The Vampire-Alien Chronicles (13 page)

“Rostov will entertain you.  He assures me he will do his utmost to honor you request, whatever it might be.”  She said, conveying Rostov's displeasure unwittingly.

'He is arrogant.'  I sent to Sonafi.  'He must feel he holds the high ground.  We had better be prepared.'

Aloud I said; “Thank you.  We only have a small request to make, and then we will be on our way.”

'She does not believe you.'  Sonafi sent.

We took the car which had been provided us, a Russian model that was no joy to drive but would not be missed if we had to ditch it quickly.  We followed Volga and Patar, the Juvenile whom I suspected to be Rostov's son, in another car as they led us through the city streets and then into the country beyond.  Finally we came to a large dacha which was mostly hidden behind a high steel fence.

“Obtrusive.”  Sonafi said as we pulled to a halt behind Volga and
Patar's car.  “Is he that secure then!”

“So it would seem.”  I said.  “We would never get away with such an open display in America.”

“Maybe we have forgotten just how comfortable the Old Country can be,” Sonafi said, “if a Vampire can live right out in the open here now.”

“I would not want to attempt it.”  I added.

The gate was opened electronically from somewhere within the house, presumably, and slid aside to let us enter.  Volga and Patar entered ahead of us.  I put the car in gear again and followed them inside.

“Volga is terrified.”  Sonafi said.  I could feel the girl's fear, as well.  It was strong.

“She has good cause.”  I said.  The fact that she had entered the dacha's grounds meant that Rostov wanted her to answer for her actions- after he had dealt with us.  “I would not want to have to answer such a summons from such a monster, were I his junior.”

“He will try to kill us.”  Sonafi said simply, a fact we had both already recognized.

“So we are now Judge and Executioner.”  I said.  It was a statement of fact.  Not a fact I was particularly happy about, either.

“Maybe we
have
been gone too long.”  Sonafi said.

“Maybe we have.”  I agreed.

We began to follow them up the long curving drive.  Rostov's massive dacha was still three hundred yards down the curving drive, possibly a hundred yards as the crow flies and it was as we were about to enter an area free of the decorative landscaping, where we would be in plain sight of the dacha ahead, that I knew.

I don't k
now how this process works.  It’s the ability to sense malignant purpose.  A dread rose up within me.  A surety of evil intent and that I was about to fall under attack.  I have always had this ability.  This sixth or seventh sense if you will, of being able to detect when I am threatened.  All Vampires have this ability and it increases with age similarly to our other attributes and is one of the reasons it is so difficult for a Juvenile to kill an Elder.  I knew we only had moments, knew that we had to get out of the close confines of the rolling metal death trap in which we were enclosed and which was about to become our permanent coffin if we remained within it even only a moment longer. 

“Get out!”  I snapped even as
the car continued to roll forward.  I didn't bother with the door handle but just threw my shoulder into the door and as the lock snapped and the door flew open, slipped out into the night.  Sonafi moved as quickly as I, exiting out the opposite side.

The guns, heavy caliber machine guns, opened up then and tore the car apart as it rolled beyond the covering of the screening landscaping and out into the open.  A bullet found the gas tank and it erupted in
a geyser of flame that lifted the whole car from the ground, flipped it end over end and came down on its roof, where it continued to burn furiously.

The machine guns continued to fire into the car,
a dozen of them at least, winking from various places around the distant dacha; the roof line, windows and from the grounds surrounding the structure.  Even though we weren't actually under fire I found the bole of a large tree behind which to conceal myself and turned back to look for Sonafi.  Even to my own senses she was nearly a blur as she approached.  A long knife in each hand, she appeared at my side.  What would have seemed magic to a Human, I watched with calm detachment and perfect normalcy.  The feeling of dread was now gone.  The cards were on the table.

“I would not want to have been caught in that inferno.”  Sonafi said in a normal voice, utterly fearless.  “I do not think we could have survived it.”

“Modern weapons.”  I cursed, but it was not only Rostov's use of modern weapons or even his attack which dismayed me, but the fact that we were now strangers in a strange land, with no friend anywhere we might turn.  “Rostov should have known better.”  I vowed.

“He will have realized his error before we depart.”

“He will,” I agreed, “but that moves us no closer to the realization of our goal.”

“He's a tyrant in need of killing.  Unfortunately it falls t
o us to do the killing.  We cannot walk away now.”  Sonafi said.

CHAPTER 11

It always seemed to devolve to us to have to police the Community.  Would we always be the only Vampires capable of seeing the need for a reasoned, intelligent standard of governance?  For a standard of morality that holds life upon the high pedestal it deserves?  That holds it sacred and with the respect it deserves?  Can so few Vampires grow to really great age without that power corrupting them to their very cores?  Is this what has happened to the Others?  What a sad ending to what would otherwise have been a triumphant achievement- a race which had reached the very pinnacles of technological success but which then lost itself to its megalomania insanity at its own greatness. It wasn’t a new story.

“It is no
t our fault that others are weak.”  Sonafi said, not bothering to whisper.  No Vampires were close enough to hear over the roaring flames engulfing the burning car.  Nor would she have cared if there were. 

“I should have killed Rostov long ago.”  I said with
only the slightest vehemence, then as now I was tired of the killing whether it was necessary or not.

A car was coming back down the curving drive now, and we saw that it was the same that we had been following, containing Volga and
Patar, bid return to the scene of the crime to ascertain that we had really been killed.  It wasn't their faults.  They had not known this was going to happen.  They would not have been able to hide such treachery from us.  It was possible he had only made the decision after receiving Volga's telephone call.  He had obviously come to the conclusion that we were here to murder him in retribution for the things he had done.  I supposed, had I known of his proclivities earlier, I
would
have come for that reason.  Well, he had now left us no choice.

