Vampire Redemption

by Phil Tucker

  Plessy's goal had always been to merge with human society. Seduce it, lure it into thinking of vampires as alluring figures of sexual power and inordinate cool. That's why he'd run all those TV programs, done all that PR. This war was almost perfect for him. It allowed him to actually act on his promises, his words. To play the part of a concerned friend. To demonstrate to one and all that he and his vampires had humanity's best interests at heart.

  Say Plessy and Lynnfield managed to win the war. Contain the Blood Thralls so that they died off. The political landscape would be forever changed, with Plessy's vampires hailed as heroes, staunch human allies. The walls of the 'Free City of Miami' would drop. Plessy would win. He and his vampires would gain unparalleled access to humanity, from its government down. From there, it would take little effort to take power, control the right people, and ultimately lead the country. Maybe not in the first five years, or even ten, but that didn't matter. What were twenty-five years, or even fifty, to a vampire, especially if they were then seen as living saviors from humanity's greatest war?

  Selah shivered. Her head was spinning. If they lost to the Blood Thralls, then Louis and his LA vampires would rule a devastated country, an apocalyptic wasteland that would be unable to resist his depredations. If they beat the Blood Thralls, then that would only pave the way for Plessy and his Miami vampires, who would step up as heroes and finally slip the bonds of their imprisonment, setting the stage for their corruption and coup of the US government.

  With a groan, she pulled off the Goggles and the rainforest was replaced by the dim interior of the Subaru once more. Dominique was asleep beside her, head resting on McKnight's shoulder. Who stared out at the mountains. Gordon was asleep as well. Lee was focused on the road. Selah's heart raced. She looked out her window, through her dim reflection at the line of trees that sped by in the dusk. What were they supposed to do? Win or lose, the vampires would come out ahead.

  Chapter 19

  It took just over two hours to hit the Denver city limits. There was no traffic once they passed Grand Junction, and the I70 was clear all the way through the small towns that lined its route. Selah stared at the town signs, read the names, but each one was abandoned and dark. Rifle. Glenwood Springs. Gypsum. Eagle. Edwards. Vail. The interstate was broad and desolate as it carved its sinuous path through the mountains. The Subaru didn't have a live windshield, so instead Selah followed their progress on her Omni, watching as the great sprawling mass of Denver drew ever closer.

  Finally, the mountains fell back and were replaced by broad hills, small outlying suburbs glimpsed in their hollows, brilliantly lit against the vast panoply of night sky and stars. She called the General, not bothering with the Goggles or earbuds.

  General Adams answered, his weathered face filling the small screen. "We place you on the edge of town. That about right?"

  Selah looked out the window. "We just passed a sign that said Exit 260, 6th Avenue and Colorado Springs. We're heading straight in."

  "All right. I've got a team ready to provide escort. They're pulled over on the shoulder perhaps a half-mile ahead of you, under the 470 overpass. They'll pull out behind you, and then they'll give you a call." General Adams smiled. "I think you'll be pleased with who's there to meet you."

  "Oh yeah?" Selah tried to think. "Somebody I know?"

  "You'll see. They'll lead you a safe house where you can spend the night and we can make plans. Timing is critical now. This whole war could be over within the month if we don't contain it. So drive safe and I'll talk to you when you're in the safe house."

  He cut the connection. Selah looked forward. "You get that Lee?"

  "470 overpass. Got it." Lee didn't look good. His face glistened with sweat and his short hair was spiked with it.

  "You all right?"

  He smiled, the expression tight, almost feral, and wiped his forearm across his face. "I'm fine."

  "Withdrawal," said Dominique, her voice quiet, almost dreamy. Selah blinked and stared at her. She was still resting her head back, looking past Selah out the window. "He overdosed last night. Now his system is crashing."

  "Crashing?" Selah sat forward and turned to face Dominique fully. "What does that mean, crashing?"

  "Nothing," said Lee. "It just means I feel like shit. I'll be fine. A day or two. All I need."

