Akio snorted, “Yes, seventy people died due to an outbreak of gun and sword wounds.”
Eve processed his answer, “Ah, no other characteristics?”
“Not at this time,” Akio admitted and noticed two large men were looking in his direction. One popped the other on his chest and pointed directly at Akio.
“Ok, need to go, I’ve got company.” Akio terminated communications and waited for the two men to approach. Their swagger and feeling of self-importance seemed abnormal compared to most of the rest of the people around here. At about twenty feet away, he understood what he was facing.
Were.
Akio nodded to the two men. One of them noticed his patch, “Hey Lamont, look.”
The other man glanced at Akio’s patch and then back at Akio, then back to the patch and licked his lips, “No fucking way, not two.”
“Not two what?” Akio asked.
Lamont looked around him and then shrugged, “Can we come closer?” He asked. Suddenly, the belligerence in his eyes was replaced with respect.
Maybe Michael had the right idea, Akio thought. It sure seemed to calm people down.
Akio nodded, “Names, Wechselbalg?”
Lamont chewed on his lip and looked to his friend, “Well, that tears it, Jake.”
“God damn and steal my girlfriend,” Jake hissed, looking around before turning back to Akio, “Are you here to kill half the town, too?”
The two men walked forward, careful to keep their hands in plain site.
“Half the town?” Akio asked as the two came close enough that the three made a small circle.
“No, not really, just fucked up the last political boss here. We used to work for him but were out on a project when the Dark Messiah came through,” Darren corrected.
“What did he do?” Akio asked, “and why?”
“He fucked up people left and right. Then, he went over to the local Pack’s encampment and fucked up another group, including the local vampire hunters with a Pricolici and…”
“Vampire hunters?” Akio interrupted.
“Well, yeah,” Lamont answered, “people trying to find your kind and extract your blood.”
Akio considered what he was learning when Jake asked, “How come you can handle the sun, like the other one?”
Akio dodged the question, “He is more powerful than you guys have any idea. If he had wanted to, he could have destroyed this town.”
Jake started to laugh, but Lamont was silent. “You are talking about one of the old ones, aren’t you?” Akio nodded, “Then I’m sure glad we didn’t push him.”
“You saw him?” Akio asked, and started reaching into his jacket. Both Weres tensed as Akio brought out a small tablet, “Don’t worry, if you don’t offer me violence, I won’t cut off your legs and allow the ants to consume you out in the desert.” He turned the tablet around, “Is this him?”
Both men puzzled over the picture. “Is that a tablet?” asked Jake.
Lamont rubbed his face, “Could be, but he has too much hair.”
Akio’s eyebrows drew together and turned the tablet back so he could see the picture. It was one of the pictures that the paparazzi had taken of Michael and Bethany Anne, “Where?”
“His head,” Kerry answered, “He was wearing this all black coat and his head was shaven clean. Not a spit of hair on him.”
Akio put up a finger and connected to communications again, “Eve.”
“Yes?”
“Provide me a picture of Michael with a bald head, no hair, and add the black coat the Bitches left him.”
“Eyebrows?”
Akio asked the two men, “Did he have eyebrows?” Lamont nodded his head affirmative, “Yes, eyebrows.”
“Sent.”
“Thank you, goodbye.” Akio turned the tablet with the new picture, and both men nodded their heads.
“Oh yeah,” Lamont agreed, “that’s him.”
“Where did he go from here?” Akio asked.
“The Pack Encampment, then the Vampire Hunter’s warehouse,” Lamont answered.
“Which he then burnt down,” Jake added.
“Then?” Akio asked.
Both men shrugged their shoulders, “Beats us,” Lamont answered, “He left, and we didn’t see him again. Half the town wanted to find him, and lynch him. The other half wanted to put him up on their shoulders as a savior from Kraven.”
Akio weighed what he should do.
“Any transportation out of here?” he finally asked.
Lamont answered, “Sure! The dirigible, Onslaught. Runs from here to Des Moines and then Chicago.”
“But,” Jake interrupted, “fifteen people were trying to see if he got on that ship. He didn’t.”
“He didn’t, or no one saw him?” Akio asked.
“Well, no one saw him,” Lamont admitted.
“Well, then they missed him,” Akio said aloud. “Thank you both, I’ll be leaving.”
The two men watched the small Asian man walk out the gate and then they walked back to the building.
“Aren’t you two supposed to be our sheriffs now, Lamont?” an older woman asked him as they came to stand where they had been before they saw Akio.
“Yes ma’am,” he admitted.
“Then why are you talking to that man, was he trouble? Should you have been running him out of town a bit quicker, maybe walking him to the city limits or just kicking his ass right here?” she pressed.
