by John Conroe
“Security cameras in the next room show what might be M86 PDM devices deployed across the floor with tripwires to the ceiling,” Omega’s voice said from my phone, which is somehow undamaged. The kid really shielded the shit out of that phone.
Grim understood the words even if the rest of me didn’t.
“The M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition is a small areal denial mine used by US Special Forces. After it’s armed, it waits for a short period of time, then fires up to seven tripwires out around itself. Anything touching one of those wires will fire it off. Then a submunition launches a mine straight up four feet or so and explodes in all directions. Its casing contains small amounts of Depleted Uranium,” Omega said.
Proof against my aura discharges.
“If you throw your square shield into the room, it will set off at least two of the mines which, in turn, will set the rest off. The issue is the cloud of DU dust that will permeate the entire room. It would not bother a were or a human, but it will burn your skin or eyes and if you take a breath, it will destroy much of your lung tissue,” Omega said.
I peeked around the corner. Eight wedge-shaped objects were spaced around the floor, each extending a web of fine tripwires. The mines must have explosively ejected the wires because more than a few were stuck in the suspended ceiling and sheetrocked walls.
“Can I go through another wall, bypass this room, and get back into the room beyond?” I asked, voice so deep I didn’t recognize it as my own. If I couldn’t do it that way, I’d just have to hold my breath, cover my face and hands, and run like hell.
“The sheetrock is just a cosmetic feature covering poured concrete walls. There is nothing but earth on the outside of those. The M86 features onboard electronics that trigger detonation if the unit is disturbed, the wires are touched or, if nothing else, will self-destruct the unit approximately four hours after activation. Because it is electronic, if you will permit me, I believe I can deactivate the mines,” Omega said.
“Do it,” I said, stepping away to check more bodies for coins. Part of me, the Grim, untrusting part, calculated the odds that Omega would use this opportunity to attempt to kill me. The rest of me decided the computer has had many other, better opportunities, like crashing planes with me inside them. What can I say? I get a bit paranoid when Grim is out.
A buzzing came from behind me. A cloud of Omega’s bug-like drones flitted in through the rocket hole in the back room, zipping by me and straight into the mined room. I waited for an explosion, but nothing happened. I took another look while pocketing five quarters and three nickels.
Some of the drones have landed near the PDMs, avoiding the tripwires and not touching the units themselves. They bundled together into slightly larger configurations, maybe three micro units each.
I could see the drone bundle closest to me scuttle forward on tiny metal feet, hesitating just millimeters from the casing of the mine. A tiny, hair-like wire stretched forth, gently touching the mine. I could see enough to know that all eight mines were being approached the exact same way at the exact same time. I found it bizarrely creepy, but who was I to judge? I was covered in blood, guts, and gore from head to toe.
There were still extra micro drones hovering in the air, and after the approach units have been in contact with the mines for a few seconds, the hovering ones began to move. Some zipped through the suspended tripwires, somehow cutting them cleanly. Others banded together and launched themselves at the mines, slamming into them hard enough to rock them on their bases.
“The mines are deactivated. Tests indicate they are inert if touched,” Omega said.
I moved cautiously through the room, senses on alert, but other than a bit of shuffling by some of the micro units, nothing happened. The door on the far side was also steel, but more of the swinging kind that was currently barred shut.
I cut through the door’s hinges, but it took several minutes of concentrated effort. I could have gotten through it without Omega’s help—I think. Avoiding breathing along with skin and eye contact with the poison cloud would have been a real challenge. There was also the question of how effective my aural edges would be in a cloud of DU.
I decided having the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence on my side was a really, really good thing.
The door opened into a hallway. No one was waiting for me. Bloody footprints led away down the hall. Ahead, I heard voices.
“…Led him here?” one asked, tone angered and worried.
“Get your men in position, you idiot. I doubt he’ll make it through the mines I left, but we should be ready,” said a voice full of brogue that I recognized as Arlan’s.
“You honestly believe a few stupid antipersonnel mines can slow him down? Who is the idiot now, Arlan? That’s the only way out of here and you mined it,” the other voice said. I was pretty sure it was Peter Kolbe’s.
I drew steadily closer. The hallway actually curved to the right, blocking my view, but the voices were getting clearer.
“Nothing’s exploded, so he’s still out there. I picked those units because they have depleted uranium in them. That’s his weakness. We can kill him, I know it,” Arlan said.
I moved around the curve and the speakers came into view. Arlan was standing with his back to me, facing a large group of armed vampires. A tall, dark-haired vampire was directly in front of Arlan and he saw me first, eyes getting wider.
The armed vampires shuffled nervously and Arlan froze up for a moment before turning slowly to face me.
I was dripping blood on the floor, bits of flesh and brain clinging to my ruined clothing and exposed skin, and was dusted all over with powdered concrete. When I blinked, I felt the pull of the drying blood all around my eyes. Grim was bouncing a borrowed quarter in my right hand. It must have been quite a sight because I’ve clearly just scared the crap out of a dozen blood-drinking night monsters. Must be bright violet eyes peering out of a blood-crusted face.
