“Wow,” Hank walked over to look at the machine, seeing how much blood it had drawn from the young man, “you know how long it took me to get Izzy to understand just that much of the manufacturing process, Daniel? If I could, I’d switch you and Izzy in a heartbeat.” He shook his head, but pulled the latest vial from the machine and plugged in a fresh one. “But you have the stuff in your blood that keeps the money flowing, while Izzy doesn’t. So, sucks to be you. Your parents were killed on the altar of social progress and medical necessity. So, have a little spine and stop your crying. Out of the tens of thousands of people here in the Fallen Lands, we chose you.”
“Yeah,” Izzy confirmed the liquids going back into Daniel’s body were still dripping correctly, “We drag your ass all over this land each time we move, you should feel important.”
Hank stopped playing with the vials to look over at the vampire as he started laughing.
It was a dark laugh. “You have no idea who comes, who is here! I feel him, feel his energy. Power like you have never encountered and he will save us, save those who you hunt in the day.”
“Well, certainly we hunt in the day,” Calvin quipped, “You fuckers are a lot scarier at night.”
Izzy pointed out the window, “It’s becoming night outside now, asshole.”
Hank grumped, “Don’t let him scare you, guys. He’s just mind fucking you.” Hank looked at the amount of blood they had pulled in the last two days, “He’s about done, guys.” He turned back to look Daniel in the face, “Boy, you are talking like you think there is some sort of vampire Messiah. Well, that’s a crock of shit you fucking devil in a human body. You aren’t even human, so trust me, I’m not worried about one of your Messiahs.”
“Ok then,” Calvin came over and took two of the vials Hank had just pulled and passed one over the table to Izzy, the three men watching the youth on the table, his eyes withdrawn into his skull, “Cheers to a very good producer, sorry you have come to an end!”
The three men clicked the vials and then each tossed their vial back, drinking the contents before they turned and tossed the vials into the sink. Hank headed for the stairs, calling over his shoulder.
“Calvin, get the light. Izzy, turn off the machine. No need to pay to keep deadweight around.”
The room darkened and the men closed the door and locked it at the top of the stairs. Daniel’s eyes lit up one more time.
“Burn motherfuckers…buuuuurrrrnnnnn…”
Moments later, his breathing stopped and there was silence in the room.
—
Michael sprinted up the fire escape, the setting sun cast shadows across the city. His time of day, quite frankly.
“Remember,” Gerry called out from below him, “They will have people on the rooftops about three blocks out.”
Gerry was like a damned wife, constantly reminding him to eat his vegetables or chew with his mouth closed, Michael thought.
Michael came over the side, low and quick. Staying low, he made it to the side nearest the Pack encampment.
Which is to say, their buildings.
Michael lifted his head and looked. His vision, certainly superior to the Were’s, easily picked them out. There was movement on three of the four buildings that he’d expect to see sentries on. As Gerry made his way up behind him, he found the fourth.
Asleep.
“What do you see?” Gerry asked.
“A challenge,” Michael answered.
“You aren’t sure if you can get in there?” Gerry asked.
“Of course I can get in there,” Michael answered, “I’m talking about whether I can jump over the third building, or if I should jump one to the left and then back again.”
Gerry lifted his head up over the lip of the building, “The hell…you are thinking you might be able to just jump over the brown one?”
Michael nodded.
“Ok, I’m impressed.” Gerry admitted.
“Oh, I used to do this for fun, Gerry.” Michael nodded, “Back in the American Revolutionary war, I would go hunting the Redcoats for kicks every once in awhile. I had to make sure it looked like a sneaky Colonial bastard, by stabbing their men in the dark. Otherwise I might have had the whole monster issue from Europe creep up again.”
“Weren’t you just a sneaky Colonial bastard?” Gerry asked.
“No,” Michael answered, “I was a sneaky Colonial Vampire bastard.”
Gerry just shook his head.
—
Down in the sewer entrance, there was a knock and Joshua nodded his head. He had Kent, Donovan who was unlocking the door, the female that had come earlier and two more of his men.
Hank was first through the door, an AR-15 on a quick sling, but a shotgun probably loaded with silver shot in his hands.
While his two buddies came in behind him, he nodded to the new face, “What happened to her?”
Joshua turned, “Oh, let me introduce Jacqueline to you. You might remember her. Well,” Joshua reached out and grabbed the woman by her chin and moved it left, then right, “Perhaps after she heals, you might remember her. She didn’t want to admit she knew anything.” He dropped his hand, and turned back to Hank, “So, I explained the local pack rules.”
Hank swung the shotgun to rest on his shoulder and scratched his chin, “Isn’t the rule that there is only the local pack?”
“Precisely,” Joshua agreed, “She had this silly concept that Weres stuck together.”
