“Harland, shut up! Get in the damn carriage and drive us to wherever it is that you’re staying … NOW!” Nanook said, and grabbed Harland by the scruff of his neck and plopped him, unceremoniously, in the drivers seat.
Afon and Nanook climbed into the carriage and held on, as the horses pulled them quickly away from the scene of the youngest Immortals most recent crime.
After about ten minutes had elapsed in total silence, the rhythm of the horses hooves changed to a slower pace and, after a few quick turns, the carriage came to a complete stop in front of a house on Saint Leonard’s Terrace.
Harland made quick work of putting the horses in their stable for the night, and then joined Afon and Nanook at the bottom of the steps to the house.
“Are you sure that the friend you’re staying with is asleep?” Afon said, as Harland started up the stairs. “We cannot risk anyone else seeing you like this. You’re dripping with blood, Harland.”
“Not a problem, Count Solovyov,” Harland said. “Bram is most likely down for the night, but even if he is awake, he’s seen me like this on too many occasions to number … actually, the first time was right after I met you lot.”
Harland turned his key in the latch, and opened the door to the house. He went down a narrow, dark hallway, and turned left into the parlor, leading Afon and Nanook behind him.
A fire was burning, and a red haired, bearded man was sitting just to the left of the fireplace, holding a pipe, and putting down a book he had been in the middle of reading.
“Ah, Harland, good to see you’ve made it home safely,” the man said, and puffed on his pipe. “I’ve laid out a change of clothes for you in the lavatory, and the maid just drew you a hot bath, before she retired for the night. Go and clean yourself up, and I’ll keep these guests of yours entertained.”
Harland left the room. The red haired man stood up, and walked over to a table where a decanter of Scotch was sitting out. He poured three glasses, and handed one each to Afon and Nanook. He took a sip from his own glass, and swirled the Scotch around his mouth before he swallowed.
“Well then,” the red haired man said, and gestured for Afon and Nanook to have a seat opposite from him. “I am Bram Stoker, a friend of Harland’s. And you are?”
Bram raised his eyebrows and looked at Afon and Nanook.
“I am Count Afon Solovyov, and this is my manservant, Nanook K’eyush,” Afon said.
“That name is quite familiar to me. Count Solovyov … yes, that’s it. The first time that I saw Harland in the same condition that he is tonight, he had just met you and your wife. I distinctly remember Harland prattling on about a Countess … we were both originally quite worried for you all. When Harland came to me, covered in blood, he was very concerned that something had happened, that you and the Countess had come to some horrible end. When Harland came home with evidence of violence dripping off of him, on more than one occasion,” Bram said, “he assumed, as did I, that he was responsible for whatever had happened to you on that fateful night. He felt quite awful about it, naturally. He was quite taken with the Countess and, I do believe that he is exhausting his cravings by killing the lower sort of woman, as some kind of reaction to his grief over the loss of the Countess. I’m sure he was so glad to find out that his Russian friends are alright.” Bram smiled at Afon, and continued, “And I’m sure he will be quite curious as to what really happened that night. He has no memory of the events, and he’s been a changed man, ever since.”
Afon and Nanook let the unasked question hang in the air.
“Yes, I’m sure we do have quite a lot to catch up on,” Afon said, “but perhaps I could stop by another time. It’s quite late, and Harland will be exhausted after his bath. Another time,” Afon said again, smiled at Bram Stoker, and slowly walked toward the door to the room, motioning for Nanook to follow.
“And where do you think you’re going, then?” Harland said, standing in the doorway in a fresh robe. “We’ve got some talking to do, chaps.”
Afon smiled at Harland. “Yes, um, quite … yes, we do need to talk Harland. I just thought, what with the hour and …” he nodded at Bram, “and all, that we might want to reconvene tomorrow, and be less of a trouble to Mr. Stoker, fine host though he is.”
