by Watts, Peter
“That’s exactly why we are here, Fox-woman.” Atra-Hassis was next up the steps. The edge of his cloak swirled the fallen ash around him like the wake behind a sea predator. “They attacked one of my colonies a month ago. Their scout ships are unnervingly well armed, as are their warriors.”
My queen rose to her feet from where she reclined. Tossing her goblet to the ground, she marched forward. “Finding the rodent-cattle to be too much for your pacifists, Atra?”
He turned to her as she mounted the top of the dais, her heels clicking on the stone. “You yourself have had half a score of attacks on your own territory, or have you been lying to me?”
Narcisa grinned, flashing her fangs. “The attacks are truth my dear, but unlike your people, I turned them back with fire and fang.”
The Destroyer growled low in his chest as he reached the top of the dais. “They are bold.”
“They seek to crowd us out like they did on Earth.” Atra-Hassis spreads his arms wide as the Siren queen joins them, a small, stunted creature beside her feet.
“I will not give up these new lands like I did my beloved ocean.” The stunted creature’s voice was that of a nymph, high and haunting. How it knew the Siren’s words without her even speaking, I did not want to know. Instead I watched as her hand caressed along its head barbs like a master with a favoured hound.
I don’t think anyone expected the Siren to speak during the meeting and they all stared at her a moment before turning back to each other. Again there was that lingering look between Atra-Hassis and the Siren queen as theirs were the last pair of eyes to part.
“Yet they encroach upon us time and time again.” The Watcher Lord motions to each of the lords. “It’s just like Earth. Only this time they’re evolving faster, their technology growing at a rate we cannot match.”
“Their mortality gives them urgency,” the Siren queen stated.
The Destroyer snapped his jaws, his claws digging into the stone under him. “What is technology over the claw, over fangs, over immortality?”
“You are a fool, Condorcanqui. What are fang and claw over lances of light, plasma as hot as the sun, or blades sharp enough to cut through the very molecules themselves?” My queen turns away from the monster. “We have become lax in our pursuit of technology. Our long lives are turning into our biggest downfall.”
To everyone’s surprise, the Siren queen nods, head barbs quivering. “The vampire queen is correct. They are surpassing even our own glorious technology which was old even when the world was young.”
“Weaklings,” growls Condorcanqui.
“What says you, Tsukamoto? You’ve had the most contact with them.” My queen looks to the Asian woman.
Aneko waited as she seemed to contemplate the question. My hands tightened further on my weapon to the point where they were starting to hurt. Something felt wrong and I couldn’t tell what. I had been to a couple of my queen’s meetings before and there was always politics involved on many levels. But this, this felt different, wrong.
“I have seen this technology,” Aneko finally spoke. “Ruicu is right, the humans are nothing if not ingenious in their varied ways to kill and wage war. Their ships are starting to match our own. I will admit that it has gotten harder to raid their fleets and supply lines. Though we are still superior to them, I fear it is only a matter of time before they surprise us. And it will be our last.”
“My people have watched the Homo Sapiens since the beginning of their kind. We have watched them become what they are, and have seen the way they create.” The Watcher Lord placed both of his hands on his staff. “To think such a simple and superstitious people could have created all they have.”
“You forget that you were once human, as were all of us.” Narcisa echoed my own thoughts. It wasn’t something we liked to think about. When we changed from human to vampire, something altered. Perhaps it was a survival mechanism to allow us to feed from those we once were. Perhaps it was the stress of the change or the new found immortality. Whatever it was, we felt little to no compassion towards what had been our own kind.
Atra-Hassis scowled, his peaceful face turning ugly, and for the first time I saw his fangs. Delicate things, two upper and lower pairs.
“Speak for yourself,” the Siren queen’s creature stated. “We were never one of your barbaric kind. You infested our world as the monkeys have infested yours because of your careless feeding.”
I could feel the vibrations coming from the Hunters. Their eyes were locked on the Siren with sheer hatred and want of bloodshed. I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one that felt as if something was going to happen. Atra-Hassis gazed at his staff for a moment before continuing.
