The Dark Messiah Read online

  “Yeah, good point,” Robert said and threw a sucker punch at Michael, trying to hit him in the jaw. Michael kicked his chair back into Robert as he ducked back to allow the punch to pass by.

  “Here,” Michael told him as he raised the chair up to catch Robert under his chin, breaking a couple of teeth in the process, “Why don’t you take this seat?” He flipped the chair, so the four legs were aimed at Robert who had stumbled backward, grabbing his mouth.

  He punched out with the chair, breaking one of Robert’s ribs. He tossed it to the guy on the left and fairly blurred towards the other guy and punched him.

  Once.

  By the time the third tough had caught the chair, Michael had grabbed Robert’s shirt and the chair. He yanked the chair back from the tough and set it down on the floor. Popping Robert on the side of the head, he slumped down into the seat, and Michael looked at the third guy. “Now,” he pointed to Robert, “you can tell him I let him sit in his chair. You got a chair you want, too?”

  He looked at Robert, then down to the floor at his friend who was out cold. He turned to Michael and shook his head in the negative.

  “Good, now leave me alone.” He turned and headed to the bar. Pulling money out of Robert’s wallet, which he had grabbed during the fight, he asked the bartender, “how much?”

  Juliana watched with awe as Jimmie told him the price. Michael pulled out two silver pieces, “Two of these?” Jimmie nodded. Michael grabbed the moonshine and drank it in one gulp. Slapped the two pieces of silver on the table, then tossed Jimmie the wallet. “You can return it to him when he wakes up.”

  Michael nodded to the waitress and made his way out of the bar.

  “God,” Jimmie said when Michael left, “I want to be like him when I grow up.”

  “Hell, if you are half him when you grow up, Jimmie, I’ll take you home all night, every night,” Juliana murmured.

  Jimmie glanced at Juliana to see she wasn’t paying him any attention.

  Challenge accepted, he thought to himself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Old Denver (United States PostApoc)

  The old Were was able to leave the Packs area easily. The local Alpha didn’t care what one old man did. He had come here months before, looking for someone.

  A girl.

  Now, he had found the one he had been looking for. Found his daughter once again and his heart was a little lighter. But, with his new knowledge of the local situation, he wasn’t sure how they would make it out of the Old Denver area. He was pretty sure the two of them could make it out of the Pack’s little fort. But, once they were known to be gone, there would be a pack hunt, and he wasn’t the man he used to be.

  Now, he knew exactly how he could see his daughter safe again. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell Jacqueline how bad he was.

  But, he had told her he loved her, was proud of her, and had never been upset with her decision to leave.

  When she told him of the Dark Messiah?

  Well, then he needed to go see the man one more time to ask a personal favor.

  God willing, he would accept.

  New York City State - Upper East Coast (United States Post-Apoc)

  “There are rumors,” the fat man commented, speaking around a cigar he had firmly planted between his teeth, “that we have figured out the problem with keeping vampire blood fresh.”

  There were two men in the room. It was nicely appointed and had that rare feature only available to a few cities across the World.

  It had electricity.

  The fat man looked at his law enforcement representative, “I don’t remember wanting this information to be public. Are we clear?”

  The other man nodded, turned and left the room.

  Old Denver (United States Post-Apoc)

  It seemed like everywhere Michael went, people had degenerated to the dark ages, again. Lack of fresh building activity, everyone just reusing the plentiful old buildings from Earth’s past.

  Like they had decided to move into old Egyptian Pyramids to live.

  Further, mankind had moved into a dark time ethically. Here, so far as he had seen, everyone thought might made right.

  The problem with that? When Honor’s Champion decided that Justice had been absent for too long, and was seeking to balance the scales, it was going to get ugly.

  He kept his hands in his pockets, the coat flapping in the wind as he walked down the street towards the location he had pulled from Robert’s head.

  Kraven? Michael snorted. Who kept a name like Kraven?

  It took him five minutes to walk the necessary blocks, having to backtrack one time when he came upon a building that had collapsed. He didn’t care to jump over the rubble and have people realize just how different he was.

  Michael stopped in front of the forted up area and studied it.

  It wasn’t bad, he had to admit. He wasn’t sure where they got the materials, but the walls were well built and twenty feet high. Some sort of wire on the top, and a guard station overlooking the roads in multiple directions with a large building in the center.

  Which was lit up with electricity?

  Interesting.

  The gatehouse door was open, and there was a guard there, so Michael decided to see if walking in was an option. No need to make this harder than he thought it should be.

  —

  The old Were passed the old tenements and then the few buildings and another three miles beyond. He headed towards the area Jacqueline had explained she had described to him.

