The Feeding House (19 page)

Jack looked at the plans that Isa
ac had laid out in front of him. He could see a picture of what he was supposing was the boat that was bringing these machines across and the port that it would be heading for. Jack had not completely gathered the full seriousness of the situation but knew enough to know that this boats cargo was extremely dangerous and had to be stopped at all costs.

Isaac continued “We have to make sure that none of these feeding machin
es ever reach their destination. Once Dreno has enough of them distributed there may not me much more of a chance to stop him. This is our slim window of opportunity we have to strike now and strike hard. I can guarantee that if we pull this off successfully Dreno will know that it was me who did this. As such I am pretty much declaring full scale war and if it were not for the secrecy of our location everything would be compromised. You are the only one, apart from me, who can fight here, are you in?”

Without a moment’s hesitation Jack replied “Of course I’m in, I couldn’t let you take
Dreno on your own now could I. So what is the plan?”

Isaac smiled turning around some of the notes so that Jack could read them “The plan is fairly simple, although there will be a lot of vampires hanging around the dock
when the shipment of feeding machines arrives the machines themselves will actually not be very well guarded. You see we have a small window of opportunity here, there will be a half an hour gap between when the boat arrives in the dock and Dreno’s transportation comes to collect it. It is in that gap that we must strike. We will go onto the boat and burn the cargo, escaping hopefully unseen. There will be no way to recover it from the bottom of the ocean and Dreno will be forced to send for more, this gives us a few weeks to sort out what we will do next.”

The plan seemed pretty straight forward to Jack but he liked it that way, keeping things simple always seemed to be the best way. He knew that they would more than likely encounter a few vampires but nothing that they couldn’t handle, after all Jack had been given training now and it was more than likely that these vampires were not fighters, except for the bar room brawls that they no doubt found themselves in, no these vampires were simple sailors.

“Rest up well tonight Jack we leave tomorrow, it will be a four day journey and I shall have a carriage take us all the way. This should be a fairly easy job however let us not get ahead of ourselves here. Although we have plenty of intelligence about this boat it never hurts to expect the unexpected that way we will be ready for anything.

Jack joined Isaac on the porch after that to
smoke fine cigars. They spoke to each other as friends, savouring the time together. Although Isaac had not been living in solitude like Jack had it was obvious that he was lonely there in the farm house, his sole duty being to guard and help its inhabitants. They had both finally found a friend and they were thankful for that. Jack went to sleep excited for the day ahead of him. Finally his revenge could begin.

The next day after running Jack through a few more key points on what they would do over the next few days
, Jack and Isaac left the farm house. Isaac looked back, watching the old house as it faded into the distance, it had been years since he had left for any prolonged period of time and he almost felt uncertain of what to do without the comfort and safety of its normal everyday routine. Regardless of this he remained focused on the task ahead.

Not that many words were exchanged on the journey, not
nearly as many as usual anyway. Both of them running through what they expected to encounter over and over again in their minds. As they eventually reached the final day of their journey they began to really feel the pressure of what they were getting themselves into. This was new ground for Jack but they felt confident that if their intelligence was right then everything would turn out fine.

Dreno
sat in his office. He was sipping slowly on a glass of brandy and leaning back on his chair. He had an incredibly smug look on his face and was obviously celebrating. Things had been going well for him over the past few weeks and it seemed as though everything was just falling into place without him even needing to lift a finger. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, savouring the taste as he exhaled the smoke. He thought back to when Jack killed the Chancellor of the Oxford feeding house and began to feel as though, with hindsight it was actually incredibly helpful, after all it was one less obstacle in his way, Of course Dreno was not above killing his old friend himself if he got in his way but it was good that someone had saved him the trouble. However Dreno thanked Jack for something much closer to his heart.

Dreno
had been looking for the location of Isaac for a long time now and finally it seemed that he had found him. The chase had been long but it was all worth it now as he finally had a definite location.

The door to
Dreno’s office swung open and in walked two vampires, one of them was Dreno’s personal security and the other was a vampire from Isaacs feeding house. The vampire was nervous naturally, his eyes darted around the room looking for any forms of invisible traps or things that might endanger him. Dreno’s security guard introduced the vampire to Dreno and then left the room closing the doors behind him.

“Please take a seat Henry, I believe you have some information that might interest me. Let us discuss this like civilised men and reach some sort of agreement,” said
Dreno pointing to a seat behind the desk.

Henry was extremely nervous, he managed to get a thank you out after a few attempts and sat down in the seat his eyes continued to dart around the room, he was behaving like a caged animal worried for its life.

Dreno sucked on his cigarette burning up the last of the tobacco inside, he stubbed it out in the ashtray “Now, what was it that you had to tell me Henry.”

Henry sat up out of the seat and began to think about what he was going to say, trying to make sure that he kept the upmost respect for the person that he was speaking to, after all he knew of
Dreno’s temperament. You did not have to be in the feeding houses to hear of the stories of Dreno’s cruelty.

Henry eventually spoke up “I can lead you to the location of the place
where Isaac is living, there’s lots of us there. It’s a big old farm house on the outskirts of Oxford. We have been living there for quite a while now. Isaac took a guy in a little while ago called Jack Crowe, his arrival caused quite a stir. It was said that he used to be a black blood but now he’s full vampire, I didn’t believe it at first, well at least not until I saw it with my own eyes.”

