Drew D'Amato:Bloodlines:02

by Drew D'Amato

  Bloodlines

  Part 2

  By

  Drew D’Amato

  Copyright 2011 by Drew D’Amato.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Jacquelyn Wiley.

  INTRODUCTION

  I’m not going to waste the reader’s attention by explaining the events that had led up to this point in the story. This is the second of two parts of the novel Bloodlines that was split into two books for publishing reasons. Please, do not even purchased this book (yes, I am saying no to money for the integrity of the story) unless you have already read Bloodlines Part 1. I have left the work to flow as if the reader had simply turned the page from the ending of Part 1. Those of you who have read the first part, I hope you enjoy this epic conclusion, and please, continue to suspend belief…

  BOOK III:

  PLAN A

  ONE

  1

  The skip across the pond was tense for the vampires. The mood was like that of worried family members outside a hospital room waiting to hear any news about their loved one. James, the pilot, felt something a bit solemn in his passengers as they entered the plane but he learned long ago not to ask them too many questions. It was a good policy for his self-preservation.

  Before they made it to the airport, they picked up Malachi’s new fake ID from Morris. He could now add George Patterson to the list of fake aliases he has used over the years. He had just two aliases now, and was expecting to lose at least one of them during this trip. As they drove away from Morris’s apartment, Michael asked Vlad if he had called Radu.

  Vlad explained that he wanted to wait until they were up in the air to tell Radu of his plans to go back to Europe. Even if Radu did not fall for the trap, they still had to meet the Crusaders; so, the trip did not entirely depend on Radu falling for the ruse. But if he did, Vlad still wanted to delay in telling Radu to avoid any chance of Radu ambushing them when they landed in Europe. He was sure Radu was still in California looking for him. He wanted to have a head start. Radu also had to be awake, so he had to wait until after they refueled from JFK and were over the Atlantic—six hours after their flight first departed from LA—when it would be nighttime.

  You could hear the air move as Vlad spoke to Radu on the flight.

  “Radu, my family was decimated after your last attack. I have no choice now. It is over.”

  “What is over?”

  “This war, you won. I’m giving up.”

  “You expect me to fall for this, Vlad? You say you give up, and now I just stop my manhunt?”

  “No, I know you will only believe it when you see me die myself, and that’s why I am making this call. Right now I am on my way to Europe. If you want my life, meet me at my old castle. That is how I want to die. If you want me, you can have me on these terms. If I were you, I would take it before I change my mind. Come back to Europe as soon as you can. Let me know when you are here and we can set up an exact night to do this.”

  “Why are you giving up? You have never given up before.”

  “I am down to a handful of men, and frankly, I just don’t care anymore. I have lived too long. My second request is that you leave my men alone. You have no reason to hunt them down once they become human upon my death. You have won. I am coming to Transylvania alone. There is no need for you to waste any energy looking for them.”

  “I can promise we won’t waste time looking for them. But if fate should have our paths cross, I cannot promise anything. Gabriel and Ash really have strong vendettas again Malachi and Jericho.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So, which castle would you like your surrender to be at?”

  “Bran Castle.”

  “That’s not your real castle. At least not the one you spent the most time in.”

  “I know, but the one you’re thinking of has too many memories for me. I don’t want to be there. Meet me at Bran.”

  “You know that is a museum now, thanks to your legend.”

  “You’re jealous even in victory. Yes, it is a museum, but we will be there at night. They close at seven.”

  “In a short time I will have no one to be jealous of. I will be a god on earth. So this is how it ends?”

  “Yes brother, this is how it ends. The world is yours. Can I ask for some decency in how my life is ended?”

  “Vlad, if you show up, maybe this one time I will show you mercy. I will let you know when I’m back in Europe.”

  Vlad hung up and looked at the other nine vampires on the plane, all of them staring at him like scared children. Some of them had seats near Vlad, and others stood close by, half of them were smoking cigarettes. Vlad relaxed in his tan recliner, looked out the window, and then spoke.

  “I think he believed it. Sometimes people get too excited to read the cards for what they really are. They just see what they want to see. For now though, let’s not think about Radu. Let’s think about getting the coffer back. This power in the Crusader’s hands can be far worse than what Radu would do.”

  2

  Earlier in the day around noon before they left, Jericho spoke to the source. The source told him his plan to get the coffer to them. The source, Peterson, will be carrying the Dark Bible on his person from England. After Jericho heard his plan, he asked if instead they could make the trade in the transit zone at the airport, which was an area for people on a layover and that would not have to bother with another security check. Then they could avoid checking in through customs, and fly back out to Transylvania without any complications. There is no problem bringing weapons on a private jet that you own yourself. What is someone going to do, hijack their own plane? But checking weapons into another country is a different process entirely, and impossible when those weapons were purchased illegally.

