by J. C. Diem
Merwe’s eyes snapped shut when I put my hands on his shoulders and his breathing sped up. Gently tilting his head to the side, my fangs descended and cut through his skin. Inhaling sharply, Merwe made no further noise of protest as I drank enough of his blood to half fill the hole in my stomach.
His eyes fluttered open again when I stood back and released him. “Is that it?” He seemed incredulous at the lack of ceremony. Maybe he’d been expecting me to turn into a raging maniac. All he really had to compare the experience to was seeing the aftermath of fledgling attacks.
“That’s it,” I confirmed.
Exchanging glances, the leaders of the armies reached a final decision and waved for their men to leave their vehicles. While they were organizing themselves, I returned to my teams. “We’re all going to be able to feed but be careful not to hurt them. Don’t put any of them under or they might think we’re trying to control them.”
Nicholas naturally had an objection. “I do not feed from men.” His upper lip was lifted in a sneer. Joshua agreed with a silent nod and a sneer of his own. They might not look alike but, personality wise, they could have been twins.
“You have two choices here,” I said to them both. “Feed now or go hungry.”
“Why can’t we feed from the villagers?” Nicholas shot back.
I flashed back to when he’d emerged from a hut with blood on his mouth. He hadn’t been helping us kill the fledglings at all, I belatedly realized. He’d been feeding from the humans. “The villagers have already been traumatized enough by the attack from the fledglings and disciples. The last thing they need is us chomping on them.”
Studying my face, Nicholas seemed confused. “They are only humans, my…Natalie. Why do you care about their wellbeing so much?”
Geordie stirred at the overly muscled vamp’s continued annoying habit of addressing me so familiarly. He subsided when Igor flicked him a look. It was going to be extremely annoying having Nicholas on my team but it would be unfair to inflict him on anyone else. I’d been the one to allow him to join us so it was only fitting that I should be the one to have to put up with him.
I had to remind myself that Nicholas had been undead for over two thousand years and probably couldn’t even remember what it was like to be human. “In case you’ve forgotten, we were all human once. You might not remember what that is like but I still do.” I still felt empathy for our food and had no wish for any of them to suffer. Most of the European vamps didn’t seem to agree with me and stared at me askance. Nods told me that Ishida’s people understood where I was coming from. They treated their food source with great respect.
“Humans are inferior to us,” Joshua stated. “We have the right to treat them as we wish.” Considering he’d only recently been made into a vampire, I thought his attitude was laughable.
Gregor took offense to the idiotic claim. “You have been a vampire for…a month?” he guessed. Judging by the way Joshua shifted uncomfortably, the most urbane of us was right on the mark. “You must feel superior indeed to have formed such an opinion about your former kin in such a short space of time. I wonder, if you were still human, how you would feel if one of us said something so preposterous to you?”
Tired of the arguing, I decided it was time to pull rank again. “I’ll be watching you as you feed,” I said to the group at large. “If any of you cause the humans pain or frighten them unnecessarily, I’ll introduce you to the holy marks on my hands.” Holding my hands up, I let them all get a look at the crosses on my palms. Everyone knew what would happen if I used them. They’d either witnessed the power themselves or at least had heard the stories. To ignore my direction would end with them as a messy stain on the ground.
Sanderson and Merwe had brought a thousand soldiers each and quickly chose enough to feed my people. As I’d threatened, I watched the process closely as my teams took turns to feed. Nicholas and Joshua stood firm and refused to bite any of the soldiers. Their resolve wouldn’t last when hunger started clawing at their insides. Being so young, Joshua would falter far more quickly than Nicholas. He was probably already feeling half starved.
The process went smoothly and I didn’t need to melt anyone with my holy marks. It had also taken time and the night was slowly trickling away. As the last team lined up to feed, the two leaders of the armies and I sat at a tiny table to discuss strategy. Luc gave me a silent wink to indicate he’d keep his eye on the team for me. I smiled gratefully, already wishing I could relinquish the responsibility of being a leader altogether.
I spread out the map Merwe had loaned me and the humans squinted at the villages that had been attacked. “The Second plans to send his people out in a semicircle, attacking as many humans as they can,” I explained.
“They can only attack at night, correct?” Sanderson said.
“Yes.”
“What do they do during the day? Where do they hide?” General Merwe asked.
“My best guess is that they’re digging out nests beneath the ground to keep the unrisen safe,” I replied. That was the distinct impression I’d gathered from my unpleasant and unplanned trip through the Second’s thoughts.
Sanderson pondered this then looked alarmed. “There could be dozens of nests with stockpiled newly made vampires around the area waiting to rise.”
I hadn’t even thought of that and nodded reluctantly. When they rose, they would have no one to direct them. They could scatter in any direction, much like cockroaches did when the lights were turned on. “You should probably call some more soldiers in to search for any freshly dug earth. Can you get your hands on equipment that lets you search for bodies beneath the ground?” I’d seen the gadgets on TV so knew they existed.
