Cogs in Time Anthology (The Steamworks Series Book 1)

by Catherine Stovall

  As he dipped his pen into the Ink of the Governance, his vision skewed and fogged, as if he wore incorrect lenses. He saw a girl, a toddler, sitting alone and unguarded by the River Thames. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled under a bonnet, and her gray eyes looked into the wake of the water. “I command the sun, the wind and the skies,” the young girl spoke as she turned to the full moon.

  Mordecai’s face flushed. He could not risk another female to be born; the only vampire who could prevent another live birth was the devil himself, Draegan.

  ***

  Draegan also witnessed Mordecai’s vision. He saw the skies pour venom onto the Society. The rain poured in large, black drops as if death itself had been liquefied and sent down to greet them.

  “You want to know who the girl is, don’t you?” taunted Draegan, as Mordecai came to see the new vampire boy, gaunt and undernourished.

  “I need you to make sure no more are born.”

  “You want me to murder them?” Draegan asked nonplussed.

  “I want you to make certain that the transformation from female to male, in the womb, is more effective! I can’t have these plus or minus statistical errors.”

  “Perhaps inoculating the breeders with a new retrovirus….Yes! A vaccine that rejects the X-carrying vampire seed.”

  “Make it happen, Draegan. And be swift.”

  “And in exchange?”

  “Freedom.”

  ***

  Draegan witnessed the mutation as it destroyed the vampire X sex chromosome in the Petri dish. Inoculating the human women would be a risky and dangerous venture. It could take years to understand side effects and adverse reactions. Yet, as he injected the estrogen-X virus into the human ovaries, he witnessed a strange resulting molecular instability. When Draegan injected the ovary with the compound, the host ovary mutated, unexpectedly absorbing the compound. “Damn,” whispered Draegan. “Only the eggs should receive the mutation.”

  “What?” asked one of the guards.

  “The women’s cellular membrane are mutating, not just the DNA of their eggs.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. All is fine,” he answered. It means this retrovirus isn’t contained. It spreads. Yet he still wondered what it could imply, as he continued to inject each egg in the Petri dish with the retrovirus.

  “Is everything according to the design?” asked a research vampire sitting at the mainframe analog.

  “Yes. Nevermind,” said Draegan. As long as it prevents female births, my freedom is secure. Mordecai can deal with the after effects.

  ***

  Ten young women, all around the age of twenty, were brought in for the genetic trial. Draegan’s research team selected itinerant serving girls, unlikely to be missed in the event of possible failure.

  “We’re to be paid handsomely,” said Justine, the youngest of the group. “And I don’t even mind living here for nine months. It’s better than home.”

  “The beds are lovely,” added Karina, an effervescent chubby girl with a cheerful disposition. “And all we have to do is produce a vampire baby,” she giggled. “I hope we get to pick the father!” Both girls erupted in laughter, making crude motions with their hands.

  “You like the vampires? I heard they aren’t allowed to touch you. That they can’t…” Justine moved onto Karina’s bed and whispered in her ear. “I think they must just hand you their…”

  “Oh stop! What’s the fun in that?”

  “Maybe we are too seductive for them,” Justine joked. “We are the chosen vampire temptresses.” They both erupted in peals of laughter.

  Draegan watched the girls with mild disgust, their simple minds repulsing him. But Karina, the larger girl, made him stir in a strangely familiar way. Fortunately for her, he remained locked inside the glass sphere prison.

  Draegan worked night and day to perfect the concentration and delivery. He chose a blood borne delivery system because of its instant absorption into the blood stream. He thought of blood. Red blood. The thought of entering Karina’s rich veins, even through the proxy of a needle, aroused him.

  He watched her lustfully each day when she came to the clinic for food and measurements. The medical staff wanted to ensure the subjects were not too fat, not too lean. Karina would glance over to Draegan, trapped under his glass dome, flattered at his obvious desire.

  He would sit, leaning far back in his chair, and stare back at her.

