Vanquished. Part 3

Jenn's mom stared at him. For a full ten seconds she was silent. And then a wrenching wail tore out of her-the scream of a mother who had been told her child was dead. Jenn held her with both arms, trying to contain her mom's shock. But her mom pushed her away and got to her feet, still screaming. She flailed her fists at Father Juan, then showered Jenn with punches. She kicked at Jenn's legs, shrieking. Jenn scooted away, protecting her mother from her instinctive response to fight back, but her mother came at her.

"You! You!" she screamed, over and over again.

Gramma Esther tried to grab her daughter-in-law's upper arms, to stop her from pounding Jenn. Jenn slid out of the pew and stood in the aisle, her arms outstretched.

"Mom, we'll get her back. And we'll help her. I promise!" Jenn had to shout to be heard over her mother's screams.

Father Juan joined her in the aisle. "We have to leave," he said into her ear. "The brothers will hear. Tell the others to get ready. We'll depart the second the sun goes down."

She looked over at her mother, who had collapsed in the pew. She was rocking back and forth, shaking her head as she shrieked and cried.

"I should stay with my mom," she said, but as soon as she spoke, she knew she was wrong. She needed to put distance between her mother and herself.

Because she blames me. She thinks I made this happen. Just like Daddy thought when I left for the academy.

Gramma Esther caught her gaze and held it. She gestured for Jenn to leave the two of them alone. Shaking all over, Jenn obeyed. Tears blinded her as she hurried out of the chapel.

Framed by a stone archway, Antonio was s.h.i.+elded from the dying sun. He remained silent, but his expression-sympathy, pity-spoke volumes.

Oh, why can't you love me? she thought, crumbling inside. Her heart was breaking, for herself, for her mother and grandmother, for Heather.

And for him.

Why do you have to be a vampire and a priest?

Why does it have to be this way?

Antonio retreated into the shadows, becoming almost invisible. As Jenn brushed past him, she cleared her throat and said, "We're leaving as soon as the sun sets."

He didn't reply.

IN A BUNKER BENEATH THE WHITE HOUSE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

SOLOMON AND PRESIDENT KILBURN.

The room was octagonal, and ringed with high-definition monitors. Solomon, the leader of the Vampire Nation, strolled beside Jack Kilburn, the president of the United States, pausing before each screen so Kilburn could get the full effect. Solomon had been very busy.

"This beautiful new 'hospital'-he made air quotes-is in New Mexico," Solomon explained, gesturing to an enormous structure that towered against the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. "Filled to capacity already. Six hundred beds. People are dropping like flies from 'causes unknown,' and they're begging for help. People are talking about a worldwide epidemic. Which is what we want them to talk about."

President Kilburn tried to smile as his sweat beaded on his brow. Solomon could smell the tantalizing odor of fear. Solomon enjoyed a mini fantasy about ripping into the president's throat and killing him on the spot. Kilburn's price for cooperating with Solomon was eternal life. Solomon had yet to pay it.

Kilburn had yet to earn it. The president was hesitant to get with the program, and Solomon needed someone fully committed to ma.s.s extermination.

"And they're dropping like flies from . . . ?" President Kilburn asked.

Solomon smiled patiently. "We sprayed a toxin on the local produce," he said. "Not traceable. Incurable. So the humans come in for help . . . and they don't come out."

Kilburn swallowed hard and nodded. "But we . . . my family . . ."

"Just don't eat any chilies," Solomon said pleasantly.

The monitors revealed more "hospitals" and other camps for humans. Solomon had been building them for months, but was only now informing the president. The camps were being presented as "overflow facilities for our crowded prisons," and of course some of the inmates were convicted criminals. But others would be undesirables-rabble-rousers, protestors, and anti-vampire terrorists-who would never face trial. The definition of "undesirable" would be repeatedly expanded until anyone Solomon could not control-human or vampire-found him or herself behind barbed wire.

It would be some time before this bothered the Americans. After the chaos of the war, humans wanted security and order. The majority cheered the removal of low-life sc.u.m and troublemakers from their streets. By the time things reached a point where they realized mankind had been reduced to an exotic species, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.

"Now, this camp is located in Malaysia," Solomon said to Kilburn. He frowned. "You seem distracted."

"How's the supersoldier program coming?" Kilburn asked.

Inwardly Solomon seethed. The supersoldier hybrids were disintegrating. He had scientists from all over the world poring over the files Dantalion had e-mailed him before the lab in Russia had exploded, but a critical component must not have come through.

"Come and see," he replied.

Kilburn stood staring at the screens for a few more seconds, then trailed after him. Six armed guards-three human, three vampire-snapped to attention as Solomon and Kilburn entered the dimly lit corridor. As they progressed down the pa.s.sageway, the guards stationed at other doors saluted them.

At the end of the corridor they paused for retinal and fingerprint scans. Solid steel elevator doors opened. The guard inside saluted as Solomon, Kilburn, and their security detail entered. Then the elevator descended, pa.s.sing floor after floor, until at last it stopped, seemingly at the bottom of the world.

They walked through a literal maze of corridors, arriving at a steel door guarded by more soldiers in full battle gear. Solomon key-coded the door, and it opened with a vacuumlike fwom.

