Obscurati

by Wynn Wagner

  He turned and gave us a salute.

  ABOUT an hour later, Ruprecht was knocking on our stateroom door. I was outside on the balcony, and Oberon was looking at the computer screen in the cabin. There was a map of the world and a dot showing us where we were. He could go from that to a satellite image and several other screens.

  Ruprecht brought the two duffel bags back to us, and Oberon gave him the M40 to return to the captain.

  “The crew wanted me to thank you,” I heard him tell Oberon as I walked into the stateroom from the balcony. “Very impressive. If those pirates had boarded the yacht, who knows how many they would have killed? I’m afraid there’s going to be some ‘hero worship’ for both of you over the next weeks.”

  I just shook my head. “Could you ask the crew not to embarrass me?” I said.

  “I can ask, but they’ll ignore me. Is there anything else you need? The staff has started a list of guys who want to have sex with you.”

  “Bring ’em on,” Oberon said with a grin.

  I just went back to the balcony to clean the PSG. From time to time I could hear a loud groan or yelp, so I knew my husband was having fun. As soon as I saw the first hint of light on the horizon, I went back into the suite. There were three men in bed with Oberon. The men were asleep or too worn out to move.

  There was just enough room for me to collapse on the bed and die for the day.

  Chapter 16

  THE Great Barrier Reef is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. It is enormous and just northeast of Australia. We had a full moon, but it was still really dark under the water.

  Pierre and Hamlet took out the little submarine that was stored inside the yacht. Hamlet is so queer; I’m sure he didn’t want to get sand under his nails or salt in his hair.

  Oberon tied his hair back, which is something I’ve seen him do only about twice in a hundred years. We got what I’d call underwater Jet Skis made by TUSA. They have a place to hold on and a propeller that provides the propulsion.

  Scuba? Not so much, no. Hello: vampire. We don’t need to breathe. We both had on goggles and flippers. The TUSA almost knocked my flippers off a couple of times. I think we could have done everything with no equipment besides the goggles, but moving through water isn’t like levitating in the air. Water is work. We had to swim.

  The main reason for the equipment was that it had lights. The reef lit up like crazy. Brightly colored fish and eels and turtles. There were tubes with frilly arms coming out the top. As soon as I got close, the frilly things disappeared. Whatever it was didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Oberon and I chased each other with our propulsion machines. It was fun.

  After an hour or so, the little submarine headed our way. I saw Pierre and Hamlet inside, and Pierre was motioning for us to go up. I didn’t want to leave the reef, but they did.

  “It’s Menz,” Pierre said, back on board the yacht.

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “He’s dead,” Hamlet said with blood-red tears streaming down his face.

  “Somebody attacked the house,” Pierre said. He was just as shaken up as the rest of us.

  “Vampires?” Oberon asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It has to be a mistake,” Oberon said.

  “No,” Hamlet cried. “It’s true. Menz is dead.”

  “We have to go back,” I said.

  “It is almost daylight,” Pierre said. “We have a couple of coffins onboard. Mårten, Oberon, seal yourselves in the coffins before dawn. Go get your rifle and gear. There’s a helicopter on its way. It will take you to Cairns Airport, which is fairly close. A jet will be waiting for you. I have four human staff members ready to go with you.”

  “We’ll be there as fast as we can,” Hamlet said, crying.

  I was in shock and just followed instructions. There was no way for me to make decisions on my….

  “Paco?” I asked.

  “Alive but hurt,” Pierre said. “Some humans were killed in the attack, which I think is still going on. I don’t know how many were hurt or killed.”

  “Shit.”

  “Know this: the queen has every vampire in Europe headed to Bavaria. They need you to help, but you can expect an army of really pissed-off vampires to be there already.”

  The helicopter landed on the yacht while it was still dark, but Oberon and I got into our coffins. I kept the PSG with me, and Oberon insisted on keeping his duffel bag. We didn’t have much space in the coffin.

