Empire of Blood: A Dystopian Vampire Trilogy (Bundle, Boxset) (Plus Two Empire of Blood Short Stories)

by Robert S. Wilson

  A loud howl rose up far off to the northwest, making Hank jump again. He wasn't completely sure because he hadn't ever heard one before, but he thought it might be the sound of a wolf. He also wasn’t sure wolves could even live in the desert. In order to calm himself, Hank looked back up at the stars, trying to find the Pleiades star cluster. He further calmed himself by trying to remember all he could about the cluster. The Pleiades were the Seven Sisters in Greek mythology. He also knew they were found in the Taurus constellation. As he tried to remember what it was the Jewish people had called it, he looked down and saw something on his shoe that put fear back into his heart. He stopped dead in his tracks and held his breath as he looked down at the huge stinger on the creature sitting on the tip of his sneaker. He heard a whisper ahead of him.

  "What is it?" Boris asked.

  Hank couldn't talk or move.

  Boris sighed and drooped his shoulders in disgust.

  "It is just scorpion, nothing to get so worked up for," he said with a tone of obvious annoyance. He leaned down and flicked the small yet vicious creature off of Hank's foot, sending it through the air in multiple pieces.

  As soon as it was off of him, Hank exhaled with relief. Boris just looked at him with an aggravated sort of pity and then turned to keep watch again. Hank could hear him grumbling under his breath, something about how he couldn't believe they were risking their lives for "miserable scaredy cat afraid of own shadow." At first, it annoyed him, but he knew his fear of arachnids was well beyond a reasonable level.

  Hank found himself at that point unable to focus on the stars. He thought about Toby, wondering what he was doing at that very moment. He tried to focus on the billboards and make sense of some of them, but most were weathered to the point he couldn't make out the words. Some of the pictures, however, were still understandable. One showed several girls in bikinis, another showed a man in a suit with some sort of luxury car sitting behind him. One that was particularly hard to understand seemed to have a heavyset, dark-haired man with big sideburns wearing a white jacket with rhinestones on it and brown tinted sunglasses on his face, pointing with both of his fingers to his right. But the part that made the least sense was the pair of wings that seemed to have been painted on the man's back. Hank lost all track of reality as he stopped and stared at the strange billboard. He was snapped out of it, however, when Boris whispered at him.

  "Stop wasting time staring at King of Rock and Roll and get moving again already."

  This statement sparked some glimmer of memory in Hank, but questioning it further was not worth dealing with Boris's temperament. He sighed and began walking again as Boris went back to his strange flanking. Once again, Hank caressed the vial inside his pocket. He wanted just one drop so badly. The longer he went without it, the more he needed it. He wasn't exactly sure when it started, but the cold sweat he had broken into was now sending chills down his spine as he also felt a gripping in his chest, as if someone were squeezing his heart. He started gently tapping on the side of the vial, nervously. He looked down at his arms and was surprised to see they were covered in sweat. Evidently his current company had been dead far too long to recognize signs of human illness. He could feel his heart, which still felt like it were in a vise, speeding up. Each heartbeat more painful than the last.

  He caught himself squeezing the vial way too hard again and made himself let go of it. But once his hands were out of his pockets, he couldn't figure out what to do with them. He swung them robotically like pendulums, one at each side. He could feel the breeze on his sweat-soaked palms, sending another chill down his back. Boris was now returning to his western flank and would next be moving to the northern one where he would be behind and facing away from Hank. It was almost here. He could feel the yearning for it in every bone in his body. Nothing's coming, Boris, just go already, he thought viciously. Come on! Boris was starting to swivel his body in what was becoming to Hank a familiar calculated movement when a long, high-pitched scream broke out. Hank nearly jumped out of his skin with the initial jolt of it. He also found himself putting his right hand back in his pocket reaching for his new security blanket.

