“I don’t remember.” He rubbed his eyes. “I woke up alone in the EMT ambulance. I knew I didn’t want to be there. When they stopped, I let myself out.”
“But weren’t you hurt?” I could see only his silhouette now, and the gleam of his hair.
“Yes, I’d inhaled a lot of smoke. But I’m strong. I bounce back quickly. Your father, with his diet of tonics and cow’s blood and artificial supplements…” He shook his head. “He was more vulnerable. There’s no substitute for the real thing.”
I didn’t want to think about Malcolm’s dietary habits. “What happened to Dennis?”
“Apparently he left while I was trying to put out the fire. He must have, because when I tried the door, it was locked from the outside.”
I had complete access to his thoughts now. Unless he was a remarkable liar, capable of lying to himself as well as me, he was telling me the truth. Yet part of me held back. He still was the one who’d killed my best friend.
“I killed her to protect you and your father.” His voice was almost a whisper. “She knew that you’re vampires, and she planned to expose you. Why can’t you believe that?”
I put up my hand. Once a story has a villain, it’s very hard to recast him as a friend, almost as hard as it would be to make him into a hero. “Tell me some other time,” I said. “I don’t think I can take any more tonight.”
He leaned forward, and the light from the window lit one side of his face: narrowed eye, long nose, one corner of his thin mouth. “But you said you wanted answers. Don’t you want to know what’s going on here?” He waved in the direction of the wall map. “Don’t you want to know what that’s all about?”
“Could we turn on a light?” The sight of his half-face made me nervous.
He switched on a table lamp, and the room sprang into being: bookshelves, fireplace, furniture. Now he had three dimensions, too. He was just a man, I realized—just a vampire, I corrected myself. He wasn’t a demon, or a monster.
“Okay.” I looked across at him. “What’s this all about?”
He stood up, went to a corner cabinet, came back with a bottle and tumblers. He poured two glasses of Picardo and handed me one. I hesitated, then I took it. We drank.
He said, “Welcome to the Society of N.”
The house near Oglethorpe Square was a regional outpost of the Nebulists, Malcolm said. “I assume that you know who we are?”
I remembered Mãe’s hand-drawn chart. “I know a few things,” I said. “My mother explained the differences among the vampire sects.”
“She probably got them wrong.”
I began to protest.
“Sara never did understand the differences.” Malcolm pushed his hair from his forehead. “Neither did Raphael. No doubt they put the Sanguinist spin on whatever they told you. They typecast us. They say they’re the ones who care about preserving resources, about sustaining the earth, but they don’t do much to make it happen.”
“They try—”
“They aren’t prepared to make it happen.” Malcolm had none of my father’s inhibitions about interruptions. “But we are.”
“I didn’t know that Nebulists cared.” From what my father and mother had said, I’d gathered the Nebulists were self-centered, ruthless, amoral. And I let Malcolm hear that thought.
He smiled, and for the first time I thought him handsome. “Our caring takes the form of action,” he said. “Ari, can you imagine a world without humans? Think for a moment. Everywhere humans go, they leave waste. They pollute the soil and the atmosphere, the ocean and the rain. They cut down trees and murder whole species of animals. I’m speaking in the simplest terms possible, but there are other, more sophisticated analyses.
“The truth is, if humans were wiped out tomorrow, the world would be a better place. Within perhaps twenty thousand years, everything made by man would be gone. The hideous houses, the factories and nuclear reactors, the skyscrapers and schools—all would crumble into dust. The air, water, and land would cleanse themselves. Species would rebound. All of that would happen on its own—and happen even sooner, if we vampires helped the recovery process.”
His speech seemed as compelling as Cameron’s, at first. “So what are you proposing?” I asked. “Exterminating the human race?”
“Of course not.” His tone was mildly amused, not shocked. I thought, But you wouldn’t rule extermination out.
He heard that thought. “You’re putting the Sanguinist spin on it again. Once, I admit, the Nebulists were proponents of such a plan. But we’ve evolved, as all intelligent beings do. Now we advocate a form of enlightened coexistence.” Malcolm swirled his glass, and the Picardo gleamed ruby red as the lamplight caught it. “You will agree that things can’t go on as they are?”
I nodded, slowly. All I’d seen and heard and read about environmental damage made clear the need for dramatic change.
“Then it’s apparent to you that even enlightened humans aren’t doing enough to reverse the damage to the ecosystem. Buying a hybrid car or low-energy lightbulbs is all very well, but hardly a means of eliminating the problem.”
“So what are you proposing?”
He clasped his hands over one knee. “We’re proposing more meaningful modifications of human behavior that will actually make a difference. Imagine humans who act sensibly, mindful of the long-range consequences of their behavior. Imagine humans who care beyond their immediate needs and desires or gratification, who live frugally and respectfully.”
I shook my head. “You can’t make that happen.”
“We’re already making it happen.” He gestured toward the map on the wall. “Each circle you see there is a seedling community. The program began five years ago. Eventually there will be more circles, and they will overlap and cover the entire continental U.S. If you went to our outposts in Europe, Asia, and Africa, you’d see similar maps.”