Arlan lifted a 1911 model .45 but I sent a wave of aura at the lot of them and his gun just clicked on a dead round. Panicked, he jacked the slide, ejecting the round and loading a fresh one. The hammer dropped and the snick of metal on metal sounded like a death gong in the dead-quiet corridor.
“My turn,” Grim said. The quarter flipped up, my hands clapped, the EFP screamed across the room, slammed into Arlan, and his upper body and head exploded in a spatter of gore, covering Peter and his front line. It’s like another scene from Predator—the whole plasma cannon thing. Except I didn’t recall brains stuck to the ceiling in that movie. Or a nose… plastered to the wall.
There’s buzzing behind me but Grim instantly identified it as Omega’s micro drones. Grim was already flipping another quarter.
Something landed on my shoulder and I could feel it shifting and clicking together, folding into a bigger shape. My vampire’s voice fills the air.
“Oh, you did leave some alive?” Tanya asked, her voice coming out of the transformer drone on my left shoulder. “Hello Peter. I see you’ve met my Chosen, Christian. Oh… is that Arlan? Zayka, you’ve made such a mess.”
I didn’t answer, Grim still at the wheel of this little excursion but both of me was distracted by her voice, so nobody died for the moment.
The leader, Peter Kolbe, was gawking at me, at my shoulder, and back to me. His mouth worked for a moment but nothing came out. Finally, he found his voice. “Young Queen,” he said, his voice the epitome of respect.
“Young Queen? Really, Peter? You’ve never called me that in my whole life. Why start now?” Tanya asked.
I couldn’t believe the audio quality of the tiny drone creature on my shoulder. It’s like the Bose of drones.
“It, ah, seems, um, right,” he said, eyes flicking from me to my shoulder and back in a continuous dance.
“Is that it? Or is it true Death staring you in the face, covered in the blood of your warriors? You see, Peter, my Chosen is soooo angry that there doesn’t exist a word that can quite cover it. Your people sided with a d
emon werewolf and its witch mother over your fellow vampires. In fact, your people assassinated a sitting US president. And then, Peter, your forces attacked our people, right in the middle of my labor, endangering myself and my newborns. You’ve never had a Chosen, have you, Peter? You probably don’t understand how angry a threat to one’s Chosen can make someone, do you?” she asked. He didn’t answer. “Peter? I asked you a question. If you’re not gonna keep talking, we might as well wrap this up, right zayka?”
I came up on my toes. Peter answered in a rush. “No, no Young Queen, I’ve never been blessed to have a Chosen. But you should know that it was Arlan and his people. I tried to talk him out of it but he was very stubborn,” he said, looking down at the exploded corpse that used to be Arlan. “Congratulations on your children, Young Queen. It is truly a miracle,” he said, sounding like he might actually mean it.
Behind him, a few of his people were nodding, eyes locked on my shoulder, none of them meeting my eyes.
“So what happened with President Garth?” Tanya asked, her voice now more businesslike, less teasing.
“Arlan came to me with a story of this witch and her offspring and promises of power and wealth. Told me the witch promised him, and by extension, me, the entire Western seaboard if we helped them out. She just needed the president dead and his body returned to his hometown for burial. Arlan felt it would be easy, what with Garth being such a manwhore. Even bet me that his newest offspring could get the job done in two weeks’ time,” Peter said.
“How much? How much of a bet for a president’s life, Peter?” Tanya asked.
He froze for a second, clearly reluctant to answer. My head tilted sideways. He jammed one hand in his pocket, realizing at the same time how that might look to me. His other hand came up, palm out, his face pleading for me to understand. He continued to live. His hand came slowly out of his pocket, holding a casino chip. A five dollar chip.
“You made a five-dollar bet for the life of the President of the United States? Do you think they are stupid? They knew it was a vampire before the body was cool. Do you think that the normal human population will allow vampires to assassinate their leaders with impunity?” Tanya asked.
“Arlan felt there would be no way for them to track us down. He even hired a cleanup crew to eliminate the vampire he used,” Peter said.
“And that makes it all okay? Why do you think we came here? The newest president is interested in how and why this happened. And since we want to continue to coexist with our normal human brethren, we were happy, more than happy to help out with this investigation. How do you think Galina will respond to this? And Senka? Heaven help you Peter, because Elder Senka feels pretty strongly that frightening the humans is a sure way to commit species suicide. I’ll admit it, Peter—even I tremble a bit to think of her anger,” Tanya said, her voice rising throughout but never really yelling. Just really, really emphatic.
“I can assure you, Young Queen, that the Vegas coven will seek discretion and cooperation above all else,” Peter said.
“Really? Truly? And your Second agrees?” my vampire asked.
Peter turned to a tall, dark-haired female vampire standing next to him, and she nodded briskly.
“What’s your name?” Tanya asked.
