by P. T. Hylton
Jaden watched one of the Ferals flinch as it caught the smell of humans and trot toward the trucks. “Their human minds are gone. They’re no different than animals. It’s just if they feed that their human minds will return. Then they’ll realize what they’ve been through and their horror will begin. For now, they’re just creatures operating on instinct.”
“Maybe so,” Robert said. “Seems like a fine line.”
They sat in silence for a few moments before Jaden spoke again. “The real problem is their immortality. If they would eventually die, humanity could start over. Maybe even make a world better than the old one. No countries. No preconceived prejudices. Enough resources to keep every human living in abundance for generations.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, we’re still prisoners of the sins of the past.”
Robert looked at him like he wanted to say something, then he paused.
Jaden didn’t press. He knew that most vampires didn’t like talking about the past much, himself included. Instead, Robert brought up the future.
“So is this how it’s going to be from now on? We just live in a hole in a mountain for the rest of time?”
“You know it’s not.”
“Good. Because I could do another one hundred and fifty years. Probably even three hundred. But there’s a limit to how long I can live like that. I want to keep the humans alive as much as you do, but at some point we have to start thinking about the next adventure.”
Jaden nodded, then gestured to the road beyond the windshield. “My friend, we are on our way to recover an aircraft for a city we didn’t know still existed until a month ago. We made new friends, and there’s a chance we’ll get to see their city in the sky. We are on the next adventure.”
Robert chuckled. “You know something? You’re right. These recent events are what made me realize how stale things have gotten in Agartha.”
Jaden couldn’t disagree with that sentiment. “Tell you what. Let’s get through tonight’s adventure, and then we’ll start planning the next one.”
As the trucks reached the edges of the ruins that had once been a sprawling metropolis, the number of Ferals taking an interest in them began to grow. At first, a few dozen ran along beside the trucks, then that number grew to a hundred. Then two hundred.
Even more watched from a distance, their eyes peering out from behind rubble and through broken windows. It seemed every Feral in Denver was agitated tonight, and hordes watched the truck of vampires, confused by the conflicting smells of lingering humanity and the undead occupants.
Firefly ran.
He’d run before, of course. Plenty of times. He’d run for exercise and as a way to relieve stress. He’d run as part of his GMT training, often with CB close on his heels, barking at him to go faster. He’d ran during missions, both to fights and away from them.
But he’d never run like this. He ran like his body had been designed for this very purpose. His legs pushed hard, each step sending him surging forward through the cold Colorado night and sending a delicious rush of pleasure through him.
He must have been going thirty miles an hour, and he knew he could have ran faster if he’d needed to. But he had his orders. He was to follow the Agartha trucks at a distance, so that’s what he did.
As he ran, he looked around, taking in the night. Even though it was full dark and there was only a sliver of moonlight, he felt like he took in more detail with every glance than he had in his entire human life.
It was strange; back when he was human, he’d thought of vampires as undead. Something less than alive. But that wasn’t the way it felt now. Every fiber of his being practically vibrated with sensations. The air hummed with an electric buzz he’d never noticed as a human. And the colors! Even in the darkness, he was noticing shades his human eyes had never seen.
But the unpleasant sensations were just as powerful as the pleasant ones. The hunger was growing stronger. He felt like he hadn’t eaten in days, but when he thought about his favorite foods, his stomach turned. Picturing himself biting into an apple or sipping a cold beer was nearly enough to make him vomit.
His body knew what it wanted.
Firefly believed that when the time came he’d be able to resist biting a human even though it would require every bit of self-control he had in him. He wouldn’t allow himself to hurt anyone else.
But it wasn’t really his choice, was it?
He wasn’t in control of his own body. Mark and Aaron were.
He’d considered circling back to Agartha and warning them about the vampires surrounding their city, but his mind had immediately rejected the treasonous thought. He’d thought about killing his fellow Resettlers and then himself, but his hand wouldn’t even draw the weapon, knowing his intention was to betray his masters.
His will was not his own, and as wondrous as some of the new sensations were, the horror of this knowledge outweighed everything else.
Firefly looked over his shoulder and saw the soldiers running behind him. They’d believed in him and followed him to Fort Stearns. Now they were following him again, and who knew if the results would be just as disastrous.
He was a slave, and so were they. As long as Mark and Aaron lived, Firefly would kill the people he loved and destroy everything he held dear on their slightest whim.
He needed to find a way out.
But for now, he ran.
9
Robert pulled the truck to a stop about a block away from the location Owl had given them for the away ship. “Gee,” he said, “do you think they can smell the human scent on the away ship?”
“I think that’s a fair guess.” Jaden’s eyes scanned the massive horde of Ferals in front of them. The creatures filled the streets, standing shoulder to shoulder. Getting past them would be impossible without causing a serious disturbance. And if they wanted to get to the away ship, they had to get past the Ferals.
“This is bad,” Robert said. “If we set them off, we’re in serious trouble.”
Jaden nodded. Ferals generally left the vampires alone, but if they felt threatened or if they felt a food source was in danger, they wouldn’t hesitate to attack. And the way they were surrounding the away ship, they had to feel it was a food source.
