by C. Gockel
“Alexander?”
Francis raised his arms straight out to the side. “Surprise!”
“You were Alexander? The Alexander who supposedly died in Chicago?”
“Do I look dead? Don’t answer that, haha!”
Gavin shook his head sadly. Poor Francis. The passing centuries had maddened him. He remembered the man he used to call friend, and this was not he. He had changed beyond belief. He firmed his grip upon his sword. He had to end this madness.
Francis noticed his sudden tension and raised the elven blade he carried to a guard position. Gavin flowed smoothly forward, using all of his speed to strike first, but Francis was his equal in age. He defended expertly and their swords clashed, the sound of the two ancient blades singing a dissonant song. Gavin stepped back to disengage, and pivoted. The swords clashed again and then again in a flurry of thrust, parry, and counter thrust.
Chris cursed as she sighted upon Francis, but she was unable to keep him targeted. He was moving too fast. Angelina was ready for an opening, but the risk of hitting Gavin was too great. She edged around the room, trying for a better angle. Flex moved in the other direction, keeping watch upon the door as well.
Gavin was at the limit of his skill and speed, but he couldn’t get a strike through Francis’ defence. He had always been good with a sword. Both of them had bested William on occasion in practice bouts, and William had been extraordinarily good—a true sword master in a time when everyone carried a blade.
“Give up this madness!” he snarled and was finally able to draw first blood.
Francis’ eyes widened at the stinging cut upon his sword arm. “A hit! My turn!”
Gavin stumbled back, his cheek bleeding profusely for the few seconds it took to heal.
Francis laughed, and attacked again. “I’ve… been… practising,” he sing-songed. “You… can’t… beat… meeee... ow!”
Gavin grinned fiercely as he added another wound to the first one he’d inflicted, this time to the thigh.
Francis touched the wound and licked the blood from his fingers. “You’re better than I remember, old friend.”
“Quite, old friend. This plan of yours will not succeed. Kill me and you’ll still fail. Those with me will see to it, and if not them, the federal authorities are here with us.”
“Oh indeed? Well, this isn’t the first time I have evaded them.”
“You’re not leaving this place alive.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
Gavin nodded grimly. “We shall see.”
He charged.
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry, left, right, thrust again. High guard, low, a hit! Francis staggered back, eyes widening and blood gushed from his leg again. Gavin followed up the hit and reeled away with his own wound. His left arm suddenly lost feeling. The shoulder wound was deep enough to make the arm nerveless and unusable. He backed away desperately parrying strikes.
“Mister Gavin down!”
He threw himself to the floor as Angelina saturated the space he’d been standing in with lethal silver rain. She emptied both machine guns on full auto, and Flex joined in. Chris hammered away at Francis with aimed fire from her overpowered slug-throwing boomer. Gavin rolled away and back to his feet in time to see his old friend staggering back as bullets punched into his body, but he didn’t go down. He spun away, ducking his head for protection, and threw himself at the window. Glass shattered as he crashed through.
Gavin snarled and ran in pursuit.
His shoulder was healing, and sensation returning to his arm when he caught up with his old friend in the gardens. Francis was strong, but so much silver in him had slowed him, and his wounds weren’t healing as quickly as they normally would. He turned to defend as Gavin attacked, and the fight resumed. Angelina and the others climbed out of the window to support him, but he had the advantage now. Francis was flagging, his wounds telling upon him, as he desperately parried for all he was worth. He had abandoned his own offence in favour of defence. Gavin attacked recklessly, taking minor wounds himself in an effort to make maximum use of his advantage before Francis could heal and rally.
Strike, strike, lunge, parry. Francis absorbed more wounds, but he wasn’t going down! He was speeding up! Incredible! Gavin struggled to keep up his blistering attack, and marvelled at his old friend’s skill. He truly was a master of the sword now, and he admitted reluctantly, Francis was his superior in its use, but every new wound received was more blood lost, and no one had an infinite supply. All he had to do was keep up his current pace and wear Francis down. Time, if not his skill in the sword would win him this battle.
Gavin grunted as he took another wound to the same shoulder as before, and he retreated, flourishing his blade to create a blurring shield of ancient steel in an effort to gain room. It worked. Francis leapt back and out of range.
Chris’ gun roared, her bullets punching into Francis’ torso and upper chest. His eyes blazed red, promising retribution, and his distraction proved his undoing. He accelerated toward the cop, intending to take her head, but Gavin threw himself in the way. His sword swept around in a blurring glinting arc and this time there was no intervening blade to stop it. The blow connected. Francis’ eyes widened in surprise as his head lifted off his shoulders and fell to the ground, the stump of his neck pumping blood as his body fell aside.
“Good bye, old friend,” Gavin whispered and grimaced at the rolling eyes and snapping jaws. The head was trying to speak, but without lungs and a voice box, there was no way to know what its last words were. He preferred not knowing.
He groaned as his wounds made themselves felt. Gods, he wanted to feed and heal himself, but forced the thought aside. Sandy was waiting at home for him, and he would not disappoint her.
The detective put her gun away and approached to study the slowly dying head. She nudged it with the toe of her boot, shaking her head as it tried to bite.
