Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  Simon, reluctant to do anything she would object to, waited for her to stay asleep for just a little bit longer before he finally started to move away from her side and over to where Ishan lay just as deeply unconscious. Kneeling beside his brother, Simon couldn’t help but flash back to his own period of sleep as he experienced the long life Ishan had lived before the two of them were joined by blood.

  Ishan’s breathing was subtle, almost nonexistent. A human doctor might have declared him completely and ultimately dead. No heartbeat, breath so shallow it couldn’t be recognized with human ears listening through a standard stethoscope. Simon slipped his hand beneath the thin white shroud covering the ancient vampire’s body. His skin was cold, much colder than typical for a human vampire, but Simon had known it would be.

  Pulling up on more of the cloth, he put his other hand inside and placed both of them on Ishan’s chest. If nothing else, he hoped he would at least be able to communicate with him, but Simon wanted nothing more than to bring him back. Back from the depths of Bellona’s memories. Back into the nightly life of the hive. Back to where Simon could hear him and learn from him and…

  Simon pressed into Ishan’s flesh with his fingertips, concentrating on sending out a message for him. Tension in his muscles and his mind and in the air between them rose as the power within him began to oscillate and charge through his body, slowly easing into Ishan’s. Ishan’s body began to vibrate into a low steady pitch like the deep slow resonance of a generator. Yellow light, dim at first, started to glow brighter and brighter in the space between Simon’s palms and Ishan’s chest.

  The air around Simon started to pop and sizzle. Sparks ignited in the room and the hair on Simon’s arms stood on end. He could feel the power moving through him, but it was like blasting every bit of fire power you have at a wall that can’t be penetrated. The room spun with confusion as Simon’s body began to pulse and shake and without warning Ishan’s hands clamped onto Simon’s and the wall between them shattered like weak weathered glass.

  Simon was inside Bellona’s memories, watching as the alien queen cradled a grown man. A man who looked very familiar. Captivated by the experience, Simon had almost forgotten why he was there. He fought to concentrate on the thing he had set out to accomplish. And with all the voice he could muster, as if he were in the midst of some loud constant explosion, Simon called out to Ishan over the perceptual volume of Bellona’s memories.

  No response.

  Simon panicked and called out again.

  Still nothing.

  Ishan? ...Ishan, can you hear me?

  The scene playing out all around Simon seemed to wrap itself around him and dig its claws into his mind. He pulled forward like a man pushing against a heavy wind. Ishan, you have to fight out the noise. You have to hear me. We need you. The Queen is not going to survive labor. She’s foreseen her own death. Ishan you have to come and help me. I don’t know what to do.

  All around, the sounds of Bellona’s comforting whispers grew louder, like static filling the silence. Simon pulled away from the deeply vivid sight of her caressing Joseph’s face and her lips whispering in his ear. He fought with all his mind and heart not to hear the conflicting voices in her mind, several melodically called for her to soothe the boy, a couple called out for her to kill him and one lone terrified voice in the back of her mind screamed out for her to pin the half-man, half-something-else child down and rape him like his father had raped her.

  Through the flood of sound and emotion, Simon took a deep breath in this place not of the physical plane and blasted out a wave of his power in the form of an earth shattering cry. "ISHAN!"

  The voices stopped abruptly like a child slapped in the mouth. The vision of Bellona’s memory faded and a peaceful darkness spread in its place and a single mumbled word echoed from the desolate featureless horizon.

  Simon?

  Chapter 13

  Tresney's Code

  The sun was setting in a beautiful display of soft pastel colors as Hank watched from the hill just outside of the community building. Though its beauty wasn’t lost on him, it was hardly considered for more than a second. He was too busy thinking about the document Tresney had left behind. He couldn’t be sure it had been left specifically for him, but Hank also had his doubts it was for anyone else at this point. As a single ray of golden sunlight fought to keep shining with blinding fury, Hank turned and walked away. Life wasn’t about beauty anymore. It hadn’t been about much for Hank for quite some time.

  Town folk of all kinds passed by Hank as he made his way back to his office. He’d been working to crack Tresney’s code for two days now and he was becoming more and more sure he was getting close. New Foederati recruits were filling up the back of the huge auditorium waiting their turn to be picked for the next training session. Hank looked the crowd over, estimating their number in his head. At least two hundred men, women, and teenagers stood against the far wall waiting to be shepherded into the fold. Every single one of their faces held a sting of guilt for Hank, knowing they would likely die the next time the Emperor sent another wave of troops or worse yet more vampires.

  They had accomplished what they had set out to do here in this one town. But in response, the live televised executions had more than doubled and the number of battles raging had risen while some of the cities the Foederati had been overpowering were sent reinforcements and now were holding their own ground. It all felt like a big act to Hank. What really mattered was finding out how to find and kill the Emperor. That would do much more toward ending the war than taking countless innocent lives.