  This plan would not be possible though, the source told him. The Crusaders from Switzerland would have to check the blood in when they got to the airport. At European airports, every liquid container exceeding 100 ml cannot be carried on, and there was a little less than a full liter of blood left in the urn. Peterson and the vampires were going to have to meet up with them before they checked in. This meant the vampires were going to have to pass through customs. A security check was not mandatory, but if they brought any bags with them the official might ask to check them. Also they couldn’t risk the chance of any weapons being discovered on their person. The fact was they would have to do this trade without any weapons on them.

  Jericho hung up with Peterson, downloaded the schematics of the airport, and told Vlad the situation. Geneva International Airport had three main levels to it. The basement level was for arrivals, customs for incoming flights, and access to the street for those coming and going. The mid-level was where people check in and pass through security checks, and customs for those departing. The top level was where people departed. There were two levels on top of that. One was a restaraunt and above it was a free observation deck open to the public. Vlad looked over the print-out of the terminal map laid out on the dining room table.

  “What is this gray, shaded area?” Vlad asked looking at the map.

  “That is the transit area. If you are there for a layover, you follow that path, go back up to the third floor and take you next flight out.”

  “So you can be at the airport and not have to pass through customs?”

  “Yes, but what’s it matter though? We have to go through customs and meet them before the Swiss team checks in.”

  “Not all of us. Some of our men can take the weapons up through the transit zone and wait to see what happens. When the meet happens it will be nighttime. Our men can transform into insects then and fly through the airport carrying weapons with them. I don’t like the idea of us
being unarmed, but I hope not one shot is fired anyway. I don’t want Radu to suspect anything.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t show up on film if there was an incident.” Jericho said.

  “And that is exactly what might alert him.”

  3

  Back on the plane, Vlad went over the plan again. Only four of them would pass through customs and meet up with the source. The source was only expecting Jericho and Vlad, but Vlad wanted Michael and Deacon there for backup. The source told Jericho to meet him at the restaurant Altitude, which was the restaurant on the top of the airport. It was a public restaurant. Access to it was in the public zone. They had to pass through customs just to get to the restaurant, then take an elevator from the bottom floor all the way to the restaurant on the top of the airport. The other six of them, led by Malachi, would stay in the transit zone and wait to see if the weapons would be necessary.

  “Why do you think we would need weapons anyway?” Andrew asked.

  “The Swiss team will not have passed through security yet when we meet with them,” Vlad said. “They could have weapons then.”

  “I doubt they will be carrying any, they do plan on boarding a flight,” Jericho said.

  “If that is their plan.”

  “Are you thinking this could all be a set up? We can’t say no to this plan and this chance to get the coffer. There will always be a risk, but what else can we do?”

  “Stay one step ahead of them. That’s why we will have weapons. Just in case everything is not on the up and up. How does our source plan to get the Blood from the Swiss team?”

  “He is going to meet the man carrying the Blood before he checks in. He is going to tell him their boss wants the Blood to travel together with the Bible.”

  “Won’t the airport have a problem with someone opening up their luggage right there and letting another person put something in it?” Malachi asked.

  “He’s going to get the Crusader to go into a bathroom away from everyone else, and put the coffer all in one piece of luggage. When he gets out he’ll make the switch with us. It will happen quickly, but being a public airport and no chance of weapons we should be able to make our move. He will describe it more so when we meet him there. Their flight is landing a little after eight, the flight out to Rome that they are taking departs at 9:45 p.m. Basically the Blood will be getting there moments after the Bible lands.”

  “Let’s hope there are no delays,” Vlad said.

  “The Swiss Crusaders had been instructed not to check in until Peterson meets them out front. We won’t have to worry.”

  “Then why am I so damn tense?”

  4

  Peterson was nervous too. His fellow Crusaders knew the plan, the trap more like it, and they had the upper hand, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable. His flight from England had just taken off, point of no return, no turning back, and in a few hours he would be face to face with Vlad Tepes III.

  The plan did not require much from him. He would meet Jericho and Vlad the Impaler at Altitude. The other Crusaders would act like nothing was amiss, stay in the transit zone, and get something to drink at one of the bars on the departures level of the airport. For Vlad to be fooled, the rest of the Crusaders must not be involved at all. They had wished him luck, but were glad they were not him.

  From the restaraunt he would lead the two of them to the lower level where the Swiss Crusaders would be entering the airport. Peterson would go into a bathroom and get the Blood. Of course he would not actually get the Blood, this action would be just to give Vlad the idea that everything was cool. During this move, Vlad would be standing near the front of the airport, right next to a window. The perfect shot for a sniper perched in an SUV across the seat. Vlad would be killed, and his vampires will become nothing more than humans. The SUV would escape and the rest of the Crusaders would have nothing to worry about since they were not involved in the one shot that crashed through the airport. Once everything had calmed down at the airport, they would travel via train to Rome. The Crusaders assumed after a gunshot at an airport, the airport will be shut down for a bit.

