Rising From Ashes: Empire of Blood Book Three (A Dystopian Vampire Novel)

by Robert S. Wilson

  Hank closed his eyes, hoping against hope he could find a way out of the shackles holding him down.

  "I needn't take your blood myself. I need only to will one of my mother's children to go and drink from you and I will see what they see."

  Hank fought once more against the restraints holding him to the chair to no avail. The Emperor's cackling laugh filled the room and then the screen went blank. The room was spinning as Hank was all struggle and no results. Managing only to scrape several layers of skin from his arms, after a few minutes he let the exhaustion that was draining him take hold and he relaxed his body.

  The door creaked open and a pale face with glowing yellow eyes resolved into being from the darkness. It stepped into the room, eyes locked on the beating pulse in Hank's throat. Hank let his fury build up into every muscle in his body in one tense grip and screamed out at the creature. It hissed in return but still it made its way closer. He was sure it knew just how strong he really was and yet it did as the Emperor willed it.

  The creature's breath was full on in his face now and no struggling, no clawing, no screaming could stop it from doing what it was about to do. He thought then about the vision the Queen had given him. About the one piece of his plan that was now backfiring so swiftly and terribly. If he timed it just right he could—

  Something stung against his forehead suddenly. The slick feel of metal against his skin told him his head was now also restrained to the chair. He fought to lunge his mouth forward as the vampire reached teeth first down toward his neck. The piercing burning of the creature's bite struck quickly and within seconds he could feel his body draining. Not only would the Emperor get the information he wanted, but he would kill Hank in the process. There had to be some way to stop the thing. To fight back. His voice called out in a moan more from heartbreak than physical pain. Before Hank could even understand what was happening, a loud hiss rose from the corner of the room and the pain erupted into something more. Dizziness swam all around him in a blurry haze of confusion.

  The vampire who had been drinking from his neck lay still on the floor and over the creature stood Toby, chest rising and falling with deep tortured breathing, blood covering his mouth and chin. He glared at Hank then, that same look of bloodlust returning to his blackened eyes. The Emperor's voice interrupted the whole shebang then and Hank turned his eyes to the screen but nothing was there. Toby seemed to go docile at the sound of the Emperor's voice.

  "Thank you so much for your cooperation, Mr. Evans. I have what I need now. I trust you'll be dead when I return. I have business to attend to. A child to destroy. You understand." Hank fought to see around the place with his head still anchored to the chair. A reflection of movement from the screen caught his eye and he watched as the Emperor's body walked away from the open door of the room hidden initially by Toby's unnaturally animated body. Steps echoed down the hallway more and more quiet and reverberated the further the Emperor went. Toby's eyes locked on Hank once more. He stumbled forward and dropped his knees into Hank's lap and buried his head into Hank's shoulder. A new sharp stinging pulled at Hank's everything and the world began to swim away again.

  There had to be a way to make it stop. He tried to call out to the Queen but the connection was simply not there. He screamed the boy's name, trying against all odds to wake the tender boy within but Toby only continued sucking away at Hank's life force. The thought of the Emperor's words rang through Hank like a bullet next to his ear and he yanked at the metal restraint pulling against his head with every ounce of strength in his body. It held firm but started to squeal in protest. He let the sound of it give him confidence and he pulled harder. He could feel a ripping at the edge of the steel as it pulled against the flesh of his forehead, but he kept on pulling nonetheless. A moment later there was another squeal from the metal and it began to bend.

  Toby kept drinking, oblivious to what was going on anywhere else in the room, perhaps all the world. A moment later and both the metal and Hank's head tore as one and he latched his teeth into the boy's neck. Tears gushed down, puddling between his face and Toby's shoulder as Hank drained and drained and drained. Toby's body lightened slowly but still he drank from his father's neck. Latched to each other by mouth, father and son fought to drain the other faster. Hank's left shoulder snapped from the pull of his body and he was able to slip it out of its restraint. It fell limp at his side then snapped into place and began to heal. He screamed in a muffled yelp, mouth still locked on Toby's neck. When the arm was healed enough that he could use it, he reached around Toby's head and pulled it loose from his neck, gripping the boy tightly against his mouth still drinking in the child-thing's blood.

