Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  "How is it I've never heard of the Foederati before? I know a lot that goes on in the underground scene. I buy a lot of illegal music and books and I even own a handgun. I would have been glad to join up years ago."

  "Well, son, the Foederati mostly recruits in rural areas. Too many people are connected in the bigger cities and all too often in the past whole city chapters have been wiped out because of this. We've learned over time to steer clear of larger populations and do extensive research on those who might make good candidates. Sometimes word travels some and city folk will move out to the sticks just to be found by us and so we're always finding new recruits. But it's risky business and doesn't always go so well. Hell, you wouldn't even be here in this place right now if you weren't with this young man here." Elder Joshua glanced over at Toby and winked.

  After some time, it was decided it was too late for the three of them to travel with the possible threat of the Empire's vampire army out there. Dustin and Toby were led down a long hallway of concrete walls lined with plain wooden doors each with a single brass doorknob. Jonathan opened one and pointed inside.

  "This one's vacant. You guys can bunk in here and get some shut eye and we'll head out in the morning as soon as the sun sets." He sighed. "I hadn't planned on this, but I'm kind of glad it worked out this way. We have a long drive ahead of us and I could use the rest myself."

  Dustin nodded. "So how come it's just you taking us down there? Seems like it would be safer to send more men with Toby."

  Jonathan laughed. "The war hasn't started yet, man. We want to keep things as low key as possible. We send a truckload of guys down south and we might as well post up a sign that says 'WANTED TRAITORS' in the back fuckin' window. This way, we get down there nice and quiet and no red flags get raised."

  Dustin nodded.

  "Oh, and I almost forgot." Jonathan reached into his trench coat and pulled out the crossbow he had used to shoot the vampire in the woods. "Hold on to this tonight... just in case. We'll have men posted outside overnight, so you most likely won't have to use it, but we're not used to having wanted fugitives holed up in here either."

  Dustin's eyes seemed to glaze over as Jonathan handed over the crossbow. "Sure thing."

  The words "wanted fugitives" stuck in Toby's mind. He'd never thought of it that way. The realization of just how dangerous the situation was seemed to truly come into focus then. Even when they'd been attacked by the vampire outside the diner, it hadn't fully hit him. It all happened so fast that he only had time to flee in animalistic fear. But now his mind had time to really process that fear and distribute it with a sense of reason.

  Toby walked into the small room and climbed up onto the top bunk and lay down as Jonathan showed Dustin how to load and fire the crossbow. As he looked in their direction his mind went into a sort of daze and when Dustin clicked a long silver stake into place with a loud click, it made Toby jump and nearly fall out of the bed. He sighed and turned over, closed his eyes and attempted to get some rest. He knew he would not get much sleep now.

  Chapter 18

  A Candle in the Dark

  George Nelson had been searching for his brother for weeks with very little to show for it. Several leads had been promising, but in the end they all only led to other William Nelsons with other lives from other families. All the while, George kept an eye on the news and studied up on the past 20 years he’d missed. He had almost forgotten entirely about Necropolis until the day the big news struck: The Emperor (of whose memory George could never scrub from his mind) had declared war against the city. But that wasn’t the part that had truly captured George’s fascination. He found the missing piece of the puzzle.

  Vampires.

  Necropolis was a city of vampires. And Joseph planned to fight them with an army of the same vile creatures; he’d even shown them on television. George understood now exactly why the people behaved the way they did, why they followed this terrible man blindly into the night. The risk was too great not to.

  George sipped his coffee, the mug shaking in his hand as he watched the TV. Dozens of what, until now, George had known to be mythical creatures who sucked the blood from human beings in order to survive floated above Joseph Caesar as he spoke of his plans to attack the city. There were different ones too on the ground standing still as the dead, glassy eyes staring into the camera with a morbid sense of intimidation. They looked more human. They had human eyes anyway, human faces. But the fangs were impossible to miss.

  When the broadcast was over, all he could manage to do was sit and stare at the television. Some soap opera had continued from the “unscheduled interruption.” But George wasn’t hearing the words the actors were saying; he wasn’t seeing the drama that was unfolding on the screen. It all made sense now. Even though he had never seen any fangs himself, but it had to be. The Emperor had to be some kind of vampire. It was the only thing that would explain what George had learned.

  The book had arrived in Caesar’s mail all those years ago. It caught George’s eye immediately, so he decided to take a detour to his office before he brought it and the rest of the mail to Joseph. It was a single bound book with Joseph’s mailing address printed in black over a white background on the cover. No envelope or box, no return address. A thin string wrapped around it and tied it closed. It appeared to have been made at some kind of crude printing press, something not quite professional but good enough to print something of generic quality and had been bound securely enough to mail.

  The pages inside were printed photocopies of notes and longer handwritten accounts in various languages, drawings, and even some newspaper articles with pictures. Skimming through the pages, it appeared to be put together in chronological order starting as far back as ancient Roman times up to the very year and month the book had arrived. But what had haunted George immediately upon seeing them were the drawings.

