Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  * * *

  After several hours of being sequestered in the bunker-like basement of his tower, Erastes Ensanguine was informed by his security detail that it was safe for him to emerge. The threat to Meridia—and, by default, to him—had been dispatched. The perpetrators were either dead or behind bars, their associates and abettors soon to be captured.

  Erastes thanked his security detail and quickly ascended the tower, ready to return to the business of governing his little slice of the city. That, and his opera. He was already considering the next phase, his mind blissfully unencumbered by the weighty matters of before, when he was intercepted by Kaboc Melo.

  “Highness, may I have a word?”

  “Must you, Kaboc? I was told peace had returned to the city. Was I misinformed?”

  “No, sire, of course not. The city is calm once again. However…”

  Erastes sighed impatiently. “Out with it.”

  “During the lockdown you imposed, there was an incursion.”

  “An incursion.”

  “Yes, sire. Best we can tell, a rogue element entered the Old Town district to retrieve human citizens. A team led by Alsace Alkuhn was sent to eradicate them, but reinforcements arrived and overpowered them.”

  “Alsace Alkuhn? Of the Steelskin Slayers?”

  “The very same, sire. I activated them as a precaution after the attacks on our people this morning.”

  “Activated them? From what?”

  “Why, their state of dormancy, sire. I knew that once again their services would prove useful, even vital, and so they were. Do you not approve?”

  “Of course I do not approve! You were supposed to dismantle them, not render them dormant. No, this is not good. You must recall them at once.”

  “They have already been recalled.”

  “I see. And there have been no complaints? No visits from our friends with PWD?”

  “None, sire. They were… discreet in the performance of their duties. Only Alsace and his group have failed to report in.”

  “I see.”

  “Is there anything else, sire?”

  “No. No, I suppose not. I need time to think about how best to respond to this. We may not have heard from them yet, but PWD will be on us soon, one way or the other.”

  “A bridge to cross when we come to it, as the humans say.”

  “Indeed, as you say.”

  “Indeed. If it’s all right, then, I believe I shall retire for the evening. It’s been a very trying day, as you might expect.”

  “On that much, at least, we can agree. We will have words tomorrow about this business with the Slayers, though. Understood?”

  “Of course. Good night, sire.”

  “And to you, Kaboc.”

  Only when he was alone did Erastes allow himself to relax. Finally, he could be alone with his thoughts—his music—once more.

  His time locked in the bunker had given Erastes time to think. What he had realized, then, was that he no longer desired to rule over his people as he once had. The burden of command was heavy, and he had carried it for many years. Perhaps, he had begun to consider, it might be time to abdicate in favor of someone with a more ambitious, acquisitive nature.

  It was a sobering thought. Certainly, one worthy of consideration. But not tonight. Peace had returned, and with it time to think, to appraise the value of a thought from all angles.

  And, should he decide that no one was quite ready to assume the mantle of command, no matter. He had a few good years left in him yet, and then he could finally debut his glorious composition.

  Of course, he had to finish it first.

  Erastes crossed the floor of his office, took the prized instrument in his hands and breathed a relieved sigh. He was halfway through rehearsing his favorite section when he reached a point of dramatic flourish, forcefully bringing together the opposing ends of the accordion between his palms. Even through its squealing response, Erastes felt something inside click and latch, and somehow knew that he had played his last note.

  The hellfire that exploded from within the ancient instrument incinerated Erastes instantly, along with several meters of the lord commander’s tower in every direction.

  By the time the blaze had burned itself out there was nothing left of Erastes Ensanguine or his magnum opus.

  * * *

  Kaboc Melo made a hasty exit, knowing that it was only a matter of time before his master took up that wretched squeezebox once more. He had respected Erastes Ensanguine once, revered him even, but his time on Earth had weakened the man. His mind was going, and with it his vigor and verve for command. He cared no longer for the minutiae; his only love now was that steaming pile of excrement he called an opera.

