Chapter 52: Plans

Doctor Owen and I were left alone in the medical room to talk about his plans for me.

His plans for me.

Last time I had checked, I was a cop with a job that ran my life but I knew that any day I could just quit, go home and never set foot in a police station again.

Now I had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to be a guinea pig for different types of experimental medical treatment. I was going to be the right hand man to the scientist who would produce a vaccine that would rid the world of vampires forever. I can’t say I wasn’t a little excited about the whole thing. At this moment in time I was the most important human being in the world. The key to unlocking the secret of the vampires.

‘Don’t go getting delusions of grandeur,’ said Doctor Owen jovially with a knowing smile on his face, immediately bursting my balloon, ‘there have been people like you before. They all got a bit carried away with their place in the world and thought they were invincible. They took risks they shouldn’t have and we were back to square one.

‘The top priority in your life is to keep both of us alive. If you die then we’re back to square one again, and if I die, you die.’

Now who’s getting delusions of grandeur?

‘You may think of me as arrogant but they are the facts, Detective. It’s an unfortunate situation that you find yourself in but we must make the most of it. Okay?’

I nodded in agreement and that was it, my new life had begun. First thing in the morning I would call into work and quit. Just like that. One day a cop, the next day a scientific sample. My thoughts immediately turned to how I would pay the bills from now on.

‘You don’t need to worry about the bare necessities, The Brotherhood will take care of everything for you,’ he said, as if he was reading my mind. It seemed to me that he had answered all of these questions a thousand times before and knew exactly what I was going to ask before I opened my mouth.

It made me uneasy. How many guinea pigs have there been before and why aren’t they here any more?

The doctor continued. ‘They’ll give you a bed and three meals a day. If you rent your home, call your landlord and cancel the payments. If you own your home, put it up for sale.’

‘Okay Doc, what do you need from me?’

‘I need to take blood samples from you on the hour every hour until further notice. That means right through the night and all day tomorrow. During this time we have to gather as many samples as we can. It’s going to be hard work.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m used to sacrificing sleep for work.’ I tried my best to sound committed to the cause. If we were going to work together for the rest of my life, we’d better start off in the right way.

‘Good,’ he said and smiled sympathetically. The look on his face told me he was thinking he wouldn’t trade places with me for all the tea in China.

Time to ask the hard questions. ‘What’s going to happen to me? How will I know if I’m turning into a vampire?’

‘That’s a good question. We’ve never been able to identify all of the symptoms because the previous subjects have turned too quickly to allow them to tell us what’s happening to them. At the very least I hope the treatment can delay or slow down the virus so we can have time to see what it does to your body.’

‘That’s not very comforting, Doc.’

‘I’m not here to hold your hand and tell you everything’s going to be okay, Detective. I’m here to tell you the way it is. No bullshit.’ He was right, but it didn’t make the situation any better.

I looked at the television in the corner again, which was still showing clips of the damage inflicted on the tactical aid unit by my new hosts. I asked the doctor to turn up the volume so I could hear the reporter.

‘We’ve just had confirmation from the hospital,’ the female reporter began ominously, ‘that the only member of the tactical aid unit to survive this afternoon’s attack has just passed away. Other than varying eye witness accounts, the only law enforcer to see today’s events first-hand was Detective Tom Ryder, who is unavailable for comment.’

That’s an understatement, I thought.

‘However, we managed to speak to Captain Nash of the police department early today.’

Among the scrolling headlines and weather report icons, Captain Nash appeared, standing on the front steps of police headquarters. ‘The attack this afternoon was a targeted attempt to remove the capabilities of the police, who were just about to arrest the perpetrators.’

A number of reporters all asked if Nash knew who the attackers were. His reply was only ‘I’m sorry, I can’t comment on that.’

