by Derek Gunn
“But she didn’t go straight to work as usual,” Danny piped up again. “In fact, she was thirty minutes late. That’s very suspicious in my book.
Father Reilly paused as he considered Danny’s statement. “Yes, it is suspicious,” he agreed as he turned to Danny and fixed him with a cold stare. “However, this is a very serious business. We are talking about someone who is intentionally leaking information to the vampires about us. When we find this person, we will deal with them very severely. I will not, however, jump to any conclusions - and neither will any of you.” He paused again as he let that sink in. “Besides, she could have merely been secretive because she was meeting someone she did not want anyone else to know about.”
“But why would she want to…” Danny began and then saw the looks the others gave him and suddenly realised what they were thinking. He went red. “Oh, you mean…”
Father Reilly’s face crinkled into a smile at the young boy’s embarrassment. “Not all of us are necessarily comfortable with everyone knowing our business. Ms. Lohan is within her rights to keep her private life to herself - as long as it does not impact on this community.” He stood and smiled at them. “You are doing a very important and dangerous job here, but remember, we must be certain. Pick up your targets again and continue as before. We must find who is behind this and soon. But, most of all, please be careful.”
Alfonso Corelli slumped back in his chair, exhausted. Voices swept around him, some calm and reasoned and others high-pitched and nervous. None carried the surety or the confidence of a leader though and he despaired. He had arrived back in the community over an hour ago and had spent every minute since explaining first why he had abandoned his work post and then trying to explain what he had seen and the implications it raised.
The committee had listened in silence and he had felt his heart leap with the hope that he might have misjudged these people. Now that they were presented with a challenge, would they be equal to it? After he had finished his explanations, though, his confidence in the committee had been shattered as the communal silence of before had turned into a fractal and totally disconnected set of individuals all arguing against each other on how they should meet this new threat.
Although almost all of them disagreed with the specifics, most of the members were leaning toward some form of passive response. In other words, they were going to ignore the threat and hope it passed by. There were various degrees of how they would achieve this, but, in general, a policy of wait and see was slowly being developed.
“I don’t believe that you can be so naïve,” Corelli suddenly lost his cool and jumped to his feet. The committee members suddenly stopped their arguing and snapped their attention toward him. Many of them looked at him in confusion as if they were surprised that he was still there. “There is a force of thralls on their way here. Don’t you understand that?”
“Son,” Phil Regan began but he was viciously interrupted.
“I’m not your son,” Corelli spat with more emotion than he had intended. The last thing he wanted was for these people to dismiss him as an emotional lunatic. He forced himself to calm down before continuing. “If those thralls discover that Nero and his vampires are not in charge in this state then they will come in their droves and find us in no time. We have to convince them that Nero still rules.”
“There is no way we can do that,” Regan tried to project calm as he laid his hands gently on the table in front of him. “We can’t just take on that amount of thralls in a pitched battle…”
“We don’t have to attack them, we…”
“Alfonso,” Ian Phelps interrupted with a calm but insistent voice. “We really appreciate you coming back to us with this warning, but, really, we are better served letting this patrol see that there is no one here at all rather than instigate a war that we cannot hope to win.” A chorus of grunts and whispered agreement rippled around the table.
“The boy is not suggesting we attack them, you fool,” Lucy suddenly interrupted. “If you would just listen to him you might actually hear what he’s saying.” Lucy Irvine was one of the only original members on the committee, and she rarely spoke in meetings outside of her administrative reports. Her sudden interruption, and the very definite bard directed toward Phelps was so uncharacteristic that everyone at the table stopped talking and turned toward the matronly woman.
She stared back defiantly at the other members before continuing. “If we do nothing then they will come in greater force to determine what has happened to the thralls and vampires who ruled here before. We simply can not allow that.” A low murmur spread among the members. “If you had listened to the boy instead of trying to talk over him,” she continued, raising her voice and demanding their attention by her tone, “you’d realise that he has a pretty good plan.”
She paused as her fellow members sat back and remained silent. “No one is suggesting a pitched battle. All we have to do is convince this patrol that thralls are still in charge of this state. There is no reason to assume that this is an invasion force. There are not enough of them for that. This is something else.
They are expecting to be stopped by Nero’s forces and we should not disappoint them. We have plenty of uniforms and weapons in storage. Philip,” she turned her attention to Phil Regan and the man flushed slightly under her scrutiny. “This is most definitely one time where you must listen to others who know better. You are our Leader, for good or bad, and now you must start to act like one. Sometimes you have to listen to others with an open mind to do what is best for the community. All our lives are affected by whatever you decide; make sure it’s the right choice.”
Carter grew more and more uneasy as the miles continued to pass uneventfully. His mind had imagined so many sudden and devastating attacks over the last hour that when the ambush finally happened it was almost a relief.