“Do they think there are humans on that ship?” Robert asked. “Or are they just hoping the humans will come back?”
Jaden considered that a moment. “I’m not sure their level of thought goes that deep. They smell a strong human scent, so they gather. The human smell means the potential for food.”
“Ouch. This could get ugly.”
Jaden turned and called into the back of the transport. “Igor, Natalie. I need you two to scout ahead. Find out if this is as bad as it looks.”
“On it, Jaden,” Igor answered.
The two vampires leaped out of the truck and scampered up the side of the nearest building. When they reached the top, they leaped to the next one. And then the next. They vaulted from building to building, high above the Ferals. Finally, they paused, watching the streets below.
Jaden followed their progress with his eyes. Even after all these years, he still occasionally marveled at the grace and beauty in the movements of his fellow vampires. He supposed it was like living with an exceptional piece of art. You might grow accustomed to it, but it still had the power to bowl you over now and again.
A few of the Ferals glanced up at the vampires on the building, clearly aware of their presence but not bothered by it.
A moment later, Igor and Natalie made their way back to the transport.
“They’re packed in tight all the way to the ship,” Natalie reported. “They’re all over the ship itself, too. If I hadn’t known it was there, I might have thought they were standing on a hill or something. Not one inch of the damn thing is visible.”
Jaden thought a moment, considering how best to proceed. They needed to get some of these Ferals out of here, but they needed to do it in a way that didn’t cause a massive riot of the undead.
“I need you two to do something else.” Jaden gave Igor and Natalie their instructions. They grabbed two sniper rifles out of the back and went to work, climbing to their position near the top of a building east of the transport. Then they fired.
The first shot struck a Feral in the shoulder. It wasn’t a killing blow, but it certainly got the attention of the Ferals gathered around the target. The next shot took a Feral’s arm clean off.
By the third shot, Natalie and Igor had the Ferals’ full attention. The undead horde surged toward the sound of the gunfire, and Natalie and Igor took the signal to get the hell out of there. They leaped down onto the street and took off running east, away from the ship and the transport.
The Feral horde raced after them. It wasn't long before the street was nearly clear.
Robert chuckled. “Wow, that actually worked.”
Jaden nodded. “Let’s take advantage of the moment.”
The Ferals hadn’t all followed Natalie and Igor, but the vast majority had. There was plenty of room for the truck to proceed.
Robert drove the truck forward slowly and carefully. When they reached the away ship, he turned off the vehicle. The flatbed truck rolled up beside them.
Robert nodded out the window. “Looks like we still have some work to do.”
Jaden eyed the twenty-five Ferals who remained gathered around the away ship, apparently too enthralled by the human scents to be lured away by gunshots.
He turned to his team. “Let’s do this quickly and quietly. Time’s a factor here, so don’t get fancy.”
That was all he needed to say. The thirteen vampires emerged from their vehicles and drew their swords.
As they approached, one of the Ferals let out a grunt of rage and bared his teeth at them. Clearly he wasn’t about to give up his prize.
“On my mark,” Jaden said, a sword in each hand. He scanned the area with his eyes, making sure each of his team members was in position. “Go.”
They worked without speaking. Though the Ferals around the ship had them outnumbered two to one, they never stood a chance. Jaden’s vampires moved with furious speed and an economy of motion that came from decades—in many cases centuries—of working side by side.
In a matter of seconds, they’d removed the heads of every Feral within ten feet of the ship. The Ferals hadn’t even had time to realize what was happening, let alone to fight back.
They barely paused before turning to the next task: loading the away ship onto their flatbed. Two of the vampires cleared the Ferals’ bodies away while the rest rigged the ship to the boom arm. They did their best to work silently, but the boom arm and the chain they’d used to secure the ship produced clangs and whines that attracted more Ferals back to the ship.
So far, the Ferals who’d gathered were leaving them alone, but Jaden wasn’t about to take any chances. Then needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.
It took them a little over half an hour to get the ship loaded on the flatbed. Jaden eyed the road and saw there was still plenty of room for the truck to pass through the gathering crowd of Ferals. They would have to move slowly with the ship on the flatbed, so they needed to get going soon.
After ensuring his vampires were done securing the ship, Jaden said, “Let’s move out.”
Distant, angry howls came from the east side of the city. Apparently Natalie and Igor were still leading the Ferals on their merry chase. Jaden would have to trust them to eventually shake the horde and meet up with them back in Agartha.
Jaden motioned for the flatbed to start moving while the rest of them climbed into the transport.
As the flatbed began to creep down the street, a Feral leaped onto the back. It paused for a moment, then bent down to gnaw on one of the straps.
Jaden nodded at a vampire named Akono, who hopped onto the flatbed and lashed out, knocking the Feral to the road. He hopped down after the Feral and slashed his sword through its neck. Its head tumbled to the road.
For a tense moment, the Ferals in the area froze, their eyes fixed on the head on the pavement.
Jaden waited, sword in hand, to see if they would attack.