The news broadcast then returned to the reporter. ‘If the police know anything, they are keeping their cards very close to their chest. It seems to me that an investigation is underway and the police have their suspicions of who committed this terrible attack. After the lives lost and the damage caused on the freeway today, you have to ask yourself a question. Do the police have the firepower to counter another attack like this?’

‘Nash knows a hell of a lot more than that,’ I said, ‘why didn’t they mention the missing doctors?’

‘You have a lot to learn,’ said Doctor Owen, ‘Even though you’ve only just found out the truth, there are already many out there that know everything and work for The Brotherhood.’

‘What? You’re saying that my boss knows about all this?’

‘It’s likely he knows something. You can never know for sure. Only a few select people have access to the records.’

‘The records?’

‘The Brotherhood maintain a list of allies and their positions within society. The police, government, everywhere. This is a tactic also employed by the vampires though, so when you meet someone, you can never really tell which side they’re on or if they’re just a regular Joe.’

‘But what about the press? Not every journalist can be on your side.’

‘That’s right. Sometimes reports get through in the early editions or if the editor hasn’t spoken to the reporter on TV before they go on air. Those mistakes are few and far between and the network always manages to change its tune before anyone notices.’

There was no time to let this sink in before Captain Stein burst into the medical room. ‘Pack all that crap away;’ he bellowed, ‘we’re pulling out in five minutes.’ He left as quickly as he had arrived, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter 51: Awake

A sharp pain in my arm awoke me from my nightmare.

I opened my eyes to find a man in a white coat and a mask sticking a needle into me. His brown eyes widened and he took a step back. I tried to sit up but couldn’t move: I was strapped to my bed very tightly.

‘Hello Detective Ryder, I’m Doctor Owen,’ the man in white said, and started to loosen my straps. I heard the click of a gun somewhere in the room. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ someone asked.

‘He’s perfectly fine,’ Doctor Owen said as he unbuckled my straps. Very slowly, I sat up and hung my legs over the side of the bed.

I felt like I had the worst hangover of my life. I could feel all the tell-tale sensations running through my body, only more intense.

‘How do you feel?’ the doctor asked.

‘Light headed. Thirsty. Very hungry. It feels like I’ve got pins and needles all over my body. And the worst headache I’ve ever had,’ I said, cupping my forehead with both hands.

‘Interesting,’ he said as he leaned over me and shone a light in my eyes. A sharp bolt of pain hit me like a punch to the head.

‘Damn it! What did you do that for?’ I shouted.

‘Sorry,’ he said and handed me two paracetamol tablets. I grabbed the bottle out of his other hand and knocked back a mouthful. I shuddered as the sharp chalky taste went down my throat. They can make pills that can take away headaches but why can’t they make them taste better?

He then opened my mouth and examined my teeth. He turned to talk to someone behind him. ‘I think the treatment has worked. He is still human for now.’

That’s when I remembered what had happened. I had been bitten by a vampire on the bonnet of my car. A vampire that used to be one of my only friends in the world.

I looked at the odd surroundings. I seemed to be in some kind of fancy room that looked like it belonged in a stately home or a palace; however the appliances and the doctor’s clothing would have been more appropriate in an operating theatre. A muted television in the corner showed a reporter at the site of the gunship attack.

‘How long will he stay like this?’ I realised who that voice belonged to. It was Captain Stein. I must be in the presence of The Brotherhood.

‘At least twelve hours,’ said the doctor, ‘maybe twenty-four.’

‘Okay, get him up. We’re not taking any chances though,’ said Captain Stein. Two soldiers appeared and pointed their rifles in my face.

‘What’s going on? What are they doing?’ I asked.

‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this. Don’t worry. It’s important you tell me how you’re feeling,’ the doctor said.

‘Very thirsty, can I have some water?’ I asked.

The doctor gave me a litre bottle. I swallowed the whole lot quickly in big gulps and asked for more. I then registered that my body was very clammy and the bed sheets I had been lying on were soaked through.

‘What the hell happened to me?’ I asked.

