Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 22: Robert Blakethorn July 2013

Robert Blakethorn, July 2013

Standing in the doorway of our room, Robbie watches us sort through ammunition with a look of concerned uncertainty on his face, his bearing tense with apprehension. “I know you want to charge in, guns blazing, and just take out as many of them as you can before they kill you. Stop and think for a moment though, if you want to have a real impact, if you want to take out everyone who brought about your wife’s fate, then you need to do more than that. You need to have information, you need to plan. You need to be as methodical as the Senate are. At least try to live long enough to eradicate those who caused this, rather than doing something reckless. If you aren’t careful your names will be added to the list of those the Senate have killed, again, and you’ll die achieving nothing.”

He’s correct, of course he is, the problem is that I want, no, need, to kill things. Barely managing to sustain my control, the urge to go out and slaughter any person in a Senate uniform or carrying a Senate I.D. card is almost too strong to resist. If I don’t do something, if I don’t use my anger, then I might fall into the pit of despair at my feet. I’m on the brink and when I fall there’ll be no recovery, I’ll go mad or I’ll die. I need to do something for Eve before that, as much as is in my ability to do so.

“Do you have any ideas, then?” I demand of my son, bitterness colouring my tone. I don’t want to blame Robbie. I don’t want to resent him for Eve’s death. His mother is responsible for that just as she’s responsible for the wall between my only offspring and me. That said if he had not been outside headquarters Eve wouldn’t have felt obliged to save him. If he’d obeyed Johan then Eve would still be alive. Isn’t he to blame, at least partially?

I miss Eve so much. I miss the smell of her and the softness of her body lying next to mine. I long to hear the sound of her laughter, not that she’d laughed much of late, but still I wish for it. Her rarely won smiles, the ones which she seemed to reserve for Tul and I even when the world was bleak, they no longer brighten my world and I miss the ray of sunshine she provided in this dark and blood drenched life.

How had Eve survived this grief? Had I really been angry at her for how she’d lived after I died? She’s gone and all I’ve been left with is my ability get some revenge and the desire to die. I hadn’t even granted her the first of those things when I was executed. She had lived, her means don’t matter, she lived when I left her alone, mortal, vulnerable. How had she found the strength?

I should have turned her when she first asked me to and I should have left with her. I should have done so very many things and now I’ll never get the chance. When she saved me and made me Strix I had been furious at her for marrying Tulloch, for whoring, for everything she had become. Eve hadn’t deserved my anger and it had taken me too long to realise that. I don’t think I ever made up for that and now I can’t. Worse still I’ll never be able to say goodbye. She’s gone and I didn’t say goodbye.

Sensing Keep watching me I look up. His pain and mine are almost indistinguishable entities, torturing us both. He deserves more than this. Hadn’t he protected Eve? She’d told me previously that he’d given her a reason to be more than what she’d become. He’s always been good at that, being a reason for people to be better. Hadn’t he made me into a better man?

In the trenches I admired him, but maybe there’s always been something more than that. Something I wouldn’t, couldn’t admit to. Maybe Eve was right, maybe at first I couldn’t accept it because it was the early nineteen hundreds and I had a duty to find a wife, to produce heirs.

Then we were new vampires my emotions were volatile at the best of times. After that came the Senate and our roles as rebels and we did as Johan expected us to do. Somehow I never stopped to think about what might have been. For a time Eve had eclipsed everything else in my life. Then, somewhat surprisingly, she’d forced us to break down the wall we’d created in order to be who we were expected to be.

I never thanked her for that. I’ve never told him that I’m pleased it came to pass.
What’s between us isn’t enough to make me want my immortal life, it’s incomplete without Eve. Just as she couldn’t choose between us, I can’t live with only one of them. Not now. Still, what’s between us might be enough to keep me strong for long enough to avenge her properly, and in return maybe I can keep Tulloch strong enough too.

There are so many things I’d like to tell him, like to say, but I wasn’t raised to do so. Even admitting what I feel to myself has been difficult; it took a century and a resurrection and the woman whose loss I can’t bear. Can I really let someone else die without saying everything I should have said though?