  Dominique nodded. "It's like coming down off heroin. He won't be fine. We've documented what happened to the apes when this happened. I'm surprised he's still able to drive."

  "What?" Selah looked to Lee, who simply hunched his shoulders. "Lee. Do you need to pull over? I can drive."

  "So can I," said McKnight, stirring. "There's no need for this."

  "I'm fine. All right, not fine." His grin reappeared, all teeth, no humor. "But I can drive. Trust me. It's not a problem."

  Selah looked past Dominique at McKnight. They shared a troubled glance and Selah sat back. Gordon was still knocked out. Dominique had closed her eyes again. From her voice, it had sounded like she hadn't really woken up.

  "There," said McKnight.

  Selah peered over Gordon's shoulder. The overpass. Lee approached it at a steady ninety miles an hour, but as they drew closer he eased off the speed, slowing down to sixty right as they went under the first overpass. There were three of them in quick succession and a car pulled out after them when they passed the center one. It fell behind at first, but then picked up speed. Selah's Omni vibrated, an anonymous window opening on the screen registering the incoming call.

  Selah tapped the acceptance button and a familiar bespectacled face appeared, beaming widely at her. "Chico!"

  "Selah! How are you?" His voice was warm and rich with genuine pleasure. He'd lost weight since she had seen him, his face gaunt. Eyes narrow behind the glasses as he smiled, stubble thick along his jaw, but Chico all the same.

  "Good. I've been better, but not in a long time. Are you here? In the car behind us?"

  "I am. Cloud and I have kept in touch since ... well, LA. I got out when you told us to. The guys and I ran for Vegas and I stayed there a week before things got too dangerous and I moved on. I've been in Boulder for a week now, trying to figure out my next move. And now you show up!"

  The screen suddenly swerved as a voice spoke up in eagerness and then Chico's face was replaced by that of a young kid wearing an eye patch, his hair teased into slender dreads that ended in tiny bells. "Selah!"

  Selah grinned. "Ramonito!" She almost bounced in place, a mixture of happiness and relief flooding her. The familiar face almost made her want to cry as the walls she had erected these past few weeks tumbled, after all the despair and pain and solitude was hit by Ramonito's mega-watt smile.

  "Selah! I've been fine, Chico's been taking care of me. He's not so bad. Where are you? Are you really here?" Before she could answer, the Omni swooped and swung again and Chico's face reappeared. She heard Ramonito complaining loudly in the background, but Chico ignored him.

  "Where are we going, Chico? It's so good to see you guys. I didn't know if you made it out, if anybody made it out."

  "We did, but it was crazy there for awhile. And you. Look at your eyes! You did it. You're healed. Good for you, Selah." He nodded. "I knew things would work out for you. I knew it."

  Selah pursed her lips and nodded. Now wasn't the time to explain what had happened to Theo. Padrino Machado's death. Instead, "Where we headed? Is it far?"

  "No. Listen, we'll pull in front. Follow us, okay? We're like ten minutes away. I've not been there before, but Ethan--you'll meet him there--he's got everything set up."

  "Sounds good. See you soon, Chico." She couldn't help but match his smile. It was infectious, sincere, open, and when he clicked off, she felt a warm feeling of friendship and relief flood through her. The car behind them pulled ahead and Lee slipped in behind it. She didn't both trying to figure out where they were going, the Omni tracked them on its map, but she simply gazed out the window at the city. It was an endless sprawl and never seemed to resolve itsel
f into an actual city. She told Lee and McKnight--she still had trouble thinking of her as Rebecca--about Chico and Ramonito, filled them in as to who they were and what role they had played in LA's last nights. They turned off on Route 6, and everywhere there were trees and inhabited homes, but no skyscrapers, no tall buildings.

  "Man," she said. "Denver is the flattest city I've ever seen."

  "There's a downtown," said McKnight. "You just need to get into the Lincoln Park area. We're still out in Lakewood. It's pretty suburban around here."

  "I thought you were from LA?" asked Selah.

