After a few moments of silence, Herb heard the tailgate slam shut and the truck rattled into life. Somewhere near his feet, Remy began to growl once more, almost as loud as the engine.
“Shhh, Rem, it’s okay.”
This time Conny spoke in a smooth, reassuring tone.
But it’s not, Herb thought, as Remy fell silent and the truck began to move away from the runway, transporting them all to the very place the vampires would be headed come sundown.
It’s not okay at all.
3
In the impenetrable darkness beneath the hood, disconnected from the world around him, Dan’s mind floated, taken by the current.
It felt like the black river was everywhere now, tumbling through and beneath his every thought. What had once been intermittent torture was now a constant. No longer a dark sort of punctuation that the words of his life revolved around; it ran right through him like a vein.
The river had changed. He had changed it somehow, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had awoken. Something that he was convinced was not vampire, and definitely not human. It was the entity that he had sensed for years, each time he had suffered a panic attack; the presence which had haunted his nightmares. The horror in the shadows.
It happened in London, he thought. At the hospital.
In those brief moments, on the roof of London Bridge Hospital, when his mind became one with the shrieking insanity lurking in the head of the vampire, Dan thought he had glimpsed something like structure in the swirling madness. During those fleeting, terrifying seconds when he had been the vampire, he had known that the monsters obeyed the whims of something greater.
Herb—perhaps the entire Order—had always believed that the vampires existed in discrete nests; distinct cells spread out across the world, each existing and acting in isolation, but Dan knew now that wasn’t exactly true. There was something that connected them all. Ruled them all.
He shuddered at the memory. For a while, after he had forced the vampire atop the hospital to rip out its own throat, he had felt echoes of the creature in his mind, lingering like smoke. It made him feel...grainy, somehow. Sullied.
Yet, the information he had gathered, even in that brief encounter, was more than the Order had apparently accrued in thousands of years of servitude. The vampires might well be stationed above humans on the food chain, but they didn’t sit at the very top. The black river did.
If the creatures possessed a language of their own, it was far beyond Dan’s comprehension, but he understood the emotion boiling in the vampire’s head when it, too, had heard the roar of the river in its mind. The monster had been meek. Subservient. Afraid.
The black river wasn’t some abstract concept; it wasn’t a hallucination that belonged to Dan alone. It wasn’t a product of the psychosis he feared so much.
It was real.
Out there somewhere.
And louder now, much louder. Closer.
Whatever the black river truly was, it was buried somewhere on this continent, and when he had taken the mind of a vampire, he had made a connection with it that he did not understand, waking it from a slumber that had spanned millennia. He thought of it as the vampire god, but knew instinctively that the creature was beyond naming, beyond human comprehension. It was a vessel of pure evil. It was fear itself.
And I’m going to kill it.
Dan felt a jolt of surprise. He had been following a path laid for him by fate or chaos or both, and hadn’t really been aware of a goal forming in his mind, but now it blazed in his thoughts like a collapsing star. When Elaine had died, and he had resigned himself to joining her, he hadn’t really thought that it was possible for him to ever want anything again. He had yearned only for oblivion.
The sudden realisation that he had a reason to live; that he was determined to live—for a while, at least—was dizzying. Overwhelming. He hadn’t ever been one of those folks who burned with ambition: even before he became Pathetic Dan, after the knife attack, he had lived his days as they came, never motivated by the distant targets that seemed to spur other people on. More than one schoolteacher had labelled him ‘passive,’ and one had even written on a report card that if Dan was any more laid back, he’d be horizontal. He had taken that as a compliment.
In some ways he had always envied the will of others: the sporting stars who burned with the need to be number one, the office drones who somehow found the desire to ensure they worked their balls off every day for little or no reward. Some people just seemed to have been born with an innate hunger that drove them forward. He envied it, yet it was a trait he had never associated with himself.
Until now.
