As the dirt fell through the dry branches and over his pale decaying face—a face she couldn't help remember smiling and crying and laughing and yelling and screaming and now it just stared at nothing without emotion or recognition or anything that would give it even the slightest resemblance of being alive—the well cracked open and her tears flooded down again mixing with the dry dirt on her face and becoming an odd sort of mud. Her arms moved of their own accord, flinging dirt down over that face and working restlessly to cover it and make it go away. And yet she didn't want her last time seeing him to end so quickly and so horribly but the choice was no longer hers as her arms shoved forward large piles of dirt and within a few minutes she lay there nearly out of breath over the grave now fully covered. And all she wanted to do was lie there with him forever and never get up.
Rudy's soft and terrified voice crept up over the chirping of insects and the faraway droning of traffic. "Alex?"
The need to sob caught in her throat then and with a great and forced effort she swallowed it, its fire burning her esophagus all the way down. She sat up, pretending the fire engulfing her stomach wasn't there and in a comforting and steady voice she replied, "Yeah, Rudy, what is it? You okay, buddy?"
Her little brother stood, dirty face and bare feet sticking out of the cracked back porch screen door. "Jeremy said it was Daddy's fault the Emper sojers killed him—that he's gon' go to hell and burn because he didn't believe in the Emper and..." His face screwed up with tears and wailing, and the burning in Alexandria's heart stoked with a boiling anguish and hatred.
"Come on, come here, Rudy." Rudy ran out to her, the porch door slamming behind him. When he landed sobbing into Alexandria's arms she hugged him tightly and caressed the top of his head cooing and whispering to him. "Jeremy doesn't know any better, Rudy. He's wrong. The Emperor's not any god that Daddy should have believed in. And it wasn't Daddy's fault those bad men shot him, it's the Emperor's. And if there's a hell, you know just as well as I do, our Daddy doesn't belong there."
When Rudy finally calmed down, she brought him inside the house and had a long talk with Jeremy and when they were done, the three of them came outside and Alexandria took the metal can in her hands, lifted it awkwardly over the bare patch of dirt that covered her father's lifeless body, and began to splash the dry ground with wet oily gasoline. When the bulge of dirt was covered in channels of flowing yellowish red liquid, she set the can aside and started throwing the leaves and grass she had collected over the spot and the two boys began to do the same. Within a few minutes it was covered entirely. She took out the small book of matches she had found in a kitchen drawer and pulled one out. Then she kissed her palm and blew a kiss down at the makeshift grave as new tears ran streaming down both sides of her face. And before she had a chance to stop herself she'd lit the match and dropped it.
The whole thing went up in a whoosh and a bright flash lighting the dying dusk evening with glowing waves of yellow and orange. Flames danced in Alexandria's moist eyes as she watched the soldiers through the tongues of fire reaching up at random for the sky in crackling cries of spitting spark and thick burning heat. And in the rising smoke of the crude makeshift pyre, Alexandria and her brothers said goodbye to Jamie Ridgemont, the best father they could have ever asked for.
***
The boys were long asleep upstairs as Alexandria stepped into the bedroom. It had been a week since that cold Sunday morning, but she was just now starting to go through her father's things and was beginning to truly realize what it would take to make sure that she and the boys were fed. She'd been through all of his chest of drawers and so far hadn't found anything useful or interesting. Just familiar clothes that stung the eyes and heart with every glimpse. The angry voice of a man on Dad's voicemail had said that if he didn't pay rent before the end of the week, there would be no choice but for the man with the angry voice to come out to the place personally and start throwing out the family's things on the street and eventually them too in order to make enough room for someone who would pay. Alexandria tried to ignore these threats and to focus on figuring out where her father might have hidden some money or something she could sell.
