Vampire Outbreak (The Josh Thorne Trilogy Book 2)

by Joe Fowler

  Cynthia walked out with Josh. She looked a little apprehensive but she trusted Josh to keep her safe. She approached me and Rosalyn gently grabbed her arm and took up a position to pull the arm away. Josh got behind me to pull me off of her if necessary. I slowly took her arm in my mouth and bit. Her blood was the best I had tasted by a longshot. I knew I could spend eternity drinking her blood and never get tired of it. I don’t know how, but I pulled away on my own. Everyone was clearly relieved.

  “Good. See, you were able to stop on your own.” Rosalyn sounded proud of me.

  “I don’t know how. I have never tasted anything half so good.” I wiped a drop of blood off my mouth. “I will still need you to be as careful next time too. I don’t know that I can be trusted like that enough yet.”

  “Just make sure either to either have Rosalyn or me there when you feed. How often will he need this?” Josh asked Rosalyn.

  “If he can keep draining vampires then this will only be once a week. Maybe even less.” Her words sounded good to me.

  “I am sorry if I am prying, but why can’t your blood be drank by vampires? You have to know how it smells to us.” I asked Josh.

  “Remember, I am half demon. It took me half my life to overcome the evil that is in me. If I hadn’t had help, it would have been impossible. I can see goodness in the two of you. You have a conscious and recognize right from wrong. If you were to drink my blood, that evil would make itself shown in you. I would be forced to kill any who drank from me. Even a friend like you.” Josh explained. There was something he was leaving out and Rosalyn saw it too. I didn’t ask though.

  We spent the rest of the night drinking and laughing. The packs seemed to be happy that at least one of their leaders was back. Knowing Seth would be here tomorrow had all of us in a better mood as well. While our species had been at war with each other for countless centuries, I felt more at home here than I ever had with my own family growing up. Rosalyn seemed to feel the same.

  Some of the wolves went for a run. Josh’s pack of four stayed close by his side on the porch. They were not going to be separated until they had to be. The thought of family hit me even harder. Rosalyn was my life now. That was clear. I sincerely hoped these wolves would be there with us. I thanked whatever powers that be for arranging for me and Rosalyn to meet. The thought of the cynical, morbid life I had lived was happily in the past.

  Rosalyn and I headed down for sleep. Neither of us needed to voice the relief that I had been able to stop myself during feeding. I got into bed and she nestled in close to me. I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

  Chapter 16

  Seth was home when we came out of the basement. There was a party like atmosphere. The packs had their alphas back. I was once again reminded of how much they ate. Food lined the tables and counters. Each wolf had a full plate and would certainly make two or three trips for a refill. It was good to see them so relaxed.

  “So, it sounds like you have become the President’s chief advisor.” Rosalyn commented to Seth.

  “He has gotten rather attached to me. I never thought I would be traveling with the President though. It feels weird.” Seth said causing more than a few laughs.

  “Josh told us you took out Tarlfook. I just want to make sure I say thank you for that.” Rosalyn said.

  “I thought he would have been tougher from all that I had heard. Now, if we could just find Cyranos and deal with him.” Seth shook his head and continued eating.

  “That would be a relief. We were a little surprised with this vacation. We were finishing up Baltimore and expected another city. I was very happy to get some relaxation though.” Rosalyn spoke for the two of us.

  “Don’t get too comfortable. What comes next isn’t going to be fun. The President wants to send you two and Josh to Paris, Rio, Berlin, and others. It may be the only thing short of a bomb that could free those cities.” Seth looked a little worried. “You can say no. The President is truly grateful for everything you have done. He would understand if you said no. He told me to make sure I said that.”

  “Paris might be difficult. There are some old ones there.” Rosalyn was quiet for a moment before saying, “I will go with Josh. I think Austin should stay here though. You may need him to help here.”

  “No. I will go with you. I don’t care if it will be dangerous for me.” I stated it with authority that I didn’t feel.

  “It would make me feel better if you were here safe. Even with me and Josh there, if you end up against an old one we wouldn’t be able to save you.” Rosalyn countered,

  “I will be by your side. If I fall then so be it. I am not going to hide and wait for you to come home.” I meant it.

  “We can talk about this later.” Seth interjected. “We have some strategy to plan out anyway. We will see how it goes.”

  I am pretty sure Seth was trying to keep us from arguing. He was home with some of his wolves and was eating a good meal. He deserved a little peace. I understood. I was determined not to be left behind though.

  The television had been on with the volume turned down. As we sat there, the President came on to make a speech. We turned the volume up to hear what he said. I think I saw Seth roll his eyes. He probably knew what was going to be announced.

  “My fellow Americans, we have mostly beaten the worst of the vampire plague in our cities. We have four very special people to thank for that. Seth and Josh, two alpha werewolves and Rosalyn and Austin, two good vampires. Between these four we have cleared cities that appeared lost. Thousands of vampires have been killed to make the streets safe again. Now we know that there will still be vampire attacks, but we have the upper hand again. Our soldiers are being trained on how to fight these monsters. Our werewolf neighbors are making themselves available to protect our normal citizens. Through tragedy and loss, this nation is now coming together to be more close knit and resolved. We will not bow to terror.