“Lisel, Young Queen,” the female vampire said. She was about Lydia’s age, maybe ninety or a hundred, talking to a vampire a quarter of her age. Her voice was firm, her posture anxious.
“Have you been Second for long, Lisel?” Tanya asked.
“About six years, Young Queen,” Lisel said.
“Well congratulations. You are now First,” my vampire said.
Peter took a second to understand, but Grim and I knew our cue when we heard it. The flipping quarter met the two fields of quantum aura and the EFP took Peter’s head completely off before blasting a big chunk out of the concrete ceiling. The five dollar chip fell from Peter’s hand and a second later, his body slumped down next to it.
Lisel’s face was covered in a pink spray of her previous boss’s blood. She and the others were frozen, staring at me, seeing death tossing yet another quarter. I wanted more. Grim wanted more. Like all. We wanted them all.
“Christian, we need these few to keep things going,” Tanya said. “Christian? Come back to me, zayka,” she said. “Would you do me a favor and let them live?” my vampire asked.
Inside, I sighed. Of course we would. She knew damned well that I/me/we would let them live, if only because she asked us. We, both of my personas, would raze Vegas to the ground if she asks it of us.
I caught the quarter and pocketed it, turning and heading back out. The metal bug on my shoulder moved about. “Lisel, I’ll be in touch,” Tanya said.
The swarm of micro drones that were behind me filled much of the air ahead of me. It had to really freak the vampires out, having that cloud of buzzing technology behind me the whole time Tanya was talking. Now the flyers all flitted together, clipping to each other to form a kind of mechanical cloak that attached itself to my shirt, fluttering behind me as I left.
I was two rooms away before I heard the vampires begin to move. They moved very, very slowly, giving me plenty of time to get out.
Chapter 36
It was more work getting out of the casino than getting in. My demonic cloak was gone—it only works when I’m deep down in a very dark place mentally. My mood after the fight in the depths of the building was, while not exactly chipper, at least brighter—too bright to recreate the darkness I needed to cloak. And if you added to the missing demon cloak the fact that I was covered in blood and gore head-to-toe, you can see my problem. Kind of makes a fella stand out.
Omega directed me to a janitor’s closet in the staff section of the casino. The locked door snapped open when I added just a little twist. Inside I had a lucky find… a dark blue coverall only one size too big.
I stripped off all my clothes and threw them into a big plastic roller mop bucket, then covered them with half a bottle of muriatic acid, which created an instant stink like nothing I’ve ever smelled. Acid washed cotton and vampire blood. Yummy.
There was a two-foot-square raised floor drain area with big bucket-filling spigots in the corner. I washed up there, scrubbing as much blood and crud off me and out of my hair as possible.
The plastic vat of acidic goo was throwing off a horrific stench as I stood, drip drying. A handful of paper towels got me half dry before they too went into the bucket, along with the rest of the bottle of acid.
Still damp and clammy, I climbed into the coveralls. They weren’t even close to clean and had a bit of a stench all their own. Draining the mop bucket into the floor drain, I washed the first batch of bloody goo down with a steady stream of water, then refilled the bucket with a second bottle of that handy acid. Still stinky, but everything organic was getting ripped down to primordial bits and pieces. Turning to leave, I had a sudden thought of a janitor getting burned because he didn’t know what was stewing in the bucket. So I wrote a note on a paper towel with a Sharpie that was lying on one of the shelves. I kept the Sharpie. The kid went through them like Hollywood stars with Botox. He could always use another one.
Scrubbing my shoes left them marginally better, but wet and squishy. Squelching my way out of the mostly empty building, I relied on my speed and senses to avoid the first responders who were checking the evacuated casino. Arlan’s rocket explosion seemed to have really shaken the place up. Go figure.
Outside, a quick but unhurried walk brought me to the Vegas Boulevard just as a familiar Tesla pulled up.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at the plane. Inside, I went right to our rooms, took a second shower, and then dressed in my own clothes.
When I came out, Lydia, Stacia, and Tanya were looking out one of the plane’s windows.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Declan took your shoes and that awful coverall outside to incinerate them. A mixed group of Homeland Security and FBI types showed up and are givin
g him some shit. Your visit to Mandalay really stirred up the natives,” Tanya said, moving over to make room for me to look out the window.
Declan was standing in a ring of agents, clutching a black garbage bag tightly and arguing with one of the agents, a fit-looking female with Asian features.
I pushed my senses outward and their words came clearly through the plane’s hull.
“— That’s evidence. You will surrender it,” the lead agent said. The nametag on her FBI body armor vest said Krupp.
“Wait, is that our Agent Krupp?” I asked. “The one who lured Caeco away from us? The one from down South?”
“Yes,” Stacia said, voice tense.
Looking at the scene, I understood her anxiety. Our kid witch looked about at the end of his rope. This might go balls up at any moment. Declan had been edgier than normal ever since he faced down the death witch. If somebody said or did something wrong out there, Homeland Security and the Fibbies might be facing a sudden drastic need to recruit more agents.
