The Children of the Sun

by Christopher Buecheler

  “Jesus Christ,” Vanessa muttered to herself. She turned and made her way back to the smoke-filled hallway. There, Jackson had assembled a large group of soldiers, including Carrie. Vanessa did a quick count and came away with twenty-four.

  “Hunker down,” she told them, and they did so, gathering around her in a ring. “There are twenty-five of us. We’re better trained, we know the layout of this place front to back, and we have superior weapons. We can push these fuckers back and secure the stairs.”

  She glanced around, looking at the scratched and dirtied faces of the men and women who were waiting on her for instructions. After a moment, she took a breath and spoke.

  “The guys down in that stairwell have been holding the line for you and for the Emperor. They’re tired and beat up. They’re wondering if anyone’s going to come help them. They’re waiting for us, and we are not going to let them down.”

  Vanessa had never given this sort of speech before, and she wondered if she sounded as false and uncertain to their ears as she sounded to her own. She thought perhaps not, judging by the expressions on their faces. She could see fear there, of course, but she could also see pride and a strange sort of desire, as if many of them yearned to begin the combat.

  “We may not be able to get them out of our building, but we can get them up to the first floor and block them out. That will give the colonels time to finish getting the charges armed. Once we’re sure the bats are locked out, we’re going to make a tactical retreat to the CC. That’s the plan, but it only works if we push them back. Everything hinges on making this push.”

  There had always been an escape plan in the event of an attack. Once the Emperor had been safely evacuated, the colonels would direct the rest of the soldiers through the emergency exit. The countdown would finish and the charges would go off, irrevocably destroying everything inside and caving the entire building in on itself. Vanessa hoped the explosion killed every goddamned bat left inside.

  “Jackson,” she said, turning to the sergeant who she’d previously chewed out. This was a tactical decision she thought would work.

  “Ma’am!” he shouted, looking over at her.

  “This is a whole group of badass motherfuckers, right here,” she said, gesturing toward the soldiers on his half of the circle. “You think I should trust you to lead them?”

  “Absolutely, Captain!” Jackson said, and she could see the relief in his eyes, the understanding that she was giving him a chance to redeem himself.

  “I want you to take the left side of the hallway. If you see anything that looks like a bat, shoot first and ask me for permission after, you got me?”

  “Got you,” Jackson said. Vanessa gave him a bloodthirsty grin.

  “Good. Take your people and move to that point behind the left barricade. On my signal, you go around, and I don’t give a shit what you find once you get into the smoke, you keep moving until you hit those stairs, got it? Good. Go!”

  Jackson went, shouting for his troops to follow him, and Vanessa watched as they moved forward, illuminated by the flashing orange lights and the occasional working overhead lamp. They looked like soldiers. She hoped that was what they were.

  “Carrie, the rest of them are yours,” she said.

  Carrie’s good eye widened in surprise. “Captain, maybe you should—”

  “I will be taking point, straight down the middle. You’re going right.”

  “But—”

  “Sergeant, either you shut up now or I send you to the back of the line. You outrank these soldiers, you can out-fight any of them, and I truly don’t give a fuck about your depth perception right now. So what’s it gonna be?”

  Carrie paused a moment longer and then nodded. “We’ll take the right side.”

  “Good. When I give the signal to go, I want you right behind me. Same thing I told Jackson … kill anything that looks like a bat. Are we clear?”

  “Absolutely, Captain.”

  “Good. Go get your people in position.”

  Carrie turned and instructed her soldiers to move out, then led them toward the right barricade. Vanessa checked her sidearm and glanced down at the grenade hanging at her side. That one wasn’t for the stairwell; it was for the smoke, before she led the charge.

  I really wish Captain Perrault was here, she thought, and then she took a deep breath and forced herself to move. She scuttled up toward the barricades, keeping her weapon ready, and took her place next to Carrie on the right side. Across the small gap they would be exiting through, Jackson was watching her.

