The Fall: Sanguine Series: Book One

by Chris Laughton

  By all appearances, the building was abandoned, but Alexander could see beyond appearances. He could smell that this building had two residents, who had used the building for quite some time. Alexander entered, and heard his footsteps echo off the walls. He began to move more softly, as only a predator could, and without his vampire hearing, he would’ve been inaudible. The swish of his clothes was the only sound he made, and that was easily covered by the background noise of the city. There was no telling where he’d find his prey, and though an alert human provided a miniscule amount of increased challenge to him versus a sleeping one, Alexander could envision a scenario where one tenant alerted the other, and now he had to dispatch two humans before he could eat. Better to keep every element under his control, and not allow any randomness into the equation.

  He moved past the bank of elevators, following the smell of his meal to the door for the stairwell beyond them. The standard post-Fall thick steel reinforced door stood ajar, the locks removed, probably with a plasma torch. At some point, this building’s higher floors had held items to scavenge, and someone with the tools and ability to get at them had unwittingly opened the higher floors to the future vagrants Alexander was interested in now. Alexander checked floor by floor and each had looked much as the lobby had, doors thrown ajar (in some cases with even their hinges taken for scrap), anything not nailed down removed, and every surface covered with the spray-painted calling card of some visitor. It baffled Alexander that even post-Fall, humans would concern themselves with things like tagging, but add it to his laundry list of reasons they were only good for a food source.

  Finally on the seventh floor, the scent had grown stronger. This transient had done a nice job of using a different room every night so there were no wear patterns or trails through the dust to lead any scavenging humans to him. Alexander entered the main room of the former apartment noiselessly, and the first thing he saw was the view out onto Golden Gate Bridge through a long-absent floor to ceiling window. The owners must have charged a small fortune to live here before the Fall. The only views Alexander ever saw in person now were at night, but the fog rolling in over the bay made it picturesque nonetheless. He allowed himself only a few seconds to appreciate the scene, however. He was no philistine, but he had more important matters to attend to. Following the smell to one of this unit’s palatial bedrooms he found his prey sleeping in a closet. The sliding door was barely ajar, probably so the man could hear a threat approaching and still be well hidden, though he’d most likely never imagined quite this threat.

  There was no point in stalling and ruminating on the man’s life; it had ended the moment Alexander had entered the building. Alexander glided soundlessly across the floor, placed his hands under the man’s arms and lifted him upright, sinking his fangs into the man’s neck before his primitive brain had even fully awoken to fully panic.

  As the blood had filled his mouth, so too had the man’s memories. Only recently, Alexander had begun getting flashes of his victim’s past as he fed, but he was nowhere near as capable as Kai, able to order the memories into a coherent timeline and actually remember them when it was done. Alexander’s version was more like a movie at twenty times speed, only you didn’t know the order of the scenes, and it was in a foreign language. He caught a glimpse of a boy, perhaps a son? Or maybe the memory was from the man’s youth and it had been a childhood friend. It didn’t matter, this man’s life didn’t interest him, only his blood. At Alexander’s age, he only fed once every several weeks now, and he was glad to have it done. The last few pulls of blood had been laced with the adrenaline the man’s body had been able to muster that now flowed through Alexander, sharpening his thoughts.

  He took a tourniquet out of the bag lying next to the man in the closet and tied off the corpse’s left arm. Placing an empty syringe next to him, his work was complete. Hardly a convincing crime scene alteration, but this body would most likely not be found for weeks, and even less likely to be reported to authorities when it was. In the infinitesimally small chance that it was, the police would take any excuse not to investigate, and Alexander’s less-than-a-minute cleanup would give them reason enough. Alexander was back on the street now, returning to his car. It would have been faster and easier for him to just jump from that picturesque window in the apartment than to take the stairs. Truth be told, more thrilling too. But even though Alexander didn’t much care who decided to try find him in this particular city, that sort of exit would have been slightly too brazen.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Now though, this trip had taken a less mundane turn. He descended the steps at the back of the hangar while he debated if he was being paranoid or not. Why was it so quiet? It had been quite a while since he’d visited Gabriel, but he doubted the man would’ve pulled up stakes and relocated without telling him. Alexander had given this compound to Gabriel to continue his work free-of-charge, so it’s not like he was going to find a better deal elsewhere.

  Alexander had come now, hoping to see progress had been made on the technology he used to read Maya’s visions. Using the trees to try to pinpoint the location had been an almost complete dead-end. Kai had told him that they were Pacific Red Cedar and Western Hemlock and that they could be found up and down the Pacific Northwest. While it had certainly narrowed where Alexander sent his trackers, it was merely like searching for a needle in a smaller haystack than before. He had grown tired of compassionate Maya refusing to help and the more amenable Maya being unable to, so Alexander had come to see if perhaps he could pry better answers from her with technology. This, however, was not the entrance he had been expecting to make. Gabriel was an appreciative man, who had always gone out of his way to thank Alexander for turning him. On any of Alexander’s previous visits, Gabriel would’ve met him at his car, practically falling all over himself to be the gracious host. And so, the question that had become much more urgent in Alexander’s mind than anything to do with Maya, was what the hell had happened to Gabriel?

