Coalition of the Damned - 03 (18 page)

“You bit your tongue. They had to put the…thing in your mouth to keep you from biting it off,” one of the members said.

The other stared down at him, his face twisted. “You were having some kind of fit,” he said in heavily accented English.

“I need them to drug me up
good
,” Dom told them, his eyes pleading with them.

The first one shook his head. “They are already concerned with the amount they have given you.” He lowered his voice and gave Dom a knowing look. “They do not understand our m
etabolism.”

“You don’t get it,” Dom hissed. “That vampire did som
ething to me. He…
caused
something in my head and I can almost get to it when I’m under the influence.”

The two squad members glanced around the room and then at each other. The first one laid a hand on Dom’s chest and pushed him back down to the bed. “I will see what I can find,” he said. “The doctors here will not give it to you, but if I can get my hands on the tranquilizers, I will give them to you.”

Dom nodded and lay back while the EU Monster Squad member snuck down the hall. The second team member stood duty at his bedside, watching both the door and the window. After a few minutes, Dom asked him, “You guys been getting calls to a bunch of bullshit ops? Almost like you’re being tested by someone who doesn’t know how monsters act?”

The other team member looked at him and nodded. “Yes. We have had two such calls,” he replied. “Both were…disappointing.” He smiled at Dom.

“Vampires? Zombies? What did you have?” he asked, his throat rasping.

The team member unstrapped his arm and poured him a cup of water. “We had a small outbreak of newly made vampires. Both times, it was as if somebody had created these newborns and simply set them loose.” He shook his head. “They were like shooting fish in the barrel.”

Dom nodded after he washed his mouth out with the water and drank down some of the cool wetness to coat his throat. The chunk he bit in his tongue hurt now that he had taken a drink, and he almost regretted doing it. “We had similar things happen in the states.” He reflected. “They didn’t have a clue how to set up a real test the first couple of times, but the last one?” he shook his head. “That was when they nabbed me. They got us divided and overwhelmed me by sheer numbers.” Dom thought back to the night they had been overrun and a cold shiver went down his spine. “It started out as maybe a half dozen to lure us in, then before we knew it, there was probably eighty of them swarming the house and another forty behind me. I got tackled and held to the ground while they shackled me.” He shook his head again and gave a tight smile. “I can’t wait to give them some payback.”

“Very soon we pack it out to America. Then you can have your payback.” The operator patted his arm reassuringly.

The door slipped open and the other squad member stepped in quietly. “It was not easy to find their tranquilizers.” He held up the bottle of clear liquid and a syringe. “Are you ready to find whatever it is you are looking for?” He stuck the syringe into the bottle. He injected a large amount of air and then pulled the plunger back, filling the syringe with the clear liquid.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Dom said. He turned and looked at the other squad member. Dom opened his mouth and the man placed the bite block back into his mouth and Dom shut his jaw on it. The man secured it in place and Dom lay back while he reattached his hand to the strap at the side of the bed.

“Do you know what you are doing?” the second squad member asked. “Can you give him an overdose?”

The first man shrugged. “Did you see how much they gave him the last time? He said it was not enough.” Then the man stuck the needle into the IV line and pushed the plunger on the syringe. He turned and watched Dom’s eyes flutter and then close within seconds. “Hmm. Strong stuff.”

“What if you gave him too much?” the second squad member asked.

“Then I gave him too much!” he whispered back excitedly. “I cannot take it back out of his arm!”

Dom felt the blackness ooze over him and the warmth of the drug envelope his body, his mind drifting into the ether. The last thing he heard before losing touch with reality was, ‘Then I gave him too much!’ and yet, he didn’t care if he had. This felt different than before when he was doped up. This felt wonderful and he felt like he was floating on a lake of warm darkness without a care in the world.

He could relax and rest and his mind could wander without the dark images flashing in front of his eyes. He felt himself sigh with relief as he relaxed. He opened his eyes in his mind and saw inky black water, calm and glassy, dark blue skies that were nearly black above him. He was floating on his back trying not to cause ripples in the serenity of the water. He slowly turned his head and could see the silhouette of an island not far from where he was, but he didn’t care. He was too relaxed to care.

He sighed again and enjoyed the warmth of the water, floating along the surface like a leaf in a stream. Peace at last, he could finally rest. He was just about to glance at the island again when ghostly white hands burst from the water and grabbed him around the middle and began pulling him down, under the water trying to drown him. He knew exactly who those ghostly, cold white hands belonged to and he fought them as they pulled at him, grabbing at his clothing, ripping and slashing at his flesh to pull him to the bottom and hold him there until he too, was a corpse.

