Sleeping With The Vampire (Immortal Vampire #2)

Chapter 20

Lucca

The military strikes are swift and precise. One hour before dawn, several drones fly over Tempesto’s compound outside the capital. They are destroyed by his security, but not before submitting vital images that tell the military authorities in buildings far away exactly what they want to hear; that he is there with his top aides.

They send more drones carrying bombs and these are strategically dropped on the 190-acre area, obliterating the entire area in a matter of seconds. At the same time, a missile is fired into MoZa’s house, killing him and his daughter, the few servants he still had tending to him.

I hear about all of this at Fort Ferney, where Jock and I are in the middle of dealing with an influx of refugees and hordes of hungry vampires. We managed to keep them at bay with flame throwers, but after a while, I inform Jock that we have to take them down. I can see he is uncomfortable with this but we have no choice. If word gets out that we let refugees die in their thousands, abandoning them to vampires, our days will be numbered too. Feeding off live humans is strictly prohibited and these vampires will do anything for a feed. I secured extra blood product for them and have had it trucked in overnight, offering it to vampires arriving at Fort Ferney, but they have repeatedly tried to attack the bailey where the thousands of humans are being kept for now.

We have guards on the walls of the fortress but as the vampires spot the people cowering and whimpering, it only increases their bloodlust and we are minutes away from them overpowering the guards to get to the humans.

I give the order for the flamethrowers to be directed at anything or anyone entering the space over the courtyard and within the hour we have fifty dead vampires. It brings me no pleasure to see their remains carted off, and I stand on the battlement looking out over the valley when I get a call from an unknown number.

“Get out of Ginnerlong. Take cover.”

The line goes dead.

I look for Jock and find him on the other side, organizing the defenses.

I tell him of the call I received.

Jock points at a new group of refugees that arrived earlier. “These people say Ginnerlong is deserted. Only vampires remaining,” he looks at me, his face grave. “And demons.”

“Demons?”

“They talk of creatures breaking into houses, killing indiscriminately, feeding on whatever they can find.

There is a small group of men standing behind me. They look terrified, like they were walking for days.

I pull Jock aside, ask him if we can somehow get the refugees under cover.

“We can try to get them underground. There will be room for a few hundred in the walls and there is the passage to the mountains, the old mine.”

I tell Jock to start moving people as soon as possible while I instruct the guards to keep repelling vampires until the people have left, then to take cover themselves. I make my way over to Castle Grey, closing the gates, locking the windows and calling my sons and the castle staff to the library at the back of the castle.

Sunil arrived at the castle two days earlier, and Ragnar came the day before. Both said their sources warned that it wasn’t safe for vampires anymore in the Capital. I have managed to set up satellite phones as the mobile phones are still down and have been calling everyone I still know and trust for information, but on all accounts, reports are bleak.

My last call is to Ash in the Citadel and he is the one who tells me about the strikes.

“Tempesto is dead, all the main vampires in the city have been destroyed. The mortals moved fast, apparently they have had this technology for years, saving it up, in case something like this happened.” Ash’s voice is muted. “I have been waiting for them but so far, no one has come here.”

“You are not in hiding?” I ask.

He laughs with little humor. “No, dear boy, I have been here for too long already. I don’t want to fight anymore. If my time has come, then so be it.”

I understand what he means. After years of violence and death, my appetite for combat is low too.

“Who is in charge?”

I think of the call I got earlier, warning me to get out of Ginnerlong.

“Dominic has been giving the orders from the capital.”

“I thought he was ill?”

Ash chuckles, “Classic misdirection. Apparently, not ill at all. More like, super organized and making a fool of Tempesto.”

I am relaying this information to the others when we feel a shake in the ground.

“What was that?” Sunil jumps up from the chair where he was sitting. “Did you feel that?”

“We all felt that,” I tell him to calm down while I’m thinking.

“They are hunting down vampires,” Ragnar says darkly. “We need to arm ourselves, stand together.” Layrr agrees and I hear them counting numbers, trying to find allies for their own army.

“No,” I say to them. “We will not be forming an army.”

“But, Father! They are coming for us!”

“Not yet.”

“We know Lord Elgin has been killed, many vampires in the Citadel have been wiped out. Ginny’s club was destroyed!” Sunil starts naming everyone he knows who has died recently. His hair, usually so neatly combed back, is wild and unkempt. He is scared, I can tell.

