by Unknown
“Fair point,” she said, holstering one of her guns and pulling out her phone. “You’re riding with them, by the way. You aren’t getting in my car looking like that.”
Our ‘prisoner transport’ was nothing like the kind used by police and security forces. We needed something a bit more...sturdy, because vampires were obscenely strong sometimes. So we used modified BTR-80s, a military armoured personnel carrier used by the Russians. I felt we were wasting their capabilities using them in such a mundane manner, until I remembered that we were in our own private war with the hunters.
I sat in the modified crew area, not wanting to subject the driver to my stench. Unfortunately, one soldier had to sit with me, keeping his eye on the prisoner cage with his shotgun held ready. I felt sorry for him; it was all I could do not to throw up myself.
Worse, my favourite - and only - suit was ruined. I was going to have to bin it, then shower for a week. And I had no idea what Corvi was going to say when we got back.
I was worn down. That had been my first fight with a vampire, and while I made it out of that one I was lucky - the guy was a lunatic. He’d lost all capacity for logical thought once his blood was up, becoming a creature of instinct - hunt, fight, kill, feed. That was his creed, and against other mortals it had served him just fine. But I had been trained to fight vampires...and yet he still nearly tore my head off.
My hands were shaking from the adrenaline come-down, my breathing still heavy and my heart pounding. It had been a short, tense fight for me, and I was still alive.
I undid my restraints and put my head between my knees, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down.
“Are you ok sir?” the accompanying soldier asked, moving to see if I was alright. But I was not important at that time.
“Do not. Move,” I commanded, and he silently nodded and sat back down. The last thing we needed was for that crazy to break loose and kill us because one guy thought I was dying or something.
Just when I felt like I wasn’t ever going to calm down, I felt a familiar presence in my mind, growing in strength every second. As soon as the psychic bond was strong enough I felt Corvi’s emotions flow down the link - relief, concern, love. She must have sensed what was wrong, because she soon sent calming thoughts instead, caressing my mind and easing the rising panic.
I’ll meet you at the car park, my love, she told me, and without thinking I shook my head. Some habits are hard to break.
No, my love. I’m with the prisoner transport. And you might want to stay where you are. I...don’t look pretty.
The sudden lash of shock that hit my mind was almost physical in its intensity, and Corvi’s panicked words echoed in my mind shortly afterwards.
What?! What happened? Are you hurt? I swear-
I’m fine, Sythan’en. Just covered in blood, none of it mine. Our target is...not well.
Great, Lev’s penchant for understatement was carrying over to me now.
I closed my eyes and leaned back, hoping to be back at the base soon. I really needed that shower.
Despite my warning, Corvi was still waiting for me at the prisoner dock. So was Lev, which was less surprising given her belief that speed limits were like calorie counts - there for our advice but rarely ever followed. Corvi’s expression already told me that she was displeased with Lev, but the link allowed me to find out why - she was annoyed that Lev had favoured her car’s upholstery instead of ensuring my safety.
Her mood did not improve when she saw the state of me.
“I’m going to grab a shower,” I told her, mindful of the other staff that were around. At least I could show her my love via the psychic link, and again I caught a flash of her anger at Lev.
Honestly, that was getting tiring.
I left them to it and made my way to the showers - after I’d acquired some fresh clothes from my quarters - throwing my suit into the nearest bin after I’d peeled it off. As the hot water sluiced over me, I gingerly explored my torso with my fingers, wincing as I felt a welt around my ribs. The bruising was already coming up, and there was definitely some damage to two of my ribs again. At least it was on my right side this time, although that meant sleeping would be a bitch.
It took a while, and an entire bottle of shower gel, but I eventually managed to wash off the blood and get rid of the stink, although I felt I would be wise to avoid any younger vampires for a while. They could probably still pick up on some of the smell.
I got dressed again, going for a casual look for a change - black T-shirt, dark jeans and some comfortable boots. I then made my way to Prisoner Holding, where I was most likely to find my two favourite people on the base.
I hadn’t expected to find them at each other’s throats.
“-A fucking ghoul!” Corvi was yelling, her face mere inches from Lev’s. “Have you any idea what could have happened to him?!”
“Of course I do! And I’m sure he knows too, it’s what we’ve been training him for!”
“But he still faced a goddamned feral without any back-up-”
“Because none of us knew what to expect!” I shouted, startling both of them, and they turned to me as one.
“We all just thought it would be a mortal contact or a standard vampire,” I told them, my temper barely held in check. “Not even you knew what was there, Corvi. Lev is not to blame.”
“You don’t realise the danger she put you in-”
I’d had it. I had finally had enough of my lover and my best friend bickering, and I made it known in that moment.
“Enough!”
A look of wounded emotion crossed Corvi’s features, as I’d shouted at her primarily, but in that moment I couldn’t allow myself to feel sorry for her. They both needed to be told what I was thinking.
I allowed the silence to hang for a moment or two, noting the other members of staff looking in our direction.
