by Seth Eden
He marched down the front walk, keeping an eye out for danger as the men closed the door after him. There were a few humans on the street, just loitering or lying around as if asking to be drained by Vampyren passersby, but they didn’t even look in his direction. Sometimes it was if the humans were just giving up. Some of them were anyway. Then you had those folk who joined the resistance, as if delighted to face certain death. A bevy of contradictions, he thought.
Mark’s source had told him that Crystal’s roommates lived in a cottage-style condo with an A on the door. He walked through the front lobby and heard cheesy instrumental music playing from somewhere as he wandering into the courtyard beyond around which there were little cottages in a circle around a garden and a stone fountain. Mark found the cottage with an A on the door.
There was a welcome mat on the ground. It seemed like the strangest thing he had seen all day.
Humans knocked. On Vampyr, you announced your presence to a servant who relayed the message. Humans knocked and sometimes they pushed buttons that buzzed. Mark didn’t see a button, so he clenched his fist and rapped his knuckles on the door.
“Who is it!” A high female voice said.
“I’m a friend of Crystal’s,” Mark said through the door.
The door opened an inch and rock music blasted from inside. It was very different from the cheesy music Mark had heard in the front lobby. The girl squinted at him. She had blonde hair in two braids on top of her head and she wore purple glitter on her face, her blue eyes big as she looked him up and down.
“You’re a friend of Crystal?” She said. “Are you sure?”
He wasn’t sure what him saying yes would prove, but he nodded and tried to look genuine. “Yes. I met her in the breeding pit where she was taken—"
“What did you do to her?” She said thickly.
“Nothing,” Mark said, fixing her with a firm stare. “I’ve never hurt her. I promise you. She wanted me to find you. That’s all. Can I…”
The girl disappeared from behind the door which shut in his face and he heard some enthusiastic mumbling before it opened again on a human male who looked the type to hide from Vampyren rather than fight but he was trying to look tough, Mark surmised and held a small hammer in one hand.
“You can come in,” the boy said. “But you better watch your ass!”
Nina and Jet, Marky discovered, weren’t quite as helpless as they appeared. They had their front hall booby-trapped so that if he stepped beyond it, the floor would shock him. It seemed like the kind of tech that shouldn’t be available to them but apparently they were good with computers and Jet was also good with engineering. Good for them, he supposed. They asked Mark so many questions, he was starting to get annoyed, and edgy to get back to Crystal before he had to report to the Council in the morning.
That was before Jet said, “Have you guys found that rogue unit yet?” He looked at Mark with wide and haunted eyes. “They’re slaughtering everybody they see. They were around The Loop the other night. We hid in the bathtub. Thought they’d come for us.”
“We… have found them,” Mark said warily. “I was ordered not to take them down yet. And he had too many men.”
“Well, you should take them down!” Nina said quickly. Mark was still relegated to the front hall and the two of them were snuggled on a loveseat, crates of good and stacks of boxes surrounding them. They kept smoking from a big glass pipe that billowed plumes of something that made Mark’s head spin around a little. “They’re attacking creches, you know! Where the babies are? And Crystal!”
“Yes,” Mark said. “I’ve… heard something about that. Listen, you can come see Crystal.” He took a paper out of his pocket on which he’d written the address and a crude map of how to find her breeding pit. “But be careful. You two might have the right idea. Better to stay around here.”
He was about to leave when Nina piped up, “He’s not done, you know.”
Mark spun on his boot heel and tipped his head. “Excuse me?”
“Attacking the creches and breedings pits and everything,” Nina said, before exhaling a plume of smoke. “Friend of ours we trade with ran into that unit. They were gonna drain him but he got away. He said he heard them talking about how they were going to attack another place. A big breeding farm up in Urbana. It’s got the most—"
“The most children,” Mark said tightly. “The highest rate of birth among these human women is at that creche. The women there are always pregnant.”
“The leader of their unit believes draining children and um...the unborn...gives him strength,” Nina said.
Fuck.
“Thank you,” Mark said. “For all that. I’ll tell Crystal you said hello. She really misses you.”
“We miss her too,” Nina said.
Mark nodded at the two of them and made his way out, and with the thought of an impending attack on the Urbana creche, he found himself running back to the truck.
8
Mark
“I’m going with you!” Crystal’s voice was piercing and tearful and she was following Mark as he loaded yet more weaponry temporarily stored in the creche into his unit’s truck.
“You are absolutely not going with me,” Mark said.
The Council, upon Mark’s report, had ordered his unit to take Drake down. About time too. There had as yet been no attack on Urbana but it was only a matter of time. Mark was reasonably sure Drake would’ve beaten him unit to unit. But now he had Loren’s men on his side too, the soldiers of his patrol added to the manpower.
If Crystal had her way, she would be joining too. Even Keira wanted in.
“I can fight, you know!” Crystal said. She had only recently become pregnant, but it was about all Mark could think about even when she was wearing her preferred black jeans and a tank top now. She was back in her boots. The creche’s leadership having been killed and not yet replaced. She was just another girl who was good with trading now, albeit a pregnant one, even if she apparently she kept forgetting that.
