Immortal Earth (Vampires For Earth Book 1) (7 page)

As he watched her horse-car pull away, Henry muttered, “Damn it all to hell, she is the most striking woman that I have ever met … positively bewitching.”

Henry stood and stared after Isi’s carriage, long after it had passed from his sight.

TWELVE

Afon Solovyov’s lithe six-foot frame was pacing, up and down the apartment, from one end to the other, stopping only occasionally to thrust his head through the open living room window to inhale deeply … straining to catch the first notes of Isi’s scent that would herald her return to him.

Nanook K’eyush had folded his enormous self into a delicate Victorian side chair, and was perched in concentration over a chessboard, seated opposite from Jian Hu. Jian was studiously ignoring Afon’s agitated pacing, and stayed focused on teaching Nanook the basics of chess.

“The knight cannot move that way,” Jian said. “Only the bishop and queen may move diagonally, in an unlimited fashion. The king may move in any direction, but only one square at a time. And that errant knight of yours may only move like this …” Jian’s hands sketched out an L shape on the chessboard in front of them.

Nanook grunted, “That’s ridiculous! This game gives all of the power to the queen, but it’s the king who must be kept alive in order to win. And this binding of the knight’s movements … unrealistic; a man on horseback, with a sword in his hand, may go wherever he damn well pleases.”

Jian smiled, Nanook had become quite fond of the century that they were currently in … and especially fond of the horses that were so ubiquitous in this time period, and so completely extinct in 2112.

“Be that as it may, my friend,” Jian said, “in this game, these are the rules, realistic or not. Perhaps you would consider that the obstacles presented in chess are much like those presented in life, only in this game the rules are clearly written.”

Before Nanook could respond, Afon announced, “She’s coming!”

Afon had caught Isi’s scent from a mile away, and busied himself with lighting a fire, so as not to appear like he had been waiting for her.

She was just doing her duty, nothing to be jealous about,
Afon repeated to himself for the hundredth time since Isi had left his side a few hours before.

Nanook and Jian exchanged a knowing look across the chessboard. Nanook yawned, “Too much philosophy at this hour for my blood Jian, but the game does intrigue me. Care to finish this tomorrow night? I’m off to bed.”

“Absolutely,” Jian said, “I think that I’ll be calling it a night as well.”

They both turned to say goodnight to Afon, but he didn’t hear them. His ears were tuned for only one sound; his whole body was tensed in one direction, waiting for Isi.

The sound of Nanook and Jian’s footsteps had barely finished echoing down the hallway, when Afon’s ears picked up the telltale clop-clop-clop of the horses that were pulling Isi’s carriage down the road.

Only a few minutes away.

Afon sat down on the sofa in their living room, and picked up a copy of Darwin’s Origin of the Species that Isi had left out for all of them to read. Darwin’s theories were the subject of much parlor discussion currently and, whatever time they occupied, the Immortals and Isi were determined to be thoroughly of the time, totally immersed in whatever was current, so as to draw the least amount of attention to themselves.

Afon skimmed the text and listened, as Isi’s carriage pulled up and came to a stop. Her steps sounded careful exiting onto the cobblestones.
Those damn heels,
Afon thought.

One slow step at a time, Isi approached up the stairs to their apartment. Afon took a deep breath and held it, as he heard the door open.

All of the Immortals had senses akin to the most fierce and finely tuned apex predator that nature had ever produced. The nanobots inside of Afon not only fixed any injury that he sustained, and nipped any disease in the bud as soon as it started, they had also molded his entire bodily system into a state of perfection, right from the day that they were first injected.

Afon knew that he would be overwhelmed with sensory input, as soon as Isi walked in the door. He would know, with one sniff of the air, where she had been, what she had eaten, whom she had been with, who had touched her … and so Afon did not breathe until Isi had entered their apartment, and taken a seat next to him.

Isi crossed her legs at the ankle, and tilted her body to the side, still embodying the demure nineteenth century lady that she had been acting at all evening.

