by P. T. Hylton
The Feral horde raced after them. It wasn't long before the street was nearly clear.
Robert chuckled. “Wow, that actually worked.”
Jaden nodded. “Let’s take advantage of the moment.”
The Ferals hadn’t all followed Natalie and Igor, but the vast majority had. There was plenty of room for the truck to proceed.
Robert drove the truck forward slowly and carefully. When they reached the away ship, he turned off the vehicle. The flatbed truck rolled up beside them.
Robert nodded out the window. “Looks like we still have some work to do.”
Jaden eyed the twenty-five Ferals who remained gathered around the away ship, apparently too enthralled by the human scents to be lured away by gunshots.
He turned to his team. “Let’s do this quickly and quietly. Time’s a factor here, so don’t get fancy.”
That was all he needed to say. The thirteen vampires emerged from their vehicles and drew their swords.
As they approached, one of the Ferals let out a grunt of rage and bared his teeth at them. Clearly he wasn’t about to give up his prize.
“On my mark,” Jaden said, a sword in each hand. He scanned the area with his eyes, making sure each of his team members was in position. “Go.”
They worked without speaking. Though the Ferals around the ship had them outnumbered two to one, they never stood a chance. Jaden’s vampires moved with furious speed and an economy of motion that came from decades—in many cases centuries—of working side by side.
In a matter of seconds, they’d removed the heads of every Feral within ten feet of the ship. The Ferals hadn’t even had time to realize what was happening, let alone to fight back.
They barely paused before turning to the next task: loading the away ship onto their flatbed. Two of the vampires cleared the Ferals’ bodies away while the rest rigged the ship to the boom arm. They did their best to work silently, but the boom arm and the chain they’d used to secure the ship produced clangs and whines that attracted more Ferals back to the ship.
So far, the Ferals who’d gathered were leaving them alone, but Jaden wasn’t about to take any chances. Then needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.
It took them a little over half an hour to get the ship loaded on the flatbed. Jaden eyed the road and saw there was still plenty of room for the truck to pass through the gathering crowd of Ferals. They would have to move slowly with the ship on the flatbed, so they needed to get going soon.
After ensuring his vampires were done securing the ship, Jaden said, “Let’s move out.”
Distant, angry howls came from the east side of the city. Apparently Natalie and Igor were still leading the Ferals on their merry chase. Jaden would have to trust them to eventually shake the horde and meet up with them back in Agartha.
Jaden motioned for the flatbed to start moving while the rest of them climbed into the transport.
As the flatbed began to creep down the street, a Feral leaped onto the back. It paused for a moment, then bent down to gnaw on one of the straps.
Jaden nodded at a vampire named Akono, who hopped onto the flatbed and lashed out, knocking the Feral to the road. He hopped down after the Feral and slashed his sword through its neck. Its head tumbled to the road.
For a tense moment, the Ferals in the area froze, their eyes fixed on the head on the pavement.
Jaden waited, sword in hand, to see if they would attack.
The moment passed and the Ferals returned to their confused wandering.
Robert exhaled with relief. “Okay, let’s get—”
Something on a distant building caught Jaden’s eye. “Everybody down!”
A gunshot split the air.
A vampire named Leslie was climbing onto the transport truck. A bullet fired by a distant weapon hit her and her arm was blown off at the elbow.
She cried out in pain and surprise.
The vampires hit the deck, and Jaden stared at the spot where he’d seen the distant reflection of the scope, his mind reeling as he tried to figure out who could possibly be attacking them.
Firefly stopped running as he reached the edge of Denver. He looked over his shoulder and saw exactly what he’d expected to see: three hundred new vampires and two dickheads.
Mark and Aaron slowed to a halt on either side of him.
“Good call,” Aaron said. “Let’s stop for a moment and figure out how we want to attack this thing.”
Mark glanced at Firefly. “You were a field commander back in your human days, albeit an unsuccessful one. Tell us what you think. How would you approach this?”
Firefly didn’t want to answer, but once again his new vampire instincts overrode his human desires. “We’ve got them outnumbered three hundred to less than twenty. They’re more experienced, so we’ll probably take some casualties, but there’s no doubt that we’ll win.”
“I don’t disagree,” Mark replied after a moment. “Still, we don’t want to make the same mistake you and your buddies did at Fort Stearns. Overconfidence can be a killer.”
Firefly had just about had it with this vampire’s smug comments, but he knew better than to ever try to make a move against his master.
“You gotta respect a vampire as old as Jaden,” Aaron agreed. “Besides, we want to take him alive. That makes things more complicated.” He thought a moment. “Here’s what we do. We track them into the city to figure out where they’re headed, but we don’t get too close. Shouldn’t be too hard to blend in with all the Ferals running around. Then we set up snipers around their perimeter. We kill as many of them as we can from range, then we swoop in and overwhelm Jaden with our numbers.”
Firefly felt himself nod. Seemed like a sensible plan.
Mark glared at him. “Don’t just nod. Make it happen.”
