Before Dan got a chance to discover what would emerge next from the perfect o that the newsreader’s mouth had become, the image of the newsroom vanished entirely, replaced with an emergency broadcast system splashscreen.
Seconds later that, too, disappeared, leaving only hissing static.
The Grand Cleric was still holding the remote control. He began to jab at the buttons, cycling through the channels. Static on every one. After a few stunned seconds, he dropped the remote onto the huge table and slumped into a chair with a vacant expression on his face.
“What just happened?” Conny whispered. Her voice was almost reverent with awe.
For a moment, Conny’s words echoed in Dan’s mind, repeating over and over until they became a background hum.
What just happened?
He almost felt like laughing at the absurdity of it. Each time he had believed that he had the vampires figured out, they did something to show him just how little he—how little all humans—really knew about them.
The ancient enemy of mankind had waged a sophisticated war of propaganda thousands of years ago, while humanity was still fighting with knives and sharp sticks. Even the people who had agreed to feed the vampires had known next to nothing about the creatures they served. While the vampire myth propagated, and people forgot that once there had been a fearsome—real—foe at the root of it, the monsters had slowly grown in strength.
And now, when they had perceived a threat to their kind once more, they were rising as one. Not to kill by the hundreds or the thousands, but by the millions. Their greatest weapon had been the lie; it had always been the lie. Humans, in their blissful oblivion, had no way to fight creatures they couldn’t believe in. No human weapon had ever been developed with the intention of being aimed at a vampire. Vampires weren’t supposed to exist. They were fairy tales. Box office and bumper stickers.
Not teeth and talons.
Not global slaughter on a scale that could set human civilization back thousands of years.
An urgent pressure was building in Dan’s skull. It felt like his mind was about to implode.
The attack on London had led him in the wrong direction. He had believed Herb’s estimate that there were only two-dozen or so vampires in England, and he believed it still. It certainly seemed to tally with the way the destruction had spread across the city. That relatively small number had led him to a severe—perhaps fatal—miscalculation: he had assumed that there simply weren’t that many vampires in the world. America would likely have more than Britain by dint of the sheer difference in landmass, but he had reasoned that it couldn’t be much more. Maybe fifty.
Instead, there had to be hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Thus far, the numbers he and Herb had encountered had been small precisely because they had involved just one single nest—and that nest was located in a country which might have been First World, but which was near insignificant in actual size. Three vampires aboard the Oceanus, twenty-something in London. A small-scale operation, yet disrupting it had roused something far larger.
Something gigantic and unstoppable.
No matter what he had believed, it was obvious now that Dan was no threat to the vampires; he was, at best, an irritant. A fly to be swatted at if and when it buzzed too close.
Unimportant.
Instead of attacking Colorado en masse to get to him, the vampires had set about dismantling the entire country in a single, savage blitz attack. They had probably spent hours moving into position—perhaps they had already been on the move when the Oceanus had been sunk, approximately thirty-six hours earlier—and when they were all in place, they had struck simultaneously. America had fallen before it even knew there was a fight to be had.
When the Gulfstream jet had touched down on American soil, Dan had believed he was ahead of the game. But he was several steps behind. His arrival in the US hadn’t awoken the vampires. They were already on the move long before he got there.
Nuclear power stations? Dan thought, and his soul felt like weeping. He had been so wrong.
The vampires’ attack wasn’t mindless and reactionary; it wasn’t born of blind rage. It was calculated, surgical. The monsters were taking the human species apart with jaw-dropping efficiency. They knew how to attack. Where to attack. They had sliced the head off the American political body, and by the time the rest of the country’s bureaucratic leadership had time to recover, there would be nothing left to lead.
They had attacked military bases, they had attacked the power supply, they had struck at vital infrastructure to cause maximum carnage. They had spread themselves across seemingly every major city, knowing that even a military as mighty as America’s could not cope with a simultaneous assault on numerous targets inside its own borders.
They probably didn’t know it yet, Dan thought, but the US military was now a resistance movement. Within hours, as their numbers dwindled, they would begin to understand that they were losing a fight against an enemy they could not see, just as the British military had.
Dan tried to picture the soldiers and police out there, attempting to fight back while their command structure tried to comprehend where they should aim their weapons. And everywhere they turned, they would find civilians attacking them. Fellow soldiers attacking them. And something else lurking unseen in the shadows, picking them off when they were at their weakest.
This wasn’t war in the traditional sense; there was no front to speak of. America’s best chance at defeating the vampires now might be to drop nuclear bombs, but the vampires had made that impossible: the vice president—if he remained alive and in charge for more than a few hours—would have to sanction strikes all over his own country. He would have to sign off on Armageddon.
“They disabled the electrical grid,” Mancini said softly, gesturing at the television. “They cut communications. The first rules of war. Disrupt enemy comms. Cut the supply chain.”
Dan felt a rush of furious anger building inside him. Directed at himself, and at his hubris.
“We were wrong,” Herb said bitterly. “They’re not coming here; not coming for Dan at all. They’re going everywhere else. It’s like my father said. We started a war. This is what war with the vampires looks like.”