Without realizing it, she stood staring out the window between the thin dusty shades at the tall armed Imperial soldiers across the street. And before she could stop herself she was digging out a mostly empty notebook of her father's. As she watched the soldiers across the street, she focused on any discernible details about them and as these observations took hold, her hand began to scribble out words and sentences and eventually paragraphs. After about half an hour or so, she looked down at the messily scribbled notebook to reread what she had written so far. She couldn't remember writing out so much detail. But there it was staring back up at her in letters and punctuation rounded up together in a weaving of information. When she was done reading and the shiver coursing through her flesh had mostly resided, she closed the notebook up and held it tightly against her chest. Worry was trying to creep in between her and her need for revenge against these horrible mindless religious fucks. She'd known people who were religious all her life. Most of them who were close to her family were far more reasonable. Friends and helpers eager to protect her and her father regardless of the heavy cost of doing so. But now those people were all gone. They had all moved on to other places and left Alex and her father and brothers in a desolate suburban hell, complete with its very own demons circling above the city on the backs of their black long-haired steeds.
Alex put away the notebook in her father's top drawer and closed it. Then she let her gaze go back to the soldiers outside. She couldn't do anything to hurt them while her bothers were anywhere nearby. She would have to find a safe place for them to go to. Somewhere they would be taken care of and protected.
If, she thought, such a place truly exists...
Chapter 19
Time Bidden
"I can usually sense if someone has less than pleasant intentions. This doesn't add up. It just doesn't seem right..." Hank chewed on this thumbnail as he paced around in Simon's cavern.
"Well, that's what happened. If I hadn't stopped his punk ass, you'd be dead right now." Rosadelma sat against the cavern floor, staring down through the stalagmites that lined up between her long splayed out legs. Simon stood in the center of the dark cavern, his arms at his sides and his face staring at nothing, his attention elsewhere.
A Foederati soldier stepped inside the cavern entrance and leaned into Hank's shoulder and whispered, "General Whindsor is here now."
Hank nodded. "Absolutely. Send him in."
A moment later, Bill Whindsor walked into the cavern and gave Hank's hand a good strong shake and then to almost both of their surprise, the two men embraced. "It's good to see you, sir." Bill shifted uncomfortably.
"What is it, Bill?"
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we just got word before I came out here. Cross's men in Carlisle were undercover Imperial soldiers. They were caught attempting to set up a bomb inside the town hall near the makeshift new recruit quarters..."
Bill's words were a heavy blow inside Hank's chest. He closed his eyes trying to make sense of why he hadn't seen this coming. Goddamn these visions and their—
"The Imperials immediately opened fire on both the Foederati soldiers who discovered them and some nearby recruits. Twenty-two are dead and another dozen or so were injured."
Hank's body stiffened. "What have you found on Cross?"
"Sir, we couldn't find anything to indicate that Cross was working for the Emperor. Quite the opposite. He's become pretty notorious among the underground Catholic movement. But about a month ago he just up and disappeared. It's as if he was snatched up out of the sky from nowhere."
"Okay, check and see if any of his friends or family members disappeared as well. I think maybe I have an idea why I didn't get any telltale signs. Oh and Bill..."
"Yeah?"
"All things aside, it really is great to see you too. I'm
sorry it had to be under these circumstances."
***
After months of biding his time and pretending with every word, every utterance, every action, Terrence was finally in the right place at what seemed the right time. It hadn't been hard to lie his way into the Foederati. The bastards were so desperate for soldiers, they took just about anyone who volunteered who could pick up a gun and shoot it in one general direction without blowing themselves away. Standing in ranks with a dozen or so other soldiers in the murky underground cave, he'd been watching the different vampires in the place trying to discern who was important and who was not. For the most part he was beginning to get an idea of which was which now. A thin blond guy seemed to be at the center of activity from both the vampires and their connection with the Foederati. Had he still been human, the man would have clocked in right about a decade younger than Terrence. Following Blondie's lead, he was able to get a glimpse inside of one of the caves where a creature like none he had ever seen before lay glistening and half naked and shivering, belly bulged to what looked like an impossibly large roundness. And next to her was the one that caught Terrence's attention above all the rest.
