Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1)

by Brian McKinley

  Jumping up, she handed the key ring to Ash, who unlocked our cell. Caroline looked impressed but didn’t want to say anything with Flea still there. It didn’t matter. That look alone made up for everything I’d ever felt bad about in my life.

  “C’mon,” said Ash.

  “I go back, get Guaiwu. Help save Mistress, yes?”

  I stopped. “Didn’t Wilkes’ men kill the other two?”

  Flea smiled. “Sleep to heal, no dead. Men so stupid.”

  With that, she ran at the solid cement brick wall and vanished through it. Caroline’s mouth dropped open but no words came out.

  I had nothing.

  * * * * *

  The guard Wilkes left to baby-sit us was dead, his body face-down on the linoleum floor beside his desk. Killed by Flea.

  Ash knelt, grabbed his rifle and tossed it to me. I managed to catch it without being too clumsy. “Take that, keep it on semi-auto. Aim low until you get used to the kick.” He yanked the pistol out of the dead soldier’s holster, sticking that into the back of his waistband. “Caroline, take the stunner.”

  The stunner lay across the desk along with one of those mini flamethrowers. “Wait,” I said. “I’ve never shot a real gun before. Shouldn’t I take the stunner?”

  Ash stood, tossing the keys onto the desk while Caroline picked up the shotgun-looking weapon and a belt of extra stun charges.

  “Stunner takes aim, which Caroline’s got. You just fire bursts in the general direction of the enemy to cover her. Caroline, grab yourself a rifle or a shotgun ASAP.”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe I should take the flamethrower, then.” I imagined chasing Sebastian down the corridors of the house, scaring him with quick blasts of flame.

  “Do not even touch the flamethrower.”

  I rolled my eyes as he drew his pistol and led us through a couple corridors and up a flight of stairs. “We’ll be on camera the entire time we’re in the bunker,” Ash reminded us. “So assume we could be approaching an ambush at any time.”

  We passed another guard that Flea took out on her way down to us. “That’s some personal assistant Jade Tiger’s got,” Caroline said. “It would make sense for her to eliminate the guards in the main control room before coming down to free us.”

  “Possibly,” Ash allowed. “Assume she didn’t, though and keep your eyes open. This intersection up around the corner is where we’ll split. I’ll continue down toward the Command Center and prevent the launch. You and Avery get back to the house and—down!”

  He dropped to the floor and before I even heard the shots, I felt something hit me in the shoulder like a baseball bat. I fell backwards as the echoing burrrt of the bullets caught up and there was the pap-clang pap-clang of Ash’s pistol and then Caroline dragged me back around the corner.

  My vision went blurry as agony burned through the left side of my body but she pressed the wound with her palm to help stem the bleeding. A red-hot fireplace poker had been hammered into the bone of my upper arm and it was all I could do not to scream.

  “Oh God, are you all right?” asked my girlfriend, the scientist.

  “No!” I squealed, trying not to cry now. “Oh fuck, man, this fucking hurts!”

  Ash was with us now, peeking around the corner with his pistol. “Give it up, Wilkes! You can’t get by us and you can’t keep us pinned long. I’ve got two Vampyrs who can rush you without dying.”

  Speak for your-fucking-self, Ash!

  Strangely, the pain was already fading. Much quicker than I thought it should. “Shit, Caroline, I can’t feel it anymore! I think I’m going into shock!”

  “Shhh,” she said, leaning close to me. “Vampyrs don’t go into shock like humans. Your brain’s shut down communication to the pain receptors for the duration of the healing process.”

  “Oh. Cool.”

  Meanwhile, Wilkes shouted something back to Ash about having reinforcements on the way. Wilkes occupied the corridor we needed to take but he couldn’t take the corridor he needed with us covering it.

  “Sebastian will have a launch time in place, regardless of whether Wilkes gets there!” Caroline whispered.

  Ash closed his eyes and sighed. Then he threw his pistol toward Wilkes! “I’m coming out.”

