Chapter 24
Utter Silence
Fall leaves of gold, red, and orange floated down from the trees from both sides of the road as Hank drove the small Volkswagen up the curvy hill. Wind blew against the car with the rising voice of a wraith. Hank's grip tightened around the steering wheel and as he slowed to steady the car around a particularly narrow turn, a small secluded old blue house crept out from between the trees. There was no mailbox and the house looked as old as the woods that surrounded it. This was the place. Hank stopped the car, examining the land around the house where it met the road looking for some sign of where the driveway hid beneath the crisp blanket of autumn. Another gust of wind burst through and swept an armful of leaves to the East, revealing a small patch where gravel met grass and Hank decided he could figure out the rest from there.
He pulled the car into the driveway and put it in park then fumbled around inside the glove compartment until he found the small remote control device. A glowing red light came on when he pushed the power button and a metallic scraping scratched through the windows from outside into his ears. A moment later and a small dark opening grew in the ground ahead of Hank and he eased the car into drive and gently tapped the gas. The car edged forward toward the opening, meeting slanted earth and sliding forward within until all around Hank, outside the windows was nothing but solid black earth swallowing the Volkswagen into oblivion. When the car was again level, buried beneath the yard, Hank killed the engine and pushed the button once more, watching as the last glow of grim gray light faded away into utter darkness.
A moment later, a bright fluorescent light flickered twice and then came to life, filling the odd chamber with white unnatural light. Now illuminated, the walls of mud, clay, and roots came alive with motion as insects of all kinds crawled, slithered, and burrowed through them. Hank shivered at the sight but shook off the chill of it, and opened the car door. Up above, the glow spread down from three long pale tubes of lights mounted on what appeared to be a dark army-green metal ceiling soiled with mud. Behind the Volkswagen, a crudely dug corridor led off to unseen chambers equally hidden beneath the ground.
Over the years, the Foederati had managed to create twenty-seven different subterranean safe houses like this one right under the Empire's collective nose. Hank stood in awe of the work that had been put into the place. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about squeezing through that narrow "hall" but he was far too tired to let his queasiness get the better of him. So, he took a deep breath and charged onward, walking fast enough that hopefully he wouldn't notice anything crawling around him. On him would be another story altogether.
***
The deep oblivion of dreamless sleep dropped away with no seeming transition as the familiar haze-like texture of some other reality came into focus all around the Queen. Half-crumbled and blackened buildings once adorned in bright neon city lights littered the horizon beneath a moon-lit sky. The shaded forms of vampires crowded the debris-scattered streets in the darkness, waiting for something with thickening anticipation and a growing hunger. They were dead to her. And not just like the rhythm-less hearts of her human vampire children, but completely foreign. She felt no connection or familiarity from them.
They were hers. Bellona's.
A wave of writhing swept up from the torrent of pale faces as they scattered toward the edges of the city, waiting... Waiting to be released. To feed. A tall male with long tangled blond hair and a thick beard, viking by the look of his build and features, stood in the middle of the charred remains of Necropolis and, by some synaptic means unknown to the Queen, he sent out the words "Go. Feed," to the entire horde of creatures, ancient and human alike. The vampires shot outward from every angle of the city, running, flying across the barren desert that separated them from the rest of the world. A dozen or so ancients swept into a small town a bit farther to the Southeast, its lone green sign reading CEDAR CITY as it blew back and forth from the gust of wind left in their wake.
Within seconds, the screams tore through the previously silent evening, rising in number and varying in pitch as hundreds of people were slaughtered and their blood drained, devoured. Among the dying, the Queen knew, saw, felt the hearts and minds of young Jackie's family and quickly realized this wasn't the present or the future, but the past. The bloodshed ignited a hunger within the Queen that would have left many human vampires guilt-ridden, but she was unable to feel such guilt. But love, she felt fully. More fully than any other creature that walked the earth. Love that knew no bounds, no sacrifice too great. She didn't love Jackie, in fact she had been surprised at how quick and biting the jealousy had been when she sensed the girl and Simon's lovemaking. But the fledgling's suffering would be great. The city of the dead, ironically reborn, would quickly reveal itself as the source of that suffering and the drastic brash of her actions would be greater.
She saw then, with vivid clarity, the last moments of Jackie's life as the anger flared out from her in rising chunks of bent steel and broken glass. The Queen had known of her power from the moment it sparked and she couldn't deny a sense of pride in the full development of its potential, but even it wouldn't save her from so many deadly creatures. Her power pushed away those closest only to reveal another layer of white flesh and sharp teeth. Before long, her strength was spent and they reached out for her and pulled, tearing limb from limb and flesh from bone, her solitary scream, blood-curdling and hate-filled right to the very end. The vision shifted and the multitude of shining stalactites along the ceiling of the Hive sparkled over Simon's head as he stood watching the Queen, her legs spread, face covered in sweat, a cry of pain betraying her soft once-reserved lips.
