Claude’s healing eyes had lost Reginald, who’d ducked below a row of stones. He began to scan for someone to fight, probably Maurice. Reginald felt his throat try to swallow and fail. Claude was as old as Maurice but was much larger. Reginald hoped the spike of vampire adrenaline Maurice had gotten was good for more than flying, because man-to-man on otherwise fair grounds, Claude outmatched his brother easily.
Reginald ducked back as Claude sprinted off, caught Nikki’s eye across the opening, and fired his weapon at one of the V-Guards who’d just made an appearance. He didn’t trust himself with the wooden bullets; the second barrel fed by the second trigger seemed to be more forgiving. And it was. When two of the remaining solders (he thought there were six left; there had been some indistinct explosions that even his perfect accounting couldn’t make sense of) paused from their blurred running to approach Brian from behind, Reginald squeezed off a burst of shots. Most missed. At least one hit each soldier. They collapsed to the ground, screaming terrible screams of pain.
Brian looked back, saw Reginald, and gave him a nod of thanks. He ducked back and squeezed off some shots of his own in the other direction, still not engaging hand to hand. After a moment, Reginald could see what Brian was firing at. There were four V-Crew soldiers remaining, and they were moving in a group. Brian’s shots went wide; the soldiers ducked behind markers; Brian retreated.
Nikki blurred to Reginald’s side. He let out a held breath, relieved that she was still alive. The V-Crew soldiers were faster and stronger than she was, but she was wily and clever — something that wasn’t usually given fair credit in a fight.
Across the cemetery, monuments detonated with impact. Reginald couldn’t see the details of the melee — in which Maurice and Brian were battling their five opponents — and watching from a distance was nerve-wracking. He selfishly held Nikki’s wrist, using his strong fingers to grip tight so that she wouldn’t leave him. He told himself that the others would be okay. Brian could best the soldiers if they came at him one by one (or if they stood in front of his gun, if he still had it), and the soldiers were certainly no match for Maurice.
The thought broke as quickly as Reginald had it, because a second later a mausoleum fifty feet away exploded into stone shards. Then, emerging from the rubble, Claude began proving that he was a match for Maurice. The big man in the suit tackled his waifish brother, sending him into the fluted column of a massive crypt, toppling the front edge of its overhang. Rocks fell. The vampires ran, lapping the building, unclear who was chasing who. Maurice directed a punch at Claude and missed. He struck stone, which exploded to dust. The mausoleum reached its failure point; the wall Maurice had struck buckled and collapsed with a sound like thunder. The soldiers circled the others, unsure where and when to engage.
Reginald tried to shoot at the V-Crew, but then his gun went empty; apparently Brian had appropriated them half-full. Both chambers clicked dry. One of the soldiers heard the click and looked at him, then began to walk forward. The approaching vampire hadn’t seen Nikki, who’d wrenched free. Nikki circled him, approached from behind, stripped off his armor in one deft motion, and rammed her fist through the back of his ribcage. Ever since their escape from Council, she’d never taken off her carved wooden ring, and now, as it struck the vampire’s heart, he detonated in a ball of flame. Then Nikki ran forward and tackled Reginald, driving him to the dirt, as Maurice and Claude flew above them in a warring ball of fists and fangs.
Maurice and Claude struck the ground, separated, circled. On Reginald and Nikki’s other side, Brian reached the bottom of his own gun’s clips. One of the remaining soldiers came at him, claws out, and tried to behead him. Brian feinted back just in time and the attacking vampire missed, opening four deep gashes across his face instead. Brian yelled in pain, dove at his attacker, gripped him at the chest, and pitched him away. The vampire projectile sailed at least fifty yards on Brian’s heave, and Brian healed almost completely during the flight. Then he proved that he’d learned something about the AVT guns that Reginald hadn’t. When the soldier came roaring back, he pressed a button on the stock and a silver bayonet flicked out. Brian didn’t even have to thrust. He only had to line up correctly, and when the soldier leapt at him, the attacker met the bayonet’s tip with enough force to penetrate first his armor, then his heart.
