A Subtle Agency

by Graeme Rodaughan

  He lifted his right hand, stroking her cheek, his eyes were moist as he whispered, ‘my beautiful daughter, you are everything that I could wish for in a child, I am so proud to be your father.’

  Li’s heart broke in two, tears rolling down her cheeks, she felt her father’s hand wrap gently around hers and squeeze.

  ‘Don’t worry little one, Tatsu and Qiang are waiting for me,’ his eyes blinked, focusing past her shoulder he whispered, ‘I can see them now.’

  Gang shivered, with his right hand, he held her shoulder with a grip that was an echo of his former strength.

  He whispered, ‘I’m sorry Li, I wasn’t enough. Don’t face her alone ... she’s fast ... faster than anyone.’

  Li sobbed, ‘father ... father ... no!’

  Gang coughed again, fresh blood spilling past his lips. His eyes lost focus again, he whispered something that Li could not hear.

  She tilted her head, bending closer so that her ear was only an inch from his mouth, Gang whispered again, his voice faint, ‘there is ... a letter.’

  She felt him draw in another ragged breath, she could feel the agony radiating from him as he struggled to tell her something, he breathed out, saying at the last, ‘with a ... friend.’

  Gang’s head lolled back, his hand falling limply away.

  Li howled with inconsolable grief, her arms wrapping around her father’s body. Anton stroked her back, kneeling tensely beside her.

  * * *

  Looking down the dock, Anton saw the two remaining praetorians fall to the blades of the five Order warriors.

  Silence descended on the dock, only broken by the quiet sobs of Li Wu, she cradled her father’s body, rocking back and forth as Anton rubbed her back. He looked across the river, there was no sign of the black helicopter. He looked up, a tall, lithe man with long dark wavy hair tied back in a wet ponytail, a short mustache and close cropped beard was striding toward him. He flicked blood off his sword, sheathed it, stood a yard from Gang’s feet and looked down. Anton saw his lips tighten and his brown eyes narrow.

  ‘Vale well my old friend,’ he said.

  He looked at Anton and said, ‘I am -’

  ‘Too late!’ Anton said, putting Gang down and leaping to his feet. ‘If you had arrived five minutes earlier, Gang would still be alive.’

  The tall man said calmly, ‘we arrived as fast as possible. There is no time for these ... accusations - we must act quickly.’

  He put a gentle hand on Li’s shoulder and said, ‘Li, we must pick up your father and go.’

  Li looked up at him, her face wet with tears and whispered, ‘Francis …?’

  Is he serious?

  ‘Hang on a second,’ Anton said. ‘There’s another Shadowstone operative back in the warehouse. I saw him run in there, this job is not finished.’

  ‘Yes, it is. We are not here to hunt down random humans.’

  Li stood up, the men fell silent around her as the rest of the Order team approached.

  ‘Francis, we will go with you,’ she said.

  Turning to Anton, she continued, ‘could you please help me with my father’s body?’

  Anton nodded, ‘of course.’

  Picking up Gang, he cradled him in his arms.

  Li walked over to where the White Dragon rested on the ground, it’s blade covered in her father’s blood. She stared at the blade for a moment, suddenly turning in horror.

  ‘Father!’ She screamed, rushing over to Anton, she felt for a pulse on her father’s throat.

  ‘What is it?’ Anton asked.

  Francis frowned, placing his hand on the handle of his katana.

  ‘Her blood was on the blade before she stabbed him, he could be transforming now.’

  ‘Unless there is too much damage, in which case the vampire blood will not take,’ Francis said, but he also felt for a pulse on Gang’s throat.

  ‘No ... thankfully he is truly gone.’

  ‘Better dead than a vampire, but better alive than dead,’ Anton said, staring at Francis Mirovar.

  ‘Look,’ Francis said, a spark flaring behind his eyes. ‘I put my whole team at risk to be here tonight, on a mission that looks a lot like a trap. Now I came here to extract Gang, Li and yourself - but if it means so much to you, go and find that fellow that ran off into the warehouse. I don’t need you to come with us.’

