Chapter 25
The Genies hit the Feds’ battle line just after dark. There weren’t many left, but Vivian and Tebor were at the forefront of the assault. They tossed armored soldiers around like rag dolls, tipped over tanks, and threw Humvees into walls. Almost before the attacked had begun, Constantine ordered his men to retreat.
He had to make it look good, but too many people had already died.
Tebor was the first to come sniffing into the Feds compound. Like any animal, he could smell a trap. Even one that had not been set for him.
Genies followed him through the breach. Inside the defenses, they engaged the soldiers and technicians in hand-to-hand. Tebor prowled the chaos, growling at soldiers and Genies alike. There was no one worthy for him to fight. But when his eyes fell on me, sitting on the Town Hall steps, smoking a cigarette, he paused.
“We thought you were dead,” Tebor grunted. His words slurred together as he mouth fought against his fangs.
“Where’s Cain?” I asked abruptly, putting out my smoke and pulling myself up. “Where’s Vivian?”
“Cain sent me.”
“You’re no good,” I dismissed. “Go and get Cain. Tell him I have those he seeks. Those who came here to destroy him,” I waved back up at the Town Hall with my gun. “In there.”
Tebor smiled. Or grimaced. For the creature, both expressions were identical. He looked up at the night’s sky, the first stars of the evening appearing above us. Something dark, almost invisible, cut through the night air. It began to grow cold.
Very cold, indeed.
The random skirmishes still underway began to subside. Ice began to form on the cannon barrels of tanks. I pulled my bomber in closer around me, the icy air biting at my fingertips. I could see my breath clouding before me.
He was here.
The wind began to stir, the brass and debris in the street began to jitter. Then the air pressure dropped dramatically, and my ears popped, as everything seemed to be pulled toward the center of the street. I staggered down the Town Hall steps, irresistibly pulled toward the gathering gust. Then, as if the whole city had sucked in a breath and released it, it pushed me back, causing me to stumble and fall onto the stairs.
Materializing from nothing, Cain and Vivian appeared in the center of the street, Cain in his fine suit, and Vivian still dressed for the opera. Tebor walked up to his master and whispered into his ear.
“Ah, excellent news, Detective.” Cain’s face broadened into a wide smile. In his presence, there was no question of where my loyalties lay. I was his servant. He was my master. Never in a thousand lifetimes would I be able to betray him. That I knew with all certitude.
Luckily, Special Agent Constantine had prepared a surprise for Q. The NeoCons had not come to Seattle unprepared to battle vampires.
“It’s a trap, Sire,” I whispered, half of my mind fighting against the other half.
“What was that?” Cain stepped toward me. He held out a hand and helped me up off the steps.
“It’s a trap, Sire,” I repeated. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t—” I shook my head, fighting against myself. Some part of me was able to hold my tongue.
“Don’t worry, Detective, I’m well aware—” Cain began. But perhaps he wasn’t. In an instant the night became day, as dozens of ultraviolet lights in the windows facing onto the street flickered to life. The glare was scalding. I shielded my eyes.
Cain, Vivian and Tebor writhed in pain. Where the perfect, white light touched their flesh, they burned. Cain screamed, falling to his knees before me. His visage bubbled and boiled with blisters.
Vivian fell to the street, too, bringing her hands to her face. She wailed in pain as her eyeballs in their sockets caught alight, exploding into two flaming embers.
Only Tebor remained standing, smoke billowing his head like a halo. Like a great oak in a forest, sawed through to the core, he teetered on his feet.
“Now! Move! While they’re down!” a voice came over a loudspeaker. The great doors of the Town Hall flew open as TAC-30 came storming out of the building, centimeter rifles raised. Constantine was in the lead.
From the storefronts, soldiers appeared carrying shiny chains and manacles. Silver.
Tebor finally tumbled to the blacktop, and in the glaring light, the soldiers fell on him and began to wrap him in chains. One soldier got a collar around the blinded Vivian’s neck, as smoke still poured from her eye sockets. She wailed in pain as the silver came in contact with her skin.
But no one approached Cain as he lay crumpled at my feet, smoldering in the bright light. TAC-30 stayed at a respectful distance, keeping their weapons raised. Constantine slowly approached with his pistol in his hand.
He moved down the steps until he was standing above Cain.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled up at Constantine.
