Return from Exile

Chapter 7 Dark Riders

The vents were filthy, small, and cramped, even for mist, which Adrian had become, to slip into the hospital unnoticed. He thought that since Kale was bleeding, he\'d seek her out by following the scent of fresh blood. But in a hospital, it wasn\'t so easy. After locating seven operating rooms, 22 patients with fresh wounds, the emergency room, morgue and the laundry, he was beginning to doubt he\'d find her before noon. But he pressed on, only knowing she was on the side of the building that faced the street, and she wasn\'t on the first 14 floors. \'Where are you Kale. Come on. Give me some kind of clue!\'

As though she\'d heard him, a faint scream was heard through the vents. \"Let me GO!! AAAKKK!!!\"

\'Kale! YES!! I know where you are now. Hang on!\' The mist moved swiftly up two more floors, sending cold drafts to the rooms and halls it passed.

\"Moving?\" screeched Presley. \"To where?\"

\"The Purists\'s Community has been under construction for years, and like us it is now perfect. Look!\" Pantenk uncovered a scaled model of a canyon area in the desert. Deep crevasses separated a 7-mile plateau from the rest of the land, spanning nearly 15 feet across, and nearly 100 feet deep. In the middle of the canyon island was a model of a village, in total nearly 100 structures, with areas designated for farming, animal raising, and so forth. \"We\'ve all our supplies there already. This will be a world onto itself. Completely self sufficient.\"

\"You never told me about this.\"

\"You didn\'t need to know. We move in today. The women will be moved out first. Starting with our little Queen. Once everyone is there, the Bridges to the mainland will be cut, and we will at last be on our own.\"

\"The hospital administrators won\'t like us taking off with so many of their patients.\"

\"Oh please. As far as they\'re concerned, these \'Nuts\' are going to a proper long-term care facility. They\'re glad to be rid of them.\"

\"Fraser?\"

\"Yes?\"

\"The gas on the girls is wearing off. Should I give them another dose?\"

\"No. Let them scream all they like. They are crazy after all. The staff will ignore them and let us pass with little difficulty.\"

\"Kale will fight.\"

\"Then leash herst dst don\'t harm her.\"

\"Yes sir.\" The orderly strode briskly down the hall, picking up a black leather strap as he went. \"We start with Kale. Remember, she likes to kick, so be careful.\"

\"Right.\" Two more orderlies joined him, one carrying blankets, the other pushing a gurney. They opened the door to Kale\'s room and stepped inside.

\"We\'re going on a little trip Miss Kale. Now be good and you won\'t get hurt.\" She scooted off the bed to the far side, ready to run for the open door. \"You go there, you stay here. Who ever grabs her, hold her tight.\"

\"Oh I will.\" As the orderlies closed in, Kale first pulled out the nightstand she\'d managed to loose from its mountings, she tossed it at the one coming over the bed, he being the largest, and tried to get around the one on the right, but withouccesccess. She tried charging over the bed when the larger man hit the floor, but the second one grabbed the trailing chain at her feet and put her flat across the mattress.

\"Let me GO! AAAKKK!!!\" The larger man had recovered, and pulled the strap around her neck. \"Stop fighting!\" he shouted, as she tried to push him away. The other man had a firm hold on her leg chain. \"I mean it. Settle down or I\'ll choke you out!\" But she didn\'t stop, and slowly blacked out at the lack of air.

\"She all right?\"

\"Yeah. Quick, lets get her strapped down before she comes too.\"

He got to the vent, but he was too late. Kale was unconscious, and strapped to a gurney, with three guards, and who knew how many more on the floor. \'DANM! No way I can help now. It\'d be suicide for sure!\'

\"Come on. The truck downstairs is waiting,\" said the largest man.

\"Where are they taking her again?\"

\"To a place she\'ll never escape from. That\'s all I know. Same with all the others.\"

\'Leaving the hospital? That\'s perfect! I\'ve got to see where this truck is!\' As they wheeled Kale away, the Adrian Mist turned back threw the vents, and back down. But everywhere he turned, the vents to the vehicle area were sealed, to prevent fumes from getting in, and him from getting out.

