Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  She rolled over and watched the air molecules rise and fall from Ishan's mouth and nose as he slept and relived the life of the enemy Queen. The thought sparked a strange curiosity that was quickly dismissed. None of those questions about the origins of this other Queen and the Emperor mattered so much as Ishan did. He would live even if it meant that she would not. She had made her final decision. She wondered how many centuries he would mourn for her when he woke as she drifted back to sleep.

  ***

  The pain flowed all throughout her body. It was like ice, fire, and liquid all at once. Something changed and a metallic pressure gripped Jackie all over like electricity. Her body spasmed and she realized then that the creatures were gone. Her skin hardened and her vision blurred and then cleared. Cleared more than should be possible. The coughing and spitting was loud enough to make her head burst. She knew it was Karen. Karen. But before she could try and understand, another electric jolt went through her body and she died.

  Karen's sobs snapped Jackie awake. The younger girl stood over her sister's body. She was alive. And staring at Jackie with a horrified expression. He was blurry with Karen so close, but Jackie could see the man standing behind her. The man she knew now to be Ishan. He patted Karen's shoulder and then spoke.

  "It's time to say goodbye, Karen. The bloodlust will come soon and you won't be safe."

  Jackie knew she had changed, knew the horrible truth but she wasn't really sure what it was yet. She only knew she would never do anything to hurt her little sister. Not now. Not ever again.

  But then, he pulled Karen away. And Jackie understood now why she was so angry. It wasn't that sense of protectiveness that had come when the tires had blown. It wasn't that sense of love that overcame her when the two girls had tried to take that first car. It was a hunger unlike anything she'd ever experienced before.

  She could smell it. The blood that was so important now. So alluring and yet more compelling than she knew anything could ever be. She reached out greedily for her sister as the man—the vampire—shielded Karen from Jackie.

  A car pulled up then. A strange black car with tinted windows. The vampire opened the back driver’s side door and Karen got in. He closed it and Jackie watched, fangs piercing into her lips, as the car sped away. She swiveled her body to run after it and before she even knew what hit her, she was on the ground, pain erupting in her chest. The car disappeared around a corner and she gazed up at the vampire standing over her.

  "Let her go. The weekly drop off will be here soon. You will have to endure a special kind of hell in the meantime." Ishan's voice began to fade as everything all around her shrank smaller and smaller.

  Jackie's eyes opened. She lay there a long time, naked in Simon's arms, trying to hold back the pressure of emotion from within. The constant sound of dripping water somewhere inside the cave layered in with Simon's light rhythmic snoring. Jackie finally slipped out from beneath Simon's embrace and dressed herself. It had been a while since she thought of her sister, of her family. And all these months she had been so fixated on Simon that she had forgotten about the people she’d left behind. Sure she had wanted to drink her sister's blood in those first confusing and torturous moments. But she had more control now.

  And there was also the synthetic blood to keep her thirst abated.

  She wondered if her family was safe. If they had sided with the Foederati. Or with the Empire.

  Jackie stepped out into the night and looked up at the stars and thought of Karen's face. Surely she had grown since Jackie last saw her. She saw the sparkle of sunlight gleaming from Karen's glasses as the young girl stared down at another book. A small semblance of a smile crept at Jackie's lips as tears continued to run down her face. Maybe it was about time she paid her family a visit. Maybe.

  Chapter 9

  Alliance

  What looked like a tiny missile flew down from the helicopter and impaled one of the Imperial vampires. He fell to the ground and quickly burst into ashes. Several of the others aimed their rifles at the helicopter and opened fire only for the vehicle to send another couple of the small devices and leave the air blowing with the ashy remains of what had been its two targets. At the sight of all this, many of the other Imperial vampires ran, disappearing into the night at a speed Hank knew only he could see. Before long only a handful of the Imperial vamps remained and as the trucks rolled in and surrounded them, they quickly had no choice but to surrender.