General Merwe looked doubtful but Sanderson was already nodding. “I’ll ask if the equipment can be shipped here from the US asap. I’ll also ask for more reinforcements. Now that we know what we’ll be facing, the African officials might be more amenable to allowing my soldiers into the country.” The general hesitated before nodding, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence that his leaders would comply.
The Second had concocted a simple yet brilliant plan. We had no way of knowing how many pockets of fledglings were waiting to rise or where they’d been stashed. We would be fighting a never ending battle, running around in the jungle, putting down each group that rose even as dozens more were being made each night.
Any soldiers that were bitten during the skirmishes could also become infected and become our enemy. I knew how reluctant Sanderson was to destroy the men who fell in the line of duty. He was going to have to suck it up and do the sensible thing.
“We’ll split our forces into nine teams and join them with yours,” the colonel was saying. “We’ll send the teams out to the nearest villages and begin searching for the fledglings and for any survivors.”
“We’ll have to move quickly before they can spread too far across my country,” Merwe said. “The sooner we get started, the more of my people can be saved.”
Neither Sanderson nor I were about to argue with the general on that topic. We all had the same goal in mind and we all wanted to get this over with. “Let’s move,” I suggested and stood.
Shouting at his men to gather together, Sanderson split them into nine groups and the general did the same. After some shuffling, our groups merged together into nine less than comfortable units. Soldiers and vampires eyed each other with understandable mistrust. I hoped no ‘accidents’ would occur when we headed off towards our prospective targets. It wouldn’t take much to make our people turn against each other.
I gathered my team leaders together and we huddled around the map to decide which villages we would each target. I nodded to the colonel when we were ready. Sanderson had a final message for his troops before we parted. “I know you don’t like it, but from now on, these nine vampires are in charge of each team.” Heads swivelled to take in Luc, Gregor, Igor, Ishida, Aventius, my weapons teacher, the two Japanese vamps I’d picked an
d lastly, me. “You take your orders from them and are to follow their instructions. We have a job to do and that job is to save as many human lives as possible and to put down the threat of vampire invasion.” His eyes swept across the small army of Americans, Africans, Europeans, Japanese and one Australian. “If we work together, we just might be able to pull this off. Good luck and Godspeed.”
Ishida’s eyes passed over me as if he didn’t even see me as he headed for one of the army trucks. They were far quicker than the refrigerator trucks his tame human had stolen. Kokoro smiled at me but it was distracted and half-hearted. A polite American soldier placed her hand on his arm to help her to the truck. She accepted his assistance with a nod of thanks. She might look small and dainty beside the well-built human but she could easily snap his neck with one hand if she wanted to.
My friends and allies had no time for proper farewells. Gregor waved before herding his team after the group of soldiers he’d been allocated. Aventius nodded respectfully and dragged Joshua off before he could say anything to annoy me. My teacher and the other two Japanese team leaders offered me bows, which I politely returned.
Igor wasn’t about to give up his beloved van or his independence. With a gruff nod, he ambled off to retrieve the vehicle. Geordie hesitated then launched himself at me. He hugged me tightly then kissed my cheek. “Take care of yourself, chérie. Promise me that we will win this battle and that we will be reunited again.”
“I promise,” I said solemnly and meant it. Relieved, the teen ran after Igor and clambered into the passenger seat.
When I turned, Luc stood in front of me. His black eyes seemed darker than usual as he stared down at me silently. I felt someone at my back and knew Nicholas had closed the distance between us. I didn’t need to see his expression to know that it would be designed to annoy Luc.
My one true love didn’t even seem to notice the over muscled vamp behind me. Tilting my head back with a finger beneath my chin, he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me about as thoroughly as it was possible. We didn’t need to voice how we felt about each other, the kiss said it all.
With a final burning look over his shoulder, Luc joined his team and climbed into one of the army trucks. Now I was left with Nicholas and nine other vampires who I barely knew or who were complete strangers to me. Colonel Sanderson and two hundred or so of his men would be travelling with us. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that the colonel had decided to stick with me. As the leader of the vampire army, he’d want to keep his eye on me to make sure we were sticking to the plan. I doubted he’d ever really be able to trust me or my kind. Why should he after two of the most ancient creatures on the planet had both launched a plan to try to take over the world?
Chapter Fifteen
Sanderson briskly led the way to his jeep and I was right behind him. Nicholas followed me almost too closely for comfort. From the disdainful looks he was giving everyone else on our team, he seemed to think he was my second in charge. I foresaw problems ahead but would have to deal with them as they arose.
I climbed into the back of the jeep and buckled myself in automatically. Nicholas didn’t bother with the seatbelt when he took the seat next to me. Spreading his knees wide in typical man fashion, he made sure his thigh brushed up against mine. When he received no reaction from me at all, he subsided into a sulk but stubbornly kept his leg against mine.
Our chauffeur, an American soldier, took off, following his colonel’s directions. The young soldier kept throwing wide eyed glances at me in the rear view mirror. He would eventually either get used to the sight of my unnatural beauty or he’d drive us into a tree. For his and the colonel’s sake, I hoped he would snap out of it quickly.