  Thirty-six hours, indeed.

  History would say he was doing his people a charity, Kaboc was certain, if only to spare them that particular torture.

  Sure enough, Kaboc and his entourage were less than a block away from the estat corvair’s tower when the thermite charge he had planted in the accordion detonated.

  The blast was devastating. The tower itself was crippled surgically, and now listed slightly to one side from the sheer force of the explosion, but was otherwise still standing. It was only the command level that had been vaporized by the charge, along with everything within it. He had been clear on the need to contain the blast to a confined area while making it as deadly as possible, and his source had come through.

  “For the lord commander,” Kaboc said, offering one last nod to the smoking tower before ordering his driver and the accompanying entourage to take them into the heart of the city.

  * * *

  “Oh my—” Jeanine started, squinting against the bright flare reflected in the rearview mirror. “Was that the vampires’ tower?”

  “Looks like.” Ann snorted out a short, mirthless laugh. “And the hits just keep on coming.”

  “Should we call it in?”

  “Don’t bother. If we saw it, so did everyone else. Besides,” she added, offering Jeanine a knowing grin. “Tanglereave is still on lockdown, remember? We’ve got our own problems to deal with.”

  Jeanine smirked back. “I still can’t believe I’m doing this. All of this, I mean.”

  “You’re not just doing it. You’re doing a great job. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks. Uncle Ryen said the same thing, believe it or not.”

  “No shit. Was that back at the station?”

  “Yeah! I could hardly believe it. Was that your doing?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Ann said, only half-lying. True, she had gone to bat for Jeanine back in Old Town, but that had been as much in defense of her own decision to deputize Jeanine as much as anything else. Besides, she’d hadn’t exactly been cordial about making her points. “If anything, I’d guess Hank bent his ear a little. He tends to be a bit more… diplomatic about that sort of thing.”

  “Well, either way, it means a lot to hear it. From both of you.”

  Ann was about to respond when Jeanine all but stood on the brakes. The sudden lurch sent Ann forward, jostling her against the dash of her cruiser, but also saved them from being T-boned by a runaway tramcar. It had come from the passenger side; because she’d been looking at Jeanine, Ann never even saw the danger coming. Pushing herself off the dash with her hands, she let out a low groan.

  “Ann, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, though her voice suggested otherwise. “I’ll live. Follow that tramcar.”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  To Jeanine’s credit, she knew better than to argue with her new boss. Eyes narrowing, she gripped the wheel and slammed her foot on the gas. Ann’s cruiser responded immediately, throttling up hard to match the pace of the runaway tramcar. Within minutes they had overtaken it, Jeanine keeping the cruiser roughly parallel with its erratic track as it wove through the streets.

  “What the hell?” Ann said, squinting as they barreled along beside the t
ramcar. “What’s all over the windows? Oh, fuck! I think it’s blood.”

  Jeanine was traveling too fast to spare her eyes from the road, which was presenting its own problems. “Uh, Ann? Roadblock!”

  “Mount the curb! We’re staying with this tramcar, wherever it’s going.”

  Gritting her teeth, Jeanine threw the wheel to the side and directed the cruiser through the narrow space between the tightly packed row houses and the roadblock that had sprung up between them. She shot the gap more or less cleanly, the cruiser hopping the curb with a jarring force that nearly sent both women slamming headfirst into its top, but somehow Jeanine managed to stay anchored and keep them alongside the tramcar, at least once the roadblock was well behind them. Ann hooted alongside her, complimenting her skills even as a deep, rattling cough shook her.

  “Are you all right?” Jeanine asked again.

  “Focus on the road.”

  Jeanine did as she was told, turning her attention back to the road. “Oh, no,” she said as she followed the tramcar around the next turn.

  “What is it?” Ann asked.

  “I just realized something. The path the tramcar is on—it’s the same one I use to take Uncle Ryen’s reports to City Hall every week.”

