Vengeance in Blood (Book 2): Tribulations (2 page)

Chapter 2

The next morning, Kenneth walked down to the basement carrying a sandwich he had made. When he had started fixing a plate of food for their prisoner, Besseta informed him the man could starve but wasn’t eating anything she cooked. Knowing the Homeland prisoner would be ravished, Kenneth prepared a baloney sandwich.

Hearing Besseta as she played with the dogs, he stopped and just listened to the joy in her pearly laugh. Letting out a long sigh, Kenneth unlocked the door and walked inside to hear the man yelling. “Hey, you really need to shut the hell up!” Kenneth shouted.

“Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am and who I work for?” the Homeland officer shouted.

Laughing, Kenneth grabbed a chair and pulled it down the hall then opened the door to the cell. The agent looked like hell. There was no bed in the cell, and the only thing there besides him was a five-gallon bucket. The chain attached to the wall only let him get halfway across the room. “I see you are a complete idiot. Obviously, we know the answers to all your questions, and so do you,” Kenneth said as he sat down.

“It’s you,” he gasped, looking at Kenneth like he had seen a ghost.

“I see my reputation precedes me.” Kenneth tilted his head.

Quickly getting back under control, the agent growled, “They will find you and kill you.”

“They might, but that doesn’t concern you. What does concern you are the questions I’m about to ask and if you get to eat or drink,” Kenneth said, lifting up the plate with the sandwich.

“I won’t tell you a thing,” the Homeland agent promised.

Kenneth shook his head. “There you’re wrong. Your cellphone has already given me a world of information. If you don’t talk to me, she comes down, and it goes downhill for you real fast,” Kenneth explained.

Becoming nervous, the agent started fidgeting. “You’re just going to kill me anyway,” he said, glancing at the door.

“That all depends on you, and if you have information we can use and how long it takes to get it out,” Kenneth told him with a shrug. “The flip side is she comes in and makes you talk. I can guarantee you won’t last long, but to you, it will seem like years. The vampires she caught lasted almost a month. I don’t see you making it a week.”

Dejected and slumping his shoulders, the agent asked, “What guarantee do I have that you will let me go?”

“None whatsoever,” Kenneth said nonchalantly.

“No deal. Do your worst,” he sneered.

Kenneth picked up the plate as he stood. “Bad choice.” Grabbing the sandwich, Kenneth started eating with a smile.

Giving Kenneth a hateful stare, the agent replied, “You’ll have to feed me to keep me alive.”

“No we won’t,” Kenneth told him with a mouthful of sandwich. “If you do this the difficult way, the pain will start soon.”

The agent stared at the sandwich as Kenneth shoved the rest in his mouth then went and got a glass of water. Coming back to the open door, Kenneth slowly drank it. “Nice and cold,” he said, smacking his lips. “Let me go and get her,” Kenneth said, turning to leave.

“Okay, what do you want to know?” he shouted before Kenneth took a step.

“Everything you do.”

“I want some food and water first,” the agent demanded, and Kenneth just walked away.

“Nope, you must earn that. We’ll be back in a minute,” Kenneth told him, walking away down the hallway in front of the cell. As fear of the unknown of what was coming crept upon the prisoner, the agent started screaming and pulling on the chains as Kenneth opened and closed the door to the dungeon but stayed inside. When the prisoner dropped to his knees and started crying, Besseta opened the door and walked in to see Kenneth leaning against the wall grinning.

“This is wasteful,” she told Kenneth, shaking her head.

“Just loosening him up,” he replied, kissing her on the cheek. “Ready to start?”

She nodded and went over to the desk then pulled out a notebook as she sat down. “I’ve found if you start at the fingers and work your way up the arm breaking bones, humans talk much faster and quit yelling so I can hear their thoughts,” Besseta told him, pulling out a pen.

Kenneth chuckled and kissed her. “Will you make an appearance?”

“So I’m bad cop?” she asked with a frown.

“Never,” Kenneth gasped. “You’re just the cop that will scare the shit out of him. I need him to offer information freely that I can question.”

“Very well,” she said, getting up. “If I get blood on my clothes, I’m not responsible for my actions,” she told him then slowly walked down the hall and stopped at the cell door. With Besseta’s appearance, the sobs turned into a high-pitched scream as the agent jumped up and backed into a corner, holding up his hands.

Kenneth stepped up behind Besseta. “Hey Ted, this is my wife Besseta,” Kenneth said with a smile. “Let me tell you she is the best woman a man could ever ask for.”

Besseta looked up over her shoulder at Kenneth’s smiling face. “You’re so sweet.” Feelings of hopelessness washed over the agent as he started crying, cowering in the corner.

“Please,” he whimpered.

“Ted, I don’t like it when I introduce my wife to someone and they don’t agree with me that she is the most beautiful woman on the Earth,” Kenneth said with a smile.

“She is the most beautiful thing on the Earth,” he whimpered. “Please just ask me what you want to know.”

Kenneth bent down and kissed the side of Besseta’s neck. “See, I told you that you were the most beautiful,” he told her.

“I only care what you think,” she said, turning around. “If you don’t quit kissing my neck, this will wait till tomorrow.”

Rolling his head back, Kenneth thought about that. “Let’s see what he has to say before we get the drills and sanders,” he finally said. She hugged him and went back to sit at the desk down the hallway near the entrance. Smiling when she sat down, she grinned as Ted’s thoughts swarmed her mind. He was broken, and Kenneth had never touched him.

“So Ted,” Kenneth said, getting back in his seat and pulling out the notepad that he had used the night before. “Who is over your little club?”

“No one,” the agent whimpered.

