by Justin Sloan
***
Cammie stood, letting the others take control of Royland now that the flames were out.
“Go, find the nearest police pod you can to get him back to HQ,” she demanded, but when she noticed Esmerelda looking past her with a horrified expression, she spun and saw charred flesh among the scorch marks from the explosion. “Who was it?”
“One of the vampires,” Presley said, coming up beside her with a hand on her shoulder. “The rest of us were at the doorway, and Royland’s warning gave us just enough time to escape. Barely.”
Cammie looked down now and saw burn marks on Esmerelda’s pants, but her legs beneath were unharmed. Others had burn marks, a couple that were outside were completely unharmed, and still held the Enforcers in their grasps.
Breaths coming out heavy now, Cammie turned to the Enforcers and marched over. At the first, she punched him until there wasn’t much left of the man. She stood and turned to the second, blood dripping from her knuckles, and said, “These bastards with their bombs, with their sneak attacks… this shit’s about to end!”
She stepped forward and was about to attack again, when the police pod interrupted her anger so she turned around and watched Peterson jumped out. “Where is he?”
Cammie gave a furious look back at the Enforcer, and told him, her eyes flashing in the night, “You’re lucky, for now. But if you don’t talk immediately, you’re for dinner.”
The Enforcer’s eyes went wide and he looked about to faint, but Cammie turned from him and led Peterson to Royland’s side.
As they knelt to help him up, the vampire who’d been taking care of him backed off now to lean against a wall and catch his breath, Cammie turned to Peterson and told him, in no uncertain terms, “If your sister’s working with Anderson and had anything to do with this, she’s as good as dead.”
Peterson ground his teeth, “If she did, I’ll see to it myfuckingself,” he said. Careful with Royland’s burns, they managed to get him into the pod.
In the distance, another explosion sounded, in the direction of Capital Square. They shared a look of worry, and then Cammie said, “Get him cared for. A couple of vials of blood, at the very least.”
“On it,” Peterson said, and then he looked over Cammie. “You didn’t get hurt at all?”
She rubbed her ear, which was still ringing slightly, but said, “No, and I owe Royland for that. More than I care to know.”
Peterson nodded, and hopped in the pod. A moment later, they were gone, and Cammie was motioning everyone to follow her to Capital Square.
Capital Square
Jackson had been just two blocks away from the square when he heard the explosion go off. He’d just been training Lorain on how to operate a new type of pistol he’d gotten ahold of. He looked over at her and saw her eyes were wild with fear yet still she looked ready for combat, duty bound to go stop what was happening, he nodded and said, “Come on.”
They ran toward the square together, darting past people going in the opposite direction, coughing up smoke. Some were injured, limping, others just scared.
“What’s happening to this city?” Lorain said.
“Growing pains,” he replied. “But I’d say we’ve about reached our full height.”
She looked at him with a frown and then said, “Tell that to the survivors, since you can’t say it to the dead.”
“I—I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, remembering her own family. “Just, sometimes violence happens for the sake of progress.”
“And in our case, it needs to fucking stop,” she replied, looking at all of the people hurt as they ran by.
“Language,” he said, scolding as they turned the corner and out into the square. The smoke was still clearing, and the crowd of people was in all sorts of disarray. Some on the ground, holding their heads or other injured body parts, others trying to help, still others in the process of fleeing, but limping due to injuries.
“Somehow, my use of swear words seems pretty small on the scale of what’s important or not,” Lorain told him. “Given all this.”
He had to agree, but just shrugged.
“This is about your girlfriend,” Lorain said. “And she’s not even here to defend herself, or us.”
“Wrong,” Jackson said. “This is about idiots doing idiotic things, and they need to be stopped.”
She checked her pistol to see that a round was loaded, just like he’d taught her, and said, “Point me in the right direction, I’ll be glad to take them out.”
They ran forward, searching for any area they could help, when Jackson froze, eyes on the edge of the square. Ella was standing there, looking over it all, eyes wide. How could she do this and then just stand there, watching?
“ELLA!” he shouted, and ran for her as he lifted his pistol. She snapped out of it, saw him coming, and ran.
“Don’t make me shoot you!” he demanded. “Do not make me!”
He skidded around the corner and had her, frozen like a deer in the headlights. She had a gun, but reached out and placed it on the ground, before kicking it over.
“I swear, I wasn’t involved,” she said.
And then Lorain shot her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Northern Bazaar
Valerie paced her room—a small trailer in the back of the large area built for the fighting arena on one side, the place for partying and the red light business on the other.
Part of her felt that this was the right track, that anything as underground as this was going to unveil something, but at the same time her mind would bring up the question of how Sandra and the others were doing.
There couldn’t have been any attacks on the city, or word would have spread.
At the first sign of a problem, Valerie planned to split, grab her sword and jacket where she’d stashed them, and rush back to help her friends.
In the meantime, she hoped they could hold down the city. This was, after all, part of a larger test for them. She’d taken out Strake, but knew her role was to bring justice to those in need, to restore honor to her kind. It wasn’t to run cities. But at the same time, taking out one leader only to let an equally corrupt one take the reins was as good as doing nothing.
