The Savage End (The Vampire World Saga Book 6) Page 2

  The two of them walked to a quiet corner of the lab and sat down at a table.

  “So, what’s up?” he asked, quietly.

  “I was just wondering how things are going. Any progress?”

  He shrugged. “The two teams are working well together. There’s progress, but…”

  “Not enough progress,” Alex finished.

  Brian hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Not enough to save them. Every vampire in this city will be dead in two days. The chances of us cracking this thing before then are slim to none. With a heavy emphasis on none.”

  Alex looked down at the scratched, metal table. She hadn’t expected a miracle cure, but it was still tough to hear. Guilt rose up inside her. Not guilt that she’d released the virus. She still felt like that had been the right call, even after all of this. They’d succeeded in wiping the Ferals out. In fact, her guilt was sort of the opposite. Her lack of concern for the vampires was what was bothering her. She knew she’d feel the pain of each one of their deaths, not because a life was being snuffed out of existence, but because each vampire who died meant one less weapon in their struggle against Maryana.

  Abandoning New Haven had been the toughest decision of her life, and she’d made a vow when she’d left. A vow to come back and take Maryana out once and for all. That would have been a nearly impossible task with one hundred vampires by her side. With only two Twisted, she couldn’t even imagine a path to victory.

  Brian sighed. “We’re not going to give up. We have some promising leads. We’ve been studying Owl’s blood, and I think there’s a chance we can isolate what makes her immune. In theory, it could be replicated and spread to the other vampires. It’s just the time element.”

  Alex nodded. “I know it’s not fair to ask you to come up with a miracle yet again, but you’re the only shot we have. If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word.”

  Brian swallowed hard. “Actually, there is one thing. Do you think you could ask Jaden to quit coming by every two hours?”

  “Yeah, of course. Is he distracting your people?”

  He nodded toward a table across the room. Its metal surface featured a fist-shaped dent. “Distracting. Terrifying. Take your pick.”

  “No guarantees. The guy’s going through a lot right now. But I’ll see what I can do.” Alex crossed her arms and frowned. That was a conversation she was not looking forward to having.

  Claude lay on the floor, flat on his back, gazing up at the ceiling. Jaden sat by his side, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “Jaden,” Claude muttered, his voice a weak croak that might have been difficult to hear if not for Jaden’s vampire senses. “Tell me you remember Mumbai.”

  Despite everything, Jaden couldn’t help but smile. Of course Claude would bring up Mumbai. “I remember, old friend.”

  Claude let out a weak cough, sending a spray of black blood into the air. “I resisted the urge to say I told you so for three hundred years. Now, I figure, what’s the point? So… I told you so.”

  Jaden patted his friend’s mouth with a cloth, wiping away the blood. “That you did.”

  The incident in question had taken place in the late nineteenth century, when the city had still been called Bombay. They’d been after a rogue vampire who’d broken the rules of the one hundred and seemed intent on starting his own rival clan of vampires. Compared with Maryana, the rogue vampire didn’t seem very ambitious, but it had been quite the scandal at the time. Claude had scouted the situation and believed the vampire was hiding somewhere in the city. Jaden had disregarded Claude’s intel, believing the rogue would try to escape via boat. After a long night spent futilely searching the rugged Konkan coast for any sign of the vampire, Jaden had eventually relented, and they’d found the rogue hiding in the city.

  There was a sparkle in Claude’s eyes when he spoke again. “Just wanted to remind you that no one’s right every time. Not even you.”

  Jaden’s face darkened. “I know that all too well, old friend.”

  He watched for another hour after Claude’s eyes drifted shut, and he kept a hand on the vampire’s arm until he spasmed, expelling another spray of blood out of his mouth and nose. Though the life in a vampire’s body couldn’t be judged by a heartbeat or breath, Jaden had gotten quite good at measuring the subtler signs of life; he knew Claude was dead.

  Jaden pushed his rising emotions aside. He picked the vampire up off of the floor and moved him to the room with the other thirty-seven bodies. He would have preferred to spend his time talking to the other vampires currently experiencing their final hours, but there was no one else to do the work. He’d only allowed vampires into this area, and he was the only vampire not currently dying. The only vampire but for one.

  The past couple of days had tested him in ways he’d never imagined possible. Watching his friends, his family, die had wrung him out like a wet towel. Even for a creature so accustomed to death, this was almost too much to bear. He held it together, ignoring the rage and sadness, for the sake of the dying. There would be time to mourn later, but his vampires needed him now.

  Owl’s face still bore the wounds from the recent battle, but she sat near the dying vampires, same as Jaden, doing her best to provide them a bit of comfort in their final hours. And Jaden had to admit that she had been a great help. It had been her idea to forgo the beds and set the vampires on the ground. The cool rock seemed to alleviate their raging fevers a bit. Besides, the way they bled had caused them to run out of clean bedding some time ago.

  Jaden returned to the open area where the sick vampires lay and quickly scanned it, looking for another vampire who looked close to the end. There was no shortage of them. He imagined that by the end of the night, at least half of his vampires would be gone.