Savagely he fought back, pulling at the hands, kicking and shredding in return, punching with all of his might, struggling against the force that pulled him deeper and deeper into the inky blackness of the water. He felt when they passed the thermal layer in the water as it chilled him, or was that simply his life force seeping from him as the vampire sucked his life energy away? Dom didn’t know and he didn’t care as he continued to fight, feet kicking at the unseen enemy below him, hands gras
ping, pulling, tearing and slashing at the enemy below him. When he finally broke free of the monster, he kicked for the surface of the water, his lungs burning for air. He shot forth from the surface of the water and gasped for oxygen, feeling the cooling effect immediately as he forced cold air back into his lungs, the darkness of the nightscape had turned to day, the serenity of the water restored to natural, but calm waves.

He continued to suck air as quickly as he could and kicked for shore. He could taste the salt in his mouth and didn’t know what the hell was going on, but this felt as real as real got. The sea tastes real, smelled real and felt real. The sand under his feet felt real as he hit the beach of the small island and the seashells under his hand felt real. The sun on his back felt real and the gulls screeching at him for disturbing their scavenging sounded real. The waves crashing on the shore sounded real and the brine along the shore smelled as real as anything he had ever exper
ienced before in his life.

Dominic didn’t know what was going on and questioned if he was losing his mind. He fell to his knees on the sand, sudde
nly exhausted and confused. He looked to the interior of the island and noted that the jungle was teeming with plant life and birds. He knew that if he could find water, he could survive here…if it was in fact a real place. But he prayed to whatever god there was that this was still a drug induced dream.

He tiredly pulled himself to his feet and trudged off the w
ater’s edge and to the jungle’s border. He turned back and looked out at the ocean to see if there was any sign of the vampire or a boat or any other sign of how he had arrived here, but saw nothing but the endless ocean. He glanced upward and saw the sun between the fronds of a palm tree’s limb and knew that had the vampire been real, its life would be forfeit in daylight. Breathing a slight sigh of relief for miracles, he stepped into the jungle to investigate this strange new world he had arrived at.

11

The briefing room had been prepared and while the teams assembled, Mueller privately confessed to Colonel Mitchell what he did during his short leave time. Matt listened patiently and tried not to lose his cool when Mueller informed him that he had broken the cardinal rule of being with the Monster Squad and told his wife everything. And yes, for clarification, he meant
everything
. He also told Colonel Mitchell how he had swiped several dozen rounds of silver ammunition and equipped his wife with a comparable handgun in order to use the ammunition and showed her how to use it at the family farm.

Mitchell interrupted him and asked, “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done, Mueller?” Mitchell fought to keep his face from turning red. The cat was out of the bag and losing his temper at this point would do him little good. Curbing the da
mage caused by his operator’s indiscretion might.

“I saved my family’s lives, Colonel,” Robert shot back qu
ietly, keeping his voice low so that the others wouldn’t know that their families were now under attack. “She just called me to tell me that two vampires showed up at our house at dusk ‘to take them to safety’. When she questioned them about it, they got grabby and she put them down,” he explained through clenched teeth.

Mitchell paled. “She was sure they were vamps?”

“Unless they were truly DoD and just needed a better dental plan, then yes, sir.”

Mitchell nodded. He looked up and caught LT. Gregory preparing to enter the briefing room and waved him over. “Mueller’s ex-wife and son were attacked at their family home by vamps. She put them down on her own.” He didn’t explain that she used stolen silver ammunition, no need to get too deeply into the details. “I want people sent to all immediate family members
now
! Surveillance only. Anything strange or out of place, they step in and take them out. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Right away.” Gregory ran down the hall and picked up a phone as Mitchell turned back to Robert.

“What you did was
completely
out of line, son,” Mitchell began. Bob stiffened. He was prepared to take whatever punishment Matt dished out, so long as his family was safe. “But if you hadn’t it could have gotten damned messy.” He finished softly. “And your actions may have saved some of the other operators’ families as well,
if
we get people in the field in time.” Mueller simply nodded at him, unsure if he was off the hook or not. “What spurred this course of action?” Matt asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Bob took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulders to ensure nobody else was within hearing distance. “Dominic, sir. I couldn’t take the risk he wasn’t compromised.”

“Good call, son.”

