Shining in Crimson: Empire of Blood Book One (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) (19 page)

Chapter 15

The Drinker's Curse

T
he intense weakening of his body started again as Ishan made his way back to the main lab from his quarters. He took the time to use the terminal in the room to send a message to the Emperor. The terminal controlled a system within the Stratosphere designed by the Empire. It was supposed to be the only device that could communicate with the outside world and was restricted to only send direct messages to the Emperor himself. Of course, Ishan's kind had been smart and resourceful enough to build
their own
means of communication. Now that his message was sent, he needed to find Kato and make arrangements for the new security measures that were now obviously going to be essential for reconstruction.

When he arrived in the main lab, he glowered at its emptiness. So many years of hard work wasted in a single night.
The animal within wanted Peter and his followers to attack at that moment.
But his sense of reason told him he was in no condition to fight and what was left of his operation could not likely survive another hit so soon. Besides, it was nearing dawn now and most of the others were asleep. Kato came out of one of the sub-labs to the right of Ishan and looked at him expectantly.

"Has the backup process been initiated?" Ishan began walking toward him and felt a sudden jerk in his legs.

"Master, are you all right?"

Ishan couldn't understand why he was unable to make out Kato's face. Everything darkened and went out of focus. He felt himself crash against the floor like a feather. All of his senses seemed to be slowing down until...

Darkness.

* * *

Kato watched as his master collapsed to the floor. He had enough medical and biological research background that he was probably the best person for Ishan to be with. He raced to the small man's side and put his ear to Ishan's forehead. He listened with his enhanced sense of hearing for the telltale sound he had become accustomed to for determining if a subject was alive. It only took a moment before he heard the synapses still firing. It would be so much easier and require less anticipation if their hearts could only beat or they had a pulse, but that would be too easy. He reached his arms under the frail body he knew, if animated, could turn him into dust with proper motivation. He carried Ishan down the opposite hall from where Ishan's quarters were. He followed the hall down until he passed another slanted x-shaped four way.

About a hundred feet ahead, he arrived at the end of the hall to an unmarked door. He held Ishan with his left arm as he used his right hand to dial in his access code in the key pad. A second later, the door unlatched with a loud metallic click and opened for him. He resumed carrying Ishan with both arms, turning in order to bring him in head first. Inside, he took Ishan to the first available bed, the second bed closest to the door. The first bed contained the former mediator whom Kato had also moved earlier in the night. From what Kato understood, he’d been taken by Peter after openly quitting his position and found by an ancestor. It was strange. This man was the first to have been infected within the city as it was now. For several centuries now, the ancestors gave the privilege of deciding a human's worthiness to Ishan. He didn't know exactly why. So much between Ishan and the ancestors was kept between them. But this man had been changed without Ishan's consent.

Kato adjusted the strap on a brain scan headset and put it on Ishan's head. It was a perfect fit. He plugged one end of a data cable into it and the other into the bed's monitor on a tall tan shelf next to the bed. Ishan's brain activity filled the screen in graphical spikes between two horizontal lines, one at the top of the screen representing maximum activity and one at the bottom which represented zero.

Once he was sure Ishan's readings were at a safe level, he turned to the infirmary's other guest and went to the terminal beside Simon's bed. He pulled out the ancient keyboard and began pecking at the keys with his index fingers until Simon's monitor brought up the log of his brain activity. Kato was amazed by the many outrageous spikes happening at random every once in a while. They were constantly going up to maximum, but these were different. They had happened within three minutes, within fifteen minutes, and within an hour.
Each spike well over the maximum safe level.
From what Ishan had been able to tell him, it was understandable why it was happening. A shared and often unspoken gift they managed to hide from the Empire had been experienced by each and every one of them. Upon drinking blood of any kind, lifelong memories of feelings and experiences passed from the carrier to the drinker. In Kato's best guess, Simon was experiencing over two thousand years of memories within his comatose state at an incredible pace.

He pulled a pen light from his pocket and moved closer to Simon's bedside. With his left hand, he held open Simon's right eyelid, the eye underneath moving swiftly from side to side in a hyperactive REM state. He shined the light into the eye. No response. He wondered how long it would take for the newly born thing to awaken to its new, strange existence. He let go of the eyelid and opened the other, shining the light in this one as well with the same result. Then, he typed out some notes on the terminal and logged out of the system, sliding the keyboard back into place.

* * *

For the longest time, Simon experienced nothing but a sort of darkness. He knew he wasn't unconscious because he was aware. Though conscious, he knew of nothing more than a simple sense of void. He saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing except the experience of knowing. He was sure he should have felt something else. Fear, maybe.
Something.
But it just wasn't there. Then everything changed. A distant point of light appeared. It grew. Eventually he saw a colorful circle ahead of him, light pouring out from it at every angle. As the circle came closer, it began to resemble the outside of a tunnel. He saw movement inside. When it arrived close enough to focus on, he realized it was not simply movement he saw within, but something much more
strange
. It was like the tunnel was actually a lens and he was looking through to someone else's reality. A bright flash like lightning seemed to momentarily blind him, and then, he no longer simply looked through the lens but seemed to be in that someone else's reality.

