by Unknown
“The other base was over in Milton Keynes, and...well, it isn’t there anymore.”
The pain I picked up from her as she said that told me she had lost someone she knew, and I ran a hand over her cheek as I kissed her forehead, trying to give her support physically as well as psychically.
“After that,” she continued, “I got another call from the head of The Order. She was furious...I guess she heard about the same thing, but she was livid. She was laying all of it at my feet, saying that I had screwed up, and that all those deaths were on my hands. Then I tried, I tried to tell her that she was a seer, that she probably knew more than I did and was better placed to organise a pre-emptive attack...but she just said that she ‘had to focus on other events’ and that this sector is my jurisdiction, that I should have been better prepared.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears and failing.
“I just...I just felt so powerless, especially against someone like her.”
I shushed her, one of the few times I would ever get away with telling her what to do, and wiped the tears away from her face. She didn’t suit sorrow, and I kissed her forehead again.
“I am so sorry hon,” I whispered to her, as if those words would cause her more pain. “Is there anything I can do?”
She seemed to hesitate in saying what was on her mind, but by that point it was too late.
Don’t leave. Stay with me tonight.
I’ll be honest, I was slightly terrified. I wasn’t sure if she just wanted the comforting presence of her lover, or if she wanted to make love, or if they were one and the same in that moment, but my own sexual experiences up until that point were...less than great. As in, virtually non-existent. So I was afraid that if it came to it, she wouldn’t be satisfied.
Yes, that’s right, I have a sensitive side. Well, used to.
As it happened, I needn’t have worried. She had, in fact, only wanted me to stay for comfort. She had been upset, and simply wanted to have me nearby. She seemed to draw some strength from me being around, and I wasn’t going to deny her that.
The night passed uneventfully. She slept soundly, curled up against me with her head resting on my chest, and I fell asleep with an arm around her shoulder and the ever-present scent of cinnamon.
The morning was a different story. I was rudely awakened by my phone going off, and I fumbled around on the bedside table for it while trying in vain not to disturb Corvi.
At length I found the infernal device and thumbed the ‘answer’ button, attempting not to swear at the other person.
“Yeah?” I managed.
“D, get dressed. We’re heading out soon to hunt Geoff’s contact. I’ll pick you up at your quarters in fifteen minutes.”
“Um, that...uh-”
“What is it?”
It had taken me this long to realise that it was Lev calling me, and she sounded serious.
“Um...I’m at Corvi’s right now, so-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, you two need to get a room. Fine, I’ll be there in twenty. See you then.”
She hung up at that point, and I sighed heavily. Despite trying to get out of bed without waking Corvi, it seemed she was a light sleeper.
I guess when you’re dead you only sleep to keep up appearances.
“Deimos? Ev’rything okay?”
“Hush, sweetheart, everything’s fine,” I told her, giving her a soft kiss before trying to find the rest of my clothes. I was beginning to think I should leave some clothes in her quarters, just in case.
Maybe not a bad idea, she told me silently, and I could sense the cheeky grin she would have had saying it as well.
I’d just had time to have a quick shower and shave and get dressed before Lev knocked at the door. I checked the time on my phone - twenty minutes, exactly.
As it was not my room I left it to Corvi to open the door, and she seemed unimpressed by the disturbance.
“Is there a reason why you are disturbing us at four in the morning?” she asked Lev, her tone icy.
“Yes, Reg- Corvi. There is.” I was briefly impressed that she was taking my request to heart, changing her tone to one a bit more respectful than she usually employed. “You’ve given us information on where to find the hunters’ contact. I’m taking Deimos to get him as part of his training.”
Corvi stepped aside as I approached, and Lev thrust my favourite suit at me - the one I’d worn to my date with Corvi.
“Let’s move, D, we don’t have a lot of time for dicking around, you can get dressed on the way.”
I could tell arguing the point was going to be futile, so I moved to head out of Corvi’s room, but my lover’s hand on my arm stopped me.
Feeding time, my love. Remember?
I stepped back inside and let Corvi find a suitable vein again - this time she was able to use my left arm, biting into me at the wrist. It was even less comfortable than when she bit my neck, but at least it was far less clichéd. Once again she bandaged the wound, then she followed me over to where Lev was waiting impatiently.
“I’ll see you soon,” she told me, giving me a gentle kiss and letting me go out the room at last. As we both turned to leave, a single word stopped us once again.
“Levaertes.” Corvi’s tone had suddenly become ice-cold and razor sharp, using my friend’s name like a weapon.
“Yes, Corvi?”
“You look after him. If anything happens to him while you are gone, I will personally see that you suffer for the rest of your unnatural life.”
Lev actually seemed shocked at the threat, and I think it was because she was finally seeing proof that Corvi genuinely cared about me.
To that end, Lev stayed quiet and simply bowed respectfully to her, before turning on her heel and walking off, with me trailing after her.
