Blood Apocalypse - 04

by Heath Stallcup

  “Our alliance binds you to the Lamia Beastia, does it not?” Rufus asked expectantly. He noticed the color drain from Foster’s face as the realization sunk in. “Therefore, you could not possibly be feeding from humans while under this alliance, oui?” Rufus began pacing the small area between Foster and his people. “Because if you had been feeding on humans, that would be a breech of our contract.” He turned again to Paul and lowered his voice. “And you wouldn’t want that, now would you, brother?”

  Paul visibly swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and lowered his eyes. “May we speak alone, brother,” he asked quietly, “in private?”

  “But, of course.”

  Rufus followed Paul into his bedchamber and saw a number of young women strewn about in various stages of undress, many of whom had obviously been fed upon. He clucked his tongue at Paul and shook his head. “Brother…” he chastised.

  “Forgive me,” he pleaded. “I did not realize that by forming the alliance we would have to…” he trailed off.

  Foster shook his head in anticipation. “What? Adopt our ways?”

  Paul sighed heavily. “Well, yes.”

  Rufus chuckled. “We formed the alliance to protect mankind.” Rufus stated.

  Paul’s eyes widened. “We most certainly did not!” he argued. “We formed it to battle a common enemy!”

  “That threatens mankind.”

  “And our way of life! One who would reveal to the world that we exist!” he argued. “We’d be hunted by every idiot with a broken stick who thought himself a modern day Van Helsing!”

  Rufus remained stoic and stared him down. “Do you wish to dissolve the blood alliance?”

  Paul blanched. “No.” he answered quickly. “You’ll not get me so easily.” He pointed a finger at Rufus. “With you having control, and me requesting a dissolution before resolution, I forfeit everything…and I’m not stupid.” He shook his finger in Rufus’ face.

  “Then you will adopt our ways?”

  Paul slumped on his bed and hung his head. “What of the sex slaves? May I keep some of them?”

  “Oui. So long as you do not feed from them.”

  “Oh, for the love of…” Paul threw his hands in the air. “What good are they then?”

  “Sex?”

  “What are we to do then, starve? We brought no animals to feed from.”

  “Lucky for you, we did.” Rufus smiled. “And we are willing to share.”

  “Of course you did,” Paul groaned. “And what of the humans that we brought?”

  “You are natural born. You have the gift of mind control. Convince them that they came this way to enjoy gambling and have one of your familiars truck them to Las Vegas and drop them off.” Thorn shrugged. “Simple, non?”

  Paul ground his teeth so hard that Rufus was sure the vampires outside could hear them. “The moment this alliance is over, I’m collecting them back and eating them.” He met Thorn’s gaze with malice. “All of them.”

  “That is your choice.” Rufus seemed unaffected by Paul’s anger. “But until then, you are bound by the alliance and you will adopt our ways.”

  “As you will, so shall it be.” Foster bowed.

  Rufus stepped out of the bedchamber and distinctly heard something crash against the wall after the door was shut. He fought the urge to smile.

  *****

  Damien hovered on the fringe of the darkness behind a trailer, his view of Paul and Rufus unobstructed. When the others took to their knees, he felt a tug in the back of his mind, his chest tightening ever so slightly, but the larger part of him rebelled. He fought to stay on his feet then thought it better to at least play the part of a mindless drone. He slowly lowered himself to his knee, his eyes defiantly studying the two as they spoke.

  So this is the man my master now fears? He thought. Somehow I would have thought him larger.

  Damien’s muddied mind fought back through the haze of memories to when his master returned from signing the blood alliance, the effects of the Elven blood still coming back to haunt him. He remembered the rant he heard screamed as Paul tore a young woman apart, draining her the very night of the signing while the after effects of the Elven blood would rise and fall, sending his master into drunken fits of rage.

  Damien had listened intently, putting together the bits and pieces of Foster’s screaming fits until he was able to fit the puzzle pieces together. He realized why his master called this man brother and why they both hated each other with such passion.

