Vampiric Retirement. The Elders Eradication: Book 2

Prologue.

Vampires exist amongst the human population. They have not existed for three hundred years as depicted in stories and legends. They have lived secretly among humanity, constantly feeding off them, using them as a food source for thousands of years.

They are not an anomaly born of Vlad the Impaler, nor are they the progeny of Count Dracula. They are an alternative creation brought into existence by nature as mankind also flourished. They filled a gap in the development of intelligent life on the planet, a divergent pathway from the evolution of mankind.

They cannot change humans to vampire by their bite. That is a fallacy created by the minds of writers attempting to describe a story. They progress their nation by breeding much as their food source breeds, using those that are suitable as hosts.

The older they become the more powerful they are. The Elders, the six original surviving creatures have roamed the world for eons. As such they are near perfect in their abilities and evil beyond contemplation in their desires.

Sunlight is no barrier to the older vampires. It has little effect and does not kill them. The cross of God means nothing to them as most consider themselves almost Gods in their own right. Silver does kill them, turning their bodies to burnt cinder. The storytellers got that right.

Why This Story Exists.

In the seventeen hundreds, four of twenty new vampires fought against their natural tendency. As they aged and developed, passing through the centuries, growing stronger, they learned and developed both in abilities and disgust at how their race degenerated. They rebelled. Thus were born the first aide to mankind, creatures from a dark past brought into the light. The age of the vampiric protector was born.

Death followed until of the four there was only one. He decreed that the vampire race, as it was, should end. That entailed the destruction of the Elders, the progenitor of the race, the oldest of them all to be consigned to history.

The vampire elders decreed that he, number Four should join his rebellious comrades in death. The hunt was instigated. The end of the human rule was decreed and a war between the races for control moved forward, out from the shadows, into the light.

PART ONE.

DAY THREE: The End Of An Elder

A Range Rover eased through the high open gates of the charnel house, heading toward the main building. Within were sitting three figures not of human nature. The assault troops surrounding the house raised their weapons in expectation. High above their heads a helicopter pilot turned his attack craft to track the entering vehicle. No weapons were discharged toward the approaching vehicle. Fingers departed from triggers, tension eased away, as the vehicle was recognised and its occupants identified.

The Range Rover looked battered and beaten, but it functioned perfectly. The driver was a male with the appearance of being a middle-aged human, but who was in fact far older than any living human. He drove the vehicle into the grounds, and through two rings of heavily armed guards, approaching the house before parking.

Deputy Prime Minister Voite raised a hand in greeting. He had watched earlier as the vampire known as Four lifted into the air, accompanied by a young female and then vanished over the far wall of the property. He wondered what would happen next and now here it was. The second occupant was the young woman. She was sitting in the rear seat, but leaning forward talking to number Four and also to an older looking man who currently was not identified.

His presence would normally have caused a ripple of alert to flow through the gathered humans, but on this occasion his presence with both number Four and the young female vampire relieved that possibility.

Number Four dismounted from the Rangy heading directly toward DPM Voite and his daughter, Frankie. A young captain was standing by the human female. Both looked ragged and exhausted, but otherwise unhurt.

They looked past the approaching figure of Four toward the female vampire still seated within the Rangy. The vehicle was very familiar to them. They had also seen the female earlier and they knew she posed them no threat. As for the older looking male sitting in the front seat, he was as much of an enigma to them as he was to the Deputy Prime Minister.

The old man was a vampire, which was obvious to all watching as the young woman, also a vampire, assisted him out of the vehicle. He looked weak, slightly confused, but in a strange way happy. He had his daughter returned to him recently. She now stood supporting him slightly, safe and alive thanks mainly to his former pupil known as number Four to the humans.

The vampire father did not know that number Four had not saved her, but that she had saved him. Soon he would, and his daughter may never look the same again in his ancient eyes.

She slipped her arm around his waist and escorted him forward to join the gathering waiting before the house. She had seen the woman and the captain before, had even been threatened by the woman briefly, but she didn’t meet either of them properly, and especially not as friends.

As for number Four, she knew of him first by his reputation as a renegade and traitor to their race. She fought with him to end the reign of an Elder, and trusted him completely. The moment they finally met face to face both realised they were meant to be together.

Circumstances now dictated she had no option, but to trust him. In so doing, she would join with him in defending the humans of this world. She killed a vampire Elder. She drove a stake through his chest piercing his heart and watched as he turned to ash before her face. She felt the heat generated as his body exploded over her hand. His ash tumbling at her feet to form a pile. That was the way she saw the recent events. It was not the way number Four witnessed them.

