Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  The Chrysler eased forward as he eased into the gas pedal. He wasn't about to find out the hard way that this jalopy didn't have any brakes. He was just about to ask the Emperor where the hell he was going when the old bastard's voice crept up again with that scratchy glee that made shivers creep up Jonny's spine and what felt like a worm in his belly shimmy with grumpy reluctance at having been woken.

  "Go south. Follow the signs to 65 South until I tell you otherwise, you keep yourself on that road. As soon as I know more, I'll give you a clearer picture." The voice paused a moment and then spoke up again. "Look at the gas gauge. I can't see it." Jonny hadn't even bothered to look. He felt so fucking dumb, yet he felt more helpless than anything. It was taking every bit of strength and will he had to keep up this facade. And now he had to hunt down an innocent man. A man who seemed to be a threat to the Emperor himself and could maybe lead the way to bringing back the old republic. But no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise, he couldn't sacrifice his little sister for anything. Not even something as important as bringing down the Empire.

  The gauge read three quarters of a tank. He'd been lucky. But depending on just how far Hank was going, and how much of a head start he had gotten, Jonny's luck probably wouldn't last forever. He took a deep breath and pushed the gas harder with a new sense of hatred building up inside him. Whatever it takes, he would get Julie back. But maybe... just maybe, he would put a bullet through that monster's head if he got close enough.

  Chapter 14

  A Bitter Seed of Doubt

  Just as quickly as Ishan’s mumbled voice called out in that deep dark place, the whole connection shattered in an explosion sparked by the tension between Simon’s will and whatever power kept Ishan entranced. The dark cavernous features of the Hive resolved all around Simon as he fell limp to the ground, every muscle in his body and his very consciousness worn down nearly completely. He lay there for a long time, unable to move. Images from Belonna’s memories flashed in his mind as if he were dreaming in order to process the extraneous information.

  Whatever had actually happened, he’d been in there a long time. The first fluttering of movement was echoing into the Queen’s quarters from the heart of the Hive where thousands of ancestor vampires hung from the cave ceiling, their place of deep slumber in the daylight hours. That meant only one thing. The sun was already down.

  Simon listened with inhuman hearing as the ancestors awoke and flew away, at first one by one, then two by two, until finally he was imagining huge waves of black specks like so many ink dots coming together to make a shape that soared overhead and toward the outer chambers of the Hive. Simon had seen that very sight more times than he could count. It was an equally amazing and terrifying sight. Simon’s memory of the ancestor who infected his own blood with the Queen’s gift had never, in hindsight, quite become a fond one. It still held a strong sense of anger in Simon’s mind. And then there was the Queen’s recent admission about Peter…

  Simon tried to block that line of thought. He loved her. But something else was growing inside of him now. A bitter seed of doubt. And he feared what would come sprouting out of it when the time for it to open up and let out its first blossoms came.

  Hours passed and finally Simon had the strength to sit up. He sat awhile before finally rising to his feet. Regardless of the wall growing between himself and the Queen, he needed to tell her what happened. She would know what to do next and right now he needed that more than anything.

  Racing to the Queen’s side, Simon let the memories wash over him. He wanted to be able to give her as much information as he could. When he stepped over to her bed, she lay in a slightly upright sitting position staring into the darkness of the far corner of the room. He hadn’t even heard her movements. “Hello, my sweet one. You have something to tell me?”

  For some reason he wasn’t sure of, Simon was thrown off guard.

  “I don’t know what happened in its entirety, young one, so go ahead and tell me the whole thing from start to finish.”

  Simon took a moment to recollect his thoughts. “It’s Ishan, Mother. I know I shouldn’t have—well, I’m not sure about that actually—but I tried to wake him up and…” Fiery tension was growing in the air as the Queen’s face fought visibly to contain itself. “I got through. I saw some of Bellona’s memories but more importantly, I heard him. He called my name.” There was a long uncomfortable silence after Simon’s last word.

  Then, what Simon thought was the impossible happened. Before he could make sense of what he was seeing, the Queen and the cave behind her moved very far away very quickly and Simon simultaneously felt his heart squeezing and the back of his head slam into the rocky wall behind him.

  “YOU DARE TOY WITH SOMETHING SO PRECIOUS?” Her voice was equally screaming in his head as well as audibly filling the room, shaking loose the solid walls that held the place together and sending dust down in quick mini avalanches in every direction.

  Simon’s breath was caught in his throat in a way he didn’t think physically possible given his undead state. He gasped in a breath and tried to speak. “We need him, Mother. Please, understand—”

  “I WILL UNDERSTAND NOTHING. ISHAN MUST AWAKEN IN HIS OWN TIME OR THE CONSEQUENCES COULD BE PERMANENT. IF I MUST DIE THEN I WILL DIE, BUT ISHAN MUST LIVE. MUST CARRY ON TO LEAD WHILE MY CHILDREN GROW AND LEARN.” The very air seemed to circle around her body as she hovered in a perfect image of female strength and fury. Simon tried to back away, but being against the wall, there was nowhere he could go. Pressure built inside his head and he didn’t need to think twice to figure out who was responsible. If she carried on much longer, Simon’s eternity wouldn’t be quite so eternal anymore. “Mother, who will watch over Ishan if I die? Please…”

  But her body only continued to rise in the funneling air and the pressure in Simon’s head, though it weakened some, didn’t go away. “Do you think I haven’t heard the thoughts fumbling around inside you as of late? Do you think I don’t know the hatred for me you fight to hold back within your own heart? I have done nothing but love you from the moment I first saw you in my visions. And yet, you doubt me… you let the beginning of anger blossom into something so vicious within you that you threaten to turn back everything I’ve done to wake you from Joseph’s sick and slithering filthy hands.”

