Empire of Blood (Book 2): Fading In Darkness (5 page)

Don't threaten me with such things, Simon. Give me some time. Then we can talk. But for now I need to be left to myself.

Fine, take your goddamn privacy and shove it.

Chapter 6

The Sins of the Father

"When you arrive at the airport you will be provided a briefcase by Imperial personnel," The Emperor's voice announced in Hank's ear. Hank picked up the pen sitting on the table in front of him and began to write as he continued to stare at the wall in front of him. He had a habit of staring at the wall lately when he needed to concentrate. "In this briefcase you will find—Write this down, Mr. Evans."

"I am, sir." Hank said and looked down at the page.

"Very well.
In this briefcase you will find several dozen small electrical devices and a map. You will take these devices and place them in the strategic locations marked in red on the map. Do you understand this, Mr. Evans?" The Emperor's voice was especially
boomy
within Hank's ears.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Remember the consequence if you should fail and let that motivate you to succeed."

Hank sat there waiting for a long time, but the Emperor seemed to have ended the conversation. Hank ripped out the page he had just written on and took a long look at it. It was perfectly legible. He got up from the couch, folded the paper several times, and put it in his jeans pocket. Why hadn't he thought of it before? He went to the bedroom and started packing his clothes as he let the idea building in his head formulate. He wanted to make sure every possible hole in his plan was filled before he attempted to do anything that could end up jeopardizing Toby.

* * *

Loud, screaming rock vocals reverberated off the wall as Toby zipped up the dark blue backpack and put it on. A gentle breeze filled the room, coming from the open window behind him. He took one long look at the wall that separated his bedroom from his father's. He imagined his dad reading Caesar's Bible and planning his visit to Necropolis to negotiate with those monsters—those imperial guard dogs. Only they weren't guards. Guards didn't take the life from innocent people.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he lifted his arm with exaggerated intent and gave the wall the finger, his hand shaking as he did so. Then he turned, ducked his head, and climbed out the window. He landed hard on the bottoms of his feet, losing his balance for a moment. Grabbing the wall of the house, he regained control and stood there for a moment looking inside, the bright light of his lamp inside contrasting starkly with the pitch black outside.

That old picture of the three of them, Diana, Dad, and himself, caught his eye from the top of his desk as he slid the window shut. He turned and walked along the side of the house until he came to the suburban street in front. He looked back at the window and saw the silhouette of his father darkened within the yellow glow of his shaded window. Only a second had passed when he turned to walk to the road, he heard a disorienting burst of sound and before him stood his father grabbing hold of the collar of his shirt and pulling him close to the furious visage of his face.

Toby gasped.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"
Wh-wh-wh
... H-h-how did y—"

"I asked you a question, Toby."

Toby's confusion dissolved, consumed by rage. "I'm sick of you! I'm sick of what you're doing... and what you're not." Toby's voice echoed across the neighborhood. Hank looked around at the other houses and pulled Toby along with an unreal strength Toby had never known his father capable of. He kicked and tried to swing his arm at his father, but Hank grabbed it with an ease that was unnatural for his size. Before Toby could say anything, they were inside the house and his father set him down on the couch and slammed the door.

Shock seized Toby as he looked at his father. Something was very wrong with him. His movements had been too quick, too strong. Hank glared at him as he leaned down in front of the table between them. Without taking his eyes from Toby, he reached forward. Toby's body froze in fear of the man who was his own flesh and blood, who had raised him from birth. Whose murderous expression chilled his
blood.

His hand slapped down on the table and began fumbling around until it touched the pen. Eyes still glaring at Toby with fury, he lifted the pen and began to slowly move it across the paper. The world seemed to be spinning as he watched his father apparently losing his mind right before his eyes. When the slow scribbling was done, Hank spoke.

"You will never attempt to leave this house again or I will send you back, do you understand?"

"What?"

Hank flipped the paper around and slammed his hand on the table again. The sound drew Toby's eyes to the sheet of paper in his father's hand. In messy scribbles Toby immediately made out the words.

Act natural.

Underneath the words
was
a crudely-drawn star and more scribbled words. The recognition of that single star sent a chill down Toby's spine. He read the words that followed it.

Can see and hear us.
U R not safe.

Toby swallowed and jumped when Hank slammed his hand down again and began to yell.

"I'll send you right back to that Imperial orphanage, if that's what it takes. I don't have to put up with this constant rebellion." His father's eyes seemed to be waiting, expecting something from him as his hand blindly underlined the words "Act natural" and Toby knew then what to do.

"Fine," Toby said.

Hank started to write more.

"Send me back there. Fuck you. You're a shitty father anyway. I liked it better there." Spittle launched from Toby’s mouth as he saw what his father had written.

Letter in your desk drawer.
Explains everything.
I love you.