  “Oh, shit,” Ann said, eyes snapping wide, then focusing tightly again. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” Jeanine gulped. “What?”

  “Speed up! We still have time to cut them off.”

  “But we’ll die!”

  “Maybe, but that’s the job, kiddo.” Ann gave her a small look, half-smirking. “On the plus side, they’ll probably commission statues of us. Now, hit the damn gas!”

  Ann braced herself as Jeanine nearly redlined the cruiser’s engine. Still, the cruiser pulled ahead of the tramcar, towing them toward what was sure to be a very quick and mangled demise, assuming Jeanine caught the angle just right…

  She didn’t. The critical moment came and went, that split second when one simple sacrificial act might have averted certain catastrophe. Instead of throwing the cruiser in front of the tramcar, Jeanine had flinched and let her foot off the gas.

  “What are you doing?” Ann protested.

  Easing back on the throttle, Jeanine let the tramcar take the lead again.

  “It’s the angles,” Jeanine said. “The trick is all in the angles.”

  The tramcar began to outrun them. City Hall stood less than a mile straight ahead.

  “Officer Gatz…”

  “Just a second or two more,” Jeanine said, throttling up again and bearing down on the tramcar’s back bumper. “Okay, now hang on!”

  She gave the tramcar’s bumper the slightest kiss, nudging it from the left as the force of that minor, fleeting collision rippled through the cruiser. They bore it much better than the tramcar; its course suddenly wove to and fro before it tipped onto its side. The impact was tremendous, blowing out its side and back windows, but the force of the tramcar’s momentum was still pushing it toward City Hall like a speeding missile.

  Jeanine hit the brakes, and she and Ann watched the enormous spray of sparks fanning out from the backside of the runaway tramcar, bracing themselves as it shrieked toward a seemingly inevitable collision. But it never came, entropy stealing all that forward momentum and depositing the massive vehicle mere feet from the steps of City Hall, its wheels still spinning listlessly as it smoked and hissed and sputtered.

  “Okay,” Ann said. “So, that was pretty impressive.”

  Jeanine nodded mutely, still staring open-mouthed through the windshield.

  “How did you know to do that, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I just… did, I guess.”

  “Huh. Well, can’t argue with results. Or the fact we’re not a life-sized smear on the highway. Nice job.”

  “We should go help the people in the tramcar,” Jeanine said. She released the seatbelt, about to exit the cruiser when Ann put her hand on Jeanine’s arm.

  “Wait.”

  Jeanine whipped her head around, frowning at Ann and the grip on her wrist. “Wait? What do you mean, wait? There could be people hurt in there.”

  “I said, wait.” Ann didn’t let up, keeping a tight hold on Jeanine’s arm as she gestured forward with her chin.

  Following the line of Ann’s gaze, Jeanine looked to the overturned tramcar. There was movement inside, she could see now. One by one, passengers began to emerge from the crippled vehicle. They moved slowly, haltingly, dragging themselves free via the blown-out windows. Many of them were covered in blood. Considering what they had just been through, that wasn’t too surprising. There was something strange about the way they moved, though. Something… unnerving. Unnatural, even.

  Almost like they were no longer entirely themselves…

  It was the eyes, Jeanine realized. One of the passengers lifted her head and looked at them with bright, reflective eyes.

  Vampire eyes.

  “Ah, hell,” Ann said. “They’ve been turned.”

  20

  Kleck, what are you doing?”

  “You should have just left it alone, Detective.” Kleck reached around with his free hand, snatched the radio from her, and tossed it aside. Next, he liberated Nissa of her sidearm. She didn’t hear the clatter that would have come if he had tossed it, so she could only assume he had kept it for himself. “Should have just left it alone.”

  “But she didn’t, and now, here we are.”