  Long before Paul had ever been conceived, his father, Forest Foster had longed for a natural born son. For centuries the vampire tried to sire an offspring and for centuries he failed to do so. When the dashing aristocratic vampire stumbled upon the young made-vampire Rufus Thorn, he took him under his wing and eventually adopted him. After all, Thorn was born unto an aristocratic family. He came from money, was brought up properly and was well versed in propriety. Although not of his loins, he acted as a surrogate son for nearly a century and was Forest Foster’s second in all matters, whether financial, social or political.

  But the day came, once the senior Foster stopped trying to sire offspring, when his seventh wife, the Austrian with the auburn hair, announced that she was with child…and everything changed. Forest Foster was absolutely giddy with delight. Rufus took on all matters of Foster’s holdings and day-to-day activities as Forest doted over his expecting wife.

  Rufus was still treated as a first born son and actually helped to raise young Paul, named after his grandfather who had been staked in a Slavic country centuries before. Paul was expected to be the upper crust of the upper crust, but failed miserably in every conceivable fashion. Whereas Rufus had a head for finance, Paul had only a head for spending his father’s wealth. While Rufus had a mind for political diplomacy, Paul knew only how to offend and burn bridges. And while Rufus proved to be a most gracious host, Paul was anything but. He was selfish, rude and socially unacceptable, even to the most slovenly of vampires.

  When Forest Foster had had enough of his own son, he threatened to disown him if he failed to act his position. Paul laughed in his father’s face and destroyed half of the family’s stock in the wine room in protest. Forest Foster pulled Rufus aside and signed a document handing over his entire estate and holdings to Rufus. He felt something was amiss with Paul and didn’t trust him not to kill him for the family fortune.

  The very next morning, Forest Foster’s remains were found hanging outside his study window, ashed beyond recognition, the document entrusting the family holdings to Rufus missing. Paul immediately had the familiars escort Rufus from the property, adopted son or not. A formal accusation against Rufus was filed with the vampire council naming Rufus as his father’s murderer.

  Vampire-on-vampire crimes are dealt with harshly. True death to a vampire calls for only one punishment. True death. However, the manner in which the true death is carried out is most…permanent. The victim’s familiar stands watch while the accused is staked on hallowed ground until sunlight. Once the vampire is ashed, the ashes are doused with holy water, mixed into a slurry and then tilled into the hallowed earth, never to rise again. Rufus knew better than to try and defend himself. Paul was just crazy enough to have all of his bases covered and any attempts he made to clear his name would only muddy his name further. He had only one choice. He fled to the new world.

  Damien watched as the vampire named Thorn left his master’s quarters and departed their underground domicile. He could feel his master’s frustration from behind the closed door and knew that whatever had happened in there, Thorn was still in charge… for now. But no matter the circumstances, Damien’s biggest desire was to rip Thorn limb from limb, devour his centuries old flesh and make his power his own.

  12

  Tufo directed the technicians and work crews to lay out the cabling in the abandoned air traffic tower behind the bunker that was now home to the squads. The tower would act as the training command center for the administra
tion to direct and control training missions. With its glass structure at the top, the building had a two hundred and seventy degree view, blocked only by the bunker behind it. The abandoned airstrip stretching out away from the dried lake bed gave a long distance view to the horizon.

  His team scrambled to finish the training facility at its base with the obstacle courses, the Close Quarters Combat training house and the Live Fire Shooting Ranges. Many of the operators from the other teams had joined in off and on to get the training grounds up and ready throughout the day and three different IT geek squads hustled about hooking up the different cameras and computer terminal stations that would operate the popup targets.

  Dominic stood in awe at the stamina of the much older Gunnery Sergeant who never slowed down or skipped a beat until the facility was completed. He approached the new XO and clapped him on the shoulder as the geeks went through the checkout of the electronics. “Gunny, I have to admit. I’m impressed.”

  “It’s haphazard at best, Dom. But it gives us something to train you boys with,” he answered as his eyes studied the screens.

