by J. C. Diem
“I take it you’ve heard of Diabolical Danny?” I asked when he exited the cell.
“I saw him on the news several months ago,” Ishida replied as he returned Igor’s weapon with a bow of thanks.
“He molested, slaughtered and ate over thirty kids,” Geordie told me solemnly. “I would have been too old for him, but even I’m glad that he is dead.”
Too proud to show his emotions, Ishida stood with his head held high. He wasn’t about to admit that he’d been frightened of a mere fledgling vampire.
“I’m sorry I brought him here. If I’d known about his history, I wouldn’t have.”
Luc added his apology to mine. “Neither of us was aware of his infamy.” We’d both been indisposed during the past few months and hadn’t kept up with the news.
“It’s my fault,” Higgins said. His words were muffled behind his hands. “I knew who and what he was and I didn’t warn you about what he’d done.”
Gregor and Kokoro shared a look of surprise. Apart from me, every other newly made vampire that had ever been created was born with an uncontrollable thirst for blood. Our kind were little better than zombies when we first rose. We were compelled to feed until we’d sated our blood hunger. Once that happened, the need for sex became just as overpowering. Only when we’d satiated both hungers were we able to function. Generally, this took several months. Higgins shouldn’t even have been capable of coherent thought yet.
Probing my new minion’s mind, I read his guilt at mauling a man to death and only a faint need for hunger. “Huh. That’s weird.”
I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Geordie queried me. “What’s weird?”
“Higgins isn’t a mindless feeding machine like a normal fledgling.”
“What do you mean?” Danton asked.
“He feels remorse for turning Danny.” He shouldn’t, since the criminal had been an abomination and had deserved to die painfully.
Kokoro looked at me suspiciously. “How can you know what your servant is feeling?”
If I’d been human, my face would have turned red in embarrassment. My secret was out, but I knew I wouldn’t have been able to keep it to myself forever. “I can sort of read minds now.”
As I’d guessed, Kokoro felt a spike of jealousy that I’d somehow attained the gift that she had once possessed. Proving herself to be my staunch friend, she willed the emotion away and offered me a smile. “It can be quite annoying at times, but the ability can also come in very handy.”
“You mean you know what we’re all thinking all the time?” Geordie was aghast at the idea.
“Only if I concentrate on someone specifically. Otherwise I hear this continual background noise of thoughts. I’ve learned to shut it out, mostly.” The teen wasn’t reassured by my explanation. “I promise I won’t rummage around inside your head.” He was slightly mollified by my vow. I didn’t mention that I couldn’t help but skim their thoughts on a fairly constant basis.
Gregor made a sensible proposal. “Now that we know Natalie has the ability to turn humans into her servants, we should retire back to my estate to discuss our plan.”
Stricken by Gregor’s words, Higgins rose and turned to face me. “Is that all I am to you? A servant?”
“No,” I told him honestly. “You’re a soldier in my own personal army now. You’ll have command of my troops during the times when we’re separated.”
He was mollified by my answer and offered me a nod of acceptance as we gathered into a circle. A soldier was all he’d ever wanted to be and I’d just given him back his dream. Just how big will my army become, I wondered silently. We had ten monsters to destroy and each one was gargantuan in both size and appetite. I wasn’t sure that even two hundred vampires would be enough to stop them from eating their way through the entire population of our planet.
·~·
Chapter Eleven
I’d forgotten about Gregor’s unwanted houseguests, but I remembered them quickly enough when we materialized in the library and I heard Millicent complaining from the sitting room. “Well really! How rude of them to sneak off and leave us to sit here and twiddle our thumbs! I thought Gregor was more refined than this.”
“He is consorting with the Japanese dogs and an Australian bumpkin now,” muttered another snotty female.
Bumpkin? I came close to laughing out loud at that, mostly because it was true. Compared to the sophisticated and jaded courtiers, I was just a simple country girl, even though I’d lived in large cities all my life. “What are we going to do about them?” I asked Gregor quietly and pointed towards the sitting room.
He shook his shaggy blonde head. “I do not know. It would be undiplomatic to send them away. I fear we need every vampire that we can locate for the battles ahead.”
“How many of your comrades are locked up in that prison?” Ishida asked Higgins.
The corporal’s eyes had stopped glowing and had returned to their normal brown. His pupils were much larger than normal and his face was still coated in blood, but he otherwise just looked like a normal man. “Just under two hundred,” he replied.
Gregor sent an appraising look at the teen. “What do you propose, Ishida?”
“I assume that most of the soldiers are honourable men rather than disgusting reprobates like Danny McCredie. We need men and women with fighting skills who will wish to assist us in our battles. These soldiers would be our best candidates.” It made sense and it was pretty much what I’d been thinking as well. “It will take time to convert nearly two hundred soldiers into vampires and each one will need to feed,” Ishida pointed out. “If we work together, we can set up a production line of sorts and convert the soldiers quickly. Natalie can determine who has the moral fortitude to join her army and we can dispatch any of the inmates who might accidentally rise as our kind.”
