Vive la Resistance

Donovan shifted on the lounger and muttered incomprehensively, then he emitted a rumbling snore.  

“Hey, y’all. So yeah, vampires are real and they’re not above doing the dirty to those who share their blood. Take a look at this.” The Tik-Tokker grinned. “You are not gonna believe it. It’s so shady.” 

Video of the Coalition camps rolled across the screen. Occasionally, the camera zeroed in a dirty or bruised Millennial, or a guard pushing a group of people into a building, their ankles locked together with some sort of rope. They were seen eating off of metal plates and lined up to fill a metal cup with something from a barrel. It wasn’t water. The liquid was rust-colored and thick, like blood. 

“And the dudes running the place have a Marie Antoinette fetish. You know—” The woman mimicked a knife across her throat. “Off with their heads?” 

She giggled. A guillotine appeared on camera. About ten people were in line, each with a black hood over their heads and their arms bound behind them. One at a time, they were pushed onto a stage and forced to their knees, their necks positioned directly under the blade. With manic efficiency, a guard released the blade. Most heads flew into a barrel in front of the platform. The ones that rolled off onto the stage were kicked to their final destination. The headless bodies were tossed onto a pile on the ground. 

“Oh, grosss,” the woman complained. She leaned toward the camera. “Kind of like a bad zombie movie, isn’t it?” 

She sat back in her chair and made a face. “Whatever. I mean, like, are we supposed to believe that’s really happening? Isn’t that against the law or something?” She cackled. “As if.” She leisurely stretched her body, her crop top exposing a belly button ring. “I’m so shook.” 

The woman tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Now, I’m not sharing this for the views. It is kind of sus. But if this shit is real, someone needs to get off the pot and do something about it. Aren’t there any woke cops out there who can play the James Bond card? Before anymore—” She swiped her finger across her throat and giggled. 

Then the screen went black. Donovan shot up in his chair and blinked. Once. Twice. He shook his head and attempted to gather himself. What the hell? Sure, he had needed the sleep, even if it was only a thirty-minute nap, but the dreams he could do without. It had been less than forty-eight hours since the worldwide kidnappings. Donovan knew preparations for rescue were underway. But he also knew Bengotten and Hannigan were capable of even greater cruelty. He could only imagine the terror and the torture the victims were being subjected to.  

It was difficult to understand how the vampire world was capable of this. He had long prided himself on their natural superiority, their ability to rise up above the petty politics and unjustified violence in the human and Were worlds. Yet overnight, vampires had become the monsters, the tyrants capable of such evil. That astonished him. For the first time in his long existence, Donovan was ashamed of being a vampire. If it was possible, he might very well submit to being turned into a human or a Were. He buried his face in his hands. Yes, he could live as a human. Perhaps he could ask Dr. Alvarez to find a way to turn off his vampirism, maybe using the gene-editing Marilyn could not stop talking about. 

Excerpt #2:

Clinging to the tree, Donovan watched as the monkey taunted him with the package. How the hell was he supposed to get it back? Slowly, he began to edge down the tree. Suddenly, a ladder hit his feet. Donovan gazed below him and smiled. That was where the worker had gone. To get a ladder. He eased onto it and carefully lowered himself. When he reached the sandy soil, he gazed at the worker and pointed at the devious monkey. “He grabbed the package. How do I get it back?”

The worker chuckled. “He will drop it in exchange for a treat.” He nodded at the monkey. “That one loves berries.” The worker motioned toward a blueberry bush and started pulling the berries from the bush. “These are hard for them to pick. If we pile them at the base of the tree, he will drop the package in order to get to them.”

Donovan cocked an eyebrow. “Really? That’s all it will take?”

The worker dropped a handful of berries by the tree and the monkey began to jump up and down, screeching excitedly. Donovan quickly picked another handful of berries and dumped them onto the growing mound. After a few minutes of berry picking, the worker motioned for Donovan to step back. They waited a moment. With the package in his teeth, the monkey leaped from the tree and landed softly next to the blueberries. He tossed the package away and dug in, consuming the berries with aggressive zeal. When he finished, he leaped back into the tree and swung away.

