by M. D. Massey
“Kara—”
Her eyes snapped open, and her face transformed before my eyes. I stumbled backward, tripping over a file box and falling hard until my head and back hit the wall. Still, I never took my eyes off the creature before me as her features shifted and reformed into that of a stranger.
Kara’s freckled, wind-chafed skin blurred, to be replaced by a porcelain-perfect face—unmarred by blemish and completely devoid of color, save a slight blush around the cheeks. This woman’s hair and eyes darkened; her lips became fuller and redder. As she metamorphosed, the change revealed high cheekbones and a large nose that dominated her face without detracting from her beauty. She was barefoot, and wore a slinky, low-cut black dress that revealed long, shapely legs and a dancer’s chest. The dress was something that would’ve been expensive before the War, an anachronism no human would bother with in the post-war world of violence and survival.
“That’s a cruel trick,” I stated, catching my balance as I took a defensive stance with my sword held in front of me.
I briefly considered going on the attack, but held back. This creature had seen Kara, that much was certain, else she wouldn’t have been able to fool me so completely. And while I was unsure whether I’d witnessed some sort of mental trick, an actual physical transformation, or an honest-to-goodness magical illusion, I didn’t care at the moment. This thing knew something about Kara’s whereabouts, and I was going to find out what.
She sat up and swung her legs off the desk, crossing them as she regarded me with a cruel smile. “It is, and one I couldn’t help but play on you. I’ve had my pets searching for you—and your lover—since my brother’s death. He cried out to me through the bond we shared, at the moment of his death.” Her voice was peculiarly accented, something Eastern European that I couldn’t place.
“He had it coming,” I said, keeping my eyes on her.
“He had nothing coming but the right to rule all humans as the miserable cattle you are!” she hissed, showing her fangs before she composed herself in an unsettling and instant change in demeanor. “When he died, I experienced it through our bond. I felt you stab him in the back with that poisoned blade, and saw his spawn betray him as she snapped his neck. You know of whom I speak. You’ve put yourself through hell trying to rescue her, after all. The same way I’d have sacrificed myself to save my beloved Piotr.”
JEALOUSIES
“Where’s Kara?” I snarled.
“To be honest, I have no idea—although not for lack of searching. She’s proven to be… most elusive, for a new vampire. Of course, Piotr was very old, and very powerful, and without doubt he conferred some of that power on your love when he turned her. So, it’s no surprise that she’s managed to evade me thus far.”
“If you hurt her, I’ll—”
My words were cut off by the vamp’s iron grip on my throat. She’d covered the distance between us in the blink of an eye, batting the sword from my grasp and pinning me to the wall with one hand around my throat. My feet dangled as I kicked, helplessly, clawing at her arm with little effect. She squeezed tighter, cutting off the blood to my brain, until my vision began to dim. I blacked out, and when I came back around I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall with the vamp squatting next to me.
“You’ll do nothing, hunter. I’ve killed dozens like you over the centuries. Each thought they were worthy. Some even dabbled in the mystical arts, or traded pieces of their soul to things darker than I, in futile attempts to gain some edge that would allow them to prove victorious against me. None survived.”
“If you hurt Kara, I will kill you,” I growled.
In a flash of movement, she grabbed my sword where it had fallen, stabbing it through my shoulder and pinning me to the wall. I screamed in rage and pain, grasping the handle of the weapon in an attempt to pull it free so I could thrust it in her heart. It wouldn’t budge. Blood dripped around the wound, creating a slowly spreading stain as it leaked down my chest.
She leaned in and sniffed the air close to my face, and her expression soured. “I can smell the sickness in you, the stink of rot and death. Your body fights against it, but despite what small advantages medical science has granted you, eventually you will succumb.”
She caressed my face, almost tenderly. I attempted to bat her hand away, but I may as well have been slapping an iron bar. She let her hand fall, and I did the same, weakening from blood loss and shock.
