Rising Son (The Juliana Lucio Series) (23 page)

“What do you know about the Coven’s plans?”

“They plan on creating mass numbers of vampires because it is easier than converting old vampires to their way of believing.”

“The nightly vandalism and public feeding are going to escalate and become more and more public.
”

“They
don’t think the Council
really
wants to
stop any of it, and even if they did Michael says they can’t. They have grown too weak over the years
and with the spy on our side i
t would take an
all-out
war to stop us.”

“Which would reveal our existe
nce anyway,” I finished for the
m now feeling a little dizzy.

“Yes. There is nothing to stop us.”

I started wavering and felt Christian grab hold of my elbow to stead
y
me.

“None of you will remember any of this conversation. None of it.”

I walked Christian to the side of the couch before finally releasing my hold. Just as I did I heard the front door open followed by Michael’s distinct footfall.

“So, how do you play this game of yours? Do you mind if I give it a shot?”

The three of them looked a little confused at the sudden change in seating arrangements, but didn’t speak up about it.

“Um, sure you can have my
controller. What you want to do is—”, a young red head was cut off by Michael making his presence known to all around him.

“Hello everyone, there you are Gloria. I was looking for you.
”

“
I’ve been in here. As a matter of fact, it’s my turn to play,” I
held up the controller as if to prove my innocence and plastered my face
with a sickly sweet smile.

“It’s too bad you won’t get your chance, it’s time we left for our tour
.”

Michael kept his eyes trained on me as everyone in the house gathered together to go see Michael’s new production centers. As we hit the threshold of the door Michael spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Gloria, I was thinking we can use your human as an example for the milking station. He is, after
all, just a feeder correct? So
it shouldn’t be an issue to show how a human will be strapped in and drained, we won’t drain yours completely of course we know how fond you are of him.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t respond without giving us all away. I stayed as close to Christian as I could and Ana came to walk on his other side, I felt William directly behind us and when I looked I noticed Victoria had blended in with the group, but still managed to place herself
directly
in
front of Christian. No one would be able to touch him, not on our watch.

I thought we would all cram in
to cars and start a caravan to wherever it was Michael
was taking us
. Instead he started walking down the street with a group of about 15 vampires in tow.
None of us wanted
to
ask where the hell he was leading
us, so like good little lackey
s we followed him. After weaving in and out along the houses and streets of the neighborhood for a good 30 minutes Michael finally stopped walking and turned to us.

“Here
is
one of our many production centers. I am incredibly proud of the endeavor as it was my brainchild.”

He was standing in the center of a street in what was a middle-class neighborhood. There were children
’s bikes lying in various lawns
the
requisite
two cars parked in the driveways. No one seemed to want to speak up, but we all looked around trying to figure out what he was talking about.

Finally someone did, “where exactly are we supposed to be looking Michael? I don’t see a center of any sort, just a bunch of houses.”
The woman who spoke up was a small Asian woman, with short cropped hair. She had on glasses, which was
different for
a
vampire
. It must be for the look because I knew she would have perfect vision like every other vampire.

“Exactly!” Michael enthused, “it’s also what anyone else looking for these centers would see as well. There is nothing to give them away, nothing that makes them stick out. We have large warehouses as well, but in order to maintain production in the event of an attack we have thousands of these centers right in the middle of enemy territory, and they will never even know. It’s brilliant don’t you think?”

Everyone else was cong
ratulating him with enthusiasm of the brilliance of it. William, Ana and I
were too struck with the realization that the Coven was really ahead of the Council. If they knew anything of this we had certainly never been debriefed on it.

“Well,
let’s
go inside! Each house can milk twenty humans of their blood at a time. We can drain them
completely
or keep them alive to use again later. The blood will be bagged for those vampires that prefer it or they can come to the center a
nd feed directly from the vein.”

“Why do this at all? Isn’t the purpose of revealing ourselves to make it easier to feed? To find victims and feed from them i
n public without having to hide.
T
his just
seems like
an elaborate ploy to
again
hide what we are?” William asked Michael, the only one willing to challenge his plan.

“This is why you will never go anywhere
, William
,
the point of the production centers are not to hide from humans, but to keep the mass blood supply
away
from other vampires. I don’t plan on enslaving humans simply to drain
them;
I plan on doing it in order to bend the vampire world to my will. To starve them out if you choose.”
The gleam in his eye as he told us his plan was pure malevolence.

“You plan to control vampires by controlling the food supply? You must know that will never work
. H
umans and vampires both will revolt against you.”

“Humans are too weak and the vampires to
o
dumb. They won’t realize what I’m doing until it’s too late. Now
,
shou
ld we give them a demonstration? W
hat was it Gloria called you—Chris?” He held his hand out to Christian trying to get him to willingly be a pig to the slaughter.

From out of nowhere we heard
a loud roaring
. We all turned to the sound to see it was
the collective voices of a mob of angry humans. Apparently they knew what was going on in their neighborhood
,
and they didn’t like it.

“That’s the problem with surrounding yourself with humans, you can’t separate the heartbeats that should be there
from
the ones that shouldn’t,” Ana said a bit smugly.

“Yeah, that neighborhood watch will get you every time,” William told her.

Michael shot them both a scathing look that clearly said he was not pleased.

“Kill them all,” he ordered.

The group of vampires with him charged toward the
mob.
The humans were armed with wooden stakes and knives that glinted off the moonlight. I could smell a wave of garlic coming off the mob, and though it would have no
effect
on us I was amazed at their tenacity to attack a group as large as ours.
William, Ana and Victoria took off with the group after watching the attack for just a moment. I couldn’t believe they would participate in this. I then saw that they were surreptitiously blocking the vampires from being able to kill the group; though several humans dropped dead to the ground despite their efforts. William’s phone flashed to his ear and I tried to distract Michael before he noticed.