  “Stay left!” she shouted, and he nodded. She turned to Carrie, but the woman was already nodding as well.

  “We stay right. We’re on it, Captain.”

  “Good,” Vanessa said, and she took the frag grenade from her belt, preparing to pull the pin and throw it into the smoke. “Let’s give them a surprise first. On my mark. Let’s fucking sh—”

  Vanessa and her people never had the chance to see if their attack would have worked. They were never even given the time to begin. In the middle of her sentence there were three deep, bass thuds, followed by a thunderous rumbling. The end of the hallway, the point that she could no longer see because it was so filled with smoke, began to glow orange.

  “Oh, Jesus … down! GET DOWN!” Vanessa screamed, and she dove to her right, toward Carrie, falling to the floor behind the barricade even as a great ball of fire rolled up and over them all.

  Chapter 24

  Making an Entrance

  The warbling claxon that rose up from the interior of the building felt like a signal – the easy part was now over, and things would only get harder from here. Considering how difficult it had already been, Two was not looking forward to what lay ahead. She saw the soldier that had hidden under the truck and made that last, desperate rush to the alarm’s trigger give a triumphant grin even as Tori reached her.

  Tori made a roaring noise of fury and leapt, both blades held above her head, pointing down. She drove them into each of the woman’s shoulders, and the soldier shrieked in agony as Tori used them to hurl her away from the alarm. The blades tore their way free and the woman landed not with a thud but a sort of horrific squelching noise that Two wished fervently she had not heard.

  “Traitor!” the woman was screaming as Tori advanced on her. “Vampire traitor! The Emperor will have you. The Emperor will—”

  “The only thing your murdering Emperor is going to do is die,” Tori shouted, and she drove both of the weapons into the woman’s chest. The soldier arched her back for a moment before going limp. Tori pulled her swords from the body and turned away in angry disgust, running rapidly back toward Two and Theroen.

  “Get them inside!” she shouted. “Tell them to hurry. The fucking doors can be controlled remotely. We have to get everyone inside before they get their systems back and shut everything down.”

  Two nodded, turned, and caught sight of Sasha and Lewis amidst the rapidly growing crowd in the parking lot. “We’ve only got a few minutes! Get them in here, now!”

  Lewis and Sasha began calling out, trying to organize the throng of vampires that now surrounded them. Two took up the call as well, gesturing into the warehouse. She could hear Theroen and Tori doing the same. Only Thomas was staying silent, standing at his door and watching with distaste as the vampires poured through. Two didn’t blame him; she couldn’t imagine what it was like to stand aside as death came for the people he had long thought of as brothers and sisters – not to mention his actual sister.

  “They need to hit the first sublevel hard,” Tori was saying. “That’s where the barracks are. We have to hit the troops before they have a chance to organize. While they’re working on level one, we head for the Emperor’s quarters on level two. You, me, and Theroen. That’s all we need.”

  “Thomas is gonna want to come,” Two said. “He won’t want to be left alone with three hundred vampires.”

  “Whatever,” Tori said. “Just … Christ, these people hav
e no training. It’s like herding cats.”

  “Well the Ay’Araf are … oh, fuck … Tori, you might want to kind of back off.” While the early crowd had been almost entirely Burilgi, she was noticing some Ay’Araf mixed in among them now, and more than a few were staring at Tori with abject hatred on their faces.

  “What? Why? I … oh.”

  “Too late,” Two groaned as she caught sight of Sasha. The woman had broken off from shouting orders at people and was stalking toward them. She had drawn her sword, and her prosthetic left hand was balled into a fist.

  “Sasha, don’t—” Two began, but Tori shushed her. She stepped up next to Two and then stood firm, holding her own blades loosely at her sides. Sasha stopped before her, and for a moment the two appraised each other.

  “Sasha, is it?” Tori asked, and the Ay’Araf woman nodded, her lips pursed into a thin line.

