Chapter Twelve
Pandemonium, Madness, Love
Mordecai had been in his office for five days straight. The members of the High Table surrounded him, only leaving for brief moments of rest. Anxiety hung in the air, confusion walked the halls, and even the draperies smelled of despair. Outside, the sounds of rioting entered the open windows. The boisterous calls from the grounds made the room feel small. Each voice encroached upon the small spaces of reason left inside the Headquarters of the Society.
“Hiding inside! Like a bunch of nothings!” The voices ebbed and flowed. “Come out and face us, if you have the courage, you mother-less half-breeds.” Voices rose through London, voices thick with the addictive stupor of aggression.
Mordecai’s face darkened with worry and the entire High Table reflected his concern. Mandell, a younger vampire with smooth, dark skin, rushed towards the window with clenched fists.
“Do not, Mandell!” instructed Mordecai. “Do not engage with the townsfolk. You will only aggravate them further.” Mordecai’s voice was edged with a pleading concern.
“Why should we accept these insults? It was only one vampire, one miscreant, a genetic mistake named Draegan who caused this plague of insanity.”
“What one of us does, we all do,” answered Mordecai. “We must accept the responsibility for him and find a way to fix it.”
“We should not sit behind these walls like weaklings while they insult us with their venomous madness. We can squash them, destroy all of them. Why do you hesitate?”
Mordecai closed the velvet drapes. The room fell dark and still. Only the sound of water dripping in the corner was discernible.
“Their strength increases as the virus spreads,” said Mordecai.
“We should have stopped it sooner. Since we didn’t, we must stop it now.”
Mordecai pondered Mandell’s words. It was at these times he missed Luca the most. He longed for the quiet, rational calm of the young vampire.
Where are you, Luca? Why can’t I find you? Mordecai had tried to seek him out several times, but was unable to break the shield of his mind. Mordecai’s waves of thought hit blank walls, formidable and opaque. May I find you in safety, and may I find you soon.
“We must find Luca,” he whispered. His voice was weakened by exhaustion and the love he felt for Luca.
“Luca?” asked Mandell. “Why do you think he isn’t here? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hand in hand with Draegan. He did escape while Luca visited him. And, after all, blood flows thicker than water.”
Mordecai looked at the young vampire in shock. The words cut into him like a heated knife.
“Down with the Society! Down with the farce of peace! There is no more coexistence!” Rocks, along with the hate-filled voices, shattered the windows and showered into the room.
Mordecai shot to his feet. “To the underground office. Everyone! Now!” His voice was firm, but had a trace of apprehension. The strength of the infected humans grew by the hour. It was as if the virus was airborne, though Mordecai knew the pathogen to be only blood borne.
Luca. Return from wherever you have run. I need you.
Mordecai’s silent prayer left his lips to float above the streets of Gravesend, hopefully to Luca. The vampires bustled through the corridors in hushed tones, down a large stairway leading to the basement. They all knew what it meant, moving to the bunker. It had only been done in drills and was saved for the direst emergency. Though nobody spoke the words, each of them knew that it was one of those times.
***
Luca awoke alone and haggard at the foot of the altar. For the first few moments, he stared at the wooden beams of the cathedral ceiling, unaware of where he was and how he had come to be there. Then, he felt the dampness of the dead rabbit at his feet and he knew. He knew it all. His brother was mad. The city was mad. Astrid was gone.
He also knew the punishing voice of Mordecai that he had run from was not Mordecai. It had been Draegan. If he could manipulate my thought of Astrid and of our mother, he will stop at nothing to drive me from Mordecai.
Still lying on the floor, he pounded his fists on the Communion rail. Imposter! If there was anything that Draegan hated more than Luca’s love for Astrid, it was his love for Mordecai, and the admiration the older vampire felt for Luca in turn.
Luca felt beaten and battered. His limbs felt weak and his eyes were blurry, but in his heart, he felt a new strength.
“Mordecai, I hear you. I may have hurt you, but I hear you now. I will not block you from my heart any longer.” Luca whispered the words into the air and blew with all the force of his strong lungs, hoping to push the words through the wind, from his lips to Mordecai’s ears.
