Max raised his glass to the others in the room. “Fe sahetek!” he repeated and finished his glass in a swallow. He woofed in pain as Xia raised and drained her own glass.
She blinked. “That was good.” Her voice was slightly hoarse. “One-fifty proof?”
“Closer to one sixty.” Azzaam pounded Shy on the back to ease her coughing fit. The elf’s face had turned bright red, but her glass was empty.
“Good girl.” Xia smiled as she set her glass down and turned to Max. “The rest of the team will be here tomorrow to meet you and go over the plan. Is there anything you want to go over with me right now?”
Max thought for a second. “Azzaam needed some visual confirmation of the weirdness of our situation, so I will give you the same benefit.” Concentrating, he recalled how he’d felt fighting the other vampire—how the room turned red and what it had felt like to have his fangs distend. He willed it to happen, and the room went red. A chair fell over with a small crash as someone backed rapidly against a wall. Shy, he was pleased to see, was still standing at his side, although her face was pale, and his vampiric senses could feel her heart beating rapidly.
Xia stepped forward and reached out to touch his cheek. “Your skin is as cold as ice,” she whispered. With a wicked little grin, she tilted her head back and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt, exposing her white swanlike neck. “Do you feel like biting me?” she asked in a sultry voice.
Max’s hands began to shake, then his whole body trembled. He turned away quickly, trying to catch his breath. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Xia,” he gasped. “Not unless you mean it.”
Buttoning her shirt, she frowned. “Unless I mean it?”
Shy answered Xia’s question as Max fought for breath. “We were told that, under certain circumstances, a person may ask to be turned to a vampire. Of course, it will mean their death in the old life, and they will have to adjust to a whole new set of circumstances and desires. Vampires are not well liked in my land, mainly because their desire for red meat and blood is very strong. Just then, you were in great danger.” She glared at the Asian woman. “Just two nights ago, Max killed another vampire with his bare hands. He held him pinned against a wall and, with one hand, crushed his neck. I’ve also seen him do the same with a two-and-a-half-meter-tall goblin, only instead of killing him, Max bit him and drained him of blood. You were very lucky.”
As Max turned back to the others in the room, Xia gave him an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, Max.” Frowning, she bit her pink lower lip. “I promise that I will never do that again… unless I mean it.” Reddening, she slipped on her leather jacket and turned for the door. “I’ll be back with the rest of the team tomorrow at thirteen hundred, and we can go over the boring details then.” She threw Max a quick wink, turned, and was gone. Xia always had been an abrupt sort of person, but she constantly left his heart beating a little faster, even his vampiric one.
Chapter 8
CAMPAIGN
Shyilia resisted the idea at first, but Max finally convinced her to wear the advanced body armor he’d purchased as well as the incredibly expensive special ops “chameleon suit.” When turned off, the suits looked like any other black special ops uniform, but when turned on, they blended with the ambient background. Sensors located about the suit constantly took visual samples and adjusted the suit for maximum stealth. Chameleon armor was designed to integrate seamlessly with the suit, even going so far as to include a helmet in the thick collar that would, at a touch, unfold to provide communications connections and wide-spectrum sensors. Lastly, and just as important, the helmet protected the user’s head and face from injury from small-bore projectile weapons up to .45 caliber. Although he’d retired in 2010, Max had kept up with the advances in military technology, which was a good thing, because the chameleon suits hadn’t become available until 2020 or perfected until 2022, just last year.
Shy stood, looking like a child masquerading as an adult, as the team prepared to deploy. Even the slender Xia topped Shyilia by fifteen centimeters.
Max bent, checking the last straps on the squat equipment “tug” that would be hauling their supplies. With a design proven on several Mars expeditions, the tug could best be described as a militarized go-kart with eight fat tires capable of fording rivers or climbing stairs. Keyed to a receiver on Max’s belt, the tug would faithfully follow along through the roughest terrain and travel at speeds up to thirty kilometers per hour. The small transport finally adjusted to his satisfaction, he turned to Xia. “I really wish Simon was with us,” he said over a private com channel. “He is the best demolitions expert I’ve ever seen.”
Xia turned to face him, the front of her armored helmet turning clear. “I thought you knew, Max. Simon died during an op in Syria a year after you retired. Mérilla Jalbert, our token Canadian, is nearly as good and doesn’t have Simon’s prejudices.”
“Damn. I’ll miss Simon.”
“We all miss him,” Xia said. “Casey and Moses are here, however, and together, we should be able to do the job.” She shot him a shy smile, which was unlike Xia. “If I remember right, you weren’t a slouch with explosives, either.”
“It’s been a long time.” Max sighed.
“Hah! It’s like riding a bicycle,” her eyes narrowed, “or making love. You never forget how.”
“If you say so.” He studied the group standing behind the gun shop under the heavy threatening skies. The weave of the chameleon suits had been designed to keep the wearer warm or cool depending on the weather and the condition of the solar-charged electronic and environmental systems in the suits. Because Shy was still unfamiliar with her suit, Max turned on his external speaker, his own face shield already set to clear. “If you will line up two by two, I’ll get the show on the road.”