His father raised his hand as if to strike and a tear rolled down his face. Toby knew what was coming, but it hit before he could prepare himself. His jaw stung sharply with the force of Hank's slap. The tears that came were partially from the pain, but mostly from a mixture of fear and, strangely enough, joy. Both came from the same realization.

His father wasn't being himself on purpose.

Knowing this had brought the joy. It had all been an illusion.
But why?
Why hadn't he told his only son? That was where the fear reigned.
The unknown.
Toby picked himself up from the couch holding his jaw and whimpering, partially as an act, and partially unable to hold in the confused, conflicting emotions inside himself. He took one sharp look at his father's tortured face and ran for his bedroom and slammed the door with all his might. He could only hope, pray even—but to
who
?—that he had been convincing enough.

The sound of his father's weeping outside crushed his heart as he pulled open the top desk drawer and saw a neatly-sealed envelope sitting lonely inside. That solitary envelope seemed to embody exactly how he had felt ever since the day his father had first been taken from him.
When he'd been taken physically.
But that hadn't been nearly as painful as when he'd come back.
When his father had been taken from him in a much more subtle way.

Chapter 7

The Fledglings

Simon had been running at a human pace for a while when he made his decision.
Leaping from building to building with the ease of a bird.
His shoes scraped against the rough concrete as he continued along the angled roof of an old apartment building. At first he ran to release the tension. But now he continued with a chosen destination in mind. The sky was black with nighttime clouds and the wind kept testing his balance. Still he made his way without fear.

When Simon came to the edge of the building, he looked down at the dimly lit streetlights below. The light reflected on the apartment windows surrounded by tan concrete beneath him. Other than that, not a single window glowed from the inside. The giant skyscraper in front of him returned his stare with its dusty glass windows and mighty steel frame, taunting him to attempt the impossible leap to its heavenly pinnacle.

One solitary row of windows about halfway down the building gave off a mild white glow.

A gust of wind caught Simon off guard and he had to adjust his stance to keep from falling. If he didn't concentrate hard, it would be a particularly unpleasant landing. He focused his eyes forward and stepped from the roof. Rows and rows of glass blurred together as the upward thrust of air reminded Simon why his existence wasn't completely unpleasant.

Landing as softly as a cat, Simon walked at a human pace onto the granite steps surrounding the skyscraper. A group of eight dirty glass doors, once transparent and gleaming, stood at the top of the granite walkway. He went straight for the middle door, grabbing and pulling at the grimy steel handle at its midsection. It was stuck. And he knew better than to pull harder as his strength would surely shatter the glass buried under the dry muck. He tried another and it treated him the same. He almost decided to simply call up to her, but stopped himself. She wasn't alone, and he didn't want to disturb the rest of them.

After trying several more of the doors, he heard movement from around the corner of the building. It came from inside. He walked toward the sound and sure enough, the other side of the building revealed several vampires dressed in brown overalls walking from a small modest blue door. Two of the vampires turned at the sound of Simon's footfalls and gave him a long look before deciding to turn and ignore him.

Across the top of the open door it said MAINTENANCE in big black letters. He walked to the doorway and stepped inside. A large dark room greeted him with rows of teal metal lockers along the walls, various tools, cleaning supplies, and machinery scattered against them. Beyond the maintenance room was a huge lobby with a long gray information desk and equally gray furniture strategically placed around it. Small darkly stained wooden tables sat holding stacks of colorful magazines and paperback books. Behind the desk, what was once a grand waterfall stood dry as the desert
outside.
In the middle its base, a tall white sculpture of a man with curly hair and empty eyes reached up to the ceiling with his index finger outstretched.

Simon passed the statue and stepped onto the luxurious stairway that sloped down to the floor like a fully blossomed flower. Thirteen floors later, the glow from the hallway caught his eye and he knew he was nearly there. The glow came from a single door that led into a huge open room filled with office partitions and desks. Computers, printers and an array of other items littered the floor in random places. A short male vampire with green eyes and a bald head looking just as filthy as the windows outside, glanced up from a desk just inside the doorway. He was leaning back in a red plastic
chair,
a thick magazine lay open in his lap.

"Well, either it's your first day and you were too stupid to read the orientation guide, or you're in the wrong goddamn place."

Simon smiled. "Neither, I'm here to talk to someone. I'm Simon, Simon Withers, council
mem
—"

The bald vampire leapt to his feet, dropping the magazine to the floor. His skin turning somehow paler, he reached out his hand for Simon to shake. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, we don't often get visits from council members here." He grabbed Simon's hand and shook it jarringly. "Please, forgive me, sir. Sometimes my big mouth has a mind of its own."

"No, no, it's
okay,
I just wanted to have a word with Jackie White. Is she almost done with her day's assigned labor?"

The vampire kept shaking Simon's hand and seemed to almost have to snap himself out of a trance. "Sure, let me look in my logs real quick. Even if she's not done for the night, don't worry about it. If you need to talk to her, I'm sure it's important." He ran his finger down a long sheet of paper with names scribbled in blue ink within black printed boxes. "Walton, Weinberg, Wending,
White
, Ruby—no, you said Jackie, right
?.
"

Simon nodded.

