Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (25 page)

Blood seeped from the vampires’ wounds and their
cries of pain and surprise and outrage filled the night. Thralls,
suddenly finding themselves unarmed, looked around, frantically
searching for something else to use as a weapon. Automatic weapons
fire filled the night, their bullets penetrating flesh and causing
terrible pain to the vampires, but none of these wounds would kill
them. As the initial flurry of deadly wooden weapons ran out the
vampires could see that their enemy was no longer armed with deadly
weapons and they set about attacking the thralls nearest them as
they waded into the panicked throng.

Carter saw his men begin to waver. The guns were
useless in such a fight. He had to do something or all was lost. He
gripped his own staff and ran forward, bellowing his anger and
terror. His men heard him over their own cries of fear, and they
watched as he surged forward and plunged his staff into the chest
of the nearest vampire. The vampire reached for him, catching him
with a glancing blow across his face before he pulled the staff
back and plunged it again into its heart. The vampire slumped
towards him and Carter lifted his foot and pushed the body off his
spear.

He leaned forward, wiping his own blood from his eyes
as the cut across his forehead seeped into his eyes. He pulled
another spear from a vampire’s dead body and threw it to the
nearest thrall and turned to the others. He must have looked even
more frightening than the vampires with the blood dripping down his
face because the men suddenly stopped screaming.

“Keep your staffs and tear these bastards apart.” The
thralls cheered and surged forward, swamping the remaining vampires
as they recovered their spears from the vampires’ flesh and from
where they lay on the ground and plunged them with renewed vigor
into the remaining vampires. The creatures swept around them with
viciously sharp talons, and many of the thralls fell only to be
lost beneath the advancing feet of those that followed them.
Despite the terrible toll, the thralls began to move forward and
the vampires began to retreat. For the first time in over two years
the creatures knew defeat.

Jacobs saw his men fall beneath the surging tide of
the thralls. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he thought as his mind
began to panic. They are our slaves. He pivoted back away from a
thrusting spear and tore at the thrall that had attacked him. He
had numerous wounds on his body, and each one stung where the wood
had penetrated his flesh. He had never known such pain. Why wasn’t
he healing? He had killed countless thralls but they just kept
coming, and now they held grimly to their wooden weapons. He saw
the last of his men suddenly disappear under a wave of rabid
thralls and suddenly realized that all was lost.

He did not think about what retreat would mean; he
did not even consider Wentworth’s response. He just acted as he had
done all his life. He took the easy path. He tensed his muscles and
leapt upwards, changing his arms into great wings as he leapt. He
would think about the disgrace later. For now he had to get away
and heal. He spread his wings but they felt so leaden and each
wound stung so badly. He surged upwards but something was wrong. He
felt as if he weighed as much as a whale. What was wrong? His body
began to convulse as it reacted to the poison in his system from
the wood. He felt his wings shake and watched in horror as they
began to shimmer and change back into arms. He flapped uselessly
but his arms could not catch the wind currents and he began to
fall.

Below him he saw the thralls eagerly watch him fall
back into their grasp. His body began to shut down. His great
strength began to ebb away; his eyesight began to grow unfocused,
like it was before he had become a vampire. The pain swept over him
in waves, and then he felt the impact as he struck the ground.
After the first few spears tore into him he became completely numb.
He remained conscious, but he couldn’t feel anything. Not until the
big bastard who had rallied the thralls approached him with an evil
smile and a wickedly sharp machete.

Carter pulled away from the vampire and presented its
head to the cheering thralls around him. He reveled in their cheers
and a feeling of triumph and relief flooded through him. They had
won. He looked along the line of the border and saw fires and
destruction as far as he could see. The other thralls had not fared
so well, obviously. The vampires had already moved on, oblivious to
what had occurred here.

The repercussions of what they had achieved would be
far reaching though. Thralls had stood against their masters and
won. The world was changing and all they had known before was now
gone. The balance of power would shift, especially if he could
rally his forces before the vampires realized the importance of
what had happened.

“Master,” one of his men shouted over the cheers of
the other men. “Wentworth’s thralls are on the move.”

Steele thundered through the dark, feeling reckless
and alive. He ran the risk at this speed of being heard by thralls
or seen by a passing vampire, but, if half of what Dee had reported
was accurate, then it was unlikely that he was in any danger from
patrols. The engine throbbed between his legs, its drone monotonous
and hypnotic, almost lethargic in its uniformity. In fact, combined
with the drugs he still took to keep the pain at bay he would have
nodded off long ago had it not been for the freezing air that
snatched at him and chilled him to the bone.

His mind was filled with conflicting emotions. The
last time he had traveled this road he had been on his way to
suppress a vague threat for Nero. The vampire master had not
provided much detail to the council when he had requested a
specialist in guerrilla warfare. It took a lot for a vampire to
appeal to the council for aid, the loss of face alone was
substantial and the favor they would ask in payment would not be
small.

He had always known deep down that the happiness he
had found with the other survivors would never, could never, last.
It was only a matter of time before he would be missed. While he
was not that important, Von Richelieu would miss his pet eventually
and send someone to find out where he was. It would also be unusual
for Nero not to contact the council after his troubles were
overcome; the council would require their payment and would send an
envoy to Nero eventually. When that happened the fledgling human
population would be discovered and the full power of the vampires
would descend on them. It was too late for him, but hopefully he
would be able to delay that inevitable encounter as long as
possible.

He really did not know if such a small community
could survive in the long term, all the odds were against them—and
that was with everyone working together. With the current fractured
leadership, he despaired. However, if anyone could find a way,
Harris would do so. He thought briefly about Harris as he crossed
the border into Von Kruger’s state.

