Blood Oath

by Christopher Farnsworth

  “Cade, talk to me. What’s going on?” He hurried to get his seat belt fastened as Cade floored it.

  Cade’s face was grim. “Konrad was leaving the country. The Unmenschsoldaten aren’t here.”

  “So where are they?”

  Cade looked at him, and it finally clicked for Zach, too.

  It was the container that had to get to Konrad. But the spare parts—the spare parts were exactly where they were supposed to be.

  In Washington, D.C.

  “The White House?” Zach asked.

  Cade nodded. “Call Griff. Tell him to get the president out of there. Do whatever it takes. Then call Edwards.”

  “Who?” Zach asked, trying to dial as the car, engine screaming, lurched in and out of the late-night traffic.

  “The air force base,” Cade said, snapping off every word. “We need to get back to Washington as fast as possible.”

  Zach looked at his watch. Just past one. Which put D.C. at just after four a.m.

  “There’s no way we’ll make it, it’s going to be morning there before we land.”

  “God damn it, do as you’re told, ” Cade shouted.

  Zach realized, suddenly, they were in the oncoming lane of traffic, headed straight at an oncoming SUV

  Cade sliced back into the opposite lane, inches ahead of a slow-moving Ford.

  As soon as they were clear, Cade stomped on the gas again, sending the tachometer back into the red. Horns blared after them.

  “Make the calls, please,” Cade said, quieter now.

  Zach didn’t ask any more questions. He did as he was told.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Konrad watched Cade’s car disappear around a corner of the shipyard. That had actually been a little too close.

  He looked at the security men, scattered on the dock around him. They had been part of his deal with the so-called terrorists: armed bodyguards. He’d thought they might get lucky, maybe damage Cade if all else failed.

  Predictably, he’d expected far too much. Konrad suspected the little Arab snot had paid bargain rates.

  The man on the ground closest to Konrad groaned. Konrad nudged him with his toe, and the man’s eyes opened.

  “One of you still needs to get my container loaded,” Konrad told him. “The man who did this to you—he’s almost certainly going to be back. And I don’t want to be anywhere he can find me.”

  The man’s head lolled back, and he closed his eyes again.

  Konrad looked to the sky. It was just so hard to find good help these days.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Dylan checked his watch again. Khaled and the others were late.

  Maybe they got stopped. He didn’t know what he was supposed to hope for now.

  Then he heard the booming sound of a hand pounding on the back of the truck.

  He swung open the door.

  Khaled stood there with two of his pals, Gamal and Tariq. All three wore medical scrubs. Khaled carried the cooler. He hoisted it inside the trailer, then reached out his hand.

  Dylan hauled him up. He stared at the cooler. “That can’t be them.”

  Khaled grinned. “It is. God really wants this country to fall.”

  Dylan couldn’t believe it. He opened the cooler, then swore to himself.

  Dry ice smoked around four severed heads. They looked like nothing human, not really. They were gray and wrinkled and swollen, the flesh hanging off them like poorly wrapped shopping bags. One eye stared at him, dead as a marble.

  Dylan stepped back. The lid fell closed.

  Khaled, meanwhile, surveyed the interior of the truck. He nodded.

  Everything was there, as Konrad had promised. The tubes and the machines, which sat like waiting insects, ready to buzz into life.

  He looked back at Dylan. “You’ve done well. You’ll be rewarded.”

  Dylan finally started to figure it out. There was no payday coming.

  “Hand me those,” Khaled demanded. He meant the heads.

  Dylan nearly vomited, touching the dead skin as he passed them to Khaled. Khaled placed them in the empty metal sockets at the neck of each corpse.

  Any hope Dylan had that this was just a crazed fantasy had evaporated. He knew, just as sure as he was holding the heads of corpses while Khaled tightened the bolts.

  In the meantime, Gamal and Tariq were strapping themselves into the chairs, hooking up the electrodes to their skin.

  It began to dawn on Dylan, something he’d heard long ago in one of those science classes he flunked, you can’t get something for nothing.... Whatever was going to run those corpses had to be kick-started somehow.

  He knew it now. This was real. All of it was real. This would work. He had helped to place these things on the Earth.

  And he was going to die.

  Khaled waited, unmoving, somehow communicating his impatience with just a stare. Gamal and Tariq were strapped down, faces tight with anticipation.

  Khaled tightened the screw at the neck of the last creature. He was done.

  Dylan glanced at the back of the truck. He had a clear shot at the door.

  Now or never. Run or die.

  He ran, sprinting for the door. He had it up and was scrambling out, diving like a swimmer for the pavement.

  He hit hard and rolled. He could hear Khaled cursing him as he got up.

  Dylan kept running. He didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t care. He was done with this nightmare.

  He was gone.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Griff almost didn’t wake up for the phone. Between the whiskey and his meds, he was pretty out of it. He reached out a hand, knocked the phone over, cursed and then held it to his face.

  Zach was on the other end, talking a mile a minute. Griff’s relief on hearing the kid’s voice didn’t last long.

  He listened. Then he hung up, pulled on his suit jacket and moved as fast as he could for the door.

