"I should have known you would do something like this," Erik said, biding his time.

Nikolas smirked. "Now you see your flaw, don't you? Do you really think I would join a man who would kill his own son... a man so hungry for power that he would think of sacrificing his own grandson?"

Liam and Dante stood near them. The guards in the chamber were reduced to ash and there seemed to be no more on the way. Daniel remained on the floor and bled profusely. He watched Nikolas and Erik with one eye open. No way was he going to leave anyone alive, especially that brat cousin of his.

Erik suddenly disappeared and reappeared behind Nikolas, but Liam spotted him and shoved him aside.

"No," Nikolas said, "Leave him to me. I want to enjoy killing him with my own hands." He threw a fairly small but powerful green energy ball towards him that blasted him through the steel wall. As the smoke drifted away, they saw Erik still standing, his clothes shredded by the impact. Erik threw his sword like a boomerang at Nikolas. It missed its target by two inches and returned to its owner. "Don't pull your tricks on me, vizier!" Nikolas flew straight for him, smashing him into the wall and creating cracks around the room.

Daniel stood up with blood still flowing from him. "You cannot escape," he croaked. "I won't let you."

"Back down, Gareng. It is too late," Dante took his sword and pointed it at him.

Daniel screamed and let out a destructive burst of energy, "I won't let you!"

Nikolas landed on the floor. "Son, give it up," he said. "Either let us go, or join us."

"How could you?" said Daniel, tears of blood flowing from his eyes.

"I had to," Nikolas said.

Erik collapsed with a fractured skull and slipped into unconsciousness, blood flowing out the back of his head.

The battle in Morocco was over. Hopkinson and the two hundred and thirty soldiers that were left rested themselves on the floor, exhausted. Some drank alcoholic remedies to ease the pain of their wounds. Others helped the wounded. George sat there with a cigarette in his mouth and observed the blood soaked sand that stretched for miles around.

The vampire base had been totally destroyed by the fighters. They had all been killed before they could call for backup. Ted and his squadron members, landed on the ash-stained b.l.o.o.d.y plain. "Well," he said to George as he took a cigarette from him, "What's the latest from the others?"

"Nothing yet," George replied, "What about Kurt? What does he say?"

"No word."

John's voice came through all their communicators. "All units to the Atlantic. I repeat all units to the Atlantic. Stop whatever you're doing and come here now! We need major backup and now's the time to destroy this base!"

"Copy that," everyone said in unison.

George sighed. No rest for the weary. No rest for the weary.

Romsky and his men reached the base and the aerial fighters gunned down whatever was left of it. His men surrounded the remaining vampires, "It's over," the general said.

"No!" The vampiric general spat. He was seven feet tall, weighed four hundred pounds, and wore no armor. His dark, maroon hair flowed in the icy wind and he bared his fangs as he smirked viciously. "In the next five minutes, fresh soldiers will arrive and you'll be dead."

"I doubt it. My fighters have probably already killed them en route."

As he said this he looked up to see twenty fighters circling in the sky. "So I suggest you surrender and tell all ground and air fighters to stop. Tell them you've won."

"No. I will not bow down to such sc.u.m!"

John's voice came through the communicators, sending out a message to Romsky and his men. "Copy that," Romsky whispered and then said to the vampire, "I guess you'll have it your way then," he turned around and went to the back of the army, "Kill them," he said softly to his units through the communicator, "leave none alive."

"Ranjit," John said, "What's the situation?" His voice was coa.r.s.e from screaming. Ranjit could hear ma.s.sive thuds and whipping sounds.

"We're reaching the database. We've got one hostage and he's going to take us in. When the files have been transferred and we're out of there, I'll let you know."

"Alright, over and out." The frequency switched off.

"Now," Ranjit said, "wear these." He handed the vampire two ear-pieces.

"What's this?"

"Just wear them; they will block out the sound."

The vampire laughed in disbelief.

"Wear them, d.a.m.n it! They have been specially modified to block out the frequency but still allow you to hear us. Now just wear them!"

The vampire did as he was told and Evan flipped the switch. "That should stop any distraction," he said.

They walked into a vast hall with shelves crammed to the ceiling with dusty old tomes. There were honeycomb shaped compartments stuffed with codices and scrolls older than any civilization on the Earth. The General and his men felt disheartened to know they would be destroying such a precious place. But they also knew they would be preserving all the important information digitally.

At the end of the hall was a metal door that required a coded entry with vampiric blood and a retinal scan. No ordinary vampire was allowed entry, unless he had prior permission. In this case, there was no one to give that permission and so the abandoned area was free to them. "Here," the vampire said.

"Give the pa.s.swords and whatever's necessary."

"Nothing is required."

"You take me to be a fool?" Ranjit said harshly, slapping him across the face. "Now do as I say and open the d.a.m.n door!" The vampire said nothing and did nothing. "I said OPEN IT!"

He shook his head and spat at him. "No. What will you do?"

"You think we're not prepared?" said Ranjit. He nodded to Evan who deactivated the earpieces. The vampire immediately covered his ears and his face creased and twisted. His mouth opened but nothing came out. The pain in his ears was so horrible that he couldn't even scream. He grabbed Ranjit's shoulder, then fell down and thrashed and rolled around on the floor. "That's enough." Ranjit said.

As soon as Evan reactivated the earpieces, the vampire's facial contortions stopped. He gasped as the pain left.

"So," Ranjit went on, "Are you helping or not?"

