Empire of Blood [Box Set]

by Robert S. Wilson

  Chapter 50

  A Chaotic Blaze of Creation

  It hadn't been long after they lay there holding each other that the power of the Queen's contractions began to intensify to the point that, not only could Ishan no longer lay beside her, but it was now becoming a concern as to whether the Hive itself could withstand the pressure of her will screaming out into the darkness. Her voice cried out in excruciating pain and Ishan could only hold tight to her hand and try to soothe her with his voice and his touch.

  The cave around them shook and shook and dust and debris came down in nearly constant droves to the point that even the ancients had no choice but to leave the two of them in the Queen's quarters alone. At least one Foederati soldier had been killed while two others had been badly injured by falling rock and salt. Ishan had managed to have the few remaining human vampires take the men away from the Hive to somewhere they could be safely tended to.

  The Queen let out another moan and then slowly the earth around them began to calm. Ishan took a deep breath and kissed the Queen's hand gripping tightly to his own. "What can I do to ease the pain that I'm not already doing, my love?"

  The Queen glanced over at Ishan, sweat streaming down her face and long black hair stuck in swatches to her wet skin. "You're doing all that is possible, my beloved. But I must warn you. What's about to come will hurt us both, so be ready."

  Ishan nodded, but before his chin had even returned to its original resting position, everything around him seemed to rip apart and explode. It wasn't the real world coming apart, but his own perception of what was around him as his mind was yanked into his mother's visions.

  All around him faces screamed and yelled and whispered and sang and cried as the Universe spun around them at the speed of light, spreading and reaching out for some larger existence even than itself. Every atom of creation seemed to separate then and swirl around into a chaotic blaze of creation. Stars erupted into life and then exploded into massive blue and red and purple supernovas just as fast as they had come into being.

  All of the gas and dust sped outward until the darkest corners of the cosmos were lit with their burning. And throughout every second of it, all Ishan could feel was the terrible tugging of his innards from deep within his abdomen. He cried out in agony but his voice seemed to die out in mere inches from his mouth in contrast to the light years of distance surrounding him in every direction. He had thought that the worst thing he would ever experience had been behind him. Had been Bellona's whole life.

  Ishan was wrong.

  Innumerable moments all collided with each other in Ishan's mind and he lived them each in random succession in the span of seconds, the mass of them ripping through his brain with a force that pulled him inward and outward in every possible angle simultaneously. And through it all that terrible rope inside him twisted tighter and tighter, its tension becoming unbearable.

  The Queen's screaming voice reached out and wrapped itself around Ishan splitting into multiple appendages tying and tying and intertwining around him, each one a different tone and dialogue. One voice called out with love, attempting to keep him focused and calm, another spat with hatred at every moment of weakness that Ishan had been guilty of in his incredibly long life.

  More voices coiled around his body crying out for forgiveness for deeds he couldn't begin to understand while others declared the Queen's pride and refusal to feel even one single regret. Each utterance took on its own pitch and tangled into the others in an intricately weaved harmony trumpeting everything that was her out into the vast aural canvas of the world.

  Ishan was overcome by its beauty and, deep within his mind amidst her innervision, he wept.

  The long rich chord of her song faded slowly into silence and darkness surrounded Ishan. And then he found himself sloshing through thick viscous liquid that pulled and weighed against his legs. He opened his eyes and the vast expansive surface of it rocked up and down in small waves all around him, its crimson opacity concealing what might lie beneath. And there she was, waiting.

  The Queen stood tall and proud, blood sloshing up and then splashing down from her hips and dripping off of every part of her body from her mouth down. A lust Ishan never knew himself capable of, one born of no physical body, no tongue or loins or heart, just something supernaturally existing in every molecule of Ishan's being beyond any form of matter or time or space. The need of it drew him forward and his legs kicked harder through the heavy current.

  She was almost within reach and yet her eyes stared through him from miles away. He dredged through, putting inhuman strength and will into every motion and, before long, his love grew closer, her arms reaching out to bring him in. Yet still he was so far away. Ishan stomped at whatever solid surface held up below him, his feet sliding and scraping against something sharp and rough. Still he couldn't seem to reach her any faster and his patience was diminishing by the second.

  The Queen's right index finger hooked into a gesture of beckoning and all sense of control swept out from under Ishan and he jumped forward, diving into the red waters and splashing, arm over arm and leg kicking in contrast to leg, he swam toward her. And just at the moment before he would crash into her, he leapt up and with the devastation of entire worlds, their flesh met and became one.

  And in that instance it all fell away and only the Queen's cavern surrounded them as she lay there on her bed still screaming and Ishan hung by his hand toward the cave floor from her gripping fingers. He returned her grip and pulled himself up to his feet and their eyes locked onto one another, Hers widening in contrast with the rising pitch of her voice. She whispered something so softly Ishan could only barely make it out with his supernatural hearing.

  "It's time. The first child is in position."

  Chapter 51

  Mercy's Broken Heart

  Smoke rose slowly from Toby's body. After the twitching it simply stopped and lay still. Hank watched carefully, holding back the sobbing threatening to erupt from deep within.

