Free The Burning Men: A Nathaniel Cade Story by Christopher Farnsworth

THE BURNING MEN
     
    Christopher Farnsworth
     
     

     
    This much is true ....
    In 1867, a young sailor was tried and convicted of murdering two of his crew mates and drinking their blood.
    The papers called him a vampire.

    President Andrew Johnson pardoned him, sparing his life. He spent the rest of his days in an asylum for the criminally insane.
    At least, that was the cover story.
    The truth was far stranger. The young man, named Nathaniel Cade, was actually a vampire. Bound by a special blood oath, he swore to follow the orders of the President of the United States and protect the nation from the forces of darkness that cannot ever be allowed to invade the daylight world of ordinary humans. For over 145 years, Cade has been a secret weapon in the war against the Other Side, both the first responder and the last line of defense.
    Zach Barrows was a young political operative with a bright future on his way to becoming the youngest chief of staff in White House history. Then he was called into the Oval Office and given a much different assignment. Zach became the latest in a long line of human handlers to work with Cade. Zach thought it was all a bad joke until he met the vampire in the flesh; then he wet his pants. Things have only slightly improved for him since then.
    The two may appear close in age, but Cade is an inhuman, blood-drinking monster. Zach is an ambitious political creature. They are worlds apart, but have managed to forge a grudging respect since Zach’s first mission. Zach now uses his intellect and resources to do the things in the daylight world that Cade cannot. He relays the president’s orders and deals with all the logistics necessary to keep Cade hidden in a world that’s increasingly hostile to secrets.
    And Cade kills the monsters.
     

     
     
    Here was the place where the kids from the high school sat down in a group. They were laughing, probably, each one jostling for position, trying to get next to their current crush and/or best friend. One of the chairs was split neatly down the middle, pristine on one side, a melted ruin on the other. Maybe someone was now thanking God they didn’t get to sit where they wanted.
    Here was where the first-time parents sat. A night out, away from their infant son, who was at home with his grandmother. Zach wonders how that woman is handling this, how she will deal with the sudden knowledge that she now has to raise an 18-month-old again.
    This spot is where one young man — a soldier from the local base, Zach has learned — got up and ran. According to witnesses, he was not trying to get out. He was running toward the center of the flames. Trying to help.
    But there was no helping any of them. Zach looked at the burned-out area, a perfect circle in the middle of the theater. Inside the radius, the heat was intense enough to melt the plastic chairs into puddles. The carpet had been melted to vapor, the floor scoured all the way down to the concrete. The bodies were gone now, carried away by the first responders.
    Except for the one who did it. His remains were at the center of the circle, somehow still standing. He looked like a statue. Except he was made of charcoal.
    His arms were outstretched to the ceiling. He had stood up, the survivors said, then there was a terrible flash of light and heat, and everything began bursting into flame.
    Within seconds, everything around him in a twenty-foot radius was consumed. Outside of that radius, everything else looked almost normal. Carpet not even singed. There was still a tub of popcorn in the cupholder on one of the seats. It was unspilled. Some kind of miracle. On the edges of the theater, if it were not for the smell of roasted flesh and boiled plastic, you would never know what had happened here.
    The bomber — because that was what they were calling him — somehow turned this movie theater into a crematorium, but without burning anything outside his 20-foot range. No one saw him trigger any device or