To him the Elder's death was of his own making, and well deserved. She was nothing but the unwilling tool used by the fates to eradicate an Elder. Guilt should not enter into anyone's thoughts. The Elder was gone and that was how it should be. The woman would wonder and always feel she killed him. Not that he had killed himself. It was a mute point of contention, one that did not, and would not, ever need to be addressed, only accepted.

Four spoke to Voite indicating the woman and man slowly approaching. He smiled happily toward both the captain and Frankie as he departed. He flew hard and fast. He had something that needed to be attended to before it was too late. He followed the ash littered pathway toward the dome of earth covering the temple of the Elder. He entered through the only entrance, passing deep within hidden from human sight. He landed just beyond the shattered entrance, seeing the twin doors he removed from their hinges still lying just as he left them.

He bent down picking up the package of explosives he dropped earlier when departing from this temple of evil. Four pocketed the charge before stepping into the room and looking down at the ash pile on the floor. Before him was all that remained of the Elder’s body. Death had only started the process of claiming a creature such as him. In a normal vampire, of less than a couple of thousand years of maturing age, being staked through the heart and turning to ash would put an end to them, forever. With a creature from the 'long life,' death was just the beginning. Ash was only a step on the way. To be classed as eradicated the body had to be destroyed further by burning again for the second time.

Four set about doing just that. He wanted to be certain he put a true and final end to the self elected vampire god called Elbitalaent. He, who had been number three of the six Elders. They were all sixty centuries old. Each was a self-proclaimed vampiric god and evil to the core. They all possessed a driving desire to rule the human world.

He took a bottle from his coat pocket, having removed it from the rangy before departing for just this purpose. He gently tipped the liquid into the ash pile. A small well formed as the liquid penetrated deep. Half of the liquid was absorbed by the ash immediately. The rest spilled over soaking the outer-sides of the mound before running down to the floor.

He ran a small trail from the ash for a foot and then taking his petrol lighter from his other pocket he struck a flame and lowered it to the vaporizing liquid. The flame ignited the fluid prior to actual contact. It flashed upward catching the vampire's hand, burning his flesh mildly. The flame raced forward entering the ash pile, burning up the sides of the heap, flaring into the heart of the deep well formed within.

The ash burned for the second time. The smell was noxious as the last drops of living vampiric blood and flesh died, burned to a crisp. The final death of the vampire Elder was assured by the second burning. He watched as the flames engulfed and then slowly died out. Elbitalaent was gone, driven from the world into the night. An Elder removed, leaving only five remaining to fight their vampire war.

With the final destruction of the Elder completed the vampire known as number Four stood up and smiled. He looked across the recessed pit of the sacrificial temple, seeing the raised stone block with its human indented shape quite clearly. It was from that stone he had saved Frankie, Voite's daughter. He flew across the gap, his feet lightly brushing the stone surface prior to his landing on the far side.

He stood where not long before the living Elder stood. He looked at the open doors now in front of him. Through them he smelt the scent of evil, of something dark and cloying. It was familiar, it was threatening, and at the same time it was ancient. He stepped forward. He needed to see what awaited him if he was to understand the threat that had been avoided. He needed to face the entity of evil which waited to be discovered by him and so learn more of what drove the Elders on.

The room was cast in shadows. He used his petrol lighter to strike fire into the heart of an unlit torch, held in a wall mounted sconce. Flame burst upward, then around, travelling along a narrow chute, lighting six other such torches until the room was a flickering lit place of a nightmare.

Before him stood an altar. It was the second such altar he had seen that day. The first was in the temple of the record keeper, a creature he allowed to be killed by a young woman for vengeance. This one, this altar to evil, was larger, much larger and far more detailed in its carving.

The creature in its armor still stood over the kneeling female. It still held its axe raised high ready to strike. As the vampire watched the axe fell, shattering the woman in half. She fell at her murderer’s feet and then the image returned to its original position, there to repeat continually.

Death was the point of worship for the depicted creature, human death, vampiric death, any death. It clearly fed on the blood of its victims and the fear generated by its presence. The candles burning to either side of the altar indicated darkness and an opposing lightness.

Each was secured counter to the other, one burning upward, one burning down. The wax fell or rolled into decorated brass containers, blood red in color to symbolize the blood of the innocent. To Four it revolted him. It drove his senses into outrage and made his hatred of how his people had been usurped, twisted and driven by the Elders even stronger.