As he poured himself out a second floor exhaust vent, a large truck drove threw his presence. As unsettling as it was, he saw in the windows. Not only was Kale inside, fighting against restraints, but also five other women. Adrian reformed himself and ran to the street watching where the truck was going. \"Hang on Kale. Hang on. Max! Nightmare, Necromancer! Lets go!\" The tree horses came galloping out of the ally, Necromancer\'s reins in Nightmare\'s teeth. \"Guess we still need some work. Max. Kale is in the truck that just left. We follow at a distance understand. Its gona be tricky.\" Together the horses galloped out of the city, and into the chilling desert.

They followed for a long while, never slowing d Adr Adrian almost believed they\'d head for Barbarois itself, with the direction they were going in. But then the truck stopped at a slender rope bridge, spanning a wide man made trench. Adrian managed to pull the horses behind a ridge of rocks, and convinced them all to stay. He climbed to the top of the ridge, pulling his cloak tighter against the cold wind. \"Of course. A place she\'d never escape from,\" he muttered surveying the lay of the land.

The valley spread out, a large canyon cut its way across the face, dividing at one point and separating a plateau for miles, then becoming one canyon once more. The way the two partitions went, it was obvious that only one side, the side facing him, was man made. There weren\'t any trees, no huge hills or rocks passed his position. So traveling in the day was obviously out of the question. \'I can\'t do this alone,\' he thought. \'D? Where are you?\'

\'A lot closer than you think.\'

Dawn had come, and Dracula escorted his carriage out of Barbarois, and away without incident. \"Get them safely home Edward, then find me, I may need you at my side.\"

\"Father? The Sun?\"

\"Do as I say! I\'ve not lived this long only to witness the slaughter of everyone on this planet! And if I don\'t stop Turngold, that\'s just what he\'ll do! NOW GO!\"

\"Be well father!\" With a crack of the reins the carriage was off.

\"I can\'t go with you father.\"

\now now D. But you\'ll never make it to Airomat before tomorrow night. Not on horseback anyway.\"

\"I have to try.\"

\"I have a better idea.\"

\"Oh?\"

\"Follow me.\"

\"Father, Edward is right. The sun will be hot today, despite the season. You can\'t protect yourself for long.\"

\"I can, and I will!\" \'Because I must.\'

\"You didn\'t? Father! She\'s a child!\"

\"No! I didn\'t! For once...Her mother offered. But enough of that. Where we must go isn\'t far. I just hope the man is still alive, and that he didn\'t give up. He may be the only one who can help us put a stop to all this.\" Dracula lead the way over the desert, riding deeper into the barren mountains.

An hour later, father and son found them selves facing a small airstrip in a mountain valley, complete with rebuilt hangers. \"Adrian told me about this place long ago. The man who lives here, his wife was bitten. He hired your brother to kill the vampire. During his stay, the man told him about his desire to rebuild some of the old planes he\'d seen in the library books. When Adrian finished the job he was hired for, he helped the man complete his first plane, and for accepting half payment the man would fly your brother home. The flight went well. Scared the hell out of a farmer when the plane flew low over his field and Adrian and his horse jumped out. Wish I\'d been there to see it! HA!!\"

\"You expect me to fly a plane?\"

\"Gracious no. Someone else will fly. You just jump.\"

\"Father I...\"

\"Don\'t worry, I\'ll be with you. I have to find Turngold, and to do that, I need to go where he\'s going. And since the carriage got away without difficulty, I have every reason to assume that he\'s heading for Airomat, for your brother...and your wife.\"

\"Flying is not a good idea.\"

\"No, but it\'s the only way we can save Kale, and stop Turngold before he does something he knows he\'ll regret. Come on. I think our flight is about to leave.\"

\"D?\" asked the sym quietly.

