Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  "Now, now, Mr. Evans. We've struck deals before. I'm sure we can come to some form of agreement once more."

  "Deals..." Hank laughed. It came out as a wounded angry sound. "We never made any deals, you held the life of my son as collateral and you took that collateral and I won't stop breathing until I tear that fucking smile off of your face forever, you hear me, you motherfucker. One way or another I'm going to get my hands on you and when I do, you're going to feel everything you've made me feel." There was a long silence as the Emperor waited with a look of agitated yet patient disinterest.

  Hank blasted out another shot of bodily fluids at the screen one more time. "Not that you could possibly feel half of what you've put me through." Tears were burning and blurring Hank's eyes now and he let them roll down from his lids so that he could see again.

  "Perhaps things are not quite as you believe them to be, Mr. Evans."

  A loud click of metal brought Hank's attention to a door to his left. It opened and the Emperor's words suddenly made sense.

  "Toby?"

  Toby walked into the room, arm pushing the door aside. His eyes, fully black as onyx, locked on Hank with preternatural hunger. He stepped forward, the first motion of attack, and was thrown back against the wall where he fell in a heap as if intercepted by some invisible wall. Hank's mind was reeling. The revelation that his son was alive was both wonderful and terrible all at once and he couldn't decide exactly which emotion would truly win out. Why wasn't he speaking? Why didn't he seem to recognize his own father? Even if he had been turned into a vampire, he should still have his memories. After all this time, he couldn't possibly still have a fledgling's bloodlust.

  "Toby? Speak to me. Please. What have they done to you? Why don't you re—"

  Joseph interrupted Hank with a forced cough. Hank's eyes rolled back over to the screen sitting before him.

  "Are you prepared to discuss an arrangement now, Mr. Evans?"

  "What did you do to my son?"

  "When I was informed that both your son and Jack Draper's bodies were found in the same alleyway, I had my suspicions that you were still alive. When my dear sweet mother was killed by your friends"—he spit the word out with almost as much fury as Hank had spit at him—"her power over her children passed on to me. I used this power to command that your son's body be infected. By that time..." The Emperor's grimace iced into a large crooked grin. "I'm afraid his brain had deteriorated significantly. I only wanted to reunite father and son... And maybe satisfy a certain curiosity. You see, I had no idea what would happen to one of my ancestors were the blood to infect them directly as opposed to being ingested. I wanted to know if one of ours could truly be turned. You'll forgive me as my heart was in the right place. But I'm afraid he lives indefinitely brain-damaged and unable to understand anything beyond his own bloodlust now."

  Hank was screaming and pushing against his restraints and shaking his head in utter rage. Caesar let out a long raspy cackle in response.

  "Even you can't break through those restraints, Mr. Evans. And even if you could, what would you do? Break the monitor that displays my face? I've taken every precaution to make sure you can't touch me, Mr. Evans. Screaming and carrying on will not help you. Now, I'm offering to make an arrangement with you so that you may have your son. And while I'm sure it's definitely not the kind of deal you ever would have wanted to be offered, I do know you care about your child, Mr. Evans. And I trust you want him to suffer no longer. I would like to offer you the chance to take away his suffering. Won't you hear me out."

  The room spun all around Hank. To think of the past year since he had watched the life drain out of his son from his killer's eyes and now know that the boy had suffered throughout every day since. He screamed out again with one long wail that tapered off into a soft moaning whine.

  Toby was now getting to his feet, watching Hank intently. His pale face twitched with ravenous desire.

  "What do I have to do?"

  "Ah, I see you understand the depth of your position, Mr. Evans. I need only for you to unmask my last remaining descendent. I know from multiple sources now that you have this information and I would have it."

  Hank took a deep breath. It had been a ruse at first. But now... He hadn't had any intention of telling Caesar the truth... But Toby... The boy was suffering a life of mindless torture. Was anything left of his memories, of who he was? If so, was it buried in that brain, cursed to watch this creature take over his body and use it to murder and drink the blood of the living?

