"I'm not usually a believer in second chances, Mr. Draper. But I'm willing to make an exception with you.
"One.
"I'll be back... eventually. Enjoy your little hunger strike while it lasts and I'll bring you another offering when the time is right. For now, remember this: I could have killed you twice and yet I have not. I have great confidence that we'll be able to work together, but I will only bend so far."
He let go of Jack and straightened up his white robe, brushing it off and loosening his stance. "Good day, Mr. Draper." Jack slid down the wall holding his ribs. Caesar turned and walked out of the cell, taking care to step over the young girl's body as he went. The thick metal door closed behind him, returning the cell to its original state of complete darkness. He was sure then. The Emperor was definitely not human.
Chapter 2
The Mediators
Hank knelt down in the mud watching the rain pelting Diana's headstone. His eyes weighed heavy with moisture from a mixture of rain, tears, and lack of sleep. He traced the letters of her name, his index finger, sliding against the wet granite. He felt the grief build up in him again and before he could stop it, he started to weep. A chill in the air momentarily reminded him of the outside world again.
There was a time when he wanted to leave this life behind. But now, he had a new sense of purpose. He would do whatever he could to bring an end to the American Empire. The Emperor, then a powerful leader of the Coalition of Christian Militias, had led a civil war against the United States. He convinced over four million American Christians that the second coming had occurred and he was the son of God.
Hank wasn't sure he could pull it off. But he knew now that the Emperor had a weakness. He'd known it ever since they met. It was the strangest of circumstances. By all rights, Hank should have been dead before that night. Yet, somehow he managed to survive. Along with 12 other men, he'd been sentenced to die in Necropolis. Lucky 13. For 20 years the Empire had been sending anyone caught breaking the criminal or moral laws to the city of vampires.
He stood up, wiping the mixture of tears and rain from his face. Then, he shook out his mop of dark, wet hair, feeling somewhat lighter than when he'd arrived. There was something freeing about doing this from time to time, letting out the longing for a moment or so.
Hank looked back at the Empire-assigned Buick parked at the edge of the grass, waiting for him. Being the only human to ever escape Necropolis alive had landed him a job with better pay and benefits than he could have ever imagined. Too bad it required him to work for the Emperor and go back to that place. The job was Imperial Mediator to Necropolis. The Mediator dealt with vampire/Empire relations. No one in their right mind wanted it.
All of the former mediators were now dead, in one form or another. The most recent, he learned up close and personal, was now a vampire himself. These were not good odds. However, Hank had managed to make a sort of alliance with the head vampire of the city. That, he hoped, would help to smooth things over for him. Besides, even if he didn't want to, he needed to go back. The vampires were the only ones he knew in large numbers who might have the power and desire to help him.
As Hank pulled into the driveway he could see Toby on the porch reading a book. He wondered then, how long would it be before the Empire took even those? A large number of titles from the past had already been taken or censored. New works to be published all had to be approved by the Imperial Communications Commission. He got out of the car, walked up to the porch, and watched his son for a long moment. Toby sat, immersed in his book, seeming not to notice his father.
"Hey," Hank said. Toby jumped then looked up at Hank, his eyes narrow.
"You could've let me know you were there before freaking me out," Toby said.
"What? Didn't you hear the car?"
"Yeah, I thought it was across the street."
"I wish you would've gone with me this morning."
Toby put a slip of orange paper in his place and closed the book. "I wish you would go see what Diana left for you." Toby glared at Hank then walked across the porch and into the house, slamming the front door as he went. Hank wanted to tell him why he couldn't go. But, he really had no choice. Even if the Emperor didn't kill his son, as he promised he would if Hank told anyone, Toby would be in danger if he knew. Hank sighed.
It was a problem he couldn't seem to find a way around. How would he warn Ishan? How would he fight back if his enemy could see and hear his every move? The Emperor implanted a device in his body that wirelessly linked his eyes and ears to the Emperor's personal terminal. Everything Hank did was being recorded. What chance did he have?
He walked into the house, straightening the clutter as he came through the living room. As usual, Toby's door stood shut and probably locked as well. Hank set his keys down in the tray. Then he sat down on the couch and laid his head back, closing his eyes. Something, he thought, something has to give.
* * *
As the first star of night sparked into life about a thousand miles away, the city of Necropolis was beginning to stir. Like the automatic gates in prisons, long since obsolete, each titanium door in the underground nest made a thunderous sound as it opened. All along the silver hallways of the custom-built underground bunker, human vampires of all shapes and sizes emerged. As with any other city, some had jobs to go to, some had errands to run, and some enjoyed doing nothing at all. But unlike other cities, all of them awoke at precisely the same second.
The same exact second the doors were programmed to open. And they weren't alone. The Ancestors woke at this same time every morning, too. The Ancestors, being natural vampires, had given the human vampires the gift of immortality. Those who saw it as a gift anyway.
For Simon Withers, the matter was still undecided. He sat up at the foot of his bed, rubbing his eyes. He remembered bitterly, as he did every evening upon waking, how much his life had changed. He was still conflicted as to how much of this change was good and how much was bad. He saw familiar faces walk by here and there outside his door. More than a few of them looked in and nodded in the way the human undead do. Incredibly fast and impersonally. For immortal creatures, they sure worried a lot about time management.