The team members looked around at the parking lot, empty but for the cars of the members, and turned to Max.
Casey Meirgin, always the wise ass, called out, “Hey, boss, is the transporter going to beam us up?”
Moses and Mérilla snickered, but Xia just watched carefully.
“Something like that.” Max activated the runespell and the travel gateway that would take them to Canada. “Mérilla, you should feel right at home.”
A blast of icy air shot out of the rippling gateway.
“Move out. I don’t want to spend all day there.” He thumbed the activator for the tug and followed the first four, Shyilia at his side. Wind grabbed at his suit as he stepped through the gateway, and he turned to watch the tug trundle after him. As the small vehicle was halfway through, a figure darted from behind one of the parked cars and, with a running leap, literally threw itself through the gateway as the last wheels of the tug bounced into Canada. Max took two quick steps forward, reached out, and jerked the figure to its feet as the gateway vanished in a last silver ripple.
“Who is dat?” the deep, slow voice of Moses Mackey boomed. An absolutely huge black man, he was the biggest of the indistinguishable armored figures. Standing almost two and a half meters tall, he towered thirty centimeters above Max. Everyone who met Moses thought him slow because of his leisurely deliberate speech and great size. However, with two doctorates and a pocketful of other degrees, Moses was the brightest person on the team.
“I have no idea.” Max turned to the struggling figure. “Well?”
“My name is Tasaria Braga,” the figure blurted, pushing back the hood of her coat, “and you saved my life the other night when you killed the vampire.”
Max groaned.
“You performed real magic when you lifted that cannonball for my father. Show me how you did it. I’ve seen false magic across the country and halfway round the world. Not once have I seen real magic, until now, and I met two real vampires. Teach me, I beg you.”
Max snorted, but it was Shyilia who answered. “Magic is not something to be learn
ed like hiding cards up your sleeves. You either have the ability, or you do not. You do not!” she said firmly. “Go home.”
“No.”
“Tase her, open a gate, and toss her back to Buffalo,” Xia said.
“I can hunt, and I can track,” Tasaria injected.
Moses chuckled. “She hid from us pretty well.”
“And,” Tasaria continued quickly, “if you return me to Buffalo, I’ll go to the police. It may not get you in trouble, but it will get your friend who owns the gun shop in trouble if I say he kidnapped me.”
Casey, a lanky, towheaded man from Iowa, glared at her. “Do what Xia suggested—Tase her, but leave her here.”
Shyilia’s eyes widened. “But she will die!”
“That’s the general idea.” The man’s voice was as cold as the surrounding climate.
Tasaria was kneeling on the ground, staring fearfully from one armored figure to the next.
“I’ll bet you didn’t think things would get this serious this quick,” Max said softly.
Tasaria, her eyes wide and her face the color of the surrounding snow, shook her head, tears freezing on her cheeks.
Max turned to Shyilia. “You’re concerned for her, then you take care of her. If you don’t, I know a couple of women in Romania who would hold onto her until we come back this way, but being vampires…”
Shyilia’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll take care of her, Maximilian.”
“Fine.” He pointed toward a distant rocky hillside that was the Canadian gateway. “Head that way.” He turned without another word, letting Shy either tell the newcomer or not, as she chose. “The next gateway we hit,” he said to the group, “will probably be guarded, so take precautions. As I said at our briefing, the level of technology is medieval, so think armor and swords. When I came through the first time, there was a magic user there who might be bothersome, so look for a man in a black robe and take him out immediately. He’s also the one calling the shots. Tase the rest if necessary.” He turned a grim face to Shy. “You and your… friend wait here for exactly thirty seconds after the last person has entered the portal before you follow.”
Shy nodded, a sulky expression on her face, and Max turned away.
“Is he always so—mean?” Tasaria asked Shy as soon as Max’s back was turned. The external mics and cameras integrated into the collar of the helmet were omnidirectional, if he wished them to be.
“Not usually,” he heard Shy reply. “He’s just upset at having unanticipated baggage to look out for.”
“You consider me ‘baggage’?” The young woman fumed.
“Aren’t you?”
“I am not! I can hold my own,” Tasaria snarled.
“Honey,” Shy drawled, stealing a turn of phrase from Casey, “you aren’t even in the same league as these folks and will just get in the way.” The elfin woman sighed. “I’m wearing one of their suits, but I feel like a child playing dress-up compared to them. They are very dangerous… perhaps the most dangerous people you will ever meet.”
Max arranged the group to enter by pairs—he and Moses would go first, followed by Xia and Casey. A disgruntled Mérilla came next, shepherding Shy and Tasaria. The tug, carrying the supplies, needing no shepherding, came last.
Max raised one hand in a preparatory gesture as the other traced out the complex runespell in the freezing air. He muttered, “Inspiratio,” and the portal rippled open. Without further ado, he and Moses stepped through.
An hour short of dawn, most of the guards were sleeping, while three sat dozing by the fire when Max and Moses stepped out of nowhere, one moving right and one moving left.
