The Savage War (The Vampire World Saga Book 5)

by P. T. Hylton

  “I got one!” Ed shouted. He squeezed off a burst of gunfire.

  “Wait!” Alex said. “Hold your fire.”

  They stood in silence for a long moment, waiting.

  Dozens of Ferals lay on the floor of the train station. Some hunched in corners. Some stretched out on benches. But none of them were moving. And none responded to the sound of Ed’s gunfire. Normally, a horde of Ferals of this size would have attacked them en masse by now.

  Ed’s spoke in a low voice. “Are they…”

  Alex didn’t answer. She approached the nearest Feral, her pistol trained on its head, and carefully nudged it with her boot. Its head lulled to the side, revealing open, vacant eyes and a face caked with dried, black blood.

  She slowly stood up from her crouch, looking around, taking in the other Ferals, still not allowing herself to believe. She marched to another Feral and checked it. Then a second. Then a third. All of them were the same. All of them were dead.

  “We did it,” she said softly. “The virus… It works.”

  Felix and Chuck wandered through the door, their eyes wide, their mouths open.

  No one spoke for what felt like a minute. Then, Ed pointed his rifle in the air and shot a burst of fire into the ceiling as he screamed in victory. “Yeah!”

  Chuck put a hand to his mouth as tears filled his eyes. “Oh my God. I can’t believe this.”

  Felix let out a whoop of joy and high-fived Ed.

  Alex just stood there, unable to speak.

  They searched four more buildings in the city, and the result was the same. They found Ferals, all of them dead. They made no effort to be quiet, hoping that if there were more Ferals in the city, they’d be able to draw them out. They never heard so much as a distant howl. Alex wished she’d thought to bring a blood packet, so they could check for sure, and she promised herself she would do so next time.

  It was still early in the day, so Alex directed Chuck to take them on a slight detour. He set them down in Warsaw, six hundred kilometers away, less than an hour later. This time, they found an office building to search.

  No sooner had they passed through the front door than they heard a weak howl.

  Alex drew her pistol, pushing down the disappointment she felt. “Be ready, people. We’ll just check out this first floor, then we’re out of here.”

  As they moved into the lobby, something to Alex’s left moved, and she spun toward it, pistol ready.

  It was a Feral, but the creature looked so weak it could barely stand. It opened its mouth and let out a choked howl. Alex realized this was the same sound she’d heard a moment before. She’d assumed the Feral had been far away, but it had just been too weak to give any volume to its cry.

  Chuck fired, putting the poor creature out of its misery. As it fell, Alex noticed more bodies on the ground nearby. There were two dozen Ferals in this lobby, and every one of them was dead.

  When they got back to the ship, Alex headed directly for the cockpit, grabbed the radio, and hailed New Haven. She waited until CB was on the other end before revealing the news.

  “What did you find, Alex?” he asked. “Is the virus working?”

  Alex smiled. “It’s not only working, but it’s spreading.”

  The GMT were oddly quiet during their flight back to New Haven. An electric excitement hung in the air. They were the bearers of a secret that was going to change the world, and all of them had the strange sense that if they spoke it aloud, it might not be true. So they flew silently, each of them in their own heads, wondering what this new world would bring. A world where Resettlement was really and truly possible at last. A world where people would be free to live where and how they chose. A world where humans didn’t have to fear the night.

  To Alex’s surprise, CB wasn’t in the hangar to greet them when they arrived home. The support staff didn’t seem to be aware that anything had changed, and they went about their work, business as usual.

  When they were finished, Alex turned to her team. “I don’t know about you all, but I could use a drink.”

  The four of them made their way to Tankards, quietly, but excitedly, talking about the virus and what it might mean. As they walked into the bar, a silence fell over the gathered crowd. Every eye in the place was on the GMT, and no one was saying a word.

  Then Louie set four mugs of beer on the bar, a wide grin on his face. “Let’s hear it for the heroes of New Haven!”

  A cry of celebration rocked the bar as every person in the packed establishment began to scream and cheer. The GMT headed for the bar, surprised and smiling. It seemed that everyone they passed wanted to pat them on the backs or hug them or shake their hands.

  “I guess the word’s out,” Ed shouted over the crowd noise as they reached the bar.

  “General Craig made the announcement an hour ago,” Louie said. “He said you all released some virus and the vampires are dying.”

  Before Alex could answer, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw CB. Tears stood in his eyes.

  He grabbed her and pulled her into a fierce hug. “It was worth it,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Everything we went through. Everything we lost. It was all worth it. We won.”

  Alex hugged him back just as tightly. “Yes, sir. We won.”

  CB finally let her go, and cleared his throat, coyly dabbing at his eyes. Then he gestured toward their beers. “You better drink those fast. General Craig is gathering everyone in the square in the Hub. He wants everyone together to enjoy this moment, and I’m pretty sure he’ll notice if the GMT is missing.”

  Alex grinned at her team. “You heard the colonel. Drink up.”

  They finished their beers in record time, and headed to the Hub to begin the celebration in earnest.

