by C. L. Quinn
Marc’s eyes glazed over. Fuck!
IN TASMANIA
“Come on, children, talk with Uncle Lamont. How about you, little girl? I’ll give you both a big candy bar if you’ll smile for me.”
Lamont sat on a big wicker chair in front of the two first blood children that would be the future of his world and that of his SRS. The penultimate, the holy grail, his salvation.
He just had to gain their trust. He could be very, very charming and children generally liked him. But these toddlers, he hadn’t been able to get them to look at him, let alone speak with him, or smile at him. Oh, well, if all went the way he expected, he had plenty of time. His intention was to raise the brats himself, here, in this lab, with a professional team of scientists who would record every moment of their growth and changes. Eventually, they would make him vampire, and then he would finally have what he’d wanted.
He had abandoned the idea of forcing the vampires to convert him. Even with his serum, they were just too powerful to control long enough for him to get what he needed. But children, especially those he raised and nurtured himself, would do as he asked.
Always have a Plan B.
Cairine had kept her eyes downcast while he looked at her, but Lamont got out of the chair and came over to sit on the bed. He put out a hand and petted her on top of her strawberry curls. “Hello, Plan B.”
Hobart International Airport in Tasmania was fairly busy for ten o’clock at night, local time. Seated in a booth at a snack bar that served hot dogs, Tamesine kept her eyes on the passengers arriving, and felt the intense burn as suddenly Park and Bas, Eillia, Daniel and Koen, as well as Ahmose, came towards her. She took a long draw on a vanilla milkshake she’d just ordered.
Good. They had a powerful group of vampires here. This would be cake. They were motivated and there wasn’t anything in the world that would stop them from getting those children home safely tonight.
Eillia came straight up to Tamesine and took her into her arms. They held each other close for several long moments, then Eillia pulled back and looked into Tamesine’s beautiful blue eyes.
“Sweetie,” Eillia said. “I’ve missed you. Did you find what you needed?”
“I may have. It doesn’t matter now, but I would love to tell you more after we get out babies home.”
Nodding, Eillia stepped back. Tamesine gave everyone a brief smile. Her eyes moved over the huge vampire standing behind the others, Ahmose, the ruler of the children of the moon. When their gazes met, she couldn’t help herself, she stared. She’d forgotten how beautiful his eyes were, dark, but with scrolls of sparkling silver moving within the iris’s. He came from Africa, once Tamesine’s home nearly a thousand years ago, before the trauma that brought her to where she was in her life now. His presence unsettled her, but she was grateful to have a man with his power to aid in this rescue.
“They’re about a hundred miles northeast. Now that we’re so near, Caedmon is latched onto me and I’m latched to him. I could find him blind now. I have a station-wagon waiting outside. It’s filled with anything we might need. Are you all ready to go?”
Everyone nodded and they followed Tamesine out of the airport.
The roads were awful, could barely even be called roads, but Tamesine was a woman driven, literally as well as figuratively since Koen drove. Koen rode the dirt paths as if they were smoothly paved, rocking the inhabitants of the car so badly at times, Bas grimaced and complained that he now had more bruises than he’d had in his entire lifetime. It just made Koen grin and go faster.
Eventually, Tamesine leaned forward across the back of the front seat.
“Koen, we’re close. I would suggest a cautious approach. No revving or tire-spinning.”
“Yeah? It was fun. How often does a vampire get to go off-roading?”
“This is a rescue, Koen,” Eillia reminded him.
“I’m not worried. We’ll get my grandchild and Caedmon back. That’s the only way this can turn out. So forgive an old man a spot of fun.”
Bas shook his head. “Tamesine, can you tell how the kids are right now? Do they know we’re this close?”
Tamesine closed her eyes, still as stone, and everyone waited. When she took a sudden deep breath sixty seconds later, she smiled. “They do. They are so happy.” She paused. “Koen, stop the car. We must go now.”
Leaving the car quickly, they followed Tamesine until she stopped them with a hand out.
“Here. In this small clearing, there is a single door, a hatch, that leads beneath the ground to this facility, and while I’m sure there are other entrances and exits, this one is narrow. It could be a trap, like the one in South America.”
Park nodded. “I agree. But we have no choice. I’m going to get my daughter. Tamesine, you were less susceptible to the serum in South America.”
“I was. But Lamont reconfigured it with my own blood and that serum worked pretty well on me.”
“Ahmose is the new element, then. The old serum won’t work as well on him, and if the new one is based on individual blood, it won’t either. Ahmose, you may be the only one that awakens easily if they try to use Lamont’s sedative on us. If so, it is imperative that you waken the rest of us so we can finish this mission, get our babies, and destroy this lab.”
“It will be done,” he said, serious, as he usually was.
Ahmose would not let these people down. He would not let those special children down. “I will go in first.”
Koen shook his head. “No. That’s my granddaughter down there, I claim point.”
Conceding, Ahmose nodded. “You are right.”
Bas began moving forward. “We’ll see who gets to the hatch first.”
Everyone followed, but Koen, motivated and faster than Bas, arrived at the hatch before anyone else, and lifted it easily. The lock was defenseless against his skills.