“I know,” Keep interrupts my thoughts, honest and even managing a slight smile although nothing in this world is ever going to make either of us happy again. “Rob, I know. You don’t need to say it. I know and Eve knew too.”

“Then let’s take out Hardy Charleston and everyone he’s used against Eve, then we can join her.” That’s my goal; it’s what I need to make happen.

Robbie glances between us, “I’m coming with you. It’s my fault she died and I want to be part of this.”

“Johan won’t agree to that,” Keep points out.

“Johan can’t stop me,” Robbie counters and we all know he’s right.

Perhaps it’s bad that I don’t argue, that I’ll allow my flesh and blood to risk his life. Robbie is almost as old as I am however, and arguing would be both useless and poorly received so I simply shrug as I ponder, “So how are we going to achieve the impossible?”

“We need lists of all the people involved, from the person who decided the Senate needed Strix to the people who stored or cremated her body. We need to bring as many of those involved with the Avitus Gens project as possible.” The suggestion Robbie leaves hanging between us is not an easy one to accomplish. It would mean bringing down a huge amount of the Senate and the Alliance have been trying to do that for years without success.

“So we do what Johan has never risked, even with all his infiltrators. We get into the archives,” suggests Keep. “We’ll break down the bloody walls if we have to, and as Gary is still part of Johan’s staff we could use him. As long as he can get us into the databases we can access the archive itself through the Victoria tunnel, very few people even remember that entrance exists.”

Nodding slowly I ponder out loud, “And what if Eve was right, what if Gary is working for the Senate? It’s a pity all the files I had at home before... before I died, have gone. There were boxes of information I’d collated for Johan, the archive codes were on a CD in amongst the documents. They’d still work if we had them. The Senate assumes that unauthorised access is impossible, not through all the other defences, so the pass codes don’t change because there are so many of them. Those passwords would’ve given us everything.” I explain, resenting that so many of my belongings had been lost when Eve had been forced to abandon our home.

Keep grins, his expression close to wolfish, “Cardboard box filled with top secret Senate documents?” At my nod he laughs, “Eve gave it to me shortly before she had to move in with me, the hard copies burned in the fire but I’d already scanned in the documents and copied the files from the CDs to the servers. We never got around to breaking the encryption on the files but they’re available. The servers are off site too so they weren’t damaged in the blaze; the files are available if you know how to access them.”

“I can access them,” I’d been the one to designate passwords to the files on the CD after all. “And the Senate doesn’t even know I had access to those files. I shouldn’t have been able to copy them, not even as Chief, but Phil got me round the defences.” I think of Phil with regret; he’s one more lost man who hadn’t deserved his fate. “Not that Johan knows I’d been utilising Phil without his authority.”

After fetching his laptop Keep perches on the tattered sofa beside me. He quickly opens a folder full of password protected files before passing the machine to me. Typing in streams of letters and numbers I open a number of the files, revealing a list of codes for the archive database. The database is the electronic library where vampire history is documented along with Senate orders, those that hadn’t been destroyed or hidden. If we can take these codes to the terminals in the archive we should be able to access almost everything there is to know about the Senate.

“Thank God Eve thought to give you these.”

“And the Victoria tunnel?” Robbie asks, “What’s that?”

Upon eclaiming his laptop, Keep brings up maps of Newcastle then turns the machine to face my son. “The Victoria tunnel was originally built to transport coal from one side of Newcastle down to the river. Since then it’s been adapted, used as an air raid shelter for a time, blocked up, re-opened, and been forgotten about. It runs straight through the middle of the vampire civic centre. The centre clusters, hive like, around the tunnel because originally it was going to be used as an access point. However, as the tunnel has been used so often by mortals it fell into disuse by vampires and access routes from the metro network were opened instead.