“I have no secrets from Bram,” Harland said, “and neither should you, Count Solovyov. I trust him with my life, and with the secrets of my shameful second life. He’s not reported me to the constable, and he allows me the privacy to do the horrible things that I must do, without judgment. Bram is the truest of friends, dear Count. We may speak freely in front of him.”
“Still …” Afon said, “I am sure that he is the very soul of discretion, but the matters that we must discuss are too private for any ears, but your own, Harland.”
“Count Solovyov, if I may,” Bram said, “you realize that our friend Harland has committed at least fifteen murders, since you last saw him. He is the scourge of London, a monster among men, that the press has nicknamed Jack the Ripper. I could profit a hefty reward, were I to turn him in, but Harland can’t help himself. If I’ve to choose between my friend, and those who want him to hang for something he can’t control, then I choose my friend, every time. My allegiance to him extends to you gentlemen, as well. Any friend of Harland’s is a friend of mine.”
Afon and Nanook exchanged a glance. They really had no choice but to trust this man. Harland would tell Bram everything, regardless, so he might as well hear it first hand.
“You will trust me, then?” Bram said. “Good, let us all sit back down, and begin at the beginning. You two have left Harland in the dark for far too long as it is.”
SEVENTEEN
“Okay Harland, you must have noticed that, in addition to your cravings for blood, you’ve also acquired an unusual strength, and the ability to heal yourself, instantly,” Afon said, and settled down in a chair across from him.
They were all gathered in a circle around the fire: Harland and Bram, Afon and Nanook.
“There’s a reason for all of this, for why you have changed, and why we are here,” Afon said. “But I think my friend Nanook can probably tell you the story in a more compelling way. Nanook?”
Harland, Bram, and Afon all looked to Nanook, and waited for him to speak.
Nanook turned the tumbler of Scotch gently in his large hands, holding the glass like it was the fragile sphere that he was about to describe.
“All of this will seem quite fantastic to you, improbable and insane,” Nanook said, “but you have all the proof that you need, right inside of you. Everything that you’ve experienced, over the past few months, since we met, should be all the proof that you need. Remember that,” Nanook said, and glanced around the circle to gauge their readiness for his next words.
“In two hundred and twelve years, the world as you know it, will cease to exist. This room that we are sitting in, the city of London surrounding it, and the whole country of England itself, will be entirely under water. I am not from India, Harland, for India is sunk as deep under water as England. I am from Greenland.”
“Greenland,” Harland interjected, focused on the most insignificant part of Nanook’s words. “But … good god man, no one lives there. It’s all ice and polar bears, isn’t it?”
“It was,” Nanook said, “and there were people living there … my people. My family was there for as long back as we could trace. We were there, until the icecap melted in the year 2100.”
“You are here from the future?” Bram said. “Hah! Even more outlandish than my own theory as to your origins; do go on, Mr. K’eyush, I am spellbound.”
“Yes, we are from the future,” Nanook said, “from the year 2112, to be exact. The Earth flooded in the year 2100 because of a phenomenon called global warming. If you look at the sky over London, right now, you can already see it beginning. The thick, black smoke from burning fossil coal, and other fuels, goes up into the Earth’s atmosphere. When too much of it is produced, it becomes trapped inside our ozon
e layer, and our planet gradually heats up.
“The electrical grid, the revolution in technology that you’re now living through,” Nanook continued, “multiply that times a million … fuck that, times a billion, and you’ll have some small sense of what we’ve done to the world in the two hundred years to come. Something called the automobile is about to be invented, a carriage with no horse, a way for humans to travel long distances much faster than by horse alone. Eventually, we will have automobiles that run on motors as powerful as hundreds of horses. A fantastic leap for our species, to be sure, but it was the beginning of the end for our Earth.
“The automobile is powered by gasoline,” Nanook said, “a fossil fuel that, when burned, releases so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the Earth’s temperature is now seven degrees warmer than it was before the automobile was invented. The polar icecaps have melted as a direct consequence, the icecap over my country melted, and my mother and father were both killed in the flood.