  ***

  Karina and Justine heard a quick knock at their door. “You are invited into the treatment laboratory after you dress,” an undersized messenger vampire announced outside the door of the girl’s room. “Today begins your efforts,” he mused mysteriously in a high-pitched officious manner.

  The girls primped and readied themselves. Both shone with health, robust from the fresh array of food and drink the vampires had nourished them with over the past several weeks.

  As they walked down the hall, they held hands, suddenly nervous.

  “They aren’t going to suck our blood out, are they?” joked Justine.

  The messenger shot her a look of contempt. “We are vampires of honor, we have taken the solemn Vow of Peace.” He picked up his robes as they drug to the floor. “You will merely receive a small prick, inserting the medication into your arms, in order to prepare your bodies for fertilization.”

  “Nobody told me about a needle going in me!” objected Karina. “I don’t like to be stabbed.”

  The messenger gestured for her silence as they approached the brightly lit treatment lab.

  “Silly girl,” smiled Draegan. “It is a subcutaneous injection. You will feel nothing. Besides, I am an expert with veins and administration of medications.”

  “How did you hear her?” asked Justine. “We were outside the iron door.”

  “I can read your thoughts…most of the time.” He looked at Karina who flushed with warmth, as her thoughts regarding Draegan had been less than pure.

  “What will this stabbing needle do? I only agreed to carry a baby. I understood that to be the only requirement.”

  “This vaccine is merely to ensure the health and vitality of your baby.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I will administer it to you myself,” said Draegan.

  “That is out of the question,” said the small messenger with unusual nostrils, pointed and slim. “The medics will be administering the medication.”

  Draegan whispered through a series of tiny holes in the glass to his guards. “This stupid cow trusts only me. She will back out of the trial if I don’t inject her personally. Do you want to tell Mordecai one of his subjects dropped out? And that you, along with your small-minded obedient brain, are to blame?”

  The guards exchanged glances and nodded. “She can enter. But you cannot exit.”

  “Agreed,” said Draegan.

  Karina shuffled to the dome. The guards quickly pushed her in and slammed the door with a crash. Her eyes widened as she was locked inside, alone with Draegan.

  “What do I do?” she stammered. “Shall I wait here, by the door?”

  “Just sit, be still,” he answered as he directed her to come towards his table. The cold glass dome warmed with her human presence, the wall fogged behind her.

  He looked at each of her arms, stroking the insides to feel for good veins. His heart raced and his mouth watered. She smelled so fresh, like damp soil rich with nutrients. He traced a vein on her inner left forearm, licking his lip as he felt the heat radiating from her neck. Her pulse quickened in her throat as he quietly moaned, smelling her as he felt up to her shoulder.

  “Careful, Draegan,” warned the messenger. “Step back.”

  “That tickles,” Karina smiled, ignoring the messenger, as did Draegan. Karina felt a strange fondness for the rogue vampire. She had known many men from a young age, but most had been rough and coarse. She appreciated Draegan’s lighter touch.

  “You have most lovely veins,” he flattered.


  Karina noticed his pupils were dilating. She instinctively pulled away. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He moved closer to her, his hands grasped each of her elbows. “Relax,” he soothed. “I promise you, you will feel nothing and no harm will come to you.”

  She nodded and offered him her arms without resistance.

  He pulled down his goggles from his forehead and held her arm up to a small probe of light attached to the right lens. She had a rich, creamy smell and he felt his mouth water. Swallowing back his desire, he swabbed her arm and reached for the syringe.

  “Don’t move, it will pinch for only a moment,” Draegan purred.

  Karina held her breath as the syringe entered her arm. Rushes of a burning liquid travelled up her arm to her throat as Draegan slowly pushed the contents in further.

  “Ouch. It burns,” she said.

  “Almost done. Lovely job.” He emptied the contents and pulled back on the needle. The retraction pulled some of her blood back into the syringe. Her crimson blood gushed quickly and refilled the syringe. Eagerly, he shoved the needle in the pocket of his robe. “You may go, Karina. See? There was nothing to fear.”

