ANTIVENOM

by M. Lorrox

  But they don’t dare make a move. They know just how easy it would be for Deina to carry out her threat, and none of them want to be responsible for provoking her into murdering the poor girl.

  “Nobody move!” Sadie’s eyes are strike forces attacking Deina as blood drips from Minnie’s throat. “Hold on Captain, we have a problem.” She lowers the phone. “Let my daughter go RIGHT NOW.”

  Deina smiles. “Not until you call off the attack. I don’t want to hurt her, but I swear I’ll cut her head right off and pour her blood onto this shitty carpet. Don’t be a fool.”

  Sadie cannot see anything except rage, and still, the room is motionless as the wise and nervous wait. Then, Skip acts.

  He’s behind Deina, holding his breath, standing on one foot, and leaning forward. With every ounce of strength in his leg—and every bit of selfless determination he can muster—he launches forward. His arms reach for Deina’s arm—the one that holds the knife against Minnie’s throat.

  Deina’s pulse beats so hard it shakes her vision, and that vision is locked on Sadie. Deina doesn’t hear Skip’s movement, and Sadie hasn’t shifted her gaze to him.

  The next thing Deina knows, her arm is being ripped forward, away from the girl, and something is smashing into her back. Skip is airborne and crashing into her, and while his own teeth are gritted, he sucks a powerful inhale through his nose.

  Deina drops Minnie in order to defend herself, and she spins—faster than Skip can think. With her strength, she overpowers his grip on her arm. She pulls him with her, redirecting his energy and force in a new direction. They both tumble, and as they do, Deina buries the blade into Skip’s chest.

  It sinks into him as effortlessly as a javelin into a grapefruit, slicing across his lung and severing a pulmonary artery. Without releasing her grip on the blade, she launches his body, continuing his momentum into the crowd beside them. His head is only a few inches off the ground as he flies backward.

  As a shell-shocked Minnie falls, Katlyn grabs her and pulls her as she jumps backward—getting her away from the danger. While Skip is crumpling into the bodies of the bystanders Deina threw him at, she regains her footing and switches grip on the blade—turning it around in her hand so it’s pointed down her arm—ready to slash in a fury.

  She tightens her grip on the blade in its now, more deadly position as Flying Eagle dives on top of her. With both his hands, he clutches Deina’s arm that holds the blade so she can’t cut him with it. With her free hand, she rockets a punch straight into Eagle’s jaw.

  Tatsu shoves frozen-stiff vampires aside and runs toward the fight as he draws his tanto, his shortest and most maneuverable sword.

  Before Skip can register the amount of pain flooding his mind while blood floods his lungs, he smashes into the vampires Deina launched him toward. As the vampires and Skip fall, the toe of an old, handmade leather boot slams into the side of his head.

  Skip is dying and unconscious before he comes to a rest on the ground.

  Deina and Flying Eagle brawl in fast motion—she punches and kicks at him, and he takes the blows like a punching bag. When she leaves him a slight opening, he slams his forehead into hers. She’s stunned for a split second, and her movements slow.

  Now, with a clean line of attack to her, Tatsu throws his tanto. The iron cap at the end of its handle hits Deina in the side of the face. It cracks her cheekbone, she loosens her grip on her knife, and she stumbles backward.

  Flying Eagle smacks the blade from her hand, works his arm under her chin while spinning around her, and locks her in a jiu jitsu rear naked choke.

  Enrique nods at the end result of his father’s insanely fast movement. Nicely done, dad.

  Both loose blades bounce on the carpet. The blood-coated one Deina used leaves a small stain.

  Sadie blinks back to the moment, processes what just happened, raises the phone, and dials 911.

  Skip is rushed back to the hospital. Luckily, it’s only about a mile away. Katlyn rides with him in the ambulance. He’s unconscious with weak vitals, and she holds his hand.

  Sadie consoles her sobbing daughter, then her eyes find Gerard.

  He nods as he approaches. “Miss Minnie, I was wondering if you could come with me for a little bit. Maybe we can put our feet in the pool?”

  Minnie sniffs and looks at her mom.

