Rising From Ashes: Empire of Blood Book Three (A Dystopian Vampire Novel)
Page 31
The vampire stopped suddenly and raised the flag up and, in an instant, the black and white stripes caught fire. The creature held out the flag then and in that same loud whooping voice, as the flames bit into that single black star and melted through, it yelled out to Dustin. "The Emperor is dead!"
Behind the creature other voices rose up and echoed his words back to him with equal fervor.
"The Emperor is dead!"
***
When Hank could no longer hold the camera up and pointed at Joseph's face, he set it aside and flipped off the LIVE switch then crawled toward the door that led out of that terrible place. He could feel the venom eating away his insides now. It was painful but with a dullness to it as if his body were in shock. Every movement was like the most impossible feat now. He crawled and crawled and crawled and didn't seem to get very far, but still he tried. Those last moments of Diana's birth played and replayed in his mind and he smiled each and every time he revisited her face.
She was perfect. In every way.
He only wished he could live to see her in person. He fought back the despair that tried to sprout from that thought and buried it deep in the pit of his heart. It was done and nothing could change that now. The best he could have hoped for had came to pass in learning that she was alive and well. It was all he could have asked for and more to be able to see her just that one time.
The Queen was gone too, the loss had stung, but in that last moment they had shared something more powerful than he could imagine. In that moment he had felt her love for him, for Ishan, for Simon, for Diana and her sister, for all of them, all of her children. And all the doubts he had ever had about the choices she made, the secrets she kept, fled from his mind and he stopped crawling and lay there, ready for what would come next.
The question of his existence, of Heaven, of oblivion, none of it mattered anymore. More than anything at that moment, he cherished the time he had had with the ones he loved with every fiber of his being and he realized that, though it could never be enough, he was grateful. He knew now that having just one fleeting glimpse of love was all that any life could ever hope to live for.
The room faded into nothingness and Hank floated against a backdrop of weightless fluffy clouds as his body lay down below him, still and lifeless. Wind swept through his hair and the scents of oceans, and roses, and the soft breath of a newborn baby surrounded him. And as it all faded away into darkness, one single sound slipped into the void, wrapping itself around him with loving embrace.
The rising crescendo of Toby's sweet innocent laughter.
Epilogue: A New Dawn At Dusk
Ten Years Later
The house was alive with chatter and laughter. George sat at the head of the dinner table and looked around at the wonderful people the good Lord had blessed him with. He smiled and lifted his glass, tapping the side of it with his spoon. "Everybody... everybody...”
They all turned and looked back at George, mouths closed.
“I just want to make a toast to all of you. Today wouldn't be half as wonderful without you." Everybody at the table lifted their glasses.
"Here here," Yusef said, smiling, the gray in his hair gleaming off of the dining room light.
In near unison, they all said cheers and then gulped down their drinks. The three boys were all nearly adults now. Umar, the youngest of them, was fourteen and taller than the other two boys. They each sat at the table quietly, barely remembering what life was like before the second revolution.
Alexandria put her glass back down on the table, a smile on her lined face as her hand gently squeezed Jonny's and the two glanced at one another with a shared loving smile. Jonny looked over at Julie then and he put his arm around her. She was a young woman now as the boys had certainly taken notice of, smiling shyly from across the table.
The television rambled on in the distance.
"It's a fine afternoon on this tenth Reclamation Day. While the transition hasn't been completely consistent or uneventful, the death of the Emperor and the detonation of an FG-10 nuclear missile within the city limits of Necropolis—which destroyed the majority of the Imperial vampires—definitely cleared the way for where we're at now...
"Today also marks a much more recent milestone as all across the New Republic of the United States of America, citizens have gathered to their local polls for the first full-fledged presidential election in over thirty years. In related news, Texas, South Carolina, and Arkansas continue to refuse to join the union, however negotiations are still in progress..."
***
The young Queen sat in her mother's throne, long black hair reaching down to her waist, and focused yellow eyes watching the room with great interest. Ishan stood beside her, watching, alight from her every movement. She was her mother's child in every way: fierce, strong, and wise, especially for her age.
In time she would gain her mother's powers and then she would go on to lead them all as her mother had before her. All around the main cavern in the Hive, vampires and humans stood united together around a large bonfire, commemorating the memory of those who were lost to the war on that fateful day.
