"Your heart rate is rather high, Mr. Withers," the vampire said. Simon stopped moving immediately and swallowed.
"How... how do you know that?" he asked.
"I can hear it. It is louder to me than the cable pulling the elevator. You should relax or you will end up like Roger Wallen," he said.
Roger Wallen had been the third Mediator to the vampires. He had died of a heart attack on his seventh meeting with them. Simon swallowed again. He practiced the focusing techniques the doctors had taught him in order to calm himself. Then he sneered at the vampire's back.
"I'm not a stupid coward like Roger Wallen. You filthy demons don't scare me. I fear only the Lord of heaven and earth. Roger Wallen wouldn't be dead if he had been faithful to the Lord. God punishes the weak and unfaithful," Simon said, his voice nearly cracking.
"If you say so, Mr. Withers," Luciano said, looking at Simon and smiling.
Simon couldn't help but falter a little from that grin. He let out a nervous cough and looked up at the red digital numbers. The numbers changed from 87 to 88. After a moment of staring at him, Luciano turned and faced the elevator door. Simon exhaled the breath he had been holding the entire time. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, he could just tell that Luciano's grin had widened.
After a while of focusing and eventually daydreaming about his trip home, Simon heard the "ding" that marked the arrival to their destination. The elevator doors opened, revealing a huge round open room with dinner tables everywhere. The walls were angled glass windows that looked out on the city. There were as many street lights, it seemed, as there had been stars in the sky on his way in the car. At the far end of the room was a door leading out to the balcony that seemed to go all around the building. It reminded Simon of the space needle in Seattle. He had never been there but he had seen many pictures. Luciano motioned to the door.
"The council is outside waiting," he said.
"Thanks," Simon replied. Then after a moment of hesitation he walked numbly toward the door. When he got to it, he could see several pale figures in various shades of clothing sitting at a table outside the door and to the left. He weakly pulled open the door and almost lost hold of it. One of the figures, in a movement he could barely discern, swished from the table over to hold the door for him. The gesture, probably only meant to be helpful, scared him worse than anything else had so far. A fit of laughter broke out from several of the vampires at the table; however, one of them did not look the least bit amused. The vampire holding the door was a much older-looking male, with neat, short, gray hair and prestigious features. He had brown eyes, unlike the blood red eyes of Luciano. As Simon’s heart slowed, he noticed a faint, familiar, sweet scent he couldn’t quite place.
"I am sorry, Mr. Withers, I did not mean to scare you," he said.
The vampires that were laughing at the table only laughed harder. One of them attempted to speak in between fits of laughter.
"Sure, you didn't, Edgar, sure you didn't," a slender vampire with short, messy blond hair said.
"Please let me introduce all of us," the gray-headed vampire said. "My name is Edgar. This is Peter," he said pointing to the blonde. "Stanislov," he said aiming his hand at a short male with brown wooly hair on his head and face. "Rachel," he said moving on to a beautiful redhead with green eyes next to Stanislov. "And Ishan," he added pointing to the end of the table to what could have been Luciano's shorter twin. Ishan was the only one at the table who wasn't still laughing. All of them were wearing business attire as well. Ishan looked back at Simon with a look of contempt. Simon noticed that Ishan also had red eyes, yet the others did not.
"We are pleased to meet you, Mr. Withers. Can I call you Simon?" he asked in a cold tone. The other vampires abruptly went quiet at the sound of his voice.
"Indeed, sir, please do," Simon said shakily.
"Sit down then," he said. Simon pulled out the only empty chair and sat down. The sweetness he had smelled was overpowering now. It seemed to emanate from the vampires. When he looked down at the table in front of him, he was surprised to see a plate of crab legs and butter sauce beside a large wine glass before him. He couldn’t smell the food over whatever aroma was coming from the vampires.
"Please enjoy yourself. It is not often that we get to entertain humans," Ishan said. Simon was reluctant, but the vampires, all but Ishan, sat watching expectantly. So, he began by cracking open one of the legs and pulling out its meat. As he dipped it in the sauce and took the first bite, he noticed the vampires watching everything he was doing with great interest. All except Ishan. A couple of crab legs later and he noticed the lust in their eyes as they watched him. His stomach turned. After Simon had gulped down all the wine, Rachel picked up a bottle and winked at Simon and refilled his glass. At one point he stopped eating and looked around at their staring faces nervously.
