Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood

by Richard Finney

  Stay Hidden, Stay Silent, Stay Sui Generis!

  Very sincerely yours,

  Hamil Deane

  vc member - davanzati region

  ***

  “We both wondered where you’ve been, Julian?”

  “Wondered why? All you needed to do was look out the window. Are you saying neither one of you caught my performance?”

  “Actually I watched every second,” answered Winston. “I grant you your ‘performance’ had a certain style, but I must temper my compliment with a concern that perhaps you’ve missed recent VC directives, especially those emphasizing the severe worldwide shortage of healthy blood donors.”

  “So you don’t see the strategy in killing a few so that the others would be intimidated, thus guaranteeing long-term cooperation?”

  “Julian, I’m afraid intimidation only guarantees, not cooperation, but the necessity of its chronic use as a strategy.”

  “Very disappointing to hear,” said Julian. “Especially since I shot the entire assembly on video. I planned on playing back the deaths of the escapees on the monitors in the barracks’ building every night before the prisoners all went to sleep. So you would not agree that it would be effective in maintaining discipline?”

  “Perhaps there would be a short-term cause and effect,” answered Winston. “But I don’t believe such a tactic would engender a healthy stress level amongst our blood supply.”

  Ian was shocked by Julian’s reaction to Winston’s verbal chastisement. His blood brother seemed almost excited by Winston’s negative response.

  “I predicted almost everything you would say,” said Julian. He pulled out a note from his coat and held it up for Winston and Ian to see.

  True to his word, almost everything Winston had said was written verbatim on the paper.

  “I was only off by one word, ‘perhaps,’ said Julian. “I would never have dreamt you would use the word ‘perhaps’ in criticizing my behavior. You know something, I believe, old man, that after 221 years, I’m beginning to wear you down.”

  Winston laughed and then answered without hesitation or reservation.

  “Yes, Jules… perhaps you are.”

  The three then brushed aside tree branches leaning across the path before emerging on the other side of the hilltop. The sight of what lay in a gully below caused Ian to stop walking.

  It was a huge, deep pit dug into the earth. There were huge flames jetting at least a hundred feet into the sky, creating a billowing cloud of orange and black smoke that rested like a crown above the pit.

  “What the hell is this?” asked Ian.

  “Pretty extraordinary isn’t it?” shouted Julian as he rushed up to the pit like an excited young child approaching a new playground. “One of the demolition teams at this site exposed some gas pipes. That’s when one of the factions in the VC decided to point their initial plans for the area in a different direction.”

  Winston moved to the pit and looked down. The glow of the pit fire lit up and highlighted the distinct details of Winston’s face, in a way that Ian had never seen before. Despite his earlier words, it was a moment where Ian admitted to himself, Now, my mentor, truly does look alive.

  “Sir, you’ve read the statistics generated by the VC,” said Julian. “Do you disagree with their findings?”

  “No, Jules, one is a fool…”

  “… to argue with VC statistics,” said Julian completing Winston’s sentence. “Old man, I will always respect how you were consistent in what you taught me and how you acted. I will also appreciate all the words you have passed on from those who existed before us. What did you used to say, ah, yes: ‘those who fail to rise above the mistakes of the past, are…”

  “… simply animals behaving as predators or prey,” said Winston, completing Julian’s sentence. “C.Q. Yarbaro is who you are quoting. I actually know her.”

  The words “predators or prey,” provoked Ian to awaken from the trance he had been in since he emerged from the woods. His eyes caught sight of something he noticed for the first time – the wooden stake, normally attached by a chain, was no longer around Julian’s neck.

  “Where’s your needle?” asked Ian, while at the same time springing forward to step between Julian and Winston.

  Julian kept his eyes fixed on Winston as he responded.

  “Right here…”

  The wood was from Easter Island. Or so Julian claimed. Taken from the last tree originally grown on the island.

  Before Ian could stop him, another hand reached out. He looked over and discovered Winston holding onto him.

  “It’s all right. We need to let your brother finish his presentation…”

  Winston then turned his gaze toward Julian.

  “Is this what you need to do?”

  “No, sir,” said Julian, before he lunged forward, brushing past Ian as he shoved the wooden stake all the way through Winston’s heart.

  “This is what I want to do…”

  He nodded several times, as if his neck was now a spring attached to his head. Then Winston turned to look at Ian, but there was nothing left to his face but skin over bones.

  Ian felt the hand gripping him suddenly release a moment before Winston leaped off the ground and took flight.

  He flew about a dozen yards over the pit before his wings suddenly vanished.

  Then Winston began to fall.

  A chorus of cries erupted from below as Ian scrambled to the edge of the pit.

  For the first time he saw what lay beneath the flames that stretched toward the sky.

  There were the bodies of his kind, writhing in pain and screaming in agony. Thousands were stacked on top of each other, all finally dying the death that some had put off for years, others for centuries, and those special ones who were now embracing the day they often referred to as the “crow’s crooked beak.”

