A Shade of Vampire 32

by Bella Forrest

  It was a calculated risk.

  I aimed for his groin again with my knee, knowing that second shot would weaken him considerably. But he managed to block it, noticing my aim too soon.

  He caught me again in the cheek, the same spot he caught last time, tearing my skin further. I felt the blood flowing down my face and trailing to my neck. I had to be careful not to be caught in the eye—it would swell up almost instantly from the force of the impact.

  I returned the punch, catching him in the jaw and sending him reeling backward. He tripped over a pipe and fell. Here, I saw my golden opportunity. I pounced on him, grabbing him by the collar while he was still recovering from my punch, and dragged him toward the edge of the building. I kneed him again, this time managing to hit his groin. He groaned as I fought to wrestle him over the edge.

  He grabbed hold of my arms, as I’d been expecting him to. If he was going down, he wanted me to go with him.

  Perhaps he was not aware that I had experience with the particular mutant that he had brought along with him. Or more likely, he was simply too distracted to think of it. Whatever the case, I let out a sharp whistle through my teeth that Jez was used to obeying from me.

  Now that he had no other rider, he was a free agent. He came flying over to us. On realizing what I was doing, Oliver struggled harder, continuing his attempts to force me back, return the fight to the center of the roof. But I fought with all I had to keep him where he was now that I’d gotten him so close to the edge. I needed a little help from Jez to finish off the job.

  As the mutant approached, I drove a hand into the tough feathers around his neck and held onto him for support as I thrust a kick against the man’s gut. This proved to be effective in breaking his hold on me. He tipped backward, his upper half reeling over the edge. His feet still on the ground, I dropped down and grabbed his ankles. I lifted them upward abruptly to tip him over completely.

  But when he was seconds from falling, his right arm shot down and grabbed the back of my shirt. As he began to fall, I didn’t have enough warning to tear the shirt off myself. I found myself being tugged with him, toppling over the edge.

  And then the two of us were falling.

  The dull gray concrete beneath us was the sight of death. My life flashed before me. Oliver’s scream pierced my ears as he plunged beside me. Then came another scream that was neither Oliver’s nor my own.

  It was a shriek that came from above. As I was barely seven feet from hitting the ground, strong talons closed around my shoulders. With a lurch that felt like it dislocated both of my shoulders, I was brought to an abrupt stop, about five feet over the pavement.

  Oliver was not so lucky.

  He hit the ground with a sickening splat and disintegrated like a ripe tomato. Tearing my eyes away from his mangled body, I gazed up at my savior. Jez could’ve saved either of us; we were both his masters. Yet he’d chosen to save me.

  I supposed somewhere along the line, I must’ve treated him better. Something I was dearly thankful for.

  He lowered me to the ground gently, where I collapsed for a few moments, my legs shaking from the shock. I had definitely injured my shoulders. I could hardly move them without pain shooting down my arms. But that shouldn’t be anything one of the witches couldn’t fix in a jiffy.

  I glanced at Jez as he moved closer to me, and inhaled slowly. “Okay, friend. Let’s get back to business.”

  Derek

  We finally managed to debilitate enough of the mutants to allow the ogres and werewolves to make an entrance. They came sweeping through the city like a tsunami, the werewolves growling, the ogres bellowing, as they destroyed any remaining IBSI members who had not yet surrendered… And indeed, in the process of taking down the mutants, a number of the IBSI members had finally realized that it was in their best interest to jump ship.

  We gathered every surrendered man and woman together on two roofs. Ibrahim and Horatio kept an eye on them to be sure they meant what they said, and weren’t about to try anything funny.

  Throughout the fight, more and more helicopters had arrived and dared to move closer to watch. Lights flashed from the aircrafts; they were reporters, rendering my little camera defunct. I’d caught enough footage by now anyway, and when I had joined Sofia on her dragon, she had taken over filming for a while.

  We had more than enough to demonstrate the IBSI’s ass-kicking.

  Now that we had mostly finished the battle in the sky, it was important for us to monitor what was going on at ground level with the ogres and the werewolves. I still felt uneasy about the ogres in particular. I caught sight of Anselm, who, to my surprise, was at the front of the ogre army, leading them forward as they coursed through street after street. I’d deliberately had the werewolves come in first. I trusted them more around humans. They searched within what was left of the buildings, and managed to find a few stray humans who had managed to survive in spite of the blaze, though, sadly, far more dead bodies were found than live ones.

  All along, I had been prepared for more IBSI recruits to come swooping down on us. After all, they had members spread all over the United States. It would not have taken them all that long to assemble another army to come in to counteract us. But I believed, on witnessing the destruction that we had caused, they had decided against it. They had witnessed our army—so massive and multifaceted that even with all their mutants they simply couldn’t compete. We had so many dragons now who could easily tackle the mutants, not to mention all the witches and Hawks, along with our ground army. It seemed that, finally, the day had come when their egos had been beaten down to size. The IBSI had realized that they were no match for TSL.

