He nodded his head in their direction and turned to continue walking out of the gate, people stepping rapidly out of his way as he exited.
The people milled around, “Have you talked to him before?” an older woman asked the young one, who was still staring at the gate used by the stranger a moment before.
She shook her head.
“Then how,” the older asked, “did he know your name?”
—
“Three years?” Michael asked as the two men walked along a street. They weren’t heading directly towards the Pack enclosure, yet.
“Yes, as best as I was ever able to understand, China started a virtual war, releasing code to take over stuff. Before you knew it, we were blind here in America, other nations were blind. Some country threw the first Nuke, some say Pakistan, some say Israel. Then a huge EMP burst happened over the central United States, frying all of the electronics. At least, that is the working theory. Power went out all over the world, and we dropped back into the second dark ages. Sicknesses we thought were beat came back and kicked our ass. Not so much the Weres or the vampires, obviously. But they really messed up the normal humans.”
The two men stepped across the road to go down a side street, “In about twenty years or so, something like eighty-seven percent of the world’s population had died.”
Michael looked around at the empty city, the many buildings, some collapsed, in the distance, “So, Bethany Anne left earth and they committed suicide?”
“I wouldn’t think Bethany Anne had anything to do with it, Michael. She was gone three years already when it went down.”
“How long ago, again?” Michael asked.
“A hundred and fifty years, Michael.”
“My, God.” he murmured.
“Yes, temperatures went up all over the world. I understand you don’t want to try and live near the equator, it’s a death sentence. Hell, even here in Denver it gets way hotter than it used to. The food belt, isn’t.”
“Isn’t what?” Michael asked.
“Isn’t a food belt. At least, not anymore. The only way they could grow the crops they did was because they pulled water out of the ground. No power? No water. Plus, with the temperatures rising, most of civilization is going back to locations by bodies of water. Chicago and that area around the Great Lakes is pretty advanced, and New York is a big deal.”
“New York is good?” Michael asked, “I wonder if my home is still standing.
“Probably?” Gerry answered. “We had moved out of New York before the apocalypse, but unless someone built right on the water, it is probably still there. I’ve spoken with some people who have flown in from that area.”
“Flown?” Michael Interrupted, “What are they using to fly, airplanes, jets?”
“No, anti-gravitic based dirigibles.” Gerry informed him.
Michael shook his head, “So, they did get Bethany Anne’s technology?”
“No, believe it or not, they are using technology that can be traced back to World War II and the Nazis.”
Michael turned to look at Gerry, “I assume you aren’t pulling my leg, but Nazis?”
Gerry shrugged, “Three guesses who found a group of ex-Nazis, or Germans or Germans who didn’t want to be Nazis and helped them. Hell if I know what the whole story is there and frankly I’m a little fuzzy on the details after all of these years. So, three guesses and the first two don’t count.”
Michael looked up to the sky, “How does she get involved in all of these events? Is the woman blessed, or cursed?”
“Yes,” Gerry answered diplomatically.
“Nice answer,” Michael replied.
“I thought so.”
“So, we have Nazi or World War II Germans who had technology and the anti-gravitic capabilities floating around belong to them?”
“Yes,” Gerry confirmed. “The technology works, but it is very power hungry and the world doesn’t have awesome battery manufacturing capabilities built up. Plus, our nuclear capabilities are substantially burdened. If a scientist was found for many years after the fall, they would be grabbed by powerful people and bartered to others. Now, practically anyone with high technology skills needs to be careful, or they end up kidnapped.”
Michael thought about Gerry’s comment, “Knowledge really is power, isn’t it.”
“Yup,” Gerry confirmed, “One of the reasons I feared for Jacqueline,” he admitted.
“She’s smart?” Michael asked.
“Very, gets it from her mother, before you ask.”
Michael grunted, “And her trip out into these Fallen Lands?”
“Headstrong, looking for technology she could rebuild and sell,” Gerry shrugged, “My portion of her DNA.”
“I gathered,” Michael replied drily.
Gerry shot him a look, but bit his tongue. This wasn’t the Michael from two hundred years ago, but you were never careless around a wild animal that had been caged. Especially when you were witness to the destruction of just half an hour ago.
Michael continued, “She’s attractive, from her mother as well.”
“May I say, you can be an ass?” Gerry muttered.
“You can, because you have earned it.” Michael agreed, “But I wouldn’t suggest you do it too often,” he finished.