"Shall we get started with business?" he asked. The vampires only gave him dark looks and Ishan only sighed.
"Please, finish first, Mr. Withers," Rachel said.
Without a word, Simon started eating again. He had the distinct feeling that the vampires would be very angry and offended if he did not finish every last bite. They continued to watch him passionately. He even thought he saw Peter lick his lips out of the corner of his eyes. But, fearfully, he kept his eyes on the food he was eating and didn't stop to speak again until he had devoured the last bit of crab meat.
"So, where should we start, gentlemen?" he asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Rachel coughed loudly and made an annoyed grunt.
"I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen," Simon corrected.
"What's the matter Simon?" Rachel asked "Are you eager to leave?" she continued.
"No. I'm just a get-down-to-business type of guy," Simon said and laughed timidly.
"Oh, you are, are you?" she asked. He felt a cold foot slide up the instep of his right leg. "I like a get down... to... business... type of guy," she said as Peter and Stanislov laughed heartily. The foot was still moving up his instep and was now passing his knee, coming up to the inner side of his thigh. He went tense, and realized that as the foot moved closer to his crotch, he became more excited and repulsed, simultaneously. His excitement immediately turned to anger.
"Get off of me, whore of Babylon!" he yelled at her in disgust. She stood up and hissed at him, neon light reflecting off of her exposed fangs. Peter and Stanislov were smiling with anticipation. Edgar looked concerned and Ishan appeared to be indifferent to the whole situation.
"I would suggest you refrain from insulting us," Ishan said in a bored voice.
"Yes, I would suggest that, too," Rachel whispered, glaring at Simon.
"I'm sorry. But I won't put up with this sort of filthy sin being pushed upon me," Simon said.
Ishan went to speak, but before he could, in a flash, Peter was on top of the table with his cold hand wrapped around Simon's throat, picking him up out of his seat by it. Simon was choking. He gasped for air as everything around him seemed to fade. He heard laughter from Rachel and probably Stanislov. Ishan seemed to be complaining in the same weary voice. Simon tried to pray inside his head but couldn't make the words in his brain with his oxygen being cut off more and more. He was aware he was now being lifted high above the table. Everything went blurry and he felt all the blood rush to his head. His vision cleared some. He could see in front of him a pair of upside down feet standing on concrete behind a rail. He followed the legs down to see that they belonged to Peter. Then he followed Peter's outstretched arm to see that it was holding him by the ankle.
He tried to reach for his own ankle to free it. That was when he felt the breeze. It seemed just a little too strong. He looked up to what he thought would be the floor of the balcony. His heart almost burst as he saw the lights of the city seemingly above him, but he knew it was actually below him. He could feel his crab leg dinner moving up his esophagus as he looked down at the great city below. He screamed loudly only to hear several of the vampires reply with more laugh
ter. He could barely make out what Ishan was saying over the laughter.
"Must everything be a joke?" Ishan asked.
Peter was saying something back, but Simon didn't hear it as he had begun vomiting. He watched as the vomit fell to the street below over a matter of several minutes. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. When he looked up at Peter again, the vampire snarled at him, his blue eyes reflecting Simon’s horrified expression.
"Maybe now you'll treat the lady with respect," Peter said.
Simon felt his stomach turn again and felt a cold spot on his lap as another breeze touched him. Great, he had pissed himself. How lovely. As if all this hadn't been enough, Peter swiveled his wrist from side to side, swinging Simon like a pendulum. Simon closed his eyes. Peter swung him faster. Simon vomited again. Some of it went up his nose and he started to choke on it. He was sure Peter would let go at any moment. He could hear Rachel screaming something at him in a horrible, gleeful tone, but he couldn't make out the words. Stanislov continued to laugh harder and harder. Peter, still laughing, taunted Simon.
