Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  The vampires were in various states of nakedness, which is what Doctor Greg had called it when they were without a body. It was a private joke between them, but a description Girard felt entirely appropriate. It was like being naked. He remembered it personally as an exposed sensation accompanied by an urgent need to hurry up and get into the next body. Only once had Girard been left with no body to go into. Of course, he’d gone willingly to his punishment. To have it be done like this must be horrible.

  Pointing at two other vampires wriggling on the floor, he sent the two men with him to gather the criminals. Like a fish out of water, a vampire had a very limited time to live without either a body or water. They were aquatic creatures and couldn’t breathe air like this. The vampire in front of him was trying to roll so that its gills were in the puddle, but it couldn’t manage it. It looked helpless.

  It also looked like no vampire that Girard had ever seen.

  “What is that?” asked the breach leader. “That can’t be one of us.”

  Girard knelt to open the tank, and tugged on a pair of thick rubber gloves over his thinner ones. “They are vampires. They’re just a very old kind of vampire.”

  He tried to sound casual, like what he was about to touch didn’t make his stomach turn. The vampire body was smaller, and the two fleshy pipes that would protrude from the human’s midsection made it look even smaller. The edges of the pipes were rough and seeping blood from where they’d ripped off during exit. Tiny spots of blood marred the body where the tendrils detached during the forced removal. The flaccid remains of a swollen ovipositor broke off even as it wriggled, three eggs sliding out and glistening there like an obscenity.

  The truth was, Girard did not want to touch any of it. Not at all.

  “Is there a problem?” the breach leader asked.

  “Uh, no. No problem,” Girard answered, then sucked in a deep breath as he reached out to grab the vampire. It twisted in his hands, bending and wriggling, a small nub of tentacle meant for anchoring in a new host pushing out of the glistening form. Girard had no idea if these older vampires could take a body already inhabited, but he didn’t want to risk anything and dropped it into the tank quickly. He glanced at the eggs, then made a split second decision and scooped them up to drop them into the tank too, slamming down the lid to hide it from sight. The shiver that ran down his back was completely out of his control.

  “There are two more over there,” the team leader said, then added, “I’m not sure if they’re alive though. They were the ones with the explosives.”

  Girard left the full tank and grabbed his empty, then motioned for one of his companions to come with him. They seemed to be having as much trouble with the appearance of the vampires as he was, given the way they dropped them into the tanks and snatched their hands back.

  They were seriously gross.

  All told, only five of the eight vampires inside survived, but even one was enough. Bodies would be brought to the Guardian complex for any criminal survivors and there would be questioning. They needed information and to find out what had made these vampires rise when they did. Girard thought he understood, but believing he knew and truly knowing were two different things.

  When he had the last living criminal tanked, the breach leader waved him back over as he quickly surveyed the facility and supervised the laying of explosives. As Girard drew close, he could tell the man was uncertain and not at all accustomed to feeling that way.

  “What’s up?” Girard asked, going for a calm demeanor, if such was possible in their situation.

  The team leader scratched his head around his communications gear and wrinkled up his face before answering. He looked almost embarrassed. “Something’s not right.”

  Girard raised his eyebrows and scanned the room. “Obviously.”

  “No, I don’t mean that. I mean with them,” he said, waving to the splotchy spot where one of the vampires that didn’t survive had been.

  “Like I said, they’re an older form of us. That’s all.”

  The breach leader shook his head a little to indicate that wasn’t what he meant, then paused to rattle off some rapid-fire instructions into his microphone before returning his attention to Girard. “That’s not what I mean. It took me a minute to put my finger on it, but it’s not just the way they look. It’s also the way they acted. I don’t know if it’s important or not, but it feels important to me.”

  Now Girard was interested. Almost enough to forget the gross contents of the canister near his feet. “Go on. Nothing is inconsequential at this point. All information is important.”

  The way the breach leader nodded conveyed that he might have felt foolish mentioning it before, but no longer. “I know how old you are, Guardian, so I know you’ve seen a vampire born in the water. Have you seen one that’s gone into a body after being born into the water, though?” He saw the shuttered look on Girard’s face and added, “I truly mean no offense, no heresy intended.”

  Girard squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Remembering those unfortunates was difficult at the best of times. No vampire family was entirely unaffected by such events. “None taken, and yes. I knew of one kept chained in a basement once. A brutal, unthinking beast.”

  “Exactly. Where I came from—a long time ago in China—we saw a lot of them. For decades our emperor took the fiercest of our enemies defeated in battle and tried to make them ours by putting one of our wild-born offspring into them. Now, don’t look at me that way. It wasn’t my decision. Anyway, when it’s first done, there is a moment—just one moment—when you can see the human still inside fighting for control. And then the moment passes and there is only the brute remaining, one that can make no sense of the pictures and memories in its head. I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I’ve had a minute to think, I’m sure that these vampires were sort of the same way, but not entirely. It’s like they shifted t to human or something. Like the vampire inside just went away at the end.”

  Girard glanced at the greasy, moldering remains on the floor, then back at the breach leader. “You saw that? You’re certain?”

