Apotheosis, page 1
First published in Australia in 2023 by Christopher Adams
Website: https://www.jamesgish.com
Email for correspondence: james@jamesgish.com
© Christopher Adams 2023
All rights reserved.
Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
All enquiries should be directed to the author.
ISBN 9780645529906 (paperback)
9780645529913 (ebook)
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Kirsty Ogden for her invaluable assistance, and to BMR Williams for providing the map illustrations. Most of all, thanks to Rebecca Fletcher for taking a big jumble of words and helping me to turn it into a coherent novel.
Contents
Acknowledgements
One: The View over the Danube
Two: Violence in Kyiv
Three: Opportunities Seized
Four: Diplomacy and Distrust
Five: Clearing the Way
Six: The Road to Minsk
Seven: Mayhem in Minsk
Eight: A Dangerous Liaison
Nine: Crisis Imminent
Ten: Deus Ex Machina
Eleven: Unintended Consequences
Twelve: A Long Game of Chess
Thirteen: Beauty and Destruction
Fourteen: Mirrors and Death
Fifteen: A Knife in the Heart
Sixteen: The Queen of Screams
Seventeen: Re-establishing Control
Eighteen: Order and Chaos
Nineteen: Sore Feet
Twenty: The Hunters
Twenty-One: Toktogul Reservoir
Twenty-Two: The Blood Council
Twenty-Three: The Calm Before the Storm
Twenty-Four: The Storm Approaches
Twenty-Five: Mud and Steel
Twenty-Six: The Scent of Blood
Twenty-Seven: Bullets and Fangs
Twenty-Eight: Hatred and Rage
Twenty-Nine: Thirst Quenched
Thirty: Eyes to the North
Thirty-One: Return to Kara-Köl Manor
Thirty-Two: A Den of Foxes
Thirty-Three: The Blood Council Reconvenes
Thirty-Four: Enemies and Friends and Victory
Epilogue: Carrot and Stick
Appendix A: Mutations in the Vampiric Viral Strain
Appendix B: The Great Houses and Notable Vampires
Appendix C: Geopolitical situation of each Great House
About the Author
ONE
The View over the Danube
A gust of wind scattered the fallen leaves beside his face and stung it with dust. Janek threw one final glance over the river, looking for signs of movement, knowing that he had to leave his current position and potentially expose himself to enemy eyes. He had memorised the patrol routes and knew that a young enemy soldier would pass within sight of the river in the next few minutes… Saliva dripped down his fangs, and a terrible ache gripped him suddenly, radiating from his bones. Partially, it was weakness from the full sunlight that shone upon him, but mostly it was an almost overwhelming desire to feed.
He imagined how he might achieve his desire: slipping across the river, dashing to hide against the trunk of the large oak tree dimly visible on the hillside, holding his breath as his prey neared before striking like a viper, violently grabbing their hair and shoulder and plunging ready fangs into delicate neck; the skin pierced so cleanly, the artery ruptured so messily, blood gushing like a vermillion fountain into his mouth, splashing on his clothes, splattering onto his boots, dripping onto the ground. Salt and warmth and sweetness, swallowed in thick, sticky, delicious mouthfuls as his victim’s wide, panicky eyes slowly became glassy and sightless as he was claimed by death.
He could almost feel the texture of hair clenched viciously in his fist, the bones and muscles of the shoulder under the rough squeezing of his other hand, and the exhilarating sensation of young, firm meat yielding to his teeth. He could almost smell the abject terror of the soldier as he realised what was happening, almost taste the intoxicating life on his own tongue as the last dribble of blood was sucked from the wound, almost hear the mournful rattling deep in the soldier’s chest as he died, giving his life to his killer against his will. It was beautiful. More than beautiful: it was exquisite! The death of a hated enemy and the satiation of hunger in a single potential moment of opportunity seized…
But. Janek took a slow, difficult breath to temper his excitement, then sighed as he considered the multitudinous problems with his fantasy: his sunlight-induced weakness that would make him almost as weak as a human, the guards who might be watching up and down the river from their hidden nests, the dogs who might smell the blood and sound the alarm, the frenzy of violence that would descend upon him if he were detected. His almost certain death.
And then there was the fact that his commander had ordered him to return to join the rest of the squad as they were being recalled back to Varna, and he dared not disobey… Janek shrugged, smiling ruefully, and crawled back through the scrub until he was far enough away from the river to avoid being seen, then rose to his feet and began to run back into town, trying to ignore the sun that beat at him with its bright fists.
