"What were you doing in Paris, Turner? And who were you seeing?" Watson said to himself. He needed to know where to start, and he couldn’t see that, not yet at least.
Chapter 14
The stress of the day had brought back memories, which gave rise to his present situation. Usually this spiral downward took him to the happiest, yet most painful part, of his past.
At these times he was able to talk to Quinta, yet she appeared more like a ghost than anything else. Although he couldn’t explain it, he believed he was somehow communicating with her spirit and was not imagining the whole thing.
Quinta appeared to him. “Your time is soon to come, my love,” said Quinta to Pierre as he sat at his desk in his Chicago office. He wasn’t sure if these visions were real or if they were imagined.
“I know,” Pierre said. He felt the emotions bubbling up in him. It had been awhile since he missed her this much. Whenever he thought he was getting past it, she came back to him to remind him of why he continued to exist.
“I know it has been hard, and I miss you—I’ve missed you for a long time.” Her ghostly presence reached out for him. He reached for her, and he could almost touch her.
Pierre placed his hand on what he thought was her arm, but it landed on his desk, the hard wood thumping empty and hollow. “Quinta, don’t go. Please stay longer.”
“I can’t stay,” her voice said, but he couldn’t see her. “Remember why you are here my love. Don’t forget the reason.”
Bloody tears streaked Pierre’s cheeks. “Don’t go,” he rasped hoarsely.
When he opened his eyes Quinta was gone, and her voice no longer spoke to him. But he knew what he needed to do. He had always known what he needed to do. Sometimes he just needed some reminding.
_________________________
Vladimir Lenin was pleased with the graves located under the subway system in Paris, but it wouldn’t be enough. An e-mail dinged his computer. He saw it was encrypted. He opened it.
It was a video of a hotel built by Nero and developed by Drum Industries, but this hotel was built in Canada, a perfect staging point for the United States.
The hotel sat a few miles away from the resort, Banff, in western Canada. Like all building projects between Drum and Nero, it wouldn’t be completed for two to five years. Just enough time, thought Lenin.
Inlaid fieldstones hotels built like the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina took a long time to build. Most of the exterior was already built, but the inside needed to be “up-fitted”. As usual, the ground was dirt and a vast expanse.
Lenin could see dozens of naked, muscular bodies both male and female lined up over ditches. “Do not be afraid,” said Sulpicius Rufus (a former Roman henchmen who never changed his name). “You may have thought you were going to be sex slaves, but you will be so much more. We are giving you immortality.”
With that a wall of naked vampires rushed in and plunged their fangs into the frightened men and women. Once drained the bodies were placed in shallow graves to become vampires in eight to twelve hours.
“Doesn’t this remind you of days of old my master?” said Sulpicius. Lenin laughed. Sulpicuis had fought with him in Caesar’s legions in Gaul back when Lenin was Vorenus Hortentius. Those were some glorious days.
But he remembered Caesar’s words to him, “People are always trying to take down the top man.” Lenin longed to be the top man, but until then he would have to settle for taking down the top man, President Thomas Elder.
_________________
Lenin wondered if Caesar had seen his fate. Never was there a greater military commander or political genius. Such a great man, and he was right to be emperor. One man should rule, for it was the natural order of things. Rome reached its acme not as a republic but as an empire. In order to have an empire, there must be an emperor. But people betray emperors.
There was a saying that "Rome will rise again," and Lenin believed this. It would rise again under Lenin’s control. He could claim that mystical lineage to the Roman Empire because he was a part of that empire. He helped build it in his own way.
Vampire rule, such a glorious rule, he thought. There would be no better way to honor his Roman heritage than for he, a Roman, to rule as their emperor. Just like the Romans were the strongest people on earth during their time, so to would his vampires be.
The plan would only work if vampires could trust each other. Lenin had trust issues due to the unfortunate incident with Drogba. The difference between he and Caesar was his “Brutus” hadn’t killed him, at least he hadn’t been able to yet.
Drogba betrayed him. He left him even though he should have been his Marc Antony.
His fangs dropped down, and he hissed. Anger overwhelmed him, and he felt the urge to go down to the Paris streets and hunt. He kicked open the double doors leading onto his balcony and swooped down into the streets.
Lenin saw a drunken fat man staggering down an alley. He pounced on the man. “You pathetic pile of shit. Blood is wasted on you.” His fangs extended, and the sight of the man filled him with rage. Such a wasted life form, he thought.
Before the man could scream, Lenin savagely ripped off his head. The blood sprayed like a fire hydrant. His face was coated in red, and his teeth dripped blood. “I hate humans. I will have all of you. All of you,” he shouted.
Lenin left the mutilated corpse on the ground. “He’s not worth being made into a vampire. So few of them are.”
Chapter 15
Roland had always been able to shoot well. He could hit anything he shot at because he aim was always true. Roland didn’t miss. No matter who he was or what he came from no one could take away from him that he was one helluva a shot. And he could shoot with a cross bow or a gun. Heck he could even throw a spear accurately.