The moment passed and the Ferals returned to their confused wandering.
Robert exhaled with relief. “Okay, let’s get—”
Something on a distant building caught Jaden’s eye. “Everybody down!”
A gunshot split the air.
A vampire named Leslie was climbing onto the transport truck. A bullet fired by a distant weapon hit her and her arm was blown off at the elbow.
She cried out in pain and surprise.
The vampires hit the deck, and Jaden stared at the spot where he’d seen the distant reflection of the scope, his mind reeling as he tried to figure out who could possibly be attacking them.
Firefly stopped running as he reached the edge of Denver. He looked over his shoulder and saw exactly what he’d expected to see: three hundred new vampires and two dickheads.
Mark and Aaron slowed to a halt on either side of him.
“Good call,” Aaron said. “Let’s stop for a moment and figure out how we want to attack this thing.”
Mark glanced at Firefly. “You were a field commander back in your human days, albeit an unsuccessful one. Tell us what you think. How would you approach this?”
Firefly didn’t want to answer, but once again his new vampire instincts overrode his human desires. “We’ve got them outnumbered three hundred to less than twenty. They’re more experienced, so we’ll probably take some casualties, but there’s no doubt that we’ll win.”
“I don’t disagree,” Mark replied after a moment. “Still, we don’t want to make the same mistake you and your buddies did at Fort Stearns. Overconfidence can be a killer.”
Firefly had just about had it with this vampire’s smug comments, but he knew better than to ever try to make a move against his master.
“You gotta respect a vampire as old as Jaden,” Aaron agreed. “Besides, we want to take him alive. That makes things more complicated.” He thought a moment. “Here’s what we do. We track them into the city to figure out where they’re headed, but we don’t get too close. Shouldn’t be too hard to blend in with all the Ferals running around. Then we set up snipers around their perimeter. We kill as many of them as we can from range, then we swoop in and overwhelm Jaden with our numbers.”
Firefly felt himself nod. Seemed like a sensible plan.
Mark glared at him. “Don’t just nod. Make it happen.”
After briefing the vampires, Firefly started into the city. He felt an odd chill as the buildings rose around him. It took him a few minutes to realize what it was: a remnant from the instincts he’d developed as a member of the GMT. In those days, being out at night in the mountains would have been crazy, but being in the city? Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Ferals? It would have been unthinkable.
Now he was walking through a city filled with the creatures.
With his vampiric eyesight, he could pick them out clearly even far away and in the darkness. He saw them scurrying along the street, sniffing the ground. Others crawled along the sides of buildings, hunting for who knew what. Still others stood in the street, staring up at the sky as if watching for something to come down and save them from their pathetic fate.
“You smell them?” a voice beside him asked.
He turned and saw Sharon, her gaze fixed on the road ahead of them. In the preparations for Resettlement, Sharon had been his right-hand woman. Now, because of him and Fleming, she was a blood-sucking corpse.
It was odd looking at her, someone he’d known so well in life, as a vampire. There was a strange deadness in her eyes, but also an electricity in the way the tiny muscles of her face twitched occasionally. It was as if she was both more dead and more alive than she’d been as a human.
He wondered what he looked like. If he saw himself in a mirror, would he recognize his own face? He knew there were old legends that vampires’ reflections couldn’t
be seen in a mirror, but he also knew that was as false as the thing about garlic. He almost wished it were true. His reflection was just about the last thing he wanted to see.
“I can smell it,” he confirmed.
Her nose wrinkled slightly as she sniffed. “Outside of the city, it’s subtle. Like old leather. But here…” She trailed off as she sniffed again.
Firefly knew exactly what she meant. The scent of the Ferals permeated the entire city; they smelled like rancid death. “I thought they smelled bad when I was a human.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, maybe a heightened sense of smell isn’t a blessing.”
“Not today it isn’t,” he agreed.
Sharon hesitated for a moment before continuing, “There’s something else in their smell. It’s like… They’re on edge. Like they expect prey and are ready to pounce.”
Firefly nodded. He felt it too. Though the source of the feeling was difficult to identify. Was it really their smell, or was it something else? Something like that mental connection Alex had said vampires shared?
Either way, he needed to stay focused on the task at hand. His masters demanded it.
They’d almost reached the center of downtown when a couple of vampires he’d sent ahead came running back to report they’d found Jaden’s crew. Apparently, they were loading a ship onto a truck.
Firefly’s stomach turned when he heard the news. That had to be the away ship. Did that mean the GMT was dead? But if so, how would Jaden know to come get the away ship. Was it possible the team made it to Agartha?
He pushed the thoughts away. There was work to be done.
The snipers moved into place and Firefly joined two of them and a spotter on a building with a view of the away ship’s crash site. He could see Jaden and his vampires loading the ship onto the flatbed. The majority of the vampire army was hanging back, out of sight, their scent hopefully masked by the hordes of Ferals roaming the streets.
He eyed the other buildings they’d picked out, watching until all twenty snipers were in position. Then he lifted his radio and contacted Aaron. “We’re ready.”