  Before either of us could say a word to stop him, Ash stepped beyond the protection of the corner. “Here’s the only chance you’re ever gonna get at me one-on-one, you little piss-ant,” Ash told his former second-in-command. “We got a couple minutes before Avery’s ready to fight again or your men get here but Sebastian wants you in position yesterday. What say we settle this right now?”

  Caroline and I slid over a little to peek out, terrified and irresistibly curious.

  “Nothing stopping your little pals from shooting me after I beat you,” Wilkes responded.

  Ash put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Christ, you really are sharp as wet noodle, ain’t you? If you won, you’d have me to use as a hostage, get it? Or are you just afraid of one little faggot?”

  Wilkes edged his way out from behind his corner and his eyes had that spoiling-for-a-fight look I’d seen in them so often. He set his rifle down near his corner, saying, “Suppose now’s as good as later for busting you up.”

  They stepped toward each other, each in a light-footed crouch. Caroline and I held our breaths. I wondered how long this was going to last, both men being seasoned fighters and all. Then I started to wonder if maybe Ash wanted us to cheat or something, like in the movies but that was as far as my thoughts got.

  Wilkes threw the first punch—Ash sidestepped it, kicked Wilkes just below the kneecap, pulled Wilkes to him and snapped his neck!

  Just like that, it was over. Three fucking seconds!

  The breath I’d been holding exploded out of me in shock and I just lie there, watching. Ash dropped the body, picked up the assault rifle and the stench of Wilkes’s body shitting itself filled the corridor.

  “Hurry,” Ash said as he jogged down the corridor toward the Emergency Command Center. “Take the back stairs. You may avoid the reinforcements that way.”

  * * * * *

  Ash was wrong.

  No sooner did we slip through the door into the back stairwell then the door above us opened and five of Sebastian’s soldiers came tromping down the metal stairs. Caroline pushed me back against the wall and brought up her stunner. I wasn’t sure what she was planning. She couldn’t hit them all with one charge and with my left arm still useless, I didn’t even trust my ability to fire my rifle straight.

  The first one in line spotted us and called a halt, dropping to one knee as he brought his weapon to bear on Caroline. She fired but the charge didn’t even come close to hitting the first guard.

  It hit the stairs!

  Comprehension dawned on me as the guards, who had all dropped down into varying levels of contact with the metal, started twitching and tumbling over each other. The lead soldier was the only one who managed to squeeze off a three-round burst but aside from almost deafening us in the echo chamber that was the back stairwell, it had no effect.

  “You go, Science Girl!” I shouted over the ringing in my ears.

  She gave me a weak smile and we climbed around the moaning soldiers and scavenged. I stuck a pistol in the thigh pocket of my khakis and slung one of the stunners over my wounded shoulder. Caroline took one of their radio units for herself and traded her stunner for an assault rifle. Then we got the hell out of there before the dazed guards could recover.

  The rest of the security bunker was an adrenaline pumped blur of institutional blue walls with no more guards in sight. When we got outside, we discovered why.

  The sounds of machine gun fire came from down at the dock, where military attack helicopters sailed overhead and fired at the guards below. Spotlights cut through the night sky all around as sirens blared.

  “The whole perimeter of the island’s under attack!” Caroline shouted as we ran toward the back of the house, passing the maze.
“It just happened! Coordinated assaults on all sides! It has to be DeWinter!”

  “DeWinter?” I shouted back. “Wow, I thought I was bluffing!”

  Then she put on a new burst of speed, shouting back at me. “C’mon! Sebastian’s ordered the launch!”

  We had no way of knowing whether Ash had made it into the Emergency Command Center to stop it, so we ran. We had to circle around the kitchen wing to get to the loading dock. The door was unlocked but I could have easily broken it down in the mood I was in. My first night here, I’d fantasized about charging through the house, battling against Sebastian and his men to free ourselves and the other captives. Now it was happening. My left arm felt good enough to move. I was hungry as hell. I was armed like Rambo. All in all, I was psyched.

  So psyched that—as we soldiered our way through the kitchen—I almost shot at Bishop when he came down the servant stairs behind us. I was glad I didn’t, since he also had an assault rifle pointed right at me and was probably a better shot.

