The Pilgrims of the Damned: A Vampire Thriller, page 26
“Who goes there?” a voice shouted from somewhere beyond Miles’s now hazy vision.
“A blind man, apparently,” Miles shouted. “Could you lower the fucking lights? It’s been a shite night.”
“Answer the question,” the voice shouted back.
Miles took a deep breath. He wasn’t in the mood to be questioned, but he also knew now was not the time for him to be a dick. “Miles Watson,” he called out. “Arbiter, vampire, ex-House Venator First Librarian. Bodyguard to Amelia Roberts, owner of a large dog by the name of Church. Although I guess owner isn’t really the right term, as she pretty much owns herself.”
“Are you done?” the voice asked.
Miles noticed that he’d been rambling. “Aye, I guess so. You want to know anything else?”
The floodlights extinguished, and Miles had to blink a few times to get the floating white orbs out of his vision. “Ta, very much,” he called out.
“Why are you partially naked?” the voice shouted as the doors slowly began to open.
“Are ya taking the fucking piss, lad?” Miles called back. “I’ve just walked several fucking miles, through the pouring fucking rain, after having fought a fucking werewolf, and a desolate giant, and a massive twat by the name of Stuart Murphy. Witch extraordinaire, apparently. Look, please just get First Authority Thomas Reed. I have something I need to give back to him.”
Miles raised the broadsword in the air, swayed slightly, and dropped to the ground with a sigh. He stayed there as several guards from inside the town arrived, all aiming spears at him.
“Stand down,” a voice boomed, and the six guards immediately stepped to the side. They remained at attention as a human woman with long grey hair wearing an old navy blue sweatshirt and jeans walked by them and offered Miles her hand. “Carol Walters.”
Miles took her hand, and allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet. “Thank you.”
“Let’s get you inside,” Carol said. “You have some people who are waiting for you. And I’d like a debrief about what you encountered out there tonight.”
Miles walked by the guards, none of whom looked up from the ground they’d been staring at.
“If possible, I’d very much like a blood pouch and some clothes,” Miles said as they passed beneath the portcullis into a large courtyard, which looked a lot like the ones in the forts Miles had been to. “Has Thomas, or anyone else, told you about everything we’ve found at Falmouth?”
“Yes,” Carol said. “We have additional security on standby within the city. If they try something like that here, they’re going to find out why Bangor has managed to stay in one piece all these years.”
“Good,” Miles said. “So am I okay to feed and change before the debrief? I’d like to see Dr. Joseph Davies, too, First Lord Drest told me to speak to him.”
Carol nodded. “We can do the food and shower, and even a change of clothes, but Joseph Davies is missing.”
Miles stopped walking in the middle of the courtyard. “He’s what?”
“We’ll explain everything,” Carol said, motioning for Miles to continue through to the opposite end of the courtyard, where a second set of large doors had already been opened. “We’ll get you somewhere, and bring in those vehicles your friends arrived in. We need to check them over first, make sure they don’t have any passengers they shouldn’t.”
“Passengers?” Miles asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Carol said grimly.
Just beyond the second gate was a large open area that looked as if it had once been a car park. It had dozens of vehicles, both civilian and military, parked there, and a large building sat off to one side, where several armed people entered and left on a regular basis.
Beyond that were six small single-storey buildings set in a line, each with a turreted machine gun outside of it. Miles looked up at the towers that sat at several points as the walls stretched around the city, and noticed dozens of personnel and more weaponry.
There was street lighting all around the place, and several small generators that hummed as cables ran from them into the buildings.
“This place has changed a lot since I was last here,” Miles said as they stopped by a golf cart, and Carol motioned for him to get in.
“The buildings here used to be a residential district in the town,” Carol said as the golf buggy set off. “We had to demolish them, repurpose as much as we could. Large parts of what used to be the town are now outside of the protection zone we put in place. They’re safe, for the most part, but we don’t advise people go out there alone. The city is divided into parts now, with the residential area being what used to be the Broadway District and Whitney Park. What was Fairmount is now where you just came through, and is mostly our military area. One of four. We kept the Union and State Street Bridges, and on the other side of the river is where I’m taking you. We use it as a guest area, and it’s where most of the council members live and work. There’s another military encampment close to what was I-395. You know, before big parts of it were blown all to hell.”
Carol drove through the alleyway that separated the six buildings, and out onto what Miles thought might have been the main square for the city. There was a large green area in the centre, with buildings all around it, and three roads leading off. Carol took one of the roads, and continued down, driving by shops and a diner, all of which looked to be in use. There were dozens of people out and about, too, all seemingly going about their lives.
“How many people live here?” Miles asked as they continued on toward one of the bridges.
“About twenty-two thousand,” Carol said. “It’s approximately seventy-five percent human, but we all get along.”
They crossed one of the bridges and went down a hill, as fewer and fewer buildings populated the area, until it was fields, although the large walls were still visible in the distance. The rain had stopped, thankfully, and visibility had improved, but the roads were so slick with rain that Miles wasn’t sure driving a golf cart at speed was the safest way to get around.
