Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (13 page)

He followed in a daze.

Falconi watched Wentworth as he planned his reprisal
and began to understand why the vampire was in charge. He had been
a small man in life, with a slightly portly frame. His face was
pinched and his plump cheeks gave him an innocent, almost
chipmunk-like appearance. He was instantly forgettable in
appearance but he had a keen mind and, from what Falconi had heard
from those who had known him before the vampires had come, he had
been an excellent speaker. It certainly had not been his looks that
had landed him the position of mayor.

Although he sounded petulant, Falconi began to see
that the vampire was not in the least bit huffy. Wentworth was,
however, ruthless. In his previous life there had been laws and
conventions within which he had to work to get what he wanted. Not
now though. In his current position he was able to demand anything
and get it. And he jealously guarded what was his. Falconi had been
aware, in his position as local commander, that an attack was
always a possibility, though no one really thought it would ever
happen.

Except, it seemed, for Wentworth.

The vampire had a plan already in place for just such
an eventuality. One aide had made the mistake of asking why they
did not contact the Council and let them handle it and the
withering look that Wentworth had sent him had been enough for the
aide to soil himself on the spot.

Falconi stood back and watched his master at work. He
was really quite incredible, despite his diminutive stature. The
man exuded power and confidence. His eyes seemed to shine with an
inner glare as he issued orders. Wentworth did not shout, somehow
Falconi had assumed that the vampire would over compensate for his
size, but his orders were quiet and confident and no one dared ask
for them to be repeated.

The plan was also a good one and Falconi began to
feel sorry for Von Kruger’s men. They may have more supplies and
fuel but Wentworth’s plan was genius. He began to like his new
direct superior. He was still terrified, of course, but somehow it
was comforting to have the vampire on their side. The poor sods on
the other side of the border wouldn’t know what hit them.

Von Kruger had left orders with his men to maintain
patrols along the entire border. He expected retaliation but he did
not expect it to be overly troublesome. Von Kruger was a vampire
with centuries of experience. He did not have any regard for those
beneath him, especially not young upstarts like Wentworth who were
still merely children among the ranks of the undead.

What he did not consider was how cunning Wentworth
might be. His experience with humans was limited to an existence of
centuries in secret, when he had viewed them only as cattle. Even
during the brief few months during the war the vampires’ sheer
ferocity and power cut through the human’s resistance far too
easily to credit them with any respect—of course, the serum also
had something to do with that. He was used to dealing with powerful
opponents who developed their strength and cunning over centuries;
he was used to a structure that relied upon tradition and mutual
respect among the vampire lords. He had no experience with dealing
with those who had spent their lives in a position of weakness and
who had relied upon their minds rather than their strength to
achieve their aims.

In this he underestimated his opponent terribly. His
men were also overconfident in their assumed position of strength.
They had the best vehicles and equipment and plenty of fuel to
power them. They had transport and a supply line that could deliver
men and supplies where and when they were needed, although the
general consensus was that there would be a brief retaliation that
would be easily dealt with and then the status quo would resume.
After all, they were only retaliating against an attack that
Wentworth had instigated. So he could hardly complain to the
council.

The generals deployed their men openly in a show of
strength along the border. It was assumed that the attack would
begin at dawn. Why at dawn, no one had asked, but dawn was the
accepted timescale and Von Krugers’ men settled down for a night
under the stars around campfires that lit their camps like beacons
as the darkness rolled in.

Falconi could see the disposition of their enemy
clearly against the backlight of the fires and the lighting that
illuminated the camp nearest him. The tanks lay silent, appearing
as darker, angular shapes to the side of the camps. His men would
be decimated if they attacked from the front. Even if they had the
fuel to spare to bring their own tanks forward, the noise of their
approach would warn the other side and allow them plenty of time to
redeploy their heavy armor to concentrate fire on their own smaller
force. It didn’t matter, in any case, they did not have the fuel to
even get their tanks to the front let alone take part in a
sustained battle.

Von Kruger had fewer men than Wentworth, but their
armament was far more impressive and easily made up for their
smaller numbers. Falconi looked behind him toward his own camp and
saw over a hundred vampires gathered there. Wentworth would not
deploy vampires against thralls. For one thing, it would escalate
the current squabble beyond where he was prepared to go. It was
inconceivable that a thrall could kill, or even raise a hand to, a
vampire, so he could not use them in the attack. However, there was
nothing to stop him using his vampires to help reposition his
forces to a more strategic position.

As he watched the first of the vampires gripped their
thrall charges in their powerful arms and leapt into the air,
wrapping the darkness around them and transforming in a blink of
the eye. In seconds the dark shapes disappeared into the night and
Falconi shivered. The vampires were terrifying; no matter how many
times he saw them his stomach still knotted and his heart beat
faster. He again reaffirmed that his decision to join them rather
than fight during the war was the correct one, but something still
nagged at him, even after all these years. Something that rebelled
against the fear and refused to allow him to forget what he had
been.

Falconi savagely repressed the feeling and headed
down to his men and crossed over to Wentworth. The vampire grinned
at him and Falconi nodded at his master with more than a little
trepidation. There was something very unsettling about the
vampire’s grin. It was far too feral and served to remind the
thrall of how different the vampires were to the humans they had
once been. The prospect of the slaughter to come was exciting, he
felt a quickening of the heart himself, but it was as if Wentworth
would be happy to slaughter his own men as easily as the forces
they were deploying against, and it made Falconi question his own
sanity in pledging his allegiance to the vampires.

“They won’t know what hit them, sir,” he forced the
comment but found himself looking away from the vampire, lest he
notice his doubts.