  Karina smiled and stumbled as she stood. She reached for the glass walls for balance, her legs wobbled beneath her. “I’m all right,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Thank you, you are most beautiful,” Draegan whispered into her ear as she leaned upon him.

  The guards opened the door enough for Karina to exit. The shrunken messenger escorted her to the hallway. “Return to your room to rest. You’ve had much excitement. We will bring you some refreshment.”

  “Please lower the lights,” asked Draegan of the guards. “I need to rest a bit.”

  As his sphere dimmed, he pulled the golden velvet curtain around his cot and fingered the syringe of Karina’s blood in his pocket. He looked towards the ceiling, as the cut-glass dome cast jagged shadows through the light. He felt as if he were trapped inside a diamond. He closed his eyes and rolled the blood-filled syringe between his fingers— his mouth watered.

  Reclining on his narrow cot, he let his robes fall to the floor. The syringe was tucked in his palm, enticing him. His body pounded with desire, if only he could suck the blood from her body directly, he would be fully sated. Draegan smelled the heavy iron content and still felt the warmth of Karina’s body in the syringe. He turned away from the guards and placed the needle in his mouth. Slowly, he pushed on the syringe. Drop by drop, Karina’s warm blood filled his mouth. The blood trickled down the back of his throat as he closed his eyes to rest.

  ***

  Virginia made her way from the damp boathouse, forced to abandon her boisterous daughter. Ivy assured her that the infant would be safe, though the hours of Virginia’s crying and pleading had exhausted Ivy’s patience.

  “We must leave now,” insisted Ivy. “I must get you back to the Society before morning.” Ivy’s skirts snagged on the small bushes and trailed in the mud along the river. She pulled Virginia behind her.

  “Please, Ivy, I beg of you. May I stay?”

  “No,” replied Ivy with a heavy voice. “If you do not return, Mordecai will look for you and then he will find your daughter. That would be the child’s death sentence. And mine.”

  “Won’t he look for her anyway?”

  “No. Not if you find the strength to deny her. Only by denying her, can you save her.”

  “What do I say happened to her?”

  “You say nothing. Mordecai trusts me. He will believe I disposed of your daughter as he instructed. I have always been obedient to the Society.”

  “Why are you doing this? Please, just leave me here. I will disappear with her.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Disappearing is impossible. You would be found.”

  “No. I would go far away. Another country,” she pleaded irrationally.

  “Your daughter is dead to you. You must believe that.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You must. Or we are all ruined.”

  Virginia’s hair swirled around her in a mess of tangles and disarray as she reached for Ivy’s hand. “I can barely walk, I’m exhausted. Just leave me here.”

  Ivy pulled Virginia up, her hands around her collar. “Listen to me. If you give up, your daughter is as good as dead, and we all are as good as dead. Gather your wits! You were strong enough to be selected as a breeder, and you are strong enough to save your daughter.”

  Virginia wiped her tears, leaving muddy smudge marks under her eyes. “Why are you even helping me?”

  “By helping you, I help all women. The time has come for change. The Society cannot continue as it is, our women are barren and no new females are born to replace us. We are genetically erased! Your daughter must not be found yet. She must live to fight.”

  Ivy and Virginia walked along the River Thames as the sun began to rise.

  “Can you walk in the sun?” asked Virginia. “I thought you would come to harm in direct sunlight.”

  “No longer true. The genetics laboratory spliced a dermatological mutation into the strands of our DNA, allowing us to walk outside just like the humans. Project ‘Invisible Sun’ was a success, except for one irreversible side effect. All vampire women became sterile.”

  “I thought, as part of the Vow of Peace, genetic engineering came to a halt,” said Virginia.

  “The genetic engineering lab is closed as far as humans are concerned—but the Society is based on scientific perfection, and Mordecai can’t stop seeking and overreaching. However, each step to perfection has mutated our original species, usually adversely. Look at Draegan. He was supposed to Mordecai’s perfect creation.”

  Virginia slipped along the bank of the river, cutting her hands on the moss-covered rocks in their path. The fetid smell along the shoreline hung in the damp fog.