  "My family had a home not far from where we are now." McKnight looked out the window. "We'd come up winters sometimes. My dad would work, we'd head up into the mountains and ski, snowboard, whatever." She pursed her lips. "That was a long time ago."

  "Oh," said Selah. "They still around? Your family?"

  "My dad is. Lost my brother in the first War. My mother passed away before the War started up." McKnight's voice was soft. "Sometimes I think it was a mercy. Her passing away before the first vampire got caught. Sometimes."

  Selah didn't know what to say. "My mother passed away in the War. A car accident, nothing to do with vampires. My dad... Well, you know about him."

  "Yeah," said McKnight. "Listen. There wasn't much information in his file. All I saw was that he's being held in a New York prison called Rikers Island."

  Selah chewed this over. Rikers Island. She'd spent long nights at the USAMRIID trying to figure out how she could get hold of her father, help get him freed. He'd violated the censorship laws. Which meant as soon as the information became declassified, she could start working on getting him freed. A hard knot of excitement formed in her stomach. Hadn't Cloud just told her she had a national platform now? Maybe she could use it to break open the news on the Hybrid Program. With the War raging on, that wasn't going to be such a big deal anymore. She could blow it wide open, and that would force the information to become declassified, wouldn't it? She took a deep breath and felt her stomach flutter. It might work. It really could work. She'd ask the General to look into it when they got to the safe house. Now that she was free, she'd find him. She nodded to herself and looked back out the window. She finally had a chance to free her dad.

  They pulled off Route 6 and drove north for a few minutes before taking a side street into a quiet neighborhood. Large, beautiful trees grew along its length, and verdant gardens hid the houses, which were set back from the curb. Everything was still and quiet, but Selah took reassurance from the lights that blazed from emergency exterior lighting outside the homes.

  They got out of the car and then Chico was striding toward her, arms open, grin almost twice as wide, and he enveloped her in a big hug that lifted her right off the ground. His eyes practically disappeared as he smiled, and he kept one hand on her shoulder as Ramonito stepped up, suddenly shy. Selah grinned and hugged him tightly, prompting him to give her a quick hug and then step back. Turning, she introduced them to Lee and McKnight. Together, they helped move Gordon and Dominique into the house, getting off the street as quickly as they could.

  Their escort proved to be a team of three older soldiers, or special agents, Selah couldn't tell. Their lead guy was called Ethan. He had short, spiky black hair shot with gray, a face that had clearly been handsome when he was younger, but was now carved with thick lines due to what must have been decades of stress. With him was Fred, a stately woman with regal cheekbones, thick black hair that she had up in a French twist, and tawny skin so lustrous that Selah had trouble believing she was over forty. The last guy was called Sam and looked like Gordon's younger brother, rangy and heavy around the shoulders, but with a compact, square face that managed to look both sympathetic and grim.

  The house had two stories, and had been retrofitted for security during the first War. Impenetrable hurricane shutters were bolted over the windows and the door was made of reinforced steel covered with a wooden veneer. As soon as they were all in, Ethan flipped open a large control panel and toggled a bunch of switches to 'on.'

  Once Gordon and Dominique were placed in beds upstairs, they gathered in the kitchen. Ethan, it turned out, had served under General Adams back in the day when the General had been a mere Captain in the army. They'd kept in touch once Ethan had transferred out into a now defunct special espionage team, where he'd met Fred and Sam.

  Selah held her mug of hot chocolate and let the military types hash things out, intent on Chico. Ramonito sat next to her, taking big gulps from his drink. She began to catch them both up on what had happened since he, Armando, and Cloud had saved her in LA, but he cut her off. "The General wants to be debriefed. Might as well tell the story only once, right?"