  Through his tear-filled eyes, Ian saw there were those among the dead and dying who reached out their skeletal arms to welcome Winston as he landed amongst them.

  “Careful, brother, you might fall,” Julian said, hoisting Ian by his neck and finally releasing him about a dozen yards away from the edge of the pit.

  Ian swept his hand across his face, wiping away the tears before he looked up to lock eyes with Julian. He could not believe the first thing that was staring at him was the wooden stake with Winston’s blood dripping from it.

  Julian saw Ian’s reaction, and immediately dropped the stake into the dirt.

  “It’s not what it looks like. He stepped away, and I held on for some reason. Please, Ian, do not believe for a moment that I wanted the instrument of his death as some sort of souvenir…”

  “What have you done...?” screamed Ian.

  “What needed to be done, brother,” Julian calmly responded. “You’re too young to understand. That’s why I could not share with you what needed to be done.”

  Ian stumbled to his feet, “Yes, you’re right; I don’t understand.”

  The words were spoken with such passion that Ian stumbled… into Julian’s arms.

  “But he understood! Didn’t you see his face? Our father understood!”

  Ian pushed away from Julian and fell to the ground.

  “Love!” he screamed into the night. “That’s what I saw. Love for the two he had turned…”

  “No, what you saw was acceptance.”

  Julian’s voice was flat and unemotional.

  “But the sun will be rising soon, so we haven’t the time to debate the issue.”

  He tried to walk off, but Ian shouted after him, “Why did you do this?”

  Julian looked up to the night sky and screamed. “He promised me heaven… and he did not deliver.” Suddenly, Julian was standing at the edge of the pit. “What you witnessed tonight was my decision not to follow Winston into hell.”

  Ian closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, Julian was standing above him.

  “I am promising you heaven. Or you could follow
the source of our immortality as he discovers the contours of hell. What shall it be?”

  Ian bowed his head.

  “Good for you, brother; the acceptance of final death is something very few vampires rarely see in another, and yet you are wise enough to have seen it in Winston’s face.”

  Ian looked up and saw that Julian had moved away again, speaking as if he was addressing some crowd that had gathered to hear his words.

  “All I ask as we move forward is to understand the burden I shouldered in making this difficult decision. The VC purge has begun. Yes, decisions had to be made. And those in charge decided to go with ‘new blood’.”

  He turned and held his hand out toward Ian.

  “Come and let us bond in a way that we’ve never been able to bond before, building upon the death of a man who led to our rebirth, so that we may have a new relationship.”

  Rising, Ian tried to make it seem as if he intended to grab Julian’s extended hand.

  “My heart feels like it is beating with possibilities,” said Ian, as he pitched forward to grab the bloody stake.

  Out of nowhere, one of Julian’s support team snatched the carved wood from the grass.

  “Is this what you used on him?”

  Ian looked around him and saw that the entire group had come to check things out.

  “Drop it, Vadim – now, or I will use it on you,” shouted Julian.

  Vadim carefully set the stake back into the dirt and backed off.

  Julian was now standing just a few feet away from Ian, and yards away from the edge of the pit.

  “Please, brother, do not let their presence sway your emotions. I ask that your loyalty be earned, because we share the same blood, and because it is the right thing to do, not because another choice has been closed off to you.”

  Ian did not hesitate. Julian would only fixate on the hesitation, and who knows what his mind would do with such a thought rolling around in his brain every waking minute of every waking day for the next hundred years.

  He embraced his brother.

  The energy emanating from Julian’s every pore astounded Ian.

  When they parted, Ian turned to Julian’s followers and made sure his face did not have a hint of menace. He now believed that their sudden appearance prevented what would have been a futile attempt to avenge his mentor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Matt kept time with his watch as the truck left the concentration camp. He knew of the perfect spot where the three could bail from the cadaver van.

  He unzipped his body bag and looked around.

  The cargo hold was closed off from the front cab, so they did not have to worry about the driver seeing them. Matt shivered, realizing for the first time that the back of the van was refrigerated.

  “Okay, guys, let’s go, this is our exit…”

  Immediately both zippers started moving, as both Tyra and Juarez squirmed out of their bags.

  “That experience might have put me off on ever breathing again,” whispered Juarez.

  Matt had told himself to expect a lot of blather from Juarez, and not to let it get to him unless his bullshit threatened to get them caught.

  He moved to the van’s back doors to have a look, and as he suspected, the moment they opened the doors, there was no doubt it would trigger a light on the dashboard of the truck.

  “How are we doing?” whispered Tyra.

  “Right on time,” answered Matt as he looked at his watch. “Are all three bags sealed?”

  “Yeah, exactly like they were before we got in,” answered Tyra.

  “Wait, I didn’t read my goon a bedtime story; should I…?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Matt harshly whispered to Juarez. “No more of your bullshit until we get back to the camp. Are we clear?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, it’s just like we talked about; as soon as I open this door, we’ll need to jump out and then move quickly to the side of the road. No excuses. There’s a good chance the driver will stop. Are we clear?”

