Branoc rubbed his hands together after we passed through the door.
“Oily?”
“Yes.”
Another similarly oily door opened into the cavernous plant beyond.
A transformer hummed to the right where large diameter conduits, that looked like plumbing soil stacks from a house, chopped through the plant concrete and arched into a series of large breaker boxes with stickers proclaiming 480 Volts, Danger, and Follow Lockout Procedures. The conduits a mix of steel snakes and the knuckles of giants buzzing with anxious energy to inflict that danger they warned of.
Pallets and crates blocked our view and forced our path to wend around before it opened up so we could see further into the cavern. Emptiness filled the space. Conduits hung from the ceiling and showed tears in their lengths, twisted ends, dangling bare wires. A few showed the charred marks of wires that had arched in dying gasps before the circuit breakers sensed something wrong and tripped their bi-metallic strips.
Light filtered through open holes and broken dirty windows. Rifle bullet holes revealed themselves about the upper reaches of the metal sides. Water dripped from roof leaks. Chunks of unknown metal debris tumbled about, cast aside in haste. A strange smell blanketed the building. The sulfur of rotten eggs. Racks of stainless steel frames with slider shelves falling askew, their black wheels tipped off the floor. Trays matching them flung about like so many Frisbees. The trays showed the dimples of egg cartons.
Garin said, “Eggs.”
“Where are the chickens?” Branoc poked at one of the tipped over racks.
Garin continued, “They are using eggs to grow something. Something nasty I expect.”
A big metal box on the side of the building blasted out chilled air with a racket like a wind turbine.
Garin followed my eyes, “chiller for incoming inventory.” He pointed to a stack of empty cardboard industrial kitchen egg trays. A bucket outside the door had a stream of big lazy black flies buzzing excitedly around its rim. Probably wise to give that a wide margin in passing. The concrete shined with oil in many places. In other places, a light dusting of sandy talc powder covered the oiled concrete. Garin answered for me, lifting his boot and looking at the tread, “Looks like they sprinkled stuff on the floor to soak up the oil rather than try cleaning it carefully. It’s obviously an old machining plant. Probably CNC machining cells with the amount of old oil about here.”
Branoc walked to a worn standing metal desk near the shipping dock door. Papers lay strewn across it. “Garin, look at these papers.”
Garin and I stepped over. Garin lifted a few.
“These look like the notes and similar writing that we saw at the aluminum plant.”
“That’s what I thought too, another hidden terrorist plant. And now their equipment is gone.”
Garin walked back over to the center of the floor. The dangling conduits and torn wires dangerously close. He knelt down and looked at the floor closely. Then he looked up at the ceiling. “It really looks like they yanked the equipment out in a hurry and moved somewhere. The fork-truck over there hasn’t been plugged back in, just parked.”
Branoc went to the fork-truck. He peered at the gauges, “Charge shows nearly empty.”
“So they burned up the batteries moving equipment and left. Not what you’d do if you planned returning. You’d remember to charge it.”
“That’s probably right. Who do you think took it out?”
“None of the terrorists survived to work this problem. It’s our assassin team.”
I asked, “What do you think the assassins are doing?”
“I shouldn’t say the assassins but whoever hired the assassins. We don’t know them yet.”
“Maybe we do, or will,” Branoc said. He poked at some papers on the desk. The margin of one receipt for eggs had a note in blue ink.
“What’s it say?”
“Landfill meeting at three am.”
“Why meet at a landfill?” I asked.
“Which landfill?” Garin said. His eyes caught mine.
“There are only some lines and a star.” Branoc turned the paper in his hand, “What do you think the lines show?”
Garin leaned in, “That looks like the road out to Landfill Park, from that mark there like a stop light and then the wiggly line going to the top.”
“A quiet meeting. Not disposing of something.”
“There?” I remembered the night of my first date with Garin. Why did I agree to it? My life would be so much different now. Those eyes of his. That mysteriously handsome face hid the danger of the predator that I fell victim to. A kiss before the rain that hooked my feelings for him into my flesh. The feelings from that night. Before the wind and the rain flung us into his car to escape getting wet. My body prickled at the memory. Stuff I’d shoved into a dark corner of my memory. It all flew free and tapped into my nervous system.
Branoc’s eyes alighted on me, “Anna, why are you blushing?”
“No reason.”
Garin hesitated, “I took Anna there on our first date.”
“First date?” Branoc leaned back, not sure if he should laugh or not, “What kind of magic can you weave to get a girl to go with you to the top of a landfill?”
“It’s not like that. It’s the highest point around Livix and it’s transformed into a nice park up there. A bench. Secluded and private –”
“Because it’s a landfill!” Branoc let go of the desk and flipped the paper back on the pile, “I’m going to have to get some lessons from you Garin. You’re twenty-something and talk smooth enough to convince pretty girls like that.”
I blushed and felt manipulated. Or not. Unsure. “It’s nicer up there than it sounds.”
Branoc stared at me. Then he said, “We should leave. I have equipment to get for tonight.”
