha, Alyosha,” his father murmured, clinging to him. “What is happening? Where are we going?”

His father began to glow, and then to burn, flames dancing in his hair, over his face. But he didn’t seem to feel it. The tips of Alexei’s wings caught fire. Orange flames, blue, the purest white.

“Fear not,” Alexei said. In Holy Scripture, the first words angels said to those who saw them.

Having risen from sleep, we fall down before thee.

He flew higher still, and everything that was not of God was left behind. Blazing like a comet toward the golden sun, the smile in the whirlwind, the gates of heaven.