by Seth Eden
"Leukemia." Just saying it made her feel sick.
"Right," he said, as if he'd been testing her. "The blood disease." He met her eye. "For obvious reasons we are very interested in blood." Then he studied her, seeming confused by her panic.
"They won't hurt him, will they?"
"No, they'll study him. And then they'll help him. For your father, this may be the best thing that ever happened to him."
Given that his daughter was lying naked beside an alien invader she'd just had sex with, while being held in something called The Crèche in case a space vampire wanted to impregnate her?
She rather doubted her father would believe this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He was funny that way.
Loren
The news was bad.
When he saw Sav waiting for him by the Council doors, after he'd been requested to appear without warning, Loren had been certain the news would be bad.
Sav's grin confirmed it.
It remained now only to discover who the news was bad for. Everybody? Loren alone? Or Kiera as well?
"You didn't have to wait to accompany me," he told Sav. There was, as always, a fine line to play with Sav. Play being the operative word. He suspected they both understood it was a game and that pretending it was some shared fiction.
Sav was in his command. Putting his brother who was also a constant antagonist under his command was a typical Vampyren military tactic known, basically, as take care of your own problems.
Sav was his.
But having Sav under his command meant if it had been any other soldier, Loren would have ordered him back to whatever duty he wasn't doing in order to be here. Because it was Sav, discretion was necessary. Anger him and he might strike back in unpredictable ways that were savage even for the Vampyren. Fail to censor him and Loren wasn't doing his job as a commander.
Typical test.
"I didn't mind waiting for you."
Sav's voice gave nothing away. Loren couldn't ask. Asking if Sav knew what was waiting for Loren would be a weakness.
"Shall we?" Just that, and indicating the door, and Sav nodded and almost walked in front of him.
He pulled himself back in time.
Disciplining his men wasn't Loren's favorite thing to do. He'd once had to hunt another Vampyren back on their home world and he had done it, had taken down a traitor and dispatched him. He hadn't enjoyed it, though.
Sav had.
"Your quick response is gratifying." The Council leader, dour as ever, still looked like a human male in his thirties. They were long lived and healthy, the Vampyren.When nobody executed them for dereliction of duty or for some other crime. Loren stood calmly waiting for an explanation for his presence here.
"You were not a part of the hunting party that was attacked by Diane Red and Stuart Red?"
Loren blinked. So the humans had already been judged. Humankind considered Vampyren justice anything but, even though the vampires could smell lies, and could scent the people who had left their unique signatures at a site. Add in blood smell from any who were injured or cut on the site and it was nearly impossible for the judge, jury and executioner – and when conditions were right, one Vampyren could be all three – to be wrong.
"I was not." It had been his team, but that night he had been reassigned to the breeding pool, a silly assignment any of the youngest of them could have handled.
"But you were granted a full array of reports, were you not?" That was one of the Council leader's seconds, leaning forward to be heard.
"I had full access to all reports. I've been over them in great detail." The grainy images were indelibly etched in his mind now. The way the building had torn itself apart. The way the pipe bomb, a homemade thing of plumbing and carpentry supplies and explosive, had ripped through vampires he had known for most of his life.
Was he somehow under suspicion? Perhaps because he wasn't there that night? But his assignment had come from the commander himself. It was a stupid assignment but his none the less. Was that why -- ?
"You're being assigned to take a team to the following sector," the Council leader said and on the screen behind him, immediately in sync with his words, the neighborhood in question was projected.
It was nothing special, a neighborhood not that far from the one where they had run down Stu and Diane. He didn't think it was Kiera's home. She'd looked repeatedly in a different direction than where these coordinates lay.
"What will I be seeking?"
The council leader nodded and images came up. A portly man in his fifties, arrogance in his eyes as he moved through the short clip and then his photo stabilized. Jason Tul, a scientist with a minor career at minor West Coast universities, shuffled around a lot. Next to him, a thin woman with dry skin and prominent clavicles stood just as arrogantly. He blinked, and the images were memorized.
"You're to bring them back," the Council leader said. "Diane and Stuart have been questioned." For an instant the old vampire looked smug. "It has taken remarkably little work. They both talked fast and when told their accusations against each other would only lead to prolonged deaths for themselves, they stopped and only answered questions. Tul organized the strike that killed our people and he's probably arranging something else even now."
The leader leaned in close enough for Loren to smell the blood on his breath.
"Bring them in. Our people need a victory and Earth's peoples need another example."
He had a team already assigned. Sav was not on it, but Jericho and Perdita were. Before leaving the council chambers, while everything was still being determined, he requested Sav.
Humans had an expression he'd thought curious until now: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. He didn't want Sav on his team, didn't want him along with him.
But it was unthinkable to leave him here with access to Kiera.
Kiera
Morning sunshine on the newly fallen snow was blinding.
Some crèche matrons made their charges work out and spend the rest of their time primping to be beautiful for the Vampyren men to choose amongst.