There are still doors leading from the tunnel into the civic centre and while they’re locked they shouldn’t pose a problem for us. We’ll rip them from the wall if necessary. As long as the Senate haven’t remembered that the tunnel doors are vampire proof, not Strix proof, then they may not have recognised the weakness nor done anything to remedy it. The tunnel runs pretty close to the where we want to be too, which is useful.”

“Of course,” I add with a disgusted cringe, “that’s provided we get far enough into the tunnel. Break into the Civic Centre too early and we’ll be opening up the Science Facility and no one wants to go there.” Just thinking of the shambling, rotting people who’d never been dosed with Eve’s blood makes me queasy. I could’ve so easily been one of them.

“That’s ok, we have maps,” Keep informs me matter-of-factly. “Where we want to be is between the administration zones and the Enforcers training zones. I mapped them out while I was an Enforcer, including where they led into the tunnel. I’m pretty confident I can match the information up to give us a good idea of the location of the archives. We should enter the Civic Centre in a basement level storage area which is classed as part of the archive zone. There’ll be access from the storage area leading up to the main archives so we won’t even need to get past the check-in points. Then we can use your codes to access the information stored in the facility.”

“So when are we going to do this?” Robbie asks, looking expectantly between us. The room fills with the fragrance of his apprehension and reminds me he isn’t a fighter. He hasn’t ever gone war or faced the pressures of rebellion. Robert Blakethorn the third is about to hurl himself into a situation he can’t comprehend. Yet I won’t stop him, right or wrong as that is.

Glancing first at our collected weaponry and then at each other Keep and I smile. His eyes silver eyes as I feel my fangs descend, reacting to my craving for retribution. “Now?” I suggest, without a second thought.

“Now,” agrees Tulloch with a determined nod.

With only the slightest shake of his head Robbie concedes to us, “At least we have a plan now, more of a plan than simply tearing things apart that is.”

We inform Johan of our intentions, more to retain his facade of working together than because he has any say. Then we head to Newcastle and our first avenging mission. Our first. Who knows if there’ll be a second or third? At least we’re doing something.

The Victoria Tunnel has a number of access points but we choose the tunnel entrance located closest to the Hancock museum, not far from the Civic Centre. The red doors in the side of the embankment are only slightly graffiti marked, having been freshly painted by mortals trying to turn the tunnel into a museum attraction. The doors are padlocked closed but that’s hardly a vampire proof method of sealing the grim catacomb. Yanking the padlock and chains from the door I don’t care in the slightest that I damage the metal door handles. I don’t care that I have to break the door to open the other locks either.

Together we slip into the blacker darkness of the abandoned tunnel, ignoring the scuttling of rat’s claws on concrete and brick. The air is old and stale, contaminated with dust and mould, not that the heaviness of the air matters to us. Keep leads here, having been in the tunnel previously. The arching brickwork of the tunnels is old and crumbling, the floor is damp and every now and again we pass graffiti created by some teenager who’d manage to gain access to the dark underground world.

True to his word he leads us directly to a specific side tunnel and then to a specific door. “Well,” he comments dryly, eying the door “here we are. This is either going to open or it won’t. If it does we might be about to decrease our life expectancy substantially.”

That thought is not so abhorrent to me, no more than it is to Keep himself, but I appreciate him warning Robbie. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I demand of my son, needing to make sure that he is before I allow him to come with us, even though I should be telling him to go back whatever his answer.

“Positive,” answers Robbie determinedly, “I need to do this too. Plus there’s no absolution to be found in turning back now.”

Upon his confirmation I wedge my shoulder against the door, pressing against its cold steel surface. This door had been designed to be vampire proof and at first nothing happens. Luckily for us the Senate haven’t yet bothered to Strix proof the forgotten door and as I apply greater pressure the metal groans and the leaf twists in the frame. The locks tear from their positions as the door finally gives way to brute force and swings open.

“We’re in,” I state the obvious with a strange mix of apprehension and righteous determination.