“Damn,” Flex said. “That’s just nasty!”
“Yeah,” Chris said.
“Are you all right, Mister Gavin?”
“Fine, just fine.”
“You don’t look fine—” Angelina began. Her eyes widened and she shoved him aside. “Look out!”
Gavin staggered off balance. It was unforgivable of him. He was tired yes, wounded yes, but Angelina should not have been able to move him; she was merely human. He shouted angrily as he staggered a few paces, and then roared in denial as an arrow sprouted from Angelina’s chest. The Kevlar vest proved itself unable to protect her from a modern crossbow bolt. It punched deeply into her chest. Shock and pain flashed upon her face, and her machine gun emptied itself wildly into the air as she fell. Gavin was moving fast fast fast! The bowman was still turning to run when he caught up and struck his head from his body. He glared down at the dead vampire, still seeing Angelina’s fall.
“She’s alive!” Chris yelled. “She needs an ambulance, fast!”
“There’s no time,” Flex said grimly. “She’s dying.”
Gavin closed his eyes in grief, praying uselessly to the Gods of his fathers, and to the pantheon of this world too, that she not die. Useless. He was damned, as all his kind were. Damned, and cursed to damn those they loved.
41
Escape
“Hurry!” Elliot hissed to the others, and they trotted by into the trees. “How are you feeling now?”
“I’m fine, Dad, stop fussing. She’s not heavy.”
Elliot eyed the senseless vampire draped over his daughter’s shoulder sceptically. It looked very wrong the way she so casually carried the vampire; like a child carrying an adult. She was petite and looked too small to be this strong, but it was damned convenient, and he was thankful that knocking Chani out had not affected her at all. He didn’t understand their bond, but he believed in its power. He’d known almost from the first that killing Chani had been out of the question even if he had managed to summon the courage to try. It would have killed Susan too, but the bond was not an equal sharin
g. Susan’s death would not kill Chani, for example, though it apparently would have weakened her and hurt emotionally. He wasn’t sure about that last part. He had seen scant emotion on Arcadian’s face when he stabbed Morgan in the chest, but absent other data, he was willing to take it on faith for now. The inequality had suggested to him that there were loopholes in the bond and that they could be exploited. Loopholes such as the one he’d used to incapacitate Chani. It meant not only was short-term freedom possible, but that ultimate escape was as well. It meant he could control the vampire, keeping her alive while he found a way to free his daughter of her reliance upon the bond. It meant her eventual return to full humanity was feasible. She did not have to endure stasis, this unending half-life he had condemned her to when he shackled her to the vampire she carried.
“Let’s get out of here. I can’t hear the fighting anymore, but—”
“I can,” Susan said. “They’re killing everyone.”
He shivered and not at the thought of the slaughter back at the house. They deserved their deaths, most of them. He felt sorry for the specimens downstairs, but even they had to die. They were unnatural creations. More unnatural than any undead to have gone before them. At least Chani and others like her were true to their natures. The abominations he had helped Jennifer create were something new and dangerous. No, it wasn’t the thought of the slaughter that made him uneasy. It was the changes in his daughter. She was stronger, faster, and more... more… just more. That she could hear the fighting at such a distance was proof of profound changes. Would he be able to sever the bond? If he did, would she truly return to her previous state, or be stuck at some point in between?
He shook his head. “The others are getting away from us. Let’s try to catch up.”
“I hear them too. They’re not far ahead.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Susan led the way quickly into the trees, but slowed to allow him to keep up. He was puffing and gasping for breath. He was out of condition. Too much sitting at a desk he suspected. Her concern made him consider lightening his load, but the samples and data the case contained was too precious to discard. The research had been loathsome, but the computer and blood samples represented almost two years of his life. Jennifer was right when she’d said to him that knowledge itself wasn’t evil, but that its applications could be in the wrong hands. The Arcadian’s hands were definitely the wrong ones. Besides, he might need to refer to it when he tackled his daughter’s bond with Chani.
Susan abruptly stopped and swayed. The vampire slipped from her shoulder and thumped to the ground. “Daddy?” she said plaintively and crashed face first upon the earth in a dead faint.
“Susan!”
Black clad forms abruptly appeared out of the trees carrying lethal looking automatic weapons, and wearing night vision goggles on blackened faces. Two men dragged him back when he tried to reach Susan and Chani. More men hurried forward with heavy looking rune engraved manacles, and efficiently shackled them at wrist and ankle. Thick chains connected the runecuffs to the wide silver bands around their ankles. One of them men aimed a gun and shot Susan in the leg. He did the same a moment later to Chani.
“Professor Massey?” One man said, pulling off his goggles to reveal his face a little better. “I’ll be taking that if you don’t mind.”
Elliot relinquished his burden, not caring in the least. His eyes were all for Susan.
“The drug will keep them docile, but no more than that,” the man said looking back as his men lifted the two woman and carried them away. “They’ll be fine for now.”
“This is an outrage!” he blustered.