\"What?\"

\"I have to tell you something.\"

\"What?\"

\"I hate heights!\"

\"For once we agree on something, parasite.\"

\"Thank you. So...we\'ll stay on the ground?\"

\"No.\"

The airfield had been in operation for nearly 20 years. It had grown from just its humble beginnings of the old Hercules cargo plane, rebuilt from pictures alone, to several of the same type and smaller passenger planes, including a single engine Cessna, and an ultra light, that had yet to fly. \"Galen?\" called a woman from outside one of the hangers.

Inside was a large blue and white plane, the name \'High Flyer 1\' blazed across the left side near the pilot\'s windows in white, contrasting the surrounding blue. It was the first Galen had built, most of it was fuel storage at first, but later that was converted to storage space for cargo. It frightened her to see him fly it the first time. It left the ground well, but once airborne it swayed and dipped wildly, as her husband got the feel of the controls. Driving it around on the ground was one thing he\'d told her on his return, flying it was quite another. \"Galen?\" she called again. She strode around the great machine to find a ladder leading up to the right wing, between the two engines that the wing supported form it. \"Galen?\"

\"What?!\" said a man rather irritably, pulling his head out of the casing stained with grease from the motor. Below the plane\'s wing he looked into the face of his wife. All her 5 foot 11, red haired frame was all scrunched up and tense. Her smooth face, round with age, was sternly looking up at him, her green eyes, telling him he\'d done something she didn\'t like.

\"Its late morning, and your breakfast is ice cold, I hope you\'re happy.\"

\"Oh Arabella...\"

\"Don\'t you Arabella me, Galen. You said you\'d come in after making sure all was well here on the ground from last night, now come on!\"

\"But...\" Before he could finish, a small explosion, more like an engine backfire, brought their attention to the back of the building. There, a curtained partition of a 15-foot square space had black smoke billowing out the top. \"Tyler!\"

\"Oh god! Not again!\" The two ran back and pulled the curtain aside. There they found a workshop with a small engine in flames and a skinny boy tossing sand over it, haven drained the extinguishers and not refilled them. Quickly the two ran and picked up other extinguishers and returned to help douse the fire.

\"Tyler...\" sighed the older man, fanning the smoke from his face once the fire was out.

\"I think I figured out the problem,\" quipped the boy, fanning the smoke from his engine. \"I can fix this!\"

\"Tyler, you promised you wouldn\'t start it up without someone to look over what you\'ve done so far.\"

\"Dad I can do this!\"

\"I know son, but your brothers and sister, followed the rules, why can\'t you? Remember what happened to Brutus? He didn\'t follow the rules, and he was killed.\"

\"Brutus was an idiot.\"

\"Of that I have no doubt, but please, don\'t repeat his mistakes.\"

\"DAD!! We saw smoke! Is everything all right?\" The three turned to see two other young men running with extinguishers of their own.

\"Everything is fine, boys. We just had a little mishap.\"

\"Tyler?\" asked the taller of the two. The young boy covered in soot, at once went to work fixing his invention. \"Is he still trying to build that overgrown Kite?\"

\"Shut up Brice! I will build it!\"

\"Not before you blow us all to hell! The fuel tanks are just on the other side of that wall!\"

\"Brice I can do this!\"

\"BOYS!\" The two fell silent and looked to their father. \"Brice, you yourself had setbacks. Your brother is no different.\"

\"Enough of this, all of you. Brice, Elwin, go watch out for your sister. She\'s still up there somewhere, and I don\'t want the radio unmanned for very long. Tyler, clean this mess up, and continue your work. I\'ve no doubt you\'ll make good on your..., whatever it is. Both your brothers and your sister fought their battles over their crafts and won. You will too, you\'ll see. As for you, my dear husband! Into the house, clean yourself up and have your breakfast! I don\'t want to chase you down again!\"

\"Yes mom,\" echoed the boys.

\"Yes dear,\" chuckled the man as he jogged away, his wife playfully swinging the extinguisher at him.

\"Don\'t\' blow us up shrimp,\" warned the older brother, he thrust the extinguisher at him and left.