‘Your temperature went sky high,’ said Doctor Owen, ‘your body has been working overtime to fight the virus.’ My hand immediately went to my neck and I felt a massive bandage covering the wound.

‘You also lost about two pints of blood.’ As I took more big gulps from another bottle of water, more questions occurred to me about my condition.

‘So what’s the deal, Doc? Am I a vampire?’

‘It’s too early to say,’ he said, ‘The treatment I’ve been working on seems to have kept the virus at bay for now but you and I are going to be spending a lot of time together. I need to take samples from you on the hour every hour so we can see how the virus develops. From that data, we can work towards a cure.’

Data? Is that what I’ve become? ‘Hey, I’m not your lab rat, Doc.’

‘No, Detective Ryder, you are so much more than that. The chemical reactions currently taking place in your body may hold the key to eradicating vampires from existence. We have to work together for the good of mankind.’

He certainly did his best to make lying in bed getting stuck with needles sound like a noble cause. Needless to say, that wasn’t how I’d pictured my future.

‘Wait a minute, I’m a cop. This is my case and I’ve already worked out that the vampires blew up your lab. It’s going to be difficult to write that up in my report but I’ll manage. Case closed.’ I got up and started to wobble towards the door.

‘Twenty-four hours,’ the doctor announced, rather cryptically.

I stopped and turned round to look at him. ‘What happens in twenty-four hours?’

‘That’s how long you have left until you turn,’ he said.

‘You mean the stuff you gave me runs out?’

‘I believe it will, and twenty-four hours is almost certainly an optimistic estimate. It may be twelve hours, which means you need to be treated at least once a day. You can’t go back to your job. You’re too important to us and you have no choice.’

I didn’t want to agree with him but he was right. I couldn’t just close the case and walk away. My discoveries today had changed my life. I couldn’t just leave this war with the vampires and I definitely didn’t want to become one of them.

If I choose to leave, will I end up with silver bullets in my back like Officer Myers as soon as I walk through the door?

‘We need you, Detective,’ he continued, ‘you’re the best chance we’ve ever had.’

Do I really have a choice?

‘Okay,’ I said reluctantly, ‘what do we need to do?’

Chapter 50: The Rising Begins

Deep within the subterranean lair of the vampires where no human had ever ventured, no human would dare to venture if they knew what would be down there waiting for them.

In a gigantic dark cavern, one hundred well-trained vampires were honing their skills. Scores of the creatures clung to the walls then flew in formation across the vast expanse, repeating their movements over and over again until they flew as one airborne killing machine.

The remaining vampires lined the cavern floor, sparring with their steel swords, moving in gravity-defying leaps that the poor kids who passed themselves off as soldiers of The Brotherhood would find both terrifying and amazing seconds before they were sliced to pieces.

Roxy carefully opened the door to the training hall and stepped inside unnoticed. She stood in the shadows, admiring the results of her work as a leader. Her brothers and sisters had gone through years of punishing training to reach these heights of physical and tactical perfection. They moved as one, their swords an extension of their arms and they shared one desire, just like all vampires.

To feed. At the expense of all other life.

Roxy stepped out of the darkness and made her way to the centre of the cavern. Those who noticed her tall imposing figure slink past stopped what they were doing and stood to attention.

Slowly but surely, the silent deference spread through the hall like a wave and all one hundred vampires made their way to the middle of the floor, either marching or swooping down from the walls, eager to hear what their leader had to say.

‘Tonight is a very important night,’ she began, knowing there was no chance of this speech being interrupted. ‘Tonight is the night you have been training for all of your life. Tonight is the night we will show the world the true power of our species. We will not stay in the darkness forever. We will rise up and take our rightful place as the dominant force in this world.

‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ she continued, ‘not all of you will make it back. But you can be sure that you are serving a higher purpose and very shortly a blow will be struck that will echo around the world. Alive or dead, each and every one of you will have your place in history. In years to come our people will look back on this day and know that it was the day when it all began. Now let’s get out there and show them what we can do. Hit them. Hit them hard.’

