Mother's Milk
Jackie sat watching thick droplets of moisture drip down from a nearby stalactite and splash into a small expanding puddle. She was finding it harder and harder to deal with the fact that, while most of the vampires were out there fighting against the Empire, she and Simon were stuck lurking within the salt caves of the Hive, tending to the Queen. Especially when she knew, no matter what lie Simon told her, he wanted nothing more than to be out there fighting too.
But the Queen was now growing heavy with a new litter of vampires. Jackie couldn't imagine how such a petite creature could give birth to thousands of children. Simon had explained to her more than once that the Queen would only be giving birth to tiny eggs that would grow and eventually hatch into young male drones. Jackie just couldn't seem to wrap her head around that.
She sighed and decided to practice some more. Scanning around the cave, she singled out a small rock with her gaze and began to concentrate on it. At first nothing happened at all, and then as time went by and her focus became narrower, the stone began to shake slightly. Slowly, still trembling, the rock rose from its respective pile foot by foot until it was nearly touching the cave ceiling. Jackie willed it to move to her left and as she turned to keep her gaze on it, the rock floated in the direction of the stalactite she had been watching. When it was just under the dripping water, Jackie let go and watched as the stone fell into the little puddle and made a much bigger splash than the dripping moisture had.
She smirked and wondered how much longer it would be before she could do something actually useful with her newfound gift. She couldn't wait to show Simon. But she wanted to master it first. Wanted to really impress him. Maybe then he'd take her more seriously. Maybe then he'd see her for the strong and mature woman she had become. A single tear slid down her face with the desperate wanting of that thought. Before long, her sadness turned to anger and the large rock she'd been standing next to began to rumble and crack. A split second of fear stabbed her in the chest until she realized she was doing this.
Overwhelmed with a feeling of strength and renewal, on the foundation of her anger, she willed the rock to crumble. Before her eyes it began to implode and sink inward as if some invisible giant had brought its foot down and slowly crushed it. A moment later it fell to dust and pebbles and Jackie smiled for the first time in months.
***
In the darkness of the Queen's quarters, the room surrounded by dozens of ancestor vampires, Simon knelt by her side, wetting her forehead with a rag. Her body temperature had been rising for several days now at a far more than normal rate. Because of which she was constantly covered in sweat and needing to be cooled. Having no previous medical experience—not that any experience would be useful tending to a creature as rare and exotic as she—Simon was in a constant state of having no idea what he was doing and feeling completely insecure because of this.
"Don't worry, my child. Your insecurity and determination are your strengths. Use them well and you succeed." The Queen's smile dissolved into a scowl of pain and she raised up from the soft mattress into a sitting position, her hands holding her up behind her back. "Three times I have carried my children, and never has there been this much pain so... early."
"Is something wrong? Is there something I should d-"
"No. I must remember that this time is different. The eggs inside of me now are new to this world and this ancient body. And they will bring with them many things unexpected."
Simon hesitated to ask the question that had been bothering him so much these past few weeks.
"Child, your worry does not go unnoticed. Why you and the other human-born children let your feelings rise and simmer and carry them around with you, I will never understand. If you must know, I'm not sure how long it will last. Ishan is strong and I have seen the day come that he will open his eyes again. But it is one of several days of many miracles and many tragedies. And with so much to come in such a short time, it causes my vision to blur to try and focus on any one thing within the multitude."
Simon nodded. He looked over at the far end of the room where Ishan lay still and silent, his eyes closed. Simon had spent so much time brooding at Ishan as a newborn vampire, he couldn't even begin to prepare himself for how it would feel when his master's—his brother's—presence was vacant. But knowing that she had seen that the day would come when Ishan would awaken took a bit of the burden away. Made the loss somehow tolerable. Simon dipped his rag in the small wooden bowl of water again, rung it out then placed it on the Queen's face. And for the first time, he saw just how fragile that face was becoming. He fought to conceal the new worries brimming over within him. But the Queen only smiled in response and lay back down.
Chapter 4
Town Meeting
Sunlight flooded in from the windows and thousands of voices busy with conversation echoed off the walls inside the large high-ceiling room within the community center. Hank sat at the main table where an unknowable amount of town meetings had likely been moderated before by some mayor or town leader or the like. He looked down at the crowds of people filling up rows upon rows of small foldout wooden chairs. Some of the people looked hopeful, others flitted around their seats nervously, and a small few stared back at him or his soldiers with fire in their eyes, wild hungry dogs waiting to bite.
Most of the town had been gathered by that point. But a few distant neighborhoods were still on their way. Hank had expected an immediate response the night before, but the assault never came. In the hopes that bringing the townspeople to a secure familiar place would keep them safe, he had ordered his troops to go and find them all, explain the ominous threat, convince them to come and stay here. Most had come. A small few had fled the small town, claiming loyalty to Caesar. One had attempted to shoot at the soldiers, was apprehended, and was now detained in the town jail.