  Toby's body began to tremble beneath Hank's grip and within seconds the boy was still and limp and falling to the floor and everything was spinning again into a daze of vast and empty darkness.

  ***

  Joseph wasn't waiting on the decrepit elevator to get him back up to the control room in time. Instead he took the stairs, blasting his feet back and forth up the steps in a fast but steady rhythm. His control over Bellona's children had started fading without warning and the visions his petty little sibling was transmitting to him had become faint. He knew the link between himself and her children wouldn't last forever. He wasn't sure how, but he had known without her, there would only be so much holding him to the others. Coming closer to the creature had taken care of the problem. He was tempted to stay and watch the boy finish the job, but he had to act quickly in case Evans could manage to warn the Queen before he died.

  Floors dropped below him one after another within seconds. 32. 33. 34. 35. In a blast of force, he slammed his way through the door marked 35 and took off running at an inhuman speed toward the control room. Within seconds the dark room lit up with glowing dials and switches of nearly every color of the rainbow. Caesar found the main console and sat down, taking out the keyboard that controlled the entire system. His fingers pecked like lightning against the keys sending strings of text commands out onto the black screen. When he was finished he hit the ENTER button and sat back, watching. A soft gray graphical image took over the screen with flashing numbers in the middle in black.

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  Chapter 52

  Last Stand in Vegas Land

  It hurt Jackie's heart that she had been forced to use her powers to lock Frank in the basement of the factory. But they couldn't bring him with them and if something went wrong while trying to disarm the bomb, the three of them would at least have a running start whereas Frank wouldn't even have a chance. Nonetheless she soared through the air as Simon and Rosadelma sliced in between buildings and jumped over cars, racing to keep up on foot below her.

  Jackie wondered then, looking down at Rosadelma, if, in that singular moment just before she took Harek's head, when he cried out in fear in realization of what she was about to do, did anything remotely relative to solace come into her heart then. She hoped for Rosa's sake, it had. But she knew in her own heart, solace could probably never come to either of them.

  Up ahead, the familiar black reflective surface, now half scorched and destroyed, of the Luxor hotel shook up and down in Jackie's field of vision. Harek certainly hadn't been the brightest creature Jackie had ever had the misfortune to come across. Someone with half a brain would have set up shop somewhere a bit more subtle. Not Harek. Then again, practicality was probably the name of the game and if there was a building with plenty of space large enough to house a great magnitude of big-scale sophisticated weapons, he had picked the right one.

  In an instant the whole giant structure blinked out of existence, its countenance covered over with black moving parts that after a second of adjusting, her eyes made out more clearly. Ancients. Hundreds of them. The rage built in her stomach then and she reached out with the tendrils of it and grabbed hold of the nearest stable structures she could. All around her t
he earth shook and directly to her right and her left, two tall apartment buildings roared in one quick burst as they ripped apart from their foundations and rose in the air angling ceiling-first toward the scattering vampires flitting through the air.

  Masses and masses of black dots fell from the sky. There were still many in the air, but Jackie thought she at least had a chance against those remaining in the air now. The two apartment buildings started to point downward and within seconds they were slamming and disintegrating into the pavement below until neither the buildings or the streets could be distinguished from one another.

  ***

  Sheriff Danny Jackson sped down the Main Street, sirens blazing, trying to keep up with the new young deputy who was hot on the girl's trail. As soon as the call came over the radio about the young girl being sighted in the next county over and headed toward Jasper, Danny had hoped by some miracle she would pass right by them and head for some other town.