The track we were on was infrequently travelled and very nearly overgrown by the jungle in places. Our vehicles had been almost overwhelmed by trees at one point and one of the larger trucks had had to forge the way.
A couple of hours later, our small convoy drew close to the village we’d picked. Stopping only a couple of kilometres away, I heard no sounds of battle ahead. Jumping out of the jeep, I debated about the safety of sending out my senses then decided it would be worth the risk.
Gathering my consciousness, I sent it out slowly towards the village. Sensing nothing, I widened the search and caught the tail end of a group of my kind in the distance. Damn it, we’re too late! “We might as well drive in closer,” I told the colonel. “The village is empty of vampires.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Sanderson asked me, perplexed by my knowledge.
“My…Natalie is capable of wonders you could not even imagine,” Nicholas told the soldier haughtily. He stood at my right shoulder like an honoured henchman.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I can sense them,” I explained to Sanderson.
“That would have come in handy when we were trying to locate the imps in Russia,” the colonel said as he motioned his people back into their vehicles.
“The First blocked my ability to sense them when I was within a few hundred kilometres of him,” I explained as I climbed back into the jeep again. “With him gone, I have no trouble sensing my own kind now.” Unfortunately, my talent wasn’t unique anymore and it might not be as great a help as it could have been.
He turned around to study my face. “You’re not telling me everything.”
Caught out, I had little choice but to tell him the truth. “The Second can also sense our kind. He can sense it when I’m searching for him.”
Musing, the colonel thought that over. “So it will be difficult for us to sneak up on him if you try to search for him.”
“He could easily set a trap for us if he knows we’re on his trail.”
Disappointed that my secret weapon was all but useless, Sanderson rode in silence. Nicholas nudged me with his knee and I moved away, crossing my legs so he would have to slide over if he wanted to maintain contact with me. I found his attention far more annoying than flattering. As a plain, ordinary human, I’d have been all but invisible to a hot guy like Nicholas. Now that I had unnatural vampire beauty, he was drawn to me. I almost wished I could turn back to being ordinary again just so he would leave me alone.
Just ahead of us, the lead truck broke through into a clearing and pulled to a stop. I smelled blood thick in the air, confirming that we were too late. Sanderson and his men were grim as they surveyed the ruins of what had once been a thriving village. This one was larger than the others. I estimated that at least a hundred people had once lived there. Now it was littered with the tiny bodies of children, all missing their hearts. The adults had been drained then stashed in their underground lairs.
As Sanderson’s men searched the village for small bodies to be disposed of, I gathered my own troops together. My team consisted of five European vamps, including Nicholas, and four Japanese. “Spread out and see if you can locate any freshly dug tunnels where they might have hidden the fledglings.” Nicholas obviously thought he was above following my direction and stayed by my side. “That includes you, Nicholas,” I said pointedly. With a stiff nod, he turned and disappeared into the jungle.
“What’s his problem?” Sanderson asked me quietly as he reached my side.
“His ego is even bigger than his muscles,” I responded.
“Do you two have some kind of…thing going on?” He looked awkward as he asked the question.
I almost laughed but kept it in just in case Nicholas hadn’t moved out of earshot yet. “No. The only person I have that kind of relationship with is Luc.”
“I’d watch out for Nicholas,” Sanderson whispered. “He seems like trouble to me.”
I indicated my agreement with a nod, glad he’d been discreet when warning me. Even people who had only just met the ex-courtier could see he wasn’t a team player. Maybe Nicholas would calm down being away from the Court after a few more weeks. The prospect of dealing with his prickly attitude for any length of time was depressing.
One of the Japanese vamps ret
urned at a run. Stopping in front of me, she gave me a quick bow. I returned it automatically as she gave her report. “I have discovered a tunnel, Mortis.” She spoke in her native language, which I translated for the colonel.
“Show us,” I told her and was on her heels when she took off. Sanderson and some of his men followed as best as they could. They were panting and out of breath by the time they caught up to us.
The Japanese vamp pointed at a spot that had recently been dug up. Sending out my senses, I could only feel about twenty fledglings beneath the ground. That meant there had to be more nests somewhere in the area. It would be time consuming to search for them all. Debating about the dangers of the Second becoming aware of my location, I tried to decide whether it was worth trying to sense more buried fledglings. The more of them we destroyed before they rose, the fewer we would have to deal with later. The more time you waste digging them up, the more vampires the Second and his brothers will make, my subconscious argued. We weren’t exactly in a win-win situation.
“We have a choice to make, Colonel.” Being new to a leadership role, I figured someone who was far more used to it could make the decision. Sanderson cocked an eyebrow at me so I laid it out for him. “I can sense where the fledglings have been buried. We can either take the time to dig them up and destroy them or we can advise your reinforcements and they can take care of them when they arrive.”
Sanderson barely needed to think about his decision. “It will take four or five days for my men to be deployed. I vote we dig these monsters up and kill them now.”
While I wasn’t happy about my new kin being described as monsters, I agreed with his choice. Several of his men began digging the freshly turned earth up. Some carried flamethrowers, which would be an effective way to make sure all of the bodies were destroyed.
