Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (5 page)

Kelly had gone around the back
of the house and had caught the guards in a crossfire. He smiled at
Kelly, he might not like the man but there was no denying he pulled
his weight. He wondered briefly why he didn’t like the man but then
shook himself from his thoughts. There was too much to do. Harris
indicated the stairs and Kelly nodded and disappeared for a moment
as he went back to gather his men. He reappeared a moment later
leading five others and Harris watched as he led his team to the
stairs and proceeded up in the same leapfrog relay he had seen them
perform outside. Two trucks pulled up outside the house and Harris
saw three more men jumping from the vehicles.

“Anderson!” Harris screamed over
the noise of gunfire. “Take your men and clear out this floor.”

Anderson nodded and the three
men moved through the house, systematically clearing each room.
Harris pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and lit it.

Not many of these left now, he
thought, and he drew the smoke into his lungs.

“All clear up here,” someone
said.

“Okay,” Harris replied. He
looked up the stairs to where the shout had come from. “Let’s get
to the basement and finish up before help gets here.”

“You know I’m not going to let
it go, don’t you?” Johnson grinned as he pulled himself from where
he had hidden behind debris from the explosion. His clothes were
covered in dust and there were numerous cuts on his skin where
shrapnel had torn his skin. The pale dust covered his dark skin and
emphasised his white teeth as he grinned hugely. “It was
three-round bursts wasn’t it? I’m sure I heard someone say
three-round bursts somewhere.” He chuckled deeply as he moved on
past Harris.

“At least I don’t look like a
zombie reject from a Michael Jackson video,” Harris countered as he
wiped dust from the man’s cheek and wiped it on his shoulder. “You
know we still haven’t seen any black vampires.” Harris joked.

“Hey, what can I say? You white
people don’t seem to care if you smell like dead shit. You won’t
find any brothers sleeping in coffins and wearing the same clothes
for eternity.”

Harris grinned as he watched his
friend lead his men towards the basement door under the stairs. The
house was now burning in places and the smoke made visibility
difficult. Johnson smashed through the basement door and grunted as
a bullet ripped through his upper left arm. Harris pushed past him,
threw another grenade down the stairs and ducked back into the
hallway. The explosion shook the floor and he had to grab the door
for support to avoid falling. Using the wall as protection Harris
peered into the cellar. No more shots came, but the cellar was
pitch dark and Harris couldn’t see any light switch.

“Get me a torch!” he shouted,
and turned to his friend. “You okay, Ty?”

“Yeah, went clean through. Hurts
like a bitch, though.”

Harris grinned with relief and
looked up as Anderson returned with the torch.

“Right, let’s get this
done.”

Later Harris walked out to the
garden. The sun burned into his body and he squinted along the line
of his men. All of them were dirty from the smoke, some grasped
various bleeding limbs, but all of them had the same look of
determination.

At their feet lay seven
coffins.

That basement held more of them
than I expected, Harris thought. Jesus, we were very lucky today.
There had been more guards than Harris had expected. It wasn’t that
he hadn’t reconnoitred first, he had and quite extensively. But he
hadn’t seen this many guards and he was fairly certain that there
hadn’t been seven vampires staying here when he had made his plans.
He had wanted to strike back at the vampires, make them notice
them. Remind them that they couldn’t have it all their own way. But
this was way more than he had planned.

There was no way the vampires
would ignore this. They had never killed a vampire before. They had
stolen supplies, blown up a few supply depots and killed their fair
share of thralls. In short they had been a nuisance. But killing a
vampire was different. Killing a vampire escalated them to a
completely different level. Killing seven vampires, though, was a
completely different league. Harris sighed as he began to realise
the impact of their actions and he suddenly realised that this
would change everything. He had wanted change but events had
quickly spiralled out of control. He felt like a passenger on a
rollercoaster. He was strapped in and approaching the point where
the cart would suddenly begin its frantic journey. He could see
what was about to come but he couldn’t pull back now. They were all
committed now, for good or bad, he had committed them. He hoped to
God he had done the right thing.

