It started with some blood users showing up in clinics across the city with mild tremors and heightened levels of anxiety. Most blood drinkers still showed the
usual effects of absorbing a vampire's blood - temporarily enhanced strength, speed and perceptions - but a growing percentage of users began to look more
and more like your classic junkie, strung out on something damaging that was eating away at them. Then ten or so cases from June became fifty in August, and by
the time September rolled around, a full-scale moratorium on the consumption of vampire blood had to be put in effect. Users were discouraged from contacting
their donors and the Azraelite Red Snow dens saw their biggest crackdowns in recent history. The first theories involved a sort of spontaneous mutation,
vampire blood slowly developing a new trait that only appeared in those that weren't turned, but scientific examinations turned up nothing conclusive.
Tensions rose. It briefly seemed that once again, the vampires of Hope would be the subject of mistrust, as they had been during the days of Ruthven and Smith Omega's manipulations.
Then all Hell broke loose.
October was almost over, but Halloween wasn't on anyone's heart. The city had been closed off and declared a quarantined area, the FEMA, National Guard and the CDC had been forced to withdraw their posts further and further away from the core of the city, until they were all but entirely gone. It wasn't safe to leave sealed buildings at night, anymore. Even the rooftop carousers were told to stay indoors. Their friends, neighbours and coworkers had all changed, turned into things that were only vampires in name and capacity. The Infected stopped at nothing to sate their bloodlust. They ignored obstacles, they ignored pain, they ignored all hazards and congregated in the shadows, to then descend on the occasional group of survivors that was still spotted, in groups of dozens. Hundreds, sometimes.
Hope now belonged to two types of individuals. There were the Infected and those who owed their immunity to their nature. The vampires, angels, demons and liches of this world were immune, but they were few in numbers. Unfortunately, dragons were not. Cordatus had fallen in early October. He had returned to his true form and, mad with bloodlust, had taken to circling atop the city endlessly, swooping down on occasion to snatch stragglers or abandoned cars which he left to fall on his victims.
Shield had fallen as well. Three was somewhere in the city, busy tearing someone's throat apart and using feral growls to confront whoever dared to approach his catch. Aislinn was elsewhere, the disease having wiped away all maternal instincts, all love for the wraith, everything. Matthias had been lucky to have been there when she turned, and was able to snatch little Rhiannon away from her mother before it was too late. If things had been normal, he would have given her blood to make the contusions his hasty grab had caused on her arms, but he knew better than to let anyone taste of his blood, now. He'd seen a man turn in less than thirty seconds after taking in blood from a generous Priestess of Lilith.
The Inferno had turned into an emergency relief camp. With the emergency groups gone from the city, it was hard for those of supernatural blood but without medical training to help the mortal survivors. Every day since two weeks ago, the city's vampires were confronted with desperate pleas for blood. One sip would heal all wounds and cure all illnesses caught since the outbreak - but it would also turn the absorbing mortals into more Infected. The vampire advocacy groups were speechless with regret and helplessness, and Lilith was nowhere to be found.
The city had fallen, quite simply. The public library owed its safety to Mentalor, who had moved the Hydra above it and kept a repulsor field around the building, which was guarded at the rim by armed and hastily trained Seelie and Unseelie, Karthian citizens and just about every able-bodied heavy hitter they had been able to find. Dynamics had been completely changed by the outbreak, with Weasel and Sarvin now acting as informal captains who organized rescue teams and scavenger hunts for non-perishables, water and additional survivors. Many taboos had been broken out of necessity. There was now no point for Bob or Clarimonde to continue pretending to be human, not when the healthy needed strong, capable leaders they could count on. The supernaturals were obviously envied by those who crowded the public library. Even if the Infected tore them apart, they wouldn't change.