The basement level is little more than a rarely used storage facility filled with long forgotten items. Most of the objects in here are as old as I am; a testament to a century of Senate government in Newcastle. The aged office furniture is dust covered and mouse chewed. There are typewriters and tables alongside worn chesterfield armchairs with their leather dulled through wear and age. The basement is a museum in itself, a tribute to a bygone age before laptops, mobile phones and emails.

“Do you miss it?” Keep enquires and I frown in confusion. “The luxury,” he explains, “tailored suits, hand crafted furniture, wealth and power. You always had power, wealth too really, except during the war.”

Shaking my head I reply honestly, “No, not at all.” Kicking aside an abandoned painting which is no doubt worth thousands I add, “I don’t miss the meaningless possessions, what importance is there in furniture really when I’ve lost so much more than that? And power?” I snort, a harsh sound, “I was granted a certain amount by birth and I had no right to that, I wasted it. Then I was granted power here and the price was innumerable stains on my conscience. With you and Eve I could have lived a quiet, poor life quite happily, if I’d been granted the opportunity.”

Glancing up at him I wonder, “Do you wish you’d had more power? More wealth?”
Shaking his head Keep admits, “Rarely power. I wish I’d had the ability to save you, to save Eve, but I’ve held too much power over life and death over the years. I’ve taken responsibility when I’ve felt it was my duty to do so, with the power granted to me by you and by Johan, and because of that I’ve been at war most of my life one way or another. I don’t want that responsibility anymore.

I feel tired Rob. I never thought I would feel this weary. I’m a vampire, I still look like I’m in my mid twenties and I have so many upgrades I just shouldn’t feel this drained but truthfully I’m exhausted. I don’t want the responsibility that comes with power. To be honest resting in peace sounds incredibly tempting, tempting enough that I don’t even mind dying will be brutal.

And wealth? I never needed to be the master of a mansion. I never wanted a life where I could afford everything I desired. Sure, I wish I could have given Eve a home. I wish I had given her more than a concrete room with an ensuite bathroom and nothing else. I would have been happy with a house in the suburbs though, and a normal job. Can you even imagine having a job that doesn’t involve death? Can you imagine a house, a job, a wife and a life that was more than this?”

With a heart heavy as lead and a throat which burns as I swallow down the lump of pain building there I admit, “Yeah, I can imagine it, for a time I almost had it.” If only I’d left the Senate, if only I’d taken Eve away. Shaking myself I prompt softly, “Let’s get this done, let’s go and disrupt the plans of those arseholes who destroyed everything.”

We make our way silently through the basement and up the concrete stairs that lead into the upper level of the archive zone. Very few people ever visit the archives, thankfully. In fact, so few people had clearance to even enter this zone that it isn’t even monitored constantly. Yes, cameras document all the comings and goings but the images are simply saved to files to be reviewed later should anything untoward happen. There’s no Enforcer at a desk watching us or even waiting to check us in. Enforcers aren’t allowed in here, although I had been allowed once upon a time, during a past which now seems distant. While Chiefs weren’t granted the access codes to the full database, not without a hacker, I had been allowed to visit this place to access the files those higher up than I deemed appropriate.

Am I concerned about the Senate having evidence of our break in? Not really. Let them know we’re coming, let them know exactly who can break into their strongholds and take what they’ve tried to hide.

The archives are a strange mix of new and old. Many of the rooms have the feeling of a library in a Victorian stately home, with sumptuous chairs and dark wooden bookcases. The ceiling is covered by intricate moulding and even the shelving has been carved with ornate patterns. The modern world had called for additions however, and now laptops sit on the desks along with computerised terminals where we can access the database and download files. It’s changed very little since I was Chief. The laptops are newer, with widescreens and glossy covers, but otherwise the place is familiar.

