Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (13 page)

They put in place stories and
myths of how vampire blood was poisonous to other vampires and, in
time, these stories became accepted as fact. He had been young at
the time but he remembered that time of chaos. Slowly the vampires
grew strong. They accepted their place in the shadows and ruled
their territories through guile and cunning. The Elders became a
ruling council and their wisdom was sought in any disputes and
their rulings were final. A class structure evolved and they
enjoyed centuries of their secret existence, preying on the humans
when and as they wished. Everything was going according to plan
until the humans went too far and their raping of the planet began
to threaten every living and undead thing on the earth.

Their ability to invent and
create was amazing, though this too had proven to be something to
fear. The centuries had passed and the planet suffered more and
more under their dominion until, at last, the resources began to
run short. The planet began to retaliate, summer became winter and
winter gripped tighter than ever before. The humans’ empire began
to wane.

The younger vampires argued that
they would all die if they left the humans to continue to ruin the
planet and, slowly, the Elders began to lose their influence.
Vampires began to disobey the council and move against humans in
their own territories. By this time the dwindling resources had
forced the humans to revert to a more insular existence. Their
amazing networks that allowed them to communicate instantly
anywhere in the world were no longer viable and they became
vulnerable.

The young vampires found it easy
to take control of their small territories but their greed and
inexperience made them crave for more than they could control. They
began to expand but the humans were not so easily defeated. The
vampires’ great secret was finally revealed. Soon all vampires were
forced to join the war or risk the annihilation of their kind. And
so the Human War had begun.

There were no Elder vampires
left now, many of them having been killed in the war and others had
simply disappeared, though, whether they had died or simply faded
from sight was yet to be proven. The Elders had not been able to
adapt to modern warfare as well as those who had been culled from
the human ranks in recent centuries. The humans had a knack for war
that true vampires did not have, and this had nearly been the death
of them all.

Although the human body could
eventually evolve to become a true vampire, it took many centuries
for these changes to complete. Von Richelieu was a true vampire,
though he had been born human. He could still remember the feel of
the sun on his face and found that he still missed it. He
remembered riding into battle against the Romans, his blood pumping
with excitement, and he remembered his death…and re-birth. He
wasn’t the oldest left by any means but he was the oldest who had
travelled from the old country.

He still wondered if he had done
the right thing as he looked with disdain on the

‘new’ vampires before him.
Leaving his beloved country for this wild and sun-scorched land
seemed a poor trade. It was a long way from the rolling hills of
his youth. There were no scents of life here, no grass or flowers
filling the air with their pungent perfumes. All he could smell
here was death. The land was parched and barren. It never rained
here, only day after day of relentless heat. Even the nights were
too warm. He could, he supposed, have taken territory further
north, but this was where the power was. This, for some reason, was
where the new council had decided to build their base, and he could
not change that at the moment. He had moved from his beloved
homeland for one reason only. Survival.

If vampires were to lose this
war with the humans then they would be hunted down and destroyed.
No derision of their existence would work this time. By moving to
America, the country which, at the time he had come here, had been
the last remaining bastion for free humans, he had been able to
lend his considerable expertise in battle to the war effort.

The humans had been winning when
he came to this wretched country, but with his help, the vampires
had begun to turn the tables. The humans, though, had proven too
much for even his great experience. The vampires had been forced to
grow the numbers of thralls to completely unmanageable numbers,
vampires had begun to squabble among themselves again, and there
was a real danger of them losing everything. And then, of course,
the serum had been developed and human resistance had crumbled.

He shook himself from his
ruminations and looked with regret at the dead vampire at his feet.
It was a shame to let this messenger’s blood go to waste but he
wanted to make a point, and losing himself in a feeding frenzy was
not the image of control he wanted to portray. He could see some of
the vampires around the table almost lose themselves to the scent
of blood in the air only to be restrained by others who managed to
retain more control over their desires.

Von Richelieu’s mind worked on
many levels and he prided himself that he had survived centuries of
attempts at ending his life by using his intellect. The fact that
the serum-tainted blood could have impeded his ability to think
left him cold. Death was bad enough, even after centuries of
existence he did not welcome death’s embrace. But to become a
helpless, slobbering idiot was horrific to him.

He would have to punish his spy
for not telling him of this. Not too severely, but an example would
have to be made or he risked losing control of his little human
experiment. And that would not do at all. The latest despatch was
worrying, though. He did not like the fact that the community had
split, he liked to know where they all were and what they were
planning. Now that Harris was off the radar he was more dangerous
than ever. He would have to press his spy to find out where they
had gone or he might have to take a more direct hand. The last
thing he wanted was a loose cannon of Harris’ capabilities
surprising him at some point in the future.

He turned his attention back to
his inner circle. He took a moment more to scan each of the council
members. It was still strange for him to see beings of such power
and majesty dress so strangely. In any meetings he had attended
before the war, the vampires he had met with had always been
centuries old and had always taken great pride in looking like the
Lords they were. They were a proud race. They had set the fashion
and had created the tone of the aristocracy among the humans for
hundreds of years.

It had been they who had rubbed
shoulders with royalty, they who had set the standards of what it
meant to be the ruling classes. Humans had copied them, had tried
to emulate their inherent confidence and their poise. It had been
vampires who had epitomised the elite throughout history. Each
vampire would dress and act according to his or her station. He
remembered with fondness the flowing capes, crisp shirts and
perfectly manicured hair of his colleagues. A vampire’s hair was
not something that was easily crafted or maintained, it was, after
all, dry and brittle, and many of the more vain elder Lords would
spend quite some time gorging themselves on blood to ensure that
their flesh would continue to support their lustrous hair. The fact
that they had hair at all was something of a mystery, though. Yet
he, too, was guilty of pandering to this vanity himself.