Matt heaved a small sigh of relief. A small part of him felt it was because he had withheld the truth of the augmentation from the operators and felt guilty for having such selfish thoughts at a time like this. “Should have thought of it myself,” he muttered. “Next time though, bounce these ideas off of me before you act, okay? We could have assigned someone to watch the fam
ilies…ALL of the families. And not risk them finding out about the monsters.”

“You mean not risk them finding out about
us
, sir?” There was no malice in his tone, but Robert knew exactly what Mitchell meant.

“No, Bob, I mean the monsters. We aren’t monsters. We stop the monsters,” Matt clarified. “If the day comes where any of us goes feral and starts killing innocent humans for the sheer joy of killing, then yes. Then we become the monsters and I pray to God that somebody else will hunt us down and put us out of our misery,” He preached. “But until that time comes, we are the good guys. We protect the innocent from the evil. We are the first line of defense for the mommies and daddies who tuck their kiddies into bed at night and promise them that there is nothing hiding under the bed that will eat them in their sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s get into the conference room. We have a lot to go over with this…Max character,” he said with obvious distaste in his voice.

The two men entered the room and Bob found a seat with the other squad members. Colonel Mitchell went up to the front and checked to ensure that all the appropriate people were present then cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Okay, folks, let’s get this started.” He waited a moment while the noise settled and they turned their attention to the front. Mitchell nodded to Maxwell who was seated to the side and he rose and came up beside him. “This, if you haven’t a
lready met him, is Maxwell Verissimo. He is…well…” Matt glanced sideways at Max and shook his head with a slight chuckle. “Well, hell, it’s complicated, wouldn’t you say?” Max agreed, but maintained his position, waiting to be introduced to the group. “He is Viktor’s father, Nadia’s grandfather. So I guess that makes him your grandfather-in-law, Jack.” The comment drew a few light laughs from the operators in the crowd. “Anyway, he is also the Roman Centurion we were hoping to find. And with that, I’ll let Max explain the rest and tell his story.”

Max stepped up to the podium and gripped both sides with his powerful arms and looked out at the crowd. He studied them for a moment then nodded. “Smells like a kennel in here,” he said with a grin. He looked from face to face and found no h
umor in the faces of the soldiers in the crowd. He turned to Mitchell and murmured, “Tough crowd.” Matt simply shrugged at him.

Max turned his attention back to the soldiers and essential support staff and straightened a bit. “Right, well, so much for ice breakers. As the good colonel said, I’m Max. Or as some of you have heard of me, Claudius Maximus Veranus.” He didn’t get the excited looks from the soldiers he halfway expected, so he continued on. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story by now, one way or the other, yes?” He saw most of them nod or murmur to the affirmative, so he continued. “Well, for the most part, it’s all true. I’m not sure what to add.

“I know that you are expecting some awe-inspiring speech, but to be honest, it has been far too long since I’ve held any position of leadership and it will take me a bit to get back into the swing of things.” He glanced at Mitchell who simply watched him with a suspicious eye. “I’d like to be able to stand up here and tell you that there’s some glorious plan inspired from upon high and that we will all be victorious and be bathed in riches and glory.

“But the truth is…war is not glorious. It is ugly. You know this as well as I do. Comrades are often lost and their praises are not sung by the people.” Max glanced at Laura who turned away and sniffed back a tear. “We lose people in the fight against what we perceive as evil every day,” he said quietly, “whether it is on a battlefield or in the very streets we live on by our civic prote
ctors, and yet, those who will do evil never seem to run out of creative ways to keep forging on. They keep rising up amongst us and threatening everything that we hold dear.” Max looked to Nadia and then Viktor who seemed surprised that his father would think of him so.

“While I wish that I could say, we shall flank the vampires and pierce them in the side, it really isn’t that simple. I know simply from listening since I arrived that your Colonel Mitchell has a few surprises up his sleeve, but I honestly do not know if this will be enough to thwart the enemy, for his true weapon isn’t just sheer numbers, but an
idea
that somehow vampires are supposed to bring about the destruction of mankind.” He paused a moment to allow the thought to sink in. “The idea that vampires are supposed to bring the end of humanity, the end of the world, if you will, is enough to continue on, even if he is vanquished.

“We don’t need him to be a martyr, people…for his idea to continue to fester and grow among the vampire ranks.” Max breathed deeply and continued. “We need to show
all
of them that any idea along these lines will be dealt with accordingly, and not necessarily with the true death. The worst thing that could happen to an immortal isn’t
death
, but imprisonment.”

“Hear, hear,” Evan said from the rear. Max looked to him and simply nodded. Mitchell shook his head, shame evident across his features.