His blood red eyes looked at the General fiercely, and he nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes," he said in a choked voice. He got to his feet and went to the door where he p.r.i.c.ked his finger on an electronic pin. The first metal door opened. Then came the retina check. It took a few seconds. Then, a digital voice said, "Access Granted."

The door slid up and they went inside. In the center of the relatively small white room, a large two ton computer that stored all the information stood. They saw that this computer connected to a network of smaller mini-computers. Evan went to work quickly. He sat down at the table and a touch-sensitive holoscreen appeared. These computers were in fact holodrives, or rather fiber optic holographic drives. Evan knew they were much faster and capable of storing hundreds of exabytes of information per second. They contained all the information in the library. The screen turned on and it asked for a pa.s.sword. "What is it?" he asked the vampire. "What's the pa.s.sword?"

"I don't know," the vampire said. "Honestly."

Singh asked, "Who does?"

"The one who has access to the computer is the master of the library. His name is Serayk." The vampire said, staring at Evan who continued to search the drives of the computer.

"And where is this Serayk?" Ranjit asked.

The vampire shook his head, "I don't know. He might have escaped."

"Liar!"

"I'm telling you the truth." The vampire said. "I have no idea what the pa.s.sword is."

"Not to worry. We can hack into it," Evan said, already trying his luck. "There must be a way."

"Who is Serayk? Where is he?" Ranjit said, his dark eyes glinting and piercing the vampire's.

"He..."

"Tell me!" Ranjit said.

"He is at the Council."

"What?" Ranjit asked. "What Council?"

"The Council of Elders. We were warned by them about this and we took precautions. So he was commanded to be with them."

"And where are they now?"

"No one but Regent Erik and President Daniel know at any time where the Council is. They keep moving from place to place, sometimes leaving their subjects uninformed, so that no one will keep a watch."

"Did he tell you where he was going?"

"He was forbidden to tell us."

"Oh, so he tells you he's going to meet the Council but you don't know where."

"Yes. It's the truth!"

Ranjit shrugged and sighed heavily. "What can we do?"

The beast spread its tentacles and John could make out its circular jaws and spiral teeth. From its mouth the squid spewed out dark acidic ink. It burned through the ground and gave off a foul odor. "Bill," John said, constantly dodging the tentacles and acid, "Where are you?"

A plasma beam hit the beast in the back of its head. John saw Bill's fighter pa.s.s by him.

"I'm right here!" Bill shouted and a large group of fighters followed him. He laughed and said, "Go and get your men. We'll take care of this."

John ran into the base and Bill and his squadron kept shooting at the monster that growled in pain and spat acid towards some ships. Bill flew into the mouth of the beast, launched a timed missile and sped back out. His squadron covered him constantly firing rounds of plasma beams that burned through the pinkish gray tentacles. The squid fell back and exploded from within the ocean waves, dirtying the landing pad of CCC1 with black ink, rubbery flesh, and blood.

In the elevator, John got a message from Ranjit, "John, we got a problem."

"What's the matter?"

"This computer's got a pa.s.sword and obviously only one of them knows it. The vamp with me tells me that the guy isn't around. What do I do?"

"Isn't there anyway to crack it?"

"Evan's trying some pa.s.swords and he has another three tries before it goes into total lockdown."

Just like the Inner Chamber, John thought; "Okay. What's he tried so far?" John thought; "Okay. What's he tried so far?"

"Let's see...Anaxagoras, Anu-Sa-Rimh, Gareng, even Aidan. But none of them have worked."

"Are there any inscriptions anywhere?"

"Well..." Ranjit looked around and saw that there were hundreds of tiny, almost unnoticeable inscriptions on the table. "Yeah, I can see them. There are so many!"

The elevator opened and John stayed inside, waiting. "Okay. What language?"

"Uh, well...there's Arabic or Urdu, I'm not sure. There's Hebrew, oh wait! There's Gurmukhi."

"So you can read it?" John asked, hearing shouts coming from the hall across from the elevator.

"Yeah, it says...it spells out Abiskoji-Astur. What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"No idea. It must be some Migritic term."

"Yeah, I guess. So, is that the pa.s.sword?"

"Yeah. You see, they usually have reminders or hints for pa.s.swords, for those who know where to look. They are easily traceable only by vampires."

"Well, I'm not one," Ranjit said defensively.

"No, I didn't mean that. Sometimes those who need to find them do; it's some incantation which allows only the user to find it quickly; otherwise you have to scrutinize, because the inscriptions are either too small or intricately joined together."

"Yeah, you're right. The Aramaic and Sanskrit are joined together."

"There...you see. Well, try it." There was a pause and then: "Yeah! It's worked."

"Good. Now comes the final phase. Over and out," John quickly shut off the frequency of his earpiece and ran towards the ongoing battle outside the elevator.

He saw Daniel drenched in blood. He was reaching for his father and saying, "What would you have me do?" Erik's body had been smashed into the steel wall. Dante and Liam remained and were watching this exchange between father and son.

"What the h.e.l.l's going on here?"

"I need blood," Daniel said to his father weakly.

"Nikolas, what's going on?"

Nick looked at John and closed his eyes, "John, what if I was to tell you Daniel wants to join us?"

"Can you trust him?" John asked.

"He's my son," Nikolas said simply.

"I still don't trust him," Dante said.

"Please, Father," Daniel said. His b.l.o.o.d.y tears streamed down his cheeks. "You know I will be executed for this. I have no other choice but to join you."