Sanctuary (Forsaken Realms Trilogy) (7 page)

"Yes sire, Jason Grey, twenty four years old, comes from nothing, parents long gone.  We're having considerable difficulty discovering his current location."

"And why is that Nikolai?" asked Vostrof.

"It appears that the young human timed his move very well, he's been underground since shortly before the launch of his new technology. No one has seen him since. He's merely had his people release previously recorded press releases of himself that were carefully created before the launch" answered Nikolai.

"I want him found Nikolai," commanded Vostrof "move heaven and earth if you must but I want him brought to me alive."

"Yes sire" answered Nikolai.

"If Graves gets his hands on this cub before us, it could have lasting repercussions" mused Vostrof "I want control of that technology".

"Right away sire" answered Nikolai as the wheels began to churn in his head.

Several feet from him stood a very well dressed vampire casually leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a slightly bored look on his face.

"I see you're finally awake!" said the vampire "You took your sweet time about it."

"Who...what?" replied Brenden groggily.

"Well said" answered the vampire "very elegant" and with that he walked over to Brenden and savagely kicked him in the head.

"Maybe that will help clear your head a bit.  You Forsaken scum have always been a thick lot".

Brenden raised his head, and with murder in his eyes spat at the vampire.

"Lovely" laughed the vampire "quite lovely.  But you've got spirit, I'll give you that much.  So many of you Forsaken are such meek little ducklings.  I'm almost sorry to have to kill you!"

"What are you waiting for" growled Brenden "if you're going to kill me, get on with it".

"In a hurry to die?" snickered the vampire.  "What's the rush?  Why don't you tell me your name first.  And where you come from. Are there any more of you lurking around down here?  I'm just passing through town on a bit of business myself and thought I'd pop down into the sewers for a bit of sport.  I was starting to think there were no vampires here in the midwest at all until you showed up."

Brenden just stared back at him, blood dripping down his cheek.

"Come now, you're going to die...but we might as well be civil about it.  I always like to know who I'm killing before I actually do the deed.  Won't you at least tell me your name?" and with that the vampire kicked Brenden again, this time in the stomach.

"Fuck you" said Brenden flatly.

The vampire sighed and leaned towards Brenden "Last chance, I've got a plane to catch, tell me your name..."

Brenden spat again.

Quicker than a human could see, the vampire plunged his hand into Brenden's chest, pulled out his shriveled heart, licked it, and then dropped it into the pooling waters of the sewer.

He stood up, pulled out a smart phone and punched a couple of numbers "Hello Claudia, can you confirm my plane reservation for tonight?"

Wiping the spit from his cheek he continued to listen to the voice on the other end of the line "It's been pushed back two hours?  Oh bother...No no, it's fine, I just could have played with my new toy a bit longer is all, but it's too late now, I've already thrown it away. No big deal, I'll see you tomorrow."

---

Markus walked silently through the sewers of London.  He'd been here nearly a week without finding a hint or trace of any Forsaken, though he had only really made a very small dent into the sewer system that sprawled below massive city.

Earlier that night he had decided to delve deeper into the sewers and had spent the last few hours moving as far down as he could. 

There were layers upon layers of sewers in this ancient city and the deeper you went, the deeper they seemed to go.

"This is going to take far longer than I thought" murmured Markus.

"Who's there" answered a voice ahead in the gloom.

"Hello?" answered Markus. 

Instantly he extended his senses into the darkness ahead.  He could detect no human scent, and only barely could he smell something that might be vampire...but it tasted different...somehow
off
.

"Who are you? What do you want" said the voice, slightly shaken with what might be fear.

"My name is Markus...I'm, I'm just looking for some friends." he replied.

"Friends?" answered the voice, surprise evident "And who might these friends be?"

"I...don't really know..." answered Markus "I'm from America, some of us live down in the sewers there and we thought there might be others out there...I decided to come look. Are you alone?"

"Do you expect me to believe that, mate?" answered the voice in the distance "What do you think I am, daft?"

"I...it's true. Why else would I be down here?" answered Markus.

"Sport mate" replied the voice "you council members love to come hunting us down here".

Markus chuckled "Do I look like a council member?"