The battle moved behind them.
Maurice and Claude were in the center of a clearing between graves, standing atop some sort of flat-to-the-ground memorial. They were pacing around each other like characters in a western, apparently having decided that they were too equally matched, that sheer physical force was meaningless. The two remaining V-Crew soldiers were at the periphery, hands and legs in ready stance, seemingly eager to rush to Claude’s aid but unsure where to enter the fray. But the scene didn’t last long enough for them to find out; the brothers had entered the area where Maurice had dropped his two stakes earlier, and Maurice went for one. Claude feinted toward the other. Maurice committed to his grab as the soldiers ran forward.
What happened next was so perfectly coordinated as to seem rehearsed. And maybe it had been, during all those long years of Annihilist Faction training camp.
Claude lunged in one direction. Maurice went for his weapon, placed his hand atop it. The soldiers both came forward at once. Maurice got the stake in-hand as he was struck by the soldiers, who knocked it from his grip and tried to pin him against the wall of a mausoleum. Maurice was too old and too strong for them to actually do it, but the moment’s distraction allowed Claude to turn from the stake on the ground, which was his decoy, and instead pull a smaller stake from the back of his belt.
Reginald saw it happen and began to run. But he was too late — too late by miles. Claude’s fist was a blur, and as Reginald yelled out, the big man struck Maurice in the chest. There was a white-hot explosion of flame and ash as Reginald watched his maker’s face react with unabashed surprise. Then there was the smell of burning and brimstone, and Maurice Toussant — who had been around for Julius Caesar and Jesus — was gone.
A bloodcurdling scream rent the night as Maurice’s dying fire made scare shadows dance around the three vampires in the clearing. At first Reginald thought it was his scream, but then Claude looked up, and in a fraction of a second his expression of victory turned to an expression of terror. He dropped behind the two soldiers and began stepping backward. Something came from behind and knocked Reginald down. It was Brian, marching toward the soldiers at human speed. They turned to watch him. Reginald could imagine duty filling their hearts — duty to protect their retreating leader. Claude continued to back away, then turned and ran. The soldiers flashed their claws and came at Brian’s throat, but there was no contest. Brian roared as he caught them both by the backs of the head, and then slammed them together. Their heads exploded like melons between his massive palms. Then there was fire, and dust, and nothing else.
When it was over, Brian turned slowly to face Reginald. Reginald didn’t understand any of what had just happened. Why had Claude run? How had it been so simple for Brian to outmatch the two trained soldiers? Was it really over, that fast? Any why, with Reginald’s best friend and maker gone to the breeze, did he not feel sorrow, but felt hollow instead?
“Now you need to open it,” said Brian.
But it didn’t make sense. Reginald walked forward. Brian knelt, his palm brushing the pile of ash that had so recently been Maurice. His clothes had been mostly incinerated in the flash, but there was something else still there — something Brian was picking up in the way you’d pick up a delicate China plate. It was a long sword, black with soot, its point tipped in wood.
“The vault, Reginald,” said Brian. “You need to open the vault.”
“Is he really gone?”
It was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked. Brian held up the sword. Reginald thought Brian might give it to him in the way marines will give a widow a flag, but instead he reverently slipped it under his own belt, where, on Brian�
��s massive frame, the thing looked more like a dagger.
Brian nodded. “Yes. He’s gone. So you’ve got to open it, Reginald. You’ve got to make this all worthwhile.” He extended a finger, pointing back in the direction where the fighting had begun.
They marched back to the utility shed that wasn’t a utility shed, with the strange vampire grave inside. Beside it, the stone angel with fangs stood guard. Looking at the angel gave Reginald a strange sense of unreality. He thought of his maker. Was it possible that good vampires went to Heaven?
He looked at Brian and Nikki, who were standing behind him. Brian nodded. Nikki knelt beside him. Then, with wet eyes, she put her arms around him. The hug lasted for a long moment, but Reginald could barely feel it. He was barely there.
