THE PRINCE OF HOUSE VLADD
CHAPTER 10
BOOK 2
BY ARTHUR
Peter called an emergency meeting of all the vampires and any other of the folk, in the main lounge which was now called the common room, within minutes of the call, there were nearly fifty of the folk present, as they all found seats, Peter finished his conversation on his sat phone.
"Thank you Senor Delgardo, so the final number is thirty and you will fly the jet yourself so we can land at night and go low enough to get under their radar, the only thing now is, when is the earliest we can leave, the situation here is critical for the locals?"
Everyone watched as Peter listened silently to the reply on the phone, finally he absently nodded his head and switched off the phone, turning to the waiting folk in the room, Peter began to ask for volunteers for the dangerous trip ahead.
Peter was not at all surprised when every vampire and wolf in the room stood up to volunteer for the mercy mission, all of the folk in the stone city had become attached to the gentle nature and total acceptance of the native folk and felt a deep sense of protection to them, it was time for Peter to select the team for the raid.
Peter asked Sin Yu to stay behind to protect the city along with the remainder of the folk, he had selected a mixture of wolves and vampires for the raid, the vampires would do most of the fighting and the wolves would do the search and carrying of the urgently needed vaccine, Jeffery had also volunteered to go so they would have less problem finding the store rooms of vaccine but, Peter declined to let him, stating it would be too dangerous and they could not afford to lose him, instead he got Jeffery to draw up a very detailed plan of the building and where the wolves could find the vaccine, it would have to do.
The thirty selected for the raid went off to get their equipment, Peter, Swiftwing and the other three were already armed and ready when the others returned to the common room, quickly they followed the Prince out of the pyramid to the waiting SUV's, just as Peter was about to get into the lead vehicle he felt something behind him, turning, he was not really surprised to see his two sons smiling at him, the look of askance on their faces told Peter all he needed to know.
"And you two think you're coming on this little expedition I assume?"
"Yes Dad." Quetz replied. "We don't want you to get into any trouble without us along."
"I see, and there's no telling you not to come, I suppose?"
"Not really, we could do it our way, but then it would spoil your fun, seriously Dad, they have attacked our people, we're not letting them get away with it, we have to do this as much for our sake as it is for our people, they expect us to protect them and we didn't, we have to make up for it now."
"Ok, you two can come but, this is a mercy mission not a revenge mission, we may have to do that later but for now it's more important to get the vaccine so we can heal your people, so, no massive storms or other fancy things to teach them a lesson just yet."
The two teens nodded as their faces broke out into a big smile, they would follow their Fathers decision unless something changed the situation, that is for now they would accept the decision, what happened later would be kept a secret for now, the boys jumped into the SUV with their two dads and the other three body guards.
The long convoy left the city square quickly and moved off into the dark of night, they had a drive of an hour to meet the waiting jet where Senor Delgardo would be waiting for them, it had been agreed that the plane would not put in a flight plan which took some very big bribes to the people in charge of the airfield where the jet had been landed in the first dimness of the approaching night.
Senor Delgardo had no intention of flying at any height above one hundred feet for the whole trip, it was going to be a very dangerous and fast trip but he was sure his advantages in his vampire blood gave him a decided edge and he meant to use all of them in this mercy mission for his Prince.
When the convoy arrived at the airport, Peter was surprised to see, not the small private jet waiting for them but a Boeing 707, on the inside, all of the unneeded seating had been removed to make space for the cases of vaccine and anything else they might find that may help in the future.
At first sight of the large jet, Peter though it might be a little overkill but decided that he would say nothing, Senor Delgardo had obviously thought it out and decided that the larger jet might be needed, it was painted in a mat black and had no lights showing on the outside and would make the whole flight without showing any, the SUV's were quickly emptied and the folk all filed into the almost empty body of the plane, it was only seconds later and the jets were screaming and the plane was already moving onto the runway for take off.
The folk all found seats just as the wheels were lifting off the ground, they had no need of seat belts and thought them a little useless if the plane did crash, only a ball of fire or decapitation could take them out of existence so the fear of a few broken bones if a crash did occur, held no fear for them.