Only a few minutes later and we were on the road, doing an obscene speed as the sun still struggled to make itself known. I was impressed by the car - Lev had bought herself a 1996 Dodge Viper GTS, in pure black with purple racing stripes. I didn’t know any of that at first, but there are few things Lev is besotted with. Sex is one. Her car is another.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this at four a.m.?” I asked her as I got changed into my suit, and she kept her eyes on the road as she replied.
“You’re a Sentinel now, Deimos. You can be called on for any mission, at any time. You won’t always have the luxury of a full eight hours sleep.” She looked at me briefly, noticing me rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hands. “Maybe if you hadn’t been up all night getting laid, you wouldn’t be so tired.”
“We didn’t do anything, Lev,” I told her firmly. “And even if we had, what business is it of yours?”
“I’m your training officer, D. Everything you do is my business now. I have to be sure you’re fit for the job.”
I sighed in response. There wasn’t much else I could say to that.
“But I am sorry if I said anything you took offence to,” she added politely.
“Sorry, Lev. I’m just a bit crabby this morning.”
“Alright then, let’s talk about something that makes you happy. How’s things with Corvi?”
I looked at my arm. The freshly-bandaged puncture wounds, the scar that would forever mark the choice I had made.
“It’s like you said before - it’s hard. It’s hard seeing the hurt in her eyes every time she has to feed from me, it was hard looking at her when we left and seeing the fear that I wouldn’t return. It’s hard now, with the psychic link reduced to almost nothing, feeling a small empty hole in my mind where she usually slips the occasional thought or feeling. It’s hard...but by God, I wouldn’t have it
any other way. I love her so much, and...”
I broke off and shook my head, as something suddenly occurred to me.
“What is it?” Lev asked, smiling.
“It’s...we’ve only been together for a few days, you know? And yet here I am talking like we’ve been together for years.”
Lev laughed at that. “Yeah, vampire relationships are a law unto themselves. A relationship between two vampires often moves quite slow, because they know they have all the time in the world to be together. Relationships between vampires and mortals move a lot faster than normal because, by comparison, a mortal’s life is very fleeting. So we want to spend all the time we have with your kind, so that we don’t miss something important.” She seemed to think again before continuing. “I think that might be why Corvi is so afraid - you’re still so fragile to her, she’s afraid that you’ll take a hit that vampires can shrug off, and end up dead.”
I hadn’t really thought of that before, and it certainly made me realise that when Lev had said these relationships were hard, she hadn’t just been talking about the mortal side.
Before I was able to reply to her however, we finally pulled up at our destination - an abandoned US airbase in Upper Heyford, just a few miles north of Oxford.
“Do vampires always hide out in abandoned places?” I asked, as we exited the car and Lev moved around to the boot.
“Only those with a penchant for the clichéd or dramatic.” She closed the boot and made sure the car was locked, then handed me the items she had taken out.
“These are yours. Use them wisely.”
I looked at what she had given me - a standard combat knife, with what appeared to be a silvered blade, and an FN Five-Seven pistol. No spare mag.
“Wait, I’m not used to this thing,” I complained, admittedly sounding like a spoiled brat. “And what about body armour?”
Lev sighed, walked up to me and rested her hands on my shoulders. It was a good thing she was wearing high-heeled boots, otherwise she would have been staring at my chin. As it was she was looking me in the eyes as she spoke.
“Deimos, listen. On a mission you will be called on to use whatever you have access to in the field. You won’t always have your favoured weapon, or it might run dry on you. So you improvise. You take what you find, you learn how to use it damn quick or you die. And you don’t always have the luxury of body armour - your date was a prime example of that.”
She stared at me for a moment, ensuring I understood.
“This is an entirely different game, Deimos. One where you get good with whatever weapon you find, or you lose everything.
“Let’s go.”
I tucked the weapons into the back of my trousers and followed her in.
It didn’t take much searching for us to find our quarry - he hadn’t exactly been careful about clearing up after himself. There was blood everywhere, and someone had helpfully walked through it, leaving red tracks across the floor which led to a large, open room which had probably been used for meetings, or some other large gathering.
Now, however, it seemed to have been used as an abattoir.
Bodies hung from the ceiling, torn open with someone’s bare hands, their innards hanging out or removed entirely. More bodies were nailed to the walls, similarly ruined, and pieces of bodies were scatted about the blood-slicked floor. The stench alone was horrifying, a mix of decaying flesh, old blood and emptied bowels.
In the centre of the room, covered in gore and feasting on a somewhat fresher body, was...someone. A male, that much I could tell, due to him being shirtless, but most defining features beyond that were impossible.
“Oh, hi!” the person exclaimed, looking wildly excited. “Forgive the mess, I didn’t have time to clean before you came!”
“Deimos, stay back,” Lev warned. “He’s...not stable.”