  Ancient drawings surrounded by ancient-looking handwritten text George recognized from his years of theological studies to be Ancient Greek. He didn’t know how to read or write the language, but he knew then that he would have to learn because the sketches that accompanied the text bore striking likenesses to Joseph. Some in generic profile and some in the midst of atrocious, sinful, and even murderous acts. From the blue eyes and gray hair, right down to the small scar on the left side of his cheek that most people barely noticed. But when you’ve been close to a man for as many years as George had been close to Joseph, you discover things that nobody else does. And George knew now that some of those discoveries can be dangerous.

  The book had been weighing on him, floating in the back of his mind ever since he’d woken in that hospital bed. When he’d confronted Joseph about it, he hadn’t been stupid enough to bring the original. And he hadn’t even brought him the entire book. Only enough copied pages to bring the point home. The real book could still be where he had hidden it. Even Bill hadn’t known about it. Or Joseph could have found it, destroyed it, and could even expect George to come looking for it someday. But why hadn’t the terrible creature just killed him?

  George realized then that his very life presented a weakness to the Emperor. A weakness that George would have to exploit. The news report had settled it for him. He would go and find the book if it was there to be found. And with hope, faith and God’s grace, George would reveal Joseph Caesar for the false idol that he was.

  * * *

  When the bare stretch of dirt below known as Boulder City came into view in the small oval airplane window, Marcus looked on, surprised at just how visible the light from the city of Necropolis was. He’d only seen the city early in its prior construction, but not since its rise, fall, and—he smirked at the thought—resurrection. The bright yellow glow flickered here and there in the night horizon. Yellow? Flickering… Like a candle in the dark…

  He unlatched his seatbelt and dashed between the two rows of seats filled with other vampires, many of whom he knew on a praenomen basis, toward the front of the plane. At a closer vanta
ge point, even with the plane jolting here and there as its descent came closer, with his hands shielding out the light, Marcus was able to make out the immense flames dancing in the desert wind in the city that had been a symbol of sin in one form or another its entire existence.

  He took the nasty little device Emperor Caesar had given him from the pocket of his black fatigues, dialed, and put it to his ear. His scarred reflection in the window transposed over the bright flames and for a moment he was reminded of the Great Fire, his body and face smoldering as he fought to escape from his home while a large portion of Rome burned to the ground. He let the image and the memories it conjured sink to the back of his mind, adding to the mass of others that sparked the fire that still roared within Marcus’s own heart. A black charred kind of hatred that consumed his every atom. The Emperor’s voice filled his ear.

  “Yes?”

  “Something’s not right, master. The city appears to have already been set aflame.”

  There was a long painful silence on the other end of the phone. The only thing that could really pierce the solid outer wall of the hatred that made up Marcus’s whole being was fear. And there wasn’t much that struck fear like a sharpened spear through that brutal armor he was cloaked in; angering the Emperor was one of the few things that could do the trick. A man (or was he?) of such means as to have complete utter power over the vampire queen, Bellona, the goddess of war herself. She was everything to all of her children, the creator and the destroyer, and yet she submitted to this man with such vulnerable desperation, practically throwing herself at his mercy. It was pitiful yet frightening to behold.

  “That’s most unfortunate, Amilius. Do take the matter into scrutiny. Inform me of your results. If there is a significant trail I want you to take your army with you and follow it to wherever it leads.”

  “Yes, Lord Caesar.”

  * * *

  Darkness. But human limitations were no longer Hank’s to bear. He could see it all. The dripping water from a particularly large silvery stalactite as it hung from the ceiling of the cave. Lying on the rock in which he had been bitten, he reached for the spot where her fangs had sank in and sure enough, the wound was there. Whatever this dream was, it was certainly consistent. But she was gone now. Nowhere to be seen. Gone with the light that had been Hank’s savior for sure. Was he damned now? And what would that mean if he were. What was there to be damned to that could possibly be worse than the world he’d been born into?

  He slid his hand along the grainy surface of a nearby rock, leaning crookedly against a larger one. The silence was heavy with anticipation. Something had changed. This place, Hank knew now somehow, was real. The things that happened in it, real too, though somehow not empirically connected to the reality that Hank knew to be truly physical. It was a sort of metaphoric reality made of solid matter.

  The one who had bitten him had been the Queen. Her names were so many, they flooded his brain to the point of becoming indistinguishable. Even though she wasn’t physically there, her presence could be felt in this place. It permeated every drip of water, every slick rock, every grain of salt, every hanging stalactite that pierced down from above. Even the air was heavy with her invisible aura.

  Hank stood finding himself as naked as he’d been before in this place. But he felt no shame still. No fear either. Simply detachment, yet some other connection with all that surrounded him. Like it was home. It was then that he knew. The hive. But not the hive. Some part of the hive hidden from all but him…and her. But why? Why would she show him such a sacred place and not show her children, her…lover? Ishan. Hank could see the connection between them like a physical thing, an umbilical cord sending nourishment or even a nerve sending pleasure, pain, and numb mercy as the time comes for each.

