Death Banishes (Mortis Vampire Series Book Six)

by J. C. Diem

  Nodding, the seer glanced around at our still dazed kin. “It appears that my sight has returned.” Her tone was only slightly perturbed but she had to be freaked out to some extent. Reaching for Ishida, she gently drew the teen to her. His lids fluttered open and he gave her a sweet smile before he subsided back into unconsciousness. The small amount of Viltaran blood he’d consumed had been enough to restore a tiny portion of his former youth. Some of the grey had left his hair and his wrinkles were slightly less deep.

  Rolling Geordie over, I saw the same had happened to him. His hair was back to being dirty blonde and he only looked eighty instead of his true two hundred now. Some of the Japanese warriors and Europeans began to rouse. Igor became alert and reached for a knife that wasn’t there. Aventius looked around for his flock and was relieved to find them all still intact. He’d also regained some of his lost vitality from his short snack.

  Gregor was the next to regain his senses. Wiping the blood from his chin, he grimaced at the stain it left on his sleeve. Maybe he was mourning his lost tweed jacket. Like most of us, he wore a sweater and jeans. Luc crouched beside him with head cocked to the side as if he were listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear.

  “Fascinating,” the robot said and captured my attention. It had made no move to help the Viltaran as we’d drained him to death. “It appears that I was incorrect, master,” it said into the device on its wrist. “The creatures are not quite as dead as they appeared to be.”

  “What do you mean?” Alarm made the gravelly voice slightly deeper.

  “Your subordinate has just been overwhelmed and was drained of his blood,” the robot replied. “The aliens appear to have gained strength from this and are even now regathering their wits.”

  “How many are there?” the guttural voice asked.

  “Twenty-nine, master.”

  The droid’s master issued an order. “Kill them all.”

  As the robot reached for a weapon on a metal belt at its waist, I was already on the move. Tackling the mechanical biped to the ground, I knelt on its hands. Even my vampire strength wasn’t quite enough to hold it in place. Rolling from side to side quickly, it dislodged me and scrambled to its knees. Reaching for the weapon again, its hand encountered only empty air.

  Aiming what looked like a small silver remote control for a TV at the robot, I was glad to see Luc climbing to his feet. He still seemed slightly dazed but it was wearing off. He’d consumed more of the alien’s blood than the others had and all signs of premature aging were gone. He was as handsome and flawless as he’d been the first night we’d met.

  “Do you know how to use that thing?” Igor asked me, gesturing at the weapon in my hand.

  “Nope. But the robot doesn’t know that.”

  “That is untrue,” the droid said in perfect English.

  “How can it possibly speak one of Earth’s languages?” Cristov asked. He sat beside his leader, offering the older vampire his shoulder to lean on.

  “I have accessed the data that is stored on this vessel,” the robot replied. “It was simple for me to translate this unsophisticated language.”

  “Nat?” Geordie said weakly as he finally roused. “What is happening? Where are we?”

  “What strange customs you humans must have,” the robot observed.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked it, lowering the weapon since the droid knew I’d been bluffing about blasting it apart.

  “Is a gnat not an insect?”

  Lying in Kokoro’s arms, Ishida had regained consciousness and snorted out a laugh. Geordie joined him. Howling with laughter, he fell onto his side and held his stomach. “Even aliens think you were named after a bug,” he managed around his giggles.

  Pressing my finger to a tiny muscle beneath my eye that wanted to twitch with annoyance, I tossed the weapon to Igor. If anyone could figure out how it worked, it would be him.

  “My full name is Natalie Pierce,” I told the machine. “What are you called?”

  “‘Robot’ would be the closest word, I believe.”

  “You don’t have a name?” Geordie looked sad for the mechanical man, as if the thing had feelings. “Can we call you Robert instead?”

  “As my captors, you may call me whatever you wish.”

  Regaining his usual poise, Gregor had been taking in our situation. “What planet are we on, Robert?” Geordie flashed him a smile that the name he had chosen had already been adopted.

  “You are on Viltar.”

  “How far from Earth are we?” As Gregor questioned the robot, Igor moved towards the new door that had been carved into our hull.

  “I am unable to ascertain that information.”

  Luc and Gregor exchanged glances. “Why not?” I asked. “I thought you scanned all the data stored on the ship.”

  “The information relating to your origins and subsequent journey is missing.”

  “You mean there’s no way for us to return home again?” one of Ishida’s people asked.

  “I might be able to calculate the general area you came from if you can give me information about your journey.”

  Igor returned from his quick inspection. “That can wait. We should leave before more of these aliens are sent to investigate this creature’s death.” He nudged the dead Viltaran with a boot. Behind his mask, red eyes stared upward blankly. We might have somehow originated from these creatures but they were flesh and blood rather than undead creatures of the night. He wouldn’t be rising to seek vengeance on us any time soon.

  “Will you come with us peacefully or do we have to pull your legs off and carry you?” I asked the robot.

  “You are my master now, Natalie Pierce,” he responded. “I am yours to command.”

  Throwing a baffled look at Luc, he shrugged to indicate he had no idea why I was suddenly the master of a mechanical man either. “Can you take us somewhere safe?”