  "Sir, whoever it is, they've done it—they’ve saved us. Shouldn't we go down and—"

  "We're not going anywhere just yet. I want to see what they do next first."

  Darby opened his mouth to argue but when he saw the look on Hank's face he closed it and nodded then turned to look out the window again.

  Men and women anywhere from teenagers to forty-somethings scattered around the scene. One of the Imperial vamps who had surrendered lashed out at several of the people ripping at least two of them in half before enough of the people managed to restrain him. When they did, they injected him with a strange device and his body went completely slack. The six Foederati vampires were left unharmed. Hank noticed a young man dressed in tan fatigues with short dark hair and bright green eyes stepping up to speak with them.

  "We're not here to hurt you. We come looking for the Foederati commander. Is he among you?" He talked for a few minutes longer trying to convince them it was safe to answer him. When he was nearly out of breath, the Latina female Hank had caught Darby watching more than a handful of times stepped forward and said some words of her own.

  "We don't know anything about a commander. Thanks. But we can take care of ourselves."

  The young man smiled, nodded, and turned to the other civilians. The woman turned her eyes up to the very window where Hank and Darby waited. She'd done it fast. Too fast for any humans to notice.

  "All right, guys. Looks like we'll have to keep looking. Apparently these aren't the vampires we were looking for." There were a few chuckles and the young man, accompanied by several other men and women of various ages, sizes, and dress styles walked back toward one of the trucks. Hank's innervision of the man was blank. At first this scared him. But something about the man called out to Hank, reminded him of himself. He opened the window and lifted up the outer glass partition.

  "Hold on," he called down to the street. All the little heads down below were now staring up at them. Hank looked at Darby and Darby gazed back, a look of surprise etched across his face. "I don't have much to go on about this, so keep your weapon at the ready."

  Darby nodded and Hank led the way out of the large room and down the dull gray concrete stairwell.

  When they came to the ground level floor, the doors were already open, the people murmuring to each other under their breath. Not that it mattered. Hank could hear everything they were saying anyway. They were expecting someone a little more physically cut, for one thing. And they wondered how quickly this individual would arrive and who these two men were. Hank laughed and walked past them without so much as a single sliver of anger at what they were saying. He found the man in tan fatigues and reached out his hand.

  "Hi, I'm Jonathan Cross... and you are?"

  "Hank Evans," the two men shook hands with firm yet guarded grips.

  "Are you able to get in touch with your commander, Mr. Evans?"

  Hank tried to hide his grin. "I guess you could say that. I'm Chief Commander of the United States Foederati Militia. This is one of our snipers, Darby"—Darby and Cross nodded to each other—"and I can't help but wonder, what in the Sam hell could possibly bring you out here looking for me..."

  ***

  The dim space in the Emperor's quarters seemed to darken even more in some way as a tiny Hank Evans appeared on the screen outputting the visual signal of Cross's implant. The air seemed to thicken in a long space of heavy silence. The Emperor took a deep breath and exhaled, releasing the tension building up all around the place.

  When he was calm again, Joseph spoke in
to the microphone designed to broadcast its signal directly into Jonny Cross's auditory nerve. "You will work hard to earn this man's trust, Mr. Cross. But remember this well. Don't become too attached; this is your mission priority. When the time is right, you will kill Mr. Evans quickly and quietly. Remember what is at stake, Mr. Cross, and if you value what I have taken, you know that you cannot fail me. Goodbye, Mr. Cross, and good luck."

  ***

  When Hank, Darby, and the remaining Foederati vampires arrived back at the church aboard one of Cross's trucks, many of the soldiers weren't able to hide their stunned expressions. Hank immediately ordered a private briefing between his highest ranking soldiers and this mysterious Jonny Cross. First he met with his soldiers updating them on the situation at the edge of town and getting up to speed on the events that passed after he left. Clarence still hadn't been found, however, the bodies of three children and two adults had. Cindy Walters and her two preteen children Jimmy and Sabrina and Charlie Carpenter. Finally, worst and youngest of all, little four-month-old Tammy Dickson had been sleeping in her crib when the blaze knocked down the wall that separated her from her mother, Georgia.