“Corvina,” I said flatly, trying to ignore her wince at my formal use of her name. “We are going to your office. All of us. We need to have a talk.”
Instead of waiting for a reply, I turned on my heel and led the way, expecting them to follow.
I must have made an impact, because they did indeed follow - in utter silence.
I threw the office door open and was mildly surprised to find Maria in there, doing whatever work an aide did. However, I took the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
“Ethedie’n,” I commanded, knowing that it was a phrase that the casual Vampiric speaker wouldn’t know: ‘Do not be here’, as opposed to effelhien, the more polite ‘go away.’ In actual fact, ethedie’n was more frequently used as a threat. Which worked equally well, I suppose.
Maria suddenly looked horrified, realising I knew exactly what she had said to me the day before, and hurriedly gathered her notes before scurrying out of the room.
I held the door open for the ladies and slammed it behind them. I walked around the desk to where Corvi normally sat, with the two facing me.
“Deimos, I-”
“Quiet,” I told Corvi, in that same commanding tone I’d used when speaking to Maria. I rested my hands on the desk, keeping silent for a moment as I looked between the two women.
Quite frankly, they both looked ashamed of themselves.
Good.
“This behaviour has got to stop,” I told them, sounding more like their teacher than their subordinate. “Do you two have any idea what effect your disagreements have? Don’t answer that, I’m going to tell you. First off, you’re undermining your own authority. Both of you. If you two can’t even control your own attitudes, why should others believe you can lead? I know well enough, sure, but do they?” I gestured to the door, indicating t
he wider staff.
“You’re setting a terrible example to everyone who sees your arguments, and it’s ridiculous.
“Secondly,” I paused, steeling myself. This was the personal reason, because regardless of what they thought seeing them argue hurt. “Secondly, you forget that I’m caught in the middle. My lover and my best friend argue, and what am I supposed to do? Do I take a side, knowing that I could lose the other? Or just let you fight it out, and wait for one of you to drive the other off, or worse? This is turning into a ridiculous big dick contest, with you two acting like bloody schoolgirls.”
Corvi blushed, and at first I wasn’t sure if it was for the telling-off I was giving them both or some other reason. My unasked question was answered, however, when an image appeared in my head that I quite definitely did not have myself - of Corvina in a school uniform. Damn, that woman was choosing a very inappropriate time to show her kinky side, and I chided her mentally.
In that brief moment of quiet, Corvi’s desktop intercom buzzed, and I hit the acceptance button myself.
“We’re busy,” I told the device sternly, but Maria’s voice came through shortly afterwards regardless.
“I’m sure, but...milady, the prisoner is requesting to speak with Mister Black,” she said, and I replied for her again.
“Fine, I’ll be there presently.” I hit the intercom off, and looked back at the two women.
“Sort it out,” I said, moving from behind the desk. “Next time I see you both I want to be sure there’s no more of this bullshit. I’ll see you both later.”
CHAPTER 9
Not that helpful
After that little incident, I headed to Prisoner Holding - an overly-fancy title for what military personnel would call ‘the Brig,’ but everyone else would call ‘jail’ or something similar.
Although, some of the vampiric staff called it The Buffet. Generally not while Corvi was around.
However, before I got there I decided I should be prepared, so I stopped by the armoury for a silvered short sword. It was a good weapon - a light, single-edged blade, with a particularly sharp point. With that secured at my hip I proceeded to the prison cells and announced myself and my intentions, and I was escorted into a relatively large secure cell.
Our prisoner - now considerably cleaner - was strapped to something that resembled an upright gurney, his arms held outstretched by attachments meant for just that purpose. It looked like a thoroughly modern crucifixion, except for the intravenous drip giving him a constant supply of blood.
“Why is-”
“He’s a feral, sir,” one of the guards told me, and I looked at him quizzically. “Sorry. He needs blood constantly. The lust gets so bad in them they’ll hunt regardless of location, witnesses...generally, witnesses just mean more food. So, for everyone’s safety, we give him a constant supply. Keeps him...slightly more coherent.”
I nodded and approached the man, drawing my blade carefully. At that distance I could make out the taught bands of muscle, the tousled blonde hair, the soft, youthful features. If it weren’t for the blazing red eyes and massive fangs, he could’ve been mistaken for a boy-band member.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked him, and he looked at me groggily.
“I...I did?” His voice was barely a whimper, nothing like the strong, confident voice he had spoken in when I first saw him.
“He might be a little dazed, sir,” the guard told me, and I was beginning to get annoyed be his presence. “He wasn’t talking when we first got him in here, so we gave him the Silverback treatment.”
I grimaced at that, mildly surprised that I was horrified by the concept of that procedure. I suppose I shouldn’t have been - I’d taken a vampire as my lover, after all.
The Silverback treatment was a charming name for something which basically amounted to torture. Quite simply, it was a significant quantity of liquid silver injected directly into the spine.
I was surprised he was even conscious.