They had to die. They like Elbitalaent had to be brought to an end. Their reign finished forever, eradicated from living memory. His race was not so twisted as to be worshipping a creature such as this. The Elders who worshipped this monster, end them and the creature before him would be forever forgotten. It would become a relic to the ancient past. A creature that should never have existed would be banished into the night.

He knew the tale. It had been told to him by his mentor earlier. He knew that it, the creature worshipped, was given life by a woman of human nature. That it was clearly different at birth and as such should have been destroyed, but for the love of its mother it would have been. He knew it had thrived, aging and growing faster than a comparative human until it was strong enough to breed successfully.

It was the true start of the lineage known as vampire. Its six children were the progeny that ruled the vampire world to this day. They were the remnant of itself, left to govern as it disappeared into time, gone from those who remained. Waiting, lost through time, perhaps to be recalled to walk the world once more. Its dark presence worshipped and adored by those twisted enough to believe its presence would be of benefit to the vampire nation. God-hood by lineage was the driving force of the Elders. They expected to become true gods in their own minds, rather than be treated as gods by the vampire nation as a whole.

Four approached the altar. An idea filling his mind, an intent at destruction flooding his thoughts, as his hand reached into his jacket pocket to extract the explosives placed there earlier.

The C4 was military grade explosive. If detonated it would hurl the thousand silver capsules, all placed facing front out, into the surrounding air. They on contact would shatter releasing their deadly content into any vampire that was unfortunate enough to be in its way. Garlic and silver would spray into the body of anyone impacted by the silver balls. Death would follow for most vampires with such a contact. The detonator was chemical. He stepped closer to the idol and reaching around behind it, he stretched up and molded the charge to the rear wall just above it. He shaped it facing forward before inserting a chemical fuse and leading it to the idol by a thin thread. This he fixed beneath one of the bronze containers, setting the cable so it would be released by the bowl being lifted. The action would free a lead weight to drop, smashing the chemical fuses glass centre, triggering the explosive a couple of seconds later.

The bomb he then covered with dust, carefully blending it into the wall’s pitted surface. He was leaving behind a trap aimed at killing any vampire that attempted to remove the idol from this devastated covens temple.

He departed from the room by the only door. The torches he would leave to burn out, thus anyone entering would need to bring a source of light or more oil. The extra darkness would add to the camouflaging of the explosives. He pulled the door shut, twisting the metal of the catch beneath his fingers, making certain no human could easily enter the chapel of the Elders.

DAY THREE: The House Is Searched As Night Falls

Across from Deputy Prime Minister Voite and the Captain a radio crackled into life. The operator listened, responded and then at a run approached them.

Sir the response teams have arrived. They require voice print identification to confirm the current situation.

Voite took the radio handset and provided identification and clearance for them to enter the grounds.

Seconds later a column of five heavily armed vehicles entered through the main gate. Two split off instantly, turning right and left respectively and driving along the perimeter of the lawn, tearing up the neat grass. The remaining three closed with the ground troops.

At fifty-feet two vehicles split of again, turning right and left. Already the first of the vehicles had discharged their five man assault teams who instantly split up creating one side of a perimeter defense. The other first team did likewise. Voite watched as the encirclement was carried out with professionalism and speed. The second pair of vehicles where discharging, creating an inner defense circle around the ground troops who carried out the original incursion and the eradication of the coven.

The final vehicle continued onward. It halted facing the gathering and disgorged its assault team who joined their comrades adding to the original force on the ground. These were the back up teams Voite ordered out when he launched the assault to destroy the coven, rescue his daughter if possible, and to try to eradicate the vampire Elder called Elbitalaent.

He took a salute from the commander of team Alpha and then turned away from him toward the home which had become the covens base of operations.

The vampire girl was talking to Frankie. She successfully ignored the arrival of human soldiers armed and ready to kill any of her kind they met.

With their conversation over Frankie walked the short distance to her father and the captain.

There are no human survivors, only bodies within the house, Dad! she exclaimed in disgust. The coven killed them all, then they took control over the structure.

I didn't expect any. Still, we have to search the house and make sure, despite what she told you. Voite replied.

Frankie nodded understanding the situation. It was not that her father did not accept the word of the young female vampire friend of number Four. It was that he felt he had a duty to the deceased to see that they were buried with reverence. He also needed information, and waiting in there might be the single spark that would help defeat the vampires. He pointed toward the building. Behind him men stirred, hard faced heavily armed men, they moved toward the open doors of the home. Others in pairs moved around the building preparing to make a combined entrance.