It had been a long time since Matthias' last remembered nap. He'd always been fully functional during the night, as far as he could tell, had always been the kind to want to find something to do, some way to occupy his mind, at the very least. But after two weeks of nothing but half-clotted blood bags and relentless efforts to procure food, water, heat and shelter, he had finally crashed and sunken into a nocturnal and dreamless slumber from which Aristide woke him only a few hours later. It was odd, waking up and feeling so groggy, so weak, without the usual defence mechanisms in place. He'd woken up like tired mortals did, and it scared him somewhat.
"Matthias," said the gorilla, "I'm sorry to have to wake you, but we have to talk. The others gathered in your living room, upstairs. We can't keep surviving like this for long. We have to stop looking for ways to keep waiting for help. We have to take matters into our own hands."
The Librarian's clothes were rumpled, unkempt. Dried bloody sweat cracked as he furrowed his brows and groaned while sitting up. Vampires rarely gave off the usual mortal smells of filth, but it was painfully obvious that the old monk was in need of a long, warm bath. He also needed to stop feeding from those Infected who were beyond any possibility of safe containment, but who else could he feed from? Demon blood didn't agree well with him, and neither he or Weasel were in any particular hurry to find themselves in a situation this much intimate. In Weasel's words, feedings that had been agreed to by the donor looked "gay".
Matthias was emaciated and now started to resemble Max in some ways. The constant stress and sources of irritation were taxing his usually agreeable disposition. Instead of growing grumpy and aggressive, however, he tended to become melancholic and despondent.
"It's no use, old friend," he replied, rubbing his face to try and shake some of the slumber off of it. "Hope's fallen and the Guard can't keep the city quarantined forever. The Infected are going to spread out eventually, and nobody will have won. I think it's ironic, isn't it? The Xi'Nalai won't get their end-of-times rending of the world, the Finmen won't ever retake the coastal cities, the Sidhe War was halted abruptly here because of the outbreak, and Leonard has to wade through several million Infected if he wants to have his Armageddon. Then what? How is anything going to change?
- You can't see it now," objected Aristide, "but the loa won't let this go on. Baron Samedi doesn't like it when someone plays with death, and Maman Brigitte can't stand the sight of people suffering like this. It has to end some day.
- I wish I shared your optimism..."
The Azraelite gorilla half-pushed and half-pulled Matthias up the stairs and into his living quarters. As predicted, the couches were filled with the heads of the strongest survivor factions in the city. Weasel was slouched in Matthias' favourite reading chair and had helped himself to his alcohol cabinet. His clothes were the same as usual, apart from the addition of a few rips and tears and a bullet belt that held up ammunition for a Dragunov sniper which rested nearby. In the rodent's free hand waited the ubiquitous Lüger, its tip caked with the blood of many a downed Infected. He looked tired, cranky and pent-up. The poor man hadn't had decent sex for weeks now and with Weasel's standards concerning sex, he was likely to go on with his urges unsatisfied for quite some time. Especially now that most of his hookers had turned into homicidal, blood-sucking monsters.
Mentalor looked relatively unscathed from all this and, true to himself, was pacing about the vampire's quarters with his hands crossed up high behind his back, his metallic cape flowing behind him. On occasion, he brought a hand forward and lightly pulled on one of the tendrils that grew close to his mouth, the gesture thoughtful. The only sign of anything traumatic was the fact that his silver boots and his cape were both speckled with blood.
Azrael had refused Matthias' call to arms, but Catherine had chosen to respond. She also wore the same clothes as ever, her black felt dress and black wool shirt seemingly untouched. Her bun had been disturbed, however, and her hair only vaguely looked prim and proper. She hadn't done much fighting, except in many of the impromptu operating rooms they had been forced to create on the ground floor. So she was clean, but looked almost as exhausted as the Librarian himself.
Bob and Clarimonde had grown closer, oddly enough. Now no longer simple fuckbuddies, they both were seated close to one another on the vampire's couch. Bob tried to hide his concern and weariness behind his usual blazé pout and his own black sunglasses, but the way he had an arm around Clarimonde's shoulders, and the way she pressed against him, were telling. The succubus had rested her head against her companion's chest, her right hand gently stroked his exposed belly. She looked exhausted not of the recent ordeals, but of the fact that she hadn't had a decent moment alone with Bob in almost two weeks, now. She was tired, yes, but a desire for closeness and intimacy was obvious in her. She quietly resented the world for coming between her and her wish. It was clear that Bob felt the same way, but that he was putting on a brave face for the benefit of the others.