“When the global warming apocalypse peaked, ninety-seven percent of the population of Europe and the United States of America perished,” Nanook continued. “America had already seen what happens to the non-rich during a single super storm, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in the year 2005, but no one imagined that the same thing would happen again, on a world wide scale. After the waters finished rising, in 2101, and the new landscape of the world became clear, the wealthy remnants of American and European society came together, under the command of a man named Ignis Mortterra, and formed the AmEur Alliance – a military venture designed to save the elite of America and Europe. The Alliance decided to build a new home for the few that had survived, on the graveyard of what had once been my home, Greenland.
“Ignis Mortterra had been a General in the U.S. Army and, once he led the invasion of Greenland, he has been in total command of the AmEur Alliance, in command of almost the whole world, ever since. He is a dictator over the twenty thousand human beings still left alive. All of us who are still breathing in 2112 feel lucky enough to just be alive, that no one will voice opposition to Mortterra, as long as there’s still food on our plates.
“About five years ago, the scientific council of the AmEur Alliance informed Ignis Mortterra that the food supply was going to start dwindling; the crops would begin to yield less and less each season until, one year, there would be nothing. Mortterra was warned that, in the next five to seven years, total famine and the death of the last members of the human race would occur … a complete extinction event. Global warming had not just flooded the land, but had also led to the demise of the honeybee and, when the bees die, we all die. Mortterra was warned that the Earth would soon be as brown and lifeless as the smoke that had started it all.
“One of the scientists working for the AmEur Alliance, was allowed to develop Project Immortality – the grand experiment that created Afon, Jian, and I,” Nanook said. “By extension, Project Immortality also created you Harland … the present version of you, that is.”
“What exactly is Project Immortality?” Bram Stoker said.
“I think I should pass the torch to Afon now” Nanook said, “since he’s a bit more, um, shall we say intimately acquainted with the project.”
“Project Immortality is perhaps the finest example of the technology that humanity has become capable of,” Afon said, and ignored Nanook’s teasing. “Dr. Isidora Nizienko, the Countess Solovyov, as you know her, was able to build a machine that would render the humans injected with it immortal. A machine so small that its smallness can’t even really be imagined; one billionth the size of the head of a pin, the machine transforms its host into the most perfect creation to ever walk the face of the earth. At the moment of injection, the nano-machine replicates itself, sending some nanobots to the muscular structure, hardening each muscle group until it has the strength of bullet resistant armor. Other groups of nanobots head to each organ, and build them to a state of high-functioning perfection.
“Harland,” Afon continued, “your liver can now filter out, harmlessly, the most deadly of poisons, your lungs are so improved that you could hold your breath for hours, your heart only needs to beat once an hour to maintain your circulation, and your brain … have you noticed that you can almost read peoples exact thoughts now? That your vision has sharpened to the point that reading a sign a mile away would present no difficulty to you?”
“That’s why I felt so dead, but more alive than I have ever felt … so cold and still, but so vital,” Harland said.
“That’s no surprise, to most people we Immortals can take on the appearance of a corpse, if we’re not deliberately moving around,” Nanook said. “Speaking of moving around, have you tried out your legs yet?”
“What do you mean Nanook? You know that I’ve been out and about, at night at least,” Harland said, with a sad shake of his head.
“Oh my man, are you in for some fun. Let me take you for a run later,” Nanook said. “We could even make the jump to France, if you want …”
“What? Jump to France?” Harland said.
“We’re getting off subject here, gentlemen,” Afon said.
“Harland should at least get to experience some of the good things that go along with his transformation,” Nanook said, “don’t you think?”
“Don’t you think that saving the world is good enough? That seems like a pretty cool power to me,” Afon said.
“Oh come off it, Afon, you are hardly that pious,” Nanook said. “I’m sure that your second favorite power has something to do with Isi. For us single men, being able to fly is a pretty fucking fabulous power.”