  “That is my name. I believe yours is Tori?”

  “That’s me.”

  “You cut off my patron’s head,” Sasha said. “He was a great man, and a great warrior, and you resorted to dishonorable tactics, ganging up on him and filling him with poison. You murdered him, and I am standing before you now to ask why it is that I shouldn’t do everything I can to cut you down where you stand.”

  “Na wovremon pashtami zhi tuvi na vombite qitte,” Tori said, and Two turned to stare at her in surprise. Sasha’s reaction was much more violent. Her entire body jerked, and it seemed she kept herself from leaping forward only through a tremendous effort of self-control.

  “How dare you speak our language?!” she shouted. “You are not one of us!”

  “No, but I was,” Tori said. “I don’t expect that to mean anything to you, but it means something to me. I’m trapped now between two worlds and I’m still trying to find my way. I’ve made one huge mistake with this new life that Two gave me, and that was trusting the Emperor of the Sun. He murdered my parents and told me your people did it, and I believed him. For four years I’ve raged against all of the vampires of the world when it was my own master whose head I should have chopped off.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” Sasha asked, and Tori shook her head.

  “No. I’m not sorry about your patron, either. I know you want me to be, but I’m not. I never knew him and I never swore to abide by whatever code of honor it was he followed. He was my enemy, we were engaged in combat, and one of the two of us was going to die. I did what I could to make sure it wasn’t me. Maybe someday I’ll learn more about him, and realize that was I did was terrible, and come to you to apologize. Maybe I’ll regret what I’ve done. I don’t know.”

  “Do you think you will regret it, in your last moments, if I kill you right here?”

  “Sasha, please …” Two started, but Tori again motioned for her to be quiet.

  “She doesn’t give a shit, Two.”

  “I truly don’t,” Sasha agreed.

  “The Children spent the last four years pumping me full of drugs,” Tori said to Sasha. “If it makes you feel any better, at the time I did it, I couldn’t remember Two’s name even when she was standing right in front of me. I couldn’t remember who she was or why I knew her. There was no chance that I was going to identify your patron as a ‘great man’ … to me he was just one more vampire to kill.

  “If you want to seek vengeance, I can’t keep you from trying, but I’m not going to stand here while you do it, either. If we have to fight, let’s get it over with. I’ll kill you like I killed your patron, and then I’ll go kill the Emperor. That’s the only thing left that I care about, and I’m not going to let you stop me from doing it.”

  “There’s not enough fucking time for this!” Two shouted, and now both women glanced over at her. “You’re both on the same side, at least right now. You want to have some stupid fight to the death? Do it later. Right now we need you both, so cut it out with this bullshit!”

  Sasha looked back at Tori, and the two held each other’s gaze for a long moment. At last, the Ay’Araf vampire spoke.

  “Another time, perhaps?” she asked.

  “When this is over, my schedule’s open,” Tori replied. “Come find me.”

  “I may do that,” Sasha said. “I may just.”

  She waited a moment longer and then turned on her heel, moving away and shouting out commands to the vampires who had assembled in the warehouse. Almost immediately, groups of vampires began charging through the warehouse door, headed for the elevators at the end of the hall. Two rested her head against her hand.

  “For Christ’s sake,” she growled.

  “I thought that went well,” Tori volunteered, and Two gave a disgusted laugh.

  “Yeah, fan-fucking-tastic. Would it have killed you to say you’re sorry?”

  “But I’m not sorry,” Tori said.

  “That’s not the fucking point! Jesus, Tori, you can’t always just … just tell the truth like that. It’s not how people do things. How are you ever going to come back to normal life?”

  Tori looked at her, head tilted, an expression of slight curiosity on her face. “Normal like yours?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. I know what you think you mean, but that life’s closed to both of us at this point. I’m not interested in pretending it’s still possible.”

  “You must be a fucking blast at parties,” Two said. She could see Theroen making his way over to them, and she welcomed the opportunity to focus on something else. Dealing with Tori was depressing her.