  But even as strong as their connection was, he knew that if he so desired, he could break that connection. Bind himself to her and build a connection even stronger. All he would have to do is let the venom enter his veins, take its course, stop his beating heart, awaken the real bloodlust and become a true vampire himself. He could see it clear as a movie before him. This potential future stretching out for centuries, millennia.

  But it was not anymore set than the others lined beside it like thin lenses stacked on their sides. There were thousands of them, but several were much closer to Hank by some means yet visibly equal in relative distance. He could reach forward and pull one from its place and peer inside. This was how he had seen Necropolis burning. As time moved closer to the probable event more and more of the strange lenses would disappear until only one remained. And then the pressure of inevitability weighed heavily. Hank had seen the lenses wear down to two when he sought out Ishan and told him what he knew; both ended in ashes. In one, the Empire burned the city to the ground at dawn and Hank and the human vampires of Necropolis who stayed behind to fight all died in hellish torment, in the other—well—it had already happened.

  Hank stepped indifferently and unflinchingly through the rigid sharp and wet terrain with little effort. He knew she was close. Even with this new power he’d somehow been granted, he still needed answers. Knowing possible futures didn’t tell you the past, nor did it tell you the present and its ongoing mysteries. And still there was a fog over many things. Some things didn’t even provide possibilities. It was only darkness. But the Queen had answers. If not all of them she held many still and many that Hank needed to learn. This he knew too. Sure he knew some things of the present and the past he had no possible human right to know, but these were merely artifacts of what he saw in the future. Revelations still yet to come in chronological time.

  And then there were the probabilities. They darted around his brain nearly as numerous as the synapses firing in his brain. He could see them tunnel to, from and through each other like branches from some infinite-looped forest of interconnected trees.

  At the far end of the large cavernous space, Hank came to an opening that led into a narrow rocky tunnel. But like everywhere else in here the rock was made of salt. That was just another fact that let itself be known to him. The tunnel sloped downward at what should have been a dangerous incline for Hank, but he navigated it with an uncanny precision, seeming to know every handhold and foothold to grab and step upon as though he’d traveled this path thousands of times before. At the bottom of the tunnel he found another large cavernous space. This one was more elongated and narrow and across the many jagged stalagmites and stalactites pointed at each other like the sharp shiny crooked teeth of some cave beast eating its way through the ground, a large throne carved from the same crystal-like rock as everything else in this place stood seating the Queen in unseen magnificent glory. Her red irises shone in the darkness, watching Hank with patient curiosity. Painfully humbled, Hank looked to his feet and then got down on his knees.

  “You may come forth, young one.”

  Hank had never felt so much joy in all his life as he did at that moment. She was granting him passage. He would be in her true presence. Very few had ever been where he was now. Hank seemed to float forward unaware of his feet moving or any sensations below his soles. She spoke to him then inside his mind. You know now that this place is real albeit disconnected from the physical world of which you came from. It is the birthing place of my children, myself, and all of those who walk in darkness.

  “But why—” The Queen put a solitary finger to Hank’s lips and pressed it gently against them; gently but firmly. Her mouth stretched slightly into a rich lustful smile. She slowly slid her finger along Hank’s lips with deliberate sensuality, pulling his bottom lip down involuntarily and allowing saliva to moisten her finger and lubricate its passage as the sharp rigid tip of the curve-shaped claw at the end of her finger entered first into Hank’s mouth, followed by several more inches of the finger itself.

  Hank willingly let the finger tenderly probe the inside of his mouth, the point of the claw only barely grazing the flesh inside his mouth and bringing forth a flood of pleasure he’d never known po
ssible.

  Inside these delicate vessels of flesh and bone are many answers to the questions that you seek. The answers we all seek. You simply must unlock them. And inside the closed partition of your flesh body lies the miracle responsible for it all. Now use this new voice to speak to me from within.

  Instinctively, Hank reached out to her with his mind. He felt a connection bridge between them.

  But why me? What’s so special about me?

  It is curious. Although completely human, there is a power in your blood. A great power. Its origin, though certainly ancient, is a mystery to me. I’m as blind to its secrets as I am to the Emperor’s.

  How do you know this?

  Have you forgotten so quickly, young one?

  The memory of her fangs piercing into Hank’s neck flashed into his mind only from the Queen’s perspective. In that quick glimpse, he could taste the unique property of his blood she had described. The mysterious element came through as though it were a potent seasoning sparingly introduced. But its power was heavy with potential. The vision dissipated just as Hank’s life began to play itself out within the Queen’s memory. And there was something else in that short moment of alien memory. A transfer of energy.

  Ah, well, young one, I’m not the only one who received a taste of something powerful. When I transferred your blood to me some of mine was transferred in exchange. This is why you see things yet to come. We have blood bonded. And from here on, we will be linked. Whenever you wish to call upon me, I will hear you. And when I wish for you to hear me, it shall be. But for now, you have work to do, young one. Those who you travel with will need help. You will know what to do when the time is right. Sleep for now and when you awake, go and help.