Vampire Esquire's War (Book 2)

by Michael Wells Jr.

  ___________________________

  Vladimir Lenin and ten other vampires jumped over the wall.

  “It’s Lenin,” shouted Magnum to Roland. “We need to go guard the Oval Office.” Both men ran.

  “Yeah, but they don’t have permission to enter the White House itself.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” said Magnum.

  Although the White House cameras were sensitive, and the Secret Service noticed even the smallest movement, their movements were not detectible to the naked eye—especially when the cameras were switched off, and the bulk of the agents were still getting serviced by prostitutes. Their heat would only be visible on infrared cameras, which would not be reviewed till a later date, assuming they ever were reviewed. None of this would do any good.

  The henchmen charged the White House, and the Secret Service, with the assistance of the Society of the Silver Stake, fired silver bullets at two of the vampires, destroying them.

  Magnum and Roland stood outside Oval Office to defend the president. They formed the final defense. It all rested on them.

  Roland stepped forward. A tall, lean vampire catapulted forward. Roland heard William Magnum shout, “Look out Roland!” Roland saw another vampire approach from the other side. Then another came from the opposite side. The three vampires moved like raptors.

  The middle vampire drew Roland’s attention. The other two moved in while he was distracted, but Magnum shouted another warning.

  Roland pulled his cross bow from his back, and he fired one silver stake at the vampire in the middle. The stake pierced the heart of the vampire, destroying it.

  Roland charged the vampire on the left. The vampire shot forward at him. As the one vampire dove forward, he felt the other jump on his back. The vampire’s hot breath pulsed in Roland’s ear as its fangs bore down on his neck.

  The fangs pierced Roland’s skin, and, as the fangs tore into his flesh, he stabbed a silver stake back and up. The vampire instantly exploded, and the spray from the vampire landed on the charging vampire, blinding him temporarily. Roland plunged the same stake, still covered in the vampire’s blood and guts, to stab the heart of the other vampire. Same result.

  Roland had never been covered in so much vampire blood. He might as well have bathed in it.

  Roland turned around to see William Magnum, also coated in blood with a silver stake in his hand. Magnum said, “The silver stake is still the most effective weapon. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Magnum blew out his breath, tired from the exertion.

  Alexander Hamilton rushed to Roland and Magnum, “Good job both of you. You’ve thinned the numbers, but Vladimir Lenin got through.”

  They saw Lenin charging towards the Oval Office. It really is him, thought Roland. Roland fired a silver stake, but Lenin jumped over it. The stake hit the ground and clanged. Then he scowled and hissed at Roland, but still he ran towards the Oval Office like he was going to break the windows or something.

  Magnum and Roland charged at Lenin who ran on almost ignoring them.

  “It doesn’t hurt too bad, and I don’t plan on being buried,” said Magnum to Roland as they pursued Lenin.

  “Even if you were it wouldn’t make you a vampire. You were never drained.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Yeah, it will heal.”

  The Oval Office had been the scene of so many historic announcements from Roosevelt’s fireside chats to announcements from the previous two presidents. Magnum could see the images of Roosevelt covered in his blanket beside a fire. uch a comforting, safe place. Not anymore. Now it would be the scene of the struggle not only for the soul of America, but for the fate of the world.

  Humans and vampires would meet in a showdown. And it was a showdown for all the ages.

  Then Roland and Magnum saw Thomas Watson walk out of the shadows to open a door into the Oval Office. Lenin walked up to that door, and said, “You’ve done your job.”

  “Watson is a vampire,” yelled Magnum. “Pierre, tell the president to retract permission to enter.”

  But the president didn’t hear, and Lenin was in. Roland and Magnum rushed in the door behind him with their stakes drawn.

  ____________________________

  Both vampires crossed the threshold to the West Wing of the White House without a hitch. “If we can kill the president and the Vice President, then we will have our own man in office. We will have total control.”

