Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:54:00 +1300
From: Arthur <artcart65@vodafone.co.nz>
Subject: the prince of house vladd bk2 chapter 10

			 THE PRINCE OF HOUSE VLADD

				CHAPTER 10

				  BOOK 2

				 BY ARTHUR



Peter called an emergency meeting of all the vampires and any other of the
folk, in the main lounge which was now called the common room, within
minutes of the call, there were nearly fifty of the folk present, as they
all found seats, Peter finished his conversation on his sat phone.

"Thank you Senor Delgardo, so the final number is thirty and you will fly
the jet yourself so we can land at night and go low enough to get under
their radar, the only thing now is, when is the earliest we can leave, the
situation here is critical for the locals?"

Everyone watched as Peter listened silently to the reply on the phone,
finally he absently nodded his head and switched off the phone, turning to
the waiting folk in the room, Peter began to ask for volunteers for the
dangerous trip ahead.

Peter was not at all surprised when every vampire and wolf in the room
stood up to volunteer for the mercy mission, all of the folk in the stone
city had become attached to the gentle nature and total acceptance of the
native folk and felt a deep sense of protection to them, it was time for
Peter to select the team for the raid.

Peter asked Sin Yu to stay behind to protect the city along with the
remainder of the folk, he had selected a mixture of wolves and vampires for
the raid, the vampires would do most of the fighting and the wolves would
do the search and carrying of the urgently needed vaccine, Jeffery had also
volunteered to go so they would have less problem finding the store rooms
of vaccine but, Peter declined to let him, stating it would be too
dangerous and they could not afford to lose him, instead he got Jeffery to
draw up a very detailed plan of the building and where the wolves could
find the vaccine, it would have to do.

The thirty selected for the raid went off to get their equipment, Peter,
Swiftwing and the other three were already armed and ready when the others
returned to the common room, quickly they followed the Prince out of the
pyramid to the waiting SUV's, just as Peter was about to get into the lead
vehicle he felt something behind him, turning, he was not really surprised
to see his two sons smiling at him, the look of askance on their faces told
Peter all he needed to know.

"And you two think you're coming on this little expedition I assume?"

"Yes Dad." Quetz replied. "We don't want you to get into any trouble
without us along."

"I see, and there's no telling you not to come, I suppose?"

"Not really, we could do it our way, but then it would spoil your fun,
seriously Dad, they have attacked our people, we're not letting them get
away with it, we have to do this as much for our sake as it is for our
people, they expect us to protect them and we didn't, we have to make up
for it now."

"Ok, you two can come but, this is a mercy mission not a revenge mission,
we may have to do that later but for now it's more important to get the
vaccine so we can heal your people, so, no massive storms or other fancy
things to teach them a lesson just yet."

The two teens nodded as their faces broke out into a big smile, they would
follow their Fathers decision unless something changed the situation, that
is for now they would accept the decision, what happened later would be
kept a secret for now, the boys jumped into the SUV with their two dads and
the other three body guards.

The long convoy left the city square quickly and moved off into the dark of
night, they had a drive of an hour to meet the waiting jet where Senor
Delgardo would be waiting for them, it had been agreed that the plane would
not put in a flight plan which took some very big bribes to the people in
charge of the airfield where the jet had been landed in the first dimness
of the approaching night.

Senor Delgardo had no intention of flying at any height above one hundred
feet for the whole trip, it was going to be a very dangerous and fast trip
but he was sure his advantages in his vampire blood gave him a decided edge
and he meant to use all of them in this mercy mission for his Prince.

When the convoy arrived at the airport, Peter was surprised to see, not the
small private jet waiting for them but a Boeing 707, on the inside, all of
the unneeded seating had been removed to make space for the cases of
vaccine and anything else they might find that may help in the future.

At first sight of the large jet, Peter though it might be a little overkill
but decided that he would say nothing, Senor Delgardo had obviously thought
it out and decided that the larger jet might be needed, it was painted in a
mat black and had no lights showing on the outside and would make the whole
flight without showing any, the SUV's were quickly emptied and the folk all
filed into the almost empty body of the plane, it was only seconds later
and the jets were screaming and the plane was already moving onto the
runway for take off.

The folk all found seats just as the wheels were lifting off the ground,
they had no need of seat belts and thought them a little useless if the
plane did crash, only a ball of fire or decapitation could take them out of
existence so the fear of a few broken bones if a crash did occur, held no
fear for them.