  Nissa could hear the sneer in the new man’s voice even before he appeared, strolling out from the shadowed expanse of another building’s profile. She didn’t know him, but recognized him as a relative of Kleck’s. A cousin, if she had to guess; the shared lineage was obvious in their facial features. His were angrier, but similar. A second man followed, but he had nothing to say and didn’t resemble the others, either in appearance or size. Muscle for the sake of muscle, if she had to guess.

  “And you are?” she asked coolly as the two new players revealed themselves.

  “Not important. Why bother with all that exposition when you’re just going to wind up with a bullet in your brain, anyway?”

  “Mm. It does seem somewhat of an exercise in futility when you put it like that.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?”

  “Well, only if you think three against one is an actual challenge. Honestly, Kleck, you should have known better.”

  The lead man laughed. “You’ve got spirit; I’ll give you that. Maybe before we kill you we’ll show you a good—”

  The explosion that rocked the estat corvair’s tower was all the distraction she needed. Before the goons could so much as gape, Nissa dropped to one knee. Kleck’s pistol barked too late in response, the bullet striking his relation in the neck as she kicked the man’s legs out from underneath him. She followed that strike with another to Kleck behind her, the satisfying snap of his leg more felt than heard over the muffled sound of his scream and the ringing in her ears. The third man, surprised, fumbled for his pistol beneath his jacket. Nissa pushed up onto her hands and dropped him with a cartwheeling roundhouse to the face, all without so much as mussing her headscarf.

  She would have been a fool to think the fight was over, so she didn’t, rolling from the cartwheeling kick into a tumble that landed her behind the heavy cages. She had to go straight-backed and narrow to use the side of the cage for cover, but it worked, the bullets from Kleck’s pistol sparking off the latticed construction before his clip ran dry. The moment she heard that telltale click, she was off, rushing the opposite wall, planting her foot against it, and launching at Kleck with a hard shoulder charge. He was just getting to one knee, trying to reload, when the blow nearly took his head off. Instead, he crumpled backward, his body splayed out like some pathetic rag doll.

  Nissa came to rest in a practiced kneel. She stood and dusted herself off as she looked down at the three men. One dead, two down for the count. She retrieved her pistol, considered making it three. They were scum, after all; she could play it of
f easily enough. A rogue cop going back on his obligations. Both sides getting the better of each other.

  But that wasn’t who she was.

  Her radio was trashed, but the one in Kleck’s cruiser worked just fine. “This is Detective Nissa Aziani,” she said into the mic. “I’m going to need some backup and a forensic team out here in the Red Lantern District.”

  * * *

  “Ah, hell. They’ve been turned.”

  There was a measure of sadness, even sympathy, in Ann’s voice. There was also the flat, unflinching tone of a seasoned professional, that hardness outstripping whatever humanity she had once shared with the turned. They might have been victims in their own right, but they were also under the influence of a blood frenzy and desperate for their first feed. They would not stop to consider the source of the blood they sought, would feel no pity or shame as they drained her and Jeanine, only an overwhelming urge to satiate the frenzied lust that drove them.

  “What are we going to do?” Jeanine asked as the turned mob shuffled and shambled forward.

  Most of them had been injured in the crash, and their twisted and broken limbs prevented them from rushing the vehicle en masse. A few had even been reduced to dragging themselves along the glass and the metal-strewn pavement by the tips of their fingers, but still, they persisted, so powerful was the desire to slake their virgin thirst.

  Ann unholstered her pistol, sparing a quick glance to check its load. “What do you think we’re going to do?” she asked as she snapped the clip back into place and pulled the slide. Then she opened the passenger side door and knelt behind it for cover.

  “But… they’re people,” she said.

  There was a middle-aged man in a suit, some sort of professional. Another man, younger, with the look and build of a fighter. A woman of advanced age, probably a grandmother, her silver hair shimmering in the lamplight. A teenager, her gauzy white dress torn and streaked with blood from a massive gash across her right cheek. The worst, by far, though, was a young woman about her own age. The woman’s pregnancy had just started to show.