The slightly built vampire cautiously walked towards Markus, looking him over deliberately "Now that I think on it, you don't seem to have the look of the council on you...you're one of the Forsaken, like us?"

"Us?" answered Markus "So there
are
more of you down here?"

"Aye mate, there are more of us.  My name's Lynn...I think you'd better come with me."  and with that the small vampire turned and began to descend deeper into the darkness.

The more she thought about it, the more she came to realize that it was probably best not to wait until it was too late. They should move immediately.

Natalia would leave a couple of people behind in case Markus or Brenden ever returned...otherwise they might never see each other again. 

The sewers were extensive enough that she could move her family to another section without the need to move to another city or country.

At least that's what she told herself.  In reality, she just didn't want to move away from Alexander. 

In the few months that they'd been together, Natalia had come to love him deeply and had even grown to trust him. At least, she thought that she could trust him.

That was enough for now.

She had no illusion. Although they might truly belong together, Natalia knew that eventually their relationship must end in misery. The world would never let them be happy.

But she could dream, and she did.  She dreamt of a time when the Forsaken could walk free in the world of Vampires without fear of being hunted.

She dreamt of a time when Alexander could be free of the responsibilities of ruling the Elder Council.

She dreamt of peace.

But she knew it was just a dream.

As she rounded a corner, Natalia realized that she had inadvertently wandered into the sewers below Alexander's building and was now standing in front of the elevator she used to enter his apartment.

It was getting early anyway so she decided to head up and wait for Alexander in his suite. Natalia spent most nights with Alexander now, their routine was becoming something of a permanent fixture in both their lives.

Punching the now familiar security code into the keypad next to the elevators, she settled in to wait.

Soon the doors opened and she stepped inside.  There was no need to punch in a floor number, her security code was programmed to bring her directly to Alexander's apartment.

The doors closed and the elevator began to move swiftly upwards, but suddenly stopped much sooner than usual.

Silently, the doors opened.  The elevator screen readout showed her to be on the  negative seventh floor, a sub-basement she guessed.

She stood in the elevator for several minutes, randomly punching floor buttons in an attempt to make the elevator move again, but after a while it became clear that she wasn't going anywhere.

Natalia walked out of the elevator and into the cavernous vault of a room, suddenly drawn to the large floating glass walled cube in the middle of the room.

Tears began to stream down her cheeks as she stared mutely at the creature in the box; a creature that glowed with a brilliant white light that filled Natalia with a sense of unbridled hope and near limitless sadness.

"What are you doing in here?" said the curt voice of Alexander, having just stepped out of another elevator on the opposite side of the room.

"I...the elevator stopped here...I waited but it....what have you done here Alexander?" answered Natalia, deep sadness in her voice.

Alexander paused to consider his words.  He had been in his office when the intrusion alarms had sounded.  When he saw that the intruder was Natalia, he had rushed down as fast as he could, but she had already seen the creature.  He wasn't sure what to make of this intrusion but still wanted to trust Natalia.

"To tell you the truth, we have no idea who or what this creature is." replied Alexander, "We captured it several hundred years ago and have been holding it in that cage ever since." 

He continued, "The light it emits is deadly to our kind, just as sunlight is. Were it not for the specially tempered glass we used for the cage, you and I would be dust right now."

"You've had him in that cage for several
hundred
years? How could you be so cruel? Couldn't you at least have put him in a cage that was large enough to let him fully stretch out?!" cried Natalia.

"Stretch...out? What are you talking about my love?" answered Alexander, confusion in his voice.

"His wings Alexander, how could you bend his wings like that to get him into that tiny box? They must each be fifty feet long!" screamed Natalia, her anger rising.

Alexander looked at the cage and then looked intently at the woman he had come to love, "...what wings Natalia?"

In the months since the release of his new technology, life had taken on a surreal quality.  This was now the eighth safe-house he had moved in to.

Things were going just as he had planned, in fact, they were going better than planned...much better.

The companies that he had shorted on the stock market were in freefall.  His two billion dollar fortune had skyrocketed to just over nine hundred billion in the first week alone. 

And he had yet to sell a single new product. Once production began in earnest, there was literally no telling how rich he could become.

Nine hundred billion dollars, nearly a trillion...the figure boggled his mind.  Bill Gates was only worth about fifty billion.