Simon knew he was likely the only one still in his quarters. The memory of changes brought a wave of despair again. Ishan had said there would be a grieving period. Simon had experienced Ishan's grieving period himself. That was how he knew that his was different. Of course, Ishan knew now, too. The two were still psychically linked. This was now nearly unbearable to the both of them. Simon wondered if any two people could ever get used to being in each other's head all the time.
For him, Ishan's constant worrying about the city and the Queen made it impossible to think. Yet, Simon knew for Ishan, his regular first reaction to anything vampire, like a child with a bitter taste in its mouth, actually waned the ancient vampire's patience. Not much else could do that. After thousands of years of living, your knack for patience can get pretty big.
Time to snap out of it, Simon. I need you to actually show up to the council meeting tonight. Ishan's voice sounded exhausted inside Simon's head. But of course he knew all too well why. He couldn't escape knowing, even if he wasn't locked inside Ishan's thoughts. Nearly half of the vampires had been working on the project for over a week. Ever since he became a member of the council himself.
* * *
Her eyes were red again. He'd dreamed about her for days and each time her eyes had been the same. Sometimes she was herself, sometimes she was Rachel. Either way, in the dreams, Diana's eyes always looked the same. He didn't understand it. Diana's eyes had been brown, Rachel's green. He had only seen one vampire before with red eyes: Ishan.
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Hank wondered again how he would pull off telling Ishan anything. He got up from the bed and stepped into the bathroom. He closed the bathroom door behind himself and leaned his back against it, listening. When a moment of silence passed, Hank opened the secret door, his hand trembli
ng on the handle. Light spilled from inside, revealing dozens of small plastic vials full of thick black vampire blood. Hank took one with both hands and held the top to his nose. The smell sent chills of pleasure down his spine.
He was about to take a drink when the bedroom door outside the bathroom creaked. Hank chugged the red liquid. Then he replaced the vial and closed the secret door faster than human eyes could have seen. The moment the blood touched his tongue, all senses heightened to the extreme. Only, now he knew how to tune them to his will. The imperial training helped with that. How the Emperor had even known about the blood when even the vampires of Necropolis hadn't was still a mystery.
If it hadn't been for Hank accidentally drinking the blood of an ancestor in the first place, the vampires would still be in the dark. Hank was too bloodthirsty to find humor in his own pun. He attuned his inhuman hearing to the next room. Toby's heart beat faster than normal. Hank stood still, listening. Keeping his secret addiction and powers from the boy had been proving more and more difficult lately.
Papers shuffled in the next room, followed by the opening and closing of drawers. Footsteps tapped against the hardwood floor of the bedroom toward the bathroom door. Hank locked the door in a silent flash. The knob jiggled for a second and then stopped abruptly. The boy's heartbeat doubled. Then his faint voice came to life through the door.
"D-Dad? Are you in there?"
Hank almost tried to pretend he wasn't there, but didn't have the patience to do so. "Yes, what do you need, Toby?"
"Oh, nothing, Dad. I was just trying to figure out where you were."
His heartbeat told otherwise.
Hank knew all too well what he was looking for. Toby had been trying desperately for days to find something to explain why his father was behaving so differently than normal. Why his father had become more concerned about his job as the Imperial Mediator to Necropolis than receiving the last message from his dead, beloved wife. Why his father had been attending the Imperial Church lately and immersing himself in Caesar's Bible, the official holy book of the Empire, half written by Emperor Caesar himself. Why his father spent long hours studying history books on the subject of empires from the past. It was like he'd become a different person literally overnight. Ever since he went to that ceremony to be "blessed." He came home that day a changed man. Toby probably wondered if the "blessing" had included some sort of brain-washing as well.
"Okay, Toby. I'll be out shortly."
"All right, Dad. Don't fall in." Toby's heartbeat relaxed a little and his voice was back to its old self. He still was the same boy Hank had raised and loved for the past 16 years. Just confused. Hank knew what he was doing was tearing his boy apart, but there was no other way to protect him. Not yet, anyway. When the bedroom door shut and Toby's footsteps faded toward the front of the house, Hank let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Two days left. Two days to figure out the impossible.
Chapter 3
The Second Offering
The days had gone by one after another and still all Jack could think about was that precious little girl. The way her golden curls framed her face and her warm, vibrant skin. But most of all he remembered the sound of her heart beating and the smell of that rich innocent blood flowing through every vein in her body. He could even remember the look of those veins as the blood pumped through them behind her skin. With every image seared into his brain, every sense she had affected, he felt the hunger tear through him even more.
He'd lost count of how many days had went by since the Emperor had brought her, but he knew they were adding up. As was the case with starvation, his pale skin had sunken into his bones. He could even feel his ribs poking through the flesh of his chest and stretching it slightly. He lay in the darkness thinking of that beautiful child for at least the hundredth time that day. At first they had left the body in his cell to rot. The smell of death didn't quite affect his kind as it did humans, but it certainly wasn't a pretty perfume, either.
