Death Conquers

by J. C. Diem

  “I distinctly remember the time you did,” he said with a small smile. “I would not mind if you repeated the act, even if my blood tastes like arse to you.” I smirked at him mocking my Aussie accent. “We’d best return to the others before they send out a search party for us,” he suggested.

  Luc searched the wardrobe and chest of drawers for a change of clothing and I did the same. A few of my belongings still remained from before I’d slunk back to Australia to sulk. “We should really try to find some new clothes for everyone,” I said. Danton and his warriors still wore their sadly outdated robes and my soldiers desperately needed normal clothing.

  “Gregor was going to hunt up something suitable for your men from the servants’ quarters in the catacombs. There should be enough clothing for everyone.”

  Relieved that I had people on my team who were much better at planning than me, I realized that I’d have been lost without them. I couldn’t even imagine a future without my close friends in my life.

  Gregor had indeed been busy while we’d been sleeping and he’d scrounged up enough clothes for everyone. My soldiers would become far less conspicuous once they changed into their new clothing.

  All of our friends were gathered in the living area when we appeared. Geordie gave me a reproachful look. “I know you like your privacy, but I wish you wouldn’t disappear like that.”

  There was more behind his rebuke than mere worry but I didn’t pry. I’d promised him I wouldn’t deliberately read his mind and I’d attempt to live up to it. “Sorry. I’ll try not to let it happen again.” While Geordie was mollified, Luc was dismayed. “Until this disaster is over,” I added and Luc heaved a silent sigh of relief. I didn’t mention that I’d dreamed yet another calamity might already be heading our way. We’d deal with one problem at a time and worry about what my latest dream might portend later.

  Gregor thankfully changed the subject away from our sex life. “Have any of our enemies attacked land as yet?”

  Hidden in the catacombs, we had no access to the news, since the power had been cut when the mansion had burned down. Sending out my senses, I swept them outwards and hovered over an octosquid that was just retreating back into the ocean after destroying a town. My dismayed expression was enough to alert the others.

  “Where did they strike?” Igor asked.

  Reading the surface thoughts of the survivors, it was easy enough to figure out. “It wiped out a coastal village in China.” The shocked images that I read from the few civilians who’d managed to escape were sickening.

  “We need to see what kind of damage we can expect,” Gregor murmured. “Do you think you can scrounge up a computer?”

  I nodded. “I’ll find one somewhere.” Luc didn’t protest at being left behind as I teleported to another location. Like me, he was feeling guilty. While we’d been feeding our flesh hungers, thousands of humans had been sucked into the maw of an octosquid. The creature had attacked during daylight, so I wasn’t sure what we could have done to stop it, but my guilt didn’t lessen.

  Materializing in the shadows of the nearby town, I honed in on a human that sold a range of electronic devices. He squeaked in surprise when I appeared right in front of him. The sun was still out and a shaft pierced the window and fell across my arm. The clerk looked down as smoke began to waft from my sleeve. Grabbing the man before he could scream, I darted into the shadows and captured him with my eyes.

  “What do you need from me?” he asked as I put him under lightly.

  “I need a computer that has a long battery life.” It felt strange to be speaking fluent French, but I figured I’d get used to it eventually.

  “I have a laptop with a battery that will last for eight hours.”

  A computer would be excellent but I realized it probably wouldn’t be much use to us without the necessary equipment. “We don’t have internet access.”

  Waving the problem away, the clerk stepped over to a counter and unclipped a demonstration laptop. He spent a few minutes gathering items together then went about setting up the laptop so that it would work for me.

  “It is set up and ready to use,” he said when he was done. “This is a mobile device that will allow you to use the internet anywhere in France.” He dropped it into a bag, along with power cords for the laptop. We wouldn’t be able to use the cords in the catacombs, but we could always use the safe house to recharge the batteries.

  “Thanks. Forget you saw me and report the equipment as stolen.”

  Nodding, he turned away, already forgetting that I existed as I took the bag then transported myself back to the catacombs.

  Ishida took the gear and set it up on a coffee table. His hands went to work and he called up a news article on the attack that had happened only a short time ago. Footage that had been taken by several survivors had already been sold to the media. The video was amateurish, grainy and had been taken from cell phones, yet the devastation was still clear to see. What had once been a thriving fishing village was now a broken mass of rubble. The first short, shaky video showed hundreds of black tentacles emerging from the ocean in search of victims. The picture changed and zoomed in on an alien appendage. It wrapped itself around a five story building and plucked it from the ground like it was a flower. Peeling one side of the building off with a second limb, the octosquid held the building over its maw and shook it. Dozens of humans fell screaming into its gaping mouth, reminding me of raisins falling from a box.

  The picture shifted to a tentacle that snaked across the road and grabbed a taxi. The passengers futilely tried to jump to safety. One fell ten feet and another tentacle appeared beneath him just before he hit the ground. He disappeared into one of the dozens of secondary mouths that ran up and down the limb. It was a blurry shot, but the ever gnashing teeth were still discernable. So was the spray of blood and chunks of flesh that erupted from the opening.

