Parasite ; Sleeper Cells ; Kingdoms of the Dead

by Ian Woodhead

  His First Son took the skull from Dylar and crouched beside the remaining recruit, while Dylar hurried back to stand at his side.

  “This is so exciting. May I ask you just one question, Jalim? Why are we called the Dragonshine Clan?”

  “Is that not obvious? We were very lucky here. I still do not understand why my experiment has worked. I know that the Swarmer clan have been wrestling with this dilemma for many thousands of years. Although I know not of any record of another vampire using a head muscle to fix them, I am sure that it must have been used sometime in the past. I am a skilled alchemist, Dylar. The Clan used my talents to create such a vast array of terrifying creations.” He sighed, remembering his first experiments, all those years ago. “The Flesh Dragons were my best work and I do intend to improve on the design.” Jalim laughed at the sight of the other vampire’s startle face. “What, you thought I would stop? My new breed of dragon will stamp those foul clans into bloodied pulp.”

  Jalim turned away and watched his new First Son tend to his vampires. In his haste to comfort them, the First Son had kicked the skull, spilling the last of the head muscle across the floor. He vaguely wondered if he even cared that his worn boots had flattened what remained of his colleague into the damp stone.

  He turned back and noticed his colleague’s eyes fixed upon that broken skull. “Does something vex you?”

  Dylar took his eyes off the crushed bone and hung his head. “Yes, I fear that we took them too easily.” He murmured. “They all saw us approach, I scanned them and saw, through their glazed eyes, two monsters. They did not care, they did not run. Even when we dived on their filthy bodies, none of them put up any struggle.”

  “Do I have to explain their behaviour one more time?” he hissed. “To a man, they were all drunk on whatever foul substance passes for draft in this new age. Also, they were all broken men who had lost their clan. Their reactions were normal. Do not let this matter concern you.”

  He expected his comforting words to calm down the fool, to stop him dwelling on this quandary. Yet, he sensed the vampire becoming more agitated as each second passed. It made no sense. Where did this sudden apprehension come from?

  “I can not sense them, Jalim. All their thoughts are veiled to me. It is like trying to read that wall. They are new-born. My First Son used his mind to help my journey. We all shared our thoughts and the elders sent their own passive images to all of us new-borns.” He grabbed Jalim’s shoulders. This place is too strange, too hard to understand. Just look at your new vampires, Jalim.” He walked up to the nearest one and lifted his arm. “Have you felt the quality of this cloth? Even in this condition, the weave is finer than anything were could have worn before we slept.”

  Jalim watched the young vampire draw in a rapid breath before running past him, heading for the large hole that the pair of them had knocked through so they could get inside these two chambers.

  Once again, Dylar took on the features of some terrified rabbit, but this time, Jalim could not understand the reason.

  “He had a bottle in his hands before I killed him. We need to find out what was inside.” The vampire climbed through the hole.

  “Why are you acting like this?” he shouted. Jalim received no reply. His turned to watch his new clan, they were now all awake and sat in the far corner of the chamber, quietly taking amongst themselves. He would allow them to rest for the rest of the night before he took them on their first hunt when the sun dipped below the hills. Jalim looked over at his First Son and attempted to read his mind, expecting to sense a jumble of chaotic thoughts. He frowned, Dylar was correct, there was just nothing there, he tried the read the others and received the same result.

  Jalim spun around and hurried after his companion. It pained him to admit that he had been wrong to believe that his colleague would sever his clan connection so easily. Swarmer blood ran through Dylar’s veins and he suspected that nothing would change that fact. He glanced back at his new clan and saw them all gazing at him, he could not read any of their expressions.

  It did not matter, they were his new clan, this was a new world, the rules were bound to be different. He would learn to understand why their thoughts were shut away. Jalim clambered through the hole in the wall and caught sight of the back of the vampire. As he cleared the top of the steps, he expected Dylar to run forward and head for the main doors. Instead, he turned towards the cooking area of this abandoned building.

  He needed to reach a decision with how to deal with the other vampire, preferably, before the sun did rise. At this critical moment, his new clan demanded a strong cohesion. He could not afford to have Dylar amongst them is his loyalty was divided, it would break up their bond.