Gregor’s pride in the young ex-emperor was obvious. “That is a very good plan, assuming the soldiers will wish to join us. Now, we just have to convince Millicent and her friends to assist us.”
“Let me handle that,” I said and marched out of the library and down the hall to the sitting room. I could be very persuasive when I needed to be. Having deadly crosses embedded on my palms helped. Even a glimpse of them would have most vampires willing to follow my orders.
Thaddeus grinned at me when I entered and offered me an elegant seated bow. I caught an errant thought from Luc along the lines of tearing Teddy’s head off and using it as a bowling ball. Stifling a grin of my own, I kept my expression chilly.
Millicent’s back went stiff as she realized we’d returned, but she didn’t deign to turn around and face us. She clearly expected to be treated like royalty and she was going to be sadly disappointed. “Gather around, troops,” I said. “We have a job to do and we need your help.”
Standing, Thaddeus snapped me a salute. “Major Thaddeus reporting for duty, mistress!”
I couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. Millicent reluctantly stood as the rest of her retinue joined Thaddeus in a neat line. “What help do you require?” she asked as she pushed her way through to stand in front of her companions. As the oldest, she thought of herself as their leader and none of them disputed her right to do so.
“We’re going to a jail in the U.S. to convert a couple of hundred criminals into fledglings,” Geordie told her brightly.
“I was not talking to you, servant boy,” she said coldly without even glancing at the teen. “I was speaking to Natalie.”
“We’re going to a jail in the U.S. to convert a couple of hundred criminals into fledglings,” I told her. “By the way, his name is Geordie. I don’t want to hear you call him, or Ishida, ‘servant boy’ again.”
“They are abominations that should have been destroyed long ago,” she huffed. “It is known to anyone who possesses sense that children should not be turned into our kind. Their minds and bodies are not equipped to deal with our hungers.”
My reply was almost frigid enough to raise frost.
“They aren’t children, they are teenagers, and they deal with our hungers just fine. They are also my friends and they’ve helped save the world three times. Where were you when the First was converting our kind into imps? Where were you when the Second and his brothers rose and created a horde of slaves? I don’t remember seeing you anywhere when the Viltarans landed and started changing humans into their clones.”
Millicent dropped her eyes beneath my accusing stare. “We did not know that our help was required,” she said stiffly.
“It’s required now,” I told her. Looking her up and down, I switched my examination to her entourage. “Find some normal clothes to wear. We’re going to a prison, not to a ball.”
He might be a grownup version of Geordie, but Thaddeus managed to put aside his mischievousness. “We will, of course, aid you in any way that we can. Unfortunately, we don’t possess normal clothing. We erroneously presumed that we would return to Court life.” While Gregor wore one of his hand tailored suits, the rest of us were dressed casually. The courtiers were overdressed and out of place.
“There should be spare clothing in the servants’ quarters,” Gregor told them. “One of my men will assist you to find something suitable.” Hovering nearby, a guard snapped to attention and led the way down the hall. Millicent glanced down at her beautiful gown, ruby red this time, then straightened her back. With a grudging nod in my general direction, she glided after the others towards the back of the mansion.
Luc turned to Gregor. “I assume you have a plan on how we’re going to accomplish this task?”
I wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear that the smartest of us all had already devised a strategy. “I propose that Natalie should visit the prison warden first. She can convince him not to interfere with our proceedings.”
By ‘convince’, he meant bamboozle. No prison warden in their right mind would allow us to squirrel away any of their convicts. I wasn’t sure whether they’d care if we fed the worst of their inmates to the fledglings or not. His feelings weren’t really a factor, since the only reason I was even contemplating doing this was to save their world yet again.
While we were waiting for the courtiers to change, I took Luc with me to scout out the prison. It took less than a second to travel halfway around the world. We appeared a short distance from the maximum security complex that was surrounded by arid land. Wherever we were, there were no other signs of civilization in the area.
Bright lights blazed inside the buildings and exercise yard. Two of their prisoners had gone missing and they had to know that something supernatural was behind their disappearances. Scanning the minds of the guards, I garnered that the video had been too grainy for them to make out our faces. They didn’t realize we were vampires and assumed we were some kind of aliens.
I located the warden and found him to be alone. Linking hands with Luc, I willed us into the man’s office. He was tall, broad shouldered and African-American. The nameplate on his desk said ‘Warden Jeffries’. Standing with his back to us, he studied a bank of monitors. One of the screens had been frozen in place and showed Luc and me talking to Higgins. Luc was blocking most of me from sight and only part of his face showed on the screen. Of me, I could see my butt and one leg and nothing else.
“The camera really does add ten pounds,” I observed quietly.
Whirling around, Jeffries fumbled for the gun at his hip. He made the mistake of meeting my eyes and all resistance drained out of him. My hypnotism worked a lot faster than it once had. One quick glance was enough to ensure that any human would fall beneath my control. I could also control vampires, but I didn’t use it against them unless I had to. I had a feeling that my powers had become far stronger than they used to be.
“Warden Jeffries,” I said to my temporary slave, “gather your men together in a room where they can be safely contained.”
