by J. C. Diem
Naked, since their clothing had been torn apart during the cloning process, the imps eyed each other in approval. All were heavily muscled, even the ones who’d been scrawny before their transformation. “Food?” a female queried in the guttural Viltaran language. The only way I could tell she was female was from her rudimentary breasts and lack of male genitalia.
Pointing at the humans, who were frozen in horror at the sight they’d just witnessed, a male answered her. “Food!”
As the newly made clones loped after their fleeing meals, violet bursts of light streaked towards the androids. Five were disintegrated before they realized they were under attack. Geordie shot another one from the safety of the alley as our friends closed in. Holding my swords tightly, I raced forward to engage the nine foot tall robots. Any that weren’t disintegrated by the death rays fell beneath my weapons.
Slicing the legs off the final machine, I kicked it over onto its back then stabbed it through both eyes. It was a fatal wound for the android. Both hands reached for the sky, clenching and unclenching as it gave a buzzing squeal that slowly petered out. Silence descended in the immediate area but screams of terror and roars of triumph came from a few blocks away.
“How are you feeling, Natalie?” Gregor asked me when I’d yanked my swords free from the corpse of the droid.
“I’m fine. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of humans on the planet for a moment but I have it under control now.”
“I do not suppose you know how many droids and imps we face?” Ishida asked.
“There are seven thousand, nine hundred and eighty droids,” I answered, to their surprise and mine. “As well as twenty-two thousand, one hundred and eleven Kveet clones and five hundred and fifty-nine human imps.” Pausing, I amended the number. “Make that six hundred and seventy human imps.” We all knew the numbers would increase with each human that was shot by a nanobot dart. With so many robots on the march, the numbers of fresh clones would shortly grow out of control if we didn’t find a way to stop them.
“There are so many!” Geordie exclaimed in dismay. “How are we going to fight them all?”
Gregor and Luc looked at each other and then at me. I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever they had cooked up between them and I suspected I knew what their solution would be. “Don’t even think about it!” I warned them in a dark tone.
“What choice do we have, Natalie?” Gregor asked me, striving to be reasonable. “We seven do not have the capacity to stop this invasion alone. Like it or not, the American troops have the necessary firepower to destroy the clones and the droids.”
“You have stepped down as our leader,” Luc said far more bluntly. “You no longer have control over our decisions.”
Narrowing my eyes that had begun to glow scarlet in growing anger, I could see that they had already made their decision. “You’re kidding yourselves if you think you can trust Colonel Sanderson. The first chance he gets, he’ll shoot you in the back,” I prophesized.
“We are immortal now,” my former one true love said carelessly. “What can they possibly do to us that we cannot eventually repair?”
“Reattaching a hand or a foot is very different from piecing your entire body back together, Lord Lucentio.” It might have been my imagination but he appeared to flinch slightly at my cool tone. “I hope none of you finds out just how hard it can be.”
Drawn by their comrades’ deaths, a double contingent of androids arrived. We scurried into hiding moments before they marched into view. Armed with their death rays, they searched for enemies and found only empty streets. The Viltarans must have recognized our ship to be one of their own before they’d shot it down. They knew we were here and that we would be a pain in their butts. Exterminating us probably wouldn’t be a priority but they knew what we were capable of and they would be wary.
Crouched behind a car with Geordie at my side, I raised an eyebrow at Gregor. He and Kokoro were hunkered down two cars away from us. The vehicles would make effective cover only as long as they existed. A shot from a death ray on the correct setting would leave us exposed. Weighing up our options, Gregor gave me the nod. Silently cautioning Geordie to stay down, I dashed out from behind the car.
Violet light reflected from the storefront windows but I moved too fast for the rays to hit me. With blinding speed, I chopped, sliced, hacked and stabbed my way through the forty metal men. Battle lust sang through my veins that were clogged with the black ooze that passed for my blood. Killing droids was less satisfying than rending and tearing living enemies. My teeth clenched against the urge to hunt down some imps and rip their flesh apart with my bare hands.
Gregor’s chin rested on his fist when I was done and trotted over to join the group. We remained silent to give him the time he needed to think up a strategy. “We should target the droids first,” he concluded. “We must stop them from converting more humans into clones.”
“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to go after the Viltarans first?” Ishida queried. “If we kill them, the droids and imps won’t have anyone to order them around and will hopefully be easier to hunt down.”
“Where are the Viltarans, Natalie?” the once debonair and now bedraggled vampire asked.
I pointed up at the sky. We couldn’t see their ship, which meant it had to have some kind of camouflage ability to hide it from view, but I knew they were hovering high above the city. “They’re hiding out on their spaceship.”
Nodding, as if I’d just confirmed his hunch, Gregor explained his reasoning to Ishida. “The Viltarans might be unreachable but their droids aren’t. If we take down the robots, we can then concentrate on eradicating any clones they’ve created, as well as the Kveet imps.”
Ishida’s expression was wry. “In that case, we will definitely require assistance. There are far too many enemies for the seven of us to face alone.”
Shaking his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say, Igor spoke. “The quickest way for us to contact Colonel Sanderson would be to use a police radio.” He pointed at a pileup of cars at an intersection half a block away. Red and blue lights flashed from the black and white police vehicle. They were an almost festive touch on an otherwise cheerless street.
