The Forgotten Kings (The Scourge Book 4) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title page

  Copyright

  Disclaimer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Thank you

  THE FORGOTTEN KINGS

  The Scourge Book 4

  by

  Phil Maxey

  Copyright © 2019 by Philip Maxey

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2019.

  http://philmaxeyauthor.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The alarm blasted into Copeland’s brain as he stormed through the corridors on his way to the deep underground complex which housed the ancient sarcophagi. Men and women in white lab coats staggered past him, moving in the opposite direction, most of them bloodied.

  As he arrived at the open door to the elevator, a group of the corporation’s soldiers joined him, including a few Alkrons. They went to move through the door, but he held his hand up.

  “I must do this alone.”

  Footsteps came from behind. “Umm… sir, I should go with you. They will not talk our language,” said Galen. He was holding a computer tablet in his hand.

  Copeland nodded and they both stepped over the threshold into the elevator. The doors closed and the metal box plunged through the depths, coming to a stop a few seconds later.

  The door opened to a scene of devastation. Pieces of desks, computer monitors, plastic binders, a chaos of scientific sundries lay scattered amongst the bodies of those who worked there. The metallic smell of blood would have been glorious to Copeland if it were not for the fact that he feared he might be next.

  Three statuesque men were huddled over the remains of humans, their extended teeth sunken into the flesh.

  Copeland wondered if they even knew he was there.

  Galen went to walk forward into the room but Copeland threw his large arm out, stopping him. Each of the individuals that had come from the coffins looked up in unison, staring at their unwanted guests.

  One of the men, whose hair was of the golden variety, and hung on his shoulders, slowly stood and walked forward towards Copeland and Galen. Despite his obvious size advantage over the muscular man who was approaching, Copeland had to resist the urge to close the door and send the box back upwards towards the surface and safety.

  They are here. This is what I wanted.

  He stepped over the threshold but, before he took another step, the half man half vamp moved to him in a blink of an eye. A furious blur which grabbed him by the arm and, in one continuous movement, flung the demonic being through the air, slamming him against the nearby wall.

  The angry creature then moved towards the human, cowering against the back of the elevator.

  Shaking the pain from his physique, Copeland staggered to his feet.

  “No!” he shouted.

  Galen’s tablet translated the word into ancient Sumerian and blurted it back out in the direction of the thing bearing down on him.

  The man stopped, his face one of confusion. The two other men were now standing. The third, the tallest of the three walked forward, stepping over pieces of bodies and furniture alike.

  The blonde-haired man spoke. The words were abrupt but soft. A language that neither Copeland nor Galen could comprehend, but the computing device translated them anyway.

  “A… human… machine…” came from the tablet's speaker.

  Copeland stepped forward. “I want to help you…” he said towards the man who seemed to be in charge of the other two.

  The man, whose dark hair was greying, turned to Copeland and sneered, talking more of those unrecognizable words. “You are the king in this land?” came from the tablet.

  A look of disgust remained on the face of the blonde man. He turned to the oldest. “When do we listen to a—” The computer tablet failed to translate the word.

  Ignoring the insult, Copeland stepped forward once more, walking past the blonde man until he was standing in front of the older. “Yes. I am king of this land—” He fell to his knee. “— And I pledge my allegiance to you, Rynon.”

  *****

  Joel stood mouth agape at the dark piles of dry human remains which filled the forecourt below Tower A. The lights which remained working flickered. In the distance, Carla and her soldiers started to emerge from the crumpled shell of the SWAT vehicle while other doors started to open.

  He clicked on his radio. “Status! Over.”

  “We’re… Alive…” said Evan from his radio. Joel spotted him standing just outside Tower B with Donnie.

  Joel immediately ran down the stairs, moving furniture aside that was barricaded against the broken tower door.

  Pulling the door open, a layer of black ash fell inwards covering his boots. He stepped forward, sinking a few inches into the black dry mush.

  “Towers C to E, report in. Over!” he shouted into his radio.

  “Tower C here. Got some injuries but we’re breathing,” said a voice.

  Joel ran across the forecourt, stirring up a black mist. “Are you okay?” he said to Evan who was staring at the scene wide-eyed.

  “What happened?” said Evan.

  “I don’t know. They all just…”

  “Disintegrated,” said Carla, walking up to them.

  They all looked at each other. “The cell blocks!” they said in unison, then started to run to the closest entrance which was open.

  “Anna, Marina? Over,” said Joel into his radio as he entered the first of the narrow maze-like corridors. Each step felt like walking in crushed black autumn leaves.