  The hollow echoes of Hank’s footsteps against the brown spackled linoleum hallway filled the otherwise silent back end of the building. He came to the right door and stopped, digging around in his pocket. A moment later he pulled out the aged solitary copper key attached to a green plastic keychain with faded white writing and unlocked the door with it. He stood there, the door open in front of him, for a long moment, making sure he was really alone. When he was sure no sound other than his own heart beating penetrated the dead air, he went inside and locked the door behind him.

  Within seconds he had a long white printout of an enlarged version of the original document spread out on the desk before him. Countless red circles marked the repeating watermark within the coded characters on the page. He looked over the sequence of letters and numbers again.

  I4976U

  Still nothing about it made any sense. It was probably related to the rest of the text somehow. Maybe even a sort of coded cipher of its own, but Hank couldn’t find any way to make it fit. He stared at the watermarks for a long time, slowly stepping away from the paper in case something would jump out at him. He tried looking away and letting his subconscious grab at it like it had the watermark, but nothing popped out.

  Several hours later, after counting all of the overall characters outside of the red circles and finding the 4,976th one in sequence—the letter “I”—Hank stared at it for a long moment, a smile creeping on his lips. He highlighted it with the red marker. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the first letter in the watermark corresponded with the number after it. But what did it mean?

  Hank paced around the desk, trying to make sense out of what he’d discovered. Perhaps there was a letter “U” 4,976 characters later? And even if that were true, it still didn’t make any useful sense. He took a deep breath and started counting after the red-marked “I” until he came to the end of the document and deflated with the realization that there weren’t another 4,976 characters left after it.

  “Fuck.” Hank’s voice bounced off the gray brick walls within the quiet office room. Clenching his fist, Hank walked away from the paper and the table and fought the urge to punch the concrete wall until it was painted with his blood and bone. He wondered if he should hand this over to someone else, but his knee-jerk reaction, the one he knew deep down in his heart Tresney would have agreed with, was that he should trust no one else with this informat
ion. Even the most devoted member of the Foederati was still human and could be made to betray Hank just by having blood.

  With that in mind, Hank tried to calm himself and concentrate on figuring out the cipher. He turned back to the paper and stared at it, thinking about the letter “U” and searching for it in the mess of text before him. It was there at random, no differently than any other letter. He tried counting down from the left side of the huge block of text and quickly gave up. Nothing was clicking.

  Head pounding, Hank was beginning to wonder if it was time to set the damn thing aside for the day. I need to back it up, put it in reverse, take a break—

  Something was staring him right in the face, but he couldn’t make it out. Like a word just on the tip of his tongue. He had just said it. Reverse…

  Quickly, Hank pulled the paper up to where he could start counting from the very last letter backwards. As he counted right to left and back to the next line up over and over, his breath became heavy with anticipation. Several times he had rushed himself to the point of having to start over, but finally he made it past the four thousand point and marked his place just in case. Then it was only a matter of minutes before he got there. The 4,976th character going in reverse from the end of the document. When he saw that it was the letter “U” staring back up at him, he nearly whooped in the voice of a twelve-year-old girl with the excitement he felt at having figured it out.

  But the excitement quickly drained. He had found the “U” but now what? He took out his red marker yet again and highlighted it. Then he traced his finger up until he found the “I” he had marked before. Something odd was coming into focus as he started at the text between the two points. Just like all the rest it was text crammed together with no sense of spacing, punctuation, etc. But this section of text seemed to have something the rest didn’t.

  Though they weren’t separated out from each other, Hank could make out words and phrases and scanning down the rest of the section, he could finally see how one sentence led into another without anything but a critical eye for detail to separate them. Wasting no time, he took the marker and carefully traced the block of text so that he could try reading it from the beginning.

  ifyourereadingthisthenimustbedeadimsorrywecouldnthavemetinpersonbutsometimesthatsjusthowtheworldworksbynowimsureyourelookingforsomethingtohelpyouunderstandwhyitisthattheemperoristryingtokillyouifyourereadingthisthenhopefullytheinformationiprovidewillgiveyoujustwhatyouneed...

  There was more but Hank was having trouble making sense out of it so he found another piece of paper and began transcribing it out from the block of text as he managed to decipher word from word and sentence from sentence adding punctuation where it seemed it should go until he finally had it all down on paper. Hank read it back to himself.

  If you’re reading this, then I must be dead. I’m sorry we couldn’t have met in person, but sometimes that’s just how the world works. By now, I’m sure you’re looking for something to help you understand why the Emperor is trying to kill you. If you’re reading this then hopefully the information I provide will give you just what you need.

  If I’m seeing things clearly, by now I don’t have to be too specific as to how this information will be made available. What you seek is in an abandoned theme park in New Orleans off of Michoud Boulevard.

  Once you’re there, I trust you can find it on your own. And because of which I also advise that you go alone and be careful not to be followed.

  Hank finished reading the quick scribbled transcription of Roger Tresney’s message. He made a mental note of the street where the factory was and quickly tore both papers into hundreds of tiny pieces like some kind of human document shredder. He set them aflame in the metal trash can by the desk, watching as they dissolved down to nothing but ashes. Then he sighed and sat down, mentally preparing for the trip he would soon take to New Orleans.