The least expected of the allies was possibly Cynan. His Glam Metal-slash-biker self was leaned against the side of one of Matthias' bookcases. He tried his very best to look bored and unconcerned, but silent and personal terrors loomed behind the fantasy eye contacts he wore, yellow cat's eyes that gave him a lazy, predatory and graceful look. Fear pulled at every muscle in his body, but his Unseelie self allowed him to turn these silent apprehensions into sources of power. So he did indeed seem afraid, but with the kind of fear that inspired to act, instead of the paralysing and soul-crushing kind. He had been tasked with handling any augmented Infected - Seelie and Unseelie turned feral by the disease, and which were unsafe to be handled by anyone other than someone who would have fought in the Sidhe War firsthand.
There were others, too, but most were off on hunting parties or searches for food. Coach was fighting for his life in an overrun shopping mall, clinging onto a few hamburger buns, a box of packaged chicken breasts and some Twinkies as if these were his personal Holy Grail. They obviously would be someone else's, as people were growing increasingly hungry.
It was Bob who spoke first. "Leonard's hunky-dory. He's cut off Maplethorne House from the rest of the world and he's got some rented dates and his juniors there. They're treating this like one big party. Drugs and booze and broads galore. I saw a couple crazies run across the road just in front of his driveway - it's like they can't see it at all. He must've veiled it."
Weasel scoffed. "Figures, huh? Had some o' my boys drive out to Wolf's Den. Reservation's full a' them blood-sucking crazies too. I say we level the place and take their supplies for ourselves.
- Of course you'd think that," retorted Clarimonde, "you'd leave us high and dry if you could.
- There's like three healthy people left there, toots," patiently replied the mustelid, "it's not like the Infected are gonna throw a fit if we grabbed four bars o' soap, a boxful of Cracker Jack's bags, some chips, Diet Pepsi, some cheapo Chilean wine an' Injun cigarettes! We've been hammerin' on 'bout how we gotta find stuff ta eat - I found just that, plus the fuckin' Yardstick o' Civilization!"
Clarimonde frowned, which made Weasel groan. "Soap, ya dumb broad; soap's the Yardstick o' Civilization! Ya wanna keep those sixty-plus people downstairs happy? Find a refill for that pink foamy crap that passes for soap in the bathroom downstairs, or pass these out."
To prove his point, he dug inside his jacket and pulled out a bar of deodorant soap which he'd pilfered from Wolf's Den's general store, and chucked it at Matthias. "It kinda looks like you oughta go for a scrubbin', Vampire Bill," he commented derisively. "If we can get the people cleaned up, we'll get some extra time to mount up somethin'. They're gettin' restless, and we need fuckin' medical supplies. You get the folks cleaned up; that means less risks of infection and less shit ta deal with for those half-assed interns ya whipped up with Leonard's other half, some o' yer vamps and an old-ass medical thesaurus."
Mentalor looked at the others. "The Karthian Synod is prepared to grant me amnesty and a supply of deuterium alloy, provided I gather the survivors and relocate them on the closest habitable planetoid. The city is lost, the quarantine will not hold forever and my repulsor emitter array will require recharging. I would advise retreat."
To that, Cynan chuckled darkly. "We aren't leaving Earth, darling," he replied softly, but still as sternly as if he had shouted. "None of the Dragonborn will ever agree to leaving Earth. Not my side, and especially not Eirean's.
- I could locate a suitable planet on which the main ferrous material is not iron," amended the Karthian, which made Cynan roll his eyes and shake a bang of lately ash-blond and reddish eighties' hair out of his eyes. "I'm overjoyed," he replied flatly. "Sorry, alien, but the War can't be spread out to other planets. We're connected to this place the same way dragons are connected to it. We can cope with trips abroad, but we'd die out there."
