Fat Vampire 4: Harder Better Fatter Stronger: Fat Vampire, #4 by Johnny B. Truant

Author:Johnny B. Truant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

NINE

Civilized

The day after the TGV attacks, Nicholas Timken contacted William Erickson, a human magistrate of little notice in the formal human political world but of considerable power in the area of human/vampire relations, to extend an olive branch in the spirit of interspecies cooperation. The story trended at the top of all of the vampire social networks and news outlets. It was heralded not only as admirable, but also as extremely gutsy.

Following the disaster, a heavy curtain of ice had fallen between the vampire and human worlds. It had the feel of cutting off, of forever drawing a line between the two camps — who, it was assumed, would both begin preparing for war. The humans knew that vampires had begun widespread, highly-coordinated attacks and required immediate retaliation. The vampires knew that humans would blame all vampires for the acts of a few, and that the best defense against an inevitable human retaliation would be a good offense.

Vampires authorities rallied other vampires in preparation for unbridled massacre. Human authorities readied the secret, highly-trained Anti-Vampire Taskforce shock troops — the modern descendants of villagers with pitchforks and torches.

Nobody spoke. The world held its breath, and waited.

But in that icy atmosphere, as calm as anything, Timken had phoned Erickson. Insiders on both sides reported being shocked by the stupendously naive nature of the call. It was as if Timken didn’t realize that everyone in Erickson’s office wanted to stake every vampire in existence, including Timken himself. It was as if Timken didn’t realize that he was being a total and complete asshole in calling. And Erickson, shocked by the move, had found himself listening to and then accepting Timken’s offer to send half of his now-800-strong Sedition Army troops to seek out those responsible for the “acts of wanton terrorism.” Troops headed out. Talk began anew. And slowly, tentatively, the world began to exhale.

Back on the home front, at Vampire Nation HQ, Councilman Brian Nickerson had returned to the Council. This had not happened lightly. Timken had reached out to all of the departed Council members via Fangbook, and then Brian, unsure what to think, had reached out to Maurice via Fangbook. After a week with no response, he then reached out to Nikki via Fangbook, and Nikki reported that Maurice never, ever checked his Fangbook inbox. Brian replied to Nikki: LOL I knew that WTF. Then he told Nikki about Timken’s message and asked what they knew about the new Council, the temporary Deacon, and whether or not he’d be safe to return. Nikki replied, for all three of them, that they didn’t know. Brian said that he had nothing better to do. He told them that he would flip a coin. Apparently he did flip that coin and it came up heads, because a few days later Nikki had a new Fangbook message from Brian, reporting that he’d returned to Columbus.

On his first day back at Council, Brian Skyped the Chateau with his report.

“He’s rebuilt the infrastructure under the Asbury — which, by the way, his group apparently bought.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.