The Vampire Thief Saves the Widow

1. Christopher

Chapter one

Christopher

The Lux can be really irritating.

The thought loops in my head as I drive to Bumfuck North in the dead of night. I used to drive down long desert highways when I toured with my rock band before the Collapse, but the arenas and cheering crowds were worth the seemingly endless stretch of nothingness.

Those days are gone, and this assignment fails to offer similar incentives.

To be fair, the Lux promised me extra clone blood if I inspect the remnants of all eighteen Titan 2 silos on the outskirts of old Tucson.

Those high-minded alien scientists usually keep their word.

But they have yet to deliver any of the promised boxes.

My reserve supply of clone blood is dwindling, and it leaves me worried I’ll soon go hungry if I don’t resume scavenging the leftover dregs of a dead society.

Most nights, I search for goods—tools, raw metal, and a mix of household items—that the inners are desperate enough to trade their own blood to get.

But this mission has me running all over the barren desert. A few miles from my destination, I pass an abandoned residential suburb that breaks up the desolate stretches of scrub brush and dried cactus. The military crews who worked at the missile silo probably lived there. The long-dead crews.

When I spot a square enclosure in the distance, I shake off my morose thoughts. The area is walled on all sides and visible from the dilapidated freeway. No one fortified the other missile sites I’ve visited. They were protected by fallen-down chain link and barbed wire, if even that.

Following the on-screen satellite map, I exit the freeway, turn left, and steer carefully over the rocky, washed-out dirt road.

I park the truck when I reach a thick, solid steel gate, with a matching wall stretching out on both sides.

I don’t bother inspecting the perimeter of the wall for an opening.

From my previous vantage point on the freeway, I know there’s no other way in.

Emergency services is one tongue click away, and I activate the embedded comm crystal implanted behind my jaw. “This is Chris Atherton. Arizona Preservation Ark number one. Over.”

Silence.

I try again. “Hello? Can you hear me? I need direction. Over.”

Nothing.

Dammit.

I’m too far away from the ark’s antenna to connect. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. What to do?

Curiosity gets the better of me. I leave the comfort of my air-conditioned truck to step out into the ninety-five-degree Fahrenheit night air. Damn. My skin itches as the air sucks moisture from it. Even vampires hate this heat.

Strapping a backpack over my shoulders just in case I find something worth scavenging, I hurry to the tall double-wide doors and bang on the rusty patina with my fists.

Nothing crumbles. No one answers. Not a sound responds to my call.

The hinges face the opposite side, and even with my superior vampire strength, there’s no way I’m breaking through this barrier.

But the fifteen-foot wall isn’t the real disincentive. I can find ways to scale the damn thing. What gives me pause is that I’m not sure what I’ll find on the other side.

I can always turn around, report to the Lux, and let them deal with it—they have flash technology that will let them transport to the other side.

I glance at the doors again. Whoever hardened this silo is long dead. They must be. What I don’t know is whether their children still live here.

But how could they? No edible plants grow in the scorched desert sands surrounding this relic of a Titan 2 missile complex.

When the rare downpour opens up the skies—with an emphasis on rare—flash floods carve gullies through the barren landscape.

How would the survivors store enough water underground to keep themselves alive?

Nah, the place is probably long abandoned, and the promise of more clone blood if I complete my mission is enough of a carrot to take the risk.

I glance once more at my black, custom-equipped electric truck and use the remote key to lock the door.

I don’t love leaving my valuable vehicle unattended.

If renegades steal it, I’ll have to walk back to my preservation dome, and I don’t relish wearing out a pair of work boots—new boots are hard to find—plus the Lux will be pissed.

But they sent me on this job, so they’ve calculated the profit/loss possibilities, and have only themselves to blame.

Turning back to the metal wall, I scan for places to hook my claws into, but the smooth surface is solid and impervious to puncture, so I don’t deploy my claws.

I can’t fly, either. Not unless I turn into a bat, which isn’t practical, because when I return to human form, I’ll be naked and weaponless.

So, I jump and latch on to the top ledge.

Fuck. Excruciating pain shoots through my fingers. Jagged glass. Whoever set up this place glued broken jars to the top of the wall.

I grit my teeth, ignore the pain, and hoist myself to the top, then kick at the glass to knock the shards off.

Once the sharp hazards are cleared away, I throw one leg over and straddle the top, staying low.

My hands are a bloody mess, shredded to ribbons, and I pick the glass from the wounds, then wipe the cuts on my jeans and let the fabric absorb the blood until it clots.

