Within a blink of Jonny's eyes, the man was gone and Jonny found himself scrambling out from his hiding place desperately searching beyond the ticket booth as the Emperor's angry scratchy voice scraped at the inside of his ears. The slam of a door nearly detonated Jonny's heart but as he caught his breath he realized he had a good idea where the sound had come from.
He ran forward as quietly as he could, but it didn't seem to matter. He knew all too well if Hank had heard him, he'd be dead already or badly injured at the very least. Up ahead, a large roller coaster track rose up from behind a small building and disjointedly surrounded the foreseeable area onward. The small gray door was closed, but Jonny would have put all chips in that Hank was in there getting closer to whatever it was the Emperor didn't want him to find.
As Jonny walked closer to the small building, the wind blew and pushed against the frail form of the coaster track in a nerve-wracking display of structural insecurity. Jonny crept up to the small window next to the door and wiped away a little circle in the dust and peered inside, softly pressing the plastic tips of the night vision goggles against the pane of glass. Hank was on his knees holding a vial in his hands and examining it carefully. The contents were liquid and deeply scarlet.
The Emperor's breath seemed to suck in in an odd way and behind gritted teeth his voice whispered, "When he drinks he'll be unable to defend himself. That's when you make your move, Mr. Cross, do you understand?"
Jonny nodded, watching for the moment of truth to come. Both he and Hank seemed to take a deep breath at exactly the same time and then Hank put his head back as he gulped down the thick red syrup from the vial.
"Now, Mr. Cross, now!"
Jonny got to his feet, legs shaking and reached for the green knob on the green door and twisted it, pushing his way inside the small building. The door creaked loudly in a hundred echoes from inside, but Hank lay on the floor now, eyes rolled up in the back of his head and breathing in long dragging breaths. "What's wrong with him? What did he do?"
"Do not concern yourself with that, Mr. Cross. It is time to do what you came for."
Jonny stepped over to Hank's body lying mostly still on the floor other than the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed in, out, in.
"Remember what I told you, Mr. Cross, put the handcuffs on first and then slide the knife from side to side across his throat and keep your eyes glued to him so I can make sure he fully bleeds out. It is the only way to be sure."
Jonny pulled the pair of handcuffs from his pocket and knelt down to put them on Hank's hands. They slid around his wrists easily enough, though Jonny hesitated for quite a long moment at first, damn near sure the moment he came near, Hank's eyes would open and his hand would lock around Jonny's throat and crush his windpipe in a matter of seconds. Once Hank's hands were handcuffed in front of his body, eyes still glazing upward into his skull, Jonny slid the large curved and brown bone-handle knife from the small sheathe behind the chest pocket of his jacket.
He stood there for one long everlasting moment, holding the knife in his hand, still not even sure he could lift it, let alone bring it down to cut open another man's throat. And yet this was not just any man either. He could very well be the one man who could end the war. The one man who could bring back some sense of reason and freedom to an entire nation.
"Mr. Cross, what are you waiting for. He might wake up any minute. Slit his throat and be done with it!"
Jonny raised the knife, his hand and arm shaking violently and he moved it in position over Hank's bare vulnerable neck. He closed his eyes to pray to Mother Mary and the next second he felt a crack in the back of his wrist and a deep sharp pain in his neck before everything went completely dark.
***
Rosadelma stood, half kneeling behind Jonny's body, her arm squeezing just hard enough to break off his supply of oxygen and fighting the overwhelming urge within to twist the bastard's head clean off of his body. When she was confident he was unconscious and no longer a threat to Hank, she reached around and picked him up like a baby and tossed him over to the floor against the far wall. His body slammed into the ground and she realized after the fact she probably should have been more careful, but she smiled nonetheless knowing that, counting his wrist, she'd probably only broken three or four of his bones. She hadn't killed him at least.