  The West Side bars.

  He visited two before coming to Kraven’s joint. He had heard the commotion before he walked inside. Straightening his clothes as best he could, he opened the door and stepped in, immediately taking a step to the right and checking out what was going on.

  It wasn’t much.

  There was some guy off in the corner, with his guard standing behind him and three toughs sitting at a table in front of him. One was fine, one had a towel with ice to his head, and the last was awake, but groaning with his head laying on the table.

  Now that, he thought, just might be Michael’s work.

  He stepped over towards the end of the bar, catching the bartender’s attention who walked the ten feet down the bar to ask him, “Liquor or beer?”

  The old man reached into his pockets and pulled a small amount of change, “Beer, the cheapest that isn’t vile,” his gravelly voice told the young barkeep, “and a story of what happened to the youngster back there, he drink too much?”

  The barkeep swiped the change into his hand while shaking his head. He grabbed a mug and pulled the beer from a keg before turning around and placing it on the bar, “No,” he nodded his head towards the three men. His voice, low and close to whispering, answered him. “Those three came in twenty minutes ago and tried to take a chair away from a new guy in town. The new guy doesn’t know who Kraven is, so he took offense to someone pushing him.”

  The barkeeper, who glanced to make sure the three men weren’t paying the two of them any attention continued, “You should have seen it! The guy gets up, tosses the chair to one of them, lays out one and pops the one with his head on the table. Before he could collapse, he grabbed the chair for the dude to collapse into. He asks the third if he wants a chair, but he was smart enough to shake his head. Then, he comes over here and grabs some money out of the one guy's wallet. Pays me, just downs a shot of our moonshine and drops the mug back on the table like it was water. Then, he walks out like it wasn’t any big thing to beat the shit out of two guys.”

  The old Were took the beer and lifted it up, taking a long swig, he didn’t say aloud what he was thinking…

  What’s two when you have killed two-hundred at a time without breaking a sweat?

  —

  Michael was surprised. They let him keep his weapons and once inside, he understood why.

  This was a tiny little town within a larger town. The large building had bars, restaurants and other businesses a
ll setup inside, as well. There were a lot of men who looked like they had been mining out in the mountains, and a few business men as well.

  This was the local seat of power, he figured.

  The sun was getting lower in the sky, and with the buildings around plus the tall wall, it was getting darker inside what was probably a three block area. He could hear a fight going on around the other side of the building. Seemed like it was strength ruled inside these walls.

  Michael grinned, that was the way he liked it.

  “You!” A voice called out from the side, and Michael glanced to his left, “Oh, sorry!” It was a guy in clothes that were better suited out in the country, “Thought you were someone else.”

  Michael nodded and then wondered how many people went around with bald heads?

  There were additional stalls set up outside the walls, on the sidewalk surrounding the fifteen... he glanced up, no - twenty story building. Considering how many people he had seen so far in this town, this could easily house a quarter of the total population. Probably the top quarter if electricity was as rare as he had seen so far.

  The hustle and bustle of getting through the crowds as he reached the main doors into the building were a little surprising. So far, even in that small town with Childers, there hadn’t been thirty to forty people in this small of a space.

  This building had eight doors leading in and out. All of the doors were braced open. There was enough heat in the building that the cool night supplemented the straining fans. No air conditioning in this place, it seemed.

  Michael chose to take the second door on the right, and the person in front of him suddenly darted out of the line. Michael looked ahead and could see a couple of toughs heading out of the building, aiming for the obvious entrances.

  Might makes right, indeed.

  Michael kept his hands in his pockets and kept walking. He acted like he wasn’t aware of the two toughs, nor the smirk on the one in front. That was ok, Michael sped up just a bit to make sure he would go through the door first. When he came out, he led with his shoulder against the other’s shoulder.

  Michael’s shoulder won.

  The tough bounced off Michael, spun rapidly counter-clockwise and tripped over another person coming in the other door. Michael was fifteen feet away as the tough, cursing a storm, got up.

  His partner helped him stand up, Michael could hear his comment. “Fuck’ em Darren, c’mon. Kraven wants us to check out where the hell Robert and those pricks are.”

  Michael smirked, Robert should still be nursing a headache back in the bar he had just left.

  Inside the building, he paused to realize this was designed to have stores on the first three levels before the offices, or apartments, started above. He walked towards the stairs to go up a flight to the bar level. Businesses were on first, bars and restaurants on the second. Other services, it seemed, were on three.

  Taking the stairs up, he arrived on the second floor and turned right to walk towards the ‘Corner Bar.' It was appropriately named because it took up the whole corner on this floor. There was no door, just an opening that looked to have had two doors sometime in the past.