After several days went by, a cleanup crew of sentries finally entered the room and removed her, leaving the place as though she'd never even been there. Never even existed. By then Jack had lost the last of his strength and had no choice but to smell their blood as they cleaned up the remains. He could barely lift his own fingers, let alone lunge at the sentries with the strength it would take to kill or even get a taste of them.
After they'd left he found himself weeping, yet no tears would come. If he ever did get the chance, he'd decided, he would take the Emperor's offer without any fuss. He only knew he needed blood and needed it soon. He'd never went this long without any at all, and wasn't sure how long he could last this way. He was wondering when he would get his second chance when that sodding elevator started up again.
Every time it moved up or down that little glimmer of hope lit up within him, and he'd be damned if he'd let it spark into life now. But there it was in the back of his mind. Brilliantly luminescent and shiny. As the elevator neared his floor he cringed weakly with the little bit of muscles still working within his face. Would it stop this time? Or, just like every other time, would it move on and leave him to starve. He'd seen centuries go by quicker than those moments. Time stood still and held him over the edge of a cliff towering over a boiling sea of lava.
When the elevator latched into place, the sound of metal on metal echoing throughout the outer hallway, Jack hardly realized it to be true. He was so used to it moving on at this point that he could hardly rationalize why it would stop. He heard the door open with an excruciating clarity. Then came the smell again.
Death.
Innocent blood.
It was him, all right. Sodding bastard. And this time he'd brought an even sweeter prize to offer Jack. The hunger was giving him a second wind he hadn't realized to be possible. He was almost able to sit up.
The peephole screeched open, tearing through Jack's sensitive ears. Light spilled into the room and Jack could see those stale lips within the thin rectangular slot. There was a long pause and then the Emperor began to speak.
"Mr. Draper, how wonderful to see you again. I do hope this time we meet under more mutually beneficial circumstances. I trust you smell the offering of which I have brought and are able to appreciate the value it exhibits. But I think, once you've heard me out, Mr. Draper, you will find this offer to be much more to your liking in more than just one way."
While the Emperor paused for what Draper knew to be dramatic effect, Draper smelled exactly what the Emperor was talking about. He could smell the fear in them. This elicited even greater excitement in him than the precious girl the Emperor had brought before. But there was another who felt no fear and Jack was at a loss to understand the entire bargain the Emperor was about to explain.
"Good, I can hear your brain working with excitement. Good, indeed. Curious are you... as to why I've brought their mother?"
Jack could only let out a small whimper in reply but that was all that was needed.
"Yes, I am most proud of what I have prepared today. You see, Jack, the mother, as I'm sure you can already smell, is under a spell much like the young lamb I brought before. Consider her your daily ration... your main course, if you will. But the true prize, the dessert, I'm sure you know, is her twin daughters."
With that Jack could hear the hearts of both little girls beat madly in their chests. Oh, the precious blood those tiny organs must pump through their sweet, innocent little bodies.
"I'm going to open the door and let the mother in. She has been instructed to come to you and do whatever is necessary so that you may regain your strength. I will be leaving the door open. And to make it more to your liking, Mr. Draper, I've decided to take the girls with me. If you can hunt us down and take them from me, you shall have your first taste of the bigger picture that I truly have to offer you."
Jack nearly choked on the saliva building up in his mouth. He longed for the hunt almost more than he longed for the innocent blood coursing th
rough those precious girls standing behind that door. The gears within the thick metal door turned and a deep thud resonated through the walls and the metal bed beneath Jack. Yellow, blinding light filled the room as multiple footsteps echoed in varying speeds along the walls. One set came calmly toward him as another sped away from the doorway.
Other layers of sound and senses overwhelmed Jack so that he was nearly void of awareness for a moment. Then her delicate skin touched his lips and he felt the vibration of it as she spoke to him.
"Drink."
As she pressed her throat against his open mouth, Jack put all of his being into pressing his fangs into her flesh. It was slow at first but as soon as the skin was punctured and the first drop of blood touched his tongue, his sense of strength renewed with every taste of her. Before long he was gripping the back of her head and the blood flowed evenly. He could feel her body lighten as he drained her more and more. It had been over 15 years since he drank from the source and of course the thirst was now stronger than he'd ever known it to be.
He cast the body aside as he leapt to his feet. His senses were on full alert and every cell in his body was alive. With his thirst abated, now he could savor the hunt. He lunged through the door and pounded his feet against the concrete floor of the hall in the direction he'd heard the Emperor's footsteps lead. Not a second's thought went into opening the elevator door in the traditional manner as he sped toward it. It grew before him as he reared his shoulder forward to ram through it with brute force.
As he crumpled into the thick titanium elevator doors, he remembered just how secure every unit of construction within this place had always been. The collision sent a rupture of pain through his arm and side. He slid down to the floor still moving with the momentum that had thrown him at it.
After a moment of dizziness, he flung himself upward and grabbed at the place where the two doors met in the middle. His claws pressed into the thin crack between them and stretched the opening slightly further. Pressure pushed against his fingers where his claws attached to the flesh. The pressure became pain and his claws were near to breaking from his fingers when he finally managed to gain passage for his fingertips.
Empire of Blood [Box Set] Page 26