Donovan grabbed the package. It was a bit slimy, saturated with monkey saliva. “Ye Gods, I hope they didn’t dissolve the pill.” Carefully, he peeled away the packaging. Inside was a small box wrapped in several layers of plastic. He sighed with relief. Donovan removed the box and grasped it tightly in his hand, then he began to run. The faster he got it to the laboratory, the faster they would get some answers.

Consumed with the task at hand, Donovan failed to notice a plane hovering over the island. In a grid-like pattern, it flew back and forth, each time moving closer to the electronic grid. Finally tuning into the sound of the plane’s engines, Donovan looked up, just in time to discover that the plane intended to dive into the net. It was headed straight for him. 

Donovan had no time to leap out of the way. The plane hit the net and burst into flames. The vegetation below was caught in the fire’s path. The force of the explosion flung Donovan into the dense jungle, where his head hit a tree. He struggled to remain conscious in what was now a sea of smoke and flames. His last thought before he succumbed to the darkness was that there was one thing they had not planned for—fire…and monkeys.

Excerpt #3:

Marilyn frowned. “So that is why Sanguis was taken off the market? Because it was resulting in feeding frenzies?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Because it was not effective in preventing feeding on humans. Period. But recently, we were made aware of another reason it was pulled. A nefarious reason. One that was hidden from all vampires. Our preliminary findings point to a genetic response to the outer shell of Sanguis. For female vampires, that outer shell is poison.” 

Confusion entered Marilyn’s eyes. “But we can’t be poisoned. Our system—”

Shirley interrupted, her expression hard. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“To ingest the contents of the pill, a vamp must crack the shell with their teeth and swallow it. The ingredients then enter the vampire circulatory system and the shell is intended to be discarded via normal processes. For this to happen, the body must be at the internal temperature of eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, the shell remains intact. However, when our bodies are overheated, that outer shell melts, and also enters our circulatory system. A chemical reaction occurs that makes the composition of the shell corrosive.”

A confused expression crossed Marilyn’s face. “When are our bodies ever overheated? We don’t experience temperature fluctuations like humans.” 

Jonathan gazed at his daughter. “That’s not exactly true. When a pure-blood female vampire is in a period of fertility, approximately once a month, their temperatures rise approximately four point three degrees. Apparently, that is high enough to melt the outer shell of Sanguis and release its corrosive chemicals into the body. And for a reason we have not yet discovered, the corrosive elements attach to the DNA, in particular, the chromosomal matter that controls fertility. It effectively eroded those chromosomes, and that prevented the production of eggs essential to the creation of life. That has made female pure-bloods barren.” 

Marilyn’s hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes filled with horror. She emitted a groan that sounded like a squelched scream. 

Shirley grabbed her hands and held them, forcing Marilyn to gaze at her. “It’s okay, Marilyn. Now that they have found the reason, maybe they can fix it.” Shirley turned and stared at Jonathan. “You can, right? Fix it?” 

Tillie’s face reddened. Suddenly, she felt quite queasy. She started to speak, but her superior held up his hand. 

“There’s more. This is a human-animal auction. It is not limited to Hucows. There will be Hupigs, Huhorses, and maybe even, Husheep. Fortunately, you are to focus on the cows. That is where we believe Lady Annabelle will be found.”

Tillie gazed at him. “What if she isn’t there? What if she has changed…er, species?”

“I suggest you cross that bridge when you come to it.”

“And what am I to do if I find Lady Annabelle? How do I extract her?”

“You purchase her at the auction. You have been given sufficient funds to bid up to one million Euros.”
Tillie’s eyes grew wide. “Criminy. That much?” 