Their training took control over their actions. They were the best Voite could have, and they knew it. The elite of the elite. They were ready to do their duty or die as needed. The house was surrounded, the troops ready. The captain fired a single flare into the air and the breach began. The troops stepped into a blood bath.

DAY THREE: N.S.A Headquarters; Covert Monitoring And Analysis

John Freeman had been an analyst for twenty-four years. His job was to look at pictures, radar images or sound bites and categorize them. He deciphered their hidden meaning. He knew he was very good at what he did. The reason he was so good was he loved the interplay, the guess work, the silence and self contained working environment. John Freeman was a bit of a loner, single and never having been married. His job was his life. There was no time left for a wife, let alone a family.

He never thought of the differing way his life could have gone. He only thought of his room with all of its high-tech toys. His encryption facilities, its satellite recognition identification systems, its recorders and monitoring systems which relayed information directly to him, were his babies. He loved his life and always thought he would. He liked playing the game, which was how he thought of what he did. That game was about to end as reality hit home, as death and destruction on a scale he could never have envisaged occurred to shatter his peace and remove his pleasure.

Solent 12, a weather satellite in aspect was active as it crossed an ocean heading toward the Russian coast. Its constant monitoring and image package delivery was functioning perfectly, as was the computer he called Blue Light. A minute and a half after the last information package was delivered, Blue Light signaled a nuclear alert.

John Freeman had never heard the nuclear alarm in his working career outside of a trial. Not once in twenty-four years had the little buzzer sounded, nor the red warning panel lit up for real, indicating an unexpected nuclear blast. Now he had received two in a few short hours.

The first had been located in central Australia. Now here was another. He activated a screen and waited for the images to arrive. When they finally did John felt sick to his stomach. Genuine fear raged through his body. His mind looked, but did not see. It did not want to see. Was this the start of nuclear Armageddon? Was this the beginning of the end for civilization?

In his nightmares he saw the rockets fly, watched as death and destruction rained down. He felt the blow as his base of operations was targeted and destroyed. He even watched the missile that could kill him as it crossed the world, but that was in his dreams. What he was seeing now, this was reality.

He looked at the kilo-tonnage indicator and relaxed slightly. He recognised the pulse-wave-length and the explosion duration. He realized that a small weapon was involved. Next he activated the image regulator and sought out the target area hit.

While John looked at the photo-package, Blue Light analyzed the explosion and matched it to a weapon. Seconds later a small section of the screen John was looking at formed a separate box and the following words appeared:

Country of origin: RUSSIA

Weapon identification: Sub-surface Missile

Launch profile: Nuclear Submarine

Launch origin: Unknown

And so the list went on. John did not need to know all of the details. He had what he needed so he instructed Blue Light to print. The box vanished. The pictures returned. The image frozen before him was of a roiling black evil looking mushroom cloud. Slowly he wound back each frame watching as the cloud returned to its point of origin. The image taken a second before the explosion shocked him to his core. He was looking at part of the American fleet. He could see an aircraft-carrier, obviously the target he realized, quietly making headway through a still peaceful ocean. He continued to wind the images back.

John almost automatically activated access to the SOSUS net, a series of hydrophones laid down in mile square patterns covering the ocean floor, reaching almost to the Soviet coastline. The net was painstakingly placed with the highest Top Secret security during the cold war. It provided a sound picture of every vessel surface or sub-surface that rode the ocean waves. Blue Light flashed. It showed a sub-surface craft running at flank speed, heading toward the Russian coast.

Two seconds later the identification was provided. The target was an American Delta, a Hunter Killer, it was clearly identified. John doubted it was involved in the missile firing, incorrect type of vessel and wrong country of origin. Still the submarine was acting well out of expected character and that was before the explosion took place. The question that needed answering was, why?

Hunter Killer submarines operate in silence. They were built for nothing more than sneaking up on the enemy and remaining undetected. Then they remained hidden, watching, listening, and then striking out, killing the target before it knew they were there. This craft was clearly acting strangely, and so John noted its position and direction and added it to the fast swelling covert file on this series of incidents.

DAY THREE: The Last Of The Coven

With the explosives placed and armed I departed from the temple. I walked along the corridor with little to concern me, and much to be pleased with. At the outer door I pulled it closed, flipped the latch over the hasp and bent it down locking the door against casual invasion, and then I turned intending to fly. As my weight left the ground I was hit hard.