"You're gonna die, Simon. Is your god gonna save you? I don't think He will, you know why?" Peter asked with bitterness in his voice. "Because your god doesn't care about you. He thinks you're scum," Peter said, still swinging Simon all the while. Simon finally coughed up the vomit he had been choking on. The volume of the vampires seemed to be rising to a fevered pitch, when out of nowhere they were silenced by a single word from Ishan.
"Enough," he said, with only a hint of emotion.
Simon felt himself rise again. He closed his eyes even tighter. Then he felt himself turning around. Before he knew it, he was no longer moving yet still felt as though he were. He opened his eyes slowly and confirmed he was sitting back in his seat. When his view came into focus, he noticed Rachel sitting right in front of him with a neat, satisfied smile on her lips. Looking around at the rest of the table, he saw that all of the vampires, except Ishan, shared her expression. Ishan looked down at his own fingernails.
"Mr. Withers, we want the Big Easy," Ishan said with what sounded like conviction relative to his prior speaking tones.
"The big what?"
"New Orleans, Simon. The Big Easy," Ishan explained.
"Now you want to talk business?" Simon asked, his voice near to screaming. "At least give me a few minutes to recover first."
"By all means. Calm yourself. Here, have some more wine," Ishan said, refilling Simon's glass.
Simon took a deep breath, picked up the wine glass, and tipped it back, gulping the contents until he emptied the glass. Then he exhaled loudly and sat back in his seat, wiping the mess from his face and hair with some napkins he had taken from the table. His heart was still beating pretty fast, but it was gently slowing down. He looked back at Ishan.
"That's not negotiable," he said, "and from what I understand you have been told this several times before." Ishan looked at him with his dark red eyes, showing the first emotion Simon had seen from his smooth face yet. It was anger. Simon swallowed hard as Ishan opened his mouth to speak.
Chapter 3
Viva Necropolis
Hank made sure to stuff the compass, a pair of camo pants, and a white T-shirt in the backpack before making his way for the door. He stepped around the shattered glass strewn on the floor. Making sure he was alone, he waited outside the door for any trace of sound other than the wind. Then he faced the direction he had already confirmed with the compass to be south and began to walk. As he wandered his way down the back alley behind the store, lighting his way with the flashlight, he thought about the city. It surprised him that the Empire hadn't come in and milked the place for all of its valuables. It was all completely useless to the vampires. Remembering what he learned as a child about the city before it and its original inhabitants were given to the vampires, Hank imagined what kind of treasures might still lay untouched. He was sure a greedy man would already be dead in his position. Behind the other buildings along the alley, Hank saw nothing that surprised him. Most had small dumpsters and miscellaneous trash lying about. A small motorbike lay behind one of the buildings, missing its front wheel. Underneath it, several cockroaches scurried.
He hadn't heard a scream in some time. But he learned years ago never to rely on his own sense of time. It had failed him too often before. The farther he went, the trashier everything seemed to be. At the end of the block and to his left, he could see what had probably once been a scary neighborhood to live in. The beam of his flashlight reflected off a bent, graffitied stop sign as he looked the block over. Given the low light of the neighborhood, he figured it couldn't hurt to try that way. He was still pissed the army surplus store didn’t have any maps of the city. He was afraid to go anywhere well lit, like a gas station, that might have one. So, he figured his best bet would be to keep the lights of the city behind him, keep going in one direction, and hope that eventually he would be safe. Not even knowing if he would find anything to point out the city limits, however, didn't give him much confidence. As he walked down the dark street, it surprised him to find some of the houses still had lights on after all these years. Then he remembered he wasn't the first person to run loose through the city since the war. The thought that others might have made it this far and hadn't survived gave him chills, but he tried his best to shrug them off.
Shining the flashlight at some of the houses, he walked along the dimly lit road. There was very little to see. Just old houses with heat-worn paint. The yards, or rather what was left of them, consisted of dusty ground with the occasional patch of short red and brown weeds. He continued on to the next block and then the next without incident. The only sounds were the echo of his footsteps. Eventually he started to calm down for the first time since he had been caught. For the first time in a week, he found himself able to let his thoughts wander. He found it ironic he had been condemned to die in a state once famous for legalized prostitution, considering the crime he was guilty of. He was more angry that the "prostitute" ended up being a morality cop than ashamed for what he had done. He looked up at the night sky and noticed that as he walked farther from the center of the city, more and more dim stars became visible. He was glad it didn't seem as though it would rain. But then again, this being his first visit to Nevada, he had no idea how often it rained here or how badly it could.