-:- -:- -:-
The moonlight splashed over the top of the old landfill giving everything a ghostly undead sheen except for the shadows shading Doctor Theron Aravant under the clump of birch trees. He stood on a bare patch of dirt left alone by the otherwise lush grass that reached to the ridge overlooking the city of Livix. Lights from the city winked on and off in the distant little hovels spread across the city.
“Three AM and all clear,” said the thin vampire girl. She wrinkled her nose under her dark mascara and eye shadow that Theron had seen popular girls wearing lately. She wore black jeans and a long rock concert T-shirt with tour dates for a local celebrity rock singer songwriter Darek. Finished with the little programs on her phone used to sweep the area and ensure no surveillance equipment listened to their discussion, she folded her phone into a little case. She took a seat on the park bench away from the others. She didn’t have any input in their planning, and seemed a bit bored.
A twang like strumming a short guitar string sounded across the field. The long distance hid the sound under the cricket noises from their vampire hearing. This something touched a few leaves and ticked into the bark of the espalier tree near the park bench. At the end of the long needle projectile dangled a tiny microphone with a battery that used the wire of the needle as its antenna. Branoc tuned in his receiver and set the little portable wrist rocket down on the car seat. The receiver plugged into the car’s radio input jack that normal people plugged their portable music player into so the eleven speaker surround-sound system accurately repeated the signal slung from the microphone.
“– No more will the vampires need to hide. We will be unafraid of revealing ourselves. We will be like the lions openly lounging by the zebras and the wildebeests.”
“Zebras have yet to invent grenades or high powered rifles – or swords,” said the tall scientist Jorg.
“Maximizing the legacy, glory, and power of Vampires. Right Doctor?”
“Yes. And no errant wildebeests to concern ourselves with. Jorg, has Reginald been helpful in setting up the virus multiplier equipment?”
“He’s a smart little twit. We got that set up. But I had to watch him as
I saw he’d spiked a few pieces of the initial grow instrumentation pulled from Ramsburgh Industries as they packaged the shipment.”
“He’ll fight with the base human urges. He’ll come around.”
“I think so.”
“Why do you still have that hand cuff on your wrist?”
“It’s my bracelet. A tough guy has to wear some jewelry,” he laughed with a noise that indicated it unwise to mess with him, “and a reminder of my stay and escape from jail. Challenging keeping from drinking a few of those pretentious criminals.”
“Your size probably kept them quiet?”
“No. Not the tough guys.” Jorg rubbed his hands together, “Most figure out not to squabble or the guards will shake them down. But the two or three at the top of the power pyramid are always directly or indirectly trying to maneuver themselves into the top spot. The second tough guy doesn’t like being second. Not that it does them any good.”
“So you had fun?”
“Yes. My kind of fun. Nothing like having a hundred years on them. They are sissies now with their prisoner’s rights and whining. Televisions in their cells! Not like the tough prisons in the nineteen tens.”
“You experienced the prisons as a human or a vampire?”
“Of course I tasted them. First as a human and later as a vampire. I kept busy. Either cooking something outside in my labs or inside when they caught me for blowing something up. Back then they investigated less if a prisoner bled out without any pooling evidence around them.” He rubbed his big bald head with a heavy ham hand. A spiked grin on his face.
“I see,” said the Doctor, “how is the foodifier equipment installation progressing?”
“As planned,” Jorg grunted. He continued, “I am running it through pre-launch testing.”
The doctor seemed satisfied with the news, “Klava, what of the aerosol part of the project?”
Klava pulled at her jumpsuit, “Vermilion Genomics is ahead of schedule.”
“Good. Do we have the vampire antidote in sufficient volume yet?”
Her eyes came up and she said, “Yes.”
“Excellent. Our unwitting accomplices in this, the local militia and those misguided vampire terrorists, helped us more than we could have guessed, or hoped. It only took a few nudges at the right times to get them interested in the projects and then to get them running the projects without any more input from us.”
Klava said, “Like planting seeds in the spring and returning in the fall to reap our harvest. They weeded and tended to the crop all summer long.”
“Then we collected everything and transported it to our final staging location.”
“Shortly that whole town will be our foodified farm,” Jorg added, rubbing the top of his head like distributing an evil condiment over it that spread across his lips into a gash of a smile.
A tick in the back of Aravant’s mind throbbed to attention. Fresh blood to consume without fear. How many centuries of waiting for science to progress? How many decades positioning his plans? But now it melded satisfactorily.
Klava said, “Don’t tempt fate with that kind of proclamation.”
“That’s wise Klava, as usual,” Aravant said. That is what he worried about. Fate is a fickle female that caused him heartache throughout the centuries. He needed to plan further and anticipate where and when she might strike. He looked longingly over the town, “I’ll need blood before this last push. We should ensure a good feeding tonight.”
Jorg said, “Homework I can enjoy.” An easy smile broadening his thick face. “If that’s enough of an update, I’d like to get back to the machines and finish the test setups … and take care of my homework.”
“Thank you both for the updates. I’ll contact you for the next meeting.”
A burst of movement, no vehicles necessary, and the landfill park settled back to the crickets.
Garin said, “I recognize the first speaker’s voice. But I can’t remember where.”