  All this was just another reason why it was so important for us to have our activities broadcast. We needed not only the world to witness our strength and organization, but also the other IBSI’s bases. Once we had finished dealing with Chicago, we would need to move on to the other affected cities, New York and Los Angeles, and then beyond. Hopefully, after this, the IBSI would not put up a fight there. But more than anything, I hoped that after this, their government support would be withdrawn. Something I was sure the authorities would’ve done long ago, if only they’d had a viable alternative.

  I believed today was that day. A day of glory. A milestone in history. Not just for us, but for the world. Although we had much, much more work ahead of us—we had not even scratched the surface—this one battle would have an ongoing effect, and as dramatic as it sounded, it would alter the world’s future.

  I was drawn from my thoughts by an ogre roaring up to me, “Can I eat this human?”

  My eyes shot toward him. An obese ogre if ever I saw one, his meaty hands were clamped around the skull of a stray IBSI member, who was struggling to break free from his grip.

  I frowned in disdain at the ogre. At least he knew to ask permission from me. That much, I supposed, was commendable.

  “No!” I barked down gruffly. “IBSI member or not, you’re not allowed to eat anybody.”

  We had given permission to the ogres to kill our enemies, but not to eat them. They needed to get in the habit of abstaining from human flesh while they were on Earth, because I feared eating one man could lead to eating another, and then another, until they spiraled out of control and began eating innocents too.

  “Please! I surrender!” the IBSI member gasped as he flailed.

  I leapt from the dragon and landed next to the ogre and his struggling victim. My heart softened a little as I noted how young the IBSI man was. He didn’t look much older than twenty. I was sure that he had loved ones somewhere waiting for him to come home.

  “Let him go,” I ordered the ogre.

  The ogre huffed but relinquished his grip on him, sending him crumpling to the ground unceremoniously. I towered over the man, my arms crossed over my chest.

  “Give me a reason to spare your life,” I said, my menacing tone masking any softness I might’ve been feeling inside.

  “I renounce the IBSI,
and everything it stands for! I will do whatever you ask of me. Please. Just don’t kill me.”

  “Do you understand why it was wrong to align yourself with the IBSI to begin with?” I prodded.

  He nodded.

  “Explain to me why.”

  “Because they never used the power they had for good. They exploited it. They piled resources into methods that were against the interest of the general population.”

  “Hm. Well said… All right. You will be spared.”

  He let out a deep gasp of relief, while the ogre looked rather disappointed that he couldn’t at least take a swipe at the man’s skull with his club.

  “Move along,” I told the ogre. “There’s still work to be done.”

  I allowed the IBSI member to climb onto Neros’s back with Sofia and me. We soared him toward a rooftop where some of his colleagues were waiting.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  Sofia and I twisted around toward the voice of our son behind us. He was soaring toward our rooftop with Kailyn and… Atticus. He was sandwiched in the middle of the two fae as they carried him.

  His hands strapped behind his back by makeshift cuffs, Atticus’s lined face was stoic. He refused to look me in the eye. He seemed to have already sensed that the game was up. I wondered how long he, Kailyn and Ben had been watching the scene.

  I leapt off Neros and came face to face with the man who had caused the world so much grief and suffering. I stroked my jaw. Interesting. Very interesting.

  “What do you think we should do with him?” Ben asked, an unmistakable spark of triumph in his eyes. He had a particular bone to pick with Atticus, given everything Atticus had put poor Grace through.

  As I mulled over the matter, I could think of many things that I would like to do with this man. Oh, decisions, decisions. Lock him in a cage with a Bloodless? Throw him to our ogres and inform them that he was the one and only exception to my no-human-eating rule? Or maybe even make a special little trip to the ghouls’ portal on the coast of Maine? If anybody deserved “time out” in The Underworld, it was Atticus.

  I was about to ask Ben for his opinion when a loud thump sounded to our left. I was shocked to see a mutant descend in our midst and immediately sprang into defense mode… until I realized that atop the mutant was Lawrence.

  He looked like he’d been through the mill. His face was bleeding and cut up, his hair as tangled as a bird’s nest.

  Finally, Atticus raised his gaze to look at his son—but only for a moment, before he looked down again.

  I imagined how humiliating this must be for him.

  Lawrence moved stiffly toward us, his eyes trained on his father.

  “Lawrence,” I said brightly. “You’ve arrived just in time. We’ve been discussing what we ought to do with your father but, really, I think that is a decision that should be left to you.”

  Given Atticus’s responsibility for the murder of his mother, that seemed to be only right.

  Lawrence breathed in through his nose, his lips pursing as he gazed at his father with deep disdain. There was a pause of a few minutes as he circled him silently.

  Finally, Lawrence’s lips parted and he spoke in a deep voice. “I think I know exactly what we ought to do with you, Father… It’s about time you face the public.”

  Lawrence

  After witnessing my father captured in our midst, and arriving at an idea for what to do with him, I requested Ibrahim to heal my aching shoulders and the gash in my cheek, which he did without much delay.

  Then I looked around at our group.

  “Does anybody know if the news sites and channels are up and running again?” They ought to be by now, but I needed to verify it.

  “They are,” Ben confirmed.

