Empire of Blood (Book 2): Fading In Darkness

by Wilson, Robert S.

  “Great. Thanks. Once he’s off with them, anything you need from me, just say the word.”

  Whindsor smiled and nodded. Hank looked back at Toby. The boy returned his look with one of bitterness.

  About twenty minutes later Johnson came around looking for Toby and Hank motioned for the boy to come out of the van.

  “No. I’m not leaving you, Dad.”

  Hank grabbed Toby’s arm and pulled the boy up to his feet. “I’m sorry, Toby, but you have to go somewhere safe.”

  “But I feel safer with you, Dad. I don’t know these people and I don’t know where they’re taking me and I’ve been so afraid being away from you all this time and I’m not going. You can’t make me.”

  Hank stiffened. “Hell if I can’t, Toby.” He picked up the boy from behind with ease and pulled him from the van and began to drag him kicking and screaming to the other van. Johnson followed staying clear of them, a look of concern on his face.

  When Hank set Toby down, the boy immediately took off in a run and before Hank had a second to think he was in front of him. All the fear and frustration of worry had built up to a single point and now it was exploding out of Hank. He struck Toby in the face sending him to the ground. Toby lay there nose bleeding and crying.

  Hank stood there, his mind spinning with guilt and grief unable to do anything else but apologize over and over, but Toby only responded by sliding away from him. “My nose.” He choked for a second and then spit up blood and vomit all in one big gush along the pavement.

  “Toby, I’m sorry, you don’t understand—”

  “GET AWAY FROM ME.” Toby’s scream echoed off of the nearby buildings and inside Hank’s head in a way that would never stop torturing him. Then Johnson helped Toby up and walked him to the van. Another soldier ran up with a small case and began cleaning up Toby’s nose. All the soldiers were staring at Hank with an uneasy sense of fear and disdain. Hank turned away and sobbed at what he had done. If only Toby could understand. But ultimately what mattered was that the boy was away from his father before he did even worse to the boy. He tried to focus on that much as he heard the van start up and drive away.

  * * *

  In a vast white temple the echoes of many footsteps and voices bounced around the room in a cyclone of confusion as Joseph stepped toward the crowd of news reporters and gathered followers held back by police officers and Imperial soldiers. Joseph waved at the crowd, a large smile on his face that transferred to theirs as they saw his gesture. His long white robe stretched out behind him as he made his way in front of the many cameras prepped for the announcement.

  Everything was going according to plan and he couldn’t have been more happy with it all until a sense of falling gripped him from out of nowhere and he literally and physically fell to the ground in slow motion. Hands from every direction reached out to try and help him. Screams and cries called out to him in a low pitch of nonsense. The pain he felt in every inch of his body was not real, he knew, but that’s what made it even worse. He knew it’s what she was feeling.

  Tear them apart, my love. Tear them apart before they have a chance to come after you.

  A fury filled Joseph then both from his own sense of terrible loss and from what he knew Bellona was filling his soul with. He fought back against it though. Now was the time to stand and be the rock he needed to be to keep the people in line. If he showed weakness now, even more would strike back at him. And this little revolution had gone far enough.

  He stood solid as stone then as he felt the last moments of her life fade away. Then he smiled and waved at his people again to show them he was back on his feet. The crowd erupted with applause. One final outpouring of love came from Bellona as she bled her last.

  * * *

  The blood was filling Ishan in a way he had never experienced before. He could feel his body convulsing but somehow that was so far away and nowhere near as important as what was happening in his mind. He saw times long before he had ever known, people in a cave not much unlike the hive. They were like no people he’d ever seen before. Even their faces weren’t recognizable as completely human though there was an obvious relation there. Through Bellona’s eyes he saw these people surround her and worship her and eventually die and become food for her.

  She was young then, still a child. Something Ishan had never imagined such an elder queen vampire could ever be. But he’d known all along they hadn’t just come from thin air. They had been born and raised same as any other ancestor vampire. And with that thought, he wondered why there were no ancestor vampires. So far all he’d seen were human vampires waiting to court the queen. He watched, he waited and he lived through a dozen years in her skin and understood vague early languages that almost couldn’t even be construed as such. And as she grew she eventually developed into a young woman and then the need came.

  She took many human vampires into herself and to their graves in the attempt to fill that need. And finally after the last of the vampires were depleted, she felt the minds growing within her. So many of them. But they weren’t like the other minds she had long been able to control. These were more connected to her in a way she had never experienced. They were part of her. And before long the time came for her to let them out into the world.

  Through Bellona’s memories, Ishan experienced one of the most painful kinds of labor any creature can go through. Deep in the heart of a cave Bellona had found for herself, thousands of eggs fought to be free from inside her. It took days for them all to come out and every moment of it was torturous, but eventually they all lay in a pile below her and she covered them with her body and curled up and slept a long deep sleep.

  The emotions that went through her body during this process were more varied than Ishan had experienced in his entire existence. Having centuries ago experienced human childbirth through the memories of a young Roman girl, it was obvious that even a human female didn’t encounter nearly the amount of hormones that a vampire queen did from pregnancy and on after labor.