  “To your right,” yelled Lenin. Watson spun to face Magnum with a silver stake drawn. He felt the silver weakening him even though it didn’t touch him.

  Secret Service men rushed in, but it was too late. Watson charged forward, and he slapped down six men and ripped their spines out. He tossed the bloody spines to the ground as other vampire hunters gasped in horror. He didn’t have times to make any of them vampires.

  Watson and Lenin killed them with ease usually by ripping them in half or severing their arms so that the hunters were unable to stab with the lethal silver stakes.

  “This shouldn’t be so easy,” said Watson.

  “Why shouldn’t it?” cried Lenin. They sprinted forward, though they faced little opposition. Watson supposed most of the hunters had charged forward, and they were close to the final battle.

  “If it were so easy, why wasn’t it done sooner?”

  “Good question,” said Lenin.

  Watson expected an answer. None ever came. One way or another, answers would come later.

  Implacably they pushed forward. Thomas Elder’s days were numbered.

  ____________________________

  Elder saw Lenin and Watson fighting the vampire hunters.

  “Watson is a vampire, ” he said.

  President Elder slumped back in his chair. “A vampire? How is that possible?”

  Pierre chimed in as he rushed President Elder behind a sofa. “Lenin must have turned him when he went to Paris. I’ve never been close to Watson since then so I couldn’t check. Something about him seemed off.”

  President Elder said, “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

  “Sir, I wasn’t sure. should have said something, but I thought it would cause a panic. And, if it weren’t true, then there would be even more problems.”

  “I wish I had known––“

  Glass shattered in the window facing the South Lawn, and it landed on President Kennedy’s former desk as Magnum tangled with Lenin. President Elder dove to the side, and Pierre Leblanc positioned himself between the president and the intruders.

  Vladimir Lenin’s eyes shone read. His fangs protruded down at least three inches, and the bottom fangs stuck up almost three inches. President Elder had never seen such vicious fangs.

  Drago, thought Pierre. It is my maker. I had my suspicions, but I’ve never been up close, and all the pictures of him are graining and unclear. But somehow I’ve always known. I denied it to myself though.

  “When you’ve been around for three thousand years, your fangs get big like this. Mr. President, I used to think I’d turn you into a vampire, but I don’t think you’d allow it. You would blast your own head off first. So I’m going to kill you and get my own guy in the White House.”

  The president stood up, his massive desk between the two vampires. “Thomas, I know this isn’t your fault.”

  Thomas Watson backed away and towards Lenin, but he acted tentatively as if he were a dog caught between two masters unsure of where to go.

  Vladimir Lenin’s head snapped towards Watson. “What’s your fucking problem?” Watson didn’t reply.

  Pierre Leblanc stepped forward and faced Vladimir Lenin. “I’m not going to let you kill President Elder, nor am I going to let you institute a vampire dictatorship. I let you take my life years ago, but I won’t let you destroy the world I love.”

  “The turncoat Pierre Leblanc. The Benedict Arnold of the vampire community. I’ve heard so much about you. You’ve done so much since you fled me. You coward!”

  Lenin�
�s body glowed red, and blood drops rolled down his cheeks. Tears of rage and disappointment flowed. “You were supposed to be my son, my glorious heir, and you fled. You vanished.”

  Pierre’s face went white. “I had to go. You are a monster, a fucking monster!”

  Lenin regained his composure, and he scoffed, laughing sadistically. “I always knew we’d meet again, but I didn’t think it would be in this way. You had such promise, but you disappointed me.” Lenin expressed heartfelt remorse with these words, and he paused for a moment, pondering nostalgically his anger briefly passing.

  Meanwhile Watson had moved away from Lenin, and he no longer watched him. His eyes were on President Elder.

  Rage welled up in Pierre Leblanc, as he thought of all he’d lost by being turned into a vampire. Mainly though he thought of Quinta, and how it didn’t have to be this way. He could have lived a short, mortal life with her, been happy and never known the almost two thousand years of sadness and loss.

