The Alien Agenda (18 page)

A Vampire came to this world prepared to survive, however.  I could walk alone into any of the wildest places on this world fearlessly.  I have walked alone, the only member of my species on this world, into the most inhospitable places, and have lived to tell about it.  A thousand times, a million, I have survived overwhelming odds.  I would survive them again.

“You had better turn your phone off.”  Sonafi told Volga as, only minutes later, we were standing at the edge of the city limits and preparing ourselves to go feral.  “There is no telling when you'll be able to charge it again.”

“It doesn't require charging.”  Volga answered.  “Nor does it have a GPS chip.  I built it myself.  I'm kind of handy that way.”

“Oh!”  Sonafi said, clearly put off by Volga's technological prowess.  “I didn't know something like that was possible.”

“Brid would have known.”  I said.

Chapter 14

A Vampire can metabolize a lot of calories when hyper
-accelerated.  We burned them now, running through farmer’s fields, pastureland and finally into the forests beyond.  They stretched out ahead of us now for many miles in every direction except from that which we had come.  I could smell its depth and knew that this would be a place into which no one would dare to follow us.  The shadow provided by the canopy of leaves overhead meant that, in a worst-case scenario, we could move or fight during the daylight hours, as long as we avoided any direct sunrays spearing through.  It would be uncomfortable but not impossible.

A cave would be ideal, or the cellar of an old abandoned homestead, but it was getting along towards dawn and neither had materialized, so we would do as the other animals, and burrow.

“Into the ground?”  Nikita asked.

“Unless you prefer the light of day!”
  Sonafi answered.

The dawn was less than a half hour distant, but like the wild animals we now so closely resembled, we had come equipped with the tools necessary to every element of our survival.  I would never consider putting the good steel of my weapons into the ground.  Not because it would injure them.  It would not.  It was merely the principle.  A fighting man did not put his weapons into the ground.  It was dishonorable.

My fingernails are nearly as hard as the steel of my weapons and without hint of degradation or humiliation I picked a spot on some high ground, got down on my hands and knees and began to burrow into the earth.  Dirt flew.  Within minutes I had dug well below ground level.  I kept digging.  I sank a tunnel, eight or 10 feet down at an angle into the ground, then turned and angled it back towards the surface.  Behind me the others cleared away the dirt I threw down and soon there was a chamber large enough for the four of us.  When we were all inside we sealed the entrance at the bend in the tunnel and we made ourselves comfortable.

The earth is a
more comfortable than might be expected.  From its bosom had we risen and it  welcomed us back when we were in need of it.  I fell asleep instantly, and the warm bodies of my companions made our den as cozy as anything we might have hoped for.

Vampires have an internal clock more precise than the atomic reverberations of
Crystal.  We know with exactitude the moment the sun sinks below the horizon.  I do not know how the process works only that it does.  Even underground, with the opening to the world above me completely sealed, I still knew instantly when the sun set.  Within the ground, still within my slumber, even in a strange land at a strange latitude and longitude, I knew immediately that the sun had set.  I opened my eyes.  Sonafi opened hers at the same moment.  We looked at one another in total awareness. 

I began to dig us out, clearing a route for us up into the
dusk above.  Only about two feet of roots and soil separated us and soon I was standing once again in the forest, beside the hole.  The rest of the group followed me out and we shook ourselves clean, or mostly so.  I was still covered in ground-in dirt, but I did not concern myself with what could not be helped.

“W
e make a pretty picture!”  Sonafi remarked, but she was referring more to our situation than our appearance. 

While we were dusting ourselves off, Volga turned her phone back on.  She had turned it off so our rest would not be disturbed as we had all been exhausted.  When it reset its connection with its satellite
link  it gave a little beep.

“You have mail!”  Sonafi joked.

“Let's hope it's good news.”  Volga said, keying in her password and then activating the speakerphone function.  She held it out in the palm of her hand, so that we might all hear.  It was Brid.  His near breathless, excited voice came out of the speaker.

             
“I'm alive, though I wasn't meant to be.  The Others attacked us while we were doing drills outside Samon Du Bon's home.  The warning you gave me helped in that we were prepared for them when they came.  We set up decoys and the rest of us waited to ambush them.  With our Field Generation helms in-place they didn't even know what was hitting them until it was too late.  We completely annihilated their force.  Sweet dreams!”  Then the line on the answering machine went dead.

“The
Others had a bad day all around!”  Sonafi said vehemently. 

