Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 663(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
He was a big man and liked intimidating his prey. He’d used his size against other children when he was a boy and still did so as a vampire. It was said he crushed children’s heads in his hands in front of their parents just to hear the elevated heartbeat, the rush of blood in their veins, hoping the heart would explode in their chests. He played with his prey for a long time before finally giving them death. He was a vicious fighter and one to respect in battle.
Ferro, Sandu, Benedek, Petru and Gary exchanged everything they knew of the four men as far as every battle they’d ever heard of or observed them in. They did so without words, simply calling up memories to share in their merged minds. They weren’t taking any chances that a flare of energy would give their presence away before they had the information they needed.
“Vadim’s infection was not effective at all,” Sergey greeted, his voice shaking with fury once again. He glared at Cornel. “Unless you set us up to be killed. They were waiting. An ambush. We were lucky to get away. As it was, we lost all of the idiot fawning pawns.”
Cornel frowned and glanced at his brother. “That doesn’t make any sense, Sergey. The infection had to have spread by now.”
“Well, it didn’t, so you tell me, Cornel, how is it that the infection didn’t spread when you assured me that it would? When you told me the ancients would turn on one another and that the gates would be opened from the inside? How is it that none of that happened?” Sergey demanded and threw himself into a chair.
The few remaining newly made vampires crawled into the room, covered in black shiny blood, and prostrated themselves on the floor. They whined in high-pitched voices, although the sound was more of a whimpering, grating on Ferro’s nerves with his acute hearing. He knew it grated on the other ancients as well. He didn’t see how the master vampires could tolerate such a din in spite of how low the actual sound was. It felt like nails scratching over a chalkboard.
“I have no idea.” Cornel sighed in frustration. “I can’t work from here. I need to be in a location where we have access to the internet. Eventually we’ll be able to trace the hunters. We’ll know their locations when they choose to move around. They have energy fields, and we’ve been working to perfect an algorithm for that.”
Ferro had no idea what that meant, and he doubted if Sergey did, either, although the master vampire cocked his head to one side and nodded as if he did know.
“Who do we have developing that?” Sergey asked, frowning as if he were very interested.
“It was Fridrick, Addler’s older brother, but he was killed when Vadim insisted he try to get those women pregnant,” Dorin answered, his tone slightly disparaging. “He brought the hunters right to us before we were ready.”
“Had you taken over sooner, Sergey,” Addler added, “we would be in a much stronger position.” He casually kicked one of the newly made vampires who had crawled too close. It was a hard kick, delivered with the strength of a master vampire. “Know your place, worm. You don’t ever get near Sergey unless he chooses to acknowledge you.”
The man fell back, shuddering and whining, crawling back to the other newly made vampires. Once human, they had been young college-aged males who had gone to the Morrison Center for psychic testing. The Malinov brothers had conceived a plan to use them as pawns, dangling immortality and the promise of power in front of them. They converted them and then sent them into battle with the experienced Carpathians, using the new vampires as diversions or to wear the hunters down before launching the main attack.
Ferro and the others felt no emotion as they watched them fawning, trying to win favors with the master vampires. The high-pitched whining increased in volume to the point Ferro found it strange he couldn’t turn the sound down. Carpathians could always lower the volume when noises were too loud, yet that screech was persistent and growing louder until he thought he might go mad.
The large room seemed to shudder, the ground rippling as if something alive moved beneath the vampires’ feet. For one moment, the walls in the circular room appeared to do the same, the dirt walls undulating in a slow, uneasy wave, alerting Ferro that there could be things hidden that could be equally as dangerous as the master vampires and the poisonous web they had guarding the front entrance.
Cornel impatiently waved his hand toward the newly made vampires to silence them, annoyed by their continuing noise. The whining broke off abruptly. When it did, the uneasy rippling in the floor and walls ceased as well.