She gazed down at Hank then, watching his chest rise and fall and his eyes reach for the back of his brain, oblivious to the world—and the people in it—around him. She wondered what it was that was going on in his trance-like state. She'd heard a lot of stories about him. About his abilities. It was still hard to believe he was human at all. She decided to let him finish out whatever it was he was doing without bothering him. In the meantime, she went over and picked up Jonny's body and in a flash of reflected moonlight off the copper doorknob and a gush of wind blasting off the blurring motion of her legs, Rosadelma put him in the trunk of the old boat of a car he had stolen.
"Not very comfortable, is it, fucker?" She slammed the trunk lid down. It had been a bumpy ride south for her in that very trunk but it would be a much bumpier ride for Jonny when they took him to the hive. She checked to make sure the lock was secure and then walked at a human pace back toward the small building where Hank was dreaming for dollars or whatever it was he was doing.
***
Joseph's hand crumbled the malformed shape of the tiny version of himself sitting on his desk when the pale slender hand shot forward and broke Jonny's wrist and the entire signal went dead in almost no time at all. The structure around him was swelling as was the ground that surrounded it in his subterranean safe house. Miles above, he could feel the sky growing bleak and black and the clouds puffing up into great big dark spirits stretching over the land ready to cry out with a million eyes of pelting rain and drench the ground until it was flooding.
Wrinkled pasty hand trembling over the kill switch, Joseph let his mind carry out each possible outcome through to completion as he hesitated. If he killed the man and Hank still lived, he might never get this chance again. If he let Jonny live and they killed him anyway for spying at the very least, it would have been a terrible exercise in wastefulness. He let his hand rest its weight on the switch, feeling the cold red plastic in his palm. Sweat slowly crept down his forehead for the first time in a long time as he tried to decide what he should do.
He let go of his breath and pulled his hand away from the kill device. He had no other choice. He could send in vampires, but they wouldn’t likely arrive before Hank awoke and fled. Besides, Joseph was blind to the goings on there and for all he could know the quick and graceful woman who had overpowered Jonny Cross had taken Hank's still-envisioning body and made a run for it already.
Joseph let the dust crumble out from around his fingers as he squeezed the statue harder.
***
Deep in the dark trenches of an otherworldly vision, Hank watched another set of memories play out before him like a living movie all around him. They were put together care of Roger Tresney, only this time they weren't taken from Diana's mind, but from Tresney's himself. At first there was a jumble of hazy memories from the war. Tresney's voice quickly filled the background though as he explained what he was doing. "It was so much easier getting someone else's thoughts good and clear, but my head doesn't seem to want to focus so much." The mix of confusing visions cleared away like smoke leaving only a tall stout man with black hair and green eyes staring at himself in front of a long thin mirror clinging onto a bedroom wall.
"Hi, Hank. It's me, Roger... Listen, I know of about thirteen different scenarios right now that would have brought you here, so, I can't say as I really understand what you've been through to make it this far, but I want you to know that I'm glad you did. Regardless of how you got here, you are here and what happens next is far more important." He cleared his throat and sat down on the bed behind him.
"The blood you've ingested contains more than just this message. I inserted a single viral ge
netic sequence that, along with the one I included in Diana's blood, which you should have already drank, will join together and infect your entire DNA. You see, Hank, I studied the effects of the vampire blood on myself for years. Only the Queen and I knew about my gift and my connection to the Emperor. And what I learned I kept to myself—I never knew just how much I could trust her, she's so very manipulating and her foresight is stronger than she's willing to admit.
"Anyway, I learned there was a weakness in my blood after drinking from the ancients. A weak point in the way the effects of that blood mutated my own—yours as well, even the Emperor's. Exploit this weakness and you can destroy any of us.
