Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

but a clue fell into my lap in the form of a report from one of my close advisers. Every one of the vampires who had spontaneously combusted had been sired by the executed lieutenant. In fact, no one he had sired still lived. Every human ever turned by him had burned in their beds when he burned at the stake. I took this information from the adviser in secret and promptly killed him to silence him. Until now, no one else had ever found out the truth.” He gripped Maya tightly, his lust for her burning in those unearthly eyes.

“Kill the headwaters of the river, and you kill the river.” Maya’s eyes widened with fevered interest and a ray of optimistic treason, though to Don Luis, her expression was one of horror and shock.

“This revelation sent stark terror into my heart. How could I be the undisputed ruler of this burgeoning kingdom if my Achilles’ heel lay somewhere out there in the wilderness, just waiting to be found and exploited? I tackled this new quest with ten times more urgency, more fury and more resources than I had the building of this city-state. I led an army out into the desert hills where I had stumbled across the thing that had turned me. Although my recollection of that fateful night was blurry at best, I found the creature after only three weeks of tireless searching. Having to bring portable shelter and set up a hermetically sealed camp every morning slowed things down and made the expedition a little tough; capturing and subduing the demon urchin once we found it was more so. I lost nearly half my men to the urchin when they battled it, but my numbers and persistence paid off.

“I watched the creature as we battled it, I watched how it behaved. It seemed to grow stronger with every one of my men that it killed. I watched how it sucked them dry with its needle-mouth-tentacles and turned them from herculean immortals into something more resembling a dried-up maize husk. I quickly realized that it grew strong with the blood of its victims the same way I do, the same way all vampires do. And why not? It was what made us. I was sure of it. This thing…” Don Luis gestured to the limp and exhausted demon urchin chained in cold iron to the chamber floor.

“This thing was the original vampire. As much as I am loath to admit it. I am nothing more than the spawn of a creature from the Drops. I still don’t have any way of proving it, but somehow, I know, from a whisper in my mind, that all the bloodlines can be traced to this creature, and I felt that it had been here on Earth before. Later, I proved that theory to be true. It had been here before, though how, and for how long, I cannot say.”

Maya wondered what he meant by this and recalled the cryptic message that Ratt had received from the intelligence behind the Drop.

“I ordered my men to fall back, and instead, we surrounded the creature’s lair and starved it. Anytime the thing attempted to leave its lair and do battle with us, we chased it back into the cave with arrows of fire. I learned early on of the thing’s fear of flame. Hence the need for this insurance policy.” Don Luis raised the laser pistol and waved it for Maya to see.

“Our perimeter was so tight that not even a small field rodent could get into the cave and provide sustenance to the thing. I had outsmarted it, for, despite all its power, it was simply an animal. Yes! I had outsmarted it, and I meant to outlast it. We fed first on the humans that we had brought with us to help watch over us during the day. It was risky, but everything that I had witnessed thus far led me to believe that the creature could no more wade into the sunlight than its creations could.

“While I couldn’t control any small animal possibly getting into the cave during the day, the payoff was worth it. My vampires and I fed well and grew strong, while the strength of the demon-thing waned with the passing of each day. Besides, the chance of any creature of a substantial size just wandering in was remote. I had the beast to the wall, so to speak. We tested the waters for two days after the last human in our party had been drained dry. The beast was still beyond us, so we made a hasty retreat. I decided that my top officers and I would feed on the lesser foot-soldier vampires in the party. My regiment shrank in size but grew in power and, within another week, the beast was near starved. When we finally entered the cave, we found it in a condition much as you see here. Using fire and steel, we corralled and caged the beast. We performed bloodletting on it and brought it to the edge of death, but I dared not let it die and even had to resort to sacrificing one of my officers to it on the journey home. That was nearly a disaster…” Don Luis glanced down at Maya and then wrapped up his tale.

“Let’s just say that the trip home was arduous and harrowing and even once here, it took me quite a while and cost me quite a bit of manpower before I could find the right balance between life and death at which to keep this thing. But balance I did find, and now I am nigh-unstoppable. I keep my god in chains, in the depths of my palace, and no one, save you and me, knows the value of it.” He smiled a self-satisfied smile. “Once you are my wife, you will be as powerful and safe from harm as anyone ever was or could be. We will rule over the masses