Shining in Crimson: Empire of Blood Book One (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) (10 page)

The screeching sounded again, coming without an echo this time. Hank looked back as he ran and saw three dark figures flying above the houses several blocks behind him. He faced forward again just in time to see the far corner of the house right in front of him. He grabbed it and slid down onto the dusty ground beside the structure as if he were sliding into home.

Peeking around the corner of the house, lying on the ground, Hank could see the creatures still coming for him.
Sense of smell, you idiot
, he thought. Hiding was of no use unless he could hide somewhere that would block his scent. He sat back against the house, scrambling to figure out what to do. He thought about drinking more blood and making a good run for it. But after his recent clash with his surroundings, he decided that would not work.

His next thought also involved drinking more blood but this time using its power to help him fight back against the monsters. But he knew he would have to use the remaining blood he had in order to pull it off. He was sure he couldn’t do that if he wanted to make it the rest of the way out of the city alive.

A loud, piercing scream came from one of the vampires and echoed strangely off of the next house. They were much closer now. The instant the sound hit his
ears,
he jumped to his feet out of animal instinct. Seeing a solitary reflection of neon glow halfway toward the back of the building, he went directly for it. If he was right, the light reflected off a window. As he came closer, he confirmed it.

The window hung low enough that he might be able to climb in if he could open it. He tried to push up on the window. It wouldn’t budge. He took a few steps back away from the house. Then with a running start, he jumped, shoulder first, and slammed into the glass, hitting it with a thud. He fell backward from the spring of the impact. The window seemed to stare back at him unimpressed.

A shrill rattle pierced through his ears.  He looked up and could barely see the outline of a figure coming into view just above the roof of the house.  Two glassy black eyes from the pale face of the figure were the only things peering out from the darkness.

* * *

When Peter arrived at the top of the tower, he wasn't surprised at all by the less-than-warm welcome he received. As he opened the door leading out to the round balcony of the tower, he found all four of the other vampires waiting eagerly at their table when he knelt timidly before Ishan. This did surprise him. Ishan sat at the head of the table as he always did.

"Where is this convict and why have you not brought him to us?" Ishan asked while motioning for Peter to stand.

"I almost had him. I followed the sound of his heartbeat to an old house and timed it perfectly. But he moved almost as fast as we can," Peter said.

"You expect us to believe this?" Ishan asked.

"Wait. There's more. His strength was like mine as well. That, combined with the blade he carried, gave him the upper hand over me," Peter explained in a rush. The council members not openly pitying Peter showed him obvious contempt. He looked at them pleadingly. Ishan gazed back at him with a dark expression.

"Only a human vampire could match your speed and strength, Peter. What could you possibly gain from letting this man go?" Ishan asked.

"No, he had a mortal heartbeat. I have nothing to gain from trying to deceive you. You have to understand. This man was different. He was..." Peter began shaking his hand in mid air as if the words were there for him to catch. "He - he - I could smell the blood of the ancestors on his breath," he finally got out in a quick, excited shout. A change came over each vampire's expression. They were all intrigued and some of them even a little confused. But Ishan looked concerned.

"The blood of the ancestors?"
Rachel asked as they all stared at Peter in awe.

"Yes, it was on his breath and I could also smell some more. I think it was contained somewhere within a backpack he wore. In some sort of sealed container, I think. The smell was weak but different than just a trace would be. It was almost... subtle," Peter said beginning to calm down. He followed the rest of his equals as they turned their eyes to Ishan who sat in intense concentration.

"Where is this man now?" Ishan asked.

"He was traveling west. I came to warn you as quickly as I could. I sent four ancestors after him. The four of them should be able to finish him quickly if they haven't already."

"No," Ishan said, bursting from his chair, lunging toward Peter and grabbing him violently by the collar. Peter's ancient master was beginning to frighten him. He now witnessed more emotion from the vampire than in the entire two centuries he had known him. He was unable to keep from showing the shock that he knew was all over his face. He opened his mouth to offer retrieving the man when, in a flash, Ishan was gone. The rest of the council sat, their mouths still gaping.

* * *

Hank's heart beat at an alarming rate as he looked up at the vampire circling the sky above him. The other two were getting louder now as they approached nearer to his position. He rose from the ground clutching his shoulder. He tried again to push the window up. As his hands slipped over the glass surface, more screeching bellowed out above him. He made a decision before he could stop himself and knelt down low as the vampire’s screams bounced off the nearest house. A moment later the backpack was open and he took a small, calculated swallow from the red thermos that was now very nearly empty. In movements faster than he could carry out or witness without the blood, he put the thermos in the backpack and slung it into place. Then he jumped, somersaulting himself through the window with a loud crash of breaking glass.

For a split second he landed on his feet then fell backwards onto the dark, hardwood floor inside the house. He put his hands out to catch himself and cut open his right palm on some of the glass scattered on the floor. His hand started to heal before his eyes as he stood up staring at the seemingly magical process. Then, he looked around the room. The walls were colored with a light wood finish. The room seemed to be empty save for some familiar silver stringy patterns draped in random places.

The screeching came again, grabbing his attention. This time it seemed to be causing a strange reaction in him. He not only heard the sound with his ears but he also heard it in his head. Only, in his head, he heard it as very simple words he could understand. The words he heard were
man
and
house
. When this clicked in his brain, Hank ran toward the back of the house looking for some sort of escape route. As the kitchen came into view, he saw a downward stairway and ran for it.

When his momentum brought him headlong into the linoleum-floored kitchen complete with ancient pale appliances, he found the floor in this room much slicker than where he’d taken off from. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell hard on his back. He felt a slight crack in his vertebrae and then a moment of excruciating pain later it seemed to be gone. He quickly lifted himself up from the floor and dove for the stairway as the sound of shattering glass filled the room from every direction.