A stairwell led into a barely lit tunnel, and he rushed down into it using vampire speeds, with no hesitation, the others following close behind. The corridor was empty, and went in both directions, lit by small LED’s attached along each side of the walls about fifteen inches apart.
Koen looked at his companions. “Tamesine, any idea which way?”
Once again she closed her eyes and reached for Caedmon. “I can’t tell. This close, I just have a sense of him, but not exactly where he is in here.”
“Seriously?” Koen responded.
“She’s not a GPS,” Eillia said, frowning. “Let’s go this way, and we’ll backtrack if we need to.”
She began down the corridor to the left, Daniel close behind. Everyone else followed her.
After five minutes, a concrete stairwell dropped lower, and they went down it into a wide, sterile-looking room, painted white with what looked like stainless-steel sinks lined along the back. The wall displayed numerous chains attached to loops. Otherwise, it was empty.
“Motherfuck.” Koen walked around the spacious room, amazed, his footfalls echoing slightly in the empty space. “This man’s resources must be endless. This is, what, the fifth facility we’ve found. No, the sixth. I really can’t believe he’s that wealthy and that dedicated to destroying supernaturals.”
“Believe it. He’s taken this war to an entirely new level.” Park looked over the sinks as she spoke. “These have never been used. I think this facility is brand new, guys. It’s bigger than my labs. I’m a little envious.”
“Baby, I’ll build you whatever you want when we get home,” Bas told her. “We just need to get home. There are some doors over here in this alcove.”
He started towards them when they heard a sliding sound that Tamesine, Eillia, Koen, and Park recognized immediately.
“Move!” Koen yelled as he dove to the side.
Concussive sounds announced rifle fire. Daniel was hit first, then Eillia as she rushed to his side. Tamesine and Koen had managed to avoid the first rounds, Bas and Park had made it around the corner to the alcove just as they fired, protected by the wall.
Seconds later he showed up carrying six rifles and threw them onto the concrete floor in the center of the room, hard enough to splinter them.
“Threat neutralized,” he announced. “Is everyone okay?”
“Eillia’s down. And Daniel.” Koen hurried over to check on them. “They’re okay. The serum, I guess. Looks like Lamont wants a little more blood for his coffee mug.”
“Koen, please stay with them,” Tamesine said. She turned to Ahmose. “Come with me. Park, you too. Bas, I would recommend you stay here, too, but it is up to you. This likely will get really dangerous.”
“I’m coming,” he answered without hesitation.
“Okay. I think I know where they are. Caedmon’s lifeforce is so close now, it’s reaching for mine.”
She glanced back at the unconscious Eillia, and disappeared into the alcove and down another set of five steps, Ahmose, Park, and Bas close behind.
A floor below, Lamont sat aside from a group of eight soldiers, fully armed, stationed directly in front of the door to the room with the captive first blood children.
They were here, of course, he wasn’t surprised, although he’d thought that the vampires would not be able to track the children at such a young age. Apparently, he was wrong.
Now, all he could hope for was that the serum would work, and allow him to escape with his young subjects.
Tamesine came around the corner of the room from the corridor first, her long, blonde hair flying around her head as she moved in the faster speed he’d become accustomed to. She was followed closely by an enormous vampire that Lamont did not know. There was something different about him, and Lamont was instantly intrigued. His eyes moved behind him as two more vampires raced into the room.
The battle was about to begin.
Lamont watched his soldiers open fire on the vampires, who, expecting this assault, sidestepped some of the impacts, and took some of the hits as well. The projectiles held the vampire sedative, which sent Bas down, Park at his side. Ahmose was fighting it, but Tamesine barely reacted to it at all, and advanced on the small force to easily disarm them. A split second later, Ahmose called out her name and she whirled, but it was too late.
Gunmen with machine guns fired bullets into the vampires, tearing holes in their bodies as they were meant to do.
Lamont leaned back against the far wall, pleased.
The children inside of the adjacent room huddled together on the bed, hands over their ears as the loud noises continued and terrified them. They knew their parents were coming for them, were close by, but they didn’t know if they were okay or if they would be hurt by the bad men who took them.
Caedmon slipped out from under Cairine’s embrace and pushed himself off of the bed on his belly, his balance good enough to stand easily as his searching feet hit the floor.
Cairine crawled forward to pull him back, but he was already beyond her reach. “No. Get back up here.”
But he didn’t listen. He turned to face her. “Cari, come.”
“Uh, uh. Come back here.” She slid off of the bed now to grab him, but Caedmon took her hand and dragged her towards the front of the room.
“No, Caed. We have to stay out of the way. Mommy says when it’s grown-up stuff, we have to be good and let them do the grown-up things.”
He kept pulling. Suddenly, he stopped and took her other hand. They stood still, hands entwined, gazes locked. Then Cairine smiled.
“Okay,” she agreed and they continued to the door. Hesitating, Cairine looked down at the boy at her side, nodded, and touched the door handle. It clicked to announce that the lock was no longer engaged.
