Valentine Lux: A Serial Novel

Valentine crossing the Williamsburg Bridge. Keep running, girl.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

New York City, a few years from now. Just before closing time.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel King sat drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon and making a list. Spread out on the wooden bar of his Aunt Marina’s tavern, the Rebel Moon, were pens, loose pieces of scrap paper, and half a dozen notebooks.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Valentine woke up dreaming of the beach, wispy images of the dark shore clinging to the fringes of her consciousness. It took her longer than usual to locate herself in the world, in time—something was tugging her back toward that other place.New chapters every Tuesday. Read more at www.valentinelux.com. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel’s first waking thought was that nothing should sound like what he was hearing. His mind couldn’t place it. It was guttural, unnatural, the sound of pain and rage distilled. Visit www.valentinelux.com for more about Valentine Lux: A Serial Novel. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Orson was on his knees in the living room sorting piles of hardware, suits, duvets, and a delicate pile of Edie’s lingerie.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Valentine flattened herself against the ground and covered her head as another explosion sent chunks of burning metal raining down around her. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel leaned against the red brick foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge, rivulets of hot sweat cooling against his skin in the night air, trying to catch his breath and will himself to accept that what he had experienced in the last twenty-four hours was reality, when what it actually felt like was being high and drunk and on the worst acid trip of his entire life.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Edie was itching for a fight. They’d woken up only moments ago and already she and Homer were at it, facing off in the dank underground cellar far beneath the Brooklyn Bridge anchorage where they’d slept through the day. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel couldn’t move. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might knock a hole through his ribcage. If only his paralyzed lungs would just inflate again, contract and expand, contract and expand.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Valentine didn’t recognize the pod, but it was clear they were older vamps, a different generation. You could always tell, even when they were taken young. There was an overall look they had, like something you’d scrupulously cleaned which still didn’t look new again, they were missing that showroom shine, that buff finish, of the young ones. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel woke up with the same feeling he had the day after his plunge into the East River. Only less hungover. His head ached and his body was stiff both from the abuse he’d taken from their vamp neighbors and a night spent in half-sleep on the cold stone floor of the anchorage.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

It had been handled poorly, Valentine thought. The chimps knew they’d all be leaving the next night just after sunset, but not that she and Edie would be headed in a different direction—back to the South Street Seaport. They would forge quickly ahead, no chimps to slow them down, exit the subway tunnel at Fulton Street and make a break for Orson. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel couldn’t shake the feeling of unease he’d had since his conversation with Valentine. The chill nothingness of the anchorage made it impossible to do anything more than simply exist, and he could feel his will to do even that seeping out of him as the slow hours ticked by. He had tried to make small talk with Jesse when she’d first appeared that morning, but her face stayed hard and tense, as though their conversation of the day before had never happened.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Just after sunset, Valentine climbed the stairs to rally the chimps. She dreaded having to roust them from the escapist stupor they seemed to have fallen into over the last twenty-four hours, but she found the demoralized little army packed and ready to go, sitting quiet and alert under the harsh glare of the security lights.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Marina was crying against the side of a Number 6 train. She sobbed in great heaving gasps, and Daniel thought his mind, already teetering on the edge, might tumble off it like an overfed pigeon if he had to listen to the sound for even one more second. Every molecule in his tired body cried out for bourbon, delicious, smoky, cauterizing bourbon, bourbon to deaden the panic of the little boy inside him watching his aunt, his grown-up, disintegrate before his eyes, bourbon to quell the rising panic that someone, something, somewhere, was going to hear her lamentations. Instead, he lamely patted her shoulder and tried not to piss his pants.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Valentine ripped at the fingers clinging to her face and was able to see, in flashes, that the hands of her attackers had carried her down the stairs into a tidy, nautical-themed cellar. Finished to keep out the damp, but still with a basement chill, the narrow hallway was painted navy blue. Beige utility doors, each embellished with a miniature white wooden anchor, were clearly marked in brass letters: “Laundry”; “Fitness”; “Exit”; “Storage.” The signs passed in fast-forward as the hands dragged her unceremoniously down the hallway on her back, and finally through the last door marked “Bike Room.” The hands released her and she hopped into a crouch, arms extended, ready for what was to come.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel woke up into a dim twilight and experienced several seconds of disorientation so complete he thought at first he might be dead. But no, as his gummy eyes adjusted he realized he was sweating (i.e. not dead) under a wool blanket on a high twin bed with a hard mattress.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Valentine felt like a guest at some demented dinner party waiting for the post-prandial game of charades to begin, and it didn’t surprise her in the least that the humans had gravitated toward each other in this awkward tableau. Daniel stared dully into the fire, nursing his drink, Jesse perched on the arm of his chair like a watchful chihuahua, every muscle alert and quivering under her thin, pale skin, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

When Daniel rolled into the kitchen late the next afternoon he was feeling about as good as he’d felt since the night before the double chump battle back at the Rebel Moon. In spite of the abuse he’d taken since then, after a few more servings of soup, a scalding hot shower, and another fourteen hours of sleep in the Emily Dickinson room (the bed turned out to be pretty comfy), not to mention just the right amount of booze to keep him even, he felt like a new man.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

The din of the infrasound being emitted by the Collective exploded across Valentine’s soundscape as the IMV crashed through the wall of vamps, shaking Valentine backward into a warm body she hoped wasn’t Marina. Edie shrieked, and Valentine knew she was hearing it, too, and suffering.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Just as Daniel was about to give up trying to open the Dingo’s door it suddenly popped free and India and Ransom came flying through, landing on him in a tangled pile before the door was slammed shut again. He almost pissed himself before he realized it was them, but there was no time for catching up because India was so limp and pale and the air so close that, still scrambling and trying to hug them and also keep them from squashing Marina he rose up out of the mess and popped the hatch with no effort at all.Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

“It should have been you!” Edie grabbed Homer’s shirt and slammed him back against the interior of the Dingo as it careened north toward the Henry Hudson bridge. “It should have been you instead of him, you loser, you waste of space!” “Stop it!” Jane cried. “There’s no room to fight in here. These humans are dying!” The Dingo lurched and she grabbed frantically at Evan to keep him from rolling off the seat. “Homer!”Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)

Daniel stared at the door of the Dingo as it closed with a soft click. Jesse tossed him a roll of duct tape and they methodically sealed every seam, chink, and cranny where light might enter. The Dingo was basically impermeable, but it didn’t seem like the moment to take any chances. Inside, he knew, the vamps were cocooning themselves in as much of the gear as they’d been able to spare from the packs brought from Rex’s apartment. Support the show (https://www.valentinelux.com/contribute)