  Hatred burned in Pierre, and he catapulted himself at Lenin, but Lenin’s hand grabbed Pierre by the neck. As the much older vampire, Vladimir had a decided strength advantage. Pierre gasped through the grip, “I will destroy you Drago! You took my life from me.” Pierre wept blood tears of rage and sorrow.”

  President Elder dragged a couch to the side of the room nearest the fireplace. He drew his silver stake.

  “I liberated you from the confines of morality you ungrateful child! How dare you challenge me?” Lenin screamed.

  With his free hand Pierre pulled a small silver stake from his waistline out of the protective covering that shielded the radioactive silver, and he stabbed Vladimir in the stomach. White smoke wafted up from Vladimir’s stomach, and his flesh hissed as if acid had been spilled on it. Weakness registered in Lenin’s eyes as some of the frenetic energy created by his rage dissipated.

  The silver stake had done its job. Pierre stood his ground, and the men circled each other, walking around the Presidential Seal carpet. President Elder strengthened his grip on his silver stake and crouched, ready to defend himself if necessary, but the fight wasn’t about him––at least not for now.

  Vladimir grabbed the silver stake, his hand hissing his flesh burned off. He pulled it out and threw it at Pierre. Pierre ducked as the stake stabbed into the wall.

  Vladimir and Pierre flew up in the air and crashed into each other like two supersonic jets on a collision course. The crashed back and forth, smashing the elaborate plaster on the ceiling. Lenin fought like a dying, desperate beast. Leblanc fought like a man with purpose.

  Magnum rushed towards Watson with his stake raised.

  “Don’t do it,” yelled President Elder. “Focus on Lenin. He’s the greatest threat.”

  But Magnum couldn’t. The fight was now vampire versus vampire. Only one would emerge successful. The other would be staked.

  Vladimir and Pierre continued to struggle, smashing back and forth on the ceiling. “I should have destroyed you when I had the chance, Drogba,” said Lenin.

  “My name isn’t Drogba,” replied Pierre.

  Vladimir struck a mighty blow to Pierre’s shoulder with a silver stake as the two crashed into one of the walls. “There’s something I never told you. It is something you may want to know.”

  Pierre struck back with a shot to Vladimir’s eye. Vladimir howled in pain, but then his strength took over, fueled by rage, and he slammed Pierre through the window behind the president’s desk. He’d forgotten about killing the president because he was so consumed with his rage.

  “This may make you feel better, but I lied to you about Quinta,” said Vladimir. As he spoke these words, Vladimir smiled to Pierre, who was ever more ashen than before. “Quinta lived, and she remarried. She bore another man’s children.”

  Pierre howled with regret not over Quinta living, but over his loss. He could have survived and found Quinta, but Vladimir had made him into a vampire. He robbed Pierre of his life. He’d robbed him of happiness.

  The emotion overwhelmed him. He didn’t care if it all ended here. Pierre lay prostrate on the ground, the strength and the will sapped out of him.

  Vladimir looked to his right, and he saw a silver stake lying on the ground. He snatched up the stake, and he raised it over his head.

  “There’s something else you need to know. Quinta is––.” Lenin swung it down towards Pierre’s heart, but as he did, Vladimir exploded in a haze of blood.

  The bloody slime coated Pierre’s eyes and his body. He wiped away the mess, and he saw Thomas Watson standing behind Lenin’s remains. “I couldn’t let him destroy you, Pierre, or kill the president.”

  “Thank you,” mouthed Pierre barely able to speak.

  “You are welcome,” replied Thomas Watson.

  President Elder stood up and walked around from the couch. “You saved me,” he said to Watson.

  “I couldn’t let Vladimir kill you. It wasn’t right. Not after all these years.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m pardoning you, effectively immediately. I need you now more than ever.