After another series of guarded doors, they finally reached one marked BIOHAZARD. Kilburn stank of terror. Solomon was gleeful.

Six cells, each containing a hybrid, faced them. Solomon led the way to the second cell. A creature, part werewolf, part vampire, part human, and mechanically enhanced, glared at Solomon. Thick, greenish wrists were restrained by handcuffs. Its furry ankles thrashed, clanking the chains that held them. Its long claws tapped against the tile. A thick rope of drool dangled from its mouth. Werewolf teeth gnashed and vampire eyes glowed red.

Kilburn was really losing it, straining to act normal despite his shallow breathing. Maybe he wouldn't have been so frightened if he'd known-as Solomon did-that the hybrid was slowly rotting from the inside out. So were the five other hybrids. The different strands of DNA were unraveling. If Solomon was lucky, these hybrids would last another three or four months-long enough for the team to create replacements-if Solomon still needed to pretend that he was fulfilling his promise to Kilburn. Of course, Solomon planned to create his own army, and he'd make sure his hybrids were bigger, faster, and stronger than the supersoldiers he created for the humans. But right now the project was a failure.

Dantalion, d.a.m.n you. Did you hold out on me?

Solomon and Dantalion had been partners in the hybrid project. Dantalion had invented the hybridizing process, and there was no vampire scientist more inventive and brilliant than he. Solomon had funded Dantalion's research, so long as it produced results. But those accursed men with their black crosses had invaded Dantalion's lab, and Dantalion had followed procedure, calling for help and rigging the place to blow. Then Solomon had had him killed, rather than chance the black crosses successfully capturing him.

"Amazing," Kilburn said in a strained voice.

Dying, Solomon thought angrily, but he smiled at the president with his long fangs. "It is," he said.

"Kill you," the hybrid ground out in an English accent, grunting as it tried to advance on the two men.

"My G.o.d," Kilburn said.

"Used to be the Hunter of London. Those days are over, eh, mate?" Solomon affected a c.o.c.kney accent.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," the hybrid said. "We'll rise . . ."

Solomon snickered. "What do you think you are, a zombie?"

They left soon after that. The president was properly shaken. These humans should never forget that vampires were their superiors in every way.

Exuding confidence, Solomon acted as if he had everything under control until he flew back to his movie studio in Los Angeles. There he unleashed his foul mood on his most recent a.s.sistant. First he yelled at her for an hour, then he drank her down.

Afterward he went to see Paul Leitner, the father of Jennifer Leitner, the renegade Hunter. Solomon wanted Jenn gone. But he wanted Antonio de la Cruz, the "good" vampire who ran with her, even more. De la Cruz was a threat, and an error. He needed to be taken out-after Solomon figured out how Antonio could touch crosses and live inside a church.

"There are just so many loose ends," he said to Leitner, whom he kept in a room on the movie lot. Seated on the couch, the man looked back at him with a dazed expression. Probably descending into madness. "It's really hard to rule the world, you know?"

Leitner said nothing. Of course he didn't know.

Rolling his eyes, Solomon left Leitner there and went down three flights of stairs into his secret refuge. Like the elevator in Was.h.i.+ngton, it was reinforced with steel and all kinds of laser-blasting security. It was the darkest room Solomon had ever been in, and it used to refresh him.

Now it was just another source of irritation, as it was where he'd imprisoned a seventeen-year-old fortune-teller from Budapest. Katalin had presented herself willingly, explaining that she had cast the runes and seen that the vampires were going to prevail over mankind. For a while her magicks had proved useful, both alerting him to the treacherous schemes of his underlings and promising him glory and triumph if he made all the right moves. But lately she'd gone dry, and he was beginning to wonder if she'd outlived her usefulness.

She was sitting in a burgundy chair, reading. When she saw him, she put her e-reader down, smoothed her filmy, long-sleeved top over her jeans, and got to her feet. As she walked to him, the bells on her ankle bracelets tinkled.

"Solomon, you're back." He had to restrain himself from slapping her for saying something so stupidly obvious. His nerves were on edge, and if she didn't give him some news this time . . .

"Cast them," he said, gesturing to the ebony box on the table beside the chair.

She folded her arms and looked very sad. "I don't need to. I can feel them. Dark forces, all around you." She rounded her shoulders as if she were afraid he would punish her for giving him bad news.

"You keep saying that. What are these dark forces? Who are they? What can I do to stop them?"

She gave her head a tiny shake. "I don't know."

"Then find out," he said.

She looked down at her hands. "I've tried everything. I've thrown the runes a hundred times."

He could feel the fear rolling off her. She was terrified. For him? Of him?

With the failure of the supersoldiers fresh on his mind, he crossed the room with lightning speed, grabbed her hair, and yanked back her head.

"Then throw them a thousand," he ordered, and sat back to watch.

CHAPTER THREE.

And now you see our plans at last

We have come so far so fast

We are the lords of all that breathes

Where once we played the part of thieves

Men will cry and women scream

A h.e.l.l on earth, a demon's dream

Your children drained, your maidens, too

Years of hiding now are through

TOLEDO, SPAIN.