"Maybe we could get a note to him somehow... Or one of us could get in there and talk to him in private somehow..."
Braldon sat there a long moment gazing blankly at the steering wheel in front of him.
"That's dangerous as all hell, but, you know what... It just might work."
***
Danny's hand ached from all the writing he'd been doing in the past half hour or so now. He'd written out long letters to his ex wife, his brother, and one to leave at his desk about why he was doing what he was about to do. Lying across the floor beside his desk were two shotguns full of shells and a dozen boxes with extra ammo both for the shotguns and his pistol. He knew it was safe to say he might not be getting out of here alive, but he was damn well going to give it a good ol' college try. His first impulse had been to send all the boys home early, but he knew that would just spark curiosity and one or more of them would start asking questions. He sat back in his chair and sighed.
Two of his deputies were great people with families and he didn't want to have to hurt them. Then there was Gage and Caruthers. Both men had a nasty temper and a fervor for Imperial law that scared Danny. So, after a lot of thought and working out scenarios in his head, Danny took a look at the work schedule. Gage and Caruthers were both scheduled for overnight. The rest of the men, Cox, Wiles, and Sprinkle, would be headed home by midnight. If he could hold out until 12:30 or so, he might have a shot at this without hurting anyone who didn't already deserve it. The thought of that almost made him laugh. Instead, his intercom buzzed and he nearly jumped out of his chair.
Sprinkle's voice replaced the buzzing. "Sheriff, we have a gentleman who wants to talk to you. Claims he has a complaint he'd like to file, but he won't discuss it with any of us. Says he only wants to talk to you. You want us to send him on back there?"
Danny cleared his throat and hit the talk button, looking down at the guns sitting on the floor beside him. "Uh, I'm in the middle of filing an important report right now. Can you have him wait in the break room while I finish this up and then I'll come and get him?"
"Sure thing, deputy. Let him know I'll be out to come and get him shortly. Thanks."
Danny turned off the intercom and quickly got to his feet. He picked up the two shotguns and put them in the large glass case where, up until the last twenty minutes or so, they had been on display for as long as he could remember. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and stuffed the extra ammo in there, four to five boxes at a time, until they were all snuggly sitting inside and then closed it. Then, he took a deep breath.
Exhaling, he got up and opened the door and headed out toward the break room. He passed Gage and Caruthers on his way, both men all smiles as they shared rude whispered commentary on certain parts of Alexandria's anatomy. He put his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking and turned to Gage with a look of complete and utter intimidation. "Deputies, I suggest you keep your gutter talk for your own free time. Right now you boys are on my clock and that means you behave respectfully, do you understand?"
Gage let out a rough, bitter laugh. "Yes, sir."
Caruthers simply nodded, his eyes just as fiery as his partner in crime.
Danny turned and walked into the break room to find a young man no older than his mid-twenties, about the same age as Gage, probably. The boy got to his feet as soon as Danny came in.
"Sheriff?"
Danny reached out his hand to shake. "Yes, sir. Sheriff Jackson and you are?"
"Jonny Smith, Sheriff. Can we speak in private?"
"Yes, of course, follow me to my office."
Danny turned and led the way back to the room where just minutes before he plotted the escape of three prisoners. Children, but prisoners nonetheless.
When they were both inside, Danny closed the door and sat down at his desk.
"What can I help you with, Mr. Smith?"
Jonny looked the Sheriff right in the eyes and said, "They're just kids for Christ sakes."
Danny stiffened. "I'm sorry?"
"I can't keep this shit up. I have to do something..."
Danny could feel his heart beating in his throat. "I don't follow what this is about, Mr. Smith."
Jonny took a deep breath and lowered his voice to explain. "About a block down the road, a couple of buddies of mine have a nice friendly specially sensitive microphone pointed in this general direction. We came here to do just what I think you're fixing to do and I risked my ass to come in here and find out. Now, do you want to do something, or do you want those three kids to go back to Shelby to what we both know is waiting for them there?"
Danny stared back at the boy in shock.
***
The tall black pyramid of the Luxor Hotel and Casino stretched up into the sky between twin explosions as Simon and Rosadelma ran toward it. The scattering vampires that were still up in the air began to swoop down at the two of them at random. Simon grabbed one by the throat and sent it back up into the sky into two others and the three went rolling in the air into one of the large fires left behind by the explosions. He turned to find three of them grabbing hold of Rosadelma from behind as she struggled to pull their claws and their fangs from her skin. He changed direction to try and help, but before he could get there, three more vampires latched on to her body and they all began to lift her off the ground as one.
"Rosa!"
She screamed unintelligibly in reply, still struggling with arms and legs and Simon could see, even from that distance, that her skin was drying up as the bastards drained more and more blood from her body. Jackie was a dot on the horizon sending fire in long blasts from the explosions into huge black pools of vampires floating in the sky. Unable to fly and unable to jump nearly high enough to reach her, Simon screamed out for Rosadelma again. There was no response. A moment later Rosa and the six vampires disappeared from view and Simon knew it was too late. The next second her body came dropping from the sky right for him. He turned and ran for the Luxor, trying to keep the look of her open gazeless eyes in the back of his mind.