Herb drained the rest of the rum from the decanter and slammed it down on the side-table. He stalked back to his chair and sat down heavily.
“Yeah,” Mancini said grimly. “Why go where they know they can be hurt? If they take out the rest of the country—the rest of the world—what can one man do? Kill ‘em all yourself?” Mancini turned toward Dan, glaring.
That was the plan, Dan thought. Half-baked and misinformed and doomed to fail before it began.
“But,” he said, cringing a little at how lost and small his voice suddenly sounded in his own ears, “I thought they were drawn to me. In London…”
“Maybe they are. But they aren’t mindless animals, are they? They aren’t moths and you aren’t a flame. They think. They plan. In London, you were a target of opportunity,” Mancini said. “But destroying the city was the objective. That was their revenge for you killing a couple of them. This is their revenge for you killing more. Your presence in the city wasn’t the reason they turned up in London. It was what you had already done on the damn ship. They don’t need to kill you. They can kill everybody else. Then what good are you?”
Silence fell, and the room filled with the soft sound of static fizzing from the televisions. After a moment, Herb reached out, taking the remote and turning them off. “If they are taking out nuclear power stations, we’re all fucked,” he said grimly. “Most of us can’t fight vampires. None of us can fight radiation.”
Conny leapt to her feet and began to pace, pausing only to jab a finger at the Grand Cleric.
“You,” she barked. “What’s your name?”
The Grand Cleric glanced up at her for a moment, apparently befuddled by the question.
“Andrew Lloyd,” he stammered. “I’m the Grand Cle
ric of—”
“You were the Grand Cleric,” Conny interrupted. “Whatever the hell this place was, it just changed. Your boss is dead, and everyone else here will be, too, unless you pull yourself together. Now, you’re a survivor. Maybe.”
Andrew’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, dropping his chin once more. Conny marched to his seat and snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, making him flinch.
“Hey!”
Andrew looked up again, startled.
“Craven said you people have a place in the mountains? How far?”
“A couple miles,” Andrew mumbled, “maybe three. B-but this place is secure. Once we’re on lockdown—”
“They’re blowing up nuclear power stations!” Conny roared, shaking her head furiously. “Fucking lockdown? Are you serious?" She waved an angry gesture at Andrew and stomped back to her seat, leaning down and yanking at the leash that held Remy. After a couple of tugs, the rope fell away from his collar. He sprang to his feet, instantly alert.
“If anyone tries to tie this dog up again, he has my full permission to rip their damn hands off.” Conny spat the words out like shrapnel, aimed at nobody in particular.
Remy padded over to the window, lifting himself upright, with his two front paws on the sill. He peered out across the ranch, apparently fascinated by the elevated view.
She’s terrified, Dan thought, watching Conny begin to pace once more. He scanned the room, taking in the wide eyes, the slack jaws, the trembling fingers. Everyone was terrified, yet he, who had felt nothing but fear for years, now felt only numb. Numb, and stupid. He had misjudged his enemy badly, forgetting just how intelligent the vampires were.
Mancini’s words echoed darkly in his head.
What good am I?
His thoughts tumbled, visions of boiling black water rushing through his head, but when the familiar anxiety threatened to spike, he found that it was powerless. An echo of fear, nothing more.
“We need to get underground as soon as possible,” Conny snarled, “and pray that they don’t get to a power station close by soon.”
I’m not drowning.
Not adrift.
Dan sucked in a breath. The river was out there, surging around the edge of his consciousness, but it wouldn’t sweep him away, not ever again. Fear was the power that drove the horror in the shadows.
And I’m not afraid.
He let the breath out slow. Controlled. Drew in another.
They’re intelligent, he thought, and his eyes widened.
“They won’t,” he said softly.
“Won’t what?” Conny looked almost delirious with fear, prowling around the room like a caged tiger. She had the air of someone who wanted to just pick a direction and start running; to do something; anything.
“They won’t take out all the power stations. They might disable our power, but they won’t want a nuclear apocalypse.”
“Tell that to New York and Chicago,” Mancini growled.
Dan opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. His mind filled with visions of the densely populated cities in the north of the country. Massive radiation exposure. Peeling skin and festering sores and lungs filled with toxic blood. Death circling like a vulture; inescapable.
Outside the window, the early afternoon skies above Colorado were clear and bright. It was hard to believe that just a few hours north of his position, those same skies were probably scarred by radioactive ash, thick with the sound of screaming as millions died in agony.
“Why, Dan?” Conny snapped. “They’ve taken out more than one power station already. Why will they stop there?”
Dan’s thoughts blazed. If the vampires wanted to subdue humanity, nuclear apocalypse was certainly the fastest way to do it. But it didn’t feel right. He had no explanation for what had happened in the northeast, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that they wouldn’t carry on attacking nuclear sites. If that was what they wanted, why bother to attack LAX or the Hoover Dam? Why attack anywhere that wasn’t a nuclear power station?
The answer formed in his mind immediately.
“Because they would be exterminating their food source. These things are smart. They want to cripple this country, not obliterate it.”