I thought. Then I had it. “The Victorian Festival –”
“– Yeah. That’s right.” Garin looked out the window. The distance of the horizon did not provide any new clues as they listened.
“From the big speech –”
“That’s not the Mayor.”
“No. One of the others.”
“The banker Aravant?”
“No. Can’t imagine it’s him. He’s the CEO of The Bank of Draydon. What would he gain by this?”
“Could it be him? Really be him – maybe he had this idea for a long time but technology only now enables it?”
“I suppose it could be. But why?”
“He’s old. I think nearly a thousand years. And they say an old vampire needs projects and a purpose if ever to stay an old vampire.”
“No. None of the vampires around are a thousand years old.”
“Hard to do yes. But he’s probably closer than any in the New World.”
“And what he lectured about at the Festival. It doesn’t sound like a fit for the two dichotomies.”
“Really? I think it could be a perfect fit. Trying to calm everyone to the coming menace or worse really believe his own babble and trying to fix both the current economic situation and the vampire problems with one massive solution.”
“Not good.”
“That’s right. If he believes his own stuff – not good.”
-:- Four -:-
Theron slouched in his iron bound Black Forest oak chair and gripped its arm rests for how long he did not know. He leaned forward across the rough table that he used as his desk and touched a little inlaid box made by a forgotten eighteenth century English cabinet maker. “Did I drink that man? So many it’s hard to remember. He did excellent work. The best. Why do I think this box is his final trinket?” He lifted the artful lid slowly and retrieved the necklace inside.
Shadows of memories flickered across his mind as the pendant slipped out over the edge of the box. “How I’ve missed you Ora,” he said to the circle of hammered gold clutching a diamond inexpertly cut by warriors of the Northern barbarian lands she came from. The touch of the metal and the way the chain draped across his fingers reminded him. “So long ago, Ora.”
-:- -:- -:-
The night hung heavy with moisture threatening rain. The billowy gray clouds brushed the sky like a fast moving sea of roiling waves. The trees fluttered in the swirling winds.
“Theron, I love these storms along the hills. The mists in the wood bring out such scents.”
“I do too.” Theron said, watching her lithe form flit between the stolid black bark pillars and waving branches and catching up to her. They floated like young gods among the trees and as unconcerned for the bears and wolves that roamed the forest. Those creatures kept their distance but they knew of a fellowship in their predations. Ora wore a silky aqua dress that floated about her catching the wide moonlight beams piercing the gaps between the stormy clouds and the old trees like airborne searchlights. “Someday we will be as old as these trees Theron. How old do you think they are?”
“The last tree I cut for firewood,” Theron did not add he did so already a year ago when he still needed burning wood to keep life upon his human frame, “I counted six hundred rings.”
“Can you imagine it Theron? Six hundred years. That tree saw the split of the Roman Empire into The East and The West. It saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire by our fathers-fathers. What do you think we shall see?”
“We can only imagine and guess.” Theron caught up with her. Her golden hair sleek upon his cheek. Her lips soft and yielding against his as his hand cupped the curve of her jaw, his thumb brushing her cheek. How she tasted of the blackberries they found moments ago and how his nose filled with the scent from the basil field she crossed early in the night, clinging like freshness to her dress. She pulled him to her.
Her soft luscious breasts pressed against his hard chest. He slowly undid the ties that covered her in the fine dress. She pushed at his tunic and trousers.
Then his hands started behind her ears, caressing their outer rims and briefly balancing on her earlobes. His fingers splayed through her hair and pulled her tight to his mouth, their tongues dancing together, entwining. His hands moved around her shoulder and up until his fingers found the little bend in her skin where it left covering her ribs and elegantly curved around each breast. He followed the bend like a slow stroll along a curving forest path. She moaned in delight. Her nipples forged hard as frost as his fingertips approached them, massaging with careful pinching. Again she moaned.
His lips touched under her jaw, then along the side of her lovely throat hovering along her now throbbing and heating veins. She clutched at him yet her arm fell back as his foray into the wilderness continued. Across her collarbone and along the trough of her sternum. “East or … West?” his kisses rambled around a base camp, lost in wonder.
She nodded, “Yes.” Her hands gripped into his dark hair and squeezed. “You’re so good to me.”
His lips made furtive attempts at scaling the country side. Inch by inch up one wall, returning to base camp before striking out against the other. His hands returned to their serene forest paths. She roiled under him arching her back in the intensity, rolling from side to side, yearning to sway the direction of his lips to cover two peaks at once. The mad traveler continued to wander and she leaned forward to press herself against him, pulling with her arms. The traveler gave up his wandering, aroused himself by the perfection of his trail, forgiven at being earlier indecisive – for how to choose from two perfections? His tongue circled the peak and his lips plunged hard over the top.
“Oh!” she squirmed. “Yes!” she groaned in desire. She yanked his tunic from my back and threw it onto the night flowers nearby.
His hands explored her smooth and hard stomach onto the tops of her athletic legs. She opened and he pushed his fingers along the insides of both thighs from her knees toward her pelvis, getting closer to the heat thriving there, and closer, but never arriving. Slow movements like the beginning of a song.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 20