  "Wa.. was that Rachel?" he asked Boris who was once again circling Hank uncomfortably close. Hank thought Boris would’ve made an excellent hockey goalie. He was probably too brutal for soccer. As Hank pictured Boris in a hockey mask, several strange muffled screams filled the void. Then silence again. Distant sounds of sand kicking and bodies hitting the ground. Yavo's voice rose up in an almost squeal of a scream.

  "It's Rachel! She's..." then abrupt silence. If there had been any chance before of getting a swig of that blood unnoticed it was gone now. Boris kept even closer as he whispered out into the darkness.

  "I think... I think both are dead," he said, tearing down Hank's last wall of confidence. The hell with keeping it a secret anymore. He all but ripped the vial from his pocket, his hands shaking as he held it out in front of himself. Boris was busy watching all around for Luciano. Even though he was absolutely terrified, Hank could concentrate enough to recognize a hint of fear in his now lone companion. He couldn't make his hands stop shaking enough to open the vial. His heart beat faster than he’d ever known it to before. It felt as if it were trying to beat its way through his chest cavity and out into the open air. He finally gripped the glass tube with both hands and put the sealed top to his mouth and gripped the white plastic stopper with his teeth. It took several turns but he finally got it to loosen some.

  Several things happened then in a burst of confusion. Just as soon as Hank pulled the stopper out of the vial, releasing the smell of the blood into the air, Boris swung around in alert. In the split second Boris's attention was captured by the tiny vial in Hank's hand, a sudden collision erupted. It knocked out all of Hank's senses for a moment. The next thing Hank realized, he was lying on the road, the vial was gone, and Boris was on the ground struggling to get to his feet. As Boris tried to get up, Hank noticed movement from behind him. It was already too late. Boris had only gotten up on his knees when Rachel jumped up from the ground behind him. She grabbed his head and in one quick motion, twisted it off his shoulders like the ragged head of an old doll. In the next blurry second, before Boris's body even had time to slump forward, she gripped the body and sank her face into the open wound that had once been Boris's neck.

  Hank scrambled around looking for the vial. All he could see was sand, rocks, dust, and the strange remains of a house in mid construction. He looked back to see Rachel savoring the remaining blood in Boris's body. A sickening thirst filled his own body and he was beginning to shake violently with the chill of it. He wasn't sure which he was afraid of more, dying, or not finding that vial. He threw himself hands first onto the road, running his fingers through rocks and dust in search of the thing. He felt all around his immediate area then lunged into the sand beyond the road, bringing himself closer to his busy predator. She didn't seem to notice. He kept fumbling around trying to look for it, but the darkness was far too concealing. If only he had it, then, none of this would be a problem. In the next second, Rachel stood up and threw her head back, letting out a strange screaming howl that echoed dissonantly in Hank's skull. He stopped still where he was but could feel his body shaking in protest. After a long moment of holding her head back, Rachel brought it upright and bored her eyes into Hank's.

  "What's the matter? Looking for this," she said, revealing the small plastic vial in her right hand.

  It took all of Hank's willpower not to lunge for it.

  She smiled coyly at him.

  "I can smell the sweat on your body. You hunger for it, don't you?" she asked gleefully. "I can't imagine feeling the hunger as a mortal. It must be terrible. It takes so much to contain it even with all this power," she said grinning wider and yet more gruesomely.

  Before Hank could even let the breath from his lungs, Rachel had moved from the road to just in front of him. She reached out with her left hand and grabbed his chin. Her hand felt like
an agonizing vise gripping him. Then she flipped the top from the vial with her thumb nail in a single movement. Hank's human senses wouldn't allow him to smell the substance from such a distance. Noticing this, she put the plastic tube up to his nose. Hank was unable to resist, and sniffed long and hard. His shaking became even more uncontrollable. Rachel laughed heartily at this reaction.

  "Please, just give it to me or kill me, please," he pleaded in a mumble through her hand. She looked at him thoughtfully, almost compassionately. Then, she let go of him. He fell down to the ground gripping his chin where her fingers had just been clamped like a steel trap.