“Everyone has a gift,” Roland’s stepdad used to say to him. He remembered the first time his stepdad said this to him as Roland gazed down at his faded, red Converse All-Stars.
Then his stepdad did something unexpected, something that would change his life forever.
His stepdad said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” At the time, Roland had worried because most conversations that started this way never ended well.
Then his stepdad asked, “Roland, how would you feel about taking my name?”
Roland’s eyes welled up with tears. He felt embarrassed, and he turned away.
His stepdad hugged him. “There isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I love your mom Roland, and I love you.”
Hoarsely Roland said, “I’d love to have your name.”
“I’m honored. I’m proud of you Roland. I’m proud you are going to bear my name. You’ve got a gift son, and one day you are going to do great things. Roland Walker is a name we can all be proud of”
Roland thought of this day, often in Iraq, and even now. He thought about his old hurts, the insecurities and what brought him to this war. Mostly he thought about the terrible things he’d seen and done.
His stepdad was right. He did have a gift. No one could shoot like Roland Walker, but that gift had led to some awful things. He’d killed a lot of people, people who had never done anything to him, faceless people who died for no reason.
Roland thought he would use the third day to rest and recover not to go on a mission after a two-day bender.
Roland did have a gift. His stepfather was right, but what good had it done him?
___________________________
Thomas Watson boarded a commercial flight headed for Paris. He’d been there once a few years before when the president attended a G-8 summit. He knew there had been a lot of talk in the White House regarding the threat from Paris and the probable ties of Nero Corporation to some vast vampire conspiracy.
He also knew Fletcher Hunter had gone to Paris on behalf of House Majority Leader Inman to meet with officials from Nero. He thought the two were possibly linked, although it would not be unusual for a high-ranking staffer to travel to E
urope to meet with unsavory businesses. It was done all the time, but this time felt different especially in light of what Bridgett had told him about Fletcher.
While researching Fletcher, he came across information given to him by his friend at Interpol that indicated Fletcher met with a Nero official (possibly billionaire Vladimir Lenin), but then his whereabouts were unknown for three days.
He pondered the last few years while the plane flew thousands of feet above the dark Atlantic. Playing a role in stopping Restoration Vampires, which he believed posted the greatest threat to man since the Bubonic Plague, was not something he planned on when he joined the Secret Service. The president needed to be protected, and his service to the current president and past presidents was vital. Knowledge and circumstances had thrust him into this struggle.
From the day on the campaign trail when he saw the future President kill the vampire he knew the man would be president. Fate ordained it. Fate plucked Elder out of obscurity and thrust him into the grand historical narrative. President Elder acted as humanity's protagonist.
Agent Watson did not know what he might find in Paris or if he would find anything. Maybe it was a dead end.
The plane landed.
Watson would have some time to relax and investigate Vladimir Lenin and Fletcher Turner. Something wasn’t right with Turner. Watson intended to get to the bottom of things even if it killed him.
______________________________
President Elder paced across the deep rug bearing the Presidential Seal in his office on Air Force One, which sat on the tarmac at Boston’s Logan Airport where he had a fundraiser that evening. He didn’t want to be here. Not now. He felt he needed to be back in Washington, but he needed to win reelection.
How would he stop the vampires? He didn't know how they would attack or how many would attack. So many unanswered questions lingered.
He thought of Abraham Lincoln and the challenges he faced. He’d held together a fractured union. President Elder faced similar challenges. Obviously it had ended badly for Lincoln, but the country survived. Would he, too, be sacrificed so humanity could survive? Was he willing to make that sacrifice?
We should have killed you when we had the chance, the words from the vampire echoed in his head. Elder knew the vampires wanted him dead or worse yet a vampire.
He stared down at the eagle holding snakes in one claw and arrows in another. He imagined those arrows as silver arrows capable of killing a vampire. Maybe the Founding Fathers had been hinting at something with this symbol.
What would people think if they knew the President of the United States destroyed vampires? The warrior king appealed to people. Why else did people thirst for a candidate with military experience? Elder never served in the military, but his bona fides as a tough guy wouldn’t be doubted if people knew the truth.
People longed for safety or at least the illusion of safety. How did anyone ever know he or she was safe? Falling anvils smashing cartoon characters were funny for a reason: people could relate to the fatalistic notion expressed in the humor. These kinds of things did not happen. Reality did not allow it or it wasn’t supposed to allow it. A modicum of safety must exist. Of course things that weren’t supposed to happen happened all the time. After all planes did fly into the World Trade Center. And the belief in a benign universe didn’t always bear fruit because people weren’t always benign. But he also knew that people live out lives balanced on the edge of the abyss even if they don't see the abyss. Ultimately people choose, and choices have consequences.
And vampires reached out from the abyss. They came in the darkness and snatched people away from that "safe" world. Vampires plunged people into eternal darkness. Evil begat evil.
Pierre Leblanc's plan for private blood banks to curb vampire attacks on humans gave Elder some hope. This would not blot out the threat––nothing would––but at least it would make some difference.
