Chapter 995: Symposium

Of the millions of dead in Europe, many had been transformed into feral, vampiric ghouls. While blood parasites and blood oaks waged precision terror attacks around the world, the superhuman, supernatural ghoul horde was unleashed on the military forces working to take back Europe.

The military bases in France and Slovakia were once again in full operation, and in a monitoring room, drone footage was being displayed on a large screen. It showed ghouls moving like a tide in the ruined outskirts of a city all but levelled to the ground. The military units they swarmed towards were far fewer in number, but organised into formations and supported by vehicles and emplaced weaponry.

The ghouls moved with mindless aggression, ignoring the terrain to clamber over anything in their path. Abandoned vehicles, the shattered remnants of walls. Piles of their own dead. The soldiers took the opposite approach, maximising every advantage the terrain could offer. They positioned themselves to establish choke points and kills boxes. Lines of retreat let them fall back from positions in danger of being overrun. They were hunters, carefully bleeding the rampaging beast that was the ghoul horde, letting it exhaust itself.

The soldiers had no shortage of magically enhanced firearms, but the more exotic weapons stole the show. Fire rained down on the ghouls from mortars launching cluster bombs filled with alchemical napalm. Heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles fired explosive rounds that tore apart the surging wall of bodies. Gas grenades caused anything organic their fumes touched to burn like thermite. Coil guns fired electricity that arced from ghoul to ghoul. The imparted energy rocked some back and knocked others over. Some exploded on contact.

The losses for the ghouls were egregious but they never stopped coming, having no morale to lose. With no sign of their numbers waning, they kept launching themselves into destruction. Two people were in the home-cinema sized room, watching on a projector screen.

“It’s like they have a factory churning them out,” said a stern-looking woman with the bearing of a matriarch but the youth of an essence user.

“No, it is not,” Travis Noble said from the cinema-style seat next to her. “I’ve seen a battle with undead spawning pits. This is rough, but it isn’t that.”

“How do you even fight something like that?”

“Miracles.”

“I guess you’d need them.”

“No, I mean it. There were gods involved. The other world doesn’t mess around.”

Miriam Coyle was the head of the Joint Magitech Weapons Research Institute, with Travis Noble as lead researcher. Over the last two years, the newly created organisation had revolutionised the weaponry being used against the vampires and their forces.

“The new lightning guns are proving effective,” Travis said after turning his attention back to the screen.

“We’ll have to look at the reliability reports in the after-action, but I’m hoping to see them in general deployment within the next forty days.”

“The failure rate in controlled testing was within acceptable parameters, but controlled testing is not the field. There are always problems you don’t see coming.”

“Yes, there are,” Miriam agreed emphatically, then glanced at Travis. “You’ve heard there’s a director coming in from the US branch?”

“I’ve heard. We need to negotiate data release deadlines around the symposium.”

“Did you hear who they’re sending?”

Travis turned to meet Miriam’s gaze.

“No,” he said. “But you feeling the need ask is more or less telling me anyway.”

***

“While I am often referred to as a soul healer,” Carlos said, addressing the lecture theatre, “that is a misnomer. My actual field of speciality study is the physical-spiritual dichotomy embodied by almost all living things. The chance to study medicine on Earth has opened up startling new avenues for we healers from Pallimustus. Our more advanced healing magic, in turn, has been a revelation for the healers of Earth. There is an especially fascinating intersection between DNA and the underlying matrix of magic inside all matter, including every person in this room. On a related note, I am still trying to quash use of the term ‘thaumic DNA’ to describe such matrices, as the potential for dangerous misinterpretation is…”

“He is not a good teacher,” Belinda whispered from the back row of seats, high above the stage in the amphitheatre-style room. “If these were students and not academics, he’d have half of them asleep in the first two minutes.”

“Well, they are academics, so it’s fine,” Rufus said. “The subject matter is interesting enough, even if Carlos doesn’t do the best job of presenting it. You want my father coming in to spice it up?”

“The guy who tried to invent fireworks that disperse vaccines, despite knowing nothing about firework or vaccines? No. How did that guy end up being an educator?”

“Nepotism. My family…”

He frowned.

“I’m not going to say it,” he told her.

“Say what?” Sophie asked as she slid into the seat beside Belinda. Her mother, Melody, took the next seat along.

“Melody,” Belinda said. “Did you know the Rufus’ family runs a pool?”

“Like a public swimming pool?” Melody asked.

“My family runs a school!” Rufus hissed, then realised what he’d just said. “Gods damn it, Lindy!”

“Mr Remore!” Carlos called out from the front. “While I’m sure everyone is very impressed at your being named sexiest man alive, that title does not come with the privilege of talking loudly at lectures. Or the theatre, even if the lead actress does ask to take a photograph with you.”

“That was one time,” Belinda called out. “And she did wait until after the show.”

“Thank you for the clarification, Mrs Callahan.”

Sophie elbowed her friend, doing her best not to laugh.

“Let the man give his talk, Lindy.”

“Ms Jain,” Carlos called out. “Since you have arrived, and we’ve hit something of a pause, perhaps you could join me here now, if that is acceptable?”

While Melody got out of her seat and made her way down to the stage, Carlos continued his talk.

“Ms Jain went through an early iteration of the procedure I will be describing today. Any procedure of this type was lethal. Her ordeal helped us gain critical insights into why that was and lead us towards the successful process I will be detailing in this lecture.”

A hand went up.

“If it’s always lethal, why is she still alive? No offence, Ma’am.”

“A question with a simple answer,” Carlos said, “but very complicated follow-up questions. Jason Asano and myself will be speaking on this in the afternoon, so I shall leave that point for now. The focus on this lecture is the practical elements of the process itself. Namely, how to excise lesser vampirism and related conditions without killing the host. The most prominent issue when excising malign elements adhered to the soul is assuring that the physical body survives any changes brought about by reverting the altered spiritual state.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author’s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“This is so boring,” Belinda complained. “He could at least put in a joke or something.”

Melody arrived on stage and Carlos clicked to the next slide. It showed a sequence of images that were vaguely humanoid, ranging from a sophisticated wire frame image to what looked like a traditional Chinese medicine chart.

“The key to success in this procedure is to reinforce the underlying magical matrix, making the body robust enough to survive the transition. This slide displays the record of how Ms Jain’s body did this reflexively when we took certain shortcuts to assure the success of her procedure. We have developed a systematised method to reproduce this effect, but in a regulated and more thorough fashion. There is a critical side effect to this, which I will discuss in the latter part of the lecture.”

He clicked to another slide.

“I will have Ms Jain take you through her experiences from her perspective, followed by a short Q&A. We shall then take a break before resuming with a discussion of where we are now, and what the next pathways of research look like. For now, I will leave it at stating our goal of a more universally applicable process, albeit one for each specific affliction. Some conditions pose greater challenges than others, with lesser vampirism being a perfect example. That condition essentially reinvents the means by which a body interacts with life force, which we have to accommodate for and reverse.”

“Are you saying this process works on lesser vampires?” someone in the crowd asked. “You’ve tested it?”

“Yes, Deputy-Minister Grantley,” Carlos said, spotting the questioner amongst the packed seats. “I didn’t realise that you’d come all the way to Slovakia to be in attendance.”

“I prefer Doctor Grantley.”

“I’m aware, Deputy-Minister, but my understanding is that your doctorate is honorary. I must assume that you secured attendance based on qualifications that are political, rather than academic.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”