At first he didn't recognize the creature as human or vampire. But after a time, watching as the blond man came in and, from time to time, removed the white shawl from the man's nearly equally pale body below it, almost seeming to pray over the creature for a time, Terrence realized that not only was this man a vampire, but he was important somehow. Very important. So he watched carefully and he waited. And after a time, his opportunity came. The blond man Terrence now knew to be Simon was busy in another cavern with the Commander and several others and Terrence found himself one half of a pair of men assigned to watch over the Queen's chambers.
Chuck wasn't a bad guy. Terrence had grown to find his odd sense of humor almost sort of endearing, but none of that mattered. These people, all these people, alive or undead, were abominations. Devils casting nets over the many souls of the weak and the blind. And Terrence was going to do his part to try and stop them. Something big. Standing there, shaking hand clutching his rifle, Chuck at his side, Terrence was struggling to find some way to get inside without having to kill the man he had grown to somehow care about. But time was short and his patience was shrinking. He needed to get in there and finish what he had come to do. So he waited for the right moment. And when it came, rifle left to hang from its strap, he reached out with both hands and grabbed Chuck's head from behind and twisted until all the weight came out from under the man and he fell dead at Terrence's feet.
Without wasting a moment to let what he had done seep into his heart, Terrence slipped inside the cavern slowly, quietly. The Queen lay in a deep sleep, arms clutching her heavily swollen belly. Beside her the white shroud-covered body waited. Terrence shifted down to his knees, slid his rifle around him so that it hung from his back, and pulled out the long black stake he had made especially for this moment. He'd always had a knack for building things. And when he saw how the Foederati stakes sucked the blood away from the Imperial vampires, he was fascinated and compelled to understand just how it was that they worked. So when he was off duty one night, he took his own apart. He was mesmerized by how beautiful the contraption was, how elegant. But he was even more surprised by how flawed it was. And so he had set out to build his own, knowing that when the time came to use it, he would need a stake that would work faster. A stake that would drain the blood so fast the source of its gorge wouldn't have a chance to fight back. Wouldn't have a second to even know what was happening to them before all life disappeared in one quick drop through a hole of unending darkness.
Kneeling down beside the vampire, whose long black hair stretched out along his chest to his waist and whose body was so much shorter than Terrance had expected, he raised the stake and took a deep breath. Now that the moment was here, doubt filled every pore in his skin, every cell in his brain. Not a doubt of conviction, no. A doubt of whether the stake would work. Whether he was strong enough to send it piercing through the creature's chestplate. The air left Terrence's lungs and he resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't know until he tried. He tensed his muscles and gripped the stake with all of his strength and, just as he was about to bring it down with the fury and righteous vengeance of his lord and savior Joseph Caesar, the vampire's eyes opened. Complete and utter liquid blackness swallowed the whites of those eyes. And before he could even scream, the creature grabbed his wrists with both hands and shoved the stake into Terrence's own stomach. In that rapid-fire blink-of-an-eye moment, the universe came suctioning out of the center of Terrence as every ounce of blood inside him instantly drained into the device.
***
With an almost implosion of blood and life force, the man gave one great convulsion and fell dead, face slapping audibly onto Ishan's chest. The ancient vampire lay there for what seemed like eons unsure if he could move even though he had already more than demonstrated that he could with how quickly he had protected himself. Eventually, however, the disgusting smell of the dead man overpowered Ishan's sense of shock at having finally awoken from Bellona's memories and he pushed the body aside and let it fall to the cave floor. He rose to a sitting position. Though it had been almost too easy to reach out and grab the man moments before, every simple movement of muscle now felt like the grinding of unoiled gears long neglected and covered with rust. But all the pain was forgotten in an instant as Ishan's eyes found the body of the Queen lying in deep sleep and covered in sweat, her womb reaching out from her abdomen to engulf the entire world.