  Ishida pulled up several news articles then came across an urgent message directed at me. Commander Owens’ face was shown in a clip beneath the title; World Leaders Call For Help From Natalie The Vampire.

  “Catchy title,” Geordie said mockingly as Ishida clicked on the video to play it for us.

  Clearly reading from a script, the commander made his plea. “Natalie, your presence has been requested at a meeting in London with concerned world leaders in relation to the attack that was recently made on China. Please meet me at the docks after sundown, so that I can escort you to the meeting.”

  His meeting place would be cryptic to all but a few and I appreciated his attempt at discretion even while shaking my head at their audacity. “After everything they’ve put us through, I can’t believe they think I’m just going to waltz into a meeting with the kind of people who decided to kick us off our own planet.”

  Gregor watched the screen thoughtfully. “They were not this desperate ten years ago. After seeing the corpse of an octosquid and a live one destroying a small town, they are now aware of how much danger they face. Logically, our kind has the best chance of stopping them.”

  “Do you believe they will offer us aid?” Igor asked with a hint of derision.

  Luc gestured towards the clip that Ishida had paused. “After seeing that, what choice do they have?”

  “Yes,” Gregor agreed. “I believe they will be far more amenable to working with us now that videos of the attack have spread around the world. Their people will lose confidence in them and the civilians will most likely begin to rebel if nothing is done to stop the aliens.”

  I could easily picture townsfolk rioting and chaos reigning if they became panicked. Humans could be highly irrational at times of stress and the octosquids were going to cause a lot of stress worldwide.

  ·~·

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As requested, I met the commander at the docks, but I didn’t go alone. I took my entire retinue of friends, allies and soldiers with me. Owens’ eyes widened when we all suddenly appeared but he didn’t protest at our numbers. Nodding a greeting
, he gestured towards a waiting truck. It was nowhere near large enough to hold all of us but that wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Forget the truck,” I told him. “Just think of where you want to go and I’ll take us there.”

  He was disconcerted for a moment then nodded again. A picture of a multi-story redbrick building in the heart of London formed. Zeroing in on the location with my senses, I picked up on hundreds of humans. Scanning their minds, I found no hint of treachery, just an overwhelming sense of fright and desperation.

  Changing my plan slightly, I turned to Higgins. “You guys stay with the boat and make sure it’s fuelled up and has some extra gas stored down below.”

  Wearing casual clothing, my soldiers looked far less sinister now that they’d ditched their orange prison uniforms. All were armed and their pockets bulged with spare ammunition and more of the explosives. Those without pockets still carried the satin bags. Charlie glanced down at his emerald bag and shook his head in embarrassment. “This bag doesn’t go with my shoes at all.” Geordie giggled and the redhead grinned back at him.

  Gregor’s and Danton’s guards also stayed behind but Danton stuck close to me, silently indicating that he wished to accompany us. Masterless for the first time in several thousand years, he lacked purpose now that the prophet was gone. Skimming his mind, I saw that he and Gregor had known each other long before the Court had been formed. Danton would fit in well with our group and his men were loyal to him, even if they weren’t my minions. None harboured any thoughts of treachery, so I didn’t mind them being part of our team.

  Exclamations of alarm rang out when our party appeared in the room the commander had pictured. Soldiers from several nationalities raised their weapons. Owens and Danton were quickly shielded by my friends, since they were far more fragile than us. Danton might be a vampire but a strategically place bullet could still end his life.

  “Hold your fire!” a very British voice shouted. A tall, gangly man in his early fifties hurried over. Extending his hand, he smiled but his eyes were worried. “Natalie, thank you for coming.” His dark suit was probably expensive but it was slightly short in the sleeves and hung on him awkwardly.

  “Thank you for inviting us, Prime Minister Townsend.” He had no way of knowing that I’d just plucked his name and title out of his head. He was a famous figure in the UK and he wasn’t surprised that I knew of him.

  Holding his hand out again, he offered it to Luc. “And you are?”

  “I am Lucentio.” Luc shook Townsend’s hand but he didn’t offer a surname. One by one, my friends introduced themselves. Ishida didn’t offer a surname either, or mention his former title.

  “Welcome, all,” Townsend said and gestured towards some chairs that had just hastily been brought in by his lackeys. A long, rectangular table sat in the centre of the room. It was large enough to accommodate the thirty representatives of several countries but it would be squishy now that we’d arrived.

  Not enough time had passed since the alien’s attack on China for every world leader or their delegates to have arrived. Those that had come had brought along advisors as well as bodyguards. My personal retinue outnumbered theirs, but not by much. Only the highest on the political food chain would be able to sit down. Their minions, and my allies, would have to stand in the background.

  After some hasty shuffling, we each took a seat at the table. Townsend, sitting at the far end of the table , kicked off the meeting, since he was hosting it. “Oh behalf of everyone, I bid you a warm welcome and offer you our thanks for agreeing to meet with us.” Fairly ordinary in looks, Townsend gave off a pleasant vibe and didn’t seem to harbour any malice towards us. In fact, he was a closet vampire fan and owned almost every known book and movie that was dedicated to our kind. I was both surprised and embarrassed to discover that a movie, several books and even a TV series had been created about myself and my friends. Geordie and Ishida would no doubt get a kick out of that. I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than watch or read about myself.

