Blood Vivicanti (9781941240113) (9 page)

I grabbed Theo’s lifeless
body and I followed, wondering what on earth was going
on.

It turns out that nothing
on
Earth
was going
on. But something above the planet was about to rock the
world.

Inside the spacecraft, Red
pressed several controls and made ready to leave.

We took off and flew
through the air.

“
Where are we going?” I
asked him. “Lowen is defeated. The Sleeper Devils are gone. So are
the Devicanti. So what is the matter?”

Red expressed nothing but
an urgent need to flee. He had on his face an expression of deep
concentration as he calculated trajectory and swooped past a flock
of geese.

Wyn and I glanced at one
another. He raised his eyebrow. Even though he looked quite worn
out, you could always depend on his general air of
skepticism.

We flew above the clouds
and into space and slalomed past satellites.

Red parked us on the
surface of the moon.

I knew much, but I had not
experienced every possible thing. The knowledge that Ms. Crystobal
shared with me was limited by my ability to learn. So beholding the
planet from that perspective was the most beautiful thing I’d ever
seen.

Part of me had an itch to
go on a space walk.

I started to speak, but Red
held up his hand. He had learned that one too.
Wait
, said Silent without a
sound.

So I waited.

“
What are we doing?” Ms.
Crystobal asked.

I looked at Wyn in Nell’s
body. He looked tired and defeated and confused. But something like
the old Wyn was coming back.

He could see the question
on my face. “By my calculations,” he answered in Nell’s voice,
“since we have technically won, yet we still have to escape the
planet, something very bad is about to occur.”

“
His people are coming,”
Nell said in Wyn’s voice.

I looked at her. “Whose
people?”

“
Lowen’s,” she said. Then
she pointed to Red. “And his too.”

Right then, just above the
Earth, another dimensional portal opened.

I had not opened this
portal. So I asked Ms. Crystobal about it.

“
This one was not made by me
or my people,” she said. For the first time I heard real concern in
her voice. “This one was made by the effect of sound waves and
harmonics on gravity.”

Through the portal came
more egg-shaped spacecraft. The Kharetie were coming.

Yet these ships were unlike
Red’s or the Red Men’s. These spacecraft were like the shards of
broken eggs.

They soared lightsomely
through space.

I stretched out the
tendrils of my new awareness. I could sense the crews on their
ships, their version of captains and lieutenants and ensigns. I
could sense the Kharetie at the helm of the ship, Kharetie in the
kitchen, Kharetie in the musical weapons room.

They were tuning up for an
attack.

The Kharetie ships soared
toward Earth. They stationed their ships in attack positions around
the planet.

From them came a powerful
sound that tore through space. It was one great note, like the
blare of some terrible tuba.

The sound shook the planet.
The waves were tearing apart the whole wide world.

“
I thought sound was
impossible in space,” I said.

“
It appears as though,” Wyn
said in an analytical tone, “they have made the impossible
possible.”

“
What are they doing?” I
asked.

“
They are a new generation
of Kharetie,” said Ms. Crystobal. “They survived their planet’s
Noise. This is the New Order.”

The blast of the great note
affected the whole planet. Volcanoes exploded across every country.
Earthquakes swallowed cities. Tsunamis tore through the ocean and
buried coastal states in fish and brine.

“
What is this,” I
asked.

“
A war,” Wyn whispered in
awe.

“
Yes,” said Ms. Crystobal
inside my head. “The war with the Kharetie begun sooner than I
expected. It wasn’t supposed to happen now.”

The end

of this tale of

The Blood
Vivicanti

OTHER BOOKS BY
BECKET

Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Dungeon of Despair

Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time

The Christmas
King

ABOUT THE
AUTHORS

BECKET

Becket has a BA in music
composition, an MA in Systematic Theology, and an MS in Industrial/
Organizational Psychology. He was a Benedictine monk for many
years. For the last nine years, he has worked as Anne Rice’s
assistant, and has spent that time learning from her. He is also
the author of
Key the Steampunk Vampire
Girl and the Dungeon of Despair
. You can
find Becket at www.becket.me

ANNE RICE

Anne Rice has written over
30 books about vampires, werewolves and other such blood drinkers.
Her works include
Interview With the
Vampire
,
The
Vampire Lestat
, and most recently
The Wolves of Midwinter
.
You can find Anne at www.annerice.com

CREDITS

Cover design

Becket

Cover photograph

ID: 24211984 © Robert
Adrian Hillman

Shutterstock

ID 17981513 © Doffdog |
Dreamstime.com

ID 10210740 © Kathy Gold |
Dreamstime.com