Chapter 64: Twelve Miles to Freedom

June 1999

We traveled through the passages that led to the stables. Julie seemed extremely nervous as we moved through this area. She would whisper quietly how the vampires would come each night, eyeing the victims, picking and choosing. “I felt like a whore, sold on an auction block to the highest bidder for my blood, and anything else that they wanted for themselves.”

I turned to look at her, in amazement. “You mean that this wasn’t just about consuming your blood? They wanted sex from you too?”

“Oh yes! They would take us out of here to the place they call the Chamber of Lust. There they would, well, you know.” She said this bashfully, even shamefully. I suppose there was shame to all of this. Tayla had explained to me that a vampire was all about seduction. Julie had just confirmed all of this.

I just had to ask the question. “Did the Queen ever take you to the Chamber of Lust for herself?” After I had asked the question, I dreaded the answer.

“No, she didn’t. She wasn’t into women like that. She was definitely into men. I watched her come into the Chamber many times. I suppose now is the time to tell you. After you came here, she went there more often. I mean, like, she would do some crazy stuff. And she would use her powers sometimes during it to, uh, well, transform her partners.”

“What do you mean, “transform” her partners?” I had a suspicion from the start what her answer would be.

“She would transform her lovers into the likeness of you. She would have as many as eight or ten men, all of whom looked just like you, making love to her, one after the other. It was no secret down here. She loved you and was extremely protective of you.

She made no effort to hide it, especially in the Chamber of Lust.”

I was shocked. Tayla could not have sex with me, so she transformed her slave lovers into my likeness for sexual purposes. We kept walking, through the stables seeking any kind of life, friend or foe. There were bodies in here from when the Black Clan had assaulted the Lower Estate. There were some new bodies also, left by the battle between clans and by the Jackals as well. A few familiars” bodies lay among them. I asked Julie if the guards were always armed, and she said yes. This meant that there would be weapons available for Julie to use.

I searched up and down several corridors, and finally came up with a winner. One of the dead guards was lying on an assault shotgun, with a full load of ammo on his person. I took these and gave them to Julie. I took my pistol back because I felt Julie would have a better chance with the shotgun than with my pistol. We made our way through the stone corridors into the large room known as the Stables of the Damned. My next checkpoint was the granite doors.

A massive battle had taken place here, behind the doors to the Stables of the Damned. There were Red and Black Clansmen’s bodies as well as many Jackal soldiers” bodies littering the floor. The Jackals had been ready to enter the underworld when the Black Velvet infiltrators opened the secret entrances. Tayla had warned me about this, but why had she not moved to stop them? This was a mystery to me. I would wonder about this for quite some time.

Julie and I stood in front of the massive granite doors, wondering what to do next. Every time I had seen Tayla approach these doors, she was able to open them with the mere outstretching of her arms. The familiars had to pass this way also, so there had to be a manual way opening them. Julie and I searched the area for a switch of some kind that would activate the opening of the doors. We found a box some distance from the door that looked like what we were looking for. We activated the switch inside the box, unlocking the door and it slowly swung open on massive hinges. As we proceeded to walk to the doorway, the doors began to shut again, sealing off our exit. We realized that there was a timing mechanism built into the system. We tried again, and ran this time to the exit, so the door would not shut on us. Once outside, I began to look for the way to the service elevator.

My UV lamp had died somewhere in the journey, indicating my batteries were dead and required changing. I had brought spare batteries, but the amount of time it would take to change them out would leave us vulnerable, even if for only a few minutes. It was not quite dawn yet, but the batteries still needed changing.

“I can do that while you stand watch,” Julie offered. However, the vampires were not out for the count yet, not by a long shot. In the darkness, we struggled by regular flashlight and torches to replace the batteries. I could hear hissing, and then even red eyes, many of them, peering out from the darkness. My senses could tell that a fight was in the making, and they outnumbered us. Our weapons were few if the UV lamp was out of commission. I replaced the magazine on the MP-5 with a full one and switched to full auto. Julie was working at a feverish pace, trying to get the batteries in properly, but the precious amount of time it takes to perform such a simple feat stretches to an eternity when seconds count.

I do not know what made me do this, but I reached into my cargo pocket, pulling out the roll of quarters. I broke them open and took one-half of them and threw them at the red-glowing eyes. The quarters, all made of silver, sprayed the vampires striking almost all of them. Those who encountered the silver ran, crying at the tops of their lungs. The others knew I still had the other half of the roll. Julie closed the battery case and turned on the light. I was back in business. The vampires were all Black Clansmen who hid in there because it was so dark in the corner away from the Stables of the Damned. Those left ran down the corridor, further into the shadows. The way was clear now or so I thought.

