The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1) by Clay & Susan Griffith;Clay Griffith;Susan Griffith Read Free Page B

tugged Simon toward the main hatch as Colonel Anhalt gazed
up at the vast dirigible one hundred feet over his head as if trying to see
through it to the invisible topmasts above. Several naval officers on the
quarterdeck stopped chatting among themselves and watched with
growing interest.
    Suddenly the airship lurched. Adele grabbed a pneumatic tube for
support and pulled her brother back to his feet. In the rigging high
above, she saw a figure tumble sickeningly, flipping this way and that,
unable to grasp a safe hold, until he shot past the deck into the black
atmosphere below the ship. Before Adele could understand that sudden
tragedy, another man fell and then another. Then she saw strange
shadowy things moving with unnatural agility down through the lines,
pulling hand over hand toward the deck.
    Two dark cadaverous figures settled to the deck amidships with no
sound and lifted their bloodstained faces into the light. Adele saw true
savagery for the first time. These vampires were not stories or frightening figures in the distance; they were real, covered in blood that glistened in the lamplight. She clutched her brother close.
    Sailors stared at the horrific intruders. A squad of redjackets raised
their rifles and opened an erratic fire. One vampire was blown off his
feet. The other streaked forward, a blur in the half-light, and two soldiers screamed. The wounded vampire then bounded to his feet and also
rushed into the fight. It was a short, bloody affair.
    Two other vampires dropped onto the quarterdeck, hissing like cats, only yards from Adele and Simon. One leapt at Simon, too fast for Adele
to scream or react.

    The vampire's head exploded and the body tumbled.
    Anhalt appeared at Adele's side with a smoking revolver extended
and Fahrenheit saber in hand. "Get below! Quickly!" He fired twice, hitting the second vampire in the head, and it dropped palsied to the deck.
    "Form square!" Anhalt bellowed over the staccato gunfire erupting
across the deck. "Fix bayonets! Up and out! Up and out!" Soldiers
scrambled for the quarterdeck and gathered into a ragged square around
the main hatch. The men fumbled with bayonets and tried to work their
rifles as they'd been drilled, each trooper alternating his aim out or up
to cover both ground and air. Some young faces were blank, others
stained with horror and blood.
    Adele sent her brother down into the companionway. She saw the
rigging over her head was full of vampires, perhaps a hundred of them
squirming and crawling, like a dead tree full of caterpillars. Then the
two royals were below, where soldiers and sailors raced frantically
through the corridors. Officers shouted orders and counterorders that
were lost in the din of tramping feet. Anhalt dropped quickly through
the hatchway and detailed five soldiers to accompany Adele and Simon
into the bowels of the ship.
    They went down and down, past the acrid-smelling chemical room,
into the reeking orlop deck. They were taken to a small dark chamber,
fore or aft Adele could no longer say, inhabited by goats, pigs, and crates
of chickens.
    "You'll be safe here, Your Highness." A soldier shoved the royal siblings into the manger, then slammed the door shut.
    For a long time, neither Adele nor Simon spoke in the blackness.
She hugged her brother, noticing that he was shivering, his unblinking
eyes staring at a small goat that stood in the straw nearby. They strained
to hear traces of the battle, hoping for hints of victory. Surely, the finest
troops of the Equatorian Empire could defeat vampire raiders. The vampires would flee like vermin once they realized that this was not a lazy
merchant vessel that had strayed too far north.
    The room shuddered and made a heart-sickening lurch to starboard. Simon screeched and squeezed Adele as they tumbled across the manger.
Trying to cushion Simon's body, she hit the bulkhead amid a pile of
chicken crates. Adele lifted a crate off her brother and