“Despite our histories, the humans must be dealt with. That is why the council is meeting, that is what we are here to decide. They can’t be allowed to drive us from the stars. They are too bold, too defiant. Like the children they are, they are ignorant to the dangers which they play. I’ve had enough of them pulling the tiger’s tail. It is time it turned around and reminded them why they fear the dark.”
“So cliché.” My queen shook her head. “But I agree. The humans must be dealt with.”
Aneko placed her hands on her hips. “Despite my dealings with them, they must be taught respect.”
“Rend, tear, destroy. Let us drink from rivers of their blood, let us-”
“Then we agree,” the Siren queen said. “What would you all suggest?” Shifting, the Siren’s robes made a whisper of sound across the rock and her warriors shifted position. Some of my brethren were whispering across the radio link, their words barely reaching my hearing. They were nervous. But I expected more chatter from them, not the hushed words I was getting. Here and there I heard our commanding officers hissing orders to silence the channels.
Through it all, I watched the lords and ladies of my kind. If something was going to happen, they would start it. Be it a hand flick, a glance, a certain word, their people wouldn’t make a move without their leader making the first.
“Steal their technology?” Aneko smiled, flashing fangs more akin to a fox than a true vampire. “With it we could turn it against them.”
Narcisa snorted and I clenched my jaw. This wasn’t good. “Steal from them? We are not pirates like you, Aneko, we have class.”
As one, the barrels of our weapons shifted slightly, raising towards the fox-kin. Their own hands moved to rest on their various arms, their gazes trying and failing to meet our goggled eyes. There was an advantage to going masked to something like this.
The Fox woman smiled, her fangs peeking over her lips. A faint luminescence shone behind those golden eyes as she regarded the queen of the First. This wasn’t good, this wasn’t good at all. I could almost feel the alliance that had existed at the start of this meeting crumbling around us.
Again the look between the Siren and the Lord of the Watchers. Only the Destroyer seemed uncaring of what was happening, more intent on thinking about the bloodlust he would unleash on the humans no doubt.
“How would you suggest we deal with them then, Narcisa?” The Asian woman examined her fingernails before meeting my queen’s eyes.
Narcisa chuckled. “The only thing one can do.”
“What do you mean by that?” Atra-Hassis snarled.
The Siren queen turned to regard my lady as well. The Queen of the First smiled. “You haven’t figured it out, have you? What is the one thing we have done through the ages that has worked time and time again?”
Glances were shared between the other lords and ladies and Narcisa laughed. The kin of each of the clans shifted and I couldn’t help but eye each of them in turn. They were eying each other, watching for anything out of turn.
“Stop speaking in riddles woman!” Atra-Hassis took a step forward and Narcisa turned sharply to face him, her teeth bared.
“Do not dare threaten me, Atra of the weak hearted!”
The Destroyer roared and the Hunters echoed it. Weapons shifted to point
in their general direction as they snapped at the air with drooling muzzles. “Enough!” Their lord’s words echoed off the stone. “War is the only way!”
“Agreed.” The Siren’s puppet sang.
“We are in an alliance of sorts…my brethren.” Aneko’s eyes twinkled.
Narcisa Ruicu turned and smiled at us, eyes dancing.
A voice I didn’t recognize came over the com link and ordered us to open fire. Weapons rose from among our ranks and did just that. Light arced from the barrels and earthed among our own kind as well as the kin of the other council.
My gun stood frozen in my hands as I watched my own brothers fire upon their kin, both of our queen and the other clans.
The Destroyer’s were the first to act to the sudden attack. With roars they rushed the others, maws gaping with ropes of saliva, fangs bared. The Sirens were next, their easy grace lighting quick as their long-barrelled rifles rose and unleashed flashes of hard rounds. I watched as one of my queen’s still-loyal warriors took a round in the chest.
And then I knew the horror that was the Siren’s weapons.