“His weakness for ultraviolet light is well documented,” Constantine said, paused just out of arm’s reach of Cain. “We just need to coax him out of his hiding place.”
“No, no, this will just—”
“Thank you Detective, you’ve been most helpful. We’ll take it from here.” Constantine waved in a squad of waiting soldiers. They moved toward Cain, holding silver chains.
“What are you going to do with him?”
“I’m sure 1728 will be overjoyed at the return of their test subject.”
I paused in shock, mouth lolling open, as the troopers quickly bound Cain up in silver chains. I saw the truth of it now: Constantine and the NeoCons had never intended to destroy Cain. Or free him, either. They’d come to capture him and return him to his cage. Return him to 1728, so they might continue the work that Dark had interrupted over a century ago.
The Rosicrucians hadn’t infiltrated the highest ranks of the U.S. Government – the highest ranks of the U.S. Government had infiltrated the Rosicrucians, perverting their cause to enable the recovery of the Cain subject.
I had it all one-hundred perfect wrong. For such a smart guy, I sure was pretty fucking stupid.
I was all alone.
To my left was Cain and his Genie army. The enslavement of mankind.
To my right was Constantine and his NeoCons, their New World Order and their three C’s. Were they any better?
I was all alone.
No, that wasn’t true. I still had Dark. Dead as he was, he was still standing there with us on that rubble-strewn street. He still had his last trump card to play.
And there was Vivian. Blind as she was, bound in silver shackles, laying in the street.
What an army, I said to myself, with which to save the world.
“Private First Class Michael Elton,” Constantine began as his men tightened the chains to Cain. “You are under arrest for the crime of...” Constantine had to think. “Vampirism. You are deemed to be a dangerous biological threat. You will be taken from here to a place of quarantine—”
“That is more than enough,” Cain said softly, bound in his restraints.
“What was that?” Constantine asked, backing up slightly, raising his weapon. The TAC-30 Team followed his cue and raised their weapons.
“That will be more than enough,” Cain said again, louder and clearer.
“What—”
Cain pulled himself erect, coiling up like a cobra, dancing to the charmer’s flute. His skin still bubbled and popped in the glaring white light, and he was still bound tight in his silver chains, but he raised his head in defiance.
“I said enough!” he screamed. His final word exploded like a thunderclap, shattering glass, sending shards and sparks cascading from the ultraviolet lights.
The street was again bathed in darkness.
Without effort, Cain flexed his arms and shattered the chains that held him.
“I’ve had enough of this game,” Cain said, smoothing out his suit.
Behind him, Tebor and Vivian climbed to their feet. With effort, they fought against their chains and sent them clattering to the groun
d.
The Tac Team fired. Everyone at once. Constantine fired his centimeter gun. Cain took the bullets without flinching. His suit jumped and shredded with the onslaught, but Cain stood still, straightening his tie, until an errant round tore it in two.
That finally got a reaction.
Cain twirled, as if about to start a dance, and dissolved instantly into the whirlwind. The tornado grew in size until it consumed Constantine’s TAC-30. It picked each man up off his boots and cast his into the air, sending men raining down like so much garbage blocks away.
Cain slowly reformed back in the center of the street. Only Constantine, myself, Tebor and Vivian remained.
Cain’s visage was once again handsome, as if the ultraviolet lights had not touched him. Tebor and Vivian still showed the extent of their wounds – Vivian fumbled, blind – but Cain was whole once again. His suit, however, had seen better days.
“Do you understand now, Detective?” he said to me. “There is no real choice to make. The human race is doomed to destruction. They will destroy themselves, or I will destroy them. There is no third path.”
“No,” I shook my head. I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t believe it. But my options were rapidly dwindling. Cain was hell-bent on clearing humanity from the face of the earth, and repopulating it with his kind. The NeoCons wanted to use Cain as a weapon to do exactly the same.
I only had once chance.
Vivian.
I only hoped she was still strong enough, blind and stumbling as she was, her eyes burned out of her head. I tried to reach out in my mind and find her in her apartment. If I could take her hand, I could give her my strength.
“No,” I continued to shake my head, but now I meant it in a very different way. “You’re right, Sire, there is no choice.”
“Then stand with me, Detective,” Cain commanded. “At this most auspicious moment. The first city of mankind has fallen to my will. The rest will tumble like dominoes.”
Cain pointed to a spot beside him on the blacktop.