“Capture the Sicarii, bind him with silver and entomb him for eternity?” Max’s features fell as he considered such actions. “That is a fate worse than death.”

“How do you propose we capture someone with strength like he has?” Apollo asked. “This cat is supposed to be like…the grandpappy of all vamps. I thought if we killed him, all vamps dropped dead.”

Max cocked his head and studied him a moment. “You really don’t know do you?” he asked. “You’ve been hunting creatures of the night all this time and you don’t know the difference?” He snorted derisively and shook his head. “Okay, you need to know the difference between Cursed and Damned.” Max gripped the podium again. “Okay, folks, history lesson time.

“When it comes to wolves, the Damned are of
my
line. Damned by God himself. When you hear of natural born wolves, they are of the Damned line,” he stated. “And before you ask, yes, a Damned wolf can bite a human and transmit the virus and make another wolf. That wolf is still a Damned wolf.

“A
Cursed
wolf on the other hand, is just that, a human who is cursed and becomes a werewolf. This was much more predominant a couple thousand years ago. In fact, back about…oh, say twelve hundred years ago, the wolf curse was so predominant that wolves were nearly hunted to extinction. And just as there are Cursed Wolves, there also used to be Cursed Vampires.” Max looked around the room and saw eyebrows shoot up. “That’s right. The Sicarii and myself, we were the first
of the Damned
, but not the first ever of our kinds. Prior to us, there were vampires and werewolves, but they were all of the Cursed nature.

“There is a history of vampires in China that go back a co
uple of thousand years before the Sicarii was ever thought of,” He mused. “But, we are the first of the true bloods. Up until us, vampires couldn’t procreate other than biting another human and same goes for wolves. We were the new breed.” He looked around the room. “Any questions on the difference?”

Mueller stood up and asked, “Do the same things kill both kinds?”

“Beheadings, fire, wood chippers, etc…yes. Holy relics, silver, etc…not so much. Silver didn’t come into play until the Damned,” Max said.

“Where did the cross and holy water come into play then?” Sanchez asked.

“Hollywood,” Max answered. There was a quiet wave of chuckling around the room as the operators relaxed a bit and learned a bit about both creatures. “No…seriously…Hollywood. And I think Stoker wrote some of that stuff too, but they were both wrong. Silver, stakes, beheading, blah, blah, blah that all worked. Silver especially. It’s a very stout poison for both vamps and wolves.”

Max inhaled deeply and blew out a cleansing breath. “But back to the point at hand.” He paused a moment and stared off into nothing. “Look, there’s more to it besides whether or not we just kill the Sicarii or not. While true, that if we could kill him, the grand majority of all the vampires in the world would prob
ably fall over and turn to ash. And while you’re thinking this is fantastic, why not just aim for that…” He shook his head as he tried to think of a way to explain the concept to them. “This is really tough, guys.” He scratched at his beard. “Look, this may seem sort of…out there, to some of you, but bear with me.” He stepped from the podium and slowly walked among them, reminding Mitchell of an old college professor that he had. “The world…the
universe
, is filled with opposites. Good and evil, black and white, cold and hot…”

“Blonde and brunette?” a voice from the rear asked.

Max turned to that portion of the crowd and smiled. “Sure. Why the hell not?” he chuckled. “Anyway, the point is, there has to be balance. Balance is the key.” He turned around and slowly worked his way back to the front of the room, his presence seemed to grow larger as he continued to explain. “Just as God gave His Son, it was because there was great evil in the world in the form of Satan. Good versus Evil. Light versus Dark.
Balance
.

“Like Yin and Yang, the balance must be maintained, ot
herwise a greater evil will rise up to take its place, because nature abhors a vacuum and when it fills that empty space it often fills it with something much nastier than what was there beforehand. And history has shown us that often, the perceived good that vanquishes an evil can often be twisted to become the new evil.” Max shook his head, “This would not be good.”

“Okay, you make sense, and I get that there are different kinds of vampires and wolves. I do get that, but let’s say that we did kill this Sicarii, we’d be able to drop the sheer number of vampires in the world by, what?” Mueller pondered.

“Millions,” Thorn finished for him.

Many of the operators turned to him with shock and amazement across their faces. Some even gasped at his response. “You’re saying he’ll be able to call up millions to his cause?” Spalding asked.

“
Oui
,” Thorn nodded.

“So why not drop this asshole and be done with it?” Mueller asked Max again.

Max shook his head. “Weren’t you listening, pup?
Balance.
We must maintain balance.”