  “Jesus, what the hell are you doing?” I said, lowering my weapon with trembling hands. He was wearing a guard’s uniform like me.

  He examined us for a few seconds with those sad, piggy eyes of his before lowering the muzzle of his rifle. “Same as you it seems.”

  “When did you get free?” Caroline asked as I pulled a blood pack from the fridge and gulped it down cold. Nasty but necessary.

  “Never caught. Gave the ones who came for me a good clouting and persuaded one of them to report me eliminated, then I nicked the outfit and gun and slipped upstairs to await a more amenable time to reveal me-self. That your man DeWinter out there, is it?”

  “How’d you…” she began. “You called him!”

  “Geoffrey. Right after you came to see him, that is.” He grabbed an apple off the counter and took a bite. “He figured out what Sebastian was up to and gave DeWinter a tip off.”

  Caroline and I glanced at each other, relieved. “So, DeWinter’s already cut the Admiral out of the chain of command? The launch codes won’t confirm?”

  “`Course not,” Bishop said, shaking his head. “That’d of been the decent thing to do. Geoffrey told DeWinter that Sebastian was going to execute the Hegemony and run off. Then he told his Governors to prepare for the American launch. His blokes’ll step in and make sure the retaliations stay diplomatic, suggest economic sanctions against America or some such rot while his companies lock up the rebuilding contracts. Don’t stop it if you can use it, that’s always his way.”

  “Son of a bitch!” I said.

  “Truer words, mate,” Bishop agreed, tossing the apple into a trash can.

  “Then let’s hurry up and put a stop to this bullshit before it goes any further,” Caroline said through clenched teeth. We headed for the great hall via the butler’s pantry. “Have you seen any sign of Flea and the…”

  The question died on her lips. A stand-off was in progress between that very group and Sebastian’s people in the council chamber:

  “Take another step toward this room and thee’ll bear the blood of all Hegemons including thine own!” Sebastian shouted out to where Flea and her two creatures stood at the center of the empty hall.

  The Guaiwu stood like hunting hounds straining their leashes while Flea took cover behind their bulk.

  Caroline and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Flea would like nothing more than to cause the death of Jade Tiger if she could do so “accidentally” and didn’t care at all about the lives of the other Hegemons, aside from Valmont.

  Bishop slipped by us, weapon up and jogged along the wall in a crouch. After he made it the first three feet or so, he’d no longer be visible from any position in the council chamber since the doorway would cut off the view.

  Caroline walked out to the center and I followed. We stopped within sight of Flea and the Guaiwu but not too close.

  “Give it up, Sebastian!” she shouted.

  “Caroline! Will thou never stay where I put thee?” the quip was a poor disguise for his obvious shock.

  Caroline pressed her advantage. “That’s DeWinter outside They’ve broken your perimeters and will be here any minute. Wilkes is dead and Ash has taken the Command Center. There isn’t going to be any launch. It’s over, Sebastian. So, please, just tell your men to lay down their weapons and surrender.”

  Bishop positioned himself beside one of the grand columns that flanked the doorway to the council chamber, weapon ready.

  Inside the room, one of the guards had a flamethrower aimed at the doorway but those compact models didn’t hold much fuel. It was debatable how effective that one would be, considering how much it had taken to put down just one Guaiwu earlier. The other guards held automatic rifles to the heads of the seated Hegemons: that would hurt, even render them unconscious but wasn’t fatal the way such weapons are to humans. Only Sebastian, who had recovered his sword, held an effective weapon for killing Vampyrs in close quarters.

  “Perhaps,” he said, possibly thinking the same thing as he considered the weapon in his hands. “One must suffice, then.”

  His gaze fell upon Iago as he moved into position and brought the sword up for a downward stroke.

  “No!” Caroline shouted.

  Bishop spun into the doorway, fired and spun out—

  The bullets punched through the forehead of Draco’s guard, splashing blood and brain matter onto the marble behind him!

  Sebastian swung his blade—

  Rising, Draco drew a throwing dagger from some hidden spot in his outfit and launched it.