  "I'll tell you what," she said, grinning again. "Go get it."

  She pulled her arm back and lazily tossed the vial. Her lazy toss sent it way off across the road and somewhere inside the partially constructed house beyond. Without care for his own safety, Hank struggled up onto his feet and ran with all he had toward the rotting, unfinished house. As he came close to the road, he tripped on a rock the size of his fist and found himself barreling forward, head first. He crash-landed on the road scraping his forehead and palms on the rough pavement. His face stung with anguish when he got up. He took a quick look behind him to find Rachel still standing in the same place and looking at him with amusement. Then, he turned and ran for the house again. As he came closer, he could see construction had been interrupted much more prematurely than he originally thought. The walls were nothing more than rotted wood with no drywall even installed yet. He had to lean forward to keep his balance as he made his way up the large sand dune that the skeletal structure of a home stood on. He found himself using his hands to help him move faster up the incline like a monkey running along the ground.

  Once he pulled himself up onto the porch, he lay there panting as he tried to catch his breath. He looked across the road for the vampire and saw no one there. His heartbeat increased even faster, though he wasn't sure how it could at this point. He used his arm to roll himself over then used both arms to lift himself up from the porch. Once he was on his feet, he tried to find a doorway through the myriad of closely lined planks and tarps that covered the whole front of the building. He began sifting around tarps and trying to find planks far apart enough that he could fit in between them. After looking behind four tarps, the fifth one revealed an entry way. He hastily went through it, not noticing the lack of a floor beyond, and fell instantly down into a large pile of lumber and miscellaneous things he couldn't make out in the pitch black pit.

  He tried to lift himself up but stopped when a sharp, throbbing pain blasted through his left shin. He screamed in agony. He was sure he had broken it. To make matters worse, an overhead spotlight came on, filling the pit he was in with a blinding glow of white light. Then, he heard footsteps on a distant floor a ways out and above him. Rachel watched him from the edge of an unfinished floor in the next room beyond the one he had fallen through. The light surrounded her, casting a long strange shadow in front of her that came all the way down to the ground in front of Hank. But something else caught his eye. Just ahead of him about twenty feet was a small plastic object gleaming in the spotlight. It was the vial, all right, and it was well beyond his reach, enveloped by the dark shadow cast by his pursuer. It would be especially hard to get to with a broken leg. But he lunged himself forward and began pulling himself with his hands. The pain in his leg was nothing compared to the unlivable hole he felt in his entire being now. He had to drink that blood, not just to survive, but to be whole as well. Maybe even to be anything at all more than completely empty. He screamed out in fury as he drug himself forward inching himself closer and closer toward this one tiny point of light surrounded by so much darkness.

  Chapter 15

  The Drinker's Curse

  The intense weakening of his body started again as Ishan made his way back to the main lab from his quarters. He took the time to use the terminal in the room to send a message to the Emperor. The terminal controlled a system within the Stratosphere designed by the Empire. It was supposed to be the only device that could communicate with the outside world and was restricted to only send direct messages to the Emperor himself. Of course, Ishan's kind had been smart and resourceful enough to build their own means of communication. Now that his message was sent, he needed to find Kato and make arrangements for the new security measures that were now obviously going to be essential for reconstruction.

  When he arrived in the main lab, he glowered at its emptiness. So many years of hard work wasted in a single night. The animal within wanted Peter and his followers to attack at that moment. But his sense of reason told him he was in no condition to fight and what was left of his operation could not likely survive another hit so soon. Besides, it was nearing dawn now and most of the others were asleep. Kato came out of one of the sub-labs to the right of Ishan and looked at him expectantly.

  "Has the backup process been initiated?" Ishan began walking toward him and felt a sudden jerk in his legs.

  "Master, are you all right?"

  Ishan couldn't understand why he was unable to make out Kato's face. Everything darkened and went out of focus. He felt himself crash against the floor like a feather. All of his senses seemed to be slowing down until...

