Hank turned and locked eyes with Theodore. “You ready?”
Beneath wrinkled brows and a messy crown of gray hair, Theodore’s eyes were tired, worn. He nodded and the two men got to their feet.
Inside the large open cavern where the ancients hung, sleeping, from the cave ceiling by day, the empty darkness seemed to expand forever. Jonny Cross lay still and silent, arms and legs folded into his body, a grown fetus robbed of its womb. Hank and Simon stood next to the vulnerable body, waiting and watching as Theodore slowly sunk down onto his knees and closed his eyes. Aged, withered hands rose from his lap and he placed them on Jonny’s shoulder. A long moment of awkward silence reached out for the edges of the cave and Hank took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind of impatient thoughts.
Theodore’s hands began to slide along Jonny’s back, slow at first, then exponentially quickening. Within seconds, the old man’s hands were moving with a rapid urgency. Hank’s breath caught in his throat as he watched. He hadn’t before seen this process in action, though it had once been employed on his own body.
Theodore’s groping, searching hands seemed to be draining of the desperation they had shown previously and just as quickly as they started, they fell limp at the man’s sides. Eyes still closed, Theodore began to chant something. The words were like gibberish to Hank but a pattern could easily be recognized. The rhythm of the man’s words grew with the rising volume of his voice and quite unexpectedly the room began to fill with a dim yellow glow much like the glow Hank had witnessed coming off of Simon and Ishan’s hands when they were healing. Only this time it wasn’t clear exactly where the light was coming from. It seemed to be somewhere hidden almost. Like a bright flashlight beam obscured by cradling human hands.
It wasn’t long before Simon put his own hands on Jonny Cross’s body. Hank was just about to ask him what he was doing when it became obvious as Simon turned the body over and the light that had at first been so dim was now nearly blinding Hank as it blasted out from Jonny’s chest. Then with a swiftness only known to the undead, Simon pulled out a long thick syringe and stabbed it into the heart of that light. Within seconds the room was pitch black again. But even in the dark Hank could see Jonny’s body lurching and shaking and trying to pull away from the vise-like hold of Simon’s inhuman grasp.
A moment later, Simon lifted the device back up from Jonny’s body, blood dripping from the wound and just as quickly gently placed it to the ground and put his hands over the torn flesh and bone of the man’s ribcage. That familiar glow spread out between Simon’s hands and the man’s body and the wound began to shrink as the opening of it filled with bone and blood and skin. Cross’s body jerked up into a sitting position and, mouth open wide, blood shot out from the back of his throat in one big blast that splattered against his legs.
Jonny coughed up some more blood for a moment and then, breathing heavily, he leaned back, holding himself in upright with his hands. In a hoarse, dry voice, he tried to speak but only partial syllables would come.
“Welcome back to the land of the living. Simon here just took out the implant the Emperor put in you.”
Jonny seemed to be hyperventilating all of a sudden. His partial syllables became a handful of broken words jumbled into one another. “Can’t… Julie… Joseph…She…” Then he was up scrambling to get away, but trapped by both Simon and Hank’s hands grabbing hold of him.
“It’s okay, Jonny, it’s okay.” Hank’s voice had taken on a calm comforting tone.
“She’s dead, don’t you get it?” Jonny’s scream echoed off of oblivion as Hank took a solitary moment to collect himself.
“Julie is not dead. Not yet.”
Hank’s gaze slipped over to the tiny metal blood-soaked ball that had been in Jonny’s chest. “You see this thing?” He picked up the implant and held it in his hand, sliding it around, the thick red goo coming off on his fingers. “All we have to do is put it right back in. Simon here put the device into something akin to a standby mode. The Emperor will get nothing but a sleep signal from it. Now, we’re going to put it back in you. But first, we need to talk about how we’re going to save your sister. Okay?”