  "We're doing all we can to console and comfort Ms. Dickson, but who can blame her for being pretty hysterical right now?" Lieutenant James looked up from the table, where he had been staring at his feet as he told Hank about the casualties they'd taken from the fire.

  Hank could somewhat imagine what she was going through, but the emotion that should have taken over couldn't seem to come. His mourning for Toby had become a solid unbreakable thing. A wall that separated him from the rest of the world and kept his anguish, despair, and downright hatred deep under cover, waiting for the right target to unleash it on. Hank sat down and went silent for a moment. "Give her her own quarters and see to it that she has everything she needs. When the time is right, perhaps we can give her some consoling justice. In the meantime, I doubt anything else will help but time."

  "Yes, sir." James nodded.

  "In the meantime, I need you to send out a private message to all the Foederati generals and see what info anyone might have on this Cross fellow. He'll be in here shortly to discuss whatever matters he claims to have come for. Treat him with respect and dignity. I don't yet trust him, but he did save five of our best vampires." All around the small room, the soldiers nodded and said their various affirmatives. When they were done, Hank motioned for Private Stephens to let their visitors in.

  Johnny walked in—more like danced in—with a confidence that almost equally charmed and amused Hank. Especially considering his thin short frame. He was followed by two taller, built men dressed in simple black fatigues. The contrast between Johnny and his two "assistants" was a sight to see. Hank waited quietly for the three men to sit down. Once they were seated, he spoke.

  "Mr. Cross, I've briefed my men and we're ready to talk. What is it you came here for?"

  Johnny grinned, making his face look almost rodent like but with a punk rock air of defiance. "I already told you, Hank. I'm here to speak with you and you alone." He looked around the table at the other men. "No offense to any of your men, here. But I seek a private audience with the commander of the Foederati. I've got info that's pretty dangerous and I don't think it would be a good call for me to trust anyone below the highest chain of command with this. You run a tight ship and from what I can tell, you guys have really stirred shit up with the Empire and I respect that. In fact, I admire it. But even the tightest ships have a hidden leak somewhere, and I'm not gonna go down with that ship, you dig?"

  Hank laughed. He did dig, but he trusted his men with his life. He had handpicked every man in the room and was sure each and every one of them would die before they would betray him. However, there was no reason he couldn't make a gesture of good faith. "All right. I'll tell you what. I'll send my men out of this room and you send yours and we'll talk, just you and me. Not because I agree with you, because I don't—every man in here would break every bone in your body or take a bullet for me if I so much as asked them to. But I like you and I appreciate what you did out on the edge of town and I need every advantage I can get in this war, so if you have information that I need, I'm willing to do what it takes to get it. But... if you so much as reach across this table without your intentions being understood, I will snap your neck myself, and each and every one of your people will be detained. I want to trust you and I think I might be able to do that. But I have to set some guidelines if we're to move forward from here."

  That sly grin on Johnny's face doubled in size. "Right on. Sounds good, man. That's all I'm askin' for." Hank returned Jonny’s infectious grin. His guard was slipping fast. He liked the kid too much. Hank looked around the room and nodded, waving the men away. Each man in turn got up from his seat and headed for the door, Johnny's men following suit. When only Hank and Johnny were left in the room, they each waited in silence for the other to speak. An odd air of tension rose that hadn't been there before. Hank could see it in Johnny's eyes and then just as quickly as it came, it passed. Johnny cleared his throat and began to speak.