  “Other countries have not fared so well. As if the four previously mentioned heroes had not done enough, we are now asking them to help our friends across the sea. Paris, London, Berlin, Rio, Madrid, and many other great cities have fallen. These four have become our Avengers. Our superheroes, if you will. I ask for your prayers in hoping they will be as successful to these other nations as they have been to our own.

  “We would like to announce a new policy. Since Rosalyn and Austin are not the only vampires fighting on our side, we had to make some decisions for the years to come. Every vampire who wants to live peacefully among us, will have a limited chance. We are going to offer registration to any vampire who is willing to abide by the rules we set for them. A no tolerance policy toward killing is number one on the agenda. They will be asked to work and pay taxes just like the rest of us. They will be required to give notice to their official handler anytime they decide to leave their city of residence. These and many more rules and regulations are being worked out as we speak.

  “I know there will be harsh sentiments against these vampires. We have all lost people we care about during these dark times. We have to remember not to judge all vampires the same. How many people will live because of the actions of Rosalyn and Austin? As I said before, they weren’t the only two vampires fighting on our side. I am not saying it will be easy, but I am saying that a peace may be possible…”

  The rest of his speech wasn’t related to the vampire problem. We sat around feeling a little numb. He seemed to take it for granted that we would go help these other cities even though he said we could say no. The vampire registration was the bomb that had us reeling though. This was not going to go well. There will be too much hate from the humans to let this happen easily, if at all.

  “So I guess he expects us to go. So glad he gave us a choice.” Josh said with a smile. “I was going anyway so it doesn’t matter but I hate that he announced it before we said we would do it. That isn’t right.”

  “I know. He is under a lot of pressure from all the foreign diplomats. He needed to say something t
o get them off of his back.” Seth explained.

  “When are they expecting us to leave?” I asked.

  “Before the sun rises. If y’all agreed to go, the plan was to take you to the airport in the early morning. They are making the plane safe against sunlight for you two. The hope is that you three will land in Paris during daylight hours so the plane can refuel and be ready for takeoff immediately after the sun sets and it is safe for you two to get off the plane. The airport is under vampire control there so they are flying a few workers over with you to perform the refueling.” Seth informed us.

  “So how long do you think it will take in Paris? A few days? A week?” Rosalyn asked. I had wondered the same thing.

  “We weren’t sure. Paris is worse than any of the U.S. cities that we’ve cleared. There will be many more of them than we have dealt with at one time. I suggested that it should be the four of us but the President wants me nearby to answer his questions and to coordinate the werewolves all over the country.” Seth explained.

  “I have two questions. One, how did you two cover so many cities? Two, There are still a lot of cities in trouble here so why are we flying to Paris?” I asked since these things were bothering me.

  “We split up after Miami. Josh handled Phoenix and Boston on his own. I took care of Detroit. Remember, we could sleep on the plane and be ready to work when we landed. We aren’t restricted to only working at night. As for the other question, we have werewolves working with the military now. They are sniffing out the vampire lairs and killing them during the day. Working together like this we will be able to clean up a lot of cities at the same time.” Seth answered.

  “I was wondering. It seemed wrong to be leaving our own to help them when so many cities still had serious problems.” I said.

  “They wanted France and the other countries to do what I said with wolves and soldiers working together. Some of them said they would try but others just keep crying for help. It isn’t enough to give some the way, you have to do the work for them.” Seth was shaking his head. “I guess Paris will be entertaining at least. The older vampires will make it more interesting. At least that is something.”

  “I would kind of prefer boring right now. Boring won’t be a risk for Austin. The last time I was in Paris, there were several vampires my age or older. I feel safe saying they won’t all still be alive. Vampires fight among themselves a lot. Plus hunters and the sunrise itch may take one or two.” Rosalyn stated.

  “What is the sunrise itch?” Josh asked. I was wondering myself.

  “After so many years, some vampires become depressed and they see a sunrise to end it. That’s the itch. Others go to ground for decades and only wake to gorge themselves on human blood before they return to their slumber.” Rosalyn explained.

  “We won’t know until we get there. For now, let’s drink our beer and lighten up.” Josh suggested.

  “A very wise man.” I held my beer up in salute.

  We spent the next few hours relaxing with the packs. Many of Seth’s pack would be heading back to Mobile when they sobered up. Jimmy, Thomas, Cynthia, and Anna would remain with Josh’s pack in Chattanooga. Both of these cities had escaped with little damage but Josh and Seth wanted both packs to be strong enough to fight if necessary.

  We left for the airport to heartfelt farewells. Rosalyn was touched that the wolves had shown her genuine affection. She had doubted such a thing to be possible. After twenty-four hundred years of being seen as the bad guy, Rosalyn was finally being appreciated for the good in her. I was happy that she didn’t try to argue with me anymore about my going. She laid her head on my shoulder during the ride to the airport.

  The airport wasn’t very busy at the early hour we arrived. Airport security was expecting us and they escorted us to our gate. We met the six workers that would make the trip with us. They had volunteered for this flight, with the promise of extreme hazard pay of course. Seth and Alicia had been allowed past the ticket check point so they could be with us as long as possible. I tried not to watch Josh and Alicia’s sad farewell. Seth and I shook hands as he wished us luck. We boarded to the cheers of the airport staff that came to see us off.

