Death Deceives: Book Three (Mortis Vampire Series) (26 page)

Sanderson led the way up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Five soldiers guarded his back, walking backwards with their guns trained on me. The rest followed me, also with their guns
held ready to cut me to pieces. The Colonel entered a doorway and I waited for half of the guards to enter.

One of the men waved me inside
. The imp went first then I entered what used to be a meeting room that had been converted into a command centre. Several Russian soldiers and civilians stood when I appeared. They’d been seated around a large oval table. All of the soldiers wore numerous medals. The civilians wore expensive suits. None of them were female. A single white-coated technician sat to the side. An expensive looking computer sat on his tiny desk.

“Gentlemen,” Sanderson said from the head of the table, “this is Natalie
. She is the…vampire who was captured on film by our soldiers.” He was reluctant to give me such an unbelievable title but managed to spit it out. They’d been told not to look into my eyes but couldn’t help but flick nervous glances at my face anyway. “She wishes to forge an alliance with us against the unknown entities that are attacking your country.”

“That creature is an abomination!
It would be like making a deal with Satan!” one of the Russian soldiers spat in his native language.

“If you think I’m an abomination, what do you call the imps?” was my dry response.

Sanderson looked thunderstruck. “You speak Russian?”

“No but I understand it perfectly.” They all wore confused expressions and I
managed not to roll my eyes at their lack of understanding. “Look, I am not your average vampire. As you might have noticed, I tend to regenerate when my body parts are blown off. I can stay awake during the day, holy stuff doesn’t bother me and I can understand every language on and off the planet.” I’d only actually heard one alien language so far but I assumed I’d be able to understand them all.

My explanation didn’t help much and they looked even more flabbergasted now. “The bottom line is; the sole reason I
exist is to take down the ‘unknown entities’ and their leader. You need me and I could really use your help,” I explained.

Giving the men a significant look
that urged them to at least give me a chance, Sanderson gestured towards a chair. “Please take a seat. We were just about to see where your friend is.”

I didn’t bother to deny that the vamp was my friend. You couldn’t argue with people who had already made up their minds. I
sat in the oversized black leather chair and scooted forward so I could put my feet on the floor. I was a lot shorter than most of the men in this room and the chairs weren’t exactly meant for someone my size. My imp companion hulked just behind me. He inadvertently shielded me from the view of some of the soldiers who had their guns trained on me. They moved around to the sides until they had me back under visual surveillance.

A gigantic TV
had recently been attached to a wall. I could tell it was a new addition due to the traces of gunk on the carpet that had come out of the walls after holes had been drilled.

Typing
rapidly on the computer, the technician worked his magic and the TV came to life. At first it was difficult to understand what I was seeing. I wasn’t used to viewing footage that was being shown in night vision. Then I understood that the vamp was sprinting through dark countryside, presumably arrowing towards the cavern of doom.

He
leaped over most obstacles in his path and dodged around anything too large to leap over. The screen suddenly split as the technician typed another command. On the left was the running vamp and on the right was a map of Russia.

With a few more keystrokes, the map
zoomed in on the red dot blinking on the screen. As I’d suspected, the vamp was heading directly for the dark blob that Igor had identified as being a mountain. Our freed captive was already a quarter of the way there. It was dizzying watching the picture of ground, trees, fences and the occasional house flashing by. Soldiers crowded closer to the table to view the screen. Some forgot that they were supposed to be watching me and made stunned noises at the speed the vamp was moving at.

He might be fast but the possessed vamp was nowhere near as graceful as he would have been if he hadn’t been a puppet. Stumbling, losing his balance constantly, he was running almost too fast to stay on his feet. Only I
and my imp shadow could see his silhouette riding him and leading him to its goal. I shivered at the thought that my friends and I would also be reduced to being puppets if I didn’t put an end to the First soon.

Once his fascination at watching the vamp fleeing through the darkness had lessened, Sanderson turned to me. “Would you mind explaining what you know about these…imps and this leader that you mentioned?”

Sitting
back in the too big chair, my feet dangled above the ground. I wondered how much of my story they would believe if I told them everything I knew. It probably wouldn’t be wise to tell them about our history but I couldn’t see any way to avoid it. They wouldn’t cooperate with me unless I spilled what I knew. “I won’t blame you if you’re sceptical about who and what I and my friends are,” I began. “I’ve only been one of the nocturnal for six months or so and it’s all still pretty new to me.”

Colonel Sanderson opened his mouth to voice some of the questions burning inside him then closed it again. We both knew we were running out of time.
Stopping the imps was more important to both of us than satisfying his curiosity. “Please continue,” he said with admirable restraint.

“Ok.” I
thought of the briefest explanation I could think of then voiced it. “According to our history, we were created by an alien that crash landed on Earth millions of years ago.” Sanderson wasn’t the only one to gape at me at that news. I’d seen ancient books and wall carvings depicting our beginnings and I could barely believe the story myself.

“Are you talking about
little green men from outer space?” one of the Russian civilians asked. His silver suit matched his immaculate hair perfectly. Something told me he and Gregor would have gotten along well if Gregor hadn’t been one of the undead.

“
More like really tall grey men from outer space,” I corrected him. “The alien had to wait until humans had evolved to the point where we were smart enough for him to use before he made his move. He was slowly dying and was running out of time. Fifty thousand years ago, he made his choice. He fed his blood to a human who became the first vampire. The alien died then the First went on to create a race of vampires. Over time, the alien’s blood began to change the First. It took thousands of years but he eventually turned into a grey skinned monster just like the thing that had created him. The imps that are raiding your towns are his offspring.”