***
One town away, Mordecai sat with his High Table of Vampires, in the Northfleet basement of the Society’s offices. A strange warmth entered his heart as a flutter of breath skimmed his neck. Lifting his tired head, he looked for the source. He knew it was Luca, but he only saw the other High Table members crouched in pain and anxiety.
Luca ran to an empty steam coach, weary from his encounter with Draegan. He pushed the carriage to its limits, barely avoiding the creatures roaming the streets. The insanity had taken full root through the town, women and children with bloodshot eyes and feral snarls attacked those who passed by with wild abandon. Those not yet infected hid in their homes, lest the claws of the insane attack them.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he soon reached the country roads near Astrid’s manor. The pleasantly pungent scent of her garden welcomed him and provided a bit of solace from the city’s stench. Luca flew from the stolen steam coach and scaled the wall to Astrid’s room. The maddening crowds of Gravesend unsettled him, making a meditative state more challenging for his mental faculties. He folded his body onto Astrid’s bed as he merged into the atmosphere of her room.
Show me. Show me quickly. Astrid’s life is in danger. Streaming his energies to the past, his mind absorbed the events of the room, raking through the recent past for any clue, any clue at all.
***
“It is the only way,” Mordecai resigned. “Death and fire is the only way out.”
The citizens of Gravesend were almost all infected by the same virus that had caused Karina’s madness. The mutated gene vaccine, intending to prevent the birth of a female vampire, ended up merging into the genetic code of the recipients causing a severe mental disability. Mordecai did not understand how the virus was spreading; it should have been contained to the recipients. It had to be Draegan. Only Draegan.
Mordecai felt the sharp claws of guilt clutch at his throat as he thought of how events had worsened. Large numbers, entire rows of houses, were infected with the virus. Every inhabitant of Romney Road lay dead in the street, their mad faces frozen in grinning death masks. If only he had stopped Draegan. As it stood now, Draegan was the destroyer, not a new birth of a female vampire at all.
“Gravesend will have to burn,” said Mordecai. “The bodies must be destroyed. The city must be quarantined. We may have to give up our own lives to save the innocents still untouched by this virus.” No one spoke.
Mordecai felt a warm hand on his shoulder; an aura of stability surrounded him. I feel you, Luca. Where are you, my son? For you are my son. You and Draegan. Both of you.
His emotions flowed more freely through his thought waves than vocalization. Words seemed like a burden, a cloak on thought and feeling.
“Mordecai?” Luca’s voice filled his head.
“Are you safe? Where are you?”
“I’m sorry, Mordecai. I can’t return yet. It’s Draegan, he’s spreading the virus somehow, and he has taken a human woman against her will.”
“Luca!” Mordecai heard nothing more. “Luca! Are you refusing to return because of the woman?” Again, nothing. Mordecai pushed his thoughts harder from his mind, squeezing them into the air.
Luca felt the pain that came from Mordecai’s mind cling to his skin like a leech, sucking at him
. In that moment, he knew Mordecai’s love for him was the love of a father for a child. And just like the love one felt for one’s child, sacrifices occurred.
“Mordecai, I am doing my best to help you. To bring in Draegan.”
“I have a plan.” Mordecai gained energy from Luca’s aura.
Luca could sense the relief that flooded Mordecai’s mind and felt the strange reversal of roles. All his life he had been seeking Mordecai’s support and approval. Suddenly, it was the other way around.
Mordecai knew Luca’s thought. “You are right, son. It seems the other way around now. But no father ever need be embarrassed to want the support of his son.”
If Luca had been with Mordecai, he would have taken him in his arms with joy, but the mind’s intangibility had its disadvantages. All Luca could hope was that Mordecai felt the love present between them.
“I will see you soon, Mordecai,” said Luca, ending their mental conversation, and he was left by himself on a quest to find Astrid.
A drop of sap from a tree dripped on Luca’s forehead. It smelled sweet and woody, and began to thicken within moments of touching his skin.