Going to the nearest terminal I slip a USB drive into the appropriate port, the saved access codes promptly unlocking the numerous locks in the Senate network. Connecting a pocket hard drive I create a new folder which I intend to fill with as many documents as possible. We need as much information as we can retrieve and so rather than sorting through files I type in a collection of keywords. I start with Eve’s names, all of those she’d used, as well as my name, her father’s name and the names of the ancestors which had made her what she had been. Then I search for Charleston, Upton and Plaice, wanting every scrap of information I can find on them too. Science documents relating to Strix are also downloaded and saved for later. It’s a simple task to locate the personnel records on the systems; they had been something I’d had access to in the past so locating them is a simple memory exercise. We will get to every person involved in the Avitus Gens project, or we’ll die trying.

“How are we doing?” Robbie asks, watching me from beside the door.

“Nearly there, I just want to download any available documentation on Prime Minister Clarence too.”

Perhaps that had been a little ambitious; perhaps we should have left as soon as we’d gotten the essentials. Clarence’s file isn’t a small folder to save and as I watch the progress bar slowly move up notch by miniscule notch even I begin to feel nervous. No matter how rarely an area of a Senate building is visited we are still in enemy territory.  The problem with enemy territory is that when someone does appear, they are almost certainly an enemy.

The door swings open and Daniel Upton halts on the threshold, his hand on the brass handle and a look of surprised horror on his features. To Robbie’s credit, my son grabs the man immediately, dragging him into the room before he can attempt to flee. Upton gapes at us, his expression showing the first signs of terror. From his scent he’s still a bog-standard vampire. He hasn’t taken the opportunity to become Strix. Why would he choose to remain a weaker breed of vampire? Unless it hadn’t been his choice, perhaps even Upton is someone else’s pawn.

“Well,” he stutters, “Chief Blakethorn.”

As I quirk a brow at his use of my long lost title my own tone is far more sinister. “Daniel,” I hiss, “you look rather surprised to see me.”

The man trembles in Robbie’s grip as he eyes me in wide eyed terror, his frightened gaze flicking between Keep and I as the sickly scent of fear taints the air, heady and overpowering. “I didn’t want to execute you like that,” he squeaks, as though that claim absolves him for all his many crimes, “I wanted to investigate.”

His rambling doesn’t surprise me though his next accusation confirms a private suspicion. “Charleston is in control, he’s always been control. He had Plaice lined up for years, grooming him, because he’s more compliant than you. He might have removed you from power earlier if it hadn’t been for his false belief that you were leading the girl into the fold. I’m not responsible, you can see that he won’t even make me Strix, I have no power! I’m not responsible!”

Fingering the gun at my hip I growl as I demand, “You didn’t have anything to do with her torture? It wasn’t you stood at Charleston’s side gloating right along with him as you had me break her bones, when you had me force myself on her?”

As he winces, Upton’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly, fish like. I hate the man for what he’d helped do to Eve, for what he’d made me do to her as 1352 and also for what he’d done to me.  Logically I know this is an opportunity, we could take him back to Johan for interrogation but I want him dead. I want to revel in his blood as he realises he’s now the helpless one. I want to tear his body to pieces and I want to know that he’s been destroyed.

Keep studies me as he sorts through the torrent of my emotions. “I want him dead but I don’t need to be the one to do it. There’ll be others for me. Kill him Rob.”

That’s all the permission I need. Stepping forward I tug Upton from Robbie’s grasp and grab his hair, tugging his head sideways to expose his throat. “Realise this, Daniel Upton, you are weak and you are powerless. You are going to die as helpless a death as you’ve helped inflict on others.” With that I plunge my fangs into his throat, tearing savagely at his jugular. I don’t make this pleasurable for him, I make sure it burns. I make sure he hurts and fears as his life slips away.

Draining Upton takes a surprisingly short amount of time and only once I’ve wrung him dry do I decapitate and dismember his body. I also destroy his brain, just encase. Then, with blood still coating my chin and clothes, with my fangs still dropped and my eyes no doubt remaining demonic silver, I return to the console.

“Done,” I inform Keep and Robbie, as I watch the progress bar disappear and remove the storage devices from the computer. “We can go.”

We leave Upton’s remain to be discovered by some Senate politician. Maybe they’ll find him today or maybe they’ll find him rotting a month from now. I don’t care.