Several of the Foederati soldiers relayed what the people had told them. And from the sound of things, the majority of them had been neutral to the war going on outside their small Rockwellian town, hoping to side with whoever won probably. But the Emperor had gone and changed that. He brought the battle directly to their doorsteps. Imperial vampires arrived and sniffed out the small number of rebels hiding within the place-brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, cousins, and friends to many there, and then prepared to execute them.
When a new group of men, women, and children walked hesitantly in the door followed by the last of the Foederati soldiers who had gone out, Hank waited for them to sit down and then stood up and stepped forward. Before long as people noticed, they told others and soon the entire room was quiet, watching, waiting.
Hank cleared his throat then stared forward. "I can't begin to express the remorse I feel for you for having been put in this position last night, today, and for God knows how long. I don't intend to try and claim no responsibility for this. As Chief Commander of the Foederati, I have brought war to several cities now and no matter what our reason is for fighting, no matter how much I believe it to be the only choice we have, I know still that there are consequences to every action. And when you decide to rise up against your government, those consequences begin to sacrifice the lives of others and the lives of your own.
"But I also won't pretend that I, or my men, should stand alone in bearing that burden. The Emperor, in his cruel attempt to instill fear on those who would stand with me, with my men, and fight by our side. Good, brave, innocent men and women merely exhausted by the shackles binding their right to freedom. Men and women who you see day in and day out. Brothers, sisters... neighbors that you have known for most of your lives. Blood family for a small number of you.
"Now, I have brought you here, not to ask you to fight—not to ask you for help, but to-"
"You gathered us for slaughter, Mr. Foe-doh-rotty Chief bastard." A man about halfway down the fourth row was standing, shaking and sweating. "You brought us here to barter-"
"Oh, shut up, Clarence, and let the man speak."
"Yeah
, let him speak."
The crowd roared with mixed messages. Hank waited for their voices to die down so he could continue. The man referred to as Clarence had been arguing with several men sitting behind him but now he stood tall, asserting their disagreement. Clarence shoved one of the men and before long a small fight broke out among them until three Foederati soldiers broke it up. Hank could see the hatred in Clarence's eyes as he stood surrounded by the soldiers and his own neighbors who were against him.
"Clarence, is it?" Hank asked.
Clarence nodded, shoulders stiff and eyes full of poison.
"Clarence, no one's forcing you to stay in this building. You're as free to go as anyone else here."
Clarence looked around the room at the many people watching him and very forcefully bowed his head and nodded slowly. "No sir, I'll stay. And keep my mouth shut from now on."
"There's no need to keep your mouth shut, but I'm going to make things completely clear," Hank moved his gaze slowly across the crowd, "to all of you... You are all welcome to express any opinion you have but I will not tolerate any violence from you." He let his gaze circle back around to Clarence. "If you can't abide by that, you will be made to leave."
Clarence flinched for a second and then said, "Yes, sir. I'm s-... sorry, sir." Then he took his seat.
"All right. As I was saying, I don't ask or expect any of you to fight by our sides, but if any of you should volunteer, I certainly will not turn you away." The crowd broke into a flurry then and still Hank stood like stone, waiting with inhuman patience. As the rumble of voices died down to a few mumbles and whispers, Hank continued. "I must prepare you though—in case you should encounter them—there are vampires among our ranks who are, right now, sleeping in... an undisclosed location."
Faces of worry and fear stared back at Hank.
"Do not concern yourselves with them, they are here for the same reasons as myself and my men. And... in case you need any further reassuring... I have something to show you." Hank turned and picked up the large black two-liter bottle sitting on the table behind him. "This..." he held it up high for all of them too see, "is one of several hundred bottles of a synthetic blood that our people have managed to develop in the last six months. In its current state of use, it will provide sustenance that will allow the vampires to fight amongst us without any need or desire to drink the blood of humans."
Some men and women were sharing looks of awe while others glared at Hank with disbelief. A few men puffed up their chests in expressions of macho indifference. He wondered how macho those men would look if they knew that there was only enough synthetic blood to last their numbers for three days.
Hank kept a stiff steady gaze, hoping no one would ask any more questions. He didn't have time to deal with the fallout that would come from that revelation. But to his surprise, no one prodded further, and nobody tried to refute his claim. Maybe just knowing there were vampires there had scared them silent.
When the meeting was adjourned, nearly two hundred people from both genders and all different shapes and sizes stepped up to Hank's table and volunteered to fight.
***
That night Hank secluded himself to an office room at the far corner of the building. The blood he needed didn't have a synthetic alternative as of yet. He locked the door behind him and took a seat behind the rectangular wood-varnished desk. It reminded him of the Emperor's desk in that secret underground compound where Hank had made a deal with the devil himself for the life of his son. A life since gone. The thought of Toby tried to bring back the deep searing pain in his chest, but the cold empty hatred took over. Hurting wouldn't bring back his son any more than murdering the bastard responsible would. But at least the latter offered some kind of justice.
Hank took out one of the vials from inside his fatigues and drank it down whole. The blood seemed to boil down his esophagus and fuel the rage building inside him again. It was hard enough to focus on these battles that, compared to the ultimate goal in Hank's mind, seemed petty at most. It had taken him months to realize that just tracking the Emperor, finding him, and murdering him in cold blood would be just useless selfish revenge.