Catherine stood up and crossed her arms together. "We should go back to where it started," she proposed. "We need to understand how this infection spreads, and why.
- I agree," nodded Aristide. "We should also locate Barbello. If he's uninfected, he could help us."
Tensions rose. It briefly seemed that once again, the vampires of Hope would be the subject of mistrust, as they had been during the days of Ruthven and Smith Omega's manipulations.
Then all Hell broke loose.
***
October was almost over, but Halloween wasn't on anyone's heart. The city had been closed off and declared a quarantined area, the FEMA, National Guard and the CDC had been forced to withdraw their posts further and further away from the core of the city, until they were all but entirely gone. It wasn't safe to leave sealed buildings at night, anymore. Even the rooftop carousers were told to stay indoors. Their friends, neighbours and coworkers had all changed, turned into things that were only vampires in name and capacity. The Infected stopped at nothing to sate their bloodlust. They ignored obstacles, they ignored pain, they ignored all hazards and congregated in the shadows, to then descend on the occasional group of survivors that was still spotted, in groups of dozens. Hundreds, sometimes.
Hope now belonged to two types of individuals. There were the Infected and those who owed their immunity to their nature. The vampires, angels, demons and liches of this world were immune, but they were few in numbers. Unfortunately, dragons were not. Cordatus had fallen in early October. He had returned to his true form and, mad with bloodlust, had taken to circling atop the city endlessly, swooping down on occasion to snatch stragglers or abandoned cars which he left to fall on his victims.
Shield had fallen as well. Three was somewhere in the city, busy tearing someone's throat apart and using feral growls to confront whoever dared to approach his catch. Aislinn was elsewhere, the disease having wiped away all maternal instincts, all love for the wraith, everything. Matthias had been lucky to have been there when she turned, and was able to snatch little Rhiannon away from her mother before it was too late. If things had been normal, he would have given her blood to make the contusions his hasty grab had caused on her arms, but he knew better than to let anyone taste of his blood, now. He'd seen a man turn in less than thirty seconds after taking in blood from a generous Priestess of Lilith.
The Inferno had turned into an emergency relief camp. With the emergency groups gone from the city, it was hard for those of supernatural blood but without medical training to help the mortal survivors. Every day since two weeks ago, the city's vampires were confronted with desperate pleas for blood. One sip would heal all wounds and cure all illnesses caught since the outbreak - but it would also turn the absorbing mortals into more Infected. The vampire advocacy groups were speechless with regret and helplessness, and Lilith was nowhere to be found.
The city had fallen, quite simply. The public library owed its safety to Mentalor, who had moved the Hydra above it and kept a repulsor field around the building, which was guarded at the rim by armed and hastily trained Seelie and Unseelie, Karthian citizens and just about every able-bodied heavy hitter they had been able to find. Dynamics had been completely changed by the outbreak, with Weasel and Sarvin now acting as informal captains who organized rescue teams and scavenger hunts for non-perishables, water and additional survivors. Many taboos had been broken out of necessity. There was now no point for Bob or Clarimonde to continue pretending to be human, not when the healthy needed strong, capable leaders they could count on. The supernaturals were obviously envied by those who crowded the public library. Even if the Infected tore them apart, they wouldn't change.
***
It had been a long time since Matthias' last remembered nap. He'd always been fully functional during the night, as far as he could tell, had always been the kind to want to find something to do, some way to occupy his mind, at the very least. But after two weeks of nothing but half-clotted blood bags and relentless efforts to procure food, water, heat and shelter, he had finally crashed and sunken into a nocturnal and dreamless slumber from which Aristide woke him only a few hours later. It was odd, waking up and feeling so groggy, so weak, without the usual defence mechanisms in place. He'd woken up like tired mortals did, and it scared him somewhat.