  Both Tyra and Juarez nodded.

  “Tyra, you’re first, then you Juarez… I’ll be right behind you both.”

  He did a silent countdown… then threw open the doors.

  Tyra did not hesitate; she leaped out of the van the moment she saw daylight.

  Waiting for Tyra, Juarez had some time to gauge the speed of the van, but when Matt waved to him, he rushed forward and jumped out.

  Matt followed two seconds later.

  He hit the pavement and pain shot through his legs. He tried to stand, but gravity pushed him forward and he went with it. Matt tumbled several times, then tried to stand again; this time his lower limbs responded and he began moving toward the side of the road. As he rushed toward the embankment, he looked behind him and saw no sign of Tyra and Juarez.

  The cadaver van suddenly halted.

  He leaped and landed into some tall weeds.

  There was the noise of footsteps, then a door closing. Seconds later, the van started back up and the noise of the engine grew more and more distant.

  Silence.

  “Matt…?”

  Tyra helped him up out of the bushes. Juarez was standing next to her.

  “I can't believe we made it,” said Juarez.

  “Well, hold off on texting your friends,” said Tyra. “We still have a lot to do before we make it back to the compound in time for roll call… right, Matt?”

  She didn’t realize that Matt was already moving toward the woods.

  “How are we doing?” Tyra asked when she finally caught up.

  “None of us should relax,” answered Matt. He was jogging and looking all around him. “I’ve seen plenty of vampire patrols working during the day. They won't be at their strongest, but it doesn't mean they won't be here.”

  “So you know where we are?” asked Tyra, almost out of breath after just running less than three hundred yards.

  “I know exactly where we are,” answered Matt.

  He then switched gears and moved off at the base of a valley and into the woods that lay adjacent to the road.

  Tyra stopped to wait for Juarez to catch up with her. They both then took off in pursuit of Matt.

  “Help me out here,” said Juarez, catching his breath in between every half dozen words. “Do we need to tip the guide who is leading us on a prison break?”

  ***

  “Hey, Matt, can we slow down the pace a bit?”

  Matt turned and, rather than feeling perturbed, he looked embarrassed. He stopped and waited until Tyra joined him.

  She turned to see that Juarez was still about twenty paces behind her, but close enough that they both started jogging again.

  “Sorry about that. I was caught up in my mind gaming out all of our moves.”

  “Ah, a clue to how your mind works,” said Tyra, still catching her breath. “So when you say ‘gaming out all of our moves,’ are you talking from start to finish?”

  “I wish,” Matt answered, but that was all he said.

  After they continued to run in silence, mostly because Tyra still needed to regain her breath, she finally followed up with another question. “I guess what I’m asking is, do you try to work out everything to the final outcome?”

  “I used to try and do that,” Matt said. “But there are too many variables.”

  “So you stop at a certain point?”

  “No, I just mentally follow the path until it divides into several options.”

  “Then what do you do?” she asked.

  “I make sure there are no other options besides the ones I’m considering.”

  “And then what?”

  He stopped running.

  “Did you ask your father and brother all these questions?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did.”

  After her answer, the two continued running along the path through the woods in silence.

  Tyra figured it was either because he didn’t have an answer to her original
question, or because she shut him down with the way she answered his question.

  Finally, he spoke again.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you something, but I haven’t had the right opportunity,” said Matt. “What happened with Murphy… is not what I intended.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t game it out?”

  He looked at her to see if she was joking with him or taunting him.

  “I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t think long and hard enough to come up with all the options.”

  “So you’re saying you would have done things differently?”

  Matt went silent again. For a while all there was between them was their breathing.

  “I’ve done things,” he finally said. “Obviously things I’ve been able to live with. And this could have been one of those things. That’s why I should have been the one… not you.”

  She was looking at him as he spoke, wondering how much he himself believed was true.

  “Well, it’s done,” Tyra said. “So there’s no use talking about it anymore.”

  He suddenly stopped running. They stood there catching their breath.

  Matt looked at her, but she knew it was not with eyes that were checking her out in a good way. He was evaluating her to see if she had recovered from what happened in the dairy building. His eyes ended up locked on her eyes only so he could see if she was up for the task at hand.

  “Hey, Mom, Dad, the movie is over. Are we there yet?”

  Tyra wanted to scream when she heard Juarez’s voice, but before she could respond, Matt turned and said, “Yeah, actually, we are…”

  ***

  Matt had made sure they approached the farm from the back. They looked all around the compound, but there was no sign of anyone around.

  He made his way to the front entrance of the barn and gently opened the doors a crack. Matt looked around and, strangely, it was like everything that he once remembered in the barn had been kept perfectly as it once was.

  Juarez pushed open the door behind him, and the noise triggered two birds to emerge from their nest in the rafters. They both made a quick beeline for a shattered window near the barn’s loft.