“There used to be an airport here,” Carol said. “Or back there. We repurposed it for training. In fact everyone who lives here has to have been a part of the guard to defend the city. We have electricity, and internal phone lines, although don’t ask about using your cell phone, and definitely don’t ask about Wi-Fi. Sometimes I wonder why those who leave for the outside world ever come back. A simpler life, I guess.”
“Yeah, that must be it,” Miles said. “You have a lot of people leave?”
“No,” Carol said. “And about ninety percent return if they do.”
“You like the eighties, by any chance?” Miles asked, trying to sound conversational.
Carol looked at him confused. “We do movie nights here. Eighties films are always the most popular. Why, are you a fan?”
“Of some of it,” Miles said. “Maine seems to have consolidated a bit of a fanbase for the decade.”
They’d been driving for about ten minutes when Carol pulled over to a large motel. There were shutters attached to the outside of every window, and whatever the sign out front had once said, it now read Vampire Inn.
“We converted this place to let vampires stay here when they arrive,” Carol said. “Your friends are inside. The governing body is over there.”
Miles followed Carol’s gesture to a large single-storey building on the opposite side of the road, next to what had been another parking area, and was now clearly a staging zone for the city guard. The building was all glass and wood, and looked a lot more inviting that the large number of armed personnel would have suggested. There were dozens of people, along with tanks, APVs, jeeps, and a lot of other tech that looked to Miles to be a lot newer than fifty years.
Carol nodded as if she knew what Miles was thinking. “We get shipments of weaponry every few years,” she said. “Mostly military stuff. They just keep sending it on in here, and we use it to keep the desolate population as low as possible. They tried to send us helicopters a while back, but they don’t work. No one seems to know why. You can get about a hundred feet up, and they just stop. No one wanted to figure it out after the first two crashes. Anyway, we’ll be over in that building. Your room is 109.” She passed Miles a key.
“Thank you,” he said.
“There’s a fridge inside, stocked with blood pouches,” Carol continued. “You’ll have to see your friends about a change of clothing. We had them cart everything out of their vehicles, so hopefully your clothes are here.”
Miles climbed out of the golf buggy and looked north up the empty road. “The wall go that far north?”
“All the way up to Veazie,” Carol said. “Where the wall can’t be built, we had permanent encampments put there. Moats, razor wire, machine gun batteries. The whole thing. The northwest is the worst for it. Lot of woods, grasslands, and the like. The US military sent in a few thousand troops a year to train here, you know that?”
Miles shook his head. “The Assembly, too?”
Carol nodded. “Yeah, we get a lot of vampire assault teams up here. They go out, remove a lot of desolate.”
“Any go to Augusta?”
“No one goes to Augusta,” Carol said. “It’s a dangerous place, even for vampires.”
“So people keep telling me,” Miles replied. “Someone mentioned that Dr. Davies was shown some black rocks. You know anything about that?”
Carol nodded. “He was obsessed with it.”
“Any idea why?”
Carol shook her head.
“Thanks very much,” Miles said. “I’ll go get changed and see you shortly.”
Carol left with a wave of her hand, and Miles stood in the parking area of an old motel for several moments. He needed to see Thomas. He made a lap of the building, and found that it had an old basketball court at the rear of it, although with the amount of plant life growing through the concrete, it was probably the triffids’ basketball court now.
Miles returned to the front of the motel to find Thomas and his two Blood Guard standing outside. “I saw you come in,” Thomas said, eyeing the sword in Miles’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” Miles said, passing Thomas the necklace.
Thomas stared at the necklace for several seconds, before encasing it in his fist. “What happened?”
“A lot,” Miles said. “I need a blood pouch before I fall down.”
Thomas blinked as if seeing Miles’s state for the first time. “Oh shit, Miles, you look like you were set on fire. Get up to your room. We’ve had your things brought there. Go feed; we’ll be waiting for you in the… common room. It’s just beyond the reception there.”
Miles walked up to the two Blood Guard, who both stared at him from behind their masks. He passed one of them the sword. “Your comrade was a brave man. He killed a werewolf with this sword. Took its head.”
The Blood Guard whom Miles had passed the sword to took it in hand, staring at it. “Thank you,” they said eventually.
Miles nodded and took the stairs up to the room on the key, opened the door, and stepped inside. He dropped the key on the queen-sized bed and tore off the remains of his clothing, letting them fall into a pile in front of an old battered chest of drawers. He opened the door to a small bathroom and stepped inside, turning on the shower before leaving and opening the mini-fridge in the room. After removing one of three blood pouches inside, he tore it open and sniffed the contents—synthetic blood. Probably a few weeks old. Not a problem with synthetic blood, although it was probably mass-produced stuff that tasted like nothing.
He took a sip—he was right about the taste, but his body didn’t care, and he drank the blood pouch down in one go, closing his eyes and feeling the aches that filled his body leave. His body healed quickly, and when he was done, he practically crawled into the bathroom, dragging himself up and into the old bathtub to let the cool water flow over him.