"Matthias," said the gorilla, "I'm sorry to have to wake you, but we have to talk. The others gathered in your living room, upstairs. We can't keep surviving like this for long. We have to stop looking for ways to keep waiting for help. We have to take matters into our own hands."
The Librarian's clothes were rumpled, unkempt. Dried bloody sweat cracked as he furrowed his brows and groaned while sitting up. Vampires rarely gave off the usual mortal smells of filth, but it was painfully obvious that the old monk was in need of a long, warm bath. He also needed to stop feeding from those Infected who were beyond any possibility of safe containment, but who else could he feed from? Demon blood didn't agree well with him, and neither he or Weasel were in any particular hurry to find themselves in a situation this much intimate. In Weasel's words, feedings that had been agreed to by the donor looked "gay".
Matthias was emaciated and now started to resemble Max in some ways. The constant stress and sources of irritation were taxing his usually agreeable disposition. Instead of growing grumpy and aggressive, however, he tended to become melancholic and despondent.
"It's no use, old friend," he replied, rubbing his face to try and shake some of the slumber off of it. "Hope's fallen and the Guard can't keep the city quarantined forever. The Infected are going to spread out eventually, and nobody will have won. I think it's ironic, isn't it? The Xi'Nalai won't get their end-of-times rending of the world, the Finmen won't ever retake the coastal cities, the Sidhe War was halted abruptly here because of the outbreak, and Leonard has to wade through several million Infected if he wants to have his Armageddon. Then what? How is anything going to change?
- You can't see it now," objected Aristide, "but the loa won't let this go on. Baron Samedi doesn't like it when someone plays with death, and Maman Brigitte can't stand the sight of people suffering like this. It has to end some day.
- I wish I shared your optimism..."
The Azraelite gorilla half-pushed and half-pulled Matthias up the stairs and into his living quarters. As predicted, the couches were filled with the heads of the strongest survivor factions in the city. Weasel was slouched in Matthias' favourite reading chair and had helped himself to his alcohol cabinet. His clothes were the same as usual, apart from the addition of a few rips and tears and a bullet belt that held up ammunition for a Dragunov sniper which rested nearby. In the rodent's free hand waited the ubiquitous Lüger, its tip caked with the blood of many a downed Infected. He looked tired, cranky and pent-up. The poor man hadn't had decent sex for weeks now and with Weasel's standards concerning sex, he was likely to go on with his urges unsatisfied for quite some time. Especially now that most of his hookers had turned into homicidal, blood-sucking monsters.
Mentalor looked relatively unscathed from all this and, true to himself, was pacing about the vampire's quarters with his hands crossed up high behind his back, his metallic cape flowing behind him. On occasion, he brought a hand forward and lightly pulled on one of the tendrils that grew close to his mouth, the gesture thoughtful. The only sign of anything traumatic was the fact that his silver boots and his cape were both speckled with blood.
Azrael had refused Matthias' call to arms, but Catherine had chosen to respond. She also wore the same clothes as ever, her black felt dress and black wool shirt seemingly untouched. Her bun had been disturbed, however, and her hair only vaguely looked prim and proper. She hadn't done much fighting, except in many of the impromptu operating rooms they had been forced to create on the ground floor. So she was clean, but looked almost as exhausted as the Librarian himself.
Bob and Clarimonde had grown closer, oddly enough. Now no longer simple fuckbuddies, they both were seated close to one another on the vampire's couch. Bob tried to hide his concern and weariness behind his usual blazé pout and his own black sunglasses, but the way he had an arm around Clarimonde's shoulders, and the way she pressed against him, were telling. The succubus had rested her head against her companion's chest, her right hand gently stroked his exposed belly. She looked exhausted not of the recent ordeals, but of the fact that she hadn't had a decent moment alone with Bob in almost two weeks, now. She was tired, yes, but a desire for closeness and intimacy was obvious in her. She quietly resented the world for coming between her and her wish. It was clear that Bob felt the same way, but that he was putting on a brave face for the benefit of the others.