At full throttle, the jet was going to take nearly three hours to reach
White Sands, they would then have only an hour to find and enter the
complex before the plan would have to take them home before the new sun
rose, with the plan drawn up by Jeffery, Senor Delgardo had picked a wide
roadway close to the complex to land the jet on, the doors would be opened
as the taxied to a stop and the folk would pile out, hopefully within
striking distance so the attack would be a surprise.

They all knew that an alert would go out as soon as the jet was seen to
touch down but they also knew that any hope of relief for the defenders
would take at least an hour to arrive, Senor Delgardo also had a crew of
four wolves with him, they would use their superior strength to turn the
jet ready for take off as well as defend the jet while they waited for
Peter to complete his quest.

The flight went without a hiccup although it did raise a lot of heads as it
flew over towns and small farms before reaching the unending stretch of the
desert, the heady roar of the jets engines echoed out over the barren earth
below them as the black shape speed at a heart stopping height, sometimes
as low as fifty feet, the ground behind the jet was swept up into thick
clouds of soil and dust as it sped by, on the radar of the defence system
of the US there was not a sign and the odd phone calls to the authorities
were pushed aside as someone being mad or drunk as everyone knew it was
impossible to fly a large jet at that sort of height and remain in control.

Everyone on board did their final checks as the jet drew closer to the wide
roadway, Delgardo had been following it for close on ten minutes and had
already pulled back on the throttles until he had just enough speed to
maintain flight, he was now almost sweating if it had at all been possible
for a vampire to do so, all of his prodigious mental concentration was now
focussed on the final task of landing as close to the complex as he could,
the faint pin pricks of light ahead of him showed him where the complex
was, there were no other lights anywhere in the vastness of the desert.

The passengers felt the slight downwards shift as the jet lowered closer to
the ground, suddenly they felt the wheels touch the hard surface of the
wide roadway, it was a little rougher than a proper airport but Delgardo's
superior strength helped hi to maintain the integrity of the jet as it sped
along with it's tyres smoking on the roadway as the huge jet engines tried
to pull the plane to a halt before they ran out of space.

The huge jet finally pulled to a stop only sixty metres from the gates of
the complex, through the darkened windows, Senor Delgardo could see already
the forms of the thirty passengers sprinting towards the closed gates, he
took his eyes off the charging group to switch off the engines and settle
back to do his calculations for the return journey as his wolves went out
to turn the jet by hand, it took every ounce of the massive strength to
accomplish the act but they succeeded and returned to wait for the end of
the fight they could hear in the dark night behind them.

It took only seconds to cover the distance to the gates and even less time
to pull them off the hinges, the guards inside were still struck dumb as
the gates crashed to the ground in front of them, none of them escaped and
their end was swift and clean, the entrance to the underground complex was
now open to the group but the heavy steel doors were closed tight.

At first Peter tried the old code that Jeffery had given him but with no
result, as he was about to look for another way, his two sons stepped
forward and raised their hands, the resulting blast of energy not only
melted the doors but set a wave of power surging down the now open passage
way, eight guards that had been in the passage never knew what hit them as
they buckled to the floor.

Peter tried to scowl at his two boys but they caught the half hidden smile
on their Dads face, the rest of the folk ran at speed down the now vacant
passage, the vampires in the vanguard as they cleared rooms quickly and
efficiently, all the while working their way towards the underground safe
rooms.

The twins, Caleb and Levi had taken off for the communications room to shut
it down before any signals could be got out, everything was done at full
speed and this left little time for any human to react, those who were
armed were dealt with quickly and with no finesse, the unarmed were put to
sleep and tied up out of the way.

It took the wolves only five minutes to reach the safe rooms where all the
vaccines were kept, all evidence of defence was now stopped, it was time to
get what they had come for, the vaults revealed pallet upon pallet of
stored vaccines, the lead wolf, a member of Jake's pack that had wanted to
go with the prince for some excitement, took command of the other wolves
and set about finding the pallets they wanted.

While the wolves were at work, Peter and his vampire's along with the two
boys, began their own search for the labs that created most of the terrors
of germ warfare, with Jeffery's map they soon found the area two levels
down, the lab was huge, all the walls were covered with computers and
screens, along the center of the lab were individual sealed glass sections
for individual scientists to work in isolation from the rest, everything
was clean and white and the main doors were the only ones not protected by
double air locks.