  "Mr. Evans, I've wasted enough time and patience with you. If the boy's suffering will not convince you then perhaps I should simply take the answer from you? I would imagine just a few drops would give me what I need."

  Hank turned to face the screen. "Surely you already know such a move would be suicide."

  One side of the Emperor's mouth twitched up into a half grin. "I certainly suspected as such. But you're forgetting one very important fact, Mr. Evans."

  Hank closed his eyes, hoping against hope he could find a way out of the shackles holding him down.

  "I needn't take your blood myself. I need only to will one of my mother's children to go and drink from you and I will see what they see."

  Hank fought once more against the restraints holding him to the chair to no avail. The Emperor's cackling laugh filled the room and then the screen went blank. The room was spinning as Hank was all struggle and no results. Managing only to scrape several layers of skin from his arms, after a few minutes he let the exhaustion that was draining him take hold and he relaxed his body.

  The door creaked open and a pale face with glowing yellow eyes resolved into being from the darkness. It stepped into the room, eyes locked on the beating pulse in Hank's throat. Hank let his fury build up into every muscle in his body in one tense grip and screamed out at the creature. It hissed in return but still it made its way closer. He was sure it knew just how strong he really was and yet it did as the Emperor willed it.

  The creature's breath was full on in his face now and no struggling, no clawing, no screaming could stop it from doing what it was about to do. He thought then about the vision the Queen had given him. About the one piece of his plan that was now backfiring so swiftly and terribly. If he timed it just right he could—

  Something stung against his forehead suddenly. The slick feel of metal against his skin told him his head was now also restrained to the chair. He fought to lunge his mouth forward as the vampire reached teeth first down toward his neck. The pierci
ng burning of the creature's bite struck quickly and within seconds he could feel his body draining. Not only would the Emperor get the information he wanted, but he would kill Hank in the process. There had to be some way to stop the thing. To fight back. His voice called out in a moan more from heartbreak than physical pain. Before Hank could even understand what was happening, a loud hiss rose from the corner of the room and the pain erupted into something more. Dizziness swam all around him in a blurry haze of confusion.

  The vampire who had been drinking from his neck lay still on the floor and over the creature stood Toby, chest rising and falling with deep tortured breathing, blood covering his mouth and chin. He glared at Hank then, that same look of bloodlust returning to his blackened eyes. The Emperor's voice interrupted the whole shebang then and Hank turned his eyes to the screen but nothing was there. Toby seemed to go docile at the sound of the Emperor's voice.

  "Thank you so much for your cooperation, Mr. Evans. I have what I need now. I trust you'll be dead when I return. I have business to attend to. A child to destroy. You understand." Hank fought to see around the place with his head still anchored to the chair. A reflection of movement from the screen caught his eye and he watched as the Emperor's body walked away from the open door of the room hidden initially by Toby's unnaturally animated body. Steps echoed down the hallway more and more quiet and reverberated the further the Emperor went. Toby's eyes locked on Hank once more. He stumbled forward and dropped his knees into Hank's lap and buried his head into Hank's shoulder. A new sharp stinging pulled at Hank's everything and the world began to swim away again.

  There had to be a way to make it stop. He tried to call out to the Queen but the connection was simply not there. He screamed the boy's name, trying against all odds to wake the tender boy within but Toby only continued sucking away at Hank's life force. The thought of the Emperor's words rang through Hank like a bullet next to his ear and he yanked at the metal restraint pulling against his head with every ounce of strength in his body. It held firm but started to squeal in protest. He let the sound of it give him confidence and he pulled harder. He could feel a ripping at the edge of the steel as it pulled against the flesh of his forehead, but he kept on pulling nonetheless. A moment later there was another squeal from the metal and it began to bend.

  Toby kept drinking, oblivious to what was going on anywhere else in the room, perhaps all the world. A moment later and both the metal and Hank's head tore as one and he latched his teeth into the boy's neck. Tears gushed down, puddling between his face and Toby's shoulder as Hank drained and drained and drained. Toby's body lightened slowly but still he drank from his father's neck. Latched to each other by mouth, father and son fought to drain the other faster. Hank's left shoulder snapped from the pull of his body and he was able to slip it out of its restraint. It fell limp at his side then snapped into place and began to heal. He screamed in a muffled yelp, mouth still locked on Toby's neck. When the arm was healed enough that he could use it, he reached around Toby's head and pulled it loose from his neck, gripping the boy tightly against his mouth still drinking in the child-thing's blood.

  Toby's body began to tremble beneath Hank's grip and within seconds the boy was still and limp and falling to the floor and everything was spinning again into a daze of vast and empty darkness.

  ***

  Joseph wasn't waiting on the decrepit elevator to get him back up to the control room in time. Instead he took the stairs, blasting his feet back and forth up the steps in a fast but steady rhythm. His control over Bellona's children had started fading without warning and the visions his petty little sibling was transmitting to him had become faint. He knew the link between himself and her children wouldn't last forever. He wasn't sure how, but he had known without her, there would only be so much holding him to the others. Coming closer to the creature had taken care of the problem. He was tempted to stay and watch the boy finish the job, but he had to act quickly in case Evans could manage to warn the Queen before he died.