“Ma’am,” he looked down at the old woman, “We took care of the problem the absolute best way possible.”
“Say’s you!” she grumped and turned around. The possible chance to see another fight lost, she stomped away.
“Yeah, says us,” Jake muttered, “and that’s who is going to be making the decisions anytime a damned day-walking vampire shows the fuck up.”
“Amen, preach it,” Lamont added as the two started watching the people around the little business square.
New York City-State
Jacqueline stared at the display in front of her.
She sprang into the room, “Where are these weapons from?” She walked up to a suit of armor, displayed as if a man was wearing it and ran her fingers across it.
“Different centuries, of course,” Michael answered, “That set of armor you are looking at was worn for battle. The style is called the Maximillian, and I had it made towards the end of the 15th century.”
“This is over five hundred years old?” She asked, looking around the large room and the different sets of armor, weapons, swords, and forms of battle dress.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I didn’t collect too many items over the years except companies and my weapons.”
She turned to him, “No frilly things from the ladies…uh…damn.” she saw his stern expression, “Sorry, I’m a little bit of a romantic.”
“No, you are a lot of a romantic. Unfortunately, you aren’t doing too well trying to focus on your goal of protecting yourself. You keep getting distracted by things.”
“Like what?”
“Rings and bracelets,” he told her.
“Oh, come on!” She threw her hand up, “Did you see how beautiful those stones were? It’s like you have no idea how they affect women.”
He raised his eyebrow and she pointed at him, “Reading their minds’ is not the same as knowing how it affects them.”
He pressed his lips together, “Jacqueline, you seem to think that being strong and kicking ass is the opposite of being a woman.”
“Well, it sort of is, isn’t it?” She replied, “all the he-man beating of breasts shouting and kicking, punching and biting and all the blood.”
Michael paused, “Let me ask you a question,” he said, “What would you do if someone had your child and threatened them?”
“Well, I’d rip the head off, and …” she stopped for a moment, “Ok, I’d shout and kick and punch and bite until my child was safe.”
“Are you any less of a woman doing that?” he continued.
> “No, of course not,” she admitted, “I’m more of a woman because I was protecting my child.”
Michael continued his questioning, “Does it have to be your child?”
“Well,” she looked around the room to organize her thoughts, “if I say no, then the next question you will ask is what? Does it have to be someone that I know?”
“Something like that,” he agreed. “The desire to protect is often innate; it is in most of us. The difference, for some people, is they like violence and the connection to protecting someone is non-existent. One of the most fascinating women I know is happiest in a shoe store and at her most dangerous when protecting this world from outside threats. If one should try to hurt someone she loves? She wouldn’t hesitate to kill them, and she’d still sleep like a baby at night.”
“Isn’t that barbaric?” Jacqueline asked, “That she can sleep like a baby after killing someone’s child? I mean, even if they are thirty, they are someone’s baby.”
“Based on that logic, a killer should always be allowed to go free,” he replied.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” she looked around. “Can we go somewhere that doesn’t have a bunch of armor, swords, and guns staring at me?”
Michael waved her to the door, “You were the one who asked to come in here.”
“Yes,” she admitted, walking to through the double doors and watching Michael as he locked it back up. “But I wasn’t expecting to have to deal with killing people and going to sleep.”
“Not being able to kill someone is not a weakness,” Michael told her, “Nor is it a strength, it just is. At some point, there is a value associated with everyone.” He started walking towards the stairway, “We will need to get food, but for now we can use what is in the bags.”
You still don’t eat, she thought, but then again I’m starving and if he is offering, who am I to say no?
“Why did your father not go after Joshua when you were first stuck in the Pack encampment in Denver?” Michael asked as they went down a set of stairs to go back to the bag with the food they left in the large room.
“He couldn’t take him at that time.” She replied, “He went to go find you to help.”
“Ok, why should I care about you?” Michael asked as he handed her the food from the bag.
“Well,” she opened the bag and took a bite of some jerky and used it to point at him. “You saved me back in the town, and you knew my father.”
Michael crossed his arms but used one of his fingers to point, “True, but I know a lot of people or have anyway. I’ve saved dozens or hundreds now in the last week or two. Do I owe them all?”
“Well, no,” she chewed slowly. “Otherwise every time you save someone, they are your responsibility, and that would make no one wish to help anyone after a while.”
Michael walked to the area in the large room that reminded Jacqueline of a library and sat down on a nice chair that allowed him to lean back and put his feet up. She wondered how many hours he sat in that chair, reading the books in this room. She sat down on a brown leather chair, the cushion comfortable and well broken in.
He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, “Who was ultimately responsible for your life when you went into the Pack enclosure.”