The vehicle rumbled away from the angry, red sun setting in the west and toward blissful darkness in the east. Janek felt himself relaxing progressively as the shadows deepened and the weakness he felt in his bones at the touch of sunlight slowly abated, until eventually the open-canopied light utility military truck he was sitting in was fully swallowed by the evening gloom. He glanced around at his squad mates in the vehicle and saw that their expressions of concentration and anticipation matched his own. Seated with him in the back of the Engerek light truck – a Turkish military conversion of the Land Rover Defender utility vehicle – were three other soldiers: Mikel, young and relatively inexperienced, but with remarkable instincts; Zsolt, also young, but an excellent scout and point man; and Marianna, an experienced and exceptionally talented sniper, who unconsciously fondled her Yalguzag sniper rifle as she peered out into the growing darkness. In the front passenger seat was Tomaz, always calm and controlled, always quiet. He had been the right hand – as well as the lover – of the woman in the truck’s cabin since before any of the other members of the squad had been infected with vampirism. The truck was being driven by Ana, the squad leader. Capable and deadly, Ana Kvaratskhelia had a reputation for tactical brilliance and creativity. She had earned her reputation. House Ardisi had entrusted to Ana some of its most important military missions, overt defence and offence, as well as covert infiltration and assassination operations, and she always managed to achieve results, no matter the odds stacked against her.
The town of Ruse slowly dwindled in the distance behind them. It was an important guard post, a bastion against encroachments by House Karpati – mortal enemies of House Ardisi – which held the territory on the northern side of the Danube. Bucharest was a House Karpati stronghold, and with it being so close to Ruse, there were frequent skirmishes between soldiers of the two Houses along the border. Ana’s squad had been assigned to reinforce Ruse for a three-month period, but earlier today – less than halfway through their assignment – a squad had arrived to relieve them and to instruct Ana to return to Varna to receive important orders. Something significant had come up, that was clear: something that could only be entrusted to Ana and her squad. Anticipation and curiosity bubbled beneath Janek’s thoughts as he wondered what their leadership would have them do next, and where it would take them, and whom they would have to kill.
Insects hummed and buzzed in the evening air as the vehicle continued east, occasionally passing a burned-out car or light truck riddled with bullet holes. Glancing around in the gloom, Janek marvelled at the way the countryside was rebounding from its devastation at the start of the 21st century. The worldwide economic collapse caused by the credit crunch that had resulted in the United States of America defaulting on its national debt had led to civil unrest and war ravaging every country across every continent. Miraculously, nuclear weapons were not used; nonetheless, within a few short years the fabric of life as it had been known was completely shredded as undersea communication cables and cross-country fibre links were cut and cell and radio towers were destroyed. The fires of war raged for the better part of a decade, until a harsh peace was enforced by the onset of a highly contagious infectious disease, rumoured to have begun somewhere in China, which killed more people than all the wars combined. Food production and distribution networks had ground to a near halt, and hunger on an enormous scale had set in. The world population plummeted, devastated by war and disease and famine, to an estimated billion people.
From the ashes, new flames had started to rise. Organised crime flourished as large criminal gangs were often the only ones who could provide guarantees of security and stability for food production and commercial ventures across borders. The drug trade became more prevalent as what remained of governments and police forces no longer had the resources to even attempt to stop it. Food production and distribution had become the pressi
Janek leaned against one of the tube-steel pillars of the vehicle and tried to nap. It seemed that he had barely closed his eyes before Mikel prodded his ribs with an elbow as the truck entered the grounds of the Evksinograd Palace, home of the Ardisi coven at Varna.
Varna had been Janek’s home for close to one hundred and fifty years. He remembered the first time he had stumbled into the city: the wounds on his neck had still been open, festering and bleeding, and he had been in dazed agony, hallucinating and near death, drawn to the city the way the needle of a compass is drawn north. He barely remembered being taken to the palace, again meeting the beautiful woman whose life he had saved in a forest outside Szeged a month prior. The first time he had met her, she had been slumped on the ground, half propped up against the trunk of a fallen tree. Blood had trickled from the corner of her mouth, and she had a stab wound in her side which by rights should have killed her, but her chest had still moved ever so slightly as she drew and expelled breath in the evening gloom. Janek had been on a successful hunt and had been carrying a small deer on his shoulders, returning to his cabin where he would have finished dressing the carcass, breaking it down into primal cuts ready for drying, smoking or salting. When he had spotted the beautiful woman, his instincts had taken over, and he had immediately dropped the deer and sprinted toward her, falling to one knee beside her and applying compression to her wound. At that moment, she had grasped a fistful of his hair and wrenched his neck toward her mouth and begun to feast on his blood. She did not drain him dry, instead she only fed enough to regain her strength and then left him there, half-alive; she then ran for her life, away from that place, away from those Karpati who had been hunting her, who had almost killed her.