He looked at the strange marble tumblers in the door of the vault, seeing their shape, seeing the shape they were supposed to create together. He could imagine the marble as it had once been, when the glyphs carved into its surface had been new and sharp. He could imagine the material beneath the marble, guaranteed to hold its shape.
He aligned the tumblers. He nudged the door open.
Inside the vault was a small space containing nothing at all.
NEW WORLD
THE TELEVISION WAS ON. THERE was a man on the screen who was supernaturally beautiful. Then the camera shifted and showed a woman sitting next to the man, also supernaturally beautiful. On the news desk in front of them were two coffee cups. The liquid in the cups was red and thick.
For the past half hour, Reginald had been watching the VNN news network on the TV that Brian had looted from one of the human houses in the valley. Brian’s reasoning was that if he was able to enter the house, then the humans who had once lived there must be dead — and therefore, anything they had was up for grabs. He’d taken the television to replace Maurice’s old one, which had been destroyed when the SA had stormed in and burned the above-ground floors. Fortunately, though, Maurice had been a very rich man who’d had millennia to build and plan, and his house was somewhat like the icebergs that Reginald had avoided in the Antarctic waters — as big in the below-ground area behind the concealed fire doors as it was above. So after the AVT had left the neighborhood (and then almost certainly met their own untimely deaths), it was simple to restock, refurnish, and move back in.
Brian had mostly returned to his old mood, but Reginald suspected he was repressing. He’d just need time. Reginald knew he was repressing — using TV as his crutch — and would need his own time. They’d both lost a friend. And they’d both lost a maker.
“I brought you Cheetos,” said Brian, walking in. It wasn’t a joke. He’d been bringing Reginald junk food from each trip he made into the desolated, all-vampire neighborhood to loot supplies. The idea was to make Reginald feel better, or at least feel comforted — to remind him that some things could endure the planet’s change of ownership. But Reginald wasn’t hungry. He avoided the junk food so that he could avoid pleasure, then drank blood in great quantities because its taste made him want to vomit. He watched the news so that he could feel bad. He ran laps around the house because it hurt. He ran until his lungs burned. He ran until he became lightheaded. He tripped, fell, and hurt himself. But nothing mattered anymore. When you were a vampire, you could only live (such as “living” was) and die. There was nothing in between. Life as a vampire was binary; there were no shades of gray. He was as he would always be; Brian was as he’d always be; Nikki was as she’d always be. Reginald wanted to feel pain in order to feel human again, but even the pain never lasted. He could break arms and legs and they’d heal. He was indestructible, and he hated himself for it.
“I don’t want them.”
“Come on, Reginald. I miss your fat good humor.”
“Don’t worry about me, Brian,” said Reginald, sighing and focusing on the new news playing on the new TV, which ran on the newly reestablished electricity. “I’ll forever be fat.”
But of course, “fat” wasn’t the part of that description that Brian had meant to emphasize. He sat down beside Reginald and said, “You can’t hog all the moping. He was my maker too, you know.”
Reginald shook his head, his thoughts bitter. “See, that’s just it, Brian. I didn’t know. Everyone wants me to save the world. And guess what? I can’t save it. Not when the whole thing is just a big game. Not when I’m sent to find a magic scroll that doesn’t exist, then lose my best friend because of it. Not when all this time, I’ve had a brother… and I never even knew it.”
“You know it now,"
“Big fucking deal.”
Brian sighed, then reached up and turned off the television. It was showing nothing but infuriating news anyway. VNN had replaced CNN, right there on what used to be the human air, and the supernaturally beautiful newscasters had been reporting that crews were working to subdue the remaining human population in order to prevent further losses of vampire life. PSAs in the commercial breaks warned vampire families that humans were dangerous and that they should report any humans they saw to the National Patrol, which was what Timken’s Sedition Army had started calling itself once the “army” moniker had started to sound like overkill. A scroll across the bottom of the screen gave updates on the winding-down progress of the mission to restore the planet. Soon, Reginald thought, the same squawking bullshit would be back on every channel: vampire reality TV, vampire talk shows, vampire infomercials. Maybe there’d even be a few vampire sitcoms, wherein someone hilariously ate a human that someone else had been saving for the Christmas party.
