Vampire Legion by Alex Dire

Author:Alex Dire [Dire, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eliot Street Press
Published: 2017-11-09T04:00:00+00:00

18

Ancient One

The woods grew thick with prickers and undergrowth. Moving through proved slow and laborious. Norman’s skin showed red dots of blood where the tiny spikes on the brush had pierced him. New dots popped up faster than the old ones could heal.

It turned out Alina had proven to be a much greater ally than they could have hoped for. Through mispronounced words and phrases of broken English, Norman had managed to piece together her story. She had found Rolph shortly after the last days of the short vampire war. He’d been nearly burned to ash by the sun. She healed him and brought him down to the subterranean home of dying humans and the frightened, junkie remnants of the once proud heart of vampiredom. Over time, Rolph had organized the chaotic ramble of vampires into a tight collective, operating by consensus. He soon bent the group to his will. After a short time, Petre had proved a loyal “lap dog.” Those were words that Alina seemed to pronounce perfectly. As a reward Rolph gave Alina to him.

Alina did not fill in the details of her relationship with Petre, but Norman gathered from her face the abuse she suffered at his hands. Norman hoped she would remain with them after they left this place. However, sneaking an extra vampire back to the United States might be tricky. They’d only made arrangements for themselves.

Norman turned to Chip. “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”

“That was shite,” exclaimed MacManus, emphasizing the long “i” with his Irish brogue.

“I guess I’ll be downgrading their loyalty rating,” replied Chip in an attempt to hide his frustration.

Gracie snorted and grunted as she sniffed around the ground.

Matt Barnes moved more carefully through the briars as his pricker wounds did not heal so quickly. “Am I the only one thinking that we need to hurry? The sun will come up before we have time to return.”

“You can’t rush Gracie,” said Georgios.

“You know, I’ve got all the time in the world,” replied Matt. “In fact, I’m kind of surprised I’m the only one keeping track of time here. I’m not the one in danger of exploding when the sun comes up.”

Gracie snorted and grunted as she dug her nose around the decaying leaves, pine needles and scattered bits of rotting branches, smelling for the mushroom Georgios had fed her from Rolph’s little jar.

A forest was always a difficult place for a vampire: all that wood. A little carelessness could turn a playful romp into a deadly encounter with its myriad woody sentinels.

The minutes ticked on as Gracie searched the forest floor with her nose. Norman had little to do but contemplate his situation as the pig did all that needed doing for the group. “Georgios, why can’t we smell the mushrooms? Why do we need a pig?”

“We can,” replied Georgios. “Don’t you smell them now?”

Norman closed his eyes and smelled. The air was filled with the scents of conifers and a ubiquitous underlying rot. All forest was mostly rot. In

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