  Eventually the eggs hatched and Ishan learned the euphoric joy of giving life to thousands of children who were so connected with their mother as to be of one mind. From that moment on, there was no longer a village. The young ancestor vampires spread out into the night and decimated every nearby village within hundreds of miles. And as they grew older and the villages regrouped and rebuilt, the Queen used her powers of mind control to keep them there willing always to feed her children. And she taught the young vampires to restrain. To only feed as needed so as not to destroy the populations again.

  Centuries passed and Ishan experienced many wonders from before he was born and the desert became a place of great religion. The nation of Israel grew around Bellona’s little cave and before long the villagers were worshipping a new god. But this was good for Bellona. It helped her keep herself and her children hidden.

  And then the Romans came. They conquered the people there and made them follow Roman laws and pay Roman taxes. She watched it all from her hole in the ground.

  Years went on and then time within Bellona’s life seemed to slow down. Ishan had lived enough lives through the blood to know that he was about to experience something very important. Late one night one of her children went out to feed when it came across a strange unkempt man following it. Ishan and Bellona watched through the vampire’s eyes through Bellona’s familial connection as the man’s eyes blackened completely and he overpowered the vampire and drained it of blood. The vision disappeared completely as though the connection had never been there in the first place.

  Bellona mourned for several weeks before sending out a multitude of her children after the man. It took another few weeks before they found him, but when they did, they brought him back to their mother. Bellona surfaced from deep within the cave to find the man bound by nearly twenty of her children. He was fast and he was strong. Faster and stronger than her children but not her. Her mourning had ended in anger and yet now that she saw how strong this man was a new de
sire overtook her.

  She took him that night and yet he survived. She had never known such a strength in a male and couldn’t help but respect it. To want it for herself.

  “What are you?”

  The man never spoke. He didn’t seem to know even the faintest form of language. Judging by the memories she experienced from his blood, he had been alive for a number of centuries longer than her. And yet he was not like her. He was more human and yet not. He simply looked at her with blood lust. And in her desire she couldn’t stop herself from giving in. She would let him feed of her often and when she hadn’t the strength she would give up one of her children instead. And always it was worth it to watch his strength and power. And then came the day she felt it stir within her womb.

  A new solitary mind.

  Chapter 39

  The Shadows of Deja Vu

  After a long while standing and sobbing, a hand gripped Hank’s shoulder.

  “Hey, are you all right?” It was Whindsor’s voice.

  “Yeah. I will be anyway.”

  “You did what you had to do. We don’t have much time and the last thing that kid needs is to be out in the middle of this shit.”

  Hank nodded and wiped his face. Whindsor held out his hand and Hank took it and got to his feet.

  “Look, right now we’re all set so if you want to go be with your son, it’s okay. If we need you I can radio into the safehouse for you.”

  Hank thought about that for a long moment.

  “I mean, you don’t look like you’re really fit to deal with this right now. I mean I’m sure you could, but maybe—”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain to me. I think I will go and at least apologize to him. I owe him that much. Thanks, Whindsor.”

  Bill nodded.

  “And I’ll be back soon.”

  “We’ll be here… Maybe not all of us, but we’ll be here.” And with that he saluted to Hank and Hank, unsure how to respond, simply nodded.

  They sent him off in the second van with a handwritten address, a pistol, and a stake-gun. He wasn’t quite sure what to think about the stake-gun. He didn’t imagine it could do much against anything more than maybe the ancestor vampires. He set both firearms in the passenger seat and started the van and then drove off for 2515 Franklin Avenue.

  When he arrived, the place was much larger than he expected. But then, who knew how many people they were holing up in the place. Hank took a long look at the firearms and got out of the van, leaving them behind. In the dark the building looked almost dark brown, but as Hank stepped from the van and came closer, he could see it was more of a dark rust color. When he was at the front double doors he found the small rectangular box to the left of the doors and opened it. Neon green numbers sent out an eerie glow from inside. Hank typed in the keycode written on his hand. As the door unlatched and he went inside, he quickly wiped the numbers away from his sweaty palm just in case.

  One of the soldiers he recognized from the hive sat in a plastic chair leaned back as Hank came inside. He stood and saluted Hank and Hank merely nodded back.

  “I’m here to see my son, Toby Evans.”

  The soldier began rifling through a thick stack of papers clipped to a clipboard. “Yes, sir… Uh, yeah, here. Evans. He’s in room 42B on the second floor. The stairs are over there.” The soldier pointed to the far corner of the huge open room.

  “Thanks.”

  As Hank made his way up the steps he could smell Toby’s blood and it sickened him to realize that. He was starting to worry that he’d made a mistake, but it wasn’t like the vision so he had to hope that it was safe. When he got to the second floor it took him no time at all to find Toby’s room. He knocked and from inside he heard Toby’s exhausted and defeated voice.

  “Come in.”

  Hank opened the door and quietly slipped into the room without closing the door. He didn’t want the boy to feel trapped.

  Toby was lying on the end of a bed curled up into a ball staring into empty space.

  “Son?”

