by Derek Gunn
The vampire crossed a surprisingly well-kept square, and the normality of the scene struck Steele like a blow. With the soft streetlights and the clean paths, the square was almost like it would have been before the vampires had come, and even before the energy crisis. Steele was struck with thoughts of happier times, and he slowed as he took in his surroundings. Von Richelieu must have moved his base of operations, as Steele had never seen this small piece of heaven before. He found his thoughts returning to the squalor that the thousands of humans lived in mere feet away and he forced himself on.
The building that Von Richelieu had made into his head quarters was an old court building, and a tattered flag still hung limply by the door. The material was faded and torn, but its presence alone was enough to bolster Steele’s resolve. If he had the chance he would drive the flag through Von Richelieu’s heart and fuck the consequences.
The vampire crossed to a desk and began to talk in low tones. The room had been cleared of all furniture and it echoed hollowly as he entered. There was evidence of wooden paneling along the floor that had been torn out, and the walls had patches of brighter paint where pictures and wall-mounted cabinets had been removed. He shivered, more from the cold that emanated from the bare room than any physical coldness.
The vampire was still talking to a thrall at the only desk in the large room, so Steele strode over to two large wooden doors at the far end of the room. The thrall suddenly jumped up and crossed toward him at an incredible speed, but it was not fast enough. Steele had opened the doors and was already stepping into the room by the time the harried soldier had reached him.
“It’s all right,” a voice rumbled from the darkness within and Steele felt fear grip him despite his burning hatred. “Let him enter.”
The thrall nodded and Steele could see the sweat on the soldiers face. He sighed as he stepped through and felt the darkness wrap around him as if it was alive.
“So you have finally returned.” The disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Steele stood in the darkness as the door behind him closed. He tried to make out some shape or figure but the darkness was absolute and he felt his fear grow. Had he actually thought that he could hope to stand against such evil alone? He felt his legs drain of strength, and he had to grope out in the darkness for something to hold onto, something to assure him that there was actually something real around him. His desperately groping fingers failed to find anything of substance.
“You are nervous, Steele,” the voice chuckled. “Why is that? You are not normally so timid.”
Steele heard a swish of material to his left but he forced himself not to turn. Von Richelieu was playing with him and he had to compose himself if he was to have any hope of delivering his message.
“I’m not usually left in the dark,” Steele managed, though his voice cracked.
“Ah, humor.” Von Richelieu seemed to speak quietly into his ear, but when he reached out there was nothing but the cold of the dark. “That’s more like it. It has been some time since you reported in; I was beginning to get worried.”
Steele heard the tone in Von Richelieu’s voice, and he felt his body grow cold. He had heard that tone before, usually before he gutted the bearer of news he did not like.
“I had to be sure before I came back,”
“Sure of what, exactly?” Von Richelieu asked and Steele tried to imagine the vampire’s face in front of him. He had to give himself something to focus on or his imagination would continue to embellish what he could not see. And that way only led to paralysis.
“There is a community of humans living free in Nero’s territory.”
Steele smiled to himself as he imagined the shock on the vampire’s face, and he used this to gather himself.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Von Richelieu snorted contemptuously.
Steele paled. How could he know?
“You don’t seriously think that you are my only spy, do you?” Von Richelieu continued. “And my other source is far better at keeping in touch that you have been.”
Shit. Steele felt the strength ooze from his body as Von Richelieu’s words struck him. We have a traitor. But who could be…?
“Now I hope you have something worth reporting, or I will have to rely purely on my other source. And I must say that they had some very interesting things to say about your involvement in raids into my fellow council members’ territories.”
He knows everything. Steele felt as if the darkness was pressing in on him, and he felt sweat break out on his skin. There was a faint, disturbing odor on the air, like dead flowers or mould on bread, and he shivered.
“Then you know about the serum and its effects?” Steele’s mind raced as he tried to find an angle, something to allow him to determine where Von Richelieu was and get him close enough.
“I am well aware of what your chemist says and his theories about its effects, though I am not entirely convinced.”
“Then you will die with a maddening thirst as your very mind rots until you are merely a slobbering idiot.”
“I didn’t say that I was not taking precautions,” Von Richelieu chuckled. “I have a small experiment running outside that should prove the theory quite satisfactorily.”
“It will be too late if you wait for such an experiment to run its course. Millions will die.”
“So? I have ample resources here to last and plenty for breeding if the theory proves accurate.”
“But what about the effect on you and your vampires?”
The silence that greeted this question spoke volumes to Steele.
“Ah, it seems your spy neglected to tell you everything.” It was Steele’s turn to chuckle and he felt the darkness become less oppressive as his words finally had an impact.
There was a swelling of the odor he had smelled before and the room suddenly became colder and Steele knew that Von Richelieu was close.
“What is this about an effect on vampires?”