“I don’t doubt that,” Mark said, removing a sword from its sheath and examining its blade. The weapons had been piled in the parking garage where the men were milling around, preparing for battle. “But you’re pregnant with my child. So I get to say no.”
“It’s my body!” Crystal hissed. She got in his face and stared him down, her eyes just a little too wild for him to dismiss her. “You’re the unit’s commander! Not mine! Besides, gave me this goddamn bite on my neck and ever since I got knocked up it burns like hell when you’re away from me! Didn’t tell me about that little detail, did ya?”
Mark felt as if she’d blown his hair back and he raised a hand as if to quell her, only lowering it when she gave him a withering stare. He’d heard about that; the marks between a Vampyren man and his mate creating a bond that intensified during pregnancy. It meant the connection between them was especially powerful. He liked the idea of that.
With that, she spun around, her long black ponytail bouncing behind her as she picked up a sword belt and strapped it around her waist. Keira was squatting down, examining the weapons, and she picked up an ax, spinning it in her hand.
“We sure know how to pick them,” Loren said, coming beside Mark. “That’s something humans say? When their romantic partners annoy them. We sure know how to pick them!” But he smiled at Mark in a way that showed he was being genuine.
“We sure do,” Mark muttered.
The drive to Urbana was two hours but they spent the ride wired up and tense, Mark and Loren’s men packed into two armored vehicles that sped down the road dodging the detritus that had accumulated on the city streets because the roads weren’t regularly cleared anymore.
Crystal was sweating bullets, but she only sat still and quiet, squeezed between Mark and Keira in the back of the Humvee, staring straight ahead. When she leaned her head on Mark’s shoulder, he smiled to himself.
“It’s hot as hell,” Crystal murmured.
“I know, baby,�
�� Mark said.
She gaped at him, her frown now splitting into a grin. “Baby? Better not let the men here that.”
“We all watched a movie,” Mark said, happy to flaunt some acquired human knowledge. “It sounded very strange to me at first as a term of affection. But I kind of like it?” He put his arm around her and whispered in her ear. “Baby.”
“I kind of like it too,” Crystal whispered back.
They rolled up to the top of a street that overlooked the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne and Crystal raised her eyebrows at Mark as they piled out of the Humvee to get a look at the scene below. The breeding farm and its creche was large and it took up one of the school dormitories.
“I didn’t know it was the school,” Crystal said. “Weird.”
“What is the difference?” Loren said behind her, as he raised a pair of binoculars to look down on the campus. There was a suspicious Jeep at the crest of a hill on the other side of the dorms and Loren handed Mark the binoculars so he could take a look.
“No difference,” Crystal said, shrugging. “It’s just weird if you’re from here, I guess. The battle of Urbana-Champaign.”
Mark and Loren had thirty men and now as they surveyed Drake’s people from behind a low stone wall where they’d parked, they saw that he had an entire line of Humvees he acquired somewhere. He already picked up more men. They were outnumbered.
“Can I see?” Keira held her hand out for the binoculars and Mark handed them over, heaving a sigh. They could still win. He had no doubt about it. But he was even more worried about Crystal than he had been before. Worse, there would be more casualties than he’d counted on. It wasn’t as if they had a lot of men to spare either. “Hold on…” Keira turned to Crystal and said, “Do you see humans over there? With Drake’s men? I don’t mean prisoners.”
Crystal frowned and handed over the binoculars. The sun was beating down again and Mark shifted on his feet, his sword feeling too hot at his hip. He had a plan to free the creche stealthily, hopefully before Drake’s men even noticed. But they needed to move soon.
“I do!” Crystal said. “There are a whole bunch of humans…”
“Do you see Drake?” Keira pressed.
“Keira,” Loren said. “What are you thinking?”
“Those aren’t Drake’s men,” Crystal said, smiling slowly. She gripped the binoculars tighter and Mark followed her gaze but he couldn’t make out the line of vehicles across campus well enough. Whoever they were, they were too far away and also attempting to avoid attracting attention.
“If they aren’t Drake’s men,” Mark said. “Who the hell are they?”
Crystal handed the binoculars back to him, her eyes alight. “They’re humans and Vampyren getting ready to fight. They’re resistance.”
“I don’t like this plan,” Mark said, gritting his teeth.
Loren stood next to him, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Keira and Crystal who stared them down. Although, since neither of them stood taller than their lovers’ shoulders, so they were really staring up.
“They’re not going to trust some Vampyren guy approaching them,” Crystal said, throwing up her hands. “It has to be one of us. Clearly they’re here for the same reasons we are. I saw their weaponry. This isn’t a social visit. We’ve just doubled our numbers, but it’s going to go to shit if we don’t strategize together. They need to know we’re on their side.”
Loren said, “You know, it’s not as if the Council approves of the resistance? They’re fighting us too.”
“Baby steps,” Keira said dryly. “Right? The enemy of their enemy is their friend. And with the Lucian on the move…”
“Exactly!” Crystal said.