After briefing the vampires, Firefly started into the city. He felt an odd chill as the buildings rose around him. It took him a few minutes to realize what it was: a remnant from the instincts he’d developed as a member of the GMT. In those days, being out at night in the mountains would have been crazy, but being in the city? Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Ferals? It would have been unthinkable.
Now he was walking through a city filled with the creatures.
With his vampiric eyesight, he could pick them out clearly even far away and in the darkness. He saw them scurrying along the street, sniffing the ground. Others crawled along the sides of buildings, hunting for who knew what. Still others stood in the street, staring up at the sky as if watching for something to come down and save them from their pathetic fate.
“You smell them?” a voice beside him asked.
He turned and saw Sharon, her gaze fixed on the road ahead of them. In the preparations for Resettlement, Sharon had been his right-hand woman. Now, because of him and Fleming, she was a blood-sucking corpse.
It was odd looking at her, someone he’d known so well in life, as a vampire. There was a strange deadness in her eyes, but also an electricity in the way the tiny muscles of her face twitched occasionally. It was as if she was both more dead and more alive than she’d been as a human.
He wondered what he looked like. If he saw himself in a mirror, would he recognize his own face? He knew there were old legends that vampires’ reflections couldn’t be seen in a mirror, but he also knew that was as false as the thing about garlic. He almost wished it were true. His reflection was just about the last thing he wanted to see.
“I can smell it,” he confirmed.
Her nose wrinkled slightly as she sniffed. “Outside of the city, it’s subtle. Like old leather. But here…” She trailed off as she sniffed again.
Firefly knew exactly what she meant. The scent of the Ferals permeated the entire city; they smelled like rancid death. “I thought they smelled bad when I was a human.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, maybe a heightened sense of smell isn’t a blessing.”
“Not today it isn’t,” he agreed.
Sharon hesi
tated for a moment before continuing, “There’s something else in their smell. It’s like… They’re on edge. Like they expect prey and are ready to pounce.”
Firefly nodded. He felt it too. Though the source of the feeling was difficult to identify. Was it really their smell, or was it something else? Something like that mental connection Alex had said vampires shared?
Either way, he needed to stay focused on the task at hand. His masters demanded it.
They’d almost reached the center of downtown when a couple of vampires he’d sent ahead came running back to report they’d found Jaden’s crew. Apparently, they were loading a ship onto a truck.
Firefly’s stomach turned when he heard the news. That had to be the away ship. Did that mean the GMT was dead? But if so, how would Jaden know to come get the away ship. Was it possible the team made it to Agartha?
He pushed the thoughts away. There was work to be done.
The snipers moved into place and Firefly joined two of them and a spotter on a building with a view of the away ship’s crash site. He could see Jaden and his vampires loading the ship onto the flatbed. The majority of the vampire army was hanging back, out of sight, their scent hopefully masked by the hordes of Ferals roaming the streets.
He eyed the other buildings they’d picked out, watching until all twenty snipers were in position. Then he lifted his radio and contacted Aaron. “We’re ready.”
“Good. Make sure they know not to kill Jaden. He’s our ticket into Agartha.”
“They know.”
“Okay, then. Go when you’re ready.”
Firefly switched channels and addressed all the snipers. “All right. Everyone select your marks. Maggie, you shoot Jaden in the leg. The rest of you pick another target. Everyone confirm you’re ready.”
He waited a few moments as the confirmations rolled in. Looking down at the crash site, he knew they’d have to act fast. Jaden and his team already had the away ship loaded onto the flatbed.
If his team were more experienced, this fight would be over quickly, but with this inexperienced crew, Firefly couldn’t help but be concerned. But he also couldn’t disobey his masters.
“Okay all, fire on my mark. Three. Two.”
Suddenly, the vampires on the ground began to move. They were diving for the pavement.
One of the snipers fired, and far below, a fifty-caliber round slammed into a female vampire’s arm, severing it at the elbow.
“Damn it!” Firefly shouted. “Fire! Everyone fire!”
The snipers all began shooting, but they were rattled, and Firefly imagined that had to affect their accuracy. A quick look through his binoculars showed two dead vampires in the cab of the transport truck but no other injuries.
Jaden’s team was in motion now, moving so fast that Firefly’s eyes couldn't track them. Everything was happening so quickly, including Firefly’s thoughts. They were racing through his head, but he was new to this vampire thing and he didn’t know what to do with them.
All he knew was that they’d lost the element of surprise and Mark and Aaron were going to be pissed.
He saw movement out of the corner of his right eye and turned. Ferals were swarming up the building across the street.
“Shit!” He touched his radio and broadcast to the snipers. “The gunshots are attracting the Ferals. We need to get off these roofs.”
He kept his eyes fixed on the building to his right as he spoke. The Ferals had reached the roof and were scampering over. There were three soldiers waiting, two snipers and a spotter with an automatic weapon. The spotter sprayed a wild burst of ammunition at the Ferals, taking down a few of them, but his inexperience was outclassed by their numbers. The Ferals quickly overtook all three of them, who appeared to be too shocked to fight back.