"She's in section G-12. Just go right down this open walkway here to the far end of the room until you get to the area labeled G," he pointed up to the sign hanging from the ceiling labeled A, "and she should be in partition twelve." The bald man smiled with a sincerity that surprised Simon.

"Thank you."

"Hey no problem.
Just let me know if you have any trouble finding her, okay?"

"I will. Thanks again." Simon nodded and turned down the open walkway toward the far wall.

* * *

The "room" was nearly empty. Jackie had pulled out every single piece of equipment that had been inside. The thin metal desktops bolted onto the "walls" and the tangled mess of black, yellow, and teal cables sprawled out along the floor were all that was left.
Those and the dust bunnies.
Jackie hadn't coughed so hard in her life—her real life.
The one that had actually required her to breathe.

Only 16, she'd made the biggest mistake of that life deciding to bring her sister to the old city. Thought she could find some treasure, maybe scare Karen real good, and get home in time for bed, but it hadn't quite worked out that way. She could only be thankful that Karen had been spared. Spared from the city, spared from the
ancestors,
and most of all, spared from her sister's fledgling bloodlust. But just the thought of Karen made the thirst rise up inside of Jackie. Her mind's eye traced the veins branching down her sister's wrists, the thin veil of pale flesh covering the blue, protruding tubes of...

She made herself focus on the task at hand. As she picked up cables and wrapped them one by one, the sadness began to set in again. She held back the tide of emotion that threatened to come forth. When the wave finally subsided she continued winding the cables and grabbed all the coils she had made in a pile and carried them from the partition, her mind wandering. She had only taken one step into the walkway, when she almost ran head on into a semi-tall blond vampire with sky blue eyes wearing a black business suit. He was nearly middle-aged-looking by human standards. Jackie was distracted by the lack of blood scent from his cool breath.

"
Whyn't
you look
were
you're going, prick?"

"You must be Jackie White." The man reached out his hand as if to be shaken. Jackie looked at it and turned away from him, then walked over to the pile of computers and things she had removed from the "room," and tossed the pile of cables on top of a large computer monitor. When she turned, the man stood looking at her with a curious, uneasy expression and wiping the hand he had extended to her on his jacket.

"I see you continue to work hard to earn your reputation as a people person," the man said.

Jackie had to stifle a laugh. She didn't want to find anything any of these blood-sucking fuckers said funny. She wanted to hate them all.
For what they did to her.
For what they did to Karen... for what they wouldn't let her do to Karen—no, she loved her sister. How much longer would this bloodlust last? She walked back into the partition with a straight face and went for the toolbox, opening it. She could feel the man's presence as he leaned his head into the "room." As if he had read her mind he spoke then.

"You know I'm sort of a fledgling myself. Not much 'older' than you. My case is quite different than most, but I still know what it's like. I think... I think maybe we could help each other."

Jackie found herself staring at him. Wondering how anyone could help her now. But she couldn't deny it was a surprise to find out he was a fledgling. Could he, too, be waiting on his first taste of blood? It would explain the absence of its fragrance on him. "And just what do you suppose we could do? Vampire or not, you're far too old for me—"

"Nothing like that."
His furrowed brow betrayed his frustration with her. "I'm talking about survival, friendship,
  just
... getting by for Christ sakes."

Jackie turned away. She lifted the socket wrench and began removing the bolts holding down the first desktop. "Why don't you smell of it?
The blood, why can't I smell it on you like I can everyone else."

The man coughed uncomfortably. "Actually, that's part of how I'm different from other fledglings. With you, it's your age. With me, it's my experience."

Jackie put down the ratchet.
"Experience?"

"Yeah—look, it's complicated. Would you maybe like to go somewhere else and talk? It would sure as hell be nice to have a seat. We can explain each other's stories and then you can decide if it's worthwhile giving me the time of day and—well, quite frankly I can do the same. You're not exactly winning me over here."

Jackie was surprised to feel
a tightness
in her chest from the man's last words. "I—but I can't leave, my shift isn't over."

"Never mind that.
I talked to Baldy the Wonder Prick out there and he said you could leave early."

Jackie couldn't hold back her laughter this time. "How the hell did you manage that?"

"Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. Try this again?" He reached out his hand.

Jackie nodded, this time accepting it, a warm blush enveloping her face as she reached timidly forward and shook his hand.

"My name is Simon. Councilmember Simon Withers. I've met you before sort of—but I'm getting ahead of myself."

Jackie became even more confused and curious altogether. Simon smiled.

"Told you I was different.
Come on, let's go. I know this lovely restaurant on the other side of town. It's called 'The Drop Off.' They're only open once a week, but it's an all you can eat buffet."

With that, Jackie erupted with laughter.