***
Ishan stood like a granite statue watching over the huddled vulnerable form of the Queen as she lay sleeping. What faint moonlight managed its way into the room, so dim, no human's eyes could have seen it, glinted off several streaming lines of sweat along her back and shoulders. It pained Ishan to see her this way. She had told him more times than he could count since he’d awoken that it was necessary, but even the future of the vampire races was hard to compare to how much he loved her. Hours passed without so much as a single fluttering of breath from the ancient vampire. As he watched her and his thoughts grew further and further complex, he found himself fading into a trance-like state. It was almost as if the room around him were disappearing, fading away into nothing and only he remained, once again, sealed in a tomb of darkness within himself.
The empty night spread on forever in all directions and even the ground beneath Ishan's feet was no more. His body floated freely along an ever expanding vastness of time and space in between stars and galaxies and the very atoms themselves. The warmth of friction began to grow as his body moved faster and faster through the void. And as speed increased to nearly dizzying levels even to such an incredibly agile creature as he, Ishan was unable to stop himself through physical means or pure will. It was as if the very flesh and bone he had worn for millennia had been shed and the bare electrical impulses of his mind were all that was left floating out in the ether blasting toward a deep oblivion buried within an all encompassing oblivion.
Somehow, then, whatever charged atoms that made up Ishan's sense of sight were able to turn around. To see. A single pinpoint of light so vague and so dim and so very far away dotted the very middle of nothing. And somehow he knew... That light. That single pinpoint of illumination was billions and billions of light years away and across and he would never get back to it. He would die out here, a floating chemical reaction, in the cold expanse in between superclusters of galaxies connecting like snow flakes weaved together by complicated strands of DNA. That one point of light, he knew, was one solid mammoth object floating around forever in its own unending complexity and mass. And he could not be saved...
In a split second, the vast, the dark, the light, everything, blinked away and a different kind of darkness surrounded Ishan. A familiar scent overpowered his senses and the grazing of soft flesh against his fangs nearly smothered him with its ecstasy, but before they could sink into that cold familiar flesh, Ishan's hands pushed his body away. The Queen lay there just as silent as before, just as oblivious. Looking down at those same hands that had only barely stopped him from piercing deep down into what he knew was the true life force of her, Ishan's pale dirty fingers shook in a way they hadn't previously in centuries. What had happened while his mind had been so far away? Where had he gone... And what...?
He could hear echoes in the back of his mind. A distant sharp feline laughter.
Bellona...
And then, silence.
Ishan squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, letting them break the skin sending a slow moving ooze of blood out from his palms and a few individual drops—one, two, three—careening for the rocky cavern floor. Each one splashed against the ground like shattering glass and in a flash of movement, the Queen sat upright, awake, aware, eyes poised with concern and knowledge, hand gently pressed against the top of her round glistening belly. Their eyes locked and Ishan felt the fear spreading within the Queen at that moment and dropped to his knees, tears of blood sliding down his face as he embraced the lower half of her body and rested the side of his head against her skin.
After a long stretching moment, her fingers probed between the strands of his hair softly in soothing movements in between hesitations long accented by the trembling of her hands.
And Ishan wept.
***
Dreary grainin
ess and soundless ambience melted into something resembling coherence and Jonny realized he was back among the living and the conscious. Without even thinking about it, his hand went to his chest. His fingers found their way under his shirt and slid up to where the wound should have been still, but only fresh skin smoothed out beneath his touch. His eyes adjusted to the weak firelight spreading little by little from some place off in the distance of the much smaller cavern he was now confined to. His heart kicked up a beat when he realized he still hadn't heard the Emperor's crusted penetrating voice inside his head. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it wither away from his lungs out into the musky air of the cave. It didn't work. She's dead. He killed her. Any minute now he's going to kill me too. OhGodohGodohGodohJesus, please don't let it be...
“Mr. Cross, your heart rate is concerning, please take a few more deep breaths and calm yourself. You have much yet to do—important things—and you won't survive to accomplish them if you keep up like this. Do you hear me? Scratch your left palm if you do.”