This feels like blood. He tried to wipe the sticky liquid from his skin. He stopped in his tracks, thinking of Draegan’s words. My blood flows like water, and in it, will be the end. The words Draegan carved in his victim’s chest swam in front of Luca’s eyes.
Luca realized it was a riddle, and Draegan wanted a chase and a fight. He began to pace as he slowly tried to assemble the pieces of the puzzle Draegan had left for him.
Blood. Water. That is how the virus is spreading so quickly. The virus might be in the water supply.
Luca repeated the words several times to hear if it sounded plausible in his own ears. He would have to hurry. If Mordecai’s plan was to destroy Gravesend then he must find Astrid with haste.
***
Draegan studied the shore of the river. He sat, perched like eagle, on the rim of a rusted water tank. He could see his reflection on the sides of the brass vessel, shining back at him. Water gathered peacefully through the pipes at the base. He slid to the ground, opened a hatch to the underground aquifers, and climbed into the dark underground space.
Tens of pipes spread out in various directions, heading to different parts of Gravesend. Draegan caressed the oversized spigot, a shiny metal, which controlled the flow of the city’s water supply.
Inspired by the city’s pipe system, Draegan fashioned a small spigot and tube system around his arm, giving direct and immediate access to his own veins and blood supply. Jumping back to the water tank, he dangled his legs into the hollow opening. He pushed up his sleeve, slightly stained with blood, and turned the small screw attached to his arm to the left. A slight hiss of pressure indicated he had accessed his vein and was about to let some blood flow through the attached rubber tube.
He smiled at the sky as small drops of his infected blood fell into the water. The drips came faster until a steady stream of blue sticky blood poured down. The ecstatic look on Draegan’s face grew more and more uncontrollable. He looked insane and vicious, his mouth contorted and twisted like a gargoyle.
Astrid watched Draegan from below. Her face twisted with a wrath like it had never known before. The lines under her eyes, from a lack of sleep, dehydration, and stressful restlessness, showed in the hazy evening light.
“No! Draegan! You mustn’t!” she yelled up to him, her eyes on fire, blazing with fury at his action against all of Gravesend. “You have infected enough people. Stop, I beg you.” For she knew of Draegan’s insanity and she had also guessed the disease was carried in a blood borne pathogen. His blood would infect the entire town and turn every single person insane. Yet, he had not infected her. She knew why. He was waiting. He was waiting for Luca to find her.
She could taste his malevolent viciousness like a poison in the air. Her hands were tied with the ripped shreds of her own dress. As she rubbed the restraints against the ground, trying to free herself, her own blood fell upon the ground.
***
Luca was doubly careful as he floated through Gravesend. For the humans had increased in strength and powers. As the insanity spread and developed through the populace, men and women stood atop buildings and trees. They glared at Luca as he sped by, scratching at each other and at his robes.
“Luca, is that you?” It sounded like an urgent whisper coming from behind one of the tall oaks lining the street.
Luca stopped and peered into the branches of the tree and found himself deciphering the shape of a vampire in the dark shadows and leaves. The moon shined on his robes, adding a sheen of elegance in the tawdry state of the insane streets. However, Luca’s ability to see clearly in the dark was fading. His powers dwindled the closer he felt to Astrid.
“Who is that?” Luca’s voice sounded slightly impatient and brimming with curiosity.
“It is Mandell. Where have you been? Mordecai needs you.”
Luca stood silently in the night, unsure if he should answer or how he should respond.
“Perhaps you are working with Draegan, after all.” Mandell’s sleek dark figure slid to the ground with quick grace. “You need to come back. The Society is going to cordon off and quarantine Gravesend. No one in and no one out.”
“I must take my leave. Give Mordecai my regards. He knows I am on his side.” Luca could trust no one to help him find Astrid.
“I will. But I do not know if he will believe it.”
Luca nodded, trying to quell the emotion that erupted inside him like a fountain. Mordecai was right to quarantine the city. He had to do anything in his power to protect the uninfected of the surrounding towns.
