Trail of Tears (14 page)

They had thought a virus was loose in the
community but extensive tests had ruled that out. One of his
Lieutenants had suggested a viral attack from neighbouring cabals
but his medical experts had ruled that out too, as well as any
poisoning of the food or water. Something else was happening. If
the deaths continued at this rate the vampires’ food supply would
not last the year. There had been no pregnancies in the breeding
pens either for three months now so these deaths were significant.
As much as he hated dealing with his neighbours, he would have to
contact Warrick and Von Kruger to see if they were experiencing the
same problems.

Of course this wasn’t his only concern.
There had been increasingly violent altercations between the
vampires as well. This week alone there had been three vampires
killed in fighting and two more executed for killing their kin. He
had expected frustration. Von Kruger was a bad influence. He had
disregarded the Council’s laws and had taken control of Wentworth’s
territory, slaughtering Wentworth and his vampires like cattle. And
now he flaunted himself on Flynn’s borders, flying into his
territory and taunting his vampires. Frustration was rife. His
vampires urged him to allow them to retaliate but Flynn was biding
his time. He was convinced the Council would act. Ever since he had
been made a vampire he had heard of the Council in whispered,
fearful tones. Surely they would act to restore their
authority?

He had found that he was losing his own
temper more often as well, over-reacting to the slightest
provocation. He could feel something inside him coiling, an urge
that threatened to wash away his reason and enticing him to lash
out. To Kill. He felt the urge grow within him now. He longed to
attack this thrall with the droning voice, to rip and gorge… He dug
his nails into his palms and the sharp pain restored his reason.
What was happening to him?

There were too few ancient vampires left to
ask if this was a vampire ‘thing’. Was it like puberty? Was that
all it was? Did he have command of a thousand pubescent vampires
with raging hormones? How long would this last? It might be as
simple as that. Maybe a good fight was what they all needed after
all. Surely the Council could not blame him for protecting his
legal territory? He smiled. Maybe it was time to teach Von Kruger a
lesson. He rose suddenly and the thrall stopped talking in
mid-sentence.

“Gather a patrol of your best thralls and
send out messengers. I want every vampire within a two hundred mile
radius within the hour.” If Von Kruger came over his borders
tonight he would find The Flynn Cabal more than willing to
accommodate them.

* * *

At some level Von Kruger knew something was
wrong. But it was too easy to ignore the feeling. He looked out at
the horizon where, within the hour, he would see his fourth dawn in
centuries. His body was suffused with energy, the way he remembered
feeling after gorging on blood. It had been so long since vampires
had truly gorged. The last time he remembered was the fall of
Constantinople when the vampires had walked freely through the
streets of the sacked city. He remembered the fear that hung over
the area, almost palpable in its intensity. And he remembered the
blood. He remembered his senses being swamped with the scent of
blood. It had been everywhere. He and his cabal had not been able
to move for days after. He remembered lying in their underground
cabal feeling the blood rage through his veins in a way that he had
almost forgotten. The vampires had lain in their hovels
experiencing euphoria akin to drug inducement. But this was
different. This was better. He felt none of the lethargy of blood
gorging. And, he could walk in sunlight.

But not all his vampires had been chosen. He
dared not send more of his cabal into the flames at this time. They
had all watched their five colleagues slowly die from the
radiation. Their much vaunted healing abilities merely prolonging
their agonising deaths. He shuddered as he remembered the last day
when the flesh literally fell from the bones of those who the
flames had not chosen. He had noticed the looks from those who had
survived, their thinly veiled stares showing their uncertainty. The
deaths of his cabal members had shaken him also and he needed to
regain their trust.

They still feared him so his leadership was
not in question, but he had expected them to be so filled with the
promise of their new abilities that they would idolise him. That
was not about to happen anytime soon. There were seven of them
changed by the flames, but the others of his cabal would have to be
convinced if they were to take the next uncertain step. The fear of
the heavy toll the flames demanded had swept through the others.
There were too few who would follow him if he led them to the
flames now, and he could not afford to lose face. He would have to
offset their fear by the lure of the power they could achieve. When
they had to run from the battle in fear of the dawn he and his
chosen would remain and show them how true immortals made their own
destiny.