  When he stepped inside the door at the bottom of the stairs, he had his answer: he was most definitely not being paranoid. The bloody corpses of Gabriel’s team littered the hallway. The installation was sealed off enough from the outside world that there were no flies, which gave the entire scene an almost funereal feel with nothing but the slight buzzing of the lights overhead to break the silence. Alexander surveyed the bodies: none of them Gabriel’s, though all of them with their heads removed. As unlikely as it would’ve been for a random bunch of humans to overpower even this group of egghead vampires, the removal of the heads meant it had been done by a team that knew what vampires were, and that left only The Project.

  They were a constant pain in Alexander’s ass, and they were also predictable. If they’d hit this facility, he knew where to find Gabriel. He walked down the hall, stepping over the bodies, when he came across one he didn’t recognize. He stopped and picked up the head by the hair, holding it in front of his face. He did not know this vampire, which meant only one thing. He thought back in his head, and realized that he had made Gabriel just over thirty years ago. This was an important number and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it until now: he had made Maya on the thirtieth anniversary of his transformation. She was supposed to have been a sort of present to himself, the first new vampire to be his companion, but she had come out as her own special brand of a schizophrenic mess. Alexander suspected that it was because he had made her on his thirtieth anniversary and not the day after. Too soon for her to be fully turned, too late for the transformation to fail. His theory might’ve seemed too convenient in any other circumstance: what was so special about exactly thirty years? But Alexander had learned long ago that his newly immortal existence played by very strict and orderly rules.

  Whatever the reason, Gabriel had been the first vampire Alexander had made after he turned thirty (in his new life anyway; he’d been past forty when he made himself into the first vampire). Since Gabriel himself was now over thirty, it stood to reason
that he was able to make his own vampires now. The clever little bastard; he had deduced from Alexander’s stories how to do it and how old he needed to be for the transformation to hold. Why hadn’t he reached out to Alexander? The failed gambit to make his own clan had now likely cost him his life. Alexander dropped the head back onto its corresponding bloody torso and continued down the hall to the door he assumed he’d find Gabriel in.

  Entering Gabriel’s office, he was greeted by his protégé’s headless body restrained in his chair off to one side of the room, opposite a couch where no doubt, one of The Project’s members had sat while their interrogator did his work. The head sat in the center of Gabriel’s desk, staring blankly at anyone who entered the room with one eye missing. Alexander had to admire the sadistic touch. He liked to think of himself as a compassionate leader, but he also never saw the use in mourning the dead. What was gone was gone and of no further use to the living. A tank of blood sat next to the body, eliminating any doubt that this had been The Project. They drained much of the blood from vampires before interrogating them, so that the wounds they inflicted healed slower and the pain could be felt more acutely. Alexander stood still for a moment, just taking in the sight of Gabriel’s lifeless body. Fingernails and toenails removed, countless cuts and broken bones, and charring at several points suggested Gabriel had actually held out rather well for someone that Alexander would’ve hardly described as ‘tough’. That meant it must have been loyalty that gave him such determination and it only felt right to take a moment for that.

  Gabriel had been a computer scientist in both his human and vampire lives, more invested in advancing technology than anything else, even after the rest of the world had lost interest. Seeing him here now, battered and tortured, it was hard to connect it to the young man with the lofty ideas that had been scared of his own shadow when Alexander had turned him all those years ago. No doubt upon reaching thirty years as a vampire, Gabriel had made his own group, but he hadn’t been careful in selecting them: a product of the fact that he would’ve decided to do it only once he felt the change within himself. He hadn’t taken the time to select his candidates and ensure they would maintain a low profile, or at least intending for the others to be a distraction. Alexander had thought of nothing but creating his own clan from the moment he’d been turned. He’d had thirty years to refine his selection process, and since his early attempts resulted in his subject’s death, there were no loose ends to worry about.

  His mind went to Miranda and Kai, the next two vampires he’d made after Gabriel and he realized he only had weeks until Miranda could make her own as well, with Kai not long after. He would need to discuss this with them to avoid a similar fate. He was quite fond of Miranda especially, and besides, she was too good a tracker to lose to something so trivial.

  But as little time as he had, Miranda could still be his second priority: he had even less time to deal with whatever Gabriel had given up. There was only one facility Gabriel had known about, only one place he could give up to trade The Project for the release from their torture that beheading would provide: Maya’s. No wonder they’d taken the eye; it had been removed posthumously, not as part of the torture. “My apologies, old friend, but I won’t have the time to dispose of your body or those of your men. She is much too important,” Alexander said to the head on the desk. The head didn’t seem to take offense. Alexander turned to leave and swore when he realized that he’d left his phone in the car. These bodies were fresh, probably no more than a night old, which meant that these were precious minutes he was wasting to get in contact with the man he’d left to watch over Maya. He moved as a blur, taking only seconds to return to his car and retrieve his phone. He held it up, thankful that he had signal. The amplifier Gabriel had set up had apparently gone undisturbed in The Project’s attack.