  “Not unless you can withstand the toxic atmosphere outside.” There was no hint of humour in the robot’s tone as it answered my question but I had the feeling it was making a joke.

  “Since none of us needs to breathe, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Gregor replied. He was first out the makeshift door and craned his head back to take in the space our ship had been stored in. I was right behind him and saw a vast room that dwarfed our ship. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made from the same dull silver metal.

  “I do not understand,” the robot said, addressing his confusion at me as he exited from our craft. “Why do you not need to breathe?”

  “We’re vampires,” I told him. It was hard not to think of the droid as male since Geordie had given him a name.

  “Vampires; undead creatures that survive on blood,” he said as if quoting from a dictionary. “According to the information I have gleaned, vampires are mythical creatures.”

  “Tell that to vampire bats,” Geordie said with a snigger as Igor helped him through the opening.

  Kokoro lifted Ishida to his feet. The child king glanced up to thank her and started. “Kokoro, what has happened to your eyes?”

  “It appears that I have regained my sight, Emperor Ishida.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about that. I wondered if, in regaining her sight, this meant that she had lost her visions.

  “If you wish to escape from harm, we should move quickly,” the robot informed us.

  “After you.” I gestured for the droid to go first. He moved surprisingly quickly for a mechanical man. Only the faint jerkiness gave away that he wasn’t made of flesh and blood.

  Striding away from the hole he’d made in our hull, the robot made less noise than I’d expected as he walked swiftly towards a gigantic door. Keeping pace with Robert, I hoped he could be trusted and wouldn’t lead us directly into an ambush. I hadn’t heard anything from his former master since tackling Robert to the ground but he could very well be listening in. “What is your master’s name?” I asked as we hurried down a wide silver corridor.

  �
�My master’s name is Natalie Pierce,” he replied without any discernible sarcasm, although he did flick a glance at me.

  “Call me Natalie,” I corrected him. “What is your former master’s name?”

  “His name is Uldar, Natalie.”

  “Can Uldar hear us?” I glanced at the contraption on his wrist. It wasn’t hanging around his arm like the bracelet it appeared to be but was actually a part of him. About four inches wide and raised about an inch off his metal skin, it was covered in tiny buttons and dials.

  “He cannot. Once you became my master, I cut my ability to communicate with Uldar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are my master now, Natalie,” he said as if the answer should have been obvious. Giving up on questioning the droid, I glanced back at my friends and was relieved to see them all following us. No one had been left behind in our haste to leave.

  The route we followed reminded me of the dream I’d had twice now. With the unrelenting silver all around us and never ending series of corridors, we might have been in the very same facility I’d visited in my sleep.

  .~.

  Chapter Five

  After traversing through dozens of identical hallways, we ended up at a dead end with a set of stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere. The stairs were far larger than any I’d seen before and had to be sized for the average height of a Viltaran. Robert pressed a button on the control panel on his wrist. Concealed doors above the steps slid sideways and I almost gagged at the odour that wafted inside. Dirt swirled inside as well, carried on a gust of wind.

  “Ugh, what is that horrible stench?” Geordie complained from somewhere behind me. “It smells like eggs that have been left in the sun for a thousand years.”

  “It smells more like sulphur to me,” Igor said as he pushed past me, dragging the teen along with him.

  Robert waited for everyone to climb the stairs before pressing the button on his wrist again. The doors slid shut and we contemplated the wasteland that spread out as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately, a dust storm was raging so we couldn’t see very far at all.

  The cracked dirt was brown and looked like normal soil to me, but I was far from an expert. I couldn’t see any sign of the devastated city from the wafer thin screen in my dream. Just like the picture on the monitor, the sky was a dark, sickly yellow. Clouds roiled, shoved around by the same breeze that threw dirt into our faces.

  Gregor scanned the area. “I don’t see anywhere to hide from either the sun or any Viltarans that may be hunting for us.”

  “How curious,” Robert said as he broke into a fast walk.

  “What’s curious?” I queried, almost jogging to keep up with him.

  “As well as sharing what you call DNA with the Viltarans, you also seem to share their allergy to the sun.”

  “What kind of reaction do they have when sunlight touches them?” Gregor queried.

  “They burst into flames and die,” Robert replied. It sounded undramatic when said with a complete lack of expression.

  “Will you be able to find us somewhere safe to hide before the sun comes up and fries us all?” I asked Robert.

  “Yes, Natalie. The destination I have in mind is a two hour walk away, in your time measurements. I myself must also find shelter before too much time passes.”

  A gust of wind swirled more dirt into my eyes. Shielding them with a hand, I peered up at the droid. “What will happen if you don’t find shelter?”

  “If I remain outside for more than three of your hours, I will begin to malfunction. The soil is corrosive and even your kind might suffer eventual harm if you remain outside for too long.” The look he sent me was bland but I had the feeling he’d like to strap me to a table and slice me open with a scalpel to see how we worked.