Ishan stumbled to get to his feet, nearly falling over on his face for the first time in more centuries than he'd like to remember. In fact, he wasn't completely sure now. The memories from his own life were now terribly intertwined with Bellona's and what had once been a steady foundation to stand upon now seemed to have disappeared out from under him like stepping further into unknown waters. When he was standing upright, though unsteadily at best, he let his gaze wash over his beloved. She was so beautiful lying there, her body gleaming in the faint light that no human eyes could see. So beautiful and yet so frail. And for one split second a slithering lustful thought arose in Ishan's mind and he nearly tried to rip it from his own brain in reply. So vulnerable. I could kill her right here and right now and no one would know. The words were not his and Ishan wasn't sure which revelation scared him more, the realization of their origin or the very deadly purpose they contained. Before he could dwell on the terror of what he now knew, her eyes opened and found him and everything else, the fear, Bellona's memories, the realization of what still lurked inside him, all fell away like the delicate petals of some soft exotic flower and he reached out and embraced his Queen and their mouths found each other and locked in longing and passion and an urgency that could only come from what would have been remorse had Ishan not awoken from the deep dark bowels of that hellish landscape within the enemy queen.
***
Inside the small weathered structure within what had once been the Six Flags park of New Orleans, Tadashi knelt down before the tiny glass vial lying on the floor and plucked it up in his hand, put it to his nose. A deep intake of air told him many things. He'd known it would be blood. Old blood even. But what was most surprising was how well it had been preserved. His mouth watered with the freshness of its scent. Tipping his head back, he lifted the vial upside down and let the remaining drops fall to his tongue. Images flashed and then warped and tore into more and more visions and then scenes erupted one into another like the changing of channels on a television set. Only this was like being in the story. Inside the television. Tadashi recognized Roger Tresney from the Emperor's debriefing photos. Tresney stood in front of a mirror, his posture dull and hanging. In the next moment images strangely microscopic seemed to dissolve away Tresney's head and before long the chaos simmered down into something somewhat more coherent and Tresney's voice, before spliced and jumbled into nonsense, became recognizable speech. "...blood you've
ingested contains..."
The memory slowed to a stop, shifted.
"...inserted a single viral genome sequence that, along with the one I included in Diana's blood..."
Another jolt of static exploded and then Tresney was back. "...will join together and infect your entire DNA. You see, Hank, I studied the effects of the vampire blood on myself for years. Only the Queen and I knew..." Roger's body seemed to fast forward, his mouth moving cartoonishly fast, but no sound coming out and then it went back to normal. "...there was a weakness in my blood after drinking from the ancients. A weak point in the way the effects of that blood mutated my own—yours as well, and even the Emperor's own blood. Exploit this weakness and you can destroy any of us.”
His head exploded into movement again then slowed down and froze still. Then with a screaming wind it blasted back into real time. “Once contaminated from you, the infected blood you now carry inside you will be far enough into the process that it will spread through him like wildfire and shortly thereafter he will die... and..." The static returned and expanded, engulfing Tadashi in its wake. It spun about him and wrapped itself around his every atom until, with a sudden reversed digestive pressure, Tadashi awoke dry heaving over the smashed shards of the empty vial lying on the floor. After a formless expanse of time lying there and recollecting what he had just experienced, Tadashi rose up to his feet and pulled out his cell phone. The Emperor would find him most honorable now. On this day, he had certainly been blessed.
Chapter 20
Omens Calling
“Okay, if we’re gonna do this, now’s the time. He’s out like a light.” Simon’s head peeked into the cavern opening. In the days since Ishan had awoken, Simon had been glued to the ancient vampire's side, unwilling to move, but now that things had calmed and Ishan was recovering from the long sleep he had been trapped within, Simon had almost completely shifted gears. It were as if now that Ishan were awake, the weighted anchor that Hank sensed had been holding him in the drowning waters of the Queen's cavern was lifted, and the young but powerful vampire was free.
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