  They patched the General in on a large screen in the living room, and there, Selah told everybody the truth. She began by stating the nature of her curse, how she had discovered it in Miami, outlining quickly how she and Theo had killed Sawiskera with Cloud's help. Then onto LA, their discovery of the Blood Thralls, Arachne's destruction, and how she had cured herself. That was hard. She simply stared at the wall above the screen as she recounted how Theo had dug out his own heart, how she had consumed it, and why. Again, the guilt washed over her, but she fought it down. She thought of Theo, back in the mountains, alone in the dark with nothing but a feral hunger for her death to drive him on. The silence in the room told her nothing, expressing neither approval nor disapproval, so she plunged on, explaining how she had summoned the military to take her in, and everything that had happened since then.

  When she finally got to McCance, her voice was hoarse. She shrugged and offered the General a bitter smile. "So there you have it. The life and times of Selah Brown. I checked the news while we were driving down. Is it true? Are we-- Is President Lynnfield forming a joint task force with the vampires from Miami? How is that better than a vaccine?"

  General Adams looked as if he had just tasted something sour. "Well, first let me congratulate you and your friends for accomplishing a very difficult series of tasks. It's no exaggeration when I state that our survival, our chances for victory, depend on your vaccine. Had you not done what you did, had you given up, then, well...

  "That said, yes. It seems as if Lynnfield is eager to climb in bed with Plessy and join forces. There has been a lot of consequent civil unrest, but the public does not have a viable alternative at the moment, and the fear that the rapid spread of these 'Blood Thralls,' as you call them, has generated has made the public very pliable. Friends of mine have told me that special ops teams are already being formed, composed of vampires and humans both. Further intel has reported humans being deliberately vampirized to boost the strength of these teams."

  Lee had been half asleep in an armchair, face slick with sweat and shivering, but his eyes snapped open at this last. "You're kidding me. We're what?"

  The General nodded gravely. "The Hybrid Program has been deemed insufficient. This is what we have come to. Lynnfield has bartered our country's soul for the chance to fight fire with fire, not giving thought to what may come down the road. The idea is that only vampires can fight vampires effectively, and that by unleashing trained squads upon the Blood Thralls, we will be able to stem their momentum long enough for the infected to collapse."

  "Leaving us with who knows how many trained vampire hit squads on the loose," said McKnight.

  "It's more than that," said Selah. Everybody turned to look at her, and for a moment only, it felt strange to have so many professional and dangerous people take her interjection with such gravity. "If Lynnfield and Plessy win, if they beat back the LA infection, then sure, we'll have vampire hit squads out there. But they'll be our saviors." She remembered Cloud's original lecture back in Miami. How he had outlined Plessy's plans with such fervor and conviction. Now here she was, making his argument. "Plessy's PR campaign will have won. Everybody will believe that the Miami vampires are different, that they're good, that they care about us. Within a few years, you can bet the Miami Wall will
come down, and Plessy will be free. Him and all his vampires will be welcomed back into society, and then its pretty much game over."

  Everybody but General Adams took a moment to process this. The General simply nodded.

  "Well, shit," said Ethan. He hoisted himself up onto the kitchen counter. "Then we need to arrange a hit on Plessy. Sabotage their relationship."

  That stopped people in their tracks. Selah saw Fred nod. The General didn't look convinced. "Perhaps. The risks are very high. If the hit fails, it will only bring Plessy more sympathy."

  Ethan smiled, and Selah saw a trace of what must have been his boyish charm. "The greater the risk, the higher the payoff."

  Fred nodded once more, "We don't even have to get in close. Remote detonation. I doubt even a vampire could withstand a concentrated blast of C4."

  The General raised his hands. "Well, let's table that for the moment. We need to focus on the most important long-term option we have--getting a vaccine made. That's our only real option. With a vaccine, we can blunt the Blood Thrall's advance, if not stop it altogether, and make Plessy's offer redundant."

  "What about Lynnfield?" asked Selah. "He's said no to the vaccine. How are we going to make him go along with it now?"

  "We won't give him a choice." The general's smile was smooth and cold. "We'll present the vaccine to the public and allow the consequent pressure to force his hand. He can only sit on the vaccine while nobody knows about it, or while he can claim it's an urban legend. Real proof will give him no choice. So what we need is to get you and Dominique to an appropriate lab as soon as possible."