“Burn the bastards,” he
said.

The men whooped and set about
ripping the lids off the coffins. Harris looked impassively at the
coffin nearest him. One of the men ripped the lid off and sunlight
bathed the body within. The creature sat bolt upright and smoke
began to wisp from the exposed flesh. It opened its eyes suddenly
and Harris could almost feel the malevolence of its stare. Its skin
puckered and blistered, stretched and split under the merciless
assault of the afternoon sun. It tried to rise from the coffin, but
pieces of flesh came away from the bone and bubbled like oil in a
frying pan as it fell to the grass.

The screams in the garden were
horrendous. The seven creatures thrashed and kicked in agony as
they melted in front of the men. Harris looked around and saw
another creature half out of its coffin. It was trying to pull
itself into the shade of a nearby tree when the sun burnt though
its hand and seared it at the wrist.

The creature fell forward and
out of the coffin where the sun continued to char it until all that
was left was smoking clothes and a pool of putrefying flesh. The
faint wail of sirens reached the group as the last of the creatures
died.

“Okay, we’re finished here,”
Harris said. “Let’s go.”

The men picked up their gear and
moved to the trucks. Harris paused briefly to drop a small note
next to the coffins and then jumped up into the passenger seat of
the first vehicle.

In the distance the sirens grew
louder.

Chapter 2

“
What?”

The word reverberated around the
room. The sheer volume of the exclamation caused five of the six
men present to jump and squirm uncomfortably. The six sat around a
heavy, dark oak table that measured some twelve feet in length and
five in width. If any of those present had had the time they might
have noticed that the chairs did not quite match the grand table,
the wood was of a different colour and the style almost matched but
the plain sigils on the chairs did not quite fit in with the lavish
carvings along the table’s legs. The room too, was an enigma. It
was huge, but completely bereft of any other furniture. There were
no paintings on the walls, no tables with ornaments and no books
inside the shelves that covered one of the walls. A lone chandelier
hung forlornly from the centre of the room and valiantly tried to
push back the gloom. At least half of its bulbs were dark and the
glow from the remaining bulbs seemed to create more shadows that
they banished. The stark interior only served to emphasise the size
of the room, and the bare walls amplified the thunderous report as
it echoed around the terrified men.

Tony Williams fidgeted nervously
in his chair. He looked down at the papers on the table in front of
him, but knew that all eyes were directed at him. It had been his
news that had made his master explode with such anger. He took a
second to swallow and nervously repeated his message.

“Romulus and his clan were
killed this afternoon. His mansion was att…”

“Attacked,” interrupted the
figure at the head of the table. “Who would dare?” The angry figure
spat the words out between pale lips drawn back over wickedly sharp
teeth.

Williams felt warm liquid
trickle down his leg when the figure leaned to within inches of his
face. Foetid breath assaulted his senses and bile rose in his
throat. He swallowed desperately to prevent his stomach from
spewing its contents.

“We… we don’t know for certain,”
he stammered finally. “There has been a group causing minor
inconveniences …”

“Is that what you call the death
of an entire clan?” Nero snapped at him.

“Nnno, Lord,” Williams
stammered. “Of course not. But this group have never done anything
…”

“Romulus fought with me
alongside Alexander, did you know that?” Nero interrupted as he
appeared to lose himself in thought for a moment. Williams felt his
breathing begin to slow as he watched the vampire. Maybe …

The creature suddenly moved in a
blur. One minute it was leaning over the table toward him, the next
it was beside him. Williams felt the strength of its arms as
fingers gripped his neck and lifted him level with its
six-foot-three frame. Williams wasn’t a small man at just under six
feet and he was at least two stone overweight but his legs kicked
free in the air regardless as the creature held him
effortlessly.

