Chapter 66

December Twenty-fifth 5:40 p.m. E.S.T.

Arthur heard the sound of muffled gunfire long before the National Archives came into sight. A block from the building, he set the women on their feet and commanded, "Follow me as you're able." Without waiting for a response, he sprinted ahead.

The dead were everywhere: strewn over the stairs and lawn leading from the building to Constitution Avenue, draped over the perimeter fence, and lying between and atop bullet ridden cars. The columns fronting the building's facade were cratered and pockmarked so badly that the decorative fluting had nearly been obliterated. The top of the stairs was covered in sand and dry cement mix that had burst from the bags which had ultimately failed to protect the guards that Arthur had placed there.

Arthur leaped over the fence and rounded the stairs to exhibit entrance. The steel door was on the ground, twisted and broken, the frame blackened by the explosives that had been used to gain entry. Just inside, the splintered ruins of a small table and a number of chairs were scattered across the floor, the remains of a failed barricade. He nearly slipped on the blood that coated the marble as he hopped over a trio of bodies. Each wore a plain coverall stamped with a number and the name North Branch Correctional Institution.

Accompanied by monstrous shadows thrown up by the sparse emergency lights, he journeyed deeper into the building, following the ever growing sound of gunfire. On the lowest level, he rounded the corner of the hall that led to the most secure vaults and ran into a group of mortals, nine in camouflage battle dress uniforms and the rest in civilian clothing.

Standing amid the corpses of the inmates who had made their final stand there, they fired down a narrow hallway made narrower by bodies and the piles of documents and books that had been emptied out of the vaults to make room for the new occupants. The quarters were so confined that the small group was easily able to pin the far superior number of fledglings to the opposite end of the corpse clogged length. Arthur nearly laughed at the frustration and mild fear that was radiating from his bond with Huffhamner.

In the second it took for Arthur to take stock of the situation, a group of fledglings broke from cover and charged toward the remnants of the SEAL team and those who had joined them. The lead fledgling's head exploded like a melon, and he tumbled backwards to trip up those who followed. Before the mortals could capitalize on the faltering attack, Arthur was upon them.

Seizing the closest human, a heavyset man in civilian clothing, by the neck and crotch, Arthur hurled him down the hall, knocking down many of his enemies and scattering the rest. A SEAL brought his gun around, but, before he could pull the trigger, Arthur kicked him in the abdomen. The serviceman crashed hard into the wall, his mouth ovaled in surprise. The bubble of blood that formed and popped on his lips showed that his internal organs had been pulverized.

Spinning, Arthur tore out the throat of the next man in line with hastily formed claws. The body fell backwards, spraying blood from severed carotids, the head held on only by the spinal cord and the skin of the back of the neck. With the respite Arthur had provided, the fledglings completed their charge without further casualties and more vomited forth from the vaults at the other end of the hall. The skirmish quickly came to an end.

Wringing the gore from his suit with a thought, Arthur commanded, "Feed the captured to our wounded and tell the General that I would like to see him."

As he waited for Huffhamner to push his way through the small, crowded corridor, Arthur squatted next to the quivering body of the fledgling whose head had literally been blown off. Fascinated, he watched intently as bone, muscle and brain reformed. He probed at the half- formed mind with his own and found ... nothing. No memories, no emotion, no thought.

"Is this man's maker here?" he asked without looking up.

"Yes, sir," answered a fledgling who Arthur didn't recognize. "I turned him."

Arthur pried open an eyelid to watch as the orb inside inflated. "What are you feeling through the bond?"

The fledgling's lips pursed with concentration, and his eyes grew unfocused. "Nothing," he said after a long pause. "The link is still there, but I can barely pick it out from the background."

Arthur nodded slowly in reply as the one on the ground blinked its eyes and its limbs twitched erratically. Like a newborn child, it had no coordination or motor skills. The eyes rolled around in their sockets, and the head lolled from side to side. The movement came to a stop when it caught sight of one of the captives being drained.

Its maker reached out a hand to steady himself. "Good lord have mercy," he muttered. "Now it's spewing out raw, overwhelming hunger. It ... it's too much."

Arthur glanced up and saw that the maker's fangs were extended and a line of drool was running from the corner of his mouth to his chin. With an incoherent shout, he pounced, knocking one of the feeding wounded aside and sinking his own fangs into an already ravaged throat.

Shaking his head in disapproval of the fledgling's weakness, Arthur turned his attention back to the one on the floor. In his centuries of existence, he had lost limbs, been impaled with swords and shot with nearly every type of firearm ever devised, but never had he sustained a massive head wound. He wondered how quickly motor skills would return and whether reason ever would. Given the current state of events, it was in his self interest to learn the answers to those questions.

Taking the fledgling that was now nothing but a crippled feral by the wrists, Arthur dragged him down the hall and locked him in one of the vaults. He would return later to collect him for prolonged study.