One of the soldiers he recognized from the hive sat in a plastic chair leaned back as Hank came inside. He stood and saluted Hank and Hank merely nodded back.
“I’m here to see my son, Toby Evans.”
The soldier began rifling through a thick stack of papers clipped to a clipboard. “Yes, sir… Uh, yeah, here. Evans. He’s in room 42B on the second floor. The stairs are over there.” The soldier pointed to the far corner of the huge open room.
“Thanks.”
As Hank made his way up the steps he could smell Toby’s blood and it sickened him to realize that. He was starting to worry that he’d made a mistake, but it wasn’t like the vision so he had to hope that it was safe. When he got to the second floor it took him no time at all to find Toby’s room. He knocked and from inside he heard Toby’s exhausted and defeated voice.
“Come in.”
Hank opened the door and quietly slipped into the room without closing the door. He didn’t want the boy to feel trapped.
Toby was lying on the end of a bed curled up into a ball staring into empty space.
“Son?”
Like night and day, Toby jolted from the bed with a fury. “No, I told you to leave me alone and I meant it.” He pushed Hank back. Hank didn’t resist the boy and he lost his balance and fell into the hallway. A tall man in a white dress shirt, slacks and a tie walked up then, his bald head reflecting the overhead halogen lighting.
“Is something wrong, son?” he asked Toby.
“Yes, tell him to go away, I don’t want to see him,” Toby said.
The man looked down at Hank to speak and Toby took off running down the hall. Hank got up to follow but the tall man grabbed him from behind. “You’ll let him go if you know what’s good for you. If the boy doesn’t want to talk to you, maybe you should leave him alone.”
“He’s my son. I just need to apologize to him.”
The man loosened for a split second and Hank took his chance, He pulled his arms snapping at least one bone in the man’s arms at the same time. The man moaned in pain as Hank took for the stairs to follow after Toby. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the man, but he couldn’t let Toby just run off without letting him know how sorry he truly was.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs a feeling like ice clenched around his heart as he realized he could no longer smell Toby’s scent at all. He raced for the door and ran out into the street calling for him. “Toby!” Only his voice echoed back to him at first. Then after he turned the corner, the distant sound of Toby’s heartbeat faded into existence. Hank ran toward the sound. As he rounded another corner the first explosion went off. He could feel the shock wave from it as he fought to keep on his feet still running toward that distant beating heart.
A moment later another explosion shook the ground and the sound of gunfire echoed off the walls and ricocheted in Hank’s brain. Everything was becoming just a little bit too familiar as Hank jogged along the sidewalk. The wind blew a huge cloud of smoke to the east in front of Hank and brought with it the thick familiar smell of sulfur.
Fuck. I’m here.
Just ahead on the right he could see the alleyway that would forever haunt his dreams.
No. I can’t go this way. I can’t do what I know I’m going to do.
Hank took a deep breath. Something was very wrong. He didn’t want to murder his son, but he was merely steps away from when and where his vision had showed him and he knew just how quickly everything could change in that solitary blink of an eye. He listened for Toby’s heartbeat. It was wild with anger and fear; beating like a fast steady war drum. Tears streamed down Hank’s face and he turned away from the sight of that alley and began to run.
He ran for Toby. He ran for himself. He ran for the future where the two of them would escape together.
* * *
When Simon woke up, the first thing he did was touch his throat. It was mostly healed but still slightly open and stinging badly. He rose to find himself alone in an empty cavern—the Queen’s quarters. He wondered where she was. If Ishan was alive, and what had happened while he was unconscious. He stepped out into what had been the main cavern of the hive to find the ceiling much rougher and higher and the ground covered in large chunks of rock and stalagmites and stalactites everywhere. In the distance, he could see the crumpled shape of Ishan lying still on the ground. He ran to the ancient vampire and tried to turn him over. He wouldn’t budge. His fangs were clamped hard into the throat of that other queen. Her body was shriveled and dry.
It took some prying but Simon was able to pull Ishan’s teeth from her and turn his body over. He listened inside the vampire’s head for the sound of firing synapses Ishan had long ago taught him to detect. They were there. In fact they were like rockets. He’d never heard synapses firing so quickly. He looked over at the obviously drained queen vampire and thought he understood. Then as he gripped Ishan’s hands to drag him away from there, a shock shot from the elder vampire’s skin into Simon’s and he fell to the ground convulsing and burning with pain.
He saw visions of strange faces, a desert, and a large temple he vaguely recognized. When his body was still again and the visions were gone, he took a few deep breaths and looked at Ishan’s still body. He was sure now that what he had suspected was in fact happening. Ishan was living out the queen vampire’s life and who knew how long such a life had been. Worse yet, who knew how long Ishan would be unconscious and what he would experience while under. Would he even be the same person when he awoke?
* * *
A single high-pitched scream ripped through the air and pierced Hank’s heart, nearly sending him crashing face first into the road. Toby. The world stopped as Hank turned around and ran the other way, the fire of his breath burning in and out of his lungs and the soles of his feet tearing away at the concrete below. In the mere seconds it took him to recover the ground he had ran the other way, the screams grew more and more anguishing and tortured. There was a gurgling choke at the back of that throat now as it screamed for mercy and Hank running at inhuman speed still couldn’t get there fast enough. His body felt as if it were moving in slow motion, each leg stepping in front of the other, each building taking forever to pass, and then there it was.