These people though, she trusted. Wallace, Cammie, Royland, and the rest. Jackson…
She sat on the bed and bit into an apple from the food Clive had brought in for her. Staring at the blank, white walls of the trailer, she couldn’t help yearning for Jackson.
First of all, she’d kill for one of those damn hotdogs right now, and part of it was just that he loved them so much. Maybe she wouldn’t kill, but she’d certainly be willing to hurt someone a little for one. Second, she wanted what Sandra and Diego had, and the look in Jackson’s eyes told her he wanted it too.
Only, fate wasn’t so kind to the two of them.
If they were going to bring peace to this city, his people had to believe that they weren’t together. In general, the people of Old Manhattan needed to believe that peace and order were achievable, which meant she had to root out filth like those that lived here and fed off of others. Whether what was happening here involved pain, pirating, or the sex trade with those who didn’t want to be a part, it all needed to cease.
But first, she needed answers. She needed to see how it fit in with the bigger picture—the CEOs. Or if it did at all. The worst part about the situation was that if it didn’t tie back to them somehow it would just mean to her that so many people were corrupt by nature, and she just couldn’t believe that.
She was a vampire. She knew corruption. Yet, she’d refused to let the darkness in.
Standing again, she began to pace the length of the trailer, anxious to get this moving. There were two guards outside. Clearly this trust and collaboration Clive talked about had to be earned, and they weren’t there yet. But that didn’t mean Valerie couldn’t find the thin line areas of their trust and work around them.
There had to be a way out of here, to see what mo
re she could learn about this place.
Trailers usually had ways of accessing water, right? She entered the bathroom, a tiny square section of the trailer, and was glad to see they actually had a shower in here too. That could be useful for later, in case she had to make someone bleed and it got on her. But for now, it wasn’t much use. The area where the water came in was too small to do much good. She could break the floor, or use her strength to tear the seams around the shower area, but that might make too much noise.
She went back to the small bed and lay back, contemplating, and then noticed the square cracks on the ceiling. No way.
It was easy enough to stand on the bed and reach the small patch of ceiling, and just as easy to push and open the area. It must have been for ventilation or some add-on feature that this trailer didn’t have any more, but right now it was a small, square hole, just big enough to fit through. She grabbed the sides and jumped, pausing before pulling herself up. No one seemed to have heard anything, so up she went.
Now outside with only the large tarp and its lights covering the area, she crouched taking in her surroundings.
Where could she start? She was looking for answers, but didn’t quite know the questions. How deep was the crime and corruption here? Were the CEOs still involved? She knew these were the high level issues she needed to address, but had no idea what addressing them would mean.
So she focused on her enhanced senses. Her hearing instantly picked up sounds she didn’t want to hear, such as the moans that helped explain why several of the trailers were rocking, and the sound of a knife as it either cut meat at a butcher’s shop or was plunged into some unlucky soul. That might have been a good starting point, but when she turned her head to try and pick up the direction of the sound, it was gone.
Her eyes saw well in the dimness of this place, but that only let her see a group of people milling about at a rear entrance to the building, drinking some of that orange liquid she’d seen earlier and smoking something. Could be innocent, but was more likely to be drugs.
She wasn’t here for a drug bust—hell, half the houses in Old Manhattan could serve as sites for a drug bust.
A scent. Faint, but it was there.
Cocking her head, she sniffed again to make sure. To her left, and there were at least two of them—vampires.
Judging by how far they were from Enforcer HQ, she was willing to bet they were Forsaken. This was a lead for sure, seeing as she hadn’t expected to find any of their kind here. They shouldn’t even be in the city at all.
Staying low to avoid being noticed by Clive’s guards, she crouch-walked to the edge of the trailer. No one below. A quick flip jump, and she was in the clear, running toward the scent of the Forsaken.
“Watch the hell out!” a man yelled at her as she nearly plowed into him, and she had to side-step and twist around two others who saw her running and thought it would be funny to stand in her way. Their whistles as she passed nearly caused her to stop and smack them each into the ground, but she was on a mission.
The scent grew stronger and she pulled back to a slow walk, focusing on her senses. Out here it was darker, less torches and the lights overhead were more sparse, and past the trailers were actual tents. It was like a little village here. A village of creeps who were into buying pirate goods and paying for sex and violence.
When a man walked by with his arm around a young woman, it was pretty tough for Valerie not to tear out his eyes and feed them to him, but she ignored it.
In good time, it would all be dealt with.
A low grunting sounded and she paused beside a tent that looked big enough for ten people, and tall enough to stand. The scent of vampires was strong here, but she hesitated, not wanting to make a mistake and walk in on people having sex.
After a moment of circling the tent, she was certain that the scent was from in there, so she prepared herself to see something she wouldn’t want to see, and tore at the back of the tent with extended claws.
“The fuck?” a voice said, and then a sniff.