  “I’m here Joel. Marina’s bleeding pretty bad. I’m doing what I can,” said Anna. A chill ran through Joel’s body, and he increased his speed through the wreckage of the prison interior until he made it to block C.

  The iron bars that used to be the partition between the block and the corridor outside laid in warped fragments across the floor which was covered in piles of black ash.

  At first, it wasn’t clear to Joel who was alive as most were laying, hardly moving. A commotion drew his eyes up to the second-floor balcony.

  “Come on!” Anna’s words echoed around the space.

  In an instant Joel flew up the stairs, spiraling around until he saw the small group in front of him, most huddled around the female figure on the metal grated floor. As he moved closer, Marina’s body and injuries came into view and a well of emotion threatened to push its w
ay out of him.

  The cell door to their left was open, and Jess and Jasper stood wrapped in Mary’s arms.

  Anna pushed repeatedly down on Marina’s chest. “I… I just need to keep her heart pumping long enough for her healing abilities to kick in!” she said out of breath.

  Any normal human would have left the mortal realm from the extent of injuries Joel could see across Marina’s body. At the back of his mind, a tiny insignificant voice craved the blood which had left her body and was dripping through the gaps in the floor.

  He looked at Mary. “Take the kids inside and close the door.”

  Mary nodded but Jess protested.

  “Come on, we need to leave Anna to work on your mother,” said Mary, shuffling the children inside while pulling the metal door shut.

  “Is there anything we can do?” said Joel. His mind thought there wasn’t, but he ignored it.

  “In the medical ward, there are sutures and gauze, bring them… bring everything.”

  Joel went to turn, but he realized the balcony behind him was full of people watching.

  “I’ll go,” said Kizzy.

  As the shape changer’s legs grew in muscle mass, she pushed past the others and sprinted down the steps and into the corridor. As she went, scenes of blood and mayhem replayed through her mind. She then realized she hadn’t seen Amos since the battle started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Amos looked with loathing eyes at the human that had hidden in the bowels of the prison with a group of his most trusted henchmen and the man’s wife. The screams of terror were still thundering through his skull, and he hung his head waiting for the overwhelming sensations to pass.

  “I think it’s over,” said a muscular man whose head almost touched the low ceiling.

  “How do we know who won?” said another, slightly smaller man.

  Holland stood and listened.

  “The good guys won,” said Amos without lifting his head. He knew this to be true from the silence permeating the three feet of concrete above. The incessant blood-lusting thoughts, like a thousand ants gnawing at his brain, suddenly stopped twenty minutes ago. He had no idea how or why it happened, he just knew the vamps were gone.

  Holland nodded to the large man next to him, then pointed to the door and the heavy machinery propped up against it. “Clear the door, see what’s outside.” He then clicked on his radio, only static came from the speaker. He tried talking into it anyway, but there was no response. “That head of yours picking up anything from up top?” he said to Amos.

  Amos sighed then looked at him. “Joel, Anna, Evan, most of the others are alive. Marina… she’s…” He searched for the right term. Many times since his change, he found he lacked the words to describe what his abilities were telling him.

  “Dead?” said Holland.

  “She’s in-between. They are trying to help her.”

  “Get the door open!” said Holland to the now small group trying to do so.

  Amos dragged himself to his feet as the heavy items were pushed to the side, and the door swung open. Immediately they all smelt the smoky odor that was clinging to the air.

  Holland coughed, covering his face. “Must be a fire somewhere.”

  The three large men stepped outside, walking through a thin layer of black ash, followed by Holland then Amos.

  They made their way up the narrow staircase, then one of the men pushed the door open at the top, immediately exploding a pile of ash into the air. They all covered their faces as they moved out into the wide corridor.

  They all looked at the black dry substance which was in clumps across the floor and which was equally painted in splotches across the walls. Buried amongst the ash were larger shapes, human in form.

  Holland’s radio came alive, making everyone jump. A chorus of voices all speaking at once came from the speaker. Holland added to the mess of sounds trying to make himself heard above the others.

  Amos started running down the corridor.

  “Where you going kid?” shouted Holland after him.

  Amos ignored the question and ran towards where his mind was telling him to go. Towards Cell Block C.

  *****

  Anna applied the gauze to the deepest wounds across Marina’s body. She looked over her shoulder. “Is the gurney ready?” she shouted.

  “Yes!” shouted Kizzy from below.