***
In the far corner of the crowd, Simon, Jackie, and Diana sat together talking and laughing while Diana scribbled away with a few crayons on a piece of paper. Her short, cropped amber hair was a close match to the hue of her brother’s, though she had never known him. Her eyes, however, were as brown and unmistakable as her father’s.
"Whatcha drawing, Dee?" Simon asked.
"The man from my dreams," Diana said. Jackie laughed.
Diana covered her face with her hands. "No, not like that!” She giggled. “I don't know who he is but I keep dreaming about him."
Simon moved to where he could get a clearer view of her drawing. "Oh wow. You really don't know who that is?"
Diana looked up at Simon. "No. Why?"
"Diana, that's your father."
Diana stopped scribbling and put her crayons down and stared long and hard at the picture she had made, her ten-year-old face fighting to express a complex mix of emotions.
Simon picked up the piece of paper and stared at it himself for a long moment. "Yes, that's him. And you know, I know we talk about him every year about this time, but if it weren't for him, we might all very well be at war still, fighting to get out from beneath the Emperor's rule.
“There's no way to know what the people will choose from now on. Whether they'll keep rebuilding this new republic or not. But for the past ten years, they've had something they didn't have for a long time."
Simon handed her the paper back. "Hope.
"And without your father and the sacrifice he made, that hope wouldn't be possible."
Diana nodded at Simon and after a long moment of silence, she went back to scribbling with her crayons.
Simon couldn’t stop looking at it. In the drawing, Hank’s body lay in a pile of dirt and leaves and twigs, his irises glowing through black dusty debris-filled air like the eyes of a phoenix, born of flame and smoke and opening for the first time, its body rising from ashes.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
When I first started writing this series, I had big ambitions and lots and lots of naivety in hindsight. Back then I envisioned Empire of Blood as a seven-book series for some god awful reason that I still can’t quite make sense of. It wasn’t until I began writing the second novel that I realized two things. 1. There was no way in hell I could have seven books based on a title that referred to only one aspect of the story that wouldn’t likely last as long as the entire series. 2. To name any future series with #1 in mind.
And, as I wrote in my dusty old blog some time ago, I do intend... someday... to write more books with these characters (those who survived anyway...). Once I adapted to the realization that Empire of Blood would have to be a trilogy, I decided that any future novels with these characters would have to be the beginning of a new sub-series of sorts. Whether those will be trilogies or single volumes, I hav
e yet to foresee.
In fact, I don’t see myself working on them any time very soon. But someday, when the time is right and I can no longer bear wondering what happened next or later or before or some such, I’ll likely put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper and start the long treacherous journey down that road. But for now, all that remains to be seen in the near future is the Empire of Blood collection, ORIGINS OF BLOOD, which I hope to have out very soon.
But for now... this is the end, I’m afraid. I hope you’ve enjoyed the trilogy as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!
Robert S. Wilson
Carthage, Tennessee
November 27th, 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
I want to thank anyone and everyone who has supported this series and my work. You are all more than I could ever ask for. I would also like to give a special thanks to Jennifer Wilson once again for putting up with me and for being my first reader, the critical voice I always need, and my biggest supporter. Typically, I write out a long list of names here, but we’ve been down that road before. If I keep doing that, I’ll end up listing everyone of you and I just can’t do that. Because EVERY ONE OF YOU READING THIS DESERVES TO BE LISTED HERE. So thank you all!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert S. Wilson is the author of SHINING IN CRIMSON, FADING IN DARKNESS, and RISING FROM ASHES, which make up his dystopian vampire series: EMPIRE OF BLOOD, and the dark fiction collection WHERE ALL LIGHT IS LEFT TO DIE.
He is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor of BLOOD TYPE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF VAMPIRE SF ON THE CUTTING EDGE, a co-editor of HORROR FOR GOOD: A CHARITABLE ANTHOLOGY and NIGHTSCAPES: VOLUME 1, and lives in Middle Tennessee with his family, a silly obnoxious dog, and a psychotic cat skilled in the martial arts.
His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies online and in print and his cyberpunk/horror novella EXIT REALITY was chosen as one of e-thriller.com’s Thrillers of the Month in July 2013.
He is currently working hard to finish a number of novels and novellas all at once like a blind juggler given knives and led into oncoming traffic.
Check out his free stories on PATREON.