“Lord,” Tomas Ventredi interrupted his
thoughts, “would it not be better to attack with the dawn when they
are weakest?”

“Yes, from a purely strategic point of
view,” he turned to his Lieutenant, “but I want to see their faces
when we press the attack and hold them to burn in the dawn. That is
the only way to convince them to abandon their flawed leaders and
join us. And, of course, there are still those of our brothers who
need to see what it means to be part of the Von Kruger cabal.”

“But surely we are not…”

“Yes,” Von Kruger smiled, though the action
was more feral than amused. “We will need to swell our numbers in
light of the nuclear fires’ high cost. There is no room for the
past in our future. The blood vampires are our past, not our
future.”

Ventredi looked shocked at his callous
words. Tomas had always been cautious. But his caution was his
strength; it ensured that Von Kruger was grounded. Ventredi was a
good sounding board for his more enthusiastic cravings. Von Kruger
knew that he had been losing his control for some time now. At
times he had even worried that something was wrong. His memory was
developing large gaps and he was quick to anger. He had lost whole
periods of time where he had woken with no memory of where he had
been or what he had done. Losing one’s past, to a creature hundreds
of years old, had terrified him. Did vampires grow senile? Was he
so ancient that he would become a doddering fool? The fear had been
a major part of him for some time. Now, though, he just didn’t
care.

“It is time,” he said.

* * *

“They won’t come now, sir.”

Chandler Flynn paced along the border with
his cabal around him. He could see the pale tear on the horizon
that signified the oncoming dawn and sighed. It was disappointing
that Von Kruger had not come. He felt his rage burning like a
packed fire in his belly, threatening to break free. Many times in
the night he had almost given the order to cross the border, to
seek out Von Kruger and show the ancient vampire that his time was
over. But he had not. Fear of the Council was only one tether which
rooted him in his own territory. The other was the realisation that
he was slowly losing his ability to think rationally.

It was frightening to think that his mind
was slipping. He had always been a thinker, relying on his wits
rather than his strength to achieve anything. He felt…

“They’re coming.” The aide shouted, his
voice trembling a little in confusion.”

Why would they attack with the dawn so
close? Were they mad?
A sudden flush raced through him.
Was
that it?
Suddenly the rage in his belly escaped and the fires
of hate and madness flared, swamping his thoughts with a blood lust
he had not experienced since the first time he woke as a vampire.
He surged into the air without another thought, his cabal following
closely behind.

* * *

Tomas Ventredi did not remember much of the
battle. He remembered the surging of Flynn’s cabal to meet them in
the air. There were so many of them that it had appeared as though
the ground itself had suddenly heaved upwards, spewing its
contents. The air was suddenly filled with shouting, screamed
taunts, bellows of rage, pleasure and pain. Talons raked flesh and
blood poured down like rain to the ground below.

Monstrous shapes morphed and lashed out.
Some vampires grew so large that they plummeted to the ground only
to continue their attack among the trees and fields of wheat. Flynn
had amassed far more vampires that Von Kruger and at first the
battle was one sided. He had three or four vampires to every one of
Von Kruger’s and they took a heavy toll on Von Kruger’s forces.

Ventredi faced three vampires and, as he
lashed at the first, another vampire came at him from below. He was
too slow to react and a talon tore into him, ripping upwards from
his stomach towards his chest. He lashed out, morphing his arm into
a sharp blade of bone and tore the vampires arm from his body. The
vampire screamed as blood gushed from his appendage and he fell to
the ground.

Ventredi continued fighting the other two,
but no matter how much he taunted them or threw himself at them
they danced out of his reach, their eyes wary and fearful. It was
only when he looked down at his wound that he realised that he was
not bleeding and that the flesh was already knitting back
together.

