Children of Blood (Kat Drummond Book 13)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  Suddenly, Brett hit the breaks. Thank the Vortex, Cataclysm and every god, real or fake, for seatbelts!

  The car crashed into our rear, crumpling under our enchanted, reinforced hull. Without even so much as looking through our rear window, Brett turned into the correct lane and joined the safety of the herd.

  We crossed the invisible line out of the slums and into Hope City proper. As we did so, our radios and phones began beeping with notifications.

  Cindy’s already pale face went even paler.

  “They’re…everywhere. Attacks all over the city. Not just mobs. Vampires too. And…they’re going after our families.”

  They called Ukwesaba “The Terror”. They were right.

  We weren’t attacked again as we exited the highway and drove towards the HQ. We were silent, letting the pinging of our notifications fill the void.

  It was a blissful silence. A calm before the storm. As fire greeted us outside the HQ.

  A mob, double the size of the protest groups from before, was assembled outside the Crusader HQ. They had set alight a Crusader van and held aloft a strawman wearing a fake salamander coat, which they then set alight too.

  Brett didn’t slow down. I called for him to stop. But he was deafened by rage.

  The mob scattered as the van drifted in front of the HQ, crushing the burning effigy. I could hear the muffled shouts through the car.

  Crusaders wearing riot gear, usually used against zombies, rushed out to form a perimeter.

  The vampires didn’t need to fight us. They just needed to get the city to do it for them.

  My mind screamed at me to keep moving. To go and save the pixies and Alex. To find the Davisons. To find everyone that I’ve ever loved and hold them close.

  But I couldn’t. I had to be here. I had to be smart.

  A masked Crusader tapped on my window, signalling for us to get out.

  I opened the door and jumped out, just as someone opened fire. Treth dropped Ithalen into my hand. But it wasn’t needed.

  In a flash of tiger print, Kyong was on top of a gunman in the crowd, pulverising him into the ground. Blood sprayed, covering protesters and Crusaders.

  Screams and shouts erupted. Some protesters fled, as others charged. Kyong lashed out, roaring like a tiger himself. Even the calmer Crusaders began to strike with their batons and even blades, as the mob pressed even closer.

  Things were escalating way too fast.

  Cindy pulled me by the arm, as Jane stood at the doorway, flanked by Crusaders. She wore a bulletproof vest. She beckoned us to come inside.

  “It’s chaos!” she exclaimed, shouts and more gunfire erupting to add credence to the statement.

  She looked me up and down, noticing the red on my boots and the look in my eyes.

  “What did you see?” she asked, hushed.

  “Squads 4 through 6 are dead,” I replied, simply, and pushed past her, even as she looked like she had more to say.

  The halls and reception were crowded with injured Crusaders and civilians. Many of the civvies look eerily like Crusaders I knew. Families. Thank Athena that they’d managed to get them to safety!

  I turned into the Mosh-Pit and almost fainted as I sighed with relief.

  Trudie and Pranish stood with her parents, Charne and Mike. Mike had a bandage around his arm but was standing. And standing by them was Mandy, my aunt.

  I ran towards them, as my aunt and foster mom cried out my name. I embraced both at the same time as they squeezed me, paying no mind to the smouldering scales of my coat.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay!” I sobbed, tears falling freely. I didn’t care who saw.

  “We’re fine!” Mike said, grinning, and indicating his arm. “You should see the other guy.”

  I heard a rumble in Trudie’s throat. The fact that anyone would attack her, our family, filled me with rage as well.

  I turned to my friend, questioningly. Her eyes were afire.

  “No one down among the wolves,” she said, but then turned to Pranish. She hid her face. Seems she was barely holding it together.

  Pranish put his arm around her and looked at me.

  “They torched the house.”

  “What?! Who? Why?”

  “It’s okay, Kat!” Charne pled. “We’re safe. That’s what matters.”

  Memories of the Davison’s house flashed before me. Playdates as a kid. My parents smiling in the dining room, as Trudie, Pranish and I watched cartoons in the lounge. And a lifetime living with them after my parents were killed.