\"Don\'t worry about him,\" Elwin consoled. \"Remember how he was with me, when I built my plane?\"

\"Yeah, but at least yours can carry people and cargo.\"

\"So?\"

\"Mine is so I can get away from here, from him.\"

\"You can\'t mean that?\"

\"Yes I do. I\'m sick of this place, sick of the dust, there\'s no one for miles and...\" Elwin looked over his brother\'s face. He was angry, frustrated, all the things they all felt, and Brice was always over barring, pushy, and mean sometimes. But he saw that all give way to a curiously distant expression, and he realized Tyler had seen something. \"What is it?\" he asked turning around.

\"Two riders. Men. Tall. Too pale for being in the desert for so long,\" Elwin realized his younger brother wasn\'t seeing it with his eyes, but with a gift that only he knew about. If anyone else found out, especially Brice, no one would leave him alone. \"There\'s something dark about them. They\'re looking for someone, no...more than one person... They\'ll be here soon. There\'s something else, something about the younger of the two...I can\'t see it. But in know its there.\"

\"Are the trouble?\"

\"I don\'t think so. Not to us anyway. They...they\'re going to hire a plane.\" Tyler shook his head, and nearly collapsed, had his brother not caught him. \"Now do you see,\" he said breathless, as he was set down on a stool near by. \"If I can get away, this will stop hapng.\ng.\"

\"You sound so sure. What if it doesn\'t?\"

\"It will. It has to...I won\'t be a freak!\"

\"Tyler, you\'re not a freak.\"

\"Then if this is such a great gift as you call it, why couldn\'t I see my engine catching fire? Tell me that!\"

\"I don\'t know.\"

\"No! You don\'t know! So don\'t pretend this is some great and wonderful thing, cause its not! The sooner I\'m outa here, the sooner it will stop.\"

There wasn\'t much else he could say. Baby brother\'s mind was set. Everywhere the family had flown, people treated mutants, and normal looking people with special gifts, with less respect than the women in the brothels. He\'d learned about Tyler\'s gift when it saved them from a crash. It was the first time Tyler had flown in a plane without his father. Elwin was piloting, showing Tyler how things worked on the plane. Though he was still too young, in his father\'s mind, to fly on his own.

The landing gear wasn\'t locked in the down position for landing, though everything on the panel showed green. Just before the wheels touched the ground, Tyler pushed the throttle forward, and pulled the stick back, setting them again safe in the air. Elwin was angry, but knew Tyler wouldn\'t do it unless he had a good reason. Tyler couldn\'t explain how he knew, but once he lifted the maintenance hatch between the seats, exposing the workings of the forward landing gear, he understood. As Tyler circled the plane for him over the field, Elwin fixed the landing gear. Then once safe on the ground, Elwin told his worried parents that Tyler had pointed out a dimly lit red light on the plane\'s panel, just in time for him to pull the plane into the air once more.

Privately he and Tyler spoke about the incident, and other small spells before that. He knew then he was different. But young Tyler was set at ease when Elwin swore to keep it a secret. Now his little brother\'s episodes were becoming more and more frequent, and in greater detail, and it frightened Tyler. Each day his fear of being discovered grew, and no more so when Brice kept on him as he has been doing. If Elwin didn\'t find a way soon, he was going to loose his little brother, and his best friend.

\"Every day, it\'s the same thing. I have to chase after you to get you to eat.\"

\"Excuse us?\" The two stopped in their tracks, as they came around the front of their house to find two men on fine white cyber horses slow totop.top. \"To whom would I speak to, in order to hire a pilot and aircraft?\" asked the older of the two.

\"That would be me,\" said Galen, stepping up to him, straightening his slightly chubby 6 foot frame. \"Galen Padlen, welcome to High Flyers.\" The woman behind him just shook her head, giving up entirely to get the man to the table.