  I mean, how could anybody want to hurt Menz? He was a thousand years old and very powerful, and he never hurt anybody. It’s a fucked-up world. Really fucked-up.

  And poor Paco. He had to be devastated.

  THE next thing I knew, there was a steady roar or whiz outside the coffin. I knew it was night, because I was up. A vampire doesn’t need a window or clock to know when night comes; we are hardwired to know. I unlocked my coffin, not knowing if we were on the helicopter or the ground or… jet. We were in a small jet.

  As soon as I cracked the lid, one of our human companions was there. He reached out his arm to help me up, but I just floated out of the coffin and closed the lid, leaving the rifle in the coffin. Oberon was already up and feeding from one of the human’s wrists. Another young man walked up to me and gave me his wrist. He was sobbing, out of control. It made me start crying again, but I needed to feed. It was one of those times when I didn’t want to feed. I didn’t want to do anything. I was in shock or denial or something.

  “Please,” the human said. I knew that I had to feed, and so I did without any ceremony. Without waiting for me to thank him, the blood donor went back to sit with the other staff members.

  “It is a twenty-hour flight, and we’ve been in the air for about fourteen hours,” Oberon said. “We would make better time if we got the pilot to land somewhere. We can make it back to Germany faster than this jet.”

  Oberon went up and knocked on the cockpit door. They talked for several minutes, and I felt the jet turn to the right.

  “Okay, the pilot is going to land,” Oberon said. “I think he was happy for the request, because he needed to refuel. Here’s the deal. We don’t have passports or papers. As soon as the plane lands, the pilot is going to stop the jet at the far end of the runway. We’re supposed to be ready to jump using a door not facing the terminal.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know. Africa somewhere. Madagascar, maybe?”

  When we landed and came to a stop, one of the humans went to open the door. He already knew that we didn’t need stairs. Oberon and I were out of the jet and headed to Germany faster than anybody could have seen. We flew for about half an hour. Oberon got lost a couple of times, and I couldn’t blame him.

  Eventually I started recognizing mountains and cities. We were probably five or six kilometers in the air, so jet traffic was an issue. Quite a few planes go in and out of Munich. Not many at night, but there were a few we had to dodge. We were up so high because we didn’t want to worry about hitting any birds. We could be right on top of a bird without warning. The bird would be dead, and we would be hurt.

  When Oberon saw the estate, he started going down.

  POP went a gun. We were landing in the middle of a friggin’ Wild West show.

  POP. POP. POP.

  Oberon got us over a small balcony on the second floor. There were humans on the balcony with guns, but they recognized us.

  “Who’s in charge?” I asked.

  “Queen Cécile,” said one of the humans. “Library.”

  That was all we needed to hear. She and Paco were the only ones in the library. Everyone else was on duty. Oberon and I both went up and hugged Paco for a long time. His entire right side was bandaged. We were all sobbing.

  “Where do you need us?” I asked the queen.

  “It’s Menz’s Maker,” she said. “He’s an evil son of a bitch and always has been. He has maybe a hundred vampires surrounding the house, and they’re p
laying a waiting game. They think we’ll run out of food for the humans or ammunition.”

  “I showed the queen the armory downstairs,” Paco said.

  “Pierre and Hamlet are….”

  “They’ll be here when they can. Look,” she said, pointing to a map on one of the large tables. “I think this is where the main group is. Do you know the area?”

  “Smart place to stay,” Oberon said. “It is high ground, and there are a couple of buildings.”

  “That’s why we need the two of you. We can’t sneak up on these guys. The leader—Menz’s Maker—can sense us long before we are close enough to do any damage. He can even sense the presence of Pierre.”

  “There,” Oberon pointed. He knew the area and selected a position near the top of the next hill. It was almost out of range for the PSG, but I had to make it work.

  “We need to get there but approach from the other side.”

  “Ammo?” I asked.

  “Got plenty.”

  “What does the head guy look like?” I asked.