  The flight was expected to be eight and a half hours. Rosalyn and I were shown to an area with covered windows and a bed. We talked about Paris some. She told me of times she had visited there. We were mostly talking to avoid the worry I knew she felt. Paris would be dangerous for me. We didn’t have to talk too long since we were flying toward the dawn.

  Chapter 17

  Paris started off on a good note. Rosalyn and I woke to cheerful workers. They had successfully refueled the plane and would be taking off as soon as they could kick us off. We gathered our bags and wished them a safe flight. The Paris airport was spread out with a lot of buildings which would make our job harder. Josh had gotten bored while we slept. He already had the airport’s outer buildings clear of vampires before the sun went down. He was waiting on us outside the plane.

  “Y’all finally awake?” Josh teased.

  “The workers said you had gotten started cleaning out the vampires. How bad is it?” Rosalyn asked.

  “I am expecting the terminals here to be the worst. From what I understand, when all this started the airport was really crowded. The vampires have been feeding off of them since the announcement. Since the airport had so many people, a lot of vampires found their way here. This could be a bit ugly.” Josh admitted.

  “Well, let’s get started.” Rosalyn said cheerlessly.

  We picked the closest terminal and the fighting began immediately. Unlike before when it was just Rosalyn and I, the vampires smelled Josh right away and attacked. Josh and Rosalyn were doing most of the work. I was more or less killing the scraps that were tossed my way. I hated to admit it, but this was going to be boring. I was mostly standing by while they killed all the vampires. The vampires kept coming for a while. It became hard to estimate their numbers, but there were a couple of hundred easy. We went through each level of the terminal making sure we found them all.

  “That was fun.” Rosalyn had a big smile. “Let’s hope all the terminals are this full. We can have the airport clear in no time.”

  “Y’all need to let me kill some of them. It was boring to just watch and not really participate.” Both Josh and Rosalyn laughed at me.

  “Sorry, but I would rather stay busy and I’m not sure there are enough to go around.” Josh’s spooky ass voice made Rosalyn laugh harder.

  “Fine, I’ll find a way next terminal.” I said like a pouting child, playing along so Rosalyn would keep that beautiful smile on her face.

  We hit the next terminal and the fighting was more evenly distributed. We all stayed busy. Clearly this would take some time if only from the sheer number of vampires here and the many levels each terminal had. The vamps here must have been creating new ones from the day of the announcement. We mowed through them with no problems. The next terminal went much the same. By the fourth terminal we weren’t laughing anymore.

  “How many did they make?” I asked as the last of them fell to my knife. Josh and Rosalyn waded through the corpses to come closer to me.

  “Paris had a large vampire population, but this is unimaginable. It looks like they turned everybody. We are not even half way through with the terminals yet. We’ve only cleared four of the nine terminals.” Rosalyn was shocked. None of us thought it would be this bad and we hadn’t even left the airport.

  We soldiered on clearing the rest of the terminals. It was nearly dawn by the time the last one was done. Rosalyn and I headed for a door on the interior of the terminal. We weren’t sure what the room was but we could feel the sunrise coming. It turned out to be a storage room which was good enough. We covered the cracks around the door with two layers of duct tape and lay down as the sun rose.

  The next night started off easy. We made a quick sweep of the outer buildings of the airport before taking one of the rental cars. We picked an SUV and headed for the city. I
didn’t know anything about Paris. I knew it would be familiar to Rosalyn even though it had been centuries since she had been there.

  “Where would be the best place to start?” Josh asked. He was driving. We were one of only a few vehicles on the road. The other cars were driven by vampires.

  “It doesn’t matter. We will be here for weeks by the looks of it.” Rosalyn gestured to a hotel we were approaching. “Pull in there. We might as well start walking and take them as we find them.”

  That became our mode of operations for the night. We never encountered a group larger than twenty, but we encountered many of those. We made our way to a river’s edge before turning right and following the river for a bit. I was lost. All the signs were saying Rue De something or other. I didn’t even know which direction we were headed in. We cleared a large area like this in a big circle around where we had left the car.

  We drove to another area and did the same. The night was getting real confusing even as it became repetitive. Occasionally Rosalyn would point out a landmark or important building. We entered all the public buildings as we cleared each area. This went on forever. I was wishing I had let Rosalyn talk me into staying at home. Building after building, some with hundreds of rooms to check. Street after street, some with vampires and some without. I was happy when it became time for Rosalyn and me to find a room for the day.

  “You don’t seem to be enjoying Paris. What’s wrong?” Rosalyn asked as we prepared the room for our sleep.

  “I feel lost and out of place here. It seems stupid I know, but it has bothered me since we first got out of the car. All the walking without finding enough of them to fight is getting old too. I know we will find heavier densities of them here and there, but so far I really don’t like Paris.” I sounded like an idiot to my own ears but I couldn’t help the way I was feeling. “I know how pathetic that sounds but something about this place is getting under my skin. I can’t really explain it.”