The least expected of the allies was possibly Cynan. His Glam Metal-slash-biker self was leaned against the side of one of Matthias' bookcases. He tried his very best to look bored and unconcerned, but silent and personal terrors loomed behind the fantasy eye contacts he wore, yellow cat's eyes that gave him a lazy, predatory and graceful look. Fear pulled at every muscle in his body, but his Unseelie self allowed him to turn these silent apprehensions into sources of power. So he did indeed seem afraid, but with the kind of fear that inspired to act, instead of the paralysing and soul-crushing kind. He had been tasked with handling any augmented Infected - Seelie and Unseelie turned feral by the disease, and which were unsafe to be handled by anyone other than someone who would have fought in the Sidhe War firsthand.
There were others, too, but most were off on hunting parties or searches for food. Coach was fighting for his life in an overrun shopping mall, clinging onto a few hamburger buns, a box of packaged chicken breasts and some Twinkies as if these were his personal Holy Grail. They obviously would be someone else's, as people were growing increasingly hungry.
It was Bob who spoke first. "Leonard's hunky-dory. He's cut off Maplethorne House from the rest of the world and he's got some rented dates and his juniors there. They're treating this like one big party. Drugs and booze and broads galore. I saw a couple crazies run across the road just in front of his driveway - it's like they can't see it at all. He must've veiled it."
Weasel scoffed. "Figures, huh? Had some o' my boys drive out to Wolf's Den. Reservation's full a' them blood-sucking crazies too. I say we level the place and take their supplies for ourselves.
- Of course you'd think that," retorted Clarimonde, "you'd leave us high and dry if you could.
- There's like three healthy people left there, toots," patiently replied the mustelid, "it's not like the Infected are gonna throw a fit if we grabbed four bars o' soap, a boxful of Cracker Jack's bags, some chips, Diet Pepsi, some cheapo Chilean wine an' Injun cigarettes! We've been hammerin' on 'bout how we gotta find stuff ta eat - I found just that, plus the fuckin' Yardstick o' Civilization!"
Clarimonde frowned, which made Weasel groan. "Soap, ya dumb broad; soap's the Yardstick o' Civilization! Ya wanna keep those sixty-plus people downstairs happy? Find a refill for that pink foamy crap that passes for soap in the bathroom downstairs, or pass these out."
To prove his point, he dug inside his jacket and pulled out a bar of deodorant soap which he'd pilfered from Wolf's Den's general store, and chucked it at Matthias. "It kinda looks like you oughta go for a scrubbin', Vampire Bill," he commented derisively. "If we can get the people cleaned up, we'll get some extra time to mount up somethin'. They're gettin' restless, and we need fuckin' medical supplies. You get the folks cleaned up; that means less risks of infection and less shit ta deal with for those half-assed interns ya whipped up with Leonard's other half, some o' yer vamps and an old-ass medical thesaurus."
Mentalor looked at the others. "The Karthian Synod is prepared to grant me amnesty and a supply of deuterium alloy, provided I gather the survivors and relocate them on the closest habitable planetoid. The city is lost, the quarantine will not hold forever and my repulsor emitter array will require recharging. I would advise retreat."
To that, Cynan chuckled darkly. "We aren't leaving Earth, darling," he replied softly, but still as sternly as if he had shouted. "None of the Dragonborn will ever agree to leaving Earth. Not my side, and especially not Eirean's.
- I could locate a suitable planet on which the main ferrous material is not iron," amended the Karthian, which made Cynan roll his eyes and shake a bang of lately ash-blond and reddish eighties' hair out of his eyes. "I'm overjoyed," he replied flatly. "Sorry, alien, but the War can't be spread out to other planets. We're connected to this place the same way dragons are connected to it. We can cope with trips abroad, but we'd die out there."
Catherine stood up and crossed her arms together. "We should go back to where it started," she proposed. "We need to understand how this infection spreads, and why.
- I agree," nodded Aristide. "We should also locate Barbello. If he's uninfected, he could help us."