  In the few minutes that it took Kizzy to find and collect the medical items, Anna had told those close by to keep pressure on Marina’s wounds then ran back down to the ground floor level and made a quick inspection to the condition of everyone else. She counted off the few hundred that were crammed in the cell block, half were dead, and everyone else was injured in some way. She gave what advice she could to those that were conscious and helped those that had been ill previously back onto all but one of the hospital beds, ready to be moved back to the medical ward. She had no idea what condition it was in though.

  Anna held Marina’s legs while Joel held her shoulders, and both lifted her along the balcony, down the stairs, and then gently lowered her onto the gurney.

  Anna checked her pulse once more. “Okay, her heartbeat is a little stronger. Let's get her upstairs.” She paused before looking back to Kizzy. “Are the elevators still working?”

  Dalton slowly got back to his feet, his body covered in lacerations and blood stains. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Anna nodded.

  They both moved away with the hospital bed. Joel went to move with them when Anna held his arm.

  “What?” he said.

  She nodded to a nearby empty cell. “We need to talk.”

  They moved into the cell and she closed the door behind them.

  “We got a problem,” she said.

  He looked at her not understanding.

  “A lot of the humans were killed, but—”

  Before Anna finished, the ‘problem’ appeared in Joel’s mind. “Shit…”

  “Yup…”

  “How many are infected?”

  “I counted around seventy that will survive their injuries in this cell Block. Most were hiding here, but there are bound to be others around the prison that survived as—”

  Voices came from outside.

  Joel and Anna emerged from the cell. Evan was standing with Max, Josh, Rachel, and Bill, looking at the scene in the block. Anna moved to Josh and placed her hand on his cheek, making him wince.

  “It looks worse than it feels,” said Josh.

  Anna walked to one of the bags of gauze on the floor, plucked some from a box and handed it to him. “Keep this on it.”

  Joel looked at Max, Bill, and the others. “What happened?”

  A brief look passed between the two older men.

  “The tablet,” said Bill.

  “What about it?”

  “We managed to get it working again. I saw something come up on the computer screen about killing vampires, so I activated it.” He looked around. “This was the result.”

  Joel looked surprised. “The tablet did all this?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s the good news, the bad news is the tablet is dead. Whatever power it contained, was used saving all of us,” said Rachel.

  Footsteps came from the corridor. Amos appeared where the iron bars used to be.

  He took a moment to absorb the devastation within the block. “Where’s Kizzy?” he said to Joel.

  “Medical ward.”

  Amos went to run off.

  “Holland survive?”

  Amos nodded then disappeared back into the shadows. Joel frowned.

  Flint whimpered on the floor. He was laying up against a nearby wall. Joel walked to the dog and knelt. “Hey, buddy. From what I heard you did good.”

  The dog licked his hand.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Adrian watched the older of the three men who emerged from the sarcophagi step into the large room which had a view over the remains of San Jose. Outside was only darkness and the occ
asional spark of light from a fire.

  Rynon walked to the window almost colliding with it, until he stopped and pressed his fingers against the glass.

  The other two human-vamp hybrids entered the room with Copeland and Galen. All were now fully clothed in a black bodysuit of Galen’s design.

  “This city is m… yours, sire,” said Copeland.

  Adrian was surprised at the deference his CEO was giving to these refugees from the ancient past. He stood awkwardly, waiting to be introduced. As each second passed he hoped that maybe his presence had been forgotten and he could slink out through the still open door.

  Copeland pressed a virtual button on a tablet which was stuck to the wall, and the expansive piece of glass slid back. A light gust blew in from outside. But that wasn’t what Rynon was looking at, for his eyes were still fixed on the computing device near Copeland’s hand. He walked to it and touched it. It did not respond how he presumed it would. “What is this?” he said to Copeland, his words now being translated and broadcast from a small speaker built into the fabric of his suit.

  “It has been over ten sar’s since we think you slept in your, umm, capsules,” said Copeland. “Humanity advanced—”

  Rynon’s face contorted into one of anger. “Humanity? There was barely one sar’s worth across the entire kingdom! Now they cover all the deserts and mountains?”

  “Yes, there were many humans. More than stars in the sky, but not anymore. I changed that. I brought about the end of humanity!” Copeland straightened his back.

  The slighter of the three former kings moved closer to the window. “We can rebuild, use the human machines for ourselves.”

  Rynon looked at the tablet once more. “This machine does not react to my commands, why is this?”

  “Umm…”

  Adrian took that as his opportunity to be useful. He cleared his throat, then walked across to Rynon and Copeland. “This is modern human… machinery…”