Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  Charlie's skimming through the pages began to slow in pace drastically as he started to more thoroughly inspect what he was actually holding. It was as if he hadn't really taken George serious up until something had caught his eye. His face went pale and his hair seemed to stand on end even more even though it didn't seem possible. And then, all of a sudden, a giggle crept from his vocal chords and he looked up at George with the most disturbing grin he had ever seen.

  "Ha ha, Georgie boy, you hit the motherfucking jackpot with this son of a—oh, I'm sorry I almost forgot I was in the presence of a clergyman. Please forgive my rude language—but, this is absolutely amazing what you've brought me here." He looked down at the book again, still flipping through its pages with the devilish, delighted expression of a boy looking through his first porno mag.

  George felt some relief wash over him and managed a laugh. "It's pretty great, isn't it?"

  "Well, fuck yeah, it is... and just what did you plan on doing with it? Why are you bringing it to me?"

  "Well, I thought maybe it would be best to find someone who has just as much reason as me—if not more—to put this thing out there—in the hands of the people."

  Charlie exploded with high-pitched laughter. "The people? I haven't heard that phrase uttered since before the war—you're serious, aren't you?"

  George crossed his arms. "Yes, I am. I may be an old man, but I'm an old man who remembers the country his ancestors fought for. Who remembers the stars and the stripes when they were red, white, and blue. I'm an old man who remembers religious freedom, and who won't stop until it's put back in its rightful place."

  With the most serious expression of parody, Charlie stood up straight in true soldier posture staring vacantly in George's general direction and gave him an exaggerated salute. Holding that stiff position like a sailor waiting to be relieved, Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs, "You've come to the right, ah, place, ah, Reverend Nelson. Just, ah, you wait and see, ah. We'll do the good Lord's work, ah, Reverend Nelson, ah. And get this book out to every eyes that can read. Yes, ah, Brother Nelson, ah. Hallelujah!" And like a kid in a candy store, he broke his stance and tore right back into the booklet, leafing through like a child engulfed in a colorful picture book.

  Still holding the tattered thing with one hand, he reached over and slapped George on the back hard enough to send a chill down the old man's back. "You did the right thing, Georgie, porgy. You did the right goddamn thing." He turned away, mumbling to himself. "The right thing, all right." Charlie sat down behind his desk staring into the booklet as if George wasn't even there.

  For a long time there was nothing but silence before Charlie's voice broke the stillness like a boulder slamming into a pond. "First thing we'll do is get this sucker copied. I've got an underground small print company that handles distributing some things I like leaked from time to time. But this one—baby—this one is big. To be on the safe side we'll have to print a ton of these lovelies and push them all out at once—because as soon as the Schlemperor finds out about this, we'll be target number one, baby, the first in line at the firing squad birthday bash. And now that the city of sin is burnt to the ground, we won't go to the bloodsuckers, but they'll sure as hell come to us. Come ready to burn our operation to the ground and suck every last drop of blood from our bones. And you know what, it would be goddamn worth it to me to be able to look them straight in the eye and say, "Yes, we bent your buddy over a good one. Now how's about a good boy turns around, bends over too, and takes it like his daddy showed him to—what ten thousand years ago or some shit..." Charlie took a loud gasping breath. "So whattaya say, you think you came to the right fuckin' place or what, Georgie?"

  George just smiled uncomfortably. He was ecstatic at what Charlie planned to do, but the man's frantic and awkward presence was more than a little unnerving.

  "Looks like we're in business, Georgie. Georgie, porgy... Georgie porgy, orgy—" Charlie broke into laughter to the point of tears and George couldn't help but giggle in unison with what had become a contagious sort of humor that emanated off this strange man. George didn't know what it was he felt toward him, though he knew he didn't exactly like him, he did know he didn't dislike him either.

  Charlie stopped laughing abruptly and stuck out his hand for George to shake. George gripped the hand tightly and Charlie clamped down in return hurting George's hand.

  "And just how much do you want for this little book, anyway? I'm sure you have a price," his hand squeezed harder to accentuate the word, "don't you?"

  George nearly fell to the floor from the pain of the man's grip that was obviously purposely causing it. "Just a little bit of business we have to get out of the way first." His hand squeezed tighter and several bones in George's hand cracked simultaneously.

  George yelped.

  "You fuck with me, you lie to me, I find out this thing is faked by the best goddamn artist in the world, or you rat out me or any of my associates and I will personally rip your throat out through your eye socket and ricochet my piss off your brain and down into your esophagus, do you hear me, Georgie boy?"

  George managed a squeal of a syllable that was as close to a yes as he could let out.

  "Good," Charlie's face grew into a dark grin, "because I would hate to have to waste a good patriotic clergyman like yourself, there's not enough good men left on this godforsaken soil—I like you. So, let those broken bones heal in remembrance of why you'll never so much as breathe a single word against me, okay, champ?"

  George nodded as tears streamed down his cheeks and wet the stiff hairs of his beard. Charlie brightened back up like the flip of a switch and started to dance something akin to a jig as he went back to leafing through the pages of the book that George hoped would have some part someday—at least a tiny bit—to help take down that self-righteous unholy bastard, Joseph Caesar. Dear God, I hope this is worth it.