  Darkness.

  * * *

  Kato watched as his master collapsed to the floor. He had enough medical and biological research background that he was probably the best person for Ishan to be with. He raced to the small man's side and put his ear to Ishan's forehead. He listened with his enhanced sense of hearing for the telltale sound he had become accustomed to for determining if a subject was alive. It only took a moment before he heard the synapses still firing. It would be so much easier and require less anticipation if their hearts could only beat or they had a pulse, but that would be too easy. He reached his arms under the frail body he knew, if animated, could turn him into dust with proper motivation. He carried Ishan down the opposite hall from where Ishan's quarters were. He followed the hall down until he passed another slanted x-shaped four way.

  About a hundred feet ahead, he arrived at the end of the hall to an unmarked door. He held Ishan with his left arm as he used his right hand to dial in his access code in the key pad. A second later, the door unlatched with a loud metallic click and opened for him. He resumed carrying Ishan with both arms, turning in order to bring him in head first. Inside, he took Ishan to the first available bed, the second bed closest to the door. The first bed contained the former mediator whom Kato had also moved earlier in the night. From what Kato understood, he’d been taken by Peter after openly quitting his position and found by an ancestor. It was strange. This man was the first to have been infected within the city as it was now. For several centuries now, the ancestors gave the privilege of deciding a human's worthiness to Ishan. He didn't know exactly why. So much between Ishan and the ancestors was kept between them. But this man had been changed without Ishan's consent.

  Kato adjusted the strap on a brain scan headset and put it on Ishan's head. It was a perfect fit. He plugged one end of a data cable into it and the other into the bed's monitor on a tall tan shelf next to the bed. Ishan's brain activity filled the screen in graphical spikes between two horizontal lines, one at the top of the screen representing maximum activity and one at the bottom which represented zero.

  Once he was sure Ishan's readings were at a safe level, he turned to the infirmary's other guest and went to the terminal beside Simon's bed. He pulled out the ancient keyboard and began pecking at the keys with his index fingers until Simon's monitor brought up the log of his brain activity. Kato was amazed by the many outrageous spikes happening at random every once in a while. They were constantly going up to maximum, but these were different. They had happened within three minutes, within fifteen minutes, and within an hour. Each spike well over the maximum safe level. From what Ishan had been able to tell him, it was understandable why it was happening. A shared and often unspoken gift they managed to hide from the Empire had been experience
d by each and every one of them. Upon drinking blood of any kind, lifelong memories of feelings and experiences passed from the carrier to the drinker. In Kato's best guess, Simon was experiencing over two thousand years of memories within his comatose state at an incredible pace.

  He pulled a pen light from his pocket and moved closer to Simon's bedside. With his left hand, he held open Simon's right eyelid, the eye underneath moving swiftly from side to side in a hyperactive REM state. He shined the light into the eye. No response. He wondered how long it would take for the newly born thing to awaken to its new, strange existence. He let go of the eyelid and opened the other, shining the light in this one as well with the same result. Then, he typed out some notes on the terminal and logged out of the system, sliding the keyboard back into place.

  * * *

  For the longest time, Simon experienced nothing but a sort of darkness. He knew he wasn't unconscious because he was aware. Though conscious, he knew of nothing more than a simple sense of void. He saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing except the experience of knowing. He was sure he should have felt something else. Fear, maybe. Something. But it just wasn't there. Then everything changed. A distant point of light appeared. It grew. Eventually he saw a colorful circle ahead of him, light pouring out from it at every angle. As the circle came closer, it began to resemble the outside of a tunnel. He saw movement inside. When it arrived close enough to focus on, he realized it was not simply movement he saw within, but something much more strange. It was like the tunnel was actually a lens and he was looking through to someone else's reality. A bright flash like lightning seemed to momentarily blind him, and then, he no longer simply looked through the lens but seemed to be in that someone else's reality.