I really didn’t want to tell them the last part but they needed to know what they were up against.
“The First has two ways of adding to his army. He has the ability to rapidly change humans into vampires and then into imps within a matter of days.” I very nearly cringed at how unbelievable the story sounded when spoken out loud.

Incredulous glances were exchanged around the other end of the table. The Colonel shook his head in bewilderment. “How many of these
creatures can we expect to face?”

I shrugged to indicate
that I wasn’t sure. “At the rate they breed, there are probably thousands of them by now. Soon, there will be tens of thousands.” And after that there would be hundreds of thousands and then millions until the entire planet was overrun.

“What do you mean, at the rate they breed?” a Russian soldier with a swathe of medals on his uniformed chest demanded.

“That’s the second way the First increases his numbers. Once vampires ascend to their imp form, they become alive again and can be impregnated. Their gestation period is extremely short. From what I’ve seen so far, they can produce a baby in about nine or ten days.”

The colour drained out of most of the men’s faces. Colonel Sanderson’s mouth twisted in grim astonishment. “
In the footage the helicopter took of you, it showed you killing multiple imps with some type of explosive device. What exactly did you use?”

Everyone had seen the footage and knew what he was talking about. “
It wasn’t any kind of explosive device,” I hedged. When I saw they weren’t going to let it go, I surrendered to the inevitable. They already knew I was strange, why not show them all just how big a freak I really was? “It has something to do with these crosses.” I held up my hands to show them my holy marks. “Thanks to these, I am very deadly to both vampires and imps.”

My holy marks received curious and disturbed stares. At least none of the
men ran screaming like vampires would have at the sight of them.

“How many vampires
exist worldwide?” a curious Russian asked.

“I have no idea.”

“You must have
some
idea,” the Russian said sceptically.

“Look,” I eyed them all
as firmly as I could without actually meeting their eyes, “the uninfected vampire’s aren’t your problem. We’ve been living amongst you for fifty thousand years and you didn’t even know for sure that we even existed.” Until I’d given us away that was. “We rarely kill humans and spend most of our time squabbling amongst ourselves.” If any of these men ever saw the cages in the catacombs beneath the Court mansion, they’d know how big a lie I’d just told them. “Forget about us,” I advised them. “We’re not the ones you need to worry about right now.”

After a brief internal
struggle, the American nodded. “She’s right. We have to focus on the immediate threat.” Unspoken went the promise that they would worry about how to deal with me and my kind later.

We went back to watching the split screens. As I’d told Sanderson,
the First’s compulsion drew the possessed vamp to him like a newborn turtle to the sea. Surrounded by soldiers, I was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Even the imp had moved closer. Its dark form was standing right beside me.

Turning my head to
ask it to give me some room, I instead came face to chest with one of my other shadows. “Holy shit!” Standing up, I spun around rapidly. All four of my shadows fell to the floor at my feet, mingling together so they almost looked like a single figure. They were acting innocent again but I wasn’t fooled. One of them had given itself away big time and now I knew for certain that they were sentient. My dreams had warned me this was going to happen but I’d desperately ignored them in the hope that I might be wrong for once.
Did you see that?
I mentally asked the imp.

“I saw it,” it replied darkly. The hulking shadow stared at the four smaller ones suspiciously.

“What’s wrong?” Sanderson barked, also standing and looking around. He had drawn his gun, not knowing it would be of no use at all.

“Nothing
. I just thought I saw something,” was my lame response. After that, the soldiers backed away a few feet and I had plenty of room at the table. From the corner of my eye, I watched my silhouettes. All mimicked me perfectly. After a while I began to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.
I’m under a lot of strain right now. It might just have been my imagination.
My subconscious was strangely silent, neither confirming nor denying my theory. The imp remained vigilant, keeping an eye on them all.

I focussed on the screen again, trying not to jump whenever I caught any movement out of the corners of my eyes.
Our spy ran straight towards the range of mountains that I assumed the First was hiding beneath. Reaching the base of the mountain, the vamp slowed down to a jog and began searching for an opening. Finding what he was looking for, the vamp disappeared into a barely discernible crack in the rocks and entered a narrow tunnel.

“How can he see where he’s going?” someone muttered.
The tunnel was completely lightless.

“We have excellent night vision,” I replied almost absently.

“You can see in the dark?” an American soldier asked me incredulously.

“Yep.”
It was one of the more minor talents that all vampires shared. If the soldiers knew everything that I could do, they’d most likely pull out their guns and start shooting again.

It was a long journey beneath the earth through a winding, steep
ly descending passage. Without the night vision capability of the camera, the picture being projected onto the gigantic screen would have been extremely boring. Even now, faced with the prospect of catching my first actual glimpse of the cavern of doom, my attention span was short. I felt like fidgeting long before light bloomed at last.

The
technician adjusted something and the picture changed back to colour. Just like in my dream, the First’s lair was in a massive cavern. The cages filled with captive humans sat off to the left. I discovered the camera was also equipped with sound when the technician flicked another switch and we suddenly began to hear moans and pitiful cries.

O
ur unknowing infiltrator jogged past the endless cages of food. I caught a brief sight of the Comtesse and her dwindling band of courtiers huddled together near the bonfires. Bedraggled and dazed, the blonde hag cowered away from the things that she would soon become. Her shadow had subsided enough so that she was aware of her surroundings again. I didn’t know why the First hadn’t transformed her into one of his brides yet. Secretly, I was glad to see her in torment. The sight almost warmed my cold, un-beating heart.