Chapter 6
Danton
Danton tried to rise. The fall had dumped him onto the concrete floor behind the seats. As far as he could tell, Lan was on top of him, and every other person in the theater on top of them. Breathing was hard.
He needed to get to his feet. He needed to respond. The noise was astounding. Screaming and the echoing reports of shots.
They'd been on Earth for more than one of their years. There'd been more than enough time to become accustomed to the sound of primitive weapons. Their firearms popped. Whatever they sounded like in popular entertainment, in reality unless they were too close to the shooter, the sound was a pop.
In the incredible acoustics of the Greek Theatre the sounds were deafening.
The shooting. The screaming. The sounds of humans shrieking and the Vampyren roaring.
He needed to be on his feet. He needed to be fighting. His own roar built up inside him. He flexed and pushed, starting to rise.
A hand pushed him down.
He fought, snarling, trying to see light past the bodies covering him.
The hand moved on his arm, familiar tattoo of fingers.
Lan.
Relief flooded him. Lan was his brother in arms, his best friend. But Lan was keeping him down? That was not their way.
Then the shooting started again, another volley, mixed finally with Vampyren laser rifles, and he understood if Lan hadn't kept him down he'd have been caught between the two.
Vampyren weapons were surgical in their strikes. They rarely missed because they focused with the same light they destroyed with. But they were also one of the weapons that could easily kill a vampire.
He stayed down.
Everything was confused. The acoustics were meant to fill the bowl, amplify every note. The shooting came from everywhere.
But he thought the laser weapons were coming from everywhere also.
Had the women gotten hold of Vampyren laser rifles?
Possible. Vampyren men in the outer guards, the scuttlebutt enlisted men along for the muscle didn't get sex regularly like royalty and officers who were desired in the breeding programs.
If a woman offered them sex, they'd take it. If a woman offered sex to a working guard and he lost his weapon, they'd go to any lengths to avoid reporting it.
The shooting had stopped again.
This time it stayed stopped.
This time he stayed down without Lan's hand urging him to. The women would be walking through the rows of chairs taking out those who were still alive, collecting any of the human guests who were shaking, shuddering, crying, desperate to be "rescued" from the Vampyren overlords.
The games were massively brutal, bloodshed and food, entertainment and gluttony.
Human captives brought to experience them were judged on their reactions.
The Vampyren had need of those humans who could face the carnage and, whether because of their own makeup or because of their own need to pretend and survive, come through it without flinching.
Because there was a need of humans who could lead their own kind as the Vampyren went about their own work – collecting breeding females, fucking them for food or for reproduction, forcing them with mates to produce human offspring for food sources and mating with them themselves to create more Vampyren.
There simply weren't enough on Earth to take care of everything without humans who didn't flinch at the games.
Those who did, they became part of the games.
Those who didn't, they were groomed. Bred with the Vampyren females to produce more of their own that way as well as with human women.
And eventually put in charge, once they were more Vampyren than human.
The biggest secret the vampires had was their numbers. Or the lack of them. Because of the females and their propensity to kill and consume their mates, breeding with Vampyren females was dangerous and rare.
There weren't as many Vampyren as the humans thought.
That was the secret they all kept.
And now human women had just decimated more of their numbers.
He had to rise.
This time Lan's hand didn't stop him. Danton's hearts began to pound and he threw off the bodies on top of him, digging through them once he was upright to find his brother.
Lan was unconscious.
But he was breathing.
Danton took a long breath himself and looked out over the theater. It was a sea of blood, of victims rising and a wall of bodies where warriors had rushed the women and been dropped in their tracks.
He pulled Lan free of the bodies and got him seated on a chair, free of limbs and clothes and hair that could make it harder for him.
Then he sat beside him and let the shuddering take him. In a minute he'd get up and join with the other warriors already on their feet. They'd put together a plan, compare notes, add any information they had.
Just for a second, though, he needed some uncharacteristic breathing space. This world was strange. He hated it here. He'd actively campaigned for the colonization mission.
Now he wished he'd never set foot off his own planet. Something had changed since coming here.
Something that could get him killed if he didn't get a handle on it.
Soon.