They were within a thousand yards of the city limits when a wreck to the side of the road suddenly erupted in a fireball. The sound of the explosion seemed to arrive a moment later and his driver was already reacting as his own brain struggled to catch up. The jeep screeched to a halt and thralls jumped out of the back and took up positions of cover. Behind him he heard the shouted commands and bustle of his forces pouring from the trucks and taking up positions.
His mind raced but he remained surprisingly calm. He had seen the contrail of the rocket a moment before the shell had hit the wreck and he knew that if his attacker had wanted him dead then he would be. He slowly stood up and exited the jeep as he searched the surrounding landscape for some idea of the size of the force he was facing. The road was surrounded on his right by a sheer cliff face that slowly rolled down in the distance to the level of the road just before the first of the buildings of the small city in the distance began. On his left stretched a wide expanse of long grass which had grown pale under the sun’s relentless glare. It looked almost like a sea of wheat but didn’t have the golden richness he would have expected from that crop. It was, however, an ideal place to hide a large force.
His eyes strayed to the cliff on his right, taking note of the many places where he would deploy his own forces if he had planned an ambush here. The crest was almost a hundred yards straight up and provided an ideal position for snipers. He couldn’t have picked a better place for an ambush himself and, strangely, he sighed with relief. He had wondered why he had been allowed so far into this territory without any form of resistance. Now he knew it was because he was being lured to this very point. It seemed that his fears had been for nothing, after all. Nero was obviously still in control.
Now all he had to do was convince his opposite number not to kill him and it would have been a worthwhile trip.
Tanya Syn counted the last few steps of the guard and then turned to Josh Harris with a smile lighting her whole face. “See, I told you.” She raised an eyebrow and wagged her finger.
“All right,” Harris conceded, “but that only tells us when, not how.”
“I know,” T
anya shrugged, “but at least we know there’s a gap we can use. Now all we need to do is figure out a way of getting out there during the changeover. Of course,” she paused as she turned back toward the square “if we could create enough of a diversion we might just…”
“Oh no,” Josh interrupted immediately. “We’ve talked about this. There is no way in hell we can get to that other pen, find your kids and get back to the exit point in the time we have.” He paused as she looked away but he put a hand on her shoulder and gently, but firmly, turned her to look at him.
“Tanya, the only way we can help them is to get free first and then help them from outside.”
“But…”
“There are no ‘buts’, Tanya. I don’t know how much the vampires are telling the thralls about us being off the serum. They are still very sloppy when they take us to and from the bleeding huts but they are not stupid. We’ll only get one chance at this and I will not stay here and let these fuckers bleed me dry any longer than I have to.”
He paused as he stared hard at Tanya. “Make no mistake, Tanya. You are an intelligent woman and would be a great asset to have in taking the war to them, but I will not come back for you or risk anybody else if you decide to throw away your freedom.”
“But they’re only children …”
“Tanya,” Harris interrupted. “There isn’t enough time. You can’t help them if they pump you full of serum again.”
Tanya looked at the man in front of her, wanting to hate him but knowing that he was right. But she couldn’t look at this objectively. Her children were being abused a few hundred yards from her and she ached to help them. There had to be a way. If she did escape, the thralls might take their outrage out on those prisoners that were left. She had nightmares of seeing her children executed while she watched from afar. She had run the numbers again and again and knew that there just wasn’t the time to get over there, find them and get back before the thralls reacted to the escape. She knew that, but, by her reckoning, she only needed another few minutes to make it almost viable and that was just too close not to at least attempt it.
She had hoped that the others would try to find that extra time. After all, she had identified the gap that they could use to get everyone out. But they all agreed with Josh. Of course, it wasn’t their children under threat so it was easier for them to be objective. There had been a spark of sorts between Harris and herself from the start and she had played on that to try and get him to help. She wasn’t proud of herself for that but her children were in danger and she would do anything to hold them again. Josh had listened, in fairness, but when the numbers didn’t add up he had closed the door on any further discussion.
“Do we understand each other?” he pressed her.
“Oh we understand each other, all right,” Tanya replied coldly and then turned away and began to count the timing of the guards yet again.
There must be a way.
Chapter 18
Josh Harris watched helplessly as the guards made their way back toward the gate, pushing their charges ahead of them. It was ‘bleeding time’ and they had chosen the standard fourteen humans. It was still dark but dawn wouldn’t be long in coming. They always took their charges just before dawn and around sunset. The vampires liked to feed on fresh blood before they slept and as they woke, it seemed. This time, however, Tanya was one of the fourteen and the lascivious grins on the guards’ faces had left Harris no doubt as to their intentions once the bleeding had been completed.
Josh knew that this had been the plan all along, but he was still uncomfortable with it. None of them really knew what was likely to happen. The guards had been abusing the females, and indeed some of the males, for years, but the serum had made all of their memories fuzzy. They just didn’t know what was likely to happen. Would each thrall take one woman each or would they be attacked by the whole barracks? Two of the women in the current batch were part of the plan, but they had failed to get any males in the group, despite placing those who were in on the plan in prominent places.