  “Does that sound like fun, dear? I’ll come and get you in a few minutes.”

  “No! I’m scared, Mommy! Everything’s crazy!”

  Sadie sighs and tugs her daughter off her. “I know, but you have to go with Mr. Gerard now. He’ll keep you safe. Be a good girl.”

  Minnie cries and screams as Gerard drags her out the door. Sadie watches and waits before she turns to Deina, letting her blood come to a frothing boil. When she finally does turn to her, she finds Deina on her knees with her hands zip-tied behind her back. Bruises well up on her lip and brow, products from her brawl with Flying Eagle; and another one blooms on the side of her face, delivered by the tanto that Tatsu rocketed at her.

  Flying Eagle stands behind the traitor, blood trickling from a cut by his eye, his broken nose, and from two split lips. It flows down his scarred chin and drops to the carpet.

  Sadie grabs the chair Skip was using and sets it in front of Deina. She sits. “Tell me who you’re working with, or I swear I’ll launch all those missiles right now.”

  Deina stares back—motionless—for as long as she can, then she blinks.

  In the split-second that Deina’s eyes are closed, Sadie slaps her across the face. “How dare you attack an innocent girl? How dare you turn your back on the Order and sabotage our rescue mission?”

  Deina swallows. “Hit me again, and I’ll never say another word.”

  Sadie folds her arms across her chest.

  Deina smiles. “You’ve got it all wrong. I didn’t turn my back on the Order, not the true Order. You all did. I, and the other members of Væir, are what you should have been.”

  Sadie tilts her head and deepens her frown. Just give me a reason to rip your head off, that’s all I want.

  “And you’re wrong about me sabotaging your little rescue mission.”

  Sadie leans forward. “Oh? Are you saying you didn’t?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m saying it was never going to succeed—I just helped accelerate its failure.”

  “Who is behind this? Who else is Væir?”

  Deina lets her smile fade. “I’m done talking now. Perhaps in a few days you’ll understand what’s really going on. But I’m not going to tell you anything.” She leans her head toward Sadie. “And I know what happened to Robert. You will not be able to torture any information from me.”

  Sadie shakes her head. “Why are you doing this, Deina? You’re one of us.”

  Deina works her tongue across her teeth. “No. I wasn’t.” She closes her mouth, then opens her lips to reveal a small, red pill gripped between her incisors.

  In a flash, Sadie reaches to grab it from between her teeth, but Deina crushes the pill and releases its contents. She grimaces and swallows. “I did my part, and I am honored to die for my cause.” She twitches.

  Sadie growls as she grabs around Deina’s throat. “You hurt my daughter, you fucking bitch!” She squeezes and rips her hand back, tearing out Deina’s trachea, esophagus, and the blood vessels on one side of her neck. “You’ll die by my hand before you die by your own.”

  Deina gasps air through her neck, then coughs blood back up and onto the underside of her chin.

  Sadie stands and throws the neck meat at Deina’s face. “Hurry up and die, you piece of trash.” She wipes her bloody hand on her pants. “Guards, take care of her body. Dump it or burn it or something. I’m going to get my daughter.”

  Flying Eagle watches her turn, then swallows and clears his throat. “Ma’am? What about launching the
missiles?”

  Sadie doesn’t turn around, but she stops. “It was only a ruse. Never—EVER—underestimate my husband.”

  Before sunrise in Fiordland National Park, it isn’t dark. There’s no sunlight, and there’s no light pollution either, but directly above the patrol boat that sits disabled in Bligh Sound are billions of shining stars.

  The water is calm, and the only sounds are from its gentle lapping against the shore. Looking down from above, the slight ripples and waves shimmer in the starlight around the black attack boat. Slowly, the sky to the east begins to glow indigo, and the starlight fades like a sigh in the breeze.

  An hour before dawn, the Royal New Zealand Navy’s intercostal patrol boat, the HMNZS Pukaki, rounds the first corner in the lightning-bolt-shaped sound and comes into view. Ghost is guarding the front of the Ghost attack boat, and she calls out to the rest of the team, “Heads up! Patrol boat’s here!”