The two boys joined hands again and let a smaller version of their power
slice through the locks on the door, as the doors were pushed wide, Peter
set his folk to laying the charges they had brought with them, they were
not going to leave anything standing in this complex, faintly from above,
Peter could hear the sounds of the wolves working at speed to clear the
storage vault of vaccine.

Once the charges had all been set, Peter sent his folk back to clear out
any captives from the complex, they would leave them outside the main gates
until they could be rescued by their own people, by the time any help
arrived, Peter hoped to have his folk a long way from the complex.

At fifty minutes the sound of the jet warming up was like a warning for the
folk in the complex, all the vaccine for the smallpox had been loaded along
with a lot more that might come in handy should the Us decide to use
anything else, every vampire and wolf had been called into action to clear
as much of the vault as possible before the time was up.

At last they had no more time, Peter had made sure they had at least some
of each vaccine in the now fully loaded jet, it was going to be a slower
trip home because of the extra weight and the need to stay low again,
Delgardo had assured Peter they had plenty of fuel to make it but he
wouldn't be able to do much in the way of dodging any aircraft that might
come after them.

Finally they had loaded as much as the jet could carry, the folk got aboard
and Peter stood outside the open door until the last one had entered, he
then turned towards the complex and pushed the button on his phone as he
walked up the steps, the resounding underground crash rumbled out of the
open doorway just as the jet lifted up into the night sky, the only sign of
the jet were the bright jets of fire from the engines as they pushed the
huge jet forward under full power, at the same time a cloud of flame and
smoke blasted from the open hole of the complex, there would be nothing to
recover from the blast and another hidden lab disappeared into the ground.

The flight, while at times was a little nerve wracking in being so close to
the rushing ground underneath them, was still unhindered by any
interference from searching military, it appeared that the destruction of
the complex had not yet got out and that the authorities had not yet caught
on to the attack.

An hour before dawn, the large jet crossed the Mexican border and into a
land of safety, its new heading was in a direct course for the airport
closest to the stone city, Peter sent a message ahead to make sure that all
the SUV's were waiting along with a number of hastily hired heavy trucks to
carry their precious cargo back to the city.

Peter also contacted the pyramid and asked for volunteers to administer the
vaccine, he was unhappy to learn that another 250 natives had died from the
infection, it was now a race against time to save as many as they could, it
was the young ones he was mainly concerned with as they did not have the
strength of the adults to hold on under the assault of the disease.

Their arrival back at the city was met with the stench of death, funeral
pyres were being set up on the edge of the jungle to handle all the dead,
those still living were in bad shape and so every vampire was given a quick
lesson in administering the vaccine to those who were the worst of the ill.

The speed of the vampires helped them to be able to visit large numbers of
the ill so much faster than any human doctor could have, as the sun rose
and those vampires that had to go to their day sleep, left for their rooms,
only Peter, Swiftwing, the twins and the two boys were left but, as they
had been able to tend to most of the ill so fast, there were now only those
who had not yet become ill left to vaccinate, the rest of the day would
prove to be a long one.

With the two boys helping, the rest of the natives stood calmly waiting for
their gods to attend to them, they all knew that the gods would not let
them die and so showed their usual dogmatic patience as one by one they
received their injection and then turned to help with the cremation of
those who had died in the night, it was this stoic attitude that impressed
Peter the most.

By mid afternoon everyone was vaccinated, the funeral pyres were now dying
down as the last of the air of death cleared from the edge of the square,
the many dark spirals of smoke drifted lazily over the green tree tops to
finally disperse into the blue of the cloudless sky, the final tally had
still shaken Peter and his folk at the swiftness of the event.

In the 26 hours of the attack, the stone city had lost 1200 men, women and
children, the unholy destruction of so many innocents did not sit well on
any of the folks shoulders and the look of pending doom on the faces of the
two boys did not bode well for the Northern lands, Peter feared he would
not be able to hold back the revenge of his two sons and, as he thought
more about it, he had no real desire to do so.

Tezca was the first to voice his opinion; it seemed he had taken the roll
of leader of the two boys as Quetz in actuality was the youngest although
he now looked the same age as Tezca but their individual feelings allowed
Tezca to take the lead in most things.

"This is not going to go unpunished, Dad P, we have to let them know that
they have to stay away from the city and its people."

"I agree son, but how, you can't just go and destroy every human up North;
it's only a few that are power hungry."

"We know that Dad, we're going to give them something else to worry about
rather than trying to destroy us down here but, we need your help."