But when he began to focus on the Empire as a whole and all that it stood for, all that it had destroyed in the past few decades, Hank saw a true purpose for himself. He could get his selfish revenge too, but he could also do something more. Besides... he still didn't know just what it was that he had as an advantage. The memories that Roger Tresney had recorded with Diana's blood didn't give him more than a riddle. A riddle that created hundreds more.
Sure, he had learned that he was the descendent of a very old and terrible evil that called himself Emperor Caesar. Sure, he had learned that for some reason, Caesar had went to great lengths to destroy his offspring. But what if he had only done so to keep others from finding out his true past? What if Tresney was wrong and there was no advantage. On more than a handful of occasions, the Emperor had demonstrated physical strength beyond that of any other creature Hank was aware of. Perhaps even more powerful than the psychic and telekinetic strength of the Queen.
A knock at the door brought Hank back to reality.
"Yes?"
"Sir, several platoons of Imperial soldiers have been spotted at the edge of town. No vampires yet, but we can't be too sure about that."
Hank was at the door in a movement far too quick for human eyes to capture. He opened the door. Lieutenant James stood in the hallway at attention, his bald head gleaming with the reflection of the overhead halogen lights.
"How many soldiers are we talking?"
"A few hundred at least. One of our snipers on the east end of town radioed it in."
Hank stepped out into the hallway and the two began to walk toward the main meeting hall. "Okay, good. Send word to the vampires that I'm on my way to their quarters. Tell them to go ahead and send a few of their scouts to keep a hidden perimeter around the building. I'll take the rest of them to get a closer look at what we're dealing—better yet, have them send at least a dozen or so. Scouts and foot soldiers. Just in case. I don't want to leave this place with any defensive weaknesses."
"Yes, sir."
Chapter 5
The Celestial Joke
Her scream echoed out through every cavern in the hive and in Simon's mind all the same. He rose from the small dark space he had made for himself and moved with inhuman speed and stealth to her quarters. She was sitting up in her bed, sweating and shifting her gaze blindly in all directions. For the first time Simon could remember, in his own memories and the ones he had experienced through the drinking of Ishan's blood, the Queen was afraid. Not just afraid, but terrified. She was asleep, but even that didn't take away the tension that came from knowing something so powerful, so motherly and yet so terrifying itself could actually fear something else.
Simon ran forward and caressed her face. "Mother, wake up. It's only a dream."
The Queen's icy steel fingers latched onto his throat and began to squeeze. Even though he couldn't die from such an assault, that didn't make the intense pain go away. He cried out from it. Her grip finally loosened, but still she did not wake. Her eyes opened, continuing the same blind searching as they had when Simon entered the cavern. Without warning she took him by the throat again and twisted before he could even yelp in protest. His neck broke and the next thing he knew everything went blurry, and gravity sent him tumbling to the ground. He lay there a moment while his neck cracked excruciatingly back into place and began to heal.
By the time he got back to his feet again, she was lying there staring at the ceiling of the cave, silent tears glistening down the sides of her face in the dim sunlight reflecting off of some nearby deposit of water and creeping in through the cracks in the wall. "I'm sorry, my child." Her voice was weak, melancholy. "But it wasn't just a dream. It was the destruction of my own delusions."
Simon stepped close to her side, wondering what he could do to comfort her.
"Come close, my child.
My time is almost here. I wanted so badly to believe the visions were complete. But I learned thousands of years ago not to trust their cruel games. I have a confession to make..." She coughed and to Simon's surprise a small spattering of blood soiled the thin sheet covering her body.
Simon only waited.
"I've been watching you for a very long time. Longer than you would believe." She looked down into the blood-soaked linen in her lap. "Longer than you've been alive, actually."
Simon froze at her words.
"Yes, child, it was me. Peter watched you all those years, did those horrible things to your mother, and even rebelled against Ishan, because of me. Because I wanted you to come. All of you. Because I wanted you to impregnate me. You. The man called Hank. Both of you. Because I knew that the seed the two of you brought would mix and make something new.
"I had foreseen the paths that would bring you together and lead you all here."
Simon stood there for a long time, his face covered in shock. He thought of Peter, of how he had died.
"Peter wouldn't have stopped until you were all dead. I did what had to be done."
"But you caused it... many died. Did you know it would happen?"
"Yes." She hung her head in shame. "And I thought it was worth it. And so, even I am not wise beyond all. Even I can be tricked... Tricked by my own gift. I'm not carrying a litter of eggs to lie and hatch. The celestial joke's on me." She smiled. "I'm carrying twins."
"Twins? I don't understand."
"You won't, Simon. Not until they have come. Then you will understand what I could never have seen before it was too late."
"Mother, what do you mean? What's' going to happen? Are you—"
"Only that which must be, my child. Sad as I am that my vision has tricked me, I feel joy knowing the truth. Relief in knowing the end will come soon. And I can be free."
Rising From Ashes: Empire of Blood Book Three (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) Page 2