The creature had been waiting in ambush. It lunged from the woods as I lifted off, grasping my waist pulling me down, smashing me into the door I just closed. I reached down grabbing hold of its hair and pulling its head backward, intending to lever its fangs away from my flesh.

I ripped the creature from my body, its grip to my waist shattered. It tumbled away from me somersaulting once then being driven into the ground by my thrust and sudden pull. I looked down as it turned to gain its knees preparing to attack again. I knew it by sight. I had once been trained by it in fighting techniques. This creature was close to six-hundred years old, faster, stronger and more deadly than I, at a mere four-hundred years of age. I was facing one of the stronger vampires and by rights it should be I on the floor rising to defend myself, not it.

I had no choice but do battle. My expectation was to lose and be killed with ease. For the briefest of seconds an image of the young vampire woman flashed into my mind. I regretted we would never get to know one-another, that it had to end so swiftly before it even began.

The creature pushed up flying low and fast toward my legs. I raised my knee ramming into its face, again catapulting my assailant away.

This time he landed face first in the earth, arms extended in front ploughing a deep furrow with its body. The ground raised a dust cloud as for ten long feet the creature slid. I lunged forward landing on its back. My left hand reached high then thrust down, my fingers extended automatically.

The thrust should have been deflected as the creature’s age should have made it capable of dislodging me. Instead, my hand thrust deep into its back shattering its spine as my fingers reached for its slow beating heart. I grasped the organ, my fingers closed, the heart contracted until it burst. The creature turned to ash beneath me. I looked down seeing the residue of a long lived vampire destroyed.

To my horror I realized what I had done, but not how I had been able to do it. Death for such as he should not have been the outcome of our meeting. He should have lived, not I. I was the younger and by a long way. Yet, the evidence of my eyes could not be denied. I killed him, and to my way of thinking, it had not taken much of an effort on my part.

I rolled away from the ash pile. I reran the fight from beginning to end through my mind. I saw the ease with which I controlled and deflected his attack, and then the effortless defeat which befell him. I leant back moving further away from the ash pile, wondering how what should have been impossible had occurred.

Slowly I stood up with my attention still fixated on the vampire that was such a puzzle to me. How had it happened? I could not explain, but it had. I accepted my luck held and I was the victor. My ears heard the distant sounds of breaking glass. I looked up and away from the ash knowing I might be needed.

I lifted high off the ground and flew along the passageway running between the trees, heading for the house and whatever was going on. Something hit me in the chest as I burst out through the tree line. A deep burning filled my body as I lost headway and crashed to the ground. The pain grew worse. I fought back killing the burn, compressing it to a tight ball and ejecting it from my body.

I rolled overlooking up into the night sky only just noticing darkness now surrounded me. My eyesight seemed to be much improved. I saw as though it were full daylight. I failed to notice it was night. Darkness was no longer a dull light by which my vampiric eyes saw, but instead it was as clear as daylight to me. I looked ahead seeing the soldier on the ground. His weapon was held in the fist of the young vampire woman as she stood over him. I could see the soldier was pinned down, but unhurt. Around her others closed in. I pushed up flying hard toward them. I was certain they would not hurt her. She cast the weapon away looking toward me, a deep look of shock on her face, confusion blended perfectly with her fear for me. My heart swelled at the concern she exhibited.

From her position fifty-feet away from the house and thirty-feet away from the alert soldier the young vampire watched as a figure flew out of the tree line. She recognised it as number Four, but the soldier nearest to her did not. He raised his weapon and fired. She lunged forward crossing the thirty-feet in a blink of any eye. Her father stumbled as she let go of his arm. He lifted his head, his eyes flaring red as she flew away from him.

The soldier did not know what hit him. The muzzle of his weapon was lifted high as his feet were swept from beneath him, and all in a single second of time, a blink of an eye. The bullet had been fired. The target hit cleanly and was tumbling to the ground. The vampiric daughter placed a heavy foot on the soldier's chest, and cast away his weapon. She then turned toward the fallen body of number Four.

Other troops reacted. They lifted their weapons looking hard into the night. Those with infra-red goggles called not to fire, others heard and reacted. The weapons remained raised as the woman cast the fallen soldier’s weapon aside. She departed, freeing him, heading toward the fallen body.

The hit had been clean and survival was not the expected outcome. Number Four pushed upward with his arms. Something metallic fell to the ground. Liquid squirted from the wound splattering the grass, coating the remnants of the bullet.

She arrived as he regained his feet. The fallen soldier sitting up realizing his mistake. She clasped at number Four and then it dawned on her. He