It was down to blind luck where the men were concerned. The women were able to stand a certain way that attracted the thralls immediately. They had kept the numbers within their group small enough. The last thing they wanted was to let their plan be generally known. They still had no idea why they had been weaned off the serum and someone in the pens, or maybe more than one of them, could be agents put in place by the thralls for some reason.
They had chosen their people carefully, either by previous knowledge of that person or, in Tanya’s case, by their obvious flare for planning an escape. They had planned it as well as they could but he was still not happy. Once the prisoners were taken out of this prison they were on their own. His heart thudded in his chest as he watched the small group being led towards the bleeding hut. As the last of them disappeared inside he was left alone. Even in a prison surrounded by hundreds of others, it was still amazing how alone you could feel.
He looked up at the sky. Thick grey clouds roiled toward the city and he shivered. Even the weather seemed to have changed in sympathy with his mood. It looked like snow, which could be both a blessing and a curse. If they did manage to get out, the snow would dampen the vampire’s ability to track them, but if the coming storm was severe enough, it might just kill them all from exposure and save the vampires the trouble.
Jesus, he thought. Snow in California. What has happened to this world?
The door closed behind them and Tanya stared at the cubicles in front of her. This was the first time she had been chosen since she had come off the effects of the serum and the stark reality of the bleeding machinery suddenly hit her like a slap.
We’re less than livestock to them. Already the thralls were pushing the others toward the cubicles and attaching tubes ending in sharp pins to their arms or legs or wherever they weren’t already too many scabs.
The coldness of the equipment and the starkness of the room made her shiver. A sudden horror washed over as she imagined her children being taken to these very same cubicles. She felt her heart beat faster as her anger grew. She had a sudden, mad desire to lash out at the thrall next to her, but she knew that it would be pointless. Such a creature wouldn’t even feel her blows. She would have to wait and bide her time. Later, when the thralls had completed their chores, they would want to take their rewards on the women in this group. And when they did Tanya would have her chance to make sure they got everything they deserved. She felt a push in her back and she allowed herself to be directed into one of the cubicles. She didn’t even feel the numerous pin pricks as the equipment was hooked up. Instead, she let her anger seethe through her. She would be weak after giving blood, but the fire in her belly and the hatred in her heart would sustain her.
For the sake of her children she hoped it would be enough.
Emma Logan walked down the corridor, keeping careful track of her quarry. She walked just far enough not to be too obvious but closer than before so she would not lose Patricia Lohan this time. She could see the woman’s severely cut hair bobbing among the light traffic of people just in front of her, but she forced herself not to be complacent. Since yesterday’s debacle she had followed one member of the committee after another and, what had originally appeared to be a great adventure had turned out to be an incredibly boring chore. But she could not afford to lose sight of Lohan.
Father Reilly would never trust her again if she failed a second time. Besides, the boys would be so disappointed in her if she screwed up again. She needed their friendship and respect more than she had realised. When she had lost Lohan yesterday they hadn’t blamed her, but the look of disappointment in their faces had been more than she could bear.
It was approaching nine in the morning, though you would never know it in the catacombs of enclosed corridors that had been built between the buildings that made up their main living area.
The city was unrecognisable from what it had been before the vampires had come. They did have a number of
areas which were situated outside, but these were used for the production of food and were carefully hidden from aerial view. For everything else, they lived under cover. They could not risk being seen as they moved from building to building so they had knocked through walls where the buildings were beside each other and had devised a series of tunnels and enclosed walkways to join up those that were further apart. In some cases the sewer system had been used when the distance had been too far to build a walkway. Danny had christened these tunnels “stinkways” as a heavy smell still lingered even though no waste had passed through them in quite some time and the brick had been steam-cleaned numerous times.
Logan missed being out in the air and feeling the cool early morning breeze on her face, but she knew that it was impossible to hide so many people any other way. Would it always be like this? She sighed as the hopelessness washed over her.
She shook herself from her thoughts as they began to approach the area where she had lost Lohan yesterday and moved a little closer. The number of people around her began to increase as members of the community ran errands or made their way to their assigned roles before the change of shift.
The city was planned around three main hubs that connected all the buildings that the community used. It was impossible to connect to one central hub as there were far too many people, so they had tried to ensure that everyone connected to a main artery. To do this they had planned three large communal areas; designated Harrington Plaza - in honour of Dan Harrington who had started the community, Liberty Plaza and Freedom plaza. All were connected to each other through large walkways. Each hub would have the same facilities, schools, food markets and work areas.
The original plan was that they would be identical so that no one would feel of a lesser class than anyone else. Each of these hubs then had smaller tunnels stretching throughout the city where people lived and worked.