  “Tall, blond, full beard the last time I saw him,” the queen said. “He hasn’t shown his sorry ass.”

  “Let’s go kill some asshole vampires,” I said with quiet resolve. I could grieve for Menz later… do everything later. I could give Paco all the attention he needed later. He seemed to be in a state of shock, and the queen was there for him. I don’t know how motherly she can get, but thousands of years must have taught her a few tricks. For the time being, I thought of only one thing: revenge.

  I stopped and started to go back to give Paco a hug. No, there would be time for that later. We had a band of vampires to kill first, so I forced myself to leave Paco for later. Paco would still need a hug when we were finished.

  IN A flash, Oberon and I were back on the balcony where we had landed a short time earlier.

  POP. A bullet whizzed by and struck the house.

  We jumped and made it up to about two hundred meters faster than I have ever moved before. There were some vampires waiting for us up there. Oberon fired a pistol he was holding in his right hand and made three fireballs. I didn’t even know he could fire a pistol.

  The two of us headed away from the house but in the opposite direction of where we eventually wanted to be. Oberon bounced around to different altitudes. He spotted some clouds off in the distance and headed right for them. We flew inside the clouds all the way back to where our perch was to be. We floated down just above the top of the trees, moving as fast as we could. A vampire would have had to be really observant to see us. We were going wicked fast.

  Oberon picked the perfect place for our nest. It was hidden from above. If you were walking, we would be able to sense your presence long before you were anywhere close. I borrowed his binoculars and found that I had a clear shot at two large windows and the main door.

  My husband unpacked his duffel bag. He used a range finder and told me the windows were 836 meters. That should have been beyond the range of the PSG, but Oberon had bullets that extended the range. He set up his weather station and started calculating the adjustments I would need to make on my sight. By the time he had my numbers, I had the PSG ready.

  He handed me a magazine of bullets. It was one of the big ones, and it felt full. I probably had several hundred of his best silver bullets, and I didn’t mind using them all. He gave me a short magazine too.

  “Incendiary,” he said.

  “Which is best? Do we make the cabin go up in flames, or do I pick off individual vampires?”

  “And humans. If they’re in that cabin, we want them dead.”

  “How about this? Let me start with the incendiary bullets. I will empty the whole clip through the windows and walls. That will start a nice fire in a hurry.”

  “Vampires will scatter. Humans too,” he said. “I like it.”

  “What’s the time?”

  “We have three hours before light.”

  “You’re faster than me,” I said. “Can you go back to the house and tell the queen what we’re going to do?”

  “Why?”

  “Vampires are fast, and maybe she can get more firepower for us.”

  He thought about it for a couple of minutes. “No. Everyone knows where the cabin is,” Oberon said in a whisper. He was avoiding mind-words because neither of us was good about shielding our thoughts.

  “Right,” I agreed. “As soon as they see the cabin go up in flames, they’ll be ready with everything. Smart. I wish that I had taken the time to hug Paco. Fuck that yacht; we never should have gone. If we had been here….”

  “No, stop,” Oberon said, trying to keep my head in the game. “Screw this onto the end of the rifle.”

  “A silencer?”

  “It keeps the muzzle from flashing. If you’re going to be ripping through a whole magazine of incendiary bullets, your muzzle will tell the vamps exactly where we are.”

  “Let it. It will move them closer.”

  “Just use it. I built it just for this kind of… um… situation.”

  With that, Oberon started crying again. He remembered what our situation was. I couldn’t look at him, or I would start sobbing. I was really angry. I felt my Viking blood starting to boil. My first impulse was to drop the rifle and go in for hand-to-hand combat. Actually, that summed up my first three impulses. I had to focus.

  Revenge. Concentrate on revenge.

  I put Oberon’s muzzle thing onto the rifle and loaded the first magazine. It was a small one, but it held more than enough incendiary bullets to make the house go up in flames. Oberon moved around to my right. I usually like him on my left, but he had the second magazine with hundreds of silver bullets ready to give me.