  Hank took a deep breath and swallowed the tears that had run down into his mouth. "There isn't one. I purposely fed you false information."

  Joseph's face contorted with rage. "You're lying, Mr. Evans."

  "Why would I lie? Do you think I want my son to suffer anymore?"

  "We'll see about that, Mr. Evans. I'll find out if you're telling me the truth one way or another." Something flickered in the room. Toby's body fell to the floor, his voice rising in a long agonizing howl. The scent of smoke and sulfur mixed into the air. It took Hank a long moment to compute what was happening but when the next flicker of electricity stretched out and struck Toby's body, he understood and his heart ached with the realization of it.

  "I told you the truth. Please, don't do this. I told you what you wanted to know. I'm not lying."

  The Emperor did not respond. Instead, another blast of electricity hit Toby's body and the boy curled up into a ball and screamed.

  Hank's arms were pulling so hard on the restraints that blood started to well up where the curve of them met his flesh. He wanted so badly to stop the boy's suffering; both from his current state and the shocks of electricity the Emperor was giving him. He had only felt this helpless once before in his life. The day Jack Draper murdered the boy who now clawed out at the wall behind him. Toby pulled himself up to his knees and, face rigid with the pain, he noticed the blood on Hank's arms and blasted forward suddenly unconcerned with himself. A deep growl erupted from deep within the boy. A sound so alien to his being that it almost made Hank think that maybe anything left of his son truly was dead. But the look of his suffering, the chance that he was still in there somehow, that he was feeling and knowing all of what was going on cut too deeply into Hank and he cried out with the rage and horror of it.

  "Mr. Evans, I am running out of patience. I have given you more than enough time and motivation to tell me the truth but you refuse to do that. You're leaving me with little choice but to escalate the situation."

  A blast much more powerful hit Toby then and he fell to the floor face down and began to twitch with the pressure of it. The smell of burning flesh crept up to Hank and he fought helplessly against his restraints.

  Chapter 49

  Burning Rubber

  The city had grown quiet over the past few nights. Dustin couldn't tell if it was the quiet they were hoping for or just the quiet that comes and holds out time while the enemy regroups, calls in reinforcements. Dustin hated the silence. There was too much room to think in its vast enveloping. And far too many things to think about.

  Toby's face anchored somewhere in the back of his mind and he felt that twinge of guilt again. He should have been there for his friend. He should have been there to stop what happened to his best friend's son. He'd loved the boy like his own.

  The view from the top of the clock tower was mostly darkness spread out across the city like a blanket. It had been days since the Imperials cut the power to the entire area. But some folks had generators and even some neighborhoods had managed to find a way to turn the power back on. With no way to know who or what had turned them back on, Dustin wasn't sure how they'd managed to pull it off, but he was damn curious. They would go out the next day to find out. For now he just wanted to rest as much as he could with the precious little bit of time he had before the morning came.

  The stars were out like never before. They were a sight nearly alien to Dustin. He'd spent his share of camping trips out under the stars but
even those hadn't been under the twilight of quite so many. He gazed up at the night sky wondering how much longer this war would have to go on. Wondering if Hank would be able to do what he swore he would do.

  He wasn't the same anymore, Hank. He hadn't been since Toby, not that Dustin expected anything else. But what he certainly didn't expect was how cold and calculated his friend had become. He regretted so much and yet, he knew there wasn't really ever anything he or Hank could have done.

  He stood there leaning against the concrete wall, almost nodding off, when fire erupted into the sky from the small patch of houses that had had power.

  They certainly didn't have power now.

  Voices rose up from below and Dustin turned to meet his men and get a search party rounded up.

  In the next room, Lieutenant Riley was slamming his fists down against each cot, one at a time, yelling out to the men, "Wake up, soldiers! The lightheads have been hit by someone pretty hard."

  When Riley noticed Dustin, he turned and stiffened. "Sir, how should we proceed?"