  Near the south end of the room, he saw someone spasm. It took Jaden a moment to identify the vampire, and when he did, he frowned. But still, he moved to the vampire’s side and placed a hand on his arm.

  “Hello, Frank,” Jaden said. He hadn’t known Frank long, and his interactions with the vampire had been limited. But he couldn’t help but respect the sacrifice Frank had made for New Haven, agreeing to give up his life to act as the canary in the coal mine for the vampire lifecycle. It still irked Jaden a little that the leaders of New Haven had been so bold as to create a vampire without Jaden’s knowledge. Jaden wasn’t even sure exactly how they’d managed to do it. But that seemed like small potatoes in the greater scheme of things. Frank was just like the others—a dying vampire who deserved comfort in his final moments.

  Frank opened his eyes, and thick blood seeped out. It seemed Frank was dying even harder than most. Still, his gaze focused on Jaden. “New Haven…” His voice was thick with emotion. “Is it safe?”

  Jaden met his eyes, resisting the temptation to lie to the dying vampire. Frank deserved the truth. After everything he’d been through, he’d earned that right. “No. But it will be. You have my word.”

  Frank shuddered, and the shudder quickly became another spasm. Jaden assumed it would be his last. But instead of stopping, the shudder changed. It grew in intensity. His limbs stopped moving, even as something deep inside him began to shift. His body changed with a series of audible clicks and pops as his very bones twisted beneath his flesh.

  Jaden looked on in horror, his eyes wide. What he was seeing was impossible. He understood what was happening, but his mind couldn’t quite accept it. He’d never seen this process, but he’d lived it. He’d felt his own body change in exactly the same way. At the time, he’d assumed he was dying. Now he knew better.

  He sensed Owl standing behind him, watching in equally horrified silence.

  The process only lasted a minute and a half, and then Frank lay still. His eyes slowly opened, and he sat up, wiping the blood from his face with the back of a deformed hand. He blinked hard as he stared down at his new body.

  Jaden didn’t understand how this had happened, but there was no mistaking it, now. Fran
k had survived the virus. He’d become Twisted.

  3

  Frank sat on a table in an examination room, his shoulders hunched forward even more than his newly curved spine demanded. He gently moved his fingers across his elongated mouth and deformed jaw line like he was touching a land mine that he didn’t want to detonate. The techs in the lab bustled around him, some taking blood, others measuring various parts of his body and jotting down notes. Frank let them do their work without making a sound.

  Alex, Owl, and Brian watched Frank through a glass window in the next room. “How did this happen?” Alex asked.

  Brian held his tablet so Alex and Owl could see it. “I can answer part of that question. Take a look at these samples.” He opened two windows on the tablet showing rows of dashes with slightly different shades of colors. “These are samples that we took from Owl and Jaden.” He overlaid the readings from Owl and Jaden’s blood. “You can see the similarities between them. Her cellular structure changed to match his.”

  “Right, because he turned her. It’s kind of like making a copy of himself, right?” Alex hoped that she understood the basics.

  “That’s right. The relationship between generations of vampires is similar to the parent-child relationship. The genes get passed on, but some changes occur. Now, look at this.” Brian overlaid another sample onto Jaden’s. It was almost exactly the same as Owl’s. Brian looked up at Alex like he had just explained everything.

  “Just spell it out for me, Brian,” she said with a frown. “What are we looking at?”

  He gave the slightest eye roll. “That is Frank's sample. He was created by Jaden.”

  For a moment, Alex didn’t know how to respond to that. Then she turned to her friend. “Did you know about this, Owl?”

  “No. I don’t think Jaden did either. He seemed shocked when Frank turned into a Twisted. I was in the room when it happened.”

  All three of them stared at Frank.

  “So how the hell did Jaden make a vampire without knowing about it?” Alex said.

  “That’s the part I can’t answer. I mean, I could make some guesses, but they would all be in the hypothesis category. We will have to do some—”

  Alex cut him off. “I got it. You don’t know, but he might.”

  She walked out of the observation area into the examination room. Frank looked up at her when she entered, but stayed quiet.

  “Hey Frank, how are you feeling?”

  “Alive.” He stopped touching his face and his sad eyes met hers.

  “This is great. You survived the virus. We are a little confused how that happened, but it is great.”

  Frank looked across the room to a mirror on the wall. He reached up and touched the corner of his mouth. “I know I should be glad that I am alive, but I’ve accepted my death a few times, now. I just wasn’t ready for this. That may seem crazy to you, but I thought I was done being a monster.”

  Alex put a hand on each of his shoulders. He straightened up a bit but was unable to meet her gaze.

  “You are a hero and a badass,” she said. “You answered the call when the world needed you, without any concern for yourself. You helped us save New Haven and you have suffered more than most men could take. Even after all of that, you have remained honorable and kind. You’re not a monster; you are an example of what every person should be.” She spoke in the clear, controlled voice she used when commanding her soldiers. Frank started to lower his head, but Alex took a hand and raised his chin so that their eyes met. “Do you hear me? You still have purpose, maybe now more than ever. I know that you still have the spirit it will take to continue the fight. Can I count on you, or are you going to lay down and die?”