  He nodded. “Positive. When we first breached and shot the water in, they seemed confused by it, like they didn’t understand what it was for. Any sensible vampire would close their mouth and try to get away. Then when the gunfire started, I saw one of them acting no different than any true vampire warrior—you know the kind, raised on the blood of enemies and endless battle—change suddenly. For a moment, I saw the human come back. Fear and horror and disbelief. He seemed to be trying to fight to put the weapon down against the vampire inside. It was just a flash, but it was there.”

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” Girard said.

  “No, it shouldn’t. But it happened. I’m not given to flights of imagination. If I had to give an assessment, I would say these were newborn vampires with no experience of the real world and incomplete control of their bodies and minds. Like wild vampires born in the water, only with minds.”

  Both men stopped to watch one of the cleanup team chase after another of the vampire eggs as it slid across the water-soaked floor. Both of them flinched when a heavy boot stomped on it and stopped it forever. The one who stomped gave a shiver and wiped his sole on the concrete. Hopefully that was the last one.

  Girard bent to retrieve his transport vessel, then said, “That’s good information. Be sure to give a full description during your debrief. It could be important.”

  The man nodded his assent, then yelled out to one of his crew with more instructions. A small flame-thrower roared to life a moment later, hurrying along the process of destruction.

  After the last of the human bodies were pulled close to the place where they would set the explosives, the team leader’s voice came through their earpieces. “We’ve got to wrap this up. A report of gunfire has been made to police. We’re going to get company.”

  “Dammit, this place is supposed to be deserted,” Lila said from inside her biocontainment suit.

/>   Doran scanned with his camera along the interior of the biocontainment area, trying to capture as much information as he could. “I can’t see much. I can’t read all the labels from here.”

  From his spot well beyond the containment area, the team leader said, “Let’s go! Now. We’ve got two minutes…tops. It looks like they’re only sending one car and they have no address, but even one is too many.”

  With a sound of disgust, Doran yanked down the camera and allowed Lila to pull him along toward the door and the van beyond. The two members of Bravo team that laid the explosives backed away and Girard heard only faint mumbles as they spoke via their channel to the breach team leader. No sooner had Girard slammed the door to the van than a deep and primal boom shook the ground. Almost instantly, red firelight leaked from the doors of the warehouse. It even showed in the small cracks in the mortar where the windows had been bricked closed.

  The kind of explosives they were using were meant specifically for such purposes. They burned so hot that nothing would remain save crumbles of brick and melted metal. Thermite they called it, though Girard had no idea what made it special other than heat. Luckily, they were also using only a small amount of it. After all, their target for destruction was a thirty-by-thirty foot room, not the whole block.

  “Go!”

  25

  The vans and trucks headed in different directions along their pre-planned route. The all-important vampire tanks rattled in the back of the van as they took a corner too sharply. Visions of those dangerous ancients wriggling along the floor of the van made Girard shiver again. He put a hand on Borona’s arm and said, “Get us there in one piece. No one’s chasing us.”

  His eyes alight with the adrenaline rush of recent battle, Borona swallowed and took a deep breath. He slowed their van a little, then nodded. “I got it. I’m good.”

  Doran and Lila were removing their biohazard suits, which they were lucky had turned out to be unnecessary. Once free of the hood, Doran said, “Did you see their morphology? And did you see the way those bodies reacted when the vampires came out? And all those eggs!”

  Girard had seen, of course. It was clear that most of those bodies hadn’t been in use long and weren’t warrior bodies at all. More than likely, they were humans taken for their knowledge in either biology or whatever thing Thalia was creating in her lab. They shouldn’t have had sufficient time for the acid pockets to grow, yet the bodies had clearly begun the process of liquefaction almost immediately. Girard had to wonder if the older vampire form possessed a greater capacity for growth and integration into a body than newer forms. What other advantages might they have? And what about the reappearance of the human’s mind inside? What did that really mean?

  Lila stomped down her suit and bent to gather it up and shove it in the disposal bag. “They’re disgusting! It’s like seeing a bad version of ourselves.”

  Marcus seemed almost entirely unaffected by the spectacle of death inside the warehouse. Girard assumed it was simply because Marcus had centuries of life during the most brutal wars in history under his belt. Even as he dug into the bag of snacks he’d insisted on bringing, he said, “Lila, that’s racist! Don’t be racist. Or maybe species-ist? Either way, it’s not nice. They’re different, but they’re still vampires. No one can help how they’re born.”

  Everything in the van stopped cold at his words, with the exception of Marcus renewing his digging into the bag. Doran and Lila exchanged a look, then she shook her head. “Whatever. They may not be able to help being throwbacks, but they’re still dangerous and gross and I’m not pretending otherwise.”

  Doran spun the bag closed after Lila stuffed her suit in, then sealed it with quick, practiced moves. “We can go over the footage later to find out exactly what she was cooking up, but I’m guessing from the codes on all those sample trays that it’s the TB sourced from that elephant. It’s not the best disease as a general rule, but it’s a good one if you can make it more contagious. It’s slow enough in progress that it will spread far and wide before anyone catches on, but since that strain kills faster than normal TB and is almost entirely resistant to current medications, it’s dangerous. And lethal.”