  15

  Alex dodged to her left and narrowly made it between the next two men coming at her. She was moving too fast and there was too much chaos. Her shoulder slammed into a man carrying two glasses of water. The force of the impact spun him on his heels, causing him to do a one-eighty as water flew over the crowd around him. Alex didn’t slow down. She yelled out a quick sorry as curses rang from the crowded street in Sparrow’s Ridge.

  The door to CB’s office burst open a few minutes later, and Alex charged in, covered with a thin layer of sweat. CB’s head swiveled from his computer at the intrusion.

  “Jesus, Alex, how did you get here so fast?”

  “You sounded like it was urgent, so I double-timed it. Did you get something from the island?”

  CB settled back into his seat. “Yes. I know the team was supposed to have a little R&R today, but we are going to send you down to check it out.”

  “Was it Firefly or Owl?”

  “It’s Firefly’s distress beacon. I want you to know that I had a quick emergency meeting with the Council. It was a narrow decision to send you down. After the last message, this could be a trap. I want you to exercise extreme caution on this mission. Even if it is Firefly, he may have lost his mind. Stay in the light as much as possible.”

  “Got it.” Alex was already thinking through the mission, wondering what condition her old friend would be in when she found him. “I’ll get the team ready ASAP and head down.”

  “Alex, listen to me. I want you ready for anything down there. If Firefly and his troops have lost it, you may need to fight them. I want the whole team ready to get out of there if anything seems off.”

  Alex leaned down, putting her hands on CBs desk. She looked directly into his eyes. “I’ll make the hard calls if I have to CB, but I’m going to do whatever I can to help them. If we can save them, we will. If they are too far gone, we’ll either leave them or put them out of their misery.”

  “I know you will.” He paused for a moment. “I had them load a crate of blood onto the away ship. If they’re still alive, they’re going to be hungry.”

  “That’s it. The building with the big door.” Chuck pointed out the window of the away ship as he spoke.


  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Alex said, her eyes fixed on the building. “Those open doors are letting in all kinds of sunlight. And check out the holes in the roof. Why would they stay there during the day?”

  “I’m not here to explain the logic of their choices. I’m just telling you that’s where the signal is coming from.”

  Alex stared at the building for a moment. “Okay. Put us down two hundred yards away. I want to be sure that anything that leaves that warehouse has to cross a lot of sunlight before it reaches our ship.”

  Chuck landed at the outer edge of the parking lot. The doors opened, and the four crew members stepped out.

  “Felix, I want you in the rear,” Alex said. “If we encounter anything but Firefly’s smiling face, I want you to turn on your daylight and fall back into the sunshine. Do you understand?”

  “Look, I have trained with guns. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “Damn it, Greeny, the captain asked you a question,” Ed growled. “She’s expecting an answer.”

  Alex gave Ed a look that made it clear that she didn’t need his help in dealing with Felix, and he shut his mouth.

  “Yes, Captain, I understand.” Felix rolled his eyes as he took the daylight off of his belt and got it ready to activate.

  Chuck ignored all of this and stared across the open lot. After a moment he put his rifle to his shoulder and looked through the scope. “There are scorch marks all over the inside of the building. I’m guessing that the holes in the roof are from fire.”

  Alex frowned, but she kept her eyes focused on the warehouse. “Move in slow and stay in formation.”

  As the team got closer to the building, they were able to see through the open bay doors. Piles of ash lay scattered over the floor. Bullet holes riddled the walls and the raised doors.

  “Holy hell,” Ed muttered. “What happened here?”

  Alex wasn’t about to speculate until they investigated further, but, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she realized that some things were nearly certain. Those piles of ashes were either Ferals, or they were Resettlers.

  A light breeze moved through the building, but the smell of burnt flesh and hair still saturated the air. The team stepped through the open bay door, and the sunlight cast their shadows across the warehouse floor.

  “Firefly, you here?” Alex asked. “We brought breakfast. Wake up.”

  “Alex,” Chuck said in a soft voice. He pointed his weapon at a pile of ash just ahead. Something was sticking out of the pile, and it took Alex a moment to realize what it was: a belt buckle. The vampire had been wearing clothes.

  The sinking feeling in her stomach was stronger now. She looked more closely at the other piles and saw more evidence in many of them. Pieces of Kevlar. A button. These weren’t the remains of Ferals. These were Resettlers. And there was a very good chance that Firefly was among them.

  “Firefly,” Alex called again in a shaky voice. She gripped her pistol, trying to keep her hands from trembling. She drew a deep breath, ignoring the burnt taste of the air, and forced herself to focus. She gestured to the closed door at the end of the room and the team started toward it, carefully stepping around the piles of ash.

  She glanced back at Felix and saw that he was holding his daylight with both hands, and there was a fair amount of shake to his arms. “I need you to keep it together, Felix. Are you with us?”

  “I’m fine.” His voice quivered slightly, but he sounded calmer than Alex had expected. He kept his eyes focused on the door at the end of the room, and took another step, setting his foot down directly in a pile of ash. He tried to jump back as soon as he realized what he had done, but his foot caught on a piece of bone. He tumbled forward, landing with his chest and hands in another ash pile. Letting out a grunt of surprise, he pushed himself back to his feet. He immediately checked his daylight, making sure it was unbroken and ready to use.