  He choked back the nausea, the booze and the shame all rising in his throat at the same time. He could feel that later, if there was time.

  Right now, he had to get to the White House.

  FORTY TERRIFYING MINUTES after they started—Zach glanced at the speedometer once and kept his eyes shut tight after that—the car screeched to a halt on the tarmac of a runway at Edwards.

  Zach got out of the car on slightly wobbly legs. There wasn’t an aircraft, or a person, anywhere in sight.

  “Move,” Cade growled, and Zach wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go.

  Then he saw the plane.

  It was stark black, unlit, almost invisible against the night sky and the black asphalt. It looked like a flat triangle. But it was hard to see—physically, it was hard for him to focus on it. His eyes seemed to slide off its rounded corners.

  A door opened in its belly, and Zach suddenly realized just how big it was—they were still more than a hundred yards away.

  A tall, gangling man in a flight suit waved at them impatiently from the hatch—a normal-looking guy surrounded by flying-saucer tech.

  “Come on,” he called. “Meter’s running.”

  Cade turned to Zach. “Stay here,” he said. “You’ll be safer.”

  “Fucking what?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said,” Zach snapped. “You think I’m going to bail out now?”

  “I won’t be able to look after you, and I don’t have time to argue,” Cade said, impatience putting an edge in his voice.

  “Yeah? Well, that’s fine, because this won’t take long,” Zach said. He wasn’t sure where he was getting the balls for this, but he tumbled forward anyway. “I’m going with you, Cade, and if you don’t like it, tough shit. Because that is an order.”

  There was no change in Cade’s tone or facial expression. But somehow, Zach got the unmistakable sensation that the vampire was proud of him.

  “Good,” Cade said.

  Within a few minutes, Zach was strapped into a half-egg seat, filled with foam that
molded itself to his body.

  The pilot—the name on his fatigues read AHREN—handed him a mask and helmet. “Put that on,” he said. “Try not to puke into it.”

  A copilot turned and checked on Cade, who was already strapped in. Cade had obviously made this run before.

  “We don’t have time to put you in the case, sir,” the copilot said. His tag read GRAHAM. Neither of them showed any rank, but they both wore identical patches. A black circle, outlined with red letters, some kind of Latin: “Si Ego Certiorem Faciam ... Mihi Tu Delendus Eris. ”

  “We are going to get a little sunlight when we reach apogee,” the copilot said, like an airline captain pointing out the Grand Canyon to passengers.

  “I’ll be fine,” Cade said. “Let’s go.”

  The pilots sat in their own chairs, which were more like recliners with a series of wires and tubes. Zach could have sworn he saw one of them insert a computer cable directly into a slot under his jaw, but that had to be an optical illusion. Both pilots zipped up and strapped on large insect-eyed helmets, then began flipping switches.

  There was almost no sound—just a persistent humming that Zach felt in his bones. It took him a minute to realize they were moving.

  They were moving very fast.

  The pilots didn’t have any of the usual preflight chatter or speak into their radios.

  Zach, positioned directly behind them, could only see the edges of what was going on out through the cockpit windows.

  The wing-shaped craft was at the edge of the runway in a fraction of a second, and then Zach’s stomach lurched as they reared back at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Approaching delta,” one of the pilots said. Zach heard it through his helmet. He retched a little as his insides kept flipping.

  One of the pilots must have heard him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This is the worst of it.”

  “Well, unless we explode,” the other said.

  “Explode?”

  Both pilots laughed.

  Zach didn’t have time to worry. In front of them, the sky went from black to purple to another, deeper black—but one lit up as if by halogen bulbs.

  The craft stopped in midair, and Zach got one uninterrupted look out the windows as they spun upside down.

  Zach saw blue again, a wide curve in the corner of the windscreen, and realized what he was looking at.

  They were above the Earth—in orbit.

  “We are at apogee,” the copilot said. “Thirty seconds and counting.”

  The craft hung there at the edge of space, while the Earth spun below them. Just over the blue curve, a bright, glaring light appeared.

  Sunrise, on the far side of the world.

  “My God, what is this thing?” Zach asked. He realized he was floating against his harness. Even inside the plane, he could feel the cold of space clinging to it, sucking the warmth away.

  “Near-Earth orbital reconnaissance plane,” the pilot said, a little pride in his voice. “TR-3B Black Manta. Modified for passengers, of course.”

  “Unbelievable. I didn’t know we had anything this fast....”

  “Not fast enough,” Cade said. Zach couldn’t see him behind the helmet, but he could hear the pain in his voice.

  The pure, unfiltered sunlight stabbed at Zach’s eyes, and he realized what this must have been doing to Cade.

  “Hang on, sir,” the copilot said. “Almost ready for reentry.”

  Cade didn’t reply, his fingers in a death grip on his armrest.

  “Cade, we’re almost out of this....”

  “Not what I meant,” Cade said. “I wasn’t fast enough. I should have put it together. Now we’re three hours from sunrise when we land. And they’re already down there. We’re out of time. Because I was too slow.”

  Silence.