The next month had been hell for Janek as he fought vainly against fever and madness, stumbling relentlessly south-east following some nameless compulsion, only stopping long enough to drink from a stream or steal food from a farm, and sleeping only when he collapsed. Finally he had reached Varna and been taken to the palace, where he had dragged himself to the feet of the beautiful woman.
“I am Janek,” he had croaked.
“I am Ana,” she had replied, before taking a knife from her belt, pricking her tongue, then spitting in his mouth.
He had survived the transformation process and joined her squad as a scout, forgetting all about his small cabin in the forest outside Szeged and thereafter calling Varna his home.
After the truck pulled to a stop, everyone bailed out, and Ana began striding resolutely toward the main building to receive her orders from Sandor Jandieri, the leader of the Varna coven. Janek headed toward the kitchens instead – Ana would let everyone else know what they needed to know, and he was hungry for a blood meal. As he neared the mess hall, he saw two struggling human women being pulled by the scruffs of their necks toward a nearby harvest pen where they would be tied up for bleeding, and periodically untied for feeding, watering and exercise. The older woman was sobbing piteously while the younger woman was cursing with anger. As they passed him, his face must have twisted slightly with an expression of disgust that they mistook for pity, for the older woman turned to him and shouted, “Please, sir, let us go! Haven’t you destroyed enough families? At least let my daughter go!”
Janek stopped and turned to consider the pair, and their handler paused uncertainly, an expression of slight embarrassment on her face. Humans could be bonded into the service of the clan by having a vampire spit saliva into their mouths, allowing the Ardisi strain of vampirism to take root in their brains. This didn’t result in a true infection – causing either their transmogrification or, in most cases, death – which would be triggered from a partial feeding, but it caused the human to instinctively follow the orders of any Ardisi vampire they encountered and suppressed their will to rebel. These humans clearly had not been bonded; they weren’t soldiers or village elders but food, and they would be kept and bled regularly to provide nourishment for the clan. “You both need to accept your new place in this world. Your daughter’s blood will be both delicious and nutritious for us.”
Upon realising that they would receive no mercy, the older woman crumpled back into desolation, but she tried one more time, asking desperately, “Don’t you care about suffering? Can’t you control your hunger?”
Janek tilted his head slightly in confusion before responding. “How many thousands of species of creatures were driven extinct by humanity’s rapacious appetite? How many webs of symbiosis, interdependence and predation, and ecologies of vast beauty, were destroyed by your hand, only to be replaced with endless, empty monocultures and scabs of asphalt? How can you be so self-absorbed that you disregard the complexity of life that your own species consumed, refusing to control its hunger?” He shook his head derisively. “I care almost as little for your suffering as you did for that of the pigs you kept in their lifeless concrete stalls, squealing just as you squeal. In any case, we didn’t destroy your society; you did that all by yourselves – and it is a miracle that you didn’t render the entire planet uninhabitable in the process.” He leaned closer to her and almost spat with emphasis. “You are food.”
Eyes downcast, tears streaming down her face, haunted by an expression of horror at what she had seen in the mirror he had held mercilessly in front of her, her spine finally collapsed and she allowed her daughter and herself to be dragged toward the outbuilding.
As he continued toward the kitchens, Janek pondered what he had said. It wasn’t entirely true that the humans had destroyed themselves; in fact, the vampires had played an important part in it, as their financial bankers had engineered the series of financial crises that had culminated in the USA defaulting on its debts, unleashing madness upon the world. Inwardly he shrugged: it was the stupidity and greed of the humans that had allowed them to be exploited so easily, and their capacity for mindless violence that had caused the Upheaval itself. He hoped that he had convinced those two of their rightful place in the world; it would be easier on them if he had, rather than if they continued to struggle and fight against inevitability. He did not wish them to suffer unnecessarily. Opening the door to the mess hall, he waved to Aspen, the sommelier, and then found a quiet seat in a dark corner. A few moments later, Aspen brought him a bottle of decent vintage blood – to which a single droplet of Ardisi saliva would have been added during the bottling process: enough to kill any bacteria inside, and preserve its contents almost indefinitely – and Janek settled into his seat to enjoy it while waiting for Ana to fetch him for debriefing.