  Ed shook his head in disgust. “Christ, new guy. Show some respect.”

  When they reached the door, the team moved to one side and hugged the wall. Alex banged the butt of her pistol on the door, while standing off to the side. “We are coming in, and it’s bright out here, so I suggest anyone in there take cover.”

  She waited a moment, but there was no reply. She turned the knob and gently pushed the door open. The team waited in silence, but they heard nothing from inside the room. Alex crouched low and entered the room, her pistol raised. What she saw made her go weak in the knees.

  She stared at the carnage, trying to understand what she was seeing. Ed and Chuck stood on either side of her, their mouths agape. Felix looked for only a moment before he leaned out of the room and vomited.

  Two of the Resettlers were pinned to the wall, hung in X shapes with metal rods driven through their arms and legs. Their chest cavities were spread open and their organs were laid out on the floor in front of them, neatly arranged. The liver sat next to the lungs which were mostly intact and butterflied open on the floor. The hearts sat at the top of each formation.

  The rest of the room was empty, but for a desk near the wall and a large table. A small device with a flashing red light sat on the table. Alex walked over and turned off the distress beacon.

  “What the hell is this?” Chuck asked, finally breaking the silence. “Who could have done this?”

  “Maybe this is what the virus does,” Ed said. “Maybe they go crazy and kill each other.”

  “That doesn’t feel right,” Alex said. “The Ferals we saw were weak and confused. If anything, they were less aggressive than usual. This is something else entirely.” She thought a moment. There were only two possibilities in her mind. Either Firefly had activated the distress signal, in which case they were too late, or someone else had activated it and this was a trap. “Fall back to the ship. We can plan our next move from there.”

  “Getting away from this place sounds damn good to me,” Ed said.

  Chuck turned to Felix, who was wiping vomit from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You okay, man?”

  “I’m okay. I’ve got this.” He held his daylight at the ready.

  Alex led them out of the room, carefully scanning every corner and shadow as they made their way through the warehouse. She didn’t relax until they stepped out of the bay door.

  As soon as they were in the sunlight, the team breathed a collective sigh of relief. Felix clipped his daylight back on his belt, and Ed lowered his rifle. What they’d seen was horrible, but they were out of it now. The team walked toward the ship.

  “New guy, you should probably wipe the remains of that soldier off your shirt,” Ed said.

  Felix looked down and saw his chest was still covered in ash.

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” Alex said. “He held it together in there. That said, I would wipe that off your shirt, Felix. It’s pretty gross.”

  Felix brushed at his chest, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

  Alex glanced back at the warehouse, and sadness hit her like a fist to the stomach. The Resettlers were dead. Firefly was dead. And she had no idea who had killed them.

  “Have you ever heard of anything like this?” Chuck asked.

  Before anyone had a chance to answer, something struck Chuck and Felix from behind. They flew forward, landing face first on the pavement. Alex drew her pistol and spun toward the attacker, silently cursing herself for dropping her guard.

  The creature attacking them paused, and Alex caught only a momentary glimpse of its strange, animalistic features. It looked similar to a Feral in some ways, but it was attacking them in direct sunlight. She didn’t have long to consider that before the creature charged and grabbed her, pinning her arms to her side. The force crushed the wind from her lungs. Ed raised his rifle, but the enemy holding Alex kicked, catching Ed in the side with its foot.

  All three of her team members were down. Alex struggled with all her might, trying to wriggle free of the arms squeezing her. But she couldn’t budge them. Aft
er a few moments of pain and her lungs screaming for oxygen, her eyes closed and she went limp.

  16

  Alex didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, but it couldn’t have been more than a moment or two. They were still outside the building that contained the ashes of more than a hundred and fifty Resettlers. The thought hit her hard; all those people dead.

  The only thing that had changed was her position. She lay flat on her back on the ground, and there was a terrible pressure on her chest.

  For a moment upon waking, she thought maybe she was having a heart attack. Then she opened her eyes and saw the creature crouching on her chest. The thing had looked hideous from a short distance, but now, right up in Alex’s face, she looked so much worse. She was clearly female, but her features were elongated and sharpened, as if her biology had been twisted into some half-human, half-Feral hybrid. There was intelligence in her eyes, but her face was that of an animal. And that wasn’t even taking into account the rancid smell.

  The creature looked down at Alex for a long moment, the corners of her mouth turned upward in what might have been a smile. “Hi. How are you?”

  Alex struggled to draw a breath, but the weight of the creature was pressing down on her too heavily. Her body demanded oxygen, but she couldn’t move her chest to fill her lungs.

  The creature watched her struggle for breath as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d seen in years. Slowly, she stepped off. Alex gasped, water springing to her eyes as air filled her lungs.

  “What do we do with them?” It was another creature who spoke, this one male. He stood over Chuck’s fallen body.

  The female grabbed Alex by the vest and dragged her across the pavement. Tiny rocks dug into the exposed skin of Alex’s lower back, but the grip was like a vise. The creature grabbed Ed with her other hand and began walking toward the building. “Let’s get them inside. There’s probably some room next to the others.”