Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  He reached into the glove box and pulled out a big white rag, wiped his eyes and then his mouth, spitting into the rag. "Goddamn cancer. Not now. I was having a good time just fine without you, you prick." He rolled down his window all the way, letting a gush of wind cool the inside of the car and threw the rag out then rolled it back up.

  He was nearing Chattanooga, Tennessee, he could tell. Didn't need any signs. The declining road and the approaching dark mountainous horizon gave it away just as well. Dots of yellow and white light littered the hills below outside of the highway. It looked like a realistic diorama from up here as he drove. And at that moment, he wasn't sure which one he wanted to run out of faster: his money or his breath.

  Garrish gas station and restaurant lights soon filled up both sides of the road and Frank decided it was time to stop off for a bite to eat. He took the next exit and pulled out onto a semi-busy road looking for something low key and cozy. Before long he found a small truck stop cafe with an "Open 24 Hours" sign in the window. Judging by the mostly bare parking lot, it looked like just the place. He parked and took a deep breath before stepping out of the car and going inside.

  A chewy overcooked ribeye with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, steak fries, and a reluctant shower later and he was walking back to his car, lighting up another Marlboro. He missed the days when he could sit and smoke in comfort after a good meal inside a place like this. But those days were gone and with the growing pain in his chest, he knew why. Still, his remaining days were short and every last bit of comfort he could find made all the difference. The sky was dead black with cloud cover as he pulled out his keychain looking for the Lincoln's big silver key.

  "Hey, mister?"

  Frank nearly jumped out of his shoes at the sound of her voice. It was young, vibrant... almost vicious. He looked up from the mess of keys in his hands to find a teenage girl with black hair and blue eyes. She was standing by the passenger door of the Lincoln with an exaggerated stance of innocence. "Uh... yes? Can I help you?"

  "I hope so. I'm a long way from home. I was hoping maybe you're headed in the same direction. Maybe you could give me a ride at least as far as you're going."

  Frank stared at her for a long moment. She was beautiful, but far too young, and probably far too much trouble. "Where you headed?"

  "Utah... Cedar City."

  "Oh wow... That's quite a ways to have to go."

  The girl gave Frank a sardonic grin in reply.

  Frank sighed. "Well, to tell the truth, I wasn't headed that way at all, but I really hate to leave you out here without knowing you found a ride." He paused thinking to himself for a moment. "Tell you what... what the hell. I'm not out here on the road out of need and I don't have a true destination in mind, so why don't we see how close to Cedar City this big ol' boat'll take us, eh?"

  The girl smiled, showing a pair of dangerously inhuman fangs and Frank, for reasons he didn't understand at the time, pretended he didn't see them. Instead, he reached out his hand to shake, "Name's Frank. Frank Garcia. What do I call you, miss?"

  "Jackie... Jackie White." Her grin was contagious. Frank mirrored it on his own face as he unlocked the driver side door of the Lincoln and hit the electronic unlock button and the two climbed into the car.

  Chapter 11

  Hidden in Plain Sight

  The image of Shanene struggling to get away as the tall blond menacing vampire drained her dry had woken Rosadelma in the middle of the afternoon for five days in a row since the night that it had happened. Each time she would jump from her cot into the air, nearly tearing through the wall in front of her before she would realize it was just a dream, a nightmare. And the realization would hit her all over again that Shanene was gone and so was her murderer.

  Only he was still alive.

  There is a certain kind of furious that goes beyond words. That was what Rosadelma felt toward these new soldiers who had come from nowhere and obliterated her only chance at revenge. Now she would probably never find him. It had taken strength and reserve she didn't know she had not to destroy them all when the smoke cleared and the Imperial vampires were left as dust. But she held on. Somehow. Now, every time she woke up in a thick sweat like this, ready to tear the throat out of anyone in reach, she fought the urge to do just that to these new recruits.