  "I want ten vampires and twenty men to go with me to search the place for any survivors or enemy fire. Have them out front in ten minutes. You'll take over command here."

  "Yes, sir." Riley turned and continued waking up the men as Dustin headed for the main stairway.

  Ten minutes later, in a cavalry of a dozen black trucks, men and vampires at the ready, Dustin and the rest of the search party took off onto East Washington in the direction of the fires.

  ***

  Sirens cried out from behind them like more and more wolves arriving to the feast. The boys were moaning and crying and Alexandria knew they could only go so much farther before the Imperial Police ran them off the road. The engine roared as she kept her foot locked down toward the floor, tears streaming down the sides of her face. They didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve for their father to be slaughtered and they didn't deserve to have to flee to try and be safe. "Jeremy, Rudy, hush now, it's going to be okay." She reached her hand back and took Jeremy's hand. The boys didn't stop crying though. It was obvious there wasn't a way out of this now. And after what they had all seen happen to their father, they knew what would come next.

  Rudy's voice rang out in high-pitched misery. "I want my daddy. I want my daddy. I don't wanna die."

  Alex fought to hold back the sobs that Rudy's words had sent into motion within her body. Every word slammed into her with considerable impact and precision. A child's words so simply and completely shared by the three of them. She swallowed it back and tried to turn it into anger. It was almost too hard. She shifted the car down a gear and at the very last second as they approached the bridge over Harding Street she swerved the car onto the exit ramp and blasted the car off of the highway. They might not be able to make it, but she sure wasn't going to give up without putting up a fight.

  A tall black truck covered most of the road at the bottom of the ramp and she had to swerve left to avoid slamming into it, sending the car out into oncoming traffic from the adjacent road. Just as quickly she gripped the wheel and turned it dragged it around and around to full right and the car tires cried out burning against the pavement. A car headed East on Harding slammed into the rear of the car just in time for Alexandria's foot to hit the gas and between both bursts of energy the old Le Sabre blasted forward.

  Ahead, scattered traffic began to slow as all the cars going the same direction neared toward a red light. Meanwhile, the sirens were screaming out behind her and in the rearview mirror blue and red lights flashed swiftly in unison with them. She looked back at the road just in time to see the entrance to Gladys County Mall up on her right. Before she could even think of any other way, Alex slammed down on the gas and veered to the right sending the right-side tires of the Le Sabre onto the sidewalk. Something scraped as she sped forward, but there was just enough room for her to squeeze between traffic and the streetlights along the walkway. People, however, had to move if they regarded their lives with value. They did just as quickly as they spotted her. One man, staring down at a tablet computer, nearly didn't get out of the way in time, but a woman with black wavy hair grabbed hold of him and pulled him out of the way just in time.

  Less than a second later the entryway was in front of her and she swerved the car into the mall parking lot.

  ***

  George and Yusef sat waiting by the window of the motel room George had booked earlier that day. Little Umar lay on the far bed, snoring lightly. Yusef couldn't seem to stop pacing as the time passed and more and more cars drove on by the motel parking lot. George knew they were taking a risk still being within an hour and a half drive of Pleasant Shade, but it was about as much as any other place would be a risk at this point.

  "Shouldn't they be here by now? What if Imperial Police stopped them?"

  George sighed. "I trust Braldon with my life. Even if they were captured, the last thing he would do would be to give them any scrap of idea of how to find us."

  Yusef knelt down by the window with his hands steepled down from his nose to his chin. "I hope you're right." A tear rolled down the side of his face and George put his hand on Yusef's shoulder.

  "We're going to keep him safe. I promise."

  Yusef looked up at George, gave him a grim smile, and nodded.

  Headlights poked out of the darkness in parallel beams that swept pale light over the parking lot outside and the nearest cars parked in front of the other rooms. George would recognize that green rusty truck anywhere. He moved over to the front door, waiting for Braldon to give the door the ol' Foederati rhythm. When George was absolutely sure the pattern was right, he unlatched the door and opened it. Braldon stood behind a nine-year-old girl and a twenty-something guy who couldn't have convincingly testified he wasn't related to the girl if he were dressed as a mime.