  Chapter 10

  Beyond Stable Vision

  Vague dreams cascaded into darkness as Simon opened his eyes to find himself lying alone deep in the caverns of the hive. He hadn't ever really considered the idea that they would sleep together, so he didn't have any preconceptions to draw from. But he was sure if he had, he would have at least expected Jackie to still be in his arms waiting when the dawn of moonlight came the evening after. He sat up and looked for any signs of her having been there. Perhaps not all his dreams had been vague? And with that, the old mortal moral conflictions arose again and he was surprised to find that he did not truly feel any guilt or regret for what he had done. If he had actually done it at all.

  The room revealed no sign of her, save for her aroma. And so it hadn't been a dream. Simon smiled and then sighed. Having never had much of a moral compass in his mortal days, having one so strong in his immortal nights was rather confusing sometimes. He wasn't sure which instrument to trust. For now, he decided to let the night carry on and see what thoughts and feelings it brought him.

  He dressed quickly and slipped out into the main cavern of the Hive. Ancestors flew past him in droves, headed in and out of the place. Many of them were likely doing the bidding of the Queen. Thinking of her made him change course toward the Queen's chambers. When he entered the small cavern, he fought hard to hide the surprise at how clearly weak she was becoming. He couldn’t help but wonder if she would last through the entire pregnancy.

  "Yes, my child, I will last that long and no more."

  Simon tried to speak, but the clear statement of when she would die and knowing it would be so soon caught him off guard. He wondered if anyone is ever really on guard for such a revelation.

  "Listen. Don't grieve for me, child. Your brother, Ishan, is in danger. I'm not sure if I can save him. The possibilities are too vague to see clearly. But it will be soon. A man—you mustn't reveal this information to anyone else yet—a man posing as a Foederati soldier will try to kill Ishan. He will carry a stake capable of draining our kind much faster than the Foederati stakes. You must stay on guard and make sure that only those I approve enter these chambers. Do you understand, child?"

  Simon had been staring at the floor as he listened, he quickly locked eyes with her and saw her fear more nakedly clear than ever before. "Yes, I do. I'll make sure only our most trusted know and that extra security is put in place."

  The Queen sighed and then her face became one of pity. "I didn't want to have to tell you this, but it will save you much time. The young one you've become close with... Jackie... She has left the Hive. Her path has led her beyond my stable vision."

  The air around Simon felt compressed. First the Queen predicts her death, then Ishan's, now Jackie is gone. He takes a deep breath.

  "You want to go to her, don't you?"

  Simon nodded.

  "If you go, I can't help you. And...
"

  Simon looked back in those deep inhuman eyes. "Yes?"

  "I can't guarantee that Ishan will live."

  Simon fought to hold back the tears he knew were his goodbye to Jackie. He couldn't leave Ishan's side. And he certainly couldn't take him with him. Even with the vision the Queen had seen, this was the safest place Ishan could be.

  "Perhaps she will return, my child. If she has any sense of value, she will." The Queen smiled then and Simon remembered how much he loved her.

  "Maybe. I'll go and make preparations for what's to come. Don't worry, Mother. I won't let anyone hurt you or Ishan."

  The Queen nodded, her smile turning into a grimace of pain as she tried to lie back down.

  ***

  Frank Garcia took up about two thirds of the big blue leather front seat inside the old Lincoln Towncar speeding down the highway. Cigarette smoke clouded the inside of the car and Frank coughed almost as regularly as he inhaled from the stubby Marlboro dangling a mile of ash between his index and middle fingers over the steering wheel. Twangy music rang out from the stock speakers as Frank hummed along without a care in the world. It had been at least a week since he last showered.

  Why should he care? That was part of being on the road. He'd won a small fortune from the Illinois Imperial Lottery just shy of two years earlier and he still had a cool hundred grand to burn through. No job, no family, no friends, just Franky and the road. And the road sure didn't give a shit if he showered. He laughed as he flipped the long trunk of ashes onto the dash of the Lincoln and then his laughter turned into loud grueling coughing. His body shook like a palm tree in a tropical storm and tears began to stream down his face involuntarily from the extent of it.