As if to corroborate what Hank was hearing, a sharp pain shot through his left shoulder blade. He reached back and touched a piece of glass with his hand. One of the dirty, powdery-faced creatures watched him with cat-like eyes as it struggled to get the rest of the way through the window. Hank pulled out the piece of glass, turned, and threw the blood-smeared shard at the vampire. It stuck into the creature's chest, unnoticed. Hank turned back around and quickened his pace. He had no idea where he was going and started to realize he might not have anywhere
to
go. He was glad he drank the vampire blood when he did since he could now see well inside the lightless basement. He hoped against hope the basement might lead to some sort of trap door or otherwise hidden exit he could use to escape the house and his pursuers.

Another screech came from upstairs sounding inside his head as simply
underground
. The sound was followed by several explosions of wood, insulation, and drywall all around him. He was surrounded by a white cloud of dust beginning to clear and revealing three vampires poised like cats ready to attack.

One of them jumped on Hank's right shoulder and sunk its teeth into the back of his neck. Hank leaned forward, grabbed the vampire with his left arm, and flung it over his body, causing the vampire's teeth to rip out a chunk of his flesh. A strong burning sensation came from the wound as he lunged forward before the other two vampires could get hold of him. As he came forward, the vampire he’d thrown got back up just in time for Hank to slam into him head-on. Then, inertia kept the two bodies going and they smacked into the cement wall. The vampire fell to the floor and seemed to be scooting away. Hank was a little dizzy but otherwise okay.

He shook his head for a moment to bring back reality. He took a quick look at the wall then back behind himself. The wall was solid, a clear dead end. The two vampires still in the fight were launching forward, their yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Hank saw them in the dark in a sort of negative film view as they flew toward him.

He went for his machete, but it was too late. One of the vampires latched onto his right shoulder with its teeth. The other grabbed hold of his arm and sank its teeth in, its eyes glazing over. Hank's right hand rested on the machete handle as they drank his blood where he stood. He tried to shake them off and pull the machete free.

The pain in his shoulder made it daunting to lift his right arm with the weight of the blade. But he managed to punch the vampire in the face, knocking it loose from his shoulder and freeing the machete at the same time. He brought it upward from its sheath, striking the vampire he just knocked from his shoulder underhand.

The blade sliced open its abdomen and the creature fell backward onto the floor. He then brought the blade back towards himself and thrust it into the other one's back. The vampire broke free from his arm and hissed at him as it tried to make its way for his neck. He tackled the creature from himself and bolted for the stairway that brought him into the basement.

He made it to the top of the stairs with one long jump. Then he leapt again even farther, sending himself through the opening that had been the window the vampire came through. As he fell to the ground, he heard new screeching from directly above him. He fell about ten feet down to the ground and landed on his hands and knees. He sprang clumsily to his feet and ran toward the neighboring yard.

He could move without any pain now. After a few minutes of running through the dust and tumbleweeds, he heard two screeches erupt in the air just behind him. He turned to judge their distance, turned back, and without nearly enough notice, saw a tan wooden fence he hadn’t spotted before. Right after seeing the fence, he struck it hard with his entire body, unable to slow himself down in time. He busted through and fell face down on the ground.

Before he could get back up, the two vampires behind him had leapt on him, holding him down to the ground and sinking their teeth in his back. He tried to struggle, but could feel the life force drain from him as they helped themselves to his blood. The extra senses started to fade and he started to panic. Before long, his normal vision became blurry and the sounds of the creatures sucking his blood faded off in the distance.

Hank no longer had the strength to hold back his pain. He wept as Diana's pale, lifeless face appeared in his mind’s eye. She looked just like she had the day he buried her.
Except for the mouth.
Her long, silky, straight black hair framed her face and her vivid, blue eyes looked desolately into nothing. But now two long pearly fangs protruded downward from her mouth. Her soft lips formed into a savage grin. The image abruptly vanished as two more pairs of fangs pierced into his flesh.

* * *

In what were to him a series of simple motions, Ishan caught the scent of the man from Peter's body, turned, and dove off the side of the tower in the span of a microsecond. The wind gusted up around him as his body fell toward the pavement below, the man's scent still fresh in his mind. The experience wasn't particularly thrilling to him, though it was certainly a break from his usual routine. What was really compelling, he thought as he plummeted, was what Peter had told him about the convict. Convicts didn't last long in the city. It never dawned on Ishan the blood of the ancestors might, on its own, have any effect on a human. From what the human vampire scientists had learned so far, the ancestors produced a venom that, when released into a human blood stream, caused the transformation from human to human vampire.

He already knew from his own experience the human vampires were unable to produce this venom themselves and therefore couldn’t make other human vampires. He also remembered the venom had traces of ancestor blood within it. But this man's heart beat as though he were still human. This was all so new to Ishan. It took a lot of experimentation and research to learn what they had so far, but it had never been thought of to feed ancestor blood to a human and observe the result.

Now, here was a live specimen. A human being who managed to find something they had not in merely a few hours. But as Ishan landed on the blacktop, causing a small earthquake, something else about the situation bothered him more. Exciting as this news was, it would also be very dangerous for the vampires and perhaps others as well. Ishan began to run. He reached a speed of roughly two hundred kilometers an hour in only a few short seconds. If the Empire found out the blood of the ancestors could give humans the strength of a human vampire, they would surely come to claim it as their own. They would use it against their enemies. They would want to learn to harvest the ancestors’ blood for themselves. They would want to know so much that had been, for centuries, kept safely secret. With that thought, Ishan mentally pushed himself and gained another twenty kilometers per hour in speed.