  Floors dropped below him one after another within seconds. 32. 33. 34. 35. In a blast of force, he slammed his way through the door marked 35 and took off running at an inhuman speed toward the control room. Within seconds the dark room lit up with glowing dials and switches of nearly every color of the rainbow. Caesar found the main console and sat down, taking out the keyboard that controlled the entire system. His fingers pecked like lightning against the keys sending strings of text commands out onto the black screen. When he was finished he hit the ENTER button and sat back, watching. A soft gray graphical image took over the screen with flashing numbers in the middle in black.

  29:59

  29:58

  29:57

  29:56

  29:55

  29:54

  Chapter 52

  Last Stand in Vegas Land

  It hurt Jackie's heart that she had been forced to use her powers to lock Frank in the basement of the factory. But they couldn't bring him with them and if something went wrong while trying to disarm the bomb, the three of them would at least have a running start whereas Frank wouldn't even have a chance. Nonetheless she soared through the air as Simon and Rosadelma sliced in between buildings and jumped over cars, racing to keep up on foot below her.

  Jackie wondered then, looking down at Rosadelma, if, in that singular moment just before she took Harek's head, when he cried out in fear in realization of what she was about to do, did anything remotely relative to solace come into her heart then. She hoped for Rosa's sake, it had. But she knew in her own heart, solace could probably never come to either of them.

  Up ahead, the familiar black reflective surface, now half scorched and destroyed, of the Luxor hotel shook up and down in Jackie's field of vision. Harek certainly hadn't been the brightest creature Jackie had ever had the misfortune to come across. Someone with half a brain would have set up shop somewhere a bit more subtle. Not Harek. Then again, practicality was probably the name of the game and if there was a building with plenty of space large enough to house a great magnitude of big-scale sophisticated weapons, he had picked the right one.

  In an instant the whole giant structure blinked out of existence, its countenance covered over with black moving parts that after a second of adjusting, her eyes made out more clearly. Ancients. Hundreds of them. The rage built in her stomach then and she reached out with the tendrils of it and grabbed hold of the nearest stable structures she could. All around her the earth shook and directly to her right and her left, two tall apartment buildings roared in one quick burst as they ripped apart from their foundations and rose in the air angling ceiling-first toward the scattering vampires flitting through the air.

  Masses and masses of black dots fell from the sky. There were still many in the air, but Jackie thought she at least had a chance against those remaining in the air now. The two apartment buildings started to point downward and within seconds they were slamming and disintegrating into the pavement below until neither the buildings or the streets could be distinguished from one another.

  ***

  Sheriff Danny Jackson sped down the Main Street, sirens blazing, trying to keep up with the new young deputy who was hot on the girl's trail. As soon as the call came over the radio about the young girl being sighted in the next county over and headed toward Jasper, Danny had hoped by some miracle she would pass right by them and head for some other town.

  And to make matters worse, the new son of a bitch deputy, Mike Gage, was a hard ass, just looking for some way to prove himself to Danny as if the poor asshole really needed to. He was just the kind of prick Danny hated dealing with but he couldn't very well complain or the Imperial governor would end up sending him someone even worse. The entire Imperial infrastructure was built on the shoulders of assholes like Gage and beyond.

  The girl swerved into the Gladys County Mall parking lot and just as quickly Gage squealed the wheels of his cruiser keeping right on her tail and the two cars went speeding up the middle of the parking lot.
A man and two young boys walked out between two parked cars and just as quickly jumped back, just barely in time before the girl's big blue Le Sabre blasted by. An elderly lady panicked and pushed her cart out into the road just in front of the girl and the next second it went flying up into the air and falling upside down, bags filled with items and all crashing right down on several parked cars just to the left of Gage.

  A second later the girl swerved left again and just as Gage turned to follow, a little girl no taller than Danny's knee ran out into the parking lot while her mother's back was turned and Gage slammed on his brakes squealing ten times louder than when he'd blasted into the lot, and somehow, thank God, his cruiser stopped just within inches of the child.

  Meanwhile, Alexandria Ridgemont was getting away and anyone with eyes could tell that every second Gage sat there, not in hot in pursuit, was one more second closer to one hell of a nuclear meltdown. The child's mother turned around and, seeing her child standing there so close to that Imperial Police cruiser's bumper, screamed, her bags falling to her sides. She ran out and grabbed up the child in both arms and ran back to the sidewalk, picked up her bags and headed back out into the parking lot behind Gage's cruiser as he sped off after the blue Le Sabre that was now no longer in sight.

  "Cacey, you don't go running out into the parking lot like that. You could have been killed." The woman turned a quick glance at Danny and he nodded, waiting as patiently as he could manage for the woman to finally be completely out of his way so he could try and catch up to Gage before he did something particularly violent and stupid to those kids.