“Michael, this is awfully public. Call them off before someone notices and calls
the
human police,” I was pleading with him.

Before he could answer me my eyes opened wide at what I saw coming up from the opposite end of the street.
There was another group of vampires coming up to meet our own. There was no way any of those humans were going to make it out of here alive. Michael turned to see what I was staring at and stopped short, he seemed surprised as well. I felt hope igniting within me when I caught
sight
of Martin in the back of the oncoming group.

I spun to face Christian, “you need to get out here before someone attacks you. Go quick!”

“I’m not
leaving your side,” he snapped while
triggering
the blade from within his boot.

Suddenly the group of Council vampires were there and jumping into the middle of the fight. They were picking off the Coven as easily as if they were slapping away flies.
They weren’t just attacking the
Coven vamps
until they stopped fighting
;
they didn’t stop until they staked them through the heart.
I couldn’t be happier until they began to turn on William, Ana and Victoria, they must not know who we really are! Because the group attacking the humans was suddenly much smaller
, and I was distracted
;
I didn’t realize that Michael, Christian and I were suddenly surrounded.

“Christian!” William called out to him.

We looked his way to see a stake tumbling through the air in Christian’s direction. He was throwing him a weapon even if it meant killing one of the good guys.
I crouched facing one of the oncoming vampires as
Christian ca
ught the stake with a sure hand
and turned just as we w
ere about to be overpowered by a
n oncoming vampire. A small group had jumped on us at
once. I was grappling with a vampire
of my own and could only watch as Christian caught the stake and spun striking an attacking vampire dead center in his chest.

I don’t think Christian was
fully
aware of what he had done.

He had just saved Michael’s life.

The vampire he staked was a Council vamp and had been posed to
land a killing blow by
stak
ing
Michael. Martin called out to
the remaining Council vamps
and the
y
ran
away into the night
-- just as quickly as they came, but n
ot
before Martin
sho
t
me a
scathing
look
that was ready to kill
. We were all surround by silence
as we stared at one another. Christian was looking at the stake in his hand and the disintegrating vampire before him.

Michael turned to Christian taking his hand in his shaking it firmly, “thank you. You just saved my life. I would never expect something like that from a human no matter how loyal to their master.”

Christian didn’t respond
,
just kept looking blankly at the stake in his hand. I reached over taking it from his grip.

Michael’s head snapped up and cocked to
the
side, “I believe you have been proven correct in your prediction Gloria. It seems the human police are
on
their way. I believe we should part ways before they arrive.” It was only then that I could also hear the screeching of the police and ambulance sirens.

“My invitation does
stand;
however, you are more than welc
ome to stay with me if you wish--
”

“No.” Michael’s eyebrows rose at the abruptness of my reply.

“I mean no thank you. Not tonight Michael,” I told him with
weariness
I was sure he could sense.

“Of course, I’ll be seeing you later, my sweet.” He nodded goodbye to Christian
,
leaving
without another word with Monica in his wake.

The five of us were left standing on a street that was littered with slaughtered human bodies and piles of ash from the disintegrated vampires, in what would have been an otherwise quiet neighborhood. The sounds of approaching sirens getting closer the longer we stood there.

“We need to leave
now
. We will be killed on sight if not taken into custody. Christian
must
not be seen either
,” Victoria started walking down the street opposite of the oncoming sirens.

Christian hadn’t uttered a sound yet. I was deva
stated at what he was forced in
to doing. By putting him into this situation I had stolen his innocence from him, it disintegrated right along with the life of the vampire he
had
killed. We didn’t make it ten feet when Ana suddenly stopped walking
while
eerily
turning her head to
the
right.

“What are you doing? We need to get out of here,” I hissed at her back.

“Humans. I hear their hearts beating like frightened rabbits,” she looked at me, then Christian, “get him out of here. I’ll take care of them.”

The sirens becoming louder.
I was becoming more panicked.

“What are you going to do? You can’t kill them after what you just did to protect them!”

“
They have seen us and more importantly they have seen Christian. They will give his description to the police.”

“I don’t want anyone else killed because of me,” Christia
n sounded as panicked as I was feeling.

“I can compel them to forget
, at
least let me try before you just kill them.”

“There are five
of them there isn’t enough time,
”
Ana was firmly holding her ground.

“I can do them all at the same time
.” I spun around, “
Victoria, can you get Christian out of here before the police arrive?”

Victoria didn’t say anything she just bent over and flung Christian over her shoulder running down the street so quickly her feet were a blur. The only thing left behind was the sound of Christian protesting
.
I’m sure it hurt his pride hav
ing
a girl half his size fling him over
her
shoulder like a child. Once he was gone I didn’t hesitate to make my way to the bushes where the sounds of human heartbeats were coming. They must have ran and hidden during the fight. I didn’t blame them.

“Jules, no one can compel five humans at once. We don’t have time for this
,
”
William was arguing as he followed after me.

“It can’t be harder than multiple vampires can it? Humans are
always easier,” I said off handed
ly and took a clearing breath to focus myself.
My compulsion
was quick to respond again, but the oncoming police were making me nervous.

I stopped in front of the bush and knelt down to face five pairs of wide, fright
ened eyes. Ana moved behind
them
to prevent them from run
ning
away.

“You might want to back up a little, I don’t want to accidently get you too,” I told Ana with an awkward half smile. She didn’t argue, just raised her eyebrows and stepped back.

With my compulsion at the ready I
shrank down and
made eye contact with each set of terrified e
yes. I focused all my energy in
to their minds until I could feel the pressure of it
shoving
back at me. I was grateful to be kneeling because I had to brace myself on
my
hands and knees in order to hold myself up. The amount of energy I was
using
to exe
rt my will on
them was
as
tounding.