“So, how was your night, my love?” Isi said, and laughed. “Or would you rather that I just tell you how my night went, since yours was probably spent here, waiting for me?”

Isi put her hand on Afon’s leg and wrapped her fingers around his knee. Even in his perfectly rendered form, the knee joint was still sensitive, a vestige of its former vulnerability.

He jerked away from her.

He remained seated, but no longer allowed Isi to touch him. “Don’t tell me how your night was,” Afon said, “tell me how
he
was … tell me! I can still smell the slimy pig all over you!”

“Afon,” Isi said calmly, “my night went exactly as we planned. Nanook, Jian, and you all agreed that I should get as close to Henry Ford as possible, in as quick of a way as would be believable. We all agreed that we can’t stop someone from inventing a gasoline powered engine, but if we can convince the man who brings the gas engine into mass production to mass produce a different engine, a steam engine, then we can get rid of almost half of the pollution that destroyed the Earth. You should be glad that you smell him on me Afon, that smell is the scent of a chance at life for our planet.”

Afon shook his head; one strand of his golden hair fell out of place and dusted his furrowed brows. His lips were tight, and his cheeks were drawn in. All of the skin in his face was pulled tight in an effort to stop his canine teeth from releasing in anger.

“I’m not like those two,” Afon said, and gestured to the empty chess table where Nanook and Jian had been earlier. “I’m not here on some selfless mission. I’m here for you Isi … just you … and to watch you come in the door from your supposed mission smiling, as you did just now, it’s too much Isi.”

“Afon, you’re being crazy. I was smiling because I never imagined that things would go so smoothly. I was able to meet him almost instantly, after I got to the ball, and …”

“Oh bullshit, Isi,” Afon cut her off. “I know you. You were smiling because you’re a scientist, and you just got to have a one-on-one with the great Henry Ford. In our time, he’s been dead for almost two hundred years. In this time, the same fate could quickly be arranged for him.”

Afon stood up from the couch when Isi reached out for him again. He moved to the fireplace, and busied his hands with building up the fire. At this moment, he was angry with Isi, she enraged him, he was disgusted by her willful flirtation with Henry Ford, and he was repulsed by Isi’s attempts to manipulate him since she returned home. Afon was radiating anger, but at no moment did he stop loving Isi. Her welfare, her experience, was always the first thing on his mind. And so, despite his jealousy, Afon nurtured the fire for her. His own body could withstand many greater extremes of temperature than that of an unimproved human, but he could smell her body responding to the cold draft in the room, and he built the fire higher, for her.

Isi was still on the couch, taking in Afon’s casual death threat to Henry Ford – a threat that Isi knew Afon could all too easily carry out.

After minutes of silence passed between them, Isi said, “Look, I love you Afon, I love you more than anything in this world, but you need to get yourself to the point where you’re okay with this. It’s going to happen.”

Afon nudged a log into place with the poker in his hand. “Does that mean that I can’t kill him? What if I wait until after you’re done with him? Once he starts mass producing steam cars he’s not necessary anymore, is he?”

Afon applied the slightest pressure to the log, and it snapped in two.

Isi shook her head, “No, you must get that thought out of your mind. If you ever meet Henry, he will pick up on your hatred, he is a very perceptive man. He is also a very newly married man, and easily spooked. It’s not possible to completely hide your opinion of him, so you must change your opinion. No more thinking, or speaking, like this, Afon. Think of Henry Ford as the savior of the whole planet, for that is what he will be, if we succeed.”

Afon was about to respond, when he heard a loud crash from downstairs.

He still clutched the poker from the fireplace, his sense of danger heightened, and he screamed, “Run! Go to Nanook and Jian!”

He rushed down the stairs, and was met with the most grotesque scene he could have ever imagined.

Five decaying people wandered aimlessly, hands outstretched, and eyes seemingly blind, while they made a horrific sound that was something between a growl, and a painful moan. The smell of their putrefaction overpowered him.