He didn’t yet know how, but he would find the black river, and he would make it pay. Despite his words to Herb back at the runway, he knew he couldn’t kill all the vampires. He had to assume their nests were spread out across the entire world. Much as he might have wanted to, he couldn’t possibly run through them all one at a time with a bloody cleaver.
But he could do to them what they had done to him. He could take the thing they loved. The thing that gave them purpose.
If destroying their leader somehow gave humanity the upper hand in the battle with the vampires, and gave Herb the chance to win the war his family had started, so much the better.
Dan’s chaotic thoughts slowly began to distil. The first step was to find the river. He hoped it would be wherever the American nest was located. Maybe someone at the ranch would have some clue where the creatures they served lived, though he doubted that.
If not, when the vampires attacked the ranch, when they came for Dan just as they had in England, he would crack one of the monsters’ minds open and see what secrets it held.
Herb had estimated that there were a little over two-dozen vampires in England. There would surely be at least that many in America, and if they came for Dan en masse, as they had back at the Shard building in London, he might get a chance to kill several—maybe even all—before heading to wherever their ruler was located.
Many of the clerics at the ranch would die, but the black river was the only thing that mattered.
Purpose.
Vengeance.
Once he had revenge, once he had satisfied the dark need burning in his gut, then he could die. He would welcome it. Maybe, he could even find something like peace when oblivion came for him at last.
“Mancini, are you there?” Herb’s muffled voice dragged Dan back from the bleak chasm opening up in his mind. The truck had been on the move for, he guessed, no more than a couple of minutes. Unless he was sleeping, that was about as long as Herb could generally manage without speaking.
After a moment’s pause, Dan heard a cough.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Good. I was starting to think we weren’t friends anymo—”
“Can it, Rennick. You got something to say, say it. Or quit flapping your jaw.”
“You want to fill us in here? Why the hoods?”
“You should be grateful. The longer I spend looking at your face, the more I feel like punching it.”
“That’s funny. You’re funny, Mancini. Picked the wrong line of work.”
“Jesus Christ,” Conny’s voice cut in. Her tone was pitched somewhere between frustration and despair, presumably at having to listen to the two men continue to bicker, as they had from the first moment they had met.
Dan smiled beneath his hood. In some ways, Conny reminded him a little of his mother: no nonsense; straight-talking and occasionally fearsome.
The smile faded rapidly. The last time he had seen his mother, it had been at his wedding. She had stood next to his dad, waving them off as the wedding car pulled away, taking Dan and Elaine to the hotel where they would spend the night before starting their honeymoon. His mum had had tears in her eyes and a proud, happy smile.
He wondered bleakly if she was already dead, and felt oily darkness welling inside him, threatening to take over. He pushed it back do
wn. It was better not to think about it; not now. There was nothing he could do now to help his mother—or anybody else in England—and dwelling on the possible loss of his parents on top of the loss of Elaine could tear him apart.
He tuned back in to the conversation evolving around him on the truck. In the pitch-black, the disembodied voices sounded like actors playing roles in some bizarre radio production.
Conny was still talking.
“Maybe we could just cut the macho bullshit and try to all get on the same page here? I was trying to get Logan to safety, and I have to say, Mancini, I’m feeling pretty bloody far from safe right now. So are you going to tell us what’s going on? Or am I more likely to get some sense out of Remy?”
Remy huffed indignantly, and Dan almost laughed aloud.
Mancini heaved a dramatic sigh. “The hoods are for show. This is all for show, all right? For the clerics. Not many people at the ranch knew about my mission, and even less about my objective, but you can be damn sure they are expecting me to bring back captives, and so that’s what I’m giving them. Anything else, and they start asking questions I don’t have the answers to, understand?”
A rueful laugh. Herb. “Shit, Mancini, we haven’t got time for games. Didn’t you hear what Dan said back there? The vampires will be here by sundown.”
