Blood Reign

by Harvey W. McCarthy

  Governor Murray swallowed hard. "Understood, My Queen."

  "However, since you are a descendant and you have been respectful and successful without any signs of being a pompous ass, I will permit your title, but I will never call you governor. Understood?" she asked.

  He bowed slightly. "Absolutely, My Queen."

  "And for your real name?"

  "Jonathan."

  "Well, Jonathan, I need to know about your recent movements against the council in this region."

  He cleared his throat. "We haven't moved against the council, My Queen."

  "And why not?" she asked coldly.

  "As you know, England is one of their strongholds. The various churches in the country as well as the government have supported them financially for centuries. Their ranks are numerous and…"

  "…my empire has provided you with resources that rival the most powerful nations in the world and yet you cower in fear?" she asked angrily but she refrained from striking out. The blood had calmed her thirst except her thirst for knowledge.

  He adjusted his tie. If vampires could sweat, buckets of water would have been streaming down his pale, but well-groomed face. "I…I…I have used those resources to tap into their communications network."

  "Quit fucking stammering before I lose what is left of my patience," she said as she sat back in her seat and folded her hands. "You have my interest. What have you learned?"

  He relaxed slightly. "The council is powerful as I stated. Their warriors are numerous and they have been taking the war to us. By being able to track their movements, we have been able to maneuver our cells away from their pending strikes. Apparently, they are tracking our every move."

  "They have found your hacker and they are using your communications against you."

  "I…I hadn't thought of that," he said shamefully as he looked away.

  "Suck it up," she ordered. "We can use it to our advantage."

  "I fail to see…"

  "If you shut up, I'll tell you."

  "Forgive me," he said, "Please if you will."

  "Thank you," she said sweetly as she crossed her legs again. "I want you to leak the location of one of our nests. Give them details of how many vampires will be in the building and who will be there."

  "Won't that hamper our ability to surprise them?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Think, gov-nar," she said as she sarcastically accented his title.

  "We tell them that we have a hundred vampires but really we have two hundred," he said.

  "A thousand actually, but that won't draw them there."

  "It won't."

  "What will?"

  "I will."

  He gasped. "My Queen, we can't possibly use you as bait. You are much too…"

  "Oh shut up with the pompous bullshit. You're starting to annoy me. I have killed thousands of their warriors and embarrassed their leaders. I can handle myself. If I am there, they will send their best warriors to stop me."

  "And when they do?"

  "We'll kill them all except for their general."

  "Why?"

  She smirked. "I will have a use for him."

  "And where will this ambush take place and when?"

  "Tomorrow night."

  "I will send out the call."

  "Yes, but you will wait for my command. We have to find that hole in firewall and plug it. I have the best people for that task. Then, we will open it so we can track what information that they receive. Call your minions and send them to the location."

  "And the location will be?"

  She smiled. "Ever been to Canterbury, Jonathan?"

  They both smiled.

  * * *

  HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA

  Larry parted the curtains to their hotel room. A rogue ray of sunlight snuck through the clouds and into their room. He smiled. A ray of hope? He asked himself. As quickly as it had appeared, the clouds, which had dominated the weather since their arrival, closed on the sun and it disappeared from sight. Guess not, he thought.

  The dark and gloomy weather had allowed their adversary to move freely during the day when under bright sunny weather, she would have had limited ability to set her destructive plans in motion. She set forth a destructive path that had left total carnage in her wake. The destruction was played out on a global scale. Terrorist groups had laid claim to the deaths resulting from the explosion that had destroyed an entire police station and the crime lab which it housed. The traveling Titanic exhibit had lost irreplaceable artifacts and the museum's reputation had been damaged beyond repair. However, the dark and gloomy weather served as an appropriate metaphor for the mood of the room and the Council of the Light at large: Complete depression.

  He closed the curtains and turned back to the room. David worked on his laptop. He was working feverishly trying to itemize the latest reports from the council. Larry knew that David was working only to keep his mind away from their recent problems. Also, he knew that David was keeping his attention away from Chris. His typing was angry. Each keystroke had fire. If he were to unleash that same fury on anyone in the room, then their fragile partnership would crumble faster than the governments of the Eastern Bloc countries at the end of the twentieth century.

  Larry heard Chris step from the bathroom. He had been showering which was also his feeding time. Larry had advised Chris that David was not happy with him. Chris understood as he was unhappy with himself. Larry had advised him to drink his blood in the bathroom so he wouldn't increase David's distain. Larry figured that if David saw him drinking blood that he wouldn't get over the fact that he was a vampire. They agreed that it would be in everyone's best interest to get David to refocus his energy.