The wizened one in charge of her crèche didn't appear to follow that philosophy. What Kiera had taken the first day for being muscle and strength had in truth been a hard body that maybe had calcified and a spirit that definitely had. If the girls under her charge wanted to let themselves go and become fat and useless to the Vampyren, she figured they'd escaped in a way. Should they get away with it, good for them, though her ‘good for them’ was in an apathetic, couldn't be bothered sort of way.
The only time she cared was if one girl became special to a warrior or any of the Vampyren and then she worked that girl.
And only that girl.
It was a well known secret to everybody but the vamps themselves and the girls kept it only because it allowed them to police themselves. Diets, make up, clothes choices and how desirable to be were up to them, the same as they had been in the "real world."
With the same results. Girls with initiative looked good and were healthy. The others weren't.
The other result was equally predictable, but tiresome Kiera found. Left to their own devices, cliques formed and bullies roamed. Lily, Michelle and Davida were roommates and kind of friends, but not enough to provide protection against Sydney and her crew. Sydney had chosen Kiera for her new chew toy, the scapegoat she loved to hate.
If there were some way to appeal to her sense of hatred and turn it on the Vampyren, she thought Sydney would be a good choice to start fomenting a revolution right under the vampires' noses. But all Syd wanted to do was be on top of her own minute and pointless kingdom.
Lily, Michelle and Davida were beaten. They only wanted to survive into whatever the next phase of the invasion would be. Kiera wasn't sure that was a goal they could attain. The Vampyren didn't like rebellions – no conqueror does – but they disliked lapdogs, too. Yes men or yes women didn't go over with them. Kiera's initial show of strength had caught the eye of bo
th Loren and his brother, Sav. She didn't know if she could do the same with the Council or any of the other space vampires or if she even wanted to try, but she kept it in mind that laying down and being passive annoyed her captors as much as standing up for herself did, so she might as well be true to herself.
Which worked for the time being.
Two days after her first time with Loren he came back. The time had been impenetrable and interminable, full of absolutely nothing but some concern that she'd done something wrong and he wouldn't come back.
She told herself she was only worried because obviously he was going to take care of her to some extent.
That was the only reason she cared.
He took her into one of the bedrooms but didn't touch her. By then her heart was pounding hard enough he could hear it. In the past that had been a cliché or exaggeration.
In the Vampyren-filled world, it was truth.
Loren reached across the distance between them and put one hand over her heart. It didn't still it in the least, but he smiled then.
"It beats faster when I touch you."
There was no way it was a good idea to admit to that. She did so anyway.
His smile deepened. His race didn't look quite right when they smiled. Like they'd learned the expression just to reassure – or pacify – humans. "I shouldn't touch you then. It's going quite fast enough."
The tension inside her burst. "Do you not want me anymore? Did I do something wrong? I thought that – I mean, for me it was – I mean – " She looked up and saw by his expression that though he made no sound, likely he was laughing at her. "Fuck!"
"You do it quite well," he said, both reassuringly and interestedly. "But now, I'm afraid, is not the time."
She almost asked him about pheromones but they'd been together and he hadn't used them and he could tell what she thought about him by eavesdropping on her body's autonomous systems. Instead, she said simply, "What's wrong?"
He nodded as if her guess didn't surprise him. "I have to go away."
Her involuntary movement carried her all the way into his arms. They were both surprised but he didn't let go. Instead, he pressed her against his chest where she listened to the beating of his double hearts and thought the sound shouldn't be this comforting.
"The council is sending me on a mission. It's to find more of the people who killed the warriors in Sav's unit."
"Why not send Sav?" The instant she said it she realized it was none of her business and less of her concern. If nothing else, she should be silently rooting for those who had killed some of the invaders. But they'd made everything more difficult. Being separated from her family was torture. Only once had her phone worked and then her mother had barely told her anything because she kept crying and her father was asleep and Kate and Will out scavenging so she was stuck with her overly emotional mother.
"You shouldn't just blurt things like that. The others will hurt you."
She held her chin up and tried to pretend she didn't care, but when he said, "And me, for not having had the sense to control you."
"I'm sorry," she said instantly.
He shook his head. "It hasn't happened yet. We'll worry about it if it does. Just, be careful, Kiera." He drew her closer, pressed her head to his chest again and played with her hair. "I want you here waiting for me when I come back."
The kiss he gave her was hotter than summer despite the coolness of his mouth.
It shouldn't have mattered to her that he was going away. It shouldn't have mattered that he wouldn't be there and she wouldn't see him, not at all except in the way that he was looking out for her.
Otherwise, it shouldn't have mattered to Kiera where the fuck Loren was. Or wasn't.
But it mattered.
Loren
It was good to get away from the command headquarters and away from the crèche and out into the fresher air. The snow was horrible, an abomination that made him determined to be in the next party to go conquer somewhere else in the Universe, except that she wouldn't be there and –
And that was why it was good to be out and about. Three weeks away from her and he felt Vampyren again, as if belonging to his own people was some form of state dependency.