In that moment, the Queen could sense her vulnerability from Simon's mind. Images flashed in his head and he saw all the things she had been keeping from him. The uncertainties of her predictions in the past, the doubts, the lingering fears she'd kept to herself as she led her children through war and blood and death. But the most damning of all sent him to his knees as the last moments of Jackie's life played out in his mind like some internal psychological hell he couldn't escape. And when it was over, he stood. Her eyes met his in mid contraction, and she saw both the vain mask of her own face through his eyes and the torn bitter expression on his. And for that moment she knew what all the others had felt. All the suffering she had caused to bring them all this far. Sacrifices, all necessary to give them all a chance at some long shared collective future, but so many casualties along the way. And that love waved over her again. It was a tragic love. A love so broken no human could understand. A love only hinted at in the father who breaks the neck of his child to stop its suffering. A love that knows the depth of its own consequences.
But this was one consequence too many. One she couldn't bear. And yet, if she told him now, he would surely die. She had seen that too in the swift flash of a single image she watched them melt together, Jackie and Simon. She searched desperately for some sequence of events within the hierarchy of time and events that stretched out like branching synapses connecting and networking reality between these two children, their past, present, and future. Not one of the scenarios ended with Jackie's heart still beating. And the only one that ended with Simon anything but broken and empty led to death.
There were, she knew, scenarios she couldn't see. Factors she couldn't know. And even the ones she could see could be traps of time where the most important details stand in the shadows laughing back at her, but she found herself vacant of any hope. Either she could tell Simon what she had seen and he would die.
Or she could tell him nothing and let him spend the rest of his centuries stumbling from one day to the next, awash in loss and regret and fury.
She woke then from the vision and the darkness and opened her eyes. Simon lay there, eyes closed and sleeping soundly, his head pressed against her breast not as her lover but as her child and she knew then what she would have to do. Blood dripped down toward his motionless face from her own and with the flick of
her tongue she caught it and tasted the heavy burden of her love.
And, in utter silence, the Queen wept.
Chapter 25
Pure Numb Desolation
Deep in the darkness of an unconscious mind, Bellona woke up. She knew her awareness wasn't quite real, wasn't quite hers, but it lived and that was enough for her. Her gracious host slept deeply now in a dreamless sleep and maybe with great effort and some coaxing of her own, she could wake it to do her bidding. She longed for her children. For her eldest human vampire and her one true love born of her own womb. She had learned little of what had happened since her life had been drained, but she had learned enough to know Josephus was still alive, fighting to end a growing rebellion enveloping him.
When she had first awoken in brief flashes of awareness, Ishan was at least awake within his own mind, experiencing hers. They thought his sense of identity was corrupted by the power of her blood within him, but she knew better. What lived within him wasn't merely her memories transferred through blood. Her essence had made the journey as well and now she was becoming more and more alert as time went on. The moment his eyes had opened with her mind in control, she had wanted to find his brother. To try once more to make the bastard pay for what he had done to her.
Dear sweet strong Marcus. Destroyer of nations. Conjuror and conqueror of empires. How she loved her eldest child. And yet he wasn't her eldest by far. Josephus had woken within her womb nearly a century before but Josephus stopped being her child the moment he became her lover. She mourned then again for Marcus. He had come to her in the night, a warrior man, mortal coil wasting away, looking for clues to where his soldiers kept running away to die.
She'd had a mind to snap his neck at first but she could sense great strength and a careful calculating mind within him. With the flash of an image into the minds of her ancient children, he was overtaken and drained and given the baptismal fire of her blood. He awoke anew in darkness and quickly fell into place as her closest confidante. Second only to Josephus, he set the pieces moving to end the Roman Empire, he slew thousands for her throughout the centuries, and anything she asked, he would do.
When Joseph built his own empire and left her behind, sweet Marcus wanted his head. He might have had it too, if he'd been given the chance to build up his own army. To dismantle what Joseph had built brick by brick. But she had but to ask and he let the fire within him quench at her beckoning. Instead he was there for her in her loneliness. No one could take Joseph's place but he had done what no one else could to try.
She had wanted so badly to rule by her lover's side. But her love was too strong for her to bear losing him so when he refused her, she let the matter dissolve. She knew, sooner or later, he would need her again. And when that time came, she would be ready. And so it did.
The vampires of Necropolis spit on Joseph's constant blessings and joined the ranks of his enemies. And so, she had no choice but to come when he called for her. The great balance he had created had been toppled and so he needed a new weight to even things still. With a hint of desperation in her voice, she had requested Marcus to help him. Help his father, his true father. His father of darkness. They were all connected by her blood and so it didn't matter if they didn't agree, didn't see eye to eye, they could commune through her and finally build something new as one.
Reluctantly, he had decided to do as she wished and took on the task of leading the war against the enemy vampires. Like her, war was what he knew best. War was where he would be strong. But they had tricked him. He should have been able to see the strategy at work, but he had been blindsided by the anger still within him. She had sensed it the moment he died. He had only come for her. To do what she wanted. He still longed to dethrone her lover from her side and take what he had built. In that instant, before the centuries ended into dust and his eyes saw nothing but darkness, she saw the truth that had been hiding from her for so very long.