Hank shrugged, “Beats the fuck out of me. All sorts of fights in New York, so don’t have a clue about Weres being civilized with each other.” He looked around, “So, what’s the news? None of you guys look like you are hurting too much.” Hank turned back to Joshua, “Is this a false alarm, Joshua?”
Joshua shook his head, “No, no false alarm. It seems this one.” He pointed to the beat up girl, “Is the same one that you sold a while back. She has met the ...” he turned to her, “what did you call him?”
Jacqueline glared out of her one open eye at him. Before Hank could say anything, Joshua turned and slammed a fist into her stomach, causing her to collapse to the floor in pain. Joshua looked up at Hank, “She is still not submissive enough. If I keep her around, I’ll have to work on breaking her more.”
Hank shrugged, “Pack politics, whatever floats your boat.”
Joshua turned to look back down at Jacqueline on the floor, “Name or I start stomping on your fingers.”
“Dark….Messiah…” she spit out trying to catch her breath.
Izzy and Calvin glanced at each other, but said nothing.
“Yeah, I see the training works, eventually,” Hank agreed and then looked down the hallway, pulling his shotgun off of his shoulder, “Shall we?”
Joshua nodded to Donovan who locked the door.
The nine of them left the little landing. Two of the Weres grabbed Jacqueline, who left a trail of puke, as they dragged her along with them.
Now, Hank thought, it was time to figure out how to safely catch the biggest, baddest vampire anyone had so far.
His head, he figured, would look good stuffed and on his wall.
Or, maybe pickled in a big jar.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Europe
Donovan strode through the large castle, a building the Duke preferred to reside in when he was visiting the Fallen Lands outside of the City-States in Europe. Having left his lackeys outside, Donovan was careful not to suggest he was trying to compensate for the Duke’s innate power.
Walking to the library, Donovan rapped on the door as he strode in, announcing his presence as a sign of respect, not that his father needed warning that anyone was near him.
The Duke heard everything.
He was old, older than the Apocalypse and old beyond that. Unfortunately, at least in Donovan’s opinion, he was also ignorant. Having been trapped in the far past inside a crypt he couldn’t escape from, he had slept the centuries away knowing nothing about the technologies that made the world great before the fall.
Many decades after the world self-destructed, grave robbers broke into the long-forgotten crypt, seeking jewelry, weapons, or some sort of treasure. They had ignored the signs and warning chiseled into the rock.
They couldn’t read.
What they found instead of gems, was the Duke. The poor grave robbers woke him up and unfortunately, became his first feeding in centuries. This helped rejuvenate the old Vampire. Their bodies reduced to shrivelled husks left behind as the Duke stepped out into the night to find a new world.
A fallen world.
A world without his father David, or David’s father Michael. A ripe world, the world that was now prepared for a true Forsaken King.
—
“I cannot feel the energy of your sister, Donovan.” his voice, a mix of ageless gravity and youth, wasn’t accusing, but was demanding to hear an answer.
Donovan found he was telling the truth, despite his earlier decision to hide it from his father.
He flipped a hand out, “She failed when we hit the small town, Father. She got soft when seeing a small human child cut down and left the attack, walking out on us.”
The Duke turned, raising his eyebrow to the second child he had created once he left the tomb. “And you did what, exactly?”
“Punished her, left her in the street to either toughen up, or suffer the punishment of lying there in the sun.”
The Duke pursed his lips, thinking.
Donovan waited, he was either going to die in moments, or his effort was…Well, he didn’t know. Nothing he told his father was untruthful, it just wasn’t the whole truth. Donovan hadn’t schemed for the past three years, to set up his sister to fail so dramatically, without plans in place.
He might be thought slow in thinking, certainly not as intelligent as his sister, but he was thorough.
“She caved when seeing the killing of the human child?” The Duke asked, again.
“Yes,” Donovan replied, “Her eyes opened, she looked around at the attack and subjugation efforts and then ran off the field of battle.”
The Duke turned back to the chessboard he had been studying, “Pity, I had such plans for a female vampire, they are so very rare.”
Donovan let out a breath he had been holding in.
The Duke made a move on the chessboard and then turned towards the large table, maps of Europe and the World spread across it. “Come Donovan, I have plans here in Europe, but I want to discuss my plans for attacking the New World.”
On top of a building, Old Denver
Two figures sat, their backs against a small lip on the top of the building. “You want to fight?” Michael asked again and Gerry nodded, “Why?”
“I’ll not have you saving my daughter, while I stay outside,” Gerry replied, “There is no honor in that.”
A small smile played on Michael’s lips, “You are sneaky, old Were.” he lifted up to look over his shoulder at the Pack’s fortress. “That means I will have to help you get in, unless you can jump over the fence?”