  Jalim reached the top of the steps and stopped listening to Dylar’s frantic activities in the next room. Whatever decision the arrived at, Jalim did not believe that the young vampire would flee back to the Swarmer Clan. He headed over to the rotten wooden doorframe, wondering just how powerful his new clan could be if he fed them on Dylar’s rich blood.

  “I have found it!” announced the young vampire, running over to Jalim, holding a clear bottle out in front of him. “It is a noxious potion, Jalim. This vile potion must be…”

  The vampire’s words died on his lips and Dylar jerked to a halt. He silently cursed his own stupidity for not covering up his thoughts. This could be difficult, what Dylar lost in intellect, he made up in brute strength.

  Dylar held the bottle up to his face before he let it go. “How can such a well crafted object be so fragile?” he murmured, staring at the glittering shards of broken glass lying by his feet. “I was ready to accept you as my First Father, Jalim.” Dylar lifted his eyes. “Perhaps, even, I even hoped that I would be your First Son?” He advanced a couple more paces.

  Jalim resisted the urge to flee, even as the young vampire’s mouth yawned wide and his teeth grew longer, pushing up through Dylar’s gums. “I know that it is in our nature to deceive, to scheme,” the vampire lunged forward, closing the gap between them. He grabbed Jalim’s shoulders and thrust his long nails deep into his hard flesh. “It is also in our nature to betray. We do enjoy that one, Jalim. We all have the ability to protect our fragile egos by detecting these traitorous thoughts in the minds of our colleagues.” He shrugged. “Well, to some degree anyway.”

  Dylar leaned close to Jalim’s ear. “Your obsession to become a First Father has clouded your judgment. I was trying to help you, Jalim, to show you the error of your ways.” He suddenly pushed Jalim back, nodding as the vampire crashed into the wall. “I will not end your life. For a time, I saw you as my friend. The only one who showed me any worth since our wakening.”

  He backed away, keeping his bright crimson eye fixed on Jalim. The ten deep puncture wounds caused him little discomfort, his only hurt originated from the dawning realization of how badly he had misjudged the young vampire. Not that he would ever apologise for his blunder, his pride would not allow that.

  “I am not short on intellect, Jalim. Perhaps I am a little naïve in the ways of vampires but that is to be expected, I am not that long changed. I do know that I have been too trusting.”

  “Did you snatch that thought from my mind?”

  Dylar nodded. “Perhaps I misled you regarding my ability? With the exception of the First Father, I had no problem in taking thoughts from any mind, including those supposedly hidden away. At least, that was until you changed those six men.”

  He leaped onto the worktable and clambered across until he reached a large broken window in the middle of the wall. “Despite your recent treatment of me, I still feel that I owe you two pieces of advice, even if, deep down, I know that my words carry very little weight.”

  Dylar pushed the last few shards of glass out of the window frame.

  “Your new clan does not need you, Jalim. They do not need anyone. Please, trust them even less than you trusted me.” He grabbed the window frame.

  “Dylar, I do believe you said two pieces o
f advice?”

  He climbed through the window, turned and gave him a single tight smile. “The Swarmer clan has found us. Every one of our colleagues are now around the side of this house, standing in amongst the weed infested garden, getting ready to enter.”

  Jalim heard him drop and raced over to the window and leaned out, watching the young vampire race through the garden before scaling a high wall and disappearing into the night.

  Was he lying to Jalim? Was he just trying to leave Jalim feeling somehow inferior before abandoning his new clan? He filled his lungs with dusty air. It did not matter. Dylar’s pathetic attempt to unsettle him would not work. “May we never meet again,” he growled, turning away from the window. His only regret was that his new-born clan would not be enjoying their first taste of sweet vampire blood tonight. Maybe he should alter his plans and allow them to hunt tonight. “It was the brains that did it.” He chuckled, “Of course it was.”

  That was the reason why they could not read their thoughts. His extra supplement must have acted as a screen. “Yeah, I’ll allow them to taste flesh, before I let them sleep.” That made sense, if they dined on uncontaminated flesh, the food should flush out the chemicals flowing through their bodies. “Then I will be able to read them and all will be well.”