  And to make matters worse, the new son of a bitch deputy, Mike Gage, was a hard ass, just looking for some way to prove himself to Danny as if the poor asshole really needed to. He was just the kind of prick Danny hated dealing with but he couldn't very well complain or the Imperial governor would end up sending him someone even worse. The entire Imperial infrastructure was built on the shoulders of assholes like Gage and beyond.

  The girl swerved into the Gladys County Mall parking lot and just as quickly Gage squealed the wheels of his cruiser keeping right on her tail and the two cars went speeding up the middle of the parking lot. A man and two young boys walked out between two parked cars and just as quickly jumped back, just barely in time before the girl's big blue Le Sabre blasted by. An elderly lady panicked and pushed her cart out into the road just in front of the girl and the next second it went flying up into the air and falling upside down, bags filled with items and all crashing right down on several parked cars just to the left of Gage.

  A second later the girl swerved left again and just as Gage turned to follow, a little girl no taller than Danny's knee ran out into the parking lot while her mother's back was turned and Gage slammed on his brakes squealing ten times louder than when he'd blasted into the lot, and somehow, thank God, his cruiser stopped just within inches of the child.

  Meanwhile, Alexandria Ridgemont was getting away and anyone with eyes could tell that every second Gage sat there, not in hot in pursuit, was one more second closer to one hell of a nuclear meltdown. The child's mother turned around and, seeing her child standing there so close to that Imperial Police cruiser's bumper, screamed, her bags falling to her sides. She ran out and grabbed up the child in both arms and ran back to the sidewalk, picked up her bags and headed back out into the parking lot behind Gage's cruiser as he sped off after the blue Le Sabre that was now no longer in sight.

  "Cacey, you don't go running out into the parking lot like that. You could have been killed." The woman turned a quick glance at Danny and he nodded, waiting as patiently as he could manage for the woman to finally be completely out of his way so he could try and catch up to Gage before he did something particularly violent and stupid to those kids.

  The second the woman stepped out of his way, Danny slammed on the gas. Just in case he grabbed his radio and called over to Gage. "Deputy Gage, if and when you manage to stop the suspect, you are to hold tight until I get there, do you hear me?"

  Static replied in a long dry crackle.

  "Deputy Gage. Do. You. Hear me?"

  Crackle crackle, pop, crackle shhh.

  Danny slammed the radio down on its hook. "Goddamnit!"

  Up ahead on the right, the flashing lights of Gage's cruiser spun like a blue and red syncopated beacon in the night. As Danny pulled up closer, it became obvious that the girl's car had crashed into an old wire fence. Where are they? Danny pulled his cruiser just to the right of Gage's which was sat parked bumper to bumper with the back end of the Le Sabre. Danny practically jumped from his car, not even managing to close the door all the way as he tripped over the tall grass sweeping up in the wind like the long thinning hair of an old man in denial, face down and pushing through.

  There was a scream up ahead. Female. Son of a bitch. "Goddamnit, Gage, I told you to hold your position and stand by."

  There was no response. Coming up on the Le Sabre, several things became clear immediately. One, the boys were still in there, crouching down low in the floorboard of the backseat. Two, neither Alexandria or Gage were anywhere within sight of the Le Sabre and yet Danny knew they had to be at least somewhere close or he wouldn't have heard that poor girl's scream.

  She screamed again and Danny kicked into action, bursting forward with all the muscle power his legs could manage. The grass only continued to thicken and grow in height as Danny came deeper and deeper into the field. Turning and looking back, he could barely even see the cars now. Another scream, this time half scream, half whimper, reached out into the open air and extended a single finger that slicked up the back of Danny's neck and disappeared into one long chill that ran down his spine.

  The sound was up ahead beyond a line of trees that, at best guess, must have marked one farmer's field from another's. Danny ran in the direction where the sound seemed to come from and nearly tripped over Gage lying on top of the girl, her arms handcuffed behind her as he pulled back on her chin and searched his way up the side of her face with his tongue.