  Li turned to Anton, ‘leave it, Anton, come with us.’

  Sighing, Anton said, ‘Li, if you’re going, then so am I,’

  ‘Are we all sorted now?’ Francis said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. ‘It’s time to move before vampire reinforcements arrive.’

  ‘Reinforcements?’

  ‘They’re already on their way, praetorians are monitored by the Panopticon, and it is standard procedure to intervene in force when they are killed. They will come out of New York or Fort Dix. They will be here within an hour.’

  Francis turned, striding back down the dock toward the RHIB, the rest of his team following him.

  Li scooped up the White Dragon, ramped and flicked it so that all the blood on it flew away. A moment later she was walking beside Anton, reaching out, she put her hand on her father’s head.

  Anton followed Francis as the team formed into a group around Li, and himself. The Order members held their MP7s ready, scanning the horizon for any activity.

  ‘How do you know more praetorians will come?’

  Francis glanced at Anton, ‘brutal experience.’

  Francis suddenly stooped, picking up a smartphone off the dock, he frowned, fingering a slash across his left chest pocket.

  ‘That was close,’ Francis said.

  ‘Yeah, you nearly lost your phone,’ cracked a burly, heavyset man with thick red hair, who looked like he would fit in perfectly as a linebacker in any leading NFL side.

  Francis raised a quizzical eyebrow, his lip curling wryly; putting the phone into a thigh pouch on his combat fatigues, he continued forward.

  They reached the RHIB, and everyone climbed on board. Anton gently laid Gang down on the floor of the RHIB just in front of the operator console and sat next to Li, who still held her father’s hand.

  Francis said, ‘Peter, take us to the pickup point, it’s time to go home.’

  The burly man said, ‘Sure, Francis,’ pushing the throttle forward and steering the RHIB into the river.

  And where is home - really?

  Anton studied the team, slowly rubbing Li’s back.

  * * *

  James Haley emerged from the shadows of the warehouse.

  The RHIB had vanished along with the Order of Thoth. The wreckage of the two Nightfalcons continued to burn where it lay in two piles on the edges of the site. Since there had been no order to lift the BPD cordon, the Boston Fire Department would not attend. The third Nightfalcon had fallen into the Mystic River and presumably was on the bottom of the river.

  And also General Armitage with it?

  James first checked the bodies of his men, they were all dead, killed by the grenades from the RHIB. He was thorough by nature, he double checked, finding one of his team still alive - Louise Wesson.

  She was still breathing, but with few visible marks on her body, he assumed that she had been concussed by the explosions. He rolled her over, placing her into the recovery position. He picked up her smartphone, as his own had been smashed by a piece of shrapnel during the grenade attack. It accepted his thumbprint as all North American Shadowstone phones were programmed to do.

  He dialed the lead operatives from the Yellow-3 Spectrum team at Fort Dix and the Shadowstone PSYOPS crews, confirming a massive cleanup operation on the Boston warehouse site.

  It will be a piece of work to clean up the physical mess and spin what happened tonight for the media.

  Once the gears of the Shadowstone machine had been put into motion, he returned to check on the Special Forces operatives that had arrived with General Armitage. The closest were the two that had been killed by Gang Wu. Both were obviously
dead, especially the African American, who had been cut in half through the chest. The other, a large red-headed man lay on his back, his jaw agape in apparent shock.

  In the warehouse floodlights, James’ attention was drawn by something odd with his mouth. He crouched next to the body, checking the upper teeth.

  ‘What the hell?’

  He’s got canines like a dog or a wolf.

  James stood up, his breathing accelerated, a very unfamiliar shiver of dread racing up his spine. He deliberately took a couple of slow, deep breaths, turned and checked the Special Forces operative who had been chopped in half.

  He’s got fangs too.

  James checked the other three bodies on the dock. There was the weird one that still stood upright. He circled around it, some blood had leaked from the headless neck, it struck him that there should have been a lot more - then he suddenly laughed out loud with a touch of hysteria, quickly stopped and shook his head.