  “What is our plan?” Theroen asked as he arrived.

  “Get past the bad guys, kill their boss, save the world … just normal life,” Two said, and Theroen glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. Two shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “We need to get to sublevel two,” Tori said. “That’s where the Emperor’s quarters are. I’ve never been there, but I’m sure they’ll be guarded, both inside and out. I have no idea what to expect once we get in, and it’s possible they’ve already made some attempt to evacuate him.”

  “What do we do if that’s the case?” Two asked.

  “I’ll follow him to the ends of the fucking Earth if I have to,” Tori said. “You do whatever you like.”

  “Do you think they will have evacuated him already?” Theroen asked, and Tori shrugged.

  “They’ve only known there was a threat for five minutes. They won’t have gotten him out yet, but they may have started. We need to move before they get control of the elevators. That hallway is a serious bottleneck. Your people need to push through to the first floor and secure the west stairwell for our use.”

  Two heard a series of staccato sounds that she thought might be bursts from an automatic weapon. She glanced over at Theroen, who was watching the throng of vampires headed for the elevators.

  “It’s starting,” she said, and she began to move forward. “Come on.”

  * * *

  “This isn’t going to work,” Sasha said. Two glanced at Theroen and Tori, who looked equally unenthusiastic, and then over at the crowd of vampires still milling in the hallway, waiting to reach the action. Thomas was sitting on the floor, legs crossed and eyes closed.

  Shortly after Two had entered the hallway, Theroen and Tori just behind her, the elevators had been disabled. All three were now stuck on the second sublevel. A group of Children soldiers had secured positions in the stairwell, and another had thrown together a barricade in the middle of the first sublevel. The vampires had tried to break through both points, but the action had resulted in a large number of Burilgi and one or two Ay’Araf losing their lives. Those who had been able to retreat had reported that part of the first sublevel was burning, but that the flames were not spreading. Too much of the structure was made of concrete or steel.

  “We can’t just sit here all night,” Tori said.

  “We’re open to suggestions,” Lewis told her.

  “Can we climb down to the elevators and force them open?” Two asked, and Tori shook
her head.

  “They’re locked down with multiple steel rods. There’s no way to open them, even for people as strong as us. Anyway, even if we get them open, we still have to deal with the soldiers on the first floor who are shooting at us.”

  “We need something that can remove the doors and the soldiers,” Sasha said. “The obvious solution is an explosion.”

  “Did we bring anything explosive?” Theroen asked.

  “A few grenades,” Lewis told him. “The council didn’t really stock up on that stuff. We have a lot of guns and swords, not much of anything else.”

  Two turned to Tori and asked, “What about the Children? They definitely know how to blow things up.”

  “We have C-4 and detonators, yes,” Tori said. “But our munitions bay is down on the third sublevel. That’s where it’s all stored.”

  “Well, they don’t know that you’re working against them yet, right? Couldn’t you go down and get some?”

  Tori frowned. “First, they’ve probably found the bodies in cellblock and worked out what happened. Second, if they haven’t, they’ll want me to assume command of a squad. Third, even if I made it down there, what am I supposed to say when I’m coming back with the C-4? That I’m just taking an evening stroll through the vampire-infested section of our headquarters?”

  “Yeah, I guess that won’t work,” Two said.

  “No. We need something up here. Gasoline and oil won’t work. It has to be military-grade explosives. I … wait … oh, shit, of course!”

  The others were all looking at Tori now, waiting for her to continue. She grinned and said, “All of our transports can self-destruct if necessary. Even the cars. If we harvest the C-4 and detonators from them, it should be enough to blow all three elevator doors open.”

  “I would have thought such systems would be wired to explode if tampered with,” Sasha said.

  “Well, of course they are,” Tori replied. “But most officers at my level know the code to disarm them. There’s about a dozen vehicles. Grab some people and follow me.”