Jonny did as the Emperor told him on both accounts. Taking deep breaths in through his nose and out through his lips, he let his eyes wander to his hands.
“Good. For now, rest. Keep working to calm yourself. I need you focused and ready. When the time is right, I will return with your instructions. Goodbye, Mr. Cross."
Silence spread out in place of the Emperor's voice, filling Jonny's head with its emptiness. His body was shaking softly, but he was starting to regain control. He lay back and let his eyes stare up into nothing replaying Hank's words in his mind. Just keep things moving along as if nothing has changed. When the time is right, you’ll know. And no matter what, remember... I won't let him hurt her.
Jonny let those last words seep into him. He wanted so badly to believe they were true. To believe the confidence that had born them wasn't in vain. But he knew all too well how strong the Emperor was. How vast and immovable the Empire was. And though he did not truly know in physical measures of distance, he knew intangibly and deeply just how far away his little sister was. He would have to wait. Maybe... just maybe Hank could accomplish what he claimed... or...? If not... Jonny could always relay the wrong details or even tell the Emperor the truth. Lay bare the plans that had been made between Hank and Simon and by some extension, weak as it might have been, himself.
Jonny closed his eyes, trying to let unconsciousness take over again. Maybe, if he was lucky a dreamless sleep would take him and protect him from the ripping, burning, and screaming of his nightmares of late.
***
It was bad enough the incompetent fool had cost Joseph his initial chance at taking out his long distant kin. But now the boy was barely keeping it together and that would prove fatal to Joseph's plans if he didn't find a way to keep the boy focused. Tadashi sat waiting in front of Joseph's desk. Desperation gripped Caesar then and he reached out and grabbed the vampire's wrist with a powerful grip even the ancient Japanese general couldn't match and in an instant his teeth were biting, tearing into the flesh and blood seeped into his mouth wetting against his tongue and the blood visions began. He saw the man Tresney standing in front of a mirror talking. The words cut in and out but before long Joseph was piecing it all together. He would come after all. He would come and he would try to take it all away. And he could. He could do it. He could end everything Joseph had spent centuries planning and building with blood and bone and brains and lives spent indiscriminately both human and vampire. And this little creature of his own flesh and blood... He would try and take it?
Tadashi's lifeless body fell back with a thunk and took the chair with it, diving toward the floor.
The dissonance of Joseph's screaming stretched up through the ground and up into the sky where it died out just as quickly as it erupted.
Chapter 21
There's No Place Like Home
The dull haze of a desert evening hung in the horizon as Jackie's eyes slipped open to let the night's first view arrive. She sat up in the car in a rush, pushing the thick black blanket off of her body, her eyes scanning the houses alongside the road to the vehicle's left and right.
"Hey there, someone's decided to join the living, eh?" Frank's mix of phlemy cough and laughter nearly shook the car as Jackie turned sharp angry eyes in his direction. "Yeah, yeah. What can I say, babe. I'm not gonna be around much longer. Best to enjoy every second while it's there to enjoy, capeesh?"
Jackie rolled her eyes and went back to watching the familiar-yet-alien houses pass by. "We're so close... I... I didn't expect to be so close so soon."
"Well, when I realized we only had about eight hours of solid driving time left, I opted to pick up some food for the road so I wouldn't have to stop for a while. Seemed to work out well, but goddamnit do I have to go to the bathroom now!"
Some distant part of Jackie wanted to laugh, wanted to smile, to let Frank know she appreciated what he had done and didn't so much mind his crass humor, but the part of her that was close was too focused. They couldn't have been more than a mile away from the house. It was all too familiar, yet... none of it was right. The houses were all abandoned. Not a single stirring car or pedestrian or even any animals. Dread gripped hold of her unbeating heart and turned her already chilled insides to solid ice. Something had happened here. Something bad. And it was only a matter of moments before they pulled up to the house and found... What? The same thing? Or something different by some miracle of graceful exception? It was then that the pieces started to come together. That bitter smell that had been lying dormant from her perception, held at bay by her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing and what she anticipated seeing when they arrived, was now so plainly obvious that she couldn’t begin to deny what it was now.