  The guard with the flamethrower fired a blast through the open doorway but it fell short of both us and the Guaiwu.

  The dagger struck Sebastian’s inner elbow, the sword slipped out of his hand.

  Bishop, peeking into the doorway from the ground this time, fired a burst into the flamethrower guard.

  The Guaiwu leapt forward at a command from Flea.

  “Kill!” Sebastian screamed.

  Draco jumped up onto the council table for a run at Sebastian but Julia’s guard fired a burst into his leg and Draco tackled him instead.

  The Guaiwu crossed the threshold, one taking the flamethrower guard and the other ripping apart the guard threatening Jade Tiger. It then circled the table toward Sebastian.

  Caroline and I ran for the chamber, weapons ready.

  The last of Sebastian’s guards didn’t bother shooting the Hegemons, who slid down in their seats to take cover but chose to move in between their master and the stalking Guaiwu. Four of them firing full auto into the creature slowed it down but only a bit.

  Sebastian, seeing the writing on the wall, decided it was time to go though it. The gigantic stained-glass window of the chamber, that is. With a running leap, he shattered the image of the majestic bald eagle and ran for the chaos of the island.

  The only piece of the window that didn’t fall away was the bottom, where a pair of amputated talons held a scroll bearing the word “Liberty.”

  * * * * *

  By the time Caroline and I got into the council chamber, it was all over but the feeding. Guaiwu ripped chunks of meat out of Sebastian’s dead guards while Jade Tiger and Flea sucked the energy out of the ones who had some left. The other Hegemons climbed to their feet and straightened their clothes with as much dignity as they could.

  Bishop handed Geoffrey his briefcase, while the Hegemon did his best impression of nonchalance. “You know, Bish, you might have tried coordinating your attack with Jade Tiger’s.”

  Bishop shrugged. “Thought I’d let you sweat a little this time.”

  Jade Tiger’s gratitude lasted about as long as Geoffrey’s. No sooner did she finish feeding than she yanked Flea away from her own meal and gave her a vicious tongue-lashing in Chinese, indicating her ruined clothes and disheveled hair. Flea scurried off to get things ready back at the suite. Frankly, those two deserve each other.

  Caroline joined Draco in checking Iago’s condition and I looked aro
und in shock. That was it? Apocalypse averted, everything back to normal? Sebastian just put us all through a night of hell, nearly wrecked the world, had fucked with me more times than I could count this past week, had put Caroline through decades of abuse and misery and was currently still running around—and what was being done about it? Zip. And there was that fuck Valmont, who’d been happy to let it happen, just as cheerful as anything. Would he get what he had coming to him? No. Why? Because I had went and made a promise.

  I wanted some fucking payback! My adrenaline was pumping, my testosterone had kicked into high gear and my anticipation was soaring. I had a gun in my hands and dammit, I wanted to fucking shoot something!

  By the time Draco stood and cleared his throat for attention, I was trembling with impatience. “By the power of my investment as Judicis Proviso, I declare Sebastian Blackwood to be outcast from our august Order, his lifeblood forfeit to any Vampyr. Let him be offered no shelter, nor sustenance, nor aid. I further declare Iago de Medici exonerated of all charges against him and order him reinstalled to his office as Judicis at the next meeting of this body, whereupon any remaining unanswered business of state shall be adjudicated.”

  Cool. Now, let’s do this thing!

  But then Draco told Jade Tiger, who was on her way out of the room, to put her Guaiwu under his command if she chose not to take part in the hunt for Sebastian. She refused, saying that the Guaiwu were not his to command. Then Draco puffed up, barked about how he remained Judicis until Sebastian was dealt with and started leveling a bunch of threats against her and her Domain if she refused to cooperate. Then some of the others started chiming in, citing precedents and questioning Draco’s tactics of persuasion.

  I had fucking had it with these people!

  So I followed Sebastian’s example and jumped out the window.

  I heard Caroline call after me but I’d decided on a course of action and I was gonna follow it through. I knew where Sebastian had gone.