  The pressure fell away like a giant vise letting go of Simon’s head.

  The Queen had turned her back on him, lying back in her bed, shivering, sweat soaking every inch of her exposed skin. A wave of shock and guilt hit Simon. He wasn’t sure what to feel, but the fear that she had almost killed him just like that was tainted by the shallow self-loathing that came with the realization that she was right. It was the Queen who had made him suffer, but it was also the Queen who had brought him out of the darkness of Joseph Caesar’s vicious, poisonous religion and gifted him with the experience of Ishan’s life and brotherhood.

  The weight of it all kept him lying there for hours. But when the sun was finally starting to send its vague light into the Hive in the form of particles that hung in the air in front of Simon like specks of faraway flying fairies bouncing around in search of something to enchant, the weight had lifted and Simon stood up. With a sense of desperation, he went to her and wrapped himself around her, holding her close. In his mind her voice whispered words and conjured images to soothe his shuddering body as he wept.

  “She’ll come back. And I’ll be okay. My body will fade back into the shadow from whence it came. And my babies will grow to carry on what was me in this life. Sleep, child. Suffer no more… for a time.”

  And sleep came and cradled Simon for the first time in days.

  ***

  It had been hours since Jackie finished telling Frank the short and limited version of how she ended up with fangs and on the road sitting shotgun beside him in his old Lincoln. There had been nothing but flatlands for miles with the occasional half-dilapidated gas station or silo along the highway. The worst though had b
een Memphis. The war had stretched its ugly arms and risen up in the heart of the city and it had taken a lot of screeching tires, swerving, and ducking their heads—not that Jackie couldn’t survive a bullet to the head or two—to get out of there in one piece.

  Frank’s hands had only stopped shaking less than an hour prior. In the past six months he had only traveled in areas that had been deemed safe by the Imperial Highway Administration. But in deciding to take on Jackie’s request to get her across the country, the ways void of violent bloodshed were few and far between. And their number was shrinking every day.

  But now things were calm and Jackie couldn’t remember the last time she was so hungry. She had drastically underestimated how much synthetic blood she would need for such a trip and had already depleted the small bottle she had brought with her before even happening upon Frank. The obvious beast woke within her mind, but she’d grown to enjoy Frank’s company too much and besides… he had been nothing but completely and utterly kind to her since they met. Even after realizing what she was. But she knew his all too human emotions would take over when he truly realized what she was—when she had no choice but to eat. A time she knew to be long overdue.

  “So, ah, maybe we should stop so you can get some rest.”

  Frank laughed. “Missy, I’m all wide eyes and fresh firing cylinders. If you need to rest—”

  “No. I was just thinking you might need to… and…” She let her words hang in the air a moment.

  “Ohhh… I get it.” His voice was jovial, but within seconds his shoulders slumped with realization and the air in the Lincoln thickened between them. “I suppose you don’t have a choice, do ya?” He looked over at her and she shook her head, letting the all too real remorse within her come out in her movement.

  He sighed. “So, I drop you off, you bag some poor schmuck or schmuckette and when you’re finished you come back and I suppose it’s best I pretend I don’t know what just happened—or that I didn’t just have a part in ending someone’s godforsaken pitiful little life?”

  Jackie held her breath in an all too human manner out of habit. She’d expected it. And who could argue with him. He was right. But she had to live. She’d accepted that. Could he? It had been simple for her. Now, with the tables turned on someone still human, it was anything but. And that left only the inevitable. If he couldn’t let her out to feed, what choice would that leave her but to either stop him herself and take care of her needs without his acceptance, only to come back to an empty highway save for a blistered set of Lincoln tire tracks on the pavement. Or…

  He took in a deep breath as he let off the gas, easing the car over to the side of the road. With a tear running down his cheek, he nodded. “Go do what you gotta do. I’ll wait here.” He turned to look at her as she reached for the door handle. “But when you come back it’s your turn to drive. I’m gonna guess I’ll probably need some time to… adjust.” She nodded with a grim smile. And in a blast of movement and cold air, she was flitting through the empty flatland, wind screeching in her ears, following the elderly woman’s scent that had hit her nose the moment they had driven within a few miles of her fragile body.

