Cornelius watched from the shadows as Arthur Slayne approached the drone. He took his time, sauntering toward the craft. His lackadaisical efforts didn’t ring true. Surely, he would rush to the craft, board it and attempt to outrun the waiting shadowstar drones. No, he was waiting for someone to reveal themselves. He was expecting Cornelius or Armitage to be there.
Oh! Something snapped shut within Cornelius’ mind. The drone was a stunningly realistic mock up. His design was still singular in reality, although someone would have to die for leaking the blueprints to Slayne. Cornelius shook his head. This warehouse was an artfully crafted trap by Arthur Slayne. Without doubt, he’d intended to catch both himself and Armitage within his web of deceit. Slayne had taken the P-Case to provide bait to get Cornelius to commit, and he’d done so because he must. Slayne had understood perfectly the value of the Panopticon to Crane and the Vampire Dominion. The Panopticon was an essential tool to recovering the situation versus the Mekrarian ninja vampire and he had to have it back. Damn it, without the Panopticon, he’d have to take personal control of the hunt for the rogue ninja vampire, and God only knew what would happen while he was occupied in western China and the eastern Caucuses. The whole situation with Mekra and her new vampire could spiral out of control. Slayne should give him the P-Case to save the world from a worse fate. Slayne was foolishly interfering in a situation he didn’t understand.
The door on the shipping container moved slightly, and Armitage stepped out onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. Her auto-pistol appeared in her right hand, lined up on Arthur Slayne’s chest. Her gaze flicked across the warehouse and arrested on Cornelius for a micro-second.
In that moment, while Armitage checked the room for visible traps. Slayne sheathed his blade and drew his own auto-pistol.
Cornelius stared down the wide throat of Slayne’s matte-gray .50 caliber weapon. Slayne had only pretended not to see him hiding in the shadows. Now Slayne was pointing an auto-pistol armed with hyper-velocity rounds at his face.
Slayne crab-walked toward Cornelius, his gun hand steady as a rock, while keeping Armitage within his peripheral vision.
Chloe strode confidently toward the front of the warehouse, diverging away from Slayne, creating a triangle with her at the head of it. A slight frown appeared on her forehead, belying her confident posture. If Slayne managed to shoot him through the heart or the head, he’d almost certainly die as the shockwave vaporized his flesh, and Armitage would be dead a moment later as the implant beneath her skull fired half an ounce of powdered silver into her brain stem.
Cornelius wouldn’t stand to be anyone’s target. He made a decision and blurred toward Armitage with all the speed of his Mekrarian blood heritage. Two hyper-velocity rounds left their barrels at the same time, shredding the air in the warehouse with whip-like cracks.
A round vaporized a wisp of dark hair escaping from Cornelius’ tactical helmet. It thudded into the warehouse wall and vanished through it, leaving an inch-wide hole surrounded by a plume of gray-white powder.
Slayne cried out, “Shit.” His auto-pistol flying out of his grasp, bouncing off the top of the drone, before skittering away toward the back of the warehouse. Armitage had shot Slayne’s weapon out of his hand.
Cornelius pulled to a halt a dozen feet short of her position, spread his hands wide and snapped angrily, “Why didn’t you shoot him in the head.”
Armitage looked at him, tilted her head slightly, then glanced back at Slayne and offered, “He’s just demolished the second warehouse with hidden explosives. He may have a dead-man switch that destroys this warehouse and everything in it if he dies. I think we need to keep him alive until we have secured the P-Case.”
Cornelius paused for a moment. She could well be right. Slayne could have a neural implant linked to explosives hidden within the walls, floor and ceiling of the warehouse. Hell, the drone mock-up could harbor a bomb big enough to level the building. If Slayne died, his hidden explosives would detonate and slaughter anyone within the warehouse.
It was just the sort of trick Slayne would do.
Slayne reached over to the side of the drone’s nose and punched a series of letters and numbers on an embedded touch screen. The drone hummed, the canopy rising and moving forward to reveal the cockpit. Cornelius frowned. He must have been wrong. It was a real drone after all, and Slayne was attempting to leave with the P-Case. He snapped at Armitage, “Take him.”