Luca passed more dead along the streets. To the north, a large iron gateway loomed in front of him. On the other side of the gates lay expansive, vacant grounds, eerie and deserted. Luca knew what he wanted would not be within his sight, but hidden in riddles.
Draegan felt his brother coming closer. As he lay in wait, impatient for Luca’s arrival, his mind went on a roller coaster ride of the past and the future. He remembered how Mordecai had praised Luca, while regarding Draegan with disappointed suspicion. He remembered the fondness the High Table surrounded Luca with, while meeting Draegan with a cold tolerance. He felt the love that Astrid held only for Luca, a love so pure that he could not bear to experience it even vicariously, and yet a love he envied, nonetheless.
Lastly, his chest burned with envy, hatred, and anger towards his brother as the most painful experience of his life, once again, unfolded in his mind. He embraced the scalding memory, repressed all of those years, though still like a poker jabbing him with scarring heat. He let it boil and resurface, burning him through and through. He watched the image, masochistically reliving each moment as if it was just happening.
He felt a blanket wrap around him and he saw his mother, Constance, on the bed. Luca stood behind Mordecai, indifferent to his younger brother’s birth. The nursemaid held Draegan tightly, swaddled into near paralysis, as Mordecai looked him over, inspecting him. A cast of worried disappointment fell over Mordecai’s face as the nursemaid, Ivy, mentioned possible defects. Draegan wanted his mother—to be touched, nourished, and comforted—but instead was examined and rated by the High Table geneticists. His mother screamed in the background, mostly for Luca, as she was blindfolded and restrained.
Draegan, the unwanted defect, never loved and never praised. The seed of destruction was planted at his moment of his birth.
Trembling and damp with sweat, Draegan returned to the present. He cast his eyes on Astrid who lay bound and restrained. Her lips were cracked and parched, slightly bluish in color. Her eyes were only partly open and bloodshot. Dark circles hung under them, etched with veins. She looked beaten and half-dead. Her dress was torn and hung loosely on her frame, yet she seemed unembarrassed and not concerned about modesty or her body.
Astrid had no idea that Luca was getting closer to the river. Draegan watched her closely, waiting t
o see if she would recognize his presence. He derived much pleasure in her hopeful despair. She was his guarded and chained up little animal—a toy to nurture and destroy.
Chapter Thirteen
River Reborn
Luca wandered along the edges of the Thames River searching for anything to lead him to Astrid and Draegan. He ran across pipes leading into the river and searched for a way to enter the underground system. A large tank stood to the South with empty grounds surrounding it; an eerie silence encased the area.
Luca lifted his face to the sky, trying to find Draegan or Astrid’s scent, but his powers were weakening from the hunt. A pang of incompetency clutched at him. What would he do if he were unable to find Astrid? It was wretched enough that Draegan had her in his clutches, but what if he couldn’t get to Astrid before the quarantine went into effect?
“Wait. Wait for me to find her. Don’t enact the quarantine yet,” he pleaded in his mind to Mordecai. “Give me some time.”
“There is no time,” was the reply. “I must save what I can.”
Luca rushed towards the tank, trying to visualize the underground system surrounding it. Slowly his mind received a picture. Old rotten woodwork, fungus-lined damp walls, puddles of muddied water, and darkness filled him. Tunnels, are there tunnels? His mind spun like a top, black and white haze blurred his thoughts.
Luca knelt to the ground. The sound of fire crackling through rows of houses and streets popped in the night air. Glass breaking and the howls of the dying lined the river.
I need a sign, please a sign. Dear God, if you exist for the humans, help me now. Luca was dazed. Nothing happened. He stood in desperation to leave.
Hopelessness overwhelmed him as he moved towards the main gate. The sticky claws of desperation grasped at his stomach, tearing him apart. The only sound breaking the peace around him was the gentle call of an owl. Luca smiled in the direction of the sound as the owl swooped down over his head, grazing his shoulder. The bird stood in front of him, next to a dry pipe leading down to the aquifers. The creature scratched at the ground, staring at Luca, unblinking.
Cogs in Time Anthology Page 28