by J. Thorn
Two bodies lay in the middle of the floor—a man who was face down, wearing a black t-shirt imprinted with an iron cross and the words “Southbound Body Art”, and next to him was a woman lying on her back, her arms and legs spread as if she was making a snow angel. Both bloated bodies had drawn flies, and appeared to have been dead for days if not weeks. Dax turned his flashlight off and stepped out of the home.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
He was about to leave the complex entirely when he saw a “For Rent” sign in the window of one of the other units. If that place had been unoccupied before the Blackout, then there was hopefully less of a chance that anyone had died inside of it. It also meant it probably hadn’t been furnished, and wouldn’t contain any food, but Dax could handle sleeping on the floor, and he’d scavenge the other units for food in the morning.
Someone had broken the windows, though, and the door sat slightly ajar. He shined the flashlight inside. As he’d suspected, the home hadn’t been furnished. But a few boxes had been stacked against one wall, and several bottles had been lined up on a shelf. It didn’t appear as though anyone had been squatting there, but even so, Dax kept his eyes open and his fists ready as he entered the duplex.
He moved from room to room, seeing no bodies and no evidence that people had been living there post-Blackout. Other than the boxes and bottles in the living room, the place was empty.
He sat on the floor in the middle of the living room. The broken windows allowed a soft breeze to roll in, but it did little to lessen the humidity. Dax wanted to sleep outside where the air would at least move through the night, but he knew that wasn’t a good idea. Even though the homes looked abandoned, he couldn’t be sure. There had to be people around somewhere. He refused to believe that they had all died, disappeared, or been turned by Screamers. But he also had to assume that desperation had set in, and that life had turned into a fight for survival. Until proven otherwise, anyone he encountered now would be assumed to be hostile.
After contemplating where to sleep and deciding to remain indoors, Dax felt his eyelids getting heavy. He’d found a set of playing cards in one of the boxes, but wasting flashlight batteries on a game wasn’t a wise move, and trying to play Solitaire in the dark became frustrating—fast. The game had kept his mind off the children and Chloe, though, at least for a few minutes.
He saw the twilight giving way to darkness and decided that it was probably time to get some sleep, so he walked to one of the bedrooms in the back of the home. He’d decided to avoid the broken living room windows in case someone decided to poke around in the middle of the night.
Once his head hit the carpet, it only took a minute for Dax to fall asleep. And, soon, he was dreaming again.
The tree was lit by the moonlight. The air felt as heavy and still as it would have on the actual Mississippi Delta, the scent of Magnolias lingering like a woman’s perfume.
“Nice to see you again.”
He turned to see Papa Midnight standing in the field and eating an apple.
“I guess I am going to see you every time I fall asleep.”
The voodoo priest smiled. “I do not know. But you must be here for a reason.”
“Because you have something to say to me.”
“Perhaps.” Papa Midnight stuck out his hand and bowed, inviting Dax to join him.
“It’s weird, seeing you walk without a cane in my dream.”
“I could walk without a cane when I was alive.”
Dax chuckled and then stood next to the old man. Papa Midnight stared into the horizon, at the full moon.
“I must say that it is glorious. I’d missed such beautiful sights as these.”
“Yeah, but we’re not here to dance in the moonlight.”
The voodoo priest looked at him. “No, Jackson. We’re not. You have some serious work to do.”
“Pretty hard when I don’t even know where I’m going, or what I’m supposed to do when I get there.”
“You’ve decided to seek the Angel?”
Dax shook his head. “I didn’t say that.” He turned away from the voodoo priest. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Ah, I see.”
With his hands on his hips, Dax looked back at the old man. “They’re after me. Aren’t they?”
“I would imagine they are.”
“But how do they know who I am?”
“They’ve shared a prophecy for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They’ve always known one—a human—would come and threaten their lives. They’ve been expecting it. You.”
“I don’t know,” said Dax.
“You don’t have to.”
He shook his head at Papa Midnight and smiled—hating the man’s coy words, and yet feeling intrigued by them at the same time.
“The Masters, they can control those beneath them. Even see through their eyes. It’s more like a sense, more like infrared than vision. But the Masters are watching, no doubt. They’re coming for you. They believe you are the key, that the powers you hold can be wielded like the world’s most powerful weapon.
“They’re in Scripture—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—and they’re no longer worried about hiding their existence. They are waging war on each other and on us. All of us.”
Dax nodded. “So, I find the Angel, and together we take out the Screamers and the Screamer bosses. That what you’re telling me?”
“Yes and no, son. You need to find the Angel, no doubt there. But the odds are against you. The vampires are getting smarter. Evolving.”
Dax shivered, despite the cloying humidity. “I want to find the Angel. I really do. But what if I don’t get to the kids in time?”
“If you do not make it to the Angel, then they will die anyway. I cannot make the choice for you. Only you can decide what you must do.”
“What I must do and what I should do are two different things.”
“And again, only you can decide.”