  What’s stranger; the lack of blood or not falling down?

  James pressed on the corpse’s chest, pushing the body over, blood sluiced from the open neck wound like a tipped bucket, spreading out in a pool.

  Was the heart stopped? The body was stiff from the get go - paralyzed.

  James checked the severed head and the other two bodies. They all had a pair of prominent one inch canines that were clearly not human.

  His mind whirled, he felt dizzy as if his world was spinning out of control.

  Superhuman speed and strength. Why did we have to wait until night for them to arrive? Have I ever seen General Armitage in daylight?

  James rubbed his chin.

  ‘Looks like I’m not in Kansas anymore,’ he said quietly.

  No witnesses - now that suddenly makes a lot of sense.

  He looked around.

  There are still our wounded in the carpark, there is another one of these - vampires - still in the warehouse. There is the Nightfalcon in the river and its pilot who is probably also a vampire, and where is General Armitage?

  ‘At the bottom of the river? Still alive or dead?’ He whispered.

  James frowned, ‘I’ll have to do something about this, I can’t leave these bodies here for anyone else to find.’

  He walked back to the dead Shadowstone operatives and collected a satchel of hand grenades.

  These should do it.

  He stared at the closest of the dead vampires, pulled a pin on a grenade, lobbing it so that it rolled to a stop next to the vampire’s head. The grenade exploded, obliterating the head, leaving no evidence of anything that could be seen as nonhuman.

  Yes, that will do.

  James pulled the pin on a second grenade.

  * * *

  Memories flashed through Chloe Armitage’s mind.

  The violent impact of the heavy machine gun rounds as they tore through her torso, throwing her backward in a mist of her own blood. The edge of the cabin door smashing into the side of her face as she fell out of the helicopter. Her combat helmet coming free as she hit the surface of the river. The dreadful sight of her own Nightfalcon coming straight at her, and finally the concussive force of the armored front of the helicopter as it smashed her into oblivion.

  Now she was awake, half buried in the mud and drowning in the dark, cloudy water.

  She felt panic rising, driven by the hemorrhaging from the two .50 caliber bullet wounds that had drilled holes beneath her lowest left rib, and through the bottom part of her right lung. The sword cut that ran through her upper chest burned, adding to the blood loss. Her heart raced; she closed her eyes, willed herself to relax, quelled the panic and shock, slowing her heart to a level that would stem the flow of blood leaking from her body. The world collapsed around her as her perceptions shrank to a single focused point, her left leg was trapped beneath the nose of the helicopter - she must move it or die.

  She drew upon the ancient training of the Order of Thoth and ramped. She then activated the third of the three secret powers that she possessed, the power to achieve a supreme Ramp, a level of capability above what had been achieved by the Order of Thoth and the Red Empire in the last five thousand years. Time slowed, her heart paused between beats. She felt new energy explode from the base of her spine, flooding through her body. Sinews like steel cords responded, bone stronger than iron bore forces that would crush any other vampire. Stiff, unyielding fingers punched through the metal armor of the Nightfalcon and with a single convulsive movement she ripped the nose of the helicopter apart.

  With her leg free, she swam upward through a murky darkness that could defeat even the vision of a vampire. She slowed as she reached the surface, letting only her face break out into the night air where she expelled the bloody water in her lungs and took a single ragged breath. Allowing herself to sink back down, she turned, swimming away from the remains of the battle toward the far shore of the Mystic River.

  The pain grew, threatening to overwhelm her, but she crushed it with her will.

  After covering five hundred yards underwater in just under five minutes; Chloe’s head emerged out of the river, she took a shallow breath, then another, and another. With each breath, she expanded her lungs a little further. She gritted her teeth, hissing in agony on each exhale. She glared and spat blood. Her wet hair clung to her scalp, her eyes were black and bloodshot, a dark bruise shadowing her right cheek.

