The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Epilogue:

Leaf had walked away from his escape pod and joined the growing group of survivors stood on a long beach of golden sand.

The adrenalin that had fed his actions in the previous few hours had run its course and Leaf fell drained, thus was initially unaware of a slim arm wrapped round him…

“Thank you…” Tanith Lee whispered to his left ear, pressing her slim body against him. At that moment she would have done anything to please this man, her saviour – and, the last of the human race, perhaps.

Yet, she felt him stiffen and heard him say, “No thanks needed.”

Although they were approximately the same age, Tanith Lee thought this man sounded older, much older.

Briefly she wondered at what she had experienced, to make him so distant, while they were so joyous.

They had a blue sky, a warm yellow sun and what appeared to be verdant forests, just off the beach. Yet, he looked up into the sky still, ‘as if expecting something,’ she mused, slipping her arms from around his neck.

“But, I wanted to thank you, personally…” she told him softly.

Tanith Lee had asked ‘who saved us?’ at the largest of the fires burning on the beach.

The fires had been built to warm those emerging from the sea, leaving their lifepods bobbing in the water.

A confused looking young man wearing as little as she was had looked to her and then pointed toward Leaf, the young man in a battered blue zip-up coverall, standing at the far end of the beach.

At that moment she had felt a tap on her right shoulder and turned.
“He got us all out,” a man in his late fifties had informed her.

Tanith Lee had tried to tidy what clothing she wore – a grey vest and briefs; then she sauntered down the long beach of golden sand, to meet The Saviour.

Now, she wondered if his diffidence was due to reasons that did not include her… ‘after all,’ Tanith reasoned, ‘most men think I’m hot…’

It was true, many men did find the young blonde attractive and, her lack of apparel would distract many.

Leaf though, had a prior distraction…

“A penny for them,” Tanith pressed, backing away a little.

“It should be soon…” let slip from Leafs lips, his words drifting away on the light breeze.

“What do you mean?” Tanith asked, frowning. His obvious concern for this certain mysterious something, was both intriguing and frustrating, to the young woman.
“Do I have something to worry about?” she asked, hands on hips, a hint of anxiety to her voice in the question.

Also she was curious, Tanith was also concerned, for her own safety.

Tanith was curious, about the mysterious something; but she was also concerned, for her own personal safety.

“Do you have something to worry about?” Leaf paraphrased her words, his tone of voice turning from distant to a conversational tone, as he did so and, turning to face Tanith as he spoke.

“Yes, I’m worried… or, can’t you tell?” she rebuked, her concerns made manifest through her anger.

“I can tell,” Leaf conceded, allowing a smile to flit across his face for a nanosecond.

“You think this is funny” Tanith snapped.

“Oh no…” Leaf explained, palms uppermost as raised both arms, “but, you’re hardly likely to be aware that I was top of my class in astro-navigation!”

“What do you mean?” Tanith quizzed: his answer had left her flabbergasted.

“Questions, questions…” Leaf muttered, with memory of Sentinel and what questions had led to and suddenly, he found the answer he’d been seeking.

He turned away from Tanith and craned his neck, looking skyward. Then Simmersun pointed upward, with his right fore-finger.

“Look,” he told her.

“At your finger?” Tanith queried, much to his annoyance.

“No,” he snapped, “at that section of sky.”
Tanith did as suggested and saw what he had wanted her to see: A fireball had entered the atmosphere; a central mass at the head of a long fiery trail.
“What’s that?” she asked as she too looked skyward.

Leaf Simmersun smiled in answer, then turned to her and answered, “Its proof that I can programme an arkship to land… in a fashion…”

“But, the arkship wasn’t designed to land, was it?” Tanith quizzed, her gaze fixed on the fiery trail that followed the descending craft.

And then… to her right, a very loud explosion and flames…

“Old Earth had the fallen Angel Lucifer. This new Earth has a fallen Eve…” Leaf muttered, loudly enough for Tanith to hear: it was the laughter that left her baffled and somewhat fearful though; considering the last thing she’d witnessed was the arkships planetary explosive landfall…

Finally Leaf ceased his laughter. Then he turned to Tanith and told her, “At least there’s the ships bits… they’ll be useful, for shelter an suchlike…”


...