  “Then I suggest that we go and pay a visit to those news helicopters.”

  I couldn’t help but look at my father as I spoke. His jaw was tight, his teeth clenched, his cheek muscles twitching.

  Kailyn and Ben continued to grip him as they began flying toward the helicopters, while I returned to Jez. Sofia and Derek flew with their dragon. Given the presence of the dragon and the mutant, the news reporters were unsurprisingly jittery to see us come hurtling toward them.

  The helicopters began to move away, and Derek had to ask the dragon to use his mighty voice to bellow out, “We are here only to talk!”

  That made them stall and hover where they were, waiting for us to approach. Jez and I reached the nearest helicopter first, and I leapt into the belly of the aircraft, leaving the mutant to hover outside. Derek and Sofia joined me, followed by Kailyn, Ben and my father.

  The helicopter was filled with at least ten reporters, and I could recognize from their badges and dress that most of them represented the major channels.

  As famous—or should I now say, infamous—as the IBSI was, my father himself was practically invisible to the public eye. He almost never showed his face, and most people had no idea who actually ran it.

  They did, however, recognize me, given my numerous appearances on the screen as the IBSI’s “golden child” and test-experiment-gone-wrong. Their brows rose as they laid eyes on me.

  “This is my father, Mr. Atticus Conway,” I said, gesturing toward him. “Founder and chief of the IBSI, if you weren’t aware. I would like you to set up your cameras now. My father has some confessions to make.”

  The reporters set up the cameras and pointed them at my father and me. Then they began to record. My father’s face had flushed red as he kept his head down, still refusing to look at me.

  I looked directly at the cameras and gave an introduction to myself before moving on to introduce my father. “This is the man who is responsible for every activity the IBSI has carried out since its founding. He is the IBSI’s founder and director. Until now, he has lurked in the shadows of the organization’s halls, but now, I would like to introduce him to the world.”

  I paused to address my father. “Do you have anything to say at all?”

  He remained silent. That was about the only act of protest he could pull off in this moment.

  “Well, it seems that Mr. Conway is speechless,” I went on. “Allow me to introduce him further. He is the murderer of his wife, my mother, Mrs. Georgina Conway, who died thirteen years ago in a covert assassination. Since then, he has assassinated many other innocent members of his organization. What was their crime? They wished to spread the knowledge about the Bloodless antidote far and wide to the public.” I had already explained several hours earlier when we were visiting news stations about the cure and how it had been concealed in order to provide an excuse for the IBSI to remain in power. Of course, we had demonstrated the antidote too. But I recapped it now in brief for any who had not watched the previous broadcasts or seen the viral footage on the internet.

  I turned once again to my father. “Do you deny any of this?”

  I expected him to maintain his silence, so I was surprised when he responded in a deep, coarse voice. “You speak the truth about many things, but not about my intent.” His blue eyes pierced through mine. “You should have gleaned by now, Lawrence, that power has never been my or the IBSI’s motivation. Power has always been a means to an end. An end which is for the benefit of all mankind. Given the state that the world is in, and has been in for the past several decades, drastic measures have been required in order to keep human society from descending into irrelevance.” He went on to clarify why they had kept the antidote such a closely guarded secret; they needed it to retain control, and they needed control in order to change the world for the better, develop a new breed of humans who would be powerful enough to withstand supernaturals. “We’ve had to think about safeguarding our future,” he concluded, “and for that, sacrifices needed to be made.”

  Derek cleared his throat. “That’s all well and good,” he said, glaring daggers at my father. He looked toward the cameras to address the public. “But you will witness in the days, weeks, months and years to come that Mr. Atticus Conway�
��s methods, however noble”—here, Derek’s voice dripped with sarcasm—“are not required. There are ways of dealing with Earth’s situation other than keeping hundreds of thousands of people living a life of sheer misery. Not to speak of murdering innocent people.”

  If my father’s hands had not been bound, I was sure that he would’ve punched Derek. But now that he had practically confessed to these matters on television, my father’s hands would be cuffed for a long time to come.

  “I cannot say that I am sorry for anything.” My father spoke to the camera. “And if you trust a word that comes out of Derek Novak’s mouth, you’re fools. TSL will bring this country, and the international community, to ruin. Their efforts will not sustain the way the IBSI has for decades. You’ll see, all of you. Every single one of you will suffer if the IBSI is overthrown.”

  “Not if, Father,” I said, raising a brow at his choice of words. “When.” In fact, it had already happened. Just not officially yet.

  I told the reporters they could stop filming—I figured that they’d captured enough of our banter, and since my father obviously wasn’t going to apologize for anything, I didn’t see the point of going on.

  As I turned to speak to Derek, my phone rang in my pocket. Thanks to my pockets having zippers, it had survived the fall from the building. I took the call and pressed it to my ear.

  “Lawrence.” It was Fowler. “Hand the phone to your father, please.”

  I held the phone to my father’s ear, my pulse quickening.

  Even though it wasn’t on loudspeaker, I could make out Fowler’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “You are going to have to step down,” Fowler said. “Henceforth, the IBSI is disbanded.”