  Chapter 27

  All Hail the Queen

  The deeper inside the forest Hank got, the slushier the ground beneath him became. Eventually his feet got harder and harder to pull up from the muck of soupy earth. He knew he could probably do just like the others and race his way inside this place they called the hive, which Hank knew from his visions and dreams to be a deep cavern of salt hidden within the swampy forest, but he was not in the same rush to get there as the others. Even though he was deeply intrigued and even unexplainably mesmerized by her presence—he knew it was her presence, he could not mistake it—the thought of meeting her was still intimidating on a level Hank had never experienced before. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she could destroy his very life with just a split second’s will. No, it was something deeper than that. Something far more important than him. But exactly what that something was kept itself hidden to him.

  Hank had just caught a glimpse of the edge of the cave’s mouth that he knew was his doorway in when he heard her behind him. It wasn’t the Queen that was for sure. It was someone else. A human vampire. Small. Perhaps just over a hundred pounds. She had the smell of youth on her that Hank often recognized from his own son. It was a smell that had never been discernable prior to his drinking of the ancestor blood.

  “I don’t know why you’re bothering to keep so quiet, I can hear every move you make as loudly as I’m sure you can hear my heart beating.”

  A moment later, small, almost-delicate yet iron-strong hands gripped Hank around his forehead. No, it won’t be that easy. Hank grabbed the back of her head over his shoulder and sent her thin body flying forward. She landed with a muddy splash in the murky brown water ahead, her long hair spreading out in the water like thin black moss. And before Hank could even take a breath she was rushing up from the water lunging for his throat. She couldn’t have been any older than Toby when her mortal life had ended. Hank didn’t have time to react, so he swung quick and with precision. His fist met her temple just before she could reach his throat and knocked her unconscious in mid air. He caught her before she could fall back into the muck
below. He pulled her over his shoulder the way he remembered seeing Ishan do with Simon the first time he met the ancient vampire, grinned at the memory, and then continued sloshing toward the cave entrance. The moonlight reflected from the swamp in strange refracted shapes like eerie headlights in a carnival house of mirrors.

  “Bloodlust, eh? Well, sorry. I’m not your average meal.” Still unconscious, the girl did not respond as she dangled from his shoulder. As he came closer to the cave entrance, he had to duck under branches and climb over bushes and weeds and all the while make sure he didn’t hurt this girl any more than he already had. In another time he would have felt sorry for her, would have been angered to the bone by her youth taken away from her and turned into something so terrible. But at this time in this place there were too many reasons why he couldn’t bring himself to feel a thing other than a detached sense of protectiveness. Almost like a sense of obligation that he didn’t really care about personally. A numbness. He made note of this and locked it away for later examination. Everything he was going through was still too surreal and new to him to try and make any sense of just yet.

  At the cave’s entrance, something stopped him from stepping forward. It was that inner vision again. He could sense the gap before him though he couldn’t visually see anything but pure blackness. The cave was positioned in such a way that a deep pocket of thin mud welcomed those who might attempt to enter. It was likely a great way to protect the place. Only a vampire could make the jump unaided. Well—a vampire or someone like Hank. He knelt down and positioned the girl so her upper body dangled over his left shoulder and her legs dangled over his right and then launched himself upward and forward. He landed on slick salty rock and started to slip. Moving his feet quickly, he managed to run up before gravity could pull him and his passenger down into the dark sludge below.

  Eventually the ground seemed to solidify and dry beneath his feet and he found traction easier to maintain. The cave ahead curved somewhat upward, but not so steep as to keep him from being able to move forward. A dim familiar yellow glow emanated from beyond the dark gray shadows of the cave walls surrounding him and leading most of the way ahead. The taste of salt permeated the air so much it was almost nauseating. He kept on. Small silver stalactites poked their way down from the ceiling of the cave as the ground beneath Hank started to level out. He was no longer headed uphill; the way ahead seemed to veer very slightly downward instead now.

  The glow up ahead grew as Hank continued on. He was so focused on it, the sheer radiance of it, the presence it represented, he nearly tripped over a stalagmite. Looking down, he took notice that the cave floor was filled with them now. And they only grew taller the further he went. Shadows stretched along the walls after a while of walking and reverberated voices echoed gibberish to him from some place deep within the cave. The acoustics of the place made it sound as though the lips were speaking just behind Hank’s ear. He found himself constantly looking back the way he came to make sure no one was there. But as the glow spread and grew in brightness, Hank came to a large clearing.

  His first glimpse of her standing in the center of so many vampires all at their knees before her took his breath away.

  Their eyes met and all the world fell away.

  Her blood red irises burned through every pore of his body. Her inhuman figure had a more feminine shape than any man could ever dream of. Flawless coconut flesh, the visual texture of a well-crafted satin, gleamed from her body in the firelight. A passion Hank had never known himself capable of took hold. And in that moment somehow he knew that his eyes had changed color to match hers. They were now linked in a way that no other creatures could ever be. Something new was happening now and she had been waiting many centuries for its arrival.