“Wait just a minute chaps,” Harland said, “we can fly? Do those little machines inside of us make us grow wings?”
“Ha ha, no my friend,” Nanook said, “we do fly, but it’s not quite like that. We jump … but just a bit further, and a bit higher, than everyone else. Remember, your muscles are different now.”
“Amazing, simply amazing,” Bram Stoker said. “You all are like gods walking the earth, a kind of royalty of the undead. I’ve been writing about you, just so you know, even before meeting you both.”
Afon sat back quickly in surprise, and Nanook fixed Bram Stoker with a threatening look.
“What do you mean, Mr. Stoker? Who has read these writings of yours?” Nanook said.
“Oh, don’t be alarmed gentlemen, I mean you no harm. No one has read what I’ve written, and it’s all fiction … a novel I am calling Dracula. The main character is a Count from Transylvania, who died many years ago, but still lives by ingesting human blood. I admit, the idea came to me after Harland’s transformation, and the character is, of course, based on Harland’s description of Count Solovyov, but, given the true nature of your existence, my little story is a work of complete fiction,” Bram said. “Nothing to worry about gentlemen. I’ve got quite the imagination, but I still couldn’t come close to guessing at your real origins, so the other people of this time will probably have not the slightest clue.”
“Hopefully that’s true, Mr. Stoker,” Afon said. “We cannot afford much attention to who we really are. The more people know of our real origins, and our real purpose, the more likely we are to fail. Word spreads quickly, not only in the present, but far into the future as well. The less Ignis Mortterra knows of our plans, the better. Even something as gruesome as what Harland has been doing will be of some assistance in covering our tracks, but we can’t let it continue, obviously. Right now, London has a serial killer and you have your Count Dracula, both perfect monsters that can live in the imagination of the public, and serve as an explanation for any unusual occurrences associated with us. The more mythological we become, the more our real movements through time will be obscured. It is much easier to catch a man, than it is to catch a boogey man.”
EIGHTEEN
September 1888
Detroit, Michigan
Isi’s carriage came to a stop in front of a small, one story brick building on Bagle
y Avenue. Afon and Nanook were in London, hopefully on their way home from London, with Harland Fergusson in tow. Isi had finally left Jian at home alone for the night, after multiple assurances of her safety. She was finally alone, finally had a moment of peace to come to terms with what she was about to do, but that peace was undone as soon as Henry Ford exited his workshop, and rushed toward her. He took her hand in his, delicately but firmly, and helped Isi down the stairs from the carriage car.
His hair was so much different in the sunlight, mahogany in motion, the red of the sun and the brown of the earth melded together, and Isi was swamped again with a real desire for him.
Afon wasn’t wrong to be jealous. The affair that Isi was trying to start with Henry Ford was, technically, work – one of the most crucial parts of their plan – but it had also turned out to be Isi’s dream job. The only difficult thing about this, for her, was the idea of eventually ending it.
“Countess Solovyov, so lovely to see you again,” Henry Ford said, and tucked Isi’s hand in the crook of his arm. He guided her across his small city parcel of a lawn to the back of the house, and then over to a smaller building that occupied most of his backyard.
It was a very simple outbuilding: one room, one sliding wooden door to enter the room, but inside was the busiest workshop that Isi had ever seen. Almost every available inch of floor space was occupied by a worktable, and every table was jam packed with new machines, all in various states of assembly, some working, some not, but the whole room was a physical manifestation of the brilliance of Henry Ford.
Isi stood silently for a moment, enraptured by the thought of being inside of a room where history would be made, standing next to a genius who would make that history, and knowing that it was up to her to push this great man onto a different path, so that his greatness would save the world, instead of contributing to its end … it was all too much, and she held onto Ford’s arm all the tighter.
Immortal Earth (Vampires For Earth Book 1) Page 9