  Furthermore, she'd known from the beginning that something about them wasn't right. How they had shown up at just the right time (even though to her, the right time would have been before Shanene was murdered right before her eyes), the fact that no one had ever heard of them before, their technology, and just the feeling they gave off when she was in their presence. It just felt wrong.

  Rosadelma slipped out of her room into the main open hall of the church and wandered over to the Imperial altar. A statue of the Emperor hanging on the cross like Jesus stood in the forefront of a huge Imperial flag with its one white star and black and white stripes. Even a vampire as young as she could remember all too well what things were like before. She hadn't much cared then about the humans or their republic. Their freedom or their democracy. She still didn't if she was honest with herself. But the hatred growing inside of her—the one strongest of all—even stronger than the one for Jonny Cross and his soldiers—was bringing her as close to caring as she could ever be for such a thing.

  She cared about Shanene.

  And this Empire, this war, had taken her away from Rosa. So, maybe she could still have her revenge. If she couldn’t find the one truly responsible, she could target them all. The Imperial soldiers, the vampires, the Emperor, the whole damn lot of this god forsaken empire. Kill every fucking one of them. And who knows, maybe, just maybe she would find that big blond Nordic-looking bastard. Rosa prayed to the only god she had ever truly known then and made a vow before Heaven and Earth. If she had to die in the process, she would do everything she could to hold each and every creature that followed the Emperor responsible and avenge Shanene. When Rosa opened her eyes, she saw the crumbling dust fall from her hands where the cross-bound Emperor’s legs had hung, leaving behind only his knees and above.

  ***

  After hours of exchanging intel with Jonny and his men, Hank finally got some time to himself and slipped away to his quarters. Once inside, he reached into his hidden compartment and pulled out a vial of blood, drank it swiftly, then sat in the big leather chair and tried to relax. But even with his eyes closed and exhaustion setting in, the face of Joseph Caesar filled his mind. He thought back to the vision he had from Diana's eyes. Her memories of Roger Tresney and the revelation that came with them. Hank wondered how long it had been going on. How long Roger had been trying to get her to listen to him. And all along Hank didn't have a clue. The things that happened when he wasn't present, the things he would never know, Hank felt then, could have filled the vastness of space.

  Another image flashed in his mind and the resolve of why he was trying to remember every detail of those memories came back into focus. Wet rain dripped off of Toby's pale little hand hanging from the blue dumpster. Those images would never be torn away from where they had burned into his sight and heart permanently.

  Roger had unnatural strength like I do. He could see the future too. Is this truly all he could do to prepare me for this? Hank felt a tinge of guilt for being just a little bit ungrateful then. He had a world of information he never would have suspected or learned on his own. He knew he should find a way to make peace with that and use his anger for determination to work at filling the gaps in his knowledge. He took out his cell phone and flipped through the high resolution images he had taken of Tresney's belongings that the Foederati had kept locked away for when he would come. Tresney had made sure that they knew to give them to Hank when the time came, so there had to be a reason. Something Hank hadn't noticed or maybe something hiding in plain sight.

  He looked through the coded documents again. If there was something to find in plain sight, a coded document was probably a no brainer, right? But none of it made an
y sense. When he had first gotten access to Tresney's locker, he nearly destroyed it all trying to find something, anything that contained even a drop of Roger's blood. But there was nothing. Not even a scent of blood had remained. And reading through all of Roger's uncoded notes was nearly as confusing as the rest. Hank was staring off, wondering what it would have been like back then to meet a man who would've told him he was somehow related to the Emperor—that he was somehow a threat to the very Empire itself. He laughed at the thought and nearly choked on his own saliva when something caught his attention from the bottom corner of his eye.

  When his eyes focused on the discrepancy it instantly disappeared. He fought the urge to scream and looked just far enough away again and there it was, plain as day. A pattern rose off the page. Six characters, a mix of numbers and letters, repeated in various order and various sections of the text. But even when Hank mentally crossed them out from the picture, the letters left behind still didn't make sense. But it was a start. Had to be. For one, the majority by at least ninety percent once you crossed out the repeating "watermark" as he came to think of it was made up of letters. This led him to believe it meant that there were words there either scrambled or otherwise further obscured.