"Ok, what do you need?"

"We need detailed plans on all of their power bases, military, economic and
political, once we have that then we're going to start to give them
something else to worry about."

"Do you want to tell me what it is now, or are you going to keep us
guessing?"

"We won't have the final plan until we know all about their base of power,
what we need is all your contacts still up North to find everything about
their bases as they can, when we have all the information, then we can
finish our original plan."

Peter looked at his two sons and thought about their request for a few
minutes before answering.

"Alright, I'll get onto it right away, when do you need the results?"

"As soon as possible, we want to start the first part of our plan by
tomorrow night if we can."

"I'll get everyone onto it now, we all need some rest so you better take
your brother and rest for a while, I'll let you know as soon as I have
something for you."

Both boys rushed over to Peter and hugged him close, they had half been
expecting him to turn them down and his agreement came as a surprise, had
they known that the sight of the dead earlier in the day had brought a new
hardness to Peter's heart, they might have felt more confident when asking
him.

Peter and Swiftwing set about making contact with as many of the Vaga
Houses as they could, they received the promise that all the information
they wanted would be in their hands by the following day and the two left
to get some rest time of their own, it had been a busy two days and the
city was left to those who had lost family and friends in the biological
attack, it was a time for remembrance and not the time for thinking of
revenge for the native population.

The time passed slowly as the group in the common room waited for the rest
of the information to be collated for them, the two boys were sitting alone
with their heads together as they looked at the volume of print outs
sitting on the floor in front of them.

The mass of information was staggering for such a limited time of
collection, as far as they could tell, every military base including the
outline of the Pentagon, as well as the headquarters of the main political
offices were sitting there on the floor, the boys plan was coming together
quickly as the filled in the extra details they would need, it was time to
show the North what the true power of the reborn god boys was.

In the failing light of evening, in a small copse of trees close to the
Pentagon, two young men appeared kneeling on the ground, they placed both
their hands to the soil and closed their eyes, at fist it was nothing more
than a small ripple in the surface of the soil, slowly it built until,
finally, just as the two figures disappeared into the dark, the Pentagon
found itself at the epicentre of a magnitude 9.1 earthquake.

Nearly seven thousand people in the building were began to scream as the
large building began to tumble around them, the very ground at the center
of the building split wide as a giant fissure appeared and widened until it
was pulling the very building into its gaping depths, the speed of the vent
left no time for anyone to escape apart from those closest to the main
doors or those just getting into their cars.

Within the two minutes of the quake, there was nothing left of the Pentagon
apart from a few smouldering ruins and piles of broken bricks and concrete
from which one or two quickly dying screams could still be heard but, there
was no hope for any who had been caught in the building as it shook itself
to destruction, those few survivors could only look on with horror at what
had once been the center of military control.

Within minutes of the far off earthquake hitting the center of the military
complex, another natural disaster began to form unseen off the coast of New
York, no one could see the two small figures suspended over the ocean as
the huge tsunami formed under the blue power of the four young hands,
slowly it grew larger until it towered a full twenty metres over the
surrounding calm ocean and, as the two young figures disappeared into the
dark night, the huge destructive wave began to make its way towards the
lights of the city only a mile away.

As the huge destructive wave bore down on the unsuspecting populace of the
city at the center of the economic wealth of the nation, far off, at the
foot of Mount St Helens, the two boys again appeared, unknown to most of
the residents of the area, within a short distance of the sleeping volcano,
was the main base of Norad, it was well hidden deep in the mountain side no
more than ten miles from the volcano.

A bright golden glow surrounded the two figures as they again closed their
eyes and began a soft chant in a long forgotten language, as they completed
the chant, a deep rumble began in the heart of Mount St Helens, a small
wisp of smoke appeared at center of its broken cone but nothing else, it
was just like so many other rumbles that the locals were now accustomed
too.

There was however, something else going on deep underground, Mount St
Helens was not going to erupt today, or any time in the future, it was deep
in the darkest recesses of the mountain the things were changing, a deep
fissure opened under the mountain and began to work its way underground
towards the far off mountain that hid the Norad complex.

With a swiftness that belied its make up of molten rock, the fissure opened
further as more and more of the magma dissolved the surrounding rock and
sand until it came to the foot of the mountain, there it worked on
enlarging the cavity as it melted more and more surrounding rock until it
could contain itself no more.