“Yeah, figured it was like a coupon system,” Gerry put out a hand, “Slow down, we can peek around the corner to see the Pack’s area. It’s about five blocks away, but they have scouts three blocks out from the fence.”
The two men came to a stop behind the corner of the building. Michael looked around to see the Pack’s location, with the two buildings inside the walls.
He leaned back and looked to Gerry, “Ok, a couple of questions before we stroll over there.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
South of old Denver (United States Post-Apoc)
“Sir, our spies are saying that a stranger is killing Kraven’s men,” the young black man reported to the pack Alpha.
Joshua Timmons was unusually short for an Alpha. However, what he didn’t have in height, he had in width. The man was huge and muscular from side to side. One of the funnier assholes in the group had once asked ‘why does the sun go around the earth? Because it is easier than going around Joshua’s shoulders!’
Dumbass didn’t think about the orbit at all. Joke would have worked if it was the moon. Joshua thought it was a clever way to talk about how wide his shoulders were.
It took brown-nosing to a new level completely.
Joshua’s eye’s narrowed. Right now, he was responsible for his pack and while he might do a few things that weren’t entirely fair to others, it was always pack first with him.
“No idea who, Kent?” Joshua asked.
The man shrugged, “Whispers are about a stranger in a coat. Went into a bar on the west side, one of Kraven’s. His thugs went in and messed with him. He knocks two out cold and heads up the street and goes into another bar inside of Kraven’s building.”
Joshua put a hand over his face, “Did they try to shake him down?”
Kent nodded his head.
“Well, how many before they got him?” Joshua asked.
“Sir,” Kent answered, “he’s still at it.”
“Still killing?” Joshua asked and Kent nodded. “That ain’t human.” Kent shrugged while Joshua thought. He knew that Kraven had a couple of Weres in his employ. Either they were out on an operation for Kraven, or they were dead. It was daylight and Joshua closed his eyes for a second and looked to Kent, “Ok, tell the guys to tighten up security, bring anyone not from our pack in here, I want to know what they know.”
He waited a second, his eyes narrowed, “Now, Kent! I’ve got to make a phone call.”
Kent turned and walked out, doing his dead level best to go as slow as he could without upsetting his alpha. Joshua asked Kent one time point-blank why he left so slowly and Kent had laughed as he pointed to himself, “Spy, remember?”
Kent’s role wasn’t just a
spy, it was his personality. There was no information he didn’t want to know. The more secret it was, the more he wanted to know it.
Joshua, knowing Kent’s temperament waited for him to leave before he reached over and picked up a phone. One of the few benefits, from his behind the scenes help for Kraven, had been to get connected up to the phone lines that were still working.
When you had only a few people in your pack, and the humans had some serious firepower, you made alliances even if you hated the bastards.
Especially if they hunted vampires as their business.
—
“Looks like they are closing down the place,” Michael murmured and Gerry poked his head around the corner.
“Probably got a runner from Kraven’s earlier,” Gerry whispered. “The Alpha here is a world class dick, but he does try to protect his people.”
Michael turned to look at Gerry, “But not Jacqueline?”
Gerry shook his head, “She ain’t pack. Her being a Were is just an annoyance to him. It’s like people from any other pack are second class citizens.”
The creak from Michael’s leather coat sounded loud as he turned back to look around the corner, “Well, there goes talking our way in.”
“You were going to go talk to them?” Gerry asked, Michael turned back to look at him and raised his eyebrow.
Gerry put up his hands, “Sorry, but your reputation is more of a show up, kill them all and let God sort them out.”
“I’m trying to rehabilitate myself here, Gerry.” Michael explained, “It’s like being put on a diet by your girlfriend before she becomes your wife.”
“What was all that you did over at Kraven’s?” Gerry asked, confusion flavoring his question.
“Long overdue,” Michael replied and turned back to view the corner, “Not to mention since I’ve returned, a few skills are a little rusty so I don’t have all of my previous abilities back, yet.”
“Like growing hair?” Gerry asked, his mouth close to Michael’s head as he looked around the corner. He noticed Michael had turned and was looking back at him.
Annoyed as hell.
“Oh, don’t mention the hair?” Michael shook his head, “Ok, good to know.” Gerry had to bite down on his next comment. He didn’t want Michael slipping back into ‘old Michael’ and apologizing to his dead body afterward.
No matter how much goodwill Gerry had earned, he didn’t care to test him.
Michael pulled back, “Let’s walk to the other walls, I want to see them, too.”