  Hank fought the urge to cry out in excitement and set the phone down on the desk. He knew if he continued to stare at the document too long, he would soon burn his eyes out and be of no use toward solving the code. Grinning with accomplishment for the first time in longer than he cared to try and remember, he peeked through the blinds out into the night outside the community building. Even though it was black with darkness and each of them was dressed equally darkly, the vampires on guard were almost plain as day to Hank. And even though he knew his level of night vision was rare among even the undead, he worried just how vulnerable they were to an Imperial attack right then. He told himself he was just being paranoid and went back to work on the code, picturing what the look on Jonny's face would be if he told him the truth about himself and the Emperor.

  Chapter 12

  Filling the Silence

  Deep within Ishan’s mind, Bellona’s life played out like a century-long movie. It had been so long that Ishan no longer had control over his own thoughts and feelings as he saw through her eyes, heard through her ears, and felt with her skin. The ancient Queen’s memories were near to becoming his own. Somewhere in the back of his mind, where his own sense of self had been was now growing darker and darker. A fading light in the distance was all that remained. What little left was numb to any kind of reasonable fear. Numb to any worry or alarm. It knew nothing of loss because it was nothing but loss embodied in a single mind.

  He didn’t know it, but Ishan Achari was dying and the memories of Bellona were filling in the void where he had been.

  Happiness filled Bellona as she sensed the nearness of her son. He had been out in the world, watching it again for months. Finally he would come home to her. She could feel his connection getting closer. Within days he arrived and she welcomed him at the mouth of the cave.

  “Josephus, it’s so great to see you.”

  He smiled at her and they kissed. “It’s good to see you too, Mother.” She led him inside and before long he slept as the moon rose over the desert sky. He had long ago become so human she could barely recognize he was not. He slept in the night and walked in the day like his father had. But unlike his father he was brilliant. Full of language and wonder and a thirst for knowledge. Before long, he woke as the sky filled with the blueness that marks the rising of the sun. Bellona mourned every moment she wasn’t able to spend with him, so she invited him deep into the cave and they talked for hours before the day’s weathering took its toll on her and she could no longer keep her eyes open.

  Weeks went by like this and when the time came for him to leave, she begged him to stay.

  “Mother, I can’t. There’s so much out there. So much I have to do. I love you and I will be back soon. But for now. I have to go. Please. Understand.” She was crying then. Sending out her sadness to him in his mind and his heart. It wasn’t like when she sent out her will to the humans. This was pure love, pure emotion. And he returned it, but with a sense of resignation intertwined within. And she understood, but still she longed for the day when he was ready to settle down. To stay and be with her always.

  “I promise you, the day will come. But for now. I have so much to learn. So much to do.” And with that he was gone. He had left in the early morning, before the sun brought its unmerciful blaze and its intoxicating rest. Bellona lay and closed her eyes that morning and dreamed of the next time Josephus would come home.

  ***

  Jackie stared out the window at the bright city lights as they bounced along I-24 West across the I-65 intersection in downtown Nashville. The pointed blue crown of the tallest building stood out like a queen on a chess board. They’d been driving for several hours without more than a sentence spoken between them here and there. She could tell quite easily that he knew what she was, but he didn’t seem to be afraid—at least not in the same way most humans were. She couldn’t read minds, but she got the sense he was more afraid to ask her something than he was of what she could do to him.

  The huge Lincoln shook and tilted as they went over a long curving bridge. Jackie was getting bored with the long monotonous trip and her curiosity had already gotten the better of her. “What’s on your mind, Frank?”

  Frank looked over at Jackie quickly, an attempt to appear ignorant that was immediately ruined by the obvious fear he was drenched in. “I-I…” He looked back at the road and sighed. “I’m not sure how to put it really.”