  He had ordered almost everyone at Maya’s compound to begin the search in the Pacific Northwest for the elusive cabin in her vision. That facility was staffed with nothing but trackers, but still, armed with nothing but a recording of their goal, it would be a difficult hunt. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea to send Kai and the other experienced vampires out into the field, but it also meant that the only ones left to fight an incursion by The Project would be the youngest vampire Alexander had, and Maya, who, in her current state, would probably let The Project in herself if she could, as long as they promised to kill her.

  11

  Mason took pride in his punctuality. He was never late, even by his definition of being five minutes early. And because of his notorious punctuality, he found it incredibly grating when someone else was late. Being made to wait was an insult; an implication by the other party that their time was more valuable than his. No doubt Mr. Jeffries would have an excuse, but inevitably it would end with Mason somehow being blamed. A short apology followed by something like “Why didn’t you just remote in?” or “I’m fairly certain this could have been finalized over email?” to turn it back around on him and imply that the only reason they were late is because they were so unaccustomed to Mason’s backwards insistence on meeting in person.

  When you considered that two hours ago, Mason had been hit by a car, it was highly unlikely that Mr. Jeffries’ excuse would be able to top that. When Mason had awoken, he’d felt miserable, not unlike how he thought a hangover must feel like. Because of his metabolism, he’d never experienced an actual hangover, but he now had sympathy for people who did. He’d never been that badly injured before, but his body had risen to the challenge. His bones were perfectly healed, and his new teeth had almost fully come in by the time he woke up. Now you’d be hard-pressed to even spot the faintest hint of a bruise. He’d been worried for no reason over his appearance. Short of a little weight loss that he was sure would fill back in once he ate again, he was back to being the Mason he recognized by the time he awoke.

  He’d had to take a cab (always a risky gamble that you wouldn’t be robbed) to make it on time, just to make an introduction for a client he would be working on after the restaurant proposal. They were an office without any customer-facing personnel, so it would be a shift from his previous assignment, but he liked to stay mentally agile and mix up his jobs. He found it good to visit his clients before he began working on their proposal to get them used to his in-person style, and allow employees a week to get over the idea of him watching them. It was not uncommon for the client’s representative to be late to these initial meetings, but it still irked him nonetheless.

  He was lost in a thought about optimizing the restaurant’s dishwashing routine when Mr. Jeffries finally approached. “Aww, Mr. Rayne, so nice of you to join us in person. I apologize for my tardiness; it’s so rare to set in-person meetings these days!”

  Mason stood up, accustomed to this man’s awkwardness from all his previous clients. “Mr. Jeffries, a pleasure to meet you. I won’t take up much of your time today. If you could just introduce me to key personnel and show me anywhere that’s off-limits to me, I’ll give myself the tour and let you get back to work.” This first exchange was like a chess game with a novice: Mason knew Mr. Jeffries next move before he made it, though that made it sound more competitive than it was. Really, it was just boring; a repetitive exercise with a new, middle-aged, overweight middle manager each time, and yet it always played out the same way. Next came the perfunctory courtesy that he’d cleared his schedule to show him around.

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary! I’ve made sure that I won’t be needed for at least an hour so I can show you around.” And now came the discomfort when his offer was rebuffed, Mason thought to himself.

  “I assure you, I actually prefer it. If I have their boss as a tour guide, then the employees feel like exhibits, and trust me, they won’t act the same with you around.” He said this part somewhat jovially to try to deflect the protest he could see forming in Mr. Jeffries’ mind. “If I wander by myself, I can get a more honest first impression and it will feel more normal to your employees when I come back
full-time next week.”

  Mr. Jeffries paused, but either had been convinced by Mason, or at least, couldn’t think of a convincing enough argument to press his point further. “As you wish, Mr. Rayne. There really isn’t anywhere you can’t go, and my office has my name on the door, so I trust you’ll be able to find me. Please do find me before you leave? I’d like to at least show you out.”

  “Of course, sir. I’ll find you in about an hour.”

  Mason spent the next hour wandering the office, but thinking about Rebekah. It wouldn’t affect his work; everything he was seeing would be catalogued somewhere in his memory for him to review later. Besides, not focusing on their office let him wander aimlessly and never focus on one employee long enough to make them nervous.

  He did, however, stop long enough to stare out one of their windows. They were high enough up in the building to have quite a view of the cityscape. In years past, it may have been distracting to workers, but now it would only be depressing. Seattle was one of the cities doing the best at retaining its pre-Fall glory, in the country arguably doing the best as well, but even then, there was no mistaking what was happening. Ostensibly still part of the U.S., anything west of the Rockies operated almost as its own nation. West of the Rockies is where several times, rumors abounded that progress had begun to be made in some area of civilization. Some restoration of manufacturing or reopening of an old university only to have the rumors revealed as just that. This far out, people still had optimism apparently, but it had yet to be rewarded.