Dax stopped walking through the field and looked up at the moon that was as big and bright as one drawn in a children’s book. “I really wish you were still with me.”
“I am. But in a different way.”
“And what if you leave me, too? Forever?”
“I will leave because, eventually, you will no longer need me. But for now, you must return to your body and prepare for the next part of your journey.”
Dax nodded.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling. A dirty, plastic light fixture hung where the moon had been in his dream. Papa Midnight was gone. But Dax caught the faintest whiff of Magnolia and decided it was time to get back on the road.
7
Jaraca, the Master of the South American faction, could smell death as she stood on the deck of the ship—the sweet stench of rotting flesh mixed with the decaying fish that had washed up on the shore. She stared out over New Orleans as fires burned within the dead city.
“Where should we dock, Master?”
Even though she hadn’t been familiar with the city, Jaraca could tell that the water level had risen to flood levels, waves now lapping at the third and fourth story windows of most buildings.
“Keep going. With the water this high, there is no reason to stop.”
“Yes, Master.”
They’d begun the journey as soon as Jaraca had heard about the destruction in New Orleans and the fact that the other Masters were on their way. War seemed imminent, and they would all be fighting over the ultimate weapon—a human capable of exposing the lairs of the other Masters, leaving one true Master as had been foretold by the prophecy.
Jaraca had left with around five hundred of her best soldiers, and had nearly tripled her army during their journey. After traveling to Panama, they’d taken three ships and sailed across the Gulf, and were now finally arriving in New Orleans.
She wondered if the other Masters had arrived yet. She assumed Ambrose was in the flooded city, as it was part of hi
s faction’s territory, but there had been no communication with any of the vampire warlords, so she would have to sense their presence.
Only a flicker in her gut, a feeling, drove them toward the place where they had agreed to meet.
The ships moved through the streets, and Jaraca smiled. Although she had a fondness for the Latin American influence in New Orleans, the humans who lived there were just that—lowly, disgusting human.
However, Ambrose’s accomplishments had impressed her. Having lived for thousands of years, Jaraca had seen plenty of destruction in her day. Being of Incan descent, her people had been the fiercest warriors the world had ever seen, responsible for the rise and fall of countless empires. In her days as a human, she’d fought against some of the bravest warriors ever known. She had been one of them, redefining the role of women amongst their tribes.
But that had been a long time ago, and the world had changed. She smiled at the burning buildings, bloating corpses, and putrid water that had been the masterful work of the North American faction. Jaraca thought that she might even have to give Ambrose a compliment, if she was feeling gracious when they met.
As they navigated the French Quarter, however, Jaraca sensed something else within it.
Life.
Glancing around, her senses detected humans who were still alive. And as the boat turned a corner, she found the source. A group of people hid in a building to her left—at least two dozen of them. Several peered through a dirty window and looked down at her ships.
“Help!” one of the men yelled from above.
Jaraca did not understand. Why were they asking for her assistance?
“Please, help us!” he said again. “We’re stranded up here.”
Several of Jaraca’s soldiers joined her on the deck, their eyes flickering with the potential for new violence.
“Bring them to me. All of them.”
Without delay, a dozen of her warriors leaped from the boat and latched onto the side of the building. They climbed furiously toward the human hideout on one of the top floors. Her Incan warriors could climb better than any other, courtesy of generations spent navigating the treacherous heights of the Andes Mountains.
Realizing their mistake, the humans inside the building stopped yelling for help, and she could see them turning to run. Jaraca grinned.
She sensed their panic and used it to guide her warriors right to them. Within moments, Jaraca’s soldiers had infiltrated the building and chased their prey. One by one, they grabbed the people, taking care not to kill any of them.
With each warrior carrying two humans each, they descended before leaping back onto the ship where Jaraca waited.
The humans cried and whimpered. Several of them—men, women, and children alike—screamed. Allowing them to simmer in their own fear, Jaraca showed no emotion. She simply stood before them, staring into their worried eyes.
“Please, don’t hurt us,” one of the women said.
“We thought you were here to save us,” a man said.
“You did?” Jaraca gestured to a warrior standing above the man—the one who had picked him up and dragged him before her. The warrior pushed the man to his knees.
The man shook and the other people cried out, pleading with Jaraca to let them go. Unable to look up at her, the man closed his eyes as tears rolled down his face and onto the deck of the ship.
“Raise your head when you are before me, human,” Jaraca said.
Quivering, the man looked up and focused his wet eyes on the Master.
“I have seen what you things do,” the man said. “Please, don’t hurt us. Please don’t turn us into those things. Just let us go. We’ll leave the city and never come back.”
Jaraca narrowed her eyes as she approached him. She placed her hand under his chin, running her long nails along his throat so that she drew blood. She could feel a whimper rising in the man’s throat, and his hands shook. Bending over, she brought her face to within inches of his. And in a soft voice, she spoke.
“You might have seen evil in this place. But you have seen nothing of what I can do.”