He needed to be among his own people, letting his vicious killer nature take over.
He needed to be in the warmth of a desert. That he was still waiting on.
He needed to be away from the girl. She made him weak. Even now he remembered the feel of her mouth, the touch of her hands, the way her hair smelled.
But when a shout from an advanced scout rang out and he ran with the others, he felt like himself again. Ready for the hunt.
Ready to kill.
The night was frigid, the stars overhead piercing since the power was down in the city again and there were no artificial lights to combat the stars. Loren wore layers of clothes but all they seemed to do was make his achingly cold body move stiffly and with difficulty.
Layers of clothes were meant to trap body heat and the Vampyren didn't have any.
Gathering his men, he ran down for the second time what they knew, going over it again because now they had feet on the ground and visuals of the buildings where the teenagers were said to be hiding out. There were marks all over the city, stylized and territorial, from gangs, as the Vampyren understood them. Maybe gang members had more in common with the invaders than any other type of group except military, but they couldn't be tolerated. The attack that had killed Vampyren had at least involved some gang members.
Apparently Stu and Diane had some kind of contact with them, possibly through their sons. He hoped it was some other connection. He didn't want to wipe out a family.
"What do you have?" he asked Jericho.
Jericho held a handheld device that could trace the blood signature of individuals. The information taken from Diane had included a blood splotch on her clothing from when one of the gang members had nicked himself on a nail while creating the pipe bomb. Now they were searching through abandoned projects, through derelict houses that still managed to utilize electricity stolen from somewhere.
Out in the snow and night and cold, his own savage nature filled in again, like water filling a sudden cavity.
Except it didn't feel like a cavity. It felt right, like he was returning to himself. Maybe this was who he was supposed to be. Maybe all along he'd only needed to be more like his brother, like the others in his race.
When he got back, if he stayed away from – her – maybe he could advance again. Get free of his brother. Create an existence on this planet. There were warm places even on Earth and if he advanced enough, he could name his position. His harem. His desires to be fulfilled.
He wouldn't have to see Sav again.
He'd be fully Vampyren.
It sounded like a plan.
"They're in there," Jericho said, making a signal with his closed fist to indicate the rest of the six-man unit needed to be on task and on target.
They all went still. Like any predator waiting on prey, they were tense and expectant and felt joy at the chase about to begin.
Loren felt the same emotions rising up inside, the same need to run down the targets and tear them apart.
The signal was almost missed because in the dark, in the cold, their natures were slipping. They were regressing to the brutal, amoral, slaughtering Vampyren such conditions released.
A sudden shout and then gunfire. It was fast and unexpected, coming out of not the house they believed the pack were in, but one behind them. Bright red flashes lit up the night. The guns barked and the attackers screamed and bolted through the door, still firing.
Assault rifles and automatic weapons could bring down a vampire. They surged forward anyway, able to smell the fear that reeked of not enough ammunition, not enough of anything – food, water, shelter, electricity, guns, ammo.
The gunfire exploded around them, dealt by such panicked hands there was almost no danger of any of the Vampyren actually being sho
t. The boys who had teamed up with the rest of Stuart and Diane's killer group screamed as they ran forward, guns blazing.
And were stopped in their tracks by the growling Vampyren.
Loren felt the violent, uncontrollable nature of what he was wash over him as the young males dropped their weapons and turned to run. Their blood signature was the same as the trace from Diane's clothes.
These were among those who had killed his brethren. Because the killings had been cowardly and performed from a distance, with bombs and guns, there was no proof of the exact match of blood and person. But they were related to the more bold acts those like Diane and Stu had perpetuated. The boys had been there. Blood didn't lie.
This was his unit. Avenging the unit that had been his brother's. Sav was with him, burning with anger, but for once they were of the same accord. Neither had more sanity than the other. They were night mad, primal, burning with anger and the need to kill.
And the ability, and the target.
They surged forward, Loren, Sav, Jericho and the other three, flushing out the rest of the human pack, three more boys running into the frozen wastes of empty city streets. The vampires ran them for the sheer joy of it.
They brought them down for the expediency of it – it would be unacceptable to let them escape.
They slaughtered them for the violence of it.
Loren had one of the two who had actually made the bombs. Sav had the other. Screaming filled the freezing night skies. Blood filled his mouth as Loren tore the boy's arm, severed something deep inside, and drank deep. He threw back his head and let his fangs descend all the way, then buried them in the boy's neck, ripping away flesh, diving deep for the blood that welled up so fast and hot, salty and rich.
When the body cooled, he dropped it, dragged the back of his hand over his mouth and turned to watch the others. Sav had the other brother. The other members of the team had shared out the five other gang members.
They were sated and even in the cold, dark night, the bloodlust was satisfied.