  Jackie turned toward him and stretched her legs up before him and then over the steering wheel, then rested her feet on the dash between them.

  Frank stiffened in his seat and clenched his teeth together. “Do you mind moving your feet off of my dash, Miss White?”

  Jackie looked up at him with surprise and gently lifted her heels off of the blue plastic and put them back on the floor of the car in front of her with a steady grace that obviously wasn’t human. “Well, ain’t that somethin’? A handsome guy like yourself isn’t interested in a sweet young—”

  “Don’t let the rough exterior fool you, missy. Through all the bullshit this world has tossed in my path, be it good or bad—and believe me there’s some good bullshit out there just the same as the bad—I still have a sense of morality.” He lit a cigarette and opened the driver side window, letting a huge gust of air in the car. “Didn’t need no Imperial god-fearing to get there, either.”

  Jackie laughed and Frank looked at her with a grin on his face. “That funny?”

  “Sure is,” she said and laughed again. Frank returned her laughter and before long Frank was having a hard time keeping the car on the road.

  When he was done with his cigarette and rolled the window up again, Jackie gave him a curious look again. “So what is it then? What’s on your mind?”

  Frank smiled with a grin full of mischief. “Well… I won’t bullshit you, by now I’m sure you realize I know what you are.”

  Jackie nodded, running her fingers through a lock of her hair.

  “Uh-huh. Now tell me. You guys—you know what I mean—is it true you can turn people into… you know—into-people like you?”

  Jackie’s grin deteriorated into a lost expression. “I… I don’t know. I’m not sure. Why, you wanna join the club or somethin’?”

  Frank let out a laugh that quickly became a hacking cough and in mid choking he blurted out the words, “something like that,” then he reached across the car and opened the glove box, took out a rag and spit into it, his eyes watering and his face bright red from exertion.

  It was obvious then. Jackie’s curiosity turned into something dark and wretched in her mind. She was quiet for a long time as she stared back out the window at the moving lights in the sky of planes and stars and far away street lights. Finally she turned and whispered, her voice filled with tears—more sadnes
s than she had expected to even be there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She watched him nod, his eyes locked onto the road before them. “Is it cancer?”

  “Circle gets the square!” he said in the booming parody of a television announcer. Jackie didn’t understand the reference, but she could tell his answer was a very bitter yes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Listen, kid, there’s no need to be sorry. Hell, last year I won the lottery. I’ve spent the last ten months traveling all over the world—the last few of ‘em driving across the country—visited every site I’ve ever wanted to see. You can spare me the pity, kid.”

  Jackie sat up in her seat. “But I don’t get it… aren’t you afraid…”

  “Well shit yeah, I’m afraid! Whattaya think I asked for?” Just as Jackie’s nerves were starting to fill with frustration, Frank took a deep breath and smiled. “Forgive me, kid, I’ve got a big angry mouth and sometimes I don’t know when to shut it up.”

  Jackie smiled in return. “I’ve been told I have that same problem.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed, a near giggle.

  “Well, kid, that’s a goddamn start. We’ve got one thing in common. Let’s see just how many more we can pull out of the ether.” The two of them smiled at each other just as the Lincoln began to cross under a well-lit bridge covered in garish neon signs for everything from fast food to adult videos. “So how’d such a young thing like yourself end up—you know—not quite dead… and what brought you down south so far away from home, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

  ***

  Having spent night after night caring for the Queen had given Simon the opportunity to time things just right. He’d watched as she steadily fell into deep sleep every morning for several hours just shy of the rising sun. So he waited that night until the time came and watched as her eyes floated off into that other place and her light snoring replaced her constant worrying and chatter. He knew just thinking about these things in her presence right now should have been a risk, but with the way she had been sleeping lately on these morning naps, the sheer magnitude of her unconsciousness was obviously diminishing some of her power in some way.