“He has a guilty conscience.”  I said.  “If it was not for his guilty
conscience we would not now be in this position.”

“He's brought it upon himself.  Let it then be upon him.”

I wanted to do what was needful before the inferno roiling through the crumpled car diminished enough for them to realize we had escaped, and we were quickly running out of time.  We needed to move.  “Let's go this way.”  I pointed out a route which would keep the trees lining the drive, and the other landscaping greenery dotting the estate, between us and the house then sprinted off into the darkness, following the path I had pointed out to Sonafi.

Though Vampires can see in the thermal, we also have lower body temperatures than Humans, so that when we moved at our greatest speeds, the heat produced by our bodies, lesser than Humans in the first place, was mostly dissipated over the extended distance we traveled.  So neither Volga nor
Patar saw us as we slipped away, and having no doubt probably already looked into the flames of the burning car would have been completely blind to any slight emanations we had released, if they had happened to have looked in our direction, at all.  Within moments we were nestled close to the foundation of the dacha and looking carefully around.  I did not think anyone had seen us but I was not willing to open my mind, and risk exposure, to find out.  A Vampire is not impervious to bullets, and these were large caliber weapons.  I did not want to taste their bite.  It would more than sting.

I pointed a finger upward to indicate what I intended.  We were on the side of the dacha, no longer facing the long, curving drive.  There was no sign that there were any of the defenders at any of the windows above us, but I had noted that at least one of those windows was open.  We were directly beneath that window now.

My walking cane has a small clip which can be used to hook it to my belt, and I put it there now, out of the way and to free up my hands.  I kicked off my shoes.  While I did this one of Sonafi's knives disappeared back about her person while the other went between her teeth, edge outward.  Her own shoes came off and then she was indicating, with her eyes, which direction she would go up.  There was an open window right above us, and she had seen that one of the rear windows was open, as well.  They felt themselves pretty secure.

Sonafi had known that I would demand the more dangerous route and so had acceded it automatically.  This was not male chauvinism so much as it was simply common sense.  I was the Elder, faster, more experienced fighter.  We had fought together, side by side, on so many occasions that we now did so as second nature.  We did not have to think to know what the other would do, how they would do it, or how they would react to any given situation.  We knew one another as we knew ourselves.  Better maybe.

We had to think in as strategic a manner as possible.  The outcome of this encounter by no means assured.  Rostov was no impotent opponent.  The weapons they were employing meant they took this encounter every bit as seriously as did we, except that they had underestimated us. 

We went up the wall, I to the window closest to the front wall, Sonafi towards the rear.  Like ungainly malformed insects we scurried up the wall to our separate destinations, the cedar siding providing excellent finger and toe holds.  I reached my destination first but paused there, under the open window, long enough to see Sonafi reach her own chosen window and vanish inside, like a wisp of smoke or flitting shadow, seen but gone so quickly one could not be sure of the senses, could not really be certain they had seen what was thought to have been seen.  Then I went in through my own window.

I made my own flitting shadow, moving like striking lightning.  I appraised the interior of the room as I went over the sill.  It was occupied.  A Vampire stood behind a machine gun propped upon a tripod resting on the interior of the forward facing window frame.  His full attention was focused forward and he was dead before he realized I was present, his neck broken, nearly twisted completely from his shoulders.  I set his body gently on the floor, so as not to let the thump of the falling body be a warning to the other defenders within the dacha.  My precaution was wasted.  Gunfire erupted somewhere in the rear of the dacha as a Vampire's telepathic warning ripped out across the ether.

'Intruders!'  Then the mind v
anished and the gunfire ceased.  I did not have to guess what had happened to it.  I knew what had happened to it.  Sonafi had happened to it.

The defenders were all
Juveniles.  Rostov's insanity was as much paranoia as it was dementia.  He had killed all of those with whom he should have surrounded himself.  Now he was essentially on his own.  No Juvenile posed a threat to either Sonafi or I in the close confines of the dacha.  We had nothing to fear but Rostov himself and he was not near.  Wherever within the dacha Rostov hid, his mind was closed and I would have to get nearer to him before I would be able to detect him.

Confusion and panic rose in the minds of the defenders.  I blocked their cacophony of telepathic consternation as unimportant and tried to concentrate on detecting Rostov.  I would only kill the
Juveniles if they got in my way.  My fight was with Rostov.  The Juveniles were merely unwitting players in a drama not of their own creation.  They obeyed Rostov because they had no other choice, and I was not like Rostov.  I was not a cold blooded killer.  I would not go around and systematically kill every one of them.  I should be no different than Rostov if I did.

I could not speak for Sonafi.  They had participated in a joint attack which had very nearly succeeded in killing us.  Had come closer to doing so than many others who have tried, and Sonafi might have less forgiveness in her heart than I.  If she would not want to leave an enemy behind her, then there would be no enemies left behind.

I thought it a good likelihood we would not be able to get out of here without killing most or all of them.  Fearing our vengeance they would not quickly surrender.  They would see only one possible out for themselves, and that impossible, but still I would not seek them out to kill them.  Killing was a chore I performed when necessary but not one that I relished.  I have done enough killing, Human, Vampire and the Others, to have completely cleansed myself of the hatred I had learned in my youth.  I killed when it was necessary but never otherwise.

A glimmer of Sonafi's mind sliced out of the ether, then as quickly clamped shut.  Within the projected thought had been the image of the window I had used to enter the dacha.  I knew what she was telling me.  I went back out that window even as Sonafi's projected thought image slammed shut.  I cracked my own mind open as I
went out the window.  Only a crack but enough for her to see I was clear.  I did not know what she intended but I knew that the mental image of the window she had projected meant she wanted me out it.  I wasted no time.