Rachel and her Red Clan familiars had not sent the gondola for the elevator back down therefore we would have to wait. Julie, not wanting to stay one minute more down below in the Lower Estate, began to search for the switch that would send the elevator down for our rescue. While she searched, I looked for the switch that would activate the UV lamps located at different intervals in the shaft. This prevented the vampires from disabling the system, as one set of lamps would cover the approach to the one above it or below it. The switches would be inside the shaft.

I opened the caged door to the shaft and listened to the sound of a lowering elevator car. The cable from the bottom floor circled the reels and became very taut. As it did, I found the switching contacts and flipped the switch, lighting the shaft with brilliant ultraviolet light. As it did, screaming seemed to rain from above, as my plan activated itself just in time. The car must have been loaded with vampires, either black or red. At this point, it did not matter. I was out to destroy them all. As the screaming continued, an explosion went off above, causing the shaft to turn black. The blackness indicated the explosion had cut the power. If the vampires had made it to the level of the top of the elevator shaft, it also meant that they could exit through the Gates of Hell!

Worse yet, they could have kept Rachel from getting through the Gates of Hell! Perhaps they did have Rachel! I could not think such defeating thoughts. It would do me no good. Worrying about such things would have proved to be my undoing, if it had not been for Julie looking over to notice the slack forming in the cable. The steel cage was falling down the shaft!

She screamed, “Malcolm, get out!” as loud as her sickly lungs would allow her to scream.

Without thinking to look up or ask why, I dove out of the shaft, landing on the rocky floor in a heap. It seemed I had a little help from my angelic guardians as who tossed me farther out of the shaft than I could have ever done unassisted. As I landed, the steel cage gondola came crashing down smashing into the ground. The sound was ear splitting. Julie was on her knees, with her hands over her ears. The room filled with smoke and the acrid smell of explosive dust. I never thought the charges would be set off in such a way that would cut the cables to the shaft. I had those charges placed across the room from the elevator, so they should not have cut any cables. They would have blown any vampires back into the shaft. So how was the cable cut? My guess was the vampires, or the Jackals had found the charges and reset them to cut the escape route.

Julie and I managed to get to our feet, dusting ourselves off. I relit the torches, and she immediately turned the UV lamp on in the direction of the wrecked cage. The mangled bodies of some familiars and Red Velvet Clansmen decaying were inside but no Black Velvet clansmen.

“Julie, we have a problem. A big problem. That was supposed to be our way out. Something up there is wrong. We need to find another way out of here. Don’t worry as I can use this device to find us a passage out of here.”

“Does this mean we have to go through the Cavern of the Crypts?” she asked. She had obviously been there before. “God, I hate that place!” she moaned.

“Yes, I know just how you feel. I hate it too. Depressing place isn’t it?” I asked.

She did not answer, but I knew she felt about it just the same way I did. I checked my watch, and found it to be about 0600 hrs. It was almost dawn. The vampires would head for their crypts at this time. They would be bewildered and confused. They would also be angry and hungry, as they would have spent the night fighting another clan and not feeding on prey as they were used to doing. I decided to wait until dawn before treading where perhaps even angels feared to tread. If there were some other way to get to the top without having to go through there, I would certainly choose it.

I realized at that point that I was trying to do everything on my own. I was killing the vampires, or at least I thought I was. Moreover, where was my courage coming from? Faith? It was not about what I believed anymore. It was about what I knew! Faith is the substance of things hoped for but are yet unseen. I had seen enough to last me a lifetime. Did the angels still walk with me?

Had I forgotten them in my zeal to rid the world of this plague?

As if reading my mind and heart, as Tayla would have done, in an instant a bright light appeared and then another and another until the familiar four pillars of light drew near me, surrounding my forlorn companion and me. They took form, shimmering in heavenly splendor in the light. They all looked down on me, as I bent down on one knee.

Julie was amazed, as apparently, she could see them too. She too bowed down on both knees, but her cause was fear. Erlandis told her not to fear anymore. She was to be comforted, as they had delivered her from her ordeal. She began to cry, as she was still afraid and confused as to what was happening to her. Julie began to ask questions as to what to do, and the meaning of all this. Erlandis replied, “You shall be delivered, for it is written that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He has heard your cries for deliverance, in a place where others forbid uttering His name. Out of the depths of an evil place, He has heard such a cry. You were one of many, but the only one who called upon the Lord God to save you.”