by Robert Brown
“His family is participating in the conflicts. They are manipulating others to act as controllers on their behalf. His family’s powers did not diminish after the haze and that makes him more dangerous than all of the others. I will be dealing with him soon, and I want all of you to remain far away from him and his ability to scan thoughts.”
“If we are taking out the president, this means treason against the United Mutant Government.”
“Yes, it does.” Nodding, she looks at all in attendance for confirmation of agreement.
“So what is the second part of your strategy? I hope it does not involve more lightning,” Viktor says to laughter as he continues to rub his backside in pain.
“The next part of my plan is to begin altering records of psychic abilities. It won’t matter how many opposing vampires we eliminate if the knowledge of our powers remains. Those born in the future will be just as likely to become jealous or envious of what we can do. That jealousy will keep the threat against us alive in some form or at a minimum, encourage conflicts among the lower classes.
“We have to slowly scrub the history and memory of our abilities from all records and minds.”
“I don’t understand why we should bother. Won’t our powers die with us?”
“You are still thinking in linear terms of human lives. My body has not aged in twenty years, and Dr. Usachova claims that not only are our cells perpetually regenerated, but the length of the telomeres on our chromosomes does not decrease. That means we could possibly be the first generation to live forever. Unless we are killed in battle or by some force that destroys the planet, we should prepare to be here for a long time after our normal human counterparts have died.”
“What the hell will that do to us if no one ever dies?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. Only those that were born or conceived while the blue haze was present have perpetual telomeres. Those conceived later, their telomere regions are diminishing more rapidly than normal. We will find out the exact lifespan of the rest of our kind in the next twenty to thirty years. However short or long their lives are, we will remain. Continued knowledge of our abilities will forever be a source of strife among them and danger for us.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Moonlight Swim
China
The Angel lands in front of a broken statue in the overgrown grass of the circular grounds of Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park. Her brothers and sisters land next to her. It is 5:30AM and uncomfortably close to sunrise to still be traveling. Victoria Harbor looks beautiful in the scant light of pre-dawn, even with the eerie backdrop and surroundings of the decaying and abandoned city of Hong Kong.
“I remember pictures of this city when I was younger. It was beautiful, especially at night with the buildings all lit up. It’s a shame no one has chosen to revitalize this area yet.”
“I plan on rebuilding this area once certain conspirators among our ranks are dealt with.”
Augustin Kambanda, the current President of the United Mutant Government, lands in the park. Hundreds of wingless mutants run up and stand at attention behind him. The sky above the runners is filled with winged mutant guards circling in an orderly procession amidst the strengthening winds from the approaching storm. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me here away from the prying eyes of our brothers and sisters. I am surprised you brought your family with you as I am sure you know why I wanted to meet. At least you chose to leave your lovely Grace at home. I will deal with her shortly as well.”
“You should have controlled your ambitions, Augustin. I will not allow you to continue waging this war you have secretly begun. You broke your oath of office and your pledge to all mutants when you began using your powers to influence others. Your petty lust for territory disgusts me.”
“You act as if you didn’t use your powers against your own. I learned in Rwanda long ago if you aren’t gaining power, you are losing it. There is no static point of power.” He laughs in his false and exaggerated manner making him seem even more unpleasant as the day creeps closer. The wind begins whipping fiercely and the mutants in the air, with their extraordinary strength, are struggling to remain in formation. A familiar yet silent face from the Odessa meeting three days ago breaks through the crowd and whispers into the president’s ear.
“So your daughter is here somewhere? I imagine she can see us now. Well, let her witness what becomes of you when the sun rises. You will not be allowed to enter the safety of the city’s structures.”
The Angel smiles and winks at Augustin before removing a small bell from her pocket.
“Where did you get that?!” The veins in his forehead bulge through the skin with his furious glare.
“I found it in a schoolhouse in Rwanda. I understand from probing your mind during our earliest meetings that you had a difficult time with your teachers as a child and these simple bells have a particular meaning for you. I thought it only appropriate that I use this to signal your demise.”
Rushing forward, President Kambanda is struck in the legs and wings by lightning from the storm clouds. The Angel and her sister, Elizabeth, step aside to allow his body to roll past them while the others around them stand still facing Kambanda’s guards. Pulling a wad of paper out of the bell frees the clapper and The Angel rings it three times in the air.
While Augustin struggles to get up, The Angel’s group begins running to the water. “Stop them! Don’t let them get away, I want them dead!”
“You didn’t think I would agree to meet with you without making plans of my own, did you?”
The condition of the water in the bay went unnoticed during the brief discussion the pair were having. All attention was placed on the turmoil in the sky and the approaching storm. The harbor had been quickly draining of water and now a wall of ocean is seconds from receiving The Angel and her family in their bid to escape the wrath of the presidential guard.
Looking behind himself to his troops that should have already passed him in their pursuit of the traitors, he sees they are in full battle with each other. A lone arch-vampire remains at Augustin’s side as the towering tsunami continues its approach.