The premature roar of victory echoed throughout the hall.

Chapter 49: Fine Wine

The Deputy Lord Chancellor waved his empty glass in the air and a servant of the clan rushed over with a jug to fill it up. The thick, dark red liquid poured into his glass. Luca Salazar lifted the glass to his nose and took a deep breath. He swirled the wine around then took a sip.

‘How do you find the wine?’ Marcus asked. He was sitting at the opposite end of a long table in the stone walled dining hall. Flaming torches lit the hall and the crackling logs in the huge roaring fireplace kept both diners warm.

Luca Salazar licked his lips in appreciation. ‘Very good,’ he said. Marcus believed him as well. Salazar had complained about most of the meal but he knew he would like the dessert wine. All vampires did.

‘Where did you get it? I don’t recognise the taste.’

‘We make it ourselves,’ Marcus said.

‘Really? I didn’t realise you had a farm.’

‘Yes, I’ve been producing wine for many centuries. I learned from the best. The farm is a long way out of the city, hidden away from the humans. Only a few of us know where it is.’

‘I’m not surprised. If I could make wine of this quality, I’d keep my methods secret as well. I would increase the production if I were you. I will recommend it to the Lord Chancellor and he may want to place an order.’

Marcus rolled his eyes but Salazar didn’t notice this show of disdain from a subordinate. It was just like a senior vampire to sit up there on his high horse, looking down on those of us doing the real work. He has no idea what goes into making a wine of this quality.

Making a wine as good as the vintage that Salazar was sampling took hard work and patience. There was only one harvest per year. The specimens took twenty years to ripen, fed daily on the best foodstuffs and only the best were picked to make it into the premium wine.

The specimens are taken to the kitchen, slaughtered and their blood is drained into the bottling machine. The leftover human skins and muscles are then put to good use. The steaks they had both eaten had come from human bodies. While Marcus’ steak had come from the rump of a premium body, Salazar’s had come from a rejected body.

He always complains about the food so why waste a good meal on him?

‘The next specimens will be harvested soon,’ Marcus said, ‘I personally oversee the harvest myself every year and I will ensure a case of the finest wine is produced for the Lord Chancellor.’

Salazar nodded, ‘Very good idea. He will appreciate that.’

Servants opened the doors to the dining hall and Roxy entered. ‘Sir, may I have a word?’ she asked Marcus.

‘Of course. What is it, Roxy?’

‘I have just had confirmation of Doctor Owen’s location. The Brotherhood are evacuating their outpost and returning to their regional headquarters. We will strike when the extraction team arrives at the outpost.’

Salazar butted in. ‘Is that wise?’

‘Excuse me?’ asked Roxy. The look on her face showed she had as little respect for the Deputy Lord Chancellor as Marcus did.

‘If you are going to attack The Brotherhood, surely it would be a better idea to attack when their numbers are fewer.’

‘That may seem like the easy option but this is not the usual kind of mission. One of our brothers is a member of the extraction team. Our plan is to sabotage the infrastructure and reduce their capability. A large unit in a state of panic is a much easier target than a small well-prepared unit.’

Salazar didn’t answer. That shut him up, Roxy thought.

‘Also,’ she continued unopposed, ‘we are using this attack as an opportunity to demonstrate our military capability. There has not been an attack of this size in a very long time. We have previously only operated in groups of ten or fewer.’

‘How many of our brothers and sisters will be joining this attack?’ Salazar asked.

‘One hundred,’ she said.

Salazar’s eyes widened and apart from the noise of the burning fire, there were a few seconds of silence in the dining hall. He turned to address Marcus. ‘I would wish her good luck but I don’t think she’s going to need it. Her squad are sure to have a greater feast than we have enjoyed this evening.’