The alleyway again. Hank crossed the street like lightning and in the blink of an eye he could finally see around the corner.
What he saw confused him. Toby’s head lay on the shoulder of a man as if he were comforting the boy. The two were embraced. And then it fell into place.
Toby wasn’t moving.
And Hank would have recognized him anywhere.
His body froze. A flash of lightning blasted through the sky in the distance. It was like Hank was bolted to the road. He could only stand there and watch as Jack Draper pulled Toby’s lifeless body from his shoulder and tossed it into the dumpster like a worthless item of trash to be discarded and forgotten. Jack took a deep breath apparently unaware of Hank’s presence and then fell to the ground laughing and convulsing.
All the world was a cage at that moment. Everyone who had ever lived was trapped inside an invisible wall of fire that burned every cell in their bodies at the mere thought of moving and yet none of them would have moved regardless. The very moisture in the air hung around Hank like particles of so much blood spread out through a world of hatred and violence and wonder and death and murder and he could do nothing but stand there knowing that he would never hold Toby’s hand again, he would never watch the boy grow to manhood. He would never stand by his son as the boy’s wife walked down the aisle.
He would never hold his child again.
And it was within this daze that Hank mentally collapsed until finally a single sound broke through. The voice of the thing that had just murdered his son.
“Oi, what you doin’ there, Henry? You look like a poor bloke who just watched his own flesh and blood come to an end hanging over a fucking dumpster in the middle of shitstain alley.” Jack laughed wildly.
And that was al
l it took to turn that switch. Just a few words spoken by the man who had turned the world upside down. Raindrops began to fall as every pore in Hank’s body screamed out for him to run. Instead he walked, taking each step like the blast of a shotgun into the fiery gut of God himself. Jack watched him with a sly smile across his face and the building rain soaking his hair and streaming down his cheek and around the line of that sharp terrible grin.
The rainwater began to splash under Hank’s feet as he stepped up onto the broken blacktop that made up the alleyway until he came face to face with Draper. The two stared at each other for a long time. Hank’s face one of contorted, exhausted rage and Jack’s one of sick amused contempt.
“I could only imagine the look on his lordship’s face if he saw just who was standing here still alive right before me. What’s it like to come back from the dead, eh, Hank?”
“You’ll never know.” He grabbed Jack’s throat like it was the only thing that could keep him from drowning in the deepest pit of despair and horror of the world.
Chapter 40
The Rocket’s Red Glare
As many times as Ishan had experienced it before, living someone else’s life was fascinating but with the ancient ones, there always came a point where you just wanted it to stop. But there never was any stopping once the wheel started turning. And this was the longest life Ishan could have ever imagined experiencing. The length of it almost made him take pity for Simon for having to experience Ishan’s entire first two millennia. But no matter what he tried to concentrate on, what he tried to distract himself with, he was there and he couldn’t make it go away. So, eventually he realized he just had to endure it.
He’d known from the time Bellona had met the strange human that it was only a matter of time before things between them took a dark turn. Her ancestor vampires started to disappear at random from time to time without warning and she knew exactly what had happened to them and yet she continued for the longest time to make excuses. Before long the excuses melted into acceptance and beyond that they finally grew into a single unsettling warning sign.
This creature she had been harboring wasn’t satisfied with the blood she allotted it. And to top that off, it had become increasingly violent with her. Several times when it had tried to drink from her and she had denied it, the creature attacked her. Beat her. And then drank from her as she lay bruised and withdrawn. This behavior went on for months before Bellona finally decided she’d had enough. And then came the night that it happened.
The dawn was near and Bellona took to her cave and lay down to sleep before the sun rose. She was fast asleep when the touch of another woke her. Someone was trying to disrobe her. Having had her fill of him lately, she pushed him away. What took place next surprised even Ishan. When she wouldn’t give the creature what it wanted, it took her by force, pressing her face into the cave floor and bloodying her nose in the process. When it was over, Bellona just lay there waiting for the thing to leave. When it did not she waited for it to fall asleep.
She had often wondered what it would take to kill such a creature. Was it more like the human and could die in a multitude of ways? Or was it more like a vampire and would only die by a select number of means? She hadn’t wanted a reason to find out. Yet now that was just what she was going to do. He could walk in the daylight, she’d figured that much out, so maybe, just maybe if it didn’t die by one means of vampire death, it might just be more susceptible to the many ways in which a human could die.
She wanted to snap the creature’s neck with her bare hands, but it was so strong she was afraid she would only wake him up to beat on her more. So as it slept into the evening that night, she sent her children in great number to drink from the creature. And drink they did until he was dead. And that was the last of her worries of the man. Except…
The child inside her was growing quickly and it would only be a matter of time before it would be born. Concern filled Bellona’s mind on a daily basis as she waited for that day to come. The one thing that kept her from trying to kill the thing inside of her was feeling the connection with it. It wasn’t a part of her like her other children. But it was a part of her nonetheless. She could feel its love for her and she could let it feel hers in return. Unlike her other children, it’s mind wasn’t just an extension of hers, but a true mind of its own.
