The second dark ages box.., p.9
The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 9
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
Michael shot him between the eyes.
Michael landed, rolled backwards and came back up. Jumping backwards, he flew up in the air, his dive turned into a flip as he came over the top of the small building. He saw the final tough coming around the left side of the building.
He shot him, the small pellet driving through the top of his head, through his neck and cracking his pelvic bone. Not that his inability to walk any more was a problem.
Michael finished his flip and landed on his feet, one hand down to help his balance, the other prepared for more attacks.
He ran back around the small block building to find Gerry on the ground holding his side, blood soaking his hands.
“I never thought I would see the day,” Gerry grated out, wheezing for breath. “That I would help you stay alive.”
Michael pushed his senses out, making sure he wouldn’t be taken by surprise like he had been again. He ripped Gerry’s shirt off. “The slug is in there pretty good, and thank you,” he murmured as he grew long nails on his hands. “This might hurt a bit. I don’t think you want me to help you like I did the last time I helped someone.”
“Yeah…” Gerry gritted his teeth as Michael’s nails pierced his skin and went deeper into his side, “About thaaaAAAAAAAT!” Gerry’s breath was coming quick as Michael pulled the bullet out of his body and tossed it to the side. Then Michael reached up and grew his fangs a touch, enough to use them to slice open his wrist.
“What are you doing, Michael?” Gerry looked nervously as Michael moved his bleeding wrist over his wound, allowing the blood to drip around and on it. He licked his lips. “I thought we weren’t supposed to cross the streams here, ArchAngel.”
“Dark Messiah,” Michael grated out as he started pushing Etheric Energy towards Gerry, hoping the nanocytes would grab hold of the energy and use it instead of the energy from Gerry’s body. Otherwise, Gerry was going to die much more quickly.
“Come again?” Gerry asked, a warming feeling going through his whole body. “What are you doing? I can feel energy everywhere.”
“Pushing out what energy I can, old wolf,” Michael told him. “The nanocytes need energy to help you physically. If this doesn’t take, you’re going to die, quickly.”
Gerry looked up at the vampire. “Michael, I need you to help me one more time.”
“Working on it, Gerry,” he replied, still trying to feel the nanocytes.
“The girl you helped, the blind one?” he said softly
“Yes?” Michael replied.
“She’s my daughter, Michael.”
Michael smiled. “Huh, didn’t realize that when I helped her.”
Gerry grunted. “Would you have left her there?”
“What?” Michael turned to face him. “No. I would have made sure she stayed with me. People who helped Bethany Anne are special, Gerry. Even their children.”
That encouraged Gerry. “Well, I need to ask you a favor. I need to ask if you would go rescue her again, Michael.” Gerry reached up, holding Michael’s arm. “Please. I don’t want her left alone without protection again. I made that mistake once.”
“Gerry,” Michael answered. “I’ll help you. But I’m not ready for a kid yet, it’s a big responsibility and… and…” Michael watched as the wound closed, the healing taking over. “Annnnddd, you are healed.”
“What?” Gerry looked back at him, confused.
Michael stood up, reaching down to grab Gerry’s hand and pull him up. “You’re healed, Gerry.”
Gerry looked down at his side, his skin, his younger looking skin, was in fact healed. It had a few black and blue marks, but… “Damn…” He rubbed it back and forth before turning towards Michael. “How?”
Michael was searching the people, listening, feeling for problems.
None… yet.
He whispered, “My nanocytes have been modified. I’m basically O negative now as a blood type, Gerry.” Michael said.
A young woman broke from the group watching the two men. “Sir?”
Michael looked over at her raising his eyebrow. “Yes?”
She pointed to Gerry. “Did you just heal him of a gunshot?”
Michael looked at Gerry, who shrugged. He turned back towards the young woman. “Yes.”
“Are you magical? An angel?” she questioned.
Michael looked at all of the people surrounding them and pursed his lips. He pushed Gerry towards the gate leading out of the fortress before speaking. “I’m not an angel, far from it.” He pointed towards the building. “Angels aren’t known for that much killing. I didn’t come for peace, or prosperity. No, I came to deliver Justice for the iniquities of the men who were running this town, subjugating all of you under their thumb. Using the men and women willing to be his little army of thugs. The problem with those who would prey on the weaker, is,” he pointed to himself, “They eventually run into someone like me.”
Michael turned and started walking towards the gate.
“And who are you?” she cried out.
Michael paused and turned to look her in the eye.
His voice, gentle but firm, answered her, “Young Tamara, some call me the Dark Messiah. What you choose to call me is up to you.”
He nodded his head in their direction and turned to continue walking out of the gate, people stepping rapidly out of his way as he exited.
The people milled around. “Have you talked to him before?” an older woman asked the young one, who was still staring at the gate used by the stranger a moment before.
She shook her head.
“Then how,” the older asked, “did he know your name?”
“Three years?” Michael asked as the two men walked along a street. They weren’t heading directly towards the pack enclosure yet.