Afon was struck by a thought: these dead men walking were some perverse version of himself, and the other Immortals. The nanobots in Afon’s system allowed him to triumph continuously over death, and these men were all stuck in a form of continual death. Somehow still walking, their brains were as dead as their bodies that Afon saw decaying, and dripping off parts, before his eyes.

Afon tried to quiet the involuntary retching that he could feel coming up from his gut. He held his stomach and moved backward up the stairs.

It was impossible to tell which sound happened first: the creak of the wood on the stairs below Afon’s feet, or the dry heave that finally escaped his lips, but whichever noise it was, it drew the monsters to him like a herd.

The first tear of a dead man’s teeth into Afon’s skin fired up his adrenal glands, and sent him flying up the stairs at a blinding and impossible speed.

He quickly closed the pocket doors into the living room, cutting the five dead men off. Isi, surrounded protectively by Nanook and Jian, greeted Afon.

“What’s going on down there? Afon …” Isi stopped short when she saw the fresh blood on his leg.

“I’m fine Isi, or I will be in a minute or two. Listen, there’s five …” Afon shook his head, unable to form words for what he had just seen. “There are five monsters of some sort, out there. Looks like they used to be human, so I’m thinking that this must be Mortterra’s work.”

Isi jumped back at the violent banging that started on the other side of the pocket doors.

“How strong are they Afon?” Nanook said, and moved toward the door.

“I was able to get loose from the one that grabbed me, without too much effort. And they’re … I don’t know … brain dead. They only noticed me when I made a sound, but none of that matters if they’re like us, if they can’t be killed,” Afon said.

Nanook, who was standing next to Isi, had been calmly taking in every aspect of their current situation. He nodded firmly and said, “That is most definitely true, Afon. We don’t know if Mortterra’s monsters are immortal … but we do know that we are. It seems to me, that we can safely test their immortality by trying to kill them, since we know that they cannot kill us.”

Afon’s eyes lit up. “Agreed, but one of us must stay to guard Isi.”

Jian nodded, “I will stay with her. You and Nanook are larger, and will have a better chance out there.”

Nanook was waiting patiently at the door, having come to this conclusion before Jian spoke. He turned to Afon and said, “Ready, brother?”

Afon locked eyes with Nanook, blinked once, and smiled. “Let’s eat.”

They opened the door and were immediately engulfed by the arms and teeth of five snarling dead men. Nanook and Afon moved forward down the hallway, and endured the bites from Mortterra’s dead men, so that the monsters could be drawn away from Isi.

Jian stood next to Isi, held her arm tightly, and kept her safe next to him; preventing her from instinctively rushing to Afon’s side. She had never felt more mortal, or helpless, in her life.

Mortterra’s monsters kept coming for Afon and Nanook, despite the Immortal’s attempts to destroy them. Afon had ripped both arms clean off of one of them and, still, it lumbered toward him, blindly gnashing at the air with its decaying teeth.

Nanook was methodically testing each monster, seeking the kill spot. As a boy, growing up in Greenland, Nanook’s father had taken him north, hunting for reindeer and, on one memorable afternoon, they had even taken down a polar bear together. Every animal could be brought down. Some had hides that were thick as armor, but there was always a weak spot, always an Achilles heel.

But how do I kill these things? They don’t bleed out, they’re already dead … how do you kill something that has already died? They’re like chickens with their heads cut off …

Nanook reached out, and grabbed the monster closest to him by the hair. With his other hand, he pressed down on the things decomposing shoulder. The stench was overpowering, as the creatures head came free from his body. As he held the dripping head in his hand, Nanook studied it, and then looked to the rest of the corpse at his feet, searching for movement.
Finally.

Turning to Afon, Nanook yelled, “Go for the head!”

In a matter of just a few minutes, the four remaining monsters were permanently killed. Five corpses, and their heads, littered the hallway, filling the house with the incomparable odor of decaying flesh.

Afon and Nanook, covered in gaping wounds left by the creature’s teeth, made their way through the carnage, and rejoined Isi and Jian.