Page 40 of The Vampire King's War

He was pleased when the blank blackness behind his eyelids almost immediately changed to a bird’s eye view of the museum. There were bright blue-white flames everywhere. These were humans, he knew. But then he started to see the blood red ones. Vampires. Far more than he had anticipated. There were quite a bit of those red flames among the blue clustered out front of the museum. He was sure that these Vampires would be in charge--or would take charge--and ensure that their people got in first.

So there was an option for him to simply stay put until the Vampires came inside the museum and have them find a way to usher him out. But he was in evening wear and they were going to be in hazmat or other types of gear. Bringing in an extra uniform might be too conspicuous. Besides, he had a feeling that they wouldn’t be coming inside for some time.

He heard the whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades near his left ear. Of course, they really weren’t near his left ear, it was merely to his left in this bird’s eye position. He turned his head and saw two blue-white lights and a red light in the helicopter.

He noted that there was a heavy-duty spotlight coming from the bottom of the helicopter and painting the roof with its high beam. So any idea he’d had of making it up on the roof and then jumping down into some bushes or taking a running leap and landing off of the museum’s property was a no-go. It was doubly a no-go when he realized that there wasn’t just one helicopter, but multiple helicopters, some police and others media, circling endlessly. Yeah, unless he intended to give the world proof tonight that Vampires existed the roof thing wasn’t happening.

His bird’s eye view went around to the back of the museum. The museum itself was set in a rather large park. The back of it faced out onto a set of wide lawns and formal gardens, along with a fish pond or two. While he had been right to suspect that there would be less police back there as it was more difficult terrain, there were still quite a few officers present. He did spy, once more, plenty of red in the bunch. Vampires were making themselves quite a part of this.

He imagined that the back doors of the museum would be wired for alarms. He could picture himself being caught in a spotlight from one of the helicopters right outside of the doors then in a panic using the Weryn gift to shift into wolves like Daemon, only to become a bunch of puppies that the officers easily captured, bewildered by what puppies were doing in the museum. Besides, though he’d dreamed of being a bird with Daemon, he’d never used the Weryn gift, so no luck there.

He hadn’t found Arcius yet either in those flames of blue and red. He frowned. He wasn’t as familiar with House Wynter to know their minds. He needed to talk to the Confessor, if for nothing else than to tell him whatever plan he put together. That was when he caught sight of a strange light. Not blue, not red, more like a deep purple. Julian’s eyes narrowed.

An Immortal?

It obviously wasn’t Balthazar or Fiona. Could it be Seeyr? Somehow he didn’t think so. As far as he was aware there were no other Immortals around. Well, maybe they were around, but hiding.

Except this one--if this is an Immortal--isn’t hiding. It’s...

This purple light began to move towards a cluster of the blue lights, human police officers who were clumped together near one of the ponds. Alarm filled Julian and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. This Immortal was stalking those officers. He couldn’t say how he knew. He just knew.

Julian forgot all of his concerns about how he was going to get out of the museum without being seen or compromising Vampire-kind. Instead, all he thought about was saving those officers.

He was moving out of the control room and following the Exit signs. He soon made it to an emergency door at the back. The doors were heavy and painted white. There were metal red EXIT bars that would have to be pressed hard for them to release. And then, of course there would be the alarm.

So I cannot press them. I need to phase through and, more than that, I need to be invisible. The Helm and Wyvern gifts. Okay this won’t be hard. It’ll be a piece of cake!

Julian twisted his head to the right and left. He jogged in place and rolled his shoulders back as if he were preparing for a fight. He then went still, closed his eyes, and imagined himself as invisible. He imagined looking down at his left arm and seeing the floor beneath it. He opened his eyes. His left arm--and the rest of him for that matter--was still there. He let out a hissed breath. In his mind’s eye, he saw that purple light was nearly upon the officers. The other red lights in the area sensed something but they would not act soon enough. Panic fluttered in Julian’s chest.

Fuck this! I need to get out there! They’re going to die!

He didn’t try to go invisible and he didn’t try to teleport. He just ran. But he felt his skin tingle just as he was about to hit the doors full on with his body and then his hands instead of touching metal were touching night air. He was outside of the museum! Still running, he looked back over his shoulder. He truly was out! And the doors weren’t moving at all. He had teleported. He turned back around and dodged to the right as he nearly ran face-first into a tree. He skidded to a halt. It was then he realized he was invisible. A grin cracked Julian’s face. He couldn’t wait to tell Christian about this!

His head shot to the right. That’s where the three officers were who were going to be under attack in moments if they weren’t already. He heard the soft hiss of radio static in between voices speaking, giving orders, telling everyone to still hang back, checking in and responding that all was quiet.

The three officers had flashlights out, but not on. They were crouched down behind a cluster of trees not fifteen feet from where he was standing. There was a wide expanse of rolling lawn that lead to one of the normally busy roads. There was no traffic though now as the street had clearly been closed off. The officers were not looking behind them, but at the blank face of the back of the museum, so they didn’t see the little boy who was walking towards them.

He was tow-headed and serious-eyed. He was oddly wearing a suit, but no coat. Julian frowned. A child? He’d seen teenage Vampires, but children? He imagined that was totally not allowed. Then he smelled the child.

Rot.

Putrefaction.

The grave.

The boy was a corpse. Kaly was animating him. That’s why he was purple in color to Julian’s mind’s eye. He was neither pure Vampire nor pure human, but a little bit of both.

Julian thought of alerting Daemon then. This corpse wasn’t one of the Vampire forms that Kaly hid in. It was just a corpse. If anything about this could be considered just. But Daemon was actually facing down Kaly in one of his real forms, or that was Julian’s impression anyways. If he called Daemon right there and then, the Vampire King would abandon the fight against far more important Kaly forms to come here to destroy one animated child’s corpse.

I have to try and handle this.

Julian didn’t want to face this alone. He wanted to call out to Arcius or one of the other Vampires nearby. But while he had been able to reach out to Arcius easily before, the sheer amount of people and Vampires, at that, was making it more difficult. He realized that keeping invisible and using this other gift was taxing him. He wasn’t good enough at this yet to use multiple gifts at once well.

Daemon would probably say I’m doing pretty damned good all things considered.

The boy’s humming finally caught the officers’ attention. One of them, an African-American woman in her early forties, turned her head and, immediately, she was patting her companions’ shoulders to direct their attention to the seemingly lost child.

“Guys, guys!” She hissed. Her shock at seeing a child coming towards them out of the dark when they were dealing with a mass death situation was clearly unnerving her. Maybe she felt Kaly on some instinctive level too. She pointed. “A boy!”

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