Elder possessed the vague outline of a plan in his head. This comforted him. He could not kill all the vampires in the world, nor did he want to do so. He believed not all vampires were bad. Most of them never wanted to be vampires, and many of them still maintained some level of decency however faint.
Restoration vampires worried him the most. They would not care about private blood banks because they desired human blood not so much as a food source but as liquid domination. They would do all they could to take over, and, if united, they would be formidable. But they hadn’t been united for 3,000 years. Things changed though. Sometimes the stars aligned in malicious ways for nature could be a harsh bitch.
The plan would evolve over time, but he must stop the spread of the vampires who wanted to destroy humans. And vampires preyed upon the weak and disenfranchised members of society. How else could you explain how vampires flourished in Eastern Europe where people lived in almost medieval environments?
Because vampires attacked the most vulnerable. Elder inferred the poor in the United States would be the first victims after the hoards of vampires made from human trafficking would be shipped in. He had sent Magnum and Roland Walker on one successful mission, and he wondered how the second mission would play out in North Carolina. And if he could control the spread of vampires, the threat would be minimized.
North Carolina concerned the president because it had once been a progressive, but that had all changed. Since 2010 the state had been hijacked by the Tea Party which hand managed to crush public education and further disenfranchise the poor.
The state had an alarming number of private prisons, prisons whose populations were fueled by arrests, indictments and convictions of minorities for arbitrary drug laws. Once convicts went in the prisons very little contact was allowed from the outside world, and not much was known about what went on in the prisons. All of this was done by statute so it was legal.
Governor Patrick McAngus had been the mayor of Raleigh in spite of his lackluster education. He’d gotten in bed with a Tea Party-backed political operative named Tom Bishop. And Bishop ran the show.
We want North Carolina to be a business-friendly state. There are about forty-seven percent of people in this state who don’t do anything. I don’t want to be a governor for those people. I want to be a governor for the rest of us. Those had been the man’s words, and he still won, thought Elder. Scary.
Elder had heard McAngus might have ties to Restoration vampire money, perhaps to Nero Corporation although that couldn’t be established yet. He needed Roland and Magnum to check on it.
Elder believed vampires planning to take over the United States hacked into databases and knew exactly who to go after. He thought of the list as a hit list.
I’m not sure if the attack will be as obvious as hackers directly trying to hack into government databases, Elder thought. No, it will be more subtle. The money will go to perhaps a lobbying firm or Super PAC. Maybe both.
North Carolina alarmed Elder most of all and its hackneyed approach to governing with voter ID laws, anti-Sharia laws, cuts to education, and, most significantly, failure to extend Medicaid benefits to 500,000 people. If it could happen in North Carolina, it could happen anywhere.
“Mr. President, it will be thirty minutes before your motorcade is ready,” said the Secret Service Agent.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
The president seemed troubled. Sensing this, the agent said, “Is something the matter sir?”
President Elder nodded his head. “Something is always the matter. It is a question of degree I guess.”
“Well, five minutes sir.”
Without turning his head Elder said, “Please close the door behind you. I will see you soon. I just need a moment to myself.”
Meanwhile Magnum and Roland prepared to go to Charlotte. Elder needed to know what was going on.
_________
Fortunately the Republican presidential candidates floundered at every turn. Never had a major political party produced such a lackluster group of candidates, but money served as
the panacea for the weak candidates and the strong candidates alike. None were real competition for Inman, and they were false choices to give the illusion there were choices. In reality, the nomination had been decided. Inman would be the nominee.
But politics is nothing if not a spectacle, be it real or contrived. The Republican candidates included a former senator from Pennsylvania, who had been trounced in his last election. The primaries gave new life to this political corpse. Other candidates included a thrice married former Speaker of the House, and a “doctor” who made millions selling newsletters, who also happened to be a congressmen from Texas.
The hatred and narrow mindedness spawning this slate of candidates were what ripened the conditions for a vampire takeover because of the fractures in the Republican party. It was the perfect time for a sleeper candidate, a Trojan horse.
Elder believed in the free market, but he did not believe in pure capitalism. He must stymie the Republicans. By doing so he would go a long way towards preventing the vampire take over, but work still needed to be done to destroy the evil vampires. Otherwise this threat would fester and hatch from another place. He must squelch the threat––for now––and for all time.
Chapter 16
Roland and Magnum arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport ready to do a job. Roland tried to think of each mission as just a job with targets to be destroyed.
"Okay Roland this next guy is a real bad dude. For years his family ran moonshine, and then they got into NASCAR. He's got a lot of influence in North Carolina and throughout the South. This guy's head of a redneck mafia. Don't laugh. There is such a thing. He's tied into every kind of vice from prostitution to illegal gambling to dog fighting. He funds a huge Super PAC, and he is very anti-Elder. Secret Service has been watching him for awhile.
"No one is sure when Robbie Jernigan––that's his name––became a vampire. He is likely about 160 years old, and he fought for the Confederacy. And he's had a lot of time to plan. I believe he had something to do with both the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations. He’s a major human trafficker too. I think he's planning an attempt on President Elder at Bank of America Stadium during the convention."
Vampire Esquire's War: A Novella Page 9