“Right, well I think you’ve done enough for today,” I told the guard. “If you could wait outside-”
“Sorry sir, my orders are-”
“Being overruled,” I told him, before I suddenly realised I had no authority to do that. The problem was that he was still in my way, so I had to think quickly.
“The prisoner asked for me specifically, and for that reason Lady Delacore has granted me authority in this matter,” I lied, using my new-found authoritative tone. “Furthermore, you are in my way. If I need you, I will call. If you do not comply with these instructions, Her Ladyship will know the reason why. Am I understood?”
The guard came smartly to attention, saluted with parade-ground precision with a muttered “sir,” and promptly left.
I guess shameless name-dropping had its uses.
I turned back to our prisoner, placing the sword point-first on the floor in front of me and resting my hands on it.
“Let’s try again, Pretty Boy. You asked for me.”
“Nng? Oh, it’s...you, the...the nice one...yes, I asked. Nicely. They weren’t so nice. I only wanted-”
“I’m aware of what they did, and I will see to it there is a proper investigation into the matter.”
I had no intention of doing anything of the sort, of course. Our methods can be...unpleasant, Corvi had told me, and they were. But they yielded results, and in a war for survival they didn’t have the luxury of being nice.
“You have a name, Pretty Boy?” I asked him, to make talking easier. He just chuckled, a disturbing, gurgling sound, like he had a wad of phlegm caught in his throat.
“Oh yes, lots of names, lots of names...names on a list as-”
I brought the blade up, pressing the point against the underside of his jaw. A thin rivulet of blood trickled down the blade, but more gratifyingly, he had stopped talking.
“I am not in the mood,” I told him firmly. “Let’s just do this the easy way, and I won’t separate your head from your neck. Your name.”
I lowered the blade point, and he swallowed visibly.
“Skadaen,” he told me eventually, and I resisted the urge to laugh.
“That’s an unfortunate name, my friend, however appropriate.”
“What? My friends told me it meant ‘brave.’”
“Your friends lied,” I said, shaking my head. “It means ‘lunatic’ - or, more literally, ‘broken in mind and soul.’”
Skadaen growled, baring those immense fangs.
“What did you want, mortal?” His snarl was back, and apparently so was some of his coherent thought. I guess he was really fond of that name.
“You’ve been feeding information to the hunters, presumably in exchange for fresh bodies and silence about your location. You clearly didn’t get that information yourself, so who gave it to you?”
Skadaen laughed, a sound which sent shivers down my spine.
“Oh, you don’t know the trouble you’re in,” he said, around his tremors of laughter. “She’s pretty pissed, and she will see you all burn.”
“Make some sense, Chuckles. My patience is running out.”
“The girl. Woman. Girl-woman. She knows things. A lot of things. Saw no face, told me no name, but the things...” a wheezing sound escaped from his throat, and I thought he might vomit again. “The things, Mister Black, the things tell so so much.”
I looked at him quizzically. Something was very wrong here, and I felt an uneasy sensation growing in my stomach as I realised what it was.
“No-one told you my second name.”
“No-one told me a lot of things,” he wheezed, and I pressed my blade to his throat.
“Talk fast Skadaen, or by
every deity I swear I will personally pour liquid silver into every one of your major orifices until you do!”
“Sh-she said that you...and all your kind, would dilute what The Order stood for. That there needed to be a purge...which has already begun...”
“The base attacks.”
“Yes, and more to come...oh, so much fire!”
He was losing it again. I needed something concrete, and fast.
“Did you ever meet her, see her face-to-face?”
“Once, when...when she found me...oh, such a sad tale...”
“No tales, Skadaen! Facts!”
“She wore a mask...saw no faces, see? But she couldn’t hide that smell...she smelled just like you, you know. A stronger scent of vampire, but much like you.”
Shit. He couldn’t possibly mean who I thought.
“Nng...ever heard the phrase, ‘hidden in plain sight’? So apt...”
I never even got to reply. With a sudden lunge he tore free of every restraint, throwing me backwards. He had been biding his time, letting the drip restore his strength while he talked, and now I had to face him on my own.
He leaped at me as I lay on the floor, and my only movement was to bring the blade up aimed directly at his chest. His own momentum ensured that he impaled himself completely, sliding down to the plain cross-piece with no effort at all.
Despite the injury, it wasn’t going to kill him. In fact, this guy would barely notice it, I was sure.
I pushed him back, and as soon as I’d created enough space a brought a foot up against his collarbone and pushed hard. The blade came free with a sickening squeal of bone on metal, and Skadaen staggered backwards. I had just enough time to push myself to my feet before he lunged again, burying those massive teeth deep into the meat around my own collarbone as he tackled me to the floor. I let out a cry of pain and fury, turning the sword forehanded and driving it into his kidney. I twisted the blade in the wound, finally casing him to cry out and release me. I managed to push him to the side, feeling the blood flowing freely down my left side and my left arm hanging uselessly at my side. Ignoring the fact that he had probably severed a few nerves or something, I bolted to the other side of the room, giving myself the space I needed to gauge his attack.