“What do you creatures want?” I asked.
She played with a lock of my hair, and I batted at her hand to little effect. “To rule, of course. To dominate. To bring humanity to its knees.”
“Obviously—but none of it makes sense. Why kill the thing that sustains you? Why wipe out your only source of food on the planet?”
She chuckled, a low rumble in her throat that stood in sharp contrast to the high, almost soothing tone of her voice. “Do you really think we’d kill you all off, and doom ourselves to starvation? We’d been breeding you like cattle, long before we dropped the bombs and unleashed the undead against you. Honestly, how many of you do you think we require to survive?
“You humans had spread like an infection all across the world, a disease that threatened to destroy itself by killing its host. You were a greater threat to your own survival than we ever were! We saw our own destruction inevitably entwined with your own, so we had to act to ensure the future of our people.”
“You’re telling me this was all about eugenics and environmentalism? About population control and saving the earth?”
The vampire shook her head. “You act as though you’re unaware of the path down which your species was headed. Have you so soon forgotten the way the world was before we intervened? The seas were filled with garbage and debris. Radiation and toxins had poisoned the oceans. Coral reefs were dying all over the globe, along with the entire ecosystems they supported. Ten thousand animal species were driven to extinction each year. Global surface temperatures were rising, the polar ice caps were melting, and yet your species refused to recognize the signs. We had no choice but to act.”
I laughed, despite the intense pain and nausea I felt.
The vamp’s eyes narrowed. “What about all I’ve said do you find so amusing?”
I waved a hand dismissively at her. “Oh, it’s not that. I’m laughing because it’s just my luck that I run into a vampire who’s also a tree-hugging environmentalist.”
I never saw the blow, but I heard the crack as her hand struck my cheek, and felt the whiplash effect of my head snapping around before I faded out. However long it took me to come back around, I had no idea, but she was still squatting there in front of me when I regained consciousness.
“This is no laughing matter, human. We’ve lived on this planet side by side with you for millennia, since the dawn of history. Your world is a paradise compared to our own, and those of other supernatural entities who’ve come here. Why do you think they clamor and fight to reach your world? I’ll tell you why. It’s because hell truly exists, just on the other side of the Veil.
“And now it exists here as well… for your kind, anyway. But for my kind, we’ve never had it better. We breed humans for food, we enjoy all the creature comforts human technology can provide, and we rule this world as royalty, as is our due. With better than ninety percent of your population culled, there still exist plenty of your kind to enslave, hunt, and feed on as we see fit. And as this planet recovers from the relatively minor insult we visited on it, the future is looking very, very bright for my kind… and quite bleak for your own.”
I was starting to fade out, maybe from blood loss or a concussion. I’d only just recovered from my fight with Piotr, and I doubted the slap she’d given me had done my brain any good. Still, I struggled to remain conscious, because I wanted answers.
“You’re trying to bring more of your kind over here, aren’t you? But why not just make more of yourselves?”
She rocked back on her heels, then up on her toes, perching like
a bird of prey. “Because our offspring don’t always share our values, as your Kara has shown. Often, they fight against us, rebelling like the children they are. But when the master brings the remainder of our kind over here, we’ll be unstoppable. Then, no force or species on this earth will be able to stand against Marduk and his people.”
“You should kill me now,” I whispered. “I’ll kill you, and this Marduk. You can count on it.”
She sneered, licking her lips and playing the tip of her tongue across one of her oversized canines. “How I wish you were healthy so I might feed off you, just so you could feel what it is to be utterly and completely dominated. But I’m afraid the act might kill you, and I intend to keep you alive so your lover can watch you die a slow, painful death.”
She stood, leaning over me to grab the sword’s handle, twisting it as she spoke. “When you see your lover—and I know you will—tell her that Calypso comes for her.”
She released her grip on the sword and strutted out of the room, slowly, at human speed. I watched her go, then blacked out.