Gerry looked up, “How far can you jump?”
—
A phone rang a few miles away. The man, blond hair with two scars down the left side of his face turned from his workbench and walked over to the table. The large warehouse where he was working had been converted into their living and working quarters while the team was out this far West. Except for the major Were ambush a while back, his team of three hadn’t had much in the way of vampire hits in this area.
Were blood, so far, had been damned useless for the underground blood trade. He had enough to hold twenty five large vials of blood in stasis and the only good shit was vampire blood.
Depending on the quality of the blood they put in the vials, that would be enough for the three of them to live off for five years. Even when they paid off their silent partner, they were all good for three good years if they wanted to be fair and square with him.
Hank picked up the phone. Calvin and Izzy wouldn’t have heard anything from outside. “Yeah?”
“It’s Joshua,” the male baritone voice spoke, “I have a tip.”
“What’s it going to cost, Were?” Hank asked, “The last tip wasn’t so good. We barely were able to break even after selling the slave.”
“Yeah, but he took her, didn’t he? You were responsible for blinding her.”
“Weres heal,” Hank replied.
“Not from fucking silver, Hank,” Joshua replied.
Hank, annoyance coloring his voice, “Well, we ain’t got time to go around killing a bunch of Weres, Joshua.”
Joshua reined back his temper, “Good, cause if I’m not mistaken, you are about to get the fucking motherlode, Hank.”
“Vampire?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think this guy is hot shit?” Hank asked as Calvin and Izzy came walking in from outside. He put a finger to his lips to tell the guys to keep their talking down.
They had phones, not great phones.
“Two reasons. The first is that I’m getting the news he is killing everyone over at Kraven’s,” Joshua told him.
“How the fuck is he doing that?” Hank asked.
“That’s the second reason. I’m guessing he is a sun-walker, Hank.” Joshua dropped the obvious answer and Hank’s eyes narrowed as he spoke into the phone.
“Dangerous,” Hank finally replied.
“And imagine what his blood must be worth, Hank?”
Hank tapped his fingers on the table, “Why are you telling me this, Joshua?”
“Because I know where he is going to be, most likely,” he answered.
“Where is that?”
“Right fucking here,” Joshua admitted. “So, if you want to know where he is, I’d suggest coming and bagging his ass before he splits. Come in the lower tunnel and we will open it up.”
“It’s going to take us twenty minutes at least,” Hank told him but made hand signals to his two partners to go suit up.
“It’s not like we are going anywhere, but whether he is still around is your problem. If he has been here, I’ll have either killed him, or I’ll have been killed. Either way, the blood ain’t going to be worth shit to you.”
“Fifteen,” Hank told Joshua and slammed the door down. “Load up the heavy stuff!” he yelled out and ran to his own locker.
A daywalker was a myth, a legend.
But, if he was really a daywalker, his blood would set him, and all his guys, up for life.
Hank met Izzy and Calvin as they finished suiting up.
“I think this is the big one, guys.” Hank told them.
“Like the last one was?” Calvin kicked in, laughing.
Hank gave Calvin an annoyed look, “Hey, she was hot, no doubt,” Izzy jumped in, “but we got ripped up pretty bad, silver or no silver.
“Yeah, that was stupid not taking the blood first,” Calvin added. “We had to take it when we came back.”
“Each time we use the blood, we hurt our chances of gaining a profit.” Hank countered.
“Dead ain’t a profit, Hank.” Izzy reminded him, “and how much do you believe this is the big one?”
Hank thought about his second phone call as he strapped on his neck protection, “Yeah, ok. Somebody totally fucked up Kraven’s place and Joshua is thinking he is going after his location next. We might be late, but better to be prepared than dead.” he slapped the side of the wall next to him, “But GOD I hate wasting good product.”
Two minutes later, all three men had finished getting ready for battle and their feet clump-clump-clumped down the steps into the dark basement.
“Ohhhh…” A voice, a sibilant whisper, eerie in its weakness greeted them, “So, you grace me with your unholy presence again.”
“Come on Daniel,” Calvin lit an oil lamp and turned it up. He turned towards the emancipated late teen laying on the table, strapped down, his skin a pasty white. “You should be honored you are so valued.”
An angry, weak laugh turned into racking coughing, “You kill my mom, my dad and steal me away in the night for what? To drain me dry of blood, night after night, seeing how long you can keep me both weak, and producing?”
The Dark Messiah Page 11