  And that house was gone.

  “It’s only stuff, dear,” Charne said. She was smiling. Probably shock. I squeezed her tighter, repeating, over and over.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

  She tried to console me, rubbing my back. But nothing could change what had happened.

  I finally released Charne and turned to my aunt. She looked uninjured. Knowing her, she’d probably been in some deep archive which vampires didn’t know about. But, before I could say anything to her, I saw the last face I wanted to see from across the hall.

  He usually had an arrogant, self-assured grin on his petulant, fucking face. But he wasn’t smiling this time. Agent Phillip Brown looked like he was at a funeral.

  “Excuse me,” I said, quietly, and angrily, as I ushered past my aunt.

  I strode across the Mosh-Pit. Crusaders stepped aside to let me pass. Some recoiled as they dodged the sparks from my coat. Phillip took a step back, and then ducked as I punched the wall behind him.

  “Kat, stop!”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?!” I yelled. Everyone turned, going silent.

  “I’m on your side, Kat! I’m here to help.”

  “Hah!” I spat. “Like the fucking Chairman cares about helping us! He’d sooner hand us over to the vamps.”

  “He would,” Phillip explained, sweat running down his face. It was the most afraid I’d ever seen him. “But I don’t work for Riaan.”

  I resisted trying to punch him again. My hand stung. I flexed the fingers. Still worked. But there was a scrape on my knuckles.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, more quietly, but my words still dripping with rage and scorn.

  “The Empire has invaded,” he said, standing upright and brushing off fictitious dirt from his blazer. “Vampires or not, the Izingane Zegazi are agents of the Zulu Empire. My enemy. Our enemy. They have never gotten this far west. Until now. This isn’t just your fight, Kat Drummond. This is an invasion of the sovereign republic I have sworn to defend.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I have. I’m here to help you. To keep the Chairman off your back. To give you the aid you need to send these invaders back across the Three Point Line.”

  “Why?” I sighed. “Why not just hand me in? Trade me for peace.”

  “Because we do not negotiate with terrorists. Do you think we have survived among this sea of darkness by being cowards? We don’t hand over the Last Light to some barbarians. We don’t betray a single citizen of the State of Good Hope!”

  There was passion in Phillips words. A passion I’d never heard in him before. I had never been sure of the sincerity of his words before. He was an enigma. A scumbag. But now…I didn’t know.

  “What are you? Really?”

  “I am a patriot, Kat Drummond. As all Titan-fearing citizens of this great nation should be. And I won’t hand over our protector to monsters.”

  I stared into the agent’s eyes. Intently. Like I’d never done before. He met my gaze. And I saw no lie.

  “I still don’t like you. For all the deaths you’ve caused.”

  “I will die for my city. And if I die hated, then so be it.”

  I nodded. In acknowledgement, but with just a hint of respect.

  I turned away from him.

  “I have a long night ahead of me, Phillip. I don’t suspect I’ll be getting any sleep.”

  “That is only right. A
patriot, a hero, never sleeps. They must be eternally awake. Eternally vigilant. Eternally willing to die for a cause greater than themselves.”

  Chapter 9. Distress

  The sun broke through the clouds and darkness of the bloody night before. I could practically hear the plaintive sigh of relief from the city that had faced a night of such horror.

  We had bled. Not just hunters. But our families. An entire city, torn apart by monsters and opportunists.

  Vampires attacked us from every shadow. My arms ached from swinging my sword. My back stung from where they had scratched me. Ghouls attacked orphanages and hospitals. And what the vamps didn’t do themselves, looters and gangsters worsened by taking advantage of the chaos.

  Half a dozen corpses lay outside Crusader HQ. The police were investigating. No one was reporting Kyong yet, but there were witnesses.

  We did our best to save as many lives as we could. But we were too few, with too large a city to save. And we had suffered more than anyone else.

  Duer and the pixies were burying their dead. Themba had managed to get home and chase away the looters. Alex, thank Athena, was fine.