“You ain’t gonna make it that far unless you play along, Rennick. No matter how much she might have deserved it, killing Craven was a bad move. This place was on a knife edge already, and she was what kept it from tipping. The only reason you’re alive now is that they think I killed her, and that confuses them. These religious freaks can’t make decisions for themselves, they gotta be told what to do next. So they’re taking us in—to someone who they think can do just that.”
“And who is that?”
“That’s the problem. The Order is all about bloodlines, right? But Craven didn’t have an heir. Which leaves us with the Grand Cleric.”
“Grand Cleric,” Herb repeated. He sounded like he was rolling the words around in his mouth, trying to figure out how they tasted. “We didn’t have one of those back home.”
“No kidding. I saw your little operation. Or what was left of it. Figure you had, what, a hundred people at your compound, tops?”
“Give or take, yeah. So?”
“So, what Craven said back at the runway wasn’t just some empty boast. She was growing this place aggressively. Close to fifteen hundred folks at the ranch, now, and most of that number arrived in the last few years. She put in place a structure to keep ‘em all in line. She spent a lot of time studying successful cults, and decided she needed a daddy-figure to head it all up. Be the face of her little fake religion.”
“The Grand Cleric,” Conny said.
“Bingo.”
“So?” Conny sounded confused. “This Grand Cleric will be in charge. What’s the problem?”
“Problem is that the guy is a puppet. A figurehead, I guess. Just for show, like the hoods. Craven pulled his strings and he danced. He can’t actually run the place. The guy’s a certified coward: he’d take a fall in a round of shadow boxing. You assholes go in there running your mouths, telling him actual vampires are coming to his door at sunset, and he’ll have everyone drinking kool-aid for lunch.”
Dan frowned beneath his hood, but said nothing.
“And what about you, Mancini?” Conny said. “They seemed to listen to you back there. If this Grand Cleric isn’t up to the job, why don’t you just take over?”
Mancini let out a caustic laugh. “I’m not much of a people person.”
“No shit.”
“Fuck you, Rennick.”
“Just saying.”
“Yeah, you’re always just saying something. Ever thought about just not saying something?”
A pause.
“I just thought about it. I don’t think it’s the way to go.”
Mancini sighed heavily, and Dan thought he heard a stifled snigger. He couldn’t tell exactly who it came from, but if he had to guess, he would have opted for Logan. Conny’s boy was quiet, surly even, but he seemed to appreciate Herb’s brand of sarcasm.
For a few moments, silence fell on the back of the truck.
Dan listened to the roaring wind, the growling engine, his thoughts racing.
“I was just the head of security,” Mancini said at last. “I didn’t have much to do with all the mumbo-jumbo Craven was peddling, and that was just how I liked it. I don’t have no pull with clerics. Even if I had all of my guys, we couldn’t control the numbers at the ranch, not if things turned ugly. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, most of my guys aren’t around anymore.”
Mancini didn’t need to expand on that point. Dan figured that everyone on the truck knew exactly where the rest of Mancini’s ‘guys’ were. Back in London. In pieces.
“I can’t run the place. And if you’re thinking Rennick can do it just because his daddy was a part of the Order, think again. Like I said, this place was expanding fast, which means a lot of new initiates, and they don’t even know about the vampires. Nobody gets to hear the truth until they’ve been here at least a year, maybe two. Until they prove their loyalty and ascend to full cleric status. Rennick’s surname don’t give him the means to take over a situation like this. Plus, he’s an asshole.”
Herb snorted a laugh. He sounded genuinely amused. “The truth,” he said. “Craven’s version of it, you mean.”
“Whatever, Rennick. I didn’t give a shit about it before, and I don’t now. I stayed at the ranch because the money was good.”
“You’re a mercenary,” Conny said. Her tone suggested she disapproved.
“A soldier,” Mancini corrected acidly. “The ones who work for free are called extremists.”