He laughed at his enemies and surged
forward, catching them by surprise and quickly sent them reeling to
the ground. The radiation might be healing them quicker than the
blood ever had. But they were still terribly outnumbered. Already
he could see a number of their own vampires torn to pieces on the
ground. He could see at least seven blood vampires but there were
two of the radiation fuelled vampires as well. Flynn’s vampires
were learning. Even radiation could only knit flesh if there was
something to knit it to.

He could see Von Kruger laughing as he threw
himself among a group of five vampires, losing himself in the
violence. He knew that Von Kruger was mad; he suspected that he was
a little more than mad himself, though the radiation seemed to have
purged his mind somewhat. They were losing this battle though. He
was about to fly to Von Kruger’s aid when he was attacked by four
others. They were cautious, morphing their bodies to accommodate
long-reaching weapons. He felt the tears in his flesh, the pain was
every bit as bad as ever but his body soaked up the punishment and
he pressed the attack, cutting, tearing, and gauging. He lost
himself in the moment.

And then, he heard the first scream of
terror. His opponents stopped their attack and looked to where a
vampire was caught in a shaft of sunlight. The sun leaked over the
horizon sending shafts spearing through the darkness like lasers.
Flynn’s vampires recoiled in horror; many of them changed to the
smallest and swiftest shape they could achieve and ran. Some were
lucky and managed to remain ahead of the advancing light but others
were caught. Flames suddenly erupted on wings, legs, and faces
causing the vampires to fall to the ground where the light splashed
over them. Fire flared on exposed flesh and screams drowned out the
laughter of Von Kruger’s cabal.

Von Kruger’s blood vampires peeled off from
the battle and rushed to the nearby cave they had prepared.
Ventredi was nervous though and almost rushed after them. Von
Kruger had told them that the sunlight would not hurt them but
then, he had also led them all into the flames. Flames that had
only spat out half the number that had entered. Ventredi braced
himself as the light washed over him. His flesh tingled, but other
than a familiar warm sensation his body did not react. He joined
the laughter. His attackers watched in terror as Ventredi was
illuminated fully in sunlight before them and merely laughed. Then
the sunlight washed over them and they screamed as the flames raced
over their bodies.

Ventredi felt the power of the sun and
revelled in its heat. Below him lay the carcases of the defeated;
those who had fallen during the battle on both sides and, among
them, the burning remains of Flynn’s cabal who had been caught in
the deadly rays. Deadly to some anyway. He saw the remaining
vampires from the Flynn cabal racing to outrun the creeping light;
the cries of those too slow or too injured to outpace the dawn, as
it rushed relentlessly across the sky, reached him and made the
victory even sweeter. Some would make it, of course, and word of
what had happened here would spread. There would be no doubt after
tonight. They were the true masters of this world.

There was so much to do. Yet, no one could
gather the incentive to do it. They had been decimated as a
community. No family had escaped the attack unscathed. Whether
their loved ones lay dead or injured or missing or their
belongings, the few that they had managed to accumulate in this
hard world, lay consumed in the fires or strewn and mangled under
the panicked thunder of fleeing crowds.

Everyone walked with the lethargy of a movie
zombie. Most walked through the smoking remains searching for loved
ones, turning burned bodies, and trying to see if they could find
something familiar in the burned and torn features.

Faces passed Harris, almost unrecognisable
with soot and tears streaking their cheeks. Their eyes all had the
same glazed look that he had seen so many times before in the human
pens of the thralls. This time it was caused by shock and not serum
but it was no less sad. They had so much to do in order to move
their entire community seven miles to the train station. He looked
up into the sky, dark clouds roiled above like snakes writhing and
he cursed. There was more snow coming, a lot more snow. The wind
lashed against a pole behind him, snapping the flag tie with a
crack that sounded like a gunshot. The wind was picking up as well,
a northerly wind carrying within it who knew what.
Were they
already breathing in radiation, was their skin already soaking up
the toxins that would see them all die slowly and horribly? Had
everything been for nothing after all?