Shining in Crimson: Empire of Blood Book One (A Dystopian Vampire Novel)

Fourth ebook edition © 2013.

Cover design by
Elena Helfrecht
.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead (unless explicitly noted) is merely coincidental.

The following people were pivotal in the writing and shaping of this novel:

Dustin Cade, who constantly threatened to kick me "in the jeans" if I didn't finish this novel.
Richard Flores IV, whose critique and encouragement helped immensely. Scott Nicholson, whose advice and mentoring has changed me as a writer and a person. Jennifer Wilson, my wife, my best friend, and my proofreader. She's put up with me even at my worst and helped me in every way she could along the way.
My other proofreader, April Charisse, who, along with Jennifer, helped to doctor up my many blunders.
The writers at The Hatrack Writer's Workshop, who had some great critical advice for the beginning of the novel.

Also,
a big
thanks goes out to Jim Boone, whose knowledge of plant life in the
Nevada
desert and willingness to go out of his way to help was crucial to the setting of this story. Jim's website
www.birdandhike.com
has some great info and pictures of plant life in the
Nevada
desert. Matthew O'Brien's book Beneath the Neon gave me some great pictures and background information to draw from for the underground tunnels of
Las Vegas
for Chapter 11. Matthew has also started a program called
Shine
a Light: "a community project that helps the hundreds of men and women living in the underground flood channels of
Las Vegas
." The program "provides water, food, clothes, blankets and other items (when available) to the people in the tunnels." You can learn more about it at his website:
www.beneaththeneon.com
Last but not least, I'd like to thank CL Stegall and Dark Red Press for the incredibly amazing cover image.

As for anyone I've forgotten to mention here, please forgive me. These days, I'm lucky to even remember my own name.

For Mom.

If only you were here to see it...

Chapter 1

The Penitent

H
ank hadn't expected the judge to decide any other way. These days they didn't hand out robes to anyone afraid of sending less than a dozen men to Necropolis almost every day. Hank found that he couldn't blame them. It keeps the peace, he thought. Even in the days before the chaos took hold,
America
had never been as safe as it was now.

He sat in the back of a paddywagon surrounded by twenty or so other males of all different shapes, colors, and sizes, also condemned to die. The air smelled of bad breath, thick body odor, and stale, smoked tobacco. Only a few of them had committed violent crimes. A tall, pale, black-haired man with tattoos covering his arms had murdered three people. More than a handful of the prisoners were children. One, a young blond kid, had been caught stealing in a supermarket. Most of the men had broken the morality laws, same as Hank.

Hank wasn't proud of what he’d
done,
though he wasn't sure the punishment fit the crime. He could see the last of the sun being swallowed by the horizon out the back window.  They had traveled through the middle of nowhere for what seemed like days now. He saw more pale sand and tumbleweeds out that back window than he ever had before. He was pressed between two other men like a sardine. And his backside felt like it had been beaten by the hours of country roads.

A while later, the sun disappeared, taking the last rays of sunlight Hank figured he would ever see. He thought of Toby and swallowed hard. None of the other men noticed. They were all too busy with their own problems. After hours of nothing but darkness outside, street lights began poking out of the void and then drifted away just as fast. At first, it was only every once in a while.
Then several at a time.
Before long, there were too many to count. Finally, they streamed together into a long line of light that changed colors as it burned into Hank’s retinas. After that, large neon signs started appearing. If the colors weren’t so bright, Hank wouldn’t have been able to see them through the phantom line of light still obscuring his vision.

Now there were new, more colorful shapes. He closed his eyes to make the nuisance go away, but it only grew worse. The only sounds were breathing and the engine. He opened his eyes again and looked outside. The street lights revealed sidewalks and parking lots beyond the road, all of which were empty. He wondered why they bothered turning on the lights. It wasn't like the residents of Necropolis needed them. For the first time since he knew of the city's existence, the meaning of its name dawned on him.
Necropolis, city of the dead.

He snickered. Some of the men turned and looked at him darkly. This only made him smile more. He was about to let out a burst of laughter when the wagon came to a screeching halt. All the humor left him at once. Other than the low idle of the engine, everything became dead quiet. Strange mechanical noises crept from the back of the wagon like the sound of gears waking within a clock tower. Then he heard similar noises from the front of the wagon. Twin thuds came from the front and back of the wagon, shaking it and making most of the passengers jump. Both of the mechanical doors began to open with a horrible screeching.

The open doorway in the back led to the quiet, empty city. But the front doorway contained shapes of men dressed in black, armored outfits. They had the American Imperial flag printed on their right breasts and wore gas masks on their faces. Each of them held a thick, black hose pointed at a different group of prisoners. Large clouds of gas shot out from the hoses, filling the wagon with a thick, noxious fog. It tasted strongly of sulfur. Choking on the gas, Hank nearly vomited. The convicts began flooding out the back of the wagon and away from the suffocating gas. Hank followed, still choking as he ran.

When he reached the road, he leaned over and joined the chorus of gasps. His lungs burned as he inhaled. But he kept taking deep breaths anyway, hoping it would eventually help. He looked over just in time to see the last man, a short Hispanic with long hair, come stumbling from the wagon. The back door shut with a loud thud. Then the wagon squealed its tires and sped off. By the time Hank could breathe without hurting too badly, it was gone.

The one who murdered three people lead several of the others down an alley off the main road. The area was surrounded with old rundown factories. A busted-up, red car from before the war was parked in front of one of the buildings. Several men managed to break in and were trying to hot-wire it. All around, men ran in different directions, either alone or in groups. Hank circled around, trying to decide where to go. But in his heart, he knew it didn't matter where he went. None of them would make it out alive. No one ever did. For the last twenty years, the American Empire boasted the most effective justice system in the world. It was simple, really. Use one evil to destroy another. Sure, some innocents got caught up in the mix from time to time. But as the saying went, you have to break a few eggs.

He decided to go on his own. He was pretty sure the locals could sense heat, making a group an easier target. And with going solo, there would be no one to slow him down. He found an alley a few blocks down from the other men and followed it in the opposite direction. It got darker the further he went. The rough texture of brick grazed his hands as he felt his way through the alley. When he’d gone a ways down the block, a loud engine cranking and failing almost gave him a heart attack. What good would a car do for those morons anyway?

Of course the thought of Toby reared its ugly head again. Toby would already have that thing going zero to sixty. That boy of his could fix anything you put in front of him, so long as it had moving parts. But he was only sixteen, and now that his father was about to check out, who would take care of him? The boy's mother left when he was a baby. Hank never managed to find her and felt sure she didn't want to be found. And Diana, he didn't want to think about Diana. The thought of Toby growing up in the Empire all alone hurt him enough. It dawned on Hank if he could make it through the night and get close enough to the edge of the
city,
he might make it out alive. The bastards were bound to Necropolis. It was common knowledge, ruthless as they
were,
that they held to their end of the blood pact rather loyally.

Hank turned left down another alley, this one even
more narrow
than the one before. Something ahead smelled rotten. He heard the scurrying sounds of rats all along the way. Before the war, the residents of Necropolis would have kept the city clean of them. But then again, before the war, Necropolis hadn't been Necropolis. No one even knew its inhabitants were real then. The war had brought them out. They waited centuries for such a war to come along and leave the humans vulnerable. They were smarter than humans. Anyone who didn't blindly believe everything the
Imperial
Church
brainwashed them to could see that.