The Children of the Sun (40 page)

Carrie considered this and then nodded, giving a small laugh. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Vanessa took a deep breath and forced herself away from the edge of tears. “Thanks for understanding, Sergeant.”

“My pleasure, Captain,” Carrie said, and she stood up, stretching her arms against the steel support of the top bunk. “Listen … I’m here. I want to help.”

Vanessa felt a great surge of love run through her, not just for this woman but for all of her soldiers, the men and women who were willing to die for her – some of whom had already made that sacrifice. What had she done to deserve this kind of loyalty? How had she come to be the leader that she was?

“Carrie …”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll be the first one,” Vanessa said. “When it’s time, you’ll hear it first.”

“It’s going to be pretty big, huh?” Carrie asked her, and Vanessa managed a tired smile. She was not at all confident in that smile, not sure that it looked anything like it should have, but it would have to do. She owed it to those of her soldiers who remained to fight on.

“Huge,” she said, and she laughed, shaking her head. “It’s going to be huge.”
 

* * *

“Did you speak with your brother?” Charles asked her, his voice little more than a whisper, and after the words she could hear the slight squeal of the artificial lung that now sat beside his bed, helping him to breathe. In just a few days his condition had deteriorated alarmingly.

“Yeah, we talked,” Vanessa said. She was sitting in a chair to his right, trying her best to look at Charles in the same way she would look at anyone else. It wasn’t easy; his bad eye now moved randomly, seemingly with a mind of its own, and his pallor had become so pronounced, his body so thin, that she could see the intricate web work of the blood vessels in his face.

Charles had given Doctor Chambers permission to share all of the details about his condition with Vanessa. She met with Chambers often for status updates, and the doctor had confided that he doubted Charles would last the week, particularly given the strict no-resuscitation orders the man had given. Sooner or later, the tumor growing rapidly and unchecked inside of his brain would cause some essential part of his body to fail, and that would be the end of it.

“You talked. Good. How is he?”

“Oh, he’s dandy, Charles. Life in a cell really suits him.”

Charles made a wheezing noise that Vanessa thought was supposed to be laughter. The sound sent shivers up her spine, and to stop it she spoke again.

“He’s not interested in cooperating. He says he didn’t sign up to kill innocent people.”

“Innocent …” Charles repeated, and for a time there was no sound but the hums and clicks and squeaks of the various pieces of medical equipment keeping him alive.

“He told me I should come back and tell you he can’t be redeemed,” Vanessa said. “He said he was broken and it wasn’t worth the Emperor’s time to try and fix him. He said he didn’t know how it happened … it just happened.”

“There are ways—” Charles began, and Vanessa cut him off, shaking her head.

“He said he’s not taking any pills or drinking anything other than water, and he’ll fight injections. If you try and slip it into his food and he realizes it, he’ll go on a hunger strike. He says he’s done, Charles, and I … he’s my brother, and it kills me to say this, but I think he means it.”

“What does he propose we do with him?” Charles asked, and then broke into a coughing fit. Vanessa found herself up on her feet, adrenaline racing through her veins, but Charles waved her off.

“I will live yet a bit longer,” he said.

“Is there anything I can do? I wish I could … I don’t know …”

“Make it all go away?” Charles asked, smiling with the good half of his mouth.

“Yes!” Vanessa exclaimed, sitting back down. “This isn’t fair.”

“Death is an end we all must face,” Charles told her. He was staring up at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling ever so slightly, letting the mechanical lung do its work.

“Not the vampires,” Vanessa murmured, and Charles rolled his head to the side to look at her.

“That is why your work is so important,” he said.

“I know. I know it is.”

“That is why you must take up the mantle. You must become the new Left Hand, the Staff of Knowledge, the—”

“I already said ‘yes,’” Vanessa told him. “Charles, I already said I would do it. I already accepted all of the shit you threw at my feet with no warning, and I’ve spent the past couple of days trying not to think too hard about that decision. Don’t make me go back to it yet.”

“Very well,” Charles said. “My apologies, Vanessa.”

“S’OK. Sorry for getting angry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I am an old, tired man, and when one reaches this point in one’s life, it is not uncommon to become very concerned with one’s legacy. We are so close. If we take the U.S., then Canada, Mexico, and South America will fall in only a few short years. With the new supply of recruits that would give us, we could move on to Europe or Africa. Even Asia. Can you imagine releasing more than a billion Chinese people from the scourge?”

“That would be pretty amazing,” Vanessa agreed. She had no idea how many vampires there were in China. Even the best estimates they could make amounted to little more than shots in the dark. If there was but one vampire for every hundred thousand humans – a number much lower than the ratio in America – there would still be more than thirteen thousand vampires in mainland China alone. The idea of sitting at the left hand of the Emperor as he guided a force large enough to assault such a number was hard to imagine.

“I will not be there to see the end,” Charles said. “I thought I had time. Ten more years, at least, perhaps even twenty. We could do so much in twenty years. Surely this entire hemisphere could be wiped clean, and we could be well established in Europe and Asia.”

“We’ll do our best, Charles.”