Simon felt as though he merely existed inside another body, unable to move or speak. He could see what this person saw, from their short perspective, leading him to believe he was
inhabiting
the body of a child. But even stranger, the view before him was a humble room within an oddly built structure. The dirt floor and ceilings were anything but symmetrical. All this he noticed from what he managed to glimpse within the child's movements. He tried to will himself to look down at the body he was trapped within, but seemed helpless to control any of the
its
motion. A thought repeated in the child’s mind with great excitement. It was intriguing and annoying at the same time. He understood it even though it was in a language he somehow knew to be Sanskrit. He learned several things from the child’s mind. He was a boy of only eight years old who lived in
India
and whose father was a boat builder.

Then a deep voice came from outside the room speaking also in Sanskrit.

"Ishan, my son," the voice said, "are you ready to come with papa?" a tall, smiling, dark-skinned man asked as he came into the room and leaned in front of the boy. Simon felt Ishan's young head bob up and down with great exhilaration. Then, the man's smile brightened and he reached out his hand and ruffled the
boys
hair. Simon was in no way surprised with the enthusiasm the boy showed. He’d been unable to stop thinking about going with his father. It would be the boy’s first time learning to build boats himself.

He was not only excited about learning the family trade, he was also ecstatic to be going where his father worked. The boat builders worked in the port city of
Muziris
. The small village they lived in lay just outside the city, but Ishan hadn’t been to Muziris before. He hoped he would get to see the Roman soldiers his papa had told him about. Or the Greek and Arabian traders; they all sounded very interesting to the boy. He also longed to look up at the great statue of Augustus that towered over the city. Muziris was the greatest of all of
India
's many ports of trade with the
Roman Empire
. The Romans
came
bringing gold and wine in return for spices like pepper and ginger. In
India
, pepper grew like a weed in great numbers. But the Romans valued it highly, using it in many kinds of food.

Simon's anger was coming to a boiling point. He had seen, heard, felt, and learned enough. He wanted to wake up now. He tried to scream.
Nothing.
He tried with all his willpower to move.
Still nothing.
It was like nothing he ever felt before. He could sense everything his young host could, but affect nothing at all. He couldn't close his eyes and block it out. He couldn't block the thoughts out. Nor could he turn and run away from the body he was imprisoned in. But lingering in a small, dark place within Simon was something he hadn't expected. He loathed it. Why should he care about Ishan's past? Why should he want anything to do with it? But still it sparked his interest and it didn't seem he had a choice but to indulge this strange curiosity.

* * *

An alarm sounded from the small device in Peter’s pocket as he sat in the gravel underneath the underpass outside the entrance to the tunnels. He pulled the device out and smiled at it. It was time now. The drug he slipped Ishan would now be fully active and Ishan would be incapacitated enough for Peter to make his move. He only hoped everything else was in place. He stood up and brushed away the gravel sticking to his clothes and walked toward the mouth of the middle tunnel. He knew the Ancestors would be of no concern as they had always
went
into The Sleep earlier than the others. When he came to the entrance of the nest, he saw his biggest worry was inconsequential as well. The password override he’d chosen to be entered into the system had been taken care of. He prepared himself to attack as the door opened, but as planned the hall inside and the room beyond seemed to be empty. If his directions had been followed, all the others would have been sent to their chambers by the time he stepped inside. As he came down the silver hall, he smiled in response to its emptiness.

* * *

As Kato looked over the long printout of Simon's brain scan, he heard movement from outside the door of the small infirmary. He stopped what he was doing and listened. Then, he heard a light tap on the frosted glass window of the door. He took a moment to compose
himself
and gently set the long roll of paper back down on top of the printer. He opened the door casually, expecting any one of the many vampires who might come here looking for him or Ishan. Instead, as soon as the door was ajar, he was surprised to see Peter standing outside the door, smirking.

* * *

Hank could see the vial just ahead of him as he crawled for it. He thought he might be close enough to reach it. He drew his arm out and stretched his fingers toward it. Not quite. He was about to pull his arm back when he heard a swift movement and a swooshing in the air. Before he could look up to see what happened, a foot came crashing down in front of him, crushing his hand as it landed. He screamed as the worst physical pain he ever felt came from what was left of his hand. He didn't bother looking up, knowing the foot was attached to Rachel. He could only lie there and moan in agony. She lifted her foot and he could see the mess that was left behind. He felt nauseous. If he hadn't been in so much pain, his nausea might have overtaken him. But the torrential stinging from his hand made him forget he ever had a stomach.

Rachel had moved from his line of vision. He tried to look around for her but couldn't bear to move too much as each slight movement of any part of his body heightened the terrible mixture of throbbing and stinging of his hand. He tried again to turn his head and felt fingers slide up the back of it. He screamed out as they gripped a full handful of hair and pulled his head back. He felt a slight, cold breeze hit the right side of his face and then heard a whisper that turned his world upside down.

"If you'll just die now, Hank, we can be together," Diana's voice whispered in his ear.

A wave of pain with more sting, pressure, and throbbing than any physical ailment could ever manage filled Hank like water overfilling a glass. He couldn't understand what he was hearing. Was Rachel channeling his long-lost wife? It didn't make any sense. She whispered in his ear again.