  While it wouldn’t be necessary to bamboozle Townsend into doing anything that needed to be done, the others were a different story. All were petrified of us. More specifically, they were terrified of me. I’d cold-bloodedly murdered the President of the United States and was therefore unpredictable and untrustworthy.

  “Commander Owens advised us that it was you and your people who killed the gigantic alien that is currently floating off the coast of Ireland,” Townsend said.

  “We did.” I could tell they wanted more information, so I elaborated. “We borrowed a boat and used it as a lure.” Shadow was supposed to be a secret, so I didn’t mention it further. “It was an effective ploy and the octosquid swallowed us whole. Once we were inside its stomach, we cut our way up into its brain and blasted it apart with some weapons that we borrowed from your armed forces.” Owens had already conveyed the details of our battle to them but they wanted to hear it from us.

  “I’d like to know how you not only knew that such highly classified weaponry existed, but how you managed to locate it,” a British soldier said coldly. He wore an impressive swathe of medals on his chest.

  “I knew about them the same way that I know your nickname was Prissy Pete as a child,” I replied just as coolly. I could see how he’d earned the nickname. He was now sixty but he was still uptight, rigid and prissy. His full name and title was Admiral Peter York. He was used to being shown respect, but he wasn’t going to get it from me if he didn’t have the courtesy of showing us some.

  Flushing in embarrassment, he clenched his jaw. “Are you implying that you can read our minds?”

  “No. I’m flat out saying it.”

  Excited rather than frightened by the prospect, Townsend moved forward until he was sitting on the edge of his seat. “Can you read the minds of the aliens as well?”

  “Yes, but I can’t read them as well as a human.” No one was going to like what I was about to tell them. “They’re pissed off that one of their friends is dead.”

  “Is that why they attacked my country?” the Chinese diplomat asked icily. His female advisor leaned over his shoulder and whispered caution for him to remain calm and not to anger me. She darted wary looks at me but her gaze kept straying to Kokoro and Ishida. She was puzzled by their presence and wondered just how many Japanese vampires had survived the destruction of their island. I wasn’t about to tell her that they were the only two left.

  Gregor deflected the attention away from me. “It is one of the reasons why your country was targeted, but it could just as easily have been any coastal town or city anywhere in the world.”

  Townsend paled slightly. “Commander Owens told us that there are nine more of these creatures still out there. Is that true?”

  Gregor nodded. Dressed in a fresh suit, he was the picture of elegant sophistication once more. “That is correct.”

  “Is there any way for us to negotiate peace with these aliens?” a Russian colonel asked.

  “You cannot negotiate with creatures such as these,” Igor replied. His accent was thick enough to make it difficult for some of the foreigners to understand him. Even with my gifts for languages, I still had trouble understanding him sometimes when he spoke in English. “They live to eat and their appetites are voracious.”

  “They are sea creatures,” one of the European diplomats pointed out. “Surely they must remain in or near water. If we simply evacuate the coastal towns, we can wait them out. Once their food runs out, they’ll starve.”

  Despite the attack on China, and my earlier warning, none of the authorities had told their civilians about the impending doom and begun to move them inland yet.

  Gregor shook his head regretfully. “I am afraid it will not be as easy as that. They are capable of leaving water and of moving around on land. Now that they’ve attacked humans without meeting any kind of resistance, I am afraid they will follow your citizens inland, gobbling them up as they go.”

  “What is the life span of these a
liens?” an American asked. A quick trip into his mind told me he was from the U.S. embassy based in London. He wasn’t exactly high up on the hierarchy, but he was the best the Americans had in the country at the moment.

  “They live for several hundred thousand years,” Geordie said in answer to the question. One of the octosquids had revealed this to us during our trip to Viltar.

  A shocked murmur ruffled around the table.

  “Then we have no choice but to engage the aliens in battle and attempt to kill them all,” the Chinese diplomat said heavily.

  “I am afraid so,” Gregor confirmed.

  “What can we do to help?” Townsend asked. He put on a grave face but his eyes danced with excitement. Ever since we’d returned from outer space to save first Manhattan then Las Vegas, he’d been secretly hoping for a disaster to hit his nation so that he might one day be able to meet us. The near invasion of the UK was a dream come true for him, even if it was a nightmare for the rest of the world.

  “You can keep us supplied with weapons and ammunition,” Luc said. “We would also like to continue to use the boat that we’ve already borrowed once.”

  Townsend nodded his permission and his thanks for us keeping Shadow a secret. “Of course. Have you decided which of the aliens you’re going to target next?”

  All eyes swung to me. “I think we should track down the octosquid that attacked China first. It has a taste for human flesh now and it will be more inclined to attack land again.” The Chinese diplomat bent his head in a stiff bow of thanks.

  “How are you going to get the boat all the way to the Pacific Ocean?” Townsend asked.

  “I’ll teleport it there,” I replied and hid my grimace at how drained I would be once I did.

  “We could use a few bags of blood for food,” Kokoro said casually. It was a brilliant idea and I could have kissed her for thinking of it. She caught my gaze and gave me a tiny nod when she saw my gratitude.