“Really? And here I was thinking he was a paragon of sanity!” I told her, my tone dripping sarcasm as I gestured at the room we were in.
“Yes, yes, sanity is a-a fleeting thing, espesh- espesh-”
“Having problems there, friend?” Lev asked him, and it seemed to me that he actually was.
He started to cough and retch, going to all fours as he did, sounding as though he was trying to bring up something disagreeable.
Finally he gave one sickening heave and vomited a large amount of blood across the floor, adding to the vile red flood already there.
“Thass...thass tons better,” he told us absently, before crawling back to his meal.
“We need to talk to you,” I said, taking care not to breath too deeply. I paced around him, trying to get as much detail as I could. It seemed he was actually eating the bodies, or at least the internal organs, as well as drinking the blood. Vampires didn’t do that as standard; they were solely blood drinkers. Whatever the guy was, he was severely unhinged.
He was also muscular, fairly tall and - possibly - blonde. Or at least fair-haired. It was hard to tell with him being drenched in blood.
“I said we need t-”
“I heard you!” he snarled suddenly, staring right at me with fangs bared, and then I noticed something very odd indeed.
“Lev...look at his fangs.”
Helpfully he looked in her direction when I said that, as if expecting her to attack.
“Shit...they are massive!”
They were indeed. Most vampire fangs were between half an inch and an inch and a half in length, and the longest of those were only ever found in the most ancient vampires. This guy’s fangs were probably two and a half inches long. No wonder he seemed to have trouble speaking, every word must have felt like he was talking with his mouth full.
Add to that the fact that his eyes were an unsettling shade of red, and he made for a distinctly unnerving individual.
“What are you?” She asked, and our host merely growled at her and returned to his meal. His movements were lupine, almost as if he was trying to mimic a wolf or werewolf. I still wasn’t sure yet if the latter truly existed, but I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“This is getting us nowhere,” I told her. “We’re going to have to get him out of here-”
“Leave?!” he snarled again. Damn, he seemed to have the most selective hearing ever. “I won’t leave! I can’t leave!”
With a bestial roar that really shouldn’t have been possible from a human throat, he lunged at me with his hands clawed, ready to pull me apart.
Except I had read the visual cues, the bunching of muscles and the coiling back in preparation for the leap. That was what much of our training was about - anticipating the moves they were making and aiming to avoid it before it was made.
As he’d pushed against the floor I was already side-stepping, pulling my weapons free and holding them in my usual stance - knife held backhanded in my left hand, held in front of me, pistol in my right resting on my left wrist.
I turned in place, aiming at where he was landing, and squeezed off two rounds as soon as he hit the floor. At least one hit him I was sure, despite the unfamiliar recoil because I heard him howl in pain, but he was up and moving toward me again at a phenomenal rate. The only advantage I had was that he was utterly mad, so he had no idea he was telegraphing his attacks clear as day.
As he rushed for me again, I was left with no choice but to roll to the side, getting my favourite suit soaked in the blood and viscera of who knew how many corpses but at least surviving. As I came upright again he was already virtually on top of me, so I played against his expectation - I ran at him, turning the knife in my hand as I did. His clawed swing went over my head as I hunched down, slamming into him in a rugby tackle and driving the blade into his side.
Unfortunatel
y, my momentum was considerably less than his, and despite the burning agony in his side he still managed to throw me across the room. I hit the floor hard, spraying more blood everywhere and feeling something crack.
Oddly enough, my only thought then was for fuck’s sake, not again, and I resolved to keep this one quiet. I was sick of that medical facility.
Then the glorious thunder of Lev’s Desert Eagles hammered around the room, two shots from each weapon. I managed to right myself just after that, and raised the pistol I had still kept hold of to put a round in both of his knees.
Five inches of silvered steel in his side and six silver bullets in various parts of his anatomy, and the guy was still trying to power through and tear either of us apart. He turned his attention to Lev, and I swore as he began to stand. Clearly his damaged knee was regenerating at an obscene rate, so I had to think fast.
I ran up behind him, planting a hand on the back of his neck for purchase and grabbing hold of the knife. With all the strength I could muster I dragged the blade backwards, using a sawing motion to carve through the meat of his side. More blood gushed from the expanded wound, the man howling in pain the whole time, and as soon as I was satisfied I’d opened it up enough I wrenched the blade free. His relief was short-lived, because I immediately slammed it into his neck, rupturing his carotid artery and emptying more blood.
Finally he began to fatigue, his attempt to throw me off barely even nudging me. A swift kick to the back of the knees dropped him to the floor, and Lev’s heeled boot on his back stopped him from rising again.
“Nice work, D. You should call for a pick-up for this nutcase.”
“Seriously?”
She looked up at me, her expression asking the question: What’s the problem?
I gestured to myself, my hands, clothes and hair soaked in blood. I must have looked almost identical to our captive.