  ***

  The sound of Julie's crying was getting louder every minute. Jonny had tried so hard to tell her that everything would be okay, but she couldn't seem to hear his voice. Through the featureless wall that separated them from each other, he could hear the shaking in her timbre. Her breath caught up in every cry, like something brutal but slow was being inflicted on her. He was to the point of beating his fists against the wall when everything disappeared abruptly. The screeching moan of the door to his room being opened brought Jonny up from his bed, ready to strike whoever was there.

  "Cross, it's me, Ragman."

  Jonny caught his balance and sat down on the bed with the weight of his nightmare and the fear his late night awakening brought. "What is it, Ragman? It's after three AM."

  "The Foederati Commander is gone, sir. None of the soldiers will tell me anything."

  Jonny felt a cold chill creep up his back as the Emperor's voice spoke up in his ear, louder and clearer than Ragman.

  "Find him. This may be your only chance. He wouldn't have left in the middle of the night if it weren't something important. He may have information that..." The Emperor paused for a long minute. "Get moving. I'll be with you the entire time to guide you."

  Jonny nodded to Ragman and rushed to get his clothes on.

  "Should I ready the men to come with you, sir?"

  "No, they'll suspect something's up. Tell them..."

  "Don't worry about an alibi, I’ll make sure they're too busy to notice you're gone," The Emperor said.

  "Just don't say anything at all. There will be an attack soon. They'll be too busy. But remember. Keep a convincing alliance while I'm gone."

  Ragman nodded and with one last look at Jonny, slipped out of the room.

  Sneaking out of the building wasn't that difficult for Jonny with as late as it was. Most of the soldiers were much more concerned about watching for someone coming in than someone leaving. But as he edged neared to the outskirts of town on foot, Jonny's confidence was dissipating more and more with the realization that he had no lead to go on as to where Hank had went. He kept an eye out for any distant tail lights in the night driving away from the city, but none appeared. His hands were clamming up with sweat with the thought that he was one wrong step away from condemning Julie to death for once and for all.

  "I'm running out of ideas here. What the hell do I do?"

  "Patience, Mr. Cross. I'm looking over satellite data as we speak. In the meantime, instead of blubbering around, why don't you do something useful, like find some means of transportation more conducive to the road than the bottoms of your tennis shoes?"

  Jonny held back the urge to scream in response and began shifting his gaze around the small town spread out behind him. Other than an old Ford truck on blocks buried in shoulder-high grass next to a dirt-covered decrepit trailer, there weren’t any vehicles. He decided to backtrack some as he waited for information on just where the hell he was going. The heavy slaps of his shoes hitting the road echoed off of the small dilapidated houses, trailers, and shacks he crossed on his way back into Carlisle. A few blocks further brought a symbol Jonny had never in all his life before equated with hope; the silver hood ornament of a Chrysler reflecting the dull yellow glow of a nearby burglar light.

  As he came around the corner to where he could see the car attached to the hood ornament, he sighed, realizing this might be the best thing he could find on such short notice. But how exactly would he be able to get into it, get it running? He didn't have keys and he didn't know how to break into a car. All those years running on foot he had never once tried to steel one before, he didn't need to. All he needed to do was hide. Lay low. Wait till whoever was after him finally went away, and then go back to running some more.

  Now the tables were turned completely. It was him doing the chasing. And so far he sucked bad at it. He crept up to the car, looking around, knowing no one in town was likely around. They had all taken to the community building since the Foederati arrived, like lemmings to a cliff. Remembering what the Emperor had said hit him hard then. Knowing many of these people would die, and he was a
t least partially if not a whole hell of a lot more than partially responsible.

  Coming up alongside the driver side door of the black sedan, he tried to pull up on the old silver handle. It was locked. Big surprise.

  "Try the other door before you start to panic, Mr. Cross. Remember, I'm monitoring your heartrate... and just about everything else. There's no need to worry."

  Jonny nodded to himself as if the voice in his head were his own. A thought that disturbed him even more. Then he went around to the passenger side and tried the handle. The door burst open nearly knocking Jonny over with its immense weight. They don't make 'em like they used to. He slid into the passenger seat and closed the door as quietly as he could. "All right, I'm in. What now?"

  "Try the visors, Mr. Cross. Have you seriously never used that brain of yours?" The Emperor's voice was coy, almost back to its normal sly self. But it was still tainted with that silky hint of fear that had crept into it ever since he had learned that Hank was still alive. Why Hank was so important over anyone else leading the Foederati didn't make any sense to Jonny, but it didn't matter much anyway. All that mattered was getting Julie back and safe.

  He reached up and tried the driver side visor and down came a cloud of dust and about a dozen CDs. But no key. When he finished coughing and waving away the dust particles crowding the front seat, Jonny, much more slowly this time, pulled down the passenger side visor. A simple key ring with one key on it jingled its way down into the seat and slid down the slanted plastic interior. "Bingo." Jonny slipped his hands down into the crevice where the key had managed to dig into. He came up with the key in hand and put it in the ignition and twisted it. The car roared to life, much louder than he would have expected. He quickly put on his seatbelt and flung the gear into drive.