“One good blow does not a victory make.”  I said, quoting an old proverb whose origins I could not, at that moment, recall.

“It doesn't hurt.”  Sonafi said.

“Isn't Brid a
Juvenile of my own age?”  Nikita asked out of the blue.

“Yes he is.”  Sonafi agreed. 
“A very foolish young Juvenile.”

“It's the Network and our activities which have brought this on us.”  Volga said.  “I can barely fathom what we have
begun.”

“The
Others have been trying to eradicate us for eons.”  I said.  “This escalation means they are getting desperate.  They would have gotten desperate sooner or later anyway, and at least now we have a plan.  It is more than can be said for any time previously.  At least now we stand and fight.  If we do not fight, we cannot win.  It has taken Brid to open all of our eyes.”

“Can you contact your caretakers?”  Sonafi asked Volga.  “To get us back to St. Petersburg?  We have to get back to the States.”

“Of course.  Whatever furor we roused last night in St. Petersburg will have mostly abated by now, but they will be looking for me.”  Volga said.

“A blonde in St. Petersburg!”
  Nikita said.  “They'll have their work cut out for them!”

“Let's not forget the excitement at Rostov's, or all of the other Vampires who met their ends evening last.  I think the Human authorities will have their hands full.”  I said “I don't care how efficient they are.”

Volga called Brid first, awakening him.  He had left his phone on for us and we put him to work making arrangements to get us out.  Then Volga put a call through to her Human caretakers and they agreed to meet us on a road she said was not far from here.  An hour and some change later we were seated within a Mercedes sedan and speeding back towards St. Petersburg.

Nikita was twitching and having a hard time controlling herself in the presence of the Humans.  We had all used a great deal of energy the previous evening and she was now hungry.  Like
it would be for any of her age it was nearly impossible for her to hold back when the hunger was upon her, but these were Volga's caretakers and deserving of the trust they had given us, not to be molested, so I forced my way into her mind and with almost no effort took control of her.  This was not ordinarily an easy thing to do to another Vampire, but I supposed that a combination of her proximity (she was sitting right next to me) her youth, and my own still growing telepathic ability, allowed it to occur.  It had been a long time since I had taken control of another Vampire's mind in this way and I had been expecting to meet a much greater amount of resistance, especially with the hunger upon her.  Yet it was so easy that I even startled myself, and I received a raised eyebrow from Sonafi as recognition.

'I was beginning to become a little concerned!'  Sonafi admitted telepathically, still eying me with a hint more than just surprise.  Nikita now sat calmly, her conscious mind completely suppressed. 
More importantly I wondered if I would I be able to do this to one of the Others?”

“
I wonder if I could subvert one of the Others?”  I asked.

If
I had grown strong enough to make this possible we might have discovered a way to seize one of them.  Seize it, contaminate it with our blood, and then send it back to spread the disease.  Infect them with the disease of Vampirism- but the two big
ifs
still stood out in my mind.
If
I was strong enough and
if
they could be infected at all!

“
It could work!”  Sonafi agreed solemnly as she watched Nikita contemplatively. 

“Or we may trigger them to new, before unheard of levels of aggression.”  Volga said. 
“A new level of aggression where they throw all caution to the wind and come at us full force!”

“I think we have already seen the beginning of that!”  I said
because I was sure this conflict was going to continue to escalate until its abrupt and final ending. When only one of our species stood triumphant.  “They need to finish us at any cost.  The prize is within sight and we are all that stands in the way of their collecting it.”

Volga in
structed the caretaker driver to pull into a residential neighborhood once we were back in the outskirts of St. Petersburg and we all got out.  I did not release my hold of Nikita's mind until we were out of the car.  Then she turned to me.

“How did you do that?
  I was going crazy.  I’m starving though.”  Nikita said.

When we had all fed we regrouped outside the caretaker
’s car just in time for the vibration of an incoming call on Volga's phone to catch us all together.

“Hello?”  She answered.  It was Brid.  He had made the arrangements for us to be transshipped back to the States in the same manner we had gotten here, but we had to go now.  Back in the same crate we had come in.  It would be a tight squeeze but there were no other options.

Not very long after that we were all in the crate and beginning our journey back to the States.  There was no further point in continuing on to any of the other places we had originally planned.  What few Vampires had survived worldwide were all now converging on St. Louis with the rest of us, those whom the Network had been able to contact at all.  Many also had decided to stay in their places of concealment.  For them they were on their own.  The battle lines would be drawn in St. Louis.  In St. Louis would we make our concerted final stand.