Lord Ryder nodded. “These cows are well-trained and well-treated. The females are pampered—weekly manicures, hair treatments, and such. A happy cow is a happy milker, as they say.”
Tillie’s eyes widened. “Lady Annabelle could be there willingly? She is not necessarily a captive, forced be a Hucow?”

“Exactly. And that is our dilemma. While the Queen hopes that she is there willingly, several factors are at play. Lady Annabelle may have freely joined a farm to become a Hucow, or she may just have danced on the wild side and somehow wound up at auction. In the alternative, she may have been kidnapped and forced to become a Hucow, or she may have been forced and now enjoys the lifestyle. There are all sorts of reasons she could be there and all sorts of reasons she prefers to stay. Our only mission is to get her out.”

Tillie frowned. “Why would they put her up for auction? Isn’t that a way to get rid of unproductive or uncooperative cows?”

“Not necessarily. Some farms simply raise and train Hucows, then sell them. Given their going rate, it is a lucrative business. A great way to supplement the income from a regular farm. Human cows bring much more lucre than actual farm-raised cows.”

Tillie sighed. “For just one day, I would like to forget that there is a whole lot of people engaged in activities that far surpass my imagination.”

Lord Ryder’s mouth curved up into a wry smile. “Then we would be out of a job.”

Tillie tapped her jaw, considering. “You know, this might be a better job for the Yanks. They are a kinky bunch. I believe there was a recent study that found them to be the kinkiest country in the world.”

Lord Ryder snorted. “If you were the Queen, would you want that bunch of kinksters to know your relatives are participating in like behavior? Why their intelligence services would find a way to use it against us for decades.” He shook his head. “No. This we do alone.”

Donovan’s cell phone pinged. He pulled himself into a small alleyway, away from the stampede trudging back to their workplaces after lunch, and leaned back against a building to read a text. His face screwed up in confusion. The text read, The first thing we do, let’s kill all lawyers! Starting with you! 

“What the bloody hell?” he muttered. “Is this some kind of joke?” Donovan’s eyes surveyed his surroundings. He gazed right, then left. It did not appear that someone had made him the focus of their attention. Everyone was scurrying about, like mice in pursuit of a big cheese. “Must be Finley,” he said. “Finley is always plying me with lawyer jokes. He thinks he’s funny.”

Donovan shrugged. Not funny at all. He left the alleyway and re-entered the mass migration on the sidewalk. He approached the crosswalk at Michigan and Superior and emitted a snort of frustration as the light changed and the crosswalk filled with cars. He was bumped hard by someone behind him. Donovan was forced to step into the street to regain his balance. A cab rushed by and narrowly missed clipping his side. Donovan jumped back onto the sidewalk. 

A woman screamed and Donovan jerked his head around, trying to see what all the fuss was about. The woman was pointing at him. Donovan frowned and turned away. God save me from simpering females who saw the last issue of City Magazine. Donovan had appeared on the cover after being named as one of Chicago’s most eligible bachelors. Since then, he had learned that the female population was comprised of women of questionable morals and distressing behavior. He was growing weary of the attention. While his colleagues thought it a wise marketing strategy, it had brought him nothing but unwanted female attention. He had become prey. 

Vampires were predators. They stalked their victims. Sometimes, they pursued them with a vengeance. That was why he had joined the legal profession. His predilections were well-suited to that particular world. Now, his role had apparently shifted and he was not pleased.

Someone tapped Donovan on the shoulder. “Sir? Are you alright? You’re bleeding. It appears someone stuck a knife into your side.” 

Donovan’s mouth gaped and he turned toward the man who had spoken. Then he looked at where the man pointed. There was indeed a knife sticking out of his left side and a stream of his blood was flowing onto the sidewalk. He had a very high threshold of pain. He hadn’t felt the knife thrust into his side. If it wasn’t so appalling, he would be embarrassed. Donovan opened his mouth to reply. Then the pain in his side exploded and his vision dulled. Slowly he slid onto the sidewalk as if he planned to sit on the curb. 

Then everything went black.