  Heather was in court, facing murder charges. She’d killed three men while defending her family. She would probably get off on self-defence but, as someone who had been in a similar situation, it was a massive rigmarole and definitely not what Heather needed.

  Many Crusaders had holed up in their own homes, getting ready for another night. Someone had released the addresses of all Crusaders online. Jane suspected it was our good friend, the government mole. If it was, that was more blood on Chairman Riaan’s hands.

  Regardless, it meant fewer hunters pursuing the enemy. And fewer protectors on the streets.

  The dawn brought relief. But only barely, as my body felt like it was being weighed down by the corpses I’d seen crucified in the slum block.

  We couldn’t handle another night like this. We couldn’t lose more men. But we were going to. That was the painful truth of the matter.

  I fell into my office chair, letting blood stain the leather. Alex snaked his away around my legs. It was safer for him here. We weren’t leaving the HQ. It was our fortress. I heard the muffled shouts of protesters outside. The deaths had not deterred them. Perhaps, it had enraged them further.

  Almost unconsciously, I reached for my phone. We needed help. All the help we could get. I scrolled through my contacts, pausing as I saw Miriam’s. I still couldn’t believe she was dead. She had been a constant. Indestructible. In the course of her decades long career, she had dissected and tested on more vampires than any other individual in the world. And done so without so much as a scratch. We didn’t think she could die. She couldn’t be dead. But she was. I had to accept that. And I had to avenge her.

  Finally, I selected Gareth Blanche’s number. He had sworn to help us when we needed it. He had already, at the Battle. But this was a new battle. One we couldn’t fight alone. We needed more werewolves for this war, even if packs naturally didn’t get along.

  “Drummond,” Gareth answered, almost growling.

  “Gareth…we need help.” I cut straight to the chase, ashamed of the desperation in my voice.

  “We do too, hunter. We lost many at your Battle. And we lost more last night to the vampires. I am sorry, but we have to look after our own packs.”

  He hung up without allowing me to respond.

  So much for that. I searched for a contact for Girin, the goblin shaman who was a form of leader among the orcs and goblins. But I didn’t have his number. I felt Candace’s presence and concern, but I couldn’t call on her. It wasn’t time for her to return to Hope City yet. And even if she was here, I couldn’t do that to her. Her dark magic corrupted her. I would rather she used it as sparingly as possible. If at all.

  Who else could we contact? The police and CDF were being kept on a short leash. Puretide had absorbed into our group. And so many others were dead…

  Our list of allies was wearing thin.

  I dropped my phone onto the desk and stood. I couldn’t sleep, despite my weariness. Treth watched on, pity in his eyes.

  Perhaps, I could summon the Army of the Vessel. But that wouldn’t work. This wasn’t a war. No number of ghosts would be able to stop these attacks. I’d have to be everywhere at once to lead them. This was sheer terror. They attacked us everywhere. And they got thugs to do their dirty work. No, not even thugs. Desperate people, people who had lost their families.

  But they were hurting us. Going after our homes. Our families! We were meant to protect them, but when it came down to it, we had to come first.

  I exited my office, not wanting to be confined, and ran into Krieg, sitting on a couch, covered in blood, as he reloaded his magazines on a coffee table. Silver headed bullets were lined up in neat rows, ready to be fired into a bloodsucking monster.

  Krieg nodded at me in acknowledgement.

  “Armoury is full, Last Light. I hope this is fine.”

  I grunted in reply, before walking past him, and stopping. I didn’t feel like talking. I wanted quiet. A time to rest. But something possessed me to speak to Brett’s old friend. Something he and Brett had said the day before. I turned back to him.

  “Is this like old times, Krieg? Was this what life was like in the Corps?” I tried to stop the bitterness in my voice, but it came out as a hiss. Hot and angry. I didn’t realise how much I resented him being here. As if his arrival had signalled this becoming real. That a vampire hunter precipitated vampire. Which was, of course, nonsense. It was always the other way round.

