CHAPTER 11
Nikki’s fangs sank into Reginald’s neck, bringing sharp pain. She wrapped her legs around him and pushed off of one of the walls, propelling them both across the room and into the opposite wall, shattering a ceramic lamp and ripping its shade. Reginald’s back struck rock. His head rang with impact. With the lamp broken and only a small endtable light still on, the room fell into hideous rocking shadows.
“Ow, hell!” Reginald blurted.
“Shut up,” she spat, taking her teeth from his neck for long enough to berate him. “Shut up and give it to me.”
Nikki’s strong vampire legs squeezed him so hard he thought she might cut him in half. Her long nails punctured the skin on his back. He could feel lines of blood running down his ample ass. He was quite sure he could feel skin peeling away under her fingernails, curling up at the end of a long scratch like wood shaved off by a wood planer. It was technically sex that they were having, but it felt more like an mixed martial arts fight — or perhaps as if Nikki had never experienced either sex or torture and had gotten them confused.
“Sure,” said Reginald. “Consider it given to you.”
Nikki unwrapped one leg and used it to trip Reginald while she continued to bite him. They fell to the floor, hard, and broke the side off of an endtable. Reginald felt the wind knocked out of himself and fought for breath. Nikki took his pain for arousal and bit him harder. The impact of her head on the stone floor had apparently split her scalp, and a small pool of blood had formed before she’d healed. Reginald knew she could feel pain just fine, but she seemed over the past months to have decided that for a vampire, pain was truly temporary. There was really no decent reason to avoid something that would only hurt for a moment.
Nikki seemed unsatisfied.
“If you don’t fuck me harder, I’m going to rip off your goddamn head!” she screamed.
“Oh, indeed,” said Reginald. Then he tried, but really he was just smothering her.
Nikki groaned in frustration, kicked her legs behind her, and pushed hard, and threw them into the ceiling. Reginald had the sensation of breaking vertebrae as his back struck the stone, and then they ricocheted and landed on the bed, all four legs of which immediately exploded into shards. The entire bed frame struck the floor and the mattress knocked askew, Nikki rolling onto the top, Reginald beneath her and feeling like he should perhaps call an abuse hotline.
He hung in there, aware that he was at least somewhat aroused in the way a person could be aware that he was a little cold, and waited for it to end.
There was more biting and clawing, and then Nikki gave an award-worthy series of orgasmic screams, climbed off of Reginald, and put her fist through the wall. Then she briskly pulled her pants and shirt back on and opened the door. Maurice was standing outside with his hair blown back, looking like a man who’s just had a bomb go off in his face.
“I feel better now,” said Nikki, turning and marching back into the room.
Reginald had pulled his pants back on, sexually unsatisfied but satisfied plenty to simply be free. He sat up on the annihilated bed. Maurice remained in the doorway.
“I said, I’m fine,” said Nikki, sitting in a chair.
Maurice looked over at Reginald. “You okay, man?”
Reginald thought about the question, then nodded slowly. “I’ll be all right.”
Still looking unsure, Maurice walked into the room and took the last remaining chair. The three of them formed a rough triangle. Maurice looked up at a large bloodstain on the ceiling that was roughly the size and shape of Reginald’s torso and head.
“So he’s behind the TGV derailments,” said Nikki, businesslike, her fury at discovering Timken’s subterfuge seemingly assuaged. “That’s for sure.”
Reginald thought, then nodded again. “Not for sure. But ninety-nine percent. If I had to guess, it was a high-pass series of assassinations disguised as terrorism. I’d thought about that from the beginning. Seven of the twelve people due at the aborted Paris summit were on those three trains — four humans and three vampires. Two of the vampires escaped — Karl and Solov.”
“Solov is dead,” said Maurice. “He was staked by a member of his own staff, supposedly. Just this morning.”
Reginald took a slow breath.
“Just to disrupt the summit?” said Nikki. “But why? It’s asking for war.”
“Maybe to disrupt the summit. Or maybe to consolidate power. ‘Cut of the head of the beast’ and all of that. If Solov is gone, I’d say that almost all of Asia and is without a leader. Africa too. But let’s be honest. America is the big dog in the vampire world, despite having the youngest population. As goes America, so goes the world.”