I woke on a field stretcher, inside some sort of warehouse or repair shop. I had an I.V. tube and needle in my arm, and there was a bag of saline hung on the wall nearby. I was covered in wool military blankets, and I had a splitting headache. Someone had patched up my shoulder; apparently, Calypso hadn’t hit anything vital. I imagined that was by design.
However, the whole side of my face where she’d slapped was swollen. I tongued my teeth and found a loose molar. Hopefully, it’d heal back in place if I left it alone. Dental care was hard to get these days.
I watched the steady drip, drip, drip of saline solution fall inside the I.V. drip chamber as I got a handle on my surroundings. I heard voices nearby—Bobby, Gabby, and the ’thropes, along with the crackle of a fire. I tried to sit up, but dizziness and weakness dictated otherwise. On top of it all, my bite ached like a son of a bitch.
“Hey, it wakes!” Bobby said from nearby. He closed the distance and took a knee beside the cot. “You’re lucky that Trina used to be an EMT before the War.”
“Paramedic!” she exclaimed from nearby, with exasperation in her voice. “There’s a difference.”
Bobby stuck his finger in the air and spun it in circles. “Fine, paramedic. Anyway, when you didn’t come back we went looking for you. Someone left a note, saying you were in the basement. We found you downstairs, bleeding and unconscious with your sword stuck through your shoulder.”
“Where are the vamps?”
Gabby stood at the foot of the cot, tapping her toe and giving me the evil eye. “Long gone, by the time we got there, along with the rest of the deader dogs. Although we did find the ones you killed.” She exhaled sharply and crossed her arms. “You could have died, cabrón. What is it with you and this death wish you have?”
“Nice to see you too, Gabby.” I sighed, and the effort made my head throb. “I assure you, I don’t have a death wish. I looked around outside the place, and once I figured out what they were looking for, I figured we’d want more info.”
Trina walked over and nudged Bobby out of the way. She checked my pulse and looked at my stab wound as she spoke. “So you went inside a vamp’s lair by yourself? That’s dumb, even by Bobby’s standards.”
“Hey!” he protested.
I shook my head slightly. “How was I supposed to know one of them would be awake?”
She finished checking my bandage, replacing my clothing and blankets before she stood. “Damn, must’ve been an older one. That’s shitty luck. They don’t need as much rest as the young ones. And the really old, powerful ones don’t sleep at all. You’re lucky you made it out of there alive.”
I nodded and coughed, wishing I hadn’t. Every time I moved, I hurt. “The more you know, right? Anyway, she said she wants me alive. Apparently, she intends to exact some kind of revenge on me and Kara.”
Sledge spoke from over by the fire. “Who’s Kara?”
“His ex,” Gabby said. She turned and looked at me. “But Kara’s long gone, right? I mean, how’s this vamp going to hatch this plan of hers when your girlfriend has skipped town?”
“Okay, first off, she’s not my ‘ex’ anything. And second—”
“Duh, Scratch, she’s a vamp,” Gabby said with an eye roll and all the sarcasm a teenage voice could muster. “I hate to tell you this, but you two have some compatibility issues.”
Trina’s jaw dropped. “Your ex is a vamp? Never been with a vamp before. Ain’t that kind of like sleeping with a corpse?”
“She was human until recently,” Bobby said. “She got turned before we could rescue her from Piotr.”
I nodded with a wince. “Who happens to be this Calypso’s brother, or so she says. Since Kara and I killed him, now she’s out for vengeance.”
“Great,” Gabby muttered.
“Oh, it gets worse. When I looked through the files they were pulling from the building, I found several documents referencing the old Pantex facility up near Amarillo.”
Trina whistled. “Nuclear shit. Man, that’s bad news. Back before the War, I used to go to EMS conferences, and that was one of the facilities that gave the counter-terror people nightmares. We used to run scenarios about what would happen if it was ever attacked.”
“I don’t get it,” Bobby said.