“Ted, she hasn’t left. She’s just down the hall waiting on me. Before you get any ideas, you aren’t the first that’s been through here. Granted, you’re the first she’s let me question. She likes breaking bones to get her answers,” Kenneth said with a smile. “Lies won’t be tolerated. For each lie, one finger will be broken. Then we will go up the hands into the arms then start on your feet and legs. Now who is over your little club?”

“No one person. There are seven members on the board that make the decisions,” the agent said, finally lowering his hands.

“Names?” Kenneth asked, looking at his notepad, and as the agent called out names, Kenneth made checks by the ones found in the cellphone. “Now who on that list is over the board?”

“No one person leads the Manu Fortis. The strong will lead the weak,” the agent told him, and Besseta coughed from her desk down the hall.

“Ted, you’re about to lose a thumb,” Kenneth warned.

“If it would be anyone, it would be Charles Templeton,” he answered quickly.

Nodding, Kenneth made notes. “I’ve heard that name before; refresh my memory.”

“An eccentric multibillionaire, he is rumored to be the richest man in America.”

“I see,” Kenneth muttered, writing. “Has he ever been in government?”

A soft laugh came from the agent. “No, not that I’ve heard. He isn’t the type to rank and file.”

“Yet he is in an organization,” Kenneth pointed out.

“Yes, he funds parties and gets elections pulled for the candidate that Manu Fortis backs.”

“Just how big is your little club?” Kenneth asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s big,” the agent told him with wide eyes. “I’ve run into members in every branch and office in this country. Not to mention the EU and Australia,” the agent confessed.

“Your goal is to replace the government so you can rule the little people?” Kenneth asked.

“No,” he chuckled, “we are just slowly changing the laws and will put people we want in charge.”

“How long has your group been after vampires?” Kenneth asked.

“Ever since I’ve joined.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Kenneth said, looking up.

The agent quickly answered, “Look, all I know is we’ve been in active search for a specimen since World War 2. I’ve read the reports we got from the Nazis. But I think there were efforts since the turn of the century.”

“How many has your little group actually captured?”

“They had one when I was first brought in fifteen years ago, but he died, and all we could do was study a corpse,” the agent admitted. “Then you gave us the information to grab those first two. We took them in the daylight because we found they are much weaker and can actually be manhandled with sheer numbers. At night, forget it. One of our group came up with putting a bomb in their chest and skull to force compliance.”

“Yes, I have one, and it’s rather neat,” Kenneth admitted. “What did they learn from the corpse?”

“The virus dies with the host. The only virus left is incorporated into the DNA, and we can’t tell what is virus and what’s DNA.”

“Your little clubhouse we burnt down—what were you attempting?” Kenneth asked.

“To isolate the virus and see if it can be made less lethal so more people could be made immortal,” he answered.

“So what do you know about the lethality of the virus?”

“Only one in a hundred thousand will actually bond with the virus, but they still must survive the bond,” the agent answered.

“Just how did you come up with that?” Kenneth asked.

“We didn’t. The Nazis did, but a British scientist with us confirmed it when he went through the data.”

“How many vampires do you have now?” Kenneth asked.

“After your fire, we only have nine here in America and fourteen in Europe.”

Kenneth nodded as he wrote down what Ted said. “Where else are you doing the research?”

“Only at the lab you burnt down. The politicians started breathing down our necks to quit the efforts, but we moved all of our projects off the public radar. I’m sure one will be set up soon,” the agent admitted.

“Where do you guys gather to have meetings and play cards?” Kenneth asked.

Looking away, the agent mumbled, “At the Bilderberger meetings.”

“Oh well,” Kenneth said, surprised, “that explains a few things.”

“You can’t fight them,” the agent told him.

“Don’t want to,” Kenneth said, looking up. “I just want to stop this little endeavor of trying to extend the life of assholes. You guys screw up enough with a normal life span; I would hate to see the world if you lived millennia.”

Not understanding Kenneth, the agent looked at him confused. “You’re just trying to save vampires?”

“No, and only I get to ask questions,” Kenneth said, looking down and writing. “What powers have you uncovered in the vampires?”

“Powers?” the agent scoffed. “Super strength and speed, but the reports from the Nazis hinted at something like ESP, but none have been confirmed.”

“Well, that’s something,” Kenneth mumbled, shocked and relieved. “What vampire is helping you?”

“Huh?” the agent asked, and Kenneth looked up with a serious expression. “Helping us? Are you kidding?”

“So I take it that’s over your pay grade?” Kenneth asked.

The expression left the agent’s face. “There’s no way. I would’ve known. We know there is like a ruling class of vampires, and this was confirmed when we caught the first two, but we’ve never gotten close. They were supposed to start a tribute where the lower class vampires pay homage to the ruling class, but that was stopped.”

“Interesting,” Kenneth said, making notes. The agent was about to ask a question but stopped. “How many of your people have died so far?”

“I don’t have an accurate number since the fire, but we’ve lost over a hundred over the past two months. One was on the council.”

“Does that have your playmates worried?”

“Yes, every member is heading underground till we get more assets to engage the vampires with.”

“By assets you mean vampires you control?” Kenneth asked, and the agent nodded. “Is America the only area where you are taking losses?”

“No, in Europe, we are getting hit hard. A team was in contact with several vampires, but I don’t know the outcome since the fire started when they engaged.”

“How long do you think Manu Fortis can keep these losses up?”

“Forever. We have more people,” the agent told him. “With our estimates, there wouldn’t be more than seven hundred vampires in the United States and less than sixteen thousand on the planet. We can win against those numbers.”

“Beg to differ, but let’s continue,” Kenneth said. “What did you find out about the virus in your lab?”

“We hadn’t even isolated it yet.”

“So you didn’t learn anything?”

The agent shrugged. “Nothing you don’t know and we didn’t learn from the Nazis.”