“Hmmm,” the man looked disappointed. “My name is Barrows, Agent Barrows, and what I find outrageous is a man such as yourself having the boldfaced effrontery to react this way when at the very least he should be charged with terrorism, and at worst crimes against humanity. Genocide, Professor, you’ve heard the term I’m sure. Your work for the Arcadian equates to little more than that. The charges rate the death sentence if convicted, but I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I say that this incident will never become public. Lucky you. No trial.”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“You’ve begun to understand your position now have you? How truly good. What am I going to do with you? Well, that depends upon you doesn’t it? Come along, I don’t want to keep all the others waiting.”
Elliot stumbled along behind Barrows. His men kept a firm grip upon his arms, but they needn’t have bothered. He would have followed them without the need of force. They had Susan and Chani.
They exited the trees, crossed an empty road to the opposite side, and marched him up to the back of a black van like the police sometimes used. It looked armoured like those he had seen on the news, but it was plain black and didn’t have the usual SMT markings. He didn’t think this one belonged to the police. The doors were open and waiting to receive him. Jennifer and the rest of his colleagues were already sitting inside looking frightened. They were under guard by well-armed men wearing military uniform. His heart sank when he realised he had escaped one trap only to fall into another.
The military was about to become his new paymaster… if they even cared enough for the niceties to do that.
“Well, here we all are,” Barrows said cheerfully, as Elliot climbed up into the van to join the others. Barrows handed the case containing the precious research to one of the soldiers sitting near the doors. “I’ll be leaving you now, but we’ll see each other again at debriefing. A little bit of advice. Think very hard about how you can be useful to your government. I assure you, that your lives do depend upon it. Who knows, in a few years you might even be allowed out on your own again!” He let the false cheer drop from his voice and face. “Get these idiots out of my sight!”
The van doors slammed closed.
42
Aftermath
Mist snarled in pain as the bullets punched into his body. The burn of silver made him want to stop and take the time to pluck them out of his side, but the fighting was too immediate and brutal for him to take the time. Assault rifles chattered, the sound echoed out of the darkness. Angel’s people returned fire before smashing windows and entering the house. Gavin smashed into the doors, going through them as if they were made of nothing more than cardboard. They succumbed to his strength that easily. The vamps with him flowed inside, their eerie vampire speed making them seem to float over the ground.
Andrew kept to his word, and stayed close to Edward as the others abandoned them to fight with Gavin. Mist suddenly realised Edward’s increased vulnerability and felt even more responsible for him. It was David’s unease he was feeling, but they were one. He felt it as if it were his own fear.
Attackers ran toward them out of the night, and Andrew sprinted to meet them. Newborn he might be, but he was of Stephen’s line and blood, and he had fed well at the club. Ronnie was alpha. You are what you eat was a saying that for vampires was literally true. Her blood gave him power to burn, and it made him fast. He was very impressive for a newborn vampire. He crossed the distance in a flash, and was so fast that the two men didn’t see him coming until too late. He backhanded the first man, breaking his neck instantly, and rode the other to the ground with fangs buried in his throat.
Edward drew his sword as another guard appeared.
Mist had his own fight to deal with. He dodged as his opponent fired his gun and wasn’t hit this time. His claws flicked out and he buried them in the guts of the shooter. He grabbed a handful of what he found inside the shrieking man, ripped it out, and threw it into its owner’s face. The dying man vomited blood and collapsed, but Mist was already fighting another human and didn’t see him fall.
Farris in wolf form howled his victory over one of the human guards, and buried his face in the man’s belly to feed. He ripped away a sizable chunk of the dead man’s flesh, swallowed without chewing, and dashed into the night to chase down another victim. More howls an
d desperate screams came out of the darkness moments later as he ran down his prey.
Mist automatically responded with a howl of his own, as did their pack brothers and sisters, and turned his attention back to his own fight. He used his wonderfully long and powerful arms to grapple with his target. Another man. A bigger one this time and quite strong for a mere human. Mist was pleased to use his jaws on the man’s throat and shoulder. He worried at the wound, while his claws ripped up his enemy’s back. Blood pumped into his mouth and he swallowed convulsively. His eyes blazed as the taste exploded in his mouth; it threatened to make him rage. He ripped out a chunk of meat, but didn’t swallow. David wouldn’t like it; he was just this side of sane to remember that. He didn’t know how long he could prevent his rage from tipping him over into frenzy, but for David’s sake, he would try.
Thank you, but you don’t have to. I can pull back.
No, Brother, do not leave! You weaken me—us—when you do that. When you leave me, I can’t remember what the manthings are or how they are used. I need you.
I’m sorry, Mist. I should have realised from earlier. I will stay with you. This human is dead. Get the bullets out so that we can heal and stay close to Edward. He can lead us to Stephen.
That was a good thought. He used his claws to dig into his wounded side, feeling for the hated metal burning inside. He plucked the bullets out and let them fall. Such tiny things to hurt so much. There were many manthings made for hurting. He knew many names for them through David’s memories. He concentrated and sped the healing of his wounds then looked around for Edward. He found him fighting with his sword against a man with a shiny blade of his own.
Machete, David said.
Machete then. Another manthing made to hurt and kill. Mist decided to hurry the fight along and help, but before he could grab his enemy from behind, Edward ran him through the heart.