  At that moment, it took everything Danny had not to send the fucker's head through the air, fucking Jasper High Cougar's style, but in a reasoned second of hesitation he feared too much what the consequences would be for him. Instead he called out with as much authority as he could manage, "Deputy Gage, get away from the suspect and stand by, do you hear me?"

  Gage was trying Danny's patience, half heartedly dry humping against the young girl for a second longer as if it had taken a moment for Danny's words to register though he damn well knew better than that.

  "I said 'get up,' Deputy. Now."

  Gage rolled off of the girl, slamming her head down against the ground in the process on purpose and leaving her crying there with blood streaming down her nose. The urge to plant his fucking foot in Gage's face reasserted itself in every single one of Danny's muscles, but he continued to fight the temptation with everything he had. Besides, he wouldn't be much help to this girl, let alone anyone else, if he got himself killed.

  Once on his feet, Gage didn't even try to hide the grin wrapping around his face. He simply backed away, inhaling long and deep breaths every few seconds, then pulling out a pack of no-name brand cigarettes and lighting one. Danny ran forward to check on the girl. She seemed to be okay save for some bruises and her bleeding nose. There was no way to know off hand without having some tests run or something of the sort, whether she was truly suffering from any major injuries or not.

  "Ma'am, you okay? You took a pretty nasty spill there."

  With agonizing slow movements, Alexandria turned her head and looked around and past the field that spread out beyond her.

  The next instant, she seemed to wake up from a trance and immediately started calling out in a high pitch between quick successions of high-paced breathing.

  "Jeremy!" She gasped in a huge deep breath, "Rudy!"

  ***

  Frank woke up lying face down, cheek glued to the cold concrete floor by his saliva. He rolled over and sat up trying to take in his surroundings. Dark blurry vagueness was all he could make out at first. Then a wall lined with shelves shaped like inverted pockets brimming with items he couldn't quite recognize began to ooze into reality before him. He sat there a long time trying to regain some sense of focus.

  The grainy darkness was starting to transform into more distinctive shapes now. Frank leaned on one arm in order to lift himself up to a standing position. It was a bit disorienting at first, but he managed. He couldn't believe she had left him knocked out like this. He kind of understood why, but for goodness sakes. He wasn't going to live much longer anyway, even if that missile somehow
detonated there in the city and he managed to survive. Cancer wasn't exactly known for its sympathy and well wishes.

  Frank immediately went to the main door and tried the knob. It was unlocked, but the door wouldn't budge when he pushed. She must have blocked it with something. It's not like it would be hard for her to simply mind-fuck some things on over and against the door.

  A moment of investigation made it clear to Frank that the room he was trapped in was actually some sort of materials storage for the entire facility. Nuts, bolts and metal and plastic doodads of all kinds filled the white, blue, and black pellican-pouched shelves. Unless by some miracle one of those gadgets happened to be able to push a metric fuck-ton of weight without much effort, Frank was pretty sure none of it would be of any use to him.

  He raced across to the opposite wall where a large vertical-sliding shipping door stood centered. Frank assumed truck trailers connected to the outside of it for receiving large shipments. There was no visible handle or lever to lift it that he could make out. He walked up and tried to push upward on the door with his bare hands. It rattled noisily but gave no indication of progress.

  He sighed.

  "Well, fuck..."

  Circling around the room, Frank looked for any other glimpse of an idea or way out. There was a long white counter that stretched along the length of one of the walls where he assumed some sort of material handler or material manager had been stationed back before the city turned into vampireland.

  He squeezed in behind it only to find more and more buckets and containers filled with little tools and screws and devices, all of which completely useless in his current predicament. Out of an odd force of habit, he started from the bottom shelf and worked his way up, examining the contents for anything helpful. When he had glanced over every inch of each of the four shelves, he stood up and let his eyes wander over the surface of the counter. Everything was covered in dust, but the items on the counter were covered in so much of it as to look nearly fuzzy and grossly lifelike in comparison.