He wanted to be her lover. To take away the one creature on this planet who she loved more than him. Her most beloved child wanted to betray the man that she loved. She would have killed him if he had tried, but it didn't matter. He didn’t have the chance. Simon had killed him. A fledgling vampire had taken him from her. And so he would know what it felt like to lose one you love so deeply.
No longer would she hunt him down to take his life. She would instead take his lover away. She had wanted the other queen as soon as she saw her anyway. And it would only give her beloved Joseph more power if the bitch were gone. So it had been decided. And now that her strength was gaining and Ishan's receding, perhaps she would be able to carry out her true vengeance. As of yet she could not move his body. Not since the night she had been so close. But she could feel her sense of power growing.
***
Action was the only constant now. Jackie had felt every terrible thing she could ever feel all in one moment that seemed like it would stretch out forever and now all she could do was find the creatures responsible and make them pay. She knew from the way the bodies had been ripped apart that what she was searching for were natural vampires. Not born of the Queen's bloodline but one of the Emperor's vampires. Mindless as they might be, she longed to rip them apart in turn. Them and the entire fucking empire if that might somehow dissolve whatever had set the events in motion that led to her family's death. They were innocent. There was no need to do what had been done to them. The fuckers weren't even following their own rules now.
I should have been there to protect them.
Jackie knew the pointlessness of her thoughts, but she didn't care. She was grasping at any straw she could imagine at this point. It didn't matter if the only way she could have been there without having done the deed herself would have had her dead too. She'd rather be dead now. She wished so badly that Simon were there. She had wanted him so badly to like her... to love her. And now it seemed that he did feel some kind of something for her and so the Universe had to go and even the balance of things and the cost of her desires had been the ones she'd left behind.
It would have made her sick to her stomach if she could actually feel anything now other than pure numb desolation. Her shadow stretched out below her like a long ethereal blanket in the moonlight. She had left the house in a fury, her weak ability had erupted into something new and even with the power of it, the reach and the sheer magnitude, it wasn't enough to do the one thing she wanted now more than anything else.
To tear the world apart.
Frank had hidden behind the car from her. She didn't blame him. He had been so good to her so far, and all he wanted was to live out the rest of his life as best as he could. It had been selfish to leave him, but she couldn't really imagine being able to do anything else right now. And then she remembered.
He's alone. And they could still be out there. And if they are, the smell of his blood will draw them...
All her fury and pain came to rest in a hidden place within her. She could at least set them aside for now. Her body turned, leaving behind a pile of blood and organs. The cold wind blowing against her face and the immediacy of her need to make sure Frank was okay distracted her about as much as could be possible from the knowledge of what those remains were. As much as it pained her that they were dead, she could let the dead be dead and at least for now focus her mind on saving the living.
The few remaining street lights that made up what was humanly visible of the town Jackie had spent most of her life in spread out around her as she hovered with forward momentum over bare patches of desert, blood-stained roads, and ravaged homes. When she arrived at her own street, she pulled in the stretching cord of her heart to keep it from bursting from the anguish of what had happened in this place. She let her tongue taste the air for any signs of Frank. His scent was definitely still fresh. Her inhuman hearing picked up the faint vibrations of something scratching. It was ever so light, but it was fingernails. Against metal no less.
She tuned her hearing to pick up the sound more clearly and the screech of i
t erupted into her brain, sending up a strong painful chill through her spine. It was too subtle to be human.
Vampires.
A faint whimpering accompanied it and for a moment Jackie was sure she was too late. But the scratching grew in intensity slightly and she realized what was transpiring. As she swooped around a long curve in the road, her home and Frank's car became visible and she confirmed what she had surmised. Three ancient vampires clung to the top of Frank's car, playfully scratching at the roof of it, toying with their prey. Frank, frozen with fear, held his steering wheel with white-knuckled hands and had apparently either lost the keys or had not the strength of will to try and start the car and drive away. Guilt struck Jackie then and she tried to push it aside. It wasn't fair to expect that she could react any bit differently than she had.
Something else, somewhat but not completely unexpected, became clear to her at that moment. These were the creatures responsible for the deep canyon of loss within her. She could smell her family’s blood on their breath floating up to her in the air.
The rage she had been holding back boiled to the surface. There was no stopping it now. She had no choice but to let it lead her...
Wherever it may.
Chapter 26
Words of Heresy
The deep southern drawl of Pastor Williams's voice echoed off of the tall concave ceiling and reverberated at Yusef from all directions.
"In these desperate times when brother stands against brother and father stands against son, we need to remember just how much Lord Caesar loves us. Just how important it is to hold fast to the strength of our savior. When the evil United States tried to make us condone the filth of sodomy and there was nowhere to turn, Lord Caesar rose up and tore down their corrupted regime of—"
Rising From Ashes: Empire of Blood Book Three (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) Page 14