After walking about ten blocks or so, Hank found a knee-high concrete barrier at the end of a yard and sat down. He slipped the backpack off and reached inside, feeling around until he found the two thermoses. The first one he grabbed was red. He stuffed it back inside and grabbed the other in its place. He pulled the thermos out, unscrewed the lid, double checked it was water, and took a big drink. The water was warm but refreshing none the less. He was beginning to feel the hours since he ate his "last meal." He would hardly call it a meal, though. Miniature portions of toast, mashed potatoes, something that was supposed to be some kind of meat with gravy, and corn, all of which tasted like water. Bad water at that. He was beginning to wonder what kind of canned foods he could find in the houses. He knew better than to look for frozen foods. It had been just over 20 years since anyone lived here. He turned and looked at the house behind him. After a moment of thinking it through, he decided to give it a shot.
He stood up and pulled his machete from its sheath. He could barely make out the dried blood on the blade in the pale street light coming from down the block. The wind picked up, sending a tumbleweed in front of Hank as he started walking through the yard toward the house. Ahead, he could see a large porch above three large concrete steps. The house was made of brick. He couldn't tell if the brick was brown or some odd shade of red. The front door had once been painted dark brown but now only flakes of the original paint remained. It had a small square window towards the top. As he shined his flashlight around the porch, several spider webs reflected the light back at him in thin lines of bright silver weaved into intricate patterns. He was about to turn around and give up when his stomach growled. He began w
eighing his options. On one hand, he could deal with some spiders even if he did have a pretty strong case of arachnophobia. On the other hand, it was common knowledge that the suburbs, cities, and towns that once surrounded the city eventually became abandoned after the blood pact. Who knew when he would find food? Beyond that, if he made it out of the city alive, he would still be a fugitive and had little hope of being safe anywhere populated.
He shined the flashlight around again looking for any visible spiders in the hope that maybe they were long gone. His hope disintegrated when he saw a huge brown spider sitting in the middle of one of the webs. It hung upside down a few feet to the left of the door above an old wooden rocking chair sitting against the wall. He pointed the flashlight at it and ran it along the web to the right until he could see that the web ended on the other side of the door.
"Shit," he said, cringing. He took a deep breath and before he could talk himself out of it, he charged up the stairs. He put the machete in its sheath and went for the door. He reached out and tried to turn the doorknob. It turned freely but the door would not open. He took the flashlight into his right hand and busted in the little window with the handle end. The sound of the window breaking echoed off the houses across the streets, causing him to jump and look behind himself. When he managed to calm himself again, he turned back to the door. This was turning out to be a lot of hassle.
Hank put the flashlight under his left arm and picked up the rocking chair. It felt light as he put it in front of the door. Then he stepped up onto it and reached his right arm inside the little window. Once his whole arm was inside he felt around for locks. Finding what felt like a small, oval knob, he tried turning it. As his fingers pressed into the knob, he had to push himself against the door in order to reach enough to turn it. Then it made a loud click and a large cloud of dust shot out from between the door and the door jam. While pulling his arm out of the window, Hank fanned the dust cloud with his other hand and coughed to free his lungs of the dust. Once he could breathe again, he reached down and tried the doorknob once more. With the deadbolt unlocked, it slid open immediately. Hank laughed in triumph, jumped down from the chair, and pulled it aside. Then, with a huge grin on his face and his flashlight at the ready, he pushed the door wide open. A thick, musty smell nearly knocked him over. Inside, everywhere he shined the flashlight, was a thick cover of spider webs. In just one pass of the flashlight, he counted nine spiders within the mess of webs.
Empire of Blood: A Dystopian Vampire Trilogy (Bundle, Boxset) (Plus Two Empire of Blood Short Stories) Page 3