  Chapter 29

  The Supreme Court heard the case challenging the right of non-humans to hold office as either a congressmen or senator. Predictably, the Court invalidated the elections that had Lenin’s vampire cohorts in office. In separate ruling, they declared private prisons unconstitutional, and they also stated in the dicta of the opinion that private prisons were a threat to safety and the incubators of Lenin and the Vampire Restoration League.

  Several hundred vampire hunters were sent into the offices of the three hundred members of the House of Representatives, who were vampires, and the sixty Senators, who were vampires. All were staked. Due to the amount of blood and gore, all of the House and Senate office buildings were closed for three months in order for them to be cleaned.

  In the meantime, the remaining 138 Congressmen and forty Senators set about reinstating the Medicaid in California, Louisiana and Washington. Recipients received the care they needed. Unfortunately those who had already been turned vampire were eliminated, sparking a myriad of debates regarding the ethics of staking vampires. The issue raised was: how do you know if vampires are good or bad?

  Controversy raged over President Elder’s decision to pardon Thomas Watson. What actually happened at the White House was labeled highly classified for national security reasons.

  Restoration vampires and some vampires who worked with Lenin remained unaccounted for. Notably Fletcher Turner remained at large, although the Society of the Silver Stake knew Fletcher to be a vampire, and a nasty one at that. But Mark Inman’s vampire identity wasn’t known to non-vampires, and very few vampires knew. The ones who knew were Restoration Vampires, and they certainly wouldn’t tell.

  ____________________

  Mark Inman sat in his hideaway office. He didn’t know what to make of what had transpired. It hadn’t gone as expected, but he was still here and in power. But he was a vampire. How long could he keep it up? How long before he was impeached? How long before Fletcher and he were inextricably linked together?

  Inman glanced up and saw Fletcher Hunter. “The most wanted man in America and my downfall.”

  Fletcher grinned. “I’m sorry you see it that way. I see it is as an opportunity.”

  “How so?”

  “You can kill the president and gain immortality.”

  “I would be destroyed soon after.”

  “Perhaps, but who gets to go out in that kind of blaze of glory?”

  ________________________

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!” President Elder walked down the aisle to the House chamber podium in order to give the State of the Union Address. Special elections would occur within a few weeks, but, for now, the House and Senate remained at diminished numbers. It was the first time in United States history that the House and Senate were not filled.

  When the applause died down, President Elder began his speech, “Ladies and gentlemen, we h
ave met and survived the greatest threat ever to the United States, to the human race, and we have prevailed.” Thunderous applause arose from the well of the House chamber. Men and women cried.

  President Elder went on to explain how vampires had always existed. They had remained in the shadows, but now everyone knew of their existence. He then said they were never going away, but he explained, “There is a remarkable vampire, a friend to this country. While I cannot reveal his identity, I’ll call him Vampire Esquire because he is both a lawyer and a vampire.

  “But he is more than that. He saved us for many reasons. He devised a plan whereby vampires will be able to purchase blood from private blood banks. Humans can sell their blood. Vampires will not be forced to kill humans to eat. Humans will be paid for their blood. It is an ingenious and very necessary plan.

  “Vampire Esquire also helped us destroy the Nero Corporation, led by Vladimir Lenin, who breached the White House and tried to kill me.” Pausing as the cheers erupted, the president said, “Vladimir Lenin wasn’t successful. They weren’t successful. Citizens found the vampires flowing out of the private prisons. And we were stronger than those vampires. Our will was stronger.”

  Wild applause rang out from the gallery.

  “They will never be successful! We will remain vigilant! We will prevail. Our species, our civilization, will remain. We will thrive. We will not be defeated, not now, not ever. The State of our Union is strong!”

  Fervent applause sounded though out the House chamber. It was the first of the dramatic statements in what would likely be an hour speech.

  President Elder went back to his speech.

  President Elder did not see Speaker Inman as he approached from behind the podium. Because he was the Speaker of the House no one thought much of it other than to think it was a little odd.

  The crowd gasped as Inman tackled the president. Secret Service pounced, but Inman tossed them aside as if they were rag dolls.