“Do you want me to call in the guards on outside patrol as well?” He might be beneath my spell, but I hadn’t stripped him of his intelligence like some vampires did when they took control of a human’s mind.
“Just the guards in this cell block should do,” Luc told me.
“What he said,” I said to the warden.
With a nod, Jeffries sat down at his desk and picked up his radio. With a few terse words, he ordered his men to gather in a meeting hall. We watched one of the monitors as guards began filing into a large room a couple of minutes later.
“That’s the last one,” the warden said as a final man stepped through the door then closed it behind him.
“Lock them in,” I instructed. Jeffries stood and walked to the console to the left of the monitors. He pushed a button and the penned guards immediately started shouting in panic and reaching for their radios to call for help.
“Tell them that the prison has been invaded by aliens and that they’re safer where they are,” Luc advised.
I smiled at my one true love, glad that he was more than just a pretty face and a hot body. “Good thinking.”
The guards calmed down once Jeffries conveyed the lie but they remained uneasy. “Sit tight and wait for further orders,” their boss commanded them then switched his radio off and turned to me expectantly.
“Good job. Now wait here.” Now that the cell block had been secured, it was time to visit with the prisoners. Leaving the warden behind, Luc and I left the office and appeared near Higgins’ vacant cell.
Sergeant Wesley sent me an appraising look as we approached him. “Ma’am,” he said with a polite nod. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I’m sorry you were thrown in jail, Sergeant Wesley.” He accepted my apology with a guarded nod.
Up and down the hallway, imprisoned soldiers watched our interaction. None asked questions or begged for us to release them. All had fallen beneath my spell previously and almost seemed to have an inkling as to why I was there.
“I’m here to make you an offer,” I said loudly enough for most of them to hear me. “A new threat is coming that makes our fight with the Viltarans look like a game of tag.” My words were repeated to those who were out of range.
“What is this threat?” a soldier asked from halfway down the hallway.
“It’s another type of alien,” I responded. “Unlike the previous adversaries that we’ve faced, these aliens don’t intend to try to take over your world.” I paused for a moment to add weight to my next words. “They intend to eat it.”
“What do you need us to do, ma’am?” someone called as several expletives were uttered.
“These creatures survive in water. Fairly soon, they’ll run out of food and will head for land. They’ll most likely retreat to the water again as soon as we attack them. Humans won’t be able to battle them if they sink deeply beneath the surface.” I let them come to their own conclusions.
“You want us to become vampires?” one brave soul called out then laughed incredulously.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” someone else objected. “We’ll be turned into monsters that’ll rip people apart and feed on them!” Anger and fright quickly spread through the group.
Sergeant Wesley reached for my arm through the bars. “Is that why you took Corporal Higgins away? To be converted?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure I could turn anyone and had to test my ability.”
“Did it work?” His eyes searched mine, looking for a lie.
“Yep. He’s one of us now.”
“Is he a blood crazed monster?” It was a well-known fact that fledglings woke ravenous for blood and lacked the ability to control their hungers.
“No. My fledglings are different from normal. You’ll need blood to survive, but you’ll be able to control your hunger and you won’t lose who you are in the process.”
Luc made a suggestion. “Perhaps you can discuss your options while Natalie and I collect the Corporal. Once you see his condition for yourselves, it might help you to make up your minds.”
“Good idea. We’ll need a few minutes to talk it over,
” the soldier said.
I zapped Luc back to France in time to watch as Millicent emerged from the servants’ quarters in a borrowed guard’s outfit. While it was far too long in the arms, it barely fit across her buxom chest. Folding the sleeves up, she’d already done the same for the pants. She looked ridiculous wearing the outfit with a pair of bright red high heels, but I kept my smirk to myself. None of the courtiers were happy about wearing normal clothing, but at least they weren’t complaining out loud.
Higgins had washed his face and had changed his shirt while we’d been talking to his comrades. He was far more presentable without the bloodstains. I also noticed that his looks had already improved. Instead of being merely average, he was now handsome. His jaw was squarer, his eyes were slightly wider apart and his nose was thinner. They were subtle changes that were a result of becoming the undead. Women would be more inclined to be bamboozled by an attractive vampire rather than an ugly one. The ugly ones had other tricks up their sleeves to snare a meal. My maker had been hideous in the extreme but he’d been able to change his appearance at will. I’d been suckered into thinking that he was a frail and harmless old man. That illusion hadn’t lasted long, but he’d already ensnared me by then.
I wasn’t sure how many people I could transport at once, but knew I could handle up to a dozen. Trying to shift more and failing would be too embarrassing so I opted to shift our team in stages. Gregor left a few of his men behind to keep watch over his mansion. Danton’s warriors weren’t about to leave him unguarded, so they would have to come as well.
“I’ll take you guys first,” I said to my closest friends and Higgins. “I’ll be back for you next,” I said to Danton and his men. The monk nodded and his warriors seemed appeased that they wouldn’t remain behind. “I’ll come back for you lot last,” I told Millicent’s crew.
“We shall await your return with bated breath,” Thaddeus quipped.