What had been a hard projectile was really some sort of sea crustacean, or cephalopod; I couldn’t tell even as it burrowed through the chest plate of my companion and into the flesh and bone beneath. He screamed as I fired at the Siren’s people, the light taking down one of the women as she tried to avoid another blast. Her helmet exploded as the water flash boiled, lethal razor-sharp shards lancing out to take down one of her kin that was too close.
The males of their clan were busy with the Destroyer’s beasts, thundering blows and rocking blasts shattering the very stone around the clash of giants. Crustacean pincers closed on brutish limbs and tore the very muscle from bone while gore-encrusted claws cracked open carapace and muzzle devoured the soft meat inside.
Aneko Tsukamoto’s people were among us in moments, blades and guns cutting into us as often as our own weapons caught them. Their forms rippled between balls of lethal light, foxes and their human bodies. I watched as a warrior of ours was enveloped in one of the ghost lights, the skin burning off his body before falling to join the ash below.
I whirled, my gun lancing a shot into one of the foxes, the fur catching fire as the beast howled. Flesh cooked off of the vulpine even as I rammed the stock of my gun into the snarling face of a warrior in a kimono that came at me with a katana. She managed to slice my face, which is how I got this scar; but in return I rammed my combat blade into her heart.
Sparing a glance I saw white warriors among the rear of Aneko’s force, their movements calm as they muttered and raised strange stones. Light brighter than anything I have known burned through the red sunlight and burned Aneko’s warriors where they stood. It was like watching their bones catch fire and the body being consumed from within.
I had fired off a few more shots, mostly at Aneko’s warriors even as the Siren’s weapons buzzed and hissed past my head in multi-limbed blurs. My communication link was filled with confused orders and I watched as two of my clan gunned down a third in our colors.
What madness was this?
That was when a crack rent the air and for a moment we all looked to the dais. It was like watching gods at war.
They were blurs, shapes that would pause for a moment as if frozen before moving again. Even with my enhanced sight and the information the goggle had fed me, I could still only catch bits and pieces of what was going on.
The Destroyer had gone after The Watcher Lord, the two a smear of white and black. True to his nature, Condorcanqui was on the offensive. His body shifted with each attack. Bones tore through his skin to shape claws or calcified armour in the blink of an eye when Atra-Hassis’s staff lashed out to foil the attacks. Flares of light exploded as the staff struck the altered bone. If the Destroyer noticed he didn’t show it as he snapped his jaws shut where the Watcher had been a heartbeat before.
The other three were in standstill. My lady weaving impossibly fast around the swipes of barbed fins from the Siren while Aneko’s blades passed terribly close to my lady’s pristine skin. That did not mean the Siren and Aneko weren’t trading blows. As The Siren’s blade passed the queen of the First it hissed past the fox woman’s face, her eyes glowing like the sun. Aneko’s pistol roared and the Siren barely moved as the rounds lanced off over the heads of her people.
Something crashed into the side of my helmet and I tumbled before getting my feet under me. I came up, gun still in my grip, right goggle lens cracked. One of the Hunters was among our troops, muzzle dripping with oil-thick crimson. I opened fire, arks of light burning away patches of fur and muscle even as others reacted to its presence.
Its roar shook my very bones and it managed another couple steps forward before its head exploded, multiple arks striking it there and annihilating the brain.
I turned to look at how the others fared even as a large disk roared over the battle.
It was a Watcher ship.
Everything human-kind had attributed to visitors from other worlds has to do with them. They had the technology long before any of us, and as it hovered above the battle I felt the fang-rattling hum of a number of batteries charging. Lights danced on its underside and an uncharacteristic cheer went up from its brethren on the ground. The angels pushed forward, their strange lances of light striking among Aneko and my people. The righteous fury on their faces turned their angelic features horrific in the stark light of their weapons.
I had thought that they would be my death.
But explosions rocked the saucer as the barbed darts of our own fighters flashed past, munitions smashed and pierced its hull. The hum of the saucer’s weapons died as the ship started lifting.