“The taint of the serum is changing you,” Steele answered as tried to coax the vampire closer. “As it kills the humans it is also killing you.
It will drive you mad first though. Why do you think Wentworth and Von Kruger are tearing each other apart right now?”
The silence descended again.
“You didn’t know.” Steele laughed out loud and then felt the vampire grip his neck.
“By now there should be a few hundred dead vampires by the way things were going when I left,” Steele forced the words out as he tried to distract the vampire.
“It is no matter,” Von Richelieu managed at last and released Steele but leaned in close as he laughed.
“We will simply switch to the non-tainted blood, and we should wash its effects out soon enough. In fact,” Von Richelieu added, “it might work well to my advantage. I am sick of the petty squabbling in the council. It might just be time for a bit of spring-cleaning.
Steele paled. Their gambit wasn’t going to work. Von Richelieu wasn’t going to tell the other vampires about the serum. He was going to let the humans die and their masters with them. He couldn’t allow it.
His mission had failed, but there was one thing he could still accomplish. If he could remove Von Richelieu then maybe Harris and the others could still accomplish something. He reached down to his side and searched by touch in his rucksack. He felt the cylindrical grenade and forced the pin from its holding as he drew it out.
Even this bastard can’t survive a phosphorous grenade at this distance. He grabbed hold of the darkness in front of him where he was certain Von Richelieu stood and grinned as he felt his hand brush the vampire’s neck. He brought the grenade up but then his body spasmed and he suddenly lost all feeling in his arm. His hands gripped the grenade tightly as he fell to the ground.
Not now, God, not now! He screamed in his mind and cursed whatever fates had conspired against him. He had been so close. The bullet in his back had rubbed against the nerve and now he could feel nothing. He force
d every ounce of will he could muster to open his fingers and release the blazing light that would destroy Von Richelieu, but his fingers remained tightly gripped around the weapon, holding the pin in place.
He heard a rustling around him and then a soft whisper in his ear: “I will make you that which you most despise and send you back to your friends.”
Steele prayed for some feeling to return, anything to allow him to kill himself, but nothing came. Then Von Richelieu tore into his throat and the darkness washed over him.
Chapter 29
Carlos Ortega whooped as the jeep blew. He let the bazooka drop to the ground and jumped to his feet and raced towards the approaching train. Snow stung his eyes and blurred his vision, making the train appear like a huge Cyclops bearing down on him. Was it gaining speed? It was hard to be certain but he ran on regardless.
There were still trucks following the train but the road was beginning to continue away from the tracks and the trucks were struggling to keep up as they bounced across the fields that now predominated on either side.
As Ortega reached the tracks he began to doubt whether he would be able to hitch a ride after all. It seemed to be going so fast. He started to run away from the train so that he would be traveling as fast as he could by the time the train drew level. Hopefully he would be able to grab on and pull himself aboard as it passed. The explosives in the satchel he had pulled from Sherman’s truck bounced against his side, but he didn’t have the time to stop and remove them now so he tried to ignore them as they swung from side to side and crashed painfully against his body.
He pushed himself on, ignoring the snow, the cold and the bullets that thumped into the ground around him. If he missed the train then the thralls would take out their anger on him, so he really had to catch it.
He heard the rumble of the train growing closer and the ground began to vibrate beneath him but he dared not turn to look. He forced himself on. Suddenly the train thundered past him, startling him despite his anticipation. The engine compartment flew past him and he saw a brief flash of Harris’s face, and then it was gone and the carriages clattered past one by one so fast that he despaired.
More bullets smacked into the ground around him and he threw himself to his right and upwards, grasping outward in the hope of catching hold of a carriage. For a moment he felt himself fly and then his hand closed on air and he began to fall. His hand brushed metal and he grabbed at it desperately. His arm was wrenched, almost tearing from its socket. Pain flooded through him but he ignored it and held tightly to the metal spar. His legs dragged painfully against the ground and then he managed to pull himself up and throw his leg up onto a small ledge.
The brief respite was enough for him to bring his other hand up, and soon he was able to pull himself around to the coupling and he sat, exhausted, as the train continued to pick up speed. He had barely made it but he was here. He looked around to get his bearings and saw that he was between the last two carriages and he whooped again in joy and relief.
He had made it.
Von Kruger swept up into the air and shouted out a command for the fighting to stop. His voice was heard even over the howling wind, and the vampires that were left stopped their fighting and turned toward him. Von Kruger looked around. So few.
“We must put aside our differences!” he shouted and no one argued as they all gratefully pulled away from each other. “There has been far too much death already. Wentworth is dead and you now belong to me.”
Vampires had long had a tradition of the strongest ruling all others. If one Master Vampire was defeated by another, then all lands and resources automatically passed to the victor unless there was to be a challenge. Judging by their disheveled appearance and quiet acceptance there would be no challenge to his rule.