Harris was haunted by something that even Sandra knew
nothing about. At first Steele had been fairly certain that Harris
would self-destruct. Whatever was hidden deep inside him would
eventually be too much for him and he would either, take one chance
too many and die on one of his missions, or he would just give up
under the weight of everything that was stacked against him.

But that had not happened. Steele could see the
haunted look in Harris’ eyes still, but he seemed to be able to use
it to fuel his resolve rather than letting it swamp him. That was
quite impressive in someone so young. Tonight was going to be
pivotal, though. If they could use the conflict between the
vampires to their advantage then they could certainly add
dramatically to their numbers, but how many could they
realistically cope with? He didn’t know, especially with a ruling
council riddled with petty power posturing and downright evil
intent. They didn’t have enough food for any large intake of
people, and they didn’t have sufficient beds to cater for that many
serum withdrawal patients, either. Not that Harris would consider
that anyway. He was focused on the rescue only and making sure that
there would still be humans left alive next week and next year to
rescue.

Steele didn’t think that he would have the strength
of character to make those decisions, as Harris has done. Maybe
that was why he had given up so long ago when his sister had died,
and Harris had not. He did not know much about the man’s
background, none of them really talked about what they had been
before the war, it just seemed so pointless. But something had
happened to Harris that drove him so relentlessly.

Whatever it was, Steele hoped it would be enough to
get them all through the next few hours.

Harris was as ready as he was gong to be. There was
no time for in-depth planning. There weren’t enough of them to
rescue the number of people that would be in the holding cell and
there was no way that the community could handle the number he
would like to bring back anyway. But, he was ready regardless.

Already he could hear the deep thumps of distant
cannon fire and the lighter, more rapid chatter of machine guns.
They were only a few miles from the border here, and the occasional
flare of light pinpointed the scene of the battle being fought in
the distance.

They approached from the south; there was no point in
being careless and coming from the direction of their base—just in
case they were seen. The thralls had repaired the town’s meager
defenses and they had to waste precious minutes dismantling the
wall around the town so they would be able to get out quickly if
required later on. Harris signaled his team out of the truck and
motioned for the engine to be cut. He listened intently to the
noises of the town and scanned the darkness as best he could for
any sign of the thralls.

He motioned for Dee and Warkowski to scout ahead, and
the others began to tear at the newly laid bricks across the road.
The wall was only four feet in height, but it was high enough to
damage any vehicle that might force its way through, except a tank,
of course but they didn’t have one of those. Harris sweated as they
began to tear the wall down. No matter how silent they tried to be
they still had to break the wall, and the noise seemed to
reverberate around the streets like pistol shots with each blow of
the sledgehammer. The cement was not completely dry from the day’s
earlier repairs but was sufficiently hard to require a hammer to
loosen the mortar.

They wasted over thirty minutes clearing the road,
stopping regularly as other sounds intruded. Once he heard engines
fire into life mere streets away and he imagined that the thralls
had heard them and were on their way in force. Another time he
heard the easy banter between two thralls as they walked along the
next street. He signaled everyone to remain silent and each of them
stood silently, most of them with broken bricks still in their
hands, as they waited for the guards to pass. Sherman looked at him
with his eyebrows raised but Harris shook his head. It was too
early in the night to take out guards whose disappearance may be
noticed at the wrong time. Better to leave them to their patrol for
now.

Finally they had cleared sufficient space for the
truck to pass through easily and everyone climbed gratefully back
into the truck, many of them sucking on numerous grazes on their
hands. There was a glow of light ahead of them where numerous
lights powered by a generator were positioned around the main
square. The low hum of the engine throbbed in the air and Harris
was grateful for the noise as it allowed them to get their vehicle
close to the square without undue attention.

Unfortunately, it also meant that there was probably
a larger guard presence in the square than they had planned for.
There was no way the thralls would waste precious fuel to light an
area just for their human captives. Harris looked at his team. He
had planned a speech, something to mark his pride and gratitude for
their confidence in him but, in the end, he found that his mind
drew too many parallels between this and the last time a group of
friends had placed so much trust in him. He looked at his small
group now but all he could hear were the screams of that other
group as they had died two years ago in Boston.

He was embarrassed by their trust in him. He felt
unworthy in light of what had gone before. No matter how many times
he had brought them back safely it just never seemed to dull the
pain of the time he had survived and everyone else had died. He did
not know why he had survived—many times he wished he hadn’t. At
least then he would either be dead or a mindless captive somewhere.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight was different, though.
Yes, he was nervous. His past was foremost in his mind, as it
always was as he began a raid, but something felt different
tonight.

After tonight everything would change. If Steele
completed his mission the vampires would know all about them. He
had wrestled long and hard about sending Steele. He was well aware
that their small community could never survive a direct assault by
vampires, but with the war escalating as it was, he hoped that the
vampires would be too busy with their own troubles. If they did
stop using the serum then they would have to completely change how
they incarcerated their captives. This would not be easy
considering the sheer numbers of humans they held, and Harris hoped
that it would allow them the time they needed to prepare. He knew
he was taking a terrible chance with the lives of all the men,
women and children in their small community. He was only too aware
that he did not have a mandate from the people to do this, either.
But the alternative was to let millions die from the serum, and he
could not do that. Even if it meant they would all die in the
effort. There was no doubt in his mind that their small group could
not survive long term anyway in their present numbers. They had to
grow as a community or risk dying in isolation.