'It's as good a place
to die as any.'  Sonafi sent.

'I can think of none better.'  I agreed.

Chapter 15

Playing the game with customs in the United States was a different matter than it had been in Russia.  We were nearly discovered when a Customs inspector wanted to verify that our crate contained what the labeling declared that it contained, suspicious about the circumstances of its transport.  We had to go into the minds of the Inspector and his crew and convince them that they had already opened the crate, found exactly what was supposed to be there, and then had closed it up again.  We kept them suppressed for twenty suspenseful minutes so there would be no missing time disparity, and finally sent them on their satisfied way.  Then we had refueled and were on our second leg of the two stage flight back to the city. 
The city of St. Louis.

The night arrived shortly after we landed in St. Louis and like fleeting shadows we slipped through customs and right out the front doors.  No one was the wiser.  James Ray Burns waited for us and he gave me an uneasy smile when he saw us.

“All is not well here.  The authorities are on high alert.”  James Ray said when I stood before him.  We clasped hands like the old friends that we are, he being as aware of the fact of the Other's existence as any or all of the Vampires.  That was what made James Ray so valuable.  His trustworthiness and his awareness that Humans were as threatened as Vampires ourselves

“It was to be expected.”  I agreed. 

“It is not so bad here in St. Louis.  Not as bad as it is in some cities.  The Others were largely unsuccessful here.  I do know that a massive investigation is underway in every city the Community had a presence.  No Enclaves were missed outside St. Louis.  Few survived.  I am sorry to be the bearer of this bad news.”

“This is not the days of your ancestors, my good friend.”  I told James Ray.  “We do not kill the bearer of bad news, any more.”

“Some don't.”  Volga said.  She meant Rostov.

“I am still very sorry.”  James Ray said.  “Their attacks e
lsewhere were very…thorough and effective and which brings me to the boon I wish to ask of you.”

“Yes?”  I asked, though I saw immediately where he was going with this.  I could not say I was particularly surprised.

“I have served my appointed time, as you know, and I was soon planning for my replacement to take over my duties.  You have asked that Malcolm be my replacement.”

“We have.”  Sonafi agreed, but she was looking at me, not at James Ray, and there was a speculative look on her face.  I doubt she would have entertained the thought before now.  We did not give the gift of Vampirism to our Caretakers.  Or we never had.  I could see that Sonafi was considering a revision of our previous policy.

“I have served you faithfully.”  James Ray said.

“You have.”  I agreed.

“I am growing old.  I will die.  Yet I do not wish to die.  Now the Community is much depleted.  I think you know what I am asking.”  He knew as well as any our telepathic abilities.  He knew we knew what he was asking.  Sonafi was still looking at me.  We all still stood in the parking lot of the airport.

“We'll talk about it.”  I said.  “For now I would like to get home.”

“Of course.”  James Ray said.  We got in his car, a decidedly more comparable fit than the crate had been, and quickly drove back to the city and to our new home.  It felt strange to pull up to a house we barely knew as home.  We had only been here once before.

“You may as well bring Malcolm.”  I told James Ray.  “There is no reason to delay further the change.”

“Yes Master.”  James Ray said.  We got out and he drove away.  I turned on Nikita menacingly.

“We live in this neighborhood, and we do not feed here.  Nor do we kill.  Normally we do not instruct other Vampires on how to conduct their own business, but we will begin to do so now.  We should have done so long
ago.  I should have kept a closer rein on the Community.  I created it, so it should have been my responsibility to ensure it did no evil.  You will not kill, or you will be killed.”  I told her without remorse, or sympathy.  “If you need a chaperone, say so now, because you will not be given a second chance.”

“No.  I do not need a chaperone.  I will not kill!”  Nikita said, cowering before me.  Knowing the consequences of her actions should be more than sufficient to restrain her, and if it was not, then I would not hesitate to kill her.  I should have taken a more direct role in policing the Community long before now.  I have been what Human Laws would describe as criminally negligent, but I would be so no more.

“I will go with her anyway.”  Volga said.  “To be sure there are no
accidents
.”  Nikita did not argue and I could see by the set of Volga’s jawline that it would have done her no good if she had.  The simple fact was that we could not afford to draw further attention to ourselves. 

There
was little doubt the U. S. Government would be setting up covert surveillance operations in every city they found the body-burns left by both Vampire and Other remains.  That meant they were here and watching.  It was the same ages-old story of the conflict between Vampires and Humans, set on a new stage.