“You suggested Hong Kong as an ambush site, you have to help me out of here. I can’t run or fly, I’ll be killed in the water when the sun comes up.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President; I’m in it for the species, not for you. Telling you about the meeting in Odessa and coming to Hong Kong were The Angel’s ideas, not mine.”
The wave, now three hundred feet high, washes over the president and the assembled fighting soldiers on the ground as well as many in the air. Once the wave passes by, a new army arrives from below the depths; bizarre-looking creatures with flat gray skin and dolphin-like tails but arms, shoulders, and heads in a similar approximation to humans. Their faces have large protruding mouths with sharp tiny teeth, human eyes, and no visible nose or breathing holes.
This army of mermaids grab and pull the water-bound vampires either to safety or to their deaths. Each fate is dependent upon the individual’s allegiance to The Angel or Augustin. The wounded President Kambanda is grabbed in the water by one of the mermaids. The swirling mass of water, dirt, and debris make it impossible for him to tell what direction he is traveling or how he will be rescued from the water with the sun about to rise.
A burning desperation hits him as his body begins convulsing for air. Almost ready to open his mouth and gulp in the mud-filled seawater, his head breaks the surface of the ocean. His raspy coughing breath fills his body with cool comfort as the oxygen hits his lungs and once again begins circulating through his system.
“I’m here! Someone come get me.” His frantic shouts echo through the air grabbing the attention of the fighting vampires above him. “You have to hurry, the sun is about to rise.”
Scores of arch-vampires loyal to the president disregard their opponents and fly down in an attempt to carry him to safety. They form a protective formation to allow a center vampire to grab the president
while those on the periphery will act as defenders.
The remaining vampires in the sky take the warning as a sign to protect themselves from the approaching sun. They leave the battlefield, friend and foe together, to find shelter and live for at least one more day.
When the flying formation nears President Kambanda, he once again disappears below the water which has come alive with a thrashing tumult. The forty vampires seeking to save their leader are pulled from the air by arms reaching from the water or knocked out of the sky by breaching mermaids taking momentary flight.
Only ten are able to avoid the attacks from below. They turn, grouped together, to fly with their backs to the now rising sun and speed their way to find a building in which to hide. Flames ignite on the wings and bodies of the few in the back, and a mere fifty yards lay between them and a teetering wreck of former skyscraper that seems more a house of cards than a survivable shelter, but it is the closest chance they have to live on.
Terrifying screams of torture emanate from behind them, and the group turns their heads to look as they continue to fly. The mermaids are lifting the president and the other captured vampires out of the water to burn in the morning sun. Their heads and upper torsos are engulfed in flame.
The final progress to safety is blocked by a twenty-foot-wide wall of water that bursts from the harbors depths at the edge of the concrete dock. A gargantuan head, torso, and arms appear before them as the water falls away. The hands of this titan clap together, smashing the group of fleeing vampires between his palms. As his body continues its fall back into the water below, he throws the crumpled remnants of his captured foe to the mermaids swimming in wait.
Gravity slams the titan’s body back to his watery home, and the tail which is his lower torso flails up into the air before he brings it slapping down with tremendous force to speed him on his way. The mutated whales and dolphins had chosen their side after years of watching the activities of their terrestrial counterparts.
Arch-vampires, with all of their capabilities and powers, are unable to pierce the thoughts or minds of non-human mutants. For some reason, the ocean-based mutants have no such difficulty. Even without the capacity to directly communicate, they developed the ability to sense intent. This skill taught them to avoid the remaining humans that live along the world’s coastlines for the last twenty years, and it prevented them from interfering with the affairs of other mutants until today. The war efforts of Augustin Kambanda would have eventually harmed the marine life of the world, and that is not something they will allow.
*
United States
Great Plains Territory
“When did it happen?”
“Two days ago while we were in Hong Kong.”
The main scientific research lab in the central plains of the United States has been shut down. The buildings are intact, but the personnel have all been killed. Piles of human and vampiric ash are next to the main entrance where their bodies were either set ablaze or caught fire with the rising sun.
“Only one vampire has been found alive,” a guard addresses The Angel who just arrived. “He is inside and in a catatonic state. He is repeating your name once every hour and says nothing else.”
“Was he a scientist here?”
“No, he is Kambanda’s head guard, the one that came out of Rwanda with him.”
“Bring him to me.”
“Ma’am, Kambanda had tremendous powers but we don’t know exactly what his abilities were. I don’t recommend touching this vampire to read his mind, it could be a trap.”
“Thank you. Bring him here.”
The captured vampire stares blankly into the air until he sees Cora in front of the crowd he is approaching. He grins broadly at her and laughs when he is dropped to the ground a few feet from her.
“Did you like the gift I left you?”
With a shaking head and shrugging, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, what gift?”
He stands with wide eyes and points to a large billboard. Its white front is covered with large dark smudges but contains no discernible message.
