F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (41 page)

 
          
Angelica
. . . could that be the flying undead that Zev told him about?

 
          
"Those
winged ones," Joe said, taking a stab in the dark. "They always give
me the creeps."

 
          
"Of
course they do. They're supposed to. Psychological warfare again. Strike terror
into the hearts of the cattle." He sighed. "I never cared for either
of them. Angelica was too impetuous and Gregor too grasping, but the fallout
from their deaths has been, well, vexing. But only temporarily."

 
          
He
turned back to the night with another grandiose wave of his arm.

 
          
"My
kingdom. We're facing east, you know.
Long Island
is out that way. We're well established there."

 
          
Joe
stretched up on tiptoe, leaned over the top of the parapet, and looked down
instead of out. Red light from the banks of spotlights bathed his face. Beyond
them, far below and out of sight, empty pavements beckoned.

 
          
Not
yet, he thought. The guards were too close. They'd stop him before he got over.
He eased back and watched his host.

 
          
"We've
already started the cattle ranches," Franco was saying. "We fenced
off large sections of
Levittown
and populated them with females fifteen to
thirty years old. As a reward to the serfs, we set them loose in there to
impregnate the cows. Soon we'll have crops of calves to raise." He
swiveled his head and smiled. "More psychological warfare."

 
          
"More
like rape and brutality," Joe said, reflexively raising a fist. How he
wished—

 
          
His
arm was grabbed and twisted backward. A glance showed the scar-eyed one behind
him. All around he heard pistols being cocked and machetes drawing from belts.

 
          
"Will
you stop!" Franco snapped at his guards. "He is a lone, naked,
unarmed man! What can he possibly do to me? Now get back, all of you and give
us some room!"

 
          
"But
Franco—"

 
          
"Now,
Artemis! I won't say it again!"

 
          
With
obvious reluctance, one-eyed Artemis and the other guards moved off. Not too
far, but far enough to give Joe a chance to do what he needed to do ... if he
had the nerve. All he needed was a way to distract Franco.

 
          
The
vampire turned his gaze eastward again. "We made so many mistakes in the
Old World
. We failed to control the undead
population. We just rolled through, letting our numbers spread geometrically.
The
Middle East
was the easiest. Hardly a cross to be found.
Same with
India
and
China
. We did what no president or shuttling diplomat ever could. We brought
peace to every place we've touched. Indian undead now sup with Pakistanis,
Greeks with Cypriots, North Koreans with South, and most amazing of all,
Israeli and Palestinian undead hunting together." He smiled. "
'Blessed be the peacemakers.' Isn't that how it goes. I think I should be
sainted. What's the term the Church uses? Canonized. Yes, I should be
canonized, don't you think?"

 
          
Joe
ignored the question. "You can't survive without the living, and there'll
never be peace between the living and the undead."

 
          
"Oh,
but there will. We'll control our population here in the
Americas
and we'll control yours, and eventually Pax
Nosferatu will embrace the whole world. Here in the
New World
we will do things right, right from the
beginning. The
Old
World
and the
Third World
are now full of starving and dying
undead." He glanced at Joe. "Yes, dying. We need very little blood to
survive, but we need it every night. Go two nights without it and you are weak;
go two more nights and your are prostrate, virtually helpless. Unless someone
comes on the fifth or sixth night and feeds you blood—a very unlikely event—you
will enter true death and never awaken."

 
          
"May
it be ever so," Joe said, "unto the last generation."

 
          
Franco
frowned. "Don't push me, priest."

 
          
"Or
what?" Joe said, finding courage in the realization that he had nothing to
lose. "You'll show me no mercy? I'm not expecting any."

 
          
"You
don't want to plead, offer me a deal?"

 
          
Joe
shook his head. He knew there'd be no deals for him. He wouldn't deal with
these things.

 
          
"Then
kindly stop interrupting my story. I'm getting to the good part—my part. The
task of taking the
New
World
fell to me.
I decided to learn from recent history and not repeat it. As I'm sure you know,
we struck on December twenty-first, the longest night of the year. I started
with Washington, loosing the ferals on
Camp David
and the Pentagon and
Langley
first, then the senate and congressional office
buildings next."

 
          
"Ferals?"
Joe said. "What are they?"

 
          
Franco
smiled, broadly, cruelly. "In time, dear priest. In a very short time you
shall learn more than you wish to know about ferals."

 
          
The
prospect sent a shudder through Joe. He eyed the top of the parapet again.

 
          
"I
wanted to strike at the heart of the country's defenses—drive a stake through
it, as I like to say—but more than anything I wanted the president. We found
him. I turned him, personally, and a few days later we had him on

 
          
TV,
live, via satellite, putting on a show for his nation. Did you happen to catch
it?"