  He nodded to a waitress as he took a table near the wall in the back, allowing him to sit with his back mostly to a wall and watch everyone. The bar was over his right shoulder so he couldn’t see very well in that direction. However, the far wall was mirrored, and it allowed him to keep an eye on it.

  “Liquor or Beer?” The waitress asked. Michael looked over, and the brunette was wearing an old style dress. It didn’t quite cover her knees, and frankly, she looked like she would rather burn it, then wear it.

  “Water, if you have it?” Michael asked.

  “It’s still a dime out here, even for water, stranger.” She told him, smacking the gum she was chewing. “The gum is natural beeswax.” Michael raised an eyebrow, “Everyone asks how I got it. We sell it three for a dime.”

  “A dime is fine,” he told her, “I’ve had the liquor.”

  “Water it is,” she turned and walked away, but Michael had already read her mind.

  She had tagged him as someone to set up. Michael closed his eyes and his shoulders dropped, just a little.

  I am trying, Bethany Anne, to remember that everyone here doesn’t deserve to die. But if you were here, you would realize this is damned hard.

  He looked around at the patrons in the place, probably about twenty. When you are surrounded by so many that deserve punishment.

  The waitress came back, set the drink down on the table and picked up the dime Michael had set there. He had retained some more of Robert’s money earlier and probably needed to figure out how to acquire more. Nothing would point him out more like a stranger than being someone who had no money.

  Which, he had plenty of back in his New York home. He had a lot, actually, back in his New York home.

  She stepped next to him and bent down, kissing him on the cheek.

  “And that is for what?” Michael asked.

  “Sometimes mister, you shouldn’t go where you aren’t known,” she told him and then left, leaving him with a glass of water, no ice.

  He wasn’t particularly bothered by cold, and while the heat wasn’t a big deal, he didn’t really like it. He should probably figure out a way to handle modifications to his body. He had more reacted to the situations he was thrown into rather than thinking…

  The light from the door was blocked, and Michael turned, sizing up his next interruption and shook his head.

  This asshole had a sword.

  “Flirting with my woman, stranger?” This guy was easily six foot and probably pushing two hundred thirty pounds. Some of that weight, however, was definitely fat. He had sun tanned dark skin and dirty blond hair and frankly smelled like the woman.

  “Why, isn’t she your sister?” Michael asked, loudly. A few of the tables had already noticed the altercation and were turning in their chairs to see what happened. None of the people seemed bothered. “So, is this some sort of racket you and her are running?” Michael continued before big and beefy got another word in, “She fake kisses me, you come along to do something? Maybe try to shake me down for a little money?”

  “What I’m going to do,” he told Michael, pulling out his sword. It was easily three feet long and gleamed in the light. “Is allow you to leave this area after paying a toll.”

  “Is that right?” Michael asked. While he was carrying on a conversation externally, Michael was weighing the pros and cons of taking out the leadership. They were taking advantage of people and frankly, they lacked something that had been annoying the hell out of him.

  They lacked Honor.

  “That’s right,” the brother told Michael, “See, if you don’t, I get charged for getting the floor all bloody…again.” He held the sword out, it’s point just a foot in front of Michael’s chest, “And that upsets a few people who can’t have their…”

  Judgement Complete.

  Michael sped up, reaching under his jacket for the Wakizashi. He unsnapped the scabbard and yanked out the sword, easily parrying the one in front of him to his right. He kicked back his chair to bounce off the one behind him and pivoted on his right leg, kicking out with his left and catching the man in his stomach, knocking him flying. The big man’s feet caught the table behind him, dragging him down, but his body landed with a crash on the table one behind that.

  “You know,” Michael’s voice went cold, “you have taken advantage of strangers for the last time.” He walked to the table between the two of them, grabbed it with his left hand and flung it through the air behind him.

  Cursing erupted, and chairs and tables were quickly evacuated. This wasn’t going according to the script they’d seen before.

  “BILLY!” the waitress screamed from the bar as she realized the stranger wasn’t going to pay the toll and leave. This had worked every time they had tried it so far.

  Billy, quick for his size, got up and held up his sword.
/>   “You are holding that wrong,” Michael told him, “That type of sword is best with two hands, not one. Unless, of course, you have phenomenal strength.” He darted forward and cut down, catching the sword as Billy screamed, his forearm spewing blood where Michael had severed his hand from his arm.

  Michael, however, ignored the screams as he unwrapped the hand still clutching the sword and let it drop to the floor.

  “You bastard!” the waitress screamed and turned to reach behind the bar, coming back around with a shotgun.