Human decay. And lots of it.
It was everywhere here. Tracing in between the scents of charred wood and drywall and melted plastic. Frank turned the corner, slowing the car both from need and from what Jackie could sense was a heart-pounding tension building in him nearly as much as it was building in her. Was he afraid for himself? It didn't matter. They were here now, pulling in front of the small yellow house where Jackie had taken her first step and where she had held the tiny hand of her little sister Karen when her parents first brought the little baby home. The porch swing bounced back and forth ominously, surrounded by yellow and black-streaked walls and large sections of flaked paint and crumbled concrete and...
The door was open wide for all to see inside. Furniture lay crumbled in one big pile in the center of the living room, half covered in ash and... blood. "Oh, God..."
Jackie was out the door of the car before Frank could even hit the brakes.
***
Yusef had been dreading this day ever since little Umar was born. Even more so since the day they dragged Safiyah out of their home and put a bullet in her brain. Ever since that day, after the screaming and the sobbing and the scratching at his own skin, he had swallowed all of that pain, all of that hatred and put up a wall. A wall that hid his own true beliefs and reflected instead what he would have to pretend to believe in order to protect his son. But the boy was four years old now and by Imperial law, today he would have to attend his first day of Sunday School. Father and son sat in the sedan, engine running, staring down at their feet in prayer—true prayer. When they were done, Yusef found himself unable to shut off the car. Sweaty hands gripping the steering wheel, he couldn’t imagine handing over his son to be brainwashed by what were often dangerously zealous Imperial church members. But he was already running late and he knew what they would do to the both of them if he tried to run now. He swallowed the lump in his throat, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay, buddy, it's time to go."
Umar looked up at his father with large brown timid eyes. "Okay, Papa."
They stepped out of the car onto the newly paved blacktop and Yusef took Umar's tiny hand and they began to walk. The sheer size of the church even from the far end of the parking lot, filled with h
undreds and hundreds of cars, was intimidating and often overwhelming for Yusef. These places knew no poverty, accepted no blemishes... tolerated no dissension. Their power over their local community was unprecedented save for the power held by the Emperor. And they were everywhere. Every community, in every state, in every corner of the nation.
As Yusef's first footfall landed onto the bottom step of a tall concrete stairway leading up to the entrance, loud vibrating low-ringing bells chimed from the top of the monstrous white, spired building. At the sound of the bells, Umar's hand began to resist. Without looking down at his son, knowing full well the fear the boy felt, but also knowing just what the consequence of missing this important day would befall, Yusef pulled his son forward and lifted him up into his arms to carry. Umar, perhaps shocked by the unexpected displacement, only looked down at the steps dropping down to meet his father's rising feet one at a time then back up at Yusef's face and then let his head rest on his father's shoulders.
Rifles hanging at their sides, two men with large smiles attached to their faces like mischievous imps hanging vindictively by their claws from the mens' jaws held open the tall golden decorative double doors for Yusef and his son. Inside, the congregation was sitting stiffly, awaiting the weekly enforced ritual of worshipping the man called Joseph Caesar. Many merely pretending, others vehemently throwing themselves into the all-consuming fire of their faith in a man who is God ruling over what to them was a truly blessed and fortunate nation. It only took a short moment to find their seat. Once sitting, Yusef, barely breathed as he waited for the inevitable. His palms were like unending fountains and his dress shirt seemed to both stick to his skin and, in places, brush dryly against him, irritating his flesh. And after a moment that seemed to simultaneously take forever and flash by in the blink of an eye, the Imperial Church Youth Leader stepped up before the alter, facing the stadium-like crowds that surrounded him, and tapped his finger against the microphone. When he was satisfied that the taps he had made against the grill of the microphone were coming through as loud booms in the Church's extensive sound system, he cleared his throat and began to call the names of the children newly ready to start their "Imperial harvesting" in alphabetical order.
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