  “I’m talking about you.”

  Tufo turned and shot him an inquisitive glance. “Come again?”

  “You haven’t slowed down since we started. You ain’t even augmented and you just keep going and going and…”

  “Duracell for breakfast.” Tufo tapped a geek on the shoulder. “Realign that camera. I can’t see shit out of it.”

  “See? That’s what I mean. Sharp as a tack and you’ve been going for how long?”

  Tufo shook his head. “I was a Marine, Dominic. We don’t stop until the job is done, or we’re dead.” He turned and looked at the man with a wry grin. “And last I checked, I still got a pulse.” Mark grabbed the much larger man by the shoulders and directed him to the door. “Go down to the CQB building and try to find a blind spot from the cameras. I need to make sure I have an eagle’s eye view of everything.”

  Dom smiled at him and shook his head. “Yes, sir.”

  “And knock off the ‘sir’ shit. I still work for a living,” Mark hollered after him.

  “Yes, asshole,” Dom yelled back from the stairwell.

  “That’s better!” Mark took his seat behind the control console.

  The IT geek looked at him questionably. “Sir, did he just call you an asshole?”

  Mark stared at the man with a stoic face. “I believe he said, ‘XO’, did he not?”

  The IT geek sputtered, “Oh, um, yes, I suppose he did.”

  “Back to work.” Tufo ordered, fighting the smile that curved at his mouth.

  *****

  Matt held a meeting of Team leaders. Major Sheridan of Team 1 sat with Jack, who was representing Team 4, and Captain Pablo Monteiro from the Brazilian teams sat up front with First Marshal Nicolo Adolfo from Team 2. Not present were the French representatives of Team 3 who covered Africa. Team 3 had only one squad of eight members who were entirely wiped out during the initial attacks more than a month prior. Their not being present only made the other teams losses felt that much more strongly.

  “Gentlemen, we have a lot to do and a short time to do it in,” he began. “We have strong reason to believe that this Sicarii vampire will be striking on the full moon. That gives us precious little time.”

  “What do we actually know of him, Colonel?” Sheridan asked.

  Matt sat on the edge of the rail in front of the small group and crossed his arms. They were all seated in a large briefing room with stadium seating, a stage across the front with a large podium in the center. Since it was an intimate group, they opted to not use the sound system built into the walls.

  Matt sighed heavily before he admitted, “Unfortunately, not enough. You’ll find in your briefing packet what little we do know.” He lifted a blue folder to indicate the packet. “We believe that he is the Biblical character Judas Iscariot. We also have reason to believe that he is immune to silver and that staking would do no good.”

  “Forgive, please, Colonel,” Pablo interjected in his heavily accented English, “it sounds as though he is unstoppable.”

  Jack turned back to address him, “Not exactly. We have a few tricks up our sleeve.”

  “You mean the UV satellite, yes?” Nicolo asked, also in accented English. “Is that enough to kill him?”

  Matt shrugged and shook his head. “Probably, but our goal isn’t to kill him. It’s to catch him.”

  There was a general murmur of shock and dismay among the team leaders and both Jack and Matt allowed them to vent a little of their pent up anger. They knew that each of them wanted a piece of the vampire responsible for the deaths of their fellow compatriots and they felt the same way, but they also believed Max’s argument against killing the monster.

  After a moment, Matt raised his hands to silence the group. “Guys, look, I understand completely your desire to kill this asshole is pretty overwhelming. But there are other forces at work here, and their argument against killing him is pretty damned strong. We are basically to provide support for them while they deal directly with the Sicarii. We will utilize our own forces and some of theirs to hold his forces at bay. Once the head is cut from the snake, we mop up the mess.”

  “How do we cut the head from the snake if he is not dead?” Pablo asked.

  Jack answered that one as he stood. “We have a technical team, led by two very proficient vampires that…”

  “Vampires?!” Pablo exclaimed. “You have them here on the base? And they are working for you?”