“Are you sure, Dan? Because five minutes ago you were pretty sure that they wouldn’t do anything at all until sundown, and that they would come for you first.” Conny’s voice was full of vitriol.
Dan shrugged.
“They are intelligent. I’ve no doubt they want to destroy what humans have built. What better way to beat us? But killing off the creatures they feed on by poisoning them with radiation...that doesn’t exactly sound like them, does it?”
Conny waved an arm at the dark television screens.
“So why do that?”
Dan shook his head. “A warning shot, maybe? A way to cull a large part of the population instantly so they can focus on the rest? A way to throw the country into a panic and keep us from organising to fight back? I don’t know. But they are predators, and they like to play with their food. They want to get their hands dirty. We might not know much about them, but we do know that. Killing us all in one clean strike wouldn’t be...fun for them. It’s not their style.”
Conny shot a poison-tipped stare across the table at Herb, searching for his support.
Herb shrugged. “He’s right, Conny. Especially about the fact that we don’t know enough about them.”
Dan turned to face Andrew Lloyd. The Grand Cleric was sitting with his head in his hands. It didn’t look like he was paying much attention to what was going on around him.
He’s in shock, Dan thought, and almost laughed. A couple of days earlier, he had been much the same. Now, after encountering the vampires on more than one occasion, he knew that there wasn’t time for shock. Seconds spent paralysed by fear were seconds that could get you killed.
Seconds that had got Elaine killed.
He pushed the thought back.
“This place in the mountains,” Dan said, “how many people can it hold? Andrew! How many people can it hold?”
Andrew shook his head and sat upright, sucking in a deep breath. “There’s room for everybody, but…” he paused, and Dan got the impression he was trying to select his next words carefully. “It’s like a doomsday bunker: there’s food and fresh water. It was designed to be self-sufficient, but not for a large number of people—just those Craven would need if things turned bad. The supplies won’t last more than a few months if we take everybody.”
Dan nodded.
“We won’t need a few months. At the rate the vampires are moving, we’ll know how this is going to end in a few days, one way or another. What about power? And weapons?”
“It has isolated generators, and there are plenty of weapons. It’s secure. It’s where Craven keeps...kept all her information on the vampires. The artifacts her family collected.” Andrew waved a hand. “It’s secure,” he repeated.
“Good,” Dan replied. “Get your people to the bunker. All of them. Lock the doors. Mancini?”
Mancini looked up.
“Can you round up some people who can fight?”
“Some, maybe.”
“Do it,” Dan said. “As quick as you can.”
To his surprise, Mancini didn’t offer up any protest. He simply nodded.
Holy shit, Dan thought. I really am in charge, now. The notion that he might be the one that Herb and the others looked to had occurred to him briefly back in England, and at that time, it had terrified and amused him in equal measure. Dan Bellamy, commander-in-chief. Nothing could sound more ridiculous. And yet here he was, giving the orders. Because somebody had to, and everybody else was lost in their terror.
Words that he had spoken to Katie, the petrified security officer aboard the Oceanus, came back to him. Me and panic go way back. It was like the unrelenting torture of the past two years had been preparing him, slowly desensitizing him to terror, and enabling
him to carry on operating regardless of the fear he felt. When your entire life was an anxiety attack, panic’s edge somehow blunted. Fear was becoming like an old friend. He almost felt like he was starting to thrive on it.
Just like the vampires do.
Reality shifted.
The table in the meeting room blurred, the faces around it started to swim.
Burning red eyes reflected in a dark window.
My eyes.
“What are you doing, Dan?” Herb’s wide eyes were fixed on him.
Dan shuddered a little at the remembered nightmare, and the room abruptly popped back into focus.
“I need to get into the head of a vampire. Maybe then, I can find out exactly where their nest is located. Find the black river and kill it. I might be wrong, but I believe it’s our only chance of stopping this before the vampires send us all back to the Dark Ages.”
Herb nodded cautiously, his brow furrowed.
“I won’t accomplish any of that by hiding out in some cave,” Dan continued. “I’ve been doing that for the past two years, and look where it has got me. If this place in the mountains really is secure, then we need to get everybody there. By the look of that news footage, it might be the only safe place left before too much longer, and we’ll need it if we’re going to survive. But I won’t hide, not anymore. If the vampires won’t come to me, I’ll go to them.”
Before Herb could reply, the air in the room was split by a loud, fearsome growl.
All eyes fell on Remy.
The German Shepherd was still pressed up against the window, his massive body tensed and rigid, his snout almost touching the glass; lips pulled back to reveal sharp teeth. His brown eyes were trained on the world outside, unblinking.
“Oh, shit,” Conny breathed.
Remy’s growl deepened.
And outside, the ranch crackled to the sound of automatic gunfire.
9
“Weapons,” Herb snarled as he leapt from his chair, sending it clattering to the floor. “Mancini? Weapons!”
“This way,” Mancini roared, charging through the door, hoisting his submachine gun as he left the meeting room and entered the corridor beyond at a gallop. He swung the weapon left, then right. “Clear!”
The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River Page 63