“You are brothers now,” Von Kruger continued. “You must all feed and recover before the dawn comes or many of you will not last the night.
“Master,” one of the vampires called and Von Kruger prepared himself for a challenge after all. “Master Wentworth had ordered many of his human flock brought to a large cage in the town beside us. They number nearly a thousand.”
Von Kruger smiled and his teeth glinted in the moonlight. “Then let us take our fill and find shelter before the dawn. Tomorrow we rebuild our territory.”
The vampires needed no more encouragement and the sky turned darker as the shapes spread their wings and flew towards the town.
“Where are they?” Von Kruger grabbed the vampire who had told them of the hoard of humans by the throat, and looked around him, searching for a trap.
“They were here, Master,” the vampire struggled to reply. “I saw them myself.”
Von Kruger scanned the square and saw the bodies of thralls and humans, armed humans, in the square below him. He hovered in place, taking everything in. There were mutterings around him but he silenced them with a glare. He let his senses flow from him and concentrated.
He heard the chatter of gunfire in the distance, and then the heavy thump of an explosion. He looked towards the sound and saw a fireball a few miles away. There! He thought. Whatever had happened to his humans he would find his answers in that direction.
He stretched his wings out and powered forward. The other vampires fell in behind their new master without a word.
Harris sank to the floor of the engine compartment in relief. The last of the trucks were dropping quickly behind them and Flemming seemed to be getting the engine back under control. Though, judging by his curses and occasional violent clatter with a hammer, the engine was still voicing its displeasure in the way it was being treated.
They had made it, he sighed and looked over at Sandra as she worked on Tanner. She looked up briefly as if sensing she was being observed, and she shook her head slightly as she pressed a damp rag against Tanner’s brow. He wasn’t going to make it, Harris thought. Along with far too many others. Too many had died under his orders. And somehow he continued to survive. Yes, they had saved nearly a thousand people, and every one of those who had died had made their own decisions, but did he really have the right to keep asking the impossible? It had been his decision to come here against the advice of everybody else. The guilt was crushing; so too was his exhaustion, so that might exaggerate his maudlin mood.
He automatically checked his XM8 and noted the half-full magazine. He dropped the weapon as exhaustion swept over him and he closed his eyes. He heard a strange rustling and opened them again. He looked over at Sandra but she was too intent on ministering to Tanner.
What is that noise? He scanned the sky but swirling snow and black smoke obscured his view. The rustling grew louder and he pulled himself to his feet, unable to settle until he found out what was causing the noise. Sandra looked up at his sudden motion but returned her attention as Tanner mumbled something. Harris was surprised he could hear anything over the hissing of the steam and the clack-clack of the wheels on the track but the noise persisted and he pulled himself up onto the coal and logs to gain a better view.
He looked upwards and to the side, out of the thick stream of smoke that continued to snake along the length of the train. He felt his heart suddenly stop. The sky was alive with dark shapes like snakes roiling in a pit.
The vampires had come.
Carlos Ortega saw the first vampire as it passed overhead between the carriages. Oh shit! He reached for his XM8 but then remembered that he had left it behind in favor of the explosives and he cursed himself for his shortsightedness. Explosives were useless in this situation; it wasn’t like he could throw…
He stopped halfway through the thought as another idea struck him. The last two carriages were empty and made almost entirely of wood. If he could plant enough explosives and uncouple the carriages he might just make the world’s largest stake throwing machine. It might just work. It wasn’t as if he had any other choice. It was only a matter of time before one of the vampires discovered him anyway. He pulled the bag of explosives from behind him and set to wor
k.
Von Kruger followed the smoke and saw the train within minutes. His keen eyes saw that the carriages were filled with humans. He neither knew nor cared who was taking the humans, it wasn’t important. First he and his cabal would feed on whoever was doing this, then they would sleep and recover, and tomorrow he would discover who had planned this outrage and call their account due.
His mouth grew wet in anticipation of the blood he would soon taste and he swooped down toward the front of the train.
Harris gathered up the three remaining XM8s and pulled the magazines from two of them and tucked them into his belt. There wasn’t enough ammunition to take care of that many vampires. Even Pat Smyth’s magic bullets wouldn’t work this time. Maybe he was finally going to die along with his men, after all. Strangely, as he thought about it, the idea did not seem as appealing as he thought it would. Life was always worth living no matter how hard it got, especially when there was still so much to do.
He sighted on the first vampire he saw and pulled the trigger in a short three-round burst and moved on to the next target without waiting to see if his shots had hit home. After the first magazine emptied he calmly pulled another from his belt, noted that it was only half-full, and slammed it home. He continued firing.
Von Kruger snorted disdainfully as he heard gunfire from below. Did they really think that mere bullets could stop him? He pressed on, noting with some bad temper that a number of the younger vampires had swept past him in their eagerness to impress him. He would deal with them later.