  Slowly wading through the mud to shore, she staggered out of the river and onto an open expanse of well-maintained grass and trees. The park was clear of people except for two Boston Police Department cruisers that sat with their lights strobing at opposite ends of the reserve. She gravitated toward the nearer of the two vehicles, she could already smell the men inside, they were both young, fit and fresh. Her throat burned with thirst, she needed to feed immediately; a desperate desire filled her body, threatening to overwhelm her mind.

  Behind her, she heard the distant crump of an exploding grenade. She briefly glanced backward and saw James Haley roll another grenade next to the head of one of the fallen praetorians. It promptly exploded, erasing the visible evidence of vampirism from the body.

  I was right not to kill him.

  She turned back toward the police cruiser, now only twenty yards away, both of the officers had emerged from the car. They seemed unsure of what to do.

  Am I friend or foe - you don’t know do you?

  With her damaged body armor, she looked like a wounded special operations soldier, who was clearly in need of help.

  I need blood or I will die within minutes.

  Her hand brushed past her sword scabbard and found nothing there.

  Damn ... the Red Dragon - It’s back in the river.

  She staggered, dropping to one knee, putting out her hand in supplication. She implored the young officers, ‘help me. Please help me. I’ve been shot.’

  The officers both moved forward, in a moment they were beside her, each taking an arm to support her.

  ‘Who are you?’ The first one said,

  ‘What happened, where are you shot?’ The other said.

  ‘What are you would be a better question,’ Chloe remarked coldly, snapping both of their necks before they could react. A second later she plunged her fangs into the throat of the nearest of the men as he lay slumped on the ground and proceeded to drain his blood. He died of blood loss before his fractured neck and severed spinal cord could kill him.

  She stood up, her body processing the blood; immediately she felt better, stronger, refreshed. Pushing a finger through one of the bullet holes in the front of her body armor, it came to a halt against her flesh knitting beneath the ceramic plates. She looked longingly at the expanse of black water, the Red Dragon sang in her mind, she strongly considered swimming back out and retrieving it from the bottom of the river.

  Do I have time to get it?

  She looked across the park, the other police cruiser still waited; with the flashing lights stealing their night vision, and given the distance, the police officers
probably did not know that their colleagues were already dead.

  I will have to make sure.

  Her smartphone vibrated, she laughed with surprise. Pulling it from its pouch on her combat webbing, she opened it up. There was a message from Marcus Drake that read, “The Jerusalem Shadowstone facility has been attacked and destroyed by the Red Empire, only Haras Mosule and I have escaped. M.”

  ‘Excellent,’ she whispered, closing the phone and putting it away.

  She took a deep breath and let it out, her lungs felt whole again.

  Chloe looked down at the fallen officers, searched them and found the car keys and their Glock 9mm handguns. Carrying the men to the cruiser, she stuffed them into the trunk. She had to bend and break their bodies in several spots to make them both fit into the available space. She went to the cabin, ripped out the camera system, crushing it with her bare hands; smashed the GPS, and all other systems that could be used to track the vehicle. She then got into the car and drove it to where the other police cruiser waited on the other side of the park.

  She could see the two men in the car looking at her without seeing her. With both police cruisers running their strobe lights it was impossible for a human to see into the cabin past the reflection on the windscreen. She stepped out of her car, with a Glock pistol in each hand, she emptied both clips as fast as she could pull the trigger into the cabin of the police car. For good measure, she pulled a pair of grenades from her combat webbing, lobbing them through the shattered windscreen and into the cabin of the cruiser.

  She was already back in the stolen car, pulling away with a roaring engine and screeching tires when the grenades ripped the second police cruiser apart.

  Definitely no witnesses.

  Chloe plotted a course to the Boston Shadowstone facility that housed the R.I.S.C front company. It had a small permanent staff who could be relied upon to dispose of the police cruiser and a pair of bodies. It also had a helicopter pad on the roof of the building that would allow for easy transport to the vampire Citadel in New York City. She pulled her smartphone out again, set it to hands-free, and voice dialed James Haley. There was no answer. She then voice dialed Louise Wesson's phone, and James answered it.