At full throttle, the jet was going to take nearly three hours to reach White Sands, they would then have only an hour to find and enter the complex before the plan would have to take them home before the new sun rose, with the plan drawn up by Jeffery, Senor Delgardo had picked a wide roadway close to the complex to land the jet on, the doors would be opened as the taxied to a stop and the folk would pile out, hopefully within striking distance so the attack would be a surprise.
They all knew that an alert would go out as soon as the jet was seen to touch down but they also knew that any hope of relief for the defenders would take at least an hour to arrive, Senor Delgardo also had a crew of four wolves with him, they would use their superior strength to turn the jet ready for take off as well as defend the jet while they waited for Peter to complete his quest.
The flight went without a hiccup although it did raise a lot of heads as it flew over towns and small farms before reaching the unending stretch of the desert, the heady roar of the jets engines echoed out over the barren earth below them as the black shape speed at a heart stopping height, sometimes as low as fifty feet, the ground behind the jet was swept up into thick clouds of soil and dust as it sped by, on the radar of the defence system of the US there was not a sign and the odd phone calls to the authorities were pushed aside as someone being mad or drunk as everyone knew it was impossible to fly a large jet at that sort of height and remain in control.
Everyone on board did their final checks as the jet drew closer to the wide roadway, Delgardo had been following it for close on ten minutes and had already pulled back on the throttles until he had just enough speed to maintain flight, he was now almost sweating if it had at all been possible for a vampire to do so, all of his prodigious mental concentration was now focussed on the final task of landing as close to the complex as he could, the faint pin pricks of light ahead of him showed him where the complex was, there were no other lights anywhere in the vastness of the desert.
The passengers felt the slight downwards shift as the jet lowered closer to the ground, suddenly they felt the wheels touch the hard surface of the wide roadway, it was a little rougher than a proper airport but Delgardo's superior strength helped hi to maintain the integrity of the jet as it sped along with it's tyres smoking on the roadway as the huge jet engines tried to pull the plane to a halt before they ran out of space.
The huge jet finally pulled to a stop only sixty metres from the gates of the complex, through the darkened windows, Senor Delgardo could see already the forms of the thirty passengers sprinting towards the closed gates, he took his eyes off the charging group to switch off the engines and settle back to do his calculations for the return journey as his wolves went out to turn the jet by hand, it took every ounce of the massive strength to accomplish the act but they succeeded and returned to wait for the end of the fight they could hear in the dark night behind them.
It took only seconds to cover the distance to the gates and even less time to pull them off the hinges, the guards inside were still struck dumb as the gates crashed to the ground in front of them, none of them escaped and their end was swift and clean, the entrance to the underground complex was now open to the group but the heavy steel doors were closed tight.
At first Peter tried the old code that Jeffery had given him but with no result, as he was about to look for another way, his two sons stepped forward and raised their hands, the resulting blast of energy not only melted the doors but set a wave of power surging down the now open passage way, eight guards that had been in the passage never knew what hit them as they buckled to the floor.
Peter tried to scowl at his two boys but they caught the half hidden smile on their Dads face, the rest of the folk ran at speed down the now vacant passage, the vampires in the vanguard as they cleared rooms quickly and efficiently, all the while working their way towards the underground safe rooms.
The twins, Caleb and Levi had taken off for the communications room to shut it down before any signals could be got out, everything was done at full speed and this left little time for any human to react, those who were armed were dealt with quickly and with no finesse, the unarmed were put to sleep and tied up out of the way.
It took the wolves only five minutes to reach the safe rooms where all the vaccines were kept, all evidence of defence was now stopped, it was time to get what they had come for, the vaults revealed pallet upon pallet of stored vaccines, the lead wolf, a member of Jake's pack that had wanted to go with the prince for some excitement, took command of the other wolves and set about finding the pallets they wanted.
While the wolves were at work, Peter and his vampire's along with the two boys, began their own search for the labs that created most of the terrors of germ warfare, with Jeffery's map they soon found the area two levels down, the lab was huge, all the walls were covered with computers and screens, along the center of the lab were individual sealed glass sections for individual scientists to work in isolation from the rest, everything was clean and white and the main doors were the only ones not protected by double air locks.
The two boys joined hands again and let a smaller version of their power slice through the locks on the door, as the doors were pushed wide, Peter set his folk to laying the charges they had brought with them, they were not going to leave anything standing in this complex, faintly from above, Peter could hear the sounds of the wolves working at speed to clear the storage vault of vaccine.