A pang of sorrow flashed through Firefly as he watched three of his Resettlers meet their end. So much for the immortal life of a vampire. These poor bastards had only lasted a day.
“Get to street level,” he shouted into the radio. “Don’t bother trying to shoot them, just get out of there. Remember, you’re vampires and you're as fast as they are.”
A Feral hand reached over the rooftop and a body quickly followed. Firefly lifted his weapon, briefly considering ignoring his own orders and taking this creature down. But then he turned to the door and dashed into the building to join his army on the streets.
10
Alex gave up her futile attempt to sleep after three hours of trying.
She’d probably managed two hours of real sleep before waking up in a panic, wondering where she was. At that point, her mind had come fully awake and she’d known that getting back to sleep was a pointless endeavor.
Still, she’d given it her best effort. She’d lain in the uncomfortable cot for three hours while thoughts of New Haven and the hell CB and her friends still onboard must be going through swirled through her mind. On the rare occasions when she successfully managed to push thoughts of New Haven away, the void was quickly filled with anger and regret that Jaden and his vampires were currently working to recover the away ship while she lay in this dumb bed under a mountain.
When she finally gave up, she sat up with a sigh, left the small room Jaden had assigned her, and went for an aimless walk around the city, letting the corridors and her whim lead her.
She’d been walking for ten minutes when she heard a familiar sound that made her wandering mind snap to attention. It was a sound she’d recognize anywhere: the clashing of swords.
She stood stone-still for nearly a minute, listening to that sound. The rhythm of the clash—a few moments of frenzied clanging metal followed by a small break—made her realize it wasn’t the sound of a battle she heard. Someone was sparring.
Following the sounds, she eventually found herself outside a room she’d never seen before, but one in which she immediately felt comfortable. It was a training facility.
Two vampires, a male and a female, stood on the mat near the center of the large room, each holding a sword. The moment Alex entered the room, they disengaged their sparring and looked at her.
“Hello, I’m Alex Goddard.”
They stared at her dumbly for a moment. Then the female vampire said, “We know. Jaden keeps us up to date on such things. The question is, what are you doing here?”
Alex gave a shrug. “I heard you sparring. Thought I’d come check it out.”
The vampires exchanged a glance. The male cleared his throat. “This facility is designated for vampire use. That way we can cut loose without worrying about accidentally hurting a human.”
A slow smile crept across Alex’s face. “Ah. I see.”
“Good.” The male vampire waited, clearly expecting her to leave.
Which made Alex want to stay even more. “Thing is, I’m the captain of the Ground Mission Team. We’re sort of an elite fighting force. We can go out in the sun and everything. I thought I might like to see how you amateurs train."
The two vampires looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to figure out if she was joking or if she was an idiot.
Finally, the male shrugged. “You want to watch us work, fine. Just try not to distract us.”
Alex nodded. “That I can do. You won’t hear a peep.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.
Now that she was here, she realized how lucky she was. She’d faced many vampires—well, Ferals, mostly—but it had always been when her life was on the line. Her perspective had been skewed by the rush of battle frenzy. Now she had the opportunity to observe two vampires sparring in a safe environment where she could calmly analyze their skills.
This was a goldmine.
The vampires stood stone-still, their swords raised, staring at each other from across the mat. Then, as if prompted to begin by some imperceptible signal, they both sprang into action.
Alex watched, struggling to follow their lightning-quick movements. She wanted to find a weakness, something that could give her an edge against a vampir
e or a Feral should she ever be in the unlucky position of facing one at night. After a few minutes, it became clear that finding a weakness was not going to be an easy proposition.
The vampires didn’t seem to tire. After an hour, Alex still hadn’t seen anything too useful. To defeat an enemy like these two, she would need to predict their actions, since they moved far too fast for her to just react. Their brutal strength could make any mistake a deadly one.
With sad resignation, she realized these two were fighting at a level she would never reach. Their technique was masterful, and both were incredible with their swords. Still, watching had made her think about how she might be able to survive a fight with a Feral. It would have the speed and strength of these two, but none of the skill. Feral attacks were fairly straightforward. If she could anticipate their moves, she could strike where they would be in a moment rather than where there were.
But these intelligent vampires? She didn't see any way to beat them.
She was just about to give up when she saw something that gave her pause. The female lunged forward a bit too far, and the male dropped to his back and kicked upward, sending the female sailing through the air. She came down hard on the mat and quickly popped back up, her sword ready to parry the strike she knew was coming.
It wasn’t the exchange itself that sparked Alex’s imagination. She would never be able to pull off those types of moves against such a fast opponent. Yet, it had given her an idea. A kernel of an opening she may be able to exploit at some point. She filed the idea away in that place in her mind reserved for things that needed to gestate.
She doubted there was much more she was going to learn from watching these vampires tonight, so she slipped away. The vampires were so engaged in their sparring session that they didn’t seem to notice.
This time she had a destination in mind. She didn’t know if the Agartha cafeteria served at this time of night, but she aimed to find out.