  Like night and day, Toby jolted from the bed with a fury. “No, I told you to leave me alone and I meant it.” He pushed Hank back. Hank didn’t resist the boy and he lost his balance and fell into the hallway. A tall man in a white dress shirt, slacks and a tie walked up then, his bald head reflecting the overhead halogen lighting.

  “Is something wrong, son?” he asked Toby.

  “Yes, tell him to go away, I don’t want to see him,” Toby said.

  The man looked down at Hank to speak and Toby took off running down the hall. Hank got up to follow but the tall man grabbed him from behind. “You’ll let him go if you know what’s good for you. If the boy doesn’t want to talk to you, maybe you should leave him alone.”

  “He’s my son. I just need to apologize to him.”

  The man loosened for a split second and Hank took his chance, He pulled his arms snapping at least one bone in the man’s arms at the same time. The man moaned in pain as Hank took for the stairs to follow after Toby. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the man, but he couldn’t let Toby just run off without letting him know how sorry he truly was.

  When he got to the bottom of the stairs a feeling like ice clenched around his heart as he realized he could no longer smell Toby’s scent at all. He raced for the door and ran out into the street calling for him. “Toby!” Only his voice echoed back to him at first. Then after he turned the corner, the distant sound of Toby’s heartbeat faded into existence. Hank ran toward the sound. As he rounded another corner the first explosion went off. He could feel the shock wave from it as he fought to keep on his feet still running toward that distant beating heart.

  A moment later another explosion shook the ground and the sound of gunfire echoed off the walls and ricocheted in Hank’s brain. Everything was becoming just a little bit too familiar as Hank jogged along the sidewalk. The wind blew a huge cloud of smoke to the east in front of Hank and brought with it the thick familiar smell of sulfur.

  Fuck. I’m here.

  Just ahead on the right he could see the alleyway that would forever haunt his dreams.

  No. I can’t go this way. I can’t do what I know I’m going to do.

  Hank took a deep breath. Something was very wrong. He didn’t want to murder his son, but he was merely steps away from when and where his vision had showed him and he knew just how quickly everything could change in that solitary blink of an eye. He listened for Toby’s heartbeat. It was wild with anger and fear; beating like a fast steady war drum. Tears streamed down Hank’s face and he turned away from the sight of that alley and began to run.

  He ran for Toby. He ran for himself. He ran for the future where the two of them would escape together.

  * * *

  When Simon woke up, the first thing he did was touch his throat. It was mostly healed but still slightly open and stinging badly. He rose to find himself alone in an empty cavern—the Queen’s quarters. He wondered where she was. If Ishan was alive, and what had happened while he was unconscious. He stepped out into what had been the main cavern of the hive to find the ceiling much rougher and higher and the ground covered in large chunks of rock and stalagmites and stalactites everywhere. In the distance, he could see the crumpled shape of Ishan lying still on the ground. He ran to the ancient vampire and tried to turn him over. He wouldn’t budge. His fangs were clamped hard into the throat of that other queen. Her body was shriveled and dry.

  It took some prying but Simon was able to pull Ishan’s teeth from her and turn his body over. He listened inside the vampire’s head for the sound of firing synapses Ishan had long ago taught him to detect. They were there. In fact they were like rockets. He’d never heard synapses firing so quickly. He looked over at the obviously drained queen vampire and thought he understood. Then as he gripped Ishan’s hands to drag him away from there, a shock shot from the elder vampire’s skin into Simon’s and he fell to the ground convulsing and burning with pain.

  He saw vision
s of strange faces, a desert, and a large temple he vaguely recognized. When his body was still again and the visions were gone, he took a few deep breaths and looked at Ishan’s still body. He was sure now that what he had suspected was in fact happening. Ishan was living out the queen vampire’s life and who knew how long such a life had been. Worse yet, who knew how long Ishan would be unconscious and what he would experience while under. Would he even be the same person when he awoke?

  * * *

  A single high-pitched scream ripped through the air and pierced Hank’s heart, nearly sending him crashing face first into the road. Toby. The world stopped as Hank turned around and ran the other way, the fire of his breath burning in and out of his lungs and the soles of his feet tearing away at the concrete below. In the mere seconds it took him to recover the ground he had ran the other way, the screams grew more and more anguishing and tortured. There was a gurgling choke at the back of that throat now as it screamed for mercy and Hank running at inhuman speed still couldn’t get there fast enough. His body felt as if it were moving in slow motion, each leg stepping in front of the other, each building taking forever to pass, and then there it was.

  The alleyway again. Hank crossed the street like lightning and in the blink of an eye he could finally see around the corner.

  What he saw confused him. Toby’s head lay on the shoulder of a man as if he were comforting the boy. The two were embraced. And then it fell into place.

  Toby wasn’t moving.

  And Hank would have recognized him anywhere.

  His body froze. A flash of lightning blasted through the sky in the distance. It was like Hank was bolted to the road. He could only stand there and watch as Jack Draper pulled Toby’s lifeless body from his shoulder and tossed it into the dumpster like a worthless item of trash to be discarded and forgotten. Jack took a deep breath apparently unaware of Hank’s presence and then fell to the ground laughing and convulsing.