She entered to see three Forsaken, now standing in various states of nudity, only one fully hanging out. They were all streaked with blood, and when she looked at the ground, she saw why.
Still moaning, but in obvious pain now, was a man who had been stripped and now had various vampire bite holes across his body, along with scratch marks from claws.
The middle vampire sniffed, and then looked at her with uncertainty. “This one’s ours, get your own.”
“Excuse me?” she said, debating her first move here, but stalling to hear more.
“You’re new here, I take it,” the Forsaken said. “Here’s how this works. Find someone of your own, turn them if you want, or just fucking eat them, I don’t care. But as far as Alex is concerned, it’s all business. Either way, this one’s claimed.”
“Right.” Her hand went to the spot on her hip where she’d normally find her sword, only now it wasn’t there. Of course. “Problem is, this Alex, he passed on a different message.”
“Oh, did he?” The Forsaken suddenly knelt for the attack.
“Wait, what?” one of the others asked. “We could use her!”
“This is the one,” the first Forsaken said to the other two. “The one we were sent for.”
“Oh, mother-shit-sack,” one of the others said, and then he let his fangs grow and his eyes began to glow red as he charged.
Judging by the way the other had said “he” and then attacked, that had been her mistake. Alex, a female, was somehow responsible for these Forsaken coming here and was, what, putting together some sort of an army?
This wasn’t the fighting arena where she had to put on a show, it was several bastard Forsaken vampires. So when the first reached her with the intent of killing her or whatever the hell he had in mind, she had no problem simply jamming her fist into his throat, kicking out his knee, and then twisting his head so that she broke his neck.
The middle one seemed to be the smartest though, because as the nude one attacked, he backed up and went to a bag he had lying on the floor and pulled out a pistol.
Valerie swiped an attack aside and tossed the nude Forsaken into the line of fire but, to the other Forsaken’s credit, he cursed and didn’t shoot until the nude one had dropped to the floor, covering his head.
At that point, Valerie had time to assess her options and decided the best action was straight on. She ran and used the kneeling Forsaken as a springboard to leap into the air and bring down a kick that sent the other Forsaken spinning. She kicked back to connect with the kneeling one’s face, then sprang forward and hit the pistol out of the other one’s hand.
He rolled before she could attack, pulling two blades from his bag and turning to attack. This one wasn’t quite like the others—he was trained. He actually knew what he was doing. Up to now it seemed the fights had been fairly easy against these American bred members of the UnknownWorld.
It was now clear that she was going to have to rethink her misconception of them. In fact, she would take it one step farther—find out how much these Forsaken were being trained, and by whom.
She could take a pretty good guess, though.
A knife glinted as he attacked, nearly slicing her neck open. The second move she was ready for. Instead of trying to block it, she simply dropped to the ground as she spun, taking out the guy’s legs, and then rolled for the pistol that he’d dropped.
By the time they’d both recovered, she was aiming in on him and he had no chance.
Or so she thought, because this guy had apparently anticipated her move and kicked out at a corner of the tent, so that the top fell in to obstruct him from view.
“Dammit,” she hissed, glancing back to see the nude one in the corner, clearly in fear of her.
Fear. She’d forgotten about that little tool, and just as she saw the knife coming from the corner of her eye, she pushed out with her fear. Now the nude Forsaken fell back to his butt, scooting away on all fours, while the eff
ect on the other one had been to cause him to falter just enough in his attack that she was able to duck under the blade, come up on the other side, and slam the pistol into his face.
She hit his wrists hard, causing him to drop the blades, and then swept out his feet so that she straddled him, gun at his temple.
“Who’s been training you?” she asked, careful to keep the other one in her peripheral. “Is it the CEOs?”
The Forsaken glared up at her, jaw clenching as he worked to overcome the fear she’d filled him with.
And then she remembered her other powers, the ability to not quite read minds, but sense emotions. In this case, there was a resounding warmth coming from him, which she took to be a big YES.
“This is so much bigger than you could possibly understand,” he finally said, voice only slightly shaking. “You think you’re the new big thing in town, but lady, I assure you, it’s going to end with you screaming for mercy.”
She scrunched her nose. “The CEOs don’t frighten me.”
He laughed. “The CEOs? You ignorant little birdy, don’t even know when it’s time to fly away home.”
“Explain yourself before I make you suffer.” She pushed the pistol against his skull. “TALK!”
He smiled. “There’s no use in explaining the world to the dead.”
Something heavy crashed against the side of her head and she nearly toppled over, but blinked and registered the surprise in his eyes that the blow hadn’t done more to her. She looked and saw a baton in his hand, that he must have managed to grab ahold of at some point.
The pistol would be too loud anyway, she thought as she pistol-whipped him again and then grabbed the baton out of his weakened grip. Now she saw it was more than that—it was one of those Enforcer Arc Rods, the kind that could put a shit-load of electricity through someone.
So she slid the button up to send the blue lines of electricity circling around the tip and stuck it in the Forsaken’s mouth, continuing to jam it down his throat until it wouldn’t fit anymore. He spasmed a few times, and then it was over.