\"I am Mr. Tepes, my son Junior,\" D shot him a dark look, he hated that title, even thou it was true, he hoped he\'d never use it, or mention it to Kale. \"Are we interrupting?\"

\"Oh no sir,\" the women chided playfully. \"Just all my attempts to feed this man are being thwarted one way or another.\"

\"Oh please, do not let ups interfere. Have your meal sir. Son, you\'ll find some rations in your saddlebag. We shall eat as well while we wait.\"

\"I wouldn\'t hear of it,\" she told him. \"If you\'ll let him have his breakfast,\" she playfully jabbed her husband in his ribs, gaining a muffled laugh, \"I can feed you two as well. Come on in.\"

\"Thank you, kind lady.\"

\"Wives, what can you do?\"

D tthe the reins of both horses, and led them over to the tie post. \"You always manage to be invited in don\'t you father,\" he whispered as he passed.

\"She is very kind, D. And from what I remember of Adrian\'s tale, quite an accomplished cook. I\'d like to try it.\"

\"You amaze me sometimes father. Especially with what your are.\"

\"Thank you.\" Dracula held the door and allowed his son to enter first, feeling confident that he too was welcomed.

\"Have a seat,\" offered Mrs. Padlen, setting out two more plates. \"I\'ve got fried eggs, beacon, hash browns and coffee and tea.\"

\"Sounds lovely dear.\"

\"You\'re lucky I\'m reheating yours. What would you like gentlemen?\"

\"Hash browns and beacon, with that lovely smelling tea would be wonderful. Ah, pardon me for asking, but do you use garlic in your cooking?\"

\"A little in the hash browns. Why?\"

\"I\'m afraid I\'m seriously allergic to garlic. I swell up like a ball and turn as red as your dress my dear. I shall pass.\"

\"Oh, I\'m sorry. Eggs then?\"

\"Yes please.\"

\"Junior?\"

D inwardly winced but he had to put up with it. Too many westerners knew D, the Dunpeal Hunter. Sometimes he wished he could educate people on the proper pronunciation of Dhampire, but what would be the point. Westerners did it to get under his skin, to rile him, but he wouldn\'t stoop too being that petty. \"Just tea please.\"

\"You sure?\" D nodded. \"All right.\"

\"So where would you like to fly?\"

\"My son and I need to get to a city called Airomat, as quickly as possible.\"

\"Airomat hu?\"

\"North and east of here, dear. The one with the crappy airstrip and water filled fuel.\"

\"I know which one it is, Bella.\"

\"Ok, ok, don\'t get testy. Here, eat your breakfast. Mr. Tepes.\"

\"Thank you. You are too kind.\"

\"Milk and sugar, Junior?\"

\"Black is fine.\"

\"Ok.\"

\"Will you be taking the horses?\" asked Galen, swallowing a mouthful of egg.

\"Preferably not,\" said Dracula, taking a bite of his own eggs. \"mmm. Dear woman, these are marvelous. Junior, you really should try them.\" D said nothing and sipped his tea. It was bitter, but hot. Kale did something to his tea to make it sweet, but it was her little secret, she wouldn\'t tell him.

\"Is something wrong Junior?\" Bella asked. D shook his head, and continued to nurse his cup.

\"The horses are part of my carriage stock,\" continued Dracula. \"I\'m using these two out of necessity.\"

\"Oh? What\'s going on? Why the rush?\"

\"Family business,\" said D, over his cup. \"It only concerns us.\"

\"Sorry, didn\'t mean to pry.\"

\"Its all right. You\'ve no idea who we are. For all you know, we could watch how you fly, kill you and take the plane. Your family would never know what happened to you.\"

\"That\'s why I won\'t let him fly alone,\" quipped Bella, kissing the top of her husband\'s balding head.

\"Father, I will leave you to work out the details. Is there a place were I can store the horses?\"

\"Yes. Hanger 4, tell Tyler I\'d like him to lock them down. He\'ll know where and how.\"

\"Thank you.\" Leaving his still nearly full cup on the table, D left, walking the horses towards a large building labeled with a \'4\' on the side, roof and doors.

\"Fine young man you have there,\" Galen offered.

\"Thank you.\"

\"Only child?\"

\"No, no. Proud father of three boys.\"

\"Really! Three boys one girl myself.\"

\"My compliments\"

\"Alright, quit puffing up like a couple of roosters in a hen house. Eat, now!\"

The two men chuckled and returned to their food.