Read Online Fat Vampire (Book 5): Fatpocalypse by Johnny B. Truant - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Johnny B. Truant
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Karl hadn’t been covered with as much stink of treason as Reginald had been following their attempt to rig the election, but his stature in the vampire community had dropped significantly. In the eyes of the vampire world, the EU Council had gotten into bed with traitors, and until that last report, Karl had made zero headway in finding allies willing to stand against Timken. Everyone Karl had tried to recruit said one of two things: either that Timken was the benevolent and fair leader he’d claimed to be and that Karl was crazy, or they said that Timken was planning to turn earth into a vampire planet… and that was just fine. Everyone had seen the Ring of Fire. Everyone knew what was at stake. And absent any decent-sounding alternative explanations, everyone pretty much agreed that as regrettable as it seemed, killing off the human population was one way to give the angels what they seemed to demand.
Karl, when Reginald and Maurice had spoken with him three weeks ago, had told them that riots had begun to break out during the day. He told them that he saw crosses and garlic hanging outside more and more of the bars. He told them that people had gone missing all across the small country, with reports of many more in neighboring Germany, France, and Belgium. In Brussels, a group of dead tourists had been fished out of one of the canals and their bodies had been suspiciously pale. There was a rumor that one night, over Paris, the light atop the Eiffel Tower had grown strangely dim — and that when a worker had gone up to check, he’d found a prominent local businessman’s corpse wrapped around the light, blocking the beam. Reginald, back in America, had been unable to confirm either rumor. If they’d happened, they’d been erased or suppressed.
And now this.
“My desire not to go in there has ratcheted up a notch,” said Nikki.
Reginald looked at Nikki. She usually looked like a warrior, but right now she was actually shivering. He reminded himself that not long ago, she’d been a human woman, outwardly exuberant and confident but wounded inside. She drank blood these days, but she’d been on death’s other side enough for it to have left its mark. After they’d discovered their ransacked office and the bodies it had contained, she’d had nightmares for months.
“We’re here for the day either way,” he told her.
“Do you think anyone was courteous enough to leave some of those lead day suits here for us?” she said, peering back toward the morning sun.
“I don’t think I could fit into one anyway,” said Reginald. He looked down at his corpulent frame. “Or lift one.”
“You could stay here and hang out. I’d take my suit and go somewhere else.”
She was whistling in the dark, trying to keep talking so the monsters would stay away. Right now, they were the monsters… but because it was all he could do, Reginald played along.
“Where would you go?”
“Starbucks,” she said. “I have a theory that if you walk into a business looking like Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe, nobody asks questions. They just roll with it. I wouldn’t even bite anyone. Just sip cappuccinos all day. Maybe get into a chess game with a bearded guy the locals call ‘Spider.'"
Reginald smiled, then took her hand. They had to go inside. There was no other way.
Fighting fear, he led the way. Nikki could clear a freight yard with her hands and Reginald couldn’t successfully fight anything other than a pizza, but he stayed in front anyway. It had an upside. Until he was run through with a telephone pole or whatever else awaited him below, he’d get to feel like a hero.
What they found at the foot of the stairs looked like the remnants of a battle. There were human bodies — some whole, some in pieces — lining the room. All of the humans (and their parts) were in black uniforms. They’d been wearing helmets that were connected to sturdy torso armor by jointed neck plates.
Karl, when Reginald and Maurice had spoken with him three weeks ago, had told them that riots had begun to break out during the day. He told them that he saw crosses and garlic hanging outside more and more of the bars. He told them that people had gone missing all across the small country, with reports of many more in neighboring Germany, France, and Belgium. In Brussels, a group of dead tourists had been fished out of one of the canals and their bodies had been suspiciously pale. There was a rumor that one night, over Paris, the light atop the Eiffel Tower had grown strangely dim — and that when a worker had gone up to check, he’d found a prominent local businessman’s corpse wrapped around the light, blocking the beam. Reginald, back in America, had been unable to confirm either rumor. If they’d happened, they’d been erased or suppressed.
And now this.
“My desire not to go in there has ratcheted up a notch,” said Nikki.
Reginald looked at Nikki. She usually looked like a warrior, but right now she was actually shivering. He reminded himself that not long ago, she’d been a human woman, outwardly exuberant and confident but wounded inside. She drank blood these days, but she’d been on death’s other side enough for it to have left its mark. After they’d discovered their ransacked office and the bodies it had contained, she’d had nightmares for months.
“We’re here for the day either way,” he told her.
“Do you think anyone was courteous enough to leave some of those lead day suits here for us?” she said, peering back toward the morning sun.
“I don’t think I could fit into one anyway,” said Reginald. He looked down at his corpulent frame. “Or lift one.”
“You could stay here and hang out. I’d take my suit and go somewhere else.”
She was whistling in the dark, trying to keep talking so the monsters would stay away. Right now, they were the monsters… but because it was all he could do, Reginald played along.
“Where would you go?”
“Starbucks,” she said. “I have a theory that if you walk into a business looking like Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe, nobody asks questions. They just roll with it. I wouldn’t even bite anyone. Just sip cappuccinos all day. Maybe get into a chess game with a bearded guy the locals call ‘Spider.'"
Reginald smiled, then took her hand. They had to go inside. There was no other way.
Fighting fear, he led the way. Nikki could clear a freight yard with her hands and Reginald couldn’t successfully fight anything other than a pizza, but he stayed in front anyway. It had an upside. Until he was run through with a telephone pole or whatever else awaited him below, he’d get to feel like a hero.
What they found at the foot of the stairs looked like the remnants of a battle. There were human bodies — some whole, some in pieces — lining the room. All of the humans (and their parts) were in black uniforms. They’d been wearing helmets that were connected to sturdy torso armor by jointed neck plates.
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