  Decomposed vegetation from the Surrey marshes mixed with decomposing animal matter. The inhabitants of both banks of the river added a large number of drowned kittens daily. It did not require much knowledge of chemistry to analyze the contents of the river. A glance of the eye would see that the Thames held copious amounts of dead canine, dead feline, and other animal matter, together with a strong infusion of cabbage-leaves and miscellaneous vegetable refuse and sewage.

  “What will become of my daughter?” Virginia covered her nose and mouth from the smell of animal offal along the waterway.

  “I don’t know, but if the prophetics are correct, she represents a change of power. But for now, you must believe she is dead. Dead! Do you understand?” Ivy turned and grabbed Virginia’s hands. “I don’t say it will be easy, but it is the only way.”

  “Dead,” repeated Virginia. “Yes, my daughter is dead.”

  ***

  Even for Mordecai, it took all of his energy and power to tame Karina as she woke from another fitful night’s sleep. Her body rose in an ocean of energy and a mind filled with madness. Her eyes grew small and round, piercingly evil in their sockets. Karina’s abdomen, which had held a healthy male vampire fetus for five months, was deflated like a balloon after the air has been released. Her skin hung limply in layers as she bellowed and screeched, hanging in mid air where Mordecai telekinetically held her in place. She clawed at the air and hissed and her mouthed frothed with insanity. Mordecai knew he must hold her, for her growing madness increased her strength.

  Mordecai breathed deeply and entered her mind as he hummed in a low, imperceptible tone. In his bid to seek her thoughts, swirling patterns of vengeance circled him as he entered. Red tides of anger lashed at the walls of her mind like a choppy ocean. The colors of her thoughts were green and yellow, and smelled of putrefaction. Madness. At every turn, madness.

  Mordecai turned his thoughts and mind to Draegan, the strange rogue locked in his glass dome. Draegan paced the dome, hunched over in his own form of repetitive madness. His hands reached in and out of his pockets compulsively as if picking imaginary threads. His mouth moved, as if he was
speaking, but his words were silent.

  Distracted by Draegan’s movements, the hold on Karina weakened. Her rage increased ten-fold, and in a second, she flew from the room.

  “Karina!” shouted Mordecai.

  She ran towards the laboratory, faster than any human woman he had ever seen, and with her full force, she smashed into Draegan’s glass prison. Her body sank to the floor, limp as a rag doll. Her bones snapped and sounded like sparks popping from a fire. Her head cracked, smearing streaks of blood down the glass as she fell. Her fingernails scratched the glass as she crumpled; her last high pitch screech filled the room.

  Karina’s skull cracked again on the floor and a tidal wave of blood oozed around her outline on the hard parquet. Slowly, the crimson flow found its way underneath the glass walls to Draegan.

  He stared at the floor, willing the blood towards him. Inching his way to his wall, he his long fingers into the blood. As he stood and held up his bloody fingertips to the light, Mordecai watched him in shock. Draegan licked each of his fingers with prolonged and rapturous delight. His tongue stroked the flesh between each digit and dug underneath his talon-like fingernails.

  Karina’s blood continued to coagulate around her, glistening on the white floor like rubies on ice. Draegan stared at the red puddles and darted his tongue back and forth along the inside of the glass. Closing his eyes, he rocked back and forth.

  A vibration filled the room as he hummed. The blood on the floor moved in waves, as if sucked by a vacuum, and suddenly streamed under the glass wall and stopped at Draegan’s feet. Mordecai stood frozen, stunned by Karina’s action and watching Draegan roll in her blood, licking it like a kitten with spilled milk.

  “Get rid of her,” commanded Mordecai. The guards sprung into action, picking up the body and dragging it away.

  Draegan stared at the glass that Karina had smashed into. Something shiny lay under the blood and bits of flesh still stuck to the exterior. A few thin spider web-like marks, made their way across the glass, about an inch in circumference. Cracks! Cracks made upon impact, tiny cracks which could change his destiny once more.