  Chris used a towel to dry his hair. David didn't even acknowledge his presence. He continued his online chat with a member of the council. Larry noticed that his typing speed had increased. The constant clicking of the keys was the only sound in the confines of their small room. Chris continued to dry his hair as Larry picked up the bag of clothes that he had purchased at a local second hand store. Due to perceived terrorist threats, everything was being monitored. Withdrawing large sums of funds from an international account might draw unwanted attention to them, so Larry used what little cash that they had available to purchase some clean clothes.

  He reached into the bag and found a shirt. He tossed it to Chris who caught it. He held up the shirt and glanced at it. The multi-colored checkered shirt nearly crossed his eyes.

  "You're kidding right?" the vampire hunter asked.

  "No, I'm not," Larry replied as he continued to look through the large bag of clothes.

  Chris tossed his damp towel over the back of a chair. He put on the very dated shirt.

  "What are you looking for now?" Chris asked.

  "The pants that I bought in your size," Larry replied.

  "Please tell me that you purchased them somewhere other than the Herb Tarlek collection," Chris urged.

  Larry giggled at the Herb Tarlek reference. "No, you won't be looking like the sales manager from WKRP in Cincinnati," he replied as he threw Chris a pair of beat up jeans.

  Chris caught the jeans and put them on. He hopped up and down to get his legs into the slightly tight jeans. After successfully buttoning his jeans, he leaned over and put on his combat boots. As he tied his boots, he realized that he wouldn't be winning any fashion shows.

  "I thought the whole concept was to blend in?" Chris asked as he glanced at his outfit.

  "Didn't have much to spend after paying cash for the room," Larry said. "The council has advised everyone against using any of our credit cards for the next twenty-four hours."

  "Makes sense," Chris admitted.

  "About the only thing that does," David said without look up from his keyboard.

  Larry glanced at Chris who shrugged his shoulders. He knew that David would be resentful but he never expected that it would last this long. Larry continued to dig through the bag for the last few items. He tossed the sh
irt that he bought David onto his laptop. Angrily, David tossed it onto the floor. It was Larry's turn to shrug. He looked at Chris and they both shrugged.

  "Well, this is interesting," David mumbled.

  Larry and Chris walked behind David to read over his shoulder.

  "Care to share?" Chris asked.

  David glanced back at Chris before turning back to his laptop. "There has been an unusual increase in internet chatter along council channels."

  Larry sat on the bed immediately behind David, but he had a clear view of the screen. He removed his glasses from his shirt pocket put them on. "Anything of note?" he asked as he struggled to read the rapidly moving lines of text.

  A new chat box opened and the name 'General Scott' appeared. "Well, I say something of note just happened," David said.

  A middle-aged man with slightly grey hair appeared on the screen as a video chat was opened. The man, who had a dark complexion, appeared very calm. His wireless rim glasses highlighted the lines around his eyes. His dark eyes were cold. He stared directly at the camera.

  "Good day, gentlemen," he said sternly.

  "General Scott," Larry asked, "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

  The man scoffed. "This will not be pleasurable at all," he replied. "I am here to be debriefed about your recent exploits."

  Chris stepped into view of the camera. "They were not exploits, General."

  "Bloodheart," Scott said coldly. "My pleasure."

  Chris stared directly at the camera. "General Scott, you are a man of the cloth or have you forgotten your calling?"

  General Scott stared icily at Chris. "You of all people, and I use that term loosely, should not question anyone about their calling."

  "Fair enough, but then do not lie to me by stating that our conversation will be pleasurable when we both know that it will be anything but," Chris replied.

  David and Larry glanced at each other. The conversation between the high-ranking member of the council and their friend couldn't be any colder if they were reading a script from a movie. Larry winked at David which told him to sit quietly. He wanted to allow them to continue their conversation. Both men turned their attention back to the computer.

  "I tried to be polite, but alas what else should I expect for your kind?" General Scott asked.

  "Just get on with it," Chris commanded.

  The English man glared at Chris. "You do not have the right to…"

  "Five hundred years of loyal service long before you were born gives me the right," Chris snapped.

  The room was silent except for everyone's breathing. Chris stared at the screen. The angry Englishman stared back at his warrior. Chris would not blink. Finally, General Scott shook his head.