"You see, this is why I couldn't destroy him myself. I had to test the sequence on someone. Someone whose blood would react the same way. And that someone was me. As I record this memory I now have less than twenty-four hours to live. Even still, if I were to survive, my body will be so weak as to be too vulnerable against my enemies now. Besides, I've seen the last moments of my life a thousand times." The next second Hank was choking. A distorted image of a familiar face floated above a blurry layer of transparency. Tears brought the whole scene above Tresney’s body in and out of focus as Lotinger stared down through translucent emptiness, eyes alight with passion. Then, just as quickly, the images and the choking disappeared and Roger's bulky seated frame and rugged face returned. He smiled.
"I would have loved to have seen the look on that bastard’s face if he could have known it wasn’t anything he was doing that was actually killing me.” Tresney laughed then his face became solemn. “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Hank. But now the sequence is in you... It was the only way. You now have less than two hundred hours to find Joseph Caesar and infect him with your blood.
"That's a little over eight days. Once you've contaminated The Emperor, the genetically altered blood you carry inside you will have advanced into the process enough to spread through that bastard like wildfire and shortly thereafter, he will die...
"And so will you."
Tresney sat there for a long time staring back at himself not speaking, waiting. Letting the inevitable sink in. "In a sense, I just murdered you, and I would understand if you wanted to strangle me now, not that you can since by now I'm most definitely dead." Hank would have expected to feel relief but that was the last thing that flooded through him. First it was shock. Then a sense of melancholy. Then he found himself thinking of Toby and before long he was sure that regardless of how lonely he was now in this world, he still wanted a chance to build some kind of future. But first the Emperor's reign had to end. And if that meant that so did he, Hank would gladly die to take the bastard down. He felt the vision trembling around him and he wondered if perhaps there might be another way just yet.
And just like that a digital countdown formed in the far top right of Hank's innervision and he watched as the seconds ticked away and then realized there was no other choice. He would have to die to destroy the Emperor and without Toby, maybe it was for the best.
Tresney still stood waiting, somehow knowing when to pause and when to continue speaking. He looked back up into the mirror and said one last thing.
"And Hank... I'm truly sorry about Toby."
That last word echoed into a million empty wells and bounced around the inside of Hank's head as the vision melted away, twisting and turning and breaking and burning and reemerging as something new. The pieces flooded together until everything was intact and the young boy looked up at Hank, his familiar eyes full of tears and longing.
"Dad!” Toby smiled, tears sliding down his face. “I'm so sorry I left you behind."
Hank's heart melted at the sight of his dead son. He had never expected to see him again and yet here he was. "You have nothing to be sorry about, Toby. I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you away."
Toby ran forward, wrapping his arms around Hank.
And then just like that it all went away, swirling in fading colors and darkness until only oblivion remained.
Part Two: A Love That Knows
Chapter 16
The Unforeseen
The Imperial soldiers were stationed at every corner now. Ever since that live execution had been crashed by the Foederati, Imperial security in the city had been tighter than ever. And Sundays were the worst. Alexandria watched them from the front window while her two younger brothers chased each other around the coffee table in the living room reflected in the window glass. "Hey guys, Dad's gonna be out of the shower any minute and it'll be time to go to church. Don't you think you should settle down a bit maybe?"
Neither boy so much as said a word of acknowledgement as they circled the table for two more laps and then dashed off beyond the kitchen. Alexandria sighed. Things were hard enough normally, but as Imperial security tightened, so did the tense air that surrounded her father everywhere he went. She knew why. He was afraid the Empire would find out their family secret. That they were not true believers. That her father, Jamie Ridgemont was a true-to-capital-A atheist, an all too brutally punished offense against the Empire's pure justice.
Alexandria didn't know what she believed in, but it sure wasn't that fake ass old bastard in blinding white on the TV sitting on his throne and watching over everyone while the poor suffered and the rich got richer. Her idea of what a god should be was simple. Loving, fair, and compassionate. None of these were qualities Joseph Caesar was known for.
"Alex, you about ready?" her dad said from somewhere deep within the house.
"Yeah. I just have to get Rudy and Jeremy to stop running around like little Indians."