  Krieg stopped his reloading. He held a single bullet between his thumb and forefinger. He rubbed the silver tip, tenderly. Contemplatively.

  “To be hated is a small cost to pay for doing the right thing,” he finally replied, without looking up.

  The answer, honestly, surprised me. It sounded almost like something Treth would say. And was awfully like what Phillip had said.

  “We were hated by those we protected,” he continued. “Feared, reviled. And chased into the darkness. Hunted down by those whom we had saved. But that did not matter. Adoration is not why we fight.”

  It is about doing the right thing…

  “It’s about the kill. To fulfil the vendetta. To let there be no more monsters in our world.”

  And that’s where we were different.

  I sighed, heavily, and sat down next to the Corpsman. He was very possibly Brett’s oldest surviving friend. Perhaps, I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Corps or not. Perhaps, he could change.

  “What was Brett like in the Corps?”

  “Brett?” Krieg smiled. A genuine smile, unhindered by the thrill of violence. It was the smile of a child.

  “I remember a boy, just a bit younger than me, being introduced as 56-3. The only survivor of the 3rd new division. The elders were excited about him. Said he held promise. That he’d faced a vamp lord and survived.”

  “But what was he like?”

  Krieg looked confused. He stopped rubbing the bullet and held it in a fist.

  “He was like the rest of us,” he said. “A Corpsman to the core. He was sad. He was angry. He missed his family. And he loved his new family.”

  He looked at me, and I saw the hint of sadness in his eyes.

  “I can guess how you feel about us. What you have heard about the Corps…but you need to know that whatever is true, or a lie, we were a family. We’d do anything for each other. We’d die for each other. And we’d die for it. Because the Corps was greater than any of us.”

  He looked back at his hand.

  “And now it’s gone…leaving us.”

  He contemplated his closed fist, for about a minute of silence. He looked up.

  “I know you killed Commander Finley.”

  “I…” I exclaimed, shocked.

  “Brett told me everything.” Krieg nodded. “You did the right thing. The thing Finley would have wanted.”

  He looked out the window.r />
  “We must not suffer the monster to live, Finley would have said. Even about himself.”

  He sneered. “If only you’d apply the same mercy to the werewolves in your ranks.”

  I stood up, suddenly, knocking the coffee table. Some loose rounds rolled onto the floor. Krieg didn’t look shocked.

  “This isn’t the Corps,” I said, coldly. “Don’t forget that.”

  I spun and left the room as fast as I could.

  “Brett isn’t like him, Kat,” Treth said. “He loves Trudie and the others. He’d never let them get hurt.”

  I knew that. I did. I loved Brett. Not for his hate, but for his love. But, with all that was happening, I felt rage growing in my love’s heart. A rage that could turn to darkness if left unchecked.

  I stopped in the old upstairs hallway. After acquiring the building next door, it had become a quaint, underused transit point to Cindy’s and my office. That, and what was supposed to be Pranish’s office before Trudie and him acquired the werewolf compound.

  But, despite Pranish hardly using this office, I heard rapid typing on a keyboard. White light shone from outside an otherwise dark room. Pranish had not turned the main light on. Typical. Trudie and him were the same in that regard. They became so engrossed in whatever they were doing that they forgot about the world around them. I wasn’t sure if this shared flaw made them more or less compatible. Well, at least Trudie didn’t actually need a light anymore.

  I entered the office. It used to be a security room when this was once a bank. There were still some old monitors and computer parts lying on the shelves. They had been pushed aside, as Pranish sat at a desk, hunched over a glowing laptop, while muttering to himself. Taped to the wall was a map of the city, covered in notes and thumbtacks of various colours.

  “Did you manage to get any sleep?” I asked. Pranish jumped and I heard a crunch. He had been chewing the end of a pen idly. Said pen was now missing its end.

  “Kat! Ah, yeah. Good morning. But doesn’t feel like that.” He shook his head, coming back to his senses. Seemed he hadn’t gotten any sleep. He blinked himself awake. I contemplated turning on the overhead light, but that would have been way too cruel.