  "Tell me what happened," General Scott said.

  "Where and when?" Chris asked.

  "Start with the explosion," General Scott stated.

  Larry raised his hand. "I believe that either David or I know more about the explosion than Chris."

  "Go ahead," General Scott urged.

  "Apparently, explosives, a large amount of explosives, were hidden within some luggage that the police had found on an airplane from Denver," Larry said.

  "And the dogs didn't notice it?" General Scott asked.

  "And who are we discussing?" David added.

  General Scott nodded. "True, she has access to a countless number of illegal markets that we cannot begin to comprehend."

  "Yes," Larry said, "And apparently she made use of them. The damage was catastrophic but it only was the first act of her plan."

  "Continue," General Scott said.

  Chris cleared his throat. "She was able to get the tome by attacking and nearly destroying the museum where it was stored. She used the explosion to distract the police and gridlock the city thusly preventing our ability to stop her."

  "I heard some rather disturbing news that our efforts were also hampered by a lack of communication from a member of our team," General Scott said as he stared at Chris.

  "I will admit to being distracted by Damien Le Doux and my hatred of him, but I did track him and the vampire queen to the museum."

  "And you were unsuccessful," General Scott added.

  "In stopping the queen, yes, but only because it took me awhile to discover their location. Had I been able to arrive even thirty minutes earlier, she would be dead," Chris said confidently.

  "And you were late because?" General Scott pressed.

  "The gridlock created by our allies," Chris said. "Moving on foot between locations and through checkpoints greatly slowed my progress."

  "I can confirm his troubles," Larry said. "We had the same problems."

  "Very well," General Scott said reluctantly. "And the location of the tome and the queen?"

  "Unknown," David said, "But I am monitoring their chatter."

  "And the battle in the hotel room?" General Scott questioned.

  "She left us a minion to slow our progress," David said.

  "How could she possibly…"

  David stared coldly at the council leader. "Does the how really matter?"

  "Know your place, young man," General Scott scolded.

  Before David could reply angrily, Larry interjected. "What I believe my colleague is trying to say is how she was able to raise a powerful minion in a public place is irrelevant. We need to be focused on finding her and stopping her before she obtains any more tomes."

  "Fair enough," General Scott said. "Do we have any idea of what she is trying to achieve?"

  "Chaos? Destruction?" David asked sarcastically.

  "Knowledge," Chris replied.

  "Knowledge?" General Scott asked.

  "The ultimate power," Chris said.

  "And what power will that knowledge give her?" General Scott asked.

  "Unknown but it must be something important enough for her to go through all this trouble," Larry said.

  "Very well," General Scott said. "I expect to be updated more frequently and see better results in the future."

  Before anyone could reply, the screen went black. Larry shook his head. Chris grabbed his towel from his chair and headed towards the bathroom. David snapped his head back and forth between both men as he silently demanded an answer.

  "What the fuck was that?" David demanded.

  "Standard operating procedures," Chris called from the bathroom.

  "What the fuck does that mean?" David demanded.

  "It means that they expect us to know everything when they call and they get pissed off when we don't," Larry replied.

  "Yep," Chris said as stepped out from the bathroom.

  "Well, I…I…I…" David stammered.

  "Forget trying to understand everything, David," Chris said coldly. "In this war, not everything is easily explained or understood. We just have to overcome, improvise and adapt."

  David was about to argue with Chris when an alert from his computer drew his attention back to the computer screen. His search parameters, along encrypted council chat traffic, had generated a notification.

  "What does it say?" Chris asked.

  "I had it searching for any unusual warrior movements," David replied.

  "Spying on our own communications?" Larry asked.

  "They are not always forthcoming with what they know," David replied.

  "That sounds almost like treason," Larry quipped.

  "Sounds like adapting to me," David replied.

  He glanced at Chris who nodded his approval. "What is it saying?"

  David read the encrypted message carefully. To the untrained eye, it looked like a conversation between two teenager girls about school, boys, and then more about boys. However, to David's trained eye, it was carefully encoded text that detailed where their warriors were about to attack.

  David cleared his throat. "Our warriors are getting ready to strike a vampire nest."

  "Are you sure?" Chris pressed.

  "Yes," David said confidently. "They have cracked an encrypted vampire code a
nd a large number of vampires are held up nearby. Apparently, they are planning to attack at an unknown location, but our warriors are preparing a preemptive strike. Their numbers are currently low and they believe that they can destroy the nest before it can be fortified."