They hadn’t gotten too far before House Himura had stopped. Alexander wondered what was going on and why had he almost plowed into the back of the guy he was running behind. There were sounds of fighting up ahead. Alexander couldn’t see anything, and it wouldn’t do him much good to break ranks and try to help.
Within minutes the fighting was over and the columns of vampires were moving again. As Alexander passed the spot of the fighting, he saw three dead wolves and three dead people, two men and a woman, that had been kicked to the side of the cave. Sayuri’s people hadn’t fired a single shot. He would have.
After a minute or two of moving at vampire speeds down the tunnel, it opened up into a massive cavern. Alexander stopped and had to admire how beautiful the place was. It was huge. The block like buildings from the model Kenneth had used were pretty accurate to the block buildings he was now looking at. At the center of the city was the black tower standing about twice as tall as any of the other buildings. It commanded the cityscape and the eye could not help but be drawn to it.
The city sprawled out farther than even his vampire eyes could see. There were two of the indoor forests that Kenneth had talked about, one to his left and the farther one to his right in the north part of the cavern that his House was supposed to torch when they got the signal. The cavern ceiling was imbedded with thousands of what looked like diamonds, shining down with some kind of unnatural light. He almost jumped back into the cavern that led here. He looked down at his skin. It wasn’t bubbling or cracking in anyway. Those diamonds might produce something that looked like sunlight, but it wasn’t sunlight. He smiled at his own foolishness.
House Himura didn’t hesitate. They continued to run down to the left and around the southern side of the city. Alexander’s column soon moved to the north to take up their positions. Alexander found himself admiring this place. It was beautiful, dark, and safe.
Except that Kenneth had found out about it and how to get in. He wondered how he had been able to dominate those wolves. He didn’t know much about House Dukart’s Domination ability. But it had been centuries since any vampire had claimed to have the ability to dominate animals. Not since Gilles de Rais has that been a recorded ability. Kenneth had just shown himself to be a far greater threat to the other Houses than even Alexander knew him to be. He had to get out of here and tell Wolfgang about this, to warn him just how strong Kenneth might have become.
House Brandt swept around the eastern side of the city, keeping out of the city proper but not taking to the rooftops just yet. There didn’t seem to be any Shape Shifters this far out from the center of the city and that tower that commanded it. In fact, the place seemed empty on the outskirts. How many Shape Shifters could fit here? And how many were actually here now? Kenneth wouldn’t have mounted an offensive unless he was sure to have an advantage. That was just the way Kenneth was wired. That meant that there was probably only a maximum of a hundred or so Shape Shifters in the city, maybe less, minus the six they had already killed.
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When they reached the northern forest, they halted. Carlin pointed out two other vampires and broke up the forty-three vampires that were there into two groups of fourteen with himself making the last group up of fifteen. Carlin set his group to gathering up wood and kindling, pulling dried branches and piling them up against one of the bigger trees.
Alexander was in the group headed by Odette Günther. The woman was broad shouldered and tall, around six feet. She had long blonde hair tied in a braid and bright blue eyes. Even though she was tall and broad shouldered, she still had feminine curves and a nice chest. Her body was built for power though.
He had heard a bit about this woman from his friends. She was ambitious and strong willed. People worked for her out of respect. She had lived during the early nineteen hundreds, so she was older than he was. He had heard that she had been turned during World War I sometime. She immediately took charge and broke the group down into squads of four and five. They would stick together and take orders from her but in case they were separated the chain of command wouldn’t be broken. Alexander nodded; she did seem to know what she was doing.
He looked behind himself at the indoor forest. He was amazed with how green it looked. He looked up at the crystals again. What kind of light was that?
He didn’t have time to ponder it any longer. At the far eastern side of the city a bright orange flare shot up into the cavern ceiling and bounced off it, tumbling back down to the ground. Alexander couldn’t help but smile at the comical way that had just played out.
Carlin grabbed a torch that he had made from some nearby wood and pine needles. He lit it with a lighter and cast it into the pile of wood that his group had piled up earlier. The pile of dried wood caught quickly. There was no wind and that would work against them. Alexander just hoped the fire would spread to the rest of the forest.
Odette received a few words from Carlin as he pointed in two different directions. Alexander’s group followed Odette as she took the easterly route. The vampires jumped to the top of the buildings and moved inward.
Carlin sent two vampires from his group down to the street level, Odette did the same. Alexander was one chosen. He jumped down from the roof and stalked up the street with another vampire that he didn’t recognize. He was supposed to burn everything inside the buildings as they went. That suited him just fine.
Looking into an open building he saw things piled up and discarded. There was a decent amount of junk in there. There was some old but neatly stacked furniture in the corner. There was a sword hanging up on the wall. What the hell was that for?