The Red Dragon appeared in Armitage’s hands and she blurred to the attack.
* * *
Arthur dived into his deepest wild Ramp. Cobalt fire flashed through him, his speed talent activating in full. The Black Dragon swept clear of its scabbard.
The warehouse resolved into super-sharp clarity. Crane was still, staring at him with a look that spoke of death. Armitage ran toward him, cutting the distance between them like an Olympic sprinter in ordinary time. She was fast, but her current speed at the upper limits of a vampire was within reach of his talent.
She would be striking to wound, or incapacitate him without dealing an immediate death blow. Her lack of attention to killing him outright offered a desperate opportunity. Arthur angled the Black Dragon in a diagonal arc before him, he needed to deflect her attack. He rushed toward her, more than matching her speed. He leaped, diving through the air in a flat trajectory past her.
The Black Dragon brushed defensively against the Red Dragon. A single pure tone rang like a God struck bell within the warehouse.
Arthur landed on the cold concrete mid-way between Crane and Armitage. His eyes widened slightly. She was already turning to confront him, but now she was too late. A sudden realization bloomed in his mind as a fell compulsion rose from the depths of his soul. His left hand moved with a will of its own, raising the P-Case to shoulder height, presenting it to Crane.
This was it - this was the moment when his twenty-year strategy would be realized in full. Crane stared at him with uncertainty written over his face. The mission objective was within reach. A single word would kill everyone in the room.
Arthur’s heart rested silently between beats.
He opened his mouth to speak the activation word.
* * *
The doorway framed Chloe Armitage leaning hard into a turn. She was desperately attempting to reverse her direction, the Red Dragon in her right hand outstretched behind her. The echo of a blade against blade strike resounding off the warehouse walls.
Anton rushed up the final stairs, blurring past the open shipping container door into the warehouse.
His grandfather stood between Crane and Armitage. The Black Dragon dangled from his right hand, as if beneath his notice. He held the P-Case at shoulder height toward Crane, as if offering it to the vampire king. Arthur stared at Crane with deadly focus. He appeared about to say something of great importance.
Arthur’s eyes flicked left to Anton. His mouth clamped shut, then gaped open to speak. His mouth snapped shut a second time, a look of utter devastation stealing over his face.
Armitage rushed his grandfather. Arthur whirled, the two dragon swords clashing again without drawing blood. She slid to a halt next to her king with a pivot, the Red Dragon snapping into attack position over her left shoulder.
Crane drew his bastard sword clear of its scabbard and stepped clear of Armitage to allow space to use it.
Crane and Armitage together. It was like all of Anton’s Christmases had come at once. Fury and joy merged into a wild flame burning through his soul. He lifted the Blue Dragon above his head and shouted with dire exultation, “Arthur!”
Arthur lowered the P-Case to the floor and lifted the Black Dragon, a wry smile gracing his lips. Something deeply painful swallowed itself behind his eyes. He blinked once, a hardness fleeing his eyes, like he was accepting an unplanned but now inevitable outcome.
Crane’s eyes flicked left and right at Arthur and Anton. His great bastard sword rested with lethal stillness before him - poised for combat.
Arm
itage stepped forward with a quiet smile, the Red Dragon in guard position over her left shoulder. She looked hard at Anton and his grandfather and declared with avid interest, “Finally - a worthy challenge.”
Crane snapped behind her left shoulder, “End them!”
She blurred into action.
* * *
Chloe plumbed the depths of her supreme Ramp; it was time to use everything she had.
Arthur Slayne’s hidden plan was yet to play out in full. Anton Slayne was a borderline berserker who could drop into full killing-machine mode at any moment and he was absolutely obsessed with slaughtering Crane.
An obsession she’d gone to great lengths to foster and which could now kill her.
Oh, the devastating irony of it all. She had secretly encouraged Anton’s desire to kill Crane and yet, when they finally met for the first time, she must stop her weapon or die herself. However, there was a silver lining, if a vampire could use such a phrase. The Slaynes presented a rare opportunity to truly test her skills. She wondered if Anton would go berserk spontaneously, or would it require his grandfather to be ‘taken out of the fight,’ to trigger his new powers. She was yet to fight a ramped berserker and such novelty was to be cherished.