  It makes its way south, toward the damaged attack boat, and drops anchor in the middle of the sound, a hundred yards to port. As soon as it does, it launches an inflatable boat that zips over and pulls up alongside the bow of the attack boat. Charlie climbs up through the blown-out windshield, stretches, then catches a radio that’s tossed at him.

  He turns it on and holds down the transmission button. “This is Colonel Costanza, come in, over.”

  “This is Captain Blake of the HMNZS Pukaki. Get your people below deck. Over.”

  Charlie furrows his brow and shrugs toward the ensign on the inflatable boat.

  She points to the sky, and Charlie looks up. Drones, yeah, I know... Oh, maybe they want us below deck for safety. He lifts the radio. “Copy that. I’ll radio when we’re all below deck. Over.” He waves at the ensign in the boat. “You climbing up or heading back?”

  “Heading back, but…” She shifts and grabs a large box from behind her, then she struggles to lift it up. “Brought you a present.”

  Charlie grabs the box from her, and she speeds away. He opens the box and is pleased to find stacks of medical supplies and six cans of coffee…on ice. He glances up at the inflatable as it approaches the patrol boat. The gods are with us today.

  Once Charlie and the guards are inside, he sends the go-ahead over the radio. Within seconds, the entire ship echoes with the fast pound of the patrol boat’s three, large caliber machine gun turrets. Then they hear distant explosions, high in the sky.

  Eddy yawns, then smiles. “Buh-bye, drones.”

  The radio kicks on. “Colonel, airspace is clear, I repeat, the airspace is clear. Over.”

  Moments later, a helicopter from a tour company in Milford zigzags over the water as it approaches. It lands on the shore beside the attack boat, and it spins down its rotors. Gabriel hops out of the front passenger seat and waves at Charlie, who once again stands on the bow of the ship, this time with his hands at his waist, a monument to his readiness.

  Charlie smiles and can’t help talking to himself. “We’ve got a chance this crazy plan will work. Chance it won’t but... Wait, is that?”

  Jono, the salty Kiwi that gave the team the Ghost boat, stands beside Gabriel and waves, then he notices how fucked up the boat is. “Bloody hell! You found heaps of trouble, eh?”

  Gabriel nods. “Indeed. We lost three, and most of the others have injuries.”

  Jono shakes his head, then reaches up and puts his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Sorry, mate.”

  “Me too.”

  Dr. Kazumi Oshiro enters a final line of code into her debugger, then she runs it on her program. Results print themselves down her screen, and she smiles. The debugger finishes—the results are all written in green and start with the word: PASS. She opens another window, and in it is a video feed showing the completed whip prototype. Its semi-circular base is sitting on a flat device that’s clamped to the table and has wires running to it. Standing straight out of the base is eight feet of titanium that progresses to a diamond-shaped point.

  Kazumi switches back to her program, clicks to send it to the device, and clicks ENTER.

  On the video, the long, shiny metal object starts to bend. It curls up in one direction, then it unfurls and curls in another direction. At each of the dozens of joints along the device, the program tests the range of motion, starting at the base and moving up.

  When the very tip rotates in a circle, Kazumi bites her lip. Time for the random set...

  The device flails all around for a second, then it returns straight. Then it bends, twists, and curls in different directions for another second, then it returns to be straight. Forty-eight more times, the device whips around in different directions, then it returns to straight. When the program hits its last batch of commands, the device once again curls itself up, but this time it curls as tightly as it can, and it remains in that position.

  When the program finishes, Kazumi bounces and smiles with all her teeth gleaming. “It works. IT ALL WORKS!” She leaps into the air and pumps her fist, but she launches herself higher than she expected and punches the light above her. “Ow!” She lands and watches the blood start to ooze from her knuckles. She licks the blood off and watches the wounds heal over.

  She laughs. Drawback to being a vampire: I don’t have a grip on my strength yet. Benefit: this ridiculous healing! She shakes her head. I’m so fucking lucky.