Once the charges had all been set, Peter sent his folk back to clear out any captives from the complex, they would leave them outside the main gates until they could be rescued by their own people, by the time any help arrived, Peter hoped to have his folk a long way from the complex.
At fifty minutes the sound of the jet warming up was like a warning for the folk in the complex, all the vaccine for the smallpox had been loaded along with a lot more that might come in handy should the Us decide to use anything else, every vampire and wolf had been called into action to clear as much of the vault as possible before the time was up.
At last they had no more time, Peter had made sure they had at least some of each vaccine in the now fully loaded jet, it was going to be a slower trip home because of the extra weight and the need to stay low again, Delgardo had assured Peter they had plenty of fuel to make it but he wouldn't be able to do much in the way of dodging any aircraft that might come after them.
Finally they had loaded as much as the jet could carry, the folk got aboard and Peter stood outside the open door until the last one had entered, he then turned towards the complex and pushed the button on his phone as he walked up the steps, the resounding underground crash rumbled out of the open doorway just as the jet lifted up into the night sky, the only sign of the jet were the bright jets of fire from the engines as they pushed the huge jet forward under full power, at the same time a cloud of flame and smoke blasted from the open hole of the complex, there would be nothing to recover from the blast and another hidden lab disappeared into the ground.
The flight, while at times was a little nerve wracking in being so close to the rushing ground underneath them, was still unhindered by any interference from searching military, it appeared that the destruction of the complex had not yet got out and that the authorities had not yet caught on to the attack.
An hour before dawn, the large jet crossed the Mexican border and into a land of safety, its new heading was in a direct course for the airport closest to the stone city, Peter sent a message ahead to make sure that all the SUV's were waiting along with a number of hastily hired heavy trucks to carry their precious cargo back to the city.
Peter also contacted the pyramid and asked for volunteers to administer the vaccine, he was unhappy to learn that another 250 natives had died from the infection, it was now a race against time to save as many as they could, it was the young ones he was mainly concerned with as they did not have the strength of the adults to hold on under the assault of the disease.
Their arrival back at the city was met with the stench of death, funeral pyres were being set up on the edge of the jungle to handle all the dead, those still living were in bad shape and so every vampire was given a quick lesson in administering the vaccine to those who were the worst of the ill.
The speed of the vampires helped them to be able to visit large numbers of the ill so much faster than any human doctor could have, as the sun rose and those vampires that had to go to their day sleep, left for their rooms, only Peter, Swiftwing, the twins and the two boys were left but, as they had been able to tend to most of the ill so fast, there were now only those who had not yet become ill left to vaccinate, the rest of the day would prove to be a long one.
With the two boys helping, the rest of the natives stood calmly waiting for their gods to attend to them, they all knew that the gods would not let them die and so showed their usual dogmatic patience as one by one they received their injection and then turned to help with the cremation of those who had died in the night, it was this stoic attitude that impressed Peter the most.
By mid afternoon everyone was vaccinated, the funeral pyres were now dying down as the last of the air of death cleared from the edge of the square, the many dark spirals of smoke drifted lazily over the green tree tops to finally disperse into the blue of the cloudless sky, the final tally had still shaken Peter and his folk at the swiftness of the event.
In the 26 hours of the attack, the stone city had lost 1200 men, women and children, the unholy destruction of so many innocents did not sit well on any of the folks shoulders and the look of pending doom on the faces of the two boys did not bode well for the Northern lands, Peter feared he would not be able to hold back the revenge of his two sons and, as he thought more about it, he had no real desire to do so.
Tezca was the first to voice his opinion; it seemed he had taken the roll of leader of the two boys as Quetz in actuality was the youngest although he now looked the same age as Tezca but their individual feelings allowed Tezca to take the lead in most things.
"This is not going to go unpunished, Dad P, we have to let them know that they have to stay away from the city and its people."
"I agree son, but how, you can't just go and destroy every human up North; it's only a few that are power hungry."
"We know that Dad, we're going to give them something else to worry about rather than trying to destroy us down here but, we need your help."
"Ok, what do you need?"