“Yes, I’ve no doubt. Ah … I would have so enjoyed climbing the steps at Choquequirao, knowing that we had at last restored the Children to the glory that Pizarro stole from us all those centuries ago. Will you do something for me?”

“Anything I can.”

“When I am gone, will you keep my ashes safe? Keep them, and if you reach those steps, scatter them to all the Andes. I would like that very much.”

Vanessa had no idea if she would ever get the chance to visit the ancient Incan city, but she promised nonetheless. She would have promised to take his ashes to the moon to make him happy, and she was sure that Charles knew that. Still, he seemed satisfied, and for a time there was no conversation. Vanessa sat and worked on her reports. Charles lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking whatever it was that dying men thought about.

“The Emperor will have your brother killed,” he said at last.

“I know,” Vanessa said. “He knows, too.”

“He is ready to accept that fate?”

“He says he is.”

Charles gave a weary sigh. “Such a waste.”

Vanessa had already done her crying about it, in a private shower where she was sure no one would hear. She had cried for her brother, and for their family, and for the stupid, awful world in which they had spent all of their lives since that terrible night. There would be more suffering to come, she knew, but for the time being there was nothing to do but wait. In a matter of weeks, Charles and her brother would be dead, and she would be the Emperor’s Left Hand, and they would launch the third and final attack on what remained of the American council of vampires. These things seemed so impossible to avoid that they might have been preordained.

“My brother made his choice,” she said. “He walked out on that bat and washed his hands of all of it. Listen, Charles, I have to go. Captain Perrault and I are reviewing some recruits.”

“I understand,” Charles said.

“I’ll come back this evening, OK? I want to talk to you about Captain Perrault. She’s … I’m a little worried.”

“Of course, Vanessa. Thank you for spending your time with me.”

Vanessa stood, stretched, and smiled. “It’s no problem. I’ll see you soon.”

When she reached the door she turned and gave a little wave, and was surprised to see Charles manage to wave back, raising his right hand up a bit before letting it slump back to the bed. Vanessa smiled, and turned, and left the room. It was the last time she saw him alive.

Part V

Chapter 19
Inside

When it came to actually sneaking into a fortified building filled with more than two hundred people who were intent on killing her and all those like her, Two found herself more nervous than she had anticipated.

She and Theroen had planned for almost two weeks while the other members of the council had been strategizing, assembling vampires, and deploying them to various spots along the route. The night before, she and Theroen had driven in a rented car from Milwaukee to Waukegan, where they had spent several hours talking with Kanene. As they had moved along the road, Two had seen sign after sign advertising hotels, and she wondered how many Burilgi or Ay’Araf might be housed at each.

It had seemed to Kanene that the Children had no idea that the vampires were mobilizing. Certainly there had not been a mass evacuation from the base that she was aware of. The timing was as good as it could get, the Ay’Araf woman had told them, and it had been obvious that she was anxious to join the fight. Now, the day had come.

Two found herself a ball of nervous energy, fighting the urge to twist in her seat, or go over yet again the photos and floor plans she had spent the past week studying. She and Theroen were making the short drive from their hotel, the sun still up, both of them fighting the accompanying exhaustion and discomfort. They would have little more than six hours to find Tori and try to convince her to see reason.

“Theroen, am I crazy?” Two asked him as they drove, and he glanced over at her, smiling a little.

“Is that a trick question?”

“Not this time. This is nuts. It’s fucking nuts, right, what I’m making you do?”

Theroen’s smile faded. “This is a poor time for second thoughts, my love.”

“I know. I’m just scared. I’m scared of losing you again, and it’s my fault we’re even in this situation, and I shoulda just kept my stupid mouth shut and let you take me to Europe, but no, I had to go and—”

“Two,” Theroen interrupted. “Stop talking and take three deep breaths. Just listen to me and do it. One. Two … good. Three. Now, let us take a moment to assess. We are three miles from our destination, which is admittedly not quite the point of no return, but it is getting close. Every vampire involved in this has been told that
Theroen-Sa
and the
Theroen-Chen
are going first, in an attempt to pacify the greatest by far of the Children’s soldiers. Further, one of our prime duties is to open the loading bay doors at midnight, if we can. Further—”

“Yeah, but—”

“
Further
,” Theroen said, his voice overriding hers, and then he paused for a moment, and glanced over at her, and smiled. “Further, I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your belief in me. We will get into this building undetected. We will find Tori and either convince her or neutralize her. We will open the bay doors at midnight. We
will
help our people win this war.”

“Yeah?” asked Two, but she couldn’t help smiling a little. “You sure about all of that,
Theroen-Sa
? Or are you just saying it to make me feel better?”

Theroen glanced over at her and then back through the windshield. “We are here.”

“Saved by the bell,” Two muttered as they pulled into an empty parking lot a block away and across the street from the Children’s headquarters. “OK, baby. Let’s do this thing and then go home, slam down some blood, and fuck like rabbits ‘til we pass out.”

“You know, above all else, what I appreciate about you is your class and elegance,” Theroen said, opening his door and stepping out. Two laughed.

“Right, sorry,” she said, exiting as well. “Let’s do this thing and then retreat to our homestead, partake in a draught of exquisite blood, and make soft, sweet love until the wee hours of the morning.”