The human’s eyes went wide as Jaraca pulled her hand away and spoke in Quechuan. “You are ñakay. A pest.”
Jaraca waved her right arm and whispered a few forgotten words.
The man’s face froze along with his limbs. Her ancient Incan magic had paralyzed him. The other humans cried harder now, and she embraced their fear, feeling it intensifying her power.
Jaraca’s eyes turned bright orange as she absorbed the pain around her, but she kept them focused on the prisoner before her as she brought his darkest secrets to the surface. Although she had paralyzed him from the neck down, he could still think and feel everything that was happening. She crawled into his mind.
An old man—a grandfather—dying.
A woman with another man; the flame of jealousy igniting.
A doctor and his prognosis, involving pain and eventual death.
“Please, stop,” the man said. “Oh, God. Why are you making me relive all this?”
Jaraca didn’t respond. She smiled instead as she drained him and absorbed his life force. His eyes began to glow orange, and within moments, she no longer felt his memories.
“Rise.”
He stood and then looked through blazing orange eyes at his former friends.
They had screamed for a moment before Jaraca brought them all to their knees, paralyzing them the way she had the man. They all looked at her with tearful eyes now, and Jaraca smiled.
“You will join me now.”
And she revived their most painful memories, until their eyes were glowing orange.
8
Bronwyn felt a tongue caressing her lips before sliding into her mouth. She kissed one man while another man was between her legs. She arched her back and pushed into him. Others moved over her body, one kissing her ribcage and the other at her left breast, biting her nipple. Bronwyn, the Master of the European faction, had a reputation for the decadent—a taste for young men. Several of them at the same time, in fact.
She raised the man’s head until their eyes met. The male looked up at her with piercing blue eyes, and his lips glistened with her oils.
“What is your name?”
“Talos is my name, Master.”
The other men paused.
“Did I tell you all to stop?”
Without a word, they went back to her body. Bronwyn petted them on the tops of their heads, like dogs.
“Well, Talos, I might have to keep you closer. You have a silver tongue.”
He smiled, and she narrowed her eyes.
“Now get back down there and—”
Bronwyn paused. She sensed another nearby.
She grabbed the other sex slaves and tossed them off of her bed as if they weighed nothing, though she allowed Talos to get up on his own—not wanting to risk damaging his pretty face. He followed the other two out of the room.
Bronwyn swung her legs off the side of the bed and rubbed her neck as she looked down at her body. They had drawn blood with their lustful maneuvers. She watched reluctantly as each wound healed, wishing she could spend more time bleeding.
Then, fully healed, she slipped into a black dress.
Eternal life had been good to Bronwyn, and she had no need for support garments to hold her shape. Her breasts bulged out of the top of her dress, which accentuated her wide hips and luscious curves. She pulled back a long mane of dark, auburn hair, revealing smooth, porcelain skin. Her eyes had once been a magnificent shade of indigo, and she missed seeing them in a mirror. But trading them for power and eternal life had been worth it.
Bronwyn exited through the double doors, to where her children waited for her. They bowed as she entered the front room of the cavernous building. With the rats and the floodwaters, she had forced them to stay downstairs, but the upper floors of the Southern Gothic mansion had made a comfortable, temporary lair for the Master herself since she had arrived in New Orl
eans.
Outside, she saw a ship docked near the patio. Two of Bronwyn’s warriors opened the double doors that led outside, and a woman descended to the patio from the ship. She wore a golden dress under a fur coat. Flowing black hair cascaded over her ample breasts, and her orange eyes highlighted her rich, dark complexion. Bronwyn licked her lips as the leader of the South American faction approached.
“Hello, Jaraca,” Bronwyn said.
The other Master said nothing in return. She simply looked around the space, taking it in. For Bronwyn, the silence only made the Incan woman sexier.
“I didn’t know you had planned a vacation to the Crescent City.”
Jaraca stopped a few feet from Bronwyn, several strong soldiers behind her wearing tunics with their muscular arms and legs exposed. Bronwyn winked at them.
“Don’t fuck with me. I’m not here to play games, Bronwyn,” Jaraca said with an accent mingling Spanish and Incan heritage.
“That’s quite the shame,” Bronwyn said, her eyes caressing the South American’s body.
“Where are the others?”
Bronwyn shrugged. “Haven’t heard from them, although I’m assuming they’re all on their way. Maybe they’re taking their time getting to this hellhole. I know I wish I would have.”
Jaraca came forward and wrapped her hand around Bronwyn’s throat, slamming her back against the wall. Bronwyn’s warriors stepped up, but she directed them to stand down. She wasn’t about to start a war with Jaraca. At least not until she had a lick of this South American honey pot.
Jaraca stared at Bronwyn, her grip softening a touch. “We do not have time for this. Jing and Ambrose need to be here, now.”
Bronwyn pushed her breasts into Jaraca’s, and the back of her hand brushed against the woman’s brown thighs.
“I know the games you play, Bronwyn. Do not expect me to fall for them.”
“There’s the shame.”