  Hank began stepping toward her, mesmerized and somehow magnetized to her very skin. He reached behind himself and lifted the fledgling vampire girl from his shoulders and laid her down on the cave floor beside him then returned his gaze to the Queen. She reached her hands out to him and the vampires circled around her hissed in unison. In some place in the back of his mind, Hank saw them in his peripheral vision, their eyes glaring at this undeserving human being welcomed into the Queen’s arms where they had all been denied before. But that part of Hank was only a passing glimpse and it was over now, fading into the sweet oblivion of her touch. Yes. Her hands were on him now. Spreading all over him and caressing and gently but lustfully pulling him to follow her.

  She turned and took his hand as if to lead him somewhere and for one second while her eyes were turned away Hank was able to look back. Ishan stood tall yet crouched and ready to attack at the center of hundreds of vampires still bowing. His face was contorted into the most hateful thing Hank had ever seen. It was barely recognizable as the face of a man that Hank had befriended not so long ago. Saliva slid down the ancient vampire’s mouth as he glared at the two of them. Hank wanted to stop, wanted to understand why his friend looked so bitterly angry, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the Queen turned back to him and gazed into his eyes and any sense of control he’d had melted away. And as he followed her through narrow corridors, a deep mournful howl from far away echoed along the cave walls and a chill of terror rippled through Hank.

  Don’t worry, my love. He can’t hurt you. No one can defy the Queen of the Dead.

  Chapter 28

  The Arrival

  The sky cast a dreary gray shadow over the dilapidated neighborhood as Jonathan’s truck crept along the road. Weed-covered houses with boarded up doors and windows covered in graffiti lined both sides, except for the occasional empty lot or partially torn down structure. Jonathan pulled the truck over to the left alongside a tan brick building that looked like an abandoned old bar.

  “Here we are. The official place of welcome in the state of Louisiana to all folks hiding from the Empire,“ Jonathan said, opening the driver side door and sliding halfway from the leather seat.

  “Really? Are you sure we didn‘t take a wrong turn?” Dustin asked.

  Jonathan laughed. “I’m guessing that’s exactly why our southern brothers and sisters chose this particular establishment as its place of hiding.” He winked at Dustin. Toby sat staring at the dim sunlight that was somehow managing to make its way through all those desolate clouds and reflect off of the brick wall of the building.

  When they came around to the back of the building a weathered sign stretched across the width of the building above a single poorly painted white door in patchy faded red lettering. It read THE BLUE MERMAID. Underneath that alongside the door was a NO LOITERING sign. Jonathan reached forward and knocked a strange rhythm against the solid wood with his knuckles. The knock was repeated from inside and Jonathan followed the performance with an even more intricate pattern of knocks. This went on several more times, each set of knocks getting more and more complex, until finally the door unlatched. A dark-complected man with sharp blue eyes, black hair and wrinkled skin that didn’t match the youth of the rest of his features appeared from the darkness within.

  “Identify your friends, Jonathan.”

  “Toby Evans and Dustin Cayne.”

  The man’s eyes seemed to light up at Toby’s name and then he slammed the door firmly. A moment later the door reopened and the man was waving them to come in. “Please, hurry,” he said, closing the door behind them. “We believe it’s only a matter of time before the Imperial Guardians come knocking on our door and if the neighbors around here get a clue what’s going on, they’ll make sure those fuckers find out even faster. Probably the only chance they would have to keep themselves from getting caught doing whatever ungodly shit they’re doing.”

  Dim beams of light came in from small windows along the side of the wall looking like yellow slides made of soft floating particles descending down to the concrete floor. Another man stepped out of the shadows and in front of the yellow beams simultaneously destroying and absorbing them with his dark tailored pants. “Billy, I’ll take over from here. Just
keep your ear to that door in the meantime.” The man nodded in their general direction and they came closer as he turned for them to follow him.

  Toby wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been expecting but this certainly wasn’t it. In some dark recess of his mind he imagined vampires hanging upside down from the inside of some dark cave, their yellow eyes lit up and shining in the darkness. He had very little idea how close he actually was to what was turning out to be the wrong place. Before long he realized that this place they were in was for the Foederati alone. There were no vampires here. And eventually he realized it was likely just as void of his father as well. Last he’d known his dad was traveling with the vampires of Necropolis, and two and two told him no vampires, no Hank.

  The man in the dark tailored suit led them to a strange elevator. Inside, the air was stiff and musky. He pushed a lit up button that said 37 and to Toby’s surprise, he felt his body lift some with the inertia of the elevator headed downward. He chided himself for not figuring it out sooner. The building had obviously only been one floor. Toby became dizzy from the speed of the elevator. He watched as its yellow digits increased like the seconds on a digital clock. There was a violent shift and the elevator came to a stop for a long moment, its digital display showing they weren’t quite on floor number 27 yet. Toby held his breath. And then with no notice at all the elevator burst back into movement, its base shaking like a recovering alcoholic as it rocketed down nearly twice as fast as it had before.