Free Shining in Crimson: Empire of Blood Book One (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) by Robert S. Wilson

taking up his entire field of vision. Still laying on the floor on top of the lower half of his body, he lifted his arm to grab hold of his right leg and move it away from him so that the shoe disappeared, revealing a debris scattered dining room on its side. He felt a strong tingle with the pull he was already feeling below his torn abdomen. He pushed hard against the floor with his right hand and rolled his top half over so that he was laying on his back. Then, he looked down at the huge open wound that was his bottomless torso. He could see shredded organs hanging loosely from it. It was also where he felt the pulling from.
    He looked to his left and saw he was now lined up with his lower half, his feet parallel to his head, and the two open wounds parallel to each other. He pushed his fists into his chest, bending his elbows and pressing them hard against the carpeted floor. Then, using his elbows, he started to slowly scoot his body at an angle to put the two pieces of his body back together. After several rough scoots, he got close enough and the shredded organs began finding their other halves as if they were magnetically attracted to each other. Then, when all of his organs were healed, his flesh and spine did the same. He lay there a while letting his body heal itself. Once he knew he was strong enough, he leaned up and let out a shrill scream in the ancestor's tongue, calling for the help he knew he would need. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done. By calling out for help, he was giving up his seat on the vampire council. It would take a lot of work and maybe even decades to get back in. But, more than anything else, he valued living, and he had to admit to himself he had met his match. This strange human was much more than Peter had bargained for.
    Peter cringed with self revulsion when he heard the sound of four ancestors returning his call from various places in the sky within a three-kilometer radius. He could hear the friction in the air from where they were flying as they began circling above the house. He rose to his feet and jumped onto the open wall where he had entered the house and then onto its roof to confirm what he heard. Directly above him, circling round and round, were four ancestors, watching him. Their dirty black rags rustled in the wind as they floated effortlessly on the air. Peter struggled to bury the enmity he felt for the creatures. He would never understand the reverence the others had for them. Sure they were the source of his longevity, the source of his strength and power. But even being these things, they were also aimless creatures. Like human babies, only existing, only carrying out the needed functions to survive.
    Peter called out to them in their strange, screeching tongue. He described the man to them. He told them about his strength and abilities. He also told them about the blood, a subject they seemed indifferent to. They certainly are mindless , he thought. When he finished explaining, they each took a long taste of the air and darted west, just as Peter had expected. Even if the quickening from Simon's blood was over, having been wasted on healing Peter's severed body, Peter could still smell the convict. He decided to get back to the Stratosphere as quickly as possible and alert the others. He had no way of knowing how bad the consequences would be if this man made it across the city limits. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
    Simon the Zealot
     
     
     
     
     
     
    S imon looked down at his lifeless body, feeling more grief than he ever had. He knew what it meant. He, Simon James Withers, was dead. Dead. Simple as that. And he hadn't woken atop a ground made of fluffy clouds at the pearly gates of heaven. There was no St. Peter waiting to take his name. Sure, a vampire named Peter took his life, but that wasn't quite the same. He merely floated above his own body.
    He wondered, were the