“Yes, as best as I was ever able to understand, China started a virtual war, releasing code to take over stuff. Before you knew it, we were blind here in America, other nations were blind. Some country threw the first nuke, some say Pakistan, some say Israel. Then a huge EMP burst happened over the central United States, frying all of the electronics. At least, that’s the working theory. Power went out all over the world, and we dropped back into the second dark ages. Sicknesses we thought were beat came back and kicked our ass. Not so much the Weres or the vampires, obviously. But they really messed up the normal humans.”
The two men stepped across the road to go down a side street. “In about twenty years or so, something like eighty-seven percent of the world’s population had died.”
Michael looked around at the empty city, the many buildings, some collapsed, in the distance. “So, Bethany Anne left Earth and they committed suicide?”
“I wouldn’t think Bethany Anne had anything to do with it, Michael. She was gone three years already when it went down.”
“How long ago, again?” Michael asked.
“A hundred and fifty years, Michael.”
“My God,” he murmured.
“Yes, temperatures went up all over the world. I understand you don’t want to try and live near the equator, it’s a death sentence. Hell, even here in Denver it gets way hotter than it used to. The food belt, isn’t.”
“Isn’t what?” Michael asked.
“Isn’t a food belt. At least, not anymore. The only way they could grow the crops they did was because they pulled water out of the ground. No power? No water. Plus, with the temperatures rising, most of civilization is going back to locations by bodies of water. Chicago and that area around the Great Lakes is pretty advanced, and New York is a big deal.”
“New York is good?” Michael asked. “I wonder if my home is still standing.”
“Probably?” Gerry answered. “We had moved out of New York before the apocalypse, but unless someone built right on the water, it’s probably still there. I’ve spoken with some people who have flown in from that area.”
“Flown?” Michael interrupted. “What are they using to fly, airplanes, jets?”
“No, anti-gravitic based dirigibles,” Gerry informed him.
Michael shook his head. “So, they did get Bethany Anne’s technology?”
“No, believe it or not, they’re using technology that can be traced back to World War II and the Nazis.”
Michael turned to look at Gerry. “I assume you aren’t pulling my leg, but Nazis?”
Gerry shrugged. “Three guesses who found a group of ex-Nazis, or Germans or Germans who didn’t want to be Nazis and helped them. Hell if I know what the whole story is there and frankly I’m a little fuzzy on the details after all of these years. So, three guesses and the first two don’t count.”
Michael looked up to the sky. “How does she get involved in all of these events? Is the woman blessed, or cursed?”
“Yes,” Gerry answered diplomatically.
“Nice answer,” Michael replied.
“I thought so.”
“So, we have Nazi or World War II Germans who had technology and the anti-gravitic capabilities?”
“Yes,” Gerry confirmed. “The technology works, but it’s very power hungry and the world doesn’t have awesome battery manufacturing capabilities built up. Plus, our nuclear capabilities are substantially burdened. If a scientist was found for many years after the fall, they would be grabbed by powerful people and bartered to others. Now, practically anyone with high technology skills needs to be careful, or they end up kidnapped.”
Michael thought about Gerry’s statement. “Knowledge really is power, isn’t it.”
“Yup,” Gerry said. “One of the reasons I feared for Jacqueline.”
“She’s smart?” Michael asked.
“Very, gets it from her mother, before you ask.”
Michael grunted. “And her trip out into these Fallen Lands?”
“Headstrong, looking for technology she could rebuild and sell.” Gerry shrugged. “My portion of her DNA.”
“I gathered,” Michael replied drily.
Gerry shot him a look, but bit his tongue. This wasn’t the Michael from two hundred years ago, but you were never careless around a wild animal that had been caged. Especially when you were witness to the destruction of just half an hour ago.
Michael continued, “She’s attractive from her mother as well.”
“May I say, you can be an ass?” Gerry muttered.
“You can, because you have earned it.” Michael agreed. “But I wouldn’t suggest you do it too often.”
“Yeah, figured it was like a coupon system,” Gerry put out a hand. “Slow down, we can peek around the corner to see the pack’s compound. It’s about five blocks away, but they have scouts three blocks out from the fence.”
The two men came to a stop behind the corner of the building. Michael looked around to see the pack’s location, with the two buildings inside the walls.
He leaned back and looked at Gerry. “Okay, a couple of questions before we stroll over there.”
Chapter Eleven
South of Old Denver (United States Post-Apoc)
“Sir, our spies are saying that a stranger is killing Kraven’s men,” the young black man reported to the pack Alpha.
Joshua Timmons was unusually short for an Alpha. But what he didn’t have in height, he had in width. The man was huge and muscular from side to side. One of the funnier assholes in the group had once asked ‘why does the sun go around the Earth? Because it’s easier than going around Joshua’s shoulders!’
Dumbass didn’t think about the orbit at all. Joke would have worked if it was the Moon. Joshua thought it was a clever way to talk about how wide his shoulders were.
It took brown-nosing to a new level completely.
Joshua’s eye’s narrowed. Right now, he was responsible for his pack and while he might do a few things that weren’t entirely fair to others, it was always pack first with him.
“No idea who, Kent?” Joshua asked.