  Lila stared at him, fear on her face. “You’re sure?”

  He patted her arm, then squeezed it. “No, I’m not. I’m guessing.”

  Girard was still thinking about his brief conversation with the breach team leader regarding the behavior of the vampires. Every suit worn by the team members had cameras in place, so they’d be able to see this behavior for themselves later. An idea wormed its way into Girard’s brain. It was the kind of idea that reason rebelled against accepting, but still lodged deep and immovable once in a person’s mind. Should he mention it? They were already dealing with so many variables and unknowns that it hardly seemed fair to add more to the burden, particularly when he wasn’t even sure there was anything to this newly-formed idea of his. Distracting them from figuring out the real problems of the here and now also didn’t seem very efficient. Perhaps it was better to see if anyone else brought it up or, at the very least, let the footage get examined.

  They made it to the meetup and listened to the scanner as police and fire officials converged on the warehouse. All of them were probably thinking the same thing: Did we burn it well enough?

  Once an all-clear was given by the alpha team regarding pursuit or witnesses—there were none—they split up. The Nebraska team would stay at the Long Island House while Girard’s team would head back to the Guardian complex immediately. They didn’t want to attract any attention now, and a series of vans all heading toward a remote location might be suspicious. Particularly if they had a couple of hugely recognizable sewage trucks in their vehicle train.

  Lila and Doran were in charge of keeping the tanked vampires alive. The tanks they brought were for secure transport, but didn’t have enough air in them for an extended period of imprisonment. They would have to be aerated, but not spilled or otherwise disturbed. Two of the prisoners were injured, which presented other problems. There was no way to treat them on the road and—like so much else—medical treatment of a vampire other than first aid was considered a heretical act.

  Marcus turned around in his seat like a little kid to watch as they checked on the two injured vampires, leaning his head far over and generally getting in the way.

  “Marcus, if you want to do this, trade places with me,” Lila said, exasperated.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll just watch.”

  Doran chuckled and said. “It’s over. Just be happy it’s over.”

  In response she pushed out a hard breath and snapped on a pair of gloves. “I know. I’m just keyed up.” Marcus pushed himself a little further over the seat and she smacked him on the head. “Good grief, Marcus. You’re practically in my lap over here. The van is too small for this.”

  Marcus pulled himself back into the proper row of seats with a whoof of noise, then grabbed his bag of chocolate covered raisins. “We need a plane.”

  Girard looked at the pair in the small cargo space in the back of the minivan. “Still alive?”

  Lila waved a hand in front of her face at the smell of the water in the tank, then said, “Yeah, still moving. This one is still bleeding though. I don’t think it’s going to make it.” She jiggled the tank in question and said, “Definitely not going to make it. Did somebody step on it?”

  Borona made a face and said, “That was me. I didn’t mean to. It was really slippery in there.”

  Girard nudged the accelerator a little, but only enough to blend in with the traffic without getting stopped for a ticket. A ticket would be bad right now, particularly considering all those shiny metal tanks in the back of the van. “We’ll get there in a few hours, just do what you can until then. No one expects a miracle.”

  Doran rummaged around in the medical kit meant for humans and pulled out something wrapped in crinkly paper. “Do you think a blood stopper would work on them? Us, I mean. Whatever, you know what
I’m asking.”

  Borona—the only one of them with even the most remotely recent battlefield experience—said, “No clue, but if it’s going to die, what do you have to lose?”

  Girard glued his eyes to the windshield, resisting any impulse to see how this little experiment might turn out and avoiding the rearview mirror. After that, he counted down the miles toward home.

  26

  The compound was abuzz with activity when Girard pulled up the van and parked. Despite the fact that he was exhausted and felt like he’d been awake forever, it was still early afternoon. Everything that had transpired had taken only hours. It was strange, but he was glad to be home. He was even gladder he would be able to hand off his disquieting burdens.

  Everyone took tanks and hurried through the compound toward the underground facility. Borona had called ahead to the pool Minder chosen to take charge of their prisoners. Her long, white robes almost glowed in the dim light as Girard descended the long flight of shallow stone steps. Her hands were folded in front of her, which only served to reinforce that impression of a nun.

  Luckily, she was also the least creepy of all the Minders.

  “Guardian,” she said by way of greeting, nodding at him so that her kerchief shifted around her shoulders. Her eyes traveled over the tanks carried by the row of people. She asked, “Which of you has the injured one?”

  Doran shifted his tank up and almost lost his footing. The tank banged against the wall and he winced. “I do, but it didn’t make it. Note down somewhere that blood stoppers are definitely not for use on us without a body. Definitely not.”

  Her brow creased and she looked confused, glancing from Doran to Girard out of habit. He shook his head and said, “It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have made it no matter what we did.” At the bottom of the stairs, he moved aside for the others and said, “Professor Doran, this is Delilah. She’s the only one you’re to speak with about these little guys. Delilah, this is Doran. You know everyone else.”