The truck hit a rough patch of road, and for several moments the conversation ceased. Dan supposed that everybody other than Mancini was engaged, as he was, in trying to maintain their balance while their hands were tied in front of them.
“The point is,” Mancini said abruptly, “that not everyone at the ranch knows. It’s not like this is some obedient little army of drones that you can just walk in and take over. Not unless Bellamy can mindfuck ‘em all at once?”
Dan didn’t respond.
“Yeah, thought not.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke. Dan thought he knew what was unravelling in all their minds. At Mancini’s mention of his ability, questions were forming. What, exactly, was it? What is Dan Bellamy really capable of?
He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want them thinking about it.
“It sounds like this Grand Cleric is our best bet, then,” Dan said, joining the conversation at last.
“I already told you, he’s just—”
“Craven’s puppet,” Dan finished. “I heard. And now, he can be ours.”
“What, you gonna spend the whole day in his head, Bellamy? Because I gotta say, ten seconds in mine and you looked like you’d just had a bad round of chemo.”
“That won’t be necessary. If he is as weak as you say, intimidation will work just fine. Fists have been convincing people to fall in line for thousands of years.”
Mancini chuckled.
“I hate to break it to you, but your little David Blaine routine aside, you ain’t exactly the intimidating type. And your buddy here is irritating, not frightening. Conny scares me a whole lot more than either of you two jerks.”
“No, I’m not intimidating. But you are.”
“And what makes you think I’m gonna do your dirty work for you? Think you’re gonna get in my head again? Go ahead, try it. I fucking double-dare you.”
Dan smiled thinly.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, Mancini. Not with this hood on, anyway. I don’t know how...it works, exactly, but I do know I need my eyes to do it. Same for the vampires, I suppose. That’s why they can’t just take the minds of people they can’t see; they need to look you in the eyes to break your mind. But you’re right: I can’
t spend all day controlling anyone. Each time I...do it, I feel like I lose a little piece of myself, like a little less of me comes back…” he trailed off. He was rambling, and heading for territory he didn’t want to enter. “It doesn’t matter: you’ll help anyway.”
“Because I like you assholes so much?” Mancini sneered.
“You’ll help because you know it is the right thing to do. Not morally. I think we both know you don’t possess much in the way of morals. Tactically. You’re a military man, and you know it’s the right thing to do if you want to live through this. Maybe the only way you survive. The vampires are going to rise, and I don’t see why it will be any different here to how it was in London. They’ll come for me. If we’re lucky, all of them. Everyone at the ranch is going to have to fight. It will be in everybody’s best interests to pull together. They need someone to give them orders. You said so yourself.”
“If we’re lucky?” Mancini sounded incredulous.
“Yeah,” Dan replied. “This might be our only chance to predict where they will be before they turn up, and we have a few hours of sunlight to prepare. If we miss this opportunity, if they move on to attacking other parts of the country, you might find it’s too late to fight at all.”
Mancini didn’t respond. Dan figured he was probably weighing up the argument and coming to the conclusion that, as much as he disliked it, he was right.
“So, what’s the deal with this ranch of yours?” Dan continued. “Can it be defended?”
Mancini paused a moment more before replying.
“Similar deal to what Rennick’s compound looked like,” he said at last. His tone was filled with heavy resignation. “Steel shutters, UV lights. Cameras, motion sensors. Plenty of weapons. But it’s a lot bigger. And sections of it are walled off, separating new initiates from ascended clerics. There’s a high wall running around the entire perimeter—”
“To keep vampires out?” Dan interrupted. “That won’t be worth a damn.”
“Naw, to keep initiates in,” Mancini said. It sounded like he was grinning now. “And to keep... others out. We’ve had people trying to document what happens at the ranch. And the government is interested, of course, but they have kept their distance so far. It’s not like they can just send the cops in. Not without starting a small war. But they’ve been trying to put the ranch under surveillance for years. Hasn’t got them anywhere.”
Adrift (Book 3): Rising Page 4