Her eyes narrowed and she addressed the first order of business: Arthur Slayne. He’d dived past her with a speed talent exceeding the ‘maximum,’ limits of vampires, to position himself between Crane and herself. However, he’d never seen her supreme Ramp, not even in the secret vault beneath Saint Peter’s Basilica. She’d then rushed past him a second time to ensure she could protect Crane. Arthur Slayne had placed the P-Case on the concrete floor, presumably to focus on surviving the next few seconds.
Against the greatest fighters a simple stratagem was best.
She rushed the elder Slayne. She’d attack with her most dangerous moves, forcing him to defend or die. In any event, he’d have to give ground and step away from the P-Case. On her right forward flank, Anton blurred in, complicating matters. He appeared to be favoring an overhead strike as his opening move, but he would arrive a fraction of a second too late to deliver it with effect.
Arthur raised the Black Dragon before him, offering his strongest defense.
Energy exploded from deep within her, flooding her core, arcing like lightning along nerves, muscles, and bones. Chloe hardened her body to titanic capabilities well beyond vampire normal. The Red Dragon arced down in a diagonal slash from left to right.
Arthur stared through her, deep within Ramp. His actions driven by a lifetime of training muscle and sinew to automated responses. He moved faster than she had seen anyone move - except herself. The Black Dragon gave way slightly, presenting a deflecting surface that captured her initial attack. The blades rang against each other, a pure note ringing through the night air. If two gods fought, this is what it would sound like.
Arthur slid a yard backward across the concrete floor and took another step back to balance himself.
Anton Slayne slashed in past his grandfather’s left shoulder. The Blue Dragon slicing down to catch her at the point where her neck ended and her right shoulder began.
Chloe deflected Anton’s blade across herself toward his grandfather, forcing another step away from the P-Case. Her reverse counterstrike driven by pure automatic reflex slashing horizontally across Anton’s throat.
Anton arched backward, completing a move that was just barely possible for a human. Chloe’s katana sliced through his skin without biting deep. His blood splashed in a line of droplets, hanging in the air as if waiting for gravity to take hold. The rich tang of Ramp master blood filled the air, flavored by the distinctive scent Anton had always possessed for her. He continued past her on the right as she spun a precise quarter circle to the right. Her head swiveled around to track his passage. He pivoted hard, leaping and sliding, his left hand flying to his throat, a stricken look seizing his face.
Arthur leaped to his grandson’s defense, his blade arcing down on her left. She blurred forward a step, deflecting Arthur’s strike behind her. She was momentarily caught with Arthur still on her left, and Anton rushing up behind her. She reverse spun to the left, the red dragon sweeping through a wide arc.
Anton closed to striking distance, a thin curtain of blood reaching down his throat. The Red Dragon slammed left against the Blue Dragon and rebounded right versus the Black Dragon. The sharp blows resounding through the warehouse, an uncanny symphony written with swords.
She managed to defeat Arthur and Anton’s near simultaneous attacks - this time. Damn, they moved fast. Anton circled behind her, presenting the briefest of opportunities. Her left foot lashed out, collecting him in the gut. He folded around her boot and flew back through the air toward the tunnel entrance. She gave ground as Arthur pressed his attacks, drawing him further away from the P-Case.
Chloe’s supreme Ramp had already passed its peak and was fading quickly. By the same token, Arthur couldn’t maintain his speed talent much longer. But where was Crane, with both Slaynes together she would be hard pressed to best them without his help.
Crane leaped forward, rushing between Arthur and Anton to scoop up the P-Case. He whirled and shouted at Chloe, “Kill them!”
Anton, having landed in a heap next to the shipping container over the tunnel entrance, rose up and rushed Crane from behind. Crane’s vast experience alerted him to the imminent danger and he pivoted to confront his foe. His face blanched beyond his normal pallor, like he was facing a demon from his worst nightmare, then set into grim determination.