“Alarm!” one guard, slightly more alert than the others, shouted, jumping to his feet. “Gate emerge—”
The dart from Max’s Taser caught the man in the neck, and he collapsed with a twitching gurgle. Stepping over the spasming guard, Max swiftly shot the second in a conveniently exposed thigh. On the other side of the fire, Moses shot his guard in the arm. A man in a black robe rose from his sleeping pad, his hands already weaving silver fire as he created a runespell. The air had just begun to coalesce into a rune when Moses lashed out with a huge backhand and smashed the mage, sending him flying three meters through the air to crash into a large pine tree. The man slid to the ground like a rag doll.
The officer in burnished armor that Max had seen once before staggered to his feet as three of his remaining men finally found their short swords.
“They’re bloody golems!” one of the swordsmen shouted to the officer. “They’ll eat our bloody souls,” he shrieked, backing toward the woods.
Max, setting his visor to clear, stepped forward. “Tell your men to surrender, Colonel. They won’t be hurt. The men by the fire are still alive, by the way, but I’m not sure about the mage.”
The officer stepped forward. “Do I know you?”
The tug crunched through the magical portal and stopped. In a blast of icy wind, the gateway flickered closed.
“I was here once before, a few months back, Colonel. I heard you speaking with the mage.”
The colonel was about to reply when one of his men, the one who had made the comment about the golems, turned and bolted for the woods at a dead run, dropping his sword before he’d gone two meters.
Max groaned. “Stop that idiot!” he shouted to the team.
“I’ll get him!” Tasaria yelled, darting after the soldier before Shy could restrain her.
“Fuck.” Max groaned, shutting his eyes.
“Drop your weapons,” the colonel said to his armored troops in a tired voice.
“Should I go get Tasaria?” Xia said, touching his shoulder.
Max opened his eyes reluctantly. “No. Give the girl thirty minutes. If she’s not back by then, I’ll send someone to run her down.”
“She’ll be all right, Max,” Xia said gently on the private channel.
He looked at the dark woods. “Maybe. But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Xia.”
Something high up in the dark air screamed a bloodcurdling call. “Tell me about it,” Xia muttered, looking around nervously.
Max gently twisted a small knob set almost flush into his armored shoulder. There was a sharp click, and the helmet came free beneath his chin, folding quickly up over his face and back into the collar of the chameleon suit. He took a deep breath of the cool, fresh night air that was redolent of resinous pine and woodsmoke.
The colonel actually took a step backward. “You’re a man!”
Max laughed. “Yeah, more or less.” He rapped his knuckles on his chest with a solid thump. “It’s just armor, like yours, but more advanced.” There were other clicks as the rest of the team shed their armored helms.
“You have women with you… in armor!” the colonel gasped. “That’s unnatural.”
“We’re a little more advanced than you, I like to think.” Max’s voice was as dry as dust.
Xia, standing at his side with her helmet still on, pointed into the woods. “Thermal imaging shows two people approaching from the east. It looks like your girl got her man.”
“Don’t encourage her.”
“Yes, boss.”
Max didn’t have to turn to see her smile.
The armored colonel directed his men to tend to the unconscious soldiers and only then sent someone to check on the fallen, motionless mage. The man felt for a pulse, looked up at the colonel, and shook his head grimly. Max caught the briefest flicker of a smile on the colonel’s face as the man turned back to him. “We are your prisoners,” he said slowly, handing Max his sword.
Max took the blade, weighed it in his hand, tested the keen edge with his thumb, and handed it back to the colonel. “I have no need for a good sword, Colonel, and it would just slow me down. Why don’t you keep it? All your
men can keep their swords, for that matter.” He grinned. “The only thing that will change is that instead of stopping people going through the gateway, you will just find out who they are, where they are from, and where they are going.” He flipped the colonel a golden coin. “Buy some tea and keep a pot on the fire for travelers. I’ll be passing through, on and off, myself.”
The colonel bounced the coin in the palm of his hand then slipped it into a small pocket. “Very good, my lord. Who may I say gave me my orders?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Max noted that the entire team was watching the proceedings very carefully. It had to come out sooner or later, he thought. “I am Maximilian Arkady Kiritescu, the Earl of Wraniel.”
A flicker of mirth crossed the colonel’s face then faded. “But that would make you…” He started to shake.
When he went to take a knee, Max glared at the man. “Don’t you dare,” he growled. “This is still a covert operation, and you can call me Max.”
There was a crashing in the underbrush, and Tasaria appeared, pushing her prisoner, who was sporting a large black eye, through the undergrowth ahead of her. She was grinning. “See?” she called to Max. “I told you I was a valuable member of your team. I can pull my weight.” She pushed her prisoner roughly into the firelight, a smug expression on her face.
Max shot a glare at Shy then turned to the young Gypsy woman. “You did very well.” His voice was emotionless. “Please give your prisoner back his sword, if you will.”
Tasaria frowned but did as she was told.
“Thank you,” Max murmured. “If you ever run off like that again, without orders, on your return, I will not yell or shout. I will simply have you tied and leave you here. This is not Earth, and you will not find us. You cannot get home, and you cannot even speak the language. Without our sufferance, you have only two choices, and one of those is the cookpot. Trust me when I tell you that there are many species on this world that would eat you in a heartbeat, and not all of those run on four legs. You know what the other choice is.”
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