With a deep and foreboding rumble that was heard and felt for miles around,
the very solid granite rock under the complex, split wide and a deluge of
raging hot lava broke loose, the destruction was total and quick as the
magma forced its way upward towards the surface to finally explode in a
display of molten rock and poisonous fumes into the dark night, the
pyrotechnic display was seen for miles around, the earlier eruption of
Mount St Helens looked like a small fire cracker compared to the light show
no put on by the exploding mountain, nothing and no one survived.

In the Capitol, President Carabine was shaken from his reverie as the
reports began to come in, it appeared that within minutes of each other,
they had been hit by the worst of mother nature, a violent earthquake had
totally destroyed the Pentagon, a freak tidal wave had demolished and
flooded all of downtown New York and the Financial district along with all
the wharves and most of the retail area, he didn't want to even think about
the loss of life and now there was this unknown volcano erupting right
under Norad, it was too much for him to take in.

As President Carabine laid his head in his hands, he felt a faint humming
in his bones, as he looked up, he was just in time to see two strange young
teens appear right in his office from thin air, his fear grew as he saw the
look on the faces of the two boys, there was not a hint of grace on their
tanned faces, for the first time in his life, President Carabine felt real
fear.

Carabine opened his mouth to call for his security but no sound came out,
instead, the young blonde teen lifted one hand, from his palm came a faint
blue iridescent glow, with the blink of an eye, President Carabine found
himself surrounded by the faint glow and the office around him appeared to
dim, only the parting words of the teens could be heard in his ear as he
lost contact with reality around him.

"The Creator has sent us to give you a warning, if, within 24 hours, you
have not resigned and also stood down all of your administration, then, the
full force of the Creators power will be unleashed upon you and yours, this
is your only warning President Carabine."

With his last vision, Carabine saw the two teens once again disappear from
his office but, now he had something more to worry about, the very space
around him was changing, and not for the best, as his vision cleared, he
once again saw old places and worst of all came the rush of old memories,
the very ones he had thought buried forever in the depths of his mind.

As his sight cleared, he saw and felt the old familiar smells and sounds of
the Ozark Mountains, the tree covered slopes rustling in the afternoon
breeze and the faint smell of the hidden moon shine stills further in the
depths. Under his bare feet was the dusty surface of the family yard, its
piles of rusting junk mixed with the yapping of the four hunting dogs tied
up out back of the old house.

It was a typical back woods frame house, the paint on the weather boards
was faded and peeling, some of the boards were now warped and splitting
and, on the roof, there were twisted and loose wooden tiles that let in
drops of rain when the clouds came over and the morning mists settled on
the roof.

With growing fear, the future President of the United States looked down at
his twelve year old body, totally naked except for the loose fitting, worn
and patched hand me down coveralls, his gaze lifted again to the shadow of
the veranda as he heard the one sound that always brought true dread to his
young body.

"Bout time you got back, I got the feeling boy." Jacob his seventeen year
old brother called to him.

Young Ezrael Carabine had no doubts as to what was to come as he looked at
the shaded veranda with trepidation, at the far left of the veranda sat his
Mother in her old rocking chair as she shelled the peas for their supper,
one glance and you could tell she was worn out well before her time, at
forty two years of age, Agatha looked instead to be in her sixties, bearing
fifteen children and losing seven of them, would do that to a woman.

Her eyes were almost vacant and the sounds and smells around here went
almost unnoticed by her dedication to the shelling of the peas, beside here
sat fourteen year old Boaz, or Bo as he was usually called, the boys was
finishing off the skinning of a opossum for their supper, his young eyes
were also set on the thin frame of Ezrael as he stood in the dust.

Next to Boaz was fifteen year old Noah, his hands moved slowly in a long
practiced way as he cleaned the old battered .22 rifle they used to get
their bush meat with, in the eyes of Noah was the same look of lust as the
other two and the loud moans and groans from inside the weather beaten
house, of their overweight Father as he once again bred his youngest
daughter with his seed, she was now sixteen and was about to conceive her
second child with her Father, the two year old boy that was her first born,
was sitting on an old blanket in the corner of the same room.

The noises and the creaks and groans of the old iron bed had brought the
three waiting teens to a state of arousal that could not wait and their
youngest brother was their only outlet, just as it had been for the last
two years, as the youngest and smallest of the boys still living at home,
Ezrael knew he had no other place than what he had now but, deep in the
furtherest recesses of his mind, he had a dream, one that he swore to God,
he would fulfil in time.


TBC.


Artcart65@vodafone.co.nz