  The techs in the room had stopped what they were doing to watch the interaction. Alex’s presence commanded their attention and changed the atmosphere of the room.

  Frank straightened up a little more. “I guess I’m not fully dead yet.” A slight smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Thanks, Alex.”

  Alex let go of Frank’s shoulder and took a small step back. “Hey, we all need a little reminder or a kick in the ass every once in a while.” She paused, then asked the questions that had brought her into the room. “Do you know who turned you? Or where they got the blood that made you a vampire?”

  Frank thought in silence for a few seconds before responding. “We had only been in the air for a few days when they injected me with the blood. I did ask where they got the vampire blood, and they told me they’d collected it from a vampire while treating his wounds. I’m guessing that it wasn’t just any random vampire blood.”

  “Nope. It looks like Jaden is your ‘dad’.”

  The soft glow in the room might have been considered romantic under the right circumstances. A wall of monitors behind George cast their light onto the stainless steel surfaces of the otherwise dim room. Alex listened as he dryly spoke about the current state of the city's external defenses. She’d always hated meetings, especially when they involved presentations, but today was different. Rebuilding the city’s defenses was their one clear purpose at the moment, and it was going as well as it could. They were succeeding in fortifying the city. It felt good to have even this small success.

  Chuck and Ed sat on either side of Alex. Both had spent the last few days working with the citizens of Agartha to get the defenses working again. Owl and Felix sat on the other side of Ed. Jaden was notably absent.

  George pointed at the monitor to his left, which showed a map of the area outside Agartha. It had green dots wherever there was a functioning turret and red dots over the ones that still needed repair. “As you can see, we will still need to add four more turrets to be back at full coverage to the main entrance, but we are at eighty percent of the original defenses.”

  “How long until we are at one hundred?” Alex scrolled through her tablet, checking other data while she spoke.

  “We should be fully repaired in two days.”

  Ed let out a soft whistle. “Damn, you guys really are good at fixing stuff. Maybe we will stand a chance of defending this place after all.”

  George shook his head, “We had redundant parts for all the weapons, in case they were even damaged. If we suffer another attack, rebuilding the defensive systems will take much longer. Normally, we would send the vampires out on supply missions already, but… but that will never happen again.” He looked at Alex. “Why hasn’t Maryana come for us yet? She has the numbers, and she must know that our vampires are dead by now.”

  All eyes shifted to Alex. She pushed her chair back and stood. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since we got here. There are a couple of logical possibilities. Chief among them, New Haven doesn’t have a transport ship to get troops down to the ground. She may be working on that problem. It’s possible she wants to wait until she is sure that all the vampires in the city are dead. She may also be preparing a large-scale attack. Something with several thousand Twisted that we couldn’t have any chance of stopping.” Alex paused. They had all been thinking it, but hearing it out loud made everyone realize how hopeless their situation really was. “Remember, we’re not dealing with a logical enemy. Maryana is unpredictable. She may just spend the next week, month, or year torturing the citizens of New Haven before she decides to attack. There is no way to be sure when the attack will come, but it will come.”

  Owl spoke up. “Has New Haven moved?”

  “No,” George said. “It has held a constant position above Agatha since shortly after Maryana took control of the city. I’m glad that we know where she is, but if we send a ship up, she will see it right away.” He tapped on his tablet and the radar showing New Haven came up on one of the monitors behind to him.

  Chuck stood up. “I’ve been working on a grid design for explosives around the perimeter. I think we can set something up so that we can remote detonate sections and then set off a second wave when more forces come through. It should help against a large-scale attack.” He pointed out locations
on the monitor while he explained the formation of the explosives.

  “That’s great! Let’s make it happen as quickly as we can,” Alex said. “What about our troops? Without the vampires, we are down to the remaining members of the GMT and Agartha’s security force. We are sure that Maryana has at least five hundred Twisted. That’s more than we can handle without more soldiers of our own.”

  George grimaced. “We have enough gear to arm about six hundred fighters. We could pull people from the mechanical systems department. They will probably be in the best condition.”

  Ed scoffed at the idea. “Workers are not soldiers. They don’t have the training to go against the badges, let alone Twisted. Six hundred pipe fitters would be about the same as six members of the GMT.” He glanced at George and added, “No offense.”

  Felix spoke up for the first time since the meeting began. “We still have three Twisted on our side. Jaden and Owl are worth twenty of Maryana’s soldiers each, and now Frank can walk in the daylight. That has to count for something.”

  “Yeah, it counts for a lot less than five hundred,” Ed barked. “That’s assuming Maryana only has that many. She may have turned everyone in New Haven by now.”

  “We could have more,” Chuck said, his voice contemplative.

  “What do you mean?” George asked.

  Chuck looked around the room at the others and spoke quietly. “Maryana isn’t the only one who can turn her soldiers into Twisted. What if we asked for volunteers from Agartha? Jaden could turn them.”

  The room fell silent. Ed took in a breath to respond, but the words didn’t form, and he looked to Alex for an answer.

  Owl spoke first. “That can’t be the way. Turning people into whatever I am can’t be the path to victory. They would be sacrificing everything. The price is too high.”