“They certainly won’t,” Wentworth replied and then
reached out and pulled Falconi to him. For a brief second Falconi
thought that he had done something wrong, that somehow Wentworth
had sensed his subject’s doubts. His body tensed as he anticipated
the claw that would tear through his body at any moment. But then
he felt his stomach lurch as Wentworth shot upwards and, suddenly,
he was flying.

His body rebelled at first as his equilibrium went
awry and he struggled against the vampire’s grip. His legs kicked
out in all directions and his arms rotated as he tried to regain
some semblance of balance. As realization slowly began to penetrate
his fear-soaked brain he slowly let his body grow limp. There was
little point in struggling against such strength anyway, and, as he
had done two years ago when faced with a similar decision, Falconi
accepted the easier path and allowed himself to be carried along on
the path of least resistance. Large wings beat powerfully above him
and the cool night air snatched at his clothes and sapped his
warmth. His face quickly grew icy and it was painful to open his
eyes with the speed of their flight. Despite this he reveled in the
feeling and forced his eyes open to study the ground below. They
were hundreds of feet up to ensure that they were not heard but he
could still see the deployments of the enemy below.

There were more camps along the border than he had
thought and he paled as he saw the line stretching into the
distance, each one marked by the pinpricks of light from the fires.
Each camp seemed to be a few miles apart immediately below them but
some of the camps further along the chain were farther apart as
natural geography provided its own protection from attack.

The plan was not to take out all of the camps but
Wentworth had not wanted to attack an isolated camp either. He had
wanted Von Kruger to know that his weaponry did not scare him so he
had chosen the two main camps in the centre for his lesson in
warfare.

Wentworth was not a general by any means, but he had
plenty of men around him who were, and he had had two years to
perfect this plan. Falconi began to feel himself dropping as they
passed over the camp and soon he stood firmly on the ground, if
somewhat shakily.

“You know what to do,” Wentworth stated. He did not
expect or wait for a response. “Do not let me down.”

Falconi looked into Wentworth’s piercing eyes and saw
the threat that lay there. He shivered. If the night did not go as
planned there was no way that he would return to face that stare.
Either he would return victorious or he would be dead.

Once the vampires left, Ralf Falconi felt briefly
that he was entirely alone. The dark surrounded him, and seemed to
press inwards on him as the moments ticked by. The responsibility
of his command was far greater than anything he had ever had
before. Before the vampires had come he had been a small-time
criminal. He had run rackets and protection for the larger families
as their local representative. He was used to being in command, but
only with small groups of people.

He had remained in his position by being more vicious
than any of the men beneath him and by being just a little smarter.
When the vampires had come he had merely traded one set of masters
for another. To him they were little different to the men he had
served all his life. Nameless bosses who imbued him with power and
left him alone as long as he showed the right respect and made sure
their cut reached them on time each month. The vampires had
promised an easy life; all he had to do was keep the population
docile and carry out any orders that were sent his way. So they
lived on the blood of their captives; his mafia bosses had lived
off the blood of their victims for years. He had decided very
quickly that he would be on the side of those who ruled rather than
those who opened their veins and meekly gave their blood.

The recent run of events was more than a little
daunting, though, and as he stood in the dark all he could hear was
the thump of his heart as he frantically tried to remember what he
should do. For a brief moment he lost it. He considered running
blindly into the dark and hiding from the vampires—surely they
would not have the time or resources to look for him. Surely he was
not important enough. He moved one leg and felt a tremor run
through him.

He took a second step and then he saw Wentworth’s
eyes in his mind and he stopped. The eyes seemed to float in front
of him, mocking him with their baleful stare, their piercing black
pupils drawing him in and sending a bolt of terror through him. He
realized with a start that Wentworth would look for him no matter
where he went and no matter how well he hid. He really had as
little choice as he had had when he was sixteen and had been
approached by the local boss.

He could either join the family where he would make
great money and have any of the local working girls he wanted, or
he could suffer a beating he was unlikely to ever recover from.
There was really no decision to be made. Life had never had many
choices for Ralph Falconi, though he had never really looked hard
for alternatives, either. He had always chosen the easy route. In
school, when he had actually gone, he had found it easier to steal
money rather than earn it, get others to do his work for him with
threats, if reason did not work.

It had been no surprise that he had been singled out
for a position with the local family. He felt a calm come over him
as his recent doubts began to recede back to the quiet corner he
had prepared for them He was never quite capable of dispelling them
entirely but had long ago learned to live with dealing with their
infrequent resurfacing before he was able to force them away again
until the next time. Once he had made his decision the thump of his
heart began to subside. He could hear faint noises around him as
the men surrounding him fidgeted while they waited for their
orders. His fear began to subside and the darkness seemed to lift
from his shoulders and the details of the plan began to flood back
into his brain.

“Okay, men.” When he spoke he did so with a
confidence he did not really feel, but he began to imagine the
pleasures that would be his when he completed this mission and his
confidence grew. “Two teams, move out to your positions. If anyone
makes any noise before we’re ready to go I’ll rip them to pieces
myself.”

The press of the bodies around him gave him
confidence and he moved out with his thoughts full of the carnal
pleasures that would be his in a very short time.

At three o’clock in the morning most of the fires had
burned low and only their smoldering embers marked the positions of
the camps along the border. The night was cold and thralls lay
shivering, wrapped tightly in blankets, tarpaulins and anything
that might keep the chill from their bones. The previous hours’
confidence and grandstanding had degenerated to a cold huddle as
the heat of their overconfidence had long ago surrendered to the
night’s icy fingers. The previous day’s storm had left the ground
packed hard with ice, and the clever ones slept off the ground on
vehicles or boxes, anywhere to avoid the bone-sapping chill that,
even now, had many of the thralls tossing fitfully in their
sleep.