He gasped for air, but only
succeeded in drawing small painful breaths. Cold seemed to seep
from the creature’s hand into his skin and it spread throughout his
body almost instantly. He had never been so cold in his life. The
creature loomed towards him and he was immediately assaulted by a
foul stench from the creature’s mouth. The smell was vile, like
someone had killed a roomful of people and left them to rot in a
heated room. But there was something sweet there also, something
that attracted as much as it repelled, something intoxicating and
terrifying at the same time. He struggled to swallow but the
creature’s grip was too tight, his stomach lurched from the smell
and bile burned its way up his throat. Williams felt his lungs burn
as the creature’s vice-like grip blocked his airway and forced the
bile back down.

“Romulus was one of the
council.” The creature stared hard into William’s eyes. “Where was
his guard detail?”

Williams was turning blue when
the creature finally loosened its grip. He fell to the ground and
the bile in his throat spewed onto the floor and down his suit.
“Dead,” he finally managed through his tortured throat.

“Dead?” the creature hissed
incredulously. “How many thralls did he have?”

“Twenty-five,” Williams replied
as he struggled to his feet. “They were slaughtered. Bodies
everywhere. It was a very professional job. We arrived fifteen
minutes after the silent alarm was set off in the house, but, by
that time, the guards were all dead. Romulus and his clan had been
dragged out in the garden, and the bastards who did it were nowhere
to be seen.”

The creature crossed back to its
seat and sat in one fluid, catlike motion. Williams took the
opportunity to stagger over to his place at the table where he
continued to shake uncontrollably.

“What about the serum
records?”

Williams breathed a silent sigh
through his tortured throat as the creature turned its attention to
Jack Norton, administrative head of the city. Williams saw Norton
stiffen and grinned at the other man’s misfortune. Norton took a
manila folder from the pile in front of him, but before he could
open it, the folder was torn from his hands.

“As you will see, all humans
received their monthly quota on schedule…” Norton began.

“Don’t give me that,” the
creature interrupted. “If they had received the serum they wouldn’t
be out ripping Romulus” house apart, now would they? I want a full
investigation,” he continued, not waiting for a reply. “Some of
them have obviously found a way around it. Every one of these
cattle is to be checked before and after each dose.”

“But, Lord,” Norton blurted out
before he thought about what he was doing. “There are …”

The vampire silenced him with a
glare and Norton felt his bowels loosen as his brain finally caught
up with his mouth. Was he mad? Arguing with a vampire lord was
insane no matter how impossible the task he had been given.

“We could always go back to the
prison system,” Nero replied amiably and Norton paled.

“Nnno, Lord,” he stammered as he
remembered the hell that they had all gone through when the humans
had been held in prisons just after the war. “We’ll find a
way.”

Williams chuckled to himself.
The sheer numbers involved in that undertaking made such an
investigation impossible, but at least failure in this would take
attention away from his own failure in guarding Romulus and his
clan. His job would be a lot easier if the humans were locked up
again like they used to be but the resources for keeping guards in
every prison was prohibitive.

He shuddered as he remembered
the stink of the over-crowded facilities. They had lost more humans
to disease than to the vampires” feeding. That was why they had
introduced the serum in the first place. Besides without the serum
too many of them kept trying to escape and they had had to waste
good food to make an example of them. As well as the waste involved
the threat of imminent death had never seemed to deter the humans
anyway and it had been a constant battle to police the human
population.

The serum had changed all that.
Now the humans were docile enough to be allowed to roam free within
the walled cities but still able to look after themselves on a
day-to-day basis. Thrall resources required were minimal and life
for the thrall officers like himself had become very easy. They had
the best food, the biggest houses and an almost unlimited supply of
humans for their carnal pleasures. All they had to do was keep the
blood flowing for their masters. It was a perfect solution, at
least it had been until those bastard humans had figured out a way
around the serum and had started killing their vampire masters.
This wasn’t their first attack but he had never brought this rebel
group’s actions to Nero’s attention before because they were a
minor nuisance. Something had changed though. The scale of this
attack had shocked him. Why would they take such a risk? Why would
they want to set the whole city aflame? He didn’t know but he had
to find them and crush them quickly. Their actions threatened his
own position. Now he, and the other thrall officers around the
table were in the firing line and that was not a place he wanted to
be.