  ***

  About three or four hours of driving south on I-65 Hank pulled onto the upward ramp for the I-20 West/I-59 South exit in Burmingham, Alabama. He still had another three or four hours to go by his approximation. It had taken some quick research to figure out where Tresney had been talking about. But not much. Before the Empire, when Hurricane Katrina had blasted its way through the New Orleans levees, one of its many casualties was the Six Flags Theme Park which in its glory days stood tall right off of Michoud Boulevard. It was still there now, but years of decay on top of the damage from being flooded with tons of water from Katrina had turned it into a deranged wasteland. Hank had seen some of the pictures online before leaving.

  The drive southwest heading toward Mississippi was a long and mostly featureless one. Most of the way was a two lane highway with nothing but green flatlands and occasional trees along the side of the road. And virtually no cities or towns. It had been an hour since Hank had even seen another car on the road. That was good though. Tresney had warned Hank in his secret-decoder-ring message to watch out for anyone following him. The less cars Hank saw along the way, the less he had to worry. When he neared the state line, large quantities of trees began to pop up alongside the road until eventually they steadily blocked out the sunlight from Hank’s left side. Traffic was also beginning to pick up to a small degree.

  A few hours later and he was speeding his way through Louisiana toward New Orleans in heavy traffic. The trees popping up next to the highway were occasionally of the Palm variety. Then came the seemingly endless inclining bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. The water was beautiful from above, but Hank wasn’t there to sightsee. He waded through trucks and cars speeding in and along the lanes, trying to edge his way ahead. If someone was following him at this point, there was no way he would know. He wished he’d taken a little time to find a more obscure route. But that ship had sailed.

  ***

  Jonny had been driving south for hours feeling like a worm on a string being pulled along the water. All the while the Emperor’s throaty voice had droned on at every little detail of the trip, treating Jonny like an incompetent child. He didn’t much care about the way the bastard treated him compared to his fear of how his sister was being treated. Or what would happen to her if he didn’t do what the Emperor told him or made some kind of simple mistake.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he passed the exit the Emperor told him Hank had taken. His instinct had been to follow the same route, but the Emperor had nearly screamed at him to go the way he was told, that going the same way would only lead to failure. Jonny wasn’t sure which was more infuriating. The brashness or being kept in the dark and treated like a child. Maybe it was the combination.

  “Mr. Cross, why are you letting your speed lag? Would a little motivation in the form of a familiar voice screaming in your ears spark some reasonable determination for you?”

  Jonny cringed, swallowing the sweat that had dripped into his mouth and onto his tongue. He steadily pressed his foot down on the pedal and made sure his visual perspective was such that the Emperor would see the rising needle of the speedometer.

  “Good, Mr. Cross, very good. Keep your speed at an average of 85 miles per hour and I’ll make sure no Imperial patrol officers give you any trouble. I don’t much care at this point who or what you have to drive through to get to New Orleans before Mr. Evans does.”

  “New Orleans? Is that where we’re heading?”

  There was no answer. A spark of fear crept into Jonny’s heart causing it to jolt above the already high average it had been through this whole trip.

  “Mr. Cross, your heart rate has spiked, is there something on your mind you would like to share?”

  “Sorry, sir. When you didn’t answer I was just worried you might…”

  “No, Mr. Cross, I won’t do anything to your precious sister without you knowing in full graphic detail first. You can count on that. Now, do the both of you a favor and calm yourself, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jonny thought about what he must look like talking to someone who wasn’t there without a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear in a speeding jalopy burning rubber down the highway. He laughed, letting the thought calm his otherwise stilted nerves.

  “Good, Mr. Cross. Keep thinking whatever it is you’re thinking and things will be just fine.”

  Jonny laughed internally. Fine? Right. Everything would be fine when his hands were covered in the blood of an innocent man and his sister was free to go home. Or would it be that simple?

  ***

  Hank had been easing his way along Michoud Boulevard a good few minutes now looking for the entrance to the old abandoned theme park. He was just about to give up when the sun glinted on an old weathered sign on the right with a bunch of white flags poking up between SIX and FLAGS printed acros
s the majority of the sign. Underneath, it read BUS & RV ENTRANCE ONLY. Below that, marquee-like replaceable letters spelled CLOSED.

  Hank swerved the small Pontiac into the entrance, and the car behind him slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting him. A loud barking man with his middle finger raised high outside the driver side window for Hank to see and his hand pressed against the horn in a long monotone ringing crept by and then sped away. Hank sat there, half angled and parked at the start of the long entrance. Up ahead a wide desolate area that probably once resembled an enormous parking lot stretched out from the bottleneck end of the entrance.

  Hank pulled the car up until he came to the long gray cinder block that crossed both the entrance and exit to the parking lot. Behind it a black fence and a small tan security gazebo stood waiting for ghosts to enter a once thriving land of carnies, parents, and laughing children. He killed the engine and stepped out from the Pontiac, looking back to make sure there were no cars stopping to see what he was doing. The thought of going back and finding somewhere to hide the car occurred to him then, but the will to find whatever Tresney had hidden here—particularly what he hoped Tresney had hidden here—was too much to allow himself to backtrack even a small amount now.

  In other words, it was too late to turn back; the pull of something inside this odd ravaged mess of a theme park was too strong. Hank let it guide him and stepped through the shoulder-high half-open black gates and into the parking lot.