Anton blurred in, rivaling a speed talent. Crane swept the Blue Dragon aside with his great dusky blade, but Anton knocked the P-Case from Crane’s hand. The case slid and spun across the concrete floor.
For a moment, everyone froze. Anton and Crane both pivoted toward the P-Case. But Chloe was better placed, she blurred forward on the remnants of her supreme Ramp and seized the P-Case before Anton or Crane could reach it.
Anton reached out to snatch the P-Case from her with his left hand, his right wielding the Blue Dragon.
Behind her, Arthur screamed, “Anton, No!”
Chloe lifted the P-Case away from the young Slayne and stepped aside, her sword deflecting his attack away as he blurred past her. Chloe swiveled her head around and stared at the elder Slayne with wide eyes.
Why did he warn Anton?
* * *
Armitage held the second P-Case, her eyes filled with questions.
The opportunity to close the trap set by his whole-self was evaporating before Arthur’s eyes. Everything he’d done in the last twenty years, including sacrificing his own sanity, was for this moment - and yet he was failing.
A severe compulsion tore at his mind. Being flayed alive with thorns would have been preferable to defying the implanted commands of his whole-self. If he failed here, it had all been for naught. His whole-self had promised him re-integration of his personality, but that was a lie. His sacrifice was meant to be total. A shared annihilation with his targets. Only by putting himself in a position of real vulnerability could he lure Crane and Armitage to their destruction.
In the hidden depths of his mind more than a dozen ghosts shouted with angry voices and clamored for action. They screamed a single word, over and over again. A single word that would activate the trap and complete a twenty-year strategy.
But Anton was within the kill zone.
The implanted compulsion scoured his soul. Resisting it ratcheted the pain up beyond what sanity could endure. He wanted to speak the final key word like a dying man destined for hell wanted one last offer of heaven-sent salvation. Speaking the key word would release the compulsion. He held the Black Dragon high before him and looked at Anton. The boy who had changed everything in a single day. His own grandson was not meant to be in this place at this time. The one person he could not sacrifice. His heart tore into two halves and fell to war with each other - he had to choose between utter failure and killing his own grandson.
For the
briefest of moments, Arthur celebrated his lack of sanity and the choice it allowed. He dug deep, dragging forth a final burst of energy and power. He raced toward Anton with his full speed talent, capturing him in a flying tackle. They flew together toward the shipping container over the tunnel entrance.
Arthur blurred past the container door, Anton over his left shoulder. He turned his head over his right shoulder to look back into the warehouse. Armitage still held the P-Case and Crane was close to her. Arthur shouted a single word in ancient Sanskrit over his shoulder.
“AGNI!”
* * *
Arthur Slayne shouted something over his shoulder, diving back into the tunnels with Anton trapped in a hold over his shoulder.
Chloe had seen his lips move; the sound was yet to reach her. She was on the ragged edge of her supreme Ramp, energy bleeding away like water through a sieve as she dropped back to her inherent high-end vampire abilities. Arthur Slayne’s endgame was in play.
She reached into the depths of her supreme ramp in an instant, agony exploding through her as she dragged her supreme Ramp back into existence against the will of her body. Chloe swung the P-Case down, then threw it with all her titanic might through the retracted doorway in the roof of the warehouse. The P-Case shot away like it was rocket powered.
Arthur’ Slayne’s shout reached her, “AGNI!”
Agni, ignite, ignition, fire. The implication filled her with dread.
Chloe blurred toward Crane, who was watching the P-Case rise like a bullet into the night sky, a look of terrible realization dawning on his face. He began to twist away from the P-Case. She tackled him off his feet, carrying him toward the nearest wall, and out of the line of sight of the P-Case.
The flash hit them first, the harsh light flooding the warehouse. Their shadows became stark outlines stretching before them on the concrete floor. Chloe screamed in supreme Ramp agony, pushing hard toward the wall and away from the exposed area beneath the roof door. The blast followed a moment later, evaporating the roof of the warehouse with a thunderous roar. A solid wall of superheated air smashed into Chloe and Crane, throwing them flat against the concrete floor, then tossing them through the warehouse like a pair of leaves in a storm.
The Crane War Page 40