“And America is going Timken,” said Nikki.
Maurice shook his head. “In a sick way, I was hoping that Claude was the head of this TGV thing. Just because it made sense. He led crews marching through the wreckage, killing survivors. He’s always been a sick, Annihilist son of a bitch.”
“Annihilist?”
“Yes. The Annihilist Faction is a very old group with very old roots. It’s changed a little over the years — gotten more sophisticated toys and better organization, for instance — but its mission has never changed. They want to eliminate humanity as the dominant presence on this planet. They want to go back to the days when vampires caught humans, restrained them, and farmed them for blood. Then they want to go further, and eliminate the rest. But it’s always been a twisted pipe dream for them, like the psychos who talk about killing the president and and taking over the government. There simply aren’t enough of them to make it remotely realistic, but they’ve always been a very troublesome little minority, and they’ve perpetrated huge mass murders, always threatening to expose us to the greater human population and angering those who know we exist. But the Annihilsts don’t care. They want war, because they’re sure they can win. They’re insulted that humanity dominates this planet. They think it’s a great moral wrong. They want to walk in the open and to rule cities as vampires in the way that the humans do now.”
“I don’t know about any mass killings by vampires,” said Nikki.
“Of course you do. Jonestown. Heaven’s Gate. The Branch Davidians.”
“Those were cults.”
Maurice gave her a shrug. “The ability to influence media can be a powerful thing.”
Reginald stood and began to pace the room. “I don’t need to say that this isn’t good, do I?”
“Go ahead,” said Maurice.
“This isn’t good,” said Reginald.
“Now I feel complete,” said Maurice.
Reginald raised one hand and began to count on his fingers. “First, we have the assassination of vampire leaders. Second, we have the public extermination of… what?… hundreds or thousands of humans. And third, we have the derailment — no pun intended — of the summit that was supposed to prevent what seemed like an all-out human-vampire war.”
“But Timken’s restored some of those relations by reaching out to William Erickson,” said Nikki.
“To help investigate his own crime, deflect blame, and position hundreds of trained vampire soldiers in the heart of the human Anti-Vampire Taskforce,” said Maurice.
“And fourth,” Reginald continued, raising another finger, “we have the support of someone who wants to spur war, clear the planet of humans, and farm those that remain for blood.”
“ ‘Support’ is the wrong way to put it,” said Maurice. “Claude is nobody’s lackey. He and Timken are equal partners if they’re anything. You think I have money? Wooden bullets were Claude’s invention. He had the idea way back when we were first turned. Most new vampires, as you know, go through an identity crisis. Claude did not. He became one hundred percent vampire the minute he was turned and decided that he wanted to kill the people on the farms adjacent to ours and take their land because they were ‘below our kind.’ Turned out that the family to one side were vampires, and that it was their father who had created us. When I found that out, I wanted to get to know them. I wanted to meet my maker, quite literally. But Claude still wanted the land. He wanted to kill them, but the best weapons we had at the time were crossbows. Claude recalled that story years later, around the time I finally parted ways with him for good, when firearms were invented. He said that if only we’d had wooden bullets that would fit in these new weapons, we could have killed our vampire father. I’d forgotten all about that, but it was as if Claude been holding a grudge for over a thousand years. Anyway, centuries later, he finally got tired of dreaming and made those wooden bullets. And today, with that income stream plus some wise investments, he’s fantastically wealthy. He doesn’t need Timken any more than Timken needs him. Or his money.”
Reginald nodded, thinking of the Sedition Army’s Boom Stick weapons, their armor, and the extensive remodeling that was being done to the Vampire Council building. It was Claude’s money that was funding it all.
With a cold and dawning certainty, Reginald looked at the others and said, “We’re not just looking at a takeover. We’re looking at war. We’re looking at genocide.”
Nikki put her head in her hands. Maurice looked into the corner, avoiding the eyes of the others, as if it were his fault for having a brother.
“If Timken wins this election,” Reginald added.
Maurice looked back over and shook his head. “I have five percent of the voter support,” he said. “In no universe could I take this election from Timken.”
“True,” said Reginald. “But I wasn’t thinking of you.”
Nikki’s head came up. There was murder in her eyes.
“Don’t say it,” she hissed.
“We have to back Charles and Walker,” he said.