"We need detailed plans on all of their power bases, military, economic and political, once we have that then we're going to start to give them something else to worry about."
"Do you want to tell me what it is now, or are you going to keep us guessing?"
"We won't have the final plan until we know all about their base of power, what we need is all your contacts still up North to find everything about their bases as they can, when we have all the information, then we can finish our original plan."
Peter looked at his two sons and thought about their request for a few minutes before answering.
"Alright, I'll get onto it right away, when do you need the results?"
"As soon as possible, we want to start the first part of our plan by tomorrow night if we can."
"I'll get everyone onto it now, we all need some rest so you better take your brother and rest for a while, I'll let you know as soon as I have something for you."
Both boys rushed over to Peter and hugged him close, they had half been expecting him to turn them down and his agreement came as a surprise, had they known that the sight of the dead earlier in the day had brought a new hardness to Peter's heart, they might have felt more confident when asking him.
Peter and Swiftwing set about making contact with as many of the Vaga Houses as they could, they received the promise that all the information they wanted would be in their hands by the following day and the two left to get some rest time of their own, it had been a busy two days and the city was left to those who had lost family and friends in the biological attack, it was a time for remembrance and not the time for thinking of revenge for the native population.
The time passed slowly as the group in the common room waited for the rest of the information to be collated for them, the two boys were sitting alone with their heads together as they looked at the volume of print outs sitting on the floor in front of them.
The mass of information was staggering for such a limited time of collection, as far as they could tell, every military base including the outline of the Pentagon, as well as the headquarters of the main political offices were sitting there on the floor, the boys plan was coming together quickly as the filled in the extra details they would need, it was time to show the North what the true power of the reborn god boys was.
In the failing light of evening, in a small copse of trees close to the Pentagon, two young men appeared kneeling on the ground, they placed both their hands to the soil and closed their eyes, at fist it was nothing more than a small ripple in the surface of the soil, slowly it built until, finally, just as the two figures disappeared into the dark, the Pentagon found itself at the epicentre of a magnitude 9.1 earthquake.
Nearly seven thousand people in the building were began to scream as the large building began to tumble around them, the very ground at the center of the building split wide as a giant fissure appeared and widened until it was pulling the very building into its gaping depths, the speed of the vent left no time for anyone to escape apart from those closest to the main doors or those just getting into their cars.
Within the two minutes of the quake, there was nothing left of the Pentagon apart from a few smouldering ruins and piles of broken bricks and concrete from which one or two quickly dying screams could still be heard but, there was no hope for any who had been caught in the building as it shook itself to destruction, those few survivors could only look on with horror at what had once been the center of military control.
Within minutes of the far off earthquake hitting the center of the military complex, another natural disaster began to form unseen off the coast of New York, no one could see the two small figures suspended over the ocean as the huge tsunami formed under the blue power of the four young hands, slowly it grew larger until it towered a full twenty metres over the surrounding calm ocean and, as the two young figures disappeared into the dark night, the huge destructive wave began to make its way towards the lights of the city only a mile away.
As the huge destructive wave bore down on the unsuspecting populace of the city at the center of the economic wealth of the nation, far off, at the foot of Mount St Helens, the two boys again appeared, unknown to most of the residents of the area, within a short distance of the sleeping volcano, was the main base of Norad, it was well hidden deep in the mountain side no more than ten miles from the volcano.
A bright golden glow surrounded the two figures as they again closed their eyes and began a soft chant in a long forgotten language, as they completed the chant, a deep rumble began in the heart of Mount St Helens, a small wisp of smoke appeared at center of its broken cone but nothing else, it was just like so many other rumbles that the locals were now accustomed too.
There was however, something else going on deep underground, Mount St Helens was not going to erupt today, or any time in the future, it was deep in the darkest recesses of the mountain the things were changing, a deep fissure opened under the mountain and began to work its way underground towards the far off mountain that hid the Norad complex.
With a swiftness that belied its make up of molten rock, the fissure opened further as more and more of the magma dissolved the surrounding rock and sand until it came to the foot of the mountain, there it worked on enlarging the cavity as it melted more and more surrounding rock until it could contain itself no more.