  We trekked in silence and I dropped back a few feet until I was at Luc’s side. He flashed me a smile and I slid my arm around his waist. Geordie urged Igor forward so he could link his thin arm through mine. He was trembling from either exhaustion or fear. The sky seemed to be getting just the slightest bit lighter and I wondered how long their nights lasted. Not that it felt like night with the sky being dark yellow instead of black. Whatever disaster had befallen the planet of Viltar, it had severely screwed with their atmosphere.

  Turning his head, Robert did the robot equivalent of a double take at seeing us banding together. “How very strange,” he observed quietly.

  After close to the two hours that he’d estimated, Robert stopped and pressed something on the control panel on his wrist. The ground shuddered then began to slide sideways, revealing another set of stairs just in front of the droid. It was pitch black inside but I could sense the foreign sun growing closer so urged my friends inside. Once more, Robert was the last to enter. The portal slid shut, entombing us in darkness. The red glow from the droid’s eyes shed only weak light then cut off almost entirely as he dimmed them suddenly.

  Turning to contemplate us, Robert stood silently and made no move to lead us deeper into the underground facility. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to switch the lights on?” Geordie looked up at him to ask impatiently.

  “You can see me?” Robert asked. His tone came as close to being astonished as it was possible for a machine.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the things we can do,” I told him dryly. “Seeing in the dark is a fairly minor talent that we all share.”

  Pushing a button on his control panel, soft lights came on, illuminating the silver walls that I’d expected. “This way,” the droid said and started off down the hallway. His eyes switched back to their usual bright glow again.

  Gregor touched my shoulder before I could follow the robot. He waited for Robert to be halfway down the corridor before speaking. “Do you trust this machine?” He spoke so quietly that no human would have been able to hear him. The droid cocked his head slightly and I suspected that he could hear us very well indeed.

  “Of course,” I replied while shaking my head in the negative.

  “Then I shall trust him as well,” he said almost grimly. Uneasy glances were exchanged between the rest of the group.

  All had listened to our conversation and knew that the droid shouldn’t be trusted. Robert the robot might profess to be my devoted slave but something told me he would turn on us in an instant. I wasn’t sure if it was that he resembled the Viltarans so much or if it was because he held such a high level of sophisticated artificial intelligence. I’d seen dozens of sci-fi movies where machines had turned on their creators. Since we hadn’t created him, there was a far greater chance he’d turn on us. It didn’t make sense that a robot this smart would be compelled to obey a stranger’s every command.

  We hurried after Robert, glancing down hallways that led deeper beneath the subterranean facility. Pausing at the end of the hallway, the metal man waited for us to reach him before turning left. Several minutes later, he pushed a button on his wrist and an almost invisible door hissed open. It retracted into the walls, leaving an opening large and high enough for the natives of the planet to be able to walk through without ducking.

  Dwarfed by the door, the feeling of walking into a giant’s lair intensified as we entered what appeared to be a dining hall. A long table with fifty chairs took up most of the room. Made of the same silver metal that matched the walls, floor and ceiling, they were much bigger than usual. I had to jump up to seat myself, which made Geordie giggle. Igor tossed his apprentice into the chair next to me. Landing with a jarring thud, the teen’s lower lip pooched out slightly but he kept his complaint about being manhandled to himself.

  Robert waited for us all to be seated before he spoke. “Please excuse me while I perform routine maintenance on myself.” Turning smoothly, he left through another door that blended in with the walls so seamlessly that it was practically invisible.

  Ishida nodded subtly at one of his female warriors and she quickly slipped from her seat and raced over to the door. It ignored her attempts to o
pen it and she returned to the table, shaking her head in defeat.

  Seated beside Luc directly across the wide table from me, Gregor ventured a question. “I for one am curious to discover how we ended up on this planet.” Everyone’s head turned towards me as he continued. “Do you have an explanation for us, Natalie?”

  Squirming forward so I could rest my elbows on the edge of the table, my legs swung far above the ground. “After watching you all turn into vampsicles, I eventually fell asleep. I’m not sure how long I slept for but when I woke, you had all aged and were covered in ice. I could see that you were slowly starving to death and I was desperate to find help. I knew that getting through the hatch into the cockpit was my best option.”

  Igor’s grizzled face reflected his confusion. “The hatch was thoroughly welded shut. I checked it for flaws myself many times.”

  “It wasn’t quite as impenetrable as we thought,” I told him. I explained how I’d detached my hand before breaking it down into microscopic pieces and sending them out to find the tiny hole. “Then I managed to set the cells to drilling through the metal,” I finished up.

  “Remarkable,” Gregor murmured, unintentionally sounding a bit like Robert. “How long did it take for you to break through?”

  “A few nights, I think.” Once upon a time I would have judged the passing of time in days rather than nights.

  “What did you do then, Natalie?” Ishida asked. He had been helped up to his seat by Kokoro and sat halfway down the table across from me. All up and down the table, my kin listened to my tale with fascination.

  “Bit by bit, I broke my body down and sent it through the hole to the other side. Then I made myself whole again.”

  “Does that mean you were floating around the ship naked, chérie?” Geordie asked slyly. Igor raised his hand threateningly and his apprentice instinctively winced away from a blow that never fell. I caught my young friend before he could topple to the floor.