  When the three of them were inside the motel room, George took a quick glance around at the other room doors to make sure no one was watching before closing theirs. When he turned back around he barely managed to breathe before Braldon wrapped his arms around George in a great big bear hug. "George, it's so great to see you. What's it been, about a year now?"

  "At least. It's wonderful to see you too but, listen... We have little time right now." The little girl was sitting in a chair, looking around the room like she had never seen the inside of a motel room before and it was much cooler than she would have ever expected.

  "None of the strike teams are available right now and I just intercepted a message over the Imperial network about an hour ago. There's a young girl down there, 18, with two brothers, both of them younger than this little one here, on the run. Father was shot and killed for "heretical atheism." A few days later the daughter followed one of the Imperial soldiers home, tied him up and tortured him, and apparently left him that way. She grabbed her brothers early in the morning and just barely got by an Imperial officer trying to blockade the highway. It won't be long before she's caught and I don't reckon they'll last long once the police get ahold of her."

  Braldon nodded. "Realistically, there ain't no way I can do this on my own. I had an Imperial ID, but that ship has sailed long gone now. Is there nobody else that can help?"

  George shook his head, his shoulders quickly deflating. "No one anywhere nearby. We're the closest to them and we're not even a real platoon."

  The young boy stepped in close and reached his hand in for George to shake. "I'm Jonny, sir."

  George smiled and matched the boy's quiet tone, "I'm George, Jonny, pleased to meet you."

  Jonny put his hand on Braldon's shoulder. "I meant what I said, I know how to shoot and I'm more than willing to help."

  George was just about to speak, but Braldon cut him off. "I hear you, and I'm more than ready to bring you along, but how's that little sister of yours gonna take that. I don't think we're standing here whispering for nothin'."

  Jonny's face turned a deep bright scarlet. "I'm not sure, but I think... I think this is something I have to do. Is
there somewhere she can stay where she'll be... Okay? Safe?"

  George nodded. "She can stay with me. Tomorrow, we'll be heading over to the nearest safe house—we'd go now, but the daylight at least cuts down the likelihood of running into any Imperial blood suckers."

  Jonny nodded.

  Yusef stood there silent throughout the whole exchange. George half expected him to turn around and pick up Umar over his shoulder and walk out the front door at any second. Instead, he just stood there with his hand running through his hair over and over. Everyone went silent for a long uncomfortable moment. Yusef shifted quickly and walked over to where Umar lay sleeping. Here we go, George thought. He was hoping Yusef would at least stay calm and wait out the night, but...

  After leaning down and staring at Umar's sleeping face for a moment, Yusef rose back up to his full height and walked back over to the men. "I want to go. I have no idea how to handle a gun, but I'm more than willing to do whatever I can—I can learn, I can do something, I'm sure."

  George exhaled with relief. "Are you sure, Yusef?"

  "No—Yes. Those bastards would have killed my son like they killed my Safiyah and I can't keep letting them do these things. I can't keep pretending that it'll all be okay and I won't have to stand up and fight back. If you say Umar will be safe, I think you've proven yourself to me now, George, and I can't thank you enough for that. I was ready to believe there was no hope for my son, for me." Yusef embraced George. "Thank you so much."

  When the two men pulled away from each other, Braldon moved over to Yusef and shook his hand. "Thank you, Yusef. We're gonna need all the help we can get." He turned to George. "I know you'll keep this ship just as tight as you always do, George. I don't doubt that for one second. You take care of yourself too, though, okay?"

  George nodded, smiling. "You guys get those kids and I'll guard these two with my life."

  After saying their goodbyes to George and Jonny telling Julie he would be back very soon, they left in Braldon's old truck, carefully pulling out of the lot and driving away. George watched from the window, his chest tightening against his heart. Lord guide my brothers in this darkness, please dear Lord.