I raised my hand to get his attention. “Then let me make it clear. Before the War, that place was where the government disassembled and stored any nuclear weapons that were being put out of commission. It’s probably full of weapons-grade plutonium. Remember that portal thing Piotr was working on?”
“How could I forget?” Bobby said. “I still have nightmares about it.”
“Yeah, well, chew on this. I think once the vamps have their hands on a load of plutonium, they’re going try to punch another hole in reality, to bring the rest of their kind over from the other side.”
Trina wanted to wait another day before they moved me, to allow me to heal up a bit more to avoid reopening the wound. But I insisted we couldn’t wait. I sent Bobby on ahead to warn the others, and Sledge and Trina carried me on the stretcher as we headed back to the Facility.
By the second day I was able to walk, but they ended up carrying me anyway, since we’d made quicker time that way. Gabby scouted ahead, and cleared the path of deaders where she could. When she couldn’t, she gave fair warning and steered us around any sizable groups that were in our way. Bobby rejoined us that evening, and we made it back by the morning of the third day.
True to his word, Samson had his Pack members running patrols around the Facility while we were gone. Colin had told everyone they were on lockdown until we got the deader dog situation under control, which more or less kept anyone from getting a peek outside. I hated to think what would happen if one of the abductees sighted one of Samson’s werewolves; it’d cause outright pandemonium.
Once we got back, I had Colin bring Anna and Mickey outside to one of the old training buildings on base, so we could have a pow-wow and figure out our next move. When we were all gathered, I started the meeting and got down to business.
“First things first. Did you have any trouble from those hounds while we were gone?”
Samson shook his head. “We spotted one or two here and there, but whenever we tried to engage them they’d take off. I got the feeling they were running surveillance on us. We managed to kill a few, but some of them got away.”
Colin nodded. “It’s Calypso. She’s keeping an eye on us. If she’s the one running them, that is.”
“I told you what I saw,” I said, looking Colin in the eye. “I don’t know if it was magic or some sort of mind trick, but she looked just like Kara. Then, she changed right before my eyes. The only thing I can compare it to is like when a ’thrope shifts.”
The big swordsman stroked his chin. “It sounds like illusory magic to me. And if she’s the one who created those familiars, this is bad—real bad. A powerful witch is trouble enough. But a vampire who is a
lso a witch? And one who dabbles in necromancy? She’s going to be hell to stop, believe me.”
Anna tapped a finger on the map we had laid out on the table in front of us. “You say that facility is in Amarillo? What are the chances they’re already trying to get in?”
I shook my head. “No idea. But, something tells me that the intel Calypso came for is the key to getting inside that facility. I’m sure they had failsafes in place before the War, to lock the place down in case of a total power failure. No way they’re getting in without powering the place up again and having the codes to get inside.”
“Unless they used high explosives,” Sledge interjected.
I shook my head. “That’s a possibility, but I think they’d have already done that if they thought it would work. No, they’re waiting for that intel. That’s the key.”
Mickey cleared his throat. “You think they headed back with it already?”
“Not likely.” I ran my finger from the former capital to Dallas, along IH-35. “It’s a hell of a long way from Austin to Dallas, along roads that are choked with wrecked and ruined vehicles and other debris. Not to mention looters, punters, scavs, and deaders. Plus, they have to hide during the daytime. No, I think it took them a while to get down here, and I don’t think Calypso is going to take a jaunt back until she finishes her business—all of it.”
“Meaning you and Kara,” Anna said.
“Exactly,” I replied. “She has a real hard on for both of us, and I think she wants to punish us in some way, in order to get revenge for Piotr’s death. So, she’ll stay down here until she knows we’re within her grasp.”
“Then what?” Bobby asked.
“Then she’ll bring hell down on us all,” Colin said. “Based on what you reported, she’s traveling with a half-dozen higher vamps. The bad news? Even a handful of older vamps are more than a match for Samson’s Pack”—he paused to glance at Samson—“no offense, of course.”