  “Three forty-four a.m. local time, sir,” the copilot said. “Starting descent.”

  “We’re going to make it, Cade,” Zach said, without thinking. He was reassuring a vampire.

  Again, Cade didn’t respond.

  The plane dipped, and all of Zach’s weight returned. Velocity and gravity caught up with them again, and every muscle in Zach’s body strained against the harness as the plane hit the atmosphere.

  They fell below the burning sunlight and then went screaming back into the dark.

  SIXTY

  The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster.

  —E. M. Cioran

  Khaled watched Dylan run into the night from the back of the truck. He thought about giving chase. He’d intended for the American’s body to provide the raw fuel for the fourth corpse. But the idiot had some instincts for self-preservation after all.

  He rolled down the truck’s door before anyone noticed what was inside.

  Perhaps the fourth corpse would not rise up. Perhaps none of them would. He would still go forward as planned. As with all things, Khaled knew it was in the hands of God.

  Khaled’s God was not merciful. He was cruel, and he was vicious, and he was powerful. He delivered pain and rage and destruction. The world was full of those things, which meant God was winning.

  That’s why Khaled worshipped him. That was the God he wanted on his side.

  At the center of the truck, in the middle of the console of Konrad’s equipment, was a large knife switch. It was within reach of the chair Khaled had chosen. Once they were all seated, he only had to pull that and their lives would be drained into the creatures.

  Life requires death, Konrad had said to Khaled a long time ago when they first met. And death will consume life.

  He strapped himself into his own chair, leaving only one hand free.

  He gave one last look to Gamal and Tariq. Gamal nodded. Tariq’s eyes were closed, his lips moving in prayer.

  Khaled pulled the switch. His whole life distilled itself into this one moment. He was at peace.

  The pain began a second later, but his smile never faded.

  THE MOVIES GET IT WRONG, every time. There is no lightning, no boom of thunder. The flash is between neurons, life returning to bodies that should have been under the ground.

  Slowly, three Unmenschsoldaten began to move. The restraints holding them snapped like tissue paper as they rose.

  The fourth corpse got up last. It moved slowly, but it moved.

  The Unmenschsoldaten lined up and began walking. As soon as they left their platforms, a pressure-sensitive switch activated the rear door, pulling it open again. Konrad had thought of everything.

  The rear of the truck pointed the Unmenschsoldaten directly at their target.

  Framed in the doorway, gleaming white in the darkness, it was the only thing their limited senses could detect.

  The White House. Shining like a beacon across the flat green plain of the South Lawn, as if summoning them.

  The dead began to walk.

  SIXTY-ONE

  They are neither man nor woman—They are neither brute nor human- They are Ghouls:—

  —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Bells”

  The president wore a shirt open at the collar and khakis that still had a knife crease in the legs. It was the most disheveled Griff had ever seen him.

  Still, he didn’t look pleased to be up at this hour.

  Wyman was there, too, a pajama top stuffed in his blue jeans under a blazer. On his feet, those damn moccasins again. He’d come running from his residence at the Naval Observatory when he got the summons from the president. He actually looked happy because Griff was in trouble.

  Griff’s ID and reputation were enough to get him inside the White House, despite the cloud over him. They were not, however, enough to get anyone to hurry. Close to an hour was wasted while Griff told his story to the Secret Service, who roused the president, then again to the man himself.

  Even now, however, the agents in the room—two from Wyman’s detail and three from the president’s—looked at him wit
h suspicion.

  “Sir,” Griff said to the president, “you have to get out. Now. We’re wasting time—”

  “Agent Griffin,” the president said, his tone clipped, “you have to do better than that. I need facts, I need information. If there’s a threat, I can’t just run—”

  “Yes, you can, damn it, if you want to live,” Griff shouted, knocking over his chair as he stood up.

  Two of the Secret Service men, Patterson and Haney, were veterans. They knew Griff from three administrations. But they still moved between him and the president, hands on their guns.

  Griff drew in a deep breath, struggling for control. Then he blew it out.

  Patterson’s nose wrinkled. “Griff,” he said, “have you been drinking?”

  Terrific, Griff thought.

  Wyman smiled as if the only thing he was missing was a big tub of popcorn.

  “Sir,” Griff said again.

  The president held up a hand, and Patterson and Haney backed off. He seemed to call up his last reserve of patience.

  “Griff,” he said, “I have trusted you and Cade on a lot of things. Things I never would have believed. But this threat—whatever it is—is not just aimed at me. If something is coming toward D.C., I can’t leave unless I know I’ve done everything possible to—”

  “Never mind,” Griff interrupted.

  Everyone in the room looked taken aback. They thought Griff was committing career suicide right in front of them.

  “It’s too late now,” Griff said. He pointed.

  Everyone turned and looked out the windows toward the Rose Garden.

  In retrospect, Griff couldn’t blame them for freezing.

  No one is prepared for their first contact with the Other Side when it breaks through. No matter how many zombie movies you’ve seen, somewhere deep inside you know that it’s just actors and makeup. But out in the real world, your mind rebels. It says, this cannot possibly exist. And yet, there it is. Walking toward you.