When Alex came out of the front room and into the living room, the boys were just starting to calm themselves down and begrudgingly sit on the couch. "It's stupid that we have to go to church. I thought the Fo-der-otty were winning and we could do what we want to now." Alexandria's heart nearly stopped.
"Jeremy, watch your mouth. If someone outside had heard you just now, we'd all be put to death." She locked eyes with Jeremy, who was the youngest of her two little brothers.
Jeremy glanced at the door, an alarmed and wounded look in his eyes.
Their father was putting on his tie as he walked into the room. "Besides, don't believe everything you hear. Just because the Foederati are winning some battles, it doesn't mean that everything has changed. They haven't been here yet, or you would know... In the meantime we need to work hard together as a family to do everything in our power to blend in and keep from getting any unwanted attention."
A few minutes later, Dad was straightening up Rudy's collar when a gentle knocking came from the front door.
"Who is it?" he said.
There was no response.
"Dad, maybe you should wait. Things are different now. Maybe we should all go to the door together and see what they want?"
"Honey, it's best you stay here." And before she could say anything more to try and stop him, he was on his feet and shuffling down the hall toward the front door, a charming whistle springing from his lips.
The screen screeched open and Dad said, "Good morning officers, is there anything I can help you w—" The earth-shattering explosion that came next blew out most of Alexandria's ability to hear anything other than the deepest, darkest, and loneliest pit beyond the observable universe.
The splitting sharp crack slammed into Alexandria and in silent slow motion she ran for the front door. Blood sprayed in a long tree pattern along the far wall next to the door jam. Whoever had been at the door was gone—they were Imperial soldiers, that much had been clear—but now only their handiwork had been left behind—her father’s motionless body, its head ripped open. The scream in the back of Alex's throat reverberated off of the hallway walls before she even realized it had left her mouth.
She stumbled down to the floor, lying mere feet from her father's lifeless pulp of a body, but she couldn't bear to come any closer. It was so terribly broken and mangled. And just seconds ago his beautiful voice had vibrat
ed along, life enchanting every inch of skin, every amazing thing that made her father who he was. The boys were just sitting there on the couch, jaws dropped and eyes glued to their father's lifeless body. They must have seen the whole goddamn thing.
Something bright red and cloth-like lying on Dad's chest caught Alex's attention. A moment of hyperventilating and whining gave her the strength to reach out and pick up whatever it was. In her hands it felt like velvet. The red was obviously made of ink—the thing was harmless. But the symbol printed in that bright standard red hue explained it all. It was a huge slanted “A” which Alex had seen on a number of occasions before. It was an old symbol from before the Empire. Before the second civil war.
A symbol for Atheists.
***
When Rosadelma returned to the small building beneath the roller coaster, she found Hank lying fully unconscious on the floor where she had left him. She could hear his heart beating in his chest. Whatever he had just experienced had exhausted his mental capacity and his body must have given in to unconsciousness. She reached down and carefully picked him up, one arm softly holding the back of his head, the other lifting his legs at the crook in his knees. She brought him out of the building and walked across the parking lot making sure to listen and watch for any other uninvited company. No one seemed to be in the immediate area. No one alive anyway. A vampire could have easily hidden themselves out of plain sight and the distance would have shattered any possibility of hearing the quickly firing undead synapses within the creature's brain. Knowing this, she made sure to keep on alert.
She walked up to the old car and opened the back door in one swift graceful movement then placed Hank's body in the thickly cushioned back seat sprawled out but hopefully not too uncomfortably so. Then she closed the door and stood there a moment listening and watching all around her. If anyone was out there, they weren't making any sudden moves. And the location of the Hive wasn't exactly a secret anymore, the Empire had breached its confines in the past and learned all too quickly what that got them in turn. So it was decided. She would go to the Queen and seek her decision as to what to do with this human low life and wait for Hank to wake up.
Rising From Ashes: Empire of Blood Book Three (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) Page 9