And when the day came that the child was born, she made a decision then and there to raise him like a man. To give him a name and teach him language and let him see the world. To feed him well but teach him restraint so he would not become like his father had been. As she held the baby boy in her arms and wiped the blood and placenta from him, she cooed and whispered in his ear, “I’ve been waiting so long for you. Welcome home, Josephus.”
* * *
Rain dripped down into Hank’s eyes as he pushed Jack down toward the pavement. He was stronger than he’d ever been and now he had a reason to use it. He hated every moment of that reason but it was fueling his muscles to push down into Jack’s larynx and that was all he wanted to do right now.
In between dramatic gasps for air, Jack struggled to speak. “You… haven’t… figured… it… out… yet… have you?”
Hank screamed back at Jack as he lifted and smashed the back of the monster’s head into the pavement and then let go of his throat and stood up.
“You can’t bloody choke me to death, I don’t need to breathe.” Jack began to chuckle as he lay there puddling over with rain. His laughter dug into that sore spot that could still somehow feel somewhere deep within Hank’s psyche. He ran forward to stomp into Jack’s ribcage and before he could make it, Draper grabbed his leg from behind him and pulled so that Hank fell with a breath-stopping thud into the pavement. Hank gasped for air, his lungs unable to function.
“Now, you on the other hand, mate, you bloody need to breathe, now don’t you?” Jack kicked Hank in the left side of his own ribcage then. Hank could only roll away from the vampire, still struggling to take in air. When he rolled completely over he smacked into the blue dumpster with a clang and a single drop of blood dripped down from the edge of it and landed on Hank’s face as he stared up into the oncoming rain blasting down on him. Gasping for air out of sheer bodily compulsion, he wanted nothing more than to let his body go. Let the whole world fade away. It wasn’t worth anything to him now. Not without Diana, not without Toby. What could he stand to get up in the mornings for now?
Breath began to finally fill his lungs and Hank coughed a painful tearing cough as he rolled over waiting for Jack to finish him off and get it over with. But Jack didn’t come to finish him off. He didn’t even come to hit him again. But he did come to laugh. He knelt down right over Hank’s back and let out the devilish laugh of a man who had just won big at the tracks.
“I love to watch you squirm, Hank. Your weak little body just lays there and mourns for that sweet little boy. Oh, I assure you it was quite worth it for me to track him across the country just for the taste of that sweet—” Hank swiveled and blasted a fist into Draper’s mouth, knocking at least a dozen teeth back into his throat. Jack spit them out and gave Hank a bloody toothless grin.
“Now there we go, mate. Let’s get this on then.”
Hank swung forward and Jack moved out of the way kicking him in the right shoulder blade from behind. Hank swung around the other side and landed a punch in Jack’s right cheek breaking the cheekbone. Jack fell backwards grabbing hold of his cheek and Hank took the opportunity to kick Jack in the other side of his face. Another crack of cheekbone and Jack’s grin turned into a deep scowl.
He turned and ran up the side of the building until he was even with the blue dumpster then landed on it on his feet. Hank picked up a large plank of wood sitting against the wall of the opposite building and swung it around at Jack’s legs. Jack jumped just in time to miss it and landed back down on the dumpster with a loud dull resonating thud.
Hank threw the plank aside and threw a punch directly into Jack’s right shin, breakin
g it clean and sending the vampire down to his back. Jack cried out and moaned as he scooted away from Hank and against the wall. And for a moment there Hank took pleasure in what he had done. But it was short-lived as Jack’s moans turned into choking laughter.
“Sticks and stones might break my bones, but Hank will never hurt me,” he screamed. Then he launched himself down on Hank and grabbed him from behind, the hollow of his elbow at Hank’s neck and flexing to close around it. Hank elbowed backward into Jack’s ribs but it did no good. So, he did the only other thing he could think of to do. He bit down into Jack’s arm and began to drink the bastard’s blood.
Jack screamed out and threw Hank forward into a heap on the ground. Rain continued to slosh all around as Hank sat there trying to regain his focus. He thought of the moments he would never have with his son. He thought of the years he had cared for the boy and all the birthdays he had celebrated. He thought of the last two years when Hank had barely been able to take more than five minutes to spend with his only son because he was so goddamn obsessed with putting an end to the Empire. And in those thoughts returned the rage. And with that rage he turned and he ran for Jack with every ounce of fury within him screaming out.
His body slammed into Jack’s with a force neither one of them expected. Hank’s hand burst forward and reached into Jack’s chest and broke the skin just inside his ribs and he gripped hold of the rib bone and pulled with all his might. When his hand came back it brought a chunk of flesh and bone nearly as large as his hand and blood spat out in a huge gob from the open wound. Jack’s body fell with a splash to the pavement like a sack of potatoes and for a split second Hank thought the thing was dead.
Empire of Blood [Box Set] Page 49