No one appears in the courtyard. No weapons are fired. No apparent threats so far to my position on the wall.

But it’s a good thing I didn’t immediately jump down.

I’m staring at rows of finely honed metal spikes.

Someone welded them in a wagon-wheel pattern around six parallel pipes, arranging the long, pointed terrors to interleave with their neighbors.

I can’t jump far enough to clear them. No matter how I try to land, I’ll get a spike to my balls, dammit.

Transforming into a bat wasn’t practical before, but now it is.

The metal wall is about six inches thick.

After my vampire metabolism kicks in and heals my hands, I get braver and rise to my feet, balancing on the wall’s top.

As I move, no signs of life appear. No reason to be alarmed.

So I strip, stuff my clothes, weapons, and boots into my backpack, and heave my belongings beyond the spikes, transform into a bat, and fly past the spikes to land on the barren dirt.

While I dress, I once again scan the courtyard for threats.

A few low-lying concrete structures break up the scorched, hard dirt covering most of the enclosure. Sand-adapted vehicles wait in a carport. Solar panels make up the roof. Barrels holding who-knows-what sit under another solar panel awning.

That’s when it hits me. I’ve been picturing mortals, but vampires could live here—specifically renegades.

The silo’s underground control center and living compartments are perfect for hiding a small nest, and the vehicles would give enough range to hunt mortal survivors or conduct illegal trade with the domes.

The complex is close enough to Tucson to trade for blood, assuming they’ve figured out the trading system.

Vampire blood cures all sorts of ills. The illegal trade, swapping small vials of vampire blood for pints of mortal blood, is how some renegades survive.

Others do what I do—swap scavenged goods for donor blood.

It’s what I should be doing instead of sticking my head in empty silos. Because so far, that’s all I’ve found. Nothing.

Until now.

Fuck.

Yanking the handgun from my shoulder holster, I check the magazine, then rack the slide to load a silver bullet into the chamber.

I don’t like carrying silver. Even separated from my body by the antique Glock’s chamber, the deadly metal makes my skin crawl, but it’s my only defense against unfriendly vampires.

I stride over to the access portal, pull back the stairwell cover, and descend to the outer portal door. After attaching a battery to the keypad to juice it, I punch in the code the Lux gave me for the entrapment area.

Piece of cake. Except the obvious presence of occupants changes the game.

My pulse ratchets up, and my skin crawls when I repeatedly punch in the code and the door doesn’t open.

Have they sabotaged the panel? Doesn’t matter.

With option one dead, option two is my only choice.

Because if renegades live here and have a nuclear warhead, they could destroy the Phoenix or Tucson domes and mow through the mortal population, wantonly feeding and killing.

Since I have another way in, determining the danger level before reporting to the Lux shouldn’t be too hard.

So I jog the length of a football field to the underground missile silo’s roof, moving in a zigzag pattern, expecting hidden assassins to fire silver bullets at any moment.

Nothing. Lady Luck is back.

Concrete panels form the silo’s roof, with the tallest angled about six feet above the ground, and I duck behind one. According to the building plans the Lux provided, the retractable portion of the roof is fifty feet by seventy feet and lies flat at surface level.

No other entry point exists—not from what I can see.

But the Lux provided a device to open the sliding concrete cover.

It’s not my first choice, because if no power lines remain connected to the hydraulic system, pressing the button on the opener will do nothing—the roof won’t roll away on its thirty-inch wheels to reveal the opening.

I have no place to connect a battery to the hydraulic winch, either.

I’d have to return with a power source and a jackhammer to get inside the control box, and the Lux aren’t even sure that will work.

The presence of solar panels on the retractable roof gives me hope. The panels weren’t part of the original installation, and the occupants most likely stripped them from nearby abandoned homes. Solar power should provide enough electricity to open the roof.

But what will I find? Mortals or renegade vampires?

I press the button, and the old wheels squeal as the flat platform slides to one side, slowly revealing the launch duct. Yay!

Fingers crossed my good fortune will continue.

After the lid rolls to a stop, I’ll take a quick, safe peek, confirm there’s no missile, and snap a photo for the files.

Then I’ll race back to my vehicle, avoiding any hostiles, and get home in time to join my squad remotely for our nightly multiplayer video game before the sun rises.

That’s the thought I hold on to: Snap, run, and get home.

The doors come to a screeching halt. I ease over the side to peer into the deep, endless hole, ready to take a photo.

No missile.

Instead, a green garden with lush foliage circles the inside of the silo, attached to the wall.

What the hell is this?