Perfume had been created by a
vampire to hide the scent of death that clung to them all. The
famed powdered wigs and pale complexions of the aristocracy had
been another necessity until vampires had discovered that gorging
on blood brought a much needed flush to their features. These new
vampires, however, were little more than beasts. They had no
concept of honour. They had no history, living their pathetically
short lives and losing themselves to their baser instincts.

As vampires, they were no
different to what they had been as humans. They were base animals
who allowed their greed to dictate how they should act. He hated
them all. This war with the humans had been a mistake. They could
have let the humans destroy themselves slowly and then taken what
they needed to survive. To become a vampire lord was something to
aspire to, not something that should be thrust upon the
unworthy.

He glared at the younger
vampires on the council. Many of them wore the rags they had been
wearing when they had been turned. Others wore lurid t-shirts or
baggy shirts tucked into jeans or track suit trousers that were far
too big for them. None of them even washed, and dried blood caked
their mouths and their clothes. They were like spoilt children
given a gift that they were unworthy of. Already many were losing
clumps of their hair as the flesh dried out and could no longer
support their hair follicles.

They would all be bald soon, as
the first vampires had been back in the dawn of time. They too had
been little more than animals, scraping for survival as the earth
was wracked by its birthing pains. They were an ancient race, and
one which had pulled itself from violence and self-destruction to
what had been a proud and worthy people. They had been there before
man had spread his seed across the world like a cancer, destroying
everything they touched. These vampires were unworthy to hold
dominion over the earth.

He would not allow it. He would
see an end to their dominion somehow.

“We will respond to Von Kruger’s
actions when I am ready,” he said finally. “Besides, I would like
to see what happens next without our involvement. Our brothers and
sisters have become fat and complacent in their little kingdoms. It
will be interesting to see how they manage on their own. I …”

“My Lord,” Kavanagh interrupted
from the opposite end of the table and Von Richelieu reluctantly
nodded toward him. Kavanagh was a new vampire, but one of such
inner strength that he had managed to force his way onto the
council by sheer confidence and brute force of will. He had been a
man who, although he was built like a mountain, was surprisingly
shrewd. In Von Richelieu’s experience, men of his size could get
what they wanted by using their size to intimidate others and
rarely utilised other, less physical, means to achieve their ends.
Not so with Kavanagh. Many of those who had underestimated him now
lay dead in his wake.

Curtis Kavanagh had built up
quite a following since he had become a vampire. In reality, the
very fact that he had become a vampire at all and had not
languished for years as a thrall was impressive in itself. Left to
his own devices, Kavanagh could very well threaten Von Richelieu’s
own position, and he had been forced to take steps to counter any
such move.

Kavanagh was one of the many
whom Von Richelieu made sure were still feeding on those humans who
were still taking the serum. Another few weeks and the vampire
would be a harmless idiot, choking on his own drool. The image of
the vampire’s future death made Von Richelieu smile, and Kavanagh,
and those around him, misinterpreted this as encouragement to
speak, so he continued.

“It seems quite an unnecessary
risk to allow such behaviour, my Lord,” Kavanagh chose his words
carefully as he danced around the point he wanted to make. Von
Richelieu was happy to let him try and score his points in front of
the others. Soon Kavanagh would be lashing uncontrollably out at
those closest to him as he, and they, lost their minds and soiled
themselves in their madness.

“I mean, we…you,” he amended
with a smile, “have worked so hard to bring us to this current
status quo that I wonder if it is wise to let it deteriorate like
this. We could be looking at another time of anarchy.”

Yes indeed there will be
anarchy and on a scale you could not imagine
, Von Richelieu
thought and paused as the others around the table braced for the
violent reaction they assumed would follow such a remark. Kavanagh
had been goading him like this for weeks now, hoping that they
would come to blows and he would be justified in striking back. As
a vampire of only just over a year he could not challenge an
ancient like Von Richelieu, but he could defend himself if
attacked. Von Richelieu was not entirely certain he would win such
an encounter, so he had judiciously avoided any reaction that might
leave him unable to back down without losing face.

“Yes,” he allowed with an
expansive sweep of his arm, “that is how one of your limited
experience would see it.” He paused as he let that barb sink in and
saw Kavanagh’s mouth twitch in annoyance. He waited another moment
before continuing. “But you really must learn to see the larger
picture now that you are immortal, young one.”
At least for the
next few weeks anyway
.

He allowed a relaxed smile to
cross his face and held Kavanagh’s gaze for a long moment. The use
of the words ‘young one’ had hit Kavanagh just as he had wanted
them to, and he could see the anger boiling within the younger man.
If he lost control, then the others would be forced to restrain him
and he would be staked at dawn for having challenged his master
without due cause or, more importantly, the right to do so. Von
Richelieu watched the younger vampire struggle to suppress his
temper, something that was becoming increasingly difficult now that
the infected blood was eroding his control. Von Richelieu almost
pitied the vampire for a moment, but only for a moment.

He was impressed despite his
misgivings about the young vampire. For such a youth he had
remarkable control over his emotions, especially when the serum was
eroding his grip as each day went by. Von Richelieu could see the
blood dripping onto the floor under Kavanagh’s hands where the
young vampire was digging into his palms to distract his anger and
he decided to try once again to see if he could nudge him over the
edge.