The men, as expected, caved to their lovers’ wishes. Mark and Loren were left with the rest of the men to wait and worry and keep their eyes on the creche, though there was not much activity outside of some very pregnant looking women walking across the quad. There was also no sign of Drake, yet Mark could feel the approach of battle the same way you can feel a storm on its way.
“How do we know we can trust them?” The Vampyren’s name was Danton and his human lover was Cassie. Mark was starting to think this was some kind of phenomenon.
“How do they know they can trust you?” Cassie said, nudging him. “You were just like them once.”
“It’s been a while,” Danton muttered.
The resistance’s representatives were this Vampyren man and his partner and they’d come over to Mark’s side. He felt as if time was running short. The sky was darkening overhead and in his gut clenched. They were huddled around the humvees and they were ready to march down into the creche and set up a defense if this resistance force would agree to join their side so it didn’t turn into a three-way fight.
He fixed Danton with a stern look and said, “You can trust that we are not joining any resistance. We’re fighting one rogue agent and his men after which, we go our separate ways. You can trust that we wouldn’t be asking your help if we didn’t desperately need it.”
Danton nodded and glanced down at Cassie who had not smiled once since she’d come marching up to Mark and Loren’s men. She had an attitude, but she was fierce and had the bearing of a general except when she spoke to Danton.
“Then we’ll help,” Danton finally said. “We… have a man on the inside. We expect Drake’s unit to arrive any minute. We should get down into the campus and start setting up our defenses.”
“Then let’s move,” Loren said, already heading toward his humvee.
There were booby traps set at strategic points along the campus, that was the first move. Or rather, it was the second move, after alerting the matrons to the incoming danger so they could begin to move the women into the dormitories and barricade themselves in their rooms the best they could. Danton sent a dozen men to surround the populated building. It didn’t seem like enough to Mark but he’d been assured that each man was worth five. Trusting a resistance leader took a little getting used to.
And yet, he did find himself sympathetic to the resistance. He’d said what he knew he needed to say. It felt rehearsed in his mouth. He was a unit man, and he followed orders. He might run his squad differently than most but in the end, he always obeyed. Lately though… he was starting to question that impulse, and seeing other Vampyren who had defected and joined with humans he found himself, well, curious if nothing else.
It was at least ninety degrees, according to Crystal. He had not let her out of his sight and now she stood beside him, armed with a curving serrated blade that she’d said she found a more comfortable weapon than most.
“I could definitely take off some heads with this thing,” she’d said casually when she’d picked it out. “Cuts through tendons like butter.”
“You scare me a little,” he’d said to her.
“Good.”
The hardest part was the waiting but Drake’s forces showed up eventually and when they did, it didn’t take long for all hell to break loose. Drake’s men came in from behind and from the sides. They prepared for that but it still gave Mark a feeling of being surrounded that he hadn’t completely anticipated. He expected them all to attack from the front based on past actions by Drake’s unit.
They came running over a grassy hill as Mark and his men stood in a line, armed to the teeth. He wanted to tell Crystal to run to the Humvee and hide but he knew she wouldn’t. Still, the thought pulsed in his head and he felt the blood bond between them humming.
“FORWARD!” Mark and Loren howled and the men roared and ran at Drake’s forces.
Crystal was at least wearing some armor though it had not been easy to find something she could wear comfortably that would also protect her. He’d had to cinch the plates twice as tight around her torso and he didn’t think her legs were protected well enough.
Now he watched Crystal running forward like everyone else and his fear for her life turned to the possessive kind of rage that won battles as he t
urned his head and roared, running with his sword outstretched to kill whatever brainless Vampyren man might attempt to cut down his love.
Swords met with the sharp clang that rang in his ears, making his head rattle. Drake’s men had painted their faces with blood and their long hair was unbraided. There was something about it that struck Mark as sickening. It was a sign of their rejection of Vampyren tradition. They were forming their own culture now and its mascot was death.
Mark’s sword scraped on the blade of a man taller than him but he held his ground and spun, catching the man by surprise before plunging his sword in his side, sending him to the ground. He felt a drop of sweat slide down his back as a buzz of movement behind him alerted him to a strike and turned on his heel, his sword coming in a clean sip at a bare throat. Two down.
The heat cut at them as viciously as the blades, the only saving grace the tolerance the Vampyren generally had for it. Bodies fell and the booby-trapped bombs blew as Drake’s men flooded in, limbs and cuts flying and shimmering in the mirage that rose from the hot grounds.
An hour later, Mark was face to face with Drake and half the men on both sides were dead.
Drake was a mad man. He’d stripped to the waist, his chest painted with the blood of whatever women he drained and his way into battle, his long black hair a matted mess hanging around his face. His eyes were wide and wild and he leered at Mark.
“You’re a traitor,” Mark growled, gripping his sword. His palms were slick with sweat and blood. He finally managed to convince Crystal to hide in the armored Humvee. She was alive. She was safe. His unborn child was safe. “You’ve betrayed your people—"
“I’m a traitor?” Drake snarled. “Why do you think we came here? To subjugate these stupid, weak creatures! We’re here to conquer. Everyone else has forgotten that and I haven’t. We’re here to take what we want, to evolve—"