·~·
Chapter Seven
A sense of unreality swept through me as Gregor headed towards the police car. Several vehicles had been involved in the accident, creating a jumbled mess of twisted metal. I wasn’t sure if the collision had occurred before or after the city had come under attack. Steam still rose from an engine that had been crumpled in the crash.
No bodies were evident and there was no sign of the police officers. They’d either fled or had been changed into ravenous monsters. Their car was parked haphazardly across the street and was pointing the wrong way. I expected to see blood soaking the seats but they were stain free.
Taking a seat behind the wheel, Gregor reached for the radio. Noise erupted through the speakers when he switched it on. Panicked cops babbled about the horrors they were witnessing. Gregor waited for a break in the noise before he spoke. “My name is Gregor McIvor. I was one of the twenty-nine beings that were evicted from Earth a decade ago.”
An astonished, if short, silence followed his statement. Then a harried officer replied. “Look, pal, I don’t know what kind of prank you’re trying to pull but you might have noticed that we have something of a crisis going on here.”
“This crisis is the result of you humans sending my people into space,” Gregor said coolly. “My friends and I have information that will be of great help to your government if they wish to defeat these droids and clones. I suggest you contact Colonel Sanderson and advise him that Natalie Pierce and her kin have returned. We will be waiting for him in the vicinity of this police car.”
“Are you talking about Natalie the vampire?” the stunned officer all but squeaked. I was momentarily embarrassed that my fame was still fresh in the humans’ minds. “Jeez, I thought we’d gotten rid of you lot for
good.” After another pause, he made a decision. “I’ll make sure General Sanderson is contacted asap. Now get off the radio and let us do our jobs.”
Replacing the radio in its cradle, Gregor’s eyebrows rose. “It appears Colonel Sanderson has been promoted several times during our absence.”
Geordie scowled at the news. “They probably pinned a bunch of medals on him as soon as our ship left the atmosphere.”
“He is going to be very surprised to learn that we have returned,” Ishida said with satisfaction.
Kokoro’s eyes met mine and they were full of fear. The soldiers had done their best to rid their world of us forever and they wouldn’t be happy to learn that their mission had failed.
“I bet you a billion dollars that Sanderson blames us for the invasion,” I said to no one in particular. I didn’t have one dollar to bet, let alone a billion.
“That is a wager I would not be foolish enough to take,” Igor muttered.
“How long do you think it will take Sanderson to get here?” Geordie queried. Unhappy with the tension that had sprung up in our group, he held his death ray tightly and threw frequent glances over his shoulder in search of danger.
I could have reassured the teen that we were the only living, or unliving, beings in the area and that the closest robots were blocks away but didn’t. It wouldn’t hurt for him to be on high alert.
Luc’s black eyes also searched the streets and buildings and pretty much anywhere that I wasn’t. “I imagine the soldiers will already be on their way by now,” he said.
Remembering my dream when the army helicopters had been shot down by an electromagnetic pulse, I crossed my fingers that Sanderson’s ride would crash and burn. We might require aid but I wouldn’t lose any sleep if my most hated enemy crashed in a blaze of fire.
A couple of hours later, we heard several large vehicles approaching. Unfortunately, they were trucks rather than helicopters. Apparently, they weren’t seen as a threat and entered Manhattan without being blasted to pieces by the hovering ship.
Parking several blocks away, hundreds of soldiers approached on foot, quietly swarming the area in a pathetic attempt to sneak up and surround us. Sharpshooters climbed up to the rooftops, appearing as yellow beacons in my mind when I sent out my senses. No red dots from their scopes had appeared on our bodies yet but they would show up shortly, I had no doubt.
Waiting until his men were in position, Sanderson strode into view. He had presumably mastered his shock at hearing we were back but his blue eyes were hard and unmerciful when they swept across us. We hadn’t changed in appearance since he’d bundled us into the spaceship and sent us to our doom but he had aged. The lines in his forehead were deeper than ever and grey was speckled through his short blonde hair. He would be somewhere in his mid-fifties by now but he was still trim and fit.
After briefly studying my friends, his attention settled on me. “After ten years of relative peace, we’re suddenly facing what appears to be an alien invasion. Why am I not surprised to see you here in the thick of it?” His tone was accusing, as I’d known it would be.
My upper lip had instantly curled back again at the first sight of the soldier. New medals decorated his chest, just as Geordie had predicted. He wore a snazzy officer’s suit rather than the normal fatigues he’d once donned. “Don’t speak to me, worm,” I told him coldly. “If it was up to me, I’d tear your throat out and leave you to bleed to death on the street like the dog you are.” Actually, I had a higher regard for canines than this particular human and I’d never been a dog fan.
At my threat, dozens of red dots appeared, not just on me but on my friends as well. Sanderson held up his hand to prevent anyone from firing. They were all armed with the weapons that had been designed specifically to blow our kind apart. “Who should I speak to then?” he asked with a strong undertone of sarcasm.
Gregor stepped forward. “You may address me, if you wish.”