“It was necessary to keep our connection a secret if I was to be on Council,” said Brian. “Maurice wasn’t a sanctioned maker and my paperwork was forged. I didn’t want the foul blood that comes with an approved turning, so I went to a friend. Nobody could know.”
“Not even me.”
“Not even you,” Brian echoed. “Blood ties can inadvertently leak secrets you don’t want anyone to know, whether it’s intentional or not. Even Talia and the kids didn’t know. We were going to tell everyone, though, seeing as my position on Council — or any chance that Council might ever return — was pretty much done with.”
“Awesome. Thanks for the notice of something you might someday have told me and that is now irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant,” said Brian. “You’re my brother. I’m like Nikki’s uncle… or whatever. We’re blood. And that means something for a vampire. Claude knew that; it’s why he ran from me. Maurice felt your pain a state away because you were his blood, and the vampire agent made him stronger and let him fly. When Claude killed Maurice? Well, Claude is thousands of years older than me, but that moment — if your mission hadn’t mattered more — I could have easily caught and killed him with my bare hands.”
“That must explain why, later that day, I was able to do a pushup,” said Reginald.
Brian gave him a tight-lipped frown, then stood. He clapped him on the shoulder and let him be.
Reginald felt numb. So the vampire agent acted like adrenaline? So it gave you superpowers when your kin was threatened? Such bullshit. He was beyond irritated, all the way to downright incensed. He hadn’t gotten anything. He hadn’t felt any strength at all. He apparently also had no real logical ability, seeing as he hadn’t correctly predicted the events leading up to (not) finding the vampire codex. He hadn’t pegged Claire correctly, either. She was supposed to be the oracle, but she’d said he’d find a thing that turned out to be an empty vault in the middle of nowhere. She’d predicted a vampire revolution that turned their population over end for end, resulting in more balance. She’d predicted Reginald would be a leader. But none of it had come true. He was just a big worthless fatass who could read fast and remember trivia. That was it. He wasn’t a Chosen One, destined to find some mythical plan and save them all. He’d been guided by lies, and he hated himself for allowing himself to feel important enough to sacrifice for.
He thought about Claire, realizing that he was being selfish. Claire
was still sick, still not recovered from the odd, weeks-long flu that had knocked her flat and cut their link to Reginald and Nikki. But whether it was fair or not, he was angry at Claire. She’d pumped him up. She’d made him think he mattered, and that his quest was righteous. But what had happened? Maurice had died. Brian, at the cemetery, had told Reginald to make Maurice’s death matter, but the vault they’d been looking for — the vault that had been just one state over while they’d run to the literal ends of the Earth wasting months and billions of lives — had been empty. Maurice, in the end, had died for nothing.
Reginald put his head in his hands.
Another hand ran long fingers through his hair. He looked up and saw Nikki sitting delicately down beside him. She looked like a negotiator about to begin speaking to a terrorist or a suicide jumper. Either scenario required delicacy. Either could easily push the ball in the wrong direction if she weren’t careful.
“You’ve been sitting here for hours,” she said, her hand finding his.
“Days,” he corrected.
“Let’s go for a walk. The streets are mostly cleared and there’s a beautiful moon out. It’s safe. National Patrol is keeping watch.”
“You mean the genocidal murderers? Them? They’re protecting the streets from the innocent people we tried to save?”
“We did our best,” she said. But it was hollow.
They sat for a while, saying nothing. Something was hanging in the air. It wasn’t precisely loss and it wasn’t precisely sadness. It wasn’t anger or indignation or even frustration. It was nothing at all. There was nothing to be said. The situation was what it was, and it was terrible, and there were no platitudes that would make it better.
Fat Vampire (Book 5): Fatpocalypse Page 16