  “You knock the first mag out,” he said. “I will put the big one in.”

  I went back to my sight, thinking of how fucked up the world had become. The vampire who had trained me how to survive was dead. If I had been around, he would still be with us. But no, I had to go on a stupid yacht to see some goddamn underwater reefs.

  Two blond vampires were inside by one of the windows. They both had beards, and they were just talking and looking out the window.

  “I see them,” Oberon said. He had his binoculars. “Wait.” He took out the magazine and added two silver bullets. He told me my first two shots were for the vampires at the window. The rest of the clip would be incendiary.

  I scanned the house and saw there was a large propane tank to the left of the larger cabin. The second cabin was further to the left, and it looked abandoned.

  POP. POP. I hit both of the vamps in the window.

  POP. I hit the propane tank, which responded by becoming a forty-meter-high fireball. I had lit up the sky, so all of our guys knew exactly where the action was.

  POP. POP. POP. POP. I unloaded the entire magazine into the cabin. I hit the door and outside walls. I sent some through the two windows. The cabin was engulfed in flames in an instant.

  As I knocked the empty magazine off the rifle, Oberon replaced it with the large magazine. We were acting as an efficient team: no extra movement, no extra drama. It was straight-up revenge, and we worked like a machine.

  POP. POP. POP. The moment I saw vampires flee the inferno, I dropped them. I don’t think any made it out alive. I killed a few humans as they ran out of the door or jumped out of the windows. Several vampires rushed back to the cabin to join the fight.

  POP. POP. They didn’t make it back to the cabin. I must have killed eighty or ninety vampires and a dozen or so humans.

  After a while, things started slowing down. Every few minutes I saw a fireball inside the cabin. They were probably made by vampires who hadn’t been able to make it out.

  Two vampires saw our perch and tried to sneak up from behind. Oberon took them out with his pistol.

  A minute later, I saw three more vampires. As Oberon drew his pistol, Hamlet appeared out of nowhere. He ripped the heads off all three of the vampires, and he did so in about two seconds.

&n
bsp; When Hamlet landed, he was sobbing. We all were. I could barely see anything through my blood tears.

  “Pierre is heading to the cabin,” Hamlet said. “I was sent to ask you not to shoot him.” He gave as much of a smile as he could but then started crying again. We hugged each other.

  “Is anybody supposed to be with Pierre?” I asked.

  “No,” Hamlet said. I went back to the PSG and looked through the sight. There was a vampire following Pierre to the cabin. Another blond with a beard. Jeez, how many of these Nordic vampires are there? I aimed carefully.

  POP. The blond vampire behind Pierre exploded. Pierre looked up at us and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  He walked all the way around the cabin, which was mostly demolished by this time. The fire was starting to go out by itself as it ran out of material to burn. He pulled out a pocket-sized blowtorch and lit the smaller cabin. Nobody jumped outside, so I think the second cabin was empty.

  In a couple of minutes, Pierre was at the perch. I didn’t see him coming, and I didn’t feel his presence. He just appeared.

  “Let’s go down to the main house,” he said. He and Hamlet flashed away from our perch. Oberon and I tore down our gear. The PSG wouldn’t fit in my duffel bag with Oberon’s muzzle attachment, so I had to unscrew it. It was so hot that my skin sizzled, even if I couldn’t feel the temperature. I put my palm onto the ground to make sure I didn’t burst into flames.

  As soon as we were packed, we headed straight for the house. Oberon kept one hand near his pistol just in case. My only weapon was the PSG, and it was packed away.

  The queen and Pierre were sitting at the table on the back patio. I saw several vampires on the ground and in the air. They were the queen’s protection detail, and tonight she probably needed them. We landed nearby and walked up to the table.

  “Did you get him?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” I admitted. “I know that I got at least four or five blonds with beards.”

  “Here’s a picture that Paco found,” she said.