“Those were all allies of Tempesto,” I point out. “It is widely known that he was acting against us, that we were not in league with him.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Layrr says, losing his temper “This will bring up the old fear of vampires! They won’t distinguish between good and bad vampires! We must act now!”

“You will not talk to me like that!” I say, my voice booming. “I will not tolerate this disrespect!”

They all fall silent.

“We will be fine, as long as we stay put and lie low for a while.”

“No,” Layrr mutters.

Everyone looks at him. He pulls back his shoulders, looks me straight in the eye and repeats the word, “No.”

I look at him. “What did you say?”

But he does not back down. “I will not stand around and wait to be attacked. I have been in contact with our kind out east and south. There are many of us who want to fight back.”

“Who do you want to fight?” I say, my voice even.“Where is the enemy?”

“The… people, humans, of course!” Layrr says, his temper rising. “They took out Tempesto, didn’t you hear? Flattened his entire home, wiping out not only family but his advisers and councilors.”

“They were corrupt. It was necessary,” my eyes narrow. “Why are you so concerned with his fate? You were not perhaps scheming with him?”

The atmosphere in the room changes and I realize that I inadvertently spoke the truth. Izzy was right. Layrr had been helping Tempesto, undermining me. I didn’t want to see it, but he was working against me, weakening my position.”

I sit down heavily in an armchair, suddenly exhausted. My son’s betrayal is too much to bear.

“What did he promise you?” I ask, staring at Layrr.

“No, Father! I didn’t… I mean… I haven’t!” Layrr protests his innocence.

“Ah, give it up,” Ragnar interjects, coming closer. “You were in on it from the beginning.”

“You too?” I stare at my oldest son, but he shakes his head. “Nah… they wanted to pull me in, but I said no…. They said it was time we made our kind strong again, let everyone see we were superior, enough with vilifying us!”

“But it’s the law,” I said.

“Their law, not ours,” Layrr says now, his eyes wild. “You are so eager to accept their ways, their rules. You’ve gone soft, become old!”

“And Tanata?” I ask. “Why did she have to die?”

Sunil gets up and runs out but Layrr stays, faces me.

“She was going to warn you,” he admits, unable to look me in the eye. “She found out about what was going on. I had to stop her.”

I can’t believe it. My two sons, scheming together with my arch enemy for power and money. I hear the door open and the two of them leaving. Only Ragnar remains.

“Father,” he says, his voice subdued. “Remember after Mother was killed in the club? Sunil wanted revenge but you told him to let the Council handle it?”

“Yes?” I recalled the investigation, which resulted in a hunt for the demon, who was eventually captured and destroyed. But it had been brought into the Citadel somehow, someone had opened the door for them from the spirit world. It was thought to be a wizard from the old world, instructed by someone at the Council. There was talk that MoZa was possibly involved.

“Sunil asked me to find the wizard who orchestrated the attack. He never forgave you for not allowing him to have justice on the killers of Queen Simonis. He believed it was a strategic hit on some senior vampire figures, to keep them from returning to power.”

I thought about that. Simonis had always been a respected figure, her father’s name carried a lot of power. She’d spent years in the Citadel, building her influence and I had let her be. Perhaps, I should have taken a bigger interest.

“Sunil was working with Layrr?” I asked.

Ragnar nodded. “Sunil managed the relationship with Tempesto in the capital. They were convinced that your time was up, that you would be replaced and they wanted to be on the winning side.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!” I demanded to know.

Ragnar shrugged, “You wouldn’t have believed me.

I was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Sunil was always your favorite and Layrr was the one managing the business, the son you relied on. I was what, the black sheep? The unreliable one? You would have said I was jealous, making up stories.”

Perhaps he was right.

“Let them leave,” Ragnar said. “They won’t succeed. They need to see for themselves that they are wrong, that the world is not what they imagine.”

“You don’t agree with them? That we have to fight back?”

Ragnar laughed and shook his head. “If the mortals have nukes, they will put up a good fight, that may not go in our favor.”

I called the young Seer.

“Tell me what you see,” I said, leaning back and closing my eyes.

He was quiet for a while. Then he said, “There is a horse in a clearing. It is big and black and very strong. Clouds fill the sky and there is lightning which comes and strikes a tree nearby, there is a fire and the whole tree is in flames. The fire spreads to other trees and the grass, it becomes a bush fire and it is coming towards the horse. But it just stands there,” he says.

“The horse does not run away?” I ask him.

The boy shakes his head. “I don’t know what it means,” he says.

“I do,” I say, quietly.