  -Beeeeep-

  An alarm she set on her computer goes off, and she clicks to silence it. Just in time for delivery. She picks up the phone to call SeCComm, but she hesitates. What if I brought it straight to Command myself? Why shouldn’t I? I invented the damn thing... Yes. I think I will.

  She closes the video feed then walks out of her office to collect the prototype.

  A few minutes later, she’s stopped by guards. “I’m sorry Miss Oshiro, but we have specific orders. You cannot go any further.”

  “It’s Dr. Oshiro.” She holds up the device, wrapped in plastic. “I was ordered to make this and I—”

  “Did you inform SeCComm?”

  “Well, no. I wanted to—”

  The guard extends his hand. “We’ll notify SeCComm for you, if you like. We’ll hold it until our orders change.”

  She shakes her head and whines as she hands her invention over. “I’ll call SeCComm now and inform them I was stopped before I could deliver it to Command.”

  The guard holds the device under his arm but otherwise doesn’t respond.

  Kazumi trods away, but then she lifts her spirits. I still did it, goddamn it. I still made history. She calls SeCComm on a hallway’s intercom and informs them.

  Her stomach grumbles as she walks down the hall. Now time for a little treat and a looonng nap... I wonder why Hector sounded so frazzled... He probably needs to get laid.

  Charlie calls the inflatable boat back, and Ensign Jessie—the inflatable’s operator—ferries some of the team and their gear to shore. When Charlie greets Jono, he hugs him. “So, are you joining us on our attack?”

  Jono slips his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, nah bro. I’m not an idiot.”

  Charlie frowns. “That’s a no?”

  Jono nods, then he motions over his shoulder to the three-point-six-million-dollar helicopter. “I didn’t tell anybody it’s likely going to be destroyed, so I hope the U.S. government is feeling generous.”

  Charlie laughs. “It won’t be them paying, but yeah, don’t worry about it.”

  “So, who’s gonna be flying this thing?”

  Charlie’s smile broadens.

  Jono squints. “You know flying a copter isn’t like anything else…”

  Charlie walks past him and puts his arm across Jono’s shoulders. “Show me how to start her up... Oh and one thing I’ve never really done is used the...uh, collective, I think it’s called.”

  Jono stops walking. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

  “Probably.�
�

  While Jono is going over the controls with Charlie, Owen opens different panels around the craft until he finds what he’s looking for.

  Jono motions. “What in the hell does he think he’s doing?”

  “Upgrades. So, this here, this is the engine monitor display, this is the attitude, that’s the vertical speed, the regular speed, altimeter, bank, then that’s the horizontal situation. Right?”

  “Damn, you all surprise me sometimes.”

  When Jono sees Owen walking up to the helicopter with an oxy-acetylene torch—and then sees him fire it up—he decides it’s time he should take his leave. “Yeah... I’ll be hiding in the patrol boat. Good luck, mate.”

  “Thanks, we’ll need it.” Charlie finishes in the cockpit and sends the inflatable boat back to the Ghost boat to collect the rest of his team. As he waits and Owen cuts, the sun peeks over the mountain and fills the valley with golden light. He stares and breathes, absorbing the peace of the scene and the beauty of nature.

  Once everyone is collected around him, he puts on a grin and looks into each of their eyes. “Here we are. We’ve tiptoed through hell just to get here, and we’re about to go through it again but while banging pots. I just wanted to tell you all that I can’t imagine a better team to be commanding on this mission.”

  Hecate snickers. “You can’t imagine us NOT all-fucked-up and injured? Because that would be better.”

  Charlie sighs. “You know what I mean. I doubt we’d have even gotten this far if it wasn’t for all of you. But what happens next is going to be real risky, and I doubt we’ll all make it out in one piece. Know that you made a difference, and whether we’re successful or not, we gave them one hell of a fight.”

  Owen nods. “Yeah we did, and we’re not done yet.”

  Charlie smiles, then he motions to the helicopter. “We’re loaded and ready to go, but I want to tweak the plan. Gabriel?”

  Gabriel turns and points southeast. “I’m well rested and least injured, so I’ll go on foot. If I can, I’ll find a covered position and add my gun to the mix.”