Marcus raised his glass and nodded in agreement.

Chapter 48: Infiltration

The regional headquarters of The Brotherhood could be found sitting atop a plateau high in the mountains. It was an effective strategic position: high altitude, maximum hours of sunlight and could only be reached by helicopter unless a potential invader was an expert climber and was prepared to brave the high level of security around the base.

To date, there had not been a single case of vampire infiltration at this base, which housed fifty soldiers and additional medical and administrative staff. The base was well guarded but the outposts suffered occasional losses and from time to time, they had to be evacuated following an attack so there were enough facilities at the regional bases to house at least two hundred tired and hungry soldiers.

The Brotherhood had a very stringent screening process for all new recruits. Or so they thought. The screening process wasn’t strict enough.

Private Lambert ran into his private dormitory with five minutes to get ready before he had to join the rest of his squad. It was time for another evacuation: their mission was to extract the squad from the outpost at Hartley House.

In his private room, he took off his training gear and changed into his combat uniform. The soldiers at regional headquarters worked 12-hour shifts and Private Lambert was a member of the night shift, which suited him just fine. He was a vampire.

He wasn’t the only vampire at the regional headquarters either. Getting round the checks wasn’t as hard as they had thought it might be. Dozens of others had been sacrificed so his brothers and sisters could perfect the art of planting a vampire in The Brotherhood. By the time his turn came, he had a very complex set of instructions to carry out to make the recruitment board believe he was human. In fact, he had been human just a matter of weeks before he became a member of The Brotherhood.

That’s because Private Lambert was a consenting recruit. With nothing in his human life other than his drug addiction, he told himself that the only thing to do was to take drastic action. Nothing could be worse than the living hell his life had become so when he was confronted by a vampire looking to feed, he didn’t run, cry or try to fight like most members of the human race. No, Private Lambert conceded to his attacker and succumbed to a new life that had to be better than his own.

He had been a vampire for a year and felt his undead life was a significant improvement over his previous life. He was a major player in the ongoing rise of the vampire community. His brothers and sisters were succeeding in infiltrating every part of human life, even the war effort against them.

Most of the world governments had members from the vampire community; even some of the human world leaders supported their cause. The emergency services were a primary target for infiltration. This strategy allowed the vampire brothers and sisters to get away with just about anything. No matter what crime against humanity they were arrested and detained for, the vampires almost always managed to evade justice or get off on a technicality.

Private Lambert pulled the drawer all the way out of his desk and removed a mobile phone that was taped to the back. He dialled the number for his true regional headquarters and spoke to Roxy, his true leader.

Even though he had good news, he was still worried about talking to Roxy. Her reputation preceded her. Vampires that hadn’t even met Roxy knew the stories about her. She was merciless and wouldn’t think twice about dispatching her brothers and sisters if ordered to do so.

‘Yes, Private Lambert. What information do you have?’ she demanded. No pleasantries, no nonsense.

‘Our squad will be leaving in the next few minutes,’ he said, ‘and will arrive at Hartley House in approximately one hour. Our mission is to extract the squad and their visitors, including Doctor Owen.’

There was a silence on the line as Roxy formulated her plan. ‘We will launch the attack once you arrive. That will maximise the impact on their numbers. Soften them up for our arrival.’

Private Lambert suspected that would be her plan. She wanted to take out as many humans as possible, but what should they do with them: kill them or turn them into vampires? He put the question to her.

‘We will turn them,’ she said immediately, ‘but you must make sure their attacking potential is reduced as much as possible.’

‘Understood. You can count on me.’ Private Lambert hoped it didn’t sound like he was brown-nosing. He didn’t get any indication of Roxy’s opinion of him though; she hung up before he could say any more.

For our arrival, he thought. Roxy was leading the attack, which meant this was a very important mission. He could hardly wait.

Humans are naïve and stupid: they believe the vampires’ numbers are small. How wrong they are.