“You’re giving me a dirty billboard?”
“That was for The Angel to see,” the man shouts angrily. “Why did you take it down?”
Whispering into The Angel’s ear is one of the first to arrive at the scene when they heard about the attack, “We brought her down, ma’am. We know you had a particular affection for her and didn’t want you to see her treated in such a way.”
“I was the one that did it. Augustin ordered me to come here in case he failed to kill you. We killed all of your precious humans and the traitor vampires that work with them, but I saved Dr. Usachova ‘til the end. I planned on having it go on for days, I wanted you to see her final moment. Every six hours, I did something new. First, I ripped her hands from her arms, then her feet. When I snapped her leg in half, her body couldn’t take it anymore and she died. I nailed her to the board for you to see when you arrived.”
The vampires around The Angel begin to retreat away from her when she begins to glow. It is a pulsing white light that emanates from her skin and grows brighter with each beating flash. The black grounds under the night sky first begin to look as the though the moon is full and rising. The Angel’s clothes burn away as the light and heat she is emitting intensifies.
The heat is causing the ground beneath her feet to smolder before the grass suddenly catches fire. Her soldiers and friends continue their retreat from the growing hatred she is directing at the now-kneeling soldier who killed her friend. With a final intense flash, the blinding light she is producing sets the skin of her enemy on fire and a piercing scream from her knocks his body to the ground and bursts his chest open. His body writhes in agony attempting to regenerate until it is finally reduced to ash and she allows her light to diminish.
No vampire remains within two hundred yards of The Angel as a result of her light. She turns where she stands and views the fear etched on the faces of her vampires in the distance. Some of them begin to approach, and she reads that their intentions are to put out the many fires she ignited on the buildings and around the grounds.
“Let the billboard burn. I want it gone.”
*
“Mom, are you okay?”
Grace is standing in the doorway to Dr. Usachova’s former lab. Cora is leaning over a computer screen, tears streaming from her eyes.
“She warned me this would happen. Ten years ago, she told me we had to do something about how many children the vampires were having or we would end up fighting each other. I didn’t do anything and now she’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Her daughter’s comforting hand rubs the enlarged muscles just above her wings.
“She left her report for me. It’s actually the report for us all, the one I mentioned in Odessa.” Wiping her eyes, she tries to smile for Grace. “Things will be different in the future, Grace. Tatyana found the answers she was looking for.”
“What does this mean for the future?”
“It means more changes are in store for us all.” Standing up with a new resolve, Cora places her hands firmly around Grace’s shoulders in a hug. “I don’t know about you, but I want to go see your grandparents. What do you think?”
Her beaming smile gives the only answer necessary.
Chapter Forty-Three
A Family Affair
Oregon
“What happened to you, Robert? Your hair is all white,” Greg Cavanaugh badgers his old friend.
“I’m sure you would have white hair to if you had any left. Did Evelyn say you would look more handsome if you shaved it or did it all fall out?”
“It all fell out you, old coot. I may not have my hair anymore, but at least now I’m not the only one that looks like he’s pregnant with twins.”
Both men laugh and rub their protruding stomachs while their wives look on and shake their heads.
“Our men will never grow up.” Evelyn and Tanya look at each other sm
ile and say in unison. “And we love them for it.”
Lilly, Grace, and Cora share their own embrace and reunion in the living room. The Cavanaughs no longer hold positions in government and have no need for their own security. The Angel’s guards chose to remain outside during this reunion.
“Look at you girls.” Evelyn walks up to the youthful trio with arms outstretched. “I am so jealous. You look like three eighteen-year-old friends, just out of high school. If I didn’t already know your secret, I would demand you give me your plastic surgeon’s name.”
The smiles and greetings go on for a while before a lull in the conversation prompts Evelyn to bring up the elephant in the room.
“We are thrilled for the visit, Cora. Especially to see your parents again, but what’s going on? I’ve never seen your guard leave your side and now they let you come in here alone and seem almost uneasy around you.”
“I heard it’s because of something that happened in China and later at the research lab a few days ago.” Lilly hops in her usual playful manner. Cora and Grace give her a surprised look. “Oh come on, you don’t think something like that can happen without everyone talking about it do you?” Turning to the humans sitting together on the couch, Lilly continues her tale in a faux-shocked tone of gossip.
“Apparently, that unassuming little mutant over there, my best friend, Grace, has the power to control the elements. Rumor has it that she can create storms, control lightning, and even helped defeat our former president by summoning a six-hundred-foot tsunami!”
“It was three hundred feet,” Grace interjects and Lilly continues without taking notice of the interruption.
“But the real scandal is what Cora did. We all knew she had the power to emit light and that is how she gained her famed title “The Angel.” But what no one knew until that infamous event at the science lab is The Angel now has the power to summon the light of the sun. She emitted a light so powerful that her vampire guard was forced to retreat. Her light was so immense that she burnt an enemy vampire to ash as well set nearby buildings on fire.”