The cheer this time was from the First even as our ships became engaged by the Siren’s strange organic vessels. Like ocean predators they moved through the atmosphere with a deadly grace. Bone spears and bio weapons holed the Watcher saucer even as they dissolved and damaged our own ships. Thankfully when the saucer finally hit the ground, it demolished numerous blocks away from us. Though the ash cloud it kicked up swept over us a moment later.
It was like fighting in a nightmare. Figures moved in and out of the blowing ash like phantoms. A fox-woman came at me through the darkness, her blade flashed like lightning. I was already moving, leaning back under the blade before the return strike with my combat knife sliced along her cheek. She snarled like an animal before turning into a killing wisp. But I was already gone, her light retreating into the dark as I ran.
One of my brother warriors appeared in front of me on the ground, a Siren bitch trying to bring her gun to bear on his prone form. She saw me too late as I brought my gun to my shoulder and fired. The blast took her in the chest, her screech making me fall to one knee even as her body cooked. The warrior under her rose, shoving the body aside as I shook the siren’s voice from my mind.
“Thank you.” The unknown warrior said as his barrel swung up towards me.
Almost too late I realized the danger I was in and lashed out with my blade. It took him behind the leg, the tip tearing into the calf muscle. He squeezed the trigger and I wove to the side as the caged lightning flashed past me and into the darkness. The soldier fell to his knees even as I rammed my elbow into the base of his helmet. He clutched at my own as my knife found his breastbone.
I felt the blade hit the dirt of the earth under my brother warrior.
He snarled something to me and I tore off his goggles and mask, keen to know who dared attack one of his own. I didn’t expect what I found.
A human.
“Glory to the Federation.” Blood bubbled from between his teeth and I felt my own pulse speed up. Tearing away my mask I said something in my native tongue and sank my fangs into the man’s throat.
You ask me now why, in the heat of battle I would do such a thing? How can I describe the hunger that burns in all of us? The sheer draw of the thing that is human blood? I had been drinking synthetic for far too long, only rarely were we
given a pittance of human vitae for the rush it gives us all.
And now, here in front of me, was a pile of drugs and I a junkie denied far too long.
Oh it tasted glorious. Like molten life poured down my throat.
One of the Watchers came from the ash, his cloak flared like wings. Arm upraised a glowing stone shone in his fingers. His eyes met mine over the body of the human even as I swallowed pulse after pulse of his life. I saw the envy in the angel’s eyes even as his mouth curled in disgust. The stone turned to me but I was not there.
Oh the powers it gives us, the freedoms, the energy and prowess.
My claws found his midsection and pierced the corded muscles there. I jerked him upwards as his eyes went wide, his fingers opening to drop the stone from his grip. I pushed higher, my nails iron hard as they sliced and mauled until I felt his heart in my grasp.
I wrenched and let him fall to the ground, a puppet with no master, as I shook his lifeblood from my arm. Then I moved. Everything was a blur as I rode the rush of the blood, my body singing with every blessing of the First. Siren, Monster, Fox-being, Angel; none could stand before me as I moved through the ash with the agility and sureness of a bat. My claws found them all, my weapon dropped long ago.
Then I was on the edge of the dais. The ash was faded enough that I saw the council still at blows. The Destroyer was on the ground, his body wet and red, the Watcher Lord in only slightly better shape. He leaned on his staff as his eyes fluttered. The white of his cloak and robe were crimson drenched and I could see the glistening of organs that shouldn’t see the light of day. Feathers were everywhere.
Aneko was on the ground thrashing. Her back arched hard enough that I heard the cracking of vertebrae, the line of holes leaking corrupted blood telling me she had finally fallen afoul of the Siren’s barbs. As I watched she flashed between forms, but always came back to her human one. I stopped watching when she screamed, her jaw dislocating.
Then I found my queen.
Her clothes were ragged, her gleaming blade in one hand, Aneko’s knife in the other. She was wary, her eyes watching the Siren’s queen who held her arms up, the fins on her forearms dripping blood and venom onto the stones below.