Tamesine was hit, several times, the serum fighting for control of her body. They had dosed her so often when they had her in the cell in Switzerland, that her body had adapted to the serum, which rendered it less effective than it originally had been. Still, she was fighting it and it was fighting back.
I will win this, bastard! Accessing her spirit amulet, with a plea to the universe, Tamesine pushed the serum away from bonding with her blood. Now, bullets sliced into her body and they hurt, but as long as they didn’t hit anything vital, anything that could kill her, she was safe, so she surged forward and cut down three of the armed guards in seconds.
Ahmose was still standing, fighting to remain so, but Park had lost her battle with the serum and was going down. He caught her just before she hit the ground and laid her gently to the side of the room next to Bas. As he rose, a bullet drove into his side and he grunted. It hurt like a mother, but he would not allow it to stop him. Tamesine was the only one still standing and he would not let her stand alone.
Surging forward, he froze all of the remaining gunmen, the sudden silence shocking after such percussive noise in a rescue that was at once critically important and laughably ridiculous. Ahmose was stunned. How this ordinary human man had been able to battle the most powerful people on this planet and still remain alive seemed impossible.
Tamesine and Ahmose, the only ones able to move in the large room filled with still bodies, faced Lamont.
Ahmose’s anger flared. “I don’t know how you’ve done this, but you will die, little man, you know that, for this unpardonable act. It will be my honor to do this for my people.”
“Go ahead. I’ve always known, though, that there was nothing that I could do to overcome power as great as that of first bloods. The only thing I could bring to this fight that had any chance at all of defeating you, was numbers.”
“They were too small, little human.”
Lamont was silent, smiling, and that frightened Tamesine.
Urgent, she faced Lamont, but spoke to Ahmose.
“The children are behind that door. Get them out of here. I will deal with this man.”
“We have him, little vampire. He’s no threat now.”
Shaking her head, Tamesine pushed Ahmose back towards the door. “I don’t believe that. He’s known for surprises. Please, get the children out of here now.”
Ahmose turned towards the door just as it began to open. He hurried to it, arriving just as the two first blood children came out of the room, hand-in-hand. They were smiling, and when the little boy saw Tamesine, his face lit up and his eyes glowed.
“Tam, Tam,” he said.
“Baby,” she answered, with a soft voice, then her eyes went to Ahmose. “Get them out of here now.”
Ahmose nodded and reached for the kids, faster than the children could move at this young age. Once he’d scooped them both up, he was gone.
Tamesine turned to Lamont, who stood awkwardly frozen before her.
“You can stop acting, I know you aren’t frozen. But you will be.”
He started to move just as she shot her magics towards him, and he froze as he tried to run away, his legs twisted in a position that could not support him, so he crumbled onto the floor.
Now, standing over him, Tamesine told him. “You’re done, you won’t ever hurt…”
“Tam.”
The voice surprised her and Tamesine whirled.
Dirty, tattered, blood-covered, Frank stood before her, his face swollen, almost unrecognizably. But he was alive and here, and she was so grateful that he hadn’t fallen victim to Claude’s homicidal predilection.
Shock registered as she watched him pull a handgun out from behind his back. Immediately, he shot her, point-blank, in the chest, four times…she counted, as she fell, dying, beside of Lamont’s body on the cold concrete.
Her magics released, Lamont pushed her away from him with his right foot and stood. He walked over, took the handgun from Frank, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Go stand in the corner of the room.”
Frank did so immediately, under his compulsion.
Lamont walked back to where Tamesine lay on the floor, wheezing her final breaths. “You’re right, you know. I am the king of surprises. And while numbers of soldiers can be helpful, sometimes, all you need is one.”
He fired into her chest until he emptied the magazine.
Tamesine’s blood covered the white concrete floor in swirls of awful pink as it mixed with water dripping down from the ceiling of the underground room.
“I’m really going to have to thank Claude for his brilliant forethought. That man is SRS material after all.”
Frank, standing shocked in the corner of the room to which he’d been commanded to go, felt tears slide down his cheeks as he realized what he’d done. He’d pulled the trigger and shot Tam! He’d killed her! How could he have done that?
The white-haired man kicked Tamesine in the side as he walked past her body. Stopping in front of Frank, Lamont dropped the empty gun to clatter on the floor at Frank’s feet, and smiled pleasantly.
“Thanks for your help,” he said, and walked from the room, leaving Frank trapped in the corner to stare at Tam’s bullet-riddled body.
Regardless of how desperately Frank tried to get to Tam, to see if she could be helped, or at least hold her while she passed from this life, he could find no way to force himself to move. He knew he had been commanded to shoot and kill Tam, and that he was commanded to stay here, but he couldn’t understand why or how.
Koen finally roused Eillia and Daniel. Eillia sat up, shaking her head to clear it, reaching for Daniel, and asking questions.
“Where are the others? Did you find the children?”
“The others went to find them, and I haven’t heard from them yet. I didn’t want to leave you two without protection. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit. Like before. Daniel’s having a much harder time.”
“He isn’t first blood, the serum is extremely effective on made vampires. But he’ll be fine. Do you feel well enough for me to…”
Before he could finish his question, Ahmose blew into the room with Caedmon under one arm and Cairine under the other.