  Jack dropped his head and groaned inwardly. “Yes, Pablo, we do. And one of them has been working with us for many years.”

  “This is unheard of!” he argued. “We are chartered to destroy the undead!”

  “And he’s helping us to do that,” Matt said firmly, coming to his feet. “Look, we are in an unparalleled situation here. We simply have to pool our resources.”

  “This makes no sense,” Pablo argued. “How can you trust them to assist you in killing their own kind?”

  “Because they don’t feed on humans,” Jack replied. “They decry the actions of the Sicarii and his ilk as much as any of us do.”

  “Besides that, we are also working with werewolves to fight this threat,” Matt announced. Again there was a murmur of shock among the other team leaders, but not quite as strongly as when they first heard they weren’t to kill the Sicarii. “Their leader is the one who will deal directly with the Sicarii.”

  “Yes. I will,” a strong voice declared from the back of the room. All eyes turned to see Max walking down the aisle of stadium seating toward the front, an air of authority flowing from him. “My apologies for being late, Colonel.”

  “Gentlemen, meet Claudius Maximus Veranus, or as he prefers to be called now, Maxwell Verissimo. He is the Alpha Wolf,” Mitchell introduced Max to the small crowd of Team Leaders. Maxwell nodded as he strode forward and stepped onto the stage.

  “Thank you, Colonel,” Max began.

  “Why are we listening to him?” Nicolo interrupted. He stood and pointed at Max with an outstretched arm. “We hunt monsters like him.” The others looked at him as if he were stupid.

  “Have you not been listening?” Jack stood. “We need them and their numbers.”

  “To do what? Chase the vampiro like a dog chases the post carrier?” Nicolo joked. Nobody laughed.

  Max glared down at the smaller man before turning to Mitchell, “Are they ‘augmented’ as well, Colonel?” Mitchell nodded. “Do they know?”

  “Negative.”

  Max weighed the consequences of informing these hunters of their true nature, but felt better of it. He decided instead to continue on with his short introduction. “As the colonel explained, I am the leader of the wolves. It is our responsibility to deal with the Sicarii himself, but my people…well, my wolves will be at your disposal to act as attacking forces in dealing with whatever ground troops the Sicarii brings with him.

  “Try to understand, the Sicarii is
a force to be reckoned with. His strength lies not only with his age, but with his numbers. The more of his people that you can lay waste to, the weaker he will become and the easier it will be for us to deal with him.

  “Now, I am working with the leader of the Lamia Beastia to…” Max trailed off as he realized that the name meant nothing to the outside teams. With a slight sigh he explained, “The Lamia Beastia are the good guy vampires. They don’t eat people.” He looked for nods from the group. “Still with me? Good. Let’s carry on then. I’ve been working with their leader on different ways to deal with the Sicarii and our plan is to subdue him, trap him, chain him and entomb him. Hopefully forever.”

  “Why not just kill the son of a bitch?” Sheridan asked. “He did kill off a good number of our teams. And no telling how many other humans over the centuries.”

  Max nodded. “That is a good question, and one I wish I had a good answer for. Allow me to simply say this. There is one thing I’ve learned over the centuries that I’ve been alive. The universe demands balance. For every good, there is an evil. True?” Max noticed that most of the team leaders nodded in agreement. “Another thing that I’ve noticed is that nature abhors a vacuum. If you remove this evil, another will rise to take its place. And history has shown us, that most often, it is whatever force that is used to remove the original evil often becomes the new evil.” Max paused and allowed his statement to soak in. “I’m not ready to risk that, are you, gentlemen?”

  There was a general round of agreement among the team leaders. “So whatever we do, we capture this son of a bitch and we keep him under wraps.”

  “Fine. Let’s say you’re completely right in everything you just said,” Sheridan stated. “How are you going to accomplish this? From what I understand, this guy is damned near impossible to stop.”

  Max smiled a slow, sly grin. “As Jack is prone to say, we have a few tricks up our sleeve.”