 
          
Joe
shook his head. He'd been banished to the retreat house by then. He'd seen the
beginning of the broadcast but had left the room, sickened. He hadn't seen, but
he'd heard . . .

 
          
"Such
a shame. You missed a psychological knockout punch. The president of the
United States
on his knees before a menstruating White
House intern, lapping her blood. Clever, don't you think? Too bad
Clinton
wasn't still in office—turn around being
fair play and all—but apparently he's holed up on the West Coast. Your current
president did a good job, though. Really got into the part, if you know what I
mean. And much more effective because he is—or rather, was—a bit more dignified
than
Clinton
."

 
          
Joe
glared at him. "You sicken me. All of you."

 
          
"But
that's the whole point, priest. Physical, spiritual, and civic malaise. It's a
pattern I've perfected: Go for the political and religious leaders first. See
to it that they are turned early in the infiltration. It does terrible things
to the morale of the citizenry when word gets around that the local mayor and
congressman, along with the ministers, priests, and rabbis, are out hunting
them every night. They stop trusting anyone, and when there's no trust, there's
no organized resistance." He looked at Joe. "Somehow we missed you
when your area was invaded. Lucky you."

 
          
"Funny,"
Joe said, hoping he sounded brave. "I don't feel lucky."

 
          
"But
you should. You've been very lucky, and you've proven yourself quite adept at
turning my game back on me. I try to hammer home that resistance is futile,
then you come along and show that it can work, however briefly."

 
          
"More
than briefly," Joe said. "You're going to see a lot more of it,
especially if you try moving west."

 
          
"Am
I? Somehow, I don't think so. Not after I'm through with you. And as for moving
west, I'm in no hurry. I'm going to consolidate the East Coast, get the cattle
farms established"—he wagged his finger—"all the while keeping the
undead population interspersed among the living to prevent any bombing attacks.
Then I may skip the
Midwest
altogether and take
California
next. I haven't decided. That's not to say
I haven't been active. I regularly send trucks into the hinterlands, dropping
off a few ferals here and there as they go, to wreak sporadic havoc. I don't
want anyone out there feeling safe. I want them looking over their shoulders,
suspicious of their neighbors, jumping at the slightest noise. As I said, I'm
in no hurry, and I have all the time in the world." He shook his head.
"But when I do make a move, you'll be part of it."

 
          
Joe
went cold inside. "If you think ..." He paused, choosing his words.
Let Franco think he'd given into the inevitability of becoming one of his kind.
"If you think I'm going to help you, even after you turn me into one of
you, think again."

 
          
"I
sense an arrogance in you, priest. And I will see it brought down. You are mere
cattle to me, yet you look at me as vermin. I won't tolerate that."

 
          
"Who
do you think you're kidding?" he said, wondering if he could provoke
Franco into lashing out and killing him. "You and your kind are ticks on
the ass of humanity, and you know it."

 
          
But
Franco appeared unruffled. "Perhaps we were, but the anatomy has changed
now: we're the ass and rebellious cattle like you are the biters." He
leaned closer, staring into Joe's eyes. His breath stank of old blood.
"I'll bet you think that even after we make you one of us you'll be able
to resist the blood hunger."

 
          
Joe
couldn't help blinking, stiffening—he'd said as much to Zev just the other day—and
that let Franco know he'd struck a nerve.

 
          
"You
do, don't you? You really think you could resist!" He tilted his head back
and laughed. "Your naivete is almost charming. You have no idea what you
face. You change when you turn, priest. Everything turns inward. You awake from
death and there's only one being in the world that matters: you. All your
memories will be intact but devoid of feeling. The people you loved and hated
will run together and redivide into two critical categories: those who can
supply you with blood and those who can't. You'll have to sate that thirst.
You'll have no choice. That hunger above all. The world exists for you. All the
other undead around are inconveniences you must endure in order to secure a
steady supply of blood. For the red thirst is insatiable. As I told you, we
need very little blood to survive but would spend our waking hours immersed in
it if we could. We're lazy, we're petty, and we don't want anyone to have more
blood than we do."

 
          
Please,
God, Joe prayed, if You're listening, don't let me end up like that. I beg You.
He peeled his tongue away from the roof of his dry mouth and managed to speak.

 
          
"Sounds
like you've got a lock on the seven deadly sins."

 
          
"Perhaps.
I never thought of that. What are they? Envy, anger, greed, lust, pride,
avarice, and sloth, right. I think you might be right. Except that sex becomes
meaningless. How we used to laugh at those Anne Rice novels. The undead as
tortured Byronic aesthetes. Ha! We'd read them aloud to each other and howl.
Her fictional undead are so much more interesting than the real thing. We're
boring. We care nothing for art or music or fashion or surroundings. We bore
each other and we bore ourselves. The only thing we care about, the only lust
left to us, is blood."

 
          
"What
about power?"