I wearily took a step.
“Fonseca,” Constantine said behind me. “Don’t move.” I paid him no heed. “Fonseca!” he called out. I couldn’t see it, but I knew his centimeter gun had swung around to me.
“No!” Cain cried out. Even his inhuman reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop the shot. Something smashed into my left shoulder, hard. It felt like brick hit me. It sent my spinning. I came full around and crashed down onto the concrete.
Cain moved like lightning. One second he was in the center of the street, then next he was on top of Constantine. Rage burned in his eyes. He crushed Constantine’s head against the stone steps and bared his white fangs. He was lowering in for a bite when a thunderclap echoed in the street.
Blind Vivian move with equally incomprehensible speed. She vanished for her corner of the road and materialized above Cain. She leapt on top of both men and wrapped an arm around Cain’s neck.
But she didn’t attack or bite or fight him, instead she leaned in close.
Back in her apartment, I could hear her reciting the worlds along with me. We spoke together in soft tones, low and reverent.
Vivian whispered, quick and haunting into Cain’s ear. Pacified, Cain let go of Constantine and fell back onto the steps. Constantine quickly scrambled to his feet, but Vivian kept hugging Cain from behind, whispering into his ear.
I muttered the words myself, laying, bleeding in the dirt. We spoke together as one: “God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” I coughed, spitting up blood. “God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth...”
The hexadecimal of 1768: 6C0. Dark had coded Cain with a trigger, hidden in the text of the Bible. Genesis, of course. Chapter 6, verse 12, word 0. The first word on the line for a mathematician like Dark. God. The real Q. The true Source. That was Cain’s trigger. That was his undoing.
I could feel my heart beating faster. The bullet. Constantine.
But none of it mattered. I was free. I could feel the Geneing washing over me. I was back in Vivian’s apartment. She was there. Breakfast was almost ready. I could smell the coffee on the stove.
Epilogue
Sasha finished his story.
“That’s it?” Vivian said, as Sasha got up to pour himself another cup of coffee.
“That’s it,” he said.
“What about Cain? What about the Genies?”
“Cain remained, undisturbed on the Town Hall steps until the sun rose. He fried, the wind dispersing his ashes. Lost in his Geneing, he couldn’t regenerate. He was finally dead. And with Cain dead, every Gene Genie on the plant woke up all at once. Sober. Sporting the mother of all hangovers.” Sasha returned to the table, sipping at his coffee.
“And you and your gunshot wound? And me without eyes?”
Sasha shrugged. “Well, here we are.” He smiled over the rim of his coffee.
Vivian laughed. “You are so full of shit!”
“You asked,” Sasha said, defensively. “You wanted the truth. Well, there you have it.”
“You know…” Vivian leaned forward on the breakfast table. “…I could almost believe your story, right up to the part where you read a whole book.”
Sasha laughed into his coffee. “Yeah, well, miracles can happen.”
“And all of it?” Vivian pressed her advantage. “Being dead, being a vampire...I don’t remember any of it? Why?”
Sasha shrugged again.
Vivian shook her head and began to clear the breakfast things.
“You are so full of shit,” she said again, with no malice in her voice.
“Hey,” Sasha conceded. “Maybe we’re still Geneing, and this is my Eden. Maybe the world is burning all around us, and we’re dying of thirst in some squalid, rundown hovel.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” Vivian sighed from the kitchen, putting the plates into the sink.
“What? That the world is being destroyed by vampires?”
“No, that you think this is paradise.”
Sasha snorted. Vivian returned to the table and kissed him on the cheek.
“Well, this paradise comes with laundry,” Vivian said, changing gears. “And it’s your turn.” She was heading for the bedroom, already taking off her pajama bottoms.
“Ugh,” Sasha complained, putting down his coffee cup and raising from the table.
“You should be grateful,” Vivian called out from the bedroom, then quoted. “You know that Nietzsche thing? About what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”
“Yeah?” Sasha called back.
“Well, good news,” she said, tossing her pajama bottoms and bra out through the door and poking her head and bare shoulders around the jam. “Laundry won’t kill you.”
Sasha smiled and scooped up Vivian’s discarded clothes. He tossed them into the over-full laundry hamper and hefted it into his arms.
No, it might not kill you, Sasha thought as he pushed through the bead curtain and started toward the front door. But experience had taught him there were far worse fates than death.
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