  Jalim hurried through the house, eager to issue his new orders to the new-borns. He knew that Dylar’s comment about the Swarmers standing outside the house was just a hastily concocted lie, but it did not stop him from worrying that the vampire would eventually lead them to his roost.

  “Let them come,” he growled. “Not that he believed that his old clan would seek him out, at least not tonight. There was not enough hours of darkness left for them to risk such a mission. “I am the First Father now. Let them seek me out.” Jalim nodded, satisfied with himself that all was now well. He reached the stone steps, looked towards the front door and just dared them to enter his domain. After a few moment, he smiled then made his way back down the stairs.

  Jalim climbed through the hole and blinked in astonishment. None of his new vampires were in the first chamber. He slowly looked around the room and noticed that the mashed head muscle had gone too, only small pieces of skull remained, scattered across the floor.

  He ran through the archway and discovered no sign of them. This made no sense, he knew that none of them had left the chambers, they could not have gotten past him. What concerned Jalim more was that he had told them not to move.

  “New-born vampires do not have the capability for independent thought.” This did not bode well. He recalled Dylar’s ominous words and wondered if he should have listened to him. “Where are they?” he asked himself.

  They had been in this chamber, Jalim saw the evidence next to his boots. The new-borns had feasted upon the headless corpse before making their escape. It took him a moment for his brain to comprehend that the now desiccated corpse was not the only anomaly in the chamber. Jalim spotted one of the doors lying on the floor at the rear of the chamber. He walked over, noticing rotten splinters of wood forming a trail over to the dark green door.

  He shook his head, not believing their low level of mentality. Jalim slid his fingers under one of the edges and lifted it up, grinning at the sight of the uncovered drain. It must have taken significant strength to break through the thick metal bars sealed into the stone.

  “And I gave those ungrateful worms that strength,” he muttered. He could see why they had to find something to cover up the mess, they had bent the bars out of shape. Jalim leaned over the hole and leered down, his night sensitive eyes could not detect movement down there. “Why did you not drop the body over the hole?” he whispered, dropping to his knees.

  Jalim lowered his legs over the hole and grabbed hold of one of the broken bars before pushing the rest of his body through the gap. His feet dangled a couple of feet above a fast flowing stream of black water. He spun his head, Jalim’s ears caught the sound of a few rats, scurrying through the sewer system but he could not detect any sound that might come from his missing clan. Jalim looked up and squinted, sure that he could here the sound of footsteps above him.

  “Dylar, perhaps?” He released the bar and dropped into the freezing water, glad that the level only came up to his ankles. He waded over to the edge and jumped onto the stone ledge, trying to see evidence of their passing.

  “Had a feeling that you’d try to follow us down here.”

  Before Jalim had time to locate the disembodied voice, multiple pairs of arms snapped out of the darkness and wrapped their long hands over both his wrists. He grunted and struggled but stopped all his movements when he spotted a faint human shaped mass, stepping out from a deep-set brick archway on the other side of the sewer tunnel. He sighed deeply when a pair of dark blue eyes, speckled with flecks of bright red glared back at him.

  His first son left the alcove, jumped into the black water then climbed up the side of the banking. The figure approached Jalim then ran a single filthy fingernail down the side of Jalim’s cheek. “You don’t half look surprised to see us, buddy. You thought we’d just fucked off, didn’t ya! Me and the lads spent a few years down here, you red eyed freak. We know all the good spots to bed down and we can move real quiet too.”

  He leaned in a little closer, then suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh my, ain’t that a fucking pisser! First of all yer mate does a runner and then you find that your precious clan have all turned on you and about to get real nasty like.”

  Jalim gazed at him. “I should have listened to him. I should have just done one of you. I should have not been so optimistic.”

  The tramp giggled. “You sure don’t half speak funny.” He sighed. “Now, don’t get the wrong idea about us here. It’s not that we ain’t thankful for these new gifts. I mean, I can’t remember the last time that I could move like this, at least not without feeling like all me bones were gonna split. As for this night seeing malarkey, that’s gonna come in handy, that I can tell you!”