“I remember you, Gregor.” The soldier’s nod was almost civil. “Your surname is McIvor, I presume?”
“You presume correctly.” Geordie smothered a snigger at Gregor’s polite reply and received an elbow in the ribs from Igor. The Russian was aware that any abrupt movement could startle the soldiers into shooting but his apprentice was less conscious of that fact. “But your presumption that we are responsible for the Viltaran invasion is incorrect,” Gregor told the general.
Clearly disbelieving the claim, Sanderson’s smile was a wry twist of his lips. “It is just a coincidence that you have arrived at the same time as the alien spacecraft then?” Some of his men shifted uneasily at the faint sound of screams. Their people were dying or being converted into monsters while we were standing around arguing.
Far less diplomatic and patient than Gregor, Igor took matters into his own hands. “You have only yourselves to blame for this predicament. If you had not sent us into space, the Viltarans would not have learned about Earth. They learned of your planet’s location from the ship you expelled us in.”
Forgetting my warning not to speak to me, Sanderson turned to me. “Is this true?”
“Yep. You walking blood bags are finally going to pay the price for betraying us. You are directly responsible for the crap that is about to rain down on this city.” My satisfaction was profound and I didn’t try to hide it.
“If you feel that way then why are you even here?” he shot back.
“I’ve abdicated my position as their leader,” I told him. “They’re in charge now.” I swept my hand across my friends then turned my back on the soldier to signify that I was done speaking to him.
“What can you tell us about these,” he paused to remember the name Igor had used, “Viltarans?” he asked my friends.
Gregor took charge and gave the American a quick summary. “They are our distant ancestors. It was their ship that crash landed on Earth so long ago. Luckily, their ship was too badly damaged to contact Viltar and advise them they’d found this planet. A droid survived the crash and eventually transformed an unfortunate human into the first vampire.”
According to vampire lore, the droid had been the being they’d referred to as their ‘father’. I’d once thought of the sire of our race as a demi-god, since it had lived for a million years or so before perishing. We’d all been wrong and the prophecies hadn’t corrected our mistake. Not for the first time, I wondered exactly who or what sent us our visions. Maybe fate is behind them, I pondered. It wouldn’t really surprise me to learn that Gregor was wrong about one thing, that none of this had been a mistake at all.
“Their technology has evolved over the millennia,” Gregor continued. “The nanobots they now use leave their hosts almost bereft of any intelligence. The clones they now create have only the desire to eat and to kill.”
That explained why the Kveet imps had been so lacking in conversational skills. The human imps we’d witnessed being transformed into their new bodies had been just as stupid. None were capable of thinking for themselves, which would make them malleable slaves. An added bonus was that they wouldn’t have the brains to be able to plot against their masters.
“The Viltarans captured our drifting spaceship and took us to their planet,” Gregor explained. “We waged war against them and only we seven remain of the twenty-nine vampires who you evicted from Earth.” I mentally clapped at his not so gentle dig at Sanderson’s betrayal. “We managed to whittle their numbers down to twenty-one. Before we could eradicate them completely, they fled from Viltar and headed here.”
I didn’t trust the general at my back and half turned so I could keep him in my peripheral vision. He appeared to feel the same way and kept darting glances at me. “What kind of force did they bring with them?” the soldier asked.
Gregor recounted the statistics I’d relayed earlier, minus the droids we’d disabled. Their remains were still in a jumble on the street. Some of the soldiers eyed the no longer functioning metal men curiously. “I suggest you target the droids first,” Gregor c
ounselled the general. “Their weapons can destroy both metal and flesh but your weapons should be sufficient to terminate the robots. The Viltarans have an electromagnetic pulse ray that can disable your vehicles so it would be unwise to allow any of them to arrive via the air.”
“Where are these aliens?” Sanderson swept his eyes around the area, as if expecting his adversaries to pop out from hiding and wave hello.
“We believe they are directing the attack from their spaceship, which is hovering above the city.” Some of the soldiers automatically looked up but most kept their guns trained on us.
Assessing his options, General Sanderson made up his mind. At his curt gesture, the red dots that had been speckling our bodies disappeared. “It looks like fate has thrown us together once more.” If he only knew how accurate he is, I thought dismally. Fate had been manoeuvring all of us in a game that only it knew the rules to. “I propose that we instigate a truce while we deal with this threat,” Sanderson said.
“The instant you think we’re no longer useful, you’ll either gun us down or try to turn us into science experiments again,” I predicted loudly enough for his closest men to hear me. “Just like you did the last time.”
Lowering his eyes in a semblance of shame, Sanderson didn’t bother to deny my accusation. Some of his troopers were young enough that they would have been teenagers when we’d been booted off the planet. This was the first time our side of the story had been heard but I doubted it would make any difference. We were a superior species and were therefore a threat to their kind. When the dust settled from our war with the Viltarans, we would face treachery from the humans again. I didn’t need to be a prophet to know our truce would end in disaster.
·~·
Chapter Eight
Unseen with my eyes but picked up by my senses, movement from high above drew my attention. I followed the direction the invisible spaceship took and realized they were drifting towards the river to our east. Framed between two buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge was an icon that even a foreigner like me recognized.