“Well, Joshua was the Alpha,” she answered, then thought about it for a moment as he stared at her, waiting for the next part of her answer. “But, he was ready to kill me. So, if he didn’t care about my life, it falls back on me to be responsible for my life.”
“Not your Mom?” Michael asked.
Her eyes scrunched together, “My mom? She’s been dead a while so there is no way it could be her responsibility. Really, when I left home the responsibility became mine.”
“So, why help anyone?” Michael continued, “What about the young man that was on the table, dead.” Jacqueline’s face clouded up, and her anger was just under the surface as he asked, “If you had known about him fifteen minutes before they killed him, what would you have done?”
“Kicked their asses and ripped their fucking heads off their shoulders. I would have ripped one arm off and used it to beat the shit out of the next guy, and then I would have…” her voice trailed off. Realization dawned on her face, “I didn’t know him.”
“No, no you didn’t.” Michael agreed, “but you were ready to throw Paul Mullins off the airship and listen to him scream in the night as he fell to his death.”
“All because of one guy I never knew,” she whispered and looked over at him. “I still see his face, Michael. I still imagine the torture he must have felt, laying there with no one coming to save him. Who was he? Does he have family that is wondering if he is ok, not knowing if he is alive or dead? No closure for them because we have no way to tell them?” A tear escaped her eye and slid down her face before she reached up and wiped it away. “How many more people are there like him out there?”
“I suspect dozens, perhaps more,” Michael guessed, “and it isn’t just who is out there now. There could be hundreds or thousands in the future that might suffer if I do nothing. The tree of Justice must be refreshed from time to time using the blood of those who practice injustice, and the souls of those willing to fight for it.”
She looked at him, a little awe in her eyes.
Michael smiled, “It’s a bastardization of a Thomas Jefferson quote, way before your time,” he explained.
“How do we find them?”
“Those that are being sucked dry?” he asked, and she nodded. “We find the wealthy and follow the clues. Then to get rid of it, we locate others who are willing to fight for Justice and Honor. Those willing to make sure we stop the selfish who use excuses to attack those different than them for personal benefit.”
“And then what?” she asked.
“Kill them?” Michael answered. When her eyes narrowed, he chuckled, “Not all of them. But, I’ve found killing to be a really good deterrent. Unfortunately, my love suggests I not use that as my first response.”
“What’s your first response now?” Jacqueline asked.
“I say ‘Please,'” Michael answered.
“That isn’t going to work!” She barked out, “No fucking way!”
“Why do you think killing them is now my second response?” He asked her, a smirk on his face.
“You really are a Dark Messiah, aren’t you?” she whispered.
“I can be the darkest, Jacqueline.” He told her, his voice growing cold, “Never mistake compassion for inability to proactively remove a threat. Take out the dishonorable, and problems in the future are significantly fewer.”
She sat there thinking about everything he had just told her, and her mind was arguing with itself.
He stood up and looked down at her, not unkindly and then started walking towards the bookshelves, “The young man’s name on the table was Daniel.” Michael didn’t interrupt as she stood up and walked out of the room, heading towards her own room. Now, Injustice had a name to go along with the face for her.
And the name was a man who had died in a nowhere warehouse in old Denver.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jacqueline stared at the ceiling as she lay in bed thinking back on her life. The selfishness, the pride, the ego, and pain, and the humiliation. She thought about using the knife to stab the pack alpha her father had in his hands.
Her father.
“God, Father, why did you die for me?” she whispered into the darkness. “I’m not worth your life.” Tears fell, soaking the cover Michael had provided her. With the home sealed, most of the components had lasted through the decades and centuries.
Except for the food. There was no way they were trusting that.
She wiped her red eyes and sniffed. Her confusion, her pride, her reluctance were battling inside her mind. She didn’t want to be her father’s daughter, helping others and not having time for his family. Even when she had been young, he had been pulled away for meetings where others wanted him to intercede, p
rovide guidance and judgment, and others took him away from her.
So, she ran away with her friends, and he had followed her. Only to die at the end, protecting her to provide another chance.
She had promised, on his cairn, to make him proud. She didn’t feel like that was accomplished, not yet. “Why is this so hard?” She asked the room, but it provided no answer.
“Daniel,” she spoke aloud, thinking of the face, the emaciated body as he had lain there, “I didn’t have your back when they took you, handcuffed you and locked you away. I never knew you, now…I never will. I’m not a vampire, I’ve no idea what your life was like, what you had to do just to survive.” She wiped away more tears, “I would have come for you if I had only known. What happened to you is bullshit, on so many levels I can’t even begin to comprehend.”
The Dark Messiah Page 20