  “Don’t forget the mind reading bit, that’s a good un,” interrupted one of the tramps gripping his wrist.

  Jalim quickly scanned him and still found that he could not read his thoughts. That did concern him. There were many new things that he had learned tonight. Jalim should not have been so impatient. He, of all vampires knew the importance of that virtue

  The ex-First Son scowled. “Henry, what have I told you about flapping those lips?”

  He reached into his coat inside pocket and pulled out a slim metal stick. It reminded Jalim of a broken spoon handle. He watched, astonished as the tramp pulled out a blade from within the handle. He marvelled at the implement, the beasts had invented so many ingenious devices. Jalim so needed to learn more.

  “Thing is, we were all pretty wasted when you and yer big fat mate jumped us. I think you’ve already guessed that we sorta spent most of our time in that condition. Hell, why the fuck not? It’s not like we had anything else to live for.” The ghoul pressed the blade against Jalim’s cheek and drew it down to the corner of his mouth. “Thanks to what you two did to us, it appears that we all have a different addiction now.”

  The burning hunger that he now sensed from the rest of the ghouls around him, ignited his own desire to drink. He forced his body to relax while watching this foul animal use the blade to collect Jalim’s blood before he swung his head back and opened his mouth. The ghoul visibly shivered and moaned out loud when his blood splashed onto the ghoul’s thick tongue.

  “Oh, oh that sure does taste so fine,” he blurted, staring at Jalim with shining eyes. “I can’t tell you what a shock it is to actually taste something. My taste buds were pretty much wiped out years ago.”

  Should Jalim had experienced and resentment or even disappointment at his current situation? He could not blame these filthy ghouls. These things were the lowest of the low. Their insatiable desire to feed on any living flesh knew no bounds. The ghouls had no cohesion to any clan. Every vampire also knew or their duty to put these things
down upon sight.

  The other ghouls shuffled further to the sides and stretched him farther out while the remaining ghoul lifted the sharp blade and pushed the point into Jalim’s flesh, just below his right eye. “The others just wanted to attack you as soon as they saw your body drop into the water. It took some serious persuading to stop ’em from ripping you into little bits.”

  “You are very generous,” he replied, grinning at him. Jalim opened his mouth, making a point to ensure the ghoul saw his large teeth. It did please him to see the filthy creature take an involuntary step back.”

  “Are we doomed to spend our lives in darkness now that you’ve bitten us? See, I can feel the weight of the sun already, even though there’s another hour before it emerges.” He slashed the blade down again, opening up another long slit in Jalim’s flesh. “We’re going to make you last until the sun sinks again. Why not? It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

  The ghoul paused. “Why are you smiling?” he said, frowning. “Have you any idea how much pain we are going to put you through?”

  “You talk and talk when you should just cut and cut.” He thrust his legs forward, slamming his foot between the ghoul’s legs. The force knocked him back into the water. Jalim growled then pulled both his arms in, scattering the remaining creatures. He grabbed the nearest one, opened his mouth and ripped out a chink of his pale flesh from the side of his neck. He lifted the groaning ghoul above his head, laughing as the ghoul’s hot blood soaked his head and dripped down his face. He threw the corpse into three of the things who were advancing towards him, hissing and baring their fangs.

  Jalim reached into the water and dragged out the wet ghoul. “There is so much to learn about this new and exciting world, my friend.” He wrapped his fingers around the ghoul’s throat and lifted the struggling creature off his feet. “I do enjoy sinking my teeth into an enigma. The ones that scream are my favourite ones.” He punched his rigid fingers into his guts, Jalim’s sharp nails easily puncturing the flesh. “Even now, I can feel your mind opening up to me as I feel my way around the inside of your ribcage.” He wrapped his fingers around the ghoul’s intestines, squeezed tight and pulled the offal out of his stomach. “There,” he gasped, feeling the walls of the creature’s mind finally collapse. Jalim pushed his way in, mentally grinning when he found exactly what he was seeking. He dropped the corpse into the water, watching it float away in the current.