The man shrugged. “Whispers are about a stranger in a coat. Went into a bar on the west side, one of Kraven’s. His thugs went in and messed with him. He knocks two out cold and heads up the street and goes into another bar inside of Kraven’s building.”
Joshua put a hand over his face. “Did they try to shake him down?”
Kent nodded his head.
“Well, how many before they got him?” Joshua asked.
“Sir,” Kent answered, “he’s still at it.”
“Still killing?” Joshua asked and Kent nodded. “That ain’t human.” Kent shrugged while Joshua thought. He knew that Kraven had a couple of Weres in his employ. Either they were out on an operation for Kraven, or they were dead. It was daylight and Joshua closed his eyes for a second then looked at Kent. “Okay, tell the guys to tighten up security, bring anyone not from our pack in here, I want to know what they know.”
He waited a second, his eyes narrowed. “Now, Kent! I’ve got to make a phone call.”
Kent turned and walked out, doing his dead level best to go as slow as he could without upsetting his Alpha. Joshua asked Kent one time point-blank why he left so slowly and Kent had laughed as he pointed to himself, “Spy, remember?”
Kent’s role wasn’t just a spy, it was his personality. There was no information he didn’t want to know. The more secret it was, the more he wanted to know it.
Joshua, knowing Kent’s temperament, waited for him to leave before he reached over and picked up a phone. One of the few benefits from his behind the scenes help for Kraven had been to get connected up to the phone lines that were still working.
When you had only a few people in your pack, and the humans had some serious firepower, you made alliances even if you hated the bastards.
Especially if they hunted vampires as their business.
“Looks like they’re closing down the place,” Michael murmured and Gerry poked his head around the corner.
“Probably got a runner from Kraven’s earlier,” Gerry whispered. “The Alpha here is a world class dick, but he does try to protect his people.”
Michael turned to look at Gerry. “But not Jacqueline?”
Gerry shook his head. “She ain’t pack. Her being a Were is just an annoyance to him. It’s like people from any other pack are second class citizens.”
The creak from Michael’s leather coat sounded loud as he turned back to look around the corner. “Well, there goes talking our way in.”
“You were going to go talk to them?” Gerry asked, Michael turned back to look at him and raised his eyebrow.
Gerry put up his hands. “Sorry, but your reputation is more of a show up, kill them all and let God sort them out.”
“I’m trying to rehabilitate myself here, Gerry.” Michael explained. “It’s like being put on a diet by your girlfriend before she becomes your wife.”
“What was all that you did over at Kraven’s?” Gerry asked, confusion flavoring his question.
“Long overdue,” Michael replied and turned back to view the corner. “Not to mention since I’ve returned, a few skills are a little rusty, I don’t have all of my previous skills back yet.”
“Like growing hair?” Gerry asked, his mouth close to Michael’s head as he looked around the corner. He noticed Michael had turned and was looking back at him.
Annoyed as hell.
“Oh, don’t mention the hair?” Michael shook his head. “Okay, good to know.” Gerry had to bite down on his next comment. He didn’t want Michael slipping back into ‘old Michael’ and apologizing to his dead body afterward.
No matter how much goodwill Gerry had earned, he didn’t care to test him.
Michael pulled back. “Let’s walk to the other walls, I want to see them, too.”
Gerry looked up. “How far can you jump?”
A phone rang a few miles away. The man, blond hair with two scars down the left side of his face turned from his workbench and walked over to the table. The large warehouse where he was working had been converted into their living and working quarters while the team was out this far west. Except for the major Were ambush a while back, his team of three hadn’t had much in the way of vampire hits in this area.
Were blood, so far, had been damned useless for the underground blood trade. He had enough to hold twenty-five large vials of blood in stasis and the only good shit was vampire blood.
Depending on the quality of the blood they put in the vials, that would be enough for the three of them to live off for five years. Even when they paid off their silent partner, they were all good for three good years if they wanted to be fair and square with him.
Hank picked up the phone. Calvin and Izzy wouldn’t have heard anything from outside. “Yeah?”
“It’s Joshua,” the male baritone voice said. “I have a tip.”
“What’s it going to cost, Were?” Hank asked. “The last tip wasn’t so good. We were barely able to break even after selling the slave.”
“Yeah, but he took her, didn’t he? You were responsible for blinding her.”
“Weres heal,” Hank replied.
“Not from fucking silver, Hank,” Joshua replied.
Hank, annoyance coloring his voice, said, “Well, we ain’t got time to go around killing a bunch of Weres, Joshua.”
Joshua reined back his temper. “Good, cause if I’m not mistaken, you are about to get the fucking mother lode, Hank.”
“Vampire?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think this guy is hot shit?” Hank asked as Calvin and Izzy came walking in from outside. He put a finger to his lips to tell the guys to keep their talking down.
They had phones, not great phones.
“Two reasons. The first is that I’m getting the news he’s killing everyone over at Kraven’s,” Joshua told him.
“How the fuck is he doing that?” Hank asked.
“That’s the second reason. I’m guessing he’s a sunwalker, Hank.” Joshua dropped the obvious answer and Hank’s eyes narrowed.
“Dangerous,” Hank finally replied.
“And imagine what his blood must be worth, Hank?”