With a deep and foreboding rumble that was heard and felt for miles around, the very solid granite rock under the complex, split wide and a deluge of raging hot lava broke loose, the destruction was total and quick as the magma forced its way upward towards the surface to finally explode in a display of molten rock and poisonous fumes into the dark night, the pyrotechnic display was seen for miles around, the earlier eruption of Mount St Helens looked like a small fire cracker compared to the light show no put on by the exploding mountain, nothing and no one survived.
In the Capitol, President Carabine was shaken from his reverie as the reports began to come in, it appeared that within minutes of each other, they had been hit by the worst of mother nature, a violent earthquake had totally destroyed the Pentagon, a freak tidal wave had demolished and flooded all of downtown New York and the Financial district along with all the wharves and most of the retail area, he didn't want to even think about the loss of life and now there was this unknown volcano erupting right under Norad, it was too much for him to take in.
As President Carabine laid his head in his hands, he felt a faint humming in his bones, as he looked up, he was just in time to see two strange young teens appear right in his office from thin air, his fear grew as he saw the look on the faces of the two boys, there was not a hint of grace on their tanned faces, for the first time in his life, President Carabine felt real fear.
Carabine opened his mouth to call for his security but no sound came out, instead, the young blonde teen lifted one hand, from his palm came a faint blue iridescent glow, with the blink of an eye, President Carabine found himself surrounded by the faint glow and the office around him appeared to dim, only the parting words of the teens could be heard in his ear as he lost contact with reality around him.
"The Creator has sent us to give you a warning, if, within 24 hours, you have not resigned and also stood down all of your administration, then, the full force of the Creators power will be unleashed upon you and yours, this is your only warning President Carabine."
With his last vision, Carabine saw the two teens once again disappear from his office but, now he had something more to worry about, the very space around him was changing, and not for the best, as his vision cleared, he once again saw old places and worst of all came the rush of old memories, the very ones he had thought buried forever in the depths of his mind.
As his sight cleared, he saw and felt the old familiar smells and sounds of the Ozark Mountains, the tree covered slopes rustling in the afternoon breeze and the faint smell of the hidden moon shine stills further in the depths. Under his bare feet was the dusty surface of the family yard, its piles of rusting junk mixed with the yapping of the four hunting dogs tied up out back of the old house.
It was a typical back woods frame house, the paint on the weather boards was faded and peeling, some of the boards were now warped and splitting and, on the roof, there were twisted and loose wooden tiles that let in drops of rain when the clouds came over and the morning mists settled on the roof.
With growing fear, the future President of the United States looked down at his twelve year old body, totally naked except for the loose fitting, worn and patched hand me down coveralls, his gaze lifted again to the shadow of the veranda as he heard the one sound that always brought true dread to his young body.
"Bout time you got back, I got the feeling boy." Jacob his seventeen year old brother called to him.
Young Ezrael Carabine had no doubts as to what was to come as he looked at the shaded veranda with trepidation, at the far left of the veranda sat his Mother in her old rocking chair as she shelled the peas for their supper, one glance and you could tell she was worn out well before her time, at forty two years of age, Agatha looked instead to be in her sixties, bearing fifteen children and losing seven of them, would do that to a woman.
Her eyes were almost vacant and the sounds and smells around here went almost unnoticed by her dedication to the shelling of the peas, beside here sat fourteen year old Boaz, or Bo as he was usually called, the boys was finishing off the skinning of a opossum for their supper, his young eyes were also set on the thin frame of Ezrael as he stood in the dust.
Next to Boaz was fifteen year old Noah, his hands moved slowly in a long practiced way as he cleaned the old battered .22 rifle they used to get their bush meat with, in the eyes of Noah was the same look of lust as the other two and the loud moans and groans from inside the weather beaten house, of their overweight Father as he once again bred his youngest daughter with his seed, she was now sixteen and was about to conceive her second child with her Father, the two year old boy that was her first born, was sitting on an old blanket in the corner of the same room.
The noises and the creaks and groans of the old iron bed had brought the three waiting teens to a state of arousal that could not wait and their youngest brother was their only outlet, just as it had been for the last two years, as the youngest and smallest of the boys still living at home, Ezrael knew he had no other place than what he had now but, deep in the furtherest recesses of his mind, he had a dream, one that he swore to God, he would fulfil in time.
TBC.
Artcart65@vodafone.co.nz