He remained lying down for a few seconds before getting to his feet, noticing the dirty colour of the water that was coming off him. When the water was clear, he washed himself with the nearby soap, and when he finally felt… normal again, he climbed out of the shower and dried himself in a towel that was big enough for three people.
Miles found his clothing bag and removed a pair of jeans—one of the few he had left—a plain blood-red T-shirt, and a black hoodie. After he was dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed for a minute and let out a long sigh.
Deciding that staying in his room wasn’t going to get anything done, Miles left and easily found his way to the common room, where Church practically knocked him over the second he stepped inside. Most people said their hellos, with only those he’d expected to be unhappy at his return staying silent.
“Are you okay?” Amelia asked as Miles scratched Church’s chin.
Miles nodded and Amelia hugged him tightly.
“So,” Thomas said. “I think we need to talk.”
Miles nodded. “Yeah, we do, I’m sorry about your Blood Guard. He was a good man, Thomas.”
Thomas nodded. “He will be missed.”
Church followed Thomas and his two Blood Guard as he left the common room with Miles, stepping out into the clear and cold early Maine morning. Amelia strolled out after them.
“Is there any point in telling you to go back inside?” Thomas asked Amelia.
“If this has anything to do with werewolves, I want to know,” Amelia said. “I heard the Blood Guard talk about how you fought another one.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight,” Miles said. “I’m going to go across to that building and tell this tale to everyone at once. There’s nothing in it that is specific to House Idolator, I promise you. But if you want to know it now instead, I can tell it twice.”
“You sure there’s nothing?” Thomas asked.
“Werewolf, giant desolate, witch who had a staff and pendant or talisman which allowed him to do things I’d never seen a witch do before,” Miles said. “You ever heard of a teleporting witch?”
Amelia shook her head, worry written across her face.
“No,” Thomas told him. “Let’s just all go see Carol and her people together. We can figure out where to go from there.”
They all crossed the road, nodding a thank-you to the guards who were outside the building as they opened the doors to let them in.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The single-storey building had a large open lobby with three doors leading off it, two on the right and one on the left. There were two more doors directly in front of the main entrance, both with the word bathroom written on them.
A fire door sat next to the bathrooms, outside of which stood Carol, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.
“You’re allowed to smoke in here?” Thomas asked.
“Allowed isn’t a word I’d throw about,” Carol told him, stubbing the cigarette out on an ashtray she held in her other hand. “It’s more of a who’s going to tell me to stop situation. Besides, some days you just really need a cigarette. You ready to debrief us?”
Miles nodded.
“The journalist is coming?” Carol asked. “Not sure how I feel about that.”
“She’s writing a story about a group of murderers who fled from Boston into Maine,” Miles said, twisting the truth enough that it wasn’t a complete lie. “Seeing how I just bumped into one of them, I think she’s probably earned the right to be told what I saw. Besides, it’s not like she can publish it out here, so anything she learns that might not be great for Maine, you have time to fix the problem.”
“By problem, you mean murderers running around,” Carol said, pushing open the fire door to reveal a hallway beyond. “Fine, let’s go.”
Everyone followed Carol down the hallway, by the glass windows on either side, overlooking more of the military personnel outside.
“You gearing up for a conflict?” Miles asked.
Carol said nothing, taking a left at the end of the hallway and opening another fire door into a large meeting room. Heavy blackout blinds had been pulled down, covering the windows within the room, and the lighting inside was warm and pleasant. There were refreshments along one wall, with paper cups and bottles of water, along with a coffee percolator and several mugs.
Miles took a seat at the long table in the centre of the room, which, considering the fourteen chairs around it, was clearly designed for a lot more than who were going to be at the meeting. Unless Bangor was going to be bringing a lot of its own people.
Carol poured a mug of black coffee and took a seat opposite Miles. Amelia sat beside him, while Thomas walked to the end of the table, a Blood Guard on either side. Church slunk under the table, eventually lying down by Miles’s feet when she finally found a comfortable position.
“This it?” Miles asked.
“We’re waiting on some of the other council members,” Carol said. “It’s early, and not everyone is used to being up at three in the morning.”
“So, you said the doctor is missing,” Miles said. “You want to fill us in on that? While we wait?”
“We’ll wait,” Carol said. “I think there’s a lot going on here that you need to hear about.”
Ten minutes of uncomfortable silence followed Carol’s last words, and Miles let out a slight sigh of relief when the doors opened and eight people walked in one after the other. They were all either in smart suits or wearing scrubs, with no middle ground.
“You didn’t need to dress up,” Miles said as the five wearing suits took their seats next to Carol.
“These are the leaders of the Bangor council,” Carol said. “From right to left, we have Xander Mills, Eric Dunlap, Graham Chen, Toby Richardson, and Rosie Ford. Xander and Rosie are the vampire members of the council.”
Miles looked along the line of people and nodded a hello. He looked over to the three in scrubs, who had taken seats on the opposite side of Carol. A man and two women. “And you three?”
“My name is Bethany Parker,” the woman next to Carol said. “These are my associates, Madison Delaney and Theo Gallagher.”