Gerry shook his head, “Only in my youth, with a boost, could I have accomplished that Michael. I’d need something a little soft to land on to try it now. The benefits you gave me are great, but … well…”
Michael shook his head, “Say no more, I know how Weres age.” he answered, coming up with a new plan that didn’t have him jumping across to the final building and fighting his way down from the top.
“What about bait?” Michael asked, looking at the nearest sentry walking across a roof a couple of blocks away.
Gerry’s turned his head to look at Michael, his eyes opened, “You want to use me as bait?”
“Not you,” Michael replied, pointing. “Him!”
—
“Stupid ass duty for a stupid ass reason!”
Kevin was a twenty-seven year old who was tall, lean, with red hair and he hated sentry duty. Probably because he hated heights. Anytime he looked over a side down to the street, he suffered vertigo and anxiety. His heart raced, and he had to step back from the edge and calm himself down.
The bastards who pulled gate duty had the best job. Let someone in, refuse to let someone in. The power and the occasional female they got to mess with would be enough for him.
This standing duty on the top of a building sucked caterpillar balls.
He considered looking over to see what was going on. The news was to expect an attack at any time.
With the follow-up command from Joshua - the pack comes first.
—
Timothy could almost hear Kevin’s complaining. Oh, he was too far up and away for even Timothy’s superior hearing to catch any of his words, but he had been around Kevin for more than ten years and he knew how much he hated heights.
He chuckled, a word in the right place and all of Kevin’s worst fears were realized. Now, his friend was stuck up there for at least another month before coming down here to guard at the gate.
The door behind Timothy opened and Alphonse came in, closing the door behind him, “Word is to keep ourselves…”
The very audible scream and sudden, and disgusting, sound of a body hitting the street outside the gate had both men rushing to the small viewing window.
“Get the fuck outta the way, Alphonse!” Timothy yelled, boxing the other guy in the ears.
That scream, that voice, had sounded familiar.
“No no no no NO!” Timothy yelled. He hit the button to unlock the door and ran over to yank it open. “I’ll just be a moment, don’t you dare lock me out!”
The door slammed as Alphonse went back to the small window, seeing Timothy’s dead friend’s eyes staring at him in the moonlight.
—
Gerry took the screaming to be the signal Michael said to wait for, and got his multi-century old body moving.
It was five blocks, and he had three blocks to go when he saw the guarded gate door open and a guard rush out, running towards a body lying in the street.
He was just two blocks away, when a figure seemed to float down from above, landing behind the guard, next to the gate. Two eyes glowing red in the darkness.
He was one block away when he heard a scream quickly silenced.
He ran through the open door, it shutting behind him. He stopped just inside the wall, breathing hard and asked the man coming out of the guard house, “What…” pant, gasp, “what about? ...” Pant, pant, gasp…
“Stop asking, I took care of the other sentries before the last came down as bait,” Michael told him as he looked around.
“Random choice who got thrown off?” Gerry finally got out.
“No, he had wanted to violate Jacqueline,” Michael answered. Then, after a moment, “I had other plans that would have kept him alive, but changed them at the last moment,” he admitted.
Gerry turned, imagining the body behind the gate and how he would have liked to go back and kick it, at least once.
“The fight, Gerry, is this way,” Michael pointed away from where Gerry was looking.
Gerry spat in the direction of the corpse and turned to walk with Michael. He looked off to a far corner and closed his eyes for a second, before focusing on the direction Michael was taking them. He had hoped his daughter was still safely hidden in the shadows, but that wasn’t to be.
Then, someone starting ringing a damn bell.
—
“Remember, we want this vampire alive,” Hank told his two partners, both leaning their heads in with him as the Weres rushed ahead, a clanging bell calling them to danger. “Pepper with silver if we have to, and nail this bastard to the wall at times, but we can grab a few humans after we lock his ass down.” He popped Izzy on his shoulder, “You ready to send some hot lead out to fuck up another demon?”
Izzy’s eyes, glowing faintly from the vampiric blood, snarled. Hank turned to Calvin, but he was already showing the middle finger, “Fuck em all up,” he growled, “go humans!”
Hank winked and leaned in, voice soft, as he spoke quietly to both men,
first looking at Calvin before turning to Izzy. “Don’t hit too many Weres if you can help it. We might need them in a few years, so says the boss, k?”
The three men chuckled as Hank pulled back into the shadows and away from any openings so no stray shots would hit them. “Now, let’s let the Weres soak up some damage, first.”
—
The glory of battle was rising in Michael’s chest. He could hear the heartbeats racing as at least a dozen were heading in their direction. He had three more pegged, watching from windows but none had aimed anything in his direction.
The Dark Messiah Page 12