When he arrived in front of the main door, he turned and watched for Jackie for a moment. He knew, given her new command of her powers, she would be just fine, but he worried nonetheless. Then he turned and shattered the black glass of the door without a second's hesitation. The door opened easily, once unlocked from the inside. However, the alarms going off didn't encourage Simon very much. He took off running for the main casino and nearly tripped over his own feet when he saw what had been done. The entire place had been cleared out, walls knocked down, floors taken out, everything else scraped aside to make room for one large missile pointed up through the huge opening in the far angled ceiling toward the clear night sky above. "Holy shit."
Chapter 54
The Head of this Terrible Serpent
Everything was explosion now. Light stretched out into more light and they weaved into each other in a dance that produced still more light. The colors were swirling together until they finally held still and Hank could see where he was standing. A city surrounded him.
And even though he couldn't make out enough to recognize what city it was he knew that he had been here before.
Green fire spread around Hank and rose up like a tall ocean wave ready to blast apart some lonely drifting ship lost at sea. But instead of washing him away in its destructive heat, it parted at the bottom and a small figure stepped out from the opening walking toward him unfettered by the burning, the melting, and still-moving blast spreading like a slow storm through the city.
When Toby's eyes locked with Hank's, everything else fell away in shattering pieces until nothing was left but father and son.
The light was like gold in this place. Everything was washed in its yellow glow.
The boy looked up at Hank, his familiar eyes full of tears and longing.
"Dad!” Toby smiled, tears sliding down his face. “I'm so sorry I left you behind."
Hank's heart melted at the sight of his son unsullied by the evil the E
mperor had filled him with. "You have nothing to be sorry about, Toby. I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you away."
Toby ran forward, wrapping his arms around Hank.
"I was all alone in there."
"I know." Hank shook with the emotion of it all. He could feel Toby’s body in his arms. It was really there.
"But it's okay now. I'm better now. I'm where I belong."
Deep in Hank's mind, a voice told him it wasn't real. The whole thing was just synapses in his brain firing their final salute as his body crept through shock toward certain death. He pushed the voice back into the darkest recesses of his being and let the glow of the place envelop him in its glory. "It's so good to see you, Toby. To be here with you now. I don't ever want to leave."
Toby pulled away slowly. "No..."
Hank rose up to his feet and reached out for the boy, but Toby stepped further away. "No, you can't. It's just a dream."
"If this is a dream, it's a dream worth dying for." He tried again to embrace his little boy but Toby turned away. "You have to go now. I wish you could stay, but you have to go now."
“But Toby—"
"No, Dad. Diana needs you now. Go."
The words struck Hank like a hammer between the eyes. Whether he was a dream or a spirit or something Hank could never imagine or understand, the boy was right. He had to go.
Just as soon as the realization soaked through him, Hank watched as everything around him began to crumble. Toby turned back and gazed into his eyes one last time before even he fell away in pieces into the great empty void.
***
Hank's eyes fluttered open, irises alight in crimson. Toby's body lay on the floor, one arm still clutching Hank's leg. Restraints held firm to his left arm and both legs and the feeling of exposed bone from his forehead had gone away completely. He touched the place with his right hand. It wasn't a perfect healing but the skin had lumped over itself and managed to close its own wound.
By now the Emperor could have sent an entire fleet of vampires after the monster's only other remaining descendent. Shame gripped and flooded through Hank. He hadn't known about her when he planted that seed into the Emperor's mind. He didn't know there really was any other way. Any other descendent. The visions had tricked even the Queen. And now his unborn daughter wasn't safe.
Diana...
The thought of the Emperor taking the only thing he had left ripped at Hank's soul and tore away any last sense of inhibitions or fear within him. He pulled and pulled and managed to bend his left arm cuff so that he could free his other hand. Then, both hands able to work together, he started on the two thick metal ankle restraints.
As he pulled and pulled, his fingers slipped and two of them broke, but in return the right ankle cuff was loose now. Only a little more. He gripped the cuff again with his fingers, broken, in mid-healing, and all. He screamed out as the metal slowly but steadily gave way.
When only the left leg restraint remained, he didn't bother to grab or tug it with his hands. He got up and with everything he had he ran. Both the metal and his ankle snapped at once, but he kept moving forward.
In mid run, the ankle began to heal and he could feel it pressing against his nerves, tearing at his flesh and reconnecting tissues all at the same time. It would likely set completely wrong but he couldn't worry about that now. It was time to do what he had come here to do. It was time to cut off the head of this terrible serpent.
***
The Emperor's scent led him running up stairwells, climbing the railings beside them in an effort to catch up to the monster even faster. Floor after floor after floor, the trail grew stronger. Then suddenly, it was gone.