Henry swallowed hard before continuing the gravity of the situation was obviously getting to him “There have been whispers about
Isaac and Jack working together on some secret project, I don’t know what it is, no one does. Isaacs been training him up to fight, the old way, vampire on vampire. No one at the farm house knows what those two have planned but I have listened into a few of their conversations and your name has come up a fair few times,” Henry inhaled heavily as though he had not taken a breath while speaking, his hands were shaking but quickly he remembered who he was speaking to “High Chancellor,” he said as he gave Dreno a small seated bow.

Dreno
seemed to contemplate what he had heard for a moment allowing an awkward silence to hang in the air, partly because he just enjoyed how much pain Henry was going through as he sat there waiting for a response. After a short while Dreno replied “Very interesting,” he begun as he stroked his chin “What is it that you would ask for such valuable information such as this.”

Henry hesitated for a moment hoping that his demands would not be too much or would somehow insult
Dreno. He knew that whatever Dreno said next would make or break him, he chose his words carefully “I have been living at that farm house with Isaac for a long time now, but it feels longer. I just can’t adjust I miss the taste of fresh blood. I miss being here and I miss the safety that the feeding houses bring. All that I would ask from you high chancellor is that you allow me to return to the feeding houses and live here. I  do not want nor expect any special treatment I just want to be a normal vampire and live and feed amongst my own kind in the way that we have for generations,” Henry bowed his head deeply almost as if he were in shame for asking such a thing, he waited out for Dreno’s reply.

Dreno
took what Henry had said as a compliment. It made him feel powerful and superior and he was happy to hear that one of Isaacs own wanted to return. Dreno felt as though this was proof that the system Isaac was desperately trying to devise was flawed down to its very core “Yes my child your wish is granted, you may live here and feed as we do. Welcome back to the feeding house Henry, welcome back to being a vampire.”

Henry thanked
Dreno and his nerves seemed to spill out of his body, replaced by praise and admiration for Dreno. This was something that Dreno relished in and once he felt as though he had heard enough grovelling, Dreno walked over to his bar area by the fireplace and poured himself a drink of his finest blood and for Henry he poured a glass from the container of pure blood.

“We leave tonight,” said
Dreno as he handed Henry the pure blood “You will lead us to the location of Isaacs feeding house where you shall leave us to go about our business. I have been waiting for this for longer than you could imagine. For now though I propose a toast, to new beginnings.”

“To new beginnings,” replied Henry.

The both of them drunk deep from their glasses, finishing them in one prolonged gulp, Henry felt the power of the pure blood run through him and although it made him feel light headed it also felt better to finally drink blood again than he could have possibly imagine. Henrys eyes momentarily turned black and he displayed his fangs. Dreno smiled all the while, this deal could not have gone better for him.

Meanwhile Isaac and Jack had finally reached the port, the carriage had dropped them off about half a mile away as not to arouse the suspicions of the boat workers. It was a dark and dingy night, the air was heavy and the smell of the cargo brought in by the various different ships hung in the air. The port although open and spacious had a very stuffy feel to it and it was easy to see just how busy it got during the day.

This however was not the day, it was the dead of night and as Jack and Isaac approached the outer parameters if the port they could clearly see a few vampires hanging around in front of a large boat, the one from the pictures. It was obvious that they had arrived at the perfect time, the intelligence that Isaac had gathered was spot on and it seemed as though judging from the way that the sailors were behaving that the transport to collect Dreno’s new feeding machines was not to arrive for at least an hour.

Jack and Isaac ran carefully into a small space near the boat, they were now spitting distance away from the sailors and tried to keep as quite as possible as not to attract attention. This however was very unlikely to happen, the sailors seemed far more concerned with their games of dice and their bottles of beer. There was nothing out of the ordinary, or anything that suggested that something could go wrong it was exactly as they had expected.

Isaac had ran through the plan to destroy the feeding machines over a hundred times with Jack while they were on their journey down but in order to be safe he decided to describe it once more to Jack before the plan went into motion.

Isaac lent in close to Jack and began to speak in a hushed tone extenuating his points with small hand motions “
Ok Jack the time is finally upon us,” He began “Look official and just let me do the talking, we need to lie our way onto the boat and then start a fire inside making sure that it burns enough to destroy the whole boat but we have to also make sure that it does not spread to quick as to make the sailors question if it was us or not. This all needs to look like a complete accident. While they are desperately trying to put out the ever spreading fire we will slip out the back and swim a little further down, just follow me because once we are ashore the carriage will be waiting to take us straight back to oxford as quickly as possible, have you got all of that?”

Jack rolled his eyes and gave a knowing nod “Isaac, you’ve been through this a million times with me, don’t worry everything’s been planned out and sorted, we will be fine.”

The two of them stood up and began to walk towards the large group of sailors sitting outside of the boat, they adjusted their clothes as they went trying to look as sharply dressed as possible, both of them wore a stern expression as they approached trying to make sure that they looked confident and official.

The sailors one by one began to look up at the two unknown gentleman who approached them, they began to nudge each other in the side and whisper into one another’s ears, rumours obviously seemed to travel fast amongst the superstitious sea men.

“Good evening Gentleman,” Said Isaac as he began to speak to the sailors. His demeanour had turned very serious and his body language gave out an air of authority, even more so than usual “We are looking for whoever the captain is of this vessel, where can he be found?”

One of the men stood up slowly sighing as his did so, he seemed to be slightly annoyed at the question “If you’re looking for the ca
ptain I’ll go fetch him for you.” The sailors had a strong London accent, Jack and Isaac both noticed that most if not all of the sailors sitting around in the circle all did too.