  It was a perfect plan, Bandini’s own, and as with most of his plans, his life was not at all at risk. He was close by though, just to make sure everything went according to plan. Bandini was crafty and ruthless, but he also thought his end goal was noble. He wanted faith instilled back in his church. If people needed proof to believe in God, then vampires had a use. Maybe that was the Lord’s intention of making them in the first place. (He had not read the Dark Bible yet, and had no knowledge about God’s warning to Judas to stay in the shadows.) Giving people something to believe in was why he wanted the Blood evaluated by CERN. This way he could show the world that this Blood that made people into vampires—science had found nothing unique about it. The only option left to explain it, was that is was the product of a higher power. It would make faith a fact.

  Peterson would have never thought he would play such an important role in the world ten years ago. Then, Peterson was just a cop in the town of Durham in Northern England in his early twenties. In a few years he made his way up and became detective, a good one, because he always dug deeper. That was how he was introduced to the Crusaders—he dug deeper. He had found bodies that looked like the victims of vampires. Two female students from the University of Durham were found with puncture holes in their necks, semen on their legs that did not have the structure of human DNA, scratches and bruises all over them, and only a small amount of blood left in their bodies. He robbed himself of sleep trying to find a logical explanation for it. He never did. The autopsies came back. The organs were untouched and there was a little bit of blood left in the hearts. What was most odd about the bodies was that no clues were found belonging to another individual. Not clues that didn’t match with anyone on their records—they found nothing at all. No body hair, blood, or skin; which is common, almost automatic when dealing with scrapes and bruises found on a body. Just the semen stain, which traced back to no organism on the planet.

  He made a stink about the situation, but no one took him serious. One night when he came out of his apartment he was knocked out, kidnapped, and thrown into a truck. When he came to, Bandini stood over him and told him everything. He learned about the Dark Bible, The Order of the Dragon, and reports of other vampire related homicides. He was then given a choice. It was not much of a choice. He could either join the Crusaders or be killed. He knew too much to be let back out into the world.

  He chose to join. A body was found a few days later in a car accident believed to be him under his birth name, John Brown. He was listed as dead and got his new identity as Robert Peterson. He became an officer of the MPS in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, where he also worked secretly for the Crusaders. He gave them all the information he ever came across and cases that could not be explained by the police. He never did anything really significant as a soldier for them, but now he had a chance to become part of Crusader lore.

  His flight was starting to make its descent. It was gametime.

  5

  The décor of the airport was the absence of one. The place was filled with windows and post-modern furniture—seats with tight metal frames, and glass tables. There was far too much natural light in the place for the vampires to even think of transforming. It was just before five p.m. when they got there. They could transform later when it got darker, when the Crusaders would be there, and that was all that mattered.

  Malachi, Gregory, Daniel, Andrew, Stephen, and Matthew carried the weapons off the plane. Malachi led them to the restaurant The Caviar House up on the departures level. They could get to it by staying inside the transit zone.

  Vlad, Jericho, Michael and Deacon made their way toward customs. They had nothing to declare so the stayed in the green channel, which was quicker than the declarations line. They got through customs after a little more than half an hour of waiting. The only thing that set off the metal detector was Jericho’s lucky Cross Classic Century, a sterl
ing silver ball point pen that he had used to sign the papers for the Ferrari F430. He also used this same pen to sign the papers for one of the first Corvettes ever off the assembly line in 1953. He purchased the pen, which also debuted in 1953, a few weeks earlier. He sold the car over the years when he had to change aliases, but has kept the pen on him every day since.

  The entrance to Altitude was close to the customs office. Access to it was from the public zone on the bottom floor even though the restaurant itself was located on the top of the airport. The restaurant had their reasons to be open to the general public and not just to air travelers. The restaraunt had walls of glass windows giving off a panoramic view of the tarmac and the Jura Mountains. It had a minimalist décor like the rest of the airport colored with blacks, beiges and browns. Its menu changed often. It screamed high-end, which was why locals went to this place and businesses held meetings here.

  Peterson texted Jericho during the flight and told him to meet in the bathroom of Altitude. Jericho asked why, but Peterson told him not to worry, he would explain everything then.

  Vlad found this very suspicious. An armed man could be in Altitude since entering it did not require passing through a security check, as long as the person came in off the street and not from a plane.

  From the public entrance of Altitude it was a straight shot in the elevator to the restaurant proper, above the top floor of the airport. As soon as Vlad got into the restaurant he told his men to wait, and he went into the bathroom alone. Moments later he came out.

  “What was that about?” Michael asked.

  “Just checking if they had anything planned for us in there. It was empty, all clear.”

  “Okay, but when it’s time to meet, I’m going in there first,” Jericho said.

  “Absolutely, don’t even let him know I am here until it seems the deal is legit.”

  “All right enough worrying, let’s get a drink,” Michael said.