Hank dropped down to the previous floor, barely missing the opening between stairways and what looked like a nearly endless deadly fall. Catching his balance, he sought out where the trail resumed with his nose and senses. For a long moment he found nothing. He let his mind reach out for some place forward in time but no visions seemed to exist which he could latch onto.
Feeling blindly in the dark, he spun around trying desperately to find some clue to where the Emperor went. More doors than space between them stretched out in both directions of the hallway. Panic was setting in and he knew he had to calm down if he were going to find the bastard.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The visions wouldn't come still but his other senses could reach out better this way. Sounds from all directions made themselves heard that before he wasn't able to notice. And just like that the thing he should have been looking for all along grabbed hold of him. The Emperor's scent was still there, he'd merely lost his sense of direction. He turned then and ran where the trail pulled him.
The long silver corridor reached forward and curved off beyond Hank's powerful vision. The trail led on though, so he followed. He closed his eyes and let his sense of smell build a three-dimensional layout before him of where he was going.
The mental image of it was like some inverted infrared map. Colors more than solid details, but more than enough to get him where he was going. So long as the trail continued.
As he followed the curve of the corridor around, the scent grew more prominent to his left and then without warning, once more, disappeared, and this time, having expected it, he turned and immediately blasted his body into the door that marked its departure.
The door crushed inward, but the thick steel of it kept Hank from breaking through. Curbing his dizziness, he sent himself backward for another attempt. He charged shoulder first into the crumpled metal door and managed to push it further inward.
Still latched securely to the wall and still not breached anywhere else, he turned and threw his other shoulder into it. A deep grinding squeal whined from the latch and an opening bent inward six to seven inches. Hank reached his hand into the opening, feeling around for some way to open the door from the inside.
***
An alarm sounded from the first chamber door, grabbing Joseph's complete attention. In the camera he saw Hank Evans fighting to get in the door. Fear and fury erupted through his entire body. "So, you truly mean to carry out your plans, do you?"
He looked at the time sequence on his screen.
22:57
22:56
22:55
Grabbing the keyboard, he typed furiously, locking the control sequence with the system's highest security encryption. There would be no way to stop it. Turning, the Emperor ran to the far end of the room and opened a hidden panel in the wall.
Dialing in the ten digit entry key, he hit enter and closed the panel and turned in time to walk through the hidden doorway. He was trapped here now. The only other way out was through the doors Hank Evans would soon burst through.
There were four of them in total, one of which Joseph's ungrateful descendent had already managed to gain entry through. The hidden door closed in front of Joseph, it's slick black interior reflecting his face before him. He had never seen those features so terrified.
Hatred engulfed him then. Fear was for the weak. And he hadn't spent millennia after millennia watching, learning, and then dominating this world to be made afraid by some simple man with no real aspirations of power.
Joseph let his anger replace any petty trace of worry. He would destroy the man just as he had destroyed so many before. And when it was over he would crush every man, woman, and child, every vampire, fledgling or ancient who got in his way. Bellona's face resolved in his mind's eye.
He would crush them all in a glorious war worthy of his mother's name.
Chapter 55
The Bomb that Ended the War
Fire and debris blasted up into the sky in random succession as Dustin and his men pulled up. The place was in the middle of a small industrial park on the east side of town. What was visible of the buildings was covered in graffiti from well before the Empire in faded blues, reds, and whites against what had once been gray concrete walls.
The trucks rolled up to the edge of the property
and came to a stop almost simultaneously. Dustin called over through the radio. "I want the vampires to go first. If there's anyone in here, they have a hell of a better chance of finding them than the rest of us do."
He hung up the radio and waited. A few minutes later ten vampires slipped out of the various trucks and quickly disappeared into the darkness. Dustin waited, watching the building and its surroundings for any sign of life. Nothing stuck out for a long time. The fires raged on in the otherwise silent night.
Dustin pulled out the radio again and clicked the talk button. "All right, they've been in there a good few minutes now and I'm not hearing anything. I want you all on alert and ready to go in there in a moment's notice. I don't have a very good feeling about this." Each group commander called back their confirmation and then the truck was quiet again.
Something sparked in the fire and then a burst of flames erupted. Everything else stood still along with time as Dustin watched and waited for the inevitable. A piece of the nearest building's wall crumbled down some under the fire as a gust of sparks lifted into the sky.
The vampires slammed into the hood of Dustin's truck before he could even process what was happening. The first one pinned the other down to the truck, trying to find a clear shot at the creature's throat, bright yellow and orange flames and black smoke rising up from its back.
Dustin recognized the vampire pinned against the hood as Tommy Derringer. The kid-vampire was fighting with all he had to keep the taller, stronger bastard with short spiked black hair and gray eyes away from his throat, but it was all too obvious to Dustin, he was struggling in vain.
The next